There was a heavy pause, as though she were debating her next words.
“On the subject of the current crisis,” she said slowly, “I know there’s something you’re not telling us. And normally, I wouldn’t push... but people are dying. Our friends—”
She broke off.
The dread Len had managed to push aside returned in full force, tensing his exhausted muscles.
“Anyway, if it’s relevant to what’s going on, I really need to know about it,” she continued in a softer tone.
And... of course she did. So did Guthrie. Len should have mentioned it earlier when he was filling them in—he knew that. But there was a big, ugly realization lurking in the back of his brain that he was desperately trying to ignore, and once he started talking about his part in all of this mess, he’d have to face it, ready or not.
He swallowed and licked his lips, worrying at his lip ring as he steeled himself to spill the details.
“So... it turns out, you’re not the only one who’s discovered some unusual abilities recently.”
Vonnie made a wordless sound of curiosity.
Len drew his knees up to his chest, surprised at how difficult it was to say the next part aloud. “I’m a necromancer. At least, that’s what Albigard calls it. I attract power—animus, I guess—from the dying.”
The declaration settled between them heavily. Len held his breath as the silence stretched.
“Oh,” Vonnie said softly, in a tone of sudden understanding. “Oh. And... you were an EMT before.”
“I see ghosts,” he blurted, the words gaining momentum as he continued to speak. “I thought I was hallucinating them all these years—the ghosts of the people I couldn’t save. But apparently, it was just my brain trying to make sense of the animus that I attracted, but didn’t know how to use properly.”
He took a deep, gulping breath. “Albigard told me I reeked of death. That’s why I’m not very susceptible to Fae magic or influence. And that stench... that smell of death... it repels the Wild Hunt. It flinches away from me whenever it gets close. I was the one who forced it back through the veil in St. Louis, so Nigellus and the others could close the rip. I... shit, Vonnie... if I’d just been standing in front of Rans and Zorah, I could have kept it away from them—but I didn’t know that until it was already too late.”
A small hand closed around his upper arm. “Oh, Len...”
He shook his head violently back and forth, trying to fend off the expression of sympathy. “And then, in the pocket realm—we were sheltering in a cave when the Hunt came for us. I’d been trying to get Albigard to give me a gift so he could pull power from me to use for a portal, but he kept refusing... saying necromancy wouldn’t work with his magic.”
Len squeezed his eyes shut, hating himself for feeling so much grief over something so selfish and stupid when their friends were dead... when their world might be ending. “In the end, I talked him into trying it, since the alternative was dying right there in the cave. He handed me this little strip of cloth he’d been using to tie back his hair. Then, I felt him drag all those dead people’s animus into me. Through me, and into himself—so he could get us out of there. It worked, but it hurt him. That’s why he’s so weak. And now all my ghosts are just... gone. He used them for fuel and turned them into a portal between worlds. There’s nothing left—only emptiness where they always used to be...”
... and I’m alone.
He managed to choke back the last part, but it was too late for his tattered composure. Tears squeezed past his tightly clenched eyelids... though maybe it wasn’t just about Yussef, and Rosa, and Wild Bill, and the others whose echoes had surrounded him for so many years. Maybe it was everything, all at once, and the loss of his familiar specters was just the final straw. He covered his face with one hand, but even in the dark, there was no hiding his imminent grief-stricken breakdown from the woman sitting next to him.
“Hey.” She half-turned to him, guiding him out of his miserable hunch and pulling him into her arms. There was only a couple of years’ age difference between them, but Vonnie had always radiated maternal competence and care like a beacon in the night. That silent offer of comfort without judgment —the kind of comfort Len hadn’t really experienced since before the disastrous day he’d come out to his parents—undid him. Before he knew it, his face was buried against her neck and he was choking out his grief over the long dead, the recently dead, and all the dead still to come if they couldn’t somehow pull a miracle out of their hats.
Vonnie did the things that mothers always did—rubbed his back, and murmured soothing nonsense about how everything would be all right as she shushed him. For his part, Len soaked it up and tried not to feel like a complete idiot about it. After a few minutes, he was able to drag his breathing mostly back under control. He told himself it was just his physical weakness from the time spent in the pocket realm that kept him from pulling out of Vonnie’s embrace right away.
She ran a hand through his messy fringe of hair. “Listen to me, Blue,” she said. “If a single mother with half an associate’s degree and a bartending job can help save humanity from enslavement by evil Fae, then between us, we can sure as hell figure out a way to trap a smoke monster with delusions of grandeur before it destroys the world. We’re going to stop this thing, and then we’re going to do whatever it takes to help Nigellus get Rans and Zorah back to the land of the living, where they belong.”
He nodded wordlessly against her shoulder, not truly believing a word of it, but too wrung out to argue.
SIXTEEN
LEN WASN’T SURE exactly how or when he’d fallen asleep, but he jerked awake in the dark some unknown amount of time later, his heart thudding in his chest. He was alone. No Vonnie. No ghosts of people who’d died.
He blinked into the nighttime gray nothingness of Rans and Zorah’s room, waiting for his brain to cough up the reason behind his sudden awakening. When it finally did, it hit him like a blow to the chest, sending him bolt upright in bed.
Albigard.
Len hadn’t extracted a promise from him not to run off in the night and do something stupid, like going to Dhuinne and getting himself killed. He struggled out of the blankets, trying to remember which side of the bed faced the door. The hardwood floor was cold beneath his bare feet. For a moment, he assumed Vonnie must’ve doubled down on the mom thing and taken his shoes off before tucking him into bed. Then he remembered that his only footwear was lying abandoned in a cave on a rocky hillside inside an alternate dimension.
He groaned in frustration and felt his way toward where he thought the door must be, hands stretched before him in the darkness. After finding first the wall, and then the doorjamb, he located the light switch and turned it on. Squinting against the sudden light, he debated the rationality of rushing straight to Albigard’s room to check on him for a grand total of two seconds before succumbing to the compulsion.
Len left his bedroom door open to light the hallway, making his way to the empty family room, past the patio door leading to the back yard, and toward the other downstairs bedroom in the roughly symmetrical floor plan. Albigard’s room was still dark. The bedroom door was standing half-open. Len flicked on the hall light, figuring that would be marginally less intrusive than turning on the bedroom light... not to mention, less likely to get his head torn off than sneaking inside in the pitch dark and feeling around with his hands to see if Albigard was still in his bed.
A wedge of light fell across the room. The bed was empty.
Len tried to ignore the jolt of adrenaline that went through him at the sight. He opened the door the rest of the way, glancing at the entrance to the en suite bathroom, just in case. The bathroom door was ajar, and the light was off. Both rooms had the kind of stillness that came with lack of occupancy.
The bed was unmade. Something about that fact caught Len’s attention and held it. It took a moment for him to realize that it seemed out of character for Albigard. If the Fae were going to sneak
away in the middle of the night to go to his presumed death, he seemed like the type who would fastidiously make up the bed before leaving.
Following a hunch, Len grabbed the blue duvet and draped it over his shoulders before leaving the room. The quilted cloth smelled of sunshine along with the faint, ozone-y scent of magic—just like the damned Fae who’d been sleeping under it. Len refused to focus too closely on the fact that he could now identify Albigard’s scent with a single sniff.
He headed for the glass patio door and let himself out, clutching the duvet around himself like a cloak, to ward off the faint chill of the early morning hours. Sure enough, starlight illuminated a lean silhouette lying balanced along the top of the rock wall. The Fae gazed at the night sky, lounging on his uncomfortable resting place with one leg pulled up—his foot resting on the narrow shelf of stone. Len shuffled over to the same section of wall and sat down, using it as a backrest as he wrapped the duvet snugly around his body for warmth.
“You thought I’d left,” Albigard stated flatly.
“For a minute, yeah,” Len replied. “Then it occurred to me that you were probably out here communing with nature, after I tried to poison you with energy from dead people.”
Crickets chirped in the forest, their simple song weaving in and out of the rustle of leaves on the breeze.
“I will not leave for Dhuinne like a thief in the night,” said the Fae. “But I still must go there, and soon. It’s the only way forward at this juncture.”
“You’re not going to fucking Dhuinne,” Len told him.
Albigard snorted dismissively. “Shall I stay here until the Hunt consumes Chicago, then? Would you prefer that?” The words dripped sarcasm.
“There’s got to be another way,” Len insisted.
He could practically hear the Fae’s irritation in the tiny pause before Albigard spoke again. “There is not. Go to sleep. You are still weak. I’ve just given you my word I will not leave in secret.”
“Great,” Len said, suddenly aware of the degree of exhaustion still plaguing him after their recent misadventures. He tilted his head back, gazing up at the starry sky as he contemplated hauling himself to his feet and returning to his room. When that felt like far too much work, he closed his eyes, and was asleep within moments.
* * *
The next time he woke up, it was morning, and Guthrie was looking down at him with an odd expression on his face. Len craned his head around to confirm that Albigard was still there. The movement jostled the Fae’s arm, which had fallen to lie limply over Len’s left shoulder at some point during the night. Albigard instantly blinked awake, jerking the offending appendage away and rolling into a sitting position.
“Everything all right here?” Guthrie asked, in the tone of someone who desperately didn’t want to have to deal with any answer more in-depth than, ‘yeah, fine.’
“Yeah, fine,” Len said quickly.
“Has the Hunt returned?” Albigard demanded, cutting right to the chase.
Len held his breath, but Guthrie only shook his head. “No, not yet. If you’ve recovered enough from yesterday, we need to talk about our next steps.”
After giving his body an assessing onceover, Len emptied his lungs on a sigh and lurched to his feet. “This is going to require coffee,” he warned. “Lots of it.”
“You might have to arm wrestle Vonnie for it,” Guthrie warned. “And I’m afraid you’re on your own with that one.”
“Vonnie would never withhold caffeine from a person in need,” Len shot back. “That would be inhuman.” He eyed the pair before adding, “No offense.”
The duvet was still wrapped around his shoulders loosely. He unwrapped it and made a cursory effort at shaking off the dust and bits of leaves clinging to the fabric before shoving it at Albigard, who caught it against his chest mostly in self-defense.
Leaving the others behind, Len went inside, and was met with the unmistakable scent of French roast. He followed the aroma to the kitchen and let out a heartfelt groan of appreciation when Vonnie shoved a steaming mug into his hands without him having to ask.
“Thanks,” he told her, meaning it for more than just the coffee. “I guess we’re going to have a council of war in here in a few minutes.”
She gave him a wan smile in response. “I figured. Is Leo back?”
“He is,” Len told her. “No sign of the rampaging death monster overnight, at least. And... you do know he’s already got a first name, right?”
Vonnie gave a short laugh. “Yeah... sorry. It’s a whole thing. I only knew him as Leonides when I worked at the nightclub. And you were no help—you only ever called him Gramps, for god’s sake. When Zorah let his first name slip, I could not for the life of me picture him as a ‘Guthrie.’”
“It’s very nineteen-twenties,” Len admitted. “But then again, so is he.”
She tilted her chin, conceding the point. “Maybe so, but I teased him about calling him Leo on the night we met.” With a small salute, she raised her own coffee mug to her lips and took a sip. “Eventually, it stuck.”
“I did try to tell her that Guthrie was my actual name,” said the vampire, as he and Albigard entered the kitchen. “While Leonides is just one pseudonym out of many.”
Vonnie shrugged, unimpressed, “Too late now.” She gestured toward the fridge. “You two should eat something. I had groceries delivered this morning.”
Albigard scowled at her. “How? The house is warded.”
“I had them delivered to the nearest neighbor’s address and intercepted them at the curb, of course,” she told him patiently. “And just so we can get this out of the way, I’m still incredibly pissed at you for running off with Jace. I’m also incredibly thankful to you for saving his life. I was planning to slap you for the first part—but you still look really pale, so I guess we can forego the physical abuse for now.”
“Very kind of you, adept,” Albigard replied in a tart tone.
“Yup, that’s me,” she said.
Len finished his coffee and headed over to scope out the food situation, only for his attention to narrow down to a cardboard box of Pop-Tarts sitting on the counter next to the refrigerator. “Oh my god, I love you, Red,” he blurted.
Vonnie chuckled at him. “You’re a cheap date, Blue. But you’d better promise to eat some real food, too.”
* * *
After a breakfast of room temperature Pop-Tarts, bacon, eggs, organic salad with organic dressing for Albigard, organic orange juice, and more coffee, the four of them gathered around the freshly cleared table.
“So the problem, as I understand it, is this,” Guthrie said. “No matter where you go next, this thing will eventually follow you, and no one with the possible exception of Len and the cu-sidhe can seem to control it at all. So there’s no good way to capture or contain it.”
Albigard drummed his fingers nervously on the table edge—the tic an unusual expression of discontent for someone who was usually so controlled. “It is likely that my kinsmen’s plan to lure the Hunt into Hell would, in fact, be successful in containing it,” he mused.
“Yeah, except that’s not going to be happening,” Guthrie shot back. “I was able to reach Nigellus by phone last night. I expect Hell’s locked down tighter than a biohazard lab by now.”
The Fae looked ill. “Perhaps I should have allowed the Unseelie to take me there—”
“Stop,” Len said sharply. “There are innocent people living in Hell, too. Their lives are every bit as important as the people living on Earth.”
“If Hell’s off the table, what are the other options?” Vonnie asked, redirecting them skillfully away from should-have-beens and might-have-beens.
“There is only one other option,” Albigard said, bitterness creeping into his voice. “The same option I have been reiterating repeatedly since St. Louis. I will return to Dhuinne in hopes that once the Wild Hunt follows me back to its natural home, the cu-sidhe will be able to contain it as they have done for millennia.”<
br />
“No,” Len said.
Green eyes flashed at him, real anger visible behind them. “It is not for you to decide.”
Len felt his fists clenching. He settled them in his lap, hidden beneath the table, and tried to force down the rising tide of panic catching at his lungs. “And for the dozenth time, what makes you think the Hunt won’t just eat your soul and then merrily head back to Earth five minutes later?”
The tension in Albigard’s shoulders made Len think the Fae’s fists were clenched every bit as tightly as his beneath the tabletop.
“I have no way of knowing if that will happen or not. But it remains our only viable move, and the Hunt grows stronger with every hour I delay.”
“He’s right,” Guthrie said quietly.
Len’s eyes flew to his, betrayal churning in his gut. “He’s goddamn well not!”
But the vampire’s dark brown gaze remained implacable. “And your alternate suggestion is what, exactly?”
Vonnie bit her lower lip, a pained expression sliding across her features. Len looked from her to Albigard, whose face had closed off like a blast door coming down. He wanted to suggest going to the middle of the Mojave Desert, or to a remote island or something. He wanted to suggest traveling to a different pocket realm—one Albigard had never visited before. But if Albigard could get to it, so could the Hunt. And if the Hunt could get in, it could get out again afterward. None of these things would solve the problem, and Len knew it.
The trapped feeling grew, threatening to balloon into the kind of panic attack he desperately didn’t want to have in front of his ex-boss and the woman whose shoulder he’d already cried on once during the past twelve hours.
“Fine,” he snapped, the concession pulled from his lips against his will. He dragged in a deep, unsteady breath. “But if he’s going, then I’m going with him. You already said it earlier—I’m the only one here who might be able to help control the damn thing. It doesn’t like the way I smell. So... maybe I can help the Fae herd it into some kind of magic cage, or... something.”
Forsaken Fae: The Complete Series, Books 1-3 (Last Vampire World) Page 30