“Excuse me. We met before. The night of the ball,” Lucifer said. “Abby introduced us.”
“Abby?” the man turned in a full circle, as if looking for her in the garden, before eyeing Lucifer again. His eyes were drooping with fatigue. “Have you seen our Abby?”
The way he said “our” reminded Lucifer of how paternal and protective he’d been to Abigail when he’d met him before. This man didn’t seem to look at Lucifer as much as look through him. It was that fatigue pressing in on Yoshi.
Lucifer placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, trying to draw his attention back to this world. “I haven’t seen Abby lately. I thought I would ask you when you had last seen her,” Lucifer said. “You teach her plant magic, don’t you?”
The man rubbed his eyes. “Yesterday, I saw her. For a lesson.”
The man went back to examining the bases of the hedges.
“Are you all right?” Lucifer asked.
“Fine.”
Yoshi didn’t look fine. His eyes were ringed with blue.
The man crouched down and picked up a green ribbon. It looked like something Abigail might wear. Instinctively Lucifer reached out with his mind. There was a remnant of a childlike presence, but it wasn’t Abigail’s. Yoshi frowned and tucked the ribbon into his pocket.
“Do you know where she might have gone to?” Lucifer asked. “Do you think she ran away?”
“She has a boyfriend she’s always talking about. She might have run away with him.”
“I’m her boyfriend.” Or close to it.
Yoshi turned to look at him again. “Are you? Have we met?”
“Yes. At the ball.”
Yoshi rubbed his face. “Excuse me. I didn’t sleep last night. I was out searching the forest for her with her family.”
It touched Lucifer that her teacher should care enough to go to such efforts. Perhaps that was why Odette had been so prickly, lack of sleep. Then again, Odette had never been warm and friendly.
“I think she climbed out her window with Hattie. I found traces of her coming this way.”
“Did you? Are you a tracker?” The creases around Yoshi’s eyes deepened.
“More of a healer. I wasn’t looking for tracks, more like traces of magic from her soul.”
“Oh.” Yoshi’s eyes widened. “Don’t let me stop you. I’d like to see this.”
So much for her plant-magic teacher providing any useful clues. Lucifer closed his eyes and reached out for ghostly remnants. It was easier out here in the open to find the path where she and Hattie had gone together, as opposed to the more distant echoes of solely Abigail’s resonance from previous occasions.
Lucifer kept his eyes closed so that the sights of the garden didn’t distract him. He stubbed his toe on a rock in the path and nearly tripped. Yoshi grabbed his arm, his grip surprisingly firm for such a slender man.
“Excuse me,” Lucifer said.
Yoshi held Lucifer’s arm. “Keep going. Let’s see if you do better at tracking her than I have.”
Lucifer closed his eyes again, allowing Yoshi to hold on to him to keep him from tripping. He imagined this must have been something like the journey Abigail and Hattie had taken before, the blind girl holding on to Abigail. He still couldn’t fathom what would possess Abigail. Or Hattie.
He followed the thread of their journey, halting when he came to a wall. The remnants of blood and pain lingered. Lucifer opened his eyes and leaned closer to a stone fence. Mingling in with the white moonflowers and large green foliage were pink petals.
Lucifer shifted a leaf aside, careful to avoid the thorns hidden underneath.
“Ei!” Yoshi exclaimed. “I keep pulling those dog roses out, and they keep coming back.”
Lucifer’s heart quickened. “Have you had a visit from any leshi lately?”
“Yes. From time to time,” Yoshi said. “Abigail has a friend who comes to see her from the forest.”
Dread chilled the blood in Lucifer’s veins. “MacCoinneach?”
“Yes. Abigail said he’s a friend of yours. Is that correct?”
“I don’t know if he’s a friend. Especially now.” Lucifer shifted the bushy leaves aside and showed Yoshi the blood staining the thorns.
Mingling within the traces of Abigail’s magic and Hattie’s essence, Lucifer tasted the dark-bright energy of MacCoinneach’s leshi magic.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cues and Clues
Lucifer still didn’t understand Abigail’s motive for sneaking out her window with Hattie—probably in the middle of the night—but he knew where she’d exited the grounds. He thought back to the pink flower nestled in the pages of her copy of Pride and Prejudice. He should have realized it was there for a reason. Abigail had picked that flower. Or someone had given it to her.
“What do you know about this leshi? Do you know where he lives?” Lucifer asked.
Yoshi held up his hands and shook his head. “He’s your friend, not mine. Don’t you know where he lives?”
Unfortunately, MacCoinneach wandered the forest, setting up traps for animals in multiple locations.
Lucifer struggled not to panic. There had to be a way to use what they knew so far to their advantage. “Are kimuras similar to leshi?”
“We’re both a kind of tree sprite, but kimura Yokai don’t eat people.” Yoshi leaned forward, examining the thorns of the dog rose.
“Why would you let her associate with someone who might eat her?” Lucifer asked.
“Why wouldn’t I? She knew him.” Yoshi set off along the wall. “She said he was safe.”
Because Lucifer hadn’t explained how dangerous MacCoinneach was. He hadn’t wanted to scare her or prejudice her. But he would have warned her if he had known MacCoinneach was going to come see her.
To lure her.
“The leshi was only a child. He wasn’t skilled and didn’t use a glamour. I assumed he was Witchkin at first, but she told me he was Fae. Funny, me being a Fae myself and not catching that.” Yoshi laughed, the sound dry and brittle like tinder about to catch fire.
Yoshi pushed back a curtain of moonflowers and revealed a well-hidden gate. It would have been far easier to use than climbing over a wall so high. The metal of the gate squeaked as Yoshi pushed it open.
“You have to go tell Clarissa what we’ve found,” Lucifer said.
He needed to find MacCoinneach. He’d done it before in order to find leshi tears. Now he would need to do it again.
Lucifer used the spell Baba had taught him to transport himself back to her cottage. It was still dark when he arrived. The first tool he grabbed was the ax from the yard.
Baba sat in her chair, knitting so quickly her needles clicked together in a dance.
Kelsie was at the cauldron, stirring some foul-smelling concoction. A bottle of milk thistle and apple cider vinegar rested on the table. She was preparing some kind of brew for liver detoxifying. She looked up when he strode in.
“Kelsie, I think your moment has finally come,” he said. “You’ve always wanted to hunt a leshi. Now’s your chance to help me.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Go Down Singing
Kelsie examined the knives.
Too bad Baba didn’t have cold iron.
“Under bed there is special tool for you,” Baba said to Lucifer, jabbing a knitting needle toward her privacy curtain. “I keep it safe for all these years.”
Lucifer had to lay flat on the floor and reach as far as he could to feel the cold metal stick. He pulled it out, finding the copper pipe he’d once procured from the Morty Realm to use as a lightning rod. It had helped him funnel his magic, but it wasn’t like using a magic wand. He stared at the three-foot length of metal. This pipe had been Abigail’s undoing. If he hadn’t used his electricity to aim it at Coinneach, he wouldn’t have struck her accidentally. She wouldn’t have lost her Amni Plandai powers. So much could go wrong if he used it again.
He swall
owed. “No. I don’t want to use this.” He didn’t want to accidentally strike Kelsie or Abigail. He didn’t want to relive the past.
“You will have to use affinity as weapon if you want to survive, nyet?” Baba waved a needle at Kelsie. “You are with Elementia. Kelsie can call storm outside. You will call lightning.”
He set the rod down on the bed. He didn’t want it.
Kelsie picked it up and shoved it into his hands. “It’s time to hunt down our enemies. There’s no turning back now.”
He knew it was true.
* * *
Lucifer used a combination of divination and astral-projection tracking to search for MacCoinneach, starting by placing his awareness outside the castle where Abigail and Hattie had last been with the leshi. It was easier to follow MacCoinneach’s threads in the forest with two additional people accompanying him, even through portals. Lucifer recognized one place they had passed in the forest with a hollowed oak, which was where he had found MacCoinneach once before.
He used his recently learned portal spell to bring himself and Kelsie there. The forest was gloomy with morning light, the sky that was peeking through the barren boughs of trees overcast and gray.
“Why would he do this?” Kelsie asked.
“Revenge.” Lucifer stomped over decaying leaves. MacCoinneach hadn’t been the innocent child he’d pretended. “He remembers. You know how I told you that the old Abigail fed Coinneach her baked goods soaked in her blood to lure him? He’s had a taste of her blood, and now he’s ready to finish the job.”
“And Hattie?” Kelsie’s face was pale. “You suppose he lured her because he wanted to finish consuming her too?”
“That or he’s simply opportunistic. Why stop at one innocent girl when he could have two?”
As they traveled along the path, the leshi magic grew thicker. More trails of it crossed, the ghostly remnants wafting in the air with the perfume of roses, trees, and the hint of decay. The stink of rot increased as they headed through a patch of barren trees. There were no birds singing or chipmunks chattering here.
They were getting closer.
“Baba said you could raise a storm for me,” Lucifer said. “I think it’s time you started.”
He didn’t know if the wind and the scent of rain might drown out his ability to detect leshi magic, but he needed to arm himself with electricity before he encountered his enemy.
Last time Lucifer had used his electricity, Abigail had been drained and injured. He needed to proceed carefully, not just for Abigail’s sake but also for Kelsie’s. He didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.
The wind picked up, whipping Lucifer’s hair into his face. Trees creaked all around them. Kelsie lifted her arms to the sky. Rapture rang through her body as she drew in her element. The clouds above turned dark, churning with violence. Lucifer inhaled the perfume of ozone. The air was thick with humidity.
It had been a long time since Lucifer had called lightning to himself. He went over the steps in his mind to prevent getting burned—to prevent anyone else from being harmed. He strode away from Kelsie. She might have been able to call the elements and handle a storm, but that didn’t mean an electric shock wouldn’t harm her magic.
When he deemed he was far enough away, he lifted the copper pipe above his head, holding it like a lightning rod. He sang with the voice of the storm, calling out for the sky to hear him. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed so close that it shook the earth. He sang again.
Lucifer kept his eyes on Kelsie to ensure she remained far enough away to be safe. The wind blustered, clawing at Lucifer, but the air near Kelsie was calm. She was in the eye of the storm.
He was in the thick of the chaos. A branch on a nearby tree snapped and fell. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed again, this time closer. Lucifer pushed his will into his voice, reaching up into the sky to pluck up the electricity. He sang, and the lightning answered his call, shooting down through the rod he held and into his body.
Bright light flashed so brilliantly it was all he could see. The ringing in his ears was all he could hear. His head hurt, and his ears ached.
Lucifer drank in the pure energy, intense and raw, as it filled him. He sent it into his arms and legs, fortifying himself with shields. His affinity thrummed, wild and alive. Electricity danced over his skin. There was so much, he couldn’t contain it all. What Lucifer couldn’t hold on to, he sent into the ground under his feet to be reabsorbed.
It had been too long since Lucifer had done this. He had hated the way this magic had hurt Abigail. Yet now that it was dancing within him, he realized how much he had missed it. He wished he would have asked Kelsie to do this for him sooner. But he supposed he wouldn’t have considered it for any occasion less dire than this. Too much could go wrong.
His head felt light and dizzy. The bright brilliance passed. Lucifer fell to his knees and dropped the rod, clutching at the earth. He fought to hold on to the magic wanting to burst out of him. He needed that electricity. There was a good chance he would need to use it for fighting as well as healing.
Kelsie approached, though her voice sounded far away. Lucifer placed his hands over his ears, using a fraction of that energy he’d gained to soothe the vibrating bones in his ears and heal punctures in the membranes. He soothed the pain behind his eyes and used more energy to heal himself.
Kelsie kneeled in front of him. Tentatively she reached out a hand but withdrew it again. “Are you all right? I saw the lightning strike you.”
“That was the idea.” His voice came out hoarse, not sounding like his own.
He used the pipe to lift himself to his feet. His body ached.
With the abundance of energy swimming inside him, it was easy to direct some of that into healing himself. His affinity was happy, far more satiated than from sex, cuddling, or touch. Lightning was a pure and unforgiving master. He could only imagine what he might be able to do with this much energy if he had the ability to call storms as Kelsie did.
Lucifer used his magic to home in on the trail he’d followed earlier. The dark-bright magic of the leshi was easier to see, the remnants wafting in the air in misty clouds. What Lucifer had failed to realize previously was that it wasn’t the trail of one leshi crisscrossing this path.
It was the trail of many.
CHAPTER NINE
More Than One Way to Skin a Leshi
The trails of the leshi converged, so thick and suffocating Lucifer could no longer sense Abigail and Hattie’s more subtle presence buried under the stench of heavier magics. The air was thick with the breath of rot and fermenting meat. There was a sickly-sweet quality to the air, though Lucifer didn’t see any signs of Fae traps.
His mind raced to memories of the past, of finding people marinating in the bellies of giant plants. He prayed Abigail would not be fated to die this way.
Kelsie gagged and complained about the odor. Lucifer kept walking. Their magic crowded around a hill. His eyes easily saw through the glamour that hid the entrance to the cave. Lucifer ducked under the mouth of the entrance and crouched so he wouldn’t hit his head. His foot snapped a brittle twig in half, the sound echoing into the distance ahead.
Lucifer projected a small splinter of electricity into his palm, illuminating the space around him. The tunnel was made of limestone. He stepped on a mesh of roots intermingled with bones. A grinning skull rested on a perch of rocks. A shiver of apprehension wormed its way down Lucifer’s spine.
The farther he continued into the space, the more the space widened. Soon he could stand upright, though he had to avoid the spikes of stalactites projecting from the ceiling. Kelsie’s feet scuffed over bits of broken rock behind him. Water dripped, echoing in the distance.
“I don’t like this,” Kelsie whispered.
Neither did he.
The vast emptiness of the cavern stretched onward. His illumination no longer reached the ceiling and the walls. In some places he spotted roots th
at had forced themselves between cracks in the rocks. A mesh of vines covered the walls in a mess of fractals. The deeper they went, the colder it grew. High above them, holes pierced the ceiling. A patchwork of sunlight glittered on the ceiling like stars, illuminating a large cavern.
Lucifer extinguished his light. He focused on the leshi energy. It was everywhere, leading off in different directions. Different tunnels, he realized. A concentration of dark-bright magic filled one corner. Lucifer avoided a puddle and headed toward the energy.
A gasping breath came from up ahead. Vines crisscrossed the path in front of him, making it uneven and difficult to cross. Kelsie plunged forward, the ax raised. Lucifer put out a hand to stop her, but she marched on.
“Look!” she pointed.
He saw what she saw then.
Almost hidden in the shadows was a plant belly. The giant flower was low to the earth, closed around a large figure that might have been an adult human. Those flowers trapped people and filled with venomous wine that managed to make their victims complacent before eating away their flesh.
This plant belly wasn’t glowing as the ones Lucifer had previously encountered in the forest had been. Nor was it located on a towering stalk of a plant trunk. This one was low to the ground, easy for him to stumble over the bones and vines to reach. He wouldn’t have known anyone was alive within save for the pain hovering in a cloud above the area.
Lucifer reached out with his mind. A heartbeat fluttered like hummingbird wings. Her breath came in shallow puffs. Fear rattled through her. Pain throbbed in his shoulders and thighs when he probed too deeply into the area. She was still alive.
Kelsie dropped the ax and sliced through the thick skin of the petals with a knife.
“Careful,” Lucifer said, not wanting her enthusiasm to make her sloppy.
“Abby?” Kelsie’s voice came out strangled. “Baby, it’s all right. I’m here.”
Lucifer stepped on a mound of sticks, one of them snapping. A groan came from the twigs. Lucifer looked down, confused where the voice came from until he saw the glowing embers of MacCoinneach’s eyes staring up from the ground. Lucifer leapt back.
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