We can't sustain this level of magic. I picked off another of those little bastards trying to get to Arden. And the Aces can't help if they're guarding Gypsy Gardens. I thought of summoning a larger ward and then realized that was impossible without Arcana.
Damn that voice in my head. How long was she going to be mad at me? Was this going to be a reoccurring thing? Her leaving me to teach me a lesson? Though…the last time she disappeared was to save Crwys.
Wait…was that what she was doing now? Did she know he was in danger from Yolyn? I wanted to think that was it and that Arcana's plan would be revealed in time.
Subconsciously I knew that wasn't true. It couldn't be.
More of those bastards came through the door. A group of them started firing off arrows, as well as magic blasts, at the helix surrounding Arden. I got two of them with my guns before Coventina chopped one in half with her axe and Sionna drowned another in a floating ball of water. In fact, she had several dead Risi inside that life-size ball.
More of those strange arrows appeared, taking out the remaining Risi around Arden's people. Who was shooting those arrows? I lowered my arms and ducked behind the edge of one of the shelves in the back as I scanned our side.
And there she was. Tas. Standing in perfect form, holding a bow with one of those arrows nocked. She released it and I watched it sail across the room to hit one of the soldiers entering. Looking back, I watched her hand reach out and pluck another arrow from the air.
What in the hell was she? What kind of creature could summon a bow and arrow and hit with such deadly precision? I was surer now than I'd been before that Tas wasn't a Witch. I wasn't sure what she was, but I was going to find out.
"Samantha," Brahms said, and I whirled around to find him hiding behind me. "Let me shut the gate."
"That's not going to stop the ones already through it. And I have intel there are a lot more."
"But if they see me cast the door, they'll leave. None of them want to be stuck here to be slaughtered. Not with Yolyn down."
I glanced back at the fray and had to consider what it meant to hand over my shop. Contracts in the magical world were a funny thing, though just as perilous as normal world editions with their snags of verbiage. I turned back to him. "And you'll hand it right back over to me when this is done?"
"Yes. I have no use for a man-made building." He actually made a face that looked like he'd smelled something bad.
Brahms had been a boon since he attacked Bastien in the woods. He'd been helpful, and he'd tried to save the King. Seemed to me he wore a hero badge. And he wasn't bad to look at, especially when he glamoured those horns. "I have your word?"
"Of course." He looked around me to the fighting. "We don't have much time."
"What do I do?"
He pulled a leaf from his jacket pocket, and with a wave of his hand, it became a rolled scroll. He unfurled it and produced a feathered quill from the air. "All you have to do is sign here."
"I don't sign things I don't have time to read." I turned and shot another Risi as he came toward us. That's also when I checked the barrels of my pistols. "I got two shots left."
"You don't have to read it. You have my word. Sign and I can get rid of them. And once this is over, all I have to do is tear up the contract."
I pursed my lips as I eyed the quill and the contract. "I keep the contract."
"If you wish." He handed it to me.
I shoved both guns into my back pockets, then pressed the scroll against the wall. The quill felt weird between my fingers. It tingled, and when I signed the name Samantha Elizabeth Hawthorne, something else tingled—my feet where they stood on the hardwood floor. I turned to hand the quill back to Brahms, but he wasn't there.
Shouting brought my attention back to the fight. I shoved the contract into a box on a shelf, along with the quill, cast a small protection over it, and then retrieved my guns before I stepped back out, ready to fight.
But, there wasn't a reason to. Brahms stood in front of the break room table, his arms out wide as a purplish glow surrounded his body, and the Risi soldiers fled back through the door. I lowered my guns, as did Levi and Crwys, and Tas lowered her bow. In fact, it disappeared.
There was an audible pop. I blinked a few times, and everything was back as it was. The door going into the main shop was back intact, and the Risi bodies were gone.
"What just happened?" Crwys said and looked at me.
I gave him a look and I was pretty sure he knew at that moment I'd signed a contract with Brahms. How else was I going to protect everyone?
I opened my mouth to verbally answer him, but one of the coven interrupted. "Lady Samantha, we've done all we can, but we need to get our priestess to a hospital."
I knew Arden hated hospitals. Luckily, she owned one of them. "I agree. Let's get her safely into one of the cars and get her checked in." I pushed my weapons back into my pockets as Crwys, Levi and Kyle helped lift Arden and put her in Crwys's Mustang. It wasn't my first choice, but it was certainly the fastest. And it was a cop car, so no one would ticket Crwys for speeding.
Outside, he kissed me. "Levi and I will get her in and then give you a call about her condition."
"Jack and I will meet you over there," Kyle said as he limped closer.
"Kyle?" I looked at his leg. "You're bleeding."
"I know. I'm out of power to heal it, though. Solomon's going to meet us over at the hospital and heal me. I'll be fine."
I felt a small twang of jealously at that moment. I'd always healed my group. The fact he didn't even ask me spoke volumes. I hadn't been there. For either of them. Ivan or Kyle. And now that I was, it didn't matter, did it?
I watched as Kyle and Jack got into his car, just after Crwys and Levi left with Arden. The coven split up into Kyle's car and one they brought. Once the parking area was clear, I became aware of Tas standing beside me. I didn't look at her. I just asked, "What are you?"
She didn't hesitate. "Is it important?"
"It is to me. I don't like trusting things I can't identify." I turned to look at her exotic profile. "And my magic cannot identify you at all. I saw the bow."
"I know."
"And I saw you conjuring arrows."
"Yes."
I waited. Then, "And?"
"And what?" She looked at me. "Is it so important to label me, Samantha Hawthorne? I am who I say I am. When I confessed I had talents given to me by the God Mother, you assumed I was a Witch, and I was fine with that. But I'm not. I've never been trained as one. I've always worked independently for the God Mother'’s purpose."
"What does that mean?" I put my hands on my hips. "You speak about the God Mother as if you're a Witch, but you're not. I haven't seen an Elemental, but you have Gifts. Diana?"
"Again, another label?"
"I'm sorry, I just…I have to know who and what you are."
Tas finally looked at me, and I swear I felt as if I was going to drown in those soft brown eyes. "I am a good person, Samantha. I work, I pay my taxes, and I fight to put the bad guys away. And I do these things because I was once inspired by someone whose life I destroyed. I watched them slowly rebuild themselves, overcome so many hardships, and succeed to make themselves a better person. When I realized what I'd done, how I'd squandered my power, I pledged my loyalty to the God Mother to make amends. That is what I do. I am neither a Witch, nor a Dianic. I am simply Tasoula."
I felt there was truth in most of what she just told me. But there was vagary in there as well. "Fine. I’ll live with that. For now."
Brahms came out the back door with his hand shoved inside his jacket. "Everything okay?"
I nodded. "Yeah. I think I'm gonna take a little ride before heading to the hospital. Will you be all right by yourself?"
"I think so."
"I can stay with him. I'd like to take another look at the missing basement, if that's okay?" She looked at me.
"That's fine," Brahms said, before I could say it.
Brah
ms waved and headed back in with Tas following behind. Something felt odd, and I couldn't put my finger on it. I knew the shop was safe because of Brahms's cap. And Tas was watching him. But there was something I had to go look at for myself. I ran back inside, grabbed my keys, purse and an energy bar before getting into my Jeep. I was happy to see it parked where I'd left it all those months ago. It was dusty, but it cranked right up. Crwys had taken care of it.
I headed out onto Bourbon and turned in the direction of the park. I needed to see where these bodies had been found for myself.
The drive to the park was pretty easy, given it was closing in on six in the morning. The air was brisk and the moon fading with the encroaching day. Tomorrow would be the full moon. I dreaded it. Weird shit always happened on the full moon.
And speaking of weird shit…
I parked the Jeep on the side of the park, near where I'd confronted Brendi all those months ago and cheated her of her price a second time. Brendi had been the Queen of the Obsidian Court, taking Medbh's place when Brendi beheaded her. I'd kept that head in a porcelain state in my basement for months after that.
Now Brendi was back home in Savannah with her dad and living a normal life, with no memory of ever being inside of Alfheim. Medbh was back on the throne. A much calmer, saner, more sophisticated queen these days. And a lot more help than adversarial, though I wasn't holding my breath. Faeries were always Faeries and never to be trusted.
I cursed myself for not reloading my guns. I had a single bullet each, so if I had to shoot, it'd better be a meaningful one.
I entered the park and pulled the map out of my back pocket as my Elementals manifested. I'd pilfered the map from Crwys's wallet. It wasn't my fault I knew where he kept his notes. And his drawings. He always drew a layout of the crime scene.
This time he'd actually sketched the park. I was in the south end, in the middle of Couturie Forest, where the first body was found. Marking off steps to it, I knew the place the moment I walked through it as a shiver went up my spine. I immediately consecrated the place before I summoned my dex and focused on the area. I was asking this thing to cover a lot of ground and not one specific thing. My hope was that it would lock onto the most common abnormally and give me an answer.
The bright pentagram I'd drawn in the air hovered in front of me as I watched the Elements move inside. Eventually, it accessed the Akashic Records and—
Undetermined.
What the hell? That was the same answer as Tas. Making a face, I did a quick go over, but the detectives had been thorough. I visited each of the places where stone bodies had been found, and the same thing happened. Frustration frayed my nerves as the morning wore on until I was headed across the golf course to a blocked off area. They'd constructed a huge, white tent structure over this nightmare, as Crwys called it. It was lit from within and cast an eerie glow on the area. Police cruisers sat unmanned in the area. Yellow crime scene tape strung around the cars flapped in the breeze.
I paused behind one car, my Elementals pausing with me.
-Something is wrong,- Belenos said.
"Yeah…" It wasn't odd to see cop cars unmanned, but it was odd to not see their drivers at all. I took a few steps closer, this time looking for any of the owners of the cars. No one moved. In fact, nothing moved.
-We shouldn't go in,- Coventina voiced, and I could just see her small form near the farthest car. I hadn't noticed her running off.
"I have to," I said to the wind. Crouching low, I made way around the side until I found an opening in the tent. Again, that something's-not-right bug buzzed in my ear. So I figured I'd go in, get my own intel, and get out.
That is…until I saw it.
The eerie look from the outside was caused by what could only be described as some sick, twisted, freakish depiction of hell, like the ones I'd seen in woodcarvings. It looked like someone had built a bonfire and dropped about twenty people inside of it. But as they scrambled to get out of it, they turned to stone instead of catching fire. The ones on the bottom were completely turned, and the closer I got, the more I could see the decaying Tas told us about. I picked up a stick and touched one of the victim's fingers.
Their hand came off and turned to dust.
Lady Darksome!
I dropped back so fast I heard the wind catch up with me. Damn. What a terrible way to go. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the bodies on top, the ones that hadn't stopped transforming into stone. They were all clawing to get out, crawling over the other. Arms of those on the bottom reached for the sky, trampled by the ones on top.
One of the victims, only half turned from the chest down, looked as if he were trying to run when he was caught. I cautiously stepped closer to him. He stared straight ahead, his skin was a sickly shade of gray. His face looked…he looked terrified.
And then he blinked.
I made a seriously girly noise as I stumbled back from him. My Elementals appeared in front of me, ready to charge whatever had just attacked. But there was no attack. There was just horror. I stared at the boy’s profile, willing it to look at me. To not have died such a horrible death.
"Lady of the mountain!" I hissed. “What monster did this?”
“That,” came a deep and seductive voice to my left. I whirled, guns out, and aimed at Lethe where she stood in the shadows of the tent's entrance. “Would be me.”
SIXTEEN
Crwys stood at the admissions desk, filling out paperwork. Levi was nearby on his phone. The rest of the coven members were in triage, and those well enough to stand were in the back with Arden. Luckily, the administrator was part of the Witch's Parliament so keeping all this weirdness under the radar was easy.
But also, unfortunately, the administrator was part of all this weirdness, which meant the entire Parliament was going to be stepping into this mess, and Crwys did not want more innocent lives affected in such a horrific way. It was bad enough they had invading armies of Risi running around, but now there were reports of Wolves involved. He knew they weren't part of the Aces because Bastien had just spent two months protecting Sam.
Or…that was how he chose to look at it. Even with Sam's reassurances that nothing happened, there was still a chasm there. A void he wanted to fill between them but didn't know how. And he wasn't sure Sam felt it as strongly as he did.
He realized his pen wasn't moving and set it on the clipboard. He was too preoccupied with the attack on the shop. But most of his worry and stress came from Sam giving over ownership to Brahms. She didn’t say she did…but how else could Brahms have done that spell and the Risi retreated as they did? He didn’t know when she’d signed it over, but she had. And maybe if she hadn’t…
No one would have survived.
Brahms seemed legitimate, and he really wanted to open that basement and get his king back. The way Crwys heard it, Brahms had nearly given his life to save him.
But having the place magically signed over to anyone, or in this case, anything else, set off centuries worth of alarm bells.
Levi appeared beside him. "We have a problem."
Crwys glance up at the ceiling. "When do we not? Is it Arden?"
"No. Max called. We have to get the morgue as soon as we can."
"Why?"
"He didn't elaborate, but he did say he’d been calling you for over an hour and you hadn’t answered.”
Cryws checked his phone. It was on mute. Six calls from Max.
Oh. Great. Only one message, so he listened to it.
"Where the fuck are you? I need you and your posse to get to the morgue fast. I don't know how much longer I can keep Prescott and my boss away."
"And?" Levi was looking at him.
"Morgue." He finished the forms, signed, and turned to the nearest coven member. "Milly, right? Good, will you call me or Samantha Hawthorne the moment you hear anything on Arden?"
The girl's eyes were as big as goose eggs the entire time he spoke to her. He got that a lot from Arden's bunch, now that t
hey all sort of knew he wasn't human and more of a mythic creature.
Oh joy.
He and Levi made it to the coroner's office in record time, given the time of the morning it was. He called Tas a few times and left her a message to join them. She was probably trying to open the basement with whatever magic she had.
Inside, they had to wait while Max unlocked the main doors, then the doors to the examining room. "What the hell, Max?" Crwys said on his way inside, assuming Max had opened the doors electronically since he wasn’t standing behind them. He paused. Something smelled…wrong.
He spotted Max across the room, and he looked awful. His lab coat and scrubs were coated in some kind of gray dust. It also coated his disheveled hair, turning it from its usual brown to a light mud. His face was streaked with the stuff. He held out his hands from where he stood across the room. "Stop! Look down."
Crwys had nearly taken a step inside the room before Levi grabbed him at the same time Max warned him. The floor was covered in the same grayish-looking color as Max. Crwys took a closer look at the room and saw a silty powder covering everything, from the sheets over the bodies to the silver equipment, and some of it stuck to the walls. "What in the hell?"
"About a half hour ago," Max said, "everything exploded."
"Exploded?" Crwys looked around. "What exactly…exploded?"
"All those bodies. Everything brought in on this case." He held out his arms. "I was standing in the middle of it all when it just went…poof!"
Crwys wasn't sure if this was considered a crime scene or not, though Max had obviously done what he could to preserve it. But he and Levi couldn't stand at the door and yell at Max. "Max, I'm coming to you. Levi and I will make a single path and stay in it."
"I'm not stepping in that," Levi said, shaking his head. "You go right ahead. I'll stand at the door."
Giving his partner a narrowed eye, Crwys carefully moved through the odd silt. He nearly slipped on it twice, but caught his balance as his invisible wings righted him. He was careful not to knock anything else over as he folded them back in place. That's the fun of Dragon Magic. The rules were different.
eldritch files 07 - elemental blood Page 11
