shadows of salem 01 - shadow born (18 page)

With a pull like this, I was certain I was being led by magic. If I tried, I was sure I could resist it, but I was a detective because I was willing to do whatever it took to find answers. I couldn’t just walk away from this.

Slowly, I lifted my hand, then ran my fingers across the rough bark, dipping them into the wickedly carved grooves some unseen hand had left.

Suddenly, I was no longer in the woods, or at least not the woods as I knew them. Instead, I was inside a house—a huge, lodge-style cabin.

It was the strangest house I’d ever been in.

Live birds flitted from potted trees that grew upside down from the ceiling, and the air was thick and sultry, as if I was in a tropical forest. The furniture was exquisitely carved into the shapes of animals, with gem-like eyes that glowed so brightly they seemed real. A fireplace roared in a lapis lazuli hearth. Gold covered every inch of the floor I stood on, except for an impossibly blue, bubbling creek that ran
through
the space, disappearing down a hall and off to who knew where.

A hand touched my arm, and I turned to see who it was. Shock rippled through me at the sight of Maddock wearing a deep green frock coat with a tan contrast, replete with matching vest, breeches, and frothy lace jabot. The garb of a wealthy colonial man.

Looking down, I realized I was dressed in a long, ice-blue velvet dress with side panels and bell-sleeves, a brocade insert highlighting my otherwise well-covered cleavage.

“W-what?” I gasped, pulling away, but Maddock drew closer, whispering some numbers in my ear.

And then the vision vanished.

Gasping, I clutched at the tree, using it to steady myself as I tried to return my world to its axis. That wasn’t a vision. It was some kind of message…something that never happened to me before. But who was it from? And what had it meant? Had someone from the Onyx Order left it here for me? But how could they possibly know I would have come?

I ground my teeth together, realizing the answer to my question the moment I’d thought it.
Magic
. Of course. They didn’t just leave me a message; they’d led me to it. But if they wanted to kidnap me, why not wait for me here?

Coordinates,
I thought, running the numbers Maddock had given me in my head. Those numbers had been coordinates—I was certain of it. I plugged them into the Maps app on my phone and found that they were a short distance from here, just half a mile. I could make it there in no time, before it got dark out.

Glancing over my shoulder, I wondered if I should rush back and get Maddock, but knowing him, he would have suggested I go home and to let him handle it. I shook my head. No way. It was probably safer for me than for him at his point, considering every time the Onyx Order came around his kind, they ended up dead. On the other hand, they could have snatched me at any time and hadn’t. That had to mean something, and I wasn’t going to find out unless I followed the trail.

Besides, this was my
job
. I wasn’t some damsel in distress heading into a trap, even if that’s what the Onyx Order might think. I was armed and dangerous, and I was tired of running from these unseen forces. It was time these witches learned who they were dealing with.

I made my way to the forest, following the directions my phone provided me. It was tough going, as there wasn’t any discernible path through the woods in the direction I was trying to go. Branches from bushes scratched my legs, and dirt and tree sap smudged my coat. I definitely didn’t know how I would explain that to the nuns when I got back to the orphanage, but I decided not to worry about that right now.

Seriously though, next time I did something like this, I would be sure not to wear white again.

It didn’t take long for the terrain to become a steep slope—something these white pumps were definitely not made for navigating. I fell and scraped my palms on rocks so many times that I considered ditching the shoes, but I didn’t want to add bloody feet to my list of ailments, so I continued on. Eventually the landscape leveled out again, and the trees thinned, revealing a huge lodge-style cabin with a river running through it.

No fucking way.

I braced myself against a tree, then jumped as I realized the bark beneath my arm belonged to a palm tree. In fact, all the trees up here were of a tropical variety, and the air was thick and sultry, just like in the Not-A-Vision I’d experienced.

The call of a parakeet drew my attention upward, and my eyes widened as I stared up at a cloudless blue sky peeking through the trees that was very much
not
the red and gold sunset streaked sky I’d been looking at earlier.

What the hell was this place? Was I even still in Boston? It seemed impossible that something like this could exist here. And yet, here I was.

Hesitantly, I took one step forward, then another. The ground here was softer, not quite boggy but definitely not the cold, hard-packed earth I’d been stumbling across earlier. And there were tiny grass shoots peeking out here and there.

I made my way across a small bridge that led over the stream and to the front entrance of the house, then tugged carefully on the golden door handle that had been cast into the shape of a curved branch.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to step into the exact same room as the one I’d seen in my vision. Half of me expected it, of course, but the other half was still stunned to find the tropical birds flitting around the trees hanging from the ceiling—how the fuck did they stay there?—and the golden floor with the river running through it.

I looked down at myself, checking to make sure that I wasn’t dressed in Colonial garb, but fortunately I was still in my now-stained and scratched up outfit.

“Well, hello there.”

I jumped at the sound of a female voice—my
own
voice—greeting me. Twisting in the direction of the voice, I watched as a red armchair situated near the fireplace slowly turned, revealing an exact copy of myself, wearing the
exact
clothes I’d had on in the not-vision.

Her eyes were wide with the same shock and surprise I felt, but she recovered much more quickly than I did.

“Fancy seeing you here,” the Not-Me smiled, and I reached for my gun.

CHAPTER 19

J
ust as I was drawing my weapon, the front door flew open behind me. Maddock barreled in, a combination of fear and stark rage on his face. He flung out a glowing hand, and I jumped out of the way, irrationally thinking he was about to attack me. But instead he blasted the Not-Me who was still sitting in front of the fire.

Not-Me sprang out of the way with an alien hiss, clearing the blast with room to spare. The chair disintegrated, leaving not so much as a speck of ash behind, and Not-Me threw out a blast of her own, albeit weaker, at Maddock.

Maddock deflected it with his bare hand, but it gave Not-Me the opportunity to jump him, transforming as she went into a black-skinned humanoid with a long, forked tongue and cloven hooves.

Maddock twisted away from the Definitely-Not-Me’s wickedly sharp claws and raised his hand, probably to blast it again. But I had already drawn my gun from my purse, and I squeezed off a shot, aiming for the thing’s head. The gun kicked in my hand, and the creature let out a shriek as the wooden stake ripped through the side of its neck, leaving a nasty-looking hole.

Damn,
I thought as I watched the hole close up.
I should have loaded up with iron beforehand.

Thankfully, the shot was enough to scare the thing away. It dodged another blast from Maddock, then flung itself through the front door and disappeared.

“Bloody unseelie scum,” Maddock growled, stalking toward the door.

For a moment, I thought he was going to chase it, but he simply slammed the door shut, then knelt down and pressed his hands to the base of the wall. He muttered a series of strange words that sent weird sensations through my body, and a series of runes flared to life, racing along the bottom of the wall and around the entire room. Some kind of protection spell, maybe?

“Umm, hello?” I waved my arms in the air, trying to get his attention. “You wanna tell me what the fuck that was all about?”

“In a minute.”

I gnashed my teeth, but Maddock ignored me, walking a perimeter around the room and then leaving it, presumably to check the rest of the house. I would have followed him, but he flung out a hand and told me to stay where I was. And whether it was because enough strange shit had happened to me or because I was just too damn tired, I listened.

Sighing, I flung myself down on one of the couches, staring at the birds twittering above me. They weren’t any kind I’d ever seen before—their feathers glittered like jewels in a variety of colors, and they had glowing eyes I was pretty sure no species on Earth did.

I turned onto my side so I could study the room, and as my nose brushed against one of the pillows, I caught a strong whiff of Maddock’s smoky-sweet scent. My body stilled as I considered the implications of that. If this pillow smelled like Maddock, that meant he spent a lot of time here.

Footsteps thudded in the hall, and I lifted my head to see Maddock stalking into the room, looking right pissed. His dark eyebrows were drawn together in a thunderous scowl, and he leveled a glare at me that could have reduced a mountain to dust.

Thankfully, I was made of stronger stuff.

“What the hell are you looking at me like that for?” I demanded, rising to my feet. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Really?” Maddock sneered, not slowing down one bit. I reached for my weapon, but he’d already backed me into the wall. His big body radiated such intense fury that I actually started to sweat.

“Ye dinnae think that running off into the woods by yerself, instead of coming to me to get my help with whatever it was that caught yer attention, is wrong?”

“So you could help me, or so you could stop me?” The words exploded from my mouth with child-like belligerence, and my cheeks burned with embarrassment. But I plowed on. “I thought about going back for you, but I wanted answers—something you seem hard-pressed to give me. And before you go acting like I shouldn’t have done that, I’ll remind you that my shot slowed that thing down. I didn’t need you. Now, tell me what’s going on, so maybe next time I can trust you enough to ask for your help. What is this house? What was that
thing
? How did you know to find me here?”

Maddock’s scowl deepened, but there was a flicker of emotion in his eyes that told me my point had been made and would not be refuted.

“The creature ye encountered is called a phoukas,” Maddock spat. “It’s a type of unseelie that can mimic the forms of certain creatures, usually humans and a select number of beasts. As for the house…this is my home.”

“Your
home
?” Stunned, I looked around again. The place was stunningly beautiful—completely at odds with the brutally suave fae club owner I thought I was coming to know. “Why do you live here instead of in Salem?”

“I spend many of my nights at the club these days, but this place has been my home for a long time, and I’m rather…fond of it.” Maddock’s jaw clenched. “Somebody managed to disable the wards without it alerting me, and they used magic to lead ye right to it.”

“If it helps, I knew I was being led on. That’s not exactly the kind of thing that stops me—I usually just find a way to work the situation to my advantage, which I would have done on my own. I’m guessing the ‘somebody’ responsible here wasn’t the phoukas?” I asked pointedly. “I mean, that thing doesn’t look like it’s incredibly intelligent.”

“It’s not, and it could never have done this,” Maddock growled. “Likely, it was whoever carved that symbol into the tree down by the stream. I just dinnae understand how they knew ye were going to be here.” He let out a disgusted sigh, then eased back, giving me some breathing room. “This isn’t the first time the unseelie have sent someone after me, but it’s usually not something so insignificant as a phoukas. They must be changing their tactics. But
why
?”

“Maybe start with why was it disguised to look like me,” I demanded. “How did it even
know
about me? Are the unseelie watching me now, too? What did you drag me into, Maddock?”

“I doubt ye would be on their radar,” Maddock said dryly. “The phoukas simply pulled a memory from the house in order to choose its guise. It was likely trying to throw me off.”

“A…a memory? Of me? Here?” I spluttered. “But I’ve never been here before!”

“Ye have, unfortunately, been here before.” Maddock’s eyes tightened, and he looked away. “A very, very long time ago.”

“What, you mean like when I was a baby?” I asked, half-sarcastic, but my heart thumped a little. Was it possible that Maddock actually did know me as a child? Had he known my parents? What could he tell me about them?

“No.” A disgusted expression crossed Maddock’s face as he closed the distance between us again. His long fingers clenched around my jaw as he tilted my face up to his.

“What the fuck!” I punched him in the gut, and it was like sucker punching a brick wall. One-hundred percent ineffective, and I came perilously close to breaking my knuckles.

“I didna want to do this again, but it’s the easiest way to show ye,” Maddock growled, and then he crushed his mouth against mine.

At first, my senses were overwhelmed by him—his heather and woodsmoke scent; the spicy-sweet taste of his mouth; the weight of his big body pressing mine into the wall—but all that was abruptly replaced by a vision…or rather, a memory.

“Yes.
More
.” Shocked, I watched myself beg, lying naked on satin sheets, through the eyes of someone above me. Someone
inside
me.

My tousled silver hair was spread across the pillow, my cheeks were flushed, and my hands were gripping the shaking headboard so hard my knuckles were turning white.

“Harder!” I moaned, letting go of the headboard and reaching down between my legs. The man above me groaned, a low, animalistic sound, and a thrill shot through me as I realized I was hearing Maddock’s voice.