Sword of Elements Series Boxed Set 2: Bound In Blue, Caught In Crimson & To Make A Witch

by Heather Hamilton-Senter

  Taliesin must have filled him in on my incendiary tendencies.

  Daley was the first to break the awkward silence. “I know I’ve said some things about you—to you—that were . . .” His hands clenched on the wheel and he seemed to change his mind about what he wanted to say. “The thing is, you need to get control over your powers and fast. Haven’t you noticed that we’re falling apart here?” Bright pink sparkled through me. The naked emotion on his face was shocking. “Taliesin has been keeping the world safe for hundreds of years. I’m proud to be his son. We used to be a good team, the best, but now Arthur is awake, Rowan is dead, Miko is turning into I don’t know what, and I’m not even sure who Ty is anymore!”

  “And it’s all my fault,” I muttered.

  “I know it isn’t, not really, but we’re fighting a war on three fronts now—Arthur, Merlin, and a whole lot of nasty creatures who’d love to carve out a little piece of the kingdom for themselves. And there you are, at the center of it all. Even you’ve got to admit that your allegiance hasn’t been that clear. You can’t blame me if I wish the harp of Binnorie had never found you.”

  Icy white doused all other colors and destroyed what had begun to grow between us before we’d left the house. “Well I’m sorry about that, but I’m still trying to figure things out myself! You all keep saying I’m a leanan sidhe. The only thing I know about them is that they’re soul-sucking monsters. I don’t know the first thing about what this ability is, let alone how to control it!”

  Daley pulled into a parking lot on a side street behind one of the casinos. Snapping off the A/C and then the engine, he turned in his seat to look at me. “I’ll tell you one thing, Taliesin always said the leanan sidhe were just a myth—that the stories about them were confused tales of encounters with common vampires.”

  I snorted. “Isn’t that why we’re here? Because all myths are real?”

  “Sometimes a myth is just a myth, or an exaggeration of the truth. The last story, or record, of an actual encounter with a leanan sidhe is ancient. I’m wondering if there’s something deliberate about that.”

  “You think it was on purpose?”

  He shrugged. “Every member of an entire species of Greylander seems to have just disappeared. It’s possible they’re all behind the Wall, I suppose. But even so, you’re half human—and not just any human—you’re the daughter of the most powerful earth witch ever born. You’re unique. Your powers are going to be unique too.”

  I wanted to tell him how Cernunnos, or Merlin now that he’d reclaimed the name he used when posing as counsellor to a young King Arthur, had demanded that I find my mother Guinevere. She was the only one who could free him from his prison in the Grey Lands. Viviane had made the Wall using Guinevere’s spell but was now too weak to do anything about it. The assumption was that since Guinevere had brought us all forward in Time, she must be alive somewhere.

  Merlin had forced me to agree to help him by threatening to funnel magic into me until my mind burst and I was nothing but an empty shell. I was heir to his power, but my human half couldn’t contain it, and all the magic I’d unwittingly drawn into myself all my life was killing me. The doctors had told me I had a tumor in my brain, though I wasn’t sure it wasn’t really a black hole leading to a vortex of chaos. One of Avalon’s pink apples was stashed in a drawer in my room, waiting for me to contact Merlin with the news that I had found Guinevere.

  I pushed away the desire to tell him everything. Only Peter knew most of the truth, though not some of the more unpleasant details, and nothing about the cancer. If Daley resented me now for being at the center of this conflict, what would he do if he found out I was secretly acting on Merlin’s behalf? I hadn’t actually made any moves to find my mother yet, but I suspected that wouldn’t make much of a difference to him.

  Daley sat up straight, squinting at something outside the van.

  “What?” All I could see were tourists walking towards a cross street that must lead to the famous Las Vegas Strip.

  “There.” He pointed at a young man wearing a hoodie. “Once you know what you’re looking for, false glamour is easy to spot.”

  “False?”

  “Glamour that isn’t integral to a species, but the result of a spell. It’s a little ragged and uneven on the edges.”

  “I can’t see it.”

  “Focus.”

  I closed my eyes to concentrate and there was an immediate flicker of iridescence across my interior sight. When I opened my eyes, the flicker matched up to the speed and trajectory of the man walking away from us. He glanced over his shoulder in our direction, but didn’t betray any evidence that he realized we were watching him.

  “So he’s using glamour. Does that automatically mean he’s bad?”

  “No, but it does mean he’s hiding something.” Daley climbed out of the van and I followed, jogging a little to catch up. “It’s not a crime to purchase a glamour spell, but occasionally it means bigger trouble.”

  I glanced back at the minivan. “Shouldn’t we pay for parking?”

  “The Las Vegas Parking Authority has our license plates on record. We couldn’t operate freely if the mayor wasn’t aware of what we do here.”

  “He’s one of us?”

  Daley shook his head. “No, but you’d be surprised how many Mundanes know. Just about every major city in the world would have devolved into anarchy years ago without Protectors around.”

  The young man was heading west along Paris Drive. I was struggling to keep up with both of them. Daley’s Protector training meant he was in much better shape than I was, even if you didn’t count his magically enhanced Protector physique. Huffing and puffing after him, I vowed to start spending some time in the compound’s gym.

  The man glanced over his shoulder again before passing the Paris casino and running across the lanes of traffic on Las Vegas Blvd. Surprisingly quick, he had a strange, loping gait. I recognized the hotel he was heading towards from movies and TV. It was the Bellagio.

  “Damn,” Daley muttered under his breath.

  “What is it?”

  He slowed down for me to catch up. “Do you still have him?”

  I nodded. I didn’t need to close my eyes now. I’d locked on to that peculiar iridescence.

  Hands on his hips, Daley looked up and down the road in frustration. Tendrils of white lightning spread across his irises as he reached up to grasp the wheel charm on the silver chain around his neck.

  “What?” I asked again.

  “It’s the friggin’ Bellagio,” he replied, as if that explained everything.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SCARLET

  I waited for the charm to transform into the deadly Wheel of Taranis—the weapon of Daley’s birthright—but he let it go and the lightning in his eyes faded.

  “OK, it’s the Bellagio? So what?”

  “We have an agreement about the Bellagio.”

  “With who?”

  Daley ran his hands through his hair. “With one of its owners. Technically it’s owned by a large corporation, but there’s a silent partner who’s kept a major stake in it. I don’t know who it is. We’re supposed to stay out.”

  “So we’re done then?”

  I was beginning to recognize that stubborn look. “No. We just need to make sure there’s a real threat before we act.”

  “And if there is? What are we supposed to do exactly?”

  Daley gestured to where he knew Excalibur lay invisible on my hip. “We kill it, if necessary. Is that going to be a problem?”

  Uh, yeah.

  “No,” I said.

  “Good. Follow my lead and try not to draw attention to yourself.” His eyes narrowed. “And take down your hair.”

  “Why?” I asked, even as I obeyed and pulled my hair out of its ponytail. Without the restraint of the band I’d tortured it into earlier, my hair reclaimed its usual slightly wild state.

  “You look a little older with it down. The legal gambling age here is 21.
You can’t even linger on the casino floor if you’re younger than that. I think you’ll pass, but stay in the common areas if you can. And remind me to arrange a fake ID for you when we get back.” Daley frowned when I couldn’t help smirking, but I didn’t explain.

  I already have one fake birth certificate saying I’m eighteen, why not a fake ID pushing me up into my twenties? At this rate, I’ll be collecting old age pension before I reach thirty!

  I followed Daley across the street and past the Bellagio’s famous fountains to the main entrance. A revolving glass door ushered us into the hotel where I couldn’t help staring in wonder at the giant glass flowers covering the ceiling of the lobby in wild hues like the psychedelic dream of a demented gardener. I could barely comprehend it, but Daley didn’t spare it a glance.

  “I’ve lost him. Can you see the glamour, you know, the way you see things?”

  The riot of color hovering over my head was disorienting “I don’t know.”

  “Concentrate.”

  “I’m trying!”

  I finally caught a slight glimmer. “There.” I pointed to the right of the reception area where crowds of people were also heading.

  “Great. The Conservatory. It’ll be packed with tourists.”

  We passed between massive pillars into the Conservatory. All the hotels and casinos along the Las Vegas Strip were decorated extravagantly for the holidays and the Bellagio was no exception. Giant nutcrackers stood sentinel by a Christmas tree that dwarfed them. Flying Reindeer danced over their heads between cascading gold bells. On the ground, tumbling polar bears were constructed from white carnations and poinsettias in every possible color blanketed everything but the pathways. The smell was earthy, heady, and distracting.

  Another brief sense of iridescence caught my attention, but it was difficult to focus on. This particular glamour seemed intended to cause someone to have difficulty retaining awareness of the bearer. I’d lived most of my life under a similar sort of spell. Using that knowledge, I concentrated on finding the ragged, vulnerable edge of the glamour. When I found it and pulled, the magic surged into me. I had to fight against the temptation to disappear, but I held firm until it dissipated, breaking apart into colorless sparks. It was surprising how little resistance I encountered, almost as if the glamour wanted to be taken.

  Something now danced between the polar bears, something very out of place in this child’s dream of Christmas. Instead of the velvet texture of flower petals, and the bright glitter of ornaments, this thing was hard, dry, and cracked. I pushed through a group of children to get closer, ignoring their cries of dismay that I was blocking their view.

  An electric tingle along my spine told me Daley was close behind me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the spot I’d last seen movement. For a long moment there was nothing. Then, in a sudden flurry of motion, I saw empty eye sockets and a long, bony jaw dripping ribbons of red.

  “There.” I pointed. “Do you see it? That’s our guy there, behind the bears, only, it’s not a guy.”

  Another round of movement that seemed to take the creature in and out of reality, and then it stopped and looked right at me.

  Or at least it would be looking at me, if it had eyes.

  The skeleton of a horse pawed the ground, ribbons of red fire falling from its jaws; it was both terrifying and profoundly alien. I was mesmerized.

  The voices of the children crying in fear brought me back to myself.

  Daley grabbed my arm. “You took the glamour off?” I nodded. “Can you put it back on? We’re going to have a panic here in a moment.”

  “I’ll try.” I concentrated on the desire to hide and searched inside for duplicates of the colors I remembered. After a few moments of effort, something barely tangible glimmered in my hands and I tossed it at the creature. The spell wasn’t exact, but it was enough to mostly mask the thing from the sight of the children. Adults had come to collect them, murmuring softly, lying to them as adults always do that there are no monsters under the bed.

  Since it was my spell, I could still see the skeleton beneath it, but I was somewhat proud of what I’d created. It had been as simple as using my own memories and emotions to help me call up similar colors which were really similar magics that I’d unwittingly stolen and stored through the years. Then I just tried to re-create the design of the original spell as closely as I could. I knew it was imperfect. It was like trying to re-create a masterpiece with a paint by numbers set, but luckily, the spell wasn’t that sophisticated.

  Now that I’d opened my senses to it, I could detect glamour throughout the entire hotel. It sparkled and flashed, daring me to consume it. I knew the ulterior motive was to convince tourists to stay and drop as much cash in the casino as possible, but I couldn’t help being entranced. “It’s so beautiful. There’s magic everywhere.”

  But Daley had shut himself off from wonder the day his girlfriend Melusine was shot in the street not too far from the hotel.

  “Keep your eyes on that thing!” he barked. I’d masked the creature with glamour, but hadn’t known how to replace the image of the young man. Daley now couldn’t see it at all.

  “It’s not moving.” Even though it looked ghoulish, perhaps it was harmless.

  Then the creature jumped.

  I was spun around by a blow that caught me on the side of my body and pushed me into a bed of poinsettias, Excalibur’s scabbard banging hard against my thigh.

  “Where is it?” Daley yelled.

  “There!” I clawed at my spell and peeled some away, revealing a glimpse of white bone that was enough for Daley to follow.

  A flare of pain on my right side made me pull up my t-shirt to reveal an angry burn on my waist where the cloth had rode up when I fell. A tendril of fire must have lashed me as the creature ran by. Wincing as I pulled the shirt back down, I got up and ran after Daley.

  The creature had backtracked through the lobby and into the gaming area. Weaving through rows of slot machines, it turned and grinned at me with its gaping jaw and curved teeth. Fire dripped from its mouth, but since no gambling senior citizens were immolated, its burn appeared to be selective.

  Daley’s haste had drawn the attention of a security guard. As I opened my mouth to warn him, a hand clamped down on my shoulder.

  “Can I see some ID, Miss?”

  So much for the change in hairdo.

  My shoulder was released so I could turn around. The man was dressed in a suit, but I could see the gun in the holster under his jacket as he dropped his arm. “ID, please,” he repeated and then stiffened as Daley was escorted our way by a tree-sized guard. My heart sank when I saw the wickedly serrated knife in the guard’s hand. He must have taken it off Daley, who was now sporting a set of handcuffs instead. My guy put his hand on his gun.

  Bony jaw grinning, the creature disappeared into the crowd.

  “It’s OK, Martin. The lass is with me.” That lilting accent. That peculiar twist of the voice that always made it sound like he was smiling, even when he was deadly serious.

  Thomas Redcap.

  I almost didn’t recognize him without his cap. The elegant suit and crisp, white shirt were a surprise as well. Despite being more formally dressed, he looked younger, probably because his baseball cap always added shadows under his eyes. Still, I kind of missed it.

  Because he looks like a stranger.

  The man he’d called Martin hesitated with his hand over his weapon. “Sorry, Mr. Ruadh, but the girl’s underage and it looks like her friend was carrying a concealed weapon.”

  Redcap’s smile was friendly, but it was directed at the man—he hadn’t looked at me once. “I can vouch she’s legal, Martin, since she’s a cousin from this side of the pond. I was just coming to treat her to lunch at Le Cirque.” The man relaxed as Redcap leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry I was held up, love. I should have been here to meet you.” Redcap’s lips didn’t connect with my skin, and when he straightened, his eyes slid across my face as if t
hey didn’t want to touch me either. A mottled grey and red feeling filled me—shame over the things I’d said to him the last time we saw one another, and the strange mixture of comfort, repugnance, and attraction that always made me so confused around him.

  From the cold look on his face, he hadn’t forgotten a single word of the terrible, awful things I’d said either.

  “What about this guy?” the other guard asked, jerking on Daley’s jacket. Daley wisely kept silent.

  Redcap snorted. “The boyfriend none of the family approves of, of course.”

  The guard held up the knife and light reflected off the elaborate design on the metal hilt. “He was carrying this. They were both chasing someone.”

  “Young people today are always in so much of a hurry.” Maybe it was a trick of the light, or the effect of his accent and odd way of speaking, but now Redcap looked older again, almost fatherly. “I’d arranged to purchase the knife for my own collection. The boy is something of an antique hound, but now that I see it, I think he was deceived as to its age. Still, it’s a pretty thing.” He shook his head at Daley. “You should have known better than to bring it into the hotel.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Daley said humbly, though his eyes flashed with lightning.

  I’m amazed the words don’t burn his mouth on the way out.

  The man called Martin motioned for the other guard to take the handcuffs off. “I’ll take your word on it, Mr. Ruadh, but you’d better go up and clear it with the boss before I make my report. You can pick up your property when you’re ready to leave the building.”

  I got the sense that Redcap wasn’t pleased by the way his smile slipped ever so slightly. “Sounds reasonable. Is she in a good mood today?”

  Martin chuckled as he nodded for the other guard to go. “She’s generally in a good mood for you, Mr. Ruadh. Except for when she isn’t.”

  Redcap grimaced. “Right you are. Lambs to the slaughter then.” The two men chatted pleasantly as Daley and I followed them down a broad hallway to a private elevator. Martin punched a code into a keypad and the door slid open. We ascended several floors, and then the elevator opened onto a marble foyer bounded by a frosted glass wall.