Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) (20 page)

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.” He covered the gem again before I got a good look at it. “An opportunity presented itself, and I took it.” He crimped the foil shut. “Keep it wrapped up tight, or the magic leaks.”

A single gem wasn’t what I’d had in mind when I asked my parents to procure them for me. Actually I’d had no specific application in mind. Maybe that’s why the deal had fallen through. Karmic retribution. I had gotten greedy. I was grasping, adding weapons to my arsenal while the thought continued to tickle the back of my mind that all this preparation might not be enough.

“I appreciate this.” I kissed his cheek.

“Sorry to break up the moment, but time is ticking.” Thierry checked her phone. “If we’re not solid and all in agreement by eleven fifteen, then we abort the mission. Deal?”

“Deal.” Graeson almost spoke over her in his haste to lock down his vote.

Trapped between a warg and a hard place, I clutched the gem as an idea formed. “Deal.”

I
wore
my jogging clothes and tennis shoes to the meeting. The tag in my shorts had never itched me before, but it urged me to scratch my lower back now. Psychosomatic irritation was my self-diagnosis. Thierry had crafted a hodgepodge privacy spell designed to keep the wargs out of my head, and clear of Charybdis’s influence, then cast it in a place no one would think to search.

I arrived ten minutes early and scouted the area in person. The marina was well lit, but shadows prowled the corners of my vision. Reflections off the water. Probably. The pier was long, portions of it covered by tin roofs. Dozens of boats were moored in their slips. Their bright colors glinted, cheering me up despite myself. Even the punny names earned a huff of amusement from me despite the circumstances. Or maybe because of them.

“Camille Ellis, you’re early.” The cultured tone came from Harlow’s throat, her natural voice a faint memory at this point. “I hope that is a sign of your willingness to submit and not one of rebellion.”

Even with her blacked-out eyes and stiff posture, Harlow’s presence lifted my mood. Her cotton-candy-pink hair had grown out so the roots showed blonde. Charybdis had dressed and styled her like a doll, in the image of the woman who was now a pale echo of her former self.

“Did you show the same faith?” I kept several planks between us. “Did you come alone?”

A smile played on her lips. “Those were not the terms we negotiated.”

I rolled my shoulder like I had expected as much, and I had. The double standard didn’t surprise me. This location was all about secreting away hosts or whatever other supplies he required.

“What proof do I have that you’ll release Harlow once I submit?”

“Her body is failing,” she admitted. “Soon I would have no use for her, so why not sacrifice her for you?” Her expression turned wistful. “Your form pleases me greatly. I look forward to wearing your skin.” That wasn’t creepy at all. “Pity it won’t survive the night.” She laughed. “That is the marvelous thing about Geminis, is it not? There is always a spare.”

“What does my sister have to do with this?” I took a careful step back. “I want your word you won’t harm her or my family. That includes the pack.”

“That I cannot do.” She cocked her head at me. “The magistrate’s warrior visited you. I thought…but she didn’t tell you, did she?”

Aware I was taking the bait, I couldn’t help biting. “Tell me what?”

“All of this was for you.” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “The drownings. The sex of the victims. The loving families. I selected them based on Lori’s profile. On
your
profile. I used twofold magic to protect my investment. I anchored the circle using their pain, their misery, their anguish, but I made certain Ayer put a bug in Magistrate Vause’s ear. I made sure you were positioned to lead the investigation so that every echo of your grief, remorse, pity wove its own filament in the spell. So that even if one layer was broken, the other would survive.”

Acid stung the back of my throat, and a familiar wave of self-loathing crested in me. Hearing Vause pontificate was nothing compared to Charybdis confirming that I was the cause of so much death. So many lives lost, and for what?

“Your Marshal Ayer was the first contact I had in this world. I had to cross the portal in my natural state, incorporeally, a gamble that might have cost me my life had not she appeared.” Her gaze went glassy as she absorbed the grief spinning off me. “She held so much private knowledge about the inner workings of this world, but the item in the forefront of her mind was a girl, Lori Grace Ellis. She was fresh from visiting your sister, on her way to speak with Magistrate Vause, and her memories astounded me. Gemini are legend in Faerie. They no longer exist. I had not dared hope I would find such a match in this realm, but she offered up not one but
two
such morsels with the promise of more.”

“Why fixate on her—on us?” Revenge aside, it made no sense. “We aren’t the strongest or the most powerful fae.”

“No, but you have other redeeming qualities.” She took one calculated step nearer. “Do you know the reason why my kind exhaust our hosts in Faerie? They lack emotion. We’re forced to feed on their magic instead. Most have a finite supply and no means of tapping into power outside their own. We devour that spark, and they die. We keep several hosts tapped for such occasions so that we might minimize the amount of time we are exposed as we claim a new primary, a true avatar.”

“You want a Gemini host so that when the magic runs dry, we can tap into someone else’s.” I inched back a foot. “You realize that fix is temporary, right?”

The fact was, I had traded on this very bit of Gemini biology not a week ago. My ability to filter magic from others and claim aspects of their power as my own had led Miguel Garza to theorize my blood was a universal donor. Charybdis was hinting that same ability would enable him to sustain himself off the magic of others while my body acted as a filtration system.

“Perhaps the issue is not you, but the weak stock available to you.” Her eyes gleamed with malice. “I would drink rivers of fae blood to quench my thirst, but earthborn are watered down, near flavorless. Their excess of emotion is their only saving grace.” She wet her lips. “What this world needs is an infusion. Fresh blood.”

The prophecy tickled the back of my mind. What was his endgame? “Why burn me up in one night if I’m that valuable?”

“I have no choice.” She frowned, seeming unhappy at the prospect. “All that remains of your sister is a shell, which suits my purpose, as sharing one body with two minds gets rather tiresome. My hungers are aroused by an active mind, by emotion, the darker the better, and she possesses neither.”

“Leave her out of this.” Hearing him dismiss my sister raised my hackles.

“That is an impossibility, I’m afraid.” She studied the star-studded sky. “Your pain, your anger—your self-loathing—will enable me to salvage what you cost me when you ended the kelpie too soon. I would have taken you once completing the circle, but perhaps this was all for the best.” She gave a decisive nod. “The sterility of Lori’s shell will make claiming her much simpler than my possession of you.” She pressed me back another step. “You’ll fight me. I can read it in the set of your shoulders and that smoldering fury in your gaze. Eating you from the inside out would sate me for some time.”

“It would?” Nothing she said made sense. “Why not
it will
?”

Harlow advanced another step on me, and I eased back only to realize I had run out of pier. The only escape now, if I took it, was the water.

“I might have been hasty allowing you the full credit for my actions.” She traced a finger down my forearm. “I came to this world with a goal. Marshal Ayer granted me a gift beyond compare, the knowledge of your species, and evidence the gods were rewarding my efforts by granting me that which none of my kind have ever possessed.”

“A body,” I surmised. One capable of sustaining one of Faerie’s many bizarre creations.

“Yes,” she hissed, fingers circling my wrist. “I will become singular among my kind—an Iezu made flesh. All will fall on their knees and worship me.”

Iezu? Is that what Charybdis was? From what I recalled during my training, those were a rare subclass of fae skilled in illusion. What Charybdis did was no mirage. Perhaps the truth of them had been as lost to us as the existence of Gemini had been to them.

I eased my hand into my pocket, talking over the crinkling of foil. “I want to say goodbye to Harlow.”

“Speak, and I will allow her to hear.” Her grip tightened. “I will not leave this form yet. I need my strength for what is to come.”

“Cam?” Comprehension widened her gaze. “You can’t be here. Don’t do this. Get out while you can.” Harlow cried out, releasing me to clutch her head. “Kill me. Kill
him
. You can’t let him complete the ritual.”

I gripped her shoulders. “What ritual?”

“He’s coming back. He’s coming…” She doubled over. “Run. Please.
Run
.”

Ignoring her struggle, I brought her in for a hug. “You’re going to be free, Harlow. Everything will be fine.”

The fight drained out of her, and I knew before I withdrew that Harlow was gone. I peered down at the fragile teen, and malice slammed into me as solidly as a fist. She raked her nails down my arms. Her fingers snagged the pearl bracelet, and the string broke. Beads rolled across the dock, dozens of tiny
plip-plops
sounding as they hit in the water.

“No,” she slurred. “What…have you…done?”

“I just returned what you stole from my parents.” The gem rested precariously in the tiny pocket of her barely there jean shorts. It was a hip wiggle away from falling out and thunking into the water too.

As much as I hated to lose the bracelet, I hoped after tonight I would no longer require the talisman.

Dark eyes blazing hatred, Harlow bared her teeth. Her lips slid together as her lids began fluttering. The last I saw of Charybdis was the seething vengeance in Harlow’s eyes before the charm snared her an instant later. Grunting under her sudden weight, I held her until she slumped against my chest.

Booted footsteps pounded on planks, growing louder. Thierry rounded the corner, runes casting soft peridot shadows, with the tranq gun primed, ready and aimed at Harlow.

“I wish I had thought to ask for life vests while I was at it,” I admitted. Thierry had called in a favor and gotten a johnboat delivered. I didn’t know much about watercraft, but Graeson had talked me through operating this lightweight aluminum one. Its neighbors dwarfed it, but I wasn’t comfortable handling one of the larger vessels. “This is going to be one of the less-fun things I’ve ever done.”

Driving a boat. On open water. Sure it was a lake, but its mean depth was fifty-two feet. Near the dam that plummeted to two hundred and sixty-five feet. Considering the Tennessee River was a bare twelve feet deep, I got hives thinking about navigating the Watauga.

“Are you sure you want to do this? We’ve got your friend sedated. There’s a decent chance Charybdis didn’t have time to jump.” She held the gun steady. “We could walk away.”

“I can’t back down now.” We might never get this far again. “I won’t know if he’s in there until I remove the gem, and I need to be dead center when that happens.” I settled Harlow in the boat as best I could, and joined her before flipping on the spotlight mounted to the front of the boat. I fumbled with the trolling motor until it caught, futzing with the controls until I felt confident. “We couldn’t have made it this far without your help.”

“Don’t make it sound like goodbye, Cam.” Thierry’s aim never wavered as she shouted over the noise. “We’ve got your back. You’re coming out the other side of this. That mate of yours won’t have it any other way.”

I raised a hand in farewell, the engine’s roar too loud to fight, then gripped the edge of the boat until the metal bit into my hand. Mindful of Graeson’s instructions, I maneuvered us toward the center of the lake. Fifteen minutes later, a quick check of my phone’s GPS told me we had reached our destination. I flipped on the spotlight mounted to the rear of the boat and dialed Thierry. “Have you cleared the marina?”

“We found three fae and two humans, all unconscious. The pack volunteers are here, and they’re moving the bodies out of range. I’m going to run the heartbeat spell one more time to make sure there aren’t any more hosts tucked away, but I think we got this. He cast an erasure spell, but that can’t hide an active pulse. The area should be clear in about ten minutes.”

“I’ll give you twenty.” I hung up the phone and set a timer, gut churning at her mention of pack volunteers. I hated to think of the wargs so close to Charybdis, but we needed the manpower to make sure the sweep was successful. Illuminated by the spotlight, Harlow’s pale skin drew my eye. “This is not how I pictured our friendship going, Flipper.”

I patted under the bench seat she occupied and located a built-in drawer that pulled open to reveal a tray of tools. I selected the ones I needed, then set to work removing the motor from its mount. Thank the gods breaking equipment was always easier than assembling it. Once I had the unit clear of the boat, I dumped it backward into the water and sat down to rest and give it time to hit bottom.

The temptation to reach out to Graeson buzzed in my head. Good thing the tag was running interference. I was too weak to resist temptation. Knowing the pack was close, being certain that meant he was too, had me itching to touch minds with him one last time before—

The timer clanged.

Unable to find my voice for a second call, I shot Thierry a text. She replied seconds later.
All clear.

Leaning over Harlow, I shifted her weight enough to remove the stone from her back pocket. It too hit the water with a
plop
. As much as I wanted the insurance, I couldn’t afford to risk Charybdis using it against me.

Several minutes passed before Harlow’s eyes sprang open. She woke slower than Aunt Dot had after being exposed to the gem for days, meaning Harlow was far weaker than she appeared. The shine from the spotlight forced her to squint, but there was no hiding the feral presence moving behind her eyes.

Harlow lunged, hands circling my throat with inhuman strength, and flung me onto my back. Crawling up my legs, she settled her hips over my waist and pinned me. Torn between clutching the edges of the boat to stabilize it or prying her fingers off me, I lay there while her chest heaved and obscenities poured over her lips. My fingers found the tray beneath the bench I had been sitting on, and I tugged it out, fingers tickling over Dr. Wayne’s contribution to our operation. One with less-permanent results than the gem.

“Take me back.” Her nails pierced my skin. “Return me to the shore.”

“Can’t,” I wheezed. “No…motor.”

Stars danced at the corners of my eyes, and I struggled to stay conscious.

Relaxing her fingers, she leaned back and oriented herself to our surroundings. “You will not cost me that which is owed to me.”

“Yes.” High on the rush of oxygen, I grasped one tube from the tray and fisted it. “I will.”