Green-Eyed Envy (9 page)

My eyes narrowed. Well, that explained
where
the intruder had entered and exited, but not
how
they had safely gotten in and out. Or
what
they’d been after. Dre Carrington and I were definitely going to have a
little chat
about his supposedly infallible security experts, however.

I slowly pivoted, letting my gaze take in the room’s contents one last time before heading back toward the hallway, which was when I caught sight of the paper that had fallen to the floor. My pulse picked up speed as I bent down, retrieved the paper, and quickly skimmed it.

The message was short and not-so-sweet.
Since you can’t be bothered to
answer
your phone, get yourself to Salem NOW Marissa Eurydice Holloway. Nan’s awake.

I froze as those last two words sank in. To anyone else, they might have seemed innocuous, but for me they heralded a miracle: My grandmother had
finally
awakened from a decades-long coma.

SCOTT WAS JUST AS SHOCKED TO HEAR THAT my grandmother had woken up from her twenty-two-yearlong slumber as I had been. He also insisted on accompanying me to nearby Salem so I could hear the details from my mother. While Mom spent most of her time “Realmside” these days, recementing old ties to sister Furies, my brother and sister-in-law maintained a cozy suite for her in the attic of the home David and I grew up in.

By the time we stood on the front porch to ring their doorbell, it was well past nine o’clock. Normally I might have felt guilty for barging in on them that late without calling ahead first. Well, guilty toward David and my niece Cori anyway. Vanessa’s sister, Jessica, and I might have called an uneasy truce after I finally solved Vanessa’s disappearance and rescued her daughter, but that hadn’t made us into sudden BFFs. And admittedly, tweaking her nose had been my main reason for not bothering to call ahead.

The door swung open before I even had a chance to ring the bell. A harried-looking,
slightly
older-looking mirror image of myself jerked me inside and patted me down as if to make sure I was in one piece. Rather roughly patted, which clued me in to just how exasperated my normally polite mother really was.

“It’s about time you got here, Marissa Eurydice Holloway.” I winced as every child—no matter how old—did when confronted by a parent using their full given name. She paused in her harangue of me to throw Scott a thousand-watt smile. Sometimes I thought she liked
him
more than me. “Hello, Scott dear. Come on in.”

She turned back to me once Scott stepped into the entryway and shut the door behind him. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to get in touch with you?
Why
in the names of all the gods did you not answer your bloody cell phone?”

Uh-oh. A tiny bit of her childhood brogue—she’d been raised in the late 1800s in Scotland—slipped back into her voice. Wow. She was
really
ticked off. Not quite the reaction I expected to the news that Nan had awoken from her seemingly endless coma. Annoyance I hadn’t answered her calls sooner—that made perfect sense. But anger that bordered on Fury Rage seemed way overkill.

“Mom, I’m sorry. There’s a nasty arcane serial killer on the loose right now and—”

She waved that off as if it weren’t a shocking development (which it was) and clenched a hand on my arm. “Something’s wrong with your Nan, Marissa.”

I frowned. “What do you mean
wrong
? I’d call waking up from a magical coma pretty right myself.”

Mom bit her lip so hard blood trickled down her chin. “That’s just it, Marissa. She woke up an entire
week
ago, but the Oracles only admitted that to me this morning. Just before your grandmother waltzed into the Palladium and slapped that fox-faced bitch in the middle of a Lesser Session.”

I winced. There were two ways to take a seat as an Elder—get enough votes from the Greater Consensus (made up of all the Elders) to gain a vacant position. Or the much bloodier old-school method: Challenge an active Elder to a duel and win the seat if the other Fury yielded—or died. Guess which option started with a bitchslap during an open session? Ding, ding, ding. And trust Nan to challenge not just
any
Elder, but the current Moerae, Ekaterina, who served as nominal head of the Lesser Consensus.

“Okay, granted, that doesn’t sound like Nan at all. She always seemed to hate politics.”

“She
did
! You get that from her, you know. But I think you’re missing the other, equally important point there.”

“Which would be?”

“
Where
was your grandmother for the past week,
why
didn’t she come to either of us to let us know she was safe, and
how
am I supposed to make sure she
is
safe when she’s refusing to see me?”

Her voice rose several octaves on the last sentence.
So we know where I get
that
trait from.
Not that I could blame her for the skyrocketing tone. This all sounded suspicious in the extreme. “You tried to talk to her after the Session?”

“Of
course
I did. I may not have a seat on the Lesser Consensus just yet, but word of the mighty Muriel’s return traveled fast. The minute the session let out, I ran through the crowd to see her, but she wouldn’t talk to me. Her daughter! Two Elder Megaeras cut me off from her like . . . like blasted bodyguards and informed me—her daughter—that my presence was neither required nor desired. Me—her bloody daughter—not required!”

My own jaw dropped open—and not just at the colorful language Mom had reverted to. Two Elders on the Lesser Consensus had supported Nan in her challenge of the current Moerae? They had then dared interfere with two of the most sacrosanct Fury relationships—mother to daughter and mentor to student, since Nan had trained Mom over a century ago. Either one of those kinships should have granted Mom immediate access to Nan. That both together
hadn’t
meant . . .

“Someone is either impersonating Nan ”—not as improbable a concept for me to consider after the dead Sidhe disguised as Vanessa’s corpse—“ or someone managed to wake her from the coma where the Oracles failed and is pulling her strings like a puppet. Coercion, maybe, or just plain taking advantage of a disoriented coma victim.”

When Nan’s only sister, Medea, Turned Harpy, Nan vowed to track her down and put her out of her misery. An ambitious task, to be sure, since Harpies bore absolutely no resemblance to the Furies they had been. Against all odds, Nan succeeded, but at great cost to herself. Newly Turned Harpies were particularly vicious and Medea had been no exception. She fought Nan tooth and claw. When it was obvious Nan had the slight edge over her, she lashed out in a magical kamikaze move that would have made a Phoenix proud. Medea died while Nan survived—if living in a persistent vegetative state could truly be called surviving.

Mom took a deep breath and nodded, a miserable light in her eyes. “I think you’re right. As if there weren’t enough strife in the Sisterhood, now this. But who would go through the trouble of coercing Nan just to take a stab at the Moerae’s seat? The chances of getting her to wake up after all this time were exceptionally slim.”

Scott spoke up. “Maybe it was just a crime of opportunity.” When we both looked at him curiously, he went on. “You said she woke up a week ago and escaped from the Oracle’s hospice. Why not check with them to see if they notified the Sisterhood when she first escaped. I can’t imagine them keeping that info from both the family
and
the Elders.”

I pursed my lips thoughtfully. “Good point. They probably didn’t want to alarm the relatives until they exhausted every resource to find her. And if we find out
who
in the Sisterhood was first contacted . . . ”

“You may be able to track down whoever is pulling your grandmother’s strings now,” he finished for me. “At the least you’ll have someone to question for more intel.”

Mom folded her arms across her chest and gave a determined nod. “I knew I liked you for good reason, Scott dear.” She glanced at me. “I know you must focus on bringing your killer to justice for now. I am not without allies among our sisters. We will handle questioning the Oracles and whoever they first informed of Nan’s awakening. Just make sure you answer your bloody cell phone next time I call.”

Awww, so she
had
paid attention. That gave me enough warm fuzzies that I ignored her cell phone crack. “I—are you sure?” She gave another nod, but my heart was still torn. Every one of my Fury’s instincts screamed at me to track down the ones responsible for my mother’s current heartache and for sowing discord among the Sisterhood. But the cop in me felt the full weight of my duty to keep Boston’s arcanes safe from the psycho currently stalking the city streets. Right now was definitely one of those times when being a Fury sucked far more ass than it kicked.

 

 

I COULDN’T COME ALL THIS WAY WITHOUT checking on the two little girls most precious to me—my nieces. Although, granted, Cori couldn’t accurately be called a little girl much longer. Her sixteenth birthday was just around the corner, and thinking about
that
just made me feel old. I was also starting to get more than a little nervous, truth be told. I’d always been so sure she’d follow in my footsteps as a Fury, but she still hadn’t manifested those abilities. If she didn’t Fledge sometime in the next year, odds were that she never would.

And wouldn’t
that
just make Jessica the happiest mother on Earth?

I scowled at my own pettiness. First of all, Jessica had cooled toward magic considerably since I used it to find Vanessa and rescue Olivia. Second, with the danger this family always found itself in, Jessica would probably be secretly relieved to learn her eldest daughter would be better able to protect herself.

I shook those morbid thoughts away, left Scott in the capable hands of my mother, and tiptoed upstairs to Olivia’s nursery. The chubby-cheeked infant had a thumb shoved inside her mouth and sucked at it vigorously. I blew Olivia a kiss and softly shut her door before moving toward the end of the hall. Music thumped steadily, growing louder the closer I drew to Cori’s room, but not loud enough to disturb her parents or baby sister.

I smiled affectionately. One thing you could always count on from my elder niece and that was consideration for others. Something that would come in handy during her life as a Fury—
if
she became a Fury.

Although an ugly little voice inside whispered that, at least a little, it
did
.

Annoyance had me knocking on her door more forcefully than intended. The music immediately lowered a few notches, and footsteps hurried across the room.

Cori was apologizing before the door swung fully open. “Sorry if I woke Liv, Mom—” She broke off when she recognized me. Pleasure lit her features, and she grabbed me in a bear hug. “Aunt Riss! Grandma finally got a hold of you, I see.” She tugged me into her bedroom and closed the door. The neon green and purple décor remained the same as I’d last seen it a month ago, although several different celebrities lined the walls—all male, ridiculously young, and amazingly gorgeous. I recognized an up-and-coming Orpheus pop star who made the phrase
tall, dark, and handsome
so much more than a tired old cliché. Even if he
was
young enough to be my—much younger brother.

Cori folded her arms across her chest and gave me a look borrowed from her straitlaced mother. “If I went an entire day without answering my cell, Mom would
so
ground me for a week.”

My lips twitched from the warring urges to laugh or curse. Neither of which I actually did. “Good thing I’m not fifteen or living under
my
mother’s roof, then, smarty-pants. Speaking of which, how’s school?”

She settled atop her bed in a careless heap and gave an equally unconcerned shrug. “Same ole, same ole. Though ever since it became public knowledge you’re my aunt . . .”

I arched a brow. “Yeah?”

“The mean girls who used to give me constant grief don’t bug me nearly as much. Kinda nice, I guess, though it’d be better if I could intimidate them myself.”

I thought back to when my sixteen-year-old self first Fledged and how I’d nearly gotten expelled taking out newfound Rage on one of my own
mean girls
. “Oh, trust me, that never ends well for newly Fledged Furies. This way you don’t have to worry about possible criminal charges.”

Her eyes widened. “I have
so
got to hear that story sometime.” She let out a breath and her spirits deflated. “Though now I’m starting to think that’s all Fledging will ever be to me—someone else’s story.”

“Now, Cori, you know I didn’t Fledge until after I turned sixteen.”

“Which
I
turn in exactly six weeks. And I haven’t shown the
slightest
sign it’s coming like you did ahead of time. What if—what if it doesn’t? What if—what if I take after Mom and Dad rather than you?” She spat that last out as if it were a fate worse than death.

Gee, I wonder where she could have
possibly
gotten that impression?

I shoved aside the niggling sense of guilt and plopped down next to my niece, gathering her close for another bear hug. “Cori, sweetheart, you are an
amazing
person just the way you are. You are your school’s star softball player, you have a fantastic circle of friends, and your family thinks the world of you. Including me. If you never Fledge into a Fury, that won’t change how any of us feel about you.
Especially
me.”

“But—”

I placed a finger over her lips. “No buts, young lady. All anyone wants from you is for you to be
yourself
. Whether you Fledge or not,
you
are the one we love and are proud of. You are going to grow up to be a kick-ass woman who becomes whatever it is she wants to be.”