Jar of Souls (16 page)

I had to get to Adam right now and tell him what had happened. Whatever was going on was much worse than we had thought. Were the gifted working with Lycans to hunt the Fallen? That might be what it seemed like to some of them. I wondered just what in the hell that guy was and with power like that, how in the hell were we ever going to stop him?

Marcus was already being led to our facility’s healers. “Hey, big guy, make sure not to lose my staff.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t make any promises. It’s too nice to let go of.”

“Just remember it was a gift from my father, so I will come to collect.”

“As if you could beat me.”

“One of these days.”

That earned me a little chuckle, and then I turned and headed straight for Adam’s office. Procedures be damned. He was going to see me right now.

T
he last twenty
-four hours turned the world of the gifted on its head. The Fallen had come to us in hopes of avoiding a war with the Lycans, and necromancy had been revealed to the world. Lapointe was finally awake and should be reporting to my office soon, and if all went well, Jackson would be returning from his mission in a few hours. If we worked together, there was a way we could still come out of this ahead.

If everything fell apart, then we would have bigger problems than a supernatural war. If we lost people protecting the humans from that war, we wouldn’t be equipped to handle whatever the demons were brewing. Thankfully everything had been quiet on that front since Jackson’s vision. That also worried me a great deal; if the demons were moving under the radar, that meant they had a bigger plan in place. Demons weren’t normally known for being subtle.

All we could do now was deal with the problems as they came along. We didn’t have the numbers to strike out against anyone right now. As much as I hated to admit it, without the support of the council, we were spinning our wheels. They had the numbers we needed to nip this in the bud, but they refused to help, going as far as to ignore our calling and put the humans we protect at risk. Maybe Stillman would come through there, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

The only positive thing we had going for us now was that Sarafina had seemed to take an interest in us and this new threat. Maybe I could get Nicholas and the pack to show the same amount of interest in avoiding conflict. If I could do that, then maybe, just maybe we had a chance. If the Lycans and the Fallen could curb their own people away from attacks on the humans, that would free us to hunt the demons. If I was really and truly lucky, then maybe I could even get some of them to join us in our struggle.

A knock at the door stirred me from my thoughts. It had been too long since I had time to sit and think out a proper strategy for what we needed to do. The last few weeks had been a series of kneejerk reactions to things. We were never in front of what was happening, just behind it playing clean up. It had forced me to take steps that I wasn’t ready to take; sending students out into the field was one of them. It was good experience, but if they ended up over their heads, they would be dead, and it would be my fault. The last thing I needed was the death of a student on my conscience; I had enough deaths that I blamed myself for already.

Lapointe popped his head in since I hadn’t answered the knock. God, he looked horrible. His eyes were sunken with bags underneath them, and he looked smaller, as if he had been diminished somehow. I waved him over. “Please sit down; I apologize for leaving you waiting.”

He shuffled over to the chair, clearly still not feeling well. I wondered just what had happened to him, but I wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t make it here sooner, but I have been indisposed since my return.”

“No apology required. From the look of it, you need more rest. Can you possibly feel as bad as you look?”

“I’m pretty sure I feel a good deal worse, but thank you for your courtesy.” A tiny smile slid across his face before it turned into another grimace of pain. “The healers told me I needed to stay put for a few more days, but there is something you need to know.”

“Please continue.”

His eyes burned with intensity. “Gaston is back.”

“Impossible. He can’t be. We both saw him die.”

“I can tell you without any shred of doubt that he is back. Not only that, but he has been changed somehow.”

“What do you mean changed?” I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to be a good thing. There was a pit growing in the bottom of my stomach as I waited for the answer.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, Adam. He is faster than he should be; he blocked my sword with his arms and only shed a few drops of blood.” His face twisted as if reliving the memory. “His blood was black, and his teeth—his teeth were all wrong. I can’t describe his voice to you, but it was horrible, like a nightmare that came alive.”

“Tell me what happened. How did you end up like you are now?”

“He bit me.” He physically shuddered. “It was as if he had a thousand teeth. The healers told me it was his bite that did this to me. He had some kind of toxin on his teeth or they injected it. If I hadn’t run when I had, I would have fallen unconscious at his feet. If that happened, I might have ended up like the others.”

“The others?” I asked, standing up and heading toward my bookshelf. I let his words of what had happened at the bases wash over me as I pulled a few volumes from the shelves to look for something niggling at the back of my mind. Jean continued to speak about what had befallen the people I had assigned to those bases. I listened with growing horror at what Gaston had done to them, but I tuned it all out as I found what I had been looking for.

It was an obscure book written in the twelve hundreds by a man who most people had thought of as insane or deranged. He had written about the rising of the undead and how they had been controlled by a man, or what used to be a man. The passage continued to explain that the man had been what he called a lich, a king of the undead.

The book went on to describe that a lich was something of an uncommon occurrence. It had to be someone who was so twisted by evil that was murdered but not until after they had made several sacrifices and deposited part of their very own soul into some kind of talisman. He must have used the Jar to hide part of his soul. Using a magical artifact of that strength would surely have helped him to come back stronger than ever before.

The passage went on to talk about superhuman speed and healing from wounds, not to mention a deadly bite. It didn’t go into too many details about the bite, and based off the fact that Lapointe had survived the bite, not all of this information was accurate. The author did mention a venom that was secreted. He called it a necrotoxin, a very apt description. I wondered if Gaston had secured the Jar of Souls yet, or if his newfound power let him control the undead in the same way as the Jar.

Most necromancers could control the dead, but they were little more than blunt instruments. They could move and attack and some of them could still wield weapons, but they were slow and single-minded. They had none of the mobility or thought of the actual person or thing that they had been during life. The Jar actually infused the soul of someone who had been forced inside of it into the deceased body, placing it under the necromancer’s control. With this type of power, the undead moved like they had in life, with all the same memories and skills. If Gaston had that kind of power without the Jar, what kind of power would he have with it?

I appreciated that the inspector had let me read and get buried in my own thoughts without interrupting me. “Jean, why don’t you get some more rest. I am waiting for Jackson and Marcus to come back, and I have a few calls to make. Do you think you will be ready in a day or two if I have to call on your services again?”

“I won’t know until we reach that point, but I will do whatever I can to help if I am able. There is something else I have to tell you.” He seemed to steady himself for a moment and then continued. “I am still working on my interrogation of the man I captured. It seems as if he was one of the scientists you had working on the Jar. He can raise the dead, so something happened there. Since Gaston is free, my working assumption is that this man somehow released him.”

“I will look into the matter further when we have time. Until then, I will keep the man locked away and keep anything dead away from him.” I smiled, thinking about just how much this man had done for me over the years, and he never hesitated to put his life on the line for what was right.

Walking around my desk, I met him as he stood up, and pulled him into a firm embrace. “Thank you for all you have done.” I felt him pat me on the back, and I released him from my hug.

He looked me straight in the eye and said, “The pleasure has been mine. You know I will do whatever I can to aid you. I still believe in the vision you had so long ago.”

His words filled me with confidence that I was still on the right path. So much had happened since we had met. I had lost my way more than once, but with good people by my side, I had always found my way back. I could see that he meant everything he said. Jean broke eye contact and shuffled toward the door. I hoped that he would be ready for my call; I would need him for what was to come. He was my oldest friend left in the world. Together we had to stand against a new threat.

* * *

T
he next call
I made could go one of two ways. I would either get the support I needed or I wouldn’t. There was no middle ground with the pack. Nicholas Evensong was probably the most levelheaded Alpha of Alphas that I had seen in my lifetime. His territory was the entire west coast; anything west of Texas was his.

Gone were the days of an Alpha ruling an entire territory. The packs were too big, and too many strong wolves existed for there to be only one Alpha. Each state housed several packs, each with their own Alpha; these Alphas in turn paid respect to Nicholas. Nicholas oversaw any disputes and metered out justice in any pack-versus-pack situation. I didn’t envy his job. On most days dealing with that many strong-willed individuals would have sent me into a rage.

When he had been appointed the Alpha of Alphas, it was because of his steadfast will and even temperament. It brought stability to the packs and earned him the title of Evensong. Under his reign, the packs had expanded their wealth and lands and, for the most part, stayed under the radar of the Ascendancy. We had watched him destroy several challengers to his power over the years, and hoped that when he finally was defeated, that the Lycan taking his place would share the same values.

Right now it looked as if his son was going to be the next contender. It was even possible that if his son was ready, Nicholas might step aside, something unheard of in the Lycan community. If he did, his son would be challenged for his spot, so it was imperative that when that happened, he was ready to face any and all challenges.

It was time to stop thinking about it and just take care of the business at hand. I hoped this call would go my way, but once I laid all of my cards on the table, Nicholas could just as easily reject my request. I had had my assistant send a care package to the Alpha. It should have arrived yesterday. It was proper etiquette in the Lycan packs to pay respect before asking for a favor.

Nicholas picked up on the third ring with a gruff, “Hello.”

“Nicholas, this is Adam. I was calling to see if you received my package?”

“I know who it is. We have caller ID. Despite what you may think, we don’t live in the stone age because we hold to old traditions.”

This is what I hated about dealing with Alphas. They always tried to get you to submit first before you could get anything done. With Nicholas, this was taken to a whole different level since he spent most of his time forcing other Alphas into submission. I already knew this call wouldn’t be easy, but to start off on such a bad tone didn’t bode well for the rest of it.

“I would never suggest such thing.”

He cut me off mid-sentence. “Of course you wouldn’t. Now tell me what you think this package bought you.”

“It won’t buy me anything; the package was an offering of respect. One that I should make more often.”

“It’s true that you haven’t sent anything to me for some time. I was beginning to wonder if you were planning to move against me.”

This was another Lycan insecurity. If you weren’t with me, then you were against me and must be destroyed. That was the nature of their existence. They were fierce warriors, and they lived in that culture from the day they were born. “I would never think to do such a thing. You have brought stability and peace to the packs that no one else has. In fact, if there was anything I could do to help you stay in your position, you would only have to ask.”

I knew he would never ask for help. Especially outside help. It would be seen as an act of weakness. The flipside would be if I asked for his help and he granted it, then he would gain influence with the packs knowing that the gifted owed him a debt.

“Enough of your flowery words!” He almost growled. “From the size of the gift you sent, I know you haven’t called to talk. Tell me what you would ask of me, and I will consider it.”

He wasn’t kidding about the gift; I had sent him one hundred thousand dollars, as well as a set of custom-crafted armor for his son. The armor should protect him from magical attacks and give him an advantage in physical combat. It was a gift no other Lycan could claim to have received, at least not in almost one hundred years.

“I need your help with a situation that has come up with the Fallen.” Nicholas let out a low growl at the mention of their oldest enemy. “They have come under several attacks, attacks from Lycans.” I waited to see what he had to say about that. If he had ordered the attacks, there was nothing further I could do and we would be caught in the middle of a supernatural war, something we had managed to avoid for the last three hundred years.