Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
ALEK
Our hunting party was larger than usual tonight, but this wasn’t just about patrol or recon.
We needed supplies. Those of us who required real food over blood couldn’t survive on magically conjured sustenance for long.
It was akin to attempting to nourish your body on nothing more than popped corn. Tasty, but not particularly healthy.
I did a quick headcount, ensuring everyone had safely made it out of the portal.
Representing the Novasgardian contingent were Tor, myself, and Strega.
For the vamps, we had Thorne, West, and Lucas Blackthorne.
The fae volunteers included Kai and Finbar.
And the wolves sent Briar—Lucas’s star-crossed shifter mate—Dylan Farrell, and the Mercer twins.
“Do you think Lilith was making a joke when she chose the Alice in Wonderland statue for one of her tethers?” Remi asked, doing fuck all to keep his voice down.
Central Park at night wasn’t somewhere the general public frequented, even when we weren’t in the middle of an apocalypse, but I wasn’t worried about humans at the moment.
Demons hid in the shadows everywhere we went.
We were prepared to fight them, but that didn’t mean we should call attention to ourselves.
Before I could chastise the overexcited wolf, Tor spun around and hissed, “Quiet or we’ll send you back.”
Remi’s eyes flared, and he glanced at his brother. “Was it something I said?”
Ben placed a hand on his shoulder. “Y-yes.”
“Got it.” Remi mimed locking his lips and handing Ben the key. “Mmm-mmmph-mmph-mm.”
“What did he say?” I asked my twin.
“Who cares?” Strega answered for him.
I cracked a smile at my father’s second-in-command. “Fair point.”
Kai came up on my right, his eyes constantly scanning the horizon. “I don’t like this. It’s too quiet.”
“This place is a damn ghost town. Of course it’s quiet,” Dylan Farrell said, adjusting his cowboy hat as he glanced across the park at the broken city skyline.
New York City hadn’t fared well between the earthquakes and tsunamis and demon hordes. The city was barely recognizable. Many of the skyscrapers had come tumbling down, and Lady Liberty had taken a header a few weeks past and was now somewhere on the bottom of the Atlantic.
“I have a question,” Briar asked, standing beside her mate Lucas Blackthorne.
She narrowed her eyes as she returned to the statue we’d used as a portal and placed her palm on the largest of the bronze mushrooms. “The portal is closed. How the fuck are we supposed to get back? I doubt we’re standing on top of the secret fight club. ”
“Lilith m-made sure w-we all h-had k-key cards,” Ben answered, holding a black card up.
“We do?” she asked.
Lucas nodded, pulling out two more of the black keys. “Never doubt me, darling. I’ve got yours right here.”
“Who has the supplies list? We don’t want to stay out here long.
We’re sitting ducks at this point.” Thorne’s posture was tense as he took the lead, walking toward the city, eyes roaming every possible place a demon could lie in wait.
“Vampires should hit the bodegas first. The wolves can collect the items on Moira’s witchcraft list.”
A low growl left Ben. “Who m-made you the l-leader?”
“Benny, now’s not the time to alpha out on our brother-in-law.” Remi placed a hand on his twin’s shoulder as he spoke.
Ben stood down, his eyes returning to their typical blue rather than the vivid neon they’d just been. Not for the first time, I had the fleeting thought that alpha shifters and Berserkers weren’t all that different.
“So what are we going to do?” Strega asked. “I didn’t come out here to twiddle my thumbs.”
Tor gave her a grin far too sinister to be mistaken as friendly. “We’re going hunting.”
“Oh, my favorite,” she purred, pulling the broadsword out of its sheath and giving it a little flourish. “It’s time to bless my blade with more of that demon filth’s blood.”
“Is that really a blessing?” Briar asked.
“Demon blood is only good for spilling. It tastes like arse,” West said, looking at his sister-in-law before frowning at Thorne. “I’ll never forget the time you tricked me into drinking from a demon.”
Lucas snickered. “I did that to your father and Auntie Sorcha once as well.”
“Rude,” Remi said under his breath.
“It’s a rite of passage. How else are we supposed to learn?” Thorne asked.
I shot him a look. “Did you ever learn?”
Shrugging, he adjusted his collar and said, “Didn’t have to. I saw it, and that was enough for me.”
My mind went back to the night we almost lost our Sunday to a demon attack. How Thorne willingly sucked out the poisoned blood to save her. He knew what would happen to him, and still he chose to do that for her. If I hadn’t already known the depth of his commitment, I would now.
Finbar held up a hand, signaling for the rest of us to stop. “Someone’s out here.”
“Where?” Kai snarled, his eyes glowing in the darkness.
Finbar pointed to a park bench several feet away. It was a bit hard to make out the details from here, but it appeared as though a body was slumped across it.
“Are they alive?” Tor asked.
The wolves and vamps all collectively inhaled, and an involuntary shudder worked its way down my spine. It was easy to forget they weren’t human until they went and did something like that.
“Yes and no,” Lucas said.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Finbar asked.
“It means we need to move. Fast.” Dylan picked up his pace. “The less interaction we have with anyone, the better.”
“Wait,” West called, his eyes narrowed. “What are they doing?”
“Fuck,” I whispered, as the hitherto still form abruptly stood.
“I told you to keep it down,” Tor muttered.
“I was quiet as a church mouse. It was these bozos,” Remi said, pointing at the rest of us.
The mostly dead body moved toward us in jerky movements.
Unnatural and eerie. Those were the best ways I could describe it.
The closer it came, the better I could make out its features.
I’d heard Tor’s stories of the fight at Blackwood.
The zombies Dahlia had raised with her power.
This didn’t look like a zombie. In fact, he looked like a mildly ill human man.
“He’s possessed,” Kai said.
“How can you tell?” Strega asked, moving into a defensive position.
“He smells wrong,” Remi answered.
“Remi’s r-right. Human but n-not.” Ben’s hands curled into fists as he stepped up beside his twin.
“Edgar suit,” Remi muttered.
“A what suit?” I asked.
“Like Edgar in Men In Black. A demon is wearing him like a suit. It doesn’t fit quite right, that’s why he’s so shambly and awkward.”
Obviously he was referencing a film I hadn’t seen yet. I added it to the never-ending list of movies we would be watching on one of Kingston’s movie nights.
The half-dead possessed man grew closer, his stench now reaching my nostrils. One adversary, I could handle. One was manageable on my worst day.
I rolled my neck and readied to charge him, but as soon as I took a step forward he stopped. He was only a few feet away from us.
“What’s he do—”
Before Briar finished asking her question, the man exploded, red mist and chunks of gore spraying out in every direction. Tor and I hit the ground out of instinct. Some of the others were not as lucky, the force of the unexpected blast sending them flying.
“Oh, gross,” Remi complained, spitting out whatever he’d unfortunately gotten in his mouth. Perhaps if he kept it shut more often, things like this wouldn’t happen to him.
“Everyone okay?” I called, pushing myself off the ground.
I glanced around, doing a quick headcount as the others gathered themselves.
“I wouldn’t do that—” Thorne started, just as his brother licked at some of the blood coating his face.
West immediately grimaced and gagged. “Yup. Definitely demon.”
“I tried to warn you,” Thorne said with a barely contained smirk. It was a look only a smug older brother could pull off.
“What was the point of this?” Finbar asked, pulling a piece of entrails from his hair and flicking it to the ground with a disgusted look on his face.
“Have you never seen a bomb?” Lucas asked, his voice tight with pain as we all turned our attention to him. Briar gasped and rushed to his side when he gripped the large piece of what looked to be a femur and pulled it free from his gut.
Strega was similarly impaled by bone shrapnel, though she’d taken it to the neck.
“Maybe you should w—”
She tugged the shard free with barely a hiss before I could finish, blood blooming from the wound and running down her neck.
“Fucking hell,” Thorne grumbled, blurring to Strega as the other two vampires stiffened and homed in on the waterfall of blood coming from her throat.
She had her fingers pressed to the wound, but it was doing nothing to stanch the flow. The bone had most likely nicked an artery. Stubborn woman.
“Wh-what,” she spluttered, making a feeble attempt at fighting him off, but she didn’t have healing magic. She was a formidable Novasgardian warrior, not immortal.
“Let him help you,” I said with a nod for Thorne to continue. His blood would close the wound and speed up the healing process. It was that or abandon the hunt and get her back to sanctuary immediately.
She gave Thorne a wary side-eye before lowering her hand. “If you turn me, I will kill you before you have time to draw breath.”
“As far as death threats go, it’s one of the better ones to come my way,” he said with a half-smile as he pierced the skin of his thumb and swiped his blood over the tear in her flesh.
Vampiric healing power never ceased to amaze me, no matter how many times I witnessed it in action.
As her skin knitted back together, her expression went from wary to grateful, and by the time she was fully healed, she had placed a palm on Thorne’s shoulder in a gesture of thanks.
“This is really moving and all, but allow me to ring the alarm bells, because—”
“We’ve got company,” Tor snarled, his transition to his Berserker form instantaneous.
“—we’re fucked,” Dylan finished.
More shambling figures stumbled out from every direction. First a handful, then a couple dozen, then at least a hundred.
“What are we doing here, guys?” Briar asked, her posturing defensive, but her expression tinged with fear.
“We fight,” Kai snarled, black scales rippling down his exposed skin like reptilian armor.
“No,” I said with a harsh shake of my head. “We have to retreat. This is a trap, and we’re clearly outnumbered.”
“But the supplies,” West protested.
“Can wait. We aren’t ready for this level of conflict.”
“I can outrun them. If you guys distract them, Ben and I can make it into the city so we can complete our mission.” Remi was visibly shaking with tension, eyes blazing electric blue with the need to shift.
“N-no. Don’t b-be an idiot.” Ben shook his head.
“What? You’re just giving up?”
“D-don’t make m-me explain to Rosie why y-you d-died.”
Remi’s shoulders slumped. “Fine.”
“We need to go. They’re closing in faster than the last one.” Tor headed for the statue, Lilith’s key card already in hand.
Thorne and I exchanged looks. “Go,” I said. “I’m going to make sure the others are clear before I join you.”
“But—”
“Get the fuck out of here, Noah.”
He gave me a terse nod before he and his brother both popped out of existence. The others were quick to follow, blinking out of sight until only Tor and I remained.
“What are you doing, brother? Go.”
“Not without you. Together, or not at all, remember?”
I sighed at my twin, but clasped his hand just as the first of the walking bombs got in range.
“I hate running,” I grumbled.
“Me too, but there’s nothing cowardly about living to fight another day.”
With a final nod, we each activated our cards and got the fuck out of Dodge.