The Ambrose Beacon

  Chapter 22

  Tuesday Afternoon, January 11th

  Harper finished making the last of the sandwiches that he had made for everyone and arranged them on the large plate that he had found in one of the cupboards in James McCallister’s house. He had an excess buildup of nervous tension and fixing everyone lunch was helping to relieve some of it. It was a mistake for them to wait for the snow to clear, he knew this without a doubt. But he had made every argument he could think of and still his brother-in-law had refused. He felt no animosity toward Jerry for his decision. Had he been in the same position as Jerry, if his choice had been to willingly place his children in danger in the middle of a snowstorm or to wait it out in the hope that they could find help, he probably would have made the same choice.

  Cole stood next to Harper at the sink, filling several glasses with ice from the large ice bin that he had pulled from the freezer.

  “How long do you think we have?” Cole asked his uncle quietly.

  Harper looked over at his nephew, surprised by the question. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But the longer we wait, the greater the likelihood that Tim Matheson and his minions will attack again. And if that happens, we will no longer be able to escape this place. We will be trapped.”

  Cole was quiet for a moment before saying, “He thinks he’s doing what’s right for us.” He looked over at his father sitting in the far corner of the kitchen, wondering what was going through his head.

  Harper smiled slightly as he answered, “I know he is, Cole.”

  Harper opened a bag of potato chips and poured them into a bowl as he asked Cole, “Where have the wolves gone? I don’t feel them nearby anymore.”

  “I sent them back to their den,” Cole answered as he grabbed a stack of napkins from atop the refrigerator. He looked a little embarrassed as he added, “I didn’t want any more of them to get hurt.”

  Harper smiled again as he thought of Cole’s gentle nature. “I completely understand,” he told him. “They’ve already given up so much for us.”

  The voices of the rest of their group drifted over from the large kitchen table that sat in one corner of the room, and Cole could hear that they were simply making conversation about everyday things. It lent a sense of normalcy to their current situation, dispelling some of the tension that had built during their debate on what they would do next. Cole looked over at the table and saw his family, and the people who had become like family to him in the space of a single night. He hoped that his uncle was wrong and that they would be safe in the house. He didn’t like the thought of losing anyone who sat at that table.

  James caught Cole staring and met his eyes for a second before smiling. Cole smiled back before returning his attention to finishing the lunch preparations. He was grateful for the teacher and everything he had done. There was no way they would have made it through the night without his help. But he also agreed with his uncle that there were some things about Mr. McCallister that he wasn’t telling them – things that were tied to everything that had been happening to the Ambrose family. It didn’t make Cole trust Mr. McCallister any less, but it made him wonder what his motives were.

  Cole placed the last of the glasses, along with some cans of soda and a pitcher of water on a large tray. He picked it up and walked toward the table.

  “Lunch is ready,” Cole said as he laid down the tray.

  James looked up at Cole and smiled again. “I’ll go wake up the little ones,” he told him as he pushed back from the table and stood up. He walked past Harper, who refused to make eye contact with him as he placed the large plate of sandwiches next to the tray Cole had set down. James pursed his lips in frustration, but walked out of the kitchen without saying anything.

  Everyone dug into lunch with enthusiasm, all of them realizing how hungry they were when the delicious-looking sandwiches were placed in front of them. Harper took a small sandwich for himself and chewed on it, relishing the mix of flavors and textures. He thought of James and wondered if he was treating him unfairly. The man had proven that he wanted to protect the children by risking his life for their safety several times. That should have been enough for Harper to trust him. But he couldn’t believe that what James had said about the human Sentinels was true. He had roamed in the human world for nearly two thousand years since the death of the last Solas, refusing to go into hiding like most of his people had. And during that time he had seen no evidence of that ancient order surviving to the present day. He had encountered other humans with magical abilities numerous times, but none had recognized him for what he was. And he was confident that had he run across a human who was a member of the Sentinels, he would have recognized that person instantly for what they were. To Harper, it meant that what James had said was untrue. And if he had lied about that, Harper didn’t know what else James McCallister had lied about. He didn’t like anyone being involved in their fight to protect the children if he couldn’t trust them to be honest with him.

  James came running into the kitchen suddenly, and Harper turned to look at him.

  “They’re gone,” James said with huge eyes. “Louis and Billie, they’re not here!”

  Jerry stood up from the table so quickly that his chair fell over backward. “What do you mean?” he asked James with an expression of fear on his face.

  “They’re not anywhere in the house,” James answered. “And their coats and winter things are gone too.”

  “Are you sure?” Larry asked as he stood up and moved next to Jerry. “Did you check the entire house?”

  “Yes,” James answered. “And I checked outside. There’s no sign of them, and there was no sign that anyone broke into the house. The front door was unlocked.”

  Everyone else stood up, but didn’t move, frozen by indecision. Tina was the first to speak.

  “I went to the bathroom about twenty minutes ago, and saw them both asleep on the couch,” Tina said as she looked around at the rest of the group.

  Larry looked at Tina and then nodded as he said, “Okay, it means they couldn’t have gone very far. Everyone get their jackets on and let’s get outside to look for signs of where they went.”

  Larry’s tone and sense of urgency spurred everyone into action. Within no more than a minute or two, everyone was outside on the porch, dressed for the cold and searching for signs of Billie and Louis. The snow continued to fall, though it had lightened enough that they could see all the way to the woods leading to the Ambrose house. Billie and Louis were not anywhere nearby, and no one knew in which direction they had gone.

  Cole stood in the snow near the porch steps, searching for footprints or other signs. But he couldn’t find anything in the fresh powder, and he knew that if they had been gone for even twenty minutes, as Tina had suggested, the snow would have covered any tracks.

  Aidan is gone, as well.

  Cole heard Cody’s voice in his head and turned in surprise to see the dog standing on the porch, staring at him.

  “Do you think she went with them?” Cole asked.

  Aidan is a very unusual creature, Cody replied. I cannot sense her thoughts as I can the thoughts of other animals. She is very protective of you and the other children. It makes sense that she would stay with the young ones.

  Cole nodded before asking, “Can you see if you can pick up their scent and which direction they went in?”

  The snow will make it difficult, Cody answered in Cole’s thoughts. But I’ll see what I can find.

  Cody walked over to where Cole stood and started sniffing at the ground, moving in ever-wider circles. After several seconds, he stopped in one spot and sniffed several times, then moved in a line away from the porch. Finally, he looked up at Cole and barked once.

  Here is the trail, Cody said in Cole’s head. They are headed toward the remains of your house.

  “What did he say?” Harper asked as he walked up to stand next to Cole. The rest of the fami
ly was looking around for signs of Billie and Louis, so they hadn’t seen Cody searching near the porch. “Did he find something?”

  Cole looked over at his uncle and saw that he held his spear in his hand as he looked at Cody. “He said that they headed back toward our house,” Cole answered his uncle. “And Aidan went with them.”

  “Aidan?” Harper asked with surprise. He looked in the direction of the Ambrose house, where the trees were just barely visible through the snow. “That is good news,” he added. “But it’s not enough.” He looked over at Cole and his expression was serious. “Tell your father that I went after them and to follow me as soon as he can.” Before Cole could say anything, his uncle lifted his spear and ran toward the woods near the house. His feet glided over the deep snow as he ran and within a few moments he had disappeared between the trees.

  “Harper!” Jerry shouted after his brother-in-law in futility. He walked over to where Cole stood, and the others followed behind him until everyone was standing in a close-knit circle near the porch steps. They all shifted their feet and rubbed their hands in an attempt to ward off the cold, except for the three oldest Ambrose children. They felt the cold, but it didn’t bother them the way it did the others.

  “Where did he go?” Jerry asked Cole as he looked in the direction in which Harper had run.

  “Cody found their trail,” Cole answered. “They were headed in the direction of our house, through the woods over that way,” he added as he pointed towards the trees. “Uncle Harper went after them and asked us to follow as soon as we were ready.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” Larry asks. “Let’s go after them!” He started moving in the direction in which Cole had pointed, but Jerry grabbed his partner’s arm.

  “Hold on, Larry,” Jerry told him. “They’ve been gone for at least half an hour. They could be more than halfway to the house by now.” He turned to James McCallister and asked him, “Do you have a four-wheel drive vehicle?”

  James snorted as he answered, “Doesn’t everyone in Evergreen? It can’t make it through those woods, though. There are too many trees.”

  “That’s not what I had in mind,” Jerry answered. “We need to split up.” He looked around at the group and then said, “Vaughan and I will take Cody and go after Harper. The rest of you will go with James and drive over to the house to see if you can head them off.”

  “I’m going with you,” Tina said as she looked at Jerry.

  Jerry looked at the young teacher in surprise and was about to refuse her request, but something inside him made him reconsider. He couldn’t explain why, but he had a feeling that Tina’s presence would help him in some way.

  “Tina, it’s too dangerous,” Jason said as he took her hand. “Please, come with us.”

  “It’s okay, Jason,” Tina answered. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and then looked at him. “I’ll be perfectly safe with Jerry. And if we find the kids, Jerry will need help with them.”

  Jason was about to argue with her. He didn’t like the thought of her being out in the snow and cold again. Even worse was the thought that she might run into more of the demons while in the woods with Jerry and Vaughan. But he had seen how brave she was and how Billie and Louis both responded to her. There was a greater chance that Jerry and Vaughan would find the youngest children first, and having Tina with them might keep Billie and Louis from running away again. No one had asked why the two had left in the first place, but Jason was sure that he shared the same guess as the rest of the group – Louis had probably heard the conversation in the living room about him being the Solas and was trying to protect the rest of them. And from what little Jason knew about the closeness of the Ambrose children, Billie had probably gone because she didn’t want her older brother going alone.

  “Alright, then,” Jerry said as he looked around at everyone. “Let’s get going.”

  James nodded once and then disappeared into the house. A moment later a large SUV pulled up next to the house. James got out of the driver’s side door and walked over to Jerry with a small duffle bag in his hand. He handed the bag to Jerry, who looked at it in confusion. It was heavier than he expected for such a small bag.

  “There are eight more clips in there for your handgun,” James said as he nodded at the bag. “And I’ve got just as many for Larry in the car. I figured you were both out. I’m afraid I don’t have anything for the bigger guns you were using, but it looks like you’re both more than capable with the smaller ones.”

  Larry was standing a few feet from Jerry and heard what James had said. “Every time I think you can’t possibly be more useful, you manage to surprise me,” he said to James with a smile. James nodded and walked back toward the car, where everyone but Tina, Vaughan and Cody were piling in through the open doors.

  Larry turned to Jerry and put his hand on his shoulder. “Be careful, Sid,” he told his partner. “Something’s fishy about those two just leaving like that,” he said as he looked into the woods. “I’ve got a bad feeling about it, but can’t say why.”

  Jerry nodded as he answered, “I will. I figure Cody will smell anything coming well ahead of time. And we’ll meet up with Harper. He’ll know if something’s going on.” Jerry took Larry’s warning seriously, since his feelings had saved both of their lives more times than Jerry could count. “You be careful too. And watch out for Cole and Dinah for me.”

  “You know I will,” Larry said simply as he patted Jerry’s shoulder once before walking over to the car.

  Larry hated the thought of splitting up, since he and Jerry were always at their best when they were together. But he also knew that Jerry was covering all bases by having them split into two groups, and that it increased their chances of finding Billie and Louis quickly and getting back to the house. He climbed into the front passenger seat of the car and saw a second, small duffle bag in the foot well. He pushed one of the clips from inside the bag into his handgun before replacing it in its holster under his shoulder, and then put the additional clips in the pockets in his vest as the car pulled away from the house and down the snow-covered driveway. The knot that had formed in the pit of his stomach when he had heard that the two youngest children had gone missing refused to go away, confirming his suspicions that something strange had caused them to leave. It made him edgy with anxiety, which the confinement of the car only worsened. He hoped that his feeling was wrong and that the two had wandered off for a simple reason. But though he was frequently wrong about many things in his life, when he got one of his feelings they had always been right.

  Jerry pushed the last extra clip into one of the pockets in his vest and put his coat back on. He looked at Vaughan, standing a few feet away with his sword strapped over his shoulder. Jerry couldn’t get used to seeing his son looking like some kind of teenaged samurai, and he hated the thought of exposing him to danger, but he knew that Vaughan’s skills would come in handy if they ran into any of the demons while looking for Billie and Louis. He had been forced to rely on his three older children throughout their ordeal the night before, and knew that he would have to again until they figured out a more permanent solution. But he didn’t like it.

  “Vaughan, I want you and Cody to run ahead of me and Ms. Waverly,” Jerry said to his son as he walked over to him. He placed his hand on his shoulder and looked down into his eyes. “If you find anything, I want you to come back and tell us what it is. You’re not to do anything else. Understand?”

  “Sure, Dad,” Vaughan answered as he looked up at his father. He had been exhausted the night before, but had slept for a solid eight hours and felt energized again. He had no doubts about his fighting prowess and was confident that he could defeat any of the demons that he and Cody ran into. But he would honor his father’s wishes and serve only as a scout as they made their way through the woods.

  Vaughan was worried about Billie and Louis. His younger brother seemed to have a
power that was greater than his own, and greater than Dinah’s or Cole’s, but he was even younger than Vaughan. And he didn’t always have the best sense or make the best decisions. Billie, on the other hand, had always seemed very sensible and determined to Vaughan. He hoped that her good sense could influence Louis enough to keep him from doing something even more stupid than running off in the first place.

  “Ready?” Jerry asked Tina as he looked over at her.

  Tina zipped up the collar of her jacket so that it covered the lower half of her face. But the determination in her eyes was clear when she answered, “Ready.” The word had been slightly muffled by the jacket, but Jerry heard her.

  “Alright, let’s go find them,” Jerry said as he nodded at Vaughan and then Cody. He still had a hard time thinking of Cody as a sentient being, possessing intelligence equal to or greater than any human being. Harper had explained the dog’s origins the night before, and Jerry had accepted what he had said. A part of him admitted that Cody had always seemed smarter than a typical dog and more like an equal to the members of his family than a dog typically did. He had been forced to accept more unusual things in the past twenty-four hours than in his entire life. If Larry had told him that he didn’t really grow up in New York, and instead came from some distant planet, Jerry wasn’t sure how surprised he would have been to hear it.

  Jerry started walking through the snow with Tina at his side as Vaughan and Cody jogged ahead. The snow continued to fall, making the outlines of the trees seem fuzzy and indistinct in the near distance. It lent a more sinister appearance to the woods, which heightened Jerry’s anxiety as he approached the trees. His two youngest children were in there, alone and in the cold, with nothing more than a strange dog to protect them.

  The snow fell only lightly within the woods, making it easier for Louis to walk. His feet had sunken in the snow near Mr. McCallister’s house and made it harder for him to move quickly. He had worried about losing precious minutes in his attempt to escape the protection of his family and friends and thereby ensure their safety. But once he had reached the shelter of the trees, the snow had been much shallower and he had been able to increase his pace. Even if they had already noticed his absence and come after him, Louis was confident that he had enough of a lead that he would be able to meet up with DeForester’s guide before his family and friends could find him.

  He continued to push through the snow, while looking around him for signs of his guide. He really had no idea what to look for, but he assumed that it wasn’t likely that there would be many people wandering through the woods in the middle of a snowstorm. At the same time, it felt like he had already come a long way and had seen no one. Louis began to worry that he had made a mistake and that no one was coming to guide him. The promise of a guide had been made in a dream by a complete stranger, but Louis had trusted that everything he had seen and heard in the dream had been real. Now he wondered if it had simply been a dream after all.

  The sound of movement in the snow behind him reached his ears and he turned around to see what it was. He ducked behind a tree as a precaution against the possibility that the thing making the noise wasn’t friendly and then scanned the woods for movement.

  Something appeared in the distance, gliding through the trees in almost complete silence. But Louis’ hearing had become more acute recently and he was able to pick up the slight sound of snow crunching over the frigid breeze that blew through the woods. He couldn’t make out exactly what the shape was, but he could tell that it moved on all fours, which caused a shiver of fear to run up his spine. The demons had found him.

  But when he looked at the shape more closely, he realized that it was far smaller than the huge size of the demons. And yet he couldn’t figure out what it was until it turned and faced him. Then he recognized the shape instantly.

  “Aidan!” he said loudly enough for her to hear.

  The dog raised her head and looked at him in surprise before running through the snow toward him. Louis kneeled down to meet her and was nearly knocked over by the force of her greeting as she pushed against him and licked his face repeatedly. He laughed as she continued kissing him and finally pushed him back into the snow.

  “There you are!” Louis heard a voice shout.

  He recognized the voice instantly, and wasn’t surprised when he pushed Aidan’s head back and saw Billie staring down at him with her hands on her hips. Louis nearly laughed at the expression of disapproval on her face, but he decided not to provoke her. He also wasn’t happy to see that she had followed him.

  “Billie, what are you doing here?” Louis asked as he stood up and faced his sister. “You shouldn’t have come after me!”

  “You shouldn’t have left by yourself!” Billie answered defiantly. “Me and Aidan had to come out in the snow looking for you! It’s cold out here, you know!”

  “No one told you to come out in the snow,” Louis said sullenly. He didn’t like feeling guilty, but Billie had a way of making him feel that way sometimes. “You should have stayed at Mr. McCallister’s house.”

  “Mommy told me I had to come after you, that you’ll need my help,” Billie said as she raised her nose in the air with a slightly offended expression.

  Louis looked at his sister in confusion. He remembered the dream that they had shared, and remembered Billie telling him that their mother frequently met her in those dreams. But she hadn’t been there in his dream.

  “Mom wasn’t even in the dream,” Louis told her suspiciously. “How could she have told you to come after me?”

  Billie roller her eyes before answering, “Well, if you had waited with me, and not gone away with that man, you would have seen her!”

  “She came and spoke to you?” Louis asked softly. It had been so many years since he had seen his mother that his memories were vague. But he still missed her every day. “What did she say?”

  Billie’s expression softened as she looked at her brother and saw the sadness on his face. She was pretty sure that she knew why he had left on his own, that he believed he was protecting the rest of his family and their friends. He had done it because he believed it was the right thing to do, which made it difficult for her to stay mad at him.

  “She said that you shouldn’t be alone,” Billie answered his question. “And that you’re going to need my help.”

  “Did she say anything else?” Louis asked. He craved some kind of message from his dead mother, something that would have reassured him as he began to doubt his decision to follow DeForester’s advice.

  “She said that she was still with us,” Billie answered. She wasn’t sure what Louis was hoping to hear, but she rarely lied and didn’t want to make something up just to make her brother feel better.

  “She did?” Louis asked. The thought that his mother was somehow near them and looking over them provided the comfort that he needed. He hated the thought of leaving his family, but he was confident that what DeForester had told him was true – that he was the one who the demons were looking for, and that staying with his family would only place them in greater danger.

  Aidan licked his cheek gently and he looked over at the dog in surprise. As he looked into her brown eyes, he pictured his mother’s smiling face. When Billie had first told him of her dreams, he hadn’t believed them to be anything more than dreams. But now he believed that his mother had somehow found a way to come back into their lives through his younger sister. He looked at Billie and felt a momentary surge of jealousy that she had been chosen by their mother and not him, but it quickly passed. Billie had had the least amount of time with their mother, so he decided that it was only fair that she would make a connection with her in some other way.

  Seeing Billie and hearing about his mother had lifted his spirits, but it didn’t mean that he agreed with his sister coming after him.

  “Billie, you need to go back to the house,” Louis told her. “It’s too dangerous for you to come with
me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without you,” Billie answered determinedly. “So, if I’m going back to the house, so are you.”

  Louis had seen that expression on Billie’s face many times before. He couldn’t remember her ever throwing tantrums, but she was definitely the most stubborn of his siblings, even more so than Dinah. He knew he stood as much a chance of convincing her to go back to Mr. McCallister’s house as she had of convincing him to change his mind and go back with her.

  “Okay, you can come with me,” Louis said finally with a sigh. He was secretly glad that he didn’t have to meet up with his guide alone, but worried about the safety of his little sister. “We’d better get going before Dad and the others come looking for us.”

  Billie nodded in response and then the two siblings started walking through the woods, heading toward where their house used to lay. Aidan followed along at their side, stopping occasionally to lift her head and sniff at the air before catching up to the two children again.

  Billie stumbled suddenly and fell forward into the snow. Louis reached down to help her up and brushed the snow from her jacket and pants. He saw her shiver once as a light breeze blew by.

  “I’m cold, Louis,” she said as she shivered again.

  Louis reached behind her head and pulled up the hood on her coat, covering her head and ears. “Keep this up, okay?”

  Billie nodded, but didn’t respond. Louis was worried about her, but there wasn’t anything he could do about the cold. “Let’s keep moving,” he told her. “It will help keep us warm.”

  Louis held out his gloved hand to his sister and she pulled her mittens up to make sure that none of her skin was exposed to the cold before taking Louis’ hand. They walked through the woods together, hand-in-hand as the snow drifted down gently through the trees. Aidan walked along beside them, and had either of them looked closely at her face, they would have noticed eyes that were wet with unshed tears.

  “I’m glad you’re with me,” Louis said softly to his sister as he led them through the snow.

  “Me too,” Billie answered as her body slowly warmed with activity. She hated the cold, but was glad that she had come after her brother.

  The rest of their journey was made in complete silence. Neither of them knew who their guide would be or where they would be taken, which filled them both with fear. But they also shared another thought that managed to keep their spirits up. At least they were together and neither of them was alone.