“She lives here, Vic. Do you think this entity is creating demon beasts out of young women for a lark? There is something building here, and Mr. Fairchild would have made his bargain whether you were here or not.”
Vic stared at him, incredulous. “I—I didn’t think of that.”
“I don’t believe you were meant to.” Johnathan ran a hand through his sweat-laden hair. “This demon’s influence over this town, this malaise that’s kept the townsfolk complaisant, it’s affected us too. You felt it. I felt it. Even as we followed the trail, neither of us were able to summon the urgency we should have. I couldn’t summon the urgency I needed.”
The vampire drew in a breath at Johnathan’s words, but it was no wonder. A vampire being controlled, compelled even, to remain docile was a rare thing.
“Your presence does make a difference, however,” said Johnathan. “You were able to break through that influence enough to recognize these murders were preternatural. You risked everything to save this town, to save Alyse.”
Vic looked away, a flicker of shame on his face. “I meant to be far from here by now. I knew what I was inviting when I sent that letter to the Society.” His throat worked. “I didn’t want to ever put her in danger. But when you rolled into town, fresh off the wagon, and so amateur that the town drunk fleeced you, I couldn’t leave.”
“Yes, you could have,” Johnathan said quietly.
“Only a monster would have,” said Vic.
“And you’re not a monster,” said Johnathan. He waited for the rebuke, but Vic kept his head down.
“I had plenty of evidence you were competent enough. Alyse would never forgive me, but I could have left.”
“Of course, she would forgive you,” Johnathan scoffed. “She shot a man for you. That sort of devotion is rare and to be treasured.”
Vic scratched at the upturned corner of his mouth, but he couldn’t quite hide the smile. He knelt down in the bracken beside Johnathan. “Believe me, I do treasure Alyse. But she wasn’t why I failed to leave. The longer I stayed, the more I realized I couldn’t leave, and it wasn’t Alyse who held me here.”
“Oh.” Johnathan breathed deeply.
Their gazes locked. Vic leaned in, and Johnathan froze, snared again by inexperience. Their reason for venturing out here was forgotten, his focus narrowing on the beckoning shape of Vic’s soft lips.
Heat billowed up through his chest, but there was a new edge to it, an instinctual hunger that snapped Johnathan out of his awkward uncertainty. He surged up, hands seizing Vic’s face as he brought their mouths crashing together, swallowing the other man’s surprised grunt.
Vic enthusiastically returned the embrace, threading his fingers through Johnathan’s hair, his tongue seeking out the corner of his mouth, tasting Johnathan as he tasted Vic in turn.
Vic tasted like honeyed wine. The heat intensified, wracking Johnathan with urges he didn’t know how to follow through, but it was Vic who broke off the kiss, his expression one of gasping delight that left Johnathan supremely satisfied. Lack of experience or not, he’d left the centuries-old Vic breathless.
Vic framed his face, his fingers tracing Johnathan’s jaw and trailing down his neck. Those gray eyes shone silver in the light, yearning evident in their depths. “Have you any notion what you do to me, John?”
Johnathan swallowed hard. He absolutely knew because Vic did the same to him. As if lightning sizzled through his veins at Vic’s nearness, but that kiss… That kiss had stirred him in a way that left him aching with a need only ever met by his own hand. He wanted Vic, wanted him here and now, hard and soft, cruel and gentle. He just…wanted.
But, damn it all, this was the worst time for such a desperate revelation.
Johnathan pressed his forehead against Vic’s and sighed. “I would love for you to show me what I do to you, but we should probably wait. At least until we’re anywhere else but this forsaken forest filled with fucking fairies.”
A laugh tripped off Vic’s beautiful mouth, and he reluctantly pulled away. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. As wonderful and long-wanted as that kiss was, we need to focus.”
Yes, focus. Reluctantly, Johnathan pried himself out of their embrace, settling to wait on the damp ground to see if the fairies would grant them an audience. The silence was thick, the visceral memory of Vic’s lips still fresh on Johnathan’s skin when Vic’s uncertain voice invaded his thoughts.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, but we haven’t had the time,” he said. “I saw the agent in the bedroom. How did he break his neck? What happened there?”
The memory was ice water on his arousal. Johnathan shook himself, forcing himself to examine his brief, disastrous scuffle with Sykes. “We were fighting. He had the upper hand. He…”
He forgot, the sensation of the needle in his neck.
Vic wasn’t the only one they poisoned.
Johnathan’s hand went to his neck. So caught up in the adrenaline and fury of the moment, he hadn’t processed how he’d survived the Judas Choice. It should have killed him. Sykes injected him, and the agent had been shocked when it didn’t work.
Sweat dripped down Johnathan’s spine.
Vic touched his chin. “John, what is it?”
“He’s beginning to see,” said a horribly familiar voice.
Vic shoved himself in front of Johnathan, nearly toppling both of them off balance from their hunched positions. “Mother Mary and Joseph.”
“How amusing to hear such words from your mouth, little liar.” The Morrigan emerged from between the shimmering shadows of the trees. Her steps were silent through the bracken but for the muted rustle of her gauzy skirts over the dead leaves.
There was no breeze to tease the airy garment, but it clung to her frame in such a way that the veil pressed against her face, throwing one side of her countenance into sharp relief. There was a peculiar little smile there, not quite amusement. She didn’t stop until she stood directly in front of Johnathan.
Her crown of antlers tilted as she looked down at him. “You could have stayed with us, beautiful boy.”
Johnathan swallowed. “You’re not speaking in riddles now?”
The Morrigan crouched down, running a finger along the curve of his jaw, the gesture an echo of Vic’s but far from romantic. Far and away from her realm’s influence on the other side of the portal, her touch still made his guts clench.
“You have no more secrets to trade,” she said.
“They won’t let us in,” said Johnathan. He knew it was a long shot. It wasn’t like he and Vic had tried very hard. But he still hoped the fairies would be reasonable with a shared stake in the forest.
The Morrigan threw back her head and laughed, high and cruel, a visceral reminder of what stood before him. A chill slid in place of his disappointment. “No, beautiful one. They are terrified to open the portal to one such as you.”
Sweat beaded on Johnathan’s forehead. Heat continued to churn in the pit of his stomach, a veritable furnace. Did he still have a fever?
“One such as him? What does that mean?” Vic snarled.
The Morrigan didn’t spare him a glance.
“I still don’t like dead little boys,” she said.
Johnathan could hear Vic grind his teeth.
“Well, I don’t give a fig what you like, you overstuffed—”
Johnathan clapped a hand over Vic’s mouth.
The Morrigan chuckled. “Finally, there’s your true self.”
She lifted her veil, the angles of her face no less severe than Johnathan’s fractured memory of them. The Morrigan overwhelmed the senses, no matter what realm she occupied, but there was something in the symmetry of her horned crown and the horned skull entity that finally clicked into place.
“Are creatures from the Nether really demons?” he asked.
The Morrigan’s smile was a blade’s edge, twice as sharp. “You don’t need to ask me questions anymore, beautiful one. The rules between us are di
fferent now.”
Her words were a nightmare he couldn’t wake from, but there were other lives at stake here. Johnathan sucked in a deep breath and reached up to clasp her wrists. “Then answer me.”
“We are all echoes of one of another,” said the Morrigan. “The Other, the Benign, and the Nether. We were here first, before humans began their ever-encroaching crawl, but we never truly belonged.”
Johnathan rolled that over in his mind. Other, Benign, Nether—the Morrigan had mentioned these words during their first encounter, though he didn’t understand them. “These names, are they different realms or the beings that reside there?”
“One in the same, sweet one, the ones who came before, pushed out by the metals and mettle of man.” The Morrigan purred, swaying her weight from one leg to the other, her movements reminiscent of a viper’s warning.
Johnathan swallowed at the mental comparison. “You’re all fairies?”
Her lips twitched. “Is that what you call us? I’m afraid the answer is both no and yes. The Nether and the Benign would be the different faces of a coin. We, the Other, are the neutral hand that coin spins upon. But this is not the answer you need for your quest.”
“Your lot come through as you please,” said Vic, “but the Nether required a bargain to gain a foothold in our world. A bargain Mr. Fairchild made, with ill understanding of the consequences.”
“To gain a foothold to this realm, the Nether need a bargain from a child of Adam, as the Benign require the permission of Eve’s line,” said the Morrigan, her fingers flicking in the air to the rhythm of her words. “Because they are not content to play. Their appetites demand more, and they can exude more influence once they find a way into your realm.”
Johnathan frowned. “So the Nether seeks to tempt man, and the Benign needs a woman’s permission to enter their realm?” If Nether were demons, what were the Benign? The Morrigan’s description made it seem they were no more benevolent than the Nether.
The Morrigan yawned, showing off canines that framed the bottomless darkness of her throat. “How human to think in such terms. The line of Eve is steeped in secret shame. Eve’s children crave redemption, forgiveness, the cleansing sear of the Benign. The ilk of Adam are tainted by pride, easily tempted, and malleable to the Nether’s influence.”
Realization clicked over. “The demon didn’t choose them because they were women, it chose them because—”
“They were tainted and pure,” said Vic. “But they were highly sheltered country girls.”
“Temptation comes in many forms, little liar,” the Morrigan purred. “Desire for flesh, for wealth, for life. A demon will seize on whatever it can manipulate under its influence.”
“And the Other are content to tease both lines, as long as you follow certain rules.” said Johnathan. “Does that make you the neutral of the three?”
The Morrigan bowed her head. “We adhere to our rules, but the demons of the Nether, they are…opportunistic.”
“That foothold,” Johnathan shifted with unease. “What is it exactly?”
The Morrigan leaned into him, the movement so abrupt he didn’t have time to back away.
Her lips brushed against his ear as she wrapped her arms around his neck, their pose reminiscent of a lover’s embrace. “Tell me, beautiful one, what did his blood taste like when it hit your tongue?”
In the soft lilt of her voice echoed the whistle of spears, the screams of a thousand dying animals, the low braying call of endless hounds, and the hunter’s horn. Whatever the Morrigan said about the other fairies fearing him, she feared nothing. She was fear incarnate, the thrill and death of the hunt made flesh; what made the low creatures cower in their dens against the dark of night.
Flames flickered to life under Johnathan’s skin. He tried to ignore the sensation, focusing on the proximity of the Morrigan.
Johnathan turned his head. “The sweetest wine.”
He sought Vic’s gaze, afraid what he would think of that admission, but there was a knowing look in those gray eyes.
A satisfied hum left the Morrigan’s mouth, a purr against Johnathan’s skin. She brushed her cheek against his before she pulled away. Something ancient and primal shifted under her pale, taut skin, and Johnathan wondered what lurked beneath that layer of pulp.
“There is a rift, a tear in your world, that bleeds the influence of the Nether. It is the anchor of Cernunnos, he who bargained, and serves as his foothold on this plane.”
The name knocked around his skull, the shadow of the horned giant in the wood rising from the bracken, the etched coin dangling around its neck. Not a forest spirit at all, but the demon they sought. The demon had opened a rift between their realms. Did the rift act as a door? Was it already open, spilling more creatures from the Nether than any of them realized?
Recognition colored his errant encounter in a new light that shot icy fear through the heat in Johnathan’s gut. He shivered. Had Cernunnos let Johnathan live because he’d scented his mark on him?
“Do you know what Cernunnos wants here?” Johnathan’s voice was steady.
“Nether, Other, or Benign, we all crave the children of Adam and Eve, each for a different purpose. The Nether is hungry—it seeks to consume, to grow.” The Morrigan’s voice took on a decadent cadence, a dark song that swayed through her body. “They will consume the settlement of Cress Haven, then spread—rampant, unchecked, a festering wound to taint the cities of man.”
He had one last question for the Morrigan, one he almost hoped she couldn’t answer for the suspicions it would confirm. “Who told Fairchild how to bargain with the Nether?”
The stranger Mrs. Fairchild described may have told her husband he would summon a spirit of the wood, but that seed of knowledge had a malevolence Johnathan couldn’t ignore, not if he was right.
The Morrigan’s stare pierced him, pinioned on the edge of an abyss. “You know this answer in your heart, beautiful one, if only you have the courage to face it.”
Vic’s shoulders hunched beside him. “John?”
His jaw clenched, unable to answer, but the Morrigan took pity on him, patting his cheek hard enough to bruise. The gesture was almost affectionate. Johnathan inhaled for strength. “Dr. Evans. Alyse said he visited over a year ago, and…he matches Mrs. Fairchild’s description of the informative stranger.”
* * *
Vic swore, clearly connecting the dots. “I should have killed that man the first time he came to Cress Haven.”
Johnathan’s breath rushed out of him. The situation was as dire as he feared, worse, with Dr. Evans’ involvement. “We’ll deal with him after we close the rift.”
“Excellent,” snapped Vic. “Just how do you propose we do that? We don’t even know where the damn thing is.”
The Morrigan’s bones rippled under her skin. Vic hadn’t posed the question to the fairy, but she snapped forward, her expression a quicksilver flash of curiosity and cold rage as she snatched Johnathan’s forearms.
Her claws sank deep into his skin. Johnathan yanked, but the Morrigan held fast, impossibly strong. Vic frantically grabbed at those deadly hands. The Morrigan didn’t budge an inch.
“You’re poisoning him!” cried Vic.
Johnathan could see it, a vile blackness that slithered through his veins on a deadly march toward his heart. Agony washed over him. The flickering fire in his gut roared to life.
“A kiss of nightshade, a dollop of arsenic, sharper than the serpent’s tooth and stronger than dead man’s blood,” sang the Morrigan.
“You’re killing him,” Vic choked out.
“Such sentiments, little liar. Perhaps you care enough to save him.” Though her claws were in Johnathan’s arm, her gaze was on the vampire. “What would you risk to keep him? Could you forge a bond, stronger than the call of his realm? A tether intangible as flame, stronger than the call of gold.” Her hypnotic voice carried Johnathan through a wave of pain before it became too much.
Johnathan scream
ed, a guttural slash of sound born in the heat that burgeoned up from the pit of his stomach and roared through his veins. The Morrigan hissed through a mouth of sharp white teeth and released him. The tips of her claws smoked, her fingers blackened to the first joint. Vic released her in shock.
He expected anger, hoped for fear, but the Morrigan’s feral smile was the worst. “Do you see, beautiful boy, what a glorious beast you will make?”
Johnathan wanted to vomit. He’d hoped, despite evidence to the contrary, that he had somehow evaded the same fate as Lydia Fairchild, but at the Morrigan’s words, he knew his fate, knew what he would become. The truth swirled inside his veins.
Blood still oozed from the puncture wounds left by the Morrigan’s claws, a grisly gauntlet that circled his wrist. How could he be something so atrocious when he still felt so much himself? And why? Why him? Why had he been singled out? Was he human at all anymore?
Vic’s stilted roar brought him back to the moment, fury lacing every word. “What did you do?” he snarled. “The old ways be damned, witch, I will rip you limb from limb.”
The Morrigan smiled. “Little liar, I did not cause this. I merely revealed the creature that already lurks beneath that pretty face. Lay your anger at Cernunnos’ cloven feet.”
Johnathan buried the despair that threatened to break him. Jaw set, he forced himself to meet the Morrigan’s gaze. “How do we close the rift?”
There would be time to mourn what he had lost later.
The ancient fairy tipped her head to the side and sighed. “Bargain made is bargain broken. The child of Adam demanded riches, and riches were given. Gold coins, cast in the Nether, cooled in virgin blood. Find the coins of Cernunnos, one or two will do, cast them into the rift and declare ‘Our bargain is done.’”
“That seems too simple.” Vic’s voice was tight. Now he was rattled.
“We are simple creatures,” said the Morrigan, a weight to her words. “A material bond is far weaker than one born of blood, little liar.” Her gaze turned skyward as she pursed her lips. “Go. Your time grows short. The demon’s servants will be strong enough by the next sunrise.”
A Bargain of Blood and Gold Page 23
