My grandfather faced his accuser with an ashen face. “You need not remind me,” he said. “And, no, my name is not Barnaby Shevington although I have lived as that man since 1560 when I first met Adeline. She believed, as did everyone who knew me, that I was born in 1540. In truth, I entered this world in 1125, the eldest son of Fae parents. My name then was Barnabas Chesterfield. Irenaeus is my younger brother by five years. Until this moment, only Moira has known the entire truth of my identity.”
Festus fixed her with his gaze. “So what’s your excuse, Alchemist?”
Since I’d been watching Barnaby’s face, I hadn’t seen how angry Moira was becoming. She answered Festus in Gaelic and he spit back a razor-edged retort. That’s when Barnaby held his hand up. Even in their anger, Festus and Moira obeyed the unspoken command.
“Enough,” Barnaby said. “I make no excuses for my behavior, but if I may, I will tell you the whole story. Then you may judge me as you will.”
He was looking at Festus as he spoke. Anger radiated from the old cat, but even enraged, Festus is a fair man. He nodded at Barnaby to continue.
As the eldest son of a 12th century Fae family, Barnaby enjoyed all the privileges of the heir apparent. He would inherit his father’s land and wealth, while the younger son was destined to study with the familial alchemist. All was well, and even happy, in the Chesterfield clan until young Irenaeus failed to develop his magical powers.
As the boy grew, he became more and more an outcast. In 1144, without his father’s permission, Irenaeus apprenticed himself to a Templar Knight and went to the Second Crusade. After the Siege of Lisbon, he became obsessed with the science of the “infidels” and went to Egypt to study.
“I knew nothing of my brother’s fate until 1180 when he contracted with a demonic entity for his powers,” Barnaby said. “Irenaeus was the first Creavit. His defection to the powers of darkness killed our parents and blackened the family name. My grief and disillusionment drove me into seclusion. I lived and worked with the Fae monastic scholars who created the kind of manuscripts the Colonel and I were just admiring. For more than 350 years I removed myself from the affairs of the Otherworld. But then, one day in 1560, while paying my respects to the Mother Tree, I met the Quercus de Pythonissam — the Witch of the Oak — an incomparably lovely woman named Adeline Moore. It was for her that I reinvented myself.”
“And you promptly lied to her,” Festus said flatly.
“Only in part,” Barnaby said. “Adeline knew I was a Fae noble who had lived as an exile. I met in private with the Ruling Elders and reclaimed my lands and titles. Adeline gave me the strength to pick up the discarded fragments of my life. She gave me hope. I took my mother’s surname, Shevington, and altered my given name, but . . .” his voice faltered. “I wanted her to think well of me. I was afraid to tell her the truth about Irenaeus. My cowardice cost Adeline her life.”
I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “What was your brother doing while you were rebuilding your life?”
“Leading the Creavit heresy,” Barnaby said bitterly. “When Irenaeus sold his soul, he set in motion the chain of events that culminated in the Fae Reformation. I realized I bore a responsibility to fight him and his kind. All of that notwithstanding, however, no evidence pointed to his involvement in Adeline’s murder. I simply could not bring myself to believe him capable of such a crime.”
“And 1936?” Festus asked. “How do you explain that?”
“Irenaeus asked me for clemency, saying he wished only to live a scholarly, contemplative life,” Barnaby said. “It was a longing to live in peace apart from the affairs of the world I understood well. We tested his powers and they appeared to be minimal. I granted him probation because he is my blood. That was a terrible mistake, one against which you warned me, Festus. You were right, and I am most heartily sorry for my error.”
Festus worked his mouth back and forth, considering my grandfather’s words. “I can’t fault a man for standing by his own blood,” he said finally, “but I swear to you, Barnaby Shevington, if one person in this room comes to harm because you’re hiding anything else from us, you will answer to me.”
I know the difference between a threat and a promise. That was a promise.
“There are no more secrets,” Barnaby said. “We must act swiftly and together to locate and recover the Amulet of Caorunn.”
“The what?” I asked.
“The necklace in the photograph from Anton’s office,” he said. “That is the Amulet of Caorunn, shaped from the blood of the Mother Rowan and holding in its heart three berries from her branches. If my brother were to possess it and to join it with one of the other amulets, the consequences would be dire.”
Oh, man. I cannot tell you how much I hated to ask the next question.
“Exactly how many amulets are we talking about here?”
“Thirteen in total,” Barnaby said. “Together they form the Coven of the Blood. If Irenaeus were to possess any number of them, Moira believes he could sever the realms.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Which means what?” I asked.
“It means that Chesterfield could cut the world of the humans away from the Otherworld,” Moira said. “Creavit magic would assume control of this world, and we would be powerless to stop it.”
18
When Irenaeus Chesterfield entered the time loop in the pizzeria, he found Seraphina and Ioana circling the empty restaurant like starving dogs. Both Strigoi rushed to him, falling to their knees and whimpering.
“Please,” Ioana begged, looking up at him with eyes sunken and crazed from hunger. “Please, we must eat. You said if we went to the carnival with you and did as you said, we could feed. We did everything you told us to do. Please.”
Chesterfield stared at her impassively, seemingly impervious to the piteous pleading. The terrified creature at his feet might as well have been a scientific specimen in a petri dish.
“Fascinating,” the wizard murmured. “Trapped within a single second of time, yet subject to ravening hunger.”
Through cracked lips, Seraphina whispered, “We’re starving. We’ll do whatever you want us to do, but we must eat. It’s been days.”
Chesterfield’s brows went up. “And your perception of time remains intact!” he said. “I would not have thought that possible. You offer endless insights for my consideration. And you are quite correct. Days have passed. Almost six of them, in fact. I believe your last meal was that unfortunate young man in the alleyway. You really should have grabbed a snack before staging that carnival drama with the child.”
Ioana shuddered. “Have pity,” she moaned. “We will die.”
Chesterfield leaned down and placed his index finger under her chin, forcing the Strigoi to look at him.
“Ah,” he said in a silky whisper, “but therein lies the sheer beauty of this experiment. You will not die. That is unless I decide to be merciful and take your heads off. Absent that benevolent intervention, you will simply exist here in an eternal prison of starvation and madness.”
Seraphina laid a hand on her cousin’s shoulder to quell the terrified sobbing. “I don’t think that’s what you’re going to do,” she said, confronting Chesterfield directly. “Why would you go to the trouble of rescuing us from the lightning just to watch us suffer?”
Curling his lips in a feral smile, Chesterfield said, “Because it amuses me.”
“I’m sure it does,” Seraphina replied, her voice shaking, “but there’s more to you than that.”
The wizard pushed back the sides of the old-fashioned frock coat he wore and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Is there now?” he said. “Please enlighten me with your superior knowledge of my motivations. Why did I rescue you?”
“Because you see a purpose for us in your greater plans,” she said. “My father spoke of you. He said you were the most ruthlessly practical man he had ever known.”
Chesterfield considered her words. “Anton was not without his
perceptive abilities,” he admitted. “I am, indeed, a practical man, but only in the face of demonstrable benefit. Here are your only options, Strigoi. The rules of your feeding program are as follows. If I free you from your cage for one half hour, you may feed on the proprietor of this establishment. You may not, however, kill him, and you most certainly may not mesmerize him and make him your human servant. If you dare defy me, you will suffer the consequences.”
Eagerly seizing on his words, Ioana begged, “Oh, please, please, sir. We will not defy you.”
Dismissing her coldly, he turned back to Seraphina, “It is not this babbling fool with whom I am concerned,” he said. “She has neither spirit or initiative. You, dear Seraphina, are a different matter. You have both a mind and a degree of resolve. You are the one I do not trust.”
Though a tremor passed through her body, Seraphina did not avert her eyes. “I am also practical . . . master,” she said. “We will not defy you. I will not defy you.”
With that, she lowered her gaze to the floor and waited.
After a long moment, Chesterfield brought his hands together, clapping in slow rhythm.
“At last,” he said, “the proper deference. Well played, young woman, well played. Your performance has won you a trial run. My exit from this space will trigger a release spell of 30 minutes’ duration. I have no desire to watch as you indulge your baser instincts, so I caution you now to pace yourselves. You must make Peter last, as he is the only human you will be given for the immediate future. Hide the evidence of your meal on his person, and leave him capable of attending to his business. We do not need to raise suspicion among the locals.”
Seraphina bowed her head again. “As you command, master.”
Chesterfield removed his watch from the pocket of his vest, opened the case, and then paused with his thumb over the winding crown. “Do not make me regret this clemency,” he warned. “I have no patience for insurrection.” Then, clicking the crown, he disappeared.
Ioana instantly leaped to her feet and started toward the living quarters behind the dining area, but Seraphina stopped her. “Let me go!” the girl shrieked. “I must eat.”
“Stop,” Seraphina ordered. “We both must eat, but we must also use this time we have been given. We will turn the human and make him our own.”
The words were enough to halt Ioana’s mad dash. “Seraphina, we can’t do that!” she whispered hoarsely. “If we defy Chesterfield, we will never eat again.”
“If we do not defy him,” Seraphina hissed, “we will become his slaves. Do as I say, Ioana, unless you want to face my temper.”
From the back room, a man’s voice called, “Hello? Is someone there?”
“I’ll do anything,” Ioana whispered, “just please, please let me feed.”
“We will both feed,” Seraphina said softly. “But we will do it my way.” Then, raising her voice, she called out gaily, “Oh, hi! We are just so sorry! We thought you were open for business. We’re looking for something to eat.”
“Sure,” Pete called out, “hang on. I’ll be right there.”
The confrontation between Festus and Barnaby stunned us all. I have no doubt Barnaby would have given us the same information had he been left to his own devices, but the force of the werecat’s questioning laid bare the real impact of my grandfather’s decisions.
Irenaeus Chesterfield wasn’t just “a” bad guy, he was “the” bad guy. The first Creavit. A murderer. The driving force behind a vendetta against my family — well, his own family. That was the part that left me speechless. Chesterfield was my great uncle? No way I saw that coming.
Greer and Lucas got most of the details right in their research, except Chesterfield was never human. He was Fae and suffered from what amounted to a birth defect; one that made him a jealous, envious outcast. Plus, he wasn’t “associated” with a wealthy family, he was their very own, personal black sheep.
Here we thought his rescue of the Strigoi Sisters constituted the major problem at hand. Now all that was shoved to a back burner in the light of his designs on the Amulet of Caorunn, possibly the Amulet of the Phoenix, and probably the eleven others we’d just learned about. I mean seriously, is any good likely to come out of something called the “Coven of the Blood?”
Moira explained the name was simply a reference to the sap given by each Mother Tree to form the amber used in the corresponding amulet, but that only touched off a furious spate of mental math in me. If there were thirteen amulets, there had to be thirteen Mother Trees.
When I said as much, the alchemist nodded. “There are,” she said. “Collectively, they’re called The Coven of the Woods.”
Which meant there were thirteen witches and probably thirteen staffs like Dilestos, the sentient walking stick Amity Prescott gave me right before I visited Shevington for the first time. Dielstos was made from a branch of the Mother Oak.
And somehow all of those objects — all of us — supported and worked with — or for — the Grid . . . which held reality together . . .
That was about the time my brain shifted into overload. Channeling the same kind of commanding response that led Barnaby to halt the barrage of questions Festus had been firing at him, I held up my hand and said, firmly, “Stop! Enough!”
All the voices in the lair fell silent. Everyone looked at me.
“This is too much for one night,” I said. “We need to stop. If the Strigoi are going to put in an appearance, it will be at Anton’s funeral on Thursday. We have almost two days to get a crash course in the Grid. Right now, I think we could all use some time to just absorb everything we’ve learned tonight.”
My words seemed to relieve my grandfather. From everything I knew about Barnaby, he was a private man who liked nothing more than to spend quiet hours in study. This conversation must have been hellish for him.
“Are you all staying here tonight?” I asked.
“I cannot,” Barnaby said. “The merfolk migration is in its final stages, and the auguries are predicting a major winter storm in the coming days.”
Moira laid a hand on his arm. “Go,” she said, “I will stay here and do what I can to help. Dewey will bring my mirror to your office. That will allow us to contact you with clarity regardless of the conditions in Shevington.”
Barnaby frowned. “But do you not require two mirrors?”
She smiled tolerantly. “We are sitting in the middle of a Fae archive, Barnaby. I assure you there is a suitable mirror here that I can activate.”
Which is how we came to have a full-length, gilded mirror in the lair — I hope with an unlimited data plan.
Before Barnaby left, he crossed to the hearth and held his hand out to Festus. They spoke in Gaelic, so I can’t tell you the exact content of the conversation, but in the end, the old cat put his paw out, and they shook.
Then Barnaby had a few quiet words with Moira before he turned to Mom and me. “Would the two of you do me the honor of walking part way to the portal with me?” he asked.
“Of course,” Mom said, rising from the sofa. Dad didn’t turn loose of her hand as she stood up, watching her with a worried expression. Leaning back down, she said, “Let me go, Jeff. It’s fine.”
Reluctantly he released her hand, but I felt Dad’s eyes on us as we walked away with Barnaby.
For the first hundred yards or so, no one spoke. Then Barnaby ventured tentatively, “If there is anything either of you wishes to say to me, please do so.”
Without breaking stride, Mom reached for his hand. “When I was a little girl,” she said, “and you used to come down to the big meadow below the city to fly kites with all the kids, you always brought me candy.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my grandfather swallow hard. “Completely against your mother’s wishes,” he said.
“One afternoon,” Mom went on, “you told me that I reminded you of a little girl you had known once. Who was that?”
“My daughter,” Barnaby said roughly, “Knasgowa. I flew kite
s with her in that same field when she was a child. Her people, the Cherokee, had never seen such a thing. She called her kite Wind Dancer.”
Mom stopped and turned toward him. She was crying. “Why didn’t you help me?” she asked in a broken voice. “Why didn’t you stop Anton from cursing me? Why didn’t you protect my baby?”
I would have preferred to leave them alone, but there was no place to go.
“Kelly,” Barnaby said, tears spilling from his eyes, “I did protect Connor the only way I could, by arranging for him to be brought to Shevington. You had already forsaken your magic because of the accident with the girls. The Guardian of the Oak must be willing. We could not compel you to fill that position. The Mother Tree would not allow it.”
“Has it all been a game?” Mom asked, choking on the words. “Have we all been dancing on Chesterfield’s strings?”
Barnaby looked down at their clasped hands. “Chesterfield . . . Irenaeus . . . my brother,” he said haltingly. “I wanted to believe that he could turn away from the darkness. Please understand that I remember him as a boy before any of this happened.”
He looked up, and Mom nodded at him to continue.
“You saw the presence of your magic as a burden you could not bear,” Barnaby said. “For my brother the opposite was true. Being denied the heritage of his powers destroyed him. For whatever he has done in his long life, it all began from tremendous personal pain, rejection, and disappointment. Forgive me for wanting to see him as he once was. Forgive me for wanting to afford him a better life.”
Mom reached for Barnaby. As they embraced, she whispered, “How have you stood it all?”
His voice came out muffled against her shoulder. “I have stood it all,” he said, “because I believe that everything that has happened was meant to occur, that we all walk a path toward a shared purpose. I believe in hope, dear Kelly, and in love. It is from that I draw my sustenance.”
Witch on Third (A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 6) Page 15
