Atone: A Fairytale (Fairytale Trilogy) (20 page)

“Well, don’t worry about me. I’m magic, remember?”

~ Chapter Fourteen ~

B
ECCA STARED AT
the tail lights in front of her on the 101, wishing that she’d opted to head into the city later that night. But Nicholas had insisted that if she was going to drive to his old apartment tonight, she start out before the sun had completely set. His anxiety didn’t bode well for the general safety of his former neighborhood.

As she drove past the apartment building twenty minutes later, she silently scoffed at Nicholas’s concern. Apparently living in the Hollywood Hills had softened him. The neighborhood looked pretty similar to the one her mom’s apartment was in and was probably replicated by the hundreds all over the Southland. Becca finally found parking about two blocks down the street, noting a promising looking Korean BBQ restaurant on the corner. Her stomach rumbled, loudly reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She looked longingly in the window as she walked by, promising herself that as soon as she’d finished scoping out the apartment she’d get food.

Nicholas’s apartment building was far from modern. It had been built sometime in the middle of the last century as some kind of warehouse or factory and then divided into apartments in a haphazard manner. Becca entered through the main doors and made her way down the rightmost of the four main hallways. Nicholas had given her instructions, and she was glad he’d explained it to her, because wandering around these dimly lit hallways looking for the right numbered door didn’t sound like a fun evening.

Finally Becca came to the second-to-last apartment on this side of the building. There was no package outside the door, so one could only hope the apartment manager had come through and the stone hadn’t been picked up by a “helpful” neighbor. She knew it was here. Or at least close to here. The pinging had gotten steadily stronger as she’d driven into the city. By the time she was outside the building it was so strong inside of her mind she was surprised people she was walking by on the street couldn’t hear it.

She double-checked the number she’d typed into her phone before sliding Nicholas’s key into the door. Nothing like getting caught trying to break into some random stranger’s apartment to really put a damper on her day.

The door swung open—the interior of the apartment was already pretty dark, so she searched along the wall for a light switch and finally flicked on an overhead light. Becca raised an eyebrow as she surveyed the apartment, almost all of which she could see from the front door. It was only a step above a studio with a separate bathroom and kitchen, and while it wasn’t cramped, it probably could have fit into the mirror room back at the mansion. Apparently Nicholas had been telling the truth about not taking a lot of money from either his grandmother or parents and living off his museum salary.

Against the wall a few feet from the front door was a cardboard shipping box complete with “
par avion
” stickers and Nicholas’s rangy handwriting.

“Bingo,” she breathed as she picked up the box. It wasn’t overly large but surprisingly heavy. It must have cost a mint to ship. She could tell even without looking that the stone was inside. The magic inside of her was pulsing wildly, so loudly it was all she could hear.

Which is why she didn’t realize the window on the east-facing wall had slid open until she felt a soft breeze. Becca whirled around, the golden magic inside of her igniting into a burning mass of power so quickly that she almost fell over from the influx of power.

“Hello?” The overhead light she’d turned on only illuminated the front half of the apartment. The back remained shadowy. After a split second she saw one of the shadows resolve into a massive shape. “Nicholas,” she said in relief. “What in the hell? You scared me.”

Nicholas didn’t say anything, just sprang toward her.

“Wha—?” she didn’t have time to get the question out before he was on top of her. His paw clamped over her mouth. She didn’t resist, even though she knew without a shadow of a doubt that with how strong her power was burning she could’ve knocked him off of her without much effort. She just stared at him, her question reflected in her dark brown eyes. He shook his head and took the box from her hands as he picked her up and sprang back toward the open window. Becca hung on to him as he slid through the window, bracing herself for the fall to the ground, but Nicholas was large enough that the five foot drop only required a small jump.

As they slid through the window, she heard the apartment door shattering behind them.

“We have to run,” he said in a low growl. She nodded. She could run straight back to her car, parked a mere two blocks away, but Nicholas couldn’t run down a relatively busy street even if the dusky twilight was fading into night. The area was well lit, and he’d be hard for anyone to miss.

“There’s an alley,” he said as he turned and ran off toward the back of the building. He was still carrying the box under one arm, which gave him an awkward, loping stride. Becca ran next to him; even with his slower pace she could feel the burn in her thighs.

“What was that?” she hissed.

“Fae. Came through mirror after you left. Followed them.”

Shock coursed through Becca. Fae coming through the mirror? She had never even considered that as a possibility. Of course the portal went both ways; she’d come back through it herself. But why would a fae want to come into the human world? Maybe they could hear the magical call of the stone too and wanted to close the portal. The better question was, why was she running from them? Maybe she could talk to them, find out what they wanted.

“Why running?” She must have been more worn out than she’d thought if running a few blocks was making her huff and puff like the big bad wolf. Just a few days ago she’d been running around outside with Nicholas and hadn’t felt anywhere near this winded.

Nicholas shot her a sardonic look, and Becca grimaced in response. They had, after all, just broken down Nicholas’s apartment door; that didn’t sound terribly friendly. She uneasily remembered Talon’s reference to the fera who were getting impatient with the situation. She glanced at the box tucked under Nicholas’s arm. It was amazing how being separated from it by just a few feet had softened the pulsing inside her mind. It was still loud, but she could hear—and think—clearly.

“They didn’t look like they were in the mood for talking,” he said as he came to a halt right before a small street intersected with the alleyway. “Your car is down there; I can see it from here. Get in and drive to Alexandra’s or Lilia’s.”

“What about you?” she asked. “I could bring the car up—”

“I can’t fit in your Jetta,” he smiled, a quick flash of bright white teeth in the dark. “I’ll go back up to the house, but I’ll stay outside—higher up the hill if I need to—and watch to see if they come back to the mirror.”

“But how am I going to know if it’s safe to—” Becca broke off as her power roared back to life inside of her. “Get behind me,” she instructed Nicholas in an undertone. “And get that box as far away from me as possible without letting go of it.”

“I’m not going to hide behind you,” Nicholas growled. He had seen them as well. Two cloaked figures advanced toward them. They moved gracefully, but with unmistakable power, seeming almost to glide down the alley. The hoods of their light brown cloaks were pulled low so she couldn’t see their faces. She could feel the vibration of their power, though. They were fera.

“They want the stone. Or they want you. Either way, you need to stay behind me.” She didn’t look at him, just stepped around his large body, trusting him to do what she said. The pulsing inside her grew more faint as he moved the box farther behind her. She reached down into herself, into the well of power—it was easier now that she wasn’t as close to the stone—and let it rush through her. She took a step toward the still advancing fera.

“What do you want?” she said loudly. “Why are you here?”

Both fera stopped walking. The one closest to them answered her. “We came for the stone.”

“I’m going to close the portal with it,” Becca replied. Something about his voice made her feel like he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. “Go back through the portal and I’ll close it behind you.”

“We do not just want to close it,” the other fera said. His voice was more belligerent than his counterpart’s had been. “We have waited long enough. The problem of the animal needs to be eliminated.”

Anger spurted in Becca’s chest, feeding into the already burning fire.
Eliminated?
“After I close the portal, the problem will be resolved. You can go.”

The second fera started to say something, but the one in front held up a hand to silence him. Then he pulled his hood back from his face. Becca was expecting the same kind of fierce beauty that Talon had, so she wasn’t surprised to see the fera’s sharp features were both beautiful and frightening beneath hair as dark as a raven’s wing. However, she was surprised to see his eyes. They glowed golden-brown and had long, narrow pupils—almost like a cat’s.

“You have already meddled with the spell on the mirror in order to protect this beast. We cannot trust you.” His voice was hard and unyielding.

Behind her Becca was aware that Nicholas was growling, she could sense him pacing back and forth, and knew the only thing keeping him from pouncing on the fera was her explicit instruction to stay behind her. But if he thought she was in danger, he’d try to protect her. And he’d get himself killed.

The emotion that flooded through her at the thought—a dizzying mixture of fear, sadness, and anger—told Becca all she needed to know about her feelings for Nicholas. She’d been lying to herself when she’d tried to rationalize away what she’d screamed at the mirror spell. She hadn’t been lying then. She did love him. The force of that love was likely the only thing that had given her the power to alter the protection spell at all.

“You can. No one wants the portal gone more than I do. I give you my word,” she said as calmly as possible. It was hard to control her own voice. It was getting harder to control any part of her body. The magic was burning through her like molten lava. The heavy gold streams pushing against her skin and bucking at the rein she had on it, wanting to lash out at the fera in front of her.

“That is not good enough. Your loyalty does not lie with the fae, where it should.”

Becca felt the change in magic a split second before the fera raised his hands toward her—actually toward Nicholas. A dark yellow ball of magic coalesced in the fera’s hand and before she could think it through Becca raised both her palms in his direction and let go of the hold she had on her power. It streamed out of her bright as mid-day sunshine and pulsing with golden fire. It hit the lead fera squarely in the chest and he flew back at least ten feet, landing in an untidy heap on the alley floor.

The other fera said something dark and angry sounding in a language that Becca didn’t recognize and ran to his friend’s side. He pulled his hood back as he bent over, and she could see that his hair was lighter—blond like Talon’s but cut shorter. He turned toward her as he pulled his friend up, and she could see that he also had disturbingly animal-like eyes.

“You have made the wrong choice, Becca Ward.”

“I don’t think so,” she answered, proud of how steady her voice was. She’d complained earlier to Nicholas about her power feeling different, but there was a benefit to the change. It was stronger. And much quicker on the trigger. She could feel somewhere inside her, skirting the edges of this new, golden power, her own violet-tinged magic. It was searching and testing the edges, waiting to find where it could twine with her new power. And she’d just noticed something on the balcony of an apartment across the alley.

“How dare you?” The first fera was on his feet now, and they were both advancing slowly toward her. She wondered briefly why they were even talking to her. Why not just throw more power at her? Between the two of them they should be able to knock her off her feet and get to Nicholas.

As the moved closer, she could hear Nicholas’s growl growing louder. When the fera were mere feet away from her, Nicholas suddenly pounced, launching himself toward them snarling. He hit the semi-solid wall of fiery magic that Becca had thrown up around them as he had crouched for his leap. He fell down to the ground with a thud and small yelp.

“Sorry,” Becca panted. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” As she spoke, twin blasts of magic hit her protection wall, fizzling harmlessly against it. She suddenly understood why she was so easily holding her own against the fera. Their attack wasn’t even as strong as Briar Rose’s had been against her, Alex, and Lilia, and at the time Briar Rose had been pumping power into several different spells. But Lilia’s aunt had never fully given up her ties with the human world—keeping Lilia trapped in her sleeping spell had ensured she would always have part of her magic in this world. Becca had been to the Fae Realm. The magic was different there; easily accessible. It ran through the very ground like veins of precious metal just waiting to be tapped. It wasn’t like that here. Even she’d needed time to recover from the change when she’d first come back through the mirror.

These fae couldn’t fully access their magic. They were having to work at it. Especially here in the city where concrete and metal covered every possible surface of earth.