Storm Season (29 page)

The moment the door shut behind them, Jasper looked Darius straight in the eyes. “Explain. Now.”

“Patience.” Carla patted Jasper’s arm before going over and pulling drinks out of the small refrigerator in the corner of the room. “Sit, both of you,” she instructed as she set the beverages on the low table in front of the couch. “There’s no need to be uncomfortable while we talk.”

The room Darius and Carla were sharing was bigger than the one Jasper was using, though it wasn’t as if he had needed much space. A bed and protection from the storms were all he’d required, and he’d gotten that, though little else. This room, he noticed as he followed Carla’s instruction and sat on the couch, not only had the tiny kitchen and seating area, but also had a tiny window above the bed. It was secured now, of course, covered with heavy shutters, but in the dry season, it would be a premium feature. “Nice room.”

“Convenient, too,” Carla added with a soft smile as she sat next to Jasper on the couch.

“And expensive.” Darius took his drink and sat on Carla’s other side. “But it was the closest inn to that damn temple, so we took it anyway.”

“But why?” Jasper took a sip of his drink and wished that it were something stronger than just juice. “All you knew was that we were coming to Shaleton, not what we’d find here. You thought it was a stupid idea to come.”

“We got your message. The one you sent from Durrysville,” Darius said, putting his arm around Carla’s shoulders.

“Durrysville?” Jasper blinked. “But you were in Brightam’s Ford. How did you get here? And when?”

“I told you, train.” Darius grinned. “We bought the one that Carla was looking at the day I delivered your supplies and drove it out here ourselves.”

“We got here four days ago,” Carla added in response to Jasper’s other question. “We’ve been looking for you ever since.”

“But why?” Jasper tried to remember what he’d sent, but the past weeks had been so busy with running from The Order, figuring out his relationship with Tobias, and then just trying to get to Shaleton alive that he couldn’t remember sending a message, much less what he’d said in it. “What did I say?”

“You said that the van following you was from ClearSky Industries.” Carla put her drink down on the coffee table and twisted so she was leaning against Darius and looking at Jasper. “I remembered reading a news story about them right before I left Crittenden. They were trying to establish locations on the west coast, but people were pushing back because they were associated with The Order of the Storm Quellers.”

A knot formed in Jasper’s stomach as the pieces started to fall into place. “Is that…?”

“The Order that’s in that monstrous temple there?” Darius snorted. “Yeah. Took us a day to figure it out, ’cause no one here seems to know about the Storm Quellers part, but that’s their official name. They’re a fringe religious group that believes the correct sacrifice to the nature spirits will stop the wet season for good.”

Fear coiled in Jasper’s gut. It wasn’t hard to figure out what they thought the correct sacrifice was, and they’d had Tobias for five days now. There was a possibility that he was too late, that he’d been too late since waking up on the forest floor and—

“Breathe.” Carla’s hand on his arm jerked Jasper out of his terrifying thoughts and he sucked in a deep breath as he tried to focus.

“They’ve had Tobias for five days,” he said softly, somehow managing to keep his voice steady. “Did they—do they have a special time they believe they have to make this special sacrifice?”

“The first full moon of the wet season,” Carla said, squeezing Jasper’s arm lightly before letting go. “Tomorrow.”

Relief flooded through Jasper and he slumped back against the couch with a sigh. “So we still have time, then.”

“Not much, but yeah,” Darius said. “It’s good we found you when we did, though. We need you with us tomorrow.”

“We can’t just walk in the temple,” Jasper protested. “I tried that already. All you can do is offer yourself up as a sacrifice.” That ritual made more sense now too, though Jasper wondered if the benches were ever used to host any sort of worship service. “There are guards to keep people from getting curious and wandering off.”

“True, but we’re not going to the temple.”

Jasper narrowed his gaze and glared at Darius. “I’m not leaving Tobias there. If you’re not going to help—”

“We are.” Carla said, meeting his glare with an even gaze. “But we can’t just walk in there and get Tobias out. There’s no way. We have to wait.”

“Until when?”

“Sundown.” Darius’s look dared Jasper to object. “They have a clearing out in the woods that they use for their rituals. It’s one of the reasons the people here don’t go out there.”

“So, what? We’re just going to wander out to the woods? Won’t that look suspicious?” Jasper rubbed his hand over his face as he tried to gather his thoughts. “We can’t exactly pretend to be out for a stroll if no one but that Order goes out to the woods, especially not if it’s storming.”

“We’re not going to pretend to be out for a stroll,” Carla said, looking smugly at Jasper. “We’re going to pretend to be initiates. They’ll think we’re supposed to be there.”

“People just walk out to the forest and want to join?” It sounded too easy.

“No.” Carla shook her head. “People sign up beforehand and join the morning of the full moon every month. We picked up robes yesterday and today, so when they go out to the forest, we’ll join them and blend in.”

“Why don’t we join them in the morning?”

“You want to spend the entire day inside that temple, listening to their babble?” Darius raised one eyebrow and cast a doubtful look at Jasper. “Really?”

“No.” Jasper glared at Darius. “I want to rescue Tobias and his sister, if she’s still alive. If we can get to them sooner, why are we waiting?”

“Because we need to be able to get out, Jasper!” Carla sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, visibly calming herself. “If we get into the temple, how do we get out? How do we get away from the group? We’d be stuck in a locked-down building that we don’t know. As soon as they figured out what we were trying to do, they’d catch us. At least in the forest, we have a chance.”

Her argument made sense, but it galled at Jasper to have a means to get to Tobias and not use it. “I don’t want him in their hands any longer than he has to be,” he said in a soft tone. “I need to try to get to him.”

“We will get to him, I promise.” Darius reached over Carla to squeeze Jasper’s shoulder. “We’re just going to do it the smart way instead of rushing off.”

Jasper closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay,” he said, trying to ignore the twisting in his gut that was telling him this was a bad idea. There were no good ideas in this situation, and Darius and Carla were right, trying to rescue Tobias in the woods was a much better one than barging into the temple and getting trapped themselves. “We’ll wait.”

“It’ll be okay,” Carla said, patting Jasper’s knee. “We’ll get him back.”

“Okay.” Jasper just wished he could believe it.

H
E
STILL
didn’t believe it the next night when he found himself standing in a forest clearing with a line of initiates. He swayed back and forth, doing his best to stomp his feet and make it seem like he was singing along with the song he couldn’t quite make out. In front of them, emerald-clad members of The Order of the Storm Quellers led the chant, their tattoos glistening in the rain and the amethysts on the backs of their hands shining in the torchlight.

Above, the clouds shifted, allowing the moon to shine through and illuminate the heavily tattooed man standing in front of the whole group. He raised his hands, revealing three amethysts embedded in the back of each, and silence fell over the group. “Bring forth the sacrifices.”

Two emerald-clad men stepped into the clearing, lugging a third man between them. For a moment, Jasper thought he’d found Tobias, but then he realized the man was too short. He was dressed in a purple robe with sleeves that fell past his fingertips. His head hung forward, his dark curls hanging over his blindfold, and he struggled weakly against his captors. From the fight he put up, it was obvious he had little strength left, and as he stumbled along, his bare feet occasionally peeking out from the bottom of his robe, he never once lifted his head.

As they secured him to a tree behind the leader, the next group came forward, carrying a woman with dark hair that fell halfway down the back of her purple robe. She too was blindfolded, but unlike the man, she didn’t struggle. Instead, she hung limply in her captor’s grasp, her head hanging forward like the man’s and her bare feet dragging through the mud. They secured her to another tree behind the leader, leaving one in between her and the man, and let her sag limply in her bonds.

The moment she was tied up, the men stepped away and something dark stepped out of the forest. It was humanoid, walking upright with two arms and two legs, but there was no way anyone who saw it would mistake it for a human. It was small and lithe, its head barely reaching the shoulder of the tattooed man standing in front of it. Its slender legs bent oddly as it walked, and even with the distance and the rain obscuring his view, Jasper could see that its body was covered with short fur.

“The forest spirit!” Carla whispered, the words almost lost in the pounding rain. “It’s real!”

It was obvious that the creature was flesh and blood, but Jasper didn’t correct her. The creature was ethereal enough that he could easily see how someone just catching a glimpse of the light fur and skin would think the same way, particularly if they glimpsed its wide blue eyes or the cat-like ears that stuck out from the side of its head. The Order seemed to believe it too, a murmur rippling through the crowd as the creature looked out over them. When its gaze reached Jasper, he had to fight the urge to step back, the second of scrutiny feeling longer and more intense than any he’d ever experienced before.

When it moved on, he breathed a sigh of relief, slumping forward like many of the other initiates and focusing so much on his own relief that he almost missed what happened next. The creature, apparently done surveying the crowd, turned to the man and woman tied to the trees behind it. It walked around them, its movements predatory as it let its piercing gaze roam over their bodies. It sniffed, pressing its nose against their necks, and its tongue darted out to press against the skin of the woman.

Without warning, it whirled, its eyes flashing as it glared at the leader of Storm Quellers and hissed something Jasper couldn’t hear and probably wouldn’t have understood anyway. Jasper did hear the growl that rolled over the clearing like a low rumble of thunder, and he shuddered as the creature stepped forward, squaring off with the man despite its disadvantage in height.

The leader, to his credit, met the creature without flinching, saying something to it that Jasper couldn’t make out before turning to the crowd and exposing his back to the angry being behind him. Again, he raised his hands, and again, the crowd quieted, the murmurs of discomfort and awe that had been reverberating through it ceasing immediately. A rumble of thunder filled the silence, and when it quieted, the leader took a step forward. “Bring him!”

The resulting commotion was loud enough that the entire crowd turned. Again, two men dragged a third into the clearing, but this one was fighting, twisting and writhing in his captors’ grip as his legs kicked out. His bare feet slipped in the mud, which sent him tumbling down until the grips on his arms jerked him up short, but he clambered to his feet again, scrambling to keep up as he tried to twist away.

His face, too, was covered by a blindfold, but, though his face was obscured, Jasper immediately recognized him. He recognized the shape of his body and the healing cut on his right hand from the last morning they packed the truck. It was that cut that erased any doubt from Jasper’s mind, and he moved without thinking, raising his arm to push the initiate next to him out of his way.

“No!” Darius grabbed Jasper, yanking him back just before his hand made contact. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop,” he said, his voice low in Jasper’s ear. The sound was almost lost in the noises of Tobias’s struggle. “It’s not a good idea.”

“It’s better than just standing by and watching!” Jasper hissed as he tried to wrench his arms free of Darius’s grip. “I’m not letting them give him to that thing!”

“We won’t!” Darius held on tight. “But we can’t do it this way!”

“Then how?” They were running out of time. The clearing wasn’t large, and Tobias had already been dragged more than three quarters of the way up the aisle. “We’re not going to save him standing here!”

Darius pushed up onto his toes, looking over the crowd, then tugged Jasper backward. “I know. Just wait a minute. We have to be smart about this.”

“We don’t have time for smart.” Jasper yanked his arm away, freeing it from Darius’s grip. Before he could move, however, the men reached the edge of the clearing, and he was forced to watch as they tied Tobias to the middle tree and stepped back to let the creature sniff at him.

It seemed more eager with Tobias than it had with the other prisoners, its tongue darting out several times to lick at his skin. Tobias flinched each time, but his bonds were too secure for him to do more than jerk his head, and the creature soon stopped that by grabbing Tobias’s chin with its hand.

The mental whimper that echoed in Jasper’s skull was his undoing.

“Get off him!” he shouted, ignoring the pain in his head and pushing forward through the crowd before his friends could stop him. He had no idea what he was going to do next, no plan or course of action in mind except get to Tobias. Nothing else mattered, not Darius and Carla yelling at him to stop, not the initiates staring at him wide-eyed or staggering aside as he shoved past, not the strange creature touching Tobias nor the angry leaders gathering in front of their prisoners. Jasper’s brain registered all of it as he moved, getting through several rows of initiates too stunned to resist, but he ignored it, focused instead on the one thing he’d wanted for the past five days: Tobias.