The Greystone Bundle (Books 1-4)

by Taylor Longford

  We knew we were in the right place because of the charred firewood near the portal door and the pile of fresh bones left over from meals made of rabbits and deer. Nearby, lay a troubling heap of chains. The mound of shiny new metal was a contrast to the old iron rails in the mine, which were dark with rust. Victor's face was grim as he knelt down to inspect the collection of chains that looked like a combination of leashes and collars meant for a big dog.

  A dark surge of rage grew inside me when I realized how they must have been used. "Let's go," I mouthed silently as I caught Victor's eye, wanting to get my hands on that harpy and hoping she was still somewhere inside the mine. If the rest of the pack had the same reaction as me to the sight of those chains, I felt certain we could demolish the monster without any trouble at all.

  The mine wasn't big, with only a single offshoot to the main tunnel. We passed this and stuck together as we followed a narrow set of rails into the darkness, watching our feet and planning each footstep to fall as quietly as possible.

  We got no warning that we weren't alone. The first thing we heard was a sharp command. "Stay back," a voice suddenly echoed from up ahead.

  Startled, we lifted our flashlights to shine up the tunnel. Three beams searched the dense darkness then converged on a single figure as the wash of light fell on Chaos's determined features.

  Chapter Eleven

  My cousin's dark brown hair had grown since I'd last seen him, the white-tipped ends curling against his neck. He'd lost a lot of weight and his black jeans hung low on his hips. A dark hoodie was tied around his waist, leaving his chest as bare as his feet.

  "Stay back," he repeated, lifting his fist and brandishing a long bar of metal with a flattened tip on the end. It looked as if it might have been an old mining tool. "Don't come any closer."

  Surprised by his aggressive stance, I cut a glance at Victor who stood beside me. His expression was as troubled as mine probably was. We all knew that Chaos's instincts would command him to protect the harpy but somehow we expected him to do that without wanting to harm us.

  Victor slowed his steps and cleared the stunned look from his face. "We're here to help," he said quietly.

  "It's no good," Chaos yelled. "I can't be helped."

  "Don't be ridiculous," I growled, annoyed with the way he'd given up on himself.

  Chaos's eyes glowed fiercely in the darkness. "I told Reason to leave us alone."

  "We can't do that," I shot back while Victor waved me off.

  "Where is he?" Chaos demanded, glancing back over his shoulder like he was expecting an attack from behind.

  "Calm down," Victor said, and lifted his hands in a gesture of peace. "He's back in the city, watching our lasses."

  "Lasses?"

  "He's with his girlfriend, Elaina. And Valor's MacKenzie. And Dare's Mim."

  "Did…Reason's girlfriend find Torrie?"

  "We were with her just this afternoon. She's worried about you."

  "She's okay?" he asked, as if any other alternative was unacceptable.

  "She's fine," Victor replied gently. "She looks good. But she wants to see you."

  "That'll never happen," he answered in a low, graveled voice. "You know it can't happen. You have to leave here. You have to leave me alone and quit looking for me."

  Victor shook his head. "You know we can't do that."

  "Then you know what I have to do," Chaos countered grimly, shifting the heavy bar in his fist.

  It takes a lot for Victor to lose his chill but I could tell that's exactly what was happening. "We can help you," he insisted, raising his voice. "We can kill Vilschka and free you."

  "I can't let you do that," his brother yelled while conflicting emotions twisted his features.

  "We won't stop looking for you," Victor called out.

  "Then stand back," Chaos warned with a shout and lifted the bar of metal, throwing it at the ceiling of rock between us and jamming the flat end into a crack overhead. As we watched, he levered the rod quickly upward. And with a cautioning groan that echoed through the dark mine, a huge slab of rock came loose, crashing to the ground in front of us.

  We leapt back as a rain of rubble followed the big slab and a cloud of dust rose around us. Coughing, we took a few more steps backward. But our retreat didn't last long.

  "The stubborn fool has boxed himself in," I grunted as I swiftly climbed the rockfall and started throwing chunks of broken stone aside. The others joined me and it wasn't too long before we had a hole at the top of the wall that was big enough to squeeze through.

  "Me first," I said, reaching for Victor's shoulder as he started through. "He might be waiting for you on the other side."

  Victor shook the warning away angrily. "He's my brother. He's not going to kill me."

  "I wouldn't be so sure," I muttered. "But I'm operating second-in-command. And it's my place to go first."

  "We don't have time to argue," Victor growled.

  "They get out of my way," I told him, making it clear that I wasn't going to back down on this.

  But on the other side of the rockfall, there was no sign of Chaos or the harpy. The rest of the pack joined me and after a short search we found Chaos's escape route. A narrow ventilation shaft that climbed from the main tunnel to the surface.

  Victor lifted his face and narrowed his eyes as he inspected the slender chimney. "Torrie didn't mention this."

  "She must not have known about it," Dare murmured.

  Victor responded with a curt nod. "I'll climb out this way. The rest of you go back out the main portal and meet me at the top."

  I didn't argue with him, pretty sure that Chaos and the harpy were miles away by now and no longer posed a threat to any of us. We left Victor climbing the narrow shaft and made our way back through the mine. When we reached the smaller tunnel that angled across the main track, Valor and I split off to explore either end of it while the others moved ahead. My side of the offshoot was about a hundred feet long and empty, but as I turned back toward the main track, the beam of my flashlight glanced across something shiny on the ground. I dropped to one knee to check it out.

  Harpies are attracted to bright things that glitter and, apparently, Vilschka had already started a treasure trove. And it looked like she'd dropped a few pieces when she scooped it up for the move. In the flashlight's white glow I picked out a round blue reflector, a cracked red Christmas bulb and a man's heavy gold ring. It was clearly a relatively modern piece of jewelry and not something the harpy had brought with her from an earlier century.

  I turned the ring in my fingers then pocketed it, hoping its previous owner was still alive and hadn't fallen victim to the harpy. But there were no human bones in the stack by the entrance so there was a good chance the ring had simply been lost by its owner, who knows how long ago.

  Up on the surface, I climbed the hillside and caught up with the rest of my pack standing beside a dark hole in the snow-covered ground. A couple of dense bushes lay beside it and we could see how they'd been uprooted and positioned over the opening to conceal the ventilation shaft.

  Victor's face was grim with dark emotion. "This is Chaos's work. He had a plan to evade us right from the start."

  "But he warned us," I pointed out, and rested a hand on his shoulder. "He could have dropped that rock on us but he didn't. Even though he's bound by his instincts, he's still Chaos. He's still your brother. And he won't harm us unless he has no other choice."

  Victor jerked his chin down in a sharp nod but I could tell he was struggling with feelings of disappointment and betrayal. It was a difficult issue to grapple with. We were all familiar with the urges driven by instinct and we'd all heard stories of gargoyles who'd been forced to bind themselves to harpies. But we'd never had to deal with the situation, first hand. We'd never lost a family member before. Not like this. Even when we'd left our fathers behind to battle the gang of harpies up on the moors north of York, we assumed they had died. We'd never considered the equally dark alternative.
<
br />   I made my voice strong. "We'll get him back," I said while the rest of my cousins growled their agreement. I hoped the confident words would hold Victor until we got back to the city where he'd have Reason's support.

  Reason saw the disappointment in our faces as soon as we walked into the apartment. He knew we'd failed our mission. His long stride carried him to his brother and together they shared a fierce hug. "We weren't prepared," Victor explained, his voice rough with emotion. "We should have had a better plan."

  "Next time, we will," Reason told him quietly as the pack filed dejectedly through the door and found seats in the small apartment.

  "Maybe we should check out other nearby mining areas. Like Central City or Idaho Springs," MacKenzie suggested in a take-charge tone after we'd settled on the couches and barstools. She wasn't going to let us sit there and mope when we could be planning our next step.

  But while she talked about researching old mining claims, I couldn't shrug off the disappointment that weighed me down.

  "What's wrong?" Mac asked suddenly, her sharp gaze fixing on my face.

  I gave myself a shake. "I guess I hoped that we'd be sitting here with Chaos, celebrating, and talking about my brothers. Instead, we aren't any closer to finding them."

  Mim looked sorry for me as she said, "Maybe they'll find us, eventually."

  "They should have found us already," I muttered. "If they're in the air, they should have seen the signs we left for them."

  "One of your brothers was injured in the fire, Defiance. Maybe he can't fly."

  I shook my head and tried to smile at Mim who was only trying to be helpful. "The one who was injured can fly. We know that for certain because he's the one who was in his living form. He pulled that driver from the burning wreck. And the driver said he saw wings. Big black wings. So why hasn't Courage found the runes we painted on those rooftops? And the messages we left with them?"

  "How do you know it's Courage and not Force?" she asked softly.

  Actually, I didn't know. Not for sure. But it was just like Courage to think about someone else's safety rather than his own. Even if he was hurt in the crash and even if he had a harpy on his tail, he'd have taken the time to help the driver of the truck.

  "It would be Courage," Victor backed me up quietly.

  "Maybe he has found one of the messages we left for him," Valor remarked. "But maybe he hasn't met someone he can trust to read it to him."

  I didn't respond to that, but I knew that trust was a large part of the equation. And while Val had trusted MacKenzie right from the moment he met her, my brothers and I were less likely to feel that way about a human. So Courage and Force would be reluctant to reveal themselves and ask for help.

  On the way home in the backseat of Mim's car, I was feeling tense and frustrated. Yeah, we could try to search the entire state of Colorado for more mines but the state was famous for its mining industry it was going to be a long, slow process. In the meantime, I felt like we were getting nowhere. "Have you had any bad dreams lately?" I asked Mim, half kidding but half desperate.

  She didn't answer right away.

  "What?" I asked her sharply.

  She slid a hesitant look toward Dare in the passenger seat beside her.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  "Nothing," she answered. "At least, not much."

  He reached for her hair and pulled it away from her face then smoothed his fingers down over the dark curls to her shoulder. "Go ahead," he encouraged her. "It might be important."

  Mim sighed. "Okay. But it's not exactly a recurring dream like the earlier ones I had. I've only had this dream once."

  "When?"

  "Last night," she admitted and looked doubtful.

  I leaned forward and rested my arm on the top of Dare's seat. "What did you see in the dream?"

  "Not much," she repeated without looking at me, her eyes focused on the road. "But in the dream, I'm somewhere high and I'm looking down into a snowy valley."

  "That's it?" I asked. I probably sounded disappointed. It wasn't much to go on. Even if she was "channeling" Chaos and seeing the valley through his eyes like she had before when she saw Torrie in her dreams, there were a lot of mountains and valleys in Colorado.

  "Pretty much," she admitted. "There's a road at the bottom of the valley. A fairly wide road."

  I stared at the taillights of the car ahead of us. "Are you sure there's nothing else?"

  Mim sighed again. "On the side of the road, there's a building with a rusted metal roof. And there are letters on the roof. But all I can see are the letters O and N. Snow is covering the rest of the word and I can't read it."

  "O and N?" Dare questioned her.

  She nodded as she merged onto the highway to Pine Grove. "It looks pretty deserted around the building. There aren't any cars parked around it."

  So, it wasn't much to go on. But we hoped Mim would have the dream again and maybe see something else, something that would help us identify the building with the letters on it.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was thinking about Mim's dream the next afternoon as I cleaned out the stalls at the stable. But when Whitney arrived and opened Romeo's stall, I gave her a hand with her saddle. Then I picked out a horse that I thought could use some exercise and joined her in the arena. It was a damn good thing I did, because Romeo started up his tricks again. Only this time, he decided to up the ante. We hadn't been riding for five minutes when the big palomino dropped to the ground and started into a roll before Whit could get out of the saddle.

  Furious at the horse, I leapt from my mount and raced across the sand. Gargoyles are stronger than humans but it never hurts to be angry. The extra burst of adrenaline gave me a power boost. And I was mad enough to heave that half-ton of stupid horse off Whitney before he could do any damage. Getting a grip on the wide girth belt, I yanked Romeo upward, enough for Whitney to scramble out from under his heavy weight.

  Her pretty eyes were wide with shock as she stared at me. "How did you do that?" she breathed.

  I looked around to see who else had witnessed the incident. Peggy and Tara weren't in sight but Alexa sat on one of the wooden benches behind the sideboards and watched with avid interest. She must have been as surprised as Whitney at the way I'd pulled the horse off her. I hoped she didn't start getting suspicious about my strength.

  But there are plenty of stories about people who lift cars to save their loved ones. Hopefully, she'd just put it down to desperation on my part. And maybe infatuation. That wouldn't be hard to believe. Lots of guys were in love with Whitney Anders.

  "I was pissed," I explained in a tight mutter then quickly changed the subject. "Whitney, you need to get rid of this horse."

  She backed up a step and shook her head as she watched Romeo climb to his feet and move off a few yards. "He's not usually like this, I swear."

  I jabbed my finger at the retreating palomino. "The horse is a killer. If he'd rolled over you, he would have crushed your lungs. You'd be dead!"

  "You're overreacting," she scoffed.

  I wasn't. And I was losing my patience with her, mostly because I was afraid for her and scared I might not be there the next time Romeo decided to pull one of his stunts. "You're kidding yourself, Anders. The horse is unmanageable and mean."

  "Romeo is not mean," he insisted angrily, her spine going all stiff, her hands fisted at her sides while twin spots of bright pink appeared on her cheeks.

  The more she fought the truth, the more I lost my temper. I pointed at Romeo and started shouting. "I forbid you to ride that horse again!"

  Yeah, that might have worked with a girl in the thirteen century. In the twenty-first, it was a mistake. I hadn't thought her eyes could get any wider. I was wrong. She marched over to Romeo and grabbed his halter, leading him toward the gate in the sideboards. "You forbid me? Are you insane? You can't tell me what to do. What world are you living in, Defiance?"

  Okay, she was right. I was living back in the medieval world wh
en a young man told his lass what she needed to do to stay safe. Like don't walk the fields at night when wolves are on the hunt. Don't try to cross the river when the tide is changing. Beware of men you don't know. What can I say? Eight hundred years ago, that sort of behavior was part our culture. You took care of your own, even if it meant cramping their style.

  Behind me, I heard Tara calling me from one of the stalls. She probably wanted help with her saddle. Not that she needed help; it was just an excuse for her to get close to me again. And quite possibly, she wanted to interrupt my conversation with Whitney. I ignored the sound of her voice and followed Whitney out of the arena, opening Romeo's stall door for her while she got the difficult animal inside. As I watched the horse closely, Tara was still calling out, "Devon. Devon." For some reason it grated on my nerves.

  "You and Tara are getting along really well," Whitney snarked grimly as she hung Romeo's halter on the back wall. "Are you gonna take her to prom?"

  "She hasn't invited me," I snapped back at her. "Not yet."

  Yeah, I was taunting her. And if looks could kill, Whitney's hot glare would have put a dagger between my ribs.

  "But Tara's a nice girl," I growled, leaving out the word "fairly". Because she really couldn't be described as anything more than "fairly" nice.

  "You could do better," Whitney muttered as she closed the stall's door and stomped toward the back of the stable.

  Yeah, I could do better but I couldn't have her so what was the point? "I just want a few friends, okay? Is that so wrong? It's not like you're down for it."

  "It's wrong to lead Tara on when you don't really like her," she threw back over her shoulder.

  "Who says I don't like her?" I asked as I followed Whitney down the line of stalls.

  That slowed her down. She stopped and searched my eyes for several heartbeats. "Do you?" she asked quietly.