103
I parked the car at the edge of the scrap yard and relished the quiet of the dark night. I had kissed Megan’s forehead before leaving and she hadn’t even stirred. I could feel the tension flow between all of us as Marlo linked our minds to be able to communicate telepathically with each other.
“Move out,” I said after we had checked our weapons for the final time and started towards the highway.
We moved single file through the fields surrounding the scrap yard and we crouched down next to the highway as a truck passed by us. We crossed the highway quickly and made it into the cover of the trees as a second truck passed by us.
From the edge of the trees there were about four hundred feet of tree foliage that surrounded the building we had marked on the photos. We moved stealthily surrounding the house and moved forward slowly. There were a few lights burning and I had crept up behind a guard that was relieving himself against a tree.
I slit his throat quietly and he sagged to the ground without making a sound. I kept the knife in my hand as Elio confirmed his kill as well. We didn’t encounter anyone else as we surrounded the house and we listened for a while. Out of the four of us Tank’s hearing was the best with his Alpha blood and he confirmed that he heard four voices speaking in the house.
There were too many scents mingling with each other but I could smell children as well. Marlo gave us the go ahead and I walked up to the front door while Tank took the back door. We kicked them in at the same time and I stood aside so that Elio could zip past me and my gun was aimed at the first man I encountered.
“What the…” he asked as he looked into the barrel of my gun.
“Where are the children?” I asked him.
“What children?” he asked and I shot him in the head and turned to the second man that was being held aloft by Marlo.
“I won’t ask twice, where are the children?” I asked him.
“There are five downstairs,” he said with a slight tremble to his voice.
“Keep him alive for now,” I said as Tank killed the third man who had tried going for his gun.
“There’s a guard there with them,” he mumbled and Elio went down the stairs.
I heard the grunts and then it was quiet as Elio quickly took care of the fourth man. I made my way downstairs and I found five children huddled together in a corner, fear was pouring from their pores and the smell was overwhelming.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” I said as I crouched down to their level.
“Promise?” one boy sitting in front of another one asked me.
“I promise little guy, we’re the good guys and we’re going to take you home,” I said to him.
He stood up still looking apprehensively at me and Elio and took one furtive step towards us. I held out my hand for him and after a few seconds he took it. He turned towards the others and then nodded at them. They stood up and took each other’s hands and followed us up the stairs.
“Don’t look,” I said as he stopped in his tracks and looked at the three dead men in the living room area.
“You killed them?” he asked me.
“Yes, because they were bad people,” I said.
“Ryder, we need to take them to the nearest police station and wipe their minds,” Marlo said.
We led the children outside and I was surprised to see that Tank had brought the car and parked it next to the house. We loaded the kids into the back seat of the car and Marlo climbed into the passenger side while I drove. Tank and Elio had orders to clean the house and find whatever information they could find.
We drove to East Fifth Street and parked the car on the corner. Marlo turned towards the children in the back and her eyes glowed a pure white as she recited the words in her ancient tongue to make them forget us. They would remember what happened, where they were and the men that took them. They wouldn’t remember us saving them or how they got to the police station.
We watched them as the little boy who proclaimed himself their leader led them inside and I pulled away from the curb and sped back to the house. As soon as I pulled up Tank, Elio and the captive men walked outside and climbed into the back seat.
“Did you find anything useful?” I asked as we sped onto the highway back to Princeton. It was already five am and we needed to get out of the area.
“I copied everything on the computer and took the laptop and phones, I’ll decode them when we get back to the lair,” Tank said.
“Justin over here has a mouth on him, he just wants to talk and cut a deal, he thinks we’re cops,” Elio said with a slight laugh.
“Of course he does, he’s human and he has no idea what type of people he’s involved with,” I said.
“What do you mean I’m human, aren’t you human?” he asked slightly hysterical.
“I’m dragonkin, the woman is a witch, the pale one’s a vampire and the big guy next to you is a wolf,” I said and watched his eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah right,” he said as he shook his head.
“Do you know what happens to the children once you sell them?” I asked him.
“No,” he said.
“They’re being sold to vampire covens as food bags,” I said and he just stared at me.
“You’re lying,” he said and looked out of the window.
“What did you think were happening to these children?” Elio asked him.
“We weren’t told,” he said and we all remained quiet and I could feel the stares in the car.
We drove in silence for the rest of the way and Tank took the man down to the basement. Megan was already in the dining room eating breakfast and I saw relief in her eyes when she saw me. She was spending the day with her family in Aurora and I’d meet her there later for dinner with her family.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she whispered as we hugged.
“I am, stop worrying about me, I’m tougher than you think,” I said and she laughed softly.
“We’ll see how tough you are when I put on my pajamas tonight,” she whispered again.
“Shit Megan, I’m not unbreakable,” I said and she laughed as she pushed me away slightly and walked out of the dining room
“Have a good day!” I yelled.
“You too!” she yelled back and I heard the front door close.
I made coffee for myself as Elio and Marlo joined me and I caught a look between them. I wasn’t sure yet what it was but there was something brewing between the two of them. Tank walked in ten minutes later wiping his hands on his jeans and he sat down with a heavy sigh.
“What’s wrong Tank?” I asked him.
“I hope those children will be okay, little Ryder,” he said with a sad smile.
“Are you going to feed the lowlife downstairs?” Elio asked me.
“Of course, we want information from him, if he doesn’t want to talk then Marlo can have some fun inside his mind,” I said and Marlo smiled.
“It’s been a while since I’ve done that, I miss it,” she said and we all looked at her oddly. She was an odd one.
“So what’s going on between you two?” I asked as I looked at her and Elio.
“Nothing,” Elio said not looking at her.
“Elio’s still coming to terms with himself,” Marlo said and now I was intrigued.
“Elio, are you in love with a witch?” I asked him and he shook his head.
“Piss off, Ryder,” he said and stood up and left the dining room.
“My little sunshine is all grown up,” Tank mused as we laughed and Elio walked back into the room.
“So what if I am?” he asked and I coughed as the coffee went down the wrong way.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” I said to him.
“Then why are you laughing?” he asked angrily.
“Because you’re the only one that seems to have a problem with it,” Marlo said.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…” Tank began to sing as Elio glared at him and left the dining room again.
“Don’t taunt him, he’s going to bitch slap you,” I said and Tank laughed.
Elio joined us as we made our way downstairs to the basement and I carried a plate of food and a bottle of water for our prisoner. Tank unlocked his cell and brought him out into the interrogation area and he started to eat immediately.
“Is there anything you want to say to me?” I asked him.
“My name’s Justin Chesterman. We weren’t told anything about the children. I needed the job, it paid extremely well. Nobody ever hurt those kids,” he said.
“So you’ve got nothing to tell us?” Elio asked.
“Once a month new children were brought to us and the other ones taken. The man that came for the children drove a light blue van. His name’s Albert, he had a tattoo of a snake encircling his left wrist. He missed the last deadline and we weren’t able to reach him, we had no idea what to do with the kids,” he said.
“What else?” I asked him.
“He mentioned Springfield once, he was usually very reserved and he had men with him that would take the children, I got the feeling that he was in charge, someone powerful,” he said.
“Where are you from Justin?” I asked him.
“Broadview,” he answered.
“You’re involved with very dangerous people,” I said to him as I let my hand morph into Abeloth’s claw.
“What the fuck are you?” he yelled as he looked at me.
“I told you what we are, there are forces in this world that you’ll never be able to comprehend,” I said to him as my claws retracted and changed back to my hand.
“I didn’t know!” he said fear clearly showing on his face.
“Take him back to his cell, we have shit to do,” I said to Tank.
When we were all upstairs again we started making our plans as Tank got us images of where Albert lived, everything he could find out about him and his lair. Time flew by as we worked and gathered information because I wanted to hit Albert before the news broke of what had happened in Fowler.
“Are you going to kill him?” Elio asked me.
“I don’t know Elio, I get the feeling that they really didn’t know what was happening to those kids,” I said to him.
“You can’t exactly let him go either,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
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