by Laura Bickle
“Where is home?”
“New York. Sort of. I rent a little apartment from a very nice lady in Brooklyn. But I rarely see it.” He frowned down at the case. “I was thinking of making a change before I started working on the Tooth of Thralls theft. I’d finally saved up enough money to maybe make a go of painting again. I thought...” he trailed off.
“You thought about giving your dream another try?” I prompted.
“Yeah. I did. Seems dumb now, though...Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen.” As he looked down a black corridor of the museum, his gaze darkened.
“What’s down there?” I asked.
His jaw hardened. “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen that hallway before.”
He approached it cautiously, and I walked beside him. The hall spilled into a room with glass displays of taxidermied animals. I shuddered. I had never liked taxidermy. The animals always seemed so much smaller, threadbare, and lumpier than they had been in life.
We passed a sadly stuffed tiger with a permanently surprised expression, stalking through artificial plants. In the next display, a baby elephant looked at us with glass eyes. I had to look away.
Renan was frozen before another case. I came beside him to see that he was gazing at an artificial grass field where a taxidermied maned wolf was frozen mid-leap. He was held up by a clumsy metal armature that was visible beneath the skin to my veterinarian’s eye.
I put my hand on his arm.
“I don’t want to be this,” he said. “I want my life back.”
“I will do whatever I can to help,” I promised. “There must be some kind of magical solution, a cure. We just have to find it...”
He covered my hand with his. “I believe you.”
He turned to me and brushed a strand of hair that had twisted free of its pins away from my cheek. “I barely know you, but I believe you, somehow.” His expression was one of wonder.
His hands slid around my waist and he kissed me, deeply. I tasted his sorrow and his longing. I knew that ache, that wanting something that had slipped through my fingers.
And somehow, I knew him. I knew his dreams. And I wanted to know more. I wanted to know what his body felt like under my hands, what his breath felt like in my ear.
His lips traveled my throat, and my hands slid up to his chest. I could feel his pulse beating there, strong and rapid.
He pressed me to a wall, beneath a painting of a savannah. I could feel the ache of his need, and mine, and I wanted to make love to him. I didn’t know the depth nor the breadth of our connection, but I felt it strengthening.
I slid a leg up around his waist. He groaned and leaned into me, his hand sliding behind my knee and moving up.
His breath was hot in my ear, and my hands slid under his jacket.
And then, damn it, I woke up.
IF A WITCH DREAMS THREE nights in a row of a man, that man is her fated love.
I sucked in my breath and stared up at my bedroom ceiling. My heart was still pounding, and my fingers knotted in the blanket. Two cats were wound around my head, and one kicked me as I moved. That would have been Orion. She never had much patience for me tossing and turning in my sleep. Theo had made a nest in my hair.
I glanced to my left and right. Starr had fallen asleep with her mouth open, drooling on the pillow. Bristol had snuggled up to Halley, draped across her knees. Halley was snoring softly, hogging most of the pillow.
I groaned and did my best to climb out of bed without disturbing any humans or animals. I retrieved my hair from Theo and wriggled down the center of the bed toward the foot, then dragged myself out from under the covers. Once I’d freed myself, I padded across the floor to the door. I intended to head to the bathroom to splash some water on my face, anything to dissolve that dream. I wasn’t ready to deal with what it meant to dream of Renan three times. Maybe Belinda was wrong. Maybe this was something I could put off for later, when life was safe once more...
I opened the door and slid into the dark hallway, where I immediately ran into something—someone—solid.
Renan.
He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of boxers. His eyes shone in the dark, like a cat’s. He grasped my elbows. “Luna. Sorry, I...”
I shook my head and murmured. “It’s okay.” I made to move past him, but his hands remained on my arms.
“What are you doing up?” he asked. “Did your animals sense something?”
“No,” I shook my head, glad that he couldn’t see me blush in the dark. Well, I hoped that he couldn’t see. Maybe he saw as well as a maned wolf. “I just had a dream.”
I couldn’t read his eyes. “I was dreaming too. Of you.”
My breath hitched in my throat. I knew I should move past him, go turn on a light and have a glass of water.
“Why am I dreaming of you?” he whispered, drawing me close. “Why are you in my head?”
“I don’t know.” What I did know was that his presence was intoxicating. And I wanted to surrender to it.
His hand slipped up to the nape of my neck, and he kissed me. It was hot, insistent, just as insistent as his need pressing hard against my belly. My palms skimmed his chest, feeling the warmth there that I craved.
Ignoring the eyes of the Summerwood portraits hung on the walls around us, I leaned into the kiss, pressing my chest to his and my arms around his neck. He groaned softly, moving his hands down to my backside. I wrapped one leg, then the other, around his waist.
He carried me back to Starr’s old room, where he’d been sleeping, bumping through the open door, and shouldering it closed.
Renan carried me to the bed, nibbling my neck while pressing me to the quilts. I craved feeling the weight of him on me, aching for him to...
A tap sounded at the window.
I broke the kiss and jerked my head toward the sound. A shadow fluttered against the window.
Renan rolled off of me, and I pulled my t-shirt down around my thighs as I raced to the window. I shoved aside the curtains and thrust open the window, pulse pounding.
A bat hovered there, wings flapping.
“What’s wrong?” I gasped.
There’s a man, the bat squeaked. On the road. And he’s got a gun.
“Hell.”
I sprinted out of Starr’s room into the hallway, where I bellowed for Celeste and my sisters. I skidded into my bedroom and reached under the bed for my shotgun. I jammed my legs into a pair of jeans. My sisters, Renan, and Celeste were behind me as I charged down the stairs and out the front door, barefoot. I was conscious that Halley had created illusions behind us, a dozen sheriff’s deputies with guns.
A lone figure stood on the road. I made out the silhouette of a man in the moonlight, standing beside the ward at the mailbox. His thin face was pale in that light, ghostly. The corn dolly looked up at him with a blank face.
“Silva,” Renan growled. His skin rippled, changing into fur, and he landed on the ground with four paws. In the shape of a maned wolf, he snarled, fur standing up along his back.
“Leave,” I demanded, my voice ringing with authority. I lifted my shotgun to my shoulder, and Halley’s illusions made convincing impressions of hammers on handguns being drawn back with a dozen audible clicks.
Silva’s lips peeled back on a smile. His fingers trailed along skirt of the corn dolly ward. “When Voss didn’t come back, I knew that he had found you. This place...” He closed his eyes and breathed in the dark air. “This place smells like magic.”
“It’s not yours. Get out.” I pumped the shotgun for effect.
“And there are more witches here than I dared dream,” Silva continued, his gaze roving over my sisters.
“What part of get out did you not understand?” I advanced with the shotgun, but staying within the border of the ward. It disturbed the hell out of me that he could touch it. He shouldn’t be allowed to do that.
Silva took two steps beyond the ward, past the invisible border. My breath caught in my throat. Renan growle
d at my side, baring white teeth.
“I have come to offer you a choice,” Silva said. “Surrender willingly, and no one will be harmed. If you fight us, I can make no guarantees.”
“Nope. No way in hell,” I said. I sighted the shotgun and pulled the trigger.
I had never thought that I would fire on an unarmed man. Never. But Silva scared me, and he had crossed the wards into our land. And I had seen what he had done to Renan. I couldn’t allow it. Not ever.
But Silva just stood there, smiling, not even flinching. He didn’t even stagger back.
Renan launched himself at Silva, but instead of plowing the man to the ground, Renan’s paws went right through him. Renan skidded to the gravel, shaking his head.
I realized then that Silva was an illusion. This was only a sending, meant to test us.
Silva laughed, and his image began to fade.
“Very well,” he said. “It was war between the Summerwoods and the Casimir in the past, and war it shall be once more.”
CHAPTER 17
“Keeping me here is a half-dozen felonies at least, Luna. Let me out.”
I crouched before the dog kennel, peering inside at Dalton. He was curled up in his hospital gown, ass hanging out, looking pissed.
“I have to be sure that I can trust you not to go off on anyone in this house,” I said.
He rubbed his forehead. “Luna, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I feel...out of control. Like someone else is running the show and I’m a passenger.”
I scooted closer to the cage and put my fingers through the bars. “I won’t pretend that I know what you’re going through. I’ve never seen this before. But Renan has. And he can help you.”
He stared at me. “I don’t know anything about that guy, except that you two are...friendly.”
“Dalton. He’s the only person who can help you. He didn’t want this, either. Shifting was forced upon him. You both were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yeah. I’m good at that.”
“I’m sorry. This should never have happened. And it’s all my fault.” I stared at my fingers.
Dalton reached out and covered my fingers with his. “It’s not your fault. It happened on the job. I’ve prepared myself for all kinds of bad shit to go down at work...injuries, even death. This, however, wasn’t on my dance card. But I’ll do what’s necessary to figure it out.”
“So will I,” I promised.
His grey gaze focused on me once more. “Do you trust him?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
He nodded. “Okay. If that’s what needs to happen. I’m down for it.”
I reached forward to unlock the cage. I pulled the door open, and Dalton crawled out. He climbed to his feet, stretched, and his back cracked.
I turned away from the display of his backside. “I’ll get you some clothes. And I’ll tell Renan.” Maybe they’d be able to do some shifter bonding, rather than glaring and growling at each other. Unlikely, but I’d settle for not tearing up the house.
“I’ll contact Sandy. Tell her where I am, and that I’m providing security here. She’s got to be short on deputies, and I’m not sure that there’s much they can do from outside against these nutcases, anyway.”
“Good idea.”
“What about you?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “I’ve got some magic to work with my sisters.”
“ARE YOU SURE THAT THEY’RE not going to kill each other?” Starr’s brow creased.
“No,” I said. “But I think this is something they have to work out for themselves.”
“I’m not scrubbing more blood off the floor,” Celeste declared. “Or piss if they start getting into territorial pissing.”
I opened the basement door. “Let’s just hope that’s not necessary.” I glanced over my shoulder. I could see the men through the kitchen window, standing out in the field next to the barn. The goats and horses were watching them, too, as if this was the most entertainment they’d had all week.
Dalton had convinced Sandy to drop some clothes off for him, and he seemed a lot more sure of himself now that his ass wasn’t hanging out in the breeze. Renan stood with his hands in his pockets, seeming to be taking a deliberately nonaggressive posture. Bristol had gone with them, and they seemed deep in conversation while Bristol rolled in something that was undoubtedly stinky.
My sisters, Celeste, and I clomped down the basement steps. We waded into the gold-spangled darkness, to the cellar where the well pierced the floor. The light in the well seemed to churn agitatedly, like clouds pushed before the sun by wind.
“It’s been such a long time since I’ve been here,” Halley murmured, holding her hands out over the well, as if it were fire and she was warming herself.
Starr leaned down over the edge of the well and peered in. She sighed, allowing the light to play over her face. “Candlelight in my dorm room just isn’t the same.”
Celeste plucked the jar of silver coins from the shelf and passed it around. Each of us took a coin and tossed it into the well. When we were through, our aunt extended her hands for us to clasp. I took Celeste’s left hand and Starr’s right. Halley did the same across from me. Hands linked, we formed a circle. I felt the energy of the well move up and cascade down over the well's stone sides, pooling at our feet. That warm power moved up my legs, and I felt as if I had waded into a sunlit ocean at noon.
Starr closed her eyes and inhaled. When she exhaled, it was with a fine golden steam. “We, the witches of Summerwood, gather to consult with the dead. Ancestors, hear our plea and come to our aid in this hour of need.”
Starr remained still. I felt her pulse slow as her hand grew cold. I hadn’t seen her talk with the dead since she was a teenager. Then, we’d thought to summon Harry Houdini on a Halloween lark, but had succeeded only in summoning a polyester-clad used car salesman who’d been given the same name. The guy didn’t realize that he was dead and was determined to give Starr the hard sell on a 1970s-era Buick. He’d been very difficult to banish after that, and we’d had to resort to confessing our shenanigans to Celeste, who had kicked him out with a spell that involved flinging a silver dollar from our coin jar into the creek. He chased the dollar, and vanished.
The well stirred, golden light swirling inside it like a cauldron. I stared intently down the well, expecting images to form in response to Starr’s call.
A face bubbled forth, as if a person swam in the well. The golden face turned up to us, gazed upon us with dark eyes, and said in a rasping whisper: “Come.”
The face receded, and the water in the well sloshed and spun, turning upward in a roaring vortex. I clung to the other witches’ fingers as water washed up and deluged us. I knew better than to break the circle. Fingernails dug into my palms as we struggled to hold it in this maelstrom of stinging water and light.
As abruptly as it was called up, the storm fell. Water slapped down on the dirt basement floor, glowing dimly.
I sucked in my breath and looked at my sisters and aunt. We were all soaking wet and standing in puddles, but we were still whole. In a panic, I twisted around to glance at the bookshelf. To my relief, the books seemed to have been spared any damage.
Starr gazed down into the well, and her pencil-perfect brows drew together. “Oh.”
I looked down.
The well was empty. It yawned into a black pit.
But something golden glowed there. A small firefly floated up from the bottom to hover at eye level. Others swirled up around it, blinking softly.
“Hello,” I whispered. It was difficult to communicate with insects; their thoughts were much more alien than mammals and birds. I rarely got words from them, often just scents or flashes of images.
The firefly blinked at me, and I understood that it meant for us to follow. It drifted down into the darkness with the others.
“It wants us to follow,” I said. I slipped my hands free and put one foot up on the ed
ge of the well.
“You don’t know how deep that goes,” Celeste protested.
“It’s okay,” I said with confidence. An animal had never lied to me. I turned and gracelessly scuttled down the inside of the well, my fingers gripping the ledge.
“Luna, be careful!” Halley said.
I felt nothing below me, nothing but air. But fireflies blinked reassuringly around my head like a halo.
I let go.
It was only a short drop, maybe two feet. I made a clumsy landing on a slippery pile of coins. I sprawled in what must have been a cache of hundreds of thousands of dollars in tarnished silver, ringing like bells and shockingly deep.
I looked up to see my sisters and aunt peering at me from above.
“It’s okay,” I said, extending my hand.
Halley came first, leaping down as nimbly as a cat, managing to stay upright in the silver hoard. She clicked on the flashlight of her cell phone. Then Starr, stumbling in coins.
We looked up for Celeste.
She shook her head. “I can’t get down there,” she said. “I’ll break an ankle.”
“We’ll catch you,” Halley said.
“No. You girls go on without me.”
We exchanged uncomfortable glances. But the fireflies swirled, beckoning to us to follow them away from the cache of coins into the dark.
I moved in their wake, realizing that there was a chamber at the bottom of the well larger than the footprint of the cellar, then a tunnel that branched off of it. The tunnel ceiling was low, and I had to duck my head to pursue the fireflies.
“Where are we going?” I asked them.
They just blinked back at me: Follow.
We walked, turning down alleys and turning tunnels that branched off, growing shallower. Above our heads, worms seethed in the earth, and discarded cicada shells gleamed dully. Below our feet stretched a floor of silt and stone. I didn’t know much about geology, but I suspected. that an underground spring must ordinarily keep this underwater; the walls were wet and dripping. I guessed that we were soon far away from the house, beneath the field behind the barn and beyond.
