by E. A. Copen
“She is a good girl,” Bran said. “Slept all the way home and barely woke when I moved her into her crib.” He scratched his chin. “Are you in the market for a toddler bed instead of that crib? I know where you can get one.”
I shook my head. “We’re afraid she’ll fall.”
“She falls a lot, Mia?”
I shrugged. “Kids are clumsy.”
“I see you are worried.”
“Of course, I’m worried,” I said, sinking into the sofa. Bran sat in the chair opposite me, the breakfast burrito steaming in his hand. “She’s eighteen months now. She should be saying more words. She should be walking better. I keep worrying that maybe this is because of what happened. The ghost sickness.”
“You cured her of the ghost sickness.”
“I did,” I said, nodding. “But no one knows how much damage it did or what the long-term effects of that cure might be on her. What if I didn’t act fast enough? What if I did this to her?”
Bran smiled and reached out to place a hand on my leg. “To be forgiven, we must first let go of our own guilt. You can’t continue to live in the past, not when the present needs you so desperately.” He stood and squeezed my shoulder. “Now, I will take my leave and let you get your rest. If the idiot in there doesn’t listen to you, tell him he will have to answer to me when I get off work.” He placed his hat on his head and headed out the door.
As soon as the door shut behind him, I leaned back and spread out over the sofa, practically melting into it. I don’t think two minutes passed before I was drifting off. My head fell forward and I jerked awake, but something wasn’t right. In fact, a lot wasn’t right.
Sal’s living room was gone, replaced by a dark cavern with deep shadows. Watery light filtered through massive green crystals. The sheer walls of the cavern stretched up a hundred feet into darkness, emeralds and diamonds glittering in them. I sat on a precipice of crystal that sloped down behind me. In front of me, a gap separated me from a mossy knoll upon which sat a throne of polished, white bone.
A man sat on the throne, a man I hadn’t expected to see for another three months. Seamus. His sword was drawn, the blade’s tip resting on the ground and his hands gripping the pommel. His mullet of silver hair coiled down over his shoulder. “For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause.” He raised his golden eyes to behold me, and I suddenly felt naked under his gaze. “Your Shakespeare wrote that. I often ponder your people’s reverence for someone of so little consequence.”
I pushed up off the crystal to stand and fought not to lose my balance. A tumble over the side would send me careening to my death and still leave Seamus’ hands clean. He’d promised not to kill me for a year and a day, but the fall would technically be my fault if it happened, absolving him of any guilt.
“You said a year and a day.” I pointed at him.
“Relax, Judah Black. I’m not here to do battle with you.”
I lowered my arm but didn’t relax. “What is this place? Am I asleep?”
“Sleep has long been the domain of the fae.” Seamus stood and brought his sword with him as he paced. A deep purple cape fluttered behind him. “It is easy enough for us to manipulate. In a sense, yes, your body is asleep, but your mind is here, and I assure you that here is as real as that trailer where your body lies unprotected.” He smirked at me and it made my muscles tense.
I tried not to show how much the whole situation unnerved me by gesturing at him. “Not a Shakespeare fan?”
“Shakespeare’s works are part of the reason my operations have been increasingly more difficult since the debut of that ridiculous play featuring a character with my brother’s name. Oberon is hardly the character Shakespeare would have you humans believe, and yet he is remembered and made more powerful for that memory, and I have been all but forgotten.”
“I knew who you were.” I didn’t mention that the only reason I knew anything about Finvarra was because I’d studied Gaelic languages in college as a linguistics major. You can hardly study a language and a culture without learning some of the old myths.
“Soon, everyone will know Finvarra.” He paced back to his throne, sighed, and sat down, lying the sword on the ground beside him. “But I didn’t call you here for that. You and I have a truce for some time yet. However, I am open to a...renegotiation of our earlier contract.”
“You’re all about making deals, aren’t you, Seamus?” I counted on my fingers. “First Crux, then Marcus, me, now someone else. What is it? BOGO on bad deals week at the fae necromancer emporium?”
Seamus ignored my quip and brushed something invisible from his sleeve. “You are acquainted with one Gideon Reed?”
I tilted my head to the side. What could he possibly want with Reed? “I know the name.”
“Don’t play games with me, Judah Black. You have seen him this very night.”
I took a step forward. A tiny stone tumbled forward and rolled off the edge of the crystal into blackness. I didn’t hear it hit the bottom. “What do you know about Reed? Where is he?”
Seamus regarded me with a bored look. “Your dedication to those who hate you is laudable. Naive, but laudable. Such loyalty is rare indeed.”
“What about Mara?” I pressed. “Is she involved?
Seamus drew his lips into a thin line and narrowed his eyes. “I cannot say anything definitive about her.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t,” he answered quickly. “Not without breaking my word, which I will not do.”
So, he did know something, but there was nothing I could do to get him to spill it. Even if I could have crossed the chasm between us, the only thing that might hurt Seamus would be iron. I couldn’t match him spell for spell. If I so much as tried to whisper a spell, I’d be dead before I got through the first five syllables. Maybe I could back him into a corner and trick him into telling me what he knew. “What do you have on Reed?”
Seamus made a fist and struck the arm of his throne. I flinched at the sound of bone cracking. “Nothing, unfortunately, but I have a use for something he has in his possession. If you were to bring it to me, I could be persuaded to call off my vendetta with you.”
I cracked a smile. “Do you think I’m stupid, Seamus? I’m not making any deals with you, especially with such loose language and not in writing. I know what happened to the last guy who made a deal with you.”
“Crux Continelli is currently learning the consequences of insulting me and mine.” He closed his hand around a skull at the end of the chair arm and squeezed. The bone groaned and then exploded into dust and shards no bigger than an eraser.
I fought a shiver. Whatever Seamus was doing to Crux, I didn’t want to know. “You said you want something Reed has. What is it?”
Seamus sat up straighter and adjusted the upturned collar of his shirt. “Have you heard of the sword known as Claíomh Solais?”
I thought for a moment. The phrase sounded familiar, but it took me a moment to connect the dots. “The sword of light?”
“One of the four treasures of my people, scattered about the mortal realm by Oberon so that no one man may possess them.” He folded his hands. “I believe that Gideon Reed is in possession of none other than this treasure.”
I shook my head. What were the chances of that? Actually, with everything that had happened since I’d come to Paint Rock, the idea of the local pyromancer priest being in possession of a legendary fae blade shouldn’t have been that much of a stretch. But this Oberon guy had scattered the four treasures for a reason. I’d made the mistake once before of stepping in Faerie politics, and it didn’t end well for almost everyone involved. If I jumped in deeper, it would be even worse.
The question was, did I have a choice? I couldn’t fight Seamus and win, not even with three more months of daily practice. He’d had millennia to get good at magick. He’d kill me.
I crossed my arms. “If you want it so bad, why don�
�t you just take it?”
Seamus was silent.
“You can’t, can you?”
“The sword has a long history of choosing its master.” He sighed. “It chooses only those whose intentions are pure. I mean to wage war on my brother. I make no excuses. My quest is for vengeance. Innocents will die. It would not come to me. You, however? It might just judge you worthy.”
I shook my head. Even if it saved my life, I couldn’t hand something that powerful over to Seamus, knowing he meant to kill innocent people with it. “No way. I’d rather fight you myself. Find someone else to do your dirty work.”
Seamus sighed again, his shoulders slumping. He didn’t look disappointed so much as irritated. “Very well.” He stood and turned his back to me.
“Hey, wait. I’ve still got questions. How is Mara involved? Is she safe? What are you going to do? Dammit, Seamus, answer me!”
But he didn’t. He descended stairs behind his throne and disappeared into the blackness below.
Chapter Seven
I woke up with a start and a gasp, bolting forward and almost throwing myself off the sofa and into my fourteen-year-old son, Hunter. He held out his arms as if to catch me and stepped back. “You okay, Mom?”
I checked my head and blinked. A dream? Dreams didn’t normally make that much sense. Mostly, mine were filled with dark, disjointed images and voices. No, it had to have been real, but what did it mean? “Fine.” My voice came out hoarse and strained. I turned my head and saw light outside the window. “Shit, what time is it?”
It was early August, so school hadn’t started back up yet. The lazy dog days of summer were dwindling, but dawn still came early. The brightness could mean it was six or noon, and I’d have no way of telling. Hunter often slept until noon unless I woke him, so I assumed it was later rather than earlier.
Before he even answered me, I was off the sofa and scrambling to turn on the coffee. A whimper down the hall alerted me to yet another problem. If I’d slept in, Mia’s diaper was going to be a nightmare, and there would probably be extra laundry. I pressed the button on the brewer and dashed down the hall to check on Mia. She stood in her crib, grabbing the bars and bouncing up and down on the mattress in a very full diaper. It had yet to leak through to the sheet and blankets, though, so I’d lucked out. I grabbed her and put her on her back on the changing table.
“It’s only eight,” Hunter announced from the doorway. “Your stupid phone alarm was going off every few minutes and woke me up.”
“What phone alarm?” I said, gathering supplies. “My phone went on the fritz last night, so it wasn’t mine.” Mia cried while I changed her as usual, which made it difficult to think. It dawned on me as I closed up Mia’s diaper. “It must’ve been Sal’s phone. Mia’s supposed to have a doctor’s appointment this morning. Shit!”
I dragged myself down the hall, placed Mia in her high chair, and dumped some cereal in front of her. When I went to pour the coffee, I spilled some of it on the counter when I turned, burning myself. Of course, when you burn yourself, you flinch and spill more. The boiling hot coffee scalded the pinky on my right hand, and I wound up dropping the whole cup into the sink with a curse. The burn wasn’t too bad, and I didn’t have time to worry about it. I still had to get Sal up. Doc had said he wanted to see him in the morning, too.
The door to the bedroom creaked when I pushed it open. Sal was still face down in bed where I’d left him, snoozing. Waking a sleeping werewolf, especially an injured one, was more an art than a science. Sometimes, it was better to get a long pole and poke them from across the room. Other times, I was better off setting the alarm for a few minutes in the future and walking away. Sal didn’t like to be woken up either way. Sudden loud noises automatically put him on the defensive, and he’d thrash or strike out at anything unfortunate enough to be in close proximity. He’d broken more than one of my cell phones because it rang when he was asleep.
I walked around to the other side of the bed, my side, and slid in next to him. The movement of the mattress stirred him a little, but he didn’t fully wake, so I put my arm over his back and kissed the top of his ear. His response was a small groan. “Morning, Tanto.”
He lifted his head and tried to roll over, stopping halfway through the motion to clutch his side where the bandage was. “Ugh, how many horses ran me over, Kimosabe?”
“Try sliced open with a magic sword.” I tugged his shirt up to look at the blood-soaked bandage. It would need a change. “The Lone Ranger never had to deal with this kind of crazy shit,” I said, gently touching the edges of the bandage.
He pushed my hand away. “Help me up. I need a piss and a shower. I smell like day-old bloody gym socks.”
“I’m not sure you should get that wet.” I stood and went to the other side of the bed to help Sal up. “It still looks pretty bad.”
“I’m not going anywhere smelling like this. I’ll keep it dry.” He grunted when I pulled him up and helped him steady himself. “How long do I have before Mia’s appointment?”
“About a half-hour. You want me to help you?”
Sal shook his head. He probably needed my help, but his pride was shouting louder than his pain. “Just get the kids ready, will you?”
I smiled and stood on my tiptoes to kiss his chin. “Already on it,” I told him and left him at the bathroom door.
Hunter was chewing on cold pizza at the kitchen table, staring distantly. I ruffled his hair as I walked by, and he jerked away. “What are your plans today, Hunter?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Hang out, I guess.”
“With who?” I stopped in the living room to do a drive-by pick up, tossing a few toys into Mia’s diaper bag.
“People. Whoever.”
I slung the bag over my shoulder. “And do what?”
“Stuff.”
“What kind of stuff, Hunter?”
He rolled his eyes. “We’re going to sit around and drink beers and smoke weed. What is this, Mom? An interrogation? God, do you need to know everything?”
I did my best to keep a neutral expression on my face, even though he probably sensed my surprise at his reaction. Teenage mood swings were one of the hardest parts of being a mom. Hunter’s had gotten a lot worse lately. Maybe if I gave him the space and freedom he seemed to crave, things would get better. They’d go back the way they used to be. I missed those days when he and I could get through a whole conversation without it erupting into accusations and arguments.
“Just be home for dinner, okay, Hunter? And call Sal if you’re going to be late.”
He rolled his eyes again and pushed up from the table. “Whatever,” he growled at me on his way past. A minute later, the door to his room slammed shut, and the sound of his Xbox booting up carried through the house.
I sighed and went to get Mia down from the high chair. She toddled after me down the hall as I went to put a few more diapers and wipes in her bag. After I dressed her, we went back down the hall, my hand in hers and she sat on the living room floor, playing while I went in to change. By the time I came back out of the bedroom, Sal had finished with his shower and stood in the bathroom door in his sweatpants, fiddling with a new bandage. The cut was in an awkward position that he couldn’t quite reach.
“Here,” I said, reaching out to help. “Let me.”
“Thanks.” He ground it out as if thanking me was as painful as the cut.
I smoothed my hands gently over the medical tape and applied another layer.
“So,” Sal said in a tentative tone, “Reed’s the bad guy this time around, huh?”
“If I’m right, being controlled by the bad guy somehow. I don’t know how involved he is.” I grabbed a black t-shirt from the pile of laundry waiting to be put away in the hall and handed it to him.
Sal pulled it on, barely showing any pain as his movements strained the stitches. “And Ed and Mara never stopped seeing each other. That means he lied to me.”
“Can he do that?”
&n
bsp; “He’s not supposed to be able to,” Sal growled. “And I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
“Later,” I said and went out to fetch his shoes and a pair of socks. I tossed them at him and he caught them. Finally, he winced and grabbed at the wound. “Right now, I’m taking you and Mia to Doc’s for your check-ups before I run to work.”
“Open your mouth and say ahh!”
Doc leaned in close to Mia, who sat on my lap in his office on one of those paper-covered beds. The leather on the corners of the bed was cracked and some of the stuffing showed through. Other cracks and scratches had been covered in duct tape. The sink in the corner of the room was a plastic shop sink. He didn’t wear a white doctor’s coat, but instead a short-sleeved plaid button-down and a yellow bow tie with pink brains on it. Other than that, the room held all the trimmings of a typical pediatrician’s office from posters illustrating the importance of vaccines to a station with superhero stickers.
Mia opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, mimicking the noise. Doc Ramis shined a light down her throat. “Great. Now, Mia, I need you to stand up. We’re going to go into the hall and go for a little walk.”
I looked at her father, who stood in silence, leaning his back against the wall, expecting him to go with her. Sal moved to go, but Doc gave a quick shake of his head, the message clear. He wanted to see what she’d do when we weren’t watching.
I helped Mia to the floor, and she took Doc’s outstretched hand. The two of them walked into the hall, leaving the door open behind them.
“What if she falls?” Sal asked, his voice strained. “She’s not used to walking on the type of carpet he has in the hall. Maybe we should have taken her shoes off. She does better without shoes.”
I sighed and turned to stare through the open door. “What you really want to know is what if there is something wrong with her.”
“If there is, I’ll rip Doctor Han’s spine out,” Sal said, followed by a growl.
The feeling was mutual, but killing Doctor Han wouldn’t solve anything. We didn’t know what, if anything, Marcus’ personal physician had done to Mia while she was in Marcus’ custody, but Sal blamed both Han and Marcus for Mia’s delays. It could have just as easily been her mother, Zoe, but I didn’t dare open that can of worms. Sal wasn’t fond of his now-deceased ex-wife, but I wasn’t going to play the jealous girlfriend and use Zoe as the convenient scapegoat. Zoe might have been a monster in the literal sense, but she cared about her daughter.