Betrayal

by Jennifer Blackstream

  “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine.” Peasblossom sat in my palm and crossed her arms, glaring around as she searched for whoever had dropped us in here. “I was holding onto your hair, and I let go just before you touched ground. But I hit my elbow!”

  She held up her arm to point said injured elbow in my direction. I laughed, a choked sound that might have been a sob. “I’m sorry. Let’s get you some honey.”

  Peasblossom got to her knees, holding on to my hand. I could see her expression, and my forced cheer wasn’t fooling her. Nor was the promise of honey distracting her. She knew danger when she felt it. Her gaze landed on the circle.

  “Who’s there?” she called out.

  A figure stepped out of the shadows at the far end of the chamber and let the firelight illuminate his features. His mouth was drawn in a tight line, his shoulders squared like a man facing an unpleasant task, determined to get it over with.

  “Jim.” I slowly rose to my feet, careful not to make any sudden moves. I couldn’t work any magic in this circle, and I didn’t like the expression on the wizard’s face. No reason to startle him into acting prematurely. “What’s going on?”

  He closed his hands into fists, then visibly forced himself to relax. “I don’t like being used.”

  “I didn’t use you,” I corrected him. “I asked for your help. You were recommended to me. I hired you to—”

  “You put a forgery in my hands,” Jim snapped. “You put an artifact that the owner didn’t know was a forgery into my hands.” He flung an arm out toward the shadows. “There’s a dragon out there who wants my blood, thanks to you.”

  “Not thanks to me,” I shot back. “Thanks to whoever stole the chalice. The real chalice.”

  Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. “You still think I’m stupid. You’re still trying to get away with it.” He stared at me, and I wasn’t sure if the disgust I read in his eyes was for me or himself. “You’re going to give back the chalice. The real one. And you’re going to tell Marilyn and her pet dragon that I had nothing to do with it.”

  He scoffed. “Not that it’s going to change anything. Part of them will always suspect me, always think I forced you to claim responsibility.” He started pacing, but his legs were too long and the space too narrow. He stopped and shoved a hand through his hair. When he looked at me again, there was a grim set to his jaw that made my stomach drop.

  “Examples must be made,” he said quietly.

  “Wait,” I blurted out. “Just…wait. This is all a huge misunderstanding. Think about it. Even if I wanted the artifacts, even if I planned to use them. You told me they were cursed. Why would I have gone through with any plans after I learned that?”

  “People have risked worse things for power,” Jim said simply.

  “I don’t want more power—I don’t need more power. I told you, I’m working a case. Someone stole the bowl, and I was hired to find the thief. That’s why I came to you for help.”

  “You’re lying,” Jim said softly.

  “I’m not—”

  “You weren’t ‘hired.’ You were ordered. Ordered to find all three artifacts by your sidhe master.”

  I snapped my mouth shut. Was he guessing, or—

  “Flint Valencia?” Jim asked.

  Oh, that was bad. That was really bad. Jim read my expression, saw the question before I asked it.

  “I spend a lot of time researching online auctions,” he said dryly. “Making sure some idiot doesn’t buy a real monkey’s paw or something equally destructive. I saw you for sale.” He tilted his head. “The auction was canceled before it ended, but it didn’t take much research to find out whoever put you up for sale didn’t have the right. You’d already been purchased.”

  “I don’t like being talked about like I’m a lamp, or some other object to—” I started.

  “Then stop selling yourself like one.”

  My temper flared. The frenzied magic inside me had nowhere to go. Not when I was well and truly trapped. I lifted Peasblossom to my shoulder, taking the time to make sure she was settled while I wrestled my anger under control.

  “You don’t know me.” My voice came out low, almost a whisper. It was the loudest I could manage without my voice breaking.

  “Don’t I? Let’s review.” He held up a finger. “You have a small fortune in your bank account. A small fortune that was put there by Anton Winters, a known criminal and a vampire.”

  My blood ran cold. How had he known about that?

  “Nothing to say?” he asked.

  “I worked one job for him. And it wasn’t anything I wasn’t already doing for the FBI.”

  “So your FBI partner knows all about it?” he asked. “Does Agent Bradford know that during that case, you were providing all that intel to the vampire?”

  I dug my fingernails into my palms. “It wasn’t safe for him to know that. He’s human. You know what Anton would do if he found out Andy knew what he was.”

  “The thief in that case, the one the vampire wanted you to find. What happened to them?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to, because I could see that he already knew.

  “Anton Winters has done a very good job of keeping his true nature from humans,” Jim said calmly. “But there is no Otherworlder that doesn’t know him. Doesn’t fear him. You can’t feign ignorance on this. You knew he was a criminal—a murderer. And you worked for him anyway. You have blood on your hands.”

  “No,” I bit out. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “And then there’s the fated auction,” he continued. “While you were there, you pursued a human child. She killed herself to get away from you.”

  “No,” I said sharply, stepping forward without meaning to. The energy of the circle snapped tight, stinging my skin and reminding me of my limitations. “If you knew anything about what was going on at Marilyn’s, then you’d know why she really killed herself,” I said quietly. “And you’d feel like a monster for laying the blame at my feet. I tried to save her, just like I tried to save them all.” My throat constricted, but I forced myself to keep talking. “I didn’t fail all of them. I saved everyone I could.”

  Jim stared at me. “You really believe that.”

  “Yes,” I said vehemently.

  “You see yourself as one of the good guys.”

  He sounded almost bewildered. It wasn’t until that moment that it hit me. That looming sense of dread that usually only Flint could bring out. I studied Jim, searched his face for some sign he was toying with me, being deliberately cruel.

  “Are you telling me,” I started slowly. “That you think I’m…” I couldn’t even say it.

  “Ruthless? Corrupt?” Again, he looked at me like he couldn’t believe I hadn’t dropped the act yet. “Yes.”

  I closed my eyes, then forced them open again. “The research you mentioned, about me.”

  “I talked to people,” he said carefully.

  My legs trembled with the need to sit down, but I locked them to keep myself upright. “Then others see me as…”

  “A bad guy.” He frowned. “You’re really surprised.”

  Tears burned my eyes, and that just made me angry. Angrier. I gritted my teeth. I would not cry in front of this jerk. I would not.

  “How are you surprised?” he demanded incredulously. “You worked for the vampire.”

  “I was working that case for the FBI. They were in no position to deal with the thief, and Anton was.”

  “And is meeting him at the opera tonight—joining him and his wife in their private box—also part of your work for the FBI?”

  “You’ve been following me?” I sounded as horrified as I felt.

  He didn’t answer that. “And then there’s the fact that you’re working for Flint Valencia.”

  “Because I sold myself to him to save those kids,” I snapped. “Are you conveniently forgetting that part? Grayson—”

  “Grayson was saved when your FBI partn
er shot the kelpie who owned him,” Jim interrupted.

  My face flushed. “And he’d have been killed if Marilyn hadn’t agreed to obey the human interpretation of the contracts. I did that. If I hadn’t put myself up for auction, then Andy never would have convinced the Vanguard to void the contracts. I changed the case law. I didn’t just save those kids, I saved all the kids that would have been next.”

  “All the underage kids,” Jim agreed. “But like you said, that was to save your partner. And he is useful to you, isn’t he? FBI access? I’d imagine both the vampire and Flint can appreciate that.”

  I pressed my lips together and squeezed my eyes shut. I was going to throw up. Or explode. I was so sick and tired of people twisting things around, taking my successes and making them into something horrible. If I were half the villain he thought I was, he’d be afraid for his life right now—I’d make him afraid for his life.

  “This can’t come as a shock to you,” Jim said, a hint of frustration creeping into his voice. “I’m not a fool. I know the artifacts belong to Flint’s bloodline. I know he wants them for himself.”

  My eyes flew open. “What did you say?”

  Jim’s face darkened. “No. No, don’t try to tell me you didn’t know the artifacts belonged to his family. Next you’re going to tell me you didn’t know that once the items are stolen from their original owners, the curses on the individual items are void until they’re returned to their owners? So technically, if one thief stole the items from the rightful owners, they would suffer the curses, but someone stealing the items from the thief wouldn’t suffer them? You can’t tell me your master doesn’t know that.”

  “He told me to find the bowl that was stolen,” I said, the wheels in my brain spinning with the new information. “He said find the thief. Return all the items to their owners.”

  “Riiight,” Jim said slowly. “So the artifacts that should have gone to him, the ones that he was robbed of over a century ago. He wants you to find them and just…give them back to the humans? You realize your master has a habit of…well, for lack of a better word, eating wizards? You realize he’ll do anything for more power?”

  I heard him moving around the circle, giving in to the need to pace and needing the entire room for his long strides.

  Peasblossom cuddled close to my ear. “Don’t let him get in your head,” she whispered. “He doesn’t know you like I do.”

  “Oh, he’s not in my head,” I promised her. “He has no right to judge me, and I don’t give a flying grig what he thinks.”

  “Well, what would you think?” Jim demanded. “Be honest. Say a witch comes to you for help. She says she wants you to help locate a stolen bowl. It turns out the bowl was part of a set that belonged to her master. She knows the location of every artifact, except the one that was stolen.”

  I stiffened. I’d never told him I knew where the other artifacts were.

  “This witch asks you to talk to a powerful sidhe that she has a bad history with. You agree, and then find yourself on the run because you’re being blamed for the theft of that object. Accused of replacing it with a fake. You do a little research.”

  He jabbed a finger at me. “You find out she worked for a criminal. A vampire who pretty much owns the city. Someone responsible for so many deaths…” He trailed off. “And as for your master, you can’t believe he has no designs on using the artifacts? I mean, you’re the one who helped him take out Underhill, you have to realize he’s planning something big.”

  He paused. “Or do you not ask those questions?”

  Oh, I was going to ask questions. I had a whole list of questions for my “master.”

  Jim snorted. “Then there’s the matter of your mentor. You didn’t exactly start with a clean reputation. Being trained by a cannibalistic witch who many believe is actually a…” He stopped, then looked around, shifting uneasily as if just noticing he was speaking into shadows. “You know.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” I said sharply. “She’s not a monster.”

  “Don’t believe only what it’s pleasant to believe,” Jim countered. “She’s not a saint, either. And you haven’t answered my question. If our situations were reversed. Would you believe you?”

  “Yes,” I said simply.

  Jim frowned. “You didn’t even think about it. Is this a joke to you?”

  For just a moment, all the tension left my body. I stared the wizard down, let the derision I felt for him—and his accusations—fill my eyes. “I don’t have to think about it now, because I think about it all the time. Do you think you’re the only one to question my choices? The only one to wonder if I crossed a line?” I snorted. “You have no idea. I made those choices, and I live with them. And every time I have another choice to make, I drag out my past and force myself to look at it, to try not to make the same mistakes over and over again.”

  I took a deep breath. “I’ve made mistakes. And it’s because I’ve made mistakes that I can say, quickly and without thinking, that I wouldn’t judge someone without giving them a chance to explain.”

  Jim nodded. “All right. So let’s say I believe you. You’re not a villain. Your intention is to find the thief and return the items to their rightful—human—owners. You won’t use the items. You won’t let anyone else use the items. And you give me your word on this?”

  My heart fell. If he’d phrased it any other way…

  His jaw tightened. “You do plan to use them.”

  “I have to let the thief use them,” I said quietly.

  “Who’s the thief?”

  “I don’t know.” I let my gaze fall to the floor in shame, simultaneously sweeping my gaze over the circle. There had to be some way to get out of here. Something caught my attention. Symbols carved into the floor beneath me. I let my magic breathe, just enough to swell over the floor and touch the symbols. They glowed a bright blue.

  A teleportation spell.

  It was a trap. One that had held a lot of people before me, I guessed. Teleportation spells were time consuming and complex. A circle with the runes pre-carved would make it faster. I closed my hands into fists, frustrated. But there was no way for me to activate it. Not when Jim had control of the circle.

  “So you never intended to stop the thief,” Jim said flatly. “You just need to find out who it is, so you can steal the artifacts from them. After you let them use them.” Anger darkened his face. “Because you need them to suffer the final curse. Your master wants to make an example out of them. Teach the world what happens to someone that steals what’s rightfully his?”

  “If Flint wanted them, he could take them himself,” I reminded him. “All the owners are human. And like you said, he has a habit of eating wizards. He could remove the curses.”

  “You and I both know he’d never risk a truth curse. It would be the end of him,” Jim countered. “Sounds like he hasn’t thought of a way around the curses yet, and he doesn’t want them stolen until he does.”

  A shadow passed over his face, and my stomach dropped. I’d seen that look before. I’d worn that look before. More and more frequently as of late. He was bracing himself for something terrible he didn’t want to do, but had to.

  “Just to be clear,” he said quietly, “you intend to let the thief be cursed.”

  My magic roiled inside me like a pot left to boil for too long, but there was nowhere for it to go, nothing for it to do. I couldn’t affect anything outside my circle.

  “I don’t have a choice,” I said, my voice strained.

  Jim nodded. “Then neither do I.”

  I felt the circle flex. I felt him pour magic into it.

  “Wait!” I shouted.

  The magic didn’t stop, but Jim met my eyes. “What?”

  I pointed to my pouch. “Bizbee hasn’t done anything. And neither has Peasblossom.” My chest tightened. “Let them out. They don’t deserve to die for this.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Peasblossom snarled, hugging my neck. “I�
��m never leaving you.”

  The magic kept building. Jim shook his head. “I—”

  He stepped back while he spoke, subconsciously distancing himself from what he was about to do. A sound somewhere between a growl and a scream split the air, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.

  Jim’s eyes flew wide and he jerked his foot up, toppling backward as something darted around his feet. I stared in shock as he hit the floor, his head striking hard. Majesty bolted forward, his fur standing straight up as he made a beeline for the circle. A sharp pop of pressure drilled into my ears.

  There was no time to wonder how the kitten had gotten here. I scooped him up and ran, heading toward the shadows behind Jim, hoping that was where the mouth of the cave was. I had no idea where I was, how far from Cleveland—

  I hit a wall. My skull threatened to split, and I was vaguely aware of Peasblossom clinging to my head, her magic pulsing against my scalp as she used her power to keep me conscious. Stars exploded in my vision and I became aware of two things at once.

  One, I was not in a cave. The wall I’d hit had a hollow sound, as if I’d run into a door and there was a room beyond. My lips parted in shock. It was a glamour.

  Second, Jim had recovered.

  I forced myself forward again, groping at the wall, looking for a doorknob. Jim’s hand closed around my arm like warm iron, and he dragged me off balance. I flailed around as he lifted me off my feet and hurled me back into the circle. I did my best to shield Majesty with my body as I hit the ground and the air whooshed out of my lungs. I kicked out as hard as I could, sending one of the stones skittering across the floor.

  Jim growled, and I felt magic swell around me.

  I thrust a hand at the smooth section of flooring near his feet, desperation giving me the edge to be faster, my magic already begging to be set free. “Excavare!”

  I’d never tried that particular spell in a house before. The floor under Jim’s feet exploded, wood and insulation and concrete flying into the air, destroying the illusion of a cave floor. Jim shouted as debris battered him, keeping him from getting his bearings. I got one look at his enraged face as he plummeted into the room below.