Blood Before Sunrise (20 page)

Wondering if I should trust Fallon’s word, I continued to pace.
“You are only one of three people who would be able to pass those wards unharmed….”
How did he know? The sound of my teeth grating against one another resounded in my ears. I stretched my neck from side to side, unclenched my fists, and inhaled a deep, cleansing breath to release the tension that pulled my entire body taut. I would find peace only by unraveling the mysteries strand by strand; finding Brakae was the first step.

I decided believing Fallon was my only option, so I closed my eyes, taking a leap of faith as I passed through Reaver’s front door as nothing more than a wisp of darkness. The wards slid over my incorporeal form, like hunting dogs tracking scent. Magic snaked around me, twining and searching, pausing for the briefest moment before retreating and dissipating into nothing.

The air left my lungs in a great rush of breath, and muscle by muscle, I began to relax. Though I felt the presence of the wards, they seemed to ignore me, as if I belonged in the house and posed no threat to the secrets Reaver was trying to protect. Fallon had been right. I could pass through the house without harm. With any luck, he’d tell me why that was, once he had his prize—and I had Delilah.

Five thousand square feet was a rather large amount of space to search for something no bigger than a drinking glass. If Reaver was smart, he would’ve hidden his bauble in a safe, behind a false wall, as I did. But then again, I deduced Reaver’s cocky, deadly attitude, coupled with the wards, might offer him the peace of mind to leave his half of the hourglass on display somewhere that he might look upon it.

I didn’t take solid form, but rather swept the house as a wraith, moving from room to room. Reaver kept an especially tidy house. I doubted dust particles dared to rear their ugly heads in his presence. From the foyer, I
wandered through the kitchen, formal and informal dining rooms, the sitting room and the living room. The media room, complete with home theater and a sixty-inch flat-panel TV, led to a library and a small office. Two bathrooms were completely uninteresting, and a coat closet—again, boring—was empty, save a couple of jackets; it wasn’t exactly piled with board games and playing cards. I got the impression Reaver didn’t host many “family game nights” with the neighbors.

A search of the upstairs proved equally fruitless. He kept the six-bedroom second floor as immaculate and uninteresting as he did the downstairs. The master suite, predictably sporting a king-sized bed and attached sitting room, looked
Architectural Digest
ready. I marked the passage of thirty-three minutes and cradled my head in my hands. I was running out of time, and still I had found no sign of anything more than human, let alone made of magic. Tyler would be back soon. If I wasn’t there when he got home, I doubted I’d be able to keep my plans secret any longer.

Drifting through the floor, I found myself once again on the first floor of the house. I had one more area to search—the basement. Another flight of stairs led from a small door beneath the staircase down to the bottom floor. I expected old and musty and rickety wooden stairs and crumbling concrete walls. What I saw instead blasted me with the force of magical energy. The basement was the only floor of the house that hadn’t been kept true to its period design. Marble stairs and marble-lined walls glowed with silver and gold symbols, the shapes swirling and moving, illuminating my path deeper into the basement.

Magic burned hot and heavy here, the sensation of thousands of tiny feet traveling the highways of my skin driving me to the point of near distraction. The emerald in my pocket blazed, no longer pulsing with warmth but almost searing through my pocket and screaming for me to notice. At the same time, the sound of time quieted within me, and I didn’t need to gaze into the emerald or
stand in another world to feel it. Iron butterflies swirled in my stomach, much too heavy and foreboding to be light jitters of nerves. I’d need hip boots to get out of this mess because, as I suddenly realized, I was wading in deep shit.

As I descended lower into Reaver’s basement, my body became corporeal, the sound of my boots echoing eerily on the marble steps. All around me gold and silver light led the way, runes flashing and symbols swirling. The wards that protected the house felt stronger here, mingling with the already present magic and causing my teeth to chatter. But as before, whatever protected the Sidhe’s property paid me no mind.

I took the last step, a feeling of finality stealing my breath as a soft glow of light that seemed to come from nowhere pulsed from the ceiling. Finally, I could see the full scope of the basement, and what a room it was. At first sight, it reminded me of something out of a decadent 1950s reenactment of
Cleopatra
, or some other epic tale. But as I took in the whole of it, I realized it held to an older tradition, dating to pre-Christian
civilization
—Celtic more than likely. Beautiful didn’t begin to describe this room. Reverent wouldn’t do justice to the emotions swelling in my chest. This sacred place assaulted my senses, my emotions. I’d never felt so safe, or so right. Somehow, a kinship formed between me and this place; I was meant to be here. I had to stop, shrinking to my knees as I caught my breath and stilled my quaking limbs.

Trees lined the walls. Growing out of nothing, they were yet vibrant and living. Rowan, alder, ash, birch, cedar, and other trees I couldn’t name shot up into an impossibly tall ceiling—too tall not to be an illusion. Like the sky, it twinkled with stars and then changed, showcasing a dark sky and a full opal moon. White candles burned, the wicks never seeming to diminish and the flames unwavering with the disturbance of my passing. A long, rectangular pool ran the length of the room, splitting it down the middle, and sparkling orbs of different colors swam about in light blue water.

As I walked, the false sky changed again, lightening by slow degrees, streaked with pinks and deep burnt oranges. The basement became bright with the light of morning sun, and I could sense the leaves of the trees shifting and reaching toward sustenance. In the full light, I could finally see to the end of the room, its length and width again too vast to be real. And at the end of Reaver’s basement, atop a granite column, sat the hourglass.

It looked like any other, really, except that it was one half of a whole. Grains of golden sand glistened inside it, gathering at the bottom as if they poured from the top half that used to be there. When at last the glass filled, the flecks of gold reversed their path, floating upward and disappearing into nothing. I watched in awe as the cycle repeated itself once more, my hand resting at my thigh, cupping the pendulum in my pocket.

As I stood there staring at the broken—and somehow functional—hourglass, I had an Indiana Jones moment. But I didn’t have a bag of sand to trade with the relic, and I wondered at the possibility of setting off an epic set of booby traps, rolling boulder and all. But I thought of Raif: friend, loyal brother, and wronged husband. I thought of his grief, the lengths he’d been willing to go to find his missing child, and the lengths he refused to go to despite his pain and need for answers. And goddamn it, if someone needed a ray of sunshine in his life, you could bet your ass it was Raif.

Screw it.

I plucked the hourglass from its perch.

Closed my eyes tight.

Waited for the boulder to roll on top of me.

And let out a shaky breath when nothing happened. I mean, no darts shooting from the walls? The ceiling wasn’t slowly shrinking to crush me? No giant swinging axes ready to slice me in two? The whole thing was rather anticlimactic in my opinion.

That is, until I turned around and came face-to-face with Reaver.

The weight of his stare pressed upon me just as well as
any shrinking ceiling. And the accusing finger he pointed at me was no less piercing than a poison dart striking my chest. He took a step closer, and the sound of his footsteps rang in my ears like sharp metal cutting me down.

Tyler would be home from his meeting any minute. Fuck, fuck,
fuck!
My sword sang as the metal scraped against the scabbard, and I held it at the ready, prepared to fight for my prize.

I can’t stop you,
Reaver’s voice echoed in my mind.
But if you leave with the glass, the damage will be irreparable.

“That’s a neat little trick,” I said, backing away from the granite podium, sidestepping Reaver. The glamour he wore for human benefit slid away, and my jaw sagged—just a little—in awe. No wonder all of Fae-kind wore glamours. Any human would be dumbfounded to gaze upon them in their true forms. Though I can only describe him as beautiful, it didn’t detract at all from Reaver’s masculinity. His once-pale skin appeared deeper now, more bronze with a strange, golden luminescence, as if he held sunlight within him. Eyes, larger than they’d been, slanted in an alluring almond shape, and his ice blue irises ran with veins of the same golden light reflected in his skin. Still tall, still lithe, his limbs seemed even more willowy and graceful, but at the same time, his frame was powerful. Strong. And I knew that if he wanted to, Reaver could have broken me without even batting a lash. With the trees, water, and false sky as a backdrop, he looked like an ancient forest god. And, for all I knew, he was.

You’ll be nothing more than a murderer. But then again, perhaps I should expect nothing less than death from an assassin, and now a common thief.

Somebody was high-and-mighty. I took a step to the side, and then another, putting the rectangular pool between us. He mirrored my actions, taking his place at the opposite side of the water and followed me with matching steps.

Time belongs to no one, least of all me. Yet, I beg you to rethink your actions. I am the Keeper, entrusted for a reason.

“You’re not going to talk me out of this.” Forget the hip boots. I’d been caught in a shit storm of hurricane proportions. Caught in the act and not even denying my role as thief, I was as good as busted. If Reaver decided to turn me in to the PNT Council, I was bent-over-a-barrel-fucked. “I need this thing,” I said, weighing the hourglass in my hand. “I wouldn’t take it if I didn’t think I had no other choice. I’m not a thief—usually. And as for being a murderer…” I was.

You have the potential to do good things for those you love. But you will only cause them to suffer.

He continued to walk, mirroring my movement until we’d reached the end of the pool and the foot of the marble staircase. I can’t say I particularly cared for his threats, not with Tyler already suffering at the hands of malicious magic. “Are you threatening me?”

I’m providing you with the facts.
Reaver’s ice blue eyes bore into mine.
You’re walking a dangerous path, one that only leads toward destruction. Find your answers elsewhere, Guardian, and leave the glass with me
.

Wasn’t gonna happen. His big talk was nothing more than an attempt to get me to return his trinket. This broken thing was my ticket to Raif’s daughter. She was the first piece of the puzzle. Through her, I’d be able to link to recent events. And, maybe, solve the mystery of Tyler’s illness and strange behavior. Reaver would get his glass back over my dead body. I stumbled as Reaver’s words sank in. “Why did you call me a Guardian?” And did he know that my raven-haired antagonist had called me the same thing?

He cocked a brow, and his knowing smile did little to comfort me. False sunlight glittered through the leaves of a birch tree, and I joined its company, fleeing Reaver’s presence for the main floor of the house. When I hit the top of the stairs, I slammed back into my corporeal form with all the force of a Mack truck hitting a wall. Katana
at the ready, I looked around for whatever had kept me from traveling unseen. Near the foyer, my gaze found Moira.

Reaver’s sister blocked my path, her lips moving unintelligibly. I don’t know how, but she kept me confined to my solid form. Levi said Sidhe possessed some serious magic, and apparently Moira was a heavy hitter. Her eyes narrowed as she took me in from head to toe, and from behind her back she produced two wicked-looking short swords, the blades forged into a waving pattern ridged with gleaming barbs. Superhuman healing or not, if she managed to cut me with one of those, it was going to hurt like a sonofabitch.

“Is it true you can talk to the dead?” Well, Levi said she could, and when would I get another chance to ask her?

Showcasing none of the elegance she’d displayed at the PNT summit, Moira was dressed for a fight. Her long, fawn-colored hair had been pulled back, and her outfit would’ve had a marine weeping with respect. All the navy blue ensemble needed was a splash of camo and she’d be ready for a black-ops mission. A corner of her mouth lifted in a smirk as she gave me a head-to-toe appraisal. “Would you like to speak with someone? It’s not necessary. Continue on, and you’ll be joining the dead shortly.”

Well, crap. This was
not
going to be the cakewalk I hoped it would be. Fighting one handed would be a bitch. I couldn’t set the glass down, and my balance would be shit. I’d just have to wing it. “I’m not so easy to kill,” I said.

“Easier than you think.” Moira’s tone would have dropped a less stalwart warrior. She crouched in a battle stance, rocking her weight from foot to foot, and twirled the crooked swords in her hands. She didn’t wait for me to charge but ran with inhuman speed across the foyer and into the great room, where I stood like an idiot, awed by the graceful ferocity of her attack. Too bad I had to fight against her instead of alongside her.

Moira definitely had the advantage. She swung her arms with practiced precision, leaving me no choice but to parry her attacks. The force and speed of her movements sent me to the floor, and I hugged the hourglass close to my body, using the katana as a shield as she continued to attack. She lunged at me, aiming her blades for my midsection, and I landed a solid kick to her right hip, sending her stumbling back against the wall. While she collected herself, I launched my body from the floor and attacked, slicing my blade across her arm before she could defend herself.