Henry, Blackwell, and Win were waiting in the stillness of the dawn. They stood spread out as far as three people could possibly be in the small treed area around the Brave.
Henry was leaning against the trunk of an apple tree, his hat low on his bowed head. I thought he might be sleeping, but he uncrossed his arms and shifted upright as I stepped down out of the Brave.
Win stood with her back to the RV, watching the sunrise. Swathed in her cloak, she was a long sliver of black against the deepening pink sky.
Blackwell was watching Win, but he turned his dark, expectant gaze on me as I approached them all.
“Ember?” I asked.
“She got the wards activated on the main house, then needed sleep,” Henry said. “Does she … will she need to see the sketches?”
I nodded. The marshal looked pained.
“The witch is inconsequential,” Win said coolly, not turning to face us.
“She appears in the new vision,” I said, not sure why I felt the need to defend Ember.
“Alive?” The deep-seated mockery underlying my grandmother’s question was more than obvious.
“With your pin in her hand,” I said caustically. “You know, the magical artifact you wear everywhere.”
My grandmother spun toward me. Her eyes narrowed, but as if she was intent on ascertaining the truth of my assertion rather than being overly surprised.
Blackwell chuckled.
Win glared at him.
He shut up.
“I get that you have questions,” I said, “about the demon that attacked us tonight … last night … whatever. I’m not sure I have any answers. Other than I think we need to leave here.”
“And possibly draw the demon with us?” Beau asked quietly from behind me. He was leaning back beside the open door of the Brave. “To somewhere more difficult to defend? Somewhere where more innocent lives could be affected? Or what if it doesn’t follow? And slaughters the Thompsons and all the neighbors while we’re running away with our tails tucked?”
“There’s obviously no simple solution,” I said. “But …” I stumbled to articulate my thoughts clearly. I was just so tired. I certainly didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of me, but running seemed like the smartest thing to do. We should have run with Ettie. “The vision appears strongly linked to a specific location —”
“Even more reason to hunker down and face it,” Beau said.
“There are too many … innocents here already,” I said, stumbling over including the Thompsons in my concern for some reason. Being around Win made me want to be more guarded than I normally was. And I was already more guarded than was probably healthy.
Win narrowed her eyes in Beau’s direction. “You question the oracle’s assessment, shifter?”
Beau lifted his chin and met her gaze, but he didn’t answer her. He didn’t need to. His message was loud and clear. Her opinion didn’t matter.
“I’m not sure saying ‘the demon that attacked us’ is the correct turn of phrase.” Henry slipped into his poised, collected, professional mode as he casually stepped directly into the path between Win and Beau.
I hadn’t even noticed that they were physically facing off against each other. But then, I was seriously drained.
“I agree,” Blackwell said.
Henry shifted his hat higher up on his head, then nodded at the other sorcerer. “It seemed more of a game.”
“How so?” I asked.
“It snatched Leanne, Eddie, then Ember,” Blackwell said. “Placed each of them down, unconscious, in opposite corners of the property. But it didn’t cross the fences into the neighbors’ properties, or onto the road.”
“Grabbed them and carried them?” I asked. “It’s strong enough to hold a shifter for an extended period of time? Leanne didn’t look hurt.”
“No,” Blackwell said grimly. “As best as Ember could discern, it was moving through dimensions.”
I pressed the heels of my hands to my temples, attempting to massage the tender spots and my growing headache away.
“Must we do this now?” my grandmother snapped.
“Would you rather the oracle be uninformed, Win?” Blackwell said stiffly. “How will she aid us without all the knowledge we can give her?”
Win frowned at the sorcerer. Even I could pick up that he wasn’t just talking about the demon and the mind-boggling idea of moving through dimensions.
“Demons come from other planes of existence?” Beau asked. So apparently, I wasn’t the only one in the dark about everything.
Henry shrugged. “It’s the prevalent theory.”
“With the other being that they’re from hell?” I asked. “Then why isn’t the world flooded with them?”
“They need an invitation,” Henry said grimly. “Usually in the form of a sacrifice. Human sacrifice.”
“Right.” I’d seen demons before in my mind’s eye. I just hadn’t seen the process by which they appeared.
“It’s unusual,” Blackwell murmured, as if he was thinking off the top of his head.
It was a weird attempt at a fake out, because everyone standing in the clearing knew the sorcerer never opened his mouth unless he’d thought through every aspect of what he was going to say. “This demon appears to come and go almost at will.”
“Not via separate summonings?” Henry asked.
“How else would it snatch the shifters and the witch, then move them through time and space without effort?”
The sky was brightening, making me uncomfortably aware that I’d left my sunglasses in the Brave. My head was really starting to hurt.
“It takes a powerful magic wielder to tie a demon to this plane,” Henry said. “I’ve only heard of it in theory, not in practice. Some would say it takes the darkest of souls to perform such a feat.”
Blackwell smirked at the implication laced through Henry’s words. “Why would anyone here want to hurt anyone else?”
“To get to Rochelle …”
“Blackwell dies,” I blurted out. “You all die. Why would any one of you call a demon, then die at its hands?”
Blackwell and Win looked equally disconcerted in response to my outburst, but Henry didn’t flinch. Cowboys were great at playing chicken, apparently. Either that or Beau had already told the marshal about his possible demise.
I glanced back at Beau. He attempted a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. We were all drained.
I turned back to the others. “I’ll get you the sketches, then I need to sleep. But we should be gone before nightfall. If we want to thwart the vision, we have to change something major. We need to split up and leave.”
“It’ll be more difficult to defend ourselves while we’re running,” Beau said.
I whirled around to glare at him, not sure why he was being so stubborn and insistent. “Is that why you’re always telling me to run?”
“Yes, Rochelle,” he said wearily. “I want you defenseless. Also pregnant and barefoot in the fucking kitchen.”
Magic exploded against his chest. It shoved him back against the Brave, which swayed underneath this unintentional assault as Beau curled forward, stifling a scream.
I ran toward him, grabbing his arm. Every muscle in his body was clenched.
“Kai Win, no,” Blackwell hissed.
I looked behind me. My grandmother held another starburst of darkly colored magic in the palm of her right hand.
“How dare he,” Win said snottily. “How dare he speak to her that way.”
“They’re mates,” Henry said. “They have conversations. Sarcasm is prevalent among the younger generation.”
Beau straightened with a groan as I pushed him toward the door of the Brave. A gesture that would have been futile if he hadn’t already wanted to move.
I felt shocky. I was shaking. A numbness was threatening to shut down my limbs. I wasn’t sure how to react to Win’s aggressiveness, to her defense of me, to her hurting Beau.
I just desperately wanted to get away from it all. Quickly. Before Beau retaliated.
Before the vision came to pass.
“I’ll get the sketchbooks,” I mumbled. “Then we should all sleep.”
“Yes,” Henry said reasonably. “We can all take a few hours’ respite.”
The marshal was openly twirling his golden handcuffs, magic glinting from them. Win kept her gray gaze locked to me, though, not sparing him or the cuffs a glance.
Blackwell’s back was to me, facing Win with one leg in front of her. Physically blocking her from attacking Beau again, perhaps. Though his hands were spread open at his sides in a gesture of what looked like surrender.
I had felt so in control while I was sketching, but now everything was muddy and unclear. Human intervention made everything uncertain. I turned my back on the drama in the clearing and climbed into my haven.
I made a beeline for the sketchbooks on the dinette. I wanted the future out of my hands, just for a couple of hours of sleep. Then I could convince Beau that we needed to leave … all of us.
“What about the neighbors?” Beau asked quietly from behind me. “What about everything we’ve helped build here?”
I picked up the sketchbooks, cradling them against my chest. I turned back slowly.
Beau filled the space between me and the door. He had one arm up and his hand spread across the bathroom door. His head was bowed as if he were suddenly too weary to lift it. His other hand was pressed against his chest where Win had hit him with her magic. He was hurt. He’d heal, but … I wasn’t sure I was processing everything quickly enough. Something was getting lost between us. Shouldn’t I be trying to soothe him? Shouldn’t I be rallying against my grandmother’s actions?
Except he was questioning me. He was going to question me all the way to his death.
“Why would a demon go after the neighbors?” I asked, careful to soften my words as I said them. We were both tired. Tired people fought fights that often got way out of control.
“If it’s drawn to you but can’t find you, won’t it go looking?” Beau raised his head to meet my gaze. He looked … concerned … determined … and something else I couldn’t place.
“What aren’t you saying? Up to this point, you’ve always wanted to not get involved. To not be connected to the pack, or even to other Adepts.”
“That’s politics. This is life and death. Isn’t it?”
“If we leave, maybe we draw the demon away.”
“But that’s not what you’ve seen, Rochelle.” Beau swallowed apprehensively. “Plus …”
“Plus what?”
“There’s your mother’s drawing.”
A hollow pit opened up in my stomach. “Just say it, Beau. Don’t try to lead me somewhere in order to convince me.”
“If the demon is yours —”
“You think I’m sacrificing humans and summoning demons? When? In my sleep?”
“No. I —”
“You just heard Blackwell and Henry say that was the only way it works.”
“Henry said ‘usually.’ ” Beau’s tone was belligerent. “He’s heard of it in theory.”
“And you know better? With no experience?”
“You do?”
“I know what’s in my head!”
“Rochelle, this is getting out of control. I’m talking about responsibility.”
“Like me being somehow responsible for the demon.”
Beau scrubbed his hand across his face. I clutched the sketchbooks tighter against my chest.
“I can’t fight it on my own,” he whispered. “If it’s coming for you, I can’t fight it off.”
“You’re not alone, Beau.”
“I mean we need to stick with the others, if they’ll stick with us. This demon tore through me when it wasn’t even really trying … and took Leanne and Eddie without a fight.”
“If it wanted to hurt me, I’d be dead.”
“Or it’s playing with you.”
I stared at him, willing my heart to stop racing. We were just having a conversation. The world wasn’t ending. I just needed to calm down and articulate my thoughts. I tried to bring us back to the point. Leaving was still the best choice. If we’d kidnapped Ettie right after my first vision of her death, she might still be alive. Wouldn’t she? But we hadn’t because Beau had a terrible relationship with his family, and he needed something from them that they couldn’t provide. Then Ettie had died. And I’d pretty much murdered Cy.
“We’ve got nothing to prove to anyone, Beau.”
“Prove?”
“We don’t owe anyone anything. No matter what our pasts are.”
“Is that what you think this is? Me trying to prove that I’m a good person? That staying … is what? A punishment for my sins? Redemption?” He laughed harshly.
I flinched. I didn’t ever want to hear a sound that nasty emanate from him ever again.
“I’m saying you feel that way. Not that I think —”
“It’s fundamentally the right thing to do, Rochelle. Cutting and running isn’t.”
Anger flushed my face. For a moment, I struggled to contain it. To measure my words carefully, to make sure I was expressing myself properly. “I’m not suggesting we sacrifice anyone. We draw the demon away —”
“Maybe. Or maybe it returns to eat everyone we’ve left behind.”
“I’m telling you I see you dead!” I screamed, letting the anger have its way.
“I’m telling you I fight, no matter the odds.”
“If Ettie had listened to me …” I said, rashly and without thinking. “If we’d moved quicker. If we’d kept our emotions in check, then we wouldn’t be holding our breath around the pack, Henry wouldn’t have been bitten, and your sister wouldn’t be dead.”
As my final words died between us, Beau’s face blanked of all emotion. Then he turned and punched through the door to the bathroom. The flimsy paneling crumpled underneath his fist. He yanked it back, ripping the door from its hinges.
Neither of us moved then. We just stared at the destruction he’d wrought in my home.
A chill of some new emotion I couldn’t identify washed all my anger away, leaving me frozen and speechless. My arms went numb. My sketchbooks tumbled out of my grasp.
“Rochelle,” Beau whispered.
I raised my gaze from the crumpled door still held in his hand. Pain was etched across his beautiful face, but I couldn’t feel anything. It was as if he’d ripped out my heart … as if he was holding it before me. The flesh growing cold as I slowly died from the loss of it … from the loss of everything.
“Get out,” I murmured. Pain sliced through my jaw. My body was reacting adversely even as my mind lagged behind.
Beau awkwardly propped the door against the now-open bathroom. He reached for me.
“Get out,” I said.
His arms fell to his sides. He didn’t move closer. He didn’t cross through the chasm of ice and pain growing between us. “I’ll fix it. Rochelle, please —”
“Get out!” I screamed. I couldn’t hear him. Not right now. I couldn’t think, couldn’t process. “Go, Beau.”
He left.
He turned, opening the door of the Brave and climbing down the stairs. The RV shifted with his weight. He carefully latched the door behind him.
He left.
And he took my heart with him. A hunk of useless, bloody flesh torn asunder from my frozen chest. I couldn’t even feel the imagined wound. Just the numbness it left behind. A terrible, gaping nothingness from the deep pit of my soul.
I’d told him to go.
But he shouldn’t have left.
I stared at the crumpled bathroom door. I forced myself to move to it, stepping over my scattered sketchbooks to touch the shattered piece of my home, my heart.
Was I going to place this between us? Was I going to hold it against Beau? Was the Brave worth more to me than he was? Wasn’t it just an object, something I owned and maintained? Wasn’t my life really with Beau?
Was I going to walk away from everything we’d built, everything we’d found together because of a fight between two people who were too tired to be talking, let alone making decisions?
I dropped my hand, moving to exit the Brave before I’d even come to any sort of conclusion.
I couldn’t live without my heart.
I wrenched the door open, suddenly blind with tears I hadn’t felt streaming down my face.
I stumbled on the steps. I fell.
And Beau was there to catch me.
He’d been waiting.
He hadn’t really left at all.
I clung to him, pressing my wet face to his warm neck, stopping up the sobs that were threatening to choke me.
“I’ll fix it,” Beau whispered urgently.
I nodded, not trusting myself to open my mouth without bawling like a lovelorn idiot.
Then he cleared his throat. “We aren’t alone.”
I raised my head, hastily wiping my runny nose on my sleeve. Win and Blackwell were standing ten feet apart among the apple trees. Henry was leaning against the same tree as before. They were still waiting to see the sketches.
I just wanted to take Beau to bed.
And while we made love, the demon might just tear the others apart, spreading its malignant magic across the property. Murdering all of them, one at a time.
So. Not quite the right time for sexual bonding.
I loosened my hold on Beau’s neck, locking my gaze to his red-rimmed aquamarine eyes. I cast my voice out across the clearing as I spoke. “Beau and I are staying. Blackwell … Win … are you … Do you know how to vanquish the demon?”
“In theory,” Blackwell said.
“Yes,” my grandmother said.
Henry opened his mouth, but I cut off whatever he was going to say. “But the Thompsons have to go. And Ember. Henry, you’ll take care of them?”
The marshal snapped his mouth closed, shaking his head. “The witch isn’t going to like it.”
“But the twins will be safe with you and their parents,” I said. Forcing the well of emotion threatening to choke me away, I gripped Beau’s hand harder. “They’re not in the vision now. Let’s keep it that way?”
A pained look flashed across Beau’s face. Then he nodded stiffly.
I wiped my cheeks, then turned back to the RV to grab my sketchbooks.
I stopped on the top step, reaching back for Beau. “I trust you,” I said. “With my home and my heart. I trust you to make the right decisions for us. But I won’t obey you unquestioningly any more than you will me.”
Beau laughed sadly. “Fair enough.”
I looked past Beau’s head toward Win. “And, Grandmother,” I said, deliberately evoking our familial tie, “I’d like you to lift the geas from Blackwell. The sorcerer has things he needs to tell me.”
Blackwell went very still.
A pleased smile spread across Win’s face. “For that, we must negotiate.”
“No,” Blackwell said, sounding as if it pained him to speak. “The geas cannot be lifted with simple words. Kai Win will take it to her grave.”
“And perhaps beyond,” my grandmother said agreeably. “But the terms can certainly be modified if it is mutually beneficial.”
Blackwell’s face had darkened in anger, which he turned in my direction. “I do not need rescuing, Rochelle.”
I snorted. “I’m not the rescuing sort.” I lifted my chin and addressed Win. “We’ll talk after I sleep.”
“Being well-rested is always beneficial.”
I slipped inside the Brave, gathering the sketchbooks from where they’d fallen on the well-worn and well-loved burnt-orange carpet. I passed them through the door for Beau to hand off. Then I crawled into bed, doing nothing more than kicking off my sneakers.
Beau locked the door. Pulling the curtains as he crossed through to the back of the RV, he joined me.
He curled around me, pressing his lips to the back of my neck. “I hate it when you deal with devils,” he whispered, referencing my impending conversation with Win about Blackwell.
“Yeah,” I answered drowsily. “Too bad I’m getting good at it.”
Then I succumbed to a dreamless sleep.
I might not have deserved it. But I needed it if I was going to have any chance of navigating the myriad of clues that had been so carefully laid before me.
∞
Tess and Gary were standing on the back patio of the main house, sipping hand-pressed apple juice and chatting with Leanne. Beau and I had just wandered past Eddie packing suitcases into the minivan in the carport on the side of the house.
I had completely forgotten that the two of them were driving up from Richmond for the unofficial opening of the B&B.
I tripped, despite there being nothing in front of me to trip over. Beau caught me by the elbow and I righted myself, fully prepared to retreat and talk through our options before —
“Rochelle!” Tess cried. She set her juice down on the top of the patio railing and made a beeline for the back stairs.
“There they are!” Gary crowed proudly, as if Beau and I had just done something much more magnificent than simply wandering up the driveway.
Leanne slipped back into the house, giving us some space to greet our guests.
Even though all my instincts were telling me that just setting foot on the property might put them in terrible danger, I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit relieved to see them.
“Just because they aren’t magically inclined doesn’t mean the demon couldn’t rip them to shreds.” My hushed whisper to Beau was made through a pasted-on smile. “Right?”
“Yeah. We should confirm that with Henry,” he whispered back, throwing his arms open to intercept the hug that was coming my way from Tess. “But they definitely need to be gone before nightfall.”
He effortlessly scooped Tess off her wedge-sandaled feet and spun her around. She giggled with delight. She’d added copper highlights to her mixture of gray and blond ringlets, and was wearing a long, light cotton shirt over beige linen pants.
Gary beamed down at us from the patio. He was lightly tanned and had lost a bit of weight, probably from putting in a veggie garden in the backyard of their home in Richmond, just south of Vancouver.
Beau placed Tess on her feet in front of me, and I stepped toward her for a hug. Surprise flickered across her face — I wasn’t exactly known for my love of physical contact — then she enveloped me in the scent of tuberose and sandalwood. She stood only three or four inches taller than me, but in that moment, she felt like a shelter in a storm.
I pulled away before I got too mushy.
Beau had already made it up to the patio and was clapping Gary on the back.
Tess brushed her fingers against my shoulder. “You look tired.”
I nodded. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
She clucked her tongue lightly but didn’t pursue the subject as we joined Gary and Beau. I offered her husband another rare hug.
“You missed lunch,” Gary said, patting my back. “I brought Beau some beer from a local microbrewery, Russell’s. Have you heard of it?”
“No, sir,” Beau answered cordially.
I slid onto one of the wooden benches beside the bare trestle table. Then the conversation died.
“What is it?” Tess whispered. “What’s happened?”
Beau scrubbed his hand across his head. He opened his mouth, then closed it, looking at me.
“My grandmother showed up.” The words were out of my mouth even before I’d decided what to say.
“Oh,” Tess said softly. She blinked up at her now-frowning husband, then folded herself onto the bench. Not touching me, but available. “Is that … good?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I can imagine,” Gary said. He sounded angry. But not at me.
“It’s okay,” I said lamely. “She didn’t know about me …”
And then I was bawling.
Just like that.
My face crumpled as I silently wept. And it had nothing to do with the damn demon or with our impending doom. It had everything to do with my lost childhood.
“Gary,” Tess said, “we’ll need some water, please. And Beau, Kleenex.”
Gary and Beau swiftly fled the patio for the main house, happily tasked with things they could actually accomplish when faced with a bawling woman.
I swiped my hands across my cheeks and got myself under control. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“I do,” Tess said. “And it’s good to let it out sometimes.”
“Only if you can rein it back in.”
She laughed softly.
“Did you and Gary try to have kids?” I completely blurted out the deeply personal question, but I’d been working up to asking for months and hadn’t figured out how to be less abrupt.
Tess nodded, looking off toward the willow trees that shaded the patio to our right. “We did. Both our own and adopting.”
I didn’t ask what happened, because it was already obvious it hadn’t worked out.
“I don’t like her,” I blurted.
Tess laughed again. “I think the ‘one big happy family’ thing is a myth. Or at least, a minority view.”
“You and Gary can’t stay.”
“Because your grandmother is here? Is that why Leanne and Eddie are leaving with the kids? They said they were taking a quick trip to see family, but people aren’t usually so tense until after they get back from days in the car with kids.”
I snorted, then had to sniff back some snot to keep it from dripping down my face. “No. Something bad is going to happen. We have to stay to face it. But you need to go.”
I removed my sunglasses and met Tess’s gaze intently. I couldn’t tell her about magic. I couldn’t explain further. I wasn’t sure what would happen if she figured it out, but I knew that the Adept world was exceedingly careful about living parallel lives to the nonmagical people that so vastly outnumbered them.
Tess nodded, glancing up to accept a glass of water from Gary as he appeared through the sliding glass door. She pressed the glass into my hands. “We aren’t going.”
“But —”
“No. We’ve driven all the way up here to see you, but we won’t crowd. We can even go to a hotel. So we’re near, but not on top of you.”
Beau wandered out of the house, carrying a roll of toilet paper. “I couldn’t find Kleenex,” he said, utterly and amusedly frustrated by that particular failure.
“Tess and Gary won’t go,” I said, reaching for the roll.
“No,” Gary grumbled, crossing his arms over his belly. “They won’t. Beau knows.”
I wrapped a few layers of toilet paper around my right hand, then wiped my nose while trying to communicate my distress silently to Beau.
“We’ll skedaddle for the evening,” Gary said. “Let you be with your gran. Maybe go on a date, eh, Tess? That winery tour starts at three thirty, doesn’t it?”
“That would be lovely. It ends with dinner in Kelowna, so we’ll stay overnight.” Tess beamed up at her husband. “I’ll call for tickets.” She fished her phone out of her bamboo purse.
They had absolutely no idea what we were talking about. Or what kind of danger they might be in. But they would stay … for us.
I looked at Beau helplessly. He shook his head, shrugged, then clapped his hand on Gary’s shoulder. “Let me show you one of the cottages I’ve been working on before you guys take off.” They headed down the stairs, pausing on the path between the house and the garden.
Tess smiled at me. Her phone was pressed to her ear. “Should we meet her? Your grandmother?”
“Her name’s Kai Win,” I said. “Yeah, probably. Maybe tomorrow. She’s … different. And there’s other stuff, like property and money that my mom left me. An estate I had no idea about until this week.”
“All right. We can talk about whatever you want.” She turned her attention to the phone. “Oh, yes, hello. I was wondering if you have any room in this afternoon’s tour?”
The sun caught on the tiny diamond solitaire of her engagement ring. The gold of its band and the wedding band nestled next to it had deepened in color from years of wear.
I glanced over at Beau. He and Gary were standing a few feet in front of Eddie’s kitchen garden, chatting and waiting on us. He looked over at me.
I reached up and tapped my heart, three times doubled, mimicking a heartbeat.
Beau smiled, joy and sadness intermingled in his expression. Then he tapped his chest in response.
∞
We didn’t lay eyes on anyone else for a couple of hours. It felt as though we’d been given a tiny reprieve.
But after showing Gary and Tess the property, and where we were currently parking the Brave, I felt as if I was hiding rather than moving forward.
And I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t a coward.
To that end, I texted the picture of my mother’s drawing, which I’d already sent to Blackwell, to Henry. It was attached to a note asking him to look at it while he was examining the other sketches. A note that told him what I thought the drawing meant.
Doing so made me feel exposed and vulnerable. Though it made sense that being surrounded by my chosen family — whether or not we’d formally acknowledged that bond — was the best time to do things that scared me.
I wasn’t sure how Henry was going to look at me after he’d seen my mother’s glimpse into my possible future. But I also knew we weren’t getting through the next couple of days without everyone contributing whatever knowledge they had to the problem.
Plus, I was pretty sure that Henry was going to dispute my wanting him to leave, and he needed to know all the ramifications of staying.
Namely, that the demon might somehow be here for me. And that it was willing to slaughter everyone else to get to me.