Hell Spawn: Shifter Squad 09

by J. C. Diem

  She withdrew from my mind and I changed the oracle back to her human form. Like most shifters, she wasn’t particularly concerned about being naked. Ever the gentleman, Mark took his coat off and offered it to her. Extricating her sight from mine, she pulled the jacket on and switched her sight to the eagle who was perched in a nearby tree.

  “That didn’t go so well,” Kala drawled. “Instead of killing the faery, you just managed to piss him off. Now he has a new pet demon who can call up hundreds of lesser imps.”

  Mark sent her an irritated look. “Lexi had no way of knowing that Jorgen is immortal.”

  “Can we argue about this later?” I said crossly. It wasn’t much fun having my failure thrown in my face. “We have to get out of here before Kurt sends the demon after us.”

  Everyone grabbed their gear and moved into a huddle. The oracle called her bird and she flew over to land on her shoulder. I wanted to get far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to find us in a hurry. It also had to be somewhere that Kurt Jorgen wouldn’t think to look for us. Glancing at the oracle, I decided her home would be as good a place as any to flee to.

  We sank into the ground and emerged just outside her cave in Texas. We moved to stand in the shade of some trees while she shuffled inside to change into a fresh set of animal skins.

  Reece wrapped his arms around me again and pulled me in close. He’d been inside my head during every second that I’d been away from him. He’d felt my terror and despair at the threat of being violated by Kurt’s new sidekick.

  I hugged him back and wished that I never had to let him go. I felt safe in his arms, even though he couldn’t protect me from the horrors that were coming. It was my job to stop the apocalypse and I still had no idea how I was going to do it.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Eleven

  I’d managed to regain my poise by the time the oracle shuffled back outside. Dressed in clothing that looked identical to her previous ones, she handed Mark back his jacket. He took it gingerly and folded it over his arm rather than putting it on. It was warm enough in Texas that he wouldn’t need it. Besides, the eagle wasn’t housetrained and she’d left droppings all down the back of it. I wasn’t positive, but I had a feeling she’d done it on purpose.

  Seeing my guilt and sense of failure, my father tugged me loose from Reece and turned me to face him. “You’re not going to win every battle easily, Lexi. You did the best you could in a tense situation. It was good thinking to use your zombies to rescue the humans before turning them on the demons. Beheading them seems to be the quickest way to kill them.”

  “Kurt definitely didn’t expect me to be able to raise zombies during the day,” I said with a smile that faded almost instantly. After what I’d just seen, I didn’t have much to smile about. “But I don’t think the demons will stay dead for long.”

  “What do you mean?” Kala asked. Despite her promise to leave my dad alone, she kept throwing sidelong glances at him.

  “I think the black stuff that comes out of them after they die are their souls. They’re sucked back into the pits and return to hell where they can regenerate again.”

  Mark was disturbed by that prospect. “If that is the case, then Jorgen will have continual fresh support to call on. He’ll have an army of unlimited size.”

  “Lexi is powerful,” Reece said, “but she can’t take on an entire army of these things herself. It would take an incredible amount of energy to raise enough zombies to tackle them all. We’re going to need help.” He felt my exhaustion at using so much power to raise corpses during the day.

  “You could use the faerie’s own strategy against him,” Sabine suggested.

  Mark was instantly intrigued. “What strategy would that be?”

  “I overheard Kurt talking to one of his scientists once,” she explained. “He said that the creatures that EERI have collected will become part of his army. Since most of his captives are shifters, I believe that he may intend to unleash them at the next full moon. Beneath his spell, they will have no choice but to obey him and to hunt down humans.”

  Flynn had been beneath the control of the hydra and knew what it felt like to have his will stripped away. His expression was bleak when he turned to me. “You managed to break me free from the hydra that we now know was being controlled by Jorgen. Is it possible for you to free the captives from his direct control?”

  I hated to strip his hope away, but I didn’t want to lie to him. “I doubt it. I only managed to save you because we’re linked. It took everything I had to break you free and I only pulled it off because I had help.”

  Reece had more faith in me than I had in myself. “You’re much stronger now,” he said and hugged me to his side. “You’ll have Flynn, Kala, Zeus and me to help you.” They were all linked to me, one way or another, and they could lend me their strength.

  “It’s a pity you can’t link yourself to other alphas,” Kala said. “Imagine the boost of power they’d be able to give you.”

  Mark looked at her as if she’d just grown another head. “You amaze me with your flashes of insight sometimes.”

  “Was that an insult?” she asked suspiciously.

  Mark put an arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick hug. “It wasn’t an insult. You’re as intelligent as you are beautiful.”

  Mollified, she preened at the compliment. “We all know that isn’t true. My body is way hotter than my mind, but it’s nice of you to say so.”

  “How am I supposed to link with anyone new now?” I asked. “My bite is fatal to shifters.” The vampirism in my system made sure of that.

  “You were able to mesh your mind with the Oracle’s,” Mark replied, “which leads me to believe that you might not need to bite anyone to link with them now. You’ve gained new abilities since becoming a hybrid. I think we should give Kala’s idea a try. We should contact some alphas and see if they would be willing to participate in an experiment.”

  Flynn raised a point that I hadn’t thought of. “We don’t know where the EERI facilities are. Even if we did have help from other alphas, how are we going to find the captives so we can try to break them free?”

  “I may be able to help with that,” Ava said.

  “How?” Mark still hadn’t quite lost his suspicion of her and it was reflected in his tone.

  “I can sense supernatural beings, especially when they are in large gatherings. I have mapped out what I suspect may be EERI bases. I’ve been keeping track of them for several years now.”

  Mark’s brows rose slightly. Her answer hadn’t exactly allayed his suspicions. “Why didn’t you pass this information on to Cromby?”

  “If he’d known what I was, he would have locked me away in one of our prisons. Then he would have sent the Obliteration Squad out to eradicate the compounds. Sabine has proven that at least some of the non-shifter captives are merely innocent creatures who don’t deserve to be put to death.”

  “You have a good point,” Mark conceded grudgingly. “Can you show us where these facilities are located?”

  She inclined her head in confirmation. “The information is stored on my personal computer at PIA Headquarters.”

  “Lexi, can you transport Ava back to our HQ?” At my nod, he fished inside his jacket for his cell phone then draped the jacket over his arm again. “I’ll call Cole, Aiden and Ranger Delgado and see if they would be interested in assisting us.”

  Cole was the rex of a pride of werelions and assorted feline shifters in Oklahoma. Aiden was the alpha of a werewolf pack right here in Texas. Bruce Delgado was a park ranger and a werebear that we’d met during a mission in West Virginia. He wasn’t an alpha, but he’d know someone who was. I was pretty sure it wasn’t just a coincidence that we’d encountered so many shifters during our missions. It seemed that Fate had been herding us where she’d wanted us to go right from the start.

  Putting my hand on Ava’s shoulder, I transported us to our headquarters. I didn’t feel a sense of tunneling through t
he soil as we descended into the ground. We just sank into the dirt like it was water then magically resurfaced hundreds of miles away.

  Three stories high, the PIA headquarters was made of gray stone and was at least a couple of hundred years old. It was also warded by a warlock. The magical barrier shimmered when we entered through the side door, but the alarm wasn’t raised. Cromby had called off his orders for his agents to kill us on sight. The Board knew who the real enemy was now and they’d given us their full support to hunt Kurt Jorgen down.

  Ava turned left and I followed her down the long hallway to a corner that led to a set of stairs. Her quarters were on the third floor and I waited in the hall while she packed a bag. She returned a few minutes later with her laptop and a backpack. She’d changed into more casual gear of jeans and flat shoes so we were roughly the same height. With her long, dark hair and slim figure, she was beautiful. Her eyes had an oriental cast to them, which made her seem exotic. She was polite and intelligent as well as attractive. It was no wonder Mark was drawn to her.

  “I am ready,” she said. We returned to the ground floor and entered the yard without encountering any guards. A moment later, we were back in Texas again.

  Mark’s gaze paused on Ava appreciatively as he took in her figure hugging jeans before he turned to me. “Aiden has agreed to help us. He said he’ll meet you in the parking lot of a veterinary clinic and that you’ll know where it is.”

  Kala looked down at the ground and tried to hide her smile. She’d spent only a short amount of time with the vet, but she’d enjoyed herself immensely.

  “I know the place,” I said dryly.

  Reece wasn’t willing to be left behind this time and held his hand out to me. He was aware that one of Aiden’s wolves had tried to claim me. He wanted to meet the pack before I brought them here. He was going to establish once and for all that I was taken. It was an alpha thing and it was simply in his nature, but I rolled my eyes as I took his hand.

  Even after Fate and his mother had taken over his mind and had forced him to leave me, Reece had still come to my defense when Rick had kissed me. I now knew that being separated from him had been necessary for me to become a warrior, but it hadn’t been easy. Fate had needed me to fall into the depths of despair, which was apparently the trigger that I needed to learn my abilities. Looking back, every skill that I’d gained had happened after something traumatic had happened to me. I just hoped I’d learned all of the abilities I needed now. I didn’t want to lose anyone I loved ever again.

  We sank into the soil and emerged on a grassy strip of ground. Just as I’d planned, we were right outside the veterinary clinic that I’d taken Zeus to when he’d needed to have his stitches removed.

  As promised, Aiden and his pack were waiting for us. There were twelve werewolves in total. They started when we appeared seemingly out of thin air. Lean, wiry and in his early thirties, Aiden looked at us suspiciously. “How did you do that?” His eyes were a shade of golden brown that was similar to Reece’s.

  “We’re not just werewolves anymore,” I explained. “We have vampire blood in our systems now.” They’d find out our true natures soon enough, so there was no use pretending otherwise.

  “As far as I know, vampires can’t rise up out of the ground like that,” Rick said in an almost painfully deep voice. He was well over six feet tall, with dark skin and a shaved head. I might already be taken, but I could acknowledge that he was handsome.

  Reece caught that thought and sent me a sardonic look. “Lexi is also a necromancer,” he told them.

  They all drew back slightly at that unexpected revelation. I spied Patrick at the back of the pack. I’d known him before we’d both been turned into shifters. He’d been a soldier who had been stationed at the same base as my father. I’d seen him at the shooting range often enough for him to have developed a crush on me. He’d taken it hard when I’d left Texas without warning. He’d been changed by a werewolf a short time after I’d left to join the TAK Squad.

  Where he’d usually stare at me with longing, Patrick now looked at me with a hint of fear. Only Aiden was able to stand his ground now that they knew what I was. Strangely, he didn’t seem to be particularly surprised to learn that I could raise zombies. He looked at Reece and me speculatively. “I see you two have reconciled.” He’d never met Reece before, but it was clear that we were a bonded couple.

  “We have,” Reece said firmly. Our fingers were entwined to show our solidarity. “Does anyone wish to challenge my claim on Lexi?” I was pretty sure no one would now that they were aware of my true nature.

  Rick debated about it then surprised me by stepping forward and trying to stare Reece down. “You might be an alpha, but I think I can take you.” He flexed his muscles and they bulged beneath his leather vest. His ego was extremely well developed if he thought I would mate with anyone less than another alpha. I gave an internal sigh that becoming a shifter had changed me so much. A man had to be my equal before I could be attracted to him. Reece was the only one who fit that requirement. We were two of a kind and he was the only man I would ever love.

  Reece spoke before I could tell Rick what I thought of his challenge. “Really?” he said in amusement. Holding out his free hand, he made his fingernails grow into long, wickedly sharp claws. “Are you sure about that?” He wasn’t enraged to the point where he could change his whole body, but he was annoyed enough to be able to make a small alteration.

  Aiden’s expression grew awed and he drew his second in charge back. “They are far more powerful than you realize, Rick. You wouldn’t stand a chance against either of them.”

  Rick looked at us doubtfully, but he reluctantly nodded. He could feel our supremacy and we weren’t even trying to take control of him. We shared a glance when we realized we could make them all bow to our will if we wanted to. Our bond had amplified our strength in many ways.

  “I’ve heard legends of your kind,” Aiden said.

  “You mean we aren’t the first hybrids?” I asked. As far as I knew, Reece and I were the only shifters who had ever survived a vampire bite.

  Aiden shook his head. “There’s never been a half-vampire, half-werewolf before, but that’s not what I’m talking about. You have the ability to shift at will, which means you’re not just normal alphas. You are supreme rulers of our kind and have absolute control over all werewolves.”

  Even Rick was impressed with that revelation. “I withdraw my challenge,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster.

  I managed not to smirk, but only just. “Wise decision,” I said then turned to Aiden. “Don’t worry, we aren’t planning on taking over your pack.” The entire group relaxed slightly at hearing that we weren’t going to steal his people away from him. “What did Mark tell you when he called?”

  “He said that the world is in peril and that you need all the help you can get to fight an insane faery.” His lips twisted in a smile, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying.

  “That about sums it up. The faery is dangerous, powerful and his army is increasing by the day. Are you willing to join us and risk both yourself and your pack?”

  “I saw the news reports of what’s been happening to the towns around Wardel. It’s pretty obvious that humans aren’t going to be able to fight those gigantic stone monsters. I don’t have any love for humanity, but I assume we’ll be wiped out along with them?”

  “Either that, or he’ll take over your minds and add you to his ranks,” I said. “The faery won’t stop until every sentient being has been destroyed. I was shown a vision of what the world will be like once he’s finished. People will be gone and the buildings will be destroyed. Only animals and plants will be left.” Few buildings had been demolished yet, but the war had only just begun.

  “That sounds almost peaceful,” one of the female werewolves muttered.

  “Think about it,” Patrick said. Six feet tall, he had black hair, blue eyes and was cute rather than handsome. He was the y
oungest member of their pack by several years. “If the humans all die, there won’t be any more alcohol or drugs.” I couldn’t smell either substance on him, but the others reeked of it. They obviously liked to party hard.

  Thin of build and with dyed blond hair that badly needed to be retouched, she shuddered. “Count me in. I can’t survive in a world without booze. I say we go and tear this faerie’s wings off then stomp him into the ground.” I agreed with her sentiment, but didn’t bother to tell her that Jorgen was wingless.

  Aiden smiled slightly. “You heard my pack. We are in agreement.”

  “Gather in close,” I told them. “I’ll take you to Mark and the rest of the gang.” Shouldering their gear, they shuffled in closer until everyone was touching. “This will only take a second, but it will be strange the first time,” I warned them. “I suggest you keep your eyes and mouths shut.”

  “Why?” Rick asked. Standing directly across from me, his stare was still challenging despite admitting that we were higher in the werewolf hierarchy.

  “Because we’re about to sink into the ground,” I replied. Before they could react, we descended into the soil and reemerged near the oracle’s cave.

  Only Aiden had followed my instructions. His pack members rubbed grains of dirt out of their eyes and spat to clear their mouths. “She warned you,” Reece said with a smile that was very close to a smirk.

  “I’m sure they’ll remember next time,” Aiden said. “Assuming there will be a next time?” Apart from a slight widening of his eyes, he hadn’t shown much reaction to being carried along the zombie highway. He was very good at keeping his cool.