Veiled Threat (15 page)

“Don’t take long.”

“I won’t.”

Alex gave a whine. “I stays with Boss this time.”

Shit, I hadn’t expected that. “I need you, Alex. I need you to come with me.”

He gave a low shiver. “Stinkers outside. I don’t like them.” He shook his head several times, his whole body shaking. Shit—getting caught up by the giant zombie affected him more than I realized. This was not the time for the scaredy cat werewolf to show back up.

“Alex, they aren’t bad anymore. They aren’t going to hurt us. You have to trust me.”

He licked his lips several times, looking first at me, then at Liam.

“Boss?”

“Go with her.”

“Okee dokee.” And that was that. The little shit was waiting on Liam to give him the word.

“He needs it to be okay with both of us. He doesn’t have just one alpha, Rylee,” Liam said, brushing a finger along the frown I knew was etched over my eyes.

“Fine, let’s go.” I ran my hands over my weapons, testing each sheath that held blades. A shot of anxiety zinged through me. Yeah, Alex was smart to not want to go out there. A flick of Thomas’s hand and the zombies would be on us, and we’d be in the midst of them waiting to be torn apart.

Sweet mother of the gods, this was a bad idea.

Chapter 15

S
tanding outside the
front door I almost swallowed my tongue. The giant had pulled itself out of its grave and stood about fifteen feet from the porch. Alex pressed into my leg. “Don’t like this, nopes.”

“Just don’t touch any of them.” I took a step forward, and then another and another, weaving my way between the smaller and yet just as threatening zombies scattered everywhere.

“Rylee, I had no idea you dealt with this much shit,” Erik said. I didn’t look back at him, just kept moving as I answered.

“Yeah, well, stick around. You’ll see a lot more than you bargained for before we’re done.”

He laughed, but it was shaky and Alex mimicked him. The zombies’ heads turned to follow us, the hollow spots where their eyes should have been, black, and yet I knew they could see us. And if they saw us … I gave them a wave. “Thomas is watching us, I think.”

“Ready to unleash the horde if we misbehave?”

“I’m guessing.”

We slid and slipped down the long slope, the morning sun not yet rising. “We’ve got to hurry. Faris won’t be able to help us if the sun is shining fully.”

Picking up speed while trying not to touch rotting bodies did not work as well as I’d hoped. The whole thing ended up reminiscent of a pinball machine gone terribly wrong. My shoulder banged into a zombie and I bounced off, slamming face first into another’s chest.

I peeled myself off, spit and wiped the goo from my eyes but kept going. There was a flat spot to the left of the hill, not far beyond where we left the motorbike. I pointed it out. “That’s where we’re headed.”

“Gots it!” Alex yipped and zipped off ahead of me, dodging and ducking around the dead bodies, turning the hike downhill into a game. He managed to avoid the worst of the zombies. Me and Erik, not so much.

By the time we reached the bottom, I was covered in filth and viscera.

“Fuck, that is nasty shit.” I broke into a jog to cover the last twenty feet or so, Erik grumbled along behind me.

“I’ll have to get new clothes, this is never coming out.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “Troll shit is worse.”

“I don’t want to know then.”

Sliding to a stop, I called Alex to me. “Okay, this is important. I want you to think about Faris.”

Alex frowned up at me. “I don’t like him.”

“I know, but we need his help. Can you think about him?”

Alex squinted his eyes shut and pressed the tips of his claws against his head. “Yuppy doody, thinking about fang face.”

Erik laughed again, this time it was more solid. “I like him more and more.”

I glanced at the house on the hill. I hoped Thomas wouldn’t be able to tell the kind of supernatural we were calling for help. No, the zombies closest to us weren’t even looking our way.

“Alex, call him, call Faris to you.”

Tipping his head back, he let out a long, full-throated howl. “Faaaaaaaaarrrrrrriiiiiiis.”

The zombies closest to us shivered, and then as a unit their heads snapped to focus on me and Alex. Shit, shit, shit. Surely Thomas wouldn’t know the vampire by name, would he?

One of the zombies stepped forward, its mouth opening, Thomas’s voice erupted from its mouth with a booming roar.

“YOU WOULD CALL A VAMPIRE HERE TO KILL ME. TRAITEROUS BITCH.”

Apparently he did know the vampires. Shit, we were in trouble.

Erik and I backed as the zombies lurched toward us, and I felt something shift and shimmer to the left of us. Faris, it had to be, and even if it wasn’t him we were going. We had to. “Alex, run!” I yelled and pushed Erik toward the spot where Faris was suddenly standing. There was no time. We rushed him as the zombies rushed us. His blue eyes flashed wide and his mouth dropped open as we tackled him through the veil.

“Shut it, Faris, shut it!”

He slammed it shut, but not before several zombies made it through. Without hesitation he killed them with a ferocity I’d never seen. Their bodies pulled apart, heads first and then limbs in under a minute. All four of them.

I lay on the floor and stared. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve done that before?”

“Rylee.” Faris turned his blue eyed, icy gaze on me. “What are you doing calling me out to a necromancer’s territory?”

“Long story. Short version is—”

He held up his hands and closed his eyes. “Let me guess, you’re in trouble?”

Erik, splayed out beside me, let out a deep shuddering breath. “Gods, yes. She’s in trouble.”

“Not surprised.” Faris let out a deep sigh and held a hand to me. I took it and he helped me to my feet, his eyes flickering over my body and a frown twisting his lips.

“Are you well, Rylee? You seem different.”

I took my hand back; with him I never knew what to expect, and hoped he wasn’t hearing what was wrong with my heart like Alex. He’d use my weakness against me for sure. “Fine. Can you help us?”

“No, ‘how have you been?’ or maybe ‘lovely to see you when we needed you to save our asses, thank you so much’?” His eyebrows rose over glacial blue eyes that roved my body. Not in a sexual manner, more like something puzzled him.

I didn’t like it. “Stop looking at me like that. And thank you for pulling us out of there.”

“Better,” he grumbled, his eyes flicking to Alex. “It is a good thing I recalled this wolf was yours or I never would have bothered.”

I knew that was bullshit, he wouldn’t suddenly forget Alex and knew damn well he was my wolf. But I’d let him have his illusions.

“Yeah. Good luck for us. Listen. We’re on a time crunch. Orion has stolen Milly and Pamela and if we don’t get them back—”

Again he stopped me. “They’ll die, isn’t that the usual threat? And really, would Milly be much of a loss?”

I glared at him. “It’s worse than that.”

Faris’s eyes flicked up to mine. “How can it be worse than that?”

“Orion is taking Milly’s baby to possess it. And her child will have more magic naturally coursing through it than any other witch ever born, including Pamela. And Pamela, I don’t think he’ll let her go, or even kill her. He’ll turn her like he did Milly.” As I said the words, I knew they were true. Death was not the worst thing that could happen to them; no, Orion would make sure he had far worse for them both.

I saw the flicker in Faris’s left eye, just a twitch, but I knew it for what it was. Fear.

“What do you need from me?”

A part of me wanted to stare around, see what place he’d brought us to, where he considered home. But a quick glance showed me we were in an average house, probably somewhere in the suburbs that held no decoration to it. Nothing that stood out from anything, just white walls, basic furniture and no knick knacks. The blinds were drawn and no light came through. I shook off my curiosity. “I need you to jump the veil for me, we need to pick up Frank and his friend and bring them back to the necromancer we just left. And for the record, Frank and his friend are young necromancers. Can you handle that without killing them?”

Erik stood quietly, watching me and Faris. I had a flash of understanding that solidified into fact inside my brain. Erik knew next to nothing about the supernatural world; he was a human with the rudimentary knowledge of how to kill demons and, while he might be able to teach me, I was also teaching him.

Faris clasped his hands in front of himself. “First of all, I don’t hate necromancers the way other vampires do; how do you think I learned to jump the veil when no other vampires have?”

“You’re telling me you don’t want to kill them? If that is true, why did Thomas know your name? Why did he react so strongly to it?”

He shook his head. “The past is filled with stories and lives you can only imagine, Rylee. Thomas and I go way back.” He paused and shook his head again, this time as if trying to clear some of those stories. “Besides that, while there will always be a built-in animosity between vampires and necromancers, I can easily control it. You don’t know me, Rylee. Maybe it would be best if you don’t make assumptions about me and how I might react.”

Hell, there was truth in that. I didn’t know him, or his past.

Faris cleared his throat. “Tell me though, why do you not use the castle?”

He didn’t know. Shit. I filled him in as quickly as I could. Red caps, Orion, the doorways all busted up and blocked.

“Have you spoken to Doran of this yet?” Faris leaned over and grabbed the white phone that blended into the wall so well I hadn’t seen it.

I thought about our quick visit to Doran to re-attach my soul. “No time, everything has been going to the toilet too fast.”

Without looking at me he dialed what I assumed was Doran’s place. Apparently Faris took his job as second in command to the vampire throne very seriously. I paced the room while he was on the phone. I got one pass in before he hung up.

“I didn’t hear you say anything.” I stopped in the middle of the room and looked over my shoulder at him, a bad feeling swelling up.

“No answer.” Faris strode across the room. “We will wait and try again. I have not sensed his death, and I would. So we wait.”

“Waiting isn’t an option,” I said, thinking he would listen. Nope wrong.

“Then leave. I don’t have to jump the veil for you, you’d be best to remember that.”

Oh, how the four letter words wanted to spill off my tongue. Mostly because he was right. Saying nothing, I walked to the couch and slumped onto it. I leaned my head back. Maybe he only would mean a few minutes. Fifteen or twenty. I could do that.

Nope, wrong again. Four hours passed with Faris making phone calls at short intervals. Believe it or not, I managed to keep my mouth shut for most of it, only grumbling a time or two under my breath.

“Seriously, why are you not just opening the veil for us?” I snapped somewhere near the end of the fourth hour.

“Because, jumping into situations that are unknown are bound to get you killed. And since you are the savior of the world, I’d like to keep you around until your job is done,” Faris snapped back at me, the tension in his shoulders visible. I eased back into the cushions. Faris was trying to keep me alive. Again, I wasn’t sure if I could trust him or not, but there was no other choice for me at that point.

He finally gave up when the line on Doran’s end went dead.

“Someone’s ripped out the phone,” Faris said, setting his own phone down.

Without any warning, he swung his hand. The veil sliced open ten feet away from him and then I understood why. Bright sunlight filtered in, the splash of Doran’s koi pond echoing back to us. Doran’s courtyard, but no one was there.

“You aren’t coming with us? I know you can open the veil into his dark room.”

“And since we know there are intruders, do you want to stumble directly on them, or sneak up and remove their heads before they even know you are there?” His eyes flashed with anger.

“Fine.” I hated when he was right, mostly because he’d been a pain in my ass for so damn long. He might want to keep me alive, but when push came to shove, he would rather put me on the line than himself.

Faris couldn’t go and check on Doran himself, but this would work for me. Close enough to Frank and his little necromancer friend that I wouldn’t need him to move us around. I’d just borrow Doran’s car and get them.

“Make sure he isn’t hurt.” True worry in Faris’s voice surprised me. “Do not fail in this, Rylee; the vampire nation has never been stronger than since he took the reins. We do not want to lose him.”

I snorted and headed toward the sunlight. “He’s my friend, Faris. If something or someone is trying to hurt him I will do everything I can. You fucking well know that.”

Alex snorted, his words betraying him again as he gained more humanity back every day. “Doran is good. Worth saving.” But he ruined the serious tone by prancing across the room with his front knees firing up around his ears.

He and I stepped through, Erik behind us.

“Have your wolf call me when you are ready,” Faris said, and the veil shut, closing us off.

Not that I was worried.

But I should have been.

“What the hell are you doing?” He tackled Thomas to the floor, not caring if he broke the old man’s ribs, head or any other body part. The necromancer’s eyes glazed the second the veil opened and then all hell broke loose.