Chapter 26
Jena took her father’s hand, and he smiled, tucking her arm through his as they strolled toward the standing stones at the center of the garden.
Sin wrapped around them, sheltering them from the deluge and turning her stomach as it picked at her.
The air vibrated with wild magic, infusing and altering the landscape, the stones wavered—breathing—like they were alive.
Beneath her feet, the node pulsed, as angry as the storm above their heads.
The wards constraining it screamed at her, ready to burst at their seams. Sweat trickled down her back.
Jena bit back a sob, at a total loss. God, what would Aggie do?
Oh, that’s right. She’d tell her to claim the damned node and banish the asshole.
Easier said than frickin’ done.
“This is nice, isn’t it?” her father asked, patting her hand genially. “You, me. Look how lovely we’re getting on. I didn’t think I’d fancy being a father, but here you are, proving me wrong.”
Jena just looked at him, and his grin widened.
“Ah. You’re a stoic like your mother. Very well then, why don’t we see how Malcom’s fairing? We should be just in time to say our goodbyes. If I’m not mistaken, the realm is about to open to us, and we can get on to business.”
“Business?” Jena asked, scratching the bites at her throat.
“Mmm. Yes. My affairs must be quite out of order. There will be plenty to do, things to see, people to kill—debts to claim.” He smiled at her again.
Christ, Aggie hadn’t been kidding. Despite the horrible things coming out of his mouth, he was stupidly charming. “Here now, darling, no need to suffer…”
He ran his fingers over her throat, and the bites wriggled, like worms were being expelled before a ruddy light flared beneath her chin. She raised a hand to the smooth skin, her pulse coming way too fast.
“Yes. That’s better. You’re much more appealing now. Say thank you.”
“T-thank you.”
He patted her arm again. “That a girl. See, we’re friends.”
She choked back a surge of bile. They were most definitely not friends.
The path before them opened up, a dome of sickly, red light capped the garden’s center.
Her breath sped as they approached, a body lay prone on the ground before the bubbling cauldron, and hanging against the standing stones, Liam, Crystal, and—
Jena turned away, heaving. Oh God…
“Mmm. We will have to work on that,” her father tsked, then clapped his hands together. “Ah! Chase, is it? Marvelous job, my boy!”
Jena glanced up, her stomach threatening to rebel again. What the fuck? Felix dangled from his ankles against another of the stones, and Chase slumped below him, covered in blood with Malcom’s severed head at his feet. Her father swept it up, holding it at eye level.
“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, a fellow of infinite jest and most excellent fancy—well, no, I can’t say that.
I’m afraid outside of this little grift, he was quite dull.
” He tossed the head over his shoulder and dusted off his hands.
It bounced across the flagstones and came to a stop beside Liam. Oh God, he didn’t even twitch.
“Now, where were we…ah, yes.” Her father snapped his fingers. “The node. Do take that in hand, darling, it’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”
Jena ran the back of her hand over her mouth, lightning crackling through the sky as the storm outside the dome intensified. Yes, but why would he want her to do that? She glanced at Felix and Chase, but neither of them returned it.
“Yes? Yes. Chop, chop.” Her father tapped his wrist. “It’s not going to wait much longer.”
He was right but…shit. She didn’t know what else to do.
“I-I pledge myself as guardian of the node,” Jena stammered.
“M-my service for yours—” A tide of power surged from the ground to engulf her, stars exploding across her vision as the leylines and the node were laid bare to her psyche, the obstruction at Sunnyside a blackened void cutting into the line.
Words to vow have been spoken, the blood of thy veins has bound. Seven stones witnessed thy oath. Our service for thine…
Save them, she thought back, and I’ll try…
The voices rose in pitch, pleading and warning—
Sin washed over her drowning them out.
“Now, now, that’s quite enough of that,” her father scoffed. “No need for all that doom and gloom when we’re getting on so well.”
“No…” Jena panted, her lips and fingertips crackling with intent. “This needs to be put right, and that’s enough of you.”
A brilliant smile slicked across her father’s face. “Oh, how lovely. You’re about to become a problem, aren’t you?” he asked gleefully. “Fabulous. You know, you get that from me.” He shook out his arms and adjusted the cuffs of his jacket. “How would you like to begin?”
Jena closed her eyes and opened herself to the power of the node. It shot through her like a geyser, atomizing the dome and erupting into the clouds, brilliant violet sparks and bursts of power exploding through the heavens.
“Huh,” her father huffed as if puzzled. “Not what I would have led with, but I suspect that’s not something you see every day.”
Jena turned to face him, power crackling around her. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Chase’s eyes snapped open, his gut and back itching as they healed. The same weird tingle from after Wallace’s shade attacked him ran through his body. Fuck. Chase shivered. That had to be the node bringing him back again—
The node. He sucked in a breath as the scene before him registered, his fingers tightening around the sticky dagger still in his hand.
The ground shook as if it were about to erupt—Jesus, the node had to be at capacity—before him, Jena faced her father, surrounded by violet flame again, her eyes emerald fire, and her hair twisting in that weird, ethereal wind.
A column of energy shot up from the ground around her, into the clouds, lightning crazing around manic bursts of magic.
Goddamn, the voltage up there must be insane—his eyes went wide.
It was voltage.
He clambered forward on his hands and knees across the flagstones, trying to stay out of the entity’s sight.
If he could get to her—the ground heaved, and he lurched forward, and then back, massive spiders materializing from the cracks between the pavers.
Jena shrieked as they converged upon her, and her father laughed.
“Is there an issue?” His eyes were alight with malevolence, great horns and wings streaming from the shadow he threw against the stone pillar behind him. “I thought that was a challenge. Eat up, little girl, there’s plenty more sin where that came from.”
Jena drew a glyph, still channeling power from the node up into the clouds like an arcane pressure relief valve. The spiders erupted into flames, their bodies hissing and popping as they exploded in bursts of foul green ichor.
“Not to be dissuaded, hmm?” Her father grinned. “I do like your grit. Something a bit more loathsome then.” He made a gesture, and dark tendrils of sin sped from him, reassembling their corpses into gruesome caricatures of knee-high rats.
Chase shouldered one aside, and it plowed into another feasting on what was left of Malcom. Chase’s stomach lurched. God, this was so fucked up…head down, he was almost there…his fingers brushed the hem of Jena’s robe, and he sent out a massive wave of his will—
“Oh no you don’t,” the entity growled, projecting a nasty, pulsing orb at him.
“Right back at you!” she cried, drawing a glyph in the air, her eyes blazing with emerald fire. A name burst from her lips, and her father’s face contorted in fury. “Take all of it, you son of a bitch, and fucking choke on it, times three!”
A tsunami of power whipped out from her as Chase’s will was swept up the column of power and into the clouds—
A shock wave blasted them back against a standing stone, lightning jagging above.
An epic boom cracked apart the heavens, purple light searing across his vision, and a massive detonation in the distance rendering everything else silent.
The ground heaved and vibrated, roiling with a muffled roar like freight train, felt more than heard, streaming west beneath their feet.
And then all was still, dust shimmering down around them, a fine gray pall setting over the circle—
Along with a smattering of tiny purple flowers perfuming the air.
The hell? Chase shook his head, blinking the spots from his vision. Jena lay across him, blood running from her ears. He pulled her into his lap, and her lids fluttered.
“Did I get him?” she murmured, the scrapes and scratches from the explosion disappearing before Chase’s eyes. How were they not dead?
Our service for yours…a chorus of voices whispered through his mind.
His throat bobbed as he glanced around the circle. Malcom and his mother’s bodies were gone, along with any trace of Jena’s father. Crystal and Liam both sat at the bases of the stones they’d been chained to, whole in body, though by the way Crystal was rocking, her mind might be another story.
“I dunno,” Chase said, his voice ragged. He turned to Felix, sprawled out beside them. “Did you see what happened?”
“I don’t know what I saw, but I know I don’t want to see it again.” He glanced at Jena and then up at the clear night sky, the moon just cresting the tree line. Sirens sounded in the distance and the baying of wolves came from closer by. “Boomerang hex?”
She nodded, smiling softly as she held one of the tiny blooms to her nose. “Boomerang hex.”
Chase hugged her tightly and kissed her temple. “If those sirens are for us, you’re gonna have to let them in.”
Jena nodded, closing her eyes. “Kelsey and your dad are here,” she said to Liam after a moment. Liam bit back a sob and buried his face against his bent knees. Felix made like he was going to get up, and then sat back as a pair of weres bounded into the circle.
The smaller of the two bowled into Liam licking his face. He threw his arms around its neck, his shoulders shaking as he sobbed.
“Shit,” Kelsey’s dad murmured as he regained human form. Jesus. One of his eyes had been gouged from the socket and livid, half-healed claw marks raked over his torso. “Is everyone all right?”
“Physically,” Chase said. “You?”
“I’ve been better,” he murmured, his gaze lingering on Liam and Kelsey as the sirens grew louder, then died by the base of the tor. “But Havers is united under one alpha again, and Fayet got sent packing, though that won’t be the end of it. Assholes made off with your sister.”
Shit, that wasn’t good, though Sue being Sue, Chase wouldn’t be surprised if they sent her back instead of claiming her. It was a problem for another day. “You hear anything about Luke?”
Phil shook his head. “No, but that boat of his isn’t at the dock. I’m assuming he’s out on it, and Patrick is in traction at Klineville General. The only Montgomery not accounted for is your mother.”
Chase swallowed, his eyes flicking to one of the standing stones. “You don’t have to worry about her.”
Phil grunted, toeing one of the purple blooms. “Malcom?”
“Same.”
The alpha blew out his cheeks, turning at the sound of boots on stone. Two pairs of wide-eyed EMTs carrying stretchers appeared. One set hurried over to triage Crystal and the other to Liam.
“This is gonna kill her mother. The mayor didn’t do so hot in the turn-over,” Phil murmured as the first pair carted Crystal away, catatonic. “Remind me never to piss off Matilda Hanson.”
“Oh God, she didn’t turn him into a frog, did she?” Jena asked.
“No, but he’s the sleekest weasel I’ve ever seen.” Phil’s gaze went to Felix. “And from what I understand, you’re mayor for the foreseeable future.”
“Me?” Felix squeaked.
“You,” Phil said. “No one else seems to know how to get anything done, and the town’s a fucking mess. Between the power outage, the stampeding crowds, and Sunnyside being flattened after that freak lightning strike, you’re the one everyone’s looking to get direction from.”
Jena laughed as Felix stared at the alpha in absolute bewilderment. “That’s what you get for being competent, but at least your new salary should cover those parking tickets.”
“You make a valid point.” He rose shakily to his feet and flicked a bedraggled curl from his eyes. “But fuck salary, I’m approving overtime for this.”
Kelsey came over with a sheet draped around her. She handed another to her father, and the keys to Liam’s Jeep chimed in her hand. “They’re taking Liam to the hospital for observation. He asked me to drive you guys back to town.”
“He okay?” Chase glanced over at the were. He’d laid down on the stretcher with his back to them, and one of the EMTs was talking to him softly.
“I don’t know,” she said, biting a nail. “Liam’s…he gets in his head a lot.”
Phil sighed, wrapping the sheet around his waist. “I’ll stay with him.”
Kelsey forced a smile as her dad kissed her forehead and went to join him. “Did you want that ride?” she asked.
Chase glanced at Jena. “We done here, baby?”
“For tonight,” she said as she stood, cradling one of the blooms. “But I’m pretty sure this is only the beginning.”