Blood Kin (14 page)

The crawling sensation in my spine redoubled. This wasn’t good. But before I could protest or form any sort of plan to escape, the door flew open again. I jumped. Guy merely spun around.

Fen’s tall form filled the doorway.

“What are you doing here?”

Guy and I spoke at the same time.

Fen scowled as he stepped into the room. One hand drifted to his hip where I knew he would have a pistol. “I could ask you the same question, tin man. I told you to stay away from her.”

Guy folded his arms. “Sorry, I don’t take orders from civilians. Particularly not crackpot drunks.”

Buggering lords of hell. I stretched my hand toward the knife on my breakfast table as masculine aggression smoked the air. I would stab someone to stop a fight if I had to. I’d done it before.

Say something before this gets ugly
.

“Fen, what are you doing here?”

He looked to me and his frown eased. But the expression that replaced it was one of worry.

My stomach dropped a little. “Fen?”

“I have some news,” he said. He looked at Guy, and then jerked his head toward the door.

“I’m staying right here,” Guy said, steel edged. “Holly and I were having a conversation.”

“Holly?” Fen said.

I hugged my arms around myself, not liking the chilled queasiness that filled my stomach. “He can stay.” I looked at Guy. “For now. What is it?”

“It’s Reggie,” he said quietly.

My mouth went dry. “What about her?” I asked.

“I can’t find her.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I went round to the—” He broke off, looking at Guy, obviously unsure how much he knew. “To see her. She wasn’t there. And she wasn’t in her rooms last night.”

I looked at him, knew he was thinking the same things as me. Reggie didn’t do one-night stands. She didn’t go off without letting anyone know where she was.

“Maybe she worked through the night. Did you—”

“Yes, I checked again this morning. There was no one there.”

Not good, Holly girl
.

I wanted very badly to pretend that I couldn’t put the pieces together, that I didn’t know what this meant. But I did. I bent my head to my knees for a moment, breathing deep. Reggie was missing.

“Holly.” Fen spoke softly, but something in his tone chilled me further.

I dragged my head upward, though it felt heavy on my neck, dread weighing it down. Fen’s eyes were a dark sorrowing green instead of their usual merry gleam. Beside him, Guy’s face was still grimly icy, but he stayed mercifully silent. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Fen nodded. “Yes. When I couldn’t find Reggie, I went to the sanatorium. Your mother isn’t there.”

Sweet lords of hell.
Mama
. My hands started to shake.

“What do you mean, she’s not there?”

“Dr. Salinger said somebody came to collect her two days ago. Reggie was apparently visiting her and she went with them. Whoever it was didn’t leave a forwarding address. He seemed quite confused about it all. I think somebody glamoured him.”

I dropped my head down, beating my head against my knees. Stupid. So, so stupid. Why hadn’t I seen this coming? I should’ve known Cormen would have a backup plan, another way to tighten the leash around my neck. Damn him to the depths of hell. Fen came over to me, crouched by the bed, and laid a hand on my arm. “Do you know who it was?”

I looked at him, tried not to sound as terrified as I felt. “Who do you think?”

Fen’s mouth went flat. “Since when has he been poking around you again?”

“Who?” Guy demanded. “What’s going on?”

How to explain Cormen to Guy? I wasn’t sure I would even be able to speak his name with the geas controlling me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “It’s complicated.”

“Someone has taken your mother away from a sanatorium along with your friend. Is your mother sick?”

I didn’t particularly want to explain my mother either. “As I said, it’s complicated.” My tongue felt clumsy in my mouth and I didn’t know whether it was the fear or the geas. Cormen had my mother, that much I was sure of. I had to assume he’d taken Reggie as well. That was how he’d found my mother, no doubt—set someone to follow Reggie and swooped them both up in one go. Surety for my good behavior.

Which meant he would be willing to do more than just take them to ensure my complicity with his little scheme.

My mother was old now, worn out beyond her years by the grief my father had caused her and the gin she’d drunk to forget. Cormen wouldn’t think twice about hurting her. To him, she was no longer the beautiful human who’d caught his attention for a few years. Now she was just a tool.

Reggie would be even less to him.

My hands clenched involuntarily, my short nails digging into my skin. He would hurt them. Kill them maybe. And who knew if he would set them free even if I delivered Simon’s secret?

He wanted this secret badly. Badly enough to want to ensure that I was bound to his will. And what better leverage than keeping my family hostage? I couldn’t let him hurt them. But I had no idea how to go about finding the information he wanted. Or how to stop him.

“Holly?” Fen broke the silence. “What do you need?”

I looked up into the green eyes that understood all too well what it was to be cast off by a Fae lord. To be viewed as a possession to be discarded or picked up according to another’s whim. And then I found myself looking past green to blue. To the warrior whose strength I suddenly needed.

“I need to speak to Sir Guy,” I said to Fen. “Could you give us some time alone please?”

He didn’t look happy but he gave in when I insisted.

“Well?” Guy said as the door closed behind Fen. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

I wanted to. The problem was that I didn’t know how much I would be able to tell him. And I definitely didn’t want to have to explain going into some sort of paroxysm if I involuntarily triggered the geas. “I can’t,” I said. “Not all of it.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dangerous,” I said. There. That sounded plausible. Plus it was true.

“Are you going to tell me any of it?”

“Perhaps.” I forced myself to look him straight in the eye and not give in to the panic still beating at me every time I thought of my mother and Reggie left to Cormen’s not-so-tender mercies. “But first I have a proposition for you.”

“Yes?” He sounded wary now.

“I’ll help you—I’ll spy for you—if you help me.”

“Help you with what, exactly?”

I stopped for a moment, not sure that what I was about to say made any sense at all. But right now I couldn’t think of anyone else who might actually be able to help me take on Cormen and succeed. “I need you to help me get them back. My mother and Reggie.”

“From who?”

“I can’t tell you that. Not all of it. One of the Fae. That’s all I can say.” Even that made my skin crawl a little under the sting of the geas. There was no way I could say “my father.”

“Do you know where they are?”

“No.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“No.”

He folded his arms. “Do you have any idea what it is you’ll need me for?”

“No.” I was starting to feel vaguely stupid. And hopeless.

To my surprise, Guy smiled. A somewhat grim smile but a smile nevertheless. “Good. Sounds like my kind of situation.”

I gaped at him. He sounded as though he was looking forward to it. “Excuse me?”

“Hopeless causes. It’s what the Templars do best.”

I forced my jaw shut. “Are you making fun of me?” My rule was more to run away from trouble when I could. But I wasn’t a Templar. This attitude was exactly why I needed him.

He shook his head. “No. I’m being honest. It is what I do best. Now, how are you going to find out where they are?”

That much, I did know. The prospect didn’t exactly delight me, but the only other way to find out where Cormen had taken my mother was even less appealing. I squared my shoulders. “The same way we’re going to find out what you want to know about the Beasts. We’re going to go play in the Night World.”

Guy’s blue eyes turned intent. “You said that wasn’t a good idea.”

“It’s not a good idea,” I said. “But I don’t have a better one. You want information. I want my mother and Reggie. So we can make a deal. But the Night World is our only option.” Which meant we both better start praying to whatever petty saints and deities looked after hopeless causes, because it would take a miracle or two to pull this off. “So if you can’t deal with that, say no.”

“Oh, I can deal with the Night World.”

“Can you? Because this means you can’t go in waving your sword.”

“I know that.”

“It also means,” I continued before I could stop to think too hard about what I was about to say, “that you need a cover story. Tell me you’ve got one. Other than playing my lover.” It was a vain hope that he might have come up with something else that made sense when I hadn’t been able to. Even if he could come up with a story to explain why Guy DuCaine was suddenly slumming it in the Night World, I couldn’t think of anything that explained the two of us spending time together other than us being lovers. I had no time to waste to come up for other ways for us to meet and exchange information without anyone knowing. Not with my family in Cormen’s hands.

“I haven’t,” he admitted. “But you’re right, it is the only thing that makes sense.”

Lords of hell.
Bad idea, Holly girl
. But I didn’t have another. I was just going to have to make certain that playing lovers didn’t go any further than that.

Which might be another vain hope, when even now there was a part of me that wanted to touch him, to try and ease some of the pain and weariness I saw in his face, despite my better judgment. I curled my fingers into my palm, determined to keep my hands to myself. “You still need a reason that people will buy for you being there with me in the first place. They need to think you’re not a Templar any more or nothing else will matter.”

He nodded. “Leave that to me.”

His expression did invite any questions on my part, so I just nodded in return. “How long will it take?” Every hour that Cormen had Mama and Reggie was an hour they were in danger, an hour closer to the point where his temper might snap.

“Plan on leaving tonight,” he said.

GUY

“Are you sure about this?” Father Cho asked gravely. He leaned across the desk, as if proximity could persuade me to abandon my plan.

“As sure as I can be, sir.”

“You trust this girl? This Night Worlder?”

An interesting question. Did I think I should trust Holly? No. Did I somehow feel that perhaps I did, despite myself? Yes. And, in truth, she wasn’t a true Night Worlder. But I wasn’t going to be foolish enough to let myself be swayed by my instincts. “Not particularly. But she needs my help. I believe that will keep her in line. At least until she gets what she wants.”

“And after that?”

That was a bridge I hoped I wouldn’t have to cross. “I intend to see to it that we get what we want first. It’s worth it if we can get to the bottom of these ambushes and stop them,” I said firmly.

Father Cho shook his head. “I don’t like this, Guy. We need you here.”

“We need the information more. I’m not letting her go after it unprotected.”

We stared at each other.

“There is another way.”

“Lily is not up for discussion, sir. Besides, I need to use Simon and Lily for my cover story.”

“I don’t like that either. If you make your brother knights doubt you, believe what you want them to believe, it might take a long time to win back their trust. You might never get it back fully.”

I wasn’t going to think about that. The order was a part of my family. But for family, you made sacrifices. Did things they might not like to keep them safe.

Paid the price willingly.

So I would pay. And hope that God, at least, would grant me forgiveness if my brother knights wouldn’t. In the end, that was all that mattered.

“I’m aware of that. I’ll live with it.”

Father Cho’s dark brown eyes were sorrowful. “I know you will. That’s why I wish you wouldn’t. You’re a good man, Guy. But you’re stepping into darkness here.”

“I’ve come through darkness before, sir. I’ll find my way, with God’s grace.”

“I really can’t convince you otherwise?”

“No.”

He pursed his lips, bowed his head for a moment. Considering my fate. If he refused to grant permission, I didn’t know exactly what I would do. I believed I was choosing the right path. Would I step onto it against the order’s wishes? I waited, ignoring the tension riding my gut.

“Very well,” Father Cho said. “I will let you do this thing. I will pray for your success.” His tone suggested he thought I would need his prayers.

I hoped to hell that he wasn’t right. “Thank you, sir.”

He straightened, all business now that he’d made his decision. “When do you want to begin?”

“I need to speak to Lady Bryony first.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just after midday. The Night World was asleep. If Holly and I were going to make a splashy entrance, then we needed to arrive after it had come to life. After dark. “And I have some other things to arrange.”