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We didn’t have time for small talk. “Can you walk?”
“I stepped in a pothole and twisted my ankle. I managed to hobble over here, but I think I’ll seriously fuck my foot up if I put my weight on it.” He winced but pushed the pain aside and nodded to the oncoming undead. “What about them? You can’t carry me, woman.”>I grinned. Morio knew me, all right. Rozurial, an incubus who lived on our land and who had become enmeshed with our family, wore a long duster à la Neo from The Matrix. His coat was filled with everything from wooden stakes to magical bombs to a mini-Uzi. Although, now that I thought about it, last time I looked, the Uzi had been replaced by a magical stun gun we’d managed to liberate from a sorcerer’s bar. After we got through with it, the bar had bit the dust. Literally. There was nothing left of the building except a pile of toothpicks.
“Nah. I tried to snag some stuff from him yesterday, but he caught me with my hands in the cookie jar and threatened to tell Smoky I was prowling through his pockets. You know what Smoky would think of that.”
Smoky was possessive and, being dragon, he didn’t always get the joke. He shared me with Morio and Trillian because that was the way things were, and by now he had grown comfortable with the situation. But that was the limit of his generosity, and he’d already thrashed Roz once for a misplaced hand on my butt.
Morio snorted. “He’s always and forever going to be a big galoot. You know it, and I know it, and we just have to love him for who he is.” He laughed, then sobered. “So, we have two daggers and my bad-assed demon self. Sounds about right. I’ll engage the creeps while you rescue Chase.”
“Sounds good to me. Just don’t send me off on a track-and-field exercise. Not in these shoes.” I had worn a pair of my granny boots. They were stilettos, definitely not made for running, but I’d had plenty of practice. On the concrete, I could run in them, but I hadn’t expected to be out in the field tonight.
As we came to Atlas Drive, a small side street, I veered onto the darkened road and slowed down. We were no longer fully in the suburbs. Here, the foliage was a little more tangled, the surroundings a little more rural. It was harder to see because the night was dark, the streetlights were few and far between, and the moon had gone into hiding behind a patch of clouds. In the Seattle area, we only had sixty-some days a year that were totally cloud-free, and today—this evening—wasn’t one of them.
As I slowed the car, edging along the street, the tangle of branches blossoming out overhead reminded me of our forests back in Otherworld. We were nearing Beltane, the festival celebrating sexuality, fertility, the gods, and the rut of the King Stag, and the plant world was responding to the energy.
The leaves burgeoned out on the tree boughs as the flowers and vegetables sprang to life, all urged on by the growing length of the days and the warming of the soil. My core felt the push as the roots buried themselves deep in the ground, and my body wanted to stretch as the leaves reached for the sun. The ferns were lush, and the grass green, and the days were hovering mostly in the low sixties.
We arrived at Wyvers Point Cemetery, and I eased into the parking lot, into one of the slots near the wrought-iron gates. Why did cemeteries always come outfitted with cast and wrought iron? It burned all of us who had any significant amount of Fae blood in our veins. Steel, we could handle—its makeup was different. Iron—not so much.
I parked the car and turned off the ignition, zipping my keys into the special pouch I kept around my neck when I needed to leave my purse in the car. It also held my cell phone.
Glancing at Morio, I leaned over and pressed my lips to his. “We’d better get out there and find Chase and his men before they get pummeled.”
He stroked my face, stirring the heat in my body. “Be careful, babe.” His eyes glimmered with brown and topaz. “Keep your eyes open.”
“You do the same. The ghosts almost took you from me once. I won’t let them do that again.” I ran my finger over his thin mustache and goatee, then lightly tapped his lips.
With that, we locked the car behind us and headed to the sidewalk, on alert for the ghosts, and who knew what else.
Wyvers Point Cemetery had been let go to ruin. I doubted if there were any graves newer than fifty years old, and while the grass had been mowed, the weeds tangled thickly along the walkway, and the trees needed a good trimming. Some of the cedar branches were sweeping the ground, and here and there, limbs had been bowed and snapped by the force of the winter snows and winds. Whoever the landscaper was, he needed a quick kick in the ass. But it seemed that regular maintenance was low on the priority list for the groundskeepers who worked here.
The path was open to the sky until we approached the gates, but, directly through the wrought-iron bars, the trees closed in, shading the sidewalk. With no lights to illuminate the way, an incredible sense of isolation and loneliness emanated from the land.
As my studies of death magic grew deeper, and my training with Aeval and Morgaine became more intense, I was becoming accustomed to the shadowed nature of the woodlands and the secretive feel that permeated the Earthside wild places. Otherworld might be more upfront with the magic, but here, roots ran deep, and so did grudges and longings and long-remembered animosities. The sacred places of this world held on to their anger at being desecrated by concrete and deforestation. The ley lines were very active, and very powerful.
“This is one of the forgotten places.” Morio glanced around, a solemn look on his face. He pinpointed what I’d been feeling but unable to put into words. “The graves and their occupants have long been left to brood over their deaths without anyone to grieve for them.”
“You feel it, too? I sense betrayal coming from the cemetery.”
As I walked through the open gates, I shivered. Death and spirits were becoming common fare, but something about this place unsettled me, and I didn’t trust it. Didn’t trust anything within the boundaries of this graveyard. It wasn’t so much anger, but cunning and the sense of being watched, and stalked.
“Something’s been watching us since we stepped out of the car.”
“I know. I sense it, too.” Morio’s voice was light and low, but beneath the gentle tone, I could hear a warning. “On second thought, I don’t think we should split up—”
A hoarse shout to our left, through a copse of cedar, cut him off.
“That’s Chase!” I headed toward the voice, even as a pair of bone-walkers—living skeletons—broke out from behind a large patch of wild brambles to the left. “You deal with them. I’ll go find Chase.”
Morio quickly transformed into his full demon form. Eight feet tall, with a muzzle and glowing topaz eyes, his hands and feet were still human, though matching the rest of his size. His clothes transformed with him—I wasn’t sure on the how or why of it—but he’d never gone all Incredible Hulk and ripped out of his shirt and pants. He had one hell of a tail, and he used it to balance himself as he lunged for the undead.
I wasn’t too worried about him. Morio could be ruthless when necessary. I headed in the direction from which I’d heard Chase calling. As I ran across the lawn, praying I didn’t hit a gopher hole with my heels, I happened to glance up at the moon shining down. She was waxing overhead, and the Moon Mother’s light pierced the veil of clouds to hit me full on, charging me with a surge of energy as she bathed me in her magic.
“Chase? Chase?” I slowed, calling his name lightly as I approached the thicket of cedar. My senses on full alert, I reached out, seeking his signature. Chase and I had formed some sort of magical connection, though what it was neither one of us yet understood, but our energies had meshed. We were able to find each other when we needed help. He’d found me from the astral plane when Hyto had captured me, and now…I could sense where he was hiding.
I paused, holding out my hands. A tingle guided me to the left, and I followed it, ducking beneath the low limb of a vine maple growing in the shadow of one of the cedars. I’d just pushed my way through the foliage when I heard a noise. A snuffling, like some beast or pig hunting for truffles. Stopping, I tried to sense whether it was friend or foe.
A whisper echoed on the wind.
