Bewitched, Blooded and Bewildered (13 page)

A shape loomed on the horizon, and as we drew closer I was able to make out a building of some sort. A really big building, possibly a castle. I spotted what looked like towers, turrets, and walls. I knew there were technical, architectural terms for the features, but I couldn’t remember them as my legs and lungs burned from the effort. Finally Patience stopped, and I flopped down atop a damp clump of grass.

“There are a lot of new wards around this place,” Patience commented, immune to or ignoring my condition.

“Can we get around them?” I wheezed.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” she replied. “Never had trouble with the old ones.”

“Are there guards?” Lex asked.

“Yes. The lord of the manor doesn’t like to share.”

“Have you met him before?” I asked.

“A few times. Kris and I don’t get along.” Patience shrugged, her yellow eyes still glowing.

I shivered, and Lex pulled me to my feet and wrapped his arms around me. Closing my eyes, I leaned into his warmth. Maybe it was the soul mates thing, but a hug from Lex seemed to have curative powers, and I felt better.

“I’d tell you to wait here, Titania, but you wouldn’t be any safer,” Patience commented.

“That’s not encouraging,” I muttered against Lex’s chest.

“Let’s go. And, Duquesne, now that we’re here, try not to whip out your glow stick until it’s absolutely necessary. I’m sure you have less blinding weapons hidden in that coat. We’re going for stealth for as long as we can, and your spear will send up an alarm.”

“Understood. I want you to stay behind me, sugar, and keep your shields up,” he instructed me.

Usually I’d argue that I could take care of myself, but if Patience was right and I was with child, then yeah, I’d swallow my pride and sit this fight out as much as I could. I’d gotten stabbed a few times during my first, big demon fight, though it’d been my father who’d done the stabbing and not the demons. And I’d gotten knocked out cold during my second, big demon fight, so my track record was not so good.

I nodded and then pulled away from him and turned to our guide and her assistant. “How can we be stealthy? We’re glow in the dark.”

“I’ve got a spell to cover that. It’ll make it harder for you two to see, so just move slow and careful. I’ll slow down for you.” Patience pulled something out of her bag. I couldn’t see what it was, but I assumed it was a spell component of some sort, because she launched into chanting—more Latin?—and raised her hands. Even more darkness showered from her fingertips like a burst of black rain, covering us with stinging, cold droplets. It stole the soft light surrounding us, and I clutched Lex’s hand in the near black.

We started out again, doing our best ninja impressions, and it was like stumbling around the house with all the lights turned off. As we neared the wall of the compound we stopped, and Patience held up one hand and crouched low. It was brighter here, as though the castle was lit with the soft glow of city lights. A group of four squat demons came around the corner, weapons and armor clinking in the quiet as they walked toward us. Apparently demons weren’t fans of modern firearms either, because they looked prepared to defend against a Viking raid. Afraid to move, I held my breath until it burned in my lungs. The group passed near our hiding spot, and for a second one of them paused and sniffed in our direction. The moment passed, and they continued on.

I sighed in relief, and we hurried in the other direction, hugging the wall. Instead of the usual gray stone or concrete, it was made of slick, glassy, black material. Obsidian? I was pretty sure it made good arrowheads and hand axes, but you didn’t build with it. I vaguely remembered something about obsidian having specific magical properties, but I didn’t recall what they were. Curious, I touched it, and the surface didn’t feel like stone, but instead like a giant, cold gummy bear.

We turned the corner and came to a large gate carved into the wall. More demons stood guard, but Patience continued on without pause, leading us onward. I balked, sure she’d lost her damn mind because there was no way we were actually about to do a direct assault on this place, but Lex tugged me forward. Patience waltzed past the guards, and when no alarm went up, I knew what it was like to be a Klingon warbird sneaking past the Starship Enterprise.

The inside of the castle was no better lit than the outside. Though I expected torches or chandeliers, there were none to be found. It made me wonder what Castle Silverleaf would look like if my faerie cousins stopped paying their magical utility bills. No alarms blared, no guards appeared to attack us, and everything was silent as Patience marched through one dark hallway after another. I breathed a giant sigh of relief once we arrived at the library. It reminded me a bit of Simon’s lair, but while the chronicler’s collection was warm and somewhat inviting, this room was cold and severe. Aisles of books seemed to grow out of the shadows, and bookcases loomed upward into the blackness of the ceiling, if there even was a ceiling. I wondered how anyone could read in a room like this, or ever hope to find anything on the shelves. It was like walking through the stacks of my alma mater during a power outage. At midnight. On Halloween.

“Hello, Patience. I admit, I wasn’t expecting to see you in my library again,” a smooth voice said. The speaker stepped forward, and I flinched at his appearance. He was a villain made completely of shadow, with lifeless black eyes and strange long hair that languidly moved around him as though he were underwater. I made a mental note to apologize to Simon St. Jerome for criticizing his wardrobe. Kristoff Valkyrie had needlessly black, out-of-fashion clothing down to a T.

“Aww, did you miss me, Kris?” Patience asked.

The demon snarled, which I took as a no. Lex stepped in front of me, and I surrounded us with shields, just in case. Patience, on the other hand, seemed nonplussed.

“Did you really think it would be so easy to break into my home?” Kristoff asked.

“Yes. Don’t give me the ‘I let you get this far’ speech. It demeans both of us. Now, these nice people need a ritual of yours. Why don’t you give them a copy and we’ll call it a day?”

“
Give
them? I do not
give
away pieces of my collection,” he sneered.

“I said a copy, not the original. Geez, are you going deaf?” she said. My jaw dropped—even I wasn’t that tactless. Right? Okay, maybe sometimes…

“And I am to give these
nice people
a copy because you asked so politely? I think not.”

I frowned. “Would it help if we said ‘please’?”

“Payment would be more helpful. What can you offer?” the demon asked.

Lex opened his mouth as though he was about to answer, but I cut him off. “Unless you’re talking American dollars, we’re not playing
Let’s Make a Deal
. That’s how I got into this situation.” No more negotiating with Team Evil for favors, and if he didn’t like it, we were going to beat Team Evil down and loot his body.

“Right. They’re not offering you anything, and neither am I,” Patience said. “No favors, no soul pieces, no firstborn. Nothing.”

“But the lady is in a position to offer her firstborn.”

I looked down, wondering again if there was a Baby On Board sign hanging over my stomach that only the bad guys could see.
Great.
Would Harrison be able to spot it? Maybe that’d lessen the freak-out after I broke our special bond.

“Okay, Kris, these are your options,” Patience began. “You can give them a copy of the ritual they need, or I burn your whole library down.” To accentuate her point, her hands burst into flames, the flickering, orange glow providing the brightest light in the room. “Or, third option, I bind you to me, I make you give it to them, and you get to come home with me and be Harvey’s new BFF.”

“I have been very lonely, Mistress,” Harvey said.

Kristoff hissed at the pooka and then scowled at Patience. “What makes you think you would get out of here alive if you tried?”

“Yeah, Tiberius said something like that to me before I killed him. Guess what happened to his fortress?” she countered. I bit my lip to prevent myself from asking. Besides, Kristoff’s reaction told that story. He growled, pacing back and forth for a moment, his hands clenched into fists. The demon snarled and leapt at Patience, and they both went down in a tangle of flaming limbs.

Lex stepped forward, and Harvey grabbed both of us. “Let her work,” the pooka ordered.

Maybe demon wrestling was covered by our contract and I’d missed it. The rug caught fire as they rolled around, kicking, punching, clawing and biting. I could tell that it was irking Lex’s inner guardian not to get involved, but Harvey seemed calm, so I didn’t worry. Finally Patience pinned Kristoff, one of his arms twisted at an unnatural angle behind him. She spat out a mouthful of blood—apparently he’d clocked her in the face during the scramble.

“Seriously, Kris? How many times do I have to kick your ass before you learn not to argue with me?”

“At least once more,” the demon grumbled.

“Are you going to play nice or do I pick a bookcase to start a bonfire with?” she asked.

“Enough! What ritual do you require?”

Lex told him the name, and after Patience let him up, the demon stalked off to retrieve it.
Wow.
I stared at Patience, and she dusted herself off, extinguished one hand, reached into her messenger bag, and withdrew a cigarette. She lit the smoke with her other flaming hand, which was quite possibly one of the most badass things I’d ever seen. And it made me want a smoke really bad. Guess it was a good thing I’d quit if I was going to be a mommy.

Lord and Lady. I took a step closer to Lex at the thought. We’d need to stop by a pharmacy on the way home and pick up a pregnancy test.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m ready to get out of here,” I replied.

“Soon, sugar.”

Not soon enough, in my humble opinion. I gave him as reassuring a smile as I could manage. Kristoff returned, holding a piece of paper that was startlingly white against the blackness of his body. His fingers blurred where he held it, and I wondered if he was not quite solid—a shadow person for the shadow realm, but he’d looked solid enough when he was fighting Patience. I let Lex take it, because I didn’t want to get closer to the demon if I could avoid it. Lex looked the ritual over and tucked the page into an inner pocket of his coat.

“Now if you would be so kind as to remove yourselves from my property,” Kristoff said. “And, Patience, if you darken my doorway again, you will become my permanent guest.”

She snorted. “Whatever. Good luck with that. But fortunately for you, I don’t plan on coming back.”

The demon smiled thinly. “The times are changing. We shall see.”

We left before Patience could antagonize him further, and we didn’t encounter any resistance on the way out of the building. We walked a bit away and then she stopped. “I’ll make the door. Stand back,” she ordered.

She chanted and waved her arms in a large circle, and the darkness shimmered into a round portal showing the spot in Millennium Park that we’d just left.

“Come on,” she said. She slipped her sunglasses back on and stepped through first.

We quickly followed suit, and the moment we stepped through the gate, Patience’s friend Harvey vanished again. Had he always been there before? Did he silently watch when we met with her in her office? Creepy.

We walked a few feet away from the bean, and Patience stopped and turned to us. “Keys, please. Are we square?”

“We’re square. Thank you,” Lex said. He handed his key back to her, and I followed suit.

“Remember, when your vampire boyfriend freaks the fuck out over this, you don’t know me,” she said, pointing at me for emphasis.

“He won’t hear it from us,” I promised.

“He better not. Good luck with your spell.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Are you going to be okay? With that demon?” I wasn’t really concerned with her well-being, but I was morbidly curious.

“I can handle Kris. Shadow demons are usually more bark than bite. It’s been real, kids.” Patience turned and sauntered away, and I glanced at Lex.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, and he nodded.

Chapter Ten

Two pink lines confirmed what Patience had already told us. I was pregnant. Probably just barely pregnant—what do they call it? A little bit pregnant? I wanted a real, actual doctor to verify it, but Lex and I both accepted it as truth for the time being. We sat in the living room, unsure of what to do next. Lex kept switching back and forth between frowning in concern and smiling a goofy grin, which I found pretty cute. I scratched Bubba behind his big furry ears, and he drooled on me.

“Do dogs adjust well to babies?” I asked, curious.

“Sometimes.”

“Maybe Marie can take them if they freak out.”

“We’ll see.”

“You’re being very calm about this.” I was panicked on the inside. I wasn’t ready for this. I’d expected that we would decide on the best time to start a family and then get down to business. I’d never predicted an
oops
might happen. Especially not so soon…though considering the amount of sex we’d had since getting married, I supposed the chance for an
oops
was pretty good. Guess I shouldn’t have scoffed at the idea of getting some magical contraceptives from an alchemist shop. But if the damn alchemists weren’t all such shady bastards, I wouldn’t have hesitated at dealing with them.