I glanced down at the cat and she winked her green eyes at me. “Peta.” When I looked back up, Rylee was gone and I was alone.
Curling around the cat, I laid down on the bed. At least in my dreams I had a friend. A smile warmed my lips as I closed my eyes.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing with Pam, then again, I knew what she’d been asked to do. What Liam had asked of her. Damn him for not trusting me.
Alex tugged at my leg. “Pamie sad, darkness is around her all the time. I sees it.”
I put a hand to him, resting it on his head. “Darkness?”
He nodded and then tipped his head to one side. “Pamie hurt, angry, lonely. Too many things she feels.”
That was pretty spot on with what Blaz had said.
She is at a crossroads. She will either chose to fight with you or against you. There is not much you can do, nor if you stayed would things be different. She had to face this on her own. As we all must make a choice as to what path to take at some point in our lives.
I gritted my teeth, the urge to fix things strong. Faris strode toward me, a glower on his face.
“Bratty witch.”
“You don’t know what she’s been through, Faris.” I turned, expecting him to keep up with me.
“Doesn’t matter what she’d been through, she could kill us all if she doesn’t learn to control herself. I thought you said the druids were training her. They should be teaching her the healing arts, not destruction, since she has that down pat.”
I let out a sigh. “She’s always had a way with the power moves, she’s a heavy hitter, not a creature of finesse.” I put Pamela from my mind, knowing I would have to deal with her soon enough. Right at that moment, I needed to find Doran. He would tell me what was going on.
As it turned out, he found us as we strode through the makeshift camp. One second it was just me, Faris, and Alex, the next, Doran was beside me, a hand on my lower back.
“I know you like the whole danger and doom aspect of leaving things to the last second, Rylee,” Doran said, “But even for you this is a bit silly.”
I stopped in my tracks. “We need to talk.”
He tipped his head to the right. “This way.”
The four of us cut through the people milling about, the number of humans and supernaturals interacting was shocking, and to be honest, it made me nervous. “Do they know?”
Doran knew what I was asking. “No, the humans think the volunteers here are just good at what they do.” He pushed through a small knot of vampires who glowered at me and Faris. I glared back, not recognizing any of them. Doran led us into a thick canvas tent that was seven or eight feet tall and easily twenty feet square. A command center if I ever saw one.
Doran waved at the chairs and those who occupied them. Deanna and Will, Frank, and Mer the green ogre. Probably the only ogre we had on our side after the massacre at Doran’s home in New Mexico. They all stood as we walked in, but it was Will who rushed to greet me. I wanted to cringe away from him, and at the same time jam my knife under his chin for his inappropriate moves, his hatred of Liam, his unwillingness to help. Looked like he was going to try and make a pitch for me yet again. I steeled myself, but didn’t need to.
Faris blocked him from getting too close to me, and I fought not to smile my gratitude. “Leave her be, cat.” Power swirled in Faris’s voice, power that felt a hell of a lot like Liam, and Will actually stopped, shook his head and took a step back. Now that was interesting.
“Rylee,” Will said my name and I nodded at him.
“Will. Deanna. Frank. Mer.” I nodded at each of them by way of greeting. “Fill me in.”
Deanna did most of the speaking. “Filling in” was a nice way of saying the catastrophe had gotten uglier than I ever thought possible.
The plague sweeping the world had infected over half of the global population. Majority of those hit the hardest were the young ones, those who hadn’t had years to build up their immune systems. And of course, they were the ones Orion and his demons wanted weak anyway. The young. The ones who would be the strongest in body and mind.
“That isn’t the worst of things, though, Rylee,” Deanna said, her voice hitching.
“Fuck, how could it be worse?” I was still struggling to comprehend the numbers they were throwing at me, the sheer effect of the world losing half its population either dead or so sick they wished they were dead, bleeding out their pores as fever raged and their bodies gave up, death coming slowly and with unimaginable pain. Or, if they were truly unlucky, their bodies and souls were hijacked by demons.
Deanna pushed a hand through her hair; her eyes and the pale, sickly pallor of her skin gave testament to how hard the situation had been on her. “The supernaturals have been dying off as well. We’ve lost entire species.”
Chills swept my body, chased by a wave of heat. All I could think about was my friends. Those I’d left behind. Charlie being at the front of the list. Brownies could contract the same diseases as humans, part of the reason they avoided our world and stayed on the other side of the veil. Only, the veil had closed and how had that affected them?
Almost as if reading my mind, Doran spoke. “The brownies were essentially booted out of the veil when Liam closed it. We don’t know why, only that they were pushed out. We haven’t heard from any of them since then.”
“Charlie?” I asked, hoping he would pop in like he so often did.
“Nothing.”
“Who else?”
Doran moved to my side and I knew it was going to be bad when he took my hand and squeezed it gently. His green eyes on my own.
“The Harpies have been hit hard. They have enough human blood in them that the pox swept through their numbers. There are only a few left, barely enough to re-populate their species. And that is if we can keep them clear of the disease.”
I swayed where I stood. Harpies. “Eve?”
It was if everyone held their breath and I closed my eyes against the truth. Instead, I Tracked my friend, knowing the demons could pinpoint me as I did. Her threads burned bright and clear, far to the north. I gasped, relief coursing through me, and a tear trickling from one eye. “She’s alive.”
Doran gave me a grim smile. “She can’t land anywhere here. Her and Marco are the only pair left in the area, and they’re staying with the unicorns in the forest near Jack’s manor,” Doran said. “You can’t see her, Rylee. Even now, you could carry the taint of the pox on your skin and we can’t risk losing them.”
“Who else?”
The list was enormous.
Witches and druids, daywalkers, vampires, trolls, mermaids, shifters, and goblins. Any supernatural that had even a hint of human blood could contract the pox.
“How can that be?” I whispered, sinking into a chair as I realized the people in front of me—they were what was left of our team to face Orion and his hordes. A handful of us. That was it.
“Orion knew what he was doing when he unleashed this particular pox. So even those who have been unable to get sick in the past, like the shifters, for example, they are open to being infected. And since no supernatural has ever contracted even a human cold, there are no antibodies in their systems. Zero immunity. The death toll is a hundred percent when it comes to our world.”
One hundred percent.
Shock scattered my thoughts and I leaned forward to press my face against the cool table. A hand was on my back, pressing into me. “Breathe, Rylee, breathe,” Faris said. Faris consoling me, not Doran as I’d expected.
If I had stayed, if I’d ignored Liam and stayed with my friends, our daughter would have been exposed to this. She would likely even now be in the hospital fighting for her life, or worse, dead. I struggled to do as Faris said, the air feeling tight in my mouth and throat. Finally, I got the words out. “How much good are we doing here?”
Deanna answered, slowly at first. “We are barely able to keep the demons at bay, and we can’t send them back. And though we can heal a few
people of the pox, it is like trying to empty the ocean with a ladle. The truth of it is . . . this disease has more than a foothold. It is swallowing the world whole.”
Orion had said when he came he would save the world so they would love him and hand the reins to him. The humans would willingly give him anything and everything he wanted in order to be cured, to save the rest of the population.
“So we have no way of stopping this disease?”
Deanna took a slow breath, her eyes never leaving mine. “You could be the key to this, too.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean? I’m no healer.”
“But your blood, it’s Immune to this. All of this.” She waved her hands around her, fluttering them like spastic butterflies.
“Right. I know that.” I wasn’t following where she was headed.
Faris obviously understood what she meant. “She wants your blood, Rylee.”
“My blood?” I wasn’t deliberately trying to be dumb, I just . . . and then it hit me. “You want to drink my blood?”
Deanna flushed. “Not me. Someone who is infected.”
We didn’t get much further than that because someone new entered the tent. Someone I loved dearly, but the others wouldn’t necessarily see her through the same lens I did.
Berget strode in, her chin held high and her blue eyes clear. I grinned at her.
Doran didn’t.
“I told you I’d kill you if you came back,” he snarled, his green eyes glittering dangerously.
Shit sticks, I did not want to get between two vamps. But I didn’t have a choice.
CHAPTER 4
Rylee
Doran lunged at Berget, and I got in the way. He ended up tackling me to the floor, and I rolled with him so I was sitting on his hips, straddling him. He let me. It wasn’t like I could really take him down. Which meant he didn’t really want to kill her, either. But appearances were everything in the vampire world. I knew that.
I kept my hands on his biceps. “Doran, she is not under her parents’ control anymore.”
“You don’t know that. We can’t have a loose cannon like her around our people!” He could have thrown me off, but he didn’t. He stared up at me and I didn’t take my gaze from him.
“I trust her, Doran. What happened before was not her fault.”
“And when she tries to kill you and no one is there to save you? What then?” His question was not unexpected.
“If that happens, then I will do what I have to do. But it won’t.”
“Can I say something?” Berget asked.
“No,” Doran snapped, as he sat up. I stood and held out a hand to him. He took it, but then jerked me behind him, throwing me halfway across the room. “I’m sorry, Rylee, this is for the best.”
“No!” I screamed as I flew through the air away from them. No, this wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. Berget was finally free of her parents. I saw her as I fell, head bowed in front of Doran as he reached for her.
I hit the ground and was up and moving toward them with barely a breath. I had to stop Doran; I had to make him see she wasn’t the problem.
But someone beat me to it.
Faris.
The blue-eyed vampire slid between them and put a hand on Doran’s chest. “If Rylee says she trusts Berget, then you should too.”
That did not sound like Faris. That sounded more like . . . Liam. But that wasn’t possible, was it?
Everyone else in the tent had backed against the walls to give the vampires room.
Doran and Faris were eye to eye and Doran slowly looked back at me. “For now, keep her. But you are never to be alone with her. Faris. I charge you this task. You will keep the Tracker safe from her sister at all costs.”
I saw a light in Doran’s eyes slowly go out. He was the vampire leader; there was no way he could leave and come with us. It felt like I lost a portion of his friendship in that moment, and a piece of my heart broke.
“Done,” Faris said, without hesitation. Again, not like him.
Doran did a double take. “How . . . ?” He pointed at Faris’s arms, as in at two arms where there had been only one not long ago.
Faris grunted. “I am not without my wiles, Doran. You know that.” So, he wasn’t going to admit he’d had help in that department. Again with the stupid vampire games.
From outside the tent came a low murmuring of voices. Lying next to my feet, Alex grumbled, “Fucking vampires think they can pick on Berget.”
I saw a shadow move against the wall of the tent. “That a vamp, Alex?” I tilted my head toward the tent side.
He gave a sniff in the air. “Yuppy doody.”
My sword was freed of its sheath in less time than it took to draw a breath. I drove it through the thick canvas and into the body of the vamp. His—by the sound of the scream—body jerked and danced.
I yanked the sword out. “Any of you touch my sister and I’ll fucking well roast your heads on a spit.”
“That wasn’t necessary, Rylee,” Doran said softly.
I shook my head. “Maybe not for you, but they need to remember you aren’t the only one to be afraid of.” I wiped my blade on the interior wall of the tent and then slammed it back into its sheath.
Doran ran a hand through his hair and beckoned everyone to sit again. The others did. I chose to stand.
“Rylee, there is one other thing. The reason Deanna suggested trying your blood on an infected supernatural is because there are rumors flying around. Rumors that you are the cause of the pox on the supernatural community. That if you were killed, the pox would go away like magic.”
“What has that got to do with her blood?” Faris leaned in, his fists on the table.
Doran looked from Faris to me and back again. “The rumor is not only that killing her will help, but that her blood will heal. So if they can’t kill you, they’re more than happy to bleed you out.”
I snorted. “Please, they aren’t actually falling for this propaganda shit, are they?”
“Rylee,” Deanna’s voice was soft, the fear in it thick. “Those who are sick are terrified and delusional. The fever that grips them burns away so much of who they are. Those who normally wouldn’t consider harming someone are destroying those around them. They believe you are the cause of all this.” Something in her voice made me really look at her.
“And you, Deanna? Do you think I am the reason this happened?” I wrapped my fingers through my belt, gripping the leather hard. I worried I already knew the answer to my question.
Her lips trembled as she tried to keep them pursed together, a good minute passed before she answered. She broke the silence carefully. “Everything started when you left. I don’t know why you had to go away, or why you came back. But the correlation is there.”
I shot a glance at Doran. He shook his head. So no one knew I had been pregnant. That was probably for the best. The fewer people who knew about that chapter of my life, the safer my daughter was. Still, I had to deal with this shit, and deal with it fast. Time was ticking and I had to get moving.
With a wave of my hand, I said, “Bring in a supernatural. I’ll offer up my blood to show it won’t do any good.”
Deanna swept out of the tent, almost running. There must have been someone she had in mind because within seconds, she was escorting in a hulking creature wrapped in a blanket despite the heat. Whoever it was towered over the rest of us, even if they were moving slowly. For a moment I thought maybe it was an ogre. But no, Mer had a look of distinct distaste on her face. So not an ogre. Everyone else pulled back from the infected one. I didn’t blame them. If I hadn’t been immune I would have done the same.
“What kind of supernatural?” I asked, trying to see into the folds of the blankets.
“Does it matter?” Deanna snapped and that brought my head up.
“Why, yes, it fucking does,” I said so sweetly my teeth ached.
She pulled the cloth from the creature’s face with a shallow sigh. A troll
stared back at me, its lips hanging down past its chin, pustules oozing inside its mouth. Pale green skin hung in folds and flapped as it moved. Gills on the side of its head. A water troll. Rare and generally pretty quiet from what I knew.
“Ah, fuck, couldn’t you find someone else?”
“No. Most supernaturals die quickly when they’ve been infected. Twelve hours is the longest I’ve seen it take.” Deanna slumped into a chair. “He’s been infected for six.”
Damn it, I didn’t want to help a troll, but then, I had known a couple of half-breed trolls that were exceptionally awesome.
I bent and yanked a blade from my right boot. “Anyone got a cup?”
Faris disappeared from the tent and was back quickly with an empty Styrofoam cup. “Here, use this.”
I put the cup on the table and debated where to cut myself. With Doran in front of me and a cup waiting for my blood on the table . . . the scene took me back. The last time I’d done something this drastic had been with Doran, when I’d been looking for India so many months ago. The memory slowed me, which was good.
Faris stepped up beside me. “Your upper arm, there’s a vein on the underside that will be easy to wrap, and if you go too deep shouldn’t interfere with movement.” He pointed to a spot on the inside, upper flesh of my left arm.
I handed him the knife, not even blinking. “You think you can hit it straight?”
Deanna snorted. “We are in a triage situation, why don’t I get a needle?”
She was gone and back in a flash. And I blanched. Damn, I should have cut faster. Deanna swept into the tent and handed the still packaged needle and syringe to Faris. She shook her head. “I never thought badly of you ‘til now, Rylee.”
What the hell was she talking about? I stared at her as Faris twisted my wrist, looking for the vein in my forearm like a pro. “You’ve done this before?”
“More than you probably realize,” he muttered. As he prepped my arm and the needle. I looked away, my stomach clenching at the thought of that long, thin metal rod going into one of my veins.
Rising Darkness (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 9) Page 3
