Chapter Nine

They’re Coming

 

I called Shane as Clayton drove us out of the hospital parking lot. “Where are you?”

“I’m heading home,” he replied. “I just got off the phone with Angus. Himself has called a meeting in Willow-Wisp and they’re waiting for us.”

“Oh.” A little ping of nervousness hit my insides. Himself would make anyone nervous. “Did you see Crawford?”

“No.”

I hung up. “Himself called a meeting in Willow-Wisp,” I told Clayton. “We have to get back to Bay Town.”

He nodded and drove a little faster.

I called Crawford. “I did the job. I’m on my way back to Bay Town. If you need me, call me.”

“You and the hunters should stay in the city until we figure this out, Trinity.”

I hesitated. “We have to go back. There’s a meeting.”

“I see.”

“We’ll be back,” I said. “But you’ll want to convince the mayor—and the city—to retract the regulations they’re putting into place. If things don’t start to improve for the supernaturals, my hunters and I are not going to risk our lives protecting you. We’re going to concentrate on protecting Bay Town, instead.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Frank said. “I know where your loyalties lie.”

“Time is running out,” I said, refusing to rise to the bait. “Tell him, Captain.”

I hung up.

When we pulled up to the way station, Shane was trailing my car, and Angus was waiting out front with Rhys.

Angus held out his hand to me. “We need to go.”

My heart stuttered. “Shane told me.”

I took a deep breath as we walked to the cemetery. Even Jin followed along behind us. And when we walked through the gates, it was packed with supernaturals. They parted for us, opening a path to Himself.

The King of Everything.

He sat on a wooden throne deep inside the graveyard, and Nadine stood beside him. When he saw me, he thumped his walking stick on the ground.

“Caretaker,” Nadine called. “Come.”

I released Angus’s hand and walked toward them. Deep within my body, Silverlight began to hum.

When I reached the mystical old man, I dropped to my knees. It didn’t occur to me to do otherwise. I stared up at him, and when he met my gaze, everything else dropped away.

“Stand at my side.” His face, lost in folds and crevices, was still somehow forbidding, and his dark eyes held only snapping, crackling power.

I did as he asked, then stared out at the throng of silent supernaturals, my jaw clenched, my body shaking from cold. But it wasn’t cold.

There was a sea of power surrounding me, and the power was overwhelming. Power not only from Himself but from the mass of supernaturals who stood watchful and waiting. They were power.

Any one of them could have been taken down by the humans—but together, God, together, they could do some serious, serious damage. I thought they could do anything.

A woman I didn’t recognize strode through the restless crowd and stopped beside Angus, and when she touched his arm, he leaned down to let her murmur something into his ear.

She drew my stare, but not only mine. She had a presence about her, something energetic, stormy and swirly like a cyclone filled with deadly debris. She was a woman accustomed to control, and it showed.

She turned back toward us and put her hands on her hips. Her thin leather jacket gaped, showing the holstered gun at her hip and a silver badge fastened to her belt.

And suddenly, I realized exactly who she was.

Jade Noel.

I had no idea what type of supernat she was. She didn’t appear to be the type to hide in the shadows or work from behind the scenes, so I wasn’t sure why I never saw her.

Apparently, she had been put in place close to thirty years ago, which meant she was old.

Funny how she didn’t look old.

But she did look mean.

Another woman stepped up beside her. One of her crew, most likely. The new woman was light to Jade’s dark—light brown hair, pale skin, eyes that looked almost translucent from the short distance.

When I returned my stare to Jade, she was watching me, and I had to fight not to look away. She saw too much. And I had a feeling she knew a lot more about me than I did about her.

I forced my face to empty and blanked my eyes, and I did something I was pretty sure she would never be able to do. I calmed.

“It is time,” Himself began, and I forgot all about Jade Noel as his voice—and his words—became all that mattered.

The crowd of supernaturals seemed to hold their breath and lean slightly forward, toward their king, and I felt a swelling of pride within me. I was where I belonged, with these people.

He was my king, too.

Then they gasped as the vampire master stepped from the shadows and stood on my left. But Himself ignored Amias, and finally, the supernaturals put their uneasy attention back on their leader.

They trusted him, and obviously, Amias was accepted in Willow-Wisp.

I thought Himself would discuss the opportunity given to us by the attacking vampires. That he’d talk about our new leverage and would have a plan in place. I was hoping for a plan.

But he said none of that.

“We must protect the humans.” His voice was high and cracked and somewhat thin, but it carried throughout the graveyard. “For they are at risk. The world is at risk. The rifters have returned.”

Amias was the only one who reacted. He shuddered. Still, he did not look at me. It was as though he were afraid to let me see what was in his eyes.

“The short version,” Himself continued, “is this. There was a war a long, long time ago. The vampires—our vampires—defeated the rifters after a vicious, bloody battle. Their elders sacrificed themselves to not only send the rifters into exile but to ensure they could never return to us.”

He had our rapt attention, and his somber, eerie voice, combined with the master vampire’s fear, hit us hard. Even Nadine was subdued.

“The rifters are cousins to the vampires. All rifters were of the same line, descended from a common malformed maker. When they were turned, something corrupted inside them. Their code was written with tainted ink.” He paused, as though allowing for questions, but no one said a word.

Finally, he nodded and continued into our breathless silence. “Our vampires are created with an innate respect for human life. They know that without humans, there would be no peace between the supernaturals. Without humans, there would be no vampires. It is a rare vampire who will burn through towns slaughtering every human he sees. This inborn respect is why they do not.” He looked at Amias. “They could, you see. They could.”

“The infection.” Himself turned his ancient stare to me, and my legs weakened. “The sickness that occasionally rises in the vampires is a result of that long ago war between the vampires and the rifters. The vampire elders exiled and imprisoned the rifters, but not before the rifters’ elders created the disease that would live in the earth and rise up sporadically to punish and control vampire populations. It was meant to kill them all during the war, but it failed the rifters, and in the end, our vampires triumphed.”

“But…” I whispered.

“But,” Himself said, “the mystical Wall of Elders has been compromised. One of the elders has weakened. And the rifters are coming.”

A murmur of fear rippled through the crowd of supernaturals, and the old man waited for them to calm before he continued. “The tear in the Wall of Elders was deliberately created by a recent attack. They are doing their best to repair the damage, but they cannot mend it in time. The rifters are coming. They’re coming, and we must prepare.”

Nadine put her hands on her hips. “Now come with your questions.”

“They’re not anything we can’t handle,” Shane said, scoffing despite his attempts to behave in front of Himself. “There were a dozen or so of them tonight, and we took them out just like we take out regular vampires.” He shrugged. “Let them come. We’ll decimate the motherfuckers.”

“They did not expect hunters. They were also disoriented and weak.” Amias spoke at last, his voice as dark as I’d ever heard it. Amias Sato, master vampire, was scared.

“Weak,” I exclaimed. “They didn’t seem weak in the least. Confused, maybe, but they were huge and fast and strong. They weren’t weak.”

His smile did not reach his eyes. “For rifters, they were weak. At full strength, a dozen rifters would not have left nearly so many humans untouched before you took them out. Those who will come, those who adjust, they will show you true strength. They will be nearly impossible to subdue. They are not like us. They are immune to silver. They do not require a human’s permission to enter his home. No place is sacred. No place is safe.”

The uneasy silence was raw and heavy.

“You begin to see the gravity of the situation,” Himself said. And for some reason, he sounded almost pleased. “Rifters cannot be easily killed. Not even by Silverlight’s hand. Not even by a hunter’s hand. It will take work. And when hundreds of them slip through…”

I swallowed. “We’ll be in trouble.”

“Indeed, Bloodhunter.”

“Why were there only a few of them? Where are the others?”

“The elders are trying to contain them. They will not be successful. There will be trickles until finally the wall is shattered completely. If we do not find a way to help the elders refortify, rifters will soon flood the city.”

Angus folded his arms, his frown deep, his voice gruff. “I’m not letting her risk her life in a fight she can’t win.” He spoke only to Himself and didn’t even glance at me, as though I had no say in the matter.

“There are no choices, Werebull. She will fight. And in the end…” Himself put his stare on me. “She will sacrifice. You must accept this fact. Human lives must be preserved. If they fall, we all fall.”

“It begins,” Nadine told me. “And tonight is practice for a test you must not fail.”