Chapter 28

The Balmorrigan brought darkness with them when they thundered down our street. Not a true darkness—they weren’t powerful enough to bring night on early—but a wind ill and dank that pushed clouds over the late-day sun. With the lowering gloom came a sense of dread, or at least a hint of it. It’s a lot more difficult to scare someone when they’re anticipating you, but the riders had no idea we’d been forewarned, so they came in hot.

Shock and awe.

Not even close.

I’m not saying we took the threat less than seriously, just that we were as ready as we could be, and we had the home-turf advantage. It would have been a slow-motion, wind-in-the-hair moment if we’d actually stepped down off the porch. Honestly, what were they thinking going up against four elemental faeries anyway?

Vaeta and Evian had already thrown up a fog barrier to keep the neighbors from seeing and hearing too much.

As if on parade, the horses passed by the house, reared, then whirled to speed back in our direction. Evian’s face hardly twitched; her eyebrow raised only slightly as she called water from the snow to form an ice slick on the street.

Steam plumed from overheated nostrils. Later, Kin swore he saw a tiny flicker of flame shoot out as well, but we all saw sparks as metal shoes made short work of Evian’s efforts. Round one to the twins.

A guttural shout of triumph went up from the one carrying the scythe. He swung a graceful leg over the pommel and slid gently to the ground just as Soleil went into action. I’d seen her perform a variation of this trick before, but not when her efforts were directed at an outside threat. This time, she added a little oomph.

Heat blew all our hair back on the way by to concentrate on the pavement at the end of the walkway. Snow melted with a crackle and hiss, turning a three-foot diameter spot just ahead of the cowled figure to a puddle of melted tar. Before you could say boo, Vaeta called the wind, and if he’d had time to stop before, she gave him no choice. A strong gust pushed him forward until he was knee-deep in the sticky muck. As an added bonus, the breeze pushed the hood away to reveal a face I recognized.

Mr. Tall Dark and Creepy from outside Driven glared back at me. “You’ll die screaming.”

“Nice comeback. Want to try for a new one? I’ve heard that one before.”

The look on his face was priceless. Sort of don’t you know who I am meets how the hell did I get here. The real question was what to do with him.

I’m not a murderer and even if I was, the man was half witch. Killing him would turn me to stone. Or maybe only half stone, but either way, I wasn’t taking that chance. The faeries would dance over the line, I was sure, and not lose a minute’s sleep.

While I took half a second to contemplate our next move, the other twin forced the issue. Limber as a gymnast, she flipped off her horse, somersaulted through the air, grabbed the scythe on her way by, and fixed her gaze on the weakest prey. Fritzroy.

Not on my watch. One of the things Delta had taught me about physical combat was that the element of surprise only goes so far, but used properly can be a useful distraction. And sometimes, like this one, you hit pay dirt.

This was my fight, not the faeries, not Delta’s, mine—and maybe Garrick and Fritz’s—but mostly mine, so I reached for my two natural weapons, the bow and my magic. I’d had a theory about using the bow in a fight—that the instrument of love couldn’t be used to cause physical injury. After all, the golden arrows struck hearts bloodlessly.

The theory turned out to be only partially correct. Stalking Diana through the streets of Port Harbor proved it. The first time I’d reached into my quiver, out of reflex more than intention, only one arrow came to hand: my arrow, the one I’d pulled from my own body to free Clara from her stone prison. Made from my flesh and bone and a tip of living gold, it was the only arrow to bend to my intent.

On that day, I drew it against the Balmorrigan, infused it with my will, encased it in my new brand of goddess-enhanced pink witchfire, and let it fly. Straight and true, it winged toward my target while I cocked a hip and watched.

Like I said, I’m no killer, but Delta also taught me the best way to beat an enemy is to take out the source of its power. My arrow pierced lantern glass with a tone like a wet finger traveling around the rim of a crystal goblet. A tone so pure it vibrated against my skull and threatened to close my throat.

The lantern went off like a hand grenade, only instead of shrapnel, it spewed Fate Weaver souls to light up the artificial darkness. The Balmorrigan shrieked her fury as Delta, sword drawn, flashed past me to engage in hand to hand combat with the female half of the minion twins while the male struggled against the tar holding him captive.

Watching Delta fight was not too different from watching a good ballet. She leapt and pivoted with grace, her sword matching the scythe blow for blow. She had the Balmorrigan in fierceness, though not in weight or size, and still, she backed the cowled figure into the middle of the street and right up against her brother.

Delta’s sword arced down to score a bloody line along the Balmorrigan’s upper arm then lifted to flip the hood back.

“Let’s see that pretty face. I like to know who I’m fighting with.” Turns out, both the twins had been at Driven that night, because this was the luminous woman I’d noticed on the dance floor.

Pure fury twisted the beautiful face into something ugly, and I couldn’t help myself. “You keep making that face, it’s going to freeze like that.” Sometimes my mouth engages ahead of my brain and I hear the comment right along with everyone else. This was one of those times, and it goaded the Balmorrigan into action.

Lifting the scythe, she brought it down, and so quickly it blurred through my vision. I thought Delta was done for, but the Fiach executed a cartwheeling flip that took her out of harm’s way. The blade sliced through cooling pavement and set her brother free.

Now, Delta stood alone with the rest of us too far away to help.

Except Delta wasn’t the quarry, and since they were clearly outnumbered, the twins chose to retreat. I moved to follow.

“No, let them go.” Delta flung out an arm to hold me back. I pushed against her, but it was like trying to shove a piece of grass through a rock.

“Have you lost your mind? They’re getting away.” Maybe stating the obvious would get through to her.

Instead, she just grinned at me, so I struggled harder. “What is wrong with you? Are you on their side or something?”

She shoved me back a few steps and her voice whipped out hard enough I knew I’d struck a nerve. “Don’t be an idiot.” On any other day, I’d have had sense enough to shut up. Today I didn’t even try.

“What am I supposed to think? We had them. It was almost over, and then you kicked over the cauldron. On purpose is what it looked like. Hence the question: what is wrong with you?”

It occurred to me that I’d never asked Delta anything about her personal life—like if she was married or if she had kids. Because if she did, the look she gave me then would have worked a treat to get them to stop acting out. Nearly made me think twice about my tone. Nearly.

Gritted teeth and a growl did it, though. “They’re not working alone. You know that, right?”

Light dawned. “You gave them half a butt whooping so they’d run and we could follow them back to wherever it is Diana’s hiding out and put the hurt on them all at the same time?”

“Look who’s finally thinking.”

That triggered round two of stating the obvious and I didn’t even try to resist. “They’re gone, so how’s that working out for you?”

I got a dirty look and a snort out of her as she waved around a small piece of paper rolled up to about the size of my finger, then yanked a necklace out of her cleavage and showed it to me. Another living gold compass, but hers carried the winking fire of a flawless diamond and wasn’t marked with the points of direction.

“What’s that?” I tried not to ask and I tried not to have a Harry Potter Defense Against the Dark Arts moment.

“My next job and a tracker, what else?” Delta ran a finger over the bloody sword tip and then the leading edge of the tracker, a thing she’d done so many times the spot was burnished to a shine. Her touch activated a hidden mechanism—oh, who was I kidding, it was magic—and fire lit the diamond from within.

She unrolled the paper to show me a single word: Balmorrigan.

“Looks like I’m officially on the clock.”

 

Fate Weavers, even me who finally got her marbles back in the case, are still the sum of their parts. Witch was one of my parts, and I was a damn good one even if I hadn’t learned every spell Salem wanted me to learn.

My mother was better.

“Let’s go.” She took my arm. “My supplies are back at the apartment, but we can whip up few things here.”

If it hadn’t been for her, I’d have taken off after the Balmorrigan with nothing more than the clothes on my back and a new wand I wasn’t sure how to use. With no plan, armed only with the knowledge that I was the only person alive who could stop Diana Diamond. It didn’t matter if I was the chosen one not. I was here, she’d chosen the time, and that meant the job fell to me.

As with everything my father handed down, it would have been nice if I had a little more information.

“What am I supposed to do?” I’d followed my mom to the sanctum where she, Gran, and Aunt Mag were already knee deep in spell crafting and directed the question to Garrick because he was the closest. “You know the lore or whatever, tell me everything, and make it snappy.”

“Why, Lexi, you carry the Bow of Destiny. I should think it’s obvious what you need to do. We will, of course, accompany you on this most noble of quests.” Who did he think he was? Lancelot?

He might think the bow was the answer, but he’d never released the bowstring and launched an arrow at a heart not ready for its match. All that ever did was make things worse.

“So there’s no strategy?” No advice from dear old Dad? Even second hand, it might have helped. But no, that would be too easy. Excuse me for being bitter, but I’d had just about enough of things dumped in my lap for one year.

Fritzroy couldn’t hide his relief when I declined the offer of help, but Garrick seemed a little miffed to be dismissed, and there wasn’t time to smooth things over. I had plenty of other ticked-off people to deal with. Salem was alternately not speaking to me because he thought I was going to deprive him of his last life, and threatening to go tell Kin what was going on so he could talk some sense into me. Terra was on his side. Soleil wanted to come along, and Vaeta wasn’t speaking to anyone for some reason.

On the witch side of the family, Gran seemed resigned, but Balefire sparks shot out the tip of Aunt Mag’s finger when she shook it under Delta’s nose. “You just remember that with age comes experience.”

Respectfully, Delta stood her ground. “Which is why we need you here to watch over the house in case the Balmorrigan don’t lead us to Diana and she shows up here.”

From the look on her face, Aunt Mag knew she’d just been handed a lollipop and sent out of the room to let the big kids play. I would probably pay for that later.

In the end, only my mother and Delta would accompany me in tracking the twins back to wherever Diana was holed up. If they even returned to her at all. We could spend a day tracking the wild goose back to its nest and still not find the golden egg.

That wouldn’t be my luck, though. If I was chasing the wild goose, it would turn out to be some denizen of the Faelands that had sharp teeth, farted fire, and flew around dropping poison eggs everywhere. You laugh, but you haven’t seen the things I’ve seen.