Chapter Nineteen
When Lupe landed, she let go of Shanna hastily, spilling her over the grass behind the old mansion.
Shanna grunted as she hit the ground, but was up before the smoke had cleared. She and Lupe stared at each other for a moment before Shanna dropped her guard and snickered. “Do you ever get used to the smell?”
Lupe groaned. “It’s a working hazard. One downfall to being powerful and immortal.”
Shanna shook her head. “I just don’t understand. What is going on around here?”
“I can explain,” Lupe said. “But I expect you to put in a good word for me next time you meet up with anyone from La Faer Noir.” She tilted her head. “Except maybe Damien. He’s suspicious by nature.”
“Sounds like a smart guy,” a dark figure stepped out from around the side of the mansion.
They both stopped and stared, and Shanna quickly recognized the man from Incantations, all six feet and four inches of him. He still only wore a pair of jeans, and her eyes zeroed in on his chest, where the tattoo of an eye stared back at her.
“We meet again,” he said, addressing Shanna. “You keep poor company, however.” He suddenly charged them and Lupe hissed, leaping away as he lunged at her.
“I’ll send you back where you belong, demon spawn,” the man shouted, jaw set. He lifted a hand and murmured something in Latin, which Shanna heard clearly as “Incinerate.” His hand glowed yellow, as did his eyes, and a golden beam of light seemed to fly from his hand in Lupe’s direction.
Lupe dodged the blast, tripped and fell to the ground, leaving herself wide open for another shot.
Shanna, however, intervened, stepping between the man and his target. “That’s enough,” she said.
He frowned, clearly annoyed. “You don’t know what she is.”
“A loup-garous.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “And you know what her kind does? Feeding off the life blood of babies?”
Shanna blinked, then turned to regard Lupe. “Babies?” she mouthed.
“Another drawback,” Lupe admitted, getting to her feet and wiping off her knees. “But it’s not as bad as he makes it sound. I need a tiny bit of blood every once in awhile.” She scowled down at her legs. “And I just had this skirt dry-cleaned, I’ll have you know.”
“What a shame,” the man said dryly, watching her. He turned back to Shanna. “What is the meaning of this? Why are you cavorting with a monster such as her?”
“She just helped me escape a bunch of loup-garous,” Shanna shook her head. “No offense, but this has been a weird night. I never would have expected help from her, and then…just who the hell are you?”
“I am Ash,” he replied, standing tall.
Lupe perked up. “Ash? Paimon’s pet?”
Ash glared at her. “I am no one’s pet.”
She laughed. “You are, aren’t you? How wonderful!”
Shanna looked from one of them to the other. “What is going on? Who is Paimon? And what are you doing here?”
Ash ignored Lupe and focused on Shanna. “Paimon is a horrible demon who tahen possession my soul. And watches my every move.”
“Paimon owns him,” Lupe threw in, walking up to them. “Everyone knows his story. On the eve of his thousandth year walking the Earth, Paimon will devour Ash unless he can meet the terms of the challenge set forth for him.”
Shanna glanced at Ash warily. “Is that true?”
He nodded. “It’s true.”
“So, how old are you now?”
Ash snorted. “I have less than a year left, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“And you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”
He grinned. “All that experience, and this body…just imagine the possibilities.”
Rolling her eyes, Shanna considered the story. “What’s the challenge that you must face?”
“Something that will never come to be,” Ash shook his head, quickly sobering. “I’ve given up on that quest long ago.”
“So, you’re just giving up?”
Ash shrugged. “My fate has been written. It’s inevitable.”
Lupe snorted. “So now he roams the Earth, saving lost souls from the evils around them. It’s all very noble. Except what he doesn’t tell you is that he draws his power from Paimon, so he’s basically a demon himself. His immortality, magick, knowledge – it’s all Paimon’s. And that eye on this chest-“
“Mind your tongue, woman,” Ash hissed, taking a step forward. “Or I will relieve you of it.”
Shanna gazed at the eye on his chest, then jumped as it blinked, which looked odd, like an optical illusion, as it seemed to be ordinary black ink. “What was…what is it?” She reached forward to touch it, but Ash grabbed her hand.
“It is Paimon’s eye. He watches all that I do. He sees you now.”
Shanna drew back. “Oh. That’s…why don’t you cover him up?”
Ash chuckled. “You think I walk around shirtless for fun? Anything I try to cover it with goes up in flame. I’ve tried everything. But Paimon will not be blinded. He will see my every deed until he consumes me.”
“That’s awful.”
“It is my burden, but like I’ve said, I have accepted my fate.”
“And why are you here now?” Shanna wondered, looking up from his chest to meet his smoldering red eyes, much like a demon’s. Same powers as Paimon, his soul in Paimon’s clutches…he was very nearly Paimon himself, perhaps. Ash was probably tricked into a deal that backfired, as demons were known to do. And now Paimon had nearly taken over this man, yet Ash protested as best as he could, by going out and battling monsters, saving people from them. It was tragic, yet quite brave and heroic at the same time.
Are you not like Diana, and protesting in similar ways? a voice hissed in her head. She ignored it.
“I am here to see Roma’s endeavors fail.”
“Roma?” Shanna frowned again, recalling the woman in the magick shop she had visited with several of the hunters. Roma had certainly intimidated the shop keeper, but what was she that she deserved Ash’s attention?
“She is behind all of this,” Ash said, arms sweeping out around him. “Mr. Crenshaw is her pawn, selling his students to The Goblin Market to acquire things for her, items that she surely needs for some foul deed. I have been monitoring his activities for some time now, waiting for the right moment to strike.” He paused. “And of course, she controls all of the magick in New Orleans: the loup-garous, the zombies, the vampires. She is the self-proclaimed Voodoo Queen of this land, although she cares little for the religion itself. She has taken their ways, perverted them to make them useful to her, and goes about flaunting her abilities. She is up to something terrible, I am sure of it.”
“She’s not that bad,” Lupe muttered.
“You say that because she is your master.”
Shanna raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
Lupe shrugged. “She made me what I am today. What can I say?”
Ash looked down on Lupe. “She’s a terrible sorceress who stumbled upon power and abuses it. A necromancer.”
“We all have our faults,” Lupe smiled at him.
“A necromancer?” Shanna echoed.
This new information swirled around in Shanna’s head as she tried to process it. It was a lot to take in. Roma was a necromancer? Like Krystal? But corrupted by her power, utilizing it to satisfy her own whims, to make herself more powerful. Shanna tried to think back on everything she knew about necromancers, but it wasn’t much, just that all but Krystal had turned down a dark path. It was too much power, and its roots were in darkness. She thought about zombies and loup-garous, and shuddered. She couldn’t imagine Krystal heading down such a road of evil.
“Let’s get inside and confer with the others,” Shanna suggested, looking up at the sky, searching for any golden beams that signaled more loup-garous in the area. She hoped that Quinn,
Amelia and Natalia were alright, but right now, she had to work with who was around. And when she stepped into the mansion, its furniture knocked over, monitors broken, and wires torn apart, she knew that she had even less help than she’d hoped.
“Shanna!” Krystal stumbled across the living room and threw herself into her arms.
Shanna looked about, bewildered, while Lupe and Ash stood silently behind her. “What happened here?”
Krystal took a deep, shuddering breath and pulled back to look at her. “Zombies. They took all of the others. Well, all but Serene.” She glanced at the floor near the fireplace and Shanna noted the siren’s still form on the ground.
All of the others? Shanna shook her head. So now Rachel, Jade and Hunter were gone as well, leaving her with practically no help. She swallowed hard at the sudden gravity of the situation. If the others had fallen under the forces at work here, what would she be able to do to help? She glanced over at Serene. At least she wasn’t completely alone.
“Is she…?”
Krystal shook her head. “Just knocked out. The tranquilizer kicked in when Hunter was taken away.”
Shanna nodded, understanding flooding her features. She walked slowly over to the siren and bent down to check her pulse, which beat strong in her neck. She pushed back her hair to look at the tranquilizer, just a lump beneath the skin at the back of her neck.”
“Ash?” she said.
Ash was instantly at her side, bending down next to her. “I can draw the tranquilizer from her blood stream,” he said. “But the device has more doses to release once she awakens.”
Shanna watched Serene’s sleeping face and sighed, struggling with what to do. She needed more people with her than what she had. She was the only hunter there, for god’s sake.
“Can you take the whole thing out of her without hurting her?”
Ash nodded. “I can get rid of it.”
“Then do it.”