by A L Fogerty
Riddick knelt by the door and began poking the lock with his picks. Kayla looked on, watching his progress over his shoulder. He’d been able to pick a spelled lock when the brute force of her magic wouldn’t work in the past.
Riddick held his tongue out of one corner of his mouth. Kayla could feel his concentration as he focused. He was so cute when he used his thief skills.
One of his picks broke, and he took a sharp breath then replaced the pick with another. He continued trying until he’d busted six picks. He looked up at Kayla with something between a grimace and a grin.
“I don’t have any left.”
“We need to find another way in.”
Riddick glanced at the window at the end of the hall, stood, and strode toward it. He pulled it up and looked from side to side along the building.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m trying to figure out if there’s a window going into the mayor’s office. If I could walk along this ledge, I could break the window and get inside.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“What choice do we have?”
She sighed in begrudging acquiescence. “Okay, but I’m tying a rope around you.”
Kayla pulled the rope from her belt and tied it snugly around Riddick’s waist. She attached the other end to the base of a heavy metal statue at the end of the hall.
“Here goes nothing,” he said.
He gave her a thumbs-up and a bright smile and hopped up on the windowsill in one fluid motion. Of all the Blackfang brothers, Riddick had a kind of animal grace that never ceased to amaze her. His slim, strong body inched out of the window and onto the narrow ledge. He crept along with his back against the wall, sidestepping carefully until he came to the first window. He glanced over his shoulder. Looking back at Kayla, he gave her another thumbs-up and a grin before he elbowed the window.
Chapter Seven
Riddick winced as a shockwave of pain reverberated through his leather-clad arm. He gritted his teeth, trying not to show Kayla how much it hurt. He hit it a second time, and the glass shattered, spraying into the room. He smiled back at Kayla before disappearing inside.
When he dropped into the office, he was immediately hit by the most revolting scent he had ever smelled in his entire life. No, he’d smelled the scent before.
“So good of you to visit,” someone said from behind the folds of a crusty old flag.
“Show yourself,” Riddick demanded.
He leaned out the window and tugged on the rope, hoping that Kayla would notice. Reaching out the window behind him, he motioned for her to come over. A man in a crisp blue suit and red tie walked out from behind the flag with a bright smile on his lips.
“It’s been so very long since I’ve had company,” the man said. “So very long.”
“You’re the mayor, I presume.” Riddick crossed his arms. The man was a ghoul. He’d encountered one before.
“Why yes, I am. Mayor Jim Brown at your service. And with whom am I speaking?”
“I’m Riddick Blackfang.”
He dropped into wolf form and lunged at the man. He bit him around the neck before the creature could stun him. The weight of Riddick’s attack pushed the ghoul onto his back. It struggled underneath him, trying to lift him off.
Riddick bit deeper and harder, tasting foul blood on his tongue. The ghoul flipped him over, tossing him against the far wall. Kayla dropped through the window.
“What is it?”
The moment she saw the mayor, she shot him with a bolt of her alpha magic. The ghoul blew back, hitting the wall behind him. He turned into his true form, with a face more demon than human. His clothes were tattered rags, and his eyes were blood red. Kayla drew her bow and nocked an arrow. Riddick shot to his feet, lunging at the beast.
The ghoul cast his spell, stunning Riddick in place. Kayla’s arrow flew, but the ghoul was fast and slipped out of her sights almost instantly. It grabbed the door handle and flung the door open. Kayla nocked another arrow and shot it between the shoulders. It fell dead in a heap on the floor. Its wound gushed green blood. Riddick was released from the spell, but an army of ghosts swept into the room.
Kayla used her alpha magic, trying to blow them back. Riddick tried to attack, but his teeth went right through them. They grabbed Kayla by the neck and yanked her backward into a wall. She hung there, scratching at her neck and gasping. She kicked her legs, desperately trying to get free. Riddick shifted into human form and ran to her. He tried to pick her up and relieve the pressure on her neck, but the ghosts held her tightly. More poured into the room, howling like a choir of banshees.
They threw Riddick into the air, and he smashed into a filing cabinet. It fell over, spilling its contents across the floor. He saw a small lead box slide over the floor and slam against the wall under Kayla’s feet. Her eyes grew wide. He recognized the symbol on the box. It was the one Mackenzie had shown them on the day they decided to set out on their journey. Kayla used her alpha magic to propel the box to Riddick. He grabbed it and slipped the box open.
All at once, every ghost in the room was sucked into the tiny box. Kayla slid down the wall and fell into a heap. Riddick closed the box, panting heavily as he and Kayla stared at each other in disbelief.
“I’m guessing that’s what we came for.” She laughed.
All he could do was nod and smile.
They scrambled to their feet then hurried out the door and to the stairs. They sprinted the entire way to the first floor. When they emerged into the lobby, they found that Lightning and Dart were gone. Kayla swore, kicking at a bundle of debris on the floor.
They had the spirit box. They had accomplished their mission, and they could return home. But Riddick wasn’t in a big hurry to return right away, not because he loved dodging ghosts and fighting ghouls but because it was his chance to be with Kayla without Quinn or Jagger around.
Quinn might appear gentle on the surface, but looking underneath would reveal an iron will that wasn’t to be messed with. Jagger… well, he was used to calling the shots as the big bad alpha of the pack. Even after he’d given the position to Kayla, he still did it. The two of them together made it impossible to get close to her. Now that he was her mate, too, he really wanted more time.
He slipped the spirit box into a sack on his belt and buttoned it up tightly. There was no way he was going to lose the thing. They hurried out the broken doors of the building. He looked up and down the street for any signs of their horses. Kayla’s eyes went blank for a minute.
“Lightning is with Bane. He’s got Dart with him too.”
“Good. Have they found the others?”
“No. Neither of them has any idea where they are. I’ve instructed them both to stay put, and we’ll come to them. Then we’ll find the others.”
“Good call.”
Kayla had been so hesitant to take charge when they’d first met her. She’d been so reserved and determined to stay in the background. But once she took her place as alpha, it had been easy to see why she was the one to fulfill the prophecy. She made hard choices seem easy, and more often than not, she made the right one. He admired her more all the time. But he sensed that deep down, she was still the reserved girl he’d first met. He vowed that he would go to his grave protecting her body, heart, and soul.
They took a right along the avenue of government buildings. The sun was tipping toward the west. It cast long shadows over the street, cooling the already-chill autumn air. He felt emotions stirring in his mate’s chest. Winter would be upon them soon, and with it would come deep snow and ice. With that would come the reality of depleted food stores and inadequate housing.
He could feel that this hung heavily on Kayla. Her concern for her adopted pack touched him to the core. She could have gone off with her wolf and lived her life on her own terms without giving the Blackfangs or Mist Valley a second thought. But she’d chosen to travel with a group of men she barely knew to rescue their missing pack.
Ridd
ick sometimes wished he had more to offer her, like Quinn with his prophecies or Jagger with his ability to command. All he had was a joke, a slight of hand, and a tune on the mandolin. The nights they’d spent together on the road had been so sensual and warm despite the growing cold. He just wanted to be with her again.
Riddick snapped out of his daydreams and assessed his surroundings. He slipped into wolf form. Trotting along beside her, he sniffed the cool air. The scents of ghosts and ghouls were thick around them. He tugged at her pant leg and turned down a side street, thinking it best to get away from those scents as fast as possible. They hurried past the restaurants, hotels, and boutiques of downtown Knoxville, and Kayla slipped down a darkened alley between two towering skyscrapers.
“This way,” she said.
The smell of dust and mold hit his nose. The sun rarely made it down into the cavern between the mountainous buildings around them. Old trash cans that had never been emptied smelled of long-decaying garbage. Rat droppings and old plastic crates littered the ground. They walked around a deep, muddy puddle in the cracked concrete and made it to the end of the alley. There was a chain-link fence that had been cut and pulled open. They slipped through, stepping out onto the street, where the sun finally hit their faces. A fresh gust of wind filled his nose. He picked up the scents of a wolf and horses on the air and led Kayla toward them.
Chapter Eight
They turned a corner and came to a small shed that served as a parking-lot-attendant station. Bane jumped out and hopped into Kayla’s arms. Lightning and Dart clomped across the concrete, their horseshoe-clad feet loud on the hard surface. Riddick shifted and happily greeted his horse.
“Let’s go,” Kayla said, mounting her stallion.
She sent an image to Bane, asking her if she’d picked up any sign of the others, but Bane was as lost as she was when it came to picking up impressions of the rest of the party. Kayla took a deep breath then let it out quickly, trying to backtrack along their path to the government buildings.
They made it back to the alley where Felix had bandaged her wound. The biting ache of the wound was growing worse with each passing moment. They rounded a corner, turning onto the main road leading downtown. A whoosh of sound hit her ears, crashing in on her from all around. Ghost tornadoes blew toward them from every direction. The ghosts must have been tracking them down since they left the mayor’s office, and they were converging in a massive crush of angry, spinning spirits.
“You will not leave this place,” an eerie voice echoed down the street. “You will join us. Now.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Riddick said, Dart prancing under him.
Lightning reared, wheeling his front legs. Kayla held on, gripping the protesting stallion with her thighs. She tried to send him comforting images, but he whirled, looking for escape.
“Lightning, please,” she begged through their mental link. He grunted, pawing the ground, with his head down and his eyes flashing.
“What are we going to do?” Riddick asked as the tornadoes closed in on them.
Lightning reared again, throwing Kayla. She tumbled to the ground, slamming onto her back. Riddick was beside her in a heartbeat. Bane licked her face, whimpering at the oncoming threat.
Kayla climbed to her feet, her body sore and bruised from the fall and the stinging wound on her arm. She took a deep breath and growled. She stepped away from Riddick, the whinnying horses, and her fretful wolf. She heard Riddick’s voice rise behind her, asking for reassurance that she was okay.
She felt a surge of power rise inside her. It was as if she could absorb power from the very light of the sun, the light reflecting off the broken glass, and the light hitting a dirty puddle she stepped across. It filled her with strength, power, and focus.
She raised her palms. The tornadoes were only yards away. The strength of her alpha magic seemed magnified by a thousand times. Something had broken loose inside her. “Stop!” she shouted, turning in a circle.
She could see Riddick scramble to open the spirit box. The tornadoes were a magnificent force, far greater than the few ghosts in the mayor’s office. The winds carried ghosts in the thousands, spinning in violent cyclones on every side. Riddick opened the box, and a few spirits were sucked in, but the greater mass remained. “It’s not working!” he shouted.
Kayla lifted her hands, her palms facing each other. She slapped them together with a great clap, focusing all her power on the tornado in front of her. The cyclone lost its strength, and the remaining spirits crashed to the ground or were flung far and wide. They could barely rise, and they crawled away on hands and knees and elbows. With a great whoosh of suction, the spirits were vacuumed into the box.
She turned and clapped the energy out of the next tornado. Riddick was right behind her, sucking the remaining spirits into the box until none remained. She tried to catch her breath, her heart running wild.
Riddick ran to her, with the spirit box closed. He scooped her into his arms, pulling her close to him. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured.
She grunted, the pain in her arm growing worse. She clutched the wound.
“Come on. Let’s find the others and get out of here.”
They retraced their steps until Bane picked up the scent of sweat and gunpowder. They followed the trail until they found the others huddled behind a strip mall on the outskirts of town.
“Thank the gods,” Willa said, rushing to meet them.
The young witch looked worried, but the anxiety slowly slipped from her face as Kayla dismounted and gave her a quick hug.
“We found it,” Riddick said, pulling the spirit box from his pocket. “We’ve already trapped about a thousand ghosts in it, so we know it works.”
“About a thousand?” Felix asked.
“It’s a long story.” Kayla wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.
“How many ghosts fit in these things, anyway?” Riddick asked Mackenzie.
“It’s unlimited.”
“Good. I was afraid I’d filled it up already.”
Felix pulled out his map. “Now, about the library?”
“Really, Felix?” Sid asked, breaking his silence.
“And Graceland?” Riddick said. “I heard Elvis had gold toilets.”
“Graceland is another three days’ ride,” Felix informed him. “Besides, a gold toilet would be too heavy to carry home.”
“Let’s stick to gold chains and jewel-encrusted rings. I’ll find one for you,” Riddick said, wagging his eyebrows at Kayla. “One to match the alpha ring.”
“Could be nice,” Kayla said, not denying Riddick his offer of decking her out with jewels.
She didn’t really care one way or the other. Rings weren’t great for fighting, unless it was to punch someone in the face. She tucked her foot in her stirrup and started to pull herself up before wincing from the pain in her arm.
“That wound is really bothering you,” Sid said. “We need to get Kayla back to Quinn for healing.”
She appreciated Sid’s concern, but she also knew the ride home would take a week at least. And they would probably never return to the City of Ghosts.
“We go to the library, and then we leave. Anything you loot, you carry. If it slows our trip home, you lose it. Understood?” She eyed Felix.
“Knowledge is worth its weight—”
“In gold,” Riddick finished.
Felix frowned, and Kayla held back a snicker. The Blackfang brothers never ceased to amuse her with their constant bickering and sibling rivalry, but she loved them all, each and every one of them. Her heart went out to Riddick, her new mate. Their bond was strong and steady, filling her with a new kind of joy. She needed him more than she could say. His love elevated the burden of her destiny.
She cocked her chin at the group. “Mount up. Felix, lead the way to the library.”
“It’s not far from here.”
They rode down the street and stopped i
n front of a Greek Revival building with tall pillars reaching the second floor. Kayla slipped from Lightning’s back and tied him to a railing. “Stay put this time,” she instructed.
“I’ll wait outside,” Sid said.
“I’ll stay with you,” Mackenzie offered. “Riddick, give me that box.”
“Sure,” he said, pulling it from his pocket. “You’re the undead expert.”
Sid and Mackenzie waited outside with the horses while everyone else went into the library. Bane trotted along beside Kayla as they stepped into the lobby of the grand place. She looked around, marveling at the high ceilings of the once-stately building. Dust and leaves had blown in through the busted front door. Darkness hung over the second floor and adjoining rooms.
“What are we looking for?” Kayla asked, lighting her lantern.
“History books. Encyclopedias. References. Anything on engineering.”
“Looks like we can find that kind of thing on the second floor in adult nonfiction,” Riddick said, checking the moldy reference map.
As they all started up the winding staircase to the second floor, the hush of stillness hung over the place as if the ghosts of the city were afraid of the knowledge the place held. On the second floor, Kayla’s lamp glowed in a tight circle around them, barely illuminating the maze of stacks that spread out across the massive room.
“This way,” Riddick said. They followed Riddick through the stacks to the adult nonfiction section.
“It’s a complete set of encyclopedias,” Felix gasped.
Kayla stared at the line of books on the shelf. There were at least twenty-four thick volumes. “Um, no.”
“But—”
“There’s no way, Felix. Find something else.”
He grumbled and slipped out of the triple-zero section and into the science-and-technology stacks. He pulled out several books on applied physics and civil engineering then turned the corner and grabbed a few on agriculture, manufacturing, and construction. He sighed, holding the heavy books against his chest.
“I guess I’m done.”