Chapter Fifteen – Evaine

Leaving Jack and the rest of the squad was hard. Harder than it should have been, as these were people Eva had only just met. However, they already felt like part of her, or at least part of her life. They were the closest to family she had ever had.

“What a loser,” she told herself. That didn’t change the way she felt about them. Especially Jack.

He’s the enemy, her sixth sense said.

So, you’re back, Eva said.

I was never gone, it replied.

Does this mean you want to share something with me? Like what I’m supposed to do if they don’t hand over my mom?

We fight. What did you expect? the voice asked.

Oh, I don’t know, some sage words of advice, since you are some kind of connection to the Night Hunters, aren’t you?

I am the distilled knowledge of your ancestors, passed from one generation to the next.

And my father?

Your father was a traitor. He did not join with the rest of us.

Eva felt a jab of anger, but swallowed it down. She wanted information from this sixth sense. She wanted answers, before she went to her possible doom. Is he there? Can I talk to him?

What, do expect me to pass him the phone? I control what knowledge you need.

And if I decide I don’t need your knowledge?

Then you are as foolish as your father.

That’s fine with me, Eva said.

The voice fell silent, a rage emanating from it, which she chose to ignore. This voice would not control her. Neither her thoughts, nor her actions. A wave of panic flowed over her. Could the voice control her actions? If so, what if she ended up murdering Jack while he slept, or their children?

Abominations, the voice yelled.

This would end. She would find a way to get rid of the voice. Helena would have some ideas. All Eva had to do was get through the next couple of hours, and end this nightmare she had been plunged into. All she held on to, was that her one wish had come true. Her life had changed; she was no longer alone.

All she had to do was survive this…

Her pocket vibrated, the cell phone she had been given was ringing. Eva wanted to ignore it, pretend it wasn’t Crosshead calling, because there was only one reason he would call.

“A change in rendezvous location,” she said quietly as she pulled over to the side of the road.

“I thought you were going to disappoint me for a minute, Evaine,” Crosshead said silkily. “Then I remembered how much you want to meet your dear old mom. All those questions you must have for her.”

“What do you want?” Eva asked.

“I would say world peace, but I would be lying,” he chuckled to himself. “Your cooperation is what I want.

“I am cooperating. I have the Dragon’s Tear. I’m bringing it to you.”

“And who is coming with you?” Crosshead asked.

“I’m alone,” she replied, keeping her voice even.

“But you weren’t, were you?” He let the silence stretch out between them. She couldn’t deny it, because he must already know the truth. He must have been spying on her. “I’ve heard you have been playing happy family with those shifters.”

“I needed their help to get the real Dragon’s Tear. The druid who stole it from me had a degetty. I am no match for it.”

“So you used them?” Crosshead asked.

“Yes.”

“And you want me to believe that?” he asked smoothly.

“Believe it or not, it doesn’t change the truth.” She closed her eyes and the next words to come out of her mouth were a lie, but she had to make them sound like the truth. “Do you think I liked it?”

“You were seen kissing one of them,” Crosshead said conversationally.

“So?”

Keep it simple. If you deny it too much he will know you are guilty. Her sixth sense kicked in like a coach instructing his protégée.

“So I am informed you stayed the night in the bear shifter’s house,” Crosshead said the word with such distaste, it turned her stomach. This man would think nothing of killing Jack and the others when they arrived. Eva wanted to turn the car around and run the other way. But she couldn’t, not without handing her mom a death sentence.

She pressed her fingers to her temple. This had to be convincing. In her mind she heard her sixth sense, and the way it spoke about shifters. She had to mimic that voice. “Do you think I liked it?” she accused. “You want the Dragon’s Tear. I want my mother. And I will do anything to get her. Like you said, I want answers from her.”

“Good. Then take a detour, and someone will meet you at the White Hart Pub. It’s on the outskirts of Nomansland; you can’t miss it. Leave your car and wait by the roadside. A car will stop and ask you for directions. You will get in.”

“OK…” The call ended, and she put the phone back in her pocket. She should have taken Jack’s cell phone number, they had discussed it, but if Crosshead found out she had been making calls, and tipped off a rescue party, things would end badly. Now the squad would be going to the wrong place.

“It’s OK, Helena doesn’t need a phone, she can track me.” Eva tried to reassure herself.

Pulling back out onto the road, she turned the car around, and headed back along the road for half a mile before entering the forest and heading for Nomansland. Fifteen minutes later she parked her car behind the pub, got out, and locked it, before walking out to stand by the side of the road like a hitchhiker. Only this was one car she did not want to get into, and one journey she would prefer not to make.

Eva waited, her neck prickling as she sent her senses out to their farthest reaches. Nothing. Except a sense of being watched, but she couldn’t see anyone, and no car approached her. Five minutes passed. Damn, if Helena saw she had made a detour, they would come here and see her standing on the side of the road. Would they stop? If someone was watching, would they recognize the Land Rover and tip off Crosshead?

Eva kept both feet planted firmly on the ground, trying to hide her nervousness. Finally, a car approached, a red Ford Focus. Her heart rate increased and she inched forward. But the car kept going; it was a family, probably on a day trip to the New Forest. It pulled off a hundred feet up the road, but no one got out.

She looked at her watch. How long was she supposed to stand here for? An hour, a day? Her frustration grew. Maybe this was a ploy, and Crosshead would ring again, and tell her to go somewhere else.

Behind her, a car engine started. Eva didn’t look around. This was the reason she had felt a prickle along her spine, the sense that she was being watched. A shiver coursed through her. He had been sitting there all this time, watching and waiting. The car began to move, coming up alongside her and then stopping, its window rolled down.

“Can you give me some directions?” the voice, all too familiar, asked. This was the same man who had driven her to meet Crosshead before.

“Where did you want to go?” she asked.

“Get in,” he snapped.

Eva opened the door and slid in. As they drove away she took one last look at her car and hoped she would see it again.

“No hood?” she asked. They were driving through the forest, taking the scenic route, maybe. Or was the route being watched? If the Land Rover came this way, Crosshead would know she had lied. The words kept drumming in her head, over and over. Liar. Liar. He will know.

“You like being in the dark?” he asked. “I can put it on if you want me to.” He thumbed toward the backseat, where the hood lay.

“Aren’t you supposed to put it on so I can’t see where we are going?” Eva asked.

“No point,” he said, and smirked.

She wanted to scream at him and tear at his face until he told her what he meant by no point, but she wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of seeing how much his words unnerved her. No hood. No future. Was that what he meant?

“Fair enough. I always did like looking at the trees. And the ponies.” She slouched down in the seat and looked out of the window. While her body looked relaxed, her brain was working to sift through all the information she had. She had to stay on high alert. Her sixth sense was alert too, and it comforted her that she was not alone. The voice was right, she needed it; they could sort out their differences later.

She huffed at that, drawing a suspicious look from the man next to her. Eva took a proper look at him. When he’d picked her up in the dark, she had not been able to make out his features, but his voice made him sound in his twenties. This man looked middle aged, his black hair graying around the temples, but that was not what aged him. The wrinkles across his face did that well enough alone. Deep lines across his forehead and around his eyes put years on him. Perhaps he was a heavy smoker. Eva inhaled. No smell of stale tobacco. He might have kicked the habit.

“Stop staring at me,” he ordered.

“Why? If you aren’t going to let me go, what does it matter?”

He looked at her sharply. “We’re not going to keep you prisoner,” he said, his face cracking into a grin as her face gave way to hope. “But where you are going, you won’t be talking to the police.”

“What do you mean?” She had to ask, she had to have some clue as to what they had planned for her.

“Once you hand over that Dragon’s Tear, you and your mom stay a while. We want what’s in your head. All that knowledge.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” she said firmly.

“You will. We have your mom. How long do you think it will take you to spill out all that information when we start cutting her up?”

“You promised to let her go when I brought you the Dragon’s Tear,” Eva said.

“That was a test. We need to know the knowledge really had passed to you from your father. It was why we killed him. He just would not talk. He’d hidden your mom away, with you in her belly. And no matter what we did, he would not give up the location. So we had to get creative. We found someone who knew where it was hidden. All it takes is the right persuasion.”

“You tortured someone else?”

“No, we converted him. We told him the true power of the Dragon’s Tear, and he was sold!”

“A druid?” Eva asked.

“Not telling,” he said with a smirk.

“You knew about me all my life?” she asked, changing the subject.

“We knew about you, but we didn’t know where you were. You see, your stupid traitorous bitch of a mother hid you. It took some time to track you both down. Time and money. But the payoff will be worth it.”

“The Dragon’s Tear.” She put her hand over the stone in her pocket, waiting for the voice in her head to whisper words about protecting it and doing harm to the people who had taken her mom. It didn’t.

“What’s it for?” Eva asked. “You’ve gone to such a lot of trouble to get it.”

“You really don’t know?” he asked. “Those voices in your head haven’t shared its purpose with you?”

“They don’t exactly talk a lot,” she lied. “I don’t know anything.”

“We are going to use it to resurrect the dead. It’s what it was meant for, only we have tweaked the process. Your father wanted to stop us. That was why he hid it. And now, it’s ours.” He was jubilant, to the point of ecstasy.

“Who are you going to bring back?” she asked.

“No, no, no.” He tutted. “That is classified.”

They were pulling off the main road. Eva looked out of the window and then closed her eyes, recalling her memories of the last time she was driven here with the hood covering her head. She slotted the memories together. They were going back to the same place. Her mother would be there.

This douchebag and Crosshead were planning something big. His excitement was too exuberant for them to be attempting to bring back someone close to them, like a child. They had waited years. Twenty-five years or more.

Her father had been killed for his knowledge. She processed what she had learned and let her anger surface. If she wanted to be free of these foul men, she had to make sure none of them left the warehouse alive.

A surge of power coursed through her. She was a Night Hunter, and she was going to hunt these men down, whatever it took.