Jaded

by Danielle James

  “Thank you,” Jade told him sincerely. Jacque moved around the bed and pulled his niece into a tight hug.

  “Keep me posted,” Jacque said to Frankie, stealing a quick kiss before exiting the room.

  “Now what?” Jade asked.

  “Now we wait.” Frankie walked around and put her hand on Jade’s shoulder. “I’m going to get my ass in the library and see if there is anything in the spell books about this.”

  “I’m going to contact a few friends,” Serena told her. “This doesn’t feel like any fey magic I have ever seen, but you never know.”

  Jade nodded her thanks to the women as they left the room. Once she was alone with Michael, she dragged a chair over to his bedside and sat down facing him. “I don’t know what’s going on here,” she told him as she took his hand into her own, “but we’re gonna find out. No one does this shit to my mate and gets away with it.” Something told her that the man who tried to kill her was responsible for her mate’s condition. She knew it in her bones. She just didn’t know how. She could feel her anger boiling up inside of her, but she tamped it down for Michael’s sake. If he was in there at all, she didn’t want him to feel anything but love coming from her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Serena chanted over Michael’s body for the hundredth time. There had to be something she was missing. All of her contacts had told her to do a missing person’s spell. Well, she had done it and done it again. All she got in return for her efforts was a great big bag of frustration.

  “Maybe I can help,” Azerial offered.

  “I don’t understand,” Serena said, shaking her head. “This should work.”

  Jade had been keeping vigil at her mate’s side for two solid days and nights. “Maybe you need to word it differently,” she offered from her post in the chair.

  “How so?” Serena asked.

  “Well, his person is here. The spell looking for his person is not going to get us anywhere because physically he is still here.” Michael had shown no sign of waking up though and it worried her sick. “I have spent every second by his side,” Jade continued. “If there is one thing that I am now positive of, it’s that Michael is not here. His body is, but he is not. It’s almost as if his soul, what makes him who he is, has gone somewhere else.”

  “So you think we should do a missing soul spell?” Serena asked.

  “I don’t see where it could do any harm,” Azerial added. “Everything we have tried so far hasn’t worked.” And it was the truth. Frankie had chanted spell after spell until she was so exhausted that Jacque insisted she go to rest for a while. When she was done, Serena and Azerial took over where she left off. They had all done everything magical in their repertoires and even tried some non-magical things as well. Nothing had worked.

  “Let’s get Frankie in here too,” Serena suggested. “If we’re going to try it, let’s have all the magic we can muster up for it.”

  Azerial left the room and returned quickly with Frankie at her side. “Ready,” she announced.

  Jade stayed right where she was. The women worked around her, knowing that there was no use in trying to move a mountain. Jade hadn’t left his side yet. And from the look of her pale skin, she hadn’t fed either. They had tried to convince her that Michael wouldn’t mind her taking from him, but Jade refused. She wouldn’t take from him until he was well enough to give to her freely.

  “Gods and goddesses in the heavens above, we come to you as your loyal servants,” Frankie began.

  “We ask your guidance in our time of need,” Serena added.

  “Lend us your knowledge and your strength,” Azerial said to the heavens.

  “Show us what we seek, a lost brother, a lost friend. A lost mate and a piece of our hearts,” Frankie said. “Show us the way to return Michael’s soul to us.”

  The women held their collective breaths to see if the spell would work. After several minutes, they dropped their heads in defeat.

  “It was worth a try,” Jade said to them all. “Thank you.”

  They were prepared to try again, but someone knocked lightly on the door. Frankie opened it and found Antonio on the other side.

  “You rang?” he said with a rakish smile.

  The women were confused. “I don’t think so,” Frankie answered.

  “No, someone definitely called for me. I heard it. It was a female voice that told me to come to this room,” he said.

  “Of course!” Azerial exclaimed, pulling Antonio into the room.

  “I don’t understand,” Jade said quietly.

  “Antonio is mated to Macy. Macy is a necromancer!” Azerial cheered. “Don’t you see? When a soul leaves the body, it first goes to Limbo before going on to its final destination in Heaven or Hell. What if the answer is as simple as that? If someone,” and they all knew what someone she was referring to, “found a way to yank his soul from his body, he would go to Limbo.”

  “I don’t understand,” Frankie said. “Macy can talk to the dead. Michael is not dead.”

  “No he isn’t,” Jade confirmed, “But it’s all we have.” She turned her attention to Antonio. “Get in touch with Macy and have her check out Limbo, if she can. See if he’s there.”

  “On it,” Antonio said, turning to leave.

  “Antonio,” Jade called out.

  “Yes?” he said over his shoulder.

  “If he’s there, tell him I love him,” she requested.

  Antonio grinned. “Of course.”

  Jade watched her uncle-turned-angel leave the room, taking her heart and all her hope with him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  Michael was sure he was dead. He had to be. He was stuck in a place where even though there were trees and buildings, there were no people. Everything was a muted version of reality. He could easily see the house where his mate lived; he could see the property and the wall surrounding it. He could see over the wall to the trees and the forest on one side and the beach and the Pacific Ocean on the other. But unlike what he called real life, the sea didn’t move, the wind didn’t blow, and the colors were all faded. It reminded him of a movie he saw once. Every sound he made was hollow and didn’t echo. There were no birds singing and there was no other living creature to be found. He tried to scale the wall, but he couldn’t. His body didn’t have the strength. This had to be his afterlife.

  Being dead wasn’t at all what he thought it would be. He thought for sure he would eventually end up in Heaven. But wasn’t Heaven supposed to be this wonderful place where there is no sadness and no pain? Wasn’t there supposed to be someone else around? He was alone, cold, and his wing hurt like hell.

  He rounded the house for about the hundredth time, ready to give in and resign himself to his fate, when he heard a feminine voice calling his name. It wasn’t Jade, but it was somebody. He turned his entire body toward the sound, unsure of which direction it was actually coming from.

  As it turned out, it was coming from a petite woman with jet black curls right behind him. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m not surprised you don’t remember me,” she said. “I’m Macy, Antonio’s mate. We met once, but not for very long.”

  Michael remembered the name, but her face was a mystery to him. “Am I dead?” he asked her.

  She chuckled lightly. “No,” she said. “But I don’t know what’s going to happen if we don’t get you out of here.”

  “Where the fuck is here, anyway?” he asked.

  “You’re in Limbo. It’s the place between alive and dead. Your body is safe at home with Jade. She is taking very good care of you.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” Macy told him. “What’s the last thing you remember before being here?”

  Michael thought about that for a moment. “I remember flying around the property, doing perimeter checks. Then I saw Jade. She was standing by a tree on the edge of the property. Then,” he shook his head. This is where the memories got
fuzzy. “It seems like I felt something was wrong. I don’t know.”

  “Ok,” Macy said. “That’s at least a place to start. I am going to go and relay all of this to Jade and Frankie. See if they can make any sense of it.”

  “Wait!” Michael almost yelled at her. “You’re not leaving me here are you?”

  Macy smiled a sweet smile. “I have to for now, but I’ll be back. I promise. Just wait right here.”

  “Like I’m going anywhere,” he mumbled.

  Michael didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want to be alone again. But he also knew that if he was going to get out of there, they needed to figure out what happened. He watched Macy disappear right in front of him. He wanted to scream out in frustration. He wanted to run. He wanted to break something. Instead, he sank down on his ass and did what she asked him to do. He waited.

  ***

  Antonio had that thoughtful look on his face that he had when he was communicating with his mate. Finally, he spoke. “Macy says she found him. He is in Limbo. The last thing he remembers is doing perimeter checks and talking to Jade.”

  Jade shook her head in denial. “No, that can’t be right. I didn’t talk to him since breakfast.”

  “That’s what she says.”

  “Well there is some mistake.” Jade stood for the first time in days and began to pace. She didn’t let on how weak her legs felt or how woozy her head felt. She was going to need to feed, and soon. “The last time I saw Michael was right before he left for his shift.”

  “We saw you on the monitor,” Samuel told her. “You were there and he was talking to you. Then the screens went fuzzy and the next thing on the tape is Michael lying on the ground. Are you absolutely positive that you didn’t see him?”

  Jade jerked her head in Samuel’s direction. “Of course I’m fucking sure. I would know if I was outside talking to him and he dropped in front of me. What are you saying? That I did this to him? Fuck you, if that’s what you think!”

  “Jade,” Brea said softly in an attempt to calm her daughter. “He was just being sure. I have seen the security tapes and it does look like you. I believe you when you say you weren’t out there, just that someone who was able to fool the cameras was there.”

  “That’s it,” Frankie said. “A shifter maybe? One that can be another person?”

  “I don’t know any shifters strong enough to avoid the wards,” Serena said. “Besides, he would have smelled that it wasn’t her immediately.”

  “True,” Samuel agreed. “I was on the scene. I only scented Jade and Michael, and by the time we got there, Jade had already found him and taken him back to the house. What kind of shifter can hide their scent?”

  “One who isn’t a shifter,” Azerial muttered. “It was rumored that Lucifer could project his spirit from his body. Who is to say that his son has not mastered that skill and made his spirit conform to another identity?”

  “You’re talking about astral projection,” Serena said. “I have never met anyone with that kind of power.”

  “Nor have I,” Azerial said, “But at this point, I fear it is a possibility that we must consider.”

  “So this Stephan, son of Lucifer, kills his dad, takes his powers, and decides that Michael and I must pay in his sick world. So he tricks Michael into believing he is me. If he isn’t really there, he wouldn’t smell at all. Michael wouldn’t have had time to realize it wasn’t me before the bastard slaps him with a magical whammy.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Azerial said.

  “Well, now we know where he is, let’s get him back to us,” Jade insisted. “Now.” Her mate had been lost to her for nearly four days and she wasn’t willing to wait any longer to have him back.

  “It’s not that easy,” Serena told her. “If he is in Limbo, we have to reverse the spell that put him there. It takes one hell of a lot of dark magic to separate one’s soul from the body.”

  “Well, get your hands on some dark magic then!” Jade demanded.

  “No. Absolutely not. We will only use white magic. We will need time to conjure a spell strong enough to counter the black magic keeping him prisoner. We will need supplies and we will need the right verbiage. There is much preparation to do for something this big. We can’t go at it halfcocked.”

  “Well then,” Jade said as she sat down next to her mate once again, “I suggest we get busy.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Yes, this was exactly what he needed, Stephan thought to himself with a twisted smile. The entire family was running themselves insane with how to get the firebird’s soul back. He knew it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that his soul was no longer with his body, but it would take considerably longer to figure out how to put it back.

  Stephan knew that he had to make his move before they did that. As long as their concentration stayed on the firebird, they weren’t thinking about him. He watched from a safe distance as they came and went from the house. The witch and the fey most often came back with shopping bags from various herb stores and witchcraft supply shops. They weren’t going to find what they were looking for there.

  With only a thought, Stephan willed himself back to his home. It was a cozy little set up he had in Hell. If he didn’t know he was smack in the middle of Hell, he would think it was any nice home in any nice neighborhood.

  But it wasn’t, was it.

  No, his home was deep within the pit of Hell where hope and love were absent and fear and blood rained from the sky.

  He knew he was going to have to time his efforts perfectly. The item they sought was as lost to the world as the spear had been. He had searched for years for the spear. He was looking for the other item at first, but then thought it better to leave it hidden; the fewer souls looking for it, the better. Hell, the fewer that even knew of it was better.

  He opened a bottle of Scotch and poured himself a glass. He took two small sips of the dark liquid, enjoying the burn as it slid down his throat. He set the glass on his desk and opened the drawer. He gently took out a parchment that was carefully rolled and stowed in the back for protection. It had been with the Spear of Destiny when his minions found it and thought it important. If only his minions knew how important it was. As he unrolled the ancient paper, his eyes slid over the words that were carefully inscribed so many centuries ago. He concentrated on the first verse for the umpteenth time.

  Two families, bound by heart

  Shall rise together but from afar

  Unlikely births

  To falling stars

  Stephan wasn’t absolutely positive who the prophecy spoke of, but he had a pretty good idea. No way was he going to let this particular prophecy come to pass. His plans had already been ruined once, and he wasn’t going to stand by and let them be ruined again. No, this time he was going to be proactive about it. This time, he would be prepared. This time, he would emerge victorious. He had no choice. His very existence depended on it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  Frankie had a map of the world laid out in front of her at her altar. There were candles, sage, earth, fire, and wind all readily available. Normally, her altar room was kept in pristine condition, but as of late the entire room had given in to clutter. They had tried spell after spell to loosen the evil magic that had hold of Michael, and so far, nothing had worked. He continued to breathe and his heart continued to beat, but he was not there and they knew it.

  Macy had passed messages as often as she could between Jade and Michael, but there was only so much a ghost could do. She had been killed shortly after mating with Antonio, but since he was technically dead, it worked out perfectly in the end. It was her magic, her ability to talk to the dead that had allowed her to even meet her mate. Frankie had passed along all the information she and Serena were able to gather and Macy did the same; although, admittedly, it wasn’t much.

  All they really had to go on was that they needed an item that would be infused with pure love and light.

  Frankie sighed in frustrati
on.

  “You ready?” Serena asked as she entered the room, Azerial right on her heels.

  “I guess,” Frankie said. The doubt was evident in her voice and the women knew she was struggling.

  “You are strong enough for this,” Azerial told her.

  “We are strong enough for this,” Serena corrected her. Azerial smiled.

  “Let’s do this,” Frankie said as she lit several candles. “I am just going to start by seeking out locations with high concentrations of good magic,” she said.

  Serena and Azerial nodded and joined hands. Serena held Frankie’s hand as they said a quick prayer together. Still holding hands, Frankie used her free hand to sprinkle the map with water. “Goddess of the Sea, we ask for guidance,” she began. Then she sprinkled dirt over the map. “Goddess of Earth, we ask for guidance.” Then she picked up a candle and waved it just above the paper. “Goddess of Fire, we seek your guidance.” Finally, Frankie lit the sage stick and waved the smoke over the map. “Goddess of light, we seek your guidance. Show us what we seek. Show us where the good is in the world.”

  The women watched as the dirt and water moved over the map. It broke into hundreds of smaller pieces and settled all over the map. “That’s a lot of results,” Frankie muttered under her breath. “Are you ladies sure there is this much good in the world?” The dirt and water combined and settled again, this time over even more locations.

  “I suppose that should be comforting,” Serena remarked. “That is way more good than I imagined.”

  “But it is far too many locations to find an item,” Azerial said. “Perhaps we are asking the wrong question?”

  “Maybe,” Frankie agreed. “Goddesses please, help us to find an item infused with love and light.”

  Again, the elements moved, but still too many locations to search out.

  “I don’t know what else to try,” Frankie said, letting go of Serena’s hand and giving in to her frustration. She backed up until the back of her legs hit the only chair in the room. She flopped down with a heavy breath and shook her head.