Carved In Stone, page 37
“All the usual, but few motives. Watch your six out here on runs. We may have a lurker.”
“Lurker?” Billy questioned as they climbed inside. “Never heard of that.”
“You saw a lurker?” Jax asked worriedly.
“No,” Marc replied. “But I feel him.”
“Not good, man,” Jax groaned, scanning the stone and weed landscape.
“What the hell is a lurker?” Billy demanded.
Quinn spoke up from the rear seat, “A lurker is a crazy. They’ve been alone too long and gone nuts, but not in the pathetic way. They’re deadly. They wait for you to sleep and slit your throat.”
“To steal your stuff?” Billy tried to clarify. He had no trouble imagining a long-bearded psycho running around the cliffs in camo with a hatchet.
“They hunt people,” Marc informed the confused driver. “The old world technology and progress labeled them predators and serial killers, but these guys are almost worse. They stalk you for days or weeks, and then snatch you and carve you up while you scream. My unit handled a few of these for a security firm we moonlighted with. They like blood and they’re very territorial. Safe Haven might have landed right in a lurker grid.”
“Does the boss know yet?” Billy asked, thinking she would really ground the command people now.
“Not yet, but I want to view this footage first,” Marc stated, taking the chip from the camera and sliding it into the fully charged camera that he’d brought along for this reason. He’d already planned to stop here before Angela sent him. He hadn’t needed the reminder from her, but it was her sense of fairness. If the Eagles saw that she even stayed on his ass, they would adjust to it better. “In a few minutes, we’ll know for sure and have a report to give her when we hit the gates.”
Respect for Marc went up, but Billy wondered if the man knew it was because he had reminded them of Adrian. Both men were a wealth of knowledge and ingenuity. They were also both lethal when riled and Billy pitied the lurker, if there was one. Marc sounded a bit nervous about the possible threat and that meant he wouldn’t stop until it was eliminated.
5
“You went off-mission. And then left a member of your team behind?” Marc asked incredulously. Samantha’s jeep had been flying toward Safe Haven when they hit the road to home and Marc had waved her over.
“Yes,” Sam admitted. “We have to get help!”
“I am the help, Samantha,” Marc stated, turning to Justin.
Justin didn’t care about the blame and he told the truth. “David was shot through the ankle and he fell. We didn’t witness what happened after that. He told us to stay with the women.”
Marc grunted, motioning toward the jeep. “Take me there.”
The trio of vehicles–a van, a jeep, and a small truck, flew over the cleared road and then took Marc all the way to the place where David had fallen. In the darkness, they hadn’t seen anyone else, but arrows had been flying hard and fast.
“Stay in the van,” Marc ordered as they arrived. “Billy, with me.”
“Same bike,” Billy stated as soon as the neared the bloody tracks. “And it’s heavy. The lurker has our man.”
“He’s not our man,” Marc stated, considering his options. “He’s from Adrian’s group.”
“Does that matter?” Billy asked, not liking the idea of leaving anyone to be carved up.
“No, but I’m thinking a trap would be better than a hunting party.”
“Oh, shit!” Billy exclaimed.
“What?”
“I had a bad thought. What if our lurker is a descendant?”
Marc led them toward the van. “I never assumed otherwise. And, I think he’s military. Not many people would have known how to disable my alarm. An average person would have destroyed it.”
“Was it a trap for us?” Billy asked. “Leaving the camera intact?”
Marc hadn’t let anyone in the van watch the video, and none of them had felt comfortable asking him about it until now.
“I don’t know, but there’s a message for Angela on the video.”
“Why her?”
“She’s the boss. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.”
6
David couldn’t take his hands away from his waist.
It was an odd way to wake up–not being able to rub his face–and he opened his lids slowly against the glare he sensed.
Everything was blurry and upside down, and he realized he was hanging from a tree by his ankles. Pain lanced through various parts of his body and then centered in his leg. It continued to grow until he began to groan.
“Hold still!” a rough voice snapped.
David tried to discern who it was but the pain increased again and he screamed as the blackness took him.
“You hear that?” Billy asked, covered in goosebumps.
“They aren’t far,” Marc muttered, using his grid but uncovering little. “We’ll come back and track it down. You in?”
“You know it,” Billy replied.
Fed up with being ignored, Samantha snapped, “We’re coming too!”
“We’ll see what the boss has to say about that,” Marc replied coolly. “But I suggest not using that tone with her.”
Samantha flushed and slumped in the seat. This was all her fault and she wasn’t going to be able to go along and try to make it right.
“Is it about your honor or the missing man?” Marc asked suddenly, pinning her through the mirror with a hard glare. “’Cause it matters.”
“Honor,” Samantha lied. “He’s one of Adrian’s men. How could I trust him enough to care if he lives or dies?”
Marc understood that sentiment as much as anyone could, but he still said, “Stay in camp. Do what the boss says.”
“Why? Because I don’t value life enough?”
“Because you’d be along to prove you can handle yourself and this time, it could get you killed. Lurkers are not anyone to play around with.”
“I’m a good hunter,” she pointed out. “You’ll need me.”
Marc didn’t tell her he’d been tracking trash for most of his life, but his tone said she should know it already as he stated, “I need you to follow orders. It’s part of the job.”
Samantha gave in then, saying, “Fine.” When Marc used that tone, everyone knew he was finished being sensitive to the person’s feelings and it bothered Samantha to be on the receiving end of it. She much preferred to be the teacher’s pet.
“Don’t we all,” Marc muttered, wondering if Angela had known this was coming. She hadn’t acted like it, but that meant little. Still, he didn’t think she would have sent him out blind against someone who was obsessed with killing. That was more like something Adrian would have done.
“Take us to the gate,” Marc instructed. “When we get there, send a message to Angela. Tell her I said if I’m not home by dawn, to send her pet killer.”
Everyone knew he meant Adrian and the mood went from sullen to tense. Marc wouldn’t send for Adrian unless he thought there was a chance he could lose whatever fight might be waiting.
Samantha felt guilt crash down on her shoulders and she clamped her mouth shut against the pleas that wanted to come out. Marc wasn’t the one she needed to beg for permission to go along.
“No, I’m not,” Marc agreed, adjusting automatically against the force as Billy rushed them up the mountain in the darkness. “And I’m not waiting for you talk her into it. Make it up some other way. You’re off this run.”
7
“Can you repeat that last part, please?” Angela asked as shock and anger warred for the top slot in her mind.
“If he’s not here by dawn, he said for you to send in your pet killer,” Samantha forced out. Angela had met them at the gate, with Greg and Shawn on her heels.
Angela gestured for them to leave and the group of women dejectedly trudged toward the showers and mess.
Angela didn’t have time for their emotions as she scanned the doors in her mind. She’d never heard of a lurker and she’d sent the witch out for information as soon as she’d picked it from Samantha’s mind. While the witch and Marc went hunting, she needed to scour the halls and discern what new doors might have opened up.
Shawn and Greg waited patiently with her, watching the soldiers hurry into Adrian’s site to inform him. The people in Zone A had been viewing the activity with concern after this morning’s attack, but they were settling down now. The other zones were empty.
Minutes passed and then Adrian appeared at the tree line. He signaled to the guards on the gate and Zack scowled as he glanced at Angela. “Do we give it to him?”
Angela didn’t answer and Shawn did what he thought was best. “Marc asked for him. I say we do–because Marc needs him.”
“Damn.” Zack gestured at Greg. “She’ll be searching for a while. Go get him some wheels and one of the girls.”
“Samantha,” Angela croaked suddenly. “They need Sam.”
The men around her hurried to do as they’d been told and Angela returned to her searching. She hadn’t predicted Marc and Adrian working together in the dark. If she’d gotten a vote beforehand, she would have guessed that Marc would tell Adrian to cover his own people. Marc had known she would want David rescued if possible, but asking for Adrian in the only manner tolerable to him (snidely) meant there was a chance for the two men to eventually co-exist.
Dreaming again, the witch warned from a distance. The only thing that might come from this is a murder. Two men have never been more at odds in this universe.
8
“So why am I here?”
Marc let Adrian’s question hang in the air as they settled into the tall weeds to wait. Billy was in the truck below, left to guard their vehicle and now they had to wait and see if their lurker was still lurking. Tracking in the dark was nearly impossible and they would make too much noise. This plan was better for their prey.
“I realize you needed someone who was used to hunting this way, but there are half a dozen of those in Safe Haven now,” Adrian said. “I know. I helped train them.”
Marc scanned the darkness around the truck, thinking Billy might have nerves of steel by the time winter came. As he’d done with a few men over the years, Marc had taken Billy under his wing. The man didn’t know it yet, but he was being trained by the Ghost. Billy had a big future ahead of him and he would need the guidance.
“You want to talk about Angie.”
“I hate it when you call her that,” Marc immediately responded, not pausing in his scans. “You haven’t earned the right to be so familiar.”
“Bullshit,” Adrian denied. “You hate it because you can’t avoid feeling how much I care for her when it comes out sounding that way.”
Marc let it go in favor of the silence he knew Adrian didn’t handle well. The blond had gotten used to people jumping when he spoke, not the other way around.
“Is it because she took those lives?”
Marc winced.
“Surprised me, too,” Adrian admitted when Marc didn’t respond, yet again. “She wants the baby enough to risk corruption.”
“Risk?” Marc asked. “It doesn’t mean she already is?”
“No. She chose bad people. No different than the variety of killers she’s got laboring for her now.”
“Variety?” Marc knew of two.
“She has five active right now, with three in reserve while they recover or age. As long as everyone sticks to their assigned chores, it could create a beautiful environment when enough of the assholes are gone.”
“And if even one of those people goes off-grid?”
“It’s not her killers that we have to watch out for,” Adrian stated gravely. “They’ve just gotten a taste of that freedom and they won’t risk it yet.”
“But Angie might, right?” Marc guessed.
“Yes. Taking a life force is different from taking a life. It corrupts the soul to take a pure force.”
“And the consuming thing she told me about?”
“That’s a myth,” Adrian informed him promptly. “Jack and his crew were animals who enjoyed acting that way. They also liked using the stories of their cannibalism to scare their targets. Made them easier to corner.”
Adrian’s words matched what Marc’s demon had told him, and he continued with the questions that worried voice hadn’t had any answers to. “Did you predict all of this? Is that what’s in your notebooks?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve seen a lot more, all the way to the island and back?”
“Not back,” Adrian stated wistfully.
“Are you with us on the island?”
Adrian didn’t want to answer that and said, “It’s up to you, in the end.”
“Obviously I agree. Why?”
Adrian sighed. “Do you really want to do this now?”
“No, but it’s too late to shoot Kendle before she can heal you,” Marc growled, barely remembering to do it quietly. “Tell me.”
“Because what I told you was the truth. She needs more than you can give her. I’ve saved her life. So have you. And it’s not over, Marc, not by a long shot. It’ll take both of us to keep her alive.”
“Did it heal her enough to have the baby?”
“It healed her completely,” Adrian answered, adjusting the scope on his rifle to narrow in on Billy, who appeared to have fallen asleep while waiting for them to return. “Your daughter will be more beautiful than her mother.”
Marc didn’t like the feeling of bonding that was coming, but before he could break that mood with a snide remark, Adrian cleared his throat.
“David is a good man. Thank you for this, even though it was a cover.”
“Don’t confuse me with yourself,” Marc said. “I thought he and his men should have been allowed in and I know she refused them away so you wouldn’t be alone.”
“Yes. She has hopes of reforming me.”
“Impossible,” Marc spat.
Adrian didn’t take the bait. Reform was easy. Following through on it was much harder. He would have to have a damn good reason to change and the one thing that could bring it about was forbidden to him and always would be.
“Not when I die,” Marc ground out, unable to leave it alone. Not knowing when and how was eating at him.
“I won’t do it when the time comes,” Adrian spouted angrily. “So tell her to make other plans. I’d kill you as fast as you would me.”
Marc didn’t know what they’d seen and it was frustrating, but he was forced to let it go as a shadow below them moved.
“Here we go,” Adrian whispered, aiming.
“Take him alive,” Marc ordered. “I at least want David’s body to take back if we’re too late to save him.”
“No worries,” Adrian bragged lightly. “The flea’s ass is in my crosshairs.”
The shadow approached the truck with a crossbow in one hand and a large knife in the other.
“Take the shot.”
Adrian fired.
The loud report echoed across the mountains and the shadow by Billy’s window dropped to the ground. Billy, following orders, remained in the truck.
“You’re up,” Marc told Adrian. “Go take one for the team.”
Adrian grimaced. “You got it, Mary.”
Marc recognized the nervous response. Adrian hadn’t been the one doing the dirty work for a long time.
Adrian approached the vehicle carefully and quickly, hoping Marc was covering his back and not aiming at it. He hurried to the fallen man and used his foot to roll him over.
He gestured to Billy, who flipped on the headlights for illumination. As the lights came on, another shot fired.
Adrian slumped against the hood, gasping at the pain. A double vest had stopped the slug from entering his shoulder, but the impact was still enough to stun him. He let the sensation take him to his knees and then to then ground, listening as he tried to forget that he’d been shot.
The body next to him immediately rose up, coming over to take his weapon and point it at Billy. Marc had been right to suspect this.
“I know you can hear me,” the man declared emotionlessly. “Stand up.”
Adrian did, not needing to fake the reaction. The blood wasn’t there, though, and the lurker realized it too late. Adrian swung with full strength and knocked him out with a hit to the temple before he could spin the gun and fire.
Another bullet slammed into Adrian, hitting flesh this time and he fell to the ground, rolling under the truck for protection.
Silence fell and the Eagles waited with ragged breathing for their shooter to come closer.
Inside the truck, Billy stayed down, listening in amazement as Adrian and Marc handled a pair of serial killers.
Marc waited patiently for the second man to show, very surprised there were two of them. It was rare.
The sound of a bike came and then Marc had it in his sight. He pulled the trigger gently and hit the rear tire of the Yamaha.
The bike skidded sideways and then slammed into the ground, flipping the rider into the air. It came down in a bed of weeds, not hard enough to have killed the rider, and Marc hurried down the hill as he unslung his rifle and drew his Colt.
The rider struggled to stand as Marc neared, and he stopped so they couldn’t reach him with a lunge. “Take the helmet off.”
The rider faced Marc and slowly pulled off the protective gear. “You won’t find them.”
Long brown hair streamed down and Marc realized this was more than rare. It was unheard of. “Husband and wife?”
The woman glanced at the still form on the ground near where Adrian was crawling out from under the truck. “Acquaintance, with common goals.”
“And what would that be?” Marc asked, scanning for weapons and not lowering his.
“To get you out here,” the woman answered, smiling insanely. “Hello, Der Ghost. We’ve been waiting for you.”
“There are more?” Billy asked from the window he’d lowered. Marc had told him not to leave the truck, at all, and he wasn’t going to.
The sound of bikes echoed and Marc said, “Three more. You’re not lurkers.”
The woman flashed black teeth and madness. “No. We’re from Benjamin.”
“He died in the bunker,” Marc stated, going cold at the memories. “Nice try.”
