Return of the Hunters (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 4) (4 page)

I finally remembered. Denei and Reun had drugged me, with no explanation why.

The whistle blew again, a blasting note at once mournful and urgent. It was a train, and it sounded close. So close that I knew I wasn’t in the Castle anymore. As the fuzziness of whatever they’d doped me with wore off slowly, I could hear the clack and clatter of the wheels. Hell, I could
feel
it. And when I forced my eyes open, the first blurry sight that greeted me was a faintly scratched window with decidedly non-Manhattan scenery rushing past. Dark fields and deserted streets, covered with a fresh coat of snow that was still coming down.

I wasn’t just close to a train. I was on one.

Anger bled in around the panic. I made myself take it slow, my senses still thick and churning from the goddamn roofie, and assessed the situation. Aside from feeling like I had ten hangovers at once, I was lying on a lower bunk in what must’ve been a sleeper suite. There wasn’t much light. But when I turned carefully away from the window, it was enough to see a figure slumped in a wide, cushioned chair across the room, watching me with amber-yellow eyes.

The figure was a female Duchene, and all I knew was that she wasn’t Denei. There were six of them in the family, three male and three female, but the younger ones mostly kept to themselves. I’d met the youngest, Rex, a time or two in the kitchen at the Castle—his was the only name I knew, besides Denei and Zoba.

She noticed me looking and stirred, then sat forward with her arms resting on her thighs. I figured she was the second youngest, since Rex was around eighteen or nineteen and this girl didn’t seem much past twenty. But her weary expression aged her considerably. “Wouldn’t try to move just yet,
cher
,” she drawled softly. “It ain’t gonna feel too good if y’do.”

“Yeah. I got that impression,” I said in thick, unsteady tones. Even a slight shift made my head pound and my gut churn. “Are you supposed to be the prison guard?”

She laughed, but there wasn’t any malice in it. “Nah. From what I hear, there ain’t no keepin’ you where you don’t want to be.”

“Then why did your sister kidnap me?”

The stricken look she flashed made me wince. “Y’all have to ask her.”

“Believe me, I will.” In fact, I meant to do that right now, wherever she was. I tensed and pushed up on my elbows—then immediately gasped and dropped back as a wave of nausea surged through me, and cold sweat broke on my brow.

The Duchene girl stood, swaying with the motion of the train. “Whoa,
cher.
Easy,” she said as she approached me, then called to her right. “Rex, grab me a cup of water.”

I hadn’t even seen the other figure sitting at the table against the far wall, past the foot of the bunks. He detached from the shadows and slipped through a door at the corner of the room, which I assumed was a bathroom. There was a second door between the bathroom and the chair the girl had occupied that must lead out of the room.

So I’d take door number two. As soon as I could stand.

The girl knelt beside the bunk and took something out of her pocket. A small envelope. I didn’t think much of it until Rex came out with a paper cone of water—and she tore the envelope open and poured dull red powder into the water.

I pushed back against the wall, moaning a little as my stomach revolted. “Get that shit away from me,” I gasped.

She frowned. “It’s a remedy.”

“Bullshit.”

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged, glanced at Rex, and he vanished into the bathroom again. “In a few minutes, you gonna burn like the sun, and your guts’ll turn inside out and bring up whatever’s in you,” she said. “It’ll scrape you raw. Then you—”

“All right,” I managed. I still wanted to refuse, but I could already feel the fever rising and fresh sweat dripping down my back. She wasn’t lying about that, at least. With a mental note to never accept a drink from a Duchene after this one, I held out a shaking hand.

“Better let me help you,
cher.
”

“Fine.” I sighed and eased closer to the edge of the bed. “And then you’ll tell me what the hell’s going on, and why I’m on a goddamned train headed fuck knows where. Right?”

She didn’t answer.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “How about your name, then?”

She cast her eyes down. “Senobia.”

“Senobia. I’m Gideon.”

“I know.” She lifted a hesitant smile and slipped a hand behind my head. “Try not to spill any, hear?”

I gave a faint nod. With her help, I managed to drink most of the stuff, though it made me want to gag. It tasted like blood and chalk. I coughed and shivered as it went down my throat, and pressed my lips tight to keep from spitting half of it back up. Eventually my body stopped trying to reverse its functions.

Senobia lowered me gently to the mattress. Rex emerged with a handful of damp paper towels, and she took a few from him and wiped my sweat-soaked face and neck. “You gonna feel better in a minute,” she said. “I’ve got another dose, if you need it.”

“No, thanks.” If I tried to get any more of that stuff down, I’d choke. Fortunately my stomach was already settling closer to normal, and some of the cotton thickness had eased from my mouth. “How about just plain water?”

Rex moved closer to me, quirking a half-smile. “Best not, hoss,” he said. “You’ll want an hour or so before you put anything else in your mouth. You ain’t got through the shakes yet.”

“Great.” I closed my eyes briefly, trying to dismiss the trembling in my hands as brought on by the suggestion. “Any other side effects I should know about?”

“Well, you might turn into a frog.”

“Rex!” Senobia shot him an irritated glare.

“What? He might.” The smile stayed, but his eyes didn’t reflect it. “Oh, and you’ll never trust a Duchene again,” he said. “Story of our lives. Right, Nobi?”

“Hush.” This time her irritation held a trace of affection, and she shook her head sadly. “Sorry about this. But you’ll be fine,” she said to me. “A little rest, and you’re right as rain.”

“Yeah. Except for being drugged and kidnapped,” I muttered. “Do
you
want to tell me what the hell this is about? Rex?”

His easy smile fell away. “Maybe I’d best get Denei.”

Just then, the center door across the room opened and Denei stepped through, with Reun right behind her. I caught a glimpse of a suite on the other side of the door, a mirror image of this one, before it rattled shut. Denei still looked miserable, but there was a wary edge to her expression. Like she expected me to attack any second.

I might have, if I thought I could move without throwing up.

Before I could ask any of the hundred questions burning my tongue, Denei approached me with grim determination. As Rex and Senobia parted like reeds, she caught my gaze and said, “You made me a promise, a while back. Now it’s time to keep it.”

“What…”

“DeathSpeaker, I call your favor.” Her eyes blazed from her set features. “You’re going to save Zoba’s life, and set us all free.”

C
HAPTER 6

T
he instant Denei spoke, there was a sharp pain in my chest. Like someone had scraped a hot blade along the inside of my ribcage and carved an X there.

“Jesus
Christ
,” I gasped, clutching at the throbbing spot like an old man with a bad pacemaker. “What the hell did you do to me now?”

She looked stunned. “I didn’t—”

“
A’stohr
.” Reun laid a gentle hand on her arm and stepped forward, regarding me somberly. He almost looked like he might cry. But it didn’t make me want to hurt either of them any less. “It is the
gealdht
,” he said. “Your promise made manifest. The pain will pass.”

What promise
? I almost screamed. But all at once, I remembered.

Goddamn it. I had made her a promise.

The Duchenes and I hadn’t started out on the same side. In fact, the first time I met them, they’d beaten the shit out of me, six on one. Tried to shake me down for something I didn’t even have and wouldn’t have given them if I did. But not long after, we’d joined forces to fight a common enemy—Milus Dei. And during the fight, Denei and Zoba had saved everyone’s lives when they found out the building we were in was rigged to explode, and got us out before the bombs went off.

Denei had cornered me after the escape and demanded that I repay her for it. Nothing exact. She’d just made me promise to do her a favor sometime. I agreed, mostly because I had more important things on my mind at the time. Like surviving.

Back then, I had no idea how serious promises were to the Fae. Now I knew that I had to keep it.

Or die trying.

I was so furious, I could barely speak. “Probably something simple. A little blood, a lock of hair,” I ground out. “That’s what you said to me, when I asked what favor you wanted. You said, ‘We’d never ask for anything you couldn’t give us.’ Remember? Because I damned well do.” I forced myself to sit up, gripping the edge of the bunk as a buzzing swell of dizziness washed through me. “You just handed me a death sentence.”

Denei shivered. “Gideon, wait. Let me explain—”

“You could’ve just asked for my help!” The effort of shouting pounded dully through my head. “I would have done it, or at least tried to, whatever it is,” I rasped. “Without drugging me. Without a promise that’s going to kill me if anything goes wrong. For Christ’s sake, Reun, at least
you
should’ve known that much!”

He opened his mouth, closed it. At last he said, “You do not understand.”

“You know what? Right now, I don’t want to understand.” My jaw clenched, and I stared at the floor. If I looked at any of them, I’d be sick all over again. “Get the hell away from me,” I said. “All of you.”

I was too pissed off to be grateful that everyone left without another word.

It was damn near an hour before I could calm down enough to think straight.

By then I was feeling physically better, at least. I got up and made my way to the little bathroom, pausing every time the train lurched and sent my guts spinning again. Once I got a few small cups of water down me and made sure they wouldn’t come back up, I returned to the room and sat at the table, trying to take stock.

I still didn’t know where we were going. They’d hauled me out with no warning—I didn’t have my phone, my wallet, my keys, any of my weapons, or even a change of clothes. I was saving Zoba’s life, but I had no idea from what. Let alone how to ‘free’ them.

So I guessed I’d have to talk to them after all. But when this was over, I was done.

If I lived through it.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting there when the door to the room opened. “Fuck off,” I said without looking up.

“Not this time, handsome. We need to talk, and you need to listen.”

I let out a frustrated breath and watched Denei come in. Zoba shuffled carefully behind her, and Reun followed with a hand pressed to the base of his spine—as if he’d snap in half without the support. When they reached the table, Zoba slid onto the bench next to me.

That, I didn’t mind. He was the only one in the room I didn’t want to strangle.

Denei and Reun sat across from us, and I glared at both of them. “You want to talk? Start by telling me where you’re taking me.”

“New Orleans,” Denei said. “And if you shut up and listen, I’ll answer all your questions before you ask them.”

“I doubt that. But fine. I’m listening.”

She squared her shoulders and drew a breath. “The one we serve, our master,” she said. “He’s called Papa Legba.”

Great. The one thing I’d actually heard of in voodoo. “The god of the crossroads,” I said. “So I’m supposed to free you from the devil?”

“I said he’s
called
that. But he ain’t no
loa
. Not a god.” Her eyes narrowed briefly. “He does take souls, though. That’s what our little…pets are for. When Legba’s children die, the
ver-géant
tears loose and returns to him, carrying the soul with it—along with all the knowledge that soul’s gathered in a lifetime. And we cain’t just cut them out,” she said with a stern glance at Zoba. “No matter how many protection spells we cast. Those beasties, they’re dug into our nerves and our brain stems like ticks.”