“You aren’t coming with us? I know you can open the veil into his dark room.”

“And since we know there are intruders, do you want to stumble directly on them, or sneak up and remove their heads before they even know you are there?” His eyes flashed with anger.

“Fine.” I hated when he was right, mostly because he’d been a pain in my ass for so damn long. He might want to keep me alive, but when push came to shove, he would rather put me on the line than himself.

Faris couldn’t go and check on Doran himself, but this would work for me. Close enough to Frank and his little necromancer friend that I wouldn’t need him to move us around. I’d just borrow Doran’s car and get them.

“Make sure he isn’t hurt.” True worry in Faris’s voice surprised me. “Do not fail in this, Rylee; the vampire nation has never been stronger than since he took the reins. We do not want to lose him.”

I snorted and headed toward the sunlight. “He’s my friend, Faris. If something or someone is trying to hurt him I will do everything I can. You fucking well know that.”

Alex snorted, his words betraying him again as he gained more humanity back every day. “Doran is good. Worth saving.” But he ruined the serious tone by prancing across the room with his front knees firing up around his ears.

He and I stepped through, Erik behind us.

“Have your wolf call me when you are ready,” Faris said, and the veil shut, closing us off.

Not that I was worried.

But I should have been.

“What the hell are you doing?” He tackled Thomas to the floor, not caring if he broke the old man’s ribs, head or any other body part. The necromancer’s eyes glazed the second the veil opened and then all hell broke loose.

Thomas snarled and tried to buck him off. The front door rattled as a zombie no doubt threw itself at it.

“Get off me, Guardian. I know how to end your life. I have no qualms about piecing you out to my pets.”

Liam didn’t move, fury and true fear racing through him. Not for himself, never for himself. Rylee had better have made it through the veil. His muscles clenched and he fought to keep from snapping the necromancer’s neck. They needed him for a while yet. “You sent her to bring back your protégés, how did you think she was going to get them?”

Thomas stared up at him and slowly the mania faded from his eyes, and the thumping against the door stilled. “Get off. I am myself again.”

He waited a half breath before moving, then pushed to his feet. But he did not offer his hand to the necromancer.

With great difficulty, Thomas got to his knees, then his feet, his whole body shaking. “It has been many years since I last came across a vampire. The memories are too strong for me to deal with. Do you know the story of why the vampires and the necromancers hate one another?”

“No.” Liam wasn’t sure he cared either, but then again, maybe there was information that would help them later. Or maybe not. But the FBI agent in him knew all the knowledge he could gather couldn’t hurt.

His body trembling, Thomas slid into his chair, and then lowered his head into his hands.

“Necromancers created vampires. An experiment with the dead to see if we could truly return life to those we’d lost. At first we ruled them, controlled them and their thirst for blood.”

Thomas swallowed hard. “But in the end, they revolted and killed most of our people, taking us to the brink of extinction. From that moment forward, it is bred into our very being that we must kill one another.”

“And you can’t control it?”

The necromancer shrugged. “When I was young, yes. But I was a captive of a vampire for many years. He had been held by a vindictive necromancer and he returned the favor to me. I learned much, but …”

Liam didn’t want to feel sorry for the necromancer who’d just tried to kill Rylee, but he understood all too well the feeling of being held captive. How would he have dealt with Milly if he’d been bound by her for years? No, there would have been no coming back from that; even Pamela wouldn’t have been able to win him over.

“Rylee will have to use the vampire to bring her back.”

“My zombies are cued to recognize a vampire and kill it if it steps foot onto our land.” Thomas finally lifted his head. “I will not remove that from them.”

Not that he couldn’t, but he wouldn’t. Liam wanted to pull his hair out. There was no way to contact her, no way to tell Rylee to have Faris drop them off further away.

He moved into the kitchen and picked up the phone, the line hissing at him but it didn’t go out. Without another second wasted, he called Doran’s number.

The phone on the other end rang a dozen times before he hung up. He waited a minute and called again. Nothing.

Damn.

Doing his best not to give into his inclination to smash the phone into tiny plastic pieces, he hung it up rather hard. There was nothing he could do.

Back in the living room he stood with his hands on his hips staring out the window at the zombies swaying ever so slightly in the early morning light.

Perhaps he could get more information out of Thomas, find a way to make this time pass and be of value. He dove in without preamble.

“There are demons coming through the veil, and they are possessing supernaturals.”

“Yes and no. Evil spirits are coming through; they’re not the same as demons. Like shadows of a demon.”

Liam frowned. “Why yes and no then?”

“Some demons are being drawn through as well. I don’t know who is doing it but I have felt that through the veil. They are being called forth with magic. The veil has not ripped wide open, though there are attempts being made.” Thomas placed his fingers under his chin, propping his head up. “It is a precursor to the final break. Most likely whoever Orion has working for him on this side has the capability to bring forth demons and then allow them to possess others. It is a slow process, which is why they are freeing the evil spirits to possess the weaker-willed supernaturals as well. They are covering all their bases, whoever is doing this.”

Liam thought of India, and the black coven, how close they had come to having their first victim in that little girl. She’d been inside a pentagram and a hoarfrost demon would have possessed her if Rylee hadn’t stopped the ceremony.

“Witches, black witches are doing it,” he said, sure of himself.