22
The faces staring back at the three of us weren’t just pissed. Oh no, that was too nice a word to describe the animosity rolling off them in waves.
Never show a demon fear, because if they sense it for even a second, they’ll pounce and tear you to shreds. Regardless of the fact that this was family I’d known for eons, they weren’t happy that Luc and I had kept so much from them.
Bubba narrowed his eyes at Asher. “So the Order’s betrayed us—you’re no human.” He scoffed and turned back to me and Luc. “So who the hell is that?”
Everyone let Bubba be their mouthpiece, content to hang back and digest this sudden turn of events. Fine, I felt more comfortable talking with the big man over any of the others at this point anyway.
Notching my chin higher, I said, “I’m beginning to suspect that what’s going down doesn’t have as much to do with the Order as it does with upper management. Grace has gone into hiding and suggested we immediately do the same. To be honest, I know very little of this Triad. In fact, I’ve never heard of them before now. All I do know is that the prophecy is leading them to believe that they have no choice but to silence me.”
“Then let them have you. We’ve lost Kemen, now Lynx—I’m tired of burying my friends.” A normally quiet Envy Neph—Greta—had no problem piping up.
The very last person in the world I’d ever expect to come to my defense hissed. “Shut your trap, Greta. We ditch Pandora now, what’s to say down the road you’re not next. You want us to bail on you too?” Vyxen narrowed glittering jade-green eyes.
Greta fluttered her fingers across her white-blond hair but didn’t utter another word. My lips twitched when Vyxen refused to look back at me.
“You’ve only answered half my question.” Bubba tapped his foot.
Asher spared me having to make the declaration. Rather than shield my body with his as was his usual wont, he took a full step to the side. Asher understood that to show me any kind of physical support now would weaken me in the eyes of my brethren.
“Understand that I am here for none of you other than Pandora herself.” His deep voice cast a spell over the throng. All eyes were glued to him as his large black wings unfolded from his shirt. Standing slightly behind him, I finally understood how he’d kept them hidden. A netting of magic, like a heat wave, shimmered down his back, exposing the vertical slits for a split second—the wings grew from within the slits. He flapped them once, startling everyone but Luc and me.
I wasn’t aware Luc had ever seen his wings, but at some point he must have because he didn’t look the least bit surprised.
Some gasped, others jumped to their feet. Claws came out and fangs were revealed. I jumped in front of Bubba to stop his attack.
“Angel!” Furious voices spat.
Shoving Bubba back so that he stumbled over his feet, I snarled at him. I might be smaller, I might look weaker, but I had three centuries worth more power than he did.
My voice was guttural as I said, “He’s no angel—he’s a death priest. And I’ll kill anyone who makes an attempt on his life.”
I scowled at all of them, letting the power of my demons spark through me. I leaked it in a tidal wave of fury.
The weaker ones immediately curled in on themselves, knowing they were no match for me. Bubba and Kane alone stood like towers bearing down on me. I never broke eye contact.
Luc snapped, “The Priest is a powerful ally. He’s been working with Grace for months now. We. Can. Trust. Him.” The way he enunciated each word, I knew it wasn’t easy for him to say.
“You keep the fuck away from me,” Bubba hissed, red eyes gleaming like unholy fire at my priest.
There wasn’t much more to say after that. Luc dispersed the crowd with orders to begin the takedown of the carnival. For the unforeseeable future, Carnival Diabolique was officially on hiatus.
Bubba was the last to leave, tossing me an evil glare before marching off. Releasing the shaky breath I’d been holding the entire time, I dropped my head, finally free to let the adrenaline buildup have its way with me. My fingers shook so hard I had to grab a bench top to keep them still.
Asher’s warm hand traced my lower back. I leaned into his touch, feeling immediately more at ease.
“That went well,” he murmured with a chuckle in his voice.
“You think?” I glanced sidelong at him. “Because I’m pretty sure Bubba’s gonna want you and me for his late-night snack.”
He laughed. “Pandora, you demons are a violent, nasty bunch, but deep down”—he touched my chest, right over my heart, with his finger—“you all love one another fiercely. He’ll come around so long as I prove to him I’m worthy of you, never doubt it.”
I scoffed. “I wish I was so sure.”
Luc walked up to us, hands in his pockets. His blond hair was pulled back in his miniature ponytail, his face impassive. He wasn’t looking at me. Ever since the kiss in the room, things had been cordial but aloof. “We roll in an hour. Anything you can’t pack, we leave.”
Then he too was gone.
I had not one but two trailers to pack up. I wasn’t really packing anything up so much as securing it so that when we moved, the entire contents of our house didn’t crash down on me.
Asher worked silently beside me. At one point, he indicated the hole in my bathroom wall.
I snorted. “Hopefully the next place has an Ace Hardware. No time now.”
Neither one of us talked much after that. So much had happened in just a matter of days that I needed a moment to process it all.
I felt a lot like Luc did. Whoever this Triad was, I wasn’t sure we were any match for them. And leaving as we were was a start, but the demon in me was galled by the thought that we were tucking tail and running.
That wasn’t what was actually happening, but to my demons it felt no different.
Good on his word, Luc rolled us out of there an hour later. Fast as we worked, we still had to leave a few things behind. Like the tents and rides.
Bubba glamoured everything so that no humans could come and mess with it, also so that the weather couldn’t rust or damage things. But that was the very best we could do in such a short amount of time.
Asher drove ahead of me in my actual home, I pulled Kemen’s, and behind me were Luc and Vyx.
I drove silently, at first intending to have nothing but silence and the tapping of my fingers on the wheel. But after a while the thoughts in my head began to get to me. Popping in a cassette tape, I listened to the sounds of Mozart for a while. But that was only making me feel more anxious and paranoid. So I swapped it out for Ride the Lightning by Metallica and felt a little better.
The hard, crunchy riffs helped to take my mind off the depressing fact that because of some supposed prophecy written by an unheard-of quack, I was now on the run and forcing the rest of my family into hiding too.
Along the way, we stopped at our many plots of land, depositing things at each one. Lightening our load with each stop, Luc’s thinking was that by not placing all our eggs in one basket, if one place got compromised, not everything would be lost.
We drove all day and all night, and though sleep would have been nice, it wasn’t necessary for us. We stopped only for gas and to make the occasional drop-off. By the time we reached the Arizona border two days later, all we had left were our homes.
Asher was concealing us in his shadow as best he could, but as strong as he was, even I recognized that he was stretching himself thin between thirty trucks and trailers. At the next stop, I got out.
“Luc.” I gestured to him as we took turns refilling our tanks.
Jogging over to me, he nodded his head. The skin under his eyes was dark and I knew he was tired. It made me wonder how long he’d gone without sex. In fact, all of us looked haggard and worse for wear.
In ten minutes, I’d single-handedly managed to turn my family’s lives upside down. Didn’t exactly make me feel good about myself.
“What’s the matter?” Blue eyes roamed my face.
“Maybe we should trace to Florida from here. Ditch the trailers for now.” Years ago, Luc had acquired swampland. It was infested with mosquitos and gators and snakes, but that also meant that not many people, humans or otherwise, traipsed through there. It would be a good place to stay for a while. At least until we could decide where to go from there.
He shook his head. “No. Asher and I talked, and we’ve decided that there’s a good chance the Triad’s got trackers with them. They know how we like to move. Best way to keep them off our scent is to travel like humans and not use our powers.”
Luc wasn’t referring to hounds, but magic tracers—witches who could latch on to the energy field left behind whenever magic was used. “But Asher’s cloaking us in shadow.”
Gazing up at the dawn sky, he nodded. “I know. But now that the sun’s coming up, we can’t keep traveling that like that anyway.”
Rubbing at his eyes, he sighed.
“We need to lighten our load even more then.”
“I’m all ears.”
Vyxen walked up to us. Glancing at me for a second, she shoved a yellow bag of M&M’s at Luc before getting back in their truck. Not only wasn’t she wearing her crazy wig today, but she was also wearing gray sweatpants and a gray work-out shirt. The green of her eyes had been muted and was normal-looking, and her brown hair was slicked down and tucked behind her ears in an elfin bob.
If I hadn’t known her for who she was already, I would never have pegged her as Envy. Seeing her gave me an idea.
“How many of us are paired off?”
Narrowing his eyes, he nodded. “Buddy up. Good idea. That’ll kill half the load right there.”
“’Bout a mile back there’s a range of mountains that would serve as a truck graveyard. When we can, if we can, we’ll come back for them.”
Waving his finger in the air, he lifted his voice. “Listen up, everyone!”
Those outside their trucks turned to him.
“From here on out, we’re buddying up. I don’t care who with, but choose a partner. We’re going to drop our final load off. Now, if everyone’s gassed up, let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”
The partnering-up commenced. I sensed Asher behind me.
Smiling, I turned just as his arms wrapped around me. I rubbed his back as he leaned into me.
“Admit it, you just missed me,” he whispered and there was a definite chuckle in his words.
Kissing his cheek, I felt the press of several sets of eyes, but I didn’t care enough to hide my affection for him. “Absolutely, Priest.”
“So which one are we keeping?”
I loved how proprietary he was sometimes. Tugging at the tips of his hair brushing his neckline, I jerked my chin toward Kemen’s trailer. “That one.”
“That one’s falling apart, Pandora. Wouldn’t you rather be with your books and music? I know how much you love that stuff.”
My heart melted that he knew me that way. Getting gifts was great, but when your partner took the time to actually know you, to recognize what made you tick, those were the real gifts and something that could never be bought.
“I’ll transfer over a few things. And I can fix Kemen’s trailer.” I fluttered my fingers over his plain black T-shirt.
His knuckles brushed my cheek. “He really meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”
“He was the only one who never demanded I be anything other than me. Kemen accepted me for who I was. He was my only real friend.”
Kissing me tenderly, he whispered, “You’re not alone anymore, little demon.”
The heat of those words rolled through me like molten silver, filling me from my head to my toes.
“Moving out!” Luc cried, then got into his truck and started it up.
“I guess that’s our cue.” I sighed because my butt was in no hurry to sit down for another twelve hours. “Hey.” I fisted his shirt as he started to move away. “Don’t shadow us anymore. If they do have tracers, we can’t afford to leave a scent.”
“See you in a bit.” His dimple poked out.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love that thing?
An hour later we’d made our final, for real this time, deposit. Good to my word, I’d transferred my bookcase and shelves, along with my two acoustic guitars, to Kemen’s trailer. It made the living room much less roomy, but it was definitely beginning to feel more like home.
Asher had offered to take over the driving, and I wasn’t about to argue. Curling up in the seat next to him, I allowed myself to become hypnotized by the road and desert landscape, by the blue of the morning sky and the red of canyon rock, how it glistened and gleamed when the sun struck a vein of metal inside it.
“Priest?” I finally whispered.
“Hmm?” He turned to me.
“Do you think they’ll hate me for putting them in this situation?”
His smile was warm. “Little demon, why are you desperate to hang the cares of the world across your shoulders?”
I scowled. “I do not.”
He nodded. “You do. You blame yourself for things you cannot change. Luc understands that truth; the others do too.”
Roadkill that once must have been a deer but was now just a mealy mass of red stuff on the side of the road zoomed by my peripheral vision.
“I don’t like that Bubba looked at me that way.” I sighed and shifted on my seat, butt completely numb after three days of nonstop driving. “I’m such a freaking softy. It’s my one fatal flaw.”
Gripping my knee, he gave it a tender squeeze. “Every last one of them is as human as you, Pandora. The only difference is you’re the only one brave enough to accept it. They don’t hate you—if they did, you’d know it.”
I laughed, rolling my eyes and sighing. “You’re so good at that.”
“What?” He chuckled.
“Letting me be me. Thanks for not making me feel like shit about it.”
He snorted. “Nephilims—you are a crazy bunch.”
But I wasn’t offended, because I knew Asher was only teasing me. Tucking my hair behind my ear, I closed my eyes and drifted off.
I didn’t wake again until I felt the truck slow down.
“We’re here,” he murmured.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes and realizing just how exhausted I must have been if I could actually fall asleep in that scrunched-up position, I yawned and looked around.
Green moss dangled from fat tree limbs. Tall grass swayed, brushing against the side of the door as we slowly wound our way through the dirt trail to a clearing about five hundred yards back.
The sun was sinking below the marshy horizon. Gators drifted like logs through the water, their glowing eyes reflecting back at me. A giant blue dragonfly with wings that easily spanned the length of my palm—looking like it’d stepped foot straight out of the Jurassic era—zipped by our windshield. Already I could see the haze of mosquitos buzzing about.
“Home sweet home.” Even though we’d not been back here for sixty-something years, nothing looked like it’d changed. There was no civilization encroaching on this land; it was as wild and untamed as it must have been thousands of years ago.
Thankfully our wards had held. The grass we’d cleared to make our glade was still as short as it’d been in the fifties. At the time, our family unit had only been twenty-five strong. In hindsight, it was a good thing we’d dumped our trucks. There was now more than enough room for us to park wagon-circle style.
Getting out, I slammed the door, stretched my arms above my head, and lifted up on my toes, tingling with the sudden rush of blood to my extremities.
“Kane, Lilith,” Luc barked, back in boss mode, “get some generators going; string up some lights.”
“I’ll get the chow tent going too.” Corriene cracked her neck from side to side and then sauntered off, lifting the hatch of her trailer and pulling out a large bundle of nylon fabric.
“Well, come on, dear.” I waggled my brows at Asher, who looked no worse for wear, even though we’d traveled almost half a week straight. “Let’s go play house.”
“We don’t have to help set up?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
Luc caught my eyes and shook his head, almost as if he’d heard Ash. Which maybe he had—Asher hadn’t whispered.
I headed for our trailer. “Priest, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re not exactly Mr. Popular at the moment. Don’t know if you knew that. Best if we just get inside now.”
Asher pinched my ass hard and growled, “You’re hilarious.”
Swatting his hand, I mock glared at him. He didn’t need to know that my insides were melting like wax and my heart was all fluttery and racy like a virgin walking through a football team’s locker room.
I opened the door, pleased to note that aside from some of Kem’s clothes that’d slipped out of the hamper, everything was as I’d arranged it.
Once in the living room, I pushed the coffee table aside, just enough to make room for my bookshelves. I was stacking the books when Asher called out to me.
“Pandora, did you put this here?”
Turning, I immediately noticed the large red mum in his hand. Narrowing my eyes, I stalked to him and snatched it out of his hands. “Where’d you find this?”
Pointing to the small kitchen table, he said, “Just sitting in the middle. But I don’t remember seeing that earlier.”
“It’s because it wasn’t there.” I rushed to the front door, blood hammering through my veins as I practically ripped it off its hinges.
There was no one outside apart from my family. How had we been discovered already? We’d been so careful. The thought of telling Luc we’d already been discovered made me sick to my stomach.
“There.” Asher pointed across my shoulder to the tall grass.
I followed the arrow of his arm and immediately spotted a familiar face. It was the old taco-stand woman. Her beady brown eyes, so dark they were almost black, held mine without flinching. Saw grass rolled and waved around her, camouflaging her well. I knew no one else was aware of her; they were all moving around, doing their tasks as efficiently and routinely as they always did.
God, what was wrong with us that an enemy could literally walk into our camp and no one noticed? Had we really become that careless about our safety?
“Just you and me right now, Ash,” I whispered.
Feeling his nod, I tossed the flower onto the stairs and marched over to the woman. But just as I got within striking distance, she flickered back. I ignored the sharp slashes of saw grass across my exposed flesh as I rushed to her.
Asher touched my arm, grabbing my attention. Laying a finger across his lips, he jerked his head in the opposite direction. He nodded and I knew he was telling me he was going to help me set a trap, force the old woman to stop running or risk getting caught.
I nodded and waited until I could no longer see him before moving on. Cicadas chirped and gators made rolling, rattling mating calls. The world was alive and vibrant. Animals had a sixth sense when it came to intrinsically understanding something dangerous was about.
When the world was silent, I listened, and when it breathed and lived, I listened too. The animals weren’t silent or scared, which meant this woman wasn’t a threat. Making a decision, I stopped chasing her. “What do you want, old woman?” I called out, standing my ground in a swampy, marshy field that sucked at my boots.
In an instant she was in front of me. She wore a dress of vibrant orange that fell to her knees. Her salt-and-pepper hair was long and silky, hanging free to her waist. Tucked behind her ear was a red mum. And though she was old, there was a regality to her that called people to notice her.
Asher stepped out from behind her. He didn’t seem surprised by what I’d done. In fact, I’d bet anything he’d come to the same conclusion I had. The woman wasn’t a danger to us.
Just as last time, she merely stared at me.
All along, I’d been searching for the hive. It’d never occurred to me that the queen had been in my presence all along.
“You’re the zombie queen, aren’t you?”
Her lashes flickered and then she slowly shook her head.
My eyes narrowed. “You’re not the queen?”
My queen requests to see you. Again she spoke in my head, but now that I was prepared for it, it wasn’t as much of a shock as the first time.
I pursed my lips, not realizing Asher had come back to me until his warm hand grasped my elbow. “You okay?”
“The queen wants to see us.”
It took him less than a second to digest what I was saying. His head whipped toward the old woman. “She knows the queen?”
“Apparently so.”
“Where is she?” He turned to the old woman. “Is she close?”
It was eerie the way her head moved slowly in his direction. Her eyes were flat and her emotions unwavering. Slowly, she shook her head in the negative.
Nibbling on the corner of my lip, I wasn’t sure what to do. A part of me really wanted to go, just to get to the bottom of the whole zombie angle. If I was meeting the queen, it was because she had something to tell me.
Knowing now that the zombies I’d faced had been genetically modified by the Triad, I wondered what, if anything, the queen knew about it. On the other hand, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to face down another swarm.
She means you no harm.
The voice echoed through my skull like the tolling of church bells, loud and sure and clear.
“She says we’ll be safe.” I turned to Asher, nibbling on my thumb.
His jaw clenched and his finger traced the sensitive skin of my forearm, but he didn’t say anything. He was letting me make this decision. As much as I appreciated that, I still wanted some sort of input.
“What do you think?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, and I wanted to wrap my arms around him. Asher was quickly becoming my safety blanket. I felt secure when I was with him. Even if I wasn’t really, just knowing the priest had my back went a long way toward keeping me at ease. I slipped my palm into the back pocket of his low-slung jeans and squeezed his ass.
His dimple flashed at me as he said, “I think we don’t know anything that really matters at this point to aid us in our search. Without Grace, we no longer have an inside source to lead us. If the queen can give us something, then it doesn’t hurt to try.”
“And if it’s a trap?”
He laughed. “Then we run like hell. I won’t let them hurt you, little demon.”
“I guess we should tell Luc then.”
“I don’t.” He twisted his lips. “In most things, I’d say yes. But we just got here, your family is confused, and right now they don’t need their leader running off to God knows where.”
I exhaled, stomach twisting. I had a partner this time. One I trusted implicitly to watch my back. I wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
That revelation struck me like a Mack truck.
Squaring my shoulders, I turned back to the old woman. A breeze kicked up then, bringing with it the briny scent of water and the sweet odor of raw almonds. I’d smelled the almonds in the carnival too, but it was odd to smell it out here.
“We both go, or not at all,” I told her.
She didn’t complain or say another word; instead, she held her hand out to mine.
Hanging tight to Asher’s hand, I grabbed on.