Blood Lust (The Blood Sisters Book 1) (21 page)

Gripping
her shotgun, she spun it around and hammered the butt of the weapon between the
demon’s legs. It smashed into his balls and he cried out in pain. A quick elbow
to his side, a stomp on his foot, and Jessica pushed her body as far forward as
possible in order to put distance between them. She grabbed the knife hidden in
her pocket and sliced through the demon’s side.

He
released her so fast, Jessica’s face smashed into the side wall of the car. She
groaned and her vision turned to blackened. It wasn’t possible. She couldn’t
let herself go unconscious from such a little thing. Jessica spun, held up her
weapon and just as the demon’s twisted face came into view snarling as he
charged her, she fired her gun.

The
demon dropped like a bag of stones right at her feet.

Her
chest heaved for air as she leaped over his body and grabbed the emergency
brake. The train was barreling out of control down the track and headed to the
shipping yard. Just over the horizon, the building took shape—appearing like a
mirage in the distance.

They
were already so close to town.

But
the brake wasn’t working. Damn it, a shot must have taken out the hydraulic
system, which meant they were going to reach the
town
and, they were going to crash right into the shipping yard.
Who knows who they’d kill on the way through?

One
more bend in the track and then it was a clear shot to town. Jessica had only
one shot. She needed to derail the train.

With
a deep breath, Jessica grabbed the lever and pushed it all the way forward, picking
up as much speed as the train could give her. Holding on for dear life, she
pushed hard and fast as the wheels churned even faster.

Here
came the bend, turning around a series of cliffs. This was it, Jessica squeezed
her eyes shut and planted her feet firm like a tree root. Her stomach had the
sensation of spinning. Peering through one eye, Jessica saw the landscape tilt
until the train was on its side.

Her
body slammed into the window and her fingers found purchase on the sill to keep
from rolling out. “C’mon, c’mon,
c’mon.
”
Jessica whispered as the train dug a trench before it slowly came to a stop.

Head
spinning, Jessica pulled herself out of the window and stood atop the
slaughtered caboose. Aunt Gwen wasn’t far away and she was smiling as she climbed
down a rocky cliff. Off in the distance, motorcycle engines were getting
closer. The Black Scorpions were riding to her location and Jessica imagined
she gave them quite the scare. Gave herself one too,
but at least
they had what they came for.

They
did it. They had won. For this day, they had won.

“Aunt
Gwen?” Jessica smiled and rushed off the train. Her vision was dizzy and she
teetered toward her aunt. To center herself, she focused on the ground at her
aunt’s feet.

Gwen’s
boots stood on a patch of grass. Growing green in this barren wasteland was
miraculous, but in front of Jessica’s
eyes
it withered. What was moments before alive, was now dried brown, dead.

How
had Jessica missed this? How had she not seen this before? She backed up as
Gwen held her hands overhead and they crackled with power like electricity
traveling between two poles. Sinister, Gwen smirked as a powerful black vortex
opened in the day’s sky directly above Jessica.

Jessica
sneered at Gwen as her hair whipped around her face. “I’d wondered why you had
such power. Had control you’ve never shown before.” She stood and aimed her
gun.

“Surprise,”
Gwen whispered a shining red light in her eyes.

The
vortex grew. The wind blew all around them and Jessica felt her feet slipping.
She was being pulled up toward the spinning whirlpool and was powerless to stop
it. Before it got her, she fired a shot off at her aunt. Jessica didn’t see if
it landed as she spun, clawing at the ground trying to hang on awhile longer.

The
bikers were coming. The headlights were getting closer.

Duncan.
With any
luck
Duncan was with them and
would reach her in time. Jessica just wanted to hold on.

Jessica
struggled as her fingernails tore through the dirt. She gritted her teeth,
trying hard to hang on, but her legs spun into the air. What hope she had left
of saving Amanda, of finding a normal life was shattered as Jessica was sucked
up into the vortex.

Amanda. I’m sorry.

Her
body twirled inside the whirlwind. Everything was black and the wind ripped
around her at such a dizzying speed, Jessica couldn’t breathe. She gulped air,
desperate for it, but there was none; her body spun around as if it were a rag
doll, bouncing off of the nothingness of space, like a ball stuck inside a
pinball game.

Jessica’s
vision blurred. The vortex spat her out on the other side like an unwelcome
guest. As if she was poison, venom. Her body whacked into a black mountain
ridge and her face hit a boulder wet with dew.

 
At that moment, she was just happy to
breathe—gulping, gagging, nearly hysterical. Jessica thought she might never
catch her breath. Jessica moaned and peered up at what should have been the
sky, but all she saw was the roof of a cavern. The vortex above spun like a
marble in a maze. It shrunk in size until it was nothing more than a pinhole.

Great.
Just great.

Wherever
she was, Jessica was trapped. She needed to find her way out.

With
a pop of
light,
the swirling vortex was
gone and took all her hope with it. Well, Jessica was going to have to find
another way out.

Just
as her chest settled, someone took her gun away and another rolled her over.
“Give that back.” Jessica’s voice croaked and she struggled to sit. Her vision
swayed and vomit rose in her mouth, clearly her body wasn’t ready to move yet.
But her choices were limited. Her options were shrinking.

Two
demons grabbed her arms and picked her up. Their faces weren’t like the demons
she usually
fought,
they were gray and
wrinkled—like they had never seen the light of day. Stronger than most minions,
yet dressed in tattered rags. Their faces were cut and bloody, like they had
seen a great battle. Jessica’s feet dragged against the stone as they forced
her along against her will. “Where are you taking me?” Her voice was mousier
than usual, but still she demanded a response with the
glower
in her eyes.

She
was aware of screaming somewhere in the distance. Cries of pain bellowed
through the cavern, and even seemed to cause the torches hanging on the stone
walls to flicker.

“Lourdes
wants to see you.”

“Lourdes
has demanded your presence.”

Her
heart sank in ways it never had before. Lourdes? That could only mean one
thing. Jessica Blood was
prisoner
of the
underworld.

 
On her way to see the queen.

A
hole opened in the sky and it swallowed Jessica Blood.

“Jessica!”
Duncan twisted the throttle on his bike, drove it faster, but it couldn’t catch
the speed of his galloping heart. He shouldn’t have left her. He should have
stayed with her.

Now
wasn’t time to second guess his decisions, but Duncan’s mouth filled with grief
as he reached the spinning vortex. Dismounted before he even finished cutting
the engine, Duncan searched for someone to hunt. Someone to hurt.

Staring
up at it, the vortex was spent, shrinking and dissipating. In a moment, it was
nothing more than a pinprick of light. The wind whipping across his cheek
slowed its breath and Duncan clenched his fists tight in his leather gloves.

Was
this Vaughn? Had
he
had someone take
Jessica because of what they had done? Of what Duncan had done? Revenge?

How
much more would Vaughn take? When would that demon bastard just die already?

The
urgency to find Jessica, to bring her back, lodged tight in his chest. If he
lost her again, after only just having the guts to find her; well, that wasn’t
the best line of thinking, was it?

He
picked up a rock and with a grunt threw it at the vortex. Plummeting to the
ground, the rock landed back on the sand with a thud. Footsteps shuffled
forward and Duncan turned as Bart and Dex secured the overturned boxcar.

“Is
it safe?” Duncan’s chest was tight and he could feel the anxiety rushing
through his limbs. He needed to get a hold
of
this creeping fear, this edging panic to find Jessica, he couldn’t just move on
without her.

Something
happened here. Something big, and Duncan needed to track it
now,
before the trail went cold. If the trail
was buried, it’d bury
Jessica
right along
with it and the notion of that— he was a moron for ever leaving her, but he
could never say that, could he?

If
Jessica knew the things he had done, saw it with her own eyes, Duncan was sure
the last few days would’ve been very different.

He
just had to find her and drag her back. Amanda couldn’t survive without
Jessica, and Duncan wasn’t sure if he could either.
A world
where Jessica Blood wasn’t out hunting demons was a world
without hope. Even when they were apart, Duncan knew she was out there. Living
to make the world a little safer. That brought him comfort, but this?

Only
agony.

Bart
nodded. “We got the drugs and enough dead demons to start a roaring bonfire.”
He glanced up at the sky. “Where’s Jessica? Her aunt? Did that thing…”

Duncan
didn’t know. Truth was, he hadn’t given Gwen much thought, but Bart was right.
He needed to find her too. Maybe she knew what had happened. Maybe she saw why
it happened.

Up
above, everything was normal again, complete with slow drifting clouds.
Whatever had swallowed Jessica was gone and all traces had faded away. Daylight
took its rightful place again, and the normalcy of that sent a shiver down
Duncan’s spine.

Duncan
hurried his footsteps over to the train. “Signal the trucks. We need to get
this stuff moving before Vaughn sends reinforcements.” Duncan checked his watch
to see if they were on schedule, when something caught his attention on the
ground.

Hunched
over, his finger swept through a puddle on the dirt and pebbles. It was deep
red against his gloves tips. Blood.

Duncan
licked
it just to make sure. Human blood.
Was it Jessica’s?

Spotting
a trail, Duncan followed the drips straight to the train. Bart stared at him
with a quizzical expression, but Duncan silenced him with a shake of his head.
“Get moving to the caboose in the back, start unloading those boxes.”

Bart
nodded. “Sure, boss.” He leaped out of the boxcar and was on his way.

Duncan
gripped the metal side of the train and watched. He waited in silence, able to
feel the pounding of his heartbeat. His eyes studied what he could make out
inside the boxcar and when the sun shifted, Duncan was about to give up.

But
then, a panel slid along the wall.

Someone
was in there. Someone was coming out of hiding. A demon? Something that had
summoned that vortex? Duncan would kill it in a heartbeat if he thought that was
the best way to serve Jessica. To find her, he was going to need patience and
restraint.

Two
of his least favorite words.

Fingers
edged out from the panel and began to shimmy it open. Duncan stepped inside as
light as possible, but the boxcar rattled and the fingers retracted back
inside, like a spider from the
flame
.

But
Duncan had seen them. It was too late now to hide. He gripped the panel and
pulled it open. Well, what’d you know? It was Gwen.

Relieved
she was alive, Duncan sighed.

Her
eyes were half lidded as she fell out of the hidden compartment onto the metal
floor. Her face scrunched up against it, she moaned. “Duncan,” she whispered,
“help…”

Didn’t
make sense. What the hell was she doing in there? Duncan gritted his teeth and
rolled over onto her back, bending over her. “We’ll get you some help, Gwen.”

“Jessica?”
Gwen’s brow furrowed together with grief and a puzzled look creased her face.
“Is she…”

“Gone.”
Duncan’s mouth tasted sour and grief circled his heart. Didn’t want to say it,
didn’t want to admit it, but what choice did he have?

His
eyes were drawn to Gwen’s shoulder. He pushed against the leather fabric and
Gwen pulled her breath in tight. A gunshot. One of the demons—no, Duncan
squinted and lowered his face. It was too big for a
gunshot
.

It
was a shotgun blast.

Duncan’s
skin tingled. Jessica wasn’t the only one who used a shotgun, but then why did
he feel so funny? Why did it feel so right that Jessica had done this? Had she
shot her aunt right before tragedy struck?

He
rose to his feet even though he couldn’t feel his legs. “I’m going to get
something to stop the bleeding. Then, we need to move you.” His voice seemed to
rise out of the ground and not in him. He said the words, but couldn’t believe
what he was thinking.

If
Jessica and Gwen weren’t on the same side….

Gwen
edged her body up with a wince. “Please,” her voice was small and slight, “it’s
not what you think, Duncan. It wasn’t…Jessica. She was stolen by that thing in
the sky. Jessica didn’t shoot me. You have to believe me, Duncan.”

Duncan
heard it all. The panic in her voice. The pleading. All of it sounded like a
desperate woman.

He
turned his head and went to his bike. He opened the black leather satchel on
the back and retrieved a pair of handcuffs. Swinging them on his thumb, Duncan
headed back to the train when Ron limped up.

“Trucks
are loaded and ready to move out. We lost some good men today, Duncan, but…for
what we’ve accomplished…” Ron shook his head.

Duncan
gripped his shoulder, it was all he could do right then. “We have one more
piece of cargo for the truck. Give me a second.” He stepped back inside the
boxcar and lowered himself down.

Gwen
was writhing on the ground. She lifted her head and peered at him with one eye.
“You believe me, don’t you? I’d never hurt Jessica. She’s like…my own.”

Maybe
that was true. Maybe it wasn’t, but Duncan wasn’t going to take any chances. He
handcuffed Gwen without a word and when she struggled against him, Duncan
pushed his elbow just below her wound.

Gwen
leaned her head back and narrowed her eyes. Her breath was labored, that of
someone in extreme pain. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Maybe
not,” Duncan helped her up, carrying most of her weight himself. “But until I
find out what happened here, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Gwen’s
fingers twitched into a bent position that he had seen before. Her face drained
even further of color. Her complexion was the white of a sheet. “These
handcuffs are enchanted. I can’t…”

Duncan
felt a strange sense of satisfaction at the admission. “Until I prove you’re
not working against us; your powers are bound.”

“I
will never forgive this.” Gwen’s teeth clenched and rage reflected behind her
eyes. “If my girls are lost forever because of this, you’ll pay, Jasper. I
always knew you were a rotten egg!”

Duncan
was willing to play the odds, take his chances that he was right. Jessica shot
her aunt right before the vortex took her. He was going to find out why, damn
it all to hell, Duncan was going to find out.

And
if Jessica was gone forever, if Duncan couldn’t find a way to get her back, he
would put a bullet right between Gwen’s eyes.

*****

Back
at the bar, the drugs were stored in trucks and the Black Scorpions guarded them
in shifts. With Gwen secure inside, Duncan helped give the area the once over.
He couldn’t ignore the tightening
across
his chest, but he kept busy to keep his mind off Jessica.

Did
his best to forget and just work.

When
Ron exited the bar, he was wiping his hands on a dingy towel, now caked in
Gwen’s blood. His eyes were sunken. “Got that bullet out. It wasn’t much work.”
Ron sighed and gazed around. “Her arm was healing itself like she’s Lucifer
herself.”

His
words caused Duncan paused, but was he surprised? Hard to say anything
surprised him anymore. “Help get these trucks rigged. We have to make sure
they’re ready to blow when the time is right.”

Ronald
nodded and he grabbed Duncan’s arm as Duncan moved past. “About Jessica, I’m
sorry about last night. Real sorry, Duncan. I can be a real ass, but this?” He
shook his head.

Duncan
knew how he felt. “Get the trucks ready. We need to be ready to move when the
call comes and when Mike gets here…”

“I’ll
come get you.” Ronald cleared his throat. “Gwen’s downstairs, secured. Just…be
careful. It took twice as much sedative to knock her out as it should’ve. It’s
like she’s a horse or something.”

Duncan
was going to bet on the “or something.”

Duncan’s
best men were on point, told to keep an eye out for any trouble. No one was
resting; no one was going to take a break to pee until this thing with Vaughn
was over. By all accounts, it hadn’t even started yet.

But
Duncan needed to know where he stood with Gwen. If there was a line in the
sand, where did she stand? They took her to the basement, sat her up in a
chair, and there Duncan watched and waited. For anything, a facial tic that
wasn’t supposed to be there, a grimace, a laugh.

Something
that told him that who he was dealing with wasn’t the real Aunt Gwen because
the Gwen he knew would die before betraying Jessica. Sure, she wasn’t that
cuddly person you baked cookies
with,
or
someone who wiped your tears, but she loved the Blood girls something fierce.

Waiting
never came easy to him, so he paced. He crossed his arms; he glanced up at the
windows to see the sun was shifting. Moving. Time was passing and that didn’t
set right with Duncan. He needed Gwen to wake up, answer some questions.

Time
to face the truth.

Gwen’s
head
slumped forward so her chin touched her chest
but in all honesty, Duncan didn’t trust she was asleep. When he walked, her
eyelids twitched. And when he coughed, there was a sudden rise and fall
of
her shoulder. No, she was awake, biding her
time. Trying to get rid of
ol
’ Jasper.

Couldn’t
fool a kidder, isn’t that what they said?

“Wake
up.” Duncan rattled her chair with his foot, but even that didn’t make her give
up her little sleeping act.

Pulling
his
switchblade
from his pocket, Duncan
spun it in his hand and snapped the blade up. With his free
hand,
he gripped her face, squeezing her cheeks
together. “I said wake up, princess. Do I need to push this against your flesh
to make that happen?”

Gwen’s
eyes flashed open and met his. There was a strange darkness, a calm before the
storm sort of glint in her eye.

Duncan
let
her face go and stepped away from
her. “Finally, sleeping beauty, you’re awake.” He placed his knife on a wooden
table along the wall and spun it, idly watching the dying light play along the
blade. He picked up a glass vial that was beside it, tossing it from hand to
hand. “You like to keep the men waiting, is that it?”

Gwen
glanced at her bandaged shoulder. “I don’t see any men. Just boys playing with
toys they don’t understand.”

She
was trying to get a rise out of him, but it just strengthened his resolve. He’d
break the bitch. Duncan took a breath and flashed a winning smile. “We patched
you up. Thanks aren’t necessary, really.”

Her
eyes flashed open wider. “You really expect me to thank you? After this?” She
lifted her hands, cuffed together in front of her.