by Helen Scott
It was over three hours of winding through the streets and around different blocks, and he was starting to get tired. He didn’t need much sleep, but he did need some, and this exercise in what felt like futility was beginning to grate on him. Were the fae missing or had they just been wandering around aimlessly for the last few months? If it was the latter, he was going to be pissed. Why couldn’t they just use cell phones like everyone else?
“In here,” Imogen said. They were the first words she’d spoken in a long time.
When Ben looked up and saw the sign for a botanical garden and zoo, he wanted to curse. They weren’t open yet, and wouldn’t be for a while, if at all, since it was December. “My lady,” he said as he held out his hand. The only way to get inside at four in the morning was to teleport.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Imogen replied with a smile in her voice.
Once they were inside, they explored, making sure to stay on the paths where possible so they didn’t leave footprints in the frosty grass. The cold was starting to get to them both. He wasn’t sure if Imogen had noticed that she kept trying to pull her coat tighter, but he had. The long, quilted material came down to her knees, and the hat and scarf were a thick, knitted material. It had worked for a while, but soon they would need to take a break and warm up somewhere.
As they passed through a garden that had accents of Japanese architecture, Ben debated calling it for the time being and jumping them to the nearest twenty-four-hour coffee shop. When Imogen stopped, he wasn’t sure what was going on, but suspected that the cold was finally getting to her.
“Everything okay?”
“Shh . . .” She waved at him as her brows furrowed in concentration.
Ben shut up, even though he wanted to pester her. It had been a long day and an even longer night. In that moment, he didn’t have the energy to fight.
“The trail stops here, but there is a concentration of their scent that I’m trying to pinpoint.”
“It stops? How could that happen?” Ben asked more to himself than to his companion as he began to pace back and forth. There was nothing he could do if the trail ran cold, and that was the last thing he wanted to report back to Alec.
Chapter 10
Alec arrived at the new Speak o’ the Devil and looked around. Nothing was out of place. There were no indications of an attack or blood that would have made him panic even more. When he took a step forward and his foot landed on the loose floorboard with a clunk, he wanted to curse. Cin popped out from the back of the store.
“Oh, thank the gods,” Cin said as she waved for him to come to her and hurried into one of the back rooms.
When he rounded the doorway, his heart froze in his chest. His entire being was rendered motionless by the scene in front of him. He’d expected everything and anything, but this hadn’t even entered his mind.
Ellie’s body floated in midair, as though someone had tied a string around her waist and was pulling her upward. Her arms and legs dangled lifelessly under her torso, and her hair hung limply from the back of her head. Scattered around her were five small flames that hovered at the same level as her body. Nothing was supporting them; there was no material being burned, as far as he could see.
“What the hell is going on?” he breathed, unable to quell the sinking feeling inside as he rushed to his fiancée’s side and tried to wake her up.
“I don’t know.” Cin sighed and ran a hand through her purple hair. “We were at the store and the sales attendant said something stupid that upset Ellie, so—”
Alec’s eyes sharpened on Cin. “What did she say?”
“She asked Ellie who was walking her down the aisle.”
Alec let out a breath and rubbed his forehead, as though when he looked up, it would all be different. It wasn’t.
Cin gave him a pointed look. “We will talk more about that later. Needless to say, Ellie was upset and asked me to bring her here. I had to go back so I could take the others home, which she said was fine since she wanted to be alone. Cut to twelve hours later and me stopping by your place to make sure she made it home okay since I never heard from her, and that was when I started to panic. After I had a conversation with the Morrigan about where you were, which by the way, the freakin’ Morrigan is at your house, like it’s no big deal. Anyway, I jumped here and found her like this. Tried waking her up. When nothing worked, I texted you, and here we are.”
Alec looked over his soulmate’s body, making sure there were no injuries. When he found none, the weight in his chest eased slightly, but he was only left with more questions. One of her hands was curled, like it had been holding something.
“What were you doing?” he muttered to himself, and cast his eyes around the room.
There were a few of MacLeod’s journals sitting on the couch that they’d saved from his old apartment, but it was the one on the floor that was just under the desk that caught his eye. Bending, he picked it up and felt the magic burn at his fingertips. He quickly put it on the small desk it had been hidden under so he didn’t have to touch it longer than necessary.
He’d never been through any of the journals. To him, they’d always been for Ellie and Ellie alone, so he kept his nose out of it, but flipping this one open, he could see magic symbols on each page. Symbols that were meant to contain and control the power that the journal held. Something had broken the bonds and let the magic out.
“Do you have any idea what she was doing with this?” he asked Cin carefully. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel like he was accusing her of something.
“No. I’d figured that she’d called you to pick her up. Otherwise, I would have checked sooner. What’s wrong with her?”
“I wish I knew. I’m willing to bet that whatever it is has something to do with that journal she was looking at. The thing reeks of magic, and dangerous magic at that.”
Just as he felt like he was getting used to the situation, Ellie’s body began to twist and turn, contorting itself all while her face remained a blank, slack mask. After a panic, fear-filled moment, she stopped and returned to the same posture she’d been in when he first saw her.
“What the hell was that?” Cin breathed as she sank down onto the couch.
“None of this makes sense. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Alec wrapped a tissue around his fingers and pulled the journal off the desk before sitting on the couch with it in his lap. “What in the name of the gods is in here?”
He began to flip through the pages. The thin, fragile leaves of the journal whispered as one fell on top of the other in his search for answers. When the contents moved away from herbs and into real magic, he slowed down, and it wasn’t long after that change that he saw the blood on the page and the damaged protection symbol. The heading on the page read “Resurrection,” and Alec’s stomach twisted inside him. Surely Ellie hadn’t been foolish enough to try the spell. He knew she’d been missing MacLeod lately, but messing with this kind of magic was asking for trouble.
“Can you call your sister or Dem and get Vivienne’s number? I had it but never saved it in my phone.” He could kick himself for not keeping something that would be useful.
Cin stood and stepped out of the room. He could hear her voice as she spoke with either her sister or his brother, and let it wash over him as he focused on his soulmate. “Come back to me, Ellie. Don’t do this to me, not again.”
This time it was different, though. She wasn’t mortally wounded, and her body was there in front of him. It was just her mind that had gone missing. He wasn’t sure which was worse. That was a lie. The time she’d been in Tír na nÓg was worse. He hadn’t known if she was alive or dead. At least this time he could keep her safe, protect her with his life, if it came to that. Nothing and no one was going to make him give up on her. She’d come back to him once, and he knew she’d do it again, or he’d go in wherever it was after her. One way or another, they’d be reunited.
Cin came back in and said simply, “Vivienne will be here
as soon as she can.”
Alec didn’t know what to do. The magic written in the journal wasn’t his strong suit, wasn’t even his weak suit. He and his brothers didn’t deal with shit like that. They dealt with artifacts or petulant children of the gods. Living, breathing magic wasn’t something they used much outside of their connection to Poseidon and the occasional tattoo.
His soulmate hung in the air like an exhibit in a museum, and he was her guard, and would be until this was figured out. He leafed through more of the journal, but the pages after that were mostly blank, except for some notes from when MacLeod had tried to summon his wife’s ghost. Apparently, he’d been successful and she’d been none too pleased.
“Alec? Cin?” a woman’s voice called out from the store.
Cin shot to her feet and ushered the other woman into the room. Vivienne’s long dark hair was tied up into a high chignon, while her face was perfectly made up. She carried a large black purse that looked like a doctor’s bag from when they used to make house calls. She carefully set it on the table and looked over Ellie. When her mismatched eyes turned on Alec, he sent her a pleading look. She was one of the oldest beings he knew and was much more experienced in living magic than he was. Inside, he begged the fates to allow her to figure out what was wrong.
“There’s a . . . journal?”
“Here.” Alec held it out to her. “Careful, it’s magical.”
“Ah, one second, please.”
His hand holding the journal fell slightly as he watched her open her bag and pull out some purple nitrile gloves. Once she’d snapped them on, she reached for the journal. He willingly gave it over, the magic burning his fingertips as he held it out to her, his tissue forgotten on the couch next to him until the pain registered in his brain.
“Any ideas?” he asked after forcing himself to wait a few minutes, at least.
“A couple, but I have no way to narrow them down.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It could be blood magic. It could be something to do with the resurrection spell. It could be a combo. I just don’t know.”
“You can’t do anything?”
“Not right now. I can go home and get some further supplies and try and rule out the blood magic.”
“Anything I can do for her in the meantime?”
“Try and keep her comfortable. She’s cold to the touch, so I’d put a blanket over her. Just be careful of the flames. If you’ve got any warmer clothing that will fit over what she’s wearing right now, then you could try putting that on her. Just don’t disturb her too much. I’m not sure how that would impact whatever she’s going through mentally.” Vivienne winced as she spoke, as though she was sure whatever Ellie was going through wasn’t fun.
“I can do that.”
“Good. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I do have one appointment that I can’t cancel, so once that’s over, you will have my undivided attention.”
“Isn’t this more important?” Alec asked, unable to contain his disbelief.
“As far as I can tell, no. Ellie isn’t in any danger, and from what I can see, she hasn’t experienced any physical injuries, so I’m afraid she will have to wait.”
Alec nodded, his anger leaving him unable to speak. The logical side of his brain knew, of course, that what Vivienne said made sense. The problem was that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about what she said or her other clients. All he wanted was his Ellie back. Being so close and yet so far away was torture, but at least he knew she was alive and safe under his care.
Vivienne disappeared before his eyes, as did Cin, and he was left alone with his soulmate. When Cin returned a few moments later bearing blankets and pillows, he smiled at her in thanks.
“I’ll be back in the morning to check on the two of you. Don’t do anything stupid. And get some dinner or breakfast, whatever it is now. I can hear your stomach growling from here.” She pushed a hand through her purple hair, not quite looking at him.
“Thanks,” he said, and with that, she jumped back out. He knew what he would have seen in her eyes had she actually made eye contact with him—pity. Cin and the other women hadn’t been around the first time, but his brothers had shared the story with them, letting them know what the stakes were for soulmates.
Alec stared at Ellie’s unconscious, contorted form for a long time before he draped a blanket over her and pulled some mittens that he’d found in her coat pockets onto her hands. He lay down on the couch and tried to relax, but his body screamed at him to stand guard. His soulmate was under attack from something, and just because he hadn’t figured out what it was yet didn’t mean he should let his guard down.
Movement made his eyes snap open. The light in the room had changed, and Cin stood in front of him, holding a huge container of what he hoped was coffee, and a bag of food. The only reason he could tell what it contained was from the slight grease stains on the corners of the bag. The scent of hash browns and sausages hit his nose, and his stomach clenched painfully.
He’d never ordered any food the night before, and had slept fitfully, nightmares and dreams haunting him at every turn, so all in all, he felt like death warmed over.
“Eat,” she said, thrusting the bag in his direction.
He was ravenous, and Cin had brought enough food for the two of them. Stacks of breakfast muffins and hash browns from the place around the corner filled the bag, plus a container of fruit and two bottles of juice. The bright colors of the fresh fruit popped between the browns and beiges of the other food. His mouth watered at the sight, and he downed the first breakfast sandwich in two bites, followed by a few hash browns and some fruit.
When Ellie began to twist and turn again, he froze, cataloging every movement so he could report it to Vivienne, along with all the other similar episodes. Her expression never changed, but it almost seemed like she was fighting or trying to escape from something.
“Has she been doing that all night?”
He shook his head. “No, she was still for at least a few hours.”
Cin patted his back and said quietly, “Do you want me to ask Thad if he’s seen anything?”
“No.” The idea of asking his brother to use his gift was distasteful. Alec knew Thad got glimpses of the future—he even knew that his brother had known something about him and Ellie before he had—but he would never ask Thad to go looking. Knowing the future was not something he wished for himself, nor did he wish that burden on his brother. “I wish I knew what was wrong with her, but I’m terrified to find out, at the same time.”
“That is something I completely understand.”
Cin grabbed a hash brown out of the bag of food and bit down on the crispy potato as they both returned to watching Ellie’s floating form.
Chapter 11
Ellie pulled the cloak around her shoulders, trying to blend with the tree as much as possible. A masked nightmare was no more than three steps away, and Rae was down at the lake. She’d been in Purgatory for months, and as far as she could tell, no one was looking for her. It didn’t make sense, since she knew Alec would miss her. He loved her too much to allow her to disappear, but she hadn’t seen or heard anything that would lead her to believe he was searching for her.
Rae had been teaching Ellie to fight and hunt. While she might detest everything about Purgatory, at least she was stronger than ever before. One of her ravens twitched anxiously on her shoulder. She’d been attracting the birds since she’d been there. Eventually, she got tired of fighting it, and she began accepting their help wherever she could. They were astonishingly smart, fast, and wickedly protective. Just as she took a step, the bird took to the air and circled the nightmare’s head, pecking at its grotesque face and providing cover for her.
She pushed a touch of her dwindling power into the short blade, letting the metal become charged, before she rounded the side of the tree and plunged it into the nightmare’s side, twisting the blade as it sank through the twigs and branches into the soft flesh underneath. It would take a while f
or the creature to heal or begin hunting for them again, and they would be long gone by then. Ellie shoved the blade back into its scabbard before taking off toward the lake.
The thing wasn’t a sword, but it wasn’t a dagger, either. It was like it was stuck halfway between the two. When she’d asked Rae about it, the other woman just said she’d found it, and changed the subject. It made Ellie curious, but the other woman held her cards close to her chest, and she wasn’t one to push. If Rae wanted to share something with her, she would. Her raven alighted on her shoulder moments later, scattering her thoughts as its talons gripped her cloak.
They’d been on the move almost every day, going from cave to cave, or a platform up in a tree or some kind of hollowed-out area under a large bush, anything to hide them from the creatures that roamed Purgatory. It wasn’t just the masked nightmares or the tree specters; it was the infernals, small creatures that stole anything they could get their grubby paws on, and the howlers. She’d never seen one, but they came to life periodically, filling the air with their dreadful screaming noises. She was sure there were more creatures, but she figured she was happier not knowing about them, and if she could avoid them, she’d be happy.
Rae’s bird call sounded off to her left, and she veered toward it.
“Here, Ellie.” The other woman’s scratchy voice sounded from a cluster of bushes. “The path is clear. Now is the time.” Her green eyes sparkled, staring out at her from the black and brown markings on her face. Ellie had never seen her without them, but she had no idea how the woman kept the marks intact, especially since they’d hiked through rain and storms. The creepy crow mask that she wore helped, but Rae had been caught in a storm a few times without it, and the markings remained.
They’d been waiting for some masked nightmares to move out of the clearing ahead so they could pass through. Stabbing a lone nightmare was one thing, but a group of them? Even Rae wouldn’t go up against that. She had no idea what they could do, but she knew they were terrifying and they were the main creatures tracking them, and it wasn’t so they could all get together and play cards or have tea.