Cosgrove turned and nodded to him. "You're right. I'll see what I can do."
"Why not—" Lethe said quickly. "Why not have someone drive him? I could take him and Mr. Westerfield where they need to go."
"I'm afraid I need you here, my dear. I've got some Elders coming in from Atlanta and I'll need all the help I can get." He glanced at me. "Have Kyle drive him."
I looked at Lethe, whose look of panic instantly transitioned into relief. "Yes…I can have Kyle drive them. I'll get him now." She nodded to me, to Cosgrove, and then disappeared.
Cosgrove reached into his back pocket and pulled out a gun. Crwys went for his own holster, but it was empty. "Calm yourself. Take a good look at this pistol. I've had it a while." He handed it to Crwys grip first. "I even had Gerard do a little magic on it about a half hour ago."
Crwys recognized the gun. It was one of Sam's Smith & Wesson pistols. Taking the handle, he saw the words The Lord engraved on the barrel. "She thought she lost this one."
"Dharma had it. Gave it to me for safekeeping. But remember what I told you about Gerard and what he does. Keep it with you." He also palmed Crwys a phone as he headed out the door. "Go outside now, Holliard."
He checked the gun for bullets and found six full chambers. Sliding the pistol in his holster, he threaded the complicated passages of the Cleric Office to the front doors. He waited as Ivan came stumbling out the front doors and Kyle drove Cosgrove's Lexus around to the front.
TWENTY THREE
The last time Mom saw my measure it was in a trunk in the ritual house in Picayune. Mom's coven once owned a small plot of land in the woods with a house on it so they could practice magic in private.
"It was in a manilla folder in that old brown trunk."
Ina'd had that house cleaned out and sold the land after Mom allegedly died. But I couldn't remember any brown chest. "Can you describe it?"
"Uh…it's just a brown chest. Like a steamer trunk actually."
Steamer trunk. There had been a trunk in the attic of Ina's house. I just didn't remember it being brown. But I had to go check it out on the chance it was there. I ran back inside and grabbed my things and found a pair of sneakers in Arden's closet that fit.
"Where are you going?" Arden said as I ran back out to the pool and told them all to come with me. "Diana's Well, child! Those shoes don't go with that dress."
"Maybe not, but they're comfortable. Can you bag up all the stuff I need for the ritual?"
"Yeah, but…you're not doing it here?"
"No. We're going to Ina's house." I checked the clock on Bastien's phone. It was just past eight. I didn't know how long this spell would take, and we still had to get across the causeway to the Cleric Office afterwards. "Go wake up Levi. I'm gonna need him."
"I'm coming too." Dharma came out of a side room, fully dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a white tank top. Her hair was freshly washed. She looked awesome, even with the bruises. I didn't think she was up for this, but I knew that look on her face. It was the same look I had when I was going to Faerie to get Crwys back and no one was going to stop me.
"Sure."
We piled in Solomon's car and Arden's for the short trip over to Ina's house. I inherited the house from Ina and then put Crwys on the deed when he paid to have some work done to it—twice. Especially after Ina's body turned up buried in the back yard. Among other things.
I'd kept the power, gas and water on, letting Crwys pay the bills. He wanted us to move into the house so I could rent out the apartment over the shop. But I didn't want to live in Ina's old house. Too many bad and weird memories. And I couldn't rent the house out either; since it'd had several dozen bodies buried in the same back yard Ina's body was found in.
Let's just say the house had a history.
Everything was pretty much like it was the last time I was there. The AC was cranked too low, so Solomon took care of that while I ran to the attic. The access was actually behind a door in the upstairs hallway. It looked like a closet door, but beyond it was a winding set of steps, which Dharma and I ran up. The smell and accumulated dust was enough to make me sneeze as Dharma turned on a bulb hanging overhead. There, sitting in the center of the attic, was a brown trunk.
Open.
And empty.
"Has someone been in here?" Solomon asked as he came up behind us. "The dust on the floor's been disturbed recently."
"This isn't happening to me," I muttered as I started looking around the room for anything that looked like a measure. Then it hit me.
I didn't have any freak'n idea what a measure looked like!
Solomon seemed to be paying attention. "Sam," he said as he put his hand on my arm. "If it's here, you can call to it. Just concentrate on your Spirit and the two will answer one another."
At that point I was willing to try anything. It was darker than it should be at this time of the day. The clouds had thickened as we drove to this house, and the air was charged with electricity.
With a deep breath, I held out my hands and closed my eyes. Think of Spirit. Lately that'd been pretty easy, since I seemed to have the same connection to it…her…as I did my Arcane. I half expected the Arcane to make a comment, but she was oddly quiet.
I was in a meadow again, not the one Tzariene had created in Faerie, but one I'd visited in my childhood. It was somewhere in northern Mississippi, just on the border with Alabama. Rolling hills, green grass, and lots and lots of pecan trees.
My Unicorn approached and nodded her head up and down. I asked about the measure—was there one—where could I find it. The Unicorn turned and trotted off between two pecan trees. Frustrated, I charged after her in my dress and sneakers. I noticed how ugly the drapes were on the tree to my right as I passed. I recognized them too, as something that had once hung in the front room facing the road—
I stopped and turned to look at the drapes.
Why are there curtains on that tree?
-You sure it's the curtains?-
So I backtracked and looked at the curtains, the rods holding them there, suspended in midair, and then I looked at the glowing tieback. It was a red cord, braided in a neat row and knotted on the ends. I remembered that cord. Mom had had it the living room where these drapes hung in the house in Picayune.
I snapped back to the here and now instantly, wobbled a bit, then turned and ran past everyone and down the stairs. The sneakers made squeaking noises as I came to a stop in the front room. The room Ina had called the TV room, where her neophytes and initiates had met on Esbats and Sabbats.
The curtains were different, but the red cord tying them back was the same. I walked to it and reached for it with shaking hands. The knot untied itself as I touched it. It vibrated, buzzing with life as I gathered it to me as the red dye from the cord vanished, revealing a pristine white one underneath.
"Why…" Dharma said as she came around to face me. All of them were in the TV room now. And all of them had seen it change. "Why did it go white?"
"Why was it red?" Levi asked.
I turned to face them. "I have the memories of Mom and Ina taking these now. And I remember coming home from school and seeing Mom dying mine red. I asked her why she was doing that." I looked at them. "She said—"
"It is better to hide something precious in plain sight." Mom stepped into the room.
I smiled at her. "You knew there was a threat back then."
"I was tracking a Leviathan, baby girl. He was a pretty big threat."
I wrapped the cord around my hand and felt the smiles and buzz of my Elementals within. "Okay…let's get this ritual started."
TWENTY FOUR
With the gun in his holster, Crwys made a point of noticing how he felt as Kyle drove the car over the causeway, back to the Quarter. He felt enough pressure that his ears popped. That clued him in that something really was wrong with the storm clouds, or if not them, then something surrounding New Orleans. His fatigue didn't return, and his mind didn't wander into memories of his long ago past.
He didn't have proof that Sleep wasn't returning, but he had a gut feeling the symptoms he'd had weren't real, but induced.
"So," Kyle said, as he made sure the car's headlights were on. The rain still hadn't started, but the hanging clouds blocked most of the light. "What is it you need to investigate? We all know Sam was the one that killed Nadeen and framed those kids."
"What?" Ivan said from the back seat. He leaned forward and put his hands on the backs of the seats. "What kind of talk is that? Especially coming from you? Sam didn't kill Nadeen."
"Oh, that's right, you've been unconscious," Kyle sneered. "You do that a lot."
"Crwys…" Ivan said in a low voice.
Crwys glanced back at Ivan and smiled before he glanced forward and then back. Then he resettled in the seat and looked at Kyle. "You're so sure Sam would do that? Kill an innocent woman?"
"It wasn't her. It was that Arcane inside of her." Kyle nodded as he wove his reasons for blaming Sam, and to Crwys, they sounded a bit rehearsed. "We all know the Arcane latched onto that bit of Dionysus that he put inside of her. So it's pretty easy to understand that Dionysus still lives in her. She was a danger to everyone."
A chat window popped up, superimposed in the air like a hologram. Crwys had no idea how the boy did that.
Crwys—there's something really wrong with Kyle. I tried to describe it to Sam.
Crwys wasn't sure how to respond, since he didn't have cyber superpowers, so the only way to answer would be in code. He glanced back at Ivan before he looked at Kyle. "You don't really think Sam's dead, do you?"
Kyle snorted. "Of course she is. There's only half a house left."
"No remains."
"Why would there be if she blew herself up?"
You don't think Sam's gone?
Crwys slowly shook his head.
Okay, I'm going to assume you know Kyle's compromised. And he's totally forgotten that I can tell. I can access the computer in this car. I can't drive it anywhere, but I can stop it, start it, or lock it up. I can even mess with the GPS.
Crwys smiled. "Turn that off." The statement was for Ivan, though Kyle took it to mean the softly playing radio.
Then, GPS is disabled.
That was exactly what he'd wanted to Ivan to do. "Kyle, instead of heading to the station, I need to get to my old warehouse."
"Why?" Kyle looked at him sharply.
"I think I might find something very important here."
Kyle didn't argue any further, and they drove in silence to the old Warehouse District where Crwys's now vacant home still sat. The windows were pretty much gone, but it was still standing right where he left it. When Kyle stopped the car in front if it, Crwys nodded to Ivan and held up his hand between the seats as Kyle got out, indicating his ring finger.
Ivan didn't nod, didn't speak, but got out of the back of the car.
"You should stay in the car, Ivan," Kyle said as his hands started to glow. He was conjuring power from the herb and spelled ink in the tattoos on his hands. "This could get ugly."
"I'm not staying in the car, Kyle," Ivan said as he shut the back door and stood his ground. "And why are you calling power?"
"Because if Sam's here, we should be prepared to defend ourselves." He pointed at Ivan. "Get back in the car."
"No."
Kyle threw a white surge of power from his hand directly at Ivan, but it was instantly neutralized by a ball of flame. The smell of burned hair filled the electricity-laced air. Kyle turned and looked at Crwys as he came around the car, his hands flaming orange. "How dare you!" he hissed.
"Sorry, John," Crwys said, addressing the Dybbuk possessing Kyle. "But I can't let you keep messing with my friend. It's time to let go."
"You can't do that!" Kyle pointed at Crwys. "You're not supposed to be able to access your power."
"Oh?" Crwys frowned at Kyle. "And who told you that?"
Kyle didn't answer. Instead, he threw two more bolts of white light from his hands at Crwys, who easily neutralized them with his flames.
"Come on, John. Tell me…" Crwys and Kyle squared off away from the car as they started circling each other. Ivan moved away. "What did Lethe promise you in exchange for lending her your power?"
The expression on Kyle's face told Crwys he was right. Forsaken Babel…he didn't want to be right. "You can't know that. She was so careful to keep herself hidden from you."
"A Dream Dragon can't hide her nightmares for long, John. But you have to know she's not going to keep her end of the bargain. She's not going to give you what you want."
"She already has. She gave me this body."
"So she threw Kyle in. And I'm sure she knew he has power, but I doubt she knew how much. Even you don't realize the potential Kyle Kendrick has. I mean come on; you're firing levin bolts. That's basic Mage Craft one-oh-one."
Kyle fired again, this time he aimed at Ivan. And again, Crwys diffused it. "She wants you, Holliard. You're all she wants."
"No. I'm afraid that's not true. She also wants Sam dead. But I don't know why, exactly. She's either jealous because I love Sam and want to marry her, or she sees Sam as a threat." One good thing about Dragons is their senses. Not quiet as honed and sharpened as a Vampire's or a Werewolf's, but they were stronger than the average human's. And he could hear Kyle's heart skip when he said that. He could see the flare of Kyle's nostrils. "I see…she's not jealous. She's afraid."
"It's not going to matter. She knows where we are. You'll succumb to her storm soon, and then she can take you away and I can be free."
Crwys stopped pacing and frowned. "Why haven't you used your power against me?"
Kyle paused. "What?"
"When Kyle touched the ring in that house, the ensuing storm knocked all of us back. When Kyle touched the ring again in the basement, the storm was so strong it pummeled him and Jack with the bricks that were stacked down there. And yet…you're not using it now. You're using Kyle's power." Crwys glanced at Ivan to check on him, and to signal to be ready. "Is it possible Lethe's already taken your power to generate that?" He pointed a flaming hand at the churning storm overhead. The wind picked up, but nothing like he'd experienced in that house. "She had you steal the Sylph to increase your power of wind. But you see…small powers like wind are really no match for an Elemental. Did she take the Elemental from you? Are you that helpless now, John?"
Rage twisted Kyle's features as he shot several more bolts of energy at Crwys. And again, they were deflected. Kyle started panting as he backed up, his hands out. "She's coming!"
"No, she's not!" Crwys charged at Kyle then and evaded another bolt to tackle him to the ground. He saw Ivan running toward them as Crwys wrestled with Kyle to get him on his front, his hands locked behind him. "Ivan!"
"Already on it." Ivan slid down on the gravel on the other side of Kyle and spread his friend's hand out before he yanked the ring off of his finger.
Kyle stopped fighting, and Crwys released him as Ivan scrambled out of the way. Crwys wasn't sure if just removing the ring would work or if the Dybbuk had actually jumped its anchor. Kyle coughed dirt out as he shakily pushed himself up on his hands and knees.
Ivan glanced at Crwys before he went back to Kyle's side and helped him stand. Kyle leaned heavily on Ivan as he tried to catch his breath.
"Oh, Lady Darksome, to quote Sam." Kyle muttered as he coughed even more. "I think I'm gonna puke."
"Not on my shoes," Ivan said.
Crwys doused his flames and came to help as they guided Kyle to the car. Kyle braced himself against the back left door and rested his head on the roof. "Possession isn't easy on the host."
Kyle let loose a few choice words as he continued sporadically coughing. "That and…I ate dirt when you tackled me." Kyle's voice was hoarse. "Is Jack okay? Where is he? Have you seen him?"
Ivan grinned from ear to ear and patted Kyle's arm. "Kyle's back."
Asking about Jack was a good sign. "Jack's with the wolves. I can't get to him." He didn't want to think about
his fight with Bastien. This wasn't time. "But I'm sure he's fine."
Kyle nodded as he turned himself around and leaned his back against the door. "Crwys…you really need to know there's another—"
"Dragon," Crwys said. "I know. Lethe."
"Yeah, and she's got a solid hard on for you." Kyle coughed again. "And it's worse."
"I was hoping John knew what Lethe is up to and you could tell us."
Kyle nodded. "He knew some things. You were right about the Sylph. And John's power. Lethe took both of them from him and offered me as compensation. Said once Sam was dead she'd vacate me and let John have the body permanently."
"Can she do that?" Ivan said. He stood on the other side of Kyle.
"She lied," Crwys said.
"I figured that," Kyle said. "But she's got some kind of Dream power. I'm not even sure the Dybbuk understood it."
"The Drachen are Elemental born, a lot like the Witches today. We were all created from Elements from the source. The God Mother." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm Fire—kind of evident. And most all Dragons have an affinity for Fire. But not all Dragons breathe it."
"You lost me," Ivan said.
"There is a Drachen for each Element. An original, or as you've heard me referred to, a Titan. Lethe was…is…Spirit. And as Witches, you two know how strong Spirit is, how it influences our lives, and how it can manipulate us as well. Lethe's specialty, her gift of magic, is Dreams. She can manipulate through them, which also gives her a stronger affinity for Air."
Ivan nodded. "Because Air is communication based."
Kyle spoke up. "Lethe's the one that sold those boys the ring. They were influenced by her in their sleep to take Nadeen's knife, but it was the Dybbuk that instructed them to kill her. Lethe and the Dybbuk wanted her dead because Nadeen could recognize her as a Dragon and her wards against Storm Magic prevented John from summoning his power. Once Nadeen was out of the way, that left the path clear for John to do his thing and Lethe to go ahead with her plan. Lethe's goal has been Sam's death, all along."
Elemental Storm (The Eldritch Files Book 6) Page 20