Iris gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
"Now you see why we don't trust him?" he said.
"Why do you think he saved me?"
"I don't know. To toy with us probably. He always liked to provoke us. Just like he did when he came to the house. He's like a hyena. He smiles at you while he tears your throat out. He may seem charming but don't let that fool you. He's dangerous."
Iris thought about the night before. Don't make a sound. She shook her head to cast away the memory.
"So how do you plan on dealing with the hounds without his help?"
"We're going to try and find Vincent. He's the only one who can control them and hold them still while we get close enough to light them on fire."
"There's also me."
"No. You'll stay out of this."
"But I could help."
"Iris, there's no arguing with this. You cannot be involved."
"Because I'm a sixteen-year-old untrained human girl?"
"No. Because we don't know what you are. And until we find out, you should try to stay out of trouble."
"I'm already in trouble. Have you forgotten about the message?"
"You're only further proving my point here."
They laughed. He took her hands in his and she noticed something in his eyes, something that made her feel safe, like an unspoken promise that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. Then, his gaze changed.
"What is it?"
"Do you think I could get you to promise me something?" he said and she tilted her head, suspecting she wouldn't like what was coming next. "Can you please press pause on your identity quest and just stay out of sight for a little while? Just until the autumn equinox. Can you do that?"
"Why?"
"Because I can't do my job and worry about you at the same time. Iris, there are a lot of people after you lately. The only place you'd be safe in is the mansion but the Council can't find you there. So we thought that we could take you to stay with a friend of ours out of town. Just until this is over."
"No."
"Iris!"
"No. I'm not going to run away. Nor am I going to let you wipe my hometown off the face of the planet." She could tell that he wasn't happy with her answer, but she couldn't let it go. She knew what it was like to lose someone you cared about. The thought that everyone who lived out of town and who was close to someone in Forest Hills—friends, relatives, children off to college—was about to experience the same thing was unbearable. She would never be able to live with herself if she knew that she could have had a chance to stop that from happening and didn't.
"Iris, do you know how I got my grandmother to agree to take you to see Agatha?" She shook her head and he went on. "I had to make her a promise. Well, two actually. One in my name, one in yours."
"What promises?"
"I gave her my word that you wouldn't interfere with our mission and that I would stop you if you did."
Iris felt sorry for him. He was forced to choose between his family and her and he was struggling because he couldn't give up either one. She knew what that felt like because she was in the same position—him or the town she'd lived in her entire life. She couldn't imagine a world without her grandmother, without Marion, or even without grumpy old Mrs. Mayfair down the street, who always blocked the aisles at the supermarket looking for some kind of brand that'd been out of use for decades and then cut in line at the register because she didn't want to miss the latest episode of Young & Restless.
The future seemed bleak but there was still time to remedy that. If the Elwoods managed to catch Vincent, they might just be able to prevent a catastrophe. She had faith in them. "I promise I'll stay put if you promise that you won't let the Council murder everyone in town," she said.
He couldn't promise that and she knew it, but she felt helpless and desperate and she had to try everything. Still, he surprised her. "I promise I'll do everything in my power to avoid that."
She couldn't help smiling. "Thank you. Now go do whatever it is that you have to do to protect the Amulet and the Fountain, and don't worry about me. I won't get in the way."
"Easier said than done, don't you think?"
"I'll be fine. Besides, your house is not the only one warded against the supernatural, is it?"
He seemed genuinely surprised. "How did you know?"
"You were asked to protect me a long time ago but you had to do it from a distance. Plus, your grandmother wouldn't have let me stay home alone after we found that message from Agatha if she didn't have some sort of guarantee that I would be safe. When did you do that by the way? Ward my house, I mean."
Connor lowered his eyes. When he spoke, his voice trembled. "Grandma did it while you were in the hospital after your parents' accident."
Iris tried to remember the visit to the hospital but the memories were hazy.
"You don't remember?"
She shook her head. There was very little that she remembered from the accident that had killed her parents but somehow she was grateful for that. Had she remembered, she would have relived those horrible moments over and over and she didn't think she could have lived like that.
"Not even the broken hand?" Connor insisted.
"I had a broken hand?"
"Yes. Dr. Campbell felt sorry for you, so she gave you something to speed up the healing process. At least the physical part."
"What did she give me?"
"Vampire blood."
Dr. Campbell was the head of the Forest Hills Medical Center, but everyone knew that she hated administrative work, which was why she was always in the emergency room instead of her office. She was loved and respected by everyone in town and Iris had always thought that it was because of her impressive skills and consideration towards her patients. Clearly, that was not the only reason.
"Dr. Campbell is a vampire?"
Connor laughed. "No. She's human. But she knows about the supernatural. She helps our kind from time to time, in cases of emergency."
"How come she gave me vampire blood? Wasn't she afraid that she'd be exposed?"
"You were a child and she can't stand seeing children suffer. She took a risk, yes, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Anyways, while you were in the hospital, Grandma warded your house."
"Do I still have vampire blood in me?" She realized how weird her question sounded but, after everything that had happened to her in the past 48 hours, nothing should have seemed too weird anymore.
"No. It usually wears off after a few days. Though in your case it took longer."
"What do you mean?"
"With no other physical injuries, you were discharged a week later. When you got home, you couldn't get inside the house. Your grandmother thought you were having some kind of breakdown and brought you back to the hospital. Grandma kept an eye on you the whole time, so when she heard about it, she came to talk to you. You seemed okay—well, as okay as a five-year-old who's just lost both his parents can be—so she figured the problem was the warding. She took some of your blood and modified the spell. She had to do the same thing back at our place when your grandmother brought you over a few days later and, again, you couldn't get inside. Elizabeth had to settle some things at the sheriff's office and asked Grandma to watch you for a few hours. Apparently, you, Lorelai and I got along so well in kindergarten that we were the only people your grandmother thought she could leave you alone with after the accident." They both laughed. "So, can you promise me you'll stay home today?"
"You're going after Vincent, aren't you?"
"We think he'll be at the search party. I'd feel better knowing that you're safe while we're gone."
She conceded. "I won't leave the house."
15
Lies
"How's our favorite human? Did you guys kiss and make up?" Lorelai was polishing her arrows in the foyer when Connor stepped through the front door.
"She promised she would stay home today." He took out his jacket and threw it on the
curved banister end at the bottom of the staircase.
"Oh, good. Now we can focus on how to avoid our nearing demises."
"Our problems have nothing to do with Iris."
"Delusion is bliss."
"If you two are done bickering, I say we start working on what's really important," Aeryn said from the kitchen. Connor and Lorelai joined her. On the breakfast table there was a map of the area where they'd found the dead bodies. "The sheriff's putting together a team. They're gathering in Central Park Square at four. We'll join them but they can't know we're there. I'm an old woman and you're teenagers. Technically, neither of us is fit to join a search party in the woods, looking for a wild beast. I'll stay with the group but keep out of sight. Connor, you go west. Lorelai will go east. Are your traps ready?"
Connor got up to retrieve his sphere from the pocket of his jacket but he only took two steps and then he got stuck, unable to move.
"Mine is," Lorelai said smiling at her brother with a mischievous look in her eyes. "I wonder if we should use this on Iris. This way Connor would stop worrying about her wandering around and focus on the mission."
"Lorelai!" Aeryn gave the girl a long look. "Release your brother right now!"
The phone rang and Aeryn stepped into the foyer to answer it. Lorelai took out her sphere and opened it. The air inside a small, invisible circle around Connor's feet began to vibrate and shrink until it formed a small, brown bead that flew towards Lorelai's hand. As soon as the bead returned to its rightful slot, the sphere reassembled itself, allowing Connor to move freely again.
When Aeryn returned, Connor knew from the expression on her face that whoever she'd just talked to on the phone had given her bad news. "What is it, Grandma?"
"One of my sources called. The Council heard about the hounds. So far they're not sure if the rumor is true but they're sending someone to evaluate the situation anyway."
With nothing to occupy her mind, now that she'd promised Connor that she wouldn't leave the house, Iris heated up a piece of the lasagna that her grandmother had left for her in the freezer, and, seated at the kitchen table, she began to play back the events in the past couple of days. Everything still felt impossible to believe. One of my best friends and his family are Fae, Marion and I were attacked by a hellish fire creature that's nearly impossible to kill, which I somehow managed to chase away because I'm special. So special that the Fae have been keeping an eye on me ever since I was a child and my parents died. So what the hell am I? Suddenly, a scary thought emerged from the storm inside her mind. Did her parents know what she was? Was that the reason they were leaving town on such bad weather? Did they die trying to protect her?
The more she thought of that theory, the more sense it made to her. Now she really wanted to find out what she was. But how? The only person who could help her was Agatha and she was gone. She only realized that she was pacing when she knocked a vase off a stand next to her father's study and the sound of the shards hitting the floor broke her out of her prison of thoughts. She took a step towards the kitchen, where her grandmother kept the broom and the dustpan, but then the memory of the dream she'd had the night before came to her mind and she turned around, rushing into her father's study. It couldn't have been a coincidence that he had the same statue as Agatha. What if they knew each other? What if she was the one who gave him the statue to protect Iris?
The room looked identical to that in her dream with one small difference—the statue that stood out among the other antiques was no longer there. She clearly remembered it being there—she'd dusted it countless times before when she'd cleaned her father's study—and she was sure her grandmother would never throw away anything that reminded her of her only son, so it had to be somewhere in the house. With that in mind, Iris got to work. After a few hours, she'd turned the house upside down but she still hadn't found it. Frustrated, she threw herself on the couch in the living room. She'd tried all the cabinets and all the boxes she could lay eyes on and still the statue was nowhere to be found. She'd even tried the garage and the attic. Now she was full of sweat, dust and spider webs, with an entire house to clean up and no idea where to go next.
Her grandmother always said that sometimes the answer you're so desperately looking for comes when you stop thinking about it. She looked around her at the mess she'd left behind. Cleaning it all up would be a good way to kill time and keep her mind away from the statue. She had just started in the living room when the door bell rang. She didn't expect anyone and so she went to the window and cautiously slid the drape to the side to see who it was on the front porch. Damn it, she thought and went back to the foyer to open the door.
"Hello, Iris."
"Sheriff," she babbled. "I was just about to come down to the office. You know, for that statement."
"Well, I was in the neighborhood so I thought I'd stop by. Can I come in?"
Iris looked back, thinking of the living room that looked like a tornado had washed through it. "Uhm, sure," she said, taking a step to the side to let him pass. As soon as he was inside and laid eyes on the mess, she could tell he was thinking the same thing.
"What happened here?"
"I—I was just doing some cleaning," she explained, pushing away some pillows and drawers from the couch to make room for him to sit down. He didn't seem convinced but didn't push it either.
"Where's your grandmother?"
"She's out of town. A family matter."
He nodded. "So, Iris, tell me exactly what happened in the woods yesterday."
Iris remembered her conversation with Connor and Lorelai the day before, all the details of the story they'd concocted to make the events believable, and related them exactly as planned. But she was a terrible liar and when she got to the part about the mountain lion, her voice trembled and the sheriff noticed.
"Everything okay?" he asked, looking at her through his eyelashes.
Iris remembered Lorelai's advice. The most important thing you have to remember when you're lying to someone is to maintain eye contact. "Yes," she said, trying not to take her eyes off him. "It's just that, it was really scary."
"Can you describe this mountain lion?"
Panic rose up in her chest. They'd never discussed about what the mountain lion actually looked like. She was sure the sheriff had asked Marion that same question but how would she know what kind of description Marion had given him? Damn it, they should have gone together. "It was raining a lot and I couldn't really see it that well," she said. Trying to maintain eye contact she forgot to blink and now her eyes felt dry.
"Was it bleeding?"
"What?" It was getting worse and she took a pillow and put it on her lap, resting her hands on it, hoping he wouldn't notice them trembling.
"The mountain lion. When it ran away, was it bleeding?"
Iris sighed. "Uhm—Yes, I guess so."
"Strange," he said, fixing her with his gaze. The clouds had gathered again and in the grey light coming through the windows his face looked sallow, like that of a dead man. "There was no blood on the pavement where the accident took place."
She could see the moist imprints her sweaty palms had left on the pillow case and she slid it behind her back and put her palms between her knees. Her heart was beating at a hundred miles per hour. It was bad enough she had to lie to Marion, but lying to an officer of the law… She was sinking.
"Maybe the rain washed it away," she said in a last attempt to save herself.
"Maybe." His eyes were locked on her. "Marion said Connor and Lorelai Elwood drove you back to town?"
"Yes," she said, a little bit too eagerly, but glad that at least one of her answers was the truth.
"How did they know you were there? Marion said neither of you had any cell signal."
"I often take Chestnut Road when I go to school. Connor knows that."
He nodded. "And you didn't see anyone else around in the woods?"
"No."
He got up and she did the same. A thunder broke the oppr
essing silence that had fallen between them. Iris jerked at the sound. Her heart was beating in her stomach. They kept staring at each other for a few more seconds, almost as if they were each waiting for the other one to lower their eyes first, then the sheriff spoke. "I still need you to come down to the office for an official statement." Iris nodded. "It won't take long."
"Now?" she said.
He smiled. "Might as well get it over with."
Iris hesitated but she couldn't find an excuse not to go with him, other than the fact that she really didn't want to go through the same torment again and have her lies recorded on paper. But of course, she couldn't tell him that, so, with the knot in her stomach tightening up again, she followed him in the foyer.
"You expect me to wear this?" Raven was standing in the middle of the Millers' living room, with a desperate expression on his face and one of Dorian's leather jackets hanging from his index finger.
Dorian was sitting on the couch, his ankles crossed on the tea table in front of him, his arms spread on the back of the couch. "Sorry if I'm cramping your mind-blowing dress style. But that's sort of the point if we want Vincent to think you're me." He pointed at his silver blue hair. "Oh and, wear a hat."
"I don't like this. We've been working so hard to avoid the hounds picking up our trails. Now were offering ourselves as bait?"
The Fountain of Truth (Tales of the Dark Fae Book 1) Page 14
