The Fire Road

by Tymber Dalton

  “Very well.”

  She closed her eyes and opened them in Marston’s living room. He wasn’t there, but she heard a door open and he emerged from the hallway, barefoot, and wearing jeans and pulling a T-shirt over his head.

  In other times, another life, not knowing what she did about him and his past and the things he’d done—and were he not her gay uncle—she wouldn’t deny she might be interested in him. He’d kept the extra weight off, and dyeing his hair darker took years off his features. He now wore a short and neatly trimmed mustache and goatee and looked like a different wolf. He appeared to be in his mid-forties, not too much older than her own men appeared.

  He held his hand out, indicating for her to lead the way to the kitchen.

  “May I make you a cup of tea?” he asked.

  She couldn’t help but laugh.

  He turned to her, his gaze narrowing. “What’s so amusing, if I might ask?”

  “Sorry. Ryan always offers me tea, too. Tea with you and the Devil.” She sighed. “Yes, please. And thank you. I appreciate it.”

  She honestly hadn’t wanted to talk about any of this with him. He’d been through a lot, and he was trying to atone for his sins. She wanted to keep him out of as much of active Clan affairs as she could to protect his identity and whereabouts from Lina.

  Mercedes had saved Jim. No matter what else Mercedes had done in her life, that would always be at the top of Elain’s list.

  Saving Jim’s life had, ultimately, led to Mercedes losing hers. And nearly getting Colleen and Marston killed.

  While Marston had willingly sworn an oath to Elain, pledging himself and his fate to her, she wouldn’t kill him when Colleen turned eighteen. She couldn’t.

  Not when every time she dealt with him she saw more and more of the wolf he could have been had his path not turned the way it did via chance.

  Especially not since she knew Mercedes appreciated Elain sparing him.

  How Mercedes had wanted a better, second chance for both of them as a family.

  He put the electric kettle on and turned, leaning against the counter. “Are we going on another field trip? Ortega gave me my own weapon after our last one.”

  “No. I just needed to talk to someone. Brainstorm. I’m sorry to bother you so late.”

  He cocked his head. “Elain, we’ve been through this. I am at your disposal for more than one reason.”

  “Doesn’t mean I want to be rude.”

  The corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “Is Lina trying to un-alive me?”

  “No, not right now. We’re too preoccupied for that, fortunately. It’s not Lina I’m worried about.”

  He already knew about the nuclear bomb vision—and had in fact been her shortcut to figuring out where it would take place.

  He also knew about Brighton.

  She brought him up to date with their staggering lack of progress and the relatively new blank spot in their abilities to even pull up the vision like they had in the past, along with Baba Yaga mentioning an occlusion in her own visions.

  He frowned and thought for a moment. “Can you get me a copy of the spell book to look at?”

  “Why?”

  “I think there was something Edgar used. Maybe even some of the same spellwork he used on Lina and Zack to hide his true nature.”

  Elain closed her eyes and thought about it, poofing her tablet to her. When she opened her eyes, his were wide.

  She unlocked the tablet, opened it to the file of Edgar’s copy of the book, and passed the device to him.

  “I know. You’re used to seeing people poof, but me bringing an object is a little—”

  “Yes,” he said. “More than a little.” He finally took it from her and paged through the .pdf file.

  “Here,” he said, turning the tablet around and showing her. “It’s a protection spell. To divert attention and keep people from seeing what’s going on. I don’t know exactly what it says, but I recognize the title.”

  “I can read it.” She skimmed it, the citrine amulet Ryan had given her helping her interpret the ancient text it as if it were English. “I wonder if that’s what Brighton used in his house to keep me from sensing what the fuck he was up to.” She pulled up the scan of his copy and found the same page in his book.

  Sure enough, Brighton had made notes in his margin to modify the very same spell.

  “It is another fucking book, then,” she said. “It has to be.”

  “Or someone who knows the spells well enough to cast them without it.”

  She met his gaze. “Aliah?”

  He shrugged. “You said she was trying to do spellwork on the rock pile. You also said Baba Yaga told you to be careful about opening the veil. Aliah obviously knew its potential power.”

  “But she’s…”

  He stared. “Yes?”

  She flipped through Brighton’s copy, to the page about the amulet.

  The very amulet he’d worn for centuries, and had been wearing the day he almost killed Ellie.

  The day he died.

  “Fuck…fuckfuckFUCK! Ryan, appareo!”

  He appeared two seconds later, wrapping his robe around him and tying the belt. “Could we please do this in daylight at least once, Elain?”

  She ignored his comment and showed him the tablet. “Brighton’s amulet. The one he had. I need it.”

  Ryan scowled. “May I ask why?”

  “Whoever or whatever is clouding our vision, it’s a cockatrice doing it. Or someone using cockatrice magick. I need that amulet. It might let me get past it.”

  His face went blank. “I’m not sure that’s a wise idea.” He handed the tablet back to her. “You don’t understand the powers woven within that artifact. You saw what it did to Brighton. And you are pregnant.”

  “I’m not Brighton. I’m not nuts. If this were Lina we were talking about, okay, sure, I’d agree with you. But I’m not her. I’m not unstable. We have to get past whatever the blockage is. Give me a better plan, or give me that damn amulet.”

  She wouldn’t even try threatening him, because she had no clue where the damn thing was or what powers Ryan had. If he didn’t want her to have it, she had no doubts he could keep it concealed from her.

  Ryan took a deep breath and seemed to be studying her for a long moment before he finally nodded. “Wait here.” He glanced at Marston. “Earl Grey, if you have it, please.” He disappeared.

  When Ryan returned fifteen minutes later, Elain had his tea ready and he’d exchanged his bathrobe for his usual khakis and a button-up shirt.

  He also held the amulet in his left hand.

  She reached for it, but he held it up and away from her. “Before we do this,” he said, “my rules.”

  She nodded.

  “Someone will be joining us shortly. Backup.”

  “Purson?”

  “No. Will. You met him. He’s my second-in-command. I shall be there with you, holding on to you, in case something happens.”

  “So you can break me away from it?”

  “Absolutely. You are too valuable and too powerful to be allowed to risk you falling under its spell.”

  “What’ll he do if something happens?” she asked.

  He looked grim. “If forced to, he’ll kill both of us.”

  Marston gasped. “Surely there’s another way?”

  Ryan glanced at him. “I’m all ears. Besides myself, the only person I am reasonably certain could pull her out of its grip, should she fall to it, is one of her men. They could edict her, but even then I’m not sure that would be a strong enough bond to make her relinquish it.”

  “Let’s do it,” Elain insisted.

  Ryan studied her for a moment. “Are you quite certain?”

  She nodded, then patted her stomach. “I have the double burritos of doom to keep me grounded.”

  Ryan reached up to his amulet with his right hand. “Will, appareo.”

  Another man appeared, and yes, she recognized him.

&nbs
p; He also carried a large sword.

  Marston stepped forward, putting himself between Elain and Will, but Ryan held out a hand. “It’s all right, Marston.”

  “It’s bloody well not all right,” Marston said. “She’s pregnant!”

  She reached out, grabbed his hand, and gently squeezed. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

  A wave of worry washed off him, nearly sickening her. Protective worry for her.

  His fears.

  Him reliving Mercedes’ death, the fight in the woods.

  Cutting into her—

  She pulled him in for a hug. “You won’t get rid of me that easy, buddy,” she whispered in his ear. “You’re stuck with me. I’ve got this. I put my faith and trust in you and let you live. So far, you haven’t let me down. Now can you trust me?”

  He stood there, staring down at her. “I’ve done things in my life I cannot take back and wish I could. I bloody well cannot stand by and watch you die.”

  “You won’t,” she said. “I feel this. This is what I have to do to save lives.”

  He finally kissed the top of her head.

  Like an uncle. “You remind me so much of my Angela,” he said. “She was so fierce, such a fighter. An Alpha.”

  She swallowed back the tears threatening. Damn pregnancy hormones. “Thank you.” He’d loved his daughter, Angela, and his first mate, even though she wasn’t his One. Angela had died in battle at seventeen. His mate had died in childbirth a year after Angela had been born, their son dying with her.

  He’d raised Angela alone. A single father.

  And he was again.

  “Let’s do this,” Ryan said. “I want it out of its cage as little as possible.” He held out his right hand to her, waiting.

  She took his hand in her left. “What do I do?”

  He held the amulet toward her in his left hand. “Hold on to it with me. Your hand around mine.”

  She already felt its pull through him.

  Now she was rethinking this. “What if…” She swallowed hard.

  He smirked. “Love, if you think the threat of dying is going to stop me from doing this, think again. You’ve seen my pain.”

  Then again, she’d had a vision of Ryan with a baby, a child of his own.

  Hadn’t happened yet, but she knew it would.

  After a deep breath, she nodded. “Let’s do it.” She wrapped the fingers of her right hand around his and the amulet and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Elain felt like she’d stuck her fingers in an electric socket and struggled against the urge to throw up a barrier to keep the power out. She knew she’d have to manipulate and manhandle the amulet’s properties if she really wanted to tap into its energy and get the answers she sought.

  She felt Ryan’s presence there, a protective shadow, gauzy and transparent, hovering with her.

  “Stay with me, Elain,” Ryan cautioned, but it sounded like he spoke in her mind, not into her ear from right next to her in Marston’s kitchen.

  Opening her mental eyes, Elain looked around and tried to make sense of what she was seeing. If she’d thought Rodolfo Abernathy’s soul had been a tangled spaghetti mess of crazy-assed threads, this made that look like a neatly wound skein of yarn.

  This was some jigsaw puzzle from hell, with all the pieces scattered around, no picture to guide you, and some random extra pieces from other puzzles mixed in just to fuck with the person trying to assemble it.

  Shit.

  Okay then, to do what she needed to do. Hoping she was speaking out loud, she said, “Marston, hold up the tablet for me, to that page in the spell book.”

  When she opened her eyes, his kitchen looked…there, but not there. An old TV picture jumping around with the vertical and horizontal hold settings fucked beyond all recognition. A dizzying wave of nausea swept through her, and she wasn’t sure if that was from the disorientation or her pregnancy or both.

  Squinting, she made out the words on the tablet and felt a shadowy form take shape, one of the jigsaw puzzle pieces materializing before her, a dark trail leading away from it.

  “Good girl,” Ryan murmured. “You’re doing excellent. Follow the energy signature.”

  Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and the picture remained in front of her in her mind. She turned her focus and quickly raced after the trail, weaving and bobbing through dark and shapeless blobs of horror she didn’t want to contemplate at that time. Some of it residual energy from Brighton, some of it from past wearers of the amulet.

  Some of it probably from Lilith herself, and Elain now knew that’s who the dam of the cockatrice race was. Hence the evil name of the set of books.

  A disgruntled dragon shifter female who’d wanted power.

  Power lay all around Elain, keys to the true power sources in the book, the previously dormant powers within her screaming to be united, lock and key, with all those lovely, lovely energies that could be right at her fingertips, at her disposal—

  “Don’t get distracted,” Ryan sharply scolded. “Stay focused.”

  Elain realized she’d come to a stop next to one of the blobs of energy that had originated with Lilith. Turning, Elain refocused on the trail she’d been following and raced ahead again, Ryan staying with her, watching through her. Not really there, but an active observer of everything going on, able to see what she saw and learn what she learned through her.

  No funhouse ever had as crazy a setup as this hellish place did. Things she knew she couldn’t unsee, even though only momentarily glimpsed if she allowed her focus to slip from the trail.

  Horrors eagerly and happily committed while wearing this fucking charm.

  It couldn’t be destroyed. Scratch that, it could be destroyed, but if they did, Elain knew they’d lose any and all connection to the answers they sought.

  “Keep going,” Ryan mumbled, sounding more distant.

  She stopped and turned, not seeing his presence and took a deep breath, willing him to stay with her.

  His shadow returned and his voice sounded almost…shocked.

  “Well done, dear. Let’s move.”

  Elain was more like a bloodhound now than an Alpha wolf. Speaking of, her inner Alpha had sat up and growled, alert, protective, ready to react.

  It felt like she ran forever although she knew in this dream or vision or whatever the hell it was, time was relative and space was an illusion. They still stood inside Marston’s kitchen, in his apartment suite in Ortega Montalvo’s secure jaguar compound in fricking Bolivia.

  The trail led through dank and dark passages, growing smaller until, finally, it disappeared under a door in the wall. A wooden door with iron braces and hinges, like some crazy-assed castle dungeon movie set.

  Pulling on the ring above the lock didn’t budge it.

  “Now what?” she asked Ryan.

  “It is no barrier to you, merely an illusion. Place your hand on the lock and will it open.”

  She did, laughing when she felt and heard the mechanism snap open through the metal.

  This time when she tugged on the ring, the door easily and smoothly swung toward her on well-oiled hinges.

  It opened on a dark chamber illuminated only by the hellishly sickly yellow-green glow coming from a black box in the center of the room, on the flagstone floor. The box was no more than twelve inches square. The entire chamber was maybe six feet by six feet by six feet, the ceiling just inches over the top of Elain’s head. The glow leaked from around the plain, flat cover sitting on top of the box. The box itself looked to be matte black on all sides.

  “Now what?” she asked Ryan.

  “Destroy it.”

  “Laces out.” Before she could think about it, she drop-kicked the damn thing against the back wall where it shattered, a screaming ball of sickening light exploding from the wreckage before dissipating. Now an ambient light switched on from an unseen source, like a work light on a stage set, illuminating the false walls of the chamber.

&n
bsp; Within the wreckage of the box, she spotted the puzzle piece she’d been chasing.

  She leaned in, picked it up, and ripped it apart.

  “Done,” Ryan said.

  Elain felt herself slammed back into her own body so hard she actually wobbled on the landing and Marston grabbed her, steadying her.

  Ryan had yanked his left hand from hers, forcibly separating her from the amulet, although he still held her other hand.

  “Elain?” Ryan asked.

  She was still slumped against Marston, happy to let him support her for right now because she wasn’t sure she could stand on her own legs.

  “There is no Elain, only Zuul,” she droned.

  Marston gasped, but Ryan chuckled. “Very droll, my dear.”

  She sucked in a deep breath and let it out again. “Holy fucking shitballs.” She closed her eyes as a rebound wave of energy made her shiver. “Holy fucking shitballs!”

  “You said that,” Ryan said.

  “No…the vision…it’s back!”

  “The bomb?”

  “Yeah!” Elation lifted her spirits. Not only was the vision back, but it felt like a flood of information now filled her brain, washing into the previously blank space like a tsunami to reclaim what had been lost.

  “Hold that thought,” Ryan said. He let go of her right hand and disappeared.

  Will remained, watching her with a guarded, cautious gaze.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  He slowly nodded. “Tread carefully,” he warned. “You’re new at this.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ryan returned without the amulet, then nodded to Will. “Thank you. I don’t believe I’ll need you for the rest of the evening, but listen in case I call.”

  Will gave him a terse nod before he disappeared.

  Elain let out a yelp as her phone vibrated in her pocket. Still leaning against Marston, she pulled it out and saw it was Lina. Knowing she couldn’t ignore the call, she held up a hand for silence and answered it.

  “Yeah?”

  Elain winced and pulled the phone away from her ear as Lina screamed at her. “HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS! The vision is back, wolf lady! Get yer ass over here right now while we still have it!”

  Lina hung up.

  Elain stared at her phone.