Come Hell or High Water

by Michele Bardsley

  Connor strode to me and knelt. He put his hands on my thighs and stared up, pain shining so brightly it turned his eyes the color of champagne. He kissed me oh-so-softly. “We cannae waste any more time.”

  I let him help me to my feet. We turned toward the door, but it filled with roiling gray mist.

  “Hold!”

  The feminine voice crackled with power. The mist cleared and a tall, willowy woman stood in its place. She wore a hooded green robe and held within her bejeweled grasp a gnarled, polished wood staff. At its top sat a gleaming silver crow.

  “Morrigu,” said Connor in a hushed tone.

  Brigid was the daughter of Morrigu, and Ruadan was a vampire because he’d imbibed his grandmother’s dark blood. In essence, she was the reason vampires existed at all. Morrigu exuded a you-live-at-my-behest energy that instantly cowed me. Still, I didn’t look away from her as I stood, and Connor’s grip tightened on my hand.

  Morrigu pulled back her hood. Her raven hair hung in long, silken ringlets around a pale, unlined face. Here, too, was terrible beauty. A thin silver crown nestled on her head; a single red stone glittered from its middle. Her dark eyes held ancient secrets.

  Morrigu studied Connor. Then she turned her enigmatic gaze to mine. “Talisman,” she said, inclining her head.

  Uh… what?

  “Lilith has brought harm upon my kin,” she said. “I will not tolerate it.”

  Lilith probably didn’t think she’d draw the attention of the goddess of chaos. I think Morrigu scared me more than Lilith, but at least the crow queen was on our side.

  I thought.

  Connor asked, “Can you undo her spell over the town?”

  “It is not my magic.” Her eyes were dark and flat as river stones. “Spells are like cloth, woven intricately. It will take much too long to unravel threads. Lilith intends to come through tonight. It is a new moon; the power of your talisman will be at its weakest.”

  “She won’t have a portal. We disbanded her cult,” I said.

  “Yet her demons roam free. They kill in her name, too.”

  I shared a look with Connor. He looked just as horrified as I felt.

  “Why did she just freeze everybody?” I asked.

  “Expediency. Or the demon she sent to do it had limited powers. Or she’s a ravin’ bitch.” Morrigu looked at me with those ancient eyes, and I saw the flames of funeral pyres and the bleached bones of the dead reflected there. She said, “You can fix this.”

  I twisted the wish ring around on my finger, and I nodded.

  “Then go.”

  “Take me to Main Street,” I said to Connor. “That’s where the middle of the Invisi-shield is. If Lilith can use it to spread her magic, then so can I.”

  He frowned as he gathered me into his arms, but I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to explain that I’d been saving the wish to break our mating. Or maybe I’d kept it for another reason. Maybe this one. Astria had said I would need it.

  Had she foreseen this very circumstance?

  I hoped I would have another opportunity to talk to her. I had to believe she’d survived the Turning, and that I would survive this night.

  I snuggled in Connor’s arms while he transported me to the middle of Main Street. It turned out that the center of the Invisi-shield was above downtown, almost right over the Old Sass Café. I felt doubly offended that the bitch had cursed everyone practically above the place I worked.

  From the street, I could see into the still-lit windows of the café.

  “I’ve spent a lot of time being scared for Danny, for you, for Broken Heart. We’ve been terrified by Lilith, bullied by her demons, and I’m sick of feeling helpless and afraid.” I pointed up. “Let’s go.”

  Connor’s face went stony. “I cannae take you unless…”

  “You go demon? We don’t have any Family Ruadan here,” I said. “So make with the wings already.”

  For a moment, I didn’t think he would do it. Then he stood back and invoked his demon form. It took only seconds for him to meld from human to demon. He looked like diamonds to me, magic and glitter and beauty.

  Connor gripped my arms. “I’ll take you up to where the points of the shield converge.”

  He stroked his fingers down my spine – just a reminder that he was there for me. He had my back. No matter what I did. That was a powerful feeling.

  He launched upward, his impressive wings pushing us skyward. We flew up, up, up into the starry sky.

  “Here.” Connor pointed above his head and then whispered, “Solas.“

  Red orbs appeared, and their sidhe light reflected the otherwise invisible lines of the shield.

  “What will you do now?” asked Connor.

  “I’ll make a wish,” I said. I wasn’t quite sure how it would all work. Keeping it simple was best. I took off the ring and pressed it against the thin streaming lights of the Invisi-shield. “I wish for everyone in Broken Heart to be free of all spells invoked by demons.”

  The glow burst from the ring and connected with the shield. For a moment, the entire bubble glowed gold. I felt the tingle of magic, and then it burst, raining gold sparks of magic to the town below.

  Connor took me back down to Main Street. We landed softly; then he put some space between us. He shifted to his human form, and then magicked up some clothes for himself. He didn’t say anything for a long moment.

  “Astria gave the ring to you,” he said. “She knew there was a wish trapped in it.”

  “She thought telling everyone it was for Ella would be enough for us to steal it. Then she planned to find a way to give it to me.”

  “I don’t need to ask why.”

  “No,” I said, my voice catching. “You don’t.”

  “You don’t love me,” he said. The finality of his tone sliced through me.

  “Connor.”

  “No, lass.” He shook his head and smiled. “It’s all right.”

  He took me into his arms, but I sensed his distance – distance I had created by not admitting how I felt about him. My choice had been taken from me; how could I know that what I felt was real? I didn’t want some prophecy or destiny telling me what kind of life I should live. I wanted to choose whom to love.

  And yet, Connor had embraced it all, and didn’t doubt he was mine.

  By the time we returned to the Consortium compound, it was buzzing with activity.

  Damian beckoned us into a room, where he and his brothers, Drake and Darrius, guarded the door.

  Inside were Patsy and Gabriel, Anise, Ren, Larsa… and Astria! I hurried over to her and hugged her.

  “I have fangs,” she said. Then she leaned back and showed them to me. “Drinking blood isn’t that bad.”

  I laughed. “I’m just glad you’re still walking around.”

  “As are we,” said Anise softly. “Ruadan and you, Phoebe, will have our loyalty always.”

  “Thank you,” I said, touched by her words. “A good way to repay me is to give the girl some freedom. A few choices of her own.”

  Anise nodded. “Oui. I see the wisdom in such advice.”

  “Let’s get down to business,” said Patsy. “We need to transfuse the talisman, and then Phoebe needs to invoke the magic, right?”

  “Tell them the prophecy, Astria,” said Connor. He sat in a chair next to me, but he might as well have sat across the room. It was as if all the affection, and – gulp – love he’d offered had been tucked away. I shouldn’t have been hurt by his need to protect himself, to protect his heart, but I was. I knew it wasn’t fair to want him, to bask in the warmth of love he’d given to me, and offer nothing of myself.

  I felt so ashamed.

  “Where’s Morrigu?” I asked suddenly, as if it mattered.

  “Haranguing Brigid and Ruadan,” said Patsy sourly. “That woman is scary as shit.”

  “The prophecy,” said Connor again. His gaze swept the room, but went past me. He wasn’t in my thoughts anymore, either. I sensed his withdra
wal keenly, and I didn’t like it.

  “Lilith returns,” said Astria. Her words had the cadence of poetry. “‘And the world weeps. The talisman weakens, its champions gone. The valiant arise, a demon lord and his bride, O daughter of Durga. Only they possess strength enough to stop the queen of hell. Mated together, they stand as one and defeat evil.’”

  Her voice echoed into the room; then she sat down. She smiled at me, but it was sad. I looked down at the table.

  “I am the only one left.”

  “The last female of the Family Durga,” agreed Patsy. She sent me an empathetic look. She knew, better than anyone, what it was like to have your life altered due to prophecy. Her relationship with Gabriel and even her rise to queenly power had also been predicted by another Vedere prognostication.

  And she seemed happy. A husband who adored her, three adorable toddlers, a grown son, and now two additions to their loup de sang family.

  “Connor was the only possible demon lord,” said Astria. “No other demon has a soul or the will to see Lilith returned to the Pit.”

  “Tell her the rest,” said Connor.

  Astria’s gaze skidded away from mine. She swallowed; then she turned back to me. “Two halves of the talisman,” she said. “One is the medallion infused with the magic of all eight Ancients. And the second… is you.”

  Chapter 27

  “Idid not see that coming,” I said. “It’s why I had to live. Because…” I trailed off, overwhelmed.

  “Because if Lilith had managed to wipe out Family Durga, none would be left to join with the talisman. And the other half must be a female,” said Connor.

  “Durga was joined to it?” I asked faintly.

  “Her daughter,” said Larsa. Even she was looking at me with a kind of pity. “She offered to be the vessel for the magic. But the kind of power needed to force Lilith into hell destroyed her. It left the talisman, though, and Durga kept it with her. Until she was banned.”

  “That’s why the gods wanted a demon to mate with the talisman,” said Astria. “You’ll need Connor’s power and strength.”

  And I had turned him away.

  I felt sick to my stomach. How could I draw from Connor what I needed when he’d taken it away? No, when I’d refused it? If I said I changed my mind now, he would never know if I’d done it out of self-preservation or out of love. Hell, I didn’t even know.

  Connor took out the circle of gold. Around its edge were eight symbols I didn’t recognize.

  “The ancient symbols for the Families,” said Larsa, her tone respectful.

  It turned out that Larsa was unable to give Patsy the power of the Family Shamhat. Apparently Patsy had tried to absorb it, but the transfer didn’t happen. She needed to get it directly from the Ancient. I knew now why Larsa believed we had one thing in common: We were both the last. She was the last of all the Family Shamhat. And I was the last female of Family Durga.

  It appeared the hunters were the only ones, along with me, to have escaped the deaths of the Family Durga. Only four of us now who could claim the Family line. And only Patsy stood between almost all of us and destruction.

  I didn’t know how Patsy or Larsa knew what to do. Probably Larsa had given the queen the 411, because she’d been there when the first talisman had been made.

  Patsy put her fingers on one side of the talisman, and Larsa did the same on the other. They whispered words, ancient words that I didn’t understand.

  One color after another lit each symbol. It was like a really freaky Simon electronic game.

  When they were through, the talisman glowed in a rainbow of colors.

  “It won’t work,” said Astria. “Not until you unlock its magic, Phoebe. You must add your blood to it.”

  Ren silently offered his knife, but I had already pulled a thin blade from my boot.

  My stomach squeezed, and I looked at Connor. He offered me a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. I ached to see tenderness, even a sparkle of humor. But there was only distance. I’d hurt him, and I wasn’t sure I could undo the mess I’d created. How did you unbreak a heart?

  I cut my palm and placed it on top of the medallion.

  I felt as though hot fingers reached inside my chest and pulled out something hard and small, something beating softly like the wings of a bird. Then the sensation was gone.

  And so was I.

  ———

  The magic zapped me instantly to… well, I had no idea where. I squatted on the rocky ground and slowly stood up. I feared exploring this odd place.

  Where was I?

  As a vampire, my lack of blood circulation meant that most temperatures, hot or cold, rarely bothered me. But in this place I was cold. It wasn’t so much that my outsides were frigid; more like an insidious chill crept through my insides, freezing me slowly. I wondered whether that was what my friends had felt as Lilith turned them into icicles. I really wished that someone could figure out how to make that woman implode.

  I was outdoors. I thought. Thick fog boiled above the ground, hiding my feet. It was dark, but not pitch-black. I could make out stubby, dead trees and boulders.

  “You honor us, daughter of Durga.”

  The woman walked toward me, dressed in a diaphanous white gown – a total Greek vibe. Most of the immortal females I knew really liked this look. Or they got a discount at Goddesses R Us.

  The darkness parted for her reluctantly. It seemed as though the shadows had fingers clawing toward her, but maybe that was my imagination. This place seriously gave me the creeps. The woman stopped about a foot away, looking at me with solemn eyes.

  “Who are you?”

  “The gods,” said a multitude of voices. “We heard your prayers.”

  “I didn’t pray.”

  She smiled. “Your… exclamations.”

  “It’s nice to know you’re listening,” I said, caught between anger and fear. “Even if you’re not doing anything.”

  “You mean, even if we are not doing as you think we should.” Her tone held both censure and humor. The voices had melded into one, for which I was glad.

  “The time for secrets is nearing its end.” Her gaze skimmed me. “Do you love Connor?”

  “I…”

  “Confusion is a lie,” she said. “We come to a decision, and our hearts say, ‘This way.’ But it is dark down that path, and fraught with danger. We do not want to go. We look at the other path, the easier one. And we think of all the reasons not to follow our heart. Our thoughts tangle with our intuition and we say, ‘We are so confused.’ “

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “You did,” countered the goddess. Or the gods. Or whatever. “For example, you used your wish to save your friends… You could’ve used it to break your binding.”

  “The needs of the many,” I insisted. “I’m not that selfish.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. I felt guilty because I had been selfish, thinking only about how the prophecy had affected me. Connor hadn’t struggled nearly so hard. He’d just… fallen in love with me.

  “Do you love him?” she asked. “It is a simple question.”

  And it was. I culled through my emotions, my memories. I saw in so many instances where I had made my own choices. I slept with Connor. I gave up the wish. I followed through with the talisman.

  “Is it fate?” I asked, my throat thick, my voice unsteady.

  “Does it matter? If you love Connor… does it matter?”

  “No,” I said, and I felt released, the burden of my emotions sloughing off. “I love him.” I sounded strong and sure, and my heart beat, at least in my mind, for Connor.

  “The talisman.” Her gaze flickered to mine. “Are you strong enough, daughter of Durga, to be its new protector?”

  “Yes.”

  “For so long as there is a talisman, there will be those who seek it.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly where this was heading, but I thought about Connor, and knew I’d do whatever it took.

  �
�What do I do?”

  “Give me your knife. And give me the talisman.”

  I’d be crazy to hand over the most important object ever made, and a friggin’ blade, but I did it. I regretted it immediately, because the bitch stabbed me.

  “Ow!”

  The woman ignored my reaction, working the blade in and cutting deeply into my chest. It hurt. A lot. But I shut my trap and let her work.

  She slipped the talisman into the slit and pressed the wounded flesh over it. I felt a tickling warmth and the talisman burrowed deeper still, and the muscle she’d savaged healed instantly.

  “You are the talisman,” she said softly.

  “I have its powers?”

  “Yes. You and only you can wield them.”

  “I can send Lilith back to hell?”

  “More than that. You can create bonds” – she looked at me significantly – “or break them.”

  “Vampire matings?” I asked.

  “Yes. The other talisman, the daughter of Durga, was not strong enough to wield its power. She bound Lilith to hell, but died. She didn’t have time to learn the magic or the limits of it, but you do. And you are strong enough.”

  “Because I have Connor.”

  “And he has you.” She placed her hand on my forehead and muttered some words, and then my atoms exploded and I was racing across the darkness… back to the destiny I wanted.

  Connor.

  ———

  I arrived in the room in the Consortium underground facility, where an argument was raging.

  My appearance stunned the participants.

  “Where have you been?” roared Connor. He’d been leaning against the wall, and he pushed away from it, striding forward and snagging me. “You scared the life outta me.”

  He seemed to realize he’d shown more emotion than necessary, and he took a step back as he dropped my arm. But I wouldn’t let him retreat. I put my arm around his waist and leaned into his shoulder. He stiffened, but didn’t pull away. Then he put his arm over my shoulder, a small concession. I still felt the distance between us, but since I’d been responsible for creating it, I supposed I should be the one to cross it.