Hereditary Curse (The Gatekeeper's Curse Book 2)

by Emma L. Adams

  River gave me a nod of reassurance, and then the smoke of the circle moved in, greyness blanking out the world. Everything went fuzzy. No sign of anyone else.

  “Morgan,” I whispered. “You here?”

  “Yeah.” He came into focus, hovering in the air. He had more experience of this than I did, without a prop. Everything was too blurred for me to figure out where the guild’s limits were. “What’re we meant to be doing, interrogating every ghost that comes our way?”

  “I think the killer was probably half-faerie,” I said. “Like the spirit who attacked us.” Instinctively I called the last half-faerie attacker’s face to mind, reaching out, but my abilities felt muted. I focused harder. I should at least be able to sense Morgan, but I wouldn’t if he wasn’t standing right next to me.

  I shook my head. “It still isn’t working. I can’t project. I don’t think you should be exposed like this either.”

  “I can’t see the killer,” Morgan said. “Necromancers… plenty of those. They have people scouring the whole building. Why send us in, too?”

  “To search outside the building,” I said. “But I can’t. This is a waste of time. Wait, what about Hazel?” I should at least be able to find my sister. I closed my eyes, pushed outwards with my mind, and hit a barrier so solid, my head throbbed. “Ow. I hit something.”

  “Where?”

  I waved a hand around. “I don’t know. My focus is totally shot.”

  “Cause of the book?”

  “Maybe. I can’t focus like I used to. I’m not so sure I can fight, either. But I tried to find Hazel and something hit me.”

  “What—psychically?”

  “I don’t think so. But I’m not one.”

  “Lemme try.” He closed his eyes, his ghostly body flickering at the edges. Then he yelled and fell backwards, writhing on the spot.

  “Morgan!” I grabbed his arm, and my hand passed right through it. Focus… the book… My grip tightened. “Come on. Snap out of it.”

  He groaned. “I can’t. It’s coming—now.”

  I snapped into my body, shouting, “Iron—get the iron.”

  But the necromancers had gone, and the iron band lay discarded on the floor. Cursing, I dived out of the circle, but River got there first, picking the iron up in a gloved hand. He grimaced, threw it to me, and I grabbed Morgan’s arm. As I snapped the iron into place, his body jerked, then his eyes flew open.

  “Where in hell are those necromancers?” I gasped.

  “There was another attack,” River said, removing the glove. “I apologise—I should have been quicker with the iron.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I took in a steadying breath.

  “You’d better not have any psychic sensitives in here,” Morgan said. “Holy fuck. It’s projecting at everyone nearby. I think it’s gonna kill someone.”

  My stomach turned over. “We have to stop it. Can you do what you did last time?”

  He shook his head. “It’s stronger—much stronger. It’d have killed me if I hadn’t been here.”

  I tasted bile in my throat. “Stronger. How can it be stronger? Are the deaths… is it feeding on them, somehow?” Some dark fae gained power from pain and death, and the fetch was definitely a Winter fae, even if it’d come from the Vale. All death faeries were. “Just how many psychic sensitives are there in the city?”

  “Not many,” River said. “Couldn’t you find anything specific?”

  “Hazel.” I swallowed. “I tried to find her, and that’s when we hit some kind of invisible barrier. I couldn’t reach her.”

  “She’s not a psychic sensitive,” Morgan said. “They shouldn’t have reason to go after her. It’s weird that she showed up here today in the first place.”

  “Not really,” I said. “She thought you were being attacked, remember?”

  “Not that. She let herself into the house. I kinda thought you let her in, though things were fuzzy…”

  But she doesn’t have a key.

  “She can’t be affected, right?” I asked River. “I mean, I know she’s a relation. She has necromancer ancestry, like us. You don’t think…” Morgan and I looked at one another.

  “The motherfucker,” Morgan said quietly. “It got her, and now it’s going after the other psychics.”

  “It can’t.” I shook my head. “There’s no way—Hazel is stronger than either of us.”

  “Not against the dead,” Morgan muttered. “She… I know she was acting weird, but I felt kind of out of it this morning, to be honest.”

  “Pretty sure that had nothing to do with Hazel.”

  “That’s just it. I… when I left the house, it stopped. I only had two drinks, I shouldn’t have been that hungover. It’s like the house… I dunno. Like I ran into a spell.”

  “Hazel seemed fine to me.” But why couldn’t I sense her? And what in hell had happened to the book?

  “It shouldn’t have known Hazel was there,” said Morgan. “It shouldn’t have known where to find the psychics either. I possessed it. It’s really not that powerful.”

  “No,” River said. “The fetch sensed you because you were projecting for miles. But it can’t track psychics if they don’t draw attention to themselves.”

  “Just how does it know who they are in the first place?” I asked. “That document—did that faerie show anyone? Is there another traitor?”

  River shook his head. “No. If the information was in that document, nobody saw it aside from the thief, and he passed beyond the gate.”

  “Which gate?” I asked, remembering how he’d evaporated into grey smoke.

  He frowned. “What?”

  “We’ve been played,” I said. “The fetch is in the Vale. What if the ghosts are, too? That shit with the gate might have been a ploy. He might have handed the information over to someone else before he went through.”

  “He couldn’t have done. He was unconscious, and then dead.”

  “Not before he got caught,” said Morgan. “I’ve talked to a lot of people since I joined up here, and I can’t think of any other way the info got out. There’s no record of psychics. But it’s killed at least three of them in the last day, since it came back.”

  “But—even if it’s true that the thief managed to pass on the information before he died, what does that have to do with Hazel?” I said.

  “Nothing,” Morgan said. “Except for her being Gatekeeper, and you…”

  “If it wants me, it can come and face me itself. That’s precisely what I wanted the bastard to do in the first place.”

  I have everything I need, the fetch had said. Technically, the Summer Gatekeeper’s heir was important enough on her own. But she should have been able to stop him. And since when was she vulnerable to the fetch’s psychic influence? No… it must have captured her in some other way. Because it wanted me. And it wanted the book.

  The book, which had shut down, leaving me entirely vulnerable.

  I squeezed my eyes closed, then opened them again. “Do you think she’s still in this realm?”

  “If she hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have been able to trace her at all,” said Morgan. “I can check again, but it sensed me coming.”

  “What are you doing?” demanded the other necromancer, running back into the room. “You’re supposed to be helping track the attackers.”

  “Thanks for running off,” Morgan snapped.

  The necromancer ignored him and turned to me. “Lady Montgomery wants to see you in her office, Ms Lynn.”

  I shook my head. “The fetch has our sister. I’m almost certain of it. But it’s put up some kind of barrier in the spirit realm so we can’t track it. We have to find her.”

  “That was an order.” He seized me by the arm. “You’ve bent our rules enough, the pair of you. You brought this attack on us.”

  River moved towards him, but the necromancer snapped his fingers. Candles lights glowed, and River stopped as though he’d collided with an invisible force. The necromancer hauled m
e from the room, and it took everything I had not to punch him in the face. If Lady Montgomery wasn’t understanding—that was it. Logically, I’d stand more of a chance of tracking Hazel and the fetch with the necromancers at my back. But getting her to understand would take time I couldn’t afford to lose.

  Lady Montgomery stood waiting for me behind her desk in her office.

  “So,” she said. “The Vale.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Which one?”

  “I overheard enough to know you’ve been playing us.”

  She’d eavesdropped on us in Death? Should have known she’d try something like that. But—had I mentioned the book? I couldn’t think clearly. Hazel was missing. And without the book working, I wasn’t sure I could fight my way past the leader of the necromancers.

  “Look, don’t take this personally, but I don’t have time for accusations,” I said. “The fetch is holding my sister hostage right now, and I can’t track her. When Morgan tried to use his psychic abilities to reach her, he ran into the fetch again, and it nearly broke into HQ.”

  “Precisely why I can’t allow you to stay here and put my people in danger. You broke your agreement to serve our cause when you lied.”

  A cold sensation spread through my chest. “I had no choice but to lie. My magic—it’s kind of like a faerie vow.”

  Her mouth thinned and anger flared in her expression. I’d picked the wrong wording.

  “I see. Faerie necromancy… like those criminals.”

  I shook my head. “No. It’s not a crime. My family used the magic I have to defend this realm against the Grey Vale—the part of faerie which overlaps with the spirit realm. The enemy is there, and they have Hazel. Please. I’ll go through more interrogations, jail, whatever, but not until I’m sure Hazel’s alive.”

  The door crashed open as Morgan staggered into the office behind me, having apparently broken free of the other necromancer’s hold.

  “What she said.” He nodded at me. “We’re not leaving Hazel to die.”

  “And how do I know you’re not lying to me?” she asked in a soft, deadly voice. “You both have, on numerous occasions. Not only are neither of you necromancers, you’re the targets of the threats to our guild.”

  “We’re not lying now,” I said. “And if I could have told you the truth—look, this isn’t about what I want. It’s about the safety of everyone in this city, in the world even, and we’re sitting on a ticking bomb.” I might not know the fetch’s goal, but mass murder using faerie magic on the Ley Line would have one hell of a knock-on effect.

  “You’re both forbidden from entering here again for the foreseeable future. Your brother sent out a psychic beacon to our enemies, while you told lies that endangered our people and put lives at risk, and River enabled that.”

  “River had nothing to do with it. Please, let me find my sister.”

  “Not until you tell me the truth. River, come in. I know you’re outside.”

  He walked in. His face was pale and his eyes, when they met mine, shone with remorse mixed with a hint of fear. For me, or the guild? He was bound to them before me, possibly before the Seelie Court, even.

  “Son, when you were summoned to Faerie, we parted on the understanding that you would never let your obligations to the Court outweigh the promises you made to serve our guild.”

  “And I did not,” said River. “The Court has nothing to do with my helping Ilsa. The decision was mine.”

  I shook my head. “He can’t speak of it either. It’s a curse, on my family. And it’s why the fetch wants me. I thought it wanted my brother at first, but it’s me who’s the target. I’m—”

  “Gatekeeper, you said. For which Court?”

  My mouth fell open. She thought I meant I was like Hazel.

  “I’m… part necromancer. That’s not a lie.”

  “Blood isn’t everything,” she said. “You’re clearly not committed to our cause. And if you refuse to tell me what we face—”

  “It’s the fetch, and a bunch of half-faeries,” said Morgan. “I don’t know who’s pulling the strings. They’re beyond Death. In the Vale. The fetch can cross realms, I guess. Thought only Sidhe could do it.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Sidhe. I see how it is. You two, leave the premises immediately. I’ll be having another word with my son.”

  River. “He got dragged into this by accident,” I said warningly. “He’s from Summer, not the Vale—he’s working against the Vale.”

  The necromancer bruiser grabbed my arm again, dragging me to the door, and another grabbed Morgan. There was no point in fighting. I couldn’t rescue Hazel from a jail cell, but River—dammit. Maybe Lady Montgomery would jail even her son if she thought he was a threat to the guild, but rescuing my sister had to come first.

  Outside the guild, necromancers assembled, laying out candles in lines. They’re setting up a spirit barrier. No spirits would be able to enter the guild, good or bad.

  The necromancer let go of me. “I don’t need to tell you that if you’re seen sneaking into the guild again, you’ll both be locked in jail.”

  “I couldn’t give a fuck,” I told him.

  Morgan didn’t say a word until we’d left the guild behind. “Is now a good time to say I stole a bunch of candles?”

  I hugged him. He yelped in surprise, tripping on the edge of his coat.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Seriously. I need to out what’s wrong with the book, so—first, we should find Agnes. Hazel was looking for her in the first place, so maybe Agnes saw her before she was taken. It’s as good a place to start as any.”

  18

  We ran in the direction of the market. The crowd of supernaturals shopping was an overwhelming presence, and I briefly opened the spirit realm to hone in on our target. But I didn’t sense Agnes at all.

  “Can you sense her?” I asked Morgan.

  He shook his head. “She wasn’t actually staying at the market, right? She was just wandering around last time we met.”

  “Yeah, but… damn. Okay. Let’s ask Corwin. He’s the only person we know here.”

  Morgan grunted, digging his hands in his pockets.

  “Something happen between you two last night?” I asked.

  “That’s just it. I don’t remember. I guess I passed out in the living room.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?” I led the way through the crowd to Corwin’s shop.

  He leaned over the stall, looking as tired as Morgan did. “Hey,” he rasped. “Anything I can get you? Glamour spells are half price.”

  “Not today,” I said. “I was wondering—have you seen my sister? You’ve met her, or seen her at the house, right?”

  “Sure,” he said, and my heart skipped. “I saw her here about an hour ago. I think she was heading to the bridge.”

  Crap. We’d wasted too much time.

  “Er, have you seen Agnes today?”

  “No. Thought she left.”

  “Okay. Thanks anyway.”

  Morgan and I left, swiftly walking through the market. “It’s been an hour,” I muttered. “We should track her, but after last time…”

  Morgan scowled. “I’ll track her. If the fetch shows up, you can kill it again.”

  “Not here.” I looked around, at all the innocent people unaware of the potential war about to erupt in the spirit realm. “If you remove the iron, do it in a circle of candles away from the crowds. I don’t like that there’s an invisible barrier in the way, either. I’d consult the book, but—well.”

  “Give it here,” Morgan said in a low voice. “Let me see the book.”

  “What?” I surreptitiously removed it from my pocket after checking nobody was close enough to watch. Not that it looked like a powerful magical object with its cover and pages blank.

  “I got this weird feeling when I touched it the first time,” he explained. “But not now.”

  “Because it’s broken.”

  “Because this isn’t the book. It sur
e looks the same, but a book isn’t hard to fake, is it?”

  “Nobody can have stolen it.” But I flipped the book over, turning its pages. It was identical. Down to the last blank page. Same aged appearance, same size. And… I should know if it wasn’t the same.

  If I could have sensed it at all…

  “I sleep with it under my pillow, Morgan.”

  “Do you remember last night?”

  I shook my head. “No. I crashed early, then woke up when you and Hazel were arguing in the hall.”

  “Because she was already in the house. Without a key.” His mouth turned down at the corners. “I swear someone used a spell on me last night. I was being careful. And if the iron came off—”

  “I thought you were sure it didn’t.”

  “I’m not. It’s all fuzzy. That’s the point. I think someone bewitched us.” He glanced over his shoulder.

  “What—?”

  “I don’t think it was his fault. The fetch marked our house, didn’t it? It might have found some other way to influence him. But there was definitely some sort of spell over the house.”

  I shoved the book back in my pocket. “I didn’t sense anything. I felt off, but that’s probably because of the book. If it was gone, I’d know.”

  All I felt was emptiness, a nagging sensation in the back of my head. I’d put it down to the effects of recent events, but maybe… I looked back towards the market.

  “You seriously think Corwin was under someone else’s control?” I asked. “He’s not a psychic.”

  “No, but maybe Hazel… hell if I know. I dunno if he’ll come out and tell us the truth if he’s the enemy.”

  “All right,” I said. “I still have the shadow spell Agnes gave me. Two of them. And a disguise charm.” We had to make a plan of action, and if Corwin was the only potential link, then he’d better hope he was innocent. I pulled out the spells Agnes had given me, separating one tangled bracelet from another. “Morgan, you take the shadow. Get behind that witch’s stall, have a look around. I have a spare one if necessary. I’m gonna get answers.” I handed him the other spell. “Don’t screw up.”