Page 34 of Between Bloode and Death (Between the Shadows #5)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

Val couldn’t understand it.

The house stood in one piece. Not a shred of damage to any of the building or the furniture within.

But half the pack lay dead, blood, pus, and other noxious fluids swimming with disease.

“This is the work of the true Staff of Blight,” Mormo said, his voice distressed. “I’m so sorry, Val.”

She looked around the common area, not understanding. She didn’t feel death anywhere, but she could clearly see it. Yet the grief she expected to feel didn’t come.

Talon lay gutted, his head barely clinging to his neck. He’d been disemboweled. The room smelled horrible, the heavy scent of blood and intestinal discharge almost overpowering. Nearby, the bodies of the bear twins curled protectively around Misty, her body in two pieces in a pool of blood.

And then Val sensed it, the lie that was not death. But something else.

A promise of war?

“Mormo,” she called. “Here.”

The magician was by her side in an instant. His eyes narrowed. “Well, well. This is really impressive.” He waved his hands, muttering spells and whisking the magic away.

And there, under the mess of magical fabrication, lay the twenty-six members of the Beast Brigade, snoring like thunder.

She stared around her, inundated with the noise of deeply sleeping shifters. “I’m so confused.”

“Likewise.” Mormo moved around the room, gathering objects and tossing them into a small bag that appeared and disappeared.

Seeing her attention, he explained, “It’s a pocket dimension where I store the weird crap I’m constantly finding in this plane.

The Mundane realm isn’t as mundane as you’d think. ”

“But… How did someone do this? It looked like death. Even smelled and sounded like death.” She’d heard the bloated gases leaving someone’s belly a few seconds ago.

“Did you sense The End?”

“Not at all. Not even a little.”

“It’s not divine interference, I don’t think. I’m just not sure why they’d go to the trouble of making us think they’d killed everyone.” He frowned. His eyes narrowed. “Come with me.”

“But—”

“Now.” He grabbed her hand and whisked her back with him to the storage locker where her things had all been burned…and were no longer a smoking ruin.

The locker had been tossed. But nothing had been destroyed, only gone through.

“Damn it.” Mormo growled as he looked around, his magic saturating the space. “Does anything feel like it’s missing?”

She shrugged. “How would I know? Look at this place. This is real, right?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “I should have put a protection spell over this before we left. They must have been watching and used our distraction at the shifter house to finish looking through everything here in the storage locker.”

“But how? We left through a magic portal didn’t we?”

“We did.”

“So how did they tag you? I mean, I’m just a human. But you’re a lot more than that.”

“I am. But he’s not.” Mormo swore long and loud.

“He? Mormo?”

“I think we’ve been played.”

“I’m confused.”

“I’m not. I’m finally seeing what’s been in front of me all along.” He looked around once more and settled magic over her and the surrounding area. “I don’t feel anything foreign. Do you?”

“No.”

He took her with him back to the shifter house. “Rouse your friends. I’ll set a few protection spells. Then we need to go.”

“Do you think Khent and the others are okay?”

Mormo paused, the aura around him shining, a pulse of red firing now and then, the power majestic. If he wasn’t partially divine, she’d eat her left sock.

“Mormo?”

He grimaced. “No. I don’t think they’re okay. Move faster, Val.”

She did, not understanding any of this. Her protective death magic over the Beast Brigade hadn’t been touched. But someone had clearly gotten under her safeguards and affected the scene. Why?

And why couldn’t she stop worrying about a particular vampire who could more than hold his own?

Khent bumped into Rolf inside the necromancer.

“What a fucker, eh?” Rolf said, knocking at the protective shield of necro magic keeping him prisoner inside a being no longer remotely human. “Hey, can Val do this?”

“Not that I know of.” Khent had let himself be taken, needing to get inside their enemy to get his kin free. “If you weren’t so weak, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

To his gratification, Rolf looked shamefaced.

“Promise you won’t tell the others.”

“No.”

“No, you won’t tell? Or no, you won’t promise?”

Khent ignored him. Instead, he sought a vulnerability in Vladimir’s inner armor, impressed by the necromancer’s unexpected strength. “We need to hurry. Onvyr’s alone out there. And I think this staff is the one Nergal wants.”

“I know. I could feel it. The Staff of Blight is calling for its maker. It belongs to Nergal.”

Khent scowled. “We can’t let him have it, or Mormo will never stop bothering us about losing it. And if he knows, the others will as well. They’ll treat us the way we treat Orion and Kraft.”

“I know.” Rolf moaned, his despair clear. “I swear. I was only going to sip from him. Just a taste so I could get a better grasp of his magic. But this human moved way too fast to be mortal. He’s clearly semi-divine.”

“Probably from whatever magic Nergal has settled over him.”

Rolf frowned. “No. It’s not from Nergal. It’s something else. There’s evil in this one. And something unnatural.”

“Some would say we’re unnatural.”

Rolf huffed. “We’re part of the natural order. What Vladimir is doing isn’t. He’s chaotic. Demonic.” Rolf paused. “Didn’t someone say this guy eats other people? Like, devours their magic?”

“I believe Valentine mentioned this.” Khent ignored the tingle of apprehension he had that she might be in danger. With Mormo by her side, she’d be fine. And besides, vampires didn’t know fear. How ridiculous.

But he hastened to get free. They really needed to make up for this terrible lapse in Rolf’s judgement.

“Sometimes things that eat other things go not-right. Like wendigos,” Rolf said. “They start as human then turn evil when they eat their friends.”

“Not exactly how I’d define a wendigo, but you’re close.

” Ah, there. Khent concentrated and shifted a few wards built into Vladimir’s psyche.

“I hate to admit it, but this necromancer is talented. His power though, comes from Nergal and that something else you call unnatural. So yes, there’s something else in here. ”

He wished he could figure it out. With more time, he might have been able to. But he and Rolf shared a look, sensing Onvyr’s presence. That and the Staff of Blight.

The thing radiated poison, a promise of death that Nergal should not have any contact with. That was one god bad enough on his own.

“Better hurry,” Rolf said, his voice low. “Want me to distract him again?”

Khent settled in to work his magic. “Yes, please. And henceforth, you will never again call me ‘Bro,’ or I’ll tell everyone how a human got the better of you.”

Rolf cringed. “I swear. Gods, this sucks.”

“Yes. And not it a good way.” The memory of Nergal’s smile returned, and for a moment Khent felt a swell of pity for the underworld god trapped in a lifeless existence. Then he recalled the god’s excitement about taking Valentine. And that would not stand.

Rolf flared his energy and made Vladimir ill.

Khent let loose his massive wings and opened up his magic to detonate the necromancer from the inside out.

An hour later, as he, Rolf, and Onvyr washed goo, guts, blood, and other disgusting human innards from their bodies, they swore an oath never to admit to anyone that a stupid human had gotten the better of them.

“Well, at least he didn’t get the staff,” Onvyr muttered, washing teeth out of his hair.

Rolf growled and cursed the necromancer to the fifteenth level of hell, whatever that was.

Khent swore the draugr was making shit up. “The good news is we have the staff, Vladimir knows we can fight back, and Nergal won’t be happy he’s no closer to obliterating the world.”

“Right.” Rolf joined them on the boat to head back to Mercer Island. They drove in silence before he said, “Did all that seem right to you?”

Onvyr snorted. “What? Watching you two get vomited out of an exploding human before he became whole again and laughed so hard he exploded a second time? And let me tell you, that was a lot of blood and guts for a dozen people, let alone one guy dying twice. If that wasn’t weird enough, he then vanished in a puff of smoke while some weirdo with two lion heads tossed me around like a dog’s bone.

Is that normal? I’m new to the Mundane plane, but I don’t think so. ”

Fucking Nergal and his interference.

Rolf shook his head. “This is all wrong. It’s too easy.”

Unfortunately, Khent heard the truth he didn’t want to acknowledge. Not when everything in his body insisted he find Valentine again and glue her to his side. “Do we go back and check it out?”

“No.” Rolf sounded determined. He drew runes overhead, and magic flared. The small yacht cut through the waves of the Sound, moving as if carried by Poseidon’s own hands. “We need to talk to Hecate. Now. And what the hell did you mean when you called yourself Imy-Mut?”

Khent shrugged, knowing where the name had come from, surprised he hadn’t thought about it in decades.

The title—not a name—had come to him at the moment, a warning to all who might think to trespass.

He felt jittery, unable to stand still. He paced, unnerved and not sure why, with only one thing on his mind.

It wasn’t Nergal, Vladimir, or vast death magic in a necromancer that the human shouldn’t be able to command.

Instead, Khent’s thoughts were consumed by Valentine, wondering if she was okay. If she needed him. And why her absence made his heart ache and his fangs descend.

He rubbed his chest. “Onvyr, Rolf, get us there faster. I have a bad feeling.”