by Jasmine Walt
My mother’s face.
I took a step toward the monitor, my heart battering my rib cage.
“There you are, little gatekeeper. You really are a fascinating creature, aren’t you? Such a shame we can’t work together. Oh, won’t you consider joining me?” She licked her lips. “All it would take would be a little corruption. A little sin, and you could have the world. Think about it. Look deep inside. What do you see? Who are you, really?”
“Malina?” Ajitah’s heat scorched my back.
“Don’t answer now. Think about it. Think hard. I’ll find you soon. And when I do, you will need to make a choice.”
The screen went blank.
She was gone, taking the air from my lungs with her. My knees trembled, and I curled my hands into fists. She was back, just like Loki had said she’d be, and she wanted me.
“Malina?” Ajitah cupped the back of my neck, his thumb doing that comforting sweep thing.
I blew out a breath. “We have to find Carmella. There must be another exit from this room.”
“Or maybe she was never here.” Drake held up a phone. “I found it on the floor by the cylinders. I think it may belong to Hugo.”
“So he was here.”
“Or he knew Banner would track him, and he led us here.”
“A trap?”
“Maybe we were supposed to be food for the vamps?”
“Maybe isn’t good enough. I can’t leave without being sure.”
We searched the room for hidden doors, levers, anything that might activate another exit.
“They had to have gotten the bodies down here somehow. Using the metal stairs from the warehouse would have been a bitch. There must be an easier way. Plus, the entrance we used was padlocked, so there has to be another way in.”
Ajitah studied the bank of monitors, running his fingers along the back of the sleek black unit that housed the tech. He tapped the wall. Knelt and tugged. The whole barrier came away, sliding out to reveal a chamber beyond.
“Malina. In here.” Ajitah rushed forward into a room lit with crimson light.
Carmella lay on a table against the wall, still and silent. Please be alive, please . . .
Ajitah checked her pulse. “She’s alive. Just knocked out.”
Thank God.
He gathered her up in his arms, and we turned to leave. A low growl filled the air, raising the hairs at the nape of my neck. I turned slowly and stared straight into two wild crimson eyes.
18
The vampire in Wallace Edmonton’s body stared back at me. “Release me. Release me, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
He was in a glass box, similar to the one Ajitah and I had been held in by the Kubera when we’d gone looking for the triplets.
“Leave him.” Ajitah moved away.
“Wait. He knows about the missing human women.” I stepped up to the glass. “What did you do to the women you took?”
He ducked his head. “I just wanted to play. They never let me play.”
A shiver crawled up my spine. “Hey. Look at me when I’m talking to you. Tell me where they are.”
He looked up, his face eager. “Then will you let me out?”
Man, this was too weird. He was too weird. “Of course,” I lied.
Parker joined me, her nose wrinkling in disgust.
The vamp blinked at her. “You both chased me, but they got me first. They brought me back to die. No food for Xander. No life force to feast on.”
So that was what had happened to Nolan. He’d aged because these vampires fed on life, not blood. How was that even possible?
“The magic . . . it must warp their ability,” Drake said softly from his position by the exit.
I leaned in, placing my palm against the glass. “Are the women alive?”
Xander nodded. “I was good. I only took a little, just enough to kill the hunger. Only a little at a time. I was good. I wanted us to play.”
There was something wrong with him—something childlike and unnerving. But he was a monster, and there was no room for compassion.
“Tell me where the women are, Xander, and we’ll get you out of there.”
His crimson eyes lit up. “My special place. My home. The lady let me in, and I took it. It’s mine.” He rattled off an address.
“You got that, Parker?”
“Yeah.”
I turned and walked out of the room.
“Wait! Wait! What about me? You promised!”
“I lied.”
“They found the humans?” Eamon asked.
“Yeah.” I set my phone on the coffee table. Parker had sounded pretty down. But then, if I’d lost over half my operatives in a raid that had probably been a trap, and then saved a bunch of humans to discover they had about a decade left to live, I’d be feeling shitty, too.
“Those poor women,” Drake said. “To have their youth taken like that.”
“At least they survived,” Ajitah said.
“But I bet they wish they hadn’t.”
Drake was right. If that had been me, I’d have preferred to die. To look at myself in the mirror every day, a twenty-something mind in a ninety-year-old’s body . . . Nah, no way would I want to live like that. I glanced at the marks on my arm—nine more had vanished. I’d been given credit for saving Juliet from the yaksha and for saving the humans—giving them the last decade of their lives. It hardly seemed fair. I wanted to hate Wallace, or the vamp who inhabited his body, but according to Parker, he wasn’t all there. Our vamp had the mental capacity of a child. They’d left him to starve for his disability and his crimes, and now he’d spend the rest of his life in The Pit. Thank goodness Carmella was okay. She didn’t remember anything after leaving the club, but I wasn’t taking any chances. She was tucked away in the other guest room, and Aaron had taken the recliner to keep an eye on her. We’d watch her in shifts, just to be sure.
Ajitah poured me some tea, adding two sugars and only a dash of milk, just the way I liked it. He handed me the cup, and Eamon caught my eye. His face tightened, and he looked away.
“What now?” Drake asked. “We have seven vampires running around in witches’ bodies somewhere. The covens are on high alert, and security has been tripled at all the regular haunts. But the Kubera obviously have a master plan, and now they have the Daughter of Chaos working with them. Who knows where they’ll strike next to build this army of unnatural supernaturals. How the heck do we stop that partnership?”
“We don’t. I mean, we can’t.” I sipped my tea. “She said she would find me, so we find a way to end her before she does. When she comes for me, I’ll take her down.”
Man, I was all about the epic plans these days, even if they meant taking down my mother. No doubt, defeating the entity would kill what was left of her. Indra had told Dad there was no way to bring her back, but I hadn’t lost hope, not completely. There was still time for an epic save, right?
Eamon nodded. “I’ll do some research.”
And I’d speak to Loki. He was the only other person I knew who was actively searching for a way to end the Daughter of Chaos. Maybe he’d be able to help where Indra had failed? No point telling Eamon that yet, though. No point getting his hopes up if it was a no-go.
“I’m going to get a couple of hours of sleep before taking over from Aaron.”
Eamon looked up. “Sleep tight.”
I waited for half an hour, expecting Ajitah to join me. His heat, his strong arms, and the rumble of his voice was a much-needed lullaby, and if things got a little frisky then, yippee. But sleep tugged me under, where a different pair of arms and a larger, predatory body awaited.
My alarm woke me two hours later. After getting dressed quickly, I knocked and entered Carmella’s room. Aaron was asleep in the recliner, but Carmella was wide awake, staring at the ceiling. No surprise considering the volume of Aaron’s snores. The whites of her eyes were veined with red, and dark smudges had taken residence beneath them. Her skin was
paler than I’d ever seen it. I curled my hands into fists as the need to pummel the bastards who had done this to her surged through me like a dangerous wave. Exhaling to compose myself, I approached her.
“Hey. You okay?” I perched on the side of her bed.
“I think I remember stuff.”
“Tell me.”
She sat up and took my hand. “I heard them talking about an army. I think . . . I think they’re building an army.”
Yeah, that much we’d surmised, but it was good to have it confirmed.
Aaron let out an exceptionally loud snore that jolted him awake. “Shit, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
I glanced over at him. “It’s been a tough day. I’m surprised you managed to stay alert as long as you did.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Hey, Carmella, how you feeling?”
“Fuzzy-headed and like a gullible fool.”
Aaron smiled. “That’s just the drugs working their way out of your system.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t the drugs that made me swan off with Hugo, was it?” She blinked rapidly, her bottom lip trembling. “I really thought he liked me . . . that we had something special, but all he wanted to do was sell my body to the Kubera. You should have seen his face when they handed him the cash. He looked like a little boy at Christmas. He didn’t even give me a backward glance as he left.”
If I ever got my hands on that fucker . . . I pulled her in for a hug. “He was a dick, plain and simple. Being taken was not your fault. Even Banner was duped. And he’s known Hugo forever.”
She pulled away, her top lip curling. “Maybe, but I should have known something was up. He kept asking me about my family, my friends. I didn’t tell him about you, Malina, but I mentioned Aaron and how he had a new girlfriend he was really into. I told him my dad was dead and my mother didn’t have anything to do with me. I basically sold myself to him—the loner witch blood with hardly anyone who’d care if she went missing.”
“Well, he fucked up, because you do have people. We’re your people.” Aaron’s voice was thick with emotion. “Seriously, Carmella, you and Malina mean the world to me. No girlfriend can change that. I swear it. If she wants to be with me, she’ll have to get on with my girls. Simple.”
Shit, now I was getting all blurry-eyed. These two, man. What would I do without them? “What Aaron said, but with regards to boyfriends. You guys will always come first.”
“Unless you have to go save the world,” Aaron said.
“Yeah, I guess you’re gonna have to give me a pass on that one.”
Aaron chuckled. “Forget a pass. We’ll be by your side.”
“Dammit! Are you trying to make me cry?”
Carmella sniffed, and I turned to see her wiping her eyes. “If you hadn’t come . . . if you hadn’t found me . . . I can’t stop thinking about what could have happened.”
Neither could I. The thought filled my veins with ice. She didn’t need to know that; Carmella needed comfort and security. She needed to feel safe. “But it didn’t happen like that. You’re safe, and we’re together. Everything is just as it should be.”
She nodded and offered me a watery smile. “Yeah, it is.”
I turned to Aaron. “Carmella said she heard the Kubera talking about building an army, so that is definitely their plan.”
“Okay, so they have vampires in witches’ bodies. What next?”
What could they add to this army? The pieces began to click together. “What if the hybrids they were creating at the lab where Ajitah and I were held were another phase? A build-them-from-scratch project.”
Aaron frowned. “I don’t get why they need an army?”
“They seem like the take-over-the-world type to me,” Carmella said. “There was this man—Yale, they called him. I think he was in charge. When they had me strapped down, about to administer the drug, I heard him mention Project Liberate. I think the army has something to do with that.”
Liberate what?
Aaron sighed. “I liked it better when the Kubera were obsessed with opening the gates of hell.”
Yeah, so had I. “And now the Daughter of Chaos is working with them. And we know she definitely wants to open the gates. Maybe the army somehow contributes to that. Maybe Project Liberate is somehow linked.”
“But how?” Carmella said.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to figure it out.”
Two hours later, after Carmella practically kicked me out of the guest room, I made my way to my bedroom. Aaron was tucked in the spare room adjacent to mine, his snores clearly audible through the walls. The guy had a serious enlarged adenoid problem. I donned my pajamas and was about to crawl into bed when someone knocked softly on my door.
Ajitah? My pulse fluttered in excitement.
“Come in.”
Eamon entered, carrying a steaming mug. “I thought you might like some hot cocoa to help you sleep.”
My heart sank, and I mentally kicked myself. This was so nice of him. “Thank you.” I took the mug.
“I struggle to get back to sleep if I’m awakened in the night, so I thought maybe . . .”
I set the mug on my bedside table and parked my butt on the bed. “Yeah. Me too.”
He hovered by the bed. “Maybe we can chat while you finish your drink?”
“Sure.”
He sat on the edge of the mattress. “I can’t stop thinking about those poor souls taken from their bodies while they slept.”
“And most of their families won’t even know what happened to them.” Some memory skittered across the surface of my mind. Something I’d seen under the warehouse . . . the strange man surrounded by . . . by the witches’ souls? Yes! That was what I’d seen. “I saw something under the warehouse. A big guy. Strangely dressed. He was kinda there but not there, you know. And until just now I’d completely forgot about him. I think he was collecting the witches’ souls.”
Eamon sighed. “You saw a yamduth. He’s a reaper sent to collect the souls of the dead. Back when the gates of the underworld were open, that’s where he would have transported the souls for Yama to judge and allocate. They’d either be sent to Swarga, Narak, or somewhere in between.”
“Swarga is heaven, right?”
“Yes.”
“But there is no way into the underworld now . . . so where do the souls go?”
“The gods have created a temporary place for the souls, but there will come a time when that isn’t enough. The gods hope to have regained their strength by then, to open the seal and storm into the underworld to restore order.”
“No one else saw him, though . . . at least, I don’t think they did.”
“Our unique connection to the seal means we are closer to death and its minions than most. We walk the fine line between this world and the next.”
“I thought I didn’t connect to the seal until I became the guardian.”
Eamon’s face froze for a fraction of a second, but then he smiled. “Of course you’re connected, just not in a siphoning manner like I am. You’re connected by blood and heritage.”
So I’d seen a reaper—a minion of death, as Eamon liked to call it. And he’d seen me too. Creepy, but kinda cool. At least I knew those souls had gone on to a better place. At least I hoped it was better.
I sipped my cocoa, wincing as it scalded my tongue. “What do you think the Kubera will do with this army? Any ideas about why they would work with the entity? How they might use the army to open the gates?”
He sighed. “I wish I knew. I can’t imagine her working with them if their goals didn’t align. We’ll figure it out, but not tonight. Just get some sleep. Let it go and recharge. I have some contacts at Shaitan Enterprises who I can call. The Kubera used to work closely with them until the board of directors discovered what their intentions were. Shaitan Enterprises may be built by supernaturals, but these are creatures who like the world the way it is. Maybe someone there can shed some light on what’s going on.” He glanced at the mug in my ha
nd. “I think it should be cool enough to drink now.”
I took another sip. This time, the distinct flavor of cinnamon filled my mouth. Something stirred in the back of my mind—a flash of pink and yellow, huge butterflies on the wall.
“You know . . . when you were a child . . . I used to make you cocoa just like this and sit with you while you drank it. I’d tuck you in and tell you a story while you drifted off to sleep.”
“Did I have butterfly wallpaper?”
Eamon blinked and grew very still. “Yes. Pink and—”
“Yellow.”
“You remembered.”
The images were too vivid, searing my mind, bringing with them the sensation of warmth, comfort, and safety. And there was a voice—lilting, beautiful, and filled with love.
“Did . . . did my mother sing to me?”
“All the time.” He reached for my hands, cupping them around the mug. “I can’t believe you remember.” His voice was thick with emotion.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, my eyelids suddenly heavy with sleep. A yawn tore through me, and I could have sworn I heard Eamon curse, but then the pillow was soft against my cheek and slumber was embracing me.
19
“Did you sleep well?” Ajitah asked.
“Good.” A little too good.
“Carmella and Aaron said to tell you bye. They didn’t want to wake you.”
“They left already?”
He glanced at the wall clock. “It is almost midday.”
Shit. How had I slept in so late? “Is she all right? Did she look okay?”
Ajitah smiled with his eyes. “She said to tell you she feels fine and she’s staying with Aaron tonight.”
“Good. Okay.”
He cleared his throat and passed me a mug of coffee. “I came to see you last night, after your shift with Carmella ended. You were sleeping so deeply I thought you were dead. I actually had to check your pulse.”
“I’m usually a light sleeper.”
“I guess the bedtime cocoa Eamon made for you actually helped you relax.”
I almost choked on my coffee. The cocoa. No . . . it couldn’t be . . . could it? But then, Eamon had sat and kept me company while I drank it. I’d thought he just wanted to spend time with me, to share a moment. But what if he’d just wanted to make sure I finished the cocoa? My gut squirmed. The moment I would have filed away in my daughter-dad archives was tainted. The cocoa had been drugged. It was the only explanation for why I’d knocked out so quickly and why I’d slept so deeply, but why would he do that? The answer was staring me in the face. Eamon hadn’t wanted me to do the horizontal nasty with Ajitah. A bitter taste filled my mouth. My love life was my business and no one else’s, dammit! If I didn’t get one soon, I’d combust.
