Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) (15 page)

From what I could see
in the pitch darkness of night, the buildings at the bottom of the
hill appeared to be in poor shape and weeds had devoured the
vineyards, but the place must have been beautiful at one time. Did
the owner truly not have any heirs, or were they for some reason not
interested in the family business? Why hadn’t someone else
bought the place? Maybe in a simpler time, owning a winery could have
been fun for Tristan and me, part of that normal life I’d
always dreamt about as a kid. But our lives weren’t normal and
they never would be, I thought with a sigh as I scanned for nearby
mind signatures.

“We’re good
for at least ten miles,” I said quietly when I found nobody
around.

We’d picked the
dead of night for traveling because most Normans would be sleeping,
decreasing the threat of them coming after us. The Daemoni were more
likely to be out, but we didn’t worry about having to fight
them. At least, not until we reached the city. Considering their food
source seemed to be scarce out here in the boonies, any Daemoni
nearby were weak and at ankle level of the totem pole. Once we made
our way into the city, we’d be facing a bigger threat, but we
didn’t plan on anyone noticing our presence. Our large group
didn’t allow us to travel with any speed under a cloak without
running into each other, but when we came close enough to the city,
Owen would hide us.

Blossom had concocted a
velocity potion to make the mages, Weres, and Dorian able to run as
fast as the vampires, Tristan, and me, and they all swallowed it
down. Then we raced toward the city, our bodies nothing but blurs to
the Norman eye. Vanessa and Sheree in her tiger form bounded ahead of
us, and Solomon and Jax brought up the rear. Even with the magical
enhancement, Jax wouldn’t have been able to keep up with us in
his crocodile form for the long distance we had to travel, but when I
glanced over my shoulder, I saw that he didn’t run unprepared.
His eyes glowed in the dark, his teeth extended several inches beyond
his lips, and although crocs weren’t known for long and sharp
claws, they were certainly frightening enough on his human hands that
had become webbed and partially scaled.

My mental antenna
constantly probed for mind signatures, but found none, even as we
approached the suburbs. A feeling of trepidation slid down my spine
at this, strengthened by the realization of just how dark and still
our surroundings were. No streetlights. No cars on the roads. Even in
the middle of the night, there should have been some sign of life.

But there was none.

Only dark homes and
dark businesses. Even a gas station we passed appeared to be
abandoned, a car sitting at the pump with the driver’s side
door still open.

“
Something’s
wrong
,” Vanessa thought into my head. I kept my mind open
to all of them as a gateway that allowed a silent conversation.

“
It’s an
old-fashioned ghost town
,” Owen agreed.

“
Because of
the Daemoni attacks?
” Blossom asked.

“
Had to have
been
,” Charlotte said. “
It looks like they all ran
when the Daemoni came out and never returned.
”

“
Maybe the
Normans bugged out to a safer place
,” Owen suggested.

Except there was
nobody in the country, either, which is where they would have gone
during the attacks, right?
I said.

“
That or they
holed up somewhere protected
,” Tristan offered.

“
Or they’ve
all been eaten or turned
,” Solomon countered, stating in
his normal matter-of-fact tone the conclusion we’d all been
thinking but not saying out loud. Or thinking out loud. Whatever.

“
This place is
downright creepy
,” Blossom said.

Although Sheree’s
thoughts weren’t clearly human, we could feel her agreement.
The fur along her spine lifted, and her ears twitched as she listened
in every direction. We all ran a tad slower, on higher alert. Dorian
moved closer between Tristan and me. Barely more than a minute later,
I picked up on the brain waves—mind signatures of a whole slew
of Normans, clustered in an apartment building a few miles ahead.
Just as I was about to signal to my group to turn and order Owen to
cloak us, my mind translated an Italian thought: “
Almost …
now!
”

Flood lights lit up the
entire block, bright as day. Generators kicked on somewhere in the
distance, but we still heard the clicks of weapons being cocked.

Run!
I screamed
at my team, but we weren’t fast enough.

A warning arrow flew in
front of me, and Vanessa suddenly stopped, swearing up a storm. Damn.
Even with our supernatural speed, they’d managed to catch us.
We halted and threw our hands in the air—except Vanessa, who
yanked the arrow out of her thigh and snapped it in half before
throwing it on the ground. Several people stepped out of the shadows
of the storefronts with guns pointed at us. At least they hadn’t
used those for a warning.

Tristan shouted
something in Italian, and Vanessa did, too, probably cussing them out
for shooting her. At least she didn’t immediately attack in
retribution. I picked up on a few thoughts as they spoke, figuring
out the conversation. Tristan tried to convince the Normans that we
were like them, harmless and simply headed into the city. A woman
said something about the city being swarmed and dangerous. A man
pointed out our unnatural speed and asked with sarcasm if the tiger
was a pet.

And then a younger
woman yelled in English, “It’s her! A.K. Emerson!”

The Normans didn’t
even hesitate. Gunshots cracked through the night. The racket
instantly brought me to the horrible night of watching my mom die,
but the noise sounded different. The shots came slower, not from
automatic, military-grade weapons, but from civilian handguns. By the
tangy smell of burnt gunpowder, old handguns at that. And I wasn’t
as surprised by this as I had been that night. I didn’t just
stand there stupidly in shock, but instead lifted my hand and flicked
my finger to suspend the bullets in the air. With Tristan, Blossom,
and Char’s help, it was easy to do long enough for Owen to put
up a shield. Singing above the gunshots came the high-pitched sound
of a warning siren.

But they weren’t
warning anyone—there was no one around to warn. They were
calling for help.

Seconds later,
newcomers dropped onto the scene: Daemoni. Several vampires, a few
witches and wizards, and someone with magic powerful enough to cause
the air to whoosh around us as our shield disappeared. Had to have
been a sorcerer, although he hung back. My mind felt him two blocks
away, but only for the briefest of moments before sharp pain fired
into my brain, blocking him out.

The vampires—a
dozen of them—swarmed in on us, their hungry grins displaying
their long, glistening fangs. The thrill of the kill sparked in their
glowing, red eyes. Holding one hand to my head, I shot electricity at
them. The mages shot spells back at us, and the battle began.

“Run!” I
yelled at the Normans as Blossom blocked an errant spell headed for
the building to our left. “Take cover and stay there!”

The Normans who’d
been shooting at us only moments ago scattered, thankfully leaving
the fight to us. They did it to help the Daemoni—obvious since
they’d called them here—but I didn’t care. At least
they’d moved out of the way, and we didn’t have to worry
about unintentionally hurting one of them. We needed to focus on the
evil creatures moving in on us.

A dark-haired vampire
who strode toward me, moving slowly as he planned his attack, looked
very familiar. I felt sure I’d seen him at Mom and Rina’s
funeral. I’d been a little distraught that day, okay, a lot,
but I remembered the curling lines of ink crawling up his neck from
under the collar of his shirt. I still couldn’t see the tattoo
underneath, but the tendrils were definitely the same. I tilted my
head a notch. He narrowed his eyes slightly. I opened my mind to him.

“
The Pope is
dead, if that’s what you’re here for. You need to get out
of here
.”

One of our own,
performing as instructed. And doing a good job at it when he flew at
me, his mouth wide open, his fangs directed for my throat.

“
GO!
”
he yelled in my mind as I threw my powers at him, flinging him
several yards away.

More Daemoni began
landing in the road, popping out of nowhere. Which meant they could
flash here. Tristan noticed, too. He threw his hand up and froze
everyone except for us. A vampire hissed and snarled.

“If you don’t
want to fight, maybe you want to come with us,” he offered,
barely able to move his lips. “We all know you abandoned your
own people. Left them to fend for themselves. Don’t worry.
We’ll take care of them.”

A witch snickered. “Who
knows why Lucas still wants you, but if you begged hard enough, he’d
probably take you in.”

“
We can flash
out of here
,” Tristan said to us, ignoring the Daemoni’s
taunts.

“
Maybe it’s
safe to flash here but not where we’re going
,”
Charlotte pointed out.

The Pope’s
dead
, I said.
We need to get out of the area before we’re
overwhelmed.

“
Let’s
try Köln then
,” Solomon suggested, and I remembered
him saying something about an archbishop who worked closely with the
European Union’s leadership.

“
I’ll
make a portal
,” Owen said while already moving his hands
together. He closed his eyes to focus for a moment, then he spread
his hands apart, opening a hole in the very air in front of us. At
the same time, several Daemoni appeared, one with an extremely loud
pop very close to us. Tristan grunted as the Daemoni he’d
paralyzed began breaking through his power.

“
There’s
snow in Germany already?
” Jax asked.

“
That doesn’t
look like Köln
,” Vanessa said.

“
Just go!
”
Tristan ordered, his voice strained.

The sorcerer whose mind
signature I’d noticed before had appeared directly behind us,
and I couldn’t read his mind, but I could feel his intense
darkness. His magic focused on Tristan’s paralyzing power,
gradually lifting it from the other Daemoni, while also pulling on my
energy to feed himself. Before he could sap me completely, I grabbed
Dorian’s hand and leapt us through the portal. We landed in
about six inches of white powder, and then fell when the others
plowed into us. The sun glaring on the freshly fallen snow nearly
blinded me as I jumped to my feet and counted heads.

“Close the
portal, Owen,” I yelled when I confirmed we’d all made it
through. The intensity of the sorcerer’s dark magic tried to
swallow me whole. He must have been attempting to come after us.

“It’s
closed, Alexis,” Owen said.

“Where’s
the dark magic coming from?” Blossom asked, wrapping her arms
over her ample chest and huddling close to Jax.

“This definitely
isn’t Köln.” Charlotte turned in a circle, hands
out, ready to fight.

“Hades,”
Tristan, Vanessa, and Solomon said at the same time.

I spun around, my eyes
wide. An encampment of canvas tents stood on the snowy field about
three hundred yards away.

Tristan tilted his head
toward it. “That’s the Shaman village by the entrance.”

“We need to get
the hell out of here,” Vanessa said. “Before they notice
us.”

“Owen—”
I started.

“Already on it,”
he snarled through a clenched jaw. He opened another portal, and we
all ran through it, not even pausing to see where we headed.

As I ran into the new
place, I watched the backs of Sheree and Solomon bring up the last of
our group through another hole. We’d come through only six feet
away from where we’d left.

“What the hell?”
Charlotte declared.

“I don’t
know,” Owen said. “Let me try again. Somewhere else.
Where else besides Germany, Solomon?”

“Praha.”

Owen nodded and created
a new portal. We all ran through, only to end up even closer to the
Shaman village.

“Someone’s
blocking my portals.”

“Then they
already know we’re here,” Vanessa said. At the same time,
a wave of dark magic crashed into us, flattening us to the ground.

“Run!”
Tristan barked as he jumped to his feet. He grabbed Dorian, threw him
on his back like a rag doll, and sprinted away from the Shamans.

The flatlands of
northern Siberia stretched in front of us with mountains rising in
the far distance. We ran as fast and as far as we could across the
plains, our speed allowing us to glide over the top of the snow that
must have been the first blanket of the year. Thank God it wasn’t
January. We ran until we hit the base of a mountain, when the others
could no longer keep up with Tristan, Solomon, Vanessa, and me
because the velocity potion had worn off.

“Maybe …
we can … flash here,” Blossom suggested, panting as she
leaned over and braced her hands on her thighs. “We’re in
the middle of nowhere Siberia. Who even lives here? Do you really
think there are traps?”

“We’re way
too close to Hades to risk it,” Vanessa said, and by the way
she rounded her shoulders, I could tell she suppressed a shudder. “No
way are we getting trapped there.”

“We could try a
portal again,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that was
such a great idea.

“What if we end
up back at Hades?” Jax asked. “I’m not running all
that way again. It might be easy for you, princess, but not for this
lumbering croc.”

“Especially
because I’m out of potion,” Blossom said. “We’ll
be too slow.”

Dorian, standing off to
the side, suggested quietly, “I could fly us out of here.”