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Before he could come up with a suggestion of another way to solve this problem, he was standing on the front porch at the head of the stairs between Moon and King Aiden, watching as Sky marched across the lawn to meet Christoph. A cold bite had entered the air since he’d arrived with the Sandor clan and the wind was thick with moisture, as if promising to drop another spring shower on them at any second.
Nolan wrapped his arms tightly across his chest, wishing he’d at least had his jacket on him. Of course, the scene in front of him was helping to take his mind off the biting wind. “This isn’t fair! At least give Sky a chance to get some of his supplies,” Nolan argued. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in the back of his throat. Nausea roiled in his stomach, sloshing about like the sea churned up by a storm.
“Don’t worry. Sky’s got a few things stuffed in his pockets for an emergency, but he also knows how to do a lot of things without a primer,” Moon said.
“A primer?” Nolan tore his eyes off Sky long enough to stare at the witch. “What do you mean?”
“Lots of ingredients are there to kick off the spell. Most spells rely on a witch’s innate power and abilities. Sky comes from a long line of necromancers. His grammy was incredibly powerful in her day, and she passed all that knowledge on to her grandson. Sky is leagues ahead of most witches his age. Plus, there’s the other thing.”
Christoph roared and charged Sky, becoming little more than a frightening blur in the faint glow of the landscape lights. The blur slammed into something less than a foot away from Sky. Christoph literally bounced off it, stumbling back, while a faint shimmer of gold sparks surrounded Sky.
“Is that a force field? And what other thing?” Nolan demanded, no longer able to take his eyes off the necromancer.
“Protective shield spell. Always with Sky’s signature pretty colors. I’ve never met another witch with more style. He can keep it up to block Christoph’s physical attacks, but he can’t cast offensive spells through it.” Moon paused and Nolan glanced at him. “As for the other thing…well, I’m sure you can tell that he likes you. He’s so pissed about what happened with Christoph, the vampire is going to be lucky if Sky doesn’t turn him inside out.”
Ice was forming in Nolan’s stomach as he jerked his gaze to Sky. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You really mean that Sky’s got a spell to put all of Christoph’s organs and bones to the outside.”
“Yep. Saw him test it out once on a corpse, and it was messy as fuck. Everything kind of exploded in all directions, like if you cook a burrito in the microwave too long.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
Moon continued talking as if Nolan hadn’t said anything. Maybe he should slap his hand over Moon’s mouth. But he couldn’t risk taking his eyes off Sky.
“I think it was worse because the corpse was a few weeks old. All the bits were already rotting and loose. I doubt a living creature would explode quite like that.”
New rule: no more questions for Moon.Any questions could now be saved for Sky.
He couldn’t tell if Sky had dropped his protective shield, but he was moving his hands in front of him now and saying something, but the rising wind was carrying away his whispers.
“Does anyone know what Christoph’s special ability is?” Aiden inquired of the other vampires in his clan.
It was on the tip of Nolan’s tongue to demand what the hell Aiden was talking about, but Fox answered.
“I think Winter heard it was flight or maybe floating.”
Wonderful. Just freaking wonderful.It wasn’t enough that vampires were fast, strong, and practically immortal, but they had to have bonus powers as well. How in the world had humans survived for so long?
Nolan glanced around, but Winter was completely missing from the stairs and even the small crowd in the yard. Where the hell had the vampire gone? Maybe he had a good secret position from which he could assist Sky. That probably wasn’t legal, but Nolan didn’t give a shit. He wanted Sky safe and in his arms.
“Yeah, flying ain’t gonna save his ass,” Moon snickered.
Even as they spoke, Christoph rose smoothly into the air as if he were a bit of dandelion fluff. The vampire laughed as he hovered there above Sky, preparing to dive-bomb him.
Sky reached into both of his pockets and pulled something out. With his right, he threw what appeared to be a small bag that hit Christoph square in the center of his chest with a white puff of smoke or dust. At the same time, he moved his left hand out in a semicircle beside him, and some liquid spread across the lawn in a fan.
Fuck.Sky had tapped into the underworld. He hadn’t seen Sky work a lot of magic, but this already felt familiar…and scary.
Christoph touched the spot where the bag hit his chest and rubbed the powder on his fingers. Nolan heard snippets of the ugly threat the vampire delivered, but it was nothing compared to the cold, evil grin on Sky’s face.
A scream cut through the nearly silent air. Nolan’s gaze whipped to Colette, who was running to the relative safety of the house from where she’d been in the yard with the rest of her clan. Aldo and the others followed her with the same stark, horrified expressions.
Nolan stared at where they’d been, and his heart stood still. The air became trapped in his lungs as he watched a tall, thin figure pulling itself out of the ground. White bone flashed through the shredded black cloth that wrapped it. A deep hood blocked its head and face from view, and Nolan was grateful.
The thing almost appeared to be an eight-foot-tall skeleton, but its liquid smooth movements made it part cheetah. And then there were its…fingers. They were long, sharp spikes made of bone rather than actual fingers. Each one was at least twelve inches long and clicked together as it moved its hands.
“Who-who…” He stopped and swallowed twice to get enough saliva in his mouth to speak. “Who is that?”
“I’ve never seen him before,” Moon whispered, a tremor threading through his words. “But I think…I think that might be Reaper.”
