“Shit, there are two living here.”

Liam gave a nod and winked at me, though his face was tired. “See, there’s always a reason for the crap that gets thrown at you.”

I checked the clock. Six at night. I didn’t want to wait another second. Milly and Pamela had been trapped with demons in the deep levels of the veil for too long as it was. Everything just seemed to be pushing us away from getting them out, and I couldn’t stand it.

“I’m going.” I jammed one more spoonful of ice cream in my mouth and stood.

Liam pushed his chair back. “How are you going to get there? No Blaz, no Eve. No cars in the garage.”

My jaw twitched. Shit, and I’d just pissed Will off and I doubted he would drive back out here. “I’ll walk. Hitchhike, or steal a car. I’ve done it all before.”

Without a backward glance I left the library, though the footsteps told me both Erik and Alex were following. Liam was not.

Erik caught up to me. “Rylee, you said there were weapons here. I’d like to load up before we’re off again.”

I nodded and at the next hallway intersection I took a left toward the armory.

Caught up in my own thoughts, I clung to the feel of the necromancer in the north. That was the one I’d go after. That one was incrementally closer, maybe two hundred miles, when the one to the southeast felt closer to three hundred. And if I was on foot and hitchhiking, closer was better. Shit, I hoped it wasn’t a young, inexperienced necromancer like Frank.

The armory was locked, the heavy wooden double doors identical to the library’s. On both sides of the door stood waist high blue vases with cracks and chips around the lips. One had a cactus in it, the other a dead tree that was mostly sticks and few barely-there leaves.

At the base of the cactus I scraped away the sandy dirt.

“Not a good place to hide a key,” Erik said.

I didn’t say anything. Jack had always said if someone wanted in badly enough, they would break his doors, and he hated fixing locks and hinges more than anything else. But I didn’t feel like explaining my dead mentor to Erik. Besides, half the time Jack wasn’t mentoring me, he was just pissing me off.

The key turned with a smooth click and the doors opened into complete darkness. No windows in the room, nothing but the lights overhead. I flicked the switch and they came on with a low buzz only crappy bulbs could do. The smell of leather, well-oiled steel and a tang of blood crept up my nose. I rubbed my face and headed to the back wall where the swords hung.

None of them were spelled, I could tell right away. I’d been hoping maybe Jack had Deanna do something to help him out.

Erik rumbled under his breath as he picked through the weapons. Alex sat in the middle of the room and stared at me, watching.

“What is it?” Did I expect anything profound or deep. Not really. But his words slithered around what was left of my hope and faith and squeezed them until they were blue in the face.

“Your heart sounds funny.”

Beside me, Erik’s breath caught in his throat. “What do you mean by ‘funny’?”

Alex tipped his head and one floppy ear stood straight up. “Different. Funny.” He shrugged then put a claw tip to his muzzle. “Don’t tell Boss.”

Fuck, there was no way I was telling Liam my heart sounded funny. Alex’s hearing and sense of smell were better than Liam’s. Maybe not by a lot, but enough that I trusted Alex.

So if he said my heart sounded funny, then I believed him. The last thing I needed was to get sick. My mind raced. Was that why I’d been so much more fatigued? My heart began to hammer in response and I listened to the pulse roaring in my ears for the sound of a tick or tremble.

“Nothing we can do about it now,” I said, but even I heard the shake in my voice. “We’ll get Milly and Pamela out and Milly can heal me from whatever this is. She can do that.”

Erik nodded and Alex gave me a big grin and two “thumbs” up. “Yuppy doody, let’s rescue the witchy witches.”

The truth was, I didn’t know if Milly could heal something that was a sickness. Injuries that had you on the brink of death, you bet. But sickness I wasn’t so sure. To keep my mind from dwelling on the possibility that something was seriously wrong with me, I Tracked the necromancers. I couldn’t Track them individually, because I didn’t know them or their names, but I could focus more on the one to the north for some reason. There was more of a pull to him for the threads I followed.

He, and I called him a he for simplicity’s sake, was pretty calm, relaxed. There was no stress in his life that I could tell.

That made me smile. Erik noticed.

“What’s got you grinning now?”

“That necromancer has no idea what’s coming for him. I feel a little bit bad.” I reached for a beautiful crossbow hanging on the wall, one that I’d shot a few times during practice.

“Really? You feel bad for someone who can raise the dead?”

“Not because of that, because I picked him to be our mark. He has no idea what’s coming for him.”

From the doorway, a swirl of air swept in with Liam. “I think I’ve got an idea.”

Now, when I said stuff like that, everyone cringed.

When Liam said it, no one cringed. But we should have.

Chapter 13

I clung to Erik as he drove the rickety old motorcycle across the English countryside in the dead of night as the rain poured. Yeah, it was a fucking tea party. The old engine sputtered once with me on the back, so I was grateful for that small mercy.

Teeth gritted, I kept my head down and eyes closed. The jarring of the bike bouncing off the ruts in the ground felt like I’d driven my spine deep into the back of my head. Not pleasant.

Beside us, Liam and Alex loped along, having no difficulty keeping up. As if to emphasize how easy it was for them, twice they started a wrestling match mid stride, tumbling over one another, through puddles and mud. To be fair though, I saw the way Alex would cock his head a split second before he’d pounce on Liam. Liam tolerated him, like he would a young wolf in the pack.

“North?” Erik hollered over the wind and rain. I tapped his back once for “yes,” a system we’d worked out starting this miserable ass journey. Twice meant “no” and he would question the direction until I tapped once.

From what I felt of the threads of the necromancer, we were about halfway there. I Tracked Pamela and Milly, felt Milly’s concern and fear. Pamela was not yet awake and that was starting to freak me out.