The Damned (14 page)

Jenn cleared her throat. “That doesn’t matter.”

Noah looked at her and smiled faintly. Then he inclined his head. Her chest tightened, and her cheeks grew warm. Nice things started happening to her insides.

“There’s a lot of dirty dealing in this war,” Noah said. “Politicians trying to gain favor from those in power, as Rasputin did. Hoping that if they do what the Cursed Ones want, they’ll be spared. Or converted.”

He pointed at Jenn and Jamie. “I think both of you are right. Dantalion
is
being protected, but that doesn’t matter. We’re here on a mission to destroy him.”

“Bloody hell.” Jamie’s voice was thick with disgust.

“Jamie,” Jenn reproved, turning in Jamie’s direction. Then she followed his line of sight and saw what—or rather, who—had caused his reaction.

“Buenas noches,”
Antonio said, standing at the perimeter of the camp. The moon tipped his blue-black hair with silver, aging him slightly. Making him seem different, not like the Antonio she knew. If she had ever known him. His dark, deep-set eyes focused on her, only her, and bone-chilling fear consumed her.

Heather. Something’s happened. They killed her.

She leaped to her feet, then stumbled backward. Skye raised a hand toward him in greeting; everyone else stayed where they were. Jenn’s heart stopped. Everything stopped. If she didn’t ask, if he didn’t say anything . . .

She swayed.

“Jenn?” Skye said.

Jenn was mute. Everything in her world depended on Antonio.

“Ay
, no.” Comprehension dawning, Antonio gave his head a quick shake. “She’s all right, Jenn.” But there was a catch in his voice.

“Then w-what are you doing here?” She was embarrassed by how timid her voice was. She was the leader of this team—
his
leader—but she sounded like a twelve-year-old.

“Who is
he?”
Taamir asked from behind her, his voice dangerous, on alert.

“Antonio’s one of us,” Eriko said quickly. “Our other teammate. He wasn’t able to leave with us . . . so he caught up.”

“How did he find us?” Noah demanded, every muscle tensed. He and Taamir were on their feet. Antonio stood quietly and calmly, deflecting any confrontation.

“GPS. I put a tracker on my cell so he could find us.” Holgar sounded completely convincing.

“And you came into our camp without telling us that?” Taamir half shouted. A look from Noah, and he lowered his voice. “This is
our
camp.
Our
mission.”

Was
, Jenn thought. They’d failed. That was why Team Salamanca was there. It was their mission now, and she was in charge of it.

“Excuse me, but I believe our masters have discussed it,” Eriko replied, lying through her beautiful white teeth. “Antonio tracking us.”

“Ja.
Father Juan said it was arranged.” Holgar’s voice was smooth as glass.

Jenn silently blessed both of them for their quick thinking. If their new friends knew that Antonio wasn’t supposed to be there and that he was a Cursed One, it surely would be a deadly test to the boundaries of their fragile alliance.

Jamie, for a miracle, was staying silent. Jenn glanced over her shoulder and realized it probably wasn’t a miracle. Skye had her hand on Jamie’s shoulder. She’d have to thank the witch later for that.

But she could tell by Antonio’s posture that something was still wrong.

“We’re going to walk the perimeter,” she called, voice deeper, firmer. She was their leader.

Antonio fell into step beside her as they pushed their way out of the small clearing and into the forest. Their feet crunched in the snow. Her breath blew out like smoke. His didn’t.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Jenn whirled on him. “What are you doing here?”

He looked at her, eyes so dark it was as if they were made of the night sky. “Your sister . . . she had some kind of vision. She said something about ‘her’ and ‘blood’ and there.’ And then she cried out Dantalion’s name.”

A chill seized Jenn’s spine. “‘Her’? Me?” She thought a moment. “Aurora?”

Antonio shook his head. “I don’t know. But I was worried about you. I couldn’t let you do this alone. I tried, but I couldn’t.” He kept gazing at her, a telling distance between them.

So many emotions jumbled inside her that she had trouble keeping track of them. With him here watching over her, that put Heather, and the others at the university, in more danger. And him, too, maybe.

But she couldn’t deny her relief. He was here, with her.

“I know we parted badly,” he began. “It was my fault, Jenn, and I’m sorry.”

The dam inside her broke, and she realized that despite everything that had happened, she needed to be near him and feel this reassurance. She threw her arms around his neck and buried her head against his chest, breathing in the scent of him.

He lowered his chin against the crown of her head, resting his cheek there. His arms encircled her, strong and gentle.
“Ay, Jenn, te quiero, ml corazon.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered. She might still suck at Spanish, but that she knew. “I do love you, Antonio.”

He held her for what seemed like forever, stroking her hair.

“Tell me how she is,” Jenn said.

Antonio related what had happened, and she paled. “But she was speaking in words?”

“Only during the vision,” he admitted. “But that gives us hope.”

Wordlessly, she nodded. Then she tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear. Leaned her head against his chest. No warmth, no heartbeat.

“Noah told us about Dantalion,” she said. “Creepy guy.”

“Noah? Or Dantalion?” he asked, sounding amused.

“Noah’s a writer. Or was, before he joined the Mossad.”

Antonio chuckled as if at some private joke. She looked up sharply and saw that he was grinning. She couldn’t help but grin back.

“What?”

“I was just wondering if you’ve read any good books lately.”

“I don’t have time to read.”

His grin broadened, and she frowned, puzzled. He bent forward and brushed her lips with his.

“I never thought I would be able to kiss you again,” he said. His voice was filled with such longing that it made her tingle. She had thought she would never want him to kiss her again. She hadn’t actually had a lot of experience with guys. The war had gotten in the way.

“
Bueno
, we should get back,” he said, tracing her mouth with his finger. His fingertip was very cold.

“One more minute won’t matter,” she said.

“As you say.” He kissed her again.

Then it was time to go back. They laced hands and walked back to the others, who were looking at the two of them expectantly. Correction: At
her.

Jenn took over.

“Okay, we’re going to take turns patrolling for two hours each with teams of two. Noah, Taamir, I’m going to pair you up with members of my team so we can start learning to work together.” She turned her eyes to her own teammates.

“I’ll go with Noah,” Skye volunteered.

“I’ll patrol with Taamir,” Holgar added.

The two Middle Eastern hunters indicated their agreement, and Jenn had to hide a little grin of her own. Maybe she was getting the hang of this leader stuff.

“Thanks,” she said. “Okay. Skye, you and Noah take the first patrol.”

Skye stood up and brushed herself off. She smiled at Noah. “Shall we?”

He crossed over to her, and the two of them melted into the forest.

Skye was uneasy. She slowly walked the perimeter of their base camp and tried to calm herself. She had agreed to take watch with Noah. Holgar would patrol with Taamir. She understood the need to get to know their two other comrades better. And she and Holgar had been the obvious choices. Taamir and Noah didn’t yet know Antonio was a vampire, and she was pretty sure Jamie would say something obnoxious and start a fight. Still, she missed her partner.

She sighed.

“Okay?” Noah asked, his voice barely a whisper.

She nodded.

“You’re very young,” he noted.

Skye hunched her shoulders. She and Eriko were both sixteen, but Skye was the youngest. She had run away to the university when she was fourteen. Everyone had thought it was because she wanted to fight Cursed Ones. She did, but she had far darker reasons.
Estefan, where are you?
she wondered.

In her mind she compared Estefan to Jamie. Why was it she was attracted to bad boys? Of course, Estefan and Jamie only shared a dark edge and love of violence in common. Estefan was a witch who had sided with the Cursed Ones. Jamie was a human hunter who’d sworn to destroy the vampires.

“Nobody’s young anymore,” she muttered.

Noah nodded, seeming to take that as truth.

She was grateful that Antonio had shown up, though she didn’t know why he was here. Clearly, there had been a change of plan, and it had taken Jenn by surprise as well.

As she walked, she wove four tiny spells. There was the one to give them both enhanced vision. There was another to keep their path free from roots and snares. A third enhanced hearing. A fourth made their footsteps silent. There were others she would have liked to perform, to mask their smell or to help them locate danger, but she was already tired from all the spell casting she’d done to get them through the airports earlier, and performing the four was taking everything she had.

“What are you doing?” Noah asked at last.

Skye hesitated for a moment. In Witchery it wasn’t common to expose yourself to outsiders, but nothing about her journey since leaving home had been common. “I’m doing magicks to help us.”

He was silent for a moment. “Magicks.”

“I’m a witch. A White Witch,” she added quickly. “A good witch.”

“Your master told mine about you,” Noah said.

So Father Juan had outed her. That worried her a little, but she also realized it was a good strategy. Back in New Orleans, Marc Dupree and his freedom fighters had been very angry that they hadn’t been told. She doubted Father Juan had informed them about Antonio, though. Witches were not the enemy. Cursed Ones were.

“Is that why I can see and hear better than I should?” Noah asked.

“Yes.”

“Would you please stop?”

Her heart sank. “You don’t approve of witchcraft.”

Noah half smiled. “I . . . approve of anything that will help defeat the Cursed Ones. But I’m attuned to my own senses, and this is, hmm, difficult to adjust to. I think it will hurt and not help.”

She winced. “Sorry,” she muttered as she released them both from the two spells. Unfortunately, she couldn’t just release him, she had to release herself as well, and she stumbled into a tree with a grunt.

He reached out a hand. “You okay?”

She shook her head to clear it and then tried to recast the spell, but just for herself. She was too tired, though. She needed to rest.

“I’m—”

She stopped. Something was wrong. She turned her head, straining to listen. There was nothing.

Nothing.

And yet . . .

“Something’s here,” she whispered.

Noah half turned as a figure lunged at him from the darkness, grabbing him and tossing him into the air.

Terror galvanized Skye, and the adrenaline flowed through her body, giving her the energy to weave a spell to lessen the impact as Noah hurtled to the ground.

The creature turned toward her, and she shrank back. It was hideous. Its eyes were overly large in its face, its nose tiny and pinched, and its mouth bristled with longer fangs and more teeth than she had seen on a Cursed One. It looked more like the mouth of a wolf.

A werewolf!
she thought. But the body was not wolflike; it was more humanoid, and dressed in black pants and a padded black jacket. It wore boots. It was nothing like anything she had ever seen.

The creature lumbered toward her, eyes glowing red. Skye sidestepped out of its path, surprised that her speed was on par with the beast’s. It turned, slow as a human, and swung at her with hands tipped with curved claws.

Noah sprang up behind the creature and tried to drive a stake into it. She heard the sound of cracking wood, and with a shout Noah stepped back.

“The stake won’t penetrate!” he yelled to her.

Her hands flew to her belt, and Skye whipped out a bottle of holy water and a stake. She uncapped the bottle, darted forward, and splashed the holy water in the creature’s eyes. It stopped with a bellow and began clawing at its own eyes with its razor-sharp claws. It carved chunks of its flesh from its face until blood was flowing freely.

Skye took a precious extra second as she angled the stake upward, lunged, and then shoved. The wood stopped less than a quarter of an inch into the creature. The muscles were too strong, too powerful, to punch through.

She grabbed a cross next and slammed it against the creature’s skin. It began to smoke and burn. And before she could stop herself, she whispered,
“Incendio.”

The searing turned into full-fledged flames. The creature dropped to the snow, rolled, and extinguished them with a hiss and sizzle. Skye took a step back, blinking, horrified at what she had just done. Magick was only to be used for defense, never to hurt or attack.

Using only his free hand, Noah unsheathed a short sword from under the back of his coat and swung the blade downward. It cut halfway through the creature’s neck and then lodged between the upper vertebrae of its spine. Grunting, he leaned, putting his full weight on it as the creature beneath him howled and writhed. One of the creature’s claws slashed across Noah’s knee, felling him instantly.

Noah sprawled on the ground near the creature’s head, but he held desperately on to the sword, still trying to sever the neck.

“Help me!” he yelled.

Galvanized, Skye sprang forward, grabbing the hilt of the sword, taking care to avoid the clacking teeth and swinging claws, and she rammed downward for all she was worth, sobbing with the effort.

At first the blade didn’t move. And then it did. Slowly, slowly, and then suddenly it sliced all the way through, cutting off the creature’s head. Skye fell into the snow, panting, next to Noah.