My forehead was still plastered to the table. Great, now I felt like a broodmare. A broodmare who was supposed to be sterile, goddammit.
“This can’t be happening,” I said into the tabletop. Molly patted my back again.
I sat up and looked at Maven. “What do I do?” I whispered.
I’m not sure why I was asking her. I barely knew her, and I had no reason to think she cared about my best interests, or the baby’s. But she had given me the information freely, without demanding a favor in return. And she seemed to actually care about the fate of the whole Old World, not just herself or her little domain.
Maven gave me a faint smile. “At the end of the day, a pregnant null has mostly the same options as any other pregnant woman. You can keep the baby, or you can abort it.”
“Adoption?” Molly asked.
Maven pursed her lips. “That, I would not advise. The witchling will be nearly impossible for anyone else to care for. Or protect.”
“I don’t protect things,” I squeaked. “I mostly break them.”
Molly squeezed my hand. She looked at Maven. “Are you going to tell anyone?” she said in a low voice. “Dashiell?”
Maven made a show of furrowing her brow. “Tell anyone what? I thought we were speaking hypothetically.”
Molly grinned. “I like the superpowerful vampire lady,” she told me.
“Thank you,” I managed to say to Maven. “I owe you one.”
Maven shook her head. “No, you don’t. If you were to get pregnant—someday—we would all benefit.”
At that moment, the burner phone buzzed in my pocket, making me jump. I dug it out and looked at the screen, which displayed my own cell phone number, the one for the Batphone. At least Jesse was okay.
I was about to ignore it, but it occurred to me that he wouldn’t be calling from this number if it wasn’t urgent. I answered the phone. “Hey. This isn’t a great time—”
“Scarlett? Oh, thank God.” It wasn’t Jesse’s voice. It was Kirsten, and she sounded panicked. “I don’t know where you are, but you need to get home, right now.”
Fear churned the few contents of my stomach. “What happened? Where’s Jesse?”
“I had a witch problem, and Dashiell said Jesse was covering for you,” she said in a rush. “He wasn’t answering the emergency line or his personal cell, and I got worried, so I had Abby track your phone and then I saw the missed call—”
“Kirsten, slow down! Where’s Jesse?”
“He’s right here,” she said, her voice almost a sob. “But he’s been attacked. I think he’s dying.”
Chapter 14
I stood up, ignoring the curious looks from Molly and Lex. “What do you mean, he’s dying?” I demanded, turning my back to the others. “What kind of attack?”
“Magical,” Kirsten said. “Someone hexed him and dumped him in the Ballona Wetlands reserve. Teddy and I found him.”
Teddy was Theodore Hayne, Kirsten’s husband. But a magical attack would be her department. “Can’t you undo it?”
“I’ve been trying!” she said, nearly wailing. “I’ve never seen anything like this—it’s like he’s in a coma, but he’s burning up. His temp is a hundred and eight. If I had a couple of days, I could reverse engineer it, but he’s losing fluids too quickly. Where are you?”
“A hundred and eight?” I repeated. I had turned around and twirled a finger at Molly, our signal that we needed to leave. She stood and started gathering our things. “Is that even possible?”
“Apparently it is. We took him back to your place—it was the closest—and the carpet around him is soaked with sweat, and I can’t figure out why.” There were tears in her voice. The witch leader of LA was usually good in a crisis, but I’d seen her break down when people she cared about were in mortal danger. Jesse was her friend, too. And the fact that her magic couldn’t fix him had to be terrifying. It was certainly terrifying me.
I could hear Hayne’s low, soothing voice murmuring to her in the background. She took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can solve this before he dies from it, Scarlett. He needs you to break the hex.”
Shit, shit, shit. “How long does he have?” I demanded.
“I’m not a doctor, Scarlett. Can’t you just get here?”
But I wouldn’t be deterred. “Best guess?”
She hesitated again. “Hours. Two, maybe three.”
Jesus. No wonder she was panicking. I wanted to burst into tears, but I needed to focus. I couldn’t help Jesse if I was falling apart. “Call Matthias, get him there,” I urged. Matthias was the witch-born human doctor who helped us with medical stuff when we couldn’t use the human health-care system. “I’ll pay his bill myself.”
“I already called. He’s on his way,” she said more clearly. “When can you and Shadow get here?”
“Shadow,” I echoed. “Jesse was taking care of Shadow.”
A pause, and then Kirsten said, “She’s not here.”
I swallowed hard. I needed to be there, but even if Molly drove like a bat out of hell, we’d never make it back in less than eight hours. “Hang on.” I spun around and looked at Maven. “Do you have a plane?” I demanded. Dashiell had a plane.
Maven blinked. “Excuse me?”
Lex shot me a be careful look. My words had been too flippant for someone so powerful, but I didn’t care. “A private aircraft. Do you have one, or have access to one?”
“One of my Denver vampires owns a Gulfstream,” Maven allowed.
“Can I borrow it?”
Unhurried, Maven leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Why?”
I forced myself to take a breath before saying, “Someone under my protection has been hexed. He’ll die if I don’t get back in time to break the spell. Please.”
Maven just studied me. In that moment, I realized I would do anything to save Jesse. “I’ll owe you a favor,” I said.
She nodded. “All right.”
Lifting the phone, I said to Kirsten, “I’m on my way. Meanwhile . . .” I hesitated, but made myself say the words. “Call Will and see if he’ll come be on standby.”
There was a pause, then Kirsten whispered, “Are you serious?”
“Yeah.” There was no guarantee that Jesse would actually change from a werewolf bite—as Maven had explained, magic was fading and the odds were against him. And being a werewolf was considered a last resort among last resorts. Maybe I was being selfish to even consider it, but I wouldn’t let Jesse die if I could find any way around it. “Did you tell Dashiell?” I said to Kirsten.
“No, he’s my next call.”
I wanted to ask her to keep it from Dashiell, but this was way too big. Jesse being hexed was a magical crisis on its own, but if Shadow was loose in the city . . . “Let me do it,” I said, my stomach turning into a rock. “Please. I’ll call him in ten minutes, from the car.”
Kirsten wasn’t happy about it, but she agreed. I hung up the phone and turned to face the others. At some point, Quinn had come running into the room. He was still breathing hard. I gave him a blank look, then got it: I’d extended my radius to the front of the building, alarming him. Oops.
I looked at Maven in a daze. She was so powerful. Did I need her to dismiss me? Should I curtsy or something?
To her credit, she waved us off. “No need.”
I ran out of the coffee shop at a dead run, with Molly and Lex at my heels.
There are serious advantages to knowing an ex-soldier with Old World connections. Before we even made it to the highway, Lex had made the necessary calls and arranged everything. She would drive us to the airport, introduce us to the pilot, and take care of Eleanor until we could send someone to drive the car back to Los Angeles.
As soon as we had the plan in place, I called Dashiell and ran him through an abbreviated version of the last twenty-four hours: I was still sick, but I’d gone to Boulder to speak to Lex about an urgent personal matter. I’d left Jesse in charge of Shadow, a
nd they’d been attacked.
There was really no way to sugarcoat it, so I didn’t bother trying. As I had expected, his response was so curt it was practically a snarl. “I will connect with Kirsten and do what I can for Mr. Cruz. You and I will discuss this the moment the crisis has passed.” And he hung up.
I stared at the phone, half-afraid it would bite me. “Was he pissed?” Molly asked from the back seat.
“You could say that,” I said dully. Dashiell had sounded like he genuinely wanted to kill me, but at this point it was hard to care.
Jesse. My knuckles ached, and when I looked down, I realized that my hands were clenched into fists.
We arrived at the airport, but before I could even open the door, Molly said suddenly, “Wait.”
Lex and I both turned to look in the back seat, but Molly’s focus was on Lex. “Press me,” she said hurriedly. “Press me to forget she’s pregnant.”
“Molls, no!” I said, at the same time Lex said, “It won’t work.”
“Why not?” Molly asked her, ignoring me.
“You’ve known about it for too long,” Lex explained. “It’s too deep in your mind now. I can’t take away the knowledge without taking away the last two days, and that’s too much. Your brain would work too hard to fill in the gaps.”
“Just like when vampires press humans,” I said, understanding.
“Then press me to think it was a false alarm,” Molly insisted. “We came here and got answers, but Scarlett got her period while we were here.”
Lex looked at me, questioning. As soon as I started to shake my head, Molly said, “Scar, it’ll protect us both. It’ll buy you time to figure out what to tell Dashiell and the others.”
I felt myself wavering. “I don’t like the idea of rewiring your brain for me.”
She just gave me a look. “I do it to other people all the time. Consider it karma.”
I chewed on my lip for a second. The pregnancy had seemed so terrifying and all-encompassing only an hour ago, but Kirsten’s phone call had put things in perspective. I had months to figure out what to do about the baby. Jesse had hours. “Okay,” I said. I looked at Lex. “Do it. Please.”
“You’ll have to get out of the car,” she reminded me.
Oh, right. Null.
Relieved, and ashamed of it, I opened the car door and climbed out. Lex called after me, and I turned and looked through the door at her.
“About Jesse,” she said, and for the first time I realized she was afraid for him, too. Duh, Scarlett. He and Lex were friends. “Will you call me and let me know?” She hesitated for a second, and added in a hard tone, “Either way.” She gave me a long, meaningful look, and I actually understood. If Jesse died before I could save him, Lex would help me get revenge.
“I will.”
Chapter 15
I’ve been in some horrible situations, where lives were at risk, but I can honestly say those two hours of flight time were the longest in my life. Molly tried to talk to me a few times, I think, but I barely heard her, and probably only grunted in response.
Jesse.
This was all my fault. I had dragged Jesse into the Old World to begin with, and I’d put him in personal danger any number of times—but usually I was at least with him, to level the playing field. He could handle danger as a human up against humans, and I’d taken for granted that he could handle my job for a couple of days, like he’d done before. I’d taken him for granted. And then I’d abandoned him, leaving him vulnerable to magical attack.
Now someone had hexed him with some kind of lethal spell, and Shadow was . . .
I frowned. Wait. Where was Shadow? When Kirsten first said the bargest was missing, I’d assumed Shadow had gone for help, but maybe she was trying to track Jesse’s attacker? Or maybe she was trying to find me. Shadow was as smart as some humans, but she wouldn’t try to run to Colorado, would she?
I had a sudden, terrible thought. Saying a prayer of thanks for the private plane, I pulled out my phone and called Kirsten. First, of course, I asked about Jesse.
“We still can’t get him to swallow water, and Matthias couldn’t get an IV in,” she reported. “His veins just won’t take it, like he’s in stasis or something. But we’ve had another idea.”
“Which is?”
“Hayne and I filled your bathtub with ice,” she said. She had calmed down a lot now that there was a doctor on hand. “His fever is down to a hundred and four. He’s still dying, but I think we can keep him alive until you get here. And Will is here, just in case.”
“Okay. Okay.” Molly was looking at me inquisitively. I gave her a weak smile to show that things were looking better.
“Scarlett . . .” Kirsten continued.
“What?”
“I want to prepare you,” she said in a hushed voice. “There could be brain damage. From the fever.”
“Could be?” I echoed. “So not for sure, right?” Now I sounded hysterical, and Molly’s eyes widened. I looked away from her, out the dark window.
“It’s a magic-induced fever, so we don’t know if it’ll have the same effects as if it was from an infection.”
Brain damage? For a second I was too choked up to speak, but I forced myself to remember my reason for calling. I cleared my throat. “Listen, when you got to my place, was the door unlocked?”
A pause. “Yes. It was standing open.”
Okay, that worked with the theory that Shadow was pursing the attackers. But I had to be sure. “Look around,” I said. “Do you see a purple leather collar anywhere?”
A brief pause, then: “Hang on.”
I waited. Considering her size and how she looked, it was hard for Shadow to blend in. Having a girlie purple collar helped, at least a little. Shadow didn’t like wearing it, but she accepted that it was a necessary part of disguising her as an actual dog.
Kirsten came back on the line. “I found it,” she reported. “It was outside in the driveway.”
My stomach dropped. “Is it damaged, like she clawed it off?”
“No. It was just unbuckled. Why does this matter?”
Molly was looking at me again. “There used to be a tracking device in her collar,” I explained. “Shadow kept scratching at it and shorting it out.” Which was possibly accidental, but I wouldn’t put it past the bargest to decide she didn’t feel like having an electronic tag. Her claws were as sharp as my throwing knives. “Abby’s been working on a new scratchproof design, so the purple collar has no tracker—I just sliced off a tiny bit of it, so I could get a witch to find it.” As a supernatural creature, Shadow couldn’t be found with a tracking spell—magic usually couldn’t work against itself, for some reason. But any decent witch could track a fragment from a larger piece, like the collar. “But if someone took her . . .”
“They took the collar off,” Kirsten finished for me, “knowing you could get us to track it.”
“Is the house trashed?” I asked. “Like there was a fight?”
“No.”
Molly, who had heard most of the conversation, put in, “Couldn’t Jesse have taken the collar off?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But why would he have left it in the driveway?”
None of us had a good answer for that. If the collar had been some kind of message, I wasn’t getting it. Meanwhile, we had to proceed as though whoever had attacked Jesse had also taken Shadow. “Just . . . focus on getting here,” Kirsten said finally.
So I did.
He may have been mad at me, but Dashiell still sent a car to get us from the airport. As we pulled up to the house, I was already extending my radius as far as I could. I felt the bzzt sensation of a spell fizzing out . . . but this wasn’t like the spells I was used to dealing with. It was powerful, for one thing, and there was almost a taste to it, something thick and green and toxic. It made me want to shower and throw up at the same time. I pushed away the thought and hurried out of the car toward the cottage, Molly rushing along at my heels.
&nbs
p; I heard hushed voices as I walked in, but they went silent as Kirsten heard me coming. “In here,” she called from the bathroom.
Our bathroom was small—and not particularly clean—but Hayne, Kirsten, and Matthias had all managed to cram inside. Hayne leaned against the counter, while Kirsten and Matthias crouched in front of the tub. They’d taken off the shower curtain, and I could see Jesse lying inside, covered in a mound of ice. He was facing away from the door, but as I squeezed into the room and rushed to his side, it struck me that he looked . . . dead. His eyes were closed, and I couldn’t tell if his chest was moving. Someone had stripped him down to his boxer shorts—I could see the red color glinting through the ice—and his sickly yellow, bare skin only heightened the appearance of death.
“I felt the spell break,” I blurted. “Is he—” Matthias was feeling for a pulse at Jesse’s neck. I held my breath.
“He’s alive,” Matthias announced, after what felt like an eternity. “Good. But he’s not out of the woods yet.”
“What do you need?” I demanded.
Matthias raised his eyebrows at me, but didn’t comment on my sharp tone. “A bed or cot. We need to set up a saline IV.”
“When will he wake up?”
Matthias shook his head. “That, I don’t know. I’ve never seen a fever induced by magic before. If it caused brain damage, he may not wake up at all, or he may have lost any number of functions. Or”—he shrugged—“he may be fine as soon as we get him rehydrated. But right now, the dehydration has its own threats. Let’s move him.”
I had a thousand more questions—would a werewolf bite fix brain damage?—but I swallowed them and went to pull back the covers on my bed, grateful I’d changed the sheets a few days before. I laid down a clean towel, and watched anxiously as Hayne and Matthias hauled Jesse out of the tub and got him positioned on the right side of the bed.
Hayne then retreated to the living room to make more space, and Kirsten and Molly hovered in the hall. I couldn’t take my eyes off Jesse.
Shadow Hunt Page 8
