Darkness Unbound (31 page)

But the creatures didn’t move.

Neither did Tao or I.

Seconds ticked by. Sweat began trickling down my back and my hands grew clammy inside their wet bandages. The creatures growled low in their throats, the sound rumbling through the building—a sound of such power that dust and bits of masonry began to fall from the ceiling.

“Fuck,” Tao said. “They could bring the whole place down on top of us.”

“But this is still sacred ground. We might be buried, but at least we won’t be torn apart.”

“I’m not convinced it’s a better option,” he said, glancing nervously upward.

One of the hounds stepped forward. His paw hit the threshold and something flared—something bright and wholesome and somehow clean. The creature leapt back as if stung and their low growling intensified, until the air hummed with fury and the whole building shook under its assault.

“Well, at least that proves the theory that churches are sacred ground,” Tao commented. “Now we’ve just got to hope it doesn’t fall down around our ears.”

As he said it, a huge chunk of plaster crashed onto the bench behind us. Dust flew upward in a cloud, briefly smothering the rainbow streams of sunshine and creating an even darker atmosphere.

And yet there was a strength here, too.

I could feel it, feel the heat of it …

Joy leapt through me. It wasn’t the church, it was Azriel.

He appeared behind the hellhounds, Valdis held high above his head, the blade screaming in fury and dripping flame.

The hellhounds twisted around, then, as one, leapt. Azriel stepped to one side, and Valdis swept down, her scream almost ear shattering. She cut one creature in half, but it simply reformed and leapt again. Again the blade flew, separating flesh but not killing. The hounds were fast, not giving him the chance of a kill.

He needed help.

We threw the water on their backs. It hit the nearest hellhound full-force and splashed across the back of the other. Their flesh began to bubble and steam, and the first creature twisted and howled as his body disintegrated, the flesh dropping from his bones in chunks and the water like acid on his bones. Soon even they fell away, until all that remained was a writhing, boiling mass. Valdis hit the middle of it, and her blue fire exploded, sweeping away the shadowy smoke.

The second creature leapt. A warning surged up my throat, only to get stuck as Azriel swung around, his bright blade a smoking blur. It took the creature in the neck, severing its head from its torso. They fell to the ground in separate pieces that were consumed by the sword’s dripping blue flames.

Azriel waited, holding Valdis over the remnants of the creatures until her screaming died and her flames muted. Only then did he turn around. His gaze swept the two of us and a small smile touched the corners of his lips. It said something about my exhaustion that I couldn’t muster any sort of reaction.

“It was a very shrewd move to come to this church.”

“It wasn’t like we had much choice.” I wiped a shaky hand across my forehead. It came away sweaty and bloody. I hadn’t even realized I’d wounded my head. “Is the witch dead?”

“Yes.” He hesitated, then added, “There were two men with her. I did not harm them, but I
did
restrain them.”

“Then you need to give me the address so I can send it to Uncle Rhoan.”
He
could uncover who the two men with Margaret were—and if they
weren’t
two of the three men behind the consortium, he could take over the task of tracking them down, too. Right now, I’d done more than my fair share.

I stared at Azriel for a moment, unable to believe it was all over, then added, “I know they’ll pay for their crimes with their lives, but somehow that just doesn’t seem enough given what they did to little Hanna and the others.”

Tao’s hand grasped mine, squeezing lightly, but it was Azriel’s small, cold smile that brought me the most comfort.

“Never fear, they will have an eternity to regret what they have done,” he said softly. “The dark path has a special kind of purgatory for those who would destroy children.”

“Good.” I took a deep breath, but it didn’t do a lot to ease the sick tension still roiling around inside me.

Which was odd, because the hellhounds were gone and we were safe …

And then I realized just what that sick tension was.

Mom
.

Something had happened to her.

For a moment the fear was so great I couldn’t think and I couldn’t breathe. Tao’s grip on my arm tightened, and though I knew he was speaking, I had no idea what he said. There seemed to be a veil between me and the two of them—a veil that held the chill of death.

Oh God, oh God,
no!

I wrenched free of Tao’s grip and called once again to the Aedh. Heat and pain exploded through my brain, and an odd sort of redness blurred my vision.

Too much
, something inside me whispered,
you’ve done too much
.

I didn’t care, simply held on fiercely to the power, forcing it to sweep me from flesh to energy form. Then I spun out of the church and raced for Toorak and home.

Mom’s home. The one place she felt safe. The one place she
didn’t
have the protection of her Fravardin guards.

Except I’d sent Riley there …

No, please, no …

Everything was a blur. The landscape, my thoughts. Nothing connected, nothing meant anything, all that mattered was getting home, seeing Mom, making sure she was safe.

She
had
to be safe. Damn it, she’d promised she’d be safe! She was all I had, all the family I had. I might have grown up with Riley, Rhoan, Quinn, and Liander, but they weren’t flesh and blood, no matter how much I might love them.

I couldn’t lose my mom. I just
couldn’t
.

Familiar landmarks began appearing through the blur of movement. I reached for greater speed, felt agony shimmer through every particle, and knew I would pay when I re-formed.

But I didn’t care.

Nothing mattered, nothing except getting home and Mom being safe.

She’s safe. She has to be
.

It was a sentence that looped through my mind. A hope I knew deep down to be false.

There were vehicles outside our house. Black vehicles. Directorate vehicles.

No, no, no, NO!

I raced down the driveway and past the two men collecting evidence near the front door. It was whole and untouched, showing no sign of forced entry, and yet the fear in me increased.

I flowed into the entrance hall. There were voices deep in the house. Familiar voices. Riley and Rhoan, and one other. One I
didn’t
expect.

Director Hunter.

Why was she here? What the hell did she have to do with my mother?

They were in the kitchen, at the rear of the house. I rushed on, the fear in me so heavy it was beginning to weigh me down.

There was blood on the marble tiles just outside the kitchen doorway.

And more blood on the door itself.

And smears of something else—something that almost resembled flesh—on the wall inside.

Please don’t let it be Mom. Please don’t …

I swept into the room. Saw Riley. Rhoan. Hunter.

Saw them hunkered near the center island.

Moved to the right so that they no longer blocked my view.

Saw the hair. The face. The head.

Just the head.

Mom.

Everything seemed to explode. My brain, my heart, my strength.

My body re-formed and I dropped to the floor, as bloody as the tiles that surrounded me. There were gasps, movement, hands on my skin, questions.

But I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t see.

All I could do was scream.

T
HE DAYS PASSED IN A BLUR
.

A never-ending, agony-filled blur.

Because of Mom’s death, because of the way she’d died—and because I’d pushed my body to extremes and had all but broken it.

And the worst of it was, I didn’t care.

Not about anything or anyone.

Especially not myself.

I’d failed the most important person in my life, and there was no escaping that knowledge. No escaping the guilt of it.

Riley took me home. Not to my home, but hers, keeping me safe, keeping me away from anywhere and anything that might remind me of Mom, of the way she’d been tortured and then dismembered.

I was never alone. Someone was with me twenty-four/seven. I was aware of them on a peripheral level, knew that they kept me alive and functioning, and updated on what was happening.

But nothing really registered on a conscious level. I didn’t
care
what they said. Every inch of me was raw—and it was a rawness that was both physical
and
emotional.

My body was battered and bruised, and my sight, like my hearing and my voice, had been damaged. It would recover, because I was half wolf and self-healing was a part of my heritage, but it would take time.

It could have taken an eternity and I doubted it would matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing
could
matter. Not when I failed to save my own mother.

Part of me wanted to die, to just walk away from the heartache and the pain that burned through every fiber.

It would be easy enough to do. I could slip away to the gray fields, let my body waste away and maybe find a peace in death that would not be possible in life.

It was tempting.

But if I did that, then I would never know who killed her, or why.

And I would never taste the sweetness of revenge.

It was that need, more than anything, that eventually dragged me back to the realm of full awareness.

Which didn’t mean the days that followed became any clearer or that the pain eased. My body might have started healing itself, but my heart was broken, and no amount of consoling from my second family or my friends could ever heal that.

Mom was gone.

End of story—at least in this life, this time, and with me.

I could only hope that we’d meet again, somewhere down the track in another lifetime—because we at least still had that. Azriel had assured me that her soul had moved on, and that she could be reborn. Unlike little Hanna, who was gone forever. But at least I’d given her vengeance.

Mine would come.

I held on to that knowledge fiercely, feeling it wrap around me like a security blanket, letting it warm me and give me strength as we sorted through the mess that was the investigation—an investigation that got nowhere fast—and then finally the funeral arrangements once the remnants of her body had been released.

But Mom was a media star, and her funeral was a circus. I went through the motions, constantly flanked by someone who cared—Riley and Quinn, Liander and Rhoan, or Tao and Ilianna, Liana, Ronan, and Darci—smiling vacantly and answering by rote when confronted by reporters or her many clients.

Even Lucian was there, keeping his distance but nevertheless letting me know that he was close if I needed him.

We held her
real
service a few days later. It was small and intimate, just Riley, Quinn, Rhoan, Liander, and all their children, as well as what remained of my family—Tao and Ilianna. Mike was also there, and though he showed no outward sign of grief, he seemed even more remote than usual. We shared her favorite champagne and stories of her life as a wolf chaplain blessed her body while she passed through to cremation.

Which had led me here, standing alone in a clearing in the middle of this vast, wooded stretch of land situated near Harrietville, high in the Victorian Alps region.

She’d owned this place for ten years, and had planned to retire and raise lots of grandchildren here.

Plans that were so much dust on the wind.

As her body soon would be.

Tears stung my eyes. I closed them, then raised my face to the sky, letting the fading sunlight warm my skin and dry the tears on my cheeks.

I’d shed more than my fair share over these last few weeks. But the time had come to move on—however reluctant I might be, and however hard that would be.

Life went on. Or at least, my life went on.

And Mom would have been the first one to tell me to get on with it.

I smiled and looked down at the small box in my hands. It was a simple wooden box, nothing ornate. She’d asked for that, just as she’d asked for this. A simple good-bye, just me and her, high up in the hills that she’d loved.

The wind swirled around us, crisp and fresh, filled with the scent of eucalyptus and the musk of the kangaroos that grazed nearby. I waited, watching the colorful fingers of sunset creep across the sky, until the blue had become a kaleidoscope of red, orange, and yellow.

Time
, something within me whispered.

With fingers that trembled ever so slightly, I opened the little latch and raised the box above my head.

“May your ashes fill this place with the peace and beauty that was yours, and may you find that same peace and beauty in whatever path is now yours.”

I tipped the box, letting her ashes loose on the wind, watching her scatter through the trees.

“Good-bye, Mom,” I whispered, my voice broken with the tears that were flowing down my cheeks. “I love you.”

And I will find your killer
. No matter how long it took or what I had to do. I had a lot of leads to follow—the human shifters, the men from the consortium, Handberry and whatever the bug had picked up in his office, to name just a few—and behind one of them, I would find her killer.

There was no answer to either my words or my unspoken vow. There could never again be an answer. Yet just for a moment, I thought I heard the joyful sound of her laughter.

Then it faded, as the sunlight faded, and I was left standing alone in the middle of the shadowed clearing.

I swiped at the tears, then dropped to my knees and picked up the small shovel I’d carried up here with me. I dug a hole in the soft soil, then kissed the box and buried it.

Then, with a final smile at the forest that was her final resting place, I turned and made my way back down to my car.

To find I was no longer alone.

Director Hunter was leaning against my SUV, her arms crossed and her demeanor reminding me somewhat of a snake about to strike.

I stopped and stared at her. Eye-to-eye contact. The worst thing you could do when faced with a vampire as old and as powerful as her.

I should have been scared. I wasn’t. Far from it, in fact. This moment was
mine
. Mine and Mom’s. She should
never
have intruded.

Anger surged and I had to clench my fists against the sudden urge to do something stupid—like attack her.

“It’s an extremely wise decision to restrain yourself,” she said softly, “because any such attempt would only end badly. For yourself, at any rate.”

My smile was thin and cold. “Keep out of my head, or I
will
annihilate you.”

She arched a thin eyebrow. “You truly think you’re capable of such a feat? Because many people have tried over the years and, as you can see, none has succeeded.”

“Have you ever seen an Aedh reach into someone’s body and tear out their heart, Director?”

“No, but I’ve seen more than my fair share of vampires and various other creatures do it.”

“Ah,” I said softly, as I called to the Aedh within. Her power flowed through me gently—carefully—and I concentrated it on my hand, letting my fingers become little more than transparent wisps. The embers of pain stirred enough to warn me not to try for more—not yet, not until I’d fully recovered—but I had no intention of doing so. This was a demonstration, nothing more. “The difference is, with an Aedh, you don’t see them coming. Nor can you smell them, or hear the beat of life through their veins. They don’t exist on any known plane, and are invisible right up until the moment they destroy you.”

Her green eyes glittered despite the shadows that hid much of her features. A hunter with a prey in its sight. It really
should
have scared me. Maybe that part of me was still too numb from my loss to react sensibly.

“Now that we have the pissing contest out of the way, let’s get down to business, shall we?”

I released the energy and re-formed my hand. The veil of tiredness ran through me. It was going to be a while yet before I could claim that part of me more fully. “You came to me, Hunter, so why don’t you tell me what the hell you want?”

“I want to help you.”

I snorted loudly. “Yeah, right. Believing that.” The only thing Hunter was interested in furthering was her own agenda.

She arched that eyebrow again. “You do not believe that I want to catch your mother’s killer?”

“Oh, I believe you will place the full might of the Directorate behind it. I just don’t believe that’s what you actually came all the way up here to tell me.”

“And you’d be right.”

She uncrossed her arms, then pushed away from the car and walked toward me, every movement economical and yet powerful. Dangerous. She stopped several feet away, her scent teasing the air. It was pleasant enough—until you saw what lay underneath it.

There was no warmth in her, no lingering vestige of humanity. She was a vampire in thought and deed, and that was all she cared about.

She might have started the Directorate, but it hadn’t been for humanity’s sake. Rather, it had been little more than a PR exercise for the vampire council.

If ruthlessness and cunning had a smell, then it would be this woman.

“You are your mother’s daughter, aren’t you?” she commented. “But you are right, of course. It benefited the council to have humanity protected by a body perceived as separate from the council.”

Part of me wondered what Rhoan would say to something like that, and whether Jack actually knew he was running a front for the council. But the truth was, it didn’t really matter. Not to me. And I very much suspected it wouldn’t matter to humanity, either, simply because the Directorate
did
protect them.

“Director, either tell me why you’re here, or leave.”

She gave me one of those cool vampire smiles. “I want you to work for me.”

For me
. Not the directorate.
Her
. “Why?”

“I believe we could be useful to each other.”

I paused. “Why would you think I’d in any way want to help the vampire council?”

“Because you want to find your mother’s killer.”

“The Directorate has that investigation well under control.” And even if there were very little in the way of leads, I had faith in Uncle Rhoan. If anyone could catch whoever had done this, he could.

“The Directorate, as efficient as it has proven itself to be at hunting and killing those foolish enough to transgress against humans, has neither the proficiency nor the potency of the high council. Trust me when I say it is like comparing a breeze to a cyclone.”

“To quote an old, somewhat clichéd saying … I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you.”

Humor flirted with her lips. I wondered if emotion ever did.

“Which is most definitely wise. However, I am serious. I want your help, and in return you will have the full services of the council and its Cazadors to hunt down this killer.”

“Why the hell would I want the help of the Cazadors? They’re little more than leashed murderers, aren’t they?” A fact I knew because Uncle Quinn had once been one. He’d survived the experience, which apparently was rare in that line of work.

“The Cazadors are the most dangerous and deadly hunters ever created. Once they are unleashed, they will not stop until they bring down and destroy their target. If anyone can find the person or persons behind your mother’s slaughter, it will be them.” She hesitated, and that cold, cool smile twitched her lips again. “They do not have the legal restrictions that the Directorate has.”

I stared at her for a moment, trying to ignore the chill creeping across my skin, the knot of fear deep inside that suggested even standing here listening to this was a very dangerous thing to do.

“I can’t give you my father. He doesn’t exist on this plane anymore. His recourse to flesh has been stripped from him.”

“So you have had contact with him?”

“Briefly. He didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know.”

If she sensed the lie, she didn’t react to it. “Which means there is the possibility he might contact you in the future.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “So is that all you want me to do? Inform you when my absent parent contacts me?”

“In part, yes.”

“And the rest of it?”

She tilted her head sideways and studied me for a minute. “You are aware, of course, that all three of the dark path’s gates were recently opened?”

I nodded, then crossed my arms and waited for the rest of it. And tried to ignore the thick knot of apprehension growing in my stomach.