Chapter Twenty-five
I lay in bed for several hours, wishing the entire time that I had my Kindle with me. Someone had donated it to the library, but since it was an older model with deep scratches on the screen, Bertha had tossed it in the trash.
My reading streak was broken since I’d been caught up in what was going on with Zacharias and investigating the tunnels.
Slacker. This is why I wasn’t going to get involved or play with the cute boys.
I dismissed those thoughts. Sure, things had gotten a little crazy, but I didn’t regret my decision to claim these men as mine. I just needed to make sure I had my books ready to be read when the guys went to sleep.
I was a modern ghost who could haunt by day and read by night. Who said women couldn’t do it all?
Teleporting myself from the bed so I didn’t wake the men by crawling over them, I floated to the couch and sat down. Wasabi squeaked, and after a moment of searching, I found him curled up in a tiny cat bed. Had Evander bought that for him?
Wasabi yawned, pulled a piece of paper from his bed, and made his way to me.
“What do you have there?” I asked, scooping him up from the floor and setting him in my lap.
He didn’t respond, just waited for me to pick up the paper.
Leaning back against the couch cushions, I squinted at the tiny, old English font. The paper was a warm sepia hue but felt different from normal papers. It felt more like leather, or what you’d expect a scroll to be made of.
This wasn’t just old, it was ancient. Where had he found it? And what priceless volume had he ripped it from?
Wasabi rolled to his back, hinting he wanted me to scratch his tummy. He was clearly unconcerned about crimes he may have committed.
Giving in, I petted his tummy, still slightly amazed at how much easier it was to interact with him since Saul had given me energy.
I lifted the paper and began slogging through the off spellings and strange terms. It took several minutes, but I finally deciphered enough to realize it was a journal entry summarizing the results various herbs and poultices had on an injured reaper. A reaper he was keeping on the edge of death and trapped in his cellar.
Talk about nightmare fuel . Torturing and holding a reaper hostage counted as medical science and advancement?
My stomach churned, and I was about to put the paper on the table when a word caught my attention. Epolir.
Bringing the paper closer to my face, I read the next few lines with mounting horror and trepidation. The wannabe scientist was drugging the reaper with Epolir to keep him weak. That allowed him to cut the reaper and take notes on which injuries were too deep for the reaper to heal. Instead of trying to help the reaper, he was only worried the reaper was going to die before he could conclude all his tests.
At the UnderGrave, Zacharias had confirmed my suspicions that he was the one who’d set up the meeting with Tiny Tank, so it would make sense that he had scribbled all the notes on the paper Wasabi and I had found behind the desk in the tunnels. But why would he need Epolir?
Did Saul know what it was used for? My soulmate had seemed bored out of his mind when Zacharias and Tank had talked about herbs and potions, so I was guessing the answer was no.
And Saul had gone to hunt Zacharias down. He could be in danger and not have a clue.
I had to get to him! Quickly plopping Wasabi on the seat beside me, I rose and prepared to teleport to Saul’s side. Then stopped.
Was I a complete idiot?
I had three mates who were trained in all things battle asleep in a bed upstairs. Meanwhile, the only discipline I’d trained in before my death was the art of marathon reading, where I could binge an entire series in one go without feeling the strain of fatigue or pangs of hunger.
Which meant going after Zacharias alone was a dumb plan.
Don’t be that chick in the horror movie everyone is screaming at for hiding from the killer in a butcher shop.
Teleporting upstairs, I shook Rhodes’ shoulder.
“Hmm? Everything okay, sugar?” His sleep-laden voice was all sexy gravel, but this was not the time to be admiring it.
“No, I think Saul’s in danger. Will you guys come with me?”
“Death in danger?” Lochlan huffed a laugh and stretched. “Boo, he is the danger. You gotta stop worrying about him.”
“Lochlan’s right. After what I saw at the club, there is no question that Saul can handle himself. He doesn’t need backup.” Rhodes kissed my cheek, then stood and pulled on his pants.
Confused, I watched as Lochlan and Evander did the same. Each man put on their boots and dropped knives in various hidden sheaths.
“You just said Saul wasn’t in danger, so why are you gearing up?”
All three collectors stopped and looked at me as though I’d missed something.
“Love, you asked us to come with you. It doesn’t matter if Saul needs us or not.” Rhodes caught my face in his hand and brushed his thumb over my lips. “We will always go with you.”
Don’t cry, Axelle. Don’t do it, I warned myself.
“I’m just glad you asked us to come along,” Evander commented, sliding his belt through the loops of his pants.
“Right? I love you, boo, but you have a habit of finding trouble, so I’m pleasantly surprised you didn’t try to sneak off and save the world on your own.” Lochlan spun a knife in his hand and winked at me.
“Do you know where you want to go?” Rhodes asked, his tone all business.
“I can teleport to Saul’s side; I’ve accidentally done it before. But I can’t take you guys with me.” I caught my bottom lip between my teeth. “I think whatever Zacharias is planning is going down somewhere in the tunnels. Maybe we should all go there and check it out?”
The guys nodded.
“Let’s go find Death.” Rhodes led the way out of the room.
“Yeah, I’m not loving how that sounds. The context is confusing. How about we go find Saul and stay alive?” Lochlan swept me into his arms and followed Rhodes down the stairs.
“I can’t wait to see his face when Axelle tells him we’re there to rescue him.” Evander grinned at me.
My stomach twisted itself into knots. If Saul was fine, he was going to be ticked that I didn’t stay safely out of danger.
I was going to be in trouble, but I was willing to risk it. Besides, Saul was sinfully sexy when he was angry, so it was worth it.
#
“It’s just as empty as it was the last time I came down here,” I groaned.
Lochlan shot me a suspicious look. “Investigating on your own?”
“I thought I’d help. Plus, I was getting cranky about how much of my reading time all this ghost drama was distracting me from, and I thought I could get you out of my hair faster if I solved it.”
Lochlan grabbed his chest. “I’m hurt. And here I thought you couldn’t get enough of us.”
“You’re growing on me.” I bit my cheek to keep from laughing.
“So once this is over, are you going to travel with us?” Evander asked, leaning against the wall as he waited for my answer.
I opened my mouth, then closed it. We’d never talked about how our future would work, only that we wanted to be together.
“How would that even work? Maybe it would be best to leave me here to read while you guys go do your thing, and then come home to me. I wouldn’t be an asset to the team.”
Rhodes shook his head. “We are sometimes gone for weeks or even months on complicated cases. I can’t be away from you that long.”
Evander rubbed his jaw. “If you’re worried about being an asset—which you shouldn’t be—remember that you saved our lives. You’d be like traveling with a portable battery pack just in case there was an emergency.”
I thought about Saul’s warning that there would be Hades to pay if I fed the guys without him there to make sure I didn’t give too much. He wasn’t going to like this plan, but I wanted to be near the guys just in case they needed me.
“How about we figure it out case by case?” Lochlan offered. “I snooped on Rhodes’ laptop, and one case he’s considering is a supposedly haunted cruise ship. You could come along and enjoy the cruise and read to your heart’s content while we work. And when we’re not working…”
“Stop going through my laptop!” Rhodes snarled.
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll tell Axelle about the poetry you started writing for her? Don’t worry, your secret is safe, bro.” Lochlan pretended to zip his lips and throw away the key.
“Are you sure you’re attached to him? There would be more room in the bed if I make him disappear.” Rhodes asked me, a knife appearing in his hand out of nowhere.
“Yes, I’d very much like to keep all four of my men. Now let’s focus and find my reaper.”
“I wonder what said reaper will have to say about us taking Axelle with us? He might want to lock her up for safekeeping,” Evander mused out loud.
Squeak!
Wasabi’s head appeared from a pocket in Evander’s rucksack.
“What is he doing here?”
“He looked sad, and I didn’t want to leave him alone, so I brought him with us,” Evander answered sheepishly.
Wasabi scampered down Ev’s back and leg to the floor. As though he were a rat on a mission, he ran straight to the far wall of the chamber. He leaped up onto a small stone near the floor.
It stuck out just enough that he could sit on it, which he did, and stared up at us as the tunnel trembled and a piece of the floor slid to the side, revealing a set of stairs.
“Why does it feel like he’s judging us?” Evander whispered.
“That was the most thug life thing I’ve ever witnessed! He didn’t even break eye contact while he made us look like idiots!” Lochlan laughed, bending down and holding out his fist for Wasabi to bump.
I knew Wasabi was smart, but Lochlan was giving him a little too much credit. “Loch, he doesn’t know what that means?—”
Wasabi rested his tiny front paw on Lochlan’s knuckles.
“That was just a coincidence. Now let’s focus on finding Saul.” I watched Rhodes head down the stairs into another creepy tunnel.
Thankfully, this one was far shorter and led straight to a large room packed with various types of modern lab equipment. Was this Zacharias’ evil laboratory?
Nothing appeared particularly menacing, but a sense of heaviness permeated the air.
While Evander stood slightly in front of me, Rhodes and Lochlan moved around the room, checking beneath cabinets and behind the sparse furniture for anyone who might be hiding.
“It’s clear,” Lochlan told us.
Evander relaxed and shifted to stand beside me now that he wasn’t worried about an immediate threat. There had to be some irony in the fact that they were trying so hard to keep me alive, when I was technically already dead.
“We’ve found our ghosts,” Rhodes called from where he stood in front of a small door with a viewing window.
We squeezed in around him and peered through the window. A chamber that was the size of an ice-skating rink stretched out in front of us. It was empty except for the ghosts packed inside it. They barely had room to move without bumping against another ghost.
“How long do you think he’s kept them down here?” My chest tightened. Why had Saul agreed to this?
“Not more than a few weeks to months. Otherwise, they would have faded, and I assume he wants their energy for something. The better question is, how is he keeping them confined?” Rhodes shook his head in disgust.
“I’m guessing it has something to do with the metal pipes wrapping around the walls and the roof. Those pipes hook to the large vats in here. I bet he’s feeding one of his concoctions through those pipes and the ghosts can’t cross them.” Evander’s ability to problem solve on the fly was nothing short of impressive.
It would’ve taken me far longer to put those pieces together.
“You have to get them out of here.” I turned to look at the guys. “I know you can’t walk through walls and stuff, but if you led them back out the way we came in, could you get them to one of the vortexes and help them get to the beyond?”
“Yes, but we aren’t leaving you here. It will take too long leading this many ghosts out and getting them to safety. Collectors can’t teleport wherever they want, like a reaper, or a certain ghost we all know and adore, but we can teleport them directly to a vortex and return to our previous location. It will take a while, but we will get them all to safety,” Rhodes answered, his face grim.
“It might not take as long as we think.” Evander pulled several papers from his bag and spread them on the table. “This place isn’t on the map, but we should be right in this area. I think the back wall of that room is probably hiding another door that leads to the old mine entrance. If we find that door, it would be easy to get them out of here as a group and then get them to the nearest vortex.”
“You’re amazing!” I squealed, throwing my arms around his neck and kissing his cheek.
“Let’s move fast. We’ll need to cut off the stuff flowing into the pipes, then find the door.” Rhodes turned the handle, and headed into the room, calling over his shoulder, “Axelle, stay in there until we’re sure the containment system is down and you won’t be hurt.”
I stepped out of the way and watched as my men moved like a well-oiled machine as they worked to free the trapped ghosts. Within ten minutes, they’d found the door, broken it down, and had the last of the sludge draining from the pipes.
“Come on, Axelle! It’s safe,” Lochlan called as he started wrangling the ghosts toward the back of the room, where Evander and Rhodes waited in the old mine to make sure none of the ghosts wandered off again.
When they got the last ghost into the mine and I couldn’t see them, I decided I didn’t need to guard the hall anymore and headed toward the containment room.
“What have you done? I’ll kill you for this!” The shout came from behind me and, spinning around, I came face-to-face with a livid Zacharias.
Glancing over my shoulder at the mine entrance, I prayed the guys wouldn’t realize right away that I hadn’t followed them. I threw myself at the button with the label that read Lockdown .
A metal panel slid down from the ceiling to block anyone in the confinement area from getting back into the lab. Good.
Now my guys would have to get the ghosts to safety. I could have teleported myself out of the lab, but that would have left my collectors, and the ghosts, open to an attack by Zacharias.
No, I had to stay here and distract him long enough for them to get out of the mine.
Zacharias raised his scythe and rushed at me.
All I had to do was dodge and weave faster than he could swing. It was just like elementary school dodgeball, only deadlier.