Veiled Threat

by Shannon Mayer

  I jogged to catch up to him. “Are doppelgangers easily intimidated?”

  “They can be; depends on their acting skills. The tougher ones will hide behind a persona and can fake you out. But truly, once they are found, they are sniveling little shits who are only good for infiltration. They are not fighters, not really. They fear everything. You should have time to get to him before he harms the dragons.” Of course, he was assuming we got out of here first.

  “So Ophelia really didn’t know it wasn’t you, because her mind had been broken?”

  “Not just that, she is not my dragon, my dragon was killed. Ophelia and I … we never got along well. So we never spoke mind to mind. She wouldn’t know it wasn’t me. And with her mind so broken, she likely didn’t even try to find out.”

  His dragon was killed, maybe that was what had caused some of the changes in him, the differences between what my mother had known and what I saw now. Shit, I could only imagine losing Blaz. And in the scheme of things, I barely knew the big lizard.

  I thought about the zombies and the doppelganger’s reaction to them. “You ever face the undead?”

  “Several times. Nasty fucking stinkers. Better than trolls though.”

  Alex grunted. “Yeah, nasty fucking stinkers.”

  Damn it all to hell and back, but I was liking this uncle more with each second. This was the uncle I needed. Not that ridiculous worm of an Erik I’d been presented with, the one I tried to trust even though my gut told me not to.

  “Here.” Erik stopped in front of a section of the wall that looked no different than the others. Except for a symbol etched into it.

  “Demons love to mark their shit, claim it as their own, even their captives.” He pulled the sleeve of his shirt up showing me his forearms. Up and down his arms were scars of the symbols the doppelganger had been teaching me. I shivered.

  What would have happened if I’d faced Orion using his own words, his own symbols? I didn’t want to know. And now I didn’t have to.

  Erik traced the symbol and the doorway opened, showing a huge wide stairwell with steps I would have to climb down, they were so far apart. Nothing for it but to get to it.

  I started down the first step and Erik sat beside me. “For all that they are despicable shits, demons have a strange idea of fun.” He clapped his hands twice and the stairs flattened out into a slide.

  “How do you know this shit?”

  “Study, lots and lots of study. That and I caught a demon once. I kept him alive long enough to dredge information out of him.” Erik’s eyes met mine and I understood clearly. He’d tortured a demon to get information. “He told me about the slides and how to activate them. Never thought I’d actually use that tidbit.”

  I spun to my back, the surface below us slick as if coated in a lubricant, yet it was smooth. Alex giggled as we slid, rolling side to side from his back to his belly and then sitting up.

  Erik leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest and arched his back. In a flash, he’d shot by us. I mimicked what he’d done. “Alex, you too, we’ve got to go fast.”

  Alex took one look at me, did what I asked and we were shooting down the curving, curling slide. I tried not to think how we were going to land when we hit the bottom, but there was nothing I could do about it now. All around us the walls glowed, giving off a shimmering light just enough to see by, though not clearly. Didn’t matter, we weren’t going to be there long. That’s what I told myself.

  Erik was ahead of us, his hair streaming out behind him. We took a long, looping corner and something snarled from the ceiling far above us. I stared up and, in that shimmering light, a deep black set of wings detached itself from the ceiling above and swooped toward us. Long, pluming feathers like some bird from a darkened Amazon spread out around it in shades of grey and black, and it had a beak at least four feet long with fangs protruding out of it. Peachy, just fucking peachy.

  Erik called up to me. “Don’t use your sword, Rylee. Use your hand. Pull your sword to fight while we slide and you’ll lose momentum.”

  But how the hell did you fight without weapons? Shit, I had to roll to the side to avoid the first dive from the demon bird. Hands, hands. Fucking hell. I couldn’t do it.

  I jerked my whip free (see, I could sort of listen) and snapped it out. There was only a small problem with that idea.

  The whip wrapped around the bird’s feet, jerking them together, making it screech, but didn’t slow it down. Nope, it started to pull me up, off the wicked slide. It snapped its beak at me, eyes glittering with hate I could only define as bottomless.

  “Rylee, let go!” Erik yelled.

  “No, I can do this!” The big ass bird wasn’t going to get the better of me. Power was there if I reached for it. I didn’t need words.

  Easy. Right.

  I thought of the whip as a conduit, a way to transfer power Erik said was in me. The power to stop a demon.

  Sweat popped out on my forehead as I sought a part of me I didn’t know existed. A part of my father, the past, the power left to me to stop Orion.

  Heart, it had to do with my heart.

  Just like that, the whip went stiff in my hand, gave a jerk and the bird exploded above me, black feathers drifting down for a split second and then I was sliding on my back again, breathing hard. Struggling to realize I’d done that.

  All along I’d had a power in me that could stop demons. I’d just not known it.

  I let out a whoop and reached behind my head, let my whip trail behind me. Alex yipped a couple of times.

  “Good job, Ryleeeeeeeeee!” He grinned back at me, tongue flipping around, spit flying every which way, even hitting me in the face. I didn’t care. I’d killed a demon without my sword. Pretty damn cool.

  Pretty fucking damn cool.

  Pacing did him no good.

  Yet there was nothing else but to move. Liam fought not to let out a long, steady growl. Rylee and Alex had been gone for over two hours. Two hours and every little piece of him felt each minute had been a year. Ten years.

  “Do you not trust her to accomplish the task she faces?” Thomas asked.

  Liam glanced at the necromancer sitting in a chair salvaged from the wreckage, his fingers steepled under his chin.

  “I trust her. I don’t trust demons.”

  Frank and Megan sat at Thomas’s feet and they shared a glance, but it was Megan who stood and drew close to his side.

  “Umm. Can I talk to you?”

  What the hell could a teenage girl he didn’t know want to talk to him about?

  “Alone.” She bobbed her head to one side, toward the tree line.

  What the hell, it wasn’t like he had anything else to do. He didn’t answer her, just started to walk. Megan jogged to catch up, her bright red hair bouncing like crazy.

  At the tree line he stopped. “What?”

  Her eyes flicked back to Thomas, once, just once. “He’s strong, but I don’t think he intends to open the gate, or door, or whatever that was in the same place again.”

  If she had thrown a cup full of ice and water in his face he couldn’t have felt the chill rush through his body and faster. “How do you know that?” Calm, keep calm. Ask questions, throttle Thomas only if he had to.

  Megan licked her lips, then tucked her hair behind her ears. “When he touched our shoulders, we saw what he planned, how he opened the door thingy. But I knew Thomas didn’t want to re-open the doorway when he said he did. And if he did, he would open it somewhere else.”

  “Why, why would he do that?”

  Megan stepped closer. “He’s working for someone else. Someone who wants her dead.”

  This was going down hill fast, faster than he thought possible. “Then why would he ask for new apprentices? Why not just kill us with the zombies out right?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe greed. Why kill you if he could get something out of you in the first place?”

  Liam leaned close and drew in a deep breath. There was no deception in
her, no sour scent of lies, just a heavy perfume that seemed like something every teenage girl wore. Megan frowned up at him. “Why are you smelling me?”

  “To see if you’re lying.”

  Her jaw dropped open, and her eyes went wide with something akin to wonder, which Liam was not really happy with. She grabbed his arm with her tiny hand. “Frank wasn’t kidding, you really are a werewolf. That’s awesome!”

  He had to get her back on track. “Listen to me, does Thomas know what you saw?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Liam started back toward Frank and Thomas. “I believe you, but unless you or Frank can open the veil to where Rylee went, I need Thomas. And trust me, he will do what I want.”

  His eyes narrowed as he strode toward the old man. Yes, Thomas would fulfill his end of the bargain, or Liam would make sure it was the last day he spent on this earth with his body still intact.

  The bottom of the slide wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. Nope, it was a big old pond filled with water, a thick coating of some sort of oil on top. Erik hit first, displacing the oil, then Alex, then me.

  My body sluiced under the surface and I closed my eyes, held my breath and wondered how much shit I would have clinging to me when I stood. There was nothing to stand on, no bottom to the pond that I felt. Breaking the surface I wiped my face, the oily substance sliding off.

  I swam for the edge where Erik and Alex were pulling themselves out. “Demons are disgusting. Do I even want to know what this is?”

  “It isn’t that bad. Left over food grease if I remember correctly.”

  I grimaced. He reached down and pulled me out. Where we stood was a wide-open field of dead grass, acres and acres of dead grass and not much else. Like the demons decided to build their own terrarium inside the building.

  “Alex, how’s the bracelet?”

  He shook his whole body, sending a spray of water and food grease into the air. “Warmer.”

  “Warmer than before?”

  “Yuppy doody.”

  Erik glanced down. “Timer from a necromancer?”

  “Yes.” I nodded, Tracking Pamela. “And we’re running out of said time. We have to hurry.”

  Pamela was close, real close. I almost called out to her. Of course, I should have known it wouldn’t be as easy as fending off a single, large demon bird.

  From the field of dead grass, the ground humped upward.

  “Erik?”

  “This one best we run from. Drovers are not easy to kill, though it can be done. It would take more time than we have.”

  Drovers. I tucked the name into the back of my head. “Run it is then.” I turned and bolted along the edge of the pond toward where the slide hung. There was a door behind the slide, the only one available. It would have to do.

  Erik beat me to it and flung it open, stepping through. “Dungeons?”

  “I’m guessing. To the right.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “That would be it.”

  We spoke as though we’d worked together for years, as if, hell, as if we understood one another in the way only two things can bring. Genetics and time. Since time was an obvious out, genetics it was.

  Behind us, the drover let out a high-pitched ping that shook the ground. I couldn’t help but look back as Alex dove through the door after Erik.

  Apparently the drover was like a giant earthworm, black like a night crawler, and there wasn’t one, but three. Each one would easily dwarf Blaz, which was saying something. They humped across the ground, their open mouths pits of row upon row of teeth, tentacles reaching out and tasting the ground ahead of them. Yeah, I could see killing them would be less than easy.

  “Another day, bitches!” I gave them a wave and stepped through the doorway, shutting it behind us. “Tell me we don’t have to go out that way.”

  “Depends.” Erik stood ahead of me, very still. “Don’t move. Either of you.”

  Ah hell, what now?

  There was nothing down the long hallways ahead of us. Or at least, nothing I could see.

  Alex didn’t move but I saw him shiver and lift his paw up ever so slightly. “Hotter, hotter.”

  Shit. “We don’t have time, Erik. Whatever it is, we have to go. So either you move, or I do.”

  “Impetuous child.” He snapped a hand out in front of his body and in front of us.

  Oh boy, I suddenly felt ill.

  Like watching ink drops appear in water, images fuzzed into view. Tall and short, fat and thin, there was no conformity other than the fact that they all were non-corporeal.

  Ghosts.

  “Demon ghosts are bad. They are the evil spirits that come through the veil when called,” Erik said, his voice taking on the tone of a lecture, monotone and droning. “Don’t make eye contact, don’t touch them. They won’t touch you but they will try to spook you into running.”

  “I no likes ghosts.” Alex pushed into my leg, his tremors traveling up through my body he shook so hard.

  “Yeah, me neither, buddy. But we have to. Pamela and Milly need us. Close your eyes, and hang onto my belt.” I dropped a hand to him. This couldn’t be that hard. Hell, what could go wrong? I swallowed hard, my own body betraying me.

  “Okee dokee,” he whispered, as he squeezed his eyes shut, pinching them so tight his whole face scrunched up.

  “Rylee.”

  “Erik.” I stared at his back, the base of his neck. It was one of the few spots I didn’t see ghosts staring back at me.

  “Let’s go.” He stepped forward and I followed him, Alex clinging to the back of my belt, his claws brushing against the skin of my lower back.

  Around us the spirits shifted and shimmered, their bodies pressing in tight. The back of Erik’s neck was all I saw, the hint of a tattoo that I guessed traveled the length of his spine. Droplets of sweat running down his skin did not inspire me.

  Then came whispers from every direction, teasing my ears with voices I thought I knew.

  Dox.

  Giselle.

  Jack.

  The Triplets.

  “Don’t listen to them. They prey on your loss.” Erik’s voice was tight.

  “Are you hearing my parents?” I asked the question before I thought better of it.

  He didn’t stumble, didn’t stop, but I saw the hesitation in him. “Yes. Their voices are calling to me.”

  This was a different kind of torture, and I’d have rather faced the drovers. Here, my guilt raged as the voices of my friends accused me, told me I’d used them. Left them to die to save myself.

  Alex whimpered. “No, no, I save you.”

  “Alex, it’s not real, don’t listen, just hang onto me.” My voice cracked on the tears hovering so close to the surface.

  His grip tightened. “I save her. Save my sister.”

  I reached back and put a hand on the top of his head. “You did save her, it’s okay.”

  He let out a long, low howl that shattered what was left of my control, his pain becoming mine. I let the tears come—who was going to see them? Just me, just Erik.

  Of course, as hard as it was, I should have known the ghosts weren’t done.

  They changed tactics. The light in the walls grew dim and I found myself stumbling to a stop. “Erik!”

  “Keep moving.”

  I took a step and then had to stop. A ghost floated between me and Erik.

  “Little Slayer, look at me. See what you will be when we end you. See your future in my eyes.”

  Anger shot through me, annihilating the fear. “Fuck off and find yourself a too tight fitted sheet.”

  The ghost swayed and ducked, trying to force me to make eye contact. And a little part of me almost let him. Just to prove they couldn’t stop me. Or maybe even to see if they could show me the future. Bad, bad idea.

  “Rylee, you’re close, follow my voice.”

  “Not going to work.” I slammed my eyes shut at the last second, as the ghost dropped and shoved its face r
ight in mine.

  Pissed off, scared, and knowing we were running out of time, I Tracked the demon ghosts. They lit up inside my head, a perfect outline of where they all were right in front of me.

  “Don’t mess with the Tracker, sheet heads!” I yelled, breaking into a jog and dodging around them with ease. A strong set of hands grabbed me and my eyes flew open.

  Erik was smiling. “Yes, you are your mother’s daughter.”

  Chapter 20

  WE ENCOUNTERED NOTHING else until we reached the room where Pamela was being kept. I Tracked Milly, she was a door or two down by the feel of her threads. Sleeping, so at least that was good.

  Pamela’s door was heavily etched in symbols and as I lifted my hand to touch them, Erik stopped me.

  “This one is alarmed.” He pointed to a sunburst in the middle. “That one will unleash a venom that will drop anyone, knock them out for days the minute the door is touched.”

  I lifted my hand again. “Even an Immune?”

  Erik frowned. “It is a risk.”

  “No other way, is there?”

  “No. Here, these are the symbols to open the door.” He pointed out three squares interlocked. “Trace them, open the door, get hit by venom. Pray to the gods you have the best fucking immunity out there.”

  He stepped back and took Alex with him. I didn’t hesitate, traced the symbols, closed my eyes, held my breath. There was a puff of air, moisture tickled my face and then nothing.

  Using the bottom edge of my t-shirt, I wiped my face. “It doesn’t even smell.”

  Opening my eyes, I looked at Erik and Alex who watched me. Erik waved toward the door. “You are covered in that shit now. Don’t touch your friends, or us.”

  Shit. I pushed the door open.

  Pamela sat up, blinking. “Rylee?”