Greene's Calling: Seventeen Book Three (A Supernatural Action Adventure Thriller Series 3) (2 page)

The woman reached the figures at the edge of the terrace. She stepped in front of the injured young man and swung her thin blade around in a flurry of strikes and blocks at his three attackers. Rage darkened her face and a roar left her lips. The men fell back under her fierce attack.

The wounded man sagged behind her and gripped his bleeding limb. Even from a distance, Conrad read the fear and confusion on his features. The man turned and flinched when he met Conrad’s eyes.

The expression on his face left no doubt in his mind. William Hartwell was the one who had betrayed them. Bile flooded the back of Conrad’s throat. Hartwell looked away. His lips moved, forming words that were lost in the stormy night as he shouted something at the men trying to kill him.

For an infinitesimal moment, the woman faltered, a flicker of incomprehension flashing across her face. She cast a quick look over her shoulder at the one she was trying to protect. Their closest assailant moved and brought down his sword. The blade arced across her left arm, carving a deep cut from her elbow to her wrist.

A cry escaped her lips. She took a step back and warded off another blow inches from her neck. Hartwell moved forward then, anger blazing across his face. He raised his sword and joined in the fray once more.

Conrad got to within twenty feet of them before he crossed paths with the four men he was trying to head off. He raised the double-bladed spear staff and spun it through the air. The gilded wood deflected the silver swirl of swords that danced toward his body while the jagged tips blurred, slicing and stabbing through flesh. One man fell, his fingers rising to the spurting crimson stream pouring from the wound on his neck. Another followed him to the ground seconds later.

A single scream suddenly shattered the night.

The sound was a knife that cut straight through Conrad’s soul. He blocked a blow to his head and looked to his left.

William Hartwell had backed up against the balustrade. Conrad froze and felt time slow down.

The young man tipped over the edge and fell from the terrace, dragging his three attackers with him. The woman leapt forward through the curtain of glittering rain, crystal drops crashing on her skin, her movements heavy and sluggish in that stolen moment of stillness. She leaned over the balcony, fingers clutching desperately at the figures plummeting toward the ground. Her hands closed on empty space.

The bodies struck the street three stories below with a dull thud.

Time unfroze in a cacophony of sounds and sensations. Thunder rumbled across the heavens, underscoring the battle cries around Conrad. Cold wetness drenched his hair and face, bringing the sharp scent of the storm to his nostrils and a tangy taste to his lips. Lightning tore a brilliant, jagged path across his vision and made him blink.

Heat suddenly erupted across his chest when a blade slashed his skin. Blood bloomed on his shirt. Conrad scowled and focused on his two remaining adversaries. By the time he had disposed of them, the woman had disappeared from the rooftop.

He looked at the other fighters around him and felt a rush of relief at the sight that met his eyes; despite the odds, his men were winning.

‘Go!’ yelled someone to his right. The red-haired figure who had spoken danced nimbly out of the way of a blade and stabbed his opponent savagely in the chest. Pale eyes glanced at him for a second. ‘We’ve got this, Greene!’

Conrad bobbed his head jerkily and twisted the ring that retracted the staff’s spear blades. He raced for the door that led inside the building.

By the time he reached the ground floor, the wound on his chest had stopped bleeding. He knew without looking that the skin beneath his torn shirt was once more unblemished.

He found the woman on her knees by the pile of bodies that lay in an awkward tangle of broken limbs at the north base of the Banqueting House. She was leaning over William Hartwell, sobs shuddering through her as she stroked his pale face with shaking fingers; blood from the wound in her arm mingled with his where it seeped from the irregular depression on his temple. Hartwell’s chest rose and fell shallowly with his breaths. He was unconscious.

The woman looked around at Conrad’s footsteps, her hazel eyes wild with anguish.

‘Do something, please!’ she begged.

Conrad sank to the ground next to her, his voice frozen in his throat. He placed his left hand on the young man’s head and closed his eyes.

A burst of energy flared inside his chest and pulsed down toward his elbow. It darted through the birthmark dancing along his forearm and flashed to the ends of his fingers. He inhaled deeply and guided the flow of his power inside the broken body of William Hartwell.

Bone popped beneath his hand. The young man’s flesh slowly began to knit together.

Sweat broke across Conrad’s brow. The battle had drained him of much of his strength; he could feel Hartwell’s torn tissues resisting his ability to heal them. He ground his teeth together and willed his exhausted body to cooperate.

‘What’s happening?’ said the woman. Panic raised the pitch of her voice. She grabbed Conrad’s shoulders and shook him, her fingers biting into his skin. ‘Why isn’t he waking up?’

Conrad sagged as he felt his own life force start to ebb; he was nearing the limits of his ability. He blinked and swayed. Dark blotches clouded his vision. The woman’s frantic words became a roar in his ears.

A moan suddenly broke through the rush of blood inside his head. He looked down and saw Hartwell’s eyes open. Within the dark pupils of the man he had come to know and love as a brother, Conrad Greene read the words he could no longer utter.

William Hartwell wanted to die. He also yearned for something else.

Conrad gasped and slowly pulled his power back inside his own body, his fingers trembling on the cooling skin of the dying man. Hartwell shivered beneath his touch.

‘Why are you stopping?’ yelled the woman. ‘
Save him!
’

Conrad knew there were only seconds left; he could feel Death’s shadow approaching through the thunderstorm raging across the city. He leaned down and brought his lips to Hartwell’s ear.

‘I forgive you,’ he whispered, his vision blurring with tears. He pulled back slightly and saw Hartwell blink once. The young man’s last breath left his mouth and caressed Conrad’s cheek.

William Hartwell stared unseeingly at the rain falling from the night sky, his face serene and his body relaxing in death.

‘No,’ mumbled the woman. ‘No, this isn’t happening!’ Her voice rose to a scream. ‘Why did you let him die? Why? Goddamn you—!’ Grief overwhelmed her and she wept brokenly.

Conrad’s heart shattered inside his chest as he looked at the woman he loved and saw hate dawn in the depths of her hazel eyes.

Chapter Two

October 2011. Amazon Rainforest. Brazil.

M
osquitoes buzzed above the swamp, the noise of their beating wings a dull drone that overlaid the heavy stillness of the sweltering afternoon. Here and there, a bubble of marsh gas broke through to the top of the pond. The sporadic squawks of macaws and toucans sounded from the neighboring trees, the sounds stifled in the sultry air.

A breeze drifted through a narrow inlet from the southeast. It rustled the leaves in the rainforest canopy and danced across the dark waters below. Ripples broke across the glassy surface and rocked the small, wooden raft nestled in the living carpet of giant water lilies that covered the swamp.

Something shifted in the stern of the canoe. It settled down again and panted loudly in the heat. A moment later, it huffed and let out a low whine.

From where he lay in the bow of the raft, Conrad Greene raised his hand and lazily adjusted the faded planter’s hat covering his face. He peeked out from under the chewed, frayed brim at the dog sitting at his feet.

‘What’s up, Rocky?’ he murmured.

The German Shepherd mongrel wrinkled his brow. He looked at Conrad anxiously before turning his head to peer at the trees crowding the north bank of the swamp.

Conrad followed the dog’s gaze to a black shape perched on the low-lying branch of a strangler fig some fifty feet away. The jaguar watched them unblinkingly, its golden irises shining eerily in the gloom under the canopy. The tip of its tail swung lazily from side to side in a hypnotic rhythm that swatted flies away from its lean, sinewy body.

The sudden lack of chatter from the boisterous group of squirrel monkeys who lived in the trees around the marsh should have alerted Conrad to the arrival of the predator. He observed the creature for silent seconds before acknowledging it with a brief nod. The jaguar’s tail froze for a moment before resuming its idle dance.

It was almost nine months to the day since the big cat had started hanging out on his land, deep in the floodplains northwest of the town of Alvarães, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Conrad could recall their first encounter with vivid clarity. It hadn’t gone so well.

During a stormy night in the rainy season, when lightning flashed across the skies and heavy squalls rattled the walls of his home, he had woken to Rocky’s whimpers under his bed and the growls of the jaguar as she prowled the deck of the wood cabin. For the first time in almost seventy years, Conrad had had to draw his staff to defend himself. It was either that or have his throat ripped open by the wounded and desperately hungry predator, who he suspected had been preying on Rocky, still a puppy at the time.

Once he defeated the injured big cat, Conrad had used his unearthly immortal power to restore her to health. His reward had been a hail of angry hisses and a collection of scratches intended to disembowel him. Still, the jaguar seemed to have formed an uneasy connection with the immortal since the incident and kept returning to the swamp.

When he recounted this tale to his closest neighbor during one of their monthly drinking sessions, the old woman concluded the jaguar had a crush on him and burst out laughing until tears streamed down her tanned, leathery face. Conrad had to slap her on the back when her breath left her nicotine-stained lips in protracted wheezes. He decided to name the jaguar after her.

He turned to the dog. ‘It’s only Roxanne.’

Rocky whimpered, lowered his head on his forepaws, and hunched his shoulders. He had never forgotten the night the jaguar had intended to have him for dinner.

Conrad sighed. ‘Seriously, you need to grow some balls, you big wuss. You’re about ten times the size you were when you first met her. Where’s your wolf pride?’

The dog’s brown eyes drilled steadily into his face. The immortal resisted the soulful gaze for all of five seconds; he suspected a sheep lay somewhere in the dog’s distant ancestry.

‘All right. Let’s give it another half hour and see if anything bites,’ he muttered.

The dog lifted his head, bushy tail thumping the bottom of the canoe. Conrad adjusted the fishing rod on his lap, lay back down, and moved the hat over his face. Silence descended on the swamp once more.

Five minutes later, the raft rocked violently in the water.

‘What the—?’ started Conrad, jerking upright.

Rocky was up on all fours in the stern of the canoe. Head held high and ears pricked forward, he stared intently past Conrad at the sky to the west. A low hiss erupted from the branch of the strangler fig. The jaguar disappeared into the forest in a rustle of leaves.

Conrad inspected the patch of blue rising above the green rim of the canopy. Bar some popcorn-shaped clouds high up in the atmosphere, it was empty.

‘What is it, boy?’ he said, frowning at the dog. A soft growl rose from the throat of the German Shepherd mongrel.

As the agitated squeals and calls of monkeys erupted from the branches of giant mahogany and kapok trees around the swamp, Conrad finally heard the sound that had unnerved the dog and the jaguar. It was the faint buzz of an aircraft.

He put the fishing rod down and rose carefully to his feet. The raft swayed beneath him. He removed his hat and shaded his eyes as he gazed at the heavens.

There was an airport in Tefé, a city on the banks of the Rio Solimoes, just over ten miles south of Alvarães. Although the sight and sound of a plane were not exactly rare in the rainforest, Conrad knew his land did not lie below any direct flight paths. Which meant that the aircraft had to be a private charter.

The noise grew closer, the buzz changing into a stuttering, high-pitched whir. Conrad stiffened. There was something wrong with the plane’s engine.

Rocky’s growl grew louder. The dog let out a bark and jumped on his hind legs. The canoe lurched precariously beneath them. Conrad staggered sideways and almost fell overboard.

‘Goddammit, Rocky, will you cut it—!’ he snapped. It was as far as he got.

A growing shape blotted out the sun and darkened the sky. Trailing smoke and flames from its left wing, a twin-engine Cessna arrowed down toward him in a deafening roar that shook the canopy and eclipsed the dog’s wild barks.

Conrad twisted on his heels, dove for the German Shepherd, and carried him over the gunwale of the canoe. The downdraft from the Cessna washed over them as they plunged beneath the cool surface of the swamp, engulfed in fleeting twilight by the shadow of the plane.

An explosion rocked the air. The pressure waves from the blast shook the floating water lilies and overturned the canoe. Conrad emerged from the water with a gasp. He coughed and wiped wet hair from his eyes while he looked around.

Rocky paddled the surface of the pond several feet away. The dog’s ears flattened against his skull as he gazed despondently at the southeast bank of the swamp. A whimper escaped his jaws.

Conrad followed his line of sight and froze. ‘You have got to be kidding me,’ he muttered dully.

The space where his home had stood for sixty-five years was now occupied by a giant ball of fire. The Cessna had crashed into his cabin.

Conrad swore and started for the shore, his strokes carving the water deftly. Rocky followed, the planter hat clamped firmly in his jaws. The dog’s forepaws scrabbled onto the pitted, scarred surface of the wooden jetty abutting the bank seconds before the immortal pulled himself out of the water.

Rocky climbed onto the rickety pier, dropped the hat, and shook himself energetically. Conrad barely noticed the spray of cool drops that splashed him from head to toe as he watched the conflagration some fifty feet away. Heat from the raging flames washed over him in waves that started to dry the moisture on his skin. The stench of kerosene was overwhelming. He headed toward the fire.

The Cessna’s aft fuselage and tail were the only visible parts of the plane that had remained intact after the crash; rising from the center of the wreckage, they angled awkwardly toward the sky, silent witnesses to the wake of explosive destruction around them.

Conrad stopped and observed the burning debris that dotted the landscape. There were no signs of the flames threatening to spread to the shrubs and trees next to the swamp, a fact that was aided by the heavy humidity and waterlogged land.