Forged by angel and hell.., p.44
Forged by Angel & Hellfire, page 44
45
Forever Yours
I knock on Eden’s study door, listening carefully because Eden and Magnus are animals, and I don’t want an eyeful of zoo. There’s no answer, but I open the door when I hear nothing, figuring she’s probably gone to the library. The curtains are closed, which is never a good sign. Eden’s arms are folded on the desk in front of her, cushioning her head.
“What’s wrong?” I shut the door behind me, but she doesn’t move. “Eden?”
“He left,” she sobs.
“Who left?”
She lifts her head. Her eyes are red and puffy, her whole face blotchy. She trumpets into a handkerchief, then slams a letter onto the desk, already passing from sad phase to fiery phase. “Magnus.”
I pick up the letter automatically, then look at her. She nods, but I don’t really want to read it. It’s too personal. Still, my gaze drops to the paper.
Dear Eden,
I believed you when you told me it was a one-sided infatuation. I believed every word, but it seems I’m a fool. I saw you with him. For a moment, I believed my eyes deceived me, but it was my heart all along. I watched you remove his shirt. I watched you kiss. I spent the night trying to find a reasonable explanation, but there isn’t one.
God help me, I can’t love you with anything less than the whole of my heart. I’m in mourning to the depths of my soul that you cannot love me with the whole of yours. Please take this time to decide what you want. Who you want. I await your decision with my usual impatience, but I won’t return until you call.
Forever yours,
Magnus
* * *
I drag my eyes away from the page. “Caleb? You kissed Caleb?”
“I bloody well did not.”
“He kissed you?”
“He was distraught.”
“You… took off his shirt?”
“The damn fool was shivering. I left him to get changed, said I’d bring him some tea once I’d got into some dry clothes, when I got back, he was just standing there. Dripping and shivering.”
I frown. “Why is everybody wet in this scenario?”
“The twins and I fished him out of the stream.”
“What? Why?”
“After Tabby… Caleb went into a bit of a rage. Glenda and I kept an eye on him. It was nothing too serious, just stomping up and down the garden flinging logs about, then he got too close to the stream and… God, we panicked. I’ve never seen it before… the river lust. He charged at the stream like he’d run out of air. I sent Glenda in to fetch Magnus, but she came back with the twins. We got him out and took him to your studio. And like I said, I left him to change.”
“So, Magnus saw what?”
“Well, I did take his shirt off. And he did kiss me. I pushed him away gently, told him not to do it again. If Magnus had stayed, he’d have seen me remove all his clothes. It was like dressing a child. He was barely there at all. I wrapped him in a robe and took him down to the psychomanteum, so he’d sleep. There was nothing unreasonable about it. And I am absolutely bloody furious with my husband.”
“Call him back and explain, then.”
“I will. Eventually.”
I glance at the letter again. “You can’t leave him thinking the worst of you.”
“That’s his decision.” She rubs her eyes, her voice hesitant. “He never doubted me before.”
“You never had a handsome vampire known for seducing nuns lusting after you before.”
“And that’s all it should take for my husband of twenty-seven years to start looking for reasons to doubt me?”
“He’ll feel like a tool when he gets back here. Can’t you just call him?”
“Don’t you side with him.” She waves her finger in my face. “He should’ve spoken to me about it instead of working it up into a monster in his head.”
“I’m not on his side. I’m on our side. This family. You’re both so stubborn.”
She snorts. “We all are. But he can stew in his own juices for a while.”
“Eden, please. You can’t split up.” I burst into tears, and they don’t stop. They’re for everything. For Tabby. For Caleb. For Eden and Magnus. For my sister. “You can’t.”
She hugs me. “We won’t split up, I promise. I just don’t want to see him yet. He thinks I’m cheating. That’s what he thinks of me.”
“Communication’s important in a relationship,” I say, parroting words she’s used at me more than once.
“Exactly. He should’ve asked me.”
“So, you’ll call him soon?”
“He’ll be back.”
“Is Caleb still downstairs?”
“Yes, but don’t wake him up. He needs all the sleep he can get. Family meeting at eleven, okay?”
Family meeting? Without Magnus?
When Albert and I arrive, Archer and Leia are wrapped in each other in a corner of the library under the mezzanine. She gnashes her teeth at him, and he starts breathing funny. Leia looks a bit hungry.
Albert raises his eyebrows. “They’re very demonstrative, aren’t they?”
“You have no idea,” I say. “I’m surprised he’s not croakier after last night.”
“He told me all he needed was a bucket of ice cream to soothe his throat. Glenda took it upstairs in an actual bucket.”
I snort, then catch sight of Daniel who looks vacant. Rhiannon’s sitting sideways on the sofa chewing a hole in her lip as she watches his profile. Albert gives me a questioning look, and I shrug. I don’t have a clue what’s up with Daniel. I already spoke to him about Amethyst—after Marvin Gaye stopped singing—and though he’s not particularly happy about her being with Mara, he knows she’s relatively safe. He’s not at all worried about Paul, convinced he’ll show up again eventually. If anything, he looks stunned right now.
“I have a question,” Albert says. “It’s about the painting in the corner of the studio.”
I freeze, struggling to remember what I left in the corner. “Was it covered?”
He bites his lip. “Mostly.”
“You peeked?”
“I’m awful, I know. It’s very good.”
I still don’t know which one it is, and my cheeks are on fire because there are about twenty paintings of Albert lurking in the studio.
“You captured my smile.”
“Oh, god. This is so embarrassing.”
“Boxer loves it too. We were wondering—”
“You showed Boxer?”
“He is in it.”
“Oh, that one.” I clamp my hand over my mouth.
Albert smirks. “There’s more than one of me?”
I stare at my shoes. “What were you wondering?”
“Can I buy it from you?”
I laugh. “You’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
“If you want it, take it, but I’m not charging you. It’s not good enough.” I stare around the library, hoping he’ll shut up. “Where’s Kite?”
“Asleep,” Eden says from behind me.
I turn to face her. “Did she tell you she met Fane before?”
“Yes, she said Asha took her to see him when she was about eight. She said he was excited at first but soon lost interest in her. She doesn’t remember much else about it, just that he gave her the creeps, and she felt watched because there were statues everywhere.”
“There are more pressing concerns,” Michael says.
Everyone turns to look at him and Eden. That’s when I notice the two portraits leaning side-by-side against the desk.
“Well? How did it get back here?” Eden’s glaring at everyone with her hands on her hips. “One of you must’ve taken Albert because he’s the only one who would think to bring Sean’s portrait back.”
“It was me,” Seth admits.
Eden’s not the only one who gasps. She scowls at me when my gasp comes belatedly and with a bit too much gusto.
“You?” Her sharp eyebrows could shame Seth’s into submission. “And how is it you can teleport when nobody knows about it?”
“Dad said we should keep it quiet for now.”
“Did he? Ooh, that man.” Eden scrunches her red face up, then points at Albert. “And you should’ve known better.”
“It was important, Eden,” Albert says. “Leaving it there would’ve been a huge mistake.”
“Well, you’re all safe, and I suppose that’s what matters. So… well done both of you.”
Seth shoots Albert a surprised look, then his mouth quirks up at the corner.
“Dad didn’t want me to tell anyone I can teleport either,” Archer says. “At first, I wanted to keep it quiet because of Seth. Sorry, Seth, I… thought you’d be annoyed I could do it.”
“I already knew you could do it.” Seth wiggles his fingers at Archer. “And I seem to recall the women in this family mentioning it’s not a competition. They’re quite clever sometimes.”
Glenda elbows him in the ribs, and he makes a yowling sound like someone kicked a dog.
“Dad keeps undermining me,” Archer admits. “He refused to help me learn. I don’t know what’s with him since he got back from…” He looks around. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone away for a few days.” Eden fiddles with her amulet. “Something to do with a promise to Tabby.”
Michael freezes with a cup of coffee halfway to his mouth. “He didn’t mention it.”
“I gather it was a last-minute thing.” She glances quickly from me to Michael. “So, what did you find?”
“Fane’s work is here for you to look over, but it will be shipped to the archive as soon as we locate it. Mr Harvey will be in touch soon. Do look at it though, Eden. There’s a list of potential bloodborns, some of whom Cascade is not even aware of, and very thorough files on most of those listed.”
“He was planning to experiment on them?” Albert asks.
“Or make more Interrupted,” I say.
Albert goes rigid beside me at the mention of the Interrupted.
“He’s made quite the study of angel blood,” Michael says. “And we now know what he wanted with your blood, Violet.”
Eden’s head swivels like an owl. “We do?”
Michael frowns. “Lucifer said he made some kind of conduit.”
Eden grimaces. “That’s what he wanted her blood for?”
“He made a freaky doll puppet girl,” I tell her. “He always intended to get me back there.”
“Or never let you go in the first place,” Michael says with his doom voice.
“Iwao said he found a way to dilute my blood enough for me to become a vampire,” I tell him.
Albert squeezes my arm. “What?”
“Yeah, he wanted a vampire bride. Apparently, he doesn’t have enough wives.”
Albert frowns. “He’s obsessed with you.”
“Was obsessed,” I correct him.
The room hushes, eyes dart and flicker, feet shuffle, and bodies sway.
Only Michael speaks. “He’s not dead, Violet.”
What? “But your spear… I saw it go through his neck… It burnt him.”
I flop onto the sofa, stuffing my hands between my knees to stop them shaking. I got my hopes up when I saw Michael with his spear. Sean said it burnt demons from the inside out, and Albert said Fane was a demon, so how can he still be alive?
“I should’ve waited, but I wanted to get Archer to safety,” Michael explains. “When I went back to finish him off, Fane was gone. And he had help—no doubt about it. Keluth had been there, and I think… others.”
Eden props her glasses in her hair. “But you’re not sure?”
He stares at his feet. “I don’t want to be sure.”
I glance up at him. “Who do you think it was?”
Michael glances at Daniel, then me, and says, “Elijah.”
I kick aside the scorched remains of a campfire wondering who’s been here. The clumps have been closed to the public since a tree came down in a storm.
“For God’s sake, Magnus,” I mutter, as I pace from one side of the clearing to the other. “Hurry up.”
“Maybe he’s not coming,” Caleb says from his hiding place behind the tree.
“He’ll be here, but I need you to shut up. I don’t want him bolting the minute he arrives.”
“What did Lucifer give you?” he whispers.
“Shut up,” I hiss, not wanting to talk about the piece of paper Lucifer slipped me when he thought nobody was watching.
When Lucifer went back to the mausoleum the day after the full moon to let Louise out, she gave him a picture she found in the straw—the first picture of Albert that Scarth made me draw. Lucifer kept it, not knowing if he should hand it over or not, and now it’s my turn to have it burn a hole in my pocket. I should’ve binned it by now, but I can’t do it.
Heavy boots crash through the undergrowth, and Magnus wades into view, all beard and big golden-brown eyes. He smiles and pulls me into his arms. “How are you, Violet?”
“Fine. Yeah, fine.” I pull away from his brutal hug.
Now I’ve got him here, I can’t think what to say.
“How’s Eden?” He’s trying to sound casual. It’s not working.
I sigh. “Furious.”
His gaze flicks from tree to tree, then his eyebrows disappear into his hair. He nods in Caleb’s direction with a frown. “Who’s behind the tree, Violet?”
Shit, I forgot he could see auras. I hastily grab Magnus’ hand, hoping it will keep him in place.
“You can come out now,” I call.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Magnus booms, eyebrows lowered over stormy eyes, like he’s about ready to tear Caleb’s head off.
To his credit, Caleb looks contrite, like a dog who’s been caught shitting in a slipper. “I’m here to apologise.”
“For seducing my wife?”
“I didn’t seduce your wife.” Caleb sighs, then mutters, “She wouldn’t let me.”
“Caleb,” I whine.
“She’s not interested in me, Magnus. The only reason she let me get away with kissing her once was because she felt sorry for me. She said if I did it again, she’d snap my pecker off. I was in a bad way. She didn’t even tell me what happened. I didn’t know you left because of me until Violet… told me.”
Yelled it in his face is more like it.
“Why did she take your shirt off?”
“Because I—”
“That’s enough,” I say. “You need to trust that Eden had a good reason because right now she’s seriously pissed off that you think she’d cheat. You should’ve talked to her instead of torturing yourself with shit that never happened. She loves you, Magnus, but she’s disappointed you don’t trust her.”
“I’m sorry,” Caleb says. “Truly. Your family’s been nothing but generous to me, and I’ve been a complete arse. I won’t make excuses for myself. I’ve always been an arse.”
“You were upset,” I say. “You’d just lost—”
“I’m not talking about that, angel. I told you… it’s over.” He rubs his chest like he’s got heartburn, and turns back to Magnus, arm stretched out towards the priory. “I’m here because the woman you love is still here… just over the way there, and you owe her an apology.”
Magnus runs his hands through his hair and across his beard. “I told her I’d only come when she called.”
“She’s too pissed off to make the first move. This whole situation is on you. You need to fix it.”
Too late, my hands scrabble at the rippling air. Magnus has already teleported away.
Epilogue
It’s almost dark when we land among unfamiliar trees, strips of sky revealing themselves between silhouetted trunks as we move closer to the tree line.
“There are birds here,” Lucifer says.
Kite trails behind me making entirely too much noise. “What does that mean?”
Lucifer holds a tree branch aside for us. “It means there’s nothing here right now that shouldn’t be.”
It’s the night before the full moon, inky clouds smudging across the sky like smoke and fire, lit from below by the sinking sun. I can’t see the house, which Lucifer assures us is just over the hill.
It doesn’t matter. That’s not where we’re going.
With the trees at our backs, the vast expanse of grass sweeps left and right and up to the peak of the hill in front of us. My pulse thuds in my throat, and I cough to clear it. Like that’s gonna work. The building blurs in my peripheral vision, white and ghostly. I’ll look in a minute, after the memories are done assaulting my brain.
“You alright?” Kite asks when she realises I’m counting my breaths.
Lucifer turns. “Why’d you stop walking?”
“Really, Dad?” Kite looks back at me, her eyes wide and mostly green in this light. “Groups of five, yeah?”
I nod, counting my breaths while Kite holds my shoulders steady. “Thanks.”
“Not gonna puke?” she asks.
“Maybe later.”
She slings her arm around my shoulder, and I stare at the grass at our feet, taking one last deep breath. Slowly, I raise my eyes to the mausoleum.
I’m not sure how it could get worse, but it does. My brain floods. If Kite wasn’t holding me up, I’d be breathing dirt. My hand flies to my throat. The taste of my own blood bubbles on the back of my tongue and burns the inside of my nose. I cry out in remembrance of the pain spearing through my arm when it was stomped on and stabbed, the sound of my bones breaking on repeat in my brain. Faces jeer behind my eyes: Darius, Piper, Belhessen, Flenk, Fane. I jolt because Scarth’s not there.
I start walking, my steps in sync with my breathing. Albert’s voice springs into my head, chasing away the snapping bones. Focus on the familiar, I hear him say. I smell the grass, the trees, the hope of spring.
“You want us to come in with you?” Kite asks.
I shake my head. “I need to do this by myself.”
I pull open the mausoleum door, expecting it to groan or creak, but its passage is smooth. When Lucifer released Louise the morning after my escape, she was already cleaning up, a heap of blood-sodden straw waiting in the corner to be cleared out.
