The Lurkers Within: (A Havenwood Falls Novella)

by Danielle Bannister

  Roman huffed and turned his attention back to me.

  “Look, Tasha, I know you’re still pissed at me for tossing you in that house with no knowledge of what you were up against, but you were in no real danger. I had a handle on the situation. As planned, the hellhounds were on standby to bring you back if things got too bad, but I had to let you try. I had to know if you had the gift the Court believed you did.” I glared at him. I didn’t trust Roman in the slightest.

  “Choose your words carefully, Roman. Just because we knew what she could do does not mean we condone the way you handled the situation.”

  Roman waved away her comment like an annoying fly.

  “What if you had been wrong?” I asked.

  Roman growled. Fucking growled. If I wasn’t so out of it, I might have jumped him right then and there. It was hella hot. “If you failed,” he said, “the Indrori would have been handled in other ways, but it wouldn’t have worked for long.” He came over to the bed. “Tasha, with the power they held, there would be no way to contain that much energy. Eventually, our tricks to hold them back would have failed. If your unique ability to separate an Indrori back into single souls again was real, we needed to know that. You were our last and only resort from that thing truly escaping the Infernum, if not today, then in the near future, especially if the Collector has anything to do with this.”

  Addie and the other woman both threw death glares at him. This Collector person kept coming up, but it was clear from their stares I wasn’t about to pry any information out of them. Clearly, this was a town concern and sure as hell not mine.

  “So why didn’t you tell me that?” I said as vehemently as I could in my weakened state. “Why not be honest? Why not arm me with that information to protect myself?” My head spun just then, causing me to lose my balance, and my eyes rolled back in my head for a second.

  “Tasha, you need your rest,” Addie said, trying to get me to settle down. Eduardo had stood up, ready to punch out Roman if he so much as took a step closer to me.

  I took comfort in that, even if Roman would likely flatten him if it came to blows. Eduardo was built, but Roman was a warlock, and he didn’t play fair. Still, it was nice of Eduardo to stand guard for me, if only as a show of testosterone. He was trying to be the alpha. Silly puppy. He had no idea what he was up against.

  “Telling you the truth would have slowed things down immensely. We’re dealing with too many threats at once, so I took matters into my own hands with this particular one.” He glanced at the woman beside him, who glared at him again. “Yes, yes, I know. We’ll talk later, Saundra. Consider me properly hand-slapped,” Roman drawled to the woman.

  “This discussion is not over,” she said. “For now, we need to get Tasha to the Infernum. I’ll call the hellhounds. Addie, you can lead her there. The others will be waiting to help you.”

  Addie nodded, then Saundra left without allowing Roman another word.

  “Addie is helping me, but who is helping Harper?” I asked, sitting up, though feeling like I was going to hurl. “Where did she go?”

  Roman lowered his gaze, cutting off an answer he might have given me. Addie reached out a hand to me. It was hard to read her expression due to the tinted glasses she was wearing. “We have several of our people looking for her. I’m sure she’s fine. Harper is still learning about her abilities. Her mace may have even pulled her out.”

  “Her what?”

  “She has a mace—the weapon, not the pepper spray. It’s a little like Thor’s hammer. It can get her out of pickles. I’m guessing that’s what happened, and she’ll turn up soon enough. But for now, we really do need to get you taken care of.” She reached out a hand as though to help me stand, which was the last thing I wanted to do.

  “We should let her rest,” Eduardo said, trying to push Addie away with just his glare.

  “She can rest after she’s shed those souls,” Roman said. He walked over to the bed and took hold of my arm. “Let’s go.”

  “Stay away from her!” Eduardo attempted, and failed, to swat his hand away. Roman looked at me for a moment, then adjusted his jacket and flared his nostrils ever so slightly. His left hand twitched. He’d better not pull any magic shit. I wouldn’t stand for that. I needed to calm the situation down.

  “Hey, babe?” I said, turning to Eduardo. “I’m so thirsty. Could you make me some tea or something? There should be a peppermint tea in the bags we brought.” I tried to bat my eyes in the way that got me anything I wanted with him, but I was just too damn tired to pull it off.

  “Of course.” His eyes focused on me intently. “I’d do anything for you. You know that, right?”

  My throat tightened at the emotion that suddenly got stuck there. I nodded once and watched him walk by Roman, his chest puffing as he did.

  “Fine. After your tea, you’ll shed.” Roman walked over to the wingback chair in the corner, unbuttoned his jacket, and sat down in a way that indicated he was not happy with having to wait on me.

  “Quick question,” I said, closing my eyes against the bright sun for a moment. “Why do you keep saying I need to ‘shed’?” I opened my eyes in time to see Roman glance at Addie, who exchanged an unspoken dialogue with him. They were holding something back. “Addie, what is he talking about?”

  None of this was making any sense, but Addie was a friend of Harper, so I was hoping that meant she could be trusted to tell the truth.

  “Fine. I’ll tell her,” Roman said with reluctance. His hand pressed against his lips in a tent formation as he seemed to consider his words. “There have been stories of someone else with your exact abilities. One. He died centuries ago, but he also ‘wore’ the souls of the dead on his skin. There are no pictures of him from that time, no printed records, only the stories passed down over the generations. They say he was marked in a similar way to you. He didn’t have a tattoo so to speak, but he did have strange markings all over his body.”

  I sat up a little, suddenly very intrigued.

  “The legends mention him only as The Lizard Man, because of the scale-like patches and his affinity for the desert. Twice a year, he would have to shed his gathered souls. He had no access to Hell or the Infernum—no reapers or hellhounds to help him—so the story goes that he went to the desert to release the souls as far away from civilization as possible. In all truth, The Lizard Man is an enigma.” Roman clenched his jaw a few times. “We don’t know if any of this is true or if it was just a ghost story people told to keep children from wandering into the desert.”

  Roman stretched his neck from side to side, showing off neck muscles exposed from where his shirt was undone at the collar. I resisted the urge to find that as sexy as it was.

  He picked up the creepy-ass doll on the mantel and looked at it absent-mindedly before returning it back to its face-down position. “When I heard the rumors that another soul shedder was alive and in the United States, and working for the feds, no less, I had to find you.”

  “Soul shedder?” I raised an eyebrow, even though the term did sound kind of badass.

  Roman didn’t seem to hear my question, because he rattled on. “I had to see it with my own eyes. We were desperate, Tasha. The Indrori had breached their prison and for some reason, came here to Havenwood Falls. Our town didn’t know how much danger it was in. We have other pressing issues—”

  “Like this Collector dude?” I asked.

  “Precisely. This Indrori business was the last thing we needed. There was no way to know that the Indrori was looking for you specifically.”

  “You should have stuck with the plan,” Addie admonished, glaring at him. The way she stood up to him made me like her even more. I could see why Harper trusted her.

  “When we found out you were a soul shedder, the Court was definitely intrigued. But their plan was cumbersome. Too many people involved. Too many ways for things to go wrong. Too much planning and ensuring everyone was safe.”

  “In other words, they had a sane approac
h to Tasha going up against an Indrori,” Addie said, folding her arms in front of her chest.

  Roman took a few steps toward her, but she didn’t retreat. It was a power move for him, and one I was quite sure he got away with a lot. But not with her. He wouldn’t have with me, either, if I were able to get out of this bed. Asshole.

  “Back off,” I hissed, hating that I was too tired to clock him over the head.

  He turned his focus on me instead. “We didn’t have time to waste, Tasha. They were too powerful. Who knows what damage they could have done to Havenwood Falls if I hadn’t forced your skill?”

  “So you didn’t tell anyone that I was coming?” I stared him down, daring him to lie to me.

  “I was planning on telling them. Eventually,” Roman confessed.

  I wanted to lay into him about how selfish it had been of him to risk my life and Harper’s that way, but I found that I was too tired to fight with him. It really did seem as though I was carrying hundreds of souls on my skin. I could feel my flesh straining from the pressure of their auras. I was suddenly quite nervous. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold onto all this energy.

  “So what is the plan, then? I’m just supposed to go back to the Infernum—the place they escaped from, mind you—do the hokey-pokey, and all the souls come off me?”

  Addie looked at me blankly, and I wondered if it was because of how insane I sounded, or if she was too young to know what I meant by hokey-pokey.

  “I honestly don’t know how you do it,” Roman said. “How did you absorb them all?”

  I thought back on it all. “I didn’t do anything. I just sort of held on,” I said.

  Roman nodded as though that made complete sense. “I suppose then all you have to do to release them is to let go.”

  It sounded so easy and so impossible all at the same time.

  Chapter 14

  “This will help with the nausea,” Roman said, dropping a white powder in the tea when Eduardo brought it in.

  “Hey, she’s not drinking anything you poisoned, asshole. You’ve already drugged her once!” Eduardo shouted.

  Eduardo wasn’t wrong. He did get me to take those sleeping pills. Still, the way my stomach was lurching, I was willing to try anything. Even more sleeping pills. Anything to make the feeling subside.

  “Give me the fucking tea or I’ll hurl on your face,” I said. Addie snickered at my side.

  Eduardo looked between me and Roman before he sighed and relented.

  After I sipped the tea that Eduardo made me, that I really didn’t want, Addie told me that she was going to take me to a cemetery to gain access to the Infernum.

  “Wait. Hold up. The entrance to the prison is in a cemetery?”

  Addie shifted her glasses. “Yes, and the only way in is with me, so do not let me out of your sight.”

  “Says the lady who wants to take me for a stroll in the cemetery,” I winced.

  Roman grunted. “Hurry up and drink your damn tea. We need to leave.”

  “She’ll take as long as she needs, buddy,” Eduardo said.

  In a flash, Roman snapped his fingers, and Eduardo’s head fell onto his chest. Loud snores erupted from his lips as though he’d been asleep for hours. If I wasn’t so pissed I’d actually be impressed with how fast the spell worked.

  “What did you do to him?” I shouted.

  “He’s fine,” Roman said in a bored tone. “He can’t come with us. Humans aren’t allowed in the Infernum. Addie can only take you. Let’s go.”

  I glanced at Eduardo, who seemed quite content.

  “Roman’s right. He can’t come. He’ll be safe here,” Addie assured me.

  Just then a roll of nausea swept through me.

  “Oh God.” I held my hand to my mouth for a moment. “I thought this tea was supposed to help this?”

  “It is,” Roman hissed. “But even that won’t hold long. We have to leave. Now.”

  I suddenly didn’t want to test Roman’s theories about how much worse I might feel if I didn’t shed these souls. I swung my feet out and tried to stand, but I had a hard time supporting all the energy on me.

  “Grab her arm,” Roman ordered Addie. “If anyone looks at us, she’s drunk. We’re taking her home to sleep it off. Got it?”

  Addie nodded. Secrets had to be kept, after all. Even if I was carrying over a hundred souls on my flesh, to the outside world, I was reduced to a lush. How lovely.

  A few seconds later, we were in a car, driving. I wasn’t sure how long we drove before we stopped, and they pulled me out. I kept fading in and out of alertness. The tea was definitely wearing off, and the waves of pain were getting more intense by the step.

  “Where the hell are we going? I don’t know how much longer I can take this,” I gasped as they dragged me down a cement walkway. My head bobbed up and down as we went through the cemetery. I was trying really hard not to pass out, but this constant jostling around made that difficult. Everything went dark for a moment, like we were going through a tunnel, or maybe I blacked out. I couldn’t tell if what I was seeing was real or if I was hallucinating.

  Roman shifted my weight. “It’s right up ahead. I can’t go any farther. Addie, can you handle her?”

  I didn’t see her answer, but I felt her taking my weight fully against her side.

  “Liam and Savage are waiting for you . . . below,” Roman said to Addie.

  If she replied, I didn’t hear. I just felt my body being dragged along the grass past graves that danced in the moonlight. We stopped in front of what looked like a mausoleum.

  “What’s happening?” I said, trying my best to hold onto focus.

  “Okay, Tasha, Liam and Savage are hellhound shifters. They’ll take us into the Infernum. Whether they’re in their human forms or in their hellhound forms, you cannot look into their eyes. Understood?’

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, no biggie, really. It’s just that their stares could kill you if you do.”

  “Commencing eye closing,” I said, snapping my eyes shut.

  “Hang onto me, and don’t open your eyes. You’re going to feel like you’re falling, which you are, but trust me, you won’t be hurt so long as you keep your eyes closed and hang onto me. Got it?”

  “Hold on. Eyes Closed. Copy that. If you were a guy and you had a blindfold, this might actually be kinda kinky.” I tried to laugh, but my stomach rolled. “Let’s just get there,” I groaned.

  Addie’s arm wrapped tight around my waist, and I closed my eyes. That’s when we took a step off what I could only envision as a cliff. It took everything in my power not to open my eyes against the sensation of falling. I swear, we fell for miles. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what could be this deep.

  “Almost there. Hold on,” Addie said over the wind.

  And then, all at once, we weren’t moving.

  “You can open your eyes.”

  I took a moment to catch my breath before I risked a look. There was very little to see. Darkness surrounded everything. In the distance were hulking figures coming toward us. They carried with them the only light I could see. Bright yellow light seemed to radiate off their bodies. From this distance, they looked like wolves on steroids. It was the sound, though, that did me in. It brought me to my knees. Screams. Thousands of screams coming from every direction. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the darkness or from the souls trapped inside me.

  “Okay, time to close again. The hounds are coming.”

  I did as instructed, mostly because I needed to escape from the reality I was in. I just wanted the pain to stop. For the screaming to stop. For the darkness to finally be lifted.

  “We’re inside the Infernum. The hellhounds will help trap the souls you shed. So just do your thing. We’ll take it from here.”

  I wanted to ask more questions. I wanted to know the specifics of how it would all go down, but without warning, a wave of pain came over me. All my muscles constricted. I heard myself scream, but in a voice t
hat wasn’t my own.

  “Tasha?” Addie said. I felt myself curl into a tight ball.

  “Stay back,” I whispered in warning.

  “Let go, Tasha. It’s safe here.” I wasn’t sure if Addie said that, or even if I had uttered the words myself. All I knew was that the phrase felt like the turning of a faucet. This was a safe place. I wouldn’t hurt anybody. I didn’t need to hold on anymore.

  Laying on the ground, I clutched at my stomach. It felt like the worst menstrual cramps of my life, but spread out over every scale on my skin. The pain was worse than when I’d absorbed them. Jesus Christ! I hadn’t anticipated shedding to be this painful. Then again, I was about to birth some pretty pissed off souls.

  A scream tore through me as I opened my eyes and watched the first soul leave my skin. It emerged wisp-like, from the fabric of my waist band. It glowed red, and I could hear the voice of the aura shouting in time with my own cries. Before the spirit could travel far, there was a golden flash of light, and the sound of growls as a hellhound bounded after the released spirit. I didn’t have time to consider the mechanics of how any of this worked, because a scream from both myself and the aura began anew.

  On and on this went. Pain, hellhound, repeat. I heard the screams of each soul that came out of me. Several cursed my name and vowed to find me, but I knew they were empty threats. Even if they got out and did find me, I’d trap them again. There was some comfort in that.

  “Tasha?” It was a voice I recognized.

  Adam’s voice pierced through the pain. I opened my eyes and saw his aura floating out of my side. The panic in his voice rattled my bones.

  “Adam!” I reached out to try to grab him, but his aura was already being pulled away by a hound.

  “No! That’s my partner. Stop!” Another wave pulled through me, causing all thought of Adam to leave my mind. Blinding pain radiated from above my chest as another soul was close on his heels. How much more of this could I physically endure? I felt like I was going to split in two. One shed merged to the next until it just became nothing but agony.

  The one voice I expected to be the loudest, however, never came. The Indrori’s voice was silent. That voice was the amalgamation of souls that spoke for the whole. Once I separated them, their control was no more.