Darkness Bred (Chimney Rock)

by Stella Cameron

  Should she, Elin wondered, say that she wasn’t fae?

  “I know you are not fae,” Jude said. “You are fortunate to have made good friends. The Deseran so often live an isolated existence, many not knowing what they are and believing they are an anomaly. It’s a sad story but perhaps that is about to change.”

  He frowned and closed his eyes.

  “Are you well?” Elin asked quietly.

  “Your mate is an agitated man. I can connect with him. He is being very persistent about trying to find you. I hope he doesn’t complicate what we have to do. He isn’t patient. If he were, this might be simple. The one you need is Dora. If she does come, and soon, perhaps you’ll be on your way back quickly. That will be a good thing.”

  “What do you mean about Sean?” she said.

  He waved an airy hand. “He is determined to find you. But no need to worry about him unless we have to. Do you want to sleep while you wait for Dora?”

  Elin regarded the bare room with its dusty wooden floor and said, “No, thank you,” very politely. Would she ever have what humans considered a normal life? Even as normal as Leigh’s seemed most of the time?

  “Normal is many things,” Jude said, causing Elin to start. “Depends upon who and what you are. I haven’t forgotten the different types of normal I’ve encountered. As long as a person is comfortable with a situation, they consider it normal.”

  “You read my mind so easily,” Elin said. “You do it as naturally as if everyone read minds.”

  He looked amused. “They probably could if they believed they could. You can.”

  “Only with Sean. My mate. And Tarhazian—she’s—”

  “The Supreme Queen of the Fae, the second one to steal you when you were a baby,” Jude finished for her. “A dangerous and selfish woman, but do not fear her as you did. She is making her own lot with you.”

  “I can close her out of my mind and not hear her,” Elin continued. “Then she can’t hear me and she gets furious. When I shift to Skillywidden—that’s—”

  “The cat who is your altered self,” Jude announced. “Soon you should revisit your Skillywidden. Confidence is everything and you must gain confidence with your gifts again. When Dora has time, and if I can persuade her to explain, I should like to know more about that. If such an opportunity ever arises.”

  “When I’m Skillywidden,” Elin said, determined to finish what she had started, “then I can enter into any mind I need to enter—not on a whim, of course—but I hear and understand, and act. I can’t speak.”

  Jude rolled onto the toes of his black boots and jiggled there. “Fascinating,” he said. “It isn’t my place to tell you about yourself but I will allow myself one indulgence. You have many more talents than you know, many strong talents. You are rare.” He put a finger to his mouth. “That is between you and me until Dora explains, and she will.”

  Elin could only stare at him.

  Marigold stood abruptly, her whiskers wiggling.

  “Must be Dora,” Jude said, and a slender woman about the same height as Elin materialized immediately. “Afternoon, Dora,” Jude said.

  “Is it?” Dora peered through the window. “Yes. And this must be Elin. I don’t suppose you remember me. No, how could you? When you last saw me, you were a tiny baby. Hug me.”

  Without hesitation, Elin walked into Dora’s arms and was squeezed much more tightly than she had expected.

  She liked being squeezed, and the kiss Dora placed on her cheek—and the scent of bluebells that clung to the woman.

  “Welcome home,” Dora said. “You’re one of the ones who was born here in New Orleans. Many have been, but not all.”

  “May I at least listen to all this?” Jude said, actually grinning as he asked.

  Dora gave a short laugh. “We both know you can listen to whatever you please, Jude Millet. But I will be happy for you to be with us.”

  Neither of them asked Elin’s opinion and Dora pulled forward a stack of cushions Elin would swear hadn’t been there before, divided them into two piles, and sat on one. “You take those,” Dora said.

  Elin sat, and since Jude seemed comfortable standing, she didn’t ask where he would sit.

  From a pocket in her dress, a similar style of dress to the one Elin wore and made in shades of rose and pink, Dora brought out a flask. “Water,” she said. “And here is an egg, and a croissant and a peach. You must be starving, Elin.”

  With the first bite of egg, Elin realized how hungry she was and devoured the food and water more quickly than she should have. “Sorry to gobble,” she said, a little sheepish.

  Dora smiled. She really didn’t look older than Elin although she had to be by at least a generation—or much more. Elin thought about her own age. She recalled being a child, and growing into an adult, but could not think how long ago that had been. It seemed like forever.

  Dora’s dark gold hair curved under from a central part and she had the unexpected appearance of a healthy, blue-eyed all-American girl.

  “I can help you,” she told Elin. “You will know who you are—well, more or less. And why you became my foster child—and how Tarhazian came to have you. I have been told about the troubles you and your mate—and your friends—face on this Whidbey Island.” She gave a shudder. “How can anyone live where there is ice and snow?”

  “It never bothered me,” Elin said, “until Tarhazian interfered with my body temperature. I was never too hot or too cold until Tarhazian decided meddling with that should be one of my punishments.”

  “That gift came to you as a Deseran although not all of you have it unless you are in water.” Dora threw up her hands. “I gave myself away. I am not Deseran. You thought I was, of course. I am fae, but like your friend, Sally, I was separated from my own kind. In my case because I chose to mate with a vampire.”

  “A vampire?” Elin realized her mouth remained open and closed it.

  “There are vampires, and then there are vampires,” Dora said, looking smug. “My vampire’s what humans would call one of a kind. But we aren’t interested in my story.”

  Elin certainly was.

  “I have a vampire friend,” she said quickly, embarrassed by her reaction to Dora’s announcement. “Saul is wonderful. He’s a doctor and my mate thinks highly of him.” Not always quite true. “Did I tell you my mate is a werehound?”

  Dora said, “I already knew from Sally. She is an old friend but I had lost touch with her. I’m glad you’ve helped us find each other again. You and I have a lot of work ahead of us, Elin.”

  Elin nodded, but kept quiet. Her anxiety only grew. Sean would be angry with her for leaving and she didn’t blame him. If he did the same to her, she would rush to find him. And if he had let her think he was something he wasn’t for as long as she did, she would be devastated.

  She tried to hide her growing misery behind a composed face. A glance at Jude’s bland face suggested he wasn’t following her thoughts, but a flicker of sympathy in his eyes made it obvious he knew what she was going through.

  “Your problem,” Dora said. “The problem the Werehound Team and so many on Whidbey Island are facing is The Bloodstone. The One as he has been called, wrongly, created the problem but he is weakening, and from my sources, I learned he could be dealt with. His meddling with The Veil has caused a great deal of misery and death. He believed he could separate The Veil and distill the red element, or the blood it represents, into The Bloodstone he discovered had been owned by those who live at the center of the earth, the Netherworld. They are called Embran, which need not concern you now.

  “He saw only the respect certain of these creatures got from their underlings. Unfortunately for him, and many others, he didn’t find out the whole story. He didn’t find out about the disarray that fell on his heroes because they misused, and abused, power.

  “What Quitus didn’t and still doesn’t know is that control of The Bloodstone was lost and has never been regained. It is a rogue element, usable only in
small quantities—as it is being used on your island. What he has extracted from The Veil has become his own potential destruction. He has produced…you will not understand yet. And I, as the mate of a vampire, detest to mention the blood weakness, the only known vampire disease that kills vampires.”

  Elin’s interests lay elsewhere. Hardly able to sit still, she said, “Quitus? Who is that?”

  Dora shook her head. “The One is really Quitus, and…it is more complicated than that, but we must stay on track. Your mate can tell you more about that, I believe. If he hasn’t already. Does he know about that Aldo and his alliance with Quitus?”

  “I was with him when he saw Quitus turn into Aldo, and back again,” Elin said. “It was horrible. No wonder Sean didn’t want to remember the man or talk about the murder of that poor woman.”

  “No.” Dora looked thoughtful. “But it should help you forgive yourself for not telling him you are Deseran. You both had secrets you kept for different, but understandable, reasons. From now on, your task will be to avoid repeating deception.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to him again about anything,” Elin said quickly.

  Dora smiled. “You’ll try and mostly you’ll succeed. But don’t forget that you are at least as much human as Deseran. Let me tell you more about what has already happened.

  “The people who have died—on The Island, and on Whidbey—have been victims of Quitus’s experiments. If the pieces of unstable Bloodstone he makes don’t kill on touch—and they usually do—they weaken the victim or make the mind unstable. If the touch is very light for some reason, it can be reversed—but by very few. You are one of them.”

  “Cassie,” Elin muttered.

  “Yes, Sally reports that Cassie is recovering well.”

  “The mark is a Q, not an O,” Elin said, almost to herself. “This Quitus has to be stopped.”

  “Not until he leads you to his surrogate on Whidbey.”

  A wave of sickness hit Elin. “But we must do it quickly. Who is this surrogate?”

  Dora looked at her hands. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it is a man or a woman.”

  chapter TWENTY-EIGHT

  Night had begun to fall on the rain-slick streets of New Orleans’s French Quarter, where Sean had landed. Neon signs tossed bright wavering reflections across shiny pavements.

  He was very close to her now.

  Ignoring the looks he got from passersby, Sean pressed the heel of his right hand to his brow, stood still, and closed his eyes.

  Of all people, it had been Niles who broke down and told his second-in-command the most secret facet of the werehound bond to a mate. Through their seal, they could make a connection the werehound could follow. Niles didn’t know if the same went for the werehound’s mate, and on his long journey, Sean had promised himself he would be unmerciful about Niles’s chauvinism.

  But perhaps he wouldn’t do that in front of Leigh. The wrath of a werehound’s mate was something best not encouraged.

  Niles would never have told Sean anything if Leigh, still struggling with a fever, hadn’t said she thought Elin would go to New Orleans. After that Niles followed Sean when he blindly walked outside with thoughts of just going to New Orleans and combing the place until he found her. And thanks to Niles’s revelation, Sean had gone on his way knowing he held a compass in his hand.

  Fortunately he was a seasoned traveler, and since he knew how to find the Louisianan city, he made few wrong turns on his way. He traveled very fast.

  Sean stood at the corner of Dauphine and St. Louis in the French Quarter. The people who passed, or came in and out of bars, did a lot of laughing, and he figured from the unsteady gait of many that booze fueled a good deal of the hilarity.

  Thrumming zydeco rhythm beat into the seething air from a nearby gumbo shop. The smells were rich and spicy—and matched everything about the city.

  This wasn’t a place for Elin.

  He did smile. Perhaps she would enjoy the danger of it all, at least if they were together. An ill-received thought came that his mate could be more complex than he had yet accepted. She clearly had courage.

  The prickling in his seal started again. It was strong but confused. Nevertheless he followed his instincts and walked first southeast on St. Louis, so narrow he couldn’t imagine two vehicles passing each other there, then he felt another pull and made a sharp turn to his left on Royal.

  Shops lined both sides of the street but there weren’t many people about. The lack of strip joints, bars, and restaurants could account for that.

  The heel of his hand burned. But it burned with the same intensity wherever he stood, no matter which way he faced.

  Half an hour later he leaned on the window of a tiny shop that sold only Limoges boxes highlighted by a single spotlight that covered all of them.

  He cursed to himself. Elin was here. She was within feet or yards of him, but short of hammering on every door and asking, “Is Elin here?” he couldn’t do a thing to find her.

  Sean walked to the middle of the street and raised his face to the misting rain. “Is Elin here?” he yelled. “Is Elin here?” Lights showed in some apartment windows for several stories above the businesses. Not a soul answered his cry.

  He didn’t feel even a shred of embarrassment. The scattered people who passed showed no sign of noticing that a man was standing in the street, yelling.

  High above his head a dormer window slammed open.

  Hell, what did he have to lose? “Is Elin here?” he called again.

  The window shut at once.

  He was alone now. Not a soul in sight in either direction. And all he had for company was the sharp burning awareness he rubbed with the fingers of his left hand.

  All he could do was use his hand like a divining rod, concentrate, and be sensitive to the slightest change in what he felt.

  Slowly, Sean went, step by step, along the sidewalk. His hand throbbed but only at the same intensity. When he had passed the police precinct house, walked across the next narrow street, and focused on a fairly major crossroad ahead, the sensation lessened and fell into a dull, regular pulsing.

  It was fading and he stood still.

  On the opposite sidewalk, he began walking back in the direction from which he’d come, his right palm still turned up.

  Bars covered the windows of most shops and the question came that always did in such places. Were the inhabitants keeping others out, or themselves in?

  Weird what you thought about when your mind either wandered or was in distress. Sean’s was distressed.

  The next pulse shot into his palm, fierce and sharp.

  Shops butted up against each other here as if they were guarding their territory.

  Sweat joined the rain on Sean’s face. While he wandered up and down in the French Quarter, Elin could be terrified somewhere. Kept against her wishes. Lost. He squinted, trying to close out the direction of his thoughts.

  The next pulse made him miss a breath. He turned toward the street and the sensation eased but only slightly. Facing the shops, he felt as if a hot ice pick were being driven into his flesh.

  He loved that pain. The shop windows in front of him were dark. A faint light showed deep inside but nothing moved. J. Clive Millet, Antiques, the shop was called.

  A single bark surprised him. To his left, poking through the bars of a high, ornate gate that joined the corner wall of the shop to the next building, he could see the muzzle of a small, wiry dog.

  Sean approached. If the dog set up a howling ruckus, so much the better. Maybe that would bring out someone who could help with finding Elin.

  When he reached it, the dog’s black nose shone wet amid sprouting coarse fur, and a pair of liquid eyes watched closely.

  He didn’t want to be bitten, but Sean risked reaching in and scratching the animal’s head and the back of his neck.

  The dog wriggled appreciatively and stretched to encourage more attention. This must be one of Jazzy’s long-lost attention-mad relat
ives.

  Playing with a dog wasn’t helping a thing.

  He noted the gate had a big circular inset with a fanciful griffon arranged so its claws gripped the metal ring.

  Sean pressed his hand to his head once more and turned to walk on.

  Chirping stopped him. Chirping and purring. He spun around, searching for any moving shapes in the darkness, expecting to see Skillywidden shoot from some small hiding place and leap into his arms.

  The cat that appeared was huge—bigger than the rough-haired little dog although their color was similar. Both seemed red or orange.

  Daintily for an animal that probably weighed twenty pounds, the cat stepped between two bars, wiggled a little to get her belly through, and rubbed against Sean’s legs. He bent to touch her and the sensation in his hand went mad. “Elin?” he whispered. It was always possible she had morphed into a different cat, he supposed.

  He didn’t get the reaction he wanted. Instead, the cat passed back through the bars and looked at Sean over her shoulder. The dog gave what sounded like a sigh. Elin, Sean thought, might also have touched the cat and her scent was what made his seal react.

  He must be losing it. Analyzing family pets when his own mate was missing in a city where lone women, lone beautiful women, should not be abroad in the night.

  Both animals sat on the inside of the gate, staring at him.

  Okay, stranger things had happened in his life than being accosted by a couple of domestic animals. He gripped the ring surrounding the metal griffon and almost howled. Like a white-hot knife, the pain stabbed at him.

  And the gate opened under his hand, swung soundlessly inward on well-oiled hinges.

  Sean stepped inside and pushed the gate shut behind him. When he walked carefully forward, his feet scrunched on gravel and he expected a furor to break out at any second.

  Not a sound.

  Past a row of apparent storerooms with big double doors and into a courtyard where a single blue-green glow showed through the satin-slick leaves of ferns, palms, and a jungle of tropical shrubs. Red ginger pierced through a space between foliage. He could smell gardenias.