“It’s too bad she was the soul of discretion,” Hattie Blankenship, three sheets and a set of towels to the wind, Tansy’s aunt slurred her words. “I bet she learned plenty in that new job of hers.” My ears perked up. Literally, and the sensation startled.
“What new job, Hattie? Do tell.” It seemed Gran wasn't averse to a bit of prying, either.
“Calypso hired her to transcribe some of the old coven records. Births, deaths, and the lists of grievances for the last half a century. Bet there were some secrets in those old records. Scandals, too.”
It was the most interesting piece of news I’d heard all day. Not only had Tansy been able to access sensitive information, but she’d also been involved with Calypso, who was now missing. A connection where none had been before.
Chapter Eighteen
MAGIC TIPTOED ACROSS my skin leaving a trail of pebbled flesh in its wake. Now what? Was there some reason I couldn’t have one single day without some new catastrophe rearing its ugly head. There were times I missed the simpler days when I longed for magic without truly knowing what a giant pain in the patootie it would turn out to be.
Not that this magic had anything to do with witches, it was all Fae and reeked of fury. The godmothers were at it again.
“Stupid no-fighting compact...should have known it wouldn’t last...worse than herding kittens...thousands of years old and it still feels like a daycare center full of cranky toddlers hopped up on Pixie Stix.” I grumbled as I followed the trail of magic down the stairs. After the funeral, I’d begged off spending the night with Kin. I still had some thinking to do, and I’d been too tired to deal.
Every one of my goosebumps had sprouted goosebumps by the time I stepped into the parlor where my godmothers were in a three-against-two face-off with Vaeta and her demon on the lower side of the equation.
Not this again.
I fixed the pair with an icy stare and felt power rise up inside of me like water filling an empty vessel.
“Did I not make myself clear that he,” I pointed at Rhys, “is not welcome here?”
Vaeta bristled like Salem when he’s in cat form and someone steps on his tail.
“It’s not what you think. Rhys would never do anything to hurt you or anyone else I love.” Her eyes stayed on mine while his kept straying toward the Balefire as though searching through the flame for something. “You have to listen, Lexi. Rhys isn’t who you think he is.”
At that point, her sisters chimed in with accusations and recriminations stemming back to Vaeta’s departure to the Underworld while she defended herself hotly and Rhys stepped closer to the fireplace.
Despite fury elevating their power, the faeries restrained themselves to using words as weapons, probably to keep from running afoul of my grandmother’s wrath. I had to give her props for applying witch rules of magic to my godmothers since the karmic payback hadn't been an issue for them until she showed up.
A stroke of genius and one I’d love to have come up with on my own, but I was new enough to possessing power that it never occurred to me. Not sure I’d have had the stones to implement it if it had.
Whether her spell had been temporary or permanent, the magnificent Fae were clearly loathe to tempt fate again and find out. Their own medicine must have left a bitter flavor on the tongue.
When they switched to their native language, I watched Rhys to see if he understood the conversation any better than I did. Soleil tried to teach me once, but human vocal chords can’t reproduce certain sounds. The alien words of the language might be different, but the tone and the passion on their faces told the story.
We were at the name calling phase, which usually preceded the flinging of magics, followed by all-out war. My role had always been that of mediator, but when it came to Rhys, I lost my sense of balance and landed firmly on the side of no. No demons in my house.
Dark power begged for me to dip into its well and sample the heady sensation of losing control as it washed through me like thunder.
“Don’t do it, Lexi!” Salem said urgently in my ear. His hand dropped heavily on my shoulder, and I shrugged it off. Where had he come from, anyway? The pursuit of Pyewacket had kept him busy and out of my hair for days.
The heat of battle, the determination to defend my home, and Vaeta’s betrayal of my faith wrapped themselves into a hard ball that lodged in my belly and demanded to be freed. Freed by magic. Black witchfire magic like my mother used to wield. A dark spark arced and snapped in my left palm. All I had to do was lift my right hand to make the connection and let the magic seethe and build.
The half a goddess who lived in my skin had no problem with what my inner witch wanted to do. Odd, given her affinity for love. Even odder that I felt detached enough to observe the two parts of me when I thought I’d finally fused them into one. Had absorbing the bow divided me into bits again?
I don’t want a life lived in pieces. I don’t think anyone does. Getting through the day without flying apart at the seams is an all too human problem when the little stresses start building up into a wall of obstacles. Having the power to manifest my reactions to those stresses in a tangible way came with certain caveats that I fully intended to honor.
I wasn’t sure the goddess side of me enjoyed the same level of conscience. That would be the best explanation for why I experienced ambivalent feelings at weird times. Times like this one, for instance.
The godmothers might scoff if they knew I envied the depth of their connection to the elements since, as a witch, my affinities are similar even if I’m not as grounded in my magic as they are in theirs. In contrast, my inner goddess seemed more interested in the intangibles. Life, death, love, morality. Those sorts of things.
Nothing odd there, really. We all battle the same elements and everything is made from duality. Dark and light, earth and sky, heart and soul. It’s just that my halves have the potential to create havoc unless I stay vigilant.
Chasing that line of speculation distracted me long enough for the destructive urge to ebb, and when I came back to the present, it was to find myself the silent observer of yet another Fae standoff. You know that breathless moment when the roller coaster crests the hill and is about to drop? Welcome to my world, because that’s where the faeries find ways to torment each other at every possible opportunity.
“We’re not doing this. Do you hear me?” I shouted into air so heavy my words thudded to the ground like stones. Vaeta’s wary expression transformed into a triumphant smile, and she let the air pressure drop back to normal.
“Please, Lexi. You have to listen, Rhys is just trying to...”
Terra pulled the rug out from under her. Okay, it wasn’t just the rug, it was the rug, the floorboards, and about twenty feet of earth that swallowed Vaeta whole while Rhys reached for her and missed.
“Bring her back.” His voice, deep and commanding, danced across my nerves in a way that could have edged into either pleasure or pain. Flipping through my mental catalog for information about demons produced a whole lot of scenes from television shows and the preconceived notion that demon equals evil. Preconceived and unshakable, it seemed, because I couldn’t quell my edgy and tense response to him even though he hadn’t done anything to me or mine. I think those three words were the first I’d heard him utter, come to that.
“That’s rich. You telling me what to do after you basically kidnapped my sister and held her in the Underworld for a century.” Evian and Soleil punctuated Terra’s response with noises signaling their agreement.
Rhys couldn’t have looked more surprised if she’d told him his pants were on fire. “Lies. All lies.”
Accusing the Fae of telling an outright lie is not only baseless, but it’s also a high insult. Bound to tell the truth, or at least as little of it as they can get away with, my godmothers believed Vaeta’s incarceration to be fact or Terra could never have made the statement.
Holding out both arms to keep them apart, I stepped between Rhys and the three women ready to pou
nd him into a greasy stain. Vaeta was in no immediate danger from Terra having briefly entombed her, and we needed to get to the bottom of this before it escalated into all-out war.
“Vaeta said...” I got no further before the faerie in question erupted from a crack in the floorboards, her body turned to little more than light and air in order to squeeze through the narrow space.
“I said nothing if you recall. You were free to draw your own conclusions, and I can’t be blamed if you drew them incorrectly. Rhys is not here to hurt you,” Vaeta’s pointed finger indicated each of us in turn, “but I can see your minds are already closed. You will never see me as anything more than Vaeta the airhead who is too stupid to know when she’s being seduced by evil. Whisper sweet nothings in her ear, and she’ll follow you anywhere, even to Hell.” That last was directed at her sisters.
“No one ever said you were stupid,” Evian defended hotly while Soleil stared at the floor.
“And what is the difference between calling me stupid and calling me gullible? It means the same to me. Come, Rhys. I think my time here is done.” Pulling him along behind, Vaeta stuck her nose in the air, flounced down the hall, and out the door without a backward glance. Rhys cast one enigmatic look toward the Balefire but allowed himself to be pulled away.
The house seemed inordinately emptier without her there.
“What just happened?” Soleil slumped down on the sofa. “Do you think she’s gone for good?”
Following her example, the rest of us took seats and tried to parse the past ten minutes for subtext. Had Rhys indicated Vaeta hadn’t actually been confined to the Underworld? Then why had she gone to such lengths to make it seem like she was in need of rescue?
Vaeta’s ruse had spurred her sisters into teaming up with Adriel, a former guardian angel who had her own reasons for storming the nexus where Vaeta was supposedly being held. When the dust cleared on that day, we had freed Adriel’s friend along with my mother, even if I hadn’t known that at the time. Coincidence? Maybe, but now I wasn’t so sure.
“With any luck, for another hundred years.” Terra’s tone held an undercurrent that belied the words. Sadness and fear all wrapped up in anger and defensiveness. I knew she only half meant it because I had witnessed the dichotomy between earth and air on more than one occasion. There’s a reason polar opposites attract, and in the hands of the Fae, the two elements complement and elevate one another the same way a rhythm and a melody can create a beautiful song.
Without Vaeta, Terra was yin without her yang; a single tricycle wheel trying to balance the dual forces of fire and water.
An hour later, Evian hiccuped daintily and shook the last drop of wine from the bottle. That it missed her glass by two inches went unnoticed.
“That’s your third bottle,” I pointed out, then squirmed under the gaze she leveled at me.
“To Vaeta.” A mirror tipped hand waved the delicate crystal glass around in an attempt at a toast. “Long may she stay wherever the hell she is.”
“Hear, hear,” an equally inebriated Soleil echoed. I’d never seen them get tipsy so quickly. Terra must have added extra dragonfly wings to the batch. I made a note to cut myself off at half a glass.
“You know what Vaeta needs?” Terra slurred her words and the three of them giggled as if they’d heard an unspoken answer to the question. The giggles had an edge to them that would cut glass. Mean and diamond hard.
Water sloshed out of the hole Terra had gouged, with the wave of one hand, out of rock and soil to form the circular space Evian had filled with crystal clear spring water. No one wanted to admit the whole magic hot tub experience felt slightly lacking without Vaeta there to supply the bubbles. Still, Soleil’s heat and light show made up for a lot. Scented steam drifted skyward while night birds serenaded us with tender melodies and the occasional honk (some of the residents in my back yard are from the Faelands).
Time alone with the godmothers had been about as rare as a dodo bird lately. What with them being tied up at Enchanting Events and me dealing with my newly expanded family, work, and the fallout from the Balefire having a fit of the wonkies, we’d barely seen each other for days.
Changing the subject for the moment, I said, “You’ve been busy lately, big wedding?”
“Twinniversary.” Terra sounded sober all of a sudden.
“A what now?”
“Two sets of twins got married in a double ceremony thirty years ago, and now they’re having a blowout anniversary party. Two of everything. Identical cakes, table settings, double the flowers, the whole shebang.”
“It’s uncanny,” Evian said. “Almost creepy in a way.”
“I assume Fae don’t run to multiple births,” I swear I wasn’t prying and it didn’t matter anyway since the leading statement went ignored.
“Well, I think it’s sweet. Such perfect carbon copies, but their personalities are different.” Leave it to Soleil to look past the superficial. It was one of her more endearing qualities. “Vaeta was supposed to...”
“Stop.” Terra speared a finger toward the end of Soleil’s nose and nearly made contact. “She’s a traitor and an idiot, and as far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t exist.”
I checked my watch to see if we’d gone back in time. Three faerie godmothers were an embarrassment of riches and, growing up, it never occurred to me that earth, water, and fire were missing wind. When Terra cuts someone out of her life, that person stays out.
Except that Vaeta had come back a few months before and I’d have bet the farm she would again. Terra might grumble, but she’d welcome her sister back. After a suitable period of time spent in paying penance, of course.
“Did anyone ever ask she-whose-name-we-must-not-speak why she came back when she did? I’m genuinely curious. Was it a tiff with that demon of hers or something else?”
Terra snapped her mouth into a straight line, launched out of the tub and stomped away. But not before turning the tub into a big vat of mud. Warm mud—people pay good money to wallow in the stuff—and it actually felt good, so no one complained.
“I guess I should have kept my big mouth shut.”
“It’s not your fault, Lexi. For all her bluster, Terra has the softest heart, and that means she’s the one most easily hurt.” Evian added more water to the mud and wiggled down deeper into it.
“She’ll forgive and forget eventually.”
I’m not sure if you can snort internally, but I tried. Forgive, yes, but forget? Never.
Chapter Nineteen
WALKING INTO THE POPULAR nightclub named Driven had become even more like a family reunion since I’d started dating Kin, though I’d known the owner and several of the employees from my matchmaking activities. I’d always played an active role in mating souls, and sometimes that meant taking clients out to see what kind of people they find attractive.
Trying to talk a stone cold yuppie into dating a rocker chick covered in tattoos is about as difficult as you’d expect, regardless of whether or not they have a million things in common and are destined to be together. At least when I know what I’m up against, I can formulate a suitable counterattack.
On my way in, I was accosted by regulars who now knew me either by name or as Kin Clark’s Girlfriend, which wasn’t a moniker I minded in the least. In fact, it was kind of cool to be treated like a member of the band, and I’d dressed to the nines tonight to look the part. A pair of opaque black tights hugged my legs below a pleated denim mini skirt, and the late summer air had cooled enough to allow for a pair of ankle boots with pointed toes that reminded me of witch shoes.
I enjoy my little private jokes. A white off-the-shoulder top showed off my bronzed décolletage one last time before my tan would begin to fade and turn my skin back to its normal peaches-and-cream hue.
Would this be what it would be like to join Kin on Rain of Thirteen’s concert tour? None of the slated venues were anywhere near as small as Driven, so I doubted the atmosphere would be quite as homey. Still, it woul
d be an experience to remember, and the thought of missing it all was beginning to bum me out. I hadn’t felt comfortable discussing the subject with anyone else, and it ticked me off to no end that my best friend, Flix, was MIA right when I needed some sound relationship advice.
Given the state of affairs at home, I didn’t see how I could leave. In fact, I hadn’t even broached the subject with a single one of my housemates.
“Hey Lexi, how’s it hanging?” Shouted someone from the group of drunk fraternity guys playing darts at the far end of the bar, his gaze traveling the length of me with a glint in his eye until I raised an eyebrow and sent a tiny flick of magic toward one leg of the bar stool he was lounging on. Instead of simply knocking him on his butt, it skidded across the floor on a slick of spilled beer, and he let out a whoop as his forehead collided with the edge of a nearby table. Oops. I should have known better, given the unstable state of magic lately. After making sure he was no worse for the wear, I vowed to be more careful.
Kin was busy tuning his guitar when I approached him from behind, letting out a low, exaggerated whistle of appreciation at the sight of his backside, “Hey, baby, how you doin’?” I attempted a Joey from Friends-esque pickup line.
“However you want me to be.” Kin replied in kind and set aside his guitar to wrap his arms around me. His hands slid through my hair and down my back, pulling me toward his muscled chest with passionate intent as he kissed me breathless. Don’t ever listen to women who try to say they’re not attracted to musicians because it’s a total lie. Watching a man’s hands slide over the strings of a guitar is about as sensual as you can get, and being serenaded by a sultry, sexy voice turns bones to mush. Every. Single. Time. “I can’t wait until we’re out on the road.”
“Mmmm,” I murmured, pulling away reluctantly, “I’m going to go grab a drink and try to find a good seat. Good luck, Babe.”
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