They all followed me toward the guesthouse. It sat fifty yards to the north of the cabin, right on the lake. It was picturesque.
Ray strode up next to me. “I’m going to settle myself on the roof. Just in case.” His voice was calm, but he was on edge. We were all on edge. This was a Hag we were dealing with, someone with an insane amount of power.
It didn’t matter how much I felt like I knew Juanita. It was clear I’d never really known her. But I was happy to get a chance to ask her the questions I needed answers to—which was basically everything.
The little house was shuttered. We couldn’t see in. There was only one door, and it was situated on the side facing us. I walked up and tentatively touched the round handle. It was clear.
“Okay,” I said, “this is it. It’s either Juanita or Enid inside. We either gain an advantage or we fight.” I glanced around. “Everyone ready?”
They all nodded. I knew they would defend me to the death and it was humbling.
“Spread out,” Rourke ordered as I turned the knob. “I want every inch of this cabin surrounded.”
I put my other hand on my mate’s chest one last time. “This is going to be fine,” I murmured. “I’m not getting any strange vibes or a warning of any kind. My wolf is on board and anxious to get this over with. Rourke, we need this information, as much as we can get. Tally is still missing and things are happening in Europe.”
“I know,” he growled, “but I don’t like it. I’ll never get used to you walking into an unknown risk.”
“It’s a calculated risk,” I reminded him. “I have to believe that one of us would feel if something was off. There are eight of us here, all strong, powerful supernaturals. This is going to be fine.”
He nodded, leaning down to kiss me. It was a fierce, protective kiss that seared my insides. “I’ll be right outside,” he whispered into my ear. “Call out to me if you need me. And like I said, I want an internal message signaling you’re okay every five minutes. If I don’t get one, I’m coming in. I don’t care what she says.”
“Fine by me.” To my wolf I said, Are you ready for this? She barked once firmly, bringing her muzzle down in a let’s get this over with gesture.
The door opened freely. I gave Rourke one last kiss and slipped inside, shutting it behind me.
“Oh, Chica, I’m so happy to see you!”
28
“Wait a minute.” I stopped in my tracks. This was not the guesthouse. “How did I get here?” I looked around me, bewildered. I’d just walked into Juanita’s apartment. The one that sat across from my own back home. It was the same layout as mine, except her furnishings were bright and cheerful, yellow tables, red accents, and green throw pillows. It even smelled like her cooking. How could that be?
Juanita shot up from her seat at the kitchen table and came to greet me.
As she clacked toward me in her four-inch heels, she appeared exactly how I remembered her. She wasn’t more than five feet four inches tall—in her heels. Her hair was perfectly done, as always, her nails painted the same bright red. She wore a pink sleeveless top and red skinny jeans. “I don’t want you to worry, Chica,” she said in her heavily accented Latina accent, “but I had no choice. Your family will break in soon, but they will find you peacefully sleeping on the sofa. Once they do, we will have limited time.” She embraced me in a big bear hug and then gestured to the kitchen. “Come, sit down.”
“How are you doing this?” I asked as I followed her to the kitchen table. It felt completely real, right down to the garlic bread smell lingering in the air.
“We are meeting inside your mind right now, but I assure you, this es very real. I could not risk coming to you, but you are safe, as es your familia.” She tugged me gently to a chair and I sat. “But we must hurry. There es not much time. I am taking a great risk by bringing you here, but we must speak.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. There was so much I wanted to ask, so many things I needed to know. I settled on the most important thing running through my mind at the moment. “Is Rourke going to think I’m dead? Please say no. I can’t fool him like that again. He’s already been through too much and we’ve only been mated a short time. I don’t want him to panic.”
She shook her head and reached out to grab my hand. Electricity shot up my arm as she held it, patting it on top with her other hand. “No, your vital signs are functioning normally. You are breathing peacefully. The witch should guess what es happening, but I cannot lie, your mate will have a problem with this. It cannot be helped. And just for you, I will make my spell tangible.” She flicked her wrist. “You see, all es well. Now the witch will know exactly what has happened.”
I didn’t know where to start. “Juanita, how can… it be you? I never suspected anything. You don’t have a power signature and you smell like a human. How is any of this possible?”
“Of course I smell like a human.” She chortled, her sweet, high voice pinging the air. “I was reborn as a human fifty-four years ago for a specific reason. If I let my power signature show here, it would be like announcing to the world this es where I am.” She tossed out her hands, letting go of me, to simulate an explosion. “And that wouldn’t do me much good protecting you, now, would it, Chica?”
“So you kept yourself cloaked the entire time you lived here?”
“Sí,” she said. “I have been—how you say—undercover for a very long time. Since you were a bambina.”
I shook my head in wonder. “I don’t know where to start. There is so much I want to know.”
“You may ask me, but I warn you, I cannot tell you very much.” She shook her head gravely. “It would place you at too much risk. I have brought you here only to tell you a few precious things.” She put together two of her fingers about an inch apart to indicate how little she could tell me. “But I also wanted to see you once again with my very own eyes.” She brought a hand to my face and touched me, genuine happiness in her smile. “I have missed you, Chica. I had not known when I made the decision to advocate for you that I would find so much… affection for you. I have become attached. This, of course, has made it very hard for me to stay impartial. But what’s done es done.” She waved a hand dismissively and got up from the table. “I will bring us some tea and then we will chat.”
She busied herself in the kitchen and I sent a silent plea to Rourke to let him know I was okay. You’re going to find me out cold, but I’m okay. I’ll be back soon. I promise.
“He will be all right,” Juanita said, interrupting my thoughts. “He es a fierce protector for you. One of the finest warriors we have. You are one lucky woman.” She turned, waggling her eyebrows in the old Juanita way. “I sent him to you early.” She swished a hand over her head to indicate it was nothing as she continued to make tea. “It had to happen this way or I think you would not have survived. So many things to think about, all the time. They always occupy my mind.”
My eyebrows shot up. “You sent Rourke to me—early?”
“Sí,” she answered as she brought two steaming cups of tea to the table. “He was your fated mate, of course, but you were not supposed to find each other for quite some time. The future—it es always murky.” She sat down, scooting her chair closer to mine. “So I made the choice to bring you both together, because without him, I fear, you would not have made it this far. So much trouble in your short life, Chica. Es hard to be your guardian. You have made it very tricky for me.”
“You’ve been my guardian since birth? Like a guardian angel?”
She laughed, and again it was a lyrical, lovely sound, full of joy. I smiled along with her, realizing I’d missed her. I guess without knowing it, over the years I’d grown fond of her too. “You can look at it like that, I suppose, but really, it has been my pleasure to watch over you. You are the center of things in our world, for a reason. You are a changer. I chose to be reborn at the right time to make sure you survived and I take my job very seriously.” She smiled wide, like I shou
ldn’t be so surprised to find I had a guardian angel living next door to me for all these years.
“Jeb called me a catalyst,” I said, “but he said my birth was late.”
She nodded. “Sí, Jebediah Amel is correct, and you must learn to trust him, even though he can be a bit… prickly at times.” She chortled at her own joke, which was referring to his spiky hair. Abruptly her face turned serious. “He will not lead you astray and you will learn much from him. Fate has been unstable for too long, Chica. When Lilith killed my sister and Ardat Lili took her seat on the Coalition, the damage they caused was grave. Only someone with a great magnitude of power could have derailed Fate’s true path so effectively. Lilith was one of only a handful of supernaturals with the kind of power to do what she did, and she knew what she was doing—relished in it. Because of that, we are still reeling from it. My sister Enid and I miss our third sister, Bianca, very much. But when Fate gave us the sight, right after she was killed, Enid and I interpreted the signs differently. It was the first time that had ever happened. We have disagreed about it for centuries. This es why we are sitting here at this table.” She rapped her knuckles on the wood. “I believe you are the key to fixing everything that went wrong, and Enid believed that Lili was. And now that she es dead, without giving birth to our sister, Enid believes your death es the only option to give us a fresh start. But that es not the truth, and to prove it we must get down to the business of solving it before Enid can end your life.”
My mind spun. “And how do we do that? How do we put things back on track?” I hoped she had an easy checklist that I could follow to the letter, and once completed, everything would miraculously go back to normal.
I somehow knew that wouldn’t be the case.
“Before I go into that, I must be completely honest with you, Chica. Everything on the table.” She rapped again on the painted wood to emphasize her point. “Enid’s way es the only way that es guaranteed to work. My way es trickier, and all of the things must happen in the right order, but if they do, we have a chance.” Her face was grave. “We will not take Enid’s path if we can help it.”
She was talking about my death. “If I die, you’re certain Fate will set itself to rights?”
“Sí,” she answered. “If you die, it will trigger the birth of a new catalyst, and this time the rebirth would be my sister.” She bowed her head. “Enid and I both saw it the night you ended Ardat Lili’s life. That es why Enid has acted so quickly. She es desperate to have Bianca back, but I know there es another way. We saw it the night Lilith took Bianca’s life.”
“Jeb said it would be very bad if I died,” I said.
“Oh, sí, it would be much worse in our world before it got better, which es why I don’t agree with Enid. I am anxious to greet my sister Bianca once again, but we will get there another way.” Juanita grinned as she picked up her mug and took a sip. “Enid thinks this es an acceptable loss in the short term, but I do not. My sister and I can both read the signs, but there es still quite a bit of mystery involved, you see? If we could control Fate, then we would be Fate. That es something my sister Enid cannot comprehend. Her grief es too great and she cannot think clearly any longer.”
“What do I have to do to get Fate back on track?” I asked. I really didn’t want to die if I could help it. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”
Juanita crossed her legs and grasped my hands again. “In the end, you will have to sacrifice something precious to you,” she began, “but I cannot tell you what. I also cannot tell you anything specific about your journey, except that it will happen very soon. If I give away too much, it will influence your choices and that es a no-no.” She wagged a single finger at me. “Moving forward, I must implore you to make all the decisions with your heart, even if they seem… hard to do. Just like turning the car around to help the necromancer. That was a choice you made with this.” She gestured to my heart. “Without doing that, we would not have been able to be here right now, and you would not be on the right track.”
Sacrificing didn’t sound ideal, but it was better than dying. My brain instantly jumping to my mate. I couldn’t give him up. I prayed it wasn’t him. “I’m willing to do what is necessary.” I didn’t say any more. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
“Don’t worry. This es something you can handle, Chica. I swear to it or I wouldn’t be here. Inside of you, deep inside”—she motioned to my chest—“there es knowledge. Your wolf will help guide you. Now that she es whole for the first time, you are both complete. This es the place where you need to be. It was necessary for that to happen first, before we could move forward. In time, you will learn more. But you must always try to listen to your wolf on matters of the supernatural.”
“Did you orchestrate my entire encounter with Marinette, then?”
“Sí, all of it was necessary, including taking the plane down where I did. But as much as I am able to lead you—to direct you toward something—we are forbidden to manipulate it once it es set in motion. The outcomes must be organic. But I did cheat a teensy bit with Marinette by giving information to the witch.” She winked. “But it was necessary or you would’ve died. Meeting your creator was—how do you say—a tricky result? Many outcomes could have erupted from that. We were lucky it came out as it did in our favor. But that es a testament to you. You are tenacious, as I knew you would be. Marinette was a powerful goddess in her day, and she was indeed responsible for the creation of shifters, but her life ended for a reason—one that she was never able to fully grasp. Even if she had successfully inhabited you and taken over your body, she was no longer capable of being powerful. Her only reason for continuing to exist was to pass on to you and your wolf what was rightfully yours—the other half of her soul.”
“You had to have set all this up a long time ago. The fracture pack coming down here months ago, my father following, the leader of the resistance pack meeting the priestess. All of it.”
She shrugged. “Some, and some I did not have anything to do with. Your birth triggered a path, and up until Lili, everything had stayed mostly on track. You had some ups and downs, but I did not need to interfere overly much. I knew it would be a hard road for you, and I was very sad about that, Chica, but I didn’t have to prod you much to stay on course.”
“What about the cemetery? How did we survive that?” I asked. “I tried to change the game by jumping on top of the mausoleum, but I hadn’t expected it to be that easy in the end.” If chopping off wendigo heads was considered easy.
“Enid made some grave mistakes”—she chuckled—“but you were shrewd, as I knew you would be.” Her face beamed with pride. “Your choice to stop running for nothing more than a brief second”—she snapped her fingers—“changed that outcome. You were right to stop. You listened to what your heart told you, even when your mind felt it was wrong. But Enid was greedy, and her true undoing was Kayla. She did not factor in the young girl’s stamina—or lack thereof. She chose the best necromancer in the country, but not the most experienced. That, coupled with your move, and you became the victor.”
Juanita flickered in front of me and the table began to fade.
She kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her. “No, wait!” I cried, feeling frantic, grabbing at the table. “We can’t be done yet! There’s so much more I need to ask you. What about Tally? Is she safe? What about my father and Danny and Naomi?”
Juanita’s visage cleared for a moment, but I knew we were out of time. “The great witch es safe but needs your help,” Juanita murmured. “Your path will become clear to you soon. Remember, you must do what needs to be done, no matter how difficult.”
“Are we going to meet again?” I asked quickly as the room around me dimmed and I heard a desperate roar.
Rourke was angry. I’m coming soon, I told him.
“No, Chica. Once you leave here, I must not interfere again. It’s the way it must be.” I could barely see her, but she reached for my hand again and stroked it. “You will be protec
ted this night. Have no fear when you return. But when the dawn comes, you must make a critical decision and leave with all haste. Enid looks for you even now.”
“No, please, tell me what to do. What is the decision? I don’t want to screw this up!” I was bordering on manic, my hands scrabbling to hold on to her, but I couldn’t feel her in the physical sense any longer. “Juanita, give me something more than that. Help guide my next move. My mind feels divided. I want to go home and be with my Pack, close to my father. I want to help Tally. But my heart is telling me to do something else, to go help Kayla. To find her brother.”
The entire room took on a hazy white glow and I began to float backward toward the door against my will.
Juanita stood, her ceramic mug in her hands. She waved and blew me a kiss. “I will miss you, Chica. And I will grant your last wish. Find her brother, the one called Ajax. Do that and you are on your way to fulfilling your destiny.”
I blinked my eyes open.
29
“Hiya,” Marcy said, glancing down on me. My head was cradled in her lap. “Was it fun? I’ve heard of astral spells, but I’ve never known a witch who could successfully perform one. Did it feel like you were really there? Or was it all blinky and weird?”
I lifted my head and glanced around the room. “Where’s Rourke?” I needed to know that before I could answer her questions.
She paused, and then gave a dramatic sigh, looking resigned. “The boys had to escort him… outside. He was destroying too much stuff in here, so we all thought it might be better for him to take a tiny”—she inhaled—“time-out.”
I glanced around. The cabin was a wreck. Cushions were shredded, lamps overturned, walls punched in. “How’d they get him out there?” I asked, sitting up. That must have been a feat.
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