There was nothing I wanted more than to retreat into the veil, to fly on drach wings away, far away, from the pain I’d just endured. Though, as I returned to the quiet of the rubbery membrane between the planes, my heart settled, soul softening.
I’d done what I had to do. And I would pay the price for my actions. My kids were safe and Quaid was happy. I couldn’t begrudge them that. Besides, falling apart now would serve no purpose.
There would be time for beating myself black and blue later. I had music to face and more people to track down so they could yell at me.
Her office was exactly as I remembered it, the faint scent of pine cleaner, the warmth of the wood, her massive desk and leather-padded chair. I stood in a sunbeam heavy with dust motes, absorbing the heat while I just breathed and prepared myself for what was about to come.
And opened myself to her power, letting her know I was there.
Mom burst through her office door from the sitting room, blue eyes full of tears. She lunged for me but I was faster, backing away, one hand up, keeping our distance.
I couldn’t let her hug me. I’d fall utterly and completely apart after all.
“Gabriel is safe,” I said, pushing the drach in me forward, the song of my people echoing in my voice. Mom’s hand covered her mouth, shaking as she drew in my appearance, absorbed the sound. The truth.
“Syd,” she whispered. “What have you done?”
Anger snapped and sizzled. She always knew how to push my buttons, even now, damn her.
“What needed to be done,” I snapped, the drach song falling away, leaving only me behind. “What all of you freaking pushed me to do, damn it, Mom. You wanted me to save you, right? What the hell is it you think I’m doing?” I was shaking now, with rage, with loss, and she just stood there and listened, watched, waited. “I gave up EVERYTHING. To save all of YOU.” I half turned from her. “So don’t you dare judge me.”
“Sweetheart,” she said. “I never wanted this for you.”
I almost laughed in her face. Held it together long enough not to. Ignored what just passed between us. “Gabriel is back with Quaid and Payten.” I bit off her name like it left a nasty taste in my mouth.
Mom said something, garbled with sorrow. “I’m sorry,” she finally said.
I shrugged, stared out the window. I couldn’t show Quaid my hurt, but Mom? Mom and I had a lifetime of pain between us. It seemed easier—and harder—to let her see just how much it cut me. Just how deep.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
Mom nodded, the gesture short and small, caught out of the corner of my eye. She wavered, as though considering trying to come to my side again. And didn’t.
I almost wept, wishing she had.
“We’ve been so worried.” She paused, swallowed. “That wasn’t a judgment.”
Damn her.
“Are you… are you back?” Mom sounded so young, so frail and afraid. Enough so I turned to face her again, surprised to find her hugging herself, bottom lip turning white from the pressure of her teeth against it.
“Nothing’s changed,” I said.
Liar, my vampire whispered.
Oh, shut up, I snapped back.
Mom leaned against her desk, brushing one hand over her face. Deep circles darkened the skin under her eyes, the bones and tendons of her fingers showing in sharp lines under her skin. So did her cheekbones, her clavicle. Only then did I realize how much weight Mom had lost, how pale and sick she seemed. My magic reached for her, found her in perfect health if weary.
I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but could guess. Though, it wasn’t like her to fall apart, not when others needed her. Not over me.
Was it?
“We’re a mess, Syd,” she said, sighing out a shaking breath as she sagged onto the desk top. “Our North American Council is a disaster, the integration of all covens into the voting body creating far more issues than it solved. I almost have things in hand, it seems, and then we are hit with problems from outside our borders.” I’d never heard Mom whine before, and this wasn’t exactly the case, either. But it wasn’t like her to be weak. All the more reason I had to leave.
Had left. And would again.
Cold, Syd, my demon sent, angry with me from the snapping of her fire.
And yet, practical and the very reason we cut everyone loose, my vampire sent.
Mom had no idea I was carrying on a conversation in my head, that the black ribbon around my wrist had tightened once again. A punishment? She was still talking.
“If the other councils would just stop trying to bully us.” She shook her head, threads of white in her long, black hair reminding me my mother wasn’t getting any younger. And, unlike me, wasn’t immortal.
“They firmly disagree with our change in format,” she said, bitterness coming out in a bark-like laugh of frustration. “And have made sure Femke and the WPC see things their way.”
I wanted to help. I wanted more than anything to cross to my mother and hug her before barreling off with my power blazing to beat the living snot out of anyone who would dare stand in her way. In the way of the progress she was fighting to make. And that included my old friend, Femke Svennson, the leader of the WPC.
Wanted to.
Couldn’t.
The door squeaked softly as someone slipped through. I caught the shock on Dad’s face as he spotted me, the sudden concern as he rushed to Mom. She allowed him to support her while he stared at me.
“It’s good to see you, cupcake,” he said. Simple, straight forward, to the point. With understanding and grief in his eyes. Of all people, he understood, didn’t he? He’d left us behind once, gave up what he loved to rule Demonicon. He had to get it.
Didn’t make the sadness on his face any easier. The blame he showed, not for me, but for himself.
“I’m sorry,” I said, in my best drach voice. “What I’m doing takes priority. You’re going to have to resolve your own issues on your own from now on.” I’d made that damned clear, hadn’t I?
Dad’s brows pulled together, hands clasping Mom to him tightening as she turned her face and pressed it into his shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said, a faint growl in his voice. “I get it, Syd.” I knew he would. “But no matter what you think, you’re doing it wrong.” He shrugged almost violently, as if trying to shed something he didn’t like from his broad shoulders. “You learned nothing from my mistakes, I take it.”
He would not do this to me.
“Like it or not,” he said, doing it anyway, “we need you.” Mom nodded into his chest. “We’re facing disaster after disaster thanks to your departure.” How was that my problem? “Most of which we’ve managed. But the witching world is falling apart, Syd. The councils, Femke, all of it.”
I didn’t want to know. But my mouth and mind had a miscommunication and I found myself speaking anyway. “What’s wrong with Femke?” The last time I’d seen her, we hadn’t had the best meeting. In fact, I’d pretty much told her to go to hell and take the rest of the world with her. She’d just come through a rough kidnapping by the Russian mafia, controlled and blocked magically by a Black Souls sorcerer I’d defeated to save her. Then betrayed by her when it came to Liander Belaisle. Who she and her precious Enforcers had allowed to escape.
Only to have them blame me for his emancipation. Leading, in part, to my six-month hiatus and total eradication of any connection to the people I loved.
Mom answered while I stewed over the past. She seemed to have regained some of her old poise, though she still looked world-weary. “She’s not herself, Syd. And hasn’t been since you left. No,” she shook her head. “Since you brought her back from Russia.”
“Something happened to her,” Dad said. “She’s been impossible to communicate with. Aggressive, power hungry, standoffish.”
That definitely didn’t sound like Femke.
“We have more immediate problems,” Dad said softly while Mom muttered something to him. Sounded like a denial. But Dad spoke up anyway. “Tallah Hensley has declared emancipation for herself and her coven, severing her territory from the North American Council.”
“That’s even possible?” I suppose, if she wanted it bad enough. But, it would leave her weak and without support.
Not that Tallah had been acting all that rationally either. Since the Brotherhood attack on our territory, and the loss of a large number of her members to the sorcerers, she’d been bitter and distant, angry. And had poached her sister, Sashenka, from my side when I was still coven leader. My former second had run back to California and abandoned me.
I didn’t want to think about her final words to me when I’d confronted her at last as to her real reason for leaving. But, the echo of the truth lingered and was the second reason I chose to leave.
I got tired of trying to support someone who has tools in place of people she cares about.
Mom spoke again, interrupting the memory.
“She’s claimed the majority of California and has started recruiting covens,” she said.
She what?
I drew a breath. Not. My. Problem.
“What are you doing about it?” Stupid mouth/brain issues.
Mom shrugged. “Nothing,” she said, making my teeth grind together. “Watching and waiting. The last thing I want is an internal war, Syd.” Defensive. Which meant she knew she was cornered and without choices.
But, she was right.
“Our only real allies are the Steam Union,” Dad said. “The vampires consolidation here in our territory is a good thing, but they are so wrapped up in trying to save themselves, they’ve been of no help.”
“And Femke has refused to allow Charlotte and the werewolves to interact with us, citing some foolish law she’s come up with that contains paranormals to the continental territories of their origin without specific permission from the Council.” Now Mom sounded angry.
As she should. And I was pretty sure my werequeen friend was probably ready to tear Femke a new one for tying her hands like that.
“Piers and the Steam Union have their own issues,” Mom said. “The continued defection of their people to the Brotherhood has placed a massive strain on them.”
I knew it was a piece of Creator making that defection possible. That somehow, whoever was using the piece was altering the foundation power of the sorcerers in the Steam Union and forcing them to become Brotherhood. But, until I found the piece and retrieved it, there was no way of reversing the effects.
That we know of, my vampire sent. We didn’t look that hard, did we?
I didn’t even bother to tell her to shut up this time.
There was more, I could see it on my mother’s face, in Dad’s angry eyes. But, I was done.
So done.
“Syd,” Mom said suddenly, as though only then remembering. “What were you doing in the Hayle crypt?”
Wrong question. No way was I going to tell them I was looking into the vampires. That could only lead to further pressure to help them. And that would lead to a whole world—quite literally—of trouble I just couldn’t deal with right now.
Instead of answering her, I tore open the veil. “Quaid is hunting Spaft and Sonja,” I said. “If you spot them in your territory, tell him. He’ll deal with them.”
Neither said a word as I left them, but they didn’t have to. The pressure of their stares and their outpouring of mixed emotions hit me between the shoulder blades like a blow as I fled.
***