Blood Rite

by E.J. Stevens

  “And you’re sure it wasn’t your cleanup crew?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “As soon as one of my cats arrived to watch the front gates, I returned to the service entrance to wait for our crew. When I got here, the dumpster was empty. I called my people and they were still dealing with a job on the other side of town.”

  That wasn’t ominous or anything.

  “What kind of job?” I asked.

  “None of your business, princess,” he said.

  I fisted my hands and I stalked forward. Torn wasn’t cowed, but he did roll his eyes and elaborate. I relaxed my hands, but kept a wide stance, ready for a fight. I was sick to death of secrets.

  “Let’s just say that some of Club Nexus’ clientele get sloppy after a night of drinking,” he said. “My cats have been known to follow them. Sometimes we even clean up their messes for a price.”

  “And a little blackmail, I’m sure,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

  Torn shrugged.

  “The point is, my men were busy and didn’t make it here in time to gather any clues or scrub the scene for human eyes,” he said.

  The skin at my neck itched. Speaking of eyes, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched.

  Before I could ask Torn if he’d placed any cats here as lookouts, a woman leapt from the roof of the maintenance building to the broken pavement. Ceff reached for his trident, but I held up a gloved hand.

  “Wait,” I said. “I know her.”

  Her clothes were threadbare and covered a bit more skin than the last time I’d seen her, but I wasn’t mistaken. I’d recognize this particular succubus no matter what she was wearing.

  “Delilah,” I said with a wary nod.

  “Misss Granger,” she said.

  “You got any idea what’s going on here?” I asked.

  The question was vague, but I’d learned that when questioning witnesses, it was best to cast a wide net. I also wasn’t sure that Delilah was just a witness. I flicked my wrist, palming one of my knives. If she did turn on us, I’d need a weapon I could use from a few yards away. Getting up close and person with Delilah was not an option. Thankfully, she kept her distance.

  “I can ssshow you,” she said, cocking a hip and gesturing toward the side of the building.

  I was beginning to hate that alley and the nightmares that it led to.

  “If you want to show us the graveyard, don’t bother,” I said. “We’ve seen it.”

  She smirked and laughed, the movement drawing Torn’s attention to her chest.

  “I know,” she said. “I sssaw you. But you didn’t find him. You didn’t sssee him.”

  “Him, as in, the necromancer?” I asked.

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  “He isss more than that,” she said with a nod. “And he mussst be killed.”

  “I like her,” Torn said.

  Of course, he did. Delilah was a female Torn, wearing a bit less leather. If I left it up to them, we’d be neck deep in zombies and necromancer blood right now. Either that or an orgy.

  I blinked and returned my attention to the case. For once, happy to focus on our zombie problem.

  “If we wanted to kill this necromancer, and that’s a big if,” I said, ignoring Torn’s muttered “no fun” comment. “We’d need to know where to find him. I’m guessing he’s inside the Haunted House ride where all of the zombies are headed.”

  Delilah nodded.

  “And inside his portal,” I said.

  Her eyes widened.

  “Yeah, I know about the portal,” I said. “At least, I know that he uses a portal. I saw that much in a vision, but I don’t know anything about what’s on the other side.”

  The succubus took an involuntary step back.

  “But I think she does,” Torn said.

  He tilted his head and watched Delilah closely.

  “It’sss a long ssstory,” she said.

  “I’m all ears,” I said.

  Chapter 18

  Delilah had been spying on the necromancer and his zombie creations for a long time. In fact, she’d been watching since the beginning.

  The Green Lady had banished the succubus and I’d freed her, but Delilah didn’t go far. In all the ways that mattered, she never really left. While she valued her freedom, she missed her surrogate family. She might no longer be one of the Green Lady’s loyal subjects, but she would always remain loyal to the carnival fae. She would not run from the glaistig’s territory. This had been her home.

  And when the Green Lady up and left in the night, Delilah might have gone with them. But she knew the glaistig’s terrible secret, the way that the faerie queen had solved the problem of where to bury the carnival fae when she’d run out of space. The Green Lady had made a bargain with a necromancer.

  To make the situation worse, the man wasn’t just any old necromancer. Our necromancer was a lich. Scratch that. He was a lich king.

  In Harborsmouth, when it rains monsters, it pours.

  I’d need more info from Father Michael’s occult library, but from what we could piece together, a lich is a scary powerful sorcerer obsessed with becoming immortal. They used blood rites to transform their bodies into a skeletal, corpse-like creature that looked similar to the most ancient vampires.

  Unlike vampires, they did not die to become a monster. They were not truly undead. Their magic, in fact, prevented death, allowing them, with enough bloody sacrifices, to extend their lives indefinitely.

  I had no idea how to fight such a thing.

  “Do you believe her?” Ceff asked, keeping his voice low while Torn and Delilah flirted with each other.

  “I do,” I said.

  Delilah was a conundrum. She’d saved my life more than once, but she also betrayed me in the worst way possible. That had been at the order of her master, the Green Lady, but it still rankled and made her hard for me to trust. So, I did what I’d done with other unreliable witnesses. I asked myself what her motives were. It was clear that she appreciated me freeing her. She was also loyal to her old friends within the carnival fae. Pretty sure the latter was the most important.

  “Then we need to find a way to kill a lich,” he said. “I suggest we pay Father Michael a visit.”

  “Good,” I said, nodding. “I wanted to check in with him anyway. We’ve got a lot of dead faeries walking around and now we have missing victims, parts of them anyway, that might still turn up. When this is all over, I want to know that someone will give these faeries a proper burial.”

  That was a favor best asked in person. Some things just shouldn’t be done over the phone. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation, but I couldn’t put it off until later. With a lich king, a magic portal, and a zombie horde, there might not be a later.

  Chapter 19

  Unfortunately, our trip to visit Father Michael was delayed.

  “You need to hear this, princess,” Torn. He turned to Delilah and ran a hand up and down her arm. “Go on, sweetheart.”

  “The portal hasss a guardian,” she said.

  “Great,” I said. Of course, there were more monsters to deal with. As if a lich king and his growing zombie horde wasn’t bad enough. I was almost missing that time, less than a day ago, when all I had to worry about were zombie gerbils and a pissed off vampire. “Any idea how to defeat this guardian? It’s weaknesses?”

  “Pretty sure it doesn’t have any weaknesses,” Torn said, eyes twinkling with excitement.

  “And why’s that?” I asked, fidgeting with the knives strapped to my forearms.

  Torn wasn’t the only one with something up his sleeve. But I was pretty sure whatever secret he was about to reveal was likely to get me dead. He was enjoying this way too much.

  “Because, princess,” he said, pausing dramatically. “The portal guardian is a dragon.”

  Well, if that wasn’t a punch in the gut. On the upside, it can’t get any weirder than a dragon guardian.

  I was sure that had to b
e the worst possible news of the day. I was wrong.

  “Zzzombie dragon,” Delilah said.

  Of course, it was an Oberon damn zombie dragon.

  “This I’ve got to see,” I muttered.

  “Much as I’d like to fight a dragon, princess,” Torn said. “I was hoping not to get eaten today.”

  Delilah sidled up and nibbled on one of his scarred ears.

  “That’sss too bad,” she said, licking her lips.

  “I stand corrected,” he said.

  Ew, gross.

  “So, um, how big is this dragon?” I asked.

  My chest felt strangely tight, like I was being slowly squeezed to death. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

  “Zombie dragon,” Ceff said.

  I wasn’t sure if he was correcting me or just trying to process the fact that the lich king’s portal was guarded by a zombie dragon. That was going to take some getting used to. I’d seen a whole lot of crazy things over the years—thanks a lot, second sight—but I’d never even considered that dragons might be real. My brain couldn’t even come up with a reasonable picture for what this guardian might look like.

  “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” Torn asked, scorching Delilah with his gaze.

  The succubus started to reach below his waist, and I threw one of my knives. It didn’t hit anyone, but it did get their attention.

  Delilah shrugged.

  “Bessst to ssshow you,” she said.

  And with that, she sauntered down what was becoming my least favorite alley in Harborsmouth, second only to the one beside Club Nexus where Torn held court.

  “This is going to be so much fun,” Torn said, rubbing his hands together.

  I wasn’t sure if he meant following behind the succubus’ curvaceous derriere, which she was swaying with mesmerizing skill, or if he was talking about facing a zombie dragon. Probably, best not to think about it.

  I loped ahead, trying to catch up with Delilah. I still had questions.

  “So, this zombie dragon is at the portal?” I asked. “Guarding the way into this Necropolis?”

  “I will ssshow you,” she said.

  “Yeah, um, there’s just one thing,” I said. “There’s still the little problem of this lich dude’s zombie horde. If the dragon is guarding the portal, and this portal is located inside the Haunted House ride, how are we supposed to get a close look at it without, you know, the zombies eating our brains?”

  “I don’t think they really eat brains, princess,” Torn said.

  I shot him a glare and, for once, he shut up.

  “This wasss my home,” Delilah said, lifting her chin. “I know a way.”

  Chapter 20

  Delilah hadn’t been lying about knowing a way into the Haunted House. Too bad she failed to mention it required crawling into a maintenance hatch.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, psyching myself up.

  “We just crept past more than twenty zombies, princess,” Torn said. “How can you be nervous about a tiny door?”

  I opened my eyes and forced myself to look at the metal opening. Tiny was an understatement. I wasn’t even sure how Ceff was going to squeeze through. Torn on the other hand, wouldn’t have any trouble.

  “Easy for you to say,” I said. “You can shapeshift into a cat.”

  Torn shrugged. He got down on his hands and knees, winked at Delilah, who seemed intrigued by the position, and shifted.

  “Meow.”

  Jerk. I wasn’t claustrophobic, not really. My problem was with the potential for unwanted visions that came with squeezing into tight spaces. I checked that my shirt was tucked into my jeans and my leather jacket was zipped all the way.

  The zombies were all staggering in through the ride’s entrance, following the metal track into the building. But that didn’t mean that the maintenance hatch hadn’t ever been witness to something disturbing. Knowing the glaistig, it was nearly a given.

  “Give us a moment,” Ceff said, frowning at Torn.

  The cat lowered his eyelids in a baleful glare and, with the twitch of his scarred tail, leapt inside the hatch. Delilah followed, giving us a rather disturbing view as she writhed and wiggled her way into the ride’s ductwork.

  I turned to Ceff and gasped. He closed the distance between us, pressing his lips to my chin. When I didn’t flinch with a vision, I could feel his brow raise, but he slid his mouth along my jaw, ending in a long, lingering kiss. He pulled back reluctantly, but not fully.

  Ceff rested his forehead against mine.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Let’s go see what a zombie dragon looks like.”

  My courage lasted all of five minutes. Never wear boots and a leather jacket to shimmy down an airshaft. I had to close my eyes and calm my breathing multiple times before coming to an intersection where the maintenance shaft widened.

  There was a grid set into the center of the intersection which Torn, Delilah, and Ceff now hovered over.

  “What have we got?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

  It wasn’t easy. My nerves were jangling my heart right out of my chest. Not only had my jacket caught on bolts and screw heads on the way here, threatening me with visions, but the death magic in the air was making my skin itch, and the incessant music coming from below was damn creepy. Apparently, even though the ride cars weren’t moving along the tracks, the power was still on, allowing the Haunted House’s discordant theme music to play on an endless, nightmarish loop.

  I was living in a freaking horror movie.

  “Another hatch,” Ceff said, pointing at the grid.

  Torn didn’t answer since he was still in his cat form, using the opportunity to curl up in Delilah’s lap which also happened to place him up close and personal with her prodigious bosom. The man was incorrigible and purring up a storm.

  “Wait,” I said, inching forward for a better look.

  “Thisss way,” Delilah said, removing her hand from petting Torn long enough to point at the hatch we were all gathered around.

  I really hoped the shaft was reinforced here or we were all going to lose whatever surprise advantage we had and go toppling to our deaths. And if we died here, I had no doubt what would happen to our bodies. I wanted to see this portal, not go walking blindly through it.

  “That’s the ride track,” I said with a frown. “I thought the zombies were following the track.”

  “No,” Delilah said, shaking her head, and other parts, making Torn purr even louder. “Jusst at the entranccce.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said.

  I still wasn’t eager to go down there. The ride cars weren’t moving along the track, and there were no zombies in sight, but the creepy Haunted House music was playing, and the place was dark, even to my faerie-improved vision. Who knows what we’d run into down there?

  Torn jumped off Delilah’s lap and pawed at the grate. Yeah, yeah, no time for dilly-dallying or panic attacks. Not with a super cool zombie dragon to go check out.

  Delilah untwisted the screws from each corner, keeping her eyes on Torn the entire time and somehow making reverse carpentry seem sexy. Say what you want, but that girl had skills. When she was done, Ceff lifted the panel and set it aside. He made it look effortless, but I’m pretty sure that thing weighed more than me.

  As soon as the opening was clear, Torn leapt, shifting from cat to man so that he landed on two feet. Show off.

  I suppose, under different conditions, I might have ripped off my jacket, unfurled my wings, after they tore out through my back which was not as smooth and easy as Torn’s shapeshifting, not by a long shot, and flown to the ground below. But my nerves were shot and the ductwork was too cramped for me to unfurl my wings. I’d just have to jump down like the human I’d been raised to be, albeit with a bit more grace.

  The drop to the bottom was pretty elegant. Falling on my butt when an animatronic witch jumped out at me was not. Great. Not only was there creepy music, but the Haunted
House’s motion-triggered effects were still fully functional.

  “You owe me ten bucks,” Torn said, holding a hand, palm out, toward Delilah.

  “Seriously, you guys?” I asked, standing and brushing fake spiderwebs off my jeans.

  “That’sss not how I plan to pay,” Delilah said, leaning into Torn and running talon-like fingernails up and down his chest.

  I turned to Ceff whose lip was twitching as he fought to hide a grin.

  “Really?” I asked, throwing my hands up in the air.

  “I did not see the sensor,” he said, losing his battle with the grin. “Apparently, they did.”

  “And bet on me!” I pseudo whispered.

  Even with the creepy music playing, I didn’t dare shout. Not with some of these tunnels crawling with zombies.

  “Did you see her face?” Torn asked. “Priceless.”

  I glowered and rolled my eyes. It was an Olympian feat, but I’d had a lot of practice. Hanging out with Torn had made me an expert eye roller. I suppose if I died here, they could put that on my tombstone. Ivy Granger, psychic detective, hero of Harborsmouth, and eye rolling gold medalist. Of course, if I died here, I’d become a zombie and never get a headstone. Small favors and all that.

  “If everyone is done making fun of me, how about we go get a good look at a dragon,” I said.

  “Zzzombie dragon,” Delilah said.

  “Whatever,” I said, lifting one shoulder.

  “Thisss way,” she said.

  “Hey, how far are we from the zombies?” I asked, glancing around the dark tunnel.

  I tried to ignore the animatronic witch, but that was hard to do while yanking one of my throwing knives from its forehead. I’d scored a direct hit, not that doing so would save me from Torn’s teasing. I was never going to hear the end of this.

  “Not far,” Delilah said, a frown marring her porcelain complexion. “Look.”