Ardith popped a crunchy red item into her mouth. She didn’t recognize the food, but had discovered it tasted pretty good. “I’m sure of that. So far I haven’t liked anything.” She threw Sirius a chunk of the red stuff and he swallowed it whole, licking his black lips appreciatively.
“The Watcher.”
She crinkled her brow. “That little monkey-like dude?”
He stared at her for a beat, clearly disgusted.
“What?”
“He’s been on this earth for thousands of years, monitoring significant events, averting millennial-changing disaster, keeping us safe. His powers go beyond anything you or even I can ever hope to acquire.”
She rolled her eyes, picked up the fine linen napkin next to her plate and rubbed her fingers over it, spotting it in purple grease. “Yada, yada. He still looks like a monkey.”
“Barbarian.”
“Neanderthal.”
They glared at each other for a moment and then Ardith’s lips twitched. “Okay. Sorry. He’s all-powerful. And just a little creepy. Even you have to admit that.”
Draigh gathered together the electronic tablets he’d been tracking Edana with and stood. “I admit nothing.” He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Are you ready?”
“As soon as I pee.”
The other eyebrow flew north. “And I need to be aware of your biological functions…why?”
She gave him what she hoped was a saucy grin. “Because you do.” She turned away and sauntered slowly toward the beautiful bathroom with the broken door, giving him a little extra hip swing just because she could.
Sirius trotted in behind her, settling to his haunches on the cool tiles.
Propping the battered door closed, Ardith quickly moved to the large mirror over the sink and placed her hand on its surface. “Show me Edana.”
The glass beneath her fingertips clouded, turned dark and shadows began to move within the obscurity. She concentrated harder, scrying for all she was worth, and the shadowy figures started to form, sharpen and come to life.
It was a low-ceilinged room with rock walls. The place was filled with small tables and gyrating people. Lights flashed in dull colors from one corner of the space. An odd, bass-heavy drone, with the occasional bell riff, seemed to serve as music.
Despite the impossibility of finding an actual tune, several couples swayed and kissed under the lights.
The inhabitants of what she would guess was a subterranean place were all drinking. The heavy, chipped glasses in their hands held something brown and brackish-looking, with a scummy kind of foam on top. She’d be willing to bet it was an earthy ambrosia spin-off.
Whatever it was it had them sailing on air. Their grubby faces were alight with smiles and their limbs—covered in rough, simple clothing where they were covered at all—wrapped around each other with a little more intensity than seemed warranted, lips smashing hungrily against lips.
One couple, clothing not removed but just ripped away from strategic areas, were fucking like rabbits on top of a long, wooden table as others slammed their mugs onto the wood around them cheering. She could just make out another copulating couple in the background. The man was pressing the woman against the wall with his hips.
“Sex club.” Ardith shook her head, frowning. “Awesome.” Glancing at Sirius, she said, “Go home. I’ll call you when I need you. This is no place for a dog.”
He whimpered. But when Ardith gave him her firmest look his tail drooped in submission. Plodding closer, he licked her hand and shimmered away, back to his home among the stars. To await her call.
Ardith returned her attention to the scene before her. There was no sign of Edana. Ardith’s glass scrying was inexact at best. She did much better with a pool of warded mercury. But in a pinch…
All she knew was that Edana had to be nearby. “Take me to this place.”
As she started to disappear, the bathroom door crashed inward again. She just had time to look into Draigh’s irate face and give him a little finger wave before she popped out of his fancy bathroom and into sheer, unadulterated hell.
The stench hit her first. The worst of it was the smell of unwashed bodies, sickness and stale booze. The next layer of reek was composed of cheap, overpowering perfume probably meant to disguise the smell of unwashed bodies, and the distinctive tang of unbridled sex.
All around her bodies swayed, pressed and inserted tab A into slot B…or vice versa. In a few cases only tabs were involved, in one, only slots.
Any way you put the parts together, however, it was a very uncomfortable place for a woman with a mission to find herself.
Ardith forced herself to move, searching the murky space for the rogue witch.
A hard body thumped into her from behind and two grubby hands climbed up her torso, painfully grasping her breasts. Ardith lifted an arm and slammed her elbow backward, feeling the satisfying crunch of the man’s nose against her skin.
Another hand slipped up her leather skirt and Ardith gasped. She reacted before thinking, sending witch fire into the man’s forehead. He flew through the air and slammed into another couple, inspiring the man from the couple to start pummeling the already unconscious intruder.
Someone roared. Someone else shrieked. Ardith’s action was a flame to dynamite. The room ran through its short fuse in about three seconds and all hell broke loose. The music dropped away under the resulting melee. A table whizzed toward her head and Ardith had to dive to the floor to avoid it.
Before she could climb to her feet, a heavy weight landed on her, smashing her back to the floor. The stench of filthy flesh overwhelmed her and she choked, retching. Ardith scrabbled out from under the man who’d landed on her and kept crawling, seeing an opening among the surging feet and flying fists, to get to a door at the back of the room.
Maybe Edana would be there. If not, at least Ardith could regroup and figure out how to get out of the nasty club without being bludgeoned by horny ambrosiacs. She crawled to the bottom of the set of stairs leading to the exit and jumped to her feet, leaping out of the way as another table flew past.
She hit a broad, hard chest covered in leather. A delicious, clean male scent cut through the putrid air of the bar and, before she realized it she’d inhaled, delighting in the aroma. Her body tightened with pleasure. She lifted her gaze and her lungs clenched.
“It seems you’ve found others of your kind to play with, witch.”
She glared at him. “Ha, ha.”
A chair slammed into Draigh’s shoulder and he barely noticed.
“How’d you find me so fast?”
He grabbed her arm, wrenching her into a small, protected niche away from the storm she’d created. “I grabbed onto your magic coattails and let you carry me here. If I’d have known what a cluster you were going to make of things in the first two minutes I might have told you I was here before I searched for the witch.”
Ardith frowned. “You already looked for her?”
He didn’t respond, dragging her behind his big body as an enormous, naked man with a not-so-enormous erection descended on her. All she heard was the meaty sound of flesh hitting flesh and the naked man hit the floor at Draigh’s feet, his sad, little maypole drooping slowly toward his belly.
“Come. I know where she went.” Draigh pulled her toward the door she’d been heading for when he so rudely interrupted her and shoved it open. Expecting to feel cool, fresh, night air on her face, Ardith was less than pleased when she found herself in some kind of passageway.
The corridor was filled with people, most of them in a state very similar to the inhabitants of the first bar. It was no more than twenty feet wide and the ceiling was so low Draigh had to stoop slightly to make his way through.
She looked in both directions, observing claustrophobic rock as far as the eye could see. Ardith swallowed hard and swept a hand over her moist brow. “Where now? She could have gone anywhere.”
Draigh lifted a hand, palm up, and a soft, blue glow danced above
it. He studied the light for a moment and then nodded toward the right. “This way.”
They walked for a long time, passing several doors that seemed to lead to further debaucheries. Ardith tried to ignore the rapid beating of her heart, which told her she was moving more deeply into the earth.
The passage shrunk around them, diminishing Ardith’s will to move with it. Gradually, the distance increased between Draigh and her, until she no longer had the strength to keep moving. She leaned against the wall of the dank space and sucked air futilely through her lungs. Her face was clammy, her palms drenched and her knees threatened to buckle beneath her.
She was sagging toward the floor when two strong hands grasped her arms and dragged her upward. She gasped, realizing she was helpless as a newborn babe and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to fight back if she was being attacked by a flesh-eating zombie. Fortunately it was just Draigh.
“I’d carry you, witch, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to let the dark one know of your fear.”
Ardith swiped a hand over her sweaty lip. “I know. Just give me a minute and I’ll—”
His head lowered. His lips touched hers. Fire exploded in her gut.
Ardith panicked. She briefly considered shoving him away. In fact, her hands came up to shove him away, but somehow they grabbed onto him instead, dragging him closer as she reveled in his heat, his incredible scent and his overwhelming strength. The heat twisting in her belly was painful in its intensity. Her pulse soared, causing her heart to beat against her ribs. Her already-weak muscles weakened further under the onslaught of his kiss.
The hunter groaned softly against her lips, his hips arching to press the long, rigid length that rounded his pants into her belly.
His hands found the supple leather of her tiny skirt and slipped downward, to the tops of her thighs. He skimmed the rough fire of his hands under the skirt, dragging the leather up to give him access to her flesh.
Wearing only the slimmest strip of lacy fabric beneath the micro skirt, Ardith felt each callus on his strong fingers against her skin. She felt the rasp of his fingernails against the lace, and the pressure of his wide palms as he pulled her closer, grinding himself hungrily against her.
With a cry, Ardith jerked away, backpedaling and scrubbing the back of her hand across her tingling lips. “What the hell are you doing?”
To her immense chagrin he smiled, licking her taste from his perfect lips. “Distracting you. Did it work?”
Ardith blinked. It was true she no longer panicked from the sense of being buried alive. But her whole body was lit up like a firecracker and she was literally panting.
Her sexual core throbbed painfully, eagerly, and his incredible scent clung to her skin, a constant reminder of that kiss. She frowned. “I’ve just switched terrors.”
“For a kick-ass epoch mage you’re not very brave.” Turning away, he flicked a hand for her to follow. “Now, if you’re between fears for the moment, can we get back to work?”
She glared at his broad back as he swaggered away. He was obviously feeling very proud of himself. Starting after him, Ardith swore she would wipe that smug look off his face if it was the last thing she did.
* * * * *
Just before the passageway ended, an open archway led them off into another corridor. The place was silent, seemingly empty. Archaic sconces on the wall gave off black smoke and a low, flickering light.
“This must lead somewhere,” Ardith whispered.
Draigh nodded, pulling his knives. “Smell that?”
Ardith sighed. “Zombies. Damn! I guess this is gonna be a three-shower day.”
Draigh snorted. “Next time you’re showering in your own bathroom.”
She stuck her tongue out at his back, feeling better for the childish but satisfying response.
Ardith… She spun at the sound. It had been like a breath of wind, soughing past. The passageway behind them was empty.
Draigh… Another wisp of air had Draigh slicing sideways with his knife.
They remained alone.
A deep sense of foreboding filled Draigh’s breast. “Do you feel that?”
“Repelling spell. I’m sure it’s Edana’s handiwork.”
“A damn fine one too. I’m seriously fighting the urge to run screaming from the place.”
Ardith snorted. “Pansy.”
He turned and looked at her, lifting an eyebrow in response.
She was saved from having to defend herself when a gust of grave-scented wind swept past, extinguishing the sconces.
They moved into battle formation, back-to-back, and waited. Draigh had never seen such complete darkness. He strained his ears, flaring his nostrils to compensate for being blind.
Draigh… His knife hand shot toward the faint whisper and sliced only air. Something scuffed on the other side and he slammed a fist in that direction. Nothing.
A putrid breeze blew Ardith’s silky hair across his shoulder and he barely stayed himself from shoving her to the ground.
Ardith. The disembodied voice flowed past them, physically insubstantial but emotionally devastating.
The witch trembled against his back. Though they’d begun a yard apart, circling to face whatever came for them, they’d somehow gotten so close together that they were in each other’s way when they tried to move.
His own hands were damp. He found himself continually wiping them across his shirt so his knives didn’t slip from his grasp.
The breeze strengthened, swirled, sending sound and scent whirling past at such a rate he could no longer tell what came from which direction.
Welcome. The phantom voice strengthened, no longer a whisper. But Draigh doubted it was meant as a summons.
Wel-come. The voice repeated in an amused tone. The disembodied voice was growing more insistent as they continued on down the passageway, stepping carefully sideways so they could stay back-to-back for protection. They stumbled repeatedly as the darkness and the swirling air turned their sense of direction on its head.
“I don’t like this greeting ritual,” Ardith croaked.
“Nor do I, witch. Just stay close.”
“Buddy, if I was any closer you’d be wearing me for a suit.”
Despite his discomfort, Draigh couldn’t help smiling at the thought. “Remind me to take you up on that later.”
Her snort told him she was holding on to her nerve. If only barely.
“I wish we could see where the hell we were going.”
Draigh swore. He’d been so wrapped up in the situation that he hadn’t been thinking. He opened his hand, calling forth the guide. It was composed of the magic inherent in the air around them, a hunter’s magic to call. From the highest reaches of the passageway, even from the rock surrounding them, tiny blue sparks disengaged and danced in his direction, spinning into a solid cylinder of light that rested on his hand.
Once engaged, the guide cast a soft glow around Draigh and Ardith, a slight thickening in its depths telling Draigh the rogue witch wasn’t all that far ahead of them in the passageway.
He sucked in a relieved breath and stopped, his heart quickening.
“That’s bett—” Ardith’s words died on her lips as the light flickered, spread and illuminated the most terrifying sight Draigh had ever seen.
A sea of dead eyes, sloughing flesh and ooze surrounded them.
Silent, waiting, deadly.
Zombies.
As far as the eye could see.
Chapter Four
Serious Family Dispute
Somewhere, high above their heads, a raven cawed, drawing their gazes upward. The enormous black bird circled and landed on the shoulder of the woman standing on a ledge of rock at the far end of the cavern. The woman smiled and Ardith’s skin did a slow crawl.
“Welcome.”
Without its magical mojo, Edana’s voice was soft and almost friendly. It bounced weirdly around the cavern, sliding like oil over Ardith’s skin.
The plump witch had
shiny black hair cut in a chin-length bob and eyes that sparked bright blue even in the low light. Ardith knew from the background she’d studied on Edana that the raven on her shoulder was her familiar. “Sister.”
Edana’s smile widened at the term. “You still consider me so?”
“Of course. We’re sisters in the arts, aren’t we? You just dabble darker than I do.”
Edana’s laughter made the zombies’ heads swivel in her direction. It was clear they didn’t hear the sound often. “You cannot blame me for perfecting my special skills.” She cocked her dark head. “Can you?”
“When your practice ends in the deaths of others, we will do more than blame you, hag.” Draigh’s handsome face was dark with anger.
Edana turned her round face in his direction. “Ah, the mountain of muscle speaks. I’m amazed you have the brain capacity to form words.” She smiled when Draigh growled softly. “I have killed no one, Hunter.”
“Technically that is correct. You’ve had your slimy minions do it.”
Edana didn’t bother to deny his accusation.
The zombies began to twitch and move. Ardith leaned toward Draigh, speaking in a whisper that she hoped wouldn’t fly around the cavern as their voices had. “Maybe we should try to play nice for the moment, given the fact that we’re outnumbered about a hundred-to-one by dead people.”
She felt him stiffen against her back. Frickin’ awesome. His legendary stubbornness would get them killed. But his next words made Ardith reconsider her ill opinion of him.
“We come only to speak with you, Edana witch. We request passage through your…flock…so we may do so.”
Edana cocked her head again. The mannerism seemed drawn from her raven familiar. A long moment passed, thick with tension. Then she inclined her head ever so slightly and her bright gaze slipped around the room. The zombies started to move. Draigh’s knives came up and Ardith lifted her hands, ready to attack.
But the zombies shuffled backward, away from them, and a path started to open between Ardith and Draigh and the zombie queen.
“Well done,” Ardith whispered to Draigh. “I didn’t think you had it in ya.”
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