by Eric Asher
“It could be anything. Look at what has come into this realm in the last year. We battled more Eldritch things than ever before. The leviathans are everywhere. The Unseelie have returned to the realm of the commoners. And the alliance of the dark-touched and Nudd has been devastating around Falias.”
Sam nodded along with Vik’s words. She glanced in the rearview mirror as she took another sip from the blood bag, savoring its salty contents. “Maybe we can get in and out before anything else shows up.”
“What if he meant the nigh behind?” Luna asked.
Sam frowned. “Or maybe he meant more of the nigh behinds?”
Vicky leaned up between the seats and whispered to Sam. “Maybe don’t kill them so fast next time.”
Sam was caught somewhere between a laugh and a grimace, because at some level she knew Vicky was right. She should have carved more information out of Vassili’s flesh. But all she wanted in that moment was the cale. All she wanted was to save her brother.
* * *
They made it back to Wilson’s Creek a short time later. The sun was higher now, and it had sapped enough of the strength from Dominic and Vik that they were both snoring.
“How bad does the sun affect you two?” Sam asked, glancing back at Cizin and Luna.
Luna shrugged. “Not bad at all. I kinda like it. It’s warm.”
Cizin grunted. “It is fine, so long as you do not have angry Spaniards hunting for you with swords and torches.”
Sam started to laugh but then caught herself. She didn’t think Cizin had been joking.
Sam guided the SUV back onto the narrow road that ran around Wilson’s Creek. It was odd, how in the daylight the park looked so much more inviting. Where before every shadow and tree felt as if it might hide a threat, now it looked as though it might be a nice place for a nap.
Or maybe that was just Sam’s exhaustion talking.
They crossed the bridge over the creek in relative silence, passing trees and fields alike as the road curved to the right and eventually led them back to the parking lot where they’d first picked up Cizin.
Dominic stretched as he woke up, wincing a little and rubbing at his chest. “Better.” He reached back and tapped Vik on the leg.
The vampire lord cracked one eye open and grimaced at the sunlight outside the windshield. “Wonderful. There’s nothing I enjoy more than being wounded and slower than normal.”
Sam left the SUV running. “Who’s coming with me? Vik, Dominic, I think you should both stay here.”
Dominic grumbled something about just needing a bit more blood. He dug into the cooler and pulled out another bag.
Cizin leaned forward onto the back of Vik’s seat. “I am of no use in this condition.”
“I could go,” Luna said. “But I think I should stay here with the others. In case something else finds us.”
“I’m coming with you,” Vicky said. “Between me and Jasper, you should have all the backup you’ll need.”
Vik nodded. “I think that is for the best.” A car drove by behind them. “The commoners are beginning to arrive. We do not need to alert them that something else is afoot.”
Sam gave Vik a wry smile. “Afoot.”
Vik narrowed his eyes. “Just go get the cale.”
“Come on, kid,” Sam said.
Vicky hopped out the back door and closed it before tossing a backpack to Sam. She scratched at the furball on her shoulder. Vicky didn’t say anything to the vampire about being called “kid.” And that surprised Sam.
The park was beautiful in the daylight, and Sam paused beneath the tree in the median. She glanced back when movement caught the corner of her eye. But nothing was there except for a tree branch moving in the wind.
“Let’s go,” Vicky said, slipping into a backpack and leading the way across the asphalt road before starting down the narrow grass path.
Sam was surprised how soon she could make out the springhouse. And she was annoyed at how direct the pull from the blood rune was now.
“If I’d just activated the damn thing when we were here …”
“No, it still drew you to Vassili. It wouldn’t have mattered. It would have taken us away from here.”
Sam huffed out a breath. Vicky was right about that. It had taken her straight to Vassili. Her skin started to tingle all over again as they reached the trail to the springhouse. At night, they had been practically on top of it before she’d realized where it was. But in the daytime, she’d caught glimpses of it through the trees, and saw it from quite a ways off.
Even in the light of the morning sun, there were enough shadows around them to keep Sam’s hackles up. Vassili’s words echoed in her mind, and she worried what might be waiting for them behind any one of those trees. The thought that he might have meant the nigh behind was reassuring, but she hoped they’d never find out.
Vicky froze when they reached the clearing. Sam didn’t understand why until she heard Jasper’s low growl. Vicky turned in a slow circle, studying the woods and the path behind them. Sam did the same.
Nothing but light and shadows and the quiet rustle of leaves in the wind waited for them.
Vicky looked back at Sam. “Let’s find that coin and get the hell out of here.”
Sam nodded and slid around Vicky and Jasper to open the door to the springhouse. There was no light in the bottom of the water now. Where Cizin had lit the way for them before, now only darkness waited.
“Use your flashlight,” Vicky said.
Sam slid out her phone and turned the flashlight on. A moment later, she was under the frigid water, pushing herself down along the stones, trying to calm herself as her heartbeat hammered away in her chest. These times, the times when adrenaline pumped through her veins, she still felt more human than vampire. In some ways, it was a strength, but the fear felt quite the opposite.
She cleared the gaping hole in the wall, and shined her light down through the pipe. Nothing waited for her there except the pale stone lining the walls ahead. She pushed off the back of the spring and propelled herself forward with small kicks.
If anything was waiting for her in that hidden room, it would have already seen the light, so Sam didn’t slow down as she entered the chamber. She exploded out of the water, claws ready, light skidding across the ground as she dropped her phone. But there was nothing there. The only sound was the water dripping from her clothes.
Sam grabbed her phone off the ground and stuck the flashlight back in the water, giving Vicky a clear path through. Jasper popped up first, followed closely by a half-drowned shock of Vicky’s red hair.
Vicky’s teeth chattered as she pulled herself out of the water. “That’s too damn cold.”
“Agreed. Now let’s find that coin.”
Vicky shivered.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.
“We aren’t alone down here.”
The way Vicky said that reminded Sam of the things Damian used to tell her when they were kids. Stories of people in the room that she’d never believed, because at the time she hadn’t known he was a necromancer. Hell, she hadn’t even known necromancers were real.
Vicky shook herself off, and Jasper took up his post on her shoulder once more. “It’s fine. It’s just a ghost. Nothing to worry about.”
Sam wondered who it was as she started pulling books off the shelf. Was it the ghost of someone Vassili had killed to take over this place? Or someone older than that? From the time of the Civil War? Vicky could probably find out, but they didn’t have time.
“Check the books.” Sam opened the back and front covers of several, making sure there weren’t hiding places in them. They had encountered more than one book in the archives with valuables stashed away.
Vicky did the same, flipping through the pages and tapping on the covers to see if the sound changed and betrayed the existence of any pockets. They made it through three of the four shelves before they found anything of interest.
Sam tapped on the back of the las
t book on the last shelf, and a hollow thud greeted her in response. She flipped to the back, where at least two dozen pages appeared to be glued together. She pried at the seam with her fingernails, until at last the glue started to let loose. It took a great deal more effort than it should have due to the preservation runes, and she doubted her old human fingernails would’ve been up to the task.
She shifted the contents around. A few gold coins waited inside, wrapped in cotton so they wouldn’t rattle or make a sound inside the book. An old envelope and a few pieces of parchment were the only other items hidden away.
None of them were coins from another realm. Old, rare, but nothing from the Shadowed Lands. Sam cursed and slammed the book closed. Vicky grabbed it and stuffed it into her backpack, and then started taking more books off the shelf.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
“These things were important to Vassili. We may need them. And even if we don’t, there is so much history here. And if whoever he was rambling about comes back, these might be gone.”
Sam smiled at Vicky. Perhaps Damian had rubbed off on the girl even more than she’d realized. She wasn’t trying to save the old crosses and artifacts strewn about the shelf. She was trying to save the old books.
“The shelf.”
Vicky stuffed another book into her backpack until it looked as though the zippers might burst. She jammed the gold cross Vik had pointed out earlier into a side pocket. “What?”
“The shelf!” Sam tore it off the wall, scattering necklaces, an old rosary, and two golden crosses. They clattered against the ground, and Vicky winced. Sam flipped the shelf over and frowned at the lack of any recesses.
But when she shook it, she could feel something moving inside. Without thinking, Sam snapped the shelf in half, the wood splintering in her grasp like a fragile layer of ice. Buried just left of the center in a hidden compartment waited the brilliant silver glow of something that should not have been.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“This is it.” Sam held the coin up in the beam of her phone’s flashlight as the pull from the blood rune finally faded away. She almost could have mistaken the cale for a piece of eight but for the color, alien architecture, and the symmetrical tentacles on the obverse. The opposite side held unfamiliar symbols and patterns arranged around a cross. “Look at it. That’s no language from this world.”
“Then let’s take what we can and go.” Vicky scooped a few more books up into her arms and the gold coins that had fallen out with the cale.
“How in the hell are you going to get back through the tunnel with all that?”
Vicky grinned at Sam. “You should really spend more time with the werewolves.”
And as Sam watched, Vicky undid the straps of her backpack and tied them around her ankle. She slipped the books up underneath her shirt and jumped back into the water after turning on the flashlight of her phone. Sam still worried that she’d get stuck, but Vicky’s light faded until it exited the tube entirely, and Sam supposed she had been quite wrong.
“Oh, what the hell,” Sam said, scooping up artifacts from the ground and tossing them into her own bag. She grabbed more books, but instead of using Vicky’s method, she just shoved the bag down the pipe ahead of herself, and grabbed it as it started to fall out the other side. She could see light at the top of the tunnel as she climbed up the side, struggling a bit more with the weight of the books.
Sam broke the surface of the water and climbed out into the springhouse. Vicky stood just outside with Jasper, looking toward the path with a purpose.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
Vicky shook her head. “I don’t know. But all Jasper’s fur just stood up on end, and he hasn’t stopped staring at the woods.”
Something tall and lanky stepped between the shadows of one tree and the next as Sam watched. She wouldn’t have caught the movement if it hadn’t shifted opposite the wind blowing around them.
“Let’s get back to the car,” Sam said, tightening the backpack over her shoulders.
“SUV.”
Sam raised an eyebrow at Vicky and started dragging her down the path. “This is not the time.”
Vicky pulled her arm away from Sam and hurried ahead as Jasper moved from one shoulder to the other, his large black eyes swiveling to either side of the path.
Sam wasn’t sure how much more her nerves could take as the trees closed in around them, only to mercifully draw away as they made it farther down the trail. She felt for the hilt at her waist, finding the splendorum mortem still tucked away. Good. Whatever came for them, she’d cut it down.
But in the back of her mind, she knew the splendorum mortem was a risk. It was a short hilt, with a shorter blade, which meant that she had to close in on whatever she was trying to kill. And if it was faster than her, it wouldn’t much matter how powerful her weapon was.
“Shit,” Vicky snapped.
Sam followed her gaze to the edge of the woods on the right. The only shadow she’d seen had been on the left, but if Vicky had seen something else, they might be in deeper trouble than she thought.
“What is it?”
Vicky shrugged. “It’s fast.”
They came out into the clearing, and Sam could just make out the top of the SUV. “Run.”
Vicky took off as Jasper started to growl. Sam turned in a slow half circle, studying every shadow, every branch of every tree. When she was sure nothing was coming, she ran after Vicky.
* * *
Before she understood what was happening, Sam’s face was in the ground, and something was digging deep into her backpack. She threw an elbow, painfully cracking it against something that felt like stone. She rolled enough to see a dark-touched vampire was on her back, its claws stopped by the warded books she’d been carrying.
A swift roll, and a violent kick, dismounted the vampire, but the instant it hit the ground, it was streaking toward her again. A gray shadow exploded across her vision, and Jasper’s silver gray teeth bit deep into the vampire.
He savaged it like a ragdoll and flung the beast into woods. Sam thought they might’ve been better off if Jasper just torched the thing. But it didn’t come rushing back onto the field of battle.
Instead, something in the woods crashed through the trees. A deep groaning howl rose into the air, and Sam’s teeth ached with the sound as if it were nails on a chalkboard amplified a thousand times.
Vicky was at her side, a soulsword lit in either hand, the blades flaring as deep red fire raced along them. They didn’t look like Damian’s soulswords anymore. They were as unique as Vicky herself.
She reached a hand out as one of the swords snapped out of existence, and pulled Sam back onto her feet. “For something that’s supposed to die in the sun, we do run into those damn things a lot.”
But Sam didn’t respond. Her eyes followed the movement of the tree branches as something rustled through them, moving closer and closer. She grabbed Vicky’s arm, and practically dragged her toward the SUV.
Jasper followed, stalking backward as he kept his eyes on the forest behind them.
Sam heard the roar, heard the fires Jasper belched forth, and she knew that hellish blue flame was searing through something. But Sam picked Vicky up, and sprinted across the road, slamming into the back of the SUV before she turned to see what was coming.
The flames of Jasper’s attack receded, and Sam could see the line of dark-touched spread out around the dragon. The first lunged for him, but the dragon batted him away with his tail before launching himself into the air.
Sam watched in horror as two of the dark-touched sprang after the dragon, easily catching Jasper in the air, and tearing into his scales. Jasper spun violently, the force enough to dislodge the vampires, but not without worsening the wounds in his flank.
“Jasper!” Vicky shouted. “Fall back!”
Dominic was out of the SUV then, and he cursed when he saw what was coming. “Get in the car.”
“There’s no way in h
ell we can outrun them.” Even as Sam said it, she pulled the door open and almost tossed Vicky inside.
They all piled in, Jasper streaking through the air, and barely slipping in through the closing door. He slammed into Sam’s lap, traces of blood running through his fur. Dominic didn’t bother to back up. He gunned it into the edge of the grass ahead of them as he spun the wheel wildly.
The SUV lurched onto the road, but it was no match for the oncoming dark-touched. The windows exploded as the dark-touched’s claws reached in for Sam and Vik.
Luna crouched in the SUV, and when a dark-touched’s head appeared in the window, she launched herself out of it, her wing pulled taut, slicing through the dark-touched’s neck as fluidly as it did the side of the SUV, leaving a gaping wound in the vehicle.
Sam heard a tire explode. The SUV tilted as Dominic lost control, and Sam barely managed to grab Vicky as the car started to roll. She wrapped herself around the girl as metal crunched and glass exploded. Monsters roared around them, and ruptured blood bags filled the air.
It felt as if the car would never stop moving, even though Sam knew the crash only took a split second. The SUV rolled one final time, only to rock back and come to rest on its roof.
Sam unwrapped herself from Vicky, saw blood at the edge of her eye, and wiped it away, relieved to find only a small cut beneath.
“I’m good,” Vicky said when Sam grabbed her by the shoulders and stared at her.
A clawed arm reached into the car, almost to Vicky’s throat, when it suddenly vanished. Something boomed on top of the wrecked car. Another of the dark-touched vanished. A massive thud crashed into the ground just outside the shattered window.
Dominic kicked out the remnants of the windshield and dragged Vik outside, one arm under the vampire lord’s shoulder, before they collected themselves and stood back to back.
Vicky followed, and Sam pushed through the side door, hopping out of the overturned SUV, trying to understand what she was looking at. One of the shadows at the edge of the tree line opened into a maw, and a horrid muck of armor and bones poured onto the ground.
