Chapter 8

CHAPTER

EIGHT

I inhaled so hard I choked, my sight coming back to me in dappled blurs.

Someone was holding me up, but I was tangled in gold threads as a shadow retreated. I reached for it, but it was smoke and memory, disappearing as strong arms kept me from falling.

"I have you," Sias was saying, voice muddy as death was falling away from me. My heart thundered back to life. "Breathe, Dallas. Breathe."

"No," I whispered. "No. He was there. He was there. Zane?—"

"I know." Sias kissed my temple and whispered another heartbreaking, "I know."

My vision came back in waves of nauseating clarity, the gold threads fading as the last traces of the void released me. The tips of my fingers burned as the tips regrew flesh over black bone.

Sias was rubbing my chest, warming me back up to a living temperature. Both of his arms were around me, easing me to the ground since my legs were too shaky to keep me upright.

I curled into the warmth offered, too weak and rattled for pride to take over as Sias cradled me against him. He rubbed my arms, occasionally checking my pulse with gentle fingers under my jaw.

"You did so good, pet," he whispered to me in his aftercare tone. "So good."

"We didn't get him," I reminded him. "He was there…he found me. But we didn't…"

I didn't think it was possible for Sias to sound like anything other than controlled, stern and focused.

I had never heard him sound so shaken.

"He sent you back to me," he whispered, lips against my temple. "I saw him in the dark. The shadow, right as the tear stabilized and the life magic started to seal it."

I had forgotten about the damn tear.

Honestly, I didn't fucking care in that moment that the whole world almost got swallowed up by a rip in reality, which probably makes me a complete asshole. I was too heartbroken to really give a shit as I sat there in Sias's arms, feeling very sorry for myself.

Sias's long, tired exhale was an unspoken novel of relief and exhaustion. The way he stroked my hair helped me realize that I was being a bit of a prick.

"Are you okay?" I opened my eyes and faced him, scanning him for injuries. "You didn't get too close to the void, right? Did anything touch you?"

Sias shook his head, eyes tired and bruised.

"I'm fine."

I had to rub my eyes to get my focus back, my brain stuffed with cotton and my energy drained like I hadn't slept in a week. Where the tear had been, only empty air and a cloudless sky greeted me as I swept my gaze upward. The danger was gone, sealed away by life magic's dominance over death in this realm, but the evidence of the event had left deep scars all over.

The cement was cracked and stained with ashen pockmarks and slashes; the sandbox shaped like a turtle had shards of obsidian spiking from it in jagged blades. Bricks had been marred with black branches trailing all the way up to the roof. Distant sirens blared, growing closer as the traumatized residents milled around in a state of shock.

"It worked?" I asked, truly dumbfounded. "We got it stable?"

"Yeah." Austin looked forty years older from the stress, still clutching his side from his battle wound. "You got it stable and we dumped all the life magic we had to get it sealed. I gotta say, Wilde, it was impressive, even if how you two managed it was…really fucking unnecessary."

His discomfort made me snort, and I remembered how sore I was from the effort. It was worth it.

"Ha. Prude."

Pain lanced up my leg as I tried to stand, and I inhaled through my teeth out of reflex.

"Did you dump all the life magic you had? Even the good healing stuff?" I managed through a wince.

"All of it," he mumbled, holding his side. "Unfortunately. Maybe we can get you—shit." His posture corrected, back straightening with his shoulders falling into position.

I didn't need to look to know who had arrived with the sirens.

"Easy," Sias warned as I started climbing to my feet. "You've just been through hell and back."

"You remember me telling you about my shitty family?" I groaned as Sias helped get me to my feet, my body begging to go back to the ground. "King asshole just showed up. I can't face him sitting down."

"I wasn't expecting him to show up with a fleet of DHAP officers." Sias kept his fingers around my upper arm to keep me from wavering.

"This day keeps getting better." I shivered from the cold breeze making itself known, and again from the memory of losing Zane's jacket to the corruption. I hugged my chest to keep from shaking as my past waltzed over, ready to fight.

"Knew I'd find you at the center of this shit storm, Wilde." Magnus leaned on his good leg, hand perched on top of his revolver. "The moment these things popped up, I knew they'd lead me right to you."

"I thought I told you to stay out of my city? Give me a wide berth, remember?" I set my teeth to keep my jaw from clattering.

"We got called in. Special assignment." He eyed Sias, annoyed by his presence. "We're working with the Demon and Human Alliance and Protection until the source of these tears are stopped."

I whistled. "They are desperate to call in crazy ass zealots."

"Professional death magic containment and creature elimination. Trained soldiers." Magnus took a quick look around. "You trade in your throat ripper for a sex demon?"

Sias's inhale was a lit fuse, and I motioned for him to stand down.

"Fuck you," I spat at the asshole human trying to start a fight. "We're not doing that. You say one more word about Zane or Sias, and I will assault an old man. I've had a really, really shitty day aiding your soldiers in this fight, Magnus."

"He's right, sir," Austin chimed in, begrudgingly, but still taking my side. "We wouldn't have been able to contain the threat had he not stepped in."

Magnus failed to look impressed, his stony, ancient face permanently carved in a look of wrinkled annoyance.

"Right. Lucky you were here," Magnus responded with such dry sarcasm that it mummified him another fifty years. "Funny how the last time we saw you was in a necromancy tomb, and now you just happen to be here to assist when vampires start ripping holes into the living world."

"You think I did this?" My laugh came out as a cough because my body was too achy to remember what humor sounded like.

"Sir," Austin edged back into the conversation. "I don't have a reason to believe that Wilde was behind the tear. He helped us get it under control and saved Paris and Haslet from getting eaten by the creature. He could have easily run and left us to die. But he didn't."

"Exactly!" I was excited someone was jumping to my defense. "Austin gets it. He trusts me."

"I wouldn't go that far," Austin was quick to keep my ego deflated, and finalized it with a sharp look that kicked me right in the heart. "But I will stand by my opinion that you didn't open the tear."

"Yeah?" Magnus placed a toothpick in his mouth, an old habit maintained after he gave up smoking. "Then who did?"

"I told you back at the crypt that Florence Pierce was going to cause trouble, and she is," I explained. "I know these tears are linked to her. She's fucking around with an ancient, powerful artifact she has no business owning. If we want this shit stopped, we need to take her down."

Magnus rolled the toothpick in his teeth as he glared me down, the flurry of movement behind him making his presence that much more solid. Medics and officers were rushing to help the injured and contain the area, yellow tape roping off the entire building and surrounding area. People in white biohazard gear were beginning to chip away at the magic residue left behind from the fight.

"You're working with DHAP, you can tell them to investigate Florence," I pleaded. "Magnus, she's behind this. She's not going to stop. We have reason to believe she's working out of a building she purchased recently?—"

"An ancient artifact," Magnus repeated my words slowly, like I had misspoken. "Which one are you referring to, Dallas? The same one she hired you to find?"

"I told you in the fucking tomb that I wasn't going to give it to her—" I tried but he barreled over me.

"How'd she get it then?" Magnus tilted his head, aiming his better ear in my direction. "Hm? I thought you said you didn't have it back in the Silent Steps. You told all of us that you were still looking for it but, somehow, she obtained it anyway. Mind filling in the gaps for me, son?"

My high ground was slipping. I felt the conversation giving way underfoot like I was arguing on sand. Austin's jaw started to tick, his fists curling as I sorted through how I wanted to respond.

To try and regain my stance, I stupidly tried for honesty.

"I didn't know I had it."

"Sinners and Saint, son." Magnus barked out a humorless laugh. "That the best you can do?"

"It was in my chest!" I turned to Austin, hoping he'd somehow believe me. "It was sealed in there. It came out after I left the tomb and Florence?—"

"You are something remarkable, Dallas, you know that?" Magnus tossed out the mocking praise, the venom behind it so potent it made me flinch. "You almost had your brothers and sisters fooled. Almost had them believing you were some kind of white knight swooping in to aid the fight."

"I'm telling the fucking truth , Magnus! I was going to destroy it, keep it out of her hands, but I just…"

"You fucked up is what you did." All mocking humor dropped from the old man as he wheeled on me, his voice honed to cut all the hidden little places only he knew about. "You tried to play both sides, and you fucked up. You unleashed something evil, again, but this time it's not going to be just a few family members who die. It's going to be hundreds. Thousands."

"Florence is the key to this," I tried to push ahead, but I was mortally wounded by his words and was bleeding out fast. "You have to tell DHAP to get to her."

"You're the one who caused this bullshit, Wilde. You brought the devil the key and paid with your soul. Saint have mercy on you, child. You know what they do to necromancers who cause this much mayhem. You saw firsthand what happens to them." Magnus cracked a knuckle. "I can't save you from what you brought upon yourself."

"We need him." Austin's voice was a whip crack, his words filtered between his clenched jaw. "He was able to calm the void tear and keep it stabilized. We can use him as a tool if nothing else."

My body shook, my arms frozen as I tried to rub feeling back into them.

"I don't think I could do that again and survive?—"

"Your death will be a small penance for what you've aided," Magnus hissed, saddling up closer so he could glare down his nose at me. I was older now, able to see eye to eye with the man I had once considered my father. He'd pulled me from the darkness and gave me a means to fight against it. My home, my skills, my ability to kill the evils of the world and live to tell the tale was all because of him.

That was a long time ago.

And somehow, he still seemed taller than me.

"You know why I named my kids after old human cities, boy?" I could see the ruined toothpick in his teeth as clearly as the heartache creasing his brows. "Because when the demons came through into the human world, they tried to destroy everything we had been. Incubi, oni, jinn…they flooded into our realm and undid centuries. Your name carries part of what we were, and you disgrace it with what you've become."

I thought the cold was going to stop my heart. A shiver racked me, exhaustion ran icy claws down my back as I reached for a leather jacket I had thrown into the void.

Instead of swiping at the absence of comfort, my fingers met with the heavy fabric of a custom-tailored suit jacket.

It draped over my shoulders, blocking out the chill that was trying to tear me apart, and surrounded me in amber and tobacco. Sias smoothed the jacket over my shoulders, plucking at the garment where he had tossed it aside before the battle had begun.

He gave my arms a grounding squeeze, before he shielded me from the unforgiving glare of a man I had once thought was the tallest in the world.

"I've had enough of you," Sias said, in a quiet fury that lit a fire in my chest, his eyes crackling flames. "You disrespectful, ghoul of a man."

"The whore speaks." Magnus curled his fingers over the gun, his unease stoking the fire starting to warm me. "You can join him in prison for aiding if you want, pretty boy."

"I would absolutely love to see you challenge my fleet of legal counsel just to watch you get decimated for all you have." Sias chuckled, dark velvet curling into a noose.

"Big talk." Magnus spit his toothpick onto Sias's shoe. "We give the orders. And if I order them to throw you and that traitor you're trying to impress into jail, they'll happily comply to make sure their means to salvation is happy."

"Sure." Sias scanned the flurry of officers with a fiery gaze. "Which would you like to speak to? Lieutenant Brooker? I believe his mother is recovering in the St. Athesall general hospital, in the wing I paid for. Or maybe you'd like to try your luck with Captain Yama? Her wife's thriving culinary business just had a new restaurant open in one of my strip centers. I'm sure they'd love to have a chat." Sias clicked his tongue. "Best of luck with that."

Magnus's face was as impassive as ever, the vein in his temple pulsing.

Sias practically yawned as he added, "Never have a dick measuring contest with an incubus, Magnus. It's embarrassing."

I snorted a laugh, tugging Sias's jacket around me to keep me from shaking.

Magnus wasn't a fan of my reaction.

"This isn't over," he promised with icy ferocity. "Not by a fucking mile. He'll pay for his involvement in this, incubus, and you'll burn with him."

Sias's bored stare still held seething embers, but his voice was as cold and sharp as an ice pick.

"You threaten him in front of me again and I'll take you apart. Slowly."

If I wasn't so bruised and beaten, both mentally and physically, I would have fully swooned in front of everyone.

Sias pulled me closer and turned us away from the seething ghost lingering from my past, his arm wrapped around me to hold me steady.

"You alright?" he asked once we had a few footsteps away from Magnus. "Can you make it down the street while I call someone to pick us up?"

"Is this someone going to take us to get healed?" I leaned against him to keep the weight off my injured leg. "Because I feel like a vampire chewed me up and spit me out."

"I have an on-call doctor who's meeting us at home. We'll get healed and take the longest showers." Sias pulled at his ruined shirt. "I might be in there for days."

I laughed, ducking under some caution tape with him as we made our slow escape from the calamity. My body was thrumming with a tangle of contrasting emotions and physical ailments; the sharp pain of shame and deep wounds spiking against soft scents of amber and tobacco.

The streets were closed off from traffic as police and DHAP officers contained the scene behind us, leaving the surrounding area tense with speculation and curious people peering from the curb. We had to hobble for a while to get away from the crowds and to find a stretch of street that wasn't swarming with bodies trickling out from surrounding neighborhoods.

The air was filled with distant wailing sirens and chatter, the cold spring breeze failing to cut through the fabric of Sias's jacket. His side was warm where I leaned against it, arm iron as it kept me pulled close.

"Hey." I stopped us from traveling further, my leg aching but my heart demanding more attention. Sias's eyes had eased into his ocean blue, hinting at a dark teal as he looked at me. "Can I ask you something important?"

"Of course."

"It's really important, so I need you to be honest with me," I pressed, holding his gaze so I could watch his eyes change color. "Do you promise me?"

His brows bunched, worry changing his eyes into a smoky blue touched around the edges in gray.

"I promise, Dallas."

"Okay." I inhaled slowly. "Do I have any gross vampire stuff on my face?"

Sias blinked, the gray starting to fade into a lovely shade of annoyed green.

"Do you…have gross vampire stuff on your face?" he repeated slowly, frowning.

"Yeah. Be honest. It's really important."

Sias stared at me for a few beats, fighting a frown.

"No, love. You're fine."

"Promise?"

"Yes." His frown won out, his eyes a bruised green and yellow. "Is that really what you wanted to ask me?"

"Yep."

I wasn't sure what color his eyes turned when I reached up and pulled him close for a kiss. I let my eyes fall shut as I captured his lips with mine, the kiss a slow, soft connection I'd never dreamed of attempting before.

It wasn't a tug of passion, a wrestling match of lust and desire leading to us tumbling into bed together. This was something much more complicated.

I wanted it to be complicated.

To drive the point home, I reached up and cupped his cheek, holding the moment like the fragile, precious thing it was. I wanted Sias to know this was meant to be a confession without ever having to say a word.

My heart was exhausted. My body a walking bruise piloted by a soul that had been half swallowed by the void. I couldn't be bothered to overthink what it meant when Sias placed his palms on my cheeks and held our kiss longer than I expected.

All I had the energy for was a cautious bloom of happiness.

When the kiss was released, Sias pulled me close into a protective hug, his eye color a mystery to me. I found a perch for my chin on his shoulder and allowed myself the chance to close my eyes and undercut the moment with humor.

"I take back all the shit I gave you for your ugly gun."

Sias breathed out quietly. "Apology accepted."

I was contemplating the scandalous idea of burying my face into his shoulder like the affection starved mess I was, when I felt him bristle under my touch.

"You better have a damn good reason for being here right now," he growled, the rage rattling up from his chest. For a few horrible seconds, I thought he had somehow read my thoughts and was rejecting my shoulder nuzzling desires.

It wasn't until I leaned away from him did I noticed Austin standing a few feet away, hands empty to show he wasn't there for a fight.

"I'm not here to cause trouble," he was explaining, but Sias wasn't in the mood for any more Saint's Army bullshit that night.

"You're about to find it if you don't leave ," Sias continued to growl. "I still have bullets left, human."

"He's not here to fight," I told Sias, easing from his arms to stand on my good leg. "Let's hear him out."

"Three minutes." Sias checked his watch, which had somehow survived everything, even if it was sticky and gross. "Say your piece, then go."

Austin eyed Sias dubiously, eyebrow arched.

"You always let him boss you around, Wilde?"

"You really want to waste your minutes talking about the dynamics of our relationship?" I tapped the imaginary watch on my wrist. "Tick-tock, man."

"Alright, look." Austin exhaled, shifting gears. "I'm not going to ignore all the shit between us, and I'm not ready to say I trust you wholeheartedly. But I'm also not going to deny that this fight is going to be profoundly more difficult without your abilities. These rifts are dangerous, and while Magnus isn't ready to admit this yet, they're beyond what we're able to control."

"What are you proposing?" I asked. "You know damn well Magnus isn't going to be on board with us joining forces on this."

"No, he won't." Austin shrugged, wincing from the pull of pain in his side. "But what he doesn't know won't hurt him. I lead my own task force. I get to make that call."

"You want to team up?" I eased weight onto my injured leg to keep my balance, the pain sharp but not enough for me to waver.

"Officially, I'm to bring you in if I see you again. Unofficially, it would be stupid to fight this alone." Austin pulled out a folded piece of paper from one of his many vest pockets and carefully closed the gap between us. He held the paper out for me to take, which I did.

Inside the fold was a phone number, hastily scribbled down.

Austin continued, eyes pinning me in place.

"I believe you about Pierce. If you find out something, I'm asking you to call me."

"How do I know you won't turn me over to Magnus?" I held the paper in my hand, ready to throw it back in his face. "How do I know this isn't a trap, Austin?"

The yellow streetlight over his head made the lines under his eyes sharp, the wariness weighing down his shoulders making him seem to stoop like an old man. We were only a few years apart, yet it felt like I was watching him age in real time, graying from years of grief.

"You saved Paris and Haslet today," he said quietly. "The part of you that refused to surrender them to that vampire is worth trusting again. I'm asking you to do the same. Please."

My leg didn't throb as badly as I shifted my weight, taking a moment to put the paper safely in my pocket. It only took a few tries to swallow the knot in my throat.

I was thankful there weren't more words between us as he turned and left, because I wasn't sure if I had the strength to handle much more.

Austin disappeared back into the chaos of the scene we had left behind, just as the sound of tires rolled up behind me. The sleek, black car of one of Sias's hired drivers parked at the curb, a capped chauffeur rounding the back to hold the door for us. He was paid well never to ask questions, and didn't bat an eye at the state we were in.

Considering we were bloody and covered in sticky, black, vampire goo, the guy was a fucking pro.

The journey between getting into the back of the car and arriving back at Sias's home was a blur, as I'd quickly passed out once my ass hit the leather. My leg was on fire from my injury, bones aching for a hot shower and three days' worth of rest. I had to be shaken awake and practically shoved from the car to leave.

Waiting for us by the front door was a human woman with short, graying hair and a noticeable lack of laugh lines. She held a leather bag in her hand and a professional apathy across her face, greeting Sias with a head nod as we shambled up the steps. The stress of the fight was starting to show in Sias's stiff movement and the winces he failed to hide, but I knew better than to try and insist that I could move around on my own.

Just like with all of Sias's handsomely paid freelance specialists, Dr. Stoic didn't care that we were stained with mystery stuff and had literal bite marks in our skin. She gently poked and prodded our wounds, asking about any broken bones before she began to clean and heal.

I was voted to get healed first, and I fought to keep my eyes open as I wavered at the edge of the posh couch. My body felt like a discarded piece of abused gum, so I didn't feel like doing the gentlemanly thing of insisting Sias go first.

"Before I get you healed, I need to get the object out of your wound," the doctor said casually, cutting the jeans away from my leg so she had better access to the rows of jagged, torn skin.

"The what?" I balked, hissing a sharp inhale of pain as she gave me a shot of pain killers right into the damn wound. "Ow, fuck. Did you say object ? What object?"

She tapped something solid in my leg with her tweezers, and I felt bile bubble in my stomach. Whatever she drummed on was lodged deep enough to carry the vibration through the meat of my leg, and I made a series of very unflattering noises in front of the guy I had kissed earlier in the evening.

"Oh my God," I moaned. "If I throw up, will you still think I'm cute?"

"Don't throw up on my couch," he said dryly. "And I'll consider it."

"You're such a dick," I complained, trying to sound like I was joking, but my tone was far too whiny to be funny.

"Stay still please," Dr. Stoic said aiming her tweezers for the thing in my leg. In order to keep myself from flopping around and prolonging the process, I covered my face with my arms and complained the entire time she went fishing. I would've felt bad about being a total brat about the situation, but there was a goddamn thing in my leg and I had died earlier, so I felt pretty entitled to a meltdown.

To her credit, she didn't seem bothered. Or if she was, she kept it to herself like a professional.

After what felt like a lifetime of yelling about all the injustices my life was facing, the offending object was ripped free of my muscle and held up for examination.

"Looks like glass. Obsidian," she said, squinting. "The shape is strange though. It seems like the tip of a spear, or something like…"

"A fang," I managed to say while swallowing down a gag. "It's that damn void vampire's tooth. Ugh, that's so gross."

"Do you want me to dispose of it?" she offered, blinking in surprise when I held my hand out for it.

I grimaced as the bloody piece of vampire mouth fell into my palm. Since my clothing was likely going to be thrown out anyway due to the amount of nasty vampire crap all over it, I used a cleaner part of my shirt to wipe away the blood from the surface.

It wasn't a true obsidian color, but a red so deep and dark it gave the impression of black. The tooth was glassy to the touch and just as sharp, formed like it had grown out of a lightning strike instead of bone.

"Huh," I mused as I held it up to the light, which was swallowed instead of reflected. "It looks like the shit that was growing from the sand pit when the tear opened."

"Is it dangerous?" Sias asked, leaning over to peer at it. "Should we be worried it was in your body?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I fucking hope not."

Sias was not impressed with my answer.

"You're the vampire hunter here, Dallas. You have to have something more substantial than ‘I fucking hope not.'"

"That thing wasn't like anything I've seen before," I pointed out. "I don't know what rules a corrupted void vampire plays by. I would imagine it's not made to turn people, just eat them, otherwise it wouldn't have been trying to pull everyone into its belly."

"What is your educated guess then?" Sias pressed.

"We're lucky to be alive and got some kick ass scars from it," I said. "And if that thing wanted to turn us into vampires, it wouldn't have swallowed that guy. It would have been a catch and release situation."

Sias exhaled and fell back against the couch, his eyes melting back to a calm blue.

"Alright."

"Are we fine to proceed?" the doctor asked, glancing between us. "With the object out, I can use healing magic to finish."

"Yeah." I pocketed the tooth and leaned back. "Let's get this over with so I can bathe and sleep for a week."

One gloved hand was pressed against my knee, warmth radiating out from her touch in a familiar tickle of life magic ants crawling over me. Normally that meant relief was just a few minutes away, the magic would heal the ripped skin of my leg, ease the fatigue in my bones and give me some energy back.

The sudden shift to a cold sting made me hiss, just as she ripped her hand away and shut the whole process down.

All my pain remained. My leg was a bloody mess, my joints stiff, bruises continued to form where I had bounced off a brick wall.

My heart started to thunder.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, shaking her head like I was terminal.

"What?" Sias creased his brow, his pained body giving his voice a frustrated edge. "He needs to be healed. He has gashes in his legs, not to mention he was thrown into a wall and might have a concussion?—"

"Sir." She pinned him with a severe look, showing her palms. "I'll patch him up, clean his wounds and prescribe some pain killers, but I cannot heal this man."

Then she sadly said the words I had been longing to hear for months.

"There's too much death magic in him."