Dark Flames (Blood Bound Book 6)

Chapter 20

“It’s about time He-Man showed up,” Zach growled still in pain. He could feel the fire within him sealing the wound back up and burning the damaged cells to ash as his body quickly replaced it with newborn flesh. To someone else watching, it would have looked like a zipper of fire closing his skin back together.

Guy smirked as he saw Jason lose most of his fear of the monsters. Even though the fear had only lasted a few minutes… what replaced it was worth the wait. Turning his attention back to the fight in front of him, Guy tried to discern the ‘good’ monsters from the bad.

Finally he just mentally shrugged and started chanting repeatedly. Ice crystals materialized inside the creatures, skewering them like a kabob on the grill. Wraiths flew around them, pulling on the bits of energy left before leaving empty husk.

Storm had pulled a rapier out of the folds of his long coat and was busy beheading anything that came too close. Whenever one or more touched him, he would flicker them into the limbo he entered between locations and leave them. There would be time later to drop them head first into his favorite volcano.

Tiara felt remorse for the injuries Zachary had taken for her. Watching him get up from the ground, she understood a little better why she would never be able to come into the graveyards alone. When he turned an inquiring glance on her, she quickly put her arm down to cover the claw marks just above the cloth on her hip.

Zachary lifted his eyes and for a second their gazes locked with one another. He could feel her sympathy for him and see the remorse in her thoughts and froze in place feeling a moment of closeness pass between them.

“Keep up the good work,” Zachary said and took up his previous position between Guy and Storm, leaving Jason to protect her.

The attacking monsters slowly began to thin out and it didn’t take long to understand why. The zombies that had not been destroyed were returning to their eternal rest and the ghosts were sinking back into various graves.

Tiara smiled when the soldier drifted over to an old tombstone and turned toward her, lifting his hand in salute before fading from view. The old woman and little girl lay down on two graves side by side then sank back into the earth.

One by one, the souls went back to where they came from and the zombies crawled back into their graves, pulling the dirt back on top of them as they did so. Finally only the wraiths remained, and even then they were slowly disappearing.

Chapter 10

Tiara began to rein in her necromancy but stopped when she saw something that made her eyes widen. Fear momentarily shot through her when she saw a Native American watching her from a distance with piercing intelligent eyes. His long ebony hair framed his face with a single thin braid woven from underneath, draping over one shoulder with a feather hanging from the end of it.

His upper body was devoid of clothing except for two leather armbands on his biceps. A pair of soft tan moccasin pants was the only thing on his lower body. He was barefoot and had a single thin headband across his forehead. Reaching out toward him with her necromancy, she caught a glimpse of how many times he had been reawakened and it startled her.

Night Hawk stood and let her power touch him… he had nothing to hide. He compared her soothing touch to that of Black Crow’s painful grip. The innocent caress of her power intrigued him.

Tiara felt a surge of memories come through the link she had with the Indian. His name was Night Hawk and he’d been his clan’s most powerful warrior and a descendant of his tribe’s shaman blood line. During life, he’d been loved and cherished by his people.

He was ancient and powerful in his own right even though he’d started out as a zombie. He had consumed until the zombie was no more and only the man remained. Once again, he had evolved beyond the hunger and regained his warrior’s mind. Now he was searching for something he’d lost but no matter how deep she penetrated his mind, he wouldn’t share that secret with her.

Coming out of the past memories, she looked at Night Hawk as he was now. All around him were things writhing and grasping in the darkness but they weren’t there because of him. Those were the real threats. She extended her power once again but this time felt something else awaken within her. She felt the breeze caress her exposed skin sending shivers down her body. The hunger had been awakened.

Zachary knew Tiara was seeing things he couldn’t and when he noticed the glint of fear in her eyes he felt his anger start to escalate. What was scaring her? He needed to see what she was studying so hard because, if he couldn’t see her enemy, he couldn’t stop it from hurting her.

As if to reassure himself of her safety, Zachary moved closer to her not liking the feeling of being surrounded again.

Tiara’s face tightened in confusion as she felt the sensation of things still waking up all around her… things that should have stayed on the other side. That’s when she realized… whatever had awakened the dead in the first place still held power over them and was just playing with her. The demon was undermining everything she had done to lay them to rest.

Storm kept his weapon on hand just in case something else should try to attack. He was beginning to think this graveyard hadn’t been the best place to get Tiara’s feet wet. Looking over at her, he could see the exhaustion in her eyes along with the heat blooming within her cheeks. It was a sign that her necromancy was draining her life force and would soon bring on the hunger.

“Tiara, I can take us out of here,” Storm called softly, only to have her hold her hand up toward him in an indication to wait and an almost insulted look crossed her pretty face. She had barely spared him a glance. That was good. Her mindset was on the dead.

Night Hawk was intrigued with the silver-haired woman and latched on to her link, using it to scan her the same way she’d done him. Her power was similar to that of Craven’s, only weaker because she was new to her abilities. He narrowed his eyes on the wound on her side and inhaled the mixture of true necromancer and demon necromancer flowing there. If she was to survive, then she would have to be taught how to fight.

Shadow demons began to take shape from the darkness around him making Night Hawk frown. Why had Craven sent so many underlings to follow him to this graveyard? The hint of a smirk played at the corner of his lips. Was Craven more worried than he was letting on? As well he should be.

Night Hawk nodded his head and, as though waiting for the silent command, half a dozen shadow demons rose up from the ground. They moved swiftly across the earth, closing the distance between them and Tiara, zeroing in on her. As they passed over graves, their long, sharp talons would occasionally touch one… reawakening souls that had just been laid to rest.

Storm felt the earth next to his feet shift and looked down. He took a step back from the spot when it started to heave as though something were digging its way out. The way things were going tonight it wouldn’t surprise him. Instinct made him whip his head around to see Tiara take a startled step back.

“Something is trying to attack Tiara,” Storm announced while quickly striding toward her. “We can’t see it because we don’t have her sight.”

“I can see some of them,” Zach exclaimed angrily as a grave slowly opened beside him and a zombie started to crawl out of the dirt. “They’re ugly and they smell really bad.”

Kneeling down, Zach closed his hand around its rotting forehead and furrowed his brow in an attempt to read what was left of its mind. Unfortunately, another zombie decided this was a good time to attack, cutting short his gathering of information. Setting the decayed skull on fire, he dropped it and turned to the next living dead that thought he would make a nice dinner.

As he dispatched the second zombie, Zach kept thinking about the brief picture he’d gotten from the quick memory upload. A man with windblown silver hair the same shade as Tiara’s was the one behind this resurrection.

Guy couldn’t see the shadow demons but could barely make out the distortions in the air as they got closer. Folding his hands together, he closed his eyes and quickly muttered a spell… one he had learned after being attacked at a young age by an invisible demon.

The air around the team shimmered for a moment before stilling again. Jason’s eyes widened and he took a quick step back as a face appeared in the wiggling air in front of him, looking like it was pushing against something stretchy. His disturbed mind quickly decided it reminded him of see-through bubble gum.

“Good call,” Zachary said as he punched one of the faces staring at him from less than a foot away.

Guy said nothing in return, struggling to keep the shield up. He had to hold the demons back a little longer until Tiara could put them to rest again. His eyes shot open when he realized he was wrong… she couldn’t. Tiara’s power only worked with the dead… these were shadow demons and very much alive.

“s**t!” Guy muttered through clenched teeth.

Jason had pushed Tiara back from the shield and quickly took her in his arms when more demons began pushing against the shield all around them.

“We need to drive them back somehow.” Zachary yelled over their eerie screeches, “Any ideas?”

“Yeah,” Guy growled through extreme effort. “I got one.”

“Out with it,” Jason exclaimed.

Guy smirked at them and stepped outside the barrier.

“No!” Tiara screamed and fought against Jason’s hold on her. “Help him!”

Guy glared at the shadow demons as they quickly surrounded him and grunted when one passed through him. Pain like nothing he’d ever felt coursed through his body but he held his ground. More and more shadow demons followed suit and soon Guy’s small sounds of pain became screams of agony.

Zachary ran up to the barrier and beat his fists against it. “Guy, get your a*s back in here or let me out!”

Guy ignored Zachary’s order, keeping the shield in place while his mind worked. His body suddenly erupted in a bright flash of light, illuminating him and the immediate area around him. Without Carley’s powerhouse inside of him, he’d never been able to pull this massive of a spell off. The shadow demons that had been the furthest away were unharmed, but those within touching distance of the blinding light immediately disintegrated.

“Et voila,” Guy said weakly and fell back inside the barrier.

“Damned moron,” Zach growled while dragging Guy by the collar of his jacket back from the shield. “With you out of commission the barrier will fall.”

“I’m… not dead… a*s,” Guy whispered hoarsely.

Zach smirked, “You will be when you get better.”

The remaining shadow demons once more descended on the shield and everyone saw that it was starting to weaken. While Guy’s heart and will were strong, his body had taken a beating.

Tiara looked beyond the barrier at the Indian who was still watching her with his dark penetrating eyes. He was waiting on her to make her move. She knew he was following orders from a more powerful necromancer because he himself could not be controlling shadow demons. Why would he even stick around when she could tell he had free will of his own? It was almost as if he were just a spectator.