THE FIRST PERSON I called after Herne was Marilee.
“The Leannan Sidhe side of my bloodline came to the forefront tonight. Can you come over here? I just killed my grandfather.”
Marilee knew all about my heritage, and the surrounding factors. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Have you called the police?”
“No, I called Herne.” I glanced at the body on the floor, my stomach twisting in knots. As much as I hated him, I hadn’t planned on revenge.
Marilee hung up, and I forced myself to return to the living room, closing the door so Mr. Rumblebutt couldn’t get into the kitchen. I was still carrying my dagger, and I couldn’t bring myself to set it down. The doorbell rang and I automatically went to answer it. I peeked around and saw the pizza guy.
“$7.99, please.” He held up the pizza box.
Without a word, I quietly set my knife on the table, handed over the twenty, and took the pizza from him, then shut the door before he could hand me the change.
“Ma’am, I’ve got your change.” His voice echoed through the door.
I pressed my forehead against the cool wooden surface.
“It’s a tip,” I called out.
I locked the door, then picked up my knife again and carried the knife and pizza back to the living room, where I put the pizza on the coffee table. I inched my way toward the kitchen, terrified that if I opened the door, my grandfather would be alive again, waiting for me. Holding my breath, I quietly cracked the door and peeked in. His legs were still sprawled out behind the counter, and I shut the door again.
I didn’t know what to do, so I returned to the sofa and curled up in the corner of it, holding my dagger like a shield. Someone pounded on the front door and I jumped. Then Herne’s voice echoed from the other side.
“Ember! Open the door and let me in!”
I ran to the door, flipped the latch, and opened it. The moment I saw Herne’s face, I fell into his arms, shaking.
“I didn’t intend to kill him. I didn’t know he was coming over.” I stuttered out the words in my haste to explain what had happened.
Herne pushed me back, holding me firmly by the shoulders. “Ember, get hold of yourself. First, are you sure he’s dead?”
I nodded, motioning to the kitchen. “He’s in there.”
Herne walked me to the sofa and sat me down. “You wait here. I’ll be right back.” He vanished into the kitchen, in a moment later returned, his eyes wide. He sat down beside me and took my hands. “He’s dead all right, but there’s no blood. What happened?”
I was shivering. Between hiccups, I told him. “I thought he was the pizza guy so I opened the door. He pushed his way in. He demanded that I go through the ritual and when I refused, he pulled a knife on me. He was going to kill me.”
The doorbell rang.
Herne looked at me. “Are you expecting anybody else?”
I nodded, clearing my throat. “Marilee.”
He answered the door and escorted her in. By then, I had managed to catch my breath. I told them both what had happened.
“I don’t know how my Leannan Sidhe side came through, but I knew what to do. I knew exactly what to do. What’s going to happen now?”
“What’s going to happen is I’m going to call Saílle. And she isn’t going to do a damn thing about it. That I will tell you.” Herne got up and walked into the foyer.
I turned Marilee. “What should I do?”
“Once you have passed through the Cruharach, you will be the one in control. Until then there may be more incidents like this. Your Leannan Sidhe side seems to be your self-defense. She rose up to protect you. You should be thanking her rather than fearing her.” Marilee took my hands, gazing into my eyes. “This was an act of self-defense. Your grandfather was trying to kill you. Don’t make it out to be anything other than what it was.”
I grabbed her hands, holding on like they were lifelines. “What if she comes up when I’m not in danger?”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that. And she is part of you. She’s not a separate entity, even though it may feel like it. This is just a part of you that’s coming to the surface.” Marilee gave me a soft smile. “That’s why I doubt this will happen any time other than you trying to protect yourself. It hasn’t happened before, but this time you were in a dire situation and your emotions were extremely high. It’s no wonder to me that your mother’s blood came to the rescue.”
At that moment Herne returned. He pocketed his phone, and then sat down on the other side of me.
“I talked to Saílle. She’s sending guards out for the body. I have her official word that it will be announced that your grandfather died of a heart attack. There isn’t a mark on him, and the only way anybody could find out how he died would be to bring in a Morte Seer. Saílle will have him cremated immediately so that won’t happen. She’s also decreed that the court will confiscate his possessions. She’s sending you a check for the trouble your grandfather caused you. It will be expected that you do not attempt to claim any inheritance.”
I stared at him. “I don’t want his money. And I don’t want blood money from her.”
Herne shook his head. “Nope. You can’t refuse it. We need these people on our side, so whatever you do with it, is up to you. Just accept it, and let it go.”
I hung my head, not wanting to agree, but I knew he was right. “Fine. At least I don’t have the Dark Court after me for his death. How do you know she’ll keep her word?”
“Because I recorded the conversation and I told her that if she tried to renege, I would take it before a Triamvinate. She knows me well enough to know that I’d do it, and that I’d win. Besides, Saílle was outraged that he defied her. She told him to back off and leave you alone.”
“What do you know? I didn’t think she would actually care.”
I didn’t try to fool myself that she cared about my life. No, Saílle had instructed Farthing to leave me be. That he didn’t obey her probably came as a slap in the face.
Saílle’s guards arrived far sooner than I expected them to. They silently removed the body, handing me an envelope as they finished. They said nothing else, simply left as silently as they had come. I waited till they were gone, then closed the door and locked it. Carrying the envelope unopened, I returned to Herne and Marilee.
“What is it?” he asked.
I held my breath, opening the envelope. There was a death certificate for Farthing, stating that he had died of a heart attack, and a cashier’s check for one hundred thousand dollars. Saílle worked fast, I had to give her that. My grandfather was probably worth ten times that, but it didn’t matter to me. I stared at the check for a moment and then silently walked over to my purse, slipping it inside.
“I never in the world thought that this would be the way today ended.” I wasn’t even sure how I felt. I was still shaking from the adrenaline rush, feeling numb and angry and scared all at the same time. Finally, I turned around and looked at Herne and Marilee.
“It will be all right, love.” Herne looked pained, but it wasn’t annoyance on his face. Instead, he looked concerned.
Marilee stood and stretched. “I’m going home to mix you up a potion. It will help you sleep tonight, and it will also soothe the Leannan Sidhe side, though I doubt if you will be seeing much of her for the next few days. What you just did was extremely powerful, and will soothe her hunger for quite some time. Your grandfather possessed a lot of energy and she drank him down.”
“His…energy…won’t taint me, will it?” I had been afraid to ask the question before.
Marilee shook her head. “No. Think of it like fuel.”
“True enough, but if you put tainted fuel into a car, it ruins the engine.”
“Here’s a better analogy. You need so many calories to function. Vitamins, protein, carbs, none of them play into this. Just calories. In that case, it doesn’t matter if they come from cookies or ice cream or brocc
oli or steak. All that matters is that you consume enough calories. That’s the way that the Leannan Sidhe work. When they’re hungry, it doesn’t matter what kind of person they feed from. They have their preferences, yes, but it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a person.”
That didn’t exactly make me feel any better, but it did calm me down.
As Marilee headed out the door, Angel walked in. Rafé wasn’t with her, and she looked worried.
“Is your date over?” I asked.
She nodded. “I had a feeling something was wrong, so I took a rain check on the rest of the night. We have a date for Saturday. What’s going on?” She glanced at Herne, then back at me. “Why was Marilee here?”
I didn’t know if I could explain myself yet again.
Herne turned toward me. “I know it’s probably cold by now, but why don’t you eat a few pieces of that pizza? Your mother’s blood may have gotten its fill of energy, but I think you need more than that. You need actual food. I’ll explain what happened to Angel.” He stood, motioning for Angel to follow him into the kitchen.
As she followed him, I leaned forward, staring at the pizza box before silently flipping the lid. The pizza was cold, but that never had stopped me before. I wasn’t hungry, or at least I didn’t think I was, but when I finally picked up a piece and took the first bite, my stomach rumbled and I realized I was starved. As I began to chew, Mr. Rumblebutt came running into the room, giving me a look like, can I come down now?
“Come here, you little twerp.” Leaning back on the sofa, I polished off first one slice and then a second one, with Mr. Rumblebutt rubbing his head against my leg.
At that moment, Angel and Herne emerged from the kitchen, Angel’s expression strained.
“What can I do? Let me go heat this up for you,” she said, picking up the pizza box and grabbing the slice out of my hand. As she headed into the kitchen, I glanced at Herne.
“What did she say?”
“She’s worried, of course. But she’s glad your grandfather’s gone. And frankly, so am I. I’ve already texted my mother.” He paused, reaching to brush a stray hair away from my face. “I’m so sorry, love. I feel I should stay here tonight.”
“No,” I said. “Go home to Danielle. She’s only here through Sunday. Angel’s home now, and Marilee will be returning with a sleeping draught for me. I’ll be all right. My grandfather can’t hurt me now. That’s the one upshot to this whole horrible experience.”
Even as I said it, I wasn’t sure. This house had experienced murder before, and had trapped the ghosts within its walls. Part of me was afraid my grandfather might be trapped here, he had so much anger in his heart. But I didn’t want to give voice to the thought, because sometimes thoughts created reality.
“I guess I’ll be going then. Call me if you need anything—anything at all.” He kissed me. As he left, Marilee returned.
She handed me a little bag of powder. “Put this in your tea or milk tonight. It will help you sleep.”
Angel returned with the pizza, all warmed up. She also brought me a cup of hot cocoa. As she settled down beside me, she glanced at Marilee.
“Will Ember be okay tonight? Is there anything we have to watch for?”
Marilee shook her head. “I’ll sleep on the sofa. That way, if you need me, I’m here. Pour the powder in your cocoa, it won’t make it taste bad.”
I chugged down the cocoa, and ate a few pieces of pizza. We watched TV for another half hour, and I found myself beginning to yawn. Marilee noticed and motioned for me to go to bed. After bidding her good night, I headed up the stairs to my room while Angel found her a pillow and a blanket. I had been afraid that I would lay awake, reliving the incident over and over, but the moment I slid into bed and my head touched the pillow, I was out like a light. And I slept the entire night without interruptions.
Chapter 19
BY MORNING, I was breathing easier. Marilee left as soon as I woke up.
“Why don’t we skip tonight’s meeting,” she said. “You need to be relaxed for it, and after last night, I think you need a break. I’ll see you Saturday.”
Relieved, I waved her out. Angel was making breakfast. I looked around the kitchen, trying to erase the memory of my grandfather’s body stretched out on the floor, but I kept coming back to the image. To the memory that he had tried to kill me.
There was no sign that he had been there. In fact, the floor looked freshly mopped and I suspected I had Angel to thank for that, but in my mind, I couldn’t get away from the picture of him, splayed out after I had siphoned off his life energy.
“How do you deal with the fact that someone who’s supposed to love you wants you dead?” I shook my head. “I don’t know how to work through this. I mean, I knew he was behind my father’s death, but after confronting him at the Parley, I thought that we were over and done.”
“Well, you can be sure it’s finished now,” Angel said. “He’s gone and he’s not coming back. I suggest we ask Kipa over to make certain there aren’t any lingering wisps of his spirit. He seems pretty good at that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, but we ask Herne along with him. When Herne found out that you and I had partied with Kipa, I thought he was going to blow a gasket.” I finally let Angel ease me into a chair and picked at the toast she handed me. She was finishing up the bacon and eggs when my work phone rang. I frowned. “It’s Herne.”
I answered, wondering why he would be calling us when he knew we were coming in, anyway. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Ember, I know you’re probably still rattled from last night, but we need you and Angel here right away. Can you make it in twenty minutes?” He didn’t sound frantic, but he did sound worried.
“Sure, we’ll be there asap.” I hung up. “I wonder what’s going down now. Breakfast needs to be to-go this morning. Herne asked if we could be there in twenty minutes.”
Angel snorted. “Just our luck. Okay, here.” She pulled some pita bread out of the refrigerator and filled the pockets with the eggs, bacon, and some cheese, then wrapped them in foil. “We can eat when we get there. Come on. I fed Mr. Rumblebutt, so he’s fine.”
As we grabbed our jackets and headed toward the door, I wondered what had happened to have Herne so anxious.
WHEN WE ARRIVED at the office, the others were in the break room, waiting. Angel and I slid into our places and unwrapped our pita sandwiches. Angel popped them in the oven to melt the cheese while Herne rapped his fingers on the table. Finally, we were ready.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Herne motioned to Yutani. “Tell them what you figured out.”
Yutani gave him a nod. “Right. So, I was looking at the four murders, and at the newest abduction attempt, and the calendar. I noticed that the dead men all went missing about a week before the lunar cycles—the full and the new moon. Our latest abduction attempt on Sunday happened a week before the moon’s due to be new. If Lucius is true to his pattern, he’ll make another attempt today or tomorrow, and because from this, I surmise that he’s sacrificing these men on the days of the new and full moon itself.”
“That would correlate with my news,” Viktor said. “Erica contacted me. It’s too hard to tell with the other three men—they were too far gone—but they estimate that Ulstair died right around the full moon. He was eviscerated. His stomach was splayed open, and they noticed numerous markings that could have been made by bird beaks. My thought is that Lucius is opening them up, then offering them to the Morrígan as a sacrifice.”
“But she’s not listening to him. She didn’t seem to realize that he was doing this,” I said.
“The gods aren’t omnipotent,” Herne said. “She kicked him out of the priesthood, so there would be no reason for her to keep track of him. And he thought he was winning her back.”
“Then, to feed his desire to appease her, Lucius will try for another sacrifice.” Angel frowned, staring at her notes. “But how easy is it for h
im to find someone who looks like Garrison? What if he can’t find somebody who looks like that? Will he accept a substitute?”
“I don’t know,” Herne said. “We’re dealing with a whack-a-doodle here. He already stepped over the window onto the ledge, so to speak. Who knows if he’ll actually jump?”
“We need to stop him before he strikes again,” I said. “If he’s desperate, he may just kill the next victim on the spot. Do we just go arrest him? How do we approach this?”
Herne leaned back in his chair, considering the question. “Given he’s outside the Dark Court’s notice—on their ‘list’—I think we can safely go in and take him into custody. We’ll give him to the Morrígan. She wants us to turn him over to her if we catch him alive.”
“We’re kind of our own little band of authority, aren’t we?” I had gradually come to realize that we had been given a great deal of leeway, as long as we weren’t obvious about it.
“We are, at that. But there’s a tight line we walk, balanced between the Fae Courts, the police, and the gods. All right, Viktor, Yutani, Ember, you’re with me. The Morrígan said that he doesn’t use much magic, but so here’s hoping we’ll be able to take him down.” His expression grim, Herne motioned to the rest of us.
We took two cars. Yutani rode with me for a change, while Viktor called shotgun with Herne. I had a feeling that Herne and Yutani’s relationship was still strained, and it probably would be for some time, and that was why Yutani was sitting in my passenger seat.
On the way to Lucius’s house, I told Yutani what happened the night before.
“He actually came to your house to force an ultimatum? After Saílle told him to leave you alone? He must’ve been crazed.”
I shrugged. “It’s going to take me some time to process what happened. There’s a part of me—and I don’t particularly like that part—who’s absolutely thrilled the man is dead. I feel like I’ve avenged my parents to some degree. There can never be justice for what happened to them, but there’s this gleeful little voice inside that is pointing at my grandfather’s spirit and laughing, saying, ‘You’re dead, you’re dead, you can’t hurt me or anybody else again!’ I’m not sure how to cope with those feelings. I’m not a gentle person, in many ways. But I didn’t realize I was so vengeful.”
A Shadow of Crows Page 22