by Lexi George
“I thank you.”
He could operate any vehicle he desired with magic if need be, but Evan’s offer had been sincere, and Duncan would not cheapen it for the world. Perhaps he would purchase a truck of his own and allow Evan to instruct him in driving in the manner of norms. He could become the first Dalvahni to obtain a governmental permit to legally operate a motorized carriage.
He imagined flashing the waterproof card at Conall and his brothers, and a slow grin spread across his face.
“Booyah,” he said aloud.
“What?”
They had reached Main Street, and Duncan watched the shops slide past the passenger window. “Boo-yah,” he said again. “I thought of something amusing and remembered the idiom you used.”
“No. Just no.”
Duncan shrugged. “Why? I like it.”
“Kehv’s elbow, this traffic blows.” Evan cut his eyes at him. “Sounds stupid, don’t it?”
“I see your point.” Duncan sighed. “Very well, I shall refrain from saying booyah, if you insist, though it pains me greatly. It is a most excellent expression.”
“And Kehv’s elbow isn’t?”
“No. ’Tis absurd.”
“Yeah? How ’bout Kehv’s big toe? Bunghole? Nip? Navel lint? Butt cheek?”
Evan waxed on in this ludicrous fashion as they continued to motor through town, showing, to Duncan’s way of thinking, a lamentable lack of respect for the Dalvahni creator. He folded his arms on his chest and waited for Evan to wind down, but the profane litany continued as they crossed the river bridge and turned onto a heavily wooded two-lane road.
“I got it,” Evan said, as they rounded a curve. “Kehv’s nut sack.”
“Enough.” Duncan brought his hand down on the seat. “By the sword, you try my patience with these inanities.”
Evan grinned. “Booyah.”
Duncan gave him a smoldering glare. “You were provoking me?”
“Yup, and it worked. Where to now?”
Following Duncan’s directions, Evan turned the truck off the pavement and onto a narrow, bumpy dirt trail. “Damn, this road is a goat fuck.” Evan swore as they hit another deep rut. “You sure you know where you’re going?”
“I am a Dalvahni warrior. We seek the djegrali through space and time. We do not tire. We do not fail. We hunt. So it is written in the Great Hall.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” Evan rapped the dashboard with his knuckles. “Good thing my girl comes with a navigation system.”
“As do I.” Duncan tapped his temple. “It is called the Provider.”
“Har-de-har-har.”
“I am glad you are amused. Stop here. We walk the rest of the way.”
Evan pulled the truck under the pines on the side of the road. “Man, we’re in the middle of nowhere.” He pointed through the windshield at the thick layer of grime on the formerly shining hood. “And you owe me a truck wash. Alabama red clay dust all over my shiny new truck.”
Duncan opened his mouth to remind Evan that ’twas he who’d insisted on bringing his truck, then shut it again. Some battles were not worth fighting.
He pointed to a series of rolling, wood-covered hills. “The cave lies roughly a league beyond those knolls. We will go on foot from here. Now would be an opportune time for you to shapeshift.”
Duncan turned his head when Evan did not answer and found a muscular, spotted hound regarding him soulfully from behind the wheel. The dog panted and gave Duncan a look that clearly said Well? What are you waiting for?
Duncan opened the truck door and climbed out, and the hound scrabbled after him. “I would have opened your door, had you but waited,” Duncan said.
The dog yawned and plopped down on his haunches, his tail rustling the leaves, as though expecting something. Belatedly, Duncan remembered the colorful handkerchief Cassandra had given him. A bandana, she had called the faded blue and black patch of fabric that had belonged to Toby. He fished the cloth from his back pocket and held it out. The dog sniffed the handkerchief and took off, his waving tail disappearing into the underbrush.
Duncan followed. Up ahead, the hound gave a husky, raucous bay and took off. Evan was on the scent, and his blood was up. Duncan blurred through the trees after him. He reached the limestone bridge and the cave in moments and came upon a chilling sight. The lightning-struck elm was gone, and several acres of the surrounding forest had been uprooted, trees tossed about like kindling. His skin prickled, and the hair on his arms stood up. Certain kinds of power left a residue. Something very powerful, more powerful than any werewolf or shifter, had been here. The very air pulsed with energy.
Cautiously, he edged closer. Whatever great force had swept through had left a devastation of upturned stones, gouged earth, and blasted trees in its wake. Bodies littered the blast area, a dozen or more corpses that had been turned inside out, as though torn asunder by some maniacal butcher. Blood and body parts spattered the leaves and upturned earth, and broken bones lay in shards on the ground. He bent over a mutilated male carcass. The man’s hair was dark brown with rusty highlights. One of his arms had been torn off and tossed aside. Duncan examined the dismembered limb. The skin of the upper arm bore a tattoo, a wolf’s paw with the letter R above it in swirling script. Someone or something had decimated more than a dozen members of the Randall pack.
Duncan made a swift but thorough examination of the gruesome scene, but found no sign of Zeb or Toby. He raced up the hill and entered the cave. Empty, but there were ominous smears of blood on the stones. Something or someone had suffered grievous injury. Toby? If so, the shifter was no longer here. His body had been removed, or he’d dragged himself into the woods to die.
Determined to track Toby down, Duncan left the cave. As he came down the slope, he heard a distant, roupy howl. The hound was on Toby’s trail. Duncan took a last look around. Nothing to be done for these poor souls. They were beyond help. Turning his back on the grisly scene, he set out, drawn by the sound of hound’s steady yawping. As he neared the woods on the far side of the clearing, Trey Peterson’s dead wife appeared on a tangy scud of perfume. The ghost wore a clingy one-piece costume with a deep scoop neck, black buckle strap clips, and belt. The skintight garment and matching perky cap atop her blond tresses were fashioned from fabric randomly patterned with splotches of gray, green, and brown. Thigh-high lace-up brown boots completed her garb.
She struck a sassy pose. “My goodness, aren’t you the cutest little thing? Have we met?”
Duncan regarded her uneasily. He’d met Meredith Peterson once and had not enjoyed the experience. She was, in truth, a most malicious shade. “Aye. At your husband’s office some moons ago.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember—the day Trey got himself killed, the loser.” She made a face of disgust. “What a huge disappointment my hubby muffin has been—really gone to the dogs.” She twittered nastily at her own humor. “What brings you here? Looking for the orb?”
“Nay, I am searching for someone. What do you know of the orb?”
“Plenty.” Meredith studied her fingernails. They were long and sharp and painted a bilious green. “I overheard the werewolves and those Skinner skanks whining like little bitches about the run-in you had this morning. Sounds like you ripped them a new one.” Her painted lips curved in a sneer. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear it. I hate that white trash.”
“If you were spying on them, perhaps you know something of Toby Littleton. He was their captive.”
“The old gray-haired shifter? He’s not so good. The werewolves did a number on him. It’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“They beat the crap out of him, and then the whole pack took turns chewing on him. Between you and me, I don’t think he’ll make it.”
Duncan clenched his fists. “Where is he?”
“The swamp ape’s got him. Traded the orb for the old dude, the dumbass.”
“Sugar has Toby?” Duncan stared at the ghost. “And he gave Zeb the orb in exchange?”
>
“Uh uh uh. That’s not what I said.” Meredith shook a manicured finger at him. “Try and keep up. The hairball didn’t give the orb to Zeb. He gave it to the other one.”
“The other one? I fear I do not take your meaning.”
“Sharp as a bag of marshmallows, aren’t you?” Meredith propped her hands on her hips. “I’m talking about ghouly boy, of course.”
“Who is—” Duncan halted, a feeling of dread clutching his vitals. “Surely you do not mean—”
Cocking her head to one side like some sort of exotic bird, Meredith regarded him. “I surely do. Dead eyes—tattooed out the yin yang. You creeps got a name for him, but I can’t remember what it is.”
“The rogue,” Duncan ground out. “We call him the rogue.”
“That’s it.” Meredith’s eyes shone with malice. “The rogue has the orb.”
Duncan swallowed the sudden taste of bile. “Did Gryff . . . I mean, is the rogue responsible for this slaughter?”
“Nah,” Meredith said. “The one in the sparkly robe did that. He had a shine on him that reminded me of the Indera Strass bridal pumps I wore on my wedding day.” She sighed at the memory. “Those shoes were to die for—peep toe and crystal encrusted with a shark tooth pattern. Twenty-eight hundred dollars, plus tax. People in this stupid one-horse town shit little baby kittens when they saw them.”
“This shining presence you speak of, was he comely made? Dark of hair and eyes, with an aspect most quelling?”
Meredith’s brows creased, and her glee faded. “If you mean did he make me want to pee my pants, then yeah. That’s the one. I hid from him. He was pretty to look at, but he scared me, and I’m dead.”
“Pratt,” Duncan muttered.
Meredith stiffened. “What’d you call me?”
“I meant no offense. I refer to the being in the shimmering robe. He is a god.”
“If I were a god—which I so should be because I’m freaking awesome —you can bet your ass I wouldn’t have a stupid name like Pratt.”
Duncan turned and thoughtfully surveyed the butchery behind them. “His ire must have been great for him to have wreaked such havoc.”
“Ire schmire. He turned those assholes inside out ’cause he was pissed.” Meredith’s form rippled in a ghostly shiver. “He wanted the orb, and ghouly boy wouldn’t give it to him.”
“He would not?” Duncan said, staring at her in surprise.
“Nope, and I can’t imagine why. I would have dropped that thing like a hot potato. Frankly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I was expecting something different. A big diamond or a sapphire, or maybe even an opal, but it’s an ugly old rock, and it burned him. I could see his hands smoking from way over there.” She pointed to a distant tree.
“But Gryff would not give it to him,” Duncan said slowly. “Then what happened?”
“Zeb wanted the orb, too. Got all huffy and was like finders-keepers-losers-weepers. Said the orb belonged to the pack. Ordered his mutts to take it from ghouly boy. They went for it and that’s when Pratt”—she made a face—“that is such a lame name, put them through the blender. The Skinners took off like scalded cats, and so did Zeb. Some alpha, huh?”
She looked him up and down, like she was sizing him up for a meal. “Catch you on the flip side, Scrumpdillyicious. This job is a wash.”
She evaporated on a lemony pong.
Chapter Twenty
Cassie paced the hallway, worry and dread gnawing inside her. Toby was out there, hurt or dying or dead, and Duncan and Evan had gone into harm’s way to rescue him. She should have gone with them. The not knowing was driving her mad.
“How long do you think they’ll be gone?” she asked her huge protector.
“In truth, I cannot say,” said Grim. “We do not know for certain that your friend Toby is being held in the cave. The werewolves could have secreted him anywhere. If that is the case, the hunt may take longer.”
“How much longer?”
Grim shrugged. “An hour . . . a day . . . a week. It matters not. Duncan will find him.”
“A week? That settles it.” Cassie grabbed her bag off the hall tree and yelled up the stairs. “Verbena? Shag your butt down here. We’re leaving.”
“Yessum,” Verbena said, padding downstairs to join her.
Grim frowned. “This is unwise. I was instructed to be with you at all times.”
“So be with us, but I can’t—I won’t—hang around here doing nothing.” Cassie gave him a challenging look. “You coming or staying?”
“Very well,” Grim grumbled. “I will accompany you, if you insist, though I feel certain Duncan would wish you to remain here. If it is your worry that the Skinners and the Randalls may return, I can protect you from that riffraff.”
“This is about me keeping my sanity.” Cassie yanked open the back door. “If I don’t get out of this house, I am going to lose my mind.”
Grim followed her and Verbena outside and across the yard to the Silverado, bringing a funnel cloud of disapproval with him. He can get over it, Cassie thought. She meant what she’d said—she either moved or dissolved into a weeping mass of anxiety.
The sickly-sweet odor of decomp hit her as she neared the truck. “Oh, dear,” Cassie said. “I forgot about poor Mac. Hold on.”
Grim raised his hand. “I can remedy the issue in a trice, if you will permit.”
“No, thanks,” Cassie said quickly. “My truck, my problem.”
The Silverado was her baby, and no magical super being was going to monkey around with it. She hurried into the garden shed and pulled on rubber boots and a pair of thick gloves. Clomping back outside, she grabbed the garden hose and a deck brush and went to work. She power-washed the truck bed, applied Clorox Clean-Up to the liner, and rinsed. The truck bed still smelled faintly of eau de corpse, however, and so she emptied a gallon of white vinegar onto the bed, waited five minutes, and rinsed again.
She inhaled. Pickled cadaver. Fabulous.
“That’s all I got,” Cassie said, jumping down. “I see a new truck liner in my future.”
She stripped off the gloves and boots, put them back in the gardening shed, and washed her hands with a bar of Fiona Fix-it odor-removing soap.
“Ready?” she said, slipping back into her cowboy boots.
The three of them climbed in the truck, and Cassie took the wheel. At the end of the drive, she turned onto the paved road that ran parallel to the river. Grim was silent, and Cassie gave her hulking passenger a nervous gander. She remembered reading somewhere that in monitoring active volcanoes, scientists observed a period of quiescence right before they erupted. Pathways became sealed. Pressure built up. The greater the blockage, the longer the quiet period, the more powerful the resulting explosion.
On the surface, Mount Grim appeared dormant, but little fissures of anger cracked his stoic demeanor, and rage and hurt seeped from him in a pyroclastic flow. His twin brother was the rogue. Grim had blamed himself for Gryff’s death, ostracizing himself for centuries out of grief and guilt. To find out that it had been for nothing, a sham, and that Gryff was alive and the betrayer must have been a terrible blow.
Cassie felt bad for Grim, but she wished Conall had sent someone less volatile. She was riding around with two-hundred-plus pounds of rocket fuel in her truck. Grim was chlorine trifluoride, terrifyingly flammable and ready to explode.
Verbena felt it, too. She sat in the back of the extended cab, quiet as a mouse. Cassie glanced at the girl in the rearview mirror. The poor kid was chewing on her cuticles, her wide-eyed gaze fastened on the back of Grim’s head like he was a bomb she expected to detonate any minute.
“So,” Cassie said, breaking the tense silence, “how’s Sassy?”
Grim’s stern countenance measurably softened at his wife’s name. “She is well, thank you. She is visiting her mother at present, planning our upcoming espousal.”
“I thought you two were already married.”
“We are,” Grim rumb
led, “but Sassy’s mother is most insistent we repeat the process in church with a human priest. I do not mind. I would gladly marry Sassy a thousand times—nay, a thousand times a thousand—if she so desired.”
“That would be a lot of cake,” Cassie said. She kept her tone light, but she was more than a little envious. Grim Dalvahni loved him some Sassy Peterson. Must be nice, she thought with a twinge of wistfulness.
Once, she’d thought Duncan loved her like that, but he’d turned tail and run the first time they’d hit a rut. To be fair, it had been more of a ditch than a rut. She could still see his expression when he’d learned that she was a demonoid, revulsion and disgust etched upon his handsome face.
Looking back at it dispassionately and with the maturity of the intervening years, Cassie could see his side of things. It must have been a terrible shock to discover the woman you loved was the offspring of your age-old enemy. Scratch that. A different species.
Still, if he’d loved her, if he’d really loved her, it wouldn’t have mattered.
You got it wrong, toots, said the squeam. At the end of the day, you’ll be judged by how well YOU loved, not the other way around.
The thought made Cassie squirm. Duncan had told her that he’d returned to Hannah many times through the years in search of her. The Dalvahni were arrogant, implacable, autocratic, and supremely annoying, but they didn’t lie. If Duncan said he’d come back for her, it was the truth.
Duncan didn’t find her—couldn’t find her—because she wasn’t there.
Yep, you took off, the squeam said. Soon as you buried the children, you were out of here like a shot and across the pond.
Cassie had fled to Europe. She’d stayed there for decades, traveling here and there, apprenticing herself to various wizards to perfect her craft and licking her wounds. She’d returned sporadically to Hannah through the years on business matters, posing as this or that relative so the norms wouldn’t glom on to her, but she’d never stayed long.
You told yourself it was so the norms wouldn’t notice that you don’t age, but that wasn’t the real reason.
No, it wasn’t. The Great Wall of Denial Cassie had built around herself was crumbling, and she could see things clearly now. The farm and Hannah represented loss and unspeakable pain. Home reminded her of Jimbo, Maggie, and Rose, and the fact that she’d failed them, failed her brother, and failed herself. Home reminded her of Duncan and the great aching void he’d left when he departed.