Page 6 of Between Bloode and Death (Between the Shadows #5)
CHAPTER
SIX
Val felt the danger before the lovely dead raven settled on her shoulder. The creature nudged her hair, nibbling with affectionate pecks.
And that wouldn’t attract the vampire at all.
Shit. She immediately called up the dead shifter she kept on hand for emergencies, currently polishing a glass behind the bar.
He stepped behind her while she raced toward the back exit, trying to shoo the bird away.
It clung like Velcro.
“No, you have to go, sweetie.” Val surged energy through it, dislodging its talons without hurting it. Not that she could hurt the dead. Not physically anyway. She could destroy it, of course, and it wouldn’t know pain.
A huge plus in her opinion.
It flew away, finally. Instead of darting out the back where the reaper would assume she’d go, Val went through another passageway and down into a secret escape tunnel.
She had no idea how long she’d have before the reaper overtook her, but she didn’t plan on making it easy for him. Val had important things to accomplish. A troublesome vampire would only get in the way.
“Female, stop running,” she heard him yell from somewhere above her.
Cloaking herself in energy, she hid her essence behind her spell and rushed through the passageway, mentally reaching out to Grizz.
Desperate to escape, she put on a burst of speed and exited into a small room under the apothecary. But Grizz wasn’t there to meet her.
She mentally reached out to him. Grizz?
Slightly delayed, he sent with apology.
Realizing she’d have to get to him before the reaper attacked and destroyed the unique gargoyle she’d spent a fortune to recover, she hurried up a set of stairs and out of the building into the marketplace.
And stopped dead in her tracks.
She’d been expecting to face off against the sexy—no, dangerous—reaper.
An influx of MEC agents stormed past several fleeing magir.
Toward her.
How can they know I’m a necromancer? It wasn’t like Val advertised her abilities. She did her best to hide them.
Fortunately, MEC continued past her to surround a spider the size of a pony that continued to expand. It soon grew to the size of a small bus, its pincers neon green, like its eyes. It felt dead. More, it felt hollow, as if something else pulled its strings. Not a necromancer. Something else.
“Look out.” A tall, dark-haired guy in a MEC vest knocked her out of the way of a spiked leg that landed where she’d been standing.
Val blinked up at the MEC agent, whose eyes glowed with hellfire. Uh-oh.
“Stay back,” he warned, shielding her with a wall of flame.
He had elemental power, obviously, but that glow in his eyes and the scent of brimstone told her he had to be part demon.
Though demons clearly existed, they rarely lived in the human plane, summoned into the realm through rituals or possession.
Just what she didn’t need. The man she wanted dead had been playing with demonic rituals and hell realms when he’d murdered her parents. Could it be coincidence a MEC agent, who just happened to be part demon, had shown up when Val needed to escape?
Did Vladimir know who she was? She’d been doing her best to stay hidden. Even if he knew she’d come after him, he’d never realize her identity. Not until it was too late to do anything about it.
The spider screeched as the guy’s flames kissed its feet.
“Hurry up, Macy,” he yelled and swore, pushing the fire harder at the spider.
Someone chanted while bone blades appeared to stab at the spider’s massive abdomen. High above the spider, Grizz hovered, holding two magir who looked half dead. She recognized them as shifters from Talon’s pack, which made sense since Grizz had been tasked to protect them.
He swooped down to drop them near the Ribald Unicorn, from which Talon likely watched. That was if the reaper hadn’t hurt him. Which begged the question, where had that vampire gone?
Grizz distracted her, taking to the air again. To her shock, he dodged two arrows while a third pierced his chest, which shouldn’t have been possible.
“Grizz!” She felt a sensation of falling though he remained in the air. He yanked the arrow free and held onto it, swooping down to grab her. He lifted her into his arms and shot back into the air just as the vampire appeared below.
“Come back here now, female.” The reaper didn’t yell. Didn’t sound upset. But she heard the threat all the same.
Her death sentence stood beneath her as Grizz carried her away. A glance down showed Talon escaping with his shifters into the bar. Fortunately, the reaper’s gaze remained on her. She waved down at him.
“Hey, fanger. Have some of this.” She flipped him off, expecting to see more rage.
She didn’t know what to do with the laughter and evil smile aimed her way.
Or the threat she swore she read from his lips.
I’m coming for you. Just you wait.