Bewitching the Dragon

by Jane Kindred

  Dev was able to build the same sort of glamour he’d used to make himself invisible at the prison—the type of misdirection of energy that kept the casual observer from detecting Covent Temple—to allow them to dig up the grave without being bothered in case anyone happened by. He and Ione dug together at first, and then took turns once the hole got too deep for two. Aided by the fact that the ground had been recently disturbed, they were able to reach the empty coffin by late evening.

  Ione had this horrible idea that it wouldn’t be empty, that Matthew’s soulless eyes would be staring up at her when they opened the lid, not desiccated and desecrated, not half-mummified and folded up to fit in a footlocker, but fresh and putrescent. But, of course, it was empty. It could have been no one else in that trunk. She suspected there was something about the body being placed at the murder site that was part of the necromantic ritual. From what they knew, Carter had lured Matthew downstairs on some pretext and strangled him, getting rid of him after using him to kill Carter’s first victim, Barbara Fisher.

  Mercifully, Dev lifted Matthew’s dried-up corpse from the trunk himself and placed it in the coffin. After lighting candles at either end of the grave, they began the ritual to dissolve the unnatural magic keeping Matthew’s shade bound to Carter. On top of the body, they crisscrossed boughs of cypress and juniper followed by a layer of stones as if to ensure the corpse wouldn’t rise as one of the undead.

  Dev spoke the words to sever the bond, ending with, “May your rest be henceforth undisturbed, your soul now your own to wander where you will. So mote it be.”

  “So mote it be,” Ione agreed.

  They worked in silence after that, replacing the dirt on top of Matthew’s coffin and finishing it with the rectangles of sod they’d pried up before they’d begun to dig.

  Belatedly, Ione realized she ought to have let Rafe know they’d discovered his apprentice’s unearthed body. He might have wanted to be there to lay him to rest. Maybe it would be better, though, if he never knew. No sense in digging up all that pain just like Carter’s accomplices had dug up all this dirt. It was done now. Carter was cut off and Matthew was free. Ione felt a sense of lightness and freedom herself. She’d also never been so tired in her life.

  Dev echoed her thoughts. “I suppose we should both get some sleep.”

  “Maybe a shower first.” Ione regarded him with a half smile. “You have dirt on your nose.”

  “Yeah? You’ve got a bit of nose on your dirt.” Dev grinned and flicked the tip of her nose with his knuckle. “Just there. Maybe I could help you get clean.”

  “I suppose it might be more efficient if we showered together.”

  Dev nodded gravely. “I understand it’s quite important to conserve water in the desert.”

  “Yes, indeed. Very important.”

  * * *

  Exhaustion took over, however, as soon as they’d stripped down at the house and climbed into the shower. Ione nearly fell asleep on her feet and ended up just standing in the circle of Dev’s arms for several minutes, reveling in the touch and smell of his skin while the warm water cascaded over them until it began to cool.

  “You awake?” he murmured against her hair.

  Ione nodded reluctantly. “I am as long as I keep standing.”

  “I think we’re running out of hot water. Seems we’re doing a poor job of water conservation, after all.” Dev let go of her and shut off the faucet while Ione stepped out and grabbed a towel. “I wish I weren’t so bloody tired,” he said as he watched her.

  Ione glanced up, mildly amused by the hopeful partial erection that seemed to say otherwise. “Not all of you looks tired.”

  Dev smiled ruefully. “It seems Kur isn’t the only part of me with a mind of its own. But I’m afraid I’d fall asleep if I attempted to indulge it. And then God knows what mischief it might get up to without me.”

  Ione squeezed the water out of her hair and tossed him a towel. “I can’t promise I’ll keep watch on this one all night, but if it’s still here in the morning, I’ll see what I can do.”

  Dev laughed as he rubbed the towel across his chest. “Will you, now? That thought may just keep me up. In more ways than one.”

  In the end, they were both too tired for anything but sleep.

  * * *

  Dev’s kisses on the back of her neck woke her in the morning. It was a wake-up call she could get used to. Ione made appreciative noises as she wriggled back against him, noting as Dev spooned around her that he was once again more awake than she was.

  She smiled to herself. “Nice to see you, too.”

  Dev stroked his hand up and down her thigh, sliding the other arm beneath her and around to the front to cup her breast. “But you can’t see me.” His voice was warm and sensuous. “Because I have you from behind.”

  A shiver went through her and Dev obviously felt it, pressing her closer into him and kissing her shoulder. “And what are you planning on doing with me?”

  Dev’s grip tightened around her and the hand at her hip slid down between her thighs. Ione let out a breathy gasp as one finger prodded her open. He stroked the fingertip in tight circles just inside her until she was moaning and rocking her hips.

  “I thought I’d just keep you in this position,” he murmured against her skin, sending ripples down her spine. “While I have you—repeatedly—from behind.”

  Ione managed to make her vocal cords work. “I have no objection to that plan.”

  He was already opening a condom—apparently he’d been awake longer than she realized—and Ione made a sound that was close to crooning as Dev pressed between her legs and entered her.

  “God, yes.” His voice was gruff as he thrust deeper. “Let me hear you.”

  Ione happily obliged, abandoning all restraint as Dev rocked their bodies together, his quickening, vigorous motions pushing her toward more and more vocalization until she was arching back in his arms and nearly wailing with the force of her orgasm. As her cries tapered off into happy moans and whimpers, Dev dug his fingers into her hips and held her still while he sped up his pace, making noises of his own, grunts and growls of pleasure, until he spilled into her with a shout.

  He turned her head toward him as his body relaxed into her, about to kiss her, when his phone went off on the table behind him. Dev groaned and separated himself from her, rolling over to grope for the device.

  Ione rolled onto her hip, head propped on one hand, watching as he greeted the caller. His expression went from a pleasant smile to a furrowed, worried brow.

  “No, of course it’s fine that you called me. She’s right here.”

  The Conclave again? Why couldn’t they leave her alone? They’d promised to wait for Dev’s report.

  She took the phone when Dev held it out to her, rolling onto her back. “This is Ione.”

  “Ione, it’s Rafe.”

  Ione sat up swiftly, instantly aware that something was wrong. “What’s happened? Is Phoebe okay?”

  Rafe’s answer was several seconds too long in coming. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  Rafe sounded weary. “She took a fall. She was out following a lead on Laurel, and when she didn’t come home for several hours and wasn’t answering her phone, I went out looking for her. Some hikers found her—”

  “Oh, God. No. Please don’t say—”

  “She’s not hurt. Physically. Just a few scrapes and bruises. But they’re saying...” Rafe’s voice trailed off for a moment on an odd hitch, and Ione realized he was fighting tears. That scared her more than anything. “They’re saying she should have regained consciousness hours ago. They don’t know why she hasn’t. They’re saying Phoebe’s...in a coma.”

  Chapter 23

  A moment before, Ione had believed everything was
right with the world. Now she was struggling to get dressed while trying to understand Rafe’s words about her kid sister being “unresponsive to stimuli.”

  As she tried to button her shirt one-handed and got the buttons misaligned, Dev took the phone out of her hand and pressed the speaker button.

  “There’s no medical explanation,” Rafe was saying. “But she was out there to meet Laurel, and I don’t trust that girl any farther than I could throw her. This is necromancy. I feel it. This is Hamilton’s doing.”

  Ione struggled with the buttons. “I don’t understand. I gave her an amulet. You had protective spells surrounding her. How could this happen?”

  “I don’t know.” Rafe’s voice was thick with anger and sorrow. “I don’t understand how he can even have power.”

  “I’ll get Ione over there as quickly as I can,” Dev said when Ione could manage nothing more than a string of obscenities directed at her own hands. “We’ll figure this out.”

  Rafe gave them the room number at Verde Valley Medical Center. “Ione knows where it is.” His voice caught again. “Thank you, Dev.”

  As Dev hung up the phone, Ione stopped fighting with her pants and burst into tears.

  Dev was beside her in an instant, enveloping her in his arms. “It’s going to be all right, sweetheart. I promise. Don’t worry, love.” Terms of endearment tumbled from his lips without hesitation as he held her tight, words he hadn’t said to her before, and in the midst of her grief and worry, Ione realized that Dev loved her. But she had to put the fear and wonder of that realization on hold for now. If Phoebe was lost, nothing would matter.

  When Ione couldn’t stop crying long enough to finish dressing, Dev did it for her, buttoning her pants—he would have laughed at that word, she thought idly; “pants” to him meant underpants—and rebuttoning her shirt that she’d gotten wrong twice. Dev wiped at her eyes with a tissue, handing it to her while he gathered up her hair behind her head. She’d slept on it wet, without adding any product to weigh it down, and it was wild with tight, frizzy curls. No one ever saw her like this. Crying or otherwise.

  Dev glanced around, holding her hair in his fist. “Where are your hair ties, love?”

  She pointed to the dish on her dresser, dabbing her eyes as she began to get herself under control, and Dev retrieved one to tie back her hair. “I must look a mess. I usually straighten it—”

  “You look beautiful. I can’t fathom how you don’t know that.” Dev kissed her damp cheek.

  * * *

  He was respectfully silent as he drove her to the hospital, reaching over at stoplights to take her hand and give it a squeeze of encouragement. Ione felt numb, like the world was crumbling away beneath her feet and there was nothing she could do about it. She remembered this feeling from the drive home from California after getting the call that her parents were dead. But Phoebe wasn’t dead. Please, God. Don’t let Phoebe be dead.

  When they entered Phoebe’s room, Rafe sat by the bed, draped over Phoebe’s body as if he might be asleep. Her sister looked like a stranger, stitches and bandages obscuring her features and a feeding tube taped to her nose like she was a lifeless object.

  “Oh, Phoebes.”

  Rafe lifted his head at Ione’s voice. “Ione. Thank you for coming so quickly. The girls are on their way.”

  Ione hugged him as he stood halfway to meet her. “I’m so sorry I missed your calls.” She’d plugged the phone into the charger in Dev’s car on the way and discovered Rafe’s voice mails as he’d become increasingly worried at Phoebe’s absence the night before. “I can’t seem to get used to charging a cell phone.”

  Dev hovered a few feet behind her, studying Phoebe with a frown. “Where did they find her? Do they know what happened?”

  Rafe rose to offer the seat to Ione. “Near Devil’s Bridge. She’d fallen from a ridge on the hiking trail, but it wasn’t much of a height. There’s no sign of a head injury except for the shallow lacerations.” For a horrible moment, Ione had pictured Phoebe falling from the precarious rock bridge itself.

  She took Phoebe’s hand from the blanket as she sat, flinching at the cool, unresponsive touch. “What was she doing at Devil’s Bridge?”

  “Following Laurel. She called me from her car to say she’d tailed Laurel to Sedona from Florence after getting a tip that the girl was there visiting Hamilton again. I think Laurel must have known Phoebe was on her tail and led her out there to get her alone. I don’t know what she did, whether she pushed Phoebe or something else—but I know there was necromancy involved.” Rafe’s voice shook. “I’ve seen Phoebe’s shade.”

  Ione’s skin went cold. “Her shade? But she’s not...” She couldn’t even say the word out loud.

  “That’s why I’m certain this is magical foul play.” Rafe’s hands were clenched at his sides and he seemed to notice his agitation, uncurling his fists to tuck his hands into his pockets. “Someone is using necromancy to try to control Phoebe’s shade while she’s unconscious, to draw it out of her.”

  “Draw it out of her.” Ione swallowed, tasting bile in her throat. “To kill her, you mean.”

  “Soul murder,” said Dev. His eyes were apologetic as Ione looked up at him. “If one separates the spirit of a living person from the body, the shade created cannot cross over because the body cannot die.”

  Ione clutched Phoebe’s hand as if she could keep her shade inside her by sheer will. “Something else you learned from Simon?” Somehow she managed to sound casual, though inside her head she was screaming.

  Dev regarded her. “No, not from Simon. From my studies. Simon never used magic against anyone. At least not anyone human.”

  “Simon?” Rafe glanced between the two of them.

  “Dev’s mentor,” said Ione. “The man who bound him to Kur. Nice, huh?” She heard the nasty bite in her voice, as though this was somehow Dev’s fault. But the rational part of her had simply stepped aside to watch her fall apart. Perhaps she was losing her own soul.

  Dev’s brows drew together, but he didn’t take the bait.

  Rafe rescued Ione from herself. “Hamilton is obviously behind this. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

  Ione couldn’t disagree with the sentiment, but the timing of events was troubling. “We took away the source of his power.”

  Rafe nodded and shrugged. “Yes, I burned the bone relics he’d collected and released the shades he’d bound with them, but he’s obviously enlisted Laurel to get him access to another. Isn’t that why you had Phoebe following her?”

  Ione felt the accusation in it, though Rafe hadn’t said it with blame. Tears stung behind her eyes and she couldn’t trust herself to speak.

  “She meant the one we found yesterday,” said Dev.

  Rafe blinked. “The one...what?”

  “We discovered a corpse in the basement of the temple. It seems Hamilton had unearthed it and was controlling the soul through its desecration. I believe the method he was using would have given the shade greater power to interact with the living while doing his bidding. It managed to communicate with a very lovely girl in Ione’s coven who now believes she’s an evocator.” Dev glanced at Ione. “I didn’t mention it when we interviewed her yesterday but I’m quite certain she’s not. She would have encountered shades before now if that were the case.”

  It had certainly been true of Phoebe. Ione’s heart twisted like a wet dishrag at the memory of all the times she’d criticized and belittled her kid sister for her remarkable skill instead of supporting her. Please let me have a chance to make it up to her.

  Rafe ran his fingers through his unruly curls; they’d both foregone their product today. “Wait a minute. Slow down. Can we go back to the part where you found a corpse in the temple basement?”

  “We laid it to rest,” said Dev. “There were no missing extremities t
hat he could have used to make a bone fetish. Hamilton shouldn’t be able to maintain his control over it.”

  Ione glanced at Dev. “But I think we must have been wrong about that.” She looked up at Rafe. “I think Rafe would have seen him if he was free.”

  Rafe paused with his hand at his nape. “Seen whom?”

  “Matthew.”

  His hand dropped to his side and his face went white. “Matthew? But he—Hamilton never—he used the shades under his control to keep Matthew from making contact with Phoebe but he never controlled Matthew himself. He couldn’t, not without bone. And like you said, Matthew’s body was whole when they buried him.”

  “It seems,” said Dev, “that Hamilton has upped his game. He’s using more sophisticated necromancy. Perhaps he thought it would be impossible to get access to bones from behind bars so he devised another method.”

  “But why hasn’t Rafe seen Matthew’s shade if we freed him?” Ione insisted.

  Dev scratched the stubble at his chin. “Something other than the corpse must be keeping his soul tied to Hamilton. And I’d be willing to bet that whatever method he’s using is connected to what he’s doing to Phoebe. If we can figure out what his hold is on one, we may be able to break his hold on the other.”

  Ione glanced at her sister, lying in the bed beside her like a stranger, someone she’d never seen before. A strand of hair was stuck to one cheek and Ione brushed it aside and stroked Phoebe’s hair absently.

  “Then we need to find out.” She paused with Phoebe’s hair clutched between her fingers. “Rafe, can I borrow your knife?”

  “My knife?” Rafe unhooked the knife from the sheath on his belt. “What are you going to do?”

  “I think Carter Hamilton is due another visit from his lawyer.”

  Chapter 24