by A and E Kirk
I downed the bitter mixture in one gulp. The plane lurched forward and gained speed, and although lights and sirens raced alongside, moments later we were in the air. Aches and pains diminishing, I started to nod off on Ayden’s shoulder.
Tristan yelled, “Ack! We have a hostage! And a stowaway!”
He came out of the back of the plane dragging a person with duct-taped hands and a hood over their head, a grey cat trotting by his side.
Van Helsing I knew immediately, but the hooded figure took me a second. “Harry?”
“It’s Harold!”
Okay. So, according to the more-than-a-little-upset Harold, he’d been kidnapped from Novo again by Horus as a gift for us all. The Healer patched us up, but was tentative when dealing with me.
“You know that burn you gave me?” He showed me his hand, the red mark still visible. “I can’t heal it. No Healer at Novo can, either.”
Uh-oh. “I’m sorry. Did you tell them how you got it?”
“And risk ticking off a Sicarius team?” he snorted. “Not to mention a girl who can inflict unhealable wounds? No way. But just in case you’re worried, I gave Dr. Buttefield permission to erase this all from my memory when I get back. It’s way safer than stupid plausible deniability. I want it denied to myself.”
“I really am sorry for all this,” I told him.
“Forget about it,” Harold said.
Wish I could, but it was just another mystery to add to the multitude already spinning inside my head.
CHAPTER 121
I sat in Blake’s living room on the massive, leather couch which was probably just big enough to comfortably fit Blake and his even bigger uncle. The international news station was its usual boring self until…
“The Catacombs of Paris have been closed for renovations.” The newscaster reshuffled papers before they cut away to a clip of men in hard hats on cobblestone streets disappearing down manholes.
Been there. Done that.
The newscaster droned on. “The Mayor of Paris and the Minister of Culture released a joint statement regarding the recent, horrific collapse of a large part of the underground tunnels, saying that it is a national and historic tragedy, but they’re grateful that no lives were lost.”
Thanks to Blake.
“The Minister added that the government was on top of the situation, using their best and brightest engineers from around the world to investigate the structural integrity, and do whatever was necessary to ensure the safety of the people and the history of France. No word yet on the opening date of the popular landmark.”
I muted the television. “That’s it? We destroyed a historical treasure and it gets less than thirty seconds on the news?”
“The Mandatum does not desire international attention,” Jayden said from the kitchen. “Their reach is vast and their power great.”
I’ll say. Nothing says “supreme authority over all” like controlling the narrative of an entire country.
I sighed. “And you said your dad’s helping rebuild the catacombs?”
“Yes,” Jayden smiled. “He actually serves as the director of the many Mandatum teams repairing the underground tombs. We are very proud of him.”
While we’d been fighting—nay, conquering!—evil in Europe, Gossamer Falls had been buried in feet upon feet of snow in what all the locals were calling the Storm of the Century. Whoever Horus’s friend was, the ability to cause such a large scale weather event made them a “scary powerful dude or dudette,” according to Blake.
Although residents retained electrical power, the community’s communications to the outside world were knocked out, leaving the little mountain town completely isolated.
My parents had gone into total freak-out mode since they couldn’t get in contact with me. However, Dad had been inundated with hospital stuff, taking over for the Chief of Staff who was off the mountain at the time, and Mom was busy delivering her many recently cooked meals to neighbors who couldn’t get to the grocery store.
When I’d finally made it home, the story was that Cristiano’s mother had suddenly taken ill, so before catching a plane to Europe, Armani had waited for the Hex Boys to pick me up on their way back from visiting Tristan’s dad.
The lies were so frighteningly easy.
I rubbed my temples against another headache, the likes of which had become a reoccurring problem since we’d returned from Paris, the pain and frequency getting worse instead of better. But I kept that to myself. Probably just stress, I reasoned. It seemed the most logical explanation.
I walked to the kitchen where Jayden was busy fixing tacos for the rest of us. “The Mandatum still hasn’t found Dubois’ body,” I said.
“Which doesn’t mean she’s alive. They have miles of debris to search through.” Jayden rummaged through cabinets. “And the Divinicus Task Force is in disarray, completely inoperable for the moment. No one is looking for you, and we have the director’s son in consistent contact with Matthias, supplying us with accurate, real-time intelligence.”
“Unless Sophina gets fired in which case we lose our inside man.”
“Madame Cacciatori’s fate will be decided at The Gathering. The entire Mandatum is somewhat on hold while they investigate and repair their infrastructure. All of which is excellent for us. So for the near future, you have nothing to stress over. Except your grades.”
“Why is everyone worried about my grades?”
“Because you are not.”
“Guys! Guys! Guys!” Logan sprinted up the drive shouting, so excited that sometimes his feet didn’t actually touch the ground.
Jayden turned off the stove, and we ran outside. The other Hex Boys rushed out from their respective clean-up duties around the ranch, and in seconds we joined up.
“Did Cristiano call?” I said. “Did they find Dubois’ body? My necklace?”
“What?” Matthias, straw in his hair, stabbed a pitchfork into the grass. “No, idiot. He’d call me, not Logan.”
“So I went to fix the commercial freezer.” Logan said.
“Oh my God!” Tristan gasped. “Did Horus and Cristiano leave a body in the freezer?”
“Why is that the first place your mind goes?” Ayden said.
I shook my head at Tristan. “You need therapy.”
“Well,” Ayden shrugged, “did they leave a body in the freezer?”
I smiled. “You both need therapy.”
“No!” Logan waved his hands in a frustration. “Listen, according to the old ranch hands, the freezer and a bunch of other stuff were already fixed by the new ranch hands.”
“We haven’t hired any new ranch hands,” Blake said, ruffling hay from his hair.
“I know!” Logan nearly bounced from excitement. “From the descriptions, it was Cristiano and Horus. They stayed here. At the ranch!”
“So?” I shrugged.
Ayden stared at me. “You knew?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He was at Tristan’s too.”
“He was at my house?" Tristan shrieked. “What if he left death traps in there?! Or poison?!” He spun in a worried circle. “I could’ve died! His mother would not be pleased about that. Did I mention we are on a first name—”
“They stayed at the guest cabins on the east end,” Logan said.
“Did you check them out?” Matthias asked.
“Not yet. I came to tell you first before—”
Matthias dropped the pitchfork and sprinted off, Ayden right behind him. Blake knocked me aside in his haste to follow. Logan and Jayden took a running start before flying into the air and soaring past their buddies. I was about to join them, but Tristan caught my wrist.
“It’s two miles. Uphill.” Tristan pointed at his Suburban.
CHAPTER 122
Tristan’s four-wheel drive easily climbed the winding, snowy and mud-ridden path. On the way up, Matthias and Ayden jumped onto the sides of the SUV.
Matthias slapped the roof. “Hurry up!”
The stone and wood
cabins were staggered out in a zig-zag line between patches of trees. They each had picnic tables out front and rocking chairs on their quaint decks. Jayden, Logan, and Blake were already running in and out of the cabins. Matthias and Ayden leapt off the car to join the search.
For what? Not sure, but the excitement was contagious. I vaulted out of the car before Tristan came to a complete stop.
Ice and mud crunched hard and slippery underfoot. My breath fogged. I’d checked several cabins before I finally burst through the door of number E-14. The rustic bed was made to military specs, pillows fluffed to perfection. Distressed-wood floors polished to a dazzling shine. Fireplace. Candles. A bunch of accoutrements artfully arranged around the room. The place looked untouched, like all the others.
“This is Cristiano’s!” I said.
Ayden looked over my shoulder. “How do you know?”
Armani’s aroma was unmistakable. A fact I thought best not to mention, so I dropped to my knees and peered under the bed.
“Luggage!” I pulled out a duffle bag.
“Nice catch.”
“Thanks.”
Armani had thought he was coming back from Los Angeles, so lucky guess, or had I smelled him from afar? I voted for lucky guess.
“Found Horus’s cabin!” Logan yelled from outside.
“Wish we hadn’t!” Tristan shouted.
Ayden and I laid Cristiano’s clothes onto the bed. Very posh. Very not high school.
Ayden frowned. “It’s like he buys his outfits straight off the runway models. And, man…” He brought an argyle sweater up close and sniffed. “What is that awesome smell?”
He said it, I didn’t. Nor did I comment further.
I kept shuffling through and smiled when I found a black ski mask. Ayden pulled out a giant hunting knife and slashed it through the air a few times.
“Dude and dudette, please tell me my hero’s cabin isn’t as creepy as Horus’s.” Blake ducked in under the doorway looking crestfallen, but a moment later, he bounced on his toes and grinned. “No more squeaks! Cristiano fixed the floors!” His eyes got a bit misty. “I love that guy.”
“I am never—NEVER– going to be able to sleep again!” Tristan stomped in waving a large photograph in the air.
Ayden rolled his eyes. “Cut the drama.”
Matthias walked in flipping through a stack of photos in his hands, a horrified look on his face. “This time, mate, he’s not being dramatic.”
Ayden snatched the photo from Tristan. “What’s the big d—” He froze. “Oh, God.”
I peered over his shoulder. “So what’s the big—” I put a hand over my mouth. “Oh, my God.”
There were lots of photographs. Of me and the Hex Boys all around town doing various things. Happy, carefree—relatively speaking—and days before we destroyed the country club.
And if that wasn’t unsettling enough, somewhere in each of the photos, Horus was in view. It was horrifying. For instance, in the cafeteria, he sat at table behind us, smiling directly at the camera and giving two big thumbs-up.
“How did we not notice him?!” I said.
“They were following us for weeks.” Logan passed me a photo taken at his dad’s auto-body shop. He and Blake, faces smudged with grease, leaned over the engine of a car, the hood propped open. Horus sat on the roof of the vehicle grinning like the Cheshire Cat and making the “peace” sign with his fingers.
“Bloody hell!” Matthias shrieked and threw a photograph into the air.
Tristan caught it, saw it, yelped, and threw it aside like it was toxic waste.
Blake caught it and flinched away, holding it at arm’s length. “No, no, no, no!”
I snatched it from him.
And wished I hadn’t. It was a selfie of Horus…giving Matthias bunny ears as Matthias slept in the rocking chair in his own bedroom. It was disturbing on so many levels, I couldn’t even bring myself to make fun of the Aussie.
“Burn it, burn it, burn it,” I passed the image to Ayden.
Matthias looked through more photos and shouted, “He was in all of our rooms!”
“Except Aurora’s,” Ayden said.
That didn’t surprise me. Somehow I knew Cristiano wouldn’t have allowed it. I turned back to Armani’s bag, praying I didn’t find anything to give me nightmares.
Underneath a set of well-polished loafers, I found a sketch book. I opened it and—
Oh, wow. It was a breathtaking sketched portrait.
Of me.
Not that I thought of myself as breathtaking, but the skill of the pencil artwork was incredible. There were several more drawings featuring yours truly, then also a few Gossamer Falls landscapes.
In the first several portraits of me, the name ‘Fiamma’ was written in a beautiful, swirly calligraphy. In later drawings, the dead girl’s codename was replaced with my own. Many drawings had my hair shaded in scarlet.
“Of course he’s an artist.” Ayden sighed from behind me, then reached over my shoulder and flipped a few pages. “An incredibly talented artist.” He stopped flipping and stared. “Oh, wow. Is this from our date?”
The sketch was of me at the end of the long dock at the country club. My curls were colored a bright, fiery red and billowing in a fierce wind. My arms were stretched out and flung wide, my back arched. The umbra stone necklace floated off my chest and glowed as cold blue tendrils of light shot out in sharp, vivid beams.
“Did the umbra stone do that?” Ayden said.
“Um…” I thought back to when the boathouse had exploded. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see. There was a blinding light and a wind. It sent the water sloshing, boats jamming together, broke the windows. Then everything went quiet. The demon was gone, Cristiano and Horus were gone, and a few seconds later, the boathouse blew. Can umbra stones do that?”
“Maybe,” Ayden said. “I really don’t know. But it makes me even happier that thing is gone.”
“Oh, oh, this one isn’t of us!” Jayden flapped a photograph in the air like a fan.
“It’s Bill and Ted,” Logan said.
The shady duo was in a forest standing in front of an apparently fake rock with an outer shell that opened like doors.
“Those are the sensors for our west perimeter security.” Matthias pointed at the rock, then flipped the photograph over to see a date written in pen. “This is several days before the demons infiltrated the country club.”
“Bill and Ted let the demons into Gossamer Falls?” I said. “I really hate those guys.”
“That seems a likely conclusion. And, oh, look, there is Horus.” Jayden pointed at the shadows where the skinny wind hunter was doing a Strong Man pose. “It’s really quite unsettling.”
“This is it?” Blake frowned and shook out Cristiano’s duffle bag.
“Looks like.” Tristan came out of the bathroom. “There’s nothing in here but a razor and body wash.”
“Dibs!” Blake eagerly disappeared into the bathroom.
“We have to recheck the protection wards on the west side of the ranch,” Matthias said.
“Don’t bother.” Logan held up another photo. “Cristiano and Horus already repaired them.”
“Won’t know for sure until we check.” Matthias cut an authoritative hand at the door. “Ayden, Tristan, Moron, you go back to the ranch and keep working.”
“Coming, coming,” Blake came out of the bathroom with a bottle of body before throwing that and all of Cristiano’s stuff back in the duffle bag. “Babe, sketch book?”
I hugged it to my chest. “I think you’ve got more than enough for your Seduction Guru shrine.”
“But—”
“Has my name all over it.” I spun on my heel, catching Ayden’s hand as I ducked outside. “Let’s get those chores taken care of!”
Ayden smiled. “Eager to get out of here for our date?”
Actually, I was eager to go through Cristiano’s sketch book more thoroughly, but a date sounded even better.
“
Absolutely!” I kissed his cheek to cover up my hesitation.
CHAPTER 123
I came out of the bathroom and hugged my robe tight against the chill of the biting cold wind rushing through my bedroom window. Did I leave that open?
Sticking my head outside, I said, “Tristan?” At the silence, I ducked back in, shut the window, and locked it.
Paper crinkled beneath my bare feet. I picked it up. It was a folded piece of thick parchment. Inside the note was a flowing, curved calligraphy that looked like it had been written with the sharpened nib of an actual feather quill.
Until we meet again.
I looked around. I sensed no one in my room, but…
“Cristiano?”
No answer. I was batting a thousand.
Later, after I finished glamming up for my date, I was sitting on my bed flipping through Cristiano’s sketchbook when Dad walked in wearing a suit and straightening his tie.
“Wow,” I said. “You look so handsome.”
“I know,” he swaggered. “It’s a Lahey thing.”
I laughed. “So you’re finally using our country club membership from the Ishidas? I’m impressed.”
“Your mom could use the break,” he said. “Plus, while the boathouse will take some time to repair, it’s the fine dining restaurant’s reopening night. They’re offering huge discounts.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
“Hey, bargains are hugely romantic. Especially to your mother. And especially when I have to take my entire Lahey brood because your ‘boyfriend’ begged for us all to be gone so you could have your ‘date.’ ”
“Dad, why did you use finger quotes? He actually is my boyfriend, and it actually is a date.”
“Like I said. I’m a romantic.”
“You didn’t say that. I did. And I was being sarcastic.”
“Exactly.” He looked over my shoulder at the picture of me at the docks, the umbra stone lighting up. “Oh, that reminds me. Cyrus and his wife send their regards and never-ending thanks, and she wants to make sure you’re still coming to dinner at their house next week.”
