Promises to Keep dos-9

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  If the shapeshifter was an escaped slave, then anyone harboring or helping her had violated vampiric law and forfeited any freeblood privilege. If Xeke learned who she was, he and anyone allied with him could be claimed as payment unless Xeke turned the slave in. More important—to Jay, anyway—was the fact that since Jay was the one who had found her and taken her to SingleEarth, Midnight might decide he had stolen her.

  But even that wasn’t his biggest concern.

  So far, Midnight was hiding, waiting in the wings … and gaining power. It hadn’t had cause to challenge SingleEarth directly. No matter how badly Jay and other hunters would love to plant a knife in any of Midnight’s trainers, no one wanted to start a fight that pitted the peaceful SingleEarth against that ancient evil.

  Xeke thought at him, You need to leave. Now.

  CHAPTER 10

  JAY DIDN’T WANT to get himself sold into slavery over this. On the other hand, since the proponents of the slave trade were in Kendra’s house for the party, they wouldn’t be in the woods, would they?

  And what did the vampires have to hide that was important enough and powerful enough that it was concealed with a spell that Jay couldn’t even begin to discern?

  Just one thing: Midnight.

  The first version of Midnight’s empire had been founded in the sixteen hundreds, around the time when Jay’s line had come into existence. The vampires had effectively ruled the supernatural world through a combination of trade sanctions, economic incentives, and an iron threat to back up their laws. Despite protections given to nonhumans, many of the witches were killed. The Light line was eradicated entirely, and the Arun and Vida lines, both of which were exclusively hunters, were cut down to a bare handful of survivors.

  When the original Midnight had burned to the ground in 1804, there had been celebrations throughout the world. Unfortunately, though destroying its base of operations had weakened the empire sufficiently for other groups to regain control, the hunters at the time had not been able to eliminate the vampires themselves. Whispers of Midnight’s return had become increasingly common lately.

  The original Midnight had been out west, beyond the area claimed at that time by the newborn United States, in the no-man’s-land where white men had not yet established dominion. Could the new one really have its heart here, arrogantly close not only to human civilization but to the headquarters of so many of Midnight’s most serious enemies? Most of Jay’s extended family, including almost all the vampire-hunting witches he knew, lived in New England. The Bruja guilds—a trio of mercenary groups that reputedly had originally been founded specifically to oppose Midnight—had their guild halls in Massachusetts and New York. Jay couldn’t help but feel that such placement was meant to be a deliberate slap in the face.

  If Midnight was here, Jay needed to know. If he was right, this would give hunters a chance to bring the empire to its knees before it could get back on its feet. He just needed information, and then he could contact his allies and begin to plan the hunt of a lifetime.

  He changed clothes quickly in the backseat of his car and then went hiking behind Kendra’s home, which bordered the same unnaturally quiet forest he had explored behind Xeke’s apartment. Jay might not have been able to sense the magic directly, but the animals could.

  Could the shapeshifter at SingleEarth have been damaged by this magic? She had an ominous forest in her mind, choking her mentally and keeping her a prisoner in her own brain. Could the menacing force Jay had sensed from her be Midnight?

  He held his shields a little tighter. It would make it harder for him to sense magic, but he hadn’t been able to do that yet anyway. He needed to make sure he was as protected as he could be.

  He could feel the forest’s heart. Most woods, especially older ones, had some sense of their center, but this was a young forest, easily impressionable; if it had a heart, it was probably one that had been thrust upon it magically, not one that had grown there organically.

  Jay headed toward that pulse, keeping an eye—literally and magically—on the ebb and flow of the trees, underbrush, and snow. Magic’s presence changed how natural things grew. The magic around this place might have been intended to hide something, so those who stumbled across it couldn’t find their way back, but that power could also serve as a beacon.

  And there it was—that high wrought-iron fence with the metal ravens at the top. Beyond, he could see stables and gardens. Following the fence brought him around to the front of the property, where a narrow road made a path like an arrow straight to the front door of a sprawling structure that seemed to be the spawn of a manor house and a medieval castle.

  He sensed the guards at the front in time to avoid their notice, and stayed far enough away that he knew he wouldn’t be seen from the road.

  If Jay followed the road back, out of the forest, he would be able to determine where it intersected with a main road. He would know exactly where he was. He knew many hunters—some witches, some not—who would be interested in such information.

  He kept parallel to the road from a safe distance away, trekking through the thick, snowy underbrush and checking back occasionally to make sure he was on course.

  That was the theory, anyway, and it should have worked.

  He had walked for about an hour, with the road always on his left, but suddenly he was facing the black gates of Midnight once again.

  Impossible—except in the presence of a powerful spell, capable of disorienting him and rearranging his memories.

  Time to pull out the big guns.

  Jay Marinitch wasn’t an average witch. In polite circles, he was considered a prodigy. Those less concerned with being polite referred to him as the idiot savant of his line. He had never met a power he couldn’t match, and he wasn’t about to start now.

  He sat in the snow and drew his magic up around him. The Marinitch line’s power was organic. He could read and speak to the trees and animals. He could feel the pulse and flow of natural power the way other people felt wind or water.

  He focused his magic until he was able to feel every tree around him, and where he was in relation to every stone and every hibernating squirrel. He let himself flow into that power like a leaf on the wind, dissolving himself in it. If this other magic insisted on being invisible and subtly twisting his mind, he would give it no mind to focus on. He would make himself into nothing it could touch.

  First, he explored. There were dozens of living people inside the building, and a couple of nonliving ones. The horses were happy, as was the large feline living inside … though she was restless as well.

  Next, he touched the power that had been influencing him. It was hot and utterly nonnatural, and so not normally part of his own sphere of awareness. It twined into the land, twisting it.

  He could prod his body into moving where he needed it to without really belonging to it, so he pushed it toward the boundary of the circle of power. He moved through the forest like the night, like shadow or a winter wind, without disturbing or being disturbed by the natural flow of energy through the forest.

  He slid under the foreign power, around it, past it. He was a crafty little mouse, swift and agile but too small to be obtrusive.

  Once finally outside the spell’s radius, he sensed the difference like a pressure change. His ears popped as he returned fully to his body and stretched, reminding himself of the limiting confines of his flesh, bone, and muscle. He reminded himself of his human origin, and shook off the chill of the unnatural power in the forest that … that …

  He leaned against the tree.

  Midnight.

  He had to hold on to that thought.

  He knew what was inside the forest now.

  But how was he going to get home?

  First, he pressed a palm to one of the larger trees near the driveway to Midnight. The path itself was barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and was not marked in any way, so it was only by remembering the trees near it that he would later be able to recall wh
ere it was.

  Since he didn’t know where he was, there was no point in calling anyone to pick him up, so he started down the road in search of the nearest town.

  Less than an hour later, he reached his goal. The town was dark and most of the stores were closed, but the old-fashioned stone monument in the town’s center welcomed him to Pyridge, established 1612. The plaque beneath it spoke of a small town founded by a group that had suffered disagreements with their neighbors and so moved farther west. He wondered when this town, first built by rebels and malcontents, had been taken over by vampires.

  CHAPTER 11

  JEREMY AND CARYN pulled over to pick Jay up. They were both so tense that his head started to ache the instant he climbed into the car.

  Their pre-wedding bickering didn’t help.

  “Stop that!” Caryn snapped when Jeremy sneezed as she followed Jay’s circular directions back to Kendra’s home.

  “Sorry,” Jeremy replied. “Something’s going around school.”

  “I don’t want you snotty and sneezing through your vows.”

  “I can’t really help—”

  “Let me,” Jay said, deliberately interrupting. Leaning forward from the backseat, he touched fingertips to Jeremy’s cheek.

  “I thought witches can’t heal illnesses,” Jeremy remarked.

  “It’s more of an empathic thing than a healing thing,” Jay explained.

  Healing meant fixing something that was broken. When someone was sick, the body wasn’t broken; symptoms were the result of the body doing what it needed to do to fight off an invader. Jay didn’t have an incredible amount of practice dealing with diseases, but he could help boost the immune system and direct the body so it could fight off the common cold a little faster.

  “You are so lucky that witches can’t get sick,” Jeremy said. “I have to worry about every cold that comes my way, while you two could share soda with a plague ward and be just fine.”

  “But it’s so hard to find a good plague ward these days,” Jay replied as he did the equivalent of some traffic-directing with Jeremy’s body. “You should start to feel better in a few hours,” he added, sitting back in his seat.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you want one of us to drive your car back to SingleEarth for you?” Caryn asked as she pulled into the driveway. “You feel wiped out.”

  He nodded tiredly. “Too much time fighting evil forests, I guess,” he mumbled. Sensing her confusion, he added, “If someone else could drive, I’d appreciate that.”

  “No problem.”

  Jeremy was more than happy to drive Jay, so he could share his jitters as if the two men were old friends instead of mere acquaintances.

  “How did Christmas dinner go?” Jay asked.

  Jeremy shook his head. “As well as I could have expected,” he answered. “Everyone behaved appropriately enough that we had to stay for the full dinner, even though everyone desperately wanted to leave.”

  It still seemed like a lot of stress to get a family’s grudging blessing. Jay just didn’t get weddings.

  Then again, the closest Jay had come to a date in a long time was Xeke’s inviting him out to a “night on the town.” It was hard to find someone whose ego could hold up to a first date with someone who knew every random thought they had and had trouble following the out-loud conversation because the neurotic internal monologue was so much more interesting.

  Could he bring Xeke as a date to the wedding?

  Was he even invited to the wedding?

  “Mind if I ask how you got stuck out here at this hour?” Jeremy asked.

  “Investigating a spell,” Jay answered, intentionally vague. There were times when it was best to keep things from others—like information that could get Jeremy stuck in the middle of an ownership feud with Midnight. SingleEarth regarded human members like Jeremy as equals, but to Midnight, they were pawns.

  Deliberately returning the conversation to the one topic he knew would distract Jeremy from anything else, Jay asked, “Do you have a best man?”

  Jeremy stared at him a bit longer than Jay was comfortable with, considering he was driving, before answering, “Yes. Though I was wondering if you would be willing to be an usher? Caryn suggested that that empathy of yours might help you keep the guests from coming to blows.”

  “I can do that,” he answered. Could be fun.

  First, though, he needed to settle the mystery of this shapeshifter once and for all. It would be a damn shame if the wedding were spoiled by eminent war with Midnight over a comatose shapeshifter.

  Once back at SingleEarth, Jay changed into dry clothes, picked up a few of the kinds of trinkets he usually made fun of Vireo for using, and then went back to the shapeshifter’s room.

  This time he would be more careful, better armed and armored. He would find her mind, and he would bring her high enough to the surface to determine what they needed to do with her.

  Maybe she wasn’t a slave, but a visitor or an employee of Midnight. Or maybe she had gone into the woods, become lost in the spell that had tried to trap Jay, and been unable to break free.

  The first step Jay took was to write a note and pin it to the door, saying, Complex magic. Do not disturb. Thinking again, he revised it: Do not disturb except in case of unexplained life-threatening injuries. It would suck if the healers let him die because he left a badly worded note.

  He adjusted the position of the shapeshifter’s bed so he could form a circle around her. He marked the perimeter with a combination of hematite, agate, and obsidian stones, some tumbled and some rough. All of them had been created through volcanic activity and still held the power of that heat boiling up through the surface of the earth. The magic in Jay’s blood also came from fire—from the elemental Leona, who had bonded herself to his kind thousands of years ago—so the stones would simultaneously boost his power and help ground him. The hematite—a silver-gray iron ore—would act as a tether so he wouldn’t get trapped in the shapeshifter’s mental and magical woods again. One of the obsidian pieces he had chosen had been flaked into an arrowhead; its edge was as sharp as a razor and cut through his skin easily as he drew it across the fingertips of his right hand.

  He touched each stone in his circle, linking his blood to the ancient volcanic power and the solidity of rock. The world seemed to hold its breath as he touched the last, sealing the circle around himself and the silent shapeshifter.

  Another power wailed in fury.

  There was magic inside her that did not like the fire one bit.

  Jay stepped forward into her mental hell.

  What do you want? the forest snarled at him. The trees nearby twisted, writhing in irritation. How can we help her if you keep intruding?

  The forest ransacked his mind. It found his fear of Midnight, his fear that the vampire’s empire might threaten his kin, and his anger that it had once nearly destroyed them. It found his plan to share Midnight’s location with other hunters. It found his conviction that Midnight must be cut down again, and forever.

  It knew that he could speak to the trees and had merged with them in order to slip away from the circle of magic that had tried to trap him in Midnight’s forest.

  It knew how much he despised being trapped.

  The more this power learned about him, the more welcoming it became.

  We can’t reach her, it lamented. They locked her away from us.

  The images that came with the words were brutal.

  The shapeshifter was a slave. One of the trainers had claimed her hundreds of years ago and had worked tirelessly to break her mind and turn her into the perfect … Pet. That was the name the trainer had given her.

  Until him, she had been nameless, a priestess dedicated to her people, her land, and her power. She had been holy; he had made her profane. She had been …

  She had been beaten, and broken, and with each stroke she had built stronger walls inside her mind as she had tried to protect something so precious that it alone could never
be sacrificed to the trainer.

  Me, the power whispered. My child let herself be savaged so she could protect me. She sealed herself off from me, and now I cannot even tell her that it is safe to return.

  Is it worth saving her, if Midnight then comes to claim her? Jay wondered.

  The other power responded as if Jay had spoken aloud. If you can reach her, and help me reach her, then she will be all I need to destroy those who hurt her.

  “You mean Midnight? The trainers?” Jay asked. “She could fight them?”

  You will not need to fear them anymore.

  “I’ll try to reach her,” Jay said. “I’m not sure if I can, but I’ll try.”

  There are many traps in her mind. I will do my best to protect you.

  First, he needed to be something fast and powerful, to get through the brambles. A stag would have been nice, but Jay had never had the opportunity to study one well enough to know its thought patterns. A lynx would be too small. Wolf?

  Here.

  The thought came along with the overwhelming sense of … not a house cat. Not a lynx or a bobcat. Bigger. Mountain lion.

  That would work.

  Jay stretched his new body and felt the forest respond with wary interest. This form was known to it. Was the shapeshifter a cougar?

  He fought his way through the forest, his lithe body wriggling out of the way when branches tried to form a cage, and his thick fur shrugging off even the worst of the brambles.

  As he reached Midnight’s black iron fence, crows and ravens began to dive-bomb, shrieking. He batted them out of the sky, his jaws sending feathers and avian blood splattering as he made his way inexorably closer.

  He changed shape only momentarily, and a much smaller cat slipped easily between the black iron bars, before the mountain lion was running across the open front yard.

  He struck the front door with claws extended. The building itself began to bleed and writhe.