Gods and Ends (Ordinary Magic Book 3)

by Devon Monk

  “This won’t take long and we need a gift.”

  “Jame doesn’t want to wait.”

  I looked into the rearview mirror at the werewolf in the back seat. His eyes were closed, his head resting on the top of the headrest behind him, arms crossed loosely over his chest. “Do it,” he said without opening his eyes.

  “Two against one,” I said. “Stay here in the Jeep, Jean, you big baby. I’ll get Yancy’s bribe so he’ll tell our future.”

  I got out, shut the door, and didn’t look back. I hadn’t expected her to stay in the Jeep, but I hadn’t expected her to be so squirrely about possibly seeing Hogan at his bakery.

  We both knew Hogan worked the early shift. There was no way he was there at closing.

  A car door opened and then I heard boots on gravel as Jean jogged to catch up with me.

  “I hate you.”

  “You don’t. Hogan won’t even be here. I don’t know why you’re so worried.”

  “It’s…I just need some space.”

  “Wow. Did you say it to him like that?”

  She chewed on her bottom lip.

  “You did, didn’t you? Why, Jean? Why are you pushing him away?”

  “You know why.” She squared her shoulders narrowed her eyes and was suddenly more a police officer than my goofy baby sister. “I’m done talking about this, Delaney. Let’s just get the donuts.”

  We walked to the door and I glanced in. Only Gale, a retired teacher and human, was in the shop, wiping down the counter top in prep for closing in the next fifteen minutes.

  We walked in and she looked up as the bell rang.

  “Hey, Chief. Jean.”

  “Hi, Gale.” I strolled up to the counter. “Hogan here?”

  Jean tensed.

  “No, just me. Do you need him for something? I could call.”

  “That’s okay, we’re just here for a dozen donuts if there are any left.”

  “You bet. Half off since we’ll be selling them as day-olds tomorrow. Any particular kind?”

  “One of each of the filled, then just a mix of whatever else you have.”

  She bent and retrieved a cute box with a puffin logo on the side, then turned and opened the glass case with tidy rows of donuts. I knew they rolled through hundreds of donuts a day, but somehow, even now at the end of a good-weather day that had probably doubled their regular business, the donuts were all neatly stacked and looked fresh and delicious.

  Jean wandered the small shop, looking at the few items for sale on the shelves, glancing at the bulletin board. Her shoulders weren’t quite so stiff, although I could tell she still wasn’t happy to be here.

  “Will that do it for you?” Gale asked, tucking in the ends of the box and sealing it with the puffin sticker.

  “We’ll take these too.” Jean placed three lovely worry stones on top of the donut box. “And do you have anything you could wrap them in?”

  “Um…let me see. Would tissue do?” The tissue was a soft blue and had lace on the corners. It was the same stuff they used on the inside of the more delicate pastries they delivered.

  “Perfect.”

  Gale wrapped up the stones and used a little white silk ribbon to tie a bow at the top. “Anything else?”

  I looked over at Jean. “That’s it,” she said.

  Gale rang us up and I handed over my card. We said our goodbyes and were back out in the dusky evening having spent no more than a couple minutes in the shop.

  “Told you it would be okay.”

  Jean sighed. “That’s not what I’m upset about.”

  “Hogan?”

  “You. Focusing on me. You need to let my decision go, Delaney. Let me and Hogan figure our stuff out.”

  “Weren’t you the one telling me your worries about Hogan this morning?”

  “I was sharing to share, not to have you take on another battle.”

  “What are sisters for, but sharing in each other’s battles?”

  “Don’t you think you have enough on your plate?”

  “We all have enough on our plates,” I said. “That doesn’t mean other things, life things, love things, aren’t just as important.”

  She stopped, turned to me. “Thank you. I mean that. But Delaney, you’re tied to a vampire who wants dark magic. A vampire who has proven he is willing to kill for what he wants. Ben has been gone for a day now…”

  “…We’re going to find Ben.”

  “…and we both know what the odds are of him being alive.”

  I blinked hard as a sort of sickening cold rolled over me. Jean was never the first to give up hope. Jean was always the one who was fearless, who knew that as long as we kept fighting we would come out the other side. If not victors, if not whole, then alive. We would survive. To hear her assume we were going to lose Ben was more shocking to me than being attacked by a vampire.

  “He’s going to be alive.” My tone was even, low as if I were approaching a strange animal.

  “You don’t know that.” Her eyes were a little bright, watery.

  “Yes, I do. We’re going to find Ben. Alive. And we’re going to put him back in Jame’s arms where he belongs so they can be bonded, as they deserve to be. Because they love each other, and they are in our town, and we’re not going to let them down. Do you understand that? We’re going to win this one, Jean. We are not going to let that bastard take us down. Any of us.”

  She sniffed and wiped under her eyes with her thumbs. “It’s…I know. I know that.” She sniffed again, and blinked back tears, her shoulders going strong again. “I just want to do that. End this. Kill Lavius so we can go back to the little stuff, like my love life.”

  I stepped forward and shifted the donut box so I could wrap my arm around her shoulders. “We will. And love is never the little stuff. It’s always the biggest stuff. The stuff that makes us who we are. The stuff that saves us and builds the lives we want to live. The stuff that we risk everything else for.”

  “I know. But you being hurt like this is killing me, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “So the quicker we can find Ben. Alive,” she added with the kind of conviction I expected from her, “the quicker we can bring that bastard down. I don’t want to waste any more time worrying about me and Hogan, okay? We can worry about all that after we take care of Ben. And you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise me.”

  “Pinky swear.”

  “Good.” She patted my back and we strode back to the Jeep and got in.

  Jame didn’t open his eyes, move, or make a sound. I hoped he was sleeping, but from the ragged rhythm of his breathing, I knew he was conserving energy, resting and hopefully, healing.

  He had also probably heard every word we’d said. Werewolves had incredible hearing.

  I didn’t like that he had insisted on following me around, nor that Granny had pushed it. I didn’t want to second-guess myself if I got in a dangerous situation that might hurt him.

  I didn’t want to be the one who did him more damage.

  But I knew exactly why he was staying by my side. I carried Lavius’s bite, the only concrete link we had to him. I was as close to Ben by one degree of separation, closer than anyone else in town.

  It was both intelligence and instinct on Jame’s part. And while I could admire that, it still made me uncomfortable to have his life, probably literally, under influence of my every action.

  Even this love, one of friendship to Jame, of community, was the big stuff.

  I knew we’d find Yancy in his office at the community college, which was built just across the road from the town’s only six screen movie theater.

  I parked and twisted in my seat so I could see Jame better. “We’re going to go in and see if he can give us an idea about where Ben is, or when we will find him. Any glimpse of the future that will help us. You can stay here if you want.”

  Jame’s eyes slit open. They were hot with pain and something else. Anger, I presumed. “Where
you go, I go.” He uncrossed his arms and opened the door.

  It was hard to watch him pause, then hold his breath as he hauled himself out of the back of my Jeep. I wanted to help, but he wouldn’t let me, and wouldn’t appreciate me showing attention to his weakness.

  “If you pass out, Jean and I are taking pictures so we can add it to our ‘too stubborn for their own good’ list on the station bulletin board.”

  He was walking toward the school, his steps slow but steady. “Bite me, Reed.”

  It was good to hear his growl, even if it was a bit breathy. Jean and I came up beside him and did our best not to look like we were making ourselves available to catch him if he fell.

  Thankfully, the walk was short. Both door handles were covered in multi-colored yarn wraps. Someone had crocheted a cozy cover for the handles, with a little gold crocheted key hanging from the bottom of one. A bright red crocheted rooster, about the size of a walnut stood proud on the curve of the handle.

  Art project? Class mascot?

  I pulled the door open, the yarn soft under my palm. It was cooler inside and smelled a little of rain and honey.

  I took over the lead, wending down the hall to Yancy’s office, just a few doors over on the left. I paused for Jame and Jean to catch up, then knocked.

  “Come on in.”

  I pushed on the door.

  “Delaney, please sit down. Jame, perhaps you’d like the couch there? I’ve pulled out a blanket if you need it.”

  Yancy was exactly what I’d imagine a career advisor would look like. Friendly, thoughtful, earnest. His soft brown eyes and patient smile fit perfectly with the bright blue sweater he wore over a collared shirt. The tight black curls of his hair had just a few strands of silver running through them, and I knew once he went fully gray, it was going to look amazing against his deep brown skin.

  He didn’t look at all surprised to see the three of us. But then, I had never once surprised our resident seer.

  Jame walked in and collapsed onto the couch, tugging the blanket over his chest, his eyes immediately closing. His breathing went heavy and slowed.

  Yancy had known we were coming. It was nice of him to make sure Jame would be comfortable.

  I put the donut box near his computer mouse and sat in one of the two swivel chairs across from his desk. “We brought you donuts.”

  “Wonderful!” He really did seem pleased. “I do love donuts,” he said to Jean as if he’d heard our conversation at the bakery, which, maybe? He was a seer. I had never gotten a definitive answer as to the limits of his abilities. “Thank you.”

  “We brought you this too.” Jean placed the wrapped package on the box.

  His eyes lit up and laugh lines crept out from the corners of them. “A gift? Thank you. Is it for me?”

  “It’s for you, but I thought you might want to give it to students who need it?” Jean settled in the other chair.

  He opened the little package and grinned in delight. “They’re lovely. Worry stones. Certainly appropriate for my line of work.” He placed them in a tidy row in front of him, the smooth thumb curves facing upward. One of them was a soft rose quartz that I was immediately drawn to.

  Then he opened the donut box and shifted it sideways so the open lid wouldn’t be in the way.

  “Perfect. And I just so happen to have a carafe of fresh coffee. Would either of you care for a cup?”

  “No thanks,” I said. Jean shook her head.

  He plucked a donut out of the box and placed it on the doily wrapper from Jean’s gift.

  “How can I be of help?” He took a bite of the powdered donut and then sat back in his chair, the cup of coffee in his hand.

  Gift given, favor earned. Now all we had to do is ask for it.

  “We need to find Ben. Quickly.” I glanced over at Jame. I thought he might be sleeping. “We know who kidnapped him, and we know what he wants. We can walk that path, bring him here and offer him what he desires, but there is no guarantee Ben will be safe if we do that. We want to know where Ben is and if we can find him in the next twenty-four hours.”

  He sipped coffee, holding my gaze a moment. Then he glanced over at Jame.

  “I didn’t know.” He leaned forward again, placing his coffee on the desk.

  “Didn’t know that Ben had been kidnapped?”

  He nodded. “I’ve had some intense visions lately. Mostly about you, Delaney. Things I didn’t want to see.”

  “Oh. This.” I pulled the collar of my coat away so he could see the vampire bite.

  He made a small hmph sound in agreement.

  “This is not the future your father had hoped for.”

  I held my breath along with any reply. I didn’t want to ask questions that would shift Yancy from the answer we needed: how to find Ben alive.

  “I told him, but still, every decision creates a path. He created his path, and yours, I’m afraid. You will have to walk it to the end.”

  He paused, but I kept my lips firmly pressed together. I wouldn’t ask. I knew I got one question here. I wasn’t going to change it.

  “Ben.” He picked up one of the worry stones–a rich blue sodalite–and rubbed his thumb slowly over the smooth indent. “He is alive.”

  Jame shifted on the couch, and I knew he was listening.

  “He is alone, but watched. In pain. He is angry.”

  Yancy went silent, so that only the shush of his thumb across the stone and the muted footsteps of someone walking down the hall filled the room.

  I wanted to ask where he was. Where we could find him. But I’d already asked my question. If Yancy could see where Ben was being held, he would tell me.

  “Near to us but oceans away.” Yancy’s voice had gone soft, sonorous. His eyes were deep, spiraling with sparks of gold. The futures he saw swirled there like stars caught in time’s dance, a million million possibilities, a million million futures all hinging on billions and billions of tiny choices.

  “Darkness, cold. Time does not move, it rocks, it bleeds.”

  His thumb stilled and his eyes lost their stars and the lights, as futures winked out one by one.

  Jame pushed up until he was sitting, but wisely did not say anything. Jean and I waited too. He’d come back to the present soon. It was best to give him a moment.

  After two steady minutes, Yancy seemed to realize he had company in his office again. He offered us a small smile then took a bite of donut, chewed, and sipped coffee.

  “What can you tell us?” I asked, hoping I had not chosen the wrong moment to nudge him.

  “What I have already said. Ben is alive. Bound, in darkness and cold. There is a…timelessness about his capture. He cannot sense the movement of the world around him, yet everything is in motion.

  “There are other impressions. If I tell you them, and I will, you must remember that these are not set truths. They are simply what I saw, possibilities, not probabilities. They are as likely to be metaphor as reality. Do you understand?”

  Jean and I nodded, but Yancy’s gaze fell on Jame.

  “Do you understand me, Jame? You must survive this for him.”

  “I understand.” Jame’s voice was a little stronger than it had been. He was healing at a pace no human would be able to manage, his werewolf physiology repairing bone, organ, and skin.

  He still looked exhausted, but his color was slowly returning to something that looked a little less cadaverous.

  “Nothing of this world can free him. No dark magic or ancient text. No modern technology or intervention. If you are to ever see him again, he must be given as a gift, a terrible promise kept by that which does not walk our land. That is what I see. That is what I know. I’m sorry.”

  “What is a thing that doesn’t walk our land?” Jame asked. “Everything comes to Ordinary.”

  Yancy shook his head. “I can’t see more than that at this time. The future is flexible and distorts easily. Perhaps it is simply a person who isn’t a part of Ordinary, perhaps it is something mo
re. I would give you more if I had it. Believe me, Jame, I would.”

  I knew he was sincere. Yancy was a nice man, and he had chosen a profession, helping people find their career paths in life, that made use of his abilities and went a long way to helping others.

  But Jame was a werewolf who had lost his mate. I didn’t expect him to accept reason so easily.

  “Thank you.” I stood and moved over to Jame. Not that I’d be able to stop him if he decided to throttle Yancy. Or, well, maybe I would be able to since Jame was not fully recovered.

  “We’ll find him?” Jame asked, moving to the desk to scowl down at Yancy.

  “If Delaney makes the right choice.”

  “What?” I said, and the same time Jean said, “The hell?”

  Jean was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Jame now, a matching scowl on her face. “You said something not of our land would find him. You didn’t say Delaney. And she is the most of-our-land of all of us. What the hell are you talking about terrible promise?”

  Yancy picked up his donut and took a bite. He shrugged. “It is what I see. Delaney will have to make a choice if Ben is to be saved. It is the truth, but isn’t clear. Like a fortune cookie. Or a reality TV show.”

  “Not helping,” I said. “Take it down a gear, Jean. You know he can’t give us a map. He can give us the words and images that will hopefully help us make the right decisions we need to make. If he were able to spell everything out, he would be controlling the future directly, instead of observing it.”

  “Oh, you do not get to lecture me about metaphysical theory, Delaney.”

  She was angry. Angry that Ben was gone. Angry that Yancy had just put me firmly in the middle of saving him.

  But I was already in the middle and more than willing to do so. To put myself on the line for him. For Jame.

  “We got this,” I said to her, holding her angry blue gaze. “Trust that we got this, Jean. We’ll make the right choices, and I won’t do anything stupid.”

  Yancy, wisely, said nothing, but instead finished his donut.

  Jame took a deep breath, then reached over and pulled a maple bar out of the box.

  Yancy smiled. “I have never been fond of maple. That one’s yours.”