Beguiled

by Darynda Jones

  He knew, though. He knew exactly what it would do, and he did it anyway.

  “I think you took away his pain and stitched him back together enough to let his own rapid healing do the rest. And you’ve done the same here. You’ve stitched him back together enough to take away the pain, but his spine has been severed.” She said the last with a sob. “He’s not feeling pain.”

  “But… he can heal from this, right?”

  Her entire visage sagged. “I don’t know, Defiance.”

  “There has to be something we can do.” I looked at Annette. “You’re the healer. You have to heal him.”

  She stumbled back and almost tripped on Parris’s arm.

  The chief had checked both Parris and Harris. They were dead. Even Parris, and I didn’t know if it was because of the tea or her hitting her head. “What happened to her face?” he asked, horrified.

  I didn’t dare look.

  “Deph,” Annette said, “I can’t. I don’t know how. I haven’t done a single spell using my charmling powers. What if all I can do is make poison and blow things up?”

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her to me. “Annette, you have to try. Please.”

  She knelt down to him, tears filling the space between her lashes. “Defiance,” she whispered just as a tear escaped, “what if I fail?”

  And then I knew. I could feel the power coursing through her veins. I brightened and gazed at my best friend. “You have no idea.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Annette, I can feel your power as easily as I can feel my own. The moment you wanted to do a spell, I felt a spark inside you. Like the ignition on the engine of something wonderful.”

  “I kind of did, too.” She nodded. Gathering herself, she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. “Right. I can do this. I just… what? Do I draw spells like you do?”

  We clutched onto each other, our fingers lacing together. “I don’t know. I haven’t read the book yet.”

  “Me neither. I was so tired. I thought I’d have more time.”

  “I’m sorry. They lured me over here, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

  “Please. I would have too, if I didn’t sleep like the dead.” She did the Lamaze thing again. “I can do this.”

  Now that we’d claimed each other, I could feel Roane on a visceral level. His pulse weakened with every heartbeat, and panic crept up to cinch around my throat. “Close your eyes.”

  “Okay.” She obeyed. “Now what?”

  “I just kind of search my mind for the spell I want. For the symbol.”

  “All right, then. Searching now.” Her breathing slowed, and she lowered her head.

  “Are you getting anything?”

  “There are so many.”

  I inhaled sharply. “You’re seeing the spells?”

  “How do you keep track of them all?”

  “Concentrate on what you want to accomplish.”

  “There you are,” she said, as though from a trance. She raised her left hand into the air, her being a lefty, but then she dropped it to the cement floor beneath us.

  I wanted to say something, but I had to trust she knew what she was doing.

  She dipped her fingers in Roane’s blood and drew a spell with it on the cement. One I didn’t know. Then she flattened her palm over it and waited.

  Still holding her free hand in both of mine, I chewed on my lower lip and squeezed, chanting please over and over in my mind.

  A light broke through from between her fingers. Neon green and almost as blinding as mine, it shot into the air. Gigi and I reared back and watched in awe as a plant rose from the ground. Not just a plant. An entire tree. It pushed through the cement and buckled parts of it around its thick trunk, rising and rising until it hit the ceiling. Limbs branched out, slid across the ceiling, and canopied the entire room. Long thin leaves grew on the stems from the branches, and a pungent odor filled the room.

  We all took a step back and gaped at it. The chief dropped his cell phone.

  Annette patted the trunk and smiled up at it. “There you are.” She stood and reached up, but the branches were too high. That didn’t stop her. She coaxed a branch down to her with a finger. It bent to her will, as though glad to do it, and she stripped a couple of stems of their leaves. After gathering them in her hands, she explained, “This is a neem tree from India.”

  “That tree is from India?” I asked, stunned.

  “Yes. That’s why it took so long to get here.”

  “Oh… of course.” We stood back and let her work.

  She cupped the leaves in her hands and closed her eyes. The green light shot out from between her fingers again, and when she opened her hands, they were filled with a dark, glowing oil. She bent down and rubbed it into Roane’s wounds.

  Then she looked up at me. “It’s like riding a bike. Your body just naturally knows how to balance. It just knows what to do.”

  I knelt beside her, my chin trembling as I ran my fingers over Roane’s fur. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Please. Have you even seen yourself do a spell?” she asked.

  “Annette.” I gaped at her. “You grew a tree. In a basement.”

  “True.” She huffed on her fingernails and polished them on her shirt.

  “It smells really bad, but it’s still a tree.” I threw my arms around her. “Thank you. He’s already breathing better.”

  She hugged me back. I should’ve known the minute she did it something was up.

  “You just got that stinky oil all in my hair, didn’t you?”

  “It’s your own fault.”

  I laughed and hugged her again.

  “I’m so proud of you, Nannette,” Gigi said.

  We both chuckled but stopped instantly when we heard creaking on the stairs. Mr. Shoemaker stood halfway up them, all the blood drained from his face.

  “Guys?” We looked over at the chief. He stood with his mouth agape, much like Mr. Shoemaker. “Where are the bodies?”

  Annette and I shot to our feet and scanned the room. Gigi did the same. All four of us just stood there looking around like a bunch of pigeons searching for French fries. Then our gazes landed in unison on the object Mr. Shoemaker was staring at. The fluffy black cat sitting on the table licking its paw.

  My hands flew over my mouth. I asked from behind them, “Olly, did you eat the Hamptons?”

  He didn’t answer, of course, because he was a cat. Instead, he looked me right in the face, reached out his newly groomed paw, and pushed a jar off the table. It crashed onto the cement and shattered just as Olly darted for the stairs. His belly looked a little bigger, but not two-humans bigger.

  I hurried to the stairs and called out to him. “Bad kitty! Don’t come crying to me when those heels get stuck in your intestines!” Honestly, of all the things that’d happened in the last few days, this was probably the most… unexpected. I cringed when I took in Mr. Shoemaker’s pallor. He must’ve seen Olly eat at least one of the Hamptons. “Hi, Mr. Shoemaker.”

  He didn’t move.

  The chief just stood there too, probably trying to figure out how he was going to explain it all.

  “Chief?” I said, coaxing him back to us. “Can you help with Roane?”

  He snapped back to the present. “Of course, Daffodil.” He looked up at our new guest. “Donald, I—”

  “Go,” Mr. Shoemaker said, descending the stairs and giving him a solid pat on the shoulder. “I’ve got this. No one will know anything untoward happened down here by the time I’m finished.”

  The chief held out his hand. “Thank you.”

  Mr. Shoemaker took it. “Of course. Someone will report them missing in a few days, and I’m guessing that’s not such a bad thing?” He looked at me when he asked it.

  “No,” I said, suddenly sad. I looked back at Gigi. “At least now we know.”

  She nodded. Mr. Shoemaker helped her up the stairs as the chief lifte
d a giant red wolf into his arms.

  I held Roane’s head, marveling at the fact that we do indeed make our own luck.

  The cresting sun ribboned pinks and oranges across the sky as I lay spooning with a sleeping wolf. He had yet to shift. I smoothed my hand over his fur and breathed him in. He was somehow both the wolf and the man. Pine and musk and sandalwood. His chest rose and fell softly. Though he was completely healed, I took great care not to put any pressure on his spine.

  I’d been sleeping off and on, unable to believe the events of the last few days. The last few months. What a crazy turn my life had taken. And Annette’s! She was like a stick of dynamite. Powerful. Compelling. And a little scary.

  My lids drifted shut yet again as I smoothed my hand down Roane’s back. His fur gathered between my fingers, and then it didn’t. Skin slid beneath my palms, and my eyes flew open.

  He’d shifted, but his breathing was still deep and even. He’d shifted in his sleep. And I’d missed it. I sought out the wound on his back. All that remained was a faint curve like an upside-down crescent, the scar barely visible among the ink.

  I ran my fingertips over it and frowned. I leaned back and looked at the tattoo as a whole. The white scar line changed the symbol he’d remembered from his childhood. What had been the spell for transformation, from when I’d brought Roane out of the veil using the life force of a wolf cub, was now the spell for possession. That one line changed the meaning of the entire spell. I’d claimed him, and the tattoo reflected that.

  “Lower,” Roane said, his voice deep and groggy.

  I laughed and slid my hand down the thick muscles on his back, brushing over the scar where the knife would had been. “Is this low enough?”

  “No. Lower.”

  My fingers traced the tattoos on his lower back, then I flattened my palm and explored the shape of his buttocks. “How about this?”

  “You’re getting warmer.”

  A bubble of laughter escaped me, and I snuggled against him, carefully drawing him closer, burying my face in his hair. How did it always smell freshly washed? “I think we need to give it some time.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  With a heavy sigh, he rolled onto his back and pulled me onto his chest. His arms encircling me, he kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry.”

  “For arguing about sex when you clearly need to rest?”

  “Hell no. I’ll argue about sex until the stars burn out. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

  I propped up on an elbow. “Roane, you did. Your essence… somehow it made me stronger.”

  “You protected me, too.”

  “When I claimed you?”

  He nodded.

  “How? I did nothing. The spell did nothing.”

  He leaned back to look at me. “The tea. Or whatever that was. I felt it seeping into me. Poisoning my mind.”

  I cupped his scruffy cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  “It stung like hell, and I could feel it penetrating my bloodstream. It made me sick and dizzy and confused, like it was scrambling my brains.”

  “You mean that’s really what it was supposed to do?”

  “Yes. But your spell, I don’t know, it somehow neutralized it. I can’t explain it, but I felt a warmth spread, and then I was okay. I don’t know how, but I could think clearly again.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I can’t explain half of what my magics do.” I put my head on his chest. His wide manly chest that I’d wanted to use as a pillow since the first time I saw him. “But they didn’t heal you.” Before he could protest, I asked, “What the hell was that stuff anyway?”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “I bet Annette could tell us.”

  “She’s pretty amazing.”

  I rose up. “Do you remember what she did? How she healed you?”

  “I remember a tree.”

  I chuckled. “Yep.”

  “And a warmth on my back.”

  “Yep again.”

  “You’ll have to tell me everything, but I think we should have sex first.”

  After a soft snort, I shook my head. “You need a little more time. Your spine was severed, Roane.”

  “Okay. We can give it a few more minutes.”

  I inched up and kissed him.

  He buried his fingers in my hair and pulled me closer, deepening the kiss. He rolled on top of me, kissed his way down my stomach, and came to the bite on the inside of my thigh. “Sorry about this.”

  “I’m going to have an amazing scar.”

  “Mark.”

  “Ah, right. You marked me.”

  He bent and kissed each puncture wound before making his way to the cleft between my legs.

  I sucked in a sharp breath as his tongue feathered across my clit. But I needed to ask the wolf something before we got too carried away. I buried my hands in his hair.

  He looked up at me from over the horizon of my girl parts.

  I gazed into his olive irises, and asked, “Will you marry me?”

  A lopsided grin emerged from beneath the scruff. “Why, Ms. Dayne, I thought you’d never ask.”

  Two hours later, I went down to make us some coffee. Roane’s wound had indeed healed. There was nothing stopping that man from performing his bedroom duties. Or his shower duties. Or his dresser-top duties.

  “Hey, guys,” I said to Gigi and the chief. They were talking quietly, their heads bowed close to one another in soft conversation. I saw the rustling of vines and looked up. “Good morning, Percy.” A rose bloomed overhead.

  Gigi glanced over at me. “Hello, Defiance. How’s Roane?”

  “Good. Much better.” I poured two cups and walked back to them. “How are you? And why is Virgil on the table?”

  “Virgil?” the chief asked.

  I pointed with my chin. “The owl.” Someone had moved the stuffed snowy owl my dads had bought me to the table.

  “Oh, yes,” Gigi said. “That was a reminder to tell you to call them. They’re very upset.”

  “Why?” I asked, alarmed.

  “You’re not answering your phone.”

  “Crap. I forgot to charge it. I’ll call them.”

  “And Minerva texted. Leo is much better but she thinks she should stay with him, just in case.”

  “Oh, good. Has she been with him this entire time?” I’d kind of forgotten about her.

  “Apparently. I think she’s in love.”

  “That’s adorable. Hey, is everything okay with you?”

  “Of course, sweetheart. Why?”

  I sat across from her. “It’s just, I’m sorry again about trying to see into your thoughts the other night. That was wrong of me. But I do feel like you’re purposely hiding something from me. Like something is bothering you but you don’t want to tell me.”

  She lowered her head and stirred her coffee. It was her classic deference maneuver. “I was just telling Houston. I thought it was the fact that someone had killed me.”

  “What was?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it. I feel like something has been left undone. And I thought it was my murder. But now we know, and I still feel this way. In my stomach.”

  I reached over and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Gigi. What can I do?”

  She quit stirring and rubbed her head. “I don’t even know how to ask. I don’t know if it’s possible.”

  “Gigi, what is it?” But she’d looked up at me, and I caught her gaze. I didn’t mean to. It was just suddenly there, out in the open for all the world to see. Or me. Probably me. “You want my mother’s forgiveness.”

  She inhaled softly and then acquiesced with a nod. “I think so.”

  “Her forgiveness for what?”

  She pursed her mouth and thought a long moment. After a while, she said softly, “For you.”

  “Me?”

  “Defiance, when you were born, you became my everything. My world. My universe. I think… I think your mot
her grew jealous of you. Of your powers. I think I drove her to do what she did.”

  “Gigi, no.” I shook my head. “That was her. You can’t take that on.”

  “No, I know. I understand that. But maybe someday, when you’re feeling up to it, you could try to… contact her?” She cringed when the words left her mouth. “I can’t believe I’m even saying this. You know what? Forget it. I shouldn’t have said anything.” She stood to rinse out her cup.

  I followed her. “Gigi, I would love to try. If I’ve learned anything in the last few days—in the last few hours—it’s that we must try. We may fail, but we must do our best.”

  She turned away so I wouldn’t see the wetness in her eyes. “Not now. Just, you know, when you’re feeling in the mood.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Just how did one get in the mood to contact the dead? “There’s no time like the present.” I was feeling good. Really, really good thanks to Roane’s special brand of therapy. “What could it hurt?”

  Her mouth formed a pretty O. “Well, okay. Do you want to sit down?”

  But I was already there. I felt a soft breeze rustle over my skin like a summer wind, and I thought about what Parris had said about Percy. A conduit. A cradle of mystical energy. Was that how I slipped so easily into the veil? So effortlessly? I dove into the blue depths of Gigi’s irises, slid past her, and sought out my mother.

  Before I could find her, however, something else caught my attention. Ink darted past my periphery, breaking my concentration just as Samuel appeared, chasing after him. I looked to my right, and the snowy owl was there in the same spot. Only it was really him. His soul. His essence. He spread his massive wings and shrieked.

  Samuel stopped and gazed up at me as though unable to understand how I’d infiltrated his world. “Deph,” he said, raising his arms for me to lift him like he’d done many times before.

  So I did. As energy swirled around me, I bent down and lifted him up at the precise moment the owl flew straight at us. It startled me, and I rocketed back to the physical plane.