The Cloaked Maiden: A Reverse Harem Romance (Rise of the Ash Gods Book 2)

by Cara Wylde

  Val cocked an eyebrow. She exchanged a quick glance with the old man.

  “Was I supposed to forget like this? I thought you said hypnosis is a safe practice and it won’t make me lose consciousness or control.”

  Femi sighed. With a trembling hand, he poured himself and Valentina two glasses of water.

  “Nothing that happened here today was supposed to happen. I’m afraid I have failed you, Miss De Rossi. Humbly, I will not accept payment for this session.”

  Valentina chuckled. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m paying you.” She gulped down the water, realizing how thirsty she was. She asked for another glass. “I’m sure you didn’t fail me at all. Looking at Magny, I’m tempted to say the session did more than I expected or hoped for.”

  The hobgoblin huffed, offended. He was still on her lap, refusing to leave.

  “And what do I look like?”

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or an army of ghosts.”

  “How about you listen to the recording and then judge me?”

  She didn’t need to be told twice. For the next hour, she speed-listened to the recording, skipping the parts where Femi was guiding her into deep meditation and the long minutes of silence between her responses, and as she listened, she grew more impatient. Agitated. Intrigued. Scared. Finally, horrified. Magny had been right. It was a blessing that she couldn’t remember a thing. She listened to herself dying over and over again, every time more violently, and her only comfort was that she couldn’t remember how she’d felt. When she was done, however, reliving so many deaths for no apparent reason wasn’t her concern.

  “I cursed myself.” She chuckled once. Twice. “I was a Conti at first, I cursed my step-mother, a De Rossi witch, and then I started reincarnating in the De Rossi family, as if I was supposed to catch my own curse.” She laughed almost hysterically. “The Rule of Three. What goes around comes around. Incredible! I actually cursed myself!”

  Magny crossed his arms over his chest. “And you find that amusing?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “You’re laughing...”

  “Oh, poor Magny!” She grabbed him with both hands, shook him playfully, and kissed him fiercely on the cheek. “You understand so little about humans. My tiny friend, this is a laughter of despair. I laugh at the cruelty of life. At the paradox of being human.”

  The hobgoblin pushed her away and quickly rubbed his cheek, acting as if she’d given him cooties and now he was infected with the mad human disease. In reality, he was trying to cover his face so she wouldn’t see him blush.

  “You’re reacting better than I thought,” he said. “But this complicates things, doesn’t it?”

  “You know what? I think it makes everything simpler. I still have to figure out how to break the curse, but knowing it was me who cast it, in another life, then it means it all depends on me. And no one else. I made this mess, so now, after thousands of years, I have to clean it up. If anything, what I found out today empowers me.”

  “Oh.” Magny blinked, still confused beyond belief. Apparently, he really did understand very little about humans. “Right. Okay. So, we can leave now?”

  Valentina put him down and reached for her backpack. She paid Femi what he’d asked at the beginning of the session and insisted he took the money.

  “To tell you the truth, you’ve helped me much more than the shaman. And you asked for much less.”

  She left a big tip, accepted another glass of water, then was on her way back to the hotel. It had to be the hottest day ever recorded. That was how it felt, at least. She’d wanted to get some air after being cooped up in Femi’s cramped room for two hours, but with the busy streets, the sweaty people rubbing against each other as they went about their day, it seemed unattainable. On second thought, walking part of the way back to the hotel had been a bad idea. She should have called a cab.

  “Are you okay?” Magny asked from atop her left shoulder. “You’re pale.”

  Valentina stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, her hand flying to her stomach. She gulped a couple of times. She hadn’t eaten much, so why did she suddenly feel so sick? Maybe it was all that water... She looked around for a cab, but the more she tried to make sense of the street, of the crowd that seemed to pour around her from everywhere, the more nauseated she felt. She blinked. What was that flash? For a second there, she thought the street had cleared and the people had all disappeared. No, that couldn’t be right. She resumed walking, slower this time, trying to avoid touching anyone. Every time an elbow or a shoulder rubbed against her, her skin prickled and the hairs on the nape of her neck rose in alert.

  “Is it the heat?”

  “N-no...”

  She really needed to find a cab. There it was again. A flash. The buildings looked different. Older. No, ancient. The people were dressed in white linen, the women wearing long, straight dresses with one shoulder strap, and most of the men just a loincloth and a shirt. There were a bunch of small children who were completely naked, playing and running, as if the street held no danger. And it didn’t. There were no cars, motorcycles or bikes. Valentina blinked again, and the city came back to normal. She clutched her stomach and found the closest building to lean on. The brick was even hotter than the air she was breathing, but she needed the support.

  “Something’s not right,” she said.

  “What? What’s happening?”

  She turned her head to look up the street. Blink. Everyone was dressed in futuristic clothes, the temperature was normal, and the cars looked like round bubbles that seemed to drive themselves. They occupied much less space, and the air was finally breathable. But it wasn’t right. Val blinked again. Back to normal.

  She closed her eyes and felt her way along the brick wall, until she was forced to turn a corner. She stopped, her nose scrunching up at the smell of garbage. Slowly, she opened her eyes. She had to see where she was, which meant she had to risk another flash. Thank Goddess, the alley looked like she was still in 2019.

  “Look!” Magny pointed at a motorcycle parked against the opposite wall. “It’s the bike from last night. It still reeks of god.”

  “Magny, I don’t think I feel very well.”

  “Did you eat something bad?”

  “No, the flashes...”

  “What flashes?”

  Blink. The scene changed. It was late, past midnight. The streets were deserted, the air was heavy with the smell of garbage and urine, and a dog barked in the distance. Two men came out of a back door and approached the motorcycle. Valentina could easily recognize one of them. Gideon Jove. The other man looked familiar too, but she couldn’t remember where she’d seen him before. Her was tall, with square shoulders, bulky arms, and strong legs. Blond hair that was messily gathered up in a man bun. She couldn’t see his eyes. He was dressed in shiny leather from head to toe, and when he straddled the bike and produced a helmet, Val understood the race motorcycle was his. He was the god Magny had smelled.

  “Do you see this?” Valentina whispered in Magny’s ear.

  “What?” The hobgoblin looked around frantically. “See what? It’s just a dirty alley. Let’s get out of here. I’m hungry.”

  “It’s not even daytime anymore.”

  Magny cocked an eyebrow. “The sun is literally blinding me right now.” An idea popped into his mind, and he snapped his fingers. A pair of sunglasses appeared on his nose, and another one on Valentina’s. “There you go. You’re welcome.”

  “Magny, I don’t need...” She removed her sunglasses. “It’s past midnight!”

  The hobgoblin touched her temple with the back of his tiny hand.

  “Don’t be mad at me, Keeper, but I feel like I have to be honest with you. I think you’re losing your mind.”

  “I’m not!”

  She shook her head and let it go. Dragging in a deep breath, she gathered her courage and stepped closer to Jupiter and the leather-clad man. She had
to walk slowly, and not because she was afraid she’d scare them. Every step was pure torture. Her stomach was getting angrier by the second, and she was afraid she’d throw up right on Jove’s fancy shoes if she didn’t hold down the bile that was constantly rising in her throat.

  “Jove,” she called him.

  No reaction. She stepped closer.

  “Gideon, what are you doing here? What’s happening? I thought I couldn’t follow you.”

  But Jupiter kept talking to the other man as if she wasn’t there at all. She was now standing so close to him that if she reached out, she could touch his arm.

  “You have to help me with this,” Jove told the blond man. “I have no one else to go to.”

  “I have plenty of aspects, and they’re all roaming around, in the third dimension.”

  “None of them can do what you do.”

  The other man shrugged. “I’m not the only god of the Underworld, either. Try Anubis or Pluto. Hell, try Osiris! I know some of his aspects have no qualms about getting a job done from time to time.”

  Jove shook his head. “It won’t do. You’re the only one I know who can...”

  The scene broke. She blinked once, twice, and the very fabric of time seemed to wave around her, warping in and out, causing flashes to flicker madly before her eyes, until she couldn’t take it anymore. She bent down and threw up right where Jove had been just a second before. He wasn’t there anymore, and neither were the blond man and his motorcycle. The alley was empty, save from a few people who walked quickly past her, disgusted and very much unwilling to help her. It was the middle of the day again, and the sun was shining mercilessly above her head.

  Magny poofed himself away from her.

  “Eww! We need to get you back to the hotel pronto! I think you have the flu.”

  Valentina wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, squeezed her eyes shut, and felt her way up against the wall, where she slid down and hug her knees to her chest.

  “Yes, but I can’t move. I can’t walk, and I definitely can’t open my eyes.”

  “That’s nonsense!”

  “Magny, every time I blink, the world changes. No, time changes. I... I think I can see the past. And the future. I don’t know how to make it stop.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Valentina had no idea how she got back to the hotel. Magnus had pulled off some impressive hobgoblin spells that may or may not have included mind control. As if by divine will, a cab driver found Valentina in the alley, helped her up and to his car, then drove her to where she was staying without her even giving him the name or the address. If Val had had the courage to open her eyes, she would have seen the lost look on the man’s face as he was performing tasks no one had asked him to perform. No one human, at least. He didn’t even ask for money, and when he later discovered a stack of cash in his glove box, he shrugged and attributed it to luck.

  If he could help it, Magnus preferred to avoid doing this kind of spells. They were complex, invasive, and they could bite him in the ass. In fact, he was pretty sure this one would hit him right back when he’d least expect it, but what was a hobgoblin to do when his witch friend was in trouble? It wasn’t like he could drag her to her feet himself and carry her. And what he’d threatened to do to Femi when he’d said he couldn’t wake Val up? That had been a lie. Magny couldn’t poof anyone anywhere, except for himself and, possibly, another fellow hobgoblin. Now, all he could hope for was that Val wouldn’t realize what had happened and wouldn’t ask about it. He didn’t want to explain how hobgoblin magic worked, how he was powerful enough to manipulate anyone he wished, and how it was his life’s greatest challenge to resist the temptation. Story for another time.

  Valentina was curled up on the bathroom floor, shivering, her eyes squeezed tightly, and knees drown up to her chest. Magny had just flushed the toilet after she’d thrown up again. The feel of the cold tiles against her bare skin helped with her nausea somewhat. That morning, she’d put on a pair of light pants and a white T-shirt, but she only had her T-shirt on now. She’d removed the pants, so she’d press as much as of her heated, feverish skin against the cold floor. Magny was fussing around her, trying to give her lemon water, pills, herbs, anything that he knew might help. She didn’t want any of it. She didn’t even want to open her mouth to speak. The more she moved, the more she felt like her sense of time went askew. She tried to stay still, tried to calm her mind so the shivering would subside. Nothing helped.

  “What do I do? What do I do?” Magny was poofing himself from one place to another, chaotically. He found her tarot deck and pushed it into her sweaty hands. “Summon Loki. Or Veles. Summon anyone! Everyone! You have the Suit of Swords and the Suit of Pentacles. Someone must be able to help you. Maybe Iseult knows of a cure.”

  “A cure to seeing the past, present, and future, all at the same time?” she whispered. “I can’t summon anyone. If I open my eyes, if I move... it will happen again.”

  “But I don’t even understand what’s happening! How am I supposed to help you?”

  She licked her parched lips. She was getting dehydrated, but she refused the lemon water still. The last thing she wanted was to throw up again.

  “Maybe it will pass. I’ll just... lie here. Wait it out.”

  Magny was pulling his hair out by this point. “What if it doesn’t pass? I have to do something. What do I do?”

  Valentina opened her eyes carefully, only half way. Bad idea. The next thing she knew, there were other people in the bathroom. Strangers. A woman was trying to convince her two toddlers to take a bath. Her husband was yelling at her from the other room. Blink. The hotel wasn’t there anymore. She was lying on the dirt floor of an old building made of brick and stone. A pair of bare feet went right past her face, and her nose and mouth filled with dust. She coughed, and the scene changed. The bathroom was some sort of large hall now. It was cold, gray, and the walls were covered in tall screens on which black and white paintings moved and morphed at a slow, steady pace. She squeezed her eyes shut. Bile rose in her throat, and she scrambled to grab the edge of the toilet.

  “What did you see?”

  Valentina calmed down but didn’t let go of the toilet bowl. She hugged it as if it were her most trusted friend.

  “A family. Guests of this hotel, I think. Then I went even further in the past, when the building wasn’t here. The future, after that.”

  “Okay, that’s not good. It’s not going away. Just keep your eyes closed.”

  “It’s what I’m doing!” She bent over and threw up again. Apparently, it wasn’t a good idea to talk too loud, either.

  “Oh, this is horrible,” Magny wailed. “The worst day of my life! And I’m almost immortal, so that’s saying something.”

  “Shut up. My head hurts.”

  “Let me get that for you.” Holding his nose, he flushed the toilet.

  Valentina went to lie back on the floor. She stayed like that for a long time, counting the seconds in her head, until she drifted to sleep. The shivering stopped, and her body temperature finally lowered. Magny covered her with a light blanket and materialized a pillow under her head. Seeing her like that made him sad. For the first time since he’d met her, he was starting to understand just how much he’d come to care about her. “Well, damn!” he thought. “That complicates things. How am I supposed to make her give me what I want when all this is over?” He sat crossed legged on the floor, mentally getting ready to watch over her for the next couple of hours, maybe for the entire day. If he was still, if he focused on clearing his mind, maybe he could come up with something. He would have summoned Loki and Veles himself, if he could. But he was no Keeper.

  Three hours later, he was bored out of his mind. Valentina was still sleeping, twitching from time to time, whimpering and clutching the pillow, as if she was having nightmare after nightmare. Magny wondered whether she was dreaming of being poisoned, or being burned at the stake, or of being buried alive. He sh
ook his head frantically. No, he didn’t want to think about any of that. Bad thoughts. Bad images. She was probably scarred for life now. He grabbed her tarot deck, took it out of its leather pouch, and spread the cards on the floor. Valentina yelped and tensed for a moment, then relaxed. He shrugged. If he never told her, she’d never know he’d messed with her cards.

  He divided the deck into two sections. On the left, he spread out the feminine part of the Major Arcana, along with the original Lovers, the Suit of Cups, and the Suit of Wands. These were the cards that were inactive or not yet found. None of the characters depicted in them moved, blinked, or said a word. On the right, he arranged the Suit of Swords and the Suit of Pentacles, along with Val’s copy of the Lovers, and the Magician and the Hanged Man. The rest of the masculine part of the Major Arcana was missing. Valentina had Sia’s paintings in her backpack. Loki was lounging casually on the branch from which he usually hung upside down, reading. He could materialize pretty much anything he wanted in his card, and this time he’d chosen some old work about magic and witchcraft. The Diary of Ana Eklund, it said on the cover.

  “Isn’t that boring?” Magny asked. “To read someone’s diary?”

  Loki didn’t look up. He turned another page. He was a very fast reader. “It’s not an intimate diary, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s more like a Book of Shadows. Since Valentina isn’t going to do her homework anytime soon and learn how to summon me for real, then I’ll gladly do it for her. Why not? I remembered seeing this book in the Bodleian Library years ago. Figured a quick read wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Anything good?”

  “Not yet. I’m doing my best here, Magny dear, but I’m afraid the books we need can only be found in the coven temples. La Congrega di Spade should have had some. Same with La Congrega di Denari. Too bad we can’t access either of them.”

  “Well, you got this one here... I doubt you checked it out of the Bodleian Library.”

  Loki smirked. “The Keepers have very strong protections in place. Not even I can gain access to what’s in their temples. That’s the point of guarding the Mysteries of the Tarot, after all. Don’t you think?”