by Kristie Cook
“If her castle’s nearby, maybe someone in the village has seen her around before,” Jax offered. “Maybe did some work for her?”
“I could scan their minds from here,” I said, not liking the idea of moving, because it could mean putting more distance between Dorian and us, even if it was only five miles.
“They won’t be thinking about it unless someone’s bringing up the subject,” Tristan pointed out.
“Some of us have senses, too.” Sheree sniffed in emphasis. “Senses we can use to help you, but not from this far away.”
True. She, Jax, Vanessa, and Tristan could smell fear, desire, and even lies, and they had powerful hearing outside of people’s minds. Charlotte and Blossom had their ways, as well. And Tristan was also right about standing out here in the rain not being much of an option. It wasn’t like the sky was dropping answers on us. Only water.
So we headed for the nearest town, and my mind stayed open to other signatures the entire time. I was pleasantly surprised, yet suspicious, to find only a couple of Amadis mages in the area and no Daemoni.
“They’re in the bigger cities,” Tristan said as we rode. “This part of the country isn’t populated enough for them, but it’s only a matter of time.”
I wondered how many towns like this—unaffected so far—still remained in the world. We’d already become expectant of checkpoints in the U.S. The freakin’ United States of America, home of the free. Yeah, right. Thanks to the Daemoni and evil in high offices, the people weren’t really free anymore. They complained about their rights being taken away, but they didn’t know the half of it, what went on this very minute behind closed doors. And when they did find out? They’d have no chance in a revolution. Not when they were fighting creatures that shouldn’t exist in their world.
Sudden despair hit me with the thought that my books hadn’t been enough to prepare the norms for the battle hovering on the horizon. Not even close. Such a paltry attempt, I saw now. Rina couldn’t have actually believed they’d been enough to make a difference. She must have been humoring me with her explanation of why she allowed them to be written and published. She had to have been indulging me, knowing how much I needed to write those stories to stay somewhat sane during Tristan’s absence.
Because the humans needed more. So much more.
They needed the Amadis. We needed our army.
We needed to find our son and get back to work.
We drove into York, and as we rode around the town, I thought about how the writer in me would have loved to spend time here. A palpable sense of deep history rose from the cobblestones and poured out of the ancient buildings, and a part of my mind couldn’t help but think about all of the people who had passed through these very streets over the centuries. I envisioned burly men with long beards and dressed in fur coats and boots making trades at the local merchants, and others drinking ale from steins in a lodging house. So many stories to be told dating back millennia. But indulging in those stories—even thinking about them—was something I couldn’t do now . . . or probably ever again. Real life needed my focus. There would be no more escapes into a fictional world, for me or for my readers. Real life had become exactly that: very real.
As we passed a huge, gorgeous, and very old cathedral, something golden darted out in front of us. Bree.
“This way,” she said as she pointed down a road headed north, and she disappeared. Tristan turned, and we all followed. Bree reappeared and rounded another corner, but she was gone before we reached her. We made the turn, and she appeared down the road again. Tristan, with the rest of us behind him, continued following her until we turned into a driveway in front of a cobblestone cottage. I pulled up next to Tristan and looked at him. He lifted a shoulder in a shrug, before cutting his engine and turning to Bree.
Before she could explain, two women flew out of the house, bubbling with excitement. Bree chatted with them in a language I didn’t know, but I felt pretty sure it wasn’t Earthly. The sounds were too musical, too sexy, too unnatural to have been created by sensible humans. Finally, Bree turned to Tristan and me with a small smile on her face, although her golden eyes were cautious.
“I can’t stay to help,” she said, “but Stacey and Debbie have agreed to do so. It’s the best I can do for now.”
She gave us an apologetic smile, and then made introductions before disappearing again. I frowned as I glanced around the premises, but she didn’t return.
Stacey and Debbie, the two faeries remaining in front of us, had similar features that made them difficult to tell apart: petite bodies, big blue eyes, and hair whiter than Vanessa’s, although not entirely white. I wondered if they were twins, like Jessica and Lisa, and if twins were common among faeries, but at this moment, I didn’t care enough to ask. Apparently Bree had only expected to find Stacey, but Debbie had been visiting, so we got a two-for-one deal. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. I tried to believe it was good. After all, we’d been at a dead end before Bree popped into our realm, so anything was better than the nothing we’d had before.
“There’s defo summat goin’ on,” the one introduced as Stacey said. Her hair blended from white at the crown of her head to cotton-candy pink at the bottom, which barely grazed her chin.
“Stacey’s always naughty, but I got ’er to be’ave for a bit,” said Debbie, whose hair had shades of purple in it. Their hair provided the only way to tell the two apart. That and when they spoke—Debbie’s British accent sounded different than Stacey’s. So much for the twin theory.
“Oh, I’m not naughty!” Stacey protested with a flirtatious giggle. “Not most of the time, anyway.” She batted her eyelashes at Tristan. “And I would do anythin’ for you.”
“You mean because he’s our fambo,” Debbie reminded her with an elbow jab into the other faerie’s side, although she gave Tristan a mischievous grin, too.
He grabbed my hand and squeezed, but I didn’t worry. He was impervious to their effect, and not only because our love diluted their powers. He was one of them. Half, anyway. Enough to be their kin, as Debbie had said. At least, I assumed that was what she meant.
“So you do know something?” I asked, hoping to focus them on our problem.
“We were in the Otherworld with Bree,” Stacey said, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout with my let’s-get-serious attitude. “She was watching you in America, but we saw what happened here. Your lad went north.”
“That loony sorceress ’as ’im and another,” Debbie added.
“And Owen?” Vanessa asked.
The faeries exchanged a glance, their eyes sparkling as though they knew a secret. I sighed with annoyance because I couldn’t hear faeries’ thoughts.
“That sexy warlock’s with them,” Debbie finally said.
“Where, exactly?” Tristan asked.
Stacey giggled. “Go to the coast then north. You can’t miss it.”
“We can’t wait to see wot ’appens,” Debbie said, her voice laced with excitement.
And with that, the girls disappeared.
“Damn faeries,” Tristan muttered. Vanessa and Jax both snorted. Tristan let out a growl. “I’ll never be one of them.”
“Let’s go,” I said, and we headed back for the bikes, our only transportation. There may have been no Daemoni around, but we still wouldn’t take the chance of flashing. I swung my leg over the seat of my motorcycle, anxious to be on our way. “If they’re messing with us, the sooner we find out and the sooner we can get back on the right trail.”
Since the faeries hadn’t been completely clear in what we were looking for, we did what Stacey said and went east to the coast and then north. Tristan led the way, ensuring we stayed on the left side of the streets—I kept drifting to the right—while his phone’s GPS guided us on roads near the coast. Salty air tinged my nose and coated my lips. The light rain had let up, but a storm brewed over the sea, not far from the coast and headed our way. Lightning flashed ahead and to our right, followed by low rumbles of
thunder.
An ominous feeling settled over me, causing a tingle down my spine. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck rose. Then I sensed it. A Daemoni mind signature. Only one, but the first I’d found since arriving in England. I sped to the front of the pack and led the way. The electric feeling became stronger, and when I saw the looming structure, I had no doubt. Stacey was right—we couldn’t miss it. We followed the road until it ended, then parked the bikes, climbed off, and stared.
The eerie structure stood another few hundred yards ahead, towering over a cliff that dropped to the sea below. The silhouette against the black, stormy sky was disorienting. In the dark, it appeared to be a large, ancient castle with a clock tower and turrets reaching several stories into the sky and looming over an expanse of lawn. But when lightning flashed and lit up the scene, the structure looked more like a skeleton of its former glory, ancient ruins of something that had once been majestic. Black and then bright light and then black again showed through the arched windows that were at least two stories high, none of them reflecting light because they held no glass.
The scene had me mesmerized. With one hand on the hilt of my dagger, I slowly started toward the castle that must have belonged to Kali. Tristan strode up next to me, and the others followed closely behind, nobody saying a word. The air felt thick and heavy, electricity humming through it, making the currents within me zing. Lightning flashed, lighting up a cemetery not too far ahead, with ancient looking tombstones that stood at crooked angles, the earth below them sagging from centuries of holding their weight. Thunder clapped almost directly overhead, making my heart stutter. Someone behind me gasped, and Blossom let out a small whimper.
“I’m not likin’ this place, mates,” Jax said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Somethin’s not right about it.”
But that was the thing. Where we were now, this far away—no, it didn’t feel right. Evil hovered nearby, the feeling heavy in the air. The castle, however, as creepy as it looked, did feel right. I thought it did, anyway. The structure seemed to be pulling me to it, which didn’t scare me at all. In fact, I knew I’d find relief if I could only get to it. As though it offered security. A place of refuge.
Was Dorian there? Had he found safety within its walls?
A low hum filled my ears, and at first, I expected more lightning to flash. I hurried my steps, wanting nothing more than to get to the castle. To the promises it told. But the hum didn’t disappear with the next flash of lightning and only grew louder. And then I realized . . . I held out my hand in front of me. The dark of night hid the wrinkle in the air, but I felt it. A shield. Of course.
And I shook myself out of the near trance I’d been in. The structure before us was the furthest thing from a place of refuge. That was Kali’s castle!
“Why would they shield a church?” Sheree asked.
“That’s a church?” Blossom asked.
“An ancient abbey, actually. Whitby Abbey,” Tristan clarified.
“So it’s not Kali’s castle?” I asked.
Tristan shook his head. “This was Bram Stoker’s inspiration for Dracula’s castle, but it’s not a castle at all.”
“I can feel its sacred ground from here,” Sheree said. No wonder it had felt so right to me.
“So why would they shield it?” Charlotte sounded as befuddled as Sheree had.
“To keep us out of it,” Tristan said easily. “They can’t enter the grounds, and they’re not about to let us do so.”
“So they’re wantin’ to fight?” Jax asked.
“Possibly. They certainly don’t want us to be able to hide, but I don’t sense anyone around,” Tristan said, and he looked at me. “Do you?”
I reached my mind out, searching for Daemoni mind signatures. A town lay beyond the hill where the abbey stood, and I only sensed more norms there. And I couldn’t find Dorian’s mind signature anywhere, so he was either cloaked or not nearby at all. Had the faeries tricked us? They could have simply been getting their kicks by wreaking havoc in our lives as today’s source of entertainment. Or maybe their tendencies favored the Daemoni, and they had, indeed, distracted us by sending us on a wild goose chase. Maybe even into some kind of trap. Bree had trusted them to tell us the truth, but . . . they were faeries after all. They probably couldn’t even trust each other.
Then I caught it. The mind signature I’d sensed when we first approached the area. I turned to the left, and squinting through the drizzle that had once again begun to fall, I made out a tall building several hundred yards away. Inside was a single Daemoni mind, and now that I’d moved closer, I recognized the signature as the same one that had been in the car with Kali earlier, in a whole different part of the world.
Without a word of explanation, I took Tristan’s hand and led him for the flash, not wanting to take the time to run. Charlotte, Blossom, and Vanessa showed up a second later. Sheree and Jax ran, morphing on their way, preparing to enter battle. This Daemoni may be alone for now, but we didn’t know who lurked behind a cloak nearby. Hopefully Kali did. Hopefully a whole Daemoni army didn’t.
Tristan directed the others to stay down here at ground level and keep watch, and then he and I entered the small, circular building and silently climbed the several flights of stairs winding along the wall of what seemed to be a lookout tower. My heart pounded harder with each step we took, but not from exertion. From the anticipation of the unknown we’d be facing. From the anxiety of possibly finding Dorian and hoping he was still okay. When we finally reached the top, the stairwell opened into a single, round room walled by windows. A lone figure stood in front of the wall that looked toward the abbey.
He was nearly as tall and as broad as Tristan, with dark brown hair flowing in waves past his shoulders. When he turned his muscular body toward us, my breath caught. He had a dangerous beauty, more rugged than Tristan’s and not quite as otherworldly, with a strong jaw, a straight nose, and olive skin stretched over high cheekbones. His brows, one with a scar through it, arched severely over piercing eyes that appeared dark brown until lightning lit up the room, and then they looked green. And they were leveled at me as something familiar yet terrifying swirled in their depths.
“Seth,” the man growled, though his eyes never left my face.
My gut clenched, and I grasped Tristan’s hand.
“Noah,” he replied, his voice polite, though steely. My jaw dropped. Noah? As in Mom’s twin? “Meet Alexis.”
“My niece,” Noah said, his voice deep yet alluring. So that was a yes. And he hadn’t asked it as a question—he also recognized me. “My sister must be so proud. And your son . . . he is . . . entertaining.”
A growl rumbled in Tristan’s chest, but I squeezed his hand. I had a number of choice words to hurl at this hulk of a man for even mentioning my son, but Noah gave me . . . an odd vibe. An unexpected one, for sure. The energy he put off reminded me of Tristan right after I’d gone through the Ang’dora, when good and evil battled inside him. Was there hope for Noah?
“You can’t save me,” he snarled, as if reading my mind, although I knew my mind remained closed to his.
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. “What about Dorian? Can we save him? Do you know where he is? Will you tell us?”
I didn’t know why I asked like that, rather than demanding that he hand our son over or at least tell us his location. Something about this guy—my uncle—who was supposed to be Daemoni through-and-through and was obviously pretty badass, gave me the feeling that there might be hope. Maybe not for him, but for us. For Dorian. As though he’d long ago accepted his fate, but knew it didn’t have to be Dorian’s fate, too, and he would ensure it wasn’t.
Or maybe I was being stupid.
Which was confirmed when another figure popped into the room.
“Don’t, Noah,” the newcomer ordered. “Don’t even think about the boy. She can read minds, remember.”
My stomach jumped into my throat at the sound of the familiar voice. Ren
ewed fury shuddered down my body from the back of my neck to my feet, like a robe sliding over me. I struggled to breathe as I turned toward the newcomer. And seeing the familiar face caused rage to slam into me like a wrecking ball. The breath flew out of my lungs. Every muscle in my body coiled. And I flew at him.
“You. Fucking. TRAITOR!”
Chapter 22
My fist connected with Owen’s jaw only once before Tristan yanked me back into his arms.
“I can’t believe you did this to us,” I screamed at my former protector as I struggled against Tristan’s unrelenting hold on me. “You are a traitor of the worst kind! I trusted you, Owen. I trusted you with my life. With my son’s life! And this is what you do? Betray us like no other? Take away what’s most important to us?”
His sapphire blue eyes flickered once before hardening as he glared at me. “At least you still have each other,” he sneered. “I thought Tristan was more important to you than anything.”
Tristan growled now, louder than before. “Jealousy, Scarecrow? You did this out of jealousy?”
Owen didn’t answer, but his eyes flickered again. I didn’t know if he’d softened for a brief moment at the nickname, or if the accusation flared his temper.
“It doesn’t matter,” he finally barked, and then he turned toward Noah. “You didn’t say anything? Think it?”
Noah shook his head, but I entered his mind, searching for thoughts about Dorian, because he obviously knew something. Owen must have coached him, though, because he kept his mind nearly blank, focused only on an image of the abbey. Was Dorian in there? But how, if their evil selves couldn’t step onto the grounds? Or could the abbey be a mirage? Another image created by Kali that wasn’t really there? The sorceress bitch was good at making it hard to tell reality from the false alternatives she created. She’d completely messed with Tristan and me when we were in South Beach last year. She’d done it again when Vanessa and I were in Hades. Tristan hadn’t been surprised to find the abbey and knew exactly what it was, though. However . . . the sorceress loved to play mind tricks on us.
