“They’re human, you said,” Cole shot back.
“They were human, once,” Sera said quietly. “They are no longer human. The conversion process destroys nearly everything they once were.” She reached up and took Blake’s hand.
“If they were once human, they have human limitations in strength and speed,” Cole said. “That makes them predictable.”
Diego’s smile was wise. “Okaaaay,” he said and looked at Seaveth. “If you let him go, I want to be next to him when he meets his first vampeen. With a camera, too.”
“I’m not letting him go,” Seaveth said firmly. “I’m sorry, Cole. Zoe. We simply cannot risk you at this time. We have three hunters and we’re all used to combing among trees for them. We’ll manage.”
Zoe sat back down again. There was ruthless sense in what she was saying.
Cole shook his head. He stayed silent. He wasn’t going to argue anymore, either.
“That just leaves finding the sucker,” Diego said. “I’ve never smelled them before. Vampeen, yes. I’ve never been close enough to learn a Grimoré’s scent. Zack?”‘
Zack shook his head.
Seaveth smiled. “Yesterday, I couldn’t find my keys. I mean, it wasn’t simply that I’d left them somewhere other than the pot by the door and I just had to look around quickly to find them again. They’d fallen down behind the bed and were on the floor beneath it. I wouldn’t have thought to look there in a million years. After I had spent a couple of minutes of looking in all the usual places, Ferr came to me and led me right to them.”
“You asked her?” Lindal said, his tone curious.
“She just seemed to know.” Seaveth’s gaze swiveled toward the mantelshelf.
“Be careful how you ask,” Lindal said quietly. “Remember how Ferr reacts to anything she doesn’t like.”
“They disappear?” Zoe guessed, looking at the pixies moving around on the shelf.
“They jump away,” Lindal confirmed.
“Emphasize the wounded quality. The helplessness of the Grimoré,” Seaveth said.
Lindal moved closer to the shelf and looked down at the little creatures. He didn’t speak, yet all of them looked up at him, startled, as if he had shouted.
Some of them cowered next to their friends, holding each other. Yet, none of them vanished.
Sera got to her feet and came and stood with Lindal and now Zoe could see without question the family resemblance. They were most likely brother and sister.
Both of them stood and “spoke”.
The trilling and cooing among the pixies leapt in volume. They all flew into the air, circling around Lindal and Sera.
“I think that’s a yes,” Lindal said.
Three of the pixies headed toward the living room doorway out into the front hall and as they flew, golden sparkles floated out behind them.
“Trails,” Cole said. “They’re laying down breadcrumbs for us to follow.”
Zoe watched the slowly sinking trail of dust, a strong sense of familiarity gripping her. “I wonder if Walt Disney was a part of the supernatural world,” she said. “That would explain a lot.”
Seaveth looked at her, startled. “Oh, that would just ruin my childhood memories!”
“So they can make up stories about vampires all day long, they just aren’t allowed to destroy your illusions about fairies?” Zack asked. He rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s get this done.” He started to follow the pixies and Diego, Seaveth and Lindal moved with him. Even Sera was zipping up the heavy coat she wore.
Blake dropped onto the sofa where Diego had been sitting with a heavy sigh.
Everyone who was going on the hunt moved out into the hallway after the pixies in the lead, while the rest of the pixies followed. That left Cole and Declan standing by Zoe, with Blake on the sofa. Zoe heard the front door open.
“Why have they stopped?” Zack said.
“Hey! Don’t go!” Diego said.
Suddenly, the air in front of Cole and Zoe and Declan was full of pixies, hovering and flitting around their heads. Zoe ducked as one almost flew into her face.
Even Blake was batting at them.
Seaveth walked back into the room and watched.
Zoe stared at the little one hovering in front of her nose. The lady was anxious and…. “Stubborn,” Zoe breathed. She focused on Seaveth, by the door. “They won’t go unless we do.”
“Lindal? Sera?” Seaveth called over her shoulder without moving.
“That’s what we’re understanding, too,” Sera called back.
Seaveth sighed. “Then you’d better come, too,” she told Zoe. “Bring every weapon you’ve got and if you happen to have full body armor, I’d prefer you wear that, too.”
Chapter Ten
Declan “changed” his clothes by thinking it through, although Zoe suspected he would be impervious to the cold…if he could even move far beyond the house. “You have to be ready to be jerked back to the house, if you get too far beyond it,” she told him.
“Anchored by my remains?” he asked.
“Your ashes are here?” she asked, startled. Cole had wanted to take care of the spreading of Declan’s ashes and had got his way over the protests of the family. Zoe had let him take care of them by himself, his last private moment with Declan. He had never told her where he had put them.
“Out in the back garden,” Cole said shortly. He was concentrating on checking the loading of a pistol that Blake had handed him.
Declan had refused any weapons offered to him. Diego had pushed one of his pistols into Zoe’s hand. “You’re the hunter, I suspect. You’d be better with a knife. We all are. There’s just none to spare right now.”
“A pistol is fine,” she said and snapped out the clip and checked it, then pushed it back.
Cole stared at her. So did Declan.
“What?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” Cole said. “I just….” He shrugged.
“We’re both used to seeing you in scrubs, with nothing more lethal than a scalpel,” Declan added.
“They’re getting impatient!” Diego called from the front door.
Zoe went through to the crowded hallway to get her coat and boots. There were even more people there now, including a tall red-headed man and another with heavy muscles. And one with grey in his hair, a gold badge on his belt and trousers with stripes down the legs, although his coat was civilian normal.
There was yet another woman with them. Blonde, with brown eyes.
All the newcomers were staring at Declan with intense curiosity in their faces.
“Introductions later,” Diego said shortly. He opened the door and the pixies zipped through it in a quick stream and were gone.
* * * * *
The trail the pixies left behind them was unmistakable, so even though they had moved far ahead of them, no one was worried about missing the direction. They moved in a pack, with Zoe, Cole and Declan in the middle, per Seaveth’s orders. They went on foot, pushing through the knee-high, powdering snow across the two acres of cleared land in front of the house.
Zoe kept glancing at Declan to assure herself he was still here. He gave her a stiff smile. “I would rather jump back to the house,” he said softly, “and sit this out. I just don’t think the little ones will let me.”
One of the pixies appeared in front of him, chittering. The chiding tone was unmistakable.
“I guess not,” Cole said, sounding amused.
“I think they know more about the limits of my presence here than I do, so far,” Declan added.
“It can be like that in the underworld,” Zoe said. “We all know of each other. We know our strengths and weaknesses. It makes us better hunters.”
Declan looked unhappy. “I suppose.”
“Although, so far, you’re defying everything I know about spirits,” Zoe added.
He didn’t speak again.
The direction the pixies were taking them was to the west, into the wildness area between t
he mountains and the main highway that ran almost due east into Revelstoke.
“There’s twenty-five hundred hectares of untouched land between the house and the secondary road that runs out to the ski hill,” Cole said.
“What’s that in miles?” Diego said impatiently.
“One hundred square miles, almost,” the red-headed man said.
“Then I’m glad they know where they’re going,” Zack added, for the pixies were flying unerringly in one direction.
They moved into the trees and the light, which had already begun to fade toward sunset, dropped even farther.
Zoe blinked, looking around as they moved on. “I can see,” she said.
Cole looked at her, puzzled.
Diego hopped over a branch with lithe power. “You’re the hunter,” he said shortly. “You can probably see as I can. Everything is very clear, in shades of gray?”
She nodded.
“Can you smell that muskiness?” he asked.
She sniffed and coughed. “Oh, ugh…”
“I can’t smell anything,” Cole said.
“Nor me. That’s to be expected,” Declan said.
“That’s the scent of the vampeen,” Diego said grimly. “From its strength I can tell they’re less than a mile away.”
Cold fingers walked up Zoe’s back. She gripped the pistol, which was sitting in the band of her jeans.
“Silence,” Seaveth said firmly.
They moved on.
As they progressed, Zoe got the sensation there were others on either side of them, shadowing their movements through the trees. She tried to look, only the failing daylight in here was thick with shadows and dark spots. Even with her newly improved vision, it still felt more as if she was imagining the dark shapes, than seeing them.
Diego touched her arm and jerked his chin to one side, then to the other.
Then it wasn’t her imagination. She nodded at him.
The disgusting, pungent scent of the vampeen grew stronger, until Zoe found she was constantly swallowing and breathing through her mouth to lessen the impact. It was a warning scream, making her slow down and try to monitor every direction, even behind her.
While everyone in the group moved very quietly through the trees, they weren’t completely silent. The untouched snow, which was much thinner in here, still crunched under their feet and the leaf litter and twigs beneath shifted, too.
Zoe could hear beyond them, into the forest itself. There was movement there. She could hear stealthy steps, the padding of feet that wore no shoes. Among them, though, were other steps. Heavier ones.
The pixies didn’t hesitate. In the gloaming, their trail shone and glittered, fading slowly. They would zoom ahead, then circle back encouragingly. Their chittering and calling had ceased, but they didn’t slow or change direction. They knew exactly where they were going.
Overhead, the sky Zoe could glimpse between the trees was darkening.
“God, that smell!” someone whispered.
Now the non-hunters were able to smell the vampeen, too.
“We’re close,” Seaveth said.
“We’re not alone,” Zoe warned her.
The pixies suddenly chittered in excitement, bouncing in the air to draw their attention. They were circling around a spot just ahead, on the other side of smaller bushes that were merely a darker shape in the low light.
The howl broke out, not far to their right. Everyone gave startled sounds or sucked in their breath. It might have been a dog or wolf howling, except Zoe knew no natural creature had ever made that tortured, evil sound.
More howling joined the first, then another to their left.
The hounds were all around them.
“Tighten up,” Seaveth said calmly. “Stay alert. Keep moving.”
“They’ll rush us,” Diego said grimly.
Zachary, who was at the head of the thick column of people, halted on the other side of the bushes. “Fuck me!” he said, his voice low.
Everyone pushed forward to see what he had spotted.
Zoe took her gun out. The skin on the back of her neck was prickling almost painfully and cold waves were rolling over her shoulders. Her heart was thundering.
There was something lying on the ground at Zack’s feet. The creature had pulled itself up so it was resting up against the trunk of a tree, hemmed in by the thick bushes on either side. It had found a hole to hide in and lick its wounds.
She guessed that standing on its feet, it would be over seven feet tall. Yet it was skinnier than Sera, who was the most petite person in the group besides Zoe. The only part of the creature showing above the dank garb it was wearing was its face. It was a sickly pale white color and looked damp. The elongated features had small eyes and the lids were closed. There were holes where the nose would be and a mouth that had no lips and was half the size of a human’s. There were no ears that she could see. The head was long, the forehead rising up like a dome. There was no hair.
The creature was filthy, black and smelly. The aroma was like the worst of spoiled food and rotting meat together.
Zoe gasped, bending over, as illness swamped her. “That smell isn’t its clothes at all,” she whispered. “It’s the thing itself!”
Cole patted her shoulder. “I can catch a whiff of it if I breathe hard, so I’m not.”
There was a different scent underneath the rottenness. It was sharp and oily. “I think it’s bleeding,” she said. “I can smell it.”
“That burning oil smell?” Blake said. “It’s lying in it.”
“Let me get at him,” Declan said firmly. “Let me see.”
The sound of creatures crashing through the trees at a great pace came all around them. Zoe whirled.
“They’re coming!” Diego cried and fired off his pistol. Zoe heard a heavy body land. She was already firing her own pistol, the spare clip in her left hand, ready to slap in.
There were dog-like creatures and more human types that ran on two legs. Both of them had inhuman faces. Their crooked, sharply pointed teeth were bared as they rushed them.
The others pressed in front of Zoe, shielding her.
Declan tugged on her arm. “Help me get him out from among the bushes. I have reach him.”
Zoe stared at him. Even in the heat of battle, he was focused upon helping those in need.
She whirled again as someone cried out. She wasn’t used to her enhanced vision and blinked to make sense of what she was seeing. Zack was on his back, his arms up and his hands around the neck of one of the hound creatures, which was snapping at his face with its vicious teeth.
As she looked, Diego squeezed, growling with the effort. The hound slumped and grew still and he tossed it away.
Shadows pushed into the space that had opened up when Diego had fallen. They raced through the weak spot. Everyone on the perimeter was fighting off more of them.
The big hounds came straight at Cole, who was nearest. They leapt up and he fired the gun into the face of the closest. It was thrown aside by the impact of the bullets.
The second landed on Cole’s chest, knocking him down. More black shapes rushed toward him.
“Declan!” Zoe screamed. She shot the nearest hound, then kicked at it, trying to get the body out of her way. She had to reach Cole.
Declan spun around from the wounded Grimoré, his eyes wide.
Zoe started to kick and hit the creatures around Cole. She fired her last bullet into the nearest head, reloaded and started hauling. She forgot to guard her back. She didn’t care.
There was a high whistling sound as a heavy branch from the nearest tree whipped through the air, almost as if it was sweeping a table clear. The hounds and vampeen trying to get to Cole were slapped away and sent rolling and sprawling, one of them whimpering in pain.
Zoe looked up, startled.
A slender man or woman was standing just beside the trunk of the tree. There was another on the other side of the trunk, hauling back on the limb of the tree with more stren
gth than such a slight creature could be expected to have. They looked directly at her, then let the branch go. It whipped through the air just as the first one had. More of the vampeen were swept away.
The first lithe creature sprang over to where Cole laid and tried to haul on his shoulder. So did Zoe. She picked up his arm and dragged him to the tree the little man had been standing next to.
A vampeen leapt at her with a snarl of teeth and she dropped Cole’s arm and fired calmly, dropping it to the ground.
Declan was staring at her, frozen. Then he straightened with a jerk and pointed. “Behind you!” he yelled.
Then, abruptly, he wasn’t there anymore.
She heard an odd coughing sound behind her and whirled.
Declan was there and there was a vampeen at his feet. As she looked, he reached out and touched the second one on the shoulder as it leapt toward her. It dropped to the ground as though it had been clubbed and lay still.
Declan lifted his hands and looked at them. Horror formed in his face.
“Hurry! Around them!” someone shouted.
The trinities coalesced around them once more, a barrier against the vampeen.
Declan dropped to his knees next to Cole. “Let me see,” he said, trying to pull Cole’s hands away from his stomach.
“Why are they backing off?” Diego cried.
“They know their work is done,” Declan said bitterly.
Cole was breathing in harsh little pants. As the forest grew still around them, the creatures moving back into the shadows, Cole moaned in pain.
Zoe kneeled next to him and looked at Declan. “Help him.”
Declan closed his eyes. “His liver is gone,” he whispered.
Zoe knew what that meant. No one could survive without a liver.
Diego crouched next to them.
So did the red-headed man. “Seal the trinity. Now, before it’s too late,” he said urgently. “You’ve joined in body already, haven’t you?’
Zoe stared at him, just barely putting together his meaning.
“Yes, they have,” Diego said firmly. He picked up Zoe’s wrist and pulled his upper lip back. His fangs descended.
The red-head picked up Declan’s. “I don’t even know if this will work on you,” he said to Declan.
Zoe's Blockade (Destiny's Trinities Book 5) Page 9
