by Martha Carr
The next thing she was aware of after that was the gentle crackle of a fire somewhere close by and a complete lack of heat from it. Cheyenne’s eyelids fluttered open, and it took her a few times of rolling her gaze around the room before she remembered where she was and how she’d gotten there. But I didn’t walk into a living room.
With a sharp breath, she pushed up onto her elbows and groaned at the ache splitting her skull. This has to stop.
The room spun around her until she held still long enough for it to settle again. Swallowing thickly, Cheyenne sat up a lot more cautiously and found herself on a raised pallet covered in thick quilts. On her right, the fire she’d heard crackled in a real hearth—a regular fire, small, with nothing ominous or magical about it. The rest of the room, however, was incredibly dark, even with the smoke going up through the chimney like it was supposed to.
She turned as much as she could to look behind her, searching for the entrance to the room or at least a sign of the entryway where she’d been scanned and knocked unconscious. But the room didn’t have any windows or doors or exits to other parts of the house. If I’m even still in the same house. What the fuck?
When she opened her mouth and took a breath to ask the same question out loud, Inolu’s droning, bored voice beat her to it. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“You know, you don’t sound very surprised.” Cheyenne turned to the wingback armchair in front of the fire. A narrow hand with long, slender fingers reached out and tossed something into the fire, resulting in a loud crack and an instant puff of smoke that quickly disappeared up through the chimney. She blinked and waited for the hand to reappear. It looked like her veins were glowing green. Assuming that’s her.
“I prefer not to show all my cards at once, Miss Summerlin.” The armchair let out a soft creak when the owner of the hand and voice shifted her position.
“Call me Cheyenne. Please.” She closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. “And then you might tell me why your standard security scan knocked me on my ass.”
“You landed on your face, believe it or not,” Inolu drawled. “And the sarcasm I detected in your delivery of the word ‘standard’ leads me to the conclusion that you find it an inaccurate description.”
This lady’s nuts. “Personally, yeah. I think ‘standard’ is defined as harmless and the same for everyone and nothing to worry about. If passing out is the standard for all your clients or whoever, I guess one of us is wrong.”
“In that hypothetical case, Miss Cheyenne, you would be incorrect. But you are not.”
“So that wasn’t standard.”
“No, my security measures are perfectly standard under your definition and mine. You are the abnormality in this scenario.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Excuse me?”
“You’re excused. If you’d like me to break it down even further for you, I will. You misrepresented yourself and your magical state. You failed to make me aware of certain discrepancies on your physical person, and because of that, you went against fucking standard protocol.”
“Are you saying me passing out inside your front door is my fault?” Cheyenne pressed her hands down on the quilt-covered pallet and scooted over to the edge. “Because I didn’t ask to be shocked unconscious by a weird-ass light that was only supposed to last twenty-two point three seconds.”
“Yes. It’s your fault.” Inolu’s long inhale seemed abnormally loud even for both of them being in the same room. “But I’m impressed that you remembered the length of the scan, which would have completed its sequence if it hadn’t found some serious issues in the process.”
Cheyenne stared at the back of the wingback armchair facing the small fire. This was a bad idea. “Yeah, I’m good with numbers and remembering details.”
“Yes. So am I.”
“Great. I think that’s about the only thing we have in common. So I’m gonna go.” Cheyenne pushed herself to her feet and almost fell onto the pallet again when her hip and knee wobbled beneath her. She steadied herself, made sure she wasn’t about to fall over again, and headed to the other side of the dark room opposite the fireplace.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Inolu muttered.
The halfling paused and gritted her teeth. “Great advice. Where’s the door?”
“You won’t find it because it isn’t here. Not now, anyway.”
“Well, bring it back.” Cheyenne turned around to face the armchair and forced her anger back down where she could keep a handle on it. “Right now.”
“No.” The bane-breaker’s hand appeared again and stretched out beside the armchair to hover over a well-polished round side table. A silver coil glinted within those slender fingers, which were streaked with glowing green lines that looked exactly like veins. “First, I’d love to hear your explanation for how you managed to bring an O’gúl activator into this fucking backward world. That’s not a part of our original agreement, of course, but I won’t charge you for it.”
“You took my activator?” Cheyenne stormed toward the outstretched hand over the side table. “You can’t take shit off someone when they’re passed out in your house.”
“But I did.” The silver coil clinked down onto the side table, and Inolu flipped her hand over, spreading her fingers as if they were having a much more casual conversation face to face. “And you scheduled this consultation to talk to me about your little curse problem. As agreed, that’s what we’ll do. You’re not leaving until your consultation is completed, so sit your lying ass back down and let’s begin. Shall we?”
“I didn’t have a chance to lie to you. Your fancy scanner knocked me unconscious first.”
“Lies of omission, Cheyenne. I shouldn’t have to explain to you how that works.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Lots of things. Probably. And the only reason you didn’t walk away from that scan is that my system detected a threat and dealt with it in the most appropriate way.”
Keep it together, Cheyenne. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. If she does anything outright stupid, you can tear her apart then. Just don’t lose it. You came here for Mom. “I think you misinterpreted me as a threat.”
“I did no such thing. It was my algorithm, which admittedly has its own faults. Fewer than either of us, though.”
With a heavy sigh, Cheyenne took two long, swift strides to the round side table and snatched the activator. “Don’t take my shit again, got it?”
She leaned forward to sneak a look at the magical sitting in the chair, but there was no one there.
“Don’t lie to me by leaving out the most relevant information,” Inolu said from the other side of the room, “and then yeah, you have a deal.”
Cheyenne spun and found the bane-breaker draped in an oversized sweater over vertically striped leggings standing on the opposite side of the raised pallet. Her eyes widened as she looked the magical woman over. What is she?
Inolu gave Cheyenne the same deadpan stare the halfling used on everyone else. “Go ahead. Make your useless comments, and then we can get down to business.”
“Nice leggings.”
The other woman cocked her head. “Really? That’s all you have to say?”
“Anything else is none of my business.” Maybe I misjudged her. Easy to do when she apparently doesn’t let anyone look at her. I might not either if all the veins in my body glowed green like that.
Inolu’s short brown bob fluttered around her cheeks when she lightly tossed her head. Round, luminous eyes the same shade of green as the veins racing across every visible inch of her amber-colored skin swept over Cheyenne in return. “Fair enough.”
“Okay.” Cheyenne stuck the activator behind her ear, her eyelids barely fluttering anymore at the pinch of the tech syncing with her magic. Unfortunately, the activator didn’t have anything unusual to show her about this new magical associate. “Let’s have this consultation, then, huh?”
“Yes.” Inolu gestured at a low be
nch in the center of the room. “You can sit wherever you like. I prefer to keep my distance from everyone, so if you’re offended by my four-foot radius of personal space, that’s your problem.”
Cheyenne slowly stepped over to the bench, glancing at it briefly before she sat. “I totally get it. So if we’re on the same page, what’s the ‘most relevant’ information I left out? You didn’t give me a chance to tell you why I’m here. In detail, I mean.”
“It’s not like you insisted on telling me, either.” They stared at each other, then Inolu lowered herself gingerly onto the pallet and folded her hands in her lap. “I want to know if the curse you need help with is the one you carried into my house or something else entirely.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
“What?” Cheyenne snorted. “No. I’m not cursed.”
“Huh. That’s amusing.” Inolu’s green eyes narrowed but shone brightly in the dark room. “The clueless halfling came to the bane-breaker for assistance, but she’s sure she’s not cursed. Should I be paying you for this consultation instead?”
Cheyenne swallowed. “No.”
“That’s what I thought. So spill it.”
She’s gotta have multiple personalities in there or something. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. She talks like at least three different people all wrapped up together. “You know, maybe if you gave me a hint, I’d have a better answer.”
Inolu blinked rapidly. “How would I give you a hint when I’m the one asking the question?”
With a confused frown, Cheyenne shook her head. “I mean, I don’t know what makes you think there is a curse. On me.”
“You really are special, aren’t you?” Inolu held up one open palm, then the other. “Epically brilliant over here, and mind-blowingly stupid over here.”
“Okay, watch it.”
“The fucking holes in your flesh and the poison practically eating you alive.” Inolu flicked her wrist and pointed in quick succession at all three of Cheyenne’s blight-poisoned wounds, one after the other. “Don’t tell me you had no idea they were there.”
“I wasn’t gonna say that.” The halfling turned her head to eye the bane-breaker. “How the hell did you know they’re there?”
Inolu narrowed her eyes and said in a flat, inflectionless voice, “Standard security scan.”
“Right.” Cheyenne gave her a bitter smile. “And your scan thought this poison inside me was a threat to you?”
“No. A threat in general, so it wasn’t wrong.”
Blinking slowly, Cheyenne opened her mouth for one of her usual quips in reply and found she had nothing to say to that. She shrugged instead and waited for the other woman to continue the consultation.
“I guess my question’s already been answered, no thanks to you.”
“Oh. Sure.”
“So now we’ll move on. What is the actual curse for which you chose to seek out my services?”
Cheyenne rubbed her hands down her thighs and leaned forward with a small grimace. Do I have to think about wording this delicately, or is it ‘throw it at the wall and see what sticks?’ “It’s my mom.”
Inolu’s green eyes widened, and the first brief flicker of a smile passed across her lips. “The mom who made L’zar Verdys your father?”
Cheyenne scrunched her nose. “Yeah. That’s kinda how it works.” And if she goes any farther down that rabbit hole, I’m outta here.
“I see.” Inolu lightly bit her lower lip, her gaze flickering around the dark room. Then she barked a laugh and wiped away all traces of amusement two seconds later. “Well, what the hell’s wrong with her?”
“Jesus.” Cheyenne snorted. “I think you have less of a filter than I do.”
“So?”
“So it’s surprising. And refreshing, maybe.”
“Whatever. You’re paying me to help you with this problem, not to be your friend. So answer my question.”
Fighting back a laugh, Cheyenne shook her head and studied the floor. Where do I even fucking start? “Okay, so in the interest of not leaving anything out and getting knocked unconscious by whatever else you might have stashed away in here—”
“Oh, many things, I assure you.”
“Right. I’m gonna tell you everything.”
“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said since you left that excruciatingly awkward voicemail on my incoming messages.”
Cheyenne stared at the tactless magical with glowing green veins and raised her eyebrows. “Wow.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Okay. Is it possible for me to try explaining this to you without you interrupting me?”
Inolu shrugged. “Probably not, but I’m always willing to be proven wrong. It so rarely happens these days.”
“Uh-huh. Well, do your best.” Cheyenne cleared her throat and figured she’d start the story with the new portal ridge that had popped up in her mom’s backyard and had since been destroyed.
By the time she finished laying out the details she thought were remotely relevant, Inolu had drawn her striped-legginged legs up under her on the pallet and crossed them. She grabbed her ankles and leaned forward, hanging on the halfling’s every word with an expression somewhere between bubbling glee and wary caution.
“So I need to figure out how to break the rest of this curse on my mom,” Cheyenne finished. “You know, get her to stop breaking out with new runes burning into her skin. I mean, I know for a fact it’s ridiculously painful, though she won’t say it.”
“Oh, naturally.” Inolu nodded. “Yes, that sounds excruciating.”
“Uh-huh.” Cheyenne raised her eyebrows and forced herself to continue. “And I need to separate her from everything else that’s going on, so she doesn’t get sucked into it like this again. Ambar’ogúl’s not her world. Its problems shouldn’t be hers, either, so whatever I have to do to clear the slate for her, I’m ready to do it.”
Inolu cocked her head. “Clear the slate.”
“Yeah. Keep her safe.”
“Ha! Keep her safe!” The bane-breaker threw her head back and cackled, rocking back on the pallet with a firm grip on her ankles. “You think you need to separate her? Pull her out of the very center of everything.” Her laughter echoed around the room and pierced Cheyenne’s ears at the right frequency of annoying so one of her eyes started twitching. “You’re a fucking idiot!”
“Seriously, I’ve put up with you insulting me since our first conversation. I don’t mind eccentric. I get that. Different strokes for different whatever. But if you call me an idiot one more time, I’m gonna lose it on you, and I don’t want to.”
Inolu’s laughter died into a light chuckle, then she leaned forward and widened her eyes. “Then give me a reason not to.”
Just breathe, Cheyenne. If she knows breaking curses like she knows writing algorithms, this is exactly who you want to help you.
The other woman’s smile faded slowly, and she tilted her head, studying Cheyenne as if she were a strange new species of macabre insect instead of a halfling coming to her as an alleged new client. “I think you already know what the missing piece is, Cheyenne.”
“I really don’t.” Cheyenne shook her head and forced herself to keep breathing evenly. “If I did, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Hmm. You know, I used to be scared of what I knew I understood and thought I didn’t want to.”
“Right.” Cheyenne swept her gaze around the dark, windowless room with no doors. “You’ve obviously made a huge improvement.”
“How about this?” Inolu propped her elbows on her thighs, steepled her fingers, and tapped them against each other over and over. “We’re coming up on what I tend to think of as my private time.”
Cheyenne raised her eyebrows and paused. “Then I will definitely take that reappearing door right now.”
The other woman scoffed. “Don’t be such a prude. I want you to stay. You don’t have a choice, but it feels better to tell you that’s what I want. We’ll ask the
Underman together.” Inolu moved her green-glowing hand in an undulating wave in front of her face, staring at the internal light seeping from her veins through her amber skin. “What do you think about that?”
“I have absolutely no idea, but I do think I should probably go home and come back at a better time.”
Inolu chuckled and shook her head. “You won’t be going home tonight, Cheyenne. That’s impossible.”
“Tonight?”
Inolu grinned and wiggled her eyebrows.
“Okay, whatever you’re trying to pull, it’s not gonna work on me.” Cheyenne pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and snorted in disbelief. “I can come back later today, or maybe tomorrow.” She stopped when she looked down at her phone’s illuminated screen and saw the time. Eight fifty-eight? What the fuck?
Beneath the clock were three unread texts from Ember, all of them asking the same thing. Where was Cheyenne, was she okay, and did Ember need to call in the nightstalker rescue team or not?
Cheyenne cleared her throat. “You could’ve told me I was unconscious for eight hours, Inolu.”
“Ah.” The bane-breaker closed one eye in thought. “Eight hours and fifty-one minutes. Almost fifty-two now.”
“Even better.” Cheyenne unlocked her phone and pulled up her text history with Ember to finally get back to her friend. The minutes changed to 8:59, and her phone that still had over half its battery life blinked off. Nothing but a black screen. She looked at Inolu and pressed her lips tightly together. “I thought you said you don’t take clients or calls after nine or on weekends.”
“Well, you’re already here, aren’t you?” Inolu shrugged, rocking back and forth with her legs crossed and her hands gripped tightly around her ankles. “You’d never make it out before he got here anyway.”