“Ready.”

I walked to him and he grabbed my arm, slinging me onto his back. Any harder and my arm would’ve come out of its socket, but I said nothing. For now, the Yeti was a boon and I was glad of his speed.

“Hang on,” he said, and I grabbed a good handful of his long floating hair.

He leapt forward, letting out a long mournful cry as he ran. The howl was somewhere between that of a wolf and the rushing of a storm as it screamed, high-pitched and wavering through the trees. The sound echoed through the mountain air and was repeated back to us from somewhere in the distance. A call of his family to him maybe, saying goodbye.

I only hoped it wasn’t the last time he’d set foot in the mountains.

CHAPTER 8

ew Delhi, with a Yeti at my side in the crush of summer heat. I had to shake my head several times as I dodged the elbows and carts that pushed close around us, because even I couldn’t believe the situation I was in. Norm, though, was happy as could be, just trucking along, occasionally waving to the odd person.

I, on the other hand, was doing my best not to panic about Peta. I kept moving forward, one foot in front of the other, head down. Once I’d realized Cassava had set a trap with bait I wouldn’t be able to turn away from, there was nothing to do but keep moving. The only upside of the situation was that, at least, I would not be surprised when the trap was sprung. My plan, of course, was to spring the trap before I was in it.

The last time I’d been in New Delhi, I’d worked with one of the local supernaturals and had been lucky enough to call him friend. But that had been close to fifty years before, and the chances he was still residing in the city were slim. Not because he would be dead, but because he moved around a lot.

As a healer, he went wherever he was needed. I hoped he would be in the city, but really, it wasn’t fully necessary. I had access to his home at all times because I’d helped him create it.

Carved into the side of a rock bluff, the back half of the house was a veritable fortress that I’d created out of the earth for him. That had been the price I’d had to pay to have not only his trust and help as I needed it but in order to leave a stash of weapons, clothes, human money and identification in his home.

That had been during a time where I’d been chasing after a band of young elementals. They had been on a wild spree as they traversed the world and caused a fair bit of chaos. It was one of the few times the four families worked together, sending their Enders out in squads of four to bring the idiots under control. They’d set up in India, according to their leader, because there were so many humans, they thought they could hide unnoticed.

I snorted to myself, thinking about how they’d begged for mercy, blubbering and wetting themselves. We’d sent them all home to be punished by their leaders.

Behind me, Norm snorted too. “What’s funny?” he asked.

“Nothing. I was just thinking about something.”

He stomped along with me, and once again I was struck by how the humans’ eyes just slid over him. Like he was as normal as them. They were moon-blind, not wanting to see the monsters in the dark. That was what my mother had told me once.

Whoa. Where had that come from? I hadn’t thought of my mother . . . for longer than I cared to consider or remember.

For a moment, I could see her, the soft smile on her lips. The golden glow of her eyes so like mine, the touch of her hand on my cheek as she whispered to me that the dark held nothing to fear. “Be strong, my sweet boy, I see great things for you. You are a going to be a brave warrior of the earth. Never doubt it.” Then the screaming within the smoke as our home burned, my mother and siblings within it, and the hands that held me back, holding me away from rushing into the flames. “It is not your time to burn. Not yet. Not yet.” The words had been there, in my ear, and I’d fought them. “Let me go.”

“What did you say, friend?” Norm put a big hand on my shoulder, snapping me out of the memory I’d thought I’d put away.

I shook off the sudden lapse. “Nothing, just . . . the past.” I made my way around a vendor of saris, the long silk floating on the breeze like a series of colorful flags as I tried to banish the sudden chill on my skin.

Looking as I did wearing a leather vest and khaki pants, I most certainly did not fit in. Normally I would have been mobbed as a tourist with my blond hair and fair skin. The newest wares would have been shoved under my nose to tempt me with the colors, textures, and smells of everything you could ever imagine being sold in a place like this. Being barefoot and carrying several weapons seemed to be working in my favor in keeping all the vendors and their sales pitches off me.

My friend Dhanvantari’s home was on the far side of the city. We made good time in getting there, even with Norm stopping here and there to touch things.

More than once I had to slap his hands away from fragiles.

The house built out from the rocky bluff was three stories high and looked to be breaking down in every aspect. As though the mansion had been left to ruin for a thousand years, but I knew that wasn’t the case in the least. I had helped build it only fifty years prior. I knew that it would last a lot longer than any manmade structure. That being said, Dhan liked to keep it looking as though not only did no one live there, but it wasn’t worth bothering in regards to being burglarized.

I started to tap on the large iron gates out front and froze. The metal hummed softly like the faint buzzing of a beehive. I took a step back and dropped my hand. Electrified? Now, that was interesting.