Lady Midnight (55 page)

“And what did he do for you in return?”

“Money,” Rook said flatly. “Protection. He warded my house against demons. He has some magical power, that guy.”

“You worked for a guy who sacrificed people,” Emma pointed out.

“It was a cult.” Rook was practically snarling. “Those have always existed—they always will. People want money and power and they’ll do anything to get them. That’s not my fault.”

“Yeah, people sure will do anything for money. You’re proof of that.” Emma tried to rein in her temper, but her heart was pounding. “Tell me anything else about this guy. You must have noticed his voice—they way he walked—anything weird about him—”

“Everything’s weird about a guy who shows up completely wrapped in fabric. I couldn’t even see his shoes, okay? He didn’t sound like he was all there. He’s the one who told me to tell you about the Selpulchre. He babbled a lot of nonsense, once he said he came to L.A. to bring back love—”

Emma hung up. She looked at the others with her heart slamming against her chest. “It’s Malcolm,” she said, her voice sounding distant and tinny in her ears. “Malcolm’s the Guardian.”

They looked at her with silent, stunned expressions.

“Malcolm’s our friend,” said Ty. “That doesn’t— He wouldn’t do that.”

“Ty’s right,” said Livvy. “Just because Annabel Blackthorn was in love with a warlock—”

“She was in love with a warlock,” Emma repeated. “In Cornwall. Magnus said Malcolm used to live in Cornwall. A plant from Cornwall is growing around the convergence. Malcolm’s been helping us with the investigation, but he hasn’t, really. He never trans
lated a word of what we gave him. He told us this was a summoning spell—it’s not, it’s a necromantic spell.” She started to pace up and down. “He has that ring with the red stone, and the earrings I found at the convergence site were rubies—okay, it’s not exactly conclusive, but he’d have to have clothes for her, right? For Annabel? She couldn’t go around in grave clothes when he brought her back. It makes more sense for the necromancer to keep clothes there for the person they were raising from the dead than it does for them to keep clothes for themselves.” She whirled to find the others staring at her. “Malcolm only moved to L.A. about five months before the attack on the Institute. He says he was away when it happened, but what if he wasn’t? He was High Warlock. He could have easily found out where my parents were that day. He could have killed them.” She looked over at the others. Their expressions ran the gamut between shock and disbelief.

“I just don’t think Malcolm would do that,” Livvy said in a small voice.

“Rook told me that the Guardian he met with concealed his identity,” Emma said. “But he also said the Guardian told him that he’d come to L.A. to bring back love. Remember what Malcolm said while we were watching movies? ‘I came here to bring true love back from the dead.’” She gripped the phone so tightly it hurt. “What if he really meant it? Literally? He came here to bring his true love back from the dead. Annabel.”

There was a long silence. It was Cristina, to Emma’s surprise, who finally broke it. “I do not know Malcolm well, or love him as you do,” she said in her soft voice. “So forgive me if what I say hurts. But I think Emma is right. One of these things could be a coincidence. But not all of them. Annabel Blackthorn fell in love with a warlock in Cornwall. Malcolm was a warlock in Cornwall. That itself is enough to raise suspicion high enough that it should be investigated.” She looked around with earnest dark eyes. “I’m
sorry. It is just that the next step for the Guardian is
Blackthorn blood.
And therefore we cannot wait.”

“Don’t be sorry, Cristina. You’re right,” Julian said. He looked at Emma, and she could see the unspoken words behind his eyes:
This is how Belinda knew about Arthur
.

“We need to find him,” Diego said, his clear, practical voice cutting through the quiet. “We must move immediately—”

The library door burst open and Dru came rushing in. Her face was pink and her wavy brown hair had come out of its braids. She nearly collided directly with Diego, but jumped back with a squeak.

“Dru?” It was Mark who spoke. “Is everything all right?”

She nodded, bounding across the room toward Julian. “What did you need me for?”

Julian looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I was down on the beach with Tavvy,” she said, leaning against the edge of the table to catch her breath. “Then he came and said you had to talk to me. So I came running back—”

“What?” Julian echoed. “I didn’t send anyone down to the beach for you, Dru.”

“But he said . . .” Dru looked suddenly alarmed. “He said you needed to see me right away.”

Julian rose to his feet. “Where’s Tavvy?”

Her lip began to wobble. “But he said . . . He said if I ran back, he’d walk Tavvy home. He gave him a toy. He’s watched Tavvy before, I don’t understand, what’s wrong—?”

“Dru,” Julian said in a carefully controlled voice. “Who is ‘he’? Who has Tavvy?”

Dru swallowed, her round face stricken with fright. “Malcolm,” she said. “Malcolm has him.”

24

B
Y THE
N
AME
OF
A
NNABEL
L
EE

“I don’t understand,” Dru said
again. “What’s happening?”

Livvy pulled Dru against her and put her arms around her younger sister. They were about the same height—you’d never have been able to tell Livvy was the elder unless you knew them—but Dru clung on gratefully.

Diego and Cristina stood silently. Ty, in his chair, had taken one of his hand toys from his pocket and was almost attacking it with shaking hands, tangling and untangling. His head was bent, his hair swinging into his face.

Julian—Julian looked as if his world had caved in.

“But why?” Dru whispered. “Why did Malcolm take Tavvy? And why are all of you so upset?”

“Dru, Malcolm’s the one we’ve been looking for.” It was Emma who spoke, her voice choked. “He’s the Guardian. He’s the murderer. And he took Tavvy—”

“For Blackthorn blood,” said Julian. “The last sacrifice. Blackthorn blood to bring back a Blackthorn.”

Dru fell against her sister’s shoulder, sobbing. Mark was shaking—Cristina suddenly broke away from Diego and came over
to him. She took his hand and held it. Emma gripped the edge of the table. She could no longer feel the pain in her back. She could no longer feel anything.

All she could see was Tavvy, little Tavvy, the smallest Blackthorn. Tavvy having nightmares, Tavvy in her arms as she carried him through the war-torn Institute five years ago. Tavvy covered in paint in Jules’s studio. Tavvy, who alone among them had skin that could not hold a single protection rune. Tavvy, who would not understand what was happening to him or why.

“Wait,” Dru said. “Malcolm gave me a note. He said to give it to you, Jules.” She drew away from Livvy and fumbled in her pocket, retrieving some folded paper. “He said not to read it, that it was private.”

Livvy, who had gone to stand near Ty, made a disgusted noise. Julian’s face was stark white, his eyes blazing. “
Private?
He wants his
privacy
respected?” He snatched the paper from Dru’s hand and almost ripped it open. Emma caught a glimpse of large block letters printed on the paper. Julian’s expression turned to one of confusion.

“What does it say, Jules?” asked Mark.

Julian read the words aloud.
“I WILL RAISE YOU, ANNABEL LEE.”

The room exploded.

*   *   *

A bolt of black light burst from the letter in Julian’s hand. It shot toward the roof, smashing through the skylight with the force of a wrecking ball.

Emma covered her head as plaster and bits of glass rained down. Ty, who was directly beneath the hole in the roof, threw himself toward his sister, knocking her to the ground and covering her with his own body. The room seemed to rock back and forth; a shelf wobbled and fell, tipping toward Diego. Pulling away from Mark, Cristina shoved the shelf out of the way; it crashed to the
side, missing Diego by inches. Dru shrieked, and Julian pulled her toward him, tucking her under his arm.

The black light was still shining upward. With his free hand, Julian flung the note onto the ground and slammed his foot down on it.

It crumbled into dust instantly. The black light vanished as if it had been switched off.

There was a silence. Livvy wriggled out from under her twin and stood up, reaching out to help him up after her. Livvy looked half-surprised, half-worried. “Ty, you didn’t have to do that.”

“You wanted to have someone to shield you from danger. That’s what you said.”

“I know,” Livvy said. “But—”

Ty rose to his feet—and cried out. A jagged piece of glass was sticking out of the back of his calf. Blood had already started to soak the fabric around the cut.

Ty bent down and, before anyone else could move, yanked the glass out of his leg. He dropped it to the ground, where it shattered into clear, red-smeared pieces.

“Ty!” Julian started forward, but Ty shook his head. He was pulling himself into a chair, his face twisted with pain. Blood had started to pool around his sneakered foot.

“Let Livvy do it,” he said. “It would be better—”

Livvy was already swooping down on her twin with an
iratze
. A bit of falling glass had cut her left cheek, and blood was visible against her pale skin. She wiped it away with her sleeve as she finished the healing rune.

“Let me see the cut,” Julian said, kneeling down. Slowly, Livvy rolled up Ty’s pant leg. The cut went across the side of his calf, raw and red but no longer open—it looked like a tear that had been sewn up. Still, his leg from the cut down was smeared with blood.

“Another
iratze
should fix it,” said Diego. “And a blood-replacement rune.”

Julian gritted his teeth. He had never seemed bothered by Diego the way Mark was, but Emma could tell that at the moment he was barely holding himself back. “Yes,” he said. “We know. Thanks, Diego.”

Ty looked up at his brother. “I don’t know what happened.” He looked dazed. “I wasn’t expecting it—I should have been expecting it.”

“Ty, no one could have expected that,” Emma said. “I mean, Julian said some words, and boom, Hell’s tractor beam.”

“Is anyone else hurt?” Julian had efficiently slit Ty’s pant leg open, and Livvy, her face the color of old newspaper, was applying healing and blood-replacement runes to her twin. Julian looked around the room, and Emma could see him doing his mental inventory of his family:
Mark all right, Livvy all right, Dru all right.
 . . . She saw the moment he reached where Tavvy should be and blanched. His jaw tightened. “Malcolm must have enchanted the paper to set off that signal as soon as it was read.”

“It
is
a signal,” Mark said. The expression on his face was troubled. “I have felt this before, in the Unseelie Court, when black enchantments were brewing. That was dark magic.”

“We should go straight to the Clave.” Julian’s face was bloodless. “Secrecy doesn’t matter, punishments don’t matter, not when Tavvy’s life is at risk. I’ll take the entire blame on myself.”

“You will not take any blame,” said Mark, “that I do not also take.”

Julian didn’t answer that, just held out his hand. “Emma, my phone.”

She’d forgotten she still had it. She drew it out of her pocket slowly—and blinked.

The screen was blank. “Your phone. It’s dead.”

“That’s strange,” said Julian. “I just charged it this morning.”

“You can use mine,” Cristina said, and reached into her jacket. “Here it—” She blinked. “It’s dead too.”

Ty slid from his chair. He took a step forward and winced, but only slightly. “We’ll check the computer and the landline phone.”

He and Livvy hurried from the library. The room was quiet now, except for the sound of settling debris. The floor was covered in broken glass and bits of shattered wood. It seemed that the black light had blown out the glass oculus at the top of the room.

Drusilla gasped. “Look—there’s someone at the skylight.”

Emma glanced up. The oculus had become a ring of jagged glass, open to the night sky. She saw the flash of a pale face within the circle.

Mark darted past her and raced up the curving ramp. He threw himself at the oculus—there was a thrashing blur of movement—and he tumbled back onto the ramp, his hand gripping the collar of a lean figure with dark hair. Mark was shouting; there was broken glass around them as they struggled. They rolled together down the ramp, hitting out at each other, until they fetched up on the library floor.

The dark-haired figure was a slender boy in ragged, bloody clothes; he had gone limp. Mark knelt on top of him, and as he reached for a dagger and it flashed out gold, Emma realized that the intruder was Kieran.

Mark jammed his knife up against Kieran’s throat. Kieran stiffened against the knife.

“I should kill you right here,” Mark said through his teeth. “I should cut your throat.”

Dru made a small sound. To Emma’s surprise, it was Diego who reached out and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. A small flicker of liking for him went through her.

Kieran bared his teeth—and then his throat, tipping his head back. “Go ahead,” he said. “Kill me.”

“Why are you here?” Mark’s breath hitched. Julian took a step
toward them, his hand at his hip, on the hilt of a throwing knife. Emma knew he could take Kieran out at this distance. And he would, if Mark seemed in danger.

Mark was gripping his knife; his hand was steady, but his face was anguished. “Why are you here?” he said again. “Why would you come to this place where you know that you’re hated? Why do you want to
make me kill you
?”

“Mark,” Kieran said. He reached up, clenched his hand in Mark’s sleeve. His face was full of yearning; the hair that fell over his forehead was streaked with dark blue. “Mark,
please
.”

Mark shook his arm out of Kieran’s grip. “I could forgive you if it was me you whipped,” he said. “But you touched the ones I love; that I cannot forgive. You should bleed as Emma bled.”

“Don’t—Mark—” Emma was alarmed, not for Kieran—some part of her would have liked to see him bleed—but for Mark. For what hurting, even killing, Kieran would do to him.

“I came to help you,” Kieran said.

Mark gave a hollow laugh. “Your
help
is not wanted here.”

“I know about Malcolm Fade,” Kieran gasped. “I know he took your brother.”

Julian made a guttural noise. Mark’s hand, on the knife, went bloodless. “Let him go, Mark,” Julian said. “If he knows anything about Tavvy—we have to find out what it is. Let him go.”

Mark hesitated.

“Mark,” Cristina said softly, and with a violent gesture, Mark flung himself off Kieran and stood up, backing away until he was nearly beside Julian. Julian, whose grip on his own knife looked agonizingly tight.

Slowly, painfully, Kieran rose to his feet and faced the room.

He was a far cry from the arrogant gentry warrior Emma had first seen in the Sanctuary. His shirt and loose trousers were bloodstained and torn, his face bruised. He did not cower or look fright
ened, but that seemed less an act of bravery than almost one of hopelessness: Everything about him, from the way he was dressed to the way he stood to the way he looked at Mark, said that here was someone who did not care what became of him.

The door of the library burst open and Ty and Livvy spilled in. “Everything’s knocked out,” Livvy exclaimed. “All the phones, the computer, even the radios—”

She broke off, staring, as she took in the scene in front of her: Kieran facing the other occupants of the room.

Kieran gave a tiny bow. “I am Kieran of the Wild Hunt.”

“One of the faerie convoy?” Livvy looked from Mark to Julian. “One of the ones who whipped Emma?”

Julian nodded.

Ty looked at Mark, and then the others. His face was pale and cold. “Why is he still alive?”

“He knows about Tavvy,” said Drusilla. “Julian, make him tell us—”

Julian flung his dagger. It flew past Kieran’s head, close enough to graze his hair, and embedded itself in the frame of the window behind him. “You will tell us now,” he said in a deadly quiet voice, “everything you know about where Octavian is, what’s going on, and how we can get him back. Or I will spill your blood on the floor of this library. I’ve spilled faerie blood before. Don’t think I won’t do it again.”

Kieran didn’t drop his eyes. “There is no need to threaten me,” he said, “though if it pleases you, do it; it makes no difference to me. I came to tell you what you want to know. That is why I am here. The black light you just saw was faerie magic. It was meant to knock out all communication, so that you could not call for help from the Clave or Conclave. So that you could not seek help or save your brother.”

“We could try to find a pay phone,” Livvy said uncertainly, “or a restaurant phone, down on the highway—”

“You will discover that phone lines have been knocked out for several miles,” said Kieran. There was urgency in his voice. “I beg you not to waste time. Fade has taken your brother, already, to the ley line convergence. It is the place where he performs his sacrifices. The place he plans to kill him. If you wish to rescue the boy, you must take up your weapons and go after him now.”

*   *   *

Julian threw open the door of the weapons room. “Everyone, arm yourselves. If you’re not in gear, get in gear. Diego, Cristina, there’s gear hanging on the east wall. Take it, it’ll be faster than going back to your rooms. Use any weapons you want. Kieran, you stay right there.” He pointed toward the table in the middle of the room. “Where I can see you. Don’t move or the next blade I throw at you won’t miss.”

Kieran gave him a look. A little of his visible despair seemed to have ebbed, and there was arrogance in his quick glance. “I believe it,” he said, and moved toward the table as everyone scurried around arming themselves and buckling gear on over their clothes. Not patrol gear, which was lighter, but the heavy dark gear you wore when you thought you were going to fight.

When you
knew
you were going to fight.

There had been some discussion of whether all of them were going to go to the convergence, or whether Dru at least should stay back at the Institute. Dru had protested vociferously, and Julian hadn’t fought it—the Institute didn’t feel safe at the moment, with the oculus smashed open. Kieran had gotten in, and who knew what else could? He wanted his family where he could see them. And there wasn’t much he could say to Dru about her age: He and Emma had fought and killed during the Dark War, and they’d been younger than she was now.

He had taken Ty aside, separately, and told him that if he wanted to stay behind from the fight because he was wounded, there was
nothing shameful about that. He could lock himself in the car while they went into the convergence.

“Do you think I have nothing to contribute to a fight?” Ty had asked.

“No,” Julian had said, and meant it. “But you’re hurt, and I—”

“It’s a fight. We might all get hurt.” Ty had looked directly into Julian’s eyes. He could tell that Ty was doing it for him, because he remembered that Julian had told him that people often looked directly into each other’s eyes to show that they were telling the truth. “I want to go. I want to be there to help Tavvy, and I want you to let me. It’s what I want, and that should matter.”