Of course, as my plans normally did, this one tracked sideways. I stepped out of the hotel room, Erik and Pamela ahead of me, Alex a step behind.
Erik stopped short and I bumped into him. He reached over and tugged Pamela back. “Rylee, do you feel that?”
For fucks sake, what now? “What should I be feeling?”
Alex bumped into my hand. “A disturbance in the force.” That was the second time Alex had quoted Star Wars. But he was right; there was a disturbance in the energy around us. Like something was sucking the light and life out of the very place we stood.
That couldn’t be good. “Erik, is that demons I’m picking up?”
“Yes. And not like the ogres. These will be one of the packs. Stronger, faster. Meaner. How the hell they found us this fast, though, I have no idea. They don’t have a way to Track like you do.”
I wasn’t up to snuff, my body still catching up from everything. “Fight or run?”
The demons took the decision away from us as they burst out of the motel’s office, John wrapped in web that covered his whole body except his head. But that wasn’t what really caught my attention. No, it was the demons themselves. They were human looking if you just considered their torsos and initial limbs. Not so human if you counted the wings on their backs, giant rat heads sitting on their shoulders, and the extra sets of arms sprouting from their sides.
Alex let out a howl, stopping them in their tracks.
“Hey, where the fuck do you think you’re going with John?” I pulled my whip with one hand and a sword with the other. There was no choice; there would be no running if they were taking my friends. The demons said nothing, just dropped John and advanced toward us. I counted thirteen of the rat faces. “Eve, stay put!” I yelled knowing the harpies would want to be a part of this showdown.
And did they listen? No, of course not. They dove on the pack, plucking two out and cutting our enemy’s numbers a little. The demons saw the harpies and changed formation, closing ranks completely, making it nearly impossible for any more of their members to go skyward. Eve and Marco harried them, but weren’t able to get their claws into any more.
Erik took the point, and the fight was on. The rat pack surged toward us, hissing and shooting some sort of nasty smelling goop from their mouths. I dodged the first splash, saw it stick to the pavement. “They shoot their web from their mouths!” I yelped as I snapped my whip toward the rat closest to me, thinking only of keeping my friends safe.
The whip sizzled as it wrapped around the rat’s throat and I jerked it forward, ramming my sword into the demon’s belly. The actual demon expelled from the human host, leaving me staring at what the demon had been possessing.
A child.
Younger even than Pamela. I screamed and had to fight the rage that spooled up through me. They’d possessed children, those very souls I’d sworn to protect above all others. How didn’t matter, only that they had.
“Rylee, they know your weakness. They did this on purpose, to stop you from being effective,” Erik yelled as he took down a demon and another child lay dead at his feet. A little boy with ginger hair and a smattering of freckles across his cheeks.
I couldn’t stop the anger, couldn’t control it as I lashed out at the demons. Their bodies took the hits and they snarled and giggled as they circled around me. Screaming my rage, I fought with everything I had, but none of my blows did anything. I wondered where Pamela was in all this; there hadn’t been a single blast of fire from her.
“Rylee, control it!”
But I couldn’t. There was nothing in me that could handle this with anything but rage, with the righteous fury that billowed through my body. Distantly, I knew I was going to pay for this.
If only I’d understood just how bad it was going to be.
A demon hit me from behind, stunning me, as he slammed my head to the ground. Alex leapt between me and the demon and with a snarling swipe was able to push the rat faced monster back.
I managed to get to my knees, and I tried to use my magic. But nothing happened. The power slid through my fingers the way Milly said would happen if I got hit in the head. It was one of the few things that could slow down a witch, and I wasn’t to ever tell anyone about it. But it looked like someone had told the demons.
I grabbed my head and tried to stop the spinning, tried to slow the out of control beat of my heart as the sounds of fighting pounded in my ears. Alex stayed close to me, but the demons lost interest in me as soon as I was down.
They had surrounded Rylee, making a solid ring of bodies between her and Erik. He was yelling at her and she was screaming at the demons.
One of the demons reached out and grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her side. I lurched to my feet, my short sword in my hand, grateful for it. I swayed as I tried to run to them, and tears trickled down my cheeks. This couldn’t be the end of things.
Not for my family.
I fell forward with my blade, driving it between the shoulder blades of the demon who held Rylee tight. He let out a howl and dropped her. I had their attention now and they seemed to recall they were trying to take all four of us prisoner.
Two of the demons advanced on me and I stepped back, fighting to grab onto my magic. Like pouring olive oil on my hands, I could feel it, but couldn’t contain it. I took up a fighting stance. “Come on then,” I beckoned and they laughed, high pitched squeaking giggles that made my blood run cold.
Alex lunged in first, hamstringing one of the demons. It went to its knee and I slashed with my blade, the steel sliding through the monster’s neck—at least, most of the way through. Its head hung from a strand of bone and cartilage, flopping and dangling forward. But it didn’t die. It advanced on me, all of its monstrous hands outstretched.
Biting back the scream that swam up my throat, I slashed forward, taking off one of the hands, forgetting about the other demon.
The one I backed right into.
Its arms circled around me the same way it had done to Rylee. “Now we has you,” it hissed, the sound of its rat tongue flickering beside my ear. It lifted me over its head and I stared at the scene, unable to comprehend.
There was an opening in the veil and a woman stood there with long gray hair that didn’t seem to suit her face, which was very young.
“Talia, don’t do this!” Rylee screamed and my eyes found her. She was held by two demons as they ran toward the opening in the veil.
“NO!” I drove my elbow down, smashing the face of the demon that held me. Stunned, he dropped me, and Alex tackled him. “Alex, get Rylee!”
The werewolf spun and we ran toward the circle of demons protecting the opening in the veil.
“Rylee, let go of the anger,” Erik yelled as he fought and disposed of another demon. It slid to his feet, a child emerging as the demon’s essence dispelled.
I understood then why Rylee couldn’t stop the anger.
Yet, that didn’t help us save her now. I could just see the top edge of the veil as I pushed forward, reaching for my magic, desperate.
And there it was. I didn’t hesitate, just lashed out with my hand and pointed with my short sword. The power ripped out of me, sending the demons sprawling in every direction, clearing our path to where Rylee was.
Where she had been.
The opening to the veil was gone. The woman with the gray hair was gone. Worse than that, Rylee was gone.
I couldn’t stop the cry that clawed out of my throat. Around me, the demons slowly started to get up and I pinned them to the ground, slamming them over and over again, their bodies breaking under my assault. I didn’t care they would look like children once the demons were gone. Didn’t care that Erik was telling me it was done, that he was trying to slow me down. My breath came in ragged gasps as I fought the panic and sorrow overwhelming me. The sorrow was quickly replaced by a rage so dark I couldn’t see, an anger so deep, I felt it all the way through my bones into my very soul.
They’d taken Rylee into the
veil, the deep level of the veil.
Orion had her and we would never get her back.
The rat-faced demons dumped me onto the floor in a room that looked like a throne room. They did their squeaky-assed giggling routine as they backed away. Everything in the room was done up in black and white, shades of gray and not much else in the way of color. I knew where they’d taken me.
The deepest level of the veil was not a place I thought I’d be visiting again. I was so royally fucked.
Talia stepped into view. “I’m sorry. I did not want to bring you here. But it was the only way.”
I got to my feet, didn’t bother to put my sword away. “Yet you did.”
“Rylee, Talia is right. She had no choice. It is the way of the binding Orion has on her.”
I turned to see Milly walk toward us. Her hair was bound back in a tight braid and her eyes looked haggard, as if she hadn’t slept in days. A blood red, floor-dragging gown hung from her body, the empire waistline accentuating the fact she was hugely pregnant. One hand cupped her belly, which had grown by leaps and bounds even in the short few days since I’d seen her last. She glanced down. “Orion has found a way to speed up the growth of my baby.” Her green eyes slowly lifted to mine. Despair echoed the horror I knew was in mine.
“You can’t stop him?”
She shook her head. “No.”
I glanced at Talia. “Why did you bring me here; what does he want with me?”
Yeah, I know the obvious would be he wanted to kill me, but he had an opportunity on the other side of the veil. I wouldn’t have been able to stop the rat pack from tearing me apart. Yet they’d waited on Talia to open the veil and bring me through.
“Come on, we don’t have much time,” Milly said, striding past me. “Orion didn’t expect us to bring you in so quickly. If we make haste, you can be gone before he even knows you are here.”
I had no choice but to follow her since there was no one else I could trust. “What are you saying?”
Milly let out a sigh. “You didn’t read the papers I gave you, did you?”
To be fair, I’d kept meaning to. Only I’d never found the time. “No. Why?”
“If you’d read them, you would have known what was coming.” She started off again, her dress dragging through the skim of dust and dirt on the floor. Like the queen of a hovel.
“What did it say?” I jogged to catch up, swayed and ended up leaning against the wall.
Milly’s hands were on me in an instant, a flood of healing washing through me. “Rylee, how have you survived without daily healings?” Her voice held a thread of laughter and I couldn’t help but smile up at her.
“Well, I’m getting better at letting people help me.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Come, we are almost there.”
I felt refreshed like I hadn’t been in a long time, the cuts and bruises from too many fights evaporating as if they’d never been. I jogged to her side, and Talia followed at a slight distance.
“What’s going on?”
“You need the violet book of prophecy, the book written by the Blood of the Lost. You need it so you have all the steps to stop Orion. That is where all the answers are. But he has it in a spelled room I cannot unlock.” She blew out a sharp breath and clutched at her belly. A groan slipped between lips. “Gods, not yet.”
Fucking hell, was she going into labor? The sound of fluid dripping onto the floor made me think that was exactly what was going on. “Milly, tell me you aren’t in labor.”
“Hurry.” Was all she said as she used the wall for support. I slipped my hand around her waist and helped her walk. Her belly where it pressed against my side contracted and flexed and something hit me. I gritted my teeth to stop from freaking the fuck out. Like an alien life form, her baby kicked and fought to break free of his mother’s belly.
We made our way to the top of a set of stairs that curled up out of sight. Narrow and tight, they would make a perfect bottleneck for someone coming after us. “You sure you can do this?”
Milly nodded, though there was sweat on her face and her eyes were strained at the edges. She gulped in a breath of air and let it out in a slow hiss. “Let’s go.”
The stairs were just wide enough for me to walk beside her, supporting her as we worked our way up, flight after flight. Milly kept moving though, and I was fiercely proud of her.
There were five floors to be exact, without a single landing to pause on, just a doorway marking the level we were at, until we neared the top. There, on the fifth floor, we found a landing that was about ten by ten and bare, except for a single window that let in a dull, weak light.
“At the top,” Milly whispered, “there is a doorway with no door. It looks like you could walk through with no thought, with no consequence.” She dragged in a gulp of air and let out a low moan, sliding to the floor. I lowered her down so she could lean against the wall. Talia came up and crouched on her other side.
“The baby will be here soon.”
Milly grabbed my arm. “Rylee, there is someone you will have to face within the room. I can’t see who it is, I don’t know if they would see you as friend or foe. But the spell, you should be able to walk right through it.”
“And if I can’t, what will happen to me?”
Talia shook her head. “You will be bound to Orion.”
I rocked back on my heels. Bound to Orion if my Immunity failed. “Got it. You wait here.”
Milly let out a soft laugh that turned into a whimper as she clutched her belly. “Hurry.”
Without looking back, I ran up the last flight of stairs. At the top was an open doorway as she said, but it was fuzzy. Like one of those stupid tricks people do when they put cellophane across a doorway and then they put something appetizing on the other side.
The tease for me, of course, was the violet skinned book of prophecy. I could see it on a small, wooden table in the middle of the room. I walked right up to the edge of the doorway and stared at it. Rimmed in symbols, I knew what some of them represented. The black skinned book had a lot of them.
Power. Obedience. Violence. Nothing good, of course.
“Piece of shit,” I snarled and forced my feet forward. The spell that held the doorway slid over my skin and I felt the daggers of it try to dig in. The black snowflake on my chest burned with a fire that made me want to gasp out loud, but I held my breath and took another step, the spell dragging hard over me, leaving welts. I stumbled and went to one knee, and the spell finally gave up and slithered back to where it had been. I turned to look at the doorway. The spell hadn’t stuck to me, but it hadn’t been dispelled, either.
The sound of a sword being drawn snapped my head around. An older man stood between me and the table where only moments before the room had been empty. He wore tight black pants and knee high black leather boots and a white shirt that was buttoned all the way to the top. Dark hair streaked with grey at the temples accentuated his eyes, which where a bright silvery tone. He reminded me of the three Musketeers. Minus the ridiculous hat and feather. “It seems you must face me now.”
“Are you a guardian?” ‘Cause if he was, there was no way I could beat him, I’d have to out maneuver his ass, grab the book and make a run for it.
“I am not a guardian. I am the last pureblood.”
I arched an eyebrow up. “Well, la-dee-fucking-da. I’m the last Tracker. Want to compare notes on being the last of our kind?”
His lips arched upward into a smile. “I shall enjoy gutting you, Filthy Tracker.”
He launched his attack, but I met him from my knees, drawing my swords in time to block his swing at my head. Like I would go down in the first round.
“Come on, let’s see what you’ve got, bitch.” I stood and slid around to the left, keeping my eyes on him.
I’ll give him his due; he was good. His skills were honed and every move he made was textbook, the forms perfect, the angles superb. But he didn’t fight dirty.
Somethi
ng I most certainly did.
As he lifted his sword arm for what would be a bone-jarring hit, if I caught it on my crossed swords, I leapt inside his guard and drove my knee into his man junk. He lost his air and started to bend over. I snapped my elbow up, into his nose, breaking it. His fingers went limp around the sword and the weapon fell to the floor with a clatter as his eyes rolled back into his head.
“See? You stink, you filthy pureblood.” I spit at his feet as I backed away. Just because he was down didn’t mean I would take my eyes from him. I slid one of my swords into its sheath and then reached back as my hip hit the table. Blindly, I groped for the violet skinned book. The leather was smooth under my hand and I thought of Sas. She was the only violet skinned ogre I’d ever met. I tucked the book under my arm, holding it tight.
“You cannot take that book. It is for the one who would save the world from the demons,” he gasped out and I stared at him. How much info could I get from him? And would it help me or would he deliberately try to deceive me? I was betting on the deception side of things, but still….
“And who is that?”
“The child of prophecy, the one who will face the demons. She will save the world. You cannot take that book.” He rolled to his knees and reached for his sword. I jumped forward and kicked it out of his reach. It skittered across the floor coming to a rest near the doorway.
“I am that one,” I said, feeling the truth center within me. I was the one who would stop Orion. “I need this book. I don’t know everything I should if I’m going to kick his ass into oblivion. So if you are really on my side, stop trying to fucking well kill me.”
He lifted his eyes to mine. “You cannot be her. She was to be pure of heart, the last of our bloodline.”
A chill swept through me. “I don’t know about pure of heart, but what do you mean the last of our bloodline? I am the last of the Blood of the Lost. Is that what you mean?”
Wounded: Book 8 (A Rylee Adamson Novel) Page 7
