A Lost Light (The Bestiary #4)

15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

River

“ W ell, that was exciting,” I said as I stumbled through the rather concerningly unstable portal and into a small courtyard that was bursting with plants. The sky was the wrong color, and though there was light, there didn't seem to be a sun.

I took a moment to center myself, brushed my hands down my skirt, and straightened. Then I winced. Gunshot wounds were so inconvenient. I was immensely thankful my luck magic had saved me from the experience up until now.

The green-haired witch let out a short, wry laugh. “Exciting. Right.” She shook her head at me, her eyes going to the hand I held against my side, over the bullet wound. “I take it you don't have supernatural healing abilities?”

I shrugged. “I heal faster than a human. About like a witch. But that's it.”

She nodded and turned toward a door on the far side of the courtyard. She recoiled in horror when she almost ran into the man who had come up behind her. “Goddess fucking hell! Why does he keep doing that?!”

The tall, eerily handsome redhead behind her chuckled and waved a hand in a dismissive gesture, and the other man shuffled around the witch to resume pacing the perimeter of the courtyard. “You keep getting in his way,” the redhead said, clearly suppressing a smile. “He's just following his usual route, doing his job. Stop interfering with his work, Lovell.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. But I looked away from their banter to watch the odd man as he shuffled about. He looked a bit shabby. And his skin was certainly not a healthy color. The magic around him seemed dark. I shoved my glasses up on my nose and peered through the lenses at the enhanced auric field that leapt into view.

“He's dead,” I observed to myself. “Interesting.” I wanted to go take a closer look. Inspect this new discovery and learn all I could about it. But the pain in my side stopped me.

“He attacked us,” the tall, handsome blond man at my side commented, clearly having overheard my comment. “It was self-defense.” An angel. Bella was right. Her sister's harem was… certainly varied. And tall—except the one I could feel glaring daggers behind me. And they were all ridiculously good-looking. It hardly seemed fair.

“And were you self-defense as well?” I asked the one who had spoken, as I peered through my glasses at his aura. It was very strange. Powerfully angelic. But kind of… layered on top of more of that dark magic.

The open expression on his handsome face closed off, and he looked a bit hurt. “I'm… no. I'm just… I'm different.”

“Elijah is alive,” a pretty, ethereal being with silvery blond hair and stunning turquoise eyes informed me in a voice that almost made me purr.

A sudden rush of unaccustomed emotions swept over me, and I shuddered. All the fear I hadn't let myself feel during my recent mission. The terror when I'd felt my luck dry up and a bullet tear through my side. And the overwhelming hope and joy at knowing I was safe again. It was all very strange. I lifted a hand and wiped a tear from my cheek.

The pretty creature before me gave me a soft smile. “I apologize. I'm trying to keep my powers to myself, but I understand it does takes time to grow accustomed to my aura.”

I shook my head. These people were so strange. And fascinating. I felt like I should be taking notes.

“Come on,” the green-haired witch said tiredly. “All of the healing stuff is upstairs. We can get you patched up and you can pick a bedroom where you can get cleaned up and rest.”

I nodded my consent and followed this strange group into the sprawling stone mansion, my gaze darting around furiously as I took in every detail of the famed Lovell House of Horrors. It really was homier than I had expected. Although if it was currently inhabited by this particular witch, perhaps her clear earth energy had dispelled some of the residual evil lurking about.

With my glasses on, I expected to see ghosts in a place this old, and so steeped in lore. But they were suspiciously absent. Not a single faded shade or sad spook to be seen. Strange.

We crossed an echoing entryway with an intricate pentagram and casting circle woven in among the glossy marble tiles, stopping at the foot of a massive, curving staircase that swept up to the second floor. The witch—Oleander, my somewhat overwhelmed brain finally supplied—stopped and turned back to me. “Can you make it up the stairs? I know we stopped the bleeding, but that wound must hurt like a bitch.”

I gave her a grim smile. “Several bitches, actually. All of them quite vengeful. But I will persevere.”

She looked skeptical. A large hand landed on my shoulder, and I turned my head to look up at the towering hulk of a gargoyle. “I can carry you, if you'll let me?”

I looked around at the assorted faces of my rescuers. “This all seems rather unreal,” I observed. They all just… pulled a stranger out of a jail cell, brought him home, and started treating him like he was part of their strange family. Peculiar. But I really was tired and hurting. “If it's not too much trouble, I will definitely take a ride.”

He gave me a strange look and blushed slightly. I reviewed my words and smirked, holding out an arm in invitation. Far be it from me to pass up the opportunity to cause mischief. Though my comment really had been innocent.

The gargoyle swept me up into his massive arms as if I weighed nothing, and we all proceeded up the stairs. The small, fiery one with the mistrustful golden-brown eyes vanished in a shower of sparks, confirming my assumption. Jinn. And with all the attitude of a fire elemental. He was waiting for us when we reached the large workroom on the second floor.

“You can put him in the chair there,” Oleander directed my hulking chariot. Then she paused by the workbench. “Wait. I never asked.” Her gray eyes skated over my now destroyed pencil skirt and low heels. “What are your pronouns? Bella said 'he,' so I just assumed, but….”

I smiled as the gargoyle gently deposited me into a wingback chair like I was a princess in distress. “Thank you, sir,” I said, patting his massive bicep. Then I turned my attention to the witch.

“Male,” I told her, a bit thrown off, but also delighted, by this whole conversation. Not many people bothered to ask outright. “I simply enjoy pretty things. I've never understood why a man can't enjoy a smartly tailored dress now and then.” I gave her a wink. “And I did particularly enjoy expressing my smart clothing sense and my lack of fucks given for gender norms during my time with the SA. There were a couple of particularly bigoted coworkers I lived to torment.” I shrugged. “I'll answer to he, him, them… but thank you for asking.”

She nodded as she and a couple of the others started pulling jars and pouches down from the shelves and cabinets around the room. Pausing, she pointed to each of her companions in turn, ending with herself. “He. He. She. He. They. He. He. She.”

I nodded, and she carried on with her spell making, chucking things into a large mortar. The slender fae woman with the cute antlers and the hunting knife at her belt leaned a hip against the workbench and watched me. They were all watching me. They were just mostly being subtle about it. Well, except the jinn. He was still blatantly glaring.

“You knew we were coming for you,” the fae woman said evenly. “You didn't seem surprised to see us.”

I shrugged. “I didn't know you would be showing up precisely. But my powers told me that it was lucky I got caught and thrown in that SA jail. So, when you showed up, I had a good feeling about your appearance.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Your powers?”

I sighed. Right. When the SA accepted my story about defecting from the rebel cause to join the alliance, they were happy to swallow the lie just to get at my powers. But even they didn't know exactly what all those powers were. They simply knew I had an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time, and a much higher than usual percentage of success at all of the tests they threw my way when they hired me. True shifters like myself were rare, and our magical abilities varied widely. And the SA was chomping at the bit to have one on payroll to study.

How much should I tell these people?

Oleander Lovell was Bella's little sister. I had trusted the rebel leader with some of my secrets, out of pure necessity. The rebel faction seemed like the only safe choice when it came to protecting my family. And I knew that if I was going to ask for that protection, I needed to make myself valuable to them. So, Bella and some of the others knew about my luck magic. I supposed I could share at least that much with these people, since Bella could just tell them anyway. But the rest I kept to myself, for now.

“Luck magic,” I said evenly. “I get this feeling about things. It never guides me wrong. And I have the pleasure of always being in the right place at the right time. It's a cat thing.”

The fae didn't respond, she just watched me with narrowed eyes.

“If you're so lucky, why is there currently a bullet hole in your side?” the jinn drawled as he lounged against the fireplace mantle on the other side of the room.

I met his golden eyes and had to resist the urge to stick out my tongue. This one was a complete brat. I could smell it from a mile away. I had no patience for those sorts of games, especially not after the day I’d had. “I was hoping you all could enlighten me on that,” I said calmly, not rising to the jinn’s snide, baiting tone.

I glanced at Oleander again as she ground things together with her mortar and pestle. “You called me to you, but I could sense that void around you,” I said honestly. “When I stepped through that, I felt my luck magic disappear.” I shrugged. “It felt like… suddenly I was standing in a sea of bad luck. Maybe some kind of karmic backlash from all the good luck I usually pull my way? I have no idea. All I know is, I knew something bad was going to happen. But then I stepped closer to you and my luck magic came rushing back in and I knew I was where I should be.”

She frowned at me. “That sounds plausible. And… really fucking dangerous. Let's keep you away from the nullifier from now on.”

“I agree,” I said succinctly, even if I didn’t fully understand what “the nullifier” was or how it operated. I assumed that was the cause of my sudden lack of luck.

She crossed the room to kneel by my chair. “Pull up your shirt and I'll smear this paste on the wound. Then I'll activate it with my magic. It might sting or itch a bit, but it should close the wound and speed up healing.”

Something beeped loudly and she huffed, dropping the pestle into the mortar and holding that with one hand while she fumbled with something at her waistband. A device of some sort. I leaned forward to watch, ignoring the way that pulled at the wound in my side. My curiosity really would be the death of me. I eyed the plastic tubing that emerged from the device and disappeared under her t-shirt. “A medical device?”

She lifted her gray eyes to meet my questioning gaze and sighed. “Insulin pump and blood sugar monitor.”

I arched my brows at her. “You are a witch, and yet you have a human illness?”

“Curse,” she muttered as she returned her attention to pressing buttons on her device. “Woven into my DNA. Just one more amazing benefit of being a Lovell.”

“I see.” I sat back. I wasn't entirely sure I should trust a witch who was susceptible to basic human illnesses to practice healing magic on me. But I didn't get any sense of bad luck from the situation. Only the continued low hum of warmth I felt when I was in a lucky situation—all of my senses telling me this was where I should be if I wanted what was best for me. It was interesting, and a bit unsettling, how that feeling hadn't left since I came into contact with these people.

The witch finished whatever she was doing with her device and focused on me once more. I pulled up my poor, destroyed blouse so she could get to the wound in my side. It looked nasty. But I really was lucky. It was painful, ugly, and it had bled a lot. But the bullet really had only grazed through some muscle and skin. A couple inches to the side, and it probably would have hit vital organs.

Oleander clucked at the sight of my torn flesh and the crusty dusting of spell powder that had been applied previously to stop the bleeding. “Hasumi,” she said distractedly. “Can you clean that off?” Her gray eyes flicked up to meet mine and she shrugged. “It won't hurt to put the new spell right over the old one, but it would stay all crusty.”

I shuddered slightly. I hated being dirty.

The ethereal creature I had yet to put a name to must be Hasumi. They moved to my side and did something with their graceful hands. A small sphere of water appeared in mid-air, hovering near me. “This may tickle,” they informed me. Then the sphere floated over and made contact with my skin, the blob maintaining its spherical shape as it rolled across my wound, somehow taking all the grime away with it. They were right. It did tickle. My muscles tensed and I hissed softly at the pain that caused. But it was bearable, especially if it meant being clean.

I watched as Hasumi—who must be some kind of water elemental—banished the sphere from the room. “Where did it go?” I asked curiously.

They smiled softly, seemingly amused at my question. “Outside. I simply sent it to the courtyard and dispelled it where the water will nourish the plants.”

“Ah.” I nodded, happy with the knowledge.

Oleander glanced between us with a wry half-smile on her face. “You're really curious, aren't you?”

I sat up taller and pushed my glasses up my nose as I restored some of the barriers I usually tried to maintain. “I simply like to be well informed.”

Her smirk grew, but she turned to her work, gently spreading the concoction she had made over my wound with her soft fingers. Not very hygienic. But then, she was a witch. I was sure magic would get rid of any germs, since this was a healing spell and all. The paste immediately felt cool and soothing against my painful, inflamed skin.

“You work for Bella, then?” Oleander asked casually as she coated me in herbs.

I nodded. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I help the rebels whenever I can. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. And, of course, there is the political piece. The supremacists believe my people to be nothing more than animals who play at being human, beneath them and best used as slaves. But the Supernatural Alliance has done very little to curb the cult’s rise to power. Their inaction endangers my kind, and those close to me. I felt the rebels offered a solution—the only real chance at keeping my people safe.”

She sighed. “We were told you were an innocent civilian being held on false spying charges. But you are actually a spy, aren't you?”

I shrugged. “The SA thought I was a defector from the rebel camp. They thought I wanted to join their side, and they leapt at the opportunity to milk me for information about the rebels—which I was happy to feed them, in useless bits, of course. They wanted to use me for my potential powers. There was also the lure of having their very own shifter to study.” She arched her brows at me, and I smirked. “I am incredibly good at sneaking around. And at finding things that I want to find. I gave the SA plenty of information about the rebels. All of it useless. And meanwhile I slowly fed the SA's secret files to the rebels.”

I sighed, disappointed in myself, even if it looked like this would all turn out to be to my benefit in the end. “I got caught in the director's office stealing their newest hitlist.” Sloppy, really. “The list was filled with quite a few names that didn't appear to be witch supremacists or actual criminals… all very interesting. I can’t believe I let myself get caught. But then again, sometimes what seems like a bad turn is actually good luck in disguise.” I glanced around the room full of strangers and felt that warm hum of rightness again. “And so, here I am.”

“Are you saying you think you were meant to be here?” the mostly alive angel asked me, the faintly glowing branches of his wings opening and closing slowly as he took this in.

I shrugged. “Apparently. Though I will miss my library and my computer, and all of my things. Is Bella able to send things here… wherever here is?” I glanced at Oleander again. “No one knows where the youngest Lovell is hiding, not even the other rebels. Bella is very protective of you.” And now I would know that secret. It made the knowledge-hungry part of me light up with smug joy. But it also reminded me that to these people, I was a liability.

Oleander gave me a flat look. “You just admitted to being a spy posing as a defector to steal information,” she said in a dry voice. “What reason do we have to believe you're not doing the same thing to us right now?”

I deflated a bit. “Oh. Well. When you put it that way, none, I suppose. Smart of you to be suspicious, really.”

“Andy,” the gargoyle said softly. “He's hurt. He's been through a lot, and--”

I arched a brow in surprise at the unexpected defense. But the jinn ruined it as he jumped in and cut the gargoyle off. “Oh, don't be stupid, you idiotic piece of granite. You can't go all bleeding heart over every single stray you come across!”

The room devolved into a low-level din of arguments as everyone tried to decide if they trusted me to know where they were hiding or not. I yawned. I really didn't care where we were anymore. It was only curiosity on my part to begin with, not any sort of spying mission. And I really was worn out. I could use a good nap. Preferably in a nice patch of sun. But that just reminded me that I hadn't seen a sun in the sky when we arrived, and the curiosity about our location came rushing back.

Oleander ignored everyone else and reached out to place her palm over my wound, softly speaking words I didn’t understand as she sent her lovely earth magic out to activate the healing spell. “Oh, that feels divine,” I said, letting my eyes fall closed as the pain receded to a dull ache.

“You can wash up when you get to your room,” she said as she withdrew her magical hands from my skin. I opened my eyes to find her watching me with a wry quirk drawing up one corner of her lips and a bit of a bemused expression on her face. “It won't disturb the spell if you wash away the herbs, now that it's been activated.”

I met her eyes and tilted my head, curiosity taking over once again. “You don't trust me, but you are still kind to me. A conundrum. But a happy one.”

She huffed a laugh. “Conundrum? You really are a nerd, aren't you?”

I rolled my eyes. “I simply like to be--”

“Well informed. Yeah, I get it,” she finished for me. “Well, have you ever heard the saying 'curiosity killed the cat?'“

I gave her a disappointed look. “Of course. But no one ever seems to remember the rest of the saying.”

She arched her brows at me, and I obligingly recited the full saying. “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.”

She shook her head as she silently laughed at me while everyone else continued to argue around us. “I don't think there's much satisfaction to be had, in this case.” Her expression grew serious. “I'll tell you where we are. Because, honestly, there is precious little immediate harm you could do with the information.”

I put a hand over my wound and sat forward to hear her more clearly over the ruckus in the room. I couldn't help it. I loved knowing secrets. Important information. Useless trivia. All of it. But I never could have predicted what she was about to say.

“We're in a pocket world that I created,” she told me flatly. “And I'm not even sure how long it will last. I've already had to patch it up once. It's entirely possible the whole thing will implode before the SA or the cultists find us. So… do with that information what you will, I guess.” She shrugged.

I blinked at her, my face so close to hers I could see the faint freckles that were scattered across her nose and cheeks, and the flecks of green in her dove gray eyes. “Well.”

She sat back and arched a brow at me. “Still think it's lucky to stick around?”

I thought about that for a moment, feeling out my magic. But nothing had changed. The gentle warm hum of good luck continued on, despite the chilling news of my insane surroundings. “Yes,” I said slowly. “Yes, I think I do, if you don't mind.”

She studied me for a moment, maybe trying to figure out if I was mentally unstable. “Okay, then. Let's find you a guest room, I guess.” She rolled her eyes. “Goddess knows there's enough of them in this moldering old monstrosity of a house. Though we'll have to put you on the third floor. We're out of rooms on this level. Just… watch out for boobytraps, okay?”

I stared at her. “Boobytraps.”

She nodded. “And don't go into the basement. The stairs will eat you.”

She was… serious. “Okay,” I said slowly.

This was the most intriguing situation I had come across in a long time. How novel.

Oleander helped me to my feet and led me toward the door while the argument behind us slowly wound down. Then she led me all the way to the end of the long hallway and up another flight of stairs. A swirl of smoky black tendrils coalesced just outside the door to the room that would be mine, and we paused. The tendrils formed into the shape of a man with pitch-black skin, blue-black hair, and red eyes with black sclera, wearing an immaculately tailored black suit. He smiled at me with terrifying gray shark teeth, and a surge of fear rippled through my entire body.

“Just remember, little cat,” he said in a smooth, deep voice that gave me goosebumps. “I know where you sleep.”

“Ambrose,” Oleander said in a warning voice.

The man winked, then he disappeared in a swirl of shadows.

“Ignore him. Ignore all of them,” she advised me as she pushed open the door to my new room. “They're idiots. Sorry for the dust. We've been slowly cleaning the place up, but we haven't gotten to the third floor yet.”

I glanced around the large, lavishly appointed room, everything intact under preservation spells, but covered in a fine layer of dust. I shuddered at the grime. “Is there a couch I can sleep on downstairs? Or a rug, maybe?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Believe me, you're better off dealing with the dust. The assholes will leave you alone in here. If you tried to sleep downstairs in the common areas, they'd drive you batshit crazy with their bullshit.”

I sighed. I supposed this was the price of intrigue and adventure.

“I'll send Zhong up with some fresh linens, soap, bath stuff,” Oleander said calmly. “He loves doing all the homey household stuff. He'll change the bedding for you while you wash up.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank you.”

She just shook her head and left me alone in my new room with the cobwebs and the spiders.