Wounded(3)

His eyes went to Doran, who gave him a nod.

“There was nothing at first; I didn’t see anything or smell anything. Then a woman stepped out of a third floor balcony—”

I lifted a hand to stop him. “What did she look like?”

He took a breath before answering. “Long white hair, but young in the face. I didn’t get much more from her than that.”

“Did she give her name?” I suspected who it would be, but I wanted to be sure.

Faris shot me a look, his eyes puzzled. “No, she didn’t.”

“I’ll bet it was Talia,” I muttered. Who else would it be, really?

Apparently, I didn’t mutter so quietly. Thomas sucked in a sharp breath. Of course, he would recognize a fellow necromancer. Maybe he’d even trained her. I’d only met her once, and I knew she worked for Orion, albeit reluctantly. Orion needed a necromancer to open the gateway to the deep veil and he’d been training Talia against her will for some time. At least, according to what she told me.

The vampire went on. “She did something to the last doorway, the one that leads to the deep veil. The one that leads to the demons. I don’t know how, but she opened it. And then the pack of demons was in the castle and I was fighting them.”

He shook his head, his lips tightening, his fangs peeking out between them. “I thought I could take them, but there seemed to be nothing I could do. I fought my way free far enough to open the veil to escape. As I fell backward through the veil, I saw them leave through the gate in the courtyard. The broken doorways seem to have slowed them, but not by much. Whoever broke the doorways has done us a favor.”

There was silence for a few heartbeats, nothing but the sound of the wind and the trickle of the fountain splashing.

“You’re welcome.” Erik pushed himself from the wall and stepped forward, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. “Rylee, if I may address this?”

My eyebrows had never climbed higher, but I cleared my throat and managed to answer. “Yes, say what you’ve got to say.”

He nodded as I gave my permission. “I broke those doorways and sealed the final two, making them traversable only one way, because I ran out of time. That was when I was grabbed by Talia and her little helpers. They hunkered down and waited for you while Bert took my spot.” He must have seen the question in my eyes. How the fuck did someone take out a Slayer like Erik? He gave me a wry twist of a smile, “They hit me from behind.”

“Blaz, tell Bert we want to speak to him. Maybe he can enlighten us on what the fuck Orion is up to.” Bert was still an unknown to us in many ways. He’d started out as my Uncle Erik’s doppleganger, sent by Orion to get close to us and take out our two dragons. But we’d caught him in time, and now he’d sworn fealty to my uncle. It was that or die and he’d chosen wisely. Strange to think, though, that a demon was on our side.

He’s coming, Blaz said, loud and clear so everyone heard him.

While we waited, Faris handed me two pieces of paper. One was handwritten with no signature; the other was a picture. I looked at the photo first, memorizing the kid’s face. It was a young boy, maybe sixteen years old, with the name Simon scrawled across the back. Faris dropped his voice to a low, quiet pitch. “The necromancer slipped this to me before the fight. Said it was all she could do to help and asked me to give it to you. Likely it is a ruse, but I don’t know for sure.”

I stared at the picture, the dirty blond hair, and skin so dark I wondered if it was his heritage or if he just tanned that way. But it was his eyes that caught me, made me hold my breath. Eyes that seemed to have blue, green, and aqua swirling within them. Shit, a Tracker? Another one?

Suddenly, my place as the so-called ‘chosen one’ was not as solid as I thought, and a tiny part of me was really, really happy. But this Simon kid, he was just a boy. A child who likely didn’t even know what he was, and there was no way I would want to put this burden of saving the world and facing down Orion on him. Hell, the kid probably didn’t even know how to Track yet. The ability to Track didn’t come until late teens, well into puberty and, according to Jack, most often not until something traumatic happened. Then there were the prophecies. They referred always to a ‘she’. Lucky me.

I opened up the folded sheet of paper, scanning the words.

Four packs precede the four you should fear above all others. Kill the packs and seal the doorway with the blood you cherish above all else.

There was no signature, but the handwriting was feminine, and I didn’t doubt Talia had written it. I folded and tucked it into my back pocket, choosing to not think too much about ‘the blood you cherish above all else’.