by Kristie Cook
“Because he thinks it’s inevitable that he will do something wrong. That he’ll leave us. He’s already feeling guilty about it.”
“Oh.” I pressed my cheek against Tristan’s solid chest and considered this for a moment. “Well, he has nothing to feel guilty about now, and all he has to do when the time comes is say no.”
“Ma lykita, it’s not so cut and dry. He will have a decision to make, and only he can make it. Our boy is carrying a heavy load on his shoulders.”
“He doesn’t have to. He just has to know this is where he belongs.”
“Yes, my love, but be prepared that no matter what we do, we might not be able to change anything. Or maybe we do by pushing him the wrong way. He needs space to learn and grow and be able to make the decision for himself. And he needs love and trust to do the right thing.”
I made a face, but eventually nodded. “Okay, fine. I won’t pressure him. But do you really think he’ll be okay?”
Tristan blew out a heavy breath. “Honestly? I don’t think you want to know my answer to that.”
My heart squeezed. I knew he was right. My son would never be okay again.
But really, I didn’t know if anyone in this world would be right again. Once we left the confines of the mansion and the Amadis Island in the wee hours of the next morning, I learned just how right I was about that.
The world would never be the same again.
Chapter 9
Since flashing was no longer an option unless we wanted to be trapped by the norms, or worse, the Daemoni, Owen created a portal for our entire group to pass through, taking us into the Italian countryside. We needed to arrive somewhere secluded, but our target was Rome. Well, Vatican City, more specifically. Solomon thought the Pope would still be on our side, and therefore, his millions of followers. The problem was getting to him.
We arrived in some overgrown vineyards on the side of a hill, a place Savio had told Charlotte about shortly before I kicked him off the council. He’d said the owner of the small winery had let the place go for years after her husband passed away, and then she died, too. If she’d had any heirs, they hadn’t claimed the land. With no reason for the Daemoni to expect our appearance here and no norms around to witness, it provided the perfect place for us to suddenly appear.
From what I could see in the pitch darkness of night, the buildings at the bottom of the hill appeared to be in poor shape and weeds had devoured the vineyards, but the place must have been beautiful at one time. Did the owner truly not have any heirs, or were they for some reason not interested in the family business? Why hadn’t someone else bought the place? Maybe in a simpler time, owning a winery could have been fun for Tristan and me, part of that normal life I’d always dreamt about as a kid. But our lives weren’t normal and they never would be, I thought with a sigh as I scanned for nearby mind signatures.
“We’re good for at least ten miles,” I said quietly when I found nobody around.
We’d picked the dead of night for traveling because most Normans would be sleeping, decreasing the threat of them coming after us. The Daemoni were more likely to be out, but we didn’t worry about having to fight them. At least, not until we reached the city. Considering their food source seemed to be scarce out here in the boonies, any Daemoni nearby were weak and at ankle level of the totem pole. Once we made our way into the city, we’d be facing a bigger threat, but we didn’t plan on anyone noticing our presence. Our large group didn’t allow us to travel with any speed under a cloak without running into each other, but when we came close enough to the city, Owen would hide us.
Blossom had concocted a velocity potion to make the mages, shifters, and Dorian able to run as fast as the vampires, Tristan, and me, and they all swallowed it down. Then we raced toward the city, our bodies nothing but blurs to the Norman eye. Vanessa and Sheree in her tiger form bounded ahead of us, and Solomon and Jax brought up the rear. Even with the magical enhancement, Jax wouldn’t have been able to keep up with us in his crocodile form for the long distance we had to travel, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that he didn’t run unprepared. His eyes glowed in the dark, his teeth extended several inches beyond his lips, and although crocs weren’t known for long and sharp claws, they were certainly frightening enough on his human hands that had become webbed and partially scaled.
My mental antenna constantly probed for mind signatures, but found none, even as we approached the suburbs. A feeling of trepidation slid down my spine at this, strengthened by the realization of just how dark and still our surroundings were. No streetlights. No cars on the roads. Even in the middle of the night, there should have been some sign of life.
But there was none.
Only dark homes and dark businesses. Even a gas station we passed appeared to be abandoned, a car sitting at the pump with the driver’s side door still open.
“Something’s wrong,” Vanessa thought into my head. I kept my mind open to all of them as a gateway that allowed a silent conversation.
“It’s an old-fashioned ghost town,” Owen agreed.
“Because of the Daemoni attacks?” Blossom asked.
“Had to have been,” Charlotte said. “It looks like they all ran when the Daemoni came out and never returned.”
“Maybe the norms bugged out to a safer place,” Owen suggested.
Except there was nobody in the country, either, which is where they would have gone during the attacks, right? I said.
“That or they holed up somewhere protected,” Tristan offered.
“Or they’ve all been eaten or turned,” Solomon countered, stating in his normal matter-of-fact tone the conclusion we’d all been thinking but not saying out loud. Or thinking out loud. Whatever.
“This place is downright creepy,” Blossom said.
Although Sheree’s thoughts weren’t clearly human, we could feel her agreement. The fur along her spine lifted, and her ears twitched as she listened in every direction. We all ran a tad slower, on higher alert. Dorian moved closer between Tristan and me. Barely more than a minute later, I picked up on the brain waves—mind signatures of a whole slew of norms, clustered in an apartment building a few miles ahead. Just as I was about to signal to my group to turn and order Owen to cloak us, my mind translated an Italian thought: “Almost . . . now!”
Flood lights lit up the entire block, bright as day. Generators kicked on somewhere in the distance, but we still heard the clicks of weapons being cocked.
Run! I screamed at my team, but we weren’t fast enough.
A warning arrow flew in front of me, and Vanessa suddenly stopped, swearing up a storm. Damn. Even with our supernatural speed, they’d managed to catch us. We halted and threw our hands in the air—except Vanessa, who yanked the arrow out of her thigh and snapped it in half before throwing it on the ground. Several people stepped out of the shadows of the storefronts with guns pointed at us. At least they hadn’t used those for a warning.
Tristan shouted something in Italian, and Vanessa did, too, probably cussing them out for shooting her. At least she didn’t immediately attack in retribution. I picked up on a few thoughts as they spoke, figuring out the conversation. Tristan tried to convince the Normans that we were like them, harmless and simply headed into the city. A woman said something about the city being swarmed and dangerous. A man pointed out our unnatural speed and asked with sarcasm if the tiger was a pet.
And then a younger woman yelled in English, “It’s her! A.K. Emerson!”
The norms didn’t even hesitate. Gunshots cracked through the night. The racket instantly brought me to the horrible night of watching my mom die, but the noise sounded different. The shots came slower, not from automatic, military-grade weapons, but from civilian handguns. By the tangy smell of burnt gunpowder, old handguns at that. And I wasn’t as surprised by this as I had been that night. I didn’t just stand there stupidly in shock, but instead lifted my hand and flicked my finger to suspend the bullets in the air. With Tristan, Blossom, and Char
’s help, it was easy to do long enough for Owen to put up a shield. Singing above the gunshots came the high-pitched sound of a warning siren.
But they weren’t warning anyone—there was no one around to warn. They were calling for help.
Seconds later, newcomers dropped onto the scene: Daemoni. Several vampires, a few witches and wizards, and someone with magic powerful enough to cause the air to whoosh around us as our shield disappeared. Had to have been a sorcerer, although he hung back. My mind felt him two blocks away, but only for the briefest of moments before sharp pain fired into my brain, blocking him out.
The vampires—a dozen of them—swarmed in on us, their hungry grins displaying their long, glistening fangs. The thrill of the kill sparked in their glowing, red eyes. Holding one hand to my head, I shot electricity at them. The mages shot spells back at us, and the battle began.
“Run!” I yelled at the norms as Blossom blocked an errant spell headed for the building to our left. “Take cover and stay there!”
The norms who’d been shooting at us only moments ago scattered, thankfully leaving the fight to us. They did it to help the Daemoni—obvious since they’d called them here—but I didn’t care. At least they’d moved out of the way, and we didn’t have to worry about unintentionally hurting one of them. We needed to focus on the evil creatures moving in on us.
A dark-haired vampire who strode toward me, moving slowly as he planned his attack, looked very familiar. I felt sure I’d seen him at Mom and Rina’s funeral. I’d been a little distraught that day, okay, a lot, but I remembered the curling lines of ink crawling up his neck from under the collar of his shirt. I still couldn’t see the tattoo underneath, but the tendrils were definitely the same. I tilted my head a notch. He narrowed his eyes slightly. I opened my mind to him.
“The Pope is dead, if that’s what you’re here for. You need to get out of here.”
One of our own, performing as instructed. And doing a good job at it when he flew at me, his mouth wide open, his fangs directed for my throat.
“GO!” he yelled in my mind as I threw my powers at him, flinging him several yards away.
More Daemoni began landing in the road, popping out of nowhere. Which meant they could flash here. Tristan noticed, too. He threw his hand up and froze everyone except for us. A vampire hissed and snarled.
“If you don’t want to fight, maybe you want to come with us,” he offered, barely able to move his lips. “We all know you abandoned your own people. Left them to fend for themselves. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of them.”
A witch snickered. “Who knows why Lucas still wants you, but if you begged hard enough, he’d probably take you in.”
“We can flash out of here,” Tristan said to us, ignoring the Daemoni’s taunts.
“Maybe it’s safe to flash here but not where we’re going,” Charlotte pointed out.
The Pope’s dead, I said. We need to get out of the area before we’re overwhelmed.
“Let’s try Köln then,” Solomon suggested, and I remembered him saying something about an archbishop who worked closely with the European Union’s leadership.
“I’ll make a portal,” Owen said while already moving his hands together. He closed his eyes to focus for a moment, then he spread his hands apart, opening a hole in the very air in front of us. At the same time, several Daemoni appeared, one with an extremely loud pop very close to us. Tristan grunted as the Daemoni he’d paralyzed began breaking through his power.
“There’s snow in Germany already?” Jax asked.
“That doesn’t look like Köln,” Vanessa said.
“Just go!” Tristan ordered, his voice strained.
The sorcerer whose mind signature I’d noticed before had appeared directly behind us, and I couldn’t read his mind, but I could feel his intense darkness. His magic focused on Tristan’s paralyzing power, gradually lifting it from the other Daemoni, while also pulling on my energy to feed himself. Before he could sap me completely, I grabbed Dorian’s hand and leapt us through the portal. We landed in about six inches of white powder, and then fell when the others plowed into us. The sun glaring on the freshly fallen snow nearly blinded me as I jumped to my feet and counted heads.
“Close the portal, Owen,” I yelled when I confirmed we’d all made it through. The intensity of the sorcerer’s dark magic tried to swallow me whole. He must have been attempting to come after us.
“It’s closed, Alexis,” Owen said.
“Where’s the dark magic coming from?” Blossom asked, wrapping her arms over her ample chest and huddling close to Jax.
“This definitely isn’t Köln.” Charlotte turned in a circle, hands out, ready to fight.
“Hades,” Tristan, Vanessa, and Solomon said at the same time.
I spun around, my eyes wide. An encampment of canvas tents stood on the snowy field about three hundred yards away.
Tristan tilted his head toward it. “That’s the Shaman village by the entrance.”
“We need to get the hell out of here,” Vanessa said. “Before they notice us.”
“Owen—” I started.
“Already on it,” he snarled through a clenched jaw. He opened another portal, and we all ran through it, not even pausing to see where we headed.
As I ran into the new place, I watched the backs of Sheree and Solomon bring up the last of our group through another hole. We’d come through only six feet away from where we’d left.
“What the hell?” Charlotte declared.
“I don’t know,” Owen said. “Let me try again. Somewhere else. Where else besides Germany, Solomon?”
“Praha.”
Owen nodded and created a new portal. We all ran through, only to end up even closer to the Shaman village.
“Someone’s blocking my portals.”
“Then they already know we’re here,” Vanessa said. At the same time, a wave of dark magic crashed into us, flattening us to the ground.
“Run!” Tristan barked as he jumped to his feet. He grabbed Dorian, threw him on his back like a rag doll, and sprinted away from the Shamans.
The flatlands of northern Siberia stretched in front of us with mountains rising in the far distance. We ran as fast and as far as we could across the plains, our speed allowing us to glide over the top of the snow that must have been the first blanket of the year. Thank the Angels it wasn’t January. We ran until we hit the base of a mountain, when the others could no longer keep up with Tristan, Solomon, Vanessa, and me because the velocity potion had worn off.
“Maybe . . . we can . . . flash here,” Blossom suggested, panting as she leaned over and braced her hands on her thighs. “We’re in the middle of nowhere Siberia. Who even lives here? Do you really think there are traps?”
“We’re way too close to Hades to risk it,” Vanessa said, and by the way she rounded her shoulders, I could tell she suppressed a shudder. “No way are we getting trapped there.”
“We could try a portal again,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that was such a great idea.
“What if we end up back at Hades?” Jax asked. “I’m not running all that way again. It might be easy for you, princess, but not for this lumbering croc.”
“Especially because I’m out of potion,” Blossom said. “We’ll be too slow.”
Dorian, standing off to the side, suggested quietly, “I could fly us out of here.”
“No,” Tristan and I answered at the same time.
“You can’t carry all of us at once,” Charlotte said, more kindly.
“No, but I can probably take two at a time. And Sasha could help.” At the mention of her name, the lykora’s little, white dog’s snout poked out of the top of Dorian’s jacket.
“It’s too dangerous,” I said.
“Uncle Owen can shield me, right?”
Owen shook his head. “Not if you get too far away from me.”
“Then you stay with me.”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I don’t care if Owen
shields you. It’s too dangerous!”
“But—”
“No, Dorian,” Tristan said firmly. “It’s not a viable option. It will take too long, and there are too many risks involved.”
“I was just trying to help,” he muttered as he kicked at the snow and sent a rock underneath flying.
“And we appreciate it,” Blossom said. “Very much. But your dad knows the best solution.”
“And that’s not it.” I turned to look at Tristan, who gazed off into the distance. “So what is our solution?”
“There’s nothing around here for hundreds of miles. Trust me, I know. Only a few villages of indigenous people, most of them Shamans.”
“Great,” I muttered.
“They’re mages,” Blossom said. “Not all are dark.”
“No, but most around here are Daemoni,” Vanessa said. “Any Amadis would be in hiding.”
“So what should we do, Tristan?” I asked, starting to feel the hopelessness of our situation.
“I think we can flash,” he answered, surprising all of us. He turned back to face our group. “This is the Daemoni’s kingdom. Why would they prevent flashing here? They need to get in and out, close to Hades. We have about six hundred miles between here and any resemblance of civilization, eight hundred to decent transportation. Our only other option is to hike it, and I don’t think we’ll all last.”
He nodded toward Dorian, whose lips were already turning blue. His whole body shook from the below freezing temperature. We hadn’t expected to find ourselves in winter conditions in the beginning of October, so he wore only a light coat over a t-shirt and jeans on his legs.
“Owen,” I hissed. “Can’t you do something?”
“I’m so sorry, Dorian!” Blossom squealed, and she waved her hand toward the man-boy. He immediately stopped shivering. “The spell won’t last forever in this cold, though. I’ve already had to redo my own since we’ve been standing here.”
“Looks like flashing is our only option,” Char said.
Nobody liked the idea or the risks that came with it, but we couldn’t argue with Tristan. He knew this place better than any of us, except maybe Vanessa. She hadn’t come up with any other solutions, though, so apparently flashing was it.