Unawakened (35 page)

Netzach offered to carry me on board, leaving the other dae to infiltrate the ship on their own. While the others hesitated and delayed, Sandalphon flew up to the ship’s railing without the aid of a cranky unicorn’s hind hooves.

I jammed my foot into the stirrup, ignored the protest of my aching muscles, and hauled myself up onto Netzach’s back. “If you find Rob alive, get him off the ship.”

“This is a suicide mission,” Analise hissed.

“It’s only a suicide mission if we die. Cut the crap, Analise. I have a big target on my back for being an unawakened as it is. Did you honestly believe I’d have a long lifespan? Did you forget I’m a walking meal ticket for dae who killed their bonded humans? I haven’t. If I’m going to go out, I want to go out with a bang. If you want me alive that bad, shut up and help.”

“No wonder Rob likes her so much,” Netzach muttered. “She’s probably the only one on this planet—or any planet, for that matter—who would look him in the eye and tell him to go fuck himself.”

“I thought unicorns were supposed to be pure, innocent creatures.”

“I thought you had this figured out around the time I informed you I liked virgins for their culinary value, Miss Daegberht.”

“Sullivan better go find a willing lady before you get hungry,” I muttered.

The vampire scowled at me. “You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are.”

“Oh, no. She’s pretty funny. You’re safe for the moment,
Sullivan
. You’d give me indigestion.” Netzach stomped a hoof, and his tail swished. “Let’s try to make this quick. In and out. No dawdling. Alexa will take care of Smith. We’ll search the ship top to bottom and see what we can find.”

“You really think she can do it on her own?” The doubt in Analise’s voice put me on edge, and I twisted in the saddle to glare at the woman.

Snorting his ire, Netzach thrust his horn in Analise’s direction. “Little dae, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. This Kenneth Smith took from her what cannot be replaced. Let her get her revenge without doubting her ability to do so. She put faith in you. Give her that much in return.”

Unicorns, apparently, didn’t believe in playing fair, and I winced along with Analise.

“I don’t need you fighting my battles.”

“Ah, but you do.” Netzach bucked just enough to force me to clutch his mane and reins to stay in the saddle. “Hold on tight. The water’s cold enough it won’t matter if you can swim if you fall in.”

Instead of complaining about my discomfort in knowing I’d die if I ended up in the water, I held onto the unicorn as tight as I could, closing my eyes so I wouldn’t have to watch a creature lacking wings prove he could, in actuality, fly.

I broke my nose on Netzach’s neck when he hit the ship deck. It hurt too much to scream, which was the only reason I didn’t betray us to the workers preparing for the ship’s departure. I breathed out of my mouth, whimpering at the stream of blood running over my lips.

“Sorry,” the unicorn whispered.

I sat up, cupping my face with my hands. “S’okay.” Red stained my hands, and I blinked away tears of pain.

I couldn’t afford to stop and try to staunch the blood or fix the break. Sliding from the unicorn’s back, I reached up, unbuckled the halter, and loosened the leather straps holding the saddle to his back. While I wanted to dump them on the steel plating serving as the ship’s deck, I eased the heavy leather down so it wouldn’t thump and betray our presence.

“If he’s here, I’ll find him,” Netzach promised, bumping my chest with his nose, careful not to stab me with his horn. “You are as good for him as he is for you. Try not to forget that. He would want you to live. That’s how he is.”

“Or was.”

“He’s tough. Try to have a little faith, Alexa. A little goes a long way.”

“Aren’t you old enough to know better, Netzach?” I wiped as much of the blood from my face as possible before wiping my hands on my jeans. “Will having faith bring him back if he’s gone?”

“No,” the unicorn admitted. “It won’t.”

“Then I’m not interested in what you’re selling.”

Netzach flicked an ear back and whinnied softly, bumping me with his nose again. “I’ll find him for you. You just deal with Smith and get yourself out alive.”

I agreed to please him. Smith would be dealt with—permanently. The rest was up for negotiation.

Sandalphon was right about the ship being operated by a skeleton crew. However, I hadn’t expected his claim to be quite so literal.

Screaming and running away from the animated stack of bones shambling down the hallway topped my list of things to do. I couldn’t
shoot
a skeleton, could I?

Cargo ships had an abundance of tools, and I grabbed for the nearest blunt object. I didn’t know what they used crowbars for on a ship, but it made a pretty nice bat. Squealing and running away struck me as a better plan when the first skeleton came shuffling forwards, its eyeless hollows looking right through me.

Maybe I had no talent with a sword, but my batting skills were up to par; with a breathless swing, I lobbed its skull down the hallway, where it bounced and clattered to a stop at the feet of its companions.

One, two—no, ten—skeletons turned and stared at the skull-turned-projectile, their bones clattering when they moved.

Losing its head didn’t seem to bother the skeleton, and it brushed by me as it staggered in the direction of the staircase. I blinked, turning to watch it go.

It bounced against the walls as it went, leaving a trail of bone fragments in its wake.

I rubbed my eyes. Had I lost enough blood from my broken nose to trigger hallucinations? I rubbed my eyes again and blinked, but the skeleton remained. When it reached the staircase leading to the upper deck, it tripped and shattered into a pile of dust and shards on the steps.

Clutching the crowbar with shaking hands, I pressed my back to the steel wall to give the skeletons room to pass me. They kicked the skull down the hall until it broke apart. Like the first skeleton, the others tripped on the stairs before mindlessly crawling upwards.

If I got off the ship alive, I’d have to ask the dae what sort of dream someone had that caused them to end up as a
skeleton
. Shuddering, I continued down the rust-stained corridor.

Sinking the cargo ship would be doing it a favor. In some places, so much rust covered the interior I feared the ship had been dredged out of the deeps and put back into service when it should have been left at the bottom of the ocean to finish rotting.

It took me less than five minutes to get hopelessly lost in the maze of corridors, stairwells, and rooms leading deep into the ship’s belly. It didn’t take me long to understand why Sandalphon hadn’t been confident; it’d take days to search the ship from top to bottom. The old vessel’s original purpose was beyond me, but it hadn’t been meant for cargo. The doorways into the chambers were too small to allow a shipping crate to fit, nor was there any way for them to fit down the stairs.

At the rate I was going, it’d take a miracle to find my way back to the deck before the ship departed. Then again, it didn’t matter, as long as I found Kenneth Smith first so I could pay him back for a lifetime of misery. Taking Rob away from me was only the straw that had broken my back.

Maybe if I told myself that enough times, I’d believe it.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Metal creaked, and the entire ship swayed and rolled under me. I fell against the wall, my crowbar clanging against the steel. A vibration beneath my feet was accompanied by a deep, rumbling noise.

It hadn’t felt like an hour, but I recognized the sounds, although being inside a ship preparing to leave port was far noisier than what I’d heard from shore.

“Shit, shit,
shit
,” I hissed, banging the crowbar against the wall so hard pain jolted up my arm.

Missing my boss was
not
a part of my plans. All of them included blowing Kenneth Smith to teeny tiny bits so he couldn’t continue his treachery. I’d face every last consequence with a smile, as long as I could look the man in the eyes when I pulled the trigger and ended his life.

With an externalized dae, Smith was still human—mostly. At least, I thought he was. It didn’t really matter. From past experience, I had about ten minutes before the ship left on its journey down the river to enter the Chesapeake Bay on its way to the Atlantic Ocean and New York.

Going to New York would be fine if I had Smith’s corpse to keep me company for the trip. I got rid of my crowbar and forced myself into a jog, sticking my head into every doorway to make certain I didn’t miss my mark.

Another skeleton shambled towards me. Swallowing back a frustrated scream, I came to a halt, spun around, and smashed my foot through its rib cage. Its skull hit the floor, and I kicked again, launching it down the corridor. It collided with the ceiling and broke apart in a shower of dust.

Another skeleton approached me. There was something viscerally satisfying about the crunch and clatter of bones falling beneath my feet.

For once, I wasn’t the weakest link, the useless human with no ability. Maybe scissors beat paper, but my feet kicked skeleton ass, and I liked it. The violence worked out enough of my frustration to let me take deep breaths until I controlled my impulse to pull one of my guns and start firing for the sake of it.

My first problem was navigating through the maze of hallways. I had no idea why anyone would design such a convoluted ship on
purpose
. It’d take a genius—or a map—to figure out where the hell I was going.

I should have taken the time to think of
a
plan instead of just heading into the ship and stomping around like an idiot. After a lifetime of caution, there was something liberating about doing something so reckless and stupid I’d deserve to die as a consequence of my idiocy.

It wasn’t like my species had longevity going for it. Humans would be survived by unicorns, werewolves, and other dae, some of which even looked human. Even the bonded humans weren’t quite human any more, or so Rob had led me to believe.

My throat tightened.

My worst mistake had been letting him get close. People like me weren’t supposed to get close to anyone. We were supposed to live outside the system, playing by the rules so we could be manipulated like pawns on a chessboard.

All becoming a Bach student had done was put me in a better position. I was that pitiful pawn ignored by the more important pieces, a nuisance incapable of doing anything but take one step forward at a time.

I had been a fool all along. People like me weren’t supposed to get attached. We weren’t supposed to be normal and find someone who meant so much to us.

Why had I let Rob worm his way under my skin? Why hadn’t I run away? Why hadn’t I kept him at a safe distance?

When it was all said and done, everything was my fault, and unlike the dae, I had no way of fixing what I had ruined. Faith, belief, or whatever they called the magic mumbo-jumbo bullshit powers the dae used couldn’t bring back the dead. Netzach had implied that much.

Even if I cracked and made one final wish upon a falling star, I couldn’t undo what had been done. My laughter rang hollow in the steel hall.