Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) (7 page)

“Gran needs to sleep,” I said. Scarlett’s magic — from holding the protection circle against a dragon and shadow leeches — was also depleted.

Scarlett nodded. “I’ll take her upstairs. Then I’ll come help you clean.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, not a hundred percent sure I wasn’t still in shock. Yeah, I was way too calm for my own good. “Like you said, Warner’s on his way.”

Scarlett pressed her hand to my cheek and turned toward Gran, who also stepped up to touch me lightly on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I said. Tears were suddenly threatening where there hadn’t even been a hint of them before. “I couldn’t figure out how to contain her without really hurting her.”

“She’ll be back,” Gran said. “And you’ll be ready.”

“No,” Scarlett countered sharply. “You’ll call your father. She’s a dragon. She’s his responsibility.”

“Yeah, but the map’s mine. She’s already gone after an instrument of assassination and gotten a nasty lesson in why dragons can’t wield them, so why take the map?”

“The map is a piece of power,” Gran said. “She was seeking objects of power.”

“But then why come specifically to Jade, Pearl?” Scarlett asked. “I think you’re wrong. She needed Jade’s alchemist powers. Taking the map was merely leverage.”

“Thank you, Scarlett,” Gran said frostily. “I was attempting to soothe your distraught daughter.”

“Jade is far more resilient than that, mother,” Scarlett said.

“Yes, daughter. But it is nice to be babied once in a while.”

Scarlett snapped her mouth shut on her mounting indignation. Yeah, Gran did that to us all.

“I have a containment spell for your satchel,” Gran said as she hustled ahead of us up the stairs to the pantry. “So nothing accidentally falls out. It was going to be a birthday gift, but I see you need it now. Give me an hour or so.”

She disappeared into the pantry. I looked at Scarlett, but she shook her head.

“A little spell isn’t going to kill me,” Gran snapped from above us. She’d poked her head back through the doorway.

“Bottomless would be nice too,” I mused, thinking of all the things I had to cram into my bag these days. Chocolate bars, maps, cellphones, knives, artifacts —
 

“Not in an hour!” Gran snapped. Then she disappeared into the bakery kitchen.

Scarlett laughed under her breath as she climbed the stairs after her mother.

Geez, I hadn’t been asking for a bottomless bag … just saying it would be nice.

∞

The damage to the bakery storefront was worse than I’d allowed myself to acknowledge. I’d have to close for a few days, maybe even a week, and order a new door … and new tables … and new chairs.

Anger washed through me. Fierce, burning anger seared through the steady resolve that had gotten me through the altercation and the building of the blood ward. I was probably looking at thousands of dollars’ worth of damage. My heart and soul was in this bakery.

I was shaking again. I needed to stop shaking before I did something extra stupid, so I found a broom, grabbed a garbage can, and started cleaning.

I had to remember to remind Scarlett to remove the cloaking spell from the bakery tonight. And put up a closed sign. Otherwise, I wasn’t sure what people would think if they came for cupcakes, then couldn’t find the store. I wasn’t sure what sort of spell Scarlett had used. I wasn’t sure if I should call the police. Should I file a report? Could you even file a vandalism report without any witnesses? But if I didn’t file a report, wouldn’t that call extra attention to the damage? Customers were going to ask questions.

Oh, God. I was melting down over mundane things so I didn’t have to think about a crazy dragon running around with my map.

The second I’d secured the blood ward, I should have walked right through the portal and sought out Pulou.

But I didn’t. Even knowing that I should didn’t make me move in that direction.

I was just so, so angry.

A dragon had done this. A dragon had been allowed to do this. Pulou knew about the kid who’d been in the fortress. Pulou knew about the shadow leeches. Pulou had spent hours and hours with Warner, dissecting every last thing the sentinel knew about his era and the instruments of assassination.

Pulou hadn’t even given a second thought to the kid. He’d answered my questions about the creation of the shadow leeches with urgings to unlock the map and secure the next two instruments. He’d admonished me to focus on the important task at hand and let the guardians handle everything else.

Do your duty, alchemist. Let the smarter, stronger dragons worry about everything else.

The broom handle snapped in my hands. Frustrated, I flicked the broken top piece into the wood-slat floor, where it embedded itself about three inches deep.
 

A cold wash of adrenaline ran down my spine.

That was stupid. So, so stupid to damage the bakery floor even further, and in a childish rage. Plus, a broken broom wasn’t exactly useful.

I took a deep breath and looked out the bakery window. Oddly, the trinkets there were still hanging exactly where I’d strung them, completely undamaged.

A pale, white-blond man was standing on the sidewalk, watching me through the broken door. He could see me despite the cloaking spell.

The anger boiling in my stomach eased, and I almost started crying again with the relief of seeing him. But that wouldn’t be the proper way to greet an old friend — a mentor — who I hadn’t seen in months.

“Kett,” I breathed as I stepped closer to the entrance.

He smiled — a fleeting, cool expression — but didn’t approach.

I kicked something that sounded like metal. Momentarily distracted, I reached into the shards of glass and splintered wood that were once the door to pull one of my trinkets out of the debris. Obviously, the ones that had previously hung over the doorway hadn’t come through as unscathed as the ones in the windows.

My eyes welled with tears. I looked up, met Kett’s gaze, and instantly knew that he was livid despite his earlier smile. Not by his face, which was chiseled out of ice, but by his shoulders. The twist of his shoulders betrayed his ire.

“It’s just a trinket,” I whispered.

“Is it?” he answered.

I twined the trinket — green sea glass collected from Jericho Beach, a cameo found at a yard sale, and a 1958 Canadian silver dollar strung on a silver chain — around the palm of my left hand. Across the wound that Scarlett had partially healed with a kiss. It wrapped three times, mimicking brass knuckles when I was done. If I closed my hand firmly enough, I would crush it. Mangle it with my dragon-inherited strength.

“Is everyone unharmed?” Kett asked, surprising me that he cared. But then, I called him a friend, didn’t I? What friend wouldn’t care?

“The bakery took most of the damage.” Then I asked, “Won’t you come in?” I assumed I needed to invite Kett through the new blood wards, which would explain why he still stood at the far edge of the sidewalk. I thought I’d already made his invite implicit. But then, I’d never constructed a blood ward before.

Or perhaps he just enjoyed standing in the shadow of the streetlight.

He smiled again, though I could still see the anger he held at bay. “You’ve fortified the wards with your own sweet, sweet blood,” he murmured, his eyes glowing red. But in a blink, they cleared back to his typical ice blue, which I could see despite the deepening darkness of the evening. “I don’t think I will test my mettle tonight.”

His tone held no condemnation. Not a drop. For what was blood magic to a vampire but everyday life?

“I was attacked.”

“By a creature stronger than you?”

“I hope not.”

Kett nodded. He scanned the edges of the bakery, then looked up to the apartments above. Mine, which overlooked the alley, and Kandy’s, which stood empty and awaiting the return of my werewolf best friend.

I stepped through the wards covering the entrance, crossing the sidewalk in two strides to wrap my arms around Kett’s neck. Taking without asking all the cool comfort he had to offer.

He stood just shy of six feet, and with my boots back on, I was only an inch or so shorter. I pressed my cheek against his and breathed in his dark peppermint magic. He wrapped his arms around my back to hold me gingerly, as if I might be a precious piece of china.

“You’re angry, but not with me,” I whispered, aware but not really caring that the street was really too full of people to be making such a display of myself.

“Never at you,” Kett replied. He pressed his hand briefly to the back of my head, then dropped his arms.

I took the hint and stepped back so a few inches stood between us. I could still taste his magic from there. Could still steal the calm that came from that cool taste. I’d never found peppermint so soothing, not before I met Kett. The vampire still scared me, but in a we-are-all-capable-of-extreme-darkness sort of way now. We’d shared a life bond for a terribly brief moment. Perhaps that magic still lingered between us. Perhaps waging a war together against a demon horde summoned by my sister — and surviving — was a stronger bond than anything else could ever be.

“Tell me everything,” he said.

“The dragon kid came. She demanded my necklace and used its magic to transform into a teenage version of herself. She wanted my knife as well, but I wasn’t stupid enough to just hand her a deadly weapon. Then Gran kicked her ass.”

Kett’s lips curled, minutely and briefly, at my characterization of Gran. He was a fan of Pearl Godfrey’s, through and through. I think she scared him just a little. Apparently, that was what it took to get an ancient vampire’s attention.
 

“The child from the fortress?”

“Yes.”

Kett knew about the map, which he’d helped decode, and about the fortress in the Bahamas. He hadn’t really met Warner yet — other than during their brief skirmish in Seattle. Somehow, they were never in Vancouver at the same time.

“She took the map.” I was loath to admit the last part.

“Interesting.”

Again, I could hear the anger underlying the vampire’s normally icy tone. “You’re pissed.”

“Indeed.”

“You’re going to help me get the map back.”

“If you wish.”

“Don’t play me, vampire.”

“Never.”

Kett brushed his fingers along my necklace. He was a big fan of it as well. I imagined that was part of his pissiness. “Not completely depleted,” he murmured.

“I topped it up when I sealed the wards.”

“With Pearl and Scarlett?”

“You can feel that?”

Kett inclined his head. I wasn’t sure it was a great idea for the Executioner of the Conclave to know that the Godfrey coven performed blood magic together.

“Will others know?”

“No,” Kett replied. “Other Adept will feel a powerful ward, but only those intimate with the smell of your blood will comprehend its construction.”

“So you. Kandy?”

“Possibly Desmond. I can only guess that a guardian or Drake could tell as well.”

“They don’t tend to drop in for cupcakes.”

“They will come now.”

I nodded but refused to worry about that. Guardians didn’t care about things like blood magic as long as someone wasn’t wielding it to destroy the world.

Kett slipped his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out two wedding rings. A matching set of plain gold bands. He held the rings out to me, the metal glimmering with a hint of red where they rested in the palm of his right hand.

“Jesus,” I said. “You aren’t asking me to marry you, are you?”

Kett smiled, tight-lipped and cool. “For your necklace. I found them and thought you might wish to add their magic to the chain. The timing appears to be auspicious.”

“From a pawn shop, right? Not from someone’s dead fingers?”

Kett closed his fingers over the rings to hide them — but he couldn’t hide the tiny taste of magic I’d picked up.
 

“Married vampires?” I asked, as casually as possible for someone who desperately wanted the items offered. The rings would go a long way toward healing my most prized possession. Okay, one of my two most prized possessions.

Kett opened his hand and looked at the rings. “Is it so impossible?” he murmured.

“Did you find them in London?”

“I endeavor to make my visits to London as brief as possible.”

“So no time for window-shopping.”

“No, but Paris provided some distraction.”

“French vampires?” My voice squeaked rather unbecomingly with excitement. I ignored his ‘distraction’ comment. There were only three things that distracted vampires … blood, unique magic, and power plays. All of which were cans of worms best left unopened.

Kett smirked and inclined his head, but said nothing.

“A story would be nice,” I whispered as I wrapped my arms around myself. I was chilly, but I also needed to stop myself from simply snatching the gift from him.

Kett looked confused for a moment. Then he nodded and cast his gaze over my head again, up at the building behind me, though he wasn’t really looking at it.

“Brethren of mine,” he whispered.

I hadn’t been expecting a glimpse into his life when I’d asked about the rings. His cool tone was a further balm as I leaned in to lose myself, even if just for this breath, in his history.

“Siblings, if you will. Married before they were turned.”

The vampire never shared his past. He seemed perfectly pleased to live fully within the present.

“Companions of mine for a century or so. But …” He looked down at the rings. “Ill fated.”

Some terrible sadness was buried in those two words. Something with an utter finality that I didn’t want to dig into right now. I couldn’t taste a drop of darkness in the pair of wedding rings Kett held.

“I would be honored to accept this gift, Kettil, Executioner of the Conclave.”

Kett stiffened. Well, his shoulders tensed at least. “I offer the gift as a friend, Jade Godfrey. No machinations attached.”

He might have been teasing, but I didn’t totally get it. Granted, I was enamored with the idea of adding the rings to my necklace as quickly as possible. Yes, I was easily distracted by bright shiny things. What else was new?