World Weaver (The Devany Miller Series Book 4)
Read World Weaver (The Devany Miller Series Book 4) Online
Authors: Jen Ponce
A special thank you to Rachel Bostwick, who made
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Ponce
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U. S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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To Mary Messamore, for being patient when I took way too long to finish this book. Also, because she gave me Teddy.
A good bear is key to a great life, that and a wonderful family.
A special thank you to Rachel Bostwick, who formatted World Weaver and Demon’s Cradle for print and made them both look amazing. You can find her work at: www.RachelBostwick.com.
ONE
Bethany had been missing for three weeks. Three hellish weeks. I’d searched for her every waking minute, surviving on caffeine and slowly shredding hope. Asking strangers if they recognized my daughter, asking them if they would keep their eyes out, if they would report it if they saw her, was miserable.
It didn’t help I was low on sleep because of the nightmares I kept having, as if all the trauma of the past months had been fermenting and was now bubbling up through my subconscious.
For all the kind people who took a flyer and said they’d keep an eye out, there were vultures, the ones who would circle me as I passed out Bethy’s pictures. They often had their hands clasped behind their backs, studied concern on their faces.
“Such a tragedy,” one murmured.
“A shame,” tsked another. “I don’t know what I’d do if my child went missing.”
Worse were the prognosticators, the ones who had wheelbarrows full of doom to dump at my feet: “Did the Wydlings get her? I hear they eat children.”
The fifth time a vulture swooped in and pecked at my pain, I snapped. “Are you going out into the Wilds to search for my daughter then?”
The man had the temerity to look offended. “I’m sorry? I was just trying to help.”
Channeling my Skriven power, I crowded close to him, hoping he’d pee himself in fright. “How is that helping? If you could do better, then take this and go find her!” I slapped the paper against his chest and stalked away, angry tears leaving hot tracks on my cheeks.
My dad found me a few minutes later kicking a poor, defenseless cactus to a pulp next to a general store with a sign that said, ‘Food and Drink and Clothes, too.’
“You need sleep,” he said, pulling me into a hug I didn’t want to accept. “It won’t help her any for you to fall sick or end up hurt because you didn’t take care of yourself. And stop fighting me, damn it. Me hugging you won’t take anything away from her.”
I relaxed into his arms, not because he’d tightened them around me, but because he loosened his grip and let me decide. My dad was smart like that. “I want her home with me. Is that too much to ask?”
“We’ll find her. I promise. But we need to get home and decide what your plans are for the house and your job.”
And the police, but Dad was smart about that too and didn’t say the word. “The kids grew up in that house.”
“I know, sweetheart. But how are you going to maintain it without a job? And how are you going to keep your job if you have to be here, searching for Bethany?”
I pushed him away. “Travis said he’d help with the bills.”
“And when you find Bethany, what then?”
Why wouldn’t he shut up about it? Didn’t he know I already had enough to worry about? “I’ll find another job if the Caring Shelter won’t take me back. It’ll work out.” The words rang false, even to my ears. “Maybe I should move here.” Live with Kroshtuka. Let the rest of the world fall away.
“What about Alice and Bill? What about Liam and school?”
I put my hands over my ears, unwilling to listen to more. When he was silent, I dropped my hands, reminding myself he was trying to help. “What else can I do, Dad? Bethy is gone. I have to be here, not there. Liam could stay in Odd Silver. He’d be safe. And it’s not like I belong in Omaha anymore.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m not human. Wydling, witch, Skriven. Chythraul, if you count the spider in my head. Fleshcrawler, if that bite from Nephele ever does anything to me. I’m the resident garbage dump of monster DNA.”
Dad snorted. “You grew up on Earth. Your mother gave birth to you in the Fairfax hospital’s maternity ward. I’d say that qualifies you as human.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what I am anymore.” I used to think of myself as a mother, but what kind of mother loses her children, not once, but twice? I was no longer a wife. I was an advocate for victims of domestic violence, but how long would I keep my job?
“What about a vacation?”
“Dad,” I started, but he held up his hand.
“Hear me out. You’re stressed. You’re going through one of the worst things a parent could go through. Who would fault you for needing a few weeks’ break?”
“I would fault me. And I doubt the police would like me leaving the area. They suspect I had something to do with her disappearance.” First Tom’s murder. The death of the abuser in jail—thanks to Tytan. Danni’s crazy ex turning up violently murdered, also thanks to Tytan. They smelled something fishy and they suspected I was the source of the odor. “I can’t. I don’t know what else to do, but I can’t say I’m taking a vacation.” What I needed was a clone. A clone of me, Liam, and Bethy, to stand in for us on Earth so I wouldn’t have to worry about my job, or the kids’ school, or the police, or the kids’ grandparents wondering where their grandkids were.
I walked away from Dad and stared hard at the horizon. It was so big and my daughter so small. She could be anywhere. I scrubbed tears from my face and forced myself to focus on other things. “Has the Anforsa been giving you a hard time?”
He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. ‘Warning!’ the headline screamed. ‘Extremely dangerous. Wydling sympathizer. Deals with Skriven. Do not engage. If spotted, use the voxnet to notify the Witch Council or your local authorities. Anyone helping this person will be charged with treason.’ My face paled and Dad took the flyer back.
“Sorry, honey, but you had to see it.” He balled it up and tossed it to the ground. “The bitch.”
“Dad.”
“The Council in my day would never have put up with someone like that.” His voice rose and a woman walking by stopped to stare.
“Dad,” I muttered under my breath.
“Get the hell out of here,” Dad growled, and she jumped as if goosed. As soon as she scooted off, Dad pulled me into the shade of the building nearest us, tucking us in the shadows of the alley. “Something’s going on, honey. Witches are disappearing. People are scared. Those that’ll talk to me say the Anforsa’s behind it.”
“So, the Omphalos is fixed and she turns into a dictator? So what?”
“So, she wants your head on a platter. You showed her up. You’re stronger than she is, you fixed the Omphalos—something she’d never be able to do. And she hates anyone who isn’t a witch. She wants you dead, or under her control.”
“It’s not going to happen. Like you said, I’m stronger than she is.” I kicked the balled up paper and it rolled into a puddle of rainwater.
“Not if she finds Bethy first.”
***
Her arms reached for me, all eight of them. Her mouth gaped, full of killing teeth and she tipped her head as a lover would, right before a kiss. Only this kiss would kill me. I reached for my power and yanked it through her, causing her eyes to widen and her body to jerk back. A knife-hand slashed my cheek, another my arm. Pain, bright and hot, bloomed. I almost forgot what to do, then shoved the energy into her, all that I had taken from her and more. She exploded backward, her arms splaying. Her head slammed into the wall first, her back punching a hole. She slid to the floor, bonelessly.
I stood panting, not quite tired, but without any will to continue. She growled, and I shook my head. “I’m done.” I’d hoped that fighting Kali would take my mind off the truth bomb my dad had dropped on me. The idea of the Anforsa hunting my daughter down to use her to get to me made me crazy, and yet I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about it. Whenever my body was still, my thoughts were on my daughter. Always my daughter. Where was she now? How was she? Was she hurt?
Now, on top of that, I had to worry about the Anforsa getting to her first.
“You do not have any finesse,” Kali spat, shaking dust from her body as she stood.
“Worked, didn’t it? Put you through a damn wall.” I clenched my fists to keep from smashing her with my power again. Crude, but effective, that was me.
“Had I been trying to hurt you, the outcome would have been different.” Her eyes glittered, black in her dark face. Today she’d adorned her cheeks with red jewels embedded in her skin. More dotted her collarbones. Every finger on every hand sported rings. Bracelets dangled from her wrists, which made her very noisy when she moved.
“Then why didn’t you hurt me? I told you I wanted to fight.” I swiped at my chin and my fingers came away with a smear of blood. Great.
She grinned, showing off her fangs. “Perhaps I don’t wish to test your benevolent veneer.”
“It’s not a veneer,” I said automatically, though I’d been feeling more and more vicious of late. Losing my daughter to a woman I’d thought was a friend had done nothing for my benevolence. Still. “I wouldn’t hurt you without cause. Or your permission,” I added, having asked her if she would spar with me and if she cared if I got rough. She’d told me she welcomed it and here we were.
“I do not trust the Originators.” She slid knives back into various hiding spots on her body, then folded one set of arms, put another set behind her back, and let the third set hang at her sides.
“I’m not an Originator,” I said. “I mean, technically, I suppose I am one. But I’m not like the others.”
Her look made me want to protest more, but I kept my mouth shut. “Are we done?”
“Yes.” I still wanted to kick something, or better yet kill it. I needed to let her go.
“I will continue to look for your daughter as best I can, considering.” She vanished without another word, leaving me alone in Tytan’s manse. Alone with my thoughts.
I’d fixed the damned Omphalos and now the Anforsa was using it to draw the borders closed. If the Witch’s Council managed to fix all the weak spots, no Skriven would be able to travel inside witch lands. If that happened, I’d never get my daughter back.
Pain lanced through me, pain and anger in a mix I was all too familiar with.
“Any word?”
I turned to see Nex bobbing in the hall, his intestines dragging behind him. “No. You?”