Chapter Nineteen

Lydia

I thought I was braced for anything, but I didn't expect what strolled through the front doors of the hotel.

It wasn't one of the cloaked and masked figures I'd had fleeting glimpses of in my nightmares. It wasn't even a suave man that matched the voice I'd heard in my head. Instead, it was a woman.

She was a little above average height and dressed in a stylish skirt-blouse combo. She'd elevated the pixie cut with a few jewel-encrusted pins to match the stud in her eyebrow. She came to a stuttering stop a few feet inside the door, staring at all of us in wide-eyed shock.

Essie! Indigo cried. She wanted to project her voice outward again so that Estelle could hear her, but doing what she had to contact the Masked Lord behind this plot had already taken a lot out of her. We hadn't been sure she'd be able to manage it at all.

Let me go to her, Lydia!

No.

Lydia—

Do you think it's a coincidence that Essie turned up here at the same time we called out one of the Masked Lords?

Before Indie could let that horrifying implication sink in, Estelle spoke.

"What's going on here?" she asked as she frowned at each of us.

"Why are you here?" I responded, still afraid that she might be the masked lord in question.

Estelle looked at me and frowned again. "Isn't this a hotel?"

"It is," I answered, thinking that just by the fact that she was able to see the place, instead of seeing an empty lot for sale, that she wasn't human. And yet Taliyah had insisted she and Vivian had no magic. So which was it?

"Well, I came in to make a reservation," Essie continued. "Why are you all standing around, staring at me?" she continued, the frown becoming even more pronounced. "And is that a crowbar?"

Darla stuffed said crowbar behind her back and cheerfully lied. "Nope."

"You need to leave, Estelle," I said, realizing how crazy I sounded, but it was the truth—she did need to leave. "You're in danger."

Estelle's eyes found mine and she frowned, looking at me in confusion. "How do you know my name? Have we met before?"

"Of course you have, dear," a man's voice said from behind her.

The doors swung open a second time, and a man stepped through them. He was, in a word, gorgeous. His skin was the sunkissed golden brown one usually associated with surfers. He was tall and lean, exuding the lazy confidence of a panther. His dark curls swept back from his face in artful disarray. Only the eyes gave him away. They were the deep purple of a bruised plum. I could practically taste the rot on his soul. Indigo surged forward, rebounding from the solid barrier between us with a sound of frustration.

Animus! she hissed. This was his doing!

Estelle turned to him with another frown. "I have, Corny?"

Corny. The alleged boyfriend. God, we should have guessed. Nothing that happened in this Hollow was random or benign.

"One of these lovely ladies is your aunt," he answered, and a sinister smile spread across his face. It made my skin crawl. "But you poor empty-headed thing, you traded your safety in order to forget. But that matters not because I now have what I need to control Indigo."

Cornelius, AKA Animus, drew a blade from the inside pocket of his coat. Before Estelle could react, he had an arm around her waist, holding her still while the other arm and its blade swept up toward her throat. I half-expected blood to gout out and stain the floors, but the edge settled against Estelle's throat instead.

"Corny!" she squeaked. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure your Aunt Indigo lives up to her half of the bargain." Then he looked at me. "Come outside with me, Lydia Morton. Let's have that fair fight you mentioned while my pet and his progenitor take care of the rest."

Pet? Progenitor? What was he talking about?

The Grave Eater was made in concert with the faeries of Winter, Indie explained. One of the Lords of Winter must be in Murrain's inner circle if he isn't a Masked Lord himself. Now I see that this attack had two purposes. One, to ferret me out, and two, to send the beast after Taliyah.

The first one I get, but how do you figure the second one?

Maverick is her husband and bounty hunter. The stain of death on Maverick's soul would draw the Grave Eater to him, eventually. Taliyah, of course, would step in to protect him. You saw what that thing did to anyone who got in its way. Ivan is a dragon and he barely survived the attack on him. An untrained faerie princess would have a hard time putting the thing down.

"Outside," Animus continued in a pleasant tone. "Now. Or I cut her throat."

I threw my hands up in surrender. "Fine, I'm coming. Just let her go."

"Once we're outside," he said, and his words slithered through the air and pooled in my ears like oil. No matter how good he looked, there was a sense of wrongness to his aura, no doubt a result of consuming the lives of so many innocent monsters.

"Don't," Wanda and Angelo said at almost the same moment.

"I have to," I said. "It's Indie's niece. I can't let her die."

And Animus had been counting on that, damn it. If we hadn't baited a trap for him and his creature, he would have done it to us, leading Indie on a chase for her missing nieces until she'd tired herself out. Then he would have swooped in and killed us before doing God only knew what to Estelle and Lavinia.

"Just give the Grave Eater hell," I said in an undertone. "I'll take care of this creep." At least, I hoped I could, with Indie's help, of course.

Animus' grin was positively vulpine. "You can try, little gypsy, but don't think I'll make it easy on you."

He began to back slowly towards the doors, grinning all the while. I followed him, trying to keep a lid on my panic. Despite all the bluster, I had come with backup to do precisely what he said. If you fought with a Masked Lord, you lost, period. Even puffed up and arrogant Indigo Hallewell could admit that.

We'll die trying, Indigo said fiercely. He does not get to threaten my nieces and get away with it.

Let's skip the dying part and get right to the kick his ass part.

For once in this miserable new life, I actually like the way you think.

The change was immediate when we stepped out of the double doors. I hadn't noticed it before. Before Indigo's jump start, I hadn't been sensitive enough to do more than the bare magical minimum. I could see spirits, I could almost power a crystal, and I could sense people's suffering. Now, I could sense much more. The hotel was an incredibly powerful magical construct, every atom built of pure power. I could even feel the essence of that power. Black velvet rubbing against cold skin. Death at its most romantic. Truly, Death really had it bad for the ex-ghost. I wasn't sure if Darla was a lucky girl or not.

The mundane world felt dimmer in comparison. The darkness closed in around us, terrifying in its nearness. Despite my brave words, I felt certain I was going to die out here. Estelle was crying now, utterly baffled by her boyfriend's sudden betrayal. The blade had opened a shallow cut on her throat, and the sight of crimson running down her niece's throat sent Indigo into a rage. With a sudden lurch, I was displaced. It felt like I'd been shoved into the backseat of my car and was watching from a dreamy distance as someone else drove. Indigo slid into place inside my body like a glove, and I felt my face twist into a sneer. Animus grinned.

"Ah, there she is. The lady of the hour."

Indigo felt the attack spell before she saw it. A sound like a roaring engine split the air before a ball of white-hot energy flew toward us. Indie leaped to the side, narrowly dodging the first strike. It hit a few stray strands of black hair instead, and a few inches at the bottom simply disintegrated. Holy freaking crap. If that had hit straight on, it would have reduced me to powder.

"Coward!" Indigo shouted. "Hiding behind a young woman instead of facing me head-on. Where's the power of the Masked Lords, Animus? Or are you admitting you're nothing but an over-hyped boys' club?"

"You're right," Animus said, face twisting with anger. He shoved Estelle aside. She hit the ground with a painful sound of impact and let out a wail. "That was underhanded."

He looked so normal without his mask. Supermodel handsome, yes, but human. I wouldn't have pegged him as a monster. If we'd passed on the street, I would have just thought he was some famous person. He seemed human. He was wearing plaid underneath the winter coat, for Pete's sake. Then again, I wouldn't have pegged Indigo as a monster either. Sometimes the vilest of monsters wore human faces.

Indigo waited until both of his feet were on the pavement again before she struck. The bloom of fire from her palms would have made me jump if I'd been in control of my body. It didn't even feel like my body anymore. Indigo held herself differently. Even though my voice talked, it was her inflection, her words, her personality that seeped through. It was surreal. Was this what she felt when she was stuck in the back of my head?

The fire formed a large sphere. When it was only half a foot away from Animus, it split in two and came at him from two angles. He was able to block one, but the other grazed his thigh. He had to waste precious seconds putting his jeans out. Indigo summoned her power again, and it rioted through us as strong and unpredictable as a riptide. It made me rock back on my metaphorical heels. I'd never felt anything like this in my life. I was a hopeless dud when it came to magic. Without Indigo, I would never have had enough wattage to power a lightbulb, let alone battle a supernatural baddie. If I was a lightbulb, she was a floodlight. Potent enough to blind you if you let it.

Indigo tried to freeze his fingers. If successful, the spell would make them curl into his fists and stay there, limiting the magic he could do. But he was quicker than she anticipated, and before she could finish, he charged, closing the gap between us. His shoulder blocked Indigo, sending both of us hurtling toward the ground. His hands found her wrists and closed like manacles.

"The finger trap spell," he purred. "That was one of your mother's favorites. Too bad she wasn't around to teach you how to do it faster. All thanks to the war. You weren't strong or fast enough to stop them from ripping her throat out. We gave you the power you lacked. And how do you repay us?"

His grip tightened, and he twisted our wrist at a vicious angle, obviously breaking it. I felt the pain distantly, but it was still enough to make me scream. It had to be worse for Indigo. The bone bulged against the skin, threatening to punch through and make the break a compound fracture. It did what he intended. Indigo's preferred style of casting involved a lot of wrist movement. She would be less adept with just one arm to work with. If he broke both, he was essentially disarming her.

You have to get out of this hold, I said.

I'm intensely aware of that, she hissed back. How do you suggest I go about it?

I thought back to all the self-defense courses I'd taken with various women's groups. I imagined it. Hips, arms, roll. Hips first. Indigo followed the thoughts in my head, getting her feet firmly planted on the ground. She threw her weight up as if she were doing a bridge pose. It forced Animus forward and away. I could tell he hadn't expected it. I'd noticed that supernatural folks, especially the magic users, tended to rely on their power to the exclusion of everything else. A magic spell was good, but sometimes a fist to the face was all you needed.

Animus didn't want to end up with his face on the sidewalk, so he instinctually let go, catching himself on his hands. Indie had just enough time to get her arms under his chest and shove with one good hand. He slumped to one side and she wriggled out from under his weight.

She caught a glimpse of Estelle running toward the hotel as she stood. The sounds from inside hinted that the Winter Lord and his pet had made their fashionably late entrance. I wanted to yell at her to run toward Main Street and the safety of human society, but I couldn't. Indigo was in charge of my body and, even if she hadn't been, we had to keep our concentration on Animus. He caught the direction we were looking and laughed.

"Ah yes, empty-headed Estelle. That was a lucky find. I expected to need overwhelming force to kidnap your family, Indigo, but they were sitting ducks. No clue who or what I was."

"What did you do to them?" Indie asked. She wanted to shout, but her voice came out breathless with pain.

"Nothing."

"Liar!"

His chuckle raised hairs on the back of her neck. "No lie, dear. There was an incident in Misty Hollow."

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "Something in the swamp, as I understand it. Something that can naturally do what we had to perfect over the course of years. Hell, it does it better. The creatures it captures survive."

"That's not possible."

"Isn't it? This swamp creature takes the magic from a monster but leaves the monster otherwise intact. With time, it can take over the mind. In your nieces' cases, they traded solace for safety."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means that Mayor Beaumont's pet siren, the sheriff of Misty Hollow, charmed your nieces to forget they were ever witches. They claimed they couldn't live with the idea of being powerless witches, so they asked to have their minds erased."

"You could be making that up," Indie said, but there was doubt in her tone now.

"But I'm not and you know I'm not. I have spies everywhere. You never know where you'll need to hunt for powerful creatures. I'm hoping to take down whatever is terrorizing that Hollow. Its power is simply incredible."

Animus brought one arm up and muttered a spell in a language I didn't know. The resulting feeling within me reminded me of a busy beehive, a hum that filled you with instinctive dread. Indigo's feet felt heavy and, though she tried, she couldn't move an inch. Her arms fell to her sides and she couldn't make them budge, either. She tried to shout at him, but her lips were sealed shut by whatever spell he'd uttered.

"Finally, some peace and quiet." Animus smiled. "That's the one thing I couldn't stand about your mother. She always had to have the last word."

We tried to move even a single finger, anything to prove that he didn't have complete control over our body, but the spell was strong. We might as well have been in a straight jacket with duct tape over our mouth.

Animus stretched lazily. "Ah, this feels good. This feels right. All that time with Estelle was tiresome. This is what I came here to do. Now you're here, and you're mine. All mine."

"I don't think so."

Marty stepped out from one of the statuaries that lined the hotel grounds. He looked so... normal. He was a stark contrast to Animus, who was doing a pantomime of ordinariness. Marty truly was an ordinary human, but for one trait. It would have been refreshing if we weren't facing down one of the most dangerous beings Indie had ever known. I wanted to scream at Marty to run.

"Ah, the mundane among monsters," Animus said, turning to him with another one of those slimy grins. "I heard you're training to be one of Jonathan Moses' lapdogs."

"I am."

"I should kill you, just for that. Humans are bad enough, humans who have the gall to hunt us are worse," Animus continued. "The former are stupid, the latter are sadists."

"You can walk away now," Marty said, hands stuffed into his pockets. He looked downright casual as he moseyed toward us. "I'll let you. But you're going to leave Estelle, Lavinia, and Lydia alone."

"You're absolutely adorable," Animus said, his lip curling. "Thinking you can talk to a Lord like that."

"I don't see a lord," Marty said. "I see a bully. I don't like bullies."

"Like I said, cute," Animus said. "Suicidal, but cute."

He flicked a hand toward Marty at the same time that a cold, white fog surrounded his hands. Then Animus knelt, pressing his hands to the ground and muttered another word. The fog hit the ground, solidified, and raced toward Marty at top speed, leaving a two-inch-thick layer of ice in its wake.

And the ice stopped six inches shy of Marty's shoes. Marty stared down at it with benign interest, then smiled at the surprised look on Animus' face. Marty took a casual step forward then, and when his foot made contact with the ice, the ice evaporated as though it had merely been a trick of the light. A spear of ice shot from the frozen ground, aiming to impale Marty, but it dissolved before it could make contact with him. Marty's smile grew. Then he crossed the distance and pulling back his arm, punched Animus right in the face.

Animus rocked back, more from the shock than the pain, I thought. He stared at Marty as though he'd never seen a human null before. Marty reached for something at the small of his back and produced a handgun.

"Leave," Marty said. "Or you're going to get some 9mm persuasion. And then my friends will deal with what's left of you."

There was a shriek of pain from inside the hotel. An icy projectile soared out over the lawn and I distantly heard Taliyah cry, "The head! Get the head! It's almost dead!"

Marty beamed. "Sounds like I won't be alone for long. So why don't you crawl back into your hole before we give you a proper Haven Hollow welcome?"

To my shock, the shadows gathered around Animus. In the blink of an eye, he was gone. Indigo subsided, and I was in control of my body once more. The pain of my broken wrist suddenly clubbed me over the head and I fell on my ass, unbound at last. I bit down a scream. I was so going to kick that guy's ass the next time we faced off.

"Maybe I should play poker," Marty said, nonplussed as he turned to face me with a smile. "I honestly didn't expect that to work."

"Me either," I said. "Good job."

And that was all I managed before I promptly passed out.