Magic and Bones

by Laken Cane

  “And you don’t want to do that,” Levi said.

  “I really don’t.”

  Raze looked at her, head cocked. “Why is that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe…”

  “What?”

  “It just feels like she’s not the enemy. Not ours, anyway.”

  “The gargoyles are?”

  She shook her head. “No, though they’ve brought this mess to us. I think the gargoyles and the corpses are in a war, and River County got caught in the middle of it. But I don’t think either side wants to kill us, or destroy the humans, or take over the world.”

  “Gargoyles are liars,” Levi said. “But Bellamy is dead and Gavin is terrified. Even if he’s lying about everything else, we know those two things are true.”

  “Yeah.” She climbed into the passenger seat of Raze’s truck after he unlocked her door. “Problem is, what can we do about it?”

  “Whatever it takes to keep her from bringing the Corpse Army to River County,” Denim answered. “We’ll follow you to Wormwood.”

  “I’ll let Jack and Roma know what’s up,” Levi said.

  “Tell Jack not to hurry. He can spend some time with Reign. We’re not fighting the skeleton.”

  Then she called Bill to postpone the meeting, and Strad to let him know where she was headed.

  “I’ll meet you at the graveyard,” he told her. “Don’t go inside until I get there.”

  His words slid into her ear, and her mind stuttered as the rich darkness of his voice caressed her soul. She stared down at the ring on her finger, the ring that held both Z and the berserker, the same way her heart did.

  Would she someday lose Strad the way she’d lost Z? Strad was twisted up with human and Other, but he wasn’t immortal. She could feel it. He was in her heart, and she could feel his mortality. Someday when she fell, he wouldn’t be there to catch her.

  “Fuck,” she whispered.

  “What is it, Rune?” His voice had gone careful and soft, the way it did when he was a little afraid of what she was about to tell him.

  But she really didn’t know what to say. Immortality sucks. I don’t want to live forever. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to live in a world where you don’t exist. I don’t want to go through my endless days with only memories of you, the way I do with Z. I love you. I love you.

  In the end, she murmured, “Nothing. Just…I’m getting morbid.” But she couldn’t leave it at that. “Sometimes the future is a little too fucking grim to contemplate, Berserker.”

  “Then don’t contemplate it. This moment right here is all we have, and it’s all we need.” He hesitated. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

  “Rune,” Raze said. “Trouble at the gates.”

  He yanked her right out of her own dark head, and she went from blue to black immediately.

  Trouble.

  Trouble she could handle.

  “I heard,” Strad said. “I’m two minutes away. Stay in the car.”

  Like she wasn’t the monster.

  She slid her phone back into her pocket, staring through the windshield with narrowed eyes as Raze sped toward Wormwood—where Belladonna Braden faced off against Will Blackthorn.

  She was opening her door before the truck skidded to a stop. “Get out of here before she sees you,” she told Raze. “I’ve got this.”

  “Fuck it,” he said. “I can’t hide forever. She knows something’s up or she wouldn’t have come back. Only one way to get rid of her for good.”

  She didn’t know if he meant by showing her the truth or by killing her, but when she jogged toward the gates, Raze was at her side.

  The twins were right behind them.

  Gunnar and six wolves guarded the gate, refusing to allow Belladonna entrance, but that wasn’t what caused Rune to shoot out her claws and drop her fangs.

  And it wasn’t because behind Gunnar, she saw the ground shaking as a skeleton began to rise, as the gargoyles clung to tall tree tops, watching for their opportunity to attack a warrior that Rune only wanted to talk to.

  A strange woman stood behind Will, her hands on her hips, unafraid, watching Belladonna and the assassin, and Rune didn’t need anyone to tell her that the stranger was Will’s clairvoyant.

  Finally, they had a hope of communicating with the bones and the fucking Next hire stood in their way.

  Raze’s huge sister stood with her fists clenched—one of them curled around a gun—and Will watched her with his characteristic dark stillness.

  He turned his head toward Rune, and she could almost feel his body relax just a little. She wasn’t sure if he relaxed because she was there, or because the berserker’s truck roared in behind them.

  But just before Rune reached him, Belladonna raised the gun and struck Will’s masked face. Hard.

  He stumbled backward, his fingers to his mask, caught off guard by her sucker punch, having believed, perhaps, that Rune was there to settle whatever matter had the woman so irked.

  That was what made Rune drop her fangs and shoot out her claws. She was protective and she was territorial, and Belladonna Braden had just obliterated the line over which Rune had been a little hesitant to step.

  Bill wanted Shiv Crew to be an ally to the bitch, and Raze didn’t want her hurt.

  But Rune cared only that some stranger, a Next op, no less, had just sucker-punched one of hers.

  “Son of a bitch,” Raze muttered. “Don’t kill her, Rune.”

  Even before Will righted himself, Belladonna followed the punch with a brutal kick to his knee. Rune heard the crunch with something close to joy—joy because the bitch was giving her every reason to kick her ass, and kick it hard.

  Belladonna was leaving River County.

  Whether she left it walking or riding in a body bag was up to her.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Levi and Denim rushed to Will and pulled him out of the way, and despite her single-minded rage at Belladonna, Rune could feel the assassin’s annoyance. He’d let down his guard with the angry woman, and that had been a mistake he shouldn’t have made. Now his mask was wet with blood and he could barely walk.

  It would have been almost funny if it wasn’t so very fucking wrong.

  Rune withdrew her claws. She wouldn’t be using blades against Raze’s sister. She wouldn’t be using her monster, either.

  Belladonna fired off a wild shot at Rune before Rune wrenched the gun from her hand so hard and fast she nearly took the woman’s fingers with it.

  She punched Belladonna then, but held back—held back because she didn’t want to use her monster against Raze’s human sister. She was going to kick the woman’s ass, but she was going to do it as just another woman.

  So she punched Belladonna in the face with the gun, rapid strikes that had Belladonna on her knees almost immediately, her face bloody and already swelling, and then finally, Rune flung the gun away before she lost her control and killed her.

  Belladonna swayed, put her fingers to her battered face, and then attempted to get to her feet.

  “Stay the fuck down,” Rune said, her teeth clenched, “or I will break your motherfucking neck.”

  Belladonna, nearly unconscious—honestly, Rune was surprised she hadn’t knocked the woman out—pushed the back of her hand against her gushing, broken nose and stayed put. She might have been an asshole, but she wasn’t stupid.

  “You’ve just worn out your welcome,” Rune told her. “I don’t give a fuck about your boss, your broken mind, or your fucking family ties. You’ll be leaving as soon as you can walk to your car. Do you understand me?”

  Belladonna curled her lip.

  “Will,” Rune said.

  “I’m good.” His voice might have sounded emotionless to someone who didn’t know him, but Rune knew him. Maybe he’d never really get used to the fact that she cared about him. That anyone did.

  And that came through much louder than his pain.

  Rune nodded at Raze, who stood behind his kneeling sist
er, and Raze grabbed her upper arm and hauled her to her feet. “Up we go,” he said.

  Apparently Belladonna wasn’t finished, despite being viciously pistol-whipped and surrounded by a crew who could easily take her down. Perhaps she was a little stupid, after all.

  She yanked a blade from under her jacket and turned on Raze with an almost feral growl—a growl that sounded exactly like Raze’s.

  But Raze never underestimated anybody, and he was ready for her.

  He blocked her swing, then grabbed her wrist. “She will kill you, girl,” he murmured. “Don’t make her fucking kill you.”

  She gaped, and the blade fell from her fingers, forgotten. “Hercules,” she said, incredulous. “I knew they were hiding something. I knew it.”

  “You always did have that sixth sense,” he said.

  Then they stared at each other, silent.

  Sorrow and shame lurked in the depths of Raze’s eyes, and dark realization and pain in hers.

  “I knew they were hiding something,” she repeated. “I just didn’t know it was you.”

  Behind them, the ground tossed frantically and a fleshless hand shot through the dirt.

  Reluctantly, because she didn’t trust the fucking Next hire with Raze, Rune gestured to her crew and they headed into Wormwood.

  But she stopped to call back over her shoulder, “I don’t want to interfere with family shit, but you’re a dirty fighter. If you fuck with him, I’ll come back for you. This is the only warning you’ll get.”

  She no longer believed Belladonna would kill Raze. Not only because she was gushing blood and dazed, but because she’d seen too much pain in Belladonna’s eyes. She loved Raze. She might someday try to kick his ass, but she wasn’t going to catch him with his back turned and put a bullet in him.

  Then she left Raze to deal with his deceived sister and she went to deal with a corpse and a couple of gargoyles—and she believed with her whole heart that she got the better end of the deal.

  In the cemetery, she turned to Will. There was no time for niceties so she simply pulled him against her body, bit into his neck, and let her bite heal his fractured knee.

  Then the skeleton broke through the ground, and she had to pull away before she was fully satisfied. But Will was healed, and that was what mattered.

  She’d liked to have lingered over his warm skin, his madness, and his dark, vast need for love. Not even his enchanting blood held her quite as firmly as the tragedy of his extreme brokenness.

  He had sneaked quite deeply into her heart, even though he’d once been such a wicked, horrifying man. Still was…

  But not to her.

  Then it was time to face the bones.

  “We’ve brought someone who can help us hear you,” Rune said, the very instant the skeleton stood on the ground. “Will you talk to me?”

  At first, the bones did nothing. She simply stared at Rune, assessing, perhaps, Rune’s honesty and her trustworthiness.

  Finally, she gave a curt nod.

  “Thanks,” Rune told her, taking a step closer. “I don’t know exactly why you’re here, but we don’t want a war. If I can help settle what’s between you and the gargoyles, I’ll do that. Tell me what you need from me.”

  Again, the bones nodded. She flicked her gaze from Rune to the clairvoyant, who had slipped up beside Rune and Will and watched the bones with a look of utter concentration—and fascination—on her face.

  The clairvoyant crept closer to the bones, her hand out. “Her name is Mo Shannon,” she said. “And she wants her body. She wants the bodies of her people.”

  It was just as Gunnar had said.

  The bones lifted her hand and placed her skeletal fingers in the clairvoyant’s grip, and they silently watched each other, one of them communicating information, the other absorbing it.

  “Who is the psychic?” Rune asked Will. “Where’d you find her?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know her name. She refuses to give it to me. Names are power, she says. I call her Shade.”

  Shade looked young. She wore a simple white dress, and her wild, black hair hung to her waist and hid half her face. Startling eyes, dark irises ringed with red, peered through the thick strands, and now that she was concentrating on the bones, it was as though power she’d purposefully been concealing escaped her hold.

  That power swept over Rune’s skin, raising goosebumps and stiffening the fine hairs at the back of her neck. “She’s not just a clairvoyant,” she murmured.

  He glanced at her. “No,” he agreed. “She’s a sorceress.”

  “And something else,” Rune whispered. “She’s crazy powerful.”

  The girl glanced at her, and there was satisfaction in her strange eyes, but more than that, there was a shiny glaze of madness.

  No wonder she and Will were…friends.

  Rune shivered and looked away. She’d met enough crazy fucking witches to last her a lifetime. She didn’t want to know another.

  “Tell me where I can find the key,” Rune told the skeleton. “I’ll bring it to you, and you’ll go back to your world and leave mine alone. Deal?”

  Mo Shannon pressed her hand to her chest and stared at Rune with what could only have been described as adoration.

  “If you bring her the key,” Shade said, “she will owe you forever. She will never forget, and she and her army will fight at your back whenever you need her.”

  “Go on,” Rune said.

  “If you betray her, she and her Corpse Army will drag you all back into hell with her. She has marked your scents and learned your faces.” The witch smiled.

  Rune looked away from the girl and put her stare back on the bones, and she forced herself not to shudder. “I said I’d help you. I’ll go after the fucking key. Give me the location before I change my mind and crush you into dust. And do not threaten me again.”

  The bones averted her eyes.

  “She will follow the trail, and you can follow her,” Shade said. “She doesn’t know where it is. She has to track it.” She hesitated, frowning. “But she insists on getting your permission before she leaves Wormwood. She has a code, and unless she’s forced to do otherwise, she’d like to honor it.”

  “Shit.” Rune looked heavenward. “Denim, call Bill and get us an escort. Every human in River County will start shooting if they see us walking a skeleton through the city.”

  He jogged away to do as she asked.

  Rune glanced at the treetops to which the two gargoyles continued to cling. “Mo Shannon, if you get your key, I’d like you to lose your need for revenge. Don’t kill the gargoyles.”

  “She doesn’t want to kill them,” Shade said. “Her people must be satisfied. She has promised them the gargoyles for longer than you’ve been alive, Rune Alexander. She will take the key, and she will take the gargoyles. Help her if you will, but don’t interfere with this war. It doesn’t belong to you.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Still, Rune might have fought for the gargoyles, might have insisted Mo return to her world with only the key, but as the witch and the bones walked toward her, ready to follow her from Wormwood, the gargoyles attacked.

  She’d been half expecting it—they were going to do what they could to keep the key from its rightful owner—still, she was caught off guard.

  She’d thought they’d maybe start flinging rocks or using their voices or rock-like fists to try smashing the skeleton’s skull.

  They did none of that.

  They went directly to spitting acid, something that would have killed Shiv Crew long before it killed the bones. And that just pissed her off. Fucking gargoyles deserved whatever Mo Shannon gave them.

  A stream of deadly gargoyle spit hit Rune’s boot and began to immediately eat through the leather. “Well that escalated quickly,” she said, then shot out her claws.

  She was no longer thinking about saving the gargoyles. Her only plan was to kill them before they killed her people.

  But suddenly, Gage and Gavin weren’t
alone.

  The sky began to fill with gargoyles.

  “Fuck,” Rune yelled to the skeleton. “Go back home until I figure this shit out.” Bringing a sky full of gargoyles to the city, what the hell had Gavin been thinking?

  And why would the gargoyles come?

  Gargoyles didn’t screw with humans. They stayed to themselves, in their own little world, and they did not screw with humans.

  Not usually, anyway.

  The only ones who’d screwed with humans were the ones still doing it.

  Gavin and Gage Delaney.

  But Mo Shannon didn’t run. She didn’t sink back into the ground and go home where she’d be safe from the gargoyles.

  “She’s not leaving,” Shade told Rune. “She’s not surprised the gargoyles have attacked—and she is ready for them. She’s going to kill them, and then she’s going to go get her key. You need to stand back and let her.”

  And before the last word left her lips, an army of bones began to rise from the ground.

  The Corpse Army had arrived.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Raze barreled through the gates of Wormwood, minus his sister, thankfully, sliding his phone back into his pocket as he ran.

  She figured he’d taken a moment to call Jack and Roma, and hoped Bill would understand he should send his own army to help contain the gargoyles and corpses in the graveyard. If they managed to spill through the gates of Wormwood, things would get just a little more complicated.

  “What do we do, Rune?” Levi asked. “Fight or leave them to it?”

  “Leave,” the witch shouted. “She needs you to leave, Rune Alexander.”

  “Fuck,” Rune ground out, as another glop of gargoyle spit splatted the ground beside her. “We leave them to it until we can’t. We need to keep them inside Wormwood. Other than that, it’s their battle. Let’s leave them to it.”

  But first she and the crew had to fight their way to the gates without getting hit. It’d be easier to avoid the skeletons’ magical fire than gargoyles’ acid.