“Oh Jeeze.” She studied the final binding. She looked back with her witch gifts and inspected her own skin. “You may be right.”
“Guilt it up later. What can you tell about the site where it used to be bound?”
With her magic, Liz explored the rocks at the entrance. “The entrance is visible now from the front of the waterfall. I think when I hit my head, I took some rocks with me. We need to get back there and get the original binding material.”
“Not us. We’re the bait. We keep the demon here while Eli goes.”
Liz didn’t want Eli in the cave. Didn’t want him to touch the metal. Knew this was all her fault because she had gotten magic-drunk and touched the copper ax and the mud. She pulled her magic back to the surface. On the surface, the battle was at a standstill.
Jane was at the far edge of the clearing. She had changed forms, into human, yet she was still coughing. They had thrown everything they had at it and it was still upright and going strong, the vamp-killer still sticking out of the demon’s side. It was ignoring everything in the clearing except the firepit.
Eli was walking guard duty, eyes out to the woods and the dark.
Three dead werewolves were outstretched, all three in partial shift form. They had died full of silver, and so hadn’t been able to shift back to human and heal. Brute was on the ground near them, panting, bloodied, and being fed by… Lincoln Shaddock.
Shaddock was the master of the city of Asheville. He was a powerful vamp, and vamps did not feed werewolves, even angel-touched weres. Everyone knew vamps and weres hated each other. Except Shaddock was feeding the wolf anyway, one eye on thehedge of thornsand the demon leaning over it.
Then it hit Liz why he was here. The Mayhew vampires were involved in this trap. He had condemned one Mayhew to death and clearly allowed the widower to live. So this was on him, as much as it was on her.
Liz looked up at the demon. It leaned in on other side of thehedge, once again pressing with the shattered bone, draining the energies of their protection. As soon as the moon was below the horizon, Cia was going to lose power. The demon wasn’t going anywhere unless one of the twins moved. Then it would follow. And it would likely be able to possess which ever one of them it caught. It would use witch magic to free itself totally. Its first order of business would be to destroy anyone who might try to stop it, so it would kill her family. It would be free in the world. She had to fix what she had messed up.
“Drop the sound-deadening working,” she said to Cia. A layer of magics slid down into a moonstone in Cia’s hand. “Eli?” Liz called.
The Army Ranger turned to her. “There’s a cave under the falls at the pool. It’s full of dangerous gasses. Midway to the back of the cave is an oval depression with a muddy bottom Sitting on the muddy bottom is a chain made of flat rectangular copper pieces, each attached to the next with a floating tab. There’s also some bone fragments and a skull with a copper ax head in it. We need a small part of the chain and a fragment of the bone. But you can’t disturb the skull or the ax head. In fact, touching anything in the cave might be deadly, even the things we’re sending you to get. And when you get back, the demon will likely attack you for the bone fragment.”
“Waterfall, poison, hole, bones, ax, and a chain. It may all kill me. Got it.” He grinned widely again, the light in his eyes just a little too bright. “Lizzie, I still say this sucks as a date, but you sure do know how to show a retired Ranger a good time.”
With that, he melted into the dark, grabbing up his backpack as he disappeared.
“Nice,” Cia said, staring at his butt.
“Stop that. He’s mine.”
“No doubt about that at all, sis,” Cia agreed. “And the way he looked at you?” She fanned herself as if too warm. “And that nice backside? Oh my…”
Liz grinned. “Stop it.”
“Mmm hmm.Lizzie.”
“I hate that name.”
“Not when he says it.”
Ignoring her and the demon leaning on thehedgeover her, Liz sent her magic back along the trail to the pool and up into the cave. This time, she didn’t need Cia’s help. She had a trail of her own magic to follow.
Eli
“Waterfall,poison, hole, bones, ax, and a chain. It may all kill me,” he repeated. “Got it.” He grinned widely again, liking the way Lizzie didn’t look away from him. She was seeing him at his best, and maybe his worst. And she seemed to accept that. “Lizzie, I still say this sucks as a date, but you sure do know how to show a former Ranger a good time.”
He grabbed up his daypack and melted into the dark. There was no indication of more werewolves, but he wasn’t taking chances. He swung the shotgun around on its tactical sling, positioned the weapon at alert, ready for fast firing, but allowing free movement away on the sling as needed.
His night vision had been negatively affected by the glow-stones Cia had thrown. Normally it took twenty minutes to get it all back, so he moved with care, following a path he had taken four times before now. He hadn’t exactly memorized every rock and root, but he’d been well trained. The landscape was embedded in his mid-term memory, ready for use. He shifted around a broken tree. Stepped over a downed limb, one with green leaves still on it. That hadn’t been here before. The demon might have brought it down or ripped it free. He slowed his pace, in case there were more unexpected surprises. He caught a whiff of the burned trees the demon had ignited, and other traces of brimstone. And he caught a hint of something else, something he couldn’t identify but that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He moved slower. Checking above, around, behind.
Moving uphill, upstream, at night, under a canopy of trees was dicey, but eventually he heard the distinctive sound of the waterfall. Skirted the tree. Checked his internal clock. He had left the clearing twelve minutes ago. Too long. Moonset was coming. Cia, moon witch, would run of out power. Whatever they were going to do with the copper and the bones, had to be completed before then.
The pool appeared, just ahead. He drank another bottle of water. Stopped to piss. Took in his surroundings. No sign of another werewolf. So far. But that faint stink. And the warning of his body that said he wasn’t alone.
His night vision had improved as he walked, but he’d be in a cave in moments. He’d need a flash. He would need to keep one eye closed to preserve his night sight. No way was he going to risk needing a flash for the walk back. Not with werewolves.
