Evelyn’s long fingers tickled the baby’s chin, and my stomach hopped. She said in a sing-song voice, “Yes, I was. And my mother twenty years before that. Yes she was.”
So what was this? Revenge? This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t be the reason Cinnamon’s child was in the arms of a maniac. My gut twisted into a knot of torturous despair.
“And do you know the price she paid for that title?” Evelyn looked at me. I shook my head.
“A sacrifice. Her only son, taken from her. My brother.” She glared at me. “Despite the fact that we were both stripped of the role. Imagine letting that old woman hang onto the title for all those years.”
“So what happened?” I moved a bit closer as she danced the baby toward solid ground.
“We broke the rules. Tried to shake things up. But when you do that, they decide it never belonged to you in the first place.” She gave me a cold stare. “Can you believe that? Deemed unworthy by the very Council that my ancestor devoted his life to.”
I thought of what Gladys had written about the miner and the captain. Whispered, “Captain Gearson.”
She aimed her stare at me again and one of the candles flickered, then blinked out. “Very good, Seeker.” The baby yawned, and balled her little fists. “But he was stripped of his position too, thanks to your ancestor accusing him of pirating the very treasures he had sworn to protect.”
“He was a member of the Council too?”
She stared at me. “Of course not. They didn’t let in just any riff raff. His wife was a Seeker.” She cooed at the baby. “Back then they didn’t just toss you in that castle for a crime—they eliminated you. And every generation or so after that they take a child just to remind you of your sins.”
I shook my head. “No, Evelyn, your brother was not sacrificed. It was an accident. Your son is not in danger. This is all something you’ve cooked up in your mind.”
The sharp stench of gasoline passed over me then, the gentle hum of an old engine streamed by, the fluttery laughter of a teenage girl, and a familiar old tune whistled in my ear. “Strangers cruisin’ down the south strip / Cool cats, searchin’ for some hot lips.”
I thought of Tony’s assessment that they ran out of gas, that there wasn’t any damage to the car. Could Ponyboy and Vicky Fontaine have cruised down here, parked in a cavern like this one and left the engine running? If it had been December, as the legend goes, they would have been cold. Maybe they played a cassette tape in a boom box, started doing what teenagers in love will do, and didn’t realize they were slowly poisoning themselves.
Would that scene play out here too? Just as the miner and the captain scene had? Dear goddess, I hoped not. I couldn’t risk losing control over my limbs.
“You think I’m crazy? No, Seeker, that’s how they operate, trust me. I have my sources on the inside. Unless you can give those self-righteous bastards something in return. And since that old map your mother had didn’t lead to anything but an empty chest, it’s either the amulet—which naturally I would have said you lost, redeeming my standing—or the baby. Doesn’t matter that it’s not mine. They’re very medieval that way.”
“You’re completely mad.”
She laughed, shook her head. “Don’t you get it? We’re all bound to the Council. Forever. It’s been prophesized in every family’s book since the Druids first created the triads. We cannot escape it. No matter how powerful you think you are, Seeker, they are more so.”
Footsteps sounded off to my right.
I looked at Evelyn, but she was just as startled as I was at the thought of someone approaching.
Her eyes grew wild for a moment. She fluttered and shifted just as someone called my name.
I turned and called back, “In here!”
Leo poked his head through the farthest passage and sped toward me.
“Leo, thank god you’re here.”
He gave me the oddest look and I realized that two people had spoken those words. I spun around to see Evelyn cloaked in an exact likeness of me.
It clicked then. Her crime had been shifting. Birdie had said that the Council outlawed that brand of magic. So why risk it? What had she tried to accomplish? Had she put other lives in danger before this? Kidnapped other children?
I whirled back around to find Leo’s weapon drawn and aimed directly at me.
Chapter 44
“No, Leo, don’t! It’s me. I’m Stacy.” His gaze fell to the sword in my hand. Not my own. I dropped it along with the dagger and kicked them both away. My bloody leg swelled with pain.
Evelyn said, “No, Leo. I’m Stacy. This whackjob stole Cinnamon’s baby.”
Oh hell, she even sounded like me. I couldn’t keep the desperation out of my voice. “Leo, listen to me—”
“No, listen to me, Leo,” Evelyn said carefully.
He swung his head from one to the other of us.
“Look, just ask me something, anything,” I said.
“Don’t believe her. She’s been studying me.” The baby cried in her arms. “She’s got a gun, Leo,” Evelyn shouted. “Shoot her!”
I put my hands up. “No, don’t. I don’t have a gun, I swear. You can’t shoot an unarmed woman.”
His forehead creased, and he stared at me, those hazel eyes searching for a hint of recognition.
Another song floated through the cavern and this time, even Evelyn and Leo heard it. A haunting melody called Season in Hell. “Darkest now before the dawn / Times we’ve known will soon be gone / Flames of freedom fill the air / I can hear them callin’”
Suddenly it all made sense. And I knew what to do. “Ponyboy, if you can hear me, I could use some backup.”
Leo stiffened and aimed his gun at my head. “Don’t. Move.” His voice was ice.
Leo’s arm suddenly jerked, and the gun flew from his hand and skidded across the dirt floor. Leo and Evelyn dove for it. When she realized he was going to reach it before she would, Evelyn ran back toward the hollow in the ground where the water ran.
“No!” I screamed, charging at her.
She looked at me, and a moment of clarity flashed in her eyes, then dashed away. She leaned over and dropped the baby into the void.
Chapter 45
I dove for the edge, my arms extended—reaching, aching to grab onto any part of her. Her head, a foot, an arm. But I was too late. Her cries grew fainter as the tiny infant drifted into the inky blackness.
My blood boiled and my eyes saw red instantly. The athame I had sunk into Evelyn’s foot lay on the dirt near the cliff. I didn’t know where Leo was, if his gun was trained on me or not, and I didn’t care. I grabbed the bloody dagger, determined to exact my own justice on this psychotic bitch.
With a warrior’s cry, I flew at Evelyn, faster than she could blink. I grabbed her skinny neck and slammed her head onto the rock altar. I leaned over and drew my arm back, the knife hot and bloody in my hand.
It would only take a second to slash her throat, but I wanted her to suffer as long as possible. I wanted her to know she was about to take her last breath.
I gripped her windpipe so tight I thought it would shatter in my hand. But that wouldn’t have been good enough. This beast needed to feel pain, needed to watch her own reflection in my eyes as I wrenched her life from her. Just as Gearson had taken the lives of my ancestors. Just as she had taken the life of the baby.
Behind me, I heard Leo say, “Don’t, Stacy.”
Fury coursed through my veins as I held the dagger with one hand and Evelyn’s throat with the other. Her eyes held no fear. She wasn’t even fighting back.
I loosened my grip slightly. “Any last words before I rip your throat open?”
She gasped out, “Do it, Seeker. Prove you are as unworthy as I was.”
“Stacy, don’t,” Leo said again. A trail of worry drifted from his words like a kite tail he couldn’t hold onto.
The baby’s cries echoed in my mind, louder, more demanding. As if she was there, begging me not to make the sa
me mistakes as those who had gone before me.
Then I heard, “Hey, Red Bull. I told you we make a great team.”
I swiveled my head to find Ponyboy holding my goddaughter. She was kicking and wailing, but she was dry. And she was alive.
I ran toward them, dropping Evelyn and the blade.
As our fingers touched, Ponyboy lit up like a Christmas tree, showering the damp cave with sparks.
He passed the baby to me and I collected her in my arms. She was cold, fussing and fighting, until I brought her to my chest, wrapping my coat tightly around her.
Evelyn shifted to her true form as Leo cuffed her. Her jaw dropped when she saw Ponyboy, glimmering like a firefly.
“Petey? Is that you?”
The look on Leo’s face told me he saw him too.
Evelyn gazed at him. “But, are you still...I mean, did it work?”
So that had been her plan all along. Not only to protect her own son, but to bring her brother back from the dead. I can only imagine that that too would violate Council law.
“Did what work?” Ponyboy asked.
“Are you here? Really here? Or are you still dead?” Evelyn asked.
Ponyboy cocked his head toward me. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Chapter 46
Ponyboy’s radiance faded as Leo ushered Evelyn toward the mouth of the passageway.
“See you at headquarters, Red.” Then he was gone.
We wound our way out of the mines, and Leo loaded Evelyn into the squad car. The initial shock of the injury was wearing off with a vengeance, and my leg throbbed with every step, but the healing would have to wait until I got home—the wound was too deep for a simple spell, and I needed to get this baby back to her mother.
Leo came over to me. “Are you okay?” He touched my arm and snapped his hand back. “Damn, you keep shocking me.”
I was about to say something, but stopped short. I thought about the last few days. The shocks that affected the witches and no one else. No one but Leo. “You’re tuned to your magic now more than ever,” Lolly had told me, “and you’re feeding off others who have it or who are connected to your power”. I thought about everything. From the beginning.
Leo had showed up in town around the same time I moved back. He knew John, the Guardian of our operation. He said he knew him from the police academy, but what if they had attended a different kind of academy?
“Funny how you keep showing up whenever I need you lately. Ever since I returned from Ireland, in fact.”
“Is it?” He didn’t meet my eyes. Just jotted notes down.
“Funny, too, how you just saw two of me and a ghost and seem fairly unfazed by it.”
He looked at me then. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” I stroked the baby’s head. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Chief. It’s up to you.”
“I’m just here to protect and serve, Stacy Justice.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some sort of medallion. “Give this to your grandmother. She’ll know what it means.” He plopped it into my pocket.
“So you’re really not going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“You shouldn’t curse in front of the kid.” He opened up the passenger side door. “Come on. I’ll take her back to her mother and you to the hospital.”
I hadn’t felt the pain in my leg for a few minutes until he said that. “Does Cin know she’s missing yet?”
“I don’t think so. It hasn’t been that long. She’s probably still asleep. The baby came hours ago and the family already came and went. All except Tony.”
So Evelyn had posed as me, maybe asked to hold the baby, then hid her beneath a coat and slipped out. Tony probably thought I was walking the hospital floor with his daughter so he could watch over Cin as she rested.
“Hang on a minute,” I said.
I didn’t want Cin to feel anything but joy when she looked at her child. Didn’t want her to think she had to be constantly looking over her shoulder for monsters.
I went down to the river’s edge and around the bend to where there was a natural spring. I dipped the phantom quartz in the cool water, letting the glittery bubbles wash over it. I held the quartz to the sky and re-enchanted it with the light of the stars and the energy of the moon. I then infused it with a happy memory spell, one that would erase the terrifying ordeal the baby had just gone through. When Cinnamon touched it, that’s what she would feel too. That her daughter was calm, at peace.
I dripped a bit of the sparkling water onto the child’s head and called to Brighid to bless her soul’s journey through this life.
I climbed back up the hill, my feet crunching the grass. Then I swaddled the baby in a blanket Leo had in the cruiser, and tucked the crystal inside.
He said, “Hop in.”
“No. Not with her.” I nodded to Evelyn who no longer looked like much of a threat, with her face drawn and her hair matted with blood, but I didn’t want her energy anywhere near this child. “Get Gus to haul her in, then you take the baby back. Maybe he could bring a car seat to put her in.”
There was still a threat to consider. Someone had still stolen my locket. Sooner or later, that person would learn that it didn’t work without me. I decided to skip the hospital, hoping Birdie could help heal my wound.
After Gus, who had no idea why his boss asked him to bring a baby carrier to a crime scene, loaded Evelyn, Leo took the baby back to the hospital, and I trekked carefully up to where I’d left the truck. I still don’t know how he slipped her back in the hospital bassinet, because when I asked him later, all he said was, “I have my ways.”
But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was she was safe.
There was one last thing I had to do before I headed over to the inn.
Ponyboy was sitting on the couch, playing an old hand-held video game that must have been buried deep in the hall closet. Thor and the rabbit were sound asleep on the couch next to him. Every once in a while Thor snored like a V-8 engine and the rabbit hopped.
“Hey, Red. We kicked ass back there, didn’t we? Sorry about my sister. She was always kind of a head case.”
Yeah, I got that.
“Thanks for your help, Ponyboy.”
He placed the game on the coffee table, stretched his legs out, crossed them and leaned back, his arms draped over both sides of the sofa. “So you did need my help. Awesome. What’s my reward?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Come outside and I’ll show you.”
“Outside? Won’t that be a little cold? You are going to show me your boobies, right?”
“I’m going to show you my right hook if you don’t knock it off. Now come on.”
We walked around to the back of the cottage and I led him into the woods.
“Geez, Red Bull, this is kinky even for me.”
“Ponyboy, this has been quite an experience, but I think it’s time for you to go home.”
I centered myself near the oak where Tisiphone and I had sparred, looked skyward. The Raven ring was cold as the night as I twisted the head of it on my finger. After a few moments, thick black wings overshadowed the moon, blanketing the sky.
Ponyboy stared up into the night, his bright eyes transfixed on the fury Tisiphone. “Whoa,” he whispered. “What is that?”
“That, my young friend, is your ride home.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Oh, and a word of advice? Don’t piss off the goddess.”
Tisiphone glided to the ground expertly. The force of her wings blew my hair back and iced the air. Her sword was firmly attached to her left hip and her dragon rested comfortably at its hilt.
“Well, Stacy Justice. Glad to see you’re still alive.” She drank me in from the blood on my leg to the dirt in my hair and raised an eyebrow. “Battered, perhaps, but breathing.”
“Thank you. The week isn’t over yet, but I’m beating the odds in the pool, anyway.”
&
nbsp; “A gambler, are you?”
“No. I’m more like that little bouncing ball on a roulette table.”
She smiled, her violet eyes glistening like river water under starlight. “What may I assist you with?”
“I have a transport for you. A shade I’m afraid I failed to help cross over.”
Tisiphone studied Ponyboy with a critical eye. “Yes, the young ones can be troublesome. I’ll take it from here, Seeker.”
She extended her hand, palm out and I returned the ring. She held it for a moment, then promptly passed it back to me. “This one is on the house. After all, you weren’t calling for your own personal reasons. That’s very altruistic for a human.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say it was entirely altruistic.” I cut my eyes to Ponyboy and pinched my lips.
“That bad, is he?”
Ponyboy stood stock still, staring at Tisiphone’s porcelain skin, blue-black hair, and enormous wings. He reached out to touch one and she grabbed his hand, bent his wrist back.
“Never finished puberty, I think,” I said.
Ponyboy winced in pain, but he was smiling anyhow.
“I see. Perhaps an evening with the Graces will satisfy his curiosity. Thalia hasn’t worn a top in three weeks.” She nodded to me and released Ponyboy’s hand. He shook it out, still in awe of her. “Come mortal, grab onto my boot, and don’t touch the wings or the sword.” Indigo blinked her eyes at me and puffed out a stream of smoke.
With that, the Avenger of Murder flew into the air and the ghost of Petey Leary was headed to the Underworld.
Chapter 47
I didn’t bother washing up. I just grabbed my bag and headed to the inn. I was still a bit jumpy walking over, wondering who had my locket and why, when Thor shot me an image of himself standing guard in front of a window of infants. No rabbit in the image, so maybe she was on break.
I slipped in through the back door of the kitchen where I found the Geraghty Girls and Angelica all in a huddle.
Oh, what fresh hell is this?
They startled when I shut the door.
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