Chapter 13 #2
Gideon grunted his assent. If nothing else, it would distract him from Ophelia doing Gods knew what in the Below.
He swept a finger over his lips, still feeling her upon them.
Damn him, but he shouldn’t have rushed her like that.
He just couldn’t bear her going off into the unknown without telling her how he felt.
That she was unable to reciprocate… He sighed. Emotions outside of anger and disdain had never been her strong suit. Or his, truth be told. She would’ve had to take time with his declaration of love under the best of circumstances, and these, admittedly, were not.
Unfortunately, time abruptly didn’t feel like a resource they had an abundance of.
Chase drove past the docks and back up into the town proper to an old, weathered church that probably wouldn’t have been able to house a fraction of the population.
The vicarage itself was set back from the parking lot, off to one side of the church grounds, beneath a pair of large, barren oak trees.
An iron fence surrounded what Gideon assumed was a cottage garden on either side of a path leading to the front door.
They parked and got out of the truck. Chase fumbled with a ring of keys. “You’re in luck. I haven’t had a chance to give these back to the trustees, so you get the private tour.”
Gideon listened to the man with half an ear as they entered, running a hand over the small grotesques carved into the door’s pointed archway.
The architecture was similar to that of the library, without the stain of modernization upon it.
What repairs and additions had been made to the exterior had been done so tastefully, blending with the overall feel of the original building.
He pursed his lips, not uninterested in seeing more.
Chase flicked on the lights. There was a mid-sized entryway and then another door leading to a long hall that went to the back of the house.
A stairway ascended midway on the right and a doorway to a parlor stood on the left.
It was modest, but charming with a coal fireplace he could see himself reading in front of and enough room for a small sitting area and a desk.
A decent-sized salon was at the other side of the house, the large, arched windows facing the south allowed for a panoramic view of the graveyard and the town beyond. The half bath in the hall was small, as was the kitchen, but neither he nor Ophelia were particularly domestic.
Upstairs was more appealing. At some point, the tiny bedrooms he’d anticipated had been combined, and the master suite was quite large with dormer windows looking to the east.
“We had to take down some walls a couple of years ago to get all of Father Pearson’s medical equipment up here,” Chase said, almost apologetically.
“The house doesn’t have a lot of storage, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to put a pair of walk-in closets over there, or we passed a smaller room at the top of the stairs you could use as a dressing room. ”
Gideon nodded, poking his head into a very disappointing bath.
The size was adequate, but the style was not.
Well, one couldn’t have everything. Not immediately, at any rate.
“Very good. I believe this will suffice. Offer them whatever they’re looking for, plus ten percent to secure it, should there be any other takers.
Then quote me on putting in a decent bathroom.
I’m assuming that work wasn’t done by you. ”
Chase took a step back. “Uh…no. I think they had some big box store out of Klineville come in… Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t have made an offer if I wasn’t,” Gideon said, looking out over the town, past the hill by the bay, and into the distance. The node was out there, calling to him. He breathed in the tendrils of its power, tasting its agitation. Something was amiss.
Behind him, Chase’s phone rang. “Sec. It’s Jena,” he said, answering it. “What? Wait, slow down… You— What?!… Yeah, I’m on my way.” He hung up, already making for the door. “They’re in the woods behind the ruins. We need to go—now.”
“The ruins?” Gideon asked, following Chase as he jogged down the steps and hit the lights.
“Yeah, what’s left of the manor house above the node. She said something about a portal spitting them out there and her father killing Chambers,” Chase growled, looking murderous.
Gideon sucked in a breath, the former mayor’s demise a bit too timely for his liking, and Patrick’s comment about Chambers being beholden to another player surfacing in his mind.
Chase locked up, and they hurried into the truck, Gideon’s door barely closed before the man gunned the engine, peeling out of the parking lot and down the street.
“By your eagerness to get there, I’m assuming you’ve more cause for concern than the disaster this makes of your town’s case?”
Chase laughed, squealing around a corner. “If that asshole’s back in town? Yeah. It’d say so.”
“Care to enlighten me?” Gideon asked, grasping the stability handle above the door. He had no fear of his own safety, but the man’s driving was erratic to the extreme. Chase wove in and out of traffic, then floored it once they reached the town limits.
“Jena’s dad is unseelie. He killed her mother and fucked over the town hardcore.
Before she died, her mom trapped him, then a couple months back, during the turbine thing, he got out and tried to take Jena through the veil.
We thought Jena banished him, but I guess we were wrong.
” He hit a bump and the truck was momentarily airborne, the backend fish tailing as they landed.
Unseelie…which would make her a half-breed and certainly explain the reason Jena Seymore had been niggling at him.
Gideon fought the urge to spit at the bad taste the mention of dark sidhe perpetually left in his mouth.
The creatures were the vermin his kind had been designed to exterminate.
It was little wonder the node had been calling to him if one of their ilk was lurking about.
And if he’d been involved with the events leading up to this case, Judge Carey needed to be notified immediately, and charges of a conspiracy filed.
However, it did not explain the similar sense of unease he got around Chase, nor what the hell the node had been thinking conscripting Jena as its guardian.
“She mentioned a portal?” Gideon asked.
“Yeah, a mirror or something.”
“No, that wouldn’t be the point of egress.” Glass was far too fragile to travel through the veil. The miscreant would’ve needed something grounded by stones or trees. Gideon pursed his lips. “There has to be another one.”
Chase glanced over at him, then shook his head and kept driving down the desolate county road.
He abruptly made a hard left, turning down a drive between a break in a low stone wall.
Gideon gasped at the wash of power coursing through him.
Whoever had set that ward knew what they were doing.
Six more successive wards followed, and then they were at the base of a windswept tor topped with ruins.
Chase paused to throw his truck into four-wheel drive, and gunned it again, skirting around the hill to its backside, then killed the engine. He grabbed a blanket from the back.
“They’re in the woods.” He raised his head to sniff, then swore. “Wherever they are, it’s downwind.
Gideon hummed, his attention focused on the node. Its power whispered around him, seductive, like a lover.
… “Our service for yours…”
He frowned, the repository’s self-serving manipulation typical. It wouldn’t allow those who’d pledge to it to perish, at least not without good reason, and certainly not its guardian if it could be helped. Ophelia however…
Damn it. He couldn’t take that chance, and the blasted thing knew it.
“Fine, yes,” he growled, knowing when he’d been beaten and not liking it one bit. “My service for yours. Get on with it.”
Chase’s gaze snapped to Gideon’s at the words, his eyes widening.
The power of the node coursed through Gideon.
He inhaled, drawing it deep into his lungs.
His skin grayed, and his fangs descended.
Long curling horns spouted from his temples, their tips following the line of his jaw then curving outward, and his brow thickened.
The seams of his shirt began to strain, and he fought against the rest of the transformation, not inclined to travel around Havers with nary a stitch.
The node giggled within his mind and withdrew, the women’s location burning like a beacon within his mind.
“Jesus fuck,” Chase whispered hoarsely, falling back. “What the hell are you?”
“Exceedingly annoyed,” Gideon said, rolling his shoulders as his musculature resettled. “And they’re this way.” He set off into the woods, not liking what he was sensing from Ophelia. Her reserves were dangerously low, and Jena was flagging.
“Yeah, I’m gonna need more than that,” Chase growled, catching up to him.
Gideon’s jaw tensed, but better the man knew the truth of it than suppositions flapping from his gums. “I’m a gargoyle.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Gideon rejoined succinctly, setting off without another word, the node urging him to hurry.
Chase scrambled after him. Gideon ignored the man’s blathering questions, intent on his search. About a half mile in, he spied the two women clinging together as they stumbled through the snow.
Dear Gods. Ophelia was blue from the cold, splotches of her flesh gray and blackened.
He tore off his great coat as he rushed to her side, wrapping it around her, and sweeping her into his arms. Her irises were entirely too pale. She opened her mouth as if to protest, and her fangs descended.
“Don’t. I’m carrying you whether you like it or not,” he growled, trekking back through the woods.
“N-no, l-leave me h-here,” she chattered. “S’n-not s-safe.”
He didn’t doubt that, but leaving her wasn’t an option. “Don’t you have you anything with you?”
She wet her cracked lips, her gaze straying to Gideon’s throat. “M-my f-flask is e-empty.”
“Then we’ll do what we must.” He scowled.
Damn him, but he should’ve made sure she was properly outfitted instead of making grand declarations like some lovestruck school boy.
The oversight was shockingly negligent on his part.
He wouldn’t let it happen again. And if that required he open a vein, so be it.
Her face crumpled, and she burrowed against his chest, weeping.
Gideon held her closer, the show of emotion threatening to unman him.
Never again. If she needed to go somewhere, it would be with him at her side.
Just behind him, Chase had seemed to come to a similar decision as he carried Jena, his eyes burning with the same furious self-recrimination keeping Gideon warm.