The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Trilogy

by Charissa Dufour

  His blood flowed into my mouth, and I drank it greedily, but it didn’t taste quite right. Whatever he was, he wasn’t human. I continued to drink, eventually realizing how it tasted wrong. The warrior’s blood tasted thin, as though someone had watered it down. It, and the aged look in his eyes, made me think of Bilbo Baggins: “Like butter scraped over too much bread.”

  I began to wonder just how old this warrior was as the last of his blood trickled into my mouth. He had lost the will to fight me long before I even realized that his blood tasted off. Now he lay completely limp. To be certain he was dead, I grabbed his head, planted a foot against his shoulder, and pulled with all my might. I heard a faint pop, but the head remained attached.

  Though the blood had tasted weak, I had assumed it would fortify me in some way. If anything, though, I felt weaker than I had before fighting the stone-clad warrior.

  I gave up removing his head and turned to check on my friends. Emma and Thomas were jointly fighting a warrior with a sword that look as though it was made of stone, just like his armor. Neither Emma nor Thomas had a weapon. They were taking turns distracting the man, while the other one tried to sneak in and bite him. The problem was this warrior was surprisingly fast, despite his heavy armor and weapons, or maybe it was that they were moving slower than normal.

  I suddenly felt better about my recent troubles. It seemed everyone was struggling with a little supernatural jet-lag.

  Nik was fighting a warrior whose weapon appeared to be a sword and a snake rolled into one. The object, whatever it was, would be stiff and rigid like a sword one second, and bendy and bitey the next. Nik seemed to be doing a little better than Thomas and Emma, though even he was moving slower than his normal speed.

  Josh was struggling the most of the four as he tried to sneak up on the man with the snake-sword. Based on the blood running from the side of his face, he had already been hit once. Without seeming to see Josh, the warrior turned suddenly, thrusting his weapon at Josh. At just the right moment, the sword turned into a snake and bit Josh square on the neck. Josh let out a hasty wail before dropping to the ground.

  Only when he lay still did I realize the wail had come from yours truly. I tried to run to him, but the instant I put my foot on the wide porch of the house I felt a new, sudden, and unnatural wave of fatigue hit me. It was nothing like what I had felt while fighting in the garden. Instead, I felt as though I was wearing the same stone-made armor as the warriors. On top of it, my need to kill them diminished. I knew I needed to, I just couldn’t bring myself to take the next step.

  Lazily, my eyes passed over my friends. I finally noticed the third warrior. He was standing in the gap where they had broken the glass wall and was playing a bizarre stringed instrument. I listened intently to the music and felt the need to sit down. I was just about to obey the longing when I put two and two together.

  Instead of sitting down, I put my fingers in my ears and turned away from the porch. The second my feet left the wooden terrace, I felt a little better. I was still tired, but my will to kick some ass returned.

  I knew I couldn’t rejoin the fight within the range of that musical downer; I was too weak to fight the effects of his song and battle the warriors, but surely there was something I could do from a distance. I began to grope around the garden for more stones, doing my best to stay close to the porch but not touch it. I finally found a stone and threw it with all my might at the musician. It whizzed past the musician’s head and landed safely within the confines of the house, completely un-useful. The musician glanced at me with a smirk, thoroughly pissing me off. I found another stone and threw it. This time it clanked harmlessly against his armor and thumped against the wooden planks of the porch.

  All I have to do was break his little instrument, I thought as I found a long, straight stick.

  I launched the stick like it was a javelin. To my disgust, it struck the musical warrior in the leg, barely scratching his leather trousers.

  I found another rock, used every ounce of energy and anger I had left, and hurled it at the laughing warrior. To both our astonishments, it smashed into his instrument, cracking the thing in half.

  In any other situation, the look on the man’s face would have made me laugh—it was a perfect display of shock, which quickly turned into rage. In fact, he reminded me of a three-year old whose ice cream has just fallen off the cone. First, there is the second of shocked recognition, then there comes the rage-filled tantrum.

  The man’s face crumpled just like a child’s, large tears welling up in his eyes and rolling down his cheeks.

  In that same moment, I noticed a subtle difference to the way my friends moved. Breaking the mystical instrument had freed them from its effects. Sadly, the instrument was not the warrior’s only weapon. He pulled out a long knife and distracted Emma from her fight.

  Now Emma, Nik, and Thomas each had their own enemy, while Josh lay unconscious on the porch. I knew he wasn’t dead-dead due to the fact he hadn’t dissolved into ash, but that didn’t make me feel much better. It took a lot of mystical power to keep a vampire out like that. Whatever poison that snake carried held a mighty punch.

  I went back to finding stones and throwing them at the fray. Sadly, the second stone struck Nik in the shoulder. He spared a second to glare at me.

  I ignored Nik’s look and found another projectile, this time hitting Emma in the head.

  “Stop trying to help,” Emma, Nik, and Thomas all said at the same time.

  I took a step back, a little abashed by the anger in their voices and tripped over the dead body of the first warrior, landing with my buttocks on his chest. I sat there, unsure what else to do, and rested my elbow on my knee. I settled down to watch the fray, my chin resting in my hand.

  Strangely enough, the others seemed relieved to have me out of the fight.

  This is stupid, I thought to myself as I watched them do battle.

  Without my projectiles intruding and the musician’s mystical song dampening their willpower, it didn’t take them long to dispatch the last three warriors.

  “Stay here,” ordered Nik. “And watch my back.”

  Without waiting for a response, Nik disappeared into the house. I stayed on my dead perch, too tired to walk to the others. While we waited for Nik, Thomas scooped Josh up into his arms. He and Emma joined me in the middle of the little garden.

  Moments later, Nik reappeared with the old, musty grimoire tucked under his arm.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered, not waiting for us to move before jumping up onto the top of the stone wall and disappearing down the other side.

  Behind him came ten enormous dogs. By enormous I don’t mean St. Bernard big. I mean could-function-as-a-war-horse big. They had to slip through the broken glass pane one at a time. Their enormous teeth looked as though they could have been used to cook shish kabobs.

  Our eyes grew wide with shock. Before I could move a muscle, Emma bundled me up into her arms and leapt up onto the twelve-foot-high wall, quickly followed by Thomas carrying the unconscious Josh.

  The dogs reached the stone wall just as we dropped to the ground and ran, following Nik’s trail.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I woke up sometime during the next day in a small, dingy hotel. Two full-size beds took up most of the available floor space. In a quick glance I noticed that one wall had been painted a bright shade of orange, while the rest were white. I tilted my head to see Josh asleep next to me on the narrow bed. I rolled my sluggish head the other way and spotted Emma and Thomas on the second bed. Nik sat up in the one chair watching over us.

  He noticed my opened eyes and gave me a small smile. “Go back to sleep,” he mouthed silently to me.

  I obeyed him.

  When I woke again, the sun had set and I felt worlds better. Josh and Thomas were donning unfamiliar jackets, presumably that they had stolen the night before. Nik stood next to the bathroom with a towel in hand. Based on the fact his hair was dry and I saw streaks of dirt acr
oss one side of his face, I guessed he was just heading to the shower. Emma sat perched on the second bed, watching me wake up.

  “Hello sleepy head,” she said with a relieved smile. “You had us worried.”

  “Sorry ‘bout that,” I said as I pushed myself up into a sitting position against the headboard.

  “What happened to you?” Nik asked from his position beside the bathroom entrance. “You were pretty off your game, even for you.”

  I rolled my eyes at Nik, though secretly I was happy to have him acting more like himself rather than a love-sick puppy. It made me wonder what else was happening back in Olympia with Sedgrave. Was he weakening? Or was he simply using his power more, and thereby weakening his battery?

  “Yeah. Well, I’m all better now,” I said. It was mostly true, too.

  “But what happened?” asked Emma, sounding more concerned than Nik.

  “I don’t know,” I said. That was mostly true, too. Well, sorta. I had some theories, but they were just theories.

  “You think something’s up with Sedgrave?” asked Nik.

  “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just jet-lagged.”

  “Vampires usually don’t have that problem,” offered Thomas before opening the door and slipping out into the fading light of dusk.

  Josh stared at me for a moment more, a frown pulling his rusty eyebrows together, before ducking out and following Thomas. Nik ignored us and closed the bathroom door. Evidently the conversation was over.

  I leaned back against the pillows, determined to ignore Emma’s brooding watchfulness, but after a few minutes of awkwardness I said, “What?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  Emma shrugged. “You seem off… and we’re going home tonight. How do you feel about that?”

  “Ready for the fight.”

  “Really?”

  “Hell yeah! I’m done with this. Whether I live or die, I’m ready to get it done with.”

  “Done with?”

  “You know what I mean,” I grumbled. “I’m gonna try to live, but more than living I want him dead, gone, kaput!”

  “Aren’t there things you want to do first?” Emma asked.

  I wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but I gave her the courtesy of thinking seriously on the question. “I want to settle things with Josh. And I want to kill Orythyia.”

  The words were out of my mouth before I realized they were coming, but they were true. The winter queen needed to die. It was because of her, and her inability to control her fae, that Chloe had died. Orythyia would die, and so would Hephaestus, Periphetes’ father and the one who had actually dealt the deathblow to Chloe.

  “And Hephaestus,” I added for good measure.

  “You sure about that? Ashley, trying to kill Orythyia will just get you dead.”

  I shrugged. “It will be a lot easier to kill Sedgrave then.” I paused again. “Please don’t try to talk me out of it, Emma. She needs to die.”

  “I’m not denying that,” admitted Emma. “Will you accept help?”

  I glanced at her. “Maybe? Are you offering?”

  Emma nodded.

  “All right, but you can’t tell anyone. Not even Josh.”

  Emma nodded again.

  “Then it’s agreed. First chance we get, they both die.”

  To my surprise, Emma gave me a rather frightening smile before settling back against the pillow. Just as we reached this point of agreement, the water of Nik’s shower turned off.

  I never thought I’d be happy to see the seethe, but when we finally tumbled through the side door and down the flight of stairs at three in the morning, I could have knelt down and kissed the concrete bunker. Before we could quietly break off and head to our rooms, Mikhail flung open the double doors to the common room and welcomed us with a wide smile.

  “You’ve returned!” he announced unnecessarily.

  The primus draped his outstretched arm around the petite woman who appeared at his side. I recognized her as Sahara, the young vampire we had saved from Richard’s seethe before leaving on our mission. Evidently they had had time to get “acquainted.” Mikhail even kissed her on the cheek before turning his smile back on us.

  I felt too tired to care what had happened during our adventure. All I wanted was a shower and my bed. But that wouldn’t be happening any time soon.

  “Come in, come in. Jim, deal with their luggage. Put the artifacts in the safe.”

  Our ragged group followed the primus into the common room and collapsed on a small grouping of couches. The few people loitering around the pool tables tried to stare at us as long as they could while simultaneously exiting the room.

  I lounged into the corner of the love seat and unceremoniously stretched my legs out over Josh’s lap. I spotted the corner of his mouth struggling with a happy smile.

  “Now, who is this?” Mikhail asked as he eyed Thomas.

  Thomas gave him an innocent smile before draping his arm over Emma’s shoulders, mimicking Mikhail’s posture with Sahara.

  I shifted my gaze to Emma. Her face was sad and conflicted, her eyes darting to where Nik sat brooding.

  “Mikhail, this is Thomas. He is the man Faunus sent us to get.”

  “Ah,” sighed Mikhail dismissively.

  “There’s more, though,” said Emma before she could lose her nerve. “I’m his sire.”

  “That’s a pity,” admitted Mikhail.

  “Mikhail, we can’t turn him over to Faunus. I’m responsible for him.”

  “Emma. You know perfectly well that a sire is not responsible for their offspring after so many years. Once they can survive on their own, they are beyond you.”

  “Unless…” Emma trailed off, unable to continue.

  I glanced at Mikhail. He was looking at Thomas more closely, realization dawning on his features.

  “He didn’t survive your leaving him?”

  Thomas turned his gaze on Emma and gave her an adoring smile. He was oblivious to the conversation surrounding him. He had eyes only for his sire.

  “I see,” sighed Mikhail.

  “We can’t hand him over to the fae. He’s defenseless.”

  I thought of the times Thomas had fought beside us and wondered if there was any truth to Emma’s statement. I certainly wouldn’t have considered Thomas as defenseless. I wanted to correct her, but I had promised to help Emma convince Mikhail to protect Thomas.

  Mikhail looked as though he was torn between the promise we had made to Faunus and his need to protect any vampires weaker than himself.

  “Can’t we at least hold off and until we know what Faunus want’s with him?” I asked, trying to use my mystical sway to our advantage.

  Mikhail glanced down at me, still considering. Finally he nodded.

  “I will go speak with Faunus myself. Ashley, you will join me. If I decide to persuade her to give up her claim on Thomas, your borrowed charisma might come in handy.”

  “I’ll come too,” said Nik, speaking for the first time.

  “No you won’t.”

  “But I…” Nik trailed off when Mikhail raised a warning hand.

  “No buts, Nikolai. I will protect her. Though from the looks of things, she is no longer your concern,” added Mikhail as his eyes dropped to Josh’s hands, which had snaked its way up my pant leg and was currently drawing patterns on my shin.

  I felt relieved to know I had shaved back at the hotel in San Francisco.

  Nik grumbled to himself as he dropped Drake’s broach into my lap and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  “Shall we go Ashley?” Mikhail asked.

  I climbed off the couch and followed Mikhail and Sahara out of the main room. No one commented on Sahara’s assumption. Based on the proprietary arm still draped over her shoulder, it seemed her assumption was accurate.

  Mikhail, Sahara, and I climbed up to the main level and took one of the seethe’s numerous cars. Mikhail drove, one eye on the road and one eye
on the dainty little woman in his front seat. I sat in the back seat and tried not to think about the future.

  The primus pulled the car to the curb right in front of Drake’s antique store.

  “Go on in, Ashley. We’ll wait here.”

  I rolled my eyes at my primus and climbed out of the car. Drake’s shop was much like any other tourist-centered antique store. Only, at two in the morning, it was closed up. I wasn’t sure what Mikhail expected me to do. Normally when we visited the fae, it was during the early hours of the night when his shop was still opened.

  I glanced back at the car, hoping for advice from Mikhail, but I found him tongue deep in a rapid make-out session. Damn, she moved fast!

  Or was it him? I kinda doubted it. In the few months I had been in the seethe, I had never seen Mikhail show interest in a woman. It wasn’t that I thought he was gay or neutered or anything like that—Mikhail was just focused on the needs of those under him. Whatever this was, it seemed out of character for him. Maybe I needed to mention it to Nikolai.

  I turned away from the happy couple and looked back over the dark building. I was so tired I contemplated just leaving the broach next to the front door.

  Instead, I walked up to the door and knocked, before stepping back and looking up to see if there was a second story apartment above the shop. I didn’t see one, but this being a fae’s place of employment, I didn’t trust anything I saw. The fae are incredibly adept at tricking the eye.

  Before I could decide what to do next, the front door to the shop creaked open and Drake poked his head out. He was missing his usual Clark Kent glasses and his sleek suit. In fact, he was wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts.

  My eyes widened at I stared at him. Most fae use glamors that help them to blend in with the normal population. For example, you don’t see a lot of tanned fae walking around the Pacific Northwest. Why? Because no one can get a tan around here.

  Drake was one of the few exceptions to this rule.

  Even without the glasses, he could have played Superman in a recreation of the old classic that would have had all the ladies flocking to the theaters. Without a shirt, he was even more enticing.