The Book of the Fang Read online

  The Book of the Fang

  Eric R. Asher

  Also by Eric R. Asher

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  The Steamborn Trilogy:

  Steamborn

  Steamforged

  Steamsworn

  The Vesik Series:

  (Recommended for Ages 17+)

  Days Gone Bad

  Wolves and the River of Stone

  Winter’s Demon

  This Broken World

  Destroyer Rising

  Rattle the Bones

  Witch Queen’s War

  Forgotten Ghosts

  The Book of the Ghost

  The Book of the Claw

  The Book of the Sea

  The Book of the Staff

  The Book of the Rune

  The Book of the Sails

  The Book of the Wing

  The Book of the Blade

  The Book of the Fang

  The Book of the Reaper*

  The Vesik Series Box Sets

  Box Set One (Books 1-3)

  Box Set Two (Books 4-6)

  Box Set Three (Books 7-8)

  Box Set Four: The Books of the Dead Part 1

  Box Set Five: The Books of the Dead Part 2 (Coming in 2020)*

  Mason Dixon – Monster Hunter:

  Episode One

  Episode Two

  Episode Three

  *Want to receive an email when one of Eric’s books releases? Sign up for Eric’s mailing list.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Also by Eric R. Asher

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Note from Eric R. Asher

  Also by Eric R. Asher

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2020 by Eric R. Asher

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Smashwords Edition, 2020

  Smashwords Edition License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Laura Matheson

  Cover typography by Indie Solutions by Murphy Rae

  Cover design ©Phatpuppyart.com – Claudia McKinney

  ~

  Some monsters don’t hide in the shadows.

  ~

  CHAPTER ONE

  Zola stepped through the portal into the Warded Ways and grimaced when the world twisted to the side with a special kind of violence. Colors and patterns turned her stomach as the next step took her to the exit and to blessed quiet.

  The portal behind her hummed as it closed.

  Aideen fluttered over her shoulder. “I’m not a fan of traveling the Warded Ways from Rivercene. It’s nice that the innkeeper opened the Way, but it’s disorienting at best.”

  Zola harrumphed. “Still better than dying. Let’s just hope it works when we try to go back.”

  Zola led the way up the small hill to the cabin, past the old oak tree out front, and beyond the slightly sunken earth where the demon Azzazoth was buried. She trailed around to the stones Aeros had raised some years ago.

  “Are you going to tell me what we’re doing here?” Aideen asked.

  “You’ll see soon enough. Try to stay calm. You can’t hurt him anymore, no matter how much you want to.”

  Aideen looked like she was about to say more, then her mouth formed a tight line, and she hovered just above Zola with her arms crossed.

  Zola closed her eyes and reached out with her aura. Coldwater was full of old ghosts. Some she’d known, some she’d gotten to know, and some had betrayed her worse than most.

  She found him near the edge of the forest, not far from the back door of the cabin. He came willingly, perhaps because he knew he had no choice. The dead did as the necromancers asked, and no one knew that better than a necromancer.

  Aideen gasped as Zola fed a tiny frisson of power into the ghost, making him corporeal enough to see without raising her Sight. Old ghosts had a way of staying with you, and Philip Pinkerton was no different.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?” Aideen unsheathed her swords, an instinct to fight overriding the knowledge she couldn’t actually stab him.

  “Ah told you, you can’t hurt him,” Zola said. “And he can’t hurt you. There’s not enough left of him now.”

  “Zola.” The ghost had sad eyes, and little of the energy she remembered from the better days they’d spent together. But Philip had gone down a different path. A darker path. And it had been one she would not follow, and could never forgive.

  “Your old friend Vassili is giving us some trouble.”

  Philip tilted his head to the side. “The old vampire? Why?”

  “Unintentional trouble, ironically enough. He stole something from the Shadowed Lands. Something we need. Something Ah need for a chance to save my pupil.”

  “What do you need me for?”

  “He’s been on the run for some time. One of Camazotz’s death bats has discovered he has been traveling close to the path of Price’s Raid. What do you know of Vassili’s connection to Price?”

  Philip’s eyebrows rose. He rubbed his pale gray scalp. Only a trace of hair remained above his ears. “I would’ve expected him to return to the Caribbean. That’s the place he talked about more than any other.”

  “He didn’t.”

  Zola heard Aideen’s swords slide back into the sheaths on her back. The fairy drifted forward until she was between Zola and Philip.

  “How can you stand here and speak to her after all you did?”

  Philip started to answer, but Zola cut him off. “This is not the time, Aideen. Time is short, and we need his help.”

  Aideen’s lips curled into a snarl, but she held her tongue.

  Zola turned back to Philip. “Tell me. Vassili and Price.”

  Philip shook his head. “There was nothing between the two that I am aware of. But Vassili was obsessed with Price’s Raid. The most I can say of it is that he amused himself during the war, taunting Price’s men. I think that’s what he enjoyed the most, the psychological torture. Breaking a man down mentally. Anytime he left the Pit for time away from his people, Vassili was either in the Caribbean, or following the path of Price’s Raid. But that grew into an obsession with the old battlefields. He visited far more than just Price’s battles.
”

  “Why would he be there now? He has no Pit. He has no allies.”

  Philip shrugged, his form flickering briefly with the motion. “He’s a vampire. It’s his feeding ground. Like returning to a favorite restaurant.”

  Zola cursed under her breath.

  “Vassili is a creature of habit,” Philip said, “but he’s also cautious. A vampire who always has allies. They may not be who you expect, but do not underestimate that vampire. He’s killed better people than us.”

  Philip’s words made Zola’s skin crawl, but she let it slide off. “There has to be more to it than that.”

  He didn’t respond for a time, until Zola prodded him. “Answer me, or Ah’ll compel you in more unpleasant ways.”

  Philip looked away into the forest. “There was a story about a hidden place in Newtonia. Vassili said it was covered in enough blood and carnage to hide most anything that came looking for him.”

  Zola frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Newtonia never saw that many casualties. Battles and tragedy, yes, but nothing that would conceal vampires from …”

  “Not necessarily hide him. But the things he wanted no one else to find. Rumor once said Vassili carried a long-forgotten artifact, a piece of royalty. Something all the vampires respected, a symbol of power. Perhaps that’s what is hidden there.”

  Aideen settled onto Zola’s shoulder. “And where do you go when you’ve lost almost all of your allies?”

  Zola cursed. “You go to your stronghold. You go to where you have hidden your most valuable possessions, to either hide away with them, or gather them up to run.”

  Philip nodded. “If he realizes you’re coming after him, he’ll run. I told him enough stories about you over the years, he’ll be afraid. No matter how he acts, he will be afraid of you. And you can use that to your advantage. The ages pass beneath the dying sun of his immortality. You cannot know what that vampire will try. How do you know he’ll even have what you seek?”

  Philip started to say more, but Zola waved her hand, and the trickle of power she had been feeding his ghost cut off, and his words drifted away with it. Without her Sight raised, even the outline of his old ghost faded too.

  “Zola …”

  She raised her eyes to Aideen, and then turned back to the circle of stones where Philip had disappeared. “Ah know, Aideen. Ah know. You need not worry yourself. Just think of it as some long-overdue therapy.”

  “Let’s see how that goes after we save Damian, and he finds out you’ve been talking to Philip.”

  Zola grimaced, but she didn’t rise to Aideen’s bait. “Let’s focus on what’s important here. We have the information we needed. We know Cizin’s on the right trail. Newtonia isn’t far from Springfield, and we can focus the search.”

  Aideen studied Zola for a short time. The fairy nodded. “We should get back. The innkeeper won’t watch the Warded Ways forever. The last thing we need to do is die in one of her traps.”

  “We can agree on that.” Zola made her way into the cabin. She turned left, and crouched to dig through one of the cabinets by the sink. When she stood up again, she had a large barrel of cheeseballs.

  Aideen raised an eyebrow.

  “For Luna. She loves these damn things.”

  Aideen grinned and hopped back up onto Zola’s shoulder. “I don’t think they all know how lucky they are to have you.”

  Zola sighed as she made her way off the deck into the grass as they headed back toward the front of the cabin. “They aren’t the lucky ones, Aideen. We are.”

  They stayed in the front yard for a moment, beneath the brilliant stars in the darkness. It was a moment of peace among hours of chaos. But everything they did led to another fight. Now they hunted Vassili, and if they found the cale with him, they’d still have to confront the dangers of saving Damian, of resurrecting Gaia, and of a renewed battle with Nudd.

  But for that one moment, among the whispers of the old ghosts, the fairy and the necromancer had their calm.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sam stood at the end of the driveway outside Rivercene, on the top of the embankment that long ago had been the river’s edge. She’d tried to rest. But there was too much at stake for sleep. The longer she was a vampire, the harder it became to sleep at night.

  The slightest hint of light caught her eye as a portal opened, and she reached out to Zola when the old Cajun stumbled out of the swirling red and orange oval.

  “Goddamnit, Aideen. That was worse than the trip there.”

  “That was hardly my …” Aideen held her hand over her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut, and Sam would have sworn the fairy was turning green. “That was hardly my fault.”

  Zola groaned as she stood up straight and patted Sam’s shoulder. “Ah’m okay, girl. Just need a minute.”

  “Why do you have cheeseballs?”

  Zola grinned and handed the barrel over to Sam. “For Luna. Trust me.”

  Sam tucked the cheeseballs under her arm. “Did you find out anything? Did you get what we needed?”

  “Maybe.” Zola pinched the bridge of her nose and then leaned on her knobby old cane. “Newtonia. That’s where you’re heading.” Zola looked lost in thought, and Sam worried about what the old Cajun had discovered.

  “What do you mean you’re?”

  “I mean you’re going to take Vik and Dominic and find Cizin in Springfield. Find out anything you can from him before you head to Newtonia. If Vassili is there, you need to be prepared.”

  “What about you?”

  “You saw the things that came here, Samantha. The innkeeper is formidable, but worse things could be on their way. If we lose Rivercene, we lose Damian.”

  She was right. Sam knew she was right. But sometimes the simple truths weren’t so obvious. “Vicky and Luna should stay here and help you fight.”

  “No,” Aideen said, drawing Sam’s attention. “You need Jasper, and considering we don’t know who Vassili might have with him, you need fighters.”

  “Dominic and Vik can handle themselves.”

  “I’m not saying they can’t. But you don’t know what you’re walking into. Zola might be right to stay here, but you need more allies at your side too.”

  The old Cajun nodded.

  “What about you and Foster?” Sam asked.

  Aideen sat down on Zola’s shoulder. “The conflict is escalating around Falias again. We have to go to the Morrigan’s aid. My skills as a healer, and Foster’s skills as the Demon Sword, or at least one of the Demon Swords, will be needed.”

  “Ah only hope we don’t have need of them here.”

  Aideen glanced up at Zola and then back to Sam. “Everything we do now is a risk. Every time we split our forces apart, we run the chance of failure.” Her hand flexed on the hilt of the dagger sheathed at her waist. “But failure is too kind a word. Doom would be more apt.”

  Sam muttered under her breath. “Good pep talk.”

  “Alexandra and Graybeard left for Saint Charles,” Aideen said.

  “What for?” Sam asked.

  “After the issues Park and his unit encountered with the Unseelie Fae, we are concerned something else could strike at Saint Charles.” Aideen glanced at Zola. “We didn’t want you to be worried about Frank.”

  “Frank knows how to stay alive.” Sam looked into the distance toward the river, as if she might catch a glimpse of the Bone Sails. But she had no idea how long it had been gone, as she hadn’t seen Graybeard when the Eldritch things came.

  Zola patted her on the shoulder. “It’s for the best, Samantha.”

  Sam nodded. She trusted her friends more than she trusted herself when it came to strategy. But that didn’t make it any easier when it came to her family and Frank being in danger. She wanted to protect everyone, but she’d learned long ago that wasn’t always possible. Sometimes she had to trust they could protect themselves.

  “Then we’ll go. We’ll be back here as soon as we can.”

  Zola hesitated. Then she r
eached out and hugged Sam.

  Sam leaned into her, and felt Aideen’s small hand patting her on the cheek.

  “This is almost over, girl. One way or another, this is almost over.”

  Sam gave one sharp nod, and turned away before Zola could see the tears in her eyes. It was an odd thing, to be torn by rage, fear, and a kind of certainty that things weren’t going to go well.

  * * *

  Vicky, Dominic, and Vik were all seated in the great room by the old piano that held the wardstone. Luna hung from the intricate wood molding that framed the doorway to the dining room. Her upside down ears twitched and tracked Sam as she walked through the room.

  “Let’s go,” Vicky said, scooping up her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder.

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “You’re ready?”

  Luna let out an exasperated sigh. “She’s always ready.”

  “Here, kid.” Sam launched the barrel of cheese balls at Luna. The death bat caught them effortlessly, looked down at what was in her hands, and almost squealed. “Okay, apparently Zola wasn’t exaggerating.”

  Luna had a handful of cheese balls in her face before she even hit the ground. “Now I’m ready.”

  Vik eyed the death bat. “It is as if Damian never left.”

  “Huh?” Luna offered some cheeseballs to Vicky, and her ears twitched at Vik.

  A pair of large black eyes appeared over Vicky’s shoulder as Jasper settled in.

  “Everyone in the car.” Dominic stood up and gestured to the group. The vampire enforcer towered over the others. At some six-and-a-half feet tall, he was nearly a foot taller than Vik. He tossed Sam a backpack from the couch.

  “It’s an SUV,” Sam muttered as she caught the backpack and slid into it. They weren’t entirely sure what weapons they would need, so they’d come prepared. Back when Sam was still entirely human, she would’ve thought the backpack weighed a ton. Not so much in the years since then.

  “Did Ashley and Beth leave?” Sam asked.

  Vik shook his head. “Sleeping, as far as I know. As well they should. The coven will be staying here until this is over. They seem to get along with the green men well enough. It is a good arrangement.”