Night Veil

by Galenorn, Yasmine

  I paused, considering her question. Memories of Lannan and Crawl crept through my thoughts like earwigs rustling through cornhusks, but I managed to brush them away. The tryst with Grieve had done much to soothe me, at least for a little while. He loved me, not Myst. He hated her. And he wanted to be with me. Those thoughts alone kept me going.

  “I need to get ready—Peyton will be over in an hour or so and we’re going to finish tidying up and then open to business this afternoon. Maybe that will keep my mind occupied.” I paused, shaking my head. “I wish we could just leave. Pack up and run. But Lannan would trace me down. You can’t just walk away from a contract with the vampires.”

  “Myst would trace you down, too. If what you say is true, then she’s out to hurt you—not just kill you, but actively hurt you.”

  I shrugged. “I betrayed her. I betrayed her when she was my mother. Now I understand why she’s out to get me—it’s more than I turned my back on her Court. I was the heir apparent. I turned my back on her in front of everyone. And now you’re in danger. Everyone I love is in danger.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Rhia said softly. I glanced up at her and she was smiling. “I’m here to help you see her die. She took my mother, you know.”

  Slowly nodding, I slipped into a chair and spooned my cereal into my mouth. What would Rhia say if she knew I was planning on rescuing Grieve? Would she help me? Leo would be furious and might tell Geoffrey. Kaylin . . . who knew what Kaylin would do? He seemed to have returned to his old self, but I knew that wasn’t true. I could feel his demon, just below the surface. He looked at the world through eyes we recognized, but behind there . . . inside . . . he had changed. And Peyton . . . hmm, what about Peyton?

  “What’s going on in there, Cicely? I know something’s up.” Rhiannon sat down beside me, espresso in hand. She handed me a homemade latte and I gratefully sipped at the steaming caffeine. “What are you thinking?”

  “I want to tell you something, but I’m afraid you’ll try to stop me.” I shook my head. “Maybe it’s best if you don’t know.”

  “We’re family, Cicely. I’ve got your back. It’s something about Grieve, isn’t it? I know you were with him last night and I know that it helped ease your pain. I promise, I won’t say anything to anybody else.” Her eyes were wide as she crossed her heart. “Cross my heart and—”

  “Don’t finish the rhyme,” I said softly. “Grieve told me that long ago. Never promise your life away.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I bit my lip. “If I tell you, you cannot tell Leo or Kaylin. At least not until I give you the okay. It’s important.”

  “I promise.”

  Taking a deep breath, I let it whistle slowly between my teeth. “I’m planning on how to rescue Grieve. Myst is tormenting him, and unless we sever the connection, I’ll just keep taking on his pain every time she hurts him. And I refuse to break the bond. Grieve and I . . . there is no life without the other. I never used to believe in soul mates or twin souls until . . . until I came home and realized how tightly we are linked.”

  “How can you rescue him, though?” And then she stopped. “The antidote . . . you plan on getting hold of the antidote that Geoffrey and Lainule are making and you’re going to give it to Grieve, aren’t you?”

  I blinked. Rhiannon was more astute than I’d thought. “Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking. But I have to figure out a way to get into Geoffrey’s house, and then to find the damned thing.”

  “That’s not going to be easy. And if Geoffrey finds out, he might take it out on Leo.” At the expression on my face, she hurried to add, “Don’t worry—I’m not going to tell him. But we’ll have to think carefully.”

  “We? I’m not asking you to help me, Rhia. It’s going to be dangerous.”

  “And our lives aren’t dangerous now? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’ll help you. I wish you could walk away from him, but I understand.” She paused, then slowly added, “You have something with Grieve that I don’t know if I’ll ever have with Leo. I love him dearly, and he loves me. And I’ll be happy to spend the rest of my life with him but . . . but we weren’t destined for each other. I know that in my heart. I always thought there was someone out there waiting for me until he came along and then I . . . I wasn’t sure, anymore. And we grew close and then I fell for him and now . . . we mesh. We aren’t a complete fit, but we mesh.”

  “Maybe that’s all we can hope for and anything else is gravy. In my case, painful gravy.” I cupped the latte with my hands, feeling the warmth of the mug seep into my body. A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts.

  Rhiannon motioned for me to stay seated. “I’ll get it.”

  She returned with Peyton in tow.

  “Sorry I showed up early, but I was just too excited about getting things moving and I figured you’d be up.” She slid into a chair and put her purse on the table, looking dour.

  “Are you sure that’s the reason? I mean, it’s fine but you don’t look very happy.”

  She shrugged. “I had an argument with my mother and needed to get out of the house.”

  “What about?” Anadey and her daughter were both strong willed. It wasn’t hard to imagine them getting into a spat.

  “I got a letter.” Peyton let out a long sigh and opened her purse, pulling out a thin envelope. “Mother wasn’t happy about it.” She tossed the letter on the table and shrugged. “It’s from my father.”

  “Your father? But I thought he ran off and left you years ago!” I stared at the note and then at Peyton’s face. “This is the first time you’ve heard from him since then, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. He wants to be a part of my life now. He’s sobered up, been in AA for three years, and he wants to get to know me. He’s got himself a job in Seattle and he’s pulling his life together. I didn’t know he’d been an alcoholic when Mother kicked him out. She never told me.” And then she promptly burst into tears. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know if I want to see him—he left us. He left us high and dry. But now . . . what if he’s changed?”

  She leaned forward, resting her face on her hands, crying softly.

  Rhiannon scurried around to give her a hug, and I leaped up to get her a glass of water and the tissue box. Peyton fumbled for a Puffs tissue and blew her nose, then looked up, her face red.

  “Mother tells me not to trust him. That he’ll just skip out again on me. She won’t allow him in the house and says that if I want to see him, it’s up to me but she doesn’t want to hear about it.” She bit her lip. “I know he hurt her, and left her with a baby and no money. I know what he did was horrible . . .”

  “But he’s your father and you want to see him. You want to know if he loves you.” I whipped up a quick latte and slid it in front of her. “Drink this. It’s okay. Rhiannon and I understand. We’ve never even met our fathers. I know the name of mine but nothing more than he’s Cambyra Fae.”

  “That’s more than I know. I used to ask Heather about my father when I was little,” Rhia said, sliding into the chair next to Peyton. “She wouldn’t tell me anything. I used to get so mad at her.” She paused, then added, “I’d almost forgotten—I set a fire once when that happened. I didn’t mean to but I was so angry that one day I stomped outside and was sitting on the back porch and my mother’s rosemary bush went up in flames. I know it was my doing because I felt the fire shoot out from my heart. But I hurried to put it out with the hose and she never asked me what happened.”

  I glanced at her. “Was this before . . .”

  She nodded. “Yeah, before the accident.”

  Peyton bit her lip. “I don’t know what to do now. If I contact him, I know my mother will be upset. I think she really hates him. She won’t stop me from seeing him, but she won’t support me, either. He hurt her pretty badly, I guess.”

  “Give her a little time; maybe she’ll come around.” I let out a long breath. “Meanwhile, let’s get started early. It will help both of us to k
eep busy.”

  We headed into the back parlor and finished tidying up. Our sign had arrived via UPS the day before and I stared at it—it was ready to set up in front of the house, by the road.

  “This makes it real, you know.” I glanced up at her. “Think we should take out an ad?”

  She shrugged. “Why not? We don’t have overhead costs in terms of rent since we’re using your house and the mortgage is long paid. I can easily come up with a couple hundred for a spot in the New Forest Times.”

  I nodded. “Me, too. Okay, let’s do it. What should we say?”

  After about half an hour, we’d pounded out a classified ad to go in the local paper and phoned it in. I handed Peyton a check and she used her credit card to place the order. I picked up the sign and a hammer.

  “Let’s go hang our shingles.”

  The sign was like one of those FOR SALE signs, but instead of advertising a house for sale, it read, WIND CHARMS—MAGICAL NOTIONS & SPELLS, and below that, MYSTICAL EYE INVESTIGATIONS. I carried it out the front door, Peyton following, and we stopped by the mailbox at the side of the road.

  “Here we go.” I gave her a crooked smile. “It’s not like we’re going to have a hundred people on our doorstep the minute we put this up but you know, it feels so very official, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded, a glint in her eye. “Yeah . . . who knows where this will lead for both of us?”

  As she held the sign, I pounded it into the ground, first scooping away a good foot of snow to reach the dirt. As we finished and stood back, I realized that in some weird altaverse I’d been hoping that a throng of people would descend on us, but for the moment, we were alone, standing in the snow. I brushed back my hair and glanced up at the sky.

  The clouds were rushing by, white cotton mixed with gray haze, and always the ever-present silver sheen that accompanied snowstorms. They were billowing by in the stiff breeze and the temperature was steadily falling. I turned, slowly, staring down the street, across the road, at the woods.

  Everywhere, a silver and blue wasteland. The Ice Queen held the world in her grasp, and she was steadily squeezing tighter as her magical storms passed through. We were up to a good four feet of snow in parts of the yard. Drifts were higher. In Seattle, they were reporting the coldest winter in recorded history, with fifteen inches to two feet depending on how far out the neighborhoods were.

  And in that moment, I knew. “She could do it.”

  “Who could do what?” Peyton glanced around, then at me.

  “Myst. She could bring on another ice age. I can feel it in the wind—I can feel the shifting of currents and the cooling gusts racing around the world. She’s sent her people into all corners of the northern lands. And they all carry her magic.”

  “Ragnarök.”

  I glanced at her. “Not quite. That’s the twilight of the gods. This could be the twilight of the mortals. And this will be ice, not water.”

  “Stopping her won’t be easy.” Peyton stared at her feet. “When she held me captive . . . Heather and I were put into the same cell and Myst came to me. She was so beautiful . . .” Her voice drifted off. “I couldn’t believe how beautiful she was. But so cold, and so . . . inhuman.”

  I nodded. “She has no more humanity in her than a rock.”

  “Yeah. She was so aloof. It wasn’t as though she cared, one way or another. We were just . . . objects. She made us get down on our knees—or her guards did. And then she walked up and said, ‘One of you will walk out of here alive. One of you will join my court. It’s up to the two of you, which one.’ And then . . . and then Heather stood up and faced her and said, ‘Take me. Let Peyton go.’ Myst shrugged and motioned to her guards and said, ‘As you wish.’ And then she just turned and left. The guards threw me across the room. As I slammed into the wall, they forced Heather to leave with them.”

  I hung my head. We hadn’t heard about this before, though we had some inkling of what had happened.

  “Heather saved me—at least for the time being. If you hadn’t rescued me, I doubt I’d still be alive. I owe your aunt—I owe you everything.” Peyton reached out and brushed her hand across my cheek. “Whatever you need me to do, however you need me to back you up, you’ve got it.”

  I felt shaky. So much had gone wrong. To have someone on our side, clearly, ready to take up the battle flag without complaint, meant so much. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I’ve been feeling so mired. And after last night . . .” I told her what had happened with Crawl and Lannan and Grieve.

  “I’ll help you get the antidote. Whatever you decide, I’m in on. Just tell me what to do. I’m your soldier.” She gave me a buck up smile and, throwing her arm around my shoulders, turned me toward the house. “It’s cold. Let’s go in before we catch our death.”

  By afternoon, we both had our first customers—Peyton had a tarot reading walk-in, and I was talking to Dorthea, a local woman who was frightened because her neighbor had been one of the ones killed in the theater incident. She wanted a protection charm to wear, and one to put in her house.

  Dorthea looked like she didn’t have much money—she was dressed in a faded housedress, and her eyes had a look of hunger in them. New Forest had its share of povertystricken individuals, and this woman fit the bill.

  I took her name and then, with a momentary hesitation, followed Marta’s instructions in her Book of Shadows and took Dorthea’s hand. I cautioned her to be silent and lowered myself into the slipstream, trying to suss her energy.

  As I listened to the currents, I could hear whispers surrounding my client.

  A plaintive child’s voice. Mom, I’m hungry—what’s for breakfast?

  You’ve got to get a handle on the spending. I can’t make enough to keep up with the bills if you don’t start cutting corners. The gruff sound of a man on the edge, trying to keep his temper.

  I’m doing the best I can. What do you expect from me? Dorthea herself.

  Then, the crack of flesh on flesh, a whimpering cry, and a man’s voice. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to do it. I promise—this time I mean it. I won’t do it again. Only the energy behind the voice didn’t ring true. It was only a matter of time before it happened again—and worse.

  And . . . the faintest sparkle of magic, hidden deep within, unnoticed and buried through the years. I opened my eyes and let go of her hand. As I stared at her money on the table, I let out a long sigh and pushed the ten-dollar bill back to her. “Keep it.”

  “But the charms—”

  “I’m giving you a charm to protect you and your child. Use the money for food, or to get yourself and your son to a women’s shelter. Don’t let him have another chance at you.” I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Dorthea wasn’t ready to hear that it wasn’t her fault, that she couldn’t change her husband. But I had to try—had to reach out.

  Her eyes went dark and I could feel her shut down as she slammed up her barriers. I shrugged and pushed the charm across the table. “Tie this over your front door, and use this oil on the window latches and any other doors to the outside in your house. It will keep the monsters out.”

  But only the monsters that you haven’t already allowed in your house. I wanted to blurt out another warning—that he would hit her harder next time. That maybe he’d take it out on their child.

  Ulean swept around me, a soft cloak against the frustration I was feeling.

  You can’t save the world, Cicely. You can’t stop her from going home to her husband. You couldn’t save your mother and you can’t save every woman in danger. You do what you can, and you accept the fact that you aren’t a goddess. You aren’t a superhero. All the magic in the world can’t help someone who’s not ready to listen.

  I nodded, softly. Thank you, my friend. It’s a hard thing to face.

  I know.

  Dorthea picked up the charm, hesitating for a moment. She looked at the money I’d pushed back across the table. “I . . . are you sure?”

  “Ten dollars can buy soup, ma
caroni and cheese, a loaf of bread. Put it to good use, please.” I gave her a soft smile, even though I wanted to reach across the table and shake her by the shoulders.

  She pocketed the money and, with another smile, headed out the door, charm and oil in hand. I sat back, wondering what Marta would have done. Would she have taken the money? Or turned away the woman? Or would she have done what I did? This was new territory, and I had the feeling it wasn’t going to be easy to pick my way through the landscape.

  After a few minutes, Peyton waved to her reading, and as the woman left the room, we turned to each other. Her face had the same stricken look as mine.

  “Rough reading?” I pushed back my chair and stood up, shaking the cobwebs out of my brain.

  She nodded. “Woman wants to find love, has a bad habit of self-destructing in good relationships and going for the bad ones. Had to tell her that Prince Charming is more likely to be wearing a pair of geeky glasses than riding a Harley, but she didn’t want to hear.”

  I let out a long breath. Were we all lost and confused, searching for our loves, searching for the answers when they were there in front of our faces?

  “I think we need a drink. Can I make you a latte?”

  “Mocha would be better.” Peyton grinned. “I need me some chocolate!” She glanced around. “Where are the guys?”

  “Out and about. At least Leo is. Kaylin might be with Chatter, wherever he is. One mocha, coming up. Iced or hot?”

  Peyton glanced outside at the blowing drifts. “Hot. Today I need warming inside—something to convince me that there’s hope and sunlight around the bend.” We headed toward the kitchen.

  “Sometimes I think it would be a whole lot simpler to be a vampire, you know? They don’t feel the cold or heat, they have their own agendas, they . . .” I stopped. “Geoffrey offered to take me into his stable, to turn me.”

  “No! You can’t let him do that. I know you’re upset, but Cicely—that’s not the answer.” Peyton looked horrified.

  “No, it’s not,” I said slowly. “But . . . what if he thought I was interested? What if I asked him to show me his stable of vamps, to introduce me, so I could think about it? And what if I brought you and Rhiannon with me, and while Geoffrey was off with me, you guys just happened to find the antidote? I know it’s a long shot. I know it’s dangerous, but damn it, that’s the only way I can think of to get invited into his house without waiting for him.”