Wounded: Book 8 (A Rylee Adamson Novel) (2 page)

A missing child to find, bring them home no matter what—what had seemed difficult at times in the past now looked straightforward. Almost easy compared to what loomed ahead of me.

Yet here I was, supposedly the only person who could save the world.

Something in me clicked into place. Saving the world would save more than one child; it would save many, many thousands. This was my fate; this was my place in the world.

This was what I’d been born for, even if it scared me worse than anything I’d ever faced. There was no greater cause than stopping Orion, no matter how much fear the task gave me.

Enough daydreaming of the past and how I wished things were as they’d been. We needed someone to lead, someone to pull the reins on this runaway carriage or we might as well give Orion our souls on silver and golden platters.

Fucking hell.

I’d already known, but still, a small part of me hoped Doran or someone would have stopped the hemorrhaging of this open wound, the council falling completely apart. Nope, looked like it was going to be me to pull this together.

“Are you all about done with your pissing and moaning?” I barely raised my voice. Didn’t yell, didn’t scream. Booyah for me, acting all calm and cool. Leaderly-like, even.

The silence that dropped over the outside courtyard was more than a little cool. It was downright icy. Or that could have just been the late January wind whipping through and around us, teasing at the spray of water over the koi pond. Everything stilled, zombies included.

Ogres, vampires, necromancers, witches and werewolves, and unicorn. All turned to me, and more than one was a little … ticked.

Blaz’s voice whispered through my mind, and I stared at him on the edge of the courtyard, his eyes on mine.
They are afraid. Be careful not to drive them away,
Rylee
. Orion has planted the seed of fear well and it grows with a violence that will cut down those in front of it.

The dragon was on point, of course, and I knew they were afraid. Could almost smell it, even though I was no shapeshifter.

They were not the only ones who thought facing down demons called “the four horsemen of the apocalypse” was a very bad idea.

Yeah, if I were a betting gal, I wouldn’t bet on us, either.

I lifted one hand, palm up, and wiggled my fingers at them. “Look, this is what Orion
wants
. He wants us fractured and freaking the hell out, because he knows if we are too busy fighting each other, he can swoop in and kick all of our asses. So everyone calm the fuck down.”

Liam hadn’t move from his position behind me. Nor had Pamela or Alex shifted away from me. Okay, Alex as making faces at the crowd, his long tongue flapping at them, but he stood by me. My heart swelled. Even if everyone else walked in that moment, I wouldn’t see this through alone. I had my family.

Nikko
, the black unicorn was the first to nod, his voice projecting much like Blaz’s, inside all our heads at once.

You are right, of course. There is no sense in fighting one another. We will do the demon’s job for him if we kill each other now. I will listen to what you have to say, Tracker. We have promised our help, and we will stand by our word.
He lowered himself to the ground, then tucked his legs underneath his body, his golden horn glinting even in the starlight.

One by one, each of those in the council found a seat or at least put their weapons away. On each of them I saw tightened lips, narrowed eyes, twitching muscles, sweat-dripping skin in the cold winter night air—marks of fear. I wasn’t sure I could convince them all to stay, and we desperately needed them to stay.

Without the numbers, I wasn’t sure we would have any way of stopping Orion and his demon hordes. Because even if it came down to me and Orion, one on one, I was pretty sure I would have to battle through his demons to get to him. Or at least, I was assuming.

Doran and Berget stood side by side, unmoving, looking as if they hadn’t just been ready to toss everyone out. This was, after all, Doran’s place we’d invaded. I wouldn’t blame him. But he looked at me and gave me a slight nod of encouragement.

I stood, felt the world sway, and locked my knees. Fuck me if I was going to pass out in front of all these powerful supernaturals.

First thing’s first.

“Faris, tell us exactly what you saw.” I paused and fought to say the next word without a hint of sarcasm. “Please.”

Faris pushed himself away from a shadow that held tight against the house, his eyes flicking to
Thomas
, then back to me. He didn’t cradle the stub of his missing arm, though his good hand twitched as though he’d like to. “I went, at Doran’s bidding, to check on the state of the castle. We wanted to know for sure that all the doorways were indeed destroyed and there was no way through those left into the human world.”

His eyes went to Doran, who gave him a nod.

“There was nothing at first; I didn’t see anything or smell anything. Then a woman stepped out of a third floor balcony—”

I lifted a hand to stop him. “What did she look like?”

He took a breath before answering. “Long white hair, but young in the face. I didn’t get much more from her than that.”

“Did she give her name?” I suspected who it would be, but I wanted to be sure.

Faris shot me a look, his eyes puzzled. “No, she didn’t.”

“I’ll bet it was
Talia
,” I muttered. Who else would it be, really?

Apparently, I didn’t mutter so quietly. Thomas sucked in a sharp breath. Of course, he would recognize a fellow necromancer. Maybe he’d even trained her. I’d only met her once, and I knew she worked for Orion, albeit reluctantly. Orion needed a necromancer to open the gateway to the deep veil and he’d been training Talia against her will for some time. At least, according to what she told me.

The vampire went on. “She did something to the last doorway, the one that leads to the deep veil. The one that leads to the demons. I don’t know how, but she opened it. And then the pack of demons was in the castle and I was fighting them.”

He shook his head, his lips tightening, his fangs peeking out between them. “I thought I could take them, but there seemed to be nothing I could do. I fought my way free far enough to open the veil to escape. As I fell backward through the veil, I saw them leave through the gate in the courtyard. The broken doorways seem to have slowed them, but not by much. Whoever broke the doorways has done us a favor.”

There was silence for a few heartbeats, nothing but the sound of the wind and the trickle of the fountain splashing.

“You’re welcome.” Erik pushed himself from the wall and stepped forward, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. “Rylee, if I may address this?”

My eyebrows had never climbed higher, but I cleared my throat and managed to answer. “Yes, say what you’ve got to say.”

He nodded as I gave my permission. “I broke those doorways and sealed the final two, making them traversable only one way, because I ran out of time. That was when I was grabbed by Talia and her little helpers. They hunkered down and waited for you while
Bert
took my spot.” He must have seen the question in my eyes. How the fuck did someone take out a Slayer like Erik? He gave me a wry twist of a smile, “They hit me from behind.”

“Blaz, tell Bert we want to speak to him. Maybe he can enlighten us on what the fuck Orion is up to.” Bert was still an unknown to us in many ways. He’d started out as my Uncle Erik’s doppleganger, sent by Orion to get close to us and take out our two dragons. But we’d caught him in time, and now he’d sworn fealty to my uncle. It was that or die and he’d chosen wisely. Strange to think, though, that a demon was on our side.

He’s coming,
Blaz said, loud and clear so everyone heard him.

While we waited, Faris handed me two pieces of paper. One was handwritten with no signature; the other was a picture. I looked at the photo first, memorizing the kid’s face. It was a young boy, maybe sixteen years old, with the name Simon scrawled across the back. Faris dropped his voice to a low, quiet pitch. “The necromancer slipped this to me before the fight. Said it was all she could do to help and asked me to give it to you. Likely it is a ruse, but I don’t know for sure.”

I stared at the picture, the dirty blond hair, and skin so dark I wondered if it was his heritage or if he just tanned that way. But it was his eyes that caught me, made me hold my breath. Eyes that seemed to have blue, green, and aqua swirling within them. Shit, a Tracker? Another one?

Suddenly, my place as the so-called ‘chosen one’ was not as solid as I thought, and a tiny part of me was really, really happy. But this Simon kid, he was just a boy. A child who likely didn’t even know what he was, and there was no way I would want to put this burden of saving the world and facing down Orion on him. Hell, the kid probably didn’t even know how to Track yet. The ability to Track didn’t come until late teens, well into puberty and, according to Jack, most often not until something traumatic happened. Then there were the prophecies. They referred always to a ‘she’. Lucky me.

I opened up the folded sheet of paper, scanning the words.

Four packs precede the four you should fear above all others. Kill the packs and seal the doorway with the blood you cherish above all else.

There was no signature, but the handwriting was feminine, and I didn’t doubt Talia had written it. I folded and tucked it into my back pocket, choosing to not think too much about ‘the blood you cherish above all else’.

Faris let out a breath, and tapped the picture. “They will try to kill him, take out any possible successors for you. Just to be sure. Assuming, of course, he is a Tracker and this isn’t a trap of some sort.”

I nodded and tucked the picture into my inner jacket pocket. Fuck, this complicated things in a way I didn’t really want to address right now. Could I not have just one problem at a time?

There was some muttering amongst the council, the tension rising with each minute that passed, but it stilled as Bert stepped into the courtyard. As a doppelganger, he could have chosen to look like anyone. What he decided to project was a weak imitation of Bruce Lee. After we realized what he was, he told us how he’d fooled us so completely. He’d apparently taken possession of a very minor witch, one whose skills were miniscule enough that they could be easily passed off as other things. Like the skills of the so-called Slayer he’d tried to impersonate. The little bit of magic he’d had, he used to making us believe he truly was my Uncle Erik so he could get close to us and kill Blaz and
Ophelia
. The only thing that stopped him was his true affection for Ophelia. That hadn’t ended well and Ophelia left us, for gods only knew where.

Now, Bert was bound to my true uncle, forced to serve him.

Bert wrung his hands and looked sheepishly from me to the others in the courtyard and then back to me. Raw sneered at him and stepped back, as if just by being close to the demon he could somehow become infected. Not good.

I crooked a finger at Bert. “Come here.”

He swallowed hard and shuffled across to me, cringing as if expecting a blow. “I’ve done nothing wrong, Master.”

Oh shit, that was not going to fly. “My name is Rylee. Use it. Or if you can’t, call me Tracker.”

He bobbed his head and I wondered again how he’d been able to keep up even a small sliver of believability as my uncle. Looking back, though, I’d never fully connected with him, or trusted him while he played that role. He always seemed … off. Now that he’d been ‘outed’ as a demon, he was a damn sniveling weakling.

“Bert, the four demon packs preceding the four horsemen are loose. Where are they headed?” I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt, and allow him to answer before I asked Erik to put pressure on him.

He shook his head and stared at his feet. “I don’t know.”

I leaned in close to him, so my mouth was next to his cheek, though I wasn’t quiet with my words. “Demon, perhaps you forget who you are dealing with. I’m not like most women. I will fucking pull you apart by the seams and not even blink while you scream for mercy if you don’t tell me. I know you’re lying. I suggest you think hard before you answer me.”

Swallowing several times, he fought to suck in a breath, but he said nothing. I stepped back and pulled my whip free, snapping it out, holding the tip in one hand and the handle in the other. “You have ten seconds before I start unstitching your skin to find out what a makes up a demon from the inside out.”

Bitchy? Hell yes. But we didn’t have time for polite chatting and dodging the issue. Big, bad, nasty, ugly demons were loose on the world. Bert was the least of my concerns at this point.

His eyes lifted to mine, glimmering with tears, and I almost felt bad. Almost. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep my family and friends safe. Bert was nothing to me but a weak-assed demon I would use as I saw fit.

“Orion wants the humans to love him because he knows people will fight him if he comes in with guns blazing. But if they love him, revere him, they will willingly do as he wants, they will do as he pleases. So he’ll stir up the wars and … and strife, and
then
he will come and ‘save’ the world.” Bert took a deep breath and as he spoke the words seemed to come easier, like a weight was being lifted off him. And maybe it was. “The packs, and later the four generals, their jobs are to stir the fear and the panic amongst the human population; they are to convince the humans the end days are upon them. It is at that point Orion will come through and ‘vanquish’ the evil in the world. The evil, of course, will be the supernatural world.”

That was exactly what Milly had thought. She’d explained that one of Orion’s plans had been to stir up the humans, but not that he would want to expose the supernaturals as ‘evil’.

“And the humans would help him wipe us out?” Erik asked the question on the tip of my tongue. Bert nodded furiously.

“Yes. That is the plan.”

Berget stepped up, her brows drawn over her bright blue eyes. “Why did only the packs come through? Why not the generals or Orion himself?”