Nevermore

by J. C. McKenzie

  Cole straightened and all the playfulness in his expression fled. His shadows streaked across the room and returned with a robe. He plucked it from the gray bands and held it out toward her.

  Okay then. Fun time had apparently ended. What made him turn so serious?

  “Put this on,” he said.

  Instead of arguing like she wanted to, she pulled the robe on—its plush softness and new smell cocooned her in warmth. The hem met her mid-thigh and curved to her body. This wasn’t Cole’s robe. Did he carry spares for random visitors or did this belong to someone else?

  “We have company.” Cole pulled on dark boxer briefs.

  A red portal snapped open and Bane stepped through the hazy light and into Cole’s room. He scanned the bedroom and scowled. “Thank you for accepting my portal.” Bane straightened and cast a vicious glare in her direction. “Very civilized.”

  “Of course.” Cole’s dry voice implied he could be quite the opposite.

  Bane’s gaze narrowed and he turned to Raven. “We need to talk about the Closers.”

  “She’s not ready,” Cole said.

  Gee, thanks.

  “Of course, she’s not ready. She’ll never be ready. But she formed a portal which means she can do something, given guidance.”

  “And I assume you’re offering your services?” Cole’s light tone contrasted the darkening room. He gathered his shadows around him and waited.

  Bane straightened and pulsed with red energy. The malevolence of his power made Raven’s feet itch to run from the room.

  “I’d be the smarter choice,” Bane said. “But I doubt she’d thrive under my form of tutelage.”

  He had that right.

  “Who then?” Cole asked.

  “You.”

  “I’m already teaching her.”

  “Not fast enough.”

  Cole smirked. “You must be crestfallen with the idea that I control your fate.”

  “Not at all. I rather relish the idea of you doing my bidding to protect some pathetic half-breed mortal.”

  They snarled at each other.

  “Should I leave you two alone?” Raven asked.

  They glanced in unison to where she waited. Though she stood almost a foot shorter than both men and wore a skimpy robe, she tried for an intimidating stance. Seriously? Where did this robe come from? And why did the existence of clothing obviously designed with a woman in mind bother her more than the two dark fae lords beside her squaring off against one another?

  Cole’s expression softened and his dark gaze raked her body.

  Bane’s scowl remained unchanged. “Nice robe.”

  She flashed him the middle finger. “How did you know I’d portal here? You arrived almost right after I did. Have you placed some sort of creepy homing device on me?”

  “I’m capable of many things,” Bane said.

  No. That didn’t sound ominous at all. Nope.

  Bane’s smile was so smug it inspired violent thoughts. If she punched him in the face right now, she’d probably break her hand on his teeth. Assuming she’d even land a strike. The Lord of War probably wouldn’t stand there and let her swing. Bastard.

  “But not that,” Cole cut in.

  The lords returned to glaring at each other.

  “Where else would a lost puppy go but back to her master?” Bane answered her question without taking his gaze off Cole.

  The Shadow Lord growled. His response came out as a garbled snarl of words from the Underworld.

  The hairs on Raven’s arms stood. Normally, Cole whispered to her in his mysterious Underworld language, calling her pet names and expressing all sorts of naughty fantasies. This though. This was downright hostile. She had no idea what he said but had no doubt it was vicious. He was the Patron Fae of Assassins, and he showed his hand right now.

  She shivered.

  “You’re too invested, Camhanaich.” Bane drew back.

  Cole’s gaze narrowed. The shadows pulled in around him. The temperature of the room dropped.

  Bane’s face lit up, like an internal inferno burned within. His piercing gaze flashed red and a bloody haze surrounded him.

  Nope. This couldn’t be good.

  “Uh…” Raven stepped between the two men like the idiot she was. “As much as I would love to be collateral damage to whatever pissing match you’re having right now, can we hear what Bane wants? I owe him a favour and I’d rather get this over with.”

  The men turned to her again. Déjà vu.

  “Well?” She placed her hands on her hips and gave her best “fuck off with your penny tip” face to Bane. “What do you want?”

  Cole sighed and stared at the ceiling. His shoulders dropped, but his hands remained balled into fists. His lips moved silently as if he uttered some sort of prayer.

  A slow grin spread across Bane’s face. “Thank you, Corvid Queen, for granting me an audience.”

  Oh dear.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Everything great in the world comes from neurotics.”

  ~ Marcel Proust

  Raven stood in front of the dark fae lords and waited for the world to end. When it didn’t, she took in a deep breath, the air thick with Cole’s intoxicating scent. Bane’s, too, but it didn’t have the same effect on her.

  “What exactly does granting an audience entail?” she asked and winced. Even as she spoke the words, she knew she asked the question too late.

  Bane’s smile widened.

  “Let’s just say, you’ll be late for dinner,” Cole said.

  Raven groaned. “Mom was making pie for dessert.”

  Bane’s eyebrows rose. “What kind of pie?”

  “You’re not invited,” she said. He crashed their last dinner and she’d been too distraught after the revelations to finish the meal let alone have dessert. No wonder she hated Bane. He made her skip dessert.

  Bane shrugged.

  “Pumpkin,” she said.

  Bane scowled. “I never understood the appeal.”

  “That confirms there’s something wrong with you,” Cole said.

  She flashed Cole a quick smile. He got it.

  Bane rolled his eyes so proficiently, Juni would’ve approved.

  “Does this audience count as payment for my favour?”

  Bane chuckled and shook his head. “You never specified payment for granting an audience, and you can’t decide to charge me for one after the fact, so no, you aren’t doing me a favour.”

  She glanced at Cole and his clenched jaw. His dark look and gathered shadows confirmed Bane’s words. Well, damn it. She needed to think before she acted or spoke. She couldn’t let Cole do everything for her. She couldn’t sit back and let others run her life, nor could she take control and bulldoze her way through situations she had no knowledge of.

  Balance.

  She needed balance.

  And ever since Cole Camhanaich stepped into Dan’s Diner to tell her Bear stole from him, she’d been off-balance.

  “As to what I want…” Bane said. “I want you to block the movement of all non-Others entering the Underworld.”

  “All?”

  “Yes.”

  “Forever?”

  “Until we extinguish the threat to our realm.”

  That last condition left a lot of room for interpretation. “If I do this, I will have paid my debt to you in full.”

  He nodded.

  “I will block the movement of non-Others to the Underworld. You will have forty-eight hours to eliminate the threat. If you don’t succeed, my debt to you is still paid and I owe you nothing more.”

  Bane’s expression grew solemn. “I need advanced notice of the blockade, and the forty-eight hours starts once it’s successfully in place.”

  “Agreed.”

  Bane nodded again. “Agreed. We must bind this agreement.” He stepped forward.

  Raven flinched. Memories of Cole’s particular way of sealing the deal flashed through her mind. No way did she want Bane’s
mouth cooties.

  Bane frowned and glanced at Cole, his pause telling, as if he knew exactly what had transpired between them and like a disappointed father, wasn’t pleased with the discovery. “I see you’re using every opportunity to flaunt our traditions, Camhanaich.”

  “If it brings you displeasure then I consider my objectives met.” Cole glared daggers at the other fae lord. “Even if I didn’t do it for you.”

  Raven had never appreciated the expression regarding two bulls in a china shop as she did now. If these two decided to actually fight, Cole’s room would end up in shambles, and Raven would get trampled.

  Bane turned to her, his expression somewhere between exasperated and amused. “There are more ways than one to bind an agreement.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek to prevent something sassy from spilling out.

  Bane slid his hand inside his jacket. The expensive fabric of his suit rustled, and he pulled out a small rope. The ordinary rope looked like it belonged on a dock somewhere except it was too thin and too short. Bane gripped the rope with both hands and held it out horizontally in front of his chest.

  How had he concealed a rope the length of his forearm inside his well-cut business suit?

  Bane mumbled something in Underworld and tied a knot in the rope. His dark red energy coiled around the threads and vibrated. He paused, made eye contact and held out the rope to her.

  She plucked the item from his hand like a soiled sock from Mike’s room and hesitated. The rope didn’t zap or burn her. Though the malicious red energy Bane enclosed over the knot vibrated, the rope remained cool to the touch. “Even if I knew what you just said, my mouth cannot form those words.”

  Bane made a long, exasperated sigh.

  “Language doesn’t matter, Einin,” Cole said. “The intent does.”

  “Oh.”

  “You need to repeat your promise and tie your own magic around the knot,” Cole continued.

  “How do I know Bane didn’t say something else? Something not a part of the deal.”

  “Because the binding will not work if our intentions do not match.” Bane ground his teeth.

  She glanced at Cole. He dipped his chin and remained tense. Hopefully, Cole would say something if Bane attempted to trick her. She didn’t want him to swoop in and save her or take over, but a heads up seemed like a reasonable expectation of a lover.

  Bane followed her look. “What the fuck did you do this last week? Did you teach her anything or just stare broodingly at her?”

  “I don’t brood,” Cole said.

  “It’s not his fault,” Raven said. “I have a job. The Corvid Queen position pays shit. I have bills. Cole had to train me around my schedule.” And she’d taken Saturday night off at the diner. Tossing away her most lucrative shift for a last ditch lesson on portal forming wasn’t an easy decision or easy on the wallet.

  “If you don’t smarten up, you won’t have any schedules to worry about,” Bane said.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Like she needed a remainder of the stakes or any added pressure. Her magic lashed out and snapped around his powerful knot.

  Bane’s eyes widened.

  She gripped the rough ends of the knot and squeezed. “I promise to block the movement of non-Others for the period of forty-eight hours after notifying Bane. The success of Bane’s endeavors after this notification have no impact or bearing on this agreement. In exchange, Bane acknowledges my debt to him for a favour owed is paid in full.” With a mind of its own, her magic synched to Bane’s around the knot and snapped off. In case Bane had any questions to her current mood, she glared at him. “Are we done here?”

  Bane stepped back, expression murderous, body tense. “Unless I’m invited for dinner?”

  “That’s a hard pass.”

  Bane nodded. “I will be in touch.”

  And there he went getting in the last word to sound ominous again. Now she had three meals, squarely on her plate—discover what the hell her ex-boyfriend was up to, obtain concrete proof Kelly Clementine submitted a fraudulent work claim and resurrect some sort of portal travelling blockade. What she needed to determine was which of those “meals” contained the poison meant to kill her.

  Maybe all of them.

  “Now, how the hell do I block portal formations?”

  “That’s for you to figure out.” Bane’s teeth flashed. He threw a portal disc on the ground. The object smacked the floorboards and red energy exploded to form a portal. Without another word or look, Bane straightened his suit and adjusted his tie before disappearing in a halo of red. Sucked into the closing vortex, the disc left with the Lord of War.

  She turned to Cole. He looked ready to leap into battle in his boxer briefs at the slightest provocation. How much had it cost him to hold back and let her deal with Bane? His mouth twisted as if he swallowed a Sefton beetle.

  “You did well,” he said.

  She ignored the trill in her veins from his compliment. Something nagged her. “Why does Bane use discs?”

  “Use what?”

  “Those portal disc things.”

  “They’re called lodestones,” he said.

  “Yeah, whatever. He’s supposed to be a big bad powerful dark fae lord but relies on these lodestones to get about. Why can’t he travel between the realms like you do?”

  “Oh, he can.”

  “Say what?”

  Cole grabbed a nearby shirt resting on the edge of a tufted bench. The fabric whispered against the furniture. He pulled it over his head, the white cotton sliding down his body to cover his abs. “I use my essence to wield the force of magic and travel between the realms, the shadows cut through the barriers. You harness the energy of corvids to do something similar. Think about Bane. Would you really wish him to tap into his particular talent to hitch a ride to run some errands?”

  Bane, the dark fae Lord of War. He’d have to harness bloodshed, rage, death, or some other powerful emotion or action associated with war to travel without a lodestone. He’d incite all sorts of violent acts whenever and wherever he travelled. He probably didn’t use lodestones out of respect for life or the fear of repercussions, he probably did it to avoid leaving a trail for someone to follow. The lodestones allowed the Lord of War to move more freely and undetected.

  Wasn’t that a pleasant thought? Her mouth fell open and she gaped at Cole.

  “Exactly,” he said and finished dressing. “Now, about that pie…Do you think we can make it to dinner?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies, and to their exquisite nonsense.”

  ~ Sydney Smith

  Raven focused the beady eyes of her conspiracy at the busy café across the street. Her birds’ positions on the surrounding trees and buildings gave her excellent vantage points. Kelly sat with the mystery man at a pedestal table by the window. Kelly wore a modest white blouse and black skinny jeans with pumps. Unfortunately, fashion choices weren’t enough to charge Kelly with fraud, but if Raven ever hurt her back, she’d be lying around the house in sweats and slippers, not traipsing around in ankle-breakers.

  Raven wished she lounged at home in active wear right now. She no longer had any downtime. She either worked at the diner, investigated her cases, or failed miserably at being a dark fae queen in Cole’s presence. They had made it to Sunday dinner the other night after Bane’s audience and the presence of her family helped leash the burning need to rip off her clothes and slap her body against the Lord of Shadows. Their last two training sessions were fraught with tension, but Raven poured every ounce of effort into focusing on her portal building. Ogling the tutor would not save her life, keep her family safe, or pay the bills.

  No more a queen than Dad’s goat, she’d switched gears today to follow Kelly on another one of her Wednesday afternoon outings. Kelly met the same guy at the same downtown Vancouver café, but if they were going for inconspicuous, they failed. Who sat at a window seat for a secret meeting? And w
ho was this guy? A sponsor? Dealer? None of Kelly’s background checks indicated addiction as a possibility, but that meant little. Some of the most intense addicts were adept at coping and appearing “normal.”

  Still, this guy didn’t look like a dealer, and although sponsors didn’t have a formulaic appearance, the gleam in mystery man’s gaze gave the same impression as one of those door-to-door missionaries trying to sell their religion. Or an accountant who was super enthusiastic about tax returns.

  Her birds leaned in, the cold air rippling their feathers. Was Kelly religious? Was she confessing her sins to her pastor or priest? Maybe next week, if they hadn’t closed the case, they could send Mike in with a wire. Kelly pushed away from the table. Her facial expressions and body language typical of a polite farewell. She sauntered out of the café, looked both ways and strolled down the sidewalk away from Raven’s position.

  The conspiracy vibrated.

  Let her go.

  Last week, Kelly’s events after this outing were uneventful. Not following her now carried a certain risk, but one Raven was willing to pay. Something about this whole case and Kelly’s platonic coffee “date” nagged her, like Raven should see a bright flashing neon sign instead of a drab middle-aged man if she looked at this situation at the right angle.

  The wind picked up a little, bringing with it a bite as a reminder of the approaching winter and the promise of rain. The air smelled of exhaust, oil and garbage. How did plants still exist in this ravaged world?

  The birds puffed out their feathers and pushed their heads down into the protective warmth.

  Well, fuck this.

  Maybe she should’ve followed the fraudster. Mystery Man did jack shit.

  One by one, she directed the birds to launch off their perches. Sure, she could send them all aloft at the same time, but that would bring more attention than she’d like.

  Oooo. Shiny. One of her birds gawked at a shiny medallion hanging from a chain and surrounded by chest hair that would’ve made the 70s proud.

  Who unfastened that many buttons on a shirt these days?