Not this realm. This place is a rainbow of nauseating colors. The rich greens of the spectrum Between trigger his gag reflex. Trees, his overstimulated mind attempts to rationalize. That is what the wretchedly fresh-smelling living tapestry is.
And it's cold and wet. He shivers. Why is it bright? Squinting, Dark Master looks through the spaces where the forest's massive canopy of needles and leaves allow patches of open sky to penetrate.
Pain explodes as cool, late-autumn sunlight crawls over his new, sensitive skin. He doubles over, and only Rernard keeps him on his feet. Another fact Dark Master hates. The second insult is heaving the last bit of food he consumed while Below.
After Dark Master finishes releasing the contents of his stomach, the steaming pile of his last meal sits before them.
He spits to the side, his saliva sizzling where it lands against cool ground. Dark Master gives a weak smile at that small comfort. “Take me away from my own leavings, Rernard.”
Rernard had attempted to convince Dark Master that more of the low demonic should accompany them to Between. In that way, Dark Master could have all the assistance he might require.
But his vanity kept that suggestion as only that. He did not want more of the demonic to see how he would need to persevere to get the job done—or what he would become.
A piece of Hades hides deep in the gut of the Rare One. If she is mated to another of the angelic, his very proximity would offer protection from the ill effects of the spore.
What she must never do—ever—is find her way to Hades. Because she possesses a piece of them within her, she would be allowed entry to Dark Master’s realm.
Without her mate, Julia Caldwell would eventually wither and die. With him, she has opportunity for entry into Hades. The special evil piece of the demonic will behave like a Trojan horse that would destroy them and all the majestic darkness Dark Master has built.
His solitary consolation is that she remains ignorant of that power. Or possibly, she is not brave enough to traverse from Between to Below.
He scowls. The angelic are many vile things, yet they have an unfortunate propensity for bravery and self-sacrifice. As a Rare One, Caldwell would be disinclined to acts of cowardice.
They reach the edge of a vast forest. Dark Master encircles his servants with his arms, leaning on their superior physical strength.
“You are made vulnerable in this realm, Master,” Rernard says quietly.
“Do you think to remind me that my immortality hangs in the balance while I breathe the foul, cool air of Between?” His breath steams, briefly obscuring his disciple's features.
Rernard bows his head. “I fear for you, Master. And Praile. Even Lazarus, as ugly as he is, is a fine high-demonic warrior.”
“I will return with the blood of the Rare One coating my fingers, her heart warming my belly.”
Rernard nods.
“How far to the fey sithen?”
The low demonic holding up Dark Master's left side cringes at the mention of the faeries.
“Days,” Rernard says.
Dark Master scowls. “My abilities are greatly limited.”
“There are humans who have the blood of the demonic in their veins. They will heed the call of your presence. You can assign them as your temporary servants. You will tire and need food as well as water. Possibly transportation.”
“Yes-yes,” Dark Master hisses, irritated by the reminder of his neediness Between.
“We will stay with you until you are well enough to travel.”
Dark Master looks at Rernard until the demonic drops his eyes. “Return to Hades, Rernard.” His quiet delivery rings with authority, and the low and high demonic instantly back away from the deadly timbre of his words.
Rernard blinks at the veiled command hiding within the compliment. After a moment, he replies with the only answer he can, “As you wish, Master.”
They set him on the ground.
He does not watch their exit, but scans the landscape, where far in the distance, beyond rolling hills of emerald dotted with brightly colored trees, the twinkling lights of a city are visible.
That is where his servants will be.
Dark Master has many servants. Many more than those from Above.
*
Jenni
“What about your other stuff?” Jenni asks, surveying the lonely assortment of boxes and a couple of backpacks stuffed to the brim.
“Never planned on staying here forever. Not close to my parents because of... yʼknow.”
Jenni cups a hand on the taller girl's shoulder and gives her a reassuring squeeze.
“Ow!”
She immediately releases her hold.
“You're strong,” Devin says, rubbing the spot where Jenni's hand just was.
“Sorry.”
Devin lifts a shoulder. “No big thing... but damn.”
“Bad word, Mama.”
They look at Ella and smile.
“Thanks, little cop.”
“Welcome,” she says without missing a beat.
“Did you forget your dolly, Boo?”
A solemn nod is her answer.
Jenni smiles. “Can I see your dolly?”
The doll is not a practical choice, taking up half the backpack. When Ella finally extracts the whole thing, Jenni gasps. “Is that a Cabbage Patch?”
“Ah-huh! And look, she got brown eyes like me.” She flips the ugly doll back and forth, so Jenni can't really tell the eye color.
“I haven't seen one of those in forever.”
Devin gives a sad smile. “It was my mom's, believe it or not. She was in high school when they were popular and... well, I—it's not much, but it's what I got.”
“I love ʼer.” Ella says, giving the doll a tight hug, effectively strangling its neck.
“Then she's coming with,” Jenni says decisively.
Ella gives Jenni a horrified look. “Yeah! Duh!”
“Ella,” Devin warns with a frown.
She shakes her head, hair flying with the vehement motion. “We don't leave Tiki.”
Tiki.
Devin's exhale is soft and a few of her inky dyed hairs flutter around her jawline. “I can call my daycare tomorrow and let ʼem know.”
She shifts her weight, biting her bottom lip. “I feel bad, taking Ella and you out of your environment.”
Devin shakes her head. “I'm not tied here. I can do whatever. I don't like giving crappy notice, though. Dale's been pretty cool.”
She gave up her life here fast. But with Bray circling them like a shark scenting blood, choices are limited.
“Hey”—Jenni gives her a significant look—“tell Dale about Bray, give him an abbreviated version of events. He might think it's pretty cool that you saved McDonald's.”
Jenni lifts a box off a threadbare harvest-gold shag rug, and they trudge up and down the flight of stairs a few times until all ten boxes are inside the car.
When Jenni's vehicle's packed, they grab Ella's booster seat from Devin's car and pile in.
“I'm paid up for rent for the rest of the month.” Devin spares a pensive glance at her car. “My ride's too much of a beater for anyone to bother with.”
Jenni nods. “Not sure how safe it is to go by my house.”
“Aren't you, like, supernatural now?” Devin says in a whisper, as though they're co-conspirators.
Ella hears anyway, and chimes in from the backseat. “What?”
Laughing, Jenni starts the car. “I'm not a superhero.”
She heads onto the main road and drives toward her condo at the edge of Port Townsend.
*
Devin surveys the area as Jenni's condo complex comes into sight. “But you can run in your place, grab your crap, and get back to the car.”
She thinks so. “I'll need a half hour, maybe less.” Jenni doesn't say how her place doesn't really have much inside. Jenni was dying.
Jenni's way of coping was getting rid of all her things.
; She steers the car down the winding lane that leads to some of the first condos built in PT in the late 60s. They were renovated in the early 90s and not touched since.
Clouds hover over the Olympic Mountains like shrouds of icy gray dust.
What Jenni likes about her condo is the space. The greenbelt. Her unit is fourth floor, and about twenty years ago, an elevator was installed. Over the years, seniors had moved in, wanting a no-maintenance, zero-climb place to call home.
Jenni is the only person under seventy years old living in the building.
The quiet of the surrounding woods that greets her as she climbs out of the VW is not unusual.
What is weird are the new senses that come alive once she’s left the metal and glass of the vehicle behind. How could I have lived twenty-eight years without sensing the presence of all this life?
The smell of pine and more than a month’s worth of decaying leaves tickles her nose. The taste of coming rain lights on her tongue.
Tears spring to her eyes. All of the sensory overload is almost too much.
Ella breaks through her jumbled thoughts. “You gonna get stuff, Jenni?”
Jenni nods, vision blurry. “Sure am.” She turns, looking at the mother-daughter pair inside the car.
Her heart constricts painfully. “Stay here, no matter what.”
Devin nods.
Satisfied, she revolves fully, sighting the elevator.
Jenni grins, sprinting up the entire four flights of steps instead.
*
Jenni leaves the bigger items like furniture and most of her clothes in the condo, but her pack is full of the essentials. The solid weight of the pack feels as though it weighs nothing.
Thanks to her new bod.
A single photo of her parents, taken during their trip to Point Defiance when she was an awkward teenager, is inside the top pocket of her pack. She could never leave it behind.
The rest of her stuff can stay. She'll come home someday and collect her other things. Having toiletries, that precious photo and enough underwear to last her—she doesn't know—forever, is critical. Her sheepish smile can't be helped.
A werewolf living in a condo. Hilarious.
Jenni’s nostrils flare with a sudden familiar smell. Something metallic. She'd know it anywhere. Blood.
Goosebumps blanket her flesh.
Instantly, her eyes hunt the dark corners of the condo and strike shadows dancing under the front door. Something wet is seeping underneath the door.
Heart beating wildly against her ribcage, Jenni spins in the opposite direction, moving quickly to the sliding glass door. Another bennie of these old condos is generous patios for being outside with a cup of coffee or grilling steaks. She did that with Lance. Prick.
I bet the balcony's never been used like this before.
Jenni silently pulls the slider along its aluminum rails. She's grateful for having sprayed silicone on the tracks only last week—the thing had been sticking.
The door retracts smoothly, and Jenni pivots sideways, stepping through the open door and closing it behind her just as someone bursts through the entrance to her condo.
The eyes that meet her through the glass are familiar, yet not.
Bray steps over the body of a uniformed cop in the hall and all kinds of insights hit Jenni at the same time.
Her stomach tightens, threatening to evict the ice cream she ate a couple of hours ago. She can smell Bray through the glass, sans drugs—and he's like her.
A werewolf.
He's also killed a cop. And the final ah-huh fact: he's coming for her.
Jenni only has time to look over the rail at her car below, her lips moving in a silent prayer that Devin stayed put.
Then her hands are hitting the cold metal baluster that tops the cheap metal on the narrow, wide balcony as she leaps over the edge.
The fall would kill a human.
But Jenni's not that anymore.
Glass shatters, falling over her like hard, sharp rain, and she lands, her knees taking the brunt of the fall, and springs off the lawn easily.
Jenni runs.
Devin screams at something behind her.
Take a guess at who that is.
She doesn't turn, hitting the door handle and leaping inside. The car's engine is already running, or they wouldn't stand a chance.
Jenni shifts into reverse and floors it.
Something lands on the hood, and Jenny's face jerks up from the steering column. Bray's slowly spinning green eyes lock with hers from only two feet away, his talons having pierced the hood of her car.
Fuck this.
Cranking the wheel to the left, she almost upends his ass, but one talon stays embedded in the metal.
The car spins out with her foot rammed against the floorboard and her arms spinning the wheel.
Solid German engineering, Jenni has time to think before the momentum flings Bray far and wide from the hood, tumbling in a spinning arc before landing on the asphalt.
Ella screams.
“Not now, Boo!” Devin screams back.
Bray stands in a jerking, zombie-like lurch.
Holy crow.
Jenni suppresses a hysterical giggle, slamming the gearshift into drive while simultaneously depressing the accelerator. The engine roars in response, leaping forward like a coked-up frog. When the car has sped ahead Jenni yells, “Is he following us?”
She can't feel her fingers and loosens her grip on the wheel.
“Yes!” Devin shouts.
She tightens her fingers again.
“No,” Ella says, and Jenni can hear her twisting in her belt to look.
“Which is it?” Jenni asks, frantic.
“The bad man is far away,” Ella says.
Devin's clinging to the grip handle against the passenger door. “Don't stop, Jenni.”
Her jaw aches from clenching her teeth so hard. “Hell no.”
Ella doesn't correct their language, and Jenni doesn't stop the car until the low-fuel light comes on over two hours later, her body stiff from holding herself rigid for so long.
A neon sign, creepily blinking like a sleepy eye, has all the letters to spell Gas but reads as instead.
Jenny hops the steep incline leading up into the archaic gas station and slows the rabbit to a crawl by the pair of forty-year-old pumps. Looking more closely at the sign, she sees it's actually Olalla Gas.
A crooked open sign swings in the chilly breeze of late October. Olalla is just a hop skip and a jump from Tacoma. She doesn't like the in-between towns.
Jenni swings the driver's-side door wide, narrowly missing the pumps. She turns around to tell Devin to stay put again and she depresses her thumb on the auto locks. They snap into place, locking the car from the inside.
Good.
She studies the old-fashioned pumps and flicks up a lever. Leaving the tank to fill up, she turns her attention to the convenience part of Olalla Gas and walks toward the storefront.
Without meeting the eyes of the pimply clerk, Jenny grabs twenty bucks’ worth of food, three liters of water, pays, and walks back outside.
The nozzle clicks off with a loud snap. She removes her debit card from the pay slot and sticks the nozzle back into the gas pump cradle.
The interior of the car is like a tomb. Ella is asleep, and Devin's in some stage of shock.
Jenni's not sure which, because she's in shock, too. They sit at the pumps for a full minute.
Finally, Jenni dumps the bag of food on the floor and takes out a water. She chugs half then wipes her mouth with a hand that hardly shakes.
“Jenni?” Devin speaks for the first time.
“Yeah.” Jenni is staring in the rearview mirror, expecting to see more werewolves chasing them—because this has been a hell of a last twenty-four hours, and that would fit right in.
“I'm sorry.”
They look at each other as Jenni hits her blinker, signaling a right-hand turn.
Click, click, click.
“I didn't know Bray was a werewolf.”
Jenni looks both ways before pulling out onto Highway 101, saying nothing about the tears streaking down Devin's cheeks.
“The world's full of surprises,” Jenni finally remarks.
“Ella.” Devin's voice is filled with the fear of enlightenment.
Jenni's eyes flick to the little girl sleeping peacefully in the backseat.
A girl who they both realize, might be half-werewolf.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Adi
“That was the grossest thing I've ever seen.”
Slash grunts, licking each finger clean of the succulent meat—the first real meat Adi knows he's eaten since the chicken that Cyn gave him at the Singer compound.
The surprise appearance of his wolf, three days from the full moon was a painful, brutal change, but as a Red, he recovers like a champion.
Adi shakes her head at her mate's ginormous appetite. It's pretty impressive, really. This is the third whole chicken he's consumed since the trolls beat Della into the ground. Adi's had her fill, and her stomach doesn't feel that hot. What with the whole TV screen of Della getting pummeled—and she supposes, the new reality of pregnancy—she's a little squeamish.
Slash hesitates in picking up the last drumstick, and Adi's sure by his suddenly somber expression he's remembering the trollsʼ grief as they buried the one who sacrificed himself for Adi.
Guilt floods her even as her hand covers her stomach. I'm so grateful to be alive. And that their whelp is safe, even with all the chaotic bullshit going on around them.
Now they're indebted to the trolls.
“I didn't know there were trolls.” Adi watches bright embers from the fire kick up toward the sky like haphazard fireflies.
Slash gives a low laugh. “I've been alive nearly three centuries, and they were underneath our noses all this time.” He shakes his head.
Adi cups her palm around her lips to keep her words for him alone. “Shouldn't we have smelled them?” Because, boy, do they reek.
Not that she would say.
Trolls are a supernatural species that have some weird shit going on. Like, how they could be violent one minute, but gentle the next? They're seriously the homeliest creatures Adi's ever laid eyes on, but as she's gotten to know them, their looks melt into the background.
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