Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
MOIRA
“Festering goat balls,” I grumbled as every candle I’d lit extinguished on its own, yet again. “You’re supposed to be the head of the most powerful coven in the fucking world, Moira, but you can’t even locate four stupid men?”
Closing my eyes, I willed the candles to light once more, anger causing the flames to blaze six inches high until I settled down.
There was too much on my plate, as fucking usual.
Life had been good—great even—until that bitch Death came in to ruin it all and throw a Lucifer-shaped wrench into my plans at a happily ever after.
Ash and I were in the middle of making a baby.
I mean, not in the biblical sense, because yuck.
No penis was going anywhere near my lady garden.
But we had our sperm donor selected, and I’d already started preparing my temple, as they say.
I was going to carry our first one, and she was on deck for baby number two.
If we survived the first one. No one knew we were trying, and with everything going on, it never seemed like the right time to bring it up.
But when I said I had a vested interest in ending this stupid apocalypse—a-fucking-gain, by the way—I wasn’t kidding.
I rolled my gaze up to the sky, the alignment of the planets not visible through the flaming aurora streaking across the wide expanse.
I could feel the energy, though. It radiated like a beacon, and time was ticking.
This was the only shot we had at getting a lock on the people we needed to find.
If I failed, we’d be SOL until fate stepped in.
And, as we all knew, fate was a real bitch.
Closing one of my eyes, I glared up at the stars. “All right, we are going to reset and try this again. I’ve got the stupid item. We’ve got the celestial event with that mofo’s arrival. WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED, UNIVERSE? And yes, I used my shouty cap voice because come the fuck on.”
A low snicker filtered through the treeline to my ears.
“Don’t make me send you fleas, Kingston Farrell. Right to your balls.”
He stepped out of the cover of trees and shook his head. “You wouldn’t. You know you love me, witch.”
“Debatable, but my bestie does, so I have to tolerate you.”
Alek jumped down from the treetop where he’d been keeping watch, his big body leaving a dent in the softened earth. “Can you really do that? Give him fleas?”
“Of course I can. Are you really doubting me? After everything I’ve done for you, Brutus?”
“No, of course not. But I’d love to see how he’d handle that. He’s a baby about most minor inconveniences.”
“Rude,” Kingston said, crossing his arms with a definite sulk marring his brow.
A new voice broke through the night, preceding the glow of purple eyes followed by a hunk of male specimen. If I were into that sort of thing. Which I was not. “This doesn’t look like guard duty,” Kai pointed out.
“It’s not,” Tor agreed, making it a four out of four on my guard dog bingo card. The only way they’d let me out here to attempt this spell was if the Brute Squad came with. I had to admit, it made a gal feel special.
“If you can give me fleas, Glinda, you can do this.” I was pretty sure that was Kingston’s way of encouraging me.
“How can we help?” Kai asked.
“Probably by keeping Kingston quiet,” Tor offered.
“That is nearly impossible.”
“Et tu, Alek? I thought we were friends.”
I snickered at Kingston’s echo of my earlier joke. I don’t even know if he realized he’d done it. I’d probably subliminally implanted it there when I called Alek Brutus. I really was magic.
Rolling my neck out, I shook my arms and attempted to relax my posture. “I’m not sure what the deal is, honestly. By all accounts, this should work. I don’t know why I can’t find them. It’s like the spell snuffs out before it has a chance to take hold.”
“Maybe they don’t want to be found,” another voice said, joining us.
“Asher? You’re not supposed to be out here,” Tor chided, still a stickler for the rules.
“In case you haven’t noticed, the world is ending. I can do whatever the fuck I want. Moira, I came to tell you my theory on the horsemen. I’ve been working it out with Gavin, and we realized that they’ve never been locatable in their entire existence. Not them. Not the horsewomen.”
I stood and brushed the dirt off my ass. “What do you mean?”
“I think it’s in their genetic makeup. They’re naturally shrouded. You won’t be able to break through it. Not with any Earth-based magic, anyway.”
A blur of motion caught my eye a second before Gavin appeared at Asher’s side. “Did you tell her? Is it too late? Can she shift her focus?”
“Jesus, Count. I told you I could handle this on my own. You were supposed to stay back with Rosie while Ben and Remi are on patrol.”
“Pan’s with her, it’s fine.”
Asher raised a brow. “You really trust him to be a responsible adult on his own?”
“No more than I trust you, but thankfully there’s a sea of other grown-ups around to lend a watchful eye.”
I cleared my throat delicately. “Are you two done jerking each other off yet?”
Gavin shot me a glare, but I didn’t back down. I wasn’t afraid of him.
“I assure you we have not, nor will we ever, jerk each other off.”
“There was that one time . . . ” Asher started, but before he could finish, Kingston chimed in, “Never say never.”
“Ugh, you dick swingers. Focus. Tell me what I need to know and get out of my hair. Please, for the love of the goddess.”
Asher took a deep breath. “I think you need to change targets.”
“Who—” I cut myself off, the answer obvious. The only other person we’ve been trying and failing to locate was Gabriel. This was a perfect opportunity to see if we could break through whatever dark magic Lucifer was using to hide him. “I didn’t bring his feather.”
Asher held it up. “Way ahead of you.”
“What’s going on?” Kingston stage whispered.
Kai patted the top of his head. “Shh, the grown-ups are talking.”
Tor and Alek cackled.
“Hey, man. You’re on Team Sunday, remember? You can’t take the bully’s side.”
“She’s going to find Gabriel,” Alek said in a placating tone.
“Oh! Good old leather feathers. Would be nice to have his help. He usually comes in clutch when we need him.”
Goddess, Kingston was the definition of a himbo. Pretty, kind, allegedly good in bed, but not a lot going on upstairs.
“Okay, I’ve got at most a few minutes left before this celestial event is past its max power surge. If I’m going to do this, it has to be now.” I returned to my seated position and extinguished the candles before preparing to start the ritual again. “Everyone shut the hell up and let mama work.”
“Should we chant or something?” Alek asked.
“Are you deaf? I said shut the fuck up.”
Alek winced and mimed zipping his lips. The men stood in a loose circle around me, Tor and Kai eyeing the surrounding area like a couple of secret service agents, while the others watched me reset the spell for Gabriel.
I felt it the moment something changed. Instead of the sensation of coming up against a wall, my power kept moving, riding the energy like a wave or the tide as the spell searched for the wayward angel.
“Are the candles supposed to do that?” Kingston whispered, prompting me to open my eyes and observe the change in the flames. Where they’d once been a happy orange, they’d changed to pure white.
“Did it work?” Gavin asked.
“Beats me,” Asher said with a shrug.
“I thought there was supposed to be a portal?” Alek asked, looking between Kingston and Tor. “I thought you guys said there was a portal the last time she did this spell.”
“There was,” I muttered. “But Gabriel is different from you. He’s not a Novasgardian. He’s a fucking angel.”
“So . . . did you find him?” Asher asked.
“Kind of.”
“How does one kind of find an angel?” Kai asked.
Reaching into my bag, I pulled out a clear crystal ball. “Very carefully. I’ll need a few days—”
“We don’t have a few days to sit around out here and guard you.”
“Yes, Captain Obvious, I am well aware,” I said to Kingston with a roll of my eyes. “Thankfully, now that the locator spell has been put into motion, all I have to do is transfer it to this orb. Once we have our answer, it will change color, and boom, we can go find him.”
“Oh! So it’s like baking sourdough.”
We all looked at Kingston.
“What? You have to get the starter going before you can bake the bread. Everyone knows that. The orb is the starter. We have to wait for it to be ready. I have one at home. I named it Bread Sheeran. You know, like Ed Sheeran, but Bread.”
“You’re cute,” I said with a shake of my head.
“So that’s it?” Asher asked. “We just wait for the magic ball to finish baking and then we can poof off?”
“It’s less of a poof and more of a shwoooop, but sure. Something like that.”
“And it’ll bring us to his doorstep?”
“Theoretically. It might be more like the neighborhood block, but you know, beggars can’t be choosers. If we’re lucky, though, it might place us quite literally on top of him. Which will be super fun to explain.”
“I bet he’d love that,” Kai muttered.
Gavin snickered. “Would serve the pompous arse right for all the times he’d barged in on us.”
“Ohmygod, what if we catch him jerking off?” Kingston asked.
“Isn’t he like a Ken doll?” Asher countered.
“You guys are way off topic. Also, isn’t your whole dad an angel?” I asked. “How does that work if he doesn’t have man parts?”
“Technically he’s a fallen angel.”
“So he lost his wings and grew a dick?” Kingston asked.
“How the fuck should I know?” Asher asked, nose crinkling like he smelled something foul.
“Personally, I’d rather have a dick than wings,” Kingston said.
“I have both,” Kai offered smugly. “They’re excellent teammates.”
Tor silently held up his hand for Kai to high-five. I shuddered.
“Annnd, that’s about enough of that for me.” Shoving the orb back in my bag, I stood. “Clean up after me, would you, boys? I’ve met my testosterone quota for the rest of my life.”
“You’re not going anywhere without us,” Alek said. “If something happened to you, we’d never forgive ourselves.”
“Aw, you’re sweet. The duke is going to see me to safety. He’s fast. I’ll be back in the shelter before you can say abracadabra.”
“Abracadabra,” Kingston shouted.
I shot him a hard side-eye before giving him the finger and climbing onto Gavin’s back like a much less clumsy Bella Swan. “Fuck off, Kingston.”
“Love you too, Elphie!”
Taking my life into my own hands, I leaned close to the vampire’s ear and said, “All right, Sparkles, let’s see how impossibly fast you are.”
“Fucking Twilight,” he grumbled, grabbing me under each knee as he started to run. “That book wasn’t even close to accurate.”
I snorted, but kept my comments to myself because he wasn’t kidding. Closing my eyes against the blur of the scenery, I made a mental note to make some corrections to vampire lore in fiction if we survived this. It was the least I could do.