The crying continued. It sounded soft and pitiful. Hopeless. Harold’s breath came out in an angry rush. “David. Shut that kid up.” He looked in every direction, trying to figure out where the sound originated.
The wind came down the hall again, that same slight breeze, but the temperature seemed to have dropped. This time a second child joined the first. Harold’s face turned slightly red.
“Avery’s going to kill you for bringing those kids here without permission. What’s wrong with you, David?” He started down the hall again with long, angry strides.
Now a third child could be heard. The voices had that same tone, soft, pitiful, weeping endlessly, without hope.
Harold yanked open the door to the den. He took two steps inside the room and the door swung shut behind him with a loud bang. He visibly jumped. He looked around. The crying was louder, as if he were closer to the children, but there was no one in the room. Cursing, he strode back to the door and grasped the knob. Instantly a jolt of electricity ran up his arm and spread through his body. He almost seized. He yanked his hand back and staggered, rubbing his chest.
That was Mechanic, Transporter’s younger brother, delivering the electricity to Harold. Mechanic had some kind of energy field in his body and could use it to disrupt electricity or send the charge outward. He could understand just about any electronics and absorbed information and technology easily. Both brothers, like Absinthe, could read at an astonishing rate, comprehend and retain what they read. Transporter had amazing hand-eye coordination. It was easy for him to drive at high rates of speed with his reflexes and keen sight.
Reaper and Savage had to be the ones throwing the sound of children crying. They could mimic any sound, reproduce any voice. They were doing so now in perfect coordination. With Mechanic and Transporter, they were “herding” the sheriff where they wanted him, just as the wolf pack would do. Terrain could tip the favor to either predator or prey, so the pack would always know exactly the best place to take down their selected victim and how to get him there.
Harold did exactly what they were certain he would. He avoided the door leading back to the hallway, not wanting to have anything to do with the doorknob that had inexplicably delivered jolting volts of electricity to his body. He went to the door leading to the sunroom. Very gingerly, he touched the doorknob. When nothing happened, he grabbed it, turned it and let go instantly.
The door creaked open a couple of inches. The sound of the children crying grew louder. Frustrated, Harold yelled very loudly, “Shut those kids the hell up, David! I swear I’m going to shoot you if they don’t stop.”
The wails increased, and it sounded as if there were a dozen children crying. Harold put his hands over his ears as if that would drown out the sound. He nudged open the door with the toe of his boot. It was dark in the room. Through the glass of the sunroom, he could see the brewing storm. The wind had picked up and the trees were swaying, bending toward the house, branches whipping around as if in a frenzy.
“Harold. How lovely of you to join me.” Alena’s voice came out of the darkness. She had the voice of an angel. Soft and musical. “David said you’d be here soon. Make them stop crying. They’re so sad. So many of them. They told me it was you. You helped those men and women hurt them. You like to hurt them.”
Alena. Czar closed his eyes for a moment. She was one of the two females they’d managed to save. Like Ice and Storm, she had that natural platinum hair, so blond the thick mass looked like mixtures of silver, gold and white. Her eyes were the same ice blue as her brothers’. She was a beautiful woman, but like the men, she had scars. Too many. Terrible things had been done to her as a child. Even more as a young girl and then even more as a teen. There had been no saving her from their pack. If she wanted to live, she had to become what they were—killers. Like Ice and Storm, there was determination in Alena. She had learned, and Czar had taken on another responsibility and another sorrow.
Harold drew his weapon and pointed it into the shadows of the dark room, first in one direction and then in another, turning in a circle in an effort to locate her. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“You don’t know who I am?” There was amusement in her voice. “I’m your conscience. I’m the one you should have listened to when you were hurting those little boys. You heard me, but you kept ignoring me.”