On Pins and Needles: Sierra Fox, Book 3 (31 page)

“I followed the scent to the bus stop at the end of the street before it faded.”

“Damn, what does that mean?”

“Jason!”

He cocked an eyebrow and looked over my head. “What the hell?”

“Yeah, that’s the pest,” I said.

“I had to see you.” Vixen tried to step around me but I pushed her back. “What the hell, bitch?”

“This is my house, you asshole. If you can’t respect me, then you’re going to have to get the hell out. Actually, I’ll make it easier for you.” I shoved her outside and slammed the door in her face.
 

She banged on it.
 

“Go away!” I turned to trail Papan back to the kitchen.
 

“She really has to learn to take a hint. I told her I would help when the next full moon cycle hits,” Papan said as he climbed the stairs.

“Don’t worry about her. We’ve got more important things to deal with. How’s Oren?”
 

We stepped back into the kitchen so the old man answered me himself. “I’m a lot better than poor Ebony,” Oren said.

I looked at him, and he did seem livelier. Yet, I was still worried. “Are you sure you’re fine?”
 

“Yes, I am.” A small smile teased the edges of his mouth. “It’s nice to know you care.”

“I care,” I said, looking away. Seeing him hurt on the kitchen floor had affected me a lot more than I expected, but I wasn’t in the mood to discuss this. “Where’s Ebony?”

“She’s on the couch with Conrad watching over her.”

“Were you able to help?”

“I dabbed some salve all over her scars and bites, but I think she may need holy water to disinfect and purify her body. It looks like you guys are all out.” His eyes were serious. “I don’t think we can do anything to force her to wake up, though. I’ve tried a few spells but she seems to be in some sort of preternaturally-induced coma.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged. “It could mean that losing so much blood in such an unnatural way helped her slip into it. Or it could just be her body’s way of shutting down long enough to fully repair the damage. I don’t know if any of the vampires exchanged blood with her, but constantly being bitten can be as bad as an overdose.”

“Will she wake up?” I swallowed. “And more importantly, will she wake up still human?”
 

Oren fidgeted. “I don’t know, Sierra. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.” He looked down at my hands and then at my face. “What happened tonight? I couldn’t get an explanation from Conrad. He’s taking this pretty hard.”

As much as it was partly Conrad’s fault for introducing her to such a dark world, Ebony was an adult and had gotten herself into this situation. If he hadn’t divulged any details about what happened, I wouldn’t either. “All hell broke loose inside a vampire club.”

“And that’s putting it mildly,” Papan added.

Oren looked at Papan’s neck, where he wore a burn-mark necklace from the silver chains. “You two need to sit down for a few minutes and let me take care of your injuries.”

“What about yours?”

He dismissed it with a wave. “It’s not as bad as it looks, but I took care of it. Now it’s time to take care of both of you.”

No point in arguing with him. So we sat around the kitchen table and let him get to work. I insisted he take care of Papan’s injuries first because mine weren’t so bad. I watched as he first cleaned the burns and then dabbed a familiar green ointment along Papan’s neck, following it all the way around and beneath the longish length of his hair. My werewolf was brave and even though he winced a few times, he sat mostly still.

“It’s probably best not to cover it. Let it get some air,” Oren said as he finished up. “Your lycanthrope genes will heal the rest.”

While he’d been working on Papan’s silver-induced injury, I’d kept quiet. My mind racing with a thousand thoughts about what we’d been through tonight and everything that lay ahead. It wasn’t over yet.

“Your turn,” Oren said, stepping in front of me. He grabbed my chin and turned it slightly. I tried not to shiver at his very cold touch. “This doesn’t look too bad. The redness will probably be gone by tomorrow. Show me your hands.”

I held them out, palms up.

Oren frowned. “You’ve got tiny slivers of glass embedded in your skin. Jason, can you get me some tweezers?”

Papan didn’t hesitate and headed for the downstairs bathroom.
 

“Oren, what happened?”

“I have no idea.” He rubbed the top of his head, which was still bloody but looked dry. “I was reading the text about the ritual…and then,
nothing
. I opened my eyes and found you here.” He looked at me. “It wasn’t easy to get Ebony away from the vampires, was it?”

“It got messy.” I looked down at my jacket and jeans—both stained.
 

“I can see that.” He frowned.
 

“Oren, the vampire who had her somehow made her forget about Conrad,” I whispered. “And I’m really worried. You said she’s in some sort of coma—what if she never wakes up because we killed the vampire who messed with her mind?”

His frown deepened and he looked me in the eye. “I don’t think his death will have a bearing on her survival. She might have been bitten many times, and could even have taken blood, but it takes much more to turn someone into a vampire.”

“What about her memory—do you think she’ll get it back?”

“I really don’t know.” He shrugged. “You didn’t find Willow downstairs or outside?”

I shook my head.

“The defenses are still intact. I don’t understand how anyone could have gotten in and out without making a dent in them.”

“The laundry door was unlocked.” I felt my chest constrict at what I was about to say. “Maya came and took her, didn’t she? Maybe lured her out.”

Oren shook his head. “I don’t know, but I didn’t hear or feel anything out of the ordinary inside or outside the house. It’s all very peculiar.” He rubbed his white whiskered chin. “But I have to tell you something important before Jason gets back.” He peered over his shoulder quickly before turning back. “I finished deciphering the
Obscurus
text.”

“That’s good, right?” At least one positive thing had come out of this horrid night. Yet he was still frowning. “It’s not a good thing?”

“The ritual they have planned is a brutal one and requires a lot of supernatural energy. It’s no wonder they want you at your full strength.”

“We kinda knew that already.”

He nodded. “True, but I didn’t realize there would be so much blood needed to fuel it. They will be making sacrifices every step of the way which means at least four humans will die during the ritual. And that’s not the worst thing.”

“Do I want to hear this?”

“Sierra, once the conjuring of Legion is set in motion, there’s only one way to stop it.”

My breath caught in my throat. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, what is it?” If he was stalling, this had to be pretty bad.

“The only way to stop the ritual’s success is by killing everyone trapped inside the pentagram.”

I shrugged, underwhelmed by his answer. “I can do that. I already got rid of Travis and killed Mauricio, plus you don’t want to know how much vampire blood I have on my hands after tonight.”

“You don’t understand…”

I sighed in frustration. “Then tell me why you’re freaking out about this!”

Papan’s footsteps drew closer.

“In order to stop the ritual once it’s begun, you need to kill the
Obscurus
members at each point on the pentagram star, the one in the middle, and their sacrificial lambs.
Everyone
inside the sealed pentagram must die.”

“Man, it was hard to find these,” Papan called, strolling back into the kitchen.

I stared at Oren, willing him to make me realize the full extent of what he was saying. So much for my initial reaction—this
was
bad.

“Everyone you eliminate will lose the ability to have their soul carried on,” he whispered.

I couldn’t help but gasp.

“Hey, are you okay? What’s going on?” Papan rushed to my side, looking at my hands as if he expected them to have fallen off or something. After the night’s events, I guess we were all pretty jumpy. We might have gotten Ebony back, but had lost Willow in the process.

It took me a moment to collect myself, but I managed to answer. “I’m fine, just not looking forward to this.”

Papan handed Oren the tweezers. “Here you go, and be as gentle as you can.”

My grandfather rolled his eyes as he dragged a kitchen chair in front of me and sat with a heavy sigh. He held my left hand in his and started the tedious task of pulling out the small glass fragments. It took him longer than I thought it would and the three of us sat in silence the whole time. Once he was done he applied some of the cooling salve and bandaged both hands.

“I’m pretty sure I removed all the pieces.” Oren wiped his hands on the hand towel he’d used to clear away the blood every time he removed a sliver of glass.

“Thanks.” I didn’t want to fixate on what Oren had told me about the ritual but couldn’t shake it. Stripping away whatever black soul the
Obscurus
crazies had wasn’t anything I would regret, but doing the same to someone who didn’t deserve it was unthinkable.

Right now, I had to tackle the first problem on the list.

“We have to find Willow,” I said. “Papan was able to track her scent to the end of the street.”

Oren turned to look at him.

“I’ve only known her for a few days so her scent isn’t too familiar, but it was strong enough up until that bus stop.”

“So whoever took her caught a bus?” It sounded like such an unlikely scenario, and I felt silly voicing it.

Papan shrugged.

“It could be a way to throw off the trail,” Oren said.

I nodded. “Well, it looks like it worked because unless we board each bus that stops there to see if Papan can follow the scent we’re pretty much screwed.”

Oren looked thoughtful, scratching at his chin. “There’s got to be a way, something we missed…”

I wracked my brain, trying to find some sort of miracle, something to help answer our questions, when I caught sight of the laptop. All the talk about the
Obscurus
and the computer itself reminded me of Maya—our main suspect. And now that I knew she was connected to Jonathan, there might be one lead we could follow.

“Actually, I might know someone who can help.” I avoided both of their confused glares and instead stood up and stepped into the living room with them close on my heels.
 

Ebony was lying on the couch and someone—probably Conrad—had put a cushion under her head and thrown a blanket over her. With the long multi-hued strands of hair spread out, she looked more like a sleeping child than a woman. She’d really screwed up this time.
 

“Sierra, you can’t say something like that and then walk away,” Oren said.

“He’s right. What do you mean?” Papan stood beside the older man with his arms crossed.

“Will you guys keep it down?” Conrad snapped, giving each of us a dirty look. He pushed aside the bowl of chips, sat on the coffee table and leaned forward, scrutinizing every breath Ebony took.

“We’re not disturbing her,” I said.

“Maybe it’s better if we are. Then she might wake up.” Oren raised his white eyebrows to emphasize the point neither one of us had obviously considered. “But back to what we were discussing—what makes you think you might know someone who can help find Willow?”

 
“Maybe we can start by asking Jonathan where Maya is.”

Papan frowned. “Why would he know?”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to see him,” Conrad said.

I sighed, making my way around to the other side of the living room and behind the couch so I could look at the three men crowding this space. “This won’t be a social call or even asking him for help healing someone, but if he’s hiding Maya we might also find Willow.”

“We don’t know for sure that she took her,” Oren said.

“Who else would take Willow?”

“Fox is right,” Papan said. “This Maya woman doesn’t exist. As far as any register is concerned, she was never born—anywhere—and if she was willing to stir the pot and kill girls all leading back to Willow, I’m pretty sure she’d have her now.”

I nodded. “Maya’s part of the
Obscurus
and won’t hesitate to kill her, so it’s important that we find Willow ASAP. I’m sick and tired of creatures hurting the people I care about.” I sucked in a breath. “If you guys don’t want to come, that’s fine. You should probably stay with Ebony anyway,” I said to Conrad. “And this isn’t your fight, Oren.”

He stepped closer. “The hell it’s not! This Lamia is threatening both of my granddaughters, so it’s very much my business.”

“Okay then, let’s go.” I turned to Papan. “The same goes for you, you know? You don’t have to do this. You’ve already gotten hurt tonight.” I reached for the damaged skin of his neck but stopped short of touching it.