Magic Undying (Dragon's Gift: The Seeker #1)(60)

Roarke said something to Cass and Nix, but my hearing was fuzzy. He pointed to the fallen Ubilaz demon, and Nix and Cass hurried over. To get its blood?

Roarke approached me quickly, his gaze indecipherable in his demon form. What happened now? Did he drag me back to the Underworld?

The Ubilaz demon was gone, and that fight was over.

But I’d bet the next one was about to begin.





Chapter Fourteen





Guinevere’s tomb was quieter without the demons.

All I remembered from the end of the battle at Richmond Castle was Roarke picking me up and carrying me out of there. I’d woken in my own bed, Cass and Nix at my side. They’d gotten the blood to Connor, who’d made the antidote.

So, yay! I wasn’t going to turn into a demon. In all seriousness, though, I was pretty thrilled about that.

Nix had handed me a letter from Roarke that had said only, “When you’re better, come to me. Or I will come to you.”

Well, that had been pretty clear.

At least he was giving me a chance to recover, which was good. I was going over to his place soon, but I had something to do before I faced the music. I didn’t know what Roarke thought about what he’d seen, but he seemed to be on slow burn mode and that made me nervous. I hoped helping him catch the Ubilaz demon was enough to get me off the hook, but I wasn’t sure.

So I’d come to Guinevere’s tomb to clean it up since I wasn’t sure if I’d have another chance. I didn’t like the idea of it being disturbed. Of any archaeological site being disturbed.

“What do you say we get started?” Cass asked from where she stood beside me.

I stared down into the pit that held Guinevere’s sarcophagus. The top was still shoved off, and her skeleton lay in its big stone box.

“Yeah.” As much as I’d wanted to talk to her before, I really didn’t want her to come back to life right now. I needed a break from the whole death-magic thing. Fortunately, the cathedral above hadn’t come to life, but it still might.

I set my backpack on the ground, then jumped down into the pit beside Nix and Cass. I pulled Guinevere’s charm out of my pocket and put it around her skeletal neck.

“Too bad the magic isn’t more decayed,” Cass said.

“Yeah.” I nodded. It would’ve been a nice addition to our shop. But it wasn’t decayed enough yet. Magic was like milk—it expired eventually. Once it went bad, it went bad. But instead of a foul smell, you got explosions and the like. So that was the magic that we took for our shop.

But Guinevere’s charm contained such strong magic that it still had a lot of life left in it. That meant we had to return it to her sarcophagus.

I took one last look at her, then turned to Cass and Nix. “Want to do this thing?”

Nix cracked her knuckles. “Can’t wait.”

It took some huffing and puffing, but we got the lid of the sarcophagus back onto the base.

“Now for the last bit.” I climbed out of the pit, followed by Cass and Nix.

We grabbed the shovels we’d brought and heaved the dirt back into the pit.

“Weird that she’s been buried down in the crypt. All the other sarcophagi are just sitting out,” Nix said.

“Extra protection, maybe,” I said. “And there might be more bodies down below.”

We sweated in silence as we filled the pit, then stomped the dirt down tight.

“Well, it’s not perfect,” Cass said. “But it’s pretty good.”

“Yep.” I put down my shovel and grabbed my backpack, then pulled out the mini box of wine and three coffee mugs. “Now time for a toast.”

“For real?” Cass asked.

“Hey, I didn’t see you bring any of that swill you drink,” I said. Cass preferred Pabst Blue Ribbon, the beer of hipsters and hillbillies, as she called it. “And anyway, red wine doesn’t need refrigeration. And the box is portable.”

I sat on the ground and pinched the little spout, pouring some into each coffee mug. Cass and Nix joined me, and I handed them each a half-full mug.

In unison, we raised our glasses and glanced at each other, then said, “To Guinevere.”

“The woman who changed her fate,” I added.

We drank, staring at the place where Guinevere’s body lay.

“Do you think we can change our fate?” I asked.

Cass looked at me. “Do we want to?”

“I don’t know.” I frowned. “It’s been quite a year though.”

“Yeah,” Nix said. “Defeating the Monster who kept us prisoner as kids, then you coming back from the dead. And I don’t think it’s over yet.”

“No, it’s not. Draka said more is coming.” Earlier, I’d told them about the Phantom dragon and what it had said. “But I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You will be,” Cass said.

“You think?” Even as I asked, my chest felt empty and helpless. Draka had said someone called me the Demise. Wasn’t I just as likely to be that as to be the Guardian? “How could I be called something as important as the Guardian?”

“Of life and death,” Nix repeated Draka’s words, which I’d told her. They just made the task ahead of me seem more impossible.