The Seventh Sons (Sycamore Moon Series Book 1) Read online

  Diego was horrified. He felt his stomach twisting. He began to get nauseous.

  "Were they ever meant to live?" asked Maxim.

  Nithya's eyes wavered under his accusatory gaze. "They were willing participants," she said firmly.

  Diego cut in. "And my sister? Was she one too?"

  Nithya took a deep breath and blinked away her troubles. "Ask her yourself," she answered.

  Diego was confused by the comment, but Nithya jerked her head towards the train car they were standing next to. The biker looked to door again and saw the girl emerge onto the wooden steps.

  "It's true, what she says," she stated simply.

  Diego choked up.

  Angelica looked the same as she always had. She was short and dark-skinned and had long, curly black hair. She wore tight track pants with old white tennis shoes and a little tank top. She looked completely healthy just standing there, watching Diego with a smile full of joy and innocence. After a moment of his stunned silence, she giggled and jumped towards him to give her brother a hug.

  "Are you—" was all Diego could muster before she wrapped her arms around and clasped him tight.

  "I'm okay," she reassured him, pulling back. "Look at you, following me all the way over here! It's sweet." She kissed him on the cheek.

  "I needed to make sure you knew what you were doing."

  "I'm good."

  Diego shook his head in disbelief. Angelica had never understood the consequences of her actions. The biker brushed past her and stepped up to the train car doorway and walked in, removing his sunglasses.

  It was a large car with a wooden floor. A makeshift skylight lit the sparse quarters with a warm hue. On the far side of the room was a bed with hospital equipment, mirrored by a desk with papers and samples, which was next to the biker. The biggest defining feature of the train car, however, was the set of steel bars splitting it in two.

  Diego turned away in disgust. "You kept my sister in a cage?" Nithya took a step back as he advanced.

  "Mind your own business, bro!"

  Diego froze as his sister uttered those familiar words.

  "Nithya is helping me," she continued. "She's my friend."

  Diego heaved his shoulders in frustration. "Maxim, talk some sense into her."

  Angelica was not impressed. "This old man? A policía? I don't think so, bro."

  Diego flipped his plastic sunglasses in his hand in annoyance. But the detective wasn't even listening. His gun was lowered and he was looking over his shoulder, into the distance. In a moment, Diego heard it too, and then he saw. A light blue van, one of those large metal ones from the seventies, was hobbling up the dirt road.

  Maxim was on the phone in an instant. "Marshal," he said, "you'd better get out here now. We've got Ms. Rao but we have a van incoming."

  Diego looked to Nithya. "Who is that? Who's here?"

  "Well," she said calmly, "it appears that my backup is arriving before yours."

  Every time he bought a new pair, thought Diego, as he slipped the lenses back over his eyes.

  iii.

  Diego backed around the train car and gripped the pistol tightly. The marshal wouldn't be getting here in time, if at all. "Are you packing your silver?" he called out to Maxim, but there was no answer. Diego slid the magazine out from Nithya's pistol and was relieved to see that his bullets were the right type.

  "Don't be alarmed, Maxim," said Nithya reassuringly. "You are not in danger. We just need to scrub this scene down and then I can smooth things over with the Center."

  The van drove into the depths of the train yard and passed them, screeching to a halt behind the far car making up the square. Diego heard a few doors creaking open and some scurrying through the brush.

  A man took an inhuman leap, jumping from somewhere out of sight to atop the left train car that ran towards Diego. His feet crashed down with a loud, hollow ring. A Native American man with a weathered face and a ponytail stomped ahead, holding an automatic rifle trained on the group. Something about this man was familiar.

  Nithya Rao cocked her head and shaded her eyes as she looked up at the man on the train car. She had an expression of nagging doubt, like something was wrong, and in a minute it was clear what that was. Another Native American with a rifle took up the corner opposite Diego, using the right car as cover, and walking past him, right to the center of the square, was Mom.

  She was wearing the same jeans and pink tank top that she had on when Diego first met her. The mirrored lenses of her sunglasses couldn't hide the amusement in her eyes, and her pink lipstick and sardonic smile didn't camouflage the gravity of the situation. This was a dangerous woman, and they were in a dangerous place.

  Nithya looked up to the man standing in the sun. "You were supposed to be loyal to me, Doka."

  It was him, the man who had first attacked Diego in Sycamore Lodge. At first he'd mistaken him for a gang member, but the Yavapai men were not Seventh Sons. They were mercenaries. Diego exchanged a look with Maxim, who was holding his gun lowered so as not to incite a shootout. Doka was the one Nicola had implicated in the abductions, which meant he was working with the CDC woman, but current events would indicate that he had been playing both sides.

  "Should I not have called Debbie?" asked Doka with clumsy sarcasm.

  Nithya practically spit on the ground. "After everything I did for you! You were supposed to be executed for attacking that officer! I kept you alive."

  "You kept me alive," he repeated, "to force my hand." Doka swept the assault rifle across Diego and Angelica. "Now you have an Order To Kill to wave over my head." The aim of his weapon brushed past Maxim and rested on her. "It wasn't a good deal. For either of us."

  "I can compensate you more than she can."

  Mom just stood with her hands on her hips and laughed. "I highly doubt that, sweetie."

  "Don't look so hurt," continued Doka. "I see you burning up evidence. You're shutting this operation down. You don't need me anymore anyway." The man's eyes on his pockmarked face twitched in an evil sneer. "I'd be surprised if you weren't already planning on killing me."

  Mom was standing right next to Nithya in the center of the courtyard, next to the burning barrel. Something Doka said had piqued her curiosity, and she felt Nithya's clothes for a weapon. The CDC woman, usually stoic, was visibly shaken up, but she stood still. She knew this wasn't going to end well.

  The club president squatted down and rifled through Nithya's duffel bag and fumbled with the case of injections. "I'm sorry, Ms. Rao, but we are not taking the fall for your actions." Mom dropped the case on the bag and stood up again.

  "You both are more culpable than I am in this," said Nithya.

  "These were your tests, dear."

  "The murders were not mine!"

  Mom scoffed. "You killed them, Ms. Rao, the second you injected them with rabies. Carlos strangling them was a foregone conclusion once your needle hit their skin."

  "Those were the risks!" Nithya asserted. "Deep down, they were all running from something. They were desperate for this solution. Each one of them injected themselves personally. I was trying to help them."

  The man on the train car let out a hearty laugh. Mom spat back. "You gave them a death sentence," she said. Diego saw the scorn in her eyes and knew this altercation had been a long time coming. "You killed every single one of them. And here you are, with one last victim remaining."

  Deborah pointed at Angelica, who pulled her head back in surprise. Nithya couldn't face her and just looked to her feet while feebly protesting. "No, I came here for the moon," she pleaded. "She hasn't gotten sick yet." Her voice trailed off.

  "Does it comfort you, dear," asked Mom, staring coldly at Angelica, "to know that you might yet live another week or two?"

  Diego thought his heart skipped a beat. His sister had been injected? "What did you do to her?" he blurted out, not sure if he was asking Nithya or Mom.

  Like the biker, Maxim had been hesitant for a confrontation given
the hardware they were up against, but he finally spoke out. "What is it that all of you have been doing?"

  Nithya remained a solemn statue. The fire crackled in the void of silence left by the unanswered question. It was Deborah, relishing the opportunity to gloat, who explained.

  "She hasn't told you about her experiments yet?" Mom eyed the two men watching her back with rifles and casually took a step towards the detective. "The mighty hand of the CDC has been using us to get test subjects who she could inject with rabies."

  "I get that," said Maxim impatiently, "but why? It's certain death without the vaccine."

  "Except for my kind." Deborah's eyes flashed orange. "Ms. Rao claimed to have unlocked the mysteries of the transformation."

  Diego gritted his teeth in disgust. "You mean to manufacture werewolves."

  The club president shook her hair behind her shoulders and was consumed with a devilish grin. "It was a secret operation, she claimed. It was for the good of all wolves, she said." Mom turned around to face Nithya once again. "Yet here we are, with the CDC looking for you! It turns out that all these tests weren't sanctioned by the government at all. You have been coercing us the entire time, under threat of death for me and my club, and for what?"

  "You agreed," Nithya yelled back. "You received benefits. Reliably reproducing the conditions for transformation was something you were interested in as well. Imagine the funding!"

  "There is no money in dead bodies!" Mom threw her hands up and stormed over to the center of the courtyard, getting close to the source of her ire and locking her in her gaze. "Tell me this: how many people have you had success with?"

  "It is," Nithya stammered, "it is just a matter of isolating the bacterial relationship—"

  "What is the survival percentage of your project?" asked Mom with greater severity. There was something in her voice that threw Diego off.

  The CDC agent could not bring herself to say it. Her defiance wavered and her eyes fluttered to the floor.

  Deborah spun around and faced Maxim. Her eyebrows pushed against her creased brow as she fought against watery eyes. "Your wife wanted a new start." The woman seemed to truly feel sympathy for the detective for a moment. "Lola wanted a new life, and the club, the freedom, appealed to her. She wanted to experience things she'd never imagined before. She yearned to grasp at anything for salvation, no matter how desperate."

  Angelica, in her usual straight-forward manner, cut to the heart of it. "She wanted to be a wolf."

  Mom nodded. "She very much desired to be what we were when she found out. I... I fancied the idea. It was a naive dream and I didn't think it was truly possible. Then along comes this one," said Deborah as she waved at Nithya, "with a scientific theory to convert her. It was safe, she insisted, effective."

  Maxim stood there as a man might when getting bad news from a doctor. Perhaps he knew his life was in danger, and he took great care to hold his gun facing the ground, but Diego needed to keep him in the moment just in case. At the clubhouse, Deborah had managed to get under the detective's skin and that fallout had lasted for days. This time, it was their lives on the line. They needed to be able to rely on each other.

  "Paradise Tank had seventeen bodies in it," said Diego coldly. "Do your tears fall for those lives as well?"

  Mom squinted, adversarial once more. "Ms. Rao said she was making progress. She hired the Yavapai and set this operation up. If other people had to die, so be it—I was only involved to the extent that I had to be to protect the MC."

  Deborah looked down at the grass. "Protection..." she said wistfully. "Do either of you happen to know why this club is called the Seventh Sons?"

  Maxim ignored the digression. "Tell me what happened to Lola," he demanded.

  Deborah pursed her lips. "Nothing that can be taken back, honey." The woman reached into the small of her back and produced a small pistol.

  Diego almost jumped to grab his sister but Doka was looming above him. As long as the Yavapai had the assault rifle trained on Nithya, he didn't want to attract any attention to himself. So far, at least, she was the one the gang wanted.

  Nithya's voice cracked. "You can't kill me. The Center would burn down your club."

  Mom raised the pistol to the woman. "Sweet little thing, that was only a threat when we thought the CDC was directing your actions. That's why we didn't kill you a long time ago. That's why I let you execute Nicola." Deborah paused. "She was a good girl, you know."

  Diego locked eyes with his sister and motioned with his head for her to get closer to him. She looked at Deborah and took a subtle step away.

  Nithya continued pleading. "They know about the rabies now. They'll already be looking for wolf's blood. I'm still the only one who can protect you."

  "You kill Nicola to cover your behind and then all of a sudden get the charitable itch to protect us?"

  "That's an appropriate description for your actions as well."

  Doka shot an uncomfortable glance at Mom but she laughed it off. "They'll be knocking on my door soon enough, with or without you," said Mom gruffly. She turned and stared into the fire. Diego grabbed Angelica's hand and pulled her to the train car. Whatever happened to Nithya had likely been brought upon herself, but he wouldn't have Angelica paying for the other woman's crimes. This, everything he did, was about keeping her safe.

  "You didn't burn it all, did you?" asked Mom, looking into the flames. "You see, Ms. Rao, it's too tempting for you to turn invisible and leave all blame for the rabies on us. We'll be sending your injection schedules and evidence to the CDC. They'll see that the disease came from medical procedures, not wolf bites. They'll blame you for this, and with any luck, they'll leave my club alone."

  "It's too late for that. They know about you."

  Deborah's cheeks puffed into a smile. There was no doubt that she enjoyed the game they were playing. "They know of the Seventh Sons, yes, but they don't know that we've been illegally kidnapping victims so you could go against directive and spread the affliction. They don't even know that this train yard exists. Your lies have caught up to you, Ms. Rao. If we killed you here and now, there would be nothing tangible that linked us to this."

  "But," stammered Nithya lightly, "the police..."

  Deborah's smile slowly vanished and she took a long breath. She lowered her weapon and turned her head halfway to Maxim, as if she couldn't fully face her decision, or if she hadn't made one yet.

  "Maxim," she said, "I'm sorry you had to be here to see this. This all could have been tidied up without your intimate knowledge."

  The detective's visage was stone. "Where is my wife?" He continued to struggle with the obvious, even when it was right in front of him.

  "Lola was different from the others. She deserved better. She was my friend." Mom's grip on the pistol tightened as she thrust it out toward her enemy. "Putting Ms. Rao down will be doing everybody here a favor. She has hurt people that we all loved." Deborah was going to shoot.

  "Don't absolve yourself of all the blame!" Maxim blurted out. It was an instinctual reaction, Diego knew. He was trying to save the woman's life any way he could, no matter how feeble.

  The biker felt for the detective. This surely wasn't how he'd imagined things ending, but it was an end. It achieved what they wanted. This was a case where being a police officer would not help the situation.

  Maxim continued. "For two years, you stole people, not to help them, but for profit."

  Diego needed to stop this. "Maxim, this isn't helping," he cautioned.

  "For two years, you let her kill people."

  "Shut up," warned Diego.

  A darkened crease formed on Deborah's brow. "What else could I do?" she spit back.

  "I'm a cop!" he yelled. "You could have told me about it."

  Deborah exploded into defiant laughter. Even the stoic Doka let down his guard and released a bellowing chuckle. He lowered his weapon and squatted down on his perch on the train car and watched with amusement.

  Mom re
covered from her hysterics. "Open your eyes, Maxim. You don't think the CDC controls the offices of the mayor and the marshal?"

  The marshal. If he was in with Mom, then the backup that Maxim was expecting might not have been on the way. If the three of them were without support out here, truly alone, then what chance did they have of making it out alive?

  "Why do you think none of the other cops, the sensible cops, come anywhere near us?" Mom banged her gun against the steel drum in the middle of the courtyard and took a moment to contain her rage. "A rule which, I might remind you, you used to wisely obey."

  "Listen to me," urged Diego, stepping forward. "Deborah, you know what drove us to ignore your warnings. You know why we are here now. For us, this has never been about you."

  "You expect me to believe that?"

  "I do. From the beginning, I've said all I cared about was Angelica." The biker exchanged a heartfelt look with the girl. "I just wanted my sister. I know you were being forced to keep a secret. I understand why you couldn't help me before. We can put that behind us."

  Mom pursed her pink lips as if she were considering his words, although Diego was unconvinced that she wasn't acting. "And what about the detective?" she asked.

  Diego looked to the man who had been standing firm with indignation. Since the night they had first met, after Diego had mentioned unexplained disappearances, the detective had shown a newfound spirit ignited within him. Was it possible now, after everything that had occurred, for the fire to be quenched?

  "We can come to an agreement," Maxim afforded.

  Mom seemed to scoff under her breath, and she paced around the barrel and Nithya. "Maxim," she said, talking to the air more than him, "the uncompromising detective, about to allow me to go free?" There was something in her eyes that was telling.

  Diego backed up. "Don't do this, Mom. We can go. We can just go."

  Doka chuckled. "Go?" he boomed. "You've had plenty of chances to go." The callous man regained his feet.

  "I'm afraid any cooperation from Maxim on this matter is impossible." Mom shot Diego a scornful look. "I ain't your mom, and I hate to break it to you, but I sent your sister to Nithya under the precise assumption that she would end up in the tank." Deborah's dialog became more bellicose, and the sun again glinted orange off her eyes. "This slut," she said, pointing at Angelica, "fucked her way into my club, attaching herself to Gaston as if that was a free pass. Then, when the idiot finally wised up and realized that she didn't love him, she turned her charm onto Melody."