CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jace was up and dressed when her cell phone rang. She never used her cell phone, rarely gave her number out, and most of her sisters who would call her for some reason were hanging around the house today. So she stared at it for a really long time before she answered. But by the time she picked up, the call rolled over to voice mail. She had dropped it back on the dresser, when the phone rang again. This time she picked it up more quickly but didn’t say anything.
After several seconds, “Jace?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Ski.”
“Who?”
She heard what sounded like a deep sigh. “Eriksen.”
“Oh. Yeah. Hi.”
“You call me Eriksen in your head, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Anyway, I wanted to point out to you that you don’t have to come in on Saturdays or Sundays. Those are your days off until the job is done.”
“Okay.”
“And today is Saturday.”
“Oh.” She looked around. “Oh! Right. It is.” She rolled her eyes at his laugh. “It’s not that funny.”
“It kind of is.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Yes.”
“You’re coming tonight, right?”
“Definitely.”
“And Bear?”
He sighed again. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. He needs to be more social. It’ll be good for him.”
“I can’t believe you, of all people, is saying that.”
“I’m saying that about Bear, who probably wants to be around people, but he doesn’t know how. I’m not talking about me.”
“All right. We’ll all be there.”
“Great. And thanks for letting me know—”
“What day it is?”
“Again. Not that funny.”
Jace disconnected the call and dropped her backpack at the end of her bed. She motioned to Lev. “Come on, you. Break time.”
He leapt off the bed, crash-landed rather badly, shook it off, and ran . . . into the door.
Jace walked to the door and pulled it open for him. He took off and she followed, mumbling a greeting to her sister-Crows as she passed.
She entered the kitchen, where most of her Strike Team was sitting at the table, strategizing that evening’s party. But still no Kera, which meant she still didn’t know.
“How are you getting her out so that we can set up?” Tessa asked Erin.
“I’ve got it covered. We’ll be out of here in another fifteen. Twenty at the most.”
“Good.”
Jace pulled open the sliding glass doors and let Lev run outside to relieve himself. She then poured herself a cup of coffee and took a long moment to sip it and stare out the window, smiling as she saw Lev play with the crows lurking in the yard.
“Oh,” she said to Erin, before she forgot, “I invited the Protectors.”
“To what?”
She faced her team. “To the party.”
“Why?”
She wasn’t about to tell them she’d invited them so that she and Erik . . . uh . . . Ski, yeah, Ski. So that she and Ski could find out if they should start dating. She loved her fellow Crows, but some reactions she wasn’t ready to deal with. “Just a nice gesture,” she lied. “Get the guys out.”
Erin frowned. “Do they know how to relax? Or are they going to try to organize us into proper rows or something?”
Not in the mood to even attempt to respond to that, she said, “Just let whoever is managing the front door know. Please.”
“Okay.”
Jace spied chocolate glazed doughnuts on the table and was reaching for one when Brodie ran into the room, quickly followed by Kera.
Papers were quickly hidden, laptops quickly closed, phones and tablets quickly flipped over. Jace couldn’t remember her sisters ever moving so fast when food, liquor, or battle wasn’t involved.
Swinging a broom, Kera dived under the table after Brodie.
“What’s happening?” Tessa asked, leaning down so she could see what Kera was doing.
“Vermin!” Kera snarled. “We have vermin! I will not tolerate vermin in this house!”
Maeve ran out of the room. Without a word. Alessandra lifted her feet off the floor and made a disgusted squealing sound . . . that didn’t really stop. Leigh grabbed one of the knives from the table. Tessa and Erin leaned down further to see. Annalisa watched it all and noted each person’s reaction because nothing she loved more than monitoring varied human emotions to outside stimuli.
“What vermin?” Tessa asked. “Rats?”
Alessandra, always kind of a princess, squealed louder.
Something shot out from under the table and Kera and Brodie went after it. The thing went out the open sliding doors and its stalkers didn’t stop.
“Oh,” Erin said, waving her hand. “It’s just a squirrel.”
There was a minute of silence as everyone started to go back to what they were doing . . . then there was that moment. That moment when everyone looked up, mouths open, gawking at each other. The panic beginning to spread. Even Maeve walked back into the room. They stared more. Then everyone dropped everything and ran toward the sliding glass door. But they all tried to go through at the same time. The others got trapped but Jace dropped and wiggled through their legs.
“Kera! No!” Tessa screamed just as Brodie caught hold of the squirrel, shook it, flipped it in the air, caught it, shook it some more.
The rest of the girls made it past the door, but they could do no more than stand beside Jace, staring in horror.
“Kera!” Tessa screamed.
“What?”
“Get Brodie to drop that squirrel!”
Kera lowered the broom. “Oh my God. It’s got plague or something, right?”
“It’s . . . it’s not just a squirrel.”
“What?”
Brodie was now running around the yard, her prize in her mouth. And she was still shaking it.
“What do you mean, it’s not just a squirrel? What is it then?”
Tessa pointed at Brodie and the squirrel. “That’s Ratatosk!”
“It’s what?”
“Ratatosk! Messenger of the gods!”
Kera froze, eyes wide.
Hearing growling, she slowly turned. Brodie was right in front of her now . . . Ratatosk still in her jaws.
Kera lifted her hands, Broom still held, kept her voice firm but controlled. “Brodie. Drop it.”
Brodie took a step back.
“Brodie . . . Drop. It.”
Head down, ass in the air. Play bow.
Fuck.
“Brodie Hawaii, you drop that thing right now! Now!”
At the yell, Brodie took off running—and they all took off after her.
Vig stood at the kitchen table with Stieg and Siggy and ate the plate of chocolate glazed doughnuts while they watched Kera and her friends chase after Brodie.
“What’s going on?” Stieg asked before shoving another doughnut in his mouth.
“No idea.”
“What’s Brodie got in her mouth?” Siggy asked.
“Looks like a rat.”
Rolf, who’d just walked in, shook his head. “That, my friends, is not a rat. That’s Ratatosk.”
Vig briefly closed his eyes. “Uh-oh.”
Siggy shook his head. “This will not end well.”
“Calm down.” Stieg picked up what was left of the chocolate glazed doughnuts, but Vig quickly yanked the plate from him.
“Not the chocolate, idiot.” He replaced that with the plate of jelly doughnuts. “This.”
Stieg walked to the open sliding doors and yelled out, “Brodie! Doughnuts!”
The dog stopped and spun, facing Stieg. She practically spit Ratatosk out of her mouth, then charged poor Stieg.
Jace cringed when Brodie hit Stieg right in the chest with her full weight, knocking the big Viking to the ground.
Annalisa winced and muttered, “Damn.”
Tessa ran over to the Raven. “Stieg? Stieg, can you hear me?”
Jace went to Ratatosk. His home was the World Tree—Yggdrasil—and not only did he transport messages between the gods and the underworld, but he was also a major, grade-A shit starter.
Literally, that was his job. To start shit and keep the rage going. At one time, that was his only job. Then the human Clans came along and Odin gave him something new to do—get messages to each Clan leader as needed.
Of course, Ratatosk didn’t make things easy. He didn’t necessarily deal with each Clan leader. Especially if that particular Clan leader had pissed him off once. And sometimes, he’d only speak to a Clan’s seer. Or sometimes he’d make a leader guess the message by doing pantomime.
In other words, Ratatosk was just a dick. As many squirrels were.
With the LA Crows, Ratatosk currently only dealt with Betty. But, of course, she was still in a deep coma. A coma no one really knew when she’d be coming out of.
Jace crouched beside him, but she couldn’t get past the fact that he really was a squirrel. Just a normal little squirrel. That was immortal and talked to gods.
“Is it dead?”
Trying to see if he was breathing, Jace leaned in closer . . . and that’s when Ratatosk reared up, planted his claws on Jace’s face, and crawled up until he sat on her head.
Jace fell back, screaming.
Annalisa caught her hands before she could slap the fucking thing off her head and Jace heard barking, Lev trying to protect her with his little body and paws.
“Get it off me! Get it off me!” Jace screeched, panicking.
“I think he’s supposed to be there,” Annalisa said, using her best, “I have a psychotic here!” voice.
“Fuck you!”
Chloe walked out of the house and yelled, “What is going on?”
“Get it off me!”
Chloe came over, smiled.
She smiled!
“Ratatosk. Hi! Do you mind not fucking with my girls, sweetie?”
The vermin sitting on the top of Jace’s head chittered. He was laughing at her! Bastard!
Jace sat up, Annalisa still holding her hands.
Lev jumped in Jace’s lap, paws on her shoulder, as he barked incessantly at Ratatosk.
“Awww. He’s being protective.”
“Because there’s a rat on my head,” Jace snarled.
“He’s not a rat. He’s a squirrel,” Chloe patiently explained.
Gawking, Jace warned, “I’m about to get really angry.”
“Okay. Okay.” Chloe quickly reached down, holding her hand out toward the rodent sitting on Jace’s head. “Come on. You’ve upset her enough.”
The little bastard scrambled onto Chloe’s arm and up to her shoulder.
Now Lev was standing in front of Jace, barking wildly at Ratatosk, who chittered back.
“Feel better now?” Chloe asked Jace.
“I feel like turning in a circle and screaming, ‘I’m unclean! I’m unclean!’”
Annalisa pulled Jace to her feet. “That, out of context, can have many meanings.”
Jace bent over at the waist and brushed her hair with her hands. “Did he shit on me? I feel like he shit on me!”
“He didn’t shit on you. Your hair’s fine.”
Jace straightened up, glaring at the mocking rat. “It better be.” She reached down and swooped a still-barking Lev into her arms, holding him close.
The fact that he felt so protective of her made her love the dog even more. Something she didn’t think possible.
Chloe looked at the vermin on her shoulder. “Betty can’t talk to you right now. So you’ll have to talk to me. And I don’t play charades.”
Jace’s lip curled in disgust as the immortal animal placed its tiny claws against the side of Chloe’s forehead.
Kera walked over, her hand holding Brodie’s collar. White powder and raspberry jelly covered the pit bull’s entire snout.
Standing together, the friends watched their leader close her eyes and nod her head several times.
“Okay,” Chloe finally said, nodding. “Thank you.”
Ratatosk jumped off her shoulder and took off running. Kera yanked Brodie back as the dog’s prey drive pushed her to go after him.
“You don’t want my dog here,” Kera pointed out to their leader, “but you’ll allow that rat in the house?”
“He’s not a rat. He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s not a rat. And that animal,” she reminded Kera, glaring at Brodie, “isn’t covered by our insurance.”
In reply, Brodie barked at Chloe and she winced. “What is on that dog’s face?”
“Jelly doughnut residue. And perhaps a little of Stieg’s blood.”
Chloe sighed and turned away when a sister-Crow called for her from the house.
“What is it?” Chloe yelled back. Because gods forbid she should go inside and find out herself.
“Phone!”
With a nod, Chloe walked off, pushing past the Ravens, including poor Stieg, who now held a bag of frozen peas against the back of his head.
“Dog,” he said, pointing with his free hand at Brodie.
“You had a plate of jelly doughnuts,” Chloe told him as she passed. “What did you expect?”
Vig crouched in front of Brodie with a towel and wiped off the dog’s snout. When he was done, Brodie put her paws on his shoulder and licked his face. She’d grown to love Kera’s Viking, which was good. Kera and Brodie were a locked deal. One would go nowhere without the other.
Well, in big picture, existential terms, of course they wouldn’t go anywhere without each other. But when it came to walks and car rides with other Crows, Brodie was always up for that and often deserted Kera for a few hours away from the house. Kera still wasn’t used to it, but she was complaining less.
She still called the dog a “whore,” though.
Once Brodie finished licking Vig’s face, he stood and grabbed Kera around the waist and pulled her in.
Laughing, Kera tried to push him away. “You’re covered in dog! Do you know what she was just licking ten minutes ago? And it wasn’t a jelly doughnut!”
Behind Kera, Vig, and the other Ravens, Jace could see Erin. The redhead motioned to Jace with a jerk of her head and, placing Lev on the ground, she followed Erin as she stepped farther into the yard and away from the house.
“I’m about to get Kera out of here so the rest of the girls can set the place up for tonight.”
“Okay.”
“You should come with me.”
They stopped as they neared the end of the house. “I thought you needed me to help out here, too.”
“I did. But Rachel’s looking for you.”
“Oh fuck! Come on!”
“Don’t sweat it. She just thinks she’s being helpful. Come with me—we’ll take the dogs to get groomed or whatever. Maybe get some lunch, and be out for a few hours. Tessa will talk to Chloe about getting Rachel to back off. By tonight she’ll be so over it all.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Erin started to walk off, but then she stopped and suddenly grabbed Jace by the shoulders, pushing her away.
“Go!” she whispered.
Knowing that Rachel was heading her way, Jace quickly walked to the end of the house. She’d cut around and meet Kera and Erin out front. But she heard Lev’s bark and knew that she had to grab him since part of Erin’s plan required getting poor Kera out of the house with a lie about dog grooming.
Jace stopped and faced Lev, but her dog was looking past her, barking. And the crows in the trees were angrily squawking. Then a hand fell on her shoulder.
Without thought, she spun around and punched.
She thought she was hitting Rachel. Again.
It wasn’t Rachel.
Davis Henry Braddock barely had time to catch his head preacher as the man fell back, his hands around his throat. He was trying to breathe.
Davis looked down and realized that his parishoner’s Adam’s apple had been shoved back into his neck several inches.
By the woman who was Davis’s wife.
Shocked blue eyes peered at him. He’d been planning to have John just grab Jacinda so they could get her out of this place and back where she belonged. By his side. The wife of the Great Prophet. But her reaction had been swift and decidedly brutal.
She took a step toward him, but someone called out her name. A few seconds later, two other women came around some large hedges. One was a short redhead. The other was a giant. An oversized female with muscles on top of muscles.
For a moment, he thought his wife was going to call for help. She didn’t. Instead, she slapped her hand around Davis’s mouth and yanked him off to the side of the house.
The other women quickly followed, dragging his still struggling-to-breathe second in command behind them.
“What’s going on?” the redhead asked.
His wife slammed Davis against the house and held him there with one hand. “This is him.”
“Oh fuck,” the mammoth muttered.
“I can’t believe you came here,” his wife said. “I can’t . . .”
She stopped speaking, head dropping, body beginning to shake.
The two women seemed terrified.
He thought they feared him. Why wouldn’t they? He was God’s chosen son.
Then his wife lifted her head and eyes red as blood bored into him. Muscles pulsated under vibrating skin. And her once-pretty face, now covered in fading scars, contorted into a mask of pure evil.
She wrapped her hands around his throat, words coming out of her mouth he didn’t understand.
Her hands tightened and he gripped her wrists, trying to pull her off. But her strength . . .
She leaned in close, her harsh breath pelting him as she continued to viciously whisper to him in some devil’s tongue.
The redhead suddenly appeared, her hands raised like she was dealing with a wild animal. Afraid to spook it into a horrifying mauling.
“Listen to me, sweetie. I need you to listen. You do anything to him that gets everyone’s attention and Kera will know. She’ll know and the party will be over. Because you know her concern will be to protect you. That’s all she’ll care about. So I need you to let him go. I need you to walk away. Can you hear me, Jace? Walk away.”
His wife’s body shook more. Hands gripped his throat even tighter. She closed her eyes, lowered her head. He realized that her feet were on either side of his hips. She was off the ground using just her hold on his neck, her feet pressed against the house.
When his wife lifted her head and opened her eyes, they were blue again. Her face no longer contorted into something. . . unholy.
But she was struggling to maintain control. Her body still tense and her hands still around his throat. Her feet still against the wall.
She jerked forward, and he instinctively slammed back, his head colliding with the wall behind him.
“Come here again . . . bother me again . . . and there will be nothing to protect you from me.”
Her voice ended on a growl and the red began to come back to her eyes. Again she lowered her head. Again she fought it. Finally, she released him, jumping down. She was still panting and she started to speak in that devil’s tongue again to the redhead.
“English, sweetie. I know a little Yiddish and that’s about it. So you need to hit me with English.”
His wife swallowed, slowed her breathing. “Get him and his friend out of here, Rachel. Don’t let Kera or the others see. Can you do that for me?”
The mammoth nodded. “I got him. You go.”
Taking slow, deep breaths, she patted the big woman on the shoulders and walked off. Someone called for her inside the house and she picked up her step. The redhead went right behind her.
Then the mammoth yanked Davis by the hair until he was in front of her and twisted his arm around until she held it against his back. The pain cut through him, and he gritted his teeth.
She whistled and another oversized female ran toward them.
“What the hell?”
“I’ll explain later. Get the other one.”
The new female grabbed John and lifted him with her bare hands.
These women . . . they were too strong. It was unnatural. They were unnatural.
And they’d infected his wife with their unholiness.
They forced him around to the front of the house, but yanked him back when his wife, the redhead, some black girl, and some Asian female came out the front door and headed to an SUV.
“Where are we going?” the redhead asked, her arm around his wife.
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“Do we really have to go?”
“No,” the Asian female replied. “But I want you to go. Because they like Jace. So she’ll soothe. They hate you. So you’ll irritate.”
“Why am I going?” the black girl asked.
“Just get in the fucking car. You ask too many damn questions.”
The women holding him waited until the SUV drove off. Then they quickly pushed him to the van he had waiting to carry him and his wife out of here.
His people opened the side door and the woman holding him threw him at Ezekiel. That wasn’t the name he’d been given at birth, but the name Davis had blessed him with.
They crashed into the van and the other woman handed John in. He was no longer moving. Not even struggling.
“You better get him to the hospital,” the mammoth said. “And don’t come back here. We’ll kill you all if you come back here.”
Then she used those frighteningly large arms, and slammed the door closed in his face.
As they pulled away from the house, he stared out the small back windows of the van. They’d tossed him away. Like trash.
Those . . . females had treated him like some common person. Like they were better than he. Like they were stronger and more important than he was.
“He’s not breathing, Brother Davis.”
Davis looked over at Ezekiel. For a moment, he didn’t recognize him. He didn’t recognize anything or anyone except his outraged hatred.
This was his wife’s fault. She’d caused this by being weak and letting that evil into their lives.
She’d have to be cleansed.
But for now . . .
“Get me a knife and a straw.”
“A tracheotomy? Here? Now?”
“We can’t go to the hospital,” he said calmly, barely thinking about John. “Get me what I need. We’ll do what we can.”
First John. Then he’d figure out how to bring his wife to heel and back to his side where she belonged.
For eternity . . .