21
Asher and I traced to the chapel across the street from Grace’s adobe home. I needed to talk with her one last time, needed to understand what it was we’d found in that cave and how the Triad was connected to all of this. Who the Triad even was. Just as I made to step out of the shadow Ash had pulled around us, he tugged me gently back.
“Ash?” I asked when he grabbed the arm that’d been bitten earlier but was now flawless, smooth skin again.
Turning it, he dropped a kiss on my elbow. It bothered me that he was letting Luc get to him this way.
“Luc wants what he can’t have,” I whispered, threading my fingers through his soft brown hair.
A stoic, handsome face stared back at me.
“You don’t have to worry about him.”
“You two have a connection, little demon. One I do not share.”
I could lie to him now and he’d accept it as truth, but that wasn’t the foundation I wanted to set for us.
“You’re right.” I nodded. “We do. We have a past. And I did love him. Do love him.”
Brown eyes flicked away. Grabbing his chin, I forced his gaze back to me.
“He’s insane with jealousy. Not because he loves me. But because he can’t have me. He had a lifetime to claim me.”
Moving into him so that he was forced to wrap his arms around me, I brushed my fingers on his chest, over the spot of his heart.
“But the love I feel for Luc is more of the brotherly kind. I don’t want him, and if you walked out of my life, I swear to you he wouldn’t want me either. I’m sport for him, that’s all I’ve ever been.”
Moving his hands up until he cradled the back of my head, he shook his own. “Nothing on this Earth could hurt me.” He lowered his head and the moment was fraught with tension as I felt him grapple with words he wasn’t sure whether to say. The air was charged like the delicate threads of a spider’s web ready to snap up unsuspecting prey. Inhaling deeply, he forced me to hold his gaze before he whispered, “Nothing but you.”
Asher’s dichotomous nature compelled me in ways I didn’t even want to analyze. He was deadly to me. I was the moth to his flame, but even knowing the possibility of death breathed down my neck whenever he was around, his siren song was too hard to ignore.
Leaning forward on tiptoe, I brushed my lips once, twice, three times, against his own until I finally felt him relax and sigh into me.
“I’m drunk on you, Priest.”
Dropping his forehead to mine, he breathed me in and I did the same.
His shadow pulled away and he nodded. “Let’s go talk to Grace.”
When I knocked on the door, there was no answer.
Frowning, I turned to him. “You think she’s not home?”
It was odd, because Grace was always home. She was too old to go out and about anymore. Stepping beside me, Ash knocked harder.
Again, silence.
A lone child playing with a soccer ball across the street stopped and stared at us.
“Something’s wrong,” I murmured, curling my hand into his ruined silk shirt.
Nodding, he tried the handle. It was locked. “Stand back.”
Taking three steps back, I threaded my fingers together. The air popped and tightened a second before Asher slammed his body into the door. It slammed open with a boom.
Papers were scattered everywhere. What little bit of furniture Grace had was ruined. The cushions were slit open and had stuffing popping out of them. The murals on her walls were slashed through and there was a definite smear of blood leading from the living room to the closed bedroom door.
Something crashed in the bedroom.
“Grace,” I cried, running for the room.
Asher got there before me and we were both ready for whatever grisly sight met us. My claws had lengthened and I was fully expecting a charging hive of zombies to rain down on us the second he opened the door.
Grace was gasping, slashing a blade through her assistant Lupe’s stomach. Lupe’s eyes were staring up at the ceiling, filmed over and blue. Just based on that I knew, she’d been dead many hours, maybe even days. Her red shirt was completely unbuttoned, exposing her pink-and-black bra. Her legs were arranged in such a way that it looked like her kneecaps had been blown out so they’d point in the wrong direction.
Grace’s silver hair was dripping gore and coated in blood. Her white muumuu was sprayed a dark red. She reached her hand into Lupe’s gut and yanked on the entrails, dumping them around the body in an exhibitionist style.
“What the hell did you do, Grace?” I growled, unable to believe that one tiny woman had been able to kill a human well in her prime.
That’s when I heard the crash of glass in the bathroom. There was someone else here. Exposing my fangs, I was ready to rip her throat out.
“Not what you think,” Grace huffed, wiping her brow with the back of her hand, streaking the blood so that it looked like a crimson rainbow on her cheek and forehead. “I’ve been made. Lupe double-crossed me.” She pointed with the blade at the body. “I didn’t realize it until I saw her bend over and noticed the mark of the Maltese cross and All-seeing Eye tattoo.”
She closed her eyes and for the first time I scented fear on Grace—it was a thick, cloying stench in my nostrils.
“I don’t know what she’s already given to the Triad, but Pandora, it is no longer safe for you here. You and your family need to get into hiding. Leave, run away.”
I shook my head as the figure from the bathroom finally emerged. It was a blond-haired teenage boy who looked to be no older than seventeen, eighteen max. He was carrying a box overflowing with toiletries and other personal items of Grace’s. His nails were stained red.
Likely he’d been the killer. Stopping, the boy pulled his gaze toward Grace and a glimmer of red rimmed his irises. He wasn’t much to look at, in fact he looked like he could be all of 150 pounds soaking wet. He was tall and lanky and you’d never think to look at him that he was as deadly as he truly was. His faded red shirt was riddled with holes around the collar, and his jeans were a size too large at the hips and too short for his out-of-control hormones, which were causing him to grow at an exponentially rapid rate. Likely what looked raggedy right now had fit him perfectly this morning.
I could scent the musk of wildness thrumming through his veins—he was on the verge of his final metamorphosis, maybe a week away, two max, from becoming the stuff of nightmares and legend.
I knew immediately what he was.
Asher shielded me with his arm. A berserker, even one as insignificant-looking as this boy, could wreak serious havoc.
“Thank you, Thanatos.” Grace nodded. “Grab my safe from underneath the kitchen. We leave in ten minutes.”
Setting the box down gently, Thanatos never took his eyes off us as he backed slowly from the room.
The second he left, I turned to her. “What’s going on, Grace? Aren’t the Triad part of the Order? Who’s the berserker, and why are you arranging Lupe that way?” I needed answers and she was leaving.
Dropping the knife to the ground with a clatter, she looked once again like the aged woman she was. Grace had a manner about her that made people look beyond her age, until she dropped the mask and you realized she was well over eighty and as frail and human as any natural eighty-year-old actually was.
“Dora, we haven’t much time.” She sat on the corner of the bed beside the body. “Thanatos and I will move to a safer location. The Triad knows I’ve double-crossed them. I’m no longer safe here. Once I get to shelter, I’ll reach out to you and help you in whatever way I can.”
“Grace.” Asher dipped his head. “We found a generator in the hive you led us to. It had a sonic bomb set to detonate the moment we destroyed it.”
Nodding, she took a shuddery breath. “I’m not surprised to hear it. The Triad is a nasty bunch. Dora, whatever they’ve found in those scrolls, they must be absolutely certain you are the key. They will come for you and they will not stop.”
“Who’s the Triad?” I snapped, feeling like the grains of sands were quickly running out.
Her rheumy eyes flicked to Asher. “We don’t know for sure. The Triad are three and it’s from them the Order takes their cue. I’ve suspected for some time that they are not human, nor are their intentions entirely honorable for the human race. It wasn’t until I’d heard rumors that they were coming for you that I realized I knew very little of the organization I’d worked with my entire life. That is why I sought out Asher.”
I looked at Asher, who was working his jaw from side to side, his hand still locked on my elbow.
Head buzzing, mind muddled, I felt slow and dumb, confused by everything.
“I don’t believe for one second, Pandora, that you are who they think you are. But as certain of that as I am, I’m equally as certain that you are the key to unraveling this conspiracy.” She took a deep breath.
“Why’d you kill her? Why like this?” I pointed to Lupe’s body.
“It’s a message to them.” She spat on the corpse, then turned to me. “But that’s not important. Dora, she wasn’t worth saving. I discovered her communiqué—she was sharing everything with them. About you, about your family. Everything. When we killed her, Thanatos discovered this in her purse.”
She grabbed a file from beneath the mattress and held it out to me. “I was going to drop it off for you, but since you’re here.”
Thanatos came back in the room then. “We’re ready.”
His voice did not match his body. Soon he’d come into his berserker form. All berserkers looked small for their age when born. To a human they were runts, incredibly little at birth. Undersized even. Until they hit maturation, when their bodies were flooded with the berserker virus, and they became a formidable opponent for any monster, including a Nephilim.
But the beauty of a berserker was that they were one of our oldest and strongest allies within monster society, because a berserker could only be born from the mating of a pure-blooded Nephilim and a human.
Leaning forward, I took the folder and went to tuck it beneath my arm. Gnarled but strong fingers grabbed me.
“Read it, then burn it. Vow it, Dora.”
Tingling with curiosity, I nodded.
Sighing with relief, Grace pushed off the bed and held her arm out to Thanatos, who walked around me, still eyeing us hard though not with aggression.
Something about the boy’s dark hair and deep-set eyes jangled a memory. I frowned. “Do you belong to Adam?”
Adam was my cousin and ran our sister carnival in the Southland.
He licked his canines and I knew they were probably aching. Thanatos was much closer to his change then I’d initially suspected. Up close, I could smell the bitter flood of adrenaline riding him. He was days, possibly even hours, from his transition.
“Adam isn’t my sire, but I know him,” he said.
Grace nodded. “That’s where we’re headed—I’ll also tell them to hunker down. Though I don’t believe that group is in any danger.”
“Give him my regards.” I nodded. It’d been a long time since I’d last seen Adam, but time meant very little to an immortal.
Stepping into me, Grace wrapped soft arms around my neck. She smelled of iron and Bengay. “Guard yourself, Dora. This war has only just begun.”
Asher slid his arm around my waist. “You need to go, Grace, as do we. Trust me to keep her safe.”
And as weird as it was, I did feel safe. Even though I knew we had threats coming at us from every side, I wasn’t scared.
“Yes.” And just as she went to move away, I pulled her back.
I couldn’t tell her I forgave her, couldn’t tell her I loved her. But I wouldn’t forget her sacrifice either, and maybe that was a start.
Wiping at her cheek, she nodded. “Come, Thanatos.”
Thanatos stepped in quickly, grabbing Grace’s elbow with one hand and her box of treasures with the other. Grace was a simple woman. The entire contents of her life didn’t even fill half of it.
Walking out the door, I heard the gravel crunch as a car slid up to the front door. Without a backward wave, they got inside the rusted blue Toyota sedan and were gone in a peal of pebbles and dust.
“We need to go too.” Asher pulled me against his chest, gathering the shadow to us like second skin.
I traced us out of there.
Luc must have had a lookout waiting for our return. Not even ten seconds later, there was a bang at the door. Opening the door, Asher stepped to the side as Luc, Vyxen, and Kane barreled in.
They all wore grim expressions and were armed to the teeth. Each one of them was scratched and torn open at the neck, legs, and stomach.
“Zombies set in on us the second I got back. Someone planted another generator inside the electrical trailer. Took us fifteen goddamn minutes to find it. Bubba’s out back disposing of the evidence.” Luc snarled and wiped his jaw with his fist. “You okay?” He looked at me.
The Triad wasn’t even trying to be secretive anymore.
“I’m good, but maybe it’s time we gathered the family and brought them up to speed, Luc. We were at Grace’s and it’s bad.”
Vyxen’s thin brows dipped, and Kane scrubbed blood-stained fingers through his dark hair, eyeing Luc with a venomous gaze.
Wrapping my fingers around Vyx’s wrist, I bowed my head. Now wasn’t the time for our petty hatred to interfere with the safety of the family. “Gather everyone up, Vyx, tell them to meet at the chow tent. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Luc and I need a second.”
She must have come to the same conclusion as I had, because for the first time in recent history there was no push back on this. Nodding, she grabbed Kane’s hand. “Let’s go, Lust boy.” They both traced, leaving the stench of sulfur in their wake.
Crossing his arms, Luc waited for us to continue.
Shrugging out of my top and jeans, I tossed them to the floor. I was tacky from the clotted blood of earlier and needed to get that stench of rot off me.
“Don’t look at her ass,” Ash growled as I sailed between them, grabbing whatever I found first and heading to the shower.
Luc snorted. Me, I could care less if he looked, not like Luc hadn’t already seen the goods, but it was sweet that Asher cared. Turning the water to high heat, I jumped in and slid the curtain shut.
“Grace gave me a file,” I began, lathering some tropical-scented soap into my hair. “Asher, I set it down on the nightstand—can you please read it out loud?”
I heard the thud of heavy feet walk away and then return. The silence was thick.
“You plan to tell us what it is that’s in there?”
Wiping soap away from my eyes, I peeked at them around the curtain.
Asher was bent over the file, looking serious and intent as he tapped the sheet with his finger.
“Basically proves the Triad’s behind this.” Mumbling under his breath as if reading to himself, he nodded. “Says here the zombies are genetically modified.”
“Let me see that.” Luc snatched the file out of his hands, reading it for himself.
Scrubbing my nails against my scalp, I stepped under the spray. “Is that all it says?” I asked, spitting some water out of my mouth. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to get this putrid smell off me.
Now instead of smelling just like death, I smelled like death mixed with coconut. It was a nauseating combination.
The shower curtain was shoved back. Brown eyes swept down the length of my body before returning to my face. Asher looked as serious as I’d ever seen him. “Pandora, do you remember at any point having your blood drawn?”
I frowned, shaking my head. “No, I was...” My words trailed off as I suddenly remembered the vampire who’d stabbed my arm with one hand and shoved a needle into me with the other. “Wait. I did. In South Dakota, the vampires. One of them drew some. I wasn’t sure why, but I was able to shatter the needle and nothing came of it.”
Luc flipped the file on his hand. “Well, you must have had some drawn at some other point.”
My heart started pounding furiously at the heat building between the two men.
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s why those fucking bites almost killed you!” Slamming the file down on the sink counter, Luc hung his head, heaving in breaths to calm himself.
Thoroughly confused, I fluttered my hands. “What does that have to do with the zombies?”
Reaching over, Asher turned off the water and handed me a towel. “The Triad used your blood to create a sort of super zombie venom that would only affect you—not only affect you, but eventually it should have killed you.”
Luc growled, fingers clenching the sink with white-knuckled intensity.
Finished drying, I dropped the towel at my feet and yanked my clothes on. “So this really is all about me?” Not like we didn’t already suspect it, even know it on some level, especially after all the talk of prophecy and being the key and whatnot. But on some level I’d hoped it wasn’t true, that maybe everyone was barking up the wrong tree about this. But when the incontrovertible truth was spelled out in black and white in front of you, it was impossible to deny it any longer.
It made my stomach sink to the region of my knees.
He nodded.
“Sonofabitch,” I snarled.
Hard fingers dug into my shoulders. “But you healed yourself. I don’t think they expected that.” Asher’s look was angry and glinted with a hint of fear. I rubbed his cheek, needing that contact, even if only briefly to settle my own raw nerves.
“I’m going to kill those bastards, rip their heads from their necks and let Bubba feast on their bones.” Luc turned his back on us and I knew it wasn’t out of any gentlemanly sense of trying to preserve my modesty. He was angry and didn’t want me to see it.
Grabbing a hairbrush, I hurriedly swiped the tangles out and had a sudden, almost violent epiphany. I laughed. “It should have killed me. They were brilliant. Lust was no match from that venom. Every time I tried to coax her out recently I’ve noticed she’s sluggish, depressed. She’s been like that since my return from Hell. They did something to her down there, because she’s definitely not the same. Pestilence saved my ass.”
“Disease neutralizes disease.” Asher rubbed his chin with strong, blunt fingers. “If it hadn’t been for that...” He couldn’t finish the words as he swallowed thickly.
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I kissed his chest, right over his heart. “Whoever created that serum didn’t count on that.”
In the ensuing silence I realized something else, something just as big, if not bigger.
“My mark was torn from me.” I held out my ankle, looking at the newly formed one. “In the last zombie attack.”
Luc punched his fist through the mirror, shattering it and bloodying himself.
Great, now how was I going to get ready in the mornings? If I left him in here too much longer I might not have a bathroom left.
“Seven years bad luck, Luc, ugh.” I rolled my eyes but didn’t give him a chance to respond. “What do you think they’re planning to do with it?” Because it was now obvious to me that if they’d taken my blood to kill me, they planned to use my mark similarly. I wish I had a crystal ball about now.
Dropping to the bed, Luc grabbed his head and rested his elbows on his knees. Asher nudged my shoulder, lifting his chin in Luc’s direction. “I’ll meet you guys at the tent,” he said.
I took his fingers and gave them a gentle squeeze of appreciation. “I’ll be there in a second.”
Brushing his knuckles across my cheek, he nodded. “Don’t take long, little demon. The sooner we leave, the better.”
Calling his shadows, Asher disappeared from sight.
Sighing, I walked toward Luc and took a seat, then grabbed his face. “Hey, you.”
The blue of his eyes was liquid with pain, with self-loathing. For all the shit I always gave Luc, the one thing he was best at was his ability to care for his family. A threat against one was a threat against all.
“Dora, those generators aren’t just sonic bombs, they’re also mind-control devices. Vyxen was able to figure out the undulating waves of the pitch were what whipped the zombies up into those homicidal frenzies. It’s how the Triad took control of them. How can we fight them?” His whisper was so low I wasn’t sure I’d been meant to hear it.
“One at a time. Just like everything else. But, Luc...” I squeezed his hand. “Maybe it would be best if I just left.”
His grip became painful, almost bone crunching. “Don’t even consider it. I’ll kill you myself first.”
I clenched my jaw, ignoring the throbbing in my fingers. “But you would all be safer that way. I don’t think—”
“Don’t think. That’s right, don’t think. We’re only safer until we’re not. What’s to stop them from finding some new scroll about Bubba, or Lilith, Vyxen, Kane, Corrine, huh?”
I bit my lip.
Opening his body to mine, he twisted on the bed so that his knee bumped mine. “We’re family—that’s the most important thing. They took Kemen, you know they did, they took Lynx, they don’t care who they have to kill to get to you. If you left, they’d come after us, all of us, to try to find out where you’d gone off to.”
“But if I kept it secret and told no one—”
“Stop!” He shook my shoulders. “Do you hear yourself? That way lies madness.”
My lips twitched as I wondered if he realized he was quoting King Lear. Luc had never been a reader; maybe I’d rubbed off on him after all.
“It doesn’t matter if we don’t know, they won’t care and they’d think we’re lying anyway. Demons lie, everyone knows that.”
His blue eyes pierced mine; I swallowed hard as my stomach fluttered.
I didn’t have a second to grasp what he was about before his lips were on mine. Hard, but not punishing. His fingers threaded through the ends of my still-wet hair and a moan of longing and need purred from his throat.
His lips were as soft as velvet, moving against mine as if in prayer and worship, and I settled into his touch, pulled to him like a magnet. He tasted of licorice and mint and in his kiss I tasted his hunger, his need, but there was more. Something heavy and terribly sad. I tasted good-bye.
“I love you, Luc.” I said it with a strong voice, resting my forehead on his, knowing he’d never say it back, but this time I’d felt it. “I always will.”
Crushing me to his chest, he held me tight and I clutched his back for the last time.
“We’re family and family always stays together,” he whispered, and it was a promise I sealed in my heart.