I smiled at him, big and bright.
He shot me a look. “And we should probably be getting real-life experience.”
Matthew was watching his husband closely. He sighed as he folded his arms. “It’s a little too late at night to have that discussion.”
While I wanted to have that discussion, I also wanted to have what felt like a way more important one. “Isn’t it superweird that Ravers were out here? That was the first time I’d ever seen one, and wow, they’re really creepy, but I thought they were scavenger demons. Way lower level.”
“They are,” Thierry answered as he looked at Matthew. “They’re not supposed to be topside. They don’t remotely blend in.”
Due to the same cosmic rule that made it impossible to tell humans that demons were real, only demons who could blend in with humans were allowed topside. There were quite a few that, at first glance, looked perfectly human. Giant walking rats totally weren’t one of them.
“And not only that, Ravers are usually a sign of a much bigger problem,” Matthew added. “Where you see Ravers, you almost always find Upper Level demons.”
My heart nearly stopped in my chest. That little tidbit was probably taught in class, but I’d forgotten. I glanced over at Misha, and he looked just as uneasy as I felt.
Upper Level demons were the Big Bads.
Their abilities ran the gamut. Some could sway human minds to do bad, bad things. Others could summon fire and rain down brimstone, change their appearance at the drop of a hat, becoming human one moment and an animal the next. Many of them were biblically old. All of them could take out a Warden.
And if the Ravers being here meant that there was an Upper Level demon nearby, that was a big deal.
I crossed my arms, almost not wanting to ask what I already suspected. “Do you think it’s possible that an Upper Level demon knows about me?”
Thierry hesitated. “Every last one of your kind has been slaughtered, Trinity. If an Upper Level demon knew you were here, those walls would already be breached. Nothing would stop it from getting to you.”
There was a ghost in the driveway.
Again.
Could be worse, I supposed. But the Raver attack was two days ago, and our walls hadn’t been breached by an Upper Level demon hell-bent on devouring me.
Literally.
Even with my crap eyes, I knew the figure pacing in front of the hedges lining the wide driveway was superdead. I knew this mainly because his body kept flickering in and out like poor reception on an old television.
He definitely wasn’t a spirit, and I’d seen enough of the two in my eighteen years to know the difference. The man below in his gold-colored shirt hadn’t crossed over yet.
Spirits were the deceased who had seen the light—and there was almost always a light—had gone to it and then had come back for some reason or another. Usually they had a message or just wanted to check in on their loved ones.
Kneeling on the ledge of the Great Hall, I grasped the rough edge of the roof with one hand and placed my other on the curved shoulder of the stone gargoyle beside me. Heat radiated from the shell, warming my palm. I squinted behind my sunglasses and leaned as far as I could without falling face-first off the roof. The Great Hall was almost as tall as the wall and at least two stories higher than Thierry’s house.
Watching the ghost pace back and forth, obviously confused, I wondered where in the world he’d come from. The community wasn’t exactly easily reachable, nestled in the hills of the mountain and accessed only by back roads—winding, curvy back roads.
Probably a car accident.
Many a tired, unsuspecting traveler had fallen victim to those treacherous roads, with their sharp curves and steep, sudden embankments.
The poor dude had probably lost control and woken up dead before wandering here, like a lot of ghosts did. Last week it was a hiker who’d gotten lost on the mountain and fallen to her death. Two weeks ago it was an overdose—an older man who’d died on one of those back roads, too out of it to realize he was dying and too far away from help even if he had. Last month there’d been a girl, and hers had been the worst death I’d seen in a long time. She’d wandered away from her family during a camping trip and crossed paths with a kind of evil that was all too human.
The weight of that memory, of the girl’s screams for her mother, settled heavily in my chest. Moving her on hadn’t been easy, and there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t remember her cries.
Shaking off those memories, I focused on the newest ghostie down below. Car accidents were unexpected and often traumatic, but nothing like murder victims or those who died angry deaths. He wouldn’t be hard to move on.
I hadn’t seen any spirits lately, because I hadn’t been outside the community in over a year. The few times I had managed to sneak off, I hadn’t made it far enough to run across one.
Restlessness crawled over my skin and dug deep. The feeling of being trapped bit and chewed its way to the surface. How long did they plan to keep me here? Forever? Desperation sprang to life and guilt quickly followed.
Thierry and Matthew were still upset with me, and I hated that they were angry, that they didn’t understand why I couldn’t just sit back any longer.
My stomach churned as I turned my gaze to the statue beside me. I was close enough to make out all the details. The smooth layer of stone and the two fierce, thick horns that could puncture the toughest metal. The deadly claws that could tear through cement were currently relaxed. The face, even as frightening as it could be with its flat nose and wide mouth parted by vicious fangs, was at peace. Resting. Asleep.
Misha hadn’t let me out of his sight since the night of the Ravers. I was surprised he hadn’t tried to camp out on my bedroom floor the last two nights.
I’m not trapped.
This was my home and not my prison. Everything that I needed could be found here. I knew exactly how many homes lined the idyllic streets and parks. Besides Thierry’s house, there were one hundred and thirty-six single-family homes and several dozen duplexes and townhomes for those unmated. The walled community was a small city, complete with its own hospital, shopping center, theater, gym and various restaurants and clubs designed to serve every whim or need. Those who were not trained as warriors worked within the community. Everyone had a purpose here.
Except for me.
Mostly everyone here had accepted my mother and me into their clan when we arrived. Thierry protected us—well, protected me. Not my mother. He’d cared for her. He’d welcomed her and treated her like a queen and me like her princess, but he hadn’t been able to protect her.
Protecting her was never a part of the equation.
However, at the end of the day, I wasn’t a Warden, and I...I was running out of time to get out there, to really see the world beyond the mountains of West Virginia and Maryland.
I was eighteen, and no Warden law surpassed the legality that I was, in fact, an adult and could do as I pleased, but leaving wasn’t simple.
Sighing, I pulled my gaze from the resting gargoyle and focused on the road as cool June air lifted the few loose strands of my dark hair, tossing them around my head.
I must look like Medusa.
Squinting didn’t help me see any better, even with the fading sunlight dipping behind Green Mountain, but I saw the ghost stop and turn toward the road. A second later, he fragmented like smoke in the wind, and he didn’t piece back together.
He’d be back, though, that I knew in my bones. They always came back.
My gaze lifted to the road beyond and the thick crush of tall, ancient elms that crowded the paved road. All of it was a blur of colors—greens, whites and blues. Down below, I heard the doors open, and a heartbeat later, I saw the top of Thierry’s dark head as he stepped out onto the driveway.
I really hoped Thierry didn’t look up.
Granted, I wasn’t grounded or anything. Hell, Thierry had never grounded me. Mom, on the other hand, had been a different story. She’d grounded me about every other five seconds.
Nibbling on my thumbnail, I watched Thierry stare at the empty hedge-lined road. Even from where I was perched, I could sense the tension rolling off him, filling the cool mountain air, flowing with the wind.
A moment later, Matthew joined him. He came to stand beside Thierry, placing his hand on the man’s lower back.
“It’s going to be okay,” Matthew said, and I tensed.
Thierry shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“We don’t have to, but...they requested our help.” Matthew pressed his lips to Thierry’s temple. “It’ll be okay.”
Thierry didn’t respond. They stood in silence then, as if they were waiting for something or someone.
Minutes passed, and I heard them before I saw them. The crunching of tires on gravel warred with the distant call of birds. I knelt and peered around the slumbering Misha as a large, black SUV came down the road and rolled to a stop below.
Curiosity bubbled to life as my eyes widened. The sound of car doors slamming shut was too hard to ignore. Rising just the slightest bit, I looked over the ledge and saw Matthew and Thierry walking forward to greet...
Holy crap on a cracker the size of Texas, we had visitors, and I was completely unaware that we were going to have visitors. If our clan needed to meet with another, one of the Wardens left to carry out said meeting elsewhere. Rarely, if ever, was a meeting held here at the seat. Young Wardens from the Mid-Atlantic region were brought here only once a year, in September, to be trained by the elder Wardens until they reached maturity, and since it was only June, our visitors couldn’t be here with a young Warden.