by Sable Grace
The little woman’s face was pale, but she lifted her chin defiantly. Nettles might look like a mouse, but she roared like a lion. The smooth baritone barking from her lips always managed to surprise Kyana. She always expected the woman to squeak.
Nettles stood and sauntered up the stairs. Kyana followed, wrinkling her nose as they stepped into a doily heaven of a bedroom. Haven would have loved it. Or maybe Haven’s grandmother would have. It was all too musty and fussy for Kyana, though. Quilts, lace, and the smell of old lady and mints hung in the air like potpourri. Nettles stooped and grabbed at something under the bed.
Kyana leaned in the doorway and watched. “Peek into your crystal ball and tell me where Haven’s at now. Maybe I can stop her from coming after you altogether.”
Nettles paused in her task of pulling several satchels from beneath the bed to glare up at her. “I’m not all knowing, but I imagine she’s about five steps ahead of you, so why not predict where you’ll be in thirty minutes and I’m sure you’ll find her.”
This snarky, sarcastic Nettles was about two seconds away from a smack down. Did the little woman even realize she was talking to a new goddess?
Of course she did. She was a bloody Seer.
Nettles tossed two of the bags at her and pulled the third over her own head and one shoulder.
The fear in her eyes reached a soft spot in Kyana’s heart. She hadn’t actually been aware she had any soft spots left. It was rather like finding a bruise on a shiny apple—her first instinct was to carve it out with her dagger before it spoiled the whole fruit.
“I’ll get you to a well-guarded place to hide until I either locate Haven or she decides to find her answers elsewhere.”
Nettles shook her head, her large eyes filling with tears. “Your friend isn’t going to give up.”
“I won’t let her touch you,” she heard herself say, and realized she meant it. She didn’t know Nettles well, but the few times she’d come to the Seer for help, she had given it. It was time to return the favor.
Nettles wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled with quivering lips. “Thank you.”
The simple acknowledgment of trust was a kick to the gut. There was no way in hell she would let anything happen to Nettles now. It would be worse than kicking a puppy.
“Where will you take me?” Nettles asked as they stepped outside. She cast a long, sorrowful glance at her broken door and let out a heavy sigh.
“I don’t know yet.” She couldn’t take Nettles Beyond now that the portals had been rebuilt to forbid anyone without god or Oracle blood to enter. And everyone in Kyana’s circle was there, on Olympus, unable to babysit a Seer while Kyana hunted.
“You must find a place for me before we run into Haven. I do not fight, Kyana. I will be of no assistance.”
“I don’t need assistance,” Kyana mumbled. “I need you to paste yourself to my ass and not stray so much as a foot away from me. Got it?”
Nettles said nothing as Kyana led her down the empty street and past a row of houses where two women were hanging laundry and laughing. They seemed oddly out of place, so normal amid the chaos that had happened today, as did the Dark Breeds that worked for the Order who spilled out of the butcher shops and herbalist stalls on the next street down.
Why weren’t any of them as tense as she was? Had the potential danger facing them all not been relayed to all Order members?
Or were they just so naïve as to believe the gods would save them all? Would take care of everything, the way a child believes its father can scare off the monsters in their closets?
Fools.
She turned slightly to make sure Nettles was still close behind, and when she couldn’t find the old woman, she dropped the bags to the ground and broke into a sprint. She found Nettles one corner back—on her knees, her hands over her head, her body rocking in a manic fashion.
“Nettles!”
She tried to lift the Seer to her feet, but it was as though she had been cemented into the sidewalk. With a violent crack, Nettles’s head jerked skyward, her wide eyes unblinking, her face the color of dingy snow. As Kyana tugged harder, Nettles’s lips moved a mile a minute.
“Nettles! Answer me! What’s going on?”
“She comes.” Nettles’s eyes calmed and focused on her just before she collapsed into a fetal position atop Kyana’s boots.
She knelt and scooped Nettles into her arms, carefully placing the woman onto her feet and holding tight to her waist until she was sure the Seer could stand on her own. “Now?”
Nettles shook her head, her body swaying as she clung to her. “Soon. She’s going to cut out my eyes if I don’t read for her. Going to use them to cast a spell so she can see for herself where Cronos’s ring is.”
She didn’t know which sentiment screamed louder in her head. Ew or ow. “Can she do that?”
The Seer struggled to swallow. The tears welling up in her fear-glazed eyes gave Kyana her answer.
“Okay. All right.” She was beginning to panic herself. It took her several deep breaths to rein in her emotion and calm her speeding pulse. “Wait. Where did this vision take place? We’ll make sure you don’t go there.”
Nettles shook her head. “I must. I’ve seen it. If I return home, you’ll catch her.”
Before or after she cut out Nettles’s eyeballs?
“It happens at your house? You saw all that? Just now?”
“I did.” She licked her lips. “She won’t give up on her quest to find me, and I am the only Seer near Florida. She’ll come for me. You must let her.”
“What?”
No way would Kyana willingly put the Seer in the direct path of danger. Because of Nettles, she had discovered who’d been killing the Chosen after the breakout and had been able to catch the bastard. Nettles had clued them all in on where the key to Tartarus had been hidden, and had given her the means to save Haven before their traitor could slit her throat.
Of course, Kyana had been too late, and Haven’s blood had been too tainted for purging, but that was no fault of Nettles’s.
“I’m not using you as bait.”
“You will because I ask it of you.”
“I don’t know if you know this about me, Nettles, but I don’t do things because someone asks it of me.”
“You will. Because I bestowed such a courtesy upon you when you were begging for my help using the Charm of Nine Gods. When you so badly wanted to save the very friend you hunt now. I went against my better judgment to do as you asked, and you’re too honorable not to return the favor.”
Kyana raked her hand over her face in exasperation. She should have known Nettles would bring that up. Her experience with the Charm of Nine Gods and the astral projection it had induced wasn’t her fondest memory. But using it had led her to where Haven had been held prisoner. Where she would have died. And Kyana would never have been able to use the charm at all if Nettles hadn’t invoked it for her.
“Look, even if I was okay with what you’re suggesting, it’s not so easy. If I place you back in your home and wait for Haven there, she’ll never come. She’ll catch whiff of my scent a mile away and stay clear.”
“Then turn the tables, Kyana.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s been virtually untraceable for you and you suspect you know why. Use her own methods to trap her.”
She wasn’t even going to ask how Nettles knew any of that. It didn’t matter. Nettles was one smart, crumbly cookie.
“A Cloaking Charm,” Kyana said, smiling.
She damned near ruffled the old woman’s hair. She’d been so concerned about finding a way to see through Haven’s charm, that she hadn’t considered the possibility of using it against Haven as a means of catching her.
Nettles nodded. “You have other Witch friends who can produce one for you?”
Kyana started to shake her head, then froze. “Actually, maybe I do.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Considering a
ll the bad things that had happened a few days ago in the Mediterranean-style tavern Spirits, it took Kyana several minutes to bolster the nerve to enter. Haven had been killed in Spirits, and Kyana had turned her into the monster she was becoming there as well.
So when the new barkeep—the previous one having been the one to kill Haven in the first place—told Kyana that Sixx wasn’t there and had been spending her evenings at the Healing Circle, Kyana wasted no time dragging Nettles the hell out of there.
The Healing Circle was frequented mostly by Mystics who wore nothing but monkish clothing and took vows of poverty. Sixx, on the other hand, was dressed in leather, her black and blond hair in roughly nine million braids. She was easy enough to find amid the wandering bodies draped in burlap and tweed, even in the moonless dark that shrouded the Circle now.
Kyana dropped Nettles’s bags, then plopped down beside Sixx on the low stone wall encasing the garden of herbs behind them. Sixx unfolded her legs and popped open one eye to glare before snapping it closed again.
“You broke my Zen,” she muttered.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Silas didn’t tell me you were a comedian.”
Kyana was sure there was a lot Silas hadn’t told the Witch, but thought it best not to say so. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t like Sixx. Not that she had any real reason to dislike her. She just . . . did.
But right now, she had to play nice so Sixx would help her.
“I have a message for you. From Silas,” Kyana started, hoping her olive branch wouldn’t be seen for the fake it truly was.
Nettles eased between them, brave soul, and slid her bag beneath her feet.
Sixx sighed, scooted over, and dropped her meditation stance. She wore a confused glimmer in her eye as she took in Nettles before settling her gaze on Kyana.
“If it’s about him becoming Poseidon’s Vessel, you’re about fifteen minutes too late.”
Kyana hadn’t really listened when Silas introduced them, but now she heard the low, throaty whisper of Sixx’s voice, and it sent a warm flow through her veins. She didn’t swing that way, but she could definitely see how that kind of voice would catch a guy like Silas and hook him for a good long while. Till he got bored, at least.
Which he would. He always did.
He and Kyana had that in common.
She cleared her throat and forced a smile. One didn’t bite one’s enemy, then ask it for a favor. “He wants you to hang around here until the rightful Chosen is found and he can leave Olympus.”
“Well isn’t that just lovely?” Sixx stared up at the sky as if she thought she’d see Silas. After a minute, she turned her attention back to Kyana. “Tell him thanks, but no. We had an assignment before you rang. I’m not sitting on my ass doing nothing for who knows how long.”
Seeing her opening, Kyana grabbed hold of it. “Bored?”
Sixx grinned. Not a friendly grin either. More of a sarcastic, unimpressed grin.
“I know who you are.” The way her gaze traveled over Kyana, she knew she was being measured. Sixx was trying to figure out whether Silas did all the naughty things to Kyana that he’d likely done to her. She had no idea. “What do you really want?”
“How are you at cloaking spells or making amulets?”
This actually made Sixx laugh. “You do know I’m a Witch, right? We’re practically born with the skills to make something so simple.”
Oh yay. She has ego too.
Kyana didn’t have a lot of time to waste. Nettles’s vision didn’t give them an exact time of Haven’s arrival, only that it would be before sunrise. “What do you need to do a cloaking spell?”
“Just these sexy ass hands, babe. Why?” Her gaze narrowed and she raised a perfectly tweezed black brow. “What’s going down?”
Kyana ignored her question and pressed on. “How ’bout an Illusion Charm? What would you need to make me one of those?”
Sixx’s brow didn’t lower the slightest bit. She was intrigued. Like Kyana, she seemed more uneasy with sitting on her ass than working.
“Some precious metal. I have enough chameleon blood to do both the spell and charm.”
The Illusion Charm would hide Kyana from sight, and that was simple enough. She just had to wear it around her neck. But the cloaking spell—she would have to drink a potion to make herself as concealed as possible. Apparently, the substance of choice for this particular task was going to be nasty.
Without the spell, Haven might not be able to see Kyana, but she’d sure as hell be able to smell her. Oh well. Drinking blood never turned Kyana off before.
“All right,” she said, pushing to her feet. Poor Nettles looked ill. She wasn’t even going to have to drink the stuff. Wimp. “I’ll take both.”
Sixx’s lip twitched. To sneer or fighting a smile? Kyana couldn’t tell.
“I’m sure you would. But I don’t do things for free, Kyana.”
Big surprise.
“What do you want?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“If I have to sit one more minute in this horribly dull place, I’m going to sacrifice myself to Zeus. I need action. Fun. And you’re going to give it to me.”
Being Witchless didn’t seem so bad now.
“I’m not babysitting you. I’m trying to save the damned world.”
Sixx’s painted red lips curled into a grin. “Find another Witch then.”
As she pushed past Kyana, she caught a whiff of something that froze her in place. Sixx’s pheromones weren’t just Witchy.
There was an underlying base of cider, of dead roses that she knew all too well.
“Holy shit,” she breathed, catching Sixx’s arm. “You’re half Vampyre.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Why hadn’t Kyana smelled it sooner? Maybe because she’d never smelled a Witch/Vampyre combo before. And to her credit, the Vampyric scent in Sixx’s blood was far weaker than the Witchy one.
“Genetic. Not turned,” Sixx hissed, jerking her arm from Kyana’s grasp. “And could you keep it down? I’m not particularly fond of anyone knowing my business.”
“What does that mean, genetic?” The only genetic Vamp Kyana had run into had been disfigured and disgusting.
“It means a great-great-great-great something-or-other was pure Vamp and had babies and generations later, voilà.” Irritation fired to life in Sixx’s black eyes. “I don’t drink blood. Hell, I don’t even eat meat. Pure vegan here, so you can stop looking at me like I’m on your to-be-hunted list, ’kay?”
Wow. Procreating Vamps. Kyana knew it was possible, but it was so rare that she’d never met another Vampyre who’d been able to have kids in the more than two hundred years that she’d been alive.
“Is everyone in your family fertile?”
Sixx stepped back, her face scrunched into a grimace. “Do you want my help or not? I might not drink blood, but I’m quick and strong and can more than hold my own if you run into trouble.”
Kyana had to admit, she was less hesitant to take her up on it now that she was so intrigued. Haven made up three species: Witch, Lychen, and Vampyre. Before Kyana’s goddess blood was fully developed, she made up two of those breeds: Lychen and Vampyre. Sixx made up a separate combination of the beast inside Haven: Witch and Vampyre. The odds were definitely more in Kyana’s favor if she brought Sixx along.
“All right,” she said. “You’re in. But I need the charms and the spell pronto.”
“Fine.” Sixx pushed past Nettles. “I need to get to Silas’s bike so I can get my bag.”
“We’ll wait for you at Spirits.” Not that she was particularly excited about returning to the tavern, but they’d need privacy to perform the magic and they weren’t going to get that here.
“Do I get to know what this is about any time soon?”
Kyana scowled. “You’ll learn only what you need to know, when you need to know it. Now go. And Sixx? Hurry the hell up.”
Since Kyana didn’t own a watch, she
wasn’t sure how long it took Sixx to show up at the tavern, but it felt like an eternity when the Witch finally made her reappearance.
“I hate being kept waiting,” Kyana scolded.
“Deal with it,” Sixx said, tossing Kyana a charm. “Don’t put that on till you’re ready to use it.”
Knowing better than to disobey when it came to Witchy magic, Kyana put the thing in her pocket. Sixx slipped the mate between her breasts, then pointed to the stairs.
“I can do the spell in my room. Let’s go.”
Waiting for Nettles to go first, Kyana paused at the bottom of the steps and glanced around the near vacant kafenion. The place still reeked of hookah smoke and memories of a happier time that refused to die. In the corner booth, she could still see herself sitting with Geoffrey and a very angry Ryker who’d just taken a swim with the spirits of the River Styx thanks to her. And the table where she and Haven had sat discussing the state of the world before its biggest threat had become so personal.
This had once been her second home, where she came to fulfill her need for blood with a little raki. Where she shot the shit with the barkeep Marcus before she’d killed him for murdering Haven.
“Are you coming?” Sixx’s demand was whispered, but it made Kyana jump. She couldn’t lose her focus. She might not be able to make up for past hurts, but she could sure as hell try to fix the future.
She followed the other two women up the stairs, past the room where she and her friends, old and new, had spent so much time trying to identify the traitor who’d been killing Chosen, and stepped into a room at the end of the hall.
An entire wardrobe covered the carpet. Kyana was pretty sure she was walking on dirty underwear as she made her way to the bed where Sixx was getting situated.
“Sure you don’t want to let me in on what we’re doing?”
Kyana shook her head. Sixx would find out soon enough that they might be coming face-to-face with Haven. But if Haven didn’t show up, there was no reason to let Sixx in on the details.
Her gaze fell upon two curved knives lying on Sixx’s pillow. “You’re not going to need those.”