Bloodlines (Demons of Oblivion) (26 page)

Nate was still having trouble standing up straight after nearly being put through the wall. “I saw a sunroom up there you might want to check out. See if you can find yourself a spot by the window.”

“Hey, children,” I interrupted before they could get started again. “Shut up or I’ll kick
both
your asses.”

“She looks like she could do it, too,” Peter piped up.

“Jamie, go.” I pointed to the stairs.

Jamie straightened his back and pretended not to look hurt that I had singled him out.

“Fine. I’ve got some phone calls to make anyway.” He left the basement, but not before giving Nate a sharp glare.

“Nate, go,” I said, turning to the other man.

“You want me to follow him upstairs? Gladly—”

“Go into the bathroom and make sure you don’t have any broken bones then.” I turned my back on him and flopped down on the couch next to Peter while Nate left the room.

“You certainly have your hands full here,” Peter said.

“Normally, I’d say that’s a good thing, but not in this context. Please tell me you’re close to figuring out who’s behind this, because I don’t think I can stand to babysit any longer.”

“Nate mentioned on the phone you believed you were attacked by half-demons the other night.” He pulled the heavy book he had been reading into his lap again and flipped it open. “But any half-demon capable of existing in our realm would normally die by regular human means.”

“So my snapping that guy’s neck should have done some irreversible damage,” I filled in.

“Exactly.”

Huh. Wasn’t expecting
that
. “Then what the hell is human-shaped, able to throw fireballs, but can’t die? It definitely sounds like some demon mojo was involved.”

“There was.” He pointed to the book, which was written in a language I didn’t understand. Of course, I’d grown up with a language other than English and couldn’t even remember
that
anymore, so it could’ve been Romanian for all I knew. There was a rough, inked picture on the left page, however—a picture of a human body rising from a grave with what looked like flames around it.

“Charming artwork. What does it mean?”

“What you and Nate saw were fresh, re-animated corpses with the souls of demons in them. Demons of lower intelligence, but demons nonetheless. If they’re the ones I’m thinking of, they are essentially like dogs—able to follow simple commands, and fiercely loyal to whatever master summoned them.”

“So we’re looking for someone who knows necromancy and can summon obedient demon-doggie souls? That sounds like a rather broad witch search, if you ask me.”

“It’s considerably less with so many possible candidates dead,” Peter said. “And it doesn’t mean whoever is behind this is a witch. He or she could simply be employing one.”

“But the other guys we encountered seemed human enough.”

“The young Ms. Thiering...or Mrs. O’Connor, or whatever you wish to call her—”

“I’ll go with ‘bitch,’” I said with a smirk.

“Mishka,” Peter said, “was a significant threat. She probably would have been able to handle a few mere humans, but she didn’t have a chance against demons.”

She
would
have
if
I’d
killed
Nate
. It was definitely clear now why she ordered the hit. But if she knew what was going down, why the hell didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t she tell anyone? I happily would’ve killed her secret husband for her. No need for secrecy.

“Any suggestions as to how to kill them should I run into one again?” I asked.

“Aside from blowing up the host’s body, it’s next to impossible. Decapitation might slow it down. Now, a proper dispel of the magic used would send the demon part back to its dimension, but you’d still be left with a walking corpse.”

“I can take care of the dispelling,” Nate said as he came out of the bathroom. “Now that I know what I’m dealing with, I can have the appropriate spells prepared.”

“Then I’ll get something heavy and blunt and go ‘smashy smashy’ with the zombies,” I added. And the possibility of killing zombies had me
giddy
. “So we’ve got the fireball-throwing guys taken care of. Now what to do about finding who’s responsible...”

“I might be able to help with that,” Jamie called from the stairwell. Sneaky bastard—apparently he didn’t go for that walk after all. He came back into the room stuffing his cell phone in his pocket, and took a seat on the arm of the couch next to me. “It seems someone I know finally pulled through, because I actually have a lead. There’s a witch exiled from one of the South American covens who just might have the resources and magic to pull this off.
And
she’s been living not too far from here, in perhaps the only coven-owned mansion that didn’t explode the other night.”

“Sweet,” I said. “So I guess the three of us will—”

“Four,” Peter said. “I may not have super strength or magic, but I do know a thing or two about automatic weapons.”

“Okay, then,” I said with a grin. “The four—”

“Five.” Heaven’s voice startled us, and we all turned to see her standing in the doorway. There was something cold and fierce in her gaze, a glimmer there I’d seen in Mishka a few times. Though it hadn’t occurred to me the entire time we were talking, I realized she must have been listening to us.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” I asked. “If this witch is behind it, there’s a good chance we’re going to get our asses handed to us.”

“I need to do this for Mishka,” she whispered, rage burning in her voice.

“If that kid, with her heritage, couldn’t take out a few of this witch’s lackeys, I hardly see how you guys could.” Jamie gestured to Nate and Heaven. “Unless you’re planning to summon her pops again. That might be helpful.”

“I did that to give my daughter the best possible chance at surviving in this world,” Heaven shot at him. “And it
still
didn’t do any good. I don’t care what happens to me. I want vengeance.”

“I still think—” Jamie began.

“It’s probably best if you stop trying to do that,” Nate interrupted him.

“That’s enough, kids.” I sized Heaven up. She was small but that gave no indication of her magic, and regardless of how good a witch she was, the need for revenge too could lend a
lot
of strength to a person. I knew it firsthand. “You’re in?”

“Yes.”

“All right, five,” I agreed. “The five of us go in. Tonight.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

No Worries

On foot, we approached the home of our suspected culprit. It was an hour and a half after dusk, and we had left the van—and Heaven’s bodyguards—about half a mile from the gates of the house.

We stopped before the ten foot, cast-iron fence that surrounded the property. A thick, verdant hedge made up an inner secondary layer, obscuring our view of what was beyond. The gate itself was actually two doors, each huge, flat, and made of solid steel, giving no clear picture of the house or property beyond. Better security than the Thiering house, or even the O’Connor’s.

Gulp
. “Anyone want to assure me we won’t be leaping into a pit of sharks?” I asked.

The worried expressions I encountered from the others told me they shared my thoughts.

“I’ll scout the place.” Jamie started for the eastern side of the fence to circle the property.

“I shall begin setting up.” Heaven carried her bag of magical goodies and tools to a spot down the road from the gates, beneath several large maple trees. She spread out items in a circle around her, lifting them with care and inspecting them before setting them down again. Ceremonial dagger, candles, herbs, an old Grimoire of incantations. Previously she’d handed me, Jamie, and Nate little white satchels of something or another—it would help direct her spells to us, she’d said. Heaven would be casting some supportive magic, like a cloaking spell, to help the rest of us get in without being detected.

“Perhaps you should see if she needs some help with anything,” Nate said to Peter.

Peter glanced back at the witch, then nodded his agreement. “If she gets in a meditative state, someone should probably be there to guard her.” He immediately looked to me and offered such a warm smile that I couldn’t help but grin back. “Take care while you’re in there, Zara.”

Like he could doubt me. “Of course. I’ll come back with
awesome
stories in case you ever need to write about vampires again.”

“I’ll write a whole book on you, I promise.” After another glance at me, he walked the short distance to where Heaven knelt. He stood at her side, one hand on the gun holstered at his hips.

“I suppose you’ve lived up to all the stories he’s heard,” Nate said. “And here I thought he might have been disillusioned after finally meeting you.”

“Yeah, fuck you too, Nate.”

Nate gave me a chuckle that warmed me to my toes. “He already seems to have grown attached to you.”

“You can hardly blame him. I
am
pretty great.”

Wind rustled the trees around us and the feathery wisps of hair framing my face. The rest of my locks were wound up in a bun. I looked better with it down, but serious danger called for serious hair. I even forwent big heels on my boots—the ones I wore had only two inches—so clearly I meant business.

My stomach tightened as I stared at the gates. I might’ve felt more confident about our big plan if we brought a fucking tank or something with magic-repellant metal plating. Heaven had spoken to some people and confirmed some chick named Carolina had been booted from the Sousa coven, which covered a whole lot of witches in Brazil. “Human sacrifice” came up in the conversation, though Heaven stressed they were just rumors. All arrows pointed her way, especially since she’d taken up nearby.

Nate shifted at my side. “I don’t like this. Something doesn’t feel right.”

“There’s no way of knowing what we’re dealing with, so that concern is probably well-founded. But I managed to take out your father—even though I almost got decapitated in the process—and he was pretty strong.”
Wait, wasn’t I supposed to stop underestimating warlocks?
“Of course, that probably seemed kind of unnecessary now. Sorry if it, like, bugs you or anything”

“It doesn’t matter.” The ice in his voice didn’t seem directed at me and I understood what he was likely feeling, intimately. “I know he did nothing to Mishka, but...”

“It was long overdue,” I filled in. “I get it. Anyway, the point is that he was strong and I took care of him. We find this witch, get what she knows, and if she’s behind it, then we kill her. No worries, okay?”

He absently nodded, but kept his gaze fixed on the gate.

“No brooding either.”

“I’m not brooding.”

I held up my hand and pinched an inch of air between my index finger and thumb. “A little bit. I’m not gonna want to hang out with you after this if you keep brooding.”

“Promise?”

“Oh, ha ha.” I crossed my arms at my chest and glared at the fence for a while.

“Thought you didn’t want to get coffee or exchange Christmas cards?” He caught my eye, expression neutral though his voice sounded a little
too
interested in my answer.

I got fidgety for some reason and I didn’t know why. “Yeah, well.”

“Great comeback.”

“Fuck you, lover boy.”

Jamie came jogging from the opposite side of the fence. I couldn’t decide if I was glad for the interruption or not.

“So what’s the assessment?” I asked.

“The fence is about a half mile around, like we figured,” Jamie told us. “I jumped up to see about thirty armed guards total stationed around the house. Provided we can get across the lawn and onto the roof without being seen, we just need to slip into one of the upper windows from there. How long can the merry widow keep us invisible?”

“The spell will probably only buy us thirty seconds or so,” Nate said. “One minute at the most. She’ll be fried, completely—useless while she recovers.”

Jamie frowned and shot a glance at our target. “I don’t doubt Zara and I could get over the fence and to the house in that time, but I’m not sure about you, Junior.”

Nate tensed beside me, air around him nearly crackling audibly. “I’m sure I’m more than capable—”

Great,
not
again
. “He’s got a point,” I stepped in before they digressed into blows again. “You could do your time frame removal thingy, but that might wipe you out for the other stuff. So that’s off the table. We’ve got super vampire speed and we can clear a fifteen to twenty foot jump no problem. I don’t doubt that you’ve got some seriously offensive magic prepared, but we don’t have time to just go with normal human speed here.”

Maybe I should’ve attempted a kinder tone, because his eyes looked nearly black in the poor light, and his expression had gone stony and cold.

Jamie was shifting impatiently like a little kid and I kind of wanted to smack him. “Can’t you do whatever it is you’re planning to do out here? Or are you too scared to hang out here by yourself? Not that I blame you. The widow and the kid there don’t look like they’d been any good in a fight. I could always carry you, if you like.”

Oh, for Christ’s sake.
I shot Jamie a glare. He innocently pretended not to understand.

After few seconds of silence, in which Nate spent his time scowling at Jamie, he finally nodded. “I can’t do the dispel while Heaven’s doing the cloaking. Or else there’s a chance that one will be dispelled as well. There were probably some measures taken to prevent someone like me from tampering with the protection spells that surround the house, so I may need time to get through them.”

“And you call yourself a warlock,” Jamie said with—I hoped—sarcasm. This time when I directed a warning look in his direction, he took notice. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“I think the two of you should be more concerned with how you’re going to take on this witch,” Nate said before I could reply.