Chapter 8
Wilderness
Ryder landed face first in the mud and long grass.
Not even his vampiric reflexes helped him stick out his hands to catch himself in time.
Because one moment he had been standing and the next he had a mouthful of mud.
He pushed himself up off the ground and onto his feet in one graceful, powerful movement, spitting out the rich earth.
“Gods! What the hell?!” He wiped the back of his right hand across his lips. “Grayson? Charlie? Fiona?”
“Oh, I am a city Vampire not a country Vampire!” Charlie wailed a few feet away, sounding so like Balthazar that Ryder would have laughed if not for the complete shit show this had turned into.
“That bastard,” Fiona hissed. “That absolute bastard Roan Tithe!”
Satisfied that the other two Vampires were fine, Ryder turned in a tight circle, looking for Grayson. He called the young man’s name again, “Grayson?”
But there was an edge to it, because his other senses told him Grayson was not here.
Neither was the woman who had been his mother and currently housed Roan’s soul.
A panicky feeling filled him. Were Grayson and Roan together?
Were they still back at the house while he and the others had been teleported here? And where was here?
They were in the Ever Dark. But they were nowhere near Nightvallen.
He knew all of the surrounding woods, fields and oceans around the Vampire King’s city and this was not that.
So either they were so far away from Nightvallen that he’d never come this far or this was home to another Ever Dark city he wasn’t as familiar with.
A scan of the horizon showed only vast forest, but they were in a slight depression so there could quite possibly be a city not too far away and they wouldn’t see it.
“Where are we, Fifi?” Charlie was wiping his hands almost convulsively on the fronts of his thighs. His shoulders were curled up almost to his ears and he looked like a hunted child. He most definitely was not a country Vampire.
“Fifi?” Fiona lifted an eyebrow. “I suppose I’ll allow it. We’re definitely not in Nightvallen.” She slowly looked up at the sky, frowning. “And there’s something else. Something truly wrong here. I can’t quite put a finger on it.”
“Let’s not discover what that wrong thing is, shall we? That always leads to bad things,” Charlie suggested. “I’m all for a drink and a warm fire and–”
“We need to find Grayson. Fiona, can you get us back to that house?” Ryder asked as he walked towards the Wyvern Vampire.
The mud sucked on his boots and he grimaced at every squelching step.
This place was more of a swamp than a field.
Not even him with all his wilderness-loving ways enjoyed a swamp.
“Right. He must still be there. I felt him and Roan… go.” Fiona’s forehead furrowed. “There was something in Roan. A–a–”
“Structure,” Ryder filled in. “We didn’t check. We just assumed there wouldn’t be one. Foolish to do that. But it was a shock to have Roan there.”
It had been a far greater shock to Grayson now that he thought about it. His beloved had been so tense about meeting his mother again that he hadn’t considered she would be used in the way Roan had.
“Roan was always the absolute worst of all of them,” Charlie muttered as he carefully picked his way to them, every footstep squelching.
Frowning, Ryder looked at Charlie. “Worst of them? You met the other Kaly slices?”
Charlie blinked rather owlishly at him. “Well, yes, haven’t we all? Artemis and Roan and whoever! Quite boors! So gauche and no fun at all!”
“Right.” Ryder kept frowning, but he didn’t pursue whatever it was that was niggling at him about Charlie’s statement. “We need to go back.”
“Take my hands and grab a hold of each other. I’m not trusting anything less than full contact,” Fiona said as she held her hands out, one to each of them.
Charlie nodded and took one of hers while he held out his other hand to Ryder. Ryder grasped both of them. They formed a triangle.
“All right. Now,” Fiona said.
Ryder expected the stomach dropping ride that teleportation brought. Except nothing happened. They remained quite firmly in place. They didn’t even move an inch.
“Ah, it worked more quickly before, didn’t it?” Charlie asked carefully.
Fiona let out a breath and shook herself. “Yes, I mean. Just a moment. The structure must have… It’s fine. Let’s do this again, shall we?”
She gave them a tight smile, but he saw the worry lines around her lips and eyes.
They had no idea what the structures could do.
Grayson had feared that they could hurt Vampires, maybe even kill them, if their powers were used on people who had the structures.
Fiona was an Immortal. Maybe that was why they weren’t hurt, but that didn’t mean the structure hadn’t done something else to her.
“Of course. Take your time, Fiona,” Ryder said even as his heart was racing in his chest.
Grayson was alone out there. Or maybe not so alone and that was worse. If he was back in his old house with Roan…
He’s got his powers. But he’s weak. So much weaker than when we first met. It’s like they’re draining the life out of him.
“You’re doing quite well at lying, Ryder, and keeping your temper,” Charlie remarked.
“Ah… okay.”
He had never been close to Charlie. In fact, before he’d come to Nightvallen this time, he really hadn’t met up with Charlie before.
Yet Charlie spoke as if they were well-acquainted.
Though was his temper as Ryder that bad?
He didn’t think so. Before, as Weryn, it had been out of control at the end…
Could Charlie be referring to that timeframe?
Was he that old? He hadn’t thought so. Charlie wasn’t even really the head of a House.
His friend Darcie handled most things, but he’d managed to get all of the Mirryr to agree to Balthazar’s plans for that party.
“Ready, everyone?” Fiona asked too brightly and Ryder’s mind snapped to the present.
“We’re ready if you are, Fifi,” Charlie said. “I can already taste that drink.”
“We all can,” Ryder agreed. “After we get Grayson and recapture that son of a bitch Roan.”
“Absolutely,” Fiona said with a tight nod.
The teleported.
Thirty feet.
“Uhm, can mud teleport into shoes? Or did my feet teleport deeper into the earth? I suppose it's six of one and half a dozen of the other,” Charlie mused as he stared down at his mud-caked wingtips. He was dressed as a 1920s English dandy, which was definitely not made for the swamp.
“What is happening?” Fiona cursed. She stared down at her hands. “My powers… they’re not… I feel… something is wrong! This whole place is wrong!”
Charlie caught Fiona’s arm. “Don’t panic. Kaly’s creations are always nasty and have many bad side effects, but you’re Wyvern and nothing can take your gift away from you. The structure has just shaken you up a bit. It will be okay.”
She met his gaze. Her lower lip was trembling. “Are you sure?”
The logical thing to say to that was: of course, Charlie couldn’t be sure!
How much would a Mirryr Vampire know about the Immortal Kaly?
How old was Charlie? A few hundred years?
But Fiona stared at Charlie as if he held the answers of the universe.
And what surprised Ryder was how certain Charlie looked and sounded as he answered her.
“Yes, Fifi, everything is going to be fine. But I don’t think we’re going to be teleporting out of here anytime soon,” Charlie said. “That means that Ryder is going to find us the nearest city to get our bearings and we’ll need to use a gate.”
“I am?” Ryder’s eyebrows rose.
“You’re Weryn. So, of course, you are! You know every inch of the Ever Dark around the cities. You just need to orientate yourself and not worry about Ashyr,” Charlie said. “That’s distracting you. And he wouldn’t want that.”
“Roan let that out of the bag,” Fiona muttered.
“Grayson. I like the name Grayson. Gray and Ash. Goes together,” Charlie said with a shrug.
“He’s strong even as a human, Ryder. He’s always been able to take care of himself.
Mostly anyways. Well, except that last time, but what I mean is he’ll be all right for now and you can’t save him if we’re stuck here.
Anyways, Ryder, it’s up to you now to save us. ”
Ryder rolled his shoulders back. He had to save them. And that started by figuring out where the hell they were. He closed his eyes.
“Uhm, don’t you want to look for landmarks? Maybe that tree over there holds some memories,” Charlie offered.
“My sense of smell and hearing will help us best,” Ryder said without opening his eyes. “Not to mention any creatures here. They’ll lead us to where we need to go.”
He let his senses drift. There was the stink of the raw, wet earth and the green scent of the crushed long grass.
On top of that was the minerally scent of water and rock.
The fragrance of the trees wafted over to him on the wind.
The smells of civilization were not present. They were far out in the wilderness.
He switched to his sense of hearing and listened to the rustling of the leaves.
He let that drop away and searched for heartbeats.
In a stroke of luck on one end, there were no large monsters nearby that could have attacked them, but there were plenty of small game.
But they would not have the knowledge of where civilization was as they were prey animals that wouldn’t seek blood and flesh.
He moved out further and found what he was looking for. He smiled.
“I don’t know if I like that smile, Ryder,” Fiona said with a touch of alarm. “What have you found?”
“A guide. This way.”