Grim Haven (Devilborn Book 1) (3 page)

“No, I shouldn’t,” Cooper agreed. “But you need to know what you’re up against. If Kestrel survives what you did to her, she’ll come after you.”

“And if she doesn’t?” I asked, feeling a little guilty for the flare of hope I felt. “She might just die, and that’ll be the end of it. She might be dead already.”

“She might,” agreed Cooper. “It’s entirely possible she was wounded so badly that the best she could do was go to ground somewhere I wouldn’t find her, and die. But if that’s the case, it’s even worse for you.”

“How?”

“Her clan will avenge her. She was probably hunting alone, and that’ll buy you some time, but only so much. They’ll find out where she was. They’ve got trackers and seers. If they ever find her body, they’ll figure out it was you who killed her. You need to get out of here, one way or the other.”

I shook my head hard enough to bring on another wave of dizziness. “You want me to run away?”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I want you to come with me. I’ll have to move on, now that they’ve found me. A witch with your kind of power could be useful to our cause.”

Our cause
.

No. Absolutely not. I was not the kind of girl who committed to
causes
.
Causes
were the number one cause of death.

What I really wanted was for Cooper to go away, so I could put some wards up, write some spells of protection, and start some more ink. Best to convince him that I was useless. “What do you mean, my kind of power? I didn’t use any magic against her. I just stabbed her. Terry could have done the same.”

He frowned. “Yeah, now that you mention it, and you only did that much after you stood there staring like an idiot for a couple of minutes first. Why is that, exactly? Because you should have been able to flick a wrist and send Kestrel Wick straight to her grave.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I know how powerful you are. I can sense vitality, and you have a ridiculous amount of it.” He gave me a warm smile, one I struggled not to return. The last thing I needed was to be exchanging tender looks with the likes of Cooper Blackwood. “But I do thank you for sharing it so I could heal up,” he said.

“Yeah, that was… a first for me.” Healing was one thing, with herbs and potions and sometimes even spells. But I’d never heard of a spell that could actually steal life from one person and give it to another.

“Normally I wouldn’t need it, but she’d just taken so much from me,” Cooper said.

“So you’re a mana vampire, too.”

“Only in extreme circumstances. My kind don’t expend vitality doing magic or anything like that. We direct it all inward.”

“Hence being able to heal yourself.”

“Right.”

“Well, you’re welcome, I guess,” I said. “And I was not staring like an idiot.”

“You sure as hell weren’t doing any magic.”

“My magic isn’t really good for emergencies. It doesn’t work that way.”

“How does it work?” he asked.

“In advance. I’m a storyteller.” I reached inside my shirt, into the special pocket I’d sewn into all my bras for the purpose of carrying spells around, and plucked out the one I’d written that morning.

Cooper raised an eyebrow as I held it out to him, then got up to take it. “A storyteller, huh? Not sure I’m familiar with the term in this context.”

“In this context, I kind of made it up.”

What we call magic comes down to an imposition of will or energy—vitality, to Cooper—on something or someone else. If our force is stronger than the force we’re trying to manipulate, we win. It’s that simple. That’s why it’s easier to work magic on an inanimate object, something that has little or no will of its own, than it is a person.

Like many skills, it’s a matter of potential and talent. Some people don’t have the potential and can’t do magic at all. Of those who can, most will need things—incantations, rituals, herbs, dolls, fire, water, all sorts of things will work—to focus that energy. I’m powerful enough to do some simple stuff without any props at all. But to work any serious magic, I need paper, and ink made from my own blood.

Also like many skills, those who advance beyond a certain point tend to specialize. They say my father was extraordinarily good with heat and fire. I’m a storyteller.

“I write my spells down, like bits of a story,” I said to Cooper. “And hope my will is stronger than whoever wants to hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” He unfolded the spell and read it. “So what did Kestrel do to try to hurt you?”

“She threw a knife. It missed.”

“Because of this.”

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer.

“Which means your magic was stronger than hers, even after she took so much vitality from me,” Cooper went on. He’d been standing over me since I’d handed him the paper, but now he crouched down, arms on his knees, face close to mine. “
That
makes you extremely powerful. Just like I said. You could help me. We could help each other.”

“Balls,” I muttered.

“What is with you and
balls
?” he asked with a laugh. “I hear you muttering it all the time. What’s wrong with good old
shit
or
damn
? Or something a little stronger?”

I was taken aback that he had ever heard me mutter anything at all. That seemed to call for him to notice me kind of a lot. But then, he’d worked out that I was a witch. And that I was only half human. I guessed he’d been paying more attention to me than I realized. Despite the circumstances, I felt a flare of self-consciousness. “I don’t like to curse,” I said to the carpet.

He laughed again. “If you mean it as a curse, it still counts as cursing, even if you made it up yourself.” When I didn’t answer, he moved to sit beside me against the wall, and got back to business. “Sounds like you use your magic mostly for protection, then.”

“Yes.”

“Perfect. It so happens I have something in dire need of protection.”

“Cooper, I can’t help you.”

“You don’t have a choice. You can’t stay here.”

The words
you can’t stay here
were still hanging in the air when my phone rang. Again. Three more calls had come in while I was busy dealing with everything at the restaurant, all from that same Bristol number.

This time, I decided to answer it. I figured even Bristol couldn’t be worse than Cooper Blackwood insisting I give up the uneventful, safe little life I’d worked so hard to build, to get involved in some war against vitality vampires.

I went into my bedroom and closed the door while I talked to the man who’d been calling me all day, a soft-spoken attorney by the name of Mr. Pickwick.

By the time I hung up, I wasn’t at all convinced that what he’d had to say wasn’t worse, after all.

I sat on my bed for a few minutes, fighting with myself over which of the two almost unthinkably unpleasant options I now had before me was the lesser evil. I stayed there for so long, in fact, that I kind of hoped one of those options might cross itself off the list, and show itself out.

But when I finally went back to the living room, Cooper was still sitting against the wall, waiting.

“You’re right,” I told him. “I can’t stay here. But I can’t go with you, either. I have to go back…” My voice cracked over the word
home
. “To where I was born. In North Carolina.”

Cooper frowned at me. “What happened?”

“It would seem I’ve just inherited a small fortune and a hotel.”

I was thirteen when my mother died. I didn’t own a single skirt or dress at the time, so I attended her funeral in a gray woolen dress that belonged to Miss Underwood, the owner of the hotel where we lived and my mother worked as a maid.

Miss Underwood was thin enough for a girl to fit passably into her clothes, but she was also quite tall. The dress was ridiculously long. I kept tripping on the hem. All day I worried about what would happen if I tore it.

There was a reception afterward at the hotel. Miss Underwood gave a short speech that she directed, ostensibly, to me. She said that everyone at the Mount Phearson was family. That all of them shared in my loss. And that like any family, we would pull one another through it. I stood awkwardly, hating all those eyes on me, and nodded into my glass of fruit punch, sipping carefully so as not to spill it on the dress.

Afterward, Miss Underwood walked me back to the room I’d shared with my mother. “Will you be wanting to move to a different room?” she asked. “I can arrange that if you like, as a courtesy.”

“I’m staying at the hotel, then?” Nobody had told me.

“Of course. I’m your guardian now. It’s best for your life to remain as stable as possible while you grieve.”

“Oh. Then no, our regular room is okay.”

“Don’t use that word. I despise it.”

“Our regular room is fine. I’ll just live alone, I guess?”

Miss Underwood laughed, as though I’d just said something really imaginative. “What a thing to say. Nobody is ever alone at the Mount Phearson.” She was right about that.

She stopped outside our room—my room, now—and handed me the key. “You’ll take over some of your mother’s shifts, after school and on Saturdays. But you may have the next three days off out of respect for your loss.”

I struggled for a second with the etiquette. Was I supposed to thank her for the time off? Or for the job? For agreeing to be my guardian?

But no, she didn’t seem to expect any response. She was already turning away.

“Be in touch if you need me,” Miss Underwood said.

I washed the dress myself, that same night, and returned it unharmed.

Now it was Miss Underwood who was dead. She’d died in prison, of all places, where she was serving a sentence for murdering her husband. I was more shocked by the husband part than the murder part. Miss Underwood had never seemed like the marrying type.

Mr. Pickwick, who was both her executor and her lawyer, didn’t seem to find it surprising that she’d left me everything, including the Mount Phearson Hotel. “She was your adoptive mother, wasn’t she?” he asked when I spoke to him again, the day after Kestrel’s attack at the restaurant.

“She was my guardian,” I said, which was not at all the same thing.

“Well, she had no children of her own, and all her siblings appear to be deceased.”

My stomach went cold. “What do you mean,
appear
to be deceased? Deceased seems like a pretty binary condition.”

“Yes, well. There have been some questions… and Mark… missing, you know… probably best explained in person…” Pickwick trailed off and cleared his throat. “But in any case, Madeline’s will was very clear. You are her beneficiary.”

I let it go. Mark was not the Underwood brother whose fate concerned me.

So they all—Mr. Pickwick, the hotel staff, the manager—wanted me to come home. And how serendipitous, when I’d just found myself in the position of being hunted by a psychotic
feeder
. (Cooper might not like the word, but I thought it suited what I’d seen of Kestrel Wick just fine.) Or possibly in the position of having just murdered a psychotic feeder, in which case, I would be hunted by her entire clan.

Bristol was uniquely positioned to be a safe haven. It had been built as one by my own father. At the turn of the nineteenth century, that was, my father being either a demon, or some other creature (
phantasm
?) with a very long lifespan.

But Bristol had never been a haven for me. It was the last place I would ever feel safe. I might as well do what Cooper wanted, and get mixed up in his clan war.

For three days after the attack, I made no commitments, either to Mr. Pickwick or to Cooper. I assumed in the latter’s case, that would be the end of it, and he would leave town on his own. Each day I expected to hear that he just never showed up for work. But each day he came.

And each day, he left early and followed me home, then stood across the street from my building for an hour or so, like some kind of sentry. He didn’t seem to think I knew, so for the first two nights, I didn’t say anything.

On the third, I walked a cup of tea out to him. He was obviously going to need some convincing to leave, and scrawling
Verity was left to herself in Lenox, all alone
in spell ink that morning hadn’t done the job. My will must have gotten soft, after so many years with nobody to resist it. I was going to need stronger spells to deal with Cooper. Maybe to deal with his enemies, too. Better ink would be a start. I would need to use a higher concentration of blood.

In the meanwhile, I would have to deal with Cooper directly. I pushed the mug into his hands and asked, “Are you stalking me, or protecting me?”

His scowl didn’t make him look like much of a white knight. “The second one.”

“In that case, let me return the favor.” I nodded at the tea. “Cinnamon and angelica root.”

“It’s going to take a lot more than herbs to protect us from the Wicks,” he said. “You have no idea what we’re up against.”

“Maybe they have no idea what they’re up against.”

My bravado was too obvious. Cooper scoffed at me, then sipped the tea and made a face. “I hate angelica root.”

“Way too bitter,” I agreed. “I was hoping to pawn the last of mine off on you.”

He smiled, and I felt like I’d won a prize. A traitorous feeling if ever there was one, so I pushed it aside.

“I thought you were leaving town,” I said.

“Can’t,” he said with a sigh. “You got mixed up with Kestrel because of me. I’m responsible for your safety now.”

“You really aren’t. My apartment is warded. I’m pretty good at protecting myself. Seriously.”

“You also have no idea—”

“—what I’m up against, yes, you’ve mentioned that a time or two. But you don’t know what I’m up against, either. You don’t know if Kestrel is alive or dead, or if anyone else knows she was here. For all you know, she healed up fine and isn’t even mad at me. You’re probably the only one she’s after. You—”

Cooper yanked me against him, spilling hot tea between us, then pivoted to push me back against the brick wall of the building behind us, shielding me with his body from whatever had spurred him into action.

Which turned out to be fire.

Specifically, a gigantic wave of flame surging out my apartment window as it shattered. Glass and sparks rained down on the street below. Fire raged behind the one intact window I could see from the street. My whole apartment was in flames.

For a second I just stared stupidly. Then something about the scene clicked. Not something I saw, but something I didn’t.

Cooper was already on the move. “She can’t have gotten far,” he said over his shoulder, then grabbed my arm when he noticed I was running straight for my building. “She won’t be in there anymore!”

“My neighbor’s car isn’t there,” I said.

“So you’re worried because your neighbor is
not
home while the building is on fire?”

“He has a dog! Go after Kestrel, I’ll be right behind you.”

Cooper looked inclined to argue, but there was no time. “Be careful!” he yelled, and took off down the street.

I wasn’t much of an animal person—wasn’t much of an anything person, when it came to connecting with other living things—and I’d never had a pet of my own. But the Mount Phearson Hotel had been haunted by the ghost of a sad little boy who carried a leash. I’d first seen him when I was three, too young to understand death, but able to understand heartbreak just fine. Growing up, I’d tried a few times to help that poor kid find his dog. But ghosts can’t talk, and it was an impossible mission.

Thanks to that little boy, I could never stand the thought of a lost or abandoned pet. Ugly, yippity thing though it was, there was no question of leaving my neighbor’s dog to die.

I rushed up the stairs and banged on the second floor apartment door, then took a chance and found it unlocked. That only added to my considerable dread. New Englanders aren’t generally the trusting sort.

“Hello?” I called out as I hurried inside, hoping at least the dog would hear me and come running. “We’ve got an emergency.”

Nobody came running. My neighbor was lying on his couch, the little dog curled up at his chest. They looked like they were watching TV, although the set was off.

Both had blood seeping from their eyes, noses, and ears. Both were dead.

I didn’t even know the guy’s name.

But there was no time to think about it. The noises from above, and even, I thought, behind one of the walls, suggested the fire would be upon me any second. I ran back out.

I banged on the door of the first floor apartment on my way by, too, but I didn’t waste a lot of time. Those people lived in Boston and were only there occasionally. Then I went out to find Cooper.

Thankfully, my phone had been in my coat pocket when I brought the tea outside. (Even more thankfully, its case doubled as my wallet, something I suspected was about to come in handy now that all my worldly possessions were in flames.) I called 911 to report the fire, but hung up when the operator told me to stay on the line.

I hesitated on the sidewalk, looking around at a loss. Then I saw someone rounding the corner, onto the busier street that crossed mine.

I ran after them, but not fast enough. As I came around the corner myself, all I saw was a couple coming out of the pizza place down the street. I headed that way, peering into the alleyway between the restaurant and the convenience store next door.

It was too dark to see anyone, but I thought I heard an exhale.

Turning on the flashlight on my phone, I took a few tentative steps forward, trying to remember any simple protection spells I might be able to cast without writing them down. But my thoughts were sluggish in my panic. It was like the faster my heart went, the slower my brain worked.

When the attack came, it happened too fast for me to process, except in bits and flashes.

Someone gripping me from behind, and it must have been a magical grip, because I could barely even wriggle, let alone struggle for real. Icy breath in my ear, whispering a question. She wanted to know where Cooper was.

She said something else too, something about my power. Then
licked
my neck, her tongue cold and repulsive. A laugh, more cool breath.

And then I felt her stealing. It was nothing at all like it had been with Cooper, when I’d been a willing participant. This was unbearable, violating. And so cold.

I resisted, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. Already my knees were buckling, my head buzzing like it was filled with flies.

“Big mistake, Kestrel.”

Cooper’s voice? I was losing consciousness.

And then Kestrel was gone.

Cooper had pulled her off me. With blurred vision, I saw him throw her against a brick wall, then rush at her.

But Kestrel had taken too much of my vitality to go down easily. With a wave of her hand, she sent a dumpster skidding across the pavement. It rammed into Cooper’s back, hurling him into the same wall. I heard a snap that might well have been his spine.

I was slumped on the ground, unable to move, my entire body numb and tingling with pain at the same time, almost like I’d suffered an electrical shock. I couldn’t help. I couldn’t even scream.

But Cooper stood as if nothing had happened. The dumpster came at him again. He pushed it away with superhuman—or nonhuman, to be precise—strength, and turned on his enemy.

Kestrel fought back with a monstrous strength of her own. She
was
a monster, biting, clawing, ripping at his throat like a wolf going after its prey. There was no sign at all of the frail woman I’d encountered at Spare Oom.