Wolves and the River of Stone (25 page)

Nixie shifted under my arm and put her arms around me. “We should all get some rest.”

The front door creaked open and I glanced over my shoulder to find Carter in the lead of a mixed pack of bloody, dirty, vampires and wolves. “Nixie’s right. We all need rest.”

Nixie and I stepped out of the way so Carter could get to Maggie. He wrapped his arms around her and she almost collapsed against him. “I’m so glad you’re here.” I could barely hear her whisper.

“The door’s ruined,” Hugh said.

“Where’s Haka?” I said.

Hugh smiled. “He’s outside taking in the night air. I think he’s a little shaken up from the experience. He’s never fought a true enemy before.” Hugh’s smile widened and I swear his chest swelled. I almost missed the tremor of concern that crossed his face. “I put some drop cloths over the bodies in front. The Watchers should take care of the rest later. Someone needs to stay with Ashley tonight.”

“I’ll do it,” I said without hesitation. “You want to stay too, Nixie?”

“Yes, please.”

“Good, Ashley’s got a guest bedroom. I don’t think she’ll mind if we stay.”

“We’re staying too,” Aideen said. “I don’t think Foster’s going anywhere tonight.”

“Count me in,” Sam said.

I smiled and nodded. “You’re not stealing the bed.”

“No need.” She plopped down in the recliner beside the fairies and leaned back. “Oh yeah, no need at all.” Sam laced her fingers over her stomach and took a deep breath.

Carter peeled himself away from Maggie and extended his hand to Zola. “Thank you.” He shook her hand and turned to me. “Hugh said he had a good feeling about you, Vesik. I’ve never been a big fan of necromancers, or vampires for that matter.” He cracked a sly grin at Vik who gave a flourish in return. “Consider me pleasantly surprised.”

“Thanks, Carter. I never knew how bad werewolves shed.”

Carter blinked a few times and then broke into a deep laugh with Hugh and the rest of the room.

We found a plastic tarp in Ashley’s hall closet. Sam and I tied it over the missing door after she washed her face and arms off in the kitchen sink. We also added a blanket to help insulate the air conditioning. The Watchers still hadn’t shown up and I didn’t want the gory front room to start smelling any worse than it already did. I gave one last yank on the twine looped around the porch light and nodded. When I ducked back inside, Sam was staring at the bloody carpet.

“Hungry?” I said.

Her irises were almost gone when she turned to me.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “No, I’m fine. The smell just makes me a little munchy. Nothing I can’t put off until tomorrow.”

“Well, if you need to kill something, I can always call Frank.”

Sam laughed and punched me in the arm. “Stop it. You know you like him.”

I held my finger across my lips. “Shhh, that’s a secret.” We both laughed. I put my arm around Sam’s shoulders and walked her to the kitchen. “I’m hungry. Let’s raid Ashley’s fridge.” My voice turned into a whisper as we got back to the living room. Zola was already asleep on one of the recliners. Aideen and Cara were both out cold on top of a throw pillow. Foster had one arm dangling over the edge of the chair, still snoring like a train.

Sam giggled as we tiptoed into the kitchen. “Where’s Nixie?”

“She said she was going to take a bath.” I could hear the water running on the other side of the house and the quiet tick of an old cuckoo clock on the wall across from the kitchen sink.

“Oh, that sounds like a fantastic idea. You think Ashley will mind?”

I almost laughed. “No, no I don’t think she will, but I’m taking a shower first, dammit. You always were a hot water hog.” I opened the fridge and was flabbergasted at the selection of fresh fruit and vegetables mixed in with steaks and bundles of herbs. “I think Ashley’s just going to be happy to be alive, Sam.”

Sam made an excited squeak when she opened the pantry. “Oreos!” she hissed.

“Sweet. I’ll get the milk.” I pulled the glass bottle of milk out and set it on the kitchen table.

Sam pulled one of the straight legged chairs out and sat down. I dug out a glass and poured the milk. I started to sit down when Sam said, “Put the milk away. It’s one thing to ruin your own milk, but–”

I held up my hands in surrender and put the bottle of milk away. I pulled two colas out of the fridge and sat one by Sam. She punched the can open with her fangs and grinned when I raised my eyebrows. “Dominic showed me how to do it. Cool, huh?”

“It’s, well, it’s different.”

“You’re just jealous.” Another Oreo met its doom. She spoke through a full mouth of chocolate and cream. “It’s even better with beer bottles.”

I shook my head and held a cookie in the milk until it started to dissolve. “And if you break your fangs off?”

“They grow back pretty quick.”

“So you’ll just drink blood through a crazy straw in the meantime.”

Sam’s eyes widened and she swallowed her mouthful of cookie. “That’s a
brilliant
idea!”

I heard the water shut off as I shook my head. “I think Nixie’s done. I’m going to hop in the shower real quick. You mind?”

Sam waved her hand. “Not at all. I have Oreos.”

I smiled and tiptoed past the fairies to the back hallway. I tapped on the bathroom door.

“It’s open,” Nixie said.

A wall of steam met me when I cracked the door open. Nixie was wrapped in a towel and was working another through her hair.

“How you feeling?” I said.

“Better. Water always helps, even though you humans like to put a lot of chemicals in it.” Nixie reached behind me and closed the door. “Go ahead and hop in. I won’t look.” Her lips quivered while she tried to hide a grin.

She did, of course, and I felt a ridiculous blush run over my face. Thankfully I was well hidden in the water by then. I stuck my dirty clothes in the bottom of the shower in the hopes of getting some of the grime off. I sighed and scrubbed the dirt and blood off of my body in the hot water.

“What happened tonight, Nix?”

“Philip and Zachariah. They tricked us, got Cara, me, and Aideen to chase them into the woods. We killed a few in the trees. But that’s all the time they needed. When we got back to the house you were already there, Maggie was hurt, and Ashley. You know. It was bad.” I heard the towels rub together in rapid bursts.

“It wasn’t your fault, Nix.”

“I know. I just wanted to help. I should have seen the lie before Ashley got hurt. Guess I’m losing my edge on dry land.”

I laughed and rinsed the soap out of my hair. “You’re not losing your edge, and you did help. Everyone’s alive, we should be extremely happy about that.”

“Yes, but the dark ones are alive too.”

“Not all of them,” I said.

Nixie laughed. “That’s true. It was invigorating.”

I peeked around the shower curtain. “Invigorating, eh?” I said in the deepest voice I could muster.

Nixie grinned and hung the dripping towel back on the chrome rack. “You should hurry to bed.”

“Oh really?” I said.

“Oh really,” she said as she opened her towel and arched her back.

I was very thankful for the little traction ducks Ashley had stuck all over the tub. I gaped at Nixie’s porcelain body.

“I’ll be waiting.” She smiled, wrapped a drier towel around herself, and slipped out the door.

“Oh god, I’m too tired for this,” I said to myself. Other parts of myself disagreed. I rinsed off and wrapped a couple towels around me so I wouldn’t drip too much water across Ashley’s house. I turned the exhaust fan on as I left the bathroom and went to tell Sam the bathroom was open.

I found her in the kitchen with half a bag of Oreos demolished. “Shower’s open,” I said.

“Great, thanks. Is there any hot water left?”

“Yeah, I made it a pretty quick one. You still alright? You did some serious Oreo damage there.”

She nodded as she stood up. “I’m fine. Sleep well, Demon.”

“Thanks. You too.”

She disappeared into the back hallway. I got a glass of water and headed back to the guest bedroom. Nixie was tucked firmly beneath the comforter until I closed the door behind me. When she threw the covers back she was completely nude and crooked her finger at me. I smiled, dropped my own towel, and joined her.

I
heard the quiet knock at the door. I glanced at the alarm clock’s green face. Green? For a moment, I’d forgotten I wasn’t home. I expected to see the blood red face of my own clock. The horror of the previous evening was blessedly distant, but it all came rushing back in a second.

“
Damian.”

I smiled when I recognized Sam’s loud whisper.

“What’s up?” I glanced at the alarm clock again. “It’s 8:00 in the morning. Good lord.”

“The Watchers came. You have to see this.”

I sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed my hair. I wrapped a cold, wet towel around me and joined Sam in the hall. “Let me grab my clothes real quick.”

She rolled her eyes as I turned down the hall to the bathroom. My clothes were still damp, slung over the towel rack, but wearable. I came back to Sam and followed her through the living room and into the hallway. It didn’t look like Foster had moved all night. He was going to have a stiff neck when he got up. Zola didn’t even budge as I walked out the other side of the living room. She must have been wiped out. I remembered when I was training with her, I couldn’t even tiptoe to the outhouse without waking her up. I’d always had a healthy respect for modern plumbing after having to use an outhouse in three feet of snow.

“Holy shit,” I said as my eyes took in the renovations. It didn’t even look like the same house. The front room was completely cleaned out, and the splinters of the coffee table were gone, along with the bloody carpet and the broken couch. The tarp and blanket we’d hung over the doorway were gone too. Instead there was a slick black six-panel door, a fully intact wall, new carpeting, a new coffee table, and a new low-profile leather couch. “They even replaced her furniture?”

“I know. It’s crazy,” Sam said. “They even upgraded her furniture. Normally they just get rid of the bodies.”

“I’ll have to thank Eddie next time I see him. I wonder if this has something to do with Zola being here, or if it was that little argument they had.” I could smell the fresh paint. “This is crazy.”

“Yeah, I already said that.”

I glanced at Sam and smiled. “Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad. It’ll help Ashley out a lot.”

Sam sat down on the couch and crossed her legs on the coffee table. “What now?”

“We have other things to take care of too.”

Sam raised an eyebrow.

“You remember the little ghost Foster and I, um, inherited last year?”

Sam nodded.

“Well, she’s a demigod now.”

“
What?
How? She was human.”

I told Sam everything. I told her about Vicky’s old name, Elizabeth, and her detachment from it. I told her about Elizabeth’s murderer, and about the vision she’d given Foster of another abuser. I told her everything except who granted Vicky her powers. Even though I wanted to tell her, Zola’s warning stayed strong in the back of my mind.

“Christ, you have to tell her parents, Damian.”

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. “I’ve thought about it. Where do I even start?”

“You let them talk to their daughter. She’s still Elizabeth too.”

I nodded and let my eyes trail over Ashley’s snow globes, most of which had been spared destruction.

“Are you going to go after him?”

I didn’t have to ask her who she meant. “I’m sure we will. It’ll probably be pretty high on Foster’s to do list when he wakes up. Apparently he’s met the guy before—one of Colin’s friends.”

A small frown crossed Sam’s face. “Colin ... he seemed like a good guy.”

“Yeah, he did. I would have died last year if it wasn’t for him.”

“I remember. You got royally pounded by one of those demon puppets. I know the fairies are great healers, but it still scared the hell out of me.”

“
You?”
I laughed a little. “Scared the hell out of me too. It didn’t feel too good either.” I dropped down on the couch opposite Sam and put my feet up on the table beside hers. “I see your feet are still freakishly large.”

She tucked her feet under the coffee table before smacking me in the face with a throw pillow. “You’re an ass.”

“Only on Tuesdays.”

“It’s not Tuesday.”

“Oh,” I said as my eyes wandered over the rebuilt room. I had a hard time reconciling it with the disaster from the previous night. “So, are you staying for breakfast?” I pointed at the window and said, “The sun’s coming up.”

“Yeah, I’ll stay until Ashley’s up at least.” Sam laid her head back on the couch and smiled. “They haven’t completely broken me. I’m not as paranoid as all the old vamps yet.”