"You know I will. But Sam," he said as he pulled my hands close to him, "you didn't answer me. Does what happened have to do with the magic stuff?"

  I swam in his brown eyes. I saw the need there to believe anything that didn't point to him and killing. The grasping at straws to make sense of what happened to him. Anyone would want that. Anyone would need answers. Just like I needed answers.

  And I was going to get them from Medbh.

  "I can't say right now. But here"—I pulled the glass container from my jacket and put it in his hands—"if you can, in any way, put this on Rose's wounds. It'll help."

  "Will it make her live?"

  I blinked. "No. But it will help her…it will ease the pain." I wanted to tell him it would slow the poison, but that was more than he needed to know.

  He sat back and unscrewed it. It was yellow and had the consistency of Vicks Vapor Rub. "It smells nice."

  "It's something my aunt made. All natural. You don't have to do it, but if you want to—"

  "No, I'll do it." He closed it and slipped it into his pocket. "I should get back to her. They'll let me in the room now. It's nearly noon."

  I needed to go too. I'd left Grey alone too long and it was time to confront Medbh. I had patchouli and a serious case of irritated. We said goodbye at the ICU station, and I half ran back to the elevator and then out to the Jeep. Still no rain and Grey was happy to see me.

  Traffic was as it always was, but worse. It was Halloween so all the freaks were out, even at mid-day.

  Welcome to Bourbon Street, New Orleans.

  I pulled the Jeep into the back alley and hit the automatic door. I saw Ivan's truck parked in the back, but not Kyle's car. Once inside, every hair I owned stood on end. Something was wrong. Grey leapt out of the Jeep and landed on all fours, her teeth bared.

  The lights were out in my office and the break room. This wasn't unusual at mid-day, but there should have been a light coming from around the door to the front of the shop.

  I could feel the static rising off Grey's body as she stayed close to me, repeatedly bumping into my side. I pulled my guns from my bag and checked the ammo, both physical and magical. I was ready.

  The electric kettle was hot, a signal Ivan was in, since he drank chai tea all day long. The cup was ready with honey inside, but it hadn't been poured. The bag lay on the counter, unused.

  I checked the wards—and found a big 'effing hole!

  "Ivan? Kyle?" I called out as I rushed through the door to the front, my weapons ready. Grey followed beside me, growling.

  The first thing I noticed was no light coming through the front windows. There were no curtains or blinds on them, so there should at least be the mid-day, monochromatic near-rain color coming through.

  Nada. Pitch black.

  I stopped just inside, somewhere behind the front counter, as I sent out a detection feel. A feel for me was like a tendril of myself. An extension of my essence as I used Spirit. I always liked to think of it as a magical drone. It would see and sense danger before it struck because the feel was invisible to everyone else. Unlike a drone.

  :There's no one else here.:

  Medbh's voice scared the bat-shit out of me. I made a sharp hissing sound as I moved inside, weapons out in front of me, fingers on the triggers. I stepped on glass and knew I shouldn't have. Kyle, Ivan and Robin cleaned up the glass. My feel didn't detect any imminent danger and the head was right.

  I engaged the guns' safeties, slipped them back into my bag, and summoned another Salamander. This one was bigger than the one that came the night before. It started as a sphere of flame the size of a golf ball in my right palm, then grew to the size and shape of a softball as the little creature formed inside. It floated up to the ceiling and illuminated the place enough for us to pick our way around.

  "Hey! Anyone here?"

  Kyle's voice came from the back. I turned and stood where I was until he showed up as a silhouette in the doorway. "Whoa…what the hell is going on? What's up with the lights? That you, Sam?"

  "Where were you?"

  "I was out getting lunch." He held up two bags to punctuate his whereabouts. "I left Ivan here. Where is he?"

  "I don't know."

  "The place feels wrong," Kyle said. "Oh shit…you see that hole in the wards?"

  "Yeah, I do. Get to the breaker box next to the stairs to the basement." I nudged the tiny Salamander to follow him and it did. It disappeared behind a door and the place went dark again.

  Abruptly, the store lights came on and revealed more than just trashed. My store had been trampled.

  Fountains lay in pieces all over the place, water pooled on the hardwood. Piles of water-soaked books littered the floor as well. Amulets I'd hung from the ceiling were scattered on the floor. The tables were in pieces and part of the counter was caved in.

  "The break room wasn't touched," Kyle said as he stepped out of the back. "Want me to go upstairs to your place?"

  "It's fine. I already know it is. They weren't looking for anything in my apartment." That's when I saw the broken flat screen monitor. Ivan's phone lay on the floor, smashed. I couldn't sense him in the building, on the block, anywhere within the limits of my Spirit.

  "They took Ivan."

  "Who?" Kyle came up behind me as Grey put her snout in my hand.

  I had a pretty damn good idea who. And I was pissed. Off.

  I marched through the break room, flung open the basement door, and ran down those stairs. I could see the scars on my wards as I approached. Deep gashes where my essence was challenged over and over again as they tried to get to Medbh.

  Luckily, the bastards failed.

  I opened the door to the safe, yanked that goddamn head out, and slammed it down on the table in the center of that room. Kyle and Grey came running down after me, but stood out of my way. "Who were they?"

  The head was shaking. :A bunch of Witch bitches.:

  I turned to a nearby shelf, grabbed a hammer, and struck the damn thing. It broke into five pieces.

  Grey barked. Kyle gasped.

  As the pieces came back together, I pulled a stick of patchouli out of my jacket, summoned a fire spark and lit the end of the stick. Once the pieces fused back together, with more fissures and cracks, I shoved the patchouli into the head's face.

  :Why the hell did you do—AAAIIYYEEEE—No! Get that away from me! Foul, foul stuff!:

  "I'm going to continue breaking you down and then getting the smell of this herb all inside the pores of that ceramic so that you smell it every waking instant until I get some answers. If karma won't punish you for lying, then I'm going to."

  :But I wasn't lying! There were about seven of them. All women, dressed in black like Witchy ninjas. Some were working magic while others were upstairs trashing the place.:

  "Why did they take Ivan?"

  The head wobbled a bit. :I got the impression he wasn't supposed to be here. And I think he hurt a few of them, but there were too many. So when they couldn't get to me, and he wouldn't give me up, they took him.:

  I held the smoking incense closer. "Why?" I shouted.

  The ceramic head shook even harder and a small piece fell off onto the floor. :I don't know! I can't read minds, Witch. They didn't say much and they were protected by wards of their own.:

  I lowered my arm. I had a suspicion. "Arden sent them here to steal you so she could gain favor with the Elders."

  "Sam," Kyle cleared his throat. "Look, I know you and Arden have this woman-power thing going on. She doesn't exactly get along with everybody. But I don't think she'd do something this drastically stupid if there wasn't a good reason."

  "I'll tell you the reason," I shouted at him. I was so damn mad. My shop was trashed and that bitch just kidnapped Ivan, the same kid she'd put into a coma. "Because she's a megalomaniac, that's why. She's a woman who'll stop at nothing to actually make herself the Witch Queen of this damn city!"

  I sensed someone in the shop. Two someones. My little Salamander, which I'd forgotten about and was still floating about upstairs, gave me images of Crwys and Levi as they came in through the front door (oh great, that door lock is broken too) and headed down the steps.

  Crwys appeared first, with Levi behind him. He looked at me, looked at the hammer, saw the incense, and held out his hand. "Wait. Don't destroy it."

  "She already broke it once," Kyle said. His voice was tight, and I was pretty sure he was pissed at me for speaking so badly about his aunt. But let's get real, the woman was a raging lunatic.

  I pointed up. "You see what Arden did to my shop? She broke in, destroyed my livelihood, and took Ivan. This is kidnapping. I want her arrested and I want Ivan found." I refocused on Medbh. "Now the truth, you fucking bitch. Were the Changelings created to get your attention?"

  A long pause.

  This time I hit the head hard with the hammer and held the incense in the pile of ruins while it reformed around it. Surprisingly enough, the stick of burning incense now protruded from the head's mashed up nose with the burning end on the inside.

  :Get it out!:

  "Answer me!" I pulled another stick out, ready to light it up and break that damn head again.

  :Yes! She wants my attention because she wants me dead! The Changelings were her idea of telling me she was here and coming for me!:

  TWELVE

  "Who wants your attention?" I continued holding the hammer over Medbh's head.

  When she didn't answer, I raised the hammer with the full intention of smashing the damn thing into pieces small enough to bread chicken with. Medbh Panko.

  Crwys grabbed my wrist. I was as surprised by his intervention as much as the heat in his palm. "Stop, Sam. She's not there anymore. Can't you tell?"

  "Not there?" I wrenched my wrist free and concentrated on the ceramic head and listened. He was right. There was no echo of Medbh's thoughts, not even the feel of her presence, something I was getting used to. "How is that possible? I thought she was locked into her head?"

  "I don't think whatever she is, is gone. I just think she's tuned you out. Maybe passed from the physical to the mental, or even the astral."

  I glared at Crwys. "Right. Like you can tell."

  He fixed me with that amber-red gaze of his. "I can tell many things, Sam. As you damn well know." Crwys's tone wasn't harsh or angry, but it was firm. "Put it back and come upstairs so you can tell me what the hell happened."

  I left the incense in the head and just put the whole thing back in the safe without the peanut bag. The ember would snuff itself out once it reached the end of the incense.

  Once upstairs, I gave him a quick and dirty review of how I came in to find the devastation, and Kyle backed me up with his version of leaving Ivan to pick up lunch.

  Crwys raked his long fingers through his spiky hair, an affectation I knew meant he felt frustration, similar to one of Robin's tells. "I need to call this in. Don't touch anything."

  About a half hour later and a pot of coffee, the NOPD was swarming my place. Again. And again, Captain Prescott came through my door to the break room table in the back. She leaned forward and pressed her fingertips to the grand oak table. "Nice piece of furniture."

  Grey, at my feet, made a low woof and I leaned down to calm her. I hadn't seen Kyle for a while. Maybe he went home. "Yeah. It is."

  "Listen, Miss Hawthorne…I'm sorry about your friend, but what you told Detectives Holliard and Tulose…I need more concrete proof that it was Miss Vervain who broke into your shop. From the looks of things—"

  "Don't you think I know how it looks?" I was harsher than I meant to be, but I was inches from losing my temper. That was something I couldn't let happen.

  People would get hurt.

  "It looks like someone broke in and I was robbed. But the only thing missing is Ivan. His phone was on the floor, his computer smashed, and his backpack is still under the counter. That says kidnapping?"

  "It might, but it doesn't say Miss Vervain is the kidnapper." She pursed her lips as she narrowed her eyes at me. "You're more concerned for him than your shop."

  "Surprised? He's my friend. I'm pretty much the closest thing to family he's got here. He's also got a cat at home waiting for him." I made myself a mental note to stop by and feed Pyewacket before I…

  Before I what? I wasn't going to stay here. Not with a broken shop and bruised wards beneath me. Going to Robin's house wasn't on the table anymore. He'd texted me and said the salve was working wonders. I didn't want to get his hopes up too much. Robin, not understanding magic, would see it as a cure-all and it wasn't. I’d told him to stay with Rose in the hospital until he had more news. My real thinking was…that if he collapsed from the poison, the hospital was the best place for him to be.

  Ina was my only alternative. I needed to get out of here and call her or see her. She'd be just as upset about Ivan as I was, and possibly want to help.

  "We'll do what we can, Miss Hawthorne. But I'd keep my accusations against Miss Vervain to myself if I were you." Prescott seemed to notice I wasn't in a talking mood and moved away.

  But that didn't stop Crwys from showing up and pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Levi's headed out to talk to some old acquaintances."

  "The bloodsucking kind?"

  "You know Revenants aren't like that Hollywood shit."

  "I don't know anything." I folded my arms on the table and rested my forehead on my forearm. "I'm not seeing something here."

  "Like what?" Crwys took the chair opposite of me. I didn't see him, but I could hear him. And feel him. The guy was like a presence I could never shake.

  I erased him from my thoughts and refocused on the big question. Why? I had a why for everything. Why was someone, a she, trying to get Medbh's attention? The answer to why anyone would want the former Faerie Queen dead was as myriad as the colors in the rainbow—everyone wanted her dead. The line started at my shop. So the next why was…why take Ivan? It was obvious she battered the wards protecting the damned head. Why take a Witch believed to be no more than a Dianic?

  Some days I wished this job, this thing that I was, came with instructions. Most Elementals had the advantage of their mother's teaching and guidance. I'd been denied that. And though Ina had done her best, as had my dad in what ways he could, neither of them really understood an Elemental's power.

  I wished Mom had written it all down. Like a Book of Shadows or something. Most Witches had that. Ina had one. Why didn't my mom?

  "How's Robin's sister?"

  I took in a deep breath, lifted my head, and propped it on my hand. "Ina made a salve to help slow the poison…but she agreed with you. There's no cure."

  Crwys slowly nodded, his coffee mug in his hands. Then, "There's no cure in this world."

  "Well, this is the world that matters. So—" I narrowed my eyes at him. "What are you not saying?"

  He moved his index finger around the top of the coffee mug. It was one of my older Renn Faire mugs. Blue. Handmade. "It's all Arcane Magic. Faerie Magic, my magic, Levi's abilities. The poison is Arcane in its makeup, because when Changelings are made, they're infused with the poison. But everything in all the worlds has an opposite. Rules of the universe. All poisons have antidotes. It's the nature of their creation. Reverse engineering."

  "You're saying…there is a cure…only it's an Arcane cure."

  "No."

  "Crwys, I'm really not in the mood for puzzles."

  "If there is an Arcane curse, then there is a counter curse in the opposite. What is opposite of Arcane Magic?"

  I sat up. No one had ever asked me that before. Arcane was just something I wasn't ever supposed to touch. "I don't…Crwys, dammit, just spit it out."

  "The answer to that is different, depending on what philosopher you read, or what Magician you follow."

  I nearly spit at the mention of Magicians. Damn lot of interlopers with no real grasp of how things work. "I don't read Magician crap."

  "You should. Many of the great practitioners of magic over the centuries have been members of Magician Orders. Just because Witches and Magicians don't see eye-to-eye in the application of magic—"

  I slammed my hands palm down on the table. "Magicians seek to control and dominate the natural world. They're abominations."

  Crwys shrugged. "Maybe. But because they don't have those moral codes the way you do, they research and experiment, and you know what else?" He smirked. "They write that shit down, because they want the fame and the recognition. Their own hubris is their undoing."

  I leaned back. "I think I lost your point. Did you?"

  "No. My point is, they write it down, Sam."

  I stared at him. What…it couldn't be that simple. "You're…you're saying Magicians found a cure and they wrote it down?"

  "Yes." He fixed me with his amber-red eyes. "There is a cure for the toxin. It was written down centuries ago. A complex spell of Arcane that works as a sort of rewind on the victim. Something a very unhappy mythical wizard discovered somewhere in England a very long time ago."

  I continued staring at him. Grey sat up and looked at me, her ears up. "Do you know where it's written?"

  "In a book, but I don't know where the book is."

  "You're saying there is a book out there with the cure in it."

  "There are several books out there, but they're all part of the same original tome. But most Magicians and Witches who tried to use the book have failed because they didn't realize what kind of magic the spells produced."

  "Because the spells the Magicians worked were Arcane." I knew this part. All the warnings I'd received through the years about never using Arcane Magic. "Because it changes you."

  "Or kills you, like they all found out. This book's got more than just the Changeling's spell in it. There's work on necrification, zombification, exorcism, and a guide through the Well of Souls."

  "Now you're just playing with me." I fixed him with a very serious look. "'Cause I don't know if necrification is a word."

  "It is for what we're talking about." He sipped his coffee again and stared at me.

  "Exorcisms? You mean like the kind the Catholic priests do?"

  "Far worse. Exorcisms that rend possessing spirits from bodies."

 

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