rylee adamson 10 - blood of the lost (36 page)

CHAPTER 46

LARK

THE CEREMONY WAS simple. Seven points of the body bled out into the slab, a single invocation spoken over each participant and the blood would be drawn out of them in a rush like water receding ahead of a tsunami.

I looked up at Eve hovering above us, out of range of the demons’ arrows and spears. “Harpy, bring me the boy, Jonathan.”

She let out a screech and shot into the fading darkness.

Peta stayed close to me, her strength helping me focus my mind on what had to be done. “Thank you,” I whispered. She gave a soft mewl of acknowledgment, but said nothing. No doubt she was picking up the tumultuous emotions swirling through me.

At the altar, I bent over the demon first. He glared up at me. “Blackbird isn’t done with you yet, chicky.”

Taking the katana I’d made ten years prior for Rylee, before I ever knew her, before I ever knew what my role would be, I sliced it across each of his wrists in a vertical slash. I moved to his legs, then his belly, one cut over his heart and then paused at his throat. “Any last words?”

“You’ve not seen the last of us. Demons will not be held back, not even if you close the Veil. We’ll find a way. We always do.”

I refused to admit his words chilled me to the bone. Shrugging, I slid the katana across his throat and spoke the invocation. “
Signantes velum
.”

A bolt of lightning ripped out of the sky and drove through his body, superheating his blood. The black liquid poured out of him so fast his skin shriveled and tightened over his face and chest, until he was nothing but a wizened body that looked as though it had been mummified for a thousand years.

“Tell me that isn’t going to happen to me,” Rylee whispered, her eyes locked on Orion—or what was left of him—beside her on the slab.

“It’s not. That was because he has no soul.” I tried not to hear the sounds of the battle around us. Alex pressed close to her on the other side.

“I’m here, Rylee. To the end, whatever that is.”

I shook my head. “You can’t touch her once the ceremony begins, Alex. No one can until her blood is drained, or their fate will be tangled with hers. She dies, you die, understand?”

He looked at me, his golden eyes wide and brimming with tears. “Then don’t let her die, Lark.”

My jaw tight, I nodded. “I’m going to be doing my best not to let that happen.”

Cactus grunted. “Hurry, Lark, we’re losing ground.”

Hurry, hurry. I called Berget over. “We start with you. The fanged must make their mark. You have to say, ‘for the fanged, you bleed.’” I handed her the katana and then pointed at Rylee’s left wrist.

This was about to get very, very real.

CHAPTER 47

RYLEE

I STARED UP AT Berget and gave her a smile. “It’s okay.”

She shook her head, tears falling from her pristine blue eyes. “No, I just got you back.”

“I know.” I wouldn’t lie, not now.

She dropped to her knees beside me on the slab, her arms going around my neck. “I love you, Rylee.”

“I love you, too, baby sister. Look after Marcella for me, help her be strong and kind. And maybe not such a potty mouth as me.”

Sobbing, she pulled back from me and put the katana against my left wrist. Holding her lips between her teeth she drew the blade over my skin. I didn’t even feel it, wouldn’t have known I was wounded except for the warmth trickling down my arm. “For the fanged, you bleed.”

Lark touched her on the shoulder. “Hold the circle, keep the demons at bay.”

Berget stumbled back and leapt into the fray with a war cry that made me think the demons had best run from her.

“Ophelia,” Lark said, and my dragon—yes, my dragon, not my father’s any longer—reached out with the tip of her claw and cut my left leg. “For the winged, you bleed.”

As if on cue, Eve swooped low and dropped Jonathan right at my feet. Lark handed him the blade and he cut into my right leg. “For the psychics, you bleed.”

Lark took the katana from him. She looked at me. “Pamela or Louisa?”

“I will do it,” Pamela said, striding over to us. Gods, she made me proud.

She took a deep breath and took the katana, her words shaking. “Rylee, you know you aren’t going to die. You can’t.”

I smiled up at her. “I love you, Pam. You are my other little sister. Look out for each other.”

“Love is the key,” she whispered. “It always was. You loved me, and that brought me back from the darkness. You never gave up. Please don’t give up, Rylee.” She leaned over and slid the blade over my right wrist. “For the magicked, you bleed.”

She kissed her fingers and then held her palm up to me. I couldn’t move and I hated I was going to break a promise to her. To all of them.

Lark’s voice softened. Alex hadn’t moved from my side, not during the whole time. “For the furred, Alex. Can you do it?”

He swallowed hard and his tears spilled over onto his cheeks. “Yes. Though I will hate myself forever for taking part in this.”

“Hey,” I said softly, hiccupping around the sobs reverberating through my chest. “Don’t you dare change, Alex. Not for a split second.”

He held the katana carefully, putting the tip over my heart and drawing a line across it. “For the furred, you bleed.”

Lark took the blade from him and shooed him backward.

Tears dripped from her eyes, down her cheeks, and splashed onto the slab beside my head. “Goodbye, my friend.”

“See you on the flip side, Lark.”

She drew the blade across my throat. “Rylee of the Blood. For the world, you bleed. For the world, you sacrifice. For the world, you die.”

I closed my eyes, the rush of warmth flowing over me as my blood slipped from my veins. Liam cried out and Lark yelled at him not to touch me. We’d said our goodbyes; not to say I wouldn’t have liked to hold him again. To whisper one last time that I loved him.

But if I did that, I might not ever let him go, or let any of them go, for that matter. Beside me, Alex sobbed, his cries turning into howls that shattered the night air and another piece of my heart broke.

I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave any of them behind.

Around me the world faded and the Veil slipped over me, flashes of each level as I slid through. Their meaning becoming known to me.

The first Veil hid the unseen world of the supernatural. The second level was of dreams and visions. I’d been there more than a time or two. The third Veil carried ghosts that couldn’t move on for one reason or another.

The fourth Veil stumped me, and I stayed for a moment to take it in. Books were everywhere, like a giant library that contained everything ever written in the world, both human and supernatural; a place to seek answers, I understood.

The fifth level was a dungeon . . . a place of penance for supernatural assholes. Several trolls hissed at me, including a one-eyed, dual-dicked prick I knew all too fucking well. I flipped him off as I passed into the sixth Veil.

The realm of heroes, those who would stand between the world and the evil that would swallow it whole.

I stopped moving and stared at the first person, unable to believe what I was seeing.

“Dox.” I whispered his name and he gave a roar, scooping me into one of his infamous hugs, his blue-skinned arms squeezing me hard enough he should have cracked ribs. I hugged him back, unable to stop the tears. “Dox, you’re going to be a father.”

“Rylee, I know. I know.” He set me down, grinning. The triplets,
Sla
,
Lop
, and
Dev
surrounded us, laughing, their smiles infectious. Their violet skin the same shade as Sas’s, but their attitudes couldn’t have been more different from hers. They each slapped me on the back.

“Goose feathers and fuck a duck, you did good, Tracker,” one of them said, and I shook my head. I would never get the hang of their cursing.

“Thanks.”

A laugh I would know if my ears were plugged made me push past them. Giselle smiled at me and held out her arms. “Well done, Rylee girl. I knew you wouldn’t falter.”

I buried my face in her neck, unashamed to cry in front of her. Of all the people in my life, she’d been there from the beginning. From the first salvage. From the first betrayal, and the first broken promises. The mother of my heart and the one who understood why I did what I did.

“Hush, you’re here now, and it won’t be long before you can rest.” She smoothed the hair back from my face. I looked up, wiped my face and sniffed.

“You mean it’s not finished?”

She shook her head and pointed at the horizon behind us. “You have to close the Veil still, my girl.”

She turned so I could look past her. Beyond her, the horizon seethed with darkness, glimmering and moving like a giant snake that had twisted its coils in on itself. From the ground, it rose far into the sky. It was a solid wall that seemed to have no end.

Here and there were flashes of bright light, like grenades popping within the darkness, and they lit up with thousands upon thousands of red gleaming eyes. That was the barrier between us and the seventh Veil, where the demons were supposed to be caged.

Giselle didn’t let me go. “We are with you, Rylee. The battle will rage on both sides of the Veil. It is why you had to lose so many of your friends and finest warriors. You need an army here, as well.”

“It’s why I was not afraid to die,” Milly said softly, and I spun to face her.

Her bright green eyes were clear of Orion’s influence for the first time since I’d known her. But her being in the sixth level surprised me. “You aren’t in the fifth level doing penance? Not that I want you to be!”

She shook her head. “No. I was a child when Orion took control of me. I fought where I could and that was enough to bring me here.” I grabbed her and hugged her tightly. Another coming home. A friend I thought lost forever only to find her again.

An arm slid across my shoulders and a rough voice spoke. “Niece. Tell me the babies are safe.”

I turned and let Erik hold me, seeing again his death at the hands of the mob of trolls and how he’d protected Marcella with his own body. “They are. Liam got them out of the battle.”

A big sigh slipped out of him. “Good. I could never forgive myself if something happened to them.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” I said softly. “You gave your life for her.”

He grinned. “I wouldn’t have done it for just anyone.”

Frank was next, tucking his hands into his pockets. I held out a hand to him and hugged him, then kissed him hard on the lips. “That’s from Pamela.”

He blushed. “Is she . . . okay?”

“She will be. She’s a tough girl, and she loved you.”

He smiled, and I could see how easy it would be for her to fall for him. “I know. It’s why this was worth it.”

Love, it all came back to love.

I looked around us, unable to believe how many friends we’d lost. Deanna was there too, as were all the shamans who’d died. The coven of witches, and most of the supernatural world who’d died at the hands of Orion’s pox.