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*Warning - This is unedited :-).
To get old chapters, go to this link.
Chapter Ten
“What if he tries to hurt me?” I stared at my semi solid form in disbelief.
We were camped outside Shank’s farm in Happy Valley Oregon and Asher had done some spell to make me visible for the next twenty four hours or so.
Asher shrugged. “Then you might get hurt? How should I know? Do you want to be alive again or not?”
I did, and I wanted to stick it to Silas too, so I just needed to focus on that.
“You know the rules right? Shank is the alpha so don’t make eye contact or be disrespectful or touch him or anything.”
Shit! No, I didn’t know any of that. “Right. Sure.”
The clock was freaking ticking!
“I’ll make the introduction but then you’re on your own. I don’t need any beef with Shank.”
Yeah, no one needed any beef with a werewolf alpha named Shank.
With a steady breath, Asher and I went up to a gate and pushed a button over the intercom.
“What?” Growled a grumpy voice.
“It’s Asher. The owner of Muerte’s.”
Silence.
“The necromancer?”
Asher sighed. “Yeah. I’ve got a friend here with a business proposition for you.”
What? What business? Why was he leading me in there like this? I had no freaking clue what I was going to say.
The gate buzzed open and Asher reached behind me and pushed me forward.
“I’ll wait out here.” He declared.
“What? No. Come on man, don’t do this to me.”
“You’ll be fine. Get him to agree and then meet me back out here.”
Fine! I was not freaking fine… and the gate was closing. I burst forward and slipped in with Nimsy on my heels, just before it closed.
I was semi solid now so I couldn’t walk through shit. Looking back over my shoulder, I gave Asher a good long glare.
“Come on Nimsy. I am an independent woman who doesn’t need a man!” I shouted at Asher’s grinning face and stomped off to the Alpha’s front door.
Once I got there, I totally chickened out and didn’t knock. Would my semitransparent hand even be able to knock? I was standing there debating when the door wrenched open. And I came face to chest with a giant of a man.
My head craned up to see a bearded man with orange eyes glaring down at me. He looked intrigued. “Are you a ghost?”
“Kind of.” My voice squeaked. “I’m… Asher’s apprentice.”
He looked bored. “What’s your business proposition? I’ve got the UFC fight on in ten minutes.”
Crap.
“Well, I hear that we may have a common enemy? Silas, the vampire—”
He stepped back and opened the door wide. “Come in.”
Okay it looked like my ex was pissing off all the wrong people, which I was totally going to use it to my advantage.
Five minutes later, after having diarrhea of the mouth and watching Shank take down fifty buffalo wings, he looked at me curiously.
“You want me and my pack to help you steal from Silas and it has to be in the next six hours? If I do this, you will give me what exactly?”
His eyes kept flicking to the TV and I knew his fight was about to start. Time to bring in the big guns.
“Well, I’m actually a powerful fae. So once we steal the resurrection skull, Asher will bring me back and you will have lifelong unlimited favor from a powerful fae.”
Yeah I was winging it.
He chugged an entire beer and leveled his orange fiery gaze on me. “My girlfriend is fae. I don’t need a fae.”
FUCK!
“Well good, because that was like… the side thing I was going to offer you. The main thing is… that my boss Asher will bring anyone in your family back to life if they die. Including your fae girlfriend, or any of your pack members, because he can do that with the resurrection skull. And it will be free. But only one person!” I kept layering things on knowing with each word Asher was going to kill me.
But Shank looked pleased, mighty pleased. “Even myself?”
Shit. Could a resurrection skull bring back a werewolf? I mean, it could bring back a fae? So yeah.
“Totally.”
Nimsy was watching me from the corner with his mouth agape.
Shank stood, towering over me at at least seven feet tall, and wiped his greasy hands on his jeans. The dude was good looking, in a roided out gym rat, psycho killer kind of way.
“Deal. I’ll assemble the pack. After my fight.”
Deal, he said deal!
I grinned, nodding and then walking out with Nimsy to find Asher.
This is so awesome! I was totally coming back to life.
***
“You did what!?” Asher looked like he could breathe fire as he glared at me from where he sat on his motorcycle.
I squirmed. “I improvised. I mean come on, it’s just one itty bitty brining back to life. When the day comes to cash in the favor, I’ll throw you fifty grand so it’s not going to really be free.”
Asher looked down at his hands as if he was trying to tell them not to strangle me. “You’re a real piece of work you know that?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”
After shaking his head, he motioned to the back of his bike. “Get on.”
I had floated over here but now that I was semi solid I would need a ride.
Cool.
“So you’ll do it? Follow through with the deal I made with Shank?”
Asher glared at me. “Yes, I value my life, so I will do it. But I’ll need to keep the resurrection skull after I am done using it on you. I had planned on giving it back to you, but not now.”
Dammit that thing was probably worth millions.
“Fine.” I growled.
After straddling the back of the bike, Nimsy chilling in the saddle bag, I wrapped my arms around Asher.
Whoa. I was touching someone and it felt… nice. Like… real.
“Shank will expect a thoroughly executed game plan so we need to go home and make one.”
I gulped and he gunned the bike causing a thrill of emotions to tear through me.
Silas. I’m coming for you.
***
“I’m famished,” Nimsy complained as Asher cooked his salmon.
“You’ll live.” The necromancer growled at my cat before meeting my gaze. “Tell me again about what Silas said in his office.”
I sighed, we’d been over and over this. “He’s waiting for a shipment from Vanguard and he has to give whatever is in it to the Fae. And in return they’ll do a ceremony for Silas.”
Asher frowned, “What kind of ceremony? The fae are mostly healers, although a few of them do some more powerful and sinister stuff. Does he need to be healed?”
“I don’t know!” I screamed in frustration. “They just said the fae would do his ceremony with the skull.”
Asher dropped the spatula. “What!?” He wheeled around. “You didn’t mention that before, that the ceremony would be with the skull.”
I squirmed. “Oh, I didn’t?”
Asher growled. “I know what that bastard is up to!”
Leaning forward in my seat, I put my head on my hands. I didn’t want to miss a thing. “What?”
Asher shook his head in disbelief. “He’s going to try to become… a very, very powerful supernatural. Something I’ve only read about in books.”
“Tell me!” I was totally freaking out now.
“Well, every race has its flaws. Vampires can’t go out in sunlight and need blood, the werewolves are uncontrollable at the full moon. But if you had the ability to be all of them--a fae, vampire, werewolf, witch, hybrid--you would be a whole hell of a lot powerful.”
What. The. Hell. Did he just say?
“We can’t let Silas become that! How?”
“You’d need a healer, a fae, and a bunch of sacrifices. You’d basically kill a werewolf and use their blood along with the resurrection stone to make yourself all powerful.”
Oh my god. No way.
“Okay, okay, okay.” I tried not to panic. “We can do this. We just need to hijack them at the shipment drop off point. If Silas doesn’t get the shipment, he can’t get the Fae to do his ceremony. Even better, we can steal the skull from him, then.”
“Do you know where the shipment is going to be dropped off?” Asher gave Nim a plate of salmon.
“No.”
“Or when?”
“Eh, no.”
Nim looked up from the salmon he was devouring. “Not really prepared, are you?”
I hissed at him. “You were there too, you know. You could have figured it out.”
“I was wearing the murder bracelet, if you recall. And looking quite fabulous.” He preened.
Fair enough, he had looked fab in the murder bracelet. “It doesn’t matter. We know it’s a shipment from Vanguard. So we’ll just sneak into their office and figure out the where and when.”
“You want to break into the Vanguard office?” Asher sounded like he thought I was crazy.
And I was. Kinda. Vanguard was the most prestigious supernatural shipping company in the world. It was mostly just elite, terrifyingly dangerous delivery men who would get your valuable shit from point A to point B and they didn’t care who they murdered along the way.
So, yeah. Breaking in to their headquarters would be hard.
“It’s not like we’re rolling in choices, dude,” I said. “We just convinced Shank to help us screw over Silas and we’re going to need a location for that.”
Asher groaned and leaned back against the wall. “So we’re breaking into Vanguard.”
“Yep.”
“This is not what I signed up for.”
“Tough luck, man. You’re deep in this with me.”
“If you’re going to be my apprentice, you’re going to need to learn some respect.”
“Hmmm.” I nodded, as if I were agreeing. “Sure.”
“Whatever. When your cat is done eating, we’ll go.”
“You can call me Beast,” Nim said casually.
Asher raised an eyebrow. “Beast?”
“It’s my new name.” He shot me a glare. “Not that she remembers.”
I shrugged. “Sorry man, I think it’s going to have a hard time sticking.”
Nim grumbled. “Yeah, we’ll see about sticky. Pee is sticky.”
“Don’t pee on my stuff! Remember, we’ve got to save it for Silas.” I scolded my crazy cat.
Nim grinned at that.
Asher groaned and turned, walking out of the room. As he left, he shot over his shoulder. “Be ready in ten, and it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
Ten minutes later, Nim and I met Asher in front of his place. Muerte was already sitting in one of the saddle bags, his little head poking out. He wore a tiny black helmet and had a gleam in his eye.
“Ready to ride, suckers?” he asked.
“Please.” Nim pranced over and hopped into the other saddlebag. “I’m always ready.”
I climbed onto the bike behind Asher. In the spirit of full disclosure—ha, because I was a spirit—I didn’t hate wrapping my arms around him. In my semi-ghosty way, I could feel him, warm and strong beneath my grip. Thank god I had enough power over my physical form that I could sit on a bike, because this was pretty cool. Chihuahua in one saddle bag, snarky cat in another, and we were zipping down the highway to Vanguard.
Cool night air blew my hair back from my face and Nim’s whiskers fluttered in the breeze. Muerte watched the road with a steely gaze, as if he were ready for anything.
When we neared the compound that housed Vanguard’s offices, Asher pulled the bike over into the woods and found a secluded spot to leave it. Asher and I climbed off.
Nim jumped out of the basket. “Let’s go kick some tail.”
“No kicking, just sneaking.”
He gave me a hopeful look. “Maybe just a little kicking?”
“Fine. Play it by ear. You might get to do a little kicking.” I looked back at Muerte, who was still sitting in his saddlebag. “You coming?”
“Hell no, homie. I ain’t got a death wish. I’m going to take a nap here while you get yourself hurt.”
“Then why’d you come?”
“I just like the wind in my hair.” He gave a toothy smile. “Now it’s nap time. Later.”
He ducked down in the saddlebag.
I looked at Asher. “You’re just going to leave him out here in the woods?”
Asher shrugged. “He’s tough. He can get home if he wants to.”
“How?”
“He’s got his ways. Come on.” He turned and started through the woods, and I followed.
A moment later, we stepped up to the treeline where the forest gave way to a clearing. A building stood in the middle, and even from here, I could see the massive magical barrier that surrounded the structure. It glowed with a sparking white light, promising death to anyone who tried to get through. Humans wouldn’t be able to see the magic, but I could.
“Well hell, we’re screwed.”
***
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