The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) (14 page)

Nothing ever needed to be said out
loud.

Justice was having her watched—like
a hawk.

She didn’t know whether she was
impressed—or pissed off… but whenever she thought of the rogue Crow
hunters, she remembered to at least be thankful—and kept her temper
in check.

She asked Mia, about three weeks
into her stay, about once again seeing her grandparents. Mia
shrugged and told her it would be best to ask Justice about it the
next time he stopped to visit. Jes had the feeling that his sisters
never did anything without getting their brother’s approval
first.

And this rubbed her the wrong
way.

She constantly had to remind
herself of the danger—if only to keep herself from going off and
doing something dangerous out of sheer frustration. Not that she
had a whole lot of time for getting herself into trouble. She was
kept pretty busy with her training.

Whenever she wasn’t in hand-to-hand
or combat training, she was being taught the politics of the elders
of their race. She couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why
they were teaching her the politics of her people; she’d been
taught both their history and their politics from childhood. Why
the brush-up lessons?

When was she going to get to meet
this child of the prophecy, who she’d come to understand was a
grown man now? And why hadn’t any of the other groups of the Jaguar
People ever met him?

Apparently Justice’s sisters had.
And from the two words she’d managed to get out of any of his guard
dogs, apparently they’d met their prince, too. So why hadn’t the
People?

Her grandparents—and, for that
matter, her own parents—were part of the elite of the Jaguar
People, so why hadn’t they met him?

The questions were building—and
beginning to burn a hole in her. Justice had better turn up soon—or
she was going to have to go looking for answers.

If only to make him
come to her.

Justice moved like a shadow. He
didn’t make any sound. Neither did the twelve other shadows that
moved with him. They moved forward with the precision of
well-trained men, ready for battle. They’d had years to perfect
their training together. And they needed every advantage they could
get.

The prey they were hunting didn’t
go down easily.

A band of vamps was holed up in an
old house. Contrary to popular belief, they weren’t exactly
vulnerable during the day. And they were
quite
dangerous at night.

The hunters moved forward in twos,
each pair clearing the way for two others to move past them, until
they were well within the compound. Though still within the city
limits of one of Chicago’s suburbs, this particular old house was
built well off the beaten path, and if not obviously so, it was
still very well reinforced.

The fence was made of rock, and
stood six feet tall. The guards were well-hidden on four
well-placed, and hidden, sections of the fence, facing the four
directions. It hadn’t been easy for his men to take them out. They
had done so with blow darts.

They were not killing the vamps.
They had been ordered to bring them in alive, so each and every one
must be taken the same way.

The small dose of poison would not
keep the vamps paralyzed for long, so several sentinels were moving
behind them, dragging them to an armored vehicle and locking them
within, while also providing a hind-guard.

They had been watching this
particular group for the past few days. They had counted nine of
them. So far, they had taken down the four guards.

They moved forward quickly now. It
wouldn’t take long for those within to sense them.

They blew through the door with a
hydraulic door ram, and stormed the first floor in seconds, still
moving forward in pairs, each of them leap-frogging ahead to pave
the way for the next two and taking down the vamps with the darts
as they went. There were three vamps on the first floor, so that
left two more—who were likely upstairs.

They stormed the stairway, because
the two vamps upstairs would have had too much warning by now. They
came through the door in force; however, the two vamps were too
busy looking for a way to escape to engage them with any kind of
battle.

This had been one of the easier
nights.

They all congratulated each other
on a job well done. But each of them knew: the hive wouldn’t be so
easy—would in fact be considerably more dangerous.

They were well-seasoned soldiers.
But not one man looked forward to it.

Jes finally was allowed to again
see her police partner, Jared. She was happy to see him, and she
told him so. He looked around at all the guards as she pointed them
out. He seemed impressed. He knew she wasn’t making it up, but the
guards really did blend in well. They pretty much looked like any
other neighbor.

He told her that Justice had indeed
set him up with some training. He’d been invited to come to one of
the many groups that the Alliance had stationed specifically in and
around Chicago. He told her that Justice had come to see him, and
about the offer for him to continue training closer to Chicago when
he was done. He had a light in his eyes that Jes had never seen
before. When she finally asked him why he was so happy about it, he
grinned at her.

“
This is just so much better than
anything I could have imagined, Jes. I couldn’t be happier. This is
better than being invited to be part of the CIA, or even some
undercover, covert operation.”

She laughed out loud at his
enthusiasm. She’d never seen him so happy. But she wondered if he
really understood that he wasn’t going to war with humans, or
beings that were anything like humans. He would be going to war
with some of the most powerful beings one could ever have for an
enemy. They were faster, stronger, and many times more cunning than
any human soldier could ever be.

She tried to imagine spending her
life thinking that humans were the only beings in the universe, and
failed to imagine it. But then, she also failed to imagine how the
humans could not realize that the spirit world really did exist.
Many humans claimed to believe in something beyond themselves, but
let someone actually see or hear a being from the spirit world and
make mention of it, and suddenly everybody would label them as
crazy.

She just couldn’t understand
this.

Jared told her that Justice was
planning to send him to a place a couple of hours out of Chicago
first, but that he would be back in three months, and then he would
be training at a nearby facility. He told her that he had put in
his resignation with the police force and gone to work for the
Alliance, since he knew he would be spending the rest of his life
fighting a different battle now.

She frowned at this. It sounded to
her like Justice had
quite
a powerful enterprise going on. He had said he
had won a powerful enemy’s respect. She couldn’t imagine just
exactly
how
it
was it he had done this. Nothing she’d heard about the vamps’ rogue
factions suggested that they had
any
respect for
anyone
who got in their
way.

They walked quietly for a bit, both
deep in thought. She pointed out the guard who had surreptitiously
followed them. His brows shot up. She’d been right.

“
Good eye, Jes,” he grinned. “Are
you sure you’re really a guest here?”

She laughed. “I would wonder, if I
were human,” she teased.

He sobered at this. “But you know
better, because you know just how dangerous the enemy
really is
.”

She nodded at this. “You don’t
play games with these guys. You don’t play rebel. It isn’t a matter
of
courage.
You
don’t play any of the games caused by human emotions that tend to
get you humans into trouble. Do you understand, Jared? If
you do
, they
will
get you. And if
they do, you may
not
just end up dead
.”

He nodded, and frowned. That remark
had obviously reminded him of something. He finally asked outright.
“The rogue factions who carry the virus—what happens if they cut
you?”

She stopped, folding her arms as
she faced him. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”

He shook his head. “And I haven’t
wanted to ask—until now. Guess I wasn’t sure I really wanted to
know.”

Jes gave a small laugh. “Well,
we’ve had inoculations against this virus for hundreds of years.
Don’t get me wrong—like with all inoculations, there’s no
guarantee—but we’ve never had a human case where it didn’t work.
That doesn’t mean you’d want to run the
risk
of being bit—or cut….” She let
her meaning sink in.

Jared nodded, half-laughed in
relief that an inoculation existed and that it would afford him
some kind of protection—even if there remained a small risk. A
small risk was better than the alternative. Then he sobered. “Why
have you never given it to the humans?”

Jes shrugged and started walking
again. He caught up and matched her steps. “We have,” she said,
“when we could be sure they wouldn’t remember.” She stopped again.
“What do you think would happen if we came forward?”

He shook his head at the thought.
“You’d become government pin cushions—fodder for experiments—all on
the human side this time.”

Jes stopped again. “Jared. Just
remember—these rogue factions make any human army look tame.
Don’t
ever
underestimate them—
for any
reason
.”

Jared nodded. He was taking her
warning to heart. He had known Jes almost five years, had been her
partner for much of that time. And he knew she wasn’t prone to
hysteria. In fact, she was one of the calmest people—in the face of
emergencies, gunfire, and pretty much anything they’d ever had
thrown at them—that he had ever known. Finding out what she really
was explained a lot. It sure kept him from feeling as if he’d never
reach her level of training. Now he knew—he likely never
would.

But Jes was right. He was looking
forward to this—had, in fact, felt as if he’d been waiting for this
his whole life. He had never looked forward to anything more than
he was looking forward to this, and he chafed at the delay in
getting started. He felt as if he’d been born for this one reason:
right here, right now, a soldier—for an elite race.

One that most of the humans didn’t
know existed.

So, yes, he was looking forward to
it. He’d like to think he wasn’t underestimating the enemy. But he
knew that he probably had very little idea of just how powerful the
enemy really was.

Hopefully his training would change
that.

Chapter
Thirteen

Power of Three

Jes had a surprise
when she returned to the house late one
afternoon. She’d just finished her training and had her shower when
she opened the door to find Mira standing there. She had met Mira
several months before, and the two had become fast friends. Mira
was well-known for her adventure into the Land of the Fae—and for
hunting Xavier Dubioux.

Jes had to wonder—how much
he
might have to do with
these rogue factions of vampires. She made a mental note to speak
with Justice about him.

She led Mira into the living room,
excited to have this visit. She had immediately liked her when
they’d first met—and it hadn’t been long before they had shared
everything about their lives—or, at least, what Jes could remember
of hers—but Jes’s head always hurt when she was around Mira. She
felt as though she’d known Mira forever—over several lifetimes. But
it was more than that… and she could never put her finger on
it.

Worse, the harder she tried—the
more her head hurt.

She mentally shoved aside such
thoughts.

“
Wow! I’m actually very surprised
to see you.” Jes waved a hand in invitation toward the sofa—and sat
down on the chair after Mira had sat down. “I had heard that you
were off on a new adventure.”

Mira smiled. “We were—or Lucius and
I were. We had only just returned when we received an invitation
from Justice. Are you two to take the ceremony for life
mates?”

Jes’s brows shot up.

Mira laughed. “Oh, sorry. You’re
not reconciled to your fate.” She laughed again, putting Jes at
ease. “Well, as you well know, I have a very unusual situation of
my own—so don’t feel bad.”

Jes grinned. “How is that going, by
the way?”

Jes knew that Mira was one of the
unusual ones who now remembered all of her past lives as clearly as
if she were currently living them—which was what she was doing,
really—living them again.

Mira was a Jaguar Witch. Amar had
handed down the power of the Jaguar Witch to her the year before,
when she’d given her the ancient medallion—a powerful, magickal
medallion: the Doorway of the Triquetra.