Shadowed Threads (4 page)

Chapter 4

T
he November rain
hammered down on the conservatory where I’d chosen to hide, though if anyone asked, I’d tell them I needed a place to think things over. Jack never went to the conservatory, and Pamela didn’t like the way the shriveled up plants looked. She said it reminded her too much of Anna’s rooftop and what had happened there.

Me, I was just happy for the peace and quiet as I let my head try to sort things out.

So there were some supposed prophecies that
looked
like they could be about me. But none of that really applied to me now. Not really.

Really?

I shook off my doubts, had to if I was going to move forward. Fear was a paralyzer, that much I knew. Right now I had to find O’Shea; that was the first and foremost issue I had sitting in my lap. And if I was going to find him, I couldn’t be scared out of my mind because of things that might, or might not, be about me.

Not much of what Jack had told me was going to be helpful; in fact, there wasn’t much at all I hadn’t already learned. A few quirks of Tracking, like not being able to feel people’s life threads across large bodies of water, the ability to Track groups of supernaturals. All good information to have. But not worth waiting three weeks for.

And sitting here was getting me no closer to going after O’Shea. There was nothing in my way now, I just had to get my gear, my weapons, and I’d be off after the FBI agent turned werewolf, kidnapped by a witch and held captive against his will.

Yup, no problem at all.

I stood, already planning the things I would need, as Jack hobbled into the conservatory, much to my surprise.

“What do you want?”

He leaned on his cane, his face even more haggard than just an hour before.

I opened my mouth to ask if there was anything else he had for me, anything he could teach me, when Alex came bounding into the room.

“Cookies, cookies, coookkkkiiiieeeessss!” He howled and then took off running around the conservatory at top speed, tucking his tail between his legs and grabbing at plants with his mouth and paws as he ran. Twice he stopped to spin in place, not chasing his tail, just spinning as fast as he could. Tongue hanging out, spit flew and I put myself between him and Jack. Just in case.

Jack grumbled and took a swing with his cane at the werewolf as he raced by for the third time. “Let’s go get some damn cookies.” Again, a diversion. Even though I understood some of his reasoning, his diversionary tactics pissed me off. As in royally fucking pissed. It took everything I had to not lash out at him.

Walking beside him, Jack acted as though we’d never had a fight.

Classic male pattern avoidance. Fine, I’d pretend like I didn’t remember the previous hour either, then.

“The last thing you need to know, you already know part of it. You can Track people who are dead already.”

I nodded, and he gave a double tap of his cane. “Then you need to know that you can also Track the spirits of some people. Not all. But those who have work left, or who are in limbo. They float between the first level of the Veil and the human world.”

“Ghosts you mean.”

“Ghosts. You can Track them. They move around a helluva lot more than most people realize, going wherever the fuck they want.”

“Do I have to know them? Or can I Track them like I would a group?”

“Both. But be careful because Tracking Ghosts has its downfalls too. They can yank you through the Veils. Heard about Brin getting dropped into the third level once. When he came out, his hair was white as snow and the prick was only twenty one at the time.” He paused and then gave me a tired smile and a wink. “The ladies loved it though.”

We made our way into the oversized kitchen. Copper pots hung above the granite-topped island, wooden barstools lined up along the edges. The kitchen was equipped with two of everything. Handy I suppose, but—I glanced at Jack—I wondered how many people it had served since Jack became the owner of this place.

The kitchen was warm; both stoves were running full tilt. Pamela had flour all over her face, the floor, the counter and even on a few of the hanging pots. But she was smiling and pointing at a cooling rack covered in irregularly shaped cookies. The smell of chocolate and peanut butter wafted through the air, and my stomach growled loudly, demanding some the warm, calorie-packed treats.

“I made chocolate chip peanut butter.” Pamela dropped a dirty mixing bowl into a sink full of sudsy water, earning a glare from Jack.

“Don’t break my shit, witch.”

She opened her mouth and I shook my head, stalling her. Her lips turned down in a hard frown, but she kept her mouth shut.

Alex side-stepped closer, and then sat on his haunches, drool slipping from his lips in great gobs that splashed onto the white tile floor as he stared without blinking at the cookies. Subtle he was not.

“Give him a cookie quick before we get flooded the fuck out,” Jack said, taking a cookie for himself. Pamela handed Alex a cookie, which he took without hesitation and popped into his mouth.

I grabbed one, and tossed it back and forth between my hands to help it cool off. Alex downed at least three in the space of ten seconds, Jack had his eyes closed as he savored the cookie. Pamela puttered about, cleaning up the mess. All so fucking domestic it made my head hurt.

And me? I bit into the cookie, the perfect blend of sweet chocolate and nutty flavors doing nothing to still the roll of my gut. Between the prophecies I’d read, the desire to go after Milly and O’Shea, the knowledge that Berget was alive and, whether she knew it or not, waiting for me to Track her, not to mention attempting to train Pamela, and keep Alex and Eve out of trouble … I wasn’t sure what I was feeling was true gut instinct and what was just stress. Fuck, I hated stress. I wanted things to go back to the way they were. Simple and easy. Get called out on a salvage and go after the kid. In that, at least, Jack was right. With everything else going on, I was being pulled away from what I should be doing—Tracking kids. How many back home were waiting on me? Just the thought of how many kids would die, how many were going missing as I stood there eating a cookie, made me sick to my stomach.

The phone in the kitchen rang, actually jumping in its cradle, startling me. Jack walked to the wall where it hung and lifted the receiver, a sour look twisting across his face.

“What the fuck do you want, witch?”

I choked on the cookie in my mouth. Jack was a Reader, like Giselle. Which meant he would know who was on the phone the minute he picked it up.

Pamela’s blue eyes went wide and she mouthed the name I had come to hate.

Milly.

I strode to Jack’s side and he handed me the phone, but didn’t let go right away.

“Don’t let her manipulate you. Remember what I said about people using you.”

I pulled the phone out of his hand and put it to my ear, the crackle of static hissing ever so lightly. “You need to let O’Shea go, Milly.”

“He’s already gone. There is no way to bring him back, Rylee, so don’t bother trying. The wolf in him has taken over completely.”

The phone creaked under my grip. “You calling to gloat, you piece of shit?”

“No, I’m not. You should know, though, that he will be taken care of. You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I didn’t care that my voice rose in intensity, didn’t care anymore that Pamela was hearing me swear.

“He is hunting witches, actively hunting them. The local Coven has sent a team to deal with him.”

“You mean kill him.”

She drew in a breath and I could almost see her bite her lip before answering me. “Yes.”

I had to find O’Shea. As in now.

“Why are you telling me this?”

She was silent for a heartbeat, maybe two before answering. “You’re like my sister, I don’t want you to be hurt—”

Anger, sweet and hot, made it hard to speak evenly. “The next time we meet, witch, be ready to pay your penance to the gatekeeper, because I
will
be taking your head. You don’t give a shit about anyone, just yourself.”

“Don’t hang up!” She called out, like I hadn’t just threatened her life. “Please, Rylee.”

The phone was already away from my ear when she screeched out words that stopped me.

“I’m calling to ask if you would be the godmother of my child.”

Not much could have thrown me for a loop. But that did. I stared at the wall. Milly was pregnant?

She kept on talking, quickly, as if to stall me.

“It’s Ethan’s baby. I thought he was going to come to Europe to be with me, but
Terese won’t let him.
I need to know my baby will be safe if something happens to me. I don’t expect you to help me or anything—I know better than that. I get it, we are on opposite sides; you’ve made that very clear.

“But if anything happens to me, I need to know that you will take care of my child, that you’ll raise him and protect him. Please.”

This was not happening. It couldn’t be. The ‘Milly is pregnant’ scene wasn’t what was throwing me for a loop. Shit, that had been coming for years. But for her to think that after she tried to kill Alex and Eve, compelled O’Shea, and now O’Shea was being hunted by other witches as a result of what she’d done, not to mention she’d essentially killed Giselle, that I would for one instant do what she wanted—

“You took an oath to protect and save children at all costs, even to the loss of your own life,” she said softly, her voice dropping into a whisper. “Please, Rylee. For whatever love we had as sister-friends, promise me this.”

I struggled to find the words. “How far along are you?”

“I’m due in April, right around Easter.”

Jack’s admonition still rung in my head. “I’m not promising you anything.” I slammed the phone back into the cradle before she could beg anymore. Before I could buckle under the weight of my oaths.

The kitchen was still; no one moved. Jack, Pamela, and even Alex stared at me, waiting for me to say something. Saved by the bell, a buzzer sounded through the house announcing someone at the front door. Jack glared at us, and then glared at the general direction of the door. The buzzer went off again. And again. And again.

“Company, who fucking needs it? You three, you need to get the hell out of here so I can bloody well die in peace.” Jack thumped his cane into the floor with each step he took as he left the kitchen, presumably to greet whoever was buzzing us with such glee.

Pamela walked to my side and slipped her arm around my waist. “I can feel it in the air, things are changing, aren’t they?”

I draped an arm across her shoulders, as my mind once more saw the prophecies as if stamped inside my brain. “Yeah … yeah, I think they are.”

Chapter 5

I
f you’d asked
me to guess who was at the door and had given me ten tries, I still would have gotten it wrong. I assumed it would be Agent Valley (who still hadn’t given up on me joining his agency), maybe Deanna or even Will.

Nope. None of those.

I think my jaw might have actually unhinged as the punk rocker-esque Daywalker strode into the kitchen. Jack muttered under his breath as he trailed behind his newest houseguest.

Doran strode right up to me and kissed me on the cheek, dark green eyes all lit up with happiness, as if seeing me had just made his fucking day. His white blond hair was still tipped in black, the silver piercings above his eyebrow and in the side of his lip still glinted at me, teasing little winks. All of it was the same. Except that he was here, in London, instead of in New Mexico where he should have been.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I blurted out, shoving him away from me, wanting space between us. If he was here, something was wrong. And the last thing I needed was more wrong in my life.

With a smooth fluid grace he lifted himself to sit on the counter, right next to the cookies. He took one, broke it in half and then took a bite.

“Oh my gods, these are fantastic. Surely you didn’t make them, did you, Rylee? If you tell me you can bake as well as kick ass with the best of them, I may have to make an exception to my ‘no marrying’ rule.” He smiled around the bite of cookie in his mouth.

“I made them,” Pamela said, her voice coming from the other side of the kitchen where she stood pressed against the industrial fridge. Her blue eyes were narrowed to slits. Her past experience with a fanged supernatural hadn’t gone too well. No, not too well at all. Her hands twitched, no doubt prepping a spell.

Alex climbed up onto the counter to sit awkwardly next to Doran. “Alex sits too.”

“Get off the counter, Alex.” I pointed to the floor. He slid off like a boneless Gumby doll, until he was splayed out on the floor flat on his belly.

“No fairs.”

I had only my bowie knife and my whip on me, stupidly having put my sword back in my bedroom. Not enough if I had to fight Doran. Shit. Of course, that was assuming he was here to cause problems. Again, I had to think he was. To come all this way for tea and cookies? Nope, that just didn’t fit.

“I will ask you only one more time and then things are going to get nasty.” I fingered the whip’s handle. “What are you doing here?”

Doran leaned back, popped the last of the cookie into his mouth and dusted his fingers on his black leather pants. His eyes had an odd glint in them and they flicked quickly around the room. A single bead of sweat budded on the left side of his face. Yeah, something was wrong. Shit, I hated being right.

“May I speak with you in private, Rylee? Somewhere your new witch and the old Tracker won’t hear us?”

I tipped my head toward the door and he slid off the counter, following me. Jack lifted an eyebrow and I pointed at Alex and Pamela. “Keep them with you.”

I would deal with Doran on my own, it was better that way. My skin twitched as I walked; I could feel the Daywalker’s eyes on me, feel the desire he had to pierce my skin with his fangs. Fuck, and I still owed him a kiss. I fought the urge to groan. Had he come all this way for a kiss? Shit, I was good, but I wasn’t
that
good. No, it had to be something else. Something I wouldn’t want to hear. Or something he wanted from me.

I led him to the library. Seeing as the door was busted, there was no hiding behind it now.

Doran took a step in, turned and shut the doors. “No lock?” He fingered the clean slice of the deadbolt, and then grabbed a chair and slid it under the doorknobs for extra security. Or an extra precaution to keep me in the room with him? What the fuck was going on with him?

“No need for us to be interrupted.” His voice was soft, but carried across the room easily. Shit, something was seriously off with the Daywalker. For all his quirks, and the few times we’d spent together, this was not like him.

Without any hesitation, I pulled the bowie knife out and un-looped the whip from my belt. When Doran turned, his mouth opened and his step toward me stopped in mid-air.

“I’m not here for that kind of a visit, as much as I wouldn’t mind sparring with you. Though I’d prefer we did it naked.” He gave me a wink, but I didn’t lower my weapons. I was learning that supernaturals with fangs just couldn’t seem to help themselves, no matter what they said, they would always want what they couldn’t have. Blood, sex, power, one or all three of those options, whatever they could get.

“I think I’m good as I stand now.”

“Have I not been helpful to you, Rylee?” He stepped toward the big table, ran his fingers along the top of it.

“Yes, sort of.”

“Have I not sent you gifts that have aided you?”

I thought about the pendant he’d sent for Giselle, how it had helped on the last salvage. “Perhaps.”

He smiled, maybe hearing the hesitation in my voice.

His eyes flicked up to mine. “Have I not drawn a demon’s poison from you? And in doing so, saved your life?”

“You all did that, you and the other Shamans.”

Laughing, he shook his head, the piercings catching the light and flickering against his skin. “I didn’t need them, I could have done it myself.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Ah, well, I was under orders. Sorry about that.” Again, he winked, but his eyes were strained, like his mask was finally cracking. I had a feeling that whether I liked it or not, I was about to see another side of Doran.

“Orders?”

He ran a finger along his lips, a second bead of sweat joining the first. “Can’t tell you anything else.”

Fuck, this was getting irritating. “Why the hell are you here, Doran?”

With a hop, he sat on the edge of the table and leaned back, spreading his arms out, fingertips stretched. He let out a heavy sigh.

This was weird behavior, even for him, and my gut told me I needed to move, get out of there. The thing was, if O’Shea was lost to the wolf he carried now, I would need help to bring him back. And Doran was a powerful Shaman.

“I am here because … .” His hands waved loosely in the air above him.

I waited, but never lowered my weapons. He remained silent, so I asked him the question that burned the back of my throat with its intensity.

“O’Shea is lost to the wolf in him. Can you bring him back?”

Doran tipped his head up so he could see me and blinked, as if seeing me for the first time. “Bring him back? Maybe. Perhaps. But it won’t be easy, even if it would work. Worse than what you went through with the Hoarfrost demon, I think. Perhaps. Maybe not. Possibly.”

The knot that had tied itself around my gut when Milly had told me O’Shea was lost loosened. A chance, that was all I asked for, a chance to save him.

Before I could ask another question, Doran sat up and scrubbed a hand through his short hair, grabbing at it as if he would try to yank it out. “Rylee, I’ll tell you why I’m here, but you’re not going to like it. I’ve been compelled to come. However, I thought that once I was here I could keep myself in check, but it’s proving harder than I expected. Perhaps I should have tried harder to stay away.” He was rambling, which was totally unlike him. “I told her I would help you; so I helped in the beginning, because it’s what she wanted. But—”

I cut him off. “Spit it out, Doran.”

He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He took a big gulping breath, his pain-filled green eyes flicking up to mine. “She wants me to kill your little witch.”

I licked my lips, heart thumping hard with adrenaline. Fuck, I did
not
want to fight Doran. “Who wants you to hurt me? Who wants to kill Pamela?”

“The Child Empress, the one that would rule the vampire nation. She is a power in her own right and she isn’t even fully fanged yet. Because she carries the memories of her parents, she has all their strengths as well as her own.”

Oh fuck, wasn’t it bad enough that I was already dealing with Faris? Did I really have to deal with this Child Empress too? And what the hell did she have against Pamela?

The thing was, I didn’t know what to do. Killing, or trying to kill, Doran would lose me a powerful ally. And while I might not always trust him, the same could be said for many of my allies. Not to mention that Doran hadn’t gone after Pamela when he had the chance. He could have attacked her there in the kitchen, but he hadn’t, he’d held himself back somehow. Add in the fact that he’d just told me he could possibly help me bring back O’Shea if he was lost to the wolf as Milly said.

“Why would she send you to me, why not one of her vampires who could have cleaned my clock and be-spelled Pamela in a heartbeat?”

I wanted to move, to pace or prep for a fight, but at the same time, I needed him to keep talking. If I
was
forced to kill him, then I needed all the information I could get out of him ahead of time. Brutal, cold, but no less the truth for all that.

“You let me right in, didn’t you?” His dark green eyes were full of sorrow, but he couldn’t seem to sit still. His hands jumped and twitched as he talked. “I walked right up, kissed you on the cheek and you didn’t even lift a weapon. The Child Empress knew that. I can get close to you; it’s what she’s wanted all along. But I can’t stop her from commanding me, the binding goes too deep.”

“Fine.” I rolled my shoulders, loosening my muscles. “Then how the fuck do we unbind you from her, stop her from compelling you?”

“We don’t.” He lunged at me, and I barely got the bowie knife up between us. He stopped, his eyes wild, mouth open as he panted for air. His muscles twitched, as he lowered himself to the ground, face down, neck exposed to me.

“Kill me swiftly, that’s all I ask.” His body jerked and jumped as if tied to strings I couldn’t see. Like the puppet he was. Fuck it all to hell and back.

“There has to be a way to unbind you from her.” I held the knife above him, poised on the edge of slicing it into his neck, holding off the inevitable.

“I would have to bind myself to another, someone else. There is not time; I can barely think straight with her in my head—”

His hands snaked out and grabbed me by the ankles, jerking me to the floor. I hit hard, but stayed on my back so I could see him. He crawled up my body, fangs bared, his eyes wide with fear.

“Kill me. You must.”

“I never did like doing things the easy way,” I said, as I flipped us over so I was on top and his back was to the floor. Even though he tried not to fight me, his body struggled to obey his mistress.

“Rylee, you have no ability to bind me. And she is pushing me hard. If you don’t kill me, I
will
go after Pamela.” He groaned, his body bucking underneath mine.

I balanced my knees on his arms, but I knew that he could throw me off if he wanted to. What the hell was I going to do with him? I couldn’t kill him, not if I was going to bring O’Shea back, but how did I let him live with Pamela’s life on the line?

A tentative knock came on the door, then the sound of a cane rapping against the wood.

“Go away!” I yelled, glancing over my shoulder. Doran threw me off him, pushing me straight up into the air. My head brushed the fifteen-foot ceiling before gravity took over, yanking me back to the floor. I landed in a crouch, eyeing up the Daywalker who had plastered himself against the far wall of books.

“Rylee, I can’t hold on much longer. Send her away, I can smell her on the other side of the door.” He said, sliding to the floor, books falling around him as he went.

From outside the door came a resounding curse and then the wooden panels were blasted open. Jack strode in, a snarl on his lips, eyes flashing with anger.

“This is my fucking house, and I don’t give a shit.” He came to a stop as he rounded the table and Doran came into view for him.

I put myself between Doran and Jack. “Fuck, Jack, this is why I didn’t want you in here, I knew something was wrong.”

Pamela stepped into the room and lifted her hand. With an ease that belied her experience, she pinned Doran down, and his face relaxed. “Should have asked the witch along. Always ask the witch along. That’s advice you need to start taking.”

“Shut up, Doran,” I snapped, knowing he was right. The struggle was using Pamela to help me, but not getting her killed. A fine line in our world. One I didn’t like walking.

Jack made his way to his recliner and slumped into it. “Who has you bound?”

Doran rolled his head toward the old Tracker. “The Child Empress. I know of no way to break the binding; Rylee must kill me or I will attack her, kill Pamela, and make a general mess of things for all of you.”

Jack snorted and leaned back in the chair, putting his feet up. “All these things you know, and yet so bloody fucking much you don’t, Daywalker. And you’ve been around for what, three hundred years?”

Doran gave a grunt. “Close enough.”

I felt my eyes widen, couldn’t stop them. Three hundred years? Seriously?

Jack pointed at me with his cane. “She
can
break the binding, but are you ready to be free of the Child Empress, to stand with Rylee instead?”