Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,149
the clearing, in the middle of the night—
—And in the middle of a standoff between Malcolm and four Guardians.
Purely by chance, I emerged first, just in time to hear Malcolm shout, “For the last time, you are not closing this damn door!”
With Esme in my arms, I landed on the grass and rolled aside just in time to avoid Ronan’s arrival. Lucy fell out next, and Daisy last. Dazed and still tied together by Ronan’s shiny magical rope, we lay more or less where we’d landed.
The Broken World magic grated on my skin. Given how uncertain I’d been that we’d return from the Underworld, the sensation was weirdly welcome.
“Okay, now you jerks can close the door,” Malcolm said.
He floated above me, looking worried, relieved, and furious all at once. “Alice?” His eyes went to my middle and widened at the sight of the terrible knot of death magic. “Oh, no,” he breathed.
“Lucy?” One of the male Guardians approached us cautiously. “Good Lord, what happened to you?”
“It wasn’t a good lord who did this,” Lucy muttered as Ronan untied us. “Other than some blood loss and one hell of a headache, I’m fine, guys. Had to pop down there with some friends and take care of business so we could shut this door.”
“Captain Ellis is going to shit bricks,” a tall blonde female Guardian ground out through clenched teeth. “Stone, can’t you ever do anything according to regulations?”
“Doesn’t appear that way.” Lucy got to her feet and rolled her neck and shoulders, which popped audibly. She glanced down at the doorway. “Time to shut this for good. Alice, you want to do the honors?”
“I’ll do it,” Malcolm said quickly, glancing again at the knot in my abdomen. “It’s safer for me to do it anyway.”
“Did you release the ghost Mariela had staked to the doorway?” I asked.
“First chance I got,” Malcolm told me. “I anchored the spellwork myself—and good thing I did, since I had to defend it.”
While he picked apart the spellwork that kept the door open, I got to my feet with help from Daisy.
“Who are these people?” the male Guardian who’d addressed Lucy earlier demanded. “And why the hell would you go through a door to the Underworld, leaving it open behind you, without informing your commanding officer or even your partner?”
“It’s…complicated,” Lucy said. “I’ll file a complete report with Ellis.”
A familiar man in Guardian officer’s uniform stormed into the clearing. “You’ll have to do a hell of a lot better than that, Stone,” he snapped.
“Stop.” He raised his finger in warning as he approached. “You are under arrest.”
I took a step forward, but Lucy held me back. “On what charges?” She sounded more curious than angry or afraid.
“A very long list.” Ellis put his fists on his hips. “I’ll figure out which ones on the way to the nearest Guardian outpost.” His flinty gaze raked over the rest of us. “Who the hell are these people?”
Lucy gestured. “This is Alice. She and her guardian wolf assisted me by tracking the location of the door.” Daisy sat on her haunches and grinned at Ellis with her tongue lolling like a large dog. Lucy hooked her thumb at our silent companion. “And this is Ronan Smith, bounty hunter, who happened to be down there collecting a bounty and came back with us.”
“And what is that?” Ellis demanded, pointing at Esme in my arms, who blinked sleepily at him.
“My cat,” I said, as if taking one’s cat to the Underworld was a perfectly natural thing to do.
Behind us, the doorway snapped closed with a flare of broken spellwork and blood magic. “It’s closed,” Malcolm said for the benefit of anyone who couldn’t sense the magic. “No more doorway to the Underworld.”
“Thanks,” I told him. “You’re the best.”
“I know,” he said, but there was no hint of humor in his tone. He stared at my middle, then looked away.
Ellis’s face reddened. “You have been missing for two weeks, Stone. We thought you were dead. I had to divert valuable resources to search for you.”
She blinked. “Two weeks? It’s only been a day or two at most.”
Malcolm floated back and forth. “It’s been two weeks,” he told me, his voice quiet. “Thankfully, your wards held and nothing’s come up out of the door since you went down. Everything was fine until earlier today, when these guys found Lucy’s jeep and the door, and then it all went sideways.” He glared at the Guardians. “It’s been