Qiuniu, the guardian healer, stepped out from the golden doorway that stood open just behind Pulou. If any of the witches — and maybe even some of the shapeshifters — had been near enough, they would have instantly swooned at the sight of the Brazilian guardian dragon. He was that beautiful … if you liked that sort of thing.
He smiled down and nodded where I was sprawled at his feet. “Warrior’s daughter.”
“Guardian,” I responded.
His eyes flicked to Sienna, barely registering her. Then, frowning, he looked past us toward the beach.
“I cannot revive the dead,” he said.
“That’s certainly up for debate,” Pulou said. “I remember your predecessor —”
Qiuniu glanced in Pulou’s direction and the treasure keeper put up a hand in surrender. “The warrior certainly wouldn’t expect or desire such a thing from you, healer.”
Qiuniu nodded, then smiled at me again. “I shall be back for you, Jade Godfrey. You will live. Others’ … their magic is very faint.”
He stepped into the ocean before us and headed to the beach and the multitude of bodies lying scattered there.
I moaned and looked away. I looked down at Sienna, who still lay across my lap. I couldn’t taste even a hint of magic from her. I actually wasn’t sure she was even alive until I saw her chest rise with breath. Unconscious like this, and with her skin clear, she looked sixteen again.
The sacrificial knife lay across her chest.
“The knife,” I said to Pulou.
He just shrugged, and said, “A trifle. Not for you to wield perhaps, but not meant to be locked away.”
I opened my mouth to protest — and then realizing who I was about to argue with, I snapped it shut.
Yazi laughed from somewhere deep in the forest. He was chasing down the remaining demons that had broken through our defenses, then continued on into the human world without Sienna to direct them.
“We’ve won,” I murmured.
“Have you, alchemist?” Pulou said. “Not everyone is rising at the healer’s touch.”
I turned to look back at the beach. I could see Kandy, in human form, standing by Qiuniu as he leaned over a gray wolf on the beach. The green-haired werewolf was scratched and bruised, her hair was back to its natural dull brown … but that wasn’t the point. She was on her feet.
I couldn’t see Desmond or Kett among the fallen.
Reaching out with my dowser senses, I could taste witch magic but not specific witches. “I can’t find Gran or my mom,” I said, voicing the fear I could feel wedged like a rubber ball in my throat. I was surprised I could speak through it.
Pulou nodded. “Your magic is faint. Depleted.”
I looked down at Sienna and thought about that for a moment. Everything had been so much easier … so much nicer, before I’d known I was an alchemist. Before I’d known I was half-dragon and not just half-witch.
“Will it come back?” I finally asked.
“Of course, warrior’s daughter. Most likely stronger than before. Living through great trauma usually has that effect … on all of us.”
“But not on Sienna,” I murmured.
“No. You’ve taken every last drop. I have never seen or heard the like. Perhaps this is best kept between us.”
“The Adept wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, they would understand. And they would fear you.”
I looked up at the treasure keeper. He smiled and patted my head like I was a toddler … and to him, I was.
“A conversation best left to tomorrow,” he said.
“Tomorrow?” I echoed.
“Yes. When you come to treasure hunt for me.” This was a statement, not a request.
I nodded. His smile deepened.
“I must go. Haoxin is calling,” he said. “Tell your father and the healer I will be back when they need me.”
I nodded again. I guess I’d run out of words. I was really, really tired.
Pulou stepped back through the portal and it snapped closed behind him, taking the comforting warmth of the dragon magic with it.
Qiuniu, still a dozen feet away on the beach, acknowledged the portal closing with a glance and then returned to healing. More shapeshifters were being helped to their feet. I tried to be glad of that, and to not dwell on Qiuniu shaking his head to Rebecca, the skinwalker elder, as he crouched over the body of Gord. He had reverted from his grizzly bear form in death.
The skinwalkers should have never been on the beach, but they stepped up without question when the witch magic fell. And the witch magic had fallen because of the spell the witches used to get me to Sienna.
My sister was looking at me.
Her eyes were once again the color of cappuccino robbed of its foam.
“Hey,” I said.
“Jade?” Sienna asked. Her brow furrowed. “You’re covered in … in … are you okay?”
Utter hope spread through my chest, warming me from within. The painful spot that had been lodged there — always hurting, never easing since that terrible night in the bakery basement and all its terrible truths — melted.
Maybe it was going to be okay —
Sienna’s frown deepened. She lifted her hand and flexed her fingers. “Jade.” Her tone sharpened. “What have you done?”
I opened my mouth to soothe her … to plead with her … to make her see —
“Jade!” Sienna shrieked and rolled off my lap to rise shakily to her feet. The sacrificial knife fell to the rock between us. I placed my foot over it as I stood as well.
Sienna watched me do so and then lifted her hateful gaze to mine.
“It’s not going to be okay,” I said — to myself, not my sister.
“No, it’s not!” she shrieked. Then she attacked me.
She raked her nails across my face — I barely felt it.
She pummeled me in the stomach and kicked me in the legs — I didn’t move. I didn’t even raise my arms to stop her.
I felt magic spark from the beach and looked over to see Mory and her mom, Danica, stumbling toward us, supporting each other. Mory’s toasted marshmallow magic took flight and zoomed toward us.
I willed my knife into my hand and easily batted the spell out of the air before it hit Sienna. I recognized the magic without having felt it before, without ever knowing it might be real. It tasted like a death curse — or at least an attempt at a death curse.
I shoved Sienna, still kicking and screaming, behind me. “Mory! No!”
The second spell — a much, much stronger curse — came from Danica. When I slashed this out of the air before me, it shattered all the bones of my right hand.
Danica fell to her knees in the sand. A wave crashed against her. Mory screamed, then began to drag her mother away from the water’s edge.
Desmond was suddenly beside me. He’d taken human form. I started to smile at his grimness. I started to reach out to him with my undamaged hand, to tell him —
He reached by me, yanked Sienna forward between us by the hair, and snapped her neck.
My sister hung suspended upright for a moment while her brain informed her body that she was dead. Then she fell to the rock at my feet.
The life debt bond between Desmond and I dissolved into a painful puddle of mush at the bottom of my heart.
I stared at Desmond in disbelief. He gazed back at me impassively.
“I … I …” I murmured, not sure what I wanted to say, not sure I was even reacting at all.
“You weren’t going to do it, Jade.” He pitched his voice low. His use of my given name was meant to be intimate.
“She was my sister.”
“She killed my pack mates. I’m alpha. It was never going to be any other way.”
Gran, flanked by Scarlett and Kett, pushed through the crowd of half-healed shapeshifters who’d gathered around the rock on which Desmond and I stood … on which Sienna lay dead.
“Thi
s is witch business,” Gran snapped.
The shapeshifters parted. Gran waded through the water and climbed up onto the rock with Scarlett and two other witches I didn’t know.
Gran reached for me, but then didn’t actually touch me. Her white-gray hair was wild, flying around half out of her braid. Her eyes were rimmed with magic that I could still barely taste.
“Gran …” I felt the tears start to stream down my cheeks.
Gran nodded. “Let’s go home.”
I nodded.
Then she looked down at Sienna lying dead at my feet and sighed.
Scarlett reached around Gran and brushed her fingers down my arm.
“Mom …” I said. I just wanted her to make everything right again. It was an impossible wish.
Gran leaned down to Sienna, snapping a curt, “no,” to Desmond when he also bent. “She is my responsibility. Witch responsibility.”
The four witches gathered around Sienna. I stepped back as they lifted my sister between them and carefully carried her off the rock and through the surf.
“Jade,” Desmond murmured, still beside me.
I shook my head and wiped the tears from my cheeks.
Then I very deliberately locked eyes with him and placed my fingertips to his chest. He looked momentarily pleased, until I started to push. I pressed with just the tips of my fingers. I didn’t flatten my hand or lean in with my shoulder. When he didn’t immediately yield, my feet slipped back on the wet rock. I anchored my stance to continue pushing. I kept my eyes locked to his and then — as surprised flashed over his face — he moved. Just a step back, but involuntarily, as he’d been resisting my push.
I turned my head toward the beach and dropped my hand. He was no longer in my peripheral vision.
Message sent and received.
I am stronger than you.
I stepped off the rock and into the crashing waves to follow my sister’s body as it was carried across the beach.
Yazi appeared at the edge of the forest, not a scratch on him though his armor was pock-marked by demon blood and covered in sand. I saw the moment my father laid eyes on my mother for the first time in twenty-four years. I saw the sorrowful smile they exchanged among the chaos and carnage of the dark early morning.
I took another step and fell, feeling Kett’s magic as he caught me before the waves swept me away. For the briefest of moments, I wished he’d let me go.
Then I didn’t see anything for a long, long while.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When I woke up I was in my bed, in my apartment, staring up at the ceiling. The room was dim, but only because the curtains were drawn.
I felt as if I’d just stepped from the beach into lying on my bed, except I was healed again … in body and magic, if not mind. Though I think I’d already proven to myself on multiple occasions in the last six months that I was capable of healing my mind as well, I was just slow in that general area.
I reached out with my dowser senses to test the wards around my apartment, then instantly reined them back in when that tiny taste was rather intense.
I turned my head to observe the sacrificial knife sitting on my bedside table. It was resting on Blackwell’s demon history book — the original, by the taste of it — and it exuded pissiness. Which was worrisome, as inanimate objects really shouldn’t have moods. Someone had put me to bed and brought the knife and chronicle home as well. I wondered what else had been cleaned up while I was unconscious … I guessed that depended on how much time had passed.
I rolled out of bed — literally, since I wasn’t completely sure I was ready to be on my feet. But I stood steadily enough to pull on jeans and my red ‘Smart Ass University’ T-shirt over my tank top and underwear.
I noted in the mirror that I didn’t have a scratch or bruise on me. Even my hair looked amazing — gleaming and perfectly curled. I narrowed my eyes at this suspiciously. I suspected magic. Witch magic, probably from the witch currently puttering around in my kitchen.
The jeans were loose — damn dragon training, they were my favorite pair — so I cinched on a belt as I wandered down the short hall to the main room of the apartment.
By the light filtering through the windows, it was midmorning. The North Shore mountains were snowcapped and stark against a light blue, cloud-free sky. A nonrainy day in Vancouver in November? Odd. Maybe I’d lost more time than I thought.
Gran was making waffles in the kitchen. I didn’t own the waffle maker she was using, so it must have been another addition courtesy of Scarlett.
“Good morning, sleepy head.” Gran gifted me with the blinding smile that she had only ever bequeathed for an A-plus on my report cards. I wouldn’t have seen many of those smiles while growing up if I hadn’t have been good in home economics.
“How did you know I was awake?” I asked as I pressed a kiss to her temple, then poured myself a glass of orange juice. It looked freshly squeezed.
“How I always know,” she replied.
“You spell me?”
“Of course,” she answered without shame. “Sit. I’ll serve.”
Gran loaded two waffles onto a plate — I could smell the cinnamon in the batter and was already trying to not salivate.
I took a swig of orange juice and crossed around the kitchen island to hop up on a stool. The juice was freaking amazing. The taste practically exploded in my mouth. “What are these, magical oranges?”
“Olive grows them in her greenhouse,” Gran answered absentmindedly.
I’d been joking. “Olive?” I echoed. “A witch with a plant affinity?”
“You met her,” Gran said. “She held the protection circle over Scarlett when she fell.” Gran looked up at me, utter pride in her voice. “I would never have thought Scarlett capable of such a spell, even backed by six other witches. She was magnificent.”
Gran was referring to the spell that had cleared the path for me through the demons once the necromancers had countered Sienna’s summoning spell.
The orange juice turned sour in my mouth. I set the glass down and fiddled with my fork. Gran had set two plates.
“How many …” I started to ask, but then stopped myself. I wasn’t sure today was the day for such questions. Instead, I watched Gran spoon strawberries and whipped cream on the waffles, eagerly taking the plate when she offered it. I was starving.
Gran settled in beside me and we ate. Then I helped myself to seconds. She hadn’t finished her first plate yet.
“Where is Scarlett?” I asked between mouthfuls of goodness.
“With your father.”
That stopped me midbite. “Err, really?” I said. “Where? Here?”
“They’ve gone for a walk, apparently,” Gran said. Her tone implied exactly what she thought of this improper walk.
I wasn’t prepared to think of my parents together. That was disconcerting in a life-altering sort of way. “You think they’ll bring back ice cream?” I asked.
“If you ask, I believe they will both do anything.” Gran squeezed my knee, and I kept my suddenly teary eyes on the kitchen sink across from me. “We all would.”
“Gran —” My voice broke with the emotion once again choking my throat. I never remembered being like this before — so wracked with emotion, and constantly on the edge of tears — not even as a teenager.
“Not as many as you would think, Jade.” Gran answered my unasked question. “We slowed the demons. They became unfocused once you penetrated Sienna’s circle. Then the blindingly gorgeous Brazilian man who seemed to appear from nowhere healed many I would have thought already beyond the veil.”
Excuse me, grandmother? Blindingly gorgeous Brazilian? Up to that point, I would have told you that my Gran didn’t even notice people’s gender … just whether they were Adept or not.
“Qiuniu,” I murmured.
“Oh, yes,” Gran said — and then she actually rested her hand on her heart as if it was beating too fast. “You
should have seen him run to you when you fell.”
“I think that was Kett,” I said dryly.
Gran waved this comment off. “After that. And the kiss! I could actually feel the magic moving from him to you.”
“I gather I’m not the only one he kisses like that, Gran.”
“No matter,” Gran said as she stood to clear the plates. “Even if you’re one of the few he kisses like that, it’s good to remember.”
Oh, God! I could see the matchmaking wheels turning. Gran now saw me married to a guardian dragon. One of the nine. The idea was utterly terrifying.
“Leave it,” I said to Gran. “I want to bake.”
Gran looked pleased — it didn’t always take a gorgeous Brazilian to turn her head — and I wandered back to my bedroom for some sneakers and a hair elastic.
∞
The bakery was open and full of customers. Bryn squealed and threw her arms around my neck when I entered the kitchen from the apartment stairs. Her dark hair was longer than I remembered — the bob now brushed her shoulders.
“Missed you,” she whispered into my hair. Bryn didn’t have a drop of magic in her, but I swore she was related to the skinwalkers. The brave, practically-human themselves skinwalkers, who had defended the necromancers with their lives.
I pushed my rising tears away — again! — and tried to not hug Bryn too fiercely.
“Are you back?” she asked.
I looked up and saw Gran over Bryn’s shoulder. She’d paused halfway through the kitchen on her way to the storefront — paused to hear me answer Bryn’s question.
“Will you stay?” Gran asked.
“Yes,” I answered them both.
“Perfect!” Bryn declared. Then she squealed again and said, “I have something for you to try.” She ran out of the kitchen. The swing doors, which I often kept open while I was baking so I could see a slice of the bakery and street, swung closed behind her.
“Hot chocolate,” Gran said. “She’s been testing recipes with your ganache as a base. Dark and semisweet.”
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic Page 27