Gods Of The Stone Oracle

by Krista Walsh

  Vera exhaled a breath and grabbed on to Gabe’s arm to keep her legs steady. He remained stiff under her palm.

  “Thank you,” Daphne said. “Please believe we understand the urgency. We want this resolved as much as you do.”

  Fendal sniffed. “We shall see.”

  “We wish you the best,” said Chiron.

  The constriction around Vera’s heart eased. In a way, she felt better knowing there was a backup plan if they failed. At least this way the world wouldn’t end if they didn’t make it out.

  “We’ll give you twelve hours,” Fendal said, and just like that, Vera’s chest tightened again. “I will not take the risk that your foolish attempt could endanger the world. If you’re not out by then, whether you’re alive or not, we will end this our way. Good luck.”

  20

  Allegra stormed back and forth across the rotting floorboards of the abandoned living room.

  After the Collegiate had returned to their car and driven off to whatever hovel they were staying at while they waited to carry out their path of destruction, she had kicked through the door of the nearest house and disappeared into the darkness within. She couldn’t handle being around the others until she’d calmed down — her desire to lash out at each of them in turn was too great. The sight of Zach’s restrained anger, the sound of Daphne and Gabe working to compromise with those women. It was beyond provoking.

  She regretted speaking up in favor of their suggestion. She knew that the sooner the problem was solved, the sooner the cage around her would break. But to agree with them, to side with those…witches. She spat.

  “Allegra?” Matthew floated through the wall, moving into the shadowed corner of the room.

  She barely spared him a glance. “Night after night after night I suffered their visions, and for what?”

  “I know.”

  Allegra wheeled on him. “How could you? You are not in my mind. You were not manipulated by the sense of that threat growing closer. You never woke up unable to breathe after being choked by smoke and ash.” She snarled. “They claim it was to explain why I was trapped in New Haven. Preposterous! What sort of explanation fails to explain? I believed it was the universe drawing me in — some force of fate or destiny guiding me down my path. Now I find out it was simply the will of a group of forgotten hags who could not be bothered to handle the problem on their own in the first place!”

  She spat again and kept pacing, fueled by too much rage to slow down. Her demon blood churned like a stormy tide in her veins, and she was afraid that if she stopped moving, she wouldn’t be able to restrain it.

  “You’re right,” Matthew said, stepping forward. “I can’t understand it. I can’t be in your mind. But I can understand why you would be upset. You thought you were here for a reason. A calling from something greater than you.”

  Tears stung Allegra’s eyes, but that only enraged her further.

  “My guess is that right now you’re ready to walk out and leave the others here to face what’s coming.”

  “Why should I not?” she snapped. “What am I able to add to their plan? Why should I go into that prison where I might lose my mind? I will not be blown up by those undertakers just to attempt to win a race I do not see that I can win.”

  “Because you know walking away is beneath you.”

  His words stopped her in her tracks. Her heart beat an uncomfortable rhythm, and her breath kept catching in her throat, so she couldn’t speak. If he’d intended to calm her down, she wasn’t sure he’d succeeded, but her demon had definitely stopped straining to escape. It sat in the back of her mind, waiting to hear what he had to say.

  He moved another foot closer, close enough that despite the boarded-up windows and the stillness of the air, she felt the cool draft of him brush against her bare arms. Her skin rippled with goosebumps that set off another cascade of tingles all the way through her body.

  “After all you’ve sacrificed, you’re not the same woman you were,” he said. “The woman you were wasn’t happy. She was desperately clinging to the illusion of satisfaction. Don’t forget that I knew you before the night of the party, Allegra. I’d heard the stories about you from the other models and producers. I’d watched you on set and saw how you mingled at events. You made a good show of it, but you were always searching for something.”

  Allegra’s throat closed. She refused to admit that he was right. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to even consider the possibility that the life she’d led before Matthew had been a lie she’d told to help herself sleep at night.

  “It wasn’t until you lost Cody, until you resolved the problems at the Garden, that you became truly comfortable in your own skin.”

  Anger returned at the mention of the concierge who had died because of her poor judgment. She had pushed that young man into her world, and he had paid the price for it.

  As had Matthew. Flames flickered in her memory, and the crack that had formed in her heart at the moment of his death threatened to spread a little further.

  How could she possibly help save anyone when everyone she touched was destroyed?

  “I know you feel like you’re having a hard time controlling the demonic side of yourself,” Matthew said. He stretched out a hand and passed it over Allegra’s fingers. Her knuckles ached with the cold, but the sensation wasn’t unpleasant. If anything, it had become a familiar sort of comfort. “I see something different. I think in helping people, in fighting for something you believe in, you’ve found a balance between the beauty of your life and the darkness of your instincts. You’ve found a sense of purpose.”

  Allegra continued to say nothing, unable to form words even if she’d wanted to.

  “If you walk away now, you can return to your life the way it was. You can have your indulgences and your fancy lifestyle. But how long would it be before you got bored again? You blamed a lot of your unhappiness on being trapped in New Haven, but you can only run for so long, Allegra. Eventually, you have to stop to discover what you’re really running from.”

  It was as though he’d punched her in the chest. Unable to catch herself, Allegra sank to her knees. Her breath came quick and shallow, and only when a drop of warm water dripped off her chin to the dusty floorboards beneath her did she realize she was crying.

  She wrapped her arms around her middle to try to hold herself together, but it was a lost cause. He was right. All her life, she’d jumped from country to country, contract to contract. She’d believed it was the life she wanted, until she’d been forced to stop. She imagined going back to traveling now — all those empty hotel rooms and meaningless conversations with people she barely knew or wished she didn’t know.

  Since the Garden Hotel had burned, she’d been so focused on the next sign of the coming threat, she hadn’t had time to be miserable. She’d been preparing for the fight, bracing herself for the day her fate would reach her.

  Now it had come. Maybe not in the guise she’d expected, but the sense of purpose was still there. The sense of duty.

  She’d worked to resolve the problem at the Garden in an attempt to atone for letting Cody down. There was no similar motivation now. Except to satisfy her own sense of self.

  Slowly, the tightness in her chest eased, and her breath came more easily. Exhaustion swept over her, her sleepless nights catching up in a rush. She braced one hand on the ground, vaguely aware of the filth collecting around her red manicured nails, and focused on drawing in a slow breath and releasing it, again and again until her lungs stopped aching.

  When she raised her head, she found Matthew crouched beside her. The emotion in his eyes was one she didn’t recognize, one that had never been directed at her before, but it hinted at so much tenderness and concern that it warmed her straight through.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll stay and do what I can.”

  At least if she were going to die, she could join the others in doing so with a clear conscience.

  ***

  “You’re s
ure about this?” Daphne asked. She ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing the flyaway locks that danced with the wind, then brushed her hands down her arms and tugged at her shirt, which was tied up at her waist to reveal her midriff. “I feel like no one’s going to buy it.”

  Allegra barely spared her a glance. “Of course they will not. If I had a few hours and the perfect wardrobe, I could perhaps manage to make you eye-catching. As it is, you’ll simply have to pretend you believe it.”

  Daphne stuck her tongue out at her, and Allegra bit down on a smile.

  “Besides,” she added, “the point is not for you to steal the room. That will be my responsibility. You simply need to stand out, and I assure you that with that hair, you’ll succeed.”

  After Allegra had come to her decision to stay, she’d returned to the RV with a plan in mind. When they’d originally gone through the layout of the town, Zachariel had pointed out a bar near the ferry, and she knew it would be the best place to obtain information on how to get inside, where to look for Molly, where to find the leaders if they had hidden themselves away — and if there was one way she knew she could help, it was by getting information.

  “Demon or human, I suspect that’s where the guards will go between shifts,” she’d said.

  “Won’t they suspect us the second we walk through the door?” Gabe asked. “I don’t see them getting a lot of tourists.”

  Allegra had already thought of that. “We can say a wrong turn was taken, and now we are simply looking for a bite to eat and a place to sleep so we can find the highway in the morning. It is not so far out of the realm of possibility.”

  “Do we know if the place is even still running?” Vera asked. “With the town being deserted, who could keep it open?”

  Zach snorted. “It’s a bar near a prison, of course it’s still open.”

  “He’s right,” Percy said. “If you look at the heat traces over in this part of town, closer to the ferry, there are still signs of life. Whether they’re human or demon, I don’t know, but they’re there.”

  “Then I will go and learn what I can,” Allegra said, enjoying the reaction her words created.

  “You?” Zach asked.

  “Do you believe you would be a better choice?” she asked, crossing her arms.

  “I’ll go with you,” Daphne said, and Allegra raised an eyebrow.

  The sorceress was far from most men’s dream woman with her bony frame and long nose. If she were going to go in with a partner, Vera would be her preferred option.

  At her expression, Daphne put her hands on her hips. “I’ll be able to sense which of the people in the bar are otherworldly, and therefore more likely working for the prison. It should help narrow down who you should talk to, shouldn’t it?

  Allegra hadn’t been able to argue with her logic, so the plan had been settled. She’d done what she could to make Daphne up in a way that would draw the men’s gazes, tying up her T-shirt, stuffing her bra to enhance her small chest, and adding a bit of extra makeup around her green eyes, which even Allegra had to admit were striking.

  For herself, all she’d done was smooth out her lipstick and comb her fingers through her hair. Perfection came easily for Allegra.

  Once done, the two women had set out for the bar.

  The road to get there was in not much better condition than the one they’d arrived on, though there was a little more traffic as they moved farther away from the abandoned houses. Apparently, the bulk of the town had shifted closer to the alcohol, which Allegra deemed an ill omen for what they would find inside the prison.

  The building itself stood up ahead like a run-down island in a sea of dried land and dead grass. The walls were wood and siding, with white paint peeling off both. The neon sign, Gallagher’s, was missing a handful of letters, the rest of it flickering in and out.

  It was nearing eight o’clock in the evening. The sun had already set, and the sky was spotted with stars and the glimmer of moonlight. At least it wasn’t likely to rain.

  At the sight of the bar, Daphne quirked an eyebrow. “I think you’re going to find yourself a little overdressed.”

  Allegra glanced down at her coral dress that scooped low at the neck and hugged all of her curves as though it had been designed just for her. Which, of course, it had. A low-slung black belt circled her hips, drawing attention downward, all the way down her long caramel-toned legs to her black stiletto heels.

  “I usually am.”

  With that, she pulled the door open and stepped inside.

  A hush fell over the crowd, and the corner of Allegra’s mouth curled upward. There wasn’t a woman present except for the worn-out servers, and all of the men had drinks in front of them. This was going to be easy.

  Not wanting to draw too much attention from the wrong part of the crowd, she toned down her allure, waiting for Daphne to point out the men she should target.

  “There’s magic all over the place,” Daphne murmured. She paused when she stepped in front of a full-length mirror on the wall, and her cheeks turned pink as she assessed herself. Allegra was ready to push her forward, not wanting them to give themselves away, but Daphne caught hold of herself and squared her shoulders, thrusting out her makeshift chest. “I feel like an idiot.”

  “Trust me, this crowd will barely even notice you with me here. Do not worry so much.” She scanned the room. “Where do I begin?”

  Daphne followed her gaze and homed in on a group of men in the far corner. “Over there would be a good guess. It’s glamor central. I’m sensing demon, but there’s a warlock as well.”

  Allegra eyed them. They weren’t dressed as security guards, and didn’t seem as though they’d be any kind of match for Zachariel, but if Daphne was right about their natures, they were likely stronger than they appeared. None of them would have been her usual type of target, but she’d agreed to help, which meant sacrifices needed to be made.

  “Let us order some drinks first, hm?” she suggested. “It might make my next move slightly more palatable.”

  They crossed the room to the bar, the eyes of the patrons following her as she passed. At any other time, she was certain Daphne would have been getting her own attention, being far more attractive than any of the other options in this place, but right now, they only had time for her.

  A few of them grabbed at her as she walked, but she sidestepped them, avoiding contact. Their mothers should have raised them better.

  Reaching the bar, she leaned toward the bartender, drawing him away from his other patrons. He glided toward her, entranced. She flashed him a wink and a smile. “A glass of your best scotch, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Coming right up,” he said, and by his tone, she gathered he wouldn’t have said no if she’d asked him for some time behind the bar as well.

  “And a bourbon,” Daphne cut in.

  “Right,” he said, as though not having realized she was there.

  He walked away to get their drinks, and Daphne rolled her eyes, leaning back against the bar top. “I can see why you don’t have many female friends. That would just get annoying.”

  “I have very few male friends as well, darling,” Allegra said. “The hassle of fighting them off is not worth the effort.”

  Daphne eyed her. “What about Matthew?”

  Allegra pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to talk about her relationship with Matthew. Not that she was ashamed by it, she just didn’t understand it well enough to discuss it. He had taken her by surprise after their first night together at the Garden. She’d been so certain she was immune to the emotional weaknesses of the human species, but as it turned out, she just hadn’t met the right person. There was a connection that ran deep through her veins, binding them together in a way she’d never experienced with anyone else.

  The fact that he was dead hadn’t changed that for her. If anything, the bond had strengthened. His sole purpose for remaining in this world was to be with her.

  And their relation
ship was now something neither of them had to share with anyone else.

  “He is different,” she replied.

  Daphne’s smile seemed forced, almost sad. “I know that feeling.”

  “I see,” Allegra said. “I gather by that expression on your face, you have also met someone since we last spoke?”

  The bartender returned and placed the drinks on the bar. Allegra held out her credit card, but he waved it away. “Ladies’ night. My treat.”

  Allegra offered him a smile and rewarded him with a hint of her allure. As soon as her pheromones reached him, his pupils dilated and he drifted away, wrapped in a bubble of contented lust.

  “I have,” Daphne said, watching the interaction with interest. “I think you’ve met him. Detective Sergeant Hunter Avery.”

  A flash of auburn hair and hazel eyes popped into Allegra’s memory, shadowed by the beautiful Meg Kealey, who had stood tall and confident and made her partner appear weak by comparison. They’d all met during the events at the Garden Hotel, and while Detective Avery had been competent and friendly enough, he hadn’t done much to attract Allegra’s desire.

  “I thought I detected a trace of otherworldly around him,” she said. “It also explains why they asked you about my possible guilt.” She grimaced. “Thank you for not turning their attention toward me as a suspect.”

  Daphne shrugged. “I might have fudged the truth a little bit. It wasn’t impossible you’d snapped and killed your colleague, but it didn’t seem like your style. And I knew you couldn’t have killed the other woman in the garden. You sure as hell wouldn’t have set foot in New Haven before Jermaine dragged us here, so you couldn’t have done it.”

  She offered a cheeky smile, and Allegra allowed herself a dry chuckle. She swallowed her drink in one gulp and held the empty glass in her hand. “I suppose I should get to work.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Daphne asked.

  “Stay here and do your best to stay out of trouble. If anything appears to go wrong, I would not mind if you stepped in.”