Page 46 of In Darkness Transformed
Jakes abruptly broke off glaring at his daughter and Eli in turn and tapped the newspaper with his forefinger. “We’ve got more pressing problems right now.”
It took Eli a few seconds to catch up with the change in subject. Safara reached for the paper and spread it out where the two of them could see the front page. The banner headline read “Unidentified Gang Goes on Bloody Rampage.”
Safara looked stricken. “Oh no. What are we going to do?”
Eli skimmed the article, which outlined a series of apparently random attacks by a group armed with swords. The people involved wore odd clothing and had long hair. It was suggested that they looked like a group of reenactors of some kind or possibly a religious cult.
He dropped the paper back onto the table. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to stop them.”
Jakes pounded the table with his fist. “It’s not your fight. It’s ours.”
Turning his attention back to his daughter, he continued, “I’ve already contacted the clan leaders. First up, we need to locate Tiel and the others. When we know where they’ve gone to ground, we’ll organize the hunt.”
Safara stood up. “It won’t take me long to get my stuff together.”
Eli wasn’t about to get shoved to the sidelines now. It was time to make sure Jakes understood that. “They’ve already attacked your father and damn near killed him. They also attacked a Sworn Guardian and his men, not to mention Tiel did his best to kill your daughter. For that alone, he deserves to die.”
He moved behind Safara and wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. “I have years of the right kind of training for this kind of mission, all thanks to the U.S. Army and the Special Forces. Whether you approve of my involvement with your daughter or not, you’re smart enough to use every asset at your disposal. Either include me in the plans, or I start hunting myself.”
Then he offered the other man a predatory smile. “And I guarantee you, I have a helluva lot more experience in taking down rabid animals than you do. So, what’s it going to be?”
The lawman glared at him. “You’re not one of my deputies.”
Safara tipped her head back against Eli’s shoulder, clearly in no hurry to leave his embrace. “Neither are the clan leaders you’re calling in to help. Eli’s right, Dad. You can use his help, and you know it.”
The two Dennells stared at each other for a long time before Jakes finally nodded.
“I’ll go back to the office and track any new police reports. I’ll feed you the information as I have it.”
That gave Eli an idea. “Let’s look at a map of the area and see where the attacks happened. That could give us a place to start.”
He brought out the atlas he’d used to mark the locations of the previous attacks he’d researched at the library. When he opened to the map of Washington, Jakes leaned down to read the sticky notes, which had dates and locations written on them. “What are those?”
“More cases like the ones in today’s paper. I did some checking when I was trying to figure out what happened to Martin. This kind of attack has been going on for years up and down the West Coast. I meant to tell Safara what I’d learned, but it slipped my mind with everything else that’s been going on.”
“Well, damn.” Jakes ran his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair as he stared down at the map and the story the small pieces of paper told. “Believe it or not, we do our best to control the incursions from Kalithia, but we can’t catch every rogue that slips across.”
Eli might have his differences with Jakes, but there was no way the man should have to shoulder a shitload of guilt for what the crazies from Kalithia had done over the years. Even with the best equipment, the best training, and even the best laid plans, sometimes things just went to hell for no good reason. When that happened, innocent people died. Eli had personal experience with that, and not just when that blasted helicopter crashed. Over the years, he’d learned the hard way that a man could either let failure cripple him or use it to reaffirm his resolve to do better the next time.
“No, you can’t stop them, not completely. You know as well as I do that crazies are going to do what crazies do, whether we’re talking about rogues from Kalithia or our own homegrown nutcases.”
Then he met Jakes’s gaze head-on, one warrior to another, and pointed at the newspaper headline again. “But we can stop this bunch and make sure they don’t hurt anyone else.”
He felt Safara tense as they waited for her father to respond. Finally, Jakes nodded. “You’re right. Let’s get these bastards.”
16
Eli caught her arm before Safara could follow her dad outside. His deep green eyes crinkled at the corners, softening the grim expression on his face but not banishing it completely. “Tell him whatever you need to, Safara. Don’t let my problems damage your relationship with your father. I’m not worth it.”
And that kind of selfless act was what drew her heart like no other man she’d ever known regardless of their promises to keep their relationship simple. It was far too late for that. Rather than have that particular discussion right now, she gave Eli a quick kiss and followed her father out to his car. She could’ve waved good-bye from the porch, but there was too much left unsaid between them to let him just drive away. He started to open the door but stopped to lift his face up to the warm sunlight filtering through the trees. Maybe he’d also realized that they needed to talk things out.
With his eyes still trained on the sky, he muttered, “I should’ve called first.”
“Yeah, you should have.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “And I should’ve checked in again, so you wouldn’t worry about me being up here alone.”
Her dad’s mouth curved up in the barest hint of a smile. “If you were alone, I wouldn’t have been worried. Well, at least not about the same things.”
She wanted to laugh, but knowing her time with Eli continued to tick down hurt too much. “No matter what happens or doesn’t happen between Eli and me, he’s a good man, Dad.”
