Grim Haven (Devilborn Book 1)

by Jen Rasmussen

  “I’ll take you to my world—our world—sometime,” Phineas said. “My parents would love to meet you. See, uh… I wasn’t only chasing Amias because of my job. He was my cousin. Which makes you and I second cousins, or however that works.”

  Sure. My cousin. And he’s going to take me to meet his parents. My relatives in another world. We’ll just zip over to meet them sometime.

  I was tired, suddenly. Balls, what a day it had been. And now this.

  “Oh,” I said, not sure what the proper etiquette was. Nice to meet you was no good; we’d already met hours ago. I finally settled on, “I’m glad to have someone on that side who isn’t a serial killer, then.”

  Phineas smiled. “You’ll like my parents, too.”

  I felt like I was cracking up, but I kept my voice steady and asked, “You could do that? Just take me there?”

  “You have the blood, you should be able to travel between worlds,” Phineas said. “Our kind can do it easily.”

  “Can we?” That was good to know, I supposed.

  “But since you’re also part human, I might wait until Halloween,” said Lydia. “The veil between worlds gets thin then, so even humans can travel.”

  “What happens if humans go when the veil’s not thin?” I asked.

  “Pain,” said Wendy.

  “Lots of pain,” agreed Lydia. “I’ve done it more than once, and I don’t recommend it.”

  “More than once,” I repeated. She’d been there more than once. I belonged there—partly—and I’d never even heard of it until now. “Is it like this world?”

  “Some similarities, some differences,” said Lydia. “The big thing is the time. One hour there is like a day here, so you have to be careful how long you stay.”

  “The time difference is why a lot of phantasms travel to this world,” said Cooper. “They age according to their own time, wherever they are. So they can live for centuries here.” He looked at Phineas. “That’s what I’ve always heard, anyway. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  “No, that’s right,” said Phineas, then looked at me. “But our children tend to age according to the world they’re born into. You might get a slightly longer lifespan, but probably nothing record-breaking.”

  I shrugged and shook my head at the same time. I didn’t care about my life expectancy. What I cared about was the phrase Cooper had just used. That’s what I’ve always heard.

  What he always heard?

  Like it was common knowledge, even for Cooper. For everyone but me. The resentment came back, stronger, but it wasn’t Cooper or any of the others I was mad at.

  I’d never even met my father. Not once. He was there in Bristol my whole life. Right there in the Mount Phearson plenty often, I would guess, since Madeline was his head witch, or his mistress, or whatever she was.

  And he never bothered to tell me anything about who I was. Never even bothered to say hello.

  Well, but he was a busy guy, wasn’t he?

  A laugh bubbled to the surface, and escaped my lips before I could quite swallow it down.

  My father had killed people and stolen their souls, and I wanted to throw a tantrum over being neglected? What was wrong with me?

  “So,” I said briskly. “Not such a long story, after all. My monstrous devil of a father was hiding in Bristol. You figured out how to break his sanctuary so you could catch him. And then you caught him.”

  “Well, there are a lot of details,” Lydia said. “But that’s not a bad summary.”

  “Where did he die?”

  “In our world,” said Phineas.

  But Lydia made one of those so-so motions with her hand. “Sort of. It’s complicated. I’ll tell you everything sometime, but for now I’m guessing it’s already a lot to digest.”

  I laughed, although I wasn’t feeling all that jolly, and took another drink of my tea. “It’s not, actually. Because I’m not digesting it at all. I’m trying…” I looked at Wendy. “Same as I was trying to take it in when you told me he was dead. But I couldn’t, quite.”

  Wendy gave me a sympathetic smile. “Well, like you told me that day, you didn’t know him.”

  “It’s not just that. Once you got to stolen souls…” I shrugged. “I feel like you’re telling me a story that has nothing to do with me. Like this is some movie you all saw.”

  “So take some time with it,” said Phineas. “And then come to me when you have questions. As I’m sure you will. I’ll make sure you have our number before we go.”

  “You can come see us in Charlotte,” Lydia said. “I know Max would like to see you.”

  Max.

  He was responsible for warning us, and I’d let everything else push him from my mind. I looked down at the table and swallowed. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I… let Max down, once. More than once. I let Max down for years, actually.”

  “That’s not how he tells it,” Phineas said. “He says he got you in trouble, when you were a kid.”

  “And as for letting him down, join the club,” said Lydia.

  “Pretty much this whole town let him down,” Wendy added.

  Lydia must have noticed the tears starting to pool in my eyes, because she leaned across the table to squeeze my hand. “I left him there too, once,” she said softly. “In that damn closet. And I was a grown woman. You were just a kid.”

  “He’s really not mad at me?” How could that be, when I’d been so mad at myself, for so long?

  “Quite the opposite,” said Phineas. “Whatever spell you cast to try to get in touch with him, it worked. He felt it. So he sent his spiders to look for you.”

  “That spider was his?”

  “He uses spiders a lot,” Phineas said. “Not my favorite habit of his, but he also kisses cats on the mouth, so.”

  “Only one cat,” Lydia said.

  He uses spiders a lot.

  “The spiders in the hotel,” I said. “When I was a kid. I always thought it was because we were so close to the woods.”

  “His little spies,” Lydia said with a fond smile. “He can, I don’t know, see through their eyes or something. Or is it hear through them? Something like that. Max has a lot of strange abilities.”

  “He’s really okay?” I asked.

  “He’s doing great,” said Lydia. “I won’t tell you where he is. Not that I don’t trust you, but with Marjory looking for him, the less people who know, the better. I gather she thinks she can control him the way Madeline could.”

  “Meaning if he inherited the hotel, and all that money, she could control that, too,” I said.

  “That’s right,” said Cooper.

  I frowned at him, wondering what made him such an expert on Marjory Smith, all the sudden.

  But he pointed at me, nodding. “If she really understood the magic you were working here today, the hotel is probably exactly what she wants. Most likely even before she met Wick, but definitely now.”

  “Sorry, I don’t quite follow,” I said.

  “What does this Wick guy want?” Wendy asked.

  Cooper shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and looked at me.

  “Your call,” I said to him. “But it does involve Bristol now. I think you should give them some kind of short version. Whatever you can tell them without getting into trouble.”

  Cooper sighed. “Okay, short version: he wants to use your town like a battery, to power his clan with magical energy.”

  “Okay then, lovely,” said Wendy. Lydia and Phineas just stared.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t go into a lot of detail,” said Cooper. “But trust me, him allying himself with these Garden Club witches, it’s not good.” He looked back at me. “And a base of operations that could protect its own, that would be handy, don’t you think? This place would be a fortress for them.”

  So that was his point. It was a good one. “It certainly came in handy for Madeline Underwood, for a lot of years,” I said. “But it worked differently for her. The hotel may have been her fortress, but sh
e could override its protective energy when it came to other people. She had no problem harming people under this roof.”

  “Tell me about it,” Phineas muttered.

  “Yeah, we have a little first-hand experience with that,” Lydia said. “But then, it wasn’t just an inn to her. She was a descendant of Colonel Phearson, and this was his home first. Plus he was bound up in the original sanctuary pact with Amias.”

  Phineas frowned at his wife. “What does that have to do with it?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea,” said Lydia. “But what this inn can do, it’s a sort of sanctuary in its own way, isn’t it?” She shrugged.

  “It is,” I agreed. “And you might be on to something, with Miss Underwood being related to Colonel Phearson. He built this house. There’s place-magic in that, too.”

  “I’m not sure how it all fits together, but you showed us today that this whole idea of place-magic is a powerful one,” said Lydia. “And if Marjory Smith didn’t know that already, you can bet she knows it now. I have no doubt she’d love a chance to explore it.”

  “More tea?”

  I started and almost screamed at the voice behind me, but it was only one of the new servers approaching with a pitcher.

  “No,” I told him. “Sorry, I bet you guys want to clean up. Thank you for letting us try everything, it was wonderful.”

  “Especially the chips,” Lydia added.

  As we walked back to the lobby, I fell into step beside Lydia. “I understand why you want to hide Max from Marjory,” I said in a low voice. “But I can’t accept this inheritance, not when I know he’s alive. The money at least—”

  “He doesn’t need it,” Lydia said. “Or want it. He wants no part of any of this anymore.” She stopped and put a hand on my shoulder. “Listen, you have to take it, for Bristol’s sake as much as anything. It seems to me there’s about to be a battle for this town. And the Mount Phearson will be at the heart of it. It needs a general.”

  “I am not a general!”

  She smiled at me. “I sure as hell saw a general today, barking orders at people twice your age.”

  “You are not twice my age,” I said, and hoped I wasn’t blushing.

  “Lance looks like he might be close to it.”

  I sighed. “I don’t want to be a general.”

  Lydia gave me a sympathetic look, but she didn’t mince words. “Too bad,” she said.

  Cooper and I had barely seen the others off, and were standing in the lobby talking to Lance and Agatha about the menu at Colonel Phearson’s Pub, when a child’s wail came from a seating area on the far side of the room. It was immediately followed by a shrill cry of “Ian!”

  The family Cillian Wick had creeped out was back, and the older of the two boys had just thrown up all over a very expensive loveseat. I grabbed a wastepaper basket from behind the desk and rushed over, Agatha close at my heels.

  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” The boys’ horrified mother snatched the can from my hand and put it under Ian’s face as he started to retch again. “We went for ice cream, sometimes too much dairy…” She patted her son’s back, and I looked away while he attended to his next round of business.

  The younger boy sat nearby, clearly delighted by his brother’s misfortunes, and seemed fine. His father across from him, on the other hand, was pasty and sweaty. Looking at him, I wasn’t sure the problem was too much dairy.

  There was green, in the darkness.

  I caught Cooper’s eye across the room. He started toward me, while Agatha went to get someone to clean up the mess. I turned back to the mother. “How can I help, Mrs.… ?”

  “Foley,” she said. “Andrea Foley. I’m so sorry. I just need to bring him back to the room to rest. I promise no more accidents.” She gestured with the wastepaper basket. “Do you mind if I bring this?”

  I took a reflexive step back from it. “It’s all yours.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

  “Please, don’t apologize. Kids get sick.”

  Mrs. Foley turned to her husband with irritation rather than concern, so maybe he looked fine to her. Or maybe she was just too preoccupied to notice. “Jerry, would you please help me! Get Jake.”

  Without waiting to see if she would be obeyed, she took Ian’s hand and walked hunched beside him, the emergency can at the ready. Jerry and Jake followed. Ian didn’t throw up again as they made their slow way up the stairs.

  Cooper was beside me by then. “What did she say?”

  I grabbed his arm and led him away from the mess (and the smell), to a quiet spot by the window. “She says they went for ice cream and he sometimes has a bad reaction to dairy.”

  “I don’t think that’s uncommon with kids,” Cooper said. “I wouldn’t assume it’s anything magical.”

  “Even if the father didn’t look very good, either?” I asked, then lowered my voice further. “You saw Marjory and Asher try to curse that family upstairs.”

  “I did see them try,” Cooper agreed. “But I also saw you fight back. And I felt you shut them down.”

  I bit my lip, wanting him to be right.

  “Besides, you don’t know what they were really trying to do,” Cooper went on. “I’m sure they were more concerned with getting a reaction from us, or threatening us, than they were with actually hurting guests. What do they gain by making some random kid throw up?”

  I shrugged, still not liking the coincidence. Or the look on Cooper’s face that suggested he didn’t like it either, and was mostly just trying to make me feel better. “I guess,” I said. “But I’m going up to write a spell for them, just in case.”

  “Good idea. I’ll come with you.”

  He followed me up to the third floor, and I felt a flare of nervousness as I opened the door to my room. He’d never even mentioned the kiss. Would he try to repeat it, once we were alone?

  But he just slouched on my couch and watched as I sat at my desk and pulled out my paper and pen. I was still out of ink from safeguarding the hotel, so I also took out a small pocket knife.

  Where to cut? Usually I’d have done it on my thigh—people tended to ask questions about cuts in visible places—but I wasn’t keen on pulling my pants down in front of Cooper. I decided noticeable was the lesser evil, and dragged the knife across my palm.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Cooper tense, but he didn’t say anything. I winced at the sting, as I did every time. Ironically enough, I hated the sight of blood, and my own more than anyone’s.

  I dipped the pen in the cut, and started to write.

  The Foley family got over their illnesses quickly, and enjoyed the remainder of their trip.

  “You just dip it directly in like that, huh?” Cooper asked. “Seems kind of unsanitary.”

  “Usually I make ink, but I’m waiting on more supplies. Don’t worry, I’ll disinfect it after.” I frowned at my handiwork. I didn’t mind referring to the family in such a general way, in case any of the rest of them got sick, but I was concerned by how unspecific quickly was. I dipped my pen again and wrote one more line.

  Ian got better within an hour of going back to his room.

  Then I worried that might be too specific. Magic that imposed my will on others, even to try to help them, was always so tricky.

  Assuming there was even anything to help with. Probably I was being overcautious, and it all came down to lactose, after all. Finally I decided it would do fine, and at the least, it couldn’t hurt.

  “Come on, we should put this spell somewhere close to their room,” I said.

  Cooper and I went down to the second floor, and tucked the spell into a little drawer in an antique side table that stood in the hallway. We were on our way back upstairs when my phone rang.

  “Verity? It’s Phineas. From earlier?”

  I smiled at that. “I’m not likely to forget a cousin I just met.”

  “Right.” In that one clipped word, I caught the tone I hadn’t noticed at first. He was flustered.r />
  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “We had a car accident. On our way back to Charlotte.”

  “Oh no! Are you okay?” I looked at Cooper, who was frowning at me, and mouthed accident.

  “Neither of us was seriously hurt,” said Phineas. “Just a few bumps. The real problem is the reason we crashed. Lydia drove off the road because she was throwing up. She’s in the hospital now. They can’t seem to stop the vomiting.”

  Balls. Balls, balls, balls.

  “Phineas, I’m so sorry. This is my fault.”

  “No, I wasn’t suggesting that. I just—”

  “There’s a sick guest here,” I interrupted. “A kid.”

  I held up a hand to stave off Cooper’s questions, and asked Phineas to repeat what he’d just said.

  “Are the kid’s symptoms like food poisoning?”

  “Just vomiting, that I saw,” I said. “But I thought his father looked kind of sweaty and unwell, too.”

  By then we were back at my suite. Cooper took my keycard and opened the door for me.

  “But you two are okay?” Phineas asked. “You and Cooper?”

  “We’re fine. And so were Lance and Agatha, last I saw them.”

  “I’ll call Wendy and check on her, too,” Phineas said. “Keep an eye out at the hotel, in case there are any more.”

  “But how could this be? How could they hurt anyone under this roof?” I was talking to Phineas, but staring at Cooper. The latter shook his head in confusion as he closed the door behind us.

  “Couldn’t tell you,” said Phineas. “Magic in general isn’t really my area. But I am a good healer. If it’s a supernatural cause, I’ll figure it out. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Phineas, I’m sorry,” I said again. “I hope—”

  “It’s not your fault, and she’ll be fine,” Phineas said, though he sounded worried. “This isn’t her first time going up against a strong magical enemy. Or even some of those particular strong magical enemies. She’s a tough nut.”

  “Will you keep me posted, please?”

  “Will do.”

  I hung up and filled Cooper in. “I think at this point we can rule out too much dairy,” I said when I finished.