Rituals

by Kelley Armstrong

  "Didn't Patrick--?" I bit that off as I strode to the stairwell, Grace and Pepper following. "Patrick didn't talk to you, did he? Has he even been here? Damn him. If he's sitting on his ass, thinking I'm overreacting..."

  "Where's Gwy--Gabriel?" Pepper asked as I pushed through the stairwell door.

  "Parking." I'd also sent him on a bit of a wild-goose chase, giving him a few places to look for Pamela while I talked to Patrick. The truth was that the closer we'd gotten to Cainsville, the more I wondered if Patrick would actually do anything.

  Which meant that Pamela might have already succeeded. If she had, then Gabriel shouldn't be there.

  "Can you stall him?" I asked Pepper. "Please?"

  "Gaze up adoringly at him," Grace said. "Like you did when you first arrived. Call him Gwynn, mighty king of the Fae. He loves that."

  Pepper shot her the finger.

  Grace cackled and said, "Just stall him, girl. He has a soft spot for you. Play up your disability. It's good for that, at least."

  Another flashed middle finger as Pepper took off back down the stairs while we continued to climb.

  "Any clue what this is about?" Grace said. "A summary will do."

  "Pamela's free, and she's come to kill Seanna."

  "Cach."

  "Exactly."

  I yanked open the third-floor door to see Patrick lounging in the hall.

  He straightened. "Liv. And Grace. Lovely. Come to keep me company in my murder-watch? No sign of Pamela yet, but I'm really hoping she'll show. I do hope to meet her."

  "Where are Helia and Alexios?"

  He pointed at the apartment door. "In there, of course. I decided I was more comfortable out here. They can be rather tiresome."

  I started for the apartment.

  Patrick caught my arm. "Before you go in there, I wanted to ask--"

  I yanked away. "I need to see her."

  He leaned in to my ear. "Don't worry--I'll help with any excuse you need. Just another minute and it'll be over, and we'll all be much happier."

  "You-- She's--"

  I wrenched from his grip and lunged for the door. He tried to grab me, but Grace interceded, throwing him aside like a prizefighter with a toddler.

  I opened the door and raced inside. Helia and Alexios lay on the sofa, curled up together, fast asleep, a bottle of wine on the coffee table. I tore into the bedroom. And there was my mother, with a pillow poised over Seanna's sleeping face.

  I saw that, and I stopped. I just...I couldn't process. That sounds ridiculous. I knew what my mother was. I knew she'd killed four people to cure me. Murdered them in cold blood. But I ran through that doorway, and I saw her poised over Seanna, and a memory flashed, a woman leaning into my crib, brushing back my hair and kissing my forehead as she whispered, "I'm going to fix you, baby. Whatever it takes, I'm going to fix you."

  "Mom?"

  Pamela froze. Lifted her head, saw me, and backed away, pillow in one hand, a knife in the other.

  "Stay away, Eden," she said.

  "Or what?" I said. "You'll kill me, too?"

  "Never. You know that. But this"--she waggled the knife--"will finish Seanna off much faster than this"--she lifted the pillow. "She's sound asleep. Drugged by the fae. If you want to show her mercy, allow me to do this the easy way."

  "Let her finish, Liv," Patrick said. He appeared in the doorway, Grace holding his arm pinned behind his back.

  "I can't--" I began.

  "Fine, then. Grace? Release me, and I'll stop Liv so she can't stop Pamela, and we can get this over with, no one at fault but Pamela Larsen. Well, and me, but I'm fine with that."

  "Are you all right with condemning Seanna to an afterlife as a melltithiwyd?" I said.

  "What?"

  "She's marked."

  Patrick exhaled a curse. "All right. Maybe she doesn't deserve--"

  "They didn't just mark her," I said. "They took a down payment on her debt. Borrowed her soul, her humanity, her conscience--whatever you want to call it. That's the only way they could guarantee she would do everything they needed. The fact that it meant Gabriel grew up with a soulless monster for a mother? Irrelevant. Or perhaps, as someone once told me, that's how you forge a good blade."

  Patrick squeezed his eyes shut. "Does Gabriel know this?"

  "No, and he's not going to. He..." I trailed off as Grace looked over her shoulder.

  Gabriel stood behind her.

  "I tried," Pepper said from the hall. "He tricked me."

  "So Seanna is marked," he said. "The sluagh marked her and took her conscience, and this is the end result." He waved at the bed. "A room full of people debating whether she deserves to die."

  "She doesn't," I said. "That gives the sluagh what they want." I looked at Pamela. "You've been set up. Both you and Seanna. The sluagh gave her that envelope with Greg Kirkman's name in it. Seanna had no idea what was even in it. Then they scripted her encounter with you, preying on your hatred of Gabriel and your drive to protect your family. Combine the two and you'd help the sluagh take out a pawn who's outlived her usefulness while providing a card to use against me--the sluagh can now accuse both my parents of new murders, with evidence. I was never in any danger from Seanna. Nor was Dad. You've been duped, Mom."

  She hesitated, looking from Seanna to Gabriel.

  "Yes," Gabriel said. "You can still kill her. You are in a position to do so. If you thought that would hurt me, I believe you can realize your mistake now. I don't care. Yes, she's marked. Yes, what she did to me isn't entirely her fault. Yet she still did it. I still had to live through it, and it was more than the lack of a soul. Seanna made choices. So while I would never take that pillow and finish the job, I do not particularly care if you do. Nor does Patrick. Nor does Grace. There's only one person here who cares."

  His gaze went to me, and Pamela's followed.

  "Please," I said.

  She laid down the knife and the pillow and walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I went after Pamela, and I found her at the window, looking out.

  "We need to get you back to the hospital," I said. "Before anyone finds out you escaped."

  She nodded, holding the curtain, gazing into the night.

  "Is there...is there anything you want first?" I said. "Before you go back?"

  She turned, a smile playing on her lips. "Is that my reward, for doing as you asked, Eden? You'll take me out for ice cream before I go back to jail?"

  "No, I just--"

  "I'm teasing. You're distraught. I can see that. I hope I've made the right choice. I'm still not convinced I have. I didn't understand half of what you and Gabriel said in there, about marks and sluagh, and I fear you're both in over your head. That the fae have tricked you, and leaving Seanna alive was a mistake."

  "It's not. I know it's not."

  She opened her mouth to argue. Then she shut it. After a long moment, she said, "All right, then. You asked what I'd like to do. That fae--Gabriel's father--said you're living in a house now. The old Carew house. That's what I'd like for my reward. To see a sliver of my daughter's new life. Show me your home, Eden."

  --

  We didn't get out of the apartment building so quickly. When I turned around, Walter was there, talking to Grace and Patrick.

  I tried to get Pamela to the door, but then the dryads woke up and, well, they were as pissed off as dryads can be, realizing Patrick had sprinkled fairy dust in the wine he brought.

  "I'm going," I said as I dodged the mob of angry and indignant and unapologetic fae. "I really need to get Pamela back to the hospital before there's an APB out on her."

  "Let me--" Patrick began.

  "Yeah, no. Not now. Not ever."

  "I'll meet you at the hospital, Pamela," Patrick said. "I'll smooth your re-entry."

  Patrick left as Alexios went after him, still telling him off.

  When I started to leave with Pamela, Walter tried to stop me. Gabriel blocked him.

  "Olivia," Walt
er said. "Just one moment, please."

  "She needs--" Gabriel began.

  "We're going to relocate Seanna," Walter said. "Before the sluagh tries again."

  "Is that necessary?" I shook my head. "Never mind. I'm sure Grace will be happy to see her gone. Just be careful."

  "We'll go, too," Helia said. "To watch her."

  "You're still injur--"

  "We failed in our duty," she said softly. "Please allow us to do this."

  "You didn't fail--"

  "Please."

  "All right, but don't let Alexios think I asked you. He's worried. Rest as much as you can."

  Gabriel kept me moving, with one hand at my back, steering me out while holding off the fae. The door closed behind us and the chaos fell to silence, and I exhaled and leaned against him, saying, "Thank you. For everything."

  A brush of his lips against the top of my head, and I started to straighten. Then I stopped.

  "What you heard. About Seanna. I--"

  "I know why." Another kiss, this one against the side of my head, as he bent to whisper, "Thank you. For everything."

  At a noise, I turned to see Pamela, right there, watching.

  "We'll go now," I said. "Gabriel's coming with us."

  "I see that."

  "Don't--"

  "I won't. I have a limited amount of time, and I won't waste it registering my disapproval."

  "It's been registered," I said, and headed for the stairs.

  --

  We drove to my place. It may only be a few blocks, but no matter how disguised Pamela was, I wasn't walking around Cainsville with my escaped-con mother.

  When we arrived, Ricky flicked on the porch lights and opened the door, saying, "Hey, I was starting to wonder--" Then he saw the woman with me, and even with a scarf covering half her face, he said, "Pamela...?"

  "We broke her out of jail," I said as we walked in. "You know I hate playing Monopoly with only three people."

  "Cool," he said. "But I still get the horseman."

  Pamela unwound her scarf, and Gabriel took her coat, making her jump a little. Then she turned and said, "Ricky, I presume."

  "Yep." He shook her hand. "Liv likes to keep me around. The only thing worse than playing Monopoly with three is playing it with two and against Gabriel."

  Lloergan came out of the parlor and bumped my hand.

  "Is that...?" Pamela lowered herself to one knee and looked into Lloergan's eyes. "A cwn. I haven't seen one in..." Her breath hitched. "A very long time."

  I patted Lloergan, and Pamela tentatively did the same, then she said to Ricky, "It's yours?"

  "She. Lloergan. One perk to being Arawn is getting my own cwn. Slightly damaged." He ruffled the hound's shredded ear. "A starter cwn."

  Lloergan growled and he laughed, scratching behind her ears.

  Pamela stepped away from the hound and looked around.

  "Had you ever been here?" Ricky asked. "She'd have been your great-grandmother, right?"

  "Granny Carew, yes. And yes, I spent...I spent many days here. Days and nights when I was little." She walked into the parlor and looked up. "The magpie frieze."

  "One is for sorrow, two is for mirth," I said. "You taught me that."

  "As she taught me. We used to--" She stopped, that hitch in her breathing again. She turned toward the window. "May I have a moment, Eden? I'm sure Ricky would appreciate an update, as patient as he's being."

  We backed out. Gabriel went to start coffee, and I told Ricky what had happened.

  "Holy shit," he whispered when I finished.

  "I didn't want to call you in," I said. "After what she did to Gabriel, I couldn't take that chance."

  He pulled me into a hug. "I get it. You didn't need to explain. How's Gabriel doing?"

  "I can't tell right now. Everything feels like it's spinning a mile a minute, and there's no time to even stop and process what I'm thinking."

  "Yeah."

  "Felix?" Pamela said.

  We startled out of our tete-a-tete and saw her standing at the base of the stairs, one hand on the polished banister, looking up at...

  "Hey, TC," I said. "Yeah, that's my cat. TC."

  "Short for 'the cat,' " Ricky said. "When Liv names animals, they're either dead simple or..." He waved at Lloergan. "Impossible to pronounce."

  I stuck out my tongue at him. Then I noticed Pamela watching us, the way she'd been watching me with Gabriel. Analyzing. Processing. I stepped away, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

  TC chirped as he came down the stairs. He stopped three steps up, on eye level with Pamela. Then he chirped again.

  "He looks like..." she began. She shook it off and stroked his head. He leaned into her hand and her fingers absently rubbed over his ear. Then she stopped, looked down, and touched a white spot behind his left ear. "No..."

  TC chirped.

  "You know him?" I said, walking to her.

  "He's...was...Felix. My--" She cleared her throat. "My cat. Which should be impossible, but..."

  "It's Cainsville," I said.

  "There was a young woman. Hannah. She was friends with--" She glanced at Gabriel as he walked in with a tray of coffees. "Your aunt. Great-aunt."

  "Rose," I said.

  "Yes. Hannah said Felix was a matagot. I went to the library to look that up. I was concerned."

  "That he was fae."

  "He's not," she said emphatically. "It's French folklore, not Celtic. The book said he'd grant a gold coin a day. I asked Hannah about that, and she laughed. She said there'd be no gold, but that he was special. That was all. He was special."

  She bent and rubbed TC's neck as he purred.

  "What happened to him?" Ricky asked, taking a coffee.

  "It's what happened to me, I think. I grew up. I shouldn't say he was my cat. I didn't live in Cainsville. But he'd come around when I stayed over. Then I wasn't visiting very often, and he stopped coming around. I figured he gave up on me and found a family. A permanent home." She looked up the stairs. "And now he has."

  "Well, I wouldn't say he's made it permanent yet, but he's with me for as long as he wants to be. Right, matagot?" I gave him a pat and he rewarded me with a chirp, and then headed into the parlor.

  "Do you have time for the tour?" I asked Pamela. "Or just coffee?"

  "Both if I can," she said. "Please."

  I gave her the tour. She did not fail to notice Gabriel's shirt in my bedroom or Ricky's bag in the spare one. She didn't comment, though. Just assessed and looked around, and even told me a couple of quick stories about my great-great-grandmother.

  I noticed Gabriel giving us increasingly concerned glances, falling just short of pointedly checking his watch. He didn't say anything. He knew that would only delay her more. I was keeping an eye on the time, though, and so was she, and finally she said, "I need to go."

  "Okay, we'll drive--"

  "I have a car."

  "Then we'll follow--"

  "Better that you don't, Eden. If anything goes wrong, you never saw me."

  Gabriel nodded from down the hall, agreeing, and I said, "Okay, but while I'm not exactly happy with Patrick right now, if you do see him at the hospital, take whatever help he offers. He might be a bocan, but this one will be a freebie. He owes me."

  "Bocan," she said, and then, "Hobgoblin. Well, that certainly explains--" She cut herself short and it was two long beats before she said, "It explains his troublemaking."

  I knew that took effort, directing the barb away from Gabriel, but she made that effort and I murmured, "Thank you," as I walked her to the door.

  We stepped outside, and she ran her hand over the brass knocker. "I remember this," she said. "Gran said it was a good..." She trailed off.

  "Good marriage omen," I said. "I take it as a less specific omen, for a good household--whatever and whomever that household might include."

  I knew that wasn't what she wanted to hear. She went still, her jaw working. Part of me wanted to change the subject. Avoid a conf
rontation. End this impossible visit on the best possible note. But I held my tongue, and after a moment she only nodded and said, "Yes, I suppose it means that, too."

  We started down the steps. At the bottom, she said, "I'll walk myself back, Eden. I just..." She looked back at the house. "You know how I feel about you being in Cainsville, but this--the house, the cat--it does make it easier." She glanced at me. "You're happy?"

  "Overlooking the absolute chaos of my life right now?" I said. "Yes. I'm happier than I ever thought I could be. There are still things I want settled, obviously. The appeal, for one. But Gabriel's on it, and it looks good. With any luck, Dad will be out by this time next year." I hurriedly added, "Both of you will be out."

  "I know your father is your priority, Eden, as he should be. He deserves it far more than I do." She put her arms around my shoulders, an awkward embrace as she gave a wry chuckle and said, "I never was very good at this."

  "Neither am I," I said, and hugged her back.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  I walked into the house, where Gabriel and Ricky were waiting in the hall.

  "Did that just happen?" I said. "Did this entire night just happen? Or have I moved from visions to full-on hallucinations?"

  "It happened," Ricky said. "Your mom broke out of jail to kill Gabriel's mom, and you stopped her, and then Gabriel made her coffee while she toured your new house. I'm still not sure what's the most unbelievable part of that."

  "I believe the part where Olivia stopped Pamela from killing Seanna," Gabriel said.

  I tensed. "I'm sorry. I know maybe you'd rather--"

  "I was attempting to make light of the situation," Gabriel said. "I wasn't secretly hoping she'd do it." He thought for a moment. "No, that's incorrect. I didn't want Pamela to kill Seanna because you didn't want her to kill Seanna. The revelation of Seanna's mark merely makes her a pathetic figure, rather than a nefarious villain. I do not wish to see her dead."

  "A pathetic figure," I said. "That's it exactly. I couldn't condemn her to an eternity of suffering for that."

  "Of course not. I would neither expect nor wish you to do any different."

  He stepped toward me and then glanced at Ricky, as if remembering we weren't alone.

  "You know what?" Ricky said. "I'm suddenly very sleepy, and not at all in need of this." He produced a bottle of Scotch from behind his back. "You two enjoy. I'll go nap, and if Todd breaks out of prison to kill my father, please wake me up."

  "Don't worry, I'd stop him," I said. "Now, if he went after Gabriel's father right now, that might be a whole other situation."