A Crack in Everything

by Ruth Frances Long

  ‘Oh,’ he told her in arctic tones. ‘I have a heart, little girl. And one that feels more than you could ever imagine.’

  ‘Shame,’ she spat back at him, ready to fight now, desperate to fight. ‘You never show it.’

  Jinx released one hand, still pinning her before him with the vice-like grip of the other. He was too strong for her to pull away. He gathered her tears on his fingertips as best he could and shook them out into the water. She gasped as he gently enfolded her in more careful arms. She could feel his heart beneath his chest as he pulled her to him, so fast, so angry, so hurt. Just like her own. His touch softened and he lay his head atop hers. ‘Oh, Izzy,’ he sighed. Pain filled his voice, the pain she was feeling, but she didn’t care, didn’t understand, didn’t want to.

  A seal head popped up out of the water, watching them with limpid eyes. Jinx let Izzy go and she slumped down, back onto the rock, her misery complete. He’d used her, said those dreadful things to get the tears he needed. She cried to herself now. For herself. Who would care if they heard her?

  ‘We mean no harm,’ Jinx was saying in calm, respectful tones. ‘We just need to get to land and be on our way. It’s Sídhe business and I have no wish to be here when the merrow return. Nor do you. Please. There’s nothing in either of us to threaten you.’

  Izzy’s vision blurred as more tears poured from her eyes. The things he’d said – was that really how he saw her? Nothing more than a pathetic little girl? And how was she acting now, her own voice raged inside her.

  ‘Hush, Isabel,’ Sorath tried to soothe her pain and anger with soft words of comfort. ‘Pay him no mind. He’s but a fool. I’m here. Hush now.’

  The seal’s face blurred, sank back beneath the water and when it re-emerged, it wasn’t a seal anymore, but a man. A handsome man with the clearest brown eyes she’d ever seen. He reached up and touched her lips, and then her cheeks. He came away with her tears and rubbed his fingers and thumb together as if testing the liquid. He brought it to his mouth, his full, sensual lips tasting her pain.

  ‘Why would you do this?’ His voice resonated deep inside her, like music, but he wasn’t speaking to Izzy. All his attention was upon Jinx.

  ‘It was necessary.’ So cold, so formal, and withdrawn.

  The selkie stroked Izzy’s cheek again with his cold, wet hand. ‘Many things are necessary, but this was not kind, Cú Sídhe.’ He cast solemn eyes over Jinx’s body, glinting as his gaze alighted on his various piercings.

  Jinx hesitated for a moment. There was a hitch in his voice as he spoke again. ‘But still necessary.’

  The selkie pursed his lips as if he didn’t quite believe it and wondered whether to call Jinx’s bluff. ‘Your names and your kin, if you will.’ He looked back at Izzy again and she gazed at him, bewitched. She’d never seen anything quite so beautiful. Unless she counted Jinx.

  Which she didn’t. Couldn’t. Not now.

  ‘Jinx by Jasper, Holly’s kith.’

  The selkie’s nostrils flared and he raised his perfect eyebrows.

  ‘Your father means little to us, your matriarch less. We aren’t dogs. Who gave you life, Jinx by Jasper?’

  Again, Jinx hesitated, reluctant. This time even Izzy turned to stare at him. He looked like a child caught in a lie. He shifted his feet, knotted his hands together. ‘Why does it matter?’

  The selkie scoffed. ‘Don’t you know? Did she deny you? Are you bastard in fact as well as in action?’

  Jinx snarled at him. ‘Belladonna.’ The word came out of his gritted teeth like a curse.

  There was silence, but for the lapping of the sea against the rock and the rise and fall of their breath.

  The selkie sighed. ‘Ah. Son of a traitor then. Son of a turncoat. Suddenly so much makes sense. And you, sweet one?’

  Izzy opened her mouth but her voice failed as, unbidden, Sorath surged to the forefront of her mind.

  ‘Tell them nothing. They’ll use such information. Use it against us both.’

  ‘Izzy?’ Jinx prompted, his tone wary with concern. ‘We need to get off this rock, remember?’

  As if she’d listen to him after what he’d just done. As if she needed him. She didn’t. She could make her own way to shore. In her mind’s eye she could see it, standing tall and proud with her arms stretched out to either side while behind her eagle wings would spread out, wings spun of gold and light and divine will. Wings which would carry her aloft and beyond the realms of mortality. She could stand up now, take to the air and soar like an—

  ‘Izzy!’ Jinx’s hand closed on her shoulder, fingertips brushing the edge of the mark which burst into incandescent heat. She hissed, recoiling from both his touch and the selkie.

  She was standing on the edge of the rock, arms outstretched, ready to jump. The sea boiled beneath her. A step back put her right against Jinx’s body. The heat, the hard lines of him, the scent – it was almost overwhelming. Her head lurched inside, as if something it couldn’t hope to contain struggled to get out and then withdrew, to wait for another day.

  Jinx slid his arms around her waist, held her loosely against him, and she shivered. Why did it feel good? Why when he could reduce her to tears with just a few well-chosen words? How did he have that sort of power over her?

  Other guys had never made her feel anything at all. The guys her age, the older brothers of her friends … sure, she knew the other girls fancied them, talked about them, but they left her indifferent. She’d wondered if she’d ever find someone to match her ideal, who could make her feel so strongly, so passionately, and now she had … and everything was pain. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.

  ‘Isabel Gregory,’ she told the selkie with more force than she thought left inside her. ‘I’m just Isabel Gregory.’

  The selkie frowned, his gaze lifting to meet Jinx’s over her shoulder, and then returning to her face, to study her. ‘Then you may go,’ he said gently. ‘But beware, Isabel, of a man who would use your tears thus. No good will come of it.’

  She shook herself free of Jinx and stepped out of his reach, folding her arms tightly across her chest, hugging her jacket close around her. The slim shape of the phone in her pocket reminded her of Dylan and suddenly she longed to talk to him, even just to hear his voice. To reach out to someone normal and embrace reality again. To take back her normal life.

  The selkie had fixed his attention on Jinx and after a moment he spoke again, his voice less kind, his words harder. ‘And beware too, son of a traitor, for you will and must pay for your actions here today. In pain, in regret, aye, and in blood. It came too easily, didn’t it? Cruel words. We Oracles speak cruel words and you’ve heard too many yourself. It’s a small thing to turn them on another, but no less cruel for that. More perhaps, knowing their poisoned barbs so well.’ He waved a hand and the sea withdrew from the shore like a time-lapsed film, sweeping him away in its embrace. ‘You should tell her you are sorry.’

  The Cú Sídhe hung his head. ‘You know I can’t. None of the Sídhe can. Our ancestors swore it when they were expelled from heaven. Don’t you recall?’

  The Oracle’s voice drifted back to them across the water. ‘What I recall … you couldn’t imagine.’ Jinx and Izzy watched him go, until they could see him no more, and the rocks revealed a path to the shore. Jinx jumped down, testing the footing.

  ‘Oracle of the sea, my arse,’ he muttered and then held his hand out to Izzy, who stared at it as if it was poison. ‘Let’s go,’ he snapped. ‘You want to help your father, right? And Silver needs us.’

  The sun shone on him, glinting off the silver piercings decorating his body, binding him.

  Izzy’s body froze there, trapped by what she saw, what she realised.

  He’d had silver all the time.

  His words still reverberated through her mind. Any tender feelings she’d been developing for him twisted in on themselves like a plant starved of water, baking in the hot sun. Was he going to pretend nothing had happened? That he hadn’
t kissed her like she was his only salvation? That he hadn’t used her to call the selkie? That he hadn’t said all those terrible things? When he could have just taken out one of the rings piercing his flesh and used that? She shrivelled inside.

  ‘Izzy, we don’t have time for this.’ He thrust his hand at her again. ‘What do you want, an apology? I’m Sídhe. Let’s get moving.’

  ‘The Sídhe can’t say they are sorry for anything,’ Sorath whispered. ‘Not until they say it before the Creator, and they took blood oaths that none of them would ever do so. And because they can’t say they are sorry they can never be forgiven. They are rebels, eternally cursed. Listen to me, Isabel and I can help you get the grail. We’ll heal your father together. I can do it, if you let me take charge, just for a while. And perhaps … perhaps we’ll make Jinx sorry.’

  ‘All right,’ Izzy whispered to the angel, though the grim line of Jinx’s mouth relaxed as if she had just agreed with him. If she couldn’t trust an angel, who could she trust? So why did her stomach flutter in panic as she said it? Why did the mark on her neck turn to ice? Why did it feel wrong? It shouldn’t. Sorath had driven away the other angels and saved Dylan, she’d shown Izzy how to get rid of the merrow, she’d told her the truth. Jinx wouldn’t even apologise for using her tears to escape when he could have just used a single silver ring.

  But she didn’t just want Jinx to apologise. A desperate need burned in her. She wanted him to beg for forgiveness. And then she wanted to deny it.

  Ignoring his proffered hand, she jumped down off the rock and skidded across the slick rocks, making her uncertain way towards the shore. She might have walked at Jinx’s side, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Broken Branches

  Dylan paced the upstairs hall, back and forth, unable to settle, unable to let go of the phone in his hand, unable to stop or leave his family. How could he? His sister was dead. They needed him.

  But so did Izzy. He couldn’t abandon her now.

  Sure, Jinx would protect her, for as long as it suited him. For as long as whatever hold the geis had over him continued.

  Dylan hadn’t been able to help Mari, even standing a few feet away from her, but maybe … just maybe, he could help Izzy. He had to try.

  And then there was Silver to think of. Part of him didn’t want to. He knew she was dangerous. Especially to him.

  Lost, alone, in pain. Dylan shuddered to think of it. Silver was in danger and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing. Except send the others off and wait here in case they needed him.

  The madness of it all swept over him in a wave of despair that robbed his breath and left him nauseous. Mari’s face still hung in his mind’s eye, staring at the ceiling of the coffee shop, shards of glass all around her. But then again, so did Silver’s, weak and desperate, afraid in the dark on the hillside. Izzy, standing there pale and resolute, with more steel in her than he’d ever seen in anyone, had promised him, had sworn on her life, that she’d help him.

  Dylan paced back and forth, pausing only to glance in on his mother. Sleeping tablets had claimed her consciousness quickly enough while downstairs his dad was drinking glass after glass of whiskey with Uncle Joe. His aunt and cousins clattered around in the kitchen, cooking enough food to feed an army. They didn’t need him here. And he couldn’t afford to involve them in the world that he’d stumbled into, the world that had taken Mari from them.

  Azazel’s words came back to him. The shades would follow him here. Maybe they already had. He couldn’t risk his family. He couldn’t lose anyone else he loved.

  Ever since the music in the alley, ever since he had heard Silver’s voice, he had changed. Izzy too. Changed beyond recognition.

  Isabel Gregory shone with strength and determination. She was a good friend, loyal and kind. His friend. Izzy was brave too, braver than he’d felt, standing in front of Brí, facing Azazel on the hillside. Half-blood, they called her and couldn’t see how that made her stronger than any of them.

  Stronger than Silver, as it turned out. Silver without her power was helpless.

  Silver … the thought of her made something in his heart give a little twist. Where was she? She’d sounded so … lost, helpless. And he’d handed the phone over to Jinx. Like Silver didn’t matter to him at all.

  Well, she shouldn’t. If they hadn’t met Silver, wouldn’t Mari still be alive, irritating him and bitching behind his back? If he hadn’t met Silver … would he be happy?

  He couldn’t answer either question. All he knew was that Silver mattered. That he needed to see her again, needed to know she was all right.

  He checked the phone again. Sent another message. Waited. No answer.

  Fuck this, he told himself. Fuck all this.

  He was out the door before he had a chance to second guess himself.

  The alleyway leading to the hollow was deserted. It smelled of ashes and vomit and Jinx paused, experiencing an eerie sense of wrongness. The place felt empty. A cold breeze whistled against the ancient stone walls and he’d never heard the Sídhe-ways so silent. Not here, in the heart of Dubh Linn. Silver’s hollow, small though it was, had always been a hive of life, a hub of chaos.

  His home.

  Now it felt dead and empty, and he hadn’t even gone inside yet. Warning clung to the threshold, ominous with unspoken threats.

  Izzy shifted from foot to foot. Her silence was unsettling him as well. Maybe that was all it was – her silence, her pain, and the guilt that gnawed away inside him.

  They were never going to get off that bloody rock if he hadn’t made her cry. So he had. And he hated himself for having done it. The silver piercing his body didn’t come out, would never come out, because Holly had put it there. It was an enchantment. But Izzy didn’t know that. And pride wouldn’t let him tell her.

  It didn’t matter though. What was done, was done. He couldn’t take back anything he had said. And she wouldn’t forget it either. Which might offer her some sort of meagre protection at last. No ‘sorry’ could make it better, even if he could force the words from his mouth. The selkie had been right. What scared Jinx more was how easy it had been. Words like those that had been turned on him in childhood came too readily to his mouth. He hated himself for it, for becoming like Holly and her ilk. For using her cruellest lessons to his advantage.

  What he’d done had been necessary. That didn’t make him feel any less of a bastard. She didn’t deserve that sort of treatment, no one did. He, of all people, knew that. But he couldn’t allow her to get any closer to him. She was liability enough already.

  ‘Aren’t we going in?’ Izzy asked.

  He swallowed down guilt and anxiety onto a roiling stomach. ‘Stay behind me. Get ready to run if anything happens.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ she muttered as she fell in behind him. ‘First sign of trouble and you’re on your own. I just want the grail.’

  ‘And you’ll get it. But I need to make sure Silver is okay first. Like we promised.’ He glanced back to meet her narrowed eyes, almost entirely Sídhe in the dim light, betraying her blood more than anything else about her. Where was the glow he’d seen in her that first day? It had dulled to no more than a flicker now. She gazed back at him with hard, untrusting eyes and looked so cold. ‘Just do what I say,’ he whispered, knowing she wouldn’t, hating that he’d squandered her trust.

  Then there was the matter of that kiss – forbidden, unwanted, intoxicating. Every time it flashed back into his mind his body reacted all over again. He wanted to grab her and kiss her, to take his time and do it thoroughly. But she was Brí’s child. A half blood. And his mistress.

  Jinx gritted his teeth and opened the door.

  Nothing moved inside the hollow. The entire place was strangely silent. He tried the lights, but nothing happened. So still, so quiet.

  Then the smell hit him, beyond the normal reek of the place the morning after a night of revels. Someth
ing horribly familiar.

  Jinx put out a hand to stop Izzy. When his fingers touched her arm, she shied back. Slowly he exhaled and then drew in the scent, studying it in the way only Cú Sídhe could do.

  ‘What is it?’ Izzy asked, but he didn’t answer. How could he tell her that his home was daubed in blood and terror, that the very air stank of death and torture?

  ‘Holly was here.’

  ‘That’s what Silver said.’ Impatience tightened her voice. She didn’t understand.

  He felt the briefest itch against his skin as magic kindled behind him. Light blossomed in Izzy’s outstretched hand, a little ball of flames coiling round each other, bound up in a shell of her will, like a miniature sun swirling above her palm.

  ‘How did you—?’ Brí’s daughter, of course. Fire magic would come naturally to her, for all her human blood. The angel must have told her how. Who knew what Sorath or the Grigori side of her could make of that? Jinx knew nothing about them – human creatures, but not quite human. A hybrid? Was that what Silver had called them? A human-demon hybrid created long ago to … to what? Damn, he should have listened. She’d tried to teach him more than music, but he’d never wanted to learn the lore and dry histories of the races. What was the chance he would ever encounter a Grigori?

  Right. Hilarious now.

  ‘Sorath told me how,’ Izzy admitted. Of course, she had that advantage too, though Jinx wasn’t sure if that was the right description. The angel whispered in her ear, far beyond even his hearing. Jinx didn’t like it, but sometimes he sensed it. He was certain that cold stare he occasionally saw was the angel looking out at him from behind Izzy’s eyes. If he was in hound form his hackles would rise. There was more to this than a convenient accident. Had to be. Far too many coincidences were colliding – and he didn’t believe in coincidences to begin with.

  Izzy sucked in a tight breath and the fire flickered wildly. ‘Oh, shit.’