Shattered (Alchemy Series Book #3)

by Augustine, Donna

  "Sounds like a plan." She straightened the stethoscope hanging around her neck as she walked past me. "I'm going to go stitch up a couple more bodies."

  I watched Sabrina gather up another ravaged refugee before I headed off to the garages where the generators were housed.

  I didn't like to linger on the main floor, where the humans hung out, for too long but I was detoured when a loud clap of thunder drew my attention outside. Dark stood at the main entranceway, where he was stationed. Cormac had posted men at every door, but not to keep anyone in, this time it was to keep things out.

  Dark was our resident wolf adoptee who, after helping The Keepers, was persona non grata among his own. Dodd had taken him under his wing and even given him his spare bedroom. Good thing too, because it was a packed house these days.

  "How long has it been doing this?" I asked as I watched softball size hail inflict even more damage to an already wrecked city.

  "About an hour or so," he said, and flipped his almost feminine blond locks out of his left eye and absently petted the real wolf, Abby, who sat by his feet.

  "You feel okay?" I asked, noticing his slightly flushed skin.

  "I think I just ate something off. I'm fine."

  I knew a brush off when I heard one and I let the subject drop. I'd heard rumors that the wolves were having a hard time holding their form, lately. Whatever it was, it was putting a serious strain on his system.

  I rested my forearm on the glass of the door and I leaned in, trying to get the best view of the area outside. The strange large cracks that ran up and around the building really looked like a moat now as they filled with water. I couldn't remember the last time Vegas had seen so much rain. For a city that normally got a little over four inches annually, we'd already met our quota for the next twenty years.

  "Any sign of rippers?" I asked, knowing Dark would already be familiar with the new slang.

  "No sign of anything."

  "It'll be dark out, soon," I said as I watched the sky become tinged with purple.

  Dark nodded. "The night crew will be on soon. Cormac upped the count to five per entrance."

  There had been a few sightings of rippers in daylight, but they were overwhelmingly nocturnal creatures. Maybe they hid somewhere until nighttime, like some sort of demented vampire breed. A schedule had been set up for watches and there was always someone on during the day anyway, just in case a random one showed up on the horizon.

  "You know, this isn't your fault," he said after a few minutes of silence had passed.

  "Yeah, I know." And that was my cue to go. I wasn't ready for a conversation on how much of this was my responsibility. I tried to smile like I meant it as I pushed off the door, leaving Dark to finish his watch shift.

  The casino was huge and it took me about ten minutes to get to the area that housed the generators and gasoline supplies. Pat, one of the engineers on permanent staff, was already there, going over the monster machines. I'd met him several times when he had been working on fixing up the portal room, after my oopsy moments. He was Keeper-born, but a dud; what they call Keepers that don't have any abilities. I was pretty sure it was a name no one used openly, kind of how they only called me the plague behind my back.

  "How long before lights out?" I asked as I looked at the line of gasoline containers. They looked impressive until you realized how much juice these things burned.

  "At our current rate of consumption, I'd give us another week, tops," Pat said, his face showing concern.

  "We need the scouting party to go further out to collect gas." All the electricity had died sometime around the time the New York tear was closed. We weren't sure if it had been the severe storms it that had kicked up at that moment, or something about the Magic that affected it, but The Lacard power had been running off a generator ever since.

  Scouting parties went out during the day to retrieve any supplies they could find, but there was a limit to how far they could go and still make it back before nightfall, when the rippers came out in force.

  "Even if they find some more, it'll fix us for a while…but then what?" Pat dropped to his haunches as he tinkered with something on one of the larger generators.

  He was right. The oil fields were abandoned. Refineries? Abandoned. Whatever existed now was all there would be for the foreseeable future. I'd never thought about it before, but civilization needed a certain amount of man power to keep everything running. Even if we managed to eliminate the ripper problem, we still didn't have enough bodies to drill for oil, mine for coal, man the power plants and refineries, farm food or do most of the things needed to continue the life we had taken for granted.

  "Then we figure something else out," I said with much more confidence than I felt. "We do whatever we have to."

  Chapter Three

  I couldn't remember when I finally crashed, only that I was lying in Cormac's bed in the penthouse and I didn't know how I got there. It was dark and the wind was howling outside like it did in a hurricane. And, for a split second, I forgot what the world had become. I rolled over to look out the wall of glass, expecting to see objects flying through the air with the rough winds. Instead, ten rippers hovered outside the window and reality kicked me in the gut.

  My involuntary scream pierced the air. Cormac ran in the room and immediately went to the window, pulling the drapes closed.

  "I'm sorry," he said after the rippers were out of view. "I forgot to close them when I brought you in here."

  "It just startled me." I sat up in bed, pushing my hair out of my eyes. I looked at the clock that read one in the morning. "How did I get here?"

  "You fell asleep while you were talking to Pat. He said you were leaning against the wall talking one second and then you were out, sleeping right where you stood." He walked over and stood at the foot of the bed. "Just to warn you, he's a little freaked out."

  "Why?"

  "You were emitting some of that white smoke stuff again while you slept. He said it was coming out of your nose when you breathed out."

  "Shit." Somehow, that wasn't overly surprising to me. Everything weird happened while I slept and I had zero control over it. This pattern had caused me problems my entire life.

  "You know it freaks everyone out. When you get that tired, you need to sleep." He didn't look at me when he spoke, just crossed the room and walked into the closet area.

  "I didn't do it on purpose," I yelled after him, feeling like I'd just been chastised for scaring the normal people.

  He walked back out and paused at the foot of the bed again. "I'm not upset that you scared Pat. I'm pissed that you're falling asleep standing up in the generator room."

  "I can't remember the last time I saw you sleep." And it hit me, when had I seen him sleep? My face scrunched in what I'm sure was a very unbecoming expression. "Do you sleep anymore?"

  "Yes. Are you hungry?"

  I could still tell when someone was lying, like he was now, which was comforting. Why would he lie about sleeping? Unless he didn't need to anymore, because he was being affected by the changes as well.

  "I know something's up with you." He was back in his massive closet and didn't bother to respond. The first time I'd seen the inside of it, I'd been shocked by how many pairs of black pants and white shirts the man owned. When I'd asked what the point of it was, I'd been informed that there are French cuffs, English spreads, pleats or no pleats…and my eyes had glazed over.

  "Why am I in here? Do you mind explaining that?" I continued.

  "It's more secure," he said as he walked out of the closet, buttoning up a fresh dress shirt. Good thing he had a large stash of them. I wasn't sure if the casino's cleaning department was as good as his normal dry cleaner, which was a pile of rubble.

  "More secure? Isn't this entire place secure?" I asked, as I watched Cormac go back and adjust the drapes again.

  "Yes, but this room in particular has certain protections that not even the building or the rest of the penthouse has. It's where I sl
ept, so I made sure it was impenetrable," he said, still looking at the covered window. "I'll be rectifying that so the whole building will be just as secure, but it's big, so it takes time."

  He said slept, not sleep. Whatever, he could keep his secrets. I had my own that I didn't feel like sharing.

  "There are a lot of the rippers tonight."

  "I know."

  "You think it's odd?" I asked, knowing what he was thinking or maybe just projecting my own thoughts.

  He leaned a hip against the dresser and crossed his arms, keeping eye contact.

  I hated when he answered without speaking. I knew what he was thinking anyway. It was my own fear that I kept trying to ignore. "It's not me."

  He raised his eyebrows.

  "Words, Cormac. Use your words."

  "I've got to get back. I've got a meeting in the living room." He pushed off the bureau and walked out.

  Meeting? I thought as I scrambled out of his massive bed. He let me sleep through a meeting? My controlling nature was not happy about that.

  I looked around the room and saw a pair of my jeans and a shirt sitting on the dresser. I needed a shower more than anything but that would have to wait until after I found out what they were discussing. I knotted my blond hair into a bun on top of my head and went out to discover what these people were up to without me.

  I suppressed my annoyance at not being awakened. I've been a worst case scenario girl my whole life. How do you not include me in a meeting about the end of the world? The nerve!

  When I walked into the living room, it was the usual suspects. Vitor sat at the furthest point possible away from Burrom. Dark was chilling in the corner. Dodd was projecting an imposing figure, standing in the corner as a visual warning to the rest of the room to not step out of line, Buzz next to him acting as back up. Sabrina had joined the group and already appeared to be annoyed. Cormac stood front and center. He reminded me of a rock formation on a craggy shore, the waves beating against him but without affect.

  And Rogo, head werewolf, was bouncing around, blustering. I had my own personal issues with him, or his people, I should say. I didn't think he had anything to do with the death of my mother, but I'd bet he knew who did. He was always at these meetings. Never missed a single one.

  It was a scaled down version of earlier today but without having every underling available to hear all the gory details. These were the real meetings. This is where it got down and dirty. The humans weren't invited to these. Too many of them might panic and no one wanted to risk a mass of thousands of humans freaking out any more than they already were.

  "Why should I have to have a man on every gas scout? My guys are dropping like flies," I heard Rogo complain as I took a seat next to Sabrina.

  The meetings in the conference room didn't tally the dead, or decide who was the most expendable. They didn't discuss who were the most expendable people and therefore best for scouting the farthest distances, because they might not make it back in time to avoid the rippers.

  "Your people can smell better than anyone in this room. That's what you bring to the table. If you aren't willing to pitch in, you're out," Cormac said in a calm voice that carried a tone of finality. We all knew out meant out on the street, not just the meeting. If he thought he was losing men now, those casualties would be nothing compared to losing the security of the casino and its many wards. "We're all losing people. Why should yours be any different?"

  Put in that way, no one was surprised when Rogo accepted the terms. Leaving The Lacard meant certain death for them. Unbeknownst to me, The Lacard had already been enchanted a long time ago. Burrom and Cormac had been reinforcing those spells all week. The wolves had no magic, but they were unbelievable at sniffing out resources, which gave them some clout.

  "What's the word on the tornados?" Burrom asked, looking to Sabrina. The best intelligence we had was from the refugees who had been traveling far and wide to get here, having heard whispers about a place untouched by the shattering. Sabrina saw the new arrivals before anyone else and possessed the most information about what they'd witnessed.

  The humans also resented everyone nonhuman right now; it was hard to blame them, too. Once the story had gotten out about how this happened, the Fae, wolves and Keepers were all equally disliked, with a special place of animosity reserved just for me. They kept most of their anger under wraps though, since they needed to stay here to survive.

  Sabrina, on the other hand, had somehow escaped their wrath. I'm not sure if it was because she tended them daily and it made it harder to hate her or because she had not been with us when it had gone down and that proved her innocence. Either way, we all looked to her for information on what the humans knew.

  "Besides the occasional storms popping up, from what they have heard, there is about a ten mile wide strip that runs from the panhandle of Florida diagonally up towards Seattle. No one knows how far northwest it stretches, just that tornados are constant in that strip. As soon as one dies, another takes its place. Sometimes not one, but two and three at a time."

  I stood and walked over to the windows, the drapes still open. I knew Cormac only closed them for my sake. I'd realized he never closed them when he was alone. Maybe he refused to yield anything else to the rippers, or maybe he simply didn't care. They never did seem to rattle him the way they did me or the others. I couldn't know for sure because I refused to ask. That was my thing, they might scare the hell out of me, but goddamn if I'd ever be willing to talk about it.

  Looking out the window, I knew in my gut I was safe, but I still didn't get too close. They were still out there, even if I couldn't see them. They'd been hovering around the corner not even fifteen minutes ago.

  Looking downward, I saw the waves crashing around the cracks that were now a moat. There was a nice chunk of land within its borders that the children played on during the day, but only when the weather wasn't going crazy and rippers weren't around.

  "We need livestock. Couldn't we break up some of the cement around the building and plant grass for grazing?" It might have been a ridiculous question for all I knew about farming, but the food supplies were a constant debate lately and on everyone's mind. All the food in the refrigerators of the nearby casinos had gone bad. There were still supplies that had been scavenged from the nearby buildings but there were a lot of mouths to feed. If we didn't start to farm or do something to start producing, we'd run out.

  "There isn't enough ground around the building to sustain the amount of animals we'd need, but perhaps we could offset what we have to scavenge until we figure something out," Cormac said.

  Cormac walked over and looked down. "We've got to find them first." He turned back toward the group. "We need some volunteers to scout out some of the nearest farms that might still have livestock like chickens."

  No one said anything but I heard a couple of groans.

  "What about sending the humans?" Rogo said. "They've got to start carrying their weight."

  I let out a small yelp, distracting the group from what was going to break out into the exact same argument we've had at almost every private meeting before. A ripper floated into view unexpectedly and it pissed me off that I'd just showed my hand like that. Now the whole room would know they freaked me out. No one liked them, but I was the only person who had just screamed like a sissy.

  Cormac whipped back around and saw the thing hovering there, staring in. "And we need to figure out what the hell these things are," I said.

  I stared at it now, refusing to be intimidated by the thing, especially with it behind a wall of glass that I was sure was impenetrable.

  Images of the moment right after the plane crash came to mind. It had been right before dawn when we had staggered, one by one, from the wreck. We hadn't even seen them coming. It wasn't until we heard a scream that anybody even turned around to see a few Keepers being ripped apart by these creatures. They were torn into pieces before any of us could get to them. The creatures gone, leaving discarded body par
ts scattered on the ground.

  They appeared more opaque now than when I had first glimpsed them, the night the plane of magic had merged into our existence. Was the magic strengthening them or was feeding on us making them more solid?

  The ripper's eyes glowed in its head and its body seemed coated with a reptilian type skin. Lanky limbs, overly long for its body, and hair that cascaded almost as long. Its fingers were razor-like and I remembered the blood that had dripped from the hands of the rippers that night.

  The same kind of creature that floated in front of me now had eaten our kind, not long ago. Maybe the exact same one. I stared at it and felt like the thing had eyes for me only.

  Cormac stepped in between the ripper and me. The thing opened its mouth and I imagined made some sort of noise, but I couldn't hear it through the thick pane of glass. Then all I saw was Cormac's chest as he blocked its view and mine, effectively ending our standoff.

  "We need to double down on our food scouts and gas scouts," Cormac said. "And I want a farm scout group sent to everything within fifty miles that might have had livestock."

  "We need one more group," I stated as I gave the ripper my back as well. "Who wants to help me kill these fucking things?"

  Chapter Four

  Cormac stepped into my room and shut the door, planting himself in front of it. Mine was the only other bedroom of the penthouse suite.

  "Where are you going?"

  I'd just thrown on my black jacket. Vegas had become unseasonably cool since the change and I wanted to be as comfortable as I could if I went out tonight. When I tried to recruit a group to figure out what the rippers were, Cormac had squashed the idea before I'd even gotten a bite. That didn't mean I wasn't still planning on doing it.

  "Huh? I'm not going anywhere."

  "You're going to lie to me?" He stood in front of the doorway and made it clear that he would be stopping me whatever way necessary.