Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Jasmine pressed the cool, wet cloth to my face, holding it over each of my eyes in turn. When it started to warm, she rewetted it at the sink.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured, blowing my nose again. “I’m just so, so sorry.”

  “I know,” Jasmine said. “I also know it’ll take time for you to recognize that you weren’t responsible.”

  “I just felt … I felt … I feel …”

  “Powerless. Complicit. Damaged.” The vampire hung her head, momentarily hiding her face behind a cascade of dark-gold curls. “Ruined,” she whispered.

  I looked at her, distressed by the utter truth that backed her words. And at the confession implied by them.

  She twisted her lips wryly, then closed the space between us to press the cool facecloth to my eyes again. “Yeah, I get it.”

  “You …” A terrible thought occurred to me, one too painful to even bear. “Not … not Kett?”

  “Not Kett.” She cleared her throat, returning to the sink with the cloth for a third time. Then she lingered there, not speaking for long enough that I assumed she wasn’t going to elaborate.

  I pulled the chrome tissue holder off the box of Kleenex on the back of the toilet, settling the cardboard box on my lap for easier access.

  Jasmine handed me the cold cloth again, and I laid it across both my swollen eyes. My head was pounding — but thankfully just from sinus pressure, not from the scar.

  “My uncle,” Jasmine murmured.

  I kept the cloth across my eyes, listening without looking at her. Not wanting to involuntarily inflict judgement, or pressure her to share details.

  “He abused all of us. Wisteria, Declan, and me.” The golden-haired vampire’s tone was quietly contemplative but not distraught. “It was part of our training. A Fairchild tradition.”

  I dropped the cloth into my hand in response to that. Needing to look at her now.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “The abused abuse. It’s cyclical. Except … he … Jasper. He took it further with me. Beyond the magical applications, for lack of a better way to explain.”

  “Jasper Fairchild.” I tasted the name eagerly, with vicious intent. A nasty grin spread across my face.

  Jasmine laughed huskily. “He’s already dead. But thank you.”

  “Kett?”

  “Wisteria.”

  I didn’t find that at all surprising. The reconstructionist was more than capable of taking care of those she loved. “And his death freed you?”

  “No. No, I’d been working through it before that, of course. I’m sure I still am. But … I had Wisteria and Declan.”

  “And they knew. They knew it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Exactly. Like I know that what that elf did to you, what she made you do, wasn’t your fault either.”

  I nodded. But I only partially believed her.

  She laughed quietly, then sobered quickly. “We need you, Jade.”

  “I’m here. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “I know. But this can’t be about you punishing yourself. Because if you do something stupid, like racing off to the stadium to save everyone singlehandedly, then getting yourself killed in order to prove something to yourself, it doesn’t help anyone.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the golden-haired vampire.

  She grinned at me snarkily.

  “It’s troubling that you’ve come to know me so well in such a short time, vampire.”

  “You aren’t hard to read, dowser. Thank God. I’ve got enough obscurity in my life.”

  I snorted. Then I gave my nose a final blow. I was such an ugly crier. Everyone would know I’d been blubbering like a baby at a single glance. My eyes and nose would be red and puffy for hours.

  I breathed in deeply. Then I got my wallowing ass up off the toilet. “The sword?”

  “Tucked in the bedroom closet.”

  “Thank you.” I crossed to the door, taking the box of tissues with me. Then I paused to look back at Jasmine.

  The young vampire was leaning against the counter, her head bowed slightly and her hair a mass of riotous golden curls. She had her arms crossed, fingers digging into her biceps. It must have been difficult controlling her bloodlust in order to hold me, comfort me.

  “Kett has survived worse,” I said. “Worse than me.”

  She raised her red-hued eyes to meet my gaze. “Worse than the elves?”

  “By my count, in the short time I’ve known him, he’s died or been dying at least three times.”

  “Three …” Jasmine furrowed her brow.

  “In London, he took a blow that would have killed me.”

  Jasmine snorted doubtfully. “You aren’t easy to kill, Jade.”

  “It dissolved the life debt I’d inadvertently formed between us when I rescued him from execution by the guardian dragons. So that magic was pretty certain he’d died for me.”

  Jasmine’s lips parted slightly, shocked. “And the second?”

  “Peru. He was badly injured by a swarm of shadow leeches, then he drank deeply from Shailaja, the dragon we were fighting.”

  “And … the blood should have killed him?”

  “Or poisoned him, at least. But the executioner of the Conclave is powerful. Still, the magic in her blood screwed with him, I think. He didn’t talk about it much.”

  “Astonishing.” Jasmine chuckled. “And the third time?”

  “In the mountains … somewhere in China.” I fell silent, remembering Kandy slung across Kett’s arms and both of them so badly wounded that I’d actually been able to force them to retreat. Of course, they couldn’t see our attackers. The shadow leeches, again. Fighting what you couldn’t see was foolhardy — and the executioner wasn’t given to folly. “He saved Kandy. Though she tells the story with a different twist.”

  “Of course she does.” Jasmine pushed away from the counter. “I have to go … it’s still a couple of hours until sunset, and … I should try to drink something to hold me over. I’ll bring you a glass of water.”

  She joined me in the doorway. “You know both of them, Kandy and Kett, would follow you to hell, somehow manage to burn it down, then gleefully watch you bake cupcakes over the embers. Right?”

  I smiled, a little stiffly. “It goes both ways. All three ways.”

  “Of course it does.”

  I brushed my fingers against the back of her hand, tentative about touching her but needing that last little bit of physical contact. “Thank you. For the cry. For the companionship.”

  Jasmine squeezed my hand, then slipped swiftly from the bedroom without another word.

  And I went to work.

  I sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed and the blue-gray duvet, with my mother’s rapier lying across my knees. The thin weapon’s cross guard was constructed out of an elaborate twist of gold and set with sapphires. I spaced my fingers as evenly as possible across the blade and hilt, closing my eyes. Then I just … settled. Just breathed. Feeling my weight, feeling the power of the weapon writhing under my touch.

  I relaxed everything I held so tightly, all the magic at my disposal. I allowed it to unfurl and well up, then flow down my arms, through my hands and into the blade.

  I didn’t think about filling the weapon, because that would suggest it had a capacity. And I needed it to teem with magic — enough power for it to be able to take my mother’s place in the magical grid. I simply channeled, giving it everything I had, everything I held, knowing that my own resources were vast.

  I slipped deeper and deeper into a meditative state, filtering out all the other occupants of the house, all the other magic.

  I might have slept, but it felt more like a shift into an inner awareness. Simply breathing. Simply living in the magic that constantly surrounded me, untapped. Doing more than just trying to endure what had happened to me, what I had been forced to do.

  Doing more than just surviving.

  I embraced that moment, making the most of each breath. Allowing it to heal me, to allow
me to give more of myself to the rapier, to my mother.

  The light had shifted in the room when I finally opened my eyes, heralding the setting of the sun behind the layer of clouds covering the city.

  A turtle was watching me from the corner of the bed. A dead turtle, to be exact. He had hollowed out a nesting area, flattening the downy duvet in a circle.

  “Hey, Ed,” I whispered. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  A giggle drew my attention to the necromancer curled on a high-backed antique chair in the corner of the room.

  Mory.

  Knitting. Of course and always.

  “He likes you,” she said, tucking her knitting in her bag, unfolding her legs, and standing to cross over to the low bureau by the door. She was wearing her bright red poncho, with the multicolored beaded fringe. The sight brought a smile to my face, though I wasn’t certain why.

  I glanced back at Ed. Magic glistened across his upper shell. He stretched his neck, as if craning to get a good look back at me. “He looks different.”

  Mory laughed snarkily. “He sure does.” She turned away from the bureau, taking three steps to the end of the bed and shoving a glass of water in my face. “Jasmine says drink this.”

  I took the heavy, etched-glass tumbler. A matching crystal pitcher filled with ice and water sat on a silver tray on the bureau. Someone had rummaged through the good china cabinets in the dining room. Gran would have a fit.

  The necromancer critically eyed my chain mail sweater and the black leather armor beneath it as I downed the entire glass of water. “That’s a new look.”

  “Yep.”

  “Is it going to be a thing?” She took the empty tumbler from me, crossing back to the pitcher of water and filling it again.

  “I hope not.”

  “Yeah, okay. Good.”

  I snorted, reaching my fingers toward Ed and wiggling them. The turtle open its mouth, mimicking a smile. “Seriously … Ed feels different.”

  Mory shoved the second glass of water into my extended hand. “You don’t remember?” She ran her forefinger and middle finger along Ed’s back in a long caress. The turtle shimmied contentedly under her touch. “Jasmine calls it an obfuscation spell.”

  “Jasmine cast a … witch spell?”

  “No, moron. You did.”

  Right. Nothing like three minutes with a belligerent necromancer to bring you right down to earth.

  “He’s, like, invisible now,” Mory clarified.

  “I can clearly see him.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s your magic, ain’t it?”

  “Wait …” I racked my brain, pulling at the edges of a hazy memory. “This sounds vaguely familiar …”

  “You picked Ed up, carried him upstairs …” Mory trailed off. Apparently, she was hoping to prompt me, but then she didn’t actually pause long enough for me to fill in the blanks. “And you fiddled around with his charm. The one that let him pass through the wards.”

  “Right … it felt like my mother’s magic. But it was wearing thin.” In my defense, the healer did say I’d be a little fuzzy about exact details for a while.

  Mory nodded. “But the next time Ed saw you, you were bleeding everywhere.” She helpfully pointed toward the huge scar on my forehead with a grimace.

  “How could I forget?” I said, heavy on the sarcasm.

  “Yeah, well. I think you bled all over Ed and made him superpowered.”

  That didn’t sound quite right. “Superpowered?”

  “Yep!” Mory crowed, sweeping Ed up and cooing in his face. “Like the spider biting Peter Parker, or gamma radiation for Bruce Banner.”

  I narrowed my eyes, not too pleased with being compared to a radioactive spider. Or radiation in general. “So now Ed is invisible.”

  “When he wants to be.”

  “When he wants … I thought you controlled him? Thought for him?”

  Mory just grinned at me. “And he’s immune to the magic of that device you were fixing for the elves now. And you fortified my connection to him. So we were able to map the entire stadium and get a good look at everything without having to pull Ed out constantly.”

  “You think I gave your dead turtle invisibility and a magical immunity? Plus somehow tied your magic to him … tighter?”

  “Yep.” Mory scooped up her satchel, then made a beeline for the door. “The oracle is awake. I’ll let her know you’re ready.” She exited into the hall.

  I almost asked ‘Ready for what?’ Except I knew the answer. Ready to be shown all the terrible that was about to occur. Everything I couldn’t control, but had to somehow survive. That sort of ready.

  Mory popped her head back into the room. “Oh, and Pearl and Angelica are almost ready for you. They need you to ‘place the sword’ when they cast whatever spell they’re using to release Scarlett.” She did air quotes with one hand, since the other was occupied holding Ed. “Or something like that.” She took off again.

  “That’s two different things, Mory,” I called after her snarkily. “Two things I need to be ready for.”

  I returned my attention to the thin rapier still slung across my lap. I’d pumped up the magic that it had been honed with so much that it now glowed — even to my own eyes, and I rarely saw my own magic. Good.

  Good.

  This I could do. This I could control. Inch by inch.

  I unfolded my legs, crossing to pour myself a third glass of water. I could already feel the oracle climbing the stairs from the basement, could already taste her tart-apple magic preceding her. I was going to need more than another glass of water to get through my next conversation. Unfortunately, I was out of chocolate — and was fairly certain Rochelle wouldn’t be pleased if I tried to make a run to Chocolate Arts or even my bakery pantry …

  Except, of course, I could now just teleport there and back with a mere thought.

  I ran my fingers along my necklace, but ultimately rejected the idea as utterly frivolous. Even I couldn’t justify the use of rare magic simply to collect chocolate. No matter how much I wanted to.

  I settled back on the bed, cross-legged again. Then a petite, white-haired oracle, swathed in a graying black hoodie over slim-legged, faded black jeans, entered the room and closed the door behind her. The hoodie was three times too large for Rochelle’s shoulders, but slightly tight across her rounded belly. She looked more than six months pregnant now. And I fervently hoped it wasn’t stress and weight loss that made it appear so.

  I let her cross toward the bed without harassing her with questions, allowing Rochelle to set the tone of the meeting — even though doing so went against every one of my protective instincts. Because I understood that this sort of terrible situation was exactly why my grandmother had nearly lost her cool when she discovered that Rochelle and Beau wanted to live in coven territory.

  Oracles were rare. A valuable resource for a coven. It would be utterly foolish for me to ignore Rochelle. For me to not at least listen, not at least try to understand. Of course, I was all kinds of a fool for those I loved. So I didn’t have any doubt that my resolve to face the oracle’s visions rationally wasn’t going to last particularly long.

  Rochelle looked tired. But her magic simmered in her eyes intensely, as if it was maintaining some sort of epically alert status.

  “Jade.” The oracle’s light-gray gaze flicked over me, taking in the rapier on the bed beside me, then assessing my leather-and-chain-mail getup with less emotion than Mory had. Until she homed in on the scar on my forehead. There, she paused.

  “Rochelle.” It was an easy guess that she’d been expecting my arrival, but not necessarily the scar. A silly flush of relief flooded through me at that thought. If the oracle had seen me, but not the wound, that might mean it wasn’t going to stick around long. Yeah, that made me feel vain and completely self-centered. Which was why I kept such things to myself. Usually.

  God, I missed Kandy. And Warner. And Kett. In that moment, I understood with perfect bitterness how liberating it
was to be able to tell my fiance and my BFFs anything. I could admit to anything, any dark or silly thought, and they wouldn’t look at me as lesser for having done so.

  “We need to talk,” the oracle said quietly. “And I have some … tasks I require of you.”

  “I’m looking forward to it immensely,” I said, not even remotely attempting to hide the fact that I was lying.

  Rochelle twisted her lips into a tight but amused smile. “But we need to get Scarlett out of the grid first. That’s … well, she’s a big puzzle piece, and I want to make certain that removing her from the grid doesn’t affect what I’ve been seeing.”

  “An apocalypse. Triggered by me.”

  Rochelle narrowed her eyes at me. “Beau has been sharing. Ahead of schedule.”

  “He’s concerned for you.”

  “It’s not me he needs to be concerned about.”

  Rochelle’s tone was grim. Even a little too grim for my liking, frankly. I was just hoping she’d seen something. Something that would get us out of the mess we’d made. Yes, we. Pulou, the elves, and me.

  There. I could manage to at least share the responsibility. That was a step away from completely blaming myself. My golden-haired vampire psychologist would have been proud.

  Rochelle tilted her head, taking in my involuntary and inappropriate smile.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Random amusing thought about my own fallibility, and being counseled by a vampire.”

  Rochelle laughed quietly. “Jasmine has been an asset.”

  “Yeah? An asset?”

  The oracle sighed, heavy on the suffering. She rubbed her eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to mock you, oracle,” I whispered.

  “No, you’re right. I meant that Jasmine’s been a good ally, a good friend to me and the coven. I’m just … worn a little thin.”

  “I can imagine. And with the baby —”

  Rochelle waved her hand, effectively cutting off the round of inappropriate mothering I was about to launch. “I just wanted to see you before Pearl hauls you into the basement.”

  She reached for me with her left hand, something completely formal in the gesture.