Haunted Destiny

Corporal Al Bellingham had been one of those men. Hand-to-hand combat, a tiny village, insurgents who lived only to kill...and dozens of mothers, children, the aged.

Every corner could mean death, and Jude had turned one of those corners to see Al on the ground, writhing. He’d looked around, then hunkered down by his comrade and friend, the man with whom he’d played cards, baseball, music, enduring the hours in the hostile desert. He’d taken Al by the shoulders and dragged him back behind the small and desolate house that had been his own shield, lying low against the ricochet of stray bullets as he did.

He spoke into his radio, calling the medics, who would do their best. Automatic rifle fire beat a rat-tat-tat just beyond the little enclave where Jude had dragged the wounded man.

Al opened his eyes and gazed up at Jude. He didn’t address him as “Lieutenant” the way he usually did, even when the men were doing nothing but whiling away the hours, waiting for their call to action.

He addressed him as “fool.”

“Your head was out there, fool,” Al said. “Head down at all times!”

“The medics are coming. Don’t try to talk. Save your breath,” Jude said.

But Al had clutched his arm and looked desperately into his eyes. He rattled off a series of numbers. “Got that? Please, Jude, tell me you got that.”

“Al, medics are coming! You have to fight to live.”

Al’s grip tightened. “Please, Jude. I have a wife. Mellora. Remember? And a baby daughter. You give Mellora that number. Got it?”

He wouldn’t be able to keep him alive long enough for the medics to come.

Jude repeated the numbers.

Then suddenly, Al shouted, “Behind you, man, behind you!”

Jude whipped around fast enough to fire first at an insurgent bearing down on him.

He could still picture that moment as if it had been yesterday. The littered courtyard between desert-dusted homes. Al bleeding on the ground; his enemy dead by the corner of the house.

And him—alive—because of Al.

The rat-tat-tat of firepower growing more distant and then fading away, the medics rushing in...

Not until they were back at base had he learned from their company physician that he couldn’t have spoken with Al Bellingham. Bullets had severed his spinal column and pounded through his skull; the man had died almost instantly.

Somehow Jude had kept it together long enough to get through his tour of duty.

He’d imagined it, he’d told himself. He’d imagined the entire encounter.

And yet he’d felt compelled to speak with Al’s wife. He’d called and told her that he’d been with her husband at the end. He told her how much Al had loved her—and what a brave man he’d been, saving others, refusing to let war make him less of a man.

And he’d given her the set of numbers.

A year later, when he was back in the States, Mellora Bellingham had called to thank him. The numbers had been for an insurance policy Al had purchased only days before his death.

She might never have found it without the numbers he’d given her.

It wasn’t until he’d applied at the academy that he’d been advised to go into therapy. And he’d gone. He’d thought he understood. PTSD. Sure. Made sense. He’d lived in a world where it was often a case of kill or be killed. Back in North America, he was entering a world where danger often lurked below the surface and the monsters were hidden.

But he wanted that world. Nothing on earth was perfect; he’d seen the good, the bad and the hideous and learned about imperfection. He found he loved his country with an even greater passion, and out of the war zone, he wanted to fight the monsters who lived beneath the civilized veneer.

He had tried to consign Al to the far reaches of memory, although the man had continued to haunt his soul. Especially when they’d lost Lily, and he’d sat with her lifeless body for hours, praying that he would hear her whisper a single word.

The truth was that he’d spoken with a ghost before. He’d spoken with Al.

He was so lost in his thoughts that at first he didn’t hear the buzz of his cell phone. He snapped out of his trance and answered.

Good agents did not become lost in the fog of the past, he reminded himself.

It was Jackson Crow, of course.

“I’ve met with Beach and his men,” Jackson told him. “They’re on high alert, although it would be nice if they really believed me about a killer being on board. What about Alexi Cromwell?”

“I’ve talked to her,” Jude said. “And Byron Grant.”

“Byron Grant?” Jackson Crow’s voice was controlled and even. “Byron Grant was the second-last victim of the Archangel—that we know about, at any rate.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Jude said.

Krewe of Hunters, huh?

“Meet me back at her cabin. With any luck, she’s still in,” Jackson said, not skipping a beat.

* * *

When the ship was first built, tiny peepholes had been set in each cabin door, including those in the crew quarters. No unwary cabin girl or waitress would be taken by surprise on the Destiny.

Alexi had never been more grateful for that—even as she realized she’d seldom used it before.

She’d half expected Clara, since she knew how nervous her friend was feeling.

But it was Jude McCoy. He was back, this time with his partner.

She opened the door for them and waited. This man—Jackson Crow—might believe that she was more illusionist or charlatan than pianist and entertainer. She was afraid he’d come to confront her.

He hadn’t. He smiled and merely asked if she minded talking to them again. She agreed.

Her cabin seemed entirely too cramped. Jackson Crow sat at the dressing table; Jude McCoy was next to her on the bunk. For a few minutes she found it hard to breathe and wondered if she was having a panic attack. It was impossible not to be aware of the man sitting beside her, of his intensity, which seemed to burn around her—almost as if it held her in a strange grip. She tried to concentrate on Crow, but she was acutely conscious of Jude McCoy. He sat so close to her they were almost touching.

“You’ve met this man Byron Grant?” Crow asked her. He smiled; he had an intriguing face, his smile both gentle and enigmatic.

She looked at Jude, whose face was impassive. He studied her in return, but she saw no mockery in his eyes. Not anymore.

Because he’d stood there just an hour ago, talking to the ghost himself.

“His fiancée was killed. He came home, and he was killed, as well. He was attacked from behind, so he couldn’t tell me much.”

Agent Crow nodded. “He and his fiancée, Elizabeth Williams, were murdered in Mobile, a week ago.”