Blood of the Lost

by Shannon Mayer

  “I agree. But it has never been a game to me.”

  Orion seemed perplexed by my words. “A game is a game. There are winners and losers.”

  “But if you’re a loser, is it a game?” I stepped toward him, the katana arcing through the last of the night air, faster than any blade I’d ever used. I followed it up with a roundhouse, catching Orion in the side of the head. He reeled back and off the slab. Too far. I needed him up there with me. I folded my arms over my chest and snorted. “So you want to rule the world, but you can’t fight without your voodoo magic?”

  Snarling, his face twisting into a grimace that let his true colors show. He clambered onto the slab with me, the monster in him glimmering through the thin Veil of humanity he held over himself like a cloak.

  Back and forth, we fought, our weapons never drawing blood as we pushed each other to the limit. Other demons came close, but none stepped in to help him. At one point, he saw me looking.

  “If I can’t kill you on my own, I am no leader,” he said, then spit at my feet a glob of black saliva.

  What he said hit me hard, right in the heart. I wasn’t alone.

  That was what Lark had been saying all along. That even the smallest piece of the puzzle like Jonathan was important to make this picture whole.

  I didn’t have to do this alone, so why was I trying so hard to?

  “LIAM!” I screamed his name, knowing he would hear me no matter how far away he was. “ALEX. BERGET. DORAN. PAMELA. LARK. EVE. OPHELIA. PETA. CHARLIE. WILL. JONATHAN. CALLIOPE.”

  The names of my family, the ones I loved beyond anything this world could ever offer me. Orion’s eyes widened. “That’s cheating!” He lunged forward, his sword aimed for my belly. I spread my arms wide and let it drive into me.

  The blade slid through me to the hilt. I stared up at Orion, the physical pain nothing to the echoes of what was coming. “No. This is family. And I don’t have to do this on my own,” I said. Alex tackled him from behind, dropping him to the slab with a meaty thunk. Liam was right on top of him, then Doran for good measure. Pamela was there at my side, breathless with exertion as she wove a spell around Orion. “I don’t know how well it will hold.” She looked at me, her face paling. “I have to heal you, Rylee.”

  I shook my head. “No. Don’t heal me, no matter what happens.” Dropping to my knees, struggling to breathe around the gut wound, I scooped up one end of the rope Doran had placed earlier when prepping the slab. “These will hold the big bastard.”

  I made a slipknot and put it over Orion’s left wrist. Lark copied for his right wrist and ankle. Peta fought beside her, slashing any demon that got too close. Berget caught me as I slumped backward and onto my ass, the gut wound finally taking me down.

  “You’re almost done, Rylee,” she whispered into my ear. I nodded, the sword slipping from my fingers. I touched the wound at my stomach and Pamela rushed to me. I shook my head.

  “No, this has to bleed.”

  Around us the air shifted and a thunderstorm rolled in at a speed that was anything but natural. Lark came to my side and put a hand to my cheek. “The elementals are turning on each other.”

  I stared up at her in shock. “They’re what?”

  “I knew this would happen. They bought us the time we needed, but I never expected them to play nice for this long.”

  Peta shook her head, her green eyes sorrowful. “Stupid idiots, they will pay for this one day.”

  The storm broke over us, big fat raindrops falling on my upturned face as Lark scooped me up and laid me on the slab beside Orion. He thrashed, but the ropes held him.

  “Ropes made from unicorn hair,” I whispered to him with a smile. I lay there, feeling the time slip away. “Lark, you know what has to happen?”

  She bent over me, her eyes brimming with tears. “I do.” She touched my cheek gently and stood back. “Say your goodbyes.”

  Pamela startled like she’d been shot in the ass. “Goodbyes? No, this is—”

  There was no chance for her to say anything else. The demons around us were no longer held back by Lark’s groups. The few elementals left—Cactus, Lark, and her sister Belladonna—were the only ones who’d stayed. The remaining wolves and half-breed trolls circled tightly around us, but their numbers had been easily cut in half.

  Lark held my hand. “I can’t help them and do the ceremony. There is no time for anything else.”

  I nodded, a warm fatigue spilling over me. The wound in my stomach was bad. “You’d better hurry then, I’m not sure there is going to be much blood left in me.”

  Lark nodded and let me go. “Cactus, Bella, Pamela. Make a circle, hold them as long as you can.”

  Not too long, though. It wouldn’t be too long and this would be done. My family would be safe.

  The world would be safe.

  Marcella would be safe.

  CHAPTER 46

  LARK

  THE CEREMONY WAS simple. Seven points of the body bled out into the slab, a single invocation spoken over each participant and the blood would be drawn out of them in a rush like water receding ahead of a tsunami.

  I looked up at Eve hovering above us, out of range of the demons’ arrows and spears. “Harpy, bring me the boy, Jonathan.”

  She let out a screech and shot into the fading darkness.

  Peta stayed close to me, her strength helping me focus my mind on what had to be done. “Thank you,” I whispered. She gave a soft mewl of acknowledgment, but said nothing. No doubt she was picking up the tumultuous emotions swirling through me.

  At the altar, I bent over the demon first. He glared up at me. “Blackbird isn’t done with you yet, chicky.”

  Taking the katana I’d made ten years prior for Rylee, before I ever knew her, before I ever knew what my role would be, I sliced it across each of his wrists in a vertical slash. I moved to his legs, then his belly, one cut over his heart and then paused at his throat. “Any last words?”

  “You’ve not seen the last of us. Demons will not be held back, not even if you close the Veil. We’ll find a way. We always do.”

  I refused to admit his words chilled me to the bone. Shrugging, I slid the katana across his throat and spoke the invocation. “Signantes velum.”

  A bolt of lightning ripped out of the sky and drove through his body, superheating his blood. The black liquid poured out of him so fast his skin shriveled and tightened over his face and chest, until he was nothing but a wizened body that looked as though it had been mummified for a thousand years.

  “Tell me that isn’t going to happen to me,” Rylee whispered, her eyes locked on Orion—or what was left of him—beside her on the slab.

  “It’s not. That was because he has no soul.” I tried not to hear the sounds of the battle around us. Alex pressed close to her on the other side.

  “I’m here, Rylee. To the end, whatever that is.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t touch her once the ceremony begins, Alex. No one can until her blood is drained, or their fate will be tangled with hers. She dies, you die, understand?”

  He looked at me, his golden eyes wide and brimming with tears. “Then don’t let her die, Lark.”

  My jaw tight, I nodded. “I’m going to be doing my best not to let that happen.”

  Cactus grunted. “Hurry, Lark, we’re losing ground.”

  Hurry, hurry. I called Berget over. “We start with you. The fanged must make their mark. You have to say, ‘for the fanged, you bleed.’” I handed her the katana and then pointed at Rylee’s left wrist.

  This was about to get very, very real.

  CHAPTER 47

  RYLEE

  I STARED UP AT Berget and gave her a smile. “It’s okay.”

  She shook her head, tears falling from her pristine blue eyes. “No, I just got you back.”

  “I know.” I wouldn’t lie, not now.

  She dropped to her knees beside me on the slab, her arms going around my neck. “I love you, Rylee.”

  “I
love you, too, baby sister. Look after Marcella for me, help her be strong and kind. And maybe not such a potty mouth as me.”

  Sobbing, she pulled back from me and put the katana against my left wrist. Holding her lips between her teeth she drew the blade over my skin. I didn’t even feel it, wouldn’t have known I was wounded except for the warmth trickling down my arm. “For the fanged, you bleed.”

  Lark touched her on the shoulder. “Hold the circle, keep the demons at bay.”

  Berget stumbled back and leapt into the fray with a war cry that made me think the demons had best run from her.

  “Ophelia,” Lark said, and my dragon—yes, my dragon, not my father’s any longer—reached out with the tip of her claw and cut my left leg. “For the winged, you bleed.”

  As if on cue, Eve swooped low and dropped Jonathan right at my feet. Lark handed him the blade and he cut into my right leg. “For the psychics, you bleed.”

  Lark took the katana from him. She looked at me. “Pamela or Louisa?”

  “I will do it,” Pamela said, striding over to us. Gods, she made me proud.

  She took a deep breath and took the katana, her words shaking. “Rylee, you know you aren’t going to die. You can’t.”

  I smiled up at her. “I love you, Pam. You are my other little sister. Look out for each other.”

  “Love is the key,” she whispered. “It always was. You loved me, and that brought me back from the darkness. You never gave up. Please don’t give up, Rylee.” She leaned over and slid the blade over my right wrist. “For the magicked, you bleed.”

  She kissed her fingers and then held her palm up to me. I couldn’t move and I hated I was going to break a promise to her. To all of them.

  Lark’s voice softened. Alex hadn’t moved from my side, not during the whole time. “For the furred, Alex. Can you do it?”

  He swallowed hard and his tears spilled over onto his cheeks. “Yes. Though I will hate myself forever for taking part in this.”

  “Hey,” I said softly, hiccupping around the sobs reverberating through my chest. “Don’t you dare change, Alex. Not for a split second.”

  He held the katana carefully, putting the tip over my heart and drawing a line across it. “For the furred, you bleed.”

  Lark took the blade from him and shooed him backward.

  Tears dripped from her eyes, down her cheeks, and splashed onto the slab beside my head. “Goodbye, my friend.”

  “See you on the flip side, Lark.”

  She drew the blade across my throat. “Rylee of the Blood. For the world, you bleed. For the world, you sacrifice. For the world, you die.”

  I closed my eyes, the rush of warmth flowing over me as my blood slipped from my veins. Liam cried out and Lark yelled at him not to touch me. We’d said our goodbyes; not to say I wouldn’t have liked to hold him again. To whisper one last time that I loved him.

  But if I did that, I might not ever let him go, or let any of them go, for that matter. Beside me, Alex sobbed, his cries turning into howls that shattered the night air and another piece of my heart broke.

  I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave any of them behind.

  Around me the world faded and the Veil slipped over me, flashes of each level as I slid through. Their meaning becoming known to me.

  The first Veil hid the unseen world of the supernatural. The second level was of dreams and visions. I’d been there more than a time or two. The third Veil carried ghosts that couldn’t move on for one reason or another.

  The fourth Veil stumped me, and I stayed for a moment to take it in. Books were everywhere, like a giant library that contained everything ever written in the world, both human and supernatural; a place to seek answers, I understood.

  The fifth level was a dungeon . . . a place of penance for supernatural assholes. Several trolls hissed at me, including a one-eyed, dual-dicked prick I knew all too fucking well. I flipped him off as I passed into the sixth Veil.

  The realm of heroes, those who would stand between the world and the evil that would swallow it whole.

  I stopped moving and stared at the first person, unable to believe what I was seeing.

  “Dox.” I whispered his name and he gave a roar, scooping me into one of his infamous hugs, his blue-skinned arms squeezing me hard enough he should have cracked ribs. I hugged him back, unable to stop the tears. “Dox, you’re going to be a father.”

  “Rylee, I know. I know.” He set me down, grinning. The triplets, Sla, Lop, and Dev surrounded us, laughing, their smiles infectious. Their violet skin the same shade as Sas’s, but their attitudes couldn’t have been more different from hers. They each slapped me on the back.

  “Goose feathers and fuck a duck, you did good, Tracker,” one of them said, and I shook my head. I would never get the hang of their cursing.

  “Thanks.”

  A laugh I would know if my ears were plugged made me push past them. Giselle smiled at me and held out her arms. “Well done, Rylee girl. I knew you wouldn’t falter.”

  I buried my face in her neck, unashamed to cry in front of her. Of all the people in my life, she’d been there from the beginning. From the first salvage. From the first betrayal, and the first broken promises. The mother of my heart and the one who understood why I did what I did.

  “Hush, you’re here now, and it won’t be long before you can rest.” She smoothed the hair back from my face. I looked up, wiped my face and sniffed.

  “You mean it’s not finished?”

  She shook her head and pointed at the horizon behind us. “You have to close the Veil still, my girl.”

  She turned so I could look past her. Beyond her, the horizon seethed with darkness, glimmering and moving like a giant snake that had twisted its coils in on itself. From the ground, it rose far into the sky. It was a solid wall that seemed to have no end.

  Here and there were flashes of bright light, like grenades popping within the darkness, and they lit up with thousands upon thousands of red gleaming eyes. That was the barrier between us and the seventh Veil, where the demons were supposed to be caged.

  Giselle didn’t let me go. “We are with you, Rylee. The battle will rage on both sides of the Veil. It is why you had to lose so many of your friends and finest warriors. You need an army here, as well.”

  “It’s why I was not afraid to die,” Milly said softly, and I spun to face her.

  Her bright green eyes were clear of Orion’s influence for the first time since I’d known her. But her being in the sixth level surprised me. “You aren’t in the fifth level doing penance? Not that I want you to be!”

  She shook her head. “No. I was a child when Orion took control of me. I fought where I could and that was enough to bring me here.” I grabbed her and hugged her tightly. Another coming home. A friend I thought lost forever only to find her again.

  An arm slid across my shoulders and a rough voice spoke. “Niece. Tell me the babies are safe.”

  I turned and let Erik hold me, seeing again his death at the hands of the mob of trolls and how he’d protected Marcella with his own body. “They are. Liam got them out of the battle.”

  A big sigh slipped out of him. “Good. I could never forgive myself if something happened to them.”

  “Thank you, Uncle,” I said softly. “You gave your life for her.”

  He grinned. “I wouldn’t have done it for just anyone.”

  Frank was next, tucking his hands into his pockets. I held out a hand to him and hugged him, then kissed him hard on the lips. “That’s from Pamela.”

  He blushed. “Is she . . . okay?”

  “She will be. She’s a tough girl, and she loved you.”

  He smiled, and I could see how easy it would be for her to fall for him. “I know. It’s why this was worth it.”

  Love, it all came back to love.

  I looked around us, unable to believe how many friends we’d lost. Deanna was there too, as were all the shamans who’d died. The coven of witches, and most of
the supernatural world who’d died at the hands of Orion’s pox.

  On this side of the Veil, there were more supernaturals to fight for us than on the other side.

  Giselle’s words, what she’d said, actually sunk in. “Warriors. You said they came here to fight . . . .” I couldn’t breathe past the single possibility that lay ahead of me.

  My mentor smiled and Erik gave a laugh. “Yeah, those two have been waiting a long time to see you. Go.” He pushed me and I started running in the direction he shoved. I ran, hopping on one leg and then the other to try and see further past all the people who’d come to greet me. The supernaturals around me parted, letting me through.

  Ahead of me, two figures approached me at a walk.

  He was tall, had light auburn hair, and moved a lot like a younger version of Erik. I knew his name was Bram, but that was it.

  She could have been my mirror reflection except for the pitch-black hair. Her eyes met mine, tri-colors swirling. Green, gold, and brown, like mine. I skidded to a stop, but she kept coming forward. Elle, her name was Elle. My mother.

  “Rylee,” she said my name, and I put my hands to the back of my head.

  “Is this happening?”

  A smile quirked her lips. “What did you think would happen if you died? That you would be left alone in the darkness? You’ve touched too many lives, Rylee. And you have made us so proud.”

  She reached out to me and touched my cheek. I fell into her arms, and then my father wrapped his arms around me. Their strength was my strength, their hearts beat in time with mine.

  For a few moments, I could be a child, protected from the world by parents who loved her.

  Bram pulled back first, his eyes sparkling with humor. “Time to kill the demons, daughter.”

  Daughter. Damn, that sounded nice.

  “Yes, but how are we going to get all the way over there?” I pointed at the blackness. As big and obvious as it was, it had to be at least a hundred miles away.