Rising Darkness Page 44


“Tell me,” Griffin said, “how are the other supernaturals finding you?”

I didn’t have to think long. “Milly. She has traced me before with a spell. She got some of my blood and used it.”

Griffin eyed me. “And you think that would work now that your blood isn’t your own?”

I understood what he was getting at. If Milly had some of my blood from before I exchanged with Faris, she couldn’t find me. But if she had another Tracker, she could. “There are no other Trackers, so that’s out of the question.”

“Is it? You have a rather narrow viewpoint of life.” He took the turkey’s leg and flipped the entire thing over, searing off more feathers.

Eve and Marco shifted back, their facial expressions saying it all. Griffin had shown up, started burning feathers and hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge the two of them. Like they weren’t important.

“You have a point you’re trying to make?” I lifted an eyebrow.

Crouching by the fire, he spread his hands on his thighs. “The veil is closed, we know that, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“But there are always spirits that don’t move on. You understand that too, yeah?”

I nodded. Where the hell was he going with this?

Griffin drummed his fingers. “If the demon could find a necromancer, he might be able to call on the spirit of a Tracker who died but didn’t really leave. Possibility anyway.”

“Fucking hell,” I whispered. Frank had gone with Pamela, to keep her safe. And now Milly had them both. “Let’s hope the demon isn’t as smart as you.”

Griffin’s eyes snapped up to mine. “Demons aren’t smart, they’re clever. If there is a way around things, they’ll find them, yeah?”

There was absolutely nothing I could do about Frank, Pamela, or Milly at the moment. Though I had a feeling I would be forced to deal with it sooner rather than later.

“The Destroyer. Tell me about her. I know she’s a she, but that’s it.” I’d learned that when I’d been away.

Griffin crooked a finger at me then walked a few feet away. As if that would keep Alex or Eve and Marco from hearing what he had to say. I snorted and followed him. “Are you going to tell me her name now? I need that at the least to Track her.”

“Yup. But when I do, I think it might tear through a few things in here.” He tapped the side of my head. “When she was stuffed away, both times, her name was pulled away from anyone who might know her. So that she couldn’t be found. Means your memories when they come back to you are going to hurt like hell.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Memories? You think I’ve met her before? And how did you manage to keep your memories of her? How do you even know I’ve met her before?”

He grinned, a smile so reminiscent of Liam’s cheeky ass grin, it hurt me to see it. “I’m special. And yes, you’ve met her, yeah? She told me about you. Said you’d find her when it was time.”

“I’ll just bet you’re special. Must run in the blood line,” I muttered. He grinned Liam’s smile. Cocky bugger.

“Ready?” Griffin widened his stance as if he were expecting some sort of explosion. I wasn’t so sure there were memories floating around in my mind that I didn’t know about. Then again, I’d seen stranger things in the world.

Griffin said one word and it rocked my world.

“Larkspur.”

The name resounded through my head like a gong, and I put a hand to cover my ears. I didn’t realize I was screaming until someone put their hands on me. They were shaking me, but I wasn’t seeing them. I was seeing the past.

A missing child who turned out to be an automatic writer; the kiss of a boy who turned out to be a siren. The fight through a labyrinth filled with darkness and monsters. Facing more than one Minotaur, facing the Shadow Man. Larkspur at my side, teaching me, helping a younger me. Her face as clear to me as if she’d been painted in relief, blonde hair, and eyes of different colors: green and gold. And her voice as she called to me from a place I couldn’t Track.

“Find me, Rylee.” I knew that voice, she was my first teacher in a fight that wasn’t Giselle. She was a friend I could trust. She was family. As weird as it was to feel so tightly bound to her, we’d only spent a couple of days together.

“Is she okay?”

“I don’t know, Rylee. Open your eyes?”

“You killed her!”

“Find me, Rylee.”

“I didn’t touch her.”

“What’s wrong with her then?”

I forced my eyes open, forced myself to see the present instead of the past. “Someone stole my memories of her. Who the fuck did it?” Slowly even that memory came back. Lark’s father had taken my memories. Shit, this was crazy. I was sick when I realized how long she’d been stuffed in a hole, somewhere in the dark with no chance at escaping. Waiting for me to find her. Seven going on eight years. Holy fucking hell.

Griffin leaned over me. “Trick of the elementals. They can wipe memories like a child wipes clean a chalkboard. But there is always the residual underneath. So they can be brought forward again.”

The urge to Track Lark welled up in me and I had to fight it, breathing through my nose. “Fucking demons and their fucking ability to find me.”

Griffin chuckled. “You getting picked on, yeah?”

I glared at him. “If you call getting pinpointed by asshole demons every time I Track anyone, so that I have to fight them off when I really don’t have the time, then I’m getting picked on, yeah. It’s why I have to do the blood exchange.”

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