Hunting Season (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 4)

by Annie Bellet

  Levi hadn’t meant to call Ezee. Exhausted from keeping watch with the wolves, he’d tried to shut off his phone before he crashed for the night, and hit redial instead. Gave us all heart palpitations.

  After pulling over and managing to call back and figure all this out, I made Ezee switch seats with me and drove. I explained to Yosemite what I’d read, promising him a full translation of the ritual later. He listened with the patience of an oak tree, asking me minimal questions, seeming to understand what I was saying better than I did. Which was good, because while I could read the words, that didn’t always mean I knew what they were talking about without greater context.

  It was early morning when we reached the Henhouse. We needed more sleep, and to prepare. Yosemite had certain plants to gather as well. I wished I understood what needed to happen enough to just magic it into being so, but the book was by druids, dealing with druidic magic. I wasn’t sure I could eat a druid’s heart and gain his power. Probably. Even the thought was unnerving and I shoved it away, climbing into bed next to Alek.

  “Briefing at high noon,” I murmured to him, curling up against his warm chest.

  “Read the book?” he asked.

  “Brought it back with us,” I said. “I had to trade Samir’s dagger to a vampire for it.”

  “Vampire? They don’t exist.” He shook his head and ran a hand down my spine, tugging at my braid where it ended at my waist.

  “Yeah, turns out they do.”

  “You are telling the truth,” he said.

  “Hey, it happens on occasion.”

  “I like the druid,” Alek said. “I am glad you and Brie are no longer fighting.”

  “Where is Brie?” I hadn’t seen her or Ciaran when we got back.

  “Patrolling. She is different, somehow. I can’t place it. Even her scent has changed. It is like she is different person.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess a lot of us aren’t exactly what we first seem.” I was thinking about myself, but also about Tess. Even Alek had given me a very different impression when I’d first met him.

  I rubbed my nose in his chest hair and breathed in his vanilla and spice scent. This was home. This was safe. We had the book, we had the ritual, and we had the unicorn. Later today we could end this whole mess. I could take out Clyde, which would be some kind of blow to Samir at least. And there was enough time for me to cuddle with a handsome man who loved me. It was a win all around, so far.

  I lay there for a while, feeling like something was terribly wrong. Maybe I was just not cut out for winning.

  Unable to sleep, I went down to see Tess after Alek got up to get breakfast. She was still propped up in bed, watching Farscape on the TV. The sun was out, streaming in through the light blue curtains, bathing the room in gentle golden light. Tess looked thinner but her smile was strong as she paused the DVD and motioned for me to come sit in one of the chairs pulled up by her bed.

  “I see my friends got you hooked on science fiction,” I said, closing the door behind me.

  “I never watched a lot of shows before. Mostly news shows and occasionally that reality TV junk, so I could keep up with fashion, slang, and that stuff.” She lifted a thin shoulder in a half-shrug. “Harper promised that this show has more than one season.”

  “Oh, it does.” I sank into a chair, my back to the window so I wouldn’t have to squint at her.

  “So far it is funny,” she said.

  “You must be watching the first season.” Harper was evil. I had almost been jealous that my friends were bonding with Tess so well, but they were doing their own version of nerd hazing, from what I could see. Trial by fire. Heartbreaking science fictional fire.

  She looked at the TV and then back at me. “You didn’t come here to talk about television.”

  “I met Clyde,” I said. My brain had been turning the experience over and over, searching it for meaning. The wrongness started there, I was sure of it. I just couldn’t find it. Clyde had been exactly as Tess had described. Flashy. Arrogant. Utterly evil. “He knows you are here.”

  Her gaze sharpened and she pressed her lips together, nostrils flaring. “I guess I’m not surprised. Samir will know by now I’m gone and I told you he has eyes everywhere.”

  “He told me you would betray me,” I said.

  “He doesn’t understand why I ran,” she said with a snort. “All he sees when he looks at Samir is a handsome man who lets him get away with murder.”

  “How did you know who Samir really is? What he intends for you both?” I knew how I had discovered it, but I knew too how seductive and sweet Samir could be. Tempting with his offer of knowledge, binding you to him with promises, playing to your strengths and flattering your ego until you felt like you were the most special person in the world. It was a hard thing to break away from, to see the rotten core of him, covered in so many layers of deception. Samir was the best manipulator of desire and fear I’d ever met.

  “I’ve always known,” Tess said, closing her eyes. Her voice took on a tight edge, as though her throat hurt. “I watched him kill my grandmother when I was a little girl.”

  I waited, saying nothing, watching her face as she visibly struggled to control her emotions.

  “She was so beautiful. Said that God had given her a gift and she was going to use it. She could heal, you know. She hid it with herb lore and such, but she had a magic touch. No one dared call her a witch—she was too sweet, too kind. Too devout. I think she scared the priests, even. They called her Sister Mary, even though she wasn’t a nun. Everyone thought she was my mother, but she’d come and taken me away from Papa after Mama died giving birth. She could do more magic, though. I remember how good she was at hiding things, hiding people. She helped slaves escape along the Eastern Shore, sometimes hiding whole boats in Chesapeake Bay.”

  Tess stopped and took a deep breath. I waited again to see if she’d continue, but she opened her eyes, now bright with unshed tears, and shook her head.

  “Why didn’t he kill you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tess said. “I’ve thought about it over and over. He looked right at me after he ripped her heart out, though Grandmother hid me under the bed. She had a spell on me, I know that, but he bent right down and looked me in the eye. I remember the blood on his lips, and how my chest was too tight, how I couldn’t even scream. Then he smiled and got up and left. Just like that.” Her hands fisted in the quilt and the tears spilled from her eyes.

  I got up and found her a tissue. She was a crazy-strong woman. I’d been with Samir because I hadn’t known better. The moment I figured out what he was, what he intended, I’d be so damn pissed I’d confronted him, and when it became clear he was too powerful to face, I’d run. Tess had waited over a century, and when faced with him again, she’d pretended to be naïve, new, just a young sorceress waiting for him to fatten and slaughter. I had to admire her survival skills, her patience.

  “You really want him dead, don’t you?” I said softly.

  “Yes,” she said, her brandy-colored irises catching the sunlight, the highlights in them like sparks. “It was almost a relief when I realized he was close to finding me. I was teaching pottery at an art school and had to use magic to save myself when the kiln exploded. I knew it was enough that I was likely exposed.”

  “Why come to me now?” I asked. I’d asked her before, but I wanted to hear it again.

  “You hurt him,” she said. “And he is getting moodier, more paranoid. Clyde, too. I felt as though his games with you are coming to a close. So I took my chance.” She rubbed her fingers over the crucifix charm on her wrist in a gesture that reminded me of how I touched my talisman for comfort sometimes.

  “You are Catholic?” I said. “After all you’ve seen, you believe in God?”

  “You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe,” she answered, the words sounding old-fashioned.

  “Scripture?” I guessed.

  “Jesus Christ
spoke those words to Thomas the Doubter. I guess your people have their own god, right? A Great Spirit?” She closed her hand over her bracelet, as though wanting to hide the cross from my heathen eyes. I got the feeling I’d annoyed her.

  “Sure,” I said, mildly annoyed myself. “My people, as you put it, are totally homogenous just like you white folk. We all have the same culture and believe exactly the same things.”

  “Touché,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” I said with a sigh. “Don’t be. I was raised in a cult, pretty much. Our god, if we had one, was my grandfather. He preached that the perfect spirit of the Crow had to be preserved, that crows and wolves and men didn’t share beds or homes, but each kept to their own. He did pretty awful things to cleave to his vision of how things ought to be. All religion seems to bring people is fear, hatred, and just as dead in the end. I have no use for it.”

  “No faith in anything greater than yourself?” she said softly. “It sounds lonely.”

  “I guess I have some kind of faith. I believe the universe is vast and that there are many things I don’t understand.”

  We sat quietly for a little while, her rubbing her crucifix, me trying to figure out why I was so prickly, what felt off about everything. Nerves before battle, perhaps.

  “How did you find out what Samir intended for you?” Tess asked me after some minutes had passed.

  I dragged my gaze back to her face. She watched me intently, almost disturbingly so, but I shoved my feelings away. I was getting pretty good at it.

  “I read his diary,” I said. “He was pretty clear in his thoughts and feelings on the matter. And he’d done it before, kept a catalog of who and when and what he felt he’d gained from the experience.” The experience of killing and eating heart after heart.

  I didn’t admit that I’d not read as closely as I wished. I’d been in shock, sitting alone in the big library, holding the book I’d pulled off the shelf in my hands, disbelieving that what I was reading was real. I’d slammed through all five stages of grief real quick that day, though I wasn’t sure I’d ever hit the acceptance phase. Pretty sure I got stuck on anger.

  “You could read his journals?” Tess said.

  “They were just there, not hidden or anything. He went away for a few days and I got bored, so I snooped. I stayed away from the older ones, since he had spells on those, but the last couple notebooks were right there for the taking.” I knew I was avoiding answering the question she had actually asked, but I didn’t feel like broadcasting my language abilities. Even with her injured in bed and her apparent friendliness and sincerity, I couldn’t quite bring myself to trust her. Not yet.

  I wondered if Samir still kept the journals out. If he still had a library. He’d had a wonderful collection of books, some dating back hundreds of years if not further, beautiful books like the one we’d traded the vampire for. I’d spent hours in that library whenever Samir had to go away for business, often sitting with gloves on in the temperature-controlled room and flipping through old volumes of poetry and lore.

  Old books. Like the druid’s book. I forced myself to stand up slowly, not leap and run for the door even though adrenaline slammed into my veins.

  “I’m going to get some breakfast,” I said. My even voice sounded normal. Go me. “Want me to send in anything? Or do you feel up to coming out?”

  “The bathroom trip nearly wiped me out,” she said with a small smile. “I’m okay. I’ll just keep watching this show. Let me know what the plan is though. I want to help if I can.”

  “No problem,” I lied. “I’ll let you know.”

  I left the room and ducked down the hall out of sight of everyone. Sagging against the wall, I closed my eyes. I knew why the book was familiar, and with that knowledge other things started to topple into place.

  I wanted to be wrong. Because if I was right, we weren’t winning at all.

  I pulled Alek away from the breakfast table with only minor teasing from my friends. Yosemite was outside, standing just beyond the garden in the trees, apparently talking to a birch tree.

  Alek set up a ward around us and I laid out my suspicions, and my plan.

  “It’s a lot of guesswork,” the druid said, running a hand over his thick red beard.

  “Jade has good instincts,” Alek said, surprising me with his quiet defense of my theories. I hadn’t always been right about things and he’d been around to witness some of my worst mistakes. Still, his support warmed me better than the morning sun.

  “If I’m wrong, we can still get to you to help in time. If I’m right, it will take the pressure off you and allow you to fix the forest and lay Balor back to rest.”

  “Why Brie?” he asked.

  “I saw what she could do with that sword. Also, I trust her not to do something stupid and get in over her head trying to protect me.”

  “Unlike, say, Harper,” Alek said with a rude snort.

  “She’s got that foxy courage—what can I say?” I smiled at him.

  Harper was my best friend, but no way could I trust her to go with this plan if she knew the truth. The very friendship that bound the twins, Harper, and I together would potentially give the game away and get them killed.

  If I was right. I really wanted to be wrong, but the pieces fit into a picture we couldn’t afford to ignore.

  “Ciaran must stay near Brie, if she is to fight,” Yosemite said.

  “If they agree, he can come.” I had considered bringing Ciaran into this meeting. I trusted the leprechaun to keep a secret. He and Brie weren’t back yet, however, and I couldn’t let the plan wait. Our noon meeting was coming, and the three of us had to be in agreement.

  “And you are sure they will not see through the ruse?”

  I was going to rename this guy Thomas the Doubter. Geez.

  “No,” I said. “The book is written in Old Irish, Middle Irish, some weird-ass dialect of Latin, and a bunch of words in something the weird part of my brain tells me is called ‘Stone.’ I doubt it is something anyone besides me could totally parse, but there’s enough recognizable there that someone with enough knowledge could maybe make out the meanings.” I wondered if humans had been misunderstanding the phrase “written in stone” for centuries, but I shoved that thought aside.

  “I cannot say, but that I hope you are wrong,” Yosemite said. “These games within games are tiring to even consider.” He shook his head and rubbed at the bridge of his nose as though he felt a headache coming on.

  “Hope for the best,” I said. “Plan for the worst.” It was all we could do.

  “This plan sucks,” Harper said.

  We had gathered in the living room like a ragtag band of adventurers. Rosie hovered at the edge, teacup in hand. Max and Aurelio sat on the floor, heads tipped in mirrored gestures of consideration. Harper sat with her feet pulled up in one of the overstuffed chairs, glaring at me. The twins were side by side, Ezee watching Yosemite’s face with narrowed dark eyes, Levi sucking speculatively on one of his lip rings. Junebug sat next to her husband, her fingers laced with his. Brie leaned against a wall behind Harper’s chair and Ciaran hovered near her, his red coat bright as fresh blood in the sunlight streaming through the window next to him. Only Tess was missing, but her door was open and I knew she could hear what we said.

  I stood at the end of the room, flanked by Alek and Yosemite.

  “It’s the plan we have,” I said. “We have to divide ourselves if we are going to do both rituals. We can’t have the magic interfering, and we can’t provide one big juicy target. It’s not that bad a plan, come on.”

  “Whatever. I’m going with you.” Harper folded her arms over her knees.

  “No,” I said, too sharply. I sucked in a breath and forced myself to calm down. “What I’m doing is the more minor thing. Alek, Ciaran, and Brie should be enough. We’ll have to be quick and quiet, and we want to distract Clyde with the larger force. That’s why the rest of you need to go protect the druid. And Lir. He’s
the last unicorn, after all.”

  Cheap shot on my part, but it got Max and Levi both nodding. Harper made a face at me and rolled her eyes.

  “Fine,” she muttered.

  “Great,” I said. “Arm up and let’s go do this thing. We have to be in place by twilight.”

  Orders issued, objections quelled, the group broke up into smaller groups. Brie came over to me, her eyes searching my face. When she spoke, however, it was to Yosemite.

  “You trust her?” she asked him in Old Irish.

  “Yo,” I said. “Standing right here, totally understand you.”

  “I do,” Yosemite said, as though I weren’t standing right here, totally able to understand them.

  “There are many here who think you are worth following, Jade Crow,” she said, looking at me now.

  It wasn’t my imagination, or Alek’s. Brie was different. She looked a decade younger and her eyes were full of power, her gaze keen as a sword blade. The gentle, helpful magic she infused into her baking was nothing like the hot, sharp power that rippled off her in lazy waves.

  “Who are you?” I said, sticking to Old Irish, aware our conversation could be overheard.

  “E pluribus unum,” she said with a toothy smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Out of many, one. Like it explained anything. Ha.

  “Okay, then,” I muttered.

  “Brie,” Ciaran said, tugging lightly on her sleeve. “Come.”

  He led her away. Yosemite followed them, leaving Alek and I almost alone at the edge of the room.

  “Tell me I’m doing the right thing,” I whispered in Russian.

  “You are worth following, kitten,” he said, wrapping his arms around me.

  Not what I’d asked for, but somehow it was the right thing to say. I squeezed him back and then went to prepare for the worst.

  “I’m going with you,” Tess said to me as I went to say goodbye to her.

  She was up, leaning unsteadily on the bed, and trying to pull a sweater over her head. She’d definitely lost weight. Healing was apparently far tougher on her than on me.