by Annie Bellet
Junebug had flown back to camp to warn Rose what was happening, then flown back to us to wait. She went ahead again and there was a sleeping bag for Iollan to fall into. Coffee, camp toast, and reheated bacon waited for the rest of us.
“I need to talk to Jade alone,” Iollan said.
Ezee made a face at that and Harper started to protest. Alek shut them all down with a soft growl. I was going to have to learn that trick.
“They will hear whatever we say anyway,” I said to the druid. Shifters had fantastic senses, after all.
“Not inside my hut.” He waved his hand at the dome of vines and branches above us.
Everyone filed out, Alek leaving last, as though to make sure they actually left us alone.
“Wait,” I said. “Alek should stay.” I didn’t know what the druid had to say, but I didn’t want to hear it alone. I had a feeling it wasn’t good news.
There was a protest from Harper outside that fortunately my weaker sorceress senses couldn’t hear clearly. Alek looked to Iollan and the big druid nodded.
Alek dropped the thick piece of canvas covering the opening and then touched his hand to the vines. Silvery light flickered out over the whole of the structure.
“Secondary measure,” he said with a shrug.
I sank down beside Iollan and sipped at the brown acidic water everyone else called coffee.
“Samir?” I said.
“I talked to Brie and Ciaran,” Iollan began, not confirming but not denying my assumption. “They cannot return yet. The Fey are waiting. Did everyone tell you what Samir is up to?”
“Raising Balor? Yeah,” I said. “So far as we know, right?”
“It’s confirmed. Samir bought information from some of the Fey. He made his plans known in exchange, at least the gist of them. They want him to succeed, so they are keeping Brie and Ciaran away. They tried to get their oath they wouldn’t interfere, but of course neither would give it.” Iollan lay back against the shelter wall, pulling the sleeping bag up over his chest and wrapping his arms around himself. He was giant and broad, taller than Alek by half a foot, but he seemed reduced now, crumpled and a little broken.
“Fuck me sideways with a chainsaw,” I muttered.
“That would be uncomfortable,” Alek said.
I started to say that was the point but caught the gleam in his eye. I loved that he could even begin to joke at a time like this. We’d be perfect for each other right up to the end.
“It gets worse,” Iollan said. “But first, Brie made me promise to make you promise not to kill Samir.”
“Et tu, Brute?” I said.
“She cannot kill Samir?” Alek said. His gaze traveled from me to Iollan and back. “You knew?”
“Ash said the same thing. If I eat Samir’s heart, it could apparently bring about some kind of magical apocalypse.” I made a “cheers” gesture with my coffee mug and swallowed the bitter brew down. “But it’s cool. I have a crazy plan to stab him with my magic knife and destroy him that way without killing him.”
The plan sounded just as silly aloud here as it had talking to my father about it. Awesomesauce.
“Good,” Iollan said. “If he raises Balor, however, it will not matter. He eats the heart, he could potentially break the Seal anyway.”
“And the Fey want this?” I asked. I set down my mug and rubbed at the hilt of the Alpha and Omega where it hung, securely strapped to my ankle.
“They believe it will revive their lords, allow them to return and rule as they should. That magic flooding the world will bring the return of the Tuath Dé.”
“Right. So we don’t have Ciaran or Brie’s help.” I took a deep breath. They had been missing in action for a while. I hadn’t been counting on them, but it sure would have been nice to have a little goddess and leprechaun backup when facing down my nemesis.
“It’s worse,” Iollan said with a grimace.
“How worse?” Alek asked. He slid his hand over my forearm and squeezed. That small gesture reminded me of his strength. I was not alone.
“Balor’s head has been taken by Samir last night,” the druid said. “That’s what I went to check on after I spoke with Brie. We took away the unicorn and destroyed the dragon blood. But there are apparently other ways to raise Balor. Like a sacrifice.”
“If he’s taken the head, he could be anywhere.” I put my hand over Alek’s and burrowed my fingers between his. We were fucked. I couldn’t track him magically. There had to be some way to find him. He couldn’t have gotten too far in a single night.
Except, you know, magic. It made a lot of things possible.
“He’ll be near Wylde,” Iollan said with a firm nod that set his matted curls bouncing. “Why was Balor’s head here of all places in the world? Think about why you came to this place, as well.”
“Ley lines,” I said. “This place is crazy with magic.”
“Not just the lines,” Alek said softly.
No, not just the lines. I had come here to hide a leaf in a forest. Wylde, Idaho was the shifter capital of North America. Not just shifters, either. Witches, a few Fey, probably other supernatural people that I didn’t even know about who had kept their heads down.
“How big a sacrifice?” I asked, not wanting to know the answer.
“Bigger the better. The more powerful the beings sacrificed, the better the chance of the spell working and bringing Balor fully back to life.”
“The witches?” I asked.
They seemed a likely source, being easier to grab than shifters. Witches couldn’t defend themselves with tooth and claw. After Samir ate Peggy the librarian’s heart, they were supposed to have gotten out of town, but I didn’t know if they had.
“We forgot to tell you,” Alek said with a deep sigh. “The witches might be dead. Samir got to at least half of them.”
I let out a long and varied string of every swear word I knew in Arabic, Russian, French, and Japanese. I probably made some up, but those were the most satisfying languages I could think to curse in. I ran out of breath before I could move on to Dutch.
“It gets even worse,” Iollan said as I paused for air.
“Worse than Samir having all the knowledge and memory of women who were embedded in the very fabric of life in Wylde?” I said. Those women had been school principals, day care workers, science teachers, bar owners, librarians—basically tapped into everything in Wylde. They would likely know who was human and who wasn’t. They’d thought I was a hedge witch, a solo practitioner, and left me alone until it became clear I wasn’t.
That they had spied on me for Samir didn’t matter. Peggy had been a bitch to me, but I understood her motivations, her fears. Samir was not a man anyone with an ounce of self-preservation said no to.
“Balor can only be resurrected under the full moon of Mac Tíre.” Iollan closed his eyes.
“Mock…” Alek tried to repeat the Irish word and looked at me questioningly.
“It’s a word for wolf,” I said. “When is this wolf moon supposed to happen?” I hardly had to ask. My stomach felt like someone had transportered a hive of bees into it, and the bees were angry. Tonight was a full moon. Never lucky.
“Tonight,” Iollan said, confirming my suspicion.
I let go of Alek’s hand and wrapped my arms around myself as I rocked back on my heels. We were super fucked, but worrying about that wasn’t solving the problem.
“Okay. Samir is going to raise Balor tonight?”
Iollan nodded at my words.
“He’s going to need a huge sacrifice. So he’ll need supernaturals. He has to get those from Wylde, probably. I imagine they won’t come quietly.” I chewed the inside my lip. I tasted coffee and anger.
“He has cages,” Alek said. He looked frustrated, as though he were only now seeing something that should have been obvious to him before. “In his trucks. Big cages. Harper was worried when she first saw them because she thought they might have been used to capture us, as well.”
“
He’s going to capture shifters,” I said. “How many does he need?” I asked Iollan, looking back at the druid’s exhausted face.
“I don’t know. There was little time to ask Brie questions, and I am not sure even she knows. The Fey are not happy with her right now. They believe she should be on the side of bringing magic back fully into the world. It would free her.” Iollan added that last part in Irish as he glanced at Alek. Alek didn’t know that Brie was actually three Irish goddesses crammed into one feisty package.
Secrets upon secrets. I was sick of it all. And yet…
“We can’t tell Harper or the others that I am not going to kill Samir,” I said. I wasn’t sure that I could not kill him. If it came down to him or me, I was going to eat his heart and deal with the consequences.
“All right,” Alek said. His ice-blue eyes searched mine and he nodded slowly. He would keep my secrets. He was good like that. I imagined he also understood how pissed off Harper would be if she knew. We needed her focused.
She might find out later, but I’d deal with that then. Hopefully much later.
Right. Back to the “what we know” game.
“We should bring in the others,” I said. “We’ll just leave out a few details, yeah?”
Alek fetched everyone and I sketched out what we knew.
“So we have until moonrise to find Samir and stop him?” Levi asked.
“Why move Balor’s head?” Ezee asked.
“Yes to the first,” Iollan said. “I think because he needs to be close to the sacrifice. The spell is not simple. It will take a ritual and lots of power. Druidic magic is as much about timing and ritual as it is about raw power. He is trying to do things our way, so he is somewhat bound by our rules.”
That was the small bit of luck we had. What Samir was attempting wasn’t something that could be strong-armed with raw power. He wouldn’t have gone through all these preparations and risked so much if it were. Sorcery alone couldn’t raise Balor.
But sorcery could stop Samir.
“We’ll go to Wylde,” I said. I stood up and looked around the group. Their mouths were hanging open, with the exception of Alek’s. “What?”
“You said ‘we,’” Harper said. “You aren’t going to argue it is too dangerous and we should stay here?”
“Nope,” I said, enjoying her baffled look. “I’m probably going to need help. More hands make light work and all that jazz.”
“Are you a pod person? What have you done with Jade?” Harper squinted at me and held up her fingers in a crude cross.
“Okay. You give me shit, I will leave you behind,” I said, smiling to take the bite from my words.
“No chance of that. I’m going. I’m going to watch that motherfucker die.” Harper’s smile slid into a snarl.
“I am, too,” Levi said, standing up.
Ezee looked at Iollan and then at his twin, clearly torn between staying with his injured lover and going with his brother.
“Go, Ezekiel. I will be safe enough here.” Iollan smiled at Ezee. “I need to sleep in the earth again soon. I am sorry I cannot help more,” he added, looking at me.
“Rest,” I said. “We got this.” I sounded pretty confident. Go me. The druid had risked his life to confirm that Balor had been moved, and he had gotten us the information we needed about the ritual. More backup and more information would have been nice, but he had already done so much.
“I will stay and guard him,” Rose said.
“You don’t want to see justice done for Max?” Harper said. She folded her arms over her chest and glared down at her mother.
“Revenge is not justice,” Rose murmured, shaking her head sadly. “And I am no fighter. Go, sweetheart. You are not a child anymore and I cannot make you stay here and safe with me. We must make our own peace now, in our own way.”
Harper looked like she might cry for a moment, her green eyes suspiciously bright, but she gave a curt nod and turned back to me.
“I will stay also,” Junebug said. “I can keep watch better here. An owl is not much use in a straight-up fight. Getting shot once was enough for me in a lifetime.”
Levi wrapped his arms around his wife. They made a pair, her with her hippy braids and hair longer than mine, him with his mohawk and myriad piercings, her skin pale against Levi’s, dark and light twined together. I wondered if Alek and I looked that complete when we embraced.
“All right,” I said, fighting my own urge to shed a tear or three. “Let’s go storm the castle.”
Nobody followed up the quote. Serious eyes focused on me and one by one everyone nodded.
I had my posse, such as we were. A coyote, a tiger, a wolverine, and a fox. There was a bar joke in this somewhere.
Now we just had to find out where exactly this castle was. And do it by moonrise. Just another day in the life.
Let’s go end this, I thought, as I followed my furred friends outside. It was the last midnight and we were going into the woods.
Deep winter in Wylde was never a crazy busy time. The students at Juniper College were gone, and most people were at the ski places or staying in more hunting-friendly counties for the holidays. By the time we escaped the woods, slowed down by me being on foot, and went to where Levi had hidden his Jeep, it was later than I liked. Moonrise would come just near sunset, and this deep in winter sunset came damned early. We drove into town, ready for anything.
Quiet greeted us. Eerie emptiness. I wasn’t sure what day it was, but everything looked nearly deserted. The courthouse had no cars in front of it, not even one of the deputy or sheriff’s vehicles. The road had been plowed since the last snowfall, but no one was driving. The lights were on at the gas station and I thought I saw someone moving inside the small convenience store attached, but nobody was filling up.
“Where to?” Levi asked me, his dark eyes flicking to mine in the rearview mirror.
“Vivian’s,” I said. Nobody was trying to stop us from driving through town, so I figured we might as well start with the vet. She would know what was happening, if anything was.
I failed my will save and ended up staring as we drove past my burned out comic store. Pwned looked even more dead and forlorn after a few weeks of snow fall. The snow couldn’t entirely cover the blackened beams and caved-in walls. The building looked like a monster that had been slain, robbed for parts, and left to rot. Alek’s arm tightened around my shoulders as we drove by. Someone had put up caution tape and a plastic fence, but the snow had nearly covered it, rendering it useless. No repairs had been started on the partially burned buildings to either side. Their windows were dark, closed signs prominent.
Wylde, Idaho had become a ghost town in the short time I’d been gone.
“Where are the cops? Why isn’t anyone repairing things? Why isn’t anyone even out on the road?” I wondered aloud.
“Everyone is terrified because of the murders. We were getting press, there were talks of the FBI getting involved, and then it just stopped. Nobody is covering it anymore. It’s like Area 51 or something.” Harper peered out the window, her breath fogging the glass as she spoke.
Remembering what Detective Wise and Agent Salazar had said about not wanting to be involved in sorcerer stuff, plus knowing that our own government had hired Samir to build them a magical prison, I had a feeling it was more like the government had shut down all word getting out and decided to let Wylde and her supernatural beings handle their own mess. Easier to let a bunch of nonhumans disappear or die than explain to the world that hey, by the way, magic is real and there’s a lot of people who can turn into giant scary animals.
Nothing sent the message that we were truly on our own with Samir louder and clearer than the dead silence of the empty town.
“At least there’s none of those heavily armed men in black that Junebug reported,” Ezee said.
“Don’t jinx us,” Levi muttered.
We pulled up at Vivian Lake’s big Victorian office slash house without seeing a soul. There were li
ghts on in the houses around her office, but her own home was dark except for one window on the bottom floor that I thought must be her office if my memory of the layout was any good. She lived above her workplace, the way I had before mine got destroyed.
We exited the car cautiously. I sensed no magic around, but I let Alek go ahead up to the door. It was dark in the office and the closed sign was turned to face outward, but the door was unlocked.
Inside the office was a wreck. Someone had tried to tidy up slightly, but the cracked front counter, the jumble of paperwork that had been hastily re-stacked, and a broken lamp shoved into a waste basket were all signs that this place had been the scene of a fight. My heart felt like it was going to break my ribs and nervous snakes twisted in my belly as I pulled up magic, ready for anything. Nothing good had happened here.
“I smell blood,” Alek murmured, his voice barely audible. “It’s not fresh,” he added. He had his gun out as he moved expertly through the office, waving at us to stay back behind him.
“I’ll watch the front,” Levi whispered.
I watched Alek’s back as he went down the hall past the exam rooms and toward the office where the light shone under the door.
The door opened and a stocky Asian woman holding a gun appeared around the side. For a moment she and Alek stared at each other, then both lowered their weapons.
“Rachel,” I said. Wylde’s sheriff, Rachel Lee, was still alive and still here. Relief crawled over me.
“Jade, Alek, thank God,” Rachel said. She holstered her gun and waved us back.
Levi stayed watching the front, nodding to me when I looked a question at him.
“I’ll be able to hear whatever you say from here if you leave the door open,” he said.
Vivian’s office was in better shape than her front reception area. Whatever fight had happened hadn’t reached here. Harper, Ezee, Alek, and I crowded in. Vivian was nowhere to be seen, and the sinking feeling started again in my belly.
“Where’s Dr. Lake?” Harper asked before I could.
“They took her,” Rachel said. She folded her arms across her chest and I realized she wasn’t in uniform. No badge, just a gun strapped on over a thick sweater and jeans. I remembered vaguely there had been talk about suspending her, but it felt like a lifetime ago.
