by Sam Cheever
And he left.
8
“Don’t you think you were pretty harsh?” Sissy asked.
I turned around to find her standing in the doorway, arms holding her stomach as if she still felt ill. I hurried over and wrapped an arm around her waist, guiding her to a chair. “Sit. You shouldn’t be on your feet.”
She let me ease her into a chair, which told me more than I wanted to know about her condition. Worry spiraled through me.
But then she lifted an angry gaze, her mouth tightening. “He helped us,” Glynn. “He might have saved our lives. Why were you so mean to him?”
I rubbed my arms, suddenly cold. “You don’t understand.”
“No. I don’t. Which is why I’m asking.”
“Would you like tea?”
She opened her mouth, her brows lowering as if she were going to yell at me, and then sighed, nodding. “That would be great. And if you have any cookies, I wouldn’t object to a couple of those either.”
I quickly obliged, realizing she was probably burning through tons of calories healing the burns from the magical attack. An attack she should have never been close enough to experience.
I was a terrible friend.
I placed half a dozen of my home-baked peanut butter cookies on a plate and put it in front of her before starting the tea.
She ate quietly for a minute, leaving me to my thoughts. Which was both good and bad. I couldn’t answer her question, because I wasn’t even sure myself why Wilder Hawkins scared me so much. He’d scared me from the beginning when I’d started seeing his shadow lurking across the street. He was an unknown quantity in a place where the unknown could be deadly.
But it was more than that. There was something about him that felt like a threat. And the fact that everyone around me seemed to immediately like him made the threat feel even more dire.
I set a steaming cup of tea in front of Sissy and turned to the fridge. “I have leftover stew?”
She nodded, sipping the tea and closing her eyes with pleasure. “Oh, that’s so good.” When she opened her eyes again, they looked less hostile. “Thanks.”
The pitter-patter of tiny clawed feet told me Boyle had joined us. “Me too, peeese,” he said, jumping onto a chair and grabbing one of Sissy’s cookies.
“Hey!” she scolded, a grin on her face.
“Good,” the baby declared as crumbs sifted to the table.
“No more cookies,” I scolded half-heartedly. “Stew first.” I’d given up on convincing Boyle to eat a true breakfast long ago. He didn’t seem to care for breakfast foods, and I’d finally decided it was better to get food into his growing belly than to force him to eat things he didn’t like. So, he generally ate leftovers for breakfast.
Apparently, that was what I’d be eating for breakfast too.
“So,” Sissy said as I turned the flame down on the stove, stirring the stew. “Why don’t you like him?”
I turned to find both of them staring at me, matching looks of curiosity on both of their faces. “Don’t gang up on me, or anything,” I groused.
Sissy shrugged. “We just want to know.”
“Yeah, we’s just wanna knows.”
I smiled at the baby, then narrowed my gaze on the cookie in his hand, which seemed to have mysteriously gotten larger than the last time I’d glanced his way. I turned a glare on my friend.
Sis gave me a totally non-repentant grin. She pressed her finger against the last of the crumbs on the plate and stuck the crumb-coated finger into her mouth.
I was outnumbered and disrespected in my own home.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Sis said. “If you’re not careful, we’ll think you’re evading the answer.”
I stiffened, taking the barb right between my shoulder blades. Then forced a neutral expression and spooned stew into three bowls.
“I’m not evading, I just honestly don’t know the answer,” I finally told her. “Something about him bothers me.”
“I’ll bet,” Sis said, waggling her brows suggestively.
Boyle tried to waggle his tiny orange brows, but his whole face moved instead. Sissy and I both laughed at the sight. Boyle cackled. He loved being a clown.
“Stop it, you’re corrupting the baby,” I told my friend, relieved to be sharing a grin.
“Why don’t you go over there,” she suggested.
I sat down and picked up my spoon. “Over where?”
“To his place.”
“I don’t even know if he has a place,” I responded.
She nodded enthusiastically. “The old fire station across the street.”
I just stared at her for a long moment. “How would you know that?”
She took a big bite, smiling as she chewed. The rat was deliberately making me wait for my answer. I raised my brows, spoon poised in the air.
She finally swallowed. “Mother asked me about the new resident when I was home. I had no idea who she was talking about, of course. But now I realize it had to have been Hawk. She said someone had bought the old fire station. And since you thought someone over there was stalking you, and it appears that it was him…” She let the thought trail away, too obvious to finish.
The realization that Magical Indy kept such a close watch on who bought and sold what real estate in Render iced my spine. “Why wouldn’t he just tell me that, then?” I wondered aloud.
Sis blew a raspberry. “You mean, like drop by with a plate of brownies and say, ‘Hey, my name’s Hawk, and I’m a mysterious stranger who randomly helps people when they need it. Oh, and, by the way, I’m really hot too.”
She burst into laughter and Boyle joined in, though he couldn’t have any idea what he was laughing at.
I shook my head. “Har de har har, Sis.”
“But I’m serious. Why don’t you go over there and take him some cookies or something? Hit reset. Maybe he didn’t mean to scare you with the stalking. And maybe you shouldn’t have been so mad at him for piercing the Victoria sanctum.” She said the last with air quotations around sanctum.
I rejected the idea immediately, quickly directing the conversation away from Hawk and onto less volatile issues. Unfortunately, my mind kept returning to the suggestion. And it finally started to gain a certain sneaky appeal.
I decided I’d like to visit his lair. See how he lived and try to suss out if he was hiding something that would make life more dangerous. Maybe a little reconnaissance mission was just the thing for putting me back into my happy place.
By the time Sissy left, she was looking much better. Food, Boyle’s antics, and healing time had made a huge difference. As always, I was amazed at her healing powers. And a little bit jealous. Because of my ability to pull magic from the air and amplify it, I tended to heal faster than non-magics, especially inside Victoria. But my healing power was nothing like Sissy’s, who’d basically healed third-degree burns from her fingers to her shoulder in a matter of hours.
I wished eating cookies and stew would give me superpowers.
Sighing, I glanced at the sky beyond the glass and took in the spectacular sunset on the horizon. Vibrant streaks of pink, purple, and cornflower blue melded together to create a natural painting that was far more stunning than anything an artist could create.
Boyle had finally slept for a few hours and then disappeared to the roof, taking his usual perch at the highest peak, where he would safely “guard” the house until I called him in for dinner.
Yawning widely, I pulled a bag of dog food from the cabinet and headed out the front door. I was greeted by a chorus of meows, yips, and chittering as I stepped foot onto the porch.
I stood at the top of the wooden steps and looked around, searching for the small, feral faces tucked within the branches of the trees, the protective prickles of the bushes and, for the more secure of the bunch, draped over the grass and along the porch railings.
“Meow!”
A cold nose touched my arm. I glanced toward the small black cat
with the startling blue eyes. “Hi, kitty.” I ran my hand over the little creature’s back, giving him a scratch in that spot in front of his tail that made him arch and purr.
He’d walked along the narrow railing as if it were six inches wide, instead of the inch, inch and a half max that it was. “Hungry?”
My question created a chorus of responses and caused an enormous shadow to disengage from the glooms under the large oak and trot in my direction.
The black dog.
A family of raccoons scampered higher on the tree, and several cats scuttled away as he came close. I quickly scooped the cat up to protect him, but that proved to be an unnecessary precaution. As the dog made short work of the four shallow steps, the cat’s purring rumbled through its small body. He seemed unconcerned by the giant dog, even stretching to touch noses with the beast.
The dog was surprisingly gentle with the little thing, allowing the feline to rub its head on his wide muzzle and giving it a polite sniff in response.
“Good boy,” I murmured, scratching him under the chin.
His reaction was to fix me with an insulted look as if I’d been rude for assuming he’d misbehave.
All right, then.
“What’s your name?” I asked the dog. “If you’re going to hang around, I need to call you something.”
A shrill scream rent the air. My head jerked up and, before I could react, the dog was already running. He ran into the night, moving like a shadow but with the speed of a wolf.
I took off after him. “Boyle!”
I turned as I ran, my gaze sliding upward.
“I know, Glynnie. I stay here.”
“Don’t come down from the roof,” I instructed. He’d be safe up there. It was warded to repel dark intent. And if trouble came his way, he could duck inside in the blink of an eye, where the deeper warding would protect him.
Shoving aside the sliver of worry over Boyle, I ran toward the screaming that had only increased since that first, blood-curdling shriek.
It was coming from Della’s house next door.
Goddess’s galoshes! Of all the places…
Glass shattered loudly up ahead and my gaze snapped in that direction. A tattered curtain was pulled into the house and yanked downward, ripped partially from the rod.
The dog hadn’t waited for someone to open a door for him. He’d just barreled right inside.
He reminded me of someone else I’d recently met, I thought. Then shoved the thought aside because it was too distracting.
The screaming stopped abruptly, sliced off in a way that made me fear the reason why.
Halting just outside the large broken window at the front of the house, I listened for some clue of what was going on inside, hearing nothing but a wheezing sound that I didn’t like.
Soft footfalls approached from the street. I turned, seeing the familiar bulk of my new neighbor loping toward me with a feline kind of grace.
I hid my hands behind my back and reached for the magic in the air, feeling it bite at my fingertips with an acidic eagerness, the feel of it oily and black against my flesh.
I grimaced, fighting the urge to fling it away. Della was in trouble, and the only way I could help was to siphon the energy I’d need against whatever was attacking her.
“What’s going on?” Hawk asked as he slowed to a stop a couple of feet away.
I shook my head. “I just got here.”
He moved up close to the broken window and lifted his head, his nostrils flaring and his big form growing tense. “Demonic magic,” he declared.
I frowned. “How do you know that?” I gave him a wary smile. “Did you smell it or something?”
He skimmed me a look. “Or something.” He grabbed the sill and leaped through the window, offering me his hand.
I appreciated that he wasn’t going all Alpha male on me, telling me to stay there while he took care of it himself.
“There’s a dog in there,” I whispered as I ignored his hand and jumped through the window on my own. My sneakers crunched down on broken glass and I stilled, the sound like gunfire in the sodden silence. “He’s on our side.”
A surge of pain seared the hand I’d braced on the sill, but I didn’t react, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I’d put my hand down on a sliver of glass.
He nodded. “Big black one?”
“You know him?”
“I’ve seen him hanging around your house.”
Another evasive answer.
“I’m hoping he’s the reason the screaming stopped,” I said, frowning at the thought. The alternative reason was unthinkable. Della hadn’t been a good neighbor. She hadn’t even been an okay one. But I didn’t wish her harm.
Though, I wasn’t sure I could say the same about her when it came to me.
9
Unfamiliar magic saturated the air. It throbbed against my skin like a living entity, a much livelier energy than the kind I was used to.
Or should I say, lifelier, because at its core it was life for the home’s inhabitant, an odd kind of life, but a life all the same.
The pulsing beat of the magic had a rhythm I quickly noticed. A lazy beat whose pattern was uneven, hesitant. Even as I had the realization, it slowed further, sliding over my awareness like sludge.
“Something’s wrong with Della,” I told Hawk.
He didn’t ask any questions. He moved quickly forward, his lithe grace carrying him unerringly through the overstuffed home and down a hallway that no doubt contained my neighbor’s bedroom.
He stopped before we reached an open doorway, hitting the wall with his back and sliding slowly forward until he could peer around the frame into the darkened room.
One hand clasped the wood of the door frame and one was stretched toward me, a silent request that I stay back and remain silent.
I tugged some of the foreign magic into my core, tasting it and finding it bitter and weak. Della was in bad shape. I wasn’t sure if she could be killed, given that she was already a spirit, but if there was a state beyond death where a fairy spirit could go, Della had both feet and one hand over the threshold to that place.
I didn’t siphon magic from the air for fear that I’d pull energy the spirit needed. Instead, I engaged my other magic and began enhancing the sliver of energy I’d drawn, giving it density and heft. Adding power.
I had no experience with fairy magic. Had never tried to enhance it before. But I would do what I could to help Della recover. And I’d trust Hawk to deal with whatever had harmed her in the first place.
It was a solid plan. One I could live with. So why had all the hair on my arms risen to attention at the sound of a pain-filled moan? And why did the icy breeze wafting over us, which was filled with the stench of death and decay, make me want to run screaming from the room?
A low growl emerged from down the hall. My head whipped around and I saw eyes, glowing a red the color of fire, slitting the darkness like twin blades.
I pressed back against a hard, warm body. “Hawk…”
I felt him shift to see where the sound was coming from, felt his muscular form turn rigid against my touch, and jumped when one of his hands found my wrist, tugging me slowly backward. “Into the room,” he whispered, the command so low and throbbing with menace I barely understood the words.
I didn’t argue. I wasn’t stupid.
I let him pull me behind him and hesitated, my fingers finding the back of his shirt. The cotton was hot and slightly damp, and the flesh beneath it was like rock. “I can help,” I wheezed out, not sure at all if I could.
He didn’t respond, only pressing me toward the open door. “Lock yourself inside.”
I hesitated for another beat, remembering my earlier designation of duties. It had made sense. Suiting each of our strengths to a tee.
So why then was I reluctant to leave him there all alone?
A spittle-drenched snarl rent the air and I jumped, falling back against the wall as Hawk shot forward a
nd disappeared into the darkness.
A terrible snarling, followed by the sound of bodies slamming into furniture and walls, had me taking a step forward. But a soft plea stopped me before I could do something really stupid.
“Glynn?”
Della’s voice was a sigh upon the air. If weakness was given voice, that breathy call would be it.
I turned toward the darkened room, seeing a soft glow across the room. “Yes. It’s me, Della. Are you okay?” I moved into the room, setting aside the battle in the other part of the house as my eyes filtered out the shadows and focused on the pale glow of the woman draped across the floor.
She was lying beneath a window, the sky beyond showing the silvery orb of a nearly full moon. The moonlight filtered through the waving branches of an ancient walnut tree and made the woman on the floor appear to be moving.
But she wasn’t, I realized as I dropped to my knees beside her. She couldn’t possibly be. There wasn’t enough left of her to move.
My fae neighbor had always been diminutive. Under five feet tall and weighing no more than ninety pounds. She had a wispy halo of soft white hair that tended to fly around her head on an unnatural breeze. I suspected the white was her natural color because she wasn’t old by a fairy’s standards. The skin of her face was flawless, and her body was lithe and strong. The spirit’s silvery gaze was ringed with a thin band of icy blue. From what little she’d told me about herself, she’d died in her early forties, and in the way of her people, her body should have been given over to the rich soil of her fae homeland so she could be reborn. Except that, for some reason she hadn’t wanted to return to fairy. So she hadn’t completed the rebirthing process her kind generally underwent.
Instead, she’d become a fairy spirit. A prisoner of her home, where fairy soil kept her spirit alive and thriving, and fairy wood and stone gave her form corporeal properties.
But something had happened to her that had robbed her of that corporeal form and yanked her healthy color away. And the wispy aspect of her tiny form told me she was in danger of fading completely away.
