Unchained, the Dark Forgotten (2010) (37 page)

“You can find your way with them? Could I find Spain with the stars?”

“Stars are like a map. You can find your way anywhere if you know them well enough.”

“Are there stars in the Castle? I didn’t see any stars.”

“No. There are no stars.”
There is no connection to anyone else there. You are truly alone
.

Eden looked glumly at the book. “I can’t remember this map, and we have to name the stars on a test.”

Reynard tilted the book to see it better. It was a map of the night sky, with lines and dots marking the major constellations. He looked at the window over the kitchen sink. It was just starting to grow dark. Not dark enough to teach her the way he had learned, from simply looking at the sky with his tutor.

He thought for a moment. “Sometimes it helps to remember them by the story they tell. Do you know your Greek legends?”

Eden wrinkled her nose. “Like gods and goddesses?”

“They play a part.” And he started to tell her the stories he knew of Hercules’ lion, of the twins Castor and Pollux, and Orion the Hunter, pointing to each of the players where they danced in the night sky.

Ashe listened with half an ear as she worked, measuring flour and trying to double the recipe without miscounting. Reynard’s voice was soft, his stories steeped in the elegance and heroism of another time. She didn’t know about Eden, but she wasn’t going to forget a word of his tale.

But when the story ended, her mind drifted. It had been a busy day, an urgent search through books with Holly and Grandma to find the perfect demon locator spell, dozens of phone calls in search of news of demons or vampires, and keeping an eye on Eden and Reynard to make sure they were all right. She’d tried contacting her hacker friend again to see what other properties the demon might have purchased. No answer. She wasn’t worried—every so often he seemed to fall off the planet only to reappear days later, but it was a bad time to pull one of his vanishing acts. Then she’d got Mac on the phone to see what he’d learned from questioning Miru-kai. Even if she hadn’t been banging on doors, the last hour was the first reprieve from the search for the urn, Belenos, or the demon.

One other thing had happened. Earlier that afternoon, Brent Hashimoto, the lawyer who was presumably not a demon-possessed nut job, had phoned with a proposal for her. Roberto’s family wanted to spend the holidays with Eden. That meant summer vacation and Christmas in Spain. In return, they’d back off about Ashe’s suitability as a parent. As Hashimoto said, their real concern was losing touch with their only grandchild.

That gave her something to think about. Ashe agreed that Eden should have a relationship with her grandparents. The sticking point for her was, as always, safety issues. As long as they agreed to work through those, she was willing to talk. Hashimoto was smart: Confronting Ashe head-on only made her hostile. Appealing to her reason engaged her. Acknowledging that nothing came before Eden’s well-being had her willing to play ball.

Perhaps it was possible that at least something in her life could be settled without a knock-down, drag-out fight? It would be nice to think it was possible.

Eventually, she started spooning chocolate batter into paper-lined muffin tins. They’d had just enough eggs. Ashe’s mood was good. Cupcakes seemed easy after the last few days. Holly’s spell was bubbling. Reynard was looking better. Eden was safe and sound.

Eventually, finished with his astronomy lesson, Reynard came to lean against the counter. Something in his expression reminded her of a stray cat confident of a handout.

“Wicked with a stake, and she cooks, too.”

“Don’t mock the woman holding the food.”

He looked from her to the bowl as if both were filled with tasty goodness. Ashe ducked her face away before she blushed or started to giggle. Even leather-clad action babes got giddy with relief some days. The memory of Reynard naked wasn’t helping her concentration, either. If lust could be stirred into a recipe, these cupcakes were going to be rising high on pure desire.

She picked up the baking pans and slid them into the oven, then set the timer and dumped the dirty bowl in the sink, where Holly was washing dishes. “There’s one more for ya, Hol.”

Holly stuck out her tongue, but her eyes were full of mischief.

“Hey, Eden,” Ashe said. “We’re going to eat supper in a little while. Why don’t you take a break and put your books away for now?”

“Put them in my office,” suggested Holly. “Move the cat off the desk if you want to play on the computer. He likes to sleep there.”

Eden slipped off the chair, gathered her books, and wandered off. Ashe watched her go, wondering if her daughter really was that calm after her adventure with Belenos and the fairy prince, or if it simply hadn’t hit home yet.

The phone rang before Ashe could pursue that thought. She picked up the cordless handset. “Hello?”

“I thought I might find you at this number.”

Belenos
. She turned her back to the others and walked into the living room, not wanting them to see what must have been horror on her face. From there she could see out the front window. The streetlights flickered on, pools of yellow light backlit by an indigo sky. It was still a half hour to full dark.

“Aren’t all good little vampires still asleep?” She dropped her voice and tried to add a pinch of menace.
Does he know this address?
The house was secure, but they still had to come and go.

“I am neither good nor little. However, I did think congratulations on retrieving your daughter would be appropriate. Of course, it would not have gone so well for you if that meddling fairy hadn’t turned up. We missed our opportunity.”

For what? For me to fall at your feet?
Ashe glared at the handset a moment. It wasn’t like Reynard’s departure would leave a job vacancy she’d have to fill. In fact, she was trying hard not to think about post- Reynard at all. The notion of it left her empty, like a nut shelled to find only cobwebs inside, the meat long shriveled away. “I’m not having this conversation with you, Red. Take your sicko fantasies and go home.”

He laughed, low but not menacing. He sounded genuinely amused, and that pissed her off even more.

She heard Holly and Reynard leave the kitchen, retreating to the library at the back of the house. Reynard was asking something about the Order; Holly was offering to look something up in one of her books. Ashe suddenly felt very alone.

“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m calling?”

“No. I doubt you have anything interesting to say.”

Belenos sighed against the mouthpiece of the phone. The sound of rushing air was so intimate, she could have sworn it brushed her cheek. “You mistake me for someone who gives up easily.”

“Maybe I mistake you for someone with half a brain. You might be able to sell this trip as an effort to fix a business deal gone bad, y’know, with your thief turning traitor and all that. But if you keep pissing people off, you’re declaring war on the local vamp queen. You pull that, and everybody loses.”

“Perhaps we are already at war,” Belenos said softly. “I will protect you, if you let me. I will even protect those you love, if you ask.”

Ashe felt the muscles down the back of her neck tense. “What are you talking about?”

“Have you forgotten the assassin you killed? I certainly didn’t send him. So who wants you dead? Have they given up? Perhaps I have an answer for you.”

Ashe opened her mouth to speak, but breath wouldn’t come. The assassin. She hadn’t forgotten about him, but too much had happened to dwell on a threat that wasn’t in her face right that moment.

“I’ll be at your mother’s grave in an hour.”

The phone beeped, and then the sound of a dial tone filled her ear. Ashe hit the disconnect button.

“Damn it!” She fell into a chair. At some time during the call, the light in the room had turned the corner from dim to dark.

A dark that had been relatively inert a few moments ago. Now it crawled with suspicions.
What the hell kind of a game is Belenos playing?
Was this an elaborate setup to make her grovel to him for protection? Or was he telling the truth? Was there another killer with her name on a contract?

Nah, it was a transparent trap, and he was too arrogant to think she’d refuse to come.

It was tempting to grab her stakes and go. She needed something to fight, not these vague, faceless enemies. Not a voice on the phone. Not a figure in a dream. A sniper on a hill. Tension clawed her shoulder muscles, sending the first flickering lights of a bad headache arcing through the darkness.

Time passed. Ashe wasn’t sure how many minutes she sat there, turning over everything that had happened since the phouka had attacked in the gardens. There was a connection, perhaps something fairly obvious, that she was missing.

She heard Alessandro leave, start the T-bird, and drive away. He was going to pick up some of his friends from the airport shuttle. The supernatural community at large had taken an interest in Fairview’s situation and was starting to mobilize.

It was about bloody time.

Ashe jammed her fingers in her hair. Bunny. Demon. Vampire. Fairy prince. Yes, Miru- kai was a possibility. Which one wanted her dead the most?

What was she going to do about Eden? There had been one horrible night, back in Spain, when Ashe had awakened to find a vampire creeping down the hall toward Eden’s pink-and-white bedroom. She’d killed it, of course. She had cried afterward, suddenly and explosively. Ashe had not truly known fear before that night. The next week, she began looking at boarding schools. What was she going to do this time? Send Eden away now, or risk waiting?

She heard Holly’s slippers scuffing on the kitchen floor. “What’s burning?”

Shit
.

A
she walked through the graveyard, part of her brain worrying about where she could buy two dozen chocolate cupcakes on a Monday night because she’d been so wrapped up in the call, she hadn’t heard the oven timer. Holly had pulled two pans of charcoal briquettes from the oven, the pink crinkle cups lightly smoking.
How late does Safeway stay open?

The rest of her was in slayer mode, alert to the rustling night. She could hear the ocean to the south, just at the bottom of the cliff. The slow roll of waves on the shore would cover a lot of stealthy sounds. Ashe strained her ears, trying to hear past the water and the wind in the trees.

Belenos and no doubt his underlings were somewhere nearby. She could feel the tingle of vampire energy dancing on her skin.

She hadn’t come alone. Reynard and the hounds had spread out through the cemetery, keeping watch. The thought eased the pinch of tension in her neck just a little. Once upon a time, she would have been happy to walk into a trap just to prove she could beat it. Not anymore. She had too much to lose.

She wasn’t just a slayer. Ashe had known that since she came back to Fairview, but in the last few days she’d come to understand that fact on an emotional level. It was more than having an overfilled date book.

She was a mom with cupcake problems, a lover with someone to look after. She had a job—fortunately, the library had called her that morning to say she was forgiven for getting vampire all over the carpet—and she was part of her family and community as a whole. Grandma had been right: It was time to embrace all the roles she played. To appreciate approaching life with the laundry basket in one hand and a stake in the other.

Whatever
. She’d have to work on that metaphor. The bottom line was that she felt the chaos all those job titles implied, but it made her somehow complete. She wasn’t just a finely crafted weapon. She was a person who mattered to other people.

That gave her strength. She picked up the pace of her stride. It was a beautiful night for a hunt. Especially when she was after the vampire who’d dared to touch her daughter.

Colt in one hand, she followed the path that led around a stand of trees and approached her parents’ graves. The ocean was louder here, the crash of water on rocks an insistent exclamation.

She stopped.

Belenos was already waiting. Instead of a ball of light, this time he’d brought a long torch. It thrust from the soft loam beneath a trio of huge cedars. Ashe wondered if he’d swiped the torch from the Castle.

The oblique light dazzled on the baubles in his Titian hair, molten gold caught in a flood of silky fire. He was dressed for travel: Windbreaker, twill pants, and baggy cashmere sweater. The sight of him put Ashe’s every muscle on alert. He was pretty, but then, so was a cobra.

She mentally measured the distance between them, making sure there was a healthy patch of ground between her flesh and his fangs.

“Thank you for seeing me,” he said. “I notice you brought your guardsman along. Does he object to waiting on the sidelines?”

“He knows there are some things a mother has to do.”

“Well, I brought friends to keep him and his dogs busy while we chat.”

Ashe felt a prickle of anxiety, but she knew she didn’t have to worry about Reynard. He’d proved to her he could look after himself.

“Do you plan to kill me?” Belenos asked, his voice like hot satin.

She felt the pull of it, but shook it off. This wasn’t a dream now, where she could be so easily seduced. “I’m sure as hell going to teach you a lesson.”

“Really?” he said, pulling something from his pocket.

“No sudden moves, Red.” Ashe raised the Colt. “Silver bullets. They’ll sting for sure.” Her tone said they’d do a whole lot more.

Slowly, he raised the object in his hand. “Chocolate bunny?”

Ashe narrowed her eyes. “I suddenly find myself on a diet.”

“Bad associations?”

“Was it you who tried to shoot me?”

He was as still as a wax figure, finely sculpted and utterly dead. “I did not send the assassin, my lovely huntress. I want you very much alive.”