rylee adamson 10 - blood of the lost (15 page)

A wash of disappointment slid over me. None of the things I’d done were truly wrong, they just were not what my father and his people wanted me to do. Peta’s claws dug lightly through the shirt on my shoulder, her mouth right by my ear.

“Easy, Lark. They can’t deny you forever. And your sister will help.”

That’s what I was hoping.

Cactus jogged up to my side. “Are we going to Bella?”

“Yes, that’s the plan.”

Griffin cleared his throat. “Your sister isn’t in the Rim proper-like. She’s living in your old place at the very edge with her daughter.”

Adjusting my trajectory, I kept walking. Cactus brushed my hand with his and I took his fingers for a moment, squeezing them. Of all the people in my life, he knew how difficult this was for me. To come home and once again be treated like I was useless.

Or worse, a threat.

We stayed to the edge of the Rim, all the way around the perimeter, until we came to my home. The tree was wide at the base and had a pulley system with a simple loop of rope for a foothold that would take me up. The main living quarters were fifty feet above us in the tree and carved into the trunk itself.

I glanced at everyone. “Wait here. I don’t want to freak my sister out. Rylee, come with me.”

Rylee jogged over to me. “You don’t think I would freak her out?”

Bella needed to know this was serious. And if she saw Rylee, there would be no doubt we were fighting the final battle in a matter of days.

“Yes, you probably will, but I think you should come anyway.” I reached up and tugged the rope, the pulley system working silently as it sent the foot loop down to us. Stuffing my foot into the loop I held out a hand for Rylee.

I caught her around the waist, winding one hand through the rope as I tugged on a second rope that would release the counter weight with my other hand.

We shot into the air, almost fifty feet before we jerked to a stop. Rylee’s arm never tightened on me once. Trust . . . it was a strange thing to have so strongly between us already.

“So this is another cousin of mine then?” she asked.

Reaching out, I grabbed the platform and pulled us to it. “No, you and I are related on my mother’s side. I’m the only family you’ve got. But that won’t matter. Bella will recognize you for who you are.”

We stepped off the platform and I walked into the hollowed-out tree. The entryway was dark and I called out softly.

“Belladonna.”

There was a scuffle of sheets and then a thump of feet running toward us. A lantern flickered on and my older sister held it up. “Mother goddess, Larkspur, I thought you were dead!”

She ran to me, her long dark brown hair curling down her shoulders as artfully as if she’d never slept on it. I caught her in my arms and held her tightly, a shudder going through me. Nearly thirty years away from her, one of my best friends.

Bella let out a sob and pulled back, touching my face as if she couldn’t believe I was there. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. “You’ve changed, Lark.”

I gave her a half grin. “A little, maybe. The desert will do that to you.”

“So many questions; how is it that you aren’t dead? Father told everyone you died while helping a Tracker find Jonathan . . . .” She noticed we weren’t alone. I moved to the side.

“This is the Tracker I was helping, Bella. And the time has come for the elementals to stand with this world, or watch it go down in demon flames.”

She took a deep shuddering breath, then held out her hand to Rylee. “Hello, my name is Belladonna. You must be Elle.”

Rylee’s whole body jerked as if she’d been shot with the electricity. “What did you call me?”

My throat constricted. “No, this is Rylee, and we’re leaving it at that.”

Bella looked from me to Rylee and back again, her gray eyes catching the light. “All right, then. What do you need, Lark?”

She was backing me, and a piece of the anger for everything that had been done to me slipped away. “We have to take Jonathan with us. He’s going to help Rylee with the demons.”

Bella nodded, but her lips were pursed. “I can take you to him, but I don’t think he will help. We’ve never in all the years he’s been here been able to convince him to Read for us. He says that payment is required, but no matter what we give him, it isn’t good enough. Jewels, money . . . even women.” She blushed on that last bit and I didn’t blame her. Trying to buy a kid off to help you clean the house was one thing. Trying to buy a kid off to help you understand the future was apparently a hell of a lot harder.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

I looked past Bella to a tall woman with long black hair and pale blue eyes. She lifted her hand, all elegance and grace even in that slight movement.

“River, this is your aunt.”

The girl let out a soft gasp. “You helped my mother escape the Deep. You helped her keep me safe and protected me against—”

I held up my hand stopping her. “That is not a story for right now. But I promise you when I am done helping Rylee I will come back. We will talk and tell stories of before.”

My niece nodded. “A deal then.”

Bella reached back and touched her daughter gently on the hand. “Go to bed, I don’t want you to be a part of this.”

“I’m not a child, mother.”

“No, it would be better if you were; then there would be no banishment for you. As an adult, if you were caught even speaking to your aunt, there would be repercussions I’m not sure any of us could save you from.”

Rylee shifted on her feet. “I thought you were shitting me about your family.”

I shook my head slowly. “No, I am the black sheep, as the humans would say.”

Bella grabbed a wrap from the hook on the wall and put it over her shoulders. “Come, let us go get the boy and send him with you. We might be able to make it happen before anyone knows you’re even here.”

When all three of us were on the ground, Bella gasped and took in the group we’d left behind. “Oh dear. This could be a problem.”

Rylee waved at them. “They can wait on the edge. As long as your people aren’t going to attack us.”

Bella glanced at her. “They won’t attack you, Rylee. But they will attack Lark if we run into the wrong people.”

I lifted a hand. “Where is Jonathan?”

Rylee pointed before Bella could say, and my blood chilled. “He’s that direction, middle of the Rim from what I can tell.”

My sister gave me a tight smile and doused her light. “That’s correct, he’s in the Spiral.”

The Spiral was the seat of power for our home, where our father lived with his favored children, and where there would be plenty of guards who would recognize me.

“Worm shit,” I whispered.

Bella nodded. “Exactly.”

CHAPTER 18

RYLEE

LARK’S SISTER HAD us cover our heads so only our eyes were visible. “It’s the best we can do. They would recognize Lark’s hair and you don’t look like any elemental here with your auburn coloring. Worse, they might take you as a Salamander.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “I look like a lizard?”

Pamela tapped my arm. “A Salamander is another name for a fire elemental. Like Cactus, they mostly have red hair.”

Lark nodded. “You wouldn’t be any more welcome here than me if they thought that, I’m afraid.”

With a quick wave, I sent the rest of the crew away. Or tried to.

“Wait for us with Eve and Marco.”

Pamela shook her head. “I don’t want to be separated from you.”

Berget nodded. “Me, too.”

Then Alex who crossed his arms over his chest. “Me, three.”

Liam’s mouth quirked. “I’d say
me four,
but you might hit me.”

Lark shrugged. “Your circus, my friend. Your monkeys.”

Shit, this was not going as planned, but then, when had any of my salvages? The truth hit me hard. That
was
what I was doing. I wasn’t saving a single child or person, but all of them. Orion was the bad guy I was going to save a lot of someones from.

“You can come
if
you all promise to hide if Lark tells you to.”

Bella cleared her throat. “We could take them to the Enders Barracks. That way they are close enough to help, but we won’t have to take them all the way into the Spiral.”

“That’s a good plan, but what about the Enders?” Lark said as she finished wrapping her head in the cloth.

Bella looked away. “There are none left. Father disbanded them after you and . . . Ash were killed.”

Lark stiffened. “He’s not dead any more than I am. They stuck him in an oubliette too, farther away than me.”

Bella’s eyes softened as though she thought Lark was fooling herself.

This was getting us nowhere. “Fucking hell, we are not doing a therapy session, Lark. Get your head in the game.”

If I’d thought she’d stiffened before, it was nothing to the way her back snapped to attention with my words. “Let’s go.”

“Finally,” I muttered. We walked down the center of the Rim. The name of the place was a bit deceiving since there was no real rim, so to speak. The elementals had homes around the edges of a large oval that ran at least three miles in each direction if the clearing I saw was accurate. The homes were quiet and we made it to the Enders barracks without any problem.

Lark pried the double-wide wooden door open with her spear. “The rest of you, wait here.”

Peta leapt from her shoulder and shifted into her snow leopard form. Lark shook her head. “No, you are too recognizable. Go to the Traveling room and make sure the armbands are there; guard them. I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”

Peta let out a long, low snarl but did as she was told, albeit with stiff legs and a hunched back.

Like that, we were down to three and we skirted the edge of a large tree that literally spiraled into the canopy. It looked a hundred feet across, maybe more. The Spiral wasn’t made up of a single tree, though, but dozens wrapped around one another in, duh, a huge spiral.

Steps led up to the main doors. Another set of double doors that two guards stood in front of, both wearing clothing similar to what Lark had been wearing when we pulled her out of the oubliette. Brown leather vest and khaki type pants that were tied around their ankles, boots, and several weapons visible on both of them.

“Let me try and talk us in first,” Bella said softly. She stepped in front of us. “Blossom, I need to get herbals from the kitchens.”

The woman, I assumed was Blossom, crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “You know the rules. No one in or out of the Spiral during the dark hours.”

In my head, Jonathan’s threads trembled, a vibration that I’d felt only a few times before. Most recently with Milly and India.

“No time, demons have John!”

Side by side we leapt forward. My swords cleared my sheaths and I was on the guard on the right before he could even draw his weapon. I slammed the butt of my right sword into his temple, dropping him to the ground. Beside me, Lark grabbed the woman, Blossom, by her arms and threw her out of our way.

“Bella, get the others, we need them.”

Bella spun and raced away. Lark lifted a foot and kicked the door open. “Lead the way, Rylee.”

Locking onto Jonathan’s threads I raced toward him. No one got in our way, and I had a feeling I knew why. What would a demon do in a home where everyone was sleeping?

Take them out, of course. The only question was, which demon were we dealing with?

I took a deep breath and reached out to the motherfuckers messing with our world. I Tracked demons and got pings all over the place, the red pulsing energy that was them made my head hurt, there were so many. But it was the one closest to me that I centered on. He was right on top of Jonathan. I ran as fast as I could, but it was like I was on an escalator going backward, like no matter how fast I went, I was going to be late again.

Just like with Blaz.

My jaw tightened. “No, not again.” I slid to a stop, feeling Jonathan and the demon he faced right underneath us. “Lark.” I pointed down and she gave me a tight nod.

With a flick of her hand the ground below us—no, the tree below us—split open wide as if an axe had been driven into it.