by Cherie Marks
He had done some research, and he knew one thing he hoped Kylie couldn’t resist. She turned to go but stopped when he asked, “What if I threw in something for you?”
“You don’t have anything I want.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out something he knew she couldn’t resist. “On this piece of paper is the deed to your grandmother’s home. I have paid it off, and I will give it to you free and clear if you promise to help me find Gemma. I know the bank was ready to foreclose the loan, and I had the means to cover the remaining balance.” He tipped it toward her but pulled it back when she reached for it. “It’s yours if you tell me where she might be.”
The struggle played across her face as she grappled with the deal. He saw the moment she decided as her eyes dipped to the paper in his hand, and her lips pursed tightly. She crossed her arms again and shifted her feet a couple of times before giving a sharp nod. Her tilted gaze met his as she said, “She’s looking for some book. It’s an old one, and she’d convinced it’s in an antique shop. We’ve scoured the ones in Assjacket already with no sign of it.”
“Where will she go next?”
She uncrossed her arms and ran a hand over her face before explaining, “She mentioned a place in eastern Kentucky. An antique shop called Wayward Objects in a town called Armpit. It’s a sister city where a few paranormal folks have established themselves.”
He reached for her arm, gently gripping her in his hand.
“Hey! I told you what you wanted to know. What are you doing?”
“You’ll get the deed once we find her. Until then, we’re staying together. That way you can’t warn her before I get there.”
The look on her face said that was exactly what she had planned to do. “What about my grandmother? Don’t you think she’d like to know the house is hers?”
“Yes. And the sooner you take me to Gemma, the sooner you can rest your grandmother’s mind at ease.”
“You’re a real asshole, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told. But nothing will get in the way of my mission. Now, take me to Gemma.”
She looked like she had more to say, but instead, her gaze dropped to the piece of paper he was now putting back into his pocket. “Face it. Your best option is to help me, and my best option is to let you. Now, let’s go.”
Chapter 5
As Gemma walked through the front door, she realized two things. One, she’d finally found the right antique store. Unlike the oppressive, dark feel of the other stores she’d visited, the atmosphere here was lively and optimistic. It was strange, but she could feel an energy here that called to her. And two, the town of Armpit, Kentucky produced the same type of lovable residents as Assjacket, West Virginia.
Behind the counter, Gemma could just see a frizzy mop of gray hair, on top of a pair of the largest goggling, brown eyes she’d ever seen. The eyes were emphasized even more with a pair of dark-rimmed, thick round eyeglasses, and as she walked toward the diminutive individual, she called out, “How are you today? I wonder if you could help me with something?”
“Stop! Don’t take nary a step closer if you know what’s good for you.” The husky voice carried surprisingly loud, and Gemma halted her progress immediately. It was a woman behind the counter, Gemma believed, though she sounded like Kathleen Turner—not Romancing the Stone KT, but the later, pack-a-day voice of years beyond.
“I’m sorry if I startled you. Your store was recommended to me by the Cookie Witch in Assjacket, West Virginia. I’m looking for a book.”
Gemma took a baby step toward the counter but stopped again as the impossibly large eyes grew even wider.
“Are you crazy? Didn’t you hear me say steppin’ closer was a bad idea? Or do you just have a death wish?”
“I don’t understand what’s going on.”
In a hot second, something with outstretched wings swung down from the ceiling, leveling a wide-open beak at Gemma’s head. With minimal time to spare, she dropped to all fours and stared upward as the ginormous bird-creature flew back up toward the metal rafters, honking loudly down at her.
“What the hell is that?”
“Duh! That’s the reason I told you not to step any farther. You just had to go and make it even more spittin’ mad. Great job, Exlax.”
Gemma didn’t know which was worse—almost getting her head taken off by some flying weirdo, or not getting her head taken off and having to hear the badly combined sarcastic remark.
“Smooth move, Exlax.”
“What?”
“The way you say that is ‘smooth move, Exlax,’ not ‘great job, Exlax.’ That just doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Really? That’s what’s got your panties in a bunch? Goddess save us from stupidity. I shoulda just let the damn thing eat you and be done with it.”
Yep, Kathleen-sound-alike was pissed with her, but Gemma couldn’t help but admire her blatant honesty. Clearly something unexpected was going on here, and if Gemma could concoct a solution, she might just find favor with the husky-voiced lady. With a little luck, she’d be leaving here with the book within the hour.
“So, what exactly is this thing?”
“I could be wrong, but it seems to me that, that there might be some sort of bat out of hell.” Her distinctive dialect was hard to decipher, but Gemma was getting the hang of it.
Gemma looked at the white feathers coating most, but not all, of the body. The face looked kind of like a goose but with crystal blue, human eyes. The legs were human-like and long, but ended in orange, webbed feet. Gemma’s best guess was that this was a Shifter change gone wrong.
“Was there anyone in the store before I got here?”
“I believe so. Let me think. Yes, yes, there was an elderly gentleman with one of those fancy hats. You know, a federa, or something like that. I hadn’t never saw him before, but he must have left without me noticin’.”
As Gemma looked up, she noticed a fedora on the head of the goose. Not the typical headgear for waterfowl. “Actually, here’s another question. Where I come from, we have someone in the town who does special kinds of healings. We call her the Shifter Whisperer. You wouldn’t by chance know of anyone here like that would you?”
“Shifter what? Hell, we ain’t got no one here called that.”
Gemma looked down and shook her head back and forth. She had known that Zelda was a one-of-a-kind type of healer witch, but she’d hoped that a town like Armpit would have had someone like her. Now what?
“Okay. This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to lure our friend here to the door. Then, I’m going to...” What? What was she going to do? And, how the hell was she going to lure the poor creature to the door? This was a shit plan if ever there was one. Truth be told, if she couldn’t shoot it, stab it, or poison it, Gemma was at loss.
“You’re goin’ do what? Sit on the floor and wait until a thought happens to sneak its way into your empty head?”
Kathleen-voice was losing her original appeal. If Gemma didn’t need her in order to find a book, she might just feed her to the creature. Although, it was likely to be a vegetarian, as most Shifters were for obvious reasons. As Gemma thought about the book she needed, her gaze fell on a red volume, face-down on the ground in the middle of a pile of drab-colored clothes, and she suddenly understood what had happened.
It was cursed. And the shifter had set it off. They wouldn’t need a Shifter Whisperer after all. Gemma could fix this. They just needed to close the book and put it into a space that neutralized the dark magic in it. Slowly, she pulled her arms from the straps of her backpack. The half-shifted goose Shifter squawked loudly in her direction, drawing her focus there for a moment.
“It’s okay. I’m going to help you. I just have to pull my gloves and lead-lined bag from my backpack.”
“Who’re you talkin’ to?”
Gemma didn’t answer. She just eased the zipper of her pack open and slipped her hand inside. With slow, measured movements, she searc
hed blindly without breaking the connected gaze she had with the goose Shifter. When her hand found the items she needed, she pulled them out one at a time and began to put the gloves on.
“I’m going to move now. It’s the only way I can fix this. Don’t freak out.”
As she swiveled her head and body toward the book, she heard the rustling of what sounded like wings flapping above her, but she didn’t stop crawling toward the book. Once she hovered over it, she opened the bag and focused on the red cover. She wiggled her fingers slightly as she lowered her hands slowly. She needed to close the book with a snap and wrestle it into the bag quickly, but she knew it wouldn’t go easily.
She swallowed and steadied her breathing, feeling the pulsing curse as it sent waves of energy through the air around her. This was a delicate situation, and one wrong move would cause chaos to erupt in the entire store.
“What’re you up to over there? I can’t see you. You’ll be payin’ for anything you break.”
Gemma tuned out the deep, raspy voice, and with a swift sweep inward, she smushed the two covers together, feeling the fight within the book. She felt little control over her own hands as it jerked its way left and right, trying to free itself to continue the mischief it had started. Using her considerable strength, Gemma gripped the book tightly shut with her right hand as she quickly wrapped magically enhanced tape around the tome seven times exactly.
It fought even harder as she pushed it toward the opening of her bag. An unopened, cursed book was easily managed, but the minute you opened one, the fight was on. With a loud cry, pulled from deep in her chest, she shoved the book into her lead-lined bag, zipped it as quickly as she could, and muttered a hastily whispered incantation.
Silence filled the store.
Gemma sat back on her heels, feeling her pumping heart work as air still rushed in and out of her lungs. Over the past five years, she had learned how to deal with cursed books and objects, but it was never easy. Even the calm ones had the potential to do some damage if they weren’t handled correctly, but that one had put up a good battle, and Gemma thought she might have been lucky to have won this one.
She stood up and dusted herself off. A few careful motions had the bag with the book in it stored safely in her backpack. She faced the clerk who had stood to her full height now—all of four-foot-eight. “Now, as I was saying, I’m looking for a book.”
A smile split the Turner-talking clerk’s face in half as she cleared her throat, bowed, and said, “Princess Gemma, I knowed it was you. They told me to expect you, but I didn’t recognize you right away.”
“Who told you to expect me?”
She waved a hand like that part didn’t matter. “The two witches who visited about seven years ago. They gave me this picture, so I’d know what you look like and this envelope to give to you when you showed up.”
Within a second, she dropped below the store counter once more and seemed to be rummaging around in a cabinet.
“Do you remember the names of the witches who visited?”
She rasped, “No. They didn’t give me their names, but one of them looked exactly like you. I mean, she coulda been your twin.” Gemma perked up even more. Everywhere she’d gone growing up in Linwyn, people had said that very thing about her mother and her.
Gemma had inched to the counter and peered over it now, seeing only two legs wiggling out from a two-door cabinet, both doors swung open wide.
Finally, the clerk shouted, “Here it is!”
With high-energy, she scooted backwards and jumped to her feet, a light pink envelope in her hands.
As she handed it to Gemma, a familiar scent wafted into the air.
Her mother. It smelled exactly like her mother. This had been left by her mother.
Her fingers couldn’t move quickly enough as she tore open the envelope and pulled out a thin, slip of parchment. It was small and the script looped and leaned to the right in a flowing, beautifully written message:
It’s time for you to return to the place where your new life began. There you will find what you are looking for.
The breath rushed from her lungs. Were these her mother’s words? How could she have known that Gemma would come to this shop? The clerk had said she’d been here seven years ago. That would have been right around when she’d shown Gemma the portal and taught her how to use it. It was also right around the time she’d disappeared, and her father had tried to erase her from the entire kingdom. Could she have come here to prepare the way for Gemma? Could she have known all of this would happen? How was that possible?
Return to the place where your new life began. She had to go home. Yes, she’d run from her old life to Assjacket, but the first time she’d begun a new life was at the Assassin’s Academy. Gemma had to return to Linwyn. She had to go back to school. The book must be there, and that’s where she had to go.
“Um. Excuse me. Not to be a bother or anything, but do either of you think you could help me down from here?”
Both women looked up, and their regret was instant. Above them, in the rafters, stood one very wrinkled old man, naked, except for a fedora atop his head.
Chapter 6
Mav watched Gemma race out of the store and turn the corner toward the side of the building. He couldn’t see her from where he had parked, so he decided to get out of the car and follow her from a distance. He left the windows cracked and took one last glance at the woman sleeping in the backseat. He’d tied her up tightly and muted her with some quick magic, but he couldn’t leave her here long. Once she awoke, she’d wiggle out from under the blanket and get someone’s attention. That was the last thing he needed, but he also needed to see where Gemma was going.
In the very back, he knew Gaston slept without a care in the world. He needed the cat to be his eyes and ears while he was gone. “Gaston, I’m counting on you to hold things down here. Get your lazy ass up and do something.”
“I’ll get right on that, boss.”
Mav didn’t believe his familiar had any intention of doing anything other than taking a nap, but he had to get moving or risk losing sight of Gemma.
His captive forgotten for now, he jetted across the two-lane highway and eased around the corner in time to see her walking across the gravel lot behind the building. He noted the long, swinging braid dancing across her shapely back, sweeping her pert ass. With a shake, he reminded himself that she was his enemy, and noticing her and noticing her were two different things. Yes, she was attractive. Yes, he’d often stared at a particular picture of her in the castle. There were many, but they didn’t capture her beauty as much as the one in her father’s office did. In most of her pictures, her expression was placid and forced. Yet, in this picture, the photographer had caught her in a moment that she obviously hadn’t realized she was the focus of a camera. He admired the way the smile lit up her eyes. From what he knew of her, like most Linwynians, she rarely smiled or showed any emotion, and in this one instance, he felt like he saw a hidden part of her.
With a low growl, he reminded himself that she was a suspect, and it was his job to catch her and bring her in, even if he had some doubt that everything was as it seemed. That was not for him to decide, and he’d do well to remember that.
He watched as Gemma walked with a determined stride toward a gray sedan. She unlocked it and got in, starting it up immediately. He quickly memorized the license plate and rushed back to his own black SUV and climbed in. Now that he knew what she was driving, he could track her better. If he’d gotten a look inside, he could have spanned right into the car next to her, but he’d drive behind her surreptitiously wherever she went just the same.
He turned to back out of the space but stopped quickly at what he saw on the back seat—or rather what he didn’t see. Where had Kylie gone?
“What the hell? How did she...?” He scanned the surrounding parking lot. She was nowhere to be seen. These two females were harder to keep hold of than an oily noodle.
“Gaston? Where did t
he friend go? You were supposed to keep an eye on her.”
The cat jumped over the backs of the seat into the middle portion of the SUV, pawed at the empty blanket a few times before laying down again and explaining, “I was having a good dream. You know, one of those dreams where you’re swimming naked with Jennifer Lopez, but something wakes you up. And you try to go back into the dream; however, you can’t get back to that same dream. It’s changed now. Now, you’re in a bathtub with George Lopez, and it’s all you can do to wake yourself up as quickly as possible.”
“What are you talking about? I just needed you to make sure she stayed put, yet somehow, she’s gone.”
“Sounds like a ‘you’ problem to me.” If cats could shrug, that’s the most exercise Gaston would ever get. Of all the familiars he could’ve gotten, he got stuck with this lazy ass.
Dammit! But he didn’t have time to look for her now. He needed to get on the road and follow Gemma. He continued backing out and straightened the car, pulling onto the street without heeding the car coming at him. He swerved as they honked but kept on going. He had some mileage to make up if he wanted to catch up to Gemma.
He just had to wonder where she was going now, and how he was ever going to get her back to Linwyn?
Scanning the road ahead, he drove in the general direction he’d last seen Gemma. Other than side roads, there weren’t too many places to turn off the highway on which he was driving, so she had to be somewhere close. As he came up on a slow-moving line of cars, he swerved out across the double line a few times, trying to see when he could pass. Unfortunately, it was all double lines as far as he could see and too much oncoming traffic to chance an illegal pass.