Lore vs. The Summoning

by Anya Breton

  "Fire."

  His monosyllabic responses were irking the hell out of me. I should be accustomed to them by now. He'd been with me on and off for nine years and he hadn't changed in all that time.

  "So that means what?" I pressed. "Nothing will happen to me if someone hits me with a fireball?"

  "The mark draws power from its owner and thus is only as powerful as the one that gave it." Finally, I was getting some useful information out of him. "If the high priestess is powerful enough, then yes, you could be impervious to flame. If her power level were milder then it would only reduce the damage you took. A third-degree burn instead of a first, for example."

  "Any idea how powerful she is?"

  "Unfortunately no. I cannot read her."

  My eyebrow lifted. "But you can read other people?"

  "Yes," Kastio replied succinctly.

  "Why can't you read her?"

  "I do not know."

  I stared at the divine being that had been sent by Apollo to help me and wondered why he didn't know. He was supposed to be the one with the answers. If he didn't know, did that mean something was off about Morrígan?

  Kastio's eyes dropped to my neck. His already brooding expression darkened. It had seemed impossible for him to look more morose than he normally did but he'd just proved me wrong.

  "I must go," he said in his deepest of tones.

  There were few times that Kastio had ever told me he had to leave. Those occurrences had been when he'd been called to guide another for a few months. I considered asking him when he'd be back but I didn't want to sound as if I needed him. I didn't need him. He wasn't all that useful when he was around.

  Perhaps it was the urgent way he'd uttered the words that made me want to ask why he was so suddenly leaving. When his slate colored eyes lifted up again I saw the strangest emotion within them: fear. I'd opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong but the rush of his usual parting greeting cut me off.

  "Hera keep you safe."

  I was left staring in bewilderment at the spot he'd inhabited.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I'd needed a day off. Perhaps it was irresponsible of me with a deadline looming over my head and all. I felt a little guilty for it a few times as I'd walked the sidewalks around my favorite boutiques. But not guilty enough to stop.

  My day of shopping ended with a lengthy stop at Barnes and Nobles for a strawberry smoothie and a sit near the travel books. The retail therapy had returned my sanity to its typical, partial state. I'd counted myself lucky that pushing the balance on my credit cards higher was all that it took to get that state back.

  I'd found a nice black silk mandarin collar shirt on clearance at one of my favorite out of the way boutiques. It was dressy enough that I could wear it with a long black skirt to the Chamber Tea. And that high collar would hide my new mark.

  Each time I'd stepped in front of a dressing room mirrors and seen the sooty raven on my neck in the glass behind me my spirits had lowered just a little bit. It had put a damper on my usual gusto enough that I'd skipped more than half of the shops I usually hit. The thin plastic in my wallet was better for it.

  I'd thought nothing of the people gathered on the sidewalk outside the row house as I drove by to find a parking spot near dinnertime. The raised voices I heard while coming around the corner, bags in hand, didn't particularly concern me either. But when the guy who lived across the hall from my apartment stepped in front of me with a scowl etched into the craggy skin around his mouth, I had to pay attention.

  "The entire first floor is flooded," he informed me gruffly.

  My recently plucked eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Flooded?"

  His wrinkled forehead grew more so as he nodded. "Super says a pipe broke in the wall between apartment two and three." I lived in apartment three. "Everything is destroyed. He didn't even have flood insurance," the man spit his S's out.

  The words he spoke were familiar but I didn't follow their meaning as quickly as I ought to. "What do you mean 'flooded'?"

  "I mean there is two and a half feet of water in there!" He shouted in my face as if it were my fault. "Everything I own is destroyed!"

  If everything he owned was destroyed then...

  I looked down at the bags in my hand and wondered if these were my sole possessions now. Crap! My flute! I dropped the bags where I stood, uncaring about my new blouse and pair of novels, and darted toward the door.

  "You can't go in there..." My neighbor's shout went ignored.

  He hadn't been exaggerating. There literally was two and a half feet of water in the place and it was steadily rising. Running in that much water was a difficult feat to accomplish at best.

  I shoved my way into the apartment to find, much to my relief, that I'd left my flute in its case on the second from the top shelf of my living room bookcase. With that worry behind me I sloshed my way into the bedroom.

  The bed was nearly submerged, my collection of shoes hopelessly ruined and all but the top three of my chest of drawers were dripping. However most of my good clothes hung on hangers in the closet. Many of them were yet untouched. Only the longest of the gowns -- which of course were the most expensive -- had been ruined. I pulled things out by the armful and started transporting them out to the car. The flute case was nestled atop the first load.

  My building superintendent caught me at the tail end of the race to save my worldly possessions. He attempted to shout at me for going into what he was calling a "dangerous situation". I didn't understand why it was a problem. The power had been turned off to the building and it hadn't been a sewage pipe that had broken.

  I left my cell phone number with the furious superintendent, ignored his biting remarks about how stupid I'd been, and then trudged my drenched self back to the car to sit on a towel in the driver's seat. My eyes stared into the rearview mirror at the backseat that was piled with clothes, winter coats, towels, a compound hunting bow, a pair of slingshots, a collection of wet handguns and everything else I could shove into the few duffle bags that hadn't been submerged.

  What the hell was I going to do now?

  It only took me a few minutes to remember I owned a brownstone across town with a furnished lobby. I could at least store my things there and catch some shuteye on the stiff leather sofa tonight until I figured out the answer to that question.

  It was an uncomfortably cold trip to the brownstone. The Mini's heater wasn't working as fast as I'd like. The afternoon had turned unseasonably cold. That could be a problem because there was no heat at the brownstone. None of my blankets had survived the flood. I'd have to get warm with some of the few towels that had. Paying the bills for gas and water at a building I wasn't using had seemed like a waste. The only things I'd bothered with were electricity and the high speed WiFi for the security system.

  By the time I'd finished hauling things inside, getting warm was no longer an issue. I was sweaty, uncomfortable and more than a little smelly. I cleaned up as best I could with the towels and pulled on fresh clothes. Unfortunately the only other garments that had survived the flood beside my dressy outfits were my very casual knit pants and tank tops, the items I wore to bed. I'd have to go shopping...again.

  I'd been trying to find a new apartment near Symphony Hall using only my phone for a few hours when there was a knock on the lobby door. I sat still, hoping whoever it was would believe the place empty and leave. Perhaps they hadn't seen the Mini in the parking lot out back.

  "Miss Denham?"

  Aiden Bruce. Why was I not surprised he'd be the first to track me here?

  "May I come in, please?"

  I attempted to make my breathing shallow. He didn't know that I was here. I could have left my car here and gotten a ride with someone else.

  "Though that is a valiant attempt at stealth, I can still hear you breathing," he said, proving I sucked at hiding. "I brought dinner with me, a large double cheese pizza from Manzetti's."

  That was all he'd needed to say. I bounded from the
leather sofa with the furious growling of my stomach spurring me onward. Aiden's smirk was ignored in favor of the pizza pie he was holding out. I snatched the cardboard box up and went back inside without bothering to greet him.

  The vampire remained on the lobby's edge while I scarfed down an entire piece of pizza so greasy it dripped off my fingers. Food that might kill me before something supernatural did the deed first was my favorite kind.

  "You will stay with me," he said imperiously.

  "That only works when Morrígan does it," I replied without thinking and then immediately flushed scarlet when I realized what I'd admitted.

  "I have guestrooms that go unused for years at a time," he added rather than comment. "And plenty of hot water. Manzetti's is two blocks away."

  My response was dry. "Not even the promise of the most divine pizza in the world will get me to move in with you, Mr. Bruce."

  He ignored my refusals as if they hadn't been spoken at all. "You're still under my employ. I won't have my employees living in destitution."

  "I'm not under your employ and I'm not destitute," I refuted with a finger jabbed upward, "There's a roof over my head and you brought me pizza."

  "You have no running water."

  I tossed him a sharp look. "How do you know?"

  Aiden exhaled noisily. "I won't take no for an answer."

  "I've already booked a room at the Hilton," I lied.

  And then my phone rang. From the number listed on the screen I gathered my evening was getting even better. Briefly I contemplated if debating with Aiden was preferable to listening to Morrígan. In the end I decided she was safer over the phone than he was in person.

  "Hello?"

  "Lore," her throaty greeting warmed me just a little. "I've just heard of the unfortunate accident at your apartment building. You will stay with me," she repeated the vampire's words verbatim.

  "No, I won't," I argued despite what I'd told him. "I've got a room booked..."

  "A room," she interrupted me sourly. "You waste money that could be used to replace your ruined things."

  I decided a diversion tactic was in order. "How did you even find out? It's only been a few hours."

  She, of course, didn't fall for it. "Come here and I will explain."

  "I don't want to know that badly."

  Morrígan's husky laugh made my insides flutter. "You are welcome at the stronghold for as long as you like, dearest. No, you are more than welcome, you are desired."

  Gods, it was cheesy and still it worked. The image of her writhing beneath my hands flashed in my head. My fingers pressed to my lips so that I could gnaw on the nail of my index finger. The invitation was so tempting that I could taste it.

  "But until then, I will dream of you," she said softly before disconnecting the call.

  My teeth grit tightly while I silently screamed.

  The frustration I was feeling quickly turned into suspicion. My apartment was flooded and then conveniently both the vampire and high priestess offer to have me stay with them within hours. I hadn't told a soul. Which meant either they were both having me watched or they knew the flood was going to happen before it had. Had the flood been a ploy to get me to stay with them? And if so, which one was the culprit?

  "Did you do this on purpose?" I demanded abruptly enough that Aiden blinked back confusion.

  He didn't move a muscle but those needed to form the question. "Do what?"

  "Did you have my apartment flooded so you could try to make me move in with you?"

  He laughed. It was a quick, sardonic sound of disbelief. His voice dropped low into a deep register I'd not heard him use. "I have far better ways of persuading you to move in with me."

  My eyebrows lifted at him but I wasn't about to ask what he meant. I had a pretty good idea anyway. "Well, thank you for my pizza and the kind offer but I've made other arrangements."

  "She is right," Aiden said rather than bow out easily. "A hotel room is a waste of money you'll need elsewhere. You should stay with one of us."

  I let my eyebrows drift to the middle of my eyebrow, snarking, "Oh, I have a choice now?"

  He bowed his head in answer.

  I made my eyes drop to the phone in my hand. "My choice is to go it alone, as usual."

  "Then you might like to know that there's a secret entrance in this building that leads to an apartment, probably furnished, that the vampire who owned it before Marco resided in."

  Secret entrance? That sounded too much like something out of an episode of Scooby Doo to be true. I glanced up to find that the expression on his face had not changed from the blank look his handsome features often held. He was completely serious. I'd been about to ask why he'd never bothered to tell me about this secret before but decided against it. Aiden obviously played his cards close to his chest. I would remember that.

  Ten minutes later I stood in a bedroom decorated in deep oranges fabrics, bright red accents and exquisite gold fringe. I was alone. I wasn't quite sure how I'd managed to get the vampire to leave. He might have simply wanted to. There hadn't been much more than a nod and a murmured goodbye before he'd walked away. Whatever the reason, I was suspicious of how easy it had been.

  The secret entrance had actually been an entire stone wall that only someone with the strength of ten men, like Aiden, could have hoped to move. I was concerned that it would close while I was inside but the vampire had assured me it wouldn't. Still I'd looked over the ceiling with keen eyes for any evidence that the secret door hadn't been more than a big rock. Nothing was visible but the stain of dust around where the rock had been standing untouched for who knew how long.

  I recalled the story I'd been told upon moving to the city. Marco had been a bad ass in Boston among both the Underground and the...regular ground (I no longer knew what to call the rest of the world and that bothered me). Maiming, killing, and running drugs had been his mainstays. He'd had firepower, literally, to make his point.

  As a cocky young Fire witch, Marco had stormed the brownstone one fateful night and caught Boston's Second unawares. With the help of a few well-aimed fireballs Marco had killed one of the three vampire rulers of Boston, one the three most powerful undead in the entire state. Marco had done it for the reputation it would earn him and for the brownstone itself. That fateful night had started the reign of terror he'd held on the Underground for decades.

  The remembrance of that story made me recall my own history in the city as I slid onto the strange smelling bed. Not long after I'd moved to Boston, with the intention of fully immersing myself into symphony life and taking it easy on my nocturnal activities, I'd run into a far older Marco shaking a helpless girl down in front of me. She'd been the girlfriend of one of his runners. After he'd killed the runner for what he'd deemed betrayal (sampling the wares a little too often), he'd decided she was holding product out on him. The girl couldn't have been more than eighteen and she'd been as human as they came. So I'd killed Marco without compunction to save her.

  I'd forgotten all about the little Underground rule (perk is what everyone else called it) that said if there were no immediate living heirs to an evil bastard's empire, the empire transferred to the evil bastard's killer. That night I'd become to owner of the brownstone, several East Boston buildings, a few cars, and a shit ton of cocaine thanks to the "Rule of Succession". Everything but the brownstone had been donated to charity or destroyed.

  Unfortunately what I'd done to Marco had earned me the name the "Black Death". The tales of him turning into a shrieking bag of oozing blisters had reached far and wide across the Underground. But the descriptions of my appearance were so wildly varied that I was able to keep my identity a secret. It helped that I rarely used the building and that people had forgotten it was one of Marco's residences because he'd long since abandoned it.

  Marco's death had also introduced me to Morrígan. I wasn't sure how to feel about that anymore. I'd known the moment I'd met her that her interest in me wasn't that of the ally she'd purported he
rself to be. No, I knew she wanted something far more from me. And that knowledge had made me avoid her as much as possible.

  I should have tried harder.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  "Your hair is getting long," Andy, the principle clarinetist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, told me as I took a sip from a sweating bottle of spring water that spelled naive backwards.

  "Been too busy to get it cut," I told him dully. My chin nodded toward his narrow chest. "New suit?"

  "Yeah." His thin lips lifted into a broad smile. "My new guy says the old ones are getting...what was the word he used? Shabby? It was probably something with five syllables. He's a prof over at Harvard. You know how those kinds are."

  I didn't but I nodded anyway. "Well, he has good taste."

  His brown eyes scanned over me, clearly judging my appearance. "The severe librarian look actually works on you."

  Was that a backhanded compliment? I couldn't tell for sure. I was wearing my new black blouse and a long black velvet skirt. I assumed he was calling me a severe librarian because the only skin I was showing were my face and hands. Without my good blow dryer and straightening iron I had to resort to pulling my sable hair back into a low ponytail. I wished I'd remembered a nice clip or a pair of hair sticks because it looked rather...shabby.

  "This is the my-apartment-is-flooded look," I told him.

  Andy's face practically exploded in surprise. "Oh my gosh! You lived in that place?" From the look on his face you'd have thought his ten thousand square foot waterfront condo had fallen into the river. I knew it wasn't that he was feeling particularly empathetic for my situation. No, he was ecstatic to have juicy gossip fall into his lap.

  "Yeah," I replied hesitantly.

  He leaned forward as if the subject matter were private. "What happened?"

  I shrugged lightly because it was no big deal. "Water pipe in the wall broke."

  "Where are you staying now?"