Chapter 19
Mori
Moonscale London
“Mori, you have to wake up,” a gruff, desperate voice growled in my ear. For half a second, I thought Snowy learned to talk. Then realized that was bullshit and woke up, swinging a haymaker at the speaker. Only Venal dodged and I nearly fell out of bed.
“Stupid fucker,” I groaned.
“You can’t sleep forever. Fucking Pami!”
“I am not fucking a ghost!” I said, shaking my head.
Snowy let out a long line of warning barks that sounded like he planned to eat Venal and wear his beard as a hat.
“Fucking hell, Mori. Get it together,” Venal said. “Pami’s found some loophole to get out of the damn book page over on the other side of the world. She killed three fucking people! She killed three fucking people because she thought one of them was Amorti.”
I cringed at my true-mate’s name hanging in the air and then remembered only Snowy and I could hear this particular ethereal brute.
“Thought that would get your attention. She wants revenge on Mom for killing her. I don’t blame her but deer balls on a broken fucking cracker!” Venal swore. “She wants to keep her from resurrecting even if that means killing off everyone related to her!”
“Do they know? Does anyone else know?” I swung my legs off the bed, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Everyone knows because she ran her big mouth! What they don’t know is that the horny, cheating coyote wasn’t my brother,” Venal said. “You’ve got to do something.”
I racked my head for ideas. I knew of a spell where he could banish Pami to the afterlife, but he’d go with her.
It was made by a dying witch years ago so that if her ghostly ex ever killed her, he couldn’t hang around and haunt her new mate and children.
I didn’t think Venal would go for it. He wanted to see this whole Sharon Claudis thing to the end.
I didn’t think Pras would go for it either.
Ferrick was out of the question almost as much as Sharon herself.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. Maybe I could call Ormund but first I needed to take the dog for a walk.
What was I thinking? People had died. What—
“This would be a lot easier if I could go over there, you know!” I growled at the dead bear.
“Don’t I fucking know it?” Venal growled back and for a second, I saw a flash of Baby Andy having a chew and shake at his throw pillow.
He did sort of look like Venal a little and that was the only reason I didn’t lie to him about the spell that would banish both him and Pami.
That’s the only reason I didn’t bring it up at all.
“Don’t develop too much of a soft spot for him,” my wolf warned.
I wasn’t. At least I didn’t think I would.
“You need to tell them to close the runes! Someone related to Pras needs to close them all!” Venal said. “It’s not rocket science.”
“Then why aren’t you waking them up?”
“Most of them don’t see spirits like you do!” Venal said, tossing his hands into the air. “Do you know how frustrating it is to be dead?”
“No and if I were dead I wouldn’t hang around.
I’d move on and let sleeping wolves stay that way,” I said, patting around the bed for my phone.
Bernard or Diamond? I weighed the options for a long moment.
They both had pregnant mates at the moment but Bree wasn’t as pregnant as Nashen because of how dragon egg gestation worked.
Plus, Diamond wouldn’t hesitate to lock her up whereas Pami was Bernard’s sister-in-law for better or worse.
Yep. Diamond it was. So I dialed her number. She answered on the first ring.
“Is the bitch fucking with you over there too? She gave Nashen some bloody sob story about only doing this because she loves him,” Diamond said.
Her words were laced with disgust. “He was so distraught that the healer had to come and I brought the page upstairs with me. Bree’s asleep in the guest room and I’m currently holed up inside the cat playroom because if she comes out again, I’m eating her.
And I don’t want any moral judgements about eating dirty, lying---”
“Diamond!” I shouted over her. “If you would give me half a second to say hello, I have what I think might be the solution.”
“Who told you?” Diamond asked. “Are you in contact with Clarence and Medwin?”
“No, now shush, please. The spirits tell me many things. You know that. They tell me things like they tell my carrier things and his carrier before him. The spirits never shut their big mouths. So I know things. You say you have the page with you?”
“Yes,” she said, sounding sour about my attitude.
“Good. One of Pras’s descendants needs to close up any broken lines. There’s some loophole she’s using and you can fix it.”
“Mori, I don’t know the first thing about runes and I don’t think Bernard does either.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Have you studied runes?”
“More than you have,” I said.
“Is it enough, though? What if we make it worse and Ferrick comes out? If he was alive, I wouldn’t worry about it. I know how to kick a man’s ass, but a ghost?”
“Okay, so, I didn’t want to go here,” I said, pacing the room as I spoke. Snowy followed on my heels ready for a potty break. It was unfortunate that Venal was ethereal or I’d have asked him to take my poor baby for a walk.
“What?”
“Go get help from Clarence,” I said. “He was involved with the damn book somehow and he probably knows more than we do.”
“Shit! Look – the last time I spoke with him things didn’t go so well,” Diamond said.
“Too bad. Either you risk it yourself or you go get help. I can’t come over right now,” I said.
“Why not?”
“It’s a spirit thing,” I said and it wasn’t a total lie. Sharon Claudis was a spirit who wanted to kill my true-mate. That was a spirit thing. At least, that’s what I told myself.
“I can bring it to you,” she said, sounding relieved to have figured out a solution.
“No, Diamond. You can’t. You need to stay there for now,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
I let out a long, slow breath. The rest of the book was over here. Now that Ferrick knew that one such loophole existed he might try to look for others. I didn’t want the page they inhabited the most to come anywhere near the book. It was just a hunch that I wasn’t willing to explain.
“I need time alone for the spirit work I’m doing.
I’ve only stopped to call you because the spirits say it’s urgent.
She will kill again and it will break the heart of someone I believe you care about.
Pami will stop at nothing! You must act now and you must act swiftly!
Put aside your differences to defeat this common enemy.
Do you really want to risk Bree getting in the way of her path of destruction? ”
It was a low blow, but it could happen. Bree was brave and curious. Pregnant dragons were territorial too.
“Do the spirits really think Clarence would know something?” Diamond asked and I glanced at Venal who shrugged.
“He knows the way forward,” I said, figuring Medwin would know someone who could help if Clarence didn’t know what to do. He might even phone my carrier. I just needed to get the ball rolling without endangering my true-mate any more than he already was.
“Fine, but stay on the line, okay?” she said and I heard her stand up.
I put my earpiece in and grabbed Snowy’s leash.
Exhaustion still pulled at my brain. The book was really taking it out of me but my poor baby really needed to go for a walk.
Thankfully, Clarence didn’t beat around the bush.
He admitted to knowing the runic language used and agreed to help without me having to threaten to have the spirits make his dick fall off or something.
Dern knew some tricks, but I wasn’t sure he knew that particular trick.
With the loopholes closed I went back to the B&B and fell asleep again. I might’ve eaten somewhere in there, but I really couldn’t remember as I sank into the abyss.