by Jamie Magee
River could only imagine the boy Mason was now. She’d heard he went wild. He was never an angel, but there was no doubt, the Mason that River knew went to the grave with Braxton. Obviously, he’d let his mom hook him up with some high-class chick that didn’t come from a coven and didn’t have whacked out senses. River smirked thinking he might be in a tux somewhere talking about the stock market or some BS, with Barbie doll girls hanging on each arm.
She peeked out of her bedroom door, all clear, just a vast hallway, as soon as she closed the door she figured out her recon senses sucked. Just to the left of her room, the whitewashed blond boy, that was there when she woke up from her knockout, was sitting in a high back chair reading an insanely old book. If it was from the library, River was going to kill him. He had no gloves on and was reading it like it was an old copy of Tom Sawyer.
His stare met hers instantly, no chance in ducking back in her room and finding a new plan.
Slowly River appraised him, his eyes were clear blue, they complemented his hair and made him seem otherworldly, in this setting he would fit perfectly into some kind of vampire movie. Hot boy, no doubt. He’d stood up and appeared in front of River within a beat of her heart.
She was betting he was not human, at least not all the way. His energy was too electric. She didn’t get a bad vibe, so he was still standing.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked as he ducked his head so he could meet her eyes.
“Much better.”
“Gavin,” he said as he extended his hand.
“River,” she said shaking his hand as briefly as possible. “Listen. I’m a night owl. I’d like to get this ball rolling, and to catch a flight tomorrow.”
He raised his brow.
“I’m a fast reader slash decoder.”
He wasn’t buying it. Awesome. River thought sarcastically.
“Did something happen? You know, when you fainted?” he asked apprehensively.
Yep, dead people have your crib surrounded, and there is some evil bastard by your gate burning them for the heck of it. “No, just jet lagged.”
“Did you get enough to eat?”
“Plenty. Can you take me to the library? Or do I needed to meet Miss Falcon first?”
“I think she’s leaving for dinner. I can take you.”
“Thanks, man.”
He tucked the book under his arm and nodded for her to follow him. “So you’re from New Orleans.”
“I am.”
“My best friend has family there.”
Every part of her tensed, she didn’t blush, but she did skip a breath or two.
“Big city,” she said dismissively.
River could read between the lines, read the way he was hedging his words, and that look. You know the one, the one that told her, ‘so you are her’.
She knew there was at least a seventy-five percent chance Mason had gotten wind that she was there. If so that meant he was still good at playing his avoiding game.
“The Quarter is like a family, though, right?” Gavin asked.
River’s head was flooding with memories. Last words, first words. Firsts…too many of them. She was starting to wonder how deep this plan to get her there went—if Mason had anything to do with it, or worse if he thought she volunteered like some lovesick girl that just wanted to get a glimpse of him.
“Everyone that wants to know me is still in the Quarter, so whoever your best friend is, I don’t know them anymore.”
“Right,” he said as his pale blue eyes moved over her.
“Can I be blunt?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Why does everyone from this place look at me like you just did? I mean, is there pepper in my teeth or somethin’?”
He laughed, a deep, powerful laugh, which backed up River’s vampire theory. “I think you just remind us of someone.”
River smirked.
“Not in a bad way,” he promised.
“I’m cool with it. I have a twin, and a sister that pretty much looks like us, too. I remind a lot of people of someone outside of me. Use to it.”
“One thing about twins, they show that the outward image is drastically changed by the soul within.”
River glanced up at him. That was true. If you knew twins, after a while they stopped looking identical, night and day actually. “Are you a twin?”
“No, my buddy is, though.”
River. Seriously. Breathing, it’s a basic process, get it together. Game face on. What is this boy doing? Trying to feel me out? Figure out if I’m either still ticked off or hurt. The answer was yes, to both.
“That a fact? Are you friends with both?” River could play dumb, too.
“Unfortunately no, never met his twin, it’s a painful topic, so we avoid it.”
River wasn’t going to ask why, even though he left the statement just hanging there. By all outward appearances, River was vastly uninterested in this mock small talk.
They’d reached an elevator. This house has an elevator. You’ve got to be kidding, River thought with a slight shake of her head.
Gavin nodded for her to go in first.
“I don’t understand how you ‘discovered’ a library,” River said as he moved to stand by her. “Did the heiress just take over the place or something?”
“No, not at all, it was just hidden behind a few things.”
He was staring at that panel like it was written in a different language. He pushed something that closed them in, then turned to face her. “Listen security here is pretty intense. I can’t show you the code to get there, or the path once we get to that floor, so can you cover your eyes?”
“You’re for real,” River responded sarcastically.
He grimaced and shrugged his shoulder. “I could ask my New Orleans friend if he knows a better way to get there.”
Clever little bastard.
River’s eyes were covered that instant.
She felt his hand go over hers. “Just to be sure, can’t be too cautious,” he said as he moved against her. Right then, River felt a pull, then a wisp of energy.
Yep, she knew that sensation. All too well, and it wasn’t the elevator moving down or up.
Gavin walked her forward a few steps then dropped his hands. When she dropped her hands, he caught her glare.
“Sorry,” he breathed looking a little too deeply into her eyes. River was sure they were hinting toward some weird mix of blue and lavender. She’d ripped her blue contacts in her nervous fret to get dressed and get this over with.
“Look man. You’re not human. You’re not anything bad either. I know that much. I also know you just moved me from one floor to another. If I had to guess, I’d say we went down and over a good four hundred feet.”
The look on his face was priceless. For spite River wanted to say ‘yep, the dude I hook up with from time to time knows that same trick, likes to use it when things get a little hot between us’, but she didn’t.
Dagen, River thought with a sigh. If this were any other time, she would have already called him to her side, to at the very least settle her nerves, make her feel safe.
What’s cranked about life is that sometimes you get so deep into the zone of things that you never stop to realize why you do the things you do.
River had thought Dagen and she acted courteously, keeping things on the down-low, that they were proving Jamison’s theory wrong; they were not just some torrid affair. But the truth was, she knew she couldn’t commit to Dagen completely because she had nothing left to give him.
Nope, some boy robbed her of her heart at sixteen, dumped her for some high-class rich girl that fit his mother’s standards. River had managed to forget that and built a life. That is, until her said life threw her past in her face after uprooting her and tossing her across way too many state lines. No Ash. No Raven or Soren, and no Dagen to protect her. This. Blows.
And the real kicker was, obviously Mason left River’s group and ended up with people just like
them. Maybe we just weren’t classy enough witches for his mother’s taste, River thought coldly.
“Speechless, huh.” River said as she crossed her arms. “Don’t get twisted. I know people that can do that, nothing complicated. You just need a new plan next time you bring someone down here whether they are aware of energy or not.”
“I thought it was worth a shot, better than an appearing and disappearing staircase.”
“This room is spelled?” River asked glancing around. What’s with the freaking clocks? Obsession with time maybe? River would bet she could put one in every house in her neighborhood and still not make a dent in this place.
“Spelled?”
“Are we still playing dumb? If you can move like that, and you have energy elevated the way you do I can not be the first witch you’ve crossed.”
Those blue eyes of his popped wide open. “You’re a witch?”
“Depends on your definition. No, I do not have a broom. Yes, I know words, herbs, thoughts, and energy are powerful, and yes I know how to use them.”
That stare of his was so spellbound that it was nearly comical. You’d think River was the first blunt person he’d met.
“I like you,” he said finally.
“You just made my day.”
There was that laugh again.
He nodded to the room. “We found this room under duress. It had a key. The key makes the staircase appear and disappear, and only a few of us have seen this floor.”
“Has your lawyer buddy seen it? Was that in the nondisclosure agreement I didn’t sign? ‘Please do not discuss spelled rooms’.”
He just shook his head holding his boyish grin in place. River was digging this guy. She’d let him run with her crew, no doubt.
“If this is the bottom floor of this mini city you have here, and it was spelled, then it was packed to move.”
He was looking at her like she was crazy again.
“The roots, earth, energy, essence of life,” River stomped her foot. “It’s under here and all around the walls. If you were to move something you’d put the best stuff on this level and seal it up.”
“You make it a habit to move houses in New Orleans?”
Was that a rhetorical question?
“No, man. When I hang out in the Veil of death, in the cities the dead build, this is how they keep their stuff together. Sometimes they decide they’d rather live with a different group of dead people and pack up.”
“You’re serious.”
“Not at all, that is just the plot to the novel I’m working on.” A raised brow was thrown in his direction. “Yes, I’m serious. The Veil is massive. The dead like to collect things. Pass them down. People like me, and more than likely you, when we go, we protect our stuff, so that we don’t forget. Have you never watched those ghost hunter shows where they burn an item because it has a ghost attached to it?”
One nod.
“Kinda true. That’s a foothold. A doorway. Someone in this operation of yours liked clocks, apparently, and moved them, or wants to move them.”
“Theory is the clocks were added to this room, after the fact.”
“After what?”
He tilted his head and let an ironic smiled grace his face.
“You moved this house?” River asked incredulously.
“So I’ve been told,” he smirked.
Meaning yes. River was impressed. It would take some sick energy to move this bad boy. Power, a lot of power.
She stepped a little closer to him and moved her head all the way back so she could look up at him. She didn’t fail to notice his stare glide down her neck. Boys. No matter what the topic is, they are easy to distract. “Never play poker. You’d suck.”
He playfully narrowed his eyes. “Irony is jaded,” he said under his breath.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing before. “How so?”
“Nothing,” he cleared his throat and made it a point to keep his eyes locked on hers. She felt his energy checking hers out, swaying against it just to see if she was interested. Nope. You’re hot buddy, but you are far too close to a hell I’ve already survived.
“This house has a lot of mysteries,” he said after he apparently got River’s silent message. “We’re hoping you can help us understand some of them. We’re not really clear on why we packed what we packed.”
“Right,” River stepped back. “Lead the way.”
He gave her one last look, leaving his flirtatious smile right there on the edge of his lips as he turned and started to lead the way.
About twenty steps later River caught a scent that put every sense she had on high alert. Rain. Not the ‘it’s a nice little sprinkle,’ no, rain like a tepid storm is on the horizon, and you may or may not lose every material object you own in the next hour. What was messing with her was as far as she knew, in this life, she had no reason for the scent to strike up warning signs.
When she was a kid, she had fought a few battles in the middle of a hurricane, but that wasn’t the scent she sensed then. This one was different.
No prickles were surfacing, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t. Apparently, River was channeling her twin because instead of ignoring it, she put on her figurative detective hat and started to break away from the path Gavin was leading her on, weaving in and out of those massive timepieces that were eerie in and of themselves. It felt like she was walking through a graveyard.
“This way,” Gavin said to get her attention. River directly ignored him and picked up her pace, just shy of a jog.
“You can get lost down here, this place is nearly as big as the manor,” he warned easily keeping pace with her.
That smell was getting stronger. The emotion of fear and anger were swelling in River. A few twists and turns, and just under a minute later she stopped short.
All the other clocks were within feet of each other, now there was a wide circle and what was left of a clock was all over the floor. It looked as if it had exploded from within.
“What the hell,” River heard Gavin say.
The air was rank, not the approaching storm, more like rain on a hot day in the swamp. The closer River moved to the ruins of the clock, the denser the energy became, and the more her emotions elevated. She knelt down and touched the wood, right then a bolt of energy coursed through her. Fork in a socket, yep that’s what it felt like. River dove back, at the same time wicked whispers started to wisp through the room. Damned souls. Freaking-A.
River moved back as fast as she could and had her energy ready to defend or protect, looking in every direction for a target. Then all at once a dark purple flaming pentagram appeared across the remains, and the whispers halted.
Standing on the other side of it was a girl that was River’s height with long lavender hair. She was a beautiful girl, one that River had read about, one that held an uncanny resemblance to the woman who sent her there.
“What’s up cuz,” River said letting her energy fall.
She arched a brow at River as Gavin’s eyes moved between them like someone cut a chapter or two out of the novel he was reading.
“River Sabien,” she said with a slight bow.
“Skylynn BellaRose,” River said with a tilt of her head. “Saige sends her best.”
“Obviously,” she said with a glance over her.
“Whose foothold is this? Is that why we’re surrounded?” River questioned.
“Someone want to clue me in?” Gavin said moving his stare between them.
“Someone hitched a ride with you when you moved this house, a nasty houseguest if you will.”
A slight but proud grin spread across Skylynn’s face just then.
“Someone’s in the house?” Gavin asked.
“They’re stuck here now,” Skylynn said with a nod to the pentagram. Not going back the way they came.”
River’s hotel idea was sounding really good right about then. She had a good feeling she’d seen the captain of this clock already.
“A
re they in the house?” Gavin asked again, his tone backed up River’s otherworldly theory about him. The boy looked downright lethal right about then.
“No he’s at the front gate, more than likely the house itself busted this tomb, after all of you triggered something. Someone unlocked his cage.” What in the world had these people been up to, and how did that have anything do with whatever accident Mason was in?
“You saw him?” Skylynn asked River.
One nod. She really didn’t want to elaborate on that one. “What has left this house?” There was good chance there were other soldiers hanging out in these clocks; if they knew what the last key looked like they could stop those cage doors from popping open.
Skylynn and Gavin were both locked in a stare.
“All right then, don’t tell me, this is your crib. I don’t plan on sticking around long.”
“Is it the camera, or the box Wilder took?” Gavin asked Skylynn.
“The box. I’m not worried about the camera, I protected it long ago.”
No one was clueing River in…
She tilted her head and raised her chin in Skylynn’s direction.
“We kicked a guy out a few days ago, he took a few things. The security camera saw him do it, that was the trigger,” Skylynn answered.
“Well, whoever that guy is, I would not underestimate him. This is no backyard magic.”
Nope, it was Escort magic, something Dagen had told River all about. Maybe I should give him a ring.
“No, it’s not,” Skylynn agreed all too evenly as she continued to appraise River. “Why are you under the impression you’re leaving before the next sunset?”
Ha, funny story, my ex is here, and I don’t want to go down that road. Nope, wasn’t saying that. “We’re getting ready for our own showdown back home.”
“Dead rising?”
“In theory. Your mother is not so sure we should pull him back, but my girl comes into power with a lover from the grave, so it is what it is.”
“Someone is coming into power in your life?” Gavin asked River.