“Holy sh—Flix, are you okay?” I realized mid-expletive that my best friend was rooted to the spot, his eyes unfocused. I touched his arm, and his head snapped to meet my gaze with a look of anguish.
“He’s trapped in there.”
“Excuse me?”
A quiver ran through Flix. “I could feel his pain, deep down, when you two touched. He remembers belonging to you and wants to again. It's hurting him and the past is slipping away. If it weren’t for you two sharing true love’s kiss, he'd be fine, but he's not. His soul is in such pain.”
It felt like my body had turned to sand, and any second I would disintegrate, fall apart grain by grain until I was nothing but a pile on the floor to be tossed in the wind and swept away.
“You’ve got to figure this thing out quickly, or you’re going to lose him forever.”
We hightailed it out of the store, my sorbet forgotten, and rode back to my place in silence. Flix opened his mouth a few times as if he might speak, but took his cues from me.
“I just need some time alone. I’ll call you later.” I gave Flix a quick peck on the cheek while the engine of his sleek black Jaguar idled quietly in the driveway.
“Okay, Lexi. Whatever you need.” He left with sorrow in his eyes. The experience had left him shaken. I knew the feeling.
“This isn’t something you could have prevented, so don’t beat yourself up. We’ll fix it. We’ll free Kin and take Diana Diamond down a couple of notches in the process. I just need to come up with a plan.” I shooed him away and watched him drive slowly down the block.
Chapter Fourteen
THE ENCOUNTER WITH Kin and Rachel necessitated a head-clearing walk, and if I hadn’t been so caught up in my own thoughts, I might have heard the throaty purr of the Harley coming down the block before it rumbled to a stop beside me.
“Looks like the rumors are true. The once-great Lexi Balefire has been brought down by a man.” Delta pulled off her helmet, killed the motor, and braced both feet on the ground, but stayed seated on the sleek dragon of a machine. It was so big, it seemed like my poor scooter would have almost fit in one of her saddlebags.
Delta’s mocking tone did what nothing else had managed all day and dragged me from the depths of despair to the peak of pissed off in a record nanosecond.
“I thought you went back to Olympus in disgrace.” Bounty hunting for the Gods was serious business, and Delta had experienced a little hiccup on her last job involving a Balefire witch. She’d been incredibly supportive of me, though, and I felt guilty sniping at her just because I was in a foul mood.
“There’s hope for you, yet.” Long and lean, dark and dangerous, Delta didn’t just look bad to the bone, she lived up to the hype. I’d been on the business end of the sword she carried in a scabbard that rested down the length of her spine and stayed concealed beneath her clothes. Had she meant to kill me at the time, I doubt I would have seen much more than the glint of the metal before it pierced my hide. She was that good with her blade.
“Get on.” Delta tossed me the helmet that appeared when she held out a hand, slid forward enough to leave plenty of room for me to climb on behind her, and I hesitated.
“You’re not taking me to...”
“Don’t be daft. Now climb on and let the wind and the open road blow your troubles away, or would you rather just keep trudging down the sidewalk?”
“Well, when you put it like that...” I grabbed the helmet and swung my leg over the seat. I’d barely found the foot pegs when Delta kicked the beast to life, and the powerful throb of the motor set a rhythm my heart tried to match.
Delta maintained a steady, even pace to the edge of the city limits, and then kicked the bike up to a roar as soon as the traffic dwindled enough for an open-throttled run. Even if it was only a temporary reprieve, my spirit soared with a sense of freedom. There was no Kin, no Rachel, no Diana Diamond out here—just the speed and the wind and the feeling of tearing up the miles.
For that time and in that space, the weight on my back lifted and I could breathe again. Given a choice, I would have kept going forever, but all too soon, Delta turned and rocketed back toward Port Harbor and home.
My knees felt wobbly from the constant vibration and the sudden lack of motion when I staggered back onto the pavement in front of my house.
“Got room for another warm body for the night?” Delta asked.
“Maybe. Probably. Things are in a state of flux around the house these days.” Fracking chaos was closer to the truth, so I led the way onto the front porch. I settled with her on the swing, shoved all thoughts of my broken heart deep into my subconscious, and described the daily evolution and devolution of my home.
“The faeries keep building these elaborate additions for the elder witches,” Gran would have a canary with a cotton tail if she heard me call her an elder witch, “who don’t seem all that interested, so the next incarnation is meant to top the last. Something’s up with that, and I don’t have the energy to try and find out what’s going on. It feels like a game of tug of war with me being the flag tied onto the middle of the rope.”
Using my toe, I nudged the swing into soothing motion.
“Never a dull moment, eh?”
“You ever planning to tell me why you’re back?” I assumed her next mission had something to do with me. Everything does. Okay, that sounded really conceited. I only meant that my life has become a magnet for epic nuttiness, and I assumed Delta had been sent to sort me out. “Am I in trouble with—you know, I’m not sure how things work where you’re from. Is there a committee? Or a hierarchy? Am I supposed to report to someone? Do you know where my dad is?”
Delta turned sideways, curled one leg under her, and said, “Whoa. Slow down. No one sent me, okay. You called me here.”
The bald statement surprised me so much I stopped pushing the swing.
“I did? I don’t remember calling you. How does that work exactly?”
She laid a hand on my arm.
“Look, give me a soft bed for a night or two, let those godmothers of yours feed me a generous helping of whatever it is I can smell through that door, and I’ll tell you a story.”
A guest would put the faeries on their best manners.
“As long as you know what you’re getting into and go willingly, I’d enjoy the company.” It surprised me how much. Without noticing, I’d become something of a social recluse since the day Kin came back to town with his new hussy.
It turned out neither of us had known what Delta was getting into. We figured it out, though, right about the time we glanced through the sliding door in the kitchen and saw a set of turrets complete with pastel pennants rippling in the breeze.
“Boy, when you people build onto a house, you really take it to the next level," she said.
“I told you. Didn’t I tell you?”
Torn between the desire to clap my hand over my eyes and pretend I did not see the castle in my backyard or to go do something about it, I wasn’t sure if I had the fortitude for either course of action. Under my adult facade, a remnant of Lexi, aged six, clapped and danced for joy. Demanded we go live out every girl’s wildest fantasies and see if there was a room for us with a four-poster bed draped in pastel-colored chiffon.
“They read bedtime stories to kids about Cinderella and Snow White where you come from?” Giving in to my inner princess wannabe in front of a butt-kicking bounty hunter with no frame of reference? Nope. Not doing that. Probably.
I made a mental bargain with Hecate for the strength to resist temptation.
Delta shot me a crooked smile, her hawk-eyed gaze softened. “Not exactly, but I’m familiar with the concept.” Dressed in motorcycle leathers over an outfit of basic black, she had more of a badass Barbie look than a Disney princess vibe. “I had a fling with one of the Grimm brothers back in the day.”
Yanking my eyebrows back down from where they were about to tangle with my hairline, I tried to paste a worldly look on my face. I don’t thi
nk I pulled it off.
“Oh. Hmm. Okay, then.” Inappropriate questions about his basic grimness came to mind.
“He patterned one of the characters after me.”
“Which one? Cinderella? Sleeping Beauty?”
“No, silly. The huntsman from Snow White.” I guess I should have known.
“Still, I think we should go make sure the castle is....” Delta searched for an excuse, found them all flimsy, and said, “...I’ve got nothing. It’s a castle. I want to go see it.”
“Wild unicorns couldn’t stop me.”
A portcullis could, though.
“Anybody in there? Open up!” I called through the gate, my voice echoing off blocks of granite polished to a glittering shine. Pink granite. A pink castle. Couldn’t you just swoon? “Come on, it’s me, Lexi. Let me in.”
“Might be easier if you just...” Reaching around me, Delta pushed the button marked Doorbell. How had I missed that?
Trumpets blared out a flourish of musical notes to announce our presence, and the portcullis slowly raised amid sounds of creaking wood and clanging metal. My heartbeat sped up a little with excitement. Was a backyard castle just slightly over the top? Well, yeah if Everest is the top you’re trying to get over. Did I care? Nope. Not even a little. Maybe whichever faction—faeries or witches—was slated to live here would consider trading with me.
When the fireworks started, I assumed they were a welcoming measure. I should have known better. Before I had time to get a good look around, the ground shook hard enough to nearly knock me off my feet. Delta had her sword out and at the ready.
“Put that thing away,” I knew what we were dealing with. “It won’t do you any good if the faeries are in a snit.”
“Snit?” The ground shook again. “Sounds like more than a snit to me.”
“Unless a dragon bombs the ramparts, it’s a snit. I’ve seen my share of them, and this seems like nothing more than the flash and boom type of fight. I should be able to diffuse it quickly. Follow me.”
The grand castle tour would have to wait. If there was anything left to tour, that is. A properly fed and watered faerie snit could grow into an all-out war.
That Delta seemed wary about moving forward gave me the internal giggles. We all have our base level of normal. Mine leaned way over the line of wonky. She fights magical entities gone wrong, all I do is keep the peace between my godmothers.
Circling left, we passed through a stone arch leading into a courtyard right out of a romantic fantasy. An oasis of summer on the edge of a winter day.
A centrally located fountain pitched colored water in the air to splash down in a circular basin of purest white marble shot through with gold veins. A riot of flowers bloomed, all of them out of season, to soothe the senses and entice the nose with glorious scents.
“Give me a tent in the corner,” Delta offered, “I think I’ve found my new home.”
“Too bad it’s a castle that comes complete with a full set of drama queens.” I pointed toward the cluster of furious faeries and willful witches. “Peace is rarely on the menu, and when it is, you savor it. Don’t get me wrong, I love them all, and I wouldn’t change a thing.” Most of the time, anyway. It would have been nice to live out my childhood fantasies for an hour or so before magical Armageddon raged.
“Drama queens. I see what you did there. Want me to handle this one?”
I almost did, just to see if I could pick up any pointers. I suspected Delta had game. As it happened, neither one of us needed to step in. The fight ended when Terra caught sight of us watching.
“Can it! Lexi’s here,” she hissed at the others, and all six of them turned sympathetic faces my way. It was all head tilts and conciliatory nods these days.
I’d rather have them fighting than feeling sorry for me. “What do you think? It’s pretty, right?” They’d done this for me. Love for my ragtag family blew through me. I should have known a fairytale castle wasn’t Mag’s style or Clara’s either.
Still, castles and princesses tend to lead one toward thoughts of handsome princes, and since I’d recently lost mine, the joy from the chance at living out a childhood fantasy popped like a balloon blown up too fast. I think I even heard the pffft noise in the back of my head.
“It is. You’ll all remember Delta, she’s staying the night.” I put the castle behind me and made my way back to the kitchen. I felt the magic swell, then dissipate behind me as each faerie withdrew the elements they’d used in the building process. I didn’t need to watch to know the earth tidied itself behind the stone walls as they sank below the surface.
“Buzzkill,” Delta spoke the absolute truth, and I didn’t care. Pain had become my constant companion, and even if it was tinged with hope at times, at others, it rolled over me like a wave, dashed my heart on the rocks with its undertow.
We stopped long enough to pile a tray with food—I’m an emotional eater—and I led the way upstairs. Maybe Delta’s story would take my mind off other things. We settled on the bed, trusted Terra’s nifty little clean-up spell to take care of crumbs, and Delta launched into her tale between bites.
“This is scratch-made bread, isn’t it? And freshly churned butter. Do you know I could make a meal out of this just by itself? Anyway, what do you know about the history of Fate Weavers?”
“About enough to fill a baby’s dimple and still leave room to decorate.”
“Okay. You know Eros—Cupid, I think you call him—has always been a bit of a...” Delta paused, I could only assume, to search for a word that wouldn't offend.
“You can say it. He was a horndog. Jett tossed that in my face the first time we met.” Not that I had any major feelings about my father in that sense. How was I supposed to get offended on his behalf when I'd never even met the man?
“It’s not just him, but I’m not going to spread gossip. Anyway, given that his source of power lay in the romantic realm, your father cut quite a swath through the world, and then he got tangled up with a woman who had been blessed by Hecate.”
“A witch,” I pointed out to show I was following along with the story.
She reached for a third slice of bread and slathered it with softened butter. “Yes, and not just any witch, but one with a great deal of powerful magic and a hunger for more. The stars blazed in the sky the night they consummated the relationship and Eros planted his seed. Magics mixed and melded to create a child like no other that had come before.”
It all had a fairytale ring to it, but I was still waiting on her to cue the villain of the piece.
“A Fate Weaver. Interesting story, but I already know about the genetics.”
“I can stop if you don’t want to hear the rest.” Delta swung off the bed, put her empty plate on my desk, and began to stalk around the room with the lithe grace of a panther.
“Sorry. I want to hear. I really do.” What little information I had about my heritage was half speculation and the rest inferred from the cryptic comments my grandmother and aunt occasionally exchanged. “I’ll shut up now, I promise.”
“What do you know about karma?” Seemed like an odd change of subject and a stupid question.
“I’m a witch, we may not call it karma, but we know all about the rule of threes and the soul debt that comes with having enough power to inflict our intentions on the world. Payback is a witch, right?”
“That’s not the way I heard it, but close enough. Anyway, where I’m from, they laugh at the idea of karma. It’s just not a thing they have to worry about. They do as they please and use the human world as a convenient gauge for keeping track of the results; making sure they don’t inadvertently bring about the end of the universe.”
“Which makes us what—a cross between a thermometer and pawns on a game board?” Excuse me if that sounded bitter.
“You play chess?” Delta pulled the chair from my desk, turned it, so the back faced me, and settled down in a straddled position.
“Faerie chess, but I’m not sure it count
s as the real thing because the rules are different.”
“Faerie chess?”
I explained how the love of board games turned game nights into epic events when my godmothers were involved. They tended to mix and match games to suit their whims, and then we played them out in life-sized venues. Faerie chess had all the same pieces as the standard version, and the endgame was the same—capture the queen—but the rest of the rules differed wildly. Think checkers meets backgammon and toss in a dash of Monopoly for good measure.
“Stop. Don’t tell me any more, you’re making my brain hurt, and I can see this was a faulty analogy. What I’m getting at is there’s a duality in the universe that needs to be preserved. Yin and Yang. Day and night. Up and down. Everything has an opposite.”
“Good and evil? I’m aware of the concept.” It was one I contemplated from time to time; mostly when confronted by the flip side of love. I circled a hand to indicate she should continue.
“Then you’ll understand what I mean when I say your world is not some kind of game board, it’s the fulcrum point of the universe. If it tips into the darkness, all the worlds will follow.”
“Oh, so no pressure, then.” Sarcasm happens when I find a concept uncomfortable to process. “What does all this have to do with the first Fate Weaver?”
“I’m getting to that. I assume you had heard of Cupid before you discovered the family connection.” I nodded. “Well, he earned his reputation for being a bed-hopping love-them-and-leave-them type until he hooked up with the witch and on the day the first Fate Weaver was born, the old boy got a bit of a shock."
Since I'd gone back in time to another moment when my father had been taken aback, I had an idea what his surprised face looked like. It helped me get a visual as the story progressed.
"A piece of the baby’s humanity took up residence in your father's soul. He got a taste of what it meant to be touched by karma and it had a powerful effect on him. Making matches suddenly turned into serious work, and when he started putting more thought and effort behind the job, others took notice."
Spell Hath No Fury Page 11