The ryan chronicles seri.., p.66
The Ryan Chronicles Series, page 66
“Mother fucker,” I said, but my inability to articulate just made it sound like an animal’s feral growl. I gathered the fury into a tight ball in my chest, focusing.
Raven gave a slight shake of her head. “Save Hannah,” she whispered, but I ignored her, willing the knife pressed into her throat to move away from her skin.
Despite the killer’s taut muscles, the knife pulled away and I had a moment where I believed saving them both was possible.
“My boss said you were a force to be reckoned with,” he said and before I could react, he raised his free hand, pushing the button on the remote detonator in his hand.
Movement to my left pulled my attention before I could harness the power into something that would save us all. Instead, I reacted, sending a force field around Hannah just in time to stop a pendulum blade from slicing her in half. It stilled an inch from her face and kept the heinous instrument of death in place and Hannah from any further harm.
I turned back, and the moment my gaze landed on the table, my breath hitched in my chest. The blade of a spear punctured Raven’s chest running straight through her from behind. The tip glistened with the blood from her overtaxed heart. The light in her eyes faded and within a blink, her spirit peeled away from her dead form and stood, turning toward me with both sorrow and relief painted on her beautiful features.
I couldn’t hold the fury that over took me. The power let loose, rolling across the room like a bulldozer bent on destruction. I’m not sure if the man knew what hit him, because one second he was standing next to the table with a smug smile, and the next he was flying through the air. With murderous intent, I yanked the pendulum blade from its housing and sent it spinning in the same direction.
With a sickening thud, it split the bastard right in half.
I didn’t know if there were other vehicles of torture or booby traps left to trip, but I didn’t care. I ran towards my daughter, willing the chains holding her in place to unlatch and I was there to catch her falling form.
My thoughts were jumbled with the shock of Raven’s death, but I was with it enough to grip the tube in my fist with the intent of ripping it out of my daughter. At the last minute, I paused, taking a second to collect my wits. This tube was embedded in her carotid artery. If I yanked it out, she would bleed out in minutes.
“Fuck,” I whispered, knowing just how screwed I was. The flow had slowed, but now I had air bubbles in the tube and the change in position made the danger of an air bubble getting into her veins just as horrifying as her bleeding out.
“Don’t pull it out,” Raven’s ghost said as she crouched next to me. “She’ll bleed to death.”
I stared at her and then dropped my gaze to Hannah, searching for life in her limp form. Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths and I closed my eyes, bowing my head in a little prayer to spare her.
When I raised my head, I asked Raven, “Are there any other traps?”
Her eyebrows arched in that cute way I loved, and the sharp pain of loss hit, tightening my chest. “You’re a ghost, hon, you can hear my voice like when we go to Paradise Cove,” I added, forcing my lips to twist into a small smile. “Traps?” I asked again, twirling my finger indicating the room, reminding her of my original question.
She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
I had no idea how to ensure there were no more boxes of snakes waiting to fall from the ceiling, or another Claymore Mine waiting to detonate.
She glanced over her shoulder and I followed her gaze to the other ghost now occupying the room. He backed away from his impaled dead body and spun, like he was going to run, but something near the door stopped him. The panicked deer-in-the-headlights look on his face pushed my attention to the doorway.
My stomach dropped at the sight of Steve standing there. My breath locked in my chest and I closed my eyes against the sudden swell of tears. I lost two people I loved today and the child in my arms just couldn’t die. Not now.
A hand landed on my shoulder. The physical weight of it pulled my eyes up and they met Steve’s pained gaze. Before the words could come out, Valerie slid to her knees next to me and reached for Hannah. It took my brain a few seconds to catch up and then I willingly released my daughter into her care.
I stood, staring at Steve. “You’re okay?” I asked and it came out bastardized as usual, but Steve’s gaze was locked on the table displaying Raven’s dead form.
“Jesus,” he whispered before looking back at me with a nod. “Yes. Valerie got there just in time.”
As if on cue, CJ stepped into the room, his gaze surveying the damage before landing on Valerie. Seeing her work on my daughter smoothed some of the worry lines on his forehead before his gaze raised to mine. Sadness and fury lived in his irises when they met mine. We both knew who orchestrated this and I turned towards the ghost on the other side of the room.
“How many of you does Lucifer have working for him?” I snarled.
His gaze snapped to mine, scrunching in fear and anger.
“Fuck you,” he said.
I didn’t know how to hurt a ghost, but CJ did, and a stream of angel fire crossed the expanse, wrapping around the ghost like a lasso. He screamed as CJ controlled the burn of it.
“He’s going to keep crossing off names until there’s nothing left. There are plenty of mercenaries willing to take the job with what he’s paying.”
CJ stepped closer and twisted his fist. The ghost screamed.
“What is he doing with the blood?” I asked.
He laughed. “I have no idea what he’s doing with it. He just said to make the deaths look like vampires, and to send him the blood.” He waved at the room. “This town was the only one that had different instructions. It was supposed to be last, but I like to be systematic...” He trailed off, his glance bouncing between CJ and me.
“You killed my wife,” I said, trying to keep the crushing truth from knocking me to my knees.
He grinned like a true psycho. “I’ve never stuffed someone with rocks before. It was actually fun.”
Before I could react, the angel fire spread, consuming the spiteful bastard. I couldn’t help the momentary satisfaction that crept into me. His agonizing screams quenched the vengeance thrumming in my soul, but deep down, I knew it wasn’t enough.
Lucifer had to pay for this, one way or another.
When there was nothing left of the ghost, I glanced at my wife.
Heaven was waiting for her, but I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted her to stay with me until Hannah was all grown up and I was ready to join her. I wanted a lifetime with her, not a meager blink in time.
Hannah’s whine of pain whipped my head in her direction. All the muscles in her small form stood out in stark relief against the light that traveled over every inch of her. Valerie had removed the tube and the gaping wound in her throat stitched up in seconds, leaving only a smear of blood against her perfect skin where the slash had been.
She remained pale, but her breathing steadied and Valerie looked up at me.
“She may need a transfusion, even with the healing mojo,” she said, eyeing the jug of blood.
Unable to trust my voice, I signed, “Thank you.”
She sent me a nod and I met Steve’s sad expression. He pulled me into a hug and I couldn’t speak. The last time he hugged me like this was in high school, and I didn’t want my mind to go there. That entire nightmare brought Raven into my life.
I broke free and turned, crossing to Raven’s body even as her ghost trailed next to me. I felt the cool warmth of her hand on my arm, but I ignored the ghost for a moment. Instead, I focused on the woman who had shared my life for the past eleven years. Tears blurred my vision, and I blinked them away. Gently, I pushed her hair out of her face, and pulled the tape off her mouth before I leaned over and pressed my lips to her cold ones. My hand landed on her abdomen and I froze at the hard relief map under my palm. Rocks jutted into her skin from the inside and I turned to her ghost, searching her pained expression.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” I whispered, and she shook her head.
“I don’t want you to remember me like this,” she said, and tried to pull me away from her stuffed form.
I sent her a sad smile and blinked away the layer of tears that had formed. “It’s a little too late for that, babe.”
She knew enough about my nightmares. She knew it was the vision of my parents’ death that haunted my thoughts, and not all the happy memories before those horrifying moments. This was just one more that would overshadow all the good we had shared.
I closed my eyes and turned from her body, letting the hands that wrapped around me lead me out of the death room and into the dark night. Strobes of red and blue descended as I sat on the curb with what was left of my family.
Angel Blood Chapter 17
The chief of the York Police department, Duke Gallagher, corralled both Steve and me in an empty waiting room as soon as my daughter was settled in the ICU.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” he barked pointing at me.
“We...” Steve began and Chief Gallagher glared, silencing him.
I pulled out the deputy papers that O’Keefe had instituted and handed them to him. He glanced at the orders and then back at me. “He had my wife and daughter. I wasn’t going to stop until I found them,” I signed. He followed my hand signals and then met my gaze.
“When you became personally involved in the case, you should have stepped down.” He shook the papers at me. “The perp had your family, and while I get it, you still should have let us do our job.”
My jaw tightened. “O’Keefe and those two rookies were dead when we got there, and that psycho had the place wired with traps,” I signed, my hands moving faster as the frustration built. “If I had left it to the police, more people would be dead, including my daughter.”
“You don’t know that,” he growled, and I stepped closer to him.
Steve grabbed my arm, holding me back and the warning in his gaze came through. This wasn’t O’Keefe, and revealing what our family could do was not a wise move.
I let my tightly coiled muscles relax and dropped my gaze to the ground.
“What the hell happened?” he asked, but this time it was softer.
“He had a claymore mine set up for anyone who came in the second door.”
Chief Gallagher’s eyebrows rose.
“I guess it backfired.” I knew how unlikely that scenario was, but the force that I used to launch him into the wall was consistent with a bomb of some sort.
“What about the snakes?”
I huffed a laugh. “I hate snakes,” I signed.
“So they were alive?”
I traded a glance with Steve and shrugged.
“Neither of you were bitten, right?”
We both shook our heads.
“Do you know what those were?”
I shook my head.
“Those were Death Adders, one of the deadliest snakes in the fucking world, and there were at least twenty of them. How the hell did you not get bitten?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” I signed.
His lips thinned and he glanced at the preliminary reports coming in on his blackberry. The crease between his eyes deepened and he glanced at me as the words on his screen echoed in his head.
“He videotaped it?” I said, and signed at the same time.
The chief’s gaze narrowed as much as my eyes had widened.
“How did you know that?”
“I can read upside down,” I signed, hoping to appease his curiosity. “He videotaped the whole thing?” I asked, paling at the thought.
The Chief didn’t answer, but the suspicion in his gaze chilled me. “I expect you to stay in town until this case is closed.” He pointed at me and headed towards the door.
I glanced at Steve, but he was staring after Chief Gallagher. When I started towards the door with the intent of checking on Hannah, Steve’s hand landed on my arm and I stopped.
“Why would he tape it?” He turned his gaze to mine.
I shrugged. I had no fucking idea.
“I’m serious.”
“I don’t have a clue. I need to go see my daughter,” I signed, and didn’t wait for him to continue, instead, I crossed from the waiting room to the nurse’s desk. Steve followed.
He cleared his throat. “Can you tell us which room Hannah Ryan is in?” he asked.
“Only family is allowed in the ICU,” the nurse said without looking up.
I banged my palm on the counter and when she looked up, I signed, “I am her father.”
“He is Hannah’s father,” Steve translated and I flipped open my wallet, showing her my driver’s license.
“Oh, I’m sorry, she’s in Room 57. Down the hall that way,” she said, pointing to her left, after she studied the picture on the license.
“Thank you,” I signed and headed down the hall.
Hannah looked so small in the hospital bed, and I slid into the seat next to her, taking her tiny hand in mine.
“She’s going to be okay,” Steve said and gave my shoulder a pat.
I glanced up at him with a nod. I knew from all my experiences with the healing mojo that she would be okay, but it might take some time. After all, Jennifer had taken over a week from the time my mother infused her to when she woke up.
The machines continued to monitor her vitals and I scanned all the equipment in the room wondering why she was in intensive care. I glanced at Steve like he could enlighten me, but he was studying the equipment with the same puzzlement I had.
The doctor stepped into the room.
“Mr. Ryan, how are you holding up?”
“Okay, considering,” I signed, keeping it as simple as possible.
He pulled up a chair at the foot of the bed and looked at the notes on his tablet. “Your daughter is in a coma and we aren’t sure why. We couldn’t find any sign of injury; however her blood count is dangerously low.” He glanced up at me. “We are concerned she may have internal bleeding and want to do a CT scan to try to pinpoint any issue.”
I signed yes, with a nod of my fist and followed it with a simple, “Ya.”
“If we don’t find the cause with the CT scan, we would like your permission to do emergency exploratory surgery,” he added.
“No,” I articulated, with an emphatic shake of my head. A CT scan was not invasive and I’d allow that just to appease the doctors. But surgery was out of the question.
“Sir,” he started, and I could feel the hardness returning to my muscles. I slowed the shake of my head, stopping him.
“The CT scan is okay, but I will not give you authorization to cut her open,” I signed and Steve translated.
“My son said no,” Steve added, when the doctor started to argue again.
The doctor turned towards him, thinking he was a fountain of reason that could sway me.
“I don’t think your son understands the critical nature of the problem.”
“He understands better than most what’s at stake, and if the CT scan shows internal bleeding, we can revisit this conversation.”
The doctor sighed and nodded. “A nurse will be in to bring her down in a few minutes.”
“Thank you,” I signed.
“Do you need me to stay?” Steve asked after the doctor left.
I didn’t know how to answer him. I was still numb from the night’s events. Our home was destroyed, as was CJ’s and Damian’s. Captain O’Keefe was dead. My wife was dead. And my daughter was in a coma. The facts of what had happened in the last few days layered on me like a ton of bricks dropped from a bulldozer.
He offered me a smile of commiseration. He knew what it was like to be in my shoes, except he had sat next to Jennifer’s battered body trying to make sense of it all. At least I knew my daughter would wake. Eventually.
“Let me ask you an easier question,” he said, pausing in order for me to focus on him. “Can I get you some clothes?”
I huffed a laugh. “From where?” I signed.
“I can take a run down to Kittery and get you a couple of things to tide you and Hannah over,” he said.
I gave a nod. Having clean clothing on would be a start. Then maybe I’d be able to feel something other than this complete numbness of mind and emotion.
“Jennifer should be here in a little bit. She’s helping CJ and Valerie to find temporary housing. We found a place for you and Hannah to stay until you get a chance to rebuild.”
I hadn’t been by my house but I had seen the rubble at CJ’s. “Did they ever figure out what caused the explosions?”
He gave me a long look. “They think it was ship to shore missiles,” he finally said.
My eyes widened. “Missiles? What the fuck? Does that mean there was more than one person?” My mind went back to the things the assassin’s ghost rattled about. They would never stop until all the angel descendants were dead, including us. The way he glanced over my head and out the window unnerved my already frazzled psyche.
“I honestly don’t know. Based on the timing of Jennifer’s vision and the hardware he had in his van, he had the means and the time to get a boat out there and back. People on the beach said they saw the heat trails but couldn’t identify the boat they came from. The Coast Guard found no trace of whoever had done it, either.”
I digested the information and gave him a nod. “Just make sure everyone is close together. We are stronger that way,” I added as he stood to leave.
“Jeans or shorts?” he asked at the door.
“Both.” York could get chilly at night even with the hot days and I wasn’t sure how long I’d be sitting at Hannah’s bedside in the chill of the hospital room.
He gave me a nod and disappeared through the door.
I focused on the figure I had been ignoring since I walked into the room, and offered Raven’s ghost a brief semblance of a smile. She stood on the opposite side of the bed with Hannah’s hand in hers.
I think the fact I could still see my wife kept the soul crushing pain at bay.
