"Nice hair," I retorted, "I didn't know they still made level 5 Aquanet. You know, chlorofluorocarbons are a really big deal nowadays. Haven't you heard?"
Delta's eyes narrowed infinitesimally, and she fingered a crunchy curl with a confused expression. I realized then that the lines I had taken as a demarcation of age were streaks of caked-on concealer, and that she wasn't much older than my 25 years.
"Cut the trash talk and hand it over, Sylvana," Delta commanded, her voice suddenly much stronger and lacking the lilting southern drawl she had cultivated inside the club.
Her question made me stop and refocus my attention. I looked down at my hands and Pinky's helmet, and then back at her. She couldn't possibly want to steal my scooter when there were so many better options available. Two spaces over, a sleek black Harley seemed more her speed.
"No, I don't want that hunk of junk." Delta rolled her eyes and began to calmly stride in my direction. Maybe calmly isn't the right word; the fluid quality of her movements flipped a switch in my brain, and I suddenly held no illusions that, given even a moderately good reason, she would uncoil like a snake and strike with razor-sharp precision.
"Don't make me ask you again." I heard the warning in her words, and while part of me wanted to run, I still held out hope that half witch, half God would trump paranormal whatsis. But relying solely on nature and ignoring the nurture side of things is always a risky bet. Not that it appeared this woman had ever been treated with tender loving care; what I mean is, I may have been inherently stronger, but I was untrained and would be of little use in a physical battle.
I felt adrenaline and power course through my veins and began gathering the loose strands of magic into a tight ball at the center of my chest. It flowed down through my fingers, which sparked with electricity as I tapped the tips together in warning. But Delta had a plan, a purpose. She wasn't caught off guard and had come prepared. I, on the other hand, only had a moderate amount of control over my witchy abilities, and even less over whatever powers came with my inherent godhood. So far, they'd been a failsafe that had kicked in when I was in danger, or when there was a couple for me to match.
Also, I hadn't been expecting her to pull a rapier with a 4-foot long blade out of her jacket, Mary Poppins style. She pointed it right at my neck, causing me to take a step backward, trip over the helmet that had fallen to my feet, and land on my sundress-clad butt, hard.
"What part of me telling you I'm Lexi Balefire didn't you understand? My mother is dead."
"You are Sylvana Balefire, daughter of Clara, defiler of that which I am sworn to retrieve." Delta turned up the palm not holding the sword and produced a near holographic quality image of me that floated above her outstretched hand.
"I am Alexis Balefire, and I haven't defiled anything."
"Enough of this. Where is the Bow of Destiny?" Delta ignored my protests and began to snarl, just as I was preparing to send a rescue wish to Terra. Her words stopped me in my tracks.
"The what of what, now?" I managed to choke out, the image of me carrying a glowing golden bow with a heart-shaped arrowhead flitted through my mind on replay. It couldn't be a coincidence that I'd seen a bow in my vision, and now here someone was, asking me about a similar item.
Eyes narrowing to slits, Delta dispelled the image and pulled a leather pouch from her pants pocket. Using her teeth so as to keep the sword pointed firmly, she tugged the string closure open and tossed the contents toward me.
Some kind of dust, I assumed based on the sneezing. When my eyes finally cleared, Delta was staring down at me with a funny look on her face.
"You've got to be kidding me. You're telling the truth, and you really have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? Look, I'll lower my sword if you promise not to try anything stupid." I nodded, and she took a slightly less homicidal stance. "I was sent here to help you. You're a Fate Weaver--of that much you are aware, I presume," she didn't wait for my response, "and your mother is a wicked old witch who stole your birthright. I'm charged with securing the bow and returning it to its rightful owner--you. No one told me you were a dead ringer for your mother."
Dead ringer? No wonder Sylvana had disguised herself to look nothing like me; because she looked exactly like me, and there would have been no way I'd have missed the resemblance. Of course the thought had crossed my mind, but it had seemed unlikely that three generations would be nearly identical. Perhaps all the Balefires in history were doppelgangers.
The part about me being the rightful owner of Cupid's Bow of Destiny--now that was a twist I had half expected because ever since I'd seen myself wielding it, I had wanted to get my hands on that bow. Not just for its power; but for all the answers I hoped it could give me. And because it felt right.
"What exactly are you expecting me to do with it?"
Delta stared at me like I'd grown a second head, "Weave fate, obviously. Isn't that what you do? Or are you just a common neighborhood matchmaker? I didn't think so. You can't have missed what's going on out there--you can't tell me you haven't noticed how love has been seeping out of your world. Do you think that doesn't have consequences? It's Cupid's job to maintain the balance, but he's MIA, and the gauntlet now falls to you. At all costs, you must--"
And then she was abruptly silent, frozen in mid-sentence like a stone statue, the blade of her rapier still gleaming in the moonlight. I carefully backed away and scrambled to my feet, looking around for my godmother; I must have called out to Terra subconsciously during Delta's diatribe.
"Wow, T, that was cl--" I stopped short of rushing into the soothing embrace of one of my mommies because the figure moving toward me wasn't Terra at all--it was Sylvana, and she was closing in on Delta with a look of feral rage on her face. And just like that, one of the biggest questions in my life had a definitive answer. Sylvana looked just like me. Three generations, one face. It was uncanny and unsettling.
"No!" I shouted to stay her arm. This Delta person had seemed perfectly willing to carve me into itty bitty pieces when she thought I was my mother and I didn't know whether she deserved to die or not, but I definitely didn't want to be part of it. Not, at least, before I found out what in the Sam Hill was going on between the two of them. Who the heck is Sam Hill, anyway?
My mother stopped in her tracks, lowered her arms, and squared her shoulders. "Hello, Alexis."
"Hello, Athena." An ice cube would have shivered under the cool breeze from my tone. "Or would you rather I call you Sylvana?"
"How about Mom?"
"How about no." I couldn't believe I was having this conversation in front of the ninja Popsicle, but there was no way around it now.
"How long have you known?" The question was so devoid of emotion; I couldn't tell if she cared or was just making idle conversation. Half of me wanted to run into the arms that should have been my safe place and the other half violently opposed the impulse. Talk about fight or flight.
My blood pressure, already high from being attacked, shot up into dangerous territory.
"We're not having a personal conversation right now," I warned. Processing the fact that someone had just threatened me at the point of a sword was about all I could handle. "If I hadn't stopped you, you would have killed Delta."
"Don't be ridiculous." My mother snapped. "Go home, Lexi. I'll take care of the...of Delta. Don't worry; she won't bother you again."
"Why? Because you're going to do something horrible to her?" A buzzing street lamp turned the alley into a cubist's dreamscape and even with the shadows falling over her face, looking at my mother was like looking in a mirror--a funhouse mirror that adds a decade to your age.
"She just tried to kill you." Gritted teeth bit the words out.
"Only when she thought I was you. After that, she was trying to talk to me. To give me the information you haven't been willing to give me yourself. If she wanted to hurt me, she had the opportunity."
"No one points a sword at my daughter and lives to tell the tale." My mother's voice carri
ed none of the soothing safety I'd dreamed of hearing since I was a child. Instead, it dripped like tainted honey, dark and vile. Her insistence seemed too vehement to carry the ring of truth.
"You're the reason she's here at all." Sylvana flinched when I hit squarely upon the crux of the matter.
"No, I'm not." A two-year-old caught with one hand in the cookie jar could lie better than that.
"Yes, you are. She thought I was you. When she realized I wasn't, all she wanted to do was talk. She was about to tell me something about the Bow of Destiny, which she claims you stole for yourself. Take the spell off, Mother. Let Delta tell me her side of things," and here I was defending the person who just attacked me. Remind me again why I wished for family all those years. "It wouldn't be self-defense. Not like this."
"For Hecate's sake, I'm not the one who stole the bow. If I was going to steal it, don't you think I'd had plenty of chances while your father's defenses were down? And I'm not planning to kill anyone. What is wrong with you? It's a temporary stasis spell, and it's going to wear off any minute, so unless you're somehow hiding a weapon under your clothes, we'd probably both be better off somewhere else when it does. She won't be happy to see me, and I don't want you getting caught in the crossfire."
A grunt followed by a twitch from Delta verified Sylvana's declaration, and I decided to listen, for the first time ever, to my mother.
"Fine." I slapped my helmet on my head with short, angry movements. "See you around, Mom." I didn't care if I sounded like a snot-nosed brat, or if I did, I couldn't seem to stop myself. Resisting the temptation to gun the engine and roar off--I'd gotten in the last word after all, and why ruin the effect by being even more childish--I spared only a short sideways glance at my mother as I pulled past. Imagine my surprise when she landed on the seat behind me and gripped my waist.
"Go," she ordered, and I did by pushing the pink Vespa to her limits for half a dozen city blocks, my back ramrod straight so as to avoid any sense of cuddling into the warm weight of my mother at my back. She hadn't earned the right to touch me so intimately, no matter how much I craved the contact.
Judging we'd traveled a safe enough distance, I slowed to a more sedate pace.; getting a traffic ticket wasn't on my agenda for the evening. "Where do you live? I'll drop you off." Anger pinked my cheeks again. She'd probably been living nearby my entire life. That thought provoked a vivid mental picture of me shoving her off the scooter without bothering to slow down.
"Go left at the next light." I followed her directions and ended up on the edge of the seedier part of town. "Stop here." I pulled up in front of an all-night diner. "My place is upstairs, but can we go inside? I'll buy us some pie, and we can get to know each other better. I've missed you, Alexis. Please."
Sailors tell epic stories of the Siren's call--oh so beautiful and deadly enough that men dashed their ships upon the rocks just to hear more, be closer. I understood the impulse. This was the mother I had mourned for a lifetime, whose loss had shaped me in more ways than her presence might have done. This was the woman who had been murdered in a family tragedy, leaving me orphaned and stigmatized. Except none of that was true. Sylvana hadn't been taken from me; she had simply walked away.
Which is what I did, too. Okay, I rode away, but it's the same thing, right?
Chapter Five
I couldn't go straight home with the stench of my mother and another supernatural all over me; no doubt someone would have smelled it, and then I'd have had to answer a bunch of questions. At least I could explain myself to one person; I'd already kept a big secret from Kin, which was a definite relationship no-no, and I didn't want to make things worse.
Two nights in a row spent with Kin was sure to get the faeries' panties in a bunch, but I was an adult and could make my own decisions. As we snuggled on his couch with a couple of glasses of wine, I filled him in on all the details of my latest Sylvana sighting. I even cleared my conscience and told him exactly what Delta wanted from me.
"So apparently I'm supposed to use the Bow of Destiny to weave fates--whatever that entails. All those Valentine's Day cards depicting a plump baby with a toy bow and arrow are cute and all, but Cupid is not a toddler, and the barb on that bow is not made out of stuffing. It's the real thing; I can't be expected to shoot people with it. How is that going to help?"
"Maybe the tip of the arrow is symbolic." Leave it to a singer/songwriter to look for the more esoteric explanation. "Love's pointed barb, or piercing the heart with love." His next song title? "Or, there's something more magical about it, and your job is about to get far more complicated and dangerous than ever."
"It won't matter anyway, considering I have no clue where the stupid thing is hidden. Sylvana claims she doesn't know, but it's not like she's been forthright and honest up to now. I regretted running off on her the second I left, but I couldn't help myself. It's a lot to deal with, you know? It's so tempting just to go back and knock on her door, but I'm not sure I could take it if I found the place deserted. Not that I expect anything different, that seems to be her pattern."
"If she's turned up twice now, it's safe to say she's probably interested in seeing you again." He seemed to have mixed feelings on the subject, and I couldn't say I blamed him. In the span of a few short weeks, my life had gone from unusual to downright absurd, and the number of threats hanging over my head had increased significantly. Whether Kin was concerned more for my well-being or his own, I couldn't be sure, but either way, his trepidation was understandable. "Unfortunately, I think the same is probably true about Jett, and Delta as well. Of the three, she's the person--or whatever--whose intentions are most unclear. At least with Jett, you know what to expect. Speaking of which, what could she be? What else is out there? Are all of the crazy stories true? Vampires, werewolves, the whole nine?"
It was clear to me Kin hadn't yet delved too far into his new reality, and I didn't want to break it to him that I had a suspicion there was more out there than even the most outrageous of stories could describe. Better to ease him into it.
"The faeries have brought some of their friends around--mostly nymphs and dryads, and a giantess with interest in horticulture, but I have no idea who or what Delta might be. Nothing much surprises me these days, though. One more question Sylvana could answer--or maybe Clara, if she wasn't encased in stone. My mother has a long way to go before she can earn any trust I might want to put in her, and Delta's obviously a wild card with a purpose of her own. I'd ask the faeries or Salem for help, but that would be inviting questions I don't want to have to answer. I still haven't told them about any of this."
"Do you think that's wise? They should know what's going on so they can protect you."
"Terra is at my beck and call in any emergency. Worst case scenario, I call for help and explain later. Hopefully, it won't come to that; as soon as I have more information--or they're in a spectacularly good mood--I'll break the news."
Kin raised an eyebrow, and I could tell he was contemplating arguing with me; I could see the struggle behind his eyes, and the resignation in them when he decided to let the subject drop. It would be nice to be able to go home at the end of the day and not worry about keeping secrets. Outright lying has never been tolerated in my household; one of the faeries would know I wasn't speaking the truth before I could get the words out, and I'd been walking a fine line by simply withholding information. It didn't sit well with me, but if Sylvana never showed her face again, it was a moot point anyway. Once again, there I was, burying my head in the sand. Way to go, Lexi.
"...actually coming into town in a few days and would love to meet you." I faded back into awareness in time to hear the end of Kin's sentence. Apparently, the conversation had shifted while I'd been in la-la land, and I was caught completely off guard. "My dad won't be with her; she's just coming to shop, but that's probably better anyway. Less pressure. Unless you don't want to meet her..." His mother. Kin was asking me if I wanted to meet his mother. As if I didn't have enough issues with ma
ternal figures, and I'd never been in a long-term enough relationship to bother getting to know a boyfriend's family in the past. But, there was no way I'd cause Kin any pain, even a cut this shallow, so I pasted a smile on my face.
"Of course I do. I'm sorry, but the idea of meeting your mother is more scary to me than Jett and Serena's next coup attempt. What if she doesn't like me? What if she thinks I'm not good enough for you? And what if she figures out I'm not normal?"
Kin grinned. "See, that's the beauty of it. My mom doesn't hate anyone. There's not a mean bone in her body, and she's quite thrilled that I'm dating someone I actually want to introduce her to. So stop worrying, and just say yes." He treated me to a kiss that would have convinced me to agree to meet the hairy scary monster under his bed, and when he pulled away, I nodded my head, grinning what could only have been a disgustingly mushy grin.
"I already said yes, silly. Just tell me where to be. Oh, and what to wear, and what to say."
"You'll be fine, I promise."
Chapter Six
As soon as I walked into the office Flix appeared out of nowhere, as faeries--even half-faeries--often do. I hadn't even had time to press the button mounted beneath my desk to summon him, so he must have been waiting for me. It's difficult to hide things from any halfway decent best friend, but when he's the best kind of best friend and also your business partner, it's impossible. I hadn't been at the top of my BFF game lately, for obvious reasons, and I figured he was ticked off at me for not filling him in on everything that had gone down since my half-brother revealed himself and all the sordid details of my past.
It turns out; I was dead wrong. Call me self-centered if you must--you'd probably be right. What can I say, I'm an only child. The second Flix turned one hundred percent solid, I could tell there was something different about his energy, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with me. Today, his platinum mane hung in boyish curls, tumbling over one shimmering violet eye in a haphazard manner I knew was completely contrived. Flix never left the house without transforming himself into a walking sex symbol. High cheekbones, a chiseled jawline, and six feet of lean muscle appealed to both men and women alike. He preferred the latter, and I'd seen more than one beautiful woman's face crumble at the realization.
All Spell is Breaking Loose: Lexi Balefire: Matchmaking Witch (Fate Weaver Book 2) Page 4
