We’d just made it to the pier when Peasblossom screamed. “Kelpie!”
Too late. Andy was violently jerked off Scath’s back. I hurled a hand in his direction, black spots dancing in front of my eyes as I forced the spell to flex again. Another tentacle lashed out of the water, gripping the kelpie and forcing him to drop Andy. I flung my hand in the direction of the pier. The tentacle obeyed my command, and the kelpie’s head met the wood of the pier with a sickening crack.
Blood dripped from his head, falling into the water like macabre raindrops.
I cursed. Bad witch, blood in the water. Bad, bad, bad.
The blood would attract something worse than kelpies. I shouted to Scath even as I searched the water for Andy. “We need to get out of the water!”
Scath dunked her head under the surface, came up with Andy’s coat in her jaws. My stomach rolled. Her teeth had to have punctured his skin. But there was nothing for it, not until we were safe on dry land. Scath gathered her strength and leapt out of the water.
It wasn’t a graceful landing, and Scath tripped over Andy’s body as she fought to drag him with her. As soon as my knees hit the wood, I released the tentacle spell, a whoosh of breath escaping me as the magic snapped. The kelpies fled, probably realizing the spilled blood would attract something even they didn’t want to mess with.
“Andy!” I slapped his cheek with one hand, the other working to unfasten his jacket. “Andy!”
Peasblossom leapt off my shoulder, already going for the zipper of my waist pouch. “I’ll get a healing potion!”
I nodded. I didn’t have the energy for a healing spell, or the focus. My hands were already shaking, and my vision was grey.
And Andy wasn’t breathing.
I bent over and pressed my mouth to his, beginning CPR. My vision blurred as I used breath I could barely summon, alternating breaths with chest compressions. I repeated it over and over. Peasblossom could stabilize him with her magic, but there was little point if I couldn’t get him to cough up the water first.
Finally he did cough, turning his head long enough to spew brackish water.
Suddenly his eyes flew open. Cloudy brown irises stared up at me, then his arms shot up. My eyes flew wide as his hands closed around my throat.
My surprise cost me. I was too slow to stop him from rising off the pier, rolling until he straddled my body, both hands around my neck. The grey spots in my vision turned black, eating away the world as they grew larger. I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe.
“Shade!” Peasblossom screamed.
“You,” Andy snarled. “You did this to me. This is your fault. It’s all your fault.”
Unconsciousness reached for me with shadowy black arms, my body already bobbing on waves of darkness as if I’d never left the water. I had a brief glimpse of Flint standing over Andy, then he was kneeling, one arm wrapped around Andy’s neck.
Andy released me, both hands flying up to claw at Flint’s arm. But Flint remained calm, tucking his head down to protect his eyes, letting Andy batter at him.
It wouldn’t do him any good. He was no match for Flint’s strength, and the leannan sidhe could take more damage than a half-drowned human.
He held on until Andy’s struggles weakened, then stopped.
“Somnum,” Flint whispered.
Andy’s breathing evened out. I stared at Flint. Sleep spells weren’t a typical sidhe ability. At least, not Flint’s. How had I forgotten about him? Forgotten about the wizards.
“You realize your master has a habit of…well, for lack of a better word, eating wizards?”
Jim’s voice came back to me, but I pushed it away. I would think of all that later.
I sat on the pier, swaying as I fought to stay conscious.
“You did this to me. This is your fault. It’s all your fault.”
What was my fault? What had I done to him?
“Maybe you’d like to read his file now,” Flint suggested.
Tears welled up in my eyes. Scath let out a low growl, then the sound melted into something more sinister, much more powerful than any mundane beast could make. Flint took a step back, a flicker of unease ruining the smooth curve of his lips. Without a word, he picked Andy up in his arms and started toward the pub. I half-heartedly flung out my Cinderella spells, cleaning up the blood and the water from Andy’s clothes. Now Flint was just another drunk, carrying his passed out friend to the car.
Nothing to see here, folks.
Chapter 19
I woke before the sun. Or maybe I didn’t sleep. The nightmares were so real anymore, it was hard to tell.
My body protested as I sat up from where I’d passed the night lying on the carpet of Andy’s living room, and I groaned and twisted and stretched as best I could. Everything hurt. My chest hurt when I took a deep breath. My knees hurt where I’d fallen to the pier before giving Andy CPR. My fingers hurt from clutching Scath so tight when she took me out onto the water. My neck hurt from Andy’s enraged grip.
And my heart hurt, because the ghosts of Andy’s parents were standing ten feet away, looking at Andy the way parents watched their child in a hospital room when they weren’t sure they’d pull through.
Neither of them acknowledged my presence. His mother had tears in her eyes, and she turned her face into her husband’s chest. He tightened the arm he had around her shoulders, holding her closer. He wasn’t crying, but there was a set to his jaw that was just as revealing.
A sound from Andy made me look at him just before he woke up. He blinked slowly, brown irises contracting in the sunlight as he struggled to focus.
“Shade?”
It took me two tries to speak past the lump in my throat. “How are you feeling?”
Andy shifted on the couch, a soft grunt coming from him as he moved his shoulder and flexed his wrist. I’d healed him, so infection wouldn’t be an issue, but he’d still be sore. Scath’s teeth had gone deeper than I’d hoped when she’d pulled him out of the water. And sleeping on the couch probably hadn’t helped. It said a lot that last night I’d thought he’d rather sleep on the couch and suffer the discomfort than know that I’d gone into his bedroom to put him to bed.
“What are you doing here?”
He looked around. I waited for him to react to the sight of his parents, but he looked right past them. “And where’s Scath?”
“I drove you home in my car. Scath left and took Majesty with her after she carried you inside. I thought you’d rather not risk another rhino. I stayed because I wanted to make sure you were all right.” I sat cross-legged on the floor, even though I knew my knees would hate me for it when I stood up. “Are you? All right?”
“I’m fine. You didn’t need to break into my house.”
I hadn’t broken in, I’d used his key. But I didn’t think that was what he’d meant.
“Andy, why did you go after that kelpie?” I asked quietly. “Why did you go alone? Why last night? Without telling me?”
“It needed to be done,” Andy said simply. “Seeing Simon with Marilyn, I realized the only concession she made was that they wouldn’t take anyone under eighteen. For all we know, Marilyn offered the kelpies a kid that just had their eighteenth birthday. Someone needs to find out for sure. Kelpies are herd animals. I thought maybe if I followed the one from the opera, I could find out for sure.”
“And what would you have done if they had taken someone else?” I asked. “Would you have shot them? Killed them all?” The words came out sharper than I’d meant, but that was to be expected. I cared about Andy, and he’d almost gotten himself killed. I wasn’t just worried. I was angry.
“I would have saved the kid.”
A flicker of anger made me tighten my hands into fists, and I folded them and tucked them into my lap. Getting angry at him would only make him shut down. I had to keep a cool head for this one.
“And is that how you deal with human criminals? You work in the organized crime department. You can’t tell me there a
ren’t criminals you know are guilty but can’t prove it to punish them in court. Do you grab your gun and go off on a shooting spree to stop them? If it had been human traffickers who’d taken Matthew, and Lindsay, and Grayson, would you have shot them?”
“You keep talking as though there’s some choice here,” Andy said tightly. “You act like prison is an option. It’s not. You’ve made that abundantly, painfully clear. Otherworlders are immune from human prosecution—but they’re still committing crimes against humans. What choice am I left with here?”
“You are going to get yourself killed,” I said quietly. “Do you truly not realize that, or do you simply not care?”
“I didn’t take this job to stay safe. I took it so I could get justice for the victims out there, the people fighting and losing, or just losing. I took it to keep people like Grayson from ending up with monsters. Human monster, or Otherworlder, it’s all the same thing.” He shook his head. “I thought that’s what you wanted too. Isn’t that what you told me? You were tired of seeing Otherworlders get away with crimes against humans? Isn’t that what our partnership was supposed to be about?”
Suddenly he dropped his hand to his pocket, feeling desperately for something. He obviously didn’t find it. If the stare he fixed on me was any indication, he was wondering if I’d taken it. Which was all the hint I needed to know what he’d been looking for.
“You lost the stone,” I guessed.
“Apparently.”
It wasn’t an outright accusation. I guess I could be grateful for that.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to give me another one?” he added.
I bit the inside of my cheek. If he’d really believed that stone would protect him, if that was part of what had made him so reckless, then he was right. I wouldn’t give him another one.
“There are crimes you can stop, and crimes you can’t,” I said, dodging the question. “There are monsters that can be prosecuted by the Vanguard, tried and jailed for their crimes. And there are monsters that will put you in a kill-or-be-killed situation, creatures that can’t be reasoned with. But you’re treating them all the same.”
Andy shook his head. I swallowed a growl of frustration, trying to think of some way to make him understand.
“What’s going on with the knife?” Andy asked, abruptly changing the subject.
I started to argue, to keep our conversation going, then stopped. I couldn’t make him talk about it, and apparently I couldn’t make him see reason. What was the point?
“According to Peasblossom, my plan worked. Simon and Marilyn invited Catherine and her entourage to Marilyn’s tonight. And Marilyn might have been mocking me when she invited me to come see his work, but an invitation is an invitation. I plan to go there tonight, when I will have some semblance of protection.”
“Of course you do.”
I ignored his tone. “Simon’s prints were on the forged chalice, he has a sidhe patron that he could hope to gain power from, and he has more motive than anyone else. He’s desperate enough that even if he does know about the curses, he might not care.”
“So you’re ignoring the other suspects because your gut tells you it was the human kid?”
“If it was the aunt, then why is she waiting? Once she stole the chalice, she’d have had all the items at her fingertips.”
“And like you said, no one to use them on,” Andy pointed out. “She could be waiting for an invitation exactly like the one she just got.” He sat up straighter. “And what about the dragon? Last night we were talking about his link to the wizard and the case that was suspiciously like this one. Why is he in the clear all of a sudden?”
“He’s not in the clear.” I stopped and forced myself to take a deep breath. “Like I said last night, all of our suspects are going to be at Marilyn’s tonight. Simon, Alicia, Vazkasi—they’ll all be there, and so will the knife. All I have to do is ask them before they leave if they took it. The guilty party will have to say yes.”
His voice dropped to a low, even tone that upset me more than his cutting tone had. “So you’re really going to let someone be cursed.”
I forced myself to meet his eyes. The truth was, if I could think of a way around it that wouldn’t violate my contract, I’d take it. Flint had left me some loopholes. But saying that out loud would be as good as saying I planned to violate the contract by proxy. Not a good idea.
Andy took my silence for an answer, and set his jaw as he stood. “Then I guess we have nothing more to talk about. Good luck with your case.”
The lump in my throat grew threefold, but I forced myself to keep my head high as I let Andy lead me to the front door. I passed the ghosts, and my chest tightened. I looked at his mom, trying to tell her with a look how sorry I was.
“I won’t give up.” I said the words out loud, looking at Andy’s mom. She sniffled and nodded, then tried to smile and failed. Her husband gave me a brief nod.
“It sounds like you already have,” Andy said curtly.
I couldn’t shake the vision of his mom even when I walked out the door, stepped into the sunlight pounding down on the front porch. I held my arms at my sides, forced myself to turn back.
“Andy, please tell me what’s wrong.”
He followed my gaze to the broken closet door, stiffening as if he’d forgotten. He started to look behind him, probably remembering all the broken figurines, but then stopped himself. When he faced me again, the muscle in his jaw was twitching, and he looked ready to slam the door in my face. I could feel another denial coming, so I spoke first.
“At the bar, on the pier,” I said quietly. “You said it was my fault. You said I did that to you. What were you talking about? What have I done? What’s my fault?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean that. I was confused and angry. Everything got mixed up.”
“You thought I was someone else.” My heart skipped a beat. “Who?”
Andy gripped the doorframe, leaned out just a fraction of an inch. “I can’t do this anymore.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach. “Do what?”
“This.” He shook his head. “You only needed me for legal connections, for the cases I had. But you have Liam now. He can get phone records, and look up license plates and criminal histories. You don’t need me for that anymore, and you won’t let me help with the other stuff.”
He wasn’t completely wrong. I felt guilty remembering that last night I’d texted Blake about getting Simon’s phone records. I shook my head. “I told you I’d help you with your cases.”
“And maybe you can,” he said quietly. He met my eyes. “When Flint’s done with you.”
I jerked back, that one softly spoken sentence a slap in the face that hurt more than anything he’d said to that point. Tears blurred my vision, and I didn’t fight them. I wasn’t going to hide my pain, not from someone who was supposed to be my friend.
Andy closed the door. I turned, stumbling down the porch steps to my car, sniffling as I groped at the zipper of my waist pouch to find a tissue. Bizbee held one up for me, and I looked down in time to see his tiny face creased with sad understanding.
“He’ll come around,” Peasblossom said gently.
“Or maybe he won’t.” I got in my car and started it, pulling out of Andy’s driveway as quickly as I could. I felt infinitely grateful that I’d made Flint take me and Andy back to my place to get my car last night. I’d done it because I knew Andy wouldn’t want Flint coming to his house, for any reason. Now it gave me the quick getaway I needed.
“He has a point,” I added. “I worry about him, worry he’ll either be killed, or he’ll kill the wrong person. Either I need to bring him along and take my chances—let him take his chances—or I need to let him go.”
Peasblossom and Bizbee shared a look, but neither of them spoke on the drive back to my apartment. I needed to get cleaned up and get something to eat before I faced the rest of the day.
Given how my morning had begun, and
how my previous night had ended, it shouldn’t have surprised me that Flint was waiting inside the apartment for me. It was just my luck, and to be honest, I was almost happy to see him. Finally, someone whose feelings I didn’t care about. Someone I could shout at, and feel perfectly fine afterward. Someone who deserved it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked after taking one look at my face.
“You,” I said simply. “You’re wrong.”
Flint arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I am a damn fine village witch.” I stalked to the small Keurig on the counter. “I can deliver a breech birth and have mother and child sleeping peacefully in less than an hour. I know six different ways to get a boggart to leave the family he’s tormenting. And I have no less than sixteen special teas that will stop a migraine cold.” I nodded. “I am a damn fine village witch, and I worked very, very hard to get to that point.”
Flint looked confused, but I kept going.
“And I would have done the same as a PI. It was a whole new way to help people, a whole new way to use my skills, a chance to grow in a completely new direction. I solved my first case, earned enough money to bankroll my new business. I found an FBI partner with a ready stack of cases that only I could help him with.” I poured water into the Keurig, then stood there, twisting the K-cup in my hand. “You know, in a way, he was sort of the Mother Hazel equivalent for my PI career. A mentor to teach me what I didn’t know I needed to learn. Not guns, I still don’t think that’s a good idea, but investigation.”
I put the K-cup in the Keurig and shoved the top down, taken vicious satisfaction in the plunging snap of the needle piercing the foil. “Then I met you.”
Flint sighed and rubbed his temples. “Ah. Now I see where this is going. I’ve ruined your life, have I?”
“It’s my fault,” I said, staring at the red light around the start button. “I signed the contract.” I whirled to face him. “But, yes. Yes, this is your fault. Because your little errands have taken me so far off my path, I’ve lost my partner. And I don’t know if I’ll get him back.”
Betrayal Page 23
