Andre wrapped an arm around the back of my knees and lifted me up, his jaw hard. “Righted many wrongs.”
My gaze moved around the room. The smell of fresh blood flooded it. My fangs, which had already descended, throbbed, and I swallowed down my unnatural thirst and all the dark thoughts that accompanied it.
My gaze connected with Caleb’s. He clutched his bloody arm and gritted his teeth. He nodded at me, his way of telling me to go.
Not that I had much choice, trapped as I was in a power-crazed Andre’s arms.
“You promised me no more mass executions,” I said as he began to walk.
The sound of groaning metal pulled my eyes back to the weapons behind Andre. Gun barrels bent themselves in unnatural angles. Then, as I watched, they clattered to the ground.
His lips brushed my forehead. “They are flesh wounds, soulmate. They won’t kill them.” Andre said, carrying me out the entrance. Even though his eyes had focused, his hair still undulated.
What was scarier than a blindly raging Andre? An aware and raging Andre. There was cruel determination in the set of his jaw.
Andre’s grip tightened on me as he stepped outside. Since I’d been inside, several officers had acquired new weapons, which they trained on us.
I lifted my hand and whisked these away from them, crushing the metal with my magic, before Andre had a chance to react.
Behind the line of Politia vehicles and officers, Oliver leaned out of a black town car and was signaling to us.
I pressed my power outwards, forcing cars and people back and creating a walkway that ended at our ride. Andre squeezed me, but otherwise gave no reaction to my power.
He took his time reaching the car, glowering at every officer that watched. He was amped up and practically begging for an excuse to unleash more of his violent power. But no one lifted a finger. They watched the somber procession.
It was a strange, uncomfortable standoff, and I was thankful when Oliver opened the door of the town car and we slid inside. Once we were in, our vehicle burned rubber and we fled the scene.
I wiggled in Andre’s arms. “You can let me go.”
Instead of doing just that, he nuzzled my neck, breathing in deeply. His hold tightened. “Let me—calm—down.” He forced the words out, pulling me close and inhaling me in.
Tentatively, I threaded my hands into his hair and tugged him closer. “It’s alright, my life,” I said, using an endearment he typically murmured to me, “I’m safe. You got me out.”
“Ho please. He got you out?” Oliver said from my other side. “He was crushing skulls like a barbarian while I broke you out of that cell.”
I threw my friend a look as Andre’s hair stirred again. Now was not exactly the time for an argument. Not when Andre was ready to go on another rampage.
“Pssh, fine, whatever,” Oliver said noticing my look. “He got you out. Happy now?”
My vampire’s hand clasped my jaw and turned my head back to face him. “‘My life’? I am still yours?”
I smiled. “Always.”
As soon as we exited the car in front of Bishopcourt, Andre finally released me. At least, it was his version of releasing me. His hand still lingered on the back of my neck, his thumb absently circling my jugular. It was oddly erotic, and I had to shrug off the rush of heat that swamped my body.
“Men!” he shouted, gesturing to a cluster of individuals waiting for us. “I want four of you guarding my soulmate at all times.”
I swiveled to give Andre a look. “You can’t be serious.” I was essentially a goddess. Of the Underworld. My powers were unparalleled, and, more importantly, I couldn’t die. His soldiers could.
“I will not watch you bleed out again, you hear me?” he said, turning those intense eyes on me. The air blew his hair and his coat about him, and my God, he was the most staggering man I’d ever seen. “It will not happen while I have power to stop it. That means I will have you protected, no matter how ridiculous you think that is.”
I could tell by the set of his jaw that on this subject, he wasn’t going to budge. I gave him a sharp nod, my mood worsening as my attention moved to my new babysitters.
“I need to debrief my men, but I will find you once I’m done. And when I do, I will show you just how much I missed you.” He gave me a final heated look, then left me.
“Well that was exciting,” Oliver said when we headed into his and Leanne’s room. The door clicked shut behind us, leaving my four guards out in the hallway.
Leanne was stretched out on the floor, her deck of tarot cards spread out before her. “So glad the last twenty-four hours are behind us,” she said. She glanced up at me. “Hi again.”
Apparently this was what Leanne had been up to while Andre and Oliver had broken me out of jail.
“No wonder you gave me the pep talk,” I said. Oliver and I plopped down on the bed, and wrapping my arms around a pillow, I peered over the edge at Leanne and her cards. “Thanks, by the way, for all the visions.”
“That’s awfully appreciative for the anti-Christ,” she said, her lips twisting in a wry smile.
I grinned back at her, though even now I struggled with my increasingly trigger-happy temper. “I’m trying to channel my inner Positive Polly. I’ve heard that no one likes ho-bag Holly.”
“I do,” Oliver chimed in.
Of course he did.
“Hey, where’s the love for your rescuer here? I was in fact the one that got you out of that death trap holding cell. I don’t care what that goblin of yours says.”
“Thank you, Oliver,” I said.
“Hmph.”
I threw my pillow at him because sometimes, when it came to fairies, you needed to keep it real.
“Ow,” he said as it whacked him. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
I couldn’t even begin to describe how good it felt to do and say normal teenage things.
He picked the pillow up and cocked his arm back.
“Dude,” I said, rolling onto my back and putting my hands up defensively, “I’m a wrathful goddess now. You can’t hit wrathful goddesses. Those bitches will go crazy on you.”
I was only half-joking.
Oliver’s arm wilted as his eyes narrowed. “Well played, Corpse Bride, well played.”
I sighed at the name.
“I spoke with Nona.” Leanne’s words stopped me in my tracks.
“What?” I said.
Nona—or Cecilia, as I was fond of calling my former nanny—was dead as far as I knew. At least this incarnation of her was.
I didn’t know how long it took other immortals to regenerate. Perhaps they returned just as quickly as I did.
“Where is she?” I asked, scrambling to sit up.
Leanne shook her head. “Not like that. I spoke with her in a dream.”
That was no less spectacular, but I deflated a bit anyway. I missed her; there was no helping it.
“What did she have to say?”
Leanne gathered up her tarot cards. “Things,” she replied cryptically. “Are you in the mood to sneak out?” she asked, setting her deck aside.
“Do you really even need to ask that question?” Oliver said for me.
In response, a devious smile spread across Leanne’s face. “That’s what I thought.”
Chapter 20
Gabrielle
We huddled in close, keeping our voices down just in case someone with supernatural hearing passed by the room.
“What’s the plan?” Oliver asked.
“Gabrielle needs to speak with the messenger before she can use the celestial request quill.”
I did? Well, that was news. Hopefully that would go a little bit better tonight than it had last night.
“The who?” Oliver asked. Loudly.
“Ssh,” Leanne hissed. “The messenger. Jericho.”
“Jericho … ?”
“Aquinas,” Leanne said. “Jericho Aquinas.”
“That rings zero bells,” he said.
“It doesn’t need to ring any bells,” she said. “He’s waiting for us along the ley lines.”
“Not at his shop?” I asked.
Leanne shook her head. “Oliver, we need you to take us to him. You should be able to sense him from his divinity.”
The fairy huffed. “I’m nothing but a glorified cabbie.”
“You’re the best, and you’re the only one who can do this,” Leanne said.
“Buttering me up won’t get you anywhere, Leanne. Anyway, Corpse Bride needs to shake her shadows,” Oliver said, glancing meaningfully at the door in question.
“Let’s grab something to eat, then think more on this,” I suggested, a plan already taking root.
Leanne bit back a smile, and I suppressed mine. She already knew exactly how this was going down.
“I want chocolate and a piña colada,” Oliver announced.
“What do think this is, a resort?” I asked as we headed out of the room, the four guards at our heels.
“Hell yeah it is,” he replied. “Have you seen Andre’s bar? For a guy with a limited appetite, he comes well stocked.”
“Very well stocked,” I agreed. The innuendo just sort of slipped out. So sue me, I was damned. Hell had rubbed off on me.
“You little hussy!” Oliver squealed giving me a push. “I knew it! Hung like a horse!”
Okay, this was quickly getting out of hand.
“You can have chocolate,” I said. “We’ll see about the fruity drink.” Giving Oliver sugar was bad enough. Throwing alcohol into the mix was just asking for trouble.
I led my friends beyond the kitchen to Bishopcourt’s large pantry, the guards still trailing us. My skin brightened as I swiveled to face them. I noticed Leanne discreetly plug her ears. Oh, the perks of having a seer for a best friend. Oliver didn’t have to do anything; he could withstand my glamour since he was not of this world.
“Make yourselves discreet for the next several hours,” I commanded my guards. “If anyone asks where Leanne, Oliver and I are, tell them that Leanne’s giving Oliver a private reading, and I decided to take a shower.” It wouldn’t keep Andre away—not for long anyway—but it might allow our absence to go unnoticed.
Once I finished giving orders, my guards retreated through the kitchen. I closed the door after them, trapping us inside the pantry. I headed to the square door set into the floor.
“Illegal glamouring is awesome and all that jazz,” Oliver said as I set to work opening the hatch, “but what exactly are you doing?”
“Getting us out of here.” My skin dimmed as I spoke.
Once I’d opened the door, the three of us entered Andre’s cellar. Since I’d last been down here, someone had installed new shelves and restocked the wines. I made my way to the rack that hid the persecution tunnel. When I got to it, I—carefully—pushed it aside, revealing the dark passage beyond.
Praise Jesus for these shady passageways.
It took us about fifteen minutes to sneak off the property to the taxi waiting for us just outside the edge of Andre’s property, courtesy of Leanne’s earlier planning. It took us another fifteen minutes to make it to the nearest ley line entrance, and then an instant for us to find ourselves in an entirely new land.
I stared out at the ruins. Arid plants grew between stone slabs and craggy rocks. A chilly wind blew over us, carrying with it the distant smell of the sea.
“Where are we?” I asked Oliver.
“Ancient Troy,” a soft voice responded. I turned in time to see Jericho making his way to us, his aged body curved inwards.
As soon as I caught a whiff of his divinity, the need for violence assaulted me. I fisted my hands and fought the urge off.
“Why here?” I asked as he approached me.
“Ah, I see you assumed I called for this meeting.”
I furrowed my brows. “You mean you didn’t?”
“No, I did in fact arrange this.”
I tilted my head, thoroughly confused.
His eyes met Leanne’s, and he nodded to her. Without a word, she melted away from us, dragging a reticent Oliver along with her.
Jericho took my hand and patted it. “Assumptions, my dear, are dangerous, as you well know.”
He could say that again. The good guys wanted me dead, the bad guys wanted me safe, and the devil wasn’t nearly as ferocious as I’d always imagined him.
We began to walk, the shrubs thrusting themselves as far away from me as they could. Small plants withered beneath my feet. I locked my hands together and squeezed them to tightly leash in the urge to attack him.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” Jericho said. When I glanced over at him, he appeared chagrinned. “Now is not the time for lessons in perspective. This mind is, at times, a maze I wander through. Often I lead myself down wrong avenues.”
A shiver raced up my spine at his words. Not his mind, this mind. The form he’d taken.
“Do you have the quill with you?” I asked.
“I don’t,” he admitted.
“Then we have to get back to your store.”
“It’s not there, either, I’m afraid.”
It took me a second to process his words, and even once I did, they didn’t compute. Not really. “Then where is it?” I asked.
“Gone.”
“Gone?” I raise my eyebrows, disbelieving. I squeezed my hands harder. “Where did it go?”
He shrugged, and I didn’t know it was possible to be this angry at a divine thing.
“Jericho, I need that quill.” I was desperate, so, so desperate. I was going to lose the last of myself soon. I could feel it in my bones. Already it took most of my energy to just appear normal when a maelstrom of negative emotions swept through me.
“Another whom you trust holds it for you, but I will not tell you who.”
My wrath was rising. “Why not?”
“Your very being betrays you. The devil can see into your mind, and the world watches your every move. Too many people are looking in. Once you find that quill, you will have minutes to use it before the powers that be will try to converge on you.”
I rubbed my forehead at his cryptic words, some of my anger ebbing. I still wasn’t over the fact that he’d moved the quill behind my back. “Couldn’t all those people figure out that I’m looking for the quill from this conversation?” If people were watching me and my future, then they’d see this.
At least I assumed so, until Jericho spoke.
“I’d imagine not,” he said. “The seer’s shroud still runs through your friends’ veins, and as for me … I can block prying eyes from foreseeing my future when I want. No one save for perhaps the devil will know of this conversation.”
So Jericho had taken precautions I hadn’t even considered.
“You’ll have one chance.” Jericho lifted his head to the sky. The wind was picking up, and I could faintly hear the violent crash of the surf in the distance.
“Your presence affects not just the people, but the very nature of this realm,” Jericho said. “The skies and sea rebel. Fires blaze, the earth quakes. If you don’t take it when the time comes, then this all ends.
“Heaven and hell are moving in. Beings that have no business traversing this plane are now entering it.” He picked up my wrist. “Some through your blood rites, some through the celestial gates.
“You are the cause hell fights for. The cause heaven fights against. But—” Jericho’s eyes got devious, “the quill will allow you to right these wrongs and return the world to the way it once was.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. What was so damned special about this pen? “Can’t I just tell a few angels that I’m on their side?”
“And why would they believe you? You are the devil’s wife—the Deceiver’s wife—and the queen of the damned. No one will believe you.”
“Do you?”
“It is not in my place to judge.”
“And a glorified pen is?”
“It can only scribe true intentions. You
use the quill, you bind your entire essence with it.”
Alright, it was a pen with a built-in lie detector.
“You only get a single chance to use this quill,” he said. “One. So whatever you write, you must think long and hard about it.” His eyes went to the sky again. “And you must wait until the time is right before you use it.”
Apprehension tightened my stomach. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Last time we talked, I told you that you wouldn’t be able to use it until you died. Now I am telling you that you will not be able to use it until you feel compelled to.”
Was he serious? I spent half of my day in hell. “But I already feel compelled to use it.”
“No, you don’t. At some point, you will though. And that, my dear, is when you must scribe your plea.”
“But I don’t know where it is.”
“That too will be apparent in time.” He closed his eyes and breathed in the air. “Hell rises, heaven falls, and earth rebels. I must go.”
Jericho stepped away from me. “Remember my words, Gabrielle. A war emerges that will rip worlds apart, and only you can stop it.”
Chapter 21
Gabrielle
“No pressure or anything,” Oliver said, sauntering back with Leanne’s hand tucked in the crook of his arm.
“You heard that?” I picked my way around the ancient stone structures. The moment Jericho left, the violence riding me receded. I could finally relax my muscles now that I didn’t fear I’d jump someone in a fit of rage.
“I’m a fairy. What did you expect?”
Good point.
Next to him, Leanne stared out, her eyes unfocused. She murmured under her breath. The words that I caught—such as bloodbath, death, and damnation—I chose to ignore.
“How long has she been like that?” I jerked my chin towards her.
“The real question, sweets, is when is she not like this?”
The Damned (The Unearthly Book 5) Page 16
