Gathering Black (Devilborn Book 2)

by Jen Rasmussen

  “What good are weapons?” I asked. “They’re going to take them the second we walk in. Unless you want to try to take down twenty Wick soldiers yourself, because I am not a great shot under pressure, we can’t count on firepower. We’ve got to trust in magic.”

  We’ve got to trust in me.

  The liability.

  Arabella did not look like she was in a trusting mood. I couldn’t say I blamed her. But we’d already agreed, many times, that there was no way to go in with guns blazing, at least not any way that ended with us winning. And if we couldn’t overpower them, and we couldn’t sneak in, magic was all that was left to us.

  Finally she sighed and said, “Can we at least stop and buy a knife on the way to my father’s from the airport? Maybe I can hide it somewhere they won’t find it when they search us.”

  “That we can do, if it’ll make you feel better,” I agreed. “Next question, how do we get out of town unseen? I’d rather not be ambushed on the road before we even get there.”

  “I think I can help with that,” said Wendy. “I’ve got the coffee guy doing a delivery tomorrow at the shop. I bet if we slip him a little cash, he’ll let you ride out in the back of his truck, and take you down the mountain to a car rental somewhere.”

  “He won’t tell anyone?” asked Arabella.

  “Nobody you would care about,” Wendy said. “I don’t think he knows anyone else in town. And it’s not like he doesn’t already know we’re weird, so a strange request probably won’t phase him much.”

  “What time will he be there?” I asked.

  “Probably around nine.”

  I looked at my computer screen, and did some mental calculations. “There’s a flight out of Charlotte mid-afternoon. It might be cutting it close, if we hit too much traffic, but we should be able to make that. We’ll be knocking on Talon’s door by dinnertime.”

  With that decided, Granny gave me some quick instructions on how to use her poppets, some of which she’d engineered for offense rather than defense.

  “That’s a tricky thing, and it’s risky,” she said. “Because it’s not just a matter of having the strongest will. Your enemies have to actually believe they can be harmed by these. But if they do believe it, they won’t be able to defend themselves. Especially if you can find a stray hair or some other part of them and stick it in the doll’s mouth, see this little opening between the stitches? Then you’ve got them by the short and curlies.”

  “Granny!” Wendy said, as Caleb snickered.

  They left shortly afterward, after promising that one of the three of them would be in the hotel, looking out for the West Seed, at all times until I got back.

  “I have a few people who’ve been asking for extra shifts anyway,” Wendy said, dismissing my thanks. Her hug was brief but bone-crushing. “You call us the second you’re all safe.”

  I promised I would, then walked with them down to the lobby, to arrange a room for Arabella. After I saw her safely to it and was finally alone again, I sat quietly, trying to recall the energy of Serena’s house as closely as I could. I needed a story that would work with that energy. Something that would give it a happy ending.

  I thought back to what a wreck the place was. Dalton had neglected it, which now that I knew the nature of his confinement there, I supposed wasn’t surprising. Judging by the state of things, they must have been letting the place go even before that. But the antiques that were shabby now had once been expensive, fine things. The moldering wallpaper and upholstery would have been the height of fashion, in their day. Number Twelve had been proud, and it had fallen far.

  And it yearned for that former glory. So much so that I’d felt that yearning even before I could understand it. It was waiting for a return to days gone by. It was waiting for its mistress.

  And assuming the story as Arabella knew it was true, it was now overrun by the very people who’d taken that mistress away. I was right; the house would be resentful. Revenge would be in order, and that could certainly help me.

  But not just revenge. Restoration. Redemption. That would be its true happy ending.

  Which I supposed meant that causing it to fall apart around me, and throwing beams at the Wicks a second time, was off the table. How could I get the house to help me eject the Wicks from the place, without that kind of violence?

  But perhaps it would be best to leave the details to the house, and to the moment. To collaborate.

  The most important—and yet the most terrifying—part of trying to expand my power this way was learning to work magic without the benefit of advanced notice. I needed to be able to react, when my back was up against a wall.

  I just wished I didn’t have to do all this learning and training with Cooper’s life on the line. I wished more than anything that I could walk into that house as an expert, powerful and confident. Badass.

  Instead, I was still struggling not to be a liability.

  But there was nothing else for it. Finally, I dipped my pen into my spell ink, and kept it simple:

  With the help of Verity and her Blackwood allies, Number Twelve Fenwick Street rid itself of its Wick trespassers.

  Serena and her husband, reunited at last, were safe within, and restored the house to its once-fine state.

  The North Seed no longer resided at Number Twelve, to invite danger and attract enemies. Instead it traveled south, to join its brother in the vault at the Mount Phearson Hotel.

  I was especially proud of the part where it was in the house’s best interests to let us have the North Seed. I was less enthusiastic about writing in a happy ending for Dalton Blackwood, but I thought the place might like the idea of being occupied by a happy family again.

  In any case, I hoped the spell would at least invite some connection to Number Twelve, a starting point for us to work some magic together. I packed it away in my travel bag, then stayed up writing more spells, simpler ones that aspired only to keep myself and my friends from harm.

  I wrote a few extra for the vault’s protection, too, although I knew that by then, I’d surely done all I could for the Mount Phearson. I figured it couldn’t hurt, anyway, and brought them down to the basement before I went to bed, tucking three away at various points near the vault’s entrance, and one inside.

  I slept fitfully, alternately hot and cold, both missing Cooper and terrified for him. Every time I closed my eyes I saw him suffering, drained, hurt, bleeding. Wicks feeding on him, biting him, gloating over his unconscious body. It wasn’t a very good night.

  But morning came soon enough, and with it, the horrible possibility of failing to save him. And that was worse.

  I showered and dressed and ate a granola bar, all almost in a trance of fear and indecision. Three times I nearly called the others to tell them that the plan was off, that I would simply go alone with the West Seed, and hope against all reason that the Wicks actually meant to bargain in good faith.

  But eventually Arabella came knocking on my door. It was time to go.

  She borrowed a hat and sunglasses to cover her missing ear and eye, fastening the glasses to the hat to keep them on. But she moved gracefully, with no trace of yesterday’s limp, or even of fatigue. Arabella, at least, was ready.

  Her confidence seemed to have healed along with the rest of her, and her apparently healthy morale bolstered my own a bit. In fact I found, as we walked to The Witch’s Brew, that against all odds I was very glad to have Arabella Blackwood at my side.

  “I was catty,” I blurted. “With you. When I met you.”

  I couldn’t see her eyes behind the glasses, but her laugh was easy enough to interpret. “I was no better.”

  I smiled. “No, you weren’t. But I suppose the circumstances didn’t lend themselves to a whole lot of friendliness.”

  “Even if they had, I don’t make friends easily,” she said.

  “Neither do I.” I sighed. “Anyway, I misjudged you, and I’m sorry for it. I just wanted you to know. In case we die.”

  “I
’d have waited to see if we lived first, personally.”

  Our journey began according to plan. After a rather awkward conversation in Wendy’s office with the coffee delivery man, during which a hundred dollars changed hands, he agreed to take us down the mountain in the back of his truck. Wendy confirmed (for the third time) that no members of the Garden Club were in the shop, and we exited out the back, where the truck was parked in the alley to be unloaded. Although we may have been seen leaving the Mount Phearson that morning, or entering the shop, nobody could possibly have seen us leave Bristol.

  The delivery guy dropped us at a car rental place in Crowley’s Peak. I’d booked our flights out of Charlotte rather than Asheville, to take advantage of the anonymity of the larger airport there. Thanks to an accident on the highway, by the time we got there we were cutting it pretty close to our flight.

  Or would have been, had the flight been on time. Which of course it wasn’t. A perky airline employee cheerfully informed us that mechanical problems were going to result in at least a two hour delay. I supposed it was better than if she’d been cranky about it.

  As we sat down to wait, Arabella assured me that it was fine, that we would still get to Number Twelve Fenwick Street well before the stroke of midnight made it Halloween, and Talon could enact whatever plans he had to use the date to his advantage.

  I nodded absently, and didn’t admit that for me, the ticking clock wasn’t even the most troubling part of the delay. The truth was, I was horrified by the idea of two extra hours to sit and do nothing but think about all the ways I might screw this up, and get the man I loved killed. I needed action, forward motion. More time for reflection meant only more time for despair to set in.

  So in a manner of speaking, it was fortunate that I was spared that by the arrival of two strange men, with badges declaring them air marshals and guns to match, demanding that we accompany them.

  I wasn’t nearly fool enough to believe that these men were really air marshals. Nor that they wanted us to accompany them simply to clear up some questions about the legitimacy of the identification we’d presented at security. (Come to think of it, I was pretty sure that wasn’t even something air marshals did.)

  But it didn’t much matter. They had badges to make them official, and in any case, Arabella’s ID really was fake. It was a clever way to ensure that getting any real authorities involved wouldn’t help us, and would in fact only delay us further. Our best shot at keeping to our mission was to go with them until they took us away from watchful eyes, as they no doubt intended to do, and then fight or shake them off.

  And Arabella and I both knew it. I saw the calculation in her eyes, as she tried to work out how she might win a fight against two armed men, when she had no weapons herself, not even the knife she so favored.

  Those eyes did not look optimistic. I was feeling much the same myself, as I considered our chances. But I did have one of Granny’s offensive poppets in my pocket. Between that and the story spells we carried to protect us, we might have some hope of victory, but a lot would depend on our attackers.

  If these guys thought we were skilled at magic (or at least that I was, if they knew Arabella was a vital), enough so that they believed I could harm them with the poppet, we had a chance. If they had too deep an understanding of poppet lore—or none at all, and merely laughed at the little doll—then we were in a fix I couldn’t see any way out of.

  We followed the “marshals” quietly and without protest, out of the gate, then out of the terminal itself, all the way outside. They didn’t bother to keep up their ruse, or come up with an explanation as to why we were leaving the airport entirely instead of going to a security checkpoint. In fact, they didn’t say a word. None of us did.

  We came to the parking garage, to the top floor, where there weren’t many cars parked, and there wasn’t likely to be much foot traffic. Then they tried to usher us into the back seat of an SUV.

  Even then, having been involved with Cooper and his sapwood war for half a year, I still didn’t have a whole lot of experience with the kinds of things Blackwoods were trained at. But I knew enough about basic self-defense to know the cardinal rule is that you never, ever get into the car. You don’t let your assailant take you to a secondary location. You always fight back.

  Arabella and I both started to fight, each in our way, at once.

  For her, of course, that meant getting physical. She turned on the man holding the car door open. He was huge, built like a bodybuilder, but his position meant he didn’t have his gun trained on her, and she had the element of surprise on her side. I only wished I had time to watch exactly what she did; I might have picked up a few pointers on hand-to-hand combat.

  But I couldn’t play the observer. At the same time Arabella started to move, I jumped away and pulled out the poppet. The man not occupied with Arabella aimed his gun at me.

  I saw the hesitation in his eyes as they flicked to the doll. If he’d been prepared to do so, he almost certainly could have shot me before I got a chance to do anything. But he wouldn’t shoot, at least not to kill. Not until he knew for sure that I had the West Seed with me. I was their only means of getting it, after all, and if it was still back at the Mount Phearson, they would be out of luck if they took me out of the equation.

  I took advantage of his moment of indecision to twist the right arm of the doll, so hard I nearly tore it off.

  The man screamed, and I heard a sickening snap as his right arm—his gun arm—broke. I twisted again, and his wrist followed suit. He dropped the gun.

  And despite how awful those cracking sounds were, even as I felt a flicker of pity and guilt, I’m ashamed to say I smiled at the same time.

  We have ourselves a believer.

  I bent the poppet’s legs with a bit less force, wanting only to get him off his feet rather than break any bones. The man fell, still screaming.

  As I picked up his gun, I also plucked a single blond hair from his head. I pushed the hair into the poppet’s mouth.

  “Sleep now,” I said, and then for theatrical effect, blew over the face of the doll.

  He believed it would work, and so it did.

  Arabella, in the meanwhile, had disarmed her own opponent, but the gun had fallen under the SUV. I grabbed it and broke up their struggle. Arabella had several healing wounds, including a bullet hole in her shoulder.

  Did I hear the gun go off?

  The giant she’d been fighting was bleeding freely from his nose and mouth, and may have been missing a few teeth.

  Did anyone else hear the gun go off?

  Despite the fairly out-of-the-way location they’d chosen, we clearly could not continue this out in the open. I took the keys from the conscious one, while Arabella kept a gun aimed at him.

  “Put your friend in the passenger seat, then you get in the driver’s side,” I told him.

  Arabella ensured these instructions were carried out, while I threw our bags in the back of the SUV. Then we got in the back seat behind the men, me with a gun to one of their heads, Arabella with a gun to the other.

  “Drive to the highway,” I said, handing back the keys. “Then get on heading north.”

  The big man did as he was told without protest or comment. When we were safely outside the airport I said, “Now then, we haven’t been properly introduced. What’s your name?”

  “You can call me Michael,” the driver said, then gestured at his sleeping partner. “This is Joshua.”

  “Michael and Joshua?” asked Arabella with a smile. “You’re behaving pretty badly for boys with Biblical names, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I might say the same of your behavior,” said Michael. His voice was stuffy with blood, like he had a bad cold. “May I get my handkerchief, please?”

  “Here.” I handed up a small pack of tissues from my purse.

  “Thank you.” After a few moments of mopping up his messy face, Michael said, “We still have a chance to resolve this peacefully. Somewhat. I think I
can help you see the right way to proceed.”

  “Is that so?” I asked. His smooth, almost robotic voice was freaking me out a little.

  “Take my phone out of my pocket, please,” Michael went on. “Jacket pocket, that is, there will be no need to get intimate.”

  “As if, buddy,” Arabella said as she took out the phone.

  “Look at my text messages. The top one.”

  She looked, grimaced, then handed the phone to me.

  Someone had texted Michael a picture of Cooper, tied to a chair and bleeding. He looked much the same as he had in the barn, with two exceptions. One, he was still fully clothed. And two, his hand was, literally, on a chopping block. Tied there, with a carving knife beside it.

  “As you can see by the time stamp, that picture was sent to me an hour ago,” Michael said, still calmly, still politely, although I wanted nothing more in that moment than to kick him in a particular place until his voice got squeaky. “And you’ll note my last message, as well.”

  I looked again at his phone. Michael’s last response to the picture’s sender said: have ladies @clt, intercepting at gate, begin communication protocol.

  “You can certainly kill us, and try to fake your way through further texts,” said Michael. “That would work for a while. But they’ll be calling in another hour, and I don’t think you can fake my voice. If I don’t indicate, with photos, that you are under our control, Mr. Cooper Blackwood’s fingers will start coming off.” He glanced over his shoulder at Arabella. “My colleague has a similar picture of Mr. Dalton Blackwood on his phone, if you’d like to see it.”

  Arabella took Joshua’s phone and checked that, too. Her face remained stony, but her small gasp told me all I needed to know about what she saw.

  “As you can see,” Michael said, “we’re at a bit of an impasse here.”

  So we were, and so we had been from the moment they’d found us at the gate. There was no good outcome, no way out. Killing Michael and Joshua, or even sparing them and leaving them behind to go on our way, would mean more torture for Cooper and Dalton.