Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4)
Read Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) Online
Authors: Kendra C. Highley
MATT ARCHER:
BLOODLINES
By: Kendra C.
Highley
Copyright © 2014 by Kendra C. Highley. All rights reserved.
First Kindle Edition: January 2014
Editor: Cassandra Marshall
Cover Design: Streetlight Graphics,
http://www.streetlightgraphics.com/
LISCENSE NOTES
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DISCLAIMER
The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work
of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or
dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
For my sister,
who proves over and over that shared blood
is a powerful magic
When I was fourteen, I picked up a knife and started a fight
that was named mine long before I was born. When I was fifteen, I was forced
into a war against creatures the rest of humankind should never know about—and
they won’t if I have anything to do about it. When I was sixteen, I became a
slave to my destiny, and the spirits who guided it.
Now I’m seventeen, and the fault, a man once said, is not in
our stars, but in ourselves. Or in my case, my blood. Which is why I was
chosen…and why I have to fight.
My name is Matt Archer. And I am my father’s son.
* * *
Australian Outback—Day Three
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill all of you and drink your blood!”
My best friend was in rare form this evening. Will had been
ranting like that ever since he managed to spit out the bandana we’d gagged him
with. No one felt like dealing with him, though, so we didn’t bother shoving
the gag back in. Three days in on this mission, and tempers were short enough
already without assigning someone to babysit him full time.
Still, I felt responsible for his well-being, even if Will
was possessed by a demon and not his usual happy asshat self. I grabbed an
MRE—a hamburger patty for the entree—and ducked inside the command tent, one of
the few left standing after last night’s monster attack. The interior smelled
like sweat, piss and…burned bacon?
“Gross, dude,” I told not-Will. “You smell like a latrine.”
Not-Will spat at me. His face was pale in the dim light, but
his eyes glowed a brilliant jade green. “You will beg for mercy before the
end.”
“That’s getting really old. Why don’t you give your voice a
rest, okay?” I held up the MRE. “I’m guessing that even demons have to eat. You
hungry?”
Not-Will shut up for a moment, but his muscles still
strained against the towing cable keeping him tied to his cot. At six-four and
two-hundred-forty pounds, he was pretty strong on his own. Add in a little dark
magic, and he was like a tank with legs. It had taken three guys to tie him up,
and the Humvee’s towing cable—with one end still attached to the vehicle—had
been the only thing hefty enough to keep not-Will chained.
“I would appreciate a meal,” he said in a formal, polite
voice.
That wasn’t like the real Will, either.
“Okay. I’ll feed you and bring you some water, if only to
keep your mouth full so you can’t scream at us for a while.”
I opened the MRE, discarding anything not-Will could use as
a weapon if he got loose. Because his hands were tied behind his back, I had to
feed him.
“Seriously, man, if you remember any of this after we
exorcise you, you’ll never live it down,” I muttered as not-Will chomped up his
food like a rabid dog.
“I shall kill you soon, so none of that matters,” not-Will
said, smiling and showing me bits of carrot in his teeth.
In any other situation, I would’ve have laughed. This
evening, I had too much on my mind to find any of this funny.
Badass Aunt Julie poked her head in the tent while I
attempted to shovel applesauce into not-Will’s mouth. She wrinkled her nose at
the stench. “Poor Will.”
“Hello, gorgeous.” Not-Will leered at my aunt, and his eyes
roamed every part of her body. Even wearing desert print battle-dress uniform,
Aunt Julie was gorgeous…and no one but my Uncle Mike had license to look at her
that way. My fists clenched as he said, “Once I have killed all the men,
perhaps I will keep you around. We could have a little fun.”
Aunt Julie gave not-Will a dangerous smile. The demon must
not know who he was dealing with. “I’d like to see you try. I could kill you
with a nail. Or a spoon.” Her smile faded into a scowl. “Or a tire-iron. I’m
not picky.”
“Captain, did you need something?” I asked, not in the mood
to break up a tent brawl. When in doubt, interrupt.
“Sorry,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “The major got worried
so I came to check on you.”
I shrugged; Major Tannen—also known as my Uncle Mike and
Aunt Julie’s husband—had reason to worry. Right now, it seemed like this day
would never, ever end.
I’d gotten most of the food into not-Will’s mouth and I was
ready to escape. “Will, if you’re in there, kick that demon’s ass, okay? See
you later.”
We’d barely cleared the tent before he started screaming threats
again. Every muscle in my back tensed up. “Tell the major I’ll be at the other
end of camp.” I jabbed a thumb at the command tent. “I don’t think I can handle
listening to that anymore.”
Aunt Julie patted my shoulder. “We’ll fix it. If nothing
else, we’re on the trail of the witches who made all this happen, and Officer
Archer thinks his contact within the local Nocturna Maura coven can help
displace Will’s demon.”
Officer Archer…maybe if I called him by his CIA
title—instead of Dad—this whole situation would be a little less weird.
I doubted it, though. “I need some air.”
I stalked to the far end of camp and settled down facing
west. The sun was beginning to set, and I needed its warmth and protection for
as long as it lasted. Night would bring horrors, and I had to be prepared to
fight them.
I reached into my left jacket pocket and pulled out the St.
Christopher medal my girlfriend had given me more than a year ago. I turned it
over and over in my hand. I missed Ella like crazy, and the medal gave me hope
that I’d live to see another dawn.
My father came striding out of the HQ tent and headed my
direction. He didn’t see Uncle Mike step out behind him, his right arm bound up
in a sling. Not-Will had dislocated Uncle Mike’s shoulder in addition to
breaking my nose last night. Mike watched Dad’s progress with narrowed eyes. I
let out a long breath. As if I didn’t have enough to deal with; now I was
caught in a tug of war between the guy who fathered me and the man who raised
me. My life could easily be a three-ring circus for all the chaos and drama
going on around me.
“Tink, think you could, I don’t know, teleport me
somewhere?”
No answer.
“Crap, now I’m missing you
and
Ella. How’s that for
irony?”
Still nothing. Yeah, Tink was well and truly gone. Our
knife-spirits had been banished somehow. It was like our connection had been
severed the moment we landed in Australia. No matter how hard I tried—from the
time we’d been attacked last night, until Will’s possession—I couldn’t hear
Tink. Not-Will had told us his mistress had sent the spirits away. We didn’t
know for sure who he meant when he said “my mistress,” but I guessed it was the
head witch from Nocturna Maura, the organization we were here to investigate.
As angry as I’d been with Tink when we left on this mission,
the absence of her presence in my head left an echoing emptiness. And despair,
too. How could we complete this operation without the spirits’ help? I had to
get her back somehow, if not for me, then for Will. I’d seen Tink save someone
else from a demon possession—maybe she’d be able to help Will, too.
If only I could find her.
Dad settled down next to me, using a flat rock as a seat. I
felt like I was looking at myself in thirty years. Like me, Dad had dark brown
hair—his was longer than my military buzz cut—dark “Archer-blue” eyes and a
lean, muscular frame. We were even nearly the same height; at six-three I had
half an inch on him, but that was it. There were some differences, though. Dad
moved with an athletic grace that I’d seen mirrored in my older brother’s
football plays. The piercing, blue-eyed stare was pure Mamie. Just like my
older sister, Dad seemed to look straight through my skin and bones to see my
heart.
Maybe I resembled my old man physically more than Brent and
Mamie did, but they were in there, too.
“What do you have there?” Dad asked, nodding at the medal.
I held it up, and a pang raked my heart when the dying
sunlight made the dull silver glow auburn—the exact shade of Ella’s hair. “St.
Christopher medal. He’s the patron saint of travelers.”
“And of archers,” Dad said.
“One of them, yeah.”
“Your girl give you that?”
I paused. He was trying, I knew that, but he’d disappeared
from my life when I was two weeks old. He knew
nothing
about me. It
bugged me that he was here, now, asking me about my girlfriend in the middle of
the Australian Outback. Our jobs were the only reason we crashed into one
another. This wasn’t a family reunion, and with my best friend possessed, I
didn’t have much patience for the attempt.
“Yes.” I stood. “When can you take us to meet your contact
with the coven?”
“Tomorrow,” Dad said. “Your uncle and I agree it’s not safe
to go at night.”
“If we survive the night!” I paced back and forth. With Will
out of commission, I was the only wielder on duty. We were weak, vulnerable,
and I hated it. “If we don’t find someone out there to help, we might as well
go back to Perth, lock Will up in a padded room and call this whole mission a
failure.”
To my surprise, Dad smiled. “Damn, you’ve grown up well.”
“What?” I stopped in my tracks and stared at him, wondering
if he’d gone nuts since the last time we heard from him. “I’m giving you this
sob story and you compliment me?”
“Come sit,” he said. When I didn’t move, he added, “Please.”
I plopped back down on the ground, trying to keep the
red-flag rage building in my chest from going nuclear. I’d gotten about three
hours of sleep in the last thirty-six and I’d need to stay up all night
tonight, too. My edges were about as frayed as they could get without ripping
through.
“Matt, I just meant that you’ve been saddled with more than
most men twice your age could handle and, according to Mike, you never shirked
a bit of that responsibility.” Dad stared at the sun sinking into the horizon.
“I end up in hopeless situations on a pretty frequent basis. Keep heart and
remember what’s important; that’s all you can do.”
I wrapped my fist tight around the medal, remembering the
ghost of a kiss, the last one Ella had given me before I left on this
God-forsaken mission. I thought about Mom, in her mess of an office, trying to
prepare a case for trial. Then Mamie, her glasses slightly crooked, even with
her pigtails perfectly braided. Hulking, jackass Brent…who gave me condoms for
Christmas.
And Baby Kate, living with her grandparents because her mom
and dad had to come here with me. If I screwed up and left my cousin an orphan,
I’d never be able to live with myself.
The rage flared again. “I don’t have time for platitudes. I
know what’s important to me.” I turned to face him. “So, tell me,
Dad
,
what’s important to you? After you left us, what did you hang on to?”
Dad’s face went stone-cold. In that moment, I saw the covert
operative, the CIA spook who intimidated even Uncle Mike. This person, whoever
he was, scared me.
The expression faded quickly, though. Dad reached into his
pocket and pulled out an antique compass with a brass casing. “True north.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, unable to keep my
anger bottled up any longer.
His clutched the compass tight in his hand. “Just that--”
A howl, echoed by two more, sounded in the dusk outside
camp.
“They’re here!” not-Will yelled gleefully. “Soon I’ll be free,
wielder! And then I’ll be coming for you!”
Dad and I were already on our feet. His face had gone cold
again, and this time I was glad. He looked like a man who could smash a highway
divider with his bare hands. We needed that kind of balls-to-the-wall crazy
right now.
“Hold that thought.” I reached for my knife, comforted by
the weight of its white bone handle. “Time to earn my paycheck.”