Tally fought to control her fear, but the crumbling of the bricks stopped. A face looked back at her from behind the wall. It was her own face, but it was something else, too.
“Why are you doing this, witch?” a low, gravelly, yet distinctly feminine voice asked her.
“I have to save him. Them.”
“You bring me to your dimension for righteous destruction?”
“I don’t know how righteous it is. I’m using outlaw magick to invoke the greatest evil we’ve ever known because it’s the only thing that will stop what’s happening.”
“Where is your Hand of Glory?” The creature referred to some of the darkest magick known to her kind, one of the only things that should have been able to summon a lamia.
“I don’t have one.” Tally wondered if perhaps it had been extremely naïve on her part to tell the creature the truth.
“Very interesting.” Her likeness sniffed the air. “There is no lie on you. You are the same vessel as before and yet, you are not. Your need tastes different.”
“It is.” Tally nodded and reached out trembling fingers to pull another brick from the barrier.
“Do you fear me?”
“Oh, yes,” Tally answered honestly.
“You’ve done penance for the atrocities we’ve committed?”
“Merlin says I’ve atoned. But I’m shitting all over my Second Chance by summoning you.”
“I can see him in your mind, Drusilla Tallow, this creature you wish me to devour. He tastes like ashes.” The lamia licked its lips.
“He will destroy my world. I was hoping to invoke you first, to make a deal. I want to save the vessels.” She pulled another brick away.
“What do you have that I want, witch?”
“I don’t know.”
“What if you free me and I don’t honor our deal?”
“You will. Before I pull these last bricks from your prison, our deal will be sealed with blood in the demon way.”
“I have a condition. You must let me stay with you.”
Tally paused. Stay with her? She was supposed to have a pet lamia? What was she supposed to do, walk it and feed it? This was insanity. Complete insanity.
“I’ve tasted your world and I want to stay.”
“You’d be caged,” Tally said.
“I’ve been here a long time. Alone. Your loneliness called to me, and it fed me, more than the flesh sacrificed to me. It’s been an age since I’ve been invoked to punish the wicked, since I flew free over the Aegean.”
Tally couldn’t say damn the consequences. This creature could still do as much damage as the beast inside Emilian.
“You hesitate and rightfully so. But think on it, witch. No one could open the portal inside of you. No one could use you in a way you wouldn’t allow. My strength and my power, all at your disposal.”
“What about your hungers? I don’t want to hurt innocents.”
“I will serve your Heaven.”
“That’s not an answer. You will serve Heaven, but will I suffer the hunger? Will I have to be strong enough to fight it? I’m not that strong.”
“I can’t answer that. I can consume this beast, but it will become a part of you, too.”
There wasn’t a choice. If she couldn’t bear the hunger, then she could ask Merlin to smite her. It would be worth it. The people she loved would be safe and Tally would know she’d truly atoned for what she’d done.
“It’s a deal?” Tally asked.
“Yes, witch.”
The creature bit its human-looking digit and presented it to Tally, its flesh producing steady droplets of blood. Tally had nothing with which to cut herself, but she was in a surreal, dream plane. She concentrated on the tip of her finger and the blood began to flow—her skin had opened up to do her will.
Tally pressed her finger against the creature’s and the wall became dust. Tally screamed as she felt an unbearable pressure on her chest. The pressure merged into pain—a thousand claws tearing into her skin, something pushing through the real of her into the ethereal.
It burned so hot it was cold and terror rose up in her, strangling the air from her lungs and rational thought from her mind. She was sinking into the darkness, slipping away into the cage, to the black box where she’d kept all the horrors Martin and Barista had inflicted on her.
Falcon! His name was a prayer on her lips and she was snapped back into awareness of her own body.
Tally felt strong and solid, powerful. It was a good feeling, a rush. She was high on the strength coursing through her. She felt invincible and she was hungry. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, but all she craved was pizza.
She wondered if that would change when she took the curse from Emilian Grey. If she would become the beast inside him.
It didn’t matter, she told herself. No sacrifice was too great for Falcon’s life. Even if she lived through this, she’d have to say good-bye to him. It also meant she could never tell him she loved him. Her decision made, she felt a certain sad peace. This whole redemption thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, but it was so much more, too. A lot like love.
Then she heard a sound that chilled her to her bones: the long, slow scrape of claws against the thin wood of the walls.
The beast had come.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Love Gun Misfire
Shot with his own damn bullet. How humiliating.
Then again, he supposed that didn’t matter if the world was going to end.
The easy thing to do would be to sit in The Banshee’s Bawl and drink until it was over. But that wasn’t what he wanted.
It surprised him to realize what he did want.
Just Tally.
For five minutes or five million years—whatever she or Fate would give him.
He loved her.
He loved the way her hair curled around his finger, the way her nose crinkled when he said something she didn’t like, her smile, and most of all, he loved her heart. It was big enough to love him even after everything she’d been through, and knowing he wouldn’t love her back. Not in the way she needed.
She was so strong, so brave. And she deserved so much better than anything he could ever give her.
Tally had told him to love himself, but he’d done enough of that. Seducing her in the pergola, insisting on being her parole officer when Merlin was happy to reassign him, working everything to his angle to get what he wanted. No, he couldn’t love himself because his actions had hurt her. Just as he’d known they would.
There wasn’t enough bourbon in the world to wash away his sins.
Some fucking Angel of Love he’d turned out to be.
Why couldn’t she have just let him die, not believing in love? That would have fixed everything.
Suddenly, Ethelred’s words slammed into him. I get Tally, too. She’d chosen Hell. Falcon had failed her in so many ways. Had she traded her soul for that bullet? No, she wouldn’t be so shortsighted. She wouldn’t have traded herself for anything less than the world. She’d almost destroyed it, so she’d believe she was the one who should save it.
Which would explain why Tristan had said Falcon wasn’t on the docket to be reaped.
He wouldn’t let her be damned.
Falcon didn’t quite have a plan, but that didn’t matter. His sister had told him love saved Tally the first time and he knew it would again. Even Merlin had told him that true love was the most powerful magick of all.
And he loved Tally. He’d die for her, but he realized that, most important, he’d live for her, too.
He put the glass of bourbon down, dropped some money on the table, and left.
The more love there was in the world, the more powerful he’d become. He knew in his gut he’d need all the power he could get to fix what he’d fucked up, but what filled him with a joy such as he’d never known was that he could fix it. He had faith in himself. In Love, with the capital “L.” Maybe he could even love himself just a little bit.
He realized now that being selfish wasn’t loving himself. It was like shoving a piece of candy in a crying kid’s mouth. It didn’t address what he really needed; it was only a stopgap. The things he really needed couldn’t be accomplished through any kind of instant gratification. They were dreams, goals, a lifetime of accomplishments built on the kind of foundation he had with Tally.
He got out his love gun and took to the skies, searching for people to shoot. Falcon knew he could only water the seeds and fertilize what was already there. Love out of nothing at all was meant for dark magick and Air Supply songs.
After the first bullet, Falcon began enjoying his job. He could see the paths of people’s lives just as he had that day on the cloud with Tally. He pruned what was unnecessary, dead or broken, and was surprised to see new buds growing everywhere. Within minutes, he didn’t even have to shoot the gun anymore—he could bring blooms with a thought.
He was riding high, until he saw a man he hadn’t laid eyes on since he was ten.
Orion Cherrywood. His father.
The bastard was sitting on a park bench with a mortal woman half his age—and his heart was black and dead—except for one, tiny green shoot that struggled through the stony soil of his soul. Falcon could see that shoot could become as strong, tall, and powerful as a redwood.
The new feelings in Falcon’s own heart began to wilt, to shy away from the pain that awaited him there. He should have known that Fate would have another obstacle for him to overcome—this thing that had been at the core of all of his hurts. Falcon had yet to slay any dragons, and by Merlin, he was going to get that damned shining armor to fit if it killed him. Tally deserved nothing less.
He dropped down to the mortal world and hid his wings, his gun, and his red leather pants and manifested some street clothes. He wandered down the path that would lead him to that bench and suddenly realized he had no idea of what he was going to say.
Or if he should say anything at all. Falcon could always shoot his father and Orion would never know he’d been there.
“Falcon!” Orion’s voice was a half whisper, his dark eyes wide.
No choice now. He supposed he could still shoot him and disappear; it would serve the bastard right. He’d think Falcon had come to kill him, and the pain of love blooming in his chest after all this time would certainly feel like a real bullet.
“Are you sure?” Falcon couldn’t resist asking. After all, it had been years.
“I know my own sons.” Orion suddenly looked old. Not in any measurable way, like lines around his eyes and mouth, or sagging skin. He was a warlock. But it was in the shadows in the depths of his eyes.
“How’s your mother?” Orion asked.
Again, all of the old venom roiled up inside him. He wanted to say that if Orion gave a shit, he could have asked her himself. He could have at least let his family know where he was. But instead, Falcon said, “She’s been taking a cooking class with Roderick Snow.”
“How’s Barista feel about that?” Orion smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. It was sad.
“That’s a long story I don’t think we have time for.” Barista was dead. She’d been Martin Vargill’s partner in crime and had tried to kill, well, everyone. “Who’s your friend?”
Orion looked embarrassed for a moment. “This is my therapist, Carolyn. Carolyn, this is my son, Falcon.”
The woman beamed at him. “Then this is my cue. It was nice to meet you, Falcon. I hope you listen to what your father has to say.”
Therapist? What the hell?
The woman got up and placed a comforting hand on his father’s shoulder and walked down toward the small fountain in the center of the park.
For a moment, Orion didn’t seem to want to look at him and Falcon remembered he had his own atoning to do, so he swallowed hard and said, “She seemed to think you had something to say.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
How would he know where to start with Tally? “How about with Love?”
Orion seemed to take that as an invitation and popped to his feet to yank Falcon against him in a tight hug. “Thank Merlin, boy! I never thought I’d see you again or you’d want to see me. I’m so sorry. I never stopped loving you boys, Midnight . . . or your mother.”
Falcon stood frozen by the sudden onslaught of conflicting emotions and sensations. His arms slowly melted around his father, but this time he couldn’t stop the question he had to know the answer to.
“Why did you leave? Why weren’t we enough?”
“It’s me who wasn’t enough.”
All of Falcon’s previous insecurities slammed back through him. He knew he shared his father’s faults. He was still his father’s son.
“That doesn’t mean it was okay to leave us.”
“I had to, Falcon.” He broke away from him and looked into his eyes. “I was addicted to dark magick and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get clean. When some of the people I owed money to started coming around the house, your mother told me to choose between my family and the magick. I chose the magick.” He was silent for a long moment and Falcon didn’t know what to say. “I’ve regretted it every day of my life.”
“Are you clean now?”
“Five years. I’m almost completely magick free. I use a glamour to make living in the mortal world easier, but that’s it.”
“Let me see.”
“I—”
“Let me see the rest of the price you paid for the dark magick. No one else will see you.” Falcon used his magick to insulate them from the rest of the world.
Orion dropped his glamour and Falcon had to fight not to flinch. His father’s formerly handsome face was a wreck. The left side had been burned and scarred almost beyond recognition. His left eye was nothing but a burned-out socket. There was a crisscross network of thin white scars on the right side of his face that traveled down his neck. His left arm had been burned as well, as if a fountain of fire had flowed down the flesh. The hand was mangled, too, missing the pinky and ring finger. Common things sacrificed in the pursuit of dark magick. The loss of his ring finger must be recent, because the scar was still a bright pink.
“I thought you were clean.”
Orion snapped the glamour back into place. “I am. Before Midnight was born, I traded a piece of her magick to a dark warlock for a crystal skull. I’ve since returned it.” He sighed. “I wish I could renounce all my magick. I’ve thought about it, but I can’t live in either world looking as I do. Though, it’s nothing less than what I deserve.”
“Midnight got married,” Falcon blurted.
“I know. She’s been to see me.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Probably because it was just yesterday. She said I should come home, Falcon.”
“That would be like asking a dope fiend to live in Colombia.”
“I know better.”
Falcon couldn’t get the sight of what his father’s addiction had done to him out of his brain. “But maybe you should see Mom.”
“I don’t think she wants to see me.”
“She loves you. Always has. Always will.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m Cupid.” Falcon shrugged, and then sighed. He knew what he had to do. “I’m going to give you the same gift my woman gave to me.”
“It’s not the clap, is it?” Orion raised a brow.
Falcon laughed. “No, but it’s more uncomfortable. At first. Love yourself, Orion.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.” Suddenly, Falcon wanted to puke and he had the sense that Tally needed him. Terror knifed through him. “I have to go.”
“Can I see you again?”
“If the world doesn’t end.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Not by the Hair of My Chinny-Chin-Chin
“Little witch, little witch, let me in.” A deep growl sounded from behind the door. The voice had once been Emilian’s, but now it s
ounded like a layered track, as if there were three voices speaking the same words, but a millisecond off from each other.
Tally wouldn’t lie to herself and pretend she wasn’t afraid. She was terrified and it seeped from her every pore. She was sure the wolf could smell the fear on her like a sweet perfume.
There was a cold, distant part of her mind now and it told her this was what she wanted. If the beast thought she was afraid, he’d feel powerful and in control. She was afraid of that, too, the voice in her head, so alien, but achingly familiar. It was hungry and reptilian, but it burned.
Tally wanted to hide under the bed and cover her eyes the way she’d done when she was a child and she’d feared the monster in the closet. The urge to flee brought another memory of Falcon. She and Middy had been hiding under Middy’s bed, having scared themselves stupid with a marathon of horror movies, and then they’d read Stephen King stories aloud to each other. “The Boogeyman” had scared the bemerlin out of both of them and Middy’s closet gnome had creaked the closet door open, sending the girls into a shrieking frenzy. He’d later tried to sue for damages, citing their screaming for his hearing loss. Of course, if he’d been doing his job instead of eavesdropping on two little witches . . . Falcon had come to their rescue and ousted the gnome and made him admit what he’d done.
He also explained to them he was much scarier than any boogeyman. He’d promised the dark was more afraid of him than Middy or Tally were of it. They’d believed each and every word.
Now it was Tally’s turn to make the dark things quake in fear of her.
She took a deep breath and opened the door, rather than waiting for him to kick it in. “It took you long enough,” Tally spat.
Tally was surprised to see the beast still wore Emilian’s skin. It was caught in mid-transformation. It had the form of Emilian’s body, but was covered in a fine pelt; its face had an elongated snout, fissures in the flesh, and slavering jaws full of snapping teeth. Its hands were claws, but the rest of its body pulsed with power, hovering at the edge of transition.
How to Seduce an Angel in 10 Days Page 16