“Wait a minute,” said Mick, his voice far closer to human now, though none of the tension had left his back. “You’re sayin’ that you were responsible for the fall of the Mayan Empire?”
It smiled, and Sophie saw death, destruction.
Oh gods.
She had known the Eye was powerful. The Council wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to hide it in the catacombs if it weren’t. But this… Her mind boggled at the ramifications. Had they known what the Eye was capable of? Did the kidnapper truly know what the Eye could do? And if he did, what exactly did he plan to use it for?
“You said before you needed a host,” said Mick. “Like a parasite?”
Its face shifted into lines of distaste, but it inclined its head in acknowledgement.
“All who use the Eye become bound to it, as I am.”
Sophie remembered their orders on the retrieval mission. Don’t touch the Eye. Never touch the Eye.
The demon continued. “Their life force is as much a source of power as my magic. He who uses the Eye does not give it up without death.”
“By you or someone else?” asked Sophie.
“I cannot kill the host.”
Sophie felt the strain of the water in her head and swayed. Powerful or no, this demon still wasn’t the one keeping them dry. Curling her hands, she dug her nails into her palms, using the pain to focus.
“What about now?” she demanded. “When you aren’t connected to a host. Do you have limitations or can you use your powers at your discretion?”
It gave her a look that clearly questioned her intelligence. “If I had full use of my powers, do you think I would still be down here in this pit? I cannot control the minds of the living unless bound.”
“So the zombies…” started Sophie.
“A poor attempt at entertainment.” It waved its hand dismissively. “I sincerely hope you have a far more interesting option because I’m getting fairly desperate. So one of you pick me up and get me out of here, and I will make all your problems go away.” It smiled and gestured at the Eye like a game show host showing off a prize.
“That’s not why we’re here,” said Sophie, flustered. This had gone so far beyond a mere retrieval.
“What, then, is your purpose?” it asked.
“A trade,” she said, closing her eyes and breathing slowly to alleviate the lancing pain in her skull. “My sister has been kidnapped. Her captor demands the Eye.”
“Ah, it is he, no doubt, who wishes to raze civilizations.” It nodded, as if that explained everything. “Very well, pick up the case and let’s go. Chop chop. I’m dying to do something.”
“But we can’t just give you to the kidnapper. He’ll use you,” she exclaimed.
“That would be the point of my existence.”
She turned to Mick, searching for a voice of reason. “We can’t possibly take him to the kidnapper. I can’t be responsible for unleashing this on the world.”
“Then take responsibility,” said the demon equably. “Bind with me, use me to free your sister, and have control of my actions. It sounds like it would be rather boring as an existence, but my perspective has changed somewhat after being in a vault for the last seven years.”
Gods help her, she considered it. For a few long moments, she thought about taking the Eye and using it on the son of a bitch who had taken Liza. But then she’d be no better than he. And she’d be stuck bound to a demon for the rest of her natural life. Which, given her paternity, was likely to be a very, very long time.
She shook her head. “No. That’s not an option.”
“It seems, then,” said the demon, “that we are at an impasse.”
~*~
Judging by the rhythmic thump against the door of the vault, the zombies had renewed their efforts to get inside. They couldn’t get through the slab of steel, but still it shook in its frame with each great impact. Uneasy, Mick looked away from the door. He didn’t want to think about what lay between them and the exit and how it affected their chances of getting out.
The ground above rumbled.
His gaze shot to Sophie. Her face was strained, and blood trickled down from her nose.
“Sophie? You’re bleeding.”
“I’m alright,” she insisted, swiping the blood away with one hand. But she swayed as she said it.
“You are looking rather gray,” the demon observed.
Another look at her face decided him. “We gotta go.” He reached over, grabbed the titanium case from the dais, and shut it.
“Mick what are you doing? We can’t—” She broke off with a grimace.
He thrust it into her hands. “We’ll talk about what to do with it later. Right now I’m more concerned with getting out of here.” The sound of trickling water had him turning back toward the door. It was spurting in from the bottom edge. “Sophie! The water!”
“I’m . . . trying!”
Mick caught her before she hit her knees. Her body trembled with exhaustion, and her head slumped against his shoulder. He shook her. “Don’t you dare pass out on me.”
“Trying,” she said again.
Blood was running freely from both nostrils now, and the coppery scent coated the back of Mick’s throat. Across the room, water started to squirt a few inches along the side seams.
“Well that’s not good,” the demon said.
“Thank you Captain Obvious. Is there another way out of here?” Mick snarled. He yanked at Sophie’s belt threading the leather through the handle of the case and tightening it so that the Eye was held snug against her waist.
“How should I know? I live in a box.”
“Look, if you want outta here, then I suggest you find a way to help.”
“I seem to recall a shaft of some kind down the other branch of the tunnel. It might lead to the surface.”
Might. Mick didn’t like betting their lives on might. But they were out of options. The demon needed a host and they were its best chance of getting out of the vault to get one.
With one arm around Sophie’s waist, he half carried, half dragged her through the inch deep water on the vault floor. With his free hand, he spun the lock. The wheel vibrated beneath his hands as something hit the door again. With a clank the lock disengaged. Muttering a silent prayer and using the door as a shield, Mick yanked it open.
The Karu rushed through the door, bony feet skidding on the metal floor. As it crashed into the opposite wall, Mick slipped around the door with Sophie, dragging it shut behind them. He got the lock just barely re-engaged before the door trembled again with the force of the enraged bear-shifter.
“Smart,” muttered Sophie. She was fading fast. He could hear it in her voice. Water lapped at their ankles now.
“Just hang on. Keep your focus.”
He lifted her into his arms and began to move. He was running blind, his eyes not yet adjusted to the dark. The splashing of his feet covered the noise of any approaching attackers. He relied on speed alone.
Claws raked his flank and back, but still he ran, clutching Sophie tight to his chest. He found the juncture by nearly plowing into it, turning at the last second to take the brunt of the impact with his shoulder. Remembering the demon’s words, he took the right fork. The ground seemed to slope up slightly as he ran and the air smelled slightly less rank, though that might have been from sheer lack of carnage.
Sophie went limp.
Behind them something snapped, like a dam breaking. The sound of an unnatural tide was deafening. Mick poured on the speed, but even he wasn’t fast enough to escape the wall of water that came crashing down the tunnel. It caught them up, tumbling them head over feet, slamming them hard into walls.
He kept a hard grip on Sophie as he struggled against his own panic at not knowing which way was up. The current of the water carried them, and he tried to relax and let it. He bumped up against the roof of the tunnel and rolled, using one hand to drag them along, feeling for some kind of opening. One foot. Another. Sophie floate
d limp in the crook of his other arm. His lungs were burning, and he thought his ears would burst from the pressure.
The demon had lied. Of course it had lied. That’s what demons did. They were going to die down here because he took a calculated risk, and it was the wrong one.
Spots of color danced behind his eyes as his brain started to short out from lack of oxygen.
Something like a giant hand shoved them hard further down the tunnel, and what little air he had burst out of his mouth in a shock of bubbles. He kicked hard, trying to fight, but hit nothing. Air! Air! Bands of pressure squeezed his chest, urging him to breathe.
His hand groped toward the ceiling again . . . and met no resistance. Frantic, he felt again, found an opening about three feet across. He kicked, shifting to bring Sophie close to his chest and began to swim up the shaft. He expected a ceiling or blockage at any moment., but he kept moving up, up, feeling the motion of the water helping them along, moving, speeding them to the top.
He broke the surface with a gasp, getting a mouthful of water as gravity slammed them back into the water. Kicking back to the top he coughed out the fetid water and shifted Sophie’s head up. She didn’t move.
Damn it!
He kicked across the small pond, snarling as they tangled in lily pads. Ripping through the roots, he dragged her onto the bank. Her skin was waxy, streaked with mud. She wasn’t breathing. Mick’s fingers fumbled for a pulse, couldn’t find one.
“Sophie! Goddamn it!”
He tipped her head back, breathing into her mouth. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Another breath. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
“You are not going to die on me, damn it. You’re not going to die on Liza.”
Breathe. Count.
“I’m not going to lose another one,” he growled.
Her body bucked with a choking cough. Quickly he rolled her onto her side, so she could get the water out of her lungs, then he collapsed on his haunches beside her. When the hacking subsided, she lay gasping, curled in on herself. Mick found his hand stroking her wet hair.
“We made it out?” she asked.
Mick looked around, taking in the iron gates, cobbled streets, and old fashioned atmosphere around them.. “If we didn’t, then Hell looks a whole lot like the Garden District.”
“How?” she coughed.
“I don’t know exactly. You passed out. The water broke through. Felt like something shoved us up the tunnel. Then we came out here.”
Mick thought she was having another coughing fit and laid a hand on her shoulder. Then he realized she was . . . laughing?
“Thanks, Dad. Way to come through in a pinch.”
A grumble of thunder seemed to echo in response.
Dad? Maybe she’s delirious. “Say what?”
“My father’s the sea god. He may not win Father of the Year, but he tries to avoid letting his kids drown.”
Mick blinked at her. “The sea god. Like the sea god? Like major character in Greek myth, Poseidon, the sea god?”
“That’d be the one.”
“He…they exist?”
She arched a brow at him as she rolled to her knees and tried to stand “You turn into a wolf and you’re asking me if gods exist?”
He put a hand under her elbow to steady her. “Well it’s not like they’re one of the common Races sitting on the Council. So that makes you…” He trailed off, searching for the right word.
“A demi-goddess, technically. Which sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.” She lifted the hem of her shirt, and he saw the case still wedged firmly behind her belt. “C’mon. We need to find the car.”
Chapter 5
The cemetery was a half hour’s walk from the pond they’d surfaced in on somebody’s Garden District estate. Given their need for haste, Mick had shifted. A big ass dog stuck out a lot less than a bare-assed man, no matter how attractive that ass happened to be. And that was all anyone would see if they looked out at the empty street. A dog and a bedraggled woman without enough sense to get out of the rain.
Sophie wanted to run. The need to get back to the car, to make a plan, was gnawing at her. But after their ordeal in the catacombs, she simply couldn’t manage it. She’d pushed herself too far. The way her head pounded and her vision blurred, she was doing well enough to put one foot in front of the other without stumbling. Mick helped with that. He was so tall as a wolf, she could easily lean on his shoulders to steady herself. She felt somewhat better having him pressed close, her fingers threaded through his ruff. He was solid.
As they neared the back edge of the cemetery, Mick’s ears pricked up, his body going stiff. Sophie stopped, creeping forward as he did, following the unspoken order for silence. On the other side of the fence, the foliage rustled, and she dove for the cover of some bushes. Mick flattened against the ground.
“Anything?” The male voice carried faintly over the rain.
“Nah. If anybody else was standing watch, they bailed when the catacombs flooded again. Raines says the sensors aren’t picking up any signs of life down there. Whoever they were, they drowned.”
Sophie chanced a peek through the branches. She couldn’t see much. Just a moving blur, a deeper black within the shadows of a nearby tomb but it was enough to identify them. Shadow Walkers. The Council’s special ops division. We must have triggered some kind of alarm, she thought.
“Who drew the short straw to go down and see that the artifact is still in place?” asked the first voice.
“Nobody yet. Matthias doesn’t want anybody down there with the hurricane this close. The threat’s been contained. We’ll come back and check it once the storm’s past.”
Their voices faded. Sophie didn’t move, hardly dared to breathe. Nothing short of a Hunter was more deadly than a Shadow Walker. Able to travel by shadow, they could infiltrate virtually anywhere, pursue any target without being seen. If she and Mick had surfaced on this side of the catacombs, they’d be dead, or at the very least arrested. The Council wasn’t big on trials for those accused of treason.
The metal case holding the Eye pressed into her belly, a damning piece of evidence if ever there was one.
When something cold nudged her hand, she nearly screamed. Blood flooded her mouth from where she’d bitten her lip. Mick cocked his head in what she supposed was a canine version of Sorry, then tugged her toward the cemetery.
“They’re gone?” she whispered.
He nodded.
They skirted the edge as quickly as possible, circling around to the car. Once inside, Mick back in his skin, Sophie tossed him her jacket to cover up with, and pulled away from the curb.
“Gods that was close.”
“This is far more exciting than the vault,” came a voice from the backseat.
Sophie shrieked and jerked the wheel as she glanced into the rearview mirror to see the demon looking bright-eyed with interest.
Wresting the car back into her lane, Sophie bit back the curses on her tongue. Instead she said, “We have to decide what to do with the Eye. Given its capabilities, we can’t possibly give it to the kidnapper. I don’t know what he wants it for, but the potential for the apocalypse is just too high.”
“We need a counterfeit,” said Mick.
“That would be great if we had weeks to plan and find someone to make a forgery, but in case you’ve forgotten, there’s a hurricane coming and we’re down to less than four hours.”
“I know a guy.”
Sophie glanced over and blinked at him. “You know a guy who can create a forgery of this artifact that’s good enough to risk Liza’s life on?”
“If anybody can do it, Olaf can.”
‘You trust him?”
“With my life. If he didn’t evacuate, he’ll do what he can.”
She blew out a long breath. “Well, it’s not necessarily a great plan, but it’s a plan. Where are we going?”
He directed her back to the interstate until they were headed toward Slidell. As they hit I-10, he
fell quiet.
In the silence, Sophie’s mind turned over the events of the night, settling on Mick’s rescue from the catacombs.
“What did you mean back at the pond?” she asked.
“What?”
“When you said you weren’t going to lose another one.” When she looked over at him, his face was hard. “Did you lose one of your Pack?”
“Not exactly.”
He stopped and stayed silent for so long, she didn’t think he would explain.
“When I was seventeen, I was sent to pick up an order of herbs and other supplies for our pack healer. Usually she’d go herself, but one of the women was due to give birth any day and she didn’t want to leave, just in case. When I got to the guild, the herbalist didn’t have our order ready yet. There was a girl, a child really. Five, maybe six. She wanted to play. Was bugging everybody there to play Hide and Seek—really insistent. Nobody else would pay any attention to her, so I followed her out into the swamp. She didn’t stand a chance. I could smell her easy, but I played along, pretending I couldn’t find her.
“We were more than a mile away from town when the attack came. Her entire clan was slaughtered while we hid in the swamp playing a child’s game. Then she stepped out from behind a tree and looked at me with these grave brown eyes and said, “It’s over,” and started crying. I didn’t realize what she meant until I scented their blood. She knew it was going to happen.”
“She was a Seer?” asked Sophie.
“Yeah. I don’t think they’d realized it yet. She was young to manifest that kind of gift. So nobody listened to her.”
“That’s horrible. What did you do?”
“The only thing I could think of. I took her back home to the Pack. She was just a child. I promised we would keep her safe until my Alpha could decide what to do with her. He wasn’t thrilled with me, but when I explained the circumstances, he agreed that she could stay. Then he sent me off to another witch clan he knew, to see if they would take her in.”