by Jayde Brooks
Drake stared at Runyon and without saying a word, turned and started walking again. When they reached a door at the end of the corridor, he put the key in the lock and opened it.
“They haven’t eaten,” he said, walking over to the couple sitting on the floor and holding each other in a corner of the room. Both were shackled at the ankles. They were sweating and panting. Dark veins streaked down their arms and through their cheeks.
“How you doing, Bobby?” he asked, kneeling in front of the two.
The male raised his head and raked his hand through thick, dark hair. “Not so good, D.”
“Cassie?” Drake asked the female.
She raised her head and stared back at Drake with red irises. “I’m thirsty,” she said, weakly.
Drake pushed a bottle of water sitting on the floor next to the food tray closer to her, but she shook her head. “It makes sick. It makes me want to throw up.”
“They were bitten six days ago,’ Drake told him. “At first, they seemed fine, but . . . well,” he looked up at Runyon.
A knot twisted in his gut.
“We don’t know what to do for them,” Drake said, standing up again. “Tried antibiotics, blood transfusions, but nothing seems to be helping,” he said, dismally. “I’m assuming vamps is short for vampires?”
Runyon nodded.
“So, are they turning into vampires?”
“I have no idea,” Runyon said, shrugging. “I don’t know much about vamps, except that they’re dirty scavengers that we never paid too much attention to in our world.”
Drake walked past Runyon back to the door and waited for Runyon to follow before pulling it shut and locking it behind him.
“Why’d you want to know what happened to them?” Drake asked.
The last thing Jarrod needed was for Drake to try and lock Molly up with these two. That could get messy.
“Curious,” he said. “I needed to know, in case we ran into any out in the field.”
“Well,” Drake said, starting to head back down the hallway to the stairwell, “that’s a possibility more and more these days. So, you need to be careful, especially Molly. Not sure what kind of effect it would have on you if they took a chunk out of you, but she’s definitely at risk. We all are. Been reevaluating our gear. Trying to come up with something that offers more protection.”
“Not a bad idea,” Jarrod said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“A filthy ptkah put a rod through your eye, Torok?” ENIG asked, watching a female shifter and her mate remove it. One pushed while the other pulled, since it had gone clean through his skull.
Isis stood across the room looking disgusted. “You shouldn’t have said anything. That’s just embarrassing.”
“He was bigger than most.” Torok grunted, then hissed as the shifters wiggled that thing out of him.
“Was he bigger than you?” Isis asked.
Torok didn’t respond.
“Still,” ENIG continued. “The fact that he felt brave enough to go up against you so boldly tells me that he was either stupid or he was an alpha.”
“Mkombozi was with him,” Torok blurted out, sounding absolutely insane.
ENIG and Isis looked at each other.
“That rod must’ve damaged his brain,” ENIG offered.
Isis shrugged. “Well, it’s small, so—”
“I’m dead serious,” Torok shot back. “Mkombozi is alive. I saw her with my own eyes.”
The Berserker looked stunned to even hear himself say those words.
“I know it sounds impossible.” He swallowed. “But it was her. I’d bet my life on it. And for some reason she was with this vamp. The two of them are in the city.”
Isis rolled her eyes. “You sound ridiculous, Torok. Shut up.”
“I know what I saw,” he said. “It was Mkombozi. She was my general, Isis. I know what she looks like.”
“It could’ve been some shifter playing games with you,” ENIG said, casually.
“Mkombozi could not possibly be here, Torok,” Isis said. “It had to have been a shifter.”
Their argument obviously gave the beast room for doubt. For him to think that Mkombozi could somehow come back from the dead and then hang out with a vamp was absurd. Surely he had to see that.
“Still,” Isis continued, chiding him, “the vamp part I believe. That he could or would be bold enough to shove that thing through your head and live to brag about it to his little scooth buddies should be really humiliating.”
“How many times are you going to say that?” Torok muttered.
A group of about a dozen Ancients gathered together in Khale’s old apartment at noon as planned, including Runyon and Prophet and Eden. Molly was with them too, and Torok sat brooding with a huge bandage covering his left eye. Berserkers healed more slowly than other ancients because of their size and slower metabolisms, so he was stuck with this reminder of getting his ass kicked by a ptkah for at least a week.
“How’d you find out about this attack?” Prophet asked, ever watchful of the others, standing guard over his little Redeemer as if she needed his protection from any of them.
“We trapped a vamp,” ENIG offered. “Lured him in with a six-year-old.”
“He’s young,” she continued, “but very chatty after a little bloodletting. Vamp drones in this area are led by an alpha named Van Dureel. He’s been coordinating all of these attacks and kidnappings, trading humans to other vamp colonies for sustenance and some to humans for—whatever.”
“We’ve heard that name,” Molly offered, looking at Runyon. “From a boy whose town was recently attacked.”
“Van Dureel’s colony is growing. His plan is to take over trafficking operations in the country,” Isis explained. “He’s somewhere here on the East Coast and until now he’s only orchestrated hits on smaller towns. This one in Morgantown is his biggest hit yet. There are nearly sixteen thousand people in Morgantown, with more moving back into the city every day.”
“When?” Eden asked.
Even the sound of Eden’s voice sent a chill up Isis’s spine. Today they were fortunate, and the brown-eyed version of the woman had showed up. But that other version of her was never far away. They’d all heard what she was capable of when the Omen took full charge of her. Ahmand had paid the ultimate price for it. None of the others had wanted to invite Eden and her Guardian to this meeting, but Isis knew better. Of course the two of them had to be here and of course they would have to be present defending Morgantown if the group were to have any chance of ending the threat she posed.
“We leave before dawn,” Isis said. “Morgantown is nearly four hundred miles from here. Driving, we can be there in just under seven hours. Some of us can arrive sooner,” she looked at Prophet and other shifters who could fly. “The vamp army includes humans. So, based on what the young vamp told us, we’re looking at a thousand or more.”
“And how many of us?” Prophet asked.
Isis paused and scanned each concerned face around the room. “Maybe five hundred, if we’re lucky.”
Runyon glanced at his new love and Isis could practically read his mind. He wanted her to stay back. “Don’t even think about it, Runyon,” Isis said. “We need all the help we can get. They’re expected to attack at dusk.”
“Five hundred or four hundred and ninety-nine,” he shrugged. “What’s the difference?”
“The difference is I’m not sitting this out, Jarrod,” Molly said with conviction. Too bad this girl had stolen Isis’s piece of ass from her. She might’ve grown to like her.
Eden stood up to leave. “Let’s get some sleep,” she said, sighing. “Gotta get up too damned early in the morning.”
Ancients nearly fell over trying to get out of her way. If she noticed, she didn’t react.
The Phantom had Isis whipped. She could hardly stand having a night without him, but thankfully, that wasn’t a problem. Isis and ENIG exchanged a glance, an unspoken agreement that after another disc
ussion, separate from the Guardian, Were and human females, that the two of them would have a more private meeting in her room.
Half an hour after the discussion about Morgantown, Isis, ENIG, and Torok gathered together at a run-down bar a few blocks away from where Prophet and the others were staying.
“We can die trying to kill her and hope that we are successful, or wait for her to kill all of us. We all know that no matter what, if Eden is left to survive, that’s what will happen,” Isis reminded them.
“So risk dying now or later?” Torok asked. “And assuming that any of us has the power to kill her, how are we supposed to get close enough to do it? She doesn’t trust any of us enough to so much as walk behind her, and when she’s not watching, he is.”
“Eden will no doubt try and keep the Omen at bay for as long as possible, even in battle,” ENIG suggested. “I doubt that she has much fight left in her for the next time they take control, and there will be a next time, so the sooner we can do this, the better. It could be our shot.”
“She’ll fight as herself if they haven’t taken her by the time we get to Morgantown,” Isis replied. “She’s strong and fast and dangerous as herself, but still, more vulnerable than she is when the Omen take over. Fighting will have her distracted and if we play our cards right, she won’t suspect us.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Molly and Eden rode together with Runyon on the way to Morgantown. Prophet flew ahead with the other flyers.
“What’s wrong with us, E?” Molly said reflectively, staring out of the window as Jarrod drove.
“What isn’t wrong with us, Mol?” Eden countered from the back seat.
“I mean, we could do like the rest of the world and try to rebuild our lives. The Demon’s gone. His army is gone. You could open up a nail shop like you wanted. And I could,” she looked at Runyon and smiled, “be barefoot and pregnant with a whole litter of were-babies.”
He shook his head.
Eden laughed. “So, what happened to your hand?”
Molly took her time answering. “Is this your way of changing the subject?”
“Somebody’s got to try and save the world, Molly.”
“Still. Why us?”
“Why not us?”
“That’s my girl. Keep it simple and straight to the point.”
“What happened to your hand?”
“I got bit,” Molly said, softly.
Eden leaned over the front seat and held out her hand for Molly’s. “Let me see.”
Eden carefully unwrapped the bandage that Jarrod had put on the day before. Even Molly was surprised by how it looked, and Jarrod nearly ran off the road.
“Damn, Molly,” Eden exclaimed. “What the hell bit you?”
“It looks infected, huh?” she said, raising her hand to her face to examine it more closely.
“What did this?” Eden persisted.
“Vamp,” Jarrod reluctantly volunteered.
Eden stared stunned at Molly. “You were bitten by one of those things? When, Molly?”
She shrugged. “Three, maybe four days ago.”
Eden looked at Jarrod. “What are we supposed to do, Jarrod?”
He glanced back at her through the rearview mirror. To say that the dude was worried was an understatement. Eden could tell just by looking at him that this was a bigger deal than he was letting on. “Not sure yet. But we’re working on it.”
His look carried a subtle warning for Eden to slow her roll and get her finger off that panic button.
“Does it hurt?” she asked Molly.
Molly shrugged. “Nope. It looks worse than it is,” she said glancing nervously at Runyon.
“Probably is,” Eden agreed, helping her to replace the bandage. “Just keep that trigger finger of yours strong and loose, girl. We’re going to need that expert marksman aim of yours before the day is over,” she smiled.
“No worries,” Molly nervously smiled back. “This ain’t shit.”
So why did Eden have a sick feeling in her stomach? Probably because both Molly and Jarrod looked like they had that same feeling in theirs. Eden stretched out in the back seat and stared out the window at the trees. They rode in complete silence for miles before Molly finally spoke.
“What’s up with Mr. Tall, Brooding, and Overly Protective?” she asked. “Before we left he seemed more brooding than usual.”
Eden sighed. Prophet had been acting distant since he’d come back home with the fish the day before. “I don’t know,” she sighed. “It could have something to do with the fact that I, or rather, they—the Omen—nearly split his head. And that I came real close to not being able to stop it from happening,” Eden swallowed, surprised by the sting of tears.
She expected a snappy reply from her best friend, but none came.
“I think he’s reconciling himself to the fact that there’s going to come a time when I can’t come back, Mol.”
“Yeah,” Molly said, solemnly. “A realization like that could make a tall, dark, handsome—”
“Hey,” Jarrod interjected. “Cut it out, Red.”
“—nearly as handsome as a brooding Were driving a Hummer to Morgantown, West Virginia,” she continued, “something like that could put him in a mood more sour than usual.”
Leave it to Molly to make something as dark as the end of life and the world and possibly the universe something that Eden could kind of laugh about.
“What if it never happens, E?” Molly turned to her. “What if you never give in to them?”
Eden looked at Molly. She was grateful for her friend’s faith in her. Molly believed in Eden more than Prophet, probably, and certainly more than any of the others.
Eden forced a smile. “If everything was perfect, Mol, the world would’ve never needed saving. You could’ve finished college. I could’ve saved up my money to open up my nail shop.”
“I’d have met you in a coffee shop in SoHo,” Molly continued. “And after chatting it up with you for a few minutes, I’d have said ‘fuck it’ to my degree and gone to work for you doing mani-pedis.”
Eden laughed. “We’d have partied every night, drank too much, smoked too much weed.”
“Fucked too many of the wrong boys . . .”
“You know I’m sitting here,” Jarrod chimed in.
This time the two women stared at each other. Without saying it, Eden sent a quiet message to Molly, who immediately turned away as the tears began to fall.
“I barely came back last time, Molly,” Eden murmured. “The next time, I might not make it back at all.”
“Don’t say that,” Molly sobbed.
After all the two of them had lost and sacrificed, it felt like they both were living on borrowed time. Eden didn’t know what that bite was doing to Molly, but it couldn’t have been good. She knew what the Omen were doing to her, and it was worse. The best thing to come out of all of this was that both Molly and Eden had found the men of their dreams, and had loved hard, fast and passionately. They had seen and done things that neither of them would’ve ever thought possible in their previous lives, and if they were going out, they were going out as badasses.
The convoy eventually stopped in an abandoned town about five miles east of Morgantown. Eden climbed out of the Hummer and found Prophet. He kissed her, but there was something absent from it.
“Don’t,” she told him.
“Don’t what?” he asked, towering over her.
“Don’t you kiss me like I’m some friend you met for coffee. You kiss me like you know me, like you mean it, or not at all, Guardian.”
He cupped her face with his hands, pulled her up on her toes, and bent as far down as he could to mate her lips with his. Neither of them noticed half of the convoy standing around watching the two of them until it was over.
“That’s better,” she murmured.
“It was,” he responded passionately. “So don’t let it be the last one. You stay with me tonight when we fight, Eden,” he demanded. “Do
you understand me? You don’t let them in, and if they do, promise me, promise me that you will call me. If you give a damn about me, you’ll call me in.”
Eden loved him more than he could possibly know. But to purposely pit him against them, knowing what they were capable of, what they would do to him, was something she couldn’t swear to do.
“Eden,” he said again. “I mean it. You take me with you or my purpose in life is meaningless.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer. Instead he walked away and started to help unload weapons with the others.
Molly appeared next to her. “Will you do it?”
Eden shrugged. “Probably not.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Andromeda had always been puzzled by Khale’s experiment with this reborn. She had never been able to grasp the scientific or spiritual mechanics of how it all worked, though she had been watching closely from the beginning. A young human woman gave birth to a daughter. Shortly after her child was born the woman died. And then her child died. That’s just how it goes sometimes. That baby had been less than a day old when she took her last breath.
“She’s the one, Andromeda,” Khale had told the Seer as they stood in the morgue over the child’s body.
“The one what?” Andromeda asked, still not quite ready to believe that Khale was going to go through with the crazy plan she’d been talking about since the Ancients had come to this world.
“The reborn Redeemer,” she explained. “We need one who can bond with the Omen. One who can save us and kill Sakarabru once and for all.”
“But this is a human, Khale. The Redeemer must be an Ancient. Only an Ancient can survive the bonds with the Omen.”
That crafty shifter looked Andromeda square in the eyes and without blinking said the most nonsensical thing she had ever heard. “Mkombozi will be reborn in her. Her spirit will fill this small vessel and make her the most powerful being that ever existed on our world or this one.”
“And where will you get the spirit of your dead daughter, Khale?”
The shifter grinned. “You’re not the only one with spells, Seer.
