Dalton, Tymber - Fire and Ice [A Triple Trouble Prequel] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (31 page)

“What are you doing?” Zack said.

She knelt down, smiling as she ran her hands over the smooth stone. “Looks pretty close to the original, doesn’t it?”

He looked puzzled. “Um, well, not really. It’s larger, it’s a slightly different color, and has no writing on it.”

“Ignore the color. What if it had the same writing on it?”

He snorted. “Fine. Do you know someone handy with a chisel who can do rock forgeries?”

She grinned. “I don’t need a chisel.” She stood, grabbed the real tablet from him, and laid it on top of the other paver.

“What are you doing? Or do I even want to know?”

“Watch and learn, grasshopper. Watch and learn.” She closed her eyes and ran her hands around the edge of the tablet. This felt right.
Really
right.

Baba Yaga told me to follow my instincts.

She traced the edges of the tablet with her fingers, touching the stone beneath it as she moved her hands. Then she ran her fingers over the surface of the tablet, smoothing them over the etchings and envisioning the rock below taking on the same appearance.

She knew even if the cockatrice did manage to find and destroy the real tablet, it wouldn’t render the spell obsolete. It would take the spell being reversed.

And the people it had affected being not dead.

Since she had no desire to reverse the spell, and even if there was a way to resurrect the dead she wouldn’t do it, there was little to no chance of that happening. The tablet itself, however, no longer contained any power even though the cockatrice believed it did.

The power was in her, the Goddess, and in her men.

Lina, however, didn’t like to take chances. Maybe, just maybe, there was a slim chance of the cockatrice stopping their slaughter of innocent people in search of this hunk of rock if they got their hands on it. Well, on the forgery. Which they wouldn’t know was a forgery.

Lifting the original tablet, she returned it to Zack. Then she examined her handiwork. It looked nearly identical to the original. All anyone who wanted it would be interested in was if the runes and symbols matched.

She took a deep breath and let it out as the memory of the original spell returned to her mind.

Instincts.

She smiled and let her mind guide her. She placed one small extra symbol on the duplicate tablet.

May the destruction of this duplicate only serve to further solidify the original spell.

Hee hee hee.

She flipped it facedown and returned it to place in the path where the paver with the V on it had been laid. The paver with the V, she put in the place of the modified paver. To the average eye, no one would notice anything amiss.

Lina stood and brushed the dirt off her hands.

“Happy?” Zack asked.

“I will be once we stop these fuckers.”

Chapter Five

Callie, Daniel, Brodey, and Wally set out to do some investigations and run down some information on the cockatrice first thing the next morning after breakfast. They got a rental car and would join the rest of them later at the hotel in Brussels. Everyone else loaded into the rental van with their luggage and hit the road with Uncle Andel following in his car. With a stop for lunch, the drive took less than five hours.

They checked into their hotel in Brussels. Lina tried to steel herself for the meeting with the other shifter bigwigs. Many of them hadn’t made it to the Yellowstone gathering. It took them an hour to drive to the estate outside of Brussels, which made the place she’d just inherited from Bertholde look like a cheap-ass slum.

A crisply uniformed butler led them through the house to a large drawing room. There were already twelve men there, one of them who looked older than dirt. He sat, shrunken by age and dwarfed by his wheelchair, but his flinty grey eyes looked hard, cold, and fully aware.

Without any formalities, Andel started. “The cockatrice are back with a vengeance,” he said. “They’re behind the murders of several people, including our Seer, Bertholde.” The room rumbled, but silenced when he spoke again.

“They’re after the Tablet of Trammel,” he said, which started another round of grumbling.

Lina watched the old man in the wheelchair. She didn’t like him, even though he hadn’t said a word yet. When his eyes fell on her, she didn’t blink and refused to back down. Eventually, he looked away.

Her gaze narrowed.
Good, you should fear me, old man.

She didn’t understand why she felt an instant dislike for him, but she damn sure wouldn’t cower before him.

After a brief retelling of the recent events, leaving out the part about them finding and relocating the Tablet, the old man spoke.

“We are in modern times,” he said with a strong voice that totally didn’t match his withered body. “The Tablet is a myth, nothing more.”

Jocko got in the man’s face. “Ye’ve seen the bloody thing yerself. And ye ain’t modern, who ye kiddin’?” He jabbed his finger at the man. “Don’t ye bloody bastards still have an outstanding blood oath against yer own kind, this many centuries later?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Anythin’ affecting my Pack
is
my business, Rodolfo Abernathy!” Jocko fiercely growled. “An’ I’ll tell ye somethin’ else. Ye come sniffin’ around my Pack or my Clan, I’ll take yer bloody nose off!”

There were assorted grumbles and growls from around the room, but Jocko squared off against them. His massive form commanded attention. “I’ll tell all ye the same thing, too. I’ve lost too many good, innocent people over the years. To the cockatrice. To damn blood oaths. To sheer idiocy and greed. Ye all have, too, but apparently I’m the only one with the stones to stand up to this stupid old man. It stops here, and it stops now!”

“You do not tell me how to run my Pack,” Abernathy said.

Jocko wheeled around on him. “I will tell ye to stay outta
my
Pack!” He stood over the other man, his voice low and growly. “I know damn well ye had somethin’ to do with the deaths of Charles and Ellie. Ye were pissed off they helped people escape yer dirty clutches. And when I prove it, I’ll rip yer damn throat out myself!”

Andel grabbed Jocko by the arm and pulled him back, whispering to him to calm down. With Zack’s help, they got him settled in chair in the far corner. Lina decided if she was the Seer, it was time for her to nut up or shut up.

She stepped forward, ignoring Abernathy. “With or without your help, we are going after the cockatrice.” She glanced at Abernathy. “Anyone who gets in our way will be dealt with. Don’t piss me off. I’m hormonal and emotional and looking for an excuse to blow someone up.”

After twenty minutes, it was obvious none of them had much in the way of helpful information. Well, Lina suspected Abernathy knew more than he said, but he wasn’t giving it up if he did. Jocko and Andel were able to pull together some information from the other shifters that might prove helpful on finding the local cockatrice nest.

Just as she was about to go after Abernathy to find out what he was hiding, Callie and the others showed up.

With some relief, Zack pulled Lina aside with a suggestion. “Why don’t I take you back to the hotel now that they’re back?” he said.

Callie spoke up. “I’ll do it.”

“Cool. Okay, thanks.”

Out in the car, Lina looked at Callie. “We’re not really going to the hotel, are we?”

She laughed. “Hell, no.”

* * * *

Callie found a place to park in an old part of town. They walked for a few minutes as Callie got her bearings.

“This looks familiar,” Callie said.

Lina followed Callie down a dingy, narrow cobblestone street. “You sure this is the right way?” Lina nervously asked.

“I think so.” She slowed at a corner and studied the buildings. “It’s been a long time, but these buildings are really old. It looks right.”

“You realize Rick and Jan are going to want to spank me for coming out here without them, right?”

Callie turned and grinned. “You lucky girl.”

Exasperated, Lina groaned. “Some of us don’t
like
to be spanked!”

“Hmph. Well, that’s all right. You have other nice qualities.” She took off down another street.

Lina rolled her eyes and followed Callie. After three more turns and ten minutes of walking, Lina grabbed Callie’s arm. “Explain to me again why we aren’t driving?”

“Narrow streets. Crappy traffic. And last time I was here, there weren’t any cars and we traveled on foot or horseback. Wait! That’s it!” She pointed to a wood and whitewashed plaster building kitty-corner across the street from where they stood. Callie took off with Lina in tow.

Outside the dingy front window, Callie looked at a dusty display of stone and wood statues in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and subjects stacked on several risers covered with a velveteen black cloth covered in what looked like cat hair. Lina looked up at the sign. It was in French, but she didn’t understand it.

“What’s that mean?”

Callie looked up. “Loosely translated, it’s ‘Carving Artisan.’ Come on.”

An anemic-sounding bell tinkled when they stepped into the cramped showroom, but no one appeared at the small counter in the back.

“
Bonjour
?” Callie called out. Lina didn’t miss how when Callie stepped forward, she seemed to instinctively keep Lina directly behind her in a protective manner.

No one answered her call.

Slowly weaving through dusty displays to make their way to the back of the shop, Lina felt her phone buzzing in her pocket. She grabbed it and answered. It was Zack.

“Where the hell are you two?”

Lina gave him the address. “Callie says this is the place.”

“I’ll be right there, give me five minutes. Do not move.”

“Where’s Rick and Jan?”

“They and the rest of them went with Kael to check out a lead on the nest.” He hung up on her.

Callie glanced back at her. “Mother hen?”

“Yep.” They stood at the counter.

Callie tapped a small bell set on the corner of the counter for getting the clerk’s attention. “
Bonjour
?” No response.

Callie arched an eyebrow as she stared at the closed curtain covering the doorway behind the counter.

“Stay here,” she said. Before Lina could stop her, Callie had quickly stepped around the counter and through the curtain.

Lina wanted to call out a warning to her to be careful, but then she heard her friend’s gasp. “Lina, come here.”

With dread, Lina made her way to the back of the shop. The small, cramped work space held three benches covered with various tools Lina assumed were used for carving. A small grinding machine was set up on a stand in one corner. There were also several saws and tumblers she guessed were also used by the artisan.

She also assumed the dead older man lying curled on his side on the floor in a pool of his own blood was the artisan in question. “Shit.” From his color, and the fact that the blood had started congealing and drying at the edges of the puddle, she guessed he’d been dead a while.

Callie knelt down to try to get a better look at his face. All Lina could tell was he looked to be in his seventies and had grey hair and a walrus mustache. “Do you know him?” Lina asked.