Iron Inheritance (32 page)

“I’m not going back to the headquarters,” I said defiantly.

“My brother and sister will be there soon.” Brody closed his eyes as if he could see them. “We’ll head to the headquarters, and you—” He pointed at Josh.

Josh sprang to even tighter attention. For a moment, it looked like he was going to salute.

“You’ll drive Brooks and me. Nathaniel, you follow us with the rest.”

Nate hesitated, but nodded without protest, signaling for Ria, Freddy, and Miranda to follow him.

I chewed my tongue and walked to Josh’s reclaimed VW. Either Denisov hadn’t given him a large budget for transportation or he’d picked the scrap from a junkyard.

Ria seemed to waver on the edge of trying to come with me, but I got in the car before she could call to me. She wouldn’t survive if I inadvertently flipped the car over on the freeway to escape this sasquatch and find my mom. It was either that or throw myself out the door.

Josh got in and started the engine.

Flip the car it is.

Brody climbed into the back seat even when I offered him the front, waves of tension evaporating off him so that I knew if I made a run for it now his hands would crunch down on me like a vise.

The shocks of Josh’s VW Beetle creaked with all of our weight as we started down the dusty road at a sloth’s pace. We got on the freeway and headed south.

“How long do you really think you can keep your eye on me?” I said, leaning back against the small front bench seat, still feeling Brody’s stare from the back.

He didn’t answer.

We went over a bump, and my body slid to the middle, closer to Josh. The butterflies I’d once felt around him turned to lead bricks now.

I turned toward him, loosening my seatbelt from my waist. “So how does it feel to be Denisov’s lapdog? She making you run very hard?”

Josh remained motionless—rough, calloused hands on the steering wheel, blue eyes on the road.

“Lover’s quarrel?” Brody seemed to smile from the backseat.

I laughed and turned toward the back seat. “He’s probably just shy, seeing as he wants to be you and all. Go on, Josh. Tell him how you’re the good little unflinching meat robot. How you always do what you’re told and don’t show any emotion anymore. A good soldier who just runs away from his friends when everything else is going to crap.”

“The Defense isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, kid. Save yourself some anguish and just apologize to the girl already.” Brody seemed to be having fun with this.

Josh gripped the steering wheel. “I almost got you killed. That’s not something I can just let go.”

I scooted closer, my heart pounding. “But it wasn’t even your fault. I decided what to do, not you. Don’t be like Nate. Don’t try to hold me back and blame yourself for every damn thing that happens.”

“You talkin’ about that night with the Gallu and the ex-Babylonian? Man, that was some funny stuff to read.” Brody laughed.

I glared a stranglehold at him until he leaned back in his tiny seat.

“It wasn’t your fault, and being all distant isn’t going to make up for that. Where have you been all week?” I asked, admitting to myself, for the first time, how much I missed him.

“Trying to track Meg.” He continued to look forward. “That’s why Denisov needed me out there. I’m the only one who knows her.”

I swallowed and sat back. “Have you found her?”

He shook his head. “No, and I probably never will. Even as a Pesah, if she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be.” He sighed. “But this doesn’t change what I did. There are some lines you just don’t cross. It’s no offense to you, Eve, but the more friends I have, the harder it will be to do what I need to do.”

My cheeks stung with disbelief. How could he say that? What was he even talking about?

“Time out.” Brody leaned forward and put his giant hand between us. “You need to be open to what God wants you to do, not just what you think you need to do. Maybe that’s not The Defense, ever think of that? Maybe it’s just being a good man and believing in your friends.”

Josh let the words draw out to their farthest point before he turned his scowl into a familiar smirk. “You fixin’ to get a daytime talk show or something?”

Brody leaned back and grinned. “I guess I should be open to that opportunity.”

Josh stared at the road without looking at me again, but whispered, “I’m sorry” so low that Brody couldn’t hear it.

A single pair of tiny wings fluttered in my chest.

“I heard that,” Brody said loudly.

Before I could turn around and punch him in the face, he screamed in pain and pressed his hands up to his temples. He thrashed around like his arms were burning. The whole car shook, and the front seat nearly flattened until I grabbed his hands and pinned them to his knees. Josh pulled to the edge of the freeway and screeched to a stop.

Brody stopped flailing, and his eyelids jumped apart. “I can’t see them. I can’t see them.”

“What?” I said, looking out the window frantically.

“Jody and Cody—his brother and sister—they’re linked,” said Josh. “It’s what allows them to coordinate their attacks so strategically.”

“I can’t see them. They’ve been captured or—I need to get to them.” Brody jerked his arms out of my grip and tried to reach around to the door.

“Then you can come with us,” I said quickly, seizing my chance. “We’ll go together and save them.”

“I can come with
you
?” He shook his head and closed his eyes, trying to focus again, still in pain.

“I was going to knock you out and go alone anyway—either that or flip the car.”

Josh looked like I’d slapped him. “You’d do that to Melva?”

I rolled my eyes when I realized he was talking about his car. “But since your family is in danger as well, you can come,” I said crisply and signaled for Josh to turn around.

Brody leaned forward so he could look me in the eye. He didn’t look scared or angry, but like he was sizing me up.

I stared back, unblinking.

“Head North,” he said.

“And then west,” I added.

“Too many drivers in the Bug, people.” Josh started the car again and stepped on the gas.

Nate’s headlights flashed in the mirrors ten minutes later. We’d texted him to follow us, and he’d caught up in no time. The only problem was his incessant questioning.

How many updates did he need?

I texted Ria again.
We messaged Denisov, but there’s still no response.

“We’re here.” Josh pulled off to the side of the road; the dilapidated house from my vision was behind some trees in the distance.

The property was more like an estate with about a half mile of an overgrown orchard between the perimeter fence and the house. Lion statues poised with paws raised halfway between threat and affection stood on either side of the arch over the main driveway. Its yellowing plaster made it even harder to see the three black stars painted in the center.

Brody sniffed the air, his face pale beneath his beard. He had kept his eyes closed the whole way, trying to see some glimpse of his brother and sister.

“What is it with this day?” Nate threw his hands up in the air as he got out of the car.

“Are you the Guardian I remember?” Brody turned to Nate.

Nate’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything. He clenched his jaw and looked back and forth between Brody and me.

“I need your help,” Brody said gruffly even as his eyes pleaded.

Nate looked at me for a moment longer before he nodded.

“The rest of you wait here and keep trying to contact Denisov or Morales. I catch any of you following, and I’ll set my sister on you,” Brody growled at us. “Last person who got in her way still thinks he’s a ferret.”

“What?” Ria said.

“Messengers have quick legs and tongues,” Josh translated. “Properly trained, they can convince hordes of people to do things. A single person has no chance.”

“I thought I heard Messengers could be that persuasive.” Miranda smiled cheerily, petting one of the lion statues. “You should get working on that, Josh.”

Josh looked at the house in the distance. “At least let us follow you to the nearest tree line. If you call for help, I’ll run and get Morales and Denisov and whoever else you want myself.”

I raised my eyebrows. He must mean
we’d
save them instead of
him
running away.

Brody sighed and walked toward the left side of the arch, motioning for us to follow at the last second. Instead of heading directly through the driveway entrance, which had the deliberate electric hum of a booby trap, we climbed over the stone wall.

“Glad Babs have such bad security,” Ria whispered.

I looked back over my shoulder at the archway—the only way they didn’t want us to enter. Why would they do that?

We continued down through the overgrown orchard, leafy branches casting shadows in the moonlight. Several cobwebs hung loosely from the trees and caught on my arms and hair as I passed.

“What do you think?” asked Ria as we stopped and peered through a bramble of thorns about thirty yards from the house. It was a large, rectangular adobe that had faded and fallen apart with age and weather. The roof had holes, and the balcony and porch were fractured with splinters of rotted wood sticking up like spikes in a death pit. An old, stained mattress and a toilet were left to decompose just outside the front door. No lights. Every living thing in the garden shriveled yellow or brown.

Brody sniffed the air again and exhaled a menacing growl, his eyes wide with things beyond the physical world. Nate stood at his side without saying a word. Dark shadows seemed to scratch at his face from the tree limb above.

“I’ll take the front, you the back.”

Nate nodded.

“And I’ll—” I began.

“Be ready to run to headquarters,” Josh finished, bumping my shoulder. “Ria, keep trying Denisov, please. She’ll get the messages eventually and speed over here.”

I looked at him from the corner of my eye.

“Set your watches,” said Brody.

“If we’re not back in three minutes, run,” said Nate, his eyes on me.

Ria shook her head and chuckled. “Who wears a watch anymore?”

Freddy raised his wrist and pushed a button.

Without another glance backward, Nate and Brody disappeared into the landscape. I grabbed a rock and gripped my fingers all the way around, squeezing past when I felt it cutting into my skin.

I should be the one going in. If my mom’s in there…

I’d what? Knock the whole house down? Get myself caught? Walk right into their trap and scream as they slit my throat? Yeah, good plan.

Rock dust crumbled out from between my fingers, and I kept my eyes trained on the house, trying to keep my breathing steady so I might glimpse a flare of essence to signal they were all right. I couldn’t see Nate and Brody anymore, but that didn’t mean much. They could control how their essence appeared, block it, even make it change color if so inclined.

As could the Babylonians.

The seconds thumped into minutes. I tried to silence my thoughts, but Kovac’s bald head and too-big-for-his-mouth smile loomed closer and closer. The other half of the necklace appeared again as he threw it on the floor, the silver wing glinting in the light, the cracked blue stone jagged and sharp on the edge. It hadn’t been worn smooth from years of rubbing a thumb over it.

My hand moved to my own pendant.

Kovac was the reason it had cracked. He’d probably broken it when he kidnapped Mom.

Why hadn’t Grandpa tried to save her?

I shook my head. I couldn’t think about that now. I needed to focus on getting Mom out alive…and Kovac dead, if the opportunity came.

But could I really kill someone? Revenge wouldn’t bring Grandpa back. It wouldn’t make what they’d done to Mom go away.

I inhaled deeply and pressed all of my feelings into a knot in my stomach. I’d do what I must.

I turned to Josh. “We should get closer.”

He shushed me.

I listened intently and jumped back from the thorny bushes as a man’s deep scream sliced the night sky and made goose bumps rise on my skin.

Silence.

It persisted long past when we could hold our breath, waiting for the next sign that all was not well.

I stood and set my jaw.

Josh grazed his hand against the back of my arm. “Wait.” He turned to Miranda. “If I signal you, light that whole roof up. Then Ria, you drive back to Denisov and tell her what happened.”

“What?” said Freddy, his eyes bulging. “No, you could run and—?”

“I wouldn’t get back in time to stop her from foaming at the mouth.” He jerked his head toward me.

A growl escaped the back of my throat involuntarily.

“And Brody and Nate probably wouldn’t survive.” He grimaced. “Get some burn cream ready.”

I stepped out from behind the bramble and started for the house, no real plan coming to mind, just adrenaline flowing to every extremity.

“Can you jump that high?” I pointed to the balcony when Josh came even with me, just twenty feet from the house.

“Anything you can do, I can do better,” Josh sang, still smiling.

“Your mood swings are enough to give a girl whiplash.” I shook my head and put on a burst of speed. I pounded my foot into the ground at the last second and soared fifteen feet into the air. I landed feet-first on the thin railing of the second-story balcony, my hand catching on a sharp metal bracket to keep from falling back. Warm blood rolled down my palm.

Josh appeared right next to me, perfectly balanced on the railing as he crouched down and looked through the open window. The thin curtain hung still, claw marks scratching down the center.

I stretched one foot onto the windowsill and ducked inside before Josh could beat me to it. Almost instantly, my head whipped back into the wooden frame as a steel-toed boot collided with my skull.

The world tilted, and my eyes turned off. Flame enveloped my head and trickled down my spine with needle-pricking pain sent to every limb. I curled my fingers and toes into balls of self-preservation and held on to what little air was left in the world.

And then it was over.