Chapter Twenty-Two - Sen
Ipunch through the floorboards, grab the rotted arm and haul the undead out in a spray of splinters.
The corpse is a wretched, half-burnt thing, skin sloughing off mushy muscle. It snaps broken teeth at me. I put my fist through its face, its skull squelching and bursting like a squeezed tomato.
At my side, Luc fights another corpse. Its wheezed screech is silenced when he twists the head off, the body dropping like a puppet with cut strings. “Emma is getting away!”
I turn around to see Emma running through the corpses, who cleave their way out of their graves.
“She fucking isn’t!”
Just as I’m about to dart to her, three burnt and rotted corpses throw themselves at me. Split nails clawing, lipless mouths chomping.
“Fucking hell.” I grab one by the back of the neck and hurl it into the wardrobe. Kicking another in the stomach, my foot caving into the torso with a squish and breaking through ribs. “Urgh, gross,” I groan, the thing still trying to get at me until Luc rips its head off.
It gives me enough time to take the third corpse’s head off.
“We need to go after Emma!” I shout, about to move past Luc. But my brother grabs my forearm.
“More are coming, Sen!” Luc growls. “If we don’t stop them, this spreads!”
“She could lead us to Summer!” I shout back as more undead burst up through the stairs, lumbering towards us.
“And if humans find out about supernaturals because of this, the whole fucking community will come down on us!” Luc pushes me away so he can swing his fist through the face of the undead I tossed into the wardrobe. “That puts Teagan at risk. My Golden at risk!”
Dammit.
He’s right. I want Emma’s head on a fucking stick, but the blood mage knew if someone came looking for her—friend or foe—she needed a backup plan in case things got ugly.
Emma is many things, but stupid isn’t one of them.
And while the many supernatural leaders don’t give a rat’s ass about vampires and mages fighting, they’ll care if we shine a light on what’s supposed to stay hidden.
I let out a roar and dart past Luc, ripping the heads off the half-rotted undead crawling up from the holes they created in the stairs. Luc soon joins me.
The undead keep coming, tearing through the floor, groaning and crawling over each other. Viscous ribbons of rank drool dripping down their chins.
We tear through them fast—bones cracking, bodies dropping—until nothing’s left moving apart from my heaving chest as I swallow lungfuls of rancid air.
“I’ll need to burn everything I’m wearing,” Luc pants in the sudden quiet, lip curling as he looks down at his clothes, sodden with putrid gore.
Ignoring him, I vault over the bannister, landing in front of the door and ripping it open, but I don’t find a single sign of Emma. Cursing, I slam the door shut, my fingers running through my wet hair, littered with chunks of grey meat.
Luc casually jumps down in front of me, shaking his head like a dog, spraying flecks of blood. “This needs to be cleaned up.”
“No shit,” I grind out. “I think we’ll need more than a mop.”
“We’re going to need to call someone,” he replies with a bored kick to one of the unmoving corpses.
“Can this day get any worse?” I dig through my pocket to pull out my phone.
“It’s only 2 am, so probably.”
“Normally, I love your sarcasm, but right now?” I find the number I’m looking for, then bring my phone up to my ear. “It makes me want to add another body to the pile.”
After two rings, an obnoxiously familiar voice spills from the speaker. “Aren’t I a lucky wolf to hear from one of the Haraldsson boys so soon after I left you?”
“As much as I’d love to exchange snide pleasantries, Grey, we’ve got a problem that needs cleaning up.”
The Direwolf of Britain, who is one of the most well-connected and powerful supernaturals, lets out an amused sigh. “And I’d just finished my bedtime hot chocolate, too.”
***
An hour later, after I get out of the shower from scrubbing myself raw, I open the front door to a pair of eyes silver as the brightest moon, and a woman with dark hair slashed with white—Astra, the Blood Mage Sovereign and Emma’s sister.
Grey’s smile grows wide the second he sees us. “Thank you for dressing up on our account.”
I glance down at the floral culottes I’m wearing, then glance behind me at Luc, looking completely over this whole adventure in white dungarees with little love hearts.
Normally, I would play along with Grey, but my patience has thinned, and all I really want is to see Teagan. Even when I’ve made a decision that’ll mean hurting him all over again.
“Thanks for coming.” I move out of the way so Grey can waltz in, nose twisting at the smell, Astra following behind him.
“At least your stink of blood magic is, for once, covered up,” Luc comments by way of greeting Astra.
“Do you need to be reminded that I’m here to help?” Astra replies, looking around at the mess with a shake of her head. “Emma’s certainly been busy.”
“Can you clean this up?” I ask, tired in a way that’s bone deep.
Astra levels us with a stare. “Of course I can.”
“And the payment?” Luc quips.
“None.”
“Isn’t she kind?” Grey says with a glib smile.
“Even if this didn’t affect all of us,” Astra remarks, “I said I wanted better for the blood mages, and it is a promise I intend to keep. So you might not want me as an ally, but you have me.”
There’s a snap as the two thin leather belts keeping her spellbook in place at her thigh unclasp.
As much as I’d love to refute Astra’s claim, I can admit she’s being useful. Not that I have plans to say that aloud.
Her pale book slides out of the loosened straps and hovers before Astra, the thick pages flapping like a bird’s wings before opening wide on a page stamped with sharp-lined runes the colour of deep crimson.
“It’d be best if you moved out of the way,” Astra comments as flippantly as a queen of gore.
Grey moves over to us, and we push ourselves against the wall. “Next time you call, perhaps it could be for something less disgusting?”
“I’ll be arranging flowers next week. Feel free to join me,” I drawl.
Astra slices a pointer finger down the length of the cover, cutting open her skin on a hidden blade. But nothing drops to the floor; her blood flows from her wound towards the open palm of her other hand, swirling like a slow-moving whirlpool.
A moment later, the body parts begin to rise, floating into the middle of the landing.
“I could’ve gone so many more years without seeing this,” I sigh.
“Oh shut up,” Astra snipes. “You wanted my help, didn’t you?”
“She’s not wrong,” Grey chimes in.
The pools of red lift like rain in reverse, all the gore drawing together to mimic the whirlpool in Astra’s palm as it forms a grotesque ball. It spins faster, whipping my hair around my face as it shrinks, crunching and gurgling like a drain choking down wet hunks.
“Well, this is awful,” Luc mutters under his breath.
Within a few minutes, during which, for some morbid reason, none of us looks away, not a single drop of blood or flesh is left. Only a black and red marble that drops into Astra’s bloody palm.
“Neat trick,” I say as Astra pockets the marble.
“So.” Astra turns to us, hip cocked and folding her arms. The tip of her finger is still bleeding. Now I know Elio can heal; I wonder why Astra doesn’t. “What did Emma say?”
Luc and I share a look before I let out a long breath, then tell the Blood Mage Sovereign and the Direwolf the events of this terrible night.