Death (5 page)

I pull her down the hall.

Ari meets me at the end of the hall. "Just dying girls?" She
asks.

I nod. "I'll flash them out in parties of six."

"They must sleep near here. Those things downstairs can't be the
only ones here."

I think for a minute. "Is there a basement?" The blonde shakes
her head. "I only ever saw the room. I was in my bed and then I was in
that bed."

My eyes dart at Ari. "Someone who can flash."

She bites her lip. "Jonathan?"

I shake my head. "I don’t know. Let's get the hell out of
here." My stomach is rumbling. The idea of it being a trap is starting to
form. I run down the hall getting the girls from the room. Every time I have
six I flash them to Lydia's grass. The second trip Annabelle is shouting at me
but I flash so fast I miss what she is saying.

I leave the last of them there and flash back to Ari.

"I sent a text to O and Trist and told them what the naked blood
bags were doing on the lawn." She looks around the room disgustedly and
puts her phone away.

"Lorri is gonna shit," I mumble.

"I sent her a message too."

I glance at her. "Great. She's gonna yell at us for taking this on
alone."

"YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT I AM!" Her blood red boots stomp across the
hallway.

She looks angry but sexier than normal. I glance at her tan skirt and
white blouse that's opened a little, revealing her ample chest and cross
necklace she wears to spite the haters. Her red hair is spiky still but softer,
more glamorous and she is wearing earth tones makeup.

I frown. "Were you on a date?"

She scowls and I can see her past the mask of prettiness. "Yes,"
she seethes. "Now explain this fast. She thinks I'm in the bathroom."

I gasp. "She's human?"

She blushes. "Aimee?"

Wide eyed, I glance at Ari. She has her badass teenager look pasted
across her face, "They flash them in and out. The girls haven’t seen the
rest of the house."

"Daniel had houses like this but I couldn’t ever figure out who did
the flashing for him. It can't be just Jonathan. There has to be another who
can flash. Who do we have?"

"Me, you, Dorian, Oliver, Aleks and Phillip. I guess Trist and O
could probably learn it, if they had to. For the record my money is on
Dorian."

Lorri snorts sarcastically. "Yeah, maybe it's me or Aleks. Burn it
to the ground. I'll arrange a mission. The nest of them must be around here
somewhere." She glances at me. "Not today though. Firstly, I am on
the first date I have been on in a long time where I feel like this is the one.
And ever if she wasn’t the one, I need to get laid Aimee. Secondly, we need
Aleks's dad. So stop dicking around and go back to Maine." She is gone,
leaving only a waft of her expensive perfume behind her.

"That was awkward."

Ari puts a hand out. "I really hope she gets laid. Cause she is
snippy." I take it and we are in the cold air of Maine. My boots crunch on
the forest floor.

"Do you really think it's one of us?"

I shrug. "Dorian is the only one that can make one of me. Phillip
can flash but he's nephilim and you guys are friggen weird. Me and Aleks would
never do a dark thing."

Ari shakes her head. "No. Dorian would never. I know he wouldn’t.
I'm super curious about Oliver and Philip though."

"Fucking angels."

"Yup." We walk out of the woods and up to the house where Lucas
lived as a child. Horrified faces watch our every move.

I stop and look at them and then back to Ari. I stifle a giggle when I
see the amount of black and red blood sprayed across the front of her. I look
down at myself and nod. "We better get cleaned up."

"Oh shit. Where were you two?" I look up at Lucas storming
across the grass to us.

I lick my lips and hurry up the stairs. Ari is hot on my heels.
"Busy," she says and we run inside of the large log house. The inside
of it is gorgeous.
"Philip and Trist would die and go to gay heaven in this place."

Ari laughs nervously and closes the door. She turns the lock. Lucas bangs
on the door and looks through the glass.

"Ari open the door."

She stands at the door and speaks through her teeth, "Go see if
Janine will let you in. Asshole."

We walk up the stairs but Aleks flashes into the house and stands on the
stairs in our way.

"What's going on?" His ice blue eyes are worried, or angry.
Probably angry.

He looks over the bloodstains and arches an eyebrow, "Did Lorri call
for a mission?"

I swallow and glance back at Ari. Aleks fills the room with warm wind.
The door opens and closes. He and Luke are standing inside looking at us.

I scowl at Aleks, "It's cheating to flash inside and unlock the
door." I smirk at Ari. "Let's go."

Aleks sighs, "It's annoying to lock us out when we don't know what
we did."

Ari smiles and raises her hands fast. Both men are pinned against the
wall. Luke sighs, "Dude, I was cool with not knowing. She cools off
quickly if you don't poke the bear."

Ari's eyes flash, "I saw you. I saw you checking her out."

Luke looks confused. "Who?"

Ari spits out one word, "Janine."

Luke rolls his eyes, "Ari. She's like a hundred and eighty years
old."

I point at Aleks. "He's way older than that." Aleks frowns at
me. Luke gives me a pleading look to stay out of it. I scowl, ignoring them
both. "We saw you, both of you. Flirting and smiling and letting her kiss
your faces."

His cheeks flush with color. "Aimes, it's not what you guys
think."

I roll my eyes. "She looks like she could be on the Duke's of
Hazard. Don't tell me I don’t know what it is."

Lucas laughs. "She is the key to the elders council. They all listen
to her. She is one of the few females in the pack who is an elder. Her husband
was the alpha when he died."

I look at Ari. She laughs. "I saw the look, Luke. She wasn't even
looking at you and you were drooling on her legs."

He struggles with the invisible hold she has over him. "Babe, it
wasn’t like that."

"You got caught."

Aleks looks at me like he's disappointed in me. He can't flash when Ari
holds him. Her power can cripple him completely.

"I don’t really want to talk about this." Ari drops them and
walks past me. I follow her up the stairs.

She slams a door to a room. I don’t know which one to go to, so I walk to
the bathroom and pour a bath. I strip my blood soaked clothes off and climb in.

"You can't possibly think I would find that woman attractive."

I smile at him. "Why? I find her attractive."

He laughs and it's like my favorite song. I can't even be angry with him.
He stands with his back to the door. I fight my smile. He points at me.
"You on the other hand, did something dangerous."

I look down. "It was a regular day, Aleks."

"Lorri will tell me if it was or wasn't." His tone is edgy.

"You're not my dad."

"No, I'm your partner."

"I was pissed you were checking out that trashy blonde."

"That's a pretty big tub. I need to get one of those installed at my
place."

I smirk. "Not big enough for you and me.

"You can sit on my lap."

I hear his clothes drop to the floor. My face flushes as his feet cross
the huge bathroom to the large two-person tub.

Ophelia

"There are hookers everywhere. I don’t even know where else to put
them." Trist shouts overtop of the shouting women all speaking different
languages.

"This one is from Monte Carlo. Her family has money. I'm going to
flash her to the hospital there and wipe her mind," Phillip shouts.

I stand there and watch it all.

"O, honey you need to help out."

I glance at Lydia and shrug. "I don’t know what to do."

Trist shakes his head and shouts at a Japanese girl who is sobbing and
hugging herself. "Honey you can't sit there without underwear. That couch
is an antique."

I laugh and want to cry at the same time.

"Tristan, you ever feel like maybe we are too young for the shit we
deal with?"

He rolls his eyes. "O, this is not the time to get
melodramatic."

I laugh again and turn away from the chaos.

I walk out the front door and out onto the street.

Instantly he is there. "You shouldn’t be out here."

I shake my head. "I can't be in there. They found some house my
father had in Rio. It was full of young teenage girls. I can't watch it."
My hands tremble.

He grabs me and pulls me into him. His warmth and mass surround me.

It's silent.

I look up to see greenery everywhere.

"Where are we?"

"Peru."

The air is warm and wet, rich almost. Breathing it in makes me feel high.

"Where?"

"The Andes. There is a village down the hill where I once hid for
five years."

I look up into his beautiful face and smile. His blue eyes almost kill
me. "Why?"

He kisses my lips softly. "To hide from your father." His words
are a warm breath against my lips.

He takes my hand and pulls me through the bright green forest. "He
was crazed. His gifts were meant to pull the sickness from the blood. That’s
how he was to use them. We were each given something as a gift from our father
as we fell. Mine was used to pull sadness and misery from the soul. Emotional
pain. When I went dark with your father, I grew to love the taste of them dying
in my arms." I pull back a bit, but his huge hand envelope mine and pull
me along the hillside. I am afraid of him. I feel the natural magic inside of
me brewing.

"I couldn’t stop myself anymore. I pulled and sucked until they died
every time and I never gave it another thought. Your father is, well,
charismatic. He had me believing that we were better than them. Dorian too. We
had fun, a lot of fun. But then Dorian and I met a young man named Marcus. He
was also a charismatic young man, sarcastic and funny though. Not snobbish like
your father."

He pulls me to a huge tree. It's the most incredible thing I have ever
seen. He covers my eyes with his hands and I feel the air move. When he takes
them from my eyes we are high above the ground. My heart beats widely. I grip
the rough bark of the tree. I can see for hundreds of miles. The mist is
settled in amongst the mountains and hills.

"Wow."

"I know." He points to the village. "Marcus was smarter
than the other humans we had been around. He caught on to what we all were very
quickly. He wanted the immortality and the power. He helped Jonathan convince
Ethan, Henry's brother, that the dark magic was the only way to punish the man
responsible for his daughter's death. Once Ethan turned dark he made many mistakes.
One was teaching Marcus and Jonathan how to enslave his own brother. Marcus
wanted the magic of the Fae, he wanted the immortality. Jonathan offered him
his blood and swore he would make him the highest of the vampires. Marcus
didn’t want to be below Jonathan. Instead he went after Henry. Dorian was tired
of the evil ways of Jonathan and went back with Lorri. Marcus used the guilt
Dorian had over his dark deeds, to convince him going after Henry's magic was
the only way to kill Jonathan. That was how we met Aleks. Well after he died,
we met him. Marcus told Aleks that taking Henry's heart was the only way to get
the power to kill Jon, Aleks's father. Henry, thinking he was much older and
considerably smarter than them, caught them in the act and cursed Marcus. He
didn’t realize what he had given him, was the very thing he wanted. Realizing a
mortal had tricked him, Henry was livid. He found his brother and murdered him,
taking his magic."

I shake my head. "That’s sick. Marcus is a bigger shit than I
imagined."

Oliver smirks. "He is incredibly smart and wicked. His brain is
ridiculous. He is a doctor, a chemist, a botanist, a pharmacist, a lawyer, my
god I can't even imagine them all. I know he's written novels under assumed
names. It's frightening really. Anyway, we all had more respect for Marcus
then. Jonathan wanted him dead. Somehow he convinced Dorian and Aleks that
Henry's loyalty was of great importance. Henry was on a rampage and ready to
kill them all and Jonathan wanted them dead. So they used the things they had
learned from Ethan and stole Henry's heart. His heart is inside of Marcus, as
we all know. Henry doesn’t know it, thanks to Ari."

"We should free him."

"No. He is volatile. He is dangerous. It's best if we let Marcus
keep him under wraps. The children of your mother, the ones born of the Fae,
they're not stable."

I sigh. "I don’t feel stable either."

He kisses my head. "You aren’t."

"Why did you hide in the village?"

"Your father knew I helped them. I helped Marcus and Aleks and Dorian.
I too had turned to Lorri. The saying 'Hell hath no fury' actually came into
existence because of Lorri and your dad. She loved him, a long time ago. When
we fell he went for Lillith, seeing opportunity and power."

"He left her for my mom, even though my mom didn’t want him?"

He nods. "Yup. Lorri loved him for a long time. She kept making
excuses for him and expecting him to come back to her. He was her weakness.
When he didn’t she started the hunt for him. Unfortunately, by the time she had
gotten around to him he had built a very large army for himself. Most of the
archangels that have fallen and all the nephilim but a few, agree with him.
This is our playground. Here we have freewill and the ability to choose. We are
immortal. The gates of heaven will never open for us anyway. We have
fallen."

"We will kill him together." I squeeze his hand.

He squeezes back. "I want you to do a spell for me though. Just in
case. This is going to be our meeting place. You can make a port here. This
tree is magical. It's spelled by the village shaman."

I frown. "Why?"

His eyes sparkle. "In case you need to run."

I look out over the view and nod. "What do I do?"

"Close your eyes and hold the tree tightly. Call the tree and mother
earth and the power and light of the spirits. Mark the tree as yours. Visualize
a door shaped in the air that you can walk through from anywhere. The rest will
come to you."

I swallow hard and close my eyes. The earth magic fills me instantly.
Like mother earth and I are connected. My body hums. The rough bark heats in my
hands until it is the same temperature as my hands.

I focus on the doorway. Flashes of the shaman blessing the tree fill my
mind. His skin is old and dark and wrinkled. He speaks something I don’t
understand. His eyes are completely white and his dark skin is sweaty. He rocks
and chants and smoke is coming from somewhere.

His white eyes dart at me. He smiles and puts a hand out for me. I feel
myself letting go of the bark and reaching for him.

My sisters stand in front of him, blocking my view of his face.

The blue sisters shake their heads. I push past them and find him again.

"O, don't do this. This is dark magic." Their voices float in
the air but I swat at them and sit beside the man. He crosses his skinny brown
legs. I cross mine too. He closes his eyes and takes my hand. His skin burns
mine. I scream out but I can't take my hand from his grip.

I can smell my skin burning. He pries open my hand and rubs it into the
ground. My eyes fly open. My lips are parted but no sound escapes them. The sun
has set. It’s dark. I'm standing in the tree still. My hand is still gripping
the branch. I pull it back but the burnt skin from my palm sticks to the
branch. I cry out and stop pulling away. My hand shakes.

"It's okay, O. Just pull it back slowly and then heal it."
Oliver is still with me.

"Did you leave?"

He shakes his head. "You did."

I peel my hand from the branch. Tears stream down my cheeks. When I
finally have it off I turn my hand over. A circle with a line through it is
burned into my palm. The skin is red and blistered. I place my other hand over
it and pull the healing from the tree we are in. The hand heals instantly but
the scar is the circle with the line through it. The pain is still mildly
present.

"It still hurts."

He nods. "It will for a while. You've left a piece of yourself here.
It's the only way to make a port. It's so that you can find this place again.
Your piece of you will pull you here." He takes my hand and kisses the
palm. The air moves and we are on the road out front of Lydia's.

I don’t want to leave him but I know I must. Ari is standing on the front
steps. She needs me.

"See you later." He squeezes my hand again. He lets me go and
steps back and then he's gone.

 
I miss him already. I feel
bleak and weird about the things he's told me.

I glance at Ari and try to smile. Trist comes bursting through the door.
"O, it's like Pretty Woman meets a Miss Universe pageant in there. Phillip
has taken ten of them home but there are still like twelve girls we don’t know
where to take. They come from poor countries. It's chaos. Giselle is up and
about too. She already almost ate a nice girl from Africa."

I look at the scar on my hand and almost wish I were back at the tree.
Instead I walk through the door. Phillip flashes into the hallway beside me.
"O, not cool. Leaving us to deal with all this."

"Guys, mellow out. She's going through some shit." Ari scowls
and grabs my hand. She drags me through the house to the back door. The cool
misty day makes me shiver. When we reach the bench at the dock in the backyard
she lets go of my hand and sits. She stares at the water like she sees
something I don’t.

"You okay?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "It's a mess. It's all a mess. Aimee and Ben
and Luke are miserable without Sam. Hanna is a disaster. Her heart is so
broken, my dad said she is blacking out again. Marcus is hiding it from Lorri.
Giselle is eating anything she can touch, literally eating. Shane is being
brain washed every week because somehow he finds his way back to Aimee. Even
Annabelle is dying inside without the little kids. Lydia barely looks at me.
Somehow we all have to come together and fight your dad. It just isn’t going to
happen."

I sit beside her and can't fight it. "I agree. We need to find the
missing link. Where it all went wrong."

"Sam. We need him. He is the key to killing your dad. Lydia and
Annabelle agree. We need Sam back. Hanna is a mess because of it. Even if he
and her weren’t together, her guilt is eating her alive. If Aimee wasn’t here,
if she had a normal life, we wouldn’t have the Giselle issue and Aleks would be
hunting his dad fulltime. We would have gotten Sam and the kids long before.
Lydia told me she wasted a lot of time on helping Aimee control herself. They
knew about the kids but never went for them. They were all here helping Aimee.
I love her more than I love Lucas, but she is it. She needs to go back. If I
can control the push, I can ensure this isn’t her future. Dorian can make a
different soul sucker. It didn’t have to be Aimee. She was just a victim."

I nod. "I can do it. Let’s just go do it."

Ari laughs. "Guess we're driving."

I frown. "Dude, Phillip. Isn't that how you got here from
Maine?"

Ari shakes her head. "Yeah, but no one can know. You need to put a
spell on Aimee so she doesn’t remember anything and Giselle. So when they go
back everything is normal."

"Blake too," I add.

She nods. "Let's do this. I'll text Aimes to come to the house and
see Giselle. You can do the mind thingy there and then when we go do the push
we can hit Blake."

"Okay." I stand and walk to my room. I pull the book from under
the bed, the book no one knows I have. I turn the old fragile pages slowly.

"That’s dark magic O."

I look back at my sisters and shake my head. "I'm not doing it. I'm
looking for something. I need to fix things. You guys stay with Trist
okay?"

"Ophelia, dark magic pulls the darkness into you. Every piece you
take in kills off some of the light."

I frown. "I need darkness to kill my own mother anyway."

"Not the same way. Please be safe little sister. Our freedom lies
with you."

I sigh. "I will. Everyone's freedom and happiness and everything
sits with me." I look over the page once more and close the book. I push
it under the bed and spell the area again. Even Tristan couldn’t find it.

I close my eyes and walk to the room, practicing using the air around me
to guide me, like Annabelle and my sisters do. Their eyes technically don’t
work.

Opening the door to Giselle's room, confirms it all for me. I am certain
that we are making the right decision. She is a hot mess.

Ari walks in behind me and stops when she sees Giselle.

"Yikes," she whispers.

I nod. "We need to do this fast. Did you text Aimes?"

She nods.

"So we driving there after this?"

Ari smirks.

Aimee interrupts us. "Driving where?"

I look back and smile sweetly. "Ari doesn’t know how to drive. I
learned from my dad, like my dad, dad. I was gonna teach her. You wanna
come?"

Aimee shakes her head. Her eyes never leave the tossing and turning
monster on the bed. "I have to get back to Aleks. He's almost done going
over the last few hundred years."