When Lucifer at last made it to the guest quarters that were supposed to be his, sunlight bathed the hills of forest outside the window. Lucifer shouldn’t have been surprised he found the woven blanket he’d made for Abigail missing. His heart sank. Just about everything else that could have gone wrong that evening had.
So much for Peter guarding the soul blanket with his life as a favor. Lucifer couldn’t imagine who would steal it. The loss of it weighed him down like a heavy shroud on his shoulders.
Lucifer had failed in his mission to put Abigail’s soul back in her body. He touched the amulet resting above his heart that contained her old soul. If he couldn’t convince the new Abigail to accept it, he was at a loss for what to do. He needed her to understand the seriousness of her situation. Now that he’d gazed upon Gertrude’s spirit and seen what a healthy soul was supposed to look like, he realized how fragile the condition of Abigail’s soul was, decaying at the edges and stretched precariously thin. He understood Baba’s health more fully as well.
His only consolation was that he had successfully stolen the Ruby of Divine Wisdom from Vega Bloodmire. He hoped it would give him the knowledge to heal Baba’s failing health and show him how to convince his Abby to accept her soul so that she wouldn’t wither into a monster with a stunted conscience.
There was no rest for the wicked, and he must have been very wicked because he had a lot of work left.
THE END
A Devil of a Time
Book 7
CHAPTER ONE
Hex It to Me
Lucifer Thatch transported himself home from the ball at the Raven Court’s castle, using the spell that Baba Nata, the Witch of Nightmares, had taught him. Stars twinkled in the sky, and the gloom of shadows filled the forest outside Baba’s cottage.
The dramatic change in time from one location in the Faerie Realm to the next didn’t bode well. Baba, the hedge witch he apprenticed with, had warned him he needed to be back before dawn for the patient she had divined would be coming. Worse yet, she’d bound him with an oath. She would punish him by turning him into a cat if he disobeyed.
Spindly shadows stretched toward him from the trees. He was either early or late. With his luck, he would probably be late.
With his luck, guards from the Raven Court would probably be waiting to arrest him the moment he set foot in Baba’s cottage, for stealing the Raven Queen’s Ruby of Divine Wisdom.
Lucifer Thatch had accomplished one of the tasks he’d been sent out to perform. He had stolen the ruby from Vega Bloodmire so that Baba Nata would be granted knowledge and be able to heal herself from her ailing health and old age. He still didn’t know why his sister Odette had handed over the scepter containing the ruby so readily.
He had a bad feeling the worst was yet to come.
The threadbare clothes he wore were loose and comfortable after the stuffy attire he’d been forced by his royal family to wear at the ball. He tore his long hair from the tie and let the wind rake through his wavy locks. It was liberating after hours of physical and social confinement. He only wished he’d been granted a greater opportunity to sleep.
He touched the amulet at his throat, comforted by the presence of Abigail’s soul close to him. Through his fatigue, he considered the other task he hadn’t been able to complete on his mission. He hadn’t replaced Abigail’s soul. He didn’t know whether what was inside her would grow twisted and deformed, trying to fill her body, but it certainly wasn’t healthy. It was as thin as gossamer and decaying at the edges. He’d seen what Baba’s soul looked like, full of holes and patched together with magic. Perhaps it was simply a result of extended age, the wear and tear on a soul, repaired as well as it could be. He could only guess Abigail’s health would suffer like Baba’s as well.
Baba had told him that soon it would prove too difficult for Abigail’s body to accept her old soul.
To make matters worse, someone had stolen the blanket Lucifer had woven out of plants and magic to keep Abigail’s soul anchored in her body.
He didn’t know what to do with the revelation that the new Abigail didn’t want her old soul back. If only he had been able to convince her of the danger she was in. He didn’t know what to do with her old soul. Or how to prevent Abigail from becoming a sociopath now that she had refused to regrow her current soul and wouldn’t accept her old one.
As Lucifer walked along the path, he felt pain in the air, strong enough that he needed to shield his affinity before he came close to the gate. The labor pains were the worst of it, but the throbbing of toes—or where toes used to be—also burned in the air, making his own feet ache with every step. He prayed Baba hadn’t cut off Kelsie’s toes as a consequence of him arriving late.
Lucifer hurried forward, wanting to make sure he was able to help the woman in labor before she suffered further. He needed to ensure no one was hurt again in order to heal a patient.
The cottage reeked of blood and Fae magic. Kelsie’s hands were covered in black fluid. Some of it was smeared in her bright blue hair. Baba sat in her chair, blankets draped over her lap as she rocked. Lucifer had never seen her fingers knit so quickly before, the needles clicking together in a rapid staccato as she worked magic.
The woman before her wasn’t human or Witchkin. It was rare a Fae conceived, though not impossible. The two largest factors in the past had been that most Fae were more interested in devouring Witchkin than using them to sire or conceive children and that Fae had lost the ability to breed without the assistance of Red affinities like Lucifer. Up until recently, Witchkin like Lucifer had been hiding their powers.
Vega Bloodmire’s ball might have changed that. Red affinities were out of the broom closet now and being accepted into normal Witchkin society.
He wondered who had fathered this Fae mother’s child.
“Lucy,” the woman panted, reaching a hand out to him.
“That’s right,” Kelsie sank back onto the floor, her relief evident. “Your midwife is here.”
The woman knew his name, but he had no idea who she was. Her hair was a mixture of stringy clumps and snakes. Black tears streaked down her weathered blue face. Her spindly limbs were closer to that of an aged woman than one young enough to bear the life bulging her midsection outward. What little she wore that might have passed for clothes looked like algae and slime.
“Do I know you?” Lucy kneeled beside her and took her hand. He wicked away the pain and fed it into his core to use for healing.
She sighed in relief. “It’s me, Lucy. Morag.”
The Morag he knew was a muileateach who lived in a swamp with other swamp maidens. She was young and beautiful.
“What happened to you? Are you all right?” He stroked her hand. “Did this baby do this to you?”
Baba clucked her tongue at him. “Muileateach are old women. You are too blind to see glamour they throw over you.”
He’d always considered his second sight to be superior to most Witchkin. Perhaps he’d been wrong.
He placed a hand on Morag’s belly. “How did you get pregnant? Who did this to you?”
“You did, Lucy.”
CHAPTER TWO
Complications of Fatherhood
Lucifer stared at Morag in horror. “Me? Are you certain?”
The words of Prince Mixcoatl of the Verde Court echoed in his brain; he might have heirs, even if he didn’t know he did. Somehow the Fae noble who had been Izzy’s former lover had known more about Lucifer than he did about himself. Lucifer was a Red affinity, and that granted him fertility others lacked. Lucifer shook his head.
Baba clucked her tongue again. “There is time to speak of your frequent visits to forest and consequences later. Right now, you have baby to deliver.”
The delivery was long and difficult. The baby was turned the wrong way. Morag was much older than Lucifer had ever guessed. A five-hundred-year-old woman wasn’t meant to deliver a baby. Even with all the midwife skills he’d l
earned and his Red affinity magic, he didn’t know how to coax a baby out that didn’t want to be born.
“Mother needs operation,” Baba said. “You are capable of wicking away pain and healing afterward. Kelsie will help staunch bleeding.”
Kelsie looked as if she might vomit at any moment.
Lucifer operated, sealing up the injuries with magic as soon as it was over. He could use his affinity to heal, but he had no way of bringing back the blood she lost. Morag was weak, even with the energy he infused into her. Baba sat in her chair, face pale from exhaustion.
Morag died before dawn. He would have to bury her, but he didn’t have the energy for it at the moment.
He stared at her still and silent form on the floor. “I came before dawn just like you told me.” That wasn’t completely true. He’d left at dawn.
“It is not your fault. Time sped up. You couldn’t have known,” Baba said.
Kelsie dipped a rag in goat’s milk and fed the baby. The creature was twisted and hideous, worse than Izzy’s baby, though he knew that would change. Witchkin babies never stayed looking like little monsters.
This was his little monster.
“What will I do with the baby?” Lucifer asked. “How will I take care of him?”
What would Abigail say when she found out? A tryst with Gertrude Periwinkle was bad enough. Knowing he had sired a child—perhaps more than one child—was far worse.
He placed a hand on Baba’s, suddenly wobbling as new pain blossomed in his feet. He folded back the blanket, spying what he had felt before but forgotten. Her feet were bandaged. Blood had soaked through the white linen.
His voice came out a croak. “Baba, you cut off your toes?”
“I had to. Kelsie will need hers for running. Hers will not grow back like Abby’s.”
Nor, did Lucifer think, would hers.
He kneeled before her chair and took one of her feet in his hand. He was exhausted from lack of sleep and from using so much magic, but his work wasn’t done yet.
“Is there a spell for regrowing toes?” he asked.
“Nyet. Or if there is, it would take wisdom I do not have.”
Wisdom.
“What about the Ruby of Divine Wisdom?” Lucifer stood, both him and Baba wincing as the weight of the blanket rested against her mutilated feet. “I sent it home. Through the portal. Did it work? You got it. I can use it to heal you.”
Kelsie and Baba exchanged weary glances. Kelsie nodded to the corner where the staff rested by the kitchen cabinet. The reflection of firelight caught on the faceted jewel. Lucifer used a butter knife to pry the stone out of the scepter. He held it in his hands and closed his eyes, expecting to feel some kind of power surge through him.
“I don’t think it’s working.” He handed it to Baba.
“Can you not tell?” She held it up to the light. “It is paste.”
“What does that mean?” Lucifer asked. He thought he might have heard Abigail use that term before in the Morty Realm, something related to the quality of jewelry, but he didn’t quite understand it.
“It means it’s a piece of colored glass.” Kelsie bounced the baby. “It isn’t even a real ruby.”
“Oh,” Lucifer said. “But there’s still the unicorn horn.” He reached for the rest of the scepter with renewed determination.
From Baba’s exasperated expression he suspected the horn wasn’t going to be able to help her either. “The unicorns healed Abby’s toes. It isn’t attached to a living unicorn, but it will still work for healing, right?”
Baba grimaced. “It would if it were genuine.”
He lifted it. He couldn’t be certain, but it looked like it might have been carved from a gazelle’s horn.
The weight of failure pressed in on him. Odette was probably having a good laugh at him. No wonder she’d just given him the scepter. Probably Vega’s real ruby was stored somewhere safe. That made sense after witnessing the earlier attempted theft.
Lucifer had promised Baba he would bring her the ruby, and he’d let her down. He couldn’t heal her toes, and he couldn’t improve her aging health.
“You must heal without additional wisdom,” Baba said. “Perhaps you need to fuel yourself first.”
Lucifer glanced at the baby. He hated his affinity. He didn’t want to risk siring more children. His reticence must have shown in his expression.
“There is another way,” Baba said. “Electricity. Call down lightning. You are advanced enough to do so.”
“No,” he said firmly.
“I can help,” Kelsie said. “I’m Elementia. I’m good with weather magic.”
He’d felt her wind bluster enough times to know it was true. But lightning was unpredictable where it might strike.
“No,” he said again. “I won’t risk it. Not after what it did to Abby all those years ago. I don’t want it to drain anyone.”
Baba shrugged. “If you do not recharge your affinity, you will risk draining yourself instead.”
Her words mirrored those of Gertrude Periwinkle at the ball. She’d saved his life with sex.
Lucifer took up her foot again. “I’m fine. I don’t need to recharge with electricity or pleasure right now. I can use pain.”
He wasn’t as adept at using pain as pleasure to fuel his energy, but he closed his eyes and focused, converting the rays of pain radiating from Baba’s toes into a more palatable form of power.
He finished healing what was left of her toes. As he used his awareness to shift healing through her body, he became conscious of the strain on her heart. He attempted to alleviate it, but the threads holding her soul and body snapped away from him, straining against each other to draw back. Baba gasped and clasped her chest.
He drew back. “I’m sorry. What did I do wrong?”
“Too much magic for one day. Too much of wrong kind of magic.”
She had told him previously she was too old to handle incubus magic. Perhaps the electrical energy carried more pleasure and pain than her frail body could handle. The fabric of her soul, magic, and body was so pierced with holes and stitches, there wasn’t much to hold together anymore.
He suspected she needed an entire new soul. And an entire new body. He touched the vial around his throat, reassured by the closeness of Abigail’s soul, even if she didn’t want it. If only he could repair Baba’s soul as easily as he suspected he could fix an incomplete soul. But Baba’s wasn’t incomplete. It was as old and worn as the rest of her.
Baba patted his face. “Do not worry. You tell us what happened at ball now? You succeed in restoring Abigail?”
Regret wormed its way into his chest, making it difficult to breathe. At one time Baba wouldn’t have needed to ask. She knew everything. She could divine. Speaking of his failures was so much worse.
“No,” he said. “I couldn’t help her. She wouldn’t let me. She wouldn’t let me even feel her soul. Abigail doesn’t want me to restore her. She doesn’t want to be the other Abigail.”
Baba snorted. “Did you tell her you will not love her and only will marry her if you let her fix soul?”
“Baba!” Kelsie said. “That would be manipulative.”
Lucifer crossed his arms. “I didn’t tell her that.” Especially not after overhearing her conversation with Felix. He wouldn’t deserve her love if he did make such demands of her. “Everything went wrong. I lost her blanket. I didn’t get the ruby. I tried but—”
“Sometimes it is not about succeeding in the mission but learning lesson along way.” She said it, but from the way she frowned, he wasn’t sure she believed that.
“You’re saying you don’t mind that I didn’t bring you the ruby?” he asked, wishing she would tell him it was all right.
“I mind. But . . . hopefully you learn something that make you able to get it next time.” She smiled, cunning in her eyes.
Lucifer wasn’t certain he’d learned anything that would help him in the futur
e, but from Baba’s response, he suspected she felt otherwise.
CHAPTER THREE
Babe Magnet
Lucifer supposed his son wasn’t much to look at, being spindly and twisted. He smelled like the swamp rather than a baby. It took another day for the baby’s features to smooth. His cheeks turned pink and chubby.
With the dark fuzz of hair on the baby’s head that developed over the next day, the baby looked like him. He marveled over his little fingers and toes. Lucifer found he loved cuddling with the baby as he slept.
That’s when Lucifer found himself falling in love with his child. He felt an urge to protect this baby.
His baby.
“I think I’ll name him Galen. I’ve always liked that name,” Lucifer said.
Baba grunted noncommittally. She didn’t look up from her knitting.
Lucifer kissed the baby’s cheeks. Kelsie cooed at Galen, as smitten as he was. He could imagine Abigail holding his baby and smiling at Galen the same way she did with all the babies in the nursery. Perhaps she wouldn’t hold it against him that he had unwittingly sired a bairn. She seemed to understand the needs of his affinity.
If she could forgive him for his dalliances, she might be able to adore Galen. Once Lucifer finished with his apprenticeship, he would ask her to marry him. He would ask her if she could love this baby.
If she couldn’t find it in her heart to love this baby, Lucifer didn’t know what he would do. The idea of navigating the world without Abigail seemed intolerable, yet he wasn’t willing to give up Galen if she did insist he do so. Galen was his responsibility.
* * *
The other muileateach “maidens” came three mornings after Galen was born, while pockets of mist clung to the earth. The baby was asleep inside the cottage as Lucifer went about his morning chores.
He dropped the empty bucket he carried to collect water, startled to see them look more like the old and withered Morag the day she’d given birth than the beauties they’d glamoured themselves to be at the stream.
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