by Jayne Hawke
I sent a text to Elijah and climbed into the hideous thing that was my very temporary car. My mind clicked into autopilot as I went through the route I’d need to cover my ass, dump the car, and really finish the job. It would be an hour or more until I was safely home and it was really over.
Elijah pulled me into his arms as soon as I set foot on the property. Any traces of the person I’d created to kill Cameron were gone. There were no ties back to me, Liam had helped ensure that. I closed my eyes and let the world slip away as it became nothing but me, Elijah, and the private sanctuary within his arms.
“Jess bought some cookies for you. White chocolate and macadamia. Her favourite,” he said softly.
I had to laugh at the fact that Jess got me her favourite cookies. It was such a her thing to do.
He guided me into the pack house, our home, and I smiled at the little things. The way that Rex was scowling at something in a book - he was so often scowling - Liam tapping away on a laptop, Jess dancing around the kitchen to some catchy pop song with Castor. The cougar shifter was delighted. Castor looked very hard done by.
It was perfect. They were exactly what I needed. That was the life I was building for myself now. No more paranoia, no more curling up alone. This was the next chapter in my life, and no one was going to take that from me. Not a crazy stalker, of which I was expecting another because these things come in threes, and certainly not the goddess. When the time came, I would fight with all I was worth to hold onto this little piece of happiness, this family. I was not going to go down easily. Goddess or not, she would not tear me away from them.
Forty-One
It was back to business as usual in the morning. I managed to steal a couple of waffles away from Rex before we settled down to discuss what we’d learnt.
“So... I did a lot of digging, and Castor spoke to a few people-” Liam started.
“Hey, I talked to some people too! I get fox solidarity, but don’t steal my credit,” Jess said.
“We spoke to some people. It took a lot of blackmail, but we managed to find out that a good number of god artifacts have come into the city over the past month or so. And it looks like they’re all being held by the same small group of people,” Liam said.
“The cult?” I asked.
“That’s very strange behaviour for a cult,” Elijah said.
“Exactly. So either they’re not a cult, or they are and we’re actually dealing with a second group,” Liam said.
The idea of a lot of god artifacts being in the city at once made me twitchy to say the least. I didn’t much like a single artifact being around, but a lot of them spelled trouble.
“What are these artifacts?” I asked.
“They’re weird things. One of them is supposed to be one of Athena’s swords, although someone else said it’s a sword forged by Hephaestus. So we know it’s a god-made sword. Another is a pair of coins from one of the fallen death gods. We know that one brings about instant death when someone holds onto both coins at once. Except! And this is where it gets really bad. The life essence lingers in the body so that someone could devour it. Originally, it was supposed to allow the now-fallen god to guide the person to the correct part of the underworld, as he liked to steal people away from where they were originally planned for.”
I groaned. This was getting better and better.
“Any more disaster-invoking stuff?” I asked.
“Maybe. There’s a plague one which wouldn’t be much fun. Oh, and there’s one tied into blood. It’s an arrow that’s supposed to bring out the potential in someone. The magical potential, you know. Which sounds pretty cool on the surface, but apparently it’s actually tied into a trickster god, so the potential usually ends up killing them horrifically.”
“Because of course it does,” I said drily.
I didn’t know why people loved the gods as much as they did away from the Isles. They were sadistic assholes. Sure, the fae weren’t perfect, but I hadn’t heard of them stealing people’s life essences or tricking them into trying to awaken their potential only to kill them.
“Wait, wasn’t there a pixie who was doing something similar to that potential one?” Rex asked.
“Yes! He was experimenting with creating new types of supernatural. He theorised that, if he could draw out the potential hidden within people’s blood and combine that with magic from established supernaturals, he could create something new.”
I stood corrected.
“Alright, so do we have any tabs on these artifacts? Any new information on who exactly brought them into the city and why? Is this going to be some auction, or...?” Elijah asked.
“We know that at least one jaguar guardian has been connected to the import of every single artifact. As has that Marcus guy and a blonde woman that he spends a lot of time with,” Liam said.
“It looks more and more like that pair of jaguar guardians are planning something huge. And those students appear to be involved,” Rex said.
I couldn’t argue with the ‘big plans’ thing; which jaguar was involved was another matter, though.
“Do we have any idea what exactly someone might be doing with all of them? Is there some unifying purpose? Money? Power? General death and chaos?” I asked.
“We haven’t found any sign of an upcoming auction, which makes us lean towards them planning on using at least a couple of them. We’re wondering if, given they’re god artifacts and potentially a cult, this is some big plan to overthrow the fae and claim the Isles for the gods,” Liam said.
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that the gods had tried something like that. They weren’t quiet about their distaste for the fae or the fact that they held onto the Isles. There were certainly worse theories to be running with.
“Castor, you know more about gods than the rest of us, anything to add?” Elijah asked.
“Just that I believe we should move quickly. A storm has been brewing out at sea, and it could well be useful to any ritual or ceremony they might be planning.”
Once again, we were back down in the sewers looking for the cursed cult. I was going to make sure one of them gave us the answers we needed when we finally came across them. This time, I’d called upon the shadows to help me. They weren’t as good as the overminds, but they could communicate with them.
A pair of inky black ribbons were leading us through the tunnels at a fast clip that we had to jog to keep up with. I could feel Rex wanting to make comments about how they’d better not be leading us on a merry dance. He had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
I could feel the overminds’ link with these two far smaller and simpler shadows. Castor had been very opposed to my working with the shadows in this way. He had argued hard against their usefulness and was very for my keeping strict control over them. I wanted to give them a chance to be allies rather than tools. The overminds had helped with Cameron, after all.
We shot around a corner and around another sharp bend shortly afterwards before we came to a sudden halt. An older man with wisps of silver at his temple was kneeling before something with a lot of swirly storm imagery. I shot forward and yanked him backwards by the back of his shirt.
“We have questions,” I snarled.
His eyes went wide.
“I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“We’ll see about that.”
Forty-Two
I had the cultist guy pinned against the wall with the pack bristling behind me.
“Tell us everything about the Huracan storm in a pot. Start with where it is,” I demanded.
“I have no idea! I don’t know who you are, or why you’re here, but I do not have a Huracan storm. We just quietly worship him.”
He didn’t sound like he was lying, which put a major wrench in our plans.
“He’s telling the truth,” Elijah said.
“You’re a worshipper of Huracan, how do you not know where his artifacts are!?” Jess asked.
“That isn’t how worshipping a
god works. I don’t know everything Huracan does, or where his objects are. I simply do my best to show him respect and honour him in the best ways I know how.”
This wasn’t going at all like I’d pictured.
“What is your purpose in this city? Why are you hiding in the sewers?” Elijah asked.
“We’re devoted to Huracan, and we hope that if we’re loyal and honour him thoroughly enough he’ll choose us and make us god touched.”
“Do you have any artifacts from Huracan?” I asked.
“Our leader does have something, but it’s not a pot. Or a storm.”
“Show us,” Elijah growled.
I released the man, who had settled into a calm state, or as calm as he could be given the number of predators ready to rip him apart.
We followed him closely down the increasingly narrow tunnel. The shadows that had brought us here were dancing along the walls, filling my mind with feelings of happiness. I’d agreed to let them remain out on this plane until we emerged back in the city. It seemed only fair, and I hoped that if I treated them well, their kind would continue to help me.
The cultist turned into a room that had been painted a deep stormy grey with white slashes that I assumed were meant to be lightning. A middle-aged woman with dark hair and weary brown eyes looked up at us in surprise. She was looking down at a stone tablet.
“This is our leader. That is her artifact,” the cultist said.
“Doesn’t look much like a pot,” Rex said.
“You’re here because of the stolen storm pot,” the leader said.
“Given that you’re a cult of Huracan, it’s reasonable that you have it,” Elijah said.
The leader nodded sadly.
“That was stolen. We believe it was one, or two, who were supposed to guard it from the world. They intend to use it.”
“Does that mean you know who took it and where it is?” I asked.
“No.”
“Care to elaborate or at least give us something to work with, here? My friends haven’t bitten anything in a while,” I said.
Jess bared her large cougar teeth for emphasis.
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know. We spend our days and nights performing Huracan’s sacred dances and trying to honour him. We haven’t done anything wrong or harmed anyone. That is not Huracan’s way.”
“I don’t know, huge ass storms seems pretty harmful to me,” Rex said.
“We had nothing to do with the theft or the guardians, and we don’t know where the storm is located now. We just want to live quiet lives.”
“Until you become god touched,” I said.
“Is that such an awful thing? To want to be closer to our god?”
I couldn’t understand it, myself. The goddess had granted me magic unlike anything else, but my coven had been slaughtered at the same time. The idea of choosing to give myself over to something like that just didn’t work in my mind.
“You will not be able to stay on the Isles, should you succeed,” Castor said.
“We understand that, and we will move on once your storm season has passed.”
“There’s a time when we don’t have storms?” Jess asked.
“I hadn’t noticed one,” Rex said.
“You should be hunting the jaguars. They were supposed to protect and hide the artifacts, and yet they absconded with it. Their plans cannot be anything but malice and harm.”
“You seem pretty certain that they took the pot,” I said.
“Of course. No one else would have been able to do such a thing. Word spread of the betrayal. We’ve been hiding from them. Sometimes they prowl through the sewers; we must move on regularly. That is part of why we can’t have a home - fear that they’ll tear us apart.”
“And where are these jaguars?” I asked.
I really hoped she wasn’t going to say the sewers. I was beyond tired of wandering around the red brick tunnels with the cool, stiflingly damp air, the skittering of rats, and whispers that couldn’t quite be located.
“We don’t know. Somewhere in the city.”
“How useful,” Rex said sarcastically.
“Come on. Time to do some more digging,” Elijah said.
The shadows fluttered around us before we turned to leave. Thankfully, Jess had her phone out, which cast enough light on the walls to cover the shadows’ movement. Or at least make it deniable. I pushed the thought of being more careful to them. They huffed at me and moved a bit more quickly, forcing us to run to keep up.
They were going to take us the long way back to the city, but that might not be the worst thing. Given how much was hiding down in those tunnels, we might stumble across what we’d been looking for all along.
Forty-Three
Seth had been oddly quiet through the whole process. He’d popped up a few times earlier on in the investigation, but we hadn’t heard anything from him more recently. I debated texting him an update, but there was still a real chance that he was the bad guy in all of this. No, it was best that I leave him to make the first move.
The shadows had no interest in leading us to the two jaguar guardians, the ones who’d threatened me. I knew that the guardians were shadow weavers and walkers, which meant that they had connections to the same shadows I did. I spent an hour pulling through different shadows trying to find one which would help us, but all of them pushed back and dove back onto their own plane. It was back to searching the old-fashioned way.
I sent a text to Sasha and another to Lucy. They were my best bets. I knew that everyone else was going to stonewall me. The guardians had too much power, too much sway. No one else would give them up. Liam was using the tech at his fingertips to find them. The last I saw, he was hunting through social media and creepy surveillance bits to try and track their movements.
“How’re you doing, Princess?” Elijah asked as he pulled me into his lap behind his desk.
We’d headed over to his office. Elijah didn’t like mixing work and home; boundaries were good for our mental health, apparently.
“I’ve been worse.”
The nightmares of James’ traps had stopped at least, but Cameron was haunting me in their place. I’d been twitchier than usual where I was waiting for another note, another stalker. Too many people had found out my secret. There had to be more. I hoped there weren’t, but the chances of those being the only two crazies who wanted to cause me harm were nil.
“We’ll handle whatever’s thrown at us together.”
I kissed him softly, needing the confirmation of affection, the gentle caress of his lips against mine.
“I know. It’s just been a bitch of a month. Two stalkers, now this end-of-the-world storm thing.”
“And you’re worried about Castor.”
I glanced into the main office space. Castor was out getting more coffee, but he could be sneaky. That, and I didn’t know if Liam would tell him what Elijah and I had been discussing.
“Yea. His ties to the goddess seem to be growing, and I don’t know where that leaves me. Us. Is he going to turn on me at some point? He’s made some ominous comments, but of course they don’t give me anything to work with. I just have to trust him, and trust I’ll be prepared when whatever happens happens.”
“Do you have any reason to believe whatever is coming is bad?”
“She’s a goddess... you’ve seen the shit the other gods do, right?” I said with a bitter laugh.
“There are exceptions to every rule. I don’t trust the gods myself, but she did save your life.”
“How much of that was her broader plan, though? The coven planned to sacrifice me to her. That was the plan from my birth, but she had instructed them to train me as a warrior. So what’s to say that she didn’t plan to slaughter my coven from before my birth? And if she’s so happy to kill that many people in one fel swoop, who’s to say she doesn’t plan on doing it again? This could be some really twisted game.”
Elijah stroked my back in slow soothing motions.
> “Do you know anything about this goddess at all?”
“No. I think she might be fallen, but I can’t be entirely sure. Obviously she has ties to the shadow plane, but that’s it. I have no idea about the rest of her magic, her name, her history, nothing. All I know is that I’m bound to her in some unspoken way and the day that she comes asking for the cost of my shadow magic is approaching.”
“It’s difficult to find much on fallen, given information about them is wiped away when they fall.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder.
“What are we going to do about these jaguar guardians? I can’t drop them in a big hole again. I’m not sure how to kill them.”
“Can you rip their magic out of them?”
It was a brutal solution, and it would cause them unimaginable pain. It would also remove their healing and shifting abilities.
“Perhaps. It would take time, and I’d need to be protected while I was weaving the magic.”
“Then we’ll look into that. I trust you’d need something of them?”
“Yes.”
Elijah nodded.
“Once we have evidence that they’re the culprits, we’ll go ahead with that. Not before we have evidence. We’re not killing innocent people.”
“Agreed.”
Forty-Four
The news came from Liam that he’d found the hideout of the two jaguar guardians at three in the morning, because Liam didn’t believe in sleep. I stumbled down the stairs and took the huge mug of very strong coffee Jess was holding out for me.
“It took a lot of digging, a few favours, and quite a few broken laws, but I’ve found them. The jaguar guardians, who go by Henri and Alexander, are hidden in a very nice house in the very heart of the stone district,” Liam said.