“We have to mask your presence fast. If you chew those, it’ll help. You haven’t done any fire magic lately have you? And please tell me you haven’t set any fires in any forests?” Sophie grabbed Blythe’s bag and frantically pawed through it.
I could only stand and stare, taking this all in because Sophie was not what I’d expected. The love on that woman’s face when she looked at Blythe was unmistakable. I’d been wrong—about that part at least.
“Hey,” I said, stepping forward to touch shoulder so she’d look at me. “You don’t know me but I’m a very good friend of Blythe’s. We’ve been trying to find you. She needs help because she has a little problem with fire.” I remembered all the things Blythe had told us about Sophie. Mentor or not, the witch had done my friend a disservice. I crossed my arms, glared at her. “And I think that’s your fault. Why did you suppress a natural fire witch?”
Sophie stopped her frantic bag search, looked up at me and scowled. “I don’t know you, but if you’re her friend, you will get her away from that lilin and out of the forest altogether.”
Blythe squatted but didn’t drop to her knees. “Sophie, my magic is all messed up. We went into the Big Cypress Swamp and I bound a fire elemental and now my magic is out of control. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. Why did you just take off and not tell me where?”
Sophie grabbed Blythe’s arms so hard the smaller woman nearly fell over backward. “You went into the swamp? Big trees. Big trees.” She closed her eyes, shuddered. “Hurry. Find the fern seeds and just eat them. Chew for a long time and then swallow them. All of them.”
Blue eyes flared so wide they reflected back the light from Sophie’s magic disco ball or whatever that was. “You know those will make me really sick. No. What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I added.
Sophie stood and took a step closer to me. She was tall—not as tall as me—but she was close to six feet. She narrowed her eyes. “I sense you have strength and magic and if you care at all about my Blythe, you will get her away from this place now.”
I shook my head. “Look, I can tell you’re really upset about something, and finding you was the reason we tracked down Staglina. But that creature enthralling you and the others has to be stopped. We’re not leaving the lilin to keep killing.”
“You don’t understand. Blythe’s magic is so much more than she knows or understands. If that lilin gets control of her power, it will become worse.” She tilted her head and listened, then closed her eyes. “But it’s not the lilin that scares me. It’s the creature that can find Blythe when she’s in heavily treed forests. And if she’s set any fires in them, it’s too late.”
“Whoa.” I uncrossed my arms, still gripping my knife. The woman had just taken a sharp left turn. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s why we all worked so hard to suppress her fire magic. She’s both—earth and fire—so we all thought if we focused everything on earth, she’d stay safe because she’s not a normal fire witch. She’s a mage and it’s not even just that.”
“Who’s we?” Blythe whispered. “I don’t understand any of this. Sophie? You’ve been lying to me?”
Her mentor still faced me and I watched as she closed her eyes. Remorse and fear fell over her expression with such force it hurt me. I’d been wrong, horribly wrong about her. My gut was telling me she had nothing but Blythe’s best interests at heart. Her eyes opened, her gaze locking with mine. “The lilin is calling us. I have to go before she gets suspicious and comes looking.”
“Listen to me.” I stepped close to her, wincing at how loud the crunch of leaves was under my shoes. “Because we broke whatever spell she had you under, the protective barrier you witches and wizards had up is going to be broken over your head. There are more of us here to stop this. My brother is going to use that broken area to get to her and then I’m taking her out. Can you pretend to do whatever it is you normally do?”
For the first time, a small bit of humor crossed her face. Her mouth quirked. “I can’t sing without that spell.”
“I told you,” Blythe muttered. “She’s awful.”
Sophie frowned and shot Blythe a glare before turning back to me. “I wouldn’t say awful, but I can’t do what she’s had me doing.”
“Can you just, you know, lift up your arms and move your mouth like you’re singing?”
This time she did smile with humor. “I can do that. If you’ll do something for me. Get Blythe away from this forest and keep her out of the rest of them. I’m serious.”
“Lady, we’ve moved into a house that sits on acres of trees.”
“But it has a protected ley line,” Blythe broke in. “And I don’t know why I’m even telling you that because I want to know what’s going on. You’re saying the entire council has lied to me? Did my mother lie to me?” She’d moved directly under the light and her bottom lip quivered.
Sophie swung around and held Blythe’s arms again. “Listen to me, sweetheart. Your mother risked everything to keep you safe and if lying helped, then so be it. Yes, she lied. But she did it for love, just like the rest of us have. I deliberately fostered a fear of the woods for you because if anyone would love them, it’s you, and it was the only way the council could figure out how to keep you out of them. That’s why we helped set you up in a city.”
“I wondered why the council gave me the down payment on the shop.” She paused, took a deep breath. “That’s the other thing I haven’t been able to tell you. I couldn’t make it work.”
Sophie’s head lifted, her beautiful skin going pale. That low, creepy laughter spilled into the night. “Oh no. It is too late.” She cupped Blythe’s face. “Okay, no more secrets. Your mother was a powerful fire witch and unfortunately, she caught the eye of a horrible forest creature. She never talked about the days she was missing, but I know they were bad. You are a product of those days, Blythe. Your father is a kapre and he can somehow sense you when you’re in forests. We never could figure out how, but you got lost in one when you were thirteen and your mother died keeping him from taking you.”
Blythe stared at her mentor, lips shaking, eyes spilling tears. She didn’t say a word and that was so unusual my heart clenched.
“Do you have to tell her all this right now?” I breathed, heart breaking for the little witch, while at the same time my insides were becoming a jumble of nerves because we had to get into that concert. Now. Besides, we’d spent hours in a forest after the last performance and he hadn’t found her then.
“I do.” Sophie hugged Blythe again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but you’re just so damned curious about things and we were all afraid you’d try to find him. He can be charming and he can lure you in as he did your mother, but with you, he’ll never let you go. It’s not often a child is born of such unions and his people will want to know what you are and what you’re capable of.”
“Sophie,” I insisted as music started behind us. “This is so not the time for this. Our plan won’t work unless you’re up on that stage.”
Sophie swung around to march right up into my face. She spoke through gritted teeth. “This is important. The kapre are loners, but they will group if they know about her and they have powerful fire magic.”
The music behind us swelled and I grabbed Sophie and pushed her toward the arena. “We’ll protect her. I promise. Just go!”
She didn’t bother to pick up her bag or her bolline before she ran away from us. She shot one last loving look over her shoulder at Blythe.
Blythe merely stood there, staring at the things Sophie had left, then she knelt and picked up the bolline. “This means a lot to her. I can’t believe she just left it on the ground.”
“That woman has bigger things to worry about. Everything I thought was wrong. She’s a good person.”
“I told you that.” Blythe’s voice shook.
I could practically feel the hurt and shock rolling off her sm
all body in waves. “Yeah, and I told you that you were a fire mage. So did Nikolos. You’d better eat that herb or whatever she was talking about because I get the feeling that laughter we keep hearing is your daddy and he’s very happy to have found you.”
She hesitated, her expression taking on that curious twist I’d noticed before.
I rolled my eyes. “Goddess, did your council know you. We are not approaching this thing now; we aren’t equipped to deal with him. We know nothing about the kapre and your Sophie is in more danger than even I can guess. If she can’t pull off faking what they do on that stage, she’s dead. You know this, right?”
Blythe nodded.
“I want you to stick by Elsa and Dooby tonight. Do not let them out of your sight. Dooby can use his powers and my sister is good with a gun. Most things can still be brought down with one.”
“I thought you hated guns.”
She sounded so forlorn my heart ached, but we just didn’t have time to deal with the trauma of learning she had a scary fire demon daddy and an entire group of people who had lied her entire life. “Not in every situation.” I nodded back toward where we’d left the others. “Come on, we’ve got a lilin to catch.”
We walked back to the vehicle. It wasn’t my imagination. Someone or something was laughing in the woods.
Chapter Twelve
The music filtering through every part of the forest reminded me of one of the nicer workers at the last children’s home I’d lived in. Nora had been one of us and she’d moved into her caretaker roll with an enthusiasm nobody else there shared. On Saturday nights, she’d bake dozens of chocolate chip cookies while dancing around the kitchen to Loreena McKennitt’s “The Mummers’ Dance”. Only that song. Over and over, until I hoped I’d never hear it again. So hearing it now did nothing to lessen the crop of nerves growing like weeds in my gut.
Dooby, Castor and Elsa stood huddled behind a grouping of thick trees. They didn’t hear us coming, so I had to tap Elsa’s shoulder when we got there. She jumped, turned and stuck her gun in my face before glaring at me. She pointed to the earplugs she already had in. I motioned for her to remove them.
“It’s not dangerous until they start singing and we have a minute or two.”
“Bright One, it’s certainly dangerous to walk up on an armed cop who is creeped all the hell out. Serial killers, I can do. An energy-sucking hell demon behind a wall of powerful witches is another thing entirely.”
I just stared at her and lifted an eyebrow.
She sighed, tugged on her Viking hat. “Did you find Sophie and break her thrall?”
“Yeah,” I said on a short bark of nervous laughter. “And we ended up learning more than I wanted to hear. The short explanation is Blythe could be in danger. There’s some kind of creature in the woods who might just be her daddy.”
Elsa blinked at me. “Are you fucking kidding me? We got all this other stuff going on.”
“Pretty normal for us.” I reached out and grabbed Dooby’s arm. He pulled out one earplug, lifted an eyebrow. “Stick to the little witch like glue tonight. Something could be after her.”
“Got it,” he agreed, stuffing the plug back in his ear.
I pulled it back out. “Dooby, no matter what happens, don’t raise any dead here.”
“Beri, I know better than to pull anything out of the ground here. The magic is so heavy it’s cloying on the skin. We don’t want to give anything dead power here.”
“Good.” I handed his plug back.
Eerie silence spilled into the air. Adrenaline spiked inside me and I knew we were on. “We just ran out of time. The witches are getting onto the stage. Blythe, put your earplugs in and for goddess’s sake, chew that herb Sophie talked about.”
“I don’t wanna throw up.”
“Too bad.”
She growled, which usually made me laugh, but my stomach was churning like crazy. I had the cigar down my shirt and though I hated the idea of leaving my body here for my friends to deal with, I kept seeing the agony in Nikolos’s eyes. The dead and rotting giant in that other dungeon. This was happening. I wasn’t letting him stay in that hell dimension one more night. “Let’s go shoot us a lilin.”
I’d noticed the lack of security on the sidelines before, so we didn’t bother to purchase tickets. It was that easy to flow into the crowd in our clothes. Because the singing had already started, most of the audience was already in thrall, swaying, some already moaning. I put out my arms to stop everyone and narrowed my eyes, peeling at the dimensional layers—because something was wrong. Even more wrong than the last time.
Just as before, the energy was being pulled from the trees and the ground, flowing into the audience. But this time, it was a dark purple that had twisted into snakelike ropes. They entered at the chest and flowed out of mouths to make an even bigger tangle in the sky that shot over the witches and wizards to the lilin behind them. And just as I’d thought, the broken part of the half circle was over Sophie. Her arms, held up like the others, already sagged and I knew she wouldn’t be able to fake this for long.
I turned to Castor and spotted Fenris flying carefully to us with something cupped in his hands. He held out the leaf which held a spot of blood—enough to dip the arrow into.. My brother stepped to the center of us and we all turned in slightly different directions to keep watch.
He’d just notched the first arrow when something slammed into my side. I flew back and hit Elsa, both of us toppling to the ground hard. Scrambling off her, I looked up to find Castor wrestling with the two bodyguards. His creepy angel guides didn’t appear, so I guessed they didn’t find the men a threat.
The bow and arrow had been knocked to the ground and I looked toward the stage, feeling as if the world had slowed. I saw the lilin not feeding in ecstasy, but looking at Sophie.
We’d run out of time.
Fenris still hovered over the fight, cradling the leaf that was bigger than his hands. I jumped up, grabbed the bow and arrow and frantically worked to remember everything Castor had taught me in my one pitiful lesson. Right hand dominant, so right eye probably was too. Face the side and left foot should be closer to target. Load arrow pointing at ground, one finger above, two below. Lift, sight and draw arrow back to mouth.
The blood!
I lowered the arrow and tried to gesture with my head at Fenris. He quickly picked up on what I wanted and flew down so I could dip the arrow in his blood.
When I lifted the arrow back up and aimed at the lilin, she was looking right at me.
I let the shaft fly.
And, of course, I missed. Luckily, I didn’t hit anyone else. Hands slippery with nerves, I jumped into the fray, trying to avoid kicking feet and punching fists, feeling along the ground for another arrow. I grasped two and this time when I faced the stage, the lilin had her palm facing up, her arm pointed at Sophie, who was now clawing her neck.
“Fuck fuck fuck.” I worked to notch another arrow with my sweaty hands and forgot the other lesson about not going too deep on the fingers. Just before I let this one fly, I inched them out until only my fingertips held the string. I took a deep breath and found my calm. With most of the fighting and audience noises muted due to the earplugs, it wasn’t hard to search inside myself and pull up the confidence, the belief that I could do this. Just as the arrow left my bow and arched high into the air, I remembered the vamp blood.
The lilin looked at me and flung up her arm.
The slam of power that hit my chest hurt like she’d punched right through to my heart and squeezed. Gasping, I brought up my hand and the pain hit, then abruptly stopped. The ring Blythe had made me burned hot for an instant, then cooled. The lilin looked confused, but pain also pulled at her features. My arrow was in her shoulder.
If I could do it once, I could do it again.
I barely took my eyes off her as people fought around me. I waved Fenris back, then dipped the arrow in blood before notching it. Aiming it down the center of my left foot, my eyes lock
ed with hers. She started to throw up her hand, but Sophie did something to pull her attention away, and in that instant I knew I was going to hit her this time. I let the arrow fly.
It lodged into her left shoulder so hard she fell backward. The circle above the singers disappeared. This was my chance. I ran to the side of the crowd, jumped the flimsy barrier rope and once I knew my body would be away from all those feet, I closed my eyes and separated my two selves. The sticky feeling didn’t last long. I was soon shooting up into the air, hoping with everything in me that she had a spirit body I could harm in this dimension.
I raced toward her over a crowd that had gone crazy. Either her feelings were flowing to the audience or that magic had been too much. Below me Elsa punched a man in the face twice in rapid succession, Castor still battled it out with the two bouncers and Dooby had jumped onto the back of one of the bouncers and wrapped his thin arm around the man’s neck. I don’t know if it was Tweedle Dum or Tweedle Dee, but his arms flailed up and back as he tried to swat at Dooby like the necromancer was a fly. Blythe, watching, ran underneath me toward the stage. I pointed at Sophie, who was lying still up there. Blythe nodded, and in the chaos of the crowd, managed to toss her bag onto the stage before climbing after it to kneel by her mentor.
It seemed that breaking the circle so abruptly had also clipped the thrall the lilin had on the band. Witches and wizards blinked and looked around, and one by one anger filled their expressions. One wizard took a menacing step toward the lilin who had regained her feet. She saw my metaphysical body flying toward her and the absolute shock that whitened her expression was actually comical. Her mouth dropped open and she quickly lifted her hands toward me, but frowned in confusion when it seemed her muscles just froze. Guess the sprite vampire blood had worked. I zoomed to the side and gathered my cord in both hands, then shot down toward her.
She screamed as I started flying around and around, my cord wrapping her like a mummy and effectively binding her. I kept going, wanting to be sure.
I knew I wouldn’t have much time. Elsa and Castor were the only ones who would get themselves killed trying to stop what I was about to do. Dooby climbed the stage and boggled at the cord-wrapped lilin. He couldn’t see the cord, so she probably looked strange with her arms squished to her body. Relief filled me when I saw the cigar in his hand.
Blood of an Ancient: A Beri O'Dell Book, Book 2 Page 17