For me. Orion slammed against the bonds I’d placed on him and they stretched.
I laughed, knowing it was probably the last time I’d do so. “Oh, he is angry!”
“FUCKING LITTLE BITCH!” he roared out of my mouth and I fell forward onto the floor, clutching my middle.
“Hurry, hurry!”
But my plan, as good as it was, backfired in a colossal way.
If only I’d seen it coming, but no. There would have been no way to know just how things would have turned out.
CHAPTER 19
Rylee
Turned out, Griffin was as good as his word. Or woof, as the case was. He sat outside a cave that delved into the earth. His ears perked toward us as we approached. Alex leapt toward him, tackling him.
“Come on, play!”
And shock of shocks, Griffin did. They bounded around, chasing one another for a good ten minutes while I stood and watched with my hands on my hips. Was this really happening? The Great Wolf was playing tag with Alex.
I smiled, but it was tired. “Griffin, I take it the two vampires made it?”
From the cave came a muffled grunt. “I’m getting tired of being stuffed into things that stink.”
Berget grunted softly. “At least you aren’t stuck with someone who has vomit all over his clothes.”
Another smile flicked over my lips. “Faris, it was this or roast like a rotisserie chicken.”
Neither vampire answered.
Alex gave a moan and clutched at his stomach. “I love chicken. I is hungry. Please, I needs to eat or I will die.”
Griffin gave a soft woof and head butted Alex away from the cave. Alex looked at him and then me. “Big wolf says start a fire, please. We bring food! Yay!”
“Start a fire, with what?” But they were already gone and I slumped, sitting next to the cave opening. I shouldn’t have questioned. There on the ground was a small box that had tinder and a lighter inside.
Alex was right. We needed to eat. Especially since I was probably doing another exchange with Faris when he woke.
Gathering smaller pieces of wood and then a couple of large chunks, I laid out the tinder and flicked the lighter, which made me think of Pamela and Blaz. The desire to Track the two of them nearly overwhelmed me. Worry gnawed at my insides as I considered all the reasons Blaz was taking so long. What the hell had happened to him?
I sat, lighter still in my lap. The worst outcome was all my mind allowed me to see. Blaz laying broken and dying somewhere, his wings shredded by an unseen force. “Nope, not going there,” I whispered, leaning over the fire pit and striking the lighter. The tinder caught and I slowly fed it until I could put on the larger pieces. The flames danced and flickered, crackling as they ate the dry wood.
The flames flattened a split second before I felt the rush of wind. I leapt up, and jerked my two swords out, eyes searching. A flash of tawny feathers followed by a blue gray blur and then two rather loud squawks. I relaxed, put my swords away and then waved at the two Harpies. Eve landed first, hopping lightly to ease her final drop.
“Where is everyone?” I heard the fear in her voice.
I smiled. “They’re all fine. Vampires are in the ground for the day, Alex is off hunting with Griffin.”
Her eyes widened and she leaned in toward me. “A griffin is here?”
“No, no. The Great Wolf. His name is Griffin.”
She clacked her beak twice. “We saw activity on the way here.”
I crouched by the fire. “What kind?”
Ruffling her feathers, she settled beside me. Even laying down she still towered over me. “The supernaturals we passed are all coming this way.”
Shit sticks. “How many?”
Eve looked at Marcus. “Did you get a count?”
“More than we can take,” he said softly. “Far more.”
“Awesome,” I breathed. “How long?”
“Afternoon if they keep their pace.”
Berget and Faris were stuck in the ground until the sun set, so what the fuck was I supposed to do? Leave them behind? No, that wasn’t something I was willing to do.
Before I could consider any other possibilities, Griffin and Alex trotted back into view. Griffin had a large white turkey dangling from his mouth.
“That is not wild,” I pointed out. He shrugged and dropped it at my feet. I shook my head. “Not hungry. You boys go ahead.”
Griffin shifted, and strode toward me. “Exchanging blood with the vamp is going to weaken you, yeah?”
I shoved him away from me. “I’m not fucking hungry and there’s no way I’m eating raw turkey.”
He didn’t back down. “You will eat if I have to hold you down and shove it in your mouth, yeah?”
“Rylee, what do you want me to do?” Eve asked, swaying her head so I could see her past Griffin.
Normally I’d tell her to drop him if he touched me. But I still needed him. “Nothing. Griffin, I’ll eat if you tell me about the Destroyer.”
He nodded. “A deal is struck then.” Without another word, he flipped the entire turkey into the fire. The scent of burning feathers filled the air and I stepped away, waving a hand in front of my nose. Eve and Marco muttered and shifted away from the smoke curling their way.
“Tell me,” Griffin said, “how are the other supernaturals finding you?”
I didn’t have to think long. “Milly. She has traced me before with a spell. She got some of my blood and used it.”
Griffin eyed me. “And you think that would work now that your blood isn’t your own?”
I understood what he was getting at. If Milly had some of my blood from before I exchanged with Faris, she couldn’t find me. But if she had another Tracker, she could. “There are no other Trackers, so that’s out of the question.”
“Is it? You have a rather narrow viewpoint of life.” He took the turkey’s leg and flipped the entire thing over, searing off more feathers.
Eve and Marco shifted back, their facial expressions saying it all. Griffin had shown up, started burning feathers and hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge the two of them. Like they weren’t important.
“You have a point you’re trying to make?” I lifted an eyebrow.
Crouching by the fire, he spread his hands on his thighs. “The veil is closed, we know that, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“But there are always spirits that don’t move on. You understand that too, yeah?”
I nodded. Where the hell was he going with this?
Griffin drummed his fingers. “If the demon could find a necromancer, he might be able to call on the spirit of a Tracker who died but didn’t really leave. Possibility anyway.”
“Fucking hell,” I whispered. Frank had gone with Pamela, to keep her safe. And now Milly had them both. “Let’s hope the demon isn’t as smart as you.”
Griffin’s eyes snapped up to mine. “Demons aren’t smart, they’re clever. If there is a way around things, they’ll find them, yeah?”
There was absolutely nothing I could do about Frank, Pamela, or Milly at the moment. Though I had a feeling I would be forced to deal with it sooner rather than later.
“The Destroyer. Tell me about her. I know she’s a she, but that’s it.” I’d learned that when I’d been away.
Griffin crooked a finger at me then walked a few feet away. As if that would keep Alex or Eve and Marco from hearing what he had to say. I snorted and followed him. “Are you going to tell me her name now? I need that at the least to Track her.”
“Yup. But when I do, I think it might tear through a few things in here.” He tapped the side of my head. “When she was stuffed away, both times, her name was pulled away from anyone who might know her. So that she couldn’t be found. Means your memories when they come back to you are going to hurt like hell.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Memories? You think I’ve met her before? And how did you manage to keep your memories of her? How do you even know I’ve met her before?”
“I’ll just bet you’re special. Must run in the blood line,” I muttered. He grinned Liam’s smile. Cocky bugger.
“Ready?” Griffin widened his stance as if he were expecting some sort of explosion. I wasn’t so sure there were memories floating around in my mind that I didn’t know about. Then again, I’d seen stranger things in the world.
Griffin said one word and it rocked my world.
“Larkspur.”
The name resounded through my head like a gong, and I put a hand to cover my ears. I didn’t realize I was screaming until someone put their hands on me. They were shaking me, but I wasn’t seeing them. I was seeing the past.
A missing child who turned out to be an automatic writer; the kiss of a boy who turned out to be a siren. The fight through a labyrinth filled with darkness and monsters. Facing more than one Minotaur, facing the Shadow Man. Larkspur at my side, teaching me, helping a younger me. Her face as clear to me as if she’d been painted in relief, blonde hair, and eyes of different colors: green and gold. And her voice as she called to me from a place I couldn’t Track.
“Find me, Rylee.” I knew that voice, she was my first teacher in a fight that wasn’t Giselle. She was a friend I could trust. She was family. As weird as it was to feel so tightly bound to her, we’d only spent a couple of days together.
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know, Rylee. Open your eyes?”
“You killed her!”
“Find me, Rylee.”
“I didn’t touch her.”
“What’s wrong with her then?”
I forced my eyes open, forced myself to see the present instead of the past. “Someone stole my memories of her. Who the fuck did it?” Slowly even that memory came back. Lark’s father had taken my memories. Shit, this was crazy. I was sick when I realized how long she’d been stuffed in a hole, somewhere in the dark with no chance at escaping. Waiting for me to find her. Seven going on eight years. Holy fucking hell.
Griffin leaned over me. “Trick of the elementals. They can wipe memories like a child wipes clean a chalkboard. But there is always the residual underneath. So they can be brought forward again.”
The urge to Track Lark welled up in me and I had to fight it, breathing through my nose. “Fucking demons and their fucking ability to find me.”
Griffin chuckled. “You getting picked on, yeah?”
I glared at him. “If you call getting pinpointed by asshole demons every time I Track anyone, so that I have to fight them off when I really don’t have the time, then I’m getting picked on, yeah. It’s why I have to do the blood exchange.”
He reached up and scratched the back of his neck. “Can’t Track her anyway, can you? She’s in an oubliette, you know what one of those is?”
I was shocked he didn’t add, “yeah” at the end of his sentence. No, it was time to focus. “I’ve been in one before.” The castle deep in the Russian forest, guarded by a water dragon had an oubliette within it where prisoners had been kept. I shivered.
“Then you know you have to be almost on top of it before you can sense anyone stuck in it, yeah?”
My lips twitched. “Yeah.”
His eyes narrowed. “I went to see her once, when I checked on my grandson a year or so ago. Of course, I didn’t actually say hello to him, just took a peek to see what he was up to, yeah?”
“Why the hell didn’t you let her out?”
Griffin’s eyes never left mine, never blinked. “Not my place. Your place is to free her. If I’d let her out then, things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. That is my curse, to see the different ways a path can diverge. I saw it then. If I took her out, as she asked me to, I would have doomed us all. You can help her, Rylee. She is going to be mighty pissed when you bring her out of that hole, and only you can help her, yeah? Do you understand?”
My shoulders tightened. “I don’t know why it is only me, but I will take you at your word. I need her help, I need her at my side for the last of this.”
Eve fluttered her wings beside me. “Are you truly okay, Rylee? You were laying there, your body twitching and you kept crying out.”
I put a hand on her wings, stilling her. “I was reliving some pretty shitty memories, that’s all.”
Even as I said it, Larkspur’s face came to the forefront of my brain. She was my friend, and it galled me that anyone could take my memories of her.
“Griffin, you know where Lark is then? You can tell me that much, right? So spit it out.”
He spread his hands wide in front of his stomach. “Even I have restrictions on me, Tracker. But I can tell you this. There is a place you know well, a place that has been both salvation and death to you and yours. A place of in between and a place of darkness.”
I frowned at him. Now we had to deal in riddles? It was a cheap way out. “Thanks, that really helps.”
He grinned. “I can do no more than that. But you’ll figure it out. My grandson wouldn’t have picked a stupid woman as his mate.”
We went back to the fire. Alex was eating away and the smell of roasting turkey had my stomach rumbling. I tore off a piece of meat and it was only then I realized how long I must have been out. Hours.
I ate, not really tasting the meat but knowing Griffin was right. I had to eat, had to keep my strength up.
“Four hours until the sun sets and your vamps can crawl out of their dirt bed,” Griffin said. “You sleep, I’ll keep watch.”
I didn’t argue, just lay down beside Alex and curled around his body. Eve lay behind me and covered both of us with one wing, shading the light from my eyes.
Alex was already asleep, but it took me longer. Full belly, safe, warm. But there was so much to do. So many people depending on me.
The last thought as I drifted off was of Liam holding me as I fell into dreamland. Just one more time.
CHAPTER 20
Rylee
The dream was fuzzy, like a TV set out of focus. Doran stood a few feet away and I stared at him. He wasn’t moving. Was he a statue? Was this a real dream or one I would wake from unrested but having gained information?
“Rylee.”
A hundred points for unrested and information. “Doran, what’s going on?”
“Deanna is sick. She refused your blood so we could use it for others. Everyone else who took some is doing fine, but we are still keeping clear of the worst of the plague centers.”
“Smart. But you wouldn’t contact me just to tell me that.” Which meant something bad was coming my way.
“There are vampires in your area that have broken free from me. They are coming for you, Rylee. And they mean to take all of your blood.”
“Oh, that’s just fucking awesome,” I whispered. “How many?”
“Four. But before you say that isn’t too many, they are old and strong and very, very scared. Which in a vampire is a dangerous combination.”
“Wonderful.” I grimaced and then lifted my eyebrows. “Any other tidbits you’d like to offer up?”
“Faris is a tricky bastard, you know that. But even I didn’t realize the depth of his conniving. Apparently, he could kick out Liam’s spirit if he wanted. But he hasn’t, correct?”
I shook my head. “I know all this. It goes both ways. Liam could leave if he wanted to, but he hasn’t. So they’re both up to no good.”
Doran grinned at me. “They’re both on your shit list? How wonderful for me.” He swooped in and grabbed me around the waist. “I don’t suppose you want to pick out colors for the bedroom, do you?”
I slapped his hands away, but I was laughing, which I was sure was the point of his game. “Stop it. You know Berget is madly in love with you.”
He frowned and slung an arm over my shoulders. “After all we’ve been through, you still push me toward
her?”
“Look at it from my point of view. She’s my little sister, how would she feel if she knew you were hot to trot for me and from time to time I encourage you?”
Laughing, he kissed me on the cheek. “I think perhaps you are one of the best friends I have ever had, Rylee. No matter what happens, don’t let that change.”
I lifted my hand to him, the dream fading. “Never. Friends to the end.”
His smiled slipped. “To the end.”
I woke slowly. Those hadn’t been the best words to say, not with everything going on. But they were true.
Alex rolled toward me, his tongue hanging out, dirt sticking to it. I grimaced and sat up, pushing Eve’s wing off us. The light had faded, but the sun was still above the horizon. I looked around for Griffin. He was nowhere to be seen.
“He went to side track the supernaturals coming,” Eve said quietly, dropping her head to mine. “He said to say he would see you at the last battle to fight with you against Orion if he didn’t make it back in time to say goodbye.”
I stood. “Guess that means he’s told us everything.”
Eve stood and shook her whole body. “It wasn’t a direct answer, though, was it? A riddle. I really don’t like riddles, Rylee.”
I nodded and checked my weapons. Everything was there, both swords, extra knives, whip, crossbow, and bolts. Crazy to think that sleeping with all my weapons on was so damn easy now.
“I believe that he’s helped as much as he could. Whatever power these elemental creatures have, it’s more than I’ve ever dealt with.” I thought about the air elemental Erik and I had called on to deliver our throw down to the demons, right before Liam died. My memory of that was fuzzy, and the more I thought about it, the more into focus it came. Elementals. The myth of the supernatural world. I shook my head.
“Marco, can you go up and get a look at how far away the horde is? If you can help Griffin without getting injured, do it.” Marco lifted without question, and I watched as Eve’s eyes followed him.
Rising Darkness (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 9) Page 14
