by Abby Blake
It detailed exactly how a witch or warlock could slip the effects of fireweed into a pixie’s DNA. It explained how even after several incinerations and recoveries why Emmallina’s daughter, Connistanterina, could be suffering from withdrawal symptoms of a drug that should have been burned out of her system. If she hadn’t been reduced to miniature size, they wouldn’t have been able to identify her addiction at all.
“Can I come in?” Dr. Eric Johansen asked in a quiet voice from the doorway.
Emmallina nodded and marveled yet again at the bear-shifter’s ability to make her feel somehow less frantic. Being the Oracle for humans and vampires, Emmallina had known of the pediatrician from his work with human children. His skills and bedside manner were impressive, but it was the man himself who seemed to exude some sort of calming influence over her. When Eric was in the room, she simply felt more hopeful that they’d find a way to save her daughter from dying.
“I just got the results back from the DNA tests. They confirm what Bethany’s journal told us. The effects of fireweed have very literally been written into your daughter’s DNA. We found the same markers on all of the other pixies that Ronan currently has in his care.”
“His care” was a very polite euphemism for “being held prisoner,” but considering the fact that Ronan Deeks, his protection teams, and the members of PUP Squad Alpha were working tirelessly to find a cure for pixies who’d tried to kill them, Emmallina was very grateful, no matter what label they gave it.
“If Bethany was right about the cause, could she also be right about the cure?”
“It’s hard to say,” Eric said with an apologetic smile. “I’ve never had to deal with a species that can recover from incineration before. The fact that you can rebuild healthy cells from the ashes of the old is simply astounding. Every scrap of research into DNA suggests that it’s not possible.” He reached for her hand, holding it in both of his in a gesture of comfort. She had so many memories of him doing this for human parents that they all blended together, but the outcome was still the same. With Dr. Eric Johansen working to save her daughter’s life, Emmallina didn’t feel quite so alone.
“Even if it will work, I doubt I’ll be able to contact my other daughters without tipping off the assassins to my location, and I don’t want to risk making them look like traitors. If my husband was capable of signing the assassination order against me after three centuries of marriage, I’m not sure he would hesitate when it came to his own offspring.”
“What about the way you contacted Jennifer? What did you call it? Dreamwalking?”
“My family doesn’t know that I have that skill. Even if I did enter their dreams, they are unlikely to believe that it’s anything more than their imagination.”
“So tell them something that only you could know, but that they can verify.” It sounded so simple, but if she knew anything about the man she married, it was that he could be a stubborn, disbelieving jackass when he chose. There was no guarantee he would believe anything he learned in a dream. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even bother to check the information she gave him. He would literally dismiss the dream as his own overactive imagination or perhaps guilty conscience.
She’d had long enough to think through why he would have signed an assassination order against her, and the only thing that made sense was that he was protecting his kingdom from civil war. If she’d been painted as a traitor to her people, he would have had no way of refusing to sign the order without causing serious unrest in the pixie community.
“I’ll give it a try,” she said quietly. At the very least she could maybe learn what evidence he’d been given to force his hand.
Eric nodded, checked Connistanterina’s vitals, and left the room quietly. Emmallina closed her eyes and concentrated on her husband.
* * * *
Dyson had a very bad feeling. He’d been watching the location for hours and had seen no paranormal activity at all. Either Jason wasn’t coming or he was being as cautious as Dyson. Considering how well Jason knew him, it was likely the latter.
Deciding to go on a little faith—he’d come alone because he at least trusted that Jason wouldn’t want to kill him—Dyson stepped into the crowded marketplace full of unsuspecting humans and waited to see if his ex–squad partner would do the same. After ten long, tension-filled minutes, Dyson was ready to give up. He turned to leave, annoyed at failing but also eager to get back to Kristen. He knew she was in safe hands with Angus watching over her, but he’d always been an advocate of the saying “two demons are better than one.”
Dyson managed not to swear at the old man who succeeded in whacking his ankle with his cane, but it was the sly wink from a familiar—yet far older looking face—that had him scrambling to act normally. Whatever the hell was going on, Jason was making certain nobody recognized him.
“Parking lot, level four, space twelve, three minutes,” he mumbled in a voice that could have been an old man rambling to himself and then wandered away as if he’d never even noticed Dyson.
Dyson checked his watch, scanned the area once more as if he were still looking for someone, and then left the area quickly. He was careful to watch for anyone who might follow, but after climbing several sets of stairs without incident, he used his natural talents to slip travel to a different point and continued his journey to the upper parking levels.
The parking space was filled with a huge old Cadillac, the type that collectors spent years rebuilding and restoring. As he approached the vehicle, the passenger door opened. “Get in,” Jason’s disembodied voice said just loud enough for Dyson to hear. He did as he was told, wondering if he was being completely foolish. For the past fifty years he would have sworn he knew this man, but his recent actions suggested Dyson didn’t really know him at all. Following the man’s directions could very well get him killed.
As he slid into the passenger’s seat and then pulled the door closed, he realized that the inside of the car didn’t match the outside. Inside seemed to belong to a much smaller car.
“Did you come alone?” Jason asked, no longer looking like an old man.
“Did you?” Dyson countered.
Jason nodded. “It wasn’t easy. I’m being watched by a lot of different people. It seems very few people are able to believe a member of PUP Squad Alpha is willing to turn on his own team.”
“I’m getting there,” Dyson said gruffly. But it wasn’t really true. It didn’t matter how much evidence was stacked against him, something inside Dyson wanted to believe Jason had an explanation for everything he’d done.
“Why did you come?” Jason asked. It was the first time Dyson got a good look at his ex–squad partner’s face. He looked tired—the type of bone-deep weariness that came from working a case around the clock without backup. Dyson had only been on two assignments that left him alone and without help, but he recognized the haunted look as easily on Jason’s face as he had on his own.
“Because I was worried about you.” Benjamin had suggested that Dyson play out this meeting anyway he saw fit. If he needed to convince Jason he was on his side, he would, but if he could get some answers without lying he’d do that instead.
“Thanks,” Jason said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he was trying to hold back tears. “I can’t tell you how hard this assignment has been.”
“Assignment?”
“I’ve been trying to calm the situation without blowing my cover, but there’s so much anger and fear within the warlocks’ and witches’ councils that decisions are being made on pure emotion. They think the Oracle’s receptacles have been given the history of warlocks and witches so that they can annihilate them all. They think they’re going to be victims of genocide.” Dyson watched his ex–squad partner closely, but all he saw was an exhausted soldier, not a man trying to manipulate him. Either Jason’s acting skills had improved exponentially, or he truly believed he was on some sort of secret mission.
“So they’re planning to annihilate the Oracle’s rec
eptacles before they can annihilate them.”
Jason nodded tiredly. “That’s the reason why the first Oracle was killed. Twenty-seven years ago, the warlocks’ council was told that the Oracle for witches and warlocks intended to pass her information to humans. They tried to hire the PLA to assassinate her, but the pixie king turned down the hit. The Ruling Body stepped in and overruled him. The Oracle died and the information was thought to have been lost.”
“But it went to humans instead.”
“One human. Tory believes the information went to only one human—Bethany Childes. It was Bethany’s death that set everything else in motion and created the exact situation they’d been trying to avoid.”
Dyson desperately wanted to ask who Tory was, but he didn’t want to interrupt the flow of information. Whatever Jason’s reasons were for sharing what he knew, Dyson didn’t want to tip the man off to the fact that he might be sharing more than he intended.
“How did the pixie assassin who killed the original Oracle discover Bethany had the knowledge?”
Jason scrubbed a hand down his face. “It took a lot of digging, but I found a news article on the Internet that tells of how a female, workaholic lawyer managed to save a bus full of schoolchildren from certain death. Apparently, she ‘heard’ something inside the engine of the bus, climbed onboard, evacuated the driver and the children about thirty seconds or so before the engine caught fire and the bus filled with smoke. Later, it was discovered that the emergency exit at the rear had been faulty. If they hadn’t gotten off the bus before the fire started, the driver and all of the children would have died from suffocation.”
Dyson nodded. Bethany hearing a noise seemed a plausible enough explanation to humans who didn’t believe in paranormal skills such as the gift of precognition, but it would have attracted attention from paranormals. It wouldn’t have taken much for the pixie assassin to learn Bethany was born on the same day the Oracle died.
“If Bethany could see into the future,” Dyson asked, deliberately omitting the fact that thanks to her journal he already knew she could, “why didn’t she see the assassination coming?”
“I think she did,” Jason said, rubbing the bridge of his nose again. “I think she knew she was going to die, but that she also knew it would pass her power on to the others. I think she saw the future and knew there was a reason for the Oracle’s receptacles to need that power.” He closed his eyes, tilted his head back against the headrest, and shook his head slowly. “I think she saw something coming and knew that Kali, Ava, Hannah, Amber, Kristen, and Lilly were the only ones who would be able to stop it.”
“Maybe,” Dyson said, wondering if he should correct him about Kristen. If Jason knew Kristen had no special powers, would the pixies and warlocks stop targeting the woman Dyson loved? He almost opened his mouth to say something, but then realized it was really just a false hope. Any angry mob willing to kill because of rumor and unsubstantiated fear wouldn’t worry about the collateral damage of an innocent woman. Even if they knew Kristen wasn’t involved, it was unlikely to save her.
* * * *
Dex DeKardoin, King of the Pixies and grieving husband, lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Everything about the last couple of days seemed surreal. Never in his long lifetime would he have thought things would go like this. He could still see the malicious glee on Cantor Robinson’s face as the head of the Pixie League of Assassins had forced him into signing an assassination order against his own wife.
He would never have believed Emmallina’s treachery if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. The fact that the woman had gone to his enemies for protection simply proved she’d been playing him all along. But it didn’t make any sense. They’d been together for three hundred years. Surely she’d not been plotting against him that entire time. He rolled over, punched his pillow, and closed his eyes tiredly.
“Dex,” she said as she stepped out of the nothingness of his sleep and into a single spotlight in his dream.
“Why did you do it?” he asked wearily. He knew this was just a dream, but he had to know, he had to ask the question, even if the answer only came from his subconscious mind.
“I didn’t betray you, Dex.”
He knew his dream wife was only telling him what he wanted to hear, but he was desperate to hold her in his arms and pretend that everything was okay. But he’d been a king long enough to know that even in his dreams he had to be strong. Any sign of weakness would bring his kingdom to its knees. He couldn’t afford even the momentary relief of make-believe.
“The evidence is very clear. You left the palace exactly as he said you would. You contacted PUP Squad Alpha for help as if you’d known them all along. You cannot hide your betrayal behind pretty lies this time.”
“Who said I would leave the palace that night?”
“Cantor Robinson,” he said angrily. “He told me you went back and spoke to the fire demon. Our daughter is dead. You should have trusted me on that. Even if your actions were innocent that night, Cantor had already amassed enough evidence to have you hanged.”
Dex flinched even as he said the word. Hanging wouldn’t kill a pixie. It was a horrible and torturous punishment that could literally go on for years. Eventually, the pixie would starve, the body would desiccate, and only once it was completely reduced to dust could the pixie re-form and recover. It was usually reserved for the most heinous of crimes and even then the pixie was often pardoned long before they starved.
The dream image of his wife shuddered as if she saw the thoughts playing in his mind. “What evidence?” she asked in a tone so unlike her usual calm demeanor that he began to wonder if his memory was faulty.
“The PLA have been tracking you for some time now. They claim it was for your protection, but when you started acting suspiciously, they began keeping a file. How long did you think you could wander the globe making contact with our enemies before someone noticed?”
“What enemies? Dex, you’re not making any sense. I’ve never been in contact with our enemies. You told me yourself that the pixies had no enemies. We have peace treaties with every race on the planet.”
“Except humans!” he yelled angrily. A part of him knew that this wasn’t real, that he was only dreaming his wife’s denials, but he wanted answers and the frustration boiled over. “You’ve traveled the world, slipping from one human city to another, watching, observing, interfering. You’re the reason these human Oracles exist in the first place. Cantor’s evidence proves it!”
Instead of remaining calm and discussing the situation like his wife would have in real life, the dream image of her exploded in temper.
“I am not! I travel the world to observe. I have never interfered. The Oracle’s receptacles exist because the PLA assassinated a fire demon named Prianna twenty-seven years ago. But it wasn’t an ordinary hit. It was bloody and drawn out and infinitely painful.” Emmallina’s voice cracked with emotion. “What our daughter did to her was unspeakable.” His wife wrapped her arms around her middle, hugging herself in a gesture he’d never seen from the woman before. She suddenly seemed more vulnerable than he’d ever known her to be. He reached for her, dragging her into his embrace as she cried out her heartache.
He held her close as she slowly regained her composure.
“Dex,” she said in a hoarse voice, “someone was controlling Conni. We think a witch named Victoria altered her DNA to give the same effect as a fireweed addiction. Conni told us that Victoria is the Oracle for pixies and demons, so the only pixie she couldn’t trace was me.”
“Why you?” Dex asked, feeling totally bewildered. He knew he was still dreaming, but it felt too real to be his imagination.
“Because I’m the Oracle for vampires and humans. The only person an Oracle can’t sense is another Oracle. She couldn’t track me on her own, so she sent the PLA to do it for her.”
“You’re an Oracle? Why did you never tell me?” He closed his eyes and tried to convince himself this was just a dream, onl
y a dream.
“Because Oracles collect history and knowledge. There are many willing to kill to have access to that. It is essential that we work in secret. The information I collect is irrelevant to the pixie kingdom so it was not necessary for you to know.”
“You’ve been lying to me for centuries?”
“No, Dex, I’ve been protecting you.”
Chapter Eleven
“He thinks he’s on an assignment that you gave him.”
Dyson wanted to head straight home, gather Kristen in his arms, and hold her tight, but first he had to explain to his commanding officer what he’d learned from his meeting with Jason.
“I gave him?” Benjamin asked, looking concerned. “How did he come by these orders?”
“One of the Judiciaries, a witch named Tory, contacted him directly. Told him you needed him to go deep undercover—that’s what his family emergency was all about. Ben, he’s not betraying us. He truly believes that you know what he’s doing.”
“Is it possible you’re coming to these conclusions because you don’t want to see the truth?” Benjamin asked quietly. It was a possibility Dyson had wondered himself as he’d headed back to Sugarvale, but unless Jason had spent the past fifty years setting up his cover story so that he could betray them now, Dyson had to believe Jason was being genuine.
“How did he explain the bounce tunnel directly into the PLA? He even used his magic to try and push Wilson and Amber through it.”
“He claims that Tory was at the PLA headquarters that day and was ready to transport Amber out of there the moment she and Wilson arrived. It was her way to convince the warlocks’ council that Jason really had defected. Even though he didn’t get Amber, it gave Jason credibility in the council’s eyes.”
“So what is he doing now?”