Authors: Rain Oxford
Insidious Winds (14 page)
Luana smugness fell. I wouldn’t hurt her baby even
though I wanted her to suffer.
“You will never do or say anything that might hurt or
upset Henry or his son ever again.” I was speaking to them both. “You will not
sell that baby. You will find a loving family who knows about paranormals to
adopt him or her before the baby is born and you will not benefit in any way.
It will be a closed adoption. Once you know the baby is going to be happy in
his or her life, forget you ever had a child.”
I didn’t know if what I was doing was right. I didn’t
know if I was strong enough to pull it off. I did, however, know that this
power was dangerous. With a simple thought, a single sentence, I could make
them kill themselves. I could avenge every person they ever hurt.
With two words.
I could also make the wizard council do what was
right for all paranormals. I could bring the leaders of the paranormal world
together and end the fighting. I could possibly even make Langril bring Astrid
back to me.
“Devon?” Henry asked, having returned to the doorway.
There was only concern on his face, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
But I wasn’t John Cross. I let the jaguar shifters go
and left. When Henry and I were both in the truck, we sat in silence for a
moment before he started the engine and I opened a link between Darwin and me.
“
We have a name
.”
“
Good. I’m ready
.”
“
Bryson Stewart. He was adopted two months ago.
I’m expecting the family to be a couple with a young daughter. There might be a
news report about him missing
.”
“
Come pick us up and I’ll have an address by then.
Over and out
.”
We picked up a couple of phones at the dollar store,
dropped Marcus off at Henry’s house, and drove to the next town. Henry was very
quiet and the tension was palpable. He had been in that town dozens of times.
The town had basically two shopping streets
surrounded by blocks of residential neighborhoods. It didn’t take long to find
the right house, but when Henry pulled into the driveway, he just stared at the
basketball hoop over the garage. After a moment, I took off my seat belt and
opened the door.
“I don’t know how to give him what he needs,” Henry
said finally.
“No one does at first. You love, listen, and learn.”
I got out and was followed quickly by Darwin. I reached the door and knocked
before Henry caught up with me. I was about to knock again when the door opened
to a middle aged woman with dirty blond hair and tear stains on her cheeks.
“Are you Samantha Stewart?”
She shook her head. “She and her husband were killed
three days ago. It was a robbery gone wrong.”
It wasn’t a robbery; my vision had been too late.
Whoever Henry pissed off was going after Scott and could have already had him.
“What about the kids? Are they okay?” I asked, although I already knew the
answer. I had seen it for myself. How long could a five-year-old outrun someone
who was able to track down a thief as skilled as Henry?
“CC is fine. Bryson…” She spotted Henry then and her
eyes widened with shock. “You’re his…”
“Yes,” Henry answered. “What happened to him?”
“He was kidnapped. The police are trying to find him.
There haven’t been any ransom demands or anything.”
“Do you have anything of his?” I asked.
She frowned. “Like what?”
“A favorite toy, a security blanket, anything. I’m a
P.I.” Most people either thought we were wannabe cops or rebel cops.
Fortunately, she moved aside, even though I had no legal right to enter. Of
course, Henry wouldn’t have cared.
The living room was just like it had been in my
vision, except the glass was cleared away. The woman led us down a short
hallway to the farthest door on the right. Inside was a dream bedroom for any
boy. The bed was designed to look like a red race-car, the light blue walls
were covered in posters, and clothes were strewn about. Beside the bed was a
small writing desk with the newest PlayStation hooked up to a television.
“I told them they went overboard on the boy stuff,”
the woman said. “They were just really excited about being a complete family.
They had this dream about a boy and girl, a dog, and a white picket fence in a
quiet town. Who would have thought…?” She sighed. “They were going to get the
kids a puppy yesterday.”
I walked around, trying to find anything the
five-year-old would have actually picked out or treasured. “Did he ever act
afraid? Did he ever think someone was following him?”
“Not any more than could be expected. He never relaxed
completely; he had been in and out of too many homes. He was constantly waiting
for Samantha and Will to kick him out. I guess that’s why he was so damn
respectful and selfless.”
“Did you notice anything unusual about his behavior?
Anything that would explain why a family would give him up?” She shot a nervous
glance at Henry. “It’s okay. Henry’s not going to get mad unless you give him a
very good reason to be.”
“He…” She hesitated. “He was just a little odd.
Sometimes he would move in an odd way or make an odd sound, sort of like a
growling sound. He sniffed everything. And Samantha could never get him to go
to bed or wake up. He wouldn’t backtalk her or anything, he would just lie in
bed for most of the night before falling asleep. Samantha said he was just a
night owl. I’ve checked on him before when I babysat. He would just stare up at
the ceiling, not making a sound, for hours. He could be extremely calm and
quiet one minute, and playful the next. He played too rough with CC. He was too
fast.”
“Did CC say she saw anything during the robbery?”
“She said she saw a big cat, but it was obviously
some kind of nightmare.”
In Scott’s bed was a two-foot-tall, gray teddy bear.
I picked it up and immediately sensed that this was what we needed.
“Do you think a hound can track a scent off of that?”
Darwin asked innocently.
I nodded. I could use this to have a vision;
hopefully one that would help us find him. “Let’s see how far we can get with
this.”
Right before we left, Henry turned back to face the
woman. “Was he happy here?”
She frowned. “He had everything he could want, but
no, I don’t think he was.”
* * *
We got in the car, drove out of town, and pulled over
to the side of the road. Without wasting any more time, I slipped the ring on
while clutching the teddy bear in my hands. The images and thoughts that
flooded my mind were not structured or in chronological order like my normal
visions. I had to wade through his memories of being in and out of homes.
He once saw a puppy in front of a store building. His
foster brother spotted the puppy too, and immediately kicked it. Scott asked
him why and the older boy said that the dog was street trash. Scott knew even
then that the boy thought he was street trash and that was why he was beaten by
the older boy.
Henry’s loud and furious growled nearly pulled me out
of the vision, but I forced myself to stay focused.
It was very difficult when I had to feel Scott being
struck, burned, cut, and bled in the name of science. He didn’t know what he
was or why, only that he wasn’t like these humans. When the experimentation got
to be too much, he imagined he was a superhero who was stolen from his
superhero parents. He imagined they were desperately looking for him and that
if he just held on a little longer, they would save him and he would finally be
normal. Sometimes, however, anger would boil up inside him and he would imagine
his superhero parents torturing and killing the villain who kidnapped him. He
thought that he kept being moved from home to home so that his real parents
couldn’t find him.
When he was taken in by the Stewarts, he still never
fit in. They didn’t hurt him, but they weren’t his kind. He wanted his real
family.
He wanted to know why they never found him.
When the Stewart’s adopted him, he lost hope of ever
being returned to his real family. I felt the teddy bear fall from my hands,
but my instincts were driving me deeper into the vision. My sight changed and
distorted until I saw him inside a building, climbing a huge, concrete
staircase.
I tried to reach out with my power like I have many
times to find the minds of those around him, but it was like there was a
barrier between me and the vision. It wasn’t my own eyes I was seeing through,
or Scott’s, so I had no idea how I was even seeing this. Then again, I had had
several visions where I wasn’t seeing through a person’s eyes, which I probably
needed to ask Vincent about.
The staircase was distinctive, but not one I
recognized, and I wasn’t able to look around. When he passed the window, I
couldn’t see through the glass, despite it being daylight outside.
Come on.
Give me something
. Then a bell tolled. Scott covered his ears and whimpered
because the ringing was coming from inside. My tunnel of sight rose until I was
looking down on the kid and was able to make out that he was in a tower.
I pulled off my ring and let the sound that was
distracting me pull me from the vision. I heard the exact same bell. “Of
course. He’s looking for you,” I said.
“What?” Henry asked.
“He believes… or hopes… that you’ve been looking for
him his entire life and that you couldn’t find him because he kept being moved.
He’s still here because he wants you to find him.”
“Where is he?”
“Wherever that bell is coming from.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, we were pulling up in front of the
library, which had a clock tower on it. Since it was the only tower in the town
with a bell in it, it wasn’t difficult to find. When Henry parked and we got
out of the truck, my instincts warned me to stop. “Hold up,” I told Henry and
Darwin. They both stopped, but Henry just stared up at the tower.
“Is he not in there?” Darwin asked.
I searched for the minds around me. I sensed Henry
and Darwin first. There were a few people in the shops around us, but only one
person in the library. There wasn’t even an employee. “He’s in there.” His mind
was not an easy one to reach. I could feel his emotions, but his actual
thoughts were hidden deeper inside than for most people. Considering he was a
five-year-old, I found that pretty impressive.
I sensed his jaguar at the same time I heard his
thoughts. He was planning to hide here. Before I realized what I was doing, I
pushed the command to run into his mind. I felt his confusion as he tried to
fight it. “
Get out of there
!” Henry was heading for the door. “Henry,
stop!” He did only because I made him. I hadn’t meant to do it.
“Let me go,” he demanded.
“Something’s wrong.” The danger was growing by the
second.
“I don’t care. Let me go!”
My phone rang, but I ignored it. I let go of my power
over Henry’s mind because I didn’t want to control him. When he reached the
steps of the library, I couldn’t stop myself; I put an energy shield around him
and another over Darwin. This wasn’t something I learned from Vincent or
something that came naturally to me; I seemed to only be able to do it when
someone was in mortal danger.
That was when a bomb exploded inside the library.
Glass and bricks from the first level sprayed the surrounding block a few
seconds before the second floor and the tower collapsed. I felt debris hit my
shields with enough force that I thought that I had been impaled in the
abdomen.
Even though I knew it had to be loud, I heard
nothing, as if I were wearing earmuffs. By the time the deafness gave way to
the sound of car alarms and police cars, I found myself sitting on the ground.
I was covered in dust and blood, but the pain was less than it should have
been. My magic faded over Henry and Darwin. They both looked unharmed. Henry
disappeared into the destruction with Darwin right behind him.
My damned phone was still ringing.
Police had arrived and one approached me to question
me. I tried to stand, not caring that a police officer was trying to prevent me
from doing so. Only then did I see that there was a chuck of glass sticking out
of my calf.
I probably should have tried to protect myself as
well. Unwisely, and as if to prove I wasn’t in my right mind, I reached down to
yank the glass out before the officer could stop me. Still ignoring the man, I
pulled one of my healing potions out and drank it. I had another, but I knew
from experience that two at once would just cause me to vomit them both up.
I couldn’t get to Henry as fast as I needed to, so I
did the next best thing; I sent my magic out again. My thoughts and reactions
were slow, but my magic was not. I found Henry and Darwin easily and nearly
regretted it when their panic tried to overwhelm me. Instead, I found Scott,
who was alive and unharmed.
From the rate at which I felt him coming closer, I
would say he was in his jaguar form and running. When I felt him less than ten
feet away from me, I thought for sure I had a concussion… until he ran past me.
“Are there underground tunnels?” I asked. My voice was horse, but the officer
got the gist.
“There are some small ones.”
I was surprised there were any tunnels in a town this
small. “
Scott made it out through an underground passageway. He’s safe
,”
I told my friends in their minds. I got back a sense of relief from both of
them.
The cop was saying something, which was probably
about an ambulance. My mobile was also still ringing. I flipped open the phone
and put it to my ear without a word.
“Finally,” a harsh voice on the other end said. “If
you had let it ring for ten more seconds, I was going to set off the second
bomb.”
I pulled the phone from my ear and checked the
number.
Private
.
Bastard
. I stood up, propping myself against
Henry’s truck so I wouldn’t put pressure on my calf, and pushed the officer
away.
“Not too fast now, Devon” the voice said warningly.
“You wouldn’t want to spook me and cause me to accidentally push the button.”
“What do you want?”
“Henry, obviously. I could just kill him now, but
that seems like such a waste. Now that his kid is dead, I should have his
attention.”
“Well, not until I tell him who did this. What did
you say your name was again?” I glanced around for a person who was on the
phone. There were several concerned pedestrians who were on their cell phones,
but none of them were looking at me. Most of them were just gawking at the
debris and fire.
“Now, now, Devon. Don’t tell me you forgot about me.”
I didn’t let it bother me that he knew my name. I
never left a case unfinished. There were some I passed to others and there were
plenty of people with a grudge against me, but I didn’t think I was dealing
with a paranormal here; I had never seen someone with magic use a bomb.
Well, there was Bob, who worked for Gale, but he was
eaten by a dragon.
Then again, Felicity was eaten by shadows. “You’re
not part of Gale’s crew, are you? Because I’m getting sick and tired of that
man.” To be honest, I would prefer if he was working for Gale over Krechea. Or
worst of all, working for Gale
and
Krechea.