Clayton's Jade (Runes Stone Series) Read online

  “Very sore, in fact I don’t have anything to compare it with, if that tells you anything. How is everyone else doing?” She was concerned over some of the more serious injuries that some of the shifters had received. In a lower voice directed at Clayton she asked “How did I sleep last night?” She saw him smile at her and knew that he like whatever had happened.

  He leaned over and whispered into her ear “You shifted while asleep and curled up at my waist and stayed that way until you shifted back. I think your cat likes me too.” Then he straightened back up and said loud enough for rest of them to hear, “Everyone seems to be healing fine. It is just going to take time for all the wounds to completely heal. Over all we came out better than the other side. In fact I don’t think they killed anyone on our side. This is just the first of many battles that lies before us, but we will prevail either that or lose everything and everyone.” Gavin answered. He was the one with the most medical training in the group.

  “One thing we need to do is set up a real first aid area. We need more and better supplies than what we had on hand. We need to get a list of everything we need and get it here so we have for the next time this happens. I don’t want anyone to worry that we don’t have enough gauze or that we are out of stitching thread. If you guys are going to make my home a base of operations, I want certain precautions, put into place as soon as possible.” She knew Clayton would make sure everything would be stocked before the next time they got hit.

  “It will be taken care of. I will have Gavin make a list of the things we will need and we will get them here. I promise. Is there anything else on your mind?” the look in his eyes gave her all kinds of ideas, but she was going to be good and pay attention to her guests. She wondered if they would maybe fit in a nap sometime today or if she was going to have to wait until tonight? Sometimes it sucked being good!

  “There are lots of things on my mind some of them just have to wait. So what did you guys do with the shifters you caught in the nets? Are they still sitting up in the air?” She couldn’t help the little snicker of laughter that escaped her at the thought of them still up there just hanging around in the nude. They deserved it, but as much as she wanted them to still be hanging around she knew better.

  “I believe Dagda dropped them in the ocean this morning, after they had changed back into their human side, if you want to call it that. We let them hang for a day. It should have been a sight for everyone to see watching them walk out of the ocean stark ass naked. I wonder if they could get a ticket for that.” Ok, that was just too much to hear and not bust a gut over. There was a side effect that she had not counted on, she froze every one. Oh shit, oh shit, this was so not good. How was she going to fix this? Before the fight she couldn’t even get her new power to work now it works when she didn’t want it to.

  “I don’t know what to do.” She whispered more to herself than anything else. Still in shock over what she had done, she didn’t realize that someone was behind her until a hand was covering her mouth. Oh god, now what? Please, please wake up. She couldn’t even yell for Vie, because she was still recovering from healing all of those people. She kicked one of her feet back, but nothing was there. Whoever had her knew that she would try to do that.

  “My timing couldn’t have been more perfect of course Hel was the one that picked it. I have been through a lot and made a deal to get to you. Now, not only will you be mine, but I will get to kill your lover and you get to watch. Not here though, as tempting as it is, I have a better plan.” He put a gag into her mouth very quickly before she could get a sound out. Then he blindfolded her so that she couldn’t see what he was doing. He was not nice about tying her hands up behind her back. Then she was pushed in a direction of his choice.

  She recognized the voice, but how could he be here? She thought Clayton had killed the Tasmanian devil. Hold on, she needed to think about everything she had heard him say. He made a deal with Hel. If she was right, Hel was like Hell or Hades this could not be good for them. She wished she had paid more attention when her parents had tried to teach her about mythology, but she thought it was boring. Now she was going to pay for it.

  She was shoved into the back seat of a car. The pain that hit her from being shoved into the car was so intense that she almost threw up. It was probably a good thing that she had not eaten or drank anything since the night of the fight or she would have. Then he shut the door and left again for a few minutes. If only she knew how long they were going to remain frozen but she didn’t. The only thing on her side was the Tasmanian didn’t know either so he had to hurry. People in a hurry make mistakes. That’s a fact of life.

  The Tasmanian still had not returned, but she felt something else in the car with her. It wasn’t something that you could touch or feel in the normal sense of the word. It was her sixth sense that felt it and something else inside of her. It was not a good feeling, it made her skin crawl. The part that was inside her made her feel worse than what she already was, and where it had touched her, it left an oil residue. That was as close to describing it as she could come to.

  Even when the Tasmanian got back to the car, the other thing was still in the car with them. The Tasmanian knew it was too, the difference was that he could see it. “What are you doing here? I will get her part of the deal done in my own time. I don’t need you to shadow me. Now go back to Hel.” He started the car and got it moving but she didn’t know in what direction at least she didn’t when they got to the main road she could guess but that would be useless. “I hope that Hel’s pet didn’t bother you too much. I guess that is something I am going have to get used to.” Then he turned on the radio and talking filled the car, unless he played the CD. The only thing that came on radio was talking. She never listened to it which is why she had a lot of CDs in the car and in the house. They drove for a while until they got off on a dirt road. There were a lot of back roads in this area. Where was he going? Every time the car hit a pot hole her body took air and reminded her that she was not completely healed from the other night. The only good thing was she was getting used to the sick feeling from all the pain in her body. Ok, so this day officially sucked and she would be glad when Clayton kicked his ass!

  After about a half an hour of getting jostled around in the back seat from all the bumps they came to a stop. He turned off the car and dragged her out of the car. She wanted to pass out and make him carry her but she was afraid of what he would do while she was out cold. Once she was standing he made her start walking, after they had walked about twenty minutes he took the blindfold off and let her see where she was walking. As they kept walking she started to see different things that she had seen before. She had been on this trail before that was good, now she just had to figure out which one it was.

  This was a well-used trail. The dirt was hard packed from people walking on it. Along the sides of the path were ferns, redwoods and deer berries. Deer berries looked like a huckleberry but were red. They were good to eat right off the bush when they were ripe, but from the looks of them it would be another month or so. She figured they were about half way down the trail when she realized where they were. They were on the Boy Scout trail off of Halland hill.

  At the end of this trail was a small waterfall and even farther was a farm. She had never met the owners. He owned cattle but had similar standards towards his land that she did. Every time she tested the water in this area it was clean unlike a lot of other places around here. Maybe if she could figure out how to get away she could go to him for help. At least now she had hope and she knew the area.

  CHAPTER 12

  As Clayton unfroze he realized that something was wrong. Someone had duct taped his hands and feet to the chair as he looked around the table he saw that the rest of them had the same problem. Kaylee’s power had gotten out of control when she laughed it froze all of them. What had happened after that? He got so mad at the thought of Kaylee being taken that everything ripped including the tape. Then he went around the table and untapped e
veryone else then he went into the kitchen and found the note that had been left.

  “Damnit! Hel made the Tasmanian devil a deal and he has Kaylee. If I want her back I have to find the Boy Scout trail. He is going to set a trap, and we, my friends, are going to walk in from all sides and try and surprise him. We need to get the shifters that are not injured to help, and then we go in.” They all split up and started getting ahold of people and he went to the bedroom where Brad was.

  He opened the door. Brad sat in a chair next to the bed holding Bridget’s hand. Lines of tension marked his face, as he just sat there as he waited for a response to anything to show she was still in there. If he knew Bridget she was fighting like hell to wake up.

  Brad looked up and finally noticed him. “Hey what’s up? You have that look on your face again.” He really hated to tell Brad the bad news.

  “Kaylee accidently froze everyone and the tasmanian took her. We need your help to find the Boy Scout trail.” He had a look of shock hit his face, followed by anger. He would have made a good berserker.

  “Why did this have to happen when most of our people were down? We will have to figure out how she can control this new power, because if this happened in town it would end very badly. I will go with you to get her back. I know this area better than most of the people up and moving right now.” He reached down and kissed Bridget’s forehead. Watching him try to leave her in this state was very touching and he knew that if he was in the same shoes he would do the same thing. He left Brad to finish his goodbye in private. The hardest part about going out to fight was the unknown. The question that kept running through your head was would you make it back to your loved ones.

  When he turned and looked in the front room he was surprised at how many people were waiting to help him get Kaylee back. The people that had been pulled into this were amazing and he was proud to know them. Some of them were confused, because they had seen him kill the Tasmanian devil at the end of the fight the other night. Well, if they were going to put their lives on the line they deserved to know the whole truth. He didn’t think it would make that much difference to them.

  “Many of you saw me kill the Tasmanian the other night, you deserve the whole truth. This last fight was just part of a larger battle being fought over this world.” He went on to explain about the Norse mythology and what was going on right now.

  “So how exactly did he come back to life?” Tim asked.

  And here comes the part that could make the difference. “He made a deal with Hel. She lives in Helhaim and has control of rebellious spirits and ghosts. She could make our mission harder than it already is. I want you to understand everything before you put your life on the line again.” Fighting something that you could see was one thing, fighting something that you couldn’t see was another.

  It was like the proverbial you could have heard a pin drop. It wasn’t just quiet, it was dead silence. Some of the people were looking at him like he had grown another head or something. Finally, Tim looked at him and said “this guy took Kaylee because she can help stop Ragnarok from happening? I say we help because if they win we all lose. How hard are spirits to fight? Do we stand a chance?” As some of them started to snap out of the trance they had been in they agreed. Well, at least they didn’t think he was completely crazy.

  “Well, the first thing we need to do is look for some garlic, no it’s not for vampires. Yes they do exist. They will not be out there today. Garlic is good for protection against evil spirits also. Then we need to gather salt and water and for extra protection and we will need to have it blessed. I also have a bunch of sage in my car that we can burn when we get close to the meeting area. Also, we need to put rice on the floor by all the doors. This will slow them down and make them count before they do anything else.” For some reason spirits, demons and vampires all felt a compulsion to count what was in front of them. He had one squirt gun, but they would have to buy more. They could put the blessed water into the squirt guns. “Does anyone know where we can go to get the water and salt blessed?” He didn’t want to deal with weird looks or have to explain himself.

  “We can go see James, he works for a minister at one of the Christian churches, and he is also a shifter. I had better be the one to go in and ask him though. He doesn’t like a lot of people to know that he is a shifter.” Brad said as he looked up at the group. “Also, if you know him please don’t let on that you know.”

  “Let’s get going, the sooner we get to Kaylee the better off she is going to be. I worry about what he is going to do to her.” Going off in different directions they started to collect the various things that Clayton had mentioned that they were going to need. They found several containers of salt, but they were still going to have to stop by the store to pick up more salt, but at least it was a start. Blessed salt and or water would burn some entities or keep them out of an area. The problem was how he was going to deploy the salt. He wanted to come up with something that they were not expecting. He had an idea that might work with balloons but he didn’t know if it would work or not. One way was to fill them partially with salt and air then throw them, the other was just fill them with salt and have the bird shifters drop them from the air. That would disperser the salt in a large area. The other way would only work for close range if it worked at all.

  He was going to have to get metal containers for the sage to burn in. He didn’t want the forest to catch on fire. He walked towards the last two motor homes that contained the supplies that had been collected. They took two of the motor homes that way when they got the stuff from the store they could work on getting things ready while one person drove. They had two different bird shifters, both capable of holding a balloon in their talons. So as soon as the minister blessed the salt they could start filling the balloons.

  They decided to stop at the store first and pick up a few gallons of water. As they went through the store they picked up some energy drinks and some power bars, they figured they could use all the help they could get. Then someone decided that helium would be better than just air and was worth a try so they added two dozen helium filled balloons to the purchase. Clayton paid for everything, and then they loaded it into the motor homes. Brad was in the other motor home which was leading the way. They made several turns before parking in front of small white church. It looked like a house with the exception of the sign in front on the white fence letting everyone know what time services were. The grass was freshly cut because you could still smell it. You could still see the lines that the wheels had left in the grass from the lawn mower.

  Clayton and Brad took the water and the salt that they had into the church. This might prove to be interesting. He wondered how James would explain why they needed all of this stuff blessed to the minister and he would react. James was in an office located in the back of the building. When they entered his office he looked up startled that they were there. When he saw the water and salt they were carrying his mouth just dropped. “What are you up to Brad, and who is your friend?”

  “This is Clayton and we need you to have this water and salt blessed for us.” The look that James gave Clayton said you are behind this and I know it.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Clayton threw Brad a look and mouthed I knew this was going to happen.

  “Do you really want to know? If you are serious I will tell you, in fact you can come along and help. If not just bless the stuff so we can do what we need to do.” Clayton was tired of being looked at like he was crazy when he tried to explain what was going on. He could see that James was trying to decide what he was going to do.

  “James, you need to be sure of your decision, because once you know you can’t go back.” How do you explain to a someone that there are more than just one god, in fact there are several without him going wacko in the head? If anyone could handle that information it would be James.

  James looked from Brad then over to Clayton. His chest expanded as he took a deep breath then he released it. “You
might as well tell me, because I will not bless anything until I know the whole story.”

  Brad looked at him and said “first you have it bless it then we will tell you.” Then James got up and took it down the hall to the minister to have it blessed. When he was done he sat back in his chair and waited for them to explain everything to him.

  As Clayton told him, he stared gathering all the religious artifacts that he could carry and put them into a canvas backpack. “Let’s go. I am going to help all I can. I still have my beliefs but now there is just more to it. I can work with that. I might have to have a word with Odin one of these days over his temper. If he had kept his cool we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  Now Clayton would pay good money to watch that. “I believe he will be up at Kaylee’s next week for a ceremony, I think that was what he said anyways. Would you like to ride with Brad or myself?”

  “I will ride with Brad. I think that everyone here knows that I am a shifter by now. I don’t think he had a way around that. What you two don’t know is the type of shifter I am. I am from a very old line. I am a dire wolf.” James stood still waiting to see the reactions of the guys.

  “So that’s why you’ve never changed in front of anyone and you always left town right before the full moon. You didn’t want anyone to see a dire wolf since they died out.” Brad stated it like it didn’t really matter. “We are all different, it’s no big deal. Kaylee has a nice chunk of property that everyone in the group shifted on this last full moon. We have some weird shifters in our group. In fact there is a narwhale at the house recovering.”