The Problem with Promises Read online

  Chapter Seven

  And you know what? For once I wasn’t behaving like an impetuous teenager. For the first time in my life I wasn’t that dimwit girl who went down into the basement because she heard a strange noise.

  Instead, unbelievably, I was going to do all the right things.

  I was going to follow his suggestion—for once—and find Harry. I was going to do what was sensible after that—for the first time—and listen to my old geezer’s advice.

  We would find a way to fix this.

  Even if I couldn’t see how.

  That was my intent.

  Trowbridge was just damn lucky that one little finch had the heart of an ultimate survivor and I have the attention span of a gnat.

  * * *

  Here’s the thing about aftermaths. When you’re three-quarters numb and only just beginning to appreciate all the ramifications of what’s happened, part of you is pissed that the world is still spinning indifferently on its axis.

  Doesn’t the earth know that it should stop?

  Right then? Right there?

  As I picked my way past the ruin of Casperella’s old stone wall, I was fighting to process the fact that my guy was on one side of the ward and I was on the other. He couldn’t stay there. Slowly starving once he and Cordelia had consumed every frog in the pond.

  Common sense told me that sooner—rather than later—he’d have to hit play on Knox’s phone. He’d have to summon the portal and travel to Merenwyn. Where he and Cordelia would stay, for the rest of their lives.

  While I stayed here. In Creemore.

  Without them.

  And Lexi? Oh Goddess, what of him?

  My distracted gaze kept flitting to the little bird who wheeled alone inside the dome. The last survivor of the flock was the unlikely Mensa candidate. The little brown finch must have tailed at the end of the stream of birds, taking notes on what worked and what didn’t. And unlike the other birds of the same feather, this dull brown finch had learned a thing or two. For instance, the ward was clearly bad. And those birds that flew willy-nilly into that invisible shield died.

  So she’d avoided doing both those things.

  I wish I was that bird.

  The little finch did a slow lonely circle over the pond. Some lives are not lived well alone. The final survivor of a once noisy flock did one final quick circuit, gaining speed, and then she made a sharp turn.

  My heart tightened as I took in her flight path. The bird seemed to be moving at full speed directly for me. Her altitude was low. I stopped, stricken, the helpless flight deck crew watching a fighter jet coming in too fast for their landing.

  Don’t, I thought. At the very last moment, a hiccup away from death, the little bird made the smallest, slightest course adjustment midair. She turned on the edge of a brown wing and swooped low.

  Really low. Like she was aiming for my knees.

  I tensed, ready for the inevitable, knowing she was seconds away from turning into an explosion of feathers and broken beak.

  She hit the wall of magic, but instead of bursting into cinders, her dash to freedom seemed to slow—I swear she hung in the air for a moment or two, caught in a ward that wasn’t solid, but … solidifying.

  I grabbed the stick, sucked in my breath, and made a careful slash. The membrane tore and the bird fell, released from its grip. I could smell the pond—swamp rot now perfumed with sulfur—through the hole I’d created.

  The finch hopped to its tiny feet, tilted its head at me, gave an avian WTF, and then the smartest bird in Creemore beat her wings. She streaked right past my shoulder without so much as a bye-bye and she got the hell out of town. For all I know she made it all the way to the deep forests of northern Ontario without once stopping for a nosh of mosquitoes.

  My mouth opened. Closed. My Fae rolled into a question mark by my shoulder.

  I made a hole in the ward.

  And bang! I went from grim to hopeful. Heart thudding, I bent down and started tearing and slashing with my handy stick. Further investigation told me that the rest of the ward was quite solid. Except for one crucial place. The small opening the bird had aimed for—the gap in Casperella’s prison wall.

  * * *

  Some people think every Canadian has an igloo in their backyard. For the record? I’ve never seen one, never been in one, and never owned one. That’s probably why it took two more seconds and a whole bunch more prodding with the sharp end of my poker to figure out two things.

  Thing #1: Like an igloo, the ward had an escape tunnel going straight through the part of the wall I’d dismantled.

  Thing #2: But the escape chute wasn’t going to last. The magic kept trying to seal itself over the perplexing residue of Fae magic left in the ground within the stone enclosure.

  Given time it would close. But that’s not right now, and so—

  “Trowbridge!” I hollered, dropping to my knees. “I found a hole.”

  “What?”

  I did a quick crawl through the tunnel, cleared it, went a couple more feet, then very cautiously sat back on my heels. I gave him an impertinent hand wave. “Hey, Big Guy,” I said, giving him a kick-ass proud smile. “Looks like we’re all going to Merenwyn.”

  “No!” he shouted.

  I paused, dumbstruck. Hair hanging over my eyes. “What?”

  He made a gesture with his hands. “Go back!”

  “I’m already here,” I said. “You want to explain to me why that’s a bad idea?”

  “Because there’s no getting out of here, Hedi,” he shouted. “We’ll never be able to return to Creemore. We’ll be marooned in Merenwyn.”

  A realm without humans? Let me think about that. “Well, I’ll learn the language,” I said, starting to rise.

  “No.” And this time there was no doubt about what he meant. No, as in no means no.

  “Don’t be an ass,” I said.

  His expression was unforgiving. “Go back the way you came and keep that ward open. We’re coming to you.”

  “Well, you better hurry up,” I said, feeling all kinds of cold. “It’s closing.”

  “Keep it open for us.”

  * * *

  I kept swinging at the stick, trying keeping the hole open—one eye on their progress, the other on the aperture that despite my best efforts was getting smaller by the minute. Hurry, hurry. I came to a decision. I went back down on my knees and charged through. “Look alive, Trowbridge. I’m sending a piece of me your way.”

  He looked up.

  Cordelia—the only wolf I’ve known to see magic—saw my rope of magic coil out into space. “Catch it,” she muttered. Trowbridge grimaced, and swiped blindly for it.

  My serpent fell short. I needed more—another few feet at least—but there was no more. We were at the end of every cliché known to man. At the bottom of the well. At the end of the tether.

  Out of rope, out of hope.

  Goddess, if only I had more magic, I’d … I looked up at the ward. Yes. I raised my arm and the long coil of light streaming from my fingers hooked upward. Delicate as a serpent’s tongue, it licked at the inside of the dome.

  My Fae sparked, shooting out infinitesimally small stars of brilliant green. The coven’s magic slid into me, through my magic, through my hands, into my bloodstream. It fought its way up my arm and almost stopped my heart.

  I rose up on my knees. Hope can make you stupid. I didn’t slow down. Even as my Fae was bracing for impact, I ran headfirst and headstrong, right into the nearly invisible ward. Sparks flew, as fire bright as a hard rock struck upon a ready flint, and the web that the witches had spun revealed itself, a blazing net of glinting evil encompassing the pond, the ridges, even Casperella’s sad burial ground.

  In response, the bite on my arm flared, hot and tight. Painful, but not as unsettling as touching that dome of foul magic. On contact with that, my body registered all kinds of insults. The ward’s shield felt both solid and tacky to me—like the bottom of a filthy sink covered by a slipp
ery ooze. Its essence slimed my skin. My hand, my cheek, the side of my chin.

  But worse? It connected to them. Suddenly, I could see the coven. Sitting in a darkened room. Wearing normal clothing, in a normal living room. Mouths silently chanting. I blinked, and blinked again, trying to exorcise the haunting image of them.

  My vision darkened. I saw darkness, and something—someone—whose presence filled me with the type of terror that stops your breath.

  And then it—or he—was gone.

  Then I saw Natasha and Elizabeth in their car, driving on a two-lane highway. Natasha sat behind the wheel, her mouth pulled down in worry. The younger witch’s elbow rested on the door. Her thumb beat a restless tattoo against the filter end of the glowing cigarette she held pinched between her fingers.

  They have sold parts of their soul to something as liquid and awful as hot melted tar. And it is watching them. It will always watch them. It will wait until they pass into the eternal darkness, and it will be there, waiting to greet them.

  Revulsion swept over me. Whining, I shrank from it, my good hand automatically going to shield Merry from its contamination.

  “It’s foul,” I cried. “It’s…”

  Evil, but I could not say that word out loud, for fear the soul that was darker than tar would hear it. It was inside me. The shadow of the beast and the magic of these foul women was inside me. No white magic this. No good intent formed this witchcraft. This was dark. Like a fruit, once sweet, that had been crushed into a pulp and then held in a dark jar until its rancid juice fermented.

  Goddess. Use it fast and get it gone.

  I cast again, and this time, the magic stretched. Trowbridge flailed to catch. He pulled it to him—the power that was the magic portion of us stretching, stretching. Cordelia’s face contorted in pain as it wound itself around both of them and tightened. Eyes narrowed, Trowbridge threaded his arm around it, as if it was a lifeline, not a cursed thing.

  Lift, I told my magic.

  Sudden, intense pain from wrist to shoulder.

  Heave.

  Hands flamed. They were too heavy. Too big a burden.

  Try harder.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated, willing myself back into communion with my Fae. We are sisters. We are one. Fae-me stiffened, flexed, stiffened, then she lifted them, a few feet, and carried them a few more. Too heavy. Too much. She faltered, slipped, and grazed the water.

  Trowbridge and Cordelia went into the pond up to their waists. My Fae screamed inside me, feeling the faint traces of iron still left in that once-fouled pond.

  Don’t break. Don’t splinter.

  “Mine,” growled my Were.

  “Ours,” I moaned to my sisters. Three strong we fought to lift them from that contaminated soup of slick lily pads and iron-tainted water. It shouldn’t have been so difficult. We had them, as they had us. Surely it should be as easy as belaying them upward. But the mechanics were so very wrong. We were above them, on our knees, stretched to the limit. Weres don’t weigh the same as humans; their bones are loaded with their own heavy version of magic, a requirement of their monthly need to break, and grow, and reconstruct each month while obeying the moon’s call.

  My half-breed status made me featherlight compared to their combined poundage. I needed more magic, or more weight, or more strength. Because the shield was sealing and the beast would take that which was mine.

  Sweat rolled down into my eyes, making them sting. If I could get to the tree behind me, I’d be able to loop my magic around its trunk and that would take the brunt of their weight. But I’d need to back up eight feet if not more. It might as well be a hundred and eighty feet. As it was taking everything I had to hold them steady.

  “Trowbridge, I can’t lift you.” My voice was strained and shrill. “Can you climb up it?”

  A savage tug on my rope of magic. My arms were being pulled from their sockets. Horribly, slowly. Like being on a rack, except there was no rack, no one standing beside me, turning the wheel. The only thing that was rescuing them was me.

  Me.

  Gasp-inducing agony. Panting, I leaned back on my heels, trying to counterbalance. The bed of pine needles beneath me was soft with age. The knees of my jeans skidded on them. And I heard another series of splashes.

  This time, my Fae didn’t even scream when she grazed the water.

  “Give up, give up,” I could hear her plead. Another hard tug on my magic, and then the pressure eased.

  “It’s too slick,” he called. “It’s no good, Hedi.”

  Like hell it’s no good.

  My wolf swelled again inside me, reaching out for her sisters. She welded her strength to ours, and we joined. Three strong, my spine felt stronger—not in danger of breaking in two. Now completely whole—in balance with all three of the mes of me: wolf-me, Fae-me, mortal-me—my arm was roped with muscle. My courage a bucket without a bottom.

  Impervious to pain.

  Unwilling to heed reason.

  Three strong.

  Teeth clenched, we shuffled backward on our knees, gaining two feet, then two more. “You hold on, damn you, Trowbridge. I am pulling you out.” The line of magic jerked as Trowbridge readjusted his grip on her. Our Fae sister was so thin. Vibrating with the strain. You will not splinter. A shuffle, a squeeze of muscle, and pure pigheaded pissiness.

  “That’s it, Tink!” yelled Trowbridge. “Keep going.”

  Yes. Back we went. Soon we lost sight of them though we could hear them—water churned in their wake as we dragged them through the pond.

  A fieldstone bit into our kneecap as we reverse crawled through the remains of Casperella’s prison walls. Go faster. Hurry. Ass first, right arm extended as if we were trying to perform some impossible yoga position, we kept going.

  I’m burning. I’m burning. My fingers are on fire.

  Keep going.

  My heels hit something soft. A quick glance over my shoulder. A thing—a body. We navigated around what was left of Gerry. Hardly breathing. Shoulder screaming. As fast as we could.

  Back, back. Before the ward seals.

  We reached the tree. Did a lunge sideways. Our magic looped around its sturdy trunk, and immediately, some of the spine-shattering strain eased. Reverse progress became marginally easier. Heart pumping like an athlete’s, we kept going, now in a diagonal line, our magic rasping against the fissured bark with every foot we gained.

  Don’t think. Keep moving.

  Past four tombstones for four dead babies and a hole torn in the soil where once there had been a marker for a fifth. Over the rails of a broken picket fence. Right up to the tree that Casperella was waiting by. We did a circle around her and the tree for good measure. Why? We weren’t sure. Put it down to instinct. But as we passed her, Casperella touched the scaled serpent of our magic.

  And this time, she did not steal. Hands sprouted from her torso, white-ghostly, strong. They wrapped around the battered coil of magic and pulled with us.

  Ghost help. Yes.

  Now it was child’s play. We were the four-girl-strong version of Gumby.

  We didn’t stop our backward locomotion until our heels hit the first pack member’s double-wide monument, then we experienced a sudden release of a near unbearable weight, as if someone had clipped the belaying line.

  Let them be safe.

  With that thought, my long rope of magic shattered. Silently and invisibly. Fairy lights glittered in the low light of a gray morning. The air around us smelled faintly acrid. I opened my mouth, and felt all those little bits of magic slide down my throat.

  My wolf gave one single whine, and then padded over to comfort her sister-Fae.

  Go ahead. You guys rest while I roll into a ball and commune with the pain radiating from my hand. Merry—ever the St. John’s ambulance–trained rescue amulet—began her descent, ziplining along the links of her Fae gold chain, heading for the square of skin above my heart, but I caught her with my other hand. The paw that absolutely wasn’t smoking an
d smelling like hamburger just set down on the grill. Feeling nauseous, I forced out one word. “No.”

  Nausea roiled, acidic and bitter, as I rolled over. Flat on my back, I stared up into the sky. The moon was gone. The stars had faded. The world was as gray as the owl watching me from the oak tree.

  Do owls fall into the category of carrion birds?

  “Fuck off,” I told the bird, before I forced myself upright. The tombstones around me seemed to spin, and that detached, shit-I’m-going-to-faint feeling momentarily swamped me. To keep myself in the here and now, I bit the inside of my lip. Hard. I refused to faint, pass out, or swoon. There’s got to be a limit on how many times a girl can do that before she’s labeled as weak.

  I am not weak. And I’m beginning to be very label conscious.

  “Trowbridge?”

  “I’m helping Cordelia. We’ll be up in a moment.”

  So, I sat back on my butt and chewed on the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, while I allowed the smooth, slick marble of William Culley’s monument to support a spine that felt remarkably spineless. A time-out period. Where I wouldn’t pass out. Where I could sit, hunched over, my good hand cradling my bad wrist as I waited for the payback pain to stop hammering.

  “Natasha took my Tear, Merry. And they tried to trap Trowbridge.” My amulet slowly crawled up the Matterhorn of my right boob and found a comfortable summit perch. A yellow light flashed out a question. Blip, blip, blip. Was healing required?

  “I’m good,” I rasped. “It’s moving off.”

  That was a big-assed lie, but we let it stand between us.

  Gerry’s body lay in a long trail of blood. “Who the hell sent bikers for me?” I asked my amulet in a shaky voice. “Bikers. Why bikers?”

  My hand was a throbbing source of misery. By all the glory of all the Faes in Merenwyn and Threall, it hurt. Feeling curiously faint, I rested my head back on the cool marble. Air whistled through my teeth as I fought to bring my breath under control. I studied the inscription on the opposing monument (“Kerry Butcher, Beloved and Cherished”) until two legs came into my field of vision. With a harsh exclamation, Trowbridge knelt beside me. My gaze roamed restlessly over him, cataloging every insult to his body. He was dripping wet, the beauty of his chiseled jaw somewhat marred by a thick streak of mud.