“What the hell?”
He held his finger up to his mouth. We stood in silence for a minute before I saw two large men walking down the path. I could tell with one glance they were supernatural. The man on the right was wearing an old pair of jeans and a white shirt and stood over seven feet tall. His muscles bulged with each step, and his shoulder-length black hair needed to have a comb run through it. The man next to him had a military buzz cut and was a half foot shorter. Ryker watched every step they took.
I expected a fight to break out, but the giant dropped to one knee, and the other man followed suit. “Alpha,” they both said.
Ryker let out an aggravated sigh. “I’m not your alpha, Alexander.”
The tall man stood up, and when he went to open his mouth, Ryker cut him off.
“We are not here to discuss that. We came to talk to a local human named Donna.”
At the mention of her name, Alexander took a step forward.
“Hey, we just had a quick question. We are looking for Paldon’s birth mom, and rumor had it she could be her mom.”
Alexander leveled a glare. “Donna is perfect and would never give up a child.” The man was scary. His nails turned to claws. It seemed the giant had a crush on the human.
“We understood that after we talked with her for a few minutes. But we are back at square one with the missing shifters. Have any of your pack gone missing?”
I glanced at Ryker, and anyone who didn’t look closely at the sexy man would think he seemed calm, but Ryker was mad at how Alexander had acted. His jaw clenched, and I could see the faint throb of the blood vessel in his neck.
“Sorry,” the giant mumbled before he took a step back. “Donna wouldn’t hurt a fly, and she is a mere human and can break easily.”
A laugh bubbled from deep in my chest. “What is this? The Stone Age? Mere human?”
Alexander peered down at me. “I don’t know what else to call a fragile human.”
“We are getting off topic. Have any of your pack gone missing, or have you noticed anyone not around that should be?” Ryker asked.
The second man had been quiet during the whole encounter. “None of the pack has been missing, but the local ice cream place hasn’t opened in a few days, and I don’t think Jerry has ever missed an opening. I will send Zeke over to investigate and call and let you know.”
“Call?” Ryker asked.
Alexander let out a huff. “Donna said we need to stop living in the Stone Age and bought me one of these.” The giant held up a flip phone. I wasn’t even sure where she’d found such a thing or how he could press the keys with his large fingers.
“Sounds good.” Ryker leaned in and gave the giant a man hug. “I’m glad you moved to the twenty-first century.”
“Let me tell you, Ryker, you give a woman an inch, and she takes a mile. I started carrying the phone so that she can call me.” He looked at the house and glared. “Now she’s demanding I put a toilet in the house. Have you heard of such a thing? Her direct quote…” He raised his voice an octave but didn’t sound like a woman at all. “‘You want me to stay here, you need to put a toilet in the house.’”
Ryker winked at me. “Wait until you have to deal with the in-laws. Let me tell you, it’s like dealing with the devil.”
Alexander’s face paled. “I only want her, no one else.”
Ryker patted his friend on the back. “Have fun, man. We need to figure out who is trying to end the world.”
When Ryker pulled the car away from the curb, I caught Alexander handing a handful of flowers to Donna. She smiled from ear to ear and waved as we pulled away.
I had tried to call my friend Cassy a few times. “Ryker, can you take the next right? Something happened to her wards around my house yesterday. I want to check in on her.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“Stop here. That’s her house.” She only lived a block from Donna. “It left my mind until you said we were heading to Cassadaga.”
I opened the door and stepped out, and the muggy Florida air fogged up my glasses. Cassy’s red Civic was in the driveway. I knocked on the front door and waited. When she didn’t answer, I knocked harder.
Ryker went in the bushes and peered through her front window. He pinched his brow. “Looks like a fight happened in there.”
I pulled out my credit card and worked the lock on the door. The door clicked open, and I went inside. Someone had turned Cassy’s house upside down. The bookcase in the living room was on the floor. Her couch had claw marks through the fabric. I walked through each room, waiting for a sign. She wasn’t there.
“Don’t look so sad. Cassy’s not here—might be a good sign.”
I leaned my head on Ryker’s shoulder. “But her magic ward is broken. That means someone cut her magic off.”
Ryker pulled me to the door. “Yes, her magic might not work, but that doesn’t mean she’s dead. Come on. Let’s head home and regroup. Donna wasn’t your mother. We are going to have to head to Georgia tomorrow and talk with your old pack.”
The trip back to the cemetery only took ten minutes. Most of the tourists were at dinner, and the sun had started to set, leaving an orange glow in the sky. When we arrived back at the cemetery, something felt off. I looked across the seat at Ryker, and his eyes glowed yellow.
11
Ryker clenched the steering wheel so tightly that I could see his knuckles turning white.
“Is it me, or does the air seem heavy?” I asked the growling alpha.
“Yes, I’m not sure what,” Ryker gritted out. “But something is waiting for us inside the cemetery. I don’t know how we are being tracked, but someone has been watching us.”
“Donna could’ve alerted someone.” I let out a sigh. “Or maybe someone saw us go in Cassy’s house.” I clicked the lock button on the car.
“Every answer she gave was truthful. I didn’t smell one lie,” Ryker grumbled. His knuckles were still white from his tight on the steering wheel. We had come to Cassadaga for answers, and the only things we’d found were two missing supernaturals and no answers.
“I don’t see Cornell,” I said and pointed at an overgrown path to the right.
Ryker gave a long growl and clenched his fists.
“When we left, he was sitting on the rock. Is it normal for him to leave his post?”
He let out another growl before reaching for his door handle. “Let’s find out what’s going on. Cornell doesn’t always stay next to the portal. He could be around here somewhere.”
I grabbed Ryker’s shirt and pulled him back before he could exit the car. “Maybe we should take the car and leave.”
“We need answers, Paldon,” Ryker said.
At that point, I wanted the nightmare to end, and the lack of progress in finding my mother was frustrating. The only reason I let go of Ryker’s shirt was the possibility that we might get answers, and hopefully, we would be alive to tell the tale afterward.
With the sun setting over the trees, only a few rays lit the cemetery. The wrought-iron gate was slightly open. At any moment, I expected someone to jump out and scream, “Boo!” I almost changed my mind and asked Ryker to put the car in gear and get the fuck out of the cemetery. Instead, I said, “Let’s do this!” and pushed the passenger door open and stepped onto the gravel road. The rocks crunched under my feet. The cemetery was quiet, not a single noise of the night. I couldn’t even hear birds or bugs. “Umm…Ryker, do you think it’s strange that it’s so quiet?”
“Yes, keep your guard up,” Ryker said as he shut his door.
No more than ten seconds later, the car disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. I peered at the cemetery, looking for anything out of place. Maybe the urban legend was true, and I was about to receive punishment for sitting in the devil’s chair. Damn. But the selfie had turned out good and would be worth the bloodshed.
Ryker pulled the gate completely open. When he stepped foot into the cemetery, the portal flash
ed purple, and three men came through. Ryker’s jaw clenched at the sight of the newcomers.
“Can you see who’s here?” I asked as I jogged to keep up with Ryker’s long strides.
He didn’t answer right away. I squinted to see if I recognized who was at the top of the hill and silently cursed when I recognized two of the three men. I didn’t know them, but I knew they didn’t like me and wanted me to leave.
I grabbed Ryker’s hand to stop him. “I meant to tell you last night. Those two men up there don’t want me in the pack. They blame me for Carter’s death. Maybe if I leave, they won’t start a fight. It’s three of them and only two of us.”
“I know what they said yesterday. After you left, I gave them a choice to accept you or leave the pack.” Ryker shrugged. “When they didn’t accept you, I told them they had twenty-four hours to leave. It looks like they want to challenge us. We can take them, Paldon.”
“The sun is about to set. What happens if they have more men waiting?”
“There is no doubt in my mind they are going to fight dirty.” Ryker cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck. They were only ten feet away when Ryker stopped. He nodded at the third person, whom I’d never seen before. “I gave you two the option to leave and find a new pack. You realize fighting me will only make matters worse for you?”
The taller of the two’s eyes flashed red. “We came for the key.”
“Ryker, the three of them have red eyes.”
He looked momentarily conflicted before he produced a sword out of nowhere. “Kenny, I will give you one chance to stand down.”
My eyes were on the sword Ryker had somehow grabbed out of thin air, so I didn’t notice the hand come up from the ground and grab my leg. The nails of the creature dug into my skin, and blinding pain shot through my body. Ryker turned toward me when my scream echoed through the cemetery.
“Paldon!” Ryker yelled before he used the sword to cut the arm off the body coming up from the ground. “Fuck, he’s a necromancer. We need to get out of the cemetery.”
“Necromancer as in he can raise the dead?”
Ryker nodded and grabbed my hand. He didn’t take his eyes off the two wolves and the third man, who was dressed in human bone clothing. The necromancer raised his staff to the sky, and a white light shot up. It was so bright I could see everything in the cemetery.
“Umm… Ryker, I think he just woke up the whole cemetery.”
Ryker turned from the necromancer to look around the cemetery, then he let out a string of curse words and changed tactics. “When I say go, run as fast as you can toward the crypt over there.”
I froze. “You want me to run to a dead person’s crypt and go inside. Look around, Ryker. The dead are coming to life.”
He let out an aggravated sigh. “Yes, the dead are coming to life, but they blocked the cemetery’s exit. I saw the current owner of the crypt walk out a couple of seconds ago. There shouldn’t be any more dead bodies inside.”
“I’m not sure if I like this idea.”
Still holding my hand, Ryker turned and took off running. The crypt was about twenty yards away when another hand grabbed my ankle and pulled me down. My hand left Ryker’s, and I felt nothing but pain. The nails digging into my skin felt like they were burning my flesh.
The silver of Ryker’s sword shone with the little sunlight that was left before it came down on the zombie. I got back up and fought through the pain. It still felt like its fingers were burning my skin.
Ryker picked me up and ran the remaining ten feet to the crypt, then he put me down and closed the door behind him. The crypt was dark, with only a little light shining through the rocks. I rested against the rock wall and gripped my wound.
“What are the chances I’ll turn into a zombie?” I asked.
He stopped pacing the small room and knelt next to me. “You can’t change into a zombie, but when they cut your skin, some of their blood seeped into you,” he said as he ran his thumb over the healing wound.
I reached for my phone in my back pocket. Maybe Wrath could come help. We couldn’t stay in the crypt for the rest of our lives. “I don’t have service. Do you? You’d better be right about me not being able to change into a zombie. If I change, you’re the first person I’m coming after.”
Ryker glanced at his phone. “I don’t have service, either. You stay in here, and I will go take out the necromancer.”
I gave him an exasperated look. “I’m not letting you go fight a cemetery full of zombies, a necromancer, and two wolves with red eyes.”
The crypt door started to move, and he jumped up and held it shut. “Are you sure you can fight?”
I stood up and tested my leg. The wound still hurt, but I needed to help Ryker. “We can do this.”
“I’m going to pull the door open. I want you to send a blast of magic out the door and eliminate as many zombies as you can.”
The faint chanting of “Key” over and over came from outside.
“On the count of three.” I closed my eyes and pulled on my magic. “One… two… three.”
Ryker threw the door to the crypt open, and I let a beam of black magic fly from my hands. He ran out after the magic with his sword in hand. I didn’t have a weapon, so I shifted into my wolf.
“Key,” six zombies mumbled.
I jumped up and ripped out the first zombie’s throat. He dropped to the ground, but his blood felt like acid in my mouth.
Ryker swiped his sword at one of the wolves. Both wolves had shifted, so I couldn’t tell them apart. They were both pitch black. He glanced over his shoulder. “You are going to have to use your magic. The more blood you put in your system, the sicker you’ll get.”
When I shifted back into human form, I was as naked as the day I was born. “You told me I couldn’t turn into a zombie!” I yelled as I sent a magic globe at two zombies. “I’m going to spend every day coming after you for letting me eat their blood.”
Ryker jumped forward and killed one of the wolves. A red soul floated into the sky. “I said you could get sick, as in a stomachache. You are not going to turn into a zombie.” He rolled to the side a second too late, and a wolf clamped down on his arm. Grunting, he tried to pull the wolf off.
Pulling my magic, I said, “Stand still.” I hoped my aim wouldn’t be off as I shot a bolt. When it hit the wolf instead of Ryker, I let out a sigh. “We need to take out the necromancer.”
Ryker killed two more zombies. “Yes, if we take him out, the zombies will drop to the ground and die.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Walking through the graveyard naked wasn’t an ideal situation. Ryker stood with his arms crossed, and I gave him an evil look before I blasted the zombie about to grab him.
We walked up the center path of the cemetery, and zombies came at us from every direction. I could hear the necromancer chanting. He was tilting his head back, looking at the sky. White light shone from his staff. Ryker and I were only thirty feet from him, and I closed my eyes and called on my magic then sent a bolt in his direction. I never thought I would fight the zombie apocalypse in my birthday suit.
When the magic was within inches, he waved his hand and stopped the white light. His eyes were glowing bright red. With another wave of his hand, twenty demons surrounded me. Ryker grunted as a demon charged him.
All the demons came at us at once. So many. I could feel their nails as they dug into my skin, and I went down on one knee when one kicked the back of my leg. When I looked over, Ryker was lying on the ground, fighting ten demons at once. He closed his eyes for a second, and I thought it was all over.
Using all the strength I had left, I sent a burst of magic through my body, and the chants of “Key” stopped. The cemetery was once again quiet, not a sound to be heard.
“Ryker,” I murmured. Using that much magic had made me tired, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I crawled over the dead bodies toward Ryker and stretched my hand out to grasp his before the world went dark.
I didn’t need to open my eyes to know I was back in Ryker’s bed—the smell of wood filled the air. When I shifted, every muscle in my body ached. Everything came crashing back at once—the necromancer and so many zombies and Ryker’s lifeless body lying next to the devil’s chair.
My eyes were heavy and hard to open, but I needed to find out if Ryker was okay. I might be in his room, but I knew he wasn’t there. I couldn’t feel him, and after the previous day, my body hummed when he was near.
When I opened my eyes, Marilyn was sitting next to me. “About time you woke up.”
“Where’s Ryker?” My throat was scratchy, and it hurt to talk. I didn’t know where my body didn’t hurt.
A huff came from my right side. Wrath was sitting on the chair in the corner of the room, sharpening her long blade. “Who cares about the dog? Now that you are up, we can start the hunt.”
The sun shone through the window. It had been setting when I passed out from using my magic. Ignoring Wrath’s comment, I asked, “Is Ryker okay?”
“Yes, he’s been by your side for the past day, but he needs to gather his pack and send them out for more information.”
The bright sun coming through the window did nothing to help with the pounding in my head, and I laid my arm across my eyes. “Why was I out so long? I’ve never been out this long from using my magic.”
Marilyn handed me a cup of warm green liquid. “Drink this. Yes, your magic drained you some, but the main reason you were out was from the zombie bites.”
At the mention of the zombies, I remembered the pain I’d felt when their nails dug into my leg. “Am I going to turn?”
Wrath let out a bark of a laugh. “You watch too much TV.”
“Okay, in the past few days, I found out the devil is real and my sisters are the seven deadly sins, and you think asking if I can turn into a zombie from a bite is a stretch of the imagination?”
She stopped running a sharpener down the sword blade. “I stand corrected, but no, you can’t turn into a zombie. Necromancers raise the dead. I don’t know exactly how it happens, but when they raise them, their bodies have a green liquid. When the green liquid touches something human, it burns.”
Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 35