“We’re house-sitting,” she said primly.
“We?”
“Hey Dari,” Smoke said from the stairs where he stood in sweat pants and no shirt, his red hair mussed above his freckled face.
I blinked at him, then at Snowy. “The two of you?”
“We got married,” she said tightly. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised. Bob told me that it was your idea. What happened to your hair?”
“At least I have some now,” I said feeling the gnawing in my chest of jealousy. They could be happy together and I could be someone no one recognized.
“Are you okay?” Smoke asked, coming down the stairs, concerned and still without a shirt. What was with guys? Snowy wore very cute pajamas. They’d been sleeping together. Of course they had. They were married. I shook my head and edged back towards the door.
“I’m sorry to intrude. I didn’t realize...”
“It’s your house,” Smoke said, gesturing with his hands like I was being an idiot.
“Smoke, go put on a shirt,” Snowy snapped.
“So, now I’m Smoke?” he muttered but he went up the stairs, apparently to wherever his shirt was.
“Are you hungry?” Snowy asked, finally putting down her gun on the hall table as she walked to the kitchen.
“I’m okay,” I said but she ignored me. I followed, watching her open the stainless steel fridge to poke around for something. “Where’s Osmond?” I asked brushing my mouth with my fingertips.
“Osmond? Why?” she asked frowning adorably in spite of being without any makeup as she stacked condiments on the counter for the sandwich she was apparently making for me.
“I heard that the demon mistress was fighting him and a group of frat boys.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter. Is it true? Is Osmond in danger?”
She waved her hand like I shouldn’t worry. “Osmond is a better Hunter than anyone else I’ve known.”
“He can’t fight the demon mistress. She’ll destroy him.”
“There hasn’t been any actual encounters with her. I think she’s waiting for you to join them.”
I stiffened. “What makes you think that?”
“She’s a woman. She hates you. She wants to bring you to her using Osmond, someone you care about.”
“How would she know?”
Snowy shrugged. “You don’t have a lot of friends. Smoke and I are safe, your mother, who knows if you actually care whether she lives or dies, but Osmond? Of course you care about him. You had a huge crush on him when you and Lewis were over, remember?”
I shook my head trying not to remember Lewis. “What do I do? Is he safer if I stay away?”
She shrugged. “Ask Lewis. He’s the one who’s the master at this kind of thing. Where is he?”
I stared at her feeling my heart break all over again. I teetered on the brink of sanity. The lights above me flickered until I leaned myself, just a teeny bit to keep me from toppling over the edge. I blinked back the tears that the leaning didn’t stop.
“He’s gone,” I whispered leaning heavily against the counter.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as she put a hand on my shoulder. “He was a good guy. He shouldn’t have lied to you all the time, but he was okay. What happened?”
I turned and gave her a tight smile as I took the sandwich. I forced myself to focus on the taste of turkey and bread, the spicy mustard and the sweet relish. The flavors didn’t really go together very well.
“He saved me from the plane wreck. He saved me but it took so much out of him, and then when the demon Wilds came for us, there were too many of them.” I took a shallow breath and blinked the tears out of my eyes. “You know where Osmond is?” I asked after I’d swallowed the sob then turned to the sink to get a drink of water.
“He saved you? That’s really sweet. I hate this. He shouldn’t have died yet.” She shook her head, almost looking as upset as I did before she took a calming breath and smiled her fake smile at me. “As for Osmond, I don’t know exactly, but we can find him,” she said, raising a cell phone. “Can you stay calm and not blow this up, please?”
I nodded and wiped the mustard off my mouth.
“He’s not going to like being woken up in the middle of the night if they aren’t already busy,” she said sweetly as she held her head cocked, waiting for the phone to do whatever it was supposed to do.
“Osmond. How’s it going? No. Dari’s here. She’s worried about you, thinks the demon mistress is trying to kill you or something. I know. I told her that. Yeah. Sorry for waking you up, but I figured this way I could get some sleep and bring her in the morning. I don’t know why she’s so worried about you. Apparently she’s heard something. You know that’s a bad idea. Fine. Yeah, thanks. I’ll tell Smoke. Okay. Bye.”
She flipped the phone closed and gave me a sweet smile. “He’s fine. They’re hunting normal monsters, no sign of actual demon men. Certainly no sign of a demon mistress, so whoever’s giving you information is a bad source. Come on,” she said, leaving the kitchen, her cute bare feet and pink toenails poking under her pink pajama bottoms. “We’re sleeping in your mother’s room. Her bed is incredible.”
“I bet,” I muttered feeling myself blush.
She turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “It was your idea.”
“Yeah. I have lots of ideas. None of them are very good.”
She snorted, her white blond hair swinging as she turned away from me. “I think it’s fine. This way we can enjoy each other before everything really gets bad. It will, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” I said in a low voice. “You won’t take me tonight?”
She sighed. “Riding a motorcycle through the woods at night might sound like some people’s idea of a good time, but I prefer to save breaking my bones for actually useful activities.”
“Like hunting demons.”
“Like hunting demons,” she agreed, giving me a wide smile. “I’m glad you’re here. You look like a completely unstable Hybrid rocker chick motorcycle gang banger.”
“Thanks. You too.”
She opened my door for me, gesturing me inside while she batted her eyelashes. “Sweet dreams, Dari. We’ll find Osmond in the morning and you’ll feel like an idiot for worrying.”
“If that’s where Osmond is, that’s where I should be.”
“That’s what Smoke says,” she said, sounding irritated. “He’s not like Osmond and I.”
“He’s good,” I said, frowning.
She shrugged. “Night.” She closed the door firmly, leaving me in my room feeling weird. Shouldn’t she be asking more questions instead of tucking me into bed? I looked up and froze. My Axel hung on the wall, the swirling purples and blues sucking me in along with the streaks of gold. I walked towards it, putting my hand on the canvas, feeling the paint beneath my fingers. Lewis was here. I closed my eyes and felt him, felt his warmth, his love, his soul. I leaned my forehead against the painting until I straightened, dizzy, exhausted, needing to sleep.
I fell on my bed with my leather clothes and feathers still on.
I walked through a dark hall, the smell of blood a residue in the air.
“Master, we’ve lost the two youngest,” a tall man with green eyes said, falling in beside me.
“Burn it,” I said, amusement threading my soft voice.
“The records, the library, the weapons…”
“Burn it all, Lorenzo. There is nothing worth keeping in a Wild House.”
The tall man with yellow hair and green eyes bowed, a hasty jerk, before he spun away to do my bidding.
“I don’t like him,” a woman’s voice came from the shadows of the left. She stepped out revealing a perfectly symmetrical face with a lopsided sneer on her mouth. “His instincts are to protect, not to kill.”
“Which is why I keep him beside me. Some Lost Souls would be tempted to change my Voice. He is the perfect guard.”
“You d
on’t need a guard,” she said sliding beside me, resting her hands for a moment on the back of my arm.
I pulled away, glancing at her sharply. “The Hollow One needs no guard. But I’m just a voice.”
A peppering of gunshots came from ahead.
“It seems that we’ve found the Son,” she said, a wicked smile transforming her features into a mask of insanity.
“Bring him to me,” I said to her.
“It’s too sad. I’m wearing his mother,” she said, licking her lips before she sauntered forward, throwing open the double doors.
I waited in the hall until the screaming and crying faded to a low sob. She brought him to me, a boy ten years old or so, hands tied behind his back. He didn’t look at his mother’s body, but tears kept streaming down his cheeks.
“What is this pointless cruelty?” Lorenzo asked in a low voice. “You’re torturing his soul.”
“This is the mercy,” I said, waving the child forward. “You are all that is left of your House. We’re going to burn it today. Do you know who I am?”
The boy gazed at me with hatred in his bright blue eyes. “You’re the Hollow One.”
“Your parents killed so many of my kind. Children, like you. Younger, babies. I am not a monster. I’m not going to take your soul. I’m going to leave you here, in your rightful House as it burns around you.”
“You’re not taking his body?” Clarise asked, frowning.
“No,” I answered firmly, turning away. “See to it,” I told Lorenzo and Clarise as I left the boy screaming at me, hysterical obscenities. I could already smell the smoke. Lorenzo had begun the job.
I woke up with the screams in my ears, the smoke in my lungs, the dream so real, so intense it took me a moment to blink Snowy into focus.
“You okay then?” she asked, perching on the edge of the bed.
“What?” I asked, running my hands over my head, through my short hair and over my runes.
“You’ve been screaming most of the night. I should have taken you to the camp at two in the morning. Do you always scream in your sleep?”
I stared at her, at the painting past her with the swirling colors that I knew held his blood, his soul. “I dreamed the Hollow One. I dreamed the Hollow One like I used to dream Lewis.” I swallowed hard. Could Lewis really be the Hollow One? No. He wouldn’t kill my dad. But the Hollow One was just an empty shell while the voice controlled it.
She turned around, stared at my painting then looked back at me, cocking her head in concern. “Maybe you should go back to Slide. I know that you’re uncomfortable with your mother, but you really don’t seem quite one hundred percent, you know?”
I stiffened as I got up, brushing past her. “I’m fine with her. We’re fine. I just don’t belong in the House. I need to protect Sanders from the demon mistress. There’s nothing else I can do,” I said in a whisper.
She rolled her eyes. “If we have breakfast, it’ll be light by the time we’re finished. Where are you going?” she asked as I walked up the hall towards my mother’s room. “Smoke’s probably naked,” she warned.
I shot her a flat look before I opened the hall door and climbed the narrow stairs to the attic. I rummaged around in the boxes, but Devlin’s stones were gone. I came back downstairs, confronting Snowy in the kitchen, stark white and steel complimenting Snowy in her black pants and shirt while her white blond hair captured in a braid down her back.
“Where are the stones?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, flipping an egg neatly. The whites sizzled in the pan, turning golden and crispy.
“They were there.”
“I know. I found you with them, remember?”
“You didn’t do anything with them?”
She shot me a look. “Are you accusing me of being less than completely trustworthy? I’m housesitting, not housebreaking. Sit down, your egg is ready.”
I sat, scowling at her.
“I don’t see what you want those stones for,” she said, sliding the egg onto my plate before she turned and retrieved a piece of toast. “You had Devlin’s keychain, didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “That’s just more of me kissing Osmond.”
She looked puzzled and adorable, holding the spatula like she couldn’t decapitate someone with it. “You read Devlin’s imprints, right? So, you see yourself with Osmond like Devlin saw you?”
“No. I see me, I feel me. I am me.”
“But, they’re his stones, his visions. Why can’t you see him, what he sees and feels and does? I really doubt if he kept that on his keychain just so he could watch you and Osmond going at it. If you could see from his perspective, you might find out why he kept that particular stone.”
I shrugged but tried to puzzle it out as I ate a perfect gooey egg yolk, sopping it up with my crust. I was hungry. She gave me another egg, a glass of juice and a serving of hash browns.
“I didn’t know you cooked,” I said, impressed.
She snorted. “Frozen hashbrowns. You throw them in the pan. Smoke does this kind of thing, but he’s sleeping. We’ll be gone before he wakes up.”
“Did you drug him?” Something about the way she smiled made me wonder.
She smiled a little bit bigger before she gave me her ‘I’m so innocent’ look.
“Just a little bit. He wants to come hunting with us, but it’s for the best if someone stays here.”
“To protect against marauding drug addicts.”
“It’s just a precaution,” she said as she turned off the stove and grabbed her black leather jacket.
“You seriously drugged your husband so he’d do what you want? Seriously?”
She shrugged. “He’ll be upset when he wakes up, but I do it to protect him.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. I couldn’t think of anything to say until we went into the garage and Snowy handed me a helmet and climbed on a motorcycle. She revved the engine and adjusted her own visor.
“This motorcycle has a much less stable energy than a car or something larger,” I said watching the motor pop and sing.
“Let’s go,” she said as the garage door opened.
I put on the helmet, climbed behind Snowy and put my hands on her waist as she shot out of the garage and out into the street.
The ride through town went by ridiculously fast. Over the bridge, she turned into the woods on a narrow road that wove through the trees until branches whipped me on either side. I slouched down, trying to be a smaller target.
We bumped over the rough ground until midmorning when with a squeal, Snowy forced the motorcycle to jump over a fallen tree and then she put her foot down, sending the bike into an elaborate skid until it stopped and I stopped, stumbling off of the thing feeling dizzy.
I barely had time to stretch my cramped muscles before I saw Osmond coming towards me out of the trees.
“Welcome to camp,” Osmond said, smiling as he reached forward and took my hand. I had a flash of basketball courts and soft kisses before I shook his hand firmly and dropped it. He didn’t stare at my scarred face or short hair. He didn’t act like he noticed anything strange about me. I wasn’t sure if I felt insulted or relieved.
“I need some gas then I’m going back,” Snowy said, swinging her helmet in her hand, looking like a supermodel in her black riding outfit.
“Such a short visit?” he asked, frowning.
“I’ll leave Dariana in your capable hands,” she said, turning away.
“Dariana is not staying here,” Osmond said, a new strength and resolve in his voice than I remembered.
“Why isn’t Dariana staying here?” I asked and felt my spine stiffen. “If I’m not welcome…”
He put a hand on my shoulder, not seeming to notice the feathers. “This is not a place for friends to enjoy one another’s company. We’re here to engage darkness and destroy it.”
I closed my eyes and took in the world around me, the souls flickering, the lines of life from the plants and anim
als, and Osmond, his beautiful blue and white soul, strong, pure and true. He would not be easily corrupted.
“Look at me,” I said quietly as I opened my eyes. “I am a capable weapon created for the destruction of darkness and demons. I don’t like killing demon men, not when they still have threads of humanity left in them, but I can do it.”
He frowned down at me while I stared back at him. I felt younger than I’d felt since the plane crash. He’d always see me as Devlin’s little sister. Or would he? He’d certainly thought about me in a different way in the imprint that I wished I could forget.
“You don’t believe me? Fine. Let’s go,” I said, cocking my head and trying to give off an aura of confidence.
He raised an eyebrow. “Where to?”
“Let’s go hunting something monstrous. Just you and I. If I get the first kill, then you have to trust me to take care of myself.”
“And if you don’t?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest which made his muscles flex in a way I tried not to feel guilty about noticing.
“I’ll go back to Slide and work for my mother as an ambassador.”
“That sounds much more interesting,” Snowy said, coming up with a red gas can in her hand.
“What do you think?” I asked, ignoring her.
Osmond sighed and rubbed his neck. “All right. Snowy, you’re going to have to wait here for a bit.”
Snowy tightened her jaw, but gave us both flat smiles before she rolled her eyes and walked off, apparently having something else important to do.
“Come on,” I said, turning back the way we’d come, passing the fallen motorcycle while I tried not to feel nervous.
“Are you armed?”
I smiled without looking at him. “I have arms and even hands. What else do I need?”
I started to move faster, until I fell into a jog, dodging through the woods like Matthew would have told me to do, moving with the land, watching the flow and threads of life as I ducked beneath a branch and slid down a ravine.
I glanced back and saw Osmond, right behind me and moving as easily as if he did this thing for fun every day. He probably did. He would not let training lapse just because he had real enemies to fight.
House of Slide: Hunter Page 16