by Candra Kylar
“Will you come back to my place with me and stay the night?”
He smirked, “In your bed?”
“In my bed.”
“So, you…”
I laughed, “You’re smart enough to figure it out. I just need your warmth, the distinct vibe of Elizar Andros. Plus, I have to feed Tippler because he’s helpless without me.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t make any comments if we’re loud.”
I blushed at the thought and somehow knew that my talking familiar would have a mouthful of things to say. He had been talking non stop since I decided to take him in. I could only guess how lonely he had been with the circus, how isolated he felt without any roots being put down. As he had a dance with three witches that cursed him out of revenge, he wouldn’t be too shocked on what two healthy people got down to in a bedroom. I would just make sure to shut the door and put a locking charm on it. I didn’t need the sneaky fox to be a peeper on something so private, so intimate. At least I had some small control over what happened in my life.
It felt like Elizar handed me the reigns when we got back to my apartment. The door charmed, my dress on the ground, his arms around me. He was careful and reverent with the way he treated my body. Is this how a lover was supposed to feel? My inner wolf soothed at his touch, at each kiss he trailed along my neck, at each word he whispered of deep resounding affection into my ear. Both sides of me were in unison that Elizar felt so completely right. As we sank onto my bed, as I undid his pants and peeled them off, as our lips kept connecting in a kinetic frenzy of emotion, I knew there was no going back. Abigail Everlaine and Elizar Andros. Try as we might to remain friends, something bigger pushed its way forward. Something better. I got lost in him and wished never to resurface.
When I did, it was morning and his arm was draped over my body. Tippler was scratching at the door and I had practically melted into bed. Now that was love making. I had experienced sex before, often enough in college and then with Braeden, but this was on another level. My heart nearly exploded when Elizar pulled me back for more. Poor Tippler was growling with hunger by the time I came out of the bedroom. Dressed only in a pair of panties and a loose t-shirt, I had never looked so under made up yet felt so immensely beautiful. Elizar was putting his clothing back on and, from the vantage point of the kitchen counter, I could see him smiling shyly from the bedroom. Elizar Andros being bashful was a sight to behold. I cooked everyone breakfast and tried to hide all of the other thoughts racing into my head. You’re in love, Abigail Everlaine. You’re in love with Elizar and he knows it now.
Tippler sniffed at the scrambled eggs I made him and I could tell he was holding back. Even a talking fox was left speechless by the strange sight of my amorous nature in the morning. I had generally crawled to the kitchen and grunted answers out until the coffee hit. Now, I was bouncing on my heels and serving food up like a happy hostess. When Elizar left me with a heart palpating kiss, I knew I’d need more. We made a plan to see each other later that night – as I had a full day of follow ups to do for my case load – and I knew that he’d be spending more time in my bed. This was how things happened, so quick and without preamble. Just a confession of feelings on his end and an invitation on mine.
“Cecilia slid an envelope under the door real quiet this mornin’”, Tippler said from his seat on the couch watching some garish wrestling match on television, “I didn’t open it cuz envelopes aren’t friendly to those of us cowboys with paws.”
“It could be the formula to remove the binding stone from Dimples! Not that it would do me any good at this point. She pushed me away and doesn’t want to see me again.”
“Vander works quick. He gets in yer head and makes ya feel like there’s nowhere else you can go. I tried to break Rynna of it but there was no luck there. Girl is all messed up from the load of bull he slings”, Tippler explains.
“Well he has Dimples wrapped around his finger at this point. No doubt Rynna helped him. How anyone could believe what a slimy circus capitalist says is shocking”, I huffed.
Tippler leapt down from the couch, “He’s a smooth talker and no one knows how he gets his info. Sure enough, he told yer friend somethin’ she wanted to hear and it gave him the ace in the hole.”
“What if it isn’t the truth? What if he has it all wrong?”
“He isn’t much of a liar so I’m thinking not. If his story didn’t stick, then Dimples would sure catch on and be out the door”, Tippler jumped onto my lap, “but she didn’t. It’s somethin’ wild, facing what ya are. Doesn’t always sit right.”
“The thing is, I already know who Dimples is. She’s a powerful caster in the body of a garden gnome permanently. That is all that should matter”, I brushed my fingers over the back of his head.
He leaned into the petting, “Some people can live with their past. Others want to punish themselves. Ain’t up to us to decide what medicine they swallow.”
“She won’t have a circus to hide away in if I burn the entire thing to the ground and expose Vander.”
“A witch lookin’ for trouble is generally the type I hang with. Problem bein’ that you can’t just barge into a well oiled machine with a wrench hoping to throw things off track. Vander’s got people and investors who’ll build him up stronger than ever”, Tippler said.
“Maybe some of those investors wouldn’t like being pointed out.”
“And maybe they ain’t gonna care a lick and bring ya trouble instead. You go to that circus again, and it’ll just hurt ya worse”, Tippler warned.
I put him down, “Not if I’m the one bringing the trouble.”
That was it. I couldn’t let Dimples stay in the shadows, hiding away from whatever horrible past Vander had conjured up for her. I didn’t believe for a second that he was telling her the truth and that she was some dangerous monster. Dimples had a temper but she also had restraint. Tippler was right about her reasons to punish herself, dramatic as she was, but she needed to be shaken out of it. Who better than her best friend? I wanted to get my hands around Vander’s neck and make him watch as his circus went down in flames. An anger seethed inside of me, primal and ready to fight, a violence I had never felt capable of before. It reminded me of the cold action that came over me when my father had captured Cecilia. How I had used my magic despite her pleas and how good it felt. An Everlaine could go dark.
Then there was the memory of my father and how much he terrified me. I knew what he was capable of and how he’d have little remorse for any of it. I was relieved when Elizar turned over the journal to him and spared me the confrontation. I was practically shaking when I went to his office in Azuris. I couldn’t become anything like that. I couldn’t go fully into the destructive nature the Everlaines had in their blood. We may not have the Fae link as some did, but we had something just as dark. We had an insatiable greed for power. That’s why I had run away from that life and became an enchantress. That’s what I fought to keep down now. I wouldn’t become anything like him.
“I need to go to werewolf territory and see Ethan”, I said dismissively, “and then make sure Amaris didn’t permanently scar Livia.”
“I’ll be watchin’ this wrasslin’ tournament. The Big Trash Titan versus the Chiseled Charlatan. Gonna be a mess!”, Tippler barked in excitement.
I sighed, “Such a shame I’ll miss a classy event like that.”
I wasn’t much for television and caught up on things on my phone when I had the time. Tippler was built from a different cloth and that worked for him. After a hot shower and a mini makeover for the day, I grabbed my matching purse and went to werewolf territory to diffuse another situation. I was sure that Ethan was giving Braeden the cold shoulder and the latter was diving deep into work to avoid an emotional discussion. If they hadn’t come together through a chaotic event, I would swear they were actually brothers. Braeden definitely cared for Ethan as if he were family. They just needed to talk things out like they were family and not angsty rivals. This was something I c
ould control.
At the Stedwell house, Ethan greeted me with excitement and Liam was working on his truck in the driveway. I watched Ethan jump down the steps and run to my car. If he were feeling any malaise from his argument with Braeden, then it wasn’t apparent on his face. He was all smiles. I got out of the car and looked at him in surprise. He had a notebook in his hands and waved it as if it were a symbol of something big. A giant breakthrough. I hoped he hadn’t spent time on backdoor sites that would lead him to trouble. I couldn’t trust that the Council would do the ethical thing and let him off the hook. No one was ethical. I had teamed up with Cecilia for a less than ethical approach to get the envelope of information that now was left unopened in my purse.
“I didn’t think it was based on something random”, Ethan jumped again, “and I was totally right! Score one for the geeky kid in the library club!”
“Wear that shit like a badge of honor”, Liam bellowed happily from his position underneath the truck, “my fiance, the sexy library assistant!”
Ethan rolled his eyes, “Liam finds everything I do sexy.”
“That’s love for you”, I smiled, “did you figure out something about the circus?”
“The pattern!”, he waved the notebook in front of me, “I figured that he didn’t pick locations randomly. Mr. Voldini, that is. He uses a pattern to pop up and only updates the site a week before the appearance. You probably noticed posters all over Crestwood. His marketing is pretty dated and non sensical.”
“It’s how he builds a mystique and draws in a bigger crowd. People love exclusivity”, I told him.
“Well his site has been wiped clean. Server error at face value but, after some digging, found out that the page moderator deleted the account manually. He knew you were onto him and is laying low. Hiding”, Ethan brimmed with a Meredith Marble vibe.
“I hope he’s shivering with his tail between his legs. If he put a hold on the circus to lay low, then I have no choice but to wait for him to advertise again”, I said.
“Incorrect”, Ethan handed over the notebook, “I drew the current pattern he used. The Scholar cluster that you can actually see in the sky during this season. He’s an astrology buff! Uses the pattern to decide where he’ll stop next.”
“Wait. So Vander Voldini plans his tours around different star clusters in the sky? How exactly would that work?”
Ethan was waiting for that question and pounced on the answer, “If you put a to-scale version of the constellation over a map of Iverli, you’ll see it lines up perfectly. The scale was the hardest part to determine. His next stop will be Stubin Station. It’s an old tourist trap that no one vacations to anymore. Bet that’s where he’s hiding right now as a missable rest stop.”
“Stubin Station? Like the same one with all the hookers and mostly vacant factories left over from that weird steampunk fad that went through Iverli?”
“They still have the cobblestone sidewalks and the lamps you have to light manually”, Ethan bristled, “weird flex in a world with magic. Totally human of them.”
“Speaking of mistakes that make us human”, I started with a lecture in mind, “we need to go inside and talk about Braeden.”
“Not happening”, Liam grumbled from the direction of the driveway.
“I have nothing to say to him. We don’t talk during dinner and I spend most of the time in my room”, Ethan clutched the notebook to his chest.
“And you plan to go on like that forever until...what...you move into your own apartment with your teenage husband?”
“I thought you would support our marriage, Miss Everlaine!”, Ethan looked wounded.
I ran my hand over his arm, “I do. I just think that Braeden has a few points that you should listen to. He’s not coming from a bad place. I had a chance to talk with him about it the other day -”
“So glad that he can talk to you about a problem he has with me but let the silent treatment go on”, Ethan flushed, “we’re so close here in the territory. Sometimes I think we’re too close. Everyone crammed into the house. I feel like this is my family but Braeden won’t open up to me, hear me out. We aren’t moving forward!”
“You won’t get any closer if you don’t try and hear him out”, I said.
“Good luck in Stubin Station”, Ethan said to skirt around the issue, “and be careful. People on the web say that Mr. Voldini does cutthroat things to get ahead.”
“He doesn’t know who he’s messing with.”
I knew that any breakthrough between Ethan and Braeden would just have to wait. I still had to take the drive into Azuris to visit my sister’s lair and get some answers. Then, if I was lucky, I’d have time to call Braeden and figure out a plan of attack. Stubin was a drive but it wasn’t across the country. I could make it in a few hours. We could set out tomorrow and really light things up in that mostly vacant town. I didn’t care anymore why Dimples wanted to stay. She needed to come home and we needed to have it out, truth for truth, without some malicious circus owner getting in between us...or a Seer.
Azuris was quiet when I entered the infamous lair of my sister Amaris Bledwell. Still with the dark adornments and the excessive drapery to create hiding spaces, I had to refrain from judgement. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to fake my own death to run away from our father. I had stayed behind and spent my childhood trying to impress him. My sister had a different plan and enlisted the help of our mother. At least they were becoming close. The more time Amaris spent with our mother, the more they’d both stay out of my way. I was becoming more anti-social and I blamed Voldini for that as well. I was ready to blame him for anything that I could.
“She’s leaving her little vampire gang and swearing off Portal Dust permanently”, Amaris said while appearing in front of me magically, “but she didn’t start the fire at your lover’s club. None of them did.”
“I suppose you took her confession at face value?”, I tried not to flinch.
“Never”, Amaris sat on her counter and continued, “teenagers lie all the time. After I took her into the spirit world and introduced her to some miserable sods wailing about their past drug addictions, then confronted Talan the unexceptionally dull leader of her posse, she opened up. A sweet kid, really. Just a bit stupid and boy crazy.”
“You confronted her gang leader?”
“Some stick-thin sniveling vampire trying to be the cool kid in school he never was as a mortal? Oh, I was shaking in my high-heeled boots. I’m only a necromancer with the power to send him into a nameless abyss of darkness, after all”, she stretched out languidly, a smile on her maroon veneered lips.
“Did you turn him over to the police?”
“Not my assignment or my problem. I destroyed their stash and made Talan look like a pants-wetting idiot in front of his fanged female admirers. Now he’s short one posse and has to get a real job. Making him cower in front of Livia was a good strategy and set her straight”, Amaris went on, “so the police aren’t needed. As I said, they didn’t start the fire. Logically, it wouldn’t make sense. The club being open meant they could make easy gold. With it under construction, it took that gold out of their pockets.”
“Looks like you have everything solved”, I said tersely.
“Don’t worry, I’m not after your job. It frankly annoys me to intervene and make a difference in someone’s life. That’s your deal. I’m just a girl who plays with the dead.”
“How’s Ian by the way? I haven’t seen him at all and he’s your new best friend”, I said loudly, hoping he was nearby to hear.
She sat upright, “He’s out on business. He’ll be back once we’ve done what we need to.”
“So he works for you now?”
“We’re aligning ourselves for a common goal”, she said quickly.
“Tell him that he could stop by once in a while to make sure I’m doing alright”, I crossed my arms, “and...thanks for helping Livia. I was worried about her. I take it she returned to the Court of Amethyst with Lysand
er?”
“Incorrect”, she pulled out a nail file, “she’ll be staying here with me for a time. You know, as a vampire, the spirit world doesn’t draw off of her. For casters that aren’t gifted with the art of necromancy, the spirit world can destroy them. It’s hard for me to find an apprentice. Livia was a miracle in disguise.”
“She has school.”
“She’s immortal and can learn as we travel into unseen worlds”, Amaris stated.
“Immortality only lasts as long as this world does. If the Elder Fae rise again, then none of us will have very long”, I said to her.
Amaris stopped filing her nails, “Not if we fight back. I don’t know about you, my sister, but I don’t plan to face them with my hands tied behind my back. We’re a different breed.”
“As you keep reminding me.”
“I…”, she trailed off, “have a safe trip back to Crestwood.”
That was as far as our affection would go. I had some things to tell Elizar about the portal dust ring, a morsel of information for my cop friend Trent to follow, and an envelope to open that I was avoiding. In the driver’s seat of my car, I finally faced that last part. My finger slid under the seal and tore it open. The handwriting was legible but not Cecilia’s. On it was a few incantations, directions for the drawing of runes in the air, and a pacing guide. It was elaborate but something I could utilize. Cecilia had delivered on her end of the bargain. I could get the binding stone off of Dimples and allow her to leave the circus. The problem was, she didn’t want to come. It would be a messy confrontation.
I shoved the formula into my purse and felt that darkness shiver over me. The Everlaine blood was boiling and promised to deliver a revenge that only the old Abbie could manifest. If I could only tap into that sinister release, that power I had once drawn on, then Vander would be reduced to nothing. He could be powerful but never meet the might of an Everlaine infuriated. I felt a burning on my fingertips as those thoughts surfaced. The power wanted out and I so desperately wanted to call on it. What are you most afraid of, Abbie? I knew, as I thought about approaching the circus in Stubin, that I was afraid of letting the old Abbie with the Everlaine darkness inside of me out of the cage. Her power would be out of control. There was no telling how it would end. If it even could. What if I couldn’t put her back in the cage when it was over?
