A Crack in Everything (22 page)

‘All right,’ Izzy whispered to the angel, though the grim line of Jinx’s mouth relaxed as if she had just agreed with him. If she couldn’t trust an angel, who could she trust? So why did her stomach flutter in panic as she said it? Why did the mark on her neck turn to ice? Why did it feel wrong? It shouldn’t. Sorath had driven away the other angels and saved Dylan, she’d shown Izzy how to get rid of the merrow, she’d told her the truth. Jinx wouldn’t even apologise for using her tears to escape when he could have just used a single silver ring.

But she didn’t just want Jinx to apologise. A desperate need burned in her. She wanted him to beg for forgiveness. And
then she wanted to deny it.

Ignoring his proffered hand, she jumped down off the rock and skidded across the slick rocks, making her uncertain way towards the shore. She might have walked at Jinx’s side, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him again.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Broken Branches

D
ylan paced the upstairs hall, back and forth, unable to settle, unable to let go of the phone in his hand, unable to stop or leave his family. How could he? His sister was dead. They needed him.

But so did Izzy. He couldn’t abandon her now.

Sure, Jinx would protect her, for as long as it suited him. For as long as whatever hold the geis had over him continued.

Dylan hadn’t been able to help Mari, even standing a few feet away from her, but maybe … just maybe, he could help Izzy. He had to try.

And then there was Silver to think of. Part of him didn’t want to. He knew she was dangerous. Especially to him.

Lost, alone, in pain. Dylan shuddered to think of it. Silver was in danger and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing. Except send the others off and wait here in case they
needed him.

The madness of it all swept over him in a wave of despair that robbed his breath and left him nauseous. Mari’s face still hung in his mind’s eye, staring at the ceiling of the coffee shop, shards of glass all around her. But then again, so did Silver’s, weak and desperate, afraid in the dark on the hillside. Izzy, standing there pale and resolute, with more steel in her than he’d ever seen in anyone, had promised him, had sworn on her life, that she’d help him.

Dylan paced back and forth, pausing only to glance in on his mother. Sleeping tablets had claimed her consciousness quickly enough while downstairs his dad was drinking glass after glass of whiskey with Uncle Joe. His aunt and cousins clattered around in the kitchen, cooking enough food to feed an army. They didn’t need him here. And he couldn’t afford to involve them in the world that he’d stumbled into, the world that had taken Mari from them.

Azazel’s words came back to him. The shades would follow him here. Maybe they already had. He couldn’t risk his family. He couldn’t lose anyone else he loved.

Ever since the music in the alley, ever since he had heard Silver’s voice, he had changed. Izzy too. Changed beyond recognition.

Isabel Gregory shone with strength and determination. She was a good friend, loyal and kind. His friend. Izzy was brave too, braver than he’d felt, standing in front of Brí, facing Azazel on the hillside. Half-blood, they called her and couldn’t see
how that made her stronger than any of them.

Stronger than Silver, as it turned out. Silver without her power was helpless.

Silver … the thought of her made something in his heart give a little twist. Where was she? She’d sounded so … lost, helpless. And he’d handed the phone over to Jinx. Like Silver didn’t matter to him at all.

Well, she shouldn’t. If they hadn’t met Silver, wouldn’t Mari still be alive, irritating him and bitching behind his back? If he hadn’t met Silver … would he be happy?

He couldn’t answer either question. All he knew was that Silver mattered. That he needed to see her again, needed to know she was all right.

He checked the phone again. Sent another message. Waited. No answer.

Fuck this, he told himself. Fuck all this.

He was out the door before he had a chance to second guess himself.

The alleyway leading to the hollow was deserted. It smelled of ashes and vomit and Jinx paused, experiencing an eerie sense of wrongness. The place felt empty. A cold breeze whistled against the ancient stone walls and he’d never heard the Sídhe-ways so silent. Not here, in the heart of Dubh Linn. Silver’s hollow, small though it was, had always been a hive of
life, a hub of chaos.

His home.

Now it felt dead and empty, and he hadn’t even gone inside yet. Warning clung to the threshold, ominous with unspoken threats.

Izzy shifted from foot to foot. Her silence was unsettling him as well. Maybe that was all it was – her silence, her pain, and the guilt that gnawed away inside him.

They were never going to get off that bloody rock if he hadn’t made her cry. So he had. And he hated himself for having done it. The silver piercing his body didn’t come out, would never come out, because Holly had put it there. It was an enchantment. But Izzy didn’t know that. And pride wouldn’t let him tell her.

It didn’t matter though. What was done, was done. He couldn’t take back anything he had said. And she wouldn’t forget it either. Which might offer her some sort of meagre protection at last. No ‘sorry’ could make it better, even if he could force the words from his mouth. The selkie had been right. What scared Jinx more was how easy it had been. Words like those that had been turned on him in childhood came too readily to his mouth. He hated himself for it, for becoming like Holly and her ilk. For using her cruellest lessons to his advantage.

What he’d done had been necessary. That didn’t make him feel any less of a bastard. She didn’t deserve that sort of treatment, no one did. He, of all people, knew that. But he couldn’t
allow her to get any closer to him. She was liability enough already.

‘Aren’t we going in?’ Izzy asked.

He swallowed down guilt and anxiety onto a roiling stomach. ‘Stay behind me. Get ready to run if anything happens.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ she muttered as she fell in behind him. ‘First sign of trouble and you’re on your own. I just want the grail.’

‘And you’ll get it. But I need to make sure Silver is okay first. Like we promised.’ He glanced back to meet her narrowed eyes, almost entirely Sídhe in the dim light, betraying her blood more than anything else about her. Where was the glow he’d seen in her that first day? It had dulled to no more than a flicker now. She gazed back at him with hard, untrusting eyes and looked so cold. ‘Just do what I say,’ he whispered, knowing she wouldn’t, hating that he’d squandered her trust.

Then there was the matter of that kiss – forbidden, unwanted, intoxicating. Every time it flashed back into his mind his body reacted all over again. He wanted to grab her and kiss her, to take his time and do it thoroughly. But she was Brí’s child. A half blood. And his mistress.

Jinx gritted his teeth and opened the door.

Nothing moved inside the hollow. The entire place was strangely silent. He tried the lights, but nothing happened. So still, so quiet.

Then the smell hit him, beyond the normal reek of the
place the morning after a night of revels. Something horribly familiar.

Jinx put out a hand to stop Izzy. When his fingers touched her arm, she shied back. Slowly he exhaled and then drew in the scent, studying it in the way only Cú Sídhe could do.

‘What is it?’ Izzy asked, but he didn’t answer. How could he tell her that his home was daubed in blood and terror, that the very air stank of death and torture?

‘Holly was here.’

‘That’s what Silver said.’ Impatience tightened her voice. She didn’t understand.

He felt the briefest itch against his skin as magic kindled behind him. Light blossomed in Izzy’s outstretched hand, a little ball of flames coiling round each other, bound up in a shell of her will, like a miniature sun swirling above her palm.

‘How did you—?’ Brí’s daughter, of course. Fire magic would come naturally to her, for all her human blood. The angel must have told her how. Who knew what Sorath or the Grigori side of her could make of that? Jinx knew nothing about them – human creatures, but not quite human. A hybrid? Was that what Silver had called them? A human-demon hybrid created long ago to … to what? Damn, he should have listened. She’d tried to teach him more than music, but he’d never wanted to learn the lore and dry histories of the races. What was the chance
he
would ever encounter a Grigori?

Right. Hilarious now.

‘Sorath told me how,’ Izzy admitted. Of course, she had
that advantage too, though Jinx wasn’t sure if that was the right description. The angel whispered in her ear, far beyond even his hearing. Jinx didn’t like it, but sometimes he sensed it. He was certain that cold stare he occasionally saw was the angel looking out at him from behind Izzy’s eyes. If he was in hound form his hackles would rise. There was more to this than a convenient accident. Had to be. Far too many coincidences were colliding – and he didn’t believe in coincidences to begin with.

Izzy sucked in a tight breath and the fire flickered wildly. ‘Oh, shit.’

In the moment it took her to regain control, the light flared more brightly and he could see in graphic detail what her mortal eyes could only begin to make out.

Blood indeed. And death.

Everywhere.

Bodies lay strewn over the dance floor. Not many, for not many would have been here. Most of them weren’t intact, that was part of the problem. But there were glasses and bottles, all smashed, scattered like shards of ice amongst the corpses. Had they been celebrating Silver’s safe return? Honouring Holly’s presence? Every face was familiar.

Or had been.

And then the wrong word had been said, a piece of bad news imparted, one fatal mistake made. Or maybe Holly just took the opportunity as it presented itself. Maybe she had just been waiting for the right moment.

Holly had been here indeed. And only those she still needed would have left with her.

Sage slumped half on and half off the stage, his green eyes gazing endlessly at the ceiling. Most of his stomach had been torn out.

Panic seized Jinx. He had to find Silver. He had to know.

If she was dead … if she was dead …

But Holly was Silver’s mother. Silver was so special she’d got her own hollow within Holly’s domain. Every Sídhe wanted that. Holly’s child. Holly’s first child.

She wouldn’t! She couldn’t! Not even Holly!

Silver was no threat to her. All down the years she had never made a move, never brooked any mention of independence. She could have. It was her right and she was strong enough. But she didn’t. She was so very careful.

Tearing through the curtain to the VIP lounge, Silver’s little realm, Jinx wasn’t even sure how he crossed the death-soaked club. The light, and Izzy, bobbed along uncertainly behind him, gradually illuminating horror after horror.

They had uprooted the tree, broken it, killed it. Silver’s tree, which was her strength and her heart, the place she had poured all her power down through endless years, the place where she stored the memory and essence of those lovers who had served her as Leanán Sídhe.

They’d smashed it to matchsticks and firewood. The harp had been crushed underfoot.

‘No,’ he whispered, uselessly. Who was there to hear? Who
would care but him? And Silver, if she could possibly have survived this?

Silver had already been stripped of the power she had in her body by Brí. Could she survive this?

Izzy’s free hand closed on his shoulder, a single point that wasn’t made of pain. Her voice shook. ‘What does it mean?’

‘Silver lost her magic to Brí, that which she carried within her, but the tree could have restored it. She’d poured her excess magic into its branches and leaves over the years, and her heart and will too, as a safeguard against such a loss. When she took the life of a lover, at the end, this was where it went. It was her touchstone, the source of her magic, of her life.’

‘And Holly … broke it?’ He just nodded. ‘But you said Holly is her mother?’

‘It’s complicated, Izzy. Our ways of dealing with kin and kith, with family and bloodlines, with loyalties and duties, aren’t the same as yours. As her mother, Holly is owed duty. She owes very little to Silver in return. But Silver owes everything. She’s always been loyal, always!’

A new voice broke the silence. ‘Holly’s hardly the maternal type, is she, Jinx?’ Mistle ambled from the shadows beyond the tree.

Jinx didn’t think, couldn’t waste the time. He leaped across the shattered room, seized the wretched fae and slammed him into the wall. ‘What are you doing here? Picking through the debris? Out for a buck from the dead?’

Mistle turned his head to one side and spat onto the floor.
Coolly collected, far too at ease. Prickles of alarm raced up Jinx’s spine.

‘Waiting for you. Knew you’d turn up sooner or later. Holly trashed the tree and took Silver off. Ordered her guards to wreck the place and kill the others.’