CHAPTER FOURTEEN || TOBIAS
“ Y ou want me to check the mirror again ?” Ethan asked twenty minutes later, sounding incredulous, after I had given him a run-down of everything that was going on. “What are you guys even still doing there?”
“This is important to him. Would you be able to take something that mattered away from Nathaniel, knowing you might hurt him if you did?”
“Way to play dirty,” Ethan sighed. “I see your point. I’ll take a look to see what I can see with the hunters. But Poppy and I need to go check in on the stone people first. My mother and Wynn have been wrangling them, but apparently a couple of them are having trouble adjusting.”
By ‘stone people,’ he was referring to the more than one hundred witches, warlocks, and possibly even mundanes that had been turned into marble statues about eighty years ago as a result of the stone skin incantation. The curse was completely irreversible, with one exception: Ethan’s blood. Still, he had been transforming the victims back slowly, only a few at a time, since they had all been statues for nearly a century and had no idea how to exist in the modern world anymore.
“How is that going?” I asked, feeling a flash of guilt. “Um, in general. Since I left, I mean.”
I had been tasked—at first—to help them transition back into society. That had lasted roughly a month before the witch queen told me that my talents were needed elsewhere. I suspected her reasoning had been related to the fact that anyone looking at me probably could have seen how wrecked I was after Bryan left.
But it was for the best, ultimately. I hadn’t been in a position to empathize with a bunch of very confused and distraught witches and warlocks who’d had their entire lives ripped from them in the blink of an eye. Wynn, the quiet and sensitive member of the witches’ council who had served the coven for most of her life, was a much better candidate to spearhead what they were doing. But she needed a lot of help.
“We’re managing,” Ethan replied. “We’re talking about doing a support group or something. Or, I don’t know, maybe counseling?”
“That’s probably a good idea,” I agreed. “Though, where are you going to find a therapist willing to council a bunch of pissed off witches and warlocks?”
“That’s a really good question.” Ethan sighed, sounding frustrated. Then he paused and added, “So, anyway, I’ll be able to check the mirror in a couple of hours, after I’m done. Until then, stay away from the hunters.”
After we hung up, Bryan and I got out of the car and crossed the street, heading for the row of single-story shops with a shared wooden shingle awning and matching large glass windows. I opened the door for Mystical Dreams Spiritual Supplies, one of the stores in the area that catered to magical witches in addition to the various types of spiritual seekers out there.
“Tobias!” Ella De Luna grinned at me the very moment I stepped into her shop, her eyes lighting up in recognition. “What brings you to Portland?”
“Ella,” I greeted her, returning her grin. “I was afraid you might not remember me.”
“Of course I remember you,” Ella scoffed, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “You helped me banish a demon. That’s not exactly an everyday occurrence for me.” She was referring to an infernal entity that had been hunting the confused spirits of the recently dead and consuming their essence. As a former resident of Seattle, she had connections with my coven, and when she had reached out to them for help, they had sent me. But that was almost three years ago. “And then, afterward, you drank me under the table. And then you drove out of town and broke my poor little heart.”
“Oh,” Bryan looked up from the truly massive display of crystals he was examining. He glanced at me first, and then at Ella. “Err. So, you guys were… involved?”
He sounded almost alarmed. He gave Ella a once-over, and I found myself attempting to see her as he did, for the very first time.
Ella was stunningly beautiful. Her flawless skin was a deep shade of mahogany, and her eyes were deep, dark, and clear, like twin scrying pools. Her hair was dyed shockingly white, and she’d buzzed it close to her head. She wore a flowing ivory dress that hugged her willowy form, but with her dark eyeshadow, plum-colored lipstick, and black talon-like fingernails, she was a study in opposites, embracing her extremes effortlessly: she was soft and strong, light and dark, all at the same time.
Ella’s eyes flashed with amusement as she sized Bryan up, and it was clear from the expression on her face that she recognized him immediately. “No, young one, it was always strictly professional between us. Despite my best efforts, I might add.” She shot a smirk in my direction before turning back to Bryan and adding, “Tobias has been saving himself for the right person.”
Then her gaze slid back to me, and she gave me a knowing smile. “The Verum Amor truly is never wrong, is it?”
She was referring to the spell I had cast when I was fourteen years old, a year after my parents had died, in order to see the face of my true love. Despite the fact that our grandparents had taken Poppy and I in and given us a place to live after our parents were gone, I had been feeling so alone at the time. Poppy had been completely shut down and I was so filled with anger that I had pushed pretty much everyone else away. In a moment of desperation, needing to know that how I was feeling wouldn’t last forever, I had cast the Verum Amor. And then the spell had shown me Bryan’s face. Up until that moment, I hadn’t even realized I was into guys yet. And I hadn’t realized I could love a vampire, either.
Ella had seen all of this by accident when we’d joined our powers in order to banish the demon before it could snack on any other innocent spirits.
“No,” I told her shortly, feeling a flash of annoyance. “It isn’t. Look, we came here for supplies.”
“Well, then, you’ve come to the right place.” She gave a little laugh and gestured around the shop with a flourish. “We’ve got crystals, candles, essential oils, tinctures, tarot cards, herbs, beginner guides to balancing your chakras—”
“Come on. That stuff is for tourists.”
She frowned at that. “There are a number of sincere seekers who gain a great deal of benefit from these sorts of practices. And regardless of how you feel about it, a number of them work, even for those of us who aren’t bloodline witches.”
“Wait,” Bryan cocked his head to the side. “You’re not the same type of witch as Tobias? There are different types?”
“Some witches are born into it,” Ella replied, gesturing vaguely in my direction. “The magic runs through their blood. And it is given shape and direction by the powers of the otherworld, when they undergo their initiation. My mom called witches like that ‘bloodline witches.’ They’re really powerful. But they’re not the only sorts of witches out there.”
“What other types are there?” Bryan asked, clearly fascinated by her.
“Well, for starters, you can learn how to be a witch, too,” Ella smiled at that. “Like my mom did. It takes years and years of study and practice and it’s true that you’d never be able to do the type of spell-casting a bloodline witch can do. But you can still learn how to do magic. It’s just a bit more subtle. Less dramatic and showy.” She paused. “There was no magic at all in my family line until my mother met a witch who helped her learn how to harness her personal power to cast spells.”
“Which makes you a bloodline witch,” I informed her. “You got your magic from your mother.”
Ella rolled her eyes at me good-naturedly. “That and two decades of study and practice.” She paused, assessing us for a moment. “You’re hunting ghosts.”
Bryan’s eyes widened. “Wait, how did you do that?”
“One of the benefits of being mostly self-taught is that I know how to do a lot of things,” Ella said, giving him a small, sly smile. “For instance, I know that you’ve only been a vampire for three years.”
His eyes still wide, Bryan nodded, seeming entranced by her. “Uh, yeah. That’s exactly right. So, you’re what? Some kind of psychic?”
She shrugged. “I can’t shoot fireballs out of my fingertips or walk through walls. Yet. But don’t knock crystals or balancing your chakras. There’s a lot of power in some of those types of practices.”
“Look, we need blessed iron,” I cut in. “Preferably something that can be used as a weapon.”
“Right to business, then,” Ella smiled at me, revealing perfectly straight white teeth. “Remind me to give you pointers on what constitutes an acceptable date.”
“We’re not dating,” Bryan said, immediately.
Ella cocked an eyebrow at him before giving me some serious side-eye. Still, she appeared to be deeply amused. “I see. Your aura says otherwise.” She gave me a once-over, her expression going a little smug. “That goes for both of you, actually.”
“Do you have the blessed iron or not?” I asked, growing annoyed.
“Of course,” Ella replied. “This is, after all, the best stocked occult shop in Portland. We cater to pagans, wiccans, magicians of all stripes, and bloodline witches as well, like yourself.” She gestured for us to follow her, then stepped through the beaded curtain leading into the back of the store.
We followed her into a much smaller room, with shelves that contained the more exotic items that witchcraft sometimes called for. Coffin nails. Cemetery dirt. Bones from animals. Various symbols and seals etched into metal discs. And then an entire display case filled with charms and amulets, all of which were real and highly dangerous.
“As it happens, I do have what you are looking for,” Ella told us. She ducked behind the long glass display case and produced a narrow piece of black iron, sharpened on one end and approximately three feet long, which she laid down on the glass before us. It looked halfway between a spear and a sword. “A fragment of a Wiccan athame, the metal of Saint Michael, blessed by a Catholic priest, and the star of David, prayed over by a Rabbi, were all used in the smelting of this iron,” Ella told us. She added, “Catholic holy water, pagan moon water, and the pure water from three separate sacred springs were used in the cooling process. Then the holy oil recipe from the Grimoire of King Solomon, made with the appropriate prayers and words of power, was used to anoint it once it was cooled. It will destroy any wraith, no matter how powerful.”
“We’ll take it,” I told her, immediately. “How much do you want for it?”
“Because we’re old friends, I’ll give you a steep discount. Ten thousand dollars.”
Bryan’s jaw fell open.
“Holy shit. That’s at a discount? ” He glanced over at me. “Um, we could probably get a piece of regular iron from somewhere and steal some holy water from a church or something, to dip it in…”
Ella and I exchanged a look. She smirked at me, clearly amused.
Bryan wasn’t technically wrong. However, the trick with blessed iron—the thing that actually mattered—was the faith that empowered it. If the priest who had blessed the holy water was having an off day or struggling with his faith, the holy water might not be powerful enough to destroy the wraith. That’s why blessed iron usually had various different types of holy substances, from many religions, containing the prayers and faith of many different people smelted in with it, used in the cooling process, or else anointed onto the object after it was done. This piece of iron, however, contained multiple blessed substances, used at every point in the creation.
We had to have it.
“This will be better,” I told him firmly. “The coven won’t mind. This is technically a work expense. Sort of.”
“That’s the spirit,” Ella chuckled. “Tell me, though,” she said, her gaze sliding back over to Bryan. “What on earth is a vampire doing, hunting ghosts?”
Bryan glanced up at her. “Can’t you just tell?”
Actually, I got the strong sense that she could tell. Ella’s powers were unpredictable, causing her to pick up random bits of information. Sometimes it was messages from spirits of the dead, sometimes it was stray thoughts from those around her, and other times it was impressions from people, places, and objects. Occasionally, she even glimpsed the future.
“I get what I get,” Ella replied, watching him intently.
“Well, this ghost has killed a lot of people already,” Bryan said, sounding equal parts defensive and defiant. “I want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“You do mean that, don’t you? You’d like to protect mortals if you could.”
Bryan nodded, seeming suddenly enraptured by her gaze. I realized, abruptly, that Ella was using her gifts to do what she could to read his mind.
I spoke a short spell to throw up a mental block around Bryan, then grabbed him by the wrist and shook him slightly.
“Hey, what the hell?” Bryan blinked at me in confusion. Then he seemed to shake himself. He glared back over at Ella. “Wait. You were in my head, weren’t you? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I expected Ella to say something arch and sarcastic, or else to tell us to leave. Or perhaps even to try attacking Bryan. He had, after all, killed witches in the past—even if it wasn’t his choice to do so. I already had a counter spell on the tip of my tongue, just in case.
I was prepared for anything at all except what actually happened.
Ella blinked in surprise, and I saw that her eyes shone. She stepped around the counter, walked up to Bryan, and threw her arms around him.
I was so startled that I dropped Bryan’s hand. I was halfway through a counter-spell when I realized that she wasn’t enchanting him.
She was giving him a hug.
Bryan reacted by stepping backward, away from Ella.
“What in the hell, lady?” Bryan’s fangs were down, and his skin was paler than before. His lower lip trembled, and his eyes shone, but his face was tight with anger as he glared at Ella, taking another step back from her. “I could have hurt you!”
“I am a soul-reader, young one,” Ella informed him. “And I know that isn’t true. What troubles me is that you do not.” She gave him a sad smile and she looked as though she was on the verge of tears herself. “No one knows what was stolen from you, do they? How much guilt you must live with, how it agonizes every part of you. Not your friends. Not your mother. Not your sister.” She glanced over at me. “Not even your mate.”
“How?” Bryan, if it was possible, went even more pale. His eyes widened. He took another step back.
Ella frowned, cocking her head to the side, as though listening to something that only she could hear. “There’s a spirit nearby. A feminine one. She wishes to communicate with you.”
Bryan went even paler at her words. He swallowed hard, his eyes going wide.
Ella paused, pursing her lips. “She seems to be in some amount of distress. I’m getting that she was young when she died. And her name…” She trailed off, staring into space. Then, a few moments later, she blinked and her eyes refocused. “Her name starts with a ‘T.’”
“I can’t do this,” Bryan said, sounding strangled. “I’m leaving.”
With that he turned and marched through the beaded curtain, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
Well, fuck.
“Thanks for that!” I snapped at her. “Next time, try keeping your powers to yourself!”
“I just did you a favor,” Ella told me, sniffing dismissively. She blinked away the wetness in her eyes and turned away from me, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. “Don’t be an idiot. Take the iron and go after him. He needs you, Tobias, far more than you realize. He’s barely hanging on by a thread.” She paused, then added, “Don’t worry, I’ll send your coven an invoice. Now, go.”
Shaking my head at her, even though her back was turned and she couldn’t see me, I grabbed the iron spear off the counter. Then, with her words still ringing in my ears, I went after my mate.
*
I found Bryan several minutes later, in an alley. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing deeply. Vampires don’t technically need to breathe, but deep breathing is still calming for them, the same way it is for everyone else.
“Go away,” he said, without opening his eyes. “I don’t trust myself around you right now.”
His voice sounded wrong to my ears, all thick and halting, like each word was harder and harder for him to get out.
Bryan’s eyes snapped open, and I saw that they were wet with unshed tears. His jaw tightened. “Please leave, Tobias,” he said thickly. “Please? I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Whatever it is, you can tell me. I promise. We’ll handle it.” I paused, eyeing him. “You’re upset but not surprised.”
“I’ve seen her.” He sucked in a breath. “Teresa.”
“Teresa,” I repeated, not getting it. Then my eyes widened as understanding crashed through me. “Wait. Teresa Dames ? The first person—”
“That I murdered? Yeah. Her.” He paused. “I saw her at the house. When I drew all the manifesting sigils. With everything that’s happened, I haven’t really given it much thought. But it makes sense. I mean, I killed her. Why wouldn’t she haunt me?”
“You didn’t end her life. Giles did.”
Bryan just shook his head, dragging in another breath he didn’t need. When he blinked, tears spilled over. “Fuck. And now I’m crying in front of you.”
“Look, we can deal with this. If she’s really hanging around, I can find out. And then it’ll be a simple fix. I can just banish her for you. Problem solved.”
“No! Absolutely not! She deserves whatever measure of revenge she can get. And I’ve just seen her once. Hell, I might’ve imagined it.”
I pursed my lips. “What if she escalates? What if she turns malevolent?”
“Promise me that you’ll leave her alone. I’m fine, I swear.”
I didn’t want to make any such promise, but I couldn’t help myself. “Fine. But the moment you say the words, I’ll send her packing.”
“She’s been through enough because of me. If she wants to haunt me, she can go right ahead.”
I scowled at that but didn’t have it in me to argue.
Yet.
Instead, I said, “Ella is a jerk. She shouldn’t have used her powers on you like that, without asking. It wasn’t cool. If you want, I’ll go back into the shop and turn her into a toad for you.” I paused, then added, unwillingly, “And, if you really want me to leave right now, I will.”
“It’s not her,” Bryan said, shaking his head. “And I’m actually not one hundred percent sure I want you to leave.”
“You say that like it’s such a bad thing.”
“Because it is . It’s a selfish thing. It’s a really fucking selfish thing for me to not push you away, Tobias.” He locked eyes with me. “Because I don’t really want you to go anywhere, but this still can’t happen. I can’t be yours. Not really. And that’s not fair to you.”
“Maybe I don’t want fair,” I said, coming to stand right in front of him. “Maybe I just want you to be okay. And if my being here makes you feel even a little more okay, then I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me to.”
“Can you just…” He trailed off, then looked up, meeting my gaze. His fangs were gone now, and he seemed so fragile that it triggered all of my protective impulses. I’d fight a thousand evil spirits for him if he’d asked me to.
“Anything,” I breathed.
“Can you just hold me again? Please? It feels like it’s the only fucking thing that helps.”
He looked so raw and open, perhaps for the very first time since I’d laid eyes on him, that my heart gave a little lurch in my chest. He was my mate, even if he wouldn’t admit what that meant, and I couldn’t deny him anything.
I didn’t want to deny him anything, ever.
I put my arms around him, noticing the way that his body, smaller and more compact than mine, but still firm and solid, fit against me perfectly. He laid his head down against my chest and I held him to me, wishing with all I had that I could shield him from anything and everything that might want to hurt him. Strangely enough, the feeling of him against me, the rightness of it, like he’d always belonged there, settled some anxiety I hadn’t even realized I was carrying, like some secret and hidden part of me had been knotted up with tension for my entire life and now could finally relax.
“You always smell so good,” he whispered. “Like cinnamon and nutmeg.”
“Wait,” I smiled down at him, amused. “Are you saying I smell like a pumpkin pie?”
He was quiet for a very long moment. Then, finally, he spoke. “No, Tobias. You smell like home.”