Blackbirds & Bourbon (7 page)

Yours, how? But that is a question I definitely don’t have the guts to ask.

Jack’s eyes glint at me in the gloom. “Final question, princess. Then you use the fucking phone.”

I clear my throat, because my next question may be a silly thing to waste this opportunity on, but it’s been bugging me since I woke up this morning. Nagging at the back of my brain like a canker sore. “Last night, when you said to be careful what I wished for, what were you talking about, Jack?”

Silence. More dirt drifts from the roots above us, glowing softly like pixie dust in the orange flames dancing on my palm.

Jack lets the stone roll from his hand, watching it bounce over the ground to land at my feet.

“I’m done. This game is over.” He reaches up before I can move, wrapping his fingers in my sweater and pulling me down so that we’re face to face. “Either you call someone to get you, or I knock your ass out, throw you over my shoulder and take you anyway. What’ll it be?”

I stare at him, unable to think. Wounded or not, I know I can’t physically overpower him. In these tight quarters the moves Syana taught me are useless. He’s without his magic for the moment, but mine still doesn’t work on him. Finally, I nod and shove him back to grab my agate and stuff it back in my pocket. Holding out my hand for the phone, I whisper my rhyme, unable to look at him, everything inside me going numb.

My fingers are trembling as I dial Jett. Whatever Jack’s hiding, I’m afraid it’s worse than I ever imagined.

Considering my imagination is pretty twisted, that’s one scary fucking thought.

Jett
isn’t picking up, but I finally get a hold of Ana.

“She and Carly are on their way to pick me up.” I mutter a couple minutes later, shoving Jack’s phone back at him.

He nods in satisfaction, tucking it away. “She knows where we are?”

“Yup.” My sister’s scrying skills are unmatched. “Says we’re about five miles from Silver Bay.” I shake my head at him. “Did you really have to take us
farther
north?”

He shrugs. “I wanted to get you as far away from Ivo and his pal, as quickly as possible. Come on, the storm has stopped. Let’s get out to the highway.”

I lead the way out of the hole, emerging into a glittering world that is so bright it hurts the eyes. The trees are heavy with a sugary-looking mixture of snow overlaid with a glaze of ice. It’s deathly quiet.

“Nice job, Jack.”

He rolls his eyes. “You know damn well I’m not responsible for all winter weather. This is not me, it’s nature—though I
did
stop it. You’re welcome.”

Jack eyes me for a bit, as if he’s afraid I’ll try to run away. The blood from Ivo’s bite is stark against his torn white sweater, a deep, ugly red-brown. His skin shows through the ragged tear in the fabric, a flash of ink and smooth, unmarred muscle. He’s healed already. I look away.

“Lead on. I have no idea which way is out.”

He moves ahead of me. I squint against the sunshine and try to ignore the cold seeping into my feet. I am fervently glad I grabbed my old hiking boots out of the closet before we left T&T. My Uggs would definitely court frostbite in this mess. “At least there’s no need to worry about Ivo making another appearance.” I squint up at the sky. “That wouldn’t be fun, since you’re without your magic and all.”

Jack grunts. But with that one sound I know he’s still pissed the vampire surprised him. I smile despite myself. “Can you believe him and the satyr? I mean, I’ve heard of odd couples, but those two take the cake.”

I’m babbling, but the sound of our feet cracking through the ice against the deathly quiet of the woods makes me nervous. Plus, I’m sore, cold and have so many things swirling in my head that I need the distraction. “How do you think that works, eh? The two of them? I just can’t picture the logistics.”

Jack shoots me a look over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised. “After all the crap you’ve been through today, and in the middle of hiking through a forest covered in a foot of snow and ice, the most pressing thing on your mind is how a vampire and a satyr have sex?” He shakes his head, but there’s a real smile flickering over his lips before he turns back around. “Watch gay porn sometime, Seph. You’ll get the idea.”

“I have, but the tail… Wait.
You’ve
watched gay porn?” I make a noise between a snort and a giggle, unable to resist. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Jack?”

He stops so suddenly I smash my nose against his spine. “Goddamnit,” I groan, grabbing my nose and looking around for whatever spooked him. Then I notice his shoulders are shaking.

The son of a bitch is laughing.

I shove his back with my free hand and he stumbles over broken twigs and snow, still chuckling. “That’s nice, Jack, real nice. Laugh at the girl with the broken nose.”

He shakes his head again, his eyes twinkling, closing the distance between us in one stride. Jack gently pulls my fingers away and tilts my face to the harsh light breaking through the branches. “It’s not broken, Seph. Just a little red.”

His hand is warm against my cheek and I can’t help leaning into his touch. The light in those misty eyes softens, the rough pad of his thumb tracing my lips once before his mouth tightens and he turns away. “Sometimes I don’t know what the fuck to do with you, Persephone Gosse.”

I’m confused. “Because I make you laugh?”

“Because you make me feel.”

Before I can absorb that statement, Jack goes stiff, his eyes rolling back in his head. I grab him as he topples over, gasping as I take his weight, barely managing to break his fall. The surge of magic through the glade has the hair on the back of my neck stirring. Then an arrow zings past my ear. And another.
Shit.
Soon the air is full of them, whistling and sharp.

A rush of vertigo hits me, so strong it almost sends me to the ground next to Jack, but somehow I keep my feet. My emotions seem to be shutting off one by one until only a shiny, hard veneer remains. Turning, I face the stocky form stepping out of the tree line.

“I could have hit you with every one of those bolts, witch. But I think you’ll suffer more if you’re alive when I take you in.” The satyr’s lip curls. “You deserve it for what you did to Ivo.”

He watches me approach, eyes flicking once to Jack’s inert form before coming back to me, his russet tail twitching lightly around his legs. Sunshine dances off motes of snow in the air between us. He holds an arrow ready, but his bow is slightly lowered. He still doesn’t fear me. Not yet.

“
Kevin
.” I walk until there is no more than a foot between us. He tenses, but the sneer never leaves his face.

“Who did you expect when the arrows started flying?”

“Actually, I was hoping for Oliver Queen.”

The bow lowers a fraction more as he cocks his head, giving me a puzzled look, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I attack in a rush, whispering my rhyme at the same time. He’s far shorter and heavier than the bruins, but just as Sy promised, my muscles remember the moves she made me go through at least a hundred times in the last week. My hand digs into the solid inner curve of his arm, my hip slamming into his mid-section as I shift my weight. The smell of satyr surrounds me, wet fur and grapes. I breathe deep and plant my feet.

Kevin’s flat on his back to the crack of splintering ice seconds later (a sound I am really beginning to hate). Before he can move, my foot is pressed against his throat along with the magic I called down. It hovers between us, a golden purple haze that has the satyr’s fur standing on end.

“Witch magic,” he sneers. “I thought you were supposed to be different.” But I notice he’s being careful not to move.

“I’m not the one on my ass in the snow, Kevin sweetheart. What’d you do to Jack?”

The look in the satyr’s eyes is full of murder, but his voice is amused. “Nothing permanent. By the horned one, you’re worried about
Frost
? You really are—”

Kevin’s next words are cut off by a wet thunk and the sudden appearance of a blade in his throat, neatly severing his jugular.

Blood gushes from the wound as I stare in shock, lifting my foot, watching a thick, ghastly pool form around the satyr’s twitching body in seconds. The heavy smell fills the air along with the wet sounds of Kevin choking on his own blood.

Something slams into me hard enough to make me scream. The sound rolls over the forest as I’m thrown into the snow-blanketed ground with head-spinning force. I finally roll to a stop with a crushing weight on top of my chest. I look up, gulping for air, to see a familiar face above me.

One I’ve been looking for.

“
Luna
.”

“You got the drop on a satyr.” She grins down at me, her teeth half wolf and gleaming. “I’m impressed, baby witch. But it won’t be so easy with me.” I know it won’t. The idea of me going up against Luna physically is laughable, but magic will even the playing field. Enraged, I open my mouth to cast again.

She slaps a hand over my lips, her fingers like steel digging into my jaw. Her body twists as I try to shake her off and the pain over my left side goes from white-hot to agonizing. Something must have cracked or broken when she hit me. The forest spins and spins, a muddled haze of white, brown and pine green, before her face comes back into view. Somehow I’m still wearing my glasses, but I don’t like what comes into view.

My old friend has a nasty look on her face. “Oh, I don’t think so, Seph. Give me something to keep her quiet, dammit,” she snaps.

For the first time, I notice we’re not alone. Half a dozen other wolves fill the glade, most in human form. One of them steps forward, pulling a bandana from his pocket and handing it to her with a vicious look and a flash of teeth that says he’d prefer to gut me. Luna gags me tightly and without a shred of mercy, her pale pink eyes cool.

Another werewolf is standing over Jack’s still form, looking nervous. “He’s still out. What do you want to do with him?”

Luna’s slow smile makes my heart clench. She’s about to answer when a dark grey wolf enters the glade, sleek and swift, before turning into a slim young woman who looks right through me, her eyes on Luna. “We need to hurry, the other two witches are getting close.”

“Fine. Leave Frost.” She yanks me to my feet, not missing the relief in my eyes along with the surge of agony. “I’d take his head if we had time. Though you’d be too stupid to thank me for it.”

All around us the wolves shift, three going ahead and the rest falling behind us as Luna tosses me over her shoulder, thankfully not against my bad side, or I know I’d pass out. Which might be a relief at this point. Every inch of me seems to hurt. Either literally or worse.
How can she do this to me?

Jarringly painful minutes drag by. I’ve no idea how far we need to go, but holy horned one, Luna’s strong. She lopes along, my added weight doing nothing to slow her easy, ground-devouring strides. 

After a while, she starts to talk. “We’ve been stalking you since you left Duluth with the bounty hunters. It was easy. Vampires reek. When we found out one was going after the bounty all we had to do was follow our noses. And now we’re getting Ivo’s score.” The satisfaction in her tone makes me even more pissed. She chuckles. “Wipe that look off your face.”

I’m not looking at anything but her ass at this point, but I’m not surprised she’s reading my thoughts so easily. Rage and betrayal are boiling in my blood. Bad enough she went after Ana and Thomas. I’d told myself that was the madness of revenge and her father’s spirit in that damn knife twisting her up. It didn’t excuse what she did, not at all, but it made it marginally easier to cope with. But seeing her like this? So ready to sell me out, to cause me pain…it makes me realize, the Luna I knew, or thought I did, is gone.

I’m in a haze of pain, cold and impotent fury when a shadow falls over my face, making me blink and push my glasses back up my nose. Palisade Head.
What the fuck?
The familiar image of one of Minnesota’s most beautiful landmarks rises above me, huge and sprinkled lightly with snow, like someone’s old grandmother tossed a lace doily over the imposing reddish rock face.  Lake Superior slaps against the crumbling feet of the giant cliff, leaving fingers of grey ice in its wake.

Luna sets me down, holding me steady until the sparks of pain firing up my legs and spine fade enough for me to bear my own weight. One of the werewolves creeps forward and pushes their snout at an odd-shaped bit of lichen in the cliff in front of us. It looks like a stag, or something with antlers anyway, but then the whole of the mountain seems to fall away, revealing a giant black void.

Luna pushes me forward, ripping off the gag and taking some of my hair with it. Her voice echoes into the seemingly bottomless chasm ahead.

“Welcome to the Dark Council, baby witch.”

“I
have been dying to meet you, Persephone.” The new voice is warm and rich, reaching for me out of the impenetrable darkness. Next to me, Luna shivers.

“And where in the hell are you?” I squint into the blackness.

“Raise the lights a fraction, please.” Slowly, the shadows retreat, a sort of crude dais becoming visible as I walk cautiously forward. There is the sense of a mammoth, echoing space all around, but it’s still too dark to take in any of the details. But my eyes are inexorably drawn to the man sitting on the dais, reclining back in what looks to be a throne hacked haphazardly out of stone.

He appears tall and solidly built, in his mid-thirties perhaps. But I know FTCs. Just by the set of his gaze upon me, I can tell this fucker is ancient. Thousands of years old. Older than my mother. Or Jack. Probably the oldest of our kind I’ve ever met. He’s handsome, if you go for the chiseled, imposing type. His features are overtly masculine; a square jaw, Roman nose and strong forehead. What might be dark blond hair—it’s hard to be sure of the exact shade in this light—hangs wildly to his shoulders. The color of his eyes, though, is too intense to mistake, a grass green that flickers to bloodred even as I watch. Something cold stirs in my gut.

Suddenly, I’m fighting the instinctive urge to back up into Luna or hell, maybe all the way to fucking Iowa. Instead, I straighten my spine.

“Okay, I give up. Who are you?”

“Cerunnos, my child.”

Luna stiffens at the name but doesn’t comment. It stirs something in my memory, but I can’t quite place it. “In my experience, people who say ‘my child’ are never playing with all their marbles. No offense, Pops.”

Lifting a brow, the man turns to someone standing in the thick shadows next to the throne. Someone my eyes missed. “She’s exactly as you said.”

Tyr steps forward into the weak light, the ever-present sardonic smile on his face. The assassin shrugs. “I told you, she’s one of a kind.” That smile looks oddly tight. Almost forced. He’s not happy I’m here. I wonder if he’ll try and protect me or if his orders don’t cover this. My eyes go back to the man on the big chair.

“We are pleased—” He seems to be addressing Luna now, not me, but I interrupt anyway, feeling squirrelly.

“Your usage of the royal ‘we’ isn’t real impressive, either. It makes you sound like a pretentious asshole.”

Cerunnos only raises an eyebrow, his voice mild. “I was referring to my compatriots. Those that reside in the dark around you, not as willing as I to reveal their identities.”

I flinch, unable to keep from looking around the chamber. It is deathly quiet, but now that he’s made me aware, I slowly start to pick out the silhouettes scattered around the room, standing with an expectant stillness, like puppets waiting for their strings to be pulled. One appears to be a sprite, glittering faintly, then there’s the form of a lanky man leaning against the far wall, his posture suggesting disdain, a veiled woman in one corner…I can’t make any of the others out.

“Are you quite done whistling in the dark, little girl?” Cerunnos’s cool words have me pressing my lips together tightly, my hands clenching at my sides. He has the kind of voice that makes knees and bowels go watery. I wonder what poor sap has to clean the floors in here and get a brief flash of Mike Rowe with a mop and pail. 

Cerunnos waits, but when I say nothing, he turns back to Luna.

“The bounty is yours.” His voice holds an edge. A man concluding a distasteful transaction. One that he considers beneath him.

“We don’t want the bounty. We want what was promised to us before, the cure!” Luna’s tone is low and vehement, even a little desperate.

Cure?
What the hell is this?

“A promise that was made to your mate. His death rendered it null and void; you are only due the bounty that has been offered to all.” He gives an imperious jerk of his head when Luna opens her mouth again. “I really would not protest further, wolf. Working with your kind leaves a bad taste in my mouth as it is.”

“I’m sure it does.” Luna’s lip curls, her chin lifting as a faint hiss fills the chamber, but the sound quiets before I can get a bead on it. “Fine, we’ll take your money. But I won’t forget this, Cerunnos.” She sneers the name, her face shining against the darkness around us, pale despite the biting bravado of her words.

She strides from the chamber, a few shadows slipping away from the walls to follow her. Cerunnos’s eyes also follow my old friend, red, cold and clinging.

“What was she talking about? A cure? A cure for being a werewolf?” Surely not.

“Oh, don’t I wish? No, a cure for moon madness, Persephone. The poor things do seem to be plagued with the disease lately.” There is a predatory satisfaction in those eyes that are bright green when they flick back to me. What he says is true. Moon madness was unheard of until about a hundred years ago, when it began spreading to devastating effect. I’ve heard speculation that over half the werewolf population is now affected. I think of Owen’s white-laced yellow eyes and shudder at the thought of Luna succumbing to the disease.

Cerunnos is watching me, a curious look on his face, almost a kind of longing.

“
What
? Jeez, you’re freaky enough without looking at me like that. Tyr, you should’ve told me what a creeper ran the Dark Council. I wouldn’t have been so curious. Now that I’ve seen him, I’m ready to go. Laters.”

Cerunnos smiles, pressing his fingers to his chin, avidly taking in my every word. But his eyes flare red again and the fine hairs on the back of my arms rise and go stiff. The air behind me stirs and before I can turn I’m lifted off my feet.

My knees slam painfully into the uneven stone, my jaw snapping together hard enough to make my teeth ache. I twist my head to look behind me, but nothing and no one is there. When I face front again, Cerunnos is smiling, his eyes back to that poisonous green.

“A little respect, if you please, Persephone.”

“I’m not really the bowing and kneeling sort. Your pet assassin here should’ve told you that.”

“Oh, he did. He told me everything about you.” Tyr’s black eyes glitter in the shadows and I wonder how he dares play this game with such a man. Or maybe it’s not Cerunnos he’s playing with. Maybe I’m still the mouse and he’s laying another trap.

I decide to push a bit. Make Tyr sweat. “Uh-huh. Did he include the part where he gave you guys up? Told me who hired him?”

Tyr doesn’t blink and Cerunnos’s smile only widens. “Silly girl. I wanted you to know who was after you, I wanted to make you reckless and afraid. After all, those who profess to love you certainly haven’t been talking, have they? Why wouldn’t they warn you?”

I ignore the dig. They may be fucked up, but if this son of a bitch thinks I’m going be a clichéd fool who lets an enemy destroy their faith in their family, he’s got another thing coming. Despite how pissed off I am at my mom, and my sisters, we’re not going there.

“Nice try, thanks for playing. But the end game is still you wanting me dead, right? Assassin boy there failed. Twice.”

“He’ll have a chance to redeem himself shortly. No need to wait for your ‘trial’ when you deliver yourself so willingly into our midst.”

I swallow, my eyes flicking to Tyr. His expression doesn’t so much as flicker at Cerunnos’s words, but his fingers tighten on the hilt of his sword.

“I didn’t come here to die, you know.” I’m not entirely sure that’s true, but I try to put enough conviction in the words to make us all believe it. “I want answers.”

“Do you really think to get them and leave here alive?” Okay, so I’m not fooling anyone.

“Maybe I don’t.” I hold his gaze. His eyes gleam red again and I swallow hard. “But you’re scared of me. All of you, hiding in the shadows. Pissing your collective Underoos because of one poor little witch.” I turn, throwing my words around the room. A surge of collective anger stirs through the cold stale air, along with a touch of unease.
Interesting.

“Scared, are we?” Cerunnos lifts a hand, looking amused as the cavern stills again.

“Sure you are, it’s why you want me dead. The whole reason for your bounty. But how do you know I won’t use that power right now to get away—or take you all out here and now? Maybe that’s even why I came here in the first place.”

There is a definite spike in the tension in the room now. I can’t help but smile. Cerunnos, though, only shakes his head, leaning forward in his throne, his grin far wider than mine.

“Why don’t you call that terrifying power then?” he says, in a patronizing tone that has my gut churning with rage. “Go on.”

We stare at each other for long moments. Like a hangman’s noose, the tension draws tight around my throat until I can barely breathe, let alone speak. I’ve no idea how to reach the elemental magic I touched that night on the beach, and there is a part of me that never wants to touch it again.

He steeples his fingers under his chin, resting it on the tips. “I thought not, little witch. Whatever power you drew on that night, you have no true command of it yet. And we do not intend to give you the chance to learn.” He gives Tyr a meaningful look before turning back to me. “I must say, I find it terribly interesting that your first elemental weapon was ice. Just like your old lover’s.” His eyes gleam red again. “Where is Frost, anyway? He will be most disappointed to miss this. After all, he’s more invested than any of us.”

His smile widens when I say nothing, a sick feeling rising in my throat. “My my, he was right? You still have feelings for him. How droll. I thought him terribly arrogant—and a bit mad, to be honest. But I can see now he was telling the truth.” Cerunnos tsks lightly. “You
are
amusing, child. Do you imagine you’re protecting him? Did Frost make you think that he’s been intervening on your behalf?”

I shrug, even as my insides clench
.
“Jack says a lot of things. I’ve learned to ignore most of them.”

He leans back, lacing his fingers over a hard, flat belly, his satisfaction evident. “Frost is the one that marked you from the very beginning. The first of us to realize what you were. Without your Jack, we’d not be standing here right now.”

The words swirl around and around in my head, but their full meaning eludes me.

“And what’s that, exactly? What will I become that you’re all so afraid of? And so help me, if you say dangerous—”

“Dangerous? Yes, Persephone. As is any child that plays with matches. And that’s what you are. A witch child dabbling in magic best left to her
betters
. Your kind isn’t worthy of true magic.” A quick murmur of agreement sweeps around the room then settles, like the mountain sighing around us.

“Oh my god, is that what you all are? Some FTC version of the KKK? Talking about ‘true’ magic and acting as if witches and werewolves are beneath you. I bet you’re racist against vampires, too. How fucking blasé.” My sneering incredulity brings more titters from the creatures around us. Well, fuck them.

There is what sounds like a muffled chuckle to my left. The lanky man I noticed earlier has his fingers pressed to his lips, his eyes twinkling mischievously in the dark, before he withdraws again into the shadows. I turn my eyes back to Cerunnos. “I don’t even want your stupid ‘true’ magic. My own suits me just fine.”

“Really?” Cerunnos is finally losing his cool, his lip curling. “Be honest now. We all know you’re a rather pathetic witch, Persephone, with nowhere near the potential of your sisters. Isn’t that why you’re trying to harness elemental power, so you can rule them all?”

His words make my cheeks burn and my eyes sting, but I force a shaky laugh. “Rule them all? Dude, I am not Sauron and you’re sure as hell no Frodo. I’m not trying to harness a damn thing. Your elemental magic came looking for me, not vice versa. You want it? Take it back.”

“We plan to,” he waves Tyr forward, “along with your life. Enough of this prattle. Get on your feet, witch, and prepare to die.” He looks around the chamber as if seeking a consensus, there are murmurs and several nods.

Tyr steps forward, a grim look on his face, one hand on the hilt of his sword.

I jump up, or rather stumble to my feet. As I do so the truth stone, still in my jean’s pocket, heats, then suddenly pops free and rolls right across the rocky floor to land at the edge of Cerunnos’s dais. I stare at it in shock. How the hell did that just happen?

Every eye in the room follows it. There are several gasps and another soft chuckle right behind me.

Cerunnos leans slowly forward and picks the stone up. It glows eerily against his fingers. The expression on his face goes from incredulous to apocalyptic.

“Where did you get this?” If he was creepy before, now he’s gone full-on Hannibal Lecter.

I make a show of patting my pockets, looking puzzled. “How’d that get in there? Never seen it before.”

I don’t look at Tyr, though it takes every shred of willpower I have. Cerunnos does. His eyes shifting from green to red and back again.

“We have a traitor here, and I will find who.” He whispers softly, a hissing threat that slides through the room like a poisonous snake making everyone present shiver. Cerunnos’s gaze never leaves Tyr’s face.