“We’re going back to Pennsylvania, aren’t we?” Jake asked.
“I know I am,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Helena
“I can see I made a huge mistake in not buying a second bottle of wine,” Graham said, as he gave Byron another once over. “So is that what I’m supposed to really look like?”
“If you could come to Sinistral, then yes, you could manifest a similar form,” Byron said. “It also works in parallels.”
“He doesn’t know what those are either,” I told Byron. “But yeah, there are spots where the two worlds meet.”
“So you’re Byron.” Graham kept looking at the bottom of his wine glass wistfully, twirling it and letting cut glass cast rainbows on the table in the library. “You were one of my grandfather’s close friends.”
“Yes.”
“They said you were a librarian.”
“That’s right. In the Great Library of Sinistral.”
“Do you recognize these books?” Graham unwrapped the three Arcana again, and I felt another little spark of attraction to him because he didn’t stay shocked for long by Byron’s appearance, but moved straight on to the detective work. Whatever he might tell me about how he needed to get back to his career, he was already in deep with all this.
“Yes,” Byron said.
“What are they?”
“They date back to the 11th century,” Byron said. “And are written in a lost language called Cyprium which was once a trade language between the magical realms. I can tell you that much.”
“Oh really?” I asked, wracking my brain. I’d never heard of a trade language between the magical realms, since they didn’t usually want much to do with one another. “11th century…that’s old.” Yes, I was really adding a lot to the conversation with my amazing powers of deduction.
“Why are they here?” Graham asked. “What are they trying to tell us? And why did my grandfather have them?”
“My lips are sewn shut,” Byron said.
“They look fine to me.”
“He means, um…the lips of his corpse are sewn shut,” I said.
“Can we unsew them?”
“You want to dig up his corpse!?” I cried.
“Right. I guess since you had some sort of ghost sex, you don’t want to see that,” Graham said.
“I’m just not very casual about digging up corpses under any circumstances,” I said, standing up to pace. I needed to pace. I was getting restless. I definitely did not ever want to see the remains of someone I had mind-blowing flying dream sex with, and I don’t think that was unreasonable.
Byron smiled.
“What? You want me to find your body?” I cried.
“I want to speak freely,” he said. “I only wish you had asked sooner, angel.”
“I don’t want to see your body! You’re both being very demon right now. I don’t suppose you can give us any hint at all about where you’re buried?”
Byron just rubbed his forehead like we were giving him a migraine. “Curses,” he said, “tend to be annoying that way.”
“I don’t know anything about wizard burial,” Graham said, “but if you can find him, I’ll dig his ass up.”
“Ewkay,” I said, noticing that a distinct tension was starting to crackle between Graham and Byron, and it was all coming from Graham’s end of the table.
“During the waking hours, she’s all yours,” Byron said.
“Back up, back up,” I said, waving my hands.
“Well, we might as well cut to the chase,” Byron said. “I know how Graham feels. We’re the same race. He wants you, and you want him, and—“
“You don’t know that!” I said, at the same time as Graham growled, “Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“How…human of you both.” Byron crossed his arms, looking patient and even a little entertained. “The pleasure of being an incubus is to share this attraction and act on it. There is no way you aren’t thinking about it.”
“I am not just going to fall for every man who crosses my path now just because he’s an incubus,” I said, although…I probably already had. But dream sex and real life sex were still very different. I hadn’t made a batch of birth control spell in…well…ever. There was a chance I could get pregnant. There was a greater chance I might get tangled up in emotions I didn’t have time for.
“All I’m saying is that there is no reason we can’t share—“
“Share? No way,” I snapped. “I’m not going to get caught up in some scandal and get completely disowned from the family and start popping out kids—“
“Who said anything about kids? I’m a ghost,” Byron said. “What is all this about, angel?”
I didn’t want to explain that there was already a super scandalous bond-marriage in my family. I didn’t want drama or attention or cousins gossiping about me.
I was surprised that Graham wasn’t interjecting to tell Byron that he wouldn’t share either.
“All I want is for you to solve the mystery I can’t tell you about,” Byron said. “My old friend Fiore thought that Graham might be interested. He thought you might find the Arcana and start investigating. Instead, you hid them and tried to run, but you’re right back where you belong. Two heads are better than one, so I don’t want to chase you off. But I have been very much enjoying my dreams with Helena. That’s all they are. Just dreams. They give me power so I can help fight, but they can’t intrude on real life. I can only make myself corporeal for seconds at a time. So I’m not saying you two have to hook up. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t feel awkward about it.”
You would need a machete to cut the tension in the room as Graham mulled over this strange situation and Byron looked at me like he was just waiting for the next dream.
“I can’t stay long anyway,” Graham said.
“Yeah, this—this isn’t going to be romantic anyway,” I said, following his lead. I think we were going to swing for changing the subject. “Are you buried on this property, Byron?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“I had to ask.”
“If he can’t tell us anything, then let’s forget about him,” Graham said a little grumpily, “and work out a plan on everything we do know, then work from there. Tell me every potential lead you can think of, and I’ll see what I can remember about Grandpa and his friends, and…you know.” He found an old notepad on the desk. “If we can just find Byron, we’ll have all the answers.”
“Good idea,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic, although I was definitely not. “Byron, are you able to tell us—“ I turned around to where Byron had been standing but the room was empty.
“He vanished,” Graham said. “Like he had somewhere to be.” One eyebrow raised as he looked at me with a small yet possessive smile that reminded me of our first date, when I got this feeling he’d be dominant in the bedroom, in a way that would leave me quivering. It was hard not to quiver now just thinking about it. “Good riddance.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Byron
The perpetually gray skies of Sinistral and the bell tower of the Great Library would always feel like a home to me, even though they were—objectively—a bit depressing compared to the life I once led in America.
I could admire it from afar, but I could not enter.
This library was the site of one of the greatest heists ever committed in Sinistral. Ever since then, security had been tightened, guards posted everywhere and wards laced through every stone.
All thanks to me.
The theft of the three Arcana had gotten me in serious trouble, and time would tell if it was worth it.
Many had died since because of that theft, but I had managed to keep my three dear friends safe into their very old age. The three warlocks who had formed the Sons of Pandora with me, vowing to be the keepers of the triad, had never been famous or power-hungry. They were just curious about what made our world what it is.
They were my friends, but they never had the courage to do what had to be done.
Now, I wondered if she would.
That dumb-assed Caleb fellow…he said the council sent him. They know something. But do they know what they need to know?
The need to protect the maps was more urgent than ever.
Because of her…
Landing on the forest path, I slammed a fist into the nearest tree, welcoming the pain of bark scraping knuckles. I felt it, but then I lost my solidity and the pain vanished with it. I had no more real substance than the wind. I was just a soul tethered to life, no longer a part of it, and it seemed an unlikely hope that this could ever truly change.
When I shut my eyes, I could feel her body in my arms. I could taste her lips, smell plaster and sawdust and paint lingering in her hair, such an earthy scent for a heavenly girl. My skin prickled at the memory of her heels digging into my back as she wrapped her legs tight around me, her hands tugging on my hair, the tender brutality of our love making.
Fiore thought Graham would be the one to find his treasures. He was proud to see his grandson going into politics. It will ready him for what is to come, he said when Graham won his first election. But then Fiore’s mind was slipping, as every living mortal’s mind was doomed to do, if nothing else killed them first.
All mortals…
I wondered about that. I wondered if a boy raised in a human life would be prepared for what is to come.
Then Helena walked in instead. She bought the house. She became the owner of the Arcana and the first map.
She had no idea what she was in for, and I knew if I let her stay, she would be doomed to danger—but how could I tell such a determined girl to leave? How could I say no to those blue eyes, that sweet mouth, and hands that knew their way around a tool box? And she was a Habsburg. My god. What better symbolism than to have a member of the royal witches be the one to destroy the world her ancestors helped to build atop the suffering of those they stepped on?
The world surely did not make women like that when I was last out in it.
For too long, I had been living in a dying world.
I took flight and sailed on the wind until I saw the elegant rooflines of House Adras’ei. Of all the demons in Sinistral, the incubi had the most charming homes. No dark spires or jagged walls for demons who specialized in seduction. House Adras’ei was a romantic house with two towers, many windows, huge canopy beds with embroidered curtains, and—well, all right, just one relatively tame sex dungeon.
Sadly, no one was using that nowadays.
But if Helena was here she would surely have noticed that Adras’ei was only half of a house. There was one wing where there should have two, two towers where there should have been four, a wall of stone that butted right up against half of a door.
About a thousand years ago, the house was broken in half during a terrible battle, and ever since then, the house was divided and so was my family.
Now, House Adras’ei was beginning to crumble into ruin. Furniture covered in cloths to discourage dust. Once-beautiful gardens growing wild. I didn’t have the power to make it a home. I was a ghost here too. But I did have company.
When I walked into the hall, I could see the other half of the hall. I could peer into Etherium.
I always visited my sister, once a week, at this time.
Ethereals. The humans called them angels or goddesses or deities. Marisa was just my sister, the light to my dark, with iridescent wings like a butterfly and thick hair so blonde it was really almost white. It fell to her knees, and she brushed and braided it every day. The lightness of her wings and hair was tempered by her black gowns and her loneliness. Marisa was like an angel waiting for her own fall.
“Byron…” She ran as close to me as she could. We were separated by the faint ripple of the fabric between worlds, like a thin pane of glass. “How fare things with the girl? Has she figured out what to do?”
“I’m hopeful. Fiore’s grandson has returned, and they’re working together now. He’s a pretty good detective, and she seems fearless. I think she might be willing to take the risks that the Sons of Pandora never could. But…if I lost her in the process…”
“Oh, no, Byron, you won’t! You must not lose heart now. Let her give you power and you will protect her.”
“Well, it’s true, she did open the dream gate, and it was worth all the waiting…”
“Ah ha…I’m sure of that. You have a glow about you. I haven’t seen that in years! You’re falling in love with her.”
“And I can’t tell her what I am…”
“But you will,” Marisa said. “And I’m sure she’ll love you all the more for it. You deserve some happiness.”
I shot her a look of frustration. “But for now, I’m just a ghost.”
“There is hope for you yet.” She smiled.
But sometimes that hope seemed very slim.
“And then, if she develops feelings for Graham…I realize we must be around the same age now. I don’t think there’s any chance for me.”
“There is,” Marisa said. “Graham is the grandson of an incubus. No match for you!”
“True… But he is very alive. And it seems the council might be on our trail again. I told her that this quest might be dangerous, but I haven’t told her to stop. You’re the only counsel I have these days. If I was focused only on information, I would say Helena would be the perfect person to open this Pandora’s Box, but…she could die. It would be my fault. So maybe I’d rather have Graham do it.”
“Oh, poor Graham! So willing to let him get killed!” She shook her head a little. “I think you have become all demon these days.”
“Graham seems like a good enough guy,” I admitted. “But he isn’t her.”
“So far you have been pushing her to do it, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think that says it all. Let her fire fuel you, but don’t let it frighten you into underestimating her…or failing me. You are a demon…and a demigod…first.”
I would never forget the moment I found the Arcana in the stacks of the Great Library.
I didn’t know what I was, back then. I had not yet remembered. I had no idea of the sacrifices my sister made in secret to bring me into this world.
The building was so vast that books could easily be lost in place. Shelved in ancient corners of the library, perhaps put out of place by some absent scholar a hundred years prior, written in languages no one knew. The Arcana were so dirty that I couldn’t even read the titles. Their pages were rippled and sticking together. They had been a casualty of the flood in the library basement, I guessed, some three hundred years ago.
Only the most talented Sinistral scholars were granted positions in the library. Incubi were not usually considered very learned, but that was a stereotype. My focus was excellent once my needs had been satisfied. So good, in fact, that I was organizing and cleaning up old and neglected books and adding them to the more modern card catalog, and was soon granted my own title: Head Cataloguer of Archaic Titles. I was able to take on an apprentice to help with my work, a succubus named Talin.
One day, an ordinary sort of day until that moment, we found the Arcana.
I was fascinated with the history in their pages. I started to remember things.
Talin was at my side as I frantically flipped through the pages, my heart pounding. She was the one who heard me ramble on about what it all meant. And she would be by my side as we found wizards who would share our secret. Talin would also be the love of Fiore’s life, after the end of his loveless arranged marriage with a ‘good’ witch.
For the sake of that love, Fiore was banished from the realm of good magic, and Talin would die. Fiore would be heartbroken once again. Heartbroken and shunned. It was an old story in the magical world, so common it was a cliche. Love between dark and light. Both doomed to suffer for it.
And as long as we live in a world where Ethereal witches are punished for lovin
g demons, Helena would not be happy with Graham either. Nor with those werewolves. She would be banished from Etherium, shunned and shamed.
So we might as well open Pandora’s Box.
The books were a manual for using the box. But it was not just a box. Not really.
It was the thing that would destroy the world that had doomed so many people to suffer.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Graham
“…and it looks like there was an elemental attack in the one upstairs bedroom over the kitchen at some point,” Helena said. “So I guess that could be something. Or it could just be a kid’s bedroom. That sort of thing happens…”
“Has Byron said anything to you that could be a clue about where is body is or what the Arcana do?” I asked. “Anything subtle?”
“I’m not great with subtlety,” she said. “I’m a sledgehammer kind of girl.” She traced patterns on the table with her ragged, dirty fingertip.
Her hands are so dirty. A sledgehammer kind of girl. I’ll sledgehammer you, all night…
Good lord, what the hell is wrong with me.
I wrote down neatly: Elemental attack possibly occurred in the bedroom. Questions: What time period? Who was involved? Was Byron killed in this attack?
I had already filled up many pages with similar notes. Most of them were just questions upon questions.
“We have no answers,” I said. “So we need theories. We have three books, and one unknown object. The council seems to want these things. What would their motive be? What does the Ethereal council want?”
“Well, every council wants the same thing,” Helena said. “To have more power for their world than the other worlds. The magical beings are always fighting for supremacy and territory. For many years, it was just Sinistral and Etherium fighting, but recently the realm of Wyrd got back in the game. So you basically have light, dark, and the neutral realm, and they all want their magic and their people to be the strongest, so they fight to influence humans and to gain control over parallels. Those are the spots where the worlds meet. They’re like the strategic gateways.”
Demons in the Bedroom (Paranormal House Flippers Book 1) Page 14
