Darkness Devours (40 page)

“Ris,” Tao called from the other room. “Dinner is up!”

I pulled somewhat reluctantly out of Azriel’s arms. His grip slipped from my waist to my elbow. “Ready?”

I nodded, and with his help, I made it into the living area. Ilianna appeared out of the kitchen, her smile wide and her expression filled with relief.

“Damn, it’s good to have you back.” She stopped in front of me and dropped a kiss on my cheek. “I’d hug the hell out of you, but you look rather fragile at the moment.”

“I look it because I feel it.” With Azriel’s help, I eased down onto a chair. “I think I need a mountain of food and Coke, and I don’t care which comes first.”

“Both are on their way,” she said, and headed back to the kitchen.

Tao came out of the kitchen, handed me a large glass of Coke, then pulled out a chair to sit beside me. The doorbell rang, and he hesitated. “You expecting anyone?”

I shook my head.

“Nor me,” Ilianna said from the confines of the kitchen.

“A human stands at the door,” Azriel noted, then cocked his head sideways a little. “A messenger. He leaves.”

Oh god, I thought, trepidation suddenly so thick it practically closed my throat. The last two times a messenger had come to our door it was to deliver a message from my father, and a whole lot of trouble had ensued.

I wasn’t ready for that.

I really wasn’t.

I licked my lips and looked up at Tao. “We’d better see what’s been left this time.”

He nodded and walked across the room. I twisted around to watch him. He punched the code on the security panel and the door slid open, revealing a plain brown envelope. He swooped, picked it up, then closed the door and walked back.

My gaze dropped to the envelope and my throat went dry. It was from my father. I recognized the handwriting on the front.

I held out a hand and Tao silently gave it to me. Tension rode his movements and his expression was dark. He knew.

I took a deep breath to gather courage, then slid a fingernail under the edge. Inside was a solitary piece of paper. I pulled it out and opened it. The words inside were brief and to the point.

The time has come to find the second key. Meet me, usual place, two days from now.

I didn’t say anything. I closed my eyes and handed the piece of paper to Tao.

“Fuck,” he said. “This isn’t what we need right now.”

No, it wasn’t, but there wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it, either—except pray that fate would give us
a break. I didn’t think any of us could stand too much more hardship.

But even as that thought crossed my mind, I knew it was futile. Fate had abandoned us long ago, and everything we’d gone through so far was little more than the initial skirmish. The real war was coming, and if I was still alive at the end of it all, I’d be very fucking surprised.

I didn’t have the courage to go on, I thought wearily. Didn’t have the strength.

But even as the all-too-familiar doubts crossed my mind, I remembered everything I’d done and everything I’d been through—with the Raziq, the Rakshasa, the battle with my sword. Time and again, I’d done whatever had been needed to survive—sometimes with help, sometimes not.

I
had
the courage. I
could
do what had to be done.

Not matter what the consequences.

No matter what the cost.

Coming in November from Signet

“I need to speak to a ghost.”

Adeline Greenfield paused in the middle of pouring tea into her expensive china cups and looked at me.

“I was under the impression you already could.” Her voice, like her appearance, was unremarkable. With her short gray hair, lined face, and generous curves, she reminded me of the grandmotherly types often seen on TV sitcoms. It was only her blue eyes—or rather, only the power that glowed within them—that gave the game away. Adeline Greenfield was a witch, a very powerful and successful one.

“No. I mean, I
can
hear them, and sometimes I can see them, but they don’t seem to hear or acknowledge me.” I grimaced. “I thought if I was on the same plane as them—if I astral traveled to them—it might help.”

“Possibly.” She put the teapot back down and frowned. “But didn’t you help relocate a ghost that was causing all sorts of mischief at the Brindle?”

The Brindle was a witch depository located here in Melbourne, and it held within its bowels centuries of
knowledge, spells, and other witch-related paraphernalia. “Yes, but it wasn’t really a ghost. It was actually a mischievous soul who was undecided about moving on.”

“Souls are usually incapable of interaction with this world.”

“Yes, but the Brindle is a place of power, and that gave her the ability.”

She nodded sagely. “It is still odd that you cannot speak to them the same way your mother did, because I’m sure she said you had the skill.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You knew Mom?”

She smiled. “Those of us
truly
capable of hearing the dead are few and far between, so yes, I knew her. We had lunch occasionally.”

That
was something I hadn’t known. “Well, no matter what she may have believed, the dead
won’t
speak to me.”

“Ghosts
can
be vexing creatures,” she agreed. “And they often have no desire to acknowledge their death.”

“So how is ignoring me helping them disregard the fact they’re dead?”

She placed a couple of sugar cubes into each cup, then gently stirred the tea. “We’re talking about the dead here. Their minds are not what they once were, especially those who have been murdered.”

“I didn’t say he’d been murdered.”

“You didn’t have to. Trouble, my dear, darkens your steps, and it’s not such a leap to think that if you want to speak to a ghost, it’s because he died before his time. Otherwise, your reaper would have been able to find out whatever you needed.” She handed me a cup of tea, then glanced over my right shoulder. “I would prefer it, by the way, if you’d just show yourself. It’s impolite to skulk at the edges of the gray fields like that.”

Heat shimmered across my skin as Azriel appeared. Of course, he wasn’t strictly a reaper, as they were soul
guides. He was something much more—or, if you believed him, something much less—and that was a Mijai: a dark angel who hunted and killed the things that broke free from hell.

But what he hunted now wasn’t an escaped demon, daemon, or even a spirit—although we certainly
had
been hunting one of those. We’d gotten it, too, but not before the fucking thing had almost killed me. Which was why I was moving like an old woman right now—everything still hurt. I might be half werewolf, but fast healing was one of the gifts I hadn’t inherited enough of. In fact, I couldn’t shift into wolf shape
at
all
, and the full moon held no sway over me.

Of course, I
could
heal myself via my Aedh heritage, but shifting in and out of Aedh form required energy, and I didn’t have enough of that, either.

“That’s better,” Adeline said, satisfaction in her voice. “Now, would you like a cup of tea, young man?”

“No, thank you.”

There was a hint of amusement in Azriel’s mellow tones, and it played through my being like the caress of gentle fingers. Longing shivered through me.

Adeline picked up her own cup, a frown once again marring her homely features. “Why do you wear a sword, reaper? There is no threat in this house.”

“No, there is not,” he agreed.

When it became obvious he didn’t intend to say anything else, Adeline’s expectant gaze turned to me.

“He wears a sword because he’s helping me hunt down some—” I hesitated. For safety’s sake, I couldn’t tell her everything, yet I couldn’t
not
explain, either. Not if I wanted her help. “—rogue priests who seek the keys to the gates of heaven and hell so they can permanently close them.”

That raised her eyebrows. “Why on earth would anyone want that?”

“Because they’re not
of
earth.” They were Aedh, energy beings who lived on the gray fields—the area that divided earth from heaven and hell. Or the light and dark portals, as the reapers tended to say. While the reaper community had flourished, the Aedh had not. They’d all but died out, and only the Raziq—a breakaway group of priests—were left in any great numbers. “And they’ve decided it would be easier to permanently shut the gates to
all
souls rather than keep guarding against the occasional demon breakout.”

She frowned. “But that would mean no soul could move on and be reborn.”

“Yes, but they don’t care about that. They see just the bigger picture.”

“But surely the number of demons who break out of hell is minor when compared to the chaos closing the gates permanently would cause?”

“As I said, I don’t think the priests care.” Not about the human race in general, and certainly not about babies being born without souls and ending up little more than inanimate lumps of flesh. “They just want their lives of servitude to the gates ended.”

Which is how I’d gotten involved in this whole mess in the first place. The Raziq had developed three keys that would permanently open or close the gates. The only trouble was my father had not only stolen the keys but had arranged to have them hidden—so well even
he
knew only the general location. And as he could no longer take on flesh form, he now needed me to do his footwork, as only someone of his bloodline could detect the hidden keys.

In fact,
everyone
needed me—the Raziq, the reapers, the high vampire council. And all of them wanted the keys for very different reasons.

Adeline said, “And this is why you wish to speak so urgently to this ghost? He knows of the keys?”

I hesitated. “About the keys, no. But he might have some information about a dark sorcerer who could be tied
up in all this mess. We questioned our ghost when he was alive, but someone very powerful had blocked sections of his memories. We’re hoping death might have removed those blocks.”

“It’s a rather vague hope.”

“Which is still better than no hope.” I took a sip of tea, then shuddered at the almost bitter taste and put the cup down. Tea had never been my favorite beverage.

“When do you wish to start?” Adeline asked.

“Now, if possible.”

She frowned again. “Your energy levels feel extremely low. It’s generally not considered a wise—”

“Adeline,” I interrupted softly, “I may not get another chance to do this.”

Mainly because I’d been ordered by my father to retrieve a note from Southern Cross Station later that morning, and who the hell knew what would happen after
that
. But if past retrievals were any indication, then hell was likely to break loose—at least metaphysically speaking, if not literally.

She studied me for several moments, then sighed. “If you insist, then I must help you, even if it is against my better judgment.”

“Must?” I raised my eyebrows. “That almost sounds like you’ve been ordered to help me.”

“Oh, I have been, and by Kiandra herself, no less.” She eyed me thoughtfully. “You have some very powerful allies, young woman.”

Surprise rippled through me. Kiandra—who was head witch at the Brindle—had helped me on several occasions, but only
after
I’d approached her. That she was now anticipating my needs suggested she knew a whole lot more about what was going on than I’d guessed. “Did she say why?”

“She said only that your quest has grave implications for us all, and that it behooves us to provide assistance where possible.”

This suggested that Kiandra
did
know about the existence of the keys and our quest to retrieve them. And I guess that wasn’t really surprising—surely you couldn’t become the head of all witches without
some
working knowledge of the fields and the beings who inhabited them.

“Which is why I need to do this now, Adeline.”

She continued to study me, her expression concerned. “What do you know of astral traveling?”

“Not a lot, though I suspect it won’t be that dissimilar to traveling the gray fields.”

“It’s not. Astral travel is simply your consciousness or spirit traveling through earth’s realm, whereas you leave this world and move into the next when you journey to the gray fields. But there are a few rules and dangers you should be aware of before we attempt this.”

“There usually are when it comes to anything otherworldly.”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “Thought is both your magic carpet and your foe on the astral plane. If you want to go somewhere, think of the precise location and you will be projected there. By the same token, if you become afraid, you can create an instant nightmare.”

I nodded. She continued. “Be aware that any thought related to your physical body will bring you back to your body. This includes the fear that your physical body may be hurt in some way.”

I frowned. “If I can’t speak or move, how am I going to question my ghost?”

“I didn’t say you can’t move, and you think the questions, the same as you think of the location. Clear?”

“As mud.”

She eyed me for a moment, the concern in her expression deepening. “The astral plane is inhabited by two types of spirits: those who cannot—for one reason or another—move on spiritually, and other astral travelers.
And just like walking down the street, you cannot control who’s on the astral planes. But you
can
be certain that not all will be on the side of the angels.”

“So I should watch my metaphysical ass?”

“Yes. At your current energy levels, you could attract energies who are darker in life, and they may cause you problems on the astral plane
or
follow you onto this one.”

“I can handle unpleasant energies on
this
plane. And if I can’t, Azriel can.” I paused. “What of the dangers?”

Her expression darkened. “While you cannot die on the field itself, it is possible to become trapped there. It is also possible to become so enraptured by whatever illusion surrounds you on the plane that what happens there can echo through your physical being.”