Gathering Black (Devilborn Book 2)

by Jen Rasmussen

  “In that case, I vote for right now,” I said.

  “Me too,” Cooper agreed. “I never thought I’d say this about your hometown, Verity, but I can’t wait to get back.”

  I sighed. “Me neither.”

  Arabella hadn’t cast a vote. I glanced at her, and found her staring straight ahead, a strange expression on her face. If I hadn’t already concluded she was incapable of it, I’d have taken it for worry. But she hadn’t even looked worried in the barn, facing off against both Talon Wick and a collapsing building.

  “Arabella?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, starting a little at the sound of my voice. “Yeah, we should go now. As soon as possible. Nobody can hurt us there, right?”

  “Well… nobody can harm me or Cooper directly,” I said.

  “And obviously we wouldn’t let anyone hurt you,” Cooper added.

  What could this fearless woman possibly be afraid of, all the sudden?

  “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. We’ll talk there. There’s a lot I need to catch you up on but… I’d rather be in a safe place when I do it.”

  Switching cars was a bit tricky, what with Cooper and I being naked. We didn’t want to take the time to stop and buy clothes. Instead we hid in the woods behind a strip mall while Arabella, with her own t-shirt back on, went and got a car from the first tiny rental agency we could get to. She drove to the farthest corner of the lot to pick us up, then Cooper and I huddled out of sight on the floor in the back, covering ourselves with the towel as best we could.

  A scant hour later, we wound our way up the mountain road. Arabella saw a police cruiser on the shoulder, a couple of miles outside of Bristol. She couldn’t tell whether it was Asher or not, but if it was, our plan worked; we passed it by without incident.

  I felt it the second we crossed the Bristol town line. Not just the relief I was expecting, but a surge of energy like I’d never experienced before. All my exhaustion and worry, everything Talon had done to us, fell away. I was so overcome by it, I nearly wept.

  I’m whole again.

  Cooper and I hugged and kissed, then sat up just enough to see out the windows, although we still had to slouch to keep from flashing the locals.

  I’d come to love my town and call it home again, but even so, I couldn’t have imagined the sheer joy I felt upon seeing Main Street, the familiar quaint street lamps, The Witch’s Brew. It was something even apart, I thought, from the soulsickness. Maybe it was just having a place I belonged.

  Finally, we came to the Mount Phearson itself. But we hesitated in the parking lot. I didn’t have my key, of course; Talon had taken everything. I gathered the towel around me and said to Arabella, “You’ll have to get them to send someone who knows me out here. Preferably a woman.”

  She came out a few minutes later with Agatha, and I breathed a sigh of relief. After being naked in front of Talon, Dahlia, and Arabella, Agatha didn’t seem like too big a deal.

  “What in the name of all that is holy is going on here?” Agatha asked as she leaned through the back window.

  “Arabella is a friend,” I told her. “I need you to let her into my suite, so she can bring us some clothes.”

  Cooper, curled up in the far corner of the seat to ensure nothing crucial was hanging out, gave Agatha a bashful wave.

  Agatha’s eyes roved over him, taking in Cooper’s pallor, the dark circles under his eyes, the bites and bruises at various stages of healing themselves. Then they came back to me, and lingered on the rope burns on my wrists as I clutched the towel to my chest.

  “What on earth happened?” she asked finally.

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “And surely one I would not enjoy hearing.” Like her husband, she was only a reluctant believer in the supernatural.

  “I don’t like it much myself,” I said.

  Agatha led Arabella back into the hotel. After what felt like an age, sitting naked and exposed in my own parking lot, but was probably only a short while in truth, both of them came back and handed some clothes through the windows. I breathed more easily once I was covered and respectable again.

  “Well,” said Agatha as we walked back inside, “welcome home.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Not sure I’ll ever leave again.”

  Behind me, I heard Arabella mutter, “I wouldn’t bet on that.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at her, then at Cooper, whose expression was at once exhausted and stubborn. Had something passed between the two of them, that I’d missed?

  I turned back to Agatha. “I need to catch up with you guys, and everything that’s been going on here. But we have some urgent things to deal with first.”

  Agatha nodded and gestured over at the front desk. “Just ask Rosalie for anything you need, and I’ll tell Lance to leave you alone until tomorrow, how’s that?”

  “Perfect.” I gave her a hug that was probably more enthusiastic than she expected. But it really was good to be home.

  Colonel Phearson’s Pub didn’t do room service, at least not yet. But for me they were willing to make an exception. I ordered a selection of sandwiches and snacks—including their increasingly famous potato chips smothered in pimento cheese—along with a bag of freshly ground coffee and three bottles of wine. It was only lunchtime at that point, but I suspected we might be in my suite for a while. And that Arabella might be as much of a drinker as her father.

  When we were all settled around my table, Cooper said to Arabella, “Okay, out with it. You’ve been acting weird since you woke me up.”

  Arabella scowled at him. “I’m not sure you can say that. It’s kind of a weird situation, isn’t it? I don’t know that there’s a standard way to act.”

  “It’s not that weird, not for us,” said Cooper with a chuckle. “And you’re picking at your cuticles.”

  He was right; she was. How bad must this be, whatever she had to tell us?

  After the events of that morning, I could no longer find any dislike for her, and I pitied her obvious discomfort. “Would you rather talk to Cooper alone?” I asked. “I can go somewhere for a while.”

  But Arabella laughed and shook her head. “Believe me, I’d rather tell you this than Cooper.” And in fact it was me she looked in the eye as she said, “You asked how I found you.”

  I nodded.

  “My father knew where you were,” Arabella said. “He’s the spy.”

  If Arabella thought we’d get the vapors and swoon over what she obviously considered to be a shocking revelation, she was disappointed. Even Cooper was perfectly composed as we waited for her to go on. She looked, clearly nonplussed, from his face to mine and back again.

  “You knew?” she asked Cooper finally. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t know,” said Cooper. “In fact, I doubted it most of the time. But he was on my list of suspects.”

  “How could you have suspected him, of all people?” Arabella asked. “The head of clan intelligence, a carrier! He’s been nothing but loyal to the Blackwoods and our cause. He’s risked his own life and safety, and that of his family, for—”

  Nobody else had said a word, but Arabella stopped talking as if she’d been interrupted, then laughed at herself. At least she still had her sense of humor. “I guess it’s time to stop defending him now.”

  I leaned back in my chair and regarded her for a few moments, while she and Cooper talked. She looked and sounded genuine enough. And she had just rescued us.

  But Arabella was clearly not stupid. How could she be so shocked by her father’s betrayal, when we’d suspected it since day one?

  Well, he’s her father. It’s normal for a girl to trust her father without question.

  Or so I’ve heard it said.

  As for myself, I’d spent the past few weeks trusting nobody, worrying constantly about who might betray us next. But Arabella had just put her own life on the line to get us out of that barn. I decided it was probably about time to risk trust
ing someone.

  And of all people.

  I kept my sigh quiet.

  “Any idea how long?” Cooper was asking.

  “A year, at least,” Arabella said. “Probably longer.”

  “Which I suppose means he doesn’t actually have the North Seed,” I said. “He’ll have given it to them.”

  Arabella smiled at that. “Yes and no. They think they have it. But what he gave them was a very good counterfeit. The real thing is still in his house, locked in a hidden safe.”

  Cooper scowled at her. “That would never work. They could tell.”

  She laughed. “How? They’re as many generations removed from our native world as we are. None of them have ever seen a real sapwood seed before. Or at least they hadn’t, until they got the South last spring.”

  “Back up,” Cooper said. “We’ve always been told a fake isn’t possible. That there are tests, magic that the Wicks can do—”

  “Like I said, it’s a very good counterfeit,” Arabella said. “I’m told it passes those tests. Serena made it years ago, as an insurance policy.”

  “What makes you think that’s the truth?” Cooper asked. “If he’s allied himself with the Wicks, why wouldn’t he just give them the real seed?”

  “Cooper, seriously?” Arabella said. “You honestly think he would put a sapwood seed in the hands of the Wick clan if he could possibly help it?”

  “You just told us he’s on their side!”

  “And it hasn’t crossed your mind yet to ask why that is?” Arabella snapped. “Maybe it’s out of line for me to be offended by how easily you’re believing he’s betrayed us, but—”

  “It is out of line, no buts about it,” said Cooper. “You can’t expect me to just blindly accept this counterfeit story when—”

  “They have his wife!”

  For a moment or two, nobody spoke. Finally I decided that it was worth stating the obvious, just for confirmation. “Serena’s not really in Paris.”

  Arabella shook her head. “He’s doing what he has to do.”

  “Or so he says,” Cooper muttered.

  Arabella stood, and so did Cooper. Both looked ready to start throwing punches. I’d failed to consider how fatigued they both must be—a sort of vital equivalent of being drunk. This could get out of hand fast.

  I got up too, and put one hand on each of their shoulders. “Okay. Let’s all calm down. How about if I get us some coffee? I think we can all use the caffeine. Arabella, you start from the beginning.” I gave Cooper’s shoulder an extra squeeze. “And we will do our best to shut up and give you a chance to talk.”

  Both of them sat back down, but Cooper gave me a look that said, as clearly as if he’d spoken, Since when are you on her side?

  I shrugged, and went to tend to the coffee.

  “Okay,” said Cooper. His jaw was set, arms crossed, but he seemed calm enough not to start a brawl in my suite, anyway. “From the beginning, then. What happened?”

  “It may interest you to know that he was crying,” Arabella said softly. “They’d sent him a picture of the two of you, strapped to those chairs—”

  “Without any clothes on!” I stepped back to the table, aghast.

  Cooper squeezed my hand, but Arabella gave me a look that suggested I needed to get over the naked thing, already. I couldn’t quite agree, but I was prepared to concede that it wasn’t the highest priority topic for discussion at the moment. Especially since I was violating my own rule against interrupting. I nodded for her to go on.

  It seemed she’d gone to visit her father, and found him crying over that picture. I thought it seemed convenient, that someone who’d devoted his life to intelligence work would be discovered so easily in a moment of weakness. And I might have said so, but Cooper spared me the impoliteness of interrupting a second time by doing it for me.

  “I’m sorry, Bella, I am,” he said. “I’m trying to give you and Dalton both the benefit of the doubt. But it’s an awfully big coincidence, that after he’s been working with the Wicks for a year without you suspecting a thing, you just happen to walk in on some evidence of it just in time to save us?”

  “No, it’s not a coincidence at all,” Arabella said. “Obviously he chose to let me find him that way. He wanted me to rescue you. He’s had enough, I think.” She smiled at me. “And I think he likes you. Said you remind him of Serena. Not that I’d consider that a great compliment, personally.”

  “So you found him with this picture, and he confessed?” I asked as I set a mug down in front of her.

  “More or less. It wasn’t a simple conversation. Few with my father are. But I’ll spare you all the details and stick to the main points. As an intelligence man, he was most useful to them alive and under their control. So they took Serena, and imprisoned him in his house.”

  “He’s trapped?” asked Cooper.

  Arabella nodded. “Those aren’t protective wards on Number Twelve, and Serena didn’t cast them. He can’t leave. If he does, they’ll know, and they’ll kill his wife. So he stays inside and does as he’s told. He admitted to giving them Crawford’s location. And to manipulating you into finding the East for him.”

  “But that makes no sense,” I said. “If this little quest for the East was part of the Wick plan all along, then why did Talon keep coming after us?”

  “He would have killed us in Virginia,” Cooper added. “Probably Vermont, too, if he’d caught us. East Seed be damned.”

  “As far as I know, my father’s deal was with Cillian, not Talon,” Arabella said. “Maybe Talon doesn’t follow orders so well.”

  “There is that matter of his siblings between us,” said Cooper.

  Arabella smiled at that, just a little.

  “Go on.” Cooper got up to refill his coffee. “So the plan was that we would get the East, and then what?”

  “And then my father was going to try to get both the East and the West from you, once they were together. Maybe he thought he could trick you into giving them to him. Or maybe he just figured killing you for two seeds was better than killing you for one.” Arabella shrugged, staring into her mug, meeting nobody’s eyes.

  Cooper and I exchanged a look. We knew, of course, that any Blackwood could have tried to raid the vault and get both seeds at once, if only they’d waited just one more day. But either Dalton didn’t know that, or he hadn’t told Talon. Or Talon was just too unbalanced and impatient to care.

  “I’d like to think he was actually hoping you’d succeed at getting them both to sanctuary,” Arabella went on. “And hoping he’d fail at retrieving them. I’d like to think he’s working both sides, cooperating with the Wicks, but also stalling and sabotaging. But I don’t know. I obviously don’t know him as well as I thought I did.”

  She took a sip of coffee, then added, “But you getting caught by them on your way back, that little road block, that’s all on you. He said he had nothing to do with it.”

  “No, I don’t blame him for that,” said Cooper. “We didn’t tell him our plans, or when we’d be back.”

  “So how did they know?” I asked. “Even if they tapped Lance’s phone or something—”

  “Or they just made educated guesses after they saw Cayuga Lake on the news,” Cooper interjected. “They might have guessed we had the East, and would be heading back with it.”

  “Either way, that would only give them a general idea of when we might come,” I said. “There’s no way Asher and Talon and the rest of them were just sitting at the roadside twenty-four hours a day, waiting on us to go by. Asher does have a real job.”

  “Any idea how long that box truck was behind us?” Cooper asked.

  “Almost as soon as we got on the mountain road, I think.”

  “They’ve found us more than once when it should have been impossible, even with inside information,” said Cooper, scratching his scruffy jaw. “Especially on this trip. A seer, maybe? Maybe a whole staff of seers. I’ve always heard that the Wick clan values them pretty hi
ghly.”

  “Serena has the sight,” Arabella said. “That’s what she calls it. The sight. Heaven forbid she use such a mundane word as psychic. So maybe that’s another reason they took her.” She sighed. “Anyway, Talon kept my father informed, at least. He couldn’t wait to brag that they had the East Seed, and were about to torture you two for some means of getting the West.”

  “Which,” Cooper said, “would mean Dalton’s services were no longer required, wouldn’t it? Once they had all the seeds, he’d be useless to them.”

  “That’s actually a good point,” said Arabella with a frown.

  “So he didn’t confess just because he felt guilty,” I said. “He wanted to save his own skin, too.”

  “Maybe,” Arabella agreed. “He might have figured it was over for him and Serena both, once the Wicks got what they needed. Plus he knew they wouldn’t kill you fast and easy, the way they killed Crawford. He knew it would get bad.”

  “How nice, a flash of conscience,” Cooper said.

  Anger crossed Arabella’s face, but she didn’t rise to it. All she said was, “So, he had an idea what location they might be using, and he sent me to get you. And now I have.”

  “And now they’ll be coming after the West Seed harder than ever,” I said. “As far as they know, it’s the only one they don’t have.”

  “It might really be the only one they don’t have,” said Cooper.

  “I believe my father about the counterfeit North,” Arabella said. “It’s exactly the kind of thing he would do.”

  “And it makes sense,” I said. “When you think about the Wicks trying to develop a way to start a forest with two compass opposites. It explains why they’re failing with the North and the South. Or one reason, anyway. Their North isn’t real.”

  “But now they have the East.” Cooper looked at me. “So if all this is true—hell, if any of it is true—we need to guard the West more closely than ever.”

  I nodded. “Don’t worry. Nobody’s getting to the West.”

  Arabella regarded Cooper’s hard face, his tight grip on his coffee mug. When he didn’t say any more for a minute, she said, “Cooper, I didn’t know any of this the last time I saw you. And I came for you, as soon as I found out.”