Night Seeker (11 page)

Curious, I glanced over at Peyton. Listening rapt to her father, her eyes glistened with tears.

“I can’t go now—I’m needed here. But afterward,
if
we get through this, I’ll be ready. Will the pride accept me, though? I’m half-magic-born.” Her lower lip trembled and I thought of the Lupa clan and how much the werewolves hated the magic-born.

“There is a big difference between wolves and cats,” Rex said, glancing over at me as if he could read my mind. “We are magical in nature, the wolves not as much. They fear magic, where the puma clans revel in it. As do all the big-cat-shifters. That’s one of the things that attracted me
to your mother to begin with. I’ve told my people about you, and the Elders have offered you a place in the pride. But first, you must go through your vision quest. Pass through the fire and you will forever be one with my people.
Your
people.” He leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed across his chest. “But you need to know there’s a chance of dying. There’s always a dance with death when you go in search of the fire.”

Peyton nodded, staring at the floor. “I will try. I want to know more about your people—my people.”

I happened to glance up at the clock on the wall. It was barely nine thirty. “Today, I’m meeting Ysandra at three
P.M
. Kaylin and Rhiannon—you come with me. Chatter, would you and Peyton and Rex help Luna do whatever you need to in order to make us more secure in this place?”

“What do you want me to do, my love?” Grieve stood at the doorway. As he joined us, sitting on the table next to me, I reached for his hand but he shook his head.

“Before you continue, I’d like to have things out in the open.” He looked at the others. “I touched on this before but let’s talk about it. None of you really trust me. Not even you, my loyal Chatter. And you have every right to feel that way. After all, I belong to Myst—she turned me. But please know, I’m doing everything I can to keep control of my darker nature. I was not born this way…” He hung his head, wincing. “I was not born to this. I love Cicely. She is my all. I’ll do anything to keep her safe.”

Rex tilted his head, frowning. “I’m still kind of fuzzy on the facts surrounding the Indigo Court. Fill me in?”

I sighed. “Long story short: Geoffrey—you know who he is?”

Rex nodded, a somber cast across his face. “I’ve had several run-ins with him long time back before I left New Forest. He’s dangerous. I believe he was a warlord before he was turned?”

“Yes, and he is still a warlord at heart. A thousand or so years ago, Geoffrey got it into his head to turn Myst—who was one of the Unseelie. They were lovers, and they hatched a mad scheme to turn her into a vampire and then the two of
them would conquer the land. Typical delusions-of-grandeur crap, except for one little problem. When he drank her down and then gave her his blood, she didn’t die.”

“Let me guess—something to do with her Fae nature?”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah. Myst recovered insanely fast, able to use both her Unseelie powers
and
the vampire powers she gained from Geoffrey. And as an added bonus, she was able to breed children with her dual nature. When she realized how strong she was, she turned on Geoffrey and tried to destroy him. The vampires managed to drive the Vampiric Fae into obscurity, but the Indigo Court spent the following centuries breeding and waiting. A great war between the two factions was prophesized by their freak-show Blood Oracle—Crawl—and apparently Grieve and I were to be the catalysts in it. And it seems we were.”

I paused, glancing at Grieve. His eyes were the black of the void, shining with stars. He cleared his throat. “In another life, Cicely was Myst’s daughter—her name was Cherish. I was one of the Cambyra Fae, named Shy. I wasn’t a wolf-shifter then, but instead I belonged to the Ursiasidhe, the bear-shifters.”

“I didn’t know that you were a bear-shifter then.” I stared at him.

“It’s never come up. Anyway, against all odds, we fell in love and, betraying both our peoples, ran away together.”

“I bet that went over really well.” Rex gave me a sad smile.

Frowning, I narrowed my eyes. “They chased us down. We ravaged a swath through the countryside in our attempts to escape. Or…
I
ravaged. Somehow I have a feeling I caused most of the damage.”

Grieve took my hand. “We both did, love.” He lifted my palm to his lips and kissed it gently. “In the end, we were cornered. I had a potion I’d bought from a sorceress. The drink was deadly, but fashioned to bind our souls together into the afterlife. We drank it knowing that although we would die, we’d find each other again in a new life. And so we have.”

“Romeo and Juliet.” Peyton said, her voice sad.

“Yes…only this time around, I’m also part Cambyra Fae. And Grieve…though he was born a Prince of the Summer Court, is now one of the Vampiric Fae. And once again, we’re on the run.” My words drifted away and I turned to my love. “This time, I want to end the cycle. I want to live my life with you…for you.”

My lip trembled as Grieve pulled me into his arms. My heart pounded, a drum in the night, echoing my love for him as we stood there. I rested my head on his shoulder, his lips pressed against the top of my head. The warmth of his body made me want to cry.

After a few moments, Rex broke the silence. “So, does Geoffrey know you are Myst’s daughter?”

“Yes. And he wanted to use me to get back at her—to turn me like he turned her.” I pulled away from Grieve, but as I did so Ulean came sweeping up beside me.
Trouble. There is trouble brewing outside. Hurry. Enemies. Wrath says they are whispering about Rhiannon.

Instantly, I jumped aside. “Ulean says there’s trouble outside. Wrath warned her. Rhia—you stay in here. Grieve and Luna, guard her with your life. Don’t ask questions, either of you.”

I pulled on my jacket—my blade and fan still in the pockets—and headed for the door. Kaylin, Chatter, Peyton, and Rex followed me into the blinding snows.

Ulean guided us out one of the side exits, where we found my father, leaning against the building, waiting.

I ran up to him. “What’s going on? Who is it?”

“Day-runners. And no, I didn’t see Leo among them, but they look well armed and out for trouble.” He brushed a swath of snowflakes off his hair. “They’re around front, looking for a way in.”

“Split up, then. Peyton, you take Chatter and Rex and head that way. Kaylin, come with me and my father.” I pulled out my fan, getting it ready. I preferred working with the wind rather than with a blade. It felt more comfortable.

“What do we do when we find them?” Peyton began to shimmer, and I knew she was about to transform.

“Catch them if you can—we need to know what the fuck they want. If they put up a fight and we can’t take them down without harming them…kill them.” I shivered at the cold streak in my voice, but we were at war.

They nodded and headed off to the left. We swiftly crept along the building to the right, crouching as we went. My father pulled out a wicked-looking dagger—brilliant silver flashing in the eternal whiteness that shrouded us. Kaylin held his shurikens, and I readied my fan.

The warehouse was a long, gray metal skeleton stretching out under the silvery sky. With the snow on the ground, it blended, a blur that reminded me of staring out over the ocean on one of those days when the sky was the same color as the water. The snow mimicked cresting waves on the surface.

As we came to the end, I called Ulean.
Is there anything directly around the corner?

No, but they are close around the other side. Be cautious when you reach the next turn. They are waiting and they know you are coming. There are four. Two waiting on your end, two on the other.

How did they find out? And can you possibly get word to the others? Chatter can hear you if you want him to.

I do not know how they were warned, but I can tell by their stance, they are waiting to ambush you.
She swirled around me, a shroud of caution.
I will take word to Chatter now.

I sucked in a deep breath and turned to Kaylin and Wrath. “Ulean says they know we’re coming. They’re not around this corner but around the next. Ulean’s taking word to Chatter now. There are two on the other end, waiting down there, and two on our end.”

“I suppose since they know we’re here, we might as well…Hold on.” Kaylin stood back, looking up. “We can still get the drop on them.”

I followed his gaze. There was enough junk nearby to create a pile that would allow us to reach the roof. We
could go up and over. Wrath caught our plan and shimmered into owl form, smoothly gliding up to land on the roof and transform back. He leaned over, his hand out, to help us scramble up from the junk to the roof.

As silently as we could, we crawled up the A-line roof. The snow was cold under our bellies as we forged a silent path. The gentle flaking of fresh snow landed on our shoulders, our hair, our backs. My hands were freezing, but I didn’t want to put on gloves. They interfered with using my fan, and I couldn’t afford the time spent yanking off a pair of gloves in order to unfurl the weapon.

As we reached the top of the roof, I cautiously slithered over the apex and edged my way down to just before the edge, peeking over. There they were. Day-runners. They wore the same style of clothing Leo had worn, and I could feel
vampire
written all over them. Wrath and Kaylin joined me.

The drop to the ground was daunting—we’d crawled up a fifteen-foot pile of crap in order to get on the roof in back. But the snow was knee-deep, so maybe the landing wouldn’t be so hard. The men were still waiting and I was surprised to see that the others hadn’t already engaged their pair, but as I looked down to their end, I saw that they’d had the same idea. They were on the roof, in approximately the same place we were.

I can make others hear me when I choose to, and it seemed a good idea to tell them what you were doing. They chose to approach in the same manner.
Ulean sounded almost giddy. The wind was picking up and I could feel her responding to it, even as my own body did. It coaxed us to come, to play, to dive in. My owl self beckoned me to shift and fly out on the gusting currents, but I pushed the urge away.

With a glance at Kaylin, who gave me a thumbs-up, I swung my feet over the edge and dropped directly on top of one of the men. Kaylin followed, landing to take down the other, and within the blink of an eye, Wrath joined us.

I heard a loud shout from the other end—the others must have attacked at the same time we did—but I’d learned by now to keep my eyes on my own opponent. I
quickly rolled up off the ground. When I’d landed on the man, I’d gone down on my knees, but the snow had cushioned the worst of the shock. As I rose to my feet, I was surprised to see that he was already standing.

“Who are you? What do you want?” I circled him warily, as Kaylin mirrored my movements with his opponent.

“Stand back. Or you’ll regret it.” With one quick sweep, the man I was facing pulled out something fist-sized and opened his palm for us to see.

“Fuck, a
grenade
? What the hell are you doing with a grenade?” My first thought was that Geoffrey had sent them here to blow us all up, a suicide bombing mission. Bloodwhores would do whatever their masters asked. But something in his demeanor told me he was no bloodwhore. No, day-runners were more valuable than bloodwhores.

“You—and the redhead—come with us and we’ll let the rest of them go.” He flicked his finger toward the pin.

I glanced at the grenade, then back at him. “How bad do you want us?”

“My orders are to bring the two of you back with me.” As he spoke, the two men from the opposite end of the building herded Rex, Peyton, and Chatter back toward us. They, too, had a grenade.

“No. You want us
that
bad, you’re not going to blow us up.” I shook my head. “This is so not going to happen.”

“You think so?” The man stared at me, his duster dark against the snow, and then he nodded to his buddy, who marched over and grabbed Peyton, dragging her in front of me. He tied her hands behind her back, and then pulled out a roll of duct tape and quickly strapped the grenade to her, while his partner kept us at bay with the other grenade. As he looped a string around the pin of the grenade and stepped away from Peyton, unwinding the string as he went, I suddenly realized what he was doing.

“Stop—don’t. Don’t do this.”

“You and your cousin come with us and we’ll let this one go without blowing her into a thousand bloody pieces.”

As I began to panic, Wrath suddenly turned into an owl
and headed directly toward Peyton. Kaylin sent a shuriken into the man’s hand. He screamed, dropping the line leading to the grenade’s pin. At the same moment, Chatter turned into a pillar of fire and began spinning toward the man still holding the grenade.

“Get back! Get back!” I screamed to Rex, as I dove for a nearby snowbank. I shaded my eyes, tried to see what was happening without raising my head too far, but a large explosion lit up the area. Sharp screams filled the air, one after another. I staggered out from behind the snowbank, glancing around wildly. As Wrath lobbed something the other direction, yet another explosion rocked the ground.