Wounded: Book 8 (A Rylee Adamson Novel) (17 page)

I stopped and looked to the far end of the docks, an old navy ship in the farthest berth bobbed lightly in the water. I squinted, using my measly second sight, and could see the lay of spells on the hull. They shimmered and danced in the blowing snow. If I didn’t know that it was black magic and witches, I would have thought the boat almost pretty. “That one, at the end. Why?”

Erik didn’t answer me. Instead he asked Frank a question. “How many dead can you sense?”

The kid cocked his head to one side, as if listening for voices only he could hear. “There’s a lot of dead people around here.”

But I had a suspicion I knew what he was talking about.

“In the water?”

He nodded and pointed to a rope ladder that spun down to touch the dark water. “Yeah, there are a lot in the water, but to get them up to the dock might take a bit of work. Zombies aren’t known for being coordinated.”

“I can lift them if there is a part of them dry from the salt water,” Pamela said. “But like I said, the other witches will be able to sense me working my magic, so I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

Berget tipped her head. “If there was something solid for me to stand on, I could throw the zombies onto the boat.”

Neither option looked good.

Crap, without a secure way to bring the zombies out of the water, I wasn’t sure it was going to be worth it.

“Frank, are there any dead bodies closer? Some from dry ground, perhaps?”

He rubbed his forehead. “No, sorry there aren’t.”

I wanted to groan and beat my head against the dock. “Well, we’ll just have to run with it and hope the gods are looking out for us.”

Frank and Pamela nodded and Erik lifted an eyebrow at me. I lifted an eyebrow right back at him.

“Let’s get closer, find a spot to hunker down and get a good look at these fuckers.” I led the way, finding a small alcove about a couple hundred feet from the boat. A part of my brain was ticking away at a small problem, one that no one had pointed out.

“Why the hell would they be on a boat?” I muttered.

Alex lay at my feet, his eyes glowing in the darkness. He tipped his head up, and mimicked Frank, cocking it to one side. “So they can go swimming easy.”

Erik laughed softly, but the laugh on my lips died. “Fucking hell, he’s right.”

“What?”

“Salt water nulls spells. If you were raising demons and running spells that could end your life if you weren’t careful, wouldn’t you want a big ass amount of salt water around?” I crouched, elbows on my knees and hands under my chin. “This is their fail safe, the harbor could save their asses and they know it.”

Pamela’s mouth dropped open. “How did Alex know?”

Alex grunted and rolled to his back, tongue flipping out between his teeth as he grinned up at us. “I is smarty smart now.”

Whether or not he knew didn’t really matter, I was sure it was the reason behind them being here. I stared at the big boat, eyed the only gangplank onto it. It looked about three feet wide and wasn’t secured on either side; just a piece of wood going across a slim portion of water between the dock and the boat.

I gave them all a hard look, one at a time. “You all stay here. I’m going to get a closer look. Frank, if I give you a thumbs up, you start raising your buddies. Let them just float to the surface of the water. Pamela, I’ll give a closed fist for lifting them out of the water and onto the deck of the boat. Berget, you see if you can circle around, come in from a different angle.”

Frank pushed his glasses up his nose and then rubbed his arms. Pamela gave me a grim smile. Some days I thought maybe she enjoyed the fighting a little too much. One more thing to discuss when we finally had our little heart to heart. Berget gave a short nod and with her spooky-ass speed, ran around to the other side of the docks, disappearing as she leapt onto the boat with a single bound.

“I’m going with you, Niece.”

I didn’t argue with Erik—no point—and I didn’t really mind. He was a good man to have at my back. Crouching, I scooted forward until I was behind a set of crates about ten feet away from the gangplank, Erik tight on my heels. From there, I peered around the corner without exposing my body.

Fifteen minutes passed with no movement on the boat, and no feeling of much of anything from the witches or the kids. Everything was pretty quiet. It made me nervous.

The waves splashed against the dock below and I looked back toward my group. On the dock, the snow had accumulated and, fuck it all, Alex crept forward, leaving large footprints in the snow. I glared at him, but he didn’t slow until he was at my side.

“Boss says watch over you.” He sat, wagged his tail and looked up at me. “I keep you safe.”

Nothing I could do now.

The minutes passed and the snow fell, coating everything around us. That would make the plank slick, and even more deadly to cross. I signaled to Frank, giving him a thumbs up.

I didn’t feel anything, didn’t sense a disturbance in the force, as it were. A loud splash from below drew my eyes down. There, to one side of the boat, bodies floated to the surface. And damn they were nasty.

“Stinkers,” Alex grumbled. That they were. The zombies had not been well-preserved, and I wondered how so much flesh remained when they’d been in salt water for hell knew how long. Bones stuck through in a lot of places, flashes of white in the water, dark pits for eyes. I shuddered, remembering the old vampires we’d faced in the Australian desert. They’d started out with dark pits for eyes too.

The zombies floated along, like lazy vacationers, as the clouds above us opened up and icy cold rain poured around us. At least that would serve Pamela well in raising the zombies out of the water, rinsing portions of them clean of the salt.

A scream erupted from the deck of the boat, a woman’s voice letting out the sound of sheer terror across the docks, and I froze. Slowly, moving so I could see around the crate, I peered up at the deck.

“Fuck me,” I whispered.

A flash of a blue dress and a dark suit caught my eyes.

I didn’t know how the witches managed to grab them and beat us here, but the black coven had my parents.

Chapter 11

AT SOME POINT, the darkness began to fade and he knew he wasn’t going to die. He lay on the cold, bare ground, the sharp winter wind coursing through the night air, ruffling his fur. But he could feel the discomfort, and that meant he was alive. Hands wrapped around him, the scent of a woman filling his nose. He recognized her and the wolf in him identified the pack bond between them.

Voices floated in his ears and around his head.

“You can’t move him until I finish the healing. It was started, but there was too much hate in the one who did the healing. Too much anger.”

His wolf took another deep breath, scenting the two women who were arguing. Neither was his mate, both were shamans. A growl slipped past his lips and the hands on him increased in pressure in response.

“Be still, Liam. I can heal you, but this will take time.”

That was Louisa, her name floated to the front of his brain. Louisa was in New Mexico … he forced one eyelid up. It was like trying to lift a truck with one finger, but he managed.

The movement around him was a blur of bodies and faces. He caught sight and scent of a few he knew. But not Rylee.

He tried to whisper her name, forgetting he was still in wolf form.

“It’s okay, baby, I’m here.”

He rolled his one eye to see a panel of long dark hair swing down and brush his face. Her hand reached out to take something from under him. The copper knife that had caused him so much pain, that had almost killed him.

Something he didn’t want anyone else to have.

Snarling, he drove her back, his body barely able to lurch forward. She squealed and dropped the copper knife. The scent of burnt wood curled around him and then Blaz’s voice was there.

Get away from him, bitch. You are not his mate.

The woman backed away, her teeth bared at them both. “He is mine. He just doesn’t know it yet.” Liam struggled to understand how she had gotten here. Wasn’t she supposed to be in London? Not on the cold dirt outside of Louisa’s house.

With Blaz beside him, he lowered back to the ground. Louisa moved to his head.

“This may hurt, Liam. Try not to bite me, I like not being hairy.” Her hands smoothed along his jaw, down his neck and settled over the wound in his chest.

Pain was not the word, nor was agony. It felt as though the copper knife was being dug into the wound while on fire; acid burning his flesh couldn’t have hurt as badly.

A howl ripped out of him, but he kept his mouth away from Louisa. She would heal him; she had to.

Otherwise, how could he die for Rylee?

There was no time to wait. I made a fist and raised my arm; Pamela ran to my side. She snapped her hands in front of her and the zombies, dripping wet and covered with seaweed and barnacles, were lifted out of the water. She moved them toward the boat, dropping them on the deck as fast as she could. I did a head count. Fifty, and they were already going to work, disappearing into the depths of the boat.

But no witches came out to inspect who was using magic. Not one.

“Let’s go,” I barked out and then pointed at the gangplank.

Frank ran to catch up with us as we crossed the gangplank, one by one. The fucking thing shuddered underneath us and as Frank crossed, it slipped and fell, taking him with it.

I dove back, catching his hand before he fell far, though his eyes were wide and startled.

“Pam, little help here.”

She grunted. “Can’t, not with you touching him.”

There were moments my immunity to magic really sucked ass. This was one of them. Putting my feet against the edge of the boat, I pulled hard, Erik reached over and helped me haul Frank onto the deck. I didn’t give him time to be freaked out about what had almost happened.

“Make sure your zombies only go after the witches.”

Frank gasped a breath as he nodded, his hands on his knees. “Yeah, doing my best.”

Now came the fun part.

I led the way, Tracking witches and the three kids, but also now Tracking my dad. He was alive, but hurt. The threads of so many lives tangled inside my head and I struggled to keep it together. It had been a long time since the emotions of a salvage had been so rampant, longer still since they had caused me to slow down.