Chapter 22

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

Dex pushed her goggles up into her hairline, popping a gum bubble across her tusks.

“Yep.” She gathered the gum back into her mouth. “That’s some sophisticated shit.”

“And?” I encouraged, standing out of the way of the TV so her dad didn’t yell at me again. “Do you know who made it?”

“Nope.” She plucked the dented piece of plastic from where it had been clamped under a magnifying glass and tossed it back to me. “What I can tell you is that whoever did make this has a setup I want to see. It takes some high-powered tools to wire together charms, enchantments and bio magic like this.”

“Can you recreate it?” Sias asked, flanking her other side. “Craft something that keeps the effects of this tech from reaching us?”

“Nothing that complicated, not with the limited tools I have here. I can get you three some strong blockers, but I don’t know if it’ll work against this.”

“Dex. They’re using this shit on vampires.” I pinched the tech between my fingers, feeling the bite of the prongs against my skin. “I don’t know how fast this is going to spread or what their plans are.”

“Hey, I believe you, Wilde. I’m just being honest. I don’t have an industrial setup to match that level of technology.” Dex swiveled in her chair. “The center of that chip has an ossified feldspar to boost the necromancy magic, crystalized jinn tears, enhancement charms, and a boon to keep it self-contained while also creating a frequency feedback loop. It’s insane, and I don’t know how they did it. That level of energy should be impossible, especially while traveling through a body.”

“Undead bodies don’t behave the same as living ones,” Zane offered. “Maybe they can be managed since the energy powering them is sourced from the void.”

“Gods.” Sias’s disgust was turning into horror at breakneck speed. “We might be in over our heads on this.”

“If we don’t stop it now, we absolutely will be.” I gave the chip back to Dex. “Keep this. Take it apart, figure out what you can.”

“You sure?” She caught it as I tossed it back. “You could probably sell this to a tech company and make millions.”

“Did you not hear us just discussing how this is being used on vampires? I don’t give a shit about millions, because we’re all going to be vamp dinner if we don’t destroy this.”

“I’m just sayin’.” Dex shrugged. “Before I go ripping it to pieces, I wanted you to know your options.”

“Noted,” I said slowly. “Do I need to worry about you selling it off? Be honest with me, Dex. You’re the best there is, but I need someone we can trust.”

“I’ll make you a deal, Wilde. You finance my research, I’ll keep your scary vamp tech a trade secret. I wanna know how this shit works so I can be a weird billionaire who makes flying cars and shit.” She tilted her head in thought. “Otherwise, I can’t guarantee I won’t be tempted by future offers.”

Dex’s eyes lit up as Sias sighed, setting a roll of bound bills onto the desk beside her.

“Before you sell it off, or if anyone makes you an offer, come to me first. I’ll outbid them.” Sias kept his hand on the money before she had a chance to reach for it. “I’m a good friend to have, but I can be a real bastard when pushed.”

“I can always use more friends.” Dex popped another bubble. “I hear you loud and clear.”

“Great.” Sias lifted his hand so she could pocket the cash. “You mentioned you could make us some magic blockers? We need three. The strongest you have.”

“Aye-aye.” She spun in her chair, pulling out her supplies.

“What is the plan?” Zane crossed his thick arms over his chest. “We march into this place and start taking people out?”

“We approach it like we do any vampire den,” I said. “We scout, look for entries, and either lure them out or infiltrate.”

“What about if we find living people there?” Sias came to stand with us, joining the planning process. “Or a necromancer?”

“If it’s a necromancer, leave them to me. That’s my bread and butter. Any living people there we’ll pull out and see if they’re willing participants in whatever this shit is, or if they’re hostages.”

“I think we should treat this as recon and wait,” Sias pitched. “Going in half-cocked sounds risky, especially with this level of tech.”

“Going in half-cocked is my MO.” I glared at Zane as he said my words at the same time I did. He also said, “Fuck you, Zane” at the same time, so I punched his chest.

“This would be adorable if we weren’t possibly putting my life in danger.” Sias watched us like we were very amusing puppies chewing on his shoes. “Let’s reel in the foreplay.”

“Normally, I’d agree on the recon,” I told Sias. “But I want to at least cause some chaos to disrupt the operation while we figure out what’s going on. I don’t want to give them room to breathe.”

“If you can get me into the building, I can work on intel,” Sias offered.

“I’ll cover you,” Zane said to Sias. “Dallas can handle the chaos part.”

“I have no doubt,” Sias agreed.

“Gentlemen,” Dex interrupted. “A strand of hair each, if you please. I need to calibrate the blocker not to interact with your natural magic.”

“If you use this to track or hex me, I’ll sue you into oblivion,” Sias warned, plucking a string of gold from his scalp. “Or I’ll have Dallas kill you.”

“You say such sweet things,” Dex drawled, taking each of our hairs without any care to the threats. She tied each strand of hair to the top of a round charm she was threading through a keychain, reinforcing it with a thick piece of nylon. The charms had been pre-enchanted by a witch, her skills coming from construction and tech rather than the magic composition herself.

Whoever she was using as a magical source was a mystery even to me, but I was constantly impressed with the strength of it.

Our charms were calibrated inside what used to be a small keychain-sized game with a digital pet to take care of. The guts of the game had been stripped so only the shell remained, complete with a fake screen that displayed a happy, sleeping egg to shield the truth from nosy inspectors.

Each of us was tossed a fake NanoBuddy, ready to keep the bad magic away while not tripping up our own.

“If you find any more of that interesting tech while you’re dismantling the evil vampire empire, do bring it to your favorite oni?” Dex batted her eyes at us.

“That’s the plan.” I spun my NanoBuddy around and slipped it into my pocket. “Thanks, Dex.”

She motioned for us to shoo, rotating back to her infatuation with the small device I had brought her, so we took our cue and left.

Armed with our blockers, a vague plan and some life essence bullets (that Sias loaded into my gun for me, so I didn’t get turned into crispy necromancer bacon), we made our way to the old railway Preston had told us about.

The southern most point of St. Athesall was past Lower Lovett, through the posh neighborhoods that fattened the city with a growing population of suburbs. The area had been similar to the Swallows decades ago, with structured housing and old buildings abandoned after the economy took a punch during a post-war decline. Somewhere along the way, some wealthy real estate types decided to do some rebranding, scooping up properties and flipping them into high-end establishments for the wealthier city folk to flock to.

It chased out the generations that had been planted there, shoved them further into the Swallows and sprinkled them throughout Midtown, walling off the uglier bones of what had been the industrial area. The old railway was one of those leftover relics, tossed aside and left to rot after it was no longer needed. Within the bowels of this old train station was the medical area that had been used for soldiers shipped back to the city after fighting.

It sounded like it would be super haunted and was not on my “must visit” list.

But here we were, rolling up to it like it was the place to be.

The metal skeleton of what used to be the train station stood in all its decaying majesty, filled with jagged bits of stained glass and birds’ nests. A lazy fence had been erected around the entrance; some wood had fallen away where it had been nailed over windows. Puddles of rainwater reflected the scenery in black and white, mirroring the gray sky.

A chill bit through my coat, and I shivered.

This place had a cold to it that wasn’t tied to the weather.

“Lots of places to enter from.” I eyed the crumbling building, stepping around large puddles. “Perfect nest if they’ve gotten inside.”

“I can do a quick look.” Zane scanned the area quickly. “Look for any electronic activity and take down cameras.”

“Go for it. Sias and I will hang back for now.”

I’d seen Zane do his cool vampire mist thing just a few times, and it was still kinda badass to witness. He fell away into a shadow, lifting up into the breeze like he was made of black vapor before whipping through the air in a swarm. The cloud of Zane traveled to the building in a silent breath, disappearing into the cracks.

“That is a neat trick,” Sias mused. “Can he take other forms?”

“Not that I know of.” I checked my gun out of reflex, then made sure my knives were secure. “I wish I made some explosives before we left. That would really get the party started.”

“I have no doubt you can do plenty of damage with what you have.”

“Yeah, but it’s always more fun with dynamite.” I breathed out some steam into the air, the cold catching on my lips. “This place gives me the creeps in a big way.”

Sias hummed in an agreeable tone, coming to stand beside me so we glared at the foreboding building together.

“I’m glad you figured it out, by the way,” he said.

“Where the building is?” I glanced at him, surprised to see him smirking.

“No, darling. Zane.”

My planning brain rattled as heat trailed up my neck. I got a little fidgety, which was never attractive.

“It’s ah…complicated,” I stumbled out.

“Is it?”

“He’s a vampire. I kill those,” I mentioned, like maybe he had forgotten my other job. “So, it’s been a little messy to navigate. I kinda have some hang-ups about…” I shoved my hands into my pockets to stop picking at my knife sheath. “About whatever this is between us.”

There was a beat of silence, my words hanging in the cold like our soft clouds of breath. I swiveled to pin the still-smiling incubus with a sharp look.

“The fuck you mean ‘figured it out’?”

“You sweet, summer child.”

“Don’t give me that. This—” I gestured between myself and the building. “Wasn’t a ‘figure it out’ thing. This was a spur-of-the-moment, standing in a cemetery after confronting trauma thing. Plus, blood magic makes us horny. You know. You’ve been there.”

“I have,” he purred, eyes dancing from lilac to a rose pink. “So I know what I tasted.”

My little emotional blocker must have been working overtime with how wild my heart was racing, how much of a tailspin my mind was in. It was annoying how badly my feet wanted to move, how antsy my body became under his gaze.

“I wasn’t sure if…” I huffed, almost bailing on what was on my mind, leaving it to die without giving it a fighting chance. “…if it would further fuck things up. With us.”

The rose pink in his eyes changed to a burned orange, then slid dark blue.

“I’m sorry I hit Bastian,” I said, since I had already gotten that far. “That night sucked and I handled it like shit. I’m especially sorry now because I never got the chance to make it right. But, Sias, I really needed you that night.”

“Bastian deserved to get punched for violating your boundaries, Dallas,” Sias cut in immediately. “I would have done it myself. That wasn’t what pissed me off.”

“Seriously?” I shrugged, helpless and more confused than ever. “Then what?”

The emotions painting Sias’s gaze took a deep amber hue, black-rimmed and freezing blue in the center. I had never seen something so beautiful and heartbreaking. His face remained impassive, stony and calm, all while his soul churned in a rainbow of agony.

“You called yourself my ‘little fuck toy,’” he whispered. “You reduced what we were into something small and disposable. I take the relationships I have with my favorites very seriously. It hurt. I refuse to be hurt, Dallas Wilde.”

I didn’t think my heart could crack the way it did.

It didn’t split down the middle so much as crumble, fragmenting into tiny pieces to spill like gravel down into my stomach.

I didn’t think Sias could be hurt. Hell, I thought the man was made of steel and resolve, an unflappable machine of will and sex appeal. With one bad night, one moment of anger and hurt, I had wounded him with a few poison words.

I tried to speak, but the resolve I had was now dust in my stomach, a pitiful pile next to my heart. Sias said nothing, only acknowledging another presence when Zane arrived back.

The mist settled into an outline of his body, taking form as a shadow before materializing back into his flesh-and-bone self.

“I found footprints in two points, and it looks like they lead down into the medical area. No cameras. We can go in together and split down below if needed.”

“Great,” I croaked, swallowing down a lump of dry anguish. “Did you see any signs of grunts? Hear any noises?”

“None.” Zane studied me for a second before moving on. “They must be down below. My charm picked up repellent magic, but nothing else.”

“We’ll go in together, start sweeping the place.” I nodded. “Lead the way, mist man.”

To say the silence hanging between Sias and me was awkward was like saying the ocean is wet. My chest felt like an elephant had made a nice cushion out of my ribcage, but I quietly ignored the ache as we made our way into the new nightmare lair.

Zane had been underselling the intensity of the repelling magic surrounding the entryway, the blocker NanoBuddy in my pocket heating up from the effort of dispelling the hex. It was strong—an aura that would have made us so uncomfortable it could have caused us to burst out crying or throw up. As it was, the hex made me feel uneasy and nervous, but I was able to push past it like it was merely a loud invasive thought.

Zane led the way down the dark stairwell leading into the basement level, a generator hummed beyond the stone walls keeping dim lighting trailing through the hallways. An old sign directing people to the infirmary was rusted off the screws, and there was grit tucked into the tiniest of crevasses throughout.

I didn’t know what the hell was up with vampires and old, abandoned hospitals, but this was the second one in less than a month. I was over how creepy it was.

“If we end up in another morgue, I’m going to be pissed,” I muttered.

“Is this a pattern with you?” Sias asked. “Should I be concerned?”

“It’s not me,” I countered. “It’s vampires. They have no imagination, present company included.”

“Focus,” Zane grumbled. “What is your magic detector telling you, hunter?”

“Nothing we don’t already know.” I put my hand over my pocket, my tiny charm buzzing with warnings of the hex we passed through along with the hum of death magic.

Echoes trailed up the belly of the building, scraping noises and rushed footsteps skittering around like cockroaches with fangs. My charm gave a little buzz of warning, and I pulled my gun loose. Sias fell into step behind me, Zane taking rear, and we traveled forward with careful steps as we listened to the pitter-patter of dead things.

Faded and torn propaganda posters were still clinging to the walls for dear life, a frozen time capsule of when the world was ready to tear itself apart. There was a bitter irony in seeing a scrap of the “Vampire Scourge” flyers they had littered the city with during the last necromancy uprising crumpled next to some discarded plastic.

While I was thankful I could see, my warning bells were ringing that the lights were still present as we continued. Necromancers kept their little paradises dark for their pets to keep their aggression down, and this place was practically glowing throughout. There wasn’t a trace of the smell of death or bones tossed around from feeding.

Something was wrong.

This place was wrong somehow.

If only I had known just how right I was.

I saw a flash of a grunt rush past the bend of a hallway, growling and gnashing its teeth. The hissing scuffle of his little pack wasn’t far, and had there been a smell of blood, I would be sure they were feeding on something. The thing had run like it was zeroing in on something delicious, so they’d likely been distracted. Bonus. I heard Sias pull a bullet into his gun and ready it, his footsteps right behind me.

Over my shoulder, I made sure a set of rainbow and red eyes met mine, and they each gave me a nod before I led the way to the fight. I kept us quiet and fast, knees bent and weapon primed. Pressing my shoulder to the wall, I peered around the corner to get a better idea of just how many grunts we might be up against.

It was rare that a pack of vampires could surprise me.

I had been killing them so long, so consistently, that I knew exactly how the thoughtless, primal monsters behaved. They were easy to understand and track once you’d seen them: move fast, kill faster, feed until they couldn’t anymore, then sleep until the next dinnertime. They traveled together for optimal slaughter, took orders from their messenger proxies usually, and killed anything they could see.

I had never seen them standing docile before in my life.

Especially not in their attempt at a parade rest.

Six grunts stood facing each other, framing the double doors leading into an area of the hospital that was likely used for surgery. It was nearly impossible for the mindless drones to stand still, their bodies twitching and jerking like the effort was driving them more insane. One was chewing on its own tongue to give it something to focus on, red eyes stuck forward.

That, my friend, is what I call a big-ass red flag.

It wasn’t just waving, it was bellowing in the breeze from a massive air horn to get the fuck out .

“Nope. Nope.” I signaled for us to go backward. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

“What’s going on?” Sias whispered, taking a few steps back as I started retreating.

Zane furrowed his brow. “Hunter, what?—”

“Fuck this place. Fuck all of whatever this is. We’re out. Zane, take lead, let’s go. Now.” I was practically shoving Sias as I rotated around.

Of course, of fucking course , there was another surprise waiting for us at the other end.

The green-eyed messenger vampire smiled at us from the body of an incubus. His throat had been ripped, dry blood coating the front of his university sweater, but he spoke clear and with a false sense of friendliness.

“Dallas Wilde.” The voice was splintered and wrong, magic tugging on dead vocal cords and warping the voice of the necromancer controlling it.

“No, thank you,” I answered back. “Whatever this is, I’m out. Not interested.”

“I think I can change your mind,” the creature said. “And you’ll want to see what’s behind that door.”

“Doubt it.” I took aim of my gun and fired, putting a blessed bullet through its head. The messenger jerked and fell into a melting tangle of bone and muscle, sizzling before burning into a gray ash.

“Go, go, go,” I urged my two teammates, herding them back the way we came. Another messenger was coming down the hallway, and it got one word out before I shot it. Then another.

And another.

And wouldn’t you know it, a fucking fourth one.

That wasn’t the part that put a thorn in my side and made me angry. I could take out waves of vampires all day. It was the fact that the way we came in had been blocked off by a steel gate and padlocked shut, forcing us to travel through an area we hadn’t been before.

It didn’t take a genius to know we were being funneled into a trap, but we weren’t left with much of an option.

We only had so many bullets and if they decided to shut the lights off and send the grunts after us, we were a few shades of fucked.

“Zane.” I pressed my back against a wall and peered down a hallway, checking it for another damn messenger before looking at him. “If this goes sideways, you need to keep Sias safe.”

“I’m not a damsel in this scenario, Dallas,” Sias scoffed. “I can handle myself.”

“Not against waves of grunts. Not in the dark.” I looked to my Thrall. “Keep him safe.”

Zane gave me a nod, his hand drifting to Sias’s back.

“You don’t have to sacrifice your men,” another voice called from the neighboring hallway. “If you’d just listen.”

A pulse of fear magic hit my stomach like a gut punch, almost doubling me over from the rush of adrenaline. Sias exhaled like he’d been struck, Zane snarled against the attack and pulled Sias closer out of reflex. The little NanoBuddy in my pocket tossed out an electric sting from being overloaded, and I hissed at the pop of pain.

“What the hell do you want ?” I yelled, adjusting my hand on my gun. “I know you have magic tech that can manipulate vampires. You don’t have to show off.”

“We can keep chasing you until you run out of bullets, until we send all the grunts after you. Or, you could come talk. Door is open,” the voice called, an older man from the sounds of it.

“If I come talk, will you let them go?” I countered. “You’re annoying me with this cat and mouse bullshit.”

“Of course. After we talk.”

I moved my hand in a talking clam shell and rolled my eyes. “Fine.”

The sound of a door opening made me peer around the corner, scowling at the messenger vampire occupying an older oni man’s body. The fear magic had calmed but didn’t evaporate, which made him seem much bigger and foreboding than he actually was.

“Go into mist and get out of here,” I whispered to Zane. “Find a way to get the front open and clear a path.”

Zane shook his head. “Not leaving you.”

“I got this,” I hissed. “I need you to get us out of here.”

“We stick together, Dallas,” Sias joined team Zane, like a beautiful jerk. “We’re not leaving you now.”

“You both suck.” I rubbed my face with my free hand, exhaled the tingle of dread mixed with the soft gooey feelings of them being so stupidly loyal, and turned the corner to meet my fate.

I kept my gun in my hand as we approached the messenger, the door he was standing next to was open. The creature stood like a polite butler, arms folded behind its back as he waited patiently for us to meander inside. I didn’t rush into the room without peering into it first, underwhelmed by the old examination equipment shoved inside.

A bed was wheeled to the back, a table with a flip-top, glass jars with cotton balls and tongue depressors sat ignored on a dusty desk.

“You wanna bend me over and tell me to cough?”

The messenger didn’t respond, only waited as we piled into the room.

“What the hell is this?” Sias scowled at some dust that got on his coat, brushing it away. “This seems overly dramatic.”

“Someone has gone out of their way to get my attention. I’m flattered, but really not that hard to get ahold of.”

“Something is off, hunter.” Zane flexed his hands like he was gearing up for a fight. “This was too calculated.”

The messenger turned so its body framed the door, fear magic still pouring off in small waves.

“Discard your weapons and slide them to me,” he commanded with easy authority.

I laughed. “Hell no, man.”

“I’m going to have to insist.”

“I mean, I can just shoot another messenger to make it clear I’m not giving up my weapons.”

“And I can make another,” the necromancer behind the messenger threatened. “You have a fixed amount of bullets; I have plenty of bodies.”

The magic inside the vampire played tricks on us, warping the creature’s face into a monstrous nightmare of teeth and malice. I saw Sias turn away to gag, whatever he was seeing was starting to twist him up. Zane looked pale, his scowl still in place, but I didn’t miss how he barely schooled the fear tugging at his eyes.

“Saints, I’m really going to kick your ass when I meet you.” I set my gun on the ground and slid it over, motioning for Sias to do the same. He did so reluctantly, and breathed a sigh of relief when the fear magic eased.

The messenger scooped our guns up and stepped aside as two familiar faces darkened the doorway.

“Reynolds?” I blinked at my shady doctor from the Swallows, who stood next to the tall, foreboding figure of Florence Pierce’s assistant, Hei. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Reynolds wasn’t wearing his white doctor’s coat, which made him seem smaller and somehow naked. The glowering stare he had on his face was even more out of place, because I had only ever seen the guy in various states of apathy. It was clear as day this guy hated my damn guts, and I couldn’t recall what I did to piss him off.

Which, to be fair, wasn’t out of the ordinary, but it did make the puzzle a little harder to crack.

“Dallas Wilde.” Hei gave a polite bow, her ruby eyes sharp. “I appreciate your compliance.”

“Lovely place you got here, Hei. Really gross and creepy.” I rotated my hand in a slow circle away from my body. “Can we speed this up? Why did you want me here and why do you have my doctor with you?”

“I’m not your doctor,” Reynolds barked. “I know what you are now. I don’t treat monsters.”

That stung more than it should. It wasn’t like we were friends, but I had been going to him for a couple years now. Hell, I think I must have personally financed the guy’s second house from the amount of money I threw at him for my various injuries.

“Rude,” I told him. “You could have just referred me to someone else. Didn’t need to call me ‘monster.’”

“What else do you call necromancers?” Reynolds set his frown so solidly on his face I thought it was going to split in half.

“Dude.” I pointed at the messenger vampire hanging out by the door. “Who the fuck do you think is doing that? You’re still working with a necromancer. The difference between me and that dick is that I don’t make vampires out of murder victims.”

“Greater good.” He snarled. “Something you wouldn’t understand.”

“Ah. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were crazy. I’m done with you.” I dismissed him with a wave of my hand, turning to the big oni woman staring me down. “What is this, Hei? Is this Florence flexing her power or did you go rogue?”

“I’m here for the Goddess’s blade,” she answered calmly. “I need you to hand it over.”

“Shit out of luck there, I’m afraid. We found the tomb, but no blade.”

Hei watched me, impassive and stony.

“He’s telling the truth,” Zane added. “You can check the apartment. We ran into the Saint’s Army down there but we didn’t find any blade. Maybe they took it.”

“If they have it, they’ll be trying to destroy it. That’s going to be a better lead than us,” I tacked on. “I want to get paid, remember?”

“I want to know why in the hell you went after Bastian,” Sias stepped up, anger storming his yellow eyes. “He had nothing to do with this, and you turned him into a vampire. You stabbed some tech into his brain. You tell me why. ”

“The blade, Wilde,” Hei insisted again, still annoyingly calm. “I know you have it. Give it to me, and this can end much easier.”

“I don’t have your stupid blade. By the way, you two jackasses called it a ‘key’ which made things confusing. It took me getting into a scuffle with the Saint’s Army to know what the fuck was going on.” I scoffed at her. “This tough act is just wasting time. I don’t have your shit, and you owe Sias some answers.”

Hei held out her hand to my former doctor, who extracted a small vial from his pocket.

“Is it ready?” she asked him and he nodded.

“We haven’t had a chance to do a lot of trials, but the results have been amazing so far.”

“Good.” Hei reached behind her waist, which was bound with a thick sash like always. A small gun was removed, the vial slipping into the body of the weapon with a soft, priming hiss.

“Why Bastian?” Sias yelled, his step forward aggressive enough for me to stop him. “You killed him. You explain yourself or I’m going to rip you apart!”

Hei flicked her eyes to him for just a moment.

“He volunteered.”

“Bullshit,” Sias hissed. “No one volunteers to get turned into a vampire.”

“They do,” Hei corrected, her words poison and landing with devastating accuracy. “When they have nothing else to live for.”

“Easy.” I held Sias back as he tried to surge forward, eyes as vicious and sharp as yellow blades. “Not here. Relax.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Sias promised her. “There’s nowhere safe on this planet from me.”

“This is your last chance, Wilde,” Hei continued, back to ignoring Sias. “The blade.”

“I don’t have it,” I growled through my teeth. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here with the necro magic, but this shit is going to stop. This is too far. You have to see how insane this is, Hei.”

Hei watched me with the bored, patient expression of an old teacher explaining something to a child.

“When a necromancer develops their power, they develop naturally forming crystals against their ribcage, as I’m sure you’re aware.” She tilted her head to Reynolds. “Those can be seen on x-rays. As can an abundance of them developing into the shape of a blade.”

“You’re full of shit,” I snapped, my heart starting to hammer. “I think I would be able to feel if there was a blade manifesting in my damn chest.”

“It took me a while to figure out what I was looking at,” Reynolds admitted. “But once I knew it was necromancy feldspars, I went to Hei. I couldn’t stand knowing someone like you held that kind of power inside. You have to be stopped.”

“I’m honestly the lesser of two evils here, man. I even paid you on time! You know how rare that is for me?” I made sure Sias wasn’t going to attack before I turned to Hei again. “I don’t know what the hell you want from me. Killing us isn’t going to help the damn situation, nor is fucking with people we care about.”

“Florence has to be stopped,” Zane agreed. “This is too much. You’re manipulating things you don’t understand.”

“I follow my master’s will,” Hei told Zane. “That’s our purpose.”

Zane studied her like she was an alien for a second, confusion shifting into horror. I didn’t have time to ask him what it was he saw, what her words meant in terms of what was in store for us.

An arctic dread clouded over me, my limbs locking into place like I was a cornered mouse staring down the maw of a starving cat. My neck began to burn, my scars itching, my breath freezing in my lungs.

I was petrified, my feet stuck to the ground as my mind tried to reason with myself. The fear magic wasn’t like anything I had ever felt before—it was supercharged, a nuclear blast of terror I couldn’t escape from.

Hei’s tusks had curled out like ram horns, eyes fire, voice of the devil come to life.

“I was instructed that I was not allowed to threaten Sias or Barnaby, per your request,” Hei told me, as she lifted her hand and fired the dart gun into Zane’s leg. She moved so unnaturally fast that it seemed like a blink, the sound happening well after the needle was already in his leg.

Zane ripped it from himself, sweating and pale from the fear magic she had blasted us with.

“What the hell did you give me?” he demanded. “What was that?”

“A new type of tech,” Reynolds added, glaring at Zane like he was made of spiders. “Nanotech for healing internal organs.”

Whatever fear had been lancing through Zane was nothing compared to what Reynolds said, and he went ghostly white as he grabbed his leg.

“They’re bluffing,” Sias snapped. “That type of thing isn’t real. That’s science fiction.”

“No, it’s not.” Reynolds laughed, and I knew then and there that I was going to have to murder this guy. “And it works great on vampires.”

“Stop,” I forced myself to speak. “Turn it off.”

“The blade,” Hei repeated. “Now, Wilde. You don’t have much time.”

The fear magic eased back to let me move, my heart hammering as I rushed to Zane. For a few hopeful na?ve seconds, I believed that Sias had been right about them bluffing. Nanotechnology wasn’t exactly prevalent out of sci-fi movies, and that would be one hell of a scary lie.

Zane fell as part of his leg disintegrated, hitting the ground and scrambling backwards. Sias fell to his knees beside him, whipping his belt off to try and make a tourniquet around Zane’s thigh.

“Ease your breathing, slow your blood pressure,” Sias was telling him, pulling the belt as tight as he could. Zane screamed from the pain of the belt and growing panic, his foot turning to ash inside of his boot.

“Turn it off!” I wheeled on Hei and the doctor. “Turn it off or I swear to the Gods?—”

“You have five minutes before he’s gone, Wilde. Give me the blade.”

Icy tendrils curled around my arms, my fingers shaking with rage. My death magic coiled and started to flow, my chest knocking and grinding.

“I’m going to rip you apart. I’m going to kill?—”

I shuddered at the punch of fear magic that gripped me, my temples pounding as I tried to fight it back. Hei stared into me with ruby spears, her magic so strong it forced me to my knees. My chest felt like the bone was splintering as I kept ahold of my death magic, the tendrils slippery and wild.

“Dallas!” Sias called out, his calm resolve slipping. I turned to see the tourniquet fall away as the magic tech in Zane’s blood melted his leg away, part of his hip caving in.

“Gods, no. Please,” I set my jaw. “Turn it off, Hei! Please!”

“The blade.” She held out her hand. “Now.”

“Don’t,” Zane pleaded, his breathing shallow. “Don’t, hunter.”

“We can get it back,” Sias said quickly, meeting my gaze. His eyes were pale gray, almost white with mounting terror. “Hurry.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, putting my hand to my chest where the grind of the scythe’s handle made my body ache. My heart was stuck between my ribs in a rapid panic, my lungs shaking as I drew in my best attempt at a calming breath. I didn’t know if I could get the blade out without Zane, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to sit there and watch him die.

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t make it without him.

Trying to focus on anything other than my terror was almost impossible, but I held my breath and forced myself to remember back to the cemetery.

I remembered his lips, the color of his eyes under the silver moon, a silent smirk playing across his fangs after he came clean about the ritual mantra.

I held in my mind how he tasted, and how sweet it was to hear him confess:

I knew I was going to be your vampire.

My chest eased, the grind popping through my chest like it had been waiting for the door to open. I grabbed the hilt with one hand and tugged, forcing it through from my body. Once I had enough through, I used both hands to pull it free with a shout.

The blade stared back at me, crimson and dancing with void magic, the handle twisting itself into alignment.

Reynolds had gone white, Hei’s ruby eyes pulsed with eagerness.

“You want it so badly?” I snarled, exhausted and shaking. “Catch.”

I tossed the blade to the oni woman, grinning at knowing the moment she touched it, her arm would be turned to bone like Barnaby’s had. She wasn’t undead, wasn’t a creature of death, so that scythe was going to eat her up until there was nothing left.

I was wrong.

Hei caught the blade and looked it over, the death magic within it doing nothing to terrorize her body. Seeing the blade for the first time in her grasp, Hei finally smiled.

And I saw her fangs.

The oni woman was a Thrall. An impossible, reality-bending vampire Thrall.

“Impossible,” I breathed from the devastation of seeing her fangs. “Only humans can be Thralls. What the fuck are you?”

“Something else,” she whispered. “Beyond you, little necromancer.”

“Dallas!” Sias screamed, turning my blood to ice.

I whipped around to see Zane gasp, his stomach caving into the ground. One of his arms was gone, his hips and everything below now dust.

“I gave you what you wanted,” I told Hei, begging. “Turn off the tech. Don’t kill him, please.”

Hei was done noticing me, done giving a remote shit about what was happening beyond the blade in her hand. I watched the oni vampire turn her back on me and leave with my scythe, motioning for the messenger to shut the door behind her. Reynolds followed like a puppy, and the door was slammed in my face as I charged for them.

I pounded on the door with my fists, slamming my shoulder into it until I felt something sting, my voice raw from screaming for them to come back.

“Dallas!” Sias’s wailing finally cut through, snapping me from my rage to face what was waiting for me.

I gathered Zane into my arms after I rushed to his side, the healing magic sizzling away most of his chest as he stared up at me, red eyes wide and dancing.

“Hunter,” he wheezed, his one remaining hand reaching up to touch my cheek.

“We can fix this,” I was saying, my mouth repeating it as I ripped my knife from my pocket and sliced into my palm. “Drink, quick. Maybe we can counter the healing, make it stop?—”

“No.” Zane swallowed, pressing his palm into my cheek. “Listen to me. Dallas, look at me.”

“Zane, drink. Drink, goddamnit.” I tried to put my palm to his mouth but he shook his head, slipping his hand behind my head to pull me closer.

“You’re going to be okay,” he whispered, voice growing weak. “It’ll be okay.”

“I can’t do this,” I confessed, starting to shake so badly I couldn’t breathe. “Zane, please. Please.”

I was pulled down so our brows touched, and I would never forget how warm he felt. How soft his hair was when I pushed my fingers into it.

Grave flowers and rain.

Stupid long hair and scowling.

Too many books tossed around my apartment, and a tiny kitten screaming from his lap.

I couldn’t fathom a world without all of it.

I couldn’t live in that world.

Zane whispered, a smile on his lips.

“I can always find you. Always.”

Then it was dust.

And nothing.

And Zane was gone.