Promises to Keep

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Cautiously, he said, “Answering that question may put you at risk, which I would rather not do.”

  “Sweet of you.” Did she ever say anything sincere? “If something you say to me here travels beyond my home to cause me problems, it will be because you carried it with you. That said, share, and I’ll judge whether it’s worth letting you out of here alive. If it comforts you, I rarely find information threatening.”

  Nope. That didn’t comfort him.

  “I suspect she used to be a slave in Midnight,” he explained. “I believe she was taken into Midnight before the fall of the first empire, and somehow remained—”

  “Oh,” Rikai interrupted. “Pet.”

  Jay stiffened. That was what the shapeshifter remembered the trainer calling her. He had been the only one with the audacity to name the sakkri. “You know her?”

  “Before they were shapeshifters, the Shantel were a Native American tribe whose magic came from their connection to an earth elemental. After Leona claimed them, the combined powers made them strong enough that even Midnight was never able to fully control them. At any given time, the Shantel had dozens of trained witches, but their true strength was wielded through their sakkri, a priestess whose only function was to communicate with and command the earth elemental who had first given them magic.

  “But Pet is … well, nothing, anymore. Midnight’s trainers did their jobs well. That woman hasn’t had a spark of free will in her for more than two hundred years, and since her power requires that she be neither owned nor named, it’s impossible for any would-be master to use her power for his own purposes. Last I heard, she belonged to Daryl.”

  “What if she was fixed somehow? Healed?” Jay asked. “What would she be capable of?”

  He wanted to ask outright, Could she really bring down Midnight? But he didn’t dare breathe those words aloud. Rikai wasn’t allied with Midnight, but Jay wasn’t sure how she felt about the empire, either.

  Rikai scoffed at his question. “Anyone who has ever tried will tell you it can’t be done.”

  “Hypothetically,” Jay said. “What would she be capable of?”

  “Even if through some miracle Pet were restored to her former state, the sakkri was always forbidden from violence or bloodshed. I doubt she would even know how to fight. She might be able to hide herself or others from those who choose to pursue her as escaped property, but I’m not even sure she could still do that. Elementals gain power through the mortals bound to them, often as they are worshipped. The Shantel have been gone for centuries. Their elemental would have weakened.”

  “I think the Shantel elemental spoke to me, through Pet,” Jay said.

  “It spoke to you?” Rikai asked, sounding intrigued. “You’re lucky you’re still alive. I suppose using Pet as a conduit protected you. What did it say?”

  Moment of truth?

  Not yet. “I’d rather not share. But it didn’t seem weak.”

  “A weak elemental is still the strongest thing you will ever encounter in your life, short of a stronger elemental or a bona fide god, should such a thing exist,” Rikai answered. “Even now, the power it left on you from your brief encounter is dripping off you in buckets.”

  “What?” Now he knew how people felt when they spoke to him. What was she talking about? “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “It’s the only reason you and your ‘rather not share’ are still sitting in my study,” Rikai answered with a smile that was more predatory than pleasant. “You have traces of half a dozen different magics on you, which I suspect you gained by wandering into areas where you were not welcome. For Xeke’s sake, I’ll warn you that some of those spells learn. Escaping them will prove more difficult next time.”

  “Thanks,” he whispered. It had been hard enough to escape them last time. “Xeke mentioned me?”

  “No.”

  Then how … No, never mind. “Do elementals, I don’t know, grandstand? This one offered a lot, but you’re saying it probably can’t deliver.”

  Rikai laughed. “Little witch, most elementals think of themselves as gods. They crave worship, and I have never met one capable of admitting to its own limitations. Most of them will offer anything, in exchange for a mortal’s devotion. Grandstanding, as you put it, is all they do.”

  So the Shantel elemental probably couldn’t do anything. It hadn’t been strong enough to reach its sakkri on its own, but it had obviously been desperate to do so. It knew Jay was afraid of Midnight, so it had told him what he wanted to hear.

  Simultaneously disappointed and relieved, Jay rose to his feet, saying, “Thank you for your time. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Rikai didn’t bother to stand. “I had thought your question might be more interesting.”

  “I’m kind of glad it wasn’t,” he answered.

  Jay couldn’t help the shapeshifter unless she asked for his help. In the meantime, if the sakkri went up against Midnight and failed, it would be sad, but if Jay understood Midnight’s rules right, the mess wouldn’t land on SingleEarth. The sakkri’s so-called owner would be the one held responsible.

  Honestly, if he awoke after two centuries of slavery to discover his entire culture had been destroyed, Jay would probably be willing to throw away his life on a hopeless quest for vengeance, too. What did she have to lose?

  CHAPTER 14

  MIND ONLY SLIGHTLY more at ease, Jay followed Rikai’s servant to the doorway and then tackled the long drive back to SingleEarth. He ordered his usher tux for Jeremy and Caryn’s wedding, but when he found the bride and groom fussing over a seating chart—No, we can’t place Aunt Celia so close to Mark; she’s an uncontrolled psychic and won’t be able to screen out his schizophrenia—he fled to the library.

  I’ll update them later.

  He tried searching for more information about the Shantel, but the quiet library with its large plush chairs suggested another plan.

  In his head, though, voices were arguing. All he wanted was to drift peacefully, but he couldn’t quiet the furious, faceless entities whose voices intruded on his dreamworld.

  Do you have no control over your children? They are vicious, hungry creatures without any compassion or drive except to destroy and enslave.

  Unlike some of our kind, I know the difference between an immortal and a god. If there is a deity greater than us, then surely he is the one who gave mortals free will. Whine to him, not me.

  You stole my priestess!

  If I had not stolen your priestess, she would have been dirt long ago, just like all the others.

  We trusted you.

  That was foolish.

  “I want to see the pretty witch!”

  Brina’s voice, apparently still musical even at high volumes, pulled Jay out of bizarre dreams that left him groggy and disoriented. When in the last few days had he had any real sleep? He kept trying, but he had barely catnapped. Now deep night was pressing against the library windows.

  Brina had probably woken at sunset.

  The pretty witch. Jay was pretty sure that meant him. He briefly debated the merits and downsides of presenting himself, versus hiding behind a bookcase.

  Other voices scrambled to reply to Brina, but Jay couldn’t make out the words. He could feel their anxiety, though, and their knowledge that things might get messy before someone trained to handle this kind of situation showed up.

  The problem was that Jay was one of the people they were waiting for. As a hunter living at SingleEarth, he was expected to deal with threats like this.

  He smoothed his hair back in its ponytail—Brina was not one to respond well to individuals presenting themselves to her unkempt—then followed the shouting.

  The vampiric mediator at Haven #2 was a fledgling of Mira’s line. As Jay approached, Brina picked the young vampire up bodily and threw her down the hall hard enough to splinter the wall. Brina had just turned to Vireo, who had ducked his head into the hall to see what was going on, when Jay said, “Lady Brina. So good
to see you. How can I help you?”

  To Vireo, he thought as clearly as possible, I’ve got this. Stay out of the way, and keep bystanders away.

  Vireo had the authority to kick him out of a sickroom, but this was Jay’s field.

  “Little witch, I am very cross with you,” Brina said with a pout.

  “I am sorry I had to leave earlier,” Jay replied, keeping his tone as absolutely sincere and sycophantic as he could. Brina liked flattery. She expected it, and it calmed her. “I hope you found a more worthy dance partner than I.”

  Brina almost looked mollified, for a moment, before she frowned and snapped, “You have no idea why I’m upset.”

  “Then I apologize once again,” he said, creeping a bit closer but not yet drawing his knife.

  It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to kill Brina in SingleEarth territory. Her allies included some of the most powerful vampires.

  What was bothering her? Jay still wasn’t at his best, and Brina was a madwoman on a rampage, her thoughts fragmented and angry. She genuinely believed he should know why she was angry, but that was all he could pick up.

  “Fair lady, what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “My maid has gone missing.”

  The words evoked a sense of fear and loss, which hit Jay low in the gut. Daryl had given her this particular servant, long ago, and Brina was totally unable to manage her household without …

  Oh … crap.

  Rikai had said that the Shantel spirit-witch had belonged to Daryl. Of course he had given that powerful, valuable slave to his much loved sister, possibly bequeathed upon his death.

  Putting the bits and pieces of previous memories together with her current thoughts, Jay could almost see how it had played out. Those moss-green eyes spotting her mistress swinging from the rafter. Cutting her down and trying to calm her.

  Only to have Brina throw her out of the house for her audacity.

  And then Jay had picked her up and walked away with her. Now Brina was here, demanding Jay. Xeke had tried to warn Jay not to ask about the woman he had found. Jay had been talking to him in the middle of a room full of individuals with vampiric hearing and alliances to Midnight. Any of them could have heard what little he had said to Xeke.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “If you’ll simply turn her over,” Brina said, “we can go our separate ways peacefully.”

  That was going to be a problem.

  “And if I cannot do that?” Jay asked carefully.

  “I will allow you to replace her with something of equal value.”

  Brina’s voice was cool, but Jay could feel fury under the surface. Jay stole Pet. He needed to make it right.

  “May I ask her value?”

  “Pet reads and writes twelve languages,” Brina replied, “and has served in my household for two hundred years. She knows my schedule, and all my contacts and preferences. She knows the proper storage and usage of all my painting supplies, and is not negatively affected by fumes from the oils … unlike my previous housemaid, whose eyes started bleeding. So tell me, how much do you think she’s worth?”

  She wasn’t actually looking for a number.

  “I am sorry that your maid has gone missing,” he said, not about to freely admit to walking off with her invaluable so-called possession. “If I see her, I will—”

  “You have her,” she said. “I know you do. You came to the party to tell me you had her, but Exequías distracted you. Give her back.”

  She considered the things she needed to deal with now that her head slave was missing, such as buying and distributing food for the other help, or procuring medical supplies. With the shapeshifter absent, such activities were simply not getting done.

  It was a temporary measure—Jay would make it a temporary measure with a knife if he had to—but he said, “Perhaps I can assist you until she is returned.” He didn’t want to make this a SingleEarth problem. If the powers that be in Midnight decided he had stolen the slave, he could be claimed as payment. He would not ask SingleEarth to harbor him. “I just need to tell someone where I am headed, so they don’t think you’ve stolen me away,” he said.

  Brina nodded.

  Jay stepped into the front office, with Brina just behind him.

  “There has been some confusion as to the location of some of Lady Brina’s property,” he explained to the nervous-looking secretary, who had overheard the entire conversation. “I’m going to go with her for now to help with her household until this is sorted out. Would you make sure Caryn is notified?”

  Caryn and the rest of their kin would be able to retrieve him if necessary, or otherwise smooth the way for him to escape. As a last resort, he had his knife.

  In the meantime, he was hardier than a human; oil paints wouldn’t harm him, and he could make sure Brina didn’t accidentally starve her staff.

  “You may drive,” Brina said. “I did not bring a vehicle. I will give you directions.”

  So kind of her.

  He drove; she directed. He noticed they were going into Pyridge just in time to feel them cross the border of the circle into Midnight’s land.

  Why did he feel it this time? What had changed?

  They stopped in front of a Victorian-style home with large bay windows. He parked in the driveway, and Brina “allowed” him to open her door and escort her onto the porch.

  The house was pretty, he decided. It would have been odd for a vampire to have so many windows, but sun wasn’t actively dangerous to vampires—only fatiguing—and Brina was an artist. She needed the light.

  Brina opened the front door without a key, and a lanky feline launched itself at her.

  She caught the spotted beast in her arms and pulled it to her chest with no concern for the white and gold fur that stuck to the silk bodice of her dress. The cat looked up at Jay with pale blue eyes and then looked away, apparently unconcerned.

  He reached for it mentally, and received a sense of New toy? Not in the mood to play now. Dinner? It’s time for dinner. Dinner!

  The cat nipped at Brina’s cheek, demanding food. It wasn’t starving, but whatever routine its meals had been set to had been disrupted, and it was annoyed that Brina seemed to want to snuggle instead of feeding it right now!

  “I think your cat is hungry,” Jay said.

  Food! it demanded with a plaintive yowl.

  I’m working on it! he replied. The cat’s ears twitched and its tail lashed, as if to say, I did not give you permission to speak to me.

  “Oh,” Brina said, dropping the cat. “Well, you can feed it. The kitchen is somewhere around here. I need … to get back to my work.”

  She disappeared, leaving Jay alone in the front hall with a cross cat staring at him with ice-blue eyes.

  CHAPTER 15

  JAY TESTED THE front door. It had no apparent lock but didn’t budge at a casual push.

  Well, then. He would deal with that later, after SingleEarth had some time to work out this snarl, and Jay had made an attempt to reason with Brina. For now, he had more important things to do.

  The cat’s body was dense and its ears rounded, as if it had some wildcat in it. Hopefully that would be useful; his connection with Lynx made it easier for him to communicate with other felines.

  Where’s the food? Jay asked it.

  It darted from the room. Follow!

  Funny—the cat and Brina seemed to have a lot in common.

  Jay scraped a can of food into a hand-painted porcelain cat bowl, then watched while the irate feline ate. Once it had finished its meal, he wrestled with it for a few minutes, gradually getting himself more attuned to its mind and letting it investigate his. The cat didn’t have a sense of what a witch was, and didn’t care, but it was willing to tolerate his catness as long as he maintained proper deference.

  When Jay inquired what the household was like, he received a mixed bundle of images.

  The person who normally gave it food was also somewhat feline. The cat had tried to tal
k to her, but Pet’s cat wasn’t allowed to talk back. She was only allowed to act human, feed the cat, and order the other slaves to clean up and provide playtime.

  There was one slave who normally provided the most playtime, but the cat had not seen him in a while, since the food-giving slave with a cat hidden inside had disappeared.

  The cat thought of Brina as two people. One was a love giver. One was evil. The cat could normally tell quickly which was which, and when that Brina was around, the cat ran outside.

  Outside? Jay asked, wondering if there was another exit.

  The cat showed him to its cat door, installed in place of one of the panes of a downstairs window. It was too small for a person, but Lynx might be able to fit through if he came looking for Jay.

  Do you know where the playtime slave is? Jay asked.

  Upstairs, the cat replied, showing him to a grand staircase. At the top of the stairs was a landing, and then a locked door.

  Key? Jay asked, trying the doorknob. He was pretty sure the lock here was mundane, not mystical.

  The cat didn’t understand the concept of a key, only of doors opening or closing.

  Who normally opens the door?

  Images of Brina and Pet answered him.

  If I were a key, where would I be? Jay wondered, making the cat twitch its ears.

  First you’re a cat, and now you want to be this key thing?

  He had learned from past experience that trying to explain a figure of speech to a cat was a lost cause, so instead he proposed, I have a hunting game. If we succeed, I think we may be able to find the playtime slave. There is an object that the food slave would have used whenever she opened the door.

  Cat did not help much in the search, instead spending most of the time pouncing at Jay, putting occasional teeth marks in his pants.

  Beyond a well-stocked kitchen and dining room, there was a parlor with elegant furniture the cat shied away from. It evoked memories of severe reactions from the master of the house—Lord Daryl, Jay believed. He tried to explain to Cat that Daryl was dead, and received a haughty response that could best be translated as Duh.