Stealing Summer, Hunter

by Lexi Blake

  “Uh, one.” He pointed to the door. “If you’re looking for an expert, you should talk to Erna. She knows way more about them than I do. The witches of Arete keep detailed records of all the demons.”

  I would love to read those records, but there was a reason I wanted to keep Erna from this particular experiment. “Maybe I’ll ask her some questions later. I need to keep her focused on getting those thrall stones out of Dan and Dev so we can safely go to the Vampire plane and get Summer back.”

  There was so much about this whole thing I still didn’t understand. I couldn’t take the chance that Myrddin had planned this all out and the king and Dev were here to do his bidding. Especially since we’d found Dean and realized he had a part to play. I had to consider the fact that they could harm or kill Dean if they understood who he truly was. The stones had to come out. I trusted Bris to know how much Dev’s body could take. It wasn’t him I worried about, but the king was suddenly vulnerable. The queen and I had decided to take the chance.

  “Erna knows what she’s doing.” Dean took a deep breath. “She’ll have the stones out in no time at all. Okay, so I’m going to knock around in this demon’s head. You know I can’t actually read his thoughts, right?”

  I’d come up with the plan as I’d lain awake the night before, the headache from Dean’s trip through my brain still a recent memory. Dean could get inside a brain and feel out intentions. He’d known what Marcus had wanted. He’d surmised Dev and my intentions. I wanted to see if he could figure out what the Planeswalker was truly looking for.

  He’d said he wanted to find Fae magic. Pure Fae magic.

  Was he searching for Summer, too? I definitely needed to know if a whole clan of demons would be looking for her. I wasn’t trying to borrow trouble, but if it was coming I wanted to be ready for it.

  “You said you could read intent. What is that like? How did you know you could do it the first time you did?” I was asking a whole lot of the kid. I wanted to give him a few minutes to get ready for what he was going to do. Sometimes talking about our powers can give us faith in them.

  “I always had feelings about people. Like I knew who liked me and who didn’t when I was a kid. It was hard because I knew I was a freak on my plane. I could tell who was fascinated with the idea of a human and who was somewhat disgusted by me. My father…stepfather…I’m just going to call him Dad from here out…his family is wealthy on the Vampire plane. The Malones have power and that insulated me, but it couldn’t completely shield me. We had some friends, but for the most part I was isolated. I always had some power, but it was only after that day with my Uncle Mike that I knew I had to train. My parents found some Fae teachers who could help me, and then I met Summer. She was working with some vampires who needed a thief. She and Erna used to run some small-time jobs in the beginning. I helped out on occasion. Then that crazy barbarian king started coming after her and the convergences began. To answer your question more properly, the first time I realized I could get inside another’s head was when Erna asked me to try. Up until then all I could do was small magics. Like lighting a flame or casting a locator spell. I’m really good with those. When I first started training with Erna, we experimented to see the limits of my magic. We found I have some serious power when it came to discerning intent. I can’t control a mind, but I’m pretty good at figuring out who’s lying to me.”

  “And you get that by reading feelings? What is it like for you to be in someone else’s mind?” I wanted to know if there was a chance the demon might hurt Dean.

  “It’s feelings and flashes of memories and thoughts. It can be different depending on who I’m trying to read. You think about sex and food. That’s pretty much it. I got flashes of…well, I’m glad I understand the way sex works because there’s some freaky stuff in your head. And what are those round things you crave?”

  I made no apologies for the sex stuff. If someone gets in my head, I assure you they will see some fantasies about a gorgeous wolf and a superhot half demon and all the glorious things they can do to me. “It’s called a burger. I really want one. Though I’ll be honest, most of the time I want one.”

  “You also like to nap. You crave a soft place to lie in and feel safe. That’s when you’re most content. There’s a couch you like because it’s in the sunlight, and you love the afternoon light when it’s warm on your skin.”

  All of this was true. “How does that tell you about my intentions?”

  “I can feel what you feel when you think about those things. They’re always playing around in your head. I can skim across your brain and catch a thought here or there. If I practice enough, I might be able to one day sift through memories like I’m going through a file. That’s what I want to be able to do. To go searching for specific memories or thoughts instead of having to hope I catch the right one.”

  It would be a handy power. Dean could be a walking lie detector. “So you might be able to see something of what the Planeswalker has seen?”

  “Yep, and I hope he’s not a complete asshole because I don’t know that I want to know what evil feels like.”

  There were different levels of evil. Maybe this particular demon simply liked to do his job. “How often have you practiced? Have you practiced on Summer and Erna?”

  He frowned my way. “I’ve practiced on Summer a couple of times. She’s always sad but she never meant any harm. Erna would consider it very impolite. I would never do that to Erna. Never.”

  The words were said with an edge of desperation I didn’t understand. I also didn’t understand how you could teach someone if you weren’t willing to work with them. When I was the one training Dean, I would spar with him. I would take hits from the kid and let him try to take me down. It was the only way I would be able to tell if he was getting better. It would be like a teacher never testing a student and just kind of hoping he was telling the truth about his progress. But I didn’t have time to get into it now. “We don’t have to do this, you know. If you’re scared…”

  His eyes narrowed and I knew I’d hit the mark. “I’m not scared.”

  He pushed open the barn door.

  It probably wasn’t fair of me, but I had to get him moving or say screw the whole plan. I wanted time alone with Dean, and that meant not letting Erna in on this. I would certainly share anything we found, but I wanted to see Dean work without her influence.

  I followed him into the barn which included a handy place for the farmer to sleep when the farmer’s wife was upset. There was a cot and stool, and a bucket I didn’t want to think about and that the demon thankfully didn’t need to use. Morning light filtered through the places where the wood had decayed over the years, shafts illuminating the cadaverous figure on the cot. His legs were almost entirely off what I would consider an extra-long cot. I’d been told the place had been used by Fae refugees long ago, and they tend to be tall. Though not nearly as tall as the Planeswalker.

  “He looks dead.” Dean stood still as though he didn’t dare move closer. The words came quietly out of his mouth.

  What must it be like to have come from where he did—comfort, wealth, a loving family—and to have a hard destiny thrust upon him? It wasn’t like I hadn’t faced the same things. One day I’d thought I was this normal, messed the fuck up girl who would probably drink herself to death at some point and the next I was hunting demons, but there was a difference. I always knew the world was screwed up. It had been almost a relief to find out I could do something about it. Dean had likely been coddled and loved and promised a life of ease.

  The fact that he’d chosen this path made me determined to back him with everything I had. And to show some patience.

  “You can do this. I think he would want you to do this. He was trying to communicate last night. He seemed desperate to. I don’t think he’ll fight you. When you went into my head, you went in looking for a fight and you got one. Relax and ease in. You don’t have to bombard him. Think about it as a tendril of your mind easing into his.”


  Dean winced. “So I shouldn’t think about it as a knife is what you’re saying.”

  “No, asshole.” Patience really wasn’t my strong point. “You can control this. It’s a whisper, a gentle wave.” I tried to use all the words Marcus would have used with me. Or Trent. Trent had always been good with the wolfy stuff, teaching me how to study the scents around me like they were pages in a book I could examine and turn at will. “You’re in control. I could feel you inside my head. I think if I’d felt you trying to be gentler, I wouldn’t have been as upset.”

  I would have, but he didn’t have to know that.

  Dean took a deep breath and approached the Planeswalker. “Hello, Mr. Demon. I’m Dean Malone and I’m going to take a quick trip inside your brain to see if I can find out what’s going on. You should know I’m trying to work on a spell that will give you energy, but that could take some time, time I don’t know we have.”

  He looked my way and I nodded because he was doing what I’d asked him to do. He was stating his purpose, and he sounded somewhat confident. I had to hope I was right and the demon was either too far gone to fight or honestly wanted a way to communicate with us.

  Dean moved closer and his eyes closed, his shoulders straightening and his body seeming to grow a bit taller.

  He would be magnificent someday. It whispered along my consciousness. Sometimes I get hints of the worlds I saw when I aided Gray in his transition to dark prophet. All of the roads my life could take had been lain open to me, every choice I could make and the consequences of them. The vast majority had been lost to me, my mind unable to remember what was seemingly infinite, but every now and then I would feel a shadow over my mind.

  I’d felt it with Fenrir.

  I felt it now with Dean. Dean was important. Perhaps more important to my world than Summer herself. Dean would one day tip the balance in a war I hadn’t even contemplated, a war that would define my plane forever.

  This was one of his first steps, and if he had the right mentorship, he could become everything the Earth plane needed him to be.

  Everything she needed him to be.

  A shiver went through me. After I helped Gray transition into a dark prophet, I’d asked Jacob if I would retain any of the visions I’d seen, if I would have any of the power I’d had in those hours. He’d told me I would only be able to see bits of the future in dreams. But he was wrong. I get hints of prophecy every now and then even when I’m awake. I kind of hate it because I never know what to do with it.

  When I’d looked at Dean in that moment, the briefest vision of a blonde woman at his side had hit me. I shook it off because I needed to focus.

  I shook it off because I didn’t want to lose myself in wondering if I’d just seen Mia Day as an adult.

  “Kelsey, I’m in.” Dean’s voice was deeper than normal, his tone calm and relaxed. “You’re right. He wants to talk. He’s worried. He’s very weak, but not close to death. He thought he was immortal but now he understands how fragile he truly is. He’s scared.”

  I didn’t like the thought of a demon being scared. “He said something about energy.”

  The muscles in Dean’s face tensed as though he was struggling with something. “Please slow down. Sorry. He’s shoving a lot at me. Bees. They’re like bees. They take energy and leave some behind. They are necessary but the energy that should flow…it should be a wave but it’s a trickle. He didn’t notice it at first, but the situation is reaching a point of no return. The magic must flow. That’s what he’s telling me. The Planeswalkers will cease to function and then…”

  Dean’s eyes came open, a bit of panic there.

  “What is it?”

  “If the Planeswalkers fail, everything falls apart,” Dean said in a whisper, looking down at the demon.

  “What do you mean by everything?”

  He turned my way, a stark look in his eyes. “The walls fall. The convergence…it’s only the start. The magic that keeps the planes separate is failing. If the walls come down, it will be chaos. The planes will fracture and collapse on themselves until they swallow up the original plane, the plane from which all others were built.”

  “Earth.” I wasn’t going to pretend we weren’t all fucked. This was always the time in one of my adventures when I got the message the world was ending. Except this time it wasn’t merely the world. It was all worlds. “What do we do?”

  I would have waited for the answer to my question, but I heard a scream.

  “He’s killing her!” a feminine voice yelled. “He’s going to kill us all!”

  I took off running because somehow my day had definitely gotten worse.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Summer

  I opened my eyes to find myself in a cell, Marcus laid out beside me.

  “Hello,” a feminine voice said. “Don’t worry about the Earth vamp. He’ll wake up soon. My witch gave him a little extra whammy so we could talk for a minute. Also, I sent the hubby on an errand and the rest of the crew is working, so we’re a testosterone-free zone. Just you and me and the pups.”

  The woman standing outside the high-tech cell was tall, with long red and gold hair. She wore the same kind of clothes vampires wear when going into some kind of battle, but I doubted she was a vamp. She had a Fae look about her. She held a small dog in her arms and a larger one sat at her feet. Dog? More like a wolf, and I got the feeling the wolf was female. There was something delicate about the wolf’s features. She was lovely with what looked like soft brown fur. The smaller canine’s fur had streaks of red running through the brown and the biggest eyes.

  “Am I in Dallas?” It was where Taggart was based, but he could have taken us somewhere else. I had to guess we were on the Vampire plane since I was in a high-tech office.

  “Yes. You’re in our offices. My name is Charlotte and my husband is the man who captured you.” Her hand stroked the small dog. “Though you should know I’m the one who’s been tracking you.”

  I glanced at Marcus and sensed he was still with me, a hum in the back of my head. It was a soothing sound, like something had been missing before and now was in place. I stood and stretched. “Well, congratulations. It looks like I have a place of honor.”

  My picture was pinned to a wall behind her. It seemed the cell was in the middle of an office setting. There were desk units scattered about the elegant space. I had no doubt each would be equipped with the finest tech the plane could offer. Like the cell I found myself in. The walls were transparent, allowing me to speak to Charlotte as though nothing stood between us, but I was absolutely certain there was a sonic wall between us. Marcus was laid out on a large bench. It was nothing more than a holding cell. They would have to move us if they were going to keep us long. That might be to our advantage.

  Charlotte glanced to the wall behind her where someone had created a mural of pictures of what they called Most Wanted. I was in the center. There was a picture of me that had obviously been caught by security camera. Many of the technologically advanced planes used them. “Ah, yes. I’m afraid you’ve got the highest bounty, though these two aren’t far behind you. Liam and Avery O’Donnell. They’re a Fae couple Ian’s been chasing for years. Li was a small-time bootlegger before he met his wife. Now they steal shit across a whole lot of planes. I think it’s kind of romantic. Loving his wife turned him into a supervillain.”

  The wolf thumped her tail as if agreeing with her mistress.

  “I’m glad you agree, Sweetie.” She used her free hand to give the wolf a pet. “This is Sweetie and her pup, Precious. I found them a few days ago and I’m going to force my husband to let me keep them. They’re so cute.”

  The puppy wriggled and basically did all the things the tiny creatures of the world did to make everyone they met fall madly in love. It was one of their survival techniques.

  But wriggling and giving Mrs. Taggart big doe eyes likely wouldn’t help me at all. “Am I being taken to Arete? If so, I need your promise you won’t let
them take Marcus. He wouldn’t do well on that plane.”

  Charlotte stopped pacing. “He’s new. You haven’t had a lover that I know of. I’m sort of an expert on you. I don’t think the boy is your lover. He’s an odd one. There’s a lot of money behind him, you know.”

  Taggart would already have a full file on Dean. The good news was knowing who Dean’s parents were might help keep Dean out of my problems. “It doesn’t matter. The boy is none of your concern and if I find out you’re going after him, I’ll show you who I really am.”

  “I know who you are Summer of the Gentle Winds. That’s what they called you as a child, right? You won’t remember it, but we’ve met. Before I found my vampire husband, I lived in Tír na nÓg. My father was something of a scoundrel. We moved about a lot and we spent time in your village. You were a child, but you had such light about you. Even I could see your glow. It’s gone now. Did you bind your magic?”

  I didn’t want to talk about the past. “That’s none of your concern either. I want to know that Marcus will be safe.”

  “I think it is my concern. I think it is everyone’s concern,” Charlotte insisted. “Have you heard the stories of the Summerlands? My mother was a scholar. She particularly specialized in the old ways and the stories from before the Piercing of the Veil.”

  I had to frown at the thought. She wasn’t talking old ways. She was talking ancient ways. The Piercing of the Veil referred to the time when the Fae left the Earth plane. The strongest of the tribes fled when it became apparent humans would take the plane by their sheer numbers. There are still Fae on our plane of origin—as evidenced by my Green Man father—but they are few compared to the great tribes of Tír na nÓg and other planes. “Why would you care about old world stories?”