Rising Darkness

by Shannon Mayer

  “You little bitch!”

  “Not so little.” I grabbed hold of my magic and blasted the plane in half with a single flick of my wrist.

  The air pressure sucked us out, flinging us into the atmosphere. But I trusted Blaz; that was all that mattered. Frank’s hands slipped a bit. Charlie was like a barnacle on my leg.

  “Pamela!” Frank yelled as our hands, slick with moisture slid apart farther.

  I fought to hang onto him, I couldn’t let him go. Something jerked him hard and we spun apart.

  Yvette flew into view, Orion on her back.

  Ah, I finally get to eat one of you. The purple and gray dragon darted in and scooped Frank into her claws. I shot a burst of flame at them that she dodged easily.

  And then I was falling through the clouds unable to see anything. “Frank!”

  “Worry less about the boy, he ain’t falling through the skies, lass,” Charlie yelled at me.

  Blue scales filled my vision as Blaz scooped us out of the sky. Charlie let out a laugh, thumping the dragon’s back with his tiny hands. “I’ll be buggered! Blaz, how did you know we was here?”

  Pamela saw me and took the chance I would catch you. Where is Frank?

  “Yvette and Orion have him, we have to go after them.” I got myself situated on his back, strapping myself in. What spell would I use? How would I stop them?

  We aren’t going after them. His voice was sorrowful and I barely registered the tone.

  “What? No, we have to! Yvette said she was going to eat Frank!”

  There are losses when we make a poor choice, Pamela. I believe losing Frank may be yours. He tipped his head so he could look me in the eye.

  “No,” I whispered. “No, we have to go after him.”

  I’m sorry, Pamela. Rylee needs us. The world hinges on her success, not Frank’s life.

  I covered my face with my hands. Charlie touched my back. “I’m sorry, lass. He was a good boy.”

  “Please, Blaz.” I had to try. I’d beg if that was what he wanted.

  Blaz let out a rumbling sigh as we dove lower, below the clouds. Away from Frank. Yvette won’t eat him. She’s too picky for that scrawny kid. We’ll see him again, of that much I’m sure. They will use him as bait most likely.

  I wiped my eyes and fought to stifle the tears and hiccups. I hoped he was right. That I would have a chance to make things better and get Frank away from Orion.

  I clung to that hope more than I clung to Blaz’s back. It was the only thing I thought as we flew.

  That, and how I was going to face Rylee.

  “Blaz, how are you going to find Rylee?” Maybe we wouldn’t be able to find her. Milly hadn’t been able to pin her down.

  I’m bound to her. I can sense where she is always, even if she’s a long ways off.

  My stomach fell. I was going to face Rylee, no longer as her ward and surrogate sister, but as someone who’d turned on her. My stomach rolled and Blaz tipped to one side as I puked up the little bit of water Charlie had given me.

  “Be easy, witch. She’s not so hard as to see yous as the enemy.” Charlie patted my back, but Blaz didn’t chime in. He didn’t even look at me.

  “I don’t know that.”

  “I dos. Trusts old Charlie. Rylee will forgive yous.”

  I truly didn’t think that was going to happen, but I had to try. And I had to do everything I could to make things right.

  CHAPTER 22

  Rylee

  “A place that has been both salvation and death to you and yours. A place of in between and a place of darkness,” I said Griffin’s words over again. We had to come up with a plan of action, but I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fucking riddle. We circled high above the ground, allowing the two Harpies to use the air currents to conserve energy.

  I waved at Marco, who swung in close. “Liam.”

  Faris jerked and he let out a snarl as Liam came forward. I repeated Griffin’s words to him. “What do you think?”

  His face softened with thought. “Salvation and death. So a place where we’ve lost people. And a place where we’ve been saved. There are far too many like that. Jack’s mansion. The farmhouse. Dox’s bar in New Mexico.”

  “But a place of in between?”

  He gave a grunt and those electric blue eyes met mine. Liam was gone again. “The veil is also called ‘in between’. Sounds to me like she’s been stuck somewhere close to where you’ve crossed the veil a lot.”

  “Holy shit,” I breathed. It made perfect sense. How many times had the salvages taken us there? How many times had we crossed the veil and fought through the darkness?

  “The mineshaft.”

  Faris startled. “Makes a twisted kind of sense. Without looking for her, you could have gone right by her all those times and never known she was there.”

  My guts clenched. “Eve head to the mineshaft.”

  She let out a screech that filled the night air, her wings beating furiously. “Can we make it before dawn?”

  “It will be very close,” she said and then I let her be.

  “Rylee,” Berget said softly and I turned my head to look at her.

  “What’s up?”

  “This is the last twenty-four hours before the veil opens. Do you think we’ll make it?”

  “We have to.”

  She laid her head against my back and I held her hands where she wrapped her arms around my middle.

  My mind wandered as we flew and I thought about all those we’d lost, and those I’d left behind. Erik was watching over my daughter. A child who taught me what love was on a level even Liam couldn’t match. I closed my eyes and saw her face, her big toothless smile, and tiny hands as she reached for me. I wondered if she was missing me. If she even noticed I was gone.

  Swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat, I focused on her sweet laugh. Her attempts to crawl, and the fact that no matter what, she was safe. Liam and I had made sure of that. She would never face Orion, would never know a world of demons.

  “You’re thinking about your child?” Berget asked softly.

  “How did you know?”

  “Your heartbeat changed. It sounded like it did when you were pregnant. Like there was another soul with you.”

  “I miss her,” I whispered.

  “I wish I could meet her.”

  I turned in my seat. “Why would you think you won’t?”

  “Because I’m a vampire. Because of my parents. Because I wouldn’t want to ever hurt your little one.” Her summer blue eyes seemed darker with the night sky as a backdrop.

  “Who will look out for her, if something happens to me? Berget, you are her auntie.”

  “You had a girl?”

  I realized then why she might think I didn’t trust her. I hadn’t spoken of my daughter, not at all. “Yes. She looks a bit like me, and a bit like Liam.”

  Berget squeezed me. “I bet she is beautiful. But she was so little when you left.”

  I cleared my throat. “Not exactly.” I told her the story of how I was able to move things along faster, so I would have more time with the baby. How that had brought me to Faris for help.

  “Wow, you really faced down Spider?” Eve asked.

  “Yes, but it wasn’t pretty, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Peta. She . . . she is an amazing cat.”

  We went silent and Marco flew closer. Faris leaned over. “We need to do an exchange. Before we land.”

  I nodded, then stopped. “Wait, you want to do an exchange in the air?”

  “Yes. We’re getting close and the sun is coming. We may not have time if we land first.”

  Berget stood. “We’ll just leap across.”

  Like it was nothing. The two vampires did just that, jumping between the two Harpies and landing like there wasn’t a couple hundred feet of open air under us. Like they did it every day. Marco swung away and Faris settled in behind me.

  “Not a lot. I only need a mouthful from you, but you are going to
need more from me.”

  My jaw twitched as he pulled me against his chest and ever so gently pressed my head to one side. A part of me wished he’d be mean and rough. My muscles tensed at the thought and I knew that wasn’t the answer, either. I liked it rough, damn it.

  He bit into me and I couldn’t stop the flush of pleasure trembling through me. I couldn’t think about anything but how good it felt, how much I wished this wouldn’t end.

  Damn him. I felt like I was being unfaithful to Liam. Strike that, I was being unfaithful. I pulled away from him. “Enough. You said a mouthful.”

  “I got carried away. You taste like everything I’ve searched for my entire life. Love, home, a place to be safe.”

  I didn’t look at him, couldn’t. Because that was pretty much my own list of things. I understood it all too well. “Yeah, well, sucks to be you.”

  He snorted, bit the inside of his wrist and stuck it in my face. “Drink up, sweetheart.”

  I clamped my mouth over the wound, surprised again that I wasn’t more bothered by the fact I was drinking a vampire’s blood. Then again, it didn’t taste like blood. And it didn’t taste like vanilla as before. I couldn’t quite pin down the flavor, sweet and addictive, like something rare and fleeting.

  It tasted like Faris’s kiss.

  I jerked away from him. “Enough.”

  “Got a bad taste?” He asked and I just shook my head, unable to find the fighting words I wanted.

  I didn’t want to feel like this. I loved Liam, he was my soul mate, the one I was bound to. The only one I wanted to be with.

  Yet here I was, fantasizing about Faris of all people. What the fuck was wrong with me? Had I somehow turned into the fickle slut that I’d always accused Milly of being? I scooted away from him, confusion rocketing through me.

  “It’s his fault, you know. For both of us,” Faris said the words quietly enough that I wasn’t sure Eve would hear him. “If he had been able to stay away from you, his feelings never would have influenced my own. And if you hadn’t been able to sense his soul, you wouldn’t be drawn to me like you are.”

  I closed my eyes. I did not want to agree with Faris on this, not for one fucking second.

  But . . . he was right. “It’s not a matter of fault. It just is, and sooner or later the price will have to be paid.”

  Faris grunted and the air between us stirred like he’d lifted his hand. “I will try to stay away from you, if that’s what you want.”

  Now that shocked the shit out of me. I twisted in my seat.

  His blue eyes didn’t waver and he shrugged. “You don’t want me near you. I know. And whatever this is between us is growing stronger. Better that I keep my distance, for now.”

  He was right again, damn. I turned my back to him. “Good.”

  What the hell is this? You can’t keep her safe and stay away from her.

  Faris didn’t answer him. But Liam felt the tension in his muscles. He meant what he’d said to her. He was going to keep his distance. Why now? What the hell had changed?

  He searched around, poking into Faris’s memories, his thoughts, his feelings. And there it was.

  Faris had fallen in love with her. Not a fickle, silly crush. Not a desire to fuck her or possess her.

  He’d fallen head over heels in love. He wanted her to be happy, even if that meant it cost him.

  Liam groaned and if he’d had control over the body they shared he would have grabbed his hair and pulled. Son of a bitch, this was going to complicate things. He laughed to himself. As if they weren’t already complicated enough.

  He watched from behind Faris eyes, felt the vampire’s desire to simply touch her. Faris was right. From the minute Liam had been in this body, he’d thought of nothing but Rylee. Of being with her, of protecting her and helping her through this last fight coming her way.

  His feelings had leached into Faris, infecting him as surely as if he’d given him the pox. Maybe in some ways it was just as deadly.

  You will protect her still?

  Faris snorted and nodded.

  That is the most important thing. I died for her, and I see it in you now. You would lay down your life for her, no matter what you said before.

  Teeth clenched, Faris stared at the small spot of skin showing along Rylee’s neck, where her hair parted, giving a glimpse of creamy smooth perfection.

  “Yes.”

  Rylee turned around. “Yes?”

  Faris shrugged. “Nothing.”

  She obviously wasn’t convinced, but she said nothing more as they slowly circled their destination.

  The mineshaft.

  CHAPTER 23

  Rylee

  We were well above the mineshaft when the first glimmer of dawn kissed the horizon. “Drop,” I yelled.

  Eve and Marco plummeted, as if their wings had broken. At the last possible second they banked, but still crashed hard to the ground. I leapt from Eve’s back.

  “Watch for us, call down if there’re issues.”

  I didn’t wait for an answer. I trusted her. She was family.

  The edge of the mineshaft gaped at us, an open maw, the cool air swirling up and out of it. I scrabbled along the edge, looking for the harness work we had waiting for us.

  Our ropes were gone.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “No time to question this.” Faris grabbed me and pulled me tight to his chest.

  “What the hell are you—”

  Oh. Shit.

  He jumped into the mineshaft and I held my breath. Three hundred feet, give or take if I remembered right, and we were in a total free fall. We went from dark to pitch black in two beats of my heart. His arms were like bands of iron around me and when we hit the ground, they crushed me to keep me from slipping out.

  “Can’t. Breathe.”

  He let me go and I assumed he stepped away. I couldn’t see him at all. “There’s a spot for lanterns and matches.”

  “I’ll find it.” His voice echoed through the cavern to me as the sound of a thump spun me around.

  “Just us,” Berget said.

  “Yuppy doody! That’s fun. Do it again,” Alex yelped and the sound of rocks scuttling under his feet.

  The strike of a match, a tiny glow of light, and Faris held up a lantern. He adjusted the wick, then found a second one, lit it, and handed it to Berget. “We’ll follow you.”

  There was more to his words than what he was saying at the moment. I chose to ignore them. This was not the time or place to be dealing with matters of the heart. I was going to find Lark, and she was going to help me destroy Orion.

  “I have to be close to her, within twenty feet to sense her in the oubliette. At least that was the way it was with the last one I dealt with.” I muttered that last bit. I was stronger than I’d been in Russia. Maybe I’d be able to sense her sooner.

  I sent out a thread, Tracking her. Or trying to. I got nothing back. I started forward, moving toward the door that led into the castle, searching.

  “How many times have you walked this route?” Berget asked softly.

  “Too many times. One more for the road.” I stretched my abilities to the point that the Tracking thread hummed under my skin. Still nothing. We circled the area around the doorway to the castle twice, then I started off toward an opening in the cave. A narrow crack, pictures engraved into the wall. Stick figures, their bodies progressively surrounded by more and more orbs until the last picture, a stick figure with long hair was pretty much obliterated with an orb.

  “Liam, do you remember this?”

  “He says he does. That at the time you thought it was a representation of the spirits India was facing.”

  I nodded, wondering why Liam didn’t come forward. But then, it would be harder for Faris to stay away from me.

  “I think we were wrong. This one is Lark. I’m sure of it.” I tapped the last image, my fingers tracing the circle around her. I eyed up the narrow crack and slipped off my crossbow, holding it at my side.
Then I pushed through the narrow crack, much to Faris’s irritation, if his grunt was any indication.

  “Wait, Rylee. I can’t fit,” he said.

  “Me, neither,” Alex yelped out.

  There was a scuffle behind me. “I’m coming.” Berget’s voice reached me a split second before her hand. I took her fingers and we clung to each other as we navigated the narrow slice out of the cavern.

  The dirt crumbled around us, skittering around our faces, making it hard to breathe. “How much farther?”

  “I don’t know.” I reached out, feeling walls on either side. At least we could still stand.

  No sooner had I thought it then the ceiling above us began to lower. “Shit, this is getting tight.”

  We were sideways, and crouched so our knees were pressed outward. “Fuck,” Berget whispered, and I laughed.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say the f-bomb before.”

  “Never had reason to. Did I mention I hate tight spaces?”

  A claustrophobic vampire. Of course that was the issue.

  I sighed and held my hand out to her, though turning my head wasn’t going to happen. “Give me the lantern and you go back to the others.”

  “No. I’m not leaving you.”

  How many times had my friends and family said that to me, only to be taken by violence and death?

  The distant rumble of a freight train shook the ground around us, the dirt falling faster. Berget let out a cry.

  “Relax, the earthquake is over.” Except that even as said that, I wondered.

  “Earthquake? In North Dakota?”

  She had a point.

  Rylee, we’re here. Find the Destroyer, we’ll watch your back! Blaz shouted to me. We? Who was we?

  I let go of the threads searching for Lark and reached out tentatively for the only person I knew who could shift the earth like that. The only person strong enough to fight off whatever came. I found her, up top, and fighting for her life.

  “Pamela,” I whispered.