Promises to Keep (12 page)

Cautiously, he said, “Answering that question may put you at risk, which I would rather
not do.”

“Sweet of you.” Did she ever say anything sincere? “If something you say to me here
travels beyond my home to cause me problems, it will be because
you
carried it with you. That said, share, and I’ll judge whether it’s worth letting
you out of here alive. If it comforts you, I rarely find information threatening.”

Nope. That didn’t comfort him.

“I suspect she used to be a slave in Midnight,” he explained. “I believe she was taken
into Midnight before the fall of the first empire, and somehow remained—”

“Oh,” Rikai interrupted. “Pet.”

Jay stiffened. That was what the shapeshifter remembered the trainer calling her.
He had been the only one with the audacity to name the
sakkri
. “You know her?”

“Before they were shapeshifters, the Shantel were a Native American tribe whose magic
came from their connection to an earth elemental. After Leona claimed them, the combined
powers made them strong enough that even Midnight was never able to fully control
them. At any given time, the Shantel had dozens of trained witches, but their true
strength was wielded through their
sakkri
, a priestess whose only function was to communicate with and command the earth elemental
who had first given them magic.

“But Pet is … well, nothing, anymore. Midnight’s trainers did their jobs well. That
woman hasn’t had a spark of free will in her for more than two hundred years, and
since her power requires that she be neither owned nor named, it’s impossible for
any would-be master to use her power for his own purposes. Last I heard, she belonged
to Daryl.”

“What if she was fixed somehow? Healed?” Jay asked. “What would she be capable of?”

He wanted to ask outright,
Could she really bring down Midnight?
But he didn’t dare breathe those words aloud. Rikai wasn’t allied with Midnight,
but Jay wasn’t sure how she felt about the empire, either.

Rikai scoffed at his question. “Anyone who has ever tried will tell you it can’t be
done.”

“Hypothetically,”
Jay said. “What would she be capable of?”

“Even if through some miracle Pet were restored to her former state, the
sakkri
was always forbidden from violence or bloodshed. I doubt she would even know how
to fight. She might be able to hide herself or others from those who choose to pursue
her as escaped property, but I’m not even sure she could still do that. Elementals
gain power through the mortals bound to them, often as they are worshipped. The Shantel
have been gone for centuries. Their elemental would have weakened.”

“I think the Shantel elemental spoke to me, through Pet,” Jay said.

“It
spoke
to you?” Rikai asked, sounding intrigued. “You’re lucky you’re still alive. I suppose
using Pet as a conduit protected you. What did it say?”

Moment of truth?

Not yet. “I’d rather not share. But it didn’t seem weak.”

“A weak elemental is still the strongest thing you will ever encounter in your life,
short of a stronger elemental or a bona fide god, should such a thing exist,” Rikai
answered. “Even now, the power it left on you from your brief encounter is dripping
off you in buckets.”

“What?”
Now he knew how people felt when they spoke to him. What was she talking about? “Is
that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It’s the only reason you and your ‘rather not share’ are still sitting in my study,”
Rikai answered with a smile that was more predatory than pleasant. “You have traces
of half a dozen different magics on you, which I suspect you gained by wandering
into areas where you were not welcome. For Xeke’s sake, I’ll warn you that some of
those spells learn. Escaping them will prove more difficult next time.”

“Thanks,” he whispered. It had been hard enough to escape them last time. “Xeke mentioned
me?”

“No.”

Then how … No, never mind
. “Do elementals, I don’t know, grandstand? This one offered a lot, but you’re saying
it probably can’t deliver.”

Rikai laughed. “Little witch, most elementals think of themselves as
gods
. They crave worship, and I have never met one capable of admitting to its own limitations.
Most of them will offer anything, in exchange for a mortal’s devotion. Grandstanding,
as you put it, is all they do.”

So the Shantel elemental probably couldn’t do anything. It hadn’t been strong enough
to reach its
sakkri
on its own, but it had obviously been desperate to do so. It knew Jay was afraid
of Midnight, so it had told him what he wanted to hear.

Simultaneously disappointed and relieved, Jay rose to his feet, saying, “Thank you
for your time. You’ve been very helpful.”

Rikai didn’t bother to stand. “I had thought your question might be more interesting.”

“I’m kind of glad it wasn’t,” he answered.

Jay couldn’t help the shapeshifter unless she asked for his help. In the meantime,
if the
sakkri
went up against Midnight and failed, it would be sad, but if Jay understood Midnight’s
rules right, the mess wouldn’t land on SingleEarth. The
sakkri
’s so-called owner would be the one held responsible.

Honestly, if he awoke after two centuries of slavery to discover his entire culture
had been destroyed, Jay would probably be willing to throw away his life on a hopeless
quest for vengeance, too. What did she have to lose?

M
IND ONLY SLIGHTLY
more at ease, Jay followed Rikai’s servant to the doorway and then tackled the long
drive back to SingleEarth. He ordered his usher tux for Jeremy and Caryn’s wedding,
but when he found the bride and groom fussing over a seating chart—
No, we can’t place Aunt Celia so close to Mark; she’s an uncontrolled psychic and
won’t be able to screen out his schizophrenia
—he fled to the library.

I’ll update them later
.

He tried searching for more information about the Shantel, but the quiet library with
its large plush chairs suggested another plan.

In his head, though, voices were arguing. All he wanted was
to drift peacefully, but he couldn’t quiet the furious, faceless entities whose voices
intruded on his dreamworld.

Do you have no control over your children? They are vicious, hungry creatures without
any compassion or drive except to destroy and enslave
.

Unlike some of our kind, I know the difference between an immortal and a god. If there
is a deity greater than us, then surely he is the one who gave mortals free will.
Whine to him, not me
.

You stole my priestess!

If I had not stolen your priestess, she would have been dirt long ago, just like all
the others
.

We trusted you
.

That was foolish
.

“I want to see the pretty witch!”

Brina’s voice, apparently still musical even at high volumes, pulled Jay out of bizarre
dreams that left him groggy and disoriented. When in the last few days had he had
any real sleep? He kept trying, but he had barely catnapped. Now deep night was pressing
against the library windows.

Brina had probably woken at sunset.

The pretty witch
. Jay was pretty sure that meant him. He briefly debated the merits and downsides
of presenting himself, versus hiding behind a bookcase.

Other voices scrambled to reply to Brina, but Jay couldn’t make out the words. He
could feel their anxiety, though, and
their knowledge that things might get messy before someone trained to handle this
kind of situation showed up.

The problem was that Jay
was
one of the people they were waiting for. As a hunter living at SingleEarth, he was
expected to deal with threats like this.

He smoothed his hair back in its ponytail—Brina was not one to respond well to individuals
presenting themselves to her unkempt—then followed the shouting.

The vampiric mediator at Haven #2 was a fledgling of Mira’s line. As Jay approached,
Brina picked the young vampire up bodily and threw her down the hall hard enough to
splinter the wall. Brina had just turned to Vireo, who had ducked his head into the
hall to see what was going on, when Jay said, “Lady Brina. So good to see you. How
can I help you?”

To Vireo, he thought as clearly as possible,
I’ve got this. Stay out of the way, and keep bystanders away
.

Vireo had the authority to kick him out of a sickroom, but this was Jay’s field.

“Little witch, I am very cross with you,” Brina said with a pout.

“I am sorry I had to leave earlier,” Jay replied, keeping his tone as absolutely sincere
and sycophantic as he could. Brina liked flattery. She expected it, and it calmed
her. “I hope you found a more worthy dance partner than I.”

Brina almost looked mollified, for a moment, before she frowned and snapped, “You
have no idea why I’m upset.”

“Then I apologize once again,” he said, creeping a bit closer but not yet drawing
his knife.

It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to kill Brina in SingleEarth territory. Her allies
included some of the most powerful vampires.

What was bothering her? Jay still wasn’t at his best, and Brina was a madwoman on
a rampage, her thoughts fragmented and angry. She genuinely believed he
should
know why she was angry, but that was all he could pick up.

“Fair lady, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“My maid has gone missing.”

The words evoked a sense of fear and loss, which hit Jay low in the gut. Daryl had
given her this particular servant, long ago, and Brina was totally unable to manage
her household without …

Oh … crap
.

Rikai had said that the Shantel spirit-witch had belonged to Daryl. Of course he had
given that powerful, valuable slave to his much loved sister, possibly bequeathed
upon his death.

Putting the bits and pieces of previous memories together with her current thoughts,
Jay could almost see how it had played out. Those moss-green eyes spotting her mistress
swinging from the rafter. Cutting her down and trying to calm her.

Only to have Brina throw her out of the house for her audacity.

And then Jay had picked her up and walked away with her. Now Brina was here, demanding
Jay. Xeke had tried to warn Jay not to ask about the woman he had found. Jay had
been talking to him in the middle of a room full of individuals with vampiric hearing
and alliances to Midnight. Any of them could have heard what little he had said to
Xeke.

Stupid, stupid, stupid
.

“If you’ll simply turn her over,” Brina said, “we can go our separate ways peacefully.”

That was going to be a problem.

“And if I cannot do that?” Jay asked carefully.

“I will allow you to replace her with something of equal value.”

Brina’s voice was cool, but Jay could feel fury under the surface. Jay stole Pet.
He needed to make it right.

“May I ask her value?”

“Pet reads and writes twelve languages,” Brina replied, “and has served in my household
for two hundred years. She knows my schedule, and all my contacts and preferences.
She knows the proper storage and usage of all my painting supplies, and is not negatively
affected by fumes from the oils … unlike my previous housemaid, whose eyes started
bleeding. So tell me, how much do
you
think she’s worth?”

She wasn’t actually looking for a number.

“I am sorry that your maid has gone missing,” he said, not about to freely
admit
to walking off with her invaluable so-called possession. “If I see her, I will—”

“You
have
her,” she said. “I know you do. You came to the party to tell me you had her, but
Exequías distracted you. Give her back.”

She considered the things she needed to deal with now that
her head slave was missing, such as buying and distributing food for the other help,
or procuring medical supplies. With the shapeshifter absent, such activities were
simply not getting done.

It was a temporary measure—Jay would make it a temporary measure with a knife if he
had to—but he said, “Perhaps I can assist you until she is returned.” He didn’t want
to make this a SingleEarth problem. If the powers that be in Midnight decided he had
stolen the slave, he could be claimed as payment. He would not ask SingleEarth to
harbor him. “I just need to tell someone where I am headed, so they don’t think you’ve
stolen me away,” he said.

Brina nodded.

Jay stepped into the front office, with Brina just behind him.

“There has been some confusion as to the location of some of Lady Brina’s property,”
he explained to the nervous-looking secretary, who had overheard the entire conversation.
“I’m going to go with her for now to help with her household until this is sorted
out. Would you make sure Caryn is notified?”

Caryn and the rest of their kin would be able to retrieve him if necessary, or otherwise
smooth the way for him to escape. As a last resort, he had his knife.

In the meantime, he was hardier than a human; oil paints wouldn’t harm him, and he
could make sure Brina didn’t accidentally starve her staff.

“You may drive,” Brina said. “I did not bring a vehicle. I will give you directions.”

So kind of her.

He drove; she directed. He noticed they were going into Pyridge just in time to feel
them cross the border of the circle into Midnight’s land.

Why
did
he feel it this time? What had changed?

They stopped in front of a Victorian-style home with large bay windows. He parked
in the driveway, and Brina “allowed” him to open her door and escort her onto the
porch.

The house was pretty, he decided. It would have been odd for a vampire to have so
many windows, but sun wasn’t actively dangerous to vampires—only fatiguing—and Brina
was an artist. She needed the light.