*****
Rodney Stokes listened quietly from the fifth floor of the parking garage, where he stood at the opening and looked out over an entire city block of Seattle. His view included the front entrance to the Four Seasons, where men and women in telltale government suits moved in and out of the hotel. They were looking for Adelaide.
He touched the head piece at his ear and nodded to himself. “That’s what I thought. Thanks Nate. Let me know the moment you get any kind of hit.” He disconnected the call and narrowed his gaze on the hotel entrance.
Addie had disappeared.
Twice, now. First, from an airplane mid-flight. And now from a hotel room on the seventh floor. Hastings, the dog had vanished as well. At least, that’s what the chatter indicated.
“What the hell did you get us into, Addie?” he whispered, shaking his head. He hadn’t called her phone, guessing that any calls to her number would be traced so the caller could be tracked down for questioning. He needed to remain freed-up enough to do what he could on his end to find her.
He had a feeling he knew where he was going to have to look for answers. And it had nothing to do with the men and women milling around the hotel with their cheap shoes, hand-held radios, and digital watches. It had nothing to do with the United States government.
Rodney stepped back from the parking garage’s opening and turned around to face the parking spaces. They were all empty. The garage was still under construction, and this level was not yet finished.
Once he was certain he was alone, he took off his own head set and switched it off. Then he left it on the ledge and moved to the center of the cement platform, where he began the incantation of a spell. As he spoke his words, his brown eyes began to glow an amber gold. His arms were at his sides, but his right hand was palm down, beckoning toward the ground. He raised it slowly, and wisps of green and gold smoke rose from the cement as if in answer to his call.
They swirled and grew, spreading in circumference around him. As the mist moved, it carved its way into the human-made stone, leaving behind glowing yellow shapes and symbols. By the time Rodney was finished with the spell, most of the garage was covered with them, and the air was filled with the fine, colorful mists of magic.
He closed his right fist, and the light went from his eyes. Rodney turned a slow circle where he stood at the center of a magical map. Only Rodney could read it. For all intents and purposes, it was a map in shorthand, outlining the Thirteen Kingdoms – and beyond.
Rodney studied it in silence, his shoes creating a slow, hollow sound as he moved across the map to the location where the yellow symbol pulsed like the beat of a heart.
It was Adelaide’s heart, beating rapidly in the Nightmare Realm.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Roman felt ground beneath his feet again, and at once also felt the heat of the sun on his skin. Pain arced up through his neck and into his head. He ran a hand through his hair and came away with blood. He looked down at the red smear across his palm and fingers and felt a little mystified. It had been a long time since someone had drawn his blood.
“You okay?”
He dropped his hand and turned around. Malcolm Cole and Lily Kane were with him. Beyond the two werewolves stretched a vast expanse of red dirt. There was no other sign of life as far as the eye could see. The sun was hot on his skin, despite his protective spells. The time had changed while they were in the Land of the Dead.
Now and here, it was high noon.
He smiled at the irony, but it was a wry smile and it felt bitter. If he had to guess, he would place them somewhere in Australia. In the Outback. In the middle of fucking nowhere.
“I’ll live,” he said. He couldn’t believe it was strictly coincidence that he’d been cast out of the Duat to the same location that Cole and Kane had been sent to. But it was sure as hell lucky. For them, anyway. Neither one of them knew any magic.
“Any sign of the others?” he asked of the off-chance that some of the others had been transported to this general area as well.
But they shook their heads.
“Come close,” he instructed. “I’ll transport us out of here.”
The two werewolves moved closer, their expressions distinctly relieved. It was obvious neither one of them had known what to do when they’d arrived in the middle of a hot Australian desert. Their phones – if they were carrying any – probably wouldn’t even work out here. Plus, their batteries were probably dead, having been drained in the Duat.
Roman concentrated. It was hard with the ball of fire directly above him. He had a love-hate relationship with the yellow star. He hated that he loved it. It terrified him. Standing there in direct sunlight with no shade or shelter in sight felt like teasing a Great White shark from behind a layer of plastic wrap.
But he was able to shove the words that he needed to speak between his teeth, and within seconds, the three of them were surrounded by a swirling portal of color and light. Malcolm Cole ran his hand over his face, and Lily Kane crouched down, so relieved to be out of what had probably appeared to be a dreadful and deadly situation that she put her head in her hands and closed her eyes.
He couldn’t blame them. He was pleased to be out of it too.
The portal opened in the foyer of one of Roman’s safe houses, and the three of them stepped out onto a marble floor. Lily Kane was the first to speak.
“Thank you so much,” she said, turning a bright smile on him. “I honestly thought we might die back there.”
Roman returned the smile. It was hard not to. She was charming.
But as he began to tell her to think nothing of it, her expression changed. Her smile slipped. Her eyes glassed over. Then they began to glow.
Roman felt a wave of magic wash over him. It was emanating from Lily’s form.
Cole’s gaze narrowed, and he placed a hand at her back. “She’s having a vision,” he said calmly.
Roman lifted his chin. Ah, he thought. So this is what it looks like when the seer sees. Or at least one of them. He’d heard they could each look different.
Seconds passed, Lily’s lips parted, and then the light faded from her eyes, her head snapped back, and she fell. Cole easily caught her, holding her aloft until she was steady enough to stand on her own.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“Not what, but who. I saw Adelaide Lane,” she said breathlessly. Her brow was furrowed and her expression was tight. Roman listened carefully, catching the rapid-fire beat of her frightened heart.
Lily took a shaky breath and looked up at Roman. “She was dead.”
Roman stared at her a moment in confusion. Then he asked. “What? How?” He looked around, wondering if this was it, and the Entity was going to finally win after all. He wondered if one of the Kings was going to become a widower before he’d even rightfully taken his place back on his throne and at the Table. He wondered a lot of things, all very quickly. And then he turned back to her. “When?” he asked desperately. “Where?”
Lily shook her head. “You don’t understand. I didn’t see it happen. All I saw was her body with blood all over her chest. Unfortunately,” she said, staring at him hard, “I have no idea where, how or when she’s going to get that way.”
*****
Jesse Graves didn’t have a chance to take a breath before he hit the water and dove deep. By the time he stopped descending, his lungs were all but empty and begging him to inhale. He opened his eyes and felt an immediate sting of salt. He was in the sea.
All sense of direction was gone. He floated, slowly turning, and tried to make heads or tails of the water around him. But it was all the same color deep, dark blue.
He tried to think. Pain from his lungs was distracting. He gritted his teeth and released a bubble of air. It rose past his cheek, and he blinked.
It’s rising!
Christ, he thought. You moron, it’s rising! He followed the bubble, clawing his way up through the water with strong strokes. He kept climbing and
kept climbing, and as the emptiness inside him stretched and sliced at the nerves in his lungs, he began to wonder if he was actually diving deeper and had made the wrong decision. Or maybe he’d switched directions somewhere along the way. Or maybe he was actually unconscious and slowly drown –
But the blue lightened from indigo to turquoise, and the water began to shimmer. Yes! he thought, leaving his former thoughts unfinished. A few seconds later, he violently broke through the surface and instantly inhaled.
Some of the water entered his throat along with the air, and he was just as quickly coughing. He hacked and coughed, inhaled, coughed some more, and treaded water. He heard his heart beat in his ears and his head was pounding. But eventually he closed his eyes and just enjoyed not being dead.
“Hey mister former werewolf council overseer.”
Jesse opened his eyes and turned in the water. Imani and Dannai were both treading water a few yards away from him. Imani smiled “Good to see you’re not dead.”
“Shit,” said Jesse a little breathlessly. “We were sent to the same place?”
The girls nodded.
“It’s lucky,” said Dannai. “In a way, anyway. At least we’ll die together.”
Jesse’s gaze narrowed. He ran her words through his head and turned a full circle. Nothing but water as far as the eye could see. He turned back to face Dannai. “You’re joking, right? Tell me you cast a spell.” His head really hurt. Maybe he could turn into a wolf and dog paddle his way to shore. Wherever that was.
“Okay, I’m joking,” admitted Dannai with a water-logged shrug and a grin. “Come closer and we’ll transport.”
Jesse shook his head and felt overwhelming relief wash over him like a wave of warmth. “I kind of hate you right now,” he said.
Imani laughed, and the three of them drew together.
“I only hope the others ended up together too,” said Imani as Dannai pulled up a portal and the three of them sloshed into it like washed up shipwreckers. Dannai wiped her face with her hand as the portal swirled around them and whisked them through space. “Roman’s the only one left who can cast a transport spell.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
There was a trail leading from the top of the plateau to the vast carnival below. It was made of cobbled stone, and damned it all if it didn’t look like carved, smooth onyx cabochons the size of watermelons, shot through with veins of either garnet or – she wouldn’t be surprised at this point – ruby. The truly surreal thing was that the perfect, dustless gemstone trail was bordered on either side by dirt, and wound down along the edge of the cliff like something from Lord of the Rings.
It was a long trail, however, cutting back and forth many, many times so that it could be relatively flat. Despite that, the sheer drop on one side made her distinctly grateful for her rubber-soled boots.
When they’d gone around one-third of the way down, a vision hit Addie. She froze in place, this time managing to stop herself before the vision completely took hold. It was the same vision from before… molten red eyes, swirling and hypnotic. Lights blurring around her, making her deliciously dizzy. There were crystalline shapes carved into glass, and this time she could tell they were animals: a lion, a horse, a dragon. She felt hands on her, on her arms, on her waist, and finally wrapping around her throat, gentle but possessive. She felt the thumb on her pulse, and heard words whispered in her ear.
She swooned in the vision, and hoped she wasn’t swooning in real life, given the sheer drop on one side of the walkway. Then she felt the hot brand of a kiss on her throat, and once more saw fangs… and blood. All coherent thought fled when she felt a pain in her wrist, this time the other one –
“Addie?”
Adelaide opened her eyes and blinked. Nicholas was standing over her, his arm around her waist, his gaze narrowed and calculating. “Another vision?”
She swallowed hard, wishing she had a drink. Her throat was dry, and her heart was hammering. She chanced a sound and pushed a few words between her teeth. “Yeah,” she said softly. “A vision.”
He seemed to consider that and nodded slowly, pulling his arm back a bit to let her stand on her own. “You okay now?”
She nodded, let him step back completely, and her gaze slipped to the sheer drop.
“What happens when I fall off this thing?” she asked, thinking of the slipperiness of smooth stones, of the general clumsiness of humans, and of things like visions trying to kill her.
Nicholas let her go completely and said, “You won’t.”
She moved to the center of the walk and looked back up at him. “How do you know?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “Go ahead. Try to jump off.”
Her eyebrows hit the heavens. “You serious right now?”
But instead of respond, he simply smiled bigger and began leaning out toward the cliff’s drop. Addie’s eyes widened. “No, don’t!” She rushed forward, intent on pulling him back toward the trail, but as it happened, she needn’t have bothered. He leaned only so far before he simply stopped, and it was as if he were leaning against an invisible wall.
She stared at the image a while – him, completely diagonal to the trail, grinning ear to ear and absolutely nothing holding him up. Then she said, “How the hell?”
“The Carnival was created for me when I was a child,” he said. “The Realm made it. And to protect me, safeguards were built into the spell that built it. You literally can’t be hurt here. He straightened and dropped his arms. “That’s how I knew you’d be safe from Nero.” His smile was gone now. His eyes had lightened into silver again.
“What if it only protects you?” she countered. “I’m not the Nightmare King. What if I’d leaned out and fallen to my death?”
He chuckled. “Believe me, it wouldn’t happen.” He shoved himself back up with one hand and strode past her on the path, looking over his shoulder every now and then to continue their conversation. “I can invite anyone here I wish, and the Carnival will protect them. I’ve had thousands of people visit since it was created.” He had been moving fast, and she’d had to move faster to keep up, but now he stopped again, put his hands on his hips, and looked out over the turning, twinkling lights.
She couldn’t blame him. It was a breathtaking sight. She wished she could sprout wings and fly over it.
“You want to fly over it, don’t you?”
She looked over to find Nicholas watching her closely. The beauty of the man struck her again in that moment. His thick jet-black hair was tousled by the wind and made him look a little like an anime character the way it shaded his glowing eyes. His chin was strong, his shoulders so broad. The outline of him against the night sky was worthy of Wuthering Heights desire. He looked raw and powerful. A fallen angel. That’s what he reminded her of.
Suddenly, she felt a little uncomfortable having him pay her so much attention. So she looked away. Once again, it was hard. His gaze pulled at her sometimes, as if it were a physical thing. “Of course,” she said whimsically, tossing her messed up hair and shrugging as nonchalantly as she could. “Who wouldn’t?”
He was silent a moment. So she looked back at him.
His eyes had only become more intense.
He strode toward her, slowly and with purpose. “I can arrange that, Adelaide.”
Addie stared up at him as his presence washed over her, warm and tingly. She felt a heat make its way through her body and her legs went weak. She backed up against the cliff side, but he didn’t stop until he was standing over her, tall, strong, and indomitable.
“What… do you mean by that?” she asked. Her voice was tiny; it pissed her off, but the man before her was so massive in stature.
His gaze was hot on her skin as he looked from her lips to her neck, and back into her eyes. His hand cupped the side of her face. It was like a brand it was so hot. He was so hot, and suddenly she felt as if she’d been cold her whole life and here was the man who could warm her to the marrow of her bones, defro
st her spirit, and comfort her as no one else ever had.
“I can make you fly, Addie. I can give you wings.”
She laughed, a tight nervous chuckle. “S-sure,” she said. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
When in doubt, quote Meatloaf.
“Not even close.” He slowly lowered his hand, then stepped back, drawing near the ledge of the walkway. He was so close, debris broke off from beneath his boots and tumbled into the nothingness below. But she continued to watch as a breeze picked up, brushing through his hair. The glow in his eyes went from silver to pink, and then red. He raised his arms out at his sides and turned his face to the night sky. The ground rumbled. Lightning split the Cosmos in the distance.
Thunder rolled low and long overhead. Addie wanted to say something, to do something, maybe even run, but she was held immobile in fascination. A black smoke-like fog rose from the ground, thick and hypnotic, and began to swirl around Nick’s form, wrapping around him like the coils of a snake.
As she looked on, his form vanished beneath this curtain of black, and the black expanded, developing wings of smoke on either side. They unfolded, stretching eight feet in either direction, massive and beautiful.
Little by little, the smoke drifted off, caught on the breeze to be carried into oblivion. Leaving behind the tall, larger than life form of Nicholas Wargrave – with wings. Addie knew her eyes were enormous, knew her mouth was open, and knew that she was staring dumbly. But she couldn’t help it.
They were like a raven’s wings, composed of thick, shining black feathers and strong muscle, and Addie would have given anything in that moment to run her hands over them. The sparkling lights of the Carnival of Night glittered behind him, and his face was in shadow. But for those glowing red eyes.
She felt breathless.
Breathe, she told herself. Breathe now.
“All Nightmares have wings, Addie,” he said smoothly, his voice deep and melodic and as tangible and real and beautiful as those wings. “So you will have them too.”
What? she thought haplessly.