The Witching Hour: 11 Enchanting Novels Featuring Witches, Wizards, Vampires, Shifters, Ghosts, Fae, and More!, page 98
Crwys nodded to the store. "We could always ask."
He meant heading down into the bowels of the shop and asking Medbh. Very few knew she was down there.
I watched Robin and Ivan finish boarding up the window and didn't answer. Crwys finally walked into the back of the shop. As for Levi, the Revenant, I assumed he was inside as well, keeping out of the sun.
After the glass and sand were removed and safely inside rubber trash bins, I stepped back in. Kyle had turned his attention to picking up what was left of the bookshelf the cinder block had taken out. I paused to help him, and when he didn't speak, I touched his arm. "You okay?"
When he looked at me, I saw he wasn't. His eyes looked sunken, and dark half-moons hung under them. His face looked gaunt and he was pale. When I'd been writhing on the floor as the Changeling tried to enter, I knew Kyle had suffered a similar trauma.
I had felt the assault on a physical level, which was how my magic worked, because I powered it with my own energy. My soul, my katra, my essence. Kyle would have felt it on a mental level, because a Hedge Witch like him used their mind and imagination to summon, hold and direct magic. Yeah, they needed the ritual and symbology, the physical trappings, and essence of herbs to energize the magic, but the control came from their minds. He probably had one hell of a headache.
"Go home, Kyle. Get some rest."
"No. I can't do that. Not after what I felt and saw."
"Crwys says it was a Changeling." I watched Kyle's expression as he continued picking things up and piling them into his arms. "Like in the fairy tales."
"I take it a Changeling isn't what I think it is."
"No. He wants to talk to Medbh."
Kyle turned a pained and angry gaze toward me. "I think that's a fucking great idea." He stood and took his handful of books into the back.
When I pushed up on my thighs to stand, Robin moved beside me and took me into his arms. The top of my head tucked perfectly under his chin. It felt so good when he held me. My magic stayed in check, there was no overwhelming longing to throw him down on the floor and summon the two-backed beast like I had with Crwys, though Robin and I had a nice rhythm going. I didn't want him to leave. But I sensed something was up when he pulled back and he kissed my nose. "You're not staying?"
"I have to get to my sister's, remember? Drop off my key?"
Crap! Right. We were supposed to go together. His sister, Rose, was making dinner and I'd been looking forward to seeing the kids. Robin's sister was three years younger than him, a single mom with two beautiful daughters. One of them had a spark about her, and I sensed the God Mother's blood in her instantly. This was something I hadn't shared with Robin, or Rose. A child's choice to follow the Path was their own. And if her magic never matured enough to use, then the better it would be for her to lead and enjoy a normal life.
"Hey, don't worry," he said as he moved his thumb over my lower lip. "I'll tell her what happened. Well, I'll tell her the highlights, about a killer loose in the neighborhood. She's probably already heard about Higgins, so I'll make the excuse that you needed to stay here."
This was the truth, just not for the reasons I was sure he'd tell Rose. I kissed his thumb and then pulled him in close for another passionate kiss on his full and desirable lips. He hugged me again and whispered in my ear, "If you can, come to my house. I'd feel better if you were with me tonight and not here."
"Okay," was all I said. I had his spare key, which was why he was dropping off a new one to his sister. "When I'm done, I'll be over. Oh, after I grab an overnight bag."
"You know you can just leave things with me."
Yeah, I knew it. But we'd only been seeing each other six months, and I wanted to take it slow. Especially after the Flame On relationship with Crwys and then that disastrous two-night rebounder with a guy I knew from high school. I had no idea the asshole was a woman beater. I still remember the first, and only, time he tried to hit me and found himself looking down the barrel of one of my Smith & Wessons. I had two of them, each appropriately named. The Lord for the right hand, and The Lady for the left. Their names were engraved in Gaelic on their sides along with the appropriate symbols for Earth, Air, Water, and Fire.
No, they didn't shoot magic, but infused with magic, they never missed.
He said goodbye to Kyle and Ivan, waved at Crwys, and I walked him out to his car. After watching him drive away, I turned back to the shop, only to have Crwys inches from my face.
"Crap on a dragon's balls, don't do that!" I shouted at him as I put my hand on my chest and coaxed my heart out of my throat.
But Crwys wasn't deterred in the least. "I don't like him. And I still don't know why you say that."
"Say what?"
"Crap on a dragon's balls? Why not just plain crap like everyone else."
"Because I'm not everyone else. Why? You partial to dragons?"
"I'm partial to defending creatures that have no voice for themselves."
I rolled my eyes at him. "As for Robin, you don't like anybody. I think it's because of what you are." I moved past him and headed back to the front door.
"But you don't even know what I am," he said as he followed behind me.
"Because you won't tell me."
"Not till you tell me about your mother."
I stopped right in front of the door and spun around. This time he had to back pedal so as not to run into me. I had my hands balled into fists, and I was very much aware they were glowing with the soft blue witch light of my power. "Why are you so damn curious about my mother? You just can't let it go."
Crwys noticed my fists, but if they worried him, he didn't show it. "Just curious why you never mention her, or never talk about her."
"Fuck. Off." I pushed the Air Element between us and shoved him back a few feet. He stayed upright, another testament to the fact he wasn't human. A normal person would have flown ass over end across the road into the opposite building.
I reined in my anger, shook off the ache in my hands, and headed to the back. "Kyle, Ivan, we're having a meeting with the head."
FOUR
When I said a meeting with the head—that's exactly what I meant.
My reason for having the head of the former Unseelie Queen in my basement was a long and complicated story. She was the reason I knew about Changelings, since one had been sent into this world to kill someone I knew. It surprised me that I didn't recognize what that little girl was outside the shop, and I reminded myself to update my dex database.
Given what was in my basement, one would think a severed head would rot and feed maggots and just become generally nasty. But the moment it passed from the land of Faerie, Alfheim, to this world, it became a creepy, ceramic doll head.
And worse…it talked. As far as I could figure out, the spirit of Medbh was still inside. Not knowing what else to do with it, I locked it in the basement under a thick layering of wards and popped it out now and then to ask it a question. Sometimes she answered, sometimes she didn't. Just like she didn't say anything when I asked her if she knew what the little girl was. I figured, when she didn't want to answer, it was because the answer went against Faerie secrets, or queen secrets, or she was just PMSing.
Her stubbornness at not answering sometimes put Crwys in a bad mood, and he had on more than one occasion thrown the ugly-assed thing to the ground. The first time that happened I was sort of relieved. I thought I'd be done with Faerie.
Nope.
Two days later, her voice was back and her head had reformed, though the left eye was now messed up where a crack bisected it and some of the ceramic had chipped away. Now it was a cracked, creepy ceramic doll head. And if the head ever met the body…well…
Bad things, baby.
The basement was laid out in three rooms. The first room housed the hot water heater as well as the breaker box for the shop. I kept boxes of supplies down there in water-safe tubs, just in case. Through a door to the right was another longer, narrower room with metal shelves. This was where I stored the creepier things I found, like shrunken heads and cursed amulets. They were stored in boxes and well labeled. Not many of them. Maybe three?
At the far end was the third room. It measured five by five with only one way in. The door into the room locked from the outside, and Kyle had wondered if the church that'd occupied the shop a decade ago had used this room for exorcisms.
I didn't believe in things like that. Once a demon was inside of a person, their only salvation was death.
Speaking of demons and possession, Levi, who’d stayed out of the way and found a nice dark corner to stay in after the Changeling incident, followed us into the basement. Ivan had set up bar stools in the largest room with the creepy stuff and a table in the center.
Everyone but Kyle and me picked out a stool as we opened the small room, and then opened the iron safe inside of it. The head was shrouded in a burlap peanut bag. No special reason, other than Medbh hated it.
:About time you asked for my advice again, girl. It gets lonely and dark shut up in that old safe.:
Sometimes customers heard Medbh's voice. I think she did that on purpose, just to remind me she was there. Her singing and off color remarks gave my shop the reputation of being haunted. I didn't mind. The disembodied voice brought in business.
I was gonna need more business once I called the insurance.
I never directly touched the head. Not because I was afraid of it or thought the old girl could contaminate me. It was just too creepy to touch. Like putting my hand on a tarantula.
Just wasn't going to happen.
Grey sat beside my stool, saving it so no one else would sit there. Levi and Crwys stood because they were interlopers.
:Oh, it's so nice to see everyone.: Medbh's voice shifted a lot. Sometimes she sounded like Aunt B from Mayberry R.F.D., and sometimes she sounded like one of the girls from the movie Mean Girls. It just depended on her mood. Today she sounded like Aunt B. :And you, Crwys, doing such a nice job getting rid of that Changeling.: I think she mimicked that voice because she could hear my television upstairs. I didn't have cable, and I was guilty of falling asleep on the couch with the TV on. I woke up many a morning to the sound of Andy Griffith and Don Knots.
Crwys glanced at me, and I knew it was a look of told you it was a Changeling, since no one had actually asked her a question yet.
"Thank you, Medbh," Crwys said as he crossed his arms over his chest. "But what we need to know—and if you don't answer my question, I'll break your little head again—is why it's here in the first place. Was she one of yours?"
Medbh didn't answer at first, but the head did rock and shift where it sat on the table until it faced Crwys. To me, that was creepier than the thing actually talking. I didn't like things that weren't supposed to move. And doll heads were on the top of the list. :There is no need to resort to violence. That vagabond was not one of mine. I haven't had a Changeling in the game since…: And it rocked a bit to face me. :Since I made the one that killed the new queen's mother.:
Yep. You heard that right. The new Unseelie Queen was one of Medbh's former victims.
Levi held up a hand. "Can someone fill me in on this new queen? What the hell is she talking about?"
I didn't feel like rehashing shit from the past, but Levi needed to be brought up to speed. Luckily, Crwys stepped in and filled that roll. Sort of. He did a Crwys-style recap. "This annoying head belongs to the previous Obsidian Queen of the Sidhe, the Unseelie Queen. She's a head because a Witch she turned into one of her wolves bit her head off. The last Changeling Medbh here remembers making is the one she left to take the place of that Witch." He glanced at his partner. "That make sense?"
"Sure, sure."
But I knew Levi wasn't any more informed than he was before.
And since it was a direct question answered and nothing dire happened to the head, we could all assume she was being truthful. Which meant Medbh wasn't making the Changelings attacking randomly in the city.
"Then who made the six that have been killing people? Are they all in this area?" I glanced at Crwys.
He gave me a nod.
Medbh's head shifted again, as if facing everyone. I had to wonder if she could really see, or if it was that blind sensing thing. :You'd have to ask the new queen. Only she could answer that.:
Well, screw that. "Sorry, that's not gonna happen." I'd made a deal with the new queen nine months ago and reneged on it, so I was persona non grata when it came to the new Obsidian Queen. No one ever breaks a promise with the Faerie and lives well. Or lives at all. The only thing separating me from Faerie capture, torture and death was the new queen's father, who asked her to pardon me.
And she did.
But I didn't want to take any chances.
"What about the Silver Queen and her Daoine Sidhe? Could she know something?" Crwys asked.
Medbh didn't have shoulders, but the movement her head made looked like a shrug. :I suppose. But you'll have to make sure the ground is firmly sanctioned between worlds. Tzariene is particularly allergic to this world and she rarely ever takes a body.:
I knew what Medbh meant by allergic. Those of the Faerie blood couldn't live in our world for very long. Once the sunlight found them, or their feet touched the ground, Faeries turned to ash. Which I considered a plus, given my personal history with them. This was why we kept Medbh's head away from the sun.
As for taking a body, it was possible for some of the Faerie folk to inhabit human bodies, just like most of the races of the Demon Worlds. But the effort was hard on them and human hosts usually went mad while being possessed, which made it even more difficult for the Faerie to escape.
"Tzariene?" Levi said. "Who is that?"
"That's the Silver Queen's name." Crwys rubbed at his chin with his fingers.
I glanced at Kyle and Ivan. They were paying attention, but unusually silent. Especially Kyle.
Levi spoke up again. "What does she mean by sanctioned land?"
Ivan spoke up. "Sacred. Purified. Sanctified. Has to be consecrated by magic for a Faerie to stand on it." He looked at Kyle. "Your aunt's land pretty much stays in that condition, doesn't it? That's where you and Sam did that ritual to talk to Brendi."
Brendi was the name of the new Unseelie Queen.
"Yeah, but my aunt still hasn't forgiven me for that." Kyle bent forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
"It's not your fault your cousin lied to you when she said you had permission."
"Doesn't matter. It's my fault for not following the permission up the chain of command. Trust me, I got off with a warning. My cousin?" Kyle made a sad face. "I'm not sure where the body's buried."
The bad thing about that was I wasn't so sure he was kidding.
Kyle's aunt, Arden Vervain, was possibly the scariest Witch I knew. Entrepreneur, self-made billionaire with a no-nonsense southern charm that would straighten General Lee's beard.
God Mother's Gifts weren't always understandable. No one knew why Witches like myself possessed four Gifts with the possibility of attaining a fifth, when some only held one or two. Our Magical Parliament couldn't explain it. The only thing they did through the centuries was create and enforce what I thought was an outdated model that put single Gift users at the bottom of the food chain, and higher numbered users at the top.
The fact that I had four Gifts with potential for another made me a candidate for leader or Elder, which I perfunctorily refused and used that stupidity as a reason to disassociate myself from that branch of magical government. This didn't endear me to the Parliament or their brute squad, also known as the Clerics of Peace.
Or magical mayhem squad, as I referred to them.
Groups like the New Orleans Eldership were elected by Gift rank. The leadership's power was determined by the High Witch of each state, and that position was held in secret. No one knew which of the nine Witches on each governing council was the High Witch. This rule dated back to the Trials, when Witches used magical names in order to hide their true identities from the Witch Finders. As crazy as that sounded—Witch Finders still exist. Humans who possess just enough of the Gift to give them sight but not attainable magic, made them aware of magic so they can see it, and sense it, often use this Gift to find Witches and destroy them.
Rules were set by the Parliament and policed by the Clerics, all ranking at no less than three Gifts. We had three Cleric Hives for Louisiana and Mississippi, one member of which I knew intimately, because she'd raised me from the time I was eight. My guardian and local Cleric, Inamorata Devonshire.
Arden Vervain possessed three Gifts. Elemental Gifts were regarded the highest. She had Water and Earth, and her third magic was called a Dianic Gift. She had the power of a Seer. This combination assured her of being a member of a Council anywhere she went.
Her nephew Kyle, if left to be ranked and judged in that society, would be at the bottom rung because his Gifts weren't seen as natural. Truth was Kyle could manipulate any Gift the God Mother made with his use of ritual and spell. I'd seen him gather all four of the Elements together in a single spell to heal. I'd seen him burn roots to see into the future, or pulverize and steep a tea to "hear" another's thoughts.
The fact Arden couldn't see the wonder in Kyle's Hedge abilities stymied me to no end. So she kept him at a distance and, I think, "tolerated" the fact that I, an Elemental Witch, encouraged him to practice his magic.
Given these rules—can you imagine how Ivan fit into this hegemony?
I met Arden only once, and unfortunately exposed my own natural abilities, which she wanted to add to her coven. It's the largest grouping of Witches in the Southeast, and the most powerful. Little got by Arden's network of informants. I was pretty sure she already knew about the Changelings and the murders.
"If you plan on contacting that nutcase, you'll excuse me if I bow out of that little meet and greet," Crwys said as he lowered his hands. "I'll do a bit of investigating on my own."
"Like what?" I asked him.
"Like that smell. I know you know what I mean." He nodded to me and then he looked at Ivan. "And you smelled it as well."
