I nodded.
He looked up over my shoulder and winked at Scarlett, who’d crossed to stand a few feet behind me. “Have a good night, Mrs. Godfrey.”
I laughed and glanced back at my mother. Her answering smile was pinched around the edges. Mrs. Godfrey. Hilarious.
“Hey,” Kandy said as she appeared at Joe’s shoulder.
Joe jumped and spun to face the green-haired werewolf.
Kandy, completely ignoring the human, sidestepped around Joe and me into the apartment. “Pow-wow o’clock,” she said.
I sighed. All I did was sigh these days. “Sorry,” I whispered to Joe. He, not looking so sure of himself now, nodded and crossed to the stairs.
Then, pissed that the normal evening I’d been looking forward to — before I was distracted by skinwalkers and communicating with the dead man my sister murdered — I reached out for the magic of the wards.
I turned to face the living room with this magic at my back and on my fingertips.
Kett, still standing by the couch where I’d first seen him, took a step back.
Kandy was in the kitchen peering into my mixing bowl. Scarlett was putting iced tea and glasses out on a tray.
“You understand I can eject you at any time,” I said to Kett.
He nodded. Scarlett frowned, but didn’t comment on my rudeness.
“This is a one-time entry,” I said, backing up my declaration with the magic of the wards. “Once you leave tonight, you will not be able to reenter without my express permission. Mine, not my mother’s.”
The magic of the wards moved beneath my hands, almost from within my skin, accepting this intention as gospel … so I said, so it shall be.
Scarlett opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to chastise. But then, catching my gaze, she didn’t follow through.
The vampire nodded and sat down on the couch. The magic settled behind me.
“Now,” a steely voice said behind me. “Let me in, dowser. Or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll tear all your wards down.”
I turned to see Desmond standing as close as he could without triggering the wards protecting the doorway between us. Well, I guess I was the idiot who’d been standing with my back to an open door. Serves me right that the wards cut me off from detecting magic the same as they stopped the shapeshifter from entering.
“That would be a show,” I said, my murmur coming off more inviting than I’d intended. The fact that I totally checked out his tight T-shirt-clothed abs probably didn’t help with the cool demeanor I’d decided to adopt when dealing with him.
Kandy snickered from the kitchen. Damn werewolf hearing. Desmond’s eyes flicked over my shoulders to three points. Taller than Joe, he could obviously see Kandy, Scarlett, and Kett behind me. If the vampire’s face was carved of ice, then Desmond’s was hewn from stone.
I fought the urge to run my fingers along McGrowly’s bulging biceps and coyly inviting him to enter. He smirked as if he could follow my train of thought. He was clothed — yes, damn clothing — in jeans that were snug in all the right places.
“Done staring, dowser?” Desmond said. His voice was so low I barely heard him.
I nodded, caught red-handed and without any witty retort coming to my rescue.
Then I stepped back and let him through the wards. Same invitation that Mory and — belatedly — Kett had. One-time entry.
Desmond hesitated as if he didn’t exactly trust me, and I smiled at him — challengingly, not invitingly.
He stepped through the wards and brushed by me on the way to the living room. “We have unfinished business, Jade,” he said. His breath was hot and promising on my neck.
Great.
I returned to the kitchen as my mother served iced tea to the predators in the living room.
All we needed to make this more delightful was Gran.
So, of course, Pearl Godfrey chose that exact moment to enter the apartment from the bakery stairs. “Good evening,” she said to no one in particular. Her greeting was quite crisp.
I started to chafe, to protest this invasion, and then I saw it. I saw the way Gran twined her fingers around the necklace I’d made her. The way Scarlett’s magic rimmed her eyes. The way Desmond stood stiffly at the back window with Kandy pacing between him and the rest of the room. Only the vampire looked at all comfortable, and that was because he was in his active-listening mode.
They were all uncomfortable and all in my living room to protect me in some fashion, with or without ulterior motive.
I sighed, shut my mouth, and made brownies while they discussed Blackwell’s invitation and a trip to Portland.
CHAPTER TEN
Oddly, Gran wasn’t opposed to me meeting the sorcerer Blackwell, but Scarlett and Desmond were dead set against it. Though it was obvious that Desmond just didn’t want me anywhere near Portland. McGrowly practically ate the entire first batch of brownies himself, so I was fairly certain he didn’t have a problem with me, as long as I stayed in Vancouver. Gran and Scarlett were the bigger surprises.
Gran, who’d coddled me throughout my childhood and teens — channeling my unknown magic into arts and crafts and making sure I didn’t come face to face with any Adept capable of comprehending that I was more than half-witch, half-human — felt the trip was “an acceptable risk.”
An acceptable risk? Why did I suddenly feel like I was being abandoned rather than supported? Because Gran had eyes for Blackwell’s collection as much as Kett did?
“What if,” I asked as I mixed up a third batch of brownie batter, “this is some sort of elaborate ruse to — I don’t know — add me to his collection of magical artifacts? Or even force me to treasure hunt for him?”
Everyone turned to look at Gran. Except Kett, who’d remained in his fugue state throughout the serving of my dangerous but delicious double-chocolate brownies. They were instant migraines in a chewy, dense square.
“Blackwell is a renowned sorcerer,” Gran answered. “If he’s settling into my neighbor’s backyard, I want to know what he’s bringing with him.” Gran and Desmond exchanged a formal nod.
Well, it seemed that Blackwell certainly knew how to manipulate my so-called protectors.
“Pearl,” Scarlett said. She’d called Gran that for as long as I could remember. “I’ve met this sorcerer, and I don’t want my Jade anywhere near him.”
Yes, my free-spirited mother who lived life as an endless joyride was now cautious and questioning. That said a lot of not-so-fantastic things about this Blackwell, and had a lot more pull than the lure of magical treasures.
“Scarlett,” Gran answered, “Jade is not you. It is likely that Blackwell simply wants to enlist a dowser to assess a few items he’s thinking of acquiring.”
“He’s a sorcerer, mother,” Scarlett said. Her voice was nowhere near its usual degree of warmth. “If he couldn’t already feel the magic in something, it would be worthless to him. You’re willfully ignoring the danger. The value of being forewarned is not worth risking Jade’s safety.” I’d never heard Scarlett snap at anyone before, let alone Gran. My mother never needed to get angry to get what she wanted — she simply asked. Except this was about me, not her.
“You really don’t want me to go?” I asked as I wandered into the living room with the second plate of brownies. I had one of those pans that made individual squares. It had been a gift from a friend but this was only the second time I’d used it. I usually only baked downstairs.
“No,” Desmond answered before my mother could elaborate. “It’s easier to keep you contained here. Portland, though pack territory, is full of the Adept.”
“You have hundreds of shapeshifters at your command,” Kett said, rising out of his fugue state at the chance to piss off Desmond. “I’m sure one or two of them could be spared.”
“We have lives, vampire,” Desmond answered. “Those lives are not subject to your whim for a play date.”
I made sure that Scarlett
and Gran each got a brownie before passing the plate to Kandy. The green-haired werewolf immediately passed the plate to Desmond, who was still staring out the dark window despite his speech. The sun had set an hour ago, but I hadn’t bothered with the blinds. The mountainside across English Bay was filled with the lights of the North Shore neighborhoods. Kandy hadn’t eaten a single one of the last batch of brownies until Desmond pushed the plate toward her. This time he took two and waved the rest off. Kandy eagerly started in on the remaining eight.
“I took Mory to speak to Rusty’s ghost today. Or, rather, his spectral energy.” I snagged a brownie from Kandy and attempted to muffle my confession by cramming it into my mouth.
Kandy choked on her brownie. Green flared across Desmond’s eyes as he reclenched his jaw at a different angle. Scarlett blinked her perfect blue eyes at me. Kett didn’t even twitch.
“I beg your pardon?” Gran said. Actually, she sputtered. Yes, I made my grandmother sputter like a fool in front of powerful Adepts in her own territory.
“She asked and I made a decision. There isn’t much more to explain.”
“You brought a necromancer to the death site of a blood relative?” Gran’s surprise was quickly being overtaken by anger.
I sat down beside Kett and crossed my legs. Granted, it was the only open seat in the living room, but the fact that it would place me next to a vampire would only serve to irritate Gran further. So yeah, I had unresolved feelings about the woman who raised me. Who didn’t?
“That’s extra bad for some reason?” Kandy asked.
“Necromancers can use the blood connection to tie a soul to them, until death. Perhaps beyond, if you believe in such things,” Kett answered. The vampire must be in a good mood to offer actual information to a werewolf so freely.
“Sure,” I said. “Mory explained that. She also said the ghost could choose the binding and that it could be undone.”
“She said that, did she.”
“You know different?” I asked, despite the fact that Kett’s comment had obviously not been a real question.
“You understand the moral implications, Jade,” Gran said. “Mory is a child.”
“She’s fifteen.”
“Exactly my point.”
“She’s more than old enough to make her own choices. As was Rusty. As was Sienna.”
“We don’t always simply get what we want, Jade. No matter how much we work for or wish it.”
“How can you think I don’t know that already?”
“Because you took a fledgling necromancer to the site of her brother’s murder. A death full of violence and the need for retribution. On a whim. You could have allowed corruption and hate to enter the soul of a child. On a whim.”
“She had a right —”
“She could have waited a few more years to exercise that right. It wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“So, what should I have offered her? Cupcakes and half-truths?”
“Yes,” Gran said. “If that’s what you had to give.”
I let the argument drop as Gran’s last statement sunk in. Scarlett, sitting on the other side of me, sighed. It was a soft noise full of years of pain. And it all clicked into place for me. The relationship that had been built from mother to daughter to granddaughter. I’d been making up for my mother’s supposed mistakes my entire life, but not in the way I’d thought.
“Because that’s all I’m good for,” I finally said. “The cupcakes and the pretty smiles. That’s all I’m capable of.”
Gran straightened her spine but didn’t contradict me.
“Jade …” Scarlett whispered.
“Wait, I’m having some sort of epiphany.”
“Yes, sugar. But maybe not now?”
I laughed at the idea of controlling the timing of an epiphany, then forged ahead, clicking the pieces together. “I’m not good enough, strong enough to watch over the portal. That’s what you mean ultimately, Gran. Send me down to look at Blackwell’s pretty trinkets, come back and report on all the pretty magic, and go back to making pretty cupcakes.” I paused to see if Gran wanted to deny my charges, but she simply squared her shoulders and gave me a look that informed me I was too much — too dramatic and too worked up — and very, very rude about it all. And to air any of this in front of strangers? Unforgivable.
“What does the rest of my life look like to you, Gran? I meet a nice boy …” — Gran’s eyes flicked to Desmond — “Oh, no. Not a nice boy. A powerful one, maybe, who likes pretty things in his kitchen. I have pretty babies, who if they’re very, very lucky, grow up to be powerful enough for their Great Gran.”
“Are you done?” Gran said.
“Not yet,” I answered. I raised my hands to hover palms-up over my crossed knees. The magic of the wards came to my call, dancing over my fingers and along my arms. “You’ve never asked, Gran. You never asked what I figured out about my magic while you were supposedly off surfing. You just demanded that I close the portal, cleaned up Sienna’s so-called mess, and tried to ignore that anything had ever happened.”
“I raised Sienna from the time she was thirteen.”
“But any love you had for her, you erased from your heart as you eradicated her blood magic in the basement.”
“As it should be —”
“What if it had been me?”
“It would never have been you, Jade.” Gran softened her tone, but I wasn’t ready to back down yet.
“You don’t even know what my other half is … what if I’m some sort of demon?”
“You aren’t,” Gran snapped at my stupidity.
“But I could be.”
“Scarlett,” Gran said, turning to look at my mother as if she was going to step between us. My mother was anything but stupid, however.
No, Scarlett had never been as naive as I was, even when having sex with a being of unknown power during a fertility rite at age sixteen. I’d always thought of my mother as frivolous and inconsiderate. Now I understood that every step she took was deliberate. A witch bred from a long line of witches who turned out to manifest powers of charisma and charm rather than … than whatever power Gran expected her to have. And then there was good little girl me, who never expected to be anything — because it was never expected of her.
“I’ll go to Portland,” I said, completely letting the subject of power and magic drop as I watched the wards’ magic pool in my palms. Desmond huffed out some sort of laugh behind me. Gee, so glad I amused him.
Gran watched me with hooded eyes as I allowed the magic to snap back into place. I’d been gearing up for some sort of power-display tantrum but stopped myself. The tantrum had been expected, I saw, and now Gran was perhaps a little unsure of what was going on in my head.
“I’ll go with you,” Scarlett said. Gran flicked her gaze to her daughter. “Since you need to stay here, Pearl.”
Gran pursed her lips but didn’t speak. Kett leaned back on the couch and crossed his legs — a gesture full of satisfaction that I was surprised to see on the vampire.
I had so much to say, so much to ask, but I really didn’t like the answers I was stumbling upon. “I’ll need to bake in the morning,” I said instead. “Bryn already takes the Sunday shift, and we’re closed Monday. So we have two days.”
“We might need more,” Kett said.
“Blackwell has an agenda,” Desmond added. “Why else set Portland as the meeting place? We’ll figure it out before Monday.” So everyone was on board now. The troops were rallying — but to what end, I had no idea.
Gran rose and I followed. I walked her to the door, down the stairs, and out into the alley. She’d parked her car right next to the dumpster. Towable, if I ever felt like being a real asshole. But then, she held the lease on the bakery and my apartment, which was something I’d never had to worry about before.
Gran had clicked the car locks with her remote key before I found what I wanted to say.
&
nbsp; “Nothing will ever be the same now. For you, that’s not because of Sienna’s death, but because I can open the portal.”
Gran looked as if she was going to chastise me for speaking of such things out in the open. But then she simply said, “I gave you everything you ever wanted, Jade. Including Sienna.”
“Yes. In bite-sized, chewable pieces. An easily digestible life. Never knowing who I could really be.”
“I will not apologize for loving you.”
“I scared you. In the basement,” I said, finally voicing what I’d seen in Gran’s face that night. When Sienna tried to kill us and ended up dying herself.
Gran squared her shoulders. “No, Jade. You surprised me. Enjoy the trip to Portland.”
I nodded. Gran climbed in the car and pulled away.
Well, that was what loose ends and unspoken pain felt like. Another new and oh-so-delightful experience. A wedge between me and the child I once was, as if I was both and neither at the same time. Moving forward and stepping back.
∞
I blinked up at the stars overhead and thought about Mory. Had I inadvertently, out of guilt, thrust her forward without giving her time to mature in her grief? Had I blundered ahead, blind but ever the perky go-getter? Thinking I was making my own choices but just doing so out of spite, not deliberation?
“Are you going to stargaze all night, dowser?” Desmond’s deliberate drawl confirmed he was behind me. Though, I’d crossed through the thinner wards of the bakery when I stepped into the alley, I had actually felt a trickle of magic move when Desmond leaned in the alley doorway.
I turned to look at him, all muscle and meat. His hair would be naturally shaggy if it wasn’t cut so short. He didn’t have a charming bone in his body.
“What are you thinking?” he asked. I was surprised he cared.
“I was thinking it would be nice to skip the heart-to-heart.”
“Talking only leads to fighting with us anyway.”
“Yes.”
Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (Dowser Series) Page 13
