Demon Trackers: The Anointed

part seventeen

 “Kay, buddy,” he whispered, relief flooding through his veins that he was there. First things first. Jake didn’t dare brush his fingers over Cal’s skin to check him. The kid was still in a pretty precarious position. Even with Jake blocking the way, he was on a rope. A rope that could swing away from the wall if Cal shifted and Cal could still roll off between him and the ledge.

So resisting the urge to do a quick assessment, find out how his brother was hurt, why he was unconscious, instead Jake brought the rest of the rope dangling beneath him up and snaked it under one of Cal’s legs to begin the first loop and knot. He was on the second leg when Cal started rousing.

And rolling forward.

“Cal! Stop!” Heart racing, Jake pressed back on Cal to keep him put, but it only made Jake swing out, scooting Cal’s hip across the ledge since his legs were looped in the rope. If Cal came off the ledge now, he’d fall back and his legs would just slip out. He had to get the rope secured around Cal’s waist and get him tied upright against him. “Cal! Don’t move! Wake up, wake up now!” Jake threw as much authority in his voice as he knew how, even though the tremor bled through. “Cal! You be still, you hear me! You be still!”

As if the order penetrated through the clouds of sleep, Cal’s muscles relaxed and he settled.

“Jake?” Henry’s voice filtered from above, worry straining the timbre.

“We’re okay,” Jake called up, a little high-pitched. “Almost ready.”

“Jake?” The slight murmur brought his gaze back down. Cal’s eyelids were lifting drowsily.

Jake didn’t have time to ease him into anything. “Cal, stay very still. You trust me, right?”

That made the sixteen-year-old’s eyes flash open.

“Don’t look down.” Jake softened his tone. “And don’t move except how I tell you.”

“Wha--?”

“You fell. But I’m gonna get this rope around you and we’re getting out of here. Don’t look down,” he cautioned again, seeing Cal’s gaze dip low. The kid’s eyes snapped back up at the order.

“You have to do everything I tell you. Okay?”

Cal nodded. Warmth settled in Jake’s chest, knowing in normal situations his sibling would balk at a suggestion like that, but when it counted, he trusted without exception.

“Okay. I need you to sit up. Think you can do that?”

“Yeah.” Cal’s voice rasped—like his morning voice, still groggy with slumber.

“Just take it slow. There’s not much room to maneuver.”

Jake anchored his hands on the wall while Cal pushed himself up, scooting carefully until he was sitting on the lip of the ledge. Once he was up, Jake could make out the raw skin on the side of Cal’s face he had been laying on. It looked like road rash where he’d probably scraped across the wall going down. He imagined there was probably a hefty goose-egg that went along with it just under his hair somewhere. He tamped down the worry over that and immediately set to getting the rope around the kid’s back and then to the front where he started tying it to the part of the rope around his own chest with a slip knot that could be pulled tighter once Cal was off the ledge.

He had it nearly secured when a soft scratch made the hair on his arms stand on end. He turned his head, sweeping the headlamp’s beam with him and found himself staring into the small beady eyes of a gremlin climbing up the wall next to them. Jake swallowed past a sudden lump and looked down. Several more were climbing up from the darkness below. Sonofa…