Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6

by Phaedra Weldon

  "If something had destroyed the wards, there would be pieces, traces of the magic still evident. Like…when you break a window out? Not all of the glass is removed?"

  I got the image and nodded. The glass-made Fetch clinked as it moved out of the sink. It was looking at me! I wanted to Wraith out and fly the hell out of this house of horrors. "So, it's not like that?"

  "No. It's like someone removed the wards. They're just not there anymore."

  Wait…what? I leaned to his left past his shoulder and looked up at him. "The hell? Why would anyone remove the wards?"

  He looked down at me. I noticed a red ring showing up around his neck where that Fetch had pulled the garland tight. There were similar bands around his wrist. "I don't know. I doubt Nona did. And she and Rhonda were the ones who initiated the—"

  Oh no. I think we were having the same terrible thought at the same time.

  And that was…if Mom didn't do it, that meant Rhonda had.

  "Joe." I was shaking my head slowly. "That's not…I mean, she's a bitch and all, and she's got some crazy Dominion making its moves on her…but do you think she'd let it use her to remove them?"

  "I don't know. And right now it doesn't matter. I can't jump to a conclusion, even if it's obvious. What we do have to do right now is get the wards back up. If I can do that, then I can sever the control of whomever is puppeting these Fetches."

  "You…by yourself? I thought warding this house was a two-man job?"

  "It is. But we don't have two men and this is the only way to get rid of them. You want them to get outside and start attacking people?"

  No.

  He held out his left hand, and to my surprise, half of it disappeared. I'd seen this happen before, with Mom and with Rhonda. He was reaching into the Veil.

  Joe nearly fell backwards on top of me and he turned bone-white. "Whoa," he said in his best Keanu Reeves. Again. "That was a trip. I need more practice."

  "What?"

  "I slowed the rotation to get what I needed. Wasn't…prepared for it." His hand reappeared, holding another athame. This one was much larger than Mom's and was a bit ornate. The hilt was wrapped in black leather and topped by a medallion; the guard long and curved. "I'm gonna need you more than I've ever needed you."

  I realized he was talking to me. "Oh…okay. You tell me what to do."

  The first thing he did was grab a nearby mop and swung it at the two dish-and-glass Fetches on the sink. They crashed and split apart, making a bigger mess. I followed him out of the kitchen to the tea shop, where he smashed one of the ceramic ones.

  "Clear away the chairs and tables!"

  I did as he told me to. Out of the corner of my eye, I could the Fetches in the kitchen re-forming—but more disturbing, the one that'd been hanging from the light wasn't there anymore.

  Oh shit.

  "Shit!"

  The fucker had landed on Joe's back. He had his athame in his right hand, his right arm lifted up, the blade pointing at the ceiling. The thing was trying to yank his arm down and was slicing the shit out of his skin.

  I went half-Wraith this time and reached out with my talons to grab at it. Luckily I was successful, as the long, sharp nail slipped between the pieces of glass. That gave me a nice hold, which I used to flick that thing off like a booger.

  Something sailed by my head. I turned to see a fork sticking out of the wall behind me. One of the little monsters was perched on the destroyed display case hurling utensils at me!

  Joe still held his arm in the air even as blood ran down over his elbow and dripped on the floor. He had his left hand in his Veil again and came out with a canister of Morton's salt. "Zoë, make a circle of this around me!"

  I grabbed the salt and did as he said, even as I ducked more forks and spoons.

  Spoons? Really?

  Soon as the ends of the salt circle met, everything the little bugger threw bounced off of some invisible shield around Joe. He had both hands up in the air now and the blade of the athame glowed a brilliant blue. Mastiff and the others beat steadily on the door with something, trying to push it down. I was pretty sure they were a bit confused as to why a simple kitchen door was so hard to break.

  "Zoë! I need you!"

  Ducking one last plastic spork, I ran to Joe, not even thinking about the small ward of salt around him. But as soon as I hit, it I remembered. I didn't bounce off of it or anything—salt doesn't exactly exorcise Abysmal—but it did sort of…do something. Only I didn't know it immediately. To me it was like moving through concrete.

  And then I had my arms around him. He dropped his left arm around me and I closed my eyes as the light inside the circle grew bright. I could feel and see that whirling maelstrom around him and wondered if that was his Veil, or were the things in the house flying about as whatever was controlling the Fetches fought the ward?

  I felt cold, and then hot, and then cold again. I shivered as the whirling stopped, only to be replaced by the sound of a thousand crashing plates. I waited a few minutes before I opened one eye, then the other. But I had my face buried in his chest, so all I saw was shirt.

  "Joe?"

  He didn't answer me. I tried to move back and realized really damn fast I was the only thing holding Joe Halloran on his feet.

  Chapter Twenty

  "Joe?" I shifted into full physical Wraith as my wings unfurled and beat fast to counterbalance Joe's weight. He slumped over my shoulders, his arms down at his sides. Once I lowered him down onto his back, I saw his athame sticking out of the wooden floor where he'd let go of it. I was lucky it hadn't skewered my foot to the floor.

  "Joe!" Mastiff yelled out.

  I glanced around us. The Fetches were gone, and my ears popped. A protective ward was back up—that much I could tell with my own Abysmal senses. Joe had done it all by himself—I'd never seen Mom do it alone. She'd always had Rhonda or Jemmy. Was that why he was out cold? I ran my hands over his body, looking for wounds, pieces of glass, flying debris—nothing. But he wasn't moving.

  A crash against the back door whipped my head to the kitchen. One more smash like that and the door was going to come down. I wanted to yell out at Mastiff to knock it off and I'd unlock it—or undo whatever those Fetches had done to keep it sealed. With them gone, everything was open again.

  But they didn't know I was here. And I didn't want to take a chance on Mastiff having one of those L-6 guns. Damn things were popping up everywhere. I looked around the floor to make sure none of the little monsters was moving. That's when I saw another of those circular patterns of things. Things that seemed incongruous and unbroken.

  It was like Mom's Veil—

  Only this was Joe's. Everything had dumped out of his Veil the moment he collapsed. I did a quick check and grabbed all of it up. I didn't think there was anything important—more than likely, as Mom said, it was just a huge mix of things that he could strengthen his magic on.

  But Mastiff was a damn good detective and he'd notice these items didn't fit with the now more…apocalyptic decor of the house.

  I sat on my knees and looked around me. I had all of it piled in my arms—but where was I going to put it? There weren't any secret hiding places that whomever had ransacked the place apparently didn't know about already. And I could hear them getting ready to make another attempt at busting down the door.

  I couldn't carry all of this stuff with me if I went incorporeal—and even if I tried it in solid form, there was just too much for two arms. But I could make another Box like TC showed me and hide it all in there. No one could get to it but me.

  Why not? What could it hurt?

  I had five seconds to do it. I dumped all of the stuff on the floor and started visualizing a box of metal all around the little pile. To my surprise, the dang thing actually formed, and once I could see it and knew it was real, it became something very solid.

  Only…I didn't see a door.

  Oh well.

  I lifted the box up, imagined a shelf on the Astral Plane. Ima
gine an Oreo chocolate-covered cookie. There's chocolate, then filling, then chocolate. Think of the filling as the Physical, the cookie as the Mental, and the chocolate covering as the Astral. I was technically putting the box in the cookie part.

  …

  That analogy really sucked ass.

  The door burst open, and I instinctively flung myself over Joe to protect him as two officers came in with guns drawn. Mastiff was right behind them.

  "Joe!"

  I heard and felt Mastiff's feet beating on the hardwood, so I made sure I was incorporeal before I sat up and then back. Mastiff was on the ground on his knees, slipping his gun back into his holster. He touched Joe's neck, then leaned in to put his ear to his partner's chest. After several beats, he grabbed up his radio. "This is Detective George Mastiff. I have an officer down at…"

  I sat on my ass beside Joe and watched as Mastiff ordered in an ambulance and then told officers to patrol the perimeter to make sure the attacker wasn't still lurking around.

  Imagine my surprise when Mastiff turned back around to look at Joe and said, "Zoë, I know you're there. And you'd better tell me what the fuck just happened."

  Wait…how did he know I was there? Could he see me? I didn't think he was all magic like Mom and Joe. Maybe it was rubbing off on him the longer he associated himself with us.

  "Please, Zoë." He didn't look at me. He was leaning over Joe, and started feeling the man's arms and legs. When he found the long gashes on Joe's arm, he swore, and pulled his handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wrapped it around his partner's arm. "I need you tell me what happened so I can make sure he gets the right treatment."

  I licked my lips and lifted myself off the floor and debris to hover above him. If he heard my voice, I wanted him to hear it above him, not beside him. People sometimes got a little weirded out when a voice just pops out of thin air beside them. "I think he exhausted himself."

  Mastiff visibly looked relieved as his shoulders slumped and he bent his head forward. "Thank you for answering me. At least I know I'm not crazy." He looked around the room. "Things are different. What happened?"

  I gave him a Reader's Digest version of the events, although I kept the more mental parts of it out, like Joe and I thinking whoever took Mom's Eidolon used it to make the Fetches regeneratable.

  When I was done, Mastiff put his hands on his thighs. "I'm going to have him taken to Emory University Hospital, same as your mother. Once I know he's stable, I will let you know. And then we're going to have a little talk."

  "No…I can't do that."

  "Zoë, I have one of those guns."

  "That's not exactly the way to gain my trust, George."

  He opened his mouth, and then closed it. "Sorry…I'm just used to threatening to get my way."

  "That's being a bully." I floated behind him so I could get a better look at Joe. He looked so freaking pale and vulnerable. But I'd felt his power. I had a small taste of what he was capable of—and that was with a swirling vortex of stuff tucked inside his astral aura. What was he capable of without that?

  What sucked was that I didn't really have anyone to ask questions to. Rhonda was insane and kidnapped or maybe helping the kidnappers, Mom was in a coma, and Joe…

  Joe wasn't moving. Something wrenched in my gut when I looked at him, and I thought about how he'd been bitten and drained when Lex had challenged Jason in that duel. Joe had been so brave and recovered quickly for a human.

  With no Symbiont, no Familiar, no First Born.

  I was thinking a lot about that lately. Just as much as I was thinking about Dags and hoping he was okay.

  "We know Gibbons was written off as dead, but we're forensically sure it's him killing and raping. We've already confirmed it. But I don't know how that's possible."

  "I do…but I can't tell you, George. Not yet. There's a lot going on underneath the surface of this. You see a collection of rapes and homicides. I see the creatures causing it. And listen to me very carefully—" I took in a deep breath. "Daniel is not a part of this. If he's after anyone, it's Karl Gibbons."

  "Zoë, I know that." Mastiff stood when we both heard the sound of sirens approaching. "But he's still wanted for those deaths earlier this year, and the murder of Captain Cooper."

  I didn't answer. I knew that. And I knew it was all my fault. "I'll try and keep him out of this, okay?"

  "Zoë, if you know where he is…" Mastiff put his hands on his hips, the motion pushing back his suit jacket to reveal his holster and weapon. "You've got to tell me. Is he with Jason Lawrence? Is that playboy messed up in this somehow?"

  The ambulance pulled up into the yard. I could see the red-and-white lights through the curtains lighting up the night . I rose higher in the air and hovered just beneath the ceiling. "Mastiff, you know what Jason is. I suggest you leave him alone. He's not a part of this. If he's doing anything, it's meant to help his kind."

  "The killings have to stop, Zoë." He was looking around at the ceiling, trying to get a bead on where I was. His right hand slipped into his pocket. I didn't know if he had one of L-6 guns in there, but I did not want to find out.

  My cue to leave. Joe would be taken care of and I could check on him at the hospital when I went to see Mom. Right now I wanted to track down whoever attacked Mom and sent those crazy-freaky Fetches after us. But in order to do that, I had to figure out who that was. My guess was something or someone hired or overtaken or overshadowed by agents of the Seraphim.

  Joe seemed to think they were desperate if they were attacking witches like that. And it was obvious they had help, because someone took down the ward to let them in. But who?

  As I sieved through the roof and into the sky, I hovered over Little Five Points . I watched the ambulance arrive, watched it take Joe away and still hovered above until all that was left, once again, was a single black and white. I must've been up there for hours, trying to sort out everything and make my next move. I was alone doing this, for the first time since all of this insanity started. Mom always said to ask questions. Generate answers. Look for them if they weren't there.

  What creature could a Seraphim control, that could control magic and pack a wallop to knock out a witch like my mom? The truth was—nothing. Or nothing I could think of. Common sense says the only person that could get the jump on Mom would be someone she knew and trusted. And right now that was a very short list.

  Well, there was one person. One individual she still trusted. The one creature in the whole universe I didn't trust. Someone I really wanted to hate more than hate itself.

  But I couldn't.

  So I'd gotten used to the feeling of extremely disliking him.

  And that would be none other than Adiran Martinique.

  My father.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I'd never tried to find my father. He always seemed to find me. So looking for him on purpose…well, that was a grab bag full of nothing. I honestly didn't know where to start. I could ask TC, but he'd warn me against it and then refuse to tell me how. Mom and Joe weren't on the ask list, seeing as they were both unconscious. Dags…

  Again my heart lurched inside of my chest when I thought of him. He'd been missing only a few days, but the anxiety I felt about him lingered since the moment I realized he no longer loved me. No longer remembered me. I'll admit Mom and Jason's testimony that he'd been having memories return—images in his head associated with Rhonda that involved me—did give me a slight feeling of hope.

  But I think I stopped being a dreamer the moment I lost him. The moment I'd been betrayed again…by someone I trusted. Seemed I wasn't meant to have anyone in my life I could trust.

  Well, enough of that pity-party. I had to find old Pop and wring some answers out of him.

  So I spent most of the early morning flitting about town, looking in all the wrong places. I checked the halfway house in Between, then I went to the Society House and hovered in the air for a while. Nothing. I spent time in Piedmont Park, then back to Grant Park whe
re Geist had led me to Tamera—

  Thinking of Tamera made me think of Mom in the hospital. It was the one place I hadn't checked. Was it possible he was there? The image of their wedding rings in Joe's hands spurred me in the direction of the hospital. The sun had just crested the top of the trees when I slipped inside. I remained incorporeal until I reached Mom's room. Jemmy wasn't there.

  A young man dressed in a tan peacoat, dark jeans, and boots sat at her side, his hand in hers. His hair was dark and combed back from his face to brush the collar of his coat.

  He lifted his head when I entered the room, then turned to his right so I could see his profile.

  Adiran Martinique.

  But this wasn't the powerful, arrogant image I'd watched from inside the Abysmal Throne. In fact, he looked more human than he ever had.

  I landed on my slippers. They transformed into black boots as the rest of me shifted into a more presentable human appearance. It felt like I was in control of the transformation for the first time.

  "Hello, Zoëtrope."

  I rolled my eyes. "I really wish you wouldn't call me that."

  "I gave you that name." He looked back at Mom. "Nona wasn't as excited about it as I was. I had to convince her it would fit you."

  I approached the bed, but avoided looking at Mom. I couldn't. If I did, I'd break down. And at that moment I needed to be as bitchy as I could. "What are you doing here?"

  "I'm keeping a watch over my wife. Of course I have to do it when that damned bloodsucker isn't here." His jaw clenched as he kept his gaze on Mom. "She's my wife, and I can't keep him out."

  "He took care of her when you abandoned us."

  Dad was up on his feet and facing me eye to eye. I realized where I got my height. "You may be my daughter, but you don't know me, Zoë—"

  "I don't fucking want to know you!" I hissed at him, my voice so very close to an hysterical scream. "You don't deserve her and you sure as shit don't get to call me your daughter anymore, Virtue." I looked at this beautiful man with an overwhelming sensation of hate. It washed over me, coming from behind like a tidal wave. He blinked and took a step back, nearly stumbling over the chair he'd sat in.