I grinned. Morio knew me, all right. Rozurial, an incubus who lived on our land and who had become enmeshed with our family, wore a long duster à la Neo from The Matrix. His coat was filled with everything from wooden stakes to magical bombs to a mini-Uzi. Although, now that I thought about it, last time I looked, the Uzi had been replaced by a magical stun gun we’d managed to liberate from a sorcerer’s bar. After we got through with it, the bar had bit the dust. Literally. There was nothing left of the building except a pile of toothpicks.
“Nah. I tried to snag some stuff from him yesterday, but he caught me with my hands in the cookie jar and threatened to tell Smoky I was prowling through his pockets. You know what Smoky would think of that.”
Smoky was possessive and, being dragon, he didn’t always get the joke. He shared me with Morio and Trillian because that was the way things were, and by now he had grown comfortable with the situation. But that was the limit of his generosity, and he’d already thrashed Roz once for a misplaced hand on my butt.
Morio snorted. “He’s always and forever going to be a big galoot. You know it, and I know it, and we just have to love him for who he is.” He laughed, then sobered. “So, we have two daggers and my bad-assed demon self. Sounds about right. I’ll engage the creeps while you rescue Chase.”
“Sounds good to me. Just don’t send me off on a track-and-field exercise. Not in these shoes.” I had worn a pair of my granny boots. They were stilettos, definitely not made for running, but I’d had plenty of practice. On the concrete, I could run in them, but I hadn’t expected to be out in the field tonight.
As we came to Atlas Drive, a small side street, I veered onto the darkened road and slowed down. We were no longer fully in the suburbs. Here, the foliage was a little more tangled, the surroundings a little more rural. It was harder to see because the night was dark, the streetlights were few and far between, and the moon had gone into hiding behind a patch of clouds. In the Seattle area, we only had sixty-some days a year that were totally cloud-free, and today—this evening—wasn’t one of them.
As I slowed the car, edging along the street, the tangle of branches blossoming out overhead reminded me of our forests back in Otherworld. We were nearing Beltane, the festival celebrating sexuality, fertility, the gods, and the rut of the King Stag, and the plant world was responding to the energy.
The leaves burgeoned out on the tree boughs as the flowers and vegetables sprang to life, all urged on by the growing length of the days and the warming of the soil. My core felt the push as the roots buried themselves deep in the ground, and my body wanted to stretch as the leaves reached for the sun. The ferns were lush, and the grass green, and the days were hovering mostly in the low sixties.
We arrived at Wyvers Point Cemetery, and I eased into the parking lot, into one of the slots near the wrought-iron gates. Why did cemeteries always come outfitted with cast and wrought iron? It burned all of us who had any significant amount of Fae blood in our veins. Steel, we could handle—its makeup was different. Iron—not so much.
I parked the car and turned off the ignition, zipping my keys into the special pouch I kept around my neck when I needed to leave my purse in the car. It also held my cell phone.
Glancing at Morio, I leaned over and pressed my lips to his. “We’d better get out there and find Chase and his men before they get pummeled.”
He stroked my face, stirring the heat in my body. “Be careful, babe.” His eyes glimmered with brown and topaz. “Keep your eyes open.”
“You do the same. The ghosts almost took you from me once. I won’t let them do that again.” I ran my finger over his thin mustache and goatee, then lightly tapped his lips.
With that, we locked the car behind us and headed to the sidewalk, on alert for the ghosts, and who knew what else.
Wyvers Point Cemetery had been let go to ruin. I doubted if there were any graves newer than fifty years old, and while the grass had been mowed, the weeds tangled thickly along the walkway, and the trees needed a good trimming. Some of the cedar branches were sweeping the ground, and here and there, limbs had been bowed and snapped by the force of the winter snows and winds. Whoever the landscaper was, he needed a quick kick in the ass. But it seemed that regular maintenance was low on the priority list for the groundskeepers who worked here.
The path was open to the sky until we approached the gates, but, directly through the wrought-iron bars, the trees closed in, shading the sidewalk. With no lights to illuminate the way, an incredible sense of isolation and loneliness emanated from the land.
As my studies of death magic grew deeper, and my training with Aeval and Morgaine became more intense, I was becoming accustomed to the shadowed nature of the woodlands and the secretive feel that permeated the Earthside wild places. Otherworld might be more upfront with the magic, but here, roots ran deep, and so did grudges and longings and long-remembered animosities. The sacred places of this world held on to their anger at being desecrated by concrete and deforestation. The ley lines were very active, and very powerful.
“This is one of the forgotten places.” Morio glanced around, a solemn look on his face. He pinpointed what I’d been feeling but unable to put into words. “The graves and their occupants have long been left to brood over their deaths without anyone to grieve for them.”
“You feel it, too? I sense betrayal coming from the cemetery.”
As I walked through the open gates, I shivered. Death and spirits were becoming common fare, but something about this place unsettled me, and I didn’t trust it. Didn’t trust anything within the boundaries of this graveyard. It wasn’t so much anger, but cunning and the sense of being watched, and stalked.
“Something’s been watching us since we stepped out of the car.”
“I know. I sense it, too.” Morio’s voice was light and low, but beneath the gentle tone, I could hear a warning. “On second thought, I don’t think we should split up—”
A hoarse shout to our left, through a copse of cedar, cut him off.
“That’s Chase!” I headed toward the voice, even as a pair of bone-walkers—living skeletons—broke out from behind a large patch of wild brambles to the left. “You deal with them. I’ll go find Chase.”
Morio quickly transformed into his full demon form. Eight feet tall, with a muzzle and glowing topaz eyes, his hands and feet were still human, though matching the rest of his size. His clothes transformed with him—I wasn’t sure on the how or why of it—but he’d never gone all Incredible Hulk and ripped out of his shirt and pants. He had one hell of a tail, and he used it to balance himself as he lunged for the undead.
I wasn’t too worried about him. Morio could be ruthless when necessary. I headed in the direction from which I’d heard Chase calling. As I ran across the lawn, praying I didn’t hit a gopher hole with my heels, I happened to glance up at the moon shining down. She was waxing overhead, and the Moon Mother’s light pierced the veil of clouds to hit me full on, charging me with a surge of energy as she bathed me in her magic.
“Chase? Chase?” I slowed, calling his name lightly as I approached the thicket of cedar. My senses on full alert, I reached out, seeking his signature. Chase and I had formed some sort of magical connection, though what it was neither one of us yet understood, but our energies had meshed. We were able to find each other when we needed help. He’d found me from the astral plane when Hyto had captured me, and now…I could sense where he was hiding.
I paused, holding out my hands. A tingle guided me to the left, and I followed it, ducking beneath the low limb of a vine maple growing in the shadow of one of the cedars. I’d just pushed my way through the foliage when I heard a noise. A snuffling, like some beast or pig hunting for truffles. Stopping, I tried to sense whether it was friend or foe.
A whisper echoed on the wind.
“She comes, the moon’s mistress comes…she will not harm, she can help. She can make our home safe again as we tend the spirits in the garden…”
“But will she help us? And who is the human-not-so-human? He is frightened. The wayward ones seek him.”
Taking a deep breath, I slowly broke through the undergrowth. “Who are you? I can hear you.”
There was a shift, and a blur raced by, then—hesitating—turned back. “Priestess?” The voice was wary.
“I am a priestess, yes. Of the Moon Mother.” I glanced around, looking for Chase, but could not see him. He was near, though. My senses told me that much. And he needed my help. “I’m looking for my friend—the human-not-so-human. Can you tell me where he is?” I wasn’t even sure if we were speaking aloud, but the words were there, hanging in the air.
“Priestess…you are from the other side?”
At first, I thought that the creature—whom I still could not see—was asking if I was a spirit, but then I realized what it meant. “Yes, I’m from Otherworld. Who are you? Show yourself to me.”
Slowly, as if shedding layers of an invisible cloak, a being appeared before me, emerging from the shadows. About four feet tall, he was formed of leaves and branches, vines and twigs. He reminded me of the walking sticks that inhabited the insect world, only his face was long and his chin pointed, and his eyes were slanted ovals, and on his face, a mere hint of nostrils. A crown of ivy wove around his forehead, and he wore a cape of moss and lichen.
“Are you Elder Fae?” I had never seen a creature like him, not even back in Otherworld, and he fascinated me. The closest I could think of would be Wisteria, the floraed who’d joined forces with the demons, caught in a frenzy of hatred toward humans.
He cocked his head to the right. “No, I be not Elder Fae.”
And then I knew what he was. “You’re an Earth Elemental!”
Slowly, he nodded. “I am. I am a part of the land itself. I am the guardian of this boneyard. And now, the bones are walking, where they should not be walking. Unnatural magic is afoot and has evil intent.” He glanced around and motioned, and another of his kind appeared from the shadows. They moved like leaves on the wind, like walking trees.
Honored—Elementals didn’t appear to just anybody, especially since a number of witches tried to summon them up in order to control their movements—I curtsied.
“I know. My friends and I are here to help put the bone-walkers and the wayward dead back in their graves. But I must find my friend—the not-so-human—before they harm him. Can you take me to him?”
I waited, forcing myself to be patient, so not one of my virtues. But when dealing with Elementals, patience was key. Especially Earth Elementals, who moved cautiously until they were certain of their course, at which point they could surge forth like an earthquake or landslide.
After a moment, during which they exchanged chattering noises that sounded like sticks rattling, he turned toward me again. “Your friend is in the clearing directly beyond this thicket. He is hurt. If you will clear the wayward ones, we will not forget your help. We guard the bones of this space, and they should not be abroad. Bones are for memories. Bones are to feed the earth and the worms. Bones are not meant to be walking above the ground without flesh and soul attached.”
“You’re right about that,” I whispered, as I started past them.
As I passed by, the Earth Elemental caught my wrist in his hand. A heavy, laden sense of gravity sank me to my knees. “You are young in the world, still. There are ancient powers waking from their slumber. Some are beneficial. Others hunger from the depths. Be wary, Priestess: Not everything that answers to the moon will understand the changes wrought in this world. The Mother is ancient, and some of her children nearly as old.”
And with that, he let go and I stumbled forward. I tried to get his warning out of my head, but the words rang in my ears as I pushed my way through the cedars to yet another clearing—the graveyard itself.
And there was Chase, propped up on a tombstone, looking petrified as a bone-walker made its way toward him. Unlike zombies, who moved slowly, bone-walkers could shuffle along at a pretty good clip. And once they reached you, if you couldn’t get out of their way, you were toast unless you could totally demolish them. Given an open space and no obligation to destroy them, running away was usually the safest option.
Ghouls were different from both bone-walkers and zombies. They were faster than zombies, even though they were also animated corpses. And far worse, they absorbed life energy as well as eating flesh, and so were doubly dangerous.
A glance at Chase told me he wasn’t going anywhere soon. He was leaning against the tombstone, one foot raised. In one hand, he held his Glock 40, even though bullets were no real use against the undead, especially skeletons. Chase was good with a gun—deadly accurate—but the bullets wouldn’t stop what was coming our way, and he knew it.
He glanced at me as I headed toward him. Six two, with dark hair cut in a slight shag, he was swarthy with olive skin, brown eyes, and a suave manner. He was muscled and lean, but right now, he mostly looked like he was in pain.
I hurried over to him, eyeing the bone-walkers as I crossed the open swath of grass, past dilapidated headstones that were so old and weathered they were breaking apart. The bone-walker was near enough to worry about, but we still had a few minutes before it reached us.
We didn’t have time for small talk. “Can you walk?”
“I stepped in a pothole and twisted my ankle. I managed to hobble over here, but I think I’ll seriously fuck my foot up if I put my weight on it.” He winced but pushed the pain aside and nodded to the oncoming undead. “What about them? You can’t carry me, woman.”