By the Embers Dies the Fire Read online

  Lina and Elain stared at each other for a long moment, neither wanting to repeat the experience.

  “Oh, for chrissake,” Mai muttered. She picked up the icon again, stuck the thing on top of her head, and before Elain or Lina could lean away, she grabbed their hands and held on tight.

  Elain and Lina flailed their hands at each other like drowning victims and finally locked fingers.

  Elain felt energy jolt through her, and her vision went…well, the only thing she could describe it was violet green. Like a weird, offset 3D effect gone horribly wrong, only in those colors instead of red and blue.

  Then…she saw it again. All of it. Only in more chilling, heart-wrenching, gut-churning detail. From the dragon twin brothers leaving the village in search of the fiend kidnapping the children…until they were ripped apart by the cockatrice after they were ambushed.

  And then…Bertholde.

  Finding her lovers literally torn apart…

  Elain let out a scream she faintly heard echoed by Lina and Mai. Then she felt herself yanked backward, hard. Her focus slammed into her again, and she realized Ain had his hands on her shoulders and had dragged her away from the table, chair and all, breaking the contact between her and Mai and Lina.

  “You’re done,” Ain barked, his Prime edict brooking no resistance. “I don’t give a shit what you’re doing, you’re done with that for right now.”

  Lina and Mai, both looking sick to their stomachs, slowly nodded. The icon went sliding off the top of Mai’s head. Zack reached out and caught it, letting it drop into the palm of his hand before he set it on the table away from the others.

  “What’d you see?” Zack quietly asked.

  Lina choked back a sob. “Sean and Colm.” She jumped up and ran from the kitchen. Zack followed her.

  Elain reached up and grabbed Ain’s hands and held on tight, squeezing, maybe even as hard as she’d squeezed while giving birth.

  “Holy fuck,” Mai muttered. She still looked shell-shocked. “What the fuck is going on? What did we get ourselves into?”

  “Did you see anything about the bomb?” Ain asked.

  “No,” Elain said. “It was all stuff from the past.”

  “What was that weird color?” Mai said, finally looking at Elain. “Did you see that, too? Purply green?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What?” Kael asked.

  Elain described it, Ain not interrupting. Elain practically had Ain’s arms draped around her shoulders by the time she finished telling it.

  Kael looked at Ain. “They have to do it again.”

  “No, they don’t. Not right now. Mai’s pregnant, and—”

  “And Lina was bouncing around Bolivia and Europe after cockatrice while pregnant with the Beasts. Mai was on the run from the Abernathys. And frankly, I’m surprised Elain didn’t deliver Ellie in the middle of that freaking rock pile in Maine that day. So you can give me a Prime Alpha wolf glare all you want, handsome though it might be, but you know as well as I do that they have a job to do, mega-Clan Council member dude.”

  Elain gently poked Ain in the shoulder. “Don’t glare at Kael.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s family. And, more importantly, he’s right.” She tipped her head up to look into his face. “You are handsome. But he’s also right that we have a job to do.”

  Ain was staring at the icon. “Can I smash it?”

  “No!” Elain, Mai, and Kael yelled.

  “Why the fuck not?”

  Kael answered when the two women were at a loss for a reason. “We don’t know what that will do. It could just destroy it, or it might unleash…something.”

  “Oh.”

  Kael smirked at him. “Not as easy as it looks, is it?”

  Ain stood, his hands still resting on Elain’s shoulders. “No, I know it’s not. Sorry.” He leaned in and kissed the top of Elain’s head. “Sorry I interrupted you guys.” His voice sounded soft, sad, and ripped at Elain’s soul. “I shouldn’t have. I won’t do it again. It scared me when you started screaming.”

  “Scared the fuck out of me, too,” Elain said.

  Mai nodded. “Ditto. I need a drink.”

  “Wrong,” Elain said. “You can’t drink, and neither can I. Well, I can, but I shouldn’t. Not until Ellie’s completely on the bottle.”

  “I can,” Kael muttered, standing and going to the upper cabinet where they’d moved all the liquor once the Beasts had started showing signs of walking, to make sure it was safely out of reach. “And by the Goddess, I’m going to. I don’t care if it’s barely lunch time.”

  “Hit me,” Ain said.

  “You can’t either,” Elain reminded him.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re doing Daddy duty.”

  He let out a sad sigh and waved Kael down when he pulled out a second glass.

  “Oh, we’re drinking? Good.” Lina, still wiping at her eyes, walked in and sat down at the table again. Zack walked in behind her. “Hit me, barkeep.”

  “Lucky bitch,” Mai teased. “You can drink. We can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?” she asked Elain.

  “I’m still a walking wet-bar.”

  “Ah. Gotcha.”

  “I’ll take one, too, please,” Zack said.

  Ain knelt next to Elain so he was eye-to-eye with her. He didn’t speak at first. “Be careful. Please?”

  She nodded.

  “Forget the edicts. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted. I know you have a job to do.” He leaned in for a kiss, then gave her hands one final squeeze before rejoining a nervous-looking Carla in the living room.

  Lina stared after him. “We should have gone to our house. Us and Zack and Kael. First Brighton, now that.”

  “Sorry about that,” Elain said.

  “No, it’s okay,” Lina said. Kael placed a drink in front of Lina, and handed one to Zack, before pouring his own. “Frankly, I’m kind of glad he did break the connection.” Lina shuddered, a somber look passing over her face. When she next spoke, she didn’t even sound remotely like her usually snarky, spunky self. “Remind me the next time I see Baba Yaga to thank her.”

  “Me, too,” Mai said.

  “Why?” Kael asked.

  Elain answered for both mothers, who were obviously still too distraught to say it. “Because we felt what Sean and Colm went through, and what Bertholde felt discovering them.” She looked out toward the living room, where the Beasts were sitting on a blanket, flanking BettLynn, and showing her how to work a toy.

  They weren’t acting like toddlers. They were acting like patient partners.

  “I don’t have the heart to keep them apart,” Lina whispered as she teared up again. She reached across the table and squeezed Mai’s hand.

  She squeezed back. “Me, either.”

  * * * *

  After Lina, Kael, and Zack had gotten their drinks in them, Elain volunteered to try the books again, since Ellie was still sleeping.

  “If it was that intense with all three of us with the icon,” Elain reasoned, “I’d prefer to try the books again alone before we do a circle.”

  Zack put them back on the table.

  Lina studied her now-empty glass. “You sure? You sound like a woman in dire need of a drink.”

  “Give me another couple of weeks and we’ll talk about boozing me up,” Elain said, leaving out the fact that she’d already done exactly that already and felt guilty as hell about it.

  Elain stared at the books. “Which one was Edgar’s?”

  Lina pointed to the one on the right. “That one.”

  Elain took a deep breath and tugged on the towel it lay on to bring it close to her. Remembering how she’d been first overwhelmed by the power of the crazy inside Rodolfo’s brain when she’d touched him, she worked up a mental barrier similar to the one that she’d used for her subsequent sojourn through his thoughts.

  After cracking her knuckles and flexing her fingers, Elain finally lowered h
er hands, slowly, until only her fingertips were touching the cover.

  It felt just as horrific as the last time she’d touched it. The only difference was, this time, she was prepared for how deeply horrific it was.

  Elain closed her eyes and found herself standing in a dank chamber, a series of stones on one end feeling vaguely familiar, even though she’d never seen them before in her life.

  Around one man’s neck he wore a dark amulet, and from the way he talked and acted, she guessed he was the leader.

  She couldn’t understand what they were saying, and found herself saying, “Tape me,” hoping Zack and Kael understood as she started to repeat what she could make out of what they were saying.

  And even as bad as watching it play out was, at least the female dragon shifter had been killed swiftly, bled out so her blood could be mixed with the ink they’d used and her skin flayed from her body for tanning.

  Elain realized she could walk around within the vision. When she turned and focused on the stones at the end of the room again, that’s when she saw it. A pale, shimmering glow, and what looked like the ghostly image of…something, some sort of creature, standing there. She narrated all of this, too, in between repeating what she was seeing and hearing there.

  Finally, Elain couldn’t stand it anymore and pulled her hands away, shaking them as if to flick water off. “Sorry. I need a break.”

  She realized Zack had his iPhone pointed at her. “That’s okay. I got it on video.” He shut the recording off and set his phone down. “We’ll give you guys a break for real this time and go over it in a little while.”

  Elain got up and scrubbed her hands in the kitchen sink under water as hot as she could stand it. “That’s all great. We know how the books were created and that there are possibly three more of them. But it doesn’t help us figure out the bomb vision.”

  “Maybe you three need to sit down and do another circle about it,” Kael suggested.

  Elain turned from the sink as she wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “I’m willing to try.”

  “After lunch.” Lina looked and sounded exhausted. “I need a break.”

  Elain didn’t need any special powers to know what had gotten under Lina’s skin. What they’d seen about Sean and Colm had rattled all three of them.

  Ain’s phone beeped, and he pulled it out of his pocket. “Sorry.” He checked it. “It’s a text from Brighton, apologizing for his comment.” He snorted. “And he wants to invite all of us over to his house on Saturday afternoon for a cook-out.” He looked at the women. “Well?”

  Elain knew that this was a make-or-break moment. “Tell him thanks, and yes, we’ll come.”

  Lina glared at her. “What?”

  “We can leave any time. Do you really want to get a rep like Baba Yaga?”

  Elain also wouldn’t deny she wanted a look at Brighton’s digs, and maybe find out more information about what he was up to.

  Lina deflated even more. “You’re right,” she quietly said. “Yeah, I’ll go. At least he’s not living here anymore.”

  “I’m also going to make an executive decision,” Elain said. “I—” Ellie let out a cry in the living room.

  “Lunch time,” Zack said, sounding relieved. “We’ll pick up where we left off in two hours.”

  * * * *

  Carl Shupe hung up the phone and stared at it.

  Son of a fucking bitch.

  With everything going on, the last thing he wanted was an unexpected trip for a family crisis.

  By eleven o’clock that night, he was pulling his rental car into the front yard of a two-story home sitting in one corner of a two-hundred-acre farm. The anemic front porch light came on and an old woman stepped out.

  “Carl?”

  “Hey, mom.”

  “They’re in the back shed.”

  He paused. “Can I at least come in and use the bathroom? I came all the way from freaking Maine.”

  She stepped aside and waved him in.

  “Good to see you, too, Mom.”

  She let out a sniff.

  Which was as close as he’d get to a warm welcome from the woman.

  Cockatrice weren’t exactly known for their warmth and affection. Yet another reason he’d opted to never take a mate.

  But sure, he had the money, he had the rep, so he was the one anyone called when they had a problem in their nest and they couldn’t handle it.

  Yet another reason he’d decided to branch out far away from here, in case some stupid idiot decided to do something that brought law enforcement—or worse, shifter Clan enforcement—down on top of their heads.

  Back in Maine, he could easily claim ignorance.

  After freshening up and grabbing himself a bottle of beer from the fridge, he walked out the back door and down a path through the corn until he reached a small shed. Inside was a hatch hidden in the floor. He lifted it and headed down the steep, rickety wooden steps, through the tunnel, until he hit the bunker.

  There sat a man tied to a chair, face bruised and bloody, upper lip split, both eyes swollen nearly shut, a few teeth missing, no doubt.

  Whether all of them had been intact before the beating started was debatable.

  Carl’s two cousins, Leon and Shorty, sat playing poker at a card table.

  “Well?” Carl asked before he took a long, welcomed pull from the bottle.

  “He’s been skimming off the top,” Leon said. “Caught him red-handed.”

  “For how long?”

  “Better part of a year now.”

  “And it took you that long to figure it out?”

  “He was skimming product, not just money.”

  And now, at least, Carl knew why he’d been brought into this. He pulled up another chair and stared at the guy, a distant cousin who they’d been forced to take as a partner because of the guy’s father’s power in the nest.

  This wasn’t just about needing to get money back from the guy. He was running a side business, putting them all at risk.

  Carl himself never got involved in daily operations on this level. They only called him when there was a serious issue to resolve. Considering the last time they’d called him in over penny ante bullshit he’d put a bullet squarely between the eyes of the guy’s wife, it’d been a reminder no one had needed him to repeat.

  Carl took another drink, contemplating his options. Part of him wanted to kill the guy right there and be done with it.

  That wouldn’t, however, get him answers.

  He needed to know who else was involved, if anyone else from their nest or a rival nest was involved, or if he’d stupidly exposed any knowledge of their operation to fucking humans.

  “Gary,” Carl said, “I have a lot of things going on right now. It does not please me when I am dragged out here to buttfuck New Madrid over bullshit like this. I thought you understood that about me.”

  Gary had been given quite a workover by the cousins already and didn’t even lift his head to try to respond.

  Carl looked at them. “What info did you get from him?”

  “Nothing,” Shorty said. “He won’t talk.”

  Carl had left his sports coat back in the house, hanging on a hook on the back side of the bathroom door. No doubt his mother had already gone through it and found the thousand dollars cash he’d left in the pocket. A stupid charade they went through. She maybe thought he was dumb enough to leave money around and stole it, and he knew she wouldn’t share it with the cousins, and would still keep lines of communication open with him for incidents like this in the future.

  But Carl was nothing if not patient and persistent. He pulled the pocketknife from his slacks, a knife he’d purchased not thirty minutes earlier at a truck stop on his way in, and flicked it open.

  “Gary,” Carl said as he finished off his beer, “you have displeased me. Time for you to talk, because if you don’t, it’s going to hurt a lot more than it will if you tell me what I want to know.”

  Carl gave the guy credit for
having a set of balls on him. Gary worked up enough spit to hawk a bloody loogie at Carl’s feet.

  Carl looked down at it and slowly nodded. “Leon?”

  “Yeah, Carl?”

  “This piece of shit have a mate?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “They have a daughter?”

  “Yep. One. She’s about nineteen.”

  “Go get them. Right now. Both of you. Bring them here.”

  That got Gary’s attention. He started to speak, but Carl backhanded him. “Oh, buddy. No, see, you don’t understand. You forget that I don’t give second chances. Once someone’s tried to fuck me over, I show them how it’s supposed to be done.”

  He grabbed Gary by the hair and wrenched his head back. “You’re going to meet the Dark Ones tonight with the image of me fucking your wife and daughter burned into your worthless skull. Even better, they’ll be cursing you while I do it, because they’ll know it’s all your fault. Because I’m going to make sure they know it is.”

  Chapter Eight

  Brighton made preparations to have the house ready for the cookout on Saturday. It was a test of sorts, even though only he knew it.

  One of the spells that he’d modified from the book was for protection, to avoid detection of intent. He’d carefully cast it around himself and his house, hopefully preventing any suspicion from the three women.

  Especially Elain.

  Best to try it now, when it wasn’t a life-or-death situation, to see if he could block Elain and the others from reading him. It was imperative to test it out so he had time to adjust his plans.

  If he couldn’t do that, he might not succeed in Maine.

  And success in Maine meant finally being able to make a dent in taking out the most powerful of the cockatrice left in the world.

  And their powerful allies.

  * * * *

  Over the next couple of days, Elain, Lina, Mai, and Carla enjoyed Brighton’s absence from the Lyall ranch. He made no more surprise appearances, either, much to the women’s relief.

  Unfortunately, Elain, Lina, and Mai didn’t make any headway with the cockatrice artifacts or with the nuclear vision.