I thought about stopping her but once Phasmoria made up her mind, it was set and there was no calling her back. As the door closed behind her, I picked up my fork and began to eat directly out of the tin. I looked over at Kipa.
“Want some? Grab a fork.”
Kipa stood. “I’ll leave this one to you. I’m going to take Raj for a walk. When we get back, you can tell me what happened to Vixen’s friend.” He left me alone with the pie, calling to Raj, who bounced over to his side so Kipa could put on the leash. We had to harness Raj because he had a tendency to wander off if he saw something interesting, and that wasn’t good for anybody.
After they left, I locked the door and made sure the wards were working. Then I carried the pie into the living room and curled up on the sofa and ate my way through an episode of Finland’s Best Wild Spots—a show that Kipa had downloaded from Zort, a streaming service. He wanted to take me to Finland, but I wanted to bone up first, so I would know what to look for.
The northern lights were incredible, scintillating across the sky. As I watched the show, my tension began to unravel. Maybe I needed some “me” time, or maybe time to give my brain a rest, but the more of the pie I ate, and the more I watched the gorgeous countryside, the more I relaxed.
I had finished two-thirds of the pie before my stomach warned me that maybe I had eaten enough, so I set the tin on the coffee table and stretched out so that I could see the TV. Before I knew it, the voice on the TV grew fainter, and I fell asleep to the soft fall of snowflakes.
* * *
“Raven? Raven? Honey, wake up.” I pried my eyes open to see Kipa staring at me. He swept my hair back and then pressed his lips to my forehead and kissed me.
“Hey love, how are you?” I murmured, shifting as I sat up. I yawned and blinked against the light. Raj was curled up at the bottom of the sofa, right below my feet. He was already snoring.
“Fine. Raj needed a chance to run and work those muscles so I took him to the Field.”
There was an empty lot nearby that we called the Field and we took Raj there to let him run off leash. It wasn’t easy for him to dash out of eyesight there, since the lot was so open, so the entire neighborhood used it as an impromptu dog park. Luckily, people picked up after their pets and we picked up after Raj, and nobody complained.
“How long was I asleep? What time is it?”
“It’s almost nine-thirty. When did you go to sleep?”
“Shortly after you left. I must have needed the rest.” I had been out for close to three hours. My stomach rumbled. “I’m hungry. Apparently the pie didn’t give me much to work on.”
“Emotional shock can wreak havoc on the body—it can use up so much energy.” Kipa slid in beside me and draped his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him. “Truthfully, how are you? I know you’re not all right, even if you try to put on a brave face.”
I stared at the TV, which was showing reruns of Golden Girls. Raj had discovered the show recently and he was in love with it, always begging for cheesecake so he could eat “with the girls.” I was grateful he hadn’t discovered that more than one channel ran reruns of it.
One thing I had discovered about being with Kipa—I couldn’t lie to him. He saw through my attempts to keep him from worrying, saw through my “I’m okays” when I wasn’t. Licking my lips, I assessed how okay I actually was. I hadn’t wanted to face the feelings, but my Elven therapist would trip me up on that next time I saw him. I had gone down to one session a month, but that session was like gold for me.
“How am I? I’m hurt, and I’m angry. And weirdly, embarrassed. My father, who was my rock all through the years, up and disowned me. If he hadn’t gone back to Scotland to live with his father, he wouldn’t have done that. I know Curikan, he loves humans. He loves people, and now he’s siding with the Ante-Fae? Against someone who would have most likely killed my friend. He met Ember and he really liked her. Now…”
“Now, he’s suddenly done a 180?”
“Yeah. He’s a hypocrite. Why would he do this to me? Curikan always talked about how rigid his father was, and how he left Scotland when he was very young because he couldn’t stand how oppressive his life was. And yet, he goes back there—”
“I’m not making any excuses for him,” Kipa said, “but you and your mother engineered his move.”
I glared at him. “I know. We did what we thought would be the best chance to save his life. You know as well as I do that moving to Annwn alone would have been the death of him. My father’s not prepared to survive in a forest like Y’Bain. He would have been killed.”
“I understand. I do. But did you ever think he may be playing along with his father to avoid something worse?” Kipa pulled me so that I was sitting across his lap.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I’m not certain, but it keeps needling the back of my brain that maybe there’s more going on than you know.”
I ran my fingers through Kipa’s hair. He was so incredibly handsome that he took my breath away. His hair was long, trailing down his back, and it was a deep brown. His eyes matched his hair and neatly trimmed beard. He had a dolphin-bite piercing on his lower lip, and his skin was a rich, warm golden color. He was swarthy and sexy. Even in his wolf form, he was gorgeous.
“You’re trying my patience,” I whispered. “But I forgive you. You asked how I was—I’m hurt by my father’s actions, pissed at the Banra-Sheagh’s decree, and embarrassed that I was dragged before her for such a petty charge.”
“You should contact Sejun and ask for an appointment,” Kipa said, tracing my cheek with his finger. Sejun was my Elven therapist.
“You may be right,” I answered. My body was tired, but his touch set me on fire. I shifted so I was sitting right over his cock, which was growing harder with every moment we sat there. I could feel his arousal through his jeans and my skirts, which meant he was really turned on. And without my mother there, I thought that maybe the best remedy to my angst would be sex. It was a good way to get emotions out. “Listen, my mother’s gone…”
“You sure?” Kipa said, immediately picking up on what I was asking.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I wrapped my arms around his neck as he stood, picking me up. “Raj needs to watch TV and eat his snacks while Raven and Kipa go play games in the bedroom.”
Raj knew very well that when Kipa and I were “playing games” he wasn’t to bother us. I wasn’t sure how much Raj understood about sex among humanoids—he’d never expressed any urges to find a mate of his own, at least not that I could see. I had no clue when gargoyles entered puberty, but it was actually something I should look into, now that the thought came to mind.
“There’s a Golden Girls marathon on. Raj is going to watch until he falls asleep,” Raj said, opening one eye.
“Okay, that sounds like fun for Raj.”
As Kipa carried me down the hall, Raj immersed himself in the exploits of Blanche, Dorothy, Sophia, and Rose. I leaned against Kipa’s chest, my pain and my desire blending into a mix that only my Wolf God could satisfy.
* * *
I was deep asleep, totally satiated and feeling much less angry, when something startled me awake. I sat up. Had I heard a noise? Sensed a movement? Had Raj knocked something over and broken it? Unsure of what was going on, I slipped out of bed and pulled on my robe.
Kipa was breathing deeply, snoring in that stop-start sort of way. I debated waking him, but the wards hadn’t gone off, so it couldn’t be one of the Dragonni, or Pandora. They were set to announce the arrival of any unwanted visitor who tried to break in.
Still, wariness was a good idea and I cautiously opened the bedroom door, peeking out as I flipped on the hall light switch. But no one was there. I peeked in on the ferrets but they were all snuggled up, asleep, so I padded down the hallway, my feet freezing on the hardwood floors. It was cold outside and—as I entered the living room—I saw through the window that it was still snowing heavily.
I gla
nced around for Raj. He was asleep in his cushioned bed, and I saw that he had flipped on the heating pad. It was low wattage, but it helped Raj whenever he got cold, and he could turn it on and off by himself. Seeing nothing afoot, I peeked in the kitchen.
Nothing out of place.
I decided that it must have been a dream and turned to head back to bed when a sudden noise echoed through the hall and something grabbed me around the throat. I couldn’t see what had hold of me, but whatever it was, it was squeezing my windpipe. I reached up, flailing to try to pry it off of me, but there was nothing for me to grab hold of. At that moment, Raj woke up, leaping out of his bed.
“What’s hurting Raven—no! Bat monster no hurt Raven!” The next thing I knew, his eyes turned red in a way that I had only ever seen one time before. He shot a beam of light, aiming directly at me. The next moment, the chokehold eased up and then, something shifted and I could breathe. Raj relaxed.
At that moment, Kipa came racing down the hall, looking confused and concerned. “What happened? What’s going on?”
I gasped in a shaky breath, rubbing my throat. It felt raw and sore.
“What—your neck is bruised, all the way around it. Are you all right?” Kipa gathered me up and carried me over to the sofa.
“Some monster tried to hurt Raven. Raj stopped the monster.” Raj yawned. “Raj tired now. Very tired.” He was heading over to his bed.
“Raj, come over here a moment, please,” I said, clearing my throat as best I could. “Raven thanks Raj so much—Raj saved Raven’s life.”
Raj leaned against me, looking sleepy and ready to go back to sleep. “Raj loves Raven.”
“Raven loves Raj, too. Can Raj tell Raven what the creature looked like? Raven couldn’t see it.” I was puzzled. I could usually see spirits, and that something got past the wards was troubling.
“Big bat had a long curling tail with a heart-shaped tip on the end. Horns on its head. It was a purple-red color,” Raj said.
“And Raj could see it?”
“Yes, Raj could see it.” He paused, then, looking confused. “Wait—what is Raven talking about? Raj is tired.”
“We’re talking about the monster that Raj saved Raven from,” I said.
He yawned again. “Raj doesn’t remember a monster. Raj needs to sleep,” he mumbled.
“Go ahead, then.” I watched as he walked over to tumble into his bed. Immediately, he started to snore. This had happened the last time too. He had forgotten what had happened—and to this day he had never mentioned the laser-beam eyes, and when I had asked him about them, he denied having any such memory.
I turned to Kipa and lowered my voice. “He won’t remember this tomorrow. This happened once before. He saved the day and hasn’t a clue about it. I’m not that conversant about gargoyle powers, but until now, I thought that might have been a fluke. Now, though…”
“You didn’t see what attacked you?”
“No, and the scary part is that the wards didn’t catch it,” I said. “I must have tuned into it during my sleep because when I woke up, I knew something was off. I didn’t expect anything like that, though, because the wards didn’t go off.”
“They’re set to someone physically breaking into your house. The creature was probably on the astral plane. You need to rework those wards so that they alert us to anything coming in from other planes as well.” Kipa examined my neck. “I don’t think anything is broken, but that’s one hell of a bruise, and it could have crushed your windpipe. If it does look like Raj described, it probably had its tail wrapped around your neck. Don’t you have some sort of grimoire?”
“Yes, actually, I have a copy of Beltan’s Bestiary. Come on, it’s in my office.” As I made certain everything seemed normal, it occurred to me that Curikan might actually demand the book back, and I decided that I’d better make a copy of it before he had the chance. I left the living room light on as we headed into my office. I was tired and sore, but still in the grips of the adrenaline rush, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep yet.
As we began flipping through the pages of the book, I kept thinking about the creature. If this was a random attack—an attack of opportunity—then it would amount to carelessness on my part. But I couldn’t get past the feeling that there was more to it. And that I suddenly had a target on my back from several different corners.
Chapter Ten
By three a.m. we hadn’t found any mention of the creature so I bookmarked our place in the massive compendium and we went back to bed. Or rather, I went to bed. Kipa insisted on sitting up to keep watch over me.
“I’m a god. I don’t need sleep—not much, anyway.” He sat in the armchair near the bed, his sword across his lap, watching me until I asked him to please quit staring so I could get to sleep. After another ten minutes, I finally fell asleep.
Morning came all too early, but I managed to drag myself out of bed by eight. Still exhausted, I took a long shower, then dressed. I was feeling tired and draggy, and my throat felt like it had been rubbed raw. I decided to go with simple and picked a pair of warm black fishnet leggings, then a mid-thigh sweater dress. I belted it and—feeling as if I were somehow dressed like Peter Pan—I headed to the kitchen. There I found Kipa. He was making breakfast, and he glanced up, smiling at me.
“I’m glad you got some sleep, but you still look tired. You want to go back to bed for a while?” he asked, cracking eggs into a bowl.
“No. I need to tend to the ferrets and I want to—” I paused. I’d been about to say that I wanted to talk to my father about the creature. He was heavily steeped in lore and good about figuring out what different entities were. Sighing, I added, “I’m going to talk to Llew. He might know someone who understands astral entities. That wasn’t a spirit last night, or I would have seen it.”
“Raj still doesn’t remember what he did,” Kipa said.
“That’s another thing. I need to find out more about gargoyles. I know a few things, but this eludes me. That’s twice now he’s saved my ass, the first from Jim Morrison’s whack-assed spirit, and then, whatever this is. And both times, he’s almost immediately forgotten what he did. I don’t know if that’s a common gargoyle trait or if it’s unique to Raj, but I need to find out because if that power ever gets out of hand, I need to know how to deal with it.”
“Go sit down, breakfast will be right up.” Kipa motioned me out of the kitchen and, after giving him a kiss, I returned to the living room and sat down.
Raj was watching TV. It was some game show with a lot of lights and confetti and I suddenly realized that it was in Japanese.
“Why is Raj watching that show?” I asked.
“Raj likes the show because Raj thinks it’s funny,” he said. “The game show host makes hee-lar-eous jokes.”
I stiffened. “Wait a minute…can Raj understand what the host is saying?”
Raj nodded, gaze glued to the TV. “Raj can understand. The words sound funny compared to Raven’s words, but Raj knows what they mean.”
Flabbergasted, I sat back. My gargoyle understood Japanese and had never mentioned it. I guessed he thought it was normal.
“Raven doesn’t understand the host?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at me.
“Raven doesn’t understand the host,” I said softly. Then, crossing to where he was sitting, I picked up the remote. “Raj, can we change the channel for a moment? Raven wants to ask Raj a question.”
“Okay,” Raj said, looking glum.
I quickly changed over to Univision. A soap opera was on and I could pick out pieces here and there. “Can Raj understand what the actors are saying?”
Raj listened for a moment, then bobbed his head. “Raj can understand. He’s angry at her for sleeping with the hot man downstairs.”
I began to flip through channels, finding a Korean station. “What about now? Can Raj understand the man speaking now?”
Once again, Raj listened for a moment. “The man’s talking about money. He w
ants a lot of it.”
I turned back to the game show and handed Raj back the remote. “Raven thanks Raj. Raj can watch his show now.” I gave him a quick hug and headed back to the table, where Kipa was arranging my plate, along with a mega-vat of espresso, chocolate, and milk.
“I’ve already eaten, and so has Raj. Take your time,” he said, sitting down on the opposite side of the table.
The bacon and eggs were hot, the toast smelled all yeasty-buttery good, and the fruit salad looked bright and colorful. My stomach rumbled and I realized how hungry I was, so I dug in. After a few bites, I sat back, setting down my fork on the edge of my plate.
“So, Raj can understand Japanese, Korean, and Spanish,” I said.
“Oh? I knew he could understand Finnish, although his inflection leaves something to be desired,” Kipa said. “But considering he’s a gargoyle and Finnish is one hell of a language to learn—”
“Finnish? You knew he can understand Finnish and didn’t tell me?” I stared at him.
Kipa looked surprised. “I thought you knew!”
“Of course I didn’t know…” I paused, catching myself. “I’m kind of astounded. It appears Raj was born multi-lingual. There’s so much about him that I need to learn. What else can that twerp do?” Shaking my head, I picked up my fork and began to eat again.
“I might be able to help you,” Kipa said. “If you don’t mind a trip to Annwn, we can visit one of my buddies there who has made a career out of studying Crypto species. When do you next work at Llew’s?”
“I’m working Wednesday and Saturday this week, but not today or tomorrow, so I’d love to go.” I had been to Annwn a number of times, but mostly to my therapist’s office, which was at Cernunnos’s palace, Herne’s father and Ember’s soon-to-be father-in-law. I didn’t envy her. Cernunnos was gorgeous, he could be incredibly polite, but he was overwhelming.
Kipa pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Quest to see if she’s home.”
Witching Fire: A Wild Hunt Novel, Book 16 Page 9