The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Trilogy

by Charissa Dufour

  “So, I hear we're grave robbing tonight?” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  Periphetes laughed good-naturedly, his light blue eyes softening even further while his frozen breathe made him look like an albino superman. It was a strange trait of the winter fae. I couldn't help but wonder if summer fae always had a sunburn. Periphetes took my hand, looped it around his cold arm, and led me toward the side exit. Nik and Josh followed.

  When they reached the door, Nik silently took the lead, heading straight for the driver’s seat while Periphetes kindly escorted me to the front seat, where he opened the door and handed me in. I felt like I belonged in a Jane Austen book, and I gotta admit I liked it. All girls like to be treated like a fancy lady once in a while. Josh and Periphetes climbed into the back seat just as Nik began to rev the engine.

  He drove us into Tumwater, to the Odd Fellows Cemetery. Odd Fellows was a historical fraternity that did good things for hurting people, like widows and orphans. The cemetery itself had been built in the late 1800s—one of the oldest landmarks in the greater Olympia area. I was sure we would find some really old dead people here. Nik parked on the side of the street and got out, still not looking at me. Before I could finish unbuckling, Periphetes was opening my door. He took my hand and helped me out of the car. I didn't have the nerve to tell him his hand actually made it harder to get out. What notions men have!

  In the meantime, Josh pulled the two shovels out of the trunk. I glanced around, hoping no one would notice us and the shovels. I figured it would be an odd sight, no pun intended. We headed into the cemetery, the tombstones black against the moonlit sky. This would have been creepy before I knew things like faeries, wizards, and vampires actually existed. Now it was the thing of my worst nightmares. I walked close to Periphetes, occasionally bumping into him which brought the corners of his thin lips up into a smile. After a short search, Nik stopped at a tall stone with the name Virginia Chambers written on it.

  I peeked over my shoulder, feeling as if someone were watching us. To my astonishment, I spotted a woman standing just a few feet away, her long skirt flowing to the ground and the sleeves of her blouse puffed up. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and covered with a stiff straw hat lined with very fake flowers. The high neck of her blouse was trimmed with nothing but a delicate brooch.

  I thought it strange to see a woman in a costume wandering through a graveyard in the middle of the night. I blinked furiously when her image thinned and blurred, thinking my eyes were freaking out. Her image continued to waver like a mirage. She smiled daintily at me, picked up her skirts, and turned to walk away.

  “Um… guys?” When they looked at me, I pointed at the departing figure.

  “What?” asked Josh. “Did you really expect to go to a graveyard and not see a ghost?”

  “A ghost? We can see ghosts?”

  “Well yeah. You're dead. Of course you can see ghosts.”

  “Riiight.” I glanced up at Periphetes. He was still staring in the direction I'd pointed.

  When he noticed my attention he smiled and said, “No, I don't see a ghost. Fae only see certain ghosts and only occasionally. Was it scary?”

  I shook my head. “Just a woman who looked like she came out of an ‘Anne of Green Gables’ novel.” Josh looked at me in confusion. Nik's expression suggested he'd already read the Anne series. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. “Never mind. So is this the grave we're diggin' up?” I glanced at the plot, thinking the grass looked a little off compared to the walkway.

  “Yes,” said Nik in a dark voice. He took one of the shovels from Josh and began digging. Josh joined him, leaving the fae and me to watch.

  I will say this: Vampires dig quickly. After less than an hour of watching, which brought me to rest against a neighboring tombstone and caused Periphetes to start pacing, Nik and Josh reached the coffin. They brushed away the dirt to reveal an elegant wooden box that showed signs of once being painted white. Near the top, the wood was cut out and lined with glass to create a porthole. It would have been cool except for the very real skeleton face looking up at me. I shuddered and took a half step toward Periphetes. He draped a long, cold arm over my shoulder and pulled me closer. I could almost feel him smiling. Nik glared up at us, making me feel suddenly awkward. He returned to his work quickly though, and I tried to ignore the feeling which bordered on regret.

  Not like I owed him anything, I told myself sternly.

  “Ouch,” snapped Josh, yanking his hand away from the coffin. My new, excellent night vision made it possible for me to see the enormous splinter sticking out of his palm. He yanked it out and gave the coffin a respectable glare.

  Nik ignored Josh's bleeding hand and jerked the coffin open. All three men heaved a sigh of disappointment.

  Chapter Forty

  I wasn't sure what they were looking for in the creepy coffin, but it was clearly missing. All I saw was what seemed to be a woman—due to the long, black dress—and the remains of a dog laying at her feet. I was deeply disturbed. Of course, it turned out I could get even more disturbed. I blinked a few times, once again thinking I was going crazy. The skeleton of the dog seemed to shiver for a brief second before it fleshed out and became a shimmering image of the real, living thing. The ghost of the long dead dog pranced around as if in full health and nipped playfully at Josh’s feet.

  “Gah!” I sputtered. Periphetes harrumphed, Josh chuckled and Nik ignored. After us vampires stared at the ghost of this woman's dog for a few seconds, I pulled my attention back to what we'd come here for. “So…” I clicked my tongue on the roof of my mouth. “Was the dog what we were after?”

  “Not in the least,” whispered the fae, his breath still coming in tendrils of cold air and brushing against my ear. “Victoria Chambers was the last known person to possess the grimoire of Sedgrave and there was a legend that she'd been buried with it… along with her dog. Clearly that legend was false.”

  “But she was buried with her dog,” I point out, my voice full of judgment.

  “She was a bit eccentric.”

  “Eccentric? She was bat-shit-crazy!” exclaimed Josh before climbing out of the grave. He had to make a few foot holes to make it up the six foot wall of dirt.

  Nik followed. “We’d better fill the grave again.”

  While they worked, I asked Periphetes a few questions. “So… bat-shit-crazy lady… what was her deal?”

  “She was a wealthy occultist, supposedly clairvoyant, and steeped in mysticism. The story says she stumbled upon Sedgrave's grimoire in her European travels. She spent a small fortune on it. Unlike most occultists of that era, she actually had a slight connection with the mystical world and was a true believer.”

  “Why did we need his grimoire again?”

  “It's a tool in the ritual where you become a sacrifice,” said Periphetes.

  “Keeping it out of their hands was one way to help prevent you dying,” added Nik, his tone biting.

  “Again,” Josh added a beat too late in an effort to dissolve the sudden tension.

  I felt very stupid for asking what now seemed so obvious. Twenty-twenty hindsight, as always. Periphetes patted my arm with the hand that draped over my shoulders. “The more items we can keep from them the safer you are.”

  I turned my attention to the dirt slowly piling on top of the dog ghost that continued to prance around in the grave, making soft yipping noises. To my surprise, it started climbing the dirt pile as though it was corporeal, eventually making its way out. It went straight to Josh and began to snap at the flying dirt with its tiny mouth. Of course, the dirt just passed right through his ghostly head. I was too depressed to feel sorry for the puppy’s early demise or to even find its antics cute and amusing. A while later they finished filling the grave and replacing the chunks of sod. In Washington's wet climate the roots would take hold again in no time.

  When we neared the car—the puppy following us, I started to feel as though someone were watching me again. I
stopped to look for the ghost, but even with my super-vamp-night-vision, I couldn't make out anything beyond the nearest gravestones. I turned back to the group, realizing they had made it to the car, not aware I'd stopped. I was just about to look around again when something hit me in the back of the head.

  I went down face first, falling too fast to get my hands out to soften my landing. My mouth filled with wet grass and I felt mud smear across my face as I turned my head. I spit the grass out and rolled to my left, just in time to miss another blow from the two-by-four that had hit me in the head. It was wielded by a man that looked strangely familiar.

  No. Not a man.

  I couldn't hear his heartbeat. In fact, I couldn't hear any heartbeats in the bodies that danced around me in a deadly battle. I kicked up, nailing my attacker in the groin. Though it didn't affect him like it would a human, it did hurt enough to give me time to scramble to my feet.

  I was preparing to hit him again when I heard Nik yelling at me to run. I turned, trying to spot him in the midst of the battle. I suddenly realized most of Richard's seethe was here to capture me. We were vastly outnumbered, even with Periphetes freezing our enemies one by one.

  The distraction gave my attacker a chance to hit me again. The blunt piece of wood collided with my shoulder blade. I heard a sick crack and my arm went limp. Yes, running suddenly seemed like a good idea. But how could I with this two-by-four wielding fiend attacking me? I ducked away from his next swing, too hurt and confused to do anything more impressive. Just when I was about to win a gold medal in stupidity, a streak of white shot into my attacker, freezing him in place. I glanced at Periphetes.

  Even from where I stood I could see that the fae was wounded. I had no idea by what means faeries could die, but it was clear that he would soon be out of the battle. His tall, lean body slumped to one side. From what looked like a gash in his stomach, silver ichor dribbled down his groin and legs. Curls of mist plunged to the ground from the liquid seeping out of his wound—as though his blood was made of liquid nitrogen. He looked like a junior high science project gone wrong.

  I didn't hesitate this time. I charged away from the fight, just trying to make it to the nearest road. When my feet hit the pavement I veered toward the main thoroughfare a few blocks away, not straightening my trajectory until I reached the other side of the road. I hoped there would be some traffic to keep my enemies from attacking me straight out.

  Before I made it to the wider road, a strange noise from within the cemetery made me reconsider my plan. Maybe I need to simply get away from the graveyard, I thought. I turned down the next path that wasn't a driveway. It took me between two dark houses and dumped me into a parking lot for a small business building. Another unnerving sound made me stop. From there, I saw that even the Safeway gas station was deserted. So much for finding a crowd. Granted, it was two in the morning.

  “Ashley,” whispered a voice. I glanced around, trying to figure out where it had come from. Though it was soft, the voice echoed off the surrounding buildings. “Ashley… come out to play,” it taunted.

  My eyes widened with fright. Whoever it was wasn’t a friend. I bolted in whatever direction I was already facing.

  I hurdled over a low fence dividing the parking lot from a dead end, residential street and ran like mad. Tendrils of pain shot down my injured arm and burst out of my fingertips. I tried to hold it against my body, to keep the broken bones in my shoulder from shifting, but this just made it hard to run. I needed both arms to keep a steady, even pace.

  After a few blocks the street ended in a T. Without thinking or slowing my pace, I turned, just as the black clouds above released their burden. Pelting rain began to fall, forcing me to blink furiously to clear the water out of my eyes. As I straightened my angle, my surroundings were suddenly lit by a blinding flash of lightning. I had to slow my pace as my eyes readjusted to the darkness. The night rumbled with the following thunder just as I fought to speed up again.

  At the next junction I stopped, glancing down both deserted streets. “Ashley… ” echoed the voice again. “Why are you running, Ashley?”

  I didn't wait to answer. I took off at a sprint down another street. More lightning flashed through the sky, blinding me. I didn't stop, but hoped my feet would stay on the pavement as I ran forward. At the next turn I realized I didn't have a clue where I was, but that didn't stop me. I kept running in the direction I hoped would lead me away from the graveyard.

  A few steps later, my tennis shoes slipped in a puddle and I went skidding onto a nearby lawn, landing on my damaged shoulder. I screamed. I couldn't help it. The rain had already filled the porous earth and was now forming puddles in the lawn. I sat in an inch of muddy water and I shook my head, trying to get the wet hair out of my eyes.

  Another flash of lightning.

  Once I could see again, I spotted the lights of a car moving away from me at a fast clip. That must be a main road, I thought. Thunder rolled across the city.

  “Ashley… what's wrong?” simpered the voice again.

  I dove toward the thoroughfare, trying to move quickly and keep my injured arm from screaming at me, positive anyone within a ten block radius could hear it.

  I felt hot tears began to mingle with the rain water running down my cheeks. Just as I got close enough to recognize it as Capitol Boulevard—which would easily lead me back to the seethe—three men jumped out of an alley and surrounded me. I hadn't heard even a whisper of their approach.

  I turned, prepared to keep up my momentum, but instead of getting away, I collided into a muscled chest. Two hands reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders. Fire shot from my cracked shoulder blade and down my arm. I screamed, causing him to relax his grip a little. Once I had blinked the tears away, I saw that Isaac had captured me at last. His blue eyes stared down at me as his full lips tweaked up into a half smile.

  “You have wasted a great deal of my time,” he hissed. Instead of being gentle with me, as he always had been, he pushed me roughly over to the other men. Two of them took hold of my arms while the other grabbed my feet. I screamed again when they carried me by arms and legs toward a waiting vehicle. I couldn't help it. It felt as though they were tearing my arm away from my body with each jarring step.

  Just as they tossed me into the backseat, I noticed the porch light of a nearby house flicker on, but it was too late for them to help me; besides, I knew Isaac would only kill any human that came to my aid. I clamped my mouth shut as they joined me in the back seat, jostling my battered body. Isaac and the third man jumped into the front seat. I tried to be as small as possible, not wanting to touch my captives, but the small movement had me gasping for breath. I couldn't take it. Instead, I leaned back in the seat and tried to relax. After all, it's not like there was anything I could do now. My goose was good and cooked.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Isaac screeched into a parking place at the flooring company that was Richard's seethe. Without any partiality, I thought Mikhail had a better front—booze, food, and big-ass TVs. They climbed out of the car, and, when I didn't follow quickly enough, one of them reached in and pulled me out, thankfully gripping my good shoulder. Once on the wet pavement, the other took hold of my hurting arm to lead me away, but both their grips were loose. I took a second to consider which way to run before jerking free of their grasp and booking it straight toward the street, but I barely made it to the sidewalk before Isaac knocked me to the ground. He took a clump of my hair and slammed my head into the pavement. I tried to groan and struggle free, but darkness quickly closed in around me.

  When I opened my eyes, I was dangling from the ceiling, a rough rope bound around my wrists and attached to a nasty looking hook. My wet clothing was still dripping onto the drop cloth laid out below me, suggesting I hadn't been out for long. It wasn't surprising to find my wounded shoulder still on fire. I groaned, a small piece of my mind wondering why it wasn't healing at super human speed. Then I remembered the necessity of blood. When was the l
ast time I'd drunk any? I honestly couldn't remember.

  I blinked a few times, making sure I wasn't imagining things. I'd expected to be in some sort of dark and moist cellar. Instead, I was hanging in the main room where I had first met Richard. The only difference was the arrangement of the furniture—a few couches were pushed out of the way and the crystal had been replaced with metal tools that made me want to vomit. Next to the tools sat what looked like a very old, musty book. The grimoire, I guessed. I tried to look away.

  Richard stepped into view, looking much like he had the last time I'd seen him—dressed in jeans and an ill-fitting blazer with a gold chain dangling from his puffy neck. He waddled over to me and smiled. Like the metal tools, his grin made me sick to my stomach.

  “Just when I thought it might be impossible to capture you—thanks to that ridiculous warden of yours.”

  I frowned. Did he mean Nik?

  “I'm sure in your old age, you've learned nothing is impossible,” I said.

  Though he stayed calm, he did give me a nudge in the shoulder with his thick, stubby fingers. I swung slightly on the rope as I grimaced. The pain in my shoulder was less, but not by much. Evidently I didn’t keep my face as nonchalant as I'd hoped.

  “Did you get hurt during the fight? Tsk tsk,” he said before pausing significantly. Richard frowned. “You should be more healed than this. When was the last time you drank anything?”

  My eyes, which I had tried to keep away from his, quickly darted to his face. Was he going to do what I thought? Yep. Most definitely.

  Richard waved his hand and a vamp opened a door. The assistant pulled a calm looking woman out of what appeared to be a large meat locker—gross! She was pasty white, more white than your average Olympian. Her blond, curly hair hung down her back in thin, frizzy waves. She reminded me of chemo patients on the news—their bodies barely hanging on to life. I stared at her as she neared me, her heart rate growing louder with each step. It was slow. Even. She wasn't afraid.