“You wouldn’t really use the East as a bargaining chip anyway,” said Cooper. “Come on. You would never give the Wicks a sapwood seed. The clan never would have chosen you as a carrier unless you had the character for it.”
“People change,” said Alex, then he smiled. “Even Blackwoods, sometimes.”
“But not so much that you couldn’t trust a solemn oath handed down by the clan leaders,” Cooper persisted. “If I got you their word, you could trust it.”
“Maybe.” Alex gave Cooper a long look, then me. Finally he said, “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would they send another carrier to come and get the East? They would never allow two seeds to get within miles of each other.”
As we’d planned, Cooper told Alex (mostly) everything, although it was no more than Cillian Wick himself already knew: that we were the ones with the sanctuary, a place where we couldn’t be harmed, and no sapwood seed could be touched. That we could keep the seeds safe, the East alongside the West.
“But the clan didn’t approve that sanctuary proposal,” said Alex. “As a carrier, I was allowed a vote, by the way.”
“And which way did you vote?” Cooper asked.
“Yes, of course,” said Alex. “That was a couple of months before my troubles started, but even then I could see the upsides of not being a carrier anymore.”
“Well, if you were for it then, you should have no problem with it now,” said Cooper. “Give me the seed, let me worry about getting approval, and you can be free and clear.” He made an expansive gesture, whether to indicate the kitchen, the whole vineyard, or the big wide world beyond, I couldn’t have said. “Go live the life you’ve imagined.”
“No offense, but why would I trust you?” Alex asked. “We haven’t seen each other since you gave me a swirlie at camp when I was twelve.”
I raised an eyebrow at Cooper, but he shook his head. “I have never done that to anyone, I swear. You must be thinking of someone else.”
“Maybe,” Alex said. “All you big kids blend together. The point is, I don’t know you. You might have been lying from the second you walked in. You might take the East Seed and go running straight to the Wicks with it. You might take it and kill me.”
“Which is where this oath comes in,” said Cooper. “You can take the clan’s word, if you won’t take mine. If they swear they will never pursue or harm you, will you turn over the East Seed to me?”
“And how will you extract this oath, exactly?” asked Alex. “Doesn’t sound like you’ve got a whole lot of influence with the clan yourself, at the moment.”
“No, but they might listen to Dalton,” said Cooper. “Worst case, Dalton and us are probably the only ones who even know where you are. If he were to agree to keep it to himself—”
But Alex was shaking his head. “That won’t work. I can’t trust Dalton. I can’t trust anyone, not individually. I won’t even consider this unless you get that oath from the whole clan. All the leaders. And it has to be in what passes for writing among us.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that last part, thinking it probably meant a marriage proposal on a dating site, or something.
“In that case, thanks for the beer,” said Cooper, standing up. “I’ll be back when we have an answer.”
We said our goodbyes. Alex didn’t show us out, but the two dogs—I never found out their names—escorted us to the door like an honor guard.
“So,” I said to Cooper when we were back in the car, “which of the people we can’t trust do we trust the least?”
He shook his head. “Or which the most? I don’t know. They’re all hiding things. But if we can broker a deal for the East Seed—no matter what everybody’s motives are for making it—that’s a good thing, right?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe they have some horrible plan that we aren’t thinking of. Maybe they just want us to get as many of the seeds as possible together in the vault, so they can storm the Mount Phearson and take them.”
That was a perfectly reasonable fear, although it had a few holes, most particularly that I had no idea who I meant by they. Dalton? Someone working with the Wicks? Or the Blackwoods in general. Maybe this whole thing was an elaborate scheme that the whole clan was in on.
Cooper sighed. “I guess we just stay vigilant, and keep going. Unless you have any better suggestions.”
“Does just going home and forgetting about all of them, and selfishly keeping safe in our sanctuary no matter what they all do, count as a better suggestion?”
“I wish it did,” he said. “But my duty is clear. Whatever either clan is up to, protecting the sapwood seeds comes first. And at this point I agree with Alex: even the Blackwoods can’t be trusted with these damn seeds anymore.”
I was sorry to say that on that point, we were in complete accord.
For the next three days, we drove around Central and Western New York, while Cooper talked things over with Dalton in their usual roundabout way. We kept an eye on the vineyard in the meanwhile, although we didn’t stop to see Alex again. If the Wicks were aware of his location—or if he was in league with them—we saw no evidence of it. But we remained cautious, never staying at the same hotel two nights in a row, moving from place to place, making sure we weren’t tracked.
Finally Cooper got the answer we’d been hoping for: a written agreement, coded in Blackwood fashion, that Alex would be left alone if he gave up the East Seed. It was “signed” by all the clan leaders, including Cooper’s father.
But of course, Cooper himself wasn’t in touch with any of the clan, apart from Dalton. Not even his own parents. As far as the rest of the Blackwoods were concerned, he was still a renegade himself, and they knew nothing of his part in brokering this deal.
Which meant we had no way of verifying that the deal was legitimate. Only Dalton’s promise that a possibly random post on a video game blog was the genuine word of the Blackwoods.
“But it’s on a site we use, in a code we use,” said Cooper, as we discussed the matter in yet another room in yet another hotel that wasn’t mine. “The rest of them would be able to see it. There’s no way Dalton is trying to pull that off behind their backs.”
“Maybe they stopped using it, though,” I said. “You didn’t know they’d stopped using the billiards forum, right?”
“If Dalton was lying, he wouldn’t risk putting it where any Blackwood could see it, even if that place wasn’t active anymore,” Cooper said. “It would be too easy for him to get caught.”
“But we can’t be sure. Not completely, not if we can’t talk to anyone else.” I bit my lip, not wanting to broach what I knew was a difficult subject, but not seeing any other way. “I think you should get in touch with your father. Just to double check.”
But Cooper wouldn’t hear of it. “I’m not willing to risk souring this deal by letting him or anyone else know I’m part of it. Or worse, give them anything that will tip them off that we’ve left sanctuary. I’ve got my own seed to protect. I’ve got us to protect. That comes ahead of Alex.”
I took Cooper’s hand, in hopes it would make my words seem more gentle. “I’m sorry to say it, but those sound like excuses as much as they sound like reasons. I know things are strained with your father, but—”
“Strained?” Cooper laughed. “No. This will have to do. I’ll be honest with Alex, and he can take it or leave it.”
And so we went back to see Alex. Or at least, we tried to.
But when we arrived, we found that the vineyard that had been so picturesque only a few days ago was now a withered ruin.
The place looked like it had been abandoned for at least a decade. The vineyard itself was an overgrown, tangled mess, the little office building half-collapsed and rotting. The barn was missing one wall, and the three that remained looked charred by fire. But the house still stood, up on the rise. From the parking area, I couldn’t see what kind of shape it was in.
Cooper and I stared at the wasteland around us, then at one anothe
r.
“What the hell?” he said finally.
I shook my head. “I have no idea. It’s obviously magic, but it’s none that I’m familiar with.”
“Vitals don’t do magic,” Cooper said. “But some of our girlfriends do.” He muttered a curse and punched the side of the car. “He had me going, I have to admit. I actually believed him. The whole idea of a Blackwood and a Wick was just so ridiculous…”
I squeezed his shoulder. “We don’t know what happened. This might be something else entirely.”
“Like what?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. My attention was on the barn. Its blackened walls stirred a memory of something Lydia had told me, about the days when she and Phineas were chasing my father. “The Murdochs once knew a witch who disguised her farm to look like it had burned down, to keep people away.”
“So what we saw when we were here the other day was like that, only with the opposite effect,” Cooper said. “To make this place look alive and whole and nice.”
“Was it?” I asked. “Or is this the illusion now, and the alive, whole, nice vineyard is still behind it?”
Cooper was probably right; whatever was happening here was most likely Alex’s doing. But for once, I was the one who wasn’t fully convinced that this was Blackwood treachery. Maybe the Wicks had found Alex, and put up this illusion to hide whatever they’d done—or were doing—to him. Or to hide their own presence here. Maybe this was a trap, and the whole place was crawling with them.
I started to say more, but Cooper grabbed my hand and started to move. “Get back in the car. Either way, standing out in the open isn’t the place to discuss it.”
We parked the car out of sight behind the barn. Cooper took the Glock from the glove compartment when he got out, but instead of tucking it into his pants like he usually did, kept it drawn. I wished I’d written more spells that morning. Or that I’d been able to move that blessed air freshener.
We approached the house from the side rather than head on, ducking through the tall grass to remain as hidden as possible. (At that point in my life, my survival skills were still sufficiently dull that for a moment, a passing concern about ticks distracted me from the highly unsettling and possibly deadly situation we were in.)
Several of the windows were boarded, and the two remaining shutters I could see hung crookedly. The patch of decayed garden was still there, but it was longer now, stretching from a bulkhead cellar door to the front porch. The porch itself was so rotted, I was afraid to walk across it. But we made it without falling through to whatever was producing the rancid smell below it. The screen door hung on one hinge.
The front door behind it was warped, but not locked. Cooper was able to push it open with a little effort, and a lot of noise. We hesitated just inside the threshold, but nobody came to challenge us.
I put my hand on Cooper’s shoulder to stay him, and pressed my other palm against the slightly damp wall, closing my eyes to focus. I didn’t get the sense of enemies. I didn’t get the sense of anybody at all.
I opened my eyes again to find that Cooper was still waiting, watching me closely. I nodded at him. “I think we’re alone here.”
He nodded back, and started down the hall toward the kitchen.
Living in Bristol, I had my share of experience with ruined and abandoned buildings. The woods around the Mount Phearson were littered with the decades-old, in some cases centuries-old, remains of the outbuildings of Colonel Phearson’s original estate. And based on that experience, one thing I could say for sure about this particular ruined and abandoned building was that it didn’t feel haunted by the dead any more than it felt occupied by the living. It only felt empty.
Which was a good thing, because one of the first things we were greeted by, halfway down the hall, was a pile of bones.
Two skeletons, I thought, intermingled. Definitely not recent remains. Both belonging to some kind of animal.
Probably large dogs.
“Balls,” I whispered.
“Looks like I was right,” Cooper said as he stared at the sad sight. “You saw that patch of dead weeds again, coming in?”
I nodded.
“I think their illusion missed a spot the other day. This is the real vineyard, and Alex tricked us the first time.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why greet us at the door and make it look like he lives in this place, when he should have been doing the opposite and trying to hide from us?”
“To throw us off the trail, maybe,” Cooper said. “Send us on a goose chase for three days, trying to make this deal for him. So he could get a three day head start.”
I guessed that was as likely as anything, but it was still crazy. If Alex knew we were coming for him—and I would have thought such complicated magic would require plenty of advanced warning—why wait around to see us at all?
But we weren’t going to get any answers from the bones. We moved past them into the kitchen. The farmhouse table was still there, as was the powder blue refrigerator. It must have been broken; it wasn’t running, although it was plugged in, and a quick flick of the light switch revealed that the electricity was on.
“The beer!” I said, staring at Cooper. “Was that an illusion, too? You’re lucky nothing happened to you!”
“It tasted real enough.” He opened the refrigerator, then stepped aside so I could see. There were several bottles of beer on the top shelf. He touched one of them. “Warm now, but he could have stocked it with cold bottles if he saw us coming. You’ll note he didn’t offer me a second one, even though he had two himself. He had to count on them staying cold long enough to fool us.”
“So he was just watching for us to pull up that driveway, so he could stock his fridge and set everything up.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” said Cooper, and although he was usually the steady one, he did look a bit creeped out.
“He knew to expect us.” I walked around the kitchen, staring, thinking. “Dalton could have warned him.”
“Dalton wouldn’t send us here after Alex, and then warn Alex we were coming. Why would he play both sides?”
“Maybe we were the real intended victims all along,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe Alex was supposed to attack us.”
“Then he would have.” Cooper shook his head, then pointed at me. “But the Wicks, on the other hand. We were almost at the New York border when we ran that SUV off the road. They might have known or guessed where we were heading. At least suspected strongly enough to warn Alex to look out for us.”
“So Alex is the double agent, after all. Because of Lily?”
Cooper nodded. “That sure seems like a strong theory at this point, doesn’t it?”
I still didn’t understand what was going on, but Cooper was definitely right about that much: Alex Blackwood certainly didn’t look innocent.
A search of the first floor revealed nothing but a few pieces of battered and broken furniture, and one wrapper from an energy bar. We tentatively climbed the staircase, which felt just as treacherously rotted as the porch.
The upstairs was completely empty, except for a mattress on the floor of one of the bedrooms. It wasn’t moldy or especially old-looking, but there were no sheets on it, either. We couldn’t tell if it had been used recently or not. The bathroom had no running water, and showed no signs of life, not even a stray hair.
“This is pointless,” Cooper said finally, his voice disgusted. “We might as well just admit he’s fooled us, and get the hell out of here.”
I was inclined to agree—or would have been, if there hadn’t been a thud above us just at that moment. I started, then looked at Cooper.
But he shook his head. “Squirrels, bats. Who knows what’s in that attic. It’s not Alex Blackwood, waiting for us to go up and catch him, I’ll tell you that much.”
“But we’re here,” I said. “We might as well be thorough.”
It took us a while to find the attic stairs. They turned out to be tucked away in the
back of a bedroom closet. Cooper went up first, gun drawn.
The attic was lit by a single window, not boarded over, but so covered in grime it let in only a small amount of the gray, overcast daylight. I could make out an indistinct, stationary silhouette in front of it—not human-shaped, thankfully—but the rest of the room was shrouded in darkness.
The disposable phones we’d been buying didn’t have flashlights. While Cooper felt around on the wall for a light switch, I felt something else. Something that hit me suddenly and hard.
Black. And blue.
I gasped at the sheer vastness of it. Like an ocean. A ravenous, endless blue that could never be contained, never be satisfied. Never be stopped.
It had been a while since I’d had a real flash of sight. I’d just tried, in fact, when we came into the house, and been convinced that there was nothing there to feel. On those occasions when I was able to draw something out of the ether, it was usually limited to brief glimpses of color, slight feelings.
But not this time. This time something else rode along on that wave of blue: a voice, rasping and weak, but as clear in my head as if it had spoken out loud.
hungreeeeeeee
“Cooper! Cooper, there’s someone in here.”
One, two, three heartbeats so heavy I could feel them in my ears, so fast I could barely count them.
hungreeeeeeee alexxxxxxx
Seven, eight, nine. I could do nothing else but count, I was so panicked. I felt like I was standing at the edge of that ocean of hunger, surely about to fall in and drown.
soooooo hungreeeeeeee
Thirteen, and then there was the click of a switch, and the attic flooded with the soft light of a dusty bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Cooper and I immediately came together, back-to-back near the rear wall where he’d found the light switch, his gun ready to fire. But nobody attacked us. Nothing moved.
The object in front of the window turned out to be a wheelchair. And there was somebody in it.
Gathering Black (Devilborn Book 2) Page 8
