Frank’s laughter was weak. “‘Pennsylvania’? Oh, dear. If I survive this, we’ll have to consider a hearing test. It’s ‘Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba.’”
Tessa frowned, just happy he was alert enough to correct her. “Impressive. Okay, so what you said. You go next.”
“‘From the day we arrive on the planet and blinking, step into the sun,’” he whispered, hoarse and raw.
“‘It’s the circle of liiiife, it’s a wheel of something!’” she sang back, tears forming in her eyes and splashing to her torn jeans.
Frank struggled to push away from her. “You missed an entire verse.”
“Yeah, but look at you,” she said on a smile, pointing to his fading wounds. “It would seem someone likes my singing. So, hah!”
He held up his hands, once bloodied with scratches and gouges in his skin, now clearing at a rapid pace.
“See, your magic isn’t totally gone. Wanna sing till it comes back entirely?”
Frank scowled, though his eyes were amused. “Not if you’re singing.”
They both stilled for a moment, Tessa assessing their surroundings, forcing herself to think of anything but the slimy walls burbling behind her back. “Where are we?”
“We’re close to where the most dangerous souls who are locked up are kept, Tessa. I don’t know how you managed to get us here, but you did it.”
“So whoever wants the baby is somewhere around here?” She fought the utter terror those words brought.
“Yes. I’ve never been in these chambers, but I’ve heard them described. You have to be exceptionally careful, Tessa. These are the most tortured souls, the most reckless humanity had to offer, the scourge of society. The very bottom of the barrel.”
Breathe, Tessa. Breathe. “Okay. So this is where I go poke around and you sit still and keep healing.”
Frank shook his head. “Not a chance. Where you go, I go,” he said rolling to his knees and rising.
A quaking began under their feet, the floors slithering in ribbons of bloodred beneath them.
She gripped Frank’s arm, her hands aching. “The egg. I feel the baby!” she whisper-yelled. “We’re close, Frank.”
As though tied to an invisible rope, she followed the pull, the vibration, letting it lead her, passing chamber after chamber, open door after open door, the halls bereft of anyone, containing only the gloom of isolation.
Frank stopped short, tripping and falling into her. He held his finger to his lips and pointed to his right.
Relief welled in her, making her bones feel like butter. Casey! Oh, thank God, it was Casey. Sitting on a chair in a dark room with two torches on either side of her. The walls were damp, rivulets of water sluicing down along the cement, and covered in thick moss.
Sitting?
Why the hell was she sitting when there were babies to be saved?
Tessa pushed Frank behind her, peering around the corner. Oh, no, no. She’d been fooled before by the “I’m your mother and father” demon shapeshifter posers once. Twice? Not this time, Tricky Dick.
Frank sniffed the air, his nostrils flaring. “That’s really her. I can smell her.”
Tessa breathed a sigh of relief, rushing in, ignoring the fact that Casey was shaking her head, bouncing the chair up and down by pushing her feet against the floor.
“Casey!” She fought not to yell. “Are you all right?” Tessa put her hands on Casey’s shoulders. Nothing was keeping her in the chair. She wasn’t tied to it, and her mouth had nothing to prevent her from speaking. Yet she remained mute.
“It must be a spell of silence,” Frank offered, coming up behind her. “Let me try to break it.”
Casey bounced up and down again, her brown hair falling about her shoulders in a tangle as she shook her head.
But Frank closed his eyes and made a fist, popping it open with a sudden burst of movement, and whatever held her in the chair suddenly let loose.
“Get out!” Casey yelled the moment her lips were capable of moving, jumping up from the chair. “Run, Tessa!”
Tessa took a step back, afraid they’d made a big mistake. Maybe this wasn’t really Casey?
Casey grabbed her arms, her eyes glowing red. “Listen to me carefully. Get out, Tessa! Take the baby and run!” She pointed to a basket on a small shelf, surrounded by snakes.
Lots of slithering, slimy, gooey snakes. One of her worst phobias.
Tessa swallowed her fear, darted toward the basket, forced herself to reach past the snakes, hissing and spitting, fought a scream, and peeked inside the basket to be sure the baby was safe. There was a hairline fracture of a crack in the shell, meaning it wouldn’t be long now. The pulsing heartbeat quickened, picking up its pace, throbbing, calling to her.
Frank motioned Tessa toward the door only feet away. Yet Casey stayed rooted to the spot she’d been in. Another spell? “Casey, hurry! Let’s go!” she yelled.
Casey shook her head. “No, Tessa. I’m finishing this, and I’m finishing it for good! Get out. Take the baby and run. Mick’s here. So is everyone else. Find them, Tessa, and get out!”
Mick was here. Instantly, her heart began to crash against her ribs. But she couldn’t leave Casey . . . What did she need to finish? “What are you talking about? You have to come with us, Casey!”
“Tessa!” she roared, lobbing a fireball from her hand in the direction of the snakes. “Get the fuck out now!”
Tessa’s eyes widened, but she clung to the basket. What was happening? What was Casey finishing?
The sudden slam of a door and the clink of locks being pushed into place made her stomach fall to her feet with dread.
Yeah. That couldn’t be good.
Casey stood in front of Tessa, putting a protective arm in front of her. “You stay away from them, or so help me, I’ll—”
“You’ll what, husband-stealer?” someone said in a cultured voice, interrupting Casey. “What exactly do you think you can do to stop me, whore?”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whore? Someone was calling conservatively dressed, mild-mannered Casey a whore?
Tessa pivoted on her ragged sneaker, the canvas catching on the rough floor and making her stumble into Frank.
One of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen slinked toward her; every step she took was poetry in motion, fluid, graceful. Her gobs of blond hair fell past her perfect breasts in swishy, beachy waves, gleaming beneath the torches’ lights, matching the glitter of her blue, blue eyes.
The white gown she wore flowed about her feet, showing just a hint of creamy thigh at the slit in the skirt. “So you must be the new mother? Congratulations, darling!”
“Who are you?”
She sighed, her slender shoulders sagging. “Honestly, all this notoriety and I can’t get any credit, can I, Casey?”
Tessa gripped the handle of the basket as the egg began to roll, another crack in the shell clearly visible. “I’m new to this, uh . . . scene. So out of deference to my newness, I’d appreciate a heads-up.”
The woman smiled down at her, her lips full and red like plump cherries. She walked a long finger with a nail tipped in red that matched her lips along the handle of the basket. “I’m your worst nightmare, darling. And such a coincidence, too. Is this another one of your accidents, Casey?”
Tessa’s eyes frantically sought Casey’s, but she wasn’t providing answers. “So, still pretty new to this. While I realize you’re probably not up to explaining yourself, humor me, please? What’s this about?”
The woman folded her arms under her insanely pert breasts. “This is about your child, of course. I want it. That means you can’t have it anymore. Also, I’m a little miffed at you. You tricked me.” Her beautiful face went sad, her lips forming a pout. “My feelings were crushed when I found out the egg my demons stole wasn’t real.”
Tessa waved her free hand. “I get that part. I know all about unleashing the souls from Hell and freeing yourself. The whole brimstone-and-dragon-scales thing. I mean, what’s Cas
ey got to do with it?”
The woman moved toward Casey, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, something Casey strangely didn’t fend off. “Casey stole my husband. Right out from under my nose, didn’t you, darling?”
Casey didn’t respond, scaring Tessa. “Okay, so you’re still mad about it, right? The wound is still fresh. Why don’t we talk this out? Maybe we can resolve your differences. And here’s something else to think about. Who wants a man that cheats? He’s a pig, right? Why cry over spilled milk?”
The woman snatched Casey up and threw her away as though she were throwing away a piece of tissue. Casey slammed against the wall, the crack of her head making Frank wince as he inched his way behind this giant of a woman to run to Casey’s aide. “Oh, I don’t care about the man anymore, sugarplum. He’s water under the bridge. That Casey ended up here in an attempt to save you is just some delicious irony of frosting on my cake. It’s like killing two birds with one stone. I free myself from Hell and kill the woman who put me here to begin with, which means I don’t have to hunt her down. Thank goodness, too. The chase is tedious.”
Sweet baby Jesus, how were they going to get out of here? “So in the spirit of killing, should we exchange names? I’m Tessa Preston. You are?”
“Hildegard.”
Oh, she’d heard Darnell talking about Hildegard. She was a mean, mean, vengeful vampire who’d turned Casey’s husband into her lifemate by biting him while he slept. Worse, she’d bitten his daughter, too.
Oh, hard feelings were surely abound.
“Hildegard,” Tessa repeated. “No last name?”
She smiled, serene and gorgeous. “Baby Snatcher?”
“Do you hyphenate that? I could see that as an attractive option when looking at it as a signature on checks and thank-you cards.”
Hildegard moved toward Tessa, her pale skin eerie and perfect, her mouth hard and determined. She held out her hand, uncurling her fingers. “Give me the baby, Tessa.”
Tessa began backing away. Swallowing hard, she licked her lips nervously. “I just can’t do that, Hildegard. I know it’ll free you from Hell, but, and this is a biggie, I hear it’s not just you who’ll be freed. I heard a rumor that it’ll unleash some really bad demons. What then? I’m responsible for the world being turned upside down? I don’t know about you, but who wants that on their shoulders? It’s great street cred—”
“Give. Me. The. Baby!” she screamed, blowing the loose tendrils of Tessa’s hair not plastered to her head with sweat away from her face.
“No,” she said, surprising even herself with how calmly she spoke the word.
The egg began to roll back and forth, back and forth as she clung to the basket.
“What did you say?” Hildegard appeared astonished by her refusal.
“I said no. Absolutely not.” No fear. No fear. No fear.
“No one tells me no, Tessa. No one.”
A thought breezed through her mind at that moment as she stared up at this Nordic goddess, and Tessa wondered just who Hildegard thought she was to come and snatch up a baby just because she wanted to break out of her prison—a jail cell she was in due to her bad behavior. So what was this sense of entitlement about? Serving a sentence had reasoning behind it—even if it was in Hell.
So boo-hoo.
Tessa squared her shoulders, lifting her chin. “Well, I just did. I think if more people had told you no, you wouldn’t be where you are right now. So no. And no again.”
Hildegard took another step toward her, making Tessa’s heart crash, but not in the way she’d have expected. It wasn’t out of fear—it was out of anger. Ugly, kill-a-bitch-without-looking-back anger. “I’d back up, Hildegard. Now, I’m asking nicely. But I won’t be quite as accommodating if you come one step closer.”
“Do you have any idea who I am? I’m a centuries-old vampire. Who are you?”
Tessa fought the bubbling rage in her stomach, forcing its way into her throat, and just before it spilled from her mouth she answered, “I’m a mother.”
And for the first time, the phrase “All Hell broke loose” held real meaning.
Mick heard the blast from along the corridor seconds before they were all flying in every direction, crashing into walls that were writhing with a life of their own.
Nina was on her feet first, lunging upward, her image a blur as she sped down the hallway to the door the blast had come from.
She began to ram the door with her shoulder to no avail, her grunts harsh and frustrated. “Tessa! Answer me, goddamn it!
There were screams, loud, piercing screams, coming from behind the door. Tessa’s screams, shredding Mick’s soul. “Move!” he roared, making a run for the door, slamming into it only to bounce back as though a linebacker had thrown him into a wall made of rubber.
“It’s gotta be some kinda spell keeping it locked!” Darnell yelled over that unmerciful heartbeat pounding the air.
Wanda’s face was grim and rife with anxiety, but she looked at both women, her eyes fierce with determination. “On three. One, two, three!”
All three of them went at the door, screaming like the warriors they were, clothes torn and burned, shoes broken and battered, hair singed and mussed.
They bounced back, too, smacking into the ground.
And the screams, they went on and on until Mick thought he’d lose his mind.
So basically, that’s what happened next.
He lost it. Full-on, rage-fueled lost it. “Get out of the way!” he bellowed to Darnell and the women.
His mouth opened wide as he ran at the door, his roar deep and ugly, echoing throughout the cavernous hallway, and fire spewed from his mouth directly at the door.
As though he were using a blowtorch to open a safe, he decimated the door, cutting away at it until it was nothing but ashes.
Everyone rushed past him then, screaming, pushing, working as one entity to get inside the door. Mick followed, his long legs eating up the distance.
He skidded to a halt just behind the girls and Darnell. What he saw made his chest so tight it ached.
Frank hung on a rusty hook, out cold, his feet dangling in the air, his body limp and soaking wet.
Tessa was clinging to a basket, her face chalk white, her body violently shaking as snakes wound up around her legs, circled her arms, caressed her cheek.
She hated snakes. Had one of the biggest phobias he’d ever encountered.
Their eyes met, hers filled with sheer terror. “Run!” she whispered, her fear so evident, so palpable, he tasted it on his tongue. “Run!”
Darnell was the first to react, snatching at the snakes as Tessa shook. “You have to run,” she said from clenched teeth. “She has the egg and it’s hatching. Casey’s chasing her. Run before everything explodes!”
Nina yanked Frank off the hook, throwing him over her shoulder. “Who has the egg, Tessa? Who the fuck is it?”
“Hildegard,” she said on a terrified shudder, a tear slipping from her eye.
Nina was moving before Tessa said another word, plowing out the door in her fast-forward motion, screaming Casey’s name.
Wanda followed close behind Nina with an order for Darnell to stay with them as Marty flung the last of the snakes off Tessa and Mick used his fire to incinerate them.
Pulling her into his arms, he clung to her, pushed her soaking-wet hair from her face. “Where, Tessa? Where did they go?”
She fought for breath, her fingers digging into his skin. “I don’t know. They just disappeared. But I can feel the baby, Mick. I can find the baby!”
Darnell scooped her up, throwing her around his waist and latching onto her legs. “The gates! She’ll be headin’ for the gates, lookin’ to get out! We gotta stop ’em! You hold on, Tessa, We’ll never make it if you don’t let me carry you.”
Marty pointed to her back. “Get on, Mick!”
He began to back up, but Marty jerked his arm. “Get on my back, Neanderthal! You don’t have the kind of speed I have, and we n
eed to get to everyone else to help!”
The mere thought of climbing onto this petite woman’s back left him unable to move until she roared in his face, “Get the fuck on, Mick, or I’m going to knock your scales right the fuck off your back!”
He fought every chauvinistic, knuckle-dragging notion he’d ever had and jumped on, wrapping his arms around Marty’s neck and watching Darnell take the lead.
Tessa banged against the demon’s back like a wooden sign in the wind until she was nothing more than a fuzzy image as Darnell headed back the way they’d come.
And Mick prayed. He prayed the baby was still safe. That somehow Casey had gotten to it.
And if she hadn’t, he was going to hunt Satan down in this maze of hopelessness and make a deal with the devil himself.
* * *
A stream of blond hair became visible just as Darnell came to the gates, flying through the air like a vanilla-colored flag.
Tessa fell from Darnell’s back, dropping to the ground and hitting her knees with a yelp, but she was up and back on her feet within seconds, running as fast as her legs could carry her to catch up to Wanda.
The long stretch of road leading toward the gates rolled upward, then slammed back down, making it almost impossible to keep her footing.
“Casey! Nina!” Wanda screamed amidst the fireballs hurtling her way, her cry dry and hoarse.
Nina was but inches from Hildegard’s back and, reaching out, she snatched her hair, wrapping it around her fist until she almost had her in a choke hold. “I’ll kill you, you fucking bitch!”
Hildegard’s laughter thundered in Tessa’s ears, mocking them as she clung to the egg, bending at the waist and twisting around so Nina lost her grip on her hair just before she shot upward into the air.
Hildegard rose high above the smoke, and that was when Tessa saw it. A foot, the teeniest, tiniest foot, pink and perfect, poking through the egg.
Panic seized her just before she stumbled, falling to the ground and bouncing against the pathway that had turned hard like concrete.
The Accidental Dragon Page 22