The Calling (Darkness Rising) (7 page)

He didn’t answer.

Sam carried on. “Everyone knows you get bad feelings about people, and you’re usually right. I bet you got really strong vibes from Mina Lee. She was a half-demon. You might have gotten weaker ones from the pilot, too. He was a minor half-demon, I think. With the power of fire, judging by those burns on Hayley. Mina’s power was teleportation.”

Daniel had his hand near his mouth, his eyes half closed, expression deliberately hidden. I could see the pulse throbbing in his neck as his heart beat faster. I remembered what he’d said about Mina the first time we met.
There’s something wrong with her
. I remembered how she’d seemed to vanish, not once but twice. Teleportation. And the pilot. Fire.

“You also have the power of persuasion,” Sam continued. “I’ve seen you flip it on like a light switch. It’s been getting stronger. Maybe you’re telling yourself that you just have a knack for leadership, but deep down, you know it’s more than that. And the power to repel evil? I saw you do it on the helicopter. That’s how it works. Like a sonic boom. You didn’t even need to touch him. It’s not a perfect power, though, which is why benandanti are also naturally skilled fighters.” She met Daniel’s gaze again. “You’re seriously going to tell me none of this sounds familiar?”

“If you’re saying I’m one of these benandanti—”

“Um, yeah. That’s my point.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s…”

“Crazy?”

“I know something happened on that helicopter,” Daniel said. “And it happened earlier today, in the forest with Maya. Whatever it was, it wasn’t normal. So if you tell me I have some kind of psychic power that throws people when I get mad, I might believe you. But witches and werewolves and demon-hunters? I don’t know where you got all that stuff from but—”

“I’m a benandanti, too,” Sam said. “Only my parents didn’t hide it from me like yours did.”

“You’re…?” I couldn’t finish.

“Couldn’t you tell from my awesome charisma?” Sam gave a twisted smile, almost sad. “My parents said it would develop, along with my other powers, but I kinda think I’m missing that part of the equation. Missing the control part, too, as you may have noticed. I got the fighting bug, and it bites whether I want it to or not. I could sense that Mina was a half-demon, but I missed it with the pilot until he grabbed Hayley. I don’t have the repelling part yet, either.”

“So that’s why you thought Mina was investigating you?” I said.

Daniel looked at me sharply, as if to say,
You’re buying this?

Before I could speak, a figure burst from the trees, breathing so hard she doubled over. It was Hayley. “They came,” she panted.

I crawled out of the cave and stood. “Rescuers?”

She shook her head. “At first, that’s what we thought. They pulled up to the island in a boat and they sent a diver into the water. Corey said we had to be careful, just sit tight and watch, but Nicole wouldn’t listen. She went down to the shore, waving her arms and yelling, and they saw her and they started coming toward her on the boat. When they got about halfway, she turned and started running back to us, and they … they shot her.”

She fell against me, shaking, and I put my arms around her.

“What?” Sam said, scrambling up. “Who shot Nicole?”

When Hayley didn’t answer, Sam tried to wrench her from me, but I shook my head and motioned for her to wait.

When she quieted a little, I asked, “Could you tell if she was okay?”

“Sh-she wasn’t. Oh God.” Hayley hiccupped a sob. “They shot her in the back, and she fell. She fell and she didn’t get up. Corey wanted to go after her, but I wouldn’t let him. I know that sounds awful, but there was no way we could get to her without getting shot ourselves. All we could do was watch. They came on shore and they picked her up and carried her to the boat and put her in, and she never moved, and we knew she was…”

Hayley caught on the word, tried again, choked, shook her head. “Gone. We knew she was gone. Then they started shining lights at the forest and we heard them say that we all must be in there. I wanted to run, but Corey couldn’t, so he told me to come find you. I didn’t want to leave him, but I made sure he was hidden under some bushes, then I snuck away.”

We quickly decided Sam should stay behind with Hayley.

Daniel and I had just left when Sam came running after us.

“How much do you guys trust Hayley?” she said.

Hayley and I were not friends. I’d been doped at my sixteenth birthday party—hard to believe it had only been a few days ago—and everyone was sure it had been Hayley.

“Since when do you trust her?” Sam continued. “You know she doesn’t like you. Think about it. Shooting Nic? Does that make any sense? Not unless you want a story that’ll make us come running back … straight into a trap. What if these people grabbed Nicole, Corey, and Hayley? They’d want one of them to lure us out of hiding. Who would do it?”

I looked at Daniel. He rubbed his mouth, thinking. Then he said, “Hayley seemed really upset. I don’t think she’s that good an actor. If it played out the way you said, Hayley would have used the opportunity to escape. She’d tell us Nicole and Corey were both dead so we could all run.”

As usual, Daniel’s argument worked for Sam, and she agreed to go back and wait with Hayley. If he did have some magical power of persuasion, he didn’t need to use it with her.

Had she always sensed what he was? Is that why she liked him?

Were they really both benandanti? Was it a coincidence I’d ended up in the same town as another supposedly extinct supernatural? That Sam ended up in the same town as both of us?

When Rafe had said we were part of an experiment, I’d wondered if it was connected to Salmon Creek—a medical research town. But they did drug research, not genetic work. Besides, I’d been adopted at birth and my parents had moved to Salmon Creek for a job. That had seemed to rule out the possibility of a connection.

But now…

I glanced at Daniel. Since Sam left he’d been walking in silence, following me on autopilot.

I should tell him what I was, let him know there might be a connection.

“How are you doing?” I said.

“Okay.”

“I—” I began.

“I don’t know what to think,” he interrupted. “What happened in the forest, when I yelled at that guy… I thought I’d hit him without realizing it. I was mad enough, seeing him pointing that gun at you. But when it happened again on the helicopter, with the pilot, I knew I’d done something. I just didn’t know what.”

After a few more steps, I opened my mouth, but again he got there first.

“I think… I think Sam might be onto something. Everything she says is true. Even about the pilot. I had a bad feeling, when we got on the helicopter, but only a slight one, and with everything that happened, I figured I was just stressing out. I don’t believe the parts about demons and all that, but I can see maybe having some power to sense bad vibes in people. I mean, it’s not like she’s saying I’m a vampire or a werewolf. That would be crazy. This is just a little weird.”

No, it wasn’t like she’d said he was a werewolf. It wasn’t like she’d said he could change into an animal. That would be crazy.

I shut my mouth and carried on in silence.

W
HEN WE DREW NEAR
the place we’d left Corey, we realized going straight to him wasn’t wise. We decided to take a look from farther down the shore.

We could hear a boat motor, but the running lights were off. There were people on board with flashlights, though, so we could see where it was.

Did that mean everyone was back in the boat? Did they have Corey?

A distant splash told us someone had gone in the water. Retrieving the bodies? Removing identifying parts from the helicopter? It sounded far-fetched, but if you kidnapped kids in a helicopter that crashed, you didn’t want local fishermen finding the wreckage.

Daniel tapped my arm. I followed his outstretched finger and saw two more flashlight beams strafing the forest right around where we’d left Corey.

I gripped Kenjii’s collar as we crept closer. Another flashlight beam flickered through trees farther down. Three searchers. At least two more on the boat plus the diver.

So how would we get to Corey? Was he even still there? If they’d found him, had they—?

My brain stuttered over the thought.

Shot him? That was the easy way of saying it, like it didn’t mean what I knew it meant. Killed him.

Nicole was dead.

“Nic,” I whispered. “Nic’s—”

“We don’t know that,” Daniel whispered harshly, and I knew that’s what he’d been telling himself. It’s what I’d been thinking, too. Shot. Just shot. Hayley hadn’t seen exactly, so we could keep telling ourselves Nicole was only injured.

Kenjii whined and brushed my hand, and I patted her head.

“Corey,” Daniel whispered.

He meant we couldn’t think about Nicole. Just like we couldn’t think about Rafe. We had to focus on saving everyone else.

Oh God. How had it come to this? Where I had to concentrate on saving the friends I could. Forget the ones I couldn’t. The ones I’d lost. The ones who were already…

Daniel clutched my arm.

“Maya,” he whispered. “I need you.”

I nodded and took a deep breath to steady myself. Then I got us as close to the searchers as I dared, picking my way through shadows too dark for Daniel to see. I stopped, and we hunkered down. I wrapped both arms around Kenjii, whispering for her to stay quiet.

After a moment, a radio crackled.

“No, we haven’t found them,” a male voice said. “And we’re not going to. Even if they stuck around, they’d see us coming from a mile away. Especially after you shot the girl.”

I couldn’t make out the voice on the other end.

“Yeah, well, by that time, they’ll be long gone. If they aren’t fifty feet underwater.”

More unintelligible murmuring as the person on the other end responded.

“Just because you only found Jason and the mayor doesn’t mean they were the only ones who died. The others could have fallen out or floated from the wreck or—”

“Shut the hell up.” Another man’s voice. One that didn’t come from the radio. One that made the hair on my neck stand up. The man in the forest. The man who’d pointed a gun at me. The man who had my eyes and my cheekbones.

“The kids are fine,” the man continued. “They’re in excellent shape. Athletes, all of them. Champion swimmers and runners and fighters. Whatever else the St. Clouds screwed up, they did that right. They made them survivors.”

“I’m sor—”

“You want to keep your job? Then don’t apologize. Just find these kids. Find my daughter.”

Blood pounded in my ears and I grabbed a tree for support, nails digging into the bark.

Find my daughter
.

He meant me. I’d known that. From that moment in the woods, I’d known it. I just hadn’t wanted it to be true.

Daniel gripped my shoulder, squeezing until I looked at him.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “We can do this.”

I could tell by his expression that he hadn’t heard what the man said. He didn’t have my enhanced hearing.