Kiss Of Twilight (20 page)

"He'll be there until he's relieved."

"Good." It never hurt having a guard at your back. It was only a few more minutes before the rest of the hybrids walked into the alley.

Mitchell went to the corner and lifted a big piece of plywood off the ground. Dupree peered down into the black hole. Metal rungs were bolted into the side but he saw no sign of lights. Good thing Mitchell had brought flashlights, which he passed around before climbing down. At the bottom Mitchell whistled the all clear signal and Baron went next, then Kara, him and finally the twenty-four soldiers he'd brought along to protect one woman. And damn, wasn't that a new level of ridiculous to add to his obsession with her?

Kara dropped off the bottom step into a few inches of stagnant water and fought not to gag on the stench of the sewer. Okay, it was gross but she could handle it. She'd get through this, prove to Dupree she was ready to be out on the street, and probably scrub her skin raw when she got home. But she'd get through it. With that conviction firmly in mind, she switched the light on and moved out of Dupree's way.

"Stay near me," he said in that cool, commanding way of his and they set off.

It was pitch-black in the tunnel and the smell got worse the farther they went. After about ten minutes they reached an intersection. Mitchell shone his light down the right branch.

"We checked that way. It leads to one of the areas we've already blocked off and doesn't look like it's been messed with since then. There are several turn offs if you go straight. We haven't checked to the left yet."

"Left is north?" she asked, reviewing the maps in her mind.

"Yes," Mitchell answered. "You're sure we should go that way?"

She hesitated. It was the least explored area, but her gut instinct said yes. Ben had taken those maps for a reason. She met Dupree's gaze and was sure her indecision was easy to read.

Dupree looked both directions and finally shrugged. "Let's go north then." His faith in her made her heart race.

They went slow, every step cautious, and stopped at every sound and listened before moving on. It didn't take long to feel like they'd been down there forever. The tunnel went on and on, with smaller ones shooting off into the darkness every hundred yards or so. Every now and then light filtered down from the street above.

They checked each side tunnel they came to. Mostly they were short and either ended in a wall or with pipes trickling water into the sewer. Nothing remarkable. In the fifth tunnel, turning northwest, things got interesting. About halfway down there was a heavy steel door. It had been barred, but the locks were ripped away. Mitchell opened it and she looked past them to see more stairs. Excitement stirred her.

One look at Dupree's face and she braced herself for an argument. "Stay right next to me."

She was stunned. He hadn't ordered her to go back. "Who are you and what have you done with Dupree?"

He cracked a smile, moved her to his left side, took her hand, and followed the other two into the tunnel. It was different down here. The walls were rough, the floor uneven. She visualized the aboveground map in the hybrid office at Winter's house and thought she had a good idea where they were.

"We're moving away from the city," she said softly. "Farther north. Toward the caves."

There was a huge system of caves under the north side of the city that stretched for miles. If demons were using them to hide out, the hunters might never find them. She kept one palm against the wall as they walked. The passage was just wide enough to go through side by side.

It felt like they'd been going forever when the texture of the wall changed. "The wall is smoother and there's moisture on it. We must be near the river."

"Yeah, I can smell water ahead," Mitchell replied.

It wasn't long before they could hear it, and a few minutes after that the tunnel opened into a large cave. A stream a few feet wide ran through it, appearing from one wall and disappearing at the opposite end. The tunnel crossed it and continued into the earth. That wasn't the interesting part.

The wall to their left was loose dirt and rock, sloping to the ceiling. It would be a steep climb, but doable. And near the top light shone through a large opening. "Wonder where it lets out?"

Dupree tugged her hand. "Let's find out."

She went first, crawling up the incline on her hands and knees. About halfway to the light she misjudged a loose spot and slid a few feet backward. She dug her toes in and stopped, taking a deep breath and ignoring her stinging palms before continuing up.

Even at a distance she could hear Dupree's bitten off curse when she slid, and once she was past the tricky spot she paused to look over her shoulder to assure him she was okay. He was ascending the slope, much faster than she had, so she kept going without a word.

She moved faster and in another few feet was close enough for a good look at the opening. It wasn't tall enough to walk through, maybe three feet high and a couple feet across. She was leaning out in another few minutes, then crawling through.

Her breath evened, and inhaling the scent of pines deeply, she turned around. They were in the woods but she had no idea where. Dupree joined her, then the lupines.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"The grounds of the old monastery." Dupree pointed to a deer track to their right. "That'll take you right to it."

Mitchell dusted his hands off on his jeans and gave everyone a smile that seemed to have an edge. "Well, that was fun. I'm going to send some teams down to check out this area. You want in?"

Dupree shook his head. "I'll give you some people to help out. If they find anything, we can come back for a look."

"Works for me." With those parting words, Mitchell and Baron set off on the track.

When all the hybrid soldiers were accounted for Dupree sent them home. She expected him to teleport her home, but instead he took her hand and set off in the opposite direction. They fought through the brush and then were on another narrow path.

"Where are we going?"

He was leading and he didn't stop when he glanced back to look at her. "There's a place I want you to see. It's not far."

He didn't say another word. A few minutes later, the path emptied into a yard. There was an old two story farmhouse and she could make out a barn beyond it. The property looked well cared for but it felt abandoned. It was like no one had lived there in years.

Dupree let her hand go and strode forward. She followed at a slower pace, trying to figure out what was going on. He went up the porch steps and stopped as if he didn't know where to go next. When he faced her she wanted to rush forward and soothe him. She'd never seen him look so stricken.

"Where are we?" she whispered.

He pulled a key out of his pocket, unlocked the door and pushed it open. "I grew up here."

He stepped out of the way and gestured her in. "Look around. I'll wait for you out here."

He turned and walked to the corner of the porch where a swing hung from the ceiling. She just watched him for a minute. He didn't flinch from her scrutiny. Of course, he didn't. She looked inside the house. It was dark, all the curtains pulled closed, and she could see white shrouded lumps that must be furniture. She didn't want to go in.

She forced herself to step over the threshold before she could come up with an excuse not to. For some reason, he wanted her to see this, so she'd see it. She paused to let her eyes adjust and looked around. A living room lay to her right and a dining room to the left. It felt more cozy than small even with all the furniture covered. She crossed the foyer, bypassed the stairs and went through the short hall.

A pocket door was opened on the right and she stepped into the room. It was a study. Built in bookcases covered three walls and French doors opened onto the porch on the back wall. A big desk, covered in a white sheet, sat in the center of the room. She stepped closer to one of the shelves and tilted her head to skim the titles. Medical books. Science and history and philosophy and agriculture. It was the room of a scholar.

Dupree was smart but she couldn't envision him here. He was a warrior not an academic. She frowned, backed out of the room, and found herself facing a spacious kitchen. She fell in love with it instantly. Fans of fifties kitsch would have had a field day with it.

Like everything else she'd seen, the floors in here were heart of pine and in beautiful condition. The cabinets were painted white. They were dingy with age but a good scrub and fresh coat of paint would make them shine. A round, chrome edged table sat off in one corner. The four chairs had vinyl seats and backs, with chrome legs. But it was the appliances that held her attention. Pure retro fifties. The fridge and stove were baby blue, the tops and corners gently curved.

She sighed and forced herself to move on. She'd stay there all day, exploring shelves and drawers, given half a chance, but Dupree surely hadn't brought her here to drool over his kitchen. She went back down the hall and faced the stairs, bracing herself. There was something in this house he thought she should face alone. She figured it was up there.

The stairs opened into another hall. There were two doors on each side. She started on the right side. The first door opened into a generic looking guestroom, so she moved to the next room and gasped. A teenaged Dupree had lived here.

She walked to the unmade bed and sat down to take it all in. There was a dresser on one wall and a chest and bookcase on another. A wide window looked out over the yard with a narrow desk beneath it on the third wall. Its occupant may have lived there in 1950, but it looked like any teenaged boy's room. And like it had been abandoned. It was a time capsule.

There were school books and loose papers on the desk, a baseball and mitt on the chest, and discarded clothing on the floor. Posters and magazine pages decorated the walls, and trophies marched proudly across the top of the dresser. Looking around, she got an idea of what he'd lost and it made her sad. At least she didn't really remember her life before demons.

Heart thumping painfully, she rose and crossed the hall to the other door. It was a bathroom, tiled in baby blue four inch squares with a square porcelain sink on chrome legs. Bottles lined a shelf in the tub. She opened the door of the mirrored medicine cabinet and found what she would expect. Aspirin, toothbrushes, paste, razors and shaving cream.

There were two doors in the room. One was in the back corner next to the toilet and across from the tub. It was filled with linens. The other was right opposite the hall door and led into another bedroom. Her hand hovered over the knob, afraid of what she might find in there. But if she wanted Dupree, she had to take him good and bad. She entered.

This bed was also unmade with clothes dropped without care onto the floor. The cedar chest at the end of the bed was open and she walked around to see it. Contents were shoved aside, some hanging over the edge like someone had dug around inside it for something. Sunlight glinted against something on the bottom and she knelt next to the chest, reached in and picked it up. A shotgun shell. Whatever had happened here, someone had at least had time to go for a gun. She closed her hand around it and took one last look around the sad room before leaving.

She peeked in two other rooms upstairs. Both looked to be boys' rooms and she remembered Dupree telling her he'd had two older brothers. She went back downstairs to the kitchen and looked around. She wanted to clean. Wanted to set this house straight.

"I wish I had time for this," she muttered right before she saw her from the corner of her eye. No. The universe wasn't that twisted, was it?

"And what about my son?" the ghost asked. "Does he have time?"

Her son. Kara turned around slowly and looked the ghost over. She was almost solid, and so beautiful it made Kara's chest hurt. She had to be Dupree's mother.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head.

The ghost just cocked an arrogant eyebrow. "No what, honey?"

"You're," she ventured, stepping a bit closer, "Dupree's mother?"

"Of course."

Kara laughed. Of course. It was some cruel, cruel joke, wasn't it? The man of her dreams and her poltergeist mother-in-law? That was weird, but even more unsettling was the insecurity that struck her. Physically, she was the exact opposite of Dupree's mother who was gorgeous. Tall and curvy with beautiful mocha colored skin and the short-cropped hair Kara had always envied. It was an impossible style for her curls. She clenched her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut, collected herself and faced his dead mother.

"I'm Kara." She rolled her eyes at herself.

She laughed. "I know. The question is, are you going to stay with my boy, Kara?"

Oh, laughing or not this was a serious fucking question. "If he lets me," she said softly.

The apparition stepped close, her eyes sparkling, and laid her hand against Kara's cheek. She almost felt it. She trembled at the otherworldly contact. The ghost stared at her a long time. "Make him live, Kara. Make him love again."

Then she faded away like she'd never been there. Kara hadn't wanted to sob so much in years. Dupree was where she'd left him, in the porch swing gently swaying back and forth. She sat next to him and uncurled her fingers. Brass caught sunlight and glinted. He stared at the shell in her hand.

"Tell me," Kara said.

Carefully he took her hand in his and folded her fingers closed again. He held onto her hand and told his story. How he'd woken one night to find demons battling his father in the yard. How he'd rushed to help and been too late. How he'd helped bury them all and then joined the Order looking for vengeance. His expression never changed, but she heard the old pain in his voice, the old fury. Old fear.

"You haven't been back inside since then have you?"

He kept staring straight ahead. "No."

"Who covered the furniture? It's not finished."

"Ben did. I told him not to worry about the rest, that I'd do it." He finally turned his head to face her. "I intended to, but I couldn't go in."

"I'll take care of it," she said gently.

With a sigh, he stood and tugged her to her feet. "No. It's time I let the past go."

She had no idea how to respond to that. She'd never seen him like this. He was always strong and sure, sometimes angry or moody. Never sad or overwhelmed. But he'd never told her the story of how he'd come to join the Order. She'd bet she was one of a very small handful that knew.

"We'll do it together," she offered and finally his icy expression cracked.

"How'd I know you'd say that?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "You know me too well, I guess."

He stared at her, searching. For what? "I suppose I do."

He released her hand and she felt the loss like a cold wind, searing through her. "Let's go home, Kara."