Spellsmoke: An Urban Fantasy Novel (A Fistful of Daggers Book 2)

by SM Reine

  No wonder the lost souls in the pits of Hell had screamed as they did.

  That infinity spanned barely seconds. Then there was a granite wall surrounding him, and the fire vanished.

  Lincoln collapsed at Junior’s feet. Through the gnarled toes of the gargoyle, he could see his mother sprawled on the ground beside Sophie. She was clutching her head. Moaning quietly. The magic had vanished from her skin, and Lincoln realized that Junior had broken the circle of power to disrupt the spell.

  He’d stopped Susannah and protected Lincoln.

  “Move,” Lincoln groaned, shoving at Junior’s foot.

  The gargoyle stepped aside.

  Slowly, painfully, Lincoln crawled to his mother. She was sobbing.

  “Kill me,” she said. “Please. I don’t want to go to jail for this.” She clung to his sleeve. “And kill him too.”

  The despair was a frantic, scrabbling thing inside of Lincoln. “I can’t hurt either of you.”

  “We deserve it,” Susannah said. “Do it for the McBrides. Do it for your brother, and for your father’s victims who came back damned as gargoyles.” Junior was still watching in stony silence, emotionless, his wings curled around him.

  If Junior wanted, he could have punched a hole in John’s chest right then and there. He’d shown he had the strength with Mama Cassidy. But that must have been an act of frustration, not anger. Junior didn’t seem to want Susannah killing anyone, either.

  “You can’t see past your own hate,” Lincoln said. His eyes were burning hotter than her magic fire. “You can’t see that revenge just drags out the pain. All this time, you think I should have moved on, when you…”

  Her hand dropped from his. She laid back against the floor, her focus fading. She was dazed from being struck by Junior. “Don’t let them arrest me…”

  Slowly, her eyelids drooped shut.

  The sound of an approaching helicopter echoed through the hospital room. It only took a few minutes for it to touch down outside, and Lincoln spied the bold white letters of the OPA logo printed on its flank.

  Lincoln had stopped the murderer—his mother—but he was still going to have to deal with the OPA again.

  Lincoln couldn’t have been more surprised to see Agent Sparrow jump out of the OPA chopper with a bevy of low-level techs. She was the agent he’d most often seen while claiming bounties in Reno, and she didn’t belong all the way across the country.

  “Where’s Friederling?” Lincoln asked, using a hand on Junior’s wrist to pull himself into a standing position.

  Agent Sparrow laughed. “You’re not important enough to rank a visit from Friederling.” She eyed Junior up and down, foot to horns. “Is that thing as docile as it looks?”

  “He’s not going to hurt anyone,” Lincoln said. EMTs in black scrubs rested a sling on the floor beside Sophie. Lincoln didn’t take his eyes off of them as they transferred her onto it and lifted it between them. “Where are they taking her?”

  “Just to the chopper,” Sparrow said. “We’ve got a healer in there who can lift the hex keeping her asleep. She’ll be right as rain in a moment. Your quaint little village, on the other hand…” She peered through the broken wall, nose wrinkled at the sight of magma dribbling out of the mountain. It was still flowing even though Susannah’s spell was broken. “Yuck. That definitely does not look good.”

  “Aren’t you guys gonna stop it? That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “I’ve filed so many reports with your name on them that I’ve been assigned as your personal agency liaison.” She offered him a business card. It was black, of course. The white lettering identified her as a lieutenant. “I’m here to play cleanup crew for your little…situation. I can’t do anything about a volcano. Ha! Who do you think I am, Queen Elsa? Just gonna freeze the mountain?”

  Lincoln’s stomach churned. “If you can’t stop the volcano, then you’ve gotta get up there for a rescue mission. The sheriff and his men are there. The pack too.”

  “We’ve already been in touch with the werewolves. They’re all fine. The shifters carried the cops to safety. It’s cute you’d ask, though! We’d always save the lives of Rylie Gresham’s family before coming over here to wake up your girlfriend,” Agent Sparrow said.

  He didn’t need the reminder of where he stood on the priority list. He was the son of John Marshall, Grove County’s dirtiest and least secretive secret. He was worth a hell of a lot less than the Alpha. He was less than dirt.

  At least Friederling’s patronizing ‘liaison’ bullshit meant getting Sophie healed.

  “Don’t tell me we have to find a zoo big enough for that thing,” Agent Sparrow said, folding her arms as she took in the enormity of Junior. He’d accidentally stood upright and broken the ceiling in the hospital room. Another OPA agent was currently helping nurses pick pieces of tile off of John Marshall, still unconscious in bed. “I don’t wanna think about the size of the poop scoop we’d need for it.”

  “Don’t touch the gargoyles,” Lincoln said with shocking heat.

  She lifted her hands in surrender. “Thank God for that. How about the old man?” Sparrow checked her clipboard. “John Marshall, your dying dad. Oh. Condolences.”

  “I think he’s gonna be fine now,” Lincoln said. Without his mother’s spell draining him, John Marshall would return to his normal state as a tough, stubborn man who stood at the heart of the community.

  A man who’d exploited his community’s children for years.

  It wasn’t John getting put into cuffs, after all. He just got wheeled into a different room to be put back on an IV, though the doctor told Lincoln that John was already showing signs of recovery.

  Susannah was revived by the healer before they arrested her formally.

  “You should have let me finish him,” she whispered to Lincoln as the agents cast wards over the handcuffs. “And you should have let me escape.”

  “No, Mother,” Lincoln said. “You don’t get away without consequences.”

  “I’m not the one who’s going to pay for this.” Tears dripped down her cheeks, leaving wet spots on her shirt. The agents tried to lead her away, but Susannah dug her heels in. “Lincoln, all my spells are broken. They’ll stop living before sunrise.”

  “Move it, lady,” Agent Sparrow said. “I want to get out of these mountains. I’m allergic to rural America.”

  They pushed his mother into the chopper. Sophie was already sitting up on the edge of the passenger compartment, holding her head in her hands. “Lincoln!” she cried when she spotted him. “Lincoln, gods above—”

  “You all right?” he asked, peering closely at her face. She looked all right. Still a little beat, since the healer had only lifted the sleeping hex, but at least she was alive.

  “I read the file on your father,” Sophie said. “I’m so sorry. He’s the murderer’s target. He hurt people, and—”

  “I know,” he said.

  Her expression crumbled. “I’m so sorry.” She bowed her forehead against his chest, and there was nothing Lincoln would have liked more than to break down on her. To completely lose it and surrender to the denial beating through his veins.

  But he couldn’t.

  His mother’s last words were stuck with him.

  So Lincoln gently lifted Sophie from his chest and said, “I’m gonna have Agent Sparrow drop you with the pack. They’re on the other side of Mount Bain—you’ll be fine there, and you can rest up. I’ll finish up everything here.”

  “With your brother?” She was looking over his shoulder. She recognized Junior.

  Lincoln’s eyes were burning. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It was my mom, Sophie. My mom killed everyone to animate the gargoyles. She tried to kill my dad.”

  “And you stopped her anyway?” Sophie was fingering the cut on her cheek. “She’s your mother. Your family.”

  “I was wrong to ever think that meant anything,” Lincoln said.

  He stepped back long enough to talk to Agent S
parrow. She agreed to take Sophie to the pack, and then got out of there so fast that she practically left behind a cartoon dust cloud in her wake. To be fair, the magma flow had crept down the street, and it was beginning to get hot and smelly in those parts. The grass was shriveling. The helicopter had to be relocated before it melted.

  He only watched until the chopper disappeared into the smoke, taking Sophie to safety and Susannah to her final destination.

  And then he turned back to Junior.

  The gargoyle was kneeling inside the room, staring at the empty bed where John had been until moments earlier. It was still dusted from the broken ceiling. The dirty sheets were piled at the foot of the bed.

  Lincoln sat next to Junior. He barely came up to his elbow.

  “Hey,” he said.

  The gargoyle looked down at him. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Stone was stone. Lincoln wondered if Junior was feeling or thinking anything at all, or if Genesis had turned him into some strange animal that only resembled him superficially.

  He had saved Lincoln for some reason, even though stopping Susannah had meant ending his own life before sunrise.

  Lincoln needed to believe Junior understood what was happening.

  “I only learned about you a couple days ago,” he said, just to speak. Junior was starting to turn white like the other gargoyle atop the caldera. It was creeping up from his feet to seize his knees. “My cousin—our cousin—has a real hankering to find you. Ashley wants to know you. Make you spend time at the Marshall house. Probably feed you terrible potato salad at Thanksgiving. You like potato salad?”

  Wonder of wonders—after a long moment of silence, Junior nodded.

  His arms had grown rigid at his sides. His eyes were closing.

  Lincoln reached into his pocket for the amulet from his mother. “Maybe we could find another witch to help you. Maybe Ashley could… No.” Ashley wasn’t strong enough. She’d never been near powerful enough.

  He didn’t find the gemstone in his pocket anyway. Instead, his fingers brushed against something small and icy.

  The die from Ofelia.

  “Wait,” he said, “wait, don’t fall asleep yet. Just hang on, Junior.” He bounced the die in his palm, so cold that he couldn’t touch it for long. He blew on it for luck. And then he lobbed it across the floor.

  It came up with a single pip.

  The floor opened around the die, as if an enormous eye were opening in the carpet. The icy cube vanished into the black depths as wind gushed out, swirling around the room to toss the blankets off John’s former bed and sweep the candles off the shelves.

  A delicate hand, white-blue as snow on the darkest night of winter, pushed gracefully through the hole. She had long nails painted black with blue stars. Her pinkie had been pierced by a delicate gold ring with a star dangling at its center.

  Another hand joined it, and then she rose from the center of the tear like the stamen at the heart of a blossoming nightflower. Queen Ofelia of the Winter Court tossed her hair back, shaking off the ice that had crystallized on the ends. She stepped onto solid carpet wearing thigh-high boots that looked like transparent yet flexible crystal.

  “I’m surprised you summoned me already. That was a lot sooner than I expected,” Ofelia said with a sly smile, wiping ice off her eyelashes so that her eyes could open. She looked disappointed to see the surrounding wreckage.

  “The gargoyles are fading.” Lincoln stumbled around the hole, offering the amulet to her. It had been in his other pocket. “I had to cut them off from their witch, and they’re fading. You said you’d help me. Can’t you give them life?”

  “Gargoyles? You’ve been a busy boy, Marshall.” She trailed a finger along the edge of his belt, offering him a smile with plump lips that were shiny as an oil slick. Cobwebs framed the edges of her lips and spanned her neck down to her cleavage. Drawing Lincoln’s eyes to her breasts probably wasn’t accidental. He was sure that she’d been hoping he’d use his favor for sex.

  Another time, he’d have loved to see how far the pattern of webs went into her bodice. But right now, even the idea of flirting was wretched.

  “Save them,” he said.

  She stepped carefully around the broken glass and took Junior’s head in her hands. Mist rose between them, spilling from where flesh contacted stone. “Let me see into the patterns of your magic, please,” Ofelia said, bowing her forehead to touch Junior’s.

  He didn’t try to stop her. He barely even moved. He was white everywhere below the ribs, and his knees seemed locked to the floor.

  Magic sparked in Ofelia’s eyes.

  “I can’t give them a life of their own,” she said, “but I can tie them to you.”

  “I’m not a witch,” Lincoln said.

  “No, but you’re strong. You’ve got more power in you than any mortal man I’ve seen before. You wouldn’t need magic to keep them living—just your soul.” She pressed a kiss to Junior’s brow. “Choose fast. You’ve only got moments.”

  The extra power must have come from being a Remnant of Inanna. Ofelia didn’t realize what she was asking. The gargoyles wouldn’t just be bound to Lincoln’s life, but to the soul of the goddess inside of him.

  He wouldn’t be able to get Elise to exorcise him without losing the gargoyles forever.

  The whiteness was crawling over Junior’s breast now. He was as impassive as ever, unable to speak or emote. It was barely Lincoln’s brother at all. And even if he’d had more personality, he was still more or less a total stranger.

  A stranger that his father had made and cast aside.

  “Do it,” Lincoln said.

  Ofelia’s chilly fingers cupped his jaw and brought his head down to hers. She kissed Lincoln.

  She tasted the way that Christmas smelled. Woodsmoke, pine, and spices wafting from hot chocolate. For that first moment, Ofelia was everything cozy and safe about the winter. The closeness to family. A warm flannel blanket of a woman.

  But then power shocked through Lincoln.

  It felt like an icicle lancing into his heart. The silvery hook embedded itself deep within muscle, and a line stretched taut between Lincoln and Junior. He was connected to him as if with an iron cord. Cold, unbreakable, permanent.

  Ofelia kept kissing him. It was a strange contrast between the pain inside of him and the flesh-melting pleasure of holding her curves. She sucked all the warmth from his skin even as his blood caught fire. He was magma within stone. The volcano in winter.

  When she peeled away, she was smiling. Snow glistened on her eyelids.

  “So much power, even I can taste it. You’ll have to let me tap that someday,” Ofelia said. She nipped his bottom lip between her teeth.

  Then she rose from the ground, arms spread as if surrendering herself to the sky. The wind blasted cold over Mortise that night. Ofelia’s cold leeched the heat from the air instantly, and Lincoln could see the ice consuming the road beyond her.

  The entire valley sighed as the magma turned to rock and moisture evaporated. Steam hissed into the night.

  Everything was silent.

  Including Junior.

  Lincoln’s heart leaped into his throat when he put his hand on Junior’s shoulder. He was cold too. He wasn’t moving. “Junior?”

  No. Please…no.

  That cold hook jerked in Lincoln’s chest again, and Junior looked up.

  He made no expression. He showed no sign of recognition. But he had moved, and Lincoln could feel the life streaming between them. To all of them. He had taken his mother’s role in the bond with the gargoyles, and now their lives were locked to his.

  Lincoln didn’t know how to begin to apologize to Junior. He wasn’t sure he owed him one.

  All he could think to say was, “I’m real glad you’re sticking around.”

  Ofelia faced Lincoln again, sexy smile lingering on her lips. The cobweb patterns on her breasts seemed starker, somehow. Threads that were blacker than black plastered over a pair of globes
so cold they could have chilled his Old Fashioned.

  “That’s two favors I did for you now,” she said. “I saved your gargoyles and your city. I think that means you owe me.”

  “I didn’t ask you to save the city,” Lincoln said.

  She trailed her nails up his sideburns, rolled them behind his ear, down the nape of his neck. Shivers erupted down his spine. “The favor I ask of you isn’t going to be bad,” Ofelia said, lifting an eyebrow.

  The queen kissed him again, briefly. She tucked the die into his hand again.

  “I like having you in my debt,” she said. “Call me anytime.”

  Chapter 40

  The lid came off Lincoln’s beer with a snap-hiss, and foam that smelled sweetly of hops slid over his wrist. A dollop splashed to the soil. He brought cold glass to his lips so he wouldn’t lose more. The bottle was dusty, the label cracking under his hand, but even this old beer tasted like ambrosia.

  “Noah,” Lincoln barked, tossing the bottle opener to him.

  The sheriff caught it. He opened his beer too.

  “Tastes like your old jock strap,” Noah said.

  “Still better than your jock strap.”

  Neither of them really meant their laughter. It was a forced sound—an unspoken price of their uneasy detente. They’d decided to get along, and they were gonna get along, come hell or high water.

  Nobody had a choice at this point. Even from the Marshall home, they could hear the choppers circling. Some of them were carrying news teams. Others might be carrying important politicians like Rylie, or even Secretary Friederling. Which meant that Lincoln didn’t want to be anywhere near them.

  Maybe they could have kept the gargoyles to themselves, if that were the only issue. They might have even been able to hide what Susannah had been up to.

  Getting a visit from the unseelie queen was something else completely.

  Someone had snapped a photograph of her from a news chopper. It was good enough to make out the human figure showering ice over the magma flows. Impressive stuff. Splashy.

  Their case had drawn attention from the highest levels of government and the biggest news outlets. Grove County wasn’t going to get away with its small-town scandals unseen. Not anymore. Instead, it had become the focus of an inspirational story: the official alliance between mundane and preternatural locals.