by Alyssa Day
“That’s all right, Doctor,” drawled the necromancer standing on Bane’s porch. “We care about you.”
Bane yanked Ryan out of the way and slammed every bit of magic he could channel at Constantin in a punishing torrent—and every bit of magic he could channel was a lot of fucking magic.
The warlock flew backward, but he regained his equilibrium in mid-air and hurled a spell at Bane, who easily dodged it, just before he saw what was coming up from the river toward the house.
“Oh, fuck.”
It was an army of the dead. Walking up out of the river and trudging toward them, no doubt intent on killing every single one of them—except for Ryan. The necromancers would do far worse to her.
“Over my dead body,” he growled, realizing it was all too likely. There must be more than a hundred of them, trudging inexorably closer and closer, step by shambling step.
Ryan ducked beneath his arm to see, and then she started shouting. “Meara! Edge! Luke! Everybody! We need all hands on deck!”
“Not you,” he snarled at her. “You go upstairs and hide. Now!”
“Fuck that! I’m Nephilim. We fight!” She pointed. “And there’s Sylvie. I owe that bitch.”
A deep, roaring bark sounded from the kitchen, and Bram Stoker flew out of the doorway and started toward them, his fur standing straight up and his lips curled back from his teeth. The Cassidys were right behind him, and they both carried shotguns.
“If it’s a battle they’re looking for, we’re going to give them the fight of their lives!” Mrs. C shouted. Her cheeks were flushed, and she had boxes of ammo sticking up out of her apron pockets.
Her husband nodded, face grim. “We’ve defended this house before, and we’ll do it again. No way do those bastards hurt any of our family.”
Bane had no words, so he just shook his head and stepped out onto the porch. “Constantin, is this all you’ve got? I thought you’d bring some of your warlock friends. Instead, you’re hanging around with a bunch of dead bodies because nobody alive wants anything to do with you, right? The Chamber must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to send the likes of you.”
“I don’t need help, Nightwalker.” The necromancer turned and flung his arms out in a ridiculously melodramatic gesture that encompassed the oncoming dead. “Take the vampires, my people. Take them all, but keep the woman alive.”
Meara’s voice rang out from the roof. “I’m your Huckleberry.”
A shadow of confusion crossed Constantin’s face. “What?”
Beside him, Ryan laughed. “Good one, Meara! We’ll watch that one later tonight, after we kill these assholes!”
Just then, Sylvie jumped down from where she’d been hiding in the branches of one of the Southern Live Oaks and stalked toward them, the dead parting in a wave before her. “You didn’t forget me, did you, you stupid Nephilim whore? I’m going to drain you dry, over and over, and make such delicious magic from your blood. Maybe even from your bones. You don’t need all of those arms and legs, after all.”
Ryan shuddered but then rolled up her sleeves. “If you want me, come and get me, Necro-Bitch.” She started forward, shoving balloons out of her way, but Bane caught her by the back of her shirt.
“No.”
She laughed and then grabbed his face and kissed him, hard. “Nice try. But you don’t get to tell me no about this, either.” And then she twisted out of his grasp, jumped off the porch, and raced toward Sylvie.
Bane roared with frustration, but before he could go after her, the fight was on. The first swarm of the undead had reached the lawn, and he waded in, blasting them with magic and also using his hands, feet, and the long knife that had been sheathed at his side to stop them any way he could while he fought his way toward Constantin.
Edge and Luke descended on the horde of zombies like twin waves of destruction, swinging swords that they’d started carrying after the attack in the cemetery. And Meara—watching Meara was like taking a master class in graceful killing. She flew, danced, kicked, and twirled in an arabesque of destruction, and wherever she moved, the undead went down and stayed down.
But it wasn’t enough. The more corpses that they stopped, the more that kept coming up out of the river. Constantin—far more powerful than Sylvie—must be calling bodies from every cemetery for miles around.
He was still doing it, too. Protected by a group of his undead, he stood with his eyes closed, still chanting. Waves of foul blood magic flowed out from where he stood.
Bane needed to get to him. Now.
But he also needed to protect Ryan. Now.
And he was suddenly, desperately afraid that there might not be time to do both.
…
Ryan’s Nephilim magic—for that’s what it surely was—came easily to her call now. Whether something about the explosion had finished clearing whatever block or binding had kept her from her power before, or whether meeting her father in person had done it, she was ready and willing to use the magic of life and light against the forces of death and darkness.
“Apparently, Nephilim are freaking poets, too,” she shouted at Sylvie, who was stalking toward her, the zombies falling away from the path between them.
“Bring it, little angel spawn,” the warlock spat. “I’m going to enjoy torturing you for what you did to my face.”
She tilted her head toward the light, and Ryan saw for the first time that the entire right side of the warlock’s face had been horribly burned.
The healer in her felt bad about it, for a second or two.
The warrior in her wanted to shout out her triumph.
“Nobody could have deserved it more,” she called out, taunting the evil bitch.
“I’ll show you what you deserve!” Sylvie shrieked, throwing her hands into the air and then shoving them toward Ryan, who could feel the wave of magic even before she saw and smelled the stench of the dark shadows arrowing toward her.
“Nice try!” Ryan raised her own hands and built a wall of light with her mind a mere second or two before she built it in reality. The cloud of blood magic broke harmlessly against it like an ocean wave against a stone seawall. Even the rank stench dissipated.
“Good beats evil every time,” she shouted, laughing. “Now, let’s try this!”
With that, Ryan imagined a battering ram made of pure light and hurled it at the warlock, who watched, seemingly frozen with shock, only dodging at the last possible moment.
“Not so fast, Nephilim. I’ve been doing this far longer than you,” Sylvie purred, and then she started throwing spear after spear of magic, each more powerful than the last, at Ryan, who was using every ounce of her brand-new power to block them.
When Sylvie jerked her chin to the side, Ryan was too exhausted to even wonder why, until the zombies crashed into her from behind, taking her down to the ground, face first.
Suddenly, Sylvie was standing above her, and the last thing Ryan saw was the warlock’s boot coming for her face.
Behind her, Bram Stoker howled.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Bane saw Ryan go down, heard the dog howl when several of the undead started hitting him, and, still covered in the animated corpses attacking him, roared his fury out to the skies. Meara screamed and shot over to Bram Stoker, dealing destruction to the undead in her path, but more of them kept rising up out of the river, coming and coming and coming.
Bane spun in a 360-degree turn, slicing a pointed wave of magic around him as he went, decapitating and cutting any undead near him in half. Then he shot up into the air to go to Ryan, but another wave of necromancy smashed into him and knocked him back down.
“I expected more from a vampire who’s rumored to have defeated the Chamber before,” Constantin shouted, sneering.
A wave of black despair threatened to swamp Bane. Ryan was down. If she died…
If she died, the world could burn. A berserker rage rose in him and the tips of his fingers began to glow as red as he knew his eyes must be. The necromancers would die, now.
Everyone would die.
Before he could hurl the blast of power gathering inside him at the necromancer, Bane heard Ryan’s voice rise above the cacophony of the battle. “I’m fine, Bane. Kick his ass while I take care of this one.”
Relief and a fierce burst of pride swept through him and gave his magic far more power than he’d ever had before. He levitated up and up, until he was floating nearly six feet over the heads of the incoming dead.
“Oh, look, the vampire can fly,” Constantin sneered. “I don’t know why I was afraid of you. You’re nothing. You’re nobody.”
“Who I am is the vampire who’s going to kill you,” Bane told him, the fire of his rage amplifying his voice, until it boomed across the field of battle, making everyone freeze and look up at him. Then he smashed his magic out over the field in a bone-shattering wave that destroyed all the corpses between himself and Constantin.
Still more kept dragging themselves out of the river and onto the bank, though. More and more and more.
“You’re not powerful enough to defeat me,” the necromancer shrieked, forcing his magic into the dead, compelling them to do his bidding.
“You picked the wrong battle, necromancer.” Bane hurled a bolt of magic at Constantin and then shielded himself from the return shot. He leapt up into the air again, deflecting Constantin’s attacks, and sent another bone-crushing wave of power at the oncoming dead.
“There are more coming!” Luke shouted. “Look over there, behind the trees, in the direction of Bonaventure!”
Before Bane could locate the new threat, a roar like thunder preceded thirty or more motorcycles that poured into the driveway and yard. The Vampire Motorcycle Club had arrived—and they’d brought some of the werewolves with them. The vampires and wolves jumped off their bikes and started laying waste to the hordes of undead, smashing through them like the Georgia Bulldog offense on a really great fucking day.
Bane looked across the field and smiled. “Now it’s just you and me, necromancer.”
Constantin, starting to look a hell of a lot less certain than he had before, took a step back. “I’ll live to fight another day, vampire. And we will have your territory. The Chamber is moving into North America, and we’re starting here, just like we did hundreds of years ago.” He raised his arms again, but this time, Bane could feel the necromancer call to his dark magic.
And he was ready for it.
Instead of trying to block or defend, he stepped sideways into the Between and—half a second later—stepped out directly in front of Constantin’s ugly, sneering face.
“Not this time, asshole.”
And then he ripped the necromancer’s head off and, using an extra push of magic, set it on fire and hurled it all the way down the hill into the river.
…
Ryan caught the warlock’s boot in both hands and twisted, hard, because she’d learned self-defense a long time before she’d ever been involved with magic, warlocks, or vampires. Then she punched her in the side of the knee, dislocating her patella and knocking her to the ground, where Sylvie lay clutching her leg and shrieking.
Ryan jumped up off the ground. “That’s anatomy class, you witch!”
Sylvie, her shrieks turning into whimpers, started to chant, and Ryan crouched down and punched her in the face. “I don’t think so. You’re done here. Give up, or I’ll really hurt you.”
“I will. I surrender! Please don’t hurt me anymore,” the warlock begged, tears starting to run down her face.
“That’s what I thought.” Ryan stood again and turned to find Bane—to see what was happening—and suddenly, Meara raced past her, carrying a freaking sword.
Before Ryan could utter a word, Meara swung the sword with one powerful motion, and Sylvie’s head rolled off her shoulders and down the hill.
Ryan stared, speechless, and then slowly turned to face Meara. “What? But…but I defeated her. She was—”
“She was getting ready to stab you in the back,” Meara said, pointing to a slim dagger still clutched in the headless body’s hands. “And the blade is undoubtedly poisoned, because that’s what they do. Putains de démonistes.”
Ryan started shaking with the aftershock of adrenaline and a healthy dose of belated fear, but then she whirled around to find Bane, only then noticing that every single zombie—and there must have been hundreds of them—was down. The magic that had animated them was gone.
“Bane!” She grabbed Meara. “Where is he? Did he—is he?”
A rush of wind from directly above her alerted Ryan to his presence before she saw him. Before his feet even touched the ground, he was pulling her into his arms.
“You’re unharmed?” She frantically searched him for evidence of any injury. “I was so afraid for you!”
He closed his eyes, clutched her to him, and started swearing in something that sounded like Old English. “You were afraid for me? I’m an extremely powerful, three-hundred-year-old vampire! I was terrified for you. Never do that to me again!”
She started to kiss him but then stopped, frantic again. “Bram Stoker! Is he okay? The zombies—”
Rowf!
The dog, limping only a little, came galloping over to them, leaping over the piles of bones and bodies on his way. She knelt and hugged his giant, furry neck and cried a little, but then she checked him for injuries.
Bane, his hand on her shoulder, as if he couldn’t bear to stop touching her, blew out a deep breath. Meara walked up and stood on Ryan’s other side, facing the carnage on the grounds.
“Brave boy. He’ll need a few sutures. I’ll take care of it inside,” she told Meara and Bane.
When she stood, giving Bram Stoker one final hug first, she finally got a real look at the extent of the destruction.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. The remains of hundreds of corpses, two warlocks, and three men wearing MC vests covered the grass.
A tall, dark man who carried himself like a leader—like a warrior—walked over to them.
“Reynolds,” Bane said, holding out his hand. “Thanks for the backup.”
They shook hands, and Reynolds nodded to Meara and Ryan. “We lost one of ours and two of yours, I’m sorry to say. But better this than the thousands of people Savannah would have lost to these monsters.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Bane said. “And thanks again. Do you want to borrow a truck to transport your man?”
The alpha nodded, and Luke, bloody but alive, walked over to them. “I’ll take care of it. What are we going to do with all these bodies and skeletons, though?”
Bane started to shake his head, but then a beam of brilliant light pierced through the night sky, spearing to the ground directly in front of them, and a voice like thunder shattered the night sky, causing everybody still on the field to flinch.
I MAY HAVE AN IDEA ABOUT THAT.
Ryan, her heart rate still not quite back to normal, smiled.
“Hello, Dad.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Three hours later, Ryan stepped out of the shower and smiled at Bane. “Am I a badass or what?”
He held out a towel, grinning, loving everything about having her here, with him, safe.
And naked. Especially naked.
“Oh, you’re definitely a badass.”
“I’m hoping my father will show up periodically to actually teach me how to be what I am instead of just popping by in times of crisis,” she said, toweling off her hair and then wrapping a dry towel around her luscious body.
“I hope we don’t have any more times of crisis,” he said fervently, pulling her into his arms and holding her so tightly she could never, ever escape. “I saw you go down whe
n Sylvie attacked you. I love you, Dr. St. Cloud, and don’t you ever frighten me like that again, or I’ll have to take desperate measures.”
“Such as?”
“They’re so desperate, I haven’t even dreamed them up yet.”
She laughed, and he kissed her, because he couldn’t help it.
He kissed her, because she’d brought life, and love, and hope into his heart.
He kissed her, because he intended to spend eternity kissing her.
And then pulled off the towel she wore, wrapped a blanket around her, lifted her into his arms, and flew out the open window. Holding her tightly in his embrace, exactly where he planned to keep her, forever.
She clung to him, but there wasn’t a trace of fear on her beautiful face. Instead, she let out a joyful whoop.
“We’re flying! Bane, we’re flying!”
He laughed and flew up and out over the river to show her the beauty of the moon on the water. To give her the sky.
To give her the world.
“I love you, my warrior goddess. And I choose you, now and forever, to be part of my life. We’ll fight our battles together.”
“I love you, too. And you promise to let me stand by your side, till death do us not part, and never lock me in a room again?” She kissed him and then started laughing. “And take me flying whenever I ask? Wait! Do you think angels—Nephilim—can fly, too? I need to ask my father, if he ever shows up again. Or maybe just try it!”
He groaned, getting the sudden visual of his fearless doctor jumping off the roof of the house to experiment with flying.
“Maybe only try it when I’m with you, okay?” He kissed her again. “And anyway, why would I bother trying to lock you in? I hear you’re great at picking locks.”
“I’m great at a lot of things,” she told him in a very sultry voice. “Maybe when we’re done flying, I can show you a few of them.”
He shouted out a laugh, tightened his embrace, and flew higher and faster, showing her Savannah—their territory, their home.
Their future. Together, forever, for the rest of their lives.