The Source (Witching Savannah, Book 2) (12 page)

“Assuming that power still exists, that it hasn’t all been used up or dissipated, how would we access it?”

“If I knew my Emmy, and I do believe I did, that power is still locked up tight somewhere. We, however, don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting at it.”

“Then why even bring it up?”

“Because
we
don’t, but
you
, Gingersnap, do. I’m sure Emily put some kind of lock on it, so that only she could access it, but you carry a bit of Emily in you. I’m willing to bet that it will make itself accessible to you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, I don’t, but don’t you think it’s at least worth a try? For your sister’s sake?”

I turned my face toward the sun and closed my eyes, letting myself hide behind the flamingo color of my eyelids. “Of course I’ll try, but I don’t have a clue as to how I’ll do it.”

The brightness faded, Oliver having stepped between me and the light. “’Fraid there is only one way to get ahold of the Tillandsia power.”

“And that would be?” I asked, opening my eyes to see him standing there, haloed like some earthbound angel.

“The only way to access the power built up through Tillandsia is by ‘participating’ in their activities.” This time I didn’t appreciate the euphemism. Not one little bit.

The thought of participating in a Tillandsia gathering—or, throwing all niceties aside,
orgy
—was repellent. Growing up, I had thought Tillandsia was merely a private group where public people gathered to get their party on without having to worry about headlines. Now, I knew it was oh so much more. My heart broke at the thought that my lovely Ellen had been a willing participant in the group during the years after Paul and Erik had died. She said that even though she knew it was wrong, Tillandsia had somehow eased the pain of her loss. Still, I doubted she had ever used it as more than an anesthetic. It seemed unlikely that she had a hidden agenda like my mother had had, or possibly still had.

A freshly showered Iris rejoined us in the garden. I forced my full focus on her, not daring to let my eyes even stray toward the sundial. Her hair was damp and pulled back into a ponytail. She wore no makeup, but in spite of that fact, she looked younger than I’d ever seen her. She had on her favorite yoga pants and my favorite T-shirt. “Hope you don’t mind,” she said, noticing my noticing.

It had grown way too tight for me these days anyway. “Not at all. It looks cute on you.”

She smiled and blinked slowly, like a happy cat. “Thank you. I thought so too. Have you told her?” she asked Oliver.

“No, not yet. We were discussing other things.” He winked at me.

“Told me what?” I felt a tingle run down my spine.

“We have a plan,” Iris said, “to deal with the situation with the demon at the old hospital. Well, actually, it is Emmet’s plan, but I think it’s a good one. I’ll fill you in later, but clear your calendar tonight, because we are going demon hunting.”

FIFTEEN

My phone rang, and I looked at the number. It was Claire. “Hello?” I answered.

“Oh, Mercy dear, I’m glad you answered,” Claire said, her voice betrayed her anxiety. “Listen, we need to talk. Any chance you could drop by?”

“Of course. I’ll come right over.” I knew she would try to convince me not to share the encounter I had witnessed between her and Emmet with Peter. I felt Peter should know about his brother. Still, I hoped it wouldn’t fall to me to do the telling, as once again, I’d probably lose my nerve. I hoped that his parents would in time come to terms with their grief and tell Peter themselves. In the meantime, I had to set Claire straight about Emmet. She knew he wasn’t exactly human, but still I knew he couldn’t be whatever she believed him to be. To begin with, he had no
people
. He had donors, the witches who had made him. My family was as close as it came to his having people.

I left Iris and Oliver in the garden and went inside to change into a more presentable outfit, a pleated cerulean blouson sundress Ellen had bought for me. My inner tomboy fought back, so I paired it with some beat-up tennis shoes. I was glad Ellen wasn’t around to catch me pairing the dress with this footwear. She’d never let me out of the house this way. It hit me that I hadn’t yet thanked Ellen for all the trouble she had gone to on my behalf. I decided that I’d at least pick her up a card before returning home.

Stepping back outside, I decided the temperature had risen too high for me to walk, and for the first time, I felt too pregnant for my bike. I grabbed its handlebars and wheeled it inside the garage. “See you later, old friend.” I couldn’t help but give it a pat. An eerie sense of finality washed over me, and I started to cry. “So silly,” I said to myself, shaking off the tears. Hormones and capricious magical abilities made for some very intense, if peculiar, emotions. I closed my eyes and felt my body slipping. My one attempt at keeping my eyes open while jumping from one place to another had made me sick and dizzy. When I opened my eyes, I was standing in the alleyway behind Magh Meall. I rang the delivery buzzer and tried to collect myself, still feeling an inexplicable sense of loss.

I waited as I heard the sound of the large steel bar that secured the back door being removed from the brace that held it. The deadbolt turned and the door opened. Even though Claire had been expecting me, she looked surprised. “Oh, dear, it’s you. That was fast.”

I worried about rubbing her nose in my magic after the meltdown she’d had around Emmet. So I fibbed a little. “I was nearby when you called.” I entered and watched as Claire returned the steel bar to its place and flipped the deadbolt.

“I appreciate your coming by,” she said, weaving her way through the kitchen and out to the bar. I followed on her heels. “We need to talk about what happened last night. I must explain to you . . .”

“About Peadar, and about this preoccupation you have with Emmet.”

“Yes, Emmet,” she responded, taking a seat at the table with the best view of the front door. She motioned for me to join her, and I sat across from her. “I cannot warn you away from that one firmly enough. He isn’t what he appears to be.”

“And what if I told you that I already knew that?”

Her head tilted back slightly and her eyes widened as she took in my words. “You know?”

I knew Emmet was not human, even if I wasn’t sure what she believed him to be. “Yes,” I said, justifying my half-truth by holding it up against the years Claire had been keeping secrets from Peter and me. “But I don’t understand why you think I should be afraid of him.”

Her face grew taut, and she leaned into me, grasping my hand in hers. “Because he’ll try to take your son.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Mercy, hear me. I knew the first time I saw Emmet that he spelled trouble. I should have come to you then, but I had hoped to deal with the situation myself, sparing you. I thought I’d found someone who could help me. Someone who could convince Emmet to take off and leave our family alone. When they found Peadar’s body, I knew I couldn’t keep it from you any longer. I had to share the truth with you, for the baby’s sake. I don’t understand why his people need our children, but they find you when you are hopeless. They come to you when you are too desperate to tell them no. They come with their deals and their promises and their lies.”

I pulled my hand from her grasp. “What did they offer you in exchange for your son?” I, of course, had no idea who
they
even were, but now that Claire was finally sharing her secrets, I wasn’t going to say anything that might stop her.

She was taken aback by my words. Her skin grew ashen, and she leaned forward suddenly, almost as if she were about to pass out. “They promised me,” her words came out in a ragged whisper, “that he would live.” She raised her eyes to meet mine. “He was dying. Blood cancer. The doctors could do nothing for him. Only their kindness forced them to admit this to us and let us bring him home at all. When we got to the bar, she was waiting here for us.”

“She?”

“I have no name for her. Never laid eyes on her before and never laid eyes on her or her kind since, until this Emmet. She was such a beauty. A beauty so perfect I found it impossible to believe her to be anything but good. I thought we’d left her kind back in the old country, but it looks like they followed us here too. She said it was our music that had attracted her to Magh Meall. When she spoke, her words had such power over us.” Claire paused. “Or maybe it was only the hope they offered that affected Colin and me so. She promised us that our boy would live. He would know a life of love and luxury. Her people would raise him as a prince,” she said, her eyebrows knitting together over her sad smile.

“She promised us we would see our son again before we died. It never occurred to us that they would send him back to us a shriveled-up old man. A desecrated corpse.” She began to shake, and I reached out to her. “I don’t know why they would have done that to him, my girl.” She shook her head, her eyes imploring me for an explanation, even though she couldn’t really think I had one to give. But I did, and I could not let her go on thinking her son had been murdered in cold blood.

“They didn’t,” I said, the weight of my guilt collapsing my fear of confession.

“But how could you know that? How could you know what his last minutes were like? What he was thinking as they ripped his heart from him?”

“Because, it didn’t happen like that.” I got up, and then knelt before her. “You know that my family is different, that I am different.”

Her expression turned wary as she looked down at me. “If by that you mean you are a truckload of witches, yes, I’ve always known. I’ve got a bit of the sight myself.”

“Peadar, your son, he didn’t die alone,” I said, reaching up to smooth her hair. “And no one murdered him.”

“Then you tell me what happened to him.” Her voice grew stern. She stopped my hand from stroking her.

“He was lost, confused, and dying when I found him.”

“You found him?” she echoed me.

“He wasn’t alone. I was with him,” I said, trying to ease her pain. “I tried to help him. To restart his heart.”

She pushed herself back with great force, knocking her chair over as she stood. “You? You did this to him?”

“Not to hurt him. To help him,” I pleaded. I stood and took a step toward her, but she raised her hand as if she would slap me.

Her palm quivered as her fingers curled in toward it, leaving only the pointer aimed at me. “Don’t come near me. Not right now. Don’t come near me.”

“Claire, you must know I’d never intentionally hurt your son. I didn’t kill him. I swear. He had no pulse. I was only trying to help. You have to believe I’d never hurt Peter’s brother.”

Her hand fell to her side. Her mouth fell open, and then she laughed. A hard and bitter laugh. “Oh, you stupid girl. You stupid girl. You don’t understand at all.”

“Understand what?”

“The deal Colin and I made. That’s what,” she said and drew nearer. “Peter has no brother. The man whose heart you burned out,
he
was my son. My only son. My Peter.”

SIXTEEN

Shock sent the sensation that I was falling from my head to my feet, and then back up again. My mouth gaped open, but no words came out.

“That’s the deal we made, my girl. They’d take our Peter, and in return for keeping him alive, we would raise her son. The boy we raised, the boy we love as if he were our own true son, the boy you let fill your womb, he’s one of them, the
daoine sidhe
. One of the gentry. That is why he can never know any of this.”

“Come on. This is crazy. It can’t be true. There’s no such thing as fairies,” I said. The words came out by reflex, but I myself had encountered stranger things. Even so, even if fairies existed, it was not possible that my Peter could be one of them. That my baby could be half Fae. I placed my palm over my stomach. Ellen had not sensed anything unusual about my son. At least nothing she had told me about.

“And there is no such thing as witches either, but here you stand before me.”

I couldn’t argue that away. “Okay.” I said. “Accepting for the moment that this is possible, how can I keep it from Peter? If it’s true, he has the right to know.”

“But there’s the rub. If you tell him, if he ever learns the truth about his nature, we will lose him. He will go to them. He won’t be able to resist, no matter how much he may love you and his son. Trying to resist would only drive him mad or kill him. No, Mercy, you have to lay aside your opinions of right and wrong and do what I tell you. This secret, the truth about Peter—whom I very much consider my son in spite of it all—you have to take it with you to the grave.” Wow. Twice in one morning. I was still trying to process the fact that Emmet had been right all along when a loud knock rapped the door and both our eyes darted toward it. “They’re here. They don’t know about Peter, so keep your mouth shut about him.”

“Wait. Who are
they
?” I halfway expected King Oberon and Queen Titania to be waiting on the other side of the door.

Claire didn’t respond. She righted the chair she’d knocked over, then crossed over to the door. She undid the deadbolt and opened it, but my view was blocked until she swung it wide and stepped aside.

“Hello again, pretty lady,” the man who called himself Ryder greeted me, stepping over the threshold. I recognized him immediately—he was the leader of the trio of “train people” who had accosted me outside the bar. Ryder’s companions, Birdy and Joe, followed him, Birdy making quick furtive glances around the room as if she halfway expected an ambush. Joe sauntered in behind her and flashed me a big toothy smile before taking a seat at a table near the door. Claire closed the door behind him and reset the deadbolt.

“You’ve met?” Claire asked.

“Yeah, we’ve had the pleasure,” Ryder responded.

“Wait,” I said, focusing on Claire. “You know these people?”

Claire looked at me. “Don’t be afraid, Mercy. Ryder’s here to help us.”

“Help us what?”

“He knows about Emmet. Ryder has experience with the supernatural. I was researching the gentry, trying to figure out why Emmet had come nosing around. Most of what I read was nonsense, but when I found Ryder’s website—”

“Wait. You found him
online
?”

Claire winced at the sound of my outrage. “He’s offered to help. He’s come all the way from Louisiana.” When these points failed to move me, she leaned in toward me, her tone conspiratorial. “He’s dealt with the
daoine sidhe
before.”

“What do you mean dealt?”

“Dealt,” he said tapping the top of the knife he wore strapped to his leg. “And with other supernatural creepy-crawlies too. Skin-walkers,” he continued, “demons, blood drinkers . . . witches.” I flinched, and he laughed.

“But you aren’t a witch yourself. You must borrow the power.” As Jilo had taught me, some non-witches were extremely talented at channeling energy, so I didn’t doubt his story. I forced myself to shake off my fear of the man and looked at him through the lens of my own magic. An aura of scattered and violent energy surrounded him, flecks of red emitting from a black hole. I sensed the darkness inside him recognizing my own power and tugging at it, trying to swallow it.

Ryder held up his forearm, and the tattoo that covered him from wrist to shoulder began to glow, a pulse of energy racing along its lines. Its design began to change, becoming animated before my very eyes. He held his arm up, proudly displaying it. “You got some juice in you, girl,” he said with a leer. “I’d sure love to squeeze it out.”

“What are you?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes away from the morphing design. As I watched, the ink transformed itself into an expertly rendered etching of my own face.

He lowered his arm, and I flicked my eyes from his tattoo to his face. The smile I saw there sickened me. “I’m just an ordinary guy. A man who has accepted a mission and been given the power to carry it out. I see a problem, and I do my best to deal with it. One of your kind, one of you witches, appreciated my efforts enough to give me this here tattoo. It not only gives me a bit of my own magic, but it makes me pretty much immune to most other magic. That’s why you couldn’t just shoo me away the other day. I could’ve had you then, but it wasn’t the right time. She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” He laughed, rolling his forearm around to compare the ink rendition of my face to the real deal. “Started out as a band around my wrist, but it’s growing nice.” The tattoo flashed and returned to its original pattern.

“Those symbols in your tattoo, they help you steal others’ power. There’s a price for that, you know? You’ll burn for it. I’ve seen it happen.”

“Oh, I will burn all right, girly, but not today.”

“I think I’ve made a mistake inviting you here.” Claire began crossing cautiously toward me. I figured that she had probably just made the biggest understatement of her life. “I think you all should leave.”

“Now, y’all ain’t gonna make the same mistake twice, are you?” Ryder asked, and in a blink Joe had crossed the room and was cradling Claire in his arms, the serrated blade of a hunting knife similar to Ryder’s pressed against her throat. “Maybe you’d like to try this again?” the ringleader asked, looking at me. “How about that drink you refused me the other day?”

“Don’t hurt her,” I pleaded. I went behind the bar and found three glasses, filling them with sour mash. Could I do something to take out Joe without hurting Claire? I could feel my magic rise in waves around me, my panic pushing it to limits I doubted I could control with any kind of precision. I had to find a way to reach them without harming Claire. As I carefully set the glasses on a tray, the flimsiest of tactics formed in my mind.

“No. You stay where you are,” Ryder commanded, and then, “Fetch, Birdy.” She jumped at his words, eager to please. She was so grateful to count Ryder as her man that she didn’t seem to mind being ordered around like a dog. Our eyes met as she collected the tray. Hers hardened at the sight of the pity in mine.

“Emmet isn’t what you think he is,” I said, hoping I might think of a way to convince them he wasn’t worth their trouble.

“He isn’t human.” Ryder said. “And he’s just burstin’ with magic.” He took a drink from the tray. “So what is he?” I remained silent and stared at him, my mind rushing over plausible tales. For about the millionth time, I cursed my inability to out-and-out lie. “You want her to keep her tongue, you better start wagging yours.”

Joe pried Claire’s mouth open and shifted the blade. Her eyes had grown as wide as silver dollars with panic. “He’s a golem. A golem. Let her go.”

“Well I will be good and damned,” Ryder said, tossing back his whiskey. “They still makin’ them things?”

“He’s more than that, though. He’s alive for real. I don’t understand it myself, but he’s alive.”

“Hear that, Joe? A patch of dirt has turned itself into a living, breathing man.” Joe nodded at him. Birdy dropped the tray on a table and stood by the younger man’s side as he took a swig of his whiskey. She downed her own in one gulp and threw the glass at the bar, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. Claire jumped at the sound, and the blade sliced a shallow nick into her neck.

“Easy there,” Ryder said to her. “You’re my collateral in this here transaction.” He turned back to me. “It ain’t natural, a golem with a mind of its own,” he said, addressing me. “A golem needs a master. Your boy is probably aching for someone to take control of him, help rid him of that pesky free will, that conscience.”

“So you want to turn him back into a puppet.”

“No.” He laughed and in a single movement slid his knife from its sheath and sliced through the air. “I want to skin him, that’s what I want. Real magic, witch magic, has been bound up in his body. I’ll turn his pelt into objects of power,
talismans
,” he said, as if repeating a recently learned word. “Turn his bones into relics, cook his marrow into
unguents
.” He mispronounced the word, but I still got his meaning. “Ain’t a wannabe witch in the world who wouldn’t give me their firstborn for a piece of your golem’s magic. Including that old darky you been hanging with.”

How did he know about Jilo? That was a question for another time. “Listen,” I said. “If it’s money you are after, I have plenty . . .”

“No, darlin’, I ain’t doing this for money. I’m doing it for power. The trinkets I’ll make out of your golem’s hide will come at the price of
fealty
”—a medieval oath of loyalty, another word intended to impress—“and a sacrifice of blood. The power of that blood will become mine.” He nodded at me once. “Now you call him. You tell him to get himself on over here, and once we have him, we will leave you lovely ladies to get on with your day.”

“Enough,” I said. “I am not helping you hurt Emmet to power some magic Ponzi scheme.”

“Oh, missy, I ain’t asking for your help. I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while, and maybe you ain’t noticed it yet, but wherever you are, that golem of yours ain’t never too far behind. He may not give a damn about your friend here, but I am pretty sure he gives one for you. Maybe if I start to cut that little bastard out of you, he’ll show hisself instead of hovering invisible behind you like some kind of limp-wristed guardian angel. How about it, golem? When the bough breaks, it’s all gonna fall down anyway,” he said and parted his lips into a sneer.

“Call him, Mercy. Call him,” Claire keened. Blood had trickled down from the wound on her neck, dampening her shirt.

“No need,” Emmet’s voice came from behind me. “I am already here.” I turned my head for a quick look, relief flooding me as Emmet materialized behind me. He reached forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I promised I’d be here for you if you needed me.”

“She needs you all right,” Ryder said, sneering at us. Emmet pressed his body up against my back. His arms hooked around me. “You know what I am, don’t you, golem?”

Emmet tightened his grip on me. “By your markings, I can tell you are a collector. You kill, and with each death you cause, you gain power. You are a scavenger of the potential energy of others. You are the bottom feeder of black magic.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said, sliding his knife from its case. “You can insult me all you want, but I am still gonna wear your skin. Joe,” he commanded, but the boy didn’t obey the unspoken order. He swayed on his feet and then fell backward, Claire dashing from his faltering grasp. Birdy rushed to his aid, but then she crumpled over too. “The bitch doped us, baby,” she managed to call to Ryder before losing consciousness. The spell I’d placed on the whiskey had worked. I’d hoped it might take out Ryder too, but he lunged at me with his knife, seemingly unaffected.

My fear and anger bound themselves together and I poured my focus entirely into the blade in his hand. The knife glowed red and then blue, the metal losing shape and transforming into a molten glove that charred the flesh beneath it. He howled, and then grasped his wounded hand. Rage burned in his eyes. His jaw unhinged like a snake, and he vomited foul-smelling black orbs that fell to the floor. Unrolling, they revealed themselves to be horrible little creatures, rats with nearly human faces that scurried along the floor, surrounding me. Razor-sharp claws protruded from their very human fingers and ripped into the bar’s wooden floors. Claire screamed and climbed up on the bar. I let my magic slide me over to her side.

“Burn them, Mercy,” Emmet said, his tone so free of fear, so matter-of-fact. Without a further thought, without the least concern for Birdy and Joe, who still lay unconscious where they had fallen, I raised my hand and sent out a bright and searing blue flame to encircle the vermin and the mad man who had summoned them. The creatures drew in closer to Ryder, protecting him, trying to extinguish the flames, but they failed. The fire rose like a wall between us, the rodents popping like frying bacon, releasing the stench of sulfur as they were incinerated. As his last defender fell, Ryder roared, but to my surprise, he raised his arms and began to summon the flames to him. An old lesson, the first Jilo had taught me, surfaced in my memory. I had sent the energy to him, and now he could do with it as he willed. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.