Unleashing the Storm (18 page)

The
head-to-toe black leather also added a nice touch.

Creed
ignored everyone to hone in on Dev, just as Dev knew he would. And Dev felt an
instant twang of relief on seeing the younger ghost translator—the first time
anything or anyone had taken the edge off since last night when the spirit made
its appearance.

“You’re
early,” Dev said.

“I
thought we weren’t calling in ghost hunters anymore after that last incident
with the Bell Witch,” one of the older psychics sniffed, referencing the spirit
that Creed supposedly descended from. Dev made a mental note to send one of the
male Seducers, or two, to her house later that night. She needed something to
improve her outlook.

“I
made the appointment with Devlin, not the other way around,” Creed lied, just
the way Dev had asked him to. “A private appointment. And leave the Bell Witch
out of his. That bitch doesn’t need any more press.”

“You’re
always supposed to go through your supervisor before calling a private meeting
with Devlin,” Henry said.

“Bite.
Me.” Creed sent another burst of energy out that Dev felt like a shot in the
chest. The guy didn’t even realize he did that, and none of the ACRO staff had
been able to figure out how to help him control it. Until then, Dev figured it
was a secret best kept from Creed.

“Enough.
Meeting’s over. And I’ll go over protocol with Creed myself.” Dev waited until
the only energy he felt in the room was Creed’s, then motioned to the bigger
man to follow him down the hall and into Dev’s private office.

The
Ghost Hunter department at ACRO had been there almost as long as the
Clairvoyants, but it was a rarely used asset. Most of the operatives assigned
there were kept busy disproving hoaxes, and it was on one of those missions,
twenty-nine years earlier, that married Ghost Hunters Dave and Martha McCabe
had discovered Creed.

At
first, the crying decades earlier coming from inside the Tennessee cave the
famous Bell Witch supposedly haunted had gotten the seasoned, and cynical,
ghost hunters more than a little excited.

They
weren’t sure what to think when they’d come across a squalling baby who’d been
left naked on a scratchy wool blanket in the middle of the cave instead of the
ghost of the Bell Witch. At the time, it had seemed like an amazing gift, since
the McCabes had long since stopped trying for children, having been unable to
conceive after many heartbreaking years. Martha had scooped the baby up and
immediately felt the energy buzz tingle her skin at the same time she noted the
small, swirled tattoo that covered the infant’s entire right side, from head to
toe and a few places in between. But she didn’t care.

Upon
further investigation, the McCabes learned that the baby had lain there for
hours, because no one in the town wanted to enter the supposedly haunted cave.
And rumor had it that the baby was a direct descendent of the Bell family, left
there to appease a ghost that was due to make an appearance within the year to
the family’s surviving members. A human sacrifice.

The
McCabes had taken the baby home, named him Creed and didn’t worry about the
Bell Witch nonsense. Even when they began to experience poltergeist activity
from the minute the baby entered their house, it was all more of a blessing
than a curse.

Creed
told his parents later, when he was old enough to speak, that he wasn’t a
descendant of the Bells, but a descendant of the actual ghost herself. He
wasn’t sure exactly how he knew that. He just did.

Creed
also wasn’t sure it was the Bell Witch who haunted him, but he knew it was the
ghost of a Native American woman named Quaty. He called her Kat just to annoy
her, since the good people of Tennessee always called the Bell Witch Kate.

Creed
had confided to Dev years earlier,
The bitch won’t let me get close to any
woman for longer than it takes to have sex and roll over.

But
Dev had felt Creed’s strange, wonderful energy from the second he’d been in the
same room with the infant. Dev had been seven years old when the McCabes were
visiting his parents, and had encountered the buzz through his brain.

Dev had
asked Martha if he could touch the baby because he’d been fascinated by the
tattoos. And while his fingers traced the contours of Creed’s face, he’d
actually felt someone put his hands onto him, not hard, but with enough
pressure for him to know that if he’d planned on hurting Creed, he was going to
be up against something bigger.

Creed
had remained at ACRO long after Dev left for the Air Force, was still working
there when Dev returned to take over ACRO. He was one of the better-adjusted
operatives despite the drag on his love life, and one of Dev’s most trusted
ones too, next to Annika and Ender.

Couldn’t
ask for more from an operative—any help, be it living or dead, worked in Dev’s
book.

“Close
it down and don’t let anyone in,” Dev told Trance, who was waiting outside his
office, once he ushered Creed inside ahead of him.

“I’m
on it, sir. I just swept your office clean. Nothing found,” Trance said.

“Have
you heard anything from your friend?” Dev asked, even though he already knew
the answer.

“Nothing,
sir. But you know how Ender hates check-ins,” Trance said easily.

Yes,
he knew. Fucker could block his mind better than anyone. “Let me know the
second he deigns to notify us that he’s still alive,” Dev said.

He
walked into his office and let Creed pass him before he shut the heavy door.
And then he turned to Creed, who’d been busy pacing the room because he never
could sit still, even when commanded.

“Does
this have anything to do with what happened at the mansion?” Creed asked as
soon as the door shut.

There
was no use lying. Creed would figure out that the ghost he’d wrestled with was
the same one now haunting Dev, a ghost who had a deep need to share something
with Dev, although that had always come at a price.

And
now he’d begun to pay the price again.

“Yes,”
he finally answered. “It’s here.”

“I
never let that spirit out,” Creed muttered to himself. “I made sure of it. It
was trapped there.”

“I
know you didn’t let it out,” Dev said.

“Then
how…” Creed stopped. “You knew this was going to happen.”

“No,
I didn’t think it was strong enough to leave the house. I never would’ve had
you free it from the portal if I’d thought that.”

“So
now it’s free to fucking roam. Have you involved Ani any more in this?” Creed
demanded, and Dev was taken back for a brief second.

Ani?
“No, I haven’t involved Annika since she returned
from the house. And if I had, that would be my goddamned business. Are you
going to help me or not?”

Creed
didn’t miss a beat. “Of course. But you’ve got to give me more information.”

Dev
hesitated briefly, but his senses told him this room was safe. As had Trance.
Whoever the mole was couldn’t get into his mind unless he allowed it, and right
now he was shut tighter than a steel drum and just as reinforced. If someone
could get into his mind now, he had bigger problems and no way to solve them.

He
turned his back to Creed as he unbuttoned his black BDU shirt, the same one
that all the rest of the ACRO operatives were supposed to wear on base. Dev
wore them in case someone from Itor broke in and tried to kidnap him.
Camouflaging with one’s surroundings was a lesson Dev had learned from the
military and still took very seriously.

He
pulled the shirt off his shoulders and wondered for a brief second if Creed
would be able to see it, if it was still there.

But
he knew it was. And knew that if the dermography scrawled between his shoulder
blades hadn’t faded by now, it wasn’t a good sign.

When
Dev had CRVed it last night, the writing looked the same as it had years
earlier, the same broad script, the same four letters, all of it invoking the
same feelings of helplessness and fear he’d tried to avoid.

Mine.

Creed
sucked in a sharp breath, and Dev waited a beat before pulling up his shirt and
buttoning it. When he turned, he was in charge again. “Can you help me?”

“You’re
going to need someone stronger than I am,” Creed said, and Dev realized he was
chanting,
Don’t say it,
in his head, over and over. But Creed pressed
on. “You need someone who can see the dead. You need to call in Oz for this
one.”

“No!”
Dev hadn’t meant for that word to come out in a shout. When he spoke again, his
voice had a normal timbre. “That’s not an option.”

“I
hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think it might be your
only
option.”

“There’s
got to be something you can do.”

“It doesn’t
want to deal with me. Might be that Kat is pissing it off or something, but it
needs someone stronger to take it in hand. Someone who was born into this
shit.”

“You
were born into this shit.”

“Not
like Oz.”

No,
no one was like Oz. “Do you know where he is?”

“You
mean you don’t?” There was definite surprise in Creed’s voice. He didn’t know
what had happened between Oz and Dev. None of them knew. None of them ever
would either.

“No,”
he said simply, heard the defeat in his own voice. “Will you get him? See if
he’ll come to ACRO?”

“Leave
it to me.”

As
Creed walked out of the office, Dev half collapsed in the leather chair behind
his desk. He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake by bringing in someone from his
agency for help on something that wasn’t strictly an ACRO matter. Then again,
if Dev was destroyed, he could end up taking the entire agency with him, the
one his parents had built from the ground up, starting with some of the
original Stargate members after the military declared the project null and void.

The
old guard at ACRO was never going to be happy about the way he ran things here.
But Dev knew that in order for ACRO to survive, to stay ahead, they needed to
employ more than just psychics. They needed strength and power, and if that
meant a little instability at times, then so be it. A small price to pay to
keep the world at large safe.

THURSDAY
3 P.M. MST

Kira
had spent a lot of her life on the run, but Tom Knight gave new meaning to
Don’t
stop till you drop.

They’d
set a brisk pace for another three hours after the coyote encounter, heading,
as far as she could tell, east into the morning sun. They’d taken breaks for
water and granola bars, but the breaks weren’t long enough. Finally, at around
seven in the morning, Tom pulled a tiny portable tent from his bag. After he’d
seen to her needs and they cleaned up in the stream they’d been following,
they’d slept until she required him again.

Heat
licked over her skin at the memory of how she’d awakened him, her mouth sliding
up and down over his cock until he swelled hot against her teeth. He’d allowed
her to mount him, to seat herself fully on his hard length, but then he’d
pinned her wrists to her belly with one hand and used the other to grasp her
waist and rein in her movements.

A
simple, purely animal form of dominance, his grip had dictated the tempo, the
depth of her thrusts, and just when she didn’t think she could take the
restraint anymore, when she began to whimper and struggle, they’d come together
in a combustive surge of pleasure that left her pleasantly immobile for several
minutes afterward.

Now,
hours later and ready to collapse right there on the side of the mountain, she
felt her blood heat with the need to combust again. Soon.

“Kira?
Do you hear that?”

She
broke out of her sexual haze just as a black bear burst onto the trail ahead of
them. It snarled, its teeth bared and shiny with drool that dripped from the
corner of its mouth. Tom had drawn a gun from God-knew-where, and ice careened
through her veins.

“Don’t
shoot him,” she whispered. “Back away slowly.” She tugged him with her.