Bridgette smacked her hand down. “What in the nether are you doing?”
“Worth a shot.” Lorelei shrugged. “But I’m right, aren’t I? You don’t want to kill me at all, do you?”
Her jaw moved around, and she huffed.
“That groundhog lady at your house, she said you don’t have any friends.”
“Um, excuse me, but that’s, like, not helping me not want to blow you up right now.”
“She was wrong,” Lorelei stressed. “You do have one friend. It’s me. And you wouldn’t kill your only friend.”
Bridgette threw her hands in the air, and Lorelei winced, but there was no crackling energy there, no pink glow to shoot out and strangle her. “You really think you’re my friend?” The word sounded as if it had been bitter on her tongue. “You get my boyfriend to break up with me because you want to bang him—”
“—you didn’t even like him—”
“—and you totes embarrassed me doing it, and that got my dad all pissed off at me, and because of all that I had to go to the nether and get him, and—”
“And I saved your ass when I sure as hell didn’t have to,” she said, interrupting her, and Bridgette’s face softened a bit. “You even said it yourself, I should have left you with those faeries if what I supposedly wanted was your boyfriend. Not to mention, I said I was sorry about how that love potion stuff went down even though you’re the one who did the really shitty thing.”
Bridgette’s eyes flashed again at that, and for a second Lorelei feared Betsy Jo and the spirits had been horribly mistaken.
“But I know your dad was making you do it, Bridgette. He made you do a lot of stuff you didn’t want to, didn’t he? That’s why you were drugging yourself right along with Conrad. You didn’t want to do any of this, and you thought Byron might be your way out of it, but it sounds to me like your dad was just trying to sell you off to whichever Rognvaldson has the most power.”
Bridgette was breathing hard, her hands flexing at her sides, her face drawn tight and angry.
“Aren’t you sick of all of them jerking you around? Using you?”
For the briefest second, she nodded.
“This is a mistake. Not yours, but a mistake. Byron’s too dangerous to trust. Whatever he’s said to you—”
Bridgette’s eyes snapped to hers. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It needs to end.”
“So how do we stop it?”
“We can’t,” she answered fast, life back in her face. “We can only get out.”
CHAPTER 37
REUNION
“We can’t run away,” Lorelei hissed, the threat of death a la Bridgette extinguished as she stood at her side. “The others are—”
“They’re in Tibet or whatever.” Bridgette waved beside her head, pacing out into the dim foyer. “I scryed for a reason, to make sure they were actually gone before I told Byron and my father they could come here. The dog probably won’t get caught, he’s got four legs, he should be fast.”
“His name is Grier. And what about Hana?” Lorelei followed her. “And the guests?”
“What about them?” Bridgette threw her hands up. “Byron cast a spell on this place before we came inside and put everyone into a deep sleep.”
She watched the witch go to the front door. “How the hell did he manage that?”
Bridgette looked at her like she was stupid. “Because he’s a monster, and now this place listens to him.” She reached to take the door’s handle but hesitated. “They overheard you at my house, and they knew you had the deed. You’re lucky they let you leave at all, but Byron wanted to…I don’t know, play some kind of game? The point is, the deed is in Byron’s name, my father officiated the paperwork when I brought it back to them, and this place is freaky powerful. Being in here now is like being inside him, and we need to get out of it before he, like, totally melds with the damn thing or whatever.”
“No.” Lorelei pressed her hand against the door to keep her from opening it. “I’m not leaving anyone with that psycho. You’ve apparently been living with him, you must know his weaknesses.”
“That’s the problem: he doesn’t have any,” Bridgette insisted. “That thing, Zyr, is inside him, it recognized me, and it’s had years to get stronger. Estrid was right, we can only run.”
Lorelei bit a lip. “We have to at least find Hana and Grier.”
“Exactly who Byron is hunting? Genius.” She sighed, but pulled her arm back from the door.
At that, something brushed against Lorelei’s bare leg. She almost yelped but saw it was only Aly. She squatted low to the alalynx and grabbed her face, her fur comforting against cold hands. “Did you find her?”
Aly trilled and took off across the foyer.
“Byron doesn’t know where to look,” Lorelei said to Bridgette as she followed, “but we do.”
Lorelei couldn’t tell the time, but if morning were on the horizon, there would have been the familiar sounds of oatmeal bubbling, bacon frying, and a four-armed man wielding multiple knives coming from the kitchen. Instead, it was silent and eerie as they passed as quietly as possible to the door into the back hall. Lorelei listened for footsteps, and her heartbeat quickened, afraid he was already downstairs as Aly shot across the hall and to the basement door.
Bridgette stopped, whining, “You know when you’re trying to escape someplace you don’t go underground, right?”
“We’re not escaping, we’re getting my friends.” Lorelei ran for the door, and Bridgette followed, slipping in and shutting it behind them.
Cool air rose up the stairwell, the phosphorescence of the moss reflected off slick walls, and as they came around the corner to see the underground pond spread out before them, there was Hana sitting on her knees at the water’s edge. A number of orbs bobbed along the surface, dark eyes trained on the girl, wet hair plastered to the tops of their heads. From the bank, a wolf-like dog sat, its ears lying flat, teeth bared, and a growl echoed into the cavern. Aly trotted up and sat right at his side.
“It’s me,” Lorelei called, stepping in. “It’s okay.”
One of the creatures in the water rose up, its face and shoulders exposed but obscured by long, wet strands of black hair. Slick with pond water, its skin shimmered blue-grey. Another followed suit.
Grier stood and transformed back into a man, holding his hand out behind him at the creatures in the water. “Why is she with you?”
Lorelei lowered her voice. “She’s helping.”
Grier’s upper lip curled into a snarl.
Bridgette crossed her arms over her chest, her own lips drawn into an annoyed pout. “They better end up worth it.”
“Aly,”—Lorelei pointed at her—“good job. Stay out of sight and sneak out as soon as you can.” The alalynx ran off into the darkness of the basement.
Hana had not moved, but she was murmuring. Her whispers drifted out over the water, curling around the edges of the cavern and echoing off the walls. In her lap, she was holding Conrad’s flannel, the teacup, hat, and lipstick bundled into the center of it.
“What’s she doing?”
Grier shook his head. “I can’t get her to budge.”
Bridgette uncrossed her arms. “What, like it’s not obvious?” When they just stared back at her, she rolled her eyes. “She’s trying to get them back, like you wanted. I guess I’ll help her if you two are just going to stand there.”
She started forward, but Grier stepped between them, growling. “Don’t touch her.”
Bridgette put her hands up. “Down, boy.”
Lorelei shushed them as his growl rose louder. “Byron’s going to hear you! Listen, Grier, you have to trust that she’s going to help.”
“There’s no way.” He stepped toward her. “Why the hell would she help us? She’s the reason we’re in this mess.”
Lorelei’s stomach turned over. No—she was the reason.
“I want to get the nether out of here,” Bridgette hissed. “If doing this mea
ns we can go, then just let me do it.”
“Grier, please.” Lorelei glanced warily toward the foot of the stairs. “If this will bring them back, we have to try. You don’t have to trust her, but you have to trust me.”
He looked at her as if he had just been whacked in the nose with a rolled-up copy of the Moonlit Shores Seer, then with a disgusted look at Bridgette, backed off.
The witch blew out a long breath, sarcastically muttering something about trust and stupidity as she walked up to the back of Hana. “Hey, girl,” she said, looking her over. “Oh, you almost got it, don’t you?” The pond had a gentle bubble in its very center as if it were simmering, and a dull glow emanated from somewhere in the blackness of its depth. She placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “Let’s show ‘em how it’s done.”
Hana was surrounded in a halo of pink light. It shimmered off the water, and the creatures in it backed away against the edges of the pond. The light grew out toward them, sinking in, and then from the pond’s center a geyser shot up toward the ceiling of the cave, crashing into it with a splash and raining back down.
Fins slapped the surface as the creatures dove down beneath it. They sure weren’t being quiet, and Lorelei eyed the steps again. The water fell still, and Hana sucked in a sharp breath, falling forward onto her hands, slipping out of Bridgette’s grasp.
“Did we get them?” she called, peering into the pool. Bridgette was leaning over her shoulder, and Lorelei and Grier came to either of their sides, waiting silently as the pond fell still.
Then with a splash, a body broke the surface. In the hands of one of the creatures, Ando was hauled up and placed on the shore just in front of Hana, and she choked out a cry of relief. The surface broke again and two more of them were pulling Ren’s larger form up. Then came Ziah, and finally Conrad, all deposited along the narrow shore in a row. Their bodies lay motionless on the bank as the creatures with finned tails and human torsos slithered off of them, wading into the pond’s middle and sinking below so only their dark eyes shone above the surface once again.
The four gasped for air. Weakly, Ren shifted to his side, coughing up water. He had a deep gash across his chest, and one of his arms appeared broken, held limply beside him. Ziah rolled over next to him, and he tried to help ease her up one handed. Ando struggled, his inhale wet and deep as he rolled onto his back and blinked up at Hana’s relieved face.
They’d been gone for hours, and Lorelei had no idea what happened to them in that time, let alone what they’d gone through to be brought back to the manor, but her heart swelled at seeing them all intact. “You did it, Hana.”
The girl nodded, wiping the hair away from her uncle’s eyes. He lifted a feeble hand to her and smiled. Ren and Ziah tentatively got to their knees, but they were weak, arms trembling.
But Conrad hadn’t moved. Lorelei broke away from the rest of them and scrambled over to his body. Falling to her knees beside him, he was completely limp, an arm slung over his chest, head hanging to the side. She grabbed his face in her hands and turned it up to her, the water cold but his skin hot to the touch. She yelled his name, and his eyelids twitched, his chest rising and falling but just barely.
“He used a spell,” Ziah said, voice strained. “There was so much blood.”
When Lorelei pulled a hand from his cheek it was red, but she didn’t know where it was coming from. “What did you do?” she whispered, but he took a deeper breath then, and she knew he was, at the very least, still alive.
Bridgette grunted, and there was a nudge at Lorelei’s back. She already knew without turning what she would see.
Grier shifted back into a wolf, his form bigger than ever as he growled deep in his throat, head bent. Pink crackled in Bridgette’s hands. Lorelei stood and turned from the four on the shore to see Byron at the foot of the stairs carrying something and looking over them all.
The wolf lunged as Lorelei screamed at him to stop. Byron ran a hand along the wall, freeing a line of stone with a red flash, and the blocks flew between the two, slamming into Grier’s leaping form and knocking the dog across the basement cavern so that he skidded on the rough ground with a whimper.
“Attacking your new owner?” Byron made a disapproving sound. “We’ll have to put you down.” With another flick of his wrist, he sent the loose stones up into the air and back down at Grier’s animal form.
“Stop!” Lorelei screamed as Grier cried out again, his wince shifting along with his body back to human on the basement floor.
“Ah, good,” Byron glanced at Bridgette then back to Lorelei. “You saved her for me.”
Lorelei’s breaths were coming fast, peering over at Bridgette, pleading at her with her eyes. The witch looked close to breaking, scared, and the circles under her eyes were visible now even through her makeup. She was getting close to overtoiling herself.
“Saved all of them for me, I see,” he went on, craning his neck to take a look at the bodies at the edge of the water, then he grinned. “Oh, it’s a reunion.”
Conrad groaned, but he didn’t move.
“Would you like to tell him, or should I?” He gestured to his coat pocket, eyeing Lorelei. “It’s mine now. All of it. And all of you. I know it’s short notice, but I think we should conduct some employee evaluations. Ah, ah, sit!” He cast another stone toward Grier who had tried to scramble up to his feet, trapping him under it.
Flickers of light danced at the corner of Lorelei’s eyes as the others attempted to cast. The glows were so weak that some went out immediately with frail cries and curses. Byron cocked his head, perhaps counting them for the first time. “I suppose I should even the field.”
When he lifted the object in his hands, Lorelei could finally see what it was. Her body jerked to go for it, but he was too far from her to catch the urn that had been hidden in the attic before it careened to the stone floor. Crashing into countless pieces of scattered pottery, the binding symbols were broken, and from the dust a shape began to form. Coiled at first, a smoky and gaseous body grew upward until a flat head formed as tall as Byron on a long, narrow body that glittered blue under the pond’s lights.
The serpent struck out before anyone could react, shooting between them and rising just before Hana. Jaws unhinged as its mouth split, and it sunk fangs into her shoulder. Head larger than her own and locked into her flesh, it easily wrenched her away from the others as her cry pierced the cavern. Coiling around her up against the wall, the viper’s eyes shined as they looked to Byron for his next command.
There had been eight of them. Grier was trapped beneath a stone, Hana ensnared in a snake’s jaws, Bridgette’s loyalty questionable and her mind nearly broken, and the others were on the verge of using their own defenses to the point of self destruction. Byron was undoubtedly more powerful than all of them combined in their current state. At their most vulnerable, Lorelei could only hope to have them spared by the strongest being in the room.
“I know what you want,” she said, hands splayed before her.
Byron tipped his head in Hana’s direction. “Yes, I think we all do.”
“No, what you really want. What Zyr wants.” She eyed him, holding his gaze. “It’s not Hana, and it’s not this place. It’s the source.”
Byron’s eyes changed, and he stood taller. There was recognition on his face, but not a flicker of a grin, not satisfaction at hearing the word. This was something else entirely—desire so whole it could ruin.
Darker now, Byron leveled his eyes at her, the green overtaken by swirling black even in the dim light of the basement, and his voice changed, the echo of others hidden behind it. “You couldn’t possibly—”
“I kept you from it before,” she said, voice quavering, knowing she spoke to both Byron and Zyr. “But you can have it now.”
“What are you doing?” Bridgette’s voice hitched, and she raised her hands, the pink crackling as she moved to throw it at him.
But Byron swiped a hand through the air with a red streak, and the wi
tch was thrown to the ground where she crumpled in a ball. “Why now?”
Lorelei reined in her voice. “I’ll give you whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt them.”
He snorted out a laugh. “Pathetic. You’ll give me whatever I want regardless.” Byron glanced at the others, barely writhing on the shore. “If any of you move, Eusha will rip that one to shreds and move on to whoever is closest.” Byron strode past them and right up to Lorelei, his presence overwhelming with so little space between them. When he spoke, she could just barely hear the voices of many echoing off the walls. “Show me.”
The walk down the basement hall was longer than it had ever been. Now under Byron’s control, she couldn’t be sure if the manor was mocking her or not by elongating the hall to the door with the red flame, each step of her bare feet on the stone colder than the last. She kept her eyes forward, his figure propelling her to continue, no looming stake hovering before her throat needed.
“Here?” Byron’s voice was deeper when they reached the subbasement door.
“You tried to pull the source up through the fireplace months ago when I first came here,” she said at a whisper, starting down the stairs and careful not to glance back at him. “I’ve looked at the layout of the manor enough times to know this is directly beneath where I dropped it after pulling it from the flue.”
She could hear him following after, feel his impatience to reach the source, but he was holding back too. The same imposing darkness she’d felt in the alley in Bexley, in the ballroom, in the attic, was emanating through the stairwell, chasing her down.
In the small space at the foot of the stairs, she took a shaking breath, the warmth of the furnace rushing over her bare arms and legs. Her dress was still wet with melted snow, clinging to her body as she went around the table in the room’s center and looked down into the orange flames behind the grate.
“Wait.”
She froze as he rounded the table and came to stand beside her. “I suppose it’s safe if you touch it since you’re human, but tell me one thing first—my brother still doesn’t know, does he? About your little ruse?”
The Wayward Deed (Vacancy Book 2) Page 37