The noise had dimmed in the place, but suddenly the conversation picked up.
What the hell was going on?
“Sebastian’s coming. We made a deal. He keeps the artifact as promised, and I get what I was promised in return. As a bonus, I provide his monster’s future baby mama, and when the end hits, I get to take over the bar and half the profits from the bazaar. Pretty good stuff.”
“You’re a dead shifter walking,” she promised, her head fuzzy.
“Take the rest of that drink or I’ll kill Max now.” Talon lifted a gun. “Silver bullets. It’s a .44. He’ll take it right to the head.” He cocked a grin. “It’s a Desert Eagle .44 Magnum, wielded by an eagle shifter. How apropos, eh?”
She glared and knocked back the rest of the drink.
“Good. Now. Before he gets here. Don’t say his name unless you want him to know what you’re saying. That’s why I told you to look for Seb DM. Took you long enough.” He frowned and lowered the gun out of sight. “He’s bringing a creature he made from lycan blood, sacrifice, and the hell realm. I saw it.” Talon shivered. “It’s bigger than you and Ivan put together, Riley. And it eats what it kills. Blood, brains, and souls. You can’t hurt it with much, because it heals within seconds of being injured. I watched it gobble down two upir with ease. And they weren’t young.” Talon looked scared.
“Why didn’t you come to us if you needed help? Why give this asshole what he wants?”
He’d had every opportunity to ask for assistance.
A shuttered expression came down over his face. “When it gets out of control, its master uses the artifact. Somehow that statue commands its obedience. When you see it, you’ll know how much we can’t let Seb make another one.Ever.It took a damn lot just to make this monster. And it’s unstoppable.”
“What’s the plan then, Talon?” Max asked in a low voice.
“It bites you, ingests enough of your poisoned blood, and dies. Then, if you’re lucky, you use this vial of antidote to cure you.” He held up a vial.
Riley glanced at her drink, no longer able to smell either. “But you poisoned both of us.”
He nodded. “Sorry it had to be this way. I only had enough antidote for one of you, but this job is going to take you both to succeed. But hey, who knows? Maybe you can both use it at the end and live to see another day.” He raised his voice and spoke casually. “I’m meant for bigger and better things, Max. The artifact is too.”
Riley heard cawing.
“Not in my house,” the pretty server said with a smile as she drew close to catch Talon’s eye. “Hey, boss. We need to go. Company’s come.” She waved a hand, and Riley watched in shock as her eyes turned black, like a demon’s. The server said something in what sounded like Latin, maybe? Then a rush of shadow left the occupants of the room and flew away. Crows screeched outside, and Riley imagined more than a few feathers flying.
The server said to Talon, “Three of them. Very angry. Very lethal.”
“Noted.” Talon rose and put an arm around the woman. She might be human, but she wasn’t without power. Unfortunately, without her nose, Riley couldn’t tell what she was. But a glance around the room showed a lot of dead magir. And they had been dead for days. Someone had reanimated them to look alive and replaced their rotting smell with a magic vitality.
Someone with a lot of power.
“Shit. You’re working with anecromancer?” Max said with disgust.
The server beamed at him. “And fuck you too, wolf.”
“It’s lycan,” Max snarled.
“I wish I cared. Talon, we have to go. Now.”
Talon set a vial of pink powder on the table in front of Riley. “The antidote might be enough to cure whoever makes it through the battle. I wish I had more, but this was the best I could do. But to kill the beast, you’ll need to feed it blood from both of you. The thing is huge, but you’re both extremely powerful. Of course, that’s based off the supposition it can be killed at all. There’s a reason why demons aren’t meant to exist in this plane.”
He left with with the necromancer, the only one of her kind Riley had ever met. She’d heard rumors of necromancers in the city, but they were so rare as to be nearly extinct. After all the harm they’d caused for centuries, playing with death and nearly ending the worlds too many times, they’d been hunted by the fae and gods alike. Most of them only existed in the hell realms anymore.
Just their luck Talon had found his own to make their lives even harder.
“Well, I guess it’s up to us.” Max put a hand over Riley’s. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this, Riley. You let me bait the monster, and you kill him. Then take this.” He pushed the vial at her.
“I don’t think so.” She pushed it back to him. “I’ll bait the thing. He wants a breeder, right? He won’t kill me.”
“Great way to look at things.” Max shot her an overbright smile. “Now you don’t have to worry about taking a mate.”
She laughed. It was either that or cry. “A silver lining.”
