“Stop!” she yelled, steeling herself and striding forward. She was terrified, but the warmth of Madam Barrington’s presence behind her gave her courage, and she knew Sir Kipling had their back. If her mother could stand up to this bastard, so could she.
John Faust LeFay had seen them as soon as the lights went on, having glanced up and scowled. But he ignored their presence, instead urging his accomplice forward with an impatient command. They must have come in through the roof, Lily realized, perhaps where the wards were weaker, and were attempting to escape the same way.
“Leave Allen alone!” Lily called again, breaking into a trot. She had to step around singed mechanical hands littering the floor, their gears bent and crushed as if they’d been shot out of the air and then stomped on. Those brutes, she thought. If only she could think of a distraction, surely Madam Barrington would know a way to stop them.
As she approached, she realized in surprise that the one clad in black was a mundane. She’d been too scared for her life to notice before when he’d crept into her room. With the fighter’s hands full of Allen’s limp form, she focused her attention on her father, the greater threat. With a final jolt of horror, she spotted Morgan le Fay’s journal and its translation in his hand.
She’d reached the pair, but too late. The man in black was already dragging her uncle up the attic stairs and John Faust was backing up, a dangerous glow emanating from him as he prepared for their attack.
“Well, well. Hello, my darling Lilith,” he said, his smooth voice sending chills down her spine. “I must congratulate you for accomplishing what I’ve failed to do for twenty years: finding my dear brother.”
“You bully! Leave him alone!” Lily clenched her fists, furious but unsure what to do. She couldn’t rush him, and wasn’t sure she had enough concentration left to send a spell after him.
“I do not suppose I should be surprised, LeFay.” Madam Barrington’s ice-cold voice came from behind as she moved up to stand beside Lily. Her face was tight, disgust in every line. “You have already proven yourself to be a craven, dishonorable lout of a man. Attacking and kidnapping innocents in their home in the dead of night is just what I would expect of you.”
A spasm of anger flashed across her father’s face, but he quickly smoothed it with a smug smile. “Insults are the weapons of small minds. Though why you’re angry with me, I can’t imagine. After all, if it wasn’t for Lilith’s help I never would have found this house.” His eyes glinted maliciously as Lily’s mouth opened in astonishment.
“What do you mean?” She demanded, stomach dropping like a rock.
“Why, the potion I gave you at my estate, of course. Did you think I would just let you leave without ensuring I knew your whereabouts?”
Let her leave, indeed, she thought huffily, trying to distract herself from the wave of nausea sweeping through her. She should have known he’d do something like that. Should have looked for the spell. What a fool she was. This was all her fault.
“When you disappeared from Atlanta two nights ago, I immediately took notice. I knew that witch”—he pointed a lazy finger at Madam Barrington, who stiffened at the insult—“would seek out my brother’s help. So I knew that must be where you'd gone. It was simple enough to find you with my tracking spell. He was clever to hide in plain sight. I’ve been to Savannah multiple times since he disappeared, walked past this building even. Never detected a trace. He really is extraordinary, you know. If only he were a bit less foolish, thinking I wouldn’t find him, in the end.”
“Don’t you touch him,” Lily said, taking a step forward without a single notion of what she would do.
“Ah, ah, ah!” John Faust warned, holding up a finger. “I don’t really need him, you know, now that I have these.” He held up the papers in his hand. “If you make trouble—such as, for instance, trying to stop me—I will, hmm, hurt him. And you, of course. And that would be such a pity. Despite your betrayal”—he spat out the word like it was a foul taste in his mouth—“you are still my daughter. My firstborn. I would hate to have to…damage you.”
The menace in his voice made her heart flutter in fear. How did he have such control over her? He was nothing to her! At least, that’s what she desperately told herself.
Madam Barrington put a bony hand on Lily’s shoulder, drawing her back. When she spoke her voice snapped like a whip, its iron strength bolstering Lily’s trembling legs. “You obviously have the upper hand, LeFay. For the moment. I suggest you turn tail and flee like the coward that you are, and hope to heaven we do not find you.”
John Faust threw back his head and laughed, but it was a hollow sound. Lily could tell that Madam Barrington’s words disturbed him. “Forget Allen. This is a matter between brothers and none of your business. Stay out of my affairs and I shall let you be, though by all rights I should challenge you to a duel for your insults against my family.”
“You would lose,” Madam Barrington said simply.
“If such a delusion comforts you, then you are welcome to it. For now, I take my leave. I warn you, do not try to follow. I will know, and I will hurt him.”
Madam Barrington didn’t flinch. “Are you not forgetting something, LeFay? We have one of your own prisoner.”
They didn’t, actually, but Lily hoped John Faust would fall for it.
Her mentor continued. “Who is he, I wonder? Some misguided son of your peers whom you blinded with promises of adventure and reward? Which family is he from? The Johnstons? The DuPonts? Or perhaps a Blackwood? I promise you, his parents will not be pleased when we bring him home.”
Her father really did laugh this time. “Your threats are as empty as your hands. Besides, he can take care of himself. Much like me.” His eyes shone with pride as he boasted, and he finally started to back up, reaching for the knob of the attic door. “Remember, do not try to follow.” He slammed the door shut behind him and they heard his footsteps running up the stairs.
Lily started forward, but her mentor tightened her grip on her shoulder, holding her back. “Stay, Lily. He has won this round. Lacking the element of surprise we cannot rescue Allen without risking his harm.”
Legs finally giving up their effort to keep her upright, she sank to the ground, leaning against the wall. “I can’t believe he got away with that,” she murmured in a daze. “I should have known, should have expected. It’s all my fault.”
“It is nothing of the sort,” Madam Barrington corrected her sternly. “If there is any blame, it is on myself. I know him better; I should have anticipated him. But that is all in the past. We should—”
She stopped abruptly at the sound of rushing paws on the hall carpet. Sir Kipling ran up, skidding to a halt and doing a quick visual check to make sure neither of them were hurt. Then he moved forward, bracing his paws on Lily shoulder as he licked her nose in concern. “The other wizard is gone. He woke up and left through the back door. I followed him outside. He helped the sword man carry Allen away. They’re all gone now.”
“What happened? What did he say?” Madam Barrington asked, peering down the hall suspiciously.
“They’re all gone. The man we knocked out left through the back door,” Lily relayed her cat's words dully. She was so tired. So very tired.
Sir Kipling stopped abusing her nose and crawled into her lap, snuggling down and purring loudly, trying to comfort her in the only way he knew how.
She’d failed. John Faust had everything: a hostage, the diary, the upper hand. How could things be any worse?
A ringing and a clicking sound behind her brought her head up, and she glanced over her shoulder. Egbert was coming down the hallway, picking his way through the ruined hand constructs, bravely holding her ringing cell phone high over his head even though the weight of it threatened to topple him. Sir Kipling bristled as the crab-spider neared, but stayed firmly in her lap. She shifted to face the little creature and took the phone dumbly, putting it to her ear.
“Lily?”
“Sebasti
an! Good grief, where are you? We ne—”
“Hold on, hold on! Wait a minute, Lily” he spoke over her, voice tight. He sounded more nervous than she’d ever heard him before.
Getting a grip on her raging emotions, she took a deep breath and asked, “Are you alright?”
“Um…not really. I’m, um, in federal prison, actually. I need you to get me out.”
Things had just gotten worse.
Epilogue
They did their best to re-ward the house as they left. Not being the creators of the wards, they couldn’t do it as well as Allen would have, but at least the house would be undisturbed by mundanes. They left Egbert to guard it, Madam Barrington having cast a conveyance spell on him so that they would know should something happen.
The morning light was just peeking over the moss-draped trees as they closed and locked the back door, letting the final ward settle into place behind them. The streets were still deserted, probably because it was a Sunday.
Lily moved in a distracted daze, trying to control her anxiety at the situation they were in. She wavered back and forth between worrying about what to do and trying to forget that it all existed.
Once the house was secure, Madam Barrington reached into her bag and withdrew a glass bottle of something liquid and silver. She shook it vigorously for several moments, then unstoppered it and dipped in a brush she’d also withdrawn from her bag. Lily watched in silence as her mentor painted dimmu runes on the lintel and threshold of Allen’s back door in what she realized was aluminum paint. Then she quietly cast a spell that caused the air between the runes to shimmer, rippling like water before settling once more.
“Come.” Madam Barrington motioned her forward. “This is a temporary portal. Take Sir Kipling and step through. The spell is linked to the Basement’s entrance and you will appear there. I shall be right behind.”
Too tired to be astonished or even question her mentor about the mechanics of this unfamiliar magic, Lily gathered her cat into her arms and stepped through.
Despite how exhausted she felt, there was no time to rest. After they returned to Atlanta via the Basement, the first order of business was to get rid of John Faust’s tracking spell. It wasn’t a complicated process, but she had to remove her ward bracelet to do it and afterwards take copious amounts of iron salt tablets just in case any last vestiges of the spell remained. It left her feeling woozy and for several hours afterward she had trouble sensing her connection to the Source, blocked by the iron she’d ingested.
Unfortunately, the trials didn’t stop there. Once home, Lily washed, changed, and headed right back out the door. Now she stood in front of a cheap apartment in College Park. She was glad it was bright daylight, because she wouldn’t have had the energy to be careful had it been nighttime. College Park was not a place for the faint of heart, and she’d avoided it ever since coming to Atlanta. Sir Kipling sat at her feet—he’d flatly refused to let her out of his sight for a single moment since their return, even perching on the toilet while she’d taken her shower. Now he served as a lookout, keeping a wary eye out as his mistress did what she needed to do.
And oh, what a task lay ahead. She hesitated, finger hovering above the doorbell, reluctant to press it. Her other hand was clenched around a piece of paper with an address written on it, the only thing Sebastian had been able, or willing to tell her while on the monitored phone line at the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta.
While she was grateful to be alive, and unharmed, she cursed inwardly at the turn of events. Part of her ire was directed at her father, whom she was quickly coming to not just fear and dislike, but to hate. Yet an even greater part was directed at Sebastian. If he’d just done his part and stayed with them when they’d needed him, they wouldn’t be in this mess and she wouldn’t be standing here, about to do the last thing in the world she wanted to do.
Something in the back of her head tisked, reminding her that she didn’t have all the facts, that surely Sebastian knew what he was doing and it was all going to work out. She ignored it. Sebastian was supposed to be there for her. He was supposed to have her back.
Wait a minute. She paused, realizing something. When had she started caring so much? She was acting like…like a…
No. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thought. It hung on stubbornly, so she stabbed her hand forward and rang the doorbell, forcing her mind to refocus on the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs toward the door.
She felt Sir Kipling arch his back against her legs and heard him hiss softly as the door opened, revealing a petite, girlish face framed by a pixie haircut.
“Hello Tina,” Lily said. “We have a job to do.”
Interlude
Red Hands
One week earlier
* * *
While it certainly wasn’t beyond his ability, being still had never been one of Sebastian’s favorite things to do. He was a man of action—well, words, at least, but even those required movement. Of course, he could have picked a more concealed spot further out and just used binoculars. Then he could have shifted around as much as he liked. But watching Lily through binoculars would have felt…wrong. Well, more wrong than he already felt, anyway.
Sitting with his back against the brick wall of the apartment building adjoining hers, he had to keep still for his fae glamour to work. Not being a fae himself, simply using gifted power, there was a definite limit to how effective it was. He could not turn invisible, nor completely transform his features. He could create a sort of shimmer that copied the pattern and color of an object behind him—a brick wall for instance—thus camouflaging his outline. If he sat still.
At least he was in the shade, or would be for another hour. He hadn’t expected to be there this long. Lily was traveling today to reunite with her family in Alabama, and he’d expected her to leave sometime that morning. Well, it was two o’clock and he was only just seeing signs of life, Lily having emerged a few minutes earlier to load her car. He wondered if she was delaying on purpose, and the thought made his lips twitch in a grin. He certainly didn’t blame her. If he was supposed to go see his brother, he would “lose” his watch, then drive around in circles until he ran out of gas as far away from a gas station as possible.
His grin faded, however, as he remembered what going to see her family entailed: leaving Atlanta. Which meant he could no longer keep an eye on her. It wasn’t stalking, he told himself, it was counter-stalking. A man like John Faust—powerful, obsessive, controlling—wouldn’t just shrug and give up if his prey escaped. Sebastian was sure he was having his daughter followed, probably using that creepy raven thing during the day and who knew what at night.
While he had no way to drive off John Faust’s spies—and his suggestion that she go into hiding had been summarily rejected—at least keeping an eye on her from afar kept him from worrying himself to death. And ensured he was on hand should Mr. Fancypants decide to show up.
Not that Lily knew he was there. If she ever found out, she would curse him halfway to next week. But her curses scared him far less than the possibility of losing her. He’d been lax once before, and look where it got him: she’d almost died. And that scared him more than anything ever had. His heart rate picked up and his muscles tensed in readiness at the mere thought of her being in danger. Suffice it to say, he hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep lately.
“Merrrow murph meow meow?”
Sebastian almost jumped out of his skin. As it was he fell to the side, away from the sound, and scrambled to his feet. If anyone had been looking it would have appeared that a human-shaped section of the brick wall had just detached and started flailing.
“I swear, Kip, if you scare me like that one more time…” Sebastian glared down at the entirely unrepentant feline sitting primly next to where he’d been reclining, lost in thought.
Sir Kipling just blinked at him.
Besides wanting to head off an attempted kidnapping by John Faust, the fact that Sir Kipling knew he wa
s following Lily was the other reason Sebastian’s conscience was clear when it came to his maybe, maybe-not stalking. If the cat approved, then everything must be okay. Sebastian figured Sir Kipling was glad of the help. It was he, after all, who’d led Sebastian to Lily when she’d been held captive at the LeFay estate. Communicating with his partner in crime was sometimes challenging, but Sir Kipling always found a way to get his point across. Sebastian thought he was getting rather good at reading this impudent, devious, very protective ball of fur.
Glancing around to make sure there were no observers, Sebastian resumed his seat against the wall and gave Sir Kipling a good rub behind the ears. “Girls sure do take a while to get ready, don’t they?” he observed, and Sir Kipling gave a chuff of agreement.
Sebastian assumed Sir Kipling had just come out to say hello—and wait for his mistress to get ready—and so kept his eyes on Lily’s front door as he absentmindedly petted the cat, making sure to rub that favorite spot on his neck where his leather ward collar made him itch. But at a paw from Sir Kipling, he looked down and realized the crafty feline had brought him something: a slip of paper with a scribbled note on it in Lily’s handwriting.
“What have you got there, you little snipe?” He picked it up and read: Richard - Majestic - Friday at 6
“Hmmm.” He glanced at Sir Kipling for elaboration, but the cat obviously had nothing more to say. He simply stared at Sebastian with hooded yellow eyes, enigmatic as a sphinx.
Well, this was certainly interesting, Sebastian thought. Lily’s familiar had just brought him the time and place of her date with Agent Doofusface. Was this simply so Sebastian could plan accordingly in his protective shadowing? Or did Sir Kipling have something more…disruptive in mind? With no sign from Sir Kipling himself, only a steady stare, Sebastian figured the decision was up to him.
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