I shoveled more cookies and ice cream into my mouth. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“You scare the hell out of me,” she said. “I mean, my God, you killed her son. I saw it playing out on that screen.”
“It was an accident. The sword bounced off my shield and split him in two.” But I wasn’t telling the entire truth. I wanted Dane dead, and if that accident hadn’t happened, I would have found a way to kill him.
“Almost everything you and Luke told me since I got here has been a lie. There’s nothing normal about this town. None of you is even remotely normal.”
“Depends on how you define normal,” I reminded her. “To us, you’re the abnormal one.”
She put down her spoon and locked eyes with me. The urge to turn myself into a tree frog was almost irresistible but I held steady. “Maybe you’re screwing with me. Maybe you’re not. Maybe that whole freak show out there tonight was the result of some magic mushrooms you slipped into my Kung Pao. But if there’s even the slightest chance that my daughter is out there, that her spirit is in some kind of danger, then I’m going to fight as hard as I can, do whatever I have to do, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
I believed her. She was maybe five feet tall. I doubted if she weighed one hundred pounds. But there was something intensely powerful about her, something so fierce and primal that it defied the physical realities.
When it came to her daughter, the first Mrs. MacKenzie was a warrior.
Steffie was gone but Karen was still her mother. Even now, even when all of her human reality must be telling her it was futile, she was willing to fight for her daughter to keep her safe from harm.
My mother loved me but she never fought for me. When faced with the choice to join my human father in death or stay in this earthly realm and raise her little girl to adulthood, my mother chose to leave me in the collective hands of the villagers of Sugar Maple and ultimately in the loving embrace of Sorcha the healer.
After many earthly years in this realm, Sorcha had been ready to pierce the veil into the next dimension. But a needy six-year-old girl with no powers to her name and a sullied half-human heritage came into her life and she stayed until she was sure I could fly on my own.
Karen didn’t care if I liked her, loathed her, or wanted to put her in a psychiatric institution. All she cared about was Steffie.
Maybe on some level she was crazy, but it was a crazy I understood. Grief could do terrible things to a human’s heart and soul, make you see things that weren’t there and overlook the things that were. And maybe sometimes it led you to exactly the place where you were meant to be at the moment in time when you were meant to be there.
I wish I knew if this was one of those times.
“I saved the town,” I said quietly. “I don’t mean the buildings and the woods and the lake. I’m talking about the families who’ve been living here for over three hundred years. That’s what Luke and I were doing the night Isadora’s sons were killed. I regenerated the protective charm and managed to drive Isadora into banishment. When my parents died, this town became my family. They’ll be here long after—” I stopped myself. “Let’s just say if Isadora succeeds, she’ll pull the town through the mist just like she promised. She has to be stopped permanently.”
“Is that the worst that could happen?”
“The worst that could happen to the town is that not everyone will make it through to the other side. It’s a violent process and there will be casualties.” I met her eyes. “Luke would be one of them.”
“So go live somewhere else. You all have magic powers. Wouldn’t it be easier to live somewhere you didn’t have to hide what you are?”
“I can’t.” Assuming such a place even existed.
“But Luke can.”
The truth really does hurt, especially when it’s aimed straight at the center of your heart. I looked down at the table, unable to think of anything clever or insightful to say.
“I don’t see the problem,” Karen persisted. “You can use your magic to keep him safe. I’ve seen what you can do. Pop him into one of those bubbles you wrapped around me. Think of something!”
“Shut up.”
“What did you say?”
“I said shut up. Maybe if you quit talking for a minute, I’d be able to think of something.”
“Come on,” she urged. Her voice held a manic edge. “I mean, you’re practically a knitting superhero.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“That’s my child that creature’s holding. I know it’s not a joke.”
My cheeks flooded with color. It took every ounce of self-control at my command to keep from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking some sense into her. Protecting Sugar Maple and Luke and even freeing Steffie were only part of a wider picture I was just now beginning to understand.
The loss of her son Dane had pushed Isadora over the edge into obsession, turning her dislike of humans into an all-encompassing hatred of the race. If she managed to take Sugar Maple beyond the mist, who would be able to stop her from taking another town and then another?
But Karen couldn’t see any of it. The loss of her daughter blinded her to everything else.
The parallel between the two grieving women, however, wasn’t lost on me, and a part of my heart ached for them both.
The truth was I could study the Book of Spells like a Tal mudic scholar but there wasn’t time to learn even a tenth of what I needed to learn in order to construct all the protections we would need to fight off a full-powered onslaught from Isadora. The Book revealed itself on its own schedule, according to the sorcerer’s skill level, and my level was still rank beginner.
I should have done more, worked harder, dedicated myself to mastering my craft. That was why I’d been born, wasn’t it? To protect Sugar Maple and her citizens. And to make sure another Hobbs woman walked the earth after I was gone. So far I was failing on both counts.
Only the most basic banishment spells were available to me, which was why I had to construct a web of spells in order to contain her.
Suddenly I felt very old and very tired. I had been outma neuvered by the Fae leader, and the only weapons I had in my arsenal were two heartbroken humans and the Book of Spells. I realized once again how much I had depended on Gunnar, not only for friendship but for guidance in dealing with his mother’s eruptions.
There was only one way we could save Steffie, and that was by completely vanquishing Isadora once and for all. Surrender wouldn’t work. Neither would compromise. Luke understood that, but I knew Karen never would.
I wasn’t sure I wanted her to.
“Karen, I can’t tell you not to fight for your daughter. The only thing I can do is tell you we’re on the same side.”
“Then why aren’t you doing anything?”
I had nothing left to offer her but the truth. “Because I don’t know where to start.”
“You’re pathetic.” She sounded almost sorry for me. “You both are. Steffie was trying to tell us something, and I’m not going to rest until I figure out what it is.”
She met my eyes. I wasn’t crazy about what I saw reflected back at me: the last descendant of Aerynn.
The one who lost it all.
17
CHLOE
I watched from the living room window as Karen walked halfway down the driveway and lit a cigarette. She said she needed to think. All things considered, I probably should have tried harder to keep her inside, where I could protect her, but I wasn’t sure I cared any longer. I hadn’t been able to keep Luke’s truck from sailing across town like a detailed Cessna. Why did I think things would be any different now?
With a little luck, maybe she would keep walking down the driveway and never come back and we could forget any of this ever happened.
I had never felt like a bigger loser than I felt at that moment.
“Where’s Karen?” Luke’s warm breath brushed against the side of my neck.
“She
went out. Said she needed to think.”
“And you let her go?” He wrapped his arms around me, and silver-gold sparks flickered all around us.
“I’m not sure I could have stopped her without dropping another bubble over her.” And I wasn’t sure how I did that the first time.
“Do you think she’s safe?”
“As safe as she would be in here with us. Doors and walls don’t mean much to the Fae. I could always—”
“Shut up.”
I turned slightly and looked up at him. “What?”
“Shut up,” he said, then closed his mouth over mine.
His mouth was hot. His lips. His tongue. I couldn’t get enough of his heat. I couldn’t get close enough to the source.
It wasn’t magick but it seemed like it. He slid his hand under my sweater. I unzipped his jeans. He teased my nipple with the pad of his thumb. I found him with my hand.
There wasn’t time to get naked. There wasn’t time to tease or stroke or prolong.
We stumbled across the room, still kissing. He pressed me up against the wall, then slid my jeans and panties down my body. His tongue burned a line down between my breasts, over my belly, lower and lower still until he found me and I cried out in the quiet room.
“Wrap your legs around my waist.” His words were muffled against the side of my neck. “I want to come inside you.”
His hands grasped my hips and I gasped as he lowered me onto his rigid shaft. I gripped him hard with my thighs. He was ferocious in his need and I met him thrust for thrust. The sparks between us turned to flame.
Nothing lasted forever. Not people. Not things. Not even love.
This time tomorrow it might be too late.
KAREN
I forgot just how far north Sugar Maple was. Spring nights weren’t always gentle up here. The light sweater I had borrowed from Chloe wasn’t cutting it so I turned back toward the cottage to grab another one.
My mind was a blank. It scared me that, with all there was at stake and a clock ticking away the minutes, I could be so totally devoid of ideas, but I guess there is just so much the human brain can take before it shuts down in self-preservation.
Human brain. Strange to think having one put me in the minority around here.
Shivering, I jogged up the driveway and was almost at the porch steps when I caught sight of movement in the front window. Luke and Chloe, shadowy in the darkened room, were wrapped in each other’s arms, ivory and gold sparks shooting in every direction like fireworks gone crazy.
It’s not that I didn’t know they were lovers. All you had to do was look at them to know that. But knowing it and seeing it were very different things.
Life went on.
No matter what happened, no matter how battered and bruised you were, sooner or later life swept you up again and threw you back into the river. Luke had moved on while I was still standing onshore, unable to make peace with Steffie’s death. There had always been something unfinished to it, as if I’d caught only part of the story and needed to know how it ended.
Or even if it ended.
Clearly I couldn’t go back into the cottage without embarrassing all three of us so I checked Luke’s truck for a jacket or blanket, then opened the door of Chloe’s Buick, where I stumbled on the mother lode. I grabbed a phenomenal Aran cardie with vintage buttons and front pockets. It fell practically to my knees, which considering the fact I was freezing, wasn’t a bad thing at all.
The creep-out factor was sky-high as I walked toward town. I jumped at every sound in the bushes and looked over my shoulder so many times I would have been better off walking backward.
Maybe Chloe didn’t know what to do next, but scarfing ice cream at the kitchen table while Luke made phone calls wasn’t going to get us anywhere. Steffie was out here somewhere. I’d seen her with my own eyes. I’d watched as she pounded helplessly at some supernatural cage.
My baby . . . caged.
I stopped walking as the image flashed before my eyes.
She had looked angry and terrified and lonely, and if I could have breached the divide between worlds, I would have torn that creature Isadora apart with my bare hands and enjoyed every moment of the carnage.
How could Luke stand there and do nothing? I knew he had moved on. The supermodel was proof of that. He had gathered up his memories of our marriage and of Steffie and compartmentalized them the way he used to separate his job from his family. But that was his baby girl up there. He’d been there when she was born. He had cut the cord, heard her first cries. How could he maintain that icy distance?
If you can hear me, Steffie, talk to me . . . I’m going to find you . . . Don’t worry, baby . . .
Nothing. No visions appearing in the sky. No secret ringtone.
“Steffie!” I screamed into the unyielding silence. “Where are you, Steffie?”
Still nothing.
I broke into a run. “Steffie, talk to me! Help me find you!”
She was out there. I knew she was. Even Luke believed me now. Somebody had to find her before it was too late.
I stumbled over a branch and fell headlong in the road. Shards of gravel and dirt cut into my palms. My brain registered a sharp pain in my right knee, then dismissed it as irrelevant. I got back on my feet and resumed a limping run toward town.
I had nothing to do with Sugar Maple or Chloe’s problems with magic types. I didn’t care about their ridiculous feuds. All I cared about was my daughter.
I had to get back to the lake. I wanted to stand in the same spot where I’d been standing two hours ago when I saw Steffie trapped in that hideous cage. Maybe without Chloe and Luke and all their baggage, I would be able to talk to that Isadora, mother to mother. She had lost her sons. She knew how it felt to grieve for a child. I would open my heart to her. I’d hold nothing back.
Anything Isadora wanted. Anything. She could have it. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for my child.
But wouldn’t she know that already? She had magical powers. She was some kind of wizard. She should know I was on whichever side was best for my baby girl.
“That’s not how it works.”
I jumped at the sound of a high-pitched woman’s voice.
“Over here,” the voice said.
I turned to my right. “Where are you?”
“You’re looking at me.”
And suddenly I was. She was about my height, twice my weight, and impossibly rosy-cheeked. “You realize you’re going about this all wrong.”
“Have we met?” I asked. “You look familiar.”
“You remember! I’m so pleased. I was with you at the town hall last night when you passed out.” Her eyes were the deep brown of strong coffee. So dark I couldn’t differentiate pupil from iris.
“I didn’t pass out,” I said. “Luke said I passed out but I know I walked into a wall.”
“You’re half right,” she said. “It wasn’t a wall. It was Isadora’s force field. No point pretending. You know everything now.”
She had a crazy-wide smile. Lots of big white teeth. Really big white teeth. Especially those incisors.
“Oh God.” I jumped back a step, unable to tear my eyes away from those teeth.
“You humans,” she said with a merry laugh. “How many times have I told Luke we don’t feed that way anymore? This is the twenty-first century. Why shackle ourselves to messy, archaic methods when modern science is at our disposal?”
I assumed it was a rhetorical question. At least I hoped it was because I was too shocked to speak. I mean, what do you say to a short, fat vampire with a bad perm and press-on nails?
“We know all about what happened tonight,” she said, linking her plump arm through mine. Those eyes! I couldn’t look away. “Someone should have taught Isadora some manners. I always said half of our troubles could have been avoided if she understood the difference between honey and vinegar.”
I finally found my voice. “Um, who are you exactly?”
Again tha
t helium-enhanced laugh. “Oh, honey, didn’t I introduce myself? I’m Midge Stallworth and I’m the answer to your prayers.”
18
LUKE
We barely had time to put our clothes back on before the first blue flame message flared to life.
Nothing like a hologram of your lover’s best friend in her bathrobe and bunny slippers to quench the afterglow.
“Fair warning,” Janice’s image said. “Half the village is on the way over. They want to show their support.”
I looked over at Chloe, who was finger-combing her hair. “Can they see us when we—?”
She shivered visibly. “I try not to think about that.”
I replayed the last ten minutes and almost singed my brain. “I figured there was some kind of spell to keep them out.”
“And there used to be a spell that kept you from seeing blue flame messages,” she reminded me. “Things are changing around here.”
“Some things won’t,” I said. “We’re in this together.”
She wasn’t the kind of woman who cried easily. Seeing her eyes well up with tears hit me hard. “You wouldn’t be in this at all if you hadn’t decided to stay here with me.”
“No magic spells,” I reminded her. “It was my choice to stay.”
“You didn’t know what you were getting yourself into. You didn’t know your daughter’s spirit would be involved.”
“You didn’t know either.”
“The thought probes,” she said, shaking her head. “I must have missed one.”
“Thought probes? What the hell is a thought probe?”
She looked extremely uncomfortable as she explained the small missile-shaped objects that copied both memory and emotion and added the components to mystical data banks the Pentagon would envy.
“You’re telling me my memories are being stored someplace?”
“I’m not sure,” she said uneasily. “Maybe not. I wove a pretty good spell around you to—”
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