Page 82 of Ace
It hit Tucker like a wrecking ball.‘Kell’s mother? That bitch is here? Now?’
‘Yesssssss…’Savannah hissed as her eyes rolled back in her head.
Chapter Forty-One
RJ thought he had a dog in this fight? That he could waltz into this room and take Savannah without a fight?Guess again, dumbass.Keller had never zeroed down as quickly nor been as focused on so much evil in his life. If Queen Elaine was a voodoo priestess, Rudy John was her lap dog. Like that scene in‘Ghostbusters,’he was a supporting actor, one of those stone temple dogs, a brain-dead zombie, just playing a part. But Keller was in the fight of his life.
He’d recognized Elaine’s unique stink the second RJ cleared the door. How could he forget the putrid odor of rotted garbage and fish guts, the lingering scent of death? And blood. Always blood. She was here in spirit as surely as her zombie puppet was here in the flesh. But today she would die.
Savannah had collapsed, but Keller couldn’t see any blood on her neck. She hadn’t been cut. RJ still had atight grip on her neck, that might’ve caused her to faint. The guy was quick, but Keller suspected RJ had only caught Savannah because of his witch of a mother working behind the scenes. Queen Elaine needed Savannah alive for now. Quick and merciful she was not. Not if this was all about making her son suffer.
Still upright in his arm, Savannah’s head lolled against RJ’s bony shoulder. He ran his nose up her cheek, then licked her, staring at Keller while he did it, the sick fuck.
And Keller wanted to tear him apart.
‘Guys,’he said to the people he trusted, his Deuces Wild team.‘Meet my bitch of a mother, the God damned—and I mean that in every sense of the curse—queen of the damned, her fucking highness, Queen Elaine Boniface.’
A cackle filled the room.‘You’re no son of mine.’
‘Halle-fuckin’-lujah,’Keller returned with the malice of a lifetime.‘You have no idea how I wish that were true, Ma.’He spat that last twisted word for the cold-hearted female who’d given him life. There was no love for her. No pleasure at hearing her dried up smoker’s rasp. No reason to let her live. It was no wonder Gran Mere mistook Elaine for a man. She sounded like one.
But the anger he’d held onto all these years wasn’t enough to fight the kind of evil Elaine had honed into a fine art. And Keller was no idiot. In the last few days, he’d witnessed true magic in action. It didn’t come from murdering kittens and squeezing the guts out of tiny, yellow ducklings. It didn’t come from chanting spells,painting blood on your ugly wicked face, or cursing evil on your neighbors.
It came from the simple purity beating in Savannah’s chest. It came from prayers and believing in the goodness of others. It came from reaching out with love instead of hate. And yes, it came from the Man Upstairs, who even now, Keller realized, he had always believed in.
At the most fundamental level of existence, Elaine wasn’t as strong as she thought she was. But Keller was. Because he now knew to his tattered soul that, yes, he loved Savannah with all his heart. She and Carol Marie had been true and honest points of light along the dark path he’d been forced to travel. He’d never deserved them, but that hadn’t stopped either of them from reaching out to him and blessing him with their unconditional love. Because love was the most powerful psychic talent in the world. Not hate. Not prejudice. Not rumor or slander. Lovecouldwork wonders. He just hadn’t realized it until now.
Like Savannah would have done if she’d been awake, Keller opened his heart, and cast his first thread into the universe. He called upon his friends for their allegiance and their God-given psychic talents. He called upon their friendship and their loyalty to him. He called the four elements to stand with him.
Air came to his mind on a rush, in the guise of the gentle wisdom of the young genius, Isaiah. A bolt of lightning from stoic Tate crackled through the distance. Keller caught the burning lance with his heart and held on tight to a friendship forged in heavenly fire. Eden,the epitome of Mother Earth’s fertile goddess, arrived with a psychic soul hug and the scent of lilacs. Lilacs! The lovely fragrance brought tears to Keller’s eyes.
‘Savannah sends her love,’she whispered.‘She’d be here if she could, but someone’s blocking her. She’s not worried, though. Knock ’em dead, Kell.’
And his boss? The bonafide Navy SEAL? True to his larger than life ego, Tucker Chase was suddenly standing inside Keller’s room, roaring like one pissed off hurricane, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory! Let it fuckin’ rain! Hoo-rah!”
Keller nodded, his heart stuck in his throat and completely overcome by the mists of unconditional love swelling around him like a thick security blanket. That’s what his team was. His cushion and his safety net. His buddies to the end. Like the humble servant he was, Keller closed his eyes and called upon the one and only Creator of gifts. “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.”
Keller sensed Eden standing in Sanctuary, her head bowed and her hands clasped over her heart, whispering devoutly,‘For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.’
Tate’s reverent,‘Only the kingdom, the power and glory. Forever and ever,’reverberated across the miles.
Isaiah too prayed,‘The kingdom. The power. The glory.’
Again. The chant swelled around Keller from the four corners of the universe.
And again. Filling him. Crowding the darkness out. Lighting his way. It all came down to this one truth.Darkness could not stand in the grace of one pure light. It wasn’t fundamentally, scientifically, or spiritually possible. Savannah had shown Keller the way of grace, and he believed. He finally believed.
But he was injured and growing weaker. Elaine was not. If anything, she’d gathered strength from crushing the weak.‘Nice show, chicken shit, but someone still has to die.’She summoned her slave.‘Kill her, Rudy John. Cut her throat. Now. While he’s watching!’
‘No!’Keller knew it then. Elaine wouldn’t be satisfied until she had her blood sacrifice.‘Take me,’he begged on what he hoped was their private channel.‘Order RJ to let Savannah go and take me. I’m the one you’ve hated all these years.’
An eerie silence filled his ears even as the Deuces Wild team continued their chant.
Elaine cackled,‘Still so much like your worthless father. Still so weak. I should’ve killed you when I killed him. Would’ve been easy. I’ve always hated you and Hell’s been coming for you all your life.’
With every word she uttered, Keller could feel the icy chill of Death’s breath on his soul. Just like with Carol Marie, Elaine had never intended to let Savannah live.‘Why? What’d I ever do to you?’
‘Because you lived! Because the drunken bastard wouldn’t let me kill you when you was born! Then you run off to school and you learned things!’
