“A demon?”
His eyes stared up at me. “It wants the sealed door open. Don’t open the door, Tracker. The world will cease to be if you do. Orion waits for you on the other side.”
My jaw clenched and tears threatened at the back of my eyes. “My friends are in the deep veils, and I have no other way to get them.”
“One other way. Always another way.”
My fingers found his and I clenched his hand hard. “Tell me. Please.” I would beg on my knees, give him anything he wanted. I would put on his bloody cap if it would make him tell me.
A long low boom filled the air and his hand gripped my shoulder. “It tries to break the door. It cannot. Blessed gods, let it not be able to.”
I shook his shoulder, demanding his attention. “The other way into the deep veils. Please, I can’t leave them there.”
He took a sudden, sharp breath and let it out in a final word.
“Necromancerrrrrrr.”
His hand fell limp on my shoulder and I slid it off, placing it across his chest.
Another castle-shaking boom rattled the air. Whatever it was, even I wasn’t brassy enough to try and find it. I stood and backed away from the captain’s body.
“Alex, we are leaving.”
“Goody good.”
We jogged to the doorway and I looked over my shoulder, regret for the lives lost heavy on me. Even if they were red caps.
There was no way to honor them, to honor their sacrifice to keep the deep levels from opening. And they did deserve that honor, even if they’d tried to kill us. Twice. I knew it wasn’t personal; they were doing what they’d been trained to do.
Protect the castle.
“Boss is here,” Alex said and I whipped around to stare into the dark stairwell leading to the dungeon.
“Are you sure?”
“Smells him.”
I didn’t dare call out, hell, there was no way I wanted to draw the thing’s attention to us.
“Give a soft woof, Alex.”
He did, but there was nothing from below. A slow burning fuse of fear wrapped itself up my legs and buried deep in my belly. There were two ways to get to the upper levels on the other side of the castle. I’d gone for the more direct route.
But Liam … he would take the long way so I wouldn’t see him. Which meant he’d be closing in on the doorway.
“Oh, shit.”
I ran across the courtyard, Alex behind me. We’d never beat him to the sealed doorway.
I knew why he’d come; hell, I even wondered at how easy he’d let me go. But I was too blind to see he had no intention of letting me go by myself.
None at all.
We bolted up the dark stairway and another boom rattled the walls, dust falling around our ears. We had to stop and steady ourselves or fall back the way we’d come.
“I no likes this shaking shit,” Alex grumbled, his body pressed into the side of the stairwell.
“Me either.” Fuck, I didn’t know whether or not to call out to Liam. It would draw the attention of the thing at the doorway, which was one problem. Another shake dropped me to my knees. There was no way we’d make it up the stairwell before Liam …
A yell erupted from above us.
Liam.
The shaking stopped and we scrambled to our feet, running up the final few flights. Once on the upper level, I didn’t pause, just turned to the right and ran through the hall.
“Liam. Don’t open the door!” I screamed the words, and what came back was not Liam’s voice.
Alex and I rounded the corner and there was the sealed doorway, bite and claw marks etched into the steel. And a ghostly figure hovered in front of it. Seriously, it was like a ghost; I saw through him, and yet the figure flexed and reformed several times within those first few seconds. A red cap, then a troll, then an ogre and then human again.
Behind him huddled a tiny figure, a woman with crazy, bright white hair and a young face. Very young, like maybe my age if she was showing her true age. Her eyes were wide and wild with terror and power.
The ghost image turned to me and I knew what I was looking at.
We were fucking dead.
Orion stared at me, his figure solidifying for a split second. Tall, brawny, bald and seriously bad ass. “Ah, I thought you would come if you believed your mate was in trouble. So predictable. ”
“How’d you manage this, douche canoe?” I snapped, my fear making me stupid.
“Ah, well, it seems Milly has a fondness for that little witch of yours. She traded her services to me in order to keep the young one safe. For a few moments at least.”
“She wouldn’t do that, you’re a fucking liar!”
He smiled. “When the blind refuse the gift of sight, you only anger them by describing what the world around them offers.”
A chill swept through me. I’d heard those words before. What did Erik have to do with this?
Orion shifted, drawing my attention back to him.
I had to stall him. Try to figure out how to send him back, minus the availability of a volcano at my fingertips.
“If having Milly at your beck and call was all it took, you’d have done this long ago.”
He gave me a slow nod. “True. I needed a necromancer. Do you know they are notoriously hard to find, train and … bend … to one’s will? I’ve been working with Talia here for years. Years.” He shook his head and the image shattered into a swirling mass of energy.
I held my ground. I would not bow to this piece of shit even though he scared me to my core.
“Good for you. But you still don’t have a body, do you? And it’s awfully hard to rule without that.”
He snarled and the castle shook. “I have that taken care of. Finally. You know, it is easier to take over the soul of an infant than an adult. Surely a,” he let out a laugh that made the hair on my arms stand up, “Slayer such as yourself would know that.”
I wanted to vomit as his words hit my heart. Milly’s baby. Son of a bitch, let him mean something else. Yet what else was there?
He shimmered and an ogre looked at me now. “Her child will have a natural ability like no other witch ever born. I will have him. He will be my vessel.”
I lifted my swords, rage like no other coursing through me, so hot and sweet I thought I would cry with the poignancy.
“Never. We end this now.”
Alex was at my side, but I knew it wasn’t enough. That didn’t matter. There was no going back.
“You would try and best me? After you saw the carnage of the red caps, you think you could do better, you and your pet?”
Alex let out a long low growl. “There is no try.”
Of all the times for him to quote Star Wars, of course this would be it.
“You heard the wolf. Come on, bitch. Let’s see what you’ve got.” I beckoned to him, every part of me knowing it was too soon, this wasn’t the time. But I couldn’t let him take Milly’s baby.
With a roar he came at us and I bent my knees, the wind pushing me back along the stair well. Alex dodged around the floating mass and Orion ignored him.
Alex dove into the mass with flailing claws, the symbols he’d etched into the air coming to life in a blast of white fire that slammed Orion against the wall. “No hurts Ryleeeeee!”
The wind died, I leapt forward, and the demon disappeared.
“What the fucking damn shit is this?” All the rage, anger and fear poured out of me in a breath, and I had nowhere to direct it. Orion was gone. Just like that? No, it couldn’t be that easy.
Alex puffed up his chest and lifted his lips up, exposing his teeth. “Bad ass demon scared of me.”
I wasn’t so sure, in fact, I was damn sure Orion wasn’t scared. But something Alex had done was enough to throw him back. Maybe Erik hadn’t been full of shit after all.
“He didn’t expect you to know the rules. The werewolf’s heart and intent are pure.”
We turned to face the crumpled necromancer. Her ey
es were as colorless as her hair, rimmed in red. Her skin pulled tightly over her face like she’d been starved.
“What?” Yeah, I couldn’t come up with anything more pithy than that with the raging emotions dancing along my nerve endings. In fact, she was lucky I wasn’t ramming my sword down her throat. She was helping Orion. Maybe I should kill her. I stepped forward as she spoke, my hand tightening around my blade.
“Orion is a coward. He will only fight when he believes he will win. But he will be back for this doorway. It is how he will take over the world.” Her eyes slipped closed, but her chest rose and fell with life.
“Why would you tell me this?”
“Because I hate him and want him dead. I cannot do it. You can. You are the only one. Kill him. Save us all. He is here in spirit only, not in form. He can’t last long on this side of the veil without a body, none of the powerful demons can.”
“And you?” I lifted my sword and pressed the tip into her chest over her heart. “If he no longer has you to help him?”
Her eyes flickered. “He will find another if he hasn’t already begun training one on the off chance I am killed. I wish this on no one, but my death would be a release. I will not fight you.”
I gripped my handle, indecision rocketing through me. “It will buy us time if I kill you, even if there is another necromancer in the wings.”
She gave me a half smile. “Yes. He needs me, but he needs the door open more. Not all demons can cross the veil as I open it.”
Like with Liam—my mind grasped onto that. Some demons needed the physical crossing. Maybe that would help stall them.
I loosened my hand on my weapon. Shit, I didn’t have it in me. Not when I knew she was right. Orion would find another and another. I would have to kill every necromancer in the world to keep this power from him. I dropped the tip of my sword.
“Your heart rules you,” she whispered. “That is as it should be. I will do what I can to stall him. I must go.”
A spark of light bloomed behind her, the wall disappeared, and she fell through, the slash in the veil closing as soon as she was immersed in the darkness on the other side. The black that she fell into was so deep I knew in my heart it was the last point of the veil. The seventh level. Nothing would be deeper, and that was where Orion was.
Where Milly and Pamela were.
Shit.
Chapter 10
ON THE FIRST floor of the castle, I stopped in front of the doorway to the room where India had almost been possessed. We’d rescued two other children that night. One alive, and one very much not.
I couldn’t even remember their names. I put a hand to my forehead. If I couldn’t remember them, what the hell was I fighting for?
“Rylee.”
I lifted my head. Liam and Erik stood in the doorway to the mine, one looking pissed, the other looking relieved.
“We have to make other arrangements. We can’t use the sealed door.” I stepped forward.
“I scared a demon,” Alex said, his golden eyes serious.
Erik laughed, but Liam didn’t as his eyes searched my face. “How bad was it?”
“Could have been worse. The red caps are all dead.”
Erik stopped laughing. “What?”
“They’re all dead.”
Silence for a heartbeat then I finally asked, “Why are you two here?”
“Came to save the helpless princess,” Erik said. “And maybe try to make things right that went so very wrong in the past.”
Liam gave a sharp nod. “Very touching, but I think this would be better discussed not in a castle full of dead red caps.”
We filed down the hallway and while a small part of me knew I should be upset that Liam intended on coming after me, the majority of me wasn’t. I’d been on my own for years, it was pretty damn nice to know someone gave a shit.
Didn’t matter now, it was a moot point.
Erik was first to the doorway and he tugged on the handle. “Sticky-assed doors.”
“Sticky?” That didn’t sound good.
“Won’t open. What have you got us into now, Rylee?” Erik did not sound happy. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was scared. I wanted to groan from the irony. I was supposed to be trained by a Slayer, and I got the cowardly one. Fucking hell, that was just peachy.
I thought about the red caps, what the captain said when the hoarfrost demons had come through.
“Damn, they blocked it. You can only come in I bet. Which means we need to find another way out.”
“The only way out,” Liam said, “Is through the front gate. Assuming any other doors we find within the castle are blocked like this one.”
I led the way back up the stairs and into the courtyard. The two men froze when the dead red caps came into view. The slice of moon took that moment to peer out from the clouds and illuminate the ugliness of the scene, the horror of it etched in blood and gore.
“This is a massacre.” Erik said, barely breathing the words.
“This was Orion.”
Erik’s eyes went wide and under the moonlight he paled. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“He’s got a necromancer,” I said and Erik groaned.
Apparently Orion’s pet, Talia, hadn’t been kidding.
“That’s the worst news. Means if he’s broken her he can make forays into the world to wreak havoc in spirit, even if that means just for a short time, it is enough to do shit like this.” He swept his hand out wide to take in the scene at our feet. Not that I needed it pointed out.
“Yeah, things just get better and better.” I walked into the courtyard, aiming toward the main gates that were blocked. They opened into the English countryside.
“Erik, can you still reach Ophelia?”
“No, too far.”
Liam jogged ahead of me and put his hands on the gate. “You think it will open?”
“Only one way to find out.”
The four of us pushed and while the gate was heavy, it slowly slid open.
“You know,” Erik said, “those two dragons are going to be pissed when we don’t show back up.”
The thing was, dragons were the least of my worries. They would survive without us. Milly and Pamela, and worse, Milly’s baby, needed us desperately.
There was no gentle way to say what I’d learned so I blurted it out, the words like bile on my lips. “I’m not worried about the dragons. Orion is going to possess Milly’s baby.”
The countryside beckoned to us, but none of us moved, my words freezing everyone to the spot as if I’d spelled them.
Erik grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into me, and I jerked away from him. “I’m not going anywhere, you don’t have to get all Grabby Mcfeely.”
He stared into my face, his eyebrows drawn low with a pain I almost felt against my skin. “That’s why your parents died, Rylee. A demon threatened to possess you as a baby and they died to protect you, to allow you to live. You have to stop him. You have to find a way into the deep level of the veil.”
What the hell was I supposed to say to that? “That’s been the plan all along, smart ass. Stop the demon, save the world.”
Yeah, that was easier to spit out than what I really wanted to say. That I was terrified we wouldn’t be able to get to them, that Orion would possess the baby and Milly and Pamela would be tortured and killed, or worse yet, tortured and forced to serve Orion.
Liam took a step out and then held up his hand. “Be quiet. You’ll wake the giant.”
Oh for fuck’s sake. I peered around Liam to see the giant sound asleep on his side, his bare ass peeking at us from under his dirty loincloth.
“You shift,” I said softly. “Take Alex and get Will or Deanna to meet us at the trail head with a car.”
He nodded and stripped out of his clothes, then handed them to me. “I’ll head to Jack’s.”
I took his clothes and tucked them into my jacket, his smell easing some of the anxiety in the pit of my stomach. At the rate I w
as going, I was going to have some seriously massive ulcers by the time I was thirty.
Of course, that was assuming I’d make it to thirty.
Naked, Liam shifted into his wolf form and without a backward glance, took off, Alex tailing behind.
No words exchanged between me and Erik. We jogged through the gate, down around the feet of the sleeping behemoth and into the open field. Roughly a mile of wide, open space stood between us and the relative sanctuary of the forest. A mile. Easy as peach pie.
The thing was, the last time I’d crossed this, things hadn’t gone so well, in large part due to the big ass sleeping in front of the castle.
Halfway across the field, it happened. A loud grunt, and the ground rumbled as the big bastard woke. I didn’t have to see to know he’d spotted us. We were moving fast but still in full view of him. Shit sticks.
A roar lifted the hairs on the back of my neck and I found a burst of speed I didn’t know I had in me. Erik was breathing hard beside me, but he managed to keep up. I glanced at him, saw his face pale and the sweat beads roll down his cheeks. Terror did not look good on him.
The thunder of the giant’s feet hitting the ground rippled toward us in waves that threw me to my knees once, and Erik twice. But we scrambled our way into the dense forest as the giant closed in.
“Here,” I snapped, grabbing Erik and tugging him around a large tree. I pushed his back against it and then did the same. “Quiet.”
Erik closed his eyes and I saw him trying to even his breathing. I didn’t close my eyes. Around us trees shuddered as the giant slowed to a stop and let out another roar. Trying to flush us.
Beside me, Erik shook and I saw him tense. I slapped a hand out across his chest, stopping him. I needed him in one piece, needed him to actually help me, and him getting eaten by a rampaging giant wasn’t going to further my cause.
With a low grumble of what sounded like “screw it all” the giant backed away and retreated toward the castle. I took another thirty seconds before I peered around the edge of the tree.
The giant schlepped, slow and lumbering, scratching his bare ass cheek with overly long dirty fingernails. Disgusting to think I’d been trapped in one of those hands not so long ago.
Veiled Threat Page 9
