Chapter 14
She sat in the car Leigh's dad had let her borrow. Not the nice one Jamie had seen parked just outside the Maxwell driveway. That was Mr. Bennett's baby and no one—especially someone who might very well get blown up—was going to touch his stick shift. He let her borrow the old black Lincoln. It was a piece of junk, but it would do the trick just nicely.
Jamie drove to the end of the next block and idled. She didn't have to wait long. Within seconds, a dark blur caught up to the vehicle. When he finally stopped to hop into the car, his features solidified.
"They didn't see me." Porter strapped the seatbelt across his chest. "We're good to go."
Jamie placed her foot on the gas and they were off. Neither of them felt like talking much as they sped toward the Henderson place. They fell into an alert silence. She let her mind wander slightly, letter the lower half of her brain autopilot the car. Soon they were out of town and the streetlights stopped flashing soothing patterns across the dashboard.
From there on out, it was mostly dark fields with the occasional tree racing by the windows. They passed her old house and sped onward. She began to keep a lookout for an old and dilapidated home.
"Henderson home, coming right up," Porter remarked wearily, his emotions swimming guiltily. Jamie got a faint image from his brain. He felt as if he should be the one to enter the house—not her.
Jamie turned the car over to the side of the road and braked. She hoped she could trust Porter not to do anything rash. She turned to him firmly and said, "Please don't go anywhere. Stay in the car."
His eyes flared up and he gave her the look of a sullen child. A child who has been given unnecessary orders. He knew his duty—even if he didn't like it. Maybe it wasn't such a good thing to feel his emotions. This job would be a lot easier without knowing what he felt.
She smiled apologetically and moved over to brush his cheek with her lips, as soft as butterfly wings. She pulled back and hopped out of the car, shutting it softly behind her. The door made a resounding click and Jamie cringed. At least she had parked far enough away from the property. She doubted her father and Doug had placed sensors this far from the house.
She padded softly along the ground, her feet padded soundlessly along the damp dirt. Porter's serum was doing something to her senses—making them keener. The moon looked so much brighter and rounder from this distance. It cast a pale glow over the scraggly bushes and muddy ground. Jamie supposed the Henderson home had had grass once, but it was long gone now. The dirt was probably hard-packed and firm on most occasions. After the rainfall yesterday, it was like a sticky quagmire. She was every aware of the way her shoes sunk a few inches with each step she took. The scent of squirrels darting through the scraggly bushes caught her nose, startling her. She had never smelled a squirrel before—or been aware of the face that she smelled them. Human noses were not quite so acute.
As she lifted her feet from the sticky substance, the mud swallowed in slowly, to hide the prints she had made. It took her a good fifteen minutes to reach the front porch. The mud wouldn't let her move any faster.
She slipped the shoes from her feet and placed them just before the lowest step. She didn't need any muddy footprints giving them away. The Colonel needed to believe that the bombs were still active for their charade to work.
The Henderson house was rickety, but dazzling. It looked like one of those old plantation homes. Tall white pillars rose up around the front porch, supporting an upper balcony—or attempting to support. The last pillar on the right was splintered and bent, making a section of the upper balcony hang dangerously low. One of the supports had smashed through a front window and glass shards littered the front deck.
The termite-ridden wood dipped beneath her weight, and it was all Jamie could do to keep the wood from groaning. The front door was old and rusty and she imagined how it would squeal on its hinges. She opted for the shattered window instead. She pulled off the black coat the adults had let her borrow and placed it over the spiky sill. She braced her hands against the sill and lifted her feet into the air. She swung them around to land noiselessly in the room beyond. She was glad for her sharp sight as she landed in the blackness. If she had been fully human, it would have been almost impossible to see.
She got to work immediately, searching for loose floorboards or old boards that had been recently hammered down with new nails. She found plenty of loose floorboards but none of the latter. She reached her hands down inside the loose boards, cringing at the cobwebs that touched her fingers. She found no silver-encased bombs. Once she had searched the entire floor of the house, she moved to the walls, looking for cracks. She knocked softly, trying to hear a hollow echo. Next she checked the rafters and the nooks and crannies. Finally, she leaned into the corner, clenching her fists in frustration. She wanted to scream but that would have been her death.
She moved about the house again, rechecking everything. Where could they have placed the bombs? Finally, when her second search was over, she knew there was no bomb in the house. She remembered the grin that had crossed Doug's face. He said that she would never guess. Never guess what? Where had they hidden it?
With a soundless sigh, she finally gave up. It was nowhere in the house. She couldn't even begin to fathom the plan that had filled their heads. If only she had paid more attention when she had the chance.
She moved out the way she had come, placing the coat once more about her shoulders. It kept the night air from chilling her arms. Doug had been right. A cold spell was coming.
Her socks whispered along the porch and accidentally skittered a piece of glass. She froze. Finally, she dared move again. Hopefully, if the sensors picked it up, they would assume it was only a squirrel.
She stepped into the pair of grimy shoes and began to make her way back through the quagmire, keeping her senses opened. She smelled a faint trace of gunpowder, but that was to be expected. They had obviously brought the bombs passed here to place them in the house.
"We see you werewolf!" Doug barked. "Stop where you are!"
Jamie nearly jumped out of her skin. It was so unnerving to hear his voice. She couldn't smell him at all. Her ears trained to find the exact location of the voice. It was coming from a tiny skeletal bush just to her right. Miniature speakers, she realized, as she caught sight of a miniature gadget not much larger than a speck of dust. One of Doug's favorites.
She sniffed the air carefully, hoping to catch his scent. Doug wouldn't make such an outburst if he didn't plan to attack. He must have been near by, but the question was how near by. He obviously wasn't close enough to know he was threatening his sister.
She took off at a run, somewhat encumbered by the sticky mud. She ran low. She didn't want to make herself an easy target. The vehicle wasn't far now. She could feel Porter's surprise and knew he had caught on to her fear. He was coming to help her.
No! She thought the word with hard determination. She only hoped he would understand her meaning. Thoughts didn't flow in words—it didn't work that way.
She was almost there as Porter jumped from the car. The mud had become damp dirt again, dappled by little islands of grass.
A shot crackled in the distance. As Jamie dove the last few yards to the car, a force hit her in the side, driving her even more quickly. She tumbled to the ground, coughing hard. She looked down at herself, to see what had hit her. Blood was welling on her side, shining purple-black in the moonlight through the torn material. Jamie brought her hand to the torn cloth and it came back sticky wet.
Then the pain caught up with her and she was in mind shattering agony. It hurt too much to cry out. She'd been shot. Doug had shot her with a silver bullet.