by K. N. Banet
“What was he?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“A witch,” Aaron answered without any hesitation. “Definitely a witch.”
“Thank you. You can continue.”
“Well, she kicked my mom and me out of her life for over a year. When we finally forced our way back in two years ago because her banishment wore off, the guy was nowhere to be found, and she…she’s dying. We’ve taken her back home, and it doesn’t help.”
“And you know he’s at fault?”
“She doesn’t even remember him,” Aaron whispered. “Not even a little.”
“Oh, shit,” I muttered, turning around to look at the vista this kid was blessed with as his home. “Oh, shit.” I didn’t really know what else to say. “Fuck.”
“How did you recognize him?” Cassius asked, obviously not as emotional.
“I’d never forget his face. He turned my aunt against me, and she was my favorite family member. She helped raise me. I haven’t shown her the sketch yet, the one Paden sent out.”
“How did you get your hands on it?” I asked, spinning back around.
“Um…”
“I’m Executioner Kaliya Sahni, the naga who patrols the area. I’m a friend of Paden’s.” I told him my title, so he could realize I was very much allowed to ask the question and was damn sure going to get an answer.
“I earn a secondary income from him for feeding him back information,” he whispered. “About my bosses.”
“Is he paying you for this?” Cassius asked, his voice hard.
“No! No…he pays us for reporting on our bosses and pays us really well for that. In return, he sometimes comes to us with specific requests we do for free, always stuff that doesn’t put us in any danger. Just keep an eye open for someone, that kind of stuff.”
“Makes sense,” I said softly, nodding. Paden had lied to me, but that wasn’t something that bothered me. Paden had the right to keep how he ran his business private, and it protected people like Aaron. “He’s not lying, Cassius. Paden wouldn’t pay someone to fuck with us. It would be too easy for me to get back at him. I think we need to see his aunt and try showing her the sketch.”
“Agreed,” Cassius concurred, standing and sighing. “Aaron, a good name, not your birth name, though.”
“No, it’s the name my human father wanted me to have. My mother gave me a more traditional name, but I use Aaron for him.” The younger fae stood and looked cautiously to the front door. “Be careful with her. Please?”
“We will,” Cassius swore earnestly, putting a hand over his heart and giving a small bow.
Aaron nodded, then opened the front door, heading in first. I waved for Raphael and Sorcha to stay where they were. I didn’t want to crowd the poor woman. Neither tried to follow as the door closed or questioned why I was going with Cassius and not them. The situation was pretty clear. If anything tried to kill us in this house, I was the best bet at killing it and keeping both of us alive.
We found her sitting in the living room, a living room that looked twenty years or more out of date. The floral patterns reminded me of elderly women, not fae, and nothing stood out or was special about the room. Aaron went to one knee in front of his aunt and gave her a painfully hopeful smile.
“Hey, Auntie Caragh. There are some nice people here to talk to you, and they wanted to show you some pictures.”
When I saw Cassius’ face as he went before her, I knew he thought something was off. His brows were brought together severely, wrinkles filling his forehead in concentration. He helped Aaron up and sat before her, frowning.
“Fair lady Caragh, how are you today?” he asked, reaching out for her hand. She made no fight against his touch, and I watched another level of color fade from my friend’s face. “I am Prince Cassius, grandson of Oberon and Titania. Can you answer some questions for me?”
When was the last time he called himself a Prince? Decades? He stopped using it when he rejected the throne after his father disappeared.
“Can I go home?” Caragh asked softly. I walked around the room, listening but not watching anymore. I wanted to know everything about our environment, and I didn’t need to stare the poor woman down.
“You can always go home,” Cassius answered, concerned and confused. I shook my head a little, knowing they weren’t paying attention to me. She obviously couldn’t go home in the way the fae meant. “But first, we need to find out what happened to you. I’m going to show you a picture, okay?” I heard him rustling around and the distinct click of a cell phone unlocking.
Whatever happened next, I missed, but nothing would ever erase the sound that came from Caragh, the scream ear-piercing and terrible. I clamped my hands over my ears as it threatened to burst my eardrums.
Then it was gone, and only a muffled version remained. I spun around, breathing hard as I saw Aaron holding a hand over his aunt’s mouth, his expression pained. Cassius was rubbing his head and wobbled as he tried to stand.
“I haven’t encountered that ability in a long time,” he said carefully. “That’s going to make this a little difficult.”
As he spoke, the front door flew open, and our companions ran in, both looking wildly around the room.
“We’re fine,” I said to them. “Everything’s fine. Aaron acted in time.”
“Screamers,” Sorcha muttered. “Got to love them…” She turned on her heel after staring down her husband, grabbing Raphael’s shirt as she went. He didn’t put up a fight as she tugged him back out the door. I snorted at his expression as the door closed on his face.
“How do we proceed?” I asked Cassius as I walked toward him.
“We wait for her to stop screaming,” he answered, shrugging.
“What is that power?”
“It’s just a scream, but with some oomph behind it. Some call it the fae scream, but there’s no real name. It’s considered a defense mechanism, mostly for women, when someone is trying to take their honor.”
“Gods, Cassius, can you not be so…so…” I waved at a hand at him. “Trying to take their honor? Really?”
“It’s…it is a very traditional way to explain, isn’t it?” He winced at my implication. “Men can do it, but for men, it’s more associated with…battle cries and the like. It’s a call to action, essentially.”
“Okay, that makes more sense,” I said. “No more of that women’s honor bullshit, please.”
We waited while Aaron held his aunt, and eventually, the noise stopped, but the poor woman looked exhausted. Dazed, she looked at Cassius, then her nephew.
“What happened?” she asked, scared. “Aaron, please tell me what happened.”
“Prince Cassius showed you a picture, and you screamed, Auntie. It’s a picture of that witch healer who was trying to help you.”
“Oh, Oberon and Titania, I’m so…I’m so sorry.” She broke down and began to cry. I didn’t try to comfort her, neither did Cassius. We were strangers. Aaron rubbed her back, which settled her down.
“Why are you sorry?” Cassius asked, straightening to his full height. His glamor fell away. He was radiant when he dropped the glamor, and in the dingy, dark home, there was no ignoring the glow or the reaction of the other two fae in the room. Their jaws looked like they would hit the floor.
“He did it. He helped me sever my connection to home.” She looked frantically around the room, but it was as if a wave hit her suddenly, and exhaustion forced her to stay in her seat. “I’m so tired…Why did I do this to myself? He said it worked for the others. Why didn’t it work for me?”
“Others?” Cassius was getting snappy, and I didn’t like that.
“He helped others with it before. That’s what he said when he showed up here. He said they were all happy to be rid of the weakness in our kind, the need to go home and possibly lose years when we had family here.”
“That’s how we lost my father,” Aaron whispered. “Mom and Auntie Caragh took me home to visit other family, and we lost nearly fifty years. My
father died in an accident while we were gone. I started going by Aaron after that. I didn’t know this guy had helped others. I would have told you.”
“We’ve never heard of this happening before,” I said stiffly. “Right, Cassius?”
“Never,” he agreed. “Caragh, don’t move,” he whispered, leaning over and staring at Caragh’s face in concentration. His hands shook as he reached out to touch her face, one hand on each cheek. She looked terrified as he stared her down. I felt magic flood the room, could taste it on my tongue, and it was like light and darkness and all the elements and more at once. His eyes began to glow. “You still have a connection to home,” he said. “Go home and do not come back to this realm. Ever. It’s the only way. You belong to our home, and you must remind it that you do. Go to my household in the Spring Fields. They will welcome you and give you room and board. You can heal for as long as you need.”
“And what favor do you want in return, my Prince?”
“Your loyalty,” he said, the words full of his unearthly magic. “And everything you know about the witch who did this to you.”
“I…remember where he lived while he was in town,” she said, swallowing. “I can write down the address…but I don’t…remember anything about the home, only where it is.” She frowned, and Cassius reached out and touched her shoulder.
“Let us worry about that,” he said softly.
A moment later, Aaron was running around for a notepad and pen. She wrote the address down, and I took it because she was too scared to hand it to Cassius. I tucked it into my pocket as Cassius released her and turned away.
“We’re leaving,” he said, walking to the front door. “I’ll tell my people to expect you. Do not dawdle.”
I was left somewhat stunned as he left, slamming the door behind him. The creaking of the house made me shake myself and rush after him.
“Cassius,” I called out as I left the house, finding a stunned Raphael in the dirt. I stopped to help him up as I saw Sorcha rushing after Cassius as well. “Cassius!”
“Quiet,” he snapped, and in his order was a power my body nearly listened to.
“I’m not fae, so don’t you try that shit with me,” I growled as I moved around Raphael as he got his bearings. “What the fuck just happened?”
“Someone tried to break her from home. You were in there. You heard.”
“What did you just do?” I asked, closing the distance between us.
“I…I don’t truly know, a gift of being royal, a child of both. We have magics that aren’t really explainable. Sometimes, we have to go with a gut feeling and see what our magic wants to do on its own as if it’s guided by their hands. I searched out her connection to the fae realms and realized it was completely broken, so I…I think I remade it. It’s very weak, though. She shouldn’t leave the fae realms anymore. Fae belong in the fae realms, and home will always welcome them back. Hopefully, I’ve given her enough to survive.” He stopped at the door of his SUV and leaned on it.
“If someone did that to one of my family, they would kill us. We’d cease to exist. We drain of our magic so quickly when we’re not in the fae lands.” He rubbed his face, and I saw the beginnings of exhaustion. Cassius was the direct grandson of Oberon and Titania, which should have made him a god, and in the fae lands, he nearly was one. In our realms, he was an exceptionally powerful fae, but it took its toll on him.
“Oh.” That was an implication I hadn’t considered yet.
“I was scared,” he admitted, reaching out for Sorcha, who stood close enough to him to reach. She didn’t fight his pull. “Sorcha, someone could do that to you.”
“I would never give someone the chance,” she promised softly, rubbing his head. “Never. What do we have? Other than learning of a scary new thing this witch can do, did we get anything useful?”
“An address to a home this guy kept while he was in the area,” I answered, pulling out the folded note. “We don’t know how long he stayed in this area or what we’re going to find, but it’s something. She went there and doesn’t remember anything other than where it was. Memory magic is complicated, so he must have missed a loophole that allowed her to regain that memory when she remembered him.”
Sorcha nodded and slowly pulled away from Cassius. “Love, we need to keep going. Obviously, this man must be stopped. He’s into too many things for us to ignore. Now, we know he’s targeting fae, for whatever reason.”
“Of course,” he said softly. “I’m going to need to tell someone about this, though.”
“Not right now,” I said strongly, grabbing his shoulder.
“I’m with Kaliya,” Raphael interjected behind me. “Knowing her, she’s thinking of all the ways this guy could find out that we know and are on his trail. We need to keep moving and try to get ahead of him. The less anyone knows, the better, right?”
“By Oberon, he’s turning into you,” Cassius muttered, glaring at me. I knew he was cranky because of what he found here, so I resisted getting snappy back. “Fine, I’ll hold off telling anyone…for now. Get in, and we’ll go to his home. There’s no reason to stop for the day. We have plenty of daylight left.”
12
Chapter Twelve
It took thirty minutes to find the home. From the outside, it seemed normal, but I knew better than to trust that. It had a long dirt driveway and a large area in front of the house obviously used for parking. Cassius parked away from the house but in clear sight of the front door. There was nothing special about the simple, tan two-story house with stucco and southwestern architecture, a staple of the state. It was built on a small incline, though, which meant there was a chance it had a basement, a lower level we couldn’t see from our angle. There weren’t any close neighbors, only a couple of homes dotting the horizon around us, but they were too far away to matter to us, and the visibility was bad. This area of Arizona had beautiful red mountains and trees. Lots of trees compared to the desert I lived in. It was a private space that would have allowed this witch to do whatever he wanted.
“How likely is it we’ll find anything here?” Raphael asked, leaning between the front seats from the back.
“I think it’s high,” I said, my tongue playing with my lip piercing as I considered the odds. “The place we found by Phoenix was only an address with no protections. No one ever visited. If this guy had to get out quickly or he was leaving this place to hide here later, he would use this as a base. He went through a lot of measures to protect it, considering he didn’t feel the need to wipe Caragh’s memories completely. That was something he wanted to do, and even when she could remember the address, she couldn’t remember anything about what was in this house.”
“Whoever this man is, he’s a master of memory manipulation and compulsion,” Sorcha pointed out. “If he were fae, I would be concerned he’s someone from Cassius’ family.”
“Too bad he’s not,” I said with a groan. “It would make things easier. If it was any of Cassius’ relatives, we’d be in the clear to kill whoever it was.”
“Very true,” Cassius agreed. Still pissed at what was done to Caragh, he was the first to get out of the SUV. I had a feeling if it had been his family, he would be the first in line to get a pound of flesh.
I was still trying to reckon with how Caragh fit into it. We had this guy who tried to kill me to help get Raphael back to Mygi. We had Mygi experimenting on whatever Raphael was and probably more of his kind in whatever location where they were hidden. This was a witch, so why was he messing around with fae and their connection to the fae lands? Was this in some way connected to Oisin and Ardghal? Ardghal was the CEO of Mygi Pharma and had the backing of the Tribunal member Oisin, Cassius’ uncle and Fae King.
But would they be okay with this sort of experimentation on fae? I can’t see it. This would kill Oisin just like it would Cassius. Ardghal is a clan leader and a direct descendant of either Oberon or Titania and Oisin’s half-brother. This would be insanely bad for him. I don’t fucking unders
tand.
I knew I was missing something. I could envision every piece of my imaginary board, the connections between the players, and something was missing. I just couldn’t figure out that inexplicable thing. I had a strong feeling that if Oisin and Ardghal were involved deeper than protecting their own reputations and the company, they wouldn’t know about this.
“Is she getting out?” Sorcha asked outside the SUV. It sounded muffled. I blinked.
“She’s thinking,” Raphael and Cassius answered at the same time. I didn’t move, trying not to smirk. The exchange was humorous, so I let them think I was still lost in thought.
“She’s a visual thinker,” Cassius further explained. “She’s trying to connect something, work out a piece of the puzzle. Her bloodthirsty nature makes her a great Executioner, but she has the mind of a conspiracy theorist. She would have made an even better Investigator.”
It was a common thing said about me. Even my enemies knew it.
“I like to think of it as the mind of a hunter,” I said as I took off my seat belt and opened my door. They didn’t respond as I got out and closed the door, then listened to Cassius lock it. “I have to hunt the most dangerous criminals in the world after someone like Cassius gets the guilty verdict from the Tribunal. I have to stay on my toes. I can’t wait for them to show up and fight me on their own.”
