Zoe's Blockade (Destiny's Trinities Book 5) Read online

  Cole sat back, the chair creaking with his weight. He was still shirtless and his tanned flesh was smooth and as Zoe knew personally, soft to the touch. The muscles beneath were not, however. He was a physical man and the width of his shoulders and back and the trim waist showed that. It made her a little crazy to look at him in the low-slung pajama pants, even while they were talking about such horrible things.

  He was stroking his thumb over a crease in his pajamas, concentrating on it. “I guess…we both have pasts, don’t we? I thought it was just me with all the baggage and you managed to encompass my history. Maybe I need to do the same thing with you.”

  Hope stirred. Zoe stayed silent, waiting, as Cole sorted it out.

  * * * * *

  As he clutched the phone and listened, Diego rubbed at the back of his neck, digging the fingers in. It wasn’t tight back there, yet stress could make a vampire think their muscles were tightening up, ghostly reminders of when they had been human.

  “There’s a reason the trinity formed where it did,” Beth said, her voice choppy. She was somewhere in Illinois, her call relayed back to the New York office, where Zack and Lindal were, then on to Diego. People were patching in every few seconds, as Lindal sent out the number. All of them were trinity people, so Diego wasn’t self-conscious about it. He knew and trusted every single one of them, now he had gone through his own bonding and understood how powerful it was.

  “The trinity formed in Erie because there were thousands of vampeen building in the forests there,” Beth continued. “This second wave of trinities seem to form where they’re most needed. From what you are saying, Diego, it appears your trinity is needed in northern Canada.”

  “Except it’s not a trinity,” he said flatly. “That’s what I don’t get. The vampeen are here. Their hounds are here. There’s probably a bunch of Grimoré handing out orders somewhere nearby, too. There always is. With this many, I would have said they were targeting the town. Revelstoke.”

  “Except they’re not,” Blake said. “They’re focusing on a house outside town that doesn’t have a complete, unbonded trinity in it. There are two and they’re already bonded in the human way. I don’t understand it either.”

  “The force that drives the bondings always knows what it is doing,” Beth said serenely.

  “Hounds,” someone who sounded a lot like Alexander said. “What next? Vampeen cats?”

  “They wouldn’t use cats,” another voice said.

  From the flat serious tone, Diego thought it might be the demon from the Pennsylvania trinity. Demon. Aithan corrected Diego every time he said the word. Incubi were demi-demons in Diego’s mind. He had killed more than his share of the bastards. Yet Aithan was different. In the inner recesses of his mind, Diego acknowledged that Aithan seemed, well, almost human. Except he seemed to have lost his sense of humor somewhere in the last few centuries.

  “Cats do not know how to obey their masters,” Aithan added now. “Dogs are pack animals, bred to obey their alpha and would be useful to the vampeen.”

  There was a small silence as everyone adjusted to Aithan’s straight answer in response to Alexander’s joke.

  That was when the photo jumped off the mantelshelf.

  The fireplace was a huge, raw stone thing, typical of log cabins and scaled to match the size of the room. The stone mantelshelf was built into the rock wall that climbed all the way to the ceiling, twelve feet above. The center of the ceiling was even higher, where the roof peaked. More massive tree trunks were running across the space as exposed trusses. The window at the end of the room was a huge three piece aperture, the triangle-shaped pane at the top matching the slope of the roof. The view beyond of snow-covered mountains and wide blue sky made the window a perfect frame.

  The room was warm, comfortable and overstuffed and included dozens of pictures in frames sitting on the mantelshelf along with knickknacks, trophies and more. It was incredibly homey and the sense of permanence and belonging were not lost on Diego. He’d just been too busy with the phone call and sorting out who was talking to let it register more than skin deep.

  Places like this had once made him uneasy, filling him with an almost violent resentment that such permanence and sense of family could never be his. Now, though, he had Blake and Sera and that made all the difference in the world.

  He lowered the phone, looking at the picture laying face-down on the rug in front of the unlit fireplace.

  There were no air currents in the room. There was nothing that could possibly make a picture leap off a perfectly stable shelf like that.

  Even with the phone lowered, he could hear Wyatt talking about gatherings and concentrations, his voice emerging from the phone in wisps. Wyatt was a damn good hunter and tended to think in hunting terms even when dealing with the Grimoré. Diego stopped listening. There were more than enough experts on everything listening in on the call.

  Instead, he went over to the photo and picked it up. He flipped it over in his hand and looked at it.

  Understanding flared in him. He lifted the phone back up to his face. “Gotta go.”

  He hung up, cutting the squawks and demands for explanations off short.

  * * * * *

  Diego—the vampire, Cole deliberately reminded himself—walked back into the kitchen. It was getting easier to think and speak the word without wanting to laugh at himself. The claw marks on the car were indisputable. He kept coming back to that over and over. Something had battered the car almost to pieces and it wasn’t a bear or a cat. Every time the conversation became too surreal, he reminded himself of the car.

  Diego laid one of their family pictures in the middle of the round table and left his finger resting on one of the faces. “Who is this?” he demanded.

  Zoe grew very still. She could see the photo from where she was standing at the counter.

  Cole lifted himself up off the chair just high enough to see which photo Diego had laid there.

  Something crimped his gut. He took a breath, easing it. “That’s…that was Declan.”

  The photo was one of the rare ones of him and Declan together. It occurred to him that it had been Zoe who had taken the photo. She was one of the very small handful of people who had known both of them.

  Diego nodded. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Zoe drew in a sharp breath.

  Cole swallowed. “Yes,” he said flatly. It was easier to say the word using the same emotionless tone Diego had used.

  Diego shook his head. “That’s why there are only two of you.” He said it to himself, sounding almost amused. “I never thought that….” He looked at Zoe. “Do you have any candles? A white one?”

  She blinked. “I have some emergency candles in the sink cabinet.”

  “Could I have one? Matches, too.” He picked up the photo and spread the stand behind it so the frame stood on the table.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not a medium, although I’ve seen it done and I know the Latin,” Diego said. He pointed at the nearly empty plate in front of Cole. “Are you done? Thanks.” He picked up the plate and the cutlery and dumped them on the counter. Then the coffee cup, clearing the table of everything but the photo.

  Zoe held out the candle and a book of matches silently. She didn’t look puzzled.

  “Latin?” Cole repeated.

  “A summoning spell,” Zoe told him.

  “To summon what?” Cole asked. It was suddenly hard to breathe. Even his heart seemed to grow still while he waited for the answer, because part of him already knew what the answer would be.

  “To summon spirits,” Zoe said.

  Diego shook his head. “If I’m right, we’re dealing with way more than a simple spirit.” He lit the candle, let it burn for a few seconds, then dropped some wax onto the table in front of the photo. He mired the end of the candle in the hot wax and held it until it was standing securely on its own. “Hush for a bit,” he said, holding both hands around the flame.

 
Then he removed his hands and let them hang by his sides and began to speak in a slow, deep voice. “Spiritus esto animo ostendunt, spiritum vere venistis ad me, ut sciam quod!...Spiritus esto animo ostendunt, spiritum vere venistis ad me, ut sciam quod...Spiritus ….”

  The chanting went on. Diego didn’t move, apart from his mouth. He stared into the candle flame and spoke the gibberish with a slow, patient voice.

  Cole looked around the kitchen, battling conflicting emotions. It was ten in the morning on a cold October day, with the sun shining in the windows. The old clock was ticking on the wall. He could still taste a perfectly normal breakfast in his mouth and the coffee that only Zoe seemed to make properly. His always tasted like sludge, even freshly made.

  On the other hand, this man, this vampire, was speaking Latin to bring forth a spirit. To bring Declan back.

  Cole had managed to nominally accept everything Diego had told him so far. This, though…this was impossible. It would end up being the joke that brought the whole house of lies tumbling down.

  “Hey.” Declan’s voice, sounding mildly surprised.

  Zoe gasped, holding back the squeaky sound with both hands, her eyes huge.

  Cole turned on his chair, his heart trying to ram itself out of his chest. He gripped the back of the chair.

  Declan stood by the counter, just as he had a thousand times before. He was wearing faded jeans and the pale blue tee shirt he had professed was his favorite and wore whenever he could.

  Cole let out a breath that was more of a groan. He was shaking.

  Declan was frowning, looking around the room. “I was only gone a minute, yet it’s different….”

  Diego picked up the candle and blew it out. He pulled out his phone, thumbed a speed dial number and listened, while watching Declan.

  Cole didn’t dare move. He was afraid that if he did, this moment would shatter and be gone. He could see Declan. He looked whole and very much alive. Even his chin was dark with stubble as it nearly always had been. His black hair was falling over his forehead, the thick waves unruly and uncontrollable.

  “Hey, yeah…” Diego said into the phone. “So there is a third here, after all.” He listened for a moment. “No, not a vampire,” he said. “Try this on for size. It’s a ghost.”

  Chapter Four

  Declan stared at the one stranger in the room. “Ghost?” he repeated.

  Zoe and Cole were both looking at him, their eyes large. Zoe was white. Cole looked as though he was going to collapse…or leap on him. His knuckles on the back of the chair were as white as Zoe’s face.

  “I’m the ghost….” Declan breathed as the truth gelled. He looked down at his hands, turning them over and over. “I don’t feel any different.”

  The swarthy stranger nodded. “You feel exactly as you felt when you died. Normal. Human. Only, you’re not.”

  “I buried you,” Cole breathed, his voice thick with pain. He glanced at Zoe. “We buried you.”

  Zoe hadn’t moved. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “We can see you. We can talk. We just can’t touch you,” she whispered.

  Declan shook his head. “I can feel. Look.” He slapped his hand on the counter…and his hand moved right through it. He could feel pressure and heat as it passed through, but nothing stopped his hand from falling back to his side. He did it again, then lifted his hand to look at it. It looked the same. There was even the little scar by his thumb, where Cole had slipped with the big screwdriver when they had swapped out the engine in his Chevy….

  Cole was still staring at him, his lips parted and his eyes narrowed with pain. His throat was working.

  Declan looked at the stranger, who seemed to know what was going on. “Why did you do this? Why tease him this way?”

  The stranger shook his head. “This isn’t some cruel trick designed to torment anyone. You’re needed, Declan. You are the last of this trinity and the bond will make you all stronger…strong enough to face the Grimoré and help us win back the world.”

  Declan stared at him, trying to put it together. “What?”

  The man grinned, his features lightening. “I get that reaction a lot. Zoe and Cole can explain it all to you.” He looked at them. “Normally, we’d get the hell out of your life and let you bond in private. I think I’d better stick around, though. I’m going to stay in the hall and keep an eye on the bridge. You really don’t have a gun in the house?”

  Cole didn’t move.

  Zoe shook her head. “Nothing like that.”

  The man sighed and slid the largest knife out of the knife block on the counter. The block was new. That was something Cole had always wanted. The man hefted the knife as if he knew what he was doing with it.

  “Take your time,” he said, talking to all three of them. “Only, don’t take too long, if you can help it.”

  Declan watched him leave, then looked back at the table. “Cole?”

  Cole blinked. “I’m getting a headache,” he breathed and gripped his head with one big hand.

  “More coffee,” Zoe said firmly. “And chocolate chip cookies.”

  “Sugar, yes,” Cole said. He dropped his hand and looked at Declan. “You’d better sit down. Can you? Sit down, I mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Declan said truthfully. He took a step toward the table. His legs worked normally. The floor felt solid beneath him as it always had. He took another step. “I’m really dead?”

  “You don’t remember dying?” Cole asked.

  “What happened?”

  “There was an avalanche on Mt. Revelstoke. The main ski slope. You were helping a man with a busted leg….” Cole stopped, his throat working. His eyes were glittering.

  “The man with the broken leg was dug out,” Zoe said from behind Declan, where she was working on the stove. “They couldn’t get to you in time.” Her voice was even. Almost serene.

  Declan stopped by the chair the other man had been using. It was still pulled out from the table. He wasn’t willing to try touching it.

  Cole’s shoulders were shaking, his head down.

  Zoe walked right around the counter, a big loop over to Cole. She put her arms around him and he turned his face into her torso and closed his eyes.

  Declan stared at them. “You’re…together,” he breathed. He looked at Zoe’s hand, at the ring there. Pain slammed into his chest. “You’re married.”

  Zoe’s face was pinched, tight with hurt. “You died four years ago, Declan.”

  He couldn’t pull it together. It was a confused mess. He could almost remember the ski hill, the exhausting slog up the slope to where the skier had been laying. Only, the memory wouldn’t form into an image. The cold, though…. “I remember the cold.” It had been all around him, pressing in. He took a deep, sharp breath. Then let it out. “I’m breathing,” he said.

  Zoe shook her head. “You just think you are. You’re an image, a representation of your spirit, that’s all, Declan.” She spoke firmly, as someone who was confident they knew what they were talking about. Declan remembered using that tone with his patients.

  He pursed his lips together and whistled, the same off-key sound he had only ever been able to make. “Could I do that, if I’m just an illusion?”

  Cole looked at him. Zoe let Cole go, also staring at Declan. “The bonding….” she said slowly. “Diego said it would change us.”

  “And you’re sitting,” Cole said slowly. He ground the heels of his hands against his eyes and gave a big, gusty sigh.

  Declan looked down at the chair beneath him. He didn’t remember sitting. Yet he could feel the chair beneath him. It was the same hard, unforgiving wooden seat he remembered. That hadn’t changed.

  He looked up at Zoe and Cole. “How long?” he asked.

  They glanced at each other.

  “Were you together before I died?” Declan demanded.

  “No!” Zoe cried. “You two were married, Declan.”

  Cole shook his head. “It just happened. Long after you were g
one.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Declan said slowly. “You wanted her, even when I was alive. I saw you watching her.”

  Cole’s jaw rippled. “You wanted her, too. You’d come home from the clinic in a muck sweat and drag me into the bedroom. Afterward, the conversation always seemed to come around to Zoe. I’m not stupid, Declan.”

  Declan froze. He couldn’t hear his heart beat and didn’t know if he was supposed to or not. Yet he was feeling…yeah, it was guilt.

  Cole just looked at him, waiting for him to acknowledge the truth.

  Zoe cleared her throat, a harsh, deliberate sound that still sounded feminine and light. “Well, this conversation has taken a detour.”

  “Has it?” Declan asked curiously. “You’re in the room, Zoe. Cole always started thinking about sex when you were there.”

  “So did you,” Cole said heavily.

  Declan was watching Zoe, though. There was something driving him, making him want to reach for her. In all the years he had known Zoe, he had always been able to hold himself back despite the desire to touch her, because ultimately, he loved Cole and didn’t want to hurt him in any way.

  Now, though, it was almost a compulsion to go to her. “The bonding,” he said. “You’d better tell me what it is, because I think it might be working.”

  * * * * *

  Beth glanced out the window once more. It was snowing again. Even so, she still wanted to be out there more than she wanted to be in this apartment.

  The three of them were at it again, snarling at each other. The problem was Murphy. He was a shifter, a werewolf, which Noemi, a vampire, and Dane, a human hunter, had considered to be an enemy their entire lives.

  Murphy was actually snarling. The inhuman sound coming from his mouth made the hairs on the back of Beth’s neck stand up straight and a shiver ripple down her back. If she had heard that sound out on the street at night, she would have broken into a sprint, heading for the nearest safe place.

  Beth was suddenly tired of it. They had been at this for nearly twelve hours, while Beth had also been trying to handle everything happening back in the office by remote control.