“You feel that?” Atieno asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s coming from over there.” Atieno pointed to a large old tomb. The vault was eight feet tall with an angel on the top. An iron fence enclosed the old grave.
“Should we call for backup?” I asked.
“If he’s in there, he knows we are here,” Atieno told me as he stepped toward the tomb.
“So, what are we going to do? Knock and ask to come in?”
Atieno didn’t answer as he opened the old gate. The gate screeched. If Synth hadn’t known we were near, he knew now. I held my breath, waiting for him to jump out and start a huge fight. Instead, nothing happened, and I let out my breath.
“Ready?” Atieno asked.
“Sure. What other option do I have?” I asked him with a straight face.
Atieno grinned. “Let’s do this.”
Atieno twisted the handle to the vault’s door and tugged it opened with ease. Darkness was the only thing I could see as we took a step inside. I reached for the flashlight in my bag and lit up the six-foot-by-six-foot room. Nothing. Not even a coffin was in the vault.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” I grumbled.
Atieno gave me a panty-dropping smile. “Hold on. We’re just getting started.”
The inside of the vault was chilly. New Orleans’s heat no longer beat down on us. Light bled through the cracks in the wall. I stood with my hands on my hips as Atieno dragged his hand along the wall.
“When are you going to admit nothing’s here?” I asked. “Let’s go look in the one next door. Maybe your vampire senses are off. I could feel the dark magic in the area. It feels the same in here as it did outside.”
“Patience,” Atieno whispered.
“Don’t talk to me like a little kid. We’re losing daylight.”
“Got it.” He looked over his shoulder. “Move,” Atieno s.
I stepped back until I bumped into the cold wall. A two-foot-square section in the middle of the room slid back, leaving a hole in the middle of the tomb. I shined the flashlight down the dark abyss.
“I think I saw a snake,” I mumbled to Atieno. The sexy man standing on the other side of the hole smiled. “Snakes are a deal breaker. Trolls, demons, and other crazy creatures are okay. Not snakes.”
“They’re harmless,” Atieno said. “Come on, I’ll protect you from the creatures under the ground.”
“Famous last words,” I said.
“I saw you take on a panther and a warlock,” Atieno commented.
With each step I took down the dark hole, an uneasy feeling came over me. When we reached the bottom, I moved the flashlight’s beam around. The underground room was larger than the tomb above. Plaques adorned the wall every few feet. I walked over and wiped the dust off one.
“During the eighteen hundreds, rich families built these underground tombs to help stop the grave robbers.”
“I never knew these were here.” I walked to the next plaque. “How did they keep the water out? I thought everyone was buried above ground because of the water table.”
“Magic,” Atieno said. “The only people who have these had money, power, and connections to the magical world.”
“No one’s down here,” I pointed out. “Let’s go check another one. I really don’t want to be in the cemetery after dark.”
“He was here. Look.” Atieno pointed to the far wall. “Magic left from Fate. He had her down here.” Atieno let out a frustrated sigh.
“You mean that?” I could see a faint rainbow. “That could also be caused by crystals in the air becoming vertically aligned. The reflection of the flashlight and a tiny ice crystal in the atmosphere can cause the rainbow color.”
“Or Fate was here,” Atieno said grudgingly. “You haven’t worked as many supernatural cases as I have.”
“Doesn’t mean you know more than me,” I bit back.
“You’re right.” Atieno smirked.
“Oh, can you say that again so I can record it?”
Atieno was next to me in a second, and his arms were wrapped around me. He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “You’re right.”
My giggle echoed through the room. “Let’s head back up and see if Mike found anything at Georgina’s house.”
“Or we could stay down here and have a quickie,” Atieno mumbled against my neck.
“With dead people surrounding us?” I ducked under his arms and ran up the stone stairs. Atieno picked me up on his way and threw me over his shoulder.
I giggled and pounded on Atieno’s back. “Put me down.”
Atieno left me over his shoulder and pulled on the door. It didn’t budge.
“Open the door.”
“It won’t open.” Atieno set me down. He gripped the door and pulled harder. The door didn’t budge.
Atieno continued to work on the door while I put the flashlight back in my bag and grabbed my phone. I hadn’t realized I had turned the volume off. I had thirteen missed calls, all from Mike. I quickly dialed his number, and he answered on the first call.
“Jesus, why haven’t you answered?”
“Did you find Georgina?”
“No, but the warlock has your grandma.”
16
My fingers sparked purple. I didn’t hear what else Mike said. I closed my eyes and pictured the fire from hell. It was easier this time, after Atieno explained hell’s depths. The ring of fire burned in my head. I could feel my magic growing. “Step back.” Atieno moved to the other side of the room, and I let my magic go. The tomb door crumbled under the burst of magic.
“Damn, that is hot,” he said softly. He was beside me a second later. “If we didn’t have to take down a bad guy, I would fuck you right now.”
Mike huffed on the phone. “I need you to meet me at the end of Robert E Lee Boulevard where the old bunker from the Cold War was built.” He paused for a second. “You were right. Jared wasn’t on our side.”
I didn’t want to be right, but I was glad I had sent Wrath to help. “Is he alive?”
Mike groaned. “Nope. Wrath cut his head off. She doesn’t do anything half-assed. I called a cleanup crew from the council to take care of Georgina’s house.”
“Was she there?” I asked.
“Someone killed her, and it didn’t look recent. If I had to guess, Synth killed her two weeks ago.”
As I talked to Mike on the phone, Atieno and I jogged through the cemetery. We were only fifteen minutes away. I could hear the sounds of other cars through the phone.
“How do we know he’s at the bunker with Grandma?”
Wrath said something in the background before her voice came over the phone. “Pandora?”
“Yes.”
“Jared put a gun to Mike’s head when they arrived at Georgina’s and told him he was supposed to call you. He wanted Mike to lure you to the house, and he planned to capture you. Jared didn’t expect me. I came out and chopped his head off. Damn, it feels good to kill things. Riker doesn’t let me kill his pack when we fight.”
“Wrath,” I ground out while pulling on my magic. We were close to the front gate, and I didn’t want to stop to scale the fence or figure out the stupid hell portal. I let the flash of magic go, and the gate collapsed.
“Sorry. It’s been so long since I killed. So after his body dropped to the ground, he got a text. He’s working for Synth. The instructions were to bring Mike to the location where we’re heading now. We decided to use the information to our advantage and told Synth we captured you.”
“How do you know he has my grandma?”
I pumped my fist as I ran. As Atieno ran next to me, his eyes flashed green. His lion was close to the surface. I threw the door open to the SUV and climbed in. Atieno jumped in the driver’s seat and put the car in gear before I closed my door.
“When we told Synth we had you, he boasted that he had your grandma. I called Dad to find out about Paxdon and why he wasn’t watching your grandmother. Your grandmother insiste
d she was going to her bridge game and didn’t need a bodyguard. She singed the hair on his furry ass, so he went back to hell, grumbling that your grandmother is ungrateful.”
Atieno pressed his foot down on the gas, and the SUV shot forward. My fingers wouldn’t stop sparking purple. I couldn’t lose my grandma, because I couldn’t bring her back again. She made me promise. I gripped the door as Atieno took the corner at high speed and slammed on the brakes when a kid with a basketball ran out into the middle of the street.
“Meet us a block down,” she said before the line went dead.
“I can’t lose her.” I wasn’t sure who I intended those words for.
“You won’t,” Atieno said as he gripped my hand.
“Why is he holding her?”
“He’s trying to bring his love out of exile. I’ve heard over the years that Georgina had a device to siphon the powers out of a living human. It makes witches even stronger.”
“He’s mine. I’m going to slowly pull his body apart and watch the life drain from him.”
“That’s a little dark,” Atieno commented.
“He took her life once, and now he has her again. I know I wear a badge and believe in the justice system. But the gods already tried their form of justice, and if he was able to break out of exile, how long will it be before he breaks out of a human jail?” I paused for a second. “I know the council has prisons too, but I don’t trust them any more than the ones they put humans in. Are you going to stop me?”
Atieno was a member of the council and needed to follow the rules. I held my breath, waiting for the answer.
It felt like forever before he responded. “I’ll hold his head so you can cut it off.”
“That’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever said,” I replied. “Once we take this fucker down, I want to spend the next week on vacation in your bed. You promised me a week’s worth of sex when we mated.”
He nodded his head. “I can surely do that. We don’t even have to limit it to a week.” He winked before taking a corner and pulling up behind Wrath and Mike. Next to them stood a translucent figure. My best friend was coming to the fight.
I threw open the door before the SUV came to a stop and ran full speed toward my friend. I stopped when I got close. It was creepy when I could poke through her body.
“You can leave the house now?” I asked.
Mike smiled at my friend. “Wrath pointed out a crystal on our way out of Georgina’s house and told me it would let Sasha leave. We stopped by Sasha’s house, and she was able to come with us.”
I looked at my friend, and she had a large smile on her face. “Are you sure you want to go into battle with us?” I asked.
Atieno pressed his hand to my back. I felt his warmth through my shirt. The only vampire parts of him were his teeth and his superspeed. “Honey, she’s a ghost. Nobody can kill her. But she can watch and be our eyes. You can float, right?”
Sasha’s lip turned down. “I’ve never tried.” She closed her eyes and concentrated. She started to lift off the ground. “This is so cool. Look at me, Mike.”
“You look good, babe, but let’s not fly until we can get you a change of clothes.”
Sasha’s face turned red, and she tried to pull her dress down further. “Looks like I won’t be the eye in the sky,” she mumbled.
Wrath unsheathed her sword. “Let’s go take care of this fucker. I’m ready to kill some creatures.”
“Synth is mine. He killed my grandma once, and now he’s kidnapped her,” I told everyone as we stood in a circle, looking down the block.
From above ground, it didn’t look like much. I only knew where it was because of the grass mound above it. An old wooden staircase led up the side of the hill.
“Are we just going to walk in?” Mike asked.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t plan to wait for an invitation. I also don’t expect you to come with. We might not come out of this alive.”
“We are the daughters of Lucifer. Fear us!” Wrath shouted as she raised her sword to the sky.
“Okay, not sure how to follow that,” I said.
Our makeshift group headed toward the bunker as we eyed our surroundings. With each step, the air was heavy and hard to breathe. It reminded me of summer, when the humidity was a hundred degrees and the air was thick.
“We’re in the right spot.” Atieno pulled his shirt over his head. Mike was doing the same. My feet faltered.
“You’re stripping here?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mike and Atieno said at the same time.
“But everyone is going to see.” I didn’t add that I didn’t want any women to see Atieno naked.
Atieno smiled at me and walked over and pressed his lips to mine. “If I shift in my clothes, they will shred, and when I shift back, I won’t have anything to wear.”
“Fine,” I grumbled.
Mike and Atieno completely stripped and put their clothes behind a bush before shifting. Atieno shifted more quickly than Mike. Atieno’s lion padded across the sidewalk and rubbed his large head against my leg. When I ran my hands through his mane, he purred.
I looked up from Atieno and couldn’t help but laugh. Sasha was riding Mike like a horse. Atieno turned to see what I was looking at, and he let out a huff at the sight.
“Let’s go kick this warlock’s ass,” I growled.
I opened the door and walked in, Atieno at my side. Wrath and Mike followed a few feet behind. Sasha was still on Mike’s back. The door closed behind us with a creak. I used the flashlight on my phone to look around. A cement staircase took us down.
Graffiti lined the walls of the stairwell as we walked. I could faintly hear a chant. It grew louder with each step.
When we made it to the bottom of the stairs, we walked into what looked like an old-time room where the army might decide battle strategies.
I clasped the handle on the door at the far end of the room and waited for everyone to nod. I pulled the door open and stepped through, the others following, single file, behind me.
The warlock stood on a podium with a lifeless body next to him. It looked like a sacrificial table. Six men in robes walked around the table, chanting.
When the door slammed closed behind us, the six men stopped and turned our way.
The tallest stepped forward. “So nice of you to join the party.”
My grandmother slumped on the ground in a cage on one side of the table. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen sat in a cage on the other side. Like my grandmother, her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving. I figured she had to be Fate. She wore long white robes.
“Why don’t you just stop, and I won’t have to kill you?” My magic started to course through my body.
The warlock let out an evil laugh. “You and what army?”
“Dude, there are only six of you. I think I like my odds.”
Sometimes, I wished I would learn to keep my mouth shut and not cause more issues. The warlock looked up at the ceiling, and it turned purple. Demons and trolls dropped from the sky. They kept raining down. I couldn’t see any way of stopping them. I let the magic in my hands go toward the portal, and nothing happened.
Atieno and Wrath tore after the demons, killing them as quickly as they rained down.
“I’ve gotten my powers back. There is no stopping me,” Synth said. He closed his eyes and chanted. A huge monster, part dragon, part snake, dropped from the portal.
17
The drakon dropped to the ground and rattled the underground bunker. The creature had a dragon head and a snake head. We had had a fifty-fifty shot at winning the fight a second ago. Now I had to guess our shot at winning was closer to ten percent.
The dragon side of the monster roared, producing a trail of fire. Atieno nudged my leg, and I pulled at my magic, hoping I could produce a shield. I wished I had taken those magic lessons. I held up my hands and blasted my magic at the fire. The fire diminished, and Wrath used that moment to kick off the wall and run up the side of
the dragon.
She jumped from the dragon’s head and stabbed the snake in the mouth. I was so busy watching Wrath climb the monster like a jungle gym that I didn’t see the tail coming until it was too late. It swept me across the room, and I hit the wall with a thud. The air went out of my lungs.
“The odds aren’t looking good here,” Sasha yelled from the ceiling.
The dragon reared back, and Wrath jumped, leaving her sword embedded in the snake’s head. The snake hadn’t stopped trying to bite Atieno. The only thing stopping it was the sword through its mouth.
I dodged three demons as I ran toward the altar. We needed to take Synth out so the shitstorm would die.
The snake hissed as it came towards me. Its mouth was still pinned closed by Wrath’s sword.
The small area was filled with monsters, demons, trolls, and the big-ass two-headed thing. Sasha hung up near the ceiling, punching the air. At least my friend wouldn’t completely die today. She might watch all of us die. The air was thick with dark magic. It made it hard to breathe.
“Why don’t you fight me?” I snarled at the warlock.
He stepped away from the center altar and raised his sword in his hands. I sent a bolt of magic, knocking it from his grasp.
Synth’s hood fell back, and I could see his face for the first time. He was handsome. I expected someone so evil to be as ugly on the outside as he was on the inside. Instead, he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It didn’t matter. He was going to die tonight. No more killing innocents.
I lost count of how many demons and trolls surrounded us. I could hear Atieno roar. I had faith that my future mate held his own. I kept my eyes on the warlock walking toward me. I sent a bolt of magic at him, he tried to block it, but he was too late. It knocked him backward. He got up more quickly than I expected. When he stood, blood dripped from his lip. He brushed his arm across his face, wiping away the blood.
A demon shoved me in the back, pushing me closer to the warlock. I heard Wrath yell with glee before a troll screamed. The purple portal was still open. I stepped back from the warlock and sent a blot toward the side of the portal. The ceiling crumbled a little under the impact. The portal disappeared, and demons stopped dropping from the ceiling. I let out a sigh. Now we just had to kill the massive amount on the ground along with the drakon. The drakon swiped his tail toward me, and I jumped just in time to avoid being taken out.
Fated Mates of the Underworld, Books 1-3 Page 25