by Evi Asher
“You’re an expert now?” Grave asked as he put the key in the ignition
“I was the witch envoy to the fae court,” Josy replied in a matter of fact tone. “I know all the etiquette, and if you think the vampires are full of nonsense, you have never experienced the hoops the fae will make you jump through.”
Grave pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto the road.
Athera pulled on her seat belt and half-turned toward the back.
“So the fairies—”
“Break that habit right now,” Josy interrupted.
Athera was momentarily confused, then realized. “Oh, so the fae are sticklers for ritual?”
“Good.” Josy nodded. “Yes, they are. They take offense at the slightest perceived insult and you do not want one of the fae’sfeelings wounded. They have blood feuds that rival demon blood feuds.”
Grave made a dismissive sound. “No one can rival a demon blood feud. I know of a few that have been going on since time began.”
Josy sat forward pushing her body between the front seats. “Trust me on this one. The faetakes a perceived insult very seriously.”
Grave nodded as he took the off ramp that led to the highway. “You are the expert.”
“Glad we agree.” Josy sat back in the seat again and it got quiet with everyone lost in their thoughts.
Normally, Athera wouldn’t mind a bit of quiet time. Sometimes a person needed it to process events and get a bearing on the next step in the journey.
Right now, she didn’t want to spend any time in her head. She kept flashing back to what had happened in the motel room and how she’d felt, both during and when he’d pushed her away—again.
Athera sighed and Grave glanced over at her. She turned her head so she wouldn’t catch his gaze and stared out at the boring scenery next to the highway.
She felt sadness in her gut because she knew that despite Grave’s... erm... enthusiastic response to her in the motel room, it was time to give up on him.
He was mixed signals personified, and she couldn’t take much more. She admitted to herself that she was too inexperienced to deal with what Grave was dishing out to her. One minute he didn’t want her near, so much so that he ran from her teasing flirtations. Next, he was all over her, melting her on a cellular level with his kisses.
It wasn’t fair. The kid in Athera wanted to stamp her foot, throw a temper tantrum and demand he decide what he wanted. The grown woman knew that that kind of indecision in a male didn’t deserve her time and consideration.
Therefore, she made a choice, and it had her sighing again. No matter what, Grave was off her list of possible lovers. She didn’t care if he was meant to be her mate. She’d find another.
Oh, that lie burned in her chest. There would be no other mate for her. If Grave was meant to be hers and she walked away from him, she’d be without that connection for the rest of her eternal life. Ouch.
She glanced over at him, his perfect profile in view. A wisp of his long hair had pulled loose from his braid, and it danced in the wind from the open window of the jeep.
Athera’s heart ached because she knew she’d made her choice. She was done trying to catch a male who didn’t want to be caught.
Oh, crap. She felt a tear escape the corner of her eyes. No way, she was not going to cry. Stupid, stupid emotions.
She leaned forward and put the radio on. She had to distract herself, and listening to music might help.
She fiddled with the dial.
“Oh, oh.” Josy stuck her head between the seats again. “That station.”
Athera left the radio tuned to the station as Josy requested. She started laughing when Josy started singing with the song—badly.
Grave looked over at Athera with a raised eyebrow and winced as Josy hit a particularly bad high note.
Athera laughed harder, then looked back at Josy, who was grinning through her bad singing, and started singing with her.
Athera sang much better than Josy, or at least she thought she did. She wasn’t so sure when she looked over at Grave and he looked like he was in pain.
Good. Let him suffer. Athera sang louder, and soon Josy was keeping pace with her volume.
Grave put on the turn signal and turned into a small side road, relief flooding his expression.
Athera leaned forward and clicked off the radio mid-song.
“I was still singing,” Josy complained.
Athera ignored her and asked Grave, “Are we near the portal?”
Grave nodded, his expression saying thank God even if he didn’t say the words.
“Yes, it’s a little further up the road. Are you ready to perform the spell, Josy?” He glanced toward the back seat, then back to the road he was traveling.
It wasn’t much of a road, and Athera understood that he wanted to keep an eye and make sure they didn’t drive into the deep ditch on the side.
“Yes, I just need to get some herbs out of my bag in the back. It’s a pretty straightforward spell.”
“Okay, we’ll be there in a bit,” he informed them.
“How do you know where the portal is?” Athera asked.
“Close your eyes,” Grave told her.
She scowled at him and he smiled. “Just do it.”
Athera closed her eyes. “Now, what.”
“Use your other senses. Not your mundane ones, but the ones that make you an eternal,” Grave instructed.
Athera focused on her special sense, the one that felt magic and knew when someone was not human. That special sense made her more than human.
There!
There was a faint ping, like the sound of radar, and it was getting stronger.
Chapter Five
Grave pulled the jeep over to the side of the road and put it into park. He glanced over at Athera as she opened her eyes again.
She smiled at him, a look of triumph on her features. “It’s there.” She lifted her arm and pointed at some shrubbery near the edge of the unused road.
Grave nodded and took in the landscape. He’d learned at an early age to assess any new area for danger before he did anything else.
There was a line of trees a short distance from the road, but the portal area itself was surrounded by low bushes. It looked like a natural path had formed in the grass to where the portal started. Then it vanished.
The door of the jeep opened and Josy slid out, pushing the door shut behind her. A moment later, she was opening the rear door of the jeep and digging through her bag.
Athera opened her door and got out.
“Wait,” Grave said. They were going to drive through the portal once Josy opened it. There was no reason for Athera to be outside the security of the car.
It was too late. The car door slammed shut and Athera was around to the back of the jeep before he could say anymore.
Grave sighed, shook his head and got out the jeep to go to the two females.
“How big a spell is this?” Athera was asking Josy.
“Nothing big at all. In fact, most baby witches can do this one without effort.” Josy took a plastic bag filled with herbs out of her backpack and then dug around for something else. She found what she was looking for.
She had retrieved a book and opened it up. Inside of the front cover were some dried leaves.
They looked like oak leaves, and Josy carefully took one out and put it down in the sheltered part of the jeep before closing the book again and returning it to where she’d found it in her bag.
Grave stepped back and folded his arms over his chest, keeping an eye on both females as Josy stepped away from the jeep to perform the spell and Athera stuck close to her.
“Are you ready?” Josy asked.
“Oh, yes.” Athera smiled. She seemed to be fascinated by magic.
“Okay, here goes.” Josy started to mutter an incantation, her voice barely above a whisper the whole time. As she spoke, she folded the oak leaf in her hands. It crumpled as it folded, a breeze puffing up fro
m nowhere to scatter the crushed leaf in the air. A smell surrounded them. It was the deep rich fragrance of a forest. He could smell greenery and underbrush, wet earth and flowers.
Grave felt the pulse that was the esoteric echo of the portal strengthening and then felt a pop, as if his ears were adjusting to a difference of pressure in the air.
A red swirl started to form midair about six feet in front of the jeep, and grew. Soon there was a wavering, mirage-like texture in the air. Red streaks were flowing through the mirage, but he could see nothing on the other side. Grave knew that was normal. They would see nothing until they crossed the event horizon of the portal, then in on breath, they would be in a different realm with its own unique ecosystems.
Josy grinned. “There you go, portal all created...”
There was a pain-filled bellow from the other side of the portal that caused Grave to dart in front of the females and crouch down into his fighting stance.
He had no idea what was going on, on the other side of the red mirage, but from the sounds of fighting, he knew it couldn’t be good.
Something—or rather, someone—came flying through the portal and landed with an oomph sound on the ground near Grave’s feet.
“Jax?” Grave had trouble believing his senses. In the dirt in front of him was one of his childhood classmates and friends, a reaper named Jax.
The reaper at his feet squinted up at him and grunted. “Grave, good. Hold onto this.” Jax shoved a soul into Grave’s hand and stood up in one movement. He dusted himself off just as a pack of kartocks exploded from the portal.
With a roar, Jax shook his scythes into his hands and waded into the melee.
Grave didn’t think. He turned, handed the terrified looking soul to Athera and told her, “Make sure this soul doesn’t go anywhere.” Then he joined the fight.
Kartocks were nasty opponents. They lived in the underworld and were evil incarnate. When you looked at a kartock, you could believe it. They were more insect than humanoid, with stick-like limbs that had sharp bladed protrusions. Those protrusions carried unique venom that was prized amongst those who made poison. If a person was infected with it, it would be almost impossible to save him. Kartock venom was a vicious substance.
Their faces were equally alien, resembling a praying mantis but with the eight eyes of a spider. Their bodies were segmented with and covered in black carapace that formed a natural armor. They were a bitch to kill, and Grave had had to learn the hard way where a kartock’s vulnerable places were.
He used that knowledge to his advantage now, fighting alongside Jax to kill the creatures. Grave knew they’d have to kill all the kartocks. The creatures worked for the kings of the underworld and took pleasure in stealing souls from reapers and taking them down, whether the soul was destined for the underworld or not.
Grave kept an eye on Athera and Josy as he fought. Athera had managed to calm the soul down, but it clung to her in a death grip, which was kind of ironic, considering the soul was already dead. The death grip suited Grave. It stopped Athera from wading into the fight, and he could see from her stance that she was itching to climb into the middle and deal out damage. She had no idea how to fight kartocks, and since they came from the underworld, they were more than resistant to fire. Her flames would be like foreplay to these creatures, and she’d be dead before she could even touch one.
Soon the multitude of kartocks had turned into a pile of dismembered pieces at Grave’s and Jax’s feet and the threat was gone. He wanted to grin and punch the air in triumph. Kartocks were not an easy prey, proven by the fact that Jax was having so much trouble with them to start with.
Grave turned to check on Athera again, and this meant he had his back to the portal—something he should have known not to do. He opened his mouth to ask her if she was okay, but her expression stopped him. Athera’s eyes widened and her mouth opened in a scream of warning, but it was too late.
Grave grunted and looked down at his stomach. He was confused for a moment. There was something sticking out of his gut. That black protrusion didn’t belong there. Then he realized a kartock had run him through from behind.
Grave had a moment of clarity left and he turned his head to find Jax. “Help Athera.”
It was all he could get out before the world started to fade to black. His last thought was... I’m so screwed.
* * * *
Athera’s world turned into a movie slow-motion clip as Grave collapsed to his knees. Jax spun and attacked the creature who had impaled Grave, cutting off the appendage and spinning to decapitate it before Grave hit the ground, but that too was in slow motion.
The color drained from Grave’s face as he looked down at the piece of black appendage that protruded from his stomach. Then he fell sideways, and for a moment, Athera’s heart stopped beating and then did this weird skipping motion as she realized Grave had drawn in a shallow breath.
Josy was yelling something at Athera, but all she could hear was the dull pounding of her heart in her ears.
Then the world snapped back into real time.
“Athera, hurry! Get my bag out of the jeep.” Josy was on her knees next to Grave, kneeling in the widening pool of blood that was spreading from his wound.
“Now!” Josy yelled, and it pulled Athera completely out of her trance.
Gravewas wounded, so she didn’t have time to be a statue. He needed help, and he needed her.
She dashed toward the back of the jeep and flung open the door, grabbing Josy’s bag and turned to run to Grave, not even bothering to close the back of the jeep.
Jax and Josy were having a quiet discussion. “... will have to come out,” Jax said in a low voice as if he was afraid that talking too loud might wake Grave.
Josy nodded her agreement. “Yes. The longer it stays in there, the more the venom will seep into his system.”
Athera was trying not to look at the wound in Grave’s stomach, but her eyes kept getting drawn to it, so she forced herself to look up and focus on the soul that hovered near Jax. She could see it was male, even though the soul was transparent, and in the bright sunlight, it was difficult to see. But she saw it was not happy. A lot of hand wringing and moaning was coming from the Creature.
“... going to need you both to hold him still.”
Athera gave herself a mental shake. She didn’t know why this was affecting her the way it was. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen wounded eternals before. Why was she so squeamish now?
“Athera.”
Josy was trying to get her attention, and it took Athera a moment to realize that Josy had said her name more than once.
“Yes.” She moved closer to Josy and Grave. “What do you need me to do?”
“Come on this side.” Jax showed her where to stand. “Grab hold of his legs and hold him down as well as you can.” Jax looked Athera right in the eye as if to make sure she was following what he was saying. “He is going to buck. Even unconscious, this is going to hurt like hell.”
Athera wanted to cringe away from hurting Grave, but what Jax said next made her determined to hold onto Grave. “If that venom stays any longer in his system, there is no way you will be able to save his life.”
She nodded. “I’ll hold him. Just get it out.”
Jax turned his head to look at Josy. “You grab his shoulders. Hold him as still as you can. Normally, we’d leave something like this in and let the healers remove it, but with this venom...” He shook his head.
Jax moved in behind Grave and knelt on the ground at Grave’s back.
“On my count.” He gripped the other end of the black skin and flexed his hand to get a good grip, curling his fingers around the hard shell.
“One... two... three.” On three, he pulled, grunting as the carapace moved a little, then stuck.
Grave jerked under Athera’s hands and she put all her weight into holding him still.
Jax let go and shook his head. “Okay, we have to do this again.”
“You ne
ed to push. The spikes are backward, so because they are facing you, you are doing more damage.” Athera’s brain had finally started working properly. She had seen the problem as soon as Jax yanked on the thing.
“It’s going to rip him up inside,” Josy said.
“Yes, but it will rip him up worse if we pull that thing out,” Athera insisted.
“You are right, but I’m still going to pull.” Jax got up and moved around Grave so that he was kneeling in front of Grave. He wrapped his hands around the black shell that was still sticking out of Grave’s gut.
“On my count.” He took a deep breath and Athera braced herself
“One, two... three.” He pulled, and the creature’s spiked leg came loose. Jax ended up on his ass in the grass and Grave bellowed in pain. Blood gushed from the open wound and Athera and Josy worked in unison, Athera going to the front and Josy to the back, both of them putting pressure on the wound. Josy started to mutter a spell. When she breathed out and said the last word of the spell, the torrent of blood stopped and Grave’s body became unnaturally still.
“What did you do?” Athera asked, panic making her hands shake where she held the wadded-up piece of clothing. It was completely soaked in blood.
“I’ve put him in a stasis, a magical suspended animation. It should—and I’m praying here—stop the venom from getting any more of a hold on his system until we can get him to someone who can extract it.”
“You know of someone?” Athera asked.
Josy pulled a face that told Athera she was not going to like the option that was open to them. “I know someone who deals in making poisons in the fae realm. She’s not really one of the good guys.”
“Then why would she help us?” Athera was getting angry. They needed to find proper help for Grave, not someone evil who would kill him for kicks.
“The venom in his blood is worth a lot of money. The person would heal him or at least remove the venom just for the serum,” Jax pointed out.
When Athera looked over at Josy for confirmation, the witch nodded her head. “Yes. That’s true. She will extract the venom. Once she’s done that, then I can spell him to kick-start his body’s natural healing.”