Vesik 04 - This Broken World (4 page)

“If we don’t find him,” Hugh said, “he will find us. In either case, we will fall without allies.”

“Shouldn’t we be focusing a search around Gettysburg?” I asked.

Hugh shook his head slowly. “That would be far too predictable for Ezekiel. He will not set foot on that battlefield until we do.” He turned to me. “Zola left orders for you.”

“Orders?” I said.

“Yes, that is what she called them,” Hugh said. A small smile quirked his lips. “Would you prefer to hear them privately?”

I immediately shook my head. “I have no secrets from the pack.”

“Well, you certainly know how to make yourself more likable than the average necromancer,” Alan said.

“Considering the necromancers I’ve known, I’m not sure if that was a compliment, or a … something else.”

Alan toasted me with his water bottle.

Hugh sighed, a slight look of exasperation on his face as he rubbed his forehead. “Yes, well, Zola would like you to finish your training with the Old Man.”

“Where?” I asked, before realizing I probably knew where. “At the cabin?”

“She did not specify. I would imagine it is safe to say the location has not changed.”

“That is one scary son of a bitch,” Alan said.

Vicky giggled and scooted up on the couch to grab one of the water bottles. I stared, fascinated, as she cracked the bottle open and drank deeply. She flopped back onto the couch beside me.

“I do not imagine the Old Man will hold back,” Hugh said. His gaze lingered on Vicky and her water. “There are not many grudges that last two thousand years.”

“Do you think he could be as much a threat to us as Ezekiel in battle?” Alan asked.

Hugh shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe so. He hasn’t had a catastrophe since the destruction of Roanoke.”

“The lost colony?” I asked.

“Before my time,” Carter said.

“Almost five hundred years is before most everyone’s time,” Hugh said. “Only a handful of men outside of the immortals have lived so long.”

“What happened at Roanoke?” I asked.

Hugh studied me for a moment before his eyes moved to the old table between us. “It is not my place to tell you. If the Old Man wishes to tell you that story, it is his burden to bear.”

“Not even a hint?”

A small smile lifted Hugh’s lips before he expertly changed the subject. “Glenn had a request for you, too, Damian.”

“Super.”

“He does not wish you to walk the Warded Ways for this council. You are to take Philip’s hand of glory.” He paused. “I suppose it is now your hand of glory.”

“Why would Damian need to use that thing?” Foster asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” Hugh said. “I doubt Glenn would intend to harm you by way of the hand. He is not so subtle where violence is concerned.”

Foster barked out a sharp laugh. “No shit.”

“How do I even use it?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re easy to use.” Foster wiggled his fingers. “Just lace your fingers together with the hand’s fingers, like you’re holding hands. That will forge a bond.”

Hugh’s face was drawn as he frowned.

“I’m with Hugh,” I said. “Nasty.”

“Nasty?” Alan said. “You’re a necromancer, aren’t you?”

“Hey, that doesn’t mean I like to pick up severed arms to go dancing through fields of wildflowers.”

Alan blinked before his face broke into a smile. “That does make quite a visual.”

“Purple wildflowers,” I said. “In Kentucky.”

Carter groaned and dropped his forehead onto his hand with an audible smack.

Vicky giggled as she jumped up, took a step across the coffee table, and pounced on Happy’s back. “Maybe not with a severed arm, but I bet he’d go dancing with dead people.”

Alan’s mouth quirked to one side as Vicky settled in beside him.

“Besides, I’m dead and he still likes me.”

Alan’s face fell slightly. A darkness slid into the room. In silence, I mourned the loss of what Vicky had been, and I nurtured a blind rage for the monsters who had hurt her. It didn’t matter that they were both dead now. Some things can never be forgiven.

I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes briefly. I could still smell the river within the musky lair of the wolves. “You got me, kiddo. I’d go dancing with you anytime.”

“See?” Vicky said, bouncing her legs.

Alan studied me for a moment before he nodded his head. Whether he meant “Hey, you’re an okay necromancer,” or “Hey, I’m glad you killed those fuckers,” I don’t know, but I returned the gesture.

“I think it would be best if we all retired for the evening,” Hugh said. “Alan and I have much traveling to do, and little time to accomplish it.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“Some of the packs are not so open to the idea of working together. I intend to visit the more powerful alphas in the eastern states who did not attend this evening. We have made contact with each Voice. They will let their alphas know we are coming.” He took a drink of water and wiped his mouth slowly. “I hope to convince them of the fact working together is their only option. Then we will join you at the war council in Faerie.” He was quiet for a moment while he watched Vicky scratch Happy’s chin as the bear raised his head, leaned into the scratching, and practically smiled.

“No matter how long,” Hugh said, “or how well we may come to know the Fae, they are different from us. As different as a raven from a man.” He looked at Alan as he said this, and then turned to me. “They are different from you as well. In some ways, even from Foster.”

Foster nodded his head and rested his hand on the sword pommel at his side. “Every race of Fae has its own … quirks.” He gave us a lopsided smile.

Hugh dipped his chin briefly as he said, “While we may never truly know the Fae, we can come to understand them. We can accept them for what they are, much as they accept us.” He leaned forward slightly. “All of you must remember that a slight insult among friends here could be considered a grave insult in Faerie. I do not know who, or what, will be involved in this council. We must be on our guard. We must keep Glenn on our side at all costs. Then we will learn of our fate.”

One week before I would travel with the hand of glory. One day before my training resumed with the Old Man. One night before lunch with Sam and my parents. I wasn’t sure which I was dreading the most.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Y
ou ready for this?” Sam asked.

“Fuck no,” I said.

“Me either.” She smiled and ruffled my hair from the passenger seat as we bounced into my parents’ driveway.

Briefly, I flashed back to the previous year, to Sam’s scream as she warned me our parents’ home was under attack. The horrific scene as I pulled in to discover dozens of exploded zombies in our childhood home. The realization Philip had kidnapped our mother and injured my sister.

My fingers strangled the steering wheel for a moment before I turned the car off. “Let’s do this.”

We walked to the front door slowly. It was just a conversation, only a little story of genealogy. So what was the weight hanging over me as the door cracked open before I could even knock? The weak smile on my Dad’s face as he gave Sam and me a hug in turn told me he was dreading the conversation too.

We followed him through the hall and into the kitchen. The Watchers had restored everything after the attack that tore our home apart. Mom was already sitting at the table. A glass of wine rested in her hand, and three more sat at each of the place settings. I smiled as we all took our childhood seats. Sam sat in the chair right in front of the stove, and I sat next to her with my back to the other counter, across from Mom.

“Are you sure you want to know?” Mom asked as her eyes flickered up to mine and then back to her glass.

“Yes,” I said. Sam took my hand and nodded her own agreement.

“We told everyone you were premature,” Dad said. He’d never been one to delay a conversation he didn’t want to have. “It was almost a month before you started to look … normal.”

“What do you mean?” Sam said. “He didn’t look normal? I mean, less normal than now?”

I jabbed Sam in the ribs with my elbow.

“Oh, you two,” Mom said before she took a deep breath. “The doctors thought you were stillborn.” Her voice cracked when she said that last word. “You were so white. We thought you might be albino, but you weren’t. I held you and you weren’t breathing. You had no heartbeat.”

Mom tried to say more, but she couldn’t speak when she started sobbing. Tears trickled down her cheeks, and then I really felt like shit. “Something … something came into that room,” she said. “It came out of the walls, and the ceiling …” Mom hiccuped and buried her face in her hands.

My dad looked at the ground. “The lights. “They … they dripped black. That’s the only way I can describe it. There were eyes, and a voice, but no body. Unless shadows count as a body. It didn’t say much. ‘Beware the Watchers. His master will reveal the path.
Raise him well.’ ”

Mom looked up at me for a moment before the words starting pouring out. “And then it … it just … that darkness reached out and touched the doctor. There was a flash of light. Golden light so blinding, you can’t imagine. I heard a scream, and at first I think it was just the doctor, but then a tiny cry started as the doctor collapsed onto the floor.” Mom looked up at me. “And then you breathed. You opened those beautiful gray eyes. And you were mine.”

Sam’s hug crushed me, but I barely felt it. Warmth ran from my eyes and cooled before it reached my chin as the revelation hit me. Ezekiel had killed a man to bring me over, and that fact hit me like a cannon shot. I should have been dead. I had been dead. What the hell did that make the seventh son of Anubis?

“No one suspected,” Mom said with a stutter before she broke into a half-laugh. “What would they even suspect? It was simply the doctor’s time to go.” Her fingernail clicked as she scratched at her thumbnail. “I didn’t know what you were. I just knew I loved you.”

“He had no right,” I said. “To take the life of a man who helps bring life into this world?”

“Don’t say that,” Dad said. “You’ve done great things for this world.”

“I’ve killed … many things,” I said, my voice not much more than a whisper. The old clock on the wall ticked in the silence.

“You’ve saved many more,” Sam said with her face buried in my shoulder. “You saved me.”

My breath came faster. I threw my arm around Sam and squeezed her tight.

“Without you, I’d be gone,” she said. “Without you, Vicky’s murderers would have gone free. Azzazoth would be walking the earth. Prosperine would be free to destroy the world. Ezekiel would have already won.” She lifted my head and kissed my cheek. “Make him pay.” She kissed my other cheek. “Make. Him. Pay.”

“Samantha is right,” Dad said. “You can be his greatest mistake. The salvation for a world that doesn’t even know it needs you.”

I smiled and closed my eyes, thumping my forehead against Sam’s. “I’m not that strong.”

No one spoke for a time, and I tried to savor that moment of normalcy.

“It wasn’t long before we realized your imaginary friends weren’t make believe,” Dad said, and the moment was gone.

I looked up slowly as I considered that. “Jasper.”

“And Koda, and Grant,” Dad said. “You’d tell us you’d talked to them, and then you would know things. Things about history that we had to look up online, for fuck’s sake. Terrible things about wars and demons and magic. You knew more about the Civil War by the time you were four than I’d learned in four years of college.” He squeezed Mom’s shoulder as she shuddered. “I still didn’t really believe it until I saw the dust bunny move.”

I almost growled. “Jasper. He revealed himself to you? When we were kids?”

Dad nodded as Mom took a deep drink. “We saw the parrot once too,” he said, “though we never mentioned it to you. I think it was best for your mother not to speak of it.”

“Graybeard?” I asked.

“We could see its bones, but it spoke like a man,” Mom said. “It was awful.”

I’d never thought of Graybeard as awful. Other than his knack for telling Zola every little thing I did, and landing me on the chopping block on occasion. I’d stitched that bird back together and used a soul to do it. Later, before Zola took him away to god knows where, he’d developed a disturbingly large vocabulary and a penchant for rum. I may have been a slightly odd child.

“I loved Jasper,” Sam said. “He was our own little guardian. He chased the ghosts away from Damian when they started to overwhelm him.”

I smiled. “He did, didn’t he? He also bit the crap out of me.”

Sam wrapped her hands around my forearm. “I may have taught him some bad manners.”

I eyed my sister. “I think he may have taught
you
some bad manners.”

My dad grinned and actually laughed.

“Where is Jasper?” Sam asked, her eyes trailing toward the living room and the stairs.

“I don’t know,” I said with a smile. “I’ve never really looked for him since we moved out. He liked to bite me, in case you forgot.”

“How could I forget? It’s one of my fondest memories.”

“How do you two do this?” Mom asked, her voice rising in pitch. “How can you make jokes after learning such things?”

You learn to laugh, or you paint the walls with your brains. But what I said was, “It’s how we cope.”

“The kids are strong, Andi,” Dad said. “They can take care of themselves better than we ever could.”

“We wouldn’t be who we are without you,” Sam said.

Dad’s hand paused halfway to his mouth. He grimaced and slammed his glass onto the floor. The bits of shattered glass reflected light through the dark wine. “I’m so sorry, Sammy.” He moved around me and pulled her out of her chair. He cried as he wrapped his arms around her. “We didn’t know what to think. You were so different, but you’re still our little girl. I never should have pushed you away.”

“Daddy,” Sam said, her voice almost a whimper. I could tell she was being careful not to crush him in one of her vampy hugs.

“You didn’t need to break the glass,” Mom said in between sobs.

We all burst into laughter. Teary, hugging, glorious laughter.