Wayward Devils (Souls of the Road #4)

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

V ariance made a low sound and swallowed back a sob. Then silence filled the whole of the vast space as if the world had forgotten how to make noise.

“You’re a ghoul?” I managed, my voice low, this child, hunter, monster, all I could see.

The girl nodded.

“Your shape,” Lula said. “Does the token contain your original shape?”

Her guess surprised the ghoul. “Yes.” Even his voice sounded like a little girl.

I might be angry, I might be a bastard, but I could tell that creature in front of me was telling the truth.

“If Dominick keeps the token, what happens to you?” she asked.

The monster child tipped her head down, as if even considering that possibility was unthinkable. But when she looked up, her mouth was twisted into a bitter anger no child would ever show.

“Parts of my form will disintegrate,” the child said. “It will be agony. And it will lead to my madness and then my death.”

I wanted all of that for Hatcher, for the creature who had tried to kill Lula.

But I wanted to save Rhianna even more than I wanted revenge. I wanted Variance to have some chance of returning to a human life so he could be her father.

“How do we know you aren’t working for Dominick?” I asked. “Or for At??”

He shrugged. “You can’t know, other than taking my word. But if you get my token, I will help you retrieve the girl.”

“We don’t have time,” Variance said, his tone flattened as if it took every ounce of effort he had to speak. “Do you know where he’s keeping her?”

“I do.”

“Take us to her.”

“If they promise to retrieve my token.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I said. “Yes. Fine. Where is it? What does it look like? And why the hell does Dominick have it in the first place?”

“It looks like a coin,” the ghoul said. “Dark metal, engraved. It was in Dominick’s chambers. In a box.”

“That doesn’t sound at all like a needle in a haystack,” I groused.

“The Moon Rabbit can find it,” Hatcher said.

We all stared at Abbi. Behind her, Hado crossed his arms over his chest. She frowned. “I think I can. But you have to give me a strand of your hair.”

The ghoul snarled, showing way too many sharp teeth for the little girl shape he was wearing.

“I see you, but I don’t know you, Hatcher. Without something of you, your real form, I don’t think I can find your token. Not fast enough.”

“We have an hour,” Lula said.

“Forty minutes,” Variance said.

“At the most,” Lula went on. “Give her your hair, or the agreement is off. We’ll find the girl, and get the vampire’s blood, and track down the book without you.”

He said something in a language I didn’t know, but he was not happy. Still, he plucked a hair from his head and held it out for Abbi.

It was thick and coiled and a deep, dark blue.

Abbi dropped it into her mortar and waved the pestle in a circle, staring into the bowl as if it held secrets of the universe. Hado put his hand on her shoulder, and the bowl flared a bright white-green. Abbi whispered to it, stirring the contents.

“You will get Dominick’s blood,” Variance said.

Lula nodded. “We will.” There was more she wasn’t saying. That she intended to kill the bastard as soon as we got that blood.

“Maybe Brogan can stab him,” Abbi suggested, still staring in the mortar. “Like he stabbed At?.”

Heat from embarrassment, but also pride, burned beneath my skin as Variance and the ghoul stared at me with new consideration.

“Yeah,” I said, my hand dropping to the vampire knife at my side, my gaze on the ghoul alone. “I can stab the vampire.”

It was a promise I could stab other things too, like ghouls who had tried to shoot my wife.

“Oh, I can see the token now,” Abbi said. “It’s very pretty.”

The ghoul made a small sound. “Are we agreed, then?”

Lula nodded. “We are agreed.”

The ghoul’s mouth did something between a grimace and a smile.

“This way,” he said.

We jogged to keep up as he dashed across the dark field, the sounds of our bootsteps filling the still air.

“Where will Dominick be?” Lula asked Variance as we neared the house.

But it was not a house. No, we didn’t have that kind of luck. It was a mansion.

“Dining hall,” he said. “That’s what they call it, but it’s a throne room.”

“Where is Rhianna?” she asked.

The ghoul child pointed to the left. “She should be in the outbuildings.”

Variance growled and it made the hair at the back of my neck stand up.

“Captive,” Variance spit out.

“They have cells there,” the ghoul agreed. “It’s a place they keep food. And betrayers.”

“Is it guarded?” I asked.

“I’ll deal with the guards,” Variance said.

“If he’s dealing with the guards,” I asked. “What are you doing?”

The ghoul smiled and this time it looked exactly like child’s glee. “I’m the distraction.”

The rest of the plan was argued over and filled out in short whispers and gestures. Vampires had good hearing. While we were still several yards out from the house, we very much did not want to be overheard.

The ghoul had supernatural speed. He would draw the guards’ attention and pull them away from the cell where Rhianna was being held, allowing Variance to slip in and find his daughter.

“What happens if you’re bit by a vampire?” Abbi asked the ghoul.

Hatcher clucked his tongue. “Not much. I’m already a monster.”

So, that was one thing we had going for us.

“Who goes with Variance to retrieve Rhianna?” I asked.

“No one,” Variance said. “I’ll be faster on my own.”

“Agreed,” Lula said. “We’re running out our time and magic, Brogan.”

“I’ll get the token,” Abbi offered. “I know where it is.”

It took everything in me not to argue that one of us would go with her.

But from the look on Lu’s face, if one of us was going with her, it would be me. That wasn’t going to happen. I was not going to leave Lula to face Dominick alone.

“But I won’t be there to protect you,” Abbi argued, as we all checked weapons.

Variance and Hatcher ran toward the outbuildings, their speed taking them into the darkness and out of sight in an instant.

“We have all the magic Ricky gave us.” I dropped to my knees and tied the end of the spool of magic thread around Abbi’s wrist. “The thread will help us not lose you.”

“And me not lose you,” she said.

“Exactly.” I dropped the spool into my pocket. If I squinted, I could see the thread between us, but I felt no physical connection, no tension of real thread. It was magic, and the magic would connect us.

“I have the bracelet to cloak us,” Lula said, “and Brogan has the knife that will stop the vampire dead. And I have the vials for his blood.”

“And the bombs,” I said, adjusting the ring on my finger and hoping the speed it would give me would be enough to keep up with Lula.

“And that,” Lu agreed.

“Take this.” Abbi held up a slick black feather.

Raven’s feather.

“No, you need that,” I said.

“Take it.” She thrust it into my hand and took a step back. “We’re all going to meet back at the road with Franny, right?”

I shoved the feather in my pocket. “Yes. Be careful, Pumpkin. If we aren’t at the car by dawn, don’t wait for us.”

She scowled. “I’ll go to the car, but I’m not leaving without you. We’re family, remember?”

I reached for her and drew her against my side in a hug. “Of course I remember. Which is why I’m counting on you to keep yourself safe.”

She nodded. “Hado will help me.”

“I know he will.” I released her.

Lula nodded. “Be careful, Abbi.”

She nodded. “I’ll race you,” she said. Then she and Hado jogged ahead, closing in on the side door Hatcher had told us would be unlocked.

“Worst plan we’ve ever come up with?” Lula whispered, taking my hand so that the effects of the bracelet would cloak me too.

“Top three,” I agreed.

It didn’t take us long to reach the door Abbi had already slipped through.

It opened into what I assumed was a mud room, but it was set up like a lounge, with a bar on one side, a wall of closets on the other side, thick, expensive carpeting covering the floor, and an open archway into a second space straight ahead filled with lush, comfortable, heavy wood furniture.

Everything was done up in what I thought of as Texas chic: lots of animal skulls, a few human skulls sprinkled strategically among them, animal skins, leather, sticks and stone. All of it in shades of brown and white, with deep blue and deep red as accents.

Abbi was disappearing around the corner into the larger room, quick as a bunny.

The house felt empty, silent, as we crossed the mud room. The faint sound of country music played through speakers mounted in strategic places in the ceiling.

Waylan and Willie were telling mamas not to let their babies grow up to be cowboys. They had it half right—mamas shouldn’t want babies getting turned into vampires, either.

Lu pointed left, and we crossed the lounging space to a smaller door at the end.

Into a wide hallway.

Abbi was nowhere to be seen.

We moved quickly down the hall, me keeping to Lula’s pace with help from the ring.

According to Variance and Hatcher, Dominick’s throne room was at the end of this hall.

It felt like this corridor went on forever, and that it would take hours to get to the end, no matter how fast we jogged.

I had a surreal moment trying to do the math for how many miles of carpet it took to cover this place.

I was sweating hard and working to keep my breathing under control.

Lu wasn’t even breathing fast. She was focused, fluid, intent on the goal, on the task ahead of us. A killer waiting for her chance to strike.

Magic from the witches and magic from the bracelet cloaked our movements. We had as much of the element of surprise on our side as we could expect, but we still had to open the door to the throne room.

No matter how quick and quiet we were, there was a strong chance whoever was in there would see it open.

Lula mouthed, “ One, two, three, ” and pushed the door.

It swung silently. Lu slipped through the opening, me on her heels, closing the door behind us just as silently. We dashed to one side.

The light was low, but the first sense I got was that the room was huge, the size of two ballrooms, with way too many animal-antler (and human-bone) chandeliers hanging three stories down from the sky-lighted ceiling.

Pew-like seating spaces were built along the walls, interspersed with chains along the floor, shackles, leather straps and bindings.

It looked like a place where people would be judged and sentenced. It looked like a place where people were punished.

The space was huge, but it did not dwarf the throne on the raised platform in the center of the room.

A throne that held a vampire.

No, not a vampire. This was Dominick.

He was lean, long legged, and dressed in denim, a western-cut shirt, cowboy boots, and yes, a very expensive 100x Diameter Stetson.

His eyes were cuts of light, sunk deep and set too wide on his pale, flattened face.

But it was the child on her knees in front of him that stopped us cold.

Rhianna.

Dominick held a knife in one hand, casually rested across her slender throat, so that every time she swallowed a thin trickle of blood dripped down her neck.

He had been expecting us.

This was a set up. We’d been set up.

The child was breathing hard, her eyes showing too much white. She trembled with panic and fear that were too real.

We were screwed.

“I know you’re here, prey,” Dominick rumbled, his voice low, filling the room so it felt like I was breathing him in, swallowing the rot of him. He may not have been the monster who attacked us, but he was old, and terrifyingly familiar. “You will not leave this room alive.”

Lu bit her bottom lip, scowling. We didn’t have a backup plan. The plan we’d had—to sneak up on the vampire and stab him—was gone now.

Abbi was in the wind, searching for the ghoul’s token.

I had no idea how long it would take Variance and the ghoul to figure out Rhianna was not in any of the outbuildings.

I had no idea how many vampires were between them and us.

I did know there was exactly one vampire in front of us who was ready to kill the child, kill us.

Fuck.

Lula squeezed my hand and twisted. Before I could react, she let go, leaving the bracelet circled around my wrist.

She grabbed an acorn and threw it.

An explosion rocked the other side of the room.

A wall of roses, stems as thick as tree trunks, thorns as long as scythes, burst through the impact point in the floor, rushing upward to punch through the ceiling and send wood and glass raining down.

The entire building moaned.

Dominick shot to his feet, pivoting toward the explosion, the knife in his hand, leaving the child (thankfully, mercifully) unharmed at his feet.

But Lula was still moving. She threw another bomb and sent another wall of vines and thorns rocketing from floor to ceiling.

Dominick hadn’t moved, but he was tracking her. No matter how fast she was, he was faster.

He roared and lunged after her.

Rhianna curled into a ball, tucking her face into her drawn-up knees.

I hated what Lula was doing, hated this plan she had set into motion without giving me a choice.

But I was not going to fuck up our chance to save the girl.

I ran for her.

Another explosion deafened what was left of my hearing while chunks of the ceiling hammered my head and shoulders with bruising force.

I skidded onto my knees beside the girl and pulled off the bracelet cloaking me.

“Rhianna. Hey, sweetheart, it’s okay. I’m here to take you back to your Grandma Cassia.”

She tipped her head just enough to peer up at me.

“Your grandma wants you to come home now. All your family wants you to come home now. I can take you to Franny who is waiting in a car. Ready?”

She buried her face back into her knees and shuddered as another explosion rocked the house.

I touched her shoulder and when she didn’t react, I put the bracelet back on and scooped her up.

Vampire bit , I reminded myself. She was stronger than she looked, and faster, just like Lula. But she was still a child. A child who was in the middle of a nightmare.

She automatically wrapped her arms around my neck and held on.

I ran for the door we’d come in, stumbling over wood and plaster and stone, hoping I wasn’t going to break my neck with the speed the ring gave me.

At the door, I glanced behind me.

Lula was locked in a fight for her life.

She was fast, though the vampire was faster, ruthless with her knives, though the vampire was more ruthless with his.

She was bleeding from several cuts on her arms and face. Her left arm hung at her side, useless. Dominick was toying with her now, it was obvious.

And I still had the vampire-killing knife at my side.

“Fuck all,” I panted.

Why hadn’t I given her the knife that would kill the bastard? Why hadn’t she taken it from me?

She was going to lose this fight.

She was going to die.