Redemption: Alchemy Series Book #4 (3 page)

Little gasps of shock ran through the swarm.

"I just hope your third doesn't have anything to do with fighting."

"Of course not! We'd never fight, well
…not anymore." No one added
since Fred
, but it was silently understood.

"What's the third rule
, then?"

No one spoke and I watched them fly into a little cluster and whisper so low that it would be impossible for any human to hear.

Finally, Pinky spoke. "It used to be that your first night in Light Club, you had to go into the light."

I sucked a breath in through my teeth, knowing where this was going.

"After Chuck, we don't do that rule anymore."

"Chuck?"

"It was horrible. He went too far. He was like that, a risk taker to the end. All we heard was a horrible zapping noise. He managed to escape but he only made it to the window landing before he collapsed, exhausted. We screamed and screamed but he just didn't have the energy left. His last words were 'better to die young than to fade away'. It was the last time we saw him."

I heard the footsteps crunching in the snow
, coming from the direction of the castle, and knew the lightning bugs weren't going to be happy.

And right on cue, they chimed in. "He's coming again. Got to go!"

I looked behind me to see Burrom approaching. "I thought you liked Burrom?"

"Nope. He's off the VIB list!"

"You mean VIP?"

"No, VIB. Very Important to Bugs."

"Why'd he get bumped?"

"We heard him say we were
'just bugs.' Yeah, well he's just stupid."

The bugs flew off
, making little giggling noises, and I shivered as I turned around and watched Burrom approach. It was as if the Earth and night conspired for him. The moon hung full in the sky and glistening snowflakes started to fall as he walked the distance to me. The light from castle silhouetted his form, leaving just a hint of detail. And if I squinted my eyes just so, I could almost pretend it was Cormac.

But it wasn't. Cormac was gone. He'd walked out the door and I'd closed it. So I didn't squint and I didn't pretend. I accepted it for what it was and I used the pain to build the armor around my heart for the day he might return.

Burrom pulled off the jacket he had on and laid it upon my shoulders and followed up the gesture by pulling it closed in front of me. It was such a boyfriend act, but I didn't think he realized it, and I let it go unspoken. He had a carousel of women coming and going so often I think it was becoming second nature to him to behave like that.

"What's going on?" He looked in the direction of where the bugs had flown off.

"Nothing." I pulled the jacket snug to me and felt his leftover warmth. I turned and lifted my face to the snow. It was coming down heavily now and presented a clean and stark contrast to the destruction it was softly coating.

"Come on." I turned and walked closer to the drawbridge. It had once been a piece of metal that
had lain over the cracks in the surface, created by the first of the great storms. The magic saw fit to turn it into antiqued wood with old iron fittings. It even supplied a mechanism for raising and lowering it over the rushing water below.

Our f
ootsteps echoed loudly as we stepped across and into the middle of what used to be the Vegas strip. The buildings were charred skeletons of what they once were, destroyed and hollowed out. In twenty or thirty years, as a new generation was born and raised, they would never know the brilliance that had once existed where I now stood. When I closed my eyes on the new landscape, I could still remember the vivid lights.

One day, the picture would dull in my mind's eye, as it would for everyone. Fewer and fewer people would be around to tell the story of the incredible world we had once built. But, with the snow falling and reflecting the silver light of the moon, the world was almost pretty again. Hauntingly beautiful, one might say. 

The quiet peacefulness was eerily foreboding. The rippers, strange scaled monsters more fitting for a horror flick that terrorized us on a daily basis, were oddly absent. Burrom and I were the only ones outside.

"It is beautiful." Burrom's voice was deep with a rough timbre.

His face was raised to the sky, seemingly breathing in the environment. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn't have thought twice of the gesture. But it was Burrom, and so he might have been leaching some sort of energy I couldn't see. He took a couple steps farther and reached out his arms, palms up.

"It's glorious."

I watched him slowly circle around. "What's glorious?"

He let out a deep pleasing sound. "The magic. It's so strong and clean
, lately." He tilted his head in my direction and opened his eyes, a smile on his face. "I understand why he left."

"Who?" I purposely played stupid hoping he'd take the hint that the subject of Cormac was not open for discussion.

He lifted an eyebrow and I knew he wasn't going to let it rest.

"He was too sensitive to it and kept resisting it." He raised his face again. "Someone who was so intent on control, the way he was, would be unnerved by the flex and flow of it pulsing within him."

He let out a sad sigh of regret as he dropped his arms. "As much as I could stay here all night, I've got to go in. They've been making a real mess of my bar lately."

He walked back toward the castle, now a towering stone structure complete with turrets.

He stopped just long enough to wink at me. "Your secrets are safe with me," he said. "I agree with the lies you've spread." He then continued walking. "It's for the best, until he returns."

I didn't need to ask him why he agreed. It was better for everyone involved that Cormac's disappearance hadn't seemed unplanned and chaotic. People needed reassurances right now
, and thinking the one constant figurehead had abandoned them could rock the foundation.

"If he ever does," I yelled after him.

"He will."

Burrom continued into the casino but
he’d sounded so positive that hope sparked in my chest and it urged me to chase after him and question what he knew. But that would open up a Pandora's box of emotion I'd sealed away. It wasn't something that I could dip into. If I opened that box, it would break wide.

C
hapter Two

A New World Justice

"This is my pack," Rogo said, growling loudly as he faced down his opposition in what was now the great hall. A crowd was forming around them but no one dared to get closer than five feet.

It had been the main casino gambling floor not so long ago, but you would never know it now. There was the same stone as the exterior everywhere you looked, and not the faux stuff, but
a foot deep. I knew because I'd had to reopen a few doorways after the magic decided to redecorate. A large walk-in fireplace on one side helped offset the lack of modern heat in the room.

When I'd woke
n up this morning, I'd discovered we'd lost more electricity sometime in the night while we slept. At least the magic had the decency to supply torches along the walls.

"You aren't wolf enough to man your own pack," the other wolf, Kaz said.

I wasn't surprised the tensions had elevated to this point. Kaz was an alpha wolf who had come through a few months ago. I was more surprised it had taken this long for him to try to assert his dominance. I'd known he was going to be trouble as soon as I saw him standing in the portal, arrogantly demanding entry. His every action had reeked of supremacy.

Rogo surprised me though. I'd figured he would eventually back down and let him take over. Kaz seemed more dominant than Rogo. Guess I was wrong.

Kaz's chest was puffed up and I stood back, debating whether I should intervene. We were supposed to have a meeting in a few hours, to discuss the different contributions. I didn't know wolf politics, but I knew it would be a lot easier to deal with one alpha wolf than a bunch of different fractions like I had to do with Vitor and Burrom.

"We'll see about that," Rogo spat out. "I call Mortem Pugna."

"Accepted," Kaz replied before Rogo had barely finished speaking.

Just great. We were almost out of coffee, I might have to read my daily notes by torchlight
, and now these two morons were going to fight to the death before I'd had my quota of caffeine. No wonder this world was so uncivilized. Didn't anyone have manners, anymore? No blood until after I had my coffee. How many times did you have to tell them?

I guess it was time to get involved, sort of. "You'll take it outside," I said as I stepped forward out of the shadows, my favorite place these days. No one
could ask you questions you couldn't answer if they didn't see you.

"Don't give me those looks, you have no idea how hard it is to get blood out of stone floors. And don't even tell me the winner will clean it
, because you know it will be my issue. Just like Colleen's dog, who's shitting all over the place." It was bad enough the floors were stone, but must they be filthy, too? Couldn't a girl expect some sort of standards in her living conditions, even during the end of the world?

They stood, chests puffed up and still not budging.

"You both know I could take you down. Even paired up it's not looking good for you, so I suggest you heed my warning and take it outside." I pointed toward the doors, like they might have somehow forgotten the direction outside was.

They both growled and I stepped in between them. Just like in a dogfight, it's not normally a good idea to step in between a wolf fight either. I needed to take drastic measures. I was not dealing with another bloodstain.

I put a hand on either chest and pushed. "Not. Here."

They both finally nodded their acceptance. "Outside. Ten minutes," Rogo said.

The wolves disappeared, probably to change form. They usually fought in wolf form. I'd already witnessed a few skirmishes as the wolves integrated into their new positions and places in the pack.

The crowd in the hall around me was on fire, buzzing about what
had just happened as Burrom headed over.

"You have to lay off the mother angle. Makes you sound soft." I eyed up his current outfit. Too snug pants and a skin-tight tee.

"That's only because you're naïve. What do you know of mothers? Didn't a maple tree shit you out?"

It was hard to hear his snort over the din of the crowd gossiping. "I take it back. You sound just as you should."

I laughed. I knew how crude that had sounded.

"You're cool with this?" he asked, knowing how I hated the constant fighting.

"I would've stopped it if I wasn't. Besides the needless death aspect, I'm not sure it's worth trying to stop. This one is unavoidable." I couldn't imagine either Kaz or Rogo playing second fiddle for long.

"Do you have a dog in this fight? Pun intended." He stood, feet shoulder breadth apart, arms crossed as if he were discussing a football game that was about to start.

"I'm not fond of Rogo, but he's predictable, if not always controllable. I would prefer him to be the victor, but it will be easier on me either way. One less wolf to negotiate with." I shrugged and leaned against the now empty breakfast service table. "It's efficient, if not pleasant. What I don't get is, what's so wrong about just beating each other to a pulp and calling it a day, like normal people?"

Burrom leaned down closer to me. "It doesn't work for the wolves. If they didn't have the fear of death hanging over the confrontation
, there would be constant fighting for alpha."

I pushed up and started heading outside before all the good spots were taken.

"You want to watch?" he asked as he fell into step beside me.

"'Want' isn't the right word. I need to make sure it doesn't get out of hand and others don't try to jump in. Plus, I like to see them
in action." With the wolves making up about a third of the castle occupants, it was beneficial to have as much knowledge as possible. There was also the other issue of my mother's murderers, which I'd eventually have to deal with.

The crowd forced us to slow as we approached the doors outside. The entire casino was pouring out into the front courtyard to make sure they got a good view of the fight to come. That's my
peeps for you, just a good old bloodthirsty horde in every shape and size, furry, winged, scaled, and those were the ones I felt good about. It was the ones with hidden skills and talents that were most likely to take a person out. After all, it's always what you don't see coming that gets you in the end.

"Come on," he said. "You're going to miss your homework assignment."

We made our way out to the front courtyard, still covered in snow. The air was brisk and chilly. It must have dropped ten degrees since last night. 

The crowd parted for
me and Burrom, and opened up a spot in front so we'd have a great view of the violence. I eyed him, knowing he'd done something magical to encourage it. He smirked in response.