“You do nothing the easy way, do you?” Faris stared down at me.

“I do things the only way I know how.” I took a step back. “Open the veil, let’s get this over with.”

Frank and Megan crowded up behind me, and Alex sat quietly at my side. Faris flicked his hand and the veil opened, giving us a perfect view of the inside of Thomas’s house, a glaring Thomas and Liam staring past me at Faris. Grabbing a kid in each hand, I shoved them through ahead of me.

“There you go, Thomas. Two young necromancers who want to learn the ropes, you just have to teach them.” Frank and Megan stumbled forward, and Frank flicked a glare back at me. At least he had a little spine. Alex bounced through next to me and I turned around, expecting to see the veil had closed.

Nope, no such luck.

Faris strolled through, sweet as you please, a smile on his lips that was big enough his fangs showed clearly. “Hello, Thomas.”

Thomas launched from his chair, his eyes darting one way and then the other. The zombies outside let out an instant, communal roar that shook the house.

“Faris, get the hell out of here!” I tried to grab him, tackle him, stop him from whatever it was he was planning. He avoided me with ease as the first window shattered and the ground shook.

“He has a zombie giant, you moron!” It took everything I had to keep my body between Faris and Thomas. This couldn’t be happening.

“Frank,” Liam yelled, “can you stop the zombies?”

“I’ll try.”

Megan was much more confident. “Hell to the yeah, I can kick those rotters to the curb.”

I don’t know what she and Frank did, but the zombies did seem to slow, or at least, they calmed down.

Faris on the other hand was still staring at Thomas, while I did my best to keep him from getting any closer. “Faris, we need Thomas. You can’t kill him.”

“I never said I was going to kill him, Rylee. I just want to talk to him.”

Thomas let out a scream that was pure fear, the echo of it flowing through the house.

“I don’t think he wants anything to do with you.” I finally got my hands on Faris’s arms. But it was weird; it was like I wasn’t really there in a sense, like in that moment nothing existed for the vampire except Thomas. His eyes were focused only on the necromancer. After more than a few tense breaths, Faris slumped and he shook his head.

“All right, old man. I will go.” He backed away, twisted the veil and stepped through into a room I knew was his special dark place. Somewhere no one could find him, a cement room buried in the ground.

With Faris gone, the air around us shifted and mellowed. Thomas let out a long, low groan and slid to the floor, his back against the wall. “Why, why did you bring him here?”

“I didn’t. I told him he couldn’t come but as soon as he knew it was you … .” I didn’t know what to say. How the hell did I make this right so Thomas wouldn’t toss us out on our asses without helping Milly and Pamela?

Thomas rubbed a hand over his face. “I should have known he would find me. I have hidden from him for years.”

At some point Liam had moved to my side, and his presence calmed me.

“Where is Erik?”

“Gone back to Ophelia and Blaz. He can’t go with me through the veil anyway.” Hell, just the thought of going into demon territory on my own made my heart rate spike. Not that I wouldn’t do it, I just wasn’t real happy about doing it on my own.

“Thomas, how soon can you open the veil?”

He blinked up at me several times, as if he’d forgotten I was there. I crouched beside him so I could look him right in the face. “Thomas. You need to open the veil into the deep level so I can get my friends. Do you understand?”

As if he were coming back to himself he nodded, slowly at first, and then faster. “Yes, yes, I will do that.”

Frank and Megan stood to one side, staring down at their new mentor. Megan gave a small cough. “Excuse me, this is our mentor? This old dude is going to teach us how to be powerhouse necromancers?” The disbelief in her voice was heavy and again I didn’t really know what to say. I mean, Thomas looked like shit; I wouldn’t want him to be my mentor either.

“Yes. He is. But right now he’s going to do a job for me.” I grabbed his forearm and hauled him to his feet. “Aren’t you, Thomas?”

“You will need a timer so you know when I will open the veil again and you can be there. Waiting. I will only hold it open a brief time, no longer than a minute, or we could end up fighting off demons and evil spirits of all sorts.”

With great effort he seemed to be putting himself back together, though every few breaths he took his whole body shuddered lightly. I hoped that Frank and Megan hadn’t noticed, though I was sure Liam had.

“Rylee.” Liam said my name and the way he breathed it out tugged at my heart. He didn’t have to say anything else. I knew what he meant. He was afraid for me to do this. Shit, I was afraid. But Giselle had always said bravery wasn’t being unafraid, it was doing what had to be done even if you were terrified. Not really comforting in that moment, true as it may have been.

I touched my fingertips to his, just the tips. Anything more and I wasn’t sure I would let go. “I’ll be fine. As soon as I find Pamela and Milly I’ll have lots of firepower at my back.”

His jaw ticked and tightened and there was a faint glimmer in his eyes I couldn’t look at. Nope, not doing this, not here.

Thomas pulled himself up to his full height, his vertebrae cracking and popping. He reached into his vest and produced out a thin, gold metal bracelet. Megan made a face and Frank carefully put himself a step in front of her.

“Rylee, wear this.” Thomas handed the bracelet to me. “It is cool now, but as your time wanes it will begin to heat.”

I was already shaking my head. “That won’t work if it’s magic; I’m an Immune.”

“Then you will have no way to know if your time is up, if you should even bother to fight your way back to the pick up point.” He didn’t seem concerned in the least. I was betting the asshole zombie king knew I was an Immune. For some reason he didn’t want to open the veil. Or maybe he just didn’t like me. That was a distinct possibility too. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d pissed off someone to the point they were difficult just because they could be.