I didn’t wait for his answer. I ran to my room and pulled out my Dare Potion and my Energy potion. Those two things together would make me capable of doing anything. Would that something be stupid? Probably. Would it be dangerous? Obviously. Would I need a boost to do whatever was necessary to get Chrysie back? No. But I wouldn’t mind the rush of power it gave me.
I pulled another potion for us. It was essentially bottled magic. I’d been working on that potion for ages and had failed more times than I wanted to count. Bottled magic—it was the pinnacle of potions. Most brewers couldn’t make it. Everything had to be perfect. But, I had succeeded. Four times.
I only had four members of my coven left.
They were the only four witches I felt I could fully trust to help Chrysie. Perfection in a situation that was anything but. I then took my stockpile of vampire potion, throwing everything into a backpack that I would carry.
I opened another drawer and saw the talisman of the thinning. It was a small silver knife. It could be hidden by a hand if held just right. It was etched with runes and when I held my hand just over it—it brimmed with power.
“Gods, Martha,” I said.
She ruffled against my senses.
“You are too aware for a house.”
I felt a shift of amusement.
Well, shiz. That was too weird. Too magical. “I don’t think a talisman will work any better than any other knife against a dark witch. And it’s still bound to Mother.”
There was another rumble of something and the next drawer down shifted. I opened it to find two wrist sheaths and two knives that I’d be able to wear under a hoodie. I put them on shocked to realize that I would do whatever was necessary to bring back my cousin.
“Thank you,” I told Martha and strapped them slowly on. It wasn’t that hard. I’d like to say that I hesitated. But I didn’t. I did weigh the thought of what would happen. I didn’t care what it would do to me. Would I cross a line in my life?
Yeah, I would.
But there was another line I couldn’t live with. The one where I didn’t do everything necessary to get my cousin back. She was, literally, the kindest person I knew. I didn’t care that she lived off of potions. I didn’t care that she was the embodiment of many people’s nightmares. I didn’t care about any of that.
Sometimes what is right is also what is horrible. I didn’t expect to be the same if I had to use the knives how they were intended. But being haunted by my actions was something I was already going live with, given what my idiocy had already caused.
CHAPTER TEN
“Why didn’t you just tell someone?”
Felix and I glanced at each other. I was the focus of the ire. I am the Hallow after all. He was just a witch from some unimportant family—at least to them. Regardless, he wasn’t leaving me alone to face them. And, of course, we’d hidden Jessie and Cyrus away to find us defense and counter-spells. The two of us stared at them a little bit shocked. I was the one who answered.
“We don’t trust you,” I told them with complete honesty. I met their gazes, looking down the line of witches who’d decided to sit in such a way to make us feel as if we were standing before a judgement crew rather than those who might help us. Some of these witches had gazes that matched my mother’s. The were family. Technically. The line-up included the self-righteous members of the Hallow Family Council, Finn and his team of wannabe keepers, Elizabeth, Saffron and a few others I didn’t know. “Not any of you. Except Elizabeth.”
I turned to Elizabeth who stood a little apart from the others and told her, “Chrysie is sure of you.”
Elizabeth’s face was sad just for a moment and then faded back into an expressionless mask.
“Are you kidding me?” Leander Hallow sputtered. I hadn’t interacted with him very often. He was the lead of the Hallow Family Council, but my policy with them was to ignore them and make them come to me. So far they’d been sending their members to manipulate me. First, it was their evil necromancer assistant Habitha Leone. She had recently made her way through the thinning and out of this world and, to their credit, the Council hadn’t known she was evil. Then they sent Martin Hallow who was, I thought, my Mother’s cousin, and Portia Hallow who was also, I thought, my Mother’s cousin. They’d tried to use Chrysie’s mom, Elspeth, but she hadn’t sided with them in their attempt to manipulate me.
Leander sent the others to do his bidding. As far as I could tell, I was the only one, other than my mother, who just ignored him. But, as head of the council, he had control of the fortune my grandparents had left behind, a fortune I was meant to inherit. But first, I had to graduate from college. It was why he was trying so hard to make me tow his line. Not that any of that mattered with Chrysie being potentially dismantled.
“That is what happens when you’re manipulative asses, Leander,” Elizabeth said, standing. “You alienate people and lose whatever trust they might have given you. It doesn’t matter now. Earn her trust later.”
“M-m-mme?” He wasn’t afraid. He was furious. She’d dared to mock him to his face, and he wasn’t used to someone not caring who he was. It made me smile a little.
“Enough,” Elizabeth snapped, her face was as cold as centuries of living and killing could make it, and Leander Hallow’s mouth snapped shut.
But, the look he shot me was dark. Elizabeth was a vampire so old she could use witchcraft again. That took at least a century without a coven. She remembered the great wars, both supernatural and human. She was used by the Presidium itself to remove supernatural who could not be stopped the traditional way. And yes that meant she was an assassin.
And yet, she was still the person I trusted most in the room besides Felix. That was not saying much since many of the rest were related to me. Gods, my family was horrible. Except for Chrysie. And Elspeth. And Bran and Daddy. Oh, don’t think of them! Damn it.
And Elizabeth let the silence stand for a moment while she established dominance. I’m not sure that’s what she would have called it, but that is what happened. She finally said, “We’re going to do a spell to track Chrysie’s location using Rue.”
“Me?” I squeaked. I did not and would not object, I just hadn’t expected it.
Martin Hallow interjected, “I am her godfather. And have known Chrysanthemum since birth.”
“And Chrysie called me. Not you. Face it, Martin. None of these children trust any of you. We’re using Rue. They share love, blood, and magic. We’ll need blood.” The last was directed at me.
“Ok,” I said, laying my hand down on the table with a distinct clink of metal on wood.
“Oh my gods, those were Dominique’s.” Leander spoke but his and Martin Hallow’s gaze were fixed on my wrist. “You have no right.”
“She has every right,” Elizabeth snapped. “She’s the Hallow Heir. And that does not matter, right now.”
I didn’t reply. Leander and Martin both seemed haunted at the presence of the knives. I was guessing Dominique had died wearing them or some other such tragic thing. Here’s the thing, Dominique might be my great-aunt. But she was dead. Like most of my direct kin. I hadn’t even known about her until a few months ago and as much as I’d like to know more about her now—the family I had remaining were not people I wanted to talk to about her or my grandparents. Or my mother for that matter.
I’d rather piece together my own story and leave them out of it. Right now, all I cared about was that we got Chrysie back. I’d like to say I was softened by everyone showing up, but I didn’t trust them. Not even in this. I couldn’t be sure they were here to help Chrysie, to manipulate me, or because a dark witch having a dismantled vampire was bad for everyone.
The spell was a flash of a moment. Elizabeth took my blood using one of Dominique’s knives. She cut just above the sheath on my arm when I offered my palm.
“Rue, you use your palm in nearly every moment of every day.” Then with one quick slice my blood was dripping into a coffee cup from the kitchen.
Elizabeth blew over the cup, threw out a hand and lit every candle in the room while also turning off the electric lights. Suddenly the room was flickering shadows and glinted eyes. Not all of the eyes reflected human, and I realized that some of those who’d come were shapeshifters. The darkness seemed to fold around Saffron, especially. It wrapped her up in a blanket and I swear there was whispering coming from it to her.
Elizabeth said words I didn’t understand—she certainly wasn’t using proto-Romanian. And she threw the cup into the air with my blood. The map that had been rolled across the table snapped open and my blood splattered down across it. It moved, crawling across the map like an army of red ants and then formed into streams, and from streams into stars across the map. Stars of my own blood.
“What is this?” Leander leaned forward and muttered a curse.
“She’s at least partially dismantled,” Elizabeth said in her cold voice. There was no emotion, regret, sadness, anger. Nothing.
“Oh my Hecate,” Felix said, but I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. I felt a flutter of Bran across my heart strings, and I focused, snapping my will from Bran to Chrysie.
“She’s alive,” I said.
“There is little reason to believe that,” Portia said.
She might have said it gently but the denial of my statement made me red with fury. I slammed my hand down on the map and said, fiercely, “Chrysie is alive.”
“Stop lying to yourself, Veruca,” Leander said.
“Enough,” Elizabeth snapped. “Right this moment. It does not matter whether she is alive or dead. What matters is that a dark witch has a vampire body in at least three pieces. And those three pieces must be recovered. While the sun is high. The dark witch must be ended.”
“We don’t have authorization to do that, Elizabeth,” Martin said. His hand rubbed over his jaw, and I saw that he was white under his close-cut beard. It made me happy. Happy to see him suffer. I wanted to believe that someone other than Felix and I and, maybe, Elizabeth cared that Chrysie might be dead. Beautiful, kind, Chrysie.
I took a deep breath in and reached out, taking Felix’s hand. Our fingers wrapped around each other, and I knew we were both thinking of Chrysie. Her dance. Her constant munching. The way she sang in the shower, off-key and exuberant.
“We will split up,” Elizabeth said. “We don’t have time to visit each place separately. Leander, you will take Finn and his crew here.”
Elizabeth pointed down at the map. It was a place that was quite distant. “If you find her, you have my authorization to end her. I will take responsibility with the Presidium. If you find dark witch implements, you will safely gather them, bring them back to Hallow House. The Presidium will take possession. We can not risk leaving them behind and losing the witch. This goes for each team.”
There were mutters but no one dared to counter Elizabeth. Not even Leander.
“I believe this is the most likely location,” Elizabeth said, pointing to a place on the edge of town. “I will take the shifters there. We will have Portia and Martin take Rue and her friends to this location. This is the least likely location, but we must clean everything out.”
I pressed my lips together. I wanted to go where Elizabeth thought that Chrysie was, but the truth was—we were idiots, Felix, Cyrus, Jessie and me. We should let Martin and Portia clean things up while we leant hands. It was all we could be trusted to do.
I couldn’t allow myself to think of the horrible thing that had been said. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Gods. Chrysie. She was in three pieces.
I let go of Felix’s hand and ran from the room. I made it to the bathroom where I wretched. I had nothing to vomit but that didn’t keep me from ending on my knees, gasping into the toilet until tears were rolling down my cheeks, my back and side were cramping, and my feet were numb.
“Are you alright?”
I had expected Felix eventually. I found a stranger. I looked up feeling the snot and tears on my face and just stared. The man was tall and handsome and maybe 30. He was one of those whose eyes had glinted oddly in the candlelight.
“Of course you’re not.” He reached out and lifted me to feet, shut the toilet, and sat me down. A moment later a cool washcloth had been pressed into my hands. “I’m Markus Thorpe. Gwendalyn is my little sister.”
I looked up. I had so many feelings about that. I wished so hard that I had left her in the ground. I would trade her in a second for Chrysie. I didn’t care if that made me a monster.
“I don’t suppose it helps much, but thank you for saving my sister.”
I just shook my head and pressed the washcloth into my face. It didn’t help. And I didn’t have it in me to pretend like I wouldn’t exchange the two if I could.
“We’ll find your cousin.”
But she was in pieces.
“It takes a lot to kill a vampire. Even a baby one. I knew that Gwennie was alive. Even when it seemed she must have been dead. I believe you when you say that Chrysie is alive. Don’t give up hope yet. If there’s a chance, we will find her. Find her and end her.”
I shook my head, fighting for words and losing them until I said, “I don’t want her to be dead. I don't want to have to face Elspeth. Or myself again. I need her to be alive. Her being alive is my fairytale because I can’t handle the truth.”
He reached out a hand and touched my cheek. So gently. So kindly. “I will have faith for you.”
I threw the washcloth into the sink and went out to the foyer to meet my remaining friends, white-faced and horrified. Their eyes were wide and stricken and guilty. Just like mine, I was sure. Just like mine.
“We were idiots,” I told them, knowing Markus was behind me. “Let’s avenge her.”
My voice cracked on avenge. And a tear rolled down Jessie’s face. Cyrus said nothing, but his jaw was clenched so tightly you could see the flex of the muscles against the pressure he was putting on his teeth. Felix’s eyes were red. I didn’t know if he had been crying. I didn’t care. If he hadn’t, he would. We both loved Chrysie.
My lungs shuddered and I caught a sob in my throat as I said, “Let’s go.”
We walked, Markus with us, toward the exit of Martha.
“Seal up,” I told Martha and as the others left, the wards snapped into place. None of them would be getting back inside my house without Felix, Jessie or me—the three of us left who lived there.
“Let’s go, Markus,” Elizabeth said.
“I’ll be sticking with Rue and her friends,” he said.
Elizabeth nodded and circled her finger for those going with her.
The five of us waited outside until Martin and Portia left my house. The second they left, the wards snapped fully into place and Portia gasped against how tightly Martha had shut herself from them.
“I’m sorry that you couldn't trust us,” Martin said.
I had nothing to say to that.
“Let’s go get our piece of Chrysie,” I said. Nothing else mattered.
“That was dark magic that Elizabeth used,” Portia said to Martin. “Can we trust her?”
“It is not truly dark when the blood sacrifice is willing and does not take a life,” Martin said.
“You are quibbling. Those words were in Crimean Gothic and that language is only used in witchcraft for dark spells.”
“No magic,” Martin countered, “is evil in and of itself.”
I took a long breath and then said, “I don’t give a flying…”
“Rue,” Felix snapped.
I looked at him and knew he needed me to calm down. I took a breath and then ground out, “Let’s go get Chrysie, please.”
“Rue, I’m trying to look out for you,” Portia said. “I care about you.”
“I don’t believe that,” I told her. “You don’t know anything about me. And you don’t like my mother. You’ve known me for a few months and I’m abrasive and rude. Stop lying to me. Stop playing me. Let’s just get Chrysie’s body part and bury it.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I wanted it to be a shack. Or a cave. Or a hell-stricken meadow in the woods, covered in shadows that didn’t belong. But it wasn’t. It was a yellow suburban house with a wrap around porch and an old swing-set in the backyard. There were flowers blooming in the front that were certainly prompted along by magic.
Was that what the witch planned to use Chrysie’s body for? Some off-season flowers? I stared at the house and I was so very angry. And sad. So sad. The sadness was an ocean, lapping at me, pulling me down.
“Use your witch senses,” Martin said. “Look at the aura of it.”
I closed my eyes, focused my will, and cracked them open again. The shadows that didn’t belong were back. There were runes written in blood on all the windows and doors. The wards were strong. It changed the whole flavor of the place from pretty little family home to horror story.
“Oh my,” Felix said. His head cocked and he said, “That rune is the rune I use on the engine of our car. It’s for disguise. I use it to keep us from getting pulled over for expired tags. It reflects to something else.”
“I would guess,” Portia said slowly, “that this is the true strong location. And Elizabeth and the shifters or Leander are at a disguise point.”
“Does that mean,” I asked, “that Chrysie might not be in three pieces?”
Hope was rising as well as the memory of that feel of her in my heart strings. The memory of what I had felt.
“She could still be in two,” Martin said, carefully. I knew he was trying to soften the blow.
“But two pieces…”
“That could be a finger,” Felix said, hope rising.
“Or something else you could live without,” Markus said, squeezing my shoulder. “There is power in hope, Rue. Feel it. Let it fuel you.”
“We’ll need it to power me if this is where the dark witch is. She threw me with a word and a gesture of her hand. Across a clearing.”
Lonely Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery (Rue Hallow Mysteries Book 3) Page 6