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.”
Harold squeezed the trigger, firing in rapid succession, all along the wall where the voice seemed to be coming from. Each bullet leaving the chamber seemed to turn up the temperature of both the room and his weapon. Sweat broke out. Maybe it was the children and their incessant crying.
“David! Shut them the hell up!” He screamed it and wiped at the sweat dripping from his forehead with his arm. He had a holdout gun in his boot, and for some reason it felt like a brand pressed against his ankle.
“David can’t make them stop,” Alena said. “Only you can do that. David is dead. You wanted him dead. I heard your thoughts. You wanted to slice his throat so many times to shut him up. You thought he was a weak link, and you didn’t like him knowing Avery or you.”
Harold let off another round of bullets, nearly emptying his weapon into the wall. “How do you know these things?” he screamed. “David was a weasel. He would have given us up in a heartbeat if anyone caught him. Yeah, I wanted him dead. I talked to Avery a million times about it. So what? Come out where I can see you.”
Alena’s soft laughter could barely be heard above the crying children. They wailed constantly now, so many of them. “How can a conscience come out where you can see it? You barely hear me when I protest the things you’re doing.”
Harold whirled around and rushed to the door leading back to the sitting room. Before he grasped the doorknob, he hesitated and then tried to yank. The door refused to budge. The doorknob delivered another very hard jolt, the electricity running through his body, burning through him. He yelled and dragged his hand back. The other one, the hand with the gun, was burning now. So was his ankle where his holdout was.
Cursing, Harold hurried through the room to the other side. He put his hand near the door and immediately felt the electrical energy. He didn’t grab it. Instead, he whirled around and screamed at the voice. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to pay. They want you to pay. Can’t you hear them crying out for justice? You want that for them, don’t you, Harold?”
Her voice sounded so angelic. So pure. So reasonable. Harold found his gun hand coming up toward his head. Gasping, he shook his head and forced it toward the large plates of glass that made up the outside wall. The sunroom looked like a massive porch walled in with glass on three sides. To get out of it, he determined he would simply shoot out the panels. He began squeezing the trigger, shattering the glass.
Each bullet fired raised the temperature of the metal on his gun. His hand burned. He glanced down at the weapon and it glowed red orange in the dark. Startled, he yelped and let go. Inside his boot, he could see the same orange-red glow. His calf burned like a mother. He didn’t want to take the time to pull the gun from his boot. He just wanted away from those bawling, sniveling children and that voice that seemed to consume him.
Harold ran toward the glass panels, raised his arms to cover his face and leapt. He felt the glass shatter around him, go into him, dozens of pieces as he passed through. He hit the ground, rolled and stood up, looking back into the room and giving it the finger. He had gotten out. He reached for his cell phone to warn Avery. As he did so, he turned. Something jerked at his chest. He stared into the iciest blue eyes he’d ever seen. They looked like two twin crystals.
“Who are . . .” He staggered and looked down at his chest.
Frowning, he saw a handle sticking out of it. He went to his knees. “What is this?”
“The children you hurt send their regards, Harold,” Alena said. Her voice was detached, composed, serene even. She stepped back and walked away.
The main man has arrived. He’s driving right up to the front entrance now, Absinthe warned.