Darkest Misery (26 page)

Oh, God. Tell me Raj was not getting hard making me this offer. The length of his body was pressed against me, and I could feel the contours of it too well.

“Fuck you. I hate you. There is no way I'm going to willingly help you and yours do anything. Every piece of me you want to use—you're going to have to take it by force.”

I could feel his lips on my ear, his breath all the way down my neck. “I have to admit, I was hoping you'd say that. Far more fun for me.”

I braced for Raj's next move, but the attack didn't come from him. Gunfire cracked the night. My heart skipped, and all at once Raj let me go. I flipped around, keeping my back to the car until I knew who was shooting and from where.

Another shot, this time from my right. I flattened against the car, gasping. In front of me, Raj staggered. Sweat beaded on his face, and blood spread across his black shirt. But instead of falling over, he grinned like a madman. As though being shot was hilarious.

“Jess!”

Lucen and Devon were charging across the grass. Relief swelled in my chest, and I pushed away from the car. More than ever, I regretted being forced to drop my blade. Raj wasn't dead yet, and if I'd had it, I could have finished him off in his current state.

But wait—did he still have my knife on him? I had a chance.

A hand shot out and snatched my arm before I could check. Raj yanked me backward. “Just a regular bullet. Disappointing, really.”

I tore away from him, and he let me go too easily. Out of the corner of my eye I discovered why, but too late. Raj had pulled out a curse grenade. I launched myself at him, but it was already out of his hand.

I screamed as the curse went flying toward the satyrs, and it exploded with a flash. Through the smoke I heard Lucen swear, and I took off toward them. Fear pulsed in my blood.

“Oh, soul swapper!”

Raj's voice caused me to trip over my feet. My knees and palms hit the grass, and I looked up in time to swat away whatever it was he'd thrown at my head. Then a car door slammed, and an engine revved to life. I reached for the object that landed a foot away. My knife. The cocky asshole had returned my knife.

I curled my fingers around the hilt and sprang to my feet. The smoke was clearing ahead. Both satyrs were on the ground, but Lucen was sitting up.

I scrambled over to them as I heard Raj peel out of the driveway, and I threw my arms around Lucen's neck. “You're okay?”

“I'm fine. Devon…” He let me go.

Trembling, I crawled closer to Devon. He hadn't moved yet. My initial relief retreated slightly, and my fear returned, solidifying into an icy terror. “Devon?”

Like Lucen and the Gryphons, he'd dressed in black, and the unnatural sky played havoc with my ability to see detail. But something wasn't right with his clothes and the black scruff on his chin.

Lucen checked his pulse. “He's alive.”

I ran a finger over Devon's chest, feeling him breathe but also feeling residue on my skin. Black powder from the curse covered him. “What is it?”

“No idea.” Lucen swore. He pulled a generic counter-curse from his pocket, but it didn't help. Devon continued to breathe, but his skin was clammy and unnaturally pale.

Frantically, I brushed the powder from his face, his clothes, wherever I could find it. But nothing we could do would rouse him.

Pressure built in my skull. This night had gone on too long. My magical high had vanished, and I was near my breaking point. “No. Damn it!”

I didn't realize I was smacking Devon's lifeless body until Lucen pulled me away. “Jess, calm down.”

“I am calm. I am so fucking calm. I'm going to kill Raj. I could have had him. I could have done it.”

Lucen wrapped his arms around me and pinned me against him until I stopped ranting. I think I cried into his chest—angry, frustrated, miserable tears. But Lucen never said a word about it. He held me until the Gryphons emerged from the building and I could pretend I hadn't reached my breaking point.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“It always takes less energy to break something than to create it.” Tom had lined up the four Vessels currently in our possession along a conference room table at World. “Plus the furies are masters of chaos and destruction. I suppose it's not a shock they found out how to do more with less.”

Not in retrospect, no. But it never should have gotten this far. We should have figured it out. Even without Olef. There were plenty of magical scholars among the magi and the Gryphons, and assuredly among the satyrs and goblins and harpies. We should have been able to see what the furies were doing.

But we were too busy fighting among ourselves, not trusting each other with our knowledge. The furies had counted on it. We'd formed an alliance, promising to work together, and hadn't kept the promise—as Raj had predicted. Murdering Olef might not even have been necessary to make us fail.

“With the information from the satyrs and the goblins, we might be able to track down the fifth Vessel,” Tom was saying to the group. “But time is not on our side.”

Dawn had come and gone, brightening the sky but not burning off the red. The Gryphons had destroyed the glyph, for whatever good that might do. Not much, we expected.

The sky continued to flash erratically, and as of this morning, the glowing patch occasionally rumbled too. When I was young, my mother used to tell me thunder was God bowling. I was pretty sure this thunder was demons stirring.
Le Confrérie
theorized that because the originals had had no suffering to feed on in over a thousand years, they'd be tired and weak. It could take time before Earth felt the effects of what had happened. This was why we were back in a race to find the last Vessel and seal the prison once more.

JESS USE KEY

Olef's last message to me burned like a brand in my mind each time I closed my eyes. Once we'd created the prison, we'd need the key to lock it. The key that had been tossed inside the damn Pit.

What else had Olef known that he hadn't been able to tell us? What else had he seen in his visions?

My head throbbed, and I rubbed my eyes.

Across the table, Tom nodded at me. “We can pick up where we left off tomorrow.”

Yawning, I peeled myself off the chair. As anticipated, my body was one giant blob of pain. Muscle aches, a headache, I was fairly sure my teeth even ached. Raj's invasion of my head had left me with no residual benefits, not that I'd expected any. I hoped this meant my ability to sense him had also fled.

“Are you sure you don't want something for the pain?” Tom asked as we filed out.

“I'm sticking with ibuprofen. I'm a little magic'd out.”

He pressed the elevator button, not looking so healthy himself. A bruise on his cheek was his most noticeable injury, but he walked with a limp. “You're going to be okay—”

“I'll be fine.” Lucen was moving into my hotel room for the night, taking Devon's place since Devon was with the local satyr domus.

In a show of solidarity, the Gryphons had offered to let their healers work on the counter-curse, but Lucen had declined. Twelve hours later, Devon remained in some kind of magical coma. I knew Lucen really wanted to get him home where the Boston domus's own healers could try.

I swallowed hard, unable to shake the feeling that this too was somehow my fault. I'd failed everyone, first by letting Raj play me, then by letting him get away. Worse, I couldn't get Claudius and company's opinion out of my head—if I had died, the furies' plan would have fallen apart.

When I'd mentioned this in front of Lucen and Tom, they'd both been quick to point out that the furies had needed only two people. If they couldn't have used me and Mitch to channel their power, they might have tried Mitch and Grace. And there was a good chance Grace wouldn't have survived. Mitch was far worse off than I was—he was being tended to by Gryphon healers this very moment—and Grace had even less experience using her gift than he did.

It didn't make me feel better. What if using Grace wouldn't have worked because she wasn't as used to channeling power? The furies' plan might have failed.

Of course, Grace might be dead, and I didn't want that. But ugh.

I didn't know what I wanted. To fight, to kill Raj, to undo what had been done. But also to simply crawl into a hole in the ground, cover my eyes and hope someone else could make this nightmare go away. I was tired of being miserable.

“You haven't told me how you found me,” I said, stepping into the lobby.

Tom coughed uneasily. “We didn't. We owe the satyrs for being able to track you down.”

“How did they?”

“You might want to talk to Lucen about that.”

I crossed my arms. “What did he do?”

Tom waved off my question and pushed open the door. “Really, that's a conversation for the two of you. Have a good night.”

Was it my imagination, or was he hurrying away? I closed my eyes. Peachy.

Ten minutes later I threw open the hotel room door. Lucen was in the middle of packing, not just my belongings but his and Devon's as well. We were flying back to Boston in the morning.

I tossed my bag on the floor, ignoring the siren call of the bed. Sleep would have to wait. “How did you find me?”

He was freshly showered, hair dripping on his shirt. “No one told you at your meeting?”

“I was told to ask you. That doesn't sound promising.”

Lucen threw the shirt he'd been folding in a suitcase and stared me down. “I put a tracking spell on you.”

I stared at him a moment while the words penetrated my brain. “You what? When? Did you ever think to tell me about this?” My headache upped the pitch of its shrieking, but I was too damn tired to yell like I wanted to. Intellectually, I knew I was angry, but I couldn't
feel
the anger, which was strange. Maybe all my anger senses had been burned out by Raj.

“If I'd suggested it, would you have let me do it?”

“Fuck no.” Honestly, I wasn't sure if that were true. He might have been able to convince me, but it certainly would have been my first reaction. “I don't need to be tracked like a package in the mail.”

Except, apparently, I did. That just made me more annoyed.

“Why didn't you…? How…?” I wasn't even sure what I was asking.

Lucen reached for my hands. I pulled away, and he sighed. “After you were attacked by the sylphs a couple weeks ago, I thought it might be a good idea. Remember when they lured you out of Boston to help an addict?”

“Not likely to forget. Remember how I kicked their asses too?”

“Yes.” He sounded as defensive as I did. “But you were able to take them by surprise. It became very clear to me that living in Shadowtown would be more dangerous for you than we thought. So I had the idea to make it easy for me to find you in case you needed help. I should have told you, but I didn't believe you'd be okay with it, and I worried.”

He collapsed to the bed and gazed up at me with a pitiful expression. “The more danger you get involved in, little siren, the more you seem to push me away. You're reckless and stubborn and think you can handle whatever life—or the furies—throw at you, but no one can do everything alone. If you wouldn't let me help, I was going to make sure I didn't wait around for you to realize you needed me.”

“So you put a tracking charm on me without my knowledge.” I glared at him, hands on my hips, but I wasn't feeling the outrage. “If I pushed you away, it's because I was trying to protect you. Damn it. I'm stuck in this mess. You don't have to be.”

“We're all stuck in this mess.” Lucen raised his hands in either defeat or frustration. “And I'd be stuck in it anyway, no matter what you do, because I go where you go. You should have figured that out after ten years.”

My lip trembled. So this was what happened to my indignant wrath. I could feel tears stabbing the back of my eyes. Fuck. “If something happened to you… I mean, look at Devon. At Olef. I can't deal with this.”

Lucen tugged me closer, and I fell onto him. Part of me still wanted to smack him a few times for what he'd done, but it was a small part. The rest of me couldn't bear to stop holding him long enough to do it.

“That's just it, Jess. You don't have to deal alone. We will get through this together if you'll stop thinking that everything is on your shoulders.” He wrapped his hands through my hair, and I held him tighter. “We all know the risks, and although you might be the only person Olef saw in his visions, this isn't your battle alone. Or if it is, that doesn't mean you won't have an army to support you. And we will break the curse on Devon, and we'll find the last Vessel, and we will end this. Together. Understood?”

I nodded into his neck. Together. Exactly what I'd been criticizing everyone else for failing to do. “Point taken. But one more question—when and where did you put this tracking charm on me?”

Lucen ran a finger down my throat then lifted the pendant he'd given me out from under my shirt. He gave me a sheepish smile. “I'd hoped it would be ready before you left for Phoenix, and after what happened to you there… I'm just glad it worked eventually.”

My stomach flopped. “So you weren't giving me jewelry for the sake of being sweet, huh?”

“Hey, I put a lot of thought into this, so yes, I did. It was practical jewelry too. That's all.”

I twisted the chain around my finger so I could look at the pendant. Tracking charm on it or not, it was lovely. “I guess I won't demand you get rid of it then.”

“Are you truly angry?”

I let the chain go and pressed my forehead to his. “I'm not sure. What do
you
think?”

“You know, I'm not sure either. You sounded angry, but I didn't feel it much and I should have.”

Chills prickled my spine. Yet I had been angry, hadn't I? I tried to conjure some anger now, not at Lucen, but at Raj.

The emotion was limp and lifeless.

Devon,
I told myself.
Olef. How Raj used me.
But it made no difference what I concentrated on. The most I could generate was a bland, stunted feeling.

Raj did something to me. Raj is still in my head.

Fear I felt quite clearly, and I clenched my teeth, refusing to believe it.

“Jess? What is it?”

I leaned over and kissed Lucen chastely on the lips because I wasn't ready to think more about Raj right now. “Nothing. I'm going to shower. I'd offer to let you join me, but it looks like you didn't bother to wait.” I flung a lock of his wet hair around.

“It's not a problem,” he said as I tossed off my clothes. “I don't expect I'll spend much time getting clean in there.”

Olef's funeral was held on a Thursday. In defiance of what should have been the natural order of things, the day was bright and sunny.

I'd never been to a magi's funeral before, and the differences between their customs and human customs might have been interesting to note, but I was too lost in my thoughts and gloom to pay much attention. One of the few things I did notice was that Xander spoke a lot, and he glowered at me when he did.

Birdbrain, I cursed him silently. I'd heard rumors that Xander blamed me, in part, for what happened to Olef. Like it was my fault Olef had visions of me.

Rather petulantly, I thought Olef deserved someone better to speak for him, but it was unfair. Xander did speak eloquently, and he described a far fuller version of Olef than the magi I'd gotten to know. He talked about Olef's charity work within the magi community, his contributions to magical research, his many grandchildren living all over the world, and Olef's own travels to exotic locations.

But while it was fascinating to learn about this side of my friend, I missed the Olef I knew. The one who would stop by the diner where I used to work on a regular basis, and who always had a pleasant word while he paid for his Danish and coffee. The one who'd saved my butt the day I was running from the Gryphons because he believed I'd been framed for Victor Aubrey's murders when few others did. I owed that Olef a debt I'd never had the chance to pay. And I missed the Olef who had a seemingly endless supply of knowledge—and the patience to go with it—whenever I bugged him with questions.

I wished I'd gotten to know those Olefs better. I wished I'd taken more time to ask him about all the things Xander was telling us about—his travels, his grandchildren, his hobbies.

Once, I'd had the time, but it had never occurred to me. Then after life began to throw us together more often, time had been in short supply. I felt like I was always running to or from something.

I sucked on my lip and dug my nails into my palms. I would repay my debt to Olef one way or another. I would take down Raj. Make certain Olef's murder was avenged. And I would use his last message to me to stop the furies. I would ensure Olef hadn't died in vain.

Even if I died trying to do what he'd told me, which I suspected I would.

A surprisingly cool wind whispered through the cemetery, and Xander finished speaking. Someone else took up the role usually reserved for clergy, but magi were typically nonreligious, so I wasn't sure who this person was.

I wasn't religious either, having been brought up in a house where religion played a very minor role. But now I glanced above the heads of the mourners and into the lush maple tree branches around the cemetery and finally into the sky, wishing for a sign. Something to make me believe there was meaning to what happened. That we'd go on, and everything would get better.

Unsurprisingly, I saw nothing.

At least the sky wasn't red. I consoled myself with that. The red spot remained several miles away from a small border town, tucked between the French and Swiss Alps, where the furies had opened the Pit. The Gryphons had commandeered the castle, and a contingent stayed there, waiting for whatever happened next. So far, all was quiet. The longer it stayed that way, the eerier it felt.