42. Comeuppance

When I stepped out of the nocturne door, I found Dave leaning against the hood of his shiny black muscle car, texting. "What are you doing here?"

He glanced up and then went right on texting. "Your boyfriend asked me to guard the nocturne while they're doing their secret shit."

"He's my betrothed, and that was nice of you to agree. It's just…" How did I put this?

"What?" His annoyance knew no bounds.

"It's just—If someone wanted to sneak in, couldn't they just hop the back wall while you're standing here texting by the main gate?"

"Sure, they could. But then they'd die." He held up his phone to me. "I've got the security loaded on this. I get an alert if anyone on the sidewalk gets too close to the property."

"Ooh cool. Can I see?" When I stepped closer, he held up a hand, stopping me.

"No. Go use all that energy to run and stop bugging me."

I wondered who he was texting. "Is Maggie okay?"

A grin pulled at his lips. "She's perfect." He looked up then. "Thanks for getting her back so quickly. She said you and Faerie had a little chat, that you made sure everyone got out safely." He nodded his thanks.

Pointing at his car, I said, "If you're feeling grateful, you can give me another driving lesson."

"What did I say about bugging me? Go away," he grumbled.

"Fair enough." I took off at a sprint and kept going, skirting the edge of what was believably human speed. I could be an Olympian in training. They didn't know.

I was only a few blocks from the nocturne when a car screeched around the corner and gunned it down the street toward me. I barely had time to dive for the grass of Lafayette Park when the car jumped the curb and rammed into a streetlamp. Heart pounding, I cautiously made my way back. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel.

Abigail. It had to be.

"Oh, my God. Are you okay?" A woman walking her dog rushed up. "Is he drunk? He went straight for you." Her little dog growled at me, keeping safely behind his owner's legs.

"I have no idea," I said, pretending to be far more shaken than I was. "I was just going for a run when I heard squealing tires behind me." I put my hand over my mouth. "I'm going to be sick." I raced around a wall of bushes bordering the park.

The woman already had her phone out and was calling 911. As she spoke to a dispatcher, I moved farther away. If the driver woke up and continued to come after me, it would be very hard to explain.

The joy I'd felt at the beginning of the evening had evaporated. Abigail would never stop. She would continue to hurt innocents until she finally came for me herself. This had to stop. I had to stop her.

When I ran through the gate at The Wicche Glass, I found Meg waiting in the courtyard at a table.

"You're late."

"I never gave you a time." I paused to brush a leaf off Martha's grave marker and then raced into the tavern. "Be right back." I undressed quickly, rolling up my stuff and placing it behind the bar.

I was about to shift when I remembered the queen's ring on my finger. Shit. It was too valuable of an object to leave here, but too awkward to remain on my paw while I ran. I tried unclasping the dragon chain so I could string the ring on it, but the clasp wouldn't open. It had probably been magicked shut so I wouldn't lose it. Benvair was not a trusting soul.

The wicche glass was on a chain just long enough to go over my head. Spinning it through my fingers, I realized it had no clasp. Not having another option, I took it off and threaded the chain through the delicate ring. It dropped. Being a bit smaller than the ball, it encircled the top like a halo. Good enough. I slipped the chain back over my head.

Once on my hands and knees, I finally let the moon call my other side. Fur burst through my skin as my jaw elongated. Muscles straining, my body shifted and reformed. I braced for a blinding moment of pain but didn't feel it. Panting on the barroom floor, I grinned a wolfy grin. My necromancer side was stronger here. It allowed me to shift with far less pain.

Standing, shaking off the aftereffect, I took stock. The wicche glass and the dragon carving were still around my neck. The dragon chain was tight, but when I shook again, it settled next to my skin, leaving me breathing room.

Trotting out to the courtyard, I found Meg gone. Leaves rustled. I peered up into the perpetual twilight of this border land and found Meg standing on a branch of the massive fae tree. I gave a quick woof and headed toward the gate.

The evening was chilly, the wet of the fog soon beading on my fur. Pausing behind a parked car, I listened intently. An owl, a dog bark, cars on the distant highway, little scurrying animals, but no humans. I bolted across the road and into the cemetery, weaving between headstones, heading for the state park beyond.

I'd expected to have to scale fencing of some kind, but either there was none or I happened upon a fenceless section of the border. Once past the roads and buildings, I raced over the park land, down ravines and up steep hills, dodging the brush too tall to leap over. Through it all, the moon shone down, lighting the way.

When I skirted close to a large stand of trees, I smelled the sweet scent of prey. Spinning, I crashed through the wooded area, sending birds and small woodland creatures racing away. It was a dick move, but I loved it. Zeroing in on the rabbit I'd smelled a moment before, I dove into the small shrub I knew he was hiding beneath and came out the other side with him between my jaws. One quick snap and I was pausing for a snack.

"Hurry up. That sounds disgusting." The shadow of Meg's wings circled above. Tearing into the small rabbit, I made quick work of the meal and then was up and running again. A few miles later, I found a stream and drank greedily.

I gloried in the night, in being one with nature. Of course, being an apex predator had a lot to do with my enjoyment. If I were a rabbit shifter, the evening would have sucked.

Meg's shadow crossed the moon often enough for me to know she was keeping close. After a few hours, as the moon began to set, I headed back toward the cemeteries, stopping once again at the stream to drink my fill and wash off the blood of the second rabbit I'd found.

Sated, happy, and tired, I trotted back through the gravestones. Pausing at the edge, I stilled, listening to the sounds the world made when it slept. Ghosts hovered nearby. I could feel their desire to be close to me warring with their confusion over my current form.

Bolting across the street, I ran through the gate and into the safety of The Wicche Glass. The dark, foggy night once more became soft and fragrant in the perpetual dusk of this almost-fae hinterland.

No pixies had been playing with my stuff, so I shifted and dressed. Normally, I'd shower first, but the stream had taken care of most of the dirt and debris. I was just reaching for my phone when a fire roared to life in the hearth.

I turned, wondering if I had an angry Galadriel to deal with and instead found the dark silhouette of a far more petite woman standing before the flames. Flickering light from the fire left most of the tavern in shadow. A chill ran down my spine. I might not have been able to see her, but I knew exactly who she was.

"That was grotesque. You may look human now, but you're nothing but a vile animal, an abomination to the name Corey."

"Quinn." I hated to admit it, even to myself, but the fear I felt was bone deep. I'd been taught for as long as I could remember to hide from this woman. My mother's fear of her sister was that great.

"Don't remind me of that beast," she spat. With a flick of her wrist, lanterns hanging from the ceiling lit, throwing the room into relief. The disgust I'd heard dripping from her every word was mirrored in her expression.

"Why do you care? I mean, really, why have you made it your life's work to kill my mother and me? Such a miserable life you've chosen for yourself." She'd set up my rape and torture—had orchestrated a second attempt before I'd killed the wolf she'd set on me. Her twisted obsession knew no bounds.

She twitched her fingers and I felt a hard shove but instead of flying across the room, I staggered, keeping my feet under me. Balance regained, I felt stronger. Weird.

"Not as big and bad as you used to be, huh?"

She wore a momentary look of shock but covered it quickly with a sneer. "A mutt, that's all you are, like your father before you." She shook her head. "My sister, so special, the chosen one." She spat on the floor. "The Crone decreed it at her birth. The Mother sanctified the choice. My perfect sister was the next in line, the Maiden joining the Mother and the Crone." She paced, anger getting the better of her, hair floating and sparking about her head. "Rulers of the Corey Clan. My sister," she ground out, "married a dog and then gave birth to another one. Turned her back on her destiny."

The fear lingered, but I was seeing her differently, like seeing something from childhood and realizing it was much smaller and dingier than remembered. "I get it now. You were hoping if you got rid of your sister, you'd become a power player. Of course, that doesn't explain your fixation on me—" It was in the eyes. I saw her expression change and knew exactly what it meant. "Aww, they still didn't want you, did they? They wanted me." Shaking my head, I leaned against the bar. "How much do they have to hate your guts to choose me, sight unseen? Ouch."

Screaming, she shot her hands out and my chest seized. Lung, heart, everything stopped. And then it didn't. I took a deep breath and Abigail's eyes went round. The magic I kept coiled in my chest felt different, stronger. My fingertips tingled with a ready spell.

Ignoring for now the way her spells were being claimed by my own magic, I said, "So, being the petulant little sociopath that you are, you decided torturing innocents was the price the world would pay for not giving you what you wanted."

Flicking her fingers again, I was knocked sideways into the solid wood of the bar. My ribs hurt, but nothing was broken. Again, a spell danced along my skin, down my arm, and along my fingertips. And then it hit me. I remembered a passage I'd read in the family grimoire and finally understood the Corey Curse.

Be warned. If hand is raised and Corey slew

Powers, born and learned, shall be stripped from you

Treachery, like a poison, has weakened our clan

We, the three, have enacted a plan

Once great, we are too few

Slaughter and you will be unmade. We spake true.

"You didn't recognize her, did you? The woman you tortured in that back room?" When she flicked her fingers again, I put up my hand and caught the spell like a softball lobbed to me. I held it tight in my fist and then let go, feeling it gambol up my arm, settling in my chest.

"She was your aunt." There. I saw it. A flicker of fear in her eyes before she flicked her wrist again. I felt nothing and she knew it. "Not as powerful as you used to be. Remember when you shattered my mind? It rained glass in my head. Damn, that was impressive. Now," I said, shrugging, "I believe this is referred to as comeuppance."

Chanting under her breath, she stalked toward me, her hands readying a complicated curse. With a grunt, she sent it flying. Freezing cold gripped my limbs. Sneering, she said, "You will die worse than all the others. I'm going to watch as your skin is peeled one strip at a time from your bones."

The cold drained from my limbs, becoming one with the magic coiled tight in my chest. "Killing your aunt, your spells sliding right off me, this must be that Corey Curse I've heard so much about."

Abigail's face turned red. "No!" She hit me before I could dodge the spell. It was the one that had put me down a couple of months ago, the one that felt like glass raining in my skull. Instead of dropping to the ground, I held tight to the bar, remaining upright. As shards of glass tore at my brain, a door opened…

I was walking through someone's mind. The dark, the occasional sparks of synapses firing nearby, memories lighting and then dimming, was there a vampire with us? Whose mind was I in?

When a light flared to life beside me, I stepped in. It was the last apartment my mother and I had shared. She was shoving me into a tiny closet. I was tripping over jumbled shoes.

"Shhh. No matter what you hear, love, you stay here and be quiet." She patted the pendant she'd made me that hung around my neck. "She won't sense you. Remember, never take this off."

Shorter than me, she rose on her tiptoes and kissed my forehead. "I love you forever, my girl."

The front door flew open and my mother stood a little straighter. She flicked her wrist in my direction and then closed the closet door. When I tried to open it, to find out what was going on, I couldn't move. She'd spelled me. The latch was old, though. If you didn't pull up on the handle when you closed the door, it fell open. It was only an inch or two, but I was able to see out.

A woman who looked very much like my mother stalked into the room. Their voices were muffled, like they were talking underwater. I couldn't make out the words, not clearly. My mother's spell was trying to protect me from all of it.

Abigail's hand flew out and my mom was hit with a spell that sent her reeling. When my mom hit back, Abigail staggered and then lifted both hands up in the air and threw her head back, shouting. Behind her, a shadowy form rose from the floor. Her face a mask of insane fury, Abigail pointed at my mother.

Mom backed away from the demon, holding up the protective amulet she wore around her own neck. The demon moved out of sight and came back with a struggling man who appeared to be living hard, clothes stained and ill-fitting, face dirty, hair matted. He held the man by his neck and then walked into him, becoming one with the homeless man. The man's expression, two parts confusion and one part inebriation, turned horribly focused and gleefully sadistic.

Abigail handed him a knife. He tested the weight and then almost faster than my eye could register, he'd thrown it, pinning my mother to the wall through the neck. Blood spattered the room as he tore her apart. Frozen, I couldn't close my eyes.

Blood dripping from her smug face, Abigail said something in Latin and the demon sunk back down. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she stared down at what was left of my mother. "Always the fucking perfect one, weren't you? Not anymore. The power is mine now."

It wasn't until I watched her sail out of the apartment that I realized I'd heard her words, that I could move. The spell had ended when my mother's life had.

Eyes blinking, memory fading, I stared into that same smug face as the wicche glass heated up around my neck. Eyes alight in malevolent intent, she said an incomprehensible word and then began to chant again. Behind her, a black form rose from the floorboards. The inky black form took the shape of a man, a tall, muscular man. She shouted something while pointing at me.

No. She'd done enough damage in this life. It was time to end her. I called the dead to me, asked that they leave the in-between place where they resided and come to me. Abigail's eyes shone with a zealot's gleam as the dead gathered around me in numbers too high to count.

In my mind, I asked them to visit on her the pain they'd experienced in their deaths. The flames behind her roared to life as a whirlwind of spirits raced past me and enveloped Abigail. Eyes bulging in terror, she spun, trying to see her invisible attackers.

Convulsing in pain, she howled, "What are you doing?"

I didn't care if the Corey curse came back to slap me down for killing a relative. Too many had lost their lives because of this one woman's insane jealousy.

Gurgling words to the demon, she struggled, in a panic now that she was the one in pain. Dave had promised the substitute demon wouldn't hurt me. I guess we'd see if that was true.

Claws out, I lunged forward and was immediately snatched back. Hanging from the demon's meaty grip, I watched Galadriel step through the mirror, pull her sword from its sheath, and raise it over her head. She took only a moment to look into the eyes of the woman who had tortured and killed her wife and then the sword was arcing through the air, firelight glinting on the elven metal as she sent Abigail's head spinning.

Galadriel lifted the bloody sword and licked the flat of it, drinking the blood of her enemy. With a short bow to me and the demon, she stepped back through the mirror and returned to Faerie.

The demon dropped me, picked up the head and body, winked in a Dave-like way, and returned to Hell with Abigail as his spoils.

Left alone with countless ghosts, I thanked them all for their help and gave them a gentle push away. I couldn't think with so many surrounding me.

Abigail was dead. The woman who had haunted me my entire life was dead. It didn't seem real. And my mother…she'd done everything in her power to protect me—had protected me—and was slaughtered by her own sister out of bitterness and envy. How did any of that make sense?

"Was that really a demon?"

I jolted at the voice, causing my ribs to throb. Scanning the room, I found Charlotte, my ghost assistant, staring at the floorboards Abigail had disappeared through.

Holding my side, I went behind the bar to grab my shoes and phone. "Yep."

"And he really…"

"Dragged Abigail, body and soul, to Hell? You bet." I checked my phone first, looking for a message. It was short and sweet. He's fine. Clearly Godfrey had sent the text.

"That thing around your neck is glowing."

I glanced down and realized it wasn't the wicche glass that had been heating up earlier. It was the ring encircling it. Gloriana must have tipped off Galadriel that Abigail was here. I pulled the necklace off and tapped the ring, worried it might still be hot.

It was warm, not hot, so I unthreaded it and returned it to my pinky finger. It pulsed in time with my heart, once, twice, and then settled down.

"You don't need to—" stay. Where'd she go? Huh. I guess Charlotte was more freaked out than I'd thought. Using one of the wicchey spells Lydia had taught me, I doused the fire and then closed the door.

"Are you done now?" Meg was back up in the branches.

With my run? With my aunt? "Yes. And thanks so much for your help in there," I added sarcastically.

She swooped down, encircled me in an arm, and then beat her huge wings, lifting us up into the air. "Did you actually need it?"

Stomach swooping at the height, I closed my eyes and thought about that a moment. I was surprised to say, "No, I didn't."

We rose quickly into the fog and then shot forward. I was freezing, terrified by how far away the ground was, but the ride got me home faster so I could check on Clive myself. I appreciated the text, but it had been short on details.

"Thanks for staying with me tonight. I'm sure you had better things to do." My teeth were chattering so hard, I wasn't sure if she got all that.

"I did. I think you should pick up my bar tab for the next year."

Blinking rapidly against the icy wind, I studied her wings. They were a thing of beauty, the feathers every shade of black, white, and gray. "One month," I countered.

"Six months." Her long gray hair streamed out behind her in the wind.

I considered not just tonight but the fact that she'd gone to New Orleans to help us battle vamps. Honestly, Owen, George, Stheno, and Dave should probably be getting free drinks as well. No. Not Stheno. She'd put me out of business in no time. "Okay, six months."

She flew over the walls of the nocturne and released me five feet from the ground, jolting my ribs and knees. Damn, Fury.

"Make that five months!" I yelled after her.