AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We’re going through the computer, day planner, and phone book to see what we can find out.” She slid into the passenger seat of my Jeep, yawning. “And I’ll be damned if we’re setting one foot out of the house until morning.
“Be careful. Don’t jinx us.” As we waved to the others and pulled out of the parking lot, Camille’s phone rang.
She flipped it open. “Hello?” A second later she mouthed Vanzir to me and continued to listen. After a moment, she sucked in a deep breath. “Are you sure?…When did he call?…And he’s positive?…Does he want to see us tonight? No? Tomorrow? Okay, we’re on our way home.” She slammed the phone back into her purse. “Motherfucking hell, to paraphrase Menolly.”
I glanced at her quickly, then pulled my gaze back to the road. “What’s going on? Please tell me we don’t have another explosion or fire to attend?”
“I wish. This is far worse.” She slammed her hand against the dashboard.
“Hey, watch it. Snowdrop doesn’t like rough treatment.”
“Snowdrop? You named your Jeep Snowdrop?” She stared at me with an incredulous look but then shook her head. “Doesn’t matter right now. That was Vanzir. Carter called him. We’ve got a new demon general in town.”
Crap. I wanted to hit something, but we were speeding along the freeway at sixty miles an hour and taking my hands off the wheel wasn’t the best idea. “Okay, fill me in. I don’t want to wait.”
“Vanzir will do that at home. All I know is his name is Gulakah and he’s known as the Lord of Ghosts. And he’s just arrived in Seattle.”
I swerved over to the side of the road and parked, flipping on the hazard lights. We weren’t supposed to unless we were in a fender bender or had a flat tire, but I didn’t give a damn right now. If a cop wanted to ticket me, so be it. I opened my window to let the rain stream in. Usually I hated getting wet, but tonight I just needed a cold shock to the face.
“Can’t we catch a break? Can’t we deal with just one monster of a problem at a time? I’ve finally learned that rose-colored glasses aren’t any way in which to see the world. I’ve learned to be tough. I’ve learned to accept my destiny. But damn it, just once, can’t we let somebody else handle the bad guys?”
I wanted to cry, but as I sat there, Camille’s hand on my shoulder, I realized that—for now—there was nobody else. We had allies. When Shadow Wing broke through, if he did, the dragons would come to help us. And Queen Asteria would send help. And the Triple Threat were marshaling their own army. But for now, for the skirmishes in between, those were just for us. Because we’d landed—either for destiny or chance—on the front lines of this war. And we were here to take care of the vanguard.
Camille stroked my arm, then let out a long sigh. “You know, when Hyto kidnapped me, all I could think about was axing his sorry butt. Delilah, we fought a dragon and won. An old, crafty, powerful dragon. And we’ve killed off three demon generals so far. Now, we face another. So what? We’ll kick his ass back to the Sub-Realms. Because that’s what we do. We fight. And we win. And even when we falter, we still come out to fight again. We’re survivors.”
Wiping my tears, I rolled up the window. “Yeah…I guess you’re right.”
“Damn straight. Now let’s get home so we can go through all this crap, eat ourselves sick on Cheetos, and find out what Vanzir has to say about this new freak.”
“Sounds good.” And with that, I eased back onto the road, and we headed home.
Chapter 16
As we burst through the doors, everybody was already in a flurry. Vanzir had the household laptop out and open. Since I used mine a lot, we’d bought a general one for the house so everybody didn’t have to keep borrowing mine. He was typing while Morio—still in his coat—was watching over his shoulder.
As we trailed in, Hanna took our coats and bags and pressed mugs of hot soup into our hands. We settled wearily at the kitchen table, where a tray of sandwiches waited. I grabbed one and bit into it, too tired to even notice what it was until an explosion of beef and cheese hit my mouth, along with some spicy spread I couldn’t identify. But it woke my taste buds up, for sure.
“Okay, let’s hear it. What or who the fuck is Gulakah?” I had no energy to stand on niceties.”
Vanzir pushed back the computer. “Carter doesn’t have a lot of information on him, but he sounds bad. We’re not sure how or when he got over here, but there’s no question that he’s in Shadow Wing’s pocket. This isn’t another case like Stacia, where the servant is trying to outwit the master.”
“Okay, so he’s for real and he’s not even going to ask us to play in his sandbox.” I tapped my finger on the table. Stacia had tried to bargain with us. She had been out to take over Shadow Wing’s position and had tried to win us over to helping her. The enemy of my enemy and all that crap. “You mention something about ghosts?”
Vanzir nodded and pointed toward the e-mail that Carter had sent after his call. “Gulakah is known as the Lord of Ghosts. He was originally a god in the Netherworld, where he abused his power over the innocent dead whose souls have not been laid to rest. His brother, Shekah, cast him out to the Subterranean Realms and took his place. He cursed Gulakah to preside over the angry ghosts who exist between the worlds—those who choose not to move on because they’re so furious. The curse is to last ten thousand years, and then Gulakah will face a jury of gods to see if he’s fit for reinstatement.”
“So we’ve got an angry demon, demoted from godlike status, prowling around Seattle. How long has he been over here?” I was thinking about the spate of ghostly activity that had been going on the past few months. Angry ghosts had almost killed Morio.
“Carter says he doesn’t know when Gulakah got here, but it can’t have been more than two weeks ago from what he can piece together. I’ve looked up everything I can find on this demon, but the mentions are sparse. A few websites from paranormal investigators who’ve turned up the name in séances or through mediums, but nothing concrete.” He circled a note on the steno pad. “I’ve got an idea, but you aren’t going to like it.”
“Tell us. Right now we have to entertain every possibility.” Things were getting worse and worse, and we couldn’t afford to lose any more innocent victims.
Vanzir straightened up. His eyes were sparkling. He tipped his head to the side. “We ask Trytian for help. We go to him and tell him we have information he’ll want, but in exchange he has to first tell us where to find Van and Jaycee. Then we hand over the info on Gulakah to him.”
“Trytian—you want us to deal with pond scum?” Camille slammed her mug on the table so hard the soup spilled. Hanna moved to clean it up, but Camille motioned her away and grabbed a napkin to wipe up the steaming broth.
Trytian was the son of a powerful daemon who was building an army in the Subterranean Realms against Shadow Wing. The daemon had sent his son Earthside—none of us was sure how, and Trytian wasn’t spilling secrets—to rally the Demon Underground to help them. Trytian had threatened Camille, tried to blow us all up, and then turned around and offered to build a truce with us. He was about as trustworthy as snake oil.
“I know you don’t like him, but look at the facts. He came to us to warn you about Hyto. He reached out first. He’s fighting against Shadow Wing, too—”
