A Crack in Everything (13 page)

‘Are you okay?’ He said the words too clearly, as if talking
to an imbecile.

At a nod from Blythe, two of the Cú Sídhe backtracked along their path, passing into the shadows and out of sight. ‘They’ll buy us precious minutes, but we’ve got to move. Jinx, now! Bring her or leave her.’

Before Izzy could protest again, Jinx scooped her up in his arms. She struggled, but he quelled her efforts without any trouble. ‘Hush,’ he whispered. ‘Hush, you’ll hurt yourself.’

‘Please, don’t.’ The cramped darkness rushed up to swallow Izzy and her voice rose, her heart hammering away inside her. She couldn’t go in there. Not into the dark, into such an enclosed place. She needed to go to the stone. She needed … needed to climb it, to use it, to make it open a way …

‘I remember,’
said the voice.
‘This place. I know this place. I need to be here.’

This wasn’t her. Somewhere, logically, she knew it wasn’t her. Couldn’t be. This need, irrational, overwhelming, but she only wanted to tear herself out of his arms, to throw him off the cliff if necessary and get to the stone. She had to get to the stone! The mark on her neck burned like molten metal, like acid in her skin. Warning her. Such a warning.

‘Something’s … happening to me.’ She had to force the words out. She was losing control of her body. Whatever it was sweeping through her, demanding that she go to the stone, and she couldn’t fight it. She was fading, burned away by the frenzy inside.

‘Close your eyes,’ Jinx told her, his voice rumbling through
his body and into hers. ‘I’ve got you.’ She clamped her arms around his neck, sucked in a breath to keep from screaming, clenching her teeth to keep from sinking them into his flesh. Jinx tightened his hold on her and stepped into the opening. As Blythe followed, it snapped shut behind them.

Izzy dug her fingernails into Jinx’s skin, right through the shirt. She pressed her eyelids together, until sparks of white light danced before her.

‘It’s all right, Izzy,’ Jinx whispered. ‘I’m here. You’re okay.’

Then the darkness took her consciousness as well.

Chapter Thirteen

Voices

J
inx carried Izzy’s limp body through the dark
passageway
leading to Blythe’s hollow in the hill. So afraid, so very afraid. He’d barely known what to do with her. That she passed out was a blessed release for both of them.

Had it been a spell of some kind? A curse or enchantment to keep her out of Sídhe-space? But she’d had no such problem in Silver’s hollow. No. This was different. Not something to keep her out, but something else, designed to compel her, to control her. Something within. As if the spark had more sentience than he’d given it credit for and sought … what? To influence her? It certainly didn’t have the scent of fae magic. It clung to her, but also came from her. Something other. The look in her eyes – that flat, cold stare – had returned and he had barely known her.

And in her eyes, in the predatory gaze, something was
changing. Like a growing fire, a wave in the air, a glow rising along the horizon heralding the breaking of dawn. Not the spark. It was far more than the spark. He couldn’t identify it and that made him very nervous indeed.

What had his option been, though? Stay behind and face demons while trying to control her ravings? Besides, Blythe and her kin had hardly given them an option. They were not guests here, no matter how civilly the Cú Sídhe pack were prepared to treat them for now.

But she had been so scared. He had felt it inside him as well. Terror. Fear of confined spaces, of darkness beneath the ground, of being shut away. Fear so great that she passed out rather than face it. But even her fear didn’t quite feel like her own fear.

Her breath played on his neck, soft and regular, a delicate caress.

Jinx drove the thought from his mind with brute force. He couldn’t even consider that. Her kiss had been an invitation and only shock had stopped him returning it. But he couldn’t. Not now, not ever. She was Grigori, of a bloodline that stretched back – well, forever! And she carried a spark. A divine spark that was already changing her. He didn’t entirely know what that made her.

Aside from untouchable.

As if she sensed his thoughts, Blythe glanced at him. ‘Who is she?’

He almost barked out his answer. ‘No one. Just a girl.’

Blythe gave a soft chuckle which spoke volumes about disbelief. ‘Few people react so strongly to our wards. And she didn’t look right, up there. It was like she was fighting off some sort of enchantment. Is she possessed? What are you doing with a human?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing.’ She twisted the word with amusement. ‘I’ve seen people look at one another that way before and it’s usually far from
nothing
.’

‘Shouldn’t you b worrying aebout your pack-mates out there, fighting demons?’

She shook her head, her silky black hair shimmering as it moved across her naked shoulders. Her scent was intoxicating and she was beautiful. It had been so long since he’d seen one of his own kind, let alone a female.

So why could he only think of the girl in his arms now?

Blythe watched him with far too knowing eyes. ‘You may be young, but you’re old enough to know the fae motto when it comes to humans, Jinx –
fell it, feed on it or fuck it
. Which is she to be?’

‘Leave be, Blythe. It’s none of your business.’

‘You’re here, trespassing on land I protect. That makes it my business. And the business of my matriarch. She’s not going to ask so kindly.’

‘And who might she be?’

‘Oh, surely you know her. Her name is Brí.’

She could have had the same effect by dousing him in cold
water. Brí? He was in
Brí’s
domain?

Jinx stopped in his tracks, pulled Izzy close against him. The urge to slide to hound form and run reached up in a stranglehold, crushing the breath from his lungs. He couldn’t. It would mean leaving Izzy. But of all places to end up, of all people whose homes he could have stumbled into … Brí? Fate wouldn’t be that cruel.

Blythe turned to face him, her face harder, more calculating than before. ‘Now what are you thinking? There’s nowhere to go, Jinx by Jasper. You came from this hollow, from this pack. Whether you claim us or not, we recognise you. And she already knows you’re here. Besides—’ her eyes trailed down to Izzy, disdain and disbelief warring in their depths, ‘––she has a vested interest in your little human charge.’ Her smile was cold, never rising beyond the corner of her perfect lips. ‘Run and you’ll have to leave her. You can’t carry her in hound form. And you won’t leave her. Will you?’ Blythe laughed, a sound which did nothing to comfort him. ‘Well, if you aren’t going to cooperate …’

She snapped her fingers and the Cú Sídhe of her pack materialised out of the shadows behind them. Jinx was seized from behind and Izzy taken from him. Freed of her, he twisted around, ready to fight, ready to pull her from them, when something hard and heavy came down on the back of his head and he sank to his knees.

The shadows of Brí’s hollow danced with coloured lights and laughter. He slid to the cold stone floor and knew no more.

Izzy woke to darkness, unsure of where she was or how she’d got there, and almost fell off the low divan on which she lay. She cursed to herself and sat very still on the edge. She could make out only a little of the room, but a light came from under the door and gradually her eyes adjusted to it.

She got up and stumbled across the room until she found the door. With a shaking hand she tried the handle. When it didn’t work, she rattled it.

‘Hello?’

No answer. Of course there was no answer. Why had she dreamed there would be a freaking answer?

‘Jinx? Hello?’

Nothing from him either.

She let out a long breath and tried to force her racing heart to a calmer rhythm. The last thing she remembered was the rock opening, Jinx picking her up and carrying her towards it. Into the dark. Then nothing. Frightening dreams, horrific images, and the overwhelming need to reach the Wishing Stone. It didn’t make sense.

Then again, nothing made sense any more. So nothing new there.

Izzy swallowed painfully on a dry mouth. The room was bigger than the tunnel, but she was still shut inside. In the dark. The walls felt smooth, like polished metal.

‘Hello? Somebody? Hey, you can’t keep me in here. Let me out or I’m calling the cops.’ If she had a phone. One that worked underground. As if she wouldn’t have done that right away.

‘Stay calm. You are quite safe.’

And right on cue, she was hallucinating again. That voice in her head, fan-
bloody
-tastic. Never a good sign. With a strangled cry of frustration, she kicked the door so hard it rattled and her foot began to throb with pain.

‘You’re going to harm yourself,’
said the voice, with obvious concern.

‘Who the hell are you and why do you care?’

‘I care because I always care. Angels care, Isabel. Despite what Jinx believes.’

An angel? Oh, that was all she needed. And why not? Why should the angel get left out? It was only her mind. ‘You’re the one who fell, aren’t you? Who left the graffiti angel and the spark.’

‘I am.’

Izzy sank onto the narrow divan. ‘This is all your fault then. Why me? Why involve me?’ Her hand touched material, a rich velvet, fold upon fold of it neatly positioned at the edge. She pushed it off because it was about the only thing she could control anymore.

There was a long pause. Trying to figure out an answer no doubt. One that might make sense, hopefully, although she sincerely doubted it.

‘You were the one. I sensed you nearby and knew you would come. And my enemies were closing in on me.’

‘Demons?’ Even in the warm stillness of the room, she shivered. ‘There are demons?’

‘Yes, you saw one of them. And his shades. They followed you home. They were outside your house. I sent them away.’

Of course you did
, Izzy thought and then wondered if an imaginary angel had a sarcasm detector.

‘Can you get me out of here?’

There was a moment’s pause. Then a sigh. She felt it run through her body as if it was her own. The angel spoke again.
‘No. I have grown weak. Like the spark, I am melting into you. Soon we will be part of you and
I
will be no more. It has been hard to even communicate with you.’

For a moment Izzy almost felt sorry for her. But sitting in the dark, lost in a nightmare, sympathy only went so far.

The angel didn’t sound upset, just despondent. They weren’t the same thing. Well, boo-hoo. It wasn’t as if she’d given Izzy any choice in it either. ‘Do you have a name?’

‘No longer. I gave it up to fall.’

‘How did you fall?’ That was serious, right? Falling. That was like being expelled for sin. It had to mean something really bad.

‘I lost someone, long ago. Someone I loved. I … I made a mistake.’

A mistake. Right. Izzy knew all about mistakes. Mistakes had got her here, locked in a room in the dark. Underground. Alone. Or rather not alone, but talking to the fairly useless and
rather pathetic angel lodged inside her head. A whole series of mistakes. Starting with going into that alley to look at a bit of graffiti in the first place.

Dad had mentioned mistakes too. Mistakes of long ago. Like not telling her everything when he still had the chance, she supposed. But thinking of Dad, especially thinking of him in anger, didn’t help. It left a hollow ache that gnawed at her heart.

‘Don’t blame him, Isabel,’
the angel whispered and deep inside her something warmed, comforting and calming.

‘I don’t. Not really.’ She only whispered the admission. It wasn’t the type of thing she could say out loud. How could she blame Dad when she could lose him at any second? But the angel, at least, seemed to understand that. Even if Izzy didn’t.

She didn’t hear footsteps in the passage outside, but the lock turned and the next thing she knew, the door was open, spilling light into the room, illuminating the figure of Blythe. Light bounced off the polished bronze that lined the walls. This wasn’t the cell Izzy had taken it for, or at least if it was, it was a comfortable one. More like a waiting room. The divan, a soft chair, even a fireplace, though it was cold and empty. A table in front of it even had some food and wine. Her stomach rumbled loudly at the thought that it had been there all this time and she hadn’t known.

Not that she would have touched it. She wasn’t a fool, even if she was starving. If she was away with the fairies, she wasn’t
going to be taking their food and wine so they could keep her there. She remembered that much from the stories Gran used to tell her.

‘Good, you’re awake. Talking to yourself?’

Izzy ignored the jibe. ‘Where’s Jinx?’

Blythe just raised her eyebrows. ‘He’s safe and sound for now. Don’t you worry about him. You didn’t eat?’

‘Bit hard when you can’t see it.’

Blythe frowned at her and then gave a groan of dawning realisation. ‘Oh, of course. Human eyes.’ But instead of getting a lamp or something she just shrugged, ‘You should be getting dressed. You have an audience with the matriarch, girl. She’s very interested in you.’

Bristling again, Izzy pushed her irritation away. If Blythe was trying to get her to lose her temper, she had a long way to go to reach the Mari-standard of pointed remarks. ‘Getting dressed in what?’

‘That would be the dress, duh,’ said the Cú Sídhe. How could she look like something out of a medieval fantasy and talk like she’d walked out of the shopping centre a few minutes ago? What dress, anyway?

The folded material on the foot of the divan. Izzy had forgotten about it. She picked it up from the ground and lengths of green velvet fell from her fingertips. ‘You’re kidding, this?’

‘Not every day you’re summoned to see a living goddess, little human. Might as well look your best.’

A goddess?

‘There is only one God. This is an impostor. One of the lost.’
The gentle, soothing voice was gone. The fallen angel’s anger flared in the back of Izzy’s mind – righteous indignation, divine rage. It left her stunned for a moment.