Gathering Black
by Jen Rasmussen
Copyright © 2016 Jen Rasmussen
All rights reserved
Cover art by Christine Rasmussen
Cover typography by WickedGoodBookCovers.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Dear Reader
I disliked Arabella Blackwood on sight. I’ll allow it was for mostly petty reasons.
She looked awfully pleased with herself, for one thing, and I never could abide smugness in a person. Although to be fair, she looked like she had some basis for confidence. She was hard and fit, and carried herself with a grace that suggested she was not the least bit sweaty or uncomfortable in those leather pants, despite the sweltering late summer day.
She also had a very large knife attached to her belt, which I wasn’t quite sure was legal, but was quite sure was unwelcome in my hotel.
Finding out she was a Blackwood both cemented my antipathy, and spared me any guilt I might have felt over it.
“Cooper isn’t here,” I told her.
Arabella laughed at that, and tossed her flowing chocolate-brown hair like a girl in a bar. I considered it a feat of strength when I managed to keep from rolling my eyes.
“Is that so?” she asked. “Out chasing another false lead, is he? Still trying to find the East Seed?”
I didn’t answer her. That was exactly what Cooper was doing. Or at least, he was chasing a lead. And she was probably right that it was a false one. They all had been, so far.
“Anyway, that’s fine,” said Arabella. “I need to talk to the famous Verity, too.”
“Famous, am I?”
“The witch who bespelled Cooper into losing his mind and betraying his clan?” She raised one perfectly plucked and shaped brow. “Maybe notorious is a better word. Is there someplace private we can talk?”
That presented a bit of a dilemma. I didn’t want to have a conversation about betrayals or clan wars or sapwood seeds in the lobby any more than she did, but I wasn’t terribly keen on inviting her up to my suite alone, either. Still, I supposed there was nothing else for it.
I avoided glancing at the knife as I said, “Let’s go upstairs to my office.” Then I turned to the front desk, where Jamie was watching us curiously, and said, a little louder than necessary, “We’ll be in my suite. Call any time.” As if that would stop Arabella from attacking me, knowing that scrawny, gangly Jamie was on the case.
Well, I supposed she could try. It was always my preference to avoid confrontation, but if it came to that, I was in no serious danger. Arabella might have that knife, and three inches on me at least, but I had protections in place she couldn’t possibly hope to penetrate.
I had my hotel.
As we walked past the stone fireplace and up the main staircase, I reached for its power and gathered it around me, like someone finding their center while meditating. Except my center wasn’t inside myself, but inside the Mount Phearson’s walls.
Growing up, I’d only known of one ghost in the hotel proper, a small boy who’d lost his dog, and my friend Lydia had put that poor soul to rest years ago. But the hotel still felt haunted. Even the guests sensed it. I saw it in the way they hesitated sometimes, when they walked through the front entrance. The brief flashes of worry or confusion that crossed their faces, their tentative steps forward.
I could have told them they had nothing to fear. The Mount Phearson was indeed haunted, in a strange, small way, but the ghost would never hurt them.
The ghost was me.
I’d given up a piece of my soul to work the sanctuary spell that protected the hotel, and all of Bristol. And that meant that nobody could do any real harm to me there. At least not until my enemies figured out how to break the spell; and don’t think they weren’t trying.
So bring it on, if you must, Arabella Blackwood.
Upstairs, Arabella walked a lap around my open living room, office area, and kitchenette, eyeing the obvious evidence that I wasn’t living alone: Cooper’s boots in one corner, two video game controllers on the coffee table. Kitchen gadgets whose function I couldn’t even define, something she probably guessed by my offer of instant coffee instead of something whipped up in the new espresso machine I’d given Cooper for his birthday in July.
“Water will be fine,” Arabella said, and finally took a seat at my dining-slash-conference table. “So, it’s like that, then.”
I sat across from her, crossed my arms, and then uncrossed them. This meeting might require some diplomacy; there was no need to look as hostile as I felt. “What’s like what?” I asked.
“You and Cooper. Living together.”
Actually, it wasn’t like that. I thought of Cooper as staying with me rather than living with me, a distinction that made it all feel more temporary and less overwhelming. And even with that bit of semantic armor, it had its downsides. But I wasn’t about to get into it with her.
Instead I asked, “Do you know Cooper?”
It wasn’t an odd question, even though they were family. The Blackwoods weren’t what you’d call close-knit. Despite being very organized in their communications, they didn’t meet in person often. Or ever, really. Cooper hadn’t even seen his own parents face-to-face in years.
“I know him well enough,” Arabella said. “Can you say the same? You know his relationships can’t go anywhere, right? I hope he at least told you that much before he got you to jump into bed with him.”
I blinked at her, trying to choose between several replies, none of which seemed witty enough.
“What I mean is, he can’t marry outside the clan,” she said. “Well, actually he can’t marry at all, since he’s technically still a carrier. But even when that’s no longer the case, the Blackwoods only marry other Blackwoods. Have to keep the bloodline pure, right?”
She waved off my look, no doubt mistaking it for distaste over the muddy Blackwood gene pool. When really it was me upgrading—or downgrading, I supposed—my initial dislike of her to something a bit stronger. Enmity, maybe, or loathing.
“There are enough of us that the intermarrying isn’t gross,” Arabella went on. “It’s not like we’re getting together with our first cousins or something. Anyway, I hope I’m not the bearer of bad news here.”
She gave me a smile that seemed meant to look sympathetic. I was not fooled by it, and furthermore, I was fairly certain she didn’t expect me to be. Arabella Blackwood, I realized, did not like me any better than I liked her. And she didn’t care if I knew it. I wondered if it was just clan loyalty that made her take such umbrage at my bespelling Cooper, as she’d put it, or something more.
“I’m sorry, but this is really none of your business,” I said finally. If I couldn’t be witty, I could at least be blunt. “Maybe you should get to why you’re here?”
What I really wanted to know, more than why, was how she was there. The Blackwoods didn’t know our exact location. Or so we’d thought. All Cooper had told them was that he was in a hotel that had been magically protected by a witch—me—to safeguard both him and the sapwood seed he
was charged with keeping out of the hands of their rival clan. He thought he might have let it slip that this hotel was in the mountains somewhere. But there were a lot of mountains in the world, and that was all the detail he gave them.
They disapproved, which was why he didn’t give them any more than that. Ironically enough, his mortal enemies knew exactly where he was, and were powerless to do anything about it. But he had to hide from his own family.
That part was my fault. Never imagining we would be in any danger from the rightful guardians of the sapwood seeds, I’d written the sanctuary spell so that only myself or a Blackwood—any Blackwood—could take one of those seeds from the hotel vault. After they ordered Cooper to return the West Seed, we cut off all contact. We couldn’t risk them coming and taking it.
So while Cooper looked for the rest of the seeds, his clan looked for him. It wasn’t just that they wanted the West Seed back. They also wanted to bring their errant son home to face whatever passed for justice among them. Which, I assumed, was the answer to the question I’d just asked Arabella.
But it seemed I was wrong about that. Or so she said, anyway.
“I’m not here on behalf of Cooper’s father, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Who says I’m worried at all?” My arms were practically twitching with the urge to cross themselves again, but I resisted.
Arabella smirked. “You look nervous.”
“I’m shy around new people.”
She laughed, and to my surprise, it wasn’t the cruel laugh I would have expected. It almost seemed sincerely warm. “My name didn’t seem like it meant anything to you, when I introduced myself.”
“I’m supposed to have heard of you?”
She shrugged. I did the same in return.
“You know, Blackwoods,” I said. “Always secretive. Cooper doesn’t get into a lot of detail about his family.”
“What about Dalton Blackwood? Have you heard of him?”
“Nope.”
“Well, he’s my father. And he’s arguably the most powerful member of the clan.”
“Okay.”
“And he has the North Seed.”
That certainly caught my interest. I tried not to let it show too much. “How can that be? You just said the carriers aren’t allowed to have families.”
Arabella gave me another of her slow smiles. “Nice catch. My father is the exception to most things, you’ll find. He’s one of those people who thinks the rules don’t apply to him.”
“Sounds like he’s right.”
“He is, mostly.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“Two reasons,” she said. “The first is to tell you that we know where you are. You can hardly accuse me of bluffing on that point, when I’m right here in person.”
“I see. And I assume the second reason is to tell me what you want, to keep you from using that information?”
“Not at all. The second reason is to extend an invitation.”
“An invitation to what?”
She didn’t answer that right away. Instead she said, “You should know that my father disagrees with the rest of the clan. He thinks your sanctuary plan is a good idea. Especially now.”
“Why especially now?” I asked.
For the first time since I’d greeted her in the lobby, Arabella’s smug expression fell away. Her anxious frown looked genuine. “We’ve received some intelligence that the Wick clan is working on a way to grow a sapwood forest from just two seeds: the North and the South. And as you know, they already have the South.”
I stared at her. A sapwood forest could enslave a population, drain it of vitality, and restore the Wicks themselves to full magical power. That would be bad news for everyone, but especially for the aforementioned enslaved population, and Cillian Wick knew just who he wanted to fill that role: the people of Bristol. My home.
The sanctuary spell was protecting us well for the moment, but our enemies, both the Bristol Garden Club and the Wicks, were still circling. The only way to really ensure our safety was to take back the seed the Wicks already had, and make sure none of the others ever fell into their hands.
And now, if they only needed one more…
“But how is that possible?” I asked. “I thought four was the bare minimum.”
“It is,” Arabella agreed. “For now. And we hope it’ll stay that way. But it was feeders who bred the sapwood trees in the first place. They’re the experts. Advancements happen. We have to deal with the possibility that the Wicks could pull this off.”
“So what is this invitation to?” I asked again.
“My father has a number of protections in place. As far as we know, the Wicks don’t know he carries the North Seed. But even if they did, his house is a fortress. Almost impenetrable to his enemies.”
“Almost,” I emphasized.
Arabella pointed at me, like a teacher indicating I’d gotten an answer right. “And that is the exact problem. If the North becomes the only seed the Wicks still need, almost won’t be good enough.” She gestured around. “But it seems like you’ve taken the idea of impenetrable to a whole new level here.”
“We’ve done our best.”
And don’t think it didn’t cost me.
“So, assuming you can tell my father a few things about how your spell works—”
“That’s out of the question,” I interrupted.
She smiled. “Relax. Nothing proprietary. I just meant, if you can reassure him that it does work—”
“The West Seed has been safe here, despite the Wicks both skulking around our borders and making friends within them, for five months,” I pointed out. “I’d call that an ample demonstration that it works.” I wasn’t usually so impolite about interrupting people, but she’d gotten my dander up. I was quite proud of my sanctuary spell. And I certainly wasn’t about to share any of my secrets with the Blackwoods.
Arabella didn’t seem bothered by my defensiveness. She just shrugged and said, “Hey, you can work all that out with him. All I’m saying is, you need to make sure he’s comfortable. Which is a perfectly reasonable request, by the way, when we’re talking about giving up a seed.”
“So that is what we’re talking about,” I said, just to make her say it out loud. “He’s willing to give the North Seed over to our care?”
“If you can make sure he’s comfortable,” she repeated.
I tried not to look excited by the prospect. It sounded too good to be true, and I didn’t trust her. “Then why all this cloak and dagger stuff?” I asked. “Why come here to threaten me—”
“I didn’t threaten you.”
“It sure sounded like a threat, when you wanted to make sure I understood that you know where we are. We both know you could try to hurt us with that information.” I put a bit of not-so-subtle emphasis behind the word try, even though in reality, I didn’t think there was much try about it. There was no doubt she could hurt us, if she told the rest of the clan where to find Cooper, and the West Seed. Assuming she hadn’t told them already.
And she knew I would have to give in to whatever she asked, pretty much, to keep her from doing just that. Yet all she wanted was to give me another seed? Like I said, too good to be true.
Arabella laughed again, that warm, sincere laugh. In spite of myself, the sound made me hate her slightly less. “Well, I’m a Blackwood,” she said. “Cloak and dagger is what we do.”
I nodded in concession to that. “Fair point. But in this case, you know it’s unnecessary. You know perfectly well that you don’t have to threaten us into taking a seed.”
“You might not be as happy to do it as you think,” she said. “There’s one other condition, besides convincing my father of the strength of your sanctuary.”
“And what is that?” I asked.
Arabella took a mouthful of water, and seemed to take a long time to swallow it. “He never leaves his house. For any reason. Consider it part of those prote
ctions I mentioned. You’ll have to collect the seed from him there.”
“That’s it?” It was certainly strange, for a Blackwood to stay in one place. They weren’t exactly homebodies. Most of them didn’t even seem to have homes. But it was hardly a deal breaker. “I’m sure Cooper will be fine going to him.”
“I don’t mean Cooper. I mean you, plural. My father will only hand over the North Seed to both of you.”
Arabella refused my offer to stay at the hotel until Cooper got back, which came as both a relief and a disappointment. I had no idea how long Cooper would be gone, and I naturally disliked the thought of her hovering around, spying, trying to discover the secrets of my spell. Maybe even trying to get into the vault.
But on the chance she would do some or all of those things either way, I’d rather have had an eye on her. I also would have liked Cooper to see her for himself. How could I even be sure she was who she said she was? The whole thing might very well be a Wick trap designed to lure us away from the hotel, from Bristol, from both sanctuary and seed.
Or she might be exactly who she said she was, and it might be a Blackwood trap designed to do the same.
I didn’t say any of that in so many words, but Arabella seemed to understand. She wasn’t stupid, I could give her that much. “This is just a stop for me,” she said. “I’m heading south on some other business. But take a picture of me to show Cooper, as proof of my identity.”
She smiled quite fetchingly for it. Did I mention she was not my favorite person?
The second she left, I hurried down to the basement, to make sure she hadn’t somehow gotten down there before I met her in the lobby. I grabbed some towels from a nearby laundry cart—the vault was made entirely of iron, something that as a half-phantasm I couldn’t touch—and opened the heavy door.
We’d put a little antique console table against one dark iron wall, the only piece of furniture inside. The green seed, suspended in its chunk of amber, sat on top, seemingly undisturbed. I knew I’d probably end up covered in hives for my trouble, but I even stepped in and walked right up to it, picking it up, testing its weight in my hand. Just to be sure.
Arabella hadn’t touched it. The West Seed was still safe.
Gathering Black (Devilborn Book 2) Page 1
