Chapter 4
Haveyoueverseen a lethal, sexy fae hunter with deer horns wearing a pair of faded, too-short gray sweats and a men"s tank top? No? Well let me tell you, it"s amazing. Weird. But amazing. I had to make a serious effort not to burst out laughing every time I laid eyes on Niamh. But she"d threatened to gut me and use my insides to make boot laces the first time I gave in to that urge, so I did my best to keep a straight face.
It had been a couple of very long days since I freed the fae.
"Look," I said to my unwelcome house guest. "I can"t take you to the human realm. I mean…have you ever looked in a mirror? If the ears and the teeth didn"t do it, the freaking antlers would certainly raise some suspicions, deer girl. Then we"d have the Supernatural Alliance beating down the door because I violated the treaty and brought a non-human species to earth without registering it. No thanks.
I could probably make her a masking charm, but with her innate magic, it would take more energy than I was willing to expend.
She narrowed her bright green eyes at me, hands on her hips and that imperious, "I"m-better-than-you-witch" look on her face. "I don"t care about silly human treaties. You will not abandon me here in this…den of evil and pain…so you can hide in the human world. What is it you really need from there? You"re a witch. You belong here."
I sighed. How was it that she could threaten me one second, then act like a possessive boyfriend the next? My life was getting fucking weird. "You were there, cupcake," I reminded her. "We went over the possible spell ingredients we need to free the jinn. I have most of it in the human world. It will save me having to deal with the assholes at the market here."
"You spurn my looks," the testy fae said, fingering the sharp point of one antler. "And yet, your ancestors sought my people"s connection to the beasts, coveted it so badly I was imprisoned for it."
I rolled my eyes. Really? Now her feelings were hurt? I was getting a headache. I tore my eyes away from her perfect lips and put my hands on my hips, aping her posture and glowering right back. The last thing any fae needed was an ego boost. They were all well aware how beautiful they were. And they were damned proud of it. "I could give a crap less about your looks," I ground out. "I just don"t want to deal with the market or the Alliance. So you will stay here, and I will go get the stuff I need from home. And maybe some more clothes for you. Really, no one wears hunting leathers for fun anymore, even here."
She growled. Literally growled at me. "Fine. But you will return before sunset."
I arched my eyebrows at her. "Are you…afraid of spending the night here alone? Is that what this is all about?"
She stalked toward me, forcing me to look up to meet her eyes. Her sharp little fangs flashed as she leaned into my space. "I am not afraid of some overdone witches" hovel."
I went up on my tiptoes to get in her space right back, refusing to be cowed. "Then what the hell is your problem, deer girl?"
She huffed and her eyes slid sideways. "The human world has its dangers, just as this one does."
I blinked at her. "So?"
Elijah appeared, sliding through Niamh, and making her shudder in distaste. "She"s worried about you, Andy."
The fae snorted and threw her hands up in the air as she spun away. "Absolutely not. Go on then, scurry off, witch."
And with that, the weirdo glided out of the room.
I glanced at Elijah. "She"s ridiculous. Does being bound to that book like…rot your brains or something?"
He shrugged one misty shoulder. "I fear she may be…attached to you. You freed her and gave her a place to shelter until she gets her bearings. She has lost her family. Her entire clan." His aura-blue eyes flared momentarily with some strong emotion. "And you know the fair folk are prone to arrogance and possessiveness. I"m afraid she now considers you her witch."
I rolled my eyes at that bunch of bullshit. "So stupid."
He tilted his head and floated closer, running one cool, almost-there hand up my arm and making me shiver. "Do you not find her attractive? I sense she feels drawn to you."
I gaped at him. "What are you? Spook match maker now? Besides, even if we disregard every other weird fucking thing about this situation, I"ve known her a total of two days."
His blue eye orbs gazed at me unblinking. "Dalliances and attachments have been known to occur in far less time." His voice took on a haughty tone. "Besides, I can hardly partake in fleshly pleasures these days. I have to get my jollies somewhere."
I groaned and swiped a hand through him, and he poofed into smoke with a hollow, ghostly laugh. Then he reappeared across the room. "In all seriousness, Andy. You could do worse than having a strong fae hunter to protect you. The beings you release from the bestiary will be dangerous. And even without all that, it sounds very much like you need a partner to help carry some of your…earthly burden."
I widened my eyes at him, not knowing what to say in response to this weird turn in the conversation. "I"m not hooking up with some fae chick so I"ll have a live-in bodyguard. For fuck"s sake, Elijah."
He shrugged again and drifted past me. "Worth a try, I suppose. You know, when I was alive, I considered purity to be the ideal. Ghosthood has made me realize how much I missed out on in my life. I wouldn"t want you to make the same mistake."
I turned and grabbed up my backpack. "So, what you"re saying is that you"re a pervert and you"re planning on spying on me when I"m naked." Great. Fantastic.
He laughed. "Oh, do calm yourself. I"m teasing, Andy." But something in his voice said not all of that was a joke.
"What the hell are you?" I asked for the millionth time. "One of those sorcerer monks who live in the caves?"
He huffed. "Hardly. Didn"t you have things to do? Places to be?"
I eyed the bestiary where it lay on an end table in the dusty parlor we"d taken to using. "Should I take that with me, do you think? Or will it be safe here?"
He drifted closer to the book, trailing his misty fingers over the cover. "I suppose you should keep it close. But then I will have to come along. I can"t move far enough away from the book to remain here while it is in another realm. My tether may be looser than the others", but it"s not that lenient."
I shrugged, then belatedly realized what he was saying. "Which would mean deer lady would have to stay here alone in the creepy house."
He nodded. "Yes. But she is a hunter. I"m sure she"ll be fine."
I remembered some of the nasty booby traps I"d disabled early in my visits to the ancestral home and shuddered. "Uh. You know what, maybe you"d better stay here. And…can you sweep as much of the house as you can reach for booby traps? I"m afraid I might have missed a fun surprise or two." I hadn"t really been all that thorough since most of the traps weren"t triggered by Lovell blood.
Elijah let out a gusty dead-guy sigh. "If I must. Shall I warn your guest as well?"
I nodded. Then I held up a hand to stop him from hurrying off. "What did she mean, about my ancestors wanting her people"s connection to beasts?"
He gave me a misty smile, sad and…old. "Niamh"s clan were known far and wide for their connection to animals. They could communicate with them, coax the animal spirit to do wonderous things."
I swallowed hard. A few things were starting to make awful sense to me. "Wonderous…or terrible?"
Elijah drifted closer and the shimmery outline of his chiseled features wavered. "Any ability or power can be terrible, if used that way."
I sighed. "Yeah. I think I"ve seen what my family did with her powers. Goddess damn it."
I turned away to stow the nasty bestiary under a couch cushion, then called up a portal to the human realm, hoping what I brought back wasn"t going to cause Niamh to go on another let"s-kill-Andy rampage. Then I stepped across the threshold and put the magic world behind me, where it belonged.
The portal spat me out in my tiny backyard in the human realm. I took a moment to breathe, just centering myself and getting my bearings. The flow of aether here was slower, more distant, spread out thinner over every non-magical atom of the human world. I shook out my hands to relieve the tingles in my fingertips and cracked my neck. Then I went into the house and straight to my bedroom.
"Hey, Bis," I said, hurrying to his pen and flipping open the lid so my pet could escape his enclosure. I had made him a charm that made him look like a garden variety rat to my human roommate. But Bis was…special. And I never kept him in his cage when I was around. He must be pissed at me for leaving him cooped up playing pet rat for days on end. I scooped him up and touched his little pink nose to mine. "We"re going on a little trip, buddy," I said, setting him on my bed as I went about packing a duffel bag full of clothes sand other things I thought I"d need.
I was going to have to spend at least a couple more days over there in Crazy Land, if the last few days was any indication of how this whole "free the captive freaks" thing was going to go. If I lived through freeing the jinn, I"d make another trip back for anything else I needed. I refused to think about how much time I was going to have to spend on the other side if I was going to free all the creatures bound to the bestiary.
Content with what I"d stuffed in my bag, I held out an arm so Bis could climb up onto my shoulder, then took my empty backpack to the kitchen. Amy was kind of a ditz, so she put up with my unusual interest in herbology and cooking without asking questions. Half of our postage-stamp back yard was taken over by garden boxes that were currently overflowing with herbs, and I had two entire cabinets filled with dried plants and other various items. Amy thought they were all just hippie herbal remedies and kept her party-girl self away from it all. Which was for the best. I might use my witchy magic for good. But that didn"t mean all the ingredients were exactly safe.
I riffled the cupboards, stuffing bags and jars into the backpack I"d brought. I had spent most of the last two days pouring over spell books and examining the binding on the jinn"s section of the bestiary. Every creature"s binding spells were different, tailored to their unique powers and abilities. Great Granny might have been pure evil, but she wasn"t stupid. The way she had constructed these bindings was…genius, actually. But that was the thing with my family. People liked to dismiss criminals as unintelligent. That would be a huge mistake when facing the Lovells. I didn"t think there was an unintelligent gene in any of my ancestors. Well…except old uncle Abrus, who blew himself up making a spell for exploding fruit…but there"s always one exception to the rule, right?
I had to admit, as much as I liked a good puzzle, I was glad the bitchy fae and the weird ghost dude had been there while I did my research. They were mostly silent while I worked, but when I was ready to talk through things out loud (which I often did even when alone) they were able to offer valuable insight into the magic and the way it flowed differently for a being like a jinn.
I"d never met a jinn in real life, and trust me, I wasn"t looking forward to it. They were basically demons with all kinds of specialized powers. Apparently, if the fae and the ghost could be trusted, my jinn was a fire elemental who could possess people, morph into animals, and who the fuck knew what else. The bestiary"s categories for this being were vague, with things like "travel, fire, shifting, and identity," so…who knew what all was included under those categories. What my great grandmother considered normal and "Goes without saying" was probably a hell of a lot different than my definition. But one thing everyone was clear on was that the guy could control fire.
I was probably going to die.
"It"s been nice knowing you, Bis," I said to my fluffy friend. "I hope you live a full life when I"m gone. Maybe find your way to the old forest and live with the flying elk."
He chittered at me and patted my cheek with one pink, clawed front paw. At least someone would miss me when I was gone.
A quick trip out to the garden and I had everything I needed—at least, all the things I could get over here in the human sphere. Now I just had to make up some excuse for my absence and notify my roommate. I was gonna lose my crappy job at the corner store, but eh, I hated that gig anyway. And I could always sell some more stuff from the Den of Horror if I had to.
I might tell the others it was a pain in my ass, but in reality…the thought of leaving those creatures—those people—trapped for all eternity didn"t sit right. And right or wrong, I did feel responsible in some way for my stupid family"s assholery. They had caused the world so much pain. If I could undo even a tiny bit of that, I"d sleep better at night.
"Okay, Bis," I said, slipping the backpack onto my back and hefting my duffle bag as I called to my power. "Hang on tight. We"re going for a ride."
He buried his tiny hands in my messy green hair and chirped a sound that roughly translated to "Let"s go, bitch!" I smiled as I whisked us to the magic realm.
I immediately stopped smiling when I saw what was waiting for me on the other side. "What the fuck did you do to my kitchen?" I demanded, dropping my bags and advancing on the flour-covered fae and the smoking oven.
Niamh drew herself up to her full, lean height and glared. The intimidation technique lost a little something, what with the streak of flour on her perfect nose and the smudge of what I really hoped was chocolate on the corner of her mouth. "I was hungry," she said, lifting her chin. "You left with no indication of when you might return. For all I knew you had abandoned us here in this abhorrent house. But nothing works like it did in my…other life." She sniffed in what might have been haughty disdain, but something was off….
"Oh, my goddess, are you crying?" I blurted. Awesome, I know. But look, insensitivity was like a genetic trait in my family. Give me a break.
The fae crossed her arms over her chest and blinked rapidly. "What? Of course not, witch."
Then her bright green eyes lit on Bis. "What in all the worlds is that?" Anger quickly replaced her shock. "What have you done, witch?"
I held up my hands, hoping to ward off the approaching hunter. "Nothing. I didn"t do it."
She backed me up against the kitchen counter, her lean body pinning mine, one long-fingered hand wrapping around my throat to hold me in place while she studied Bis. "Lies. You may have disguised this creature, but I can sense its wrongness. Its…abomination."
I sighed, letting a pulse of magic out to zap her where her skin touched mine. She ignored it, but I saw the way the corners of her mouth tightened. That stung her. And it made me feel better. "I didn"t do it. I found him that way." I reached up and awkwardly pulled the little charm from around Bis"s neck. "He was the only one left alive…and I couldn"t just kill him."
Niamh released me, and I absolutely did not shudder at the slow slide of her fingers against my throat as she stepped back. "Explain," she demanded.
I let out a long sigh. I"d rather not relive that horror, but I had a feeling she wasn"t going to let it go. Elijah drifted into the room brows arched. "You are both alive? I thought for sure the witch would kill you when she saw what you"d done. I told you, one does not tamper with a witch"s kitchen."
He halted when he saw Bis. "What in heaven and hell is that?"
I reached up and scooped the poor guy off my shoulder so I could hold him and give him chin scratches. "Don"t listen to them, baby," I cooed. "You"re the most beautiful one in the room."
He tilted his head back and purred. I looked at Bis as I spoke, rather than the curious ghost or the simmering-with-suppressed-rage fae. "I came back here the first time when I was fifteen. By this world"s rules, that"s old enough to be considered an adult when it comes to matters like estates and inheritance and stuff. That was also when I was finally old enough to leave the children"s home and live on my own."
Bis sensed my unease and curled up, rolling into a small, spiky black ball with a white stripe down the middle. He tucked his rat-like head and fluffy skunk tail inside, presenting nothing but oversized hedgehog prickles. "The whole place was booby trapped. Probably to keep people from stealing shit. Kind of a last middle finger from my parents to the rest of the world. They might be dead, but no one was getting their hands on the Lovell fortune or their precious spells and inventions."
I shrugged, trying not to remember how terrified and alone I"d felt, as the last person on earth with enough Lovell blood to cross through the family wards. "I deactivated a lot of the traps and spells just using my blood and magic. I could sense something running off some sort of magical battery though. So…I followed the energy signature."
It had led me to the basement. And a booby trap that almost cost me my leg. But I managed to make my way into…what? A laboratory? A workroom? A particularly vivid level of hell? I knew exactly what my parents had used Niamh"s magic to do. And it was horrific.
"There were a lot of…specimens," I said, swallowing hard. It had been awful. And sad. Bits and pieces of various animals preserved by magic or mundane means. "And there were some completed creatures. But Hibiscus was the only one that was still alive after all those years. The preservation spells had failed on the others." Bis"s spell was about to fail too, but for some reason I just couldn"t let it go. Anger had made me see red. It had taken over my whole world as ten years of silently suffering the judgements, and insults, and bullying just…overwhelmed me.
"I freed Bis and burned everything else. The specimens. The other dead creatures. The spell books and notes—all of it. I wanted it erased. I wanted…." I wanted to erase everything, my whole family history, and the Lovell blood that flowed in my veins. I might have just let myself burn too, if Bis hadn"t woken up and given me a pitiful little chirp.
"So," I said with fake cheer as Bis unfolded and scurried up to sit on my shoulder and pat my hair. "There you have it. One hedge-rat-skunk thing. Ta-da!" Jazz hands seemed appropriate, so I threw those in for good measure.
The fae chick was just staring at me.
"You burned it?" Elijah said quietly, drifting over to hover by us. "Everything? Even the notes and instructions?"
I nodded. I knew what he was thinking. Most people probably would have kept the notes. And any other Lovell would have immediately set about trying to re-create the process and improve on it to make new and better horrors.
"Yeah," I said tiredly. "All of it. You can go down there and inspect if you really want to. But I"d watch your legs if you still have them. One of the steps is carnivorous." I should probably get around to fixing that but…honestly, it was sort of amusing, if you didn"t look at the scars on my leg. And it wasn"t like I was ever going to spend a lot of time here.
Niamh didn"t move. Elijah puffed out of existence for a few long moments, then returned. "It"s as she says. The entire workroom is empty but for ashes and…." He glanced at me, then back at Niamh. "And a little shrine to the forest folk."
I felt my face flush. Shit. I forgot I put that there. Niamh jerked in surprise and opened and closed her mouth a few times. "You asked forgiveness from the mother and father?"
I shrugged. "I am a witch. We"re supposed to be connected to nature. Even if all my ancestors seem to have forgotten that little fact."
Niamh paced closer and I braced myself to zap her if she went for more choking. Instead, she held out a finger to Bis. "Hibiscus. That is not a Lovell name, little one." He chirped, but I stayed silent. I"d chosen the name because it didn"t fit the family tradition of naming everyone important after deadly plants. Poky little rodent named after a bright tropical flower. Seemed right to me.
Bis sniffed Niamh"s finger, then stood on his back legs, reaching out his clever hands and chittering non-stop. Niamh smiled and gave a nod as if she understood everything he was saying. "I will allow it."
Then the little traitor let the fae lift him up and put him on her shoulder. She nodded along to his continued chattering as she turned away. "Oh, really? I see. And how do you feel about that?"
I rolled my eyes. "Um. Hello? My kitchen?"
She waved a graceful, dismissive hand. "You may make me baked goods now, witch. Containing cocoa."
I ground my teeth together. "I hate you."
She turned away before I could be sure, but I thought I saw the hint of a smile. My stomach growled though, and it was dinner time. I heaved a sigh and set about making something quick. And some brownies. Because I might need extra carbs for the spell I was thinking of attempting. Not because the fae said so.
After we were both full and Bis was situated in my bedroom behind some wards with firm instructions not to wander, I harnessed my lady balls and set about spell prepping. The ghost and the fae both hovered, offering unwanted advice while I ground and mixed ingredients and made notes. Then I moved everything outside to a slate slab in the overgrown back courtyard, were there were less things to catch fire, and started drawing my spell circle, glancing at my books every few minutes to make sure I had it right.
"I still can"t believe our savior is relying on children"s magic primers," Niamh muttered darkly.
Elijah said something too soft for me to hear, but I ignored them. I was used to people underestimating me. And besides, this crap took concentration.
I"d never drawn a freaking summoning circle before. But that was essentially what this was, modified to summon the jinn out of the book, rather than wherever the heck demon-like creatures usually resided in their down time. Oh goddess, this was going to go so wrong so fast.
"Just don"t break the circle this time," Elijah reminded me, doing that hand-wringing thing again, merging his misty hands and pulling them back apart.
I rolled my eyes. "Not like I meant to the first time, Ghost Boy."
Niamh inspected my circle with narrowed eyes. "The mistake nearly cost you your life. Only my amazing mercy saved you. The jinn will not be so kind."
I pointed a finger at her accusingly. "Ha! Mercy? You fucking shot me!"
She shrugged, tucking her golden-brown hair behind one pointed ear—which I noticed was suspiciously pink at the tip. "I don"t know what you"re talking about. If I"d shot you, you"d be dead."
Elijah huffed his airy ghost laugh. "Right."
I took a deep breath and centered myself, wiping my dusty, chalk-covered hands on my jeans as I stood. "Well, let"s see if we can burn Lovell Castle to the ground, shall we?"
Slender fingers wrapped around my own, surprising me. The stinking fae moved like a…well…a magical being who"d hunted in the old forest all her life. "Please try not to die," she said seriously, her leaf green eyes boring into my own. "I need you to cook my breakfast in the morning."
I sighed. My life. But I didn"t let go of her hand. All things being equal, summoning a bound jinn from layers of Lovell spellwork was bound to cost more than freeing Niamh had. And that had almost killed me. If I had to, I could probably siphon some magic off the fae through our skin-to-skin contact. If she let me.
"Are you sure you don"t need another brownie?" Elijah asked nervously, hovering near the pan I"d brought outside earlier.
I shook my head, glancing down at my glucose monitor just to be sure. "Blood sugar is through the damned roof already," I said with a shrug. "If the magic doesn"t take its price out of my body the same way it did last time, I"ll end up in DKA." I waved off his questions. "Too much sugar equals a trip to the hospital or the healer, it"s just slower to kill you than a low."
He moved to hover near the circle, closer to the bestiary we"d placed inside, maybe hoping to be the first thing the jinn saw. I mean, he hadn"t been able to talk Niamh out of shooting me when she was freed, but hey, it was worth a try.
I gathered my power, pulled from the earth and plants around me, strengthening my connection to the mother goddess and father sky. "Well, here goes nothing," I muttered.
Then I set about unweaving magic booby traps and bindings so I could summon a jinn.
It was hard work, and it felt like it took for-freaking-ever. But eventually, I felt the last of the bindings dissolve. An angry rush of red-hot energy filled the summoning circle, followed by a ten-foot-high burst of dancing flames that singed my eyebrows from where I stood, even through the heat-resistant wards I"d set.
The flames decreased and a whirlwind of sparks showered the inside of the circle, fading away to reveal a pulsing, person-shaped ball of fire. The flames solidified and I blinked in surprise. He was…holy hell. Beautiful, rich, red-brown skin, bare to the waist except for the glint of gold jewelry, dark brown hair shot through with reddish strands. A surprisingly slim, compact body that moved with the grace of a dancer or an acrobat. Big, dark-lashed amber eyes met mine, and the man smiled, sultry and beckoning.
"Hello, witch," he purred in a voice full of sin and promise. "Come closer."
I actually took half a step before Niamh jerked me back, her fingers squeezing mine in a death grip. "Andy!"
I halted and straightened my spine. "Even I"m not that stupid," I muttered. Even though he"d almost lured me into suicide.
His smile widened, becoming something dark and dangerous. "Oh, but you are, little Lovell bitch, if you think a summoning circle can hold me."
Then the entire courtyard erupted in flames.