Tracker: A Rylee Adamson Novel (20 page)

We headed toward the cave and within seconds were plunged into darkness. “What kind of trouble are we talking about this time?” I put a hand to the wall and let my Tracking guide me.

“If there is no leader by the close of the equinox,” Faris said, “the vampire nation, which includes the Daywalkers, will go mad and unleash on the world in an epic meltdown.”

I grimaced and kept walking. “Sounds like fun.”

Doran laughed and the sound flexed around us, echoing in the cave. “Fun, yeah, not so much. I saw it happen once; I do not recommend that happening again. It not only decimated the human population, it decimated our own. That is why there are so few of us now.”

There seemed to be a light growing ahead of us, though I couldn’t be sure. “Anyone else seeing this?”

“Rylee, you are fucking kidding, right?” Jack grunted. “You’ve got the bloody worst fucking eyes of the bunch of us, and you want to know if we see glowing shit ahead?”

That was the Jack I knew. “Yeah, well, you aren’t always that observant.”

Laughter tripped through the group, but it ceased in a sudden biting halt as we stepped out of the long tunnel and into a cave.

Thirteen shamans (and yes, I was sure they were shamans because one of them was Al) sat in a circle around a fire. On the walls petroglyphs depicted what some might say was the past. Humans with oversized fangs, winged serpents, lines shooting out of people’s hands. Made sense to me, and I wondered what the humans made of it.

Doran stepped forward. “I am here, to claim the throne.”

Just that? That was it? No way, that was too fucking easy.

Damn me for being right.

Pain was far too weak a word; pain was a fly bite compared to a body being skinned alive. He couldn’t stop the screams, the howls erupting out of him. The magic they used, it burned like fire, like a thousand knives jabbing into his organs, the brutal pain of bones snapping and splintering, and then played with. At some point, they’d forced him to shift back to human form. Or had he done that on his own? He couldn’t be sure what exactly happened. Everything was a blur beyond sending Pamela and the others away.

At some point, the assault stopped, and a voice whispered in his ear, male, but high pitched like a young boy’s voice. “You are a stubborn one. I will give you a single chance to join us, wolf. And if you do not, we will kill you. It is apparent you are far too capable of slipping bonds. How you got the collar off, I would truly like to know, though, will you tell me that much?”

Liam focused on his breathing. There was no going back. The equinox would be here soon enough and there would be no stopping Ingers or the Black Coven. Maybe he could fool them though, stop this long enough to—

“And believe me, if you lie to me, wolf, I will know.”

He drew in a deep, burning lungful of air. “Go fuck yourself, witch.”

“Ah, I thought that might be your answer; then let us end it, end it right now, yes?”

A voice rang out. “I think not, Jaron.”

The smell of roses and magic wrapped around him, and he knew Milly had come back. But he also knew she couldn’t jump them both out of there. Not with his inability to cross the veil unless it was a physical crossing. Like a doorway in the castle.

“Milly, go.” He barely managed the words over the fighting.

“Liam, I can’t. I can’t leave y
ou.” She was battling too many, he knew it, knew he couldn’t help her. Not the condition he was in. Couldn’t even open his eyes past the swelling.

But she would lose. And no point in them both dying. He forced himself to his knees, swayed and slumped forward, his face smashing into the unforgiving concrete.

Power surged and then Milly lay on the ground beside him. She pressed a hand over him, and the healing flooded him was almost as bad as the pain the coven inflicted on him.

“Run, Liam. Run,” she whispered and he heard the pain in her voice. She was hurt. He opened his eyes, saw blood running down the side of her face as she passed out. No way he could leave her behind.

They were so screwed.

Chapter 19

T
he shamans turned
to us as a unit, their eyes widening as they saw me and Alex.

“You’re shitting me. You’ve never seen a werewolf before?”

Al rushed to me. “You must leave, now. This is a place only for vampires and the shamans who oversee the ceremony. We are protected from the old ones’ hunger. You are not.”

He shoved me backward, but Alex was behind me and I flipped over his back, hitting the ground hard. My right arm hit a serrated rock and my ighhrnotskin split.

“Fuck, I’m going.” I rolled to my side, arm dripping bright red droplets to the ground.

Al let out a groan. “Too late, too late.”

A rumble in the ground and the rock bent and flexed around us, like a giant hand. Spikes of rock shot up through the ground, and down from the ceiling, blocking the doorway.

I pulled my swords free. “Al, tell me this is for show.”

The old shaman closed his eyes as he sank back into the circle and raised his hands above his head. “We cannot protect you, Rylee. I am sorry.”

Berget moved to stand in front of me. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

Faris gave a slow nod. “Neither will I.”

Alex gave a shiver and a low rumble, deeper than anything I’d ever heard from him rolled through the cavern. “No hurts Rylee.”

A soft laugh escaped Doran. “Nor will I allow them to harm you.”

Jack snorted. “Do you even have to fucking well ask?”

A solidarity I never expected filled the room. Four vampires, who all at one point had been my enemy, now stood between me and a sure death. I gave a slow nod, accepting this for what it was. I could not survive on my own; there was no way, even if I wasn’t dealing with a massive blood loss.

That didn’t mean I was lowering my blades, not for a second.

The far wall cracked, a jagged line ripping through the hard rock, through the symbols etched thousands of years ago.

Dust rolled ahead of the crack, filling the room, dimming the light. The fire sputtered and spit, flickered and then grew in intensity as the particles settled. Blinking to clear the grit from my eyes, I stared hard at the four figures emerging from their stone coffins.

Skeletally thin, their clothing—what was left of it—barely hung in tatters from their frames. Their eye sockets were deep and black, no apparent eyes to poke out if they got too close. They stepped forward, fanning out to face us along the wall.

They spoke as a unit. “Fresh blood has come to waken our sleep, no longer to be feasted upon by those who wish power seek us out, but to seek out our rightful place in this world.”

I braced myself, but it wasn’t me they came for.

The four of them launched at the circle of shamans. Despite what Al said, he was wrong. They were no more protected than I was.

I didn’t stop to think if I was being smart; there was no way I could let the shamans die. My fanged tag team jumped in, pulling shamans out of the way and pretty much throwing them behind our “line” of defense.

“Al!” I ran to him as an old one snaked an arm out. Fast, but not the freaky scary fast of vampires I was used to. We had a chance. “They’re still weak, kill them!”

Easier said then done. And of course, me and my big fat mouth got their attention. I drove my sword through the heart region of the one holding Al and twisted hard. Bones broke and shattered under the force. The old one dropped Al—who scuttled backward—but it didn’t die. The other old ones drained shaman after shaman, faster than I could have imagined; we couldn’t save them all.

I pulled Al and another shaman with me, back to the blocked entranceway. Half the shamans had been drained in a matter of seconds.

Faris, Doran, Berget, and Jack didn’t stop them once they got the shamans away. “What the fuck, are you four just taking i juonds.n the performance?”

“Doran needs their blood, all four of them, if he is to be our leader. We can’t kill them, we have to subdue them,” Faris said.

Oh fan-fucking-tastic. How do you subdue vampires who were full of blood lust, and enraged they’d been imprisoned for who the fuck knows how long? Yeah, I didn’t know either.

Four vampires on our side, four very old and very angry vampires on the other. Like some sadistic version of red rover, red rover, let’s call the weak one over and eat her.

I didn’t take my eyes from the old ones who in turn were eyeing up the younger vampires in front of them. “Al, tell me you can put them back to sleep.”

He leaned heavily on the wall. “Yes, there is a way, but they must be drained of all their blood once more.” He let out a moan and under his breath I heard him whisper. “I cannot believe our spells did not protect us.”

More than likely, they had the spell wrong. Shit, I could only guess how long it had been since the last time the ancients had been brought forth. Thousands of years, maybe.

With everything I had, I fought the groan that tried to escape me. Nothing, nothing could be easy or go the way we planned.

“One at a time, boys and girls, let’s keep this orderly.” I swung my swords in loose circles beside me, my confidence wavering under the steely-eyed gaze of the old ones. They weren’t really looking at anyone else.

Just me.

Awesome, just what I wanted for Christmas, whole new sets of bite marks.

Alex moved in front of me, teeth snapping, and suddenly he looked the part, no longer the cowering wolf that hid behind me. For the first time, he looked like the scary, vicious werewolf he could be.

We were in a deadly standoff, tension rising as the old ones seemed to debate how best to take us out. It was pretty apparent we were on their dessert list.

Not really how I saw my life ending.

A breath in, a breath out, and the old ones attacked. Faris, Doran, Berget, and Jack each took one on.

Faris, Doran, and Berget held their own, using their physical abilities, along with vampiric powers to keep the old ones from breaking through to the rest of us.

Jack, on the other hand, was not doing so well. Being the youngest of the vampires made him the weakest. He was pushed back, step by step, until closer to me and the shamans. I wanted to help, but they moved so fast, I only saw what they were doing a split second after it happened. I couldn’t keep up with them. So I balanced on my toes, fatigue and nausea rolling through me, waiting for what I knew was coming.

Jack couldn’t fend this one off. The blows from the old one came harder and faster, like a lion feeling his prey weaken. The old one’s power rippled forward, smashing Jack in the chest, dropping him to his knees.

When it picked up Jack to feed on him, I hesitated, my heart faltering with what had to be done. If the old one took Jack’s blood, it was even more power for those we fought.

Jack’s eyes met mine, the swirl of the three blues filled with sadness. “My blood will give him too much. Do it.”

With every ounce of strength and regret I possessed, I drove my sword, through Jack’s neck, clipping into the old one behind him. Jack’s body convulsed, his eyes frosting over as his head rolled. The old one dropped the husk of a body that had moments before been Jack to the floor. A snarl rippled over his blood-stained teeod- eyesth as he spoke to me, his English heavily accented but still clear.

“The young ones, they can’t take a blow like that and survive. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

I held my sword up. “You old timers can’t take a blow like that and survive either, asshole.”

As the old one advanced, I backed away. Sure, I’d stopped him from feeding on Jack, but there were still a number of potential victims. I couldn’t kill them all.

“Al, you and the shamans stay behind us!”

Alex moved to my side and let out a snarl that under any other circumstance would have startled the shit out of me. But there was no room for shock, not here.

The old one, grey hair hanging to his shoulders, pitch black eyes with the barest hint of white in them, and a set of fangs that would put Tespa to shame, attacked. The eyes were different than when they’d first emerged. The fresh blood was bringing them back to life. Not good, not good at all.

His mistake was discounting Alex. The old one swept a hand to knock Alex back, but the werewolf had tangled with vampires a few times now. He ducked under the hand and tackled the vamp to the floor, snapping both of the its knees. I jumped forward and drove my sword through the old one’s heart and into the stone floor.

I lay my second blade against his neck. “Let’s keep this nice and simple. You don’t move, I won’t take your ugly head, got it?”

His black eyes glared up at me. “Heathen bitch.”

“That’s a new one. I’ll add it to my collection.” I grinned until something tried to sweep me backward. I say try, because it was an old one using power against me. Power that slid around me, melting like ice in a volcano.

I lifted my eyes to the old one, a woman, and grinned at her too. I even gave her a wink. She was in the middle of a fight with Berget, but seemed to be attempting to take us both. Not smart on her part. “Try again, dipshit.”

Yes, egging on a very old, very angry vampire didn’t tend to be good for one’s health. She leapt at me, launching through the air over Berget’s head.

Thank the gods I had kick ass vampires on my side of the fence. Doran snatched her mid-air and burrowed his fangs into her neck, draining her so fast I saw her skin shrivel and shrink, tightening over her cheekbones until as skeletal as she’d been before. Maybe even more so.

He dropped her body and she hit the ground with a rattling thump, the sound of a bag of bones clacked together. Behind Doran lay another lump of bones that twitched periodically.

Faris pinned his opponent face down to the ground. “Take him, Daywalker.”

Doran came toward me, calling over his shoulder, “Hold him, Faris.”

No animosity hinted in their voices, more of a camaraderie I didn’t expect. But then again, they fought for the same reason now, finally working together.

Doran drained the old one I held, then Faris’s captive. Four lumps of bones under rumpled cloth scattered the floor.

Just like that, it was over, the battle done. I moved to Jack’s body, felt the momentary high at surviving another near death situation, dissipate.

Another friend gone. I bent a put a hand to his face, my heart whispering goodbye to. I glanced at Berget and she smiled, though it was tired; maybe not all of this was a loss. A year, Doran said the opal would last a year. I refused to think about what would come after that. There would be a way to keep her heto of re, to keep her from the madness.

Doran and Faris dragged the remains of the old ones back to the hole they’d come out of, bantering back and forth. Like old friends.

Al and the remaining shamans stepped forward like nothing had happened and Faris stepped back, leaving Doran to face the shamans on his own.

“You chose well, Tracker. Doran will make a good leader,” Faris said softly as the shamans conducted what I assumed was the final ceremony.

“How could Berget not have known this was where the Blood resided? She held the memories of the last Emperor and Empress. Why didn’t they tell her where to go?”

Berget slipped beside Faris. “Because there is a different task every time. This is the first time in thousands of years, perhaps the first time ever, that the task involved the Blood. From what I understand”—she frowned and I could almost see her accessing memories that were not her own—“something of this magnitude only happens in times of desperation. Doran will be, is stronger, than any other vampire this world has known. He holds not only the strength of a vampire and shamanic abilities within him, but now carries the strength of all the old ones. And he has not lost his soul. I do not know why, but it resides in him yet.”

I couldn’t help the shiver that ran down my spine. Faris and Berget stared at me, perhaps guessing my thoughts. If either of them had taken the blood of the old ones, there would be no stopping them.

Fuck me sideways—that had been closer than I dared think about.

It all happens for a reason, Rylee. You know that,
Giselle’s voice whispered through my brain. Yes, it all happened for a reason, but sometimes seeing the reasons laid out were more than my measly brain could handle.

Alex grinned up at me. “Alex kicks ass.”

I reached a hand and touched the top of his head. “You sure did.”

He continued to grin, a horrible twisting of lips and teeth that was as g
oofy as ever. But behind that grin, I felt a change in him. Submissive to me, maybe he always would be. The submissive werewolf he was, though, with everyone else, that part was gone.

Going home would be interesting.

Home. The very word made me ache for it.

I could only hope I had a warm welcome and Liam wouldn’t be pissed as hell with me for being gone so long, and leaving so much sooner than I’d thought, and without even saying goodbye.

I let out sigh and leaned against the wall, the stone cool against my skin.

Yeah, Liam would be pissed. Maybe he’d even try to punish me for it.