By the Embers Dies the Fire

  Elain had asked her about it, but while Kitty hadn’t met Brighton before, she had heard about him, and not anything negative.

  “Well, Kitty was a lone hunter. It is frequently safer that way. Especially if she didn’t know who she could trust.”

  “See? That doesn’t help, either. When I think I’ve got a good argument, there’s that stupid logic again, blowing a hole in it.”

  “You know, just because people in a family love each other doesn’t mean they should always be living right on top of each other.”

  “But my guys went so long without seeing him. Since their parents died. And they’re in contact with their other brothers, but hell, I haven’t even met them yet. I don’t want to come off as being a bitch to Brighton and say, ‘hey, hit the road.’”

  “Yes, and that separation was by their choice. All of them. It’s a two-way street. At any time, did Brighton want to join your men, he could have. Not like your men were vagabonds with no forwarding address. They’ve actually been far more stable and established than many of their living siblings.”

  Elain deeply inhaled the scent of piney woods mixed with sweet, salty breeze. In a way, a chillier version of Florida beach air.

  Only with pine.

  It soothed her, relaxed her.

  “How am I going to protect Marston?” Elain quietly asked.

  “You mean Martin,” Lacey gently corrected.

  “Yeah, him,” she muttered. “Lina will kill him on sight if she gets a hint of where he is, and I can’t have that happening. I can’t change her memories about him like I could with Ain. At least she can’t poof well yet.”

  Lacey patted her arm. “You just told me a little more than you’d meant to.”

  Elain stopped walking as she realized what Lacey meant. “Aw, shit. See? Fuck.”

  Lacey smiled again, tugging on Elain’s arm to keep her moving. “It’s all right, dear. I did wonder about that. I know Ain had never met Martin in person before. In your immediate family, only Lina and Liam have actually seen him up close. Liam knows him, of course. And some of the others in the Maine Clan. I believe Zack and Callie caught brief glimpses of him in Brussels. Jocko would recognize him, as would Blackie. Anyone else who’s seen the videos as part of the mega-Clan meetings about it. The good thing is that in the videos he looks much older than he does now because of the extra weight, and his hair color and cut. New clothes, weight loss, and hair dye have done wonders.”

  “Can’t hide his smell.”

  “Well, you can—”

  “I should not hide his smell,” Elain said. “Let me clarify—I absolutely am not going to occlude his ass.”

  “Wasn’t suggesting you should, dear.”

  “How can I get Blackie to issue a protective order for him without Lina blowing me up?”

  “I don’t know if you can, or if it’s even possible. Lina is far too…”

  Lacey slowed her steps as she seemed to be hunting for the right words. “Lina is very emotional. Yes, she was given a lot of power in a very short time, activated by her mating with Jan and Rick. Unfortunately, she also was thrust into an extremely emotional situation at the same time. She has not yet learned how to temper her emotions so she doesn’t use her powers unwisely. It’s almost like Baba Yaga set her up that way. Wouldn’t put it past her, certainly.”

  “Lina wants to fry Martin from the inside out.”

  “Exactly. To be fair, Lina had that experience, one which was more than a vision, of watching Kael’s family being murdered. She was actually there. There are no shades of grey about this for her. She witnessed them die. Somehow, she actually transported herself back to the time it happened and she witnessed it not as merely a vision. It’s personal for her, and understandably so.

  “There was Bertholde’s murder, too. Lina won’t want to hear that the little girl was doomed to a fate worse than death, or that Bertholde wished to die and knew that Marston would kill her quickly and with relatively little pain involved. Lina simply won’t care about any of that. She won’t want to hear that your uncles were complicit with Rodolfo, and what their mates had been guilty of to warrant death.”

  Elain threw her head back and stared up at the sky. Light clouds scudded across overhead. “Gawd, this is twenty kinds of fucked up.” They reached the top of the trail heading down to the beach area.

  Lacey unsnapped Jasper’s leash so he could run ahead. “Yes, that’s one way of putting it.” Lacey went ahead down the trail, Elain bringing up the rear. By the time they reached the beach, Jasper had already found a driftwood stick to bring to them to throw.

  “I don’t like…Martin,” Elain said. “I will never be buddies with the guy. But he’s a devoted father. I know he would literally die to keep Colleen safe, without reservation. He loved Mercedes, and she loved him and that baby. He had a good heart once, and he’s working his way back through the karmic mud he threw himself into. He was never…pure evil. Cowardly and scared, yes. I know even he’ll admit to that.”

  They climbed up onto the rock. “I looked into his soul,” Elain continued when they were settled. “I see a very sad, lonely man who wishes he could take back a shit-ton of crap in his life. I don’t think I have the heart to torture him.”

  “Does that mean you’ll kill him when Colleen grows up?”

  “See, I don’t think I can make myself do that, either.” Elain stared out over the water. “He isn’t like Rodolfo. Not even in the same plane of existence in terms of evil. Rodolfo did some pretty evil shit, and he was crazy, but even he had triggers that sent him down that path. He could have chosen not to do the shit he did later in life, but…”

  Elain sighed. “I don’t want to make a habit of killing people with my powers. It frightens me that I can even do that.”

  Lacey leaned back on her elbows. “Between Seers. You killed Rodolfo, didn’t you?”

  Elain nodded.

  “Ortega doesn’t know that, does he?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m guessing you somehow did it with your powers?”

  “Yeah. I forgave Rodolfo, told him to be at peace, and just…thought about him painlessly shutting down. And he did.” She snapped her fingers. “Like flicking off a light switch. It was a mercy killing at that point.”

  “Wow,” Lacey said, but it didn’t sound like a bad wow.

  More like a stunned wow.

  They sat there in silence for a moment.

  “I’m sorry,” Elain said.

  “For what?”

  “I know you wanted Rodolfo to suffer, but the truth was, he’d suffered all his life. On the other hand, the longer the torture went on, I felt Ortega’s energy growing really dark. His life had become obsessed by the need to keep torturing Rodolfo. Ortega needed to focus on Fiona, or Fiona herself would have become consumed by a hatred for a man who should have been killed off centuries ago. I knew if I left Rodolfo alive, it would only allow Ortega to sink farther into the darkness himself, and pull Fiona along with him by accident.”

  Lacey reached over and patted her on the hand. “It’s all right. I’m not upset. I understand. Quite honestly? I commend you for that. Considering you had as much reason to hate Rodolfo as the rest of us, for you to be that generous and merciful to him? You are a far stronger person than I am.”

  The old Seer let out a sigh. “I know about inner darkness. I let it rule me for too many years. When I knew it’d be nearly impossible for me to ever personally extract revenge upon Rodolfo, I probably spent too much energy thinking about how to engineer my revenge.”

  “If it means anything,” Elain said, “he had been bewitched by Mercedes’ mother. He thought Colleen was lying to him, sent by his father, who’d killed Rodolfo’s One years earlier. He thought his father was once again trying to harm his One. It doesn’t excuse what Rodolfo did, but he did feel bad about killing Colleen once he realized he had been deceived by Mercedes’ mother.”

  Lacey sat up, frowning. “Deceived, how, exactly?”
/>
  This part of the situation Elain had never really discussed with Lacey. “Mercedes’ mother used dark magick on Rodolfo to charm him into loving her and thinking she was a wolf. His One.”

  “Occlusion spell? Like from the books?”

  “I-I don’t know for sure. I guess, based on what we know now. I’m not an expert in any of this.”

  “He was a fairly strong Alpha wolf, despite his cockatrice genetics. How the hell did she do that?” Considering Lacey was staring out at the water, Elain figured it was probably a rhetorical question.

  Elain answered anyway. “I don’t know. I don’t think we’ll ever know the truth unless I’m ever able to have a vision about it. I think Mercedes’ mother lied to Mercedes’ brothers, or they lied to Mercedes. Or both. And it’s possible Mercedes might have even lied to…him, before they mated. I only know the parts of it I saw from Rodolfo and from Mars—Martin.”

  Lacey went quiet again. “Ever have a vision about him?” She tipped her head toward where Jasper was playing in the surf.

  “No. I wish. I’d love to know where he came from. I will figure it out eventually.”

  “Ditto.” Lacey sighed. “I really think he needs to stay with you permanently.”

  “Why?”

  “Because as much as I love him, I think I’d rather have him around you and the kids.”

  “For protection?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  A slight gust of wind blew through their secluded place, raising gooseflesh on Elain’s arms. She rubbed at them. “I only sense good energy from Jasper, at least.”

  “Well, that’s something, I suppose. I would love to know where he came from. You know, maybe Lina and Mai working on it together with you can figure it out.”

  “All I can do is try.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Carla was watching TV in Lacey’s living room when she thought she heard a noise coming from the basement. At first she was going to ignore it when she heard it again.

  “Elain? Lacey?”

  She stood and walked into the kitchen, to the basement door, and opened it. Downstairs, there was only dim visibility from where two low windows at ground level allowed light in, but they were both on the front of the house and around the corner from the door at the top of the stairs.

  She wasn’t sure where the light switch was, couldn’t see it. She stepped inside the doorway, and that’s when she felt someone shove her, hard, and sent her flying down the stairs.

  She hit the concrete floor with a hard thud that knocked the wind out of her and stunned her. A sharp pain in her left arm, which she’d landed on, probably meant that was broken.

  But before she could even process any of this, someone was on top of her, put duct tape over her mouth, and pulled a pillowcase over her head. They wrapped duct tape around her ankles before they rolled her over onto her back and taped her wrists in front of her.

  Trying to scream against the pain only earned her a hard kick in the ribs that drove the wind out of her before she heard footsteps running up the stairs again, the basement door slamming shut behind them.

  Sobbing, she tried to yell, to move, but between the pain and the restraints, all she could do was lie there and cry.

  * * * *

  Brighton swore when he realized there were four babies in the room. He definitely wanted one of the two girls, the older one that bore the cockatrice stench, faint though it was. The other must be Elain’s spawn with Ain.

  But the two boys…blast! Well, the one he suspected was the one from Liam Pardie’s loins, likely tinged with the darkness of his sire. Brighton thought he knew which one, although both boys smelled like wolves.

  Yes, maybe it made him a cockup as an uncle, but he hadn’t wanted to spend a lot of time around the little vermin.

  Best to get rid of all four of them at once.

  This certainly could be his best chance.

  Maybe his only chance. It certainly would help do what he had to do if he used all four of them. Would make for a more powerful spell.

  He found the keys to the minivan on the counter and got all four of the brats buckled into their car seats. He’d left his car down at the end of the fire road and hiked overland from there to Lacey’s, knowing that he might only have one chance to do this.

  Fortunately, Lacey and Elain had made life easy on him by not being at Lacey’s. His plan had been to kill Carla, if necessary, to force Elain to the rock pile with him.

  Oh, she’d track him there, of that he had no doubt. But as his instinct told him, he wanted her there, needed her there, to finish this once and for all.

  Before pulling out of Lacey’s he used the burner cell and sent a text message to the cockatrice group awaiting his word.

  They really were daft sods, to believe the story he’d told him. That not only had he discovered the location of the long-missing portal, but he’d also discovered what Aliah had been seeking, the Tablet of Trammel?

  Fecking pillocks.

  Then again, being able to send all the wolves away on a wild chase had given him a little bit of cachet with the cockatrice. They thought he’d really known what he was doing.

  That he really was one of them.

  He’d given them a proof of concept when it came to manipulating the wolves.

  If he timed this right, Elain would be showing up at the rock pile just as he was ready to work the spell that would send all of them—Elain and the cockatrice—back to whatever hellish dimension they’d all been spawned from.

  For good.

  And he’d have the proof he needed on video.

  Better than killing them, even, in his book. They could then warn others on whatever evil plane they had come from that Earth was not to be trifled with. That there were protectors here who would absolutely defend it.

  Protectors like him.

  To spread the word to bloody well not mess with us.

  Two of the babies were crying, but he didn’t know which ones. Glad now that he’d cleared the fallen tree from the fire road, he drove down it as fast as he dared, realizing that perhaps he should have obtained a four-wheel-drive vehicle for this part of his plan.

  Luckily, the vehicle made it. He pulled up not far from where the rock pile was located. He’d have to make two trips to the minivan and back for the babies, but it’d be worth it.

  It would mean even more power to send the fecking evil back to where it belonged. Did he feel guilty about taking children? Yes, but only a little. It was necessary. They would grow up to sow evil in their wake.

  It could not be helped.

  Once everyone saw what he’d done by opening the gate to send them all back, they would understand. They would finally join him in his fight.

  They would finally see that he’d been right all these years.

  Instead of being the family joke, they’d all be coming to him for advice.

  * * * *

  Elain closed her eyes and tried to just enjoy the feel of the sun on her face, the cool, salty breeze playing with her hair.

  “I wonder where he’s going?”

  Elain opened her eyes at Lacey’s statement and looked to see Jasper bolting at a dead run up the trail to the top of the cliff.

  “Jasper!” Lacey called. “Come!”

  Elain watched him disappearing. “Has he ever run off before?”

  “Never.”

  “Maybe he sniffed something to chase?”

  “I’m telling you, he doesn’t do that.” Lacey grabbed his leash and climbed down off the rock.

  “So much for my relaxation time.” Elain took one last, longing look at the water before following after Lacey, who was now hustling across the spit of sand toward the trail. “He’s probably just having fun,” Elain called to her.

  “I don’t think so,” Lacey yelled back. “He acted like a dog on a mission.”

  “I really wasn’t looking forward to chasing a dog through the woods,” Elain muttered under her breath. It wasn’t like there was anyth
ing dangerous out there. They were on Clan land, for crying out loud, and there were no bio-bears or wolves. A few moose, deer, and smaller animals, sure, but nothing dangerous. Unless a squirrel or something got a hair up its ass.

  I wonder if there are squirrel shifters?

  Elain figured she could leave that question for another time. Just the set of Lacey’s body as the older shifter hurried up the cliff bespoke how concerned she was.

  That was starting to concern Elain.

  Lacey could move damned fast for a woman her age, for sure.

  Elain had barely reached the top of the cliff when she spied Lacey running, on two legs, up the trail toward the house.

  “Dammit.” Elain poured on the speed, catching up, finding it hard to believe, shifter or not, that the elderly woman could run that fast. “How do you even know he’s going back to the house?” Elain called out.

  Lacey pointed at the trail in front of them where fresh paw prints crossed over their trail coming out. “Rained last night. That’s all us right there.”

  “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

  “Following my instincts, Elain.”

  Elain tried to send her mind out, to see if she could sense what was going on with the dog that was apparently more than a dog, but she couldn’t pick up anything.

  Okay, I guess I should make figuring out what the hell his deal is a priority.

  But when they reached the house, there was no sign of Jasper. And when they circled around to the front of the house, Elain immediately spotted something out of place.

  “Uh, where’s the minivan?”

  They rushed inside. Elain’s heart pounded when she didn’t see her mom. “Mom?”

  Lacey and Elain split up, Elain heading to the guest room first, her stomach rolling in a really bad, bad way as she realized all four babies were missing.

  “Carla?” Lacey called out from the other bedroom.

  “Mom!” Elain screamed. “Where are you?”

  The two women met back in the hallway, staring at each other as they heard something downstairs. As one, they both turned and raced for the basement door off the kitchen.