***
A soft paw roused Lorelei. Aly sat on her knee, head crooked, staring up at her with concern in her big, blue eyes. The atlas was left open on the table as were the stones and the box, all of Bridgette’s things really. The candles were snuffed, but hazy smoke didn’t fill the air—they hadn’t just been put out. Lorelei had a crick in her neck, pain in her upper back, and a buzzing in her head like she’d had too much to drink. Beside her, Grier was passed out, his head flopped over onto her shoulder. Hana was gone, and so was Bridgette.
Mr. Carr still sat stiffly by the fireside, his hands never having left his knees. Gently, she moved Grier off of her as Aly climbed onto his lap and nuzzled his face. “What happened,” she asked the human who had seen it all, picking her stiff body off the ground. “Where did they go?”
Only the low firelight illuminated the space, dancing over the side of Mr. Carr’s face. Wind howled outside, and the manor walls creaked.
“Jordan?” She shook his shoulder, but he didn’t give, his form still and weird. She pulled her hand back, but in staring at him she could see he was still breathing, if shallowly. He wasn’t dead, but the shock, she supposed, had finally settled in.
Grier’s groggy voice came from the couch, calling her name and asking where he was.
She picked Gilded Faery Tales off the floor and placed it back on the side table, needing to make something right. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“The beach,” he said, wiping at his eyes. “We were all there, right?”
“I don’t think so. Do you remember what happened to Bridgette or Hana?”
He shook his head, then his eyes landed on Mr. Carr. “What’s up with the pig?”
“He’s actually not a cop, he’s human,” she sighed, the revelation wearisome in light of everything else. She leaned down to Aly and took her furry face in her hands. “Go find Hana, and make sure she’s all right.” The alalynx gave her a slow blink and then galloped off, wings fluttering.
Lorelei staggered over to the front bay window. The sky would have been black if not for the snow still being whipped around in the glow of the manor’s porch light.
“Human?” Grier stumbled as he stood up, just processing the information about Mr. Carr. “He’s not a magistratus?”
“No, he’s—” Lorelei threw herself against the window when she caught movement on the front porch. It was nearly impossible to see through the snow, but someone, multiple someones, were definitely at the front door. Had they actually done it? Had they brought them back?
She bolted to the foyer from the sitting room, heart pounding, legs aching like she’d been running through water. The foyer was only gently lit, and as she reached it, the front door opened. Three figures entered, two men, one woman, but her smile only lasted a second, woozy vision almost deceiving her.
Lorelei’s mouth went dry, and she staggered backward. “Byron.”
CHAPTER 36
SECOND BEST
Byron Rognvaldson stepped over the threshold into Moonlit Shores Manor. Lorelei’s stomach sank—he wasn’t supposed to be able to do that.
The wind blew in behind him carrying icy snow, the frigid air tearing at Lorelei’s bare arms and legs. Heavy boots took long, slow strides across the hardwood floors as he surveyed the place, candlelight falling over his tall, broad form from the dimmed chandelier above. His face was twisted into a smile, and he took a deep breath before turning his eyes on her.
“Oh, it’s the,”—he snorted—“fae.”
“The wards,” she stammered, knuckles white on the doorway to the sitting room. “How did you…how are you…”
He reached into a pocket and pulled out a single, weathered piece of paper. Lorelei slapped at her chest, but of course it was gone. She shot a look back to the coffee table, the deed, the key, and everything else they’d used to scry, gone.
“So nice to be back home.” Byron waved the paper, and the circular symbol at the bottom glittered with its own light.
The front door swung shut, two other figures stepping in from the porch. Bridgette and her father, Mayor Charles Blackburn, were standing there. The witch wouldn’t look at her, but the mayor had his hands clasped behind his back and a great big grin on under his mustache.
Byron pocketed the deed once more. “It’s too bad my little brother isn’t here to welcome me.”
Lorelei’s mouth went dry as she tried to form words, face aching from the confusion she was holding in it. The wind howled outside, and she shivered like it was blowing right through her.
“Your friend is quite the witch. Not only did she traverse the trow dens to come find me and have the forethought to direct other scrys on me back to that place, but she’s got connections too.”
“Bridgette?” Lorelei tasted bile with the name. “That was your warm vacation?”
Grier came up behind Lorelei, woozy on his feet and holding his head. She threw an arm out to keep him from stepping into the foyer, blocking off his much bigger frame. “What’s going on?” He still sounded half asleep.
“Well, it certainly is nice to see my employees are already up and ready for work before the dawn.” Byron’s eyes shifted over Grier then back to Lorelei, their color so familiar, but the look in them so full of hate.
“No.” She sliced through the air with her hand. “Arista and Seamus own this place, and Conrad—”
Charles Blackburn cleared his throat, reaching into a jacket pocket and flashing the cylinder she’d seen him use before on their business license, the same kind the attorney, Mr. Abara, had. “That’s not at all what the paperwork at city hall says. Or the updated deed.”
“You didn’t…” Lorelei was looking from one man to the other. “You can’t.”
“Can’t I?” Byron cocked his head. “Because I definitely did. And I think you, of all people, couldn’t possibly understand what the rest of us are capable of. Not yet, anyway, though I’d be very pleased to show you.”
Grier growled. “Who is this jerk?”
Lorelei shuffled a step in front of him, not wanting Grier to catch Byron’s ire, already knowing exactly what he was willing to do. “People will find out,” Lorelei threatened. “This won’t work.”
“Won’t it?” Charles grinned at her. “You didn’t even notice a human wandering around right in your own place of business, so why would anyone else notice a simple change in management?” He turned to Bridgette. “Where is our hired hand anyway?”
Without looking at them, Bridgette strode past, flicking her wrists to push them out of the doorway. Lorelei stumbled back into Grier with a flicker of pink across her chest, and the two fell onto the wide ottoman by the front window.
Lorelei tried to stand back up, but her body wouldn’t respond. She tried to open her mouth, but no words came out. Only her heart could race inside the shell that she was suddenly trapped within. Across the sitting room, Mr. Carr finally moved for the first time since Bridgette had walked through the door earlier in the night.
“You!” Mr. Carr lunged out of the chair as if he’d already been mid jump, then he stumbled and righted himself, blinking down at his hands. “How did you…I was frozen solid.” He glanced back up at Bridgette helplessly.
The mayor followed into the sitting room, passing by Lorelei and Grier without a glance. Byron’s heavy footsteps came up to where they were stuck but stopped. He bent down so that he was eye level with Lorelei, face close. A cold hand snaked under her jaw and pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and he grinned. “I’m going to have so much fun with you.”
Then his smile fell away, and he glared at her, dead eyed, for a long, sickening moment. Inside his irises something moved, hundreds of tiny shadows obscuring the green like hands slapping against a glass pane. Her stomach twisted, but she couldn’t even jerk her head away. Finally he slid his hand off of her face, leaving behind a loathsome prickle across her skin, and continued on into the sitting room.
Mr. Carr may have no longer b
een under Bridgette’s holding spell, but he still didn’t move when surrounded by the three, eyes darting from one to the other. “My boy,” said the mayor with all the pride of an entrepreneur presenting his latest invention. “So nice to finally meet.” He took up Mr. Carr’s hand and shook it.
Byron cast a languid glance at him. “This is the human?”
“One who paid an exorbitant amount to be here, yes.” The mayor looked exceptionally pleased.
“And you say he has magic?”
“He’s been administering incremental bits of anti-contrived spark.” Mr. Blackburn gestured to Bridgette. “Thanks to the research my daughter brought back and a little fine tuning we did ourselves. They’ll pay ungodly amounts for this, I guarantee it.”
Research that Bridgette brought back? Of course, she’d actually taken Conrad’s notes, the ones he said he misplaced, and of course her father tried to monetize it all.
“Let’s see then.”
The three stared at Mr. Carr and waited. His face had gone sickly white, but he managed to raise a hand. He snapped, and a weak flicker of something alighted in his burnt palm then went right back out. Mayor Blackburn rocked back on his heels, chest swelling as his mustache twitched with delight.
Byron narrowed his eyes. “That’s it?”
Mayor Blackburn coughed. “Well, for now, yes. But he is human, you wouldn’t believe what he paid. Compared to the cost it was—”
“And that’s what you want to do with this place?” Byron looked around the sitting room. “A haven for human tourists?”
“It’s an adamant mine.” He rubbed his hands together. “And with a bit of a spark in them, no one will know the difference, not even those CSPCH fools who’ve trained themselves to sniff it out. We get to expand the market, but the humans will be forever weaker and so indebted. It’s foolproof.”
Byron tilted his head, looking over Mr. Carr. “And what’s fueling that?”
“Creaturlings.” Mr. Blackburn waved his hand. “The agency sends a new maid anytime I request one. They never even question what happened to the last. Idiotic really, but their loss is our gain.”
Byron looked from Mayor Blackburn to the timid Mr. Carr. “You want to leave, don’t you?”
He nodded, eyes wide with hope for the first time.
Byron clicked his tongue and lifted a finger in the air to draw a symbol. In a shimmery, red light, he outlined a set of shapes that hovered between him and the human. Then he picked up Bridgette’s scrying stone from the coffee table. “Chuck, don’t think me ungrateful for all you’ve done.” Byron sighed, turning over the stone a few times. “But I have to say, this idea of yours is asinine.”
The mayor’s hands fell to his sides, forehead wrinkling.
“Allowing humans into this world will ruin everything. It’s what they do—ruin things. There is so much more we could be doing with these sparks.” With one swift movement, Byron sliced into his own finger with the pointed tip of the crystal.
Mayor Blackburn’s face began to fall behind his mustache as he watched Byron trace over the symbol he’d drawn a second time, this time leaving a trail of blood.
“You might have pulled the sparks out, but everything else was this one’s doing anyway.” He gestured with an elbow to Bridgette who had stepped back from him but froze under his eye. “Clearly, she’s more powerful than you, and your obsession with profit is…well, it’s boring really. Amassing all the gold in every plane is pointless when you couldn’t possibly live long enough to spend it. So, tell me, what use are you anymore?”
Charles Blackburn’s mouth fell open. Why he didn’t move, why he didn’t just run, Lorelei didn’t know, but his eyes were entranced on the symbol suspended before him that Byron had drawn and the blood that now dripped from it.
Byron stuck his thumb in his mouth. “Exactly.” He pushed forward the red symbol and it split in two. Bridgette reacted then, stumbling away, bouncing off the coffee table and falling onto the couch. Pins and needles jabbed into Lorelei’s hands as Bridgette’s composure and hold on her spell was dropping. She wiggled her fingers and could move her head just enough to see Grier’s shoulder jerk.
The mayor simultaneously snapped out of whatever had held him still, throwing his hands up, but before he could move to cast, one of the symbols slammed into his chest, the other into Mr. Carr. Both went rigid as a crimson glow illuminated them, the once-bloody marks seeping in.
Mr. Carr went first, his form squashing up on itself, shrinking with a single, strangled cry until it was turned into nothing but a faint glow that fluttered, almost friendly, to Byron. It landed on his neck and was absorbed with little fanfare.
Charles Blackburn was stronger, it seemed, as he fought against what was happening. His body jerked but did not shrink, something like fire crawling up over his skin. Sparks shot off of him, but he refused to go, ripping his hands through the air and conjuring a green glow that licked back at what was crawling over his arms and torso.
Bridgette sat up with a gasp, watching as her father fell to his knees under the dual spells fighting over his body. Byron simply tipped his head then shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t work on warlocks the same way. Noted.”
He stepped up to the mayor’s kneeling form, still struggling against the spells, and grabbed him by the hair, wrenching his head back. With about as much care as brushing snow off his shoulder, Byron stabbed the pointed end of the scrying stone into the warlock’s neck, and with a guttural cry, Mayor Charles Blackburn went limp, blood spilling down his fine suit. Byron released him, and he fell to the floor with a wet thud.
Byron made a disgusted noise then looked up into the room. “I expect this taken care of before sunup.”
Lorelei’s hands were free, but the rest of her body was still stuck. Grier was able to roll his shoulders beside her. Bridgette struggled, curls limp, skin pale as her spell on them wavered. She had a hand over her mouth, her voice strangled behind it from her spot on the couch. “Daddy?”
Byron stepped between her and her father’s body. “Really? I didn’t think you called him that when he couldn’t hear you. What was it you told me he was? A selfish bastard? Or was it a controlling asshole?” With a dark chuckle, he offered her his hand. “You’re free of him and his uselessness now. You’re welcome.”
Bridgette sat up straight, her eyes falling to the ground as she hesitantly took his hand.
“But you,” he purred, pulling her up off the couch. “You are very special.”
Lorelei had the feeling back in just about all of her. She leaned over to Grier and whispered into his ear, “Go find Hana, and get out of here.”
He looked back at her, mouth open.
“Go.”
Grier hesitated, his eyes darting back to the two by the fire, then he muttered, “Just so you know, you’re my second best friend.”
Grier jumped up, his body transforming into a massive dog as he took off into the foyer, nails scratching against the floor and then skittering on stairs. Bridgette’s head snapped over to them, and she raised an arm, but Byron stopped her, his eyes flicking to the ceiling. “Let him go, I’ve got a more pressing reunion to attend to first, and then I’ll catch the mutt.” Lorelei swallowed under his gaze. “You watch her for me, and play nice.”
Byron took a last look around the sitting room, eyes falling on the sleeping Mr. Ecknees and then the side table. He picked up Gilded Faery Tales with a grin, running a finger over the spine, then swept out of the room into the back hall and left the two women alone.
Lorelei stared at Bridgette, her fingers digging into the cushion under her. Bridgette could stun her again, she’d seen and felt her do it multiple times now. And provided she hadn’t overtoiled, she probably had a whole bag of tricks to make Lorelei suffer. But if she tried to extract a spark? She would get nowhere, not that it would matter that Lorelei’s secret would be out then. Little mattered at that moment, except maybe she could buy the others some time.
Bridgette stepped f
orward, staring her down, not bothering to cast another petrification. The firelight danced behind, casting her face in shadow, little to glean off of it except anger. Lorelei slid a hand behind her for anything she might use as a weapon, wrapping it around something heavy and metal that would hopefully come free when swung. It was her only chance, and she would have to strike at the exact right moment up against a witch.
The silence between the two was filled with wind howling in the blizzard just outside. Lorelei steeled herself and squeezed the makeshift weapon at her back, ready to swing. And then she heard an ominous, southern drawl in her mind: She won’t do it.
Lorelei swallowed, her voice hoarse, limbs still shaking with cold and fear. Her eyes glanced over to Charles Blackburn’s body for just a moment. “I’m really sorry.”
“Shut up.” Bridgette’s eyes narrowed, fists clenched. “I could kill you, you know. He doesn’t want me to, but it would be so easy.”
Lorelei nodded, another shiver running through her. She’ll have a mighty fine chance, and a pretty dang good reason, played over in her head.
The witch’s eyes darted to the side, and she almost looked over her shoulder at the body, but she stopped herself. Then she crossed her arms and huffed, shaking her head. “I’m just trying to think of the best way to do it.”
Lorelei looked around the sitting room, quiet and still. She listened for Byron or Grier, but heard nothing other than the popping fire and the wind. Trust yer gut, hon. “You don’t want to kill me.”
Bridgette scoffed but didn’t move.
Lorelei released the piece of metal she’d been gripping behind her back and instead raised an empty hand, fingers curled in slightly, and waved it before her face. “You want to help me.”
The Wayward Deed (Vacancy Book 2) Page 36