“Shut your mouth.”
Ruby pointed at me. “You and I, we’re going to have a girls’ night with our friend Wild. If I can find her and kill her, then you might live a little longer. Maybe Frost will even want to take you on. Make you your father’s replacement. Theo is getting old.”
I shook my head, shock turning my mind and heart numb. “No, no that’s not true. It’s not possible. He’s not . . . he’s not with Frost. You’re lying!” Frost already had two people from the House of Night . . . how big was her crew? How many people had she drawn off?
My father was always so busy, we rarely spent time together. And when we did? I thought of the occasions when I’d failed to raise the dead or communicate easily with a ghost. He’d seemed disappointed and then . . . relieved.
Ruby laughed as she tightened a hand on my arm until the bones ground against one another. “Did you never wonder why he didn’t train you? Why he told you that you were weak? I see it now, and so does Frost. He tried to protect you. But there is no ‘keeping safe’ from a woman like Frost.”
She gave me a little shake as she propelled me forward. I tried to turn to look at the boys, to see where they were going, but they were already gone. They’d left Rory on the ground, injured and bleeding. He’d die without help.
“No, my father—”
“Thought he was protecting you by presenting you as weak, which meant you went under the radar for years. Clever of him.” She patted me on the head with her free hand. “But not anymore.”
I forced my feet to walk in the general direction of the House of Night, my mind racing with numbers. No, not numbers, a single number.
Hundred percent that Wild was still in my family crypt.
Hundred percent that she would be caught by Ruby.
I didn’t see any way she could get herself out of this.
Unless . . . I closed my eyes and let my feet guide me as I whispered his name.
“Tommy Johnson.”
“What did you say?” Ruby gave me another shake, and I opened my eyes. Tommy stood to the side of me, faded but there.
“Warn Wild.” I mouthed the two words, but Tommy shook his head.
“She can’t see me without you.”
Frustration welled in me so strongly that I felt as though I were choking. Ahead of us was the marble gardens. If I didn’t figure out something, I was putting Wild right into a trap. A trap that I had created by falling for Ethan’s trick. One chance left.
I sent my energy toward the crypt, pushing my magic into the stone. I was in danger, and while I’d never seen it, there was another way out. It just had to open for Wild. And give her a chance.
“What are you doing?” Ruby shook me yet again.
“I’m trying to connect with her. To make sure she is still there.”
The connection between me and Wild was a two-way street when it was open. Strong emotions seemed to overpower everything—perhaps even the closed-down connection—and the terror riding me was as good as anything to use. With all I had, I tried to send her a message.
Get out of there, Wild. If you can sense this at all, get out of there!
10
Wild
The sheep skeleton with the ram’s head hopped fully out of the crypt and held out a hoof to me. Pointing at me.
I kept both knives at the ready. “What do you want, fluff butt?”
The ram’s head tipped toward the empty black hole it had just crawled out of, and I was seriously doubting some of my life choices up to that point.
There was nowhere for me to go, no door to escape through. I pointed my blades a little lower, closer to the ram’s empty eye sockets. “No. Seriously, no.” As if denying a walking sheep skeleton would have any effect on the thing. Then again, maybe it did.
Its bones rattled as it sagged, and I let out a breath. Stupid of me to let my guard down. I’d worked with sheep before. The cheeky bastards always let you think you’d won right before—
The sheep skeleton lunged at me headfirst, pinning my lower body to the wall. Its strength was no different than a living ram, only this one had something a normal sheep did not.
Two skeletal arms shot out of its ribcage and grabbed for me. Bony fingers tore at my clothes as it wrestled to keep my arms down. I drove a knee up into the neck of the critter, but there was no wind to knock out of it, no flesh to bruise, and the sheep skeleton didn’t so much as grunt. All it did was lift its head back and ram me again. Slamming me hard.
I slashed at the head with one knife, and the blade glanced off the horns. The ram reared up and drove its head toward mine. I ducked, but a tip of one horn caught the flesh of my cheek, tearing it open and sending a trickle of warmth down my face and neck.
Driving a foot into the front leg of the sheep, I snapped the bone in half, throwing it off balance. Only I couldn’t get free of the arms and we pirouetted to the side, spinning slowly toward the opening.
“No, no! I don’t want to dance with you after all!”
The door behind me began to slowly open, and a strange sensation welled in my mind, as if my skull was filling with water. Someone was trying to make themselves heard through our connection. “Kinda busy here!” I hollered. “Sheep problems!”
The pressure increased, and suddenly I knew who was outside the door. And she was scared.
“Wally!” I screamed for her as the ram let go, backed up and jammed me in the guts. I fell into the black hole, and it hopped in after me.
“Wild! Ruby has us!” Wally screamed.
Her words slammed into me a split second before I hit the floor, landing on my hip and side. I wasn’t sure I’d even heard them out loud.
The wind whooshed out of me and whatever light had been there a moment before dissipated as the crypt opening closed over my head. I rolled, throwing the now limp ram’s head skeleton off me.
Utter and complete blackness surrounded me, and I struggled to calm my breathing.
Ruby had my friends. Which meant Frost had my friends.
“Damn it,” I growled as I pulled my flashlight out of my bag and flicked it on. The beam was dim, but it was there, and as I panned it around the area, I realized there were no stairs leading up to the space over me.
Something hammered on the stone above my head.
Wally was in danger.
I had no choice. I dared to open the connection to just her, and Wally’s emotions and thoughts roared through me.
Ruby found the boys before me. Ethan helped them. Rory is hurt bad. The others are being taken to the jail. Probably me too.
Wally wanted me to run. I saw the street where the boys had been snagged. Where Rory was even now lying on the ground, possibly bleeding out.
A string of curses flew from my mouth as I sat there and struggled not to scream. Nothing was going right. Nothing. But I couldn’t let her know that.
I sent her a single calming thought and spoke the words out loud. “I’ll find you, Wally. Just go along with them for now.”
The pounding above my head stopped, and I closed off the connection to Wally. I had to. Because in that brief moment, I’d felt others searching for me. Back into the grain silo all the connections went, and I slammed that mental door closed once again.
Ash and my uncle were still out there, of that I had no doubt. And their eyes had turned toward me in that brief moment of connection with Wally.