by Liam Lawson
As soon as I was dressed, I started to try and explain myself, but Soraya grabbed me by the arm, nails digging into one of my reopened injuries.
“Ouch! What the—”
“You know damn well what,” Soraya snapped as she dragged me past Angelo and out into the front yard.
“That wasn’t what it looked like,” I said in a rush as she let me go.
She got right up in my face and shrieked at me, “It looked like you had some new problem with your magic and fucked my stepmother. Dammit, Caleb! The only woman in my family you haven’t fucked is my Goddamn pixie!”
I looked away.
Soraya gasped. Then hit me in the chest. Hard.
“You son of a whore! What the fuck is wrong with you! How does that even work, she’s not even as tall as your dick.” She slapped my chest. Then slapped my chest again.
The third time I stopped her arm mid-strike. “Will you knock that off and listen to me dammit!”
She kicked me in the balls.
I doubled over, pain shooting up inside of me sharp enough to make me nauseous.
She bent over so that she was once again in my face and screamed, “Go away!”
She left me doubled over and stormed back inside. It was all I could do not to crumple into a ball.
Fuck me sidewise with a disease-ridden cactus. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.
I had to tell her what had happened to her stepmom and what her dad was up to. I tried and failed to straighten so that I could stand upright. Yeah, that wasn’t happening. Damn, I hurt everywhere.
I staggered toward the sidewalk and started making my way back home. After a few minutes I could walk relatively upright again and pulled out my phone. At the very least I could text her. She might not listen to what I had to say, but if I made the message short enough, she’d see the first few words when it popped up.
I started to text her when something wet formed around my mouth. I dropped my phone and it clattered to the ground. My hands went to my face and encountered an orb of water pressed over my mouth and nose. I clawed at it and splashed water aside, but it couldn’t get any air.
My hands ignited in green fire and I slammed the flames into the water, sending geysers of steam up, but the water was replenished as quickly as it evaporated. I needed air. I drew on the power I’d managed to gain from the sex I’d just had and poured on the heat. More steam billowed. But I still couldn’t breath and without oxygen my focus dwindled. My flames weakened.
Water spilled down my nose and throat. I gagged. Choked. My vision went black at the edges. And then completely black.
A sensation of utter bliss suddenly came over me. Some distant part of me remembered hearing that something like that happened when the brain was deprived of oxygen. The darkness became light and I….
Chapter Nine
I came to, coughing.
My head hurt. Like my skull was split open and someone had taken a jackhammer to my brains through the open wound kind of hurt. And my entire body felt weak. Breathing was a conscious effort, made more difficult by the sudden urge to cough. By the time I’d finally caught my breath I couldn’t even lift my head.
I was sitting. On the ground. My tailbone hurt so I might have been there a while. Chains were wrapped around me, holding me against a wooden support beam. And I was soaking wet. Unfortunately, it was too warm to be refreshing.
“Are you done, now?” asked a familiar voice from somewhere in front of me.
With a grunt, I managed to pull my head upright. Lilian She sat in a metal folding chair about ten feet away from me. We were in a house or a cabin of some kind that looked like it was still under construction. Her face was expressionless, an unreadable mask.
“I’m usually pretty good at managing my emotions.” Lilian’s tone was husky and hollow, nothing like the usual upbeat sound when she spoke in class. Combined with our less than well-lit surroundings, it gave her an almost spectral vibe. “Empathy is not something I usually allow myself to experience, let alone be ruled by. And you slipped right inside my guard. Helping you break your curse may end been the biggest mistake of my life.”
I swallowed. Or rather, I tried to. My throat and mouth were too dry, and I ended up coughing again instead.
“Y-you,” I rasped. “Empathy?”
I couldn’t make form whole sentences yet. I hoped my words were enough that she understood my meaning. So much had happened that I’d almost completely forgotten that way back when she was the one who went behind Hardin’s back to help me break my curse.
Her tongue flicked out, long and forked, tasting the air between us.
I flinched.
She scowled when I did so, as if I’d offended her. “I won’t make that mistake again with you.”
She rose and glided across the floor toward me until she was standing at my feet, towering over me. It was easy to forget just how tall she was under normal circumstances.
“Let’s start with the simple basics. Lie to me, and I’ll bite something off.” She bared her teeth at me. They were white and human, not sharp or hooked, but I’d already seen her forked tongue and she’d eaten Dicario and Bullet before. “Say yes if you understand.”
I managed to wheeze out a, “Yes,” and her tongue flicked out again. When it returned to her mouth her lips curled up into a menacing grin.
“You mean that,” she said. “Good. I can taste your fear. It’s like a sour candy. Who are you?”
What was she talking about? She knew who I was. “Caleb Marshal.”
Her grin died. “What are you?”
I swallowed, this time managing to give my throat a healthy coating of saliva. “I don’t know.”
Her lips twisted into a scowl. “Maybe you didn’t understand me the first time.”
She dropped down beside me, grabbing one of my hands, and twisted my pinky finger. It popped out of its joint with searing flash of pain. I screamed and she forced my hand up, twisting it away from the chains despite my best effort to hold back, until my finger was just in front of her mouth.
“It’s much easier to bite off digits when they’re already dislocated,” she said, meeting my eye. “What are you?”
Something skittered across the floor out of my line of sight.
Lilian lifted her gaze away from me to peer into the shadows. Her tongue darted out once more and her nostrils flared. After a moment, she returned her attention to me. “Same question. Give me a better answer, Caleb.”
“I don’t know what I am,” I said. “I haven’t been able to find out. But—but I’m having a DNA test done on some blood and saliva. I should find out pretty soon. I think I’ve got some fae blood in me.
She reached up and tapped a prong on one of my antlers. “More than some. These are darker than I remember. Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
She reached for my injured hand. “Out loud.”
“I swear I don’t,” I said in a rush, eager to stop her from dislocating or even eating one of my fingers. Damn this day sucked! It even had a vampire.
Her hand stopped just inches from my own. “That’s better. There’s that taste I love.” She flicked her tongue out again, bringing the twin tips dangerously close to touching my face. “You released that pixie and burned down my meth lab, didn’t you?”
I nodded my head, then added, very quietly, “Yes.”
She bared her teeth and let out a hiss that was more feline than serpentine. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Why are you attacking me?”
I started to answer but was stopped by the smell of rotten eggs. No, not rotten eggs. Sulfur. It was quickly joined by the pungent odor of ammonia and the sharp stink of wormwood. Together the smells were utterly overpowering. So much so that it was a struggle to breathe through the thick cloud they created, invisible but no less permeable for that.
Lilian’s tongue flicked out, caught a taste of whatever was on the air, and snapped back into her mouth as she rocked back on her he
els, gagging. Her suddenly very human tongue was being scraped against her teeth in what was clearly an effort to remove the taste of the odor from it. She staggered back, eyes widening as her head swiveled every which way.
A faint purple light appeared over her head, one which Lilian didn’t seem to be aware of. She hissed and bared her teeth, staggering across the room. The light over her grew brighter until I could make out the familiar shape of the pixie Lilian had once imprisoned hovering in the midst of it, pixie dust sprinkling down from her wings over her one-time captor.
Lilian’s hisses grew louder and the smell more powerful—I could barely breathe through the thickness of it. Finally, Lilian bared a mouthful of fangs at me and then fled, sprinting out of my line of sight, pixie trailing behind like some mischievous kite.
The chains binding me shifted and pulled, then Soraya was kneeling beside me, a pair of bolt cutters in her hand. “How the hell do you always manage to get yourself into these situations?”
I wanted to say something pithy and clever but all I managed was a pathetic giggle.
She gave me a concerned look.
I swallowed down my sudden urge to find everything hilarious and said, more seriously, “I’m fine.”
She scowled. “Sure, you are.”
“How’d you find me?” I asked. “I thought you hated me.”
The chain gave way to the bolt cutters and fell to the ground with a clinking clatter. She grabbed me by the elbow and hauled me to my feet.
“I’m plenty mad at you,” she said. “So, fucking mad you don’t even—but Trixie told me a bit about what happened with the adze.”
“The what?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mr. Glow. The glowing vampire. That’s what he’s called. An adze.”
“Huh,” I said. Just thinking about Mr. Glow made my gorge rise. “Did the pixie—er—Trixie, manage to kill him?”
Soraya shook her head and helped me across the room. “Nope. Hurt him but he’s still around. We’ve got to get Dad away from him and you away from Lilian. Why the hell didn’t you tell me she was some kind of monster?”
I shrugged. “It sort of seemed safer to pretend she was human.” What was that part about getting her dad away from him?
Soraya stared at me then went off in Spanish for a good thirty seconds before saying, “Caleb Marshal, you are the biggest fucking idiot I have ever known.”
“I know.” I started to hang my head, then jerked it upright. “Is Valencia okay?”
Some of Soraya’s heat left her and she let out a long breath. “Yeah. She’s sleeping back at the house. I set up wards to keep the adze out so she should be safe.”
Right. Unless Angelo himself made a move, which seemed a disturbingly real possibility. I had to say something to Soraya about her father, but…dammit, I hurt to much for this conversation. More, Soraya wouldn’t want to hear any accusations leveled against her father without hard proof. I didn’t have any. My hand throbbed with pain and it was an effort to keep upright, even with Soraya supporting me.
“How did you know where I was?” I asked. “And what did you do back there to Lilian?”
“Trixie explained what was done to you and Valencia and then guided me to you,” Soraya said, narrowing her eyes. “Apparently once a pixie’s tasted your essence they can always find you. Did you know that?”
I swallowed and shook my head. “Learn something new every day, huh?”
She scoffed and we stepped outside into the afternoon sun. It was too bright and too warm. For some reason it felt like it should have been dark, maybe raining or overcast, something sinister. Snake monsters didn’t dislocate your fingers under a bright afternoon sun on a gorgeous day like this one. She’d had me in a house that was under construction, just far enough away from the neighbors to avoid suspicion. I wondered what other uses the house might have served throughout Lilian’s criminal enterprise.
The pixie returned, darting out of nowhere to hover in the air before us looking more than a little pleased with herself. “Bitch is on the run.”
“Seriously,” I asked, “What the hell did you two do to her? Is it hard? Can you teach me?”
Soraya made a face. “It’s a much weaker variant of the ritual Saint Patrick used to clear out all the snakes from Ireland. It’s long, complicated, and easily countered. Once she realizes what was done, Lilian will set up some kind of personal ward against it. It almost didn’t work. I had to rush things when she heard us sneaking around under Trixie’s veil and Trixie got the drop on her while she was distracted by my spell.”
“So, it was a one-shot wonder?” I couldn’t bring myself to hide my disappointment. For a moment I thought we might actually have a weapon to use against her.
“Afraid so,” Soraya said.
Damn. How the hell had I gotten myself into this? It was worse than the meth lab and the Road Wolves put together. Between Angelo Cabal, who was a powerful contractor mage and also Soraya’s father, oh and a slaver, Mr. Glow, the glowing vampire rapist, Lilian She, who seemed all but invincible, and me with no real way to counter or stave off any of them, it seemed like it my life, and the lives of those I cared about, were being measured in out in minutes. How long before any one of them made a move and ended one or all of us?
I pushed the thought from my exhausted and aching mind. There was no way to tell.
Chapter Ten
The tattoo and piercing parlor Absinthe worked at wasn’t far away, so we headed there, much to Soraya’s distaste. She’d never come around to liking Absinthe. Probably because Soraya had never spent any real amount of time with her. I had the distinct impression that she was angry with Absinthe but for the life of me I couldn’t quite understand why. I mean, Scarlett, Absinthe, and I had explained our situation—more or less—back when Absinthe had joined us. It wasn’t Absinthe’s fault that she’d mated to me and gotten all wrapped up in my magic. For all that it complicated had things, I really was in no position to complain.
Especially not when, as we entered the cool, dark interior of the tattoo parlor and she caught sight of me, Absinthe swore and pulled me into an embrace. “What happened to you?”
At her touch, a wave of tension rippled through me and poured out, leaving my muscles suddenly loose and my body limp. I was tired and aching and my head felt like it had been split open with a hatchet, but her arms felt good. Rejuvenating. I let out a moan and pushed myself into her, wrapping my heavy arms around her.
My magic reached out to her, touching the seeds it had planted inside of her and transmitting little pulses back and forth between us that seeped into every fiber of my body. I imagine that the feeling wouldn’t have been unfamiliar to a long-time smoker taking a drag of a cigarette after going a week without. She was my nicotine. Her and Scarlett both. My body and my magic were both letting me know that they wanted my girls, that they were good for me in more ways than I had previously thought. Around them, I would recover faster.
Awareness of my surroundings slowly returned. We weren’t alone in the shop. Thomas sat on the customer side of the counter, a tablet and portfolio in front of him. He gave me an appraising look and closed the portfolio, hiding away whatever it was he’d been looking over with Absinthe.
Soraya brought them up to speed, blushing as she told them how she had discovered me and her stepmother after Mr. Glow had taken control of us and then how Lilian She had kidnapped me. Absinthe interrupted only to ask if I had bonded Valencia, which caused Soraya to stiffen beside me and Thomas to lean forward on his stool.
I shook my head. “No. I managed to control my magic this time.”
Both girls let out matching sighs of relief.
Absinthe noticed my dislocated finger. It throbbed but I hadn’t really given it much thought until she picked it up. Pain throbbed through my hand as she gently examining the finger. Without warning she slammed the bone back into the socket.
Not going to lie, I shrieked like a little girl when she did that.
Both So
raya and Thomas winced, whether at the sound I made or the sudden, wet popping of my finger, I couldn’t tell.
I glared at Absinthe through watery eyes. “Ouch.”
She shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
I took several deep breaths and then addressed Thomas. “So, what brings you here? Thinking of getting a tattoo?”
Thomas got a little smile on his face. “Not for me. Absinthe and I were discussing…” he trailed off as he caught her eye and once again took in my condition. “I guess it’s not important at the moment. It’ll keep.”
“The real question,” Absinthe said, “is what are we going to do?”
She and Thomas both looked to me and I had a brief flash of déjà vu. During the group project for Prof. Hardin’s class the other students had looked to me the same way. I hadn’t even realized it, but I had taken over the project in Soraya’s absence. And now it was happening with her right next to me and she was giving both Absinthe and Thomas a disbelieving look.
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” Soraya said. “We’re going to find my dad. With him on our side, taking care of Lilian or Mr. Glow should be nothing.”
Absinthe and I exchanged a glance.
Soraya caught it. “What?”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to do this. I really, really didn’t, but if anyone was going to say something about this to Soraya it had to be me.
“Your dad, he’s a contract specialist mage, like you, right?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah…”
“And he would know enough to recognize an adze, right?”
She narrowed her eyes.
He went nothing. “I think the adze’s like Trixie. A contracted supernatural working for your dad.”
Anger flared in Soraya’s dark eyes. I readied myself for a storm of Spanish. It never came. Through that fire, I could see the wheels turning in her mind, pieces of a puzzle clicking into place.
“He’s under it’s control,” she said. “That’s the only explanation.”
