A snarl curled her upper lip, and her eyes promised my death. She was blind to all but her own ambition.

  Goddess bless, I was staring at an earlier version of myself.

  She was rage and fury and scorn, desperation and insecurity and hunger, and I pitied her. She lacked the pivotal moment where past and future collided in the present to shock her into the realization of how empty the endless hunger for more had left her life. She didn’t have a Colby to act as her conscience.

  And since she had dared touch Colby, she never would experience that life-altering epiphany.

  I was a better person than I used to be, but I wouldn’t call myself good.

  Never had I been gladder not to have reached that pinnacle of decency.

  It would have been a long fall to the bottom otherwise.

  “Joke all you want.” Her blade shook with her anger. “Ambition is how I survive.”

  “Why now?” I got under her guard, almost thwacking her wrist. “What changed?”

  “You.” Delma smiled. “That’s what changed.”

  Aedan told me he was twenty-five. That math didn’t hold for him being Calixta’s grandson. And if he was too young, then their younger siblings weren’t related to Calixta. A lightbulb flashed over my head.

  “I’m the only one left.” I laughed at her rage. “The only other person alive with Calixta’s blood in me.”

  “Father was a cousin of hers,” Delma spat. “His offspring should have sufficed.”

  The skeletons at the base of the cell took on horrid new dimension. Those were relatives of hers. Ours?

  How long had she been doing this? Tithing to the forgotten queen? Hoping if she killed enough, sacrificed enough, she would be enough?

  The idea was too enormous to fit in my head without leaking out of my ears.

  The fight was draining me, physically and emotionally, but Delma wasn’t slowing down now that she had me pegged. We were at an impasse. Her dagger was only so long, and I wouldn’t risk my wand in a direct strike. I had come to rely on Clay and Asa to run interference for me, but I was on my own in a challenge.

  “You’re not the heir she wants.” I pricked her pride. “Why else pit us against each other?” I grinned for a beat. “She used you, Delma. She wants me, and she used you to get me here. She doesn’t care if you live or die. She never did.” I hit her with my black witch best, cruel and cold and heartless. “You’re. Not. Worthy.”

  A furious roar fueled with the fear and fury I was right blasted me as Delma flung her knife.

  It would have punched into my throat if I had moved a hair slower. As it was, I couldn’t hear her heart over a thundering in my ears. The blade struck the rail I had been standing next to only seconds ago, and she wasted no time lunging to retrieve her weapon.

  Delma was fast.

  Mad Delma was a blur.

  Fangs bared, she dove for the railing, for the hilt of the dagger. “I will—”

  “—never finish that sentence.”

  I stepped in her path, gouged her side with my wand, and thrust power into her until she rivaled twinkle lights on a Christmas tree. The magic burned her, ate through her glamour, and revealed the deadly blue-skinned daemon at her core. And then she was gone, nothing but ash and bitterness.

  Or maybe I was the bitter one, to have discovered I had family other than the director, only to learn they had been picked off by Delma, who was nuttier than the fruitcake curing on my counter back home.

  “I have my successor,” Calixta announced from seemingly nowhere and everywhere. “I am pleased.”

  The column of water had collapsed when Delma died, meaning Calixta didn’t have enough juice alone to maintain the illusion. That was good. Not great, but good. Her hands were tied, magically speaking. What we had to guard against was her cleverness, her silver tongue coaxing others to lend her their strength.

  And there was no putting this cat back in the bag, not with Delma involving Black Hat in her scheme.

  Clay caught my eye then jerked his chin toward the creepy jailer clutching Colby in its spindly arms.

  With a subtle nod, I distracted Calixta while he and the daemon plotted to free the struggling bundle.

  “You have found nothing.” I dropped Delma’s blade with a splash. “I want nothing to do with you.”

  “Accept my offer, and you will be a match for Astaroth. His father can’t contest your mating then.”

  “Choice mine.” The daemon informed her, fist striking his chest. “Rue mine.”

  Given his impulsive nature, I wasn’t sure if this was a part of their plan, or if he couldn’t help himself.

  “Not that we’re rushing into a mating,” I pointed out for everyone’s benefit. “But still. Good to know.”

  “Upon my death,” Calixta coaxed, “you may rule without a mate, as I did, be a power in your own right, as I was.”

  Pretending to consider her, I asked, “How do I set you free?”

  “Blood would have been best,” she mused, “fed into the water where the ward could taste it.”

  “There’s no Plan B?”

  “A life is the cost.” She mulled it over. “Delma’s ashes sprinkled above me will do.”

  “Clay.” I swept a hand over the bulk of them. “Can you seal those in an evidence baggy for me?”

  Since he swore they doubled as snack bags, he always kept a few on him in case of emergency.

  “Sure thing.” He used a business card to get every flake possible while the daemon padded closer to the spider. “Good enough?”

  “That will do, golem.” Calixta kept her voice dialed to benevolent. “Now, my darling girl, free me.”

  “Pass them to me?” I held the remains of my cousin, but no pity stirred within me. “Calixta…”

  “Please,” she demurred. “Call me Grandmother.”

  Thank all the gods and goddesses that my grandparents had called it quits after one child.

  As alike as they were, they could have been a formidable pair, had they made a go of it.

  “Grandmother,” I humored her. “It was nice to meet you, but I prefer the devil I know.”

  The director held enough of my strings to jerk me around for the rest of his life. I wasn’t about to set free a female version with untold years of experience in making others her puppets, as she had Delma. The woman was a master manipulator, even while stuck at the bottom of a marsh.

  “Your grandfather will betray you,” she warned. “You can’t trust him.”

  “He raised me,” I informed her. “I know how far I can trust him.”

  The same distance I could throw him.

  A guttural shout and a squelching noise jerked my attention back to the boardwalk in time to watch the daemon yank Colby from the spider’s clutches and toss her to Clay. Clay caught her with a prayer on his lips and carried her away from the swamp, back toward the SUV to release her in a safe environment.

  Meanwhile, surprising no one, the daemon ripped off the spider’s head, yelled down its neck, and tore it out of its web. He flung the carcass toward the spot where my grandmother’s voice originated. The boardwalk rattled on impact when he landed, and the planks under his feet snapped in two. He shook it off, prowled over to me, spider head in his hand, its pinchers still clacking, and held out his arm.

  “Present.” He smiled, his face bright green with ichor. “For Rue.”

  “I…” I knew how much it meant to him that I appreciate his gifts, so I reached for the head, only for the pinchers to snap closed on my wrist. “I’ll wash your hair when we get to the hotel if you can throw that farther than you threw the body.” I jerked my hand free. “Deal?”

  “Brush?” He cocked an eyebrow, weighing the gift in his hands. “Braid?”

  “Yes.” I was happy he set such a low price. “Just fling it, please?”

  “Okay.” He cocked his arm and hurled the trophy beyond where I could see. “It gone.”

  “Excellent.” I patted him on the back. “Good work.”

  While the daemon preened, my grandmother seethed, but she was locked down tight.

  “You will regret this,” Calixta promised. “There will come a time when you need your family.”

  Thinking of Colby, of Clay, of Asa and his daemon, of all the people back home in Samford, I pitied her.

  “I always need my family,” I told her, looping my arm through the daemon’s. “But you’re not it.”

  He and I walked out of the sanctuary, and I made an executive decision on the spot.

  “Stand back, big guy.” I touched my wand to the welcome center. “We’re about to get toasty.”

  With a little boost from Colby, I incinerated the building, sparking a fire that would eat through the twists and turns of the boardwalk wherever it flowed through the vast sanctuary. The trees and wildlife would remain undisturbed. For now. But this was a bandage on a gunshot wound, and it wouldn’t stick forever.

  Calixta was no longer safe here. Too many people knew where to find her. We had to fix that.

  “S’mores?” the daemon asked hopefully. “Like s’mores.”

  “Everyone likes s’mores.” I exhaled as the quick access to Calixta was ravaged. “But we’ll have to make some at the hotel.” His shoulders slumped, and I patted him. “We have no marshmallows, remember?”

  Or graham crackers. Or Hershey bars. Or sticks I would allow to touch my food.

  When we reached the SUV, Clay sat with Colby on his lap in the backseat with the door standing open.

  The cocoon surrounding her had been cut in sections with the pair of scissors from my own run-in with a giant spider, but her wings were stuck in the hardening goop. She leaned against Clay, her eyes dark, but she perked when we ducked in to check on her.

  “That was amazing.” She gazed up at the daemon. “You killed it dead. Totally dead. With your hands.”

  “Colby friend,” he huffed, scuffing his foot in the dirt. “Save friend.”

  “Can you sit back here with us?” She wiggled on Clay’s lap. “Oh.” She frowned. “What about your…?”

  No further encouragement required, the daemon stuffed himself into the SUV, his horns raking the ceiling, shredding the fabric. The vehicle rocked under his weight, and I had doubts about shutting the door. I forgot those when Colby walked onto his lap, and he scooped her against his chest.

  Antennae weighted with webbing, she asked, “Do you like computer games?”

  “I like games.” A furrow creased his brow. “Computer is game?”

  The daemon tended to come out in times of stress, leaving Asa to enjoy the lulls. I wasn’t sure the daemon understood modern technology, let alone gaming, but I was happy for the chance for him to bond with Colby.

  “I’ll teach you,” she promised. “If you don’t like it, I have tons of board games.”

  For his sake, I would purchase a few yard games, like horseshoes and cornhole, things he could excel at without feeling inadequate.

  “Okay.”

  He grinned at her, she grinned back, and I shut the door to avoid intruding on their moment.

  We made it halfway to the hotel before my phone rang. I didn’t check the app monitoring blocked calls for me. I knew who it was before I answered, just as I accepted there was no ignoring him after this.

  “Director,” I greeted him with cool politeness. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “You are to report to my office,” he snapped, “immediately.”

  The line recalled all those high school dramas about principals’ offices I had watched with the girls.

  “All right.”

  “You listen to—” His tirade petered out as he registered my words. “All right?”

  “Sure.” I twisted my hands on the wheel. “Give me two days, and I’ll be there will bells on.”

  His silence told me my quick acquiescence had stunned him, which amused me to no end.

  “All right,” he echoed, intentional or not. “I’ll see you then, Elspeth.”

  Ending the call, I felt lighter. Not sure why, given I had agreed to face the director for the first time in over a decade. Maybe because I had already decided to pay him a visit. Or maybe it was because I knew his dirty little secret about Calixta, and I was willing to exploit the heck out of it to finally get answers.

  15

  Our welcome home was spoiled by how the Proctor grimoire chose to greet us. It sat propped against the door leading into Colby’s bedroom. The silent threat was proof my recent attempts at keying the wards to trap it in the house were successful, even when it attempted to stowaway. And it was not happy about it.

  Oh-freaking-well.

  “Books who threaten me end up on the DNF pile,” I warned it. “You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  The grimoire gave no outward signs of having heard me, but I was certain it was shaking in its binding.

  “You sure showed it.” Clay patted me on the head. “That book won’t mess with the likes of you again.”

  “Shut up, Clay.” I swatted him. “Come on, book.” I lifted the wretched thing and headed for my bedroom. “Let’s go put you back where you belong.”

  “Probably not a great idea to talk to the book like it’s a person,” he called. “You’ll give it delusions of grandeur.”

  After spending time away, I was forced to admit what I had been ignoring. The safe full of black artifacts was fouling the air with its stink. The smell never bothered me before, but it tempted me to sneeze now. All in all, it was a good sign that meant my familiar bond with Colby was still cleansing my soul, for which I was grateful.

  Though I might move the safe out of my bedroom if things got much worse. Better? It was a tossup between whether pressure-washing a lifetime of black magic off me was the wiser idea or if huddling in its thick and pungent embrace was smarter. I was safer as a black witch, but I flew just under the radar these days. Soon, thanks to Colby, my conversion to white witch would be obvious, and I would be a bigger target than ever. But I was also more dangerous than before, thanks to her purity.

  Better to walk into a room an obvious threat, or to let it be a surprise?

  Like so many things in my life, I had to make the call, and quick. Before someone made it for me.

  A knock on the door distracted me from opening the safe. “Come in.”

  Asa entered the room, noticed the book, and hesitated. “Am I interrupting?”

  I had a choice to make, and the repercussions pressed on me the way irrevocable decisions always did. It wasn’t my best work, the way I told Asa about my grandfather. He had no way of knowing I had waged a war within myself on how or if or when I should tell him. Aside from trust, he had no reason to believe it was anything more than me blabbing my side of a truth he was about to learn anyway.

  The scales between us, in my mind, required balance.

  “Can you shut the door?” I set the book on the bed then patted the mattress. “Give me a minute?”

  Without asking a single question, the truest expression of trust, he sat and let me go about spelling the room for privacy from any mothy or golemy ears that might overhear what I was about to reveal.

  “Should I be alarmed or excited that you want to ensure no one can hear me scream?”

  Heat swooped through my middle in a burning rush, and I was grateful to have my back to him.

  “I’ll let you be the judge of that.” I picked up the book and thumped it across my palm. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  Interest brightened his eyes, and he wet his lips. “Oh?”

  “Kiss a guy once, and his mind falls into the gutter forever.” Not that I had any room to talk. “Here’s the thing.” I took Delma’s remains from my pocket. “I’m a collector.” I pushed open the closet and knelt beside the safe. “I own things no one should have but that can’t be destroyed.”

  His lips parted on the question I knew he would ask.

  Does Clay know?

  “Clay doesn’t know,” I answered him all the same. “He suspects, I think, but he’s never asked, and I’ve never volunteered the information. Colby has an idea, but I’ve never explained the contents to her.”

  “But you’re telling me.”

  “I am.”

  “You don’t owe me this,” he said softly, as if he could read my mind. “You’ve given me enough.”

  Too soon. It was too soon to tell him I wanted to give him everything. I wasn’t sure what everything even meant for someone like me. I wasn’t sure if the way I experienced love was the same for others. As much as I would like to blame the fae juju that lubricated my mouth when it came to my deepest, darkest secrets, I suspected I had wanted to unburden myself for a long time.

  “I don’t want secrets between us.” I unlocked the safe, and foul magic seeped into the room. “I would rather you know the worst before we go any further.” I shrugged like it didn’t matter, like I wasn’t doing my best to open my heart to him. “I want you to understand what I am, and what I have the potential to become.”

  A nightmare.

  A misery.

  A monster.

  The safe’s contents held no interest for him. “How long have you been collecting?”

  “Since my first case.” I tucked the bag of ashes in the back and set the book in its usual spot. “Why?”

  “Did you ever use them?”

  “Uh, no.” I laughed as I spun the dial. “They call to me. Loudly. Answering seemed like a bad idea.”

  The whispers had only grown in the last few weeks, and I suspected the less stain on my soul, the more susceptible I would become to the persuasion of those artifacts. Yet more incentive to relocate the safe.

  “You’ve been hiding dangerous artifacts from the world since you were a teen lost in the throes of black magic addiction?”

  “I don’t know if I would phrase it like that, but yes.” I flicked a wrist. “That’s not the point.”

  Who knew what my toxic brain thought it was doing? Stockpiling weapons for when I decided to burn the world to the ground? I must have had my reasons. I must have had a plan. But I couldn’t tell you now what it had been. Could be I was simply too high to think straight enough to use them.

 

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