“And he will, but it will be a fitting punishment. This is far too easy…” she said, glaring back at him.
“You promise?” I asked, glancing up at her, and she nodded in return.
“Fine,” I said, and as soon as the word left my mouth, I felt the subtle shift in the air. Magic that hadn’t been there before stirred and I drew the blade up just in time to meet the attack of the first Heart Hound.
The beast slammed into me, knocking me to the ground, the weight of its body crushing me as its wide jaws snapped and snarled in my face and mere inches from my throat. Someone screamed; from my position beneath the Heart Hound, I couldn’t figure who it was, but it was enough to spur me to action.
Drawing the blade up, I thrust it into the beast’s chest, using just enough of my power to add a little oomph to the blow. The iron slid through its fur, skin, and between its ribs to sink into its heart. A startled cry of agony tore from its mouth and the others joined it, the sound mournful as it filled the night sky.
The second it slumped down over me, I rolled it over to the side, sliding out from beneath the creature in time to see Fionn standing over my mother’s body. She lay on her side, but there was no movement from her; her lips had ceased their gulping motions and from the unseeing stare in her gaze, I knew she was gone.
Power flooded through my body, scalding my skin as it stole the air from my lungs, but I didn’t care. The very air around me blurred and I crossed the space that separated me from Fionn without ever needing to think about moving.
Crouching next to her body, I drew her into my lap, willing her to look up at me. I’d wasted so much time, blamed her for so many things that hadn’t been her fault. I’d thought she was punishing me by sending me to America, banishing me from my own home, when, in reality, everything she’d done had been to protect me—had been because she had seen what was coming in the future and she had wanted to keep me safe.
She didn’t move. Her gaze remained blind and I dipped my face to hers but I couldn’t hear anything; no breaths, no beating heart, just agonising silence. I felt the blade in my hand and I lifted it into the light, brandishing it in front of me.
“You cannot do this. You heard what the banshee said; they want me to face Fae justice,” Fionn said with a wide grin.
In the half light from the moon overhead, I spotted his hands; the dark, dripping liquid that dotted the grass had me glancing back down at my mother. The white T-shirt she’d been wearing was stained, her blood slowly soaking out onto the ground.
“Why? Why do any of this?” I asked, shock rendering my voice weak.
“Why, why, why—it’s all you humans ask. Because I could, because I knew it would hurt you as much as you hurt me. Because I enjoyed it.”
Turning to face him once more, anger boiled in my gut as he started to laugh. Raising my arm, the rose bushes that adorned the garden slowly uncoiled from the climbing frames she had so lovingly coaxed them onto. Their barbed tendrils darted out, wrapping around Fionn’s arms and legs, one around his throat. I hardened them against his blows with my magic and imagined squeezing the life out of him.
Darcey’s words rang in my head, but I didn’t care anymore. He had done far too much, hurt too many people, and he would only keep doing it if he wasn’t stopped.
“You’re too much of a coward. It is not an easy thing to disobey a direct ruling from Faerie, and if you do this….” He cut off and sucked in a ragged breath. “You do this and you will face the full wrath of Faerie…” he said finally.
His words didn’t have the effect he was hoping for, and I thrust my power into the roses. Their thorny branches bloomed, the petals a beautiful dusky pink that covered every inch of the barbed plant. I felt Fionn’s magic flow out across them, his blood dripping down onto the ground; everywhere it fell another thorny tendril darted from the ground, the blooms pink in the moonlight.
“You cannot kill me, not like this. I am immortal…” he said, his voice choked with pain.
The calm and rational side of my brain agreed with him. I couldn’t kill him like this. He was Fae, one of the immortals. The only thing that could truly end his life was cold iron or the beasts that roamed Faerie itself.
However, there was another side of me, one that understood the magic I wielded. I could kill him. Return him to nature from where he’d come. Mother Earth would drink deep of her son and leave nothing behind but the grief of those he’d done wrong by.
“Mother, sweet and fair, drink of his blood. Nourish the earth, banish his power….” The words slipped from my lips without thought and the roses gained a power all of their own. They sprang forth faster, winding around every inch of him; the thorns looked impossibly sharp and I blinked hard as one seemed to glint in the moonlight.
The flowers themselves gradually changed colour, darkening until they were almost black, and still they bloomed.
One particularly nasty thorn speared itself into Fionn’s side and he screamed. The smoke that drifted from the wound as the thorn buried itself deeper into his body made me smile.
“Amber, stop it!” Darcey said, fighting free of the last Heart Hound, it’s anguished scream tearing the night before dying off into silence.
She rushed forward to where Fionn struggled beneath the roses that sought to claim him. The moment her hand brushed against one of the thorns, she gasped, yanking her arm back.
“How have you done this?” she asked, turning to face me, but I was far too caught up in Fionn’s final agonising death throes to pay her any attention.
His eyes met mine in one final look of desperation, his mouth struggling to form agonised pleas, but I didn’t wait for him to find the strength to speak.
“Nourish the earth, banish his power…” I whispered one last time. The heaving groan of the roses as they tightened their hold on Fionn wiped out the sound of his bones snapping beneath the pressure. The moment his spirit left his body, I felt it; the earth itself felt it and rejoiced, the bush withdrawing, leaving his broken remains on the cold, damp earth.
“What did you do?” Victoria asked, hobbling over to where I still sat on the ground, cradling my mom’s lifeless body.
“I did what needed to be done,” I said quietly, drawing the power from my core.
I’d brought Mia back; I could do the same with my mom.
“Amber, no.” Darcey shook her head and crouched down next to me, her hand on my arm as though she could read my mind and knew what I had planned.
“No what?” I asked, ignoring her as I drew my power upwards.
“Don’t do that to her. She wouldn’t want you to bring her back….”
I glanced up at Darcey and set my mouth in a grim line. “The hex is broken. If I bring her back, she’ll be fine….”
Darcey smiled kindly and reached out to smooth her fingers down over mom’s eyes, closing them gently. “It is true; the hex is gone, but this was her time … she was prepared and has already moved on,” she said.
“I don’t care. I can do this, I can bring her back,” I gritted out.
“No, what you would bring back would be an abomination. Your mother’s soul has departed. She watched you grow strong and she knew you would be safe. She was happy in her final moments.”
With a shake of my head, I tightened my grip around the body of the woman I’d called Mom. “I can do this,” I said.
“You can’t. I know your power, and in moments where those who die are not ready to go, you can bring them back. You can share the life of another with the soul of the dying. But this—this would be an act of God, and you are not a god, Amber, no matter how powerful you might believe yourself to be.”
“I can do this,” I said again, but my voice lacked the conviction it had once had. I remembered the abomination Lily had brought back when she’d raised Steve, and that was the last thing I wanted for my mom. No one deserved that.
“Amber, let her rest,” Darcey said, reaching over to squeeze my shoulder.
Lifting my tear-f
illed gaze to her, I nodded as the sound of sirens split the air. When the paramedics arrived on the scene a couple of minutes later, I was still cradling my mother’s body, the simple act of having my arms around her allowing me to hold onto whatever shred of control I had left. But when they insisted on moving her, that was when I broke down, my sobs wracking my body.
I had failed her. What good was it being a Shadow Sorceress—a being so powerful the rest of the world were terrified of us, had hunted my kind to extinction—if I couldn’t help those I loved? What was the point in fighting the good fight if at every turn the ones I cared about came out the losers?
Chapter 32
Weeks had passed since the funeral and my return to King City. Nic was AWOL ever since that night we’d had the argument and Graham had given me some time off, time to get my head right once more, but if I was honest with myself, it was the very last thing I wanted to do. Moping around my apartment all day hadn’t helped my head or my waist line and my jeans felt more than a little snug as I made my way back into the Elite offices.
“Amber.” Darcey’s familiar voice sent the cold ache in my chest into overdrive and it became harder to breathe.
“What?” I asked, turning to face her.
She’d braided her long pearly hair, the blue streaks standing out in stark contrast that would have made me look sick but on her caused her grey eyes to sparkle.
“I wanted to return something to you,” she said, shuffling awkwardly.
I fought the urge to tap my foot impatiently and finally she tugged something from her pocket and dropped it into my hand.
The second my fingers closed around it, I felt the thrill of magic that ran through it dissipate.
“What the hell is it?” I asked, staring down at the creepy cloth doll. Thin, wispy strands of red hair wrapped around its waist, familiar wispy strands of red hair. My stomach churned uncomfortably and I lifted my gaze to Darcey’s face once more. “Where did you get it?” I asked.
“I take it from the look on your face you already know who made the voodoo doll,” Darcey asked.
“Where did it come from?” I said again, my voice becoming icy.
“Fionn. I found it among his belongings after….” She trailed off and I swallowed hard. I could still remember his screams, but they hadn’t haunted me as much as I’d thought they might and that in itself bothered me a heck of a lot more.
“Fionn?” Confusion raced through me; he was the very last person I’d believed would have a voodoo doll. The Fae weren’t exactly known to dabble in such things, yet I could hear the truth in Darcey’s words.
“I had wondered how he could control you so easily and, well, that,” she said, gesturing to the doll in my hands, “pretty much explains it.”
“I thought he could control me because of what I was….”
Darcey shook her head and smiled. “That might work on someone weak-minded, but you are more than stubborn. I’m just surprised you could fight him off the way you did when he had this in his possession.”
Darcey wasn’t the only one surprised. I shouldn’t have been able to fight him off and evade his control of me, but now that I thought about it, it made sense. His control over me had always been about my body, forcing me to do things against my will. I’d always heard that a true glamour as used by the Fae worked differently; you wanted to do their bidding, you wanted to please them. All I’d ever wanted to do to Fionn was end him in the most painful way I could think of.
“Anyway, I thought you’d appreciate it and a heads up, too; the Faerie Courts are none to pleased with you. In fact, I’d consider them down right pissed, so don’t be surprised if you get summoned…. The Fae do not like to be cheated,” she said, the warning in her voice clear.
I opened my mouth to thank her and Darcey shook her head before turning on her heel and jogging away. In one of the books I’d read when training for the Elite, there had been something about thanking the Fae, but if I was honest, I couldn’t really remember what it had been. Of course, if the Faerie Courts came looking for me to exact retribution for being cheated out of their fun with Fionn, then maybe I would need to do a little more studying of what little Fae lore I had access to.
I didn’t say a word to anyone as I made my way into the office and plopped down in front of my desk. The voodoo doll was still clutched tightly in my grip and Victoria shot me a curious glance.
“What is that?” she asked, leaning over the desk.
“Something I’m going to have to deal with sooner rather than later,” I said, pulling open the drawer and dropping the doll into the dark depths before slamming it shut once more. “Now, please tell me we’ve got a case or something to work on,” I said, meeting Victoria’s curious gaze.
“Or something,” she said, pushing the file across the desk toward me.
“That good, eh?” I asked, brushing my fingers against the brown folder. A jolt of familiarity flooding through me.
Sucking in a deep breath, I jerked my hand away and blew gently across my fingers. It had honestly felt as though the file had shocked me and I knew that wasn’t possible.
Touching it warily, I was relieved to find it just like any other file.
“Possible preternatural kill. Cops were called to a dispute last night and found the woman dead. We don’t have all the details yet, but I was going to swing on by and check it out. I was hoping you’d like to tag along,” Victoria said.
Flipping open the case file, I stared down in shock at a face I recognised.
“Uh, when did you say she died?” I asked.
“Initial reports are putting the time of death at two-thirty a.m., why?” I could feel Victoria’s gaze on me.
“Because her ghost has been haunting me for the last two months.”
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