Obsidian Curse (23 page)

Chapter 42

The clouds had parted and the Blood Moon sizzled high in the sky as I sped to the cottage. I ran inside, unlocked the safe where the skull was hidden, slipped on some oven mitts, and shoved the skull in a sack.

This was my insurance. I wasn’t certain if the fairy mistress wanted the skull, but obsidian itself has powerful properties. It can banish demons, open portals to the Otherworld, and, of course, its most prominent feature—one that made so much more sense now—was that it served to remind us that birth and death were always present.

It was the best weapon I had to save Chance.

What I didn’t expect was Shannon waiting for me on my front porch as I headed out into the night.

“What are you doing?” She eyed me suspiciously.

“Don’t have time to chat, Shannon. Gotta run.”

She stepped in front of me to block my way.

“Get out of my way, kid. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“What’s in the bag?” She reached for it and I yanked it away.

“None of your business.”

“Do you have the skull in there?” Her eyes widened, then grew fierce. “Give it to me.”

“Shannon, get out of my way.”

She pulled out my tranquilizer gun and said, “I can’t let you take it.”

Good grief, this kid was getting on my nerves.

“Put the gun down, Shannon. I don’t want to hurt you.”

I stepped forward.

“You can’t take the skull. Birdie said it would be too dangerous.”

“I have news for you. Birdie doesn’t know everything. Now put down my goddamn gun before you make me do something I’ll regret.”

Her hand was steady. I braced myself as she weighed her options.

“We’ll all go. Let me call the coven,” she said.

“There’s no time!”

“You can’t have the skull.”

“There are two options here. Either you step away and let me go or…”

“Or what?”

She either wanted my job or she was working with the fairy mistress. Neither option appealed to me, so I did the only thing I could do. I set the bag down and nudged it toward her.

“There. Okay? Are you happy? You can have the skull, but I need to go.” I raised my hands in defeat.

She gave me a wicked smile. “That wasn’t so hard. Some Seeker.”

When she bent to reach for the sack, I whipped the nunchucks off my belt and fired them at her left hand. The tranquilizer gun skidded across the porch and into the bushes and the girl scrambled to retrieve it. I kicked the backside of her knees and she went down like a heap of bricks. I didn’t say another word as I grabbed the skull, jumped in the car, and rushed to save my love.

Thankfully it was late and there were no trick-or-treaters on the streets anymore as I made my way to the address Wes had given me. I cut my lights a block down from the house where Chance was working, and rolled to a stop. Crickets chirruped through the open window of Cinnamon’s car and somewhere a bullfrog croaked, but other than that the street was quiet.

Chance’s truck was in the driveway. I didn’t see any of the Leanan’s army. Maybe we had captured them all. I grabbed the sack with the skull in it, put a hand on my sword, and stepped out of the car.

I was about to shut the door when I heard a chipmunk-like noise and something hit the back of my head. Stars swirled in my mind as I lost consciousness and crashed to the pavement.

Two things occurred to me when I awoke. There were feet on the other side of the open car door and the skull was missing.

Holding my breath, I catapulted my legs forward and kicked the heavy door with all my might, knocking whoever was on the other side to the ground. There was a high-pitched screech as I rolled beneath the door before it swung back at me. I picked a woman up by the scruff of her neck and said, “What are you doing here? Are you working with her?”

Shannon groaned as blood spurted out of her nose. “No, you crazy bitch, I’m trying to help you.”

I wasn’t sure if I should believe her and I certainly was in no position to second-guess my own instincts. A knot was forming on her head as I unsheathed my sword. I backed her up against the hood of the car with the tip of the blade. It was centimeters from her throat and she had to arch her spine to successfully avoid it.

“Why should I believe you?” I demanded.

She tilted her head to the right. “There’s a note in my pocket.”

“Get it.”

She carefully reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. I snatched it from her trembling hand and read.

Give me the skull or the author dies.

The same kind of note with the cutout letters that Blade had received the other day. There were instructions to leave the skull near the old church where we had found it.

But who was it from? Was it from the Leanan? Or someone else? And why on earth was the paper so familiar?

“Where did you find this?”

“On the door of your cottage. I didn’t get a chance to tell you before you left,” Shannon said. She glanced around, confused. “But what are you doing here?”

“If I lower my sword, do you promise to behave?”

Shannon said, “I just want to help. Honest.”

“If you really want to help, get to Blade. Make sure he’s protected.”

I stared at the note again. Then I folded it and stuffed it into my pocket.

“But if you’re not here to trade the skull for Blade’s life, then who are you here for?” Shannon asked.

“For someone I love.”

I told Shannon my suspicions that whoever had written the note must have knocked me out and likely had the skull now. “It has to be someone who knows Amethyst. Who knows Blade’s staying at Birdie’s and knows where I live. Get to the reunion and tell Birdie and the aunts. Then round up the coven.”

“But what about you?”

I looked at the house. “I’ll be fine. Just go.” I tossed her the keys. Then I hesitated. “How did you know where I was?”

“Fiona’s tracking spell.”

I gave her a curious look.

“I figured since it didn’t attach to Monique, it had to land somewhere. You seemed like the most likely source for it to adhere to. So I used a crystal ball to search for it.”

“That’s pretty resourceful.”

Shannon smiled.

“Now go.”

Shannon hopped in Cinnamon’s car and left.

I took a deep breath, held my sword tight, and readied for battle.

Chapter 43

The door yawned open with a gust of wind. Candles flickered all around the dark room eerily. A giant cauldron anchored the center. I winced at the sight of it. I was standing in an open-floor-plan living room that spilled into a large kitchen. To my right was a hallway. To the left, a doorway. Directly ahead was a kitchen missing a refrigerator. The countertop was layered with nails and dust and there was pink paper covering the floor. Tiles were lined up in colorful stacks, waiting to be chosen, and a hammer lay on the windowsill next to a power drill and a circular saw.

The front door slammed shut behind me and I jumped, gripping my sword tighter, ready to slay whoever got in my way.

That’s when I spotted Chance sitting in a corner chair, calmly sipping a glass of red wine. I rushed over to him. “Chance, are you okay?”

He wasn’t tied up, didn’t look to be in any distress whatsoever. In fact, he was spookily calm.

He gave me a chilling look with dead eyes that beamed right through me. “Of course I am. I’m here with my lady. We’re going to have a fun night.”

His voice sounded far away, as if he were speaking through a tin can. As if we were separated not just by the coffee table, but by years of neglect and heartache.

“Chance, sweetheart, I’m your lady. Come on. We have to go.”

I grabbed his hand but he wrestled it away, spilling some of the wine onto my sleeve. It leaked through to my skin. It was wet and warm. Like blood.

“No. I don’t think so. She said you’d come. Said you’d try to seduce me.” His face darkened and his voice deepened.

There was a truth charm in my belt and I pulled it out and put it in his hand. “No, Chance.
She’s
trying to seduce you. I’m the one who wants to help you.” I clasped his hand shut, opened my third eye, and said, “Believe me.”

He ripped the charm apart and tossed it over his shoulder. “I don’t need your help. I have everything I need right here.”

He took another sip of his wine and greedily licked his lips. His eyes were black and lifeless, like a shark’s. I considered Tasing him, but I wasn’t sure I could carry him all by myself.

Instead, I moved to shake him out of the trance, but he blocked my arm and seized my wrist. He stood up, still holding on to me. My left hand gripped my sword.

His face blazed with hatred. “I think you should go,” he growled.

“I’m not leaving without you.”

Behind me, I smelled sawdust and caulk, and a sultry voice said, “Oh, I think you will. Not through the door, of course, because that would mean I spared your life, which I have no intention of doing.”

I turned to see Frieda standing in the kitchen, wearing a red negligee. She was standing in the kitchen of the vacation home she had mentioned, I assumed.

Or more accurately, the Leanan Sidhe incorporating Frieda’s body. She stepped forward out of the shadows of the hall and as she did so, the mole faded from her face and her hair grew longer, shinier, her bosom swelled, and her legs lengthened.

She was growing stronger. Had she already siphoned some of Chance’s blood?

A sinister smile spread across her face and she picked up the power drill. “Boy, I love these new tools. Don’t you? They smell of must and men.” She looked at me, then pointedly at Chance and back to the drill. She flipped a switch and the long, grooved metal bit shrieked to life. The fairy mistress shouted over the noise. “So much easier than the old days. Just apply directly to the temple and voila! A hole in the head. Best way to gather the nectar.”

I turned back to Chance and grabbed his hand. “Come on. We have to get you out of here. Now!”

“
No
!
” he shouted and shoved me so hard I knocked into a painting and cracked the frame.

I peeled myself off the wall as the Leanan called to Chance, “Come here, my pet.” She turned the drill off, set it down, and tested the saw. It zipped on, whirring in her hand. She extended it toward Chance. “Bring me a present from our guest.” She raised the saw. “Her matrimonial finger, perhaps. She won’t be using it.”

Chance stepped forward and I pulled a five-pointed blade from my pocket and fired it at the fairy mistress.

She raised her other hand and the star burst into flames midair. The remnants of my weapon showered the carpet with molten sparks.

The Leanan tossed her head back and laughed. “Is that all you’ve got, Geraghty?” she shouted over the buzz of the saw blade.

There was a binding charm on my belt. I unclipped it and held it in the air, spinning the ribbons of the pouch in a tight circle with my left hand, gripping the sword with my right. I chanted the Latin phrase for banishment over and over. “
Pello Pepulli Pulsum.
” I didn’t know much Latin, but it is more powerful to use than my mother tongue because it harkens back to the ancients.

Chance took the saw from the Leanan and eyed it curiously as if he had never used one before. The Leanan buffed her nails on her negligée and laughed again. She waved her arm and the enchantment pouch froze in my hand. So icy cold it burned. I yelped and dropped the binding charm. It misted over the rug like dry ice.

“Really, Geraghty, give it your best effort, at least. I need a challenge.”

She cackled.

There were more charms, potions, and weapons on my belt that would have worked on any human easily. But this was a creature of the Fae and a powerful one at that, so I decided to use the one thing in my possession that contained the most magic. My sword.

I leapt over the cauldron, spun in the air to gain speed, and swung the sword at the Leanan’s head with every bit of energy I could muster.

I saw her eyes right before the sword connected with her neck. There was a doubt in them that said she didn’t think I had it in me, replaced by a fright that said this might do some damage. Foolish of her to doubt me. She didn’t know me or what I was capable of, especially when it came to the people I loved.

To my astonishment, the strike didn’t decapitate her. The sword sailed right through the fairy mistress as if she weren’t even made of flesh and blood and bone.

Which, on this plane, at this moment, she may not have been. I was too late.

Judging from the electricity that flared from the sword when it sliced through the Leanan’s neck—and her screams—the attack did cause her pain, if not dismemberment.

Chance screamed too as I smacked the floor and crashed into a brick wall.

I flicked my eyes to him and shifted my body so that I could see them both. He wasn’t screaming for me. He was screaming for her.

He railed at me, eyes wild, saw lifted over his head, and charged.