Chapter Six
SIX
MABEL
“You’re such an idiot. Why did you take the sword? Hunter is going to be so very pissed.” I paused my verbal chastisement when the path I’d taken came to a crossroads, one with a post bearing signs pointing in a variety of directions. I squinted at it in the dim purple light that filled the Hour.
One pointed directly at the silhouette of what looked like a Victorian house, complete with turrets and a massive wraparound porch, and read dark house. A second indicated that jaguar house was to the left, while a third sign pointed to something called acid house.
“Of the three, I think I’ll have more luck avoiding a very annoyed dragon in a dark mansion,” I told myself as, with a glance over my shoulder to make sure that Hunter wasn’t behind me, I dashed the half block to the Victorian house, and made it inside without encountering anyone.
Inside was dark. Very dark.
I pulled Hunter’s sword from the scabbard strapped to my back, it and my phone’s flashlight making me feel a tiny bit better.
The light from my phone illuminated a circle a few feet around me. I rubbed my arms, saying aloud, “Geesh, it’s like the darkness is physical here. I feel downright sticky.”
My voice sounded muffled, as if I was in a small soundproofed room, and yet, I could feel air currents gently flowing around me, indicating I was in a large space.
I held up my phone, hoping it would expose more of my surroundings, but the darkness blocked the light from penetrating anything beyond my immediate location.
Behind me, something growled. I froze for a second, unsure if it came from inside the house or not, but decided I didn’t need to know the answer.
I shuffled forward, swearing under my breath when I cracked my shin on what I discovered was a stone bench. As I rubbed my shin, hopping, a soft noise drifted over to me from the direction I’d just come.
Was that the door closing? Or was it the sound of something large slithering toward me?
Visions of massive, monster-movie-sized snakes hunting me rose all too easily to mind. With a stifled sob and a disjointed limping gait, one hand extending Hunter’s sword to serve as an antenna, I made my way forward, finally coming against a wall.
I listened hard again, but other than a couple of roaring noises that definitely had their source outside, I heard nothing to indicate I was in dire peril.
Despite that, a shiver rippled down my back as the primitive side of my brain warned about all sorts of unseen dangers. With one hand firmly in contact with the wall, I moved forward, cursing every now and again as I encountered what felt like heavy stone statues.
“How big is this place?” I muttered as I continued on, shining my phone into the void to no avail. “There’s got to be an exit here somewh—ack!”
My fingers, which had been trailing along the wall in an attempt to keep oriented, suddenly ran into something warm and soft. It was only when my fingers slid off what was clearly fabric to warm flesh that I sucked in air preparatory to screaming my fool head off.
“Quiet. There’s a patrol not distant from this building,” a man’s voice came out of the darkness.
An Irish man’s voice.
“Hunter?” I asked, angling my phone upward, the light doing things to the planes of his face that had my stomach feeling like it was filled with bees. Excited bees.
I told the stomach bees to calm themselves at the same time I thought about cracking him on the head with the hilt of his sword.
“Please don’t,” he said, amusement rich in his voice.
“Please don’t what?” I asked, startled. I wondered if he had the ability to read minds.
“Gut me with my own élan vital. For one, it wouldn’t kill me, and for another, I don’t want to risk annoying Nika.”
“How did you get in?” I asked, simultaneously angry at myself that I let him find me and grateful that I wasn’t alone in the house with whatever had slithered.
“The same way you did, through the entrance. I assume your plan was to take my élan vital, hide in the Hour until I tired of looking for you, then return to your broker?”
My shoulders slumped as I admitted the truth. “It wasn’t a very good plan, but I figured if I hid long enough, you’d give up.”
He raised an eyebrow at me.
“Like I said, it was a stupid plan.” I refused to acknowledge that despite my pathetic attempt to successfully steal his sword, I was grateful he was there. The whole Hour gave me a major case of the creeps, a reaction I hadn’t experienced before.
He plucked the sword from my hand and slid the scabbard over my head, settling it on his body before taking my hand.
I took it back.
He made a tsking sound and took it again. “Stop shaking off my hand. I’m not trying to seduce you. I simply want to make sure you don’t get lost or try to escape again.”
“You’re so controlling,” I said, lashing out unjustly, I knew, but so frustrated with everything going on in my life, I couldn’t stop myself. “This isn’t important, but I have to know—how did you find me so quickly?”
“The élan vital,” he said, then, with a firm grip on my hand, moved forward.
“Does it ... like ... call to you or something?” I asked, my mind oddly stuck on this point.
“In a manner of speaking. It is as much a part of me as dragon fire. More, because my fire was hindered for centuries by dark power. Stop dragging your feet. I’m not going to smite you with a curse.
We need to get out of here before any of the previous lords of the Hour—now temporarily in charge—find us. ”
“Why?” I asked, stalling more than anything else.
“They have a habit of killing the living so you can’t leave. Ah. This, I believe, is the door. Keep your voice down. There were beings on the move when I followed you.”
As we exited, the warm, cloying air of the night settled upon us like moist cotton.
“Have you been here before?” I kept my voice soft. “Is that how you know so much about it? And who is the woman that you’ve more or less kidnapped me to help?”
“The whole place is a giant skate park normally, and no, I’ve never been here. I did hear about it from someone who knows, however. He said there are six houses, one filled with razors and blades, another with shrieking bats, and yet another with fire.”
We passed the signpost I’d seen before, walking along a broad paved street that spread out to include side paths that rolled and dipped into what I assumed were skateboarding tracks.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing jaguars,” I said, nodding to the sign that pointed to a house ahead of us.
“According to my source, they’re hungry jaguars. Personally, I—” He stopped as a tall figure accompanied by several smaller beings appeared a short distance in front of us.
“Stay behind me,” Hunter ordered, moving to block my view.
“Mortals?” the tall man said as he strode forward, dressed in an outfit that would have made a 1970s glam rocker scream with happiness.
He wore an above-knee-length white linen kilt edged with gold thread, a matching crop top with a gold pointy-boob breastplate, and a sun headdress at least a yard high, consisting of long gold, red, and black feathers.
“What are you doing here? We don’t allow mortals anymore.
Not since my brother arrived to put things right. I am Seven-Death. Who are you?”
Hunter made a polite bow that only people in the Otherworld seemed to pull off without any awkwardness. “I am Hunter Vehar, master of the Shadow Tribe. This is Mabel. She is under my protection.”
I shot him a little frown before giving the oddly named Seven-Death a smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Can you tell me where the nearest exit to the mortal world is?”
“Yes,” he answered, his attention on Hunter, who kept shifting to block my view of the man until I pinched the back of his arm. “Regardless of who you are, you can’t stay. Not while One-Death is bent on restoring the Hour to what he’s used to.”
“Your brother wants to restore it?” Hunter asked, his voice neutral. “You’re not trying to take over the Hour?”
“Me?” Seven-Death laughed, and turned to gesture at his followers. “Did you hear the dragon?”
The men all laughed with him.
“No,” he said suddenly, the laughter stopping dead.
He eyed first me, then Hunter. “I don’t torment and kill anymore.
I leave that to One-Death. I’m getting ready for the upcoming season of Otherworld Drag Race.
I have a good chance of winning this year, now that I stole Ramon from that pesky Anubis. ”
One of the smaller men hustled forward, his arms filled with another white-and-gold garment that I assumed was some sort of cloak, his smile obsequious as he said, “You’re a shoo-in, my lord.
Especially since you incorporated the new Taylor Swift song into your act.
There’s simply no way the judges can refuse you! ”
“You see?” Seven-Death said as he strolled past us. “I’m far too busy to torture you as I should. But I can’t say the same for my brother, so if you don’t want to run into him, you’d better be on your way. Andrew! Did you bring both makeup cases? I want to review our contouring plan.”
“That was odd,” I said a minute later, after Seven-Death and his followers were out of earshot.
I glanced back at them while Hunter consulted his phone.
“I mean, I’m grateful he wasn’t into murdering us, but at the same time, how do you go from that to becoming a drag performer?
Also, where are they holding the competition? I’d love to watch.”
Hunter moved forward a few steps, obviously looking at a map on his phone. “I have no idea, but at this moment, I’m more concerned with finding the woman Dawn so we can get the hell out of here. Do you—”
His eyes widened, his pupils doing a strange elongating thing before he grabbed my wrist and, with no pretense of gentleness, jerked me forward, forcing me to run.
“What the hell?” I asked, managing to turn my head enough to see behind me as he shoved me in front of him, pushing me on.