Was Lenore a Raven witch?
If so, why would members of her own House bespell her? Or had other wizards done the deed, and if so, why? It always boiled down to why. Figure out the why, and everything else would fall into place. But right now, he didn’t know if Lenore was one of the good guys. He’d learned a valuable lesson about trusting appearances. Sometimes, what was visible was a carefully constructed lie that gleamed like truth.
He stared at the blade, his thoughts whirling. What did she know that was so important her voice had to be taken? Why not just kill her and ensure permanent silence? Or maybe that was what they—whoever they were—had been trying to do.
The back of his neck was tingling again.
“What is that?” asked Ant as he crouched next to Taylor.
“Some kind of ritual dagger. She was holding it when I found her.”
Gray knelt across from them and examined the blade. “Raven,” he muttered. “Not too subtle.” He pointed at the hilt. “See that symbol under the raven? It’s the sign of rank in the House of Ravens.”
“So either someone high up in the Raven ranks was here,” offered Taylor, “or someone was ballsy enough to steal it to use here.”
“Sooooo…the Ravens were trying to sacrifice her?” asked Ant. “Why did she—or whoever—send a raven for help? I mean, isn’t it weird that she can wield the symbol of their House?”
“We don’t know anything yet,” said Taylor. “The only person who knows what went on here is unconscious.”
“And mute,” added Ant.
“We don’t really know that, either,” said Taylor. “Where are the signs of struggle? Or pursuit? Something about this situation is all wrong. If she came all this way by herself, then that means she crawled up on that altar and cut herself.”
“I don’t buy that,” said Ant.
“Me, either,” said Taylor. “She was terrified.”
“So, she’s connected to the Ravens,” said Gray.
“If by connected, you mean imprisoned,” said Ant.
“That’s a leap.” Taylor cocked an eyebrow at his brother. “Unless you’ve been talking to trees again?”
“As a matter of fact, I heard the stones whispering.”
Both Gray and Taylor gave Ant startled looks.
“You can talk to rocks?” asked Taylor.
“I don’t know. But I can hear them. It’s as if…well, as if they’re alive.”
Taylor glanced at Gray’s expression. Even the guy who could turn into a dragon seemed daunted by Ant’s abilities. “I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but maybe you could go ask ’em a few questions?”
“See if they know the girl, who else might’ve been here, and confirm if we’ve got any lurkers to worry about.”
“That’s a start,” said Taylor.
“I’ll try the one with the wolf symbol,” said Ant. “Kindred magic an’ all.” He stood up and walked toward the right of the enclosure.
Taylor looked at Gray. “Can you hear them?”
“No. But I can feel the pulse of ancient magic. And I feel the recent presence of other magicals, but the imprints are too faint to get a real read.”
“Perfect,” muttered Taylor. He’d brought his gun but not his weapons belt. Without access to his gear, he couldn’t secure the dagger. “You got any spells that will seal the blade?”
“Yes. And I’ll transport it to your office.” Gray stood up, too, and started working the spells needed to protect the dagger—and whatever evidence clinging to it. Taylor got to his own feet and did another perimeter search. When he reached Ant, his brother stepped back and shook his head in puzzlement.
“We’re talking two different languages.”
“Maybe they got a Rosetta stone program for speaking rock,” said Taylor with a small grin.
“Har, har, bro.” Ant shook his head. “We might not be able to connect enough to really communicate, but I understand one thing. They’re Guardians.” He looked at Gray. “I think this is the Goddess fountain, Gray.”
“The Goddess fountain is all of Nevermore,” said Gray. “That much we’ve figured out. At least, the powerful magic is sealed within the town’s borders as far as we can tell. Ember and I have been looking for its access point, but…no wonder we couldn’t find it.”
“Well, how the hell did the Ravens find it?” asked Taylor. “And how did they know about the Goddess fountain?”
“Maybe they don’t,” offered Gray. “Maybe they just knew about the nemeton. They used to be all over the place in ancient times. Magicals used them to gather and strengthen their magic for rituals.”
“Or for war,” said Ant. “So they bring a girl here to be sacrificed—why?”
“Too many damned questions and not enough answers,” groused Taylor. “How do we find out if this is the Goddess fountain doorway, or whatever?”
Ant reached out and put a hand on the rock in front of him. Seconds ticked by, but Ant pulled back, shaking his head. “I can’t get a straight answer. They keep sorta muttering ‘stars’—I think.”
“Nice of Ol’ Joe to tell me about this place,” said Taylor. Not even the Guardian of Nevermore had known about the nemeton. Taylor rubbed a hand across his hair. “Why didn’t the previous Guardians leave some damned instructions?”
Ant rubbed the stone, almost as if smoothing it. “Well, whatever the Ravens—or whoever—were doing here, it was bad juju.” He grimaced. “They seem to be…waiting.”
Taylor felt his gut clench. He’d had the same kind of feeling, and he wasn’t even a magical. He didn’t want to be one, either. Look at the kinds of things you got sucked into. “For what?”
“I don’t know,” said Ant. His eyes filled with worry. “But whatever it is, it’s certainly not good.”
* * *
Trent Whitefeather pulled his motorcycle onto the paved road that led to the Elysian Fields Cemetery and cut the engine. It was barely six a.m., but he hadn’t been able to sleep. Being at the apartment felt too strange. His uncle hadn’t been an easy man, but he’d loved Trent in his way. The idea that the old man would just take his own life—just fucking kill himself—well, it was unbelievable.
After Sheriff Mooreland had broken the news, he’d gotten a pass to leave school. He went to his uncle’s office with its mess and its stench, and he wept like a little kid. He couldn’t bear to go into the archives where his uncle had been found. It didn’t matter, anyway. Taylor had told him not to go in there because that area was a crime scene. Was suicide a crime? He wondered. It wasn’t as if anyone could be convicted of it. There was no justice, no answer to the question why, when someone took his life. Damn it all. Atwood murdered himself. It was crime and punishment all in one terrible act.
Trent wasn’t done with grief—not by a long shot. His unc’s death had also refreshed the loss of his parents. His whole family was gone. For a moment, the loneliness cut at him like a blade, but he pushed it away; he pushed it back. He wasn’t a quitter. He had friends. A life. Goals. He’d continue on, head down, teeth gritted, heartsick, because he wasn’t a gods-be-damned quitter.
Not like you, Uncle Atwood. Bastard.
Trent stared up at the huge wrought-iron gates. They were always open because Mordi said the dead didn’t have regular business hours. Mordecai “Mordi” Elizabeth Jones was the undertaker of Nevermore’s only cemetery. She’d told him that every first child in the Jones family was named Mordecai, boy or girl, because that was the tradition—as was training that first child to take over the family business. A Jones had been in charge of Elysian Fields since the day Nevermore became a town. Mordi was proud of her heritage, and to his mind, the best undertaker there ever was. He was a necromancer, so he’d know.
He got off the bike, put it in neutral, and walked it forward. Just a few feet down the road there was a small whitewashed cottage. The porch and shutters were painted a sky blue, and wind chimes shaped like stars dangled from the entryway. In the sharp October wind, they jangled wild
ly. The postage-stamp-sized front yard was well tended, and a concrete path led from the drive to the porch steps. On the far side of the yard was a gazebo with a big white swing. All kinds of plants and trees thrived, even in October. That was part of the mystery—and the charm—of Nevermore.
He parked the motorcycle and trudged up to the porch. He stared at the screen door, wanting to knock on it—and wanting to run away, all at the same time. He liked Mordi. Well, it was more than that. He was drawn to her. They were only a couple years apart; he was eighteen, and she was twenty. But she always seemed so much older, more sophisticated, more worldly. He wasn’t a wuss. He’d done his fair share of dating girls. That was the problem. Mordi wasn’t a girl. She was a woman.
His palms started to sweat.
Fuck it.
He turned on his booted heel, ready to leap off the porch and get the hell away. Then he heard the front door snick, and the outer screen door whispered open.
“Trent.”
Her voice flowed over him with sweetness and sympathy, and he felt the backs of his eyes ache. She knew. Damn it. She always knew. She wasn’t a magical, but she had this kinship with the dying and the dead.
And the grief-stricken.
He turned back, wound so tightly, he was afraid to speak, to move. He was scared. On top of everything else, at this moment, fear slashed at him like shards of ice.
Goddess, she was beautiful. She was slim, nearly as tall as his own six-foot frame. She wore a pale pink nightdress that swirled at her ankles. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted lavender. She liked Easter egg colors, the soft palette of pinks, purples, yellows, greens. He’d noticed that about her, just as he’d noticed a million other things.
Mordi’s auburn hair fell around her shoulders in thick waves. He blinked. He’d never seen her with her hair down like that. She always wore it in a French braid or neatly pinned up. Her gray gaze was on his face, her smile slight but welcoming. She seemed to emit peace and calm, and he suddenly felt angry. He wasn’t one of her wimp-assed clients. He hadn’t come here to be…consoled, to be treated like a fragile soul who’d lost his whole world.
She seemed to recognize his anger. That she’d somehow pegged him so easily made him madder still. Confusion ribboned through his fury, through his anguish. He wasn’t special, not to her.
He whipped around, feeling as if he were burning from the inside out. He needed to get away. He needed to get somewhere dark and quiet and alone—somewhere he could scream and weep and punch stuff.
But even as his foot came down on the first step, Mordi glided across the porch and grasped his hand.
Just like that, she’d trapped him. Her solace covered him like a fuzzy blanket, and he choked on the grief barbing his throat.
She didn’t make him turn around again. No, she came around instead and faced him, her gray gaze luminous.
“Don’t,” he managed in a hoarse voice. He couldn’t imagine what he was asking her not to do, but there was something in her eyes, something that flitted like a ghost across her face. She wasn’t just some ghoul who ran the cemetery. She was its keeper. The watcher. The very bridge between the living and the dead. And still, he didn’t want her to treat him like all the others she’d helped.
She kept her hand in his, then lifted her other hand to his face. Then she drew him down toward her and brushed her mouth over his.
His heart stuttered, and his breathing hitched, and the fucking tears spilled.
“I’m sorry about your uncle,” she said. She kissed each corner of his mouth, tasting the wet trails that bracketed his lips. “I’m sorry you’re in pain.”
“You can’t help me.” He tried to pull back, but she stayed him easily by looping his wrists with her fingers. “I don’t want you to…do this.” He sucked in an unsteady breath, trying to get back some of his dignity. “I don’t want a pity fuck.”
“I don’t pity you,” she said. “What do you need, Trent? Do you need to get back on your bike and ride away? Or do you need to come inside with me?”
“I need…” He looked at her then, really looked at her, and saw the tenderness, the patience. “I need you, Elizabeth.”
She smiled. “All right.”
He hesitated. “It’s not…You don’t…” How did he ask if this was something she did for others? He felt petty and mean for even thinking it, but he couldn’t help it. The world was one big bastard to him right now. Trust wasn’t an easy thing for him on the best of days—with the best of people.
“Only you,” she reassured him. She let him go then and walked to the screen door. She kept her gaze on his, waiting.
Suddenly, being alone with his grief and his doubts didn’t seem the way to go. She was there, soft and warm and willing, and so he followed her inside.
Chapter 3
The Grand Court in Washington, D.C.
Chamber of the House of Dragons
Cullen Deshane shuffled down the massive, elegantly appointed hall, eyes forward, head held high, and shoulders back. Wizards and witches ceased their conversations to stare at him; in the sudden, awkward silence echoed the metallic ring of his ankle shackles scraping the polished marble floor.
Cullen kept his gaze on the white-robed back of the lictor in front of him, watching how the fabric crinkled as he marched forward. He felt the hulking presence of the other lictor behind him, and he had the unsettling sensation that an oak tree was about to fall upon him. It wasn’t that he was a small man himself; he was six feet five and well muscled. But he was cautious. Fighting wasn’t always the way, even though he was good at it.
Whispers rose and fell like crashing waves. His audience hissed and muttered—some voices hard with judgment and others soft with pity.
He couldn’t blame them, not really. He was, after all, the incarcerated black-sheep son of Leopold Deshane.
For the thirty years his father had been a veteran Consul in the House of Ravens, he’d been lauded for his political policies and for his charitable work. Each House had only three Consuls—positions at the top of magical political structure, both in-house and in the Grand Court. His father had been a very powerful, and in some circles, a very feared man.
Now dear old dad was facing jail time—if they could find him. Leopold had disappeared, and no one had been able to track him down.
Cullen had laughed at the irony. He’d known his father was a hypocritical prick—he’d fooled the world into believing he was some sort of philanthropic Goody Two-shoes. Cullen had long been seen as a thorn in his side, as the widower supposedly tried everything to manage his unruly son. So no one had seemed too surprised when Cullen had been accused of—and convicted of—burning down the Raven’s Heart orphanage. Children had died in the blaze that decimated the building and everything in it. Goddess! It made him sick to his guts to know others believed he was such a conscienceless bastard.
What no one had known was that Leopold had set him up, his own fucking son, and made sure he’d ended up in prison.
Then eight months ago, a banned Raven wizard named Bernard Franco had disappeared. Despite efforts of his friends and family, he’d never been found, but one thing had become clear: He’d been murdered.
A natural death would not have enacted Bernard’s little protection scheme: truth spells. Franco had been the keeper of many secrets and had worked a powerful magic to ensure no one would ever try to kill him. It appeared someone had either not known or not cared about the spells that would expose those secrets. The lifelong transgressions of many Ravens, and even the corrupt practices of the House of Ravens itself, all those terrible truths Franco had been safeguarding, were magically sent to the appropriate authorities upon his death.
Word had spread through the magical community and had even reached the ears of those sitting in prison. Whispers about Bernard’s death had turned into shouts of outrage. Franco had been careful and thorough, backing up accusations with solid evidence.
Leopold Deshane had been the biggest offender.
Collusion with demons, circumventing magical law, and willful endangerment of children were among many of the charges levied against his father. Thanks to the discovery of Leopold’s many and varied illegal activities, Cullen had actually gained some sympathy among the ranks. Maybe that explained why Dragon Consul Letitia Calhoun had pulled strings for this visit to the Grand Court.
What Cullen had never figured out was why his old man hadn’t just killed him already. Leo was perfectly capable of being ruthless, even against his own family members. As soon as he figured out that Cullen wasn’t going to be a ruthless, soulless asshole—when he was around fourteen and had actually punched his father in his bloated face—the “accidents” began to occur. He wasn’t sure when his father grew bored with his attempts to take out his son—and Cullen damned sure never figured out why he managed to survive the falls, the car accidents, the fights with unknown bullies on the streets. He always bounced back, or just bounced away. His best friend, Laurent, liked to say that Cullen was the luckiest bastard he knew.
Then Leo just made damned sure Cullen’s life was ruined, shattered beyond repair. And sometimes, some days, that was fucking worse than death.
Cullen and his guards reached the imposing double doors that led into Consul Calhoun’s office, and a tall, well-built gentleman stepped smoothly in front of them. Like the escorts, he wore a traditional white robe, and a blank expression. Cullen’s gaze dropped to the upper-right corner of the robe, where the gold-stitched dragon was bisected with a fasces. The ancient Roman weapon of bundled sticks with an ax sticking out of the middle was still the symbol of the bodyguards of the Consul.
“Welcome to the office of Dragon Consul Calhoun,” he said in a polite voice. “Please wait here while I inform the Consul of your arrival.”
Cullen looked him square in the eye. “Thank you.”
He inclined his head, his expression as smooth as glass. Then he opened one door and slipped through it. A moment later, both doors swung open, revealing the imposing figure of Leticia Calhoun.
Now or Never: Wizards of Nevermore Page 6
