I know where there's some.
I closed my eyes. I already knew what she was going to say. "It's growing at Ina's house, isn't it? In Ina's garden?"
Yes. I saw it there when we were there before. I thought it was odd she had it planted but it's in the north quadrant.
Kyle was on his feet. "Is it really at Ina's house?"
"Grey says it is. She saw it there." I did not want to go back to Ina's house. I mean I really didn't want to. The idea of going back to that house knowing there were all those dead people buried in the back yard just gave me the creeps. But I couldn't really tell people that. I couldn't tell anyone. And I sure as hell didn't want the local police to start digging it all up.
But Kyle was already packing his stuff back into that bag. "Let's go. I can finish it there."
"Kyle, we don't even know where Circe took Marilla and Jack. Bastien's got his whole pack searching the city and I haven't heard a word." And that scared me. I felt like I needed to be searching myself, but I was so tired, and so cold, and aching all over my body. Not even Ivan's tea was helping.
"Then let's just go over there and get it so I can at least try something. Maybe on the way they'll contact you through that link or something."
The bodies aren't going to come out of the ground and hurt you, Sam-Sam.
"That's not what spooks me," I said aloud but I was making myself stand. "It's just the idea they're there."
"What's there?"
"Never mind. Let's go. I'll call Arden and see if they know anything."
"Let's take my car," Kyle said as we went to the door. "It'll fit more people. We should swing by and grab your Jeep on the way there."
I was pulling out my phone while I nodded and thumbed through the numbers. I saw Crwys's number and paused over it as we piled into the Prius. I wanted to call him, make sure he was okay and still mending. I also noticed I had five missed calls from Prescott. Let her fucking hang. Bitch took my mom.
Grey crawled in the back with me and I leaned into her for warmth as I called Arden. It went straight to voicemail. "Hey Arden. It's Sam. We're running by Ina's to pick up something. Please call if your people or Bastien finds them."
Once I hung up, I shoved the phone back into my jeans pocket and leaned back to close my eyes. I could hear the pack now, a cacophony of voices over the air. Each of them reporting back to the whole. They couldn't find them. And without my Elementals, I didn't think I could Track the way my mom used to.
My muscles ached as I shivered. I couldn't do this on my own. I was gonna need help. And I was gonna need it fast. I pulled the phone out again and texted the one person I knew who could possibly find a renegade Magician.
TWENTY THREE
Ina's house was lit up. This was my first clue something was wrong because no one lived there. It'd been empty since Dionysus absconded with my aunt's body, the body he'd been puppeting since I was eight years old, and fled the area. I didn't know if he'd fled the country and if I ever saw him again, I wouldn't blink twice at doing to him what I did to Fred.
Was it possible he was back in town and Ina was back in her house? I hoped somehow if that were true, I'd know it. Maybe some seventh sense or something.
We sat in Kyle's Prius, in front of Ina's house where I always got a parking spot. It was an old spell Ina had cast on the area just for me. The spell would always work as long as I continued to park there occasionally. All four of us stared at the house.
"So…" Kyle began. "Anyone got any ideas?"
"Not really." My teeth chattered from shaking. I was trying really hard to pull it together but the chills that set in during the drive over weren't something I could control no matter how warm the scar on my chest became. I assumed it was reacting to my emotional anxiety. "I'm not sure I want to know who's in there."
"I have to get the snowdrop," Kyle said as he shrugged his backpack on. "I'm not giving up on Jack. Not like this."
A harsh knock against the driver's side window made us all jump. A person dressed in a black robe and hood stood outside of the door, wielding the toughest and most powerful magic known to mankind.
A Glock 9mm.
The figure stepped back and gestured for us to get out of the Prius with his free hand. Everyone glanced at each other, all silently asking what we were going to do, even though we each opened up our prospective doors. I stood to the side in the chilled night air and waited for Grey to jump out to the sidewalk.
"Hello," Kyle said to the hooded gunman. "Can we help you?"
"Inside. All of you." The voice was male and didn't click any memory bells. He stood back as we all filed in line behind one another and walked down walkway to Ina's front door.
There was a time I thought I knew this house as well as I knew myself. I had lived here with Ina since I was fourteen. I helped her upgrade the bathrooms, the kitchen and I helped her plant the garden. What I did not help her with were the bodies buried in the back.
Circe met us at the door, her hands clasped in front of her. A small part of me half expected, in a terrified sort of way, to see Inamorata standing beside the Magician. But Ina wasn't there. Ina was far away from New Orleans. We paused just inside the door in the foyer as the gunman closed the door and locked it.
The tall, half-blurred face of Olivia Graham took in each of us. Her gaze fixed on Grey and she frowned. "That's a real wolf."
"She's a dog." I know I shouldn't have said anything, but that was my go-to defense when anyone remarked about Grey. "Well, she's half Husky, half Labrador."
"But she's a real canine. Not a shifter."
I looked at Grey who looked up at me. She can't tell I'm a paladin. Her limited magic won't reveal the real me.
The real you? I made a face at her, not quite sure what that meant, so I put asking more questions on the back burner.
"Put the dog in the mud room and lock the door."
"No!" It slipped out as the gunman started toward Grey and I slipped between them. "She's my familiar. I need her with me."
"Then all the more reason to keep her away from you. Gydion, put her in the mud room."
Grey growled as the gunman named Gydion grabbed the fur and skin on the back of her neck, but I quieted her down with the reassurance I'd be back to let her out soon as I could. My anxiety level rose as I watched her being half dragged away and I felt the mark sear my chest. I put a hand over it and felt the heat through my shirt.
"It's so nice to see you again," the Magician said as she turned and headed into the house. Two more robed men with their hoods down flanked us as they ushered us to follow Circe. I fell in between Kyle and Ivan, with Ivan's hand on my shoulder. "I must say I was very impressed with the way you handled my spectres."
"What are you doing in Inamorata's house?" I had to ask, and I made sure to do it once we were through the dining room, heading to the open sliding glass doors. The house looked fine. Nothing broken or stolen.
She paused in the doorway and turned. I didn't much care for the look on her face. "Let's not play coy, Miss Hawthorne. You already know I was friends with Inamorata. I have a key to this place, and I know more about its hidden secrets than you."
As she turned to head out the door, I couldn't stop myself. I didn't like her and I was feeling very aggressive. The edges of my vision were tinged with red, sparkly power waiting for me to give it permission to destroy. And that realization frightened me more than anything. Would there be a day when it wouldn't wait for my permission and I would be the one watching from the edges as it wreaked its destructive power?
"You mean the secrets like the bodies? The deaths she used to create the Coyote Flame?"
Circe's back went rigid as she straightened her arms down at her sides. She obviously didn't like being one-upped and the bodies were a sticky secret.
"Oh…I get it." I stepped forward and Ivan's hand slipped off my shoulder. "You helped her kill those people, didn't you? That's how you know who I am. So, part of you is connected to that doorway, isn't it?"
I'd moved past Kyle as I spoke and stood directly in front of her. She turned fast, but I expected it. Or a sudden surge in my senses expected it. I knew she was going to strike and when she moved, it was in slow motion. I grabbed her striking wrist and held it between us. We were close to the same height—Circe had about an inch or two on me.
One of the gunmen stepped forward and slammed his fist down my arm. It hurt. I let go of Circe's wrist, snarled at the bastard and grabbed the gunman's forearm.
He disappeared in a swirl of black and red mist that smelled faintly of blood and smoke.
Kyle and Ivan both backed up. I felt them pull away as my shaking intensified. I was so, so cold and yet I could feel my skin crawling with heat. I looked at my outstretched hand. Arcane power popped and sparkled just beneath my skin like lightning within a thundercloud. Circe took two steps back, pulled her hands back and took off running into the center of the garden. The other gunman backed up as well as I turned and looked at him and said, "Boo."
He ran in the opposite direction toward the front door. I heard it slam on his way out.
When I looked at Kyle and Ivan my heart dropped into my already knotted stomach. Their eyes were wide and their fists up in front of them. Ivan's glowed brilliant green and Kyle's were blue and yellow. I looked between the two of them, shivering, then turned and looked back to the garden.
Circe was in the center of the Circle Ina and I had created years ago. Any Cowen looking to the back would just see a circular garden, with concentric circles of flowers planted in four quarters. But the magically inclined would see the significance and the base for a ritual space. It was the place where I'd killed Arwen at Samhain, and where Arden and her coven had opened the Coyote Flame and freed the Changeling children in December.
And here we were, back again a third time, with another bad guy threatening to do bad things to an innocent. I could see a girl lying on the ground in the center of the stone circle where the fire pit was. I could also see the swell of her belly where a child slept in anticipation of birth. And I could see the mother wasn't moving.
I glanced behind me at the two of them. "You two can stand there and look at me like I'm some kind of monster or you can get your asses out there and help me save Jack, Marilla and her baby. Kyle, free Grey from the mud room and she can show you where the snowdrop is." Whether or not they decided to help me, having just seen me obliterate a man, didn't matter. The only thing I could see was the girl, the baby and a Magician that needed to be put down.
So I took off running to that Circle, calling every ounce of Arcane I had at my fingertips, ready to get rid of this bitch for good.
Something grabbed my ankle in mid run. I wasn't running that fast. I had a fever that would probably send any thermometer into a fit and my muscles ached as if on fire, so I wasn't all that surprised that something caught me. What I didn't expect to see after I slammed into the damp, wet ground and bit dirt, was a bony, skeletal hand. It sprang out of the ground, pushing dirt and plugs of grass to the sides as it held my ankle in a vice-like grip.
The ground around it rippled and shot up as the rest of the body popped up like broken bones through skin. I screamed.
Ivan appeared at my side, stomping on the femur connected to the hand with his sneakers. The bones broke but the hand continued its death grip on my ankle. My Cyber Witch dropped to the ground where I sat staring at the skeletal hand on my boot and started pulling and yanking at the finger bones. "Damn! Sam! This is one of those bodies, isn't it?"
"Yes!"
I reached out and gingerly touched the knuckle of one bone and the whole hand disappeared in a poof of black smoke.
Ivan helped me to my feet as the entire garden moved and shifted. More bodies erupted from the earth and pulled their rotted selves out of the earth.
I pointed at them as I grabbed Ivan's arm. He flinched, but when he realized I wasn't going to make him disappear in a cloud of smoke he grabbed my arm back. "We got zombies!"
"No shit!" It was obvious Ivan didn't know what to do. His Gift dealt with Cyber Magic, and this was way outside his wheelhouse. "What do we do?"
I looked around at the bodies as they all turned at once and faced us. Just past them were Grey and Kyle on the other side of the Circle digging in the ground. No one had seemed to notice them yet, and there were more of them than us. Keeping their attention away from Kyle and Grey was the better idea.
I pulled him to the house. "We run!"
TWENTY FOUR
I wasn't in good shape. And it was obvious as I stumbled against Ivan and he worked to get his arm underneath my shoulder. I cursed Ina for having such a huge back yard as we neared the house, only to be blocked by one of the monsters. This zombie was still half dressed, with a yellow t-shirt, bits and pieces of jeans and yellowish hair. I recognized him as Bill, one of the last homeless guys Ina took in before I left for college.
He was fresher so he was faster and grabbed Ivan's hoodie. Ivan started hacking way with a very poor imitation of Kung-Fu. I reached out to make this one disappear like the others.
Only he didn't. Not immediately. He started smoking and moving in a jerky motion as bits and pieces of him caught fire and smoldered like glowing embers. It slowed him down but it didn't destroy him. Ivan took that chance, pulled his arm away—actually Bill's arm came with us—and we ran past him back into the house.
Ivan slammed the door shut and pried the still moving zombie hand off his arm and slammed it onto the tile where he promptly started stomping on it.
One of the doors opened and I turned at a dizzying speed. But it was just Kyle and Grey coming in. "They're right behind me."
I put my hand on my forehead. It was so hot. Was it possible for skin to be this hot and not set itself on fire? "Up the stairs. Ina's room is probably the safest. It's in the back and gives a good view of the back garden."
"Sam, are you okay?" Ivan asked as he pulled me to him and we started up the stairs.
"No. I'm not. But we can't worry about this."
It's starting. You need the antidote.
Yeah, Mom, no kidding.
We made it up the steps and into Ina's room. Nothing had changed inside. Everything looked as it did before, as if life had been interrupted. I sat on the edge of the bed, Ivan locked the door and pulled the chair from the dresser and wedged it under the doorknob as Kyle and Grey went to the window.
"What the hell is she doing?" Kyle asked.
"I have no idea. I don't understand the workings of a crazy Magician."
Ivan moved from the door and put his hand on my forehead. "You're burning up. Maybe that's why that weird magic didn't work."
I was thinking that myself. Grey was oddly quiet and I nudged her mind. She sent back a stream of love and adoration. She was just worried about how to save Marilla.
"About that—" Kyle started.
I held up my hand. "Not now. I don't know. Just get your potion made. We don't have time for arguing."
He did as I suggested, though I could feel the worry, hesitation and fear radiating off of him as he cleared off the dresser and set out the things he needed. Doors broke downstairs and I looked at Ivan. That didn't sound like slow moving zombies. That was something bashing into the doors from the garden.
I looked outside at the Circle where Circe stood over Marilla. She wasn't at the door. With a glance at Ivan, I went to he door, carefully unlocked it and peeked out.
At the other end of the hall appeared—the only way I can describe it is if someone were to take a wolf, a yeti, and André the Giant and combine their DNA. It was big and hunched over and stood up on its back haunches like a man, but it was covered in glossy black fur. Its arms stuck out in front, reaching for things. Its talons raked along the dry wall, pulling up long gouges as it turned in the hall and looked right at me.
Sweet Lord and Lady Darksome!
I squealed like a little girl, slammed the door and locked it.
"What?" Ivan said.
I
looked at Kyle. He had his small cauldron going with a tiny fire inside and was holding a beaker over it with a pair of tongs and in his hand was the snowdrop. "What?" he said to me. "Is it Jack?"
I wasn't sure, but I was heavy on the maybe. So I nodded. "Kyle, I don't know how in the hell you plan on getting him to drink that."
"Answer me," Kyle stood and started toward me. "Is it Jack?"
I put my hand up. "Just finish!"
That's when the first slam against the door happened. The wood in the door cracked, the frame split, but it didn't open immediately. I turned and put my hand on the door and imagined it made of steel. Sparkling red covered the door and melted into the wood, creating something different. I just didn't know what. Jack smashed against it again and I was pretty sure he was body slamming it in his attempt to get to us. The new door didn't budge.
Kyle hesitated but he turned back to the little setup on the dresser and I watched as he lowered the snowdrop plant into the beaker. There was an instant reaction as the liquid turned bright red and then blue and then smoke billowed up and out over the beaker's edge as the potion settled on a dull orange. And the smell?
Like wild onions.
"Is that it?" I pointed to the smoking beaker.
"Yes. I'm just not sure how to get it into him."
I stared at it. "Will it work on me?"
Kyle glanced at the flask. "I don't know."
Sam… Grey's voice had a warning note.
"Mom, don't. Bastien's not here. I can't even feel him through the pack link because my mind's just a jumble of worries and random thoughts as this fever eats away at it. We found Marilla. She's out there. And I'm going to need to be full strength to fight that crazy woman."
Kyle and Ivan looked between my mom and I as Jack continued banging on the door.
"Sam, the door might hold, but the wall around it won't," Ivan pointed out.
I stepped back and looked. Sure enough, the drywall around the door was cracking as dust fell from breaks in the ceiling. He was right. I gave it another three good slams before it all came down.
Elemental Moon: The Eldritch Files, Book Three Page 16
