Chapter 30

Chapter

30

I put a hand to my mouth to stifle a yawn, the other on the dash as Elyse slowed to make the tight turn onto the dirt road that led to the dock where Kisten's boat was. Old swamp trees arched overhead, and the low sun made flashing bars instead of a dappled shade. Two to-go coffees sat in the center console, but mine was decaf and would do nothing to get me through the next hour of placing Johnny, cleaning the boat of our presence, returning the truck, and then maybe getting a few hours of sleep.

My bag was a great deal lighter without the robes, sashes, and hats—now stuffed into Sylvia's night drop box with a note of thanks—but I could still smell burnt amber, and I cracked the window a little more.

Elyse looked as tired as I felt, the drive out here and the silence that had accompanied it leaving her with very little stimulation with which to stay awake. Getting Johnny on Kisten's boat wasn't going to be easy, physically or emotionally. Right about now, Ford was helping me relive Kisten's death. Shortly thereafter, we were going to come out here and find him. That it was really Johnny I'd be crying over didn't help. Knowing Kisten was safe in a morgue drawer did.

The likelihood of Kisten waking up was less than slim. He was battling Art's virus. The best I could hope for was getting his body home intact so I could use Elyse's curse to bring back his ghost. Every. Single. Night.

My shoulders slumped even more.

Elyse wove through the potholes, her sluggish motions holding a hint of wariness as she wheeled the truck around and parked facing the boat. Eyes on the rearview mirror, she cut the engine.

"I could sleep for two days straight," she said as she undid her belt…and then sat there.

I studied her, reading her fatigue, her relief that after cremating Johnny, we'd be on our way home. "Ah, hey. I'm sorry I said you lacked finesse. I'm sure you have what you need to rekindle a ley line charm."

Her attention flicked to me. "Apology accepted," she said, and then her gaze went to the tarp-wrapped body. "Still want to do this?"

I stifled a little huff. "It's a little late to be worried about the laws we're breaking."

Elyse smirked, but her attention was on the mirror again. "Please. That's not what concerns me."

"Well, it worries me." Uncomfortable, I gathered our trash and stuffed it into a bag. Yes, I had repleted his aura from a faceless donor who liked cats, and if Dr. Ophees used the curse I'd given her enough, he wouldn't starve from aura depletion, but he was still going to die twice somewhere along the way home. If not for the ley line stasis charm I'd rekindled, I'd arrive with a badly decomposed body with which to raise his ghost. Is this worth it, Rachel?

Suddenly concerned, I squinted at Elyse. "You're not going to forget your promise to show me the curse to raise Kisten's ghost, are you?"

Gaze on the road behind us, she shook her head. "It's yours. I can't believe you really want to use it, though. I mean, Ivy is your friend. She's remade her life and you are going to make her deal with this again? Every night? She can't be his scion and Nina's both. Who is going to feed him? You?"

"No," I said quickly. "He'd be a ghost. He won't need anything." At least I didn't think he would.

Elyse's gaze flicked from the rearview mirror to me. "You'd have to stir the spell every night. It's a lot of effort for a questionable result. Who are you really doing this for? Kisten? He's fine with being twice dead if it means you and Ivy are okay."

Maybe, but I wasn't fine with it. Kisten had just begun to find himself, and Piscary had killed him to solidify his grip on the city. "I'm doing this for Cincinnati," I said, well aware that I might be dumping Ivy back in the morass of heartache we'd worked ourselves out of once. "If you get sacked and I have to go into hiding, Kisten can keep Constance in line and the DC vampires out. I vowed to keep Constance safe. This would do it. Ghost or no." I sighed. "Kisten was very popular, and he was Piscary's chosen scion before he died."

Elyse's brow furrowed. "I told you," she muttered, "I'm not pursuing that anymore."

A bitter scoff escaped me. "And I told you that one voice out of six will not keep my ass out of Alcatraz. Without that mirror, I go into hiding come June."

I reached to open the door, hesitating when Elyse didn't move. She was still staring out the rear window via the mirror. "What is it?" I said, turning to look as well.

"Nothing." She opened her door and got out.

That's what she said, but I wasn't sure I trusted it. "Then why are you so edgy?"

Elyse slammed the door shut. "I've got a dead vampire disguised as Piscary's scion in my back seat, that's why." Her brow furrowed as she scanned the open scrub. "Maybe I just miss Slick."

That I understood, and I got out of the truck. I might not have a familiar, but I had a veritable village of people who made up for it—and I couldn't wait to see them again: to listen to Jenks bitch about something or other, see Ivy's eye roll at my lack of planning, sense Al's increasingly thinly veiled pride, feel Trent's arms about me.

I glanced at the ring he'd given me, the little ruby glittering dully. My hand fisted. Leaving the trash in the truck, I opened the rear door, grabbed Johnny's shoulders, and pulled.

"Elyse?" I called, and she came back from her study of the road we'd come in on, slipping between Johnny's feet and grabbing his knees. "Got him?" I asked, and she nodded, pushing me into a shuffling, awkward motion.

My sight alternated between the boat, Johnny, and my feet, and I frowned when I realized I was walking on my own prints. "We're making a lot of in and out traffic," I said, arms aching.

Elyse huffed, her face red with strain in the morning light. "I have a cleansing spell."

Of course you do, I thought sourly as we reached the dock and I hiked Johnny's weight into a more secure hold. Such a spell would make it tons easier to work around the law. "You ready? I've got a big step here."

She nodded and I made a lurching stride that was more faith than anything else. My foot landed on the oiled teak, and I exhaled as the boat lightly shifted, waves lapping. I inched down along the seat, unable to step down into the cockpit until Elyse took the long step over the water and onto the boat as well.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" she exclaimed, and suddenly I was floundering, having taken all of Johnny's weight.

The heavy man slipped from me, and both of us swore as the corpse hit the floor of the cockpit. Embarrassed, I jumped into the recessed seating area and bent almost double to scoop my arms under Johnny's shoulders.

That's when the black ball of magic hissed over my head, little trills of energy prickling through my aura as it hit the water and bubbled into an ugly froth.

"Down!" I lurched to grab Elyse as she half slid into the lowered cockpit with me. We were under attack by someone who fought not dirty but smart. A pro. Whoever it was had waited until we were over the water. I couldn't tap a line. Elyse might, through Slick, but I only had what was in my chi. Maybe one good pop.

"You see anyone?" I questioned as we peeked over the seating to scan the low scrub and tall weeds.

Elyse's jaw was tight. "I knew someone had followed us."

"I'll throw a spell. Cover for you. Get off the boat." I put a hand on her, jumping in surprise when a flood of ley line energy filled my chi from her. Two good pops. "You can't make a protection circle over—Elyse!"

She had stood, my fingers slipping from her as she marshaled the line energy into a spell and tossed it straight up. The purple sphere arched into the fragile blue of the sky with a hiss, trailing golden sparkles until it burst like a signal flare to leave a golden haze glinting in the sun.

"Stay down!" I yanked her back, wondering why she had wasted a charm to light the area. I didn't see our attacker, but that golden haze wasn't doing anything that the sun wasn't already.

"Give it a second." Elyse crouched beside me, her eyes alight. "Whoever he is, he's subtle."

"Scott?" I guessed, but I didn't see Slick, and if he had followed the bird here, the crow would be on her shoulder, cawing in delight.

"There," she said, pointing.

Confused, I followed her pointing finger to the golden haze condensing behind a huge, scraggly bush. Oh… It hadn't been a light. It had been to suss out the attacker. Kind of like how Vivian had used drifting flower seeds to find an illicit magic user at the farmers' market.

"It's attracted to magic use," Elyse said as she shifted her weight, clearly uncomfortable as she crouched beside me. "He's got a light touch. It's not Scott. Scott is a bull in a china shop."

"Wait."

But she had stood again, her hair staticky as she swung her arms in a gloriously exuberant motion to pull in energy through Slick. The woman did like to spell.

"Light touch, light touch!" I shouted, reaching for her. It was going to be something big. I could tell. "This is a crime scene!"

She wasn't listening, and energy darted from her to our unseen attacker with an exuberant "A minoread maius!"

The boom of a counterspell exploded upward, pushing the leaves of the trees, rattling them in the sudden wind. Like a hurricane, they swirled upward, shredding into confetti before drifting downward.

"You are tearing the area up!" I complained as Elyse scrambled from the boat to the landing. "There was no evidence of an attack out here. Knock it off!"

But she ignored me, striding confidently into the parking lot, her aura almost visible as she pulled on the line, eager to engage. Way too eager. She was going to kill someone.

"I said stop!" I lurched off the boat, and when she formed another spell within her hands, something in me snapped.

"Dictum factum!" I shouted, pissed as my spell hit her. It was a demon spell Al had used on me until I began listening to him. It was basically a babysitter charm that forced the recipient to do what I had said. In this case, to stop.

Elyse choked as her gathered energy fell back into her. Wide-eyed, she turned to me, an angry, hot betrayal in her gaze.

"I'm sorry," I said as she tried to make a spell and reddened when it failed. "You aren't listening—"

Her attention flicked over my shoulder…and then fire and ice hit me, crawled down my spine and stole my will. I fell to one knee, breath held as I coolly analyzed the spell and found it to be elven before balling it up and asking the Goddess to take it when I shoved it into the ground.

Teeth clenched at the ache it had left, I got to my feet and promptly lost every thought.

"Quen!"

The black-clad elf stole forward on soft shoes, as dangerous and slippery as the night that birthed him. Green and gold energy wreathed his hands, dripped from them. His expression, though, held only the barest hint of anger. "A step too far, Morgan. This gives me no joy."

Oh. Shit. Quen was the only person this side of the lines who scared me. Not for his illicit magic but because he had no qualms about using it to defend those he loved. Kind of like me.

"Quen, wait." I retreated as he came forward, flushing when I remembered joyfully humiliating Trent in front of Cincinnati's oldest families. Yeah, I'd been an idiot. "I handled it badly. You're right. But you have to listen—"

His lip twitched. It was the only warning I got as suddenly the very earth I stood on erupted, going soft beneath my feet to swallow me up.

"Teneo!" I exclaimed as I floundered, sending a mass of black coils about my feet to writhe through Quen's spell and give my feet purchase. Awkward and scared, I staggered out of the spells, hand raised for patience. "We need to talk."

"Voulden," Quen intoned, and I batted it aside before it knocked me down from the inside out.

"He didn't want to get married!" I shouted. "He told me himself!"

Quen stopped, the green ball of hurt hissing in his hand making his knuckles white. At the edge of the trees, Elyse stood, tense and trying to find a way past that babysitter spell I'd put on her. She looked as pissed as Quen ought to but didn't.

"Then why send me to kill you?" he asked.

The thought to put myself in a circle rose and fell. It would only make me seem vulnerable. Which I was. "Because he can't admit it yet," I said.

Quen's lip twitched. "You stink like demons. Both of you."

I stiffened as the energy in his hand swelled and a high-pitched squeal erupted from it. Elyse dropped, hands over her ears, clearly in pain.

"Wait! Wait!" I shouted, tears pricking as I stood my ground. "I know Trent's mad, but I am his Mal Sa'han. Or I will be. See?" I held my hand out, fingers trembling as I showed him his mother's ring. "He gave me his mother's ring to trade to Newt for a stupid mirror. Would he do that if he was mad at me? If he wanted me dead?"

"Where did you get that? I thought it was lost."

"Probably his mother's old lab behind the fireplace," I said. Quen had gone ashen, and I pulled my hand back when he reached out. Satisfaction found me, warmed my hope when Quen's next words caught in his throat. "Yeah, I figured you knew about that," I added.

The older elf's focus sharpened on me. "How do you know about his mother's studio? No one but Jonathan and I know about it."

I exhaled, slow and long as I found my full height. "Good. You can keep a secret. I need you to keep one now, or we all lose. All of us."

Elyse took a quick breath of air. "Shut up, Rachel. We can figure this out."

She meant the forget spell. It was in my pocket, sure, but if I made Quen forget me here, he'd focus his attention on my current self at the church.

I had to tell Quen. Either he would believe me, or one of us was going to die.

"That was you in the vault." Quen glanced behind me. "Both of you."

I nodded, wincing. "I'm so sorry about that. Quen. Please." My throat thickened. "I love him. Not now, but in the future. And he loves me. Desperately, he says. Desperately."

Quen's head shifted back and forth. "You think a lie will convince me to let you live?"

"I'm not supposed to be here!" I shouted. "Or Elyse."

Elyse glowered at me, unable to act. "Shut up, Rachel."

"But we are," I continued. "And we're trying to get home."

The energy in Quen's hands began to diminish, the eye-hurting ache about his fingers easing. "Which is where?"

"Which is when," I corrected him, and Elyse groaned. "Two years from now, I modify a demon spell to get here. I need something from the ever-after before it falls. You can't tell him. You can't tell me." Al had said speak truth only to the dead. I now knew what he had meant, but if I didn't tell Quen, one of us would be dead.

The energy in his hand flickered and all but went out, leaving a thin haze of potential death dabbling about his fingers. "He told me to kill you. I agree with his decision. It's long overdue."

I shook my head. "Decisions made from pride are seldom good, and you know it. If you don't believe me about moving through time, go to the church and see for yourself. I'm probably coming out of a demon-induced coma just about now, caused by Minias pulling the focus out of me." I grimaced. "You can tell Trent he can stuff it for trying to take it. It belongs to the Weres."

Quen huffed in amusement, but his gaze was sharp. "You say you love him," he mocked. "And that's why you moved Felps out of the sun until he died twice."

"Kisten is still undead," I said. "That's not him on the boat. It's a John Doe Vamp from the morgue."

That set him back a little, and his weight shifted to his other foot. "You used a demon spell—"

"Modified," I interrupted.

"A modified demon spell to save your vampire boyfriend's undead life, and you expect me to believe that you're in love with Trent? And he's in love with you? Two years in the future."

It sounded like a fast romance when he said it like that, but damn, we had been through a lot in that time.

Elyse wrapped her arms around her middle. "How come when I want to break the timeline, it's a problem, and when you do it, it's okay?"

A misplaced anger flickered. "Because I was here when it happened and you weren't!" I gathered my courage and turned to Quen. "Kisten dies twice. I can't stop that. But the coven has a spell to raise his ghost, and I need someone to handle vampire affairs while I hide out in the ever-after." With Trent and Al. Yeah. He'd believe that.

Quen glanced at Elyse, and she twiddled her fingers at him as if to say, Hi. Yep, I'm coven . "Why do you need someone to handle the vampire affairs?" His brow furrowed. "Who is Piscary's replacement? Ivy Tamwood? Are you helping Tamwood?"

"I'm stopping Kisten from being cremated. That's it," I said, not wanting to get into why I was shepherding Cincy's vampire population. He'd never believe it. "I can't let you kill me, and you can't tell Trent why you didn't. He will thank you in two years. I promise."

But the haze was beginning to thicken about his fingers again. "There's nothing I can say that will satisfy him if I don't come back with your head."

Boy, did I understand that. "Tell him…Tell him that as we fought, you realized that I am his dad's magnum opus, not Stanley Saladan," I said, suddenly breathless. "Tell him that Lee puts his own family first and always will but that I can be tricked into anything, even into the ever-after." Elyse cleared her throat, but I thought the statement innocent enough. "Together we can get the pre-curse elven DNA as our fathers could not. And after that, he can kill me. Tell him he has to wait. He's good at that."

Quen's expression creased. "How do you know about your fathers working together?"

"My mom," I said. "Though Trent confirms it when he tells me Takata is my birth father."

Quen's doubt began to shift to incredulity. "You know who your genetic father is?"

"I will," I said cryptically. "Don't tell me. Trent does when he's angry and wants to hurt me. He needs it. Can you do that? Can you keep your mouth shut? I need this to happen, Quen. Trent needs this to happen, and if you tell him what's to come, it won't." And if it didn't, he would never…I would never…Oh, God.

Quen's lip twitched again, and I panicked. He wasn't going to believe me.

"Please!" I held up my hand to stop him, Trent's ring glinting in the morning light between us. "I'm sorry, but we fall in love. No one wanted it, most of all us. You don't want it, Trent doesn't want it," I practically moaned. "The demons don't want it, but it happens. And it makes Trent better, whole. Quen, he becomes the person he wants to be, not the person his dad made him to keep your people alive."

Quen stared at my hand, his lips parting as an unknown heartache crossed him.

"He changes," I gushed, wondering what had shifted. "Once he no longer has to struggle to keep his people alive, he changes. He adores the girls. He's so good with them, it makes my heart ache. He makes peace with Ellasbeth. He strives to make peace with…his enemies," I said, knowing that to tell him Trent voluntarily parked his tent next to a demon's RV would be too much. "He finds love in so many ways. Please. Don't tell him the future or you might change it, and I can't bear the thought. I can't lose him. I wouldn't have told you, but I won't let you kill me, and I can't kill you; he would have to go through it all alone, and he needs you."

Elyse stared at me as if I had just ripped the time continuum apart and crapped in it, and maybe I had. But I couldn't kill Quen, and I couldn't let him kill me.

And then Quen rocked back a step, his head bowing. "Take good care of it," he said, his attention flicking to my hand. "It saved your life."

My hand closed into a fist. "What?"

"That ring." Saying nothing more, Quen turned and walked away.

"Quen?" I called, but he didn't stop. Four steps into the brush, and he was gone.

"I knew someone had followed us," Elyse muttered.

I licked my lips, not sure anymore what Trent had given me. Suddenly I was more afraid than I'd been before.

"I can't believe you told him," Elyse said. "Hey, you want to break your hold spell? We have to get Johnny in place and get out of here." She squinted at the bare branches cutting the perfect blue of the sky. "It won't take a lot to clean the area. I doubt they will do much of an investigation anyway. Seeing as he's a blood gift."

I severed the curse, and Elyse took a relieved breath. "No, they don't," I whispered, eyes still on the last place I'd seen Quen. He had known about me coming here for the last two years and had never said anything. Thank God I hadn't told him about Ceri.

Head down, I followed Elyse onto the boat, no longer sure what I would find when I got home.

If I got home.