Shattered (Alchemy Series Book #3) (3 page)

"You know it freaks everyone out. When you get that tir
ed, you need to sleep." He didn't look at me when he spoke, just crossed the room and walked into the closet area.

"I didn't do it
on purpose," I yelled after him, feeling like I'd just been chastised for scaring the normal people.

He walked back out and paused at the foot of the bed
again. "I'm not upset that you scared Pat. I'm pissed that you're falling asleep standing up in the generator room."

"I can't remember the last time I saw you sleep." And it hit me, when had I seen him sleep? My face scrunche
d in what I'm sure was a very unbecoming expression. "
Do
you sleep anymore?"

"Yes. Are you hungry?"

I could still tell when someone was lying, like he was now, which was comforting. Why would he lie about sleeping? Unless he didn't need to anymore, because he was being affected by the changes as well.

"
I know something's up with you." He was back in his massive closet and didn't bother to respond. The first time I'd seen the inside of it, I'd been shocked by how many pairs of black pants and white shirts the man owned. When I'd asked what the point of it was, I'd been informed that there are French cuffs, English spreads, pleats or no pleats…and my eyes had glazed over.

"Why am I in here?
Do you mind explaining that?" I continued.

"
It's more secure," he said as he walked out of the closet, buttoning up a fresh dress shirt. Good thing he had a large stash of them. I wasn't sure if the casino's cleaning department was as good as his normal dry cleaner, which was a pile of rubble.

"More secure? Isn't this entire
place secure?" I asked, as I watched Cormac go back and adjust the drapes again.

"Yes
, but this room in particular has certain protections that not even the building or the rest of the penthouse has. It's where I slept, so I made sure it was impenetrable," he said, still looking at the covered window. "I'll be rectifying that so the whole building will be just as secure, but it's big, so it takes time."

He said
slept
, not sleep. Whatever, he could keep his secrets. I had my own that I didn't feel like sharing.

"There a
re a lot of the rippers tonight."

"I know."

"You think it's odd?" I asked, knowing what he was thinking or maybe just projecting my own thoughts.

He leaned a hip against the dresser and crossed his arms, keeping eye contact.

I hated when he answered without speaking. I knew what he was thinking anyway. It was my own fear that I kept trying to ignore. "It's not me." 

He raised his eyebrows.

"Words, Cormac. Use your words."

"I've got to get back. I've got a meeting in the living room." He pushed off the bureau and walked out.

Meeting? I thought as I scrambled out of his massive bed. He let me sleep through a meeting? My controlling nature was
not
happy about that.

I looked around
the room and saw a pair of my jeans and a shirt sitting on the dresser. I needed a shower more than anything but that would have to wait until after I found out what they were discussing. I knotted my blond hair into a bun on top of my head and went out to discover what these people were up to without me.

I suppressed my annoyance at not being
awakened. I've been a worst case scenario girl my whole life. How do you
not
include me in a meeting about the end of the world? The nerve!

When I walked into the living room, it was the usual suspects. Vitor sat at th
e furthest point possible away from Burrom. Dark was chilling in the corner. Dodd was projecting an imposing figure, standing in the corner as a visual warning to the rest of the room to not step out of line, Buzz next to him acting as back up. Sabrina had joined the group and already appeared to be annoyed. Cormac stood front and center. He reminded me of a rock formation on a craggy shore, the waves beating against him but without affect.

And Rogo, head werewolf, was bouncing around
, blustering. I had my own personal issues with him, or his people, I should say. I didn't think he had anything to do with the death of my mother, but I'd bet he knew who did. He was always at these meetings. Never missed a single one.

It was a scaled down version of earlier today but without having every underling available to hear all the gory details.
These were the real meetings. This is where it got down and dirty. The humans weren't invited to these. Too many of them might panic and no one wanted to risk a mass of thousands of humans freaking out any more than they already were.

"Why should I have to have a man on every
gas scout? My guys are dropping like flies," I heard Rogo complain as I took a seat next to Sabrina.

The meetings in the conference room
didn't tally the dead, or decide who was the most expendable. They didn't discuss who were the most expendable people and therefore best for scouting the farthest distances, because they might not make it back in time to avoid the rippers.

"
Your people can smell better than anyone in this room. That's what you bring to the table. If you aren't willing to pitch in, you're out," Cormac said in a calm voice that carried a tone of finality. We all knew
out
meant out on the street, not just the meeting. If he thought he was losing men now, those casualties would be nothing compared to losing the security of the casino and its many wards. "We're all losing people. Why should yours be any different?"

Put in that way, no one was surprised when Rogo accepted the terms.
Leaving The Lacard meant certain death for them. Unbeknownst to me, The Lacard had already been enchanted a long time ago. Burrom and Cormac had been reinforcing those spells all week. The wolves had no magic, but they were unbelievable at sniffing out resources, which gave them some clout.

"What's the word on the tornados?" Burrom asked, looking to S
abrina. The best intelligence we had was from the refugees who had been traveling far and wide to get here, having heard whispers about a place untouched by the shattering. Sabrina saw the new arrivals before anyone else and possessed the most information about what they'd witnessed.

The humans also resented everyone
nonhuman right now; it was hard to blame them, too. Once the story had gotten out about how this happened, the Fae, wolves and Keepers were all equally disliked, with a special place of animosity reserved just for me. They kept most of their anger under wraps though, since they needed to stay here to survive.

Sabrina, on the other hand, had somehow escaped their wrath. I'm not sure if it was because she tended them daily an
d it made it harder to hate her or because she had not been with us when it had gone down and that proved her innocence. Either way, we all looked to her for information on what the humans knew.

"
Besides the occasional storms popping up, from what they have heard, there is about a ten mile wide strip that runs from the panhandle of Florida diagonally up towards Seattle. No one knows how far northwest it stretches, just that tornados are constant in that strip. As soon as one dies, another takes its place. Sometimes not one, but two and three at a time."

I stood and walked ove
r to the windows, the drapes still open. I knew Cormac only closed them for my sake. I'd realized he never closed them when he was alone. Maybe he refused to yield anything else to the rippers, or maybe he simply didn't care. They never did seem to rattle him the way they did me or the others. I couldn't know for sure because I refused to ask. That was my thing, they might scare the hell out of me, but goddamn if I'd ever be willing to talk about it.

Looking out the window, I knew
in my gut I was safe, but I still didn't get too close. They were still out there, even if I couldn't see them. They'd been hovering around the corner not even fifteen minutes ago.

Looking downward, I saw t
he waves crashing around the cracks that were now a moat. There was a nice chunk of land within its borders that the children played on during the day, but only when the weather wasn't going crazy and rippers weren't around.

"We need livestock. Couldn't we break up some of the cement around the building and plant grass for grazing?" It might have been a ridiculous question for all I knew about farming, but the food supplies were a constant debate
lately and on everyone's mind. All the food in the refrigerators of the nearby casinos had gone bad. There were still supplies that had been scavenged from the nearby buildings but there were a lot of mouths to feed. If we didn't start to farm or do something to start producing, we'd run out.

"There isn't enough ground around the building to sustain the amount of animals we
'd need, but perhaps we could offset what we have to scavenge until we figure something out," Cormac said.

Cormac
walked over and looked down. "We've got to find them first." He turned back toward the group. "We need some volunteers to scout out some of the nearest farms that might still have livestock like chickens."

No one said anything but I heard a couple of groans.

"What about sending the humans?" Rogo said. "They've got to start carrying their weight."

I let out a small yelp, distracting the group from what was going to break out into the exact same argument we've had at almost every private meeting before. A ripper floated into view unexpectedly and it pissed me off that I'd just showed my hand like that. Now the whole room would know they freaked me out. No one liked them, but I was the only person who had just screamed like a sissy.

Cormac whipped back around and saw the thing hovering there, staring in. "And we need to figure out
what the hell these things are," I said.

I stared at it now, refusing
to be intimidated by the thing, especially with it behind a wall of glass that I was sure was impenetrable.

Images of
the moment right after the plane crash came to mind. It had been right before dawn when we had staggered, one by one, from the wreck. We hadn't even seen them coming. It wasn't until we heard a scream that anybody even turned around to see a few Keepers being ripped apart by these creatures. They were torn into pieces before any of us could get to them. The creatures gone, leaving discarded body parts scattered on the ground.

They appeared
more opaque now than when I had first glimpsed them, the night the plane of magic had merged into our existence. Was the magic strengthening them or was feeding on us making them more solid?

The ripper's
eyes glowed in its head and its body seemed coated with a reptilian type skin. Lanky limbs, overly long for its body, and hair that cascaded almost as long. Its fingers were razor-like and I remembered the blood that had dripped from the hands of the rippers that night.

The same kind of crea
ture that floated in front of me now had eaten our kind, not long ago. Maybe the exact same one. I stared at it and felt like the thing had eyes for me only.

Cormac stepped in betwee
n the ripper and me. The thing opened its mouth and I imagined made some sort of noise, but I couldn't hear it through the thick pane of glass. Then all I saw was Cormac's chest as he blocked its view and mine, effectively ending our standoff.

"
We need to double down on our food scouts and gas scouts," Cormac said. "And I want a farm scout group sent to everything within fifty miles that might have had livestock."

"We need one more
group," I stated as I gave the ripper my back as well. "Who wants to help me kill these fucking things?"

Cormac stepped into my room and shut the door, planting himself in front of it. Mine was the only other bedroom of the penthouse suite.

"Where are you going?
"

I'd just thrown on my black jacket. Ve
gas had become unseasonably cool since the change and I wanted to be as comfortable as I could if I went out tonight. When I tried to recruit a group to figure out what the rippers were, Cormac had squashed the idea before I'd even gotten a bite. That didn't mean I wasn't still planning on doing it.

"Huh? I'm not going anywhere.
"

"You're going to lie to me?" He stood in front of the doorway and made it clear that he would be stopping me whatever way necessary.

"I'm going to go have a chat with Burrom, if you must know my every move. I didn't think staying in the casino was going somewhere." That wasn't a lie. I did want Burrom's help.

He eyed me up and down. He stepped
out of the way but placed a hand on the door just as I went to open it.

"It's not your fault
. When are you going to snap out of this?"

I turned to face him. "
I'm sorry if destroying the world has thrown me into a funk."

I went and pulled the door open an inch before he slammed it shut again.