Chapter 7

7

EVANGELINE

T he rain was bucketing down outside, tapping against my window like it was hoping I'd let it in. I was nursing my second cup of coffee at my desk when I heard the knock at my office door.

"Come in!" I called.

The door swung open, and there stood Gabriel, looking tall, dark, and tired. He was dressed down—by vampire standards anyway—in charcoal slacks and a black cable-knit sweater that emphasized the contrast between his broad shoulders and trim waist. His cheekbones looked sharp enough for me to cut myself on. The handle of his umbrella was hooked over his arm, the rain on it dripping quietly onto my floor.

I could feel the moment the building noticed him. It dimmed the lights, and faint strains of Billie Holiday began playing from my apartment upstairs, trickling down through the floor as she crooned about what she could do if the man she loved was hers. The smell of old floral perfume wafted gently through the air.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "Sorry about that. Chanel gets ideas whenever somebody new shows up." I pointedly turned my desk lamp up to its full brightness.

"Chanel?" Gabriel asked, still standing in the doorway. The hallway lights behind him threw shadows over his face.

"The building. Number five on the street, so… Chanel."

"It suits the place," he said, brushing a hand against the doorframe like he was trying to settle a nervy horse.

Chanel scooted the umbrella holder over to him.

"You didn't come to my office just so the architecture could flirt with you, did you?" I waved a hand at one of the chairs in front of my desk, and he sat, brushing stray raindrops from his sleeve.

"No, I didn't." He pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from a pocket and slid it across the desk to me. When I unfolded it, I saw neat lines of spidery handwriting covering the page. "This is the best translation I could manage. I did wind up making a few tweaks so that it would make sense."

Beneath the veil of twilight ' s last glow, a source of ancient power shall show.

Forged in realms where magic thrives, binding forces of past lives.

Seeker of light, with destiny ' s call, unveil each secret, and join them all.

Four fragments scattered, lost in time, together weave the grand design.

One piece found in a dark embrace, where shadows dwell, concealed by grace.

One piece found in a foe ' s abode, den of secrets where fear is sowed.

One piece stolen by evil ' s might, a drain of life, cloaked in the night.

One piece buried, a home destroyed, in ruins lie, once loved and enjoyed.

United the artifact will awake, unleashing a power none can break.

But beware the shadow ' s looming might, for darkness seeks the artifact ' s light.

When the Seeker holds the artifact whole, balance restored, salvation shall unfold.

The path is fraught, with test after test, that only the chosen one may best.

With the array's might, a choice must be made, to preserve harmony, or let light fade.

For destiny ' s path is etched in the heart, the Seeker ' s courage shall set worlds apart.

I let the paper fall to the desk and looked up at Gabriel. I almost asked him if he'd taken a crack at solving any of the clues but refrained. He'd done plenty for me already, and I hadn't even started to look into the missing vampires. I opened my mouth to apologize for that, but Gabriel spoke before I could.

"You were impressive yesterday," he said. "You're a lot more competent than I expected."

"Wow," I said coldly. "Thanks. That means so much to me."

"I meant—" Gabriel began, but I held up a hand to stop him.

"Don't bother. It's pretty clear what you meant. Impressive for someone who isn't a vampire. I get it."

Gabriel glared out the window at the rain. Thunder cracked above us. Neither of us flinched.

"Well," I said. "Thanks for bringing this by. I'm sure you've got plenty of important vampire prince stuff to get to, so…"

Gabriel's mouth twisted. "My schedule's pretty flexible." There was a tone in his voice I couldn't identify, but something about it bothered me. "If you could use the help, I could… I'd like to help."

I gave him a thoughtful look, and he met my eyes solidly.

"Why?" I asked.

He hesitated. "I prefer to direct my energy where it's going to have the greatest effect." It wasn't the whole truth, I could see it in his face, but I let it lie.

"You and me both," I said. "All right, fine."

I stood and crossed the room to the wall by the bookcases. With a snap of my fingers, the concealment charm that kept my corkboard hidden from curious clients dropped, and I pinned the prophecy right in the middle of it.

"Let's start from the top," I said as I grabbed a folder from my desk and began pinning up the information I'd found so far about the ascendancy array in loose clusters.

"I don't mean to question your methods…" Gabriel walked incredibly quietly. I hadn't even realized he'd come over to stand next to me. "But wouldn't it be more convenient to organize information with a visual aid? You could use something to connect the pieces of information. Perhaps some string?"

I grinned, pulling a spool of red twine from my desk. "Gabriel," I said. "I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

Soon, we'd turned the corkboard into a web of string and notes, some in my loopy, messy handwriting, and some in Gabriel's angular script. We'd printed out the picture of the original text and added it to the collection of pictures and scribbles. Gabriel was standing right in front of it, studying it closely as I made my way through a BLT. Making a murder board was hungry work.

"We're going to run out of sticky notes," he said, scribbling something down on one and adding it to the board. At least a dozen neon yellow sticky notes were scattered across the setup.

"Don't worry, I buy them in bulk. What are you even writing on those ones?"

"Possible alternate translations for some of the phrases in the prophecy," he explained. "I don't want us to miss out on something important just because I chose the wrong word."

Us . When had he decided this was going to be an ‘us' situation? And why couldn't I bring myself to mind it? I could appreciate his looks, sure, but it took a lot more than that for me to bring someone in on one of my investigations.

"For instance, this line here," Gabriel said, gesturing at the board. "I translated it as ‘destiny's call', but the more literal translation would be ‘the echo of fate'."

"Wait," I said, straightening up in my chair. "The echo of fate… I've heard that before somewhere, I know I have. An Abridged History of Augury and Sortilege , please." That last bit was directed to my bookcase as I waved my hand.

A thick leather-bound book floated off one of the crowded shelves and made its way through the air to land on my desk with a thump. Gabriel watched with more surprise on his face than I expected.

"I worked a charm into the bookcase," I explained absently, thumbing through the pages. "Simple but convenient."

"Impressive."

I shrugged. "Not really. I just tweaked a few runes and then carved them into the shelves. The most impressive part was how I managed not to maim myself with the chisel."

"Isn't rune modification an extremely difficult—?" Gabriel began, cocking his head to the side, but I'd found what I was looking for in the book and turned it to face him.

"Here," I said, jabbing the page with my finger. "I knew I'd heard that phrase before."

"‘A method that may be used by a skilled practitioner of those most sacred arts of divination for glimpsing the intentions of fortune,'" Gabriel read aloud. "‘Called by those most archaic of mages by many names, such as the glimpse of the wheel, the fís cinniúint , or…'" He paused, looking up at me. "‘The echo of fate.' It's a spell?"

"It's a spell," I confirmed. "I don't usually mess around with divination magic, but this could be exactly what we need right now."

I pulled the book back toward myself, then grabbed my notebook and jotted down a few things. "We're going to need components," I said. "Most of these should be pretty easy to find, but a few will be a bit trickier. Luckily for us, I think I know someone who can help set us on the right track."

The walk to Pumpernickel's Potions and Provisions left me with a jittery feeling in my stomach. It was still raining, and Gabriel had insisted on offering me his umbrella. I'd told him I wouldn't make him walk in the rain, and we'd somehow ended up sharing, crammed together to escape the rain. The humidity had puffed up his hair, and it made him look softer, younger. Vampires stopped aging at twenty-two, but they tended to get a certain gravity to them, like all their years added up into a weight they had to carry. It was the first time I'd seen Gabriel look less put- together, and it suited him. I couldn't help but wonder if his hair was as soft as it looked.

A collection of silver bells jangled cheerfully when we entered Pumpernickel's Potions and Provisions. As always, the place was completely chaotic. Bundles of dried plants hung from the rafters, and the many shelves were cluttered with colorful potions, shiny stones, books, bones, and antiques both magical and mundane. The counter was barely visible beneath piles of embroidered fabric, a large brass cauldron, and a stack of books. On one end of the counter sat a large velvet cat bed, completely covered in white fur. A massive cat was flopped inside, her legs hanging over the edges. She looked like a royal surveying her kingdom.

Pumpernickel's was always overwhelming, like someone had tried to condense two antique stores, a used bookstore, a living room, and a particularly chaotic craft supply store into the same small space. I loved it, but I also tried to make sure I never spent longer than ten minutes there in one go. It was the sort of place that you needed to brace yourself before going into, like Trader Joe's on a Sunday afternoon.

I reached out a hand for the cat to sniff, and she looked at me with regal disdain before deigning to inspect my palm. With that done, she slammed her head against my fingers for some petting.

"Gotta say hi to Her Ladyship," I explained to Gabriel as the cat began to purr so loudly that two of the glass bottles on the countertop began to vibrate against each other.

A clatter came from the back of the shop, and Mrs. Pumpernickel bustled out from between the tall dusty shelves, holding a vase of peacock feathers in one hand, and what looked like a miniature set of bagpipes in the other. She was a very short woman, with a head of silver curls and a pleasant, broad face, like a patchouli-scented Miriam Margolyes. She wore about a dozen shawls, and tiny, round glasses that were trying to slip down her nose.

"Welcome, welcome!" she said. "Evangeline, have you finally brought a young man to meet your darling auntie?" She set the vase of feathers down on the counter, which made Her Ladyship perk up with malicious intent. I moved the vase to a high shelf, and the cat glared at me, so enraged she fell asleep at once.

"We aren't related," I pointed out, but she waved a dismissive hand.

"That doesn't mean I can't be your auntie, child," Mrs. Pumpernickel said, tossing the small bagpipes onto the counter, where they let out a droning wheeze. "Now, what can I get for you and your gentleman friend? Something to spice things up, perhaps? Stamina potions are over by the stuffed alligator. Or perhaps a temporary shapeshifting draught? Better than a costume when you feel like getting up to some special hanky-panky!"

"It's not—We're not together," I said firmly. "Just working a case."

"No hanky-panky involved," Gabriel agreed, looking slightly dazed. Mrs. Pumpernickel tended to have that effect on people.

"We're looking for some components for a ritual," I explained, showing her the list I'd scribbled down in my notebook. She pushed her glasses up her nose and scanned the list, humming to herself.

"You've come to the right place, my dear." She bustled out from behind the counter and darted from shelf to shelf, scooping things into her arms. "Now, I can't get you all of this," she said over her shoulder. "I'm all out of black walnut hulls, and lambency ichor doesn't last long once it's been gathered, so you'll need to get that fresh. But you should be able to get everything you need in the woods on the outskirts of the Garden District."

She elbowed the pile of embroidered fabric out of the way and set everything down on the counter, then grabbed a small square of paper from the pile. When she tapped it, it unfolded into a map of the Garden District, complete with the nearby woods. She began to scribble on the map.

"If you follow this route, my darlings, you should be able to collect everything you need in barely any time at all. Now, I'll have all these things delivered to your office, and of course, it's on the house. I couldn't possibly take your money. You must stop by again to tell me how everything goes. I'll make tea!" She said all of it without stopping to take a breath.

"You're the best, Mrs. P," I said.

"I know, my darling. I know." Her eyes twinkled as she beamed up at me. "Now, off with you! The rain's finally cleared up, and there's no point in wasting daylight."

The city streets seemed almost shockingly peaceful compared to the sheer sensory overload of the shop. I took a second to catch my breath, and Gabriel did the same.

"She seems…" he began, then trailed off.

"Like a lot?"

"Like a force of nature," he agreed. "Is she always like that?"

"Oh, no, not at all," I told him. "She's usually way chattier."

Gabriel shot me a quietly horrified look that startled a laugh out of me.

"I know, right? But she knows everybody, and she knows where to find all sorts of stuff. I'm not a hundred percent sure she isn't some sort of criminal kingpin. I'm pretty certain she could run this city."

"It wouldn't surprise me," Gabriel said.

"Even though she's not a vampire?" I asked, unable to resist needling him a little.

He shot me a look. "I've been alive for a very long time. I've learned to never underestimate little old ladies, even if they're human." Then he paused. "Is she human?"

I grinned. "Honestly? I have absolutely no idea. Come on. We've got ingredients to gather."

It was hard to spot where the Garden District ended, and the forest began. The borders tended to change around, depending on what the fae were in the mood for on any given day. Luckily, the map Mrs. Pumpernickel gave us was enchanted to stay up-to-date, although that meant it tended to overheat if it was left in bright sunlight. The storm clouds had been swept away, leaving the day sunny and pleasantly breezy. The forest smelled of damp moss and fresh rain.

"It's this way, I think," I said, pointing at a narrow path.

Gabriel shook his head. "No, that's the north path. Look, here." He adjusted the angle of the map, his fingers brushing briefly against mine. His skin was cool, but not as cold as I'd imagined vampires would be. I hoped the flush I could feel rising into my cheeks would just look like embarrassment about nearly getting lost.

"Okay, full disclosure?" I said. "I'm excellent at finding my way as long as I'm in a city. Just, you know, not out in the wilderness."

"We're still within sight of the park," Gabriel pointed out dryly. "There's a snack bar barely a hundred yards away."

"Well, it's the wilderness compared to downtown," I said primly.

Gabriel's mouth twitched. "Perhaps I should be the one with the map."

"Only while we're in the wilderness," I told him. Behind me, an ice cream truck drove by. Gabriel's mouth twitched again, and I felt a jolt of surprise when I realized it was a tiny smile. "Absolute wilderness," I repeated with a small smile of my own.

We set off into the woods. Gabriel's body language had changed slightly, becoming more graceful. His movements were more fluid, his already quiet footsteps completely silent. He moved more like the ancient, powerful vampires I caught glimpses of sometimes.

"You move differently out here," I said.

His shoulders stiffened, then relaxed.

"Ah," he said. If I didn't know better I would've thought he sounded embarrassed. "Sorry." His next step landed loudly on a branch, and he started moving more rigidly again.

"What are you sorry for, exactly?" Years of investigative instinct told me there was something just beneath the surface here, and if I asked the right question…

"I tend to, ah, limit certain behaviors when I'm around non-vampires," he said. "It puts them a little more at ease. People tend not to like being constantly aware that they're conversing with an immortal apex predator."

"So you hide?"

"Not hide. I merely… adjust."

"Why bother?"

Gabriel sighed. "Most vampires are insular to the point of being isolationist. With many people I meet, I'm the first vampire they've actually had a conversation with. If I can make a few small changes and help them be more at ease, I'd say it's worth it, wouldn't you?"

I considered him for a moment. "Yeah. Yeah, I would. I guess I just didn't expect?—"

"Didn't expect a vampire prince to recognize that not every situation calls for prowling around in a cape and waxing poetic about the children of the night?" Gabriel said.

"I didn't expect you to be worried about community outreach," I said.

"Nobody does," he replied. "Ah, wonderful. Our first stop."

There was a small clearing off the side of the path with a massive tree in the middle. The base of the trunk was wide enough that it would have taken six people to wrap their arms around the entirety of it, and it split into twisting branches a few yards up. The tree was covered with small green balls that looked like a bad artist had tried to draw limes from memory.

"We're going to need the hulls," I said, crouching down to pick up some of the ones that had fallen at the base of the tree. Unlike the ones still in the branches, they were mottled with dark spots.

"What are you doing?" Gabriel asked.

I looked up at him, brow furrowed. "Is that a trick question?"

"Fallen husks are less potent," he said. "Give me a moment." He got a running start, then leaped up toward one of the twisting boughs, grabbing onto it and pulling himself up. He scaled the tree with inhuman speed and began to pick walnuts, lifting up the bottom of his sweater to use as a makeshift basket. I tried not to stare at the trail of dark hair that disappeared into the waistband of his pants.

Gabriel dropped down from the tree with the grace of a cat. "Is this enough?" he asked, showing me what he'd gathered.

"This is plenty. We can get the hulls off here, I guess."

He shook his head. "Better not. You'll want to wear gloves, or you'll get horrible stains on your hands. Trust me."

"You've done this before?"

"The manor where I spent my childhood had black walnut trees. I used to use the hulls to make my own ink."

"Oh, the manor, huh?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "You didn't have servants to do that sort of stuff for you?"

Gabriel looked down at the walnuts he'd gathered. "I liked doing it myself," he said. Something told me that if he was capable of blushing, his cheeks would be dusted with pink.

"Lucky for me, I guess," I said. "Otherwise I'd wind up with subpar nuts and stained hands."

"We can't have that," Gabriel said seriously.

I snorted and grabbed one of the enchanted cloth bags I kept in my jacket pocket for evidence. "Here," I said. "Drop those in here before you stretch out your sweater."

We kept following the path Mrs. Pumpernickel had sketched out for us, but now, Gabriel had the map in one hand, and a bag of walnuts in the other. Luckily, our next stop was pretty hard to miss if you knew what to look for. The mouth of the cave was a large, triangular gash in a rock face, surrounded by plush, vibrant moss.

"Let me lead the way," Gabriel said. "My night vision is far better than yours."

"Not gonna be an issue," I said. "Follow me."

I led him into the cave. It narrowed into a tight corridor, then opened abruptly into a large, cavernous space. Gabriel gasped when he saw it.

The roof of the cave was covered with pale blue lights, illuminating trailing threads that looked as though they were strung with diamonds. It was as if the Milky Way had decided to take a break from the night sky to paint itself across the cavern.

"They're beautiful," Gabriel murmured. He was staring up at it with an expression of open, childish delight, and the blue light made him look ethereal. He reached out to touch one of the gleaming threads that hung down, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"You really don't want to touch that," I said. "It's pretty, but it's bug vomit."

"Good to know," he said distantly. "They're glow worms, aren't they? The lights, I mean. Are you going to have to kill them?"

"I'm not going to kill them," I told him, a little surprised that he cared about the lives of bugs. "They won't even notice I'm doing anything."

I pulled out a small bottle, and murmured a few words, twisting my finger in a pattern around the opening. Pale wisps of blue light curled through the air and filled it up. The glass warmed very slightly, and I closed the lid tightly.

"We've got what we need," I said. "And now we've got a ritual to do."

My apartment's kitchen was small, and with two people in it, it was a little cramped. Gabriel stood by the sink, using a meat tenderizer that had been in the back of a drawer when I moved in to get the hulls off the black walnuts. He was going about the task with absolute focus, and there was a softening at the corners of his eyes and mouth that I was pretty sure meant he was enjoying himself. I'd given him the only pair of rubber gloves I had—bright purple ones I used to wash dishes.

"Ah, the color of royalty. And they'll bring out my eyes," he'd said mildly when I'd handed them over. I was a little annoyed at how well he managed to make them look like a fashion statement.

The ritual was a fiddly process, closer to potion-making than I usually got, but I followed the steps carefully. I had my cauldron bubbling away on the stove and added the ingredients according to the book propped open on the counter. The cauldron was, if you wanted to be technical about it, a Dutch oven, but it was good to be able to multitask, and I did a lot of braising and stews in the cooler months.

"I think we're ready," I said. "Are the hulls good to go?"

Gabriel nodded while picking up one of the now-mushed green balls. It smelled earthy and weirdly medicinal, with just a hint of citrus. "I may have gone slightly overboard," he admitted. "But I wasn't sure how many you'd need."

"According to the book, we need… Uh." I sighed. This was why I hated working with older spell books. "‘Hulls of the wall-nut, such as may be used for the production to ink, weighing the same as nine wrens, which is known by some by the name of kinglet.'"

Gabriel stared down at the book, then up at me. "That seems… unhelpful."

After I'd Googled how much wrens weighed and measured out ninety grams of walnut hulls on my kitchen scale, we were actually ready to start. I read out the chant from the book once, twice, three times, then added in the walnut hulls. The liquid in the pot turned a dark brown.

"Did it work?" Gabriel asked, his voice hushed.

"I don't kn—" I started, then all the breath left my body in a rush as a torrent of magic cascaded into me. My vision went white, and I couldn't feel my body. It was too small and insignificant to even be recognized by what I'd just tapped into. I was a tiny leaf being swept along by a raging torrent. I was everywhere and nowhere.

Flashes of imagery came to me and left just as quickly. I saw a man with curly red hair and a beard smiling down at me. A sticker with a cartoon ladybug on it. A workbench with coils of golden wire laid out across it. A woman with wide green eyes reading out loud from a picture book. The swooping view of a backyard as I was pushed on a swing. A battered pickup truck. A wheeled dragon toy with wings that flapped as I pulled it across the ground.

Fire. Fire, fire, fire, so much fire, all around me—inescapable.

And suddenly, I was back in my kitchen.

"What the fuck," I said, then passed out.