Finally, my phone beeped as Alec’s message came through.
Bait taken.
“It’s happening,” I told Lillian before sending a quick text to Jared’s and Jas’s phones.
Now we waited to find out who showed up, and what special talents they would bring for us to tackle. I wasn’t sure which was worst out of fire manipulation, world’s best fighter, or a run-in with the dead manipulator’s minions.
And what if all three showed up? That was Kris’s ideal, of course . . . assuming we were able to immobilize them.
I took a deep breath to steady myself. As I let the air out slowly, I felt the goosebumps prickle the back of my neck. A chill ran down the length of my spine as if the face of death himself hovered behind me. I turned slowly so as not to draw attention to myself, and took in the two rotting corpses that staggered toward Lillian and me.
“Lil.”
She followed my gaze, and gasped in surprise at the sight of the nekros.
“Don’t make eye contact,” I reminded her of the golden rule when dealing with the walking dead.
“Where is he?” Lillian’s eyes darted to the shadows behind the building.
Other than his minions, I saw no sign of Nakurlas, the demigod who had brought them here. But I knew he was near if he had sent his dead soldiers to scope out the area ahead of his arrival. If he sent them, he must not have realized yet that we were there.
Not like we needed him to.
Going against everything I had been taught about nekros, I stood and faced the two corpses.
“What are you doing?” Lillian gasped.
“Drawing him to us,” I replied.
The nekros zeroed in on me, and shifted in front of my eyes. Into two men I knew and recognized . . . and whom I had lost years ago.
I knew that, of course. But they looked so real. Almost believable. It was hard not to feel the ache of loss.
“Come with us, brother,” the first one said. The one who looked like my brother, Drew.
I faintly noted Lillian coming to a stand beside me, and grabbing my arm as I stared back at the illusion in front of me.
Only an illusion. But a believable illusion. And it had been so long since I had seen them both.
“You cannot win,” the other one added, forcing me to turn my gaze on my other brother.
“Shawn?”
He looked so real as he nodded. “Yes. Join us now.”
Lillian’s grip on my arm tightened, stopping me from taking the step that I wanted to take. I dropped my head to the ground with a rapid shake.
“They’re not my brothers,” I muttered.
When I looked back at them, they shifted back into their true forms—with rotten flesh and fire red eyes. Definitely not my brothers.
Lillian and I took a collective step backwards. A loud clapping sound shattered the silence, and the nekros vanished.
The clapping grew louder, and was joined by a sinister laugh. We spun around to find the demigod of the dead, Nakurlas, emerge from the shadows.
“I must applaud your efforts,” he taunted. “Really, good try. But this . . .” He tossed our booby-trapped blanket doused in Circe’s demigod-weakening compound on the ground at our feet. “This is the work of amateurs.”
I shrugged as he closed the distance between us. “We are only hybrids, right?”
“I expected more from you, considering your devotion to Hecate’s daughter. Fortunately for me, you have failed.”
My gaze swung up from his feet, and I met his eyes with a confident smirk. “You sure about that?”
A look of understanding crossed his face, a moment too late. Jared and Bruce sprung from their hiding place with an eruption of gunfire.
Nakurlas wasn’t hit with just any bullet. Diamond-coated bullets wouldn’t work on him. But empty shells filled with Circe’s compound?
Those dropped him faster than a tranquilized elephant.
Jas and Kira emerged from their hiding spot, and we all crowded around Nakurlas as he rolled onto his back. His eyes glazed over as he mumbled incoherently. I darted a look toward the narrow alley from which he had come, then glanced around at the other confused faces in the group.
Jas was the first to ask the question we all wanted to know the answer to. “Where are the other two?”
~ ~ ~
~ Kris ~
Alec and I moved toward the back of the club as quickly as we could without drawing attention to ourselves. By the time we reached the hallway, Marcus was gone.
Alec gripped his phone tightly as he awaited word from Nathan that the demigods were secured, and ready for me. I was confident that it was all three of them too. I felt it. I knew they were all here. I told Alec what I felt. That revelation forced his feet to move a little faster.
The music faded as we passed through the empty hallway. We came to the end without finding an exit.
“Maybe this way?” Alec took a hold of my hand and steered me back the way we had come. Up ahead were two bathroom doors on the left. Across from them was another door with the letters VIP painted in big gold letters.
Alec pushed the door open cautiously, and we stepped into a dark room, illuminated only by the moonlight shining through the row of windows along one wall. A small bar took up one corner, and small round tables were scattered throughout, providing a sort of obstacle course for us to navigate as we hurried for the door illuminated by the bright exit sign on the opposite wall.
We were nearly there when Alec’s phone buzzed. He glanced down at the message, then shot a puzzled look at me. “They only got one.”
“One?” No. No way. I felt them. They were all here. I knew it.
So where were they?
I pulled on Alec’s hand as a sense of doom whipped down my spine. I slowly turned toward the center of the room, where they now stood, masked in shadows.
“Oh, shit,” Alec muttered from beside me.
“Which ones are they?” I whispered to Alec.
Before he could respond, one of the demigods answered my question by creating a ball of fire in his hand.
So Derona was one of them.
The growing light in his hand illuminated the second demigod, and permitted me a good look at his heavy body armor and crisscrossing blades strapped to his back. My guess was Sagriva, the son of Ares.
I really hadn’t wanted to take on the best fighter in the world without the aid of Circe’s compound. But so be it. Time to see how well my training had paid off.
Before I could come up with a plan of action, Derona shot the flames in his hands straight at us. More directly, at Alec.
My hand shot out to stop the ball of fire with a wave of magic. I didn’t catch it in time, but slowed it considerably. Alec avoided a direct hit by rolling to the ground. The wrecking-ball-sized bundle of flames crashed into the wall behind us. The resulting fire spread rapidly, blocking the exit. The reaching flames and intense heat pushed us farther into the center of the room, closer to the demigods.
“Got a plan?” Alec asked.
“No. You?”
Alec’s chin lowered, and his eyes hardened on the demigods. “Kill them. Not die.”
Alec retrieved his diamond-coated knife from its hiding place as Sagriva charged, a dagger in each hand. The fire alarm wailed as Sagriva and Alec collided, drowning out the sounds of their weapons clashing. One of Sagriva’s blades sliced through Alec’s shoulder almost immediately. Fortunately, his weapons were not diamond-coated.
Perhaps so he didn’t inadvertently kill me, and ruin Circe’s plan? Whatever his reason, it was good for us. It wasn’t a deep cut, and Alec held his own. But as strong as Alec was, he wasn’t a match for the demigod blessed with unrivaled fighting skills. Eventually, Sagriva would win their battle.
He and Alec moved too quickly for me to offer much assistance with my magic. One wrong move on my part, and I could hurt Alec instead.
I was forced to turn my attention to Derona as he conjured yet another ball of fire. This
one, he sent into the ceiling before I could stop it.
“Alec, watch out!”
Alec grunted as he jumped out of the path of a chunk of engulfed plaster.
In retaliation, I tossed a fireball of my own at Derona. It exploded upon contact with his chest, but he stepped through it unscathed.
“That was weak,” he taunted.
In my periphery, I watched Sagriva launch himself at Alec with a whooping war cry. As they collided, the water sprinklers turned on, soaking us in seconds. That put a damper on Derona’s primary weapon. I had other weapons in my arsenal.
I blasted him with an invisible wave of power, catapulting him into the wall. Using one hand, I froze him there, suspended in the air, as I retrieved the knife from my boot. Seconds from his own imminent death, he taunted me with a laugh . . . right up until the moment I thrust the knife into his chest. His eyes hardened on me in that brief moment before they flickered out.
I didn’t wait to watch him dissipate before I spun toward the fight behind me. Sagriva had Alec pinned against an overturned table, the dagger pressed to his neck. Alec’s arms shook as he struggled to hold the blade back. His eyes met mine from across the room.
“Do it, Kris!”
I squeezed my eyes shut, and instantly found myself standing behind Sagriva. He spun around, moments before my knife found its mark between his shoulder blades. His dagger met my raised arm, slicing through the skin above my wrist. At the same time, Alec’s feet landed a solid kick to Sagriva’s midsection that sent him sprawling to the ground.
Sagriva was on his feet instantly. He barreled toward me with a roar. His shoulder dropped, and I lowered to the floor, catching his legs the way Nathan had shown me. As he sailed over me, I stood.
I switched the knife over to my uninjured hand as I held the other out, pinning Sagriva with my powers while a steady stream of blood dripped from my fingers. Over the sound of the wailing fire alarm, the steady onslaught of the sprinklers, and my own victorious shout as I thrust the knife down, I heard the thunderous boom of a gun firing.
My head whipped toward the entrance as I withdrew the knife from Sagriva’s chest. I flung the knife at Marcus, where he stood by the door. It wobbled end over end through the air before I took control of it with my mind, and sailed it straight into his chest. He dropped with a strangled cry, and dissipated along with Sagriva.
“We did it.” I choked on a sob of relief as I stood. One more demigod to go, whom Nathan and the others were holding, waiting for me, but . . . it was over.
“Alec, we did it!” I couldn’t contain my excitement as I spun around. My smile fell when I saw his face. “Alec?”
I took a step toward him, where he leaned on unsteady legs against the overturned table. I watched as his head lowered, and he coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“Alec!”
I closed the distance between us, and caught him as he fell to his knees. Blood darkened the front of his shirt, from a wound I found when I lifted the wet and sticky fabric. I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of a small hole pierced through the center of his chest.
“Okay. It’s fine. You’re strong enough. You have enough pure blood in you to heal from this. No big deal, right? It’ll heal . . .” I trailed off when I realized I was rambling in panic.
Panic wasn’t going to help Alec right now.
His hand lifted to point behind me, to the gun Marcus had fired. “Let me see it,” he gasped.
I shook my head. “No. That’s not important. We need to—”
“Kris.”
Though my thoughts were on bandaging him up to slow the blood loss, I did as he asked. I jumped to the door, swiped the gun, and returned to Alec’s side in a matter of seconds. I took my knife to the hem of Alec’s shirt to create a makeshift bandage while he opened the chamber.
My hands froze when he retrieved a bullet—a shiny diamond-coated one.
“Oh, my God.”
They were coated?
I forced my trembling fingers to the vial dangling around my neck. Alec’s hand clamped down on mine, stopped me from removing it. My eyes met his as he shook his head once.
“Promise me . . .” He lurched forward with a grimace, and his hand tightened around mine. “Promise me you’ll finish this. Promise me you will fix it.”
“Stop it,” I cried as I tried to wrestle the vial out of his grasp. “Let me save you.”
His eyes were wild with pain when they met mine. “It’s too late,” he choked. “Save Callie. Promise me.”
“Alec!” I caught his shoulders as another wave of pain ripped through him. His hand released mine, and I positioned him onto his back, his head cradled in my lap. My hands were free to finally twist the lid off the vial.
His breaths turned sharp and sporadic as I pressed a handful of powder to his wound—all that I had left. I choked down the sob rising in my throat long enough to chant the necessary words. Alec’s body jerked under my hands, unaffected by the ritual.
It’s not too late . . .
It can’t be too late . . .
I tried again, but with each tremor that shook him, my tears fell faster and harder at the realization that my prayers were going unanswered.
It was too late. I was losing him.
Finally, he stilled. Not because I had succeeded, but because I had failed.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded. “Please . . . Alec, don’t go.”
My lips pressed to his forehead. His last breath slipped between his lips, warming my cheek, as my arms tightened around him. I held him with a strength I didn’t know I possessed, as if I hoped that could keep him with me forever.
No amount of strength or love could hold him anymore. I knew the moment I lost him. I felt his soul leave. I felt him slip between my fingers, and out of my grasp.
I watched the wisps of his soul float away with tear-flooded eyes. “I promise,” I cried, far too late for him to hear my vow.
Alec was gone, and I was left with nothing but a promise.
Chapter 17
~ Nathan ~
“It’s been too long.” I turned on my heel, and paced the stretch of ground in front of the immobilized Nakurlas for what may have been the hundredth time.
“Give them another minute,” Jared suggested calmly.
I was the opposite of calm. I was seconds from punching my friend in the face, and storming inside that club crawling with Skotadi. As wound up as I was, I needed to off a few of them just to get my heart rate back to normal.
“Thirty seconds,” I countered between clenched teeth.
Beside me, Lillian sighed, and I shot her a hard glare. She opened her mouth, likely to argue with me, when the fire alarm sounded from inside.
“Why would they pull the alarm already?” Jared wondered.
I smelled it then. Smoke.
“They didn’t!” Without hesitation, my feet carried me at full speed toward the back entrance.
“Nathan, wait!”
Ignoring Jared’s protests, I flung the door open, and stepped into a dark hallway, lit only by the distant strobe lights from the dance floor at the other end. The faint scent of smoke hovered in the air, but there were no signs of a fire in the main area. A few confused-looking humans stumbled into the hallway, and passed us as they sought the exit. I pushed against them, barreling my way deeper into the club.
Four doors opened from the hallway, and I burst through them one after another, my gun leading the way. All empty. No sign of a fire. No sign of Kris or Alec.
I turned out of the last room to find Lillian behind me. “Where?”
“This way.” She pulled me into one of the empty rooms I had already checked. As we hurried across what appeared to be some private party room with a dozen or so small round tables, the smoke thickened.
“There’s another hallway on the other side,” she explained along the way. “It connects to a few more rooms.”
As we approached the second door, I heard a gunshot. I rushed into the hallway
, but Lillian grabbed my arm to keep me from taking off in the direction of the shot.
While my training had taught me to proceed with caution, knowing that Kris and Alec were somewhere in this club, possibly in danger, squashed most of what I knew.
Fear drove me now. And nearly blinded me to the Skotadi who rushed us from the direction of the dance floor. Five of them coming to inspect the source of the gunshot. Five of them with their own guns now pointed at Lillian and me.
I shoved her to the side, and out of the way of a warning shot. They weren’t trying to kill us . . . and that was the only reason we were still alive.
I took advantage of that knowledge, and fired off a spray of bullets that dissipated three, and wounded the other two. Lillian sprang to action, and finished them off while I covered the hallway. Fortunately, with all the commotion going on in the main part of the club in response to the fire alarm, no one seemed to be paying us much attention.
Lillian pointed behind me as she stood. “Bathrooms there.” Her arm swung to the door across from the bathrooms. “VIP room there.”
As I stepped toward the partially opened door marked VIP, I spotted a smudge of crimson on the floor at the threshold. I put a hand up to alert Lillian. She moved past me with a nod, and nudged the door open ahead of my entrance. Gun raised, my eyes scanned the room in one thorough sweep.
I sagged in relief when I saw her. And then I saw the blood.
“Kris!”
She didn’t look up when I called her name. Nor did she look at me when I knelt in front of her. She flinched from my hand on her shoulder.
“Kris, what’s—” I stopped when I saw the empty vial on the floor beside her. And all the blood—far more than I knew had come from the nearly-healed wound above her wrist. As fast as she healed, I knew the blood that covered her wasn’t all hers.
Glancing around the room, and finding it otherwise empty, my stomach dropped. A strangely unfamiliar emotion bubbled up inside of me, and I squeezed my eyes shut to keep it from pouring out.
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