But I don’t know if it’s enough.
I already don’t like this plan, and we’re five seconds into it.
Voyt told us all about the cameras, motion sensors and personnel floating around the Emerson house. He did not, however, tell us about the warding, and this place is sealed up tighter than an alligator’s asshole.
We are a mile out from the house, and to a human’s eye, there is nothing here. Even I am having a hard time focusing on the space beyond the ward, and I assume that’s the idea. The ward is barely visible, but it doesn’t need to be. I’m certain every single member of the Ethereal can feel it. It was like they were either begging to be found or shouting to back off.
Either way, I don’t know how we can break it without a witch, and I don’t have one of those in my pocket.
I suppose it is possible he didn’t know, and Kyle’s input wasn’t helpful at this level due to the fact he didn’t come here of his own free will, and rather, he was dragged here while unconscious by people he never saw.
“Pfft,” Mena scoffs at the barrier. “I could bust this in my damn sleep, but I might as well take out the cameras, motion sensors and electricity while I’m at it, so you need to skedaddle for a minute.”
“Nothing doing, Princess. We have no clue who’s out here. We’re not going anywhere,” Asher counters taking the words right out of my mouth.
Good man. Mena looks to me to get another girl’s opinion, but I’m already shaking my head.
“Fine, but if you see me start to slip, get the fuck out of here. Killing the good guys is not on my list of tonight’s activities.”
“Sure, thing,” I tell her, and I get ‘the eyebrow’ in response as she eyes me skeptically. “Seriously,” I promise, and the lot of us – at her urging – back up at least a hundred feet.
When the light show begins, I think nothing of it. I’m waiting for the ward to break, waiting to get to him. Waiting to bring him home.
So when Mena screams, it comes as to worst kind of shock.
Because we are surrounded.
Because this was a trap.
And my blind need to get West back may have killed us all.
12
Screwed
EVAN
If I make it out of here, if I ever see West Carmichael again, I’m slapping the shit out of him.
This thought runs on loop in my brain as I take another head shot, watching my bullet bore through the skull of another Guardian. I hate doing this. I hate taking life, but I hope I’m at least making a dent – cutting out the cancer that is infecting our race. The fact that they’re closing in on us like the tightening of a noose does wonders to keep the guilt at bay.
They were silent as the grave when they surrounded us, likely lying in wait and ready for us to arrive. That’s the problem with them having an Oracle at their disposal and us having no one. They can see ahead.
They can know.
They can plan.
I should have thought to have Aurelia on coms.
Or at least Rhys since she has a bad habit of frying electronics, but I didn’t think ahead. I didn’t think of anything but getting to West, and that stupid as shit lack of planning got us here. I swear, if I lose anyone, I’ll never forgive myself.
And I’ll never forgive him.
For Wraiths, it is easy to tell who is evil and who is not. The evil ones make us hungry – ravenous really – so hungry we can barely control it. The more power you possess, the hungrier you get. It is why Revenants are such a problem. Sometimes, anger and hate drives us, and when that happens, the hunger takes over, and it’s just a hop, skip and jump to heart-eating crazy town. It turns normal, level-headed, reasonable individuals into flesh-hungry sociopaths. This is why balance is so hard.
Because evil souls are tasty.
The ones that don’t feel as appetizing – the ones that maybe, someday, could be saved – I shoot in the kneecap instead of the head. Fighting my urge to consume – the urge to finally feel full – I keep going until I run out of ammo for the Glock and realize I may be just the tiniest bit fucked. I’m separated from everyone else, and although I can hear them fighting, I can’t see them through the trees. What I can see are four Guardians eyeing me with the smug indifference of men who think they’ve already won.
The eight of us against an army. Who thought that was a good plan? Oh, that’s right. Me.
I’m a fucking idiot.
I pull a tri-dagger from its sheath on my right hip and plunge it into the chest of the closest Guardian.
Heal from that, you bastard.
I’ve never used the tri-dagger before, and despite its weight, I have to admit, it is handy. Handy and deadly – a triangular, oscillating shank with venting holes bored into the center to prevent suction. I knew I’d only use it if I meant to kill, and as much as I hate taking life, as much as I hate the stain to my soul, I choose to live.
These bastards aren’t going to stand between West and me.
No. No fucking way.
As I rip the dagger out of the first Guardian’s chest, I pull the small rapier out of my back sheath, adjust to an overhand grip and make an economical slash to the second’s neck. The blade slides through his windpipe like melted butter, and I have to give it to Aidan, when he said he made sure it was the sharpest it could get, he was right. The third and fourth Guardians travel to me in rage. I can’t blame them per se – I did just take out two of their buddies in less than a second – but their double-teaming isn’t convenient, to say the least. When they pop up right in front of me, I get the sinking feeling in my gut that I might be not long for this world.
Two whole months as Queen. That has to be a record.
As an arc of lightning passes right in front of my face, simultaneously hitting a Guardian in the chest and blowing me off my feet, I’m not sure if I should be grateful I’m not dead or pissed. I’ll go with grateful at the moment because living and flat on my ass is better than dead any day of the week.
I make it to my feet in time to watch Mena grab the last Guardian by the throat and shock him into dust.
Note to self, do not piss this woman off.
“You all right?” she asks as she touches my shoulder, most likely checking for injuries. I’ve noticed she does this more now that she can control her Aegis better.
“I’m good, just got the wind knocked out of me,” I return glancing around to check for threats.
“All the Guardians have been neutralized for the time being. I have to break this ward. I tried to have Ash get Aurelia on coms, and there is so much juju flying around here, I bet you money I couldn’t even get a damn compass to work around it. If they have working electricity inside it, I’d be surprised,” she informs me.
“What about our guys? Everyone okay?” I ask because ward or not, West or not, I need to know about my people.
“Bumps and bruises. Nothing major. Let’s get the ward busted and get your man before they decide to send reinforcements.”
“Agreed,” I say, sheathing my dagger and grabbing her hand to travel the two hundred or so feet to the ward instead of walking it.
“Thanks for the lift,” she says as she bumps me with her hip, half to get me out of the way and half as a thanks. I back up a bit and feel a hand on my shoulder. Cam is right behind my left shoulder, and his face is part apologetic, part proud, and part thankful I’m alive. None of the men in my life are what could be considered talkers – their facial expressions doing the speaking for them – so I’ve become an expert at reading faces.
I feel someone at my right, and I don’t need to look to know it is Aidan, but I do to see what his face has to say. It is easy to read – it says I will be on you like white on rice, so don’t try anything funny.
I nod and turn back to Mena, watching as she throws bolt after bolt of lightning from her fingers at the enormous barrier. When that doesn’t work, she walks right up to the edge and places her palms on the slightly shimmering dome-like spell – giving it th
e full dose of her juice. The ward busts in an instant, but Mena wavers a moment before plopping down on her ass in the leaves.
“I just need a minute,” she says as Asher cradles her in his arms.
“I’m not sure what kind of time we have, Princess. I need you to try and stand for me, babe,” Asher tells her and she struggles to her feet.
“Try to get Rhys on coms. I have a feeling we’re going to need a Seer for this shit. There is bad juju going on here.”
“I fucking hate witches,” Carver says from behind us as he plugs his earpiece into his phone and dials Rhys.
“You think you could get your wife to look out for us here? I’ve already almost died once this year, and I have to say, I’ve lost my taste for it,” Carver says by way of greeting before he nearly drops the phone as his eyes go wide. Even in the near blackness of the dim, I can see his caramel face go gray.
“She said she can’t see anything. All she sees is blackness,” Carver croaks, his eyes filling.
“What?” I breathe, and it feels like someone has ripped the heart from my chest. I can’t lose him too. I can’t…
Before anyone can stop me, I move, traveling to the front steps of this ostentatious mansion. I lift my foot and kick the flimsy fucking door open. I met with nothing.
No sound. No lights. No people.
Nothing.
My heart wants to drop and soar at the same time. Maybe the blackness Aurelia sees isn’t death. Maybe he isn’t gone. Maybe the blackness she sees is just the dark.
Please, please, let it just be the dark, I think as I step carefully through the ground level, making my way to the basement dungeon based on the directions Voyt gave me. He only had one request – if I saw a blonde woman named Claire, that I take her with us. He promised she was a good woman, but I’m hesitant to follow his request. I suppose I’ll just have to judge her myself.
If she’s even here.
I make it to the bottom of the ricketiest staircase ever made when I feel a presence to my left. Moving before I think, I stop myself from embedding the tri-dagger in Cam’s throat at the absolute last second, earning him a nick to his Adam’s apple.
The look I give him tells him I’m not sorry, and I move past him down a moldy stone corridor lined on both sides by vault-like cell doors.
I smell death. So much death it makes my stomach turn. There are no evil souls here, only innocents, and by the twist in my gut, they feel young – not even to maturity.
I can’t stand it, the blankness in my brain wants control, so I keep it at bay by turning the doors to dust. The first door to my right contains the remains of a dead Shifter – still in his shifted form, I can’t tell his age, but I know he was some sort of big cat. I move to the left one and find the remains of a Warlock who couldn’t be more than fifteen human years old. The bile rises, but I won’t stop, I won’t stop until I find him. I find another Shifter and the body of a Witch child no more than eight. The tears come, and I don’t stop them.
When the next two cells turn up empty, it is a relief, but then again, it isn’t. Every cell is either empty or full of death. I don’t want to check the rest, fearing the death I still feel crawling against my skin. I hesitate before I dissolve the next door.
What if he’s gone when I find him? I shouldn’t have sent him away. I shouldn’t have let him go. I… Please. Please, please, please don’t let him be dead.
My hands are shaking when I place them on the door. The solid metal door abrades away bit by bit, slower than the others because I have a feeling I know what is behind this door, and if he’s gone I almost don’t want to know.
But it isn’t West’s large form I see on the cold, steel cot, but a crumpled blonde woman – and she’s breathing.
“Mena! One of them is alive!” I yell back to the hallway.
She’s a Wraith, certainly, and she’s unconscious, huddled into a tiny ball on the cot, her arms wrapped tight around her bent legs even in sleep. Her face is bruised so horribly one of her eyes looks as if it would stay closed even if she were awake. Her nose assuredly broken and still dripping blood, and her fingernails are bleeding and jagged.
Mena joins me in the cell and immediately grabs her hand. I watch as the bruises fade from the prisoner’s battered face, and the swelling deflates to reveal her beauty. A few more seconds and her eyelids flutter open. When she sees Mena and me, she flinches back.
“Wh-who are you?” she asks, her voice trembling.
“I’m Evangeline Black, your Queen, and this is Mena Constantine, leader of the Phoenixes. Who are you?”
“C-Claire. My name is Claire,” she whispers.
“I was hoping you’d say that. Voyt asked us to bring you with us. Is that all right with you?” I ask her gently. I won’t take her if she doesn’t want to come, but I don’t expect an objection.
Her frantic, shaky nod confirms it.
“We’re looking for West. Have you seen him?” I ask her, my voice breaking.
She shakes her head no and says, “I haven’t seen him today. I’m so sorry, but if he’s here, he might be in the chamber at the end of the corridor. But… Be careful,” her voice halts as her tears spill over. “Bad things happen in there.”
I try to bolt from the room, but Cam stops me.
“Not this time, darling girl. Let one of us go. You’ve done enough.”
“No. It has to be me. I have to see for myself.”
Of all the doors in the hallway, this is the only one that is unlocked, and that fact is the scariest of them all. No one wants to go to this room, I know it in my gut.
And after what happens here, no one is able to leave on their own steam. Claire is right.
Bad things do happen here.
Blood is pooled underneath a wooden rack that is one of four set in a circle. And on it is a man…
If he weren’t the other half of my soul, I’d never be able to recognize what is left of him. Even from here I can barely make out the features of his face. His body emaciated, his skin mottled green and purple.
And the blood. So much blood. I can’t… I can’t…
I travel to him, unable to walk the thirty feet from the door to the northernmost rack.
“West. Baby? Help me! Somebody help me!” I scream searching his neck and wrists for a pulse. I can’t find one. I can’t find his pulse.
A pair of hands gently pull me away as Mena and Ian work on him – trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
I don’t know if they can.
All I can do is hope.
13
Life is but a Dream
WEST – 1969 – BETHEL, NY
If I watched one more hippie asshole offer a smoke to my woman, I couldn’t be held responsible for what I did next. I didn't know when I started thinking of her as my woman. That’s a lie. I knew exactly when it was. It was the first time I heard her speak. I’d heard her sing so many times before – a huskily haunting voice so beautiful it would put an angel to shame – but the first time I heard her speak…
I was lost, and I was found all at the same time.
It was then that she became my Angel.
But my Angel was a pain in my ass. Of all the places we could be, of all the things could have been doing, we were standing in a field in the midst of hundreds of thousands of shirtless fucking hippies.
At least the music was good.
My Angel was in a lacy white dress with wilted daisies woven through her pale, curly locks. Her feet were bare – against my insistence that she put on some damn shoes – and she was dancing to the supreme guitar strains of Santana. It was the second day of the festival, and we had worked out an agreement. If she agreed not to sleep here in this mass of people, I would be happy to let her come back until it ended.
The real story was I couldn’t stop her if she wanted to go, but if I didn’t hold her too tight, if I didn’t try to keep her in a cage, she would always tell me where she was going. Most of the time, she didn’t like for me to be
too close. She said I was too serious and made her feel like there was a noose around her neck choking the life out of her. That admission damn near broke my heart.
I never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to drown her. But that is what I was doing. Because I couldn’t keep her. I couldn’t disrespect John that way.
It was a flimsy excuse at best.
John most likely wouldn’t mind, and Olivia surely wouldn’t. Olivia would love for me to be her daughter’s mate if it meant those rich jerks from the head families wouldn’t weasel their way into her heart and into being King.
If there were a real noose, those pompous suitors would be it – they would want her to be proper and quiet. My Angel is anything but proper and couldn’t be quiet even if you taped her mouth shut. But her constant talking meant I didn’t have to talk at all. She did the bulk of it, and if I couldn’t get by with grunts and nods, then I use silence.
It’s worked for forty years, so why ruin it? If it ain’t broke…
I’d do anything to keep her from knowing – from feeling the pull I feel. Anything to keep her from the wanting. There are so many reasons to keep her away from me.
I’m not a good man. It wasn’t just my chosen profession, my past, or my lineage – they were all factors, absolutely – it was that I couldn’t make myself leave her. I couldn’t bring myself to tell John he needed to reassign me. I couldn’t leave her in the hands of someone else.
Someone who wouldn’t love her like I did. Someone who wouldn’t treat her like the precious woman she was. Someone who wouldn’t understand that she needed music like she needed breath, or that she had an unhealthy obsession with organizing things, or that she didn’t consume nearly as much as she should.
I’ve followed her every single day for the last sixty-three years – mostly in the shadows and unbeknownst to my charge – making sure she was safe. I know more about her than anyone. I know that underneath all of her frenetic energy, despite the fact that she flits around like a hummingbird of smiles and light, she is probably the saddest person I have ever met.
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