A Crack in Everything (15 page)

‘Stop it!’ Izzy yelled, but Brí ignored her.

‘Sometimes the only way to shut up a barking cur is to teach him a lesson.’ But she didn’t look happy about it. If anything Izzy thought for a moment that Brí’s gaze was regretful as it lingered on him. But she didn’t look away, and she didn’t do anything to ease his pain. The Cú Sídhe around them moved restlessly, clearly unhappy. Blythe raised her upper lip, baring her teeth, giving a low growl.

Brí released him and Jinx slumped to the ground, breathing
hard, his chest like a bellows.

‘The spark,’ said Izzy, terrified now, so afraid she couldn’t let herself think about what was happening, what she was doing to Jinx. ‘How do I get rid of the spark?’

Brí’s eyes widened for a second. Just a second. Then they narrowed to slivers of ice. ‘Get rid of it? Oh, my poor dear girl, that’s why they want you. The angel’s spark.’ She laughed. ‘Holly and the Old Man will be more than willing to help you ‘get rid of it’. The power that thing offers … You can’t let them do that. Really. But if you really want to do it yourself, you’ll need another grail.’

‘A grail?’ Izzy’s eyes opened wide and inside her the angel stirred, fluttering against the back of her mind, in equal fear. ‘The Holy Grail?’

Brí shook her head and closed her eyes in exasperation. ‘No, child. There are many grails. It means cup. A healing cup. They will only heal once though, and only the people they choose, or those who can find them. Fickle as the Sídhe. But a grail will indeed free you from the spark, and all those who hunt you.’ She paused, giving Izzy a long stare. ‘Or you could use it to heal your father. Or maybe that leech inside you will help. But you’ll need the spark to work that miracle and if you were to use it that way, it will become part of you for all time. Bound to you until death. A bit like Jinx.’

‘Don’t listen to her,’ Jinx warned, his voice still scarred with pain. ‘She’s playing with you.’

‘I’m telling her the truth, raw though it may be. Unlike you,
hound, who have told her nothing. So be silent.’

‘Jinx? What haven’t you told me?’

So much, her instincts warned. She’d been far too gullible. She didn’t want to know the answer, but the words were already out there.

He hung his head, refused to meet her eyes.

‘Why do you have him in chains?’ Izzy asked Brí.

‘When one of my enemy’s kith, her would-be assassin,
wanders
into my realm, I’m hardly likely to let him have his liberty, am I?’

Assassin? Jinx? But they’d spoken of assassins and wars that never ended. She should have guessed. Which meant he’d killed people, he had blood on his hands. Izzy stared at him, but Jinx didn’t look up. Like he knew she was questioning him, that she wanted answers.

‘He said Holly could help me.’

‘Help you by carving it out of you, perhaps. Holly kills angels. Their broken after-images are burned into her walls. That’s how she holds her power, the way she thrives, filling her touchstone with stolen power. She can destroy lesser gods. I doubt you’d be anything like a challenge. But he can’t allow that to happen now anyway, can you Jinx?’ To the surprise of them both, Brí knelt down in front of him and cupped his chin, lifting it so she could look into his eyes. ‘I gave you that geis for a reason, boy. If you’d but stayed true …’

‘Then why trade me away to Holly, Brí?’ It came out like a plea, a lament. It was almost the voice of a lost child.

She smiled, a gentler expression. The words she said however were harsher. ‘What choice did I have?’ she asked. ‘The position your mother and father left us in … Look at you, with her charms and wards all over you, entangling every atom in you. Poor beast. And now, to make matters even worse, you’re well and truly tied, aren’t you? Enslaved not to Holly. But to
her
.’

To Izzy’s horror, Brí looked up and their eyes met. She looked away and found Jinx watching her too, his expression haunted, desperate.

Izzy took a step back from them. ‘I don’t want a slave.’

Brí shook her head, amused. ‘You don’t get a choice. This is old magic. You save a life, you own that life. You drew iron from him, the very iron you try to hide from me now. Don’t look so guilty. At least you had the sense to come armed. Jinx belongs to you now. He’ll die at your command, he’ll kill at your command—’

‘That’s outrageous.’ Izzy swallowed hard on the bile rising in her throat.

‘Any of the Sídhe would kill to have the power you don’t even know how to use. Let me guess, you’ve been running since you first met Jinx? Shadows that move by themselves. Angels dogging your footsteps. Monsters left, right and centre. I ought to cut the spark from you myself, feed it to my touchstone and draw on it myself. And maybe I would, if you weren’t my blood. A geis is a geis and they bind all the Aes Sídhe, irrevocably. They’re important. What else can hold
my kind to account? Your father should have prepared you for this, but no. They wanted you to be “normal”. They wanted a human life. I’ve tried to keep watch over you, to guard you and shield you within my realm. And still they wouldn’t listen to me. That woman—’

Izzy narrowed her eyes. ‘What did my mother ever do—?’

Brí surged to her feet, her eyes blazing with sudden anger. ‘I
am
your mother!’

‘Really?’ Izzy stuck out her small pointed chin and glared at the former goddess, seeing for the first time a reflection of her own bone structure, her own stubbornness. ‘Where were you when I broke my arm? Who nursed me through scarlet fever? Who made my Halloween costumes and sat through endless clarinet recitals? Who was there with breakfast and supper and everything in between? If we’re talking genetics then I don’t know, maybe you are. But if we’re talking about my life then you’re no mother of mine.’

‘You will acknowledge me as your mother one day.’

‘Never.’

‘Yes, you will. And come the day, what will you do if I refuse to answer?’

‘I’ll never have cause to need you. I’m leaving this place and Jinx is coming with me. Get those chains off him. We’re going!’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Brí, drawing back her shoulders and looking over Izzy’s head, every inch the goddess she claimed she once was. ‘You’re both far too dangerous, and far too
attractive to any number of people who would cause you untold harm. You’re staying here. Indefinitely.’

The air grew chill around them, as if Brí had sucked the warmth from it, and Izzy shivered. ‘You can’t do that. I need to get to my parents, back to my dad.’

‘Take them away,’ Brí told Blythe and the Cú Sídhe. ‘Put them somewhere … safe.’ But before Izzy could argue or Blythe could act, another runner came from the shadowy tunnels and prostrated himself before Brí. She leaned forward and spoke to him in rapid undertones. Her features hardened. ‘Very well,’ she said at last. ‘Bring her here. Unarmed. And if she raises even a glimmering of power, I’ll have her head.’

The Cú Sídhe surrounded Jinx and Izzy, some in hound and some in human form. They herded the pair of them together and Izzy was able at last to hunker down beside him.

‘Are you okay?’

‘As “okay” as I might be, given the circumstances.’ His voice was a bitter growl and he refused to meet her eyes. She reached out and brushed her fingertips along the line of his jaw nonetheless. Jinx flinched away, almost knocking himself over in his haste to get away from her.

‘I didn’t know,’ Izzy protested.

‘How could you know about Brí? If your parents didn’t tell you—’

‘About you. About you and me.’

She reached out and touched him again, his jaw hot beneath her fingertips. He closed his eyes, his mouth hardening. ‘What
does it matter? We have greater things to worry about.’ But he didn’t mean that, couldn’t. Izzy could tell. He was bound to her. And hated her for it. A shard of guilt stabbed through her. But what could she have done? Left him to die in that alley?

The knife felt like ice against the skin of her arm.

He was an assassin. He’d killed people. The thought made her cringe inside. What was worse, he didn’t try to deny it. The voice of the angel had warned her he couldn’t be trusted. Was this why? Because how could she trust a killer?

The hall fell silent but for the delicate tap of a pair of heels crossing the marble. ‘You’re so good to see me, Lady Brí. My Lady Holly sends her most respectful greetings.’ Silver’s musical voice rang like bells of morning off the high ceiling.

Jinx’s head came up so quickly, his lips brushed up against Izzy’s palm and she felt the sharp edge of his teeth beneath. She turned, just as surprised to see the slender form of the singer standing only a couple of feet away.

And beside her, dressed in his customary black, his appearance unbelievably haggard, as if he’d gone through hell since she last saw him, Dylan.

Chapter Fifteen

Payments Past and Payments Due

S
ilver had spoken to the cops while ambulance crews scoured the scene of the disaster and whisked Marianne’s body outside. Dylan shuddered and clamped his eyes shut, trying to make it be a lie, a nightmare, a terrible, terrible mistake.

‘Dylan!’ Silver rubbed his shoulders gently.

‘I’m okay.’ His voice sounded much brusquer than he intended, but that didn’t seem to upset her.

‘They think it was a gas explosion.’

‘And what was it? What was that – that thing?’

She settled down beside him, feet in the gutter next to his. ‘Banshee. Never had much time for them myself. Nasty cows.’

‘Is Marianne—?’

Silver took his hand, her grip gentle but firm. ‘Mari wasn’t meant to be here, was she?’

‘She’s dead.’ Saying the words just made it worse, even more unreal. Jesus, what was he going to say to his parents? He’d been sitting there. He’d been sitting right there!

The shock made his breath come in short gasps, made his body tremble uncontrollably. He clamped down on it with an iron will he wasn’t aware he possessed.

‘Oh, Dylan …’ Silver murmured helplessly.

‘Who sent her? Who did this?’ He wanted to find them, to break them, to make them pay. Suddenly nothing in the world seemed so important as that. His sister was dead.

‘I don’t know. But I mean to find out. Come on. Izzy has blundered into something far more dangerous than I thought.’

Mention of Izzy’s name was like being doused in cold water. Blundered? That didn’t sound good. ‘What’s wrong? What happened?’

‘They’ve gone somewhere they shouldn’t. Annoyed someone they shouldn’t. I need your help to get them out. You’re a neutral party. Well, pretty much.’

‘A what?’ This time he couldn’t stop the words. He didn’t feel neutral. He felt out of control.

His sister was
dead
. That creature had killed her while looking for Izzy. His parents didn’t even know yet. How was he going to tell them?

Silver sighed, her voice dropping as if she was explaining something to a relatively dense child. ‘We Sídhe have our own
rules. One is safe conduct for the sake of negotiation. But to do that I need a neutral party. What do you say? I can elaborate on that offer I made. Maybe even give you a sample or two?’

What the hell was she on about? Didn’t she realise what had just happened? Mari was dead. His sister … His mind shied away from that thought, like a horse refusing a jump and galloping out of control. ‘Silver, is Izzy still in danger?’

‘That sort of depends on your definition of the word.’

So yes. When you got down to it. Yes, she was.

And whoever was after her had killed Mari.

‘We have to tell the police, Silver. I have to go home. My parents—’

Her eyes narrowed, taking on a cunning glint he wasn’t sure he liked. ‘You can’t, not now. You’ll bring this down on them as well.’

‘Why? Why would anyone follow me?’

‘Because the person who sent the banshee doesn’t know where Izzy is. But they know you and your sister have a connection to her. They could follow you. Think, Dylan. They’ve lost one child.’

He ripped himself away from her with a snarl, but Silver was quicker than him. In a rush of air, she was standing in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. She looked ferocious, terrifying and far too alien to be a part of his world.

But she was.

‘They killed your sister trying to take Izzy.’

Red rage flared behind his eyes, rage like physical pain. ‘Who did?’

‘I’ll tell you. But first, I need you to help me retrieve Izzy and Jinx. He’s my family, Dylan. I want him back before someone does something equally fatal to him.’

‘Tell me now.’

She shook her head, a small smile lifting the sensuous corners of her mouth. She already knew she’d won. And that made Dylan even angrier. ‘After. I promise. And a Sídhe can’t go back on that.’

Jinx’s body raged with the need to change to his hound form, and with the pain that such a feeling always brought. Izzy and Silver stood in Brí’s hollow, at her mercy. Worse yet, Silver had dragged Dylan along as well. He didn’t give a damn about the human, but this was no place for him. No place at all.

In spite of what she’d said about the human’s talent, she probably saw him as no more than a shield of impartiality right now. One she desperately needed to stand in Brí’s hollow.

‘I come as an emissary,’ said Silver. ‘Holly feels that this enmity has gone on long enough. You have taken one of her kith. She wants him back.’

‘He trespassed on my land,’ Brí replied, with a haughty tilt of her chin. ‘And he’s not so much “kith” as pet assassin. That’s
what she’s made of him. That’s all she sees the Cú Sídhe as – hunters and killers. Pretty though you make them, let’s not mince words, Silver. For all I know she sent him to kill me. It’s her way, is it not?’

Silver stood very still, and her voice was pitched so carefully that only those closest to her could hear it – Brí, Dylan, Izzy, Jinx and Blythe. ‘With respect, Lady Brí, perhaps you should ask that of Jinx’s father. But you can’t. You sent him to Holly’s Market, if I remember rightly, for much the same reason. Shall we make that public as well?’

Brí scowled and Blythe recoiled from her with a hiss of rage, but Silver didn’t flinch. Even Dylan stood firm, his gaze determined, his mouth hard. Something was wrong there. He looked different. Dangerously different. Like something had broken inside. He wasn’t charmed or bound to Silver, but something had happened.

Jinx’s mind reeled sickeningly as it tried to tackle what they were saying, make sense of it all. He’d always thought he was just an honour payment for Holly’s daughter’s elopement with one of Brí’s kith – and a hound at that – for the shame of their forbidden union. But if Brí had sent his father there to kill Holly, then he understood Holly’s hatred. He hated his matriarch all right. Hated and adored her. She’d woven enchantments beneath his skin, punched silver through him and made him her own. She’d taught him to fight, to kill, and to hunt. But never to turn on her. Holly was his matriarch. She held his life in her hands.

Silver had been the one small element of kindness in his entire life. Until he met Izzy. He struggled to rise, but Izzy stopped him, her hand on his shoulder far stronger than he would have thought possible. She stilled him, with just a touch.

Silver smiled, a carefully designed smile that married triumph with reconciliation. ‘Shall we instead work out a mutually appealing solution? As we did before?’

‘When you
stole
my prize pup? Supposing I just take him back now …’

Stolen was different from a gift. So what was he? They talked such rings around each other, he couldn’t follow all the undercurrents.

‘I never stole him, Brí. He was a gift. An honour payment. And to return him now?’ She laughed. Such a carefully modulated laugh. Calculated just enough to charm, but not to enrage. ‘I’m afraid Holly would never agree to that. He is our blood kin. Belladonna was my sister. Besides, with so much of Holly’s magic wrought around him, it would be impossible.’

‘Well, then, we’d need to find something else, Silver. Something as valuable.’ Brí glared at Blythe and the hounds, who were staring at her in a mutinous way, still surrounding Jinx and Izzy, but with a more protective stance than before. ‘I told you to get them out of my sight. They don’t need to hear these negotiations. Take them away. And make yourselves scarce.’

The Cú Sídhe weren’t gentle, but Blythe was less aggressive as she led them away. Jinx kept as close to Izzy as he could, determined to protect her in any way he could. And now he
had Silver to worry about as well.

Damn it. She was more like an older sister to him than an aunt, had been ever since Holly had first claimed him. She’d loved him for her sister, Belladonna: an Aes Sídhe, the daughter of a matriarch, with the temerity to love something as lowly as a Cú Sídhe. But Brí had sent Jasper to the Market to begin with, to kill Holly … And Brí had given Jasper and Belladonna’s child up; she had paid the blood debt by sending Jinx to Holly, to be her servant, her kith. But she’d cursed him with his geis first …

He’d never been given answers to his questions. Not even by Silver. Honour debts, blood debts … it didn’t really matter when you were little more than a chattel. And when magic bound more powerfully than anything else.

Had Brí foreseen Izzy saving him? Had she foreseen him being tied to her own daughter? How far ahead did Brí’s machinations extend? She had sight, everyone knew that.

They were bundled into a small room, but Blythe and the other Cú Sídhe remained at the door, gathered like the pack they were.

Izzy sat down on the narrow bench-like bed and Jinx stayed where he was, barring the way, a makeshift barrier though he was. All the protection she had.

‘Jasper, your father …’ Blythe began, but then stopped as if unable to finish the sentence.

Jinx drew his chin up, steeling himself for another slur, another insult. ‘Jasper is dead. Weren’t you listening?’

‘Yes, but I knew him, Jinx, even if you did not. She never told us she sent him there. He vanished for months before he returned with you. I don’t know where they hid. He went to retrieve your mother, but he never came back. He was pack. There are few enough of us, even here, isolated amongst other Sídhe. For the last twenty years we thought …’

She refused to meet his eyes.

‘You thought what? That he left? That he betrayed you? Hardly the act of a Cú Sídhe, is it?’

‘Or the act of a father.’

Jinx just snorted. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘We never saw her, Belladonna, but we were told she was beautiful.’

Jinx stiffened at the sound of her name, his mother, the woman by whose blood he called Holly grandmother, when he dared. He knew little enough about her. Just what everyone else did. They called her traitor.

‘Ancestors, are you always this dense?’ Blythe snarled.

‘You have met him, haven’t you?’ Izzy supplied in a miserable tone. Not helpful at all. Luckily Blythe paid her no attention. Jinx wished he could do the same, but her pain and fear pulsed inside him, transformed to his own emotions by their connection.

‘You’re our kin, Jinx. And Brí sent you away. Just as she sent Jasper away. We thought he had left us for your mother, for an Aes Sídhe, and then abandoned their child. No Cú Sídhe would do such a thing. Never. But we thought the worst. And
then Holly demanded you as well. You’re our blood. One of us.’

One of us. Words he had always hoped to hear from others of his kind, though he’d never admit it. Nor would he now. They were a pack for sure, intimate and comfortable with that closeness, living in the company of each other, pining without it. He would never be like that. It wasn’t in him. He had other blood too. Blood that couldn’t bear to be a hound for long. Each part of his heritage loathed the other.

Cú Sídhe would never understand that. The very thought of trading one of their own away horrified them. They weren’t Aes Sídhe, though they could look like them. They had a duality of nature that needed to live in both forms at different times and found harmony in their transformation. They switched from one to the other as easily as breathing and he envied them that. Silver had tried to explain, tried to help him understand himself, but it wasn’t the same for him. Not when changing to hound form hurt so much.

But Aes Sídhe were different. They’d do anything to get what they wanted. The High Sídhe. The Lords and Ladies. The Gentry. Not a true heart amongst them. Perhaps not even Silver, who walked a different path. She might see humans as nothing more than a thing to be used and cast aside, but so did all the Sídhe. She was one of the few Aes Sídhe who didn’t regard the lesser Sídhe in much the same way. To those she loved, she was a fierce protector, eternally loyal and kind. He trusted her with his life. She was the only one.

But he had never tested her. He’d never dared to. All he knew of the Aes Sídhe was cruelty and abandonment. If he pushed Silver, would he find that he was just a means to an end as well, a tool like Dylan?