rylee adamson 10 - blood of the lost (22 page)

I was already out of the harness, and stood on her back. “Come on, feather heads, let’s do this.”

Four fallen ones darted toward me at the same time, one from each direction. Below me Ophelia rumbled and shot flames at those encroaching on her space.

Their wings cannot stand the flames. It is their weakness.

“Damn, I wish Pamela was here.” I leapt at the demon closest to me. The glowing red eyes were all I saw as I slammed into it. “Go.”

The fallen one reared its head back in a silent scream, its body arching, bowing backward until its head touched its ankles and it cracked in half. A sharp burst of light and an explosion of air sent me tumbling onto Ophelia’s back. Nothing was left of the fallen one except for a few feathers fluttering through the air. Not that the show deterred its buddies.

One grabbed me from behind, hands icy and burning at the same time. The armband from the Rim broke under its grip, shattering into tiny frozen pieces. But I didn’t slow my sending. “Go!”

Good, you are getting faster.

More blasts of flame lit the sky as Ophelia twisted and rolled beneath me. But our connection allowed me to move with her, timing each step with her moves.

The fallen ones shifted their attention from her and they swept upward, out of the range of her flames.

I’ve downed perhaps ten.

There was a split second where I thought we were going to make it unscathed. The morning light opened up around us and my first thought was the nasty winged fuckers would take off.

But of course, they weren’t vampires. They shifted their formation and came at me en masse, hands outstretched. Sheer numbers alone, I couldn’t possibly send them all back through the Veil at once.

You can and you must!
Ophelia yelled at me, and I didn’t hesitate—couldn’t hesitate—as the demons reached for my body.

“GO!” Over and over I yelled the word while clammy hands grasped at me, touched my face, grasped my hand, pulled at my legs. Go. The word was so simple and yet, it held the command I needed. Slowly, they exploded around me, bending back, their wings bursting apart at the seams as their bodies were sucked back through the Veil. They were gone and we survived another round of Orion’s attacks.

But the damage had been done.

A slow, icy paralysis slid through me and I fell to Ophelia’s back, flat on my face.

My mind refused to believe I couldn’t move, and panic reared its head as I demanded my muscles to respond.

Be easy, Rylee. All is not lost.

“How can you say that? I can’t fucking well move!” Even my jaw was freezing up, my words ending in a slurred and broken clip that didn’t sound like anything I was actually trying to say. I felt as though the Hoarfrost demon had found me, again, a thousand times over.

Trust me, this will help.
She rolled, dropping me off her back and into the open air. With a sinuous twist of her body, she caught me in her claws, holding me gently. What did she think would help?

The ice forming on my spine was making my teeth ache. My muscles were so stiff, I wondered if it was similar to having rigor mortis while your heart still beat. If that was even a possibility.

Trust me, this will help.
She repeated as she threw me into the air, right in front of her. The rumble of fire in her belly was the only warning I got as Ophelia opened her mouth and dragon fire surrounded me.

CHAPTER 27

LIAM / FARIS

HE WAS ONLY a few hours from D.C., but there was no choice; he had to get away from the sun. He’d done well, managing to travel as far as he had in the time allotted. The suburbs he’d entered would have to do to hunker down for the day. The morning was still early enough that very few people were awake.

Sliding through an unlocked basement window, he dropped to the ground. The interior was dim, but not enough to keep the sunlight out. A door on the far side of the room beckoned and he jogged toward it. The knob turned smoothly in his hand and he stepped through into a fog of pot smoke and the distinct smell of an unwashed male body.

Holding his breath he shut the door behind him and made his way toward the closet on the right. The kid on the bed rolled, let out a fart, and then scratched his ass.

Faris grimaced at the back of his head.
Disgusting human.
Liam snorted, but kept his words to himself. No need to wake the kid up.

You need to feed.

He shook his head. Not a chance in hell he was taking blood from that kid.

Fair enough, but if you feed, we could jump the Veil.

Liam shut the closet door and slid to his butt. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he considered their options. At this speed, there was no way they’d make it back to North Dakota by the next morning. Even if they managed to hotwire a car, he didn’t think they’d make it.

“How bad will it be? How much of my soul will jumping take?” he asked softly. The black interior of the closet made it easy to feel as if he were talking to someone beside him, instead of inside him.

Faris gave a proverbial shrug.
I don’t know. You saw Milly, she looked fairly intact and she had been jumping the Veil for a long time; even though I didn’t know it. Well before anyone of us ever met her. She hid her abilities well.

Liam grimaced. Using Milly for an example didn’t really set his mind at ease. She’d betrayed Rylee on more than one occasion, though she had always tried to make it right. And in the end, she’d done the right thing. But had any of that been tied to jumping the Veil and having her soul used up, or was it all Orion’s influence?

He knew he didn’t have a choice, not if he wanted to be there in time to stand with Rylee against Orion.

“Let’s do this.”

Faris gave a nod of approval as Liam stepped into the kid’s room. There was no choice, he was going to have to drink from the pot-smoking teenager and hope whatever was in his system was already through.

Three quick steps and he knelt beside the bed before he could talk himself out of what he was doing. The kid rolled toward him, muttered something about making a score, and Liam snaked his head toward the bare neck presented. His fangs popped through the skin, and the kid gave a little start.

“Not so hard, baby, you know that’s not how I like it.”

With his eyes squeezed shut, Liam had to fight to keep his mouth on the kid’s neck and keep drinking him down. In the back of his head, Faris laughed.
You see, it’s not always glamorous to be a vampire.
He paused, as if thinking.
That should be enough, Wolf.

Wolf, was he even that anymore? He pulled back from the kid and wiped his hand over his mouth. There was a lingering taste of drugs on the back of his tongue. Faris giggled.
I think the good stuff went right to me.

Shit. A high vampire in his head? Wonderful, fucking wonderful.

On the bed, the kid moaned and grabbed at himself. “Come on, baby, finish it off.”

Liam stepped back and Faris laughed even harder.
Yes, do finish him off so I can tell Rylee all about it. Cheater, cheater, pot kid eater.

Rolling his eyes, he looked at the wall and the poster plastered to it. Rock bands, and a giant pot leaf in a myriad of colors were the main choices. “Faris, jump us to the barn on Rylee’s property.”

Only if you let me kiss her. By myself. No meddling from you.
There was still an edge of giddiness to the vampire’s voice, but he was serious.

“As long as she knows it’s you and wants to, then fine.” It sure as hell wasn’t up to him who Rylee kissed. The part of him that was wolf disagreed, but there was no time for semantics. Rylee was his mate, but she was also a woman who could make fire-hardened steel look soft. And if she wanted to kiss Faris . . . he couldn’t really get pissy about it since he shared the vampire’s body.

Faris didn’t step forward, but he showed Liam how to open the Veil. With the latent necromancer abilities flowing through Faris’s veins, he was able to touch the layer of the Veil between the human world and the supernatural. Like touching cellophane stretched tightly on leftovers. Drawing his fingers together, he pulled it away while he thought of the barn and . . . there it was. Dim and shadowy, the interior of the barn beckoning him; North Dakota still held onto the night for an hour or so. Without a glance at the kid, he stepped through and let the Veil shut behind him.

“You bastard! You said you wouldn’t jump the Veil, that it would hurt Liam!” Berget’s voice caught him off guard and he swung around to face her. He held up his hands.

“I was in D.C., Berget. I had to get back here and there was no other way.”

“Liam?”

He nodded. “Faris has been taking a vacation. He showed up long enough to give me directions.”

Berget let out a sigh and shook her head. “No one else is here, Liam. Shouldn’t Doran and the rest from England be here by now?”

He looked around the barn, seeing only the automatic writer Jonathan asleep in the hay. “Rylee sent Charlie to get them. You think something went wrong?”

“Orion knows who’s a part of Rylee’s team. He’s going to try and stop us all. Like he tried to kill Jonathan.”

Liam ran his hands through his hair and began to pace. He could jump the Veil, though eventually it would cost him pieces of his soul. What would it matter if Rylee and everyone else were dead?

Nothing. Nothing would matter then.

“Don’t tell Rylee.” He held his hand up and twisted the Veil so he could look into Jack’s mansion. He’d opened the Veil at the front door, so they could look into the main hall. Berget touched him on the shoulder.

“Hold it open; I’ll step through and see—”

“Faris! Keep it open. Don’t let go!” Doran’s voice shouted in the distance. The pounding of hooves almost made him close the Veil regardless of the daywalker’s words.

Berget fell backward as unicorns burst through the opening, followed by Doran, Will and his leopard shifters, Deanna, India the spirit seeker, who was barely out of childhood, Charlie with a half dozen other brownies, and Mer the green ogre. The two shamans they’d sent to London stepped through as well: Louisa and Crystal.

“Close it, man! Close it the fuck down.”

He let the Veil snap shut, cutting off the sound of howling renting the air. Jonathan sat up in the hay.

“Demons.”

Berget went to him, cooing softly in the way of a vampire hypnotizing its prey. “No, go back to sleep. Those are nightmares, Johnny.”

He flopped back, a murmur on his lips. “I wish they were nightmares.”

Didn’t they all?

Around them, the unicorns settled into the hay, their glimmering horns picking up the light. Liam counted a dozen and that included little Calliope, though she was different than the last time he’d seen her. Her nub of a horn was no longer a nub but an actual horn that protruded two feet off her forehead and had a wicked gleaming point. Her eyes turned toward him and she bobbed her head.

Thank you, Wolf. You have our gratitude, yet again.

Will and Deanna gave him a nod and went with their group to the back of the barn, near Jonathan. They sprawled out, and it hit Liam that they hadn’t run from something. They had been battling for their lives when he’d opened the Veil.

Doran slapped his hand on Liam’s back. “Good man. They almost had us at the end there.”

Faris laughed softly, but didn’t try to push forward.

“It’s not Faris running things right now,” Liam said.

Doran’s turn to laugh. “I know. I am a shaman still, remember?”

“What was chasing you?”

“Demons, of course, but they’d taken up in residence amongst a few of the remaining vampires, werewolves, and harpies that were still sick. Which cut our numbers down yet again. We lost at least half of our people in that fight before you opened the Veil.”

Liam shook his head. No one was safe from Orion and his lackeys.

“Now what?” he asked Doran, hoping the shaman had some brilliant insight as to what the next step was. How to prepare for the coming battle, what weapons they would need, or who they had to bring in.