“You don’t think you should attend to it yourself?”
“We’re leaving within the hour, and we’re flying, so the schedule isn’t flexible. We’ll be cutting it close as it is. The plumbing contractor is going to Asheville today, and he’s agreed to drive us there in the back of his van.”
With the Garden Club watching our every move, leaving the safety of Bristol was always a bit complicated. The sanctuary only protected us within the town boundaries, and it would hardly do to broadcast our vulnerability to the Wicks the second we set foot across that line.
Lance sighed. “I know you’ve got to do this, but—”
“There is no but, Lance.” Cooper emerged from the bedroom with our suitcases, his face stormy. “She could die if we don’t do this right now. Do you seriously not get that?”
Lance returned his scowl. They’d been getting along less and less well, ever since Cooper had backed out on Haven. “I’m not insensitive to Verity’s situation. I want this curse broken, too. I want to see her well again.”
“But you’re uncomfortable fighting magical battles without a witch on your side,” I said. “And my friends can’t be here all the time. I understand. Believe me, I want nothing more than to protect the Mount Phearson. I hope this trip will be quick, and I hope it’ll be the last one I have to take for a good long while.”
Maybe ever.
I hated leaving Bristol. It had a poor effect on me, what with the fact that part of my soul was bound there. Outside the town, I wasn’t even a whole person.
Once we broke the curse, Cooper and Arabella could be the ones to go after the East and South seeds, to fight the Wicks. I would stay where I belonged, guarding the seeds we did have, protecting my home from our enemies.
“But for now, we have to go,” I said out loud. “Just try to hold the fort for me a little longer?”
“I’ll do my best,” Lance said. “But in exchange, you see to it that you come back stronger and healthier than you’re leaving.”
“Will do,” I agreed. But did not promise.
That depended entirely on whether I came back at all.
“What time is it?” I asked for the fourth time. Cooper and I sat in a shack at the edge of a field in, as near as I could tell, precisely the middle of nowhere, huddled shivering amongst an assortment of farming and landscaping equipment. The otherwise nondescript stretch of land had the advantage of being adjacent to the Wick compound, and so Phineas had arranged to meet us there.
“Still ten minutes before he gets here,” Cooper said. “Why don’t you take my coat?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re cold—”
“Of course I’m cold.” It came out snappier than I’d intended, and I lightened my tone. “That’s because it’s cold. We’re in Pennsylvania in January.” I smiled and leaned forward to kiss his cheek, still red and raw from the wind despite the fact that we’d been inside for more than ten minutes now. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t, of course. We’d parked at a strip mall two miles away and walked through the snow and wind, which probably wouldn’t have been my favorite thing to do under any circumstances, much less when cursed. But I was so tired of Cooper looking at me like a weak thing he needed to save. Even if I was a weak thing he needed to save.
Luckily, we didn’t need to wait much longer; Phineas arrived five minutes early.
“Any problems on the way up?” he asked, after hugging me and shaking Cooper’s hand.
“No,” we both said at once.
“It was a little concerning, actually,” I added. “We flew more-or-less directly here, rented a car. Not a single sign we were being watched.”
Cooper shook his head, clearly still disturbed by what he refused to believe was good luck, but said nothing.
“That is odd,” Phineas agreed. “I suppose the Garden Club will have alerted the Wicks that you left town, at least.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But we rode down the mountain in the back of a plumber’s van. Nobody seems to have picked up our trail.”
“Well, I guess we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Phineas rubbed his hands together, ready to get down to business. “So, the whole place is surrounded by a wall. There are only three gates in total, the big front one and two others for foot traffic at the south and west sides. The west will be the easiest for us, I think. That whole edge of the property seems designed for summer use—pool and pool house, big outdoor kitchen, that kind of thing.”
“I can’t imagine it ever getting warm enough here to swim,” I grumbled, and Cooper tightened his arm around me, curling me into his chest to help me stop shivering.
“Security patrols?” Cooper asked.
Phineas shook his head. “Not on foot, but there are lots of cameras. I’m going to pop over to the security building to take the guards out of the equation before we go in, and break as much of the equipment as I can.” He looked at me. “You might be able to help with the cameras themselves, too. A lot of them are in trees.”
I nodded. Trees were my specialty. “But how many guards are in this equation, for you to take out of it?”
“Half a dozen. But don’t worry, some of them look pretty lazy.”
“Ha, ha,” I said. “Lazy or not, they’re armed. You shouldn’t take that many on by yourself.”
Phineas gave me his lopsided smile. “I may not be quite as badass as Cooper Blackwood, but I think I can be counted on to disable a few guys who aren’t expecting me.” He took something out of his pocket that looked like an asthma inhaler. “I’ve got a potion in this canister that’ll put them in a trance for four or five hours, give or take.”
“What if someone goes into the security building?” I asked.
“Ah,” said Phineas, pointing at me like a teacher would. “This is why you use the trance instead of knocking them out. They’ll be sitting up, looking like they’re watching the monitors. They should even be good for a little basic conversation. But as far as they’re concerned, it’ll be like they’re sleeping.”
“So it’s like hypnosis,” I said. “That is genius, Phineas!”
“I have my moments. Once they come around they’ll remember me, though, and they’ll know something happened. We need to be gone by then.”
“I don’t suppose you have any more of those?” Cooper asked, eying the inhaler with interest.
“No. This one was enough of a pain in the ass to get. The ingredients are from my world, and they’re hard to come by.” Phineas gave me another sheepish smile. “My father made this one.”
I smiled back. Apart from his particular talents for healing and teleportation, Phineas was notoriously bad with magic, for a phantasm.
The plan in place, we set out for another trudge through the snow, this time around to the west side of the property. I can’t say my joints appreciated it much, and I was moving slowly enough that it took us another half hour to get to the narrow gate in the high brick wall. By then dusk was gathering around us, which I knew would be helpful for hiding, but also meant the air was getting even colder.
We stopped a few feet away from the gate, in the shadow of a chestnut tree. Cooper pointed over the wall, where I could just see the top of a camera in the branches of another chestnut on the other side.
“Maybe we should get that out of the way,” he said. “Just to make sure it doesn’t catch anything before Phineas does his thing.”
I took a small step sideways to get a better angle, and peered at the camera. It looked like it was pointed at the gate. The branch it sat in was sturdy and bare.
Bare now, sure. But in the spring and summer, they must have to trim pretty regularly to keep the lens of that camera clear.
Bet that pisses off the poor tree, being cut into all the time.
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to clear my mind. There was a reason I dragged myself out to that stable every day. My magic, at least, was in good shape.
I reopened my eyes and focused on the t
ree—it was a bit of a challenge, since the wall was blocking most of it, and I could only see a few of its upper branches—and pushed out with my will.
That camera is an invader.
You are harmed on its behalf.
Surely you don’t want it there, violating your branches like that?
It always took longer, in strange places, with trees I didn’t know and that didn’t know me. But I knew almost instantly that this chestnut was different, and that I wouldn’t be able to collaborate with it no matter how long I tried. It wasn’t that it was hostile, but rather that it was absent. There was a silence there that I’d never felt before from a living thing. Or even a non-living thing, like the old stable. Everyplace and everything had some energy to it. But not this tree.
I looked at the others, disconcerted. “I don’t think… I won’t be able to do it.”
Cooper squeezed my hand. “You okay?”
“Yeah, it’s not that. It’s not me. It’s the tree. I can’t explain it.”
“But you’re sure you’re fine?” Cooper pressed. “Don’t be a hero, if you need to turn back, it’s better to—”
“No, I swear, it’s really not me,” I interrupted, then lowered my voice to a whisper. “I mean it, there is something weird about that tree.” Something so weird, it seemed, that even though I’d just judged it to be devoid of all energy, I feared it overhearing me.
“Count on Cillian Wick to have weird trees, I guess,” said Cooper, although he still looked more concerned with me than the chestnut.
“Okay, then we proceed with Plan A, I’d say,” said Phineas. “Wait here.”
He took two steps toward the wall. On the second one, a curtain of air seemed to close behind him, like he was an actor walking backstage, and he was gone.
Cooper chuckled. “How many times have I seen him do that now? And it still kind of freaks me out.”
“He’s going to teach me, once things settle down for us,” I said. “Or at least try. He’s not sure whether I’ll be able to do it or not.”
“Once things settle down, huh? Better be careful. You might be old enough to break a hip by then.”
“I’m old enough to break a hip now,” I muttered, then felt guilty when I saw Cooper’s pained expression, the tightening of his jaw. I might be able to joke about my curse, but he could not.
He blamed himself, unfairly of course. Maybe not for the curse itself, but for not being able to help, for not having found Serena before it got this bad.
It all had to stop. Guilt and pity were poor things to base a relationship on. And the worst possible things to base a sex life on. I got plenty of protective and solicitous touches from him, but none of the less gentlemanly kind. It was as if he was afraid I would break. (Which, in fairness, seemed possible.)
Well, this is likely to end today, one way or another.
As long as he’s right, and Serena is here.
Please, please let him be right.
We stood in silence until Phineas folded back into the air, just inside the gate this time.
“Guards are out,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure the camera system is good and mucked up, too. Lyd’s brother-in-law gave me a flash drive to stick into the system and it did something, anyway, and then all the monitors went black.” He tossed a heavily laden keyring through the bars to Cooper. “Hopefully the right one is on there. You’ll have to open the gate yourself.”
Phineas couldn’t touch the gate, or cross an iron barrier at all without an invitation. Luckily for me, being half phantasm only amounted to a sort of allergy to iron instead. I would be able to pass through just fine.
“And then what?” asked Cooper as he started trying keys. “What’s our entry point to the main house?”
“Why the main house?” I asked. “He wouldn’t keep his victims in the same place he sleeps, surely. Not when he’s got all these other buildings to choose from. He’s probably got a whole dedicated prison in this place.”
“Who knows, but we’ve got to start somewhere, and there’s one door to the big house that doesn’t have a camera directed at it,” Phineas said. “I’m assuming that’s Cillian Wick’s private entrance.”
“Makes sense,” Cooper agreed. “I imagine he gets up to things he doesn’t want his whole staff to know about.” He glanced at me. “Like kidnapping and torturing witches, maybe.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” said Phineas. “I suggest we try that first.”
I agreed, mostly because I didn’t know where else to go. And Cillian Wick’s private space did seem like a good place to start prying into his secrets.
Cooper found the right key on his sixth or seventh try. Once inside the wall, I found myself looking at a wide, flat expanse of snow that I assumed was the covered pool, and to the right of that, a squat brick building that must have been the pool house. My view of the rest of the property was blocked by a tall, imposing wall of manicured evergreens straight ahead. The hedge maze. It extended in either direction as far as I could see, but in the fading light I could make out a neat, rectangular entryway.
“We don’t have to actually go through the maze, do we?” I asked.
“We don’t have to, no,” Phineas said. “But we might as well. It’s ornamental. There’s a path pretty much straight through it, and it’ll provide us some cover.”
Cooper closed the gate behind us again, so as not to raise suspicions if someone happened to come that way. But there wasn’t much we could do about our footprints in the snow. At least there were a few tracks through it already, although they looked old.
As we approached the maze, we encountered something else Max had told us about: a young boy, emerging from the entrance to stare wordlessly at us with eyes magnified to enormous, insect-like size by a pair of glasses in red plastic frames.
For a few seconds, we all just stared at each other. Cooper and Phineas were both armed, and able fighters. I had my magic. We were prepared to face security guards and feeders and all manner of attackers. But we weren’t quite prepared to fight a child.
The boy with the red glasses is nice.
Don’t hurt him.
Finally, the boy—he looked to be about seven or eight—pointed at Phineas. “That man has been making himself invisible all day. I think that would be really handy, to be able to go invisible. I wish I could make it so nobody can find me, sometimes.” He blinked at Phineas from behind his thick glasses. “Can you teach me? I don’t have very much money, but I have some really rare Torrential Magic cards. You can get a lot for them online.”
I felt an immediate kinship with the poor kid. I, too, had wanted to be invisible at his age.
Phineas squatted so they were eye to eye and smiled at him. “Sorry, but I can’t actually become invisible. I was teleporting.”
The boy’s eyes got even wider, which I would not have thought possible. “Can you teach me that instead?”
“I’m afraid not,” Phineas said. “It’s only my kind that can do it.”
“You’re not a human?” The boy tilted his head, considering Phineas. “You’re not a feeder, either.”
“No,” Phineas agreed. “Are you a feeder?”
“Yes, of course,” the boy said, then straightened his shoulders and fixed his face in what I supposed was his version of a haughty expression. “I’m Harrier Wick. I’m the young master here.” Then his act fell away, and he grinned. “But everyone calls me Harry, because Harrier is a really stupid name, don’t you think?”
Oh balls, not another bird name. That means this kid is actually…
“Harrier?” Cooper asked, echoing my thoughts. “You’re Cillian’s son?”
I thought we killed all his children.
It seemed not. Harry nodded, and I glanced nervously at Cooper, hoping his instinct to kill anything that bore the name of Wick, or that was in any way connected to Cillian, didn’t extend to children.
But Cooper only looked bewildered as he crouched down beside Phineas. “I thought he onl
y had three kids.”
“I’m from the second wife,” Harry said solemnly. “I’m the heir now. My brothers and sister are all dead.”
“I see,” said Cooper, and how he managed to keep his tone even, when we were the ones responsible for those deaths, was beyond me. “But if you’re the young master here, shouldn’t you be warning someone about intruders on your property?”
“No, I knew you were coming. The witch told me. But it’s a secret. I’m not supposed to warn anybody. I’m supposed to help you instead. Otherwise she’ll curse me until I die.” Harry looked around the men, to examine me where I still stood behind them. “She cursed you.”
I nodded. “Yes, she did. Can you take us to her?”
“Sure, okay.” And with that, Harry turned and entered the maze.
Cooper and Phineas and I looked around at each other, wearing equal expressions of bemusement and skepticism.
The boy with the red glasses is nice.
Yes, but can he be trusted?
On the one hand, following this mercurial creature—a feeder and a Wick, no less—into a maze seemed a bit foolish. But on the other, letting him out of our sight when he knew we were there, trespassing in an attempt to rescue his father’s prisoner, seemed more so.
Without a word to one another, we all came to a decision at the same time, and followed Harry through the hedge.
The maze wasn’t quite as straightforward as Phineas had let on, but it wasn’t so bad that we wouldn’t have been able to find our way without a guide, either. There were fewer turns than I would have expected, and most of the paths ended in dead ends quickly, leaving only one route that made sense.
I was a lot more concerned with how closely the hedge blocked us in, how tall it was, and how silent it was in there, as if we’d stepped into another world, than I was with getting lost.
Witch Bound (Devilborn Book 3) Page 4