by Jayne Faith
My heart clenched in my chest as I looked around the room at the blood victims, strewn like discarded toys.
“We’ll send help for you,” I said, my words muddling with the lingering effects of the vamp saliva.
I wasn’t sure any of them actually heard me. Even if they did, they might not remember. I wished I could take all of them with me, but I had to get out with Evan before the vamps regenerated.
I aimed my gun at the big vamp and fired two rounds into his torso. I only had one of the anti-vamp bullets left, but it was worth it. Between the rounds and the broken spine, it’d be a while before he drew any more blood from his victims.
We stumbled down the hallway as fast as I could get Evan to move.
I blinked at the carnage near the entry. Loki had been busy, but some of the vampires were already starting to rouse. The ones I’d left in sunlight had managed to drag themselves to the shadows.
Evan was pulling at me, protesting, and I gripped his arm more firmly.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” I said, my words slurred. It would be a while before the vamp saliva metabolized completely out of my system.
Outside I found Rogan grappling with a vampire that was sizzling like a pig on a spit in the sun. Loki bounded past me, and Rogan got out of the way just as the big dog slammed into the vampire, sending him flying headfirst into the solid wall surrounding the property.
The vamp went still and continued to cook in the sun.
I stared at Loki, finally getting a good look at him in the light. He looked like a full-blooded hellhound. Black, with wisps of smoke rising from his hide. Eyes of solid hellfire. He turned to me, wagged his tail, and gave me a big doggy grin that showed a row of razor teeth as long as my pinkie.
I swallowed hard. “Good boy,” I called to him.
Rogan was doubled over with his hands on his knees, breathing hard. He tipped his head up, and his eyes met mine and then flicked to my shoulder, which was probably a bloody mess. “The arch-demons are on their way.”
I nodded and looked over at my brother. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his balance was pitching around as if his knees weren’t prepared to keep him upright.
“Evan?” I said softly. “I’m taking you home.”
He muttered something unintelligible.
I leaned in. “What?”
“You shouldn’t have come,” he said through clamped teeth. “Leave me.”
I blinked a few times, thinking I must have heard wrong.
The screech of a demon overhead made us all look up.
Evan’s whole body went rigid, and he began shaking his head and breathing rapidly.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Rogan is commanding them. They won’t hurt us. They’re going to carry us to our car.”
My brother broke free of my grasp, wheeled around, and began a shambling run back into the vampire den.
I took two steps after him when a black vertical line split the air in front of me. Rip magic reached out like fiery fingers as the line widened into a gap.
I skidded to a stop, but the rip was advancing on me. I turned to run, reaching out for Rogan.
I saw his eyes go wide, and he shouted my name just before the rip swallowed me whole.
Chapter 20
I STOOD IN the crystal cave, and I wasn’t alone. A roar shook the floor and sent a furnace blast of air at me that blew my hair back and sent tears streaming from my eyes. The heat was enough to parch my skin, and I could only hope that my eyelashes and eyebrows were still intact.
A very pissed-looking dragon faced me, its eyes flashing and its nostrils flaring with puffs of smoke.
I swallowed hard and blinked tears from my singed eyes. Whirling around, I watched the rip I’d come through sew itself up and then shrink into nothing. What the hell was I doing here with the oracle?
“There must be some mistake,” I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder. “I was in the middle of something pretty important, so if you could just—”
“Silence!” the dragon thundered with another singing puff of breath.
I snapped my jaw closed with a click of my teeth. Words were trying to pile up in my throat, but I held them back. Last time we’d met, the oracle had made it pretty clear he didn’t appreciate impatience. So while the giant scaled beast shifted around, taking his time finding a comfortable position, I kept my mouth zipped.
I took it as a good sign that the dragon seemed to derive some pleasure from making me wait. A little passive-aggression was definitely preferable to getting fried in a blast of dragon fire, even if the delay was pure agony knowing that my brother and Rogan were still at the vamp compound. I clung to the hope that Rogan was taking care of my Evan, that they’d managed to escape.
Finally, the dragon turned his great serpentine head toward me.
“What is the meaning of this?” He flicked something toward me, a tiny object that tumbled across the floor of the cavern with faint little clinks.
I stepped forward and bent to retrieve it. With a frown, I straightened, pinching Lynnette’s skull ring between my thumb and forefinger. It was the trinket I’d gifted to the oracle.
“You’re offended by this gift?” I asked carefully.
“Gift!” The dragon snorted outraged sparks. “It’s charmed with trickery!”
Charmed with . . . ?
My hands curled into fists. Lynnette. She’d done something to the ring.
“I promise you, I didn’t charm this,” I said. “And I certainly have no desire to try to trick you. It was given to me by the witch who accompanied me when I came to you before.”
The oracle narrowed his eyes at me.
“May I ask, what is the nature of the charm?” I asked. I dared not reach for my own magic to try to probe the thing, for fear he’d take it as an affront, or worse.
The dragon’s head darted forward, and I jerked back in alarm. But he wasn’t trying to strike. He tilted one eye down at the ring I held.
“It wants to pull my golden magic.” His deep voice seemed to reverberate in my bones.
The eye shifted to me. It was bigger than my head, and the vertical slit of a pupil seemed to swirl with the fire of a supernova. For a moment, I could do nothing but stare into it.
“Well, I can’t say I’m completely surprised by that,” I said frankly. “She seems to be a bit of a collector of rare magic.”
“Is that so.” The dragon drew the words out.
The great head retreated, and I jumped as the blue-flame magic of a rip appeared next to me. A moment later Lynnette fell through the opening, landing in a heap on the floor. She scrambled to her feet, clutching a toothbrush in her hand. There was a smear of toothpaste foam near the corner of her mouth.
I snorted. Good thing she hadn’t been in the middle of a shower.
Her eyes wide with shock, she looked up at me. I fluttered my fingers at her in a little wave.
“Ella. What happened to you?” she asked me. “You look like hell.”
Oh my god, you idiot. My appearance was laughably irrelevant.
“Hey, Lynnette.” I tipped my head at the oracle and stage whispered, “Someone wants to talk to you about the spell that’s in this thing.”
I held up the silver skull ring with the pink crystal eyes, and she blanched. Caught red-handed. She straightened and used the back of her wrist to remove the toothpaste smear.
“I meant no harm or disrespect,” she said, looking up at the dragon and already composing herself.
“You wanted to steal my magic,” the dragon boomed.
Lynnette blinked rapidly. “No, no, of course not. It was an honest mistake.”
The dragon grumbled, and I held my breath. But he seemed to be settling into a pout. I frowned. He wasn’t going to explode in fiery rage?
“I require a replacement gift,” he finally said. “Now.”
Lynnette and I glanced at each other. Her hair was piled in a frizzy bun, she had no makeup on, and no jewelry was visible. And I certa
inly didn’t have anything sparkly to offer.
“If you could give us some time, we could return with a proper offering,” I said.
“You expect patience from me, yet you want everything immediately?” His voice rose, and the puffs of steam from his nostrils became more violent. “No. I require a gift.”
I choked back the string of choice words I wanted to hurl at Lynnette. For shit’s sake. I’d finally found Evan, and somehow Lynnette had managed to foil my efforts. Now I was stuck in a glimmering cave with her and a sulky serpent the size of a house who was demanding a pretty present in return for our release.
Exactly how had this become my life?
“Any ideas, since you got us into this mess?” I growled at Lynnette through clenched teeth.
“I didn’t exactly have time to prepare for this little meeting.” She held up her toothbrush and had the gall to look at me as if I were the idiot in this situation. “This is the best I’ve got.”
“Seriously? Not even a belly button piercing?”
I ran a hand across my eyes. I just needed to get the hell out of here. What did I have on me? A broken whip, a couple of knives, my phone, my ID, some cash, and a bank card. I didn’t even have any fricking change in my pocket.
There was only one thing I could think of, but it would require the reaper’s cooperation. I faced the dragon.
“Can you come with me to the gray place? The in-between?” I asked. “I can give you something that’s pretty damned amazing, if I do say so myself. But only in that realm.”
My heart was bumping in my chest. I had no idea if I could really pull this off. If I couldn’t, there was no telling how the oracle would react.
I swear the dragon perked his head like Loki did when I said the word “treat.”
I shot a death glare at Lynnette. She owed me. Like, times a million.
Tuning in to the call of the magic that flowed through the ley lines of the in-between, I followed it. My eyelids drifted shut, and I let go of the world of the living.
When I opened my eyes, I stood in the mist of the in-between. The cave was nothing but smooth rock, with no crystal formations or pretty lights. The dragon was there with me, but appeared as a smoky hologram of his living-realm self. I felt the reaper stir before I even tried to summon it.
There were no souls nearby to reap, but I didn’t think I’d need any.
All I had to do was think of it, and the reaping blade appeared in my right hand. The cloud of souls balanced above the palm of my left. A rush of exhilaration surged through me. This was Xaphan’s collection, but I was in charge now, even here in the realm where souls waited for the reaper’s knife.
I lifted my left hand, watching the tiny points of light dance in the darker swirling cloud, so the dragon could see. I wished I could set them free, but I somehow felt they’d be safer with the dragon than with Xaphan. The little I’d learned about my reaper didn’t exactly give me confidence in its goodwill.
The expanding pressure in my chest was my first indication that Xaphan had taken notice. The jolt of lightning in my brain told me the reaper wasn’t as docile as I’d assumed. My body seemed caught between opposing forces—my will and Xaphan’s.
“Give it up,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “It’s time.”
The reaper didn’t budge.
“I don’t need you anymore, Xaphan,” I whispered fiercely. “Give up the souls, or I will find a way to extinguish you, I swear IT.”
The reaper’s resistance held for a few more seconds but then began to relent.
I eased back from butting heads with Xaphan, and instead reached for the magic of the in-between. The pain in my head sharpened, but I ignored it. Drawing the power hurt, and I knew I’d pay a price for it, but I had to overpower the reaper’s will.
I used the magic to counteract the pressure of the reaper, and after a moment felt its presence begin to recede. Still gripping the magic, I walked toward the dragon. The souls brightened and pulsed, swirling like fireflies in an orb of midnight sky.
“This is all I have,” I said. “Please accept this gift.”
I lofted the cloud of souls gently into the air. As it left my palm, I felt a stab of regret. I wasn’t sure if it was mine or the reaper’s.
The souls drifted toward the dragon, and he reached one great, clawed hand up to catch it. The points of light reflected in his serpentine eyes.
The gray dissolved, giving way to the crystal cave and the realm of the living.
“I accept your gift, Ella Grey,” the dragon intoned. He turned to Lynnette, who still stood where we’d left her. “You will have to answer for your trespass.”
Lynnette flicked a glance at me, and true fear shone in her eyes. But I didn’t have a chance to react as the blue flames of rip magic consumed me, and I found myself dumped unceremoniously onto the ground.
I pulled my feet under me, still clutching the damn skull ring and blinking as I tried to orient myself. I was back at the compound, standing outside the ruined entry. Time must have compressed while I was with the dragon, because the sun was nearly down.
There was no sign of Evan, Rogan, or Loki. A shuffle of movement and low growl came from behind me. I whirled. A lumbering form emerged from the dingy darkness within. It was one of the vamps Loki had busted up. One leg still dragged, not quite healed, preventing the vampire from its characteristic speed.
I reached for my whip but then remembered that the hulking vamp had snapped it in two.
The sun had set, and it would be full dark soon. If Evan and Rogan hadn’t made their getaway already, I wasn’t going to be able to help them, not at that time of day and on my own. I had to trust that Rogan had gotten them out.
Springing into a sprint, I ran like hell around the side of the house and straight for the drainage tunnel. I dropped and shimmied through it as fast as humanly possible as I gripped earth magic, ready to sling it behind me at the first sound of a pursuer.
My head throbbed as I struggled to hold onto a thread of magic, and I felt a drop of blood leak from my nose.
When I got through, I pulled myself up to my feet. I looked around, trying to discern exactly which way we’d come. In the failing light, I couldn’t make out distinct landmarks in the seemingly endless expanse of sagebrush and the occasional gnarled, wind-beaten trees.
It turned out I didn’t have to rely on my internal compass after all.
With a whoosh of great wings, an arch-demon flew low over the wall of the compound. It tipped, turned sharply, and flapped as if coming down for a landing. The turbulence of its movement sent my hair flying around my face. The creature hooked its feet around my shoulders and upper arms. Before it lifted me, I chucked the skull ring into the desert.
As my boots left the ground, I had the strange sensation of feeling like a baby or small child being lifted and carried away. I had to hang there limply, trusting that the arch-demon wouldn’t let me slip. We rose, but only a few dozen feet.
The cold air rushed over my face, stinging my skin and drying the blood that had leaked from my nose. It had never gotten particularly warm that day, but with the sun down the temperature was already dropping. A bite of winter moisture in the air foretold snow.
By the time the demon descended and set me on the ground near Rogan’s Jeep, my face and hands stung with chill and my teeth chattered.
Rogan emerged and ran to me. Loki in his regular hellhound-labradoodle form went over the driver’s seat, jumped out, and followed. Rogan grabbed both my hands and then roughly pulled me into a hug. “It’s a good thing you decided to reappear. I wasn’t going to be able to stay past nightfall.”
I peered over his shoulder, searching for Evan. He was in the back seat and appeared to be asleep.
Rogan let me go, and I began moving toward the Jeep. “Is he okay?” I asked.
“I had to use a mild knockout spell to get him to calm down for the airlift,” Rogan said.
I glanced at him, and then it dawned on me. The
stories about Evan’s disappearance. Witnesses had said he’d been carried off by a giant demon. He’d probably been scared shitless when he saw the creatures Rogan commanded.
I pulled the Jeep door open and slid into the back seat next to Evan. His eyes were closed, his face slack. Rogan had covered him with a couple of wool blankets. I tucked the nearest edges tighter around him.
Rogan put Loki in the front passenger seat and then got in and started the car. I reached forward and gripped his upper arm.
“I don’t know how I can ever repay you for this,” I said quietly.
He just nodded and squeezed my hand in a touchingly warm gesture.
“What happened back there anyway?” he asked as he steered onto the dirt road that led to the highway.
“The dragon happened,” I said. “Actually, no. Lynnette Leblanc happened.”
Rogan glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
“That ring I gave to the oracle was charmed. Apparently Lynnette thought she could use it to siphon some dragon magic, though she tried to deny it.”
“Holy shit, that was beyond stupid.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“He didn’t . . .” Rogan trailed off forebodingly.
“What, kill her? No. Well, actually, I don’t know. The dragon spit me back out, and Lynnette was still there when I left. He was pissed but didn’t seem to be in a murdery mood. More pouty than homicidal.”
“How did you manage to get away?”
“I had to provide an alternative gift.” I told him about the cloud of souls. As I spoke, my eyes stayed glued to my brother. There was a part of me that still couldn’t believe he was right there, within arm’s reach.
I pressed a hand to my diaphragm and searched my inner sensations as if trying to discern Xaphan’s mood. I sensed the reaper’s presence, but nothing much beyond that.
“You got the reaper to give up the souls?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Xaphan didn’t want to, but I didn’t exactly offer it as a choice.”
Rogan had stopped at the turnoff that divided the dirt road from pavement. He twisted to look at me.
“That’s . . . wow,” he said.