Laced With Magic (22 page)
When it came to her daughter, the first Mrs. MacKenzie was a warrior.
Steffie was gone but Karen was still her mother. Even now, even when all of her human reality must be telling her it was futile, she was willing to fight for her daughter to keep her safe from harm.
My mother loved me but she never fought for me. When faced with the choice to join my human father in death or stay in this earthly realm and raise her little girl to adulthood, my mother chose to leave me in the collective hands of the villagers of Sugar Maple and ultimately in the loving embrace of Sorcha the healer.
After many earthly years in this realm, Sorcha had been ready to pierce the veil into the next dimension. But a needy six-year-old girl with no powers to her name and a sullied half-human heritage came into her life and she stayed until she was sure I could fly on my own.
Karen didn’t care if I liked her, loathed her, or wanted to put her in a psychiatric institution. All she cared about was Steffie.
Maybe on some level she was crazy, but it was a crazy I understood. Grief could do terrible things to a human’s heart and soul, make you see things that weren’t there and overlook the things that were. And maybe sometimes it led you to exactly the place where you were meant to be at the moment in time when you were meant to be there.
I wish I knew if this was one of those times.
“I saved the town,” I said quietly. “I don’t mean the buildings and the woods and the lake. I’m talking about the families who’ve been living here for over three hundred years. That’s what Luke and I were doing the night Isadora’s sons were killed. I regenerated the protective charm and managed to drive Isadora into banishment. When my parents died, this town became my family. They’ll be here long after—” I stopped myself. “Let’s just say if Isadora succeeds, she’ll pull the town through the mist just like she promised. She has to be stopped permanently.”
“Is that the worst that could happen?”
“The worst that could happen to the town is that not everyone will make it through to the other side. It’s a violent process and there will be casualties.” I met her eyes. “Luke would be one of them.”
“So go live somewhere else. You all have magic powers. Wouldn’t it be easier to live somewhere you didn’t have to hide what you are?”
“I can’t.” Assuming such a place even existed.
“But Luke can.”
The truth really does hurt, especially when it’s aimed straight at the center of your heart. I looked down at the table, unable to think of anything clever or insightful to say.
“I don’t see the problem,” Karen persisted. “You can use your magic to keep him safe. I’ve seen what you can do. Pop him into one of those bubbles you wrapped around me. Think of something!”
“Shut up.”
“What did you say?”
“I said shut up. Maybe if you quit talking for a minute, I’d be able to think of something.”
“Come on,” she urged. Her voice held a manic edge. “I mean, you’re practically a knitting superhero.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“That’s my child that creature’s holding. I know it’s not a joke.”
My cheeks flooded with color. It took every ounce of self-control at my command to keep from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking some sense into her. Protecting Sugar Maple and Luke and even freeing Steffie were only part of a wider picture I was just now beginning to understand.
The loss of her son Dane had pushed Isadora over the edge into obsession, turning her dislike of humans into an all-encompassing hatred of the race. If she managed to take Sugar Maple beyond the mist, who would be able to stop her from taking another town and then another?
But Karen couldn’t see any of it. The loss of her daughter blinded her to everything else.
The parallel between the two grieving women, however, wasn’t lost on me, and a part of my heart ached for them both.
The truth was I could study the Book of Spells like a Tal mudic scholar but there wasn’t time to learn even a tenth of what I needed to learn in order to construct all the protections we would need to fight off a full-powered onslaught from Isadora. The Book revealed itself on its own schedule, according to the sorcerer’s skill level, and my level was still rank beginner.
I should have done more, worked harder, dedicated myself to mastering my craft. That was why I’d been born, wasn’t it? To protect Sugar Maple and her citizens. And to make sure another Hobbs woman walked the earth after I was gone. So far I was failing on both counts.
Only the most basic banishment spells were available to me, which was why I had to construct a web of spells in order to contain her.
Suddenly I felt very old and very tired. I had been outma neuvered by the Fae leader, and the only weapons I had in my arsenal were two heartbroken humans and the Book of Spells. I realized once again how much I had depended on Gunnar, not only for friendship but for guidance in dealing with his mother’s eruptions.
There was only one way we could save Steffie, and that was by completely vanquishing Isadora once and for all. Surrender wouldn’t work. Neither would compromise. Luke understood that, but I knew Karen never would.
I wasn’t sure I wanted her to.
“Karen, I can’t tell you not to fight for your daughter. The only thing I can do is tell you we’re on the same side.”
“Then why aren’t you doing anything?”
I had nothing left to offer her but the truth. “Because I don’t know where to start.”
“You’re pathetic.” She sounded almost sorry for me. “You both are. Steffie was trying to tell us something, and I’m not going to rest until I figure out what it is.”
She met my eyes. I wasn’t crazy about what I saw reflected back at me: the last descendant of Aerynn.
The one who lost it all.
17
I watched from the living room window as Karen walked halfway down the driveway and lit a cigarette. She said she needed to think. All things considered, I probably should have tried harder to keep her inside, where I could protect her, but I wasn’t sure I cared any longer. I hadn’t been able to keep Luke’s truck from sailing across town like a detailed Cessna. Why did I think things would be any different now?
With a little luck, maybe she would keep walking down the driveway and never come back and we could forget any of this ever happened.
I had never felt like a bigger loser than I felt at that moment.
“Where’s Karen?” Luke’s warm breath brushed against the side of my neck.
“She went out. Said she needed to think.”
“And you let her go?” He wrapped his arms around me, and silver-gold sparks flickered all around us.
“I’m not sure I could have stopped her without dropping another bubble over her.” And I wasn’t sure how I did that the first time.
“Do you think she’s safe?”
“As safe as she would be in here with us. Doors and walls don’t mean much to the Fae. I could always—”
“Shut up.”
I turned slightly and looked up at him. “What?”
“Shut up,” he said, then closed his mouth over mine.
His mouth was hot. His lips. His tongue. I couldn’t get enough of his heat. I couldn’t get close enough to the source.
It wasn’t magick but it seemed like it. He slid his hand under my sweater. I unzipped his jeans. He teased my nipple with the pad of his thumb. I found him with my hand.
There wasn’t time to get naked. There wasn’t time to tease or stroke or prolong.
We stumbled across the room, still kissing. He pressed me up against the wall, then slid my jeans and panties down my body. His tongue burned a line down between my breasts, over my belly, lower and lower still until he found me and I cried out in the quiet room.
“Wrap your legs around my waist.” His words were muffled against the side of my neck. “I want to come inside you.”
His hands grasped my hips and I gasped as he lowered me onto his rigid shaft. I gripped him hard with my thighs. He was ferocious in his need and I met him thrust for thrust. The sparks between us turned to flame.
Nothing lasted forever. Not people. Not things. Not even love.
This time tomorrow it might be too late.
KARENI forgot just how far north Sugar Maple was. Spring nights weren’t always gentle up here. The light sweater I had borrowed from Chloe wasn’t cutting it so I turned back toward the cottage to grab another one.
My mind was a blank. It scared me that, with all there was at stake and a clock ticking away the minutes, I could be so totally devoid of ideas, but I guess there is just so much the human brain can take before it shuts down in self-preservation.
Human brain.
Strange to think having one put me in the minority around here.
Strange to think having one put me in the minority around here.
Shivering, I jogged up the driveway and was almost at the porch steps when I caught sight of movement in the front window. Luke and Chloe, shadowy in the darkened room, were wrapped in each other’s arms, ivory and gold sparks shooting in every direction like fireworks gone crazy.
It’s not that I didn’t know they were lovers. All you had to do was look at them to know that. But knowing it and seeing it were very different things.
Life went on.
No matter what happened, no matter how battered and bruised you were, sooner or later life swept you up again and threw you back into the river. Luke had moved on while I was still standing onshore, unable to make peace with Steffie’s death. There had always been something unfinished to it, as if I’d caught only part of the story and needed to know how it ended.
Or even if it ended.
Clearly I couldn’t go back into the cottage without embarrassing all three of us so I checked Luke’s truck for a jacket or blanket, then opened the door of Chloe’s Buick, where I stumbled on the mother lode. I grabbed a phenomenal Aran cardie with vintage buttons and front pockets. It fell practically to my knees, which considering the fact I was freezing, wasn’t a bad thing at all.
The creep-out factor was sky-high as I walked toward town. I jumped at every sound in the bushes and looked over my shoulder so many times I would have been better off walking backward.
Maybe Chloe didn’t know what to do next, but scarfing ice cream at the kitchen table while Luke made phone calls wasn’t going to get us anywhere. Steffie was out here somewhere. I’d seen her with my own eyes. I’d watched as she pounded helplessly at some supernatural cage.
My baby . . . caged.
I stopped walking as the image flashed before my eyes.
She had looked angry and terrified and lonely, and if I could have breached the divide between worlds, I would have torn that creature Isadora apart with my bare hands and enjoyed every moment of the carnage.
How could Luke stand there and do nothing? I knew he had moved on. The supermodel was proof of that. He had gathered up his memories of our marriage and of Steffie and compartmentalized them the way he used to separate his job from his family. But that was his baby girl up there. He’d been there when she was born. He had cut the cord, heard her first cries. How could he maintain that icy distance?
If you can hear me, Steffie, talk to me . . . I’m going to find you . . . Don’t worry, baby . . .
Nothing. No visions appearing in the sky. No secret ringtone.
“Steffie!” I screamed into the unyielding silence. “Where are you, Steffie?”
Still nothing.
I broke into a run. “Steffie, talk to me! Help me find you!”
She was out there. I knew she was. Even Luke believed me now. Somebody had to find her before it was too late.
I stumbled over a branch and fell headlong in the road. Shards of gravel and dirt cut into my palms. My brain registered a sharp pain in my right knee, then dismissed it as irrelevant. I got back on my feet and resumed a limping run toward town.
I had nothing to do with Sugar Maple or Chloe’s problems with magic types. I didn’t care about their ridiculous feuds. All I cared about was my daughter.
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