34. Ghoul
Chapter 34
Ghoul
W e’re driving into town with the Naga convoy when a little snakelet tangles herself in my brain.
“Are you there?”
“Here, there, everywhere,” I reply smugly.
The dragon has her in the back of a truck on the way back, so she knows he can’t tell she’s communicating. He wasn’t happy with his own display. Fuming and near-mad when he left actually, which is sad because it was such a brilliant show. Pyrotechnics, sparklers and everything. By the time I tossed Transformer Titus and the rest of the stragglers out, I’d returned to find the snakelet using covert manoeuvres.
“I need you to find Scythe, Savage, or Lyle and send them a message.”
That could be fun. “It’s going to cost you.”
She sighs heavily. “What do you want?”
Blank cheque? It’s my lucky day. “You’ll give me your venom whenever I ask for it. Straight into my mouth.”
There’s silence on the other end as her brain contemplates this. Maybe remembering the first time I drank from her.
“You sicko. Why do you want that?”
“Because I am a sicko. And…I love the taste of your poison.”
I can fucking feel her getting wet at that. “Fine. You have a deal. Now, when you find them, tell them I want them to stop the rampage. To stop the killing. To stop the harm. Tell them it’ll only cause more death. I don’t want that.”
My cock hardens at the thought until I realise I have to concentrate. “ It’s not really a good message. What makes you think they’ll understand?”
“Just tell them, damn it! They’re plotting against him and he needs to know.”
“Oh, he knows.”
More silence comes. “Please.”
I grin, because she doesn’t know I’d do anything for another taste of her. “You still owe me for Natalia. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.” I shut the connection and settle into my seat.
It’s dark by the time we halt our convoy in the expensive restaurant on the outskirts of the city. It’s serpent-owned, of course, because Mace won’t risk eating at any place other than one of his own. And when you deal with poison for a living, you get paranoid about it.
I open the glass door and two generals head inside, scouting the scene first. Only after I get a head nod does Mace get out of the car and head inside.
The Collector waits for him in there, her people taking up three tables with all the textbooks, notebooks, and documentation they’ve brought with them. I head back to the car and haul out two plastic tubs labelled Frank Ulman scientific documentation no. 1 and no. 2. I head back inside and hand over the tubs to the scientists. They eagerly snatch them up, practically hard with excitement as they start going through them.
Signalling to two lesser serpent guards, I head back outside and into the night, heading back to the Jeep. The other generals drive off with their vehicles to park them in hidden locations nearby, while I take the third Jeep and drive out to the carpark around the back.
Only then do I let my body become shadow and become one with the night. Travelling by shadow is quick and easy. I get to scout through the air and no one is any the wiser.
It also makes spying on people easy as pie.
The naughty boys are not so hard to find tonight. When you leave a trail of blood behind you, it’s easy for predators to sniff you out.
And Savage hardly washes these days, which makes it easier still. Following my nose, I hunt the wolf to the top of a five-story apartment block. It has a pool and barbeque area, where the leftovers of a beast’s dinner lie, large bones and tomato sauce packets. Loitering in one of the tall trees overlooking the house, I get a good look at him.
He’s naked, as expected, his tanned skin easily visible through the shadows of the roof where he sits with his legs dangling over the edge, his head resting against a solar panel.
There’s a forlorn look on his haggard face and he casts his eye up to the moon, frowning like he’s in deep thought.
His mouth moves like he’s whispering something and I strain my ears to hear if he’s finally gone mad and started talking himself.
“I miss cuddling you,” Savage whispers. “Why won’t you come back to me? Lyle’s hugs aren’t nearly as good.”
Such a sad, pathetic puppy.
I chuckle to myself. Savage goes still as he senses me, and I roll my eyes before allowing myself to be known.
Lion and shark feel my presence, and sure enough, the sweep of a heavy glass door opening tells me both beasts have arrived.
I turn into shadow again, soaring over the gap between us and become corporeal as I land on the fake grass by the pool. Savage leaps to standing and saunters over, frowning at me. Lyle and Scythe are both behind him and the rippling fluorescent blue of the pool makes them glow like the dead.
“You missed the party,” I say. “Don’t worry, I brought cake.” I throw my little present at Savage and he catches it. “That’s hers.”
“That’s not hers, you sick fuck!” Savage cries, waving the charred toe in the air like a baton.
“Oh yeah, you’re right, it’s not,” I chuckle. “Wait, are you sure? I must have gotten them mixed up. Shit. So many missing limbs these days.” It’s actually from one of the serpents who got shot and I took it as a souvenir, but they don’t need to know that.
“What do you want, Ghoul?” Scythe asks, hands in his pockets to tell me he doesn’t find me threatening. Brave shark.
“Anyway,” I say as Savage throws the toe into the pool where it lands with a little plop. “ She sent me to tell you that she wants you to stop your murder bender.”
Lyle narrows his eyes at me, stepping forward. “You’re lying. She could have told us herself.”
I take off my glove and hold up my fingers where some dried blood is there for all to see. It’s hers, scraped off the floor from when she’d grazed her knee. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Savage punches the brick wall to his right, and Lyle snarls.
But it’s Scythe, the cold-hearted bastard, who makes my heart pound. He takes a step forward, and with a deathly seriousness that makes the back of my neck prickle, he speaks in that slow, measured rasp. “Tell her she doesn’t get to choose what happens.”
“Yeah, she has to be here for her to regina-order us,” Savage says like a lost puppy. “Otherwise it doesn’t count. Also, we need Raquel back.”
“Don’t know of a Raquel.”
Savage drops his head back and groans.
“The Drakos family has a wolf anim telepathically hostage,” Lyle explains. “Their body is at the academy, but their mind is stuck here. We need them back or it could kill them.”
“Dark magic,” I muse. Just my style. “Well, that’ll cost you,” I say reasonably, hooking my thumbs in my belt.
“Coming here without my regina is going to cost you,” Scythe says. It’s so funny that he looks so much like the snakelet when she went cold. I wonder how well this is working for him.
“What of the traitor?” Savage pipes, baring his teeth at me.
My chuckle is dark, thinking back on what I’d seen today. “Oh, he’s having a good old time, that’s for sure. He’s?—”
I should have seen the attack coming from a mile away, but honestly, these three males are perhaps the only creatures in existence to jump me unexpectedly.
Savage sinks his canines in my leg, while Scythe’s teeth find my neck. The lion grabs me around the torso from behind, aiming to take me to the ground.
“You guys are nuts,” I say, grinning with my fangs as we soar through the air and land with a gigantic splash in the pool. There’s only one thing left to do: shift.