by Pat Esden
“Let me check and see if that is possible.” I took my phone from my pocket and walked out of the tent, past the smoldering pit and beyond her earshot.
As the phone rang I turned back, watching as they all emerged, except for Zea. It was interesting how Lotli acted like her leaving with us or making a decision on her own was impossible, then came up with a price without even asking him—and in like half a second.
For once, Kate didn’t let my call go to voice mail. “You found her?” she said on the other end.
“Yes.”
“Can she do it? Is she listening?” Kate’s sensible voice grounded me and drove off some of the freakishness of the place.
“Yes, she is. Maybe.” I dug my fingernails into the phone’s case as Lotli rested her hand on Chase’s back and led him around the outside of the tent, heading toward the door into the bread truck. I would have shoved the phone in my pocket right then and taken off after them if Selena hadn’t been trailing in their wake.
Kate’s voice came again. “What does she want?”
“Ten thousand dollars . . .” I went on and explained about the inborn magic. That made perfect sense to Kate.
“Tell her we’ll give her the money, but she has to go into the djinn realm as an escort and gets paid once everyone returns, including your mother. If she fails, she will not get paid. If this Zea is as powerful as she claims, he shouldn’t fear that we’ll double-cross him.”
“Sounds good,” I said, and then I hung up.
Stashing the phone, I skirted the smoldering pit. My intention was to catch up with Chase, Selena, and Lotli as fast as I could. But as I passed the open tent flap, I felt drawn to steal another look at Zea.
He hadn’t moved, but his eyes were trained on me. He lifted his hand slowly as if with great effort—
Lotli’s voice murmured in my ear. “Do we have an agreement?”
Startled, I spun around and found her standing beside me. How could I have let her sneak up on me like that? “Yes, with some contingencies,” I said, amazingly enough without missing a beat.
I told her what Kate had said. I fully expected her to bombard me with questions, like for starters: What were our last names, where would she be staying, and what was our contact information? Even a child would have asked those things. Instead, she sashayed back into the tent without saying anything and closed the flap, as if going away with strangers and crossing into the djinn realm was no big deal.
A moment later, she emerged. “He has given permission. Give us a moment to pack and we will return with you.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said, and it was. The chance of safely rescuing Mother had just gone up by a million times.
Still, maybe I didn’t have super-human senses like Chase or witchcraft skills like Selena, and I certainly didn’t come from an ancient lineage of magic-flute people, but I had good instincts and they were telling me not to trust her.
CHAPTER 8
As the snake sheds his skin and arises renewed, so shall mankind.
—Jeffrey White, President
Sons of Ophiuchus
“Is it all right to just leave Zea there by himself?” Selena asked as she got into the Land Rover’s backseat with Lotli.
“Don’t worry about him. He is weaker than he used to be, but stronger than he looks.” There was the click of a seatbelt as Lotli settled in. “Also, he is addicted to the Internet. He will probably be on it the whole time we are gone.”
I laughed. “I never would have expected that.”
It had only taken Lotli a few minutes to go back into the bread truck and pack. When she’d reappeared, she was wearing the wrap pants she’d had on at the museum and a raspberry-colored top. She’d shed some of her jewelry and had a backpack slung over one shoulder. Actually she looked fairly normal, like any other college-age kid, and she acted more and more normal as we got farther away from Zea.
“You’re going to love it at Moonhill,” Selena said. “You’ll have your own room with a private bath and we have a woman, Laura, who does all the cooking—and a private beach. It won’t be all work either. We’ll do some partying.” She tapped Chase on the shoulder and he looked back. “You’re cool with that, right? I mean, she deserves some fun. You can come too. We can all go together.”
“Maybe,” he grumbled. “But I’m not cool with children being indentured to anyone”—his gaze went to Lotli—“or was it sold?”
For a second, no one said anything. I didn’t want to make Chase feel bad, but he was letting his own childhood experience cloud his judgment. The casual way she was acting now proved it wasn’t uncommon for her to go off on her own. Heck, we’d seen her out and about in Bar Harbor. Granted, being apprenticed to a shaman at a young age wasn’t normal, but neither was being born with magic abilities.
I glanced in the rearview mirror at her. One thing was for sure, we did need to know more about her. After all, we were taking a huge risk by bringing her to the house.
“Do you ever get to see your family?” I asked.
She shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes we do, when we travel south for the winter.”
“So your family’s from Georgia or the Carolinas?” I managed to sound sincere, though the soft lilt of her voice told me that was unlikely.
“Yes, mostly,” she said.
I looked back at the road, slowing as I came up behind a group of joggers, waiting for a good place to pass, and trying to come up with a question that wasn’t rude, but might get me somewhere.
Once we were past them, I said, “I’m surprised Zea only speaks Sylbo. That’s not really a useful language and he seems to understand English.”
“He does,” she said. Without missing a beat, she moved on. “What language do they speak in the djinn realm?”
She’d avoided answering me, but her question was a good one. “I’m not sure. They write in a language that’s a cross between modern Arabic and an ancient language called Sabaean.”
Chase twisted around in his seat, looking back. “We’ll be going to a place called Blackspire. It’s a fortress overseen by a warlord named Malphic. English is the only spoken language he allows. He wants to ensure that his warriors can blend in flawlessly in certain human countries. He has big plans for the future.”
“But their written is different?”
He nodded. “Yes. It’s the djinn’s old language.”
Lotli scrunched forward in her seat, closer to Chase, tilting her chin up. “It is a powerful language, yes?”
“More like universal and ceremonial,” he said.
“How do you know so much?”
The twinge of anger I felt over the way she gazed at Chase transformed into worry that he might tell her about his days as a slave—and his parentage. Sure, I had a modicum of sympathy for her, but this was too soon for Chase to spill anything more.
With a shrug, he turned back around in his seat. “I don’t know much. The Professor who works for the family is familiar with it. He’s shown us artifacts that were found in dig sites.”
A smile twitched at the corner of my mouth. One point for Chase. He’d played that perfectly, just like how he managed to keep his aura in check.
“But you can’t work the magic?” she asked.
He chuckled. “I don’t know anything about magic.”
Lotli sat back again, looking out at the water as I drove across the Trenton Bridge, past a lobster pound restaurant and a line of stores. She turned toward Selena. “But you know magic, how to scry?”
“A little.” Selena hesitated. “I mess around with healing, too.”
“Ah, healing. That is good.”
* * *
By the time we stopped at the cottage to drop Chase off, my head ached from the tension. I’d had enough of her we this and we that—and of trying to be pleasant and give her a vague overview of my mother’s situation without giving away too many family secrets, all without getting anything useful from her.
I drove the remainder of the driveway faster than n
ormal, feeling grateful at the sight of Tibbs’s friendly face coming out from the house to greet us.
He jogged up to the Land Rover and waited as we got out. He shoved his cap into his hip pocket. “Need me to carry anything?” he asked, eyeing Lotli’s pack.
“No, thank you.” She dipped her eyes. “We can manage.”
“All righty then, if you’re sure.” He paused and smiled at Selena. “I filled in that pothole on the forest trail for you. Didn’t want you flipping the ATV.”
“Thanks,” she said.
He flushed from his neck up to his ears and took the keys from me.
Lotli watched as he drove the Land Rover off toward the garage. “He seems sweet.”
“He is,” I said.
Selena elbowed me. “Sweet and he’ll do anything if you flirt a little. Like if you want a bottle of something or to get out after the front gate is locked.” Grinning, she glanced at Lotli. “How old are you anyway?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Sweet.” Selena opened the door and let Lotli go in first.
I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that Selena had discovered a reason to befriend Lotli. I had no desire to befriend her myself. I needed to focus on the mission and not feel obliged to hang with her any more than absolutely necessary.
Lotli’s eyes went wide as she scanned the foyer. “The paintings, the artifact, the bear . . . It is so, so—”
“Wait until you see the rest of the displays,” I said with confidence. She looked as overwhelmed as I’d felt a month ago, when I first arrived.
Lotli’s shoulders drew inward, making her appear even smaller than she was. “So many things.”
“You’ll get used to it. C’mon.” Selena pranced toward the main staircase. “Mom texted. She said you can have the Orchid Room. It’s right next to Annie.”
Crap. So much for not socializing and having my end of the hallway to myself. I bowed my head to hide my scowl, and followed them upstairs.
We went down the dim hallways and into the gallery.
Lotli came to a hard stop, staring first at the glowering marble angels, then at Hecate. She shivered. “This place, it is not for us. The vibes are—cold.”
Cold vibes? If she was as powerful as she acted, then surely she’d be experiencing a lot more than that. After all, she was only a few yards away from a weak point in the veil.
I took a couple of swaggering steps ahead to where shafts of light slanted down through the skylight, then swung around to face her.
“Are you sure that’s all you sense?” I asked tartly.
Her gaze slammed into mine, eyes narrowed and as dark and hard as ebony. She slipped her pack from her shoulder and set it on the ground. In a slow, deliberate motion, she drew her flute from the waistband of her pants, like a warrior drawing his sword. “All?” she asked, laughing. “Is that too little for you? Do you need us to say there is a weak point between the realms here?”
She put her flute to her lips, the bobbles and feathers that hung from it catching the sunlight.
Selena waved her hands, gesturing for Lotli to stop. “Don’t. There are wards in place to prevent things from coming through. They’ll have to be broken eventually, but not—”
At first the notes from Lotli’s flute were soft, whistling gently through the gallery like whispering voices, not unlike the distant sound of Sylbo. Still, prickles swept my arms and the hair on the nape of my neck lifted. Incantations are living things was one of the things I’d learned since coming to Moonhill. This living thing of Lotli’s slipped and slithered across my skin like tiny electric eels.
Hecate. Protect us, I thought as the warding bowls at the statue’s feet began to vibrate. The flute’s music drew toward a crescendo. Lotli held a note and the bowls rose up off the floor, vibrating. She slammed another note into the air and the bowls exploded, sparks shooting out as if lightning had hit them—except, instead of heat, the explosion created a massive blast of cold. Petals, herb dust, crystals, and salt flew everywhere.
“OhmiGod!” Selena gasped.
The flute’s notes quivered, a deep undertone growling beneath a rising whistle. The air next to Hecate visibly trembled. I pressed my hands over my ears, blocking out the building sound as Lotli raised the flute skyward, the notes scaling so high I could feel but not hear them. The sound of tearing echoed from the alcove and a slit in the air beside Hecate unzipped, like a tent flap opening. Beyond it, I could see smoky blue—
Lotli took the flute from her lips and the gap instantly sealed, leaving the room still and silent, except for the last of the petals, herbs, and salt drifting downward in shafts of light like dust motes. She tucked the flute back into her waistband and raised her chin. “Now, can we see our room?”
“Of—of course,” Selena stuttered. No doubt she was as angry about the destroyed wards as I was, and worried how Olya and Kate would react. But her voice and pale face told me she was also stunned by the magic, just like me.
I crammed my shaking hands into my pockets and plastered on a nonchalant expression as we started for the far end of the gallery. It was smarter to act calm and keep my mouth shut, to hide how limited my knowledge of the supernatural and occult was. But, after only a few steps, my curiosity got the better of me and I had to ask, “I know scary things give people the shivers and I agree that the gallery has a cold vibe. But why does opening the veil between their realm and ours cause a blast of cold? I’ve seen shadow-genies before and they made the room get hotter.”
She flicked a few bits of dried petals off the strap of her backpack and one off her sleeve, drawing the process out like she wanted to torture me and show me who was in control. Eventually she said, “It is the same when the veil between us and the afterlife is opened. The cold is an indication of a weakened or ripped-open veil, not an indication of what lies beyond. This is exactly why there are unnatural cold spots. It is not a spirit that is felt. It is the icy gasp of the wounded veil.”
Selena beamed. “My mother told me that. She calls it—” She pressed her lips together, thinking. “Well, I can’t remember right now. But I need to tell her what happened. She’ll want to make fresh wards, though her old ones didn’t seem to work all that well.”
“We are sorry to cause her work. They were stronger than some.”
I frowned. “I thought you and Zea only used your magic to help dying people cross. Why would you run up against wards?” My voice came out harder than I intended, and the glare she shot me proved she hadn’t missed it.
“Some people will do anything to not lose someone they love.”
“I guess—it’s just. I’m not that familiar with magic. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone using it to keep someone from naturally passing on.” As soon as I said it, I realized I did know some. The people who hired the Santeria priest we’d met in New Orleans for one.
“We are not speaking of simply magical attempts to tie someone to this world. Look at you, ready to watch those you love risk their lives to rescue a woman who is lost. Is this not the same?”
“My mother’s not dead,” I snapped.
Selena hugged herself. “What do you say we get out of here? All this talking about death and losing people is what’s giving me the creeps.”
Lotli and I relented, and a few minutes later we stood in front of the door next to my bedroom, the Orchid Room, apparently.
“You’re going to love it,” Selena said. Opening the door, she stood aside so Lotli could go in.
Lotli’s nose wrinkled as she studied the light pink walls and the huge bed canopied in white brocade and piled with satin quilts. She shook her head. “We cannot sleep here.”
“Why not? It’s beautiful.” Selena opened the curtains, letting light flood across the white rug. “You’ve got your own bathroom, too.”
I thought back to the night I arrived and saw my room for the first time. It was one of the few high points. “There’s a nice view of the gardens and ocean,” I said.
Lotli hoiste
d her pack up higher on her shoulders. “No. You may be paying for my services, but we refuse to stay here.” She swished back into the hallway.
Selena glanced at me. “Ah, well—”
“We should talk to Kate about this,” I said, taking out my phone.
Once again, Kate answered right away. Which shocked me to no end. “Don’t tell me. She doesn’t like her room.”
“Not at all,” I said.
Kate huffed. “All right. I’m in the garden. I’ll meet you on the terrace. What’s wrong with this girl? Spoiled as the Princess and the Pea?”
“No, I don’t think that’s it.” I looked to where Lotli waited, her feet firmly planted. I couldn’t begin to figure out what was wrong. After all, she’d been living in a dilapidated bread truck with an old man. I took a deep breath. “Ah—there’s an issue with the gallery wards, too.”
Kate groaned. “Have Selena tell her mother about that. I have enough to deal with already.”
When we got down to the terrace where Kate waited, Lotli explained what was wrong with the room, “It is too large—too artificial. We are used to air, the sounds of nature. At a minimum, someplace less . . . smaller and simpler.”
Kate’s lips pressed into a firm line. “There are smaller rooms on the first floor. Perhaps one of them will be to your liking.”
Laura came out from the house with glasses of iced tea and a plate of her famous macaroons. She set them on the table.
“How lovely,” Lotli said, taking a glass. She enjoyed a sip, then abruptly thumped the glass down and said to Kate, “We have an idea. We’d feel comfortable in a place like that cottage by the front gate. It is more like the sort of place we are used to.”
My mouth hung open. What the fuck?
Selena’s eyes went right to me, then flashed to Lotli. “Chase lives there.”
“That’s all right. We don’t mind being with a man.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” I grumbled under my breath.
Kate shot a glare my way, letting me know I’d said it louder than I intended. “I have a better idea.” She looked at Selena and me. “Why don’t you two stay here while I show Lotli the library sunroom?” She took Lotli by the elbow. “There’s a daybed in there. The room’s quite small, mostly glass.”