Burning Bright (Ivy Granger)

by E.J. Stevens

  Thinking about Jinx helped me shake off the last remnants of the vamp spell.

  “Cut it out, Gaius,” I said, my teeth grinding together as I spit out the words. “I’m here to fulfill our bargain, not play games.”

  A dry chuckle, like the scrape of dead leaves on a coffin lid, rose from the tub.

  “You could not handle me, little corpse candle,” he said. “And for now, I require your services.”

  Yeah, he had a point. Sex with the vampire master of the city—if such a thing was even possible with that equipment—would be the death of me. One touch of his ancient skin and I’d be flooded with a raging sea of visions. I’d be dead before our first kiss, though I’m not sure if that’s entirely what he meant. Probably better not to think too long and hard about it.

  I snorted and rolled my hand in a “let’s get on with it” gesture. The sooner Ceff and I could get out of here the better. I really didn’t want to be around when Gaius was done with his bath. Ogling him naked once was bad enough, but seeing his desiccated body dripping blood was something I sure as hell didn’t want to experience again in this lifetime.

  “What is it you want, Gaius?” I asked. “Other than the usual sex and blood.”

  The vampire master held out his arm, turning it to examine his slender hand, a sigh passing between his fangs. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but the vamp’s matchstick thin fingers seemed to be plumping up, like a raisin set in a glass of water. Ewww.

  “I am in need of your services…your professional services,” he said.

  Yeah, whatever. We all need something. I thought the words, but didn’t say them out loud. Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t have a death wish. And as much as I hated to admit it, I owed the vampire master of the city. We’d made a deal. He gave me information leading to the missing fae children and I agreed to work one case of his choice, free of charge. I could try and be civil, for now.

  “Um, okay,” I said. I swallowed hard, pulling my attention from the vamp’s spongy appendages and stared at a drop of blood in stark contrast to the rim of the ivory tub. I was done looking at Gaius. “What’s the case?”

  “As you may know, there are forces at work in the supernatural community,” he said. “The scent of war is in the air; the weak skitter into hiding while the powerful amass their troops, preparing for battle.”

  So it was true then. There was a war coming. I just didn’t understand why, not yet. Suddenly the rash of monster infestations and local territorial disputes made sense. Fae, vamps, hunters, and witches were on the move, maneuvering their assets like pawns on a chessboard, and those with enough power were drawing the proverbial line in the sand.

  I flicked my eyes to Ceff. My boyfriend was a kelpie king. Had he known about this? Judging by the flush of color that rose in his cheeks, I’d say that was a yes. Damn it, why hadn’t he told me any of this? I studied the way he stood, hands flexing and body at an angle to the bathing vamp.

  I sighed, the answer obvious. Ceff would do anything to protect me, even if that meant sheltering me from the truth. He knew how important the search for my father was to me and how fragile my control was over my wisp powers. Worrying about a possible war would be a distraction and a stressor, a potentially deadly one if I started glowing on the city streets. Ceff had been trying to shield me from the truth. He may have had all the right reasons, but that didn’t mean we weren’t going to have a serious talk later—as soon as I was done dealing with Gaius.

  “You want my help in this war?” I asked, brows rising as the vamp’s words sunk in.

  He had to be kidding. I might have gained some skill at squashing the occasional fae pest, but fighting as a soldier in a vamp war was way outside my job description.

  Gaius chuckled, making the hairs along my neck stand at attention.

  “No, corpse candle, I do not need a soldier,” he said. I heard the sloshing of liquid and kept my eyes glued to the edge of the tub. “I need you to put an end to the fires plaguing our city. I only speak of the approaching war to let you know why I do not take care of this minor trouble myself.”

  Ah, yes. No matter what The Boss would like to have me think, fire was never a “minor trouble” to a nest of vamps. He could bathe in blood all he wanted, like that freaky ass Countess Bathory chick from history class, but the truth of the matter is that vamp bodies are tinder dry. No amount of feeding or bathing could change that fact.

  Vampires are basically kindling with fangs. That was the reason the torches in here were lit by LED bulbs, not open flame. Suddenly, I saw the fire imp infestation through the eyes of the vampire master and I understood just how much he needed me.

  If the city burned, the vamps would die.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You want me to help stop the fires raging across the city, right?”

  It would be a lot to handle, what with needing to find and kill Kaye and rescue Jinx, but with Ceff’s help, we might pull it off.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Blood splashed and dripped onto the marble floor tiles as the master of the city rose and stepped out of the tub. Ugh, time to go.

  “Sure, I’ll do it,” I said. “But this makes us even.”

  “It is done,” he said. I staggered a bit under the weight of his words, but kept my eyes focused just to the right of where Gaius was standing. “Yue Fei will see you out.”

  The Boss gestured toward the door with his newly plump hand and I turned to see the samurai vamp waiting for us. As I made my way into the adjoining tunnel, with Ceff at my side, Gaius’ voice floated up from the cavernous council chamber.

  “Be careful facing your demons, little corpse candle,” he said. “I would not want you to get burned. Mwhahahahahahahaha!”

  His sinister laughter was cut short by the doors slamming shut on our heels, just as the tunnel lights were extinguished.

  Yeah, that wasn’t creepy or anything. Damn vamps.

  Chapter 19

  Suddenly grateful for the night vision gifted to me by my wisp blood, I followed the guard up the steady slope of the tunnel. I ignored the burning in my calves as I walked, chewing on the new pieces of information I’d learned. I knew better than to think the vampire master of the city had let anything slip unintentionally, but I had to wonder what his motivations had been for bringing up the coming war.

  Had he been trying to warn me about a potential threat to Harborsmouth, or was he just trying to emphasize how busy he was in an effort to downplay my role in ridding the city of the fire imp menace? Either way, I now knew that a war truly was brewing and I’d been the last to know.

  “We are going to have words later,” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth at Ceff.

  He gave the barest nod, acknowledging that he’d heard me, and continued on. An annoying part of my subconscious pushed an image to the forefront of my brain and I shook my head. Ceff had kept the truth from me in an attempt to keep me safe. How different was that from me keeping the truth of Jinx and Forneus’ kiss from my best friend? Yes, I was a hypocrite. Point taken, but I still didn’t trust Forneus.

  Maybe if the demon contacted me soon with a lead on how to solve our incubus problem, I might start to trust him. I checked my phone for missed calls, but there was no signal this far underground. I sighed and shoved the phone back in my pocket and trudged up the tunnel.

  “So, um, Yue Fei,” I said. “You new in town?”

  I’d been distracted over the past few months sure, but I figured I’d have noticed a vamp dressed as a samurai warrior. Even in a dark tunnel lined with suits of armor from all over the world, the man tended to stick out.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Right, man of little words that Yue Fei.

  “You don’t happen to know a kitsune named Inari, do you?” I asked.

  Inari was a Japanese faerie who, according to Torn, was queen of the kitsune. But no matter how much I badgered Torn, he wouldn’t tell me anything else about the kitsune woman, even though she
was one of the few leads I had on my father. I was pretty sure that Yue Fei was Chinese, not Japanese like Inari, but it couldn’t hurt to ask, right?

  “The red fox lady, patron of swordsmiths, is known to me,” he said.

  We’d reached the outer door and Yue Fei stood to the side, gesturing for us to leave. I opened my mouth to ask what he might know about the woman, but Ceff took a step forward, facing me, and shook his head.

  I growled in frustration and stormed out into the night.

  Chapter 20

  “What the hell was that about?” I asked.

  I kicked the door behind me, slamming it shut, and threw my hands up into the air. To say that I was pissed was an understatement.

  “Not here,” he said.

  I flashed Ceff a glare as I stomped toward Sacred Heart Church. If we were already this far up The Hill, might as well check in with Father Michael. The ex-Vatican scholar had a thing for demon lore. Maybe the priest could give me some pointers on how to deal with fire imps. Hell, he might even know where I could find Kaye.

  I spun on Ceff as we turned onto an empty side street. If we were going to have an argument, this was as good a place as any.

  “What. The. Hell?” I asked, biting off the words. “That guy might have known something about my dad!”

  With the help of my cat sidhe allies, I’d been searching for my father, but the trail ran cold a few years ago in Fukishima, Japan. The fact that the one name my mom had managed to give me, before a magical geis nearly killed her, was that of Inari a Japanese faerie queen, couldn’t be a coincidence. With Torn being frustratingly close-lipped about his former relationship with Inari, I was low on options. For a moment, I’d hung my hopes on Yue Fei, only to have Ceff step in and act like a jealous boyfriend. He better have a damn good reason for interfering, and I wanted to hear it, now.

  “The walls of vampire headquarters have ears,” Ceff said, keeping his voice low.

  Shit, he was right. I remembered the creepy suits of armor filling every dark alcove along the tunnel. Yeah, I’d suspected those suits of armor weren’t empty, but I wasn’t sure why a bunch of vamps would care about my search for my father.

  “So?” I asked. “What could Gaius possibly do with information about Inari?”

  “Have you considered why your father does not wish to be found?” he asked.

  Ceff’s soft voice was like a lonely stream burbling over smooth pebbles, but his words hit me like a slap in the face. That and the look he gave me when I turned on him was one of utter sadness. He knew how much finding my father meant to me, and how badly I needed to find a way to control my wisp powers. He hadn’t overstepped in my dealings with Yue Fei in some macho attempt to flex his muscles and take control of the little lady. He was trying to help, and he’d obviously given this a lot of thought.

  I’d hear him out, though I suspected that I wouldn’t like what he had to say.

  “He left to protect me and my mom,” I said. “I’m guessing he still thinks he’s protecting us by staying away, by remaining hidden.”

  “And why does he need to protect you from his very presence?” he asked. “Why would your father believe that he could not be a part of your lives?”

  I grew up thinking that I’d been abandoned by my real father, but that wasn’t entirely true. My father, who turned out to be not only fae but king of the wisps, had left me and my mother after being tricked by a demon. I still didn’t know all the details, but the end result was that my father was cursed to carry an unholy lantern, taking on the title Jack-o’-Lantern.

  “Because he’s cursed to carry the demon lantern,” I said.

  “A lantern that carries an ember from the deepest pits of Hell,” he said. He paused, letting the words sink in. “…a lantern that brings chaos, destruction, and tragedy in its wake.”

  I thought of the plagues and natural disasters attributed to the lantern. The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami which caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was one of the more recent disasters, but there’d been many more over the years. The history of the lantern went back centuries, maybe longer. The lantern was a conduit to Hell, bringing pain and suffering wherever it was carried.

  It was the reason why my father kept running, kept hiding from us.

  To make matters worse, the one cursed to carry the lantern could not be rid of it, not without someone else being tricked or convinced into willingly taking it up. My father may have been suckered into a deal with a demon, but he was an otherwise honorable man. There was no way he’d trick another poor soul into carrying his burden.

  “I fear that they would use him as a weapon,” he said. “Whoever gains control over Will-o’-the-Wisp would wield a powerful weapon in the coming war.”

  Oberon’s eyes on a stick, I was a fool. I’d been so focused on finding my father and somehow making things right, that I’d never considered what others may attempt if they found him first.

  “I do not wish to see your father mistreated this way, and such a weapon in the hands of the undead could bring doom to us all,” he said.

  Shit, I could see it now, the dust bags dragging my dad into some warzone so that the lantern could wreak havoc on its fae or human inhabitants. Thousands could be killed and injured, but what did the vamps care? They could send in their ghouls to clean up the piles of corpses. Ghouls would feast on the dead while the vamps themselves rounded up those who lived. Humans and fae would become like cattle and the world would be ruled over by a bunch of night loving bloodsuckers.

  And that was just the undead. Who was to say what the Seelie or Unseelie faerie courts would do if they got their scheming hands on my father.

  “The vamps aren’t the only ones, are they?” I asked. “If war really is coming, every side will want the ultimate weapon.”

  “It is a very real possibility,” he said.

  I let out a shaky sigh and wrapped my arms around my middle. It wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear, but it was the truth. Ceff may have tried to protect me from his suspicions, but now that the cat sidhe was out of the bag, he’d give it to me straight. All I had to do was ask.

  “If that’s true, then who can I trust?” I asked.

  “You can begin with trusting me,” he said.

  Yeah, he was right. It was a good place to start.

  Chapter 21

  We continued walking to Sacred Heart Church. I was hoping that Father Michael’s obsession with demon lore would come in handy with the fire imp problem, and as a friend of Kaye’s he may know where I could find her. I might be able to kill two pixies with one visit, so to speak.

  During the short walk to the top of The Hill, Ceff and I discussed the search for my father and the need for allies. Aside from Japan, my only lead was a box that my father had left me containing a key to Faerie. That key would open a gateway through the Otherworld and into the wisp court. I was sure that I’d find answers there, but the roads to Faerie had been sealed when Mab, Oberon, and Titania disappeared centuries ago.

  The only way for me to gain entry to the wisp court was to follow a hidden pathway that only became accessible on the summer solstice. Unfortunately for me, that pathway led through Tech Duinn, the house of Donn—the Celtic god of the dead.

  The door you seek is one that hides. You must await midsummer tides. Upon the summer solstice when the moon doth wane, the wisp princess shall sit upon her throne again. Muster your allies and gather your power. You must reach Tech Duinn’s steps by the witching hour. Brandish the key and do not lose heart. On solstice night the ocean shall part. Go to Martin’s Point at final light of day, and the stones of Donner Isle will lead the way. Not by sea, but by land. You all will take your stand. To the house of Donn you must carry, king Will-o’-the-Wisp’s key to Faerie. Inside Donn’s hearth bend your knee, close your eyes and turn the key.

  If Béchuille was any indication, the Tuatha Dé Danann were more cryptic than demon attorneys. Or maybe it was the fact that she was a druid. Either way, I’d puzzled
out the meaning behind her words and knew what I had to do. It just wouldn’t be easy, hence the need for allies.

  As we walked, Ceff and I hashed out a list of associates who we figured we could trust with information about my father. Sadly, the list was pretty damn short.

  In fact, there was one person on the list who we both decided wouldn’t have been made a confidant under different circumstances. Neither one of us fully trusted Sir Torn, but the cat sidhe lord was already in this up to his whiskers.

  Torn had manipulated me into revealing that the key was in my possession when he brought me to Mag Mell to see the druid Béchuille. Yes, being tricked by the cat sidhe lord was one reason why I didn’t trust him. But since he already knew about the search for my father and the key in my possession, there was nothing to do now except hope Torn honored our alliance, and watch our backs.

  “There is less than two months until the summer solstice,” Ceff said.

  I sighed at the reminder. How did I end up with these solstice the-end-is-nigh deadlines? Oh, right, because I was knee deep in faerie drama.

  “I’m sick of being on a solstice deadline,” I said, thinking back to my troubles with Leanansídhe on the winter solstice. “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt to prove it.”

  He raised his eyebrow, mouthing “t-shirt,” and gave me a questioning look, but I just shook my head. Poor Ceff, sometimes I forget he’s an immortal faerie king who, unlike Jinx, only has a stunted arsenal of pop culture references with which to make sense of my snarky comments.

  “I’m just tired,” I said, forcing a grin. “With Jenna gone, Jinx’s situation, and my possibly being on the outs with Kaye with the whole needing to kill her thing, I’m down to me, my boyfriend, a grumpy brownie, a teenage bridge troll, and a pain in the ass cat sidh who neither of us trust. Oh, and the entire paranormal community is itching for a fight and may try to use my father as a weapon in their war. It’s a lot to take in.”