by Lexi George
“No, I’m not okay. That woman who came into the Sweet Shop just now?”
“The buxom wench with the demon dog?”
Cassie nodded. “She bought a repelling charm from me a few weeks ago, and it backfired. I need to ride out to Chez Beck’s and check my spell lines. Make sure they haven’t been affected, too. If some kith were to get drunk and shift, all hell would break loose.”
“Then let us go there forthwith,” said Grim.
They got in the truck again and headed back across the bridge. Grim was silent. With nothing to distract her, Cassie’s brain started to spin again. Where was Duncan? Was he in danger? Was Toby alive? Had Evan been able to sniff him out?
Chez Beck’s was several miles outside of town on the banks of the Devil River, and by the time Cassie pulled into the parking lot and turned off the engine, she was frantic with anxiety and grateful for something to take her mind off her worries. The restaurant was closed until five, and the lot was empty, giving her a clear view of the premises. The front of the building faced the river, and a tree-lined veranda along the waterfront offered al fresco dining. For those who preferred the comfort of the indoors, the restaurant’s full-length windows gave patrons a stunning view of the river. At night, Cassie knew, the place would be ablaze with lights. A huge floating dock with a bandstand was available for party rentals and weddings, and on evenings when things were hopping, music and laughter floated down the river.
“You go on ahead,” she said, turning in the seat to address Verbena. “You know the code to get in?”
“Yessum,” said Verbena. “My room’s downstairs. I’ll grab my things and be back in two shakes.”
“Take your time. What I’ve got to do may take a while.”
Verbena nodded and slipped out of the truck, skimming across the lot toward the building, her feet barely touching the ground. She punched in a code at the door and disappeared inside.
“She is swift, that one,” Grim observed in an admiring tone. “Do the Skinners perchance have dryad blood?”
“The Skinners? I doubt it.” Cassie exited the truck, pausing to grab a short ash staff from the gun rack. “At any rate, Verbena’s not a Skinner. She says Old Charlie wasn’t her dad. She goes by her mother’s maiden name now, Van Pelt.”
Grim climbed out of the truck, walking behind Cassie as she made a circuit around the building, checking her wards. He moved soundlessly and with agile grace for such a big man, but then, she’d yet to meet a Dalvahni klutz.
“Verbena Van Pelt has a musical ring to it,” Grim said. “The Skinners have no claim on her, then?”
“Not a bit of it, but try and tell Joby Ray that. He won’t take no for an answer.”
“Conall says she strengthens the abilities of others. Is this true?”
“Oh, yeah,” Cassie said. “Verbena’s a walking, talking power booster. The Skinners are in a bad way, and they see Verbena as their out. Doesn’t matter what she wants. Never did, according to Verbena.”
“The desperate have nothing to lose, and that makes the Skinners twice as dangerous.”
“Pretty much.” Cassie flashed him a smile. “Which is why you’re stuck babysitting us today.”
She hesitated. Something had been eating at her all day, but in the face of Grim’s raw grief and rage, she’d been reluctant to intrude. She hardly knew this big, forbidding warrior.
Tell him, her inner voice urged. He needs to know.
Cassie cleared her throat. “Um . . . Grim?”
“Yes?”
“I saw Gryff this morning before the demon attack.”
Grim stiffened and his eyes went flat. “What of it?”
Why am I doing this? Cassie thought. This was none of her business. She should let it drop.
“I don’t think he’s with the demons by choice.”
“He chose,” Grim said in a cold, deadly voice. “He chose the enemy over his oath and his duty, over his brothers. He chose the djegrali over me.” He slammed his fist into a pine tree, sending bark and splinters of wood into the air. “He allowed me to wallow in grief and exile and self-loathing for thousands of years. That is what rancors my soul.”
“I saw him,” Cassie persisted. “He’s the walking dead. I know magic, and he’s been bound.”
“No chain devised can hold a Dalvahni warrior, and Gryff has been gone for millennia.”
“I’m not talking about ropes and chains. I’m talking runes and dark spells. Wicked, bad mojo.”
“You are mistaken. The djegrali do not have the power to bind the Dalvahni.”
Okay, she’d tried. This was her cue to change the subject . . . but then her mouth opened of its own accord. “Maybe the djegrali didn’t bind him. Maybe someone else did. Someone more powerful.”
Grim glowered at her. “Such as?”
“I don’t know. Another demon hunter, maybe?”
“You would accuse a Dalvahni warrior of dabbling in the dark arts?”
“That’s what you suspect Gryff of, isn’t it?”
“Gryff is an anomaly.”
“I’m not accusing anyone,” Cassie said, choosing her words with care. “I’m thinking out loud. What about one of the Kirvahni? Could one of them be responsible?”
“Nay, I think not. And to what purpose, I ask you?”
“Greed? Power? Same reason you thought Gryff had gone to the dark side, I guess.” Cassie shrugged. “I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I know what I saw, and I’m telling you, Gryff is under some kind of compulsion.”
Grim’s rigid expression did not relax, but his golden eyes were shadowed with uncertainty. Good. She’d given him something to think about.
Cassie left him to mull it over and walked away from the building to check the spells along the property line. Opening her senses, she started at the northwest corner and continued down to the river, examining the shimmering strands. She hadn’t gone far when Grim joined her, keeping pace with her but maintaining a respectful distance to allow her to work. There were lines of strain around his mouth and eyes, but he made no reference to Gryff, and Cassie did not bring it up again. Sometimes, in her experience, you planted a seed and let it grow.
“All is as it should be?” Grim asked when she’d finished and they were walking back to the building.
“Yeah.” Cassie heaved a sigh of relief. “Everything seems okay.”
“And your magical malady? Know you the cause?”
“Nope, but I’m sure it will pass.”
“I certainly hope so,” said Junior Peterson, the restaurant’s spectral piano player, as he appeared in front of them. Or part of him did. The ghost’s form was snowy and grainy, like an old-timey, vacuum-tube television with bad reception. He nodded at Grim in greeting. “Good to see you again, Grimford. How’s my baby girl?”
“Sassy is well, I thank you, sir.”
“Bring her to the restaurant for dinner one night,” Junior said. “She can hear me play.” He made a face and looked down at his missing bottom half. “That is, if Cassie can fix this . . . this whatever it is.”
“Oh, my goodness.” Cassie gaped at him in shock. “How long has this been going on?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Junior said in his plummy drawl. “I’ve been working other gigs for the past three months and haven’t been here. I show up this morning to practice my piano, and this happens.” He indicated his staticky body. “And that’s not all.” He whistled, and a Dalmatian dog head—and nothing else—came bobbing out of the woods like a friar’s lantern. “Trey’s got it, too.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cassie said, horrified. “Does it hurt?”
“No, but the noise is driving me crazy. Crickets in my ears. Can’t hear myself think, much less play the piano.”
“There must be a glitch in the wards that I missed. I’ll be right back.”
Frazzled and worried, she snatched up her bag and hurried off to run another spell check, then noticed her Dalvahni shadow. “You don’t have to follow me aro
und, you know,” she told Grim. “This will take some time.”
He crossed his arms and gave her a look that was pure Dalvahni. “I will not leave you. I gave Duncan my word.”
“Okay. Knock yourself out.”
“I fail to see how that would be beneficial.”
“I didn’t mean literally. I meant suit yourself.”
“Another inexact expression. Were I to suit myself, I would be with my wife or in pursuit of my knave of a brother.”
Cassie sighed. Grim wasn’t a bad sort, but he lacked Duncan’s sense of humor.
It took her the better part of an hour to find the problem—a banishing charm deeply embedded in the nullifying wards like a computer virus. Cassie was horrified. This was not the way she did things. Something must have distracted her the last time she was here. She pulled her yearly planner, an old-school spiral-bound notebook containing the months of the year, out of her bag. Hannah was hell on electronics, and paper worked best. With a feeling of foreboding, she flipped the pages to the last diagnostic she’d run at Chez Beck’s.
May—the same month she and Sassy had been captured by the witch and very nearly killed.
May—when she’d fled the cabin and the nightmare confrontation with her mother and run smack into Duncan, standing under the oak where Jamie and Maggie, and baby Rose were buried.
Leave me alone, Duncan, she’d shouted at him. Just leave me the hell alone.
Her finger moved through the days of the month to the square marked Chez Beck’s. She’d made her quarterly service call to the restaurant the next day. Good grief, she must have accidentally installed the banishing charm while running the diagnostic. She’d been reeling and upset, and her emotions and her desire to push Duncan away had spilled over, infusing the spell. Junior and Trey were lucky they hadn’t vanished altogether.
She slipped the planner back in her bag. “I think I know what’s wrong.”
“Felicitations. That is half the battle.”
“Amasa Collier used his contrabulator on me. He says my aura is out of balance. Too much gray and brown.”
“And the implication?”
“Magical constipation, misgivings, control issues, and fear of intimacy.” Cassie ticked the list off with her fingers. “In other words, I’m a complete mess.”
Grim looked like a man who’d just glimpsed his grandmother naked. “I see. Know you the cause of this dread infirmity?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
She located the banishing charm and removed it, and she and Grim walked back to the restaurant, where they found Junior chatting up Verbena. The ghost was fully formed and looked remarkably solid, probably because he was standing next to the Enhancer.
“Crickets gone?” Cassie asked Junior.
“Not so much as a chirp. I am much improved, thank you, and so is Trey.”
The Dalmatian pranced up, head, tail, and everything in between visible, confirming Junior’s pronouncement.
“Excellent,” Cassie said, relieved. “We’ll be going now.”
Junior waved and faded from view. A moment later, the sound of piano music drifted from the restaurant.
“Got everything you need?” Cassie asked Verbena.
“Yessum.” She hefted a duffel bag. “I’m set.”
Grim took the bag from Verbena, and the three of them walked back to the Silverado. As Cassie wheeled out of the parking lot, the Dalmatian chased them, barking joyfully, until they turned onto the road. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Cassie saw the dog turn and trot into the woods.
“Where to now?” asked Verbena.
“Home,” Cassie said.
At some point, when things quieted down—if they ever did—she needed to sit down and go through her planner. Compile a list of the homes and businesses she’d visited since May, and call her clients and schedule rechecks. She’d botched a repelling charm and scrambled a couple of ghosts. Lord only knew what else she’d done.
Take poor Nicole, for instance. She was freaking Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand rednecks, and it was Cassie’s fault. She was determined to make it right, for Nicole and each and every one of her customers, if it took her a month of Sundays.
She’d told Grim she’d figured out her problem, and that was the truth. In a word, her problem was Duncan. The image of his hard, muscled body rose in her mind. He’d kept her in a stew for months, and that had made her careless and distracted, but that was in the past. No more denial. No more holding back. Her magical woes were at an end.
Duncan was the cause, but he was also the cure.
Cassie wanted him. There. She’d admitted it, but he wanted her, too, with a force he could barely contain. Big, strong, beautiful Duncan had trembled—trembled—when he’d kissed her this morning. The knowledge was heady.
Soon and very soon, her hedonistic demon sang with an anticipatory shiver of pleasure. Soon you’ll be with Duncan.
But only if he returned to her, safe and sound.
Anxiety squeezed Cassie’s lungs, and her lusty thoughts were drowned in a new tide of dread. What was happening out there? Toby was in trouble because of her, and Duncan and Evan had gone into harm’s way to save him. Because of her. All because of her.
She drove faster, suddenly frantic to reach the house. Why the hell hadn’t she stayed put? She’d done it again. She’d run. What if something had happened to Duncan? The thought sent a shaft of white-hot pain through her.
Still think you’re not emotionally involved? the squeam snickered.
“Shut up,” said Cassie.
Grim turned his head and gave her a reproachful look. “I said nothing.”
“Not you.” Cassie gripped the steering wheel. “I was talking to myself.”
Grim gave her a hard look and returned his gaze to the passing scenery.
The river road was a snarl of pavement winding through thick trees, but the Silverado hugged the familiar curves. Cassie’s nerves wound tighter, the need to reach the house a steady tick in her head like a metronome.
Three more miles to go.
Two.
Her driveway was around the next bend. She spotted her mailbox in the distance and slowed, turning onto her graveled road. The truck bumped down the drive, through the woods, and into the clearing.
Home. Cassie parked in her usual spot and slung her bag over her shoulder. She reached for the door handle and froze. A large, furry face stared back at her through the driver’s side window. Snow white and fluffy as a bunny, the enormous creature regarded her with guileless, pink-rimmed eyes the color of an October sky.
The bigfoot pressed its broad, pink nose to the window. “Dunk?” The deep voice that emanated from the massive chest was the chirping trill of a Siberian cat. “Where Dunk?” The bigfoot’s black lips quivered. “Doggie hurt.”
Raising a shaggy arm, he pointed to a mangled lump of gray fur on the back porch.
“Toby,” Cassie cried.
“Cassie, wait.” Grim made a grab for her as she flung open the door. “The creature could be dangerous.”
Cassie ignored him. Leaping from the truck, she ran for the house.
Chapter Twenty-two
The bluetick bayed in the distance, and Duncan set off through the woods, his eyes scanning the broken ground for hidden pitfalls. Fallen branches thrust bony arms from the thick carpet of leaves on the forest floor, and lichen-spotted boulders were scattered about like a game of knucklebones abandoned by giants. Skirting a downed beech, Duncan churned up a hummock, his ears attuned to the hound’s excited barking. Abruptly, the dog fell silent.
Duncan paused, listening. From the southeast, there came a faint, distressed woofing. He followed the sound and found Evan, fully dressed once more in jeans, boots, and the blue shirt, seated on a shelf of rock in a mossy gorge. Dogwood trees, lacy ferns, and a tangle of frothy vines grew along the embankments. Though it was fall, the leaves had yet to turn and the ravine was a cool, green hollow.
Ne
arby, a rill chuckled noisily over tumbled rocks, but judging from Evan’s morose countenance, he did not enjoy the song. He sat hunched, arms resting on his thighs, his gaze on his feet.
He lifted his head when Duncan came trotting up. “I lost the raft,” he said, his expression surly and out of sorts.
“Raft?”
“Toby’s scent, man,” Evan snapped. “It was in the cave—my nose was full of it. I followed it through that bone yard—what the hell happened back there, anyway? I’ve seen some messed-up shit in my time, but that was majorly janked. Thought I was going to horf. Anyway, I followed it into the woods, but I kept losing it. It was there, faint, but smothered by another scent. Something floral and sweet.” He shook his head. “I’d catch a whiff of Toby and lose it. Then pfft, it was gone.”
“Do not castigate yourself,” Duncan said. “Sugar has Toby. Though he seldom bestirs himself, he can move quite briskly when motivated, and the bloodbath we have witnessed would have overset him mightily. He is a gentle soul.”
“Sugar?”
“The boggy boon. Big hairy man, chuchunya, grass ape. There are sundry names for his kind, too many to recount.” Evan gave him a blank look and Duncan said, “We discussed this with Mac earlier. There is a troop of the creatures hereabout. Sugar was left to die because of his unusual coloring. He is stark white, you see, and obtrusive.”
“You’re telling me a pigment-challenged, lavender-scented bigfoot has Toby?”
“So the shade Meredith Peterson informs me.” Duncan paused, adding with scrupulous honesty, “Though she did not comment on his odor.”
“Meredith’s here?” Evan jerked like he’d been shot with a steel-tipped bolt. “Oh, hell, no.”
“Calm yourself. She has departed,” Duncan said. “And now that we know Sugar has Toby, we can be gone as well.”
Evan got to his feet. “You know I have to ask. How’d you get to be pals with a bigfoot?”
“I happened upon Sugar in the woods some moons past. He was caught in a trap and sorely hurt. I healed his injuries, and we became friends.”
“A demon hunter and his woolly booger. How sweet.” Evan took a step and winced. “Lead the way, but not too fast. I’m tired, and my feet are killing me.”