The Fallen One (Sons of the Dark Mother, Book One) Read online

  By the time he stumbled into the emergency room, he’d lost too much blood. He spent the next three days in a hospital bed, and received more than eight hundred stitches. They sewed up the gashes in his arms, the knife wounds to his chest and ribs, and the gashes in his head. They told him he was incredibly lucky to have survived whatever had killed those gang members. They said it looked like an attack by a wild animal, and whatever beast it had been had cut those young men to shreds. They couldn’t imagine what kind of wild creature would have come this far into a large city, or how it had avoided detection. But it had, for sure, been a large, wild animal.

  The police questioned him. The doctors questioned him. The news questioned him. And then it seemed as though all the wildlife, fish, and game experts in the US had come to question him. Finally, even the government came to question him.

  They said it was the gang’s fate, for they were some of the worst scum around and had a reputation for not showing mercy.

  As for Justice, they repeated that he was lucky to have lived. He had escaped both the gang and the crazed, wild animal, and he was the luckiest young man alive.

  They couldn’t have known just how true those words were—or how he’d managed to stay that way. They couldn’t have known that the monster that had killed those gang members—had also saved his life.

  But now Justice had a problem. How had he transformed? And why?

  Chapter One

  Jes

  Present day, in a small town outside of Chicago

  Jes stared down at the pictures strewn across her desk. She had been staring at these same pictures for the past three hours. The bodies in the pictures clearly told their story to someone who was listening. Jes was listening; she knew a story existed here. She just had to find it.

  Jes had been tracking the monster that had done this for years now. She sat back in her chair, stretching her tired back. She was exhausted: frustrated and exhausted. She didn’t feel any closer to finding him than she had been the first time she’d come across those brutal slayings, fifteen years before. She’d stumbled into this job by accident. She was currently a detective and a forensic specialist, but back then she’d just been a kid starting high school, not even knowing what it was she’d wanted to do with her life. She’d been in the car when her father had received the call. He’d parked where she couldn’t see, and told her to stay in the car. But she hadn’t stayed; she was too curious not to sneak a peek.

  What she’d seen there had changed the course of her life.

  Jes knew immediately what kind of monster had killed those gang members. She knew, and she had taken every related class she could all throughout school, graduating from high school at sixteen, and then going on to college quickly to study anything and everything that stood even a remote chance of helping her to track him.

  She’d never forget what she’d seen that day—nor could she ever forget all the bodies she’d seen since then. She couldn’t get the blood, the dead bodies, out of her head; she couldn’t forget what would happen if something were to go wrong.

  She lived in fear of it.

  She could never take it for granted that she, too, would never turn into such monster.

  She must never forget what could happen if the beast inside of her—ever turned into the same type of monster he had become.

  She looked down at the pictures on her desk. She stared at each of the bodies, looking for clues. Each one told her a story: a story of whom he’d been, how he’d lived, and the monster each had been in his own right.

  Every single one of them had been a killer. But that didn’t excuse their killer from what he’d become. Killing, even to destroy another killer, was wrong. Why did he do it? What drove him to use his power in a heinous way?

  She wouldn’t rest until she’d brought him in.

  The power they’d been gifted with should be used to help the humans—not harm them. The Jaguar People were an ancient race: protectors, Watchers. They were supposed to keep an eye on things, to keep others with powers from breaking the rules that were set up to protect the ignorance of the human species.

  The humans weren’t ready to know who they were.

  He threatened that status quo—every time he killed.

  He threatened them as a people. He was putting them all at risk by threatening to expose them. The ancient race of the Jaguar People had managed to remain relatively unknown—perhaps not in folklore, but they’d remained unreal to the humans, who considered themselves the only human-like race of beings in existence.

  Of course, humans had even managed to convince themselves that the Fae were just a fairy tale—in spite of centuries of folklore.

  Humans were afraid of their own shadows.

  Jes shook herself out of her musings and got up to pour a cup of the foul coffee that had, as usual, sat much too long. She made a face as she tried to swallow it, and then headed for the sink to dump it out and make a new batch.

  She had fresh coffee by the time she sat back down at her desk, setting down her cup and looking at the small newspaper someone had set on her desk: a Thrifty Nickel. She frowned. Why had someone put this thing on her desk? She picked it up, glancing around. No one paid her any mind. She had nearly dumped it into the trash when something stopped her.

  What the heck. She could use a break.

  She scanned the columns for a deal, only half paying attention. She had nearly turned the page again—when she spotted an unusual ad. She sat up, staring. What it said made her look up and scan the office again, wondering who had known enough to leave her this paper. But no one out of the ordinary was in the office that day.

  It said: When injustice is the way of the day, a little justice could pave the way.

  She picked up her phone to put an ad of her own in the little paper, but then set it back down. She wasn’t one who was known for her patience. An ad would take too long.

  She got up, grabbing her jacket off the back of her chair as she went.

  It didn’t take her long to reach the office that printed the little paper, and it turned out that she knew one of the people who worked there. Well, truthfully, she knew most of the people in this town.

  He was too smitten with her not to give her the info she was looking for, so it wasn’t long before she was heading for a run-down, local tavern. The young man had told her that anyone who answered that ad was always directed, by the next ad, to an old tavern called Second Chances.

  It only took a phone call for her to find out that the tavern had been around for more than three decades. She winced again. Something about the name was familiar, and the thought was causing her head to hurt and her stomach to twist up in knots.

  Jes didn’t like that feeling. She knew that it usually bode ill for her. She had forgotten much of her youth—like blank pages in her memory—because she had repressed some kind of trauma. She’d gone to years of therapy trying to sort it all out, but nothing would bring back the memories.

  But every time something like this haunted her, it would put her down for a week. She sat up straight, resolutely. Not this time. She didn’t have time for such nonsense.

  She reached the tavern and went inside the dimly lit interior. It was too early in the day for more than a couple customers. A bartender stood polishing the beautiful, wooden bar top. She looked away, glancing around the interior when her eyes adjusted to the dim light. The rest of the tavern was much like the bar top, built out of beautiful, inlaid wood, with delicate carvings painstakingly engraved onto it. These were not machine made. They appeared much too old for that. And none of them were the same.

  By the time she had completed her appraisal, and her gaze had returned to the barkeep, he was staring back at her. Her head hurt again, but this time it was more of a pounding, and she could swear she’d seen recognition in his eyes—before the shutters went down.

  She approached him slowly. Nothing about him made her feel she was in any danger: so then, why did she want to run?

  She l
aid the paper on the bar top, with the ad now highlighted for him to see. He picked it up, glanced at it, then tossed it back at her. It hit the well-polished surface and slid toward her, coming to a stop right in front of her. She looked down at it, then back up to find him glaring at her. Now, what could she have possibly done?

  His gaze narrowed on her. “What of it?”

  She frowned at him. “Who posts it?”

  He picked up a glass and a pristine, white towel and began polishing the glass. “Who wants to know?”

  She fished in her pocket and produced her badge.

  He didn’t even glance at it, just kept polishing. “Why do you want to know?”

  He was beginning to irritate her. “Just answer the question.”

  He did look up this time, but only flashed a grin at her before his face went immediately back to a stoic mask. “No.” And he set down that glass, adjusted it perfectly into line with the next one, and then picked up the next and began polishing it.

  She was really starting to hate this guy. She glanced around. There were some pictures hanging behind the cash register, and one of them made the hair on the nape of her neck stand on end.

  He glanced up to find her staring at one of the pictures, and now he actually smiled. “Well, now. It looks as if you found your answers,” and he set that glass perfectly in line with the others, “or, at least, one of them,” he finished in low tones. He glanced back up. “Question is, what will you be moved to do now?”

  She again felt sick—sweaty and nauseated all together at once—and frowned at him. What an odd thing to say. The room started to spin around her. She felt like she’d been drugged, but she hadn’t ingested anything in more than two hours. She had to get out of here.

  “I’ll be back,” she growled at him with all the strength she could find within herself. She was surprised to hear her voice come out in a snarl.

  She had to get out of here!

  She’d turned and was heading for the door when her keen hearing picked up what he’d muttered, and she turned back to stare at him.

  He only stood there, quietly polishing another glass.

  Outside, she sat in her car taking in slow, easy breaths, trying to calm the uneven tempo of her heart. It took her several minutes to calm down enough to drive.

  She couldn’t believe what he’d called her! He couldn’t possibly know! How could he know?

  He’d called her a Jaguar Witch!

  Back at the office, she unlocked her desk and took out a box she had stashed toward the back. This was her hidden life. This was the reason for everything, the purpose for which she’d worked so hard—all of these years. She took out the box of pictures she’d gathered over the years—all the evidence she had gathered during her searches—and dumped them all onto her desk. With shaky hands she sifted through them, looking for a specific one. When she found it, she picked it up, staring at it.

  Her father and her mother had their arms around each other. They were standing next to another couple—the same couple as were shown in the picture in the tavern.

  The other couple who had disappeared on the same day her own parents had disappeared.

  Her father’s best friend—and his wife.

  Her whole body was now trembling, shaking so hard she had to sit down. She set the picture down on her desk before someone in the office noticed that she was shaking like a leaf blowing in the wind. She stared at the picture.

  And asked herself: why had she always kept these pictures—pictures of her parents, pictures of his parents—with all the others?

  But she knew why.

  Because that was the day the loving boy she had known—had become a killer.

  She pushed the rest of the pictures around on her desk, looking for one in particular. When she found it, she stared at it. It was getting worn around the edges from her handling it so much over the years.

  She stared down at the photo of the youth who had escaped being torn to shreds. What had made him do this? She had asked herself this same question hundreds of times over the years. Staring down at his picture, she ran a finger across the photo.

  Jes hadn’t been fooled, like so many others. It had never occurred to any of them that he was the monster who had killed those gang members. Why would it? He was a fourteen-year-old kid. How could he have possibly torn a bunch of gang members limb from limb?

  This photo was her only tie to him.

  He was a muscular youth, but not even the strongest kid, at that young age, could have done what he did—at least, not in his human form—so they’d had no reason to suspect him. After all, he’d received hundreds of stitches that day. Those gang members had nearly beaten him to death.

  Even with his particular knowledge, her father hadn’t seemed to suspect the boy.

  But she had.

  She looked into the eyes of the boy she had known.

  She had memorized every inch of that boy: a boy she’d once been so infatuated with. But no longer...

  Now she just wanted to bring him in—to make him pay for what he had done that day.

  How did he change?

  The Jaguar People weren’t supposed to tap into their power at that age—for this very reason. A power like this one couldn’t be risked on the folly of passionate youth. Jes—herself—had only reached her majority at the age of twenty-one. So how had he managed to transform at the tender age of fourteen? What could possibly have happened to him to cause him to tap into his power? Could that horrible beating have done it? She doubted it. Not the beating alone, anyway.

  She shook her head. For the umpteenth time in so many years, she wished she’d been old enough to follow up on the leads of his first murder scene.

  She chewed on her lip.

  She doubted she would find anyone who still knew him, or even if anyone could remember who he was. Nobody knew. She wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the gang had hunted him down.

  Now that was a thought.

  She got up and went to the computer. For the rest of the evening, she sorted through the remaining known members of that particular gang, those left over from during that time frame.

  It was late into the night when she found what she was looking for—the name and the address of an ex-gang member who should know if his gang had sought out a youth for killing the very dangerous leaders of their gang.

  She was knocking on his door before it was even 8:00 a.m.

  And he didn’t look too happy about it when he finally opened the door.

  She introduced herself and walked into his house. If he was surprised that she had done so, it didn’t show on his face—she was impressed.

  “Felix Cantrell,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Even after all these years, she could easily recognize him from the photo, which she now held up for him to inspect.

  His lip curled. “I don’t bang no more.”

  “I didn’t ask,” she said. “And I don’t care one way or the other.” She put the photo away in her folder. “No.” She dug out another photo. “The only one I’m interested in,” she held up the photo, “is this one.”

  His nose flared. But that was the only indication he gave of having recognized the youth in the picture. “Beat it lady, I don’t have time for this.” He turned away. He turned back, curious in spite of himself. “What do you want with him, anyway?”

  She shrugged. “I just want to find out how he escaped—alive.”

  He smiled—an ugly smile that was more of a snarl. “We… wondered that too.” He looked like a ghost had crawled down his back. He looked up and glared hard at her. It would have been enough to get most people moving—out of his way—and out of his place, but she kept her gaze steady as she met his.

  Finally he looked away. “He took his sisters, who he was always trying to protect, and beat it.” He looked back down at her. “Believe me, lady, if he’d stuck around, we would have had some answers.”

  She raised a brow at this news. She knew the answer, but just to take any de
nial, she might have left, out of the picture, she decided to ask anyway, “Got a name?”

  His grin was mean, but she didn’t flinch. “Justice.”

  She nearly smiled. “Now, isn’t that something?”

  “Isn’t it though.”

  She held up her hand before he could say another word, then dug out her card. She set it on the table, knowing he wouldn’t take if she held it out to him. “If you think of anything else…,” she turned her back and went to the door, before turning back. When she did, the look on his face was priceless. He just couldn’t believe her nerve.

  “Yeah, lady, I’ll be sure to give you a ring.”

  She nearly smiled at the double entendre. She turned and went out the door.

  It was nearly noon by the time she showered and crawled into her own bed.

  Justice.

  She whispered his name, obsessed by the feelings he had stirred up in her—ignited in her—even after all of these years. The only thought she had when she went to sleep at night was about Justice. And it was he whom she thought about when she woke.

  The last couple of weeks, the intense feeling he created within her had become a lot stronger. She didn’t know why.

  She only knew that she couldn’t shake the feeling that things were about to change.

  She could still see his face. She hadn’t seen him since a few weeks before that fateful day—and yet she could still see his face. Not as it would have been then.

  No. She was seeing it as would be now.

  She was back up less than two hours later, using the computer to age his face. She was knocking on doors early the next morning in the neighborhood from which Justice had managed to drag himself to the nearby hospital.

  And by the time the sun went down that day, she’d found out his sisters were back.

  Chapter Two

  Justice

  Justice pulled himself out of bed, showered, and got dressed. He pulled his shirt down over the scars that covered his ribs, running his fingers over their jagged edges. Their jagged edges, the skin broken… like the slices of his life. The scars left behind to remind him—always remind him of that day: remind him of what he had become—a killer.