Olivia looked up, blinking slowly.
‘Thank you, Marguerite,’ she replied after a moment.
The wayward Crossroad Keeper, no longer a dirty, haggard old woman, sat demurely on the edge of a heavy old oak dresser, but that was the only thing that could be considered demure when it came to Marguerite.
Her stunning and flawless face was now not a day over thirty. She wore a tight-fitting dress in siren red which clung to her generous curves like it was poured on in paint form. Her long lean legs ended in sky-high heels the same murderous shade as her dress, as were her glossy red lips. It was a stark contrast to her pale skin and midnight hair, which was now thick and fell over one shoulder in sculpted waves.
‘You look good,’ Olivia told her.
Marguerite's mouth curved knowingly; she looked like a walking felony and she damn well knew it.
‘Congratulations, by the way,’ Marguerite nodded at the baby suckling at Olivia’s breast.
Olivia nodded, not the least bit self-conscious about nursing her baby in front of the other woman.
‘You know I’m supposed to hand you over to Hades if we cross paths?’ Olivia’s gaze locked on her unexpected visitor.
‘And are you?’ Marguerite asked in amusement.
Olivia shrugged.
‘When have I ever done anything Hades has told me?’ she shook her head.
‘Why?’ Marguerite’s eyes narrowed shrewdly.
‘I suppose I’m curious.’
‘About?’ the ex-Crossroad Keeper asked cautiously.
‘You,’ Olivia replied easily, ‘about who you are and what you’ve been doing. Maybe then I’ll decide if I want to hand you over to Hades or not.’
‘You’re not exactly what I expected, you know,’ Marguerite pursed her lips speculatively as she studied Olivia.
‘I get that a lot,’ she replied dryly.
‘You know you’ll have to hand me over to Hades eventually,’ she replied after a moment, ‘you won’t have a choice. I stole the Crossroad. Sooner or later you’ll have to comply with Hades’ wishes, and when you do come after me, I won’t give up without a fight. I’m not going back to being nothing more than a lowly human soul. I am the Crossroad, I need it and it needs me.’
‘I know.’
‘What?’ Marguerite frowned in confusion.
‘Look,’ Olivia sighed tiredly, ‘I’m not your enemy Marguerite. Don’t misunderstand me, Hades is very important to me and I will not turn on him, but I have a somewhat different perspective than him.’
‘I’m listening,’ Marguerite replied warily.
‘You know that I am the Guardian of Infernum?’
Marguerite nodded.
‘I think half the known universe knows. I felt the fabric of all the worlds tremble the moment you put your hand on the book,’ she glanced across at the small fire drake that was curled up on the rug close by, wrapped around a small sleeping golden-colored puppy, watching her warily with its dark eyes.
‘Then you know that all the Hell dimensions are now my responsibility,’ Olivia continued, ‘which includes the Crossroad. It is now my domain, not Hades.’
‘I’m not giving it back,’ Marguerite frowned.
‘I’m not asking you to…yet,’ she raised one brow pointedly.
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘There is only one Crossroad left,’ Olivia replied, ‘and that makes it incredibly important and incredibly vulnerable. There will be others who will seek it and its powers. For now, you are the one who knows its location and I’d like to keep it that way.’
‘Well then, ma petite,’ Marguerite grinned as she slid down off the dresser and smoothed her dress down over her curvy thighs, ‘I’m glad we have an understanding.’
‘Not quite, Marguerite,’ Olivia blinked slowly, ‘I said, for the moment. If I decide you are not a suitable Keeper for the Crossroad, make no mistake I will find you, and when I do I won’t ask for it back, I will take it and you will be returned to Hell to serve out your sentence.’
Marguerite’s eyes narrowed once again at the calm little mother sitting in front of her, staring at her unflinchingly with steel threaded through her words. She may not look like much but Marguerite was under no illusion that Olivia meant every word she said.
‘What if I said I had no intention of letting you take the Crossroad from me?’ she murmured as she gazed down into the crib, watching the tiny little boy sleeping peacefully.
‘I’d tell you not to be so stupid,’ Olivia replied easily. ‘You and I both know that as powerful as you are now, it pales in comparison to what I am capable of. Your powers are drawn from the Crossroad, borrowed power,’ she reminded her, ‘or rather, stolen power, I should say. Mine runs through every vein, every blood vessel, every tiny molecule of my body. I am Infernum. I suggest you don’t try my patience, Marguerite, I’m not known for my even temperament.’
‘You sound like him, you know,’ Marguerite’s mouth curved, ‘Hades…’
‘I know,’ Olivia answered, ‘that’s probably why I piss him off so frequently and yet he still puts up with me.’
‘What is it you want from me?’ Marguerite tilted her head, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
‘What’s your story, Marguerite?’ Olivia asked curiously, ‘what did you do that was so bad you were sentenced to eternity at the Crossroad?’
‘Merde,’ she growled, ‘you have no right to ask such things. If you want to know so badly, why not ask Hades? I’m sure he would be only too happy to give you his version.’
‘It’s your version I’m interested in,’ Olivia shifted the baby onto her shoulder and tapped her back gently.
‘Non,’ she replied agitatedly, her accent thickening, ‘that is one thing I will not discuss, but I will offer you something else, something you have been seeking.’
‘Oh?’
‘Information on your friend Samuel,’ she answered.
‘Sam?’ Olivia’s gaze hardened, ‘you know what happened to Sam?’
‘I do,’ Marguerite replied, ‘he was taken the night of the awakening.’
‘The awakening?’ Olivia frowned in confusion as she straightened her nightdress and rose carefully, tucking her daughter into the crib beside her brother. She’d tried, unsuccessfully, putting them in separate cribs only to have them scream as soon as they were parted. Eventually she and Theo had had no choice but to put them back in the same crib or they’d never get any decent sleep.
‘That’s what everyone is calling it,’ Marguerite explained. ‘The night that Infernum fully awoke and found its Guardian had far-reaching repercussions.’
‘Such as?’ Olivia frowned, turning to face the other woman.
‘The other books,’ she answered, ‘the closer you got to Infernum, the more they began to stir; the second you put your hand on that book and it claimed you, that one event reverberated so loudly it sounded like a thunderclap, heard throughout all the worlds and realities. Everyone knew the Hell Book had been found. Now the next one is waking, even now it reaches out for its Guardian, calling in the darkness, and I’m not the only one who hears its call.’
Olivia stared at her silently.
‘You hear it, don’t you?’ Marguerite breathed curiously, ‘you know which one it is?’
Olivia turned back to the window, staring out at the moonlit lake, the ripples on the water sparkling like diamonds surrounded by banks of white snow.
‘Tell me what happened to Sam,’ Olivia spoke quietly.
‘He was taken,’ she answered, ‘last I heard he was being held in the Otherworld.’
Olivia frowned, spinning back toward the other woman.
‘The Otherworld?’ she snapped abruptly, ‘no, that’s not possible. That means Hades would have known all along where Sam was being kept. Why would he keep that from me?’
Marguerite smiled slowly, seeming to enjoy Olivia’s confusion.
‘Hades always ha
s his own agenda,’ she smirked. ‘Did you think he would share everything with you? That you were that important to him? He’s a God.’
Olivia scowled.
‘I’ll deal with him later,’ she muttered dangerously. ‘Manny, Beau!’ she called to her familiars as they scampered off the rug.
Manny flapped his wings and leapt onto her shoulder as she kneeled down to Beau’s level and stroked his ears lovingly.
‘Watch the babies for me, will you?’ she told him softly. ‘Wake Theo if anything is wrong.’
He snorted quietly and nuzzled her hand, planting himself firmly in front of the crib. Olivia stood sharply and pulled the locket from the neckline of her nightgown. Wrapping her fist around it, she felt it reshape itself into the compass. She reached out and grabbed Marguerite’s arm.
‘You’re coming with me,’ she told her firmly.
The room shimmered and faded around them, and when the swirling colors stopped shifting, they were standing out in the open. The light was suffused with the pale spectral blue light that could only mean one thing. They were standing in the Otherworld.
‘Where?’
Marguerite nodded in the direction behind them. Manny flapped uneasily on Olivia’s shoulder as they turned and headed the way Marguerite had indicated. It didn’t take long before they came upon a curious sight.
In the middle of nowhere stood a dome-like canopied structure that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Ottoman Empire. The columns supported a curving roof, the floor inside was ceramic, a busy interlocking pattern of golds and blues. A huge black basalt throne sat in the center of the structure and was split straight down the middle with a huge crack. The two braziers which were situated either side were knocked to the ground, smearing the decorative tile with scorch marks and ash.
To the left of the strange structure was an ominous-looking cage with black bars deeply etched with symbols, symbols which were heart-sinkingly familiar to her. She kneeled down next to the cage. The door was open and torn from its hinges, the floor of the cage was covered with patches of dried blood and on the floor, worryingly, was a pair of cruel-looking metal cuffs lined with vicious-looking spikes, which looked as if they were laced with some sort of strange-colored fluid.
‘This is where they kept him,’ Olivia muttered, looking around at the devastation; it was clear there had been some sort of struggle. ‘Where the hell are you Sam?’
‘That I cannot tell you,’ Marguerite replied, ‘he disappeared from my sight. I don’t know how he did it, but he has found a way to cloak himself from everyone.’
‘Then it’s possible he’s safe for the moment from whoever took him.’
‘I don’t know,’ Marguerite shook her head.
‘Who were they and why did they take him?’
‘I think you know the answer to that already,’ Marguerite answered seriously. ‘You think just because Nathaniel or Castor or whatever the hell he wanted to call himself is dead, that this is over? It was barely the first skirmish, and make no mistake, this is war, only there aren’t just two sides. The books are waking. One by one they will begin calling to their Guardians, and everyone wants a piece of them and the ultimate power they represent. Everyone is your enemy. Don’t think that just because you are a Guardian that you are safe. You may be the Daughter of Fire but you need to know, the Apocalypse is coming Olivia, and you and your kind stand right at the very center of it.’
6.
Olivia’s feet sank into the rug as she reappeared in the children’s nursery, once again alone. Leaning quietly over the crib she checked on her slumbering babies.
Manny wriggled slightly on her shoulder before launching himself and gently flapping his wings he drifted down slowly into the crib. Leaning over and touching his snout to each sleeping child in turn, almost as if to reassure himself they were indeed fine, he padded down the blankets with his claws, turned in a circle and settled down to sleep beside them, his multicolored flames dimming slightly like a banked fire.
Olivia glanced down to where Beau was settled and petted him gently.
‘Thanks for watching them,’ she murmured.
His response was the dull thud of his tail against the hardwood floor before he too settled his head on his paws and closed his eyes.
Satisfied her little tribe were sleeping peacefully she drew in a breath and turned to the window with troubled eyes.
She’d seen for herself, Sam had not simply disappeared that night, he’d been taken.
Not just taken she frowned silently, tortured if the cruel looking spiked manacles lying on the floor of his cage had been any indication.
She knew what they were and she knew what they did. Having the whole of Infernum poured into her head had given her not just a helluva migraine, but an unimaginable amount of knowledge. She was still trying to assimilate it all but one thing was for certain, the sigils and markings etched into the manacles and cage belonged to only one race and the thought sent a chill down her spine.
The Angels were coming.
Instead of filling her with benevolent hope, it made her blood run cold. The Angels hadn’t set foot on earth in thousands of years, this she knew for a fact.
Why now?
It could only mean one thing, they wanted the book. Not Infernum, not only was it now irrevocably a part of her, she knew that the Angels would never be interested in the Hell dimensions or its power. They considered themselves too pure, too elitist to taint themselves with such base magic no matter how powerful.
But Infernum’s brother… that was a different matter entirely. Even now she could feel it stirring, hear its prayer. Caelorum was waking and she would bet the farm that’s what they wanted. The one thing she didn’t understand was, why go after Sam? What was his role in this?
‘You’re frowning again,’ a voice murmured behind her.
She turned to look at her husband as he leaned against the door watching her.
‘You were in the Otherworld with Marguerite.’
It was a statement rather than a question.
‘How did you know?’ she asked curiously.
Theo tapped the side of his head.
‘Saw it.’
‘A vision?’
‘I don’t know that it was a vision exactly, I wasn’t looking into the future or the past,’ he replied thoughtfully. ‘It was more like, I reached out for you and saw you.’
‘I guess that means I can’t get away with much,’ her mouth curved in amusement.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Theo smiled as he pushed away from the door and stepped more fully into the room. ‘Like everything else, I don’t seem to have much control over it.’
‘You always sell yourself short,’ Olivia shook her head, ‘you’ve come a long way since I first met you.’
It was true, since Sam had first plucked Theo from a burning barn in the middle of 17th century Salem and dropped him in front of her car, one dark All Hallows Eve, Theo had changed a great deal.
Back then he was plagued with random and chaotic visions he fought so hard against. Taught from childhood that all magic was inherently evil and being raised in the 17th century colonies as a strict puritan, he’d struggled to hide his gift, but since he’d discovered he was of powerful magic descent and coming into possession of his mother’s journal, he’d not only begun to accept his gift but had begun to excel at it.
Once he embraced the power it had flowed through him as effortlessly as breathing. Now, he could not only focus on past and future events, but was almost able to control it with pinpoint accuracy, and now it seemed, he was also able to focus in on present events…
A sudden thought occurred to her.
‘Maybe we’ve been going about this all wrong,’ she muttered as she stared at him. ‘Maybe we don’t need outside help. Maybe what we needed has been under our noses this whole time.’
‘What?’
‘You Theo,’ she spoke contemplatively, �
�maybe all we needed was you.’
‘To do what?’ he frowned.
‘Find Sam.’
‘How?’
‘You were right,’ she replied, ‘Sam didn’t just disappear, someone took him. I found the place he was being held. He’s no longer there, and from the mess left behind I think he might have escaped, but he’s injured. There was blood, not enough to kill him just enough to hurt him. There were also spiked manacles, they’re designed to pierce the skin around the wrists to administer a drug or poison.’
‘Do you really think he’s still alive?’ Theo asked hopefully.
‘I think if anyone has the will and the skills to survive it’s Sam. We need to find him. Wherever he is, I think he needs our help.’
‘You think I can focus in on him?’ Theo blew out a thoughtful breath, ‘find where he is?’
She nodded.
‘I know you can.’
‘I wish I had your confidence.’
‘That will come with time,’ she smiled, ‘but for now I believe enough for the both of us. You’ve got this, I know you do. All we need is the smallest detail, something to go on and if I know Sam, he’ll find some way to leave us clues.’
‘Okay,’ he shook his head, ‘I hope you’re right about this.’
He closed his eyes and reached inside for the light that burned brightly inside of him. Everything else around him faded away and the light grew brighter, brighter and brighter still until it reached flashpoint.
He knew they were near, he could feel it as he moved along the deserted back street. Damn it, how the hell did they keep finding him so quickly. He should have been more careful, he should never have allowed them to get this close. He looked down at the scars and wounds encircling his wrists, jagged puncture wounds, ragged tears and vines of deep blue poison still winding up his arms. Although he’d managed to free himself from the cuffs it had cost him. He hadn’t the strength or focus to translocate accurately, maybe that was why they kept finding him. He hissed as he heard the heavy footsteps falling behind him. Slipping down an alley he picked his way around the dumpsters on silent feet, his senses alert.
A Little Town Called Mercy Page 4
