Bewitching the Dragon

by Jane Kindred

  Dev watched Ione preparing to march into the lion’s den. With something concrete to do, the despair that had gripped her since Rafe’s phone call had fallen away. This was the high priestess, strong and steady, ready to defend her own, propelled by righteous anger. There was a touch of wrathfulness in her expression, like a mother bear about to avenge her cub. He wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that. Carter Hamilton had obviously picked the wrong witch to mess with.

  He’d tried to talk Ione out of her plan, but when she asked what bright ideas he had instead, he had to admit he couldn’t think of anything better.

  “If you’re doing this, I’m going with you,” he insisted.

  “There’s no way they’ll let you in with me. It’s going to take my best acting to get them to let me in to see him a second time without giving advance notice.”

  “I’m his spiritual counsel.”

  Ione’s expression was incredulous in the little mirror over the sink in the loo as she wove the lock of Phoebe’s hair into her own. “You’re what?”

  Dev cleared his throat. “Mr. Hamilton has sent us a communication leading us to believe he means harm to himself. As his spiritual counsel, I’ve naturally contacted his solicitor to get me in to see him immediately to offer him guidance and moral support during this spiritual crisis.”

  Like a digital image glitch, Ione’s eyes flickered from green to periwinkle blue as the glamour took effect. “That’s not bad, actually. All right, you’re in. But don’t gloat,” she warned, glaring at the pleased look he couldn’t mask quickly enough.

  Rafe sat watching them from the chair by Phoebe’s bed. “If I could think of a way to get in there myself, I’d insist on going, as well. But I’m afraid I’d simply snap his neck, and then I’d be taking his place in prison.”

  Ione shook her head. “You need to be here to keep watch on Phoebe. You’re the only one who’ll see her shade if it starts to pull away from her. You have to keep her anchored.”

  They left for the town of Florence, southeast of Phoenix, once Ione’s little sisters had arrived. Dev knew they’d been at Ione’s place during his transformation but had no recollection of either of them. They clearly remembered him, however. The dark-haired one, Theia, was tongue-tied and awed by him, while the blonde with the unruly spikes commented with a saucy grin that his “skin condition” had improved.

  “She’s in good hands,” Dev remarked as they drove out of the hospital car park. “They won’t let anything happen to her.”

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to her.” Ione was fierce. “It’s my fault she’s lying there half-alive. If I hadn’t sent her after Laurel, none of this would have happened.”

  “You can’t know that. Hamilton has been escalating his campaign against you steadily since this Nemesis business began. He obviously has no qualms about taking a life.”

  “He hasn’t taken a life yet.” Ione’s voice was sharp.

  “No, of course. And he won’t. I just mean that he was bound to try sooner or later. He’s got a serious chip on his shoulder and he blames you for everything he’s done to himself.”

  “When I get done with him, he’s going to wish he’d never met me.”

  Dev believed it.

  * * *

  The “spiritual counsel” ruse managed to get them in to see Hamilton. He could have refused them, of course. The fact that he hadn’t meant he was enjoying his little game of cat and mouse and believed he had the upper hand.

  “Ah, here he is in the flesh.” Carter gave Dev the once-over while Ione held the receiver between her and Dev so they could both hear. “Your little lapdog. Must like the taste of your blood, Ione, dear. I understand that’s the only way to return the demon once he’s gotten out. Also the only way to set him loose. Tell me, how did that happen the first time? Was Dev earning his crimson wings?”

  Before Dev could make a guess at what that phrase probably meant, Ione pulled the receiver close to speak into it directly.

  “Shut up, Carter. I didn’t come here to listen to your impression of a twelve-year-old boy. I came here to warn you that you’re playing with fire.”

  “Oh, am I?”

  Kur’s keen hearing and a bit of lip-reading allowed Dev to pick up Hamilton’s reply despite the fact that Ione still held the receiver to her ear.

  “I know you’re behind what’s happened to Phoebe.”

  Hamilton blinked innocently. “I’m so confused. I thought you were Phoebe.”

  “Did you actually think you could go up against the quetzal?”

  Hamilton’s expression remained amused, but there was a slight tic of tension in his jaw at the words.

  “You weren’t man enough to take his power when you had him drugged and bound at your mercy.” She’d gone for the jugular. The fact that it turned Dev on was probably inappropriate right now. “What makes you think you can best him when you’re locked up and powerless? You don’t even have access to magic.”

  Hamilton’s calmness didn’t bode well. “Your trouble, my dear, is that you overestimate your own. Did you actually think I hadn’t planned for the eventuality of someone finding my little stash of reserves in the basement?” He smiled as Ione’s face clouded with dismay. “I’m well aware that you returned my property to its original location. Surely you can’t have imagined I wouldn’t have a contingency plan in place. My acolytes had taken the necessary steps to anchor the shadow revenant in this plane—before you besmirched their good names in the eyes of the law and endangered their livelihoods.”

  “Acolytes,” Ione scoffed. “You mean sexual predators. And how dare you refer to a human body as property?”

  Hamilton rolled his eyes. “Spare me the PC feminist rant. People volunteer themselves as property in all sorts of ways. Prostitution, sadomasochistic power exchange—perhaps you’re familiar with that one—working for corporations...” He flicked his gaze toward Dev, obviously aware that Dev could hear every word he was saying. “Familiars. Call it what you will, but our dear Matthew, bless his soul, forfeited his autonomy to me. Rafael believed his apprentice was an innocent bystander in our little drama, but Matthew was eager to learn and impatient at having to go at the snail’s pace of Covent practice. When Rafael’s mentorship didn’t offer what he needed, Matthew was more than happy to hitch his little sled to the sleigh of a mentor who would. So to speak.”

  “You’re telling me Matthew bound his soul to you in exchange for a fast track to magical instruction?”

  “I’m telling you that Matthew knew what he was getting into. He knew what the price would be if things went south. And while you and your little whelp were distracted by his corpse, my apprentice had already obtained what was necessary to uphold that contract. And was busy obtaining a little extra security from sweet Phoebe while you were digging in the dirt with Fido.” Hamilton lifted his arm and waggled his wrist, revealing the dark brown braided bracelet tied around it. The fiber it was braided from appeared to be human hair.

  Of course. Hair. The most easily portable source of DNA. And not something a prisoner would be forbidden to accept as a gift. Laurel had probably included it in an envelope with her correspondence as though sending her lover a lock of her own hair as a token of her devotion. Only it had been hair from Matthew Palacio’s corpse. And now Laurel had obtained hair from Phoebe, as well, the base on which Hamilton had constructed his necromantic spells.

  Hamilton was laughing softly at Ione’s look of shock and hopelessness. “Really, it’s almost too easy. I almost feel guilty for having a superior intellect. What fun is there in outsmarting a woman of, at best, average intelligence? And her faithful pooch?”

  Dev had finally had enough of the dog references.

  He grabbed the receiver out of Ione’s hand against little resistance and leaned close to the glass to stare Hamilton in the eye. �
�You listen to me, you son of a bitch. You’re going to leave Ione and the rest of the Carlisle sisters alone. I’m prepared to swear to having personally witnessed your practice of necromancy in my report to the Covent elders. Your little game is over.”

  Hamilton snorted. “You’re going to tell on me? I’m quaking in my boots. You can’t touch me, Gideon. You’d think even a pup would have learned to recognize when he’s licked.”

  “Really?” said Dev. “You haven’t.” He breathed in, mentally drawing on Kur’s magic, and punched his right hand toward the barrier between them. Despite the inch-thick bulletproof glass, Hamilton flinched but didn’t move, clearly expecting only the impact of Dev’s fist against the glass. But Dev’s body was no longer in phase with its matter as the demon shifted within him. He punched right through the relative insubstantiality of the glass, snatching the bracelet from Hamilton’s wrist and yanking it free before pulling his hand back and letting the molecules of the glass reset themselves.

  Dev held up the broken braid of hair in his hand. “How’s that superior intellect working for you now?”

  Hamilton’s smug expression transformed into a black fury and, for a moment, he looked more inhuman than Kur ever had. He slammed his palm against the glass, causing the guard to step in and prod him up.

  “Milk and Cookie Time with your lawyer is over, Hamilton. You know the rules. Let’s go.”

  Hamilton still clung to the receiver as the guard hauled him out of his chair. “You’ve just signed your little sister’s death warrant,” he snarled before a second guard arrived and wrested the phone from his hand and hung it up.

  Dev looked down at the braided strands of hair in his fist while Ione stared in speechless shock.

  After a moment she found her voice and it was tight with alarm. “What did you do?”

  Dev raised his head, crushed by the look on her face. “I thought I was freeing their souls. This has to be how he was maintaining control over them.”

  “Why wouldn’t he just have more? He could have dozens of the goddamn bracelets in his cell!”

  Dev tried to calm her with reason. “There are only so many hair clippings you can take from a person before it becomes obvious. You’ve done it twice with Phoebe in the last few days. If Laurel took some, it couldn’t have been more than this.” He held out the fetish on his palm. “We would have noticed when we saw her in hospital.”

  “Would we?” Ione’s glamour was slipping, the now-jade-green eyes rimmed with the red of despair. “Did we look that closely? She has cuts and abrasions on the side of her head, the stitches—there could be an entire bald patch under that bandage. That little monster Laurel could have yanked out a fistful.”

  Their escort opened the door to the visitation room and nodded toward the exit. “Come on, folks. This isn’t a coffee lounge.”

  Ione swept past him and Dev followed, stuffing the bracelet in his pocket.

  When he reached the car park, Ione was already on her mobile. “Rafe. How is she?”

  Dev’s heart broke for her as her face crumpled. Had he just killed Ione’s sister with that stunt? “What’s wrong? She’s not...?”

  Ione dropped the phone into her handbag, forgetting to end the call. “They’ve put her on a ventilator. She stopped breathing.”

  “God. I’m sorry, love.” He reached for her to comfort her, but she hunched away from his grasp, her expression a stone mask.

  “Get me back there before she’s gone.”

  Chapter 25

  Ione stared out the window at the brown, lifeless landscape speeding by. The desert seemed to be mocking her, more barren and empty than it had ever been, as if foreshadowing the empty landscape of the face she was driving to see. Rafe hadn’t seen Phoebe’s shade since the first appearance, but perhaps that was just because it had already been separated from her. Perhaps it was unanchored now, unable to return.

  She held the bracelet of hair in her hand. Dev had given it to her without a word after they’d gotten into the car. The severed ends where he’d snapped it in two in taking it from Carter felt like Phoebe’s bones, as if Dev had broken them. Even the fantastic moment of seeing Dev defy the laws of physics to take it couldn’t penetrate Ione’s hollowness. She could have kissed him in that moment—and then that infinitesimal instant of triumph had been snatched away.

  It was after dark when they reached the hospital in Sedona. Phoebe was still hanging on, but if she’d seemed like a stranger before, now she was just a body and tubes. But that wasn’t Phoebe. Phoebe was gone. Rafe looked like a shell of himself, as though Phoebe’s shade had taken his with it. And the twins were as silent as Ione was, alternately sharing wordless hugs with her. No one needed language now. Language was useless.

  Theia and Rhea had been too young to fully feel the loss of their parents. Ione had swept into that role, trying to make sure they never felt the lack. She’d finally failed in that impossible task of holding the family together. And why? Because another sister Ione hadn’t even known existed had been too stupid to know she was being used by Carter Hamilton. Laurel Carpenter had done this to Phoebe as surely as Carter had. And Ione was going to make her pay. Before the night was over, Laurel Carpenter was going to understand the power of the Carlisle blood.

  No one else needed to know what she was going to do. God knew Rafe would probably want to help her do it. But she wasn’t taking any chances that one of them would try to stop her, to talk sense into her. She’d goddamn had it with sense.

  “I need to be alone tonight,” she told Dev after he’d driven her back to her place.

  “Of course.” He squeezed her hand but she couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel anything except hatred for Carter and Laurel. “You just call me if you need anything, love. I can be here in ten minutes.” He walked her to the door and held her tight, pressing his lips to the top of her head. “Make sure your mobile is charged,” he admonished, letting her go after her limbs didn’t respond.

  She nodded solemnly. She didn’t want to miss the call when it came. The call that said she needed to be there immediately to say goodbye. Phoebe’s doctors had said there was no imminent danger. The ventilator was merely a precaution in case she slipped deeper into herself. But the doctors didn’t understand that there was no “self” left to slip into. Phoebe might lie there for years now, her flesh taking nourishment and oxygen through tubes, mindless cells obeying the code to regenerate themselves. But she wouldn’t be Phoebe.

  Ione waited until Dev had been gone long enough that he wouldn’t see her bike on the road.

  The message from Nemesis had appeared on her phone while Ione was still numb with despair.

  The wages of sin is death. Come to the temple tonight. Your wages have come due—Nemesis.

  She knew as soon as she read it that this was fate. Ione would face her alone and see that justice was done.

  Perhaps it was a threat on Ione’s life. She doubted it. Likely more games and more carcasses. But she no longer cared if Laurel was a danger to her. She would avenge Phoebe if it was the last thing she did.

  Ione didn’t even bother to wear her helmet, something she’d never neglected before. She wanted to feel the wind in her hair. Who gave a damn about rules anymore? Where had following rules gotten her? And who gave a damn about her hair?

  She yanked the hair tie out and threw it on the ground as she dismounted the bike at Covent Temple. The wild hair, the hair of a madwoman—or a free woman—stood out on her shadow as she crossed under the lamplight before the entryway.

  Ione opened both doors inside the atrium, drawing them outward and leaving them open, the wind following behind her, making the candle flames sputter on her way to the altar.

  Laurel stood with her back to the door, a slight flinch of her spine acknowledging Ione’s entrance. The altar had been lit for ritual and incense streamed i
n the breeze. Ione made the walk down the aisle in silence, stopping when she reached the front. Only then did Laurel turn to face her, surprisingly pallid, with a defenseless, fragile air, though her chin was raised defiantly.

  Ione looked her up and down with cold hatred. “So here you are, you coward. Doing your master’s dirty work.”

  Laurel’s face flooded with color. “Oh, I’m the coward. You hide behind demon blood and the legitimacy of the Covent, as if the two were compatible.”

  “And you do the bidding of a necromancer.”

  “That’s just another of your lies. Trying to twist what he does—and leaving him no recourse but to use magic that lies outside the accepted tenets of the Covent. He’s never taken a life. He’s merely had to call on the help of the souls who’ve passed because the living abandoned him.”

  Ione didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the audacity of it. “Whose body do you think you dug up the other night? You think he died of natural causes and Carter just happened to feel like feeding on the power of his soul by coincidence?”

  “You’re out of your mind. I didn’t dig up any bodies.”

  “God, you’re a pathological liar, just like he is.”

  Laurel folded her arms. “He said you’d say that.”

  This time Ione did laugh—if the sharp, humorless sound that burst from her lungs could be called laughter. “And what did he tell you about what you’re doing to my sister? What twisted logic are you contorting to justify participating in soul murder?”

  It was a slight move, barely noticeable, but Laurel flinched. “Sometimes the ends have to justify the means. If you hadn’t backed him into this position—”

  “Oh, shut up.” Ione stripped off her bike gloves and tossed them onto the bench beside her. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we? Why don’t you tell me why you brought me here while you still have the opportunity?”

  Laurel backed up slightly against the altar, picking up a file folder from beside it. “Carter wanted me to be the one to tell you about the Covent’s decision.”