Chapter 19
“ That’s so sad,” Ida said.
“At least it wasn’t a murder,” Trini Orosco said.
We three were sitting on Ida’s back porch with Meredith the Mandrake. Ida, Trini, and I were holding glasses of white wine. Meredith was lounging beneath a mister. The plant had given me a narrow-eyed look when I opened the back gate and let myself inside.
Apparently, she was very protective of Ida.
Wonderful. I downed half the wine in my glass.
Gods, I didn’t want to break the news to Sexton that I’d screwed up again. Tomorrow would be soon enough, I decided. One murder per night was enough.
“So, basically, she killed him with her hoo-ha?” Ida asked.
Trini hid her grin behind her wineglass.
“That’s what she said.” I took another swig from my glass. I’d already asked if it was the wine she’d bought from the tower witches in Sundance, and she’d assured me it was not. Thank goodness. I didn’t need a repeat of last time.
“If it’s the truth, Annabelle’s going to be the most popular woman at the senior breakfast next month.”
“Better watch it. She’s going to take out all the eligible bachelors,” Trini said. “Not that I care, but I know you and Gladys still date.”
“Gladys more than me. I just enjoy a dinner with a gentleman friend now and then—or a lady friend. I like all kinds of company.” Ida started to take a drink and paused. “Where is Gladys, anyway?”
“Helping out at Annabelle’s place. When I left, they were still retrieving his body.”
“We should save her a glass of wine, then. She’ll need it after dealing with the pack,” Ida muttered.
“Ronan’s there,” I said. “He won’t let anything happen to her.”
“You seem confident about that,” Trini said. She looked at Ida, and both women nodded.
“ Real confident,” Ida said.
They stared at me like they were trying to see the thoughts scrolling through my mind.
“Because I am confident. And yes, I like him. Now don’t ask any more questions about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because, Ida,” Trini said, “they’re in the budding stages of love. It’s fragile and requires delicate care, like the roots of a Venus slipper orchid.”
“Interesting choice of flower for your metaphor.” I gave her a flat look. “Were all those botanical references necessary?”
“Just wanted to speak in a language you’d understand,” she said with a wicked grin.
“What were you two doing tonight?” I asked to change the subject. I was annoyed that Trini was right, that I felt my relationship with Ronan was as delicate as a Paphiopedilum, or Venus slipper orchid.
At least with the Paphiopedilum, I’d know to keep the humidity around sixty percent, the light shaded, and the temperature no higher than eighty degrees. I wasn’t sure how to set the environment with Ronan.
“Trini brought over some of her boozy jam, and I invited her to stay for supper. It wasn’t much, but she lowered her standards for me.”
Trini chuckled and playfully swatted Ida’s knee. “This woman served her delicious potato and cheddar soup and even whipped up some hot biscuits for us to have with my jam.”
My stomach growled. Loudly. I do not have a subtle digestive system.
The women laughed.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got leftovers,” Ida said.
I ate a mug of soup and one of the jam-filled biscuits on the porch with the women, and another biscuit on the way home. The last I’d decided to save.
Ha. I was going to scarf it down the second I got into my trailer. I was a weak-willed woman when it came to bread and pastries.
And Ronan Pallás.
I peeked into the garden room to check on Fennel and Cecil. Both were fast asleep—Fennel in his cat bed and Cecil in the fancy pot with the pearl plant. Fennel was softly purring. Cecil was snoring like a thunderstorm.
“Goodnight,” I whispered. I broke the remaining biscuit in two and set one half on Cecil’s workstation. A midnight snack. He loved Trini’s jam.
I popped the other half into my mouth and shut the garden door. On my way to my trailer, I caught a glimpse of something shiny near the mailboxes. It looked like a mirror, or a piece of chrome. Intrigued, I veered right and went to investigate.
The charred remains of a rearview mirror sat atop my mailbox.
Two clicks like gunshots echoed through the quiet neighborhood, and a fireball traveled from the curb across the street to my trailer.
Then another.
Another.
The protection spell held, but I couldn’t be sure how long it would under an assault like this. It was meant to warn, to guard the living, but if pushed too hard, it would allow anything non-sentient to be attacked.
“What the hell are you doing?”
My voice was drowned out by another blast.
“Justice? Are you back?” It hadn’t taken much brainpower to come up with the owner of the burnt car mirror. After all, how many cars had Cecil blown up?
Recently.
I was pretty sure Cecil had done his fair share of arson in the past. He’d been quick with that explode charm—hex bag, spell, whatever. He’d had that thing in his back pocket.
“ Come to me, witch .” The words buzzed around my ears like a blue bottle fly. I swatted at them, but they didn’t go away.
“What do you want?”
“I told you, Witch Lilibet Lennox. I want justice. It’s what I was called from the darkness to do. Come to me .”
“Called from darkness?” My upper lip curled. What did that mean? “By whom?”
His voice was different than it had been before—colder, crueler. “You don’t need to know. Come to me .”
“No,” I said. “I’m staying right here.”
“Betty, stop !”
Ida’s shout carried from her front porch to where I was standing, which was on the curb in front of the mailboxes. Well beyond the boundaries of the Siete Saguaros’s protection spell. I hadn’t registered taking a single step.
“What the hell?” I shook myself, as if that might free me from his spell.
The curse talker who called himself Justice rose from a crouch and planted his feet on a patch of grass between sidewalk and curb. Although he seemed weirdly ageless, if pressed, I’d have put him in his late thirties. He wore the beige outfit again—hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. A shock of curly pale hair bristled from the hood along with a face like Michelangelo’s David, and a pair of eyes so light they barely qualified as brown.
He was handsome in the way a statue was, cold and beautiful, and everything about him felt dangerous.
“ Come, witch .” His lips curved into a coy smile. “ Walk to me .”
This time I managed to hold my ground, but only barely. My right foot skidded forward, kicking up loose rocks, and I jerked it back. The organs inside my body all moved toward him as if he were a magnet and they were made of metal.
“Don’t take another step, Betty.” The sound of furious footfalls accompanied Ida’s words. “I’m on my way.”
“No, Ida. Don’t cross the protection spell.” My body was coming apart at the seams, but I managed a look back.
An enormous white, big-horned sheep stood beside my best friend, pointed curved horns atop a large head. Eyes that glowed with the brilliance of a copper moon locked onto Justice.
“No, Trini,” I commanded. “Stay back.”
Ida held Meredith’s pot in her hand, but the mandrake wasn’t visible. She’d probably buried herself in the soil. Smart plant.
“I’ll kill them without a shred of remorse,” the bastard said. “They mean nothing to me. Neither do you, but I won’t kill you—yet. Come with me, witch .”
“I’m not going anywhere with?—”
As if he’d anticipated my answer, the curse talker had a firebomb ready. He hurled it at my trailer. Sparks flew, and a thunderous boom sounded, but the protection spell held.
Ida strode forward, her expression resolute.
“ Stop her, Trini ,” I shrieked.
Gods love her, the sheep tried clamping her teeth on the hem of Ida’s Eastern Star 5K T-shirt, but my friend was too quick. “Ida, stop! Fennel, Cecil, don’t let her?—”
But the cat and gnome were nowhere to be seen, which was incomprehensible to me. Had they not heard the firebombs? Where were they?
Ida was mere inches from the boundary. Justice held a fireball at the ready. I began to run toward him, thinking to block the fire with my body, which was the queen of bad ideas, but I was all out of good ones.
“EEEEEEE!”
A high-pitched scream rent the air. It started out piercing, shot to nosebleed high, and then all I could hear was a persistent beep.
Meredith had spoken.
Ida went to her knees, hands covering her ears. Trini flopped over in the dirt. I stumbled then fell, straddling the yellow line dividing the street. Another fireball flew past me. It breached the protection spell and sailed through a broken porthole window—the mandrake’s doing—on my trailer.
I think I screamed, but it was impossible to tell. My hearing was wrecked.
Hands, rough and strong, jerked me to my feet, dragged me across the road, and shoved me into the trunk of yet another beige sedan. Cold chains wound around me, secured with a heavy padlock. A slam-whoosh gripped my chest, like air being forced from lungs after a bad fall.
Something hit me—once, twice—and the lights went out.
I came to in a cold place. Hard floor. Not concrete. Tile. An interior room in a house. Two doors on one wall, a boarded-up window on another. The scent of cooking food—some sort of meat—was near, but not close. My ears ached, head throbbed, and my body felt like it had been thrown around, but my hearing was back.
That damned curse talker .
My eyes flew open, and I immediately tried to stand. Gravity, and the chains wrapped around me, pulled me back to the floor with a rattling thunk. I chanted a spell, but it fizzled before the words were out of my mouth.
Then it all came tumbling back—Ida and Trini, my firebombed trailer, the mandrake shriek, and the bastard who’d shoved me into the trunk of an ugly beige sedan and put magic-dampening chains on me. And hitting me in the head. Twice.
“ That son of a bastard ,” I yelled.
“Shut up,” a male voice croaked. “Don’t alert him. It’s better that he thinks you’re asleep.”
I peered at the man leaning against the wall in the corner. The room was dim, the overhead fixture was turned off, and moonlight filtered in through a boarded-up window.
It was impossible to see him clearly, but I didn’t need to. His voice was a dead giveaway.
“ Mason ?”
“In the burning flesh.” The wolf shifter adjusted his position. His movement was accompanied by a clinking rattle, indicating that he, too, was chained up.
“Silver?” I asked, voice lowered. With silver binding him, Mason wouldn’t be able to access his wolf.
“Yes. You?”
“Magic-dampening chains is my guess—and I was unconscious,” I grumbled, pain shooting through my skull, “not asleep.”
“Whatever. Just don’t start screaming or making noise. The longer he stays away, the better.”
“You know he’s a curse talker, right? I mean, he could’ve told me to go to sleep instead of whacking me on the head. He did it to be a dick.” I wriggled around to feel for the bone dagger I’d had shoved into my pocket. It was gone, of course. “ Damn it !”
“Are you ever going to shut up?”
“No,” I said, but I lowered my voice. “Who the hell is this Justice guy? I assumed he worked for you.”
“Not me,” Mason replied. “Wait. He told you his name was Justice ? He told me his name was Vengeance. What an asshole.”
“Finally, you and I find common ground.” I rested the non-injured side of my head against the wall. It was cool and offered a sliver of relief. “How long have you been here?”
“Hours. A day, maybe,” he croaked. “Is it Sunday?”
“As far as I know.”
“Then, a day.” So, Trey had been telling the truth at the park. Ronan had beat him into the dirt and I’d fake-cursed the young wolf for nothing. Guess Ronan owed him an apology. As for me, I’d be keeping my sorries to myself. Trey had been a total jackass to me—or should I say, a typical Pallás alpha toward me.
“What enemy could you and I possibly have in common?”
“Hell if I know. The only thing I’m certain we share is our mutual distaste for one another,” Mason muttered.
“Whatever. You totally think I’m hot.” Ah, flippancy, my old pal. A therapist would probably have a lot to say about that.
I stared at the doors on the wall across from Mason and me. Now that I’d had time to order my thoughts, it was clear that the one on the left was a closet. The one on the right was the exit—and the window, though without Mason’s strength, I didn’t see how we could possibly pull the boards off without a crowbar.
“I think you’re a pain in the ass who gets flippant when she’s scared.”
Ugh. I hated when people I didn’t like acknowledged my weak spots. It made me want to double down. “So you do think I’m hot.”
He groaned.
“You could say we both have a connection to the pack. You through your job as second alpha and the fact that you’re a wolf, and me through my intense and boundless hatred of your alpha leader.”
“Don’t forget your boyfriend is a Pallás wolf,” he said.
“Ronan and I aren’t involved.”
“Witch, I’m incapable of using my shifter abilities and I could still scent that lie.” He let out a grunting breath and shifted his position. “It’s obvious to anyone with eyes.”
“Fine. I like him. That doesn’t mean he’s into me.”
“I was there the night you got on his bar and sang his praises. Trust me, the man’s into you.” He moved again.
It was then that I realized the binding wasn’t only keeping Mason from shifting, it was burning him. The scent of cooking meat from earlier wasn’t someone frying up a burger. It was Mason’s flesh searing.
Eww.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, because the thought of him being cooked alive right next to me was revolting. Also sad, but mostly gross.
“Can you pick a lock?” he asked.
“Only with magic,” I said, defeated.
“You need to build some non-magic skills.” He moved, hissing in pain as he did. “The learned witch, Bronwyn, could teach you a thing or two.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I thought it interesting that he brought her up. “I agree. Bronwyn Jonas is a badass. She saved my bacon a couple of months ago when I was attacked by some rat shifters.”
A slow smile coasted over his lips. “Sounds like her.”
Sweat dripped from his scalp down his face and soaked into his clothing. In the dim light, I couldn’t tell if it was mixed with blood, but I didn’t see how a weakling like Justice could’ve taken him down without shedding some. Unless…
“Did Mr. Justice-Vengeance command you to put on those chains?” I asked.
Mason’s smile melted off his face. “He’s a curse talker, like you said.”
“And a strong one, if he could compel you.” I shivered. “We’re in deep shit, aren’t we?”
“Yep.”
“Any idea where we are?”
“Few miles east of La Paloma.”
“Close to East Pluto?”
The chains rattled as he shrugged. “No clue. I was lying on the floorboards in the backseat. The only reason I know we’re out of town was because the scents changed. Also, I estimated the miles per hour we were traveling and counted the seconds.”
“Counted the seconds? Sheesh. You really are a force,” I said.
“Who called me a force?”
“Never mind.” No way was I selling out Ronan to him.
He grunted again. “Can you do any magic at all? Chant a spell or something like Bronwyn?”
“Not without supplies. Bronwyn’s a learned witch, which means, yes, she approaches magic like a human would. She might be able to pick a lock with a hairpin, but she couldn’t cast a spell without herbs, salt, crystals, or…”
An idea occurred to me. A very bad, very dangerous idea.
“Or what?” Mason shivered, and his chains made a clinking sound.
“Blood.”
“She can do blood magic?”
“Maybe. If she weren’t averse to using dark magic, she could cast a spell using her own blood—or another’s. If the spell required a tremendous amount of power, she could use death as a power source, but that’s not tiptoeing the line, it’s leaping over it. It’s risking your soul.”
“I don’t believe in eternal punishment. We’re born, we live, we die and travel to the other realms. That’s it. No omnipotent gods and no Santa Claus. I don’t care if I have to kill someone to free myself.” His pained eyes met mine. “Need blood? Take mine.”
“Try being a dark magic witch in the presence of the goddesses,” I muttered. “And no thank you. Keep your blood. I’m not risking my soul. There are fates worse than death—even if you don’t believe in them.”
“Not saying there aren’t gods and demons. There are— they’re just not in any sense concerned about us,” he whispered back fiercely.
Our entire conversation had taken place in whispers and quiet tones, the loudest sounds in the room the jingling of our chains. “The things you call gods are just powerful beings who ride roughshod over weaker creatures when it suits them. They don’t give a single solitary shit about anyone other than themselves.”
“So they’re basically alpha shifters,” I said, the snark in my voice strong and intentional.
“Yeah, Betty. I get it. You hate the pack.”
“No, you obviously don’t get it. I don’t hate the pack. I hate your alpha leader.”
“Why?” He asked the question as if he genuinely didn’t know the answer, which annoyed me.
Still, I answered him.
“Because of the way Alpha Floyd treats the beta wolves. A couple of years ago, he let an elder beta wolf die in terrible pain for no reason other than the man wasn’t useful to him. He could’ve done something, anything. I begged him for help.” Emotion clogged my throat. “The effort would’ve expended less energy than a jog around the block for a wolf as powerful as he is. Yet he just walked away.”
“Our ways can seem harsh to outsiders.”
“Oh, shove the excuses up your ass, Hartman.” The familiar rage boiled away my sense of self-preservation. “Floyd’s exactly like the gods you described, yet you have no qualms about serving him.”
“Below the belt hit. Especially from a woman who believes in personal gods and everlasting souls.”
“We have souls, Mason. I know, because I caught a glimpse of your alpha’s two years ago. It was like the bottom of an abandoned well—cold, dark, and empty.”