Blackbirds & Bourbon

by Heather R. Blair

Something tightens and tugs at my stomach and my eyelashes flutter, but I keep them closed. There is a familiar sensation in my head, that of a veil coming down, then being ripped in two. Calm, clear energy fills me from head to toe, and my heartbeat slows. There.

  Right fucking there. I open my eyes to see a hazy cord of light drifting in front of me. One end seems to be fastened to my navel. The other is a ghostly rope that leads down the hall and extends right through the front door.

  I wrap my fingers around it hesitantly. I expect something gauzy and insubstantial, but it’s slick and cool, like braided silk. With a triumphant smile, I give it a tug. Only to have the smile fade when I realize Jack is close by. Less than a mile away. Somewhere down in the canyon, from the awareness tingling up my arm.

  What the hell is that bastard up to?

  Time to find out.

  14

  I leave the house a few minutes later, taking only the time to change out of my dress into something more hunting-Jack appropriate.

  It can’t be much after seven but it might as well be midnight. Tomorrow is the longest night of the year, after all. Yule. Of course, winter nights are never pitch-black, not when there’s snow on the ground. The moon hasn’t risen yet, but even without it there is a faint bluish glow that keeps me from stumbling. There’s no chance of me losing my way, of course. Not with my fingers constantly in touch with that eerie silken rope. The one I assume leads unerringly to Jack. I hope he can’t feel me approaching, but then again, I never felt him all those times he found me.

  Hopefully that’s another thing that’ll work both ways.

  I hear him before I see him. Or rather, them.

  At the lip of the canyon, I halt. Two voices drift up the curving trail. One familiar, quiet and rough. The other is just as quiet, unknown to me but higher in pitch. A woman.

  I slip into the trees, using a quick cast to silence my footsteps, making my way down the rocky slope until I’m above the two figures. Tension radiates from both of them, more so from Jack, but it is obvious this is not some friendly chat.

  His gestures are sharp and quick, his tone agitated, though his words are still too indistinct for me to make out from this distance. He’s addressing a woman in a veil, one that stretches all the way to her toes. If she has toes, which is debatable. She seems tall and willowy under all that flowing silk, but who knows? And I recognize her, or I’m pretty darn sure I do—veiled people not being the norm in Minnesota. She’s one of the Dark Council. The woman I saw in the shadows.

  Her head turns toward me at that moment, looking featureless and vaguely terrifying with its covering of black patterned silk muting any features. I hold my breath, but she lifts one hand like a specter in some B movie and beckons me forward. So much for my stealth spell.

  When I step out of the trees, Jack curses, striding forward to grab my arm, guiding me down until we’re both back on the path, an arm’s length from the woman, who says nothing. Jack isn’t so reticent. “Who’s the stalker now, princess?”

  I jerk my head at him. “Turn about’s fair play. Sorry to interrupt and all, but I wanted a word, Jack.”

  “You could have called.”

  “Funnily enough, we’ve never gotten around to exchanging numbers since you’ve been back. Though maybe I should’ve asked Thomas. I suppose he has it, seeing as you’re buddies and all.”

  Jack’s mouth forms a thin line, and his fingers tighten on my arm. I’ve almost forgotten there is someone witnessing our little exchange when a delicately cleared throat has my head turning. The veiled woman is watching us, or I assume she is. Hard to tell through those gauzy layers.

  Shrugging off Jack’s hold, I put my hand on my hip. “This is kind of a private conversation. Do you mind? Go do some gliding or moaning…or whatever it is creepy-ass veiled people do. You can have him back in a minute.”

  There is a sigh that sounds vaguely amused as sighs go. Then she lifts her arm again. The yard of black silk hanging from it billows in an unseen wind. Maybe it’s the season, but I’m reminded forcibly of the Ghost of Christmas Past. Despite myself, I take a step back. Right into the hard wall of Jack’s chest. His arm circles my waist automatically, his bicep bunching firmly against my ribs. My heart is knocking against them like a bird caught in a chimney. I wonder if he can feel it. The veiled woman cocks her head, considering me.

  “Someone you love is about to die. Very soon now.”

  There is a sour taste in my throat. “I care about a lot of people, care to be more specific?”

  She shakes her head, sounding so sad and sure it makes my stomach clench. “There’s no point. You can’t stop it. You can’t stop any of it. Not from this side.”

  Her chin lifts, aiming her next words at Jack instead of me. “Mind your vow, Frost, and remember the price we’ll all pay if you break it.”

  In a swirl of shadows and black silk, she’s gone. I’ve never actually seen anyone do that but Jett. And she doesn’t bother with the cool special effects.

  I don’t breathe for a beat, staring at the spot where she vanished. “Well, that was fucking freaky. Don’t think much of your taste in women, Jack.”

  He snorts. “Oh that’s rich, Seph.”

  His arm drops from my waist and for an instant I miss it. The sensation of being wrapped in strength and warmth. That woman really was creepy as hell, more so because her words rang true. “Who is she, Jack? Besides one of your Dark Council buddies.”

  He raises an eyebrow at my tone. For the first time I realize how pale he looks. Guess I’m not the only one with the heebie-jeebies here. “Jealous, princess?”

  “Shut up. I’m curious, not jealous. Speaking of which—” I chew on my lower lip, my eyes narrowing, because he really doesn’t look so good. “Are you okay?”

  My earlier rage has cooled a bit. Death omens delivered by veiled specters will do that to a person.

  Even in the faint moonlight, I can see the hollow in his jaw flex. “You know what they say about curiosity.”

  “That it’s the only way to learn anything? Look, Rochie told me awhile back—”

  “Told you what, exactly?” His tone is suddenly sharp along with the glint of his eyes through the darkness.

  “That you were in trouble.”

  His hands clench and unclench at his sides. “Leave it, Seph. I’m fine,” he grinds out.

  “Somehow I think if you were holding the truth stone, I’d get a different answer.”

  He closes his eyes and for a moment I get the insane urge to wrap my arms around him. Before I can act on it, his eyes fly open and Jack reaches for my arm. While his grip is gentle enough, there is no give in those steely fingers or in his next words. “Home. Now.”

  Minutes later, Jack is hauling me back through Mrs. Rudd’s yard, his lips pressed tightly together. For nearly every step of our way back up the canyon, I’ve bombarded him with questions, but he hasn’t uttered a word. Not one.

  “Just tell me if what the Veiled Menace said is true, dammit. Is my family in danger?”

  He stops abruptly and for a minute I actually think he’s gonna answer me. Then I see what captured his attention. Mrs. Rudd is out on her porch, using her broom to sweep at the air. She’s a robust woman, not fat, but stout, like a little teapot. Patterned in blue flowers, too, courtesy of her ever-present housecoat.

  “I told you it wouldn’t do any good, Bertha. Now get on home. It’s past your bedtime.”

  A squirrel watches her from a nearby tree as she scrubs at the air. Its eyes are a liquid black in the streetlights, furry head cocked and one cheek bulging. It looks as if it’s about to do a Robert De Niro impression, something along the lines of, You talkin’ to me?

  Jack coughs and Mrs. Rudd’s head instantly swivels our way. Her hair is a color I’ve never quite been able to give a name to—somewhere between straw and iron-grey—and wrapped as always in curlers under a knit Green Bay Packers hat. (She’s a rebel, as well as batshit crazy.)

  “Excuse us,” Jac
k says politely.

  She lowers the broom, looking disconcerted. But that only lasts a second. “Good lord, it’s you two. Hurry up then, you’re going to be late.”

  Without another peep, she turns on one slippered heel and goes back to sweeping at the air, as if we’re not standing on her lawn, jaws hanging open. Jack turns to me, his eyebrows raised.

  “Strange.”

  I roll my eyes. “Ignore her. She’s delusional, Jack.”

  Jack gives Mrs. Rudd an oddly speculative look as he pulls me to my door. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, princess. Get inside.”

  Before I can protest or question him further, he’s gone, a chill wind snapping my hair back.

  Bastard.

  The silky rope leading me to him has vanished. I have no doubt I could call it up and find him again, but then my cell rings. Number unknown.

  “Hello?”

  Nobody answers, but before I hang up I hear someone talking in the background. A voice I last heard ordering my death. Cerunnos.

  Then another voice replies to the first, louder, as if they’re closer to the phone, but muffled like the phone is in someone’s pocket. I recognize this voice, too. It’s Tyr. What the hell is going on here?

  “…sure they will succeed?”

  I have to press the phone tightly to my ear to catch Cerunnos’s reply. “Whether they do or not matters little to me. The attack itself will start the necessary balls rolling. So much better if the king dies, but if not, I’ll merely withhold the ‘cure’ awhile longer.”

  “And when she figures out your cure doesn’t work?”

  Laughter. “By then it will be too late. If the moon madness doesn’t wipe them out, after tonight, the bears will. One down, two to go.”

  “When is it happening?”

  “Right now. He won’t know what hit him.” The satisfaction in Cerunnos’s voice is almost gleeful. “And tomorrow night will rid us of the biggest threat from the witches.”

  “Unless Frost fails to deliver. Do you still trust him?”

  My blood runs cold.

  “It hardly matters whether I do or not. Every contingency has been planned for. It’s all coming together at last.”

  Click.

  One down. One what?

  Bears. Attack. If the king dies.

  I speed dial Georg while walking to my car.

  It rings and rings. Frustrated, I hang up and punch in the landline number for the Den. No one picks up.

  Screw this. I’m starting to freak out. Forcing myself to breathe, I back out of the driveway and start driving, hitting redial every other minute. I tell myself it’s fine. Georg can handle himself. If I am right. Which I may not be.

  I don’t want to be. One bruin can handle a lot of werewolves. Maybe a half dozen in a pinch. Georg? Probably close to double that. But Luna still has a pack of over twenty, and Luna herself is worth at least three wolves.

  I pound my palm on the steering wheel and hit redial again as the Fiat shoots over the high bridge, the half-frozen harbor twinkling below.

  I’m well out of Superior, running through sparsely populated farmland that is slowly being swallowed by forest, when I finally get an answer on the Den line.

  “Yeah?” Stephen, at last.

  “Where’s Georg?”

  “Seph?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Where is he, dammit?”

  “Fishing trip.” When Stephen says fishing trip, what he really means is that Georg has gone full-on bear for a couple days. Something the bruins have to do every few weeks. “Why? Something up?”

  “You could say that. Listen, Stephen, I think he might be in danger. Can you get a message to him? Using your mind speak?”

  There is a short pause. “Can’t. He’s closed himself off.”

  “Shit! Why would he do that?”

  “He’s been doing it more and more this last year, Seph.” There is an edge to Stephen’s words, like he doesn’t want to explain any further, but he doesn’t have to. When bruins turn, all their emotions bubble to the surface. It becomes impossible for them to hide anything. Like unrequited love, for instance. My stomach clenches painfully.

  “But you could tell if he was hurt right?”

  “Probably. Why? What the hell is going on?” Stephen’s voice turns sharp.

  Panic is rising in my throat again. I force it down as I push the Fiat a little faster, hoping like hell I don’t hit a patch of black ice. “I got this really weird call about a half hour ago… Please tell me where you think he’s at.”

  “He could be anywhere, but his favorite spot is near the river mouth. You won’t be able to get within a mile of there in a car.”

  Taking a deep breath, I explain everything I heard as quickly as possible, along with my suspicions. Before I’m done, Stephen is snarling orders, Aggie’s voice low and urgent in the background. I hear Sy, too, and Ajax, but Stephen hangs up abruptly after telling me he’ll meet me at the river.

  Since there’s a good chance Stephen will beat me there, I gun it. At least with the speedometer hovering near a hundred, I’m forced to focus entirely on driving, not what might be waiting for me up ahead. But in the back of my mind there’s a frantic beat playing, and the sound of it is please, please, please.

  I get out of the car moments later, slamming the door behind me, running without a thought toward the glimmer of the river ahead, twisting like a silver snake through the snow.

  Then I see them.

  Wolves are loping into the tree line ahead of me. A lot of them. A few are limping, but most are prancing, cocky and excited. These aren’t wolves headed to a hunt, these are wolves coming back from a successful one. A horrible feeling wraps around me, tight and strangling, as the last one in line pauses, lifting her head to the sky. A white wolf, her muzzle dripping with something dark and viscous. My gasp carries over the snow.

  Clouded pink eyes shine in the winter light as Luna looks over her shoulder at me, then disappears into the woods before I can even raise my hands to cast.

  I run up the slope ahead, stumbling more than once in the deep drifts, but before I’m halfway up I hear a roar. One full of anguish and rage.

  Stephen.

  Please, no.

  When I finally get to the top of the rise, shaking and wet, I look down onto a horror scene, trampled snow streaked and splotched a black-red in the light of a rising moon, nearly full, illuminating the bodies of werewolves in various stages of dismemberment strewn about in a wide circle. And in the middle…

  No.

  Another roar from Stephen brings down the snow off the pines, drifting over a thick mane of golden brown hair I’ve run my fingers through a hundred times, dusting sightless, once-warm eyes that are fixed on the sky.

  The king is dead.

  15

  Stephen won’t stop looking at me.

  Even now. It’s been an hour, or maybe several since we found what was left of Georg. I should be freezing in my jeans and long-sleeved tee under my pink winter parka, but instead I’m numb. The rest of the bruins have been here for a while. Stephen called them from my phone, but Syana is at the Den with Aggie. Ajax refused to let her come and in a way, I’m glad. If I saw my bestie right now, I’d lose it. As it is, I’m not doing too well. I keep gulping like a fish out of water but I can’t seem to get any air, and what I do get feels too heavy, like it wants to crush my lungs from the inside out.

  “This is not your fault, Seph. It’s not.”

  I don’t move, still staring at the blood-splattered snow. The twins already wrapped the pieces of Georg’s body in linens they brought with them. Stephen lifted the heavy bundle into the truck by himself, his blue eyes filled with tears. But those eyes are clear now. Clear and hard. As if he can pierce right inside my head, to the hopelessness there. A hopelessness that tightens the words that force their way past my numb lips.

  “How can you fucking say that? He made a vow, which he broke for me. This is totally my fault.”

  “This is the
werewolves’ fault. And that bastard Cerunnos.”

  Stephen grilled me about the phone call several times before the others shoved up, then again in front of the rest of the bruins after they put Georg’s body away. There were dark looks and muttered curses from the twins, but Stephen got quieter and colder with every word. There’s a look in his eyes right now that reminds me eerily of Jack.

  “But the vow—”

  “You ever think maybe Georg broke it just as much for Carly? And Sy? You think he’d have let them die once he knew what Owen was really up to? It’s not all about you, Seph. You can’t take this weight. It’s not yours.”

  I shake off the hand he puts on my shoulder. “Tell that to Aggie.”

  God, Georg’s aunt is going to be after my head, and the way I feel right now I’d let her take it. Stephen flinches at her name and I know he’s dreading facing her. Telling her what happened tonight—delivering Georg’s body. I shudder hard.

  I want to reach out, to comfort him, but I can’t. I’m entirely too fucked up myself.

  Seeing Georg like that, ripped literally to pieces… The wolves made damn sure he couldn’t come back. His head was barely attached to his body. I shove the heels of my palms into my eyes, biting back a scream.

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “You can’t drive right now. Come back to the Den. Sy will—”

  “No. I want to be alone, Stephen.”

  He looks like he’s going to argue. Then abruptly, he nods, reaching into his pocket and handing me a set of keys. “There’s a spare cabin over there.” He points to another rise west of the one I came over. “One we all use when we’re out this way. It’s not much, but there’ll be wood by the back door. I’ll have Dom grab your car. Somebody will be by to check on you in the morning.”

  And if I know Stephen, someone will be checking on me throughout the night, too. But that’s fine, as long as they stay the hell back.

  I’m about to snap and when I do, it’s not going to be pretty.

  The knock comes around four in the morning. I’m up. I never went to bed. I glare at the door, trying to incinerate it with my eyes. I’ve been expecting him to show for a while now.