Halfblood Journey Read online

  Halfblood Journey

  Book Two of the Halfblood Series

  By

  Laura Rheaume

  Ebook Edition

  Second Edition

  Copyright © 2011 by Laura Rheaume

  All rights reserved.

  Halfblood Series:

  Halfblood Heritage

  Halfblood Journey

  Halfblood Legacy

  Father Willow's Daughter

  http://www.halfbloodheritage.com

  Contents

  Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2

  Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

  Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

  Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11

  Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

  Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17

  Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20

  Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23

  Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26

  Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29

  Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32

  Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35

  Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38

  Excerpt from Halfblood Legacy

  About the Author

  Dedicated to

  Jonathan Kleinman,

  a great reader and cherished friend.

  Prologue

  They were making too much noise.

  Only a Human would miss this parade.

  He held up his hand but kept walking, and soon his steps were the only ones echoing down the hall. Behind him, they would wait until they were needed, which would be when it was over. He reviewed as he went, remembering every detail of the building: the two rooms on the right were for storage, and the one next to it was the restroom with a broken faucet. The noisy one on the left housed the computers, which reminded him that a guy named Byron sometimes worked late in the telecommunication room.

  He slowed down, listening and breathing in the scent before checking inside. No one. He slowly and silently pulled the door shut, but not before grabbing and slipping into his pocket the picture of a Human youth taped to the screen that hadn’t been there before.

  He heard a low shuffling when he had put enough distance between them to make someone nervous. It had to be one of the new guys. Everyone else had learned by now. A moment later, the shuffling stilled.

  This is it. One deep breath and a second to listen told him how many were likely to be inside. No longer than that, because if they were any good, they would just be detecting him as well. The same second was all it took for him to go from cold to hot, from walk to run, from waiting patiently to digging in with both hands. He dropped a match into a pool of something wet and flammable and his body became the flame.

  He took a hold of the handle and turned it, opened the door and walked in. He assessed the entire room with a quick glance. It looked nearly the same as he remembered, except for a few insignificant details. Along the back wall, a desk squatted in front of a wall of file cabinets. Between the door and his goal, a couch and a couple of chairs sprawled in front of a low table that hosted the evidence of a meal in progress: a fast food bag was ripped open to make a quick platter for the mountain of fried food that rose up in the middle of it. Three men hunched around it as if were a fire, basking in the heat of their own gluttony.

  “What the hell?” Number Three said, standing and reaching with fingers coated in grease and ketchup for the gun holstered under his jacket.

  Pleased that the boss had picked out such well-trained dogs, Scythe took Number One by the collar, helping him the rest of the way out of his seat and into the doorjamb. Twice. It was a bit of overkill and cost him a pair of seconds, but it had taken him only one time to learn that some guys could take a hit like that to the head and still aim pretty well.

  Number One took a nap.

  Number Two saved him some trouble by coming to him, and bringing a knife to boot. He practically handed it over, in a stabbing way. After sharing, Number Two got to turn and stand between Scythe and Number Three, his knife up against his own throat, digging in only enough to make a point. It was not a great weapon, but it was big and impressively scary with the serrated edge. Helpful Number Two must have liked to camp on the weekends, either that or he spent a lot of time cutting through bones.

  Blood. Scythe pulled Number Two’s blood in through his nose and let it run through his veins. His own blood ran after it, a pack of wolves chasing down a stray coyote.

  Number Three turned out to be a wild card. He didn’t even blink before shooting Scythe. It turned out to be a bad choice for him, because Scythe really liked it when people would shoot their own partners in the chest to get at an intruder. It was like holding up a sign that said, “Free game.”

  Scythe grinned and propelled a now useless Number Two forward the two steps he had left before he realized he was dead, let the obnoxious blade fall, and pulled out his own gun. He was going to have to hurry now, because the adrenaline would only mask the pain for so long.

  Number Three put two more bullets in his friend, both of which hit Scythe’s vest just as the first one had. Scythe gave him one for the shoulder, which took care of the gun, and one for each knee.

  Number three decided to have a little sit down.

  Letting Number Two go, Scythe helped out Number Three with a pain reliever. Twice. He stepped over the man’s body and irritably knocked the gun across the room. He was already feeling it: the disappointment and frustration that inevitably sprung up when the last one fell. The wolves growled impotently at the room that didn’t offer any more game.

  All that waiting...all the holding...and it was over so quickly. Clamping down on the heat got tiresome after a while, but he could do it, he could manage, because he knew that his job provided plenty of food for it. A few bites like these would keep it just satisfied enough to sit still and wait until it was time to go out for more.

  What he needed to learn, he told himself, was how to draw the fight out longer.

  He approached Number Four.

  “You’ve got yourself a couple of holes there,” Number Four said, trying for nonchalant.

  Great, another talker, Scythe thought, and then narrowed his eyes. The man was unusually calm in the face of having his bodyguards distracted from their duties, so Scythe gave Number Four a little more of his attention. Scythe recognized what hung around him right away: a special kind of confidence that meant he was used to getting what he wanted. Since he wasn’t a big man, or particularly fit, and since he didn’t have any obvious weapons, that left one contributing factor.

  “Alright,” Number Four said abruptly. It turned out that he was surprisingly blunt for a talker, or maybe he just was good enough at reading people to know that the shit had hit the fan. “How much?”

  ‘How much?’ told him it was going to be a dirty ride, but Scythe didn’t even flinch. He was used to it.

  Money. Power. Services. Resources. This was the place, and this was the man.

  But Scythe wasn’t buying or selling. He was taking.

  “All of it,” he said, leaning forward just enough to wrap up the man’s mind like a present and then open it. “Show me where the querine is being delivered tonight.”

  Number Four was transfixed by Scythe’s power; frozen in his own body, he was helpless to stop his own thoughts from sitting up, dancing a little jig, and then dropping down and rolling over.

  Scythe shuffled through his memories with a quick, practiced efficiency. He ignored the man’s groans as easily as he ignored his own instinctive reactions to what he saw. The things this guy would do without blinking an eye, the things he had done to find and secure his position, were not things Scythe wanted in his head, but that was the price he paid to get the job done right.

&nb
sp; When he had gotten all the information he wanted about another building he’d never been to, he held up the photo of a boy tied to a pipe and asked one more question, “Show me where this kid is.”

  -----------

  The personal message popped up, and he deleted it when he saw who had sent it. Then he returned to his research. He flew through the reading, stopping only periodically to add a portion of what he had uncovered to his report. He frowned at a piece of information that didn’t line up with the rest. He probed for twenty minutes until he found the discrepancy: a misquote. He made a note of it and returned to the original document, picking up where he had left off.

  The misquote detour, a wild goose chase that was completely unrelated to what he was hunting for, wouldn’t stay in the back of his head where he had shelved it. It tapped its little feet and made quiet coughing noises until he tried to scare it off with an aggressive shake of his head. Then it hit him: another thread he could follow. He left his current path to check it out. Within moments, he found what he was looking for. He sat back and stared unbelievingly at the name: it was right there in the register for anyone to see.

  His fingers flew over the keyboard for a few more minutes, and then he reached over and pulled the warm paper out of the printer and slid it into a folder.

  He grabbed his jacket, tucked the report in his backpack, and left his small room. Fifteen minutes later he stood before his unit’s captain in her cramped office.

  “Istle,” Scythe said. “He’s the one.”

  “He’s not even from that department,” the woman argued, looking down the page in front of her. She didn’t look up past his shoulders when she lifted her head. “It looks like a mistake.”

  Scythe shrugged.

  “I’m not wasting my men on some misguided hunch.” She laid the report down on the desk and pushed it toward him.

  “I’ll go, then,” Scythe said without picking it up. He turned to the door.

  “Fine, just don’t make any paperwork for me.”

  Scythe nodded and left the room. Behind him, she grumbled, knowing full well that he would be able to hear her, “I can’t believe I have to deal with this every day.”

  He let the words pass through him, since they didn’t have anything to do with the hunt, and pulled a small computer out of his bag. By the time he had left the building, he had Istle’s address, the layout of the building where he lived, a list of neighbors and their bios…just about everything he needed. The man’s work schedule showed that he would be getting off in twenty minutes, so Scythe hurried through the parking lot to his motorcycle. Twelve minutes and ten miles later, he parked his bike and headed into one of the nicer apartment complexes in the area.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked from her doorway. She had just put a box of recyclables down on her doormat, and, instead of retreating back into her home like most people did when they noticed him, she crossed her hands over her chest. She was gutsy, but not too bright.

  “No,” Scythe said, noticing from the way the muscles around her eyes flinched that she wasn’t frowning at him, she was trying to see better with her weak eyes. That explained why she even took the time to talk to him. Still…

  She sniffed loudly, finally noticing his scent. Not Kin. Not Human. Not anything you wanted in your building. “Who are you? Are you a friend of Istle?”

  That question was even more interesting than the fact that she was still talking to him. First, he was fairly sure that she was the type of nosy person who would know if her neighbor had a halfblood friend. Even more compelling was the fact that the notion of a halfblood friend was an oxymoron in that region. Since he had finished with the lock, Scythe ignored the question and went inside, closing the door behind him. He stood by the entrance and waited until he heard Istle’s neighbor close her door before he moved further into the apartment.

  This was one of the best parts: finding the hole. He hoped Istle was clever, or at least imaginative. Since most people weren’t, he checked in the obvious places first. He wasn’t too concerned about not finding it; Istle would give it to him when he got home, but it was more entertaining if he could find it himself before that happened.

  By the time four minutes had passed, he had hit all the usual spots and he was grinning. By seven he was smiling.

  When Istle stopped just outside his door, drawing a slow breath in through his nose and frowning, Scythe opened it and grabbed him by the collar. He ushered the surprised Kin down the hall to his neighbor’s door. Scythe made sure to use an iron grip, even though Istle wasn’t built to give him any trouble. He knew that the thin, wiry ones had a way of slipping out and running for it.

  No time or interest in chases today.

  Scythe ignored Istle’s prerequisite stare as well as the offensive words that ensued as soon as he gathered his wits.

  “Can I help you?” the sweet grannie type asked again when she opened her door. This time she was close enough for her own stare and what looked like sincere regret about the offer.

  “Yes,” Scythe said firmly, bringing Istle up next to him. “Are you by any chance holding some things for your friend Istle?”

  “Um, well, yes. His parents had some old photos that they wanted re...what’s it called, dear?” she asked Istle, who was working on a very convincing look of terror. He perfected it when he opened his mouth to protest and his eyes slid sideways involuntarily. It took a few seconds for him to learn that he had to remember to breathe if he wanted to talk.

  In the quiet, Scythe prompted, “Retouched?” He signaled her with a nod and followed her into the apartment with Istle in tow.

  “No…”

  “Restored?” Two steps into her home and he felt it. Danger. It wasn’t anything in the apartment itself. It was something in the way she walked and the faint smell that came off of her. It wasn’t the smell of a kindly aunt with a batch of cookies. It was the smell of an angry old woman who was deciding which switch to use on her naughty grandson. His lips twitched ever so slightly and the oil started to spread under his skin.

  What a nice lady, making things fun for him.

  “No…Re…” She led them into her living room, crossed it and pointed to a clean but worn recliner that blocked a door in the far wall. “Could you move this, dear? It’s in the closet there.”

  Better and better. Scythe pushed Istle forward. “Get it.” While the Kin zig-zagged the chair to the side, Scythe asked, “Reframed?”

  “Oh, I just can’t remember…” Rubbing her back and groaning pitiably, she turned and dropped herself into a second chair with a huff.

  Scythe didn’t even consider stopping her. He wanted to see where she kept it and how fast she was.

  “Enhanced!” Istle shouted, finally getting the chair out of the way. “I told you like fifty times!” He jumped for the door and whatever weapon he had hidden there. It turned out to be a bat, which, while not surprising given the man’s limits, was still a bit of a letdown.

  Istle pivoted, raising the bat above his head, and stopped. Behind him were stacks and stacks of digital tapes, discs, hard drives and even some of the classics: magazines, photo flip books and individual glossies. Just beyond his right shoulder, in the depths of the closet, a copy of the poster that had started Scythe’s hunt was stapled to the edge of a shelf labeled, “Best Sellers.”

  The poster had flipped up from the burst of air generated when the door was opened and Scythe watched it drop down slowly, revealing like a peep show the young Human girl’s torn, bloody body and mournful, defeated gaze. The brilliant blue eyes captured the observer’s mind and held it in rapture, and within seconds the heart began to beat: desperately in some, and, in the case of their clients, with something more sinister. That face had made them a fortune.

  Scythe had learned nearly everything about the widespread, highly profitable business over the last few months. He had seen too many of the details in their memories, felt too much of their sick joy and pain and guilt and evil pleasure to be tou
ched anymore by the picture taken in the last moments of Yesre Hillman’s life.

  But he was, and worse than the poster was a memory that he had stolen from the photographer during the search to take down all the key figures of the ring. He couldn’t get that memory out of his head. He couldn’t erase details like the fact that only one hand was shackled because their clients liked it when the girl, or boy, could fight a little. There were, however, ways that he could cope.

  Istle watched Scythe, his hand wrapped around the woman’s, which was wrapped around her gun, lift the weapon and aim it. His eyes darted back and forth between Scythe and the unconscious woman. He started pleading automatically, quickly holding the bat away from himself and letting it drop. “Please don’….”

  He said some more things, but Scythe didn’t hear.

  “...and I’ll do wha…”

  Or, maybe he did, but he didn’t listen.

  “…’ve got money…”

  All Scythe heard was the blood rushing in his ears, hot blood that burned and had a nasty appetite. He started to make some paperwork.

  The kindly neighbor lady’s finger, with some help, shot him in the shin, and then in a couple of other places. No critical spots though, because Istle still had some work to do, before he could rest.

  -----------

  No one was home.

  She lay in her own sweat, gasping for breath, gripping the edge of her shirt, her eyes on the ceiling but her sight still caught in a place she’d never been. Slowly, she began to free herself, or, rather, the vision had had its way and allowed her to go free. She blinked a few times and waited while blurry things sharpened and sharp things blurred. Then the softer emotions that had left with her mind returned to her. They crept up on her from all around, crawling over her whole body and giving her the shivers. The shivers grew into shakes, and the shakes went well with sobs.