by Lucy Auburn
“Okay, call them something else then. I’ve heard ‘revenants’ is a preferred nomenclature,” Leon said mildly, putting the car into park and grabbing his gun. “I also won’t tell you to look into the woods and see what lurks there.”
Just sliding my eyes in that general direction revealed how much further the horror went. “Wait!” I stopped him before he could get out. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Get into the driver’s seat and drive.” He gave me a look. “Try not to run me over, okay? Point the car in the direction of these poor possessed bodies.”
“You want me to run them over?”
“It’s that or makeout with them.” At those words, he threw open the driver’s side door, aimed his gun over the roof of the car, and shot a couple rounds off into the forest. “Oh, and Selena? Don’t adjust my seat.”
Just like that he kicked the door closed and left me alone, the zombies pouring out of the woods headed straight for the car. One of them thumped against the back bumper. Tamping down on a scream, I scooted over the gear shift into Leon’s seat, stretched my feet down to the pedals, and put the car into reverse.
Ahead of me, Naomi was pulling her knife out of a revenant and surging towards another without slowing down to wipe the goo from her blade. I took my foot off the brake, glanced into the rear view mirror at the horrors trying to climb onto the car’s roof, and pushed down on the gas with my toes.
There was a thump and a squeal as the car hit the reanimated bodies and kept going, the wheels pressing down onto the dead things beneath them. I switched the car into drive, while in front of me Leon took three revenants down with his gun and split into two before my eyes.
Trying not to look too closely, I steered the car towards a shuffling old lady in the middle of the road. Her face was thankfully mostly rotted away, so I didn’t have to see her expression as I drove over her with the car. Thump thump went the front wheels, then thump thump went the back. It was enough to make me sick.
Naomi, Leon, and Leo dispatched a few more before heading towards the car, grabbing for the door handles. I slowed down as a still-armed Naomi slid into the passenger seat, kicking away the revenant who tried to follow her through the door.
“Go faster, Pierce!” She slammed the door and watched as Leon pulled his double in and jumped into the backseat. “Get us the hell to that funeral home.”
“Brace yourselves.”
The gas pedal was a distance away but I stretched my foot out and got us going as fast as I could. Aiming straight for the funeral home, I drove there as quickly as Leon’s set back seat would let me.
“Any following us?” I asked, sparing a moment to look into the rear view mirror only to swerve on the road and have to force my eyes forward again.
Leon twisted around in the back seat to look out the window. “I see two—now three. They’re pretty slow though. We can make it. Just don’t let up on that gas pedal.”
We were almost there. The funeral home loomed in the distance. I swerved towards a parking space, taking up multiple in my jittery nervousness. I barely slammed on the brakes in time to avoid ramming straight into the building.
“That was crazy,” I said, forcing the gear shift into park and taking the keys out of the ignition. “What now?”
“He knows we’re coming,” Naomi said, cleaning off her knives with a cloth she pulled out of her jacket. “The sooner we get in there and take him, the better. Before he raises more of the dead to come after us.”
“So we’re going in there.” I looked up at the front doors of the funeral home. “To take down the guy who did... that.”
“You can wait in the car,” Leon pointed out, reloading his gun and grabbing the door handle. “But we’ve gone over hand-to-hand combat, and you’ve got your full fae powers now. This is the job, Selena.”
“Right. The job.” Calming myself, I took my hands off the steering wheel, grabbed the knife out of my jacket, and got ready. “Let’s do it, then.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The funeral parlor’s high ceiling yawned above us as we entered, weapons at the ready. A floral wreath was slowly dying near the front doors; friendly posters on the wall made statements about mourning against the background of stock photos. It felt more than a little tone deaf—but then again, we weren’t here to catch a grandmother.
“My spidey senses are tingling,” Naomi said, stalking ahead of us. “See that door back there? I think it leads somewhere. The danger is this way.”
I resisted the urge to tell her that the last thing I wanted was to go wherever the danger was. I had to remind myself that this was why I was here; that I was powerful, full of energy given to me from my visit with Elah and the press of Vincent’s mouth against my own. The fae we were about to confront had ruined my best friend’s life and killed countless people; the last thing I could afford to do was run.
Still, I felt like a coward next to strong, confident Naomi, and Leon with his double. The two men fanned out, each of them with their own gun—I would have to ask him how that worked sometime—watching each other’s back as we followed Naomi down a shadowed hallway that smelled like rug shampoo.
As we headed towards the door in the back, we passed a fold-out table with a carafe of coffee and several scones and donuts on it. There was something incongruous about the whole thing; it occurred to me with a shudder that the humans who came here to plan their loved ones’ funeral had no idea they were talking to a dark fae who ate rotting human flesh.
We reached the door without incident. Outside, the revenants pounded on the door, but their reanimated flesh didn’t seem to be strong enough to break it down. It was just us and the danger waiting behind that door.
Leon told his double, “Stay out here and watch our backs,” and nodded to Naomi.
She grasped the knob and slowly opening it, back flat against the wall beside the frame. The hinges creaked; I clamped down on the absurd urge to laugh hysterically. Any minute, I expected something to fly out of the door and attack us, but nothing came.
“I’m going in,” Naomi said.
Leon looked over at me. “You coming?”
I nodded, tightening my hand on my borrowed knife. “You first.”
He smirked and headed down, his gun at the ready. I followed last, Leo taking up position behind me, ready to shoot anything that tried to follow. “Good luck, kid.”
There was something startling about getting advice from someone who wore Leon’s face and voice but not his personality. “Thanks.”
Knife in hand, I descended into the darkness.
The stairs were wide but rickety, with no railing. I went slow, listening hard for anything up ahead. Naomi reached the bottom and called out “clear!” Leon followed close behind her as she turned on the basement light, her knives ready to spin towards anything that lurked down here. From what I could see, we were in a basement storage room full of old boxes piled towards the ceiling. If there was any danger down here, it wasn’t popping up right away.
Leon gave Naomi a look. “What the hell?”
“Beats me.”
I was just about to say that maybe it had been a mistake to come down here when the door behind me slammed shut. Whirling around, I was ready to stab whoever had done it—but there was nothing behind me except empty air. Heart in my throat, I met Leon and Naomi’s eyes. “What’s going on?”
That’s when Naomi crept over to one of the boxes in the corner and pulled out a strange black device, shaped like a clock. “What’s going on is that I’m a dumbass. This—” she threw the device towards the ground, and it shattered, “—is a danger generator. He knew that we were onto him, sent the revenants, and threw off my dark hunter senses.”
“And now we’re trapped,” Leon surmised, holstering his gun. “I’m going to take a wild guess that the door is locked.”
Rushing back up the stairs, I put my hand on the doorknob and was unsurprised to find that it didn’t turn. I heaved my shoulder against the door,
but it stayed closed quite solidly. “What do we do?”
“Everything we can to get the hell out of here,” Leon said grimly, “because I highly doubt we’ll like what this flesh-eating dark fae has planned for us.”
“Let’s look for another door or a key or something,” Naomi said, sheathing her knives. “I’m sure there’s got to be something down here.”
Twenty minutes later, we were no closer to finding a way out. Leon had even resorted to yelling at Leo to step away from the door while he shot off a few rounds at the locks. All they did was sink into the wood and melt away, as whatever spell the dark fae used destroyed them.
Naomi stabbed at the door—of course—but her knives just skittered across the wood like it was metal.
And there was no other way out. We were well and truly trapped, with no idea if the dark fae was even in this building.
Meanwhile, from what Leo was saying, the revenants were piling up outside the door. And they were very close to breaking out.
“Let’s just push the door down,” Naomi said, pacing back and forth in frustration. “If we all just slam against it at the same time it has to at least budge.”
Sliding down against the wall, Leon shook his head. “I can’t. Leo has been separated from me for over twenty minutes now, and we split a few times today. I’m running out of energy, fast.”
That’s when Naomi inexplicably looked at me. “You do it.”
I blinked at her, astonished. “What am I supposed to do that you two haven’t already?”
“Try something!” She threw her hands up in the air, clearly frustrated. “You can literally suck all the energy out of a person until they die, but you can’t push down a little door?”
Clearly there was going to be no reasoning with her. “Whose energy is going to get me to the other side of that door, though? I haven’t fed off the Hulk lately.”
That was when Leon got to his feet and stalked over to me, something unnerving in his eyes. “Feed off me.”
“What?”
“Leo is on the other side of that door,” he said, ignoring the cutting look Naomi was giving him. “My energy calls to him. It wants us to be reunited. I can’t use my strength, but maybe you can.”
Naomi crossed her arms and reluctantly admitted, “It could work. But only if you’re strong enough.”
Chin up, I gave Leon a good look-over. “You sure you have enough energy for me to be able to take some?”
“Don’t worry about me.” He stared at me with those intense blue eyes. “Just get us the fuck out of here.”
I was about to say something when he took my face in his hands and dipped his mouth towards mine, and all words flew from me. From the moment I first saw Leon sitting across from me at the interrogation table, I’d felt an undeniable attraction towards him. Every minute we spent together, even the sound of his voice as he taught me how to meditate, had been its own kind of temptation.
But none of it compared to the press of his lips against mine, the scratch of his stubble against my cheeks. I opened my mouth to him as he licked his tongue inside, the raw sexual hunger overwhelming. His energy tasted like pure, raw strength, and it curled up inside me as he worked his lips against mine and thrust his tongue into my mouth. I moaned. When he pulled back I had to fight the urge to beg for more.
“There,” he said, his blue eyes staring down at me. “That should do it.”
Naomi sounded bitter as she said, “And I thought our kiss was hot.” I blinked at her, and she motioned towards the door. “Go on then. Use his energy to push the door down—if you can.”
“Thank you,” I said to Leon, ignoring Naomi’s goading. “I hope this works.”
I took the stairs up again, holding tight to the power curled up inside me. Leon’s wasn’t all that I felt; there was also the fire and ash of Elah’s undeniable strength, and the cool darkness that Vincent had pressed inside me. The raw energy was more than just sexual; it was fire and ice, power and pleasure that coursed through my veins.
Facing the door, I did my best to channel that borrowed strength. Now that I’d tasted Leon I could somehow feel his double on the other side of the door—and I knew that Leo was weak. Putting a palm against the varnished wood, I sensed his fear and strength as the revenants broke through one of the windows and began to climb into the building. Gunshots sounded as he shot the first wave, but more would come, and he couldn’t take them down alone.
I breathed deep. Held it. Cleared the thoughts from my mind. And rammed my shoulder against the door, power rippling through my body as I connected with the wood.
It creaked, an anxious sound.
My fingers felt hot. Looking down, I realized that my palms were heating up, just the way Elah’s did. Not knowing what I was doing, I put my hands against the wood and pressed forward, hard.
The energy curled inside me rushed forward, desperate to get to Leo, angry to be locked inside, burning hot and cold at the same time.
I felt it more than anything as cold fire rippled out of my body and poured into every crack in the wood. Finding the door’s weakness, it broke it apart piece by piece. It was a hungry thing that would destroy what it touched. I stumbled down the stairs a few steps as the door I’d touched burst into ash and hot char, pieces of wood falling to my feet.
“Don’t just stand there, let’s go!” Leon surged past me, scooping me up with his arm and half-carrying me through the open door. “You all good?”
I nodded, coughing up a lungful of smoke and pressing my still-hot hands against each other. Ahead of me, Leo struggled to put down the revenants, his gun firing again and again into the crowd.
“Go get ‘em,” I told Leon.
With a wild grin, he surged towards his double and rejoined with him, then began to turn into something else. I held back, recuperating from my sudden change in powers; Naomi took up position next to me and threw one of her knives straight at any revenants Leon and Leo hadn’t already taken out.
“You good, Suck?”
“I’m good. What’s Leon doing?”
Ahead of us, his form shimmered and trembled as it shifted into all fours, changing into something I’d never seen before.
Naomi grinned. “Selena, meet the beast.”
I blinked and Leon was done shifting. He now took the form of a giant wolf, its body at least twice as big as the man he’d been. Shaking all over, it tilted its head back and roared, the sound echoing throughout the room.
Then it tore into the crowd of revenants, taking them in its jaw and shaking them into pieces.
“I wish he’d done that earlier,” I said, grabbing my knife now that my hands felt normal again. “Why didn’t he?”
“It takes a lot out of him. Now, follow me,” she said, grabbing my elbow and pulling me down another hallway. “Now that the fake danger isn’t clouding my senses I know where the demon summoner is. We’re gonna take him out—you and me, together.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Naomi
Nothing made me angrier than being tricked. The fact that the fae who tricked me was some flesh-eating graveyard monster from the Shadow Realm... well, it was enough to make me see red.
Thankfully I knew where my enemy was now, and this time I would find him and put a knife in him.
Or capture and handcuff him. Whichever was easier.
Selena followed me as I led her down the hallway towards a door that said “employees only.” I knew the dark fae had to be nearby—there was no way he could reanimate the dead from such a distance. My danger senses were going into overdrive, insisting that I turn around and fight off the shuffling undead with Leon’s beast form, but I ignored those urges.
The dark fae was back here. I just knew it. Reaching the door in question, I put my shoulder against it and prepared to push.
“Do you have a plan?” Selena’s whispered question stopped me. “What do we do when we see him?”
“Stab him.”
She gave me a look, one that was dis
turbingly similar to the judgmental expression I often caught Leon throwing my way. “Stab him. Seriously, that’s all you’ve got?”
“You got a better idea?”
“I could drain his energy,” she pointed out, though she looked a little sick at the thought of it. “Maybe I’ll be able to do it from a distance. You know, without touching him.”
I didn’t blame Selena for the nauseated look on her face; I wouldn’t want to kiss an undead-raising, flesh-eating dark fae either. Thinking about Selena kissing men just brought me right back to her little incident with Leon in the basement, though, and once again I was back at the whole stabbing things place.
So I came up with a compromise. “If he attacks us, I stab him. And if you get the chance to drain his energy, I’ll let you. But I don’t plan on stepping back while you try to do your voodoo on him, Suck.”
“That works.” She gave me a short nod and looked at the door. “Get on it, then.”
I was more than happy to. Pulling back, I gathered the superhuman strength being a dark hunter gave me and slammed my shoulder against the door, pushing with my legs at the same time. It flew open with a smash, falling to the ground on the other side.
And out of the room rolled a smell so foul that even my experienced demon-hunting nose crinkled at it.
This was where the bodies were prepared, obviously, since it was cool inside and there were metal tables with at least one cadaver stretched out on them. But the man who prepared them wasn’t a regular human mortician; he was a dark fae, who lived off the flesh he peeled from the bodies of the loved ones he was being paid to bury. So there was dried blood on the floor, and the noxious smell of something cooking that I tried not to examine too closely.
Standing on the other side of the body, his bare hands plunged into its depths, was the man we’d been looking for. The one who spit venom on Leo’s face and sped away from us in the van. When he saw us standing there he backed up, eyes wide in fright, hands coated in viscera.
