Head Above Water (Gemini: A Black Dog #2) (17 page)

“Adele,” Miguel greeted her. “It’s a pleasure to see you again so soon.” He reached behind him where a rocker sat and lifted a pink cotton bathrobe as though expecting us. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” She stepped up, let him help her into it and tied it on her way back to me. “Your house, your rules.”

“Agent Ellis.” His greeting for me rang cooler. “Come inside, won’t you?”

The wolf gave me a nudge to get me moving. He was acting more coherent, more human, by the hour. I hoped that was a good sign.

Inside the house was as strange as the outside. Most of the living space was what you’d expect, but the books weren’t light reading. The tomes gracing his shelves were thick, leather-bound. Crystals reflected rainbows in the windows. Bone sculptures took up table space, and elegant taxidermy brought a bleak air to the room.

“Have a seat.” He took one of the two chairs positioned opposite a couch. “Tell me what brings you so far from home.”

Enzo waited until Dell had plopped down on the couch before claiming the other chair. Left the only one standing, I sat beside Dell, and Graeson came to rest at my feet, his tail curled around my ankles. All this Miguel watched with detached interest.

“She wants to find the mermaid.” Enzo dropped my bracelet into his brother’s hand. “I told her we could help, assuming you two can settle on a price.”

Miguel rolled the beads between his fingers. “What business do you have with the girl?”

“She was abducted from the scene in Abbeville.”

“I see.” He studied the etchings on each sphere through narrowed eyes. “Is this personal or professional?”

“Both.” Hoping it might sway him, I added, “She’s a friend.”

“We can find her.” He closed his fist and sat back. “The closer she is, the easier it is.”

I scooted to the edge of my cushion. “Does that mean she’s nearby?”

A ghost of a smile shadowed his features. “What are you willing to offer me in exchange for this information?”

“I assumed there was a set price.” Graeson had told me their help was expensive, but not what it cost.

“For Graeson there is.” He studied me with a clinical air that left me chilled. “For you…for this…I need something else, something different.”

I sank my fingers into Graeson’s lush pelt. “Why don’t you spell it out for me.”

Dell snorted. “You told a witch to
spell
it out.”

I elbowed her in the side. “You’re not helping.”

Overhead the planks groaned, and all eyes rolled toward the ceiling. I jumped to my feet at the heavy thump that followed. Miguel blurred past before I could ask what the sound meant, but Enzo caught him by the shoulder.

“I’ve got this. I’ll get Isabella back in bed. She was probably curious about the voices and went to look out the window.” He jerked his chin toward us. “You finish up down here.”

We reclaimed our seats, the quiet pervasive, until Miguel spoke. “My wife is unwell.” His fingers tapped out a hasty rhythm on his knee. “I don’t have long to entertain offers, and I don’t have time for coyness.” He snared my gaze. “I want your blood.”

I recoiled, and Dell scooted closer. “My…blood.”

“My wife is a warg. You’re a shape-shifter of a different sort. You control your shifts. If I can isolate the strains of magic that make that possible, I can create a vaccine. She could do partial shifts when the moon calls to soothe her inner beast.” His voice went distant. “It’s not a cure, but it’s a hope for a better patch than any I’ve created so far.”

Blood was power. A lot of bad spells used it as both fuel and homing beacon. Whatever magic was twisted from my blood would rebound on me if the brothers misused even a drop.

“You’re asking for a lot.” Not just blood but trust too.

“You want the mermaid located while she’s still sane, I assume.” His tone was merciless. “There’s not much time left for that.”

I gritted my teeth. “Tell me about Butler, Tennessee first.”

“Butler. That sounds familiar. Let me check my records.” He held out a hand, and a ledger materialized there. When he set it in his lap, it flipped to a page near the center of its spine, and he marked a passage with his finger. “I’ll give you my oath your blood won’t be used for harm or against you. One vial is all I need. Promise me that, and I’ll read you the transcription word for word.”

Oaths were binding when sealed with magic. It was as safe an offer as he could make me. “I accept.”

“The creature walks among mortals. As death wears many faces, so must he.” Miguel’s shoulders relaxed as he read from the journal. “He is hunger, his cravings unending. This world will perish at the edge of his teeth. Butler, Tennessee will bear the brunt of that first bite.”

He closed the book and willed it back whence it came.

I waited. No, he wasn’t being dramatic. He was done. “That’s it?”

“Graeson was specific. He wanted a location, not motivation and not identification.” He picked at a thread sprung from a seam in his pants. “You’re fortunate Enzo keeps such meticulous records. Had I been entranced alone, all I would have remembered speaking would have been the answer to his question.”

“Meemaw did say not to accept his first offer,” Dell whispered.

I glowered at her. “Not helping.”

“Sorry.” She winced.

I rubbed the tense spot between my eyes with my pointer finger. “The apocalyptic nature of the divination didn’t, I don’t know, concern you?”

“Not particularly.” Tired of the loose end, he snapped his finger, and the thread knotted. “All divinations have bleak aspects, and most possible futures bear grim tidings. I can’t drop everything to run off to save the day every time a world-ending forecast is made.”

“How is the world possibly ending not your problem?” I challenged.

“For some of us…” his gaze drifted toward the ceiling, “…it’s not a possibility but a certainty.”

How accurate were his divinations that he could afford to ignore such dire warnings? Was he truly content to let the world run out of time since his wife’s was so limited? Or did he place his materialistic faith in people like me, who, to borrow from Mai, must have a savior complex?

“Now, the mermaid.” The bracelet dangled from his fingers, an incentive. “What will you give me for her?”

A growl rose up the back of my throat that was echoed by Dell and the wolf at my feet. “I agreed to pay you a vial of blood for your help.”

“The blood was for the divination.” He worried the beads through his fingers like a rosary. “This is a separate price for a separate act.”

I didn’t bother making an offer. I didn’t see the point in it. “What did you have in mind?”

“Be our guest. Three days should do it.” A slight smile. “I might need more blood or—”

“—a fresh guinea pig,” I finished for him, rising to my feet. “The answer is no. You’re not the only one running out of time.”

The witch would draw out each nugget of information at a cost that would climb higher and higher. I had wasted my time coming here. What scraps I’d learned through the divination shored up Ayer’s rantings, but neither told me what had drawn Charybdis to Butler, Tennessee.

The only way to find those answers was to fly up there myself and take a look around.

“What about me?” Dell scrambled up behind me. “Is there anything I can do?”

Miguel was shaking his head before she finished. “Enzo bargained with me to spare you from my agreement with the pack.”

Dell blanched at the mercy she had unknowingly been granted, and her gaze skittered toward the stairs where her knight errant had gone. Knees wobbling at the magnitude of this news, she sank back onto the couch. “Why would he do that? He doesn’t even know me.”

“Infatuation,” Miguel said with casual cruelness. “The difficulties Isabella and I face haven’t deterred him. Let his inherent magic infect you, let it warp your natural energies until each shift is a step closer to your death, and then he might begin to understand the idiocy of his bargain.” Lips mashed into a white line of regret, perhaps for speaking his mind, he stood. “Once you leave, whether you got what you came for or not, you won’t be permitted back onto our property.” He crossed to the front door and rested his hand on the knob. “There are rules, and they must be upheld.”

Anger sprouted fine platinum hairs up my arms, and an idea formed. “Your wife is a warg.”

“I’ve said as much, yes,” he answered, condescension ringing through his tone.

“Locate the mermaid, and I’ll give you a second vial of blood.”

His brow furrowed. “To echo your earlier sentiments, the answer is no.”

“Are you sure?” I lifted my arm and pushed magic through my limbs to hasten the spread of the warg aspect. “The divination was worth the blood of my base form, which possesses non-specific magics. Think of it as a control sample. How much more would it be worth to you if I saved you some work? What if I gave you that Gemini baseline with a natural infusion of the warg magic instead of your clinical variety?” I spread my fingers and allowed him to admire the curled tips of my claws. Power swept up my throat and danced along my jaw until my gums ached. When I spoke again, it was to lisp through fangs. “Fine tha mermaid, an’ you can ha’ this too.”

“Your offer intrigues me.” Eyes bright, Miguel began pacing the entryway. “Magic is coded into warg DNA. Gemini capture a scrap of that wild energy, distill it from their blood, absorb it and use it to augment their own.” He continued thinking out loud. “It would cut out several steps in the process and eliminate the threat of two opposing magics rejecting binding with one another. Blood from a Gemini robust with warg magic.” He stopped, seeming to come to himself. “Your blood may prove to be a magical universal donor.”

I held my breath. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” He vibrated with energy. “Quickly, let’s go to my lab.”

“Not so fast.” I planted my feet. “I want the information first.”

“That won’t be possible.” He took a thin knife from his pocket and slashed open his palm. Dipping his fingers in the red liquid, he wrote a few symbols that ignited in his palm. “This is a binding oath, a vow that I will give you that which you seek, but to ensure the quality of the sample and your cooperation, I must ask that your end of the deal be met first.”

Having little experience with witches, I wasn’t sure what I had just witnessed. “Dell?”

“It’s legit,” she confirmed. “He’s sealed deals with Cord this way. I recognize the symbols.”

“Okay.” A thrill of hope zinging through me, I followed Miguel. “Let’s do this.”

Still unsure which of us had made the better deal, I consoled myself with the simple truth that I had already promised him blood and exacted an oath as to the limits of how he could use it. What harm had I done by giving him more blood? Magic-imbued blood? I wasn’t sure. But if it helped his wife and got me to Harlow, I wasn’t sure I cared about the ramifications.

I had never been a
worry-about-tomorrow-when-it-comes
type person, but desperation makes fools of us all.

The three of us followed Miguel down into his basement lab, which resembled a cross between a five-star kitchen and a morgue. He offered me a stool, and I used it to climb onto the stainless-steel table. He urged me to lie down, but I politely declined with a growl in my voice.

The procedures themselves were clinical. I was given a half hour to shift back into my own skin before he drew his control sample. Then, although I didn’t need it, I accepted a drop of blood from Dell to magic-up my veins before he drew his last vial.

The fact Enzo arrived with a glass of orange juice and a small plate with two chocolate chip cookies they forced down me made me wonder how often they did this very thing. Then I decided I probably didn’t want to know.

“Do you need anything else?” I hopped to the floor and rubbed my arms, adrenaline giving me hot-and-cold flashes. “How long will it take you to cast?”

Busy securing his treasures, it took Miguel a minute to answer. “I already have.”

I whirled on him. “What?”

“I did that upstairs.” He tossed me the bracelet without a backward glance. “I had to be sure I could hold up my end of the deal before we finalized the transaction.”

“You’ve known all this time?” I fumed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

After locking the vials in a metal case and tucking that inside a massive refrigeration unit he also locked, Miguel faced me. “I had to be certain you would honor your side of the bargain too.”

“Are you implying I’m not trustworthy?” I bristled.

“No. Not at all.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “But I knew once I told you, nothing I said or did would keep you here, and I wanted to take my time to ensure I took viable samples.”

A shiver raised hairs down my arms. “Where is she?”

“In the sprite’s den,” he said, and Dell’s eyes rounded.

“The pond.” Her breath caught. “Harlow’s in the cavern beneath the pond.”

The mocking call of gulls echoed through my memory, their poignant cries threatening to nail my feet to the repurposed oak floors. I drifted onto the front porch in a daze and wrapped my arms around my middle to hold myself together.

Dell leaned her shoulder against mine. “This is good news, right?”

“I thought I had it figured out,” I murmured. “The tokens being left on my steps. I thought it was Bessemer or Aisha. He’s alpha, and when he broke the bond I wondered if he had somehow fished those moments I hadn’t told Graeson about out of the residual energy.”

“That’s not how it works.” A sad laugh rocked her. “Not usually.” She exhaled. “Wargs active in the pack bond can only see and hear what is freely shared. We can’t go digging around in each other’s heads. Only the alpha has that power. He can yank whatever he wants out of our heads, but he has to be close, and the bond must be active. There’s no residue. No footprints left behind.” She squeezed my arm. “Bessemer only knows what you told Cord, and Cord would have fought him to the breaking point to protect your secrets.”

Rubbing my arms, I acknowledged, “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“I don’t get it.” She cocked her head. “What am I missing?”

“Ayer,” I said, working out the puzzle. “She said Charybdis was in her head, that he told her what to do, and she had to obey him. She lost control of herself, and he took her over.” That fit with what we had suspected about him using the kelpie as an avatar, but the breadth of his power was that much more terrifying after seeing his effect on a more sentient fae. “She said he taunted her with things that no one knew.” I leaned heavy against Dell. “He was pulling that information out of her head, like what Bessemer did to Graeson.”