Veiled Threat (3 page)

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Why are you not in Portland with the ogres?

Liam boosted me up on Blaz’s back first, and then he followed. “Change of plans. We’ll discuss it when we get back to the farmhouse.”

Erik stood waiting, the late January wind curling around his cloak. “Well, Blaz, are you going to let me fly with you or should I call Ophelia now to carry me?”

You can fly with me, Slayer. For now.
With ease, Erik climbed on board, using the rigging we’d made for Blaz as if it were the most natural thing in the world, like he’d done it hundreds of times. And maybe he had if he had a dragon who carried him.

Made with thick leather, the rigging went around Blaz’s broad chest, over his shoulders and tucked in behind his wings. Three spots were wound in to sit and strap your legs. It wasn’t much different from the rigging we used for Eve, only scaled for the dragon.

Hell of a lot easier than trying to hang on every time he rolled mid air, just for the sake of the winter wind snapping along his scales.

Erik settled in behind Liam, and Blaz leapt into the air, the dusting of snow on the ground puffing up around us, then lazily dropping as we soared high above the mine shaft in a matter of seconds.

Liam and Erik were silent as we flew, but Blaz was a constant presence inside my head. I’d learned to tell when it was just him and me conversing and when he was projecting to all within range. His voice softened when it was him and me, as if all his confidence fell away. Then again, we could look inside one another’s head. Hard to be full of bravado when your rider knows you’re terrified shitless. Like your mate.

She is not my mate. Not yet. I’d hoped Erik would keep her busy longer. You may laugh now, but when you meet her, if you meet her, you will understand. They don’t call her the red bitch for nothing.

It should not have been a surprise that even Blaz had a fear that kept him awake at night. The dragon let out a long low snort, whether in agreement with me or not, it didn’t matter. I didn’t speak my thoughts and questions out loud; no need to air his dirty laundry. But I did wonder if Blaz had known Erik was my uncle.

Of course I did. All the Slayers ride dragons. Or they used to. I forget you know none of this, that your childhood was not filled with training and learning the history of your family. Each Slayer rides with a dragon. That is how I knew you, when you showed up on my doorstep. It is imprinted in your skin that you would be my rider, the way you walk and talk. As much or more than being a Tracker, the ability to slay demons runs in your veins, hot like the blood that keeps you alive.
He quieted for a moment.
You don’t trust him?

I wasn’t sure about Erik, and I didn’t like the niggling of doubt that bit at me.

I cannot think of a way he could be anyone but who he says he is, not and keep Ophelia in the dark. I cannot read his mind though, so you are right, we don’t know for sure. We will keep an eye on him, but I think you are being over cautious.
Blaz was taking my concern seriously, which I appreciated. I snorted at the over cautious comment. That was not a trait attributed to me.

With my chin tucked to my chest and my arms wrapped tightly around my upper body to keep in what warmth I had, a question formed in my mind—two questions actually.

First of all, you didn’t ask, which is why I never mentioned him. And you melt down like a fucking volcano when I pry inside your head to see what you’re thinking.

I gave a slow nod. That was true. He tried it last month and I very nearly sent him to his home in France. Liam calmed me, gotten me to see that I was over reacting, yet it still burned in my gut. I didn’t like people in my head, didn’t like the feel of someone knowing my thoughts more completely than I did.

As to your second question, yes, I’d planned on asking your help in dealing with Ophelia. I hoped to find her a mate and continue on as I have been. Alone.

Brows dipping low over my eyes, I clamped my mouth together to keep from asking why out loud.

Another deep rumbling sigh slid through Blaz as he banked his large body. The highway was to our left and though we were only a hundred or so feet above it, no one saw us. The beauty of belief in the human world was our side never existed. And what a human does not believe, they refuse to see. Or they deny. Either works in our favor.

You have only been reading the prophecies within the Black book, so you know what the demons believe. But what they believe isn’t necessarily what is coming for you. You and I are bound together, for good or ill, and …
he shook his head, scales catching the falling lights as the sun sank to the horizon’s edge of the badlands.

He didn’t finish his thought, didn’t have to. I saw his image as clearly as if it were in front of my eyes. A slate rock covered in blood and dragon scales, a burst of light, demons lapping at the blood. I closed my eyes but the image stayed.

I do not understand the whole of it, Rylee. When it comes, the battle will rage and there will be far more death than life. How can I bind myself to another when I know I will not survive?

“Noble.” I whispered, the wind taking the word from me. I was not sure I would be so noble. I would not give up Liam, not even if I knew I would die and break his heart in my last breath. No, I was not so noble.

Blaz’s voice stilled inside my head and that was for the best. We had larger problems than whether or not I was noble, or what Blaz would do if Ophelia showed up to claim him. I glanced over my shoulder to Erik. He stared off, his lips moving softly and I had no doubt he spoke with his dragon. His eyes flickered and then met mine. He gave me a slow nod and then a sheepish half grin. Like secrets he held, ones he couldn’t wait to see me react to. A chill swept through me. I didn’t trust him.

Shit, what if the old bastard was my uncle after all?

Yeah, I wasn’t expecting this to be pleasant.

Chapter 3

T
he farmhouse stood
in the last ray of sunlight as we touched down, which highlighted the fact the entire place needed repairs and maintenance in a rather desperate way.

Milly and Pamela stood in the yard, mud splattered up their boots to their knees as they practiced across from one another. Milly was nearing on six months pregnant—according to the doctor she’d been further along than she’d realized—and her movements were awkward and unbalanced. She often clutched at her belly and waddled like a diva, even though she wasn’t that big. Drama queen, even now she loved the drama and attention. But I didn’t care. She came back to us, turned away from Orion, even though he held a death threat over her.

Frank
, our pack’s newbie, sat raising the dead. The only dead I’d let him raise.

“Stop with the fucking bugs, Frank.” I yelled as I slid off Blaz. “We have enough inside. We don’t need any freak show zombie cockroaches impossible to kill.”

His glasses lay half-way down his nose, and he looked up sharply, surprised. I shared a glance with Liam. “He didn’t notice a dragon landing in the yard; he’ll get his ass handed to him if anyone shows up for more than tea and cookies.”

Liam nodded. “I’ll talk to him. See what I can do.”

The sound of Erik’s boots hitting ground stilled both Pamela and Milly, who turned in unison to face him. Pamela put hands on her hips a split second before Milly made the same stance.

I bit my lower lip to keep from laughing. Pamela tended to take on the traits of whomever she worked with, something I only saw now that she was training with more than just me.

“Who’s that?”

I half turned to him, and then waved him forward with my right hand. “This is Erik. He says he’s my uncle.”

Pamela nodded and accepted that fact like it was nothing. Milly, on the other hand, not so much.

“Your what?” Her green eyes were wide with disbelief and I saw her subtly prep a spell.

“Milly, knock it off. Blaz will vouch for him.” I stepped between her and Erik, even though secretly I was glad she had prepped a spell. Just in case.

That I will, witch. He hasn’t changed much over the last few years.
His voice was loud and echoed clearly through our heads. Frank’s face paled and he clenched his bent knees until his knuckles were white. The kid was so green to the supernatural that it hurt my brain. Where Pamela had taken to it like a duck to water, Frank seemed to be in a perpetual state of shock and awe.

Milly strode forward through the mud, slipping and sliding, clutching her belly, wobbling with each step. When she drew close, Liam put out a hand to steady her. His wolf still didn’t like her much, but she was a part of this rag tag bunch, despite her past. Maybe that’s why she had become more fierce in her defense of those she deemed ‘us’ against those she saw as ‘other.’ Then again, maybe the pregnancy was making her a tad psycho.

“You don’t really mean to let him stay here, do you?”

Erik stepped around me and gave her a low mocking bow, speaking to her slowly and deliberately. “Rylee needs help, help no one else can give but myself. Unless you know how to fight multitudes of demons she’ll soon be facing and win?”

She drew herself up, her eyes flashing with ire. “I do know how to fight demons. I’m a witch.”

He grinned at her, all white teeth and mirth. “Then tell me, where does a hoarfrost demon stand on the scale of danger to you?”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Middling to high.”

Erik slowly shook his head. “They are forerunners. Nothing more than pawns in the demon world. If you believe they are middling to high, either you are stupid—which I do not think Rylee would tolerate—or you have been deceived.”

Milly glared at him, her anger two high pink spots on her cheeks. “We don’t know if we can trust you.” She turned toward us. “Liam, you haven’t said anything; do you trust him?”

Liam frowned and I realized she was waiting for his word on the subject. Like she trusted him, even over me. Then again, they’d been through a lot together, most of it shitty.

“For now, he can stay. I’ll kill him myself if he proves a liar,” Liam said, not looking at Erik, but Milly.

Her mouth twitched and she lowered her hands, but the spell she’d prepped did not dissipate. “For now then, as you say.”

The wind suddenly howled, and the sun dropped behind the Earth, the dark curling close.

I pointed to the farmhouse, feeling the weight of the day heavy on my shoulders. “Everyone, inside. There’s a lot of talking to do and I’m not doing it while we slowly freeze our asses off.”

Everyone trooped inside except Blaz, of course. I glanced at the barn and Pamela gave me a small smile. “Eve is out flying, practicing the things
Eagle
taught her.”

That was good; we all needed to be at our best. And that was as far as I would let my mind wander in that direction. “And Alex?”

We stepped into the kitchen and she pointed to the living room area. Splayed out in front of the woodstove was the werewolf. He might have been a rug he was so thin, sprawled on his belly with only a slow breath now and then to show he was a living creature and not a taxidermist’s prize.

“He was doing laps around the whole property until just before you came back,” Pamela said. “I think he was marking the territory.”

Liam gave a low grunt. “He’s not the submissive he once was.”

No, he wasn’t. But he was still stuck between shapes, half man, half wolf. Maybe it was too late for him to shift. Not that it mattered at this point. Alex was who he was, no matter what shape he was in, and an integral part of our group. According to Giselle, he’d be the lynch pin when it came to the final battle.

Milly, Pamela, and Frank took a seat at the kitchen table. Liam stood near the doorway, and Erik leaned against the sink. Blaz listened in, his presence a steady thrum just under my skin. I went over what we found at the castle, the broken doorways, the one doorway left untouched, and then the red caps and the demons.

Pamela shot to her feet, her blue eyes bright with excitement. “With Milly, I could go in and clean out the nest of them; those red caps aren’t so tough.”

I shook my head. “What would be the point? There are no doors now. And we don’t need to bring another battle to our front step. Not until we have to.”

“Are you driving to Portland, then?” Milly asked, but I saw she already knew the answer.

“No, Blaz will take me and Liam.”

Erik cleared his throat, his eyes darting to mine. “I’d like to go with you.”

Uncle or not, I didn’t know him. My eyes slid to Milly; if Orion could turn her, who was to say the bastard couldn’t turn an uncle I’d never met? The worst betrayers of my trust had always been the people I considered family. Perhaps he read the answer on my face, because before I said anything Erik shrugged. “Then again, I could always have Ophelia come, that way Blaz would not have to carry me and you would not be able to tell me I cannot fly with you.”

We will take you, Slayer. Just do not call your bitch on me, not yet.

Erik laughed and I noticed a missing tooth on the right side. Like it had been knocked out and he hadn’t bothered to replace it.

“Good. Are we off then?” He clapped his hands, rubbing them briskly.

Frank cleared his throat and pushed his glasses further up his nose, though there was no further for them to go. “I think before you go, you should see what is on the news.” I nodded and he jogging up the rickety stairs and was back in a matter of thirty seconds. His hands held an old computer screen. Using bits and pieces of the spelled weapons and metal we scavenged from the warehouse, he rigged a computer that would run with us all in one room. Not that I’d thought anything of it when I’d first seen it—who cared if we could play solitaire or join Twitter? My only concern was at some point it would have to go. This technology was the last evidence of those fucking guns. Still, the kid was isolated enough; for now I’d let him keep this one connection to the outside world.

Frank flicked on the screen and pulled up videos. He clicked the first one, a shot of a heavily cobbled road, small cars jam packed on both sides. The videographer panned the street; people running one way, staring over their shoulders, mouths wide.

“Where’s the sound?” Pamela asked as Erik said, “That’s in Spain, I’ve seen the area.”

Frank tapped the mouse. “No sound on this one, and yes, it’s Spain.”

We didn’t need the sound, the terrified people were enough to get the picture. And then came a flood of water. What the humans saw, I had no doubt, was just water, a lot of it, but nothing else. Within the flow were silvery flashes of movement. Maybe they’d put it off as fish, but I saw the truth.

Liam leaned forward, a crease in his brow, as on the screen a hand shot out of the water and pulled a human into the death wave. “Mermaids?”

Frank nodded. “Yes. There’s more.”

The next clip was a tornado, banshees controlling the winds as they tore across the open plains. Then a clip of a field of eviscerated animals, blood and gore strewn across the dull grasses of winter, hooves and horns broken in half. In all the clips devastation reigned and the causes were creatures of the supernatural. Mermaids, banshees, trolls, and others I’d never before faced, only read about.

Erik leaned forward and pushed the power button. “This shouldn’t be a surprise to any of you. You are aware a battle is coming? This is the start; someone has opened the veil and pulling demons through. Most likely simple tears. They will possess the supernatural creatures first, the easy ones, and use their powers to cause terror.”

Digging my fingers into my belt, I held my breath for a moment, thinking. “What is the point?”

Milly leaned back in her chair, her eyes fluttering as if in pain. She ran a hand over her bulging belly. “Orion needs the terror, the chaos, if he is to come as a ‘savior’ to the humans. He will stop all this and then be seen as their chosen one. And they will give him the world on a silver platter.” I lifted an eyebrow. That seemed like a pretty detailed ‘guess.’

“How much of that is guess and how much do you know?” I didn’t take my eyes off her. She continued to rub her belly in slow circles.

“He talked about it in front of me, one time. I was very young and to be honest, I’d forgotten this particular plan of his; he had a lot of them, you know. Always a contingency plan for this or that.” Her eyes held no guile as she spoke, but with Milly I would never truly be sure again. “Orion had plans on plans on plans. Some of them I think he had to confuse those around him; he doesn’t trust his minions, nor the demons sworn to serve him. In this particular scheme he thought to use the human’s beliefs against them, twist their faiths and make it seem he was the answer to their prayers.”

She fell silent and I tipped my head back to stare at the ceiling, as if my own answers would be written for me to discover there.

Erik rapped his knuckles on the table, snapping my eyes to his.

“I think your witch friend is right, and it fits with the prophecies. This will be his first step; the next will be to crack the veil open wide so he can physically come through, along with his stronger demons,” he scrubbed a hand over his chin, “unless the veil and the guardians of it have already weakened. It is possible we are seeing a merging of the two problems.”

Milly nodded. “Yes, that would seem a likely ploy of Orion’s, to work two possible paths at the same time. Like I said, a contingency plan.”

I fought not to rub my arms because it wasn’t truly that cold in the house, despite the goose bumps running along my skin. “And the hoarfrost demons, will we see more of them?” Shit that was the last thing we needed, adding a new ice age to our list of problems.

“No.” Erik shook his head. “There were only five. I killed one in my youth,” he touched his chest. “You killed one, and today the last three have been killed. No, they are all done. Now it will be time for demons that haven’t walked this world in many years to show up.”

Liam grunted. “Besides those possessing the supernaturals causing all the havoc?”

“Those aren’t demons in the sense you are thinking, Liam,” Milly said. “They are spirits, controlled directly by Orion. Evil spirits. They don’t need a pentagram or a coven to bring them through. A slice in the veil to the deep levels would be enough to unleash them. But that means someone is opening the veil for Orion.”

I realized as I stood, everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to make a decision. I gave a sharp nod. “Can Shamans cast out evil spirits?”

Erik’s eyebrows shot up. “Perhaps, that would help as a way to slow them down.”

Pamela scuffed her toes on the wooden floor. “What about
Will
and
Deanna
? Maybe the druids could help?”

A second sharp nod. “Tomorrow, Liam, Erik, and I will go to the ogres in Portland, but we’ll stop in New Mexico first and talk to
Louisa
and Doran. Pamela, you phone Will and get him to talk to Deanna and the druids. Milly, you contact
Kyle
and see what you can find out in regards to the FBI and the Arcane Arts division. If it truly has fallen apart, then bring Kyle here. He and Frank can track whatever is going on in the world, where the spirits are causing the shit to hit the fan.” With Kyle’s background as an expert hacker, and his understanding of the supernatural world (even though he was as human as they came) he would be a big help.