I frowned and had to force myself not to cross my arms, which would have accentuated the bare skin underneath the sheer cut out.
“What are you doing here, Faris?”
He smiled. “Things have sped up, in a way I cannot control. Our seer has claimed the new leader must be crowned on the night of the equinox. I need to take you with me now.”
I shook my head and sat back down. “Oh, no. I made an oath and it involved seven days, not right now.”
Alex slunk to my side and stuffed himself under the desk away from Faris, muttering under his breath, and chattering his teeth in between curse words. Their last encounter had not left the werewolf exactly trusting of the vampire. Being strangled tends to do that to a relationship.
Faris let out a low laugh, and I heard the pleasure in it. He was enjoying this. “Rylee, you can bring Doran, I’ll allow that, but only if you come with me now. Right this second.”
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe around the anger. Liam would think I’d run off and left them high and dry. Shit, shit, shit.
My mind worked frantically to find a way around this, but there was nothing. Doran cleared his throat. “I have to put a few things together. Rylee, you can give me a hand.”
I snapped my fingers at Alex, who all but leapt up, and the three of us filed out of the room past Faris, each step I took reminding me it hadn’t been long since I’d tackled more trolls than I could count.
“Five minutes. If I have to come find you, one of you will die,” Faris said, as causally as if telling us a rainstorm was headed our way.
Doran broke into a jog and I followed him, a growing ache rolling up my legs and through my body. If pain really was just weakness leaving the body, then I should have been a fucking superwoman by now. I bit back the groan that attempted to escape my lips and focused on something else. How about clothes? At least I had my boots, even if I was in this stupid ass dress. “Are you sure you don’t have anything better for me to wear?”
“That is the piece that covers the most. Hurry up—do you remember what we need?”
Son of a bitch, he was right. The recipe, there was no way we were going to be able to go back for it. This was all going to be on my memory and nothing else. Doran’s shamanic room smelled of herbs and sharp spices. The black-skinned demon book sat on a pedestal in the middle.
“Doran, I can’t leave that unprotected.”
He grabbed it from me and shoved it into a bag he snatched from the wall. “I’ll bind it to the house, anyone tries to take it out will be killed, and I’ll make the bag look empty.”
With two flicks of his wrist, the bag stiffened and then he hung it back on the wall with a wink at me. “No one looks for the obvious spot, anyway.” Shit, the thing did look empty. It would have to be enough for now. Had to be.
I stood in the middle of the room thinking. Wracking my brain, I recalled the ingredients. “Sage, bloodwort, jasmine root, Troll tooth …” I covered my face with my hands, tried to envision the sheet of paper. “Fuck, there were three other things.”
Doran scrambled around the room, stuffing things into small drawstring bag. “Crucible?”
“Yes, mortar and pestle. A diamond, that was one of the items, moon dust—”
“Wait, what?” He froze mid-step.
“Moon dust?” Oh fucking holy hell, let me not be wrong.
“Shit, I don’t have any, maybe Louisa might.”
“There’s no way Faris will let us go,” I whispered. Shit, the vampire could probably hear us as it was, why the fuck was I bothering to whisper?
As if reading my mind, the vampire called out from the other side of the house. “Three minutes, children.”
“Shake it off.” Doran started to move again and I saw him grab an opal and it was indeed the size of a peach pit. “We will have to see if we can get it along the way.”
“How are we going to do that?” I snapped.
“Trust the gods watching over us to set things in motion. It’s about all we’ve got. Now, what the hell was that last ingredient?”
Alex let out a woof and I stared at him, a chill sweeping through me. How could I have forgotten? “Hair from a submissive wolf.”
Doran chuckled. “The gods, they do have a sense of humor. Take it from him now, I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be submissive.”
I ran my hands over Alex’s coat, easily plucking out some long silky fibers.
“Shit, so we’re only missing one thing, moon dust.”
Doran pushed me ahead of him out of the room. “We’ll be missing more than that if we don’t get back to Faris. Grab your weapons, they’re on the bed.”
We ran down the hallway, parting at the juncture. I bolted into the bedroom and scooped up my two blades, back sheath, whip and leather jacket, which looked to be cleaned, or at least wiped off. I didn’t want to think why Doran had put all my weapons in his bedroom. Horny bastard. Faris began to count down in a booming voice.
“Five, four, three …”
Arms loaded down, I ran as fast as I could, skidding to a stop in front of Faris as he tapped his watch.
“Seconds to spare. Rylee, I do hope you aren’t going to push me the entire time.” He reached out and grabbed my arm, squeezing the flesh, his fingers re-bruising where the Trolls had taken their toll.
I ground my teeth but said nothing. Silence was its own power sometimes. I didn’t use it often enough. It didn’t hurt that I knew his little secret, that he hadn’t killed Charlie. Perhaps he wasn’t as tough as he seemed.
“Well, well, the Tracker has learned control? I don’t believe it. Now, give me your weapons.”
Fuck, I’d been hoping he’d forget about that. I handed him my swords, sheath, and whip. “What happens when we run into uglies? You going to do all the dirty work?”
Faris shook his head. “There will be no uglies, as you call them. You are here just for your ability to Track. And perhaps in that dress, act as a tart piece of arm candy.”
Alex blew a raspberry at him. “Uglies are always at Rylee.”
My lips twitched and the vampire only frowned more. “What’s in the bag?”
What small smile had been creeping across my lips dropped off my face. That he’d noticed the small back of items Doran carried was not good. We did not need him knowing what we were up to.
Doran saved us. “I have a plan to knock Berget out, but it is a powerful spell that can’t be put together until right before we tackle her.”
Faris looked from me to Doran and back again. Shit, he could kill us both and we would be unable to stop him. Though Doran was a Daywalker, it was the same difference of strength between them as that between a human and Doran. There would be no stopping Faris if he decided he’d had enough of us. Which I knew would happen. Right around the moment he figured he’d gotten everything he could out of me.
Control was not something I practiced a lot of, but it looked like I was about to get a crash course in keeping my tongue in my mouth. At least until that final moment when I would take Faris’s fat head and remove it from his treacherous body. Which was a distinct possibility if I could set Doran on the throne instead of Faris or Berget.
“Why are you smiling, Tracker?” Faris stared at me, his icy blue eyes hard.
I stared back. “None of your fucking business, vampire.”
And with that, our little ragtag bunch was off to a screaming start.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Roll the window down, Pamela.” Liam did his best not to gag on the words. Agent Valley was in the very back of the Jeep, letting out a moan every now and then, but otherwise his old boss was being pleasant. Not including the smell. And considering he was a rotting zombie…
Pamela wretched as she rolled the window down. “Ugh, that is fiercely awful.”
Milly’s face was green as she drove, her eyes darting all around as if expecting another ambush. “How did Ingers find us? And why would she throw grenades at the house?”
Liam snorted and took a deep breath, immediately regretting it. “She was trying to kill us, Milly. That’s why the grenades. And we asked after Agent Valley, that’s how she found us. Logic. She is an FBI Agent.”
“I … am … Valley.” Agent Valley wheezed from the back, his fingers gripping the back of the seat, juices flowing down around him. They had barely escaped the collapsing house, only to find Agent Ingers waiting for them outside. Pamela blew up the black sedans in the driveway. The necromancer called up dead insects to swarm Ingers and two Agents with her. The combined efforts between the young necromancer and witch had caused enough ruckus to give them time to get moving.
Liam looked to the necro kid next to him. Only minutes had passed since they’d all escaped being trapped in a house at the mercy of Ingers and her deadly accurate bullets. “How do you know Agent Valley?”
The kid shifted in his seat and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “He’s my uncle.”
Well, that explained a great deal. Agent Valley’s desire to help the supernatural world stemmed from the fact he had one in his family. It made perfect sense now, but still …
“Then why did you turn him into a zombie?”
The kids jaw trembled and then tightened. “Because Ingers had him killed. She doesn’t want him to help me. Us.” His light brown eyes flicked to Liam. “I thought you were on her side. She threatened to send people to finish the job.”
Damn, the woman was colder than he’d thought when first meeting her. But that didn’t matter, not right now. There were more pressing matters than a bitch having a hormonal day. “What do you know about the guns? Did your uncle tell you anything?”
Pamela turned in her seat. “Do you have a name, necromancer?”
He blinked several times. “Frank.”
“Aren’t you going to apologize for trying to shoot us? That is rather rude since we saved your scrawny ass back there.” She arched a delicate eyebrow at him and he flushed from his neck up to the roots of his light brown hair.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t know who you were, but I’d seen you going up and down the street with what I thought was a sniffer dog.” He paused and cleared his throat. “Did you get my gun?”
Liam snorted. “Not been around many other supernaturals, have you? And don’t worry about your gun, you don’t need it.” It pressed into the small of his back, the steady presence of an old friend.
Frank shook his head and swallowed hard. “No, my mom and Uncle Roger didn’t encourage me trying to find other supernaturals. They were trying too hard to keep me under wraps to let me meet anyone like me.”
Agent Valley shifted in the back. “O’Shea. Guns, manufactured … with … witchcraft.” The last words breathed out with a spray of spittle that splattered the seat.
Liam stared at Frank. “Do you have anything to add to that?”
The kid sat, unmoving before finally answering. “I followed my uncle once, to where they were making the guns. I could take you there.”
Pamela twisted in her seat again. “It will be dangerous. Are you sure you can handle that?”
Frank stiffened in his seat and Liam glanced up to see Milly flash a quick grin in the rearview mirror. Yeah, Pamela learned quickly. Part of it was truth it would be dangerous if other witches were involved, but if Frank knew where they were, then they needed him. And the best way to make sure he came of his own volition was to stick his pride.
“I’m not afraid of danger. But the place, it was way out of town, at least a four-hour drive.” Frank glanced back at his uncle. “And even I don’t want to be this close to him for four hours.”
Liam did a quick calculation. “Which direction?”
“Southwest.”
“Perfect, we’ll drop him off at the barn.”
Pamela blanched and Milly’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Liam didn’t apologize or back down. While no one wanted to be there—the barn—hell, the farm was safe with Blaz there.
The drive was quiet, and the smell worsened each mile. By the time they pulled into the farmyard, they’d all had more than enough. Milly hit the brakes and slammed the Jeep into park, stumbling out with a wretch, her body heaving uncontrollably. Pamela wasn’t far behind.
But as bad as the smell was, Liam still remembered the man in the back of the Jeep had been his friend.
“Come on, Agent. Let’s get you settled in the barn.” He opened the back of the Jeep and helped Agent Valley shuffle out of the vehicle and toward the barn. The cold air was bracing and Liam took in a big drag of the clean scent.
A low rumble reached his ears a split second before Blaz slowly revealed himself coiled around the barn, his scales sparkling in the sharp winter sun. He blinked sleepy eyes at them, his jaw cracking in a huge yawn that showed off every one of his massive pearly whites.
Hello, Wolf.
“Blaz. Rylee’s gone off on her own again.”
Pissed her off, did you? The dragon had the nerve to give him a wink. Liam didn’t think it was funny, nor did he feel like explaining himself to the dragon.
“No, I did not piss her off. She’s off on one errand, we are on another.” He waved at Agent Valley. “This one is going to stay here awhile in the barn. At least until we get back.”
He got his former boss settled into the barn and then stepped back into the cold, grateful for the fresh air.
Blaz reached out with one claw and drew a line in the snow in front of himself. You will have to let her go at some point. You know that, don’t you? She is for the world, not just you.
“I don’t need to be schooled by an oversized gecko,” he snapped, not caring that said gecko could tear him apart limb by limb, the only surefire way to kill a Guardian.
Blaz let out a low, rumbling laugh. The others cannot hear me, Wolf. Let me guess, you know the time of your death is coming, and Rylee does not? Yet she knows you carry a secret? It will drive her mad not to know. Give her something, a false secret.
Liam went very still, his heartbeat skipping into overdrive. How the hell could Blaz know what he himself had only just learned?
The dragon stretched his wings, the scales catching the light. Bonded to the Tracker as I am, I know her heart even better than you, Wolf. Better because while I have some affection for her, I do not love her as you and the others do. So I see her more clearly. And if I must, I will drive her to do what the prophecies call on her for.
“And if that means her death, you don’t care, do you?” Anger surged through him. The dragon might be their ally, but he was apparently not their friend.
Blaz shrugged, his shoulder bumping into the barn and shaking the timbers. I do care, for we are tied together, she and I. If she dies, as will I.
“Then why aren’t you with her right now, making sure she’s okay?” Damn it, this dragon was the most infuriating creature—
Because unlike you, I know she will come to me when she is damn good and ready. Trust her, Wolf. Her instincts run true, even if at times they seem to be contrary to what you believe.
Liam threw his hands into the air and turned his back on the dragon. “Whatever, Blaz. We’ll be back later to pick up Valley.”
Ahead of him, Frank was sprawled out on his back, the two witches hovering over him.
“What the hell is this?”
Pamela covered her mouth with one hand, giggling. “He passed out when Blaz showed up.”
What the hell was he going to do with a fainting necromancer, a green witch, and a witch he hated, who had no abilities at all at the moment? Yeah, not much. Not much at all.
Chapter 11
Faris had a plan, or at least, he said he did. He took us via the veil to the castle, which acted as a central jumping point to many parts of the world. For those who couldn’t jump the veil, the castle was a place that allowed one to pick and choose where they went. Of course, you had to know where each door opened, and hope they didn’t get destroyed while you were on the other side. Already, we’d managed to
close one permanently.
Yeah, my bad.
We were on the first floor of the castle where walls were covered with sconces, their light flickering in the air. It was not an area I’d been in before. Faris strode ahead of us, my weapons strapped to him. They looked small on his big frame, and out of place against his designer cut clothes. He stopped in front of a plain wooden door, the slats barely held together with bent and twisted nails, rusted with age. Hanging by a thread? Not even. This was not a door I would have picked to try, but since I wasn’t running the show …
“Hurry up, Tracker.” Faris snapped his fingers, and pointed to the ground beside him, as if I were his pet, a dog eager to obey its master. I tightened my hands into fists.
Doran gave me a push on the small of my back. No words, we couldn’t discuss anything without Faris hearing.
I moved to Faris’s side, my blood pounding in my ears, and I reminded myself of Charlie, this was a game Faris was playing. One where he didn’t know I’d uncovered his secrets. But I also reminded myself he had two of my friends at his disposal now. Faris’s left eye twitched. Something had been off with him since he’d jumped the veil, which meant that no matter what I thought I knew, it could all go out the window in one big ass vampire tantrum.
Fuck, talk about being stuck between a set of fangs and a sword.
Faris pointed at the wooden-slatted door. “This is what we’re going to do. We will open doors, you will step through and Track the Blood. If you find them, that is the doorway we will use.”
“And if I can’t?”
He glanced down at me, the glint in his eyes unforgiving. “We keep trying until we do.”
With his left hand he pushed the door open. On the other side it was night and a deep jungle, the rustle of bush and wind blowing through the myriad of plants floated through the doorway. I had a sudden urge to run away, the presence of something dark, so heavy it clogged the breath in my throat.
“Step through, Tracker.”
“You have to tell me their traits, idiot. I can’t just guess at what I’m Tracking.” I put a hand on my hip and cocked one leg, though I was not feeling all that damn confident.
Tracker: A Rylee Adamson Novel (Book 6) Page 10
