by Jane Cousins
“Are you sure you’re not leaving town?”
Cullen could count on one hand the number of people who could sneak up on him. And four of those five people were inhabitants of this District. Looking at the Southern Sanctuary High Council Special Liaison you wouldn’t think she would be one of the four. Not with those thigh high, stiletto boots she routinely wore. Today they were a bright, sunny, yellow colour. Matching the plaid mini that skimmed the tops of her thighs. A white t-shirt with large yellow writing completed the outfit; Kiss the boys and make them cry. Except the word cry had been crossed out, replaced by the word die.
Very apt, if you knew Darcy Montgomery.
Cullen had made a point when he first arrived of establishing the biggest threat potentials in the Southern Sanctuary. Elijah, Head of the Enforcers, had made the list. And so had the Special Liaison.
Even without the warning pamphlet included in the welcome pack he’d received upon his arrival, he would have recognised Darcy Montgomery as a vicious predator.
Although, the pamphlet, detailing her expressions; which smiles to stay really, really still for. Which smiles signalled the world was about to end and if he didn’t want to get splattered with blood, then running was his best option. All had been useful information in regards to understanding and handling Darcy.
They had crossed paths at several social events over the years, and he’d instantly recognised that the stories surrounding Darcy Montgomery were not false advertising. She was an ice cold, smiling killer. And he totally respected that. Because he also saw in her a fierce loyalty to her family and a weird code of honour that she held herself to rigidly.
Only an idiot would get distracted by the fanboy costuming, full cupid bow lips, lithe, curvy figure and sassy ‘Louise Brooks’ styled short black hair. And Cullen wasn’t an idiot, as he met her gaze, those clear ice blue eyes of her dissecting, weighing him up. No doubt zeroing in on his weak points and cataloguing an easy twenty ways to kill him in under five seconds.
Spider Mage and Archer regarded one another for a moment, a look passing between them, recognition, one predator to another. Then the moment was deliberately broken as Darcy blinked, her gaze travelling over the moving boxes and accessories. “Well? Are you? Leaving?”
“No.” He didn’t feel the need to elaborate further. The only person he needed to convince was Trix. Still, it was so slight, he almost missed it, the infinitesimal lifting of the edges of Darcy’s lips. She had shifted from a number sixteen smile, to a smug, got my own way - number thirty-three. Why?
The woman was a scary enigma. Who knows what thoughts were running through her head, that smile may not even be for him.
* * *
Darcy’s week was turning out kind of fun, with thankfully, no matchmaking detours. First, she was given a witch to interrogate. Good times. Especially because the silly cow had initially tried stalling. Sure, that given her control over lightning and her background as a spy, that she would be able to escape the secret, supernatural, prison facility.
Darcy had quickly disabused her of that notion. Escorting Mara on a comprehensive tour of the grim prison, located fifty miles North of the town of Oymyakon in Siberia.
Darcy had happily played tour guide, telling Mara all about the local landscape. The stark wilderness that stretched for miles, populated by polar bears, wolves and a variety of other predators. Helpfully adding that if Mara did wish to make a run for it, then summer was her best bet. Given that the area was known to have temperatures that could drop as low as -96.2 F during the winter months.
And if the witch did, somehow, manage to reach the town of Oymyakon, population roughly five hundred hardy souls. Mara should be aware that the townsfolk were all related to Balder, Slavic God of Ice. Great party town for the employees of the prison, not so welcoming of escaped prisoners.
But Darcy had obligingly pointed out the direction of the town anyway, just in case Mara was ever feeling up for a challenge.
Though the new prisoner was deflated by all this information, a calculating gleam had begun to make her eyes glitter. She had information, she would be willing to trade. Darcy couldn’t help herself, she had just sat there smiling, as Mara tried desperately to negotiate a deal. Yeah, right, as if Darcy would ever cut a deal with a child killer. Watching as Mara finally stuttered to a halt, staring at the weird smile on her interrogator’s face… the realisation sinking in.
There would be no escape, ever. There would only be these dark, stark walls. The biting cold that sank into your bones like a wolverine. And the never ending isolation.
The guards all had magic of their own. Darcy had been nothing but obliging, telling Mara to choose any guard at random and have at it. She would get a freebie, this time, but any future lightning outbursts would mean confiscation of blankets and food privileges revoked. The chosen guard shrugging off a hit from one of Mara’s lightning bolts like they would an annoying mosquito.
Exhausted and depressed, Mara had finally begun to talk and talk… and talk.
And now here Darcy was, about to give her report to Cullen, Archer.
Approaching, she’d been a little annoyed at the sight of all the packing materials stacked on Cullen’s front veranda. A discordant jarring note racing across her spidey senses. Grrr, Darcy was irritated by the stupid part of the web that reacted to the idea of the Archer leaving. The so-not-going-there part of the web that she was refusing to think about. Good Goddess, just because Great-Aunt Alma had declared Darcy her apprentice matchmaker. It sure as hell didn’t mean she intended to step up, care, or even do a Goddess damn thing.
Still, asking twice, just to make sure that Cullen had no intention of leaving, that had thankfully settled the web down to a quiet, hardly detectable jangling. And from his firm answer, the way he met her gaze, she knew he was telling the truth.
So there was absolutely no reason for her to interfere. Even if she did love to pull people’s strings. But no, if it had anything to do with matchmaking, then Darcy had put a moratorium on it. It was one thing to pull other people’s strings, another entirely when she realised Alma was trying to yank on her own.
Even so, it would probably be best if she gave her report and left. No doubt there were a hundred better things she could be doing with her precious time. Like tracking down her meld mate and ensuring he was fully clothed, and not surrounded by a breathless pack of women, mothering him, or just plain trying to touch him in order to cop a feel.
“Would you like to come in? Have something to drink?”
“No.” Darcy refused, happy to remain standing outside in the sunshine. She normally didn’t mind the cold, but even she had begun to feel the icy wintry teeth nip at her the longer she stayed at the prison. It had been a welcome relief to Transportal back to the Southern Sanctuary where Summer had just started and the sky was pure blue and the air lovely and warm.
“What have you got for me?”
“For a start, they found you in Wales because they magically lo-jacked the glitter they sprinkled the audience with at the Musicale. They figured you or some of your family would turn up. They intended to hunt each of you down at their leisure. But you were priority number one.”
GPS glitter. Smart. Insidious. “If they could track me-”
“Yeah, yeah. Where do you think Elijah is right now? He’s hunting Conchetta, or Elena Carlyle… whatever. We’re going to have to come up with a name for her. I know, how about Hybrid bitch? It has a nice ring to it.”
“What was the arrangement between them? The witches and… the Hybrid bitch?”
Grrr, that toffy accent of his kind of took the sting out of the new nickname Darcy had just come up with. Maybe she’d have to have a re-think. Copper always referred to them as the Jag-offs. But since only one was left alive, the singular jag-off lacked something. Hmmm, hy-bitch? Even Cullen couldn’t British that up too much.
“Darcy?”
“Oh, yeah, the arrangement? Hy-bitch approached them about two and half years be
fore that failed hit on you. Said she’d been watching them. Said she had a proposition for them. Head witch, Verona, was pissed. Hy-bitch had a lot of information on them. Knew all about their kiddie kidnapping ring. The transport company. The employment agency. How Gwynne was funnelling kids into the UK via the adoption agency. And Mara, located in Europe, doing the undercover spy thing, acted as a mobile trouble shooter. Getting rid of anyone who caused problems or looked too closely at what they were doing.”
“Bloody Hell. How many? How many children did they kill?”
“Mara couldn’t give me an exact number, but since Verona first started experimenting to negate the Merlin karma curse, she guesses close to about two hundred children over a five year period. That was before they moved their operation to the school.”
Cullen’s hands formed into fists. Fuck. The only way he could have known was if he’d taken a closer look at Mara’s activities when she was based in Europe. But only threats to the sovereign soil set off his Archer senses. And sad as it was to say, Mara and her witch friends, hadn’t fit the bill at the time.
“And this proposition El- … the Hybrid-bitch offered them?”
“We’re going with hy-bitch now, keep up. At first Verona was all, how dare you spy on us, I’ll show you. But according to Mara, hy-bitch has powerful magics of her own. She held off Verona. In fact, Mara thinks she may have even thrown the initial challenge, made herself come off a little weaker than she really was. Still strong enough to match Verona, but not out shine her. Clever.”
“Yes.”
“So hy-bitch tells the witches that not only are they doing their little ritual all wrong, but that she can get them way better, more effective battery juice if they use kids with a particular kind of magic running through their veins.”
“Magic?”
“Yes. And hy-bitch had a nose for it. She could sniff them out, literally, according to Mara. And with the tweaks she suggested to the ritual, they would only need to sacrifice one, maybe two kids a year. Said it was hy-bitch’s suggestion to buy the school. Set up Hulme as Headmistress. Drop all the other business interests. Have Gwynne marry and adopt, set her up as head of the Parents’ Committee. Bring Mara back home, have her run the same kind of protection role but locally based.”
“And Verona as the executive assistant?”
“Mara thinks that was hy-bitch’s little pay back. Sold it as protecting the coven’s greatest asset. Have her go undercover as mousey-forgettable secretary. Have Hulme act as her bodyguard. Played to her ego, told Verona she’s so damn important. But Mara thinks hy-bitch was laughing behind her back.”
Cullen frowned. “What the hell did hy-bitch get out of the arrangement?”
“Here’s where things get a little shady. Hy-bitch came to them tricked up with money. She’d married some decrepit money bags Lord Muckety Muck Muck. So she’s got the cash. What she doesn’t have it seems is bodies.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, it made me blink as well. What she wanted was the bodies of the kids the coven used in their sacrifices. Never told them why. Never said what she was doing with them. That was her price.”
“And they never wondered?”
“Here’s where it gets good. Not only did Mara wonder. She did some digging. Discovered that Elena Carlyle came out of nowhere about three months before she married decrepit money-bags. No history. No family. No footprint what so ever.”
“Witnesses, from the final confrontation with the High Priest Gap’gn that took place five hundred years ago, state they saw… Conchetta break free from her captives and dive into the slipstream. Now we know when and where she turned up.” Cullen had diligently scoured all those reports, he knew the facts.
“Time is weird. Hy-bitch goes in last, but manages to come out some four years before our lot return to the Southern Sanctuary.”
“Was Mara able to ascertain what hy-bitch’s plans were?”
“Thankfully for us, Mara is top-notch when it comes to being sneaky. She started tailing hy-bitch on the down low. Found her secret lair.” Darcy waved off Cullen’s next unasked question. “Elijah’s already been there. Deserted. It’s an old farm, located a few miles away from her estate. The thing is, Mara set up remote surveillance of the property and she swears she saw some of the dead kids walking around. Dead no more. And not just living and breathing, but changed.”
“Changed how?”
“They were older, for one thing. Aged some ten to fifteen years she said. And they walked weird, loped, was the word she used. And they had the same habit as hy-bitch, sniffing the air constantly.”
“She made them like her? A hybrid jaguar?”
Darcy nodded. “I think so. And not just that. Mara’s surveillance equipment picked up some names hy-bitch was calling them. I asked our annoying neighbourhood blast from the past weirdo, and Copper recognised some of the names. They belonged to some of the original Jag-off bitches that asshole Gap’gn turned.”
“Wait. What are you saying? That hy-bitch was some how able to reincarnate her five centuries old dead friends into the bodies of dead children?”
“Not just any children. Specific children with a particular kind of magic. Hy-bitch did pick them after all. Had the school lure them in with scholarships. Spent some time studying them, making sure they were right. Then I’m guessing she used the witches and their little ritual to clear out the soul of the child, making room for her own magic to transfer in one of her dead bitch friends. Except…”
“Except?”
“Mara thinks something went wrong with one of the transfers. She said the quality of the tapes was poor… she destroyed all of them by the way, before you ask. But one night sticks in her memory. It was after their ritual ceremony. Hy-bitch took the body back to her secret hide-out. Mara told me something seemed to go wrong. There was a hell of a ruckus, a fire. Hy-bitch stormed about the farm cussing and screaming. Then suddenly, according to the surveillance footage, a couple of days later, she’s laughing and smiling. Mara swears she heard hy-bitch use the words sweet little abomination several times. And there was an outbuilding that food was often carried to, the door always padlocked. According to Elijah’s report after he swept the farm, there was clearly a long-term prisoner being contained there.”
“We need to know who that person was.”
“Agreed. But there is one more thing you need to know. The night of the Musicale, just before your run in with the two witches, hy-bitch got a call and went a little nuts. Beyond pissed off. From what Mara could piece together, the abomination had disappeared, escaped from the farm. Hy-bitch was furious. She was the one who demanded Verona and that lot hunt you down. I’m guessing she either wanted them out of the way whilst she closed out her operations and disappeared. Or she wanted the witches punished, dead.”
“Probably both.”
“Yes. And that’s everything Mara had. She wasn’t holding anything back, not by the time I was through with her. So effectively, your part in all of this is done.”
“What about more Morgana witches? Are they a threat to my family?”
“I have one of our expert genealogists looking at the bloodline. We can do some surveillance but according to Mara they are a bunch of no-nothing, sub-par, talentless hippy chicks.”
“It would be nice to think so, but I’ll follow up.” Cullen straightened his silver tie. “I appreciate the personal update.” The mission was officially over, Cullen could devote all his time and energy now to the most important mission of all, Patricia Bennett. Except, he didn’t have a damn clue where to start. Yet another first, thanks to Trix.
Good Goddess, just being near Cullen was causing a weird itching sensation to spread across Darcy’s inner web. Grrr, she fought the urge to scratch, or in this case… match make. No, no, she was not Great-Aunt Alma’s sock puppet.
But maybe, just maybe she didn’t need to actively interfere or do anything majorly overt. Like throw Cullen on the rack and stretch him out another good fiv
e inches to get him a little closer to Aunt Patricia’s height. It was a pity the rack only tended to pull arms and legs out of their sockets and didn’t actually add actual height. Besides, all her senses were telling her that Cullen was perfect for Aunt Patricia, on every level… potentially.
She sensed it was their current inability to connect that was causing all the discomfort she was feeling internally.
She could kill them. It would make the feeling go away quicker.
Hmm, but that could be messy and require a clean up. Besides, Aunt Patricia was family. Darcy wasn’t sure she could kill a family member unless they attacked her first, given her Special Liaison code of honour.
So the only thing left to her was to drop a casual, yet very, very subtle hint. “Archer, may your arrows always fly straight and true.”
Cullen waited a heartbeat, then he had to ask, just to be sure of what the special liaison words meant. “You want me to kill someone?”
“What. No? How did you get that from that?” She read the look of incomprehension in the Archer’s eyes. Was it a cultural thing? Or, damn it, maybe it was a man thing. Obviously she had been too subtle. Better she go with a cliché. Everyone understood them. “No, what I meant to say was. Actions often speak louder than words.”
Cullen tensed. Was the Special Liaison threatening him? He did a quick calculation and came up with the best possible response to a potential attack. He would be injured, but there was a slim margin of survival if he could just get to the welcome mat and use it as a shield.
Bloody hell. Darcy read Cullen’s reaction and knew that she’d yet again failed to get her point across. Damn it. She was going to have to bite the bullet. “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you… well, not right now. Can’t make any promises about the future. I’m trying to give you relationship advice here.”
“You are?” Cullen had run through over three thousand scenarios as to what was going on. Darcy Montgomery giving him relationship advice had not been one of them. But he could tell by the fierce glitter in her ice blue eyes that it was a big deal. “Um… thank you.”