Renegade (18 page)

“Valeria, no. No.” Griffin’s voice held a panicked edge. “Come on, Valeria. Come back. Look at me, love.”

She opened her eyes. Griffin sat cross-legged on the stone, cradling her in his lap. At his side, a bundle of herbs smoldered. The ward was gone.

Val drew a shuddering breath.

“It’s okay.” Holding her face against his shoulder, he muttered, “You scared the piss out of me.”

“I’m cold.” Queasy.

His arms tightened around her. With her face turned to the curve of his neck and shoulder, she inhaled his bay scent. “It’s a summoning spell. It’s really…vile.”

“Yeah.” He stroked her back slowly, soothing. “Take your time, honey.”

“We don’t have much time.” Straightening so she could look him in the eye, she gripped his shoulders. “The summons is for midnight at the dark of the moon, four days away. In Wayfarer.”

T
he faces of Griff’s friends in the town flashed through his mind—Marc, Miss Hettie, Sally at the Crystal Grotto, Ben at the newspaper. Damned if he’d stand by while some dark force preyed on them.

Now, though, Valeria needed to recover. She was shivering, and a cold current of fear ran through their bond, muted as though she tried to hide it.

He kissed her temple. Only something very powerful could affect a fully trained, fully powered mage this badly.

She burrowed against him. “Cold. So cold.”

“We’ll fix that.” He stripped off his denim jacket and wrapped it around her. With no cell reception, he couldn’t call Stefan and feared he might need to.

She huddled into the jacket, pulling it up around her ears. The bluish tint to her lips sent fear crawling up his spine. He rubbed her arms and legs, feeding her power. If only he had agate or carnelian to amplify her magic and strengthen her. “This is your last stab at something like this. Next time, it’s my shot.”

“We can fight about that when the time comes.” She burrowed into his shoulder again. “Too tired to fight now.”

Gradually, the shivering stopped. Valeria sighed, nestling against him. “Better now,” she mumbled. “Sleepy.”

For good reasons or bad? He stroked her cheek. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

“Hm?” Blinking, she lifted her head to peer at him. Her eyes looked normal, more brown than green today, but clear, the whites unsullied.

He kissed her lightly. “Just checking. Let’s go.”

Clinging to him, she got to her feet. Still, her fatigue beat at his bones. Fighting that darkness had exhausted her. Good thing the car was just at the bottom of the trail. He scooped her up in his arms.

“I can walk.” Her eyelids snapped open, then sagged immediately.

“Humor me.”

“Mm-hm.” She yawned and slid her arms around his neck. In moments, her deep, even breathing signaled that she slept.

His magical senses detected no one nearby. Griff held her close and translocated to the car. No way would he take her into the realm of this summons, but he had to go. Wayfarer was the closest thing he had to home, the people in it were his family. If evil was lurking, he’d do anything to keep the people he loved from it.

Icy darkness flowed around Val, caressing her body, stroking her soul with chilled fingers of dread. She fought to move. If she could just break free. Cry out. Anything.

If only she weren’t so weak. Hunger gnawed at her soul. She looked down at herself, found her arms and legs gaunt. Wasted. When had she last eaten? Too long ago to remember. Those who defied the darkness received no rewards, but she couldn’t give in.

But she was so tired of fighting.

An icicle stabbed through her heart, and her mouth opened in mute torment. This was punishment for her resistance.

As before, her body arched, impaling her further, and she finally screamed, a shrill, agonized ripping of sound from her throat that went on and on and on, each twist of the icicle driving it higher as she helplessly clawed at the intangible thing piercing her chest.

Suffer, mage bitch.
The voice sounded like cracking ice, but it trembled with power.
Suffer as all your kind will.

Something grabbed her. She lashed out, but the blow had no strength. The darkness swirled around her, so cold—

Valeria.
A man’s voice. Strong. Warm.
I have you, honey. It’s okay. You’re okay.

Struggling, she reached feebly for him but caught nothing. He would never find her. In all this darkness, how could he?

Despair bit at her soul like a serpent, and she wept, silently and without tears. She hadn’t had water in so very long.

Valeria. I’m here. Look at me, love. Turn to me.

He can die with you. I’ll devour you both, as my kind always has.

No, damn it. Valeria.
He touched her hand at last. Her face. Her mouth. She couldn’t see him, but she felt his warmth. Heard him say, “Come on, honey. Come back to me.”

“Griffin,” she gasped, knowing him at last.

“Yes.” He sighed, a sound heavy with relief. “I’m here. Wake up, honey, please.”

Light. At last, light.

She forced her eyes open. He leaned back against the headboard, cradling her in his arms. She let out a sob of relief, and the pain vanished. Real tears squeezed out of her eyes.

She wiped her face against his shoulder. This was real, he was real.

But the dream lingered in her bones.

Stroking her hair, he kissed her temple and kept his lips against it. “You with me now?”

She nodded. “It was so real. Too real.” She swallowed hard, not liking where this was going, and held him tighter. “Visionary.”

“Shit.” For a long moment, his eyes searched hers. “I was talking to Stefan when you started whimpering, so I asked him to hold on. Let’s see what he says.”

When she nodded, he picked up his cell phone from the bed by her hip. He held it between them. “Stefan, she seems okay now, but that was one hell of a dream.”

Stefan replied, “I heard your conversation. That’s a magical problem, not medical. Will can help you with that better than I can. For tonight, burn cedar and sage and be sure the smoke goes in all corners of the room. Make valerian root tea.”

“I don’t carry that.” Griffin arched an eyebrow at her.

Val shook her head. She didn’t have it either.

“You can use commercial chamomile or peppermint tea,” Stefan said. “Infuse healing energy in it before you drink it, both of you. Valeria should take a cleansing bath, using whatever healing herbs you have, and you should charge the water with golden power through the healing rune on your staff. If you have blue chalcedony, be sure it’s magically charged and put it between your pillows to protect your minds in sleep.”

Val squeezed Griffin’s shoulder. “Did you tell him about the summons?”

“I told him everything. While you were out, Tasha called in to say they’d found tainted coffee, all of it containing summonses to Wayfarer, in five nonchain diners near the swamp, though not in Wayfarer itself.”

“Are they okay? Did it affect them badly?”

“Two of them, yes, but they’re okay now. Lorelei figured out a way to test it with quartz and she had no ill effects.”

“That’s good.” Val nestled against Griffin’s shoulder. “I wonder why they didn’t find the tainted coffee in Wayfarer.”

“Will thinks the demon servants, if that’s what they were, probably didn’t want to take someone from a small town where a missing person gets noticed. Anyway, the team shut those places down, took a couple of prisoners, only to have them spontaneously die.”

“Well, that’s rotten luck,” she said. “And too coincidental.”

“Agreed.” His eyes hardened. “We’re up against something big here.”

Not to mention the problem in Wayfarer. “May I talk to Stefan?” When Griffin passed her the phone, she asked, “What’s the status of the search around Wayfarer for us?”

As Griffin muttered, “Hell with that,” his friend said, “One of the Collegium mages also happened across the bad coffee. Healey’s sending as many veterans as he can muster to Wayfarer, with orders to scry for heavy magical activity, including the type a portal would cause. The town’s crawling with deputy reeves now, so stay away from there.”

Stefan paused. “And good luck with Griff on that one.”

Judging by Griffin’s set face, he would ignore any such advice. He held out a hand for the phone.

She thanked Stefan and passed it over.

As the two men signed off, she took Griffin’s hand. Despite the tension in his body, his fingers curved around hers.

“Your home is threatened,” she said, “and you want to defend it. You’re tired of running, especially when people you care about need help. I get that. All of it. Really.”

“Right now, I’m more concerned about you.” His worried eyes searched her face, and he brushed back her hair. “How do you feel?”

“Tired. Hungry.” Snuggling against his warmth, she added, “A little scared, partly because it seemed weirdly familiar. Did you hear it say it would devour our kind as its kind always had?”

He nodded. “It seemed familiar to me, too, but I can’t place it.”

“Old legends? Ancestral memory?” She turned her head into his neck, taking refuge in its warmth and familiar scent. Bay was not only a masculine herb but a protective one.

His arms tightened around her. “All of this fits with what Will said about Void demons. You were in a Void-like space.”

They sat holding each other, trying not to think about what such a vision could portend, and she suddenly realized the room wasn’t familiar. They’d checked out of the Rest Rite that morning. “Where are we?”

“The Holiday Chalet off U.S. 23. Used to be part of some castle-themed chain, by the look of it.”

“Thanks for taking care of all that.”

He tucked her head under his chin. “I’d like to take you someplace elegant—fancy bathroom, puffy beds, room service. Someplace paying in cash isn’t acceptable and guests stay the whole night. But right now, I’ll go find what Stefan ordered and bring back food. Or we can go down to the highway and eat. There’re places busy enough to minimize the risk of being spotted.”

“Let’s go. A change of scene will help shake this off.”

“I’ll burn the cedar and sage around the room before we go, so we come back to something free of bad vibes.”

“Good idea.” His mouth pressed against hers and she opened to him, poured herself into the kiss.

He groaned, slanting his head to deepen the contact. When the kiss broke, she smiled at him. Relief flashed into his eyes.

“That’s much better,” she said. “How about we come back after dinner, do what the doctor ordered, and then make some good vibes of our own?”

“Sounds like a plan. But I want a date for that fancy hotel. You and me as soon as we can.”

“Future thinking. I like it.”

He kissed her again and tugged her off the bed. “Let’s purge the room and go.”

He hadn’t actually said he would stay out of Wayfarer but they’d deal with that later.

Remembering the dream, she shivered.
What in God’s name are we up against?

Contentment required some adjustment, Griff decided, watching Valeria. Oblivious to the babble of voices around them and the movements of the dinnertime crowd to and from the salad bar, she closed her eyes and made approving noises over apple pie from the dessert rack.

He watched her and wondered what the future held for them. He didn’t trust readily anymore, but he trusted her.

With a sigh, she opened her eyes. “This pie probably came out of a box, but it’s sweet and gooey and just the thing I needed after the couple of days we’ve had.” She cut off a bite-size piece. “Here, taste.”

Because she was smiling and cupping her hand under the fork, he let her feed him the pie.

Smiling into her warm, happy eyes, he tasted cinnamon and nutmeg along with apple and surprisingly flaky crust. “Pretty decent. I thought you’d go for the chocolate, though.”

“I don’t like all that whipped cream where meringue should be. Want some more?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Lucky for you, ’cause I was going to tell you to get your own pie. When it comes to desserts, my sharing capacity is limited.”

“I’m wounded.” Grinning at her, he used one finger to swipe a trace of pie filling from the edge of her plate and ate it.

This was normal, he suddenly realized. All over America, couples and families like the ones here went out, sat across laminate-covered tables set with cheap silverware, tasted each other’s food, and teased each other. He’d almost forgotten what this was like.

With her, he could have pockets of normalcy, time just for them. God, he wanted it. But not if that meant she had to stay in exile with him. And there was still the matter of the venom in his blood.

She deserved to have her love returned, and even more, she deserved a love that wouldn’t complicate her life. He couldn’t give her that.

Her brow furrowed in a quizzical look. “Something wrong?”

“Nope. Just tired.” To prove it, he smiled at her. “I like watching you eat.”

“You envy my pie. I can tell.” She waggled her fork at him.

The corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled like that, and his heart felt about as solid as the pie filling. He wanted to stroke those lines, feel the joy radiating out of her eyes. Later, he would. In bed.

He kissed her hand, and they smiled at each other.

“Will also called while you were sleeping,” he said. “He found several reports of disappearances in the swamp and nearby state forests. We think the diners are staffed with demon servants giving the tainted coffee to people already away from home, less likely to be missed right away.”

“Smart.”

“Yep. He says a portal orb like the ones commonly used to open the Void can accept only a few souls at a time. Otherwise it overloads, so they need to allow time for the priming, with the final priming done where it’s going to be used. The summonses in the coffee at the other diners were for staggered times, all during the next four days, and all for Wayfarer. That probably means Wayfarer is where they plan to open the demon gate. So if we can figure out where they mean to do it, exactly, we may be able to stop the priming and destroy the thing before more people die.”

“In Wayfarer. Griffin, I understand, but—”

He held up a hand to stop her from arguing. “Will deciphered that piece of paper you found in the diner cook’s house. Those runes are like the dark counterpart of Ogham script, an ancient Celtic way of writing runes. If his translation is right, you found a chant that’s used to help prime a demon portal with stolen souls. We have no choice.”