Ignite the Fire: Incendiary by Karen Chance

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

 

 

It’s a hunting l-lodge,” I said, my teeth chattering. “The castle, I mean. Aeslinn moves it from place to place, through a s-series of portals he’s established. He hunted in Faerie for a while, but started running out of easier p-prey, so he switched it up. He lured the fey he wanted to target to Earth and k-killed them here. Their magic didn’t work as well in our world, and th-they didn’t know anybody to call for help—all of their friends were back in F-faerie.”

“Shh,” Gertie said, trying to put something warm into my hands.

She hadn’t asked what I’d meant by “us”; maybe she already knew. Agnes had certainly had no trouble figuring it out. But right then, I didn’t care.

I grabbed her arm, sloshing some liquid onto my shawl. “You don’t understand. He’s killed t-thousands, practically h-hunted Faerie out. Taken anyone he can find with godly blood in their veins, even some of his own p-people, and I don’t know why. He can’t use that many abilities; he couldn’t even keep them all straight! What is he doing—”

“Send for Michaelina,” Gertie said—to Agnes, who I hadn’t even noticed being there.

We’d just gotten back, literally a few minutes before. To the point that I still had snow in my hair, the residue of whatever had fallen off the overhang. And that was despite sitting right beside the fire, in Gertie’s huge old armchair.

She pulled the damp pashmina away, while Agnes all but ran from the room. And handed me the teacup, which was now half empty, but still warm and good. I drank it all, and Rhea was there with a refill before I even finished. The firelight gleamed on her dark hair, which was parted in the middle and tucked into a bun today, a style that would have looked severe on most people, but she carried it off.

It made her look like a Spanish dancer, only then she’d have a red, swirly dress and castanets. Instead of a demure blue dress and a worried frown between her eyes. Poor Rhea; she was constantly having to support a freaked-out Pythia.

“I don’t give you much of a break, do I?” I asked, after the second cup had stopped my teeth from chattering.

“I think it is you who doesn’t get much of a break,” she said, a little grimly.

But there was no time to chat. Agnes was already back, with a girl whose olive skin set off the white lace uniform better than mine, and whose long, dark hair had been crimped into curls that were already falling out. She had huge brown eyes, a sweet expression, and—

“No!” I said, as Gertie moved forward, the fey arrow in her hand.

“We need to know all we can,” Gertie said.

“Yes, but—not her. Find somebody else,” I said, because the girl was maybe fourteen, if that. And there was nothing in that awful thing she needed to see.

“There’s nobody better—”

“Then get somebody worse! Or I’ll do it myself—”

“You can’t control it,” Gertie said stubbornly. “You proved that.”

“I was under stress; I’ll do better this time.”

Only I didn’t want to. Like, really didn’t. The firelight edged the pure white fletching on the arrow, highlighted some strange markings on the sides, and glinted off the wickedly sharp tip. The latter was dark and pitted, like iron, although that would have been an odd choice for a fey. They acted like the metal was radioactive or poisonous, and avoided it at all costs.

Although maybe that was the point, I thought sickly. Anything would work to bring down animals, even sharpened wood or stone. But if you were hunting sentient prey, ones who might have a better chance of evasion, you’d want to up the ante, wouldn’t you?

You’d want something that would poison them, as soon as it bit.

“You’re in no condition to do anything,” Gertie said. “I shouldn’t even have taken you today—”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Rhea said, and there was nothing sweet about her tone this time.

“Watch your tongue, girl—”

“I have. Too often.” Rhea got between me and the arrow. “No more. I am the Lady’s heir, and she is injured. She will not be touching that . . . thing . . . today.”

Gertie blinked at her, looking confused. Maybe because Rhea’s tone had been flat, even borderline belligerent, but they were actually in agreement. Which wouldn’t work for me.

“No,” I said, trying to get up.

Only to find a soft, but implacable hand on my shoulder. “Sit down,” Rhea said quietly.

It wasn’t a command, but it was close.

“I’m fine—”

“Sit, or I will strap you to the chair.”

I blinked.

“Quite right,” Gertie said. “Sometimes even a Pythia must take instruction.”

“Yes, you’re such a fine example of that,” Agnes said, her voice sour. And before Gertie could respond, she walked over, took the young girl by the shoulder, and ushered her out.

Gertie watched her, looking puzzled. “Bring her back,” she told Agnes.

Agnes didn’t bring her back. She closed the door behind the girl, then turned around with her back to it. She looked at the two of us, and as with Rhea, there was nothing sweet or submissive in her expression. Not that there usually was when she dealt with me, but she was a lot more deferential with Gertie.

But she appeared to have reached tilt.

“There is not going to be any more oddness in this court,” she said abruptly. “No more trips whilst half dead; no more screaming fits; no more erotic sculptures made out of our best bed linens—”

“Hey! You claimed you didn’t find—” I stopped abruptly.

Gertie and Rhea turned to look at me, twin expressions of shock on their features, and I shut up.

“I was trying to spare your feelings, why I don’t know,” Agnes told me severely. “You don’t spare any of ours. Every time you come—every time—it is nothing but strangeness and danger and chaos. And you,” she said, turning on Gertie, “are no better. It is as if the two of you feed off each other.”

“Now see here—”

“I have seen, and I have had enough. I am your heir; it is my responsibility to keep you safe if I can, to help you—”

“And you call this helping, do you?”

“I call this trying!” Agnes said, her eyes flashing. “Although it is difficult when you assure me—when you assure both of us—that the two of you merely plan to have a nice breakfast and talk. ‘Sleep in,’ you said. ‘You’ve had a long night,’ you said—”

“Well, you had,” Gertie replied, but she looked slightly awkward. For about a second, before her shoulders straightened, because this was Gertie. “It was a spur of the moment decision—”

“Yes! It frequently is! That’s the problem—”

“What would you have preferred?” Gertie asked. “For me to take you with us? Endanger you as well?”

“I would have preferred for you not to go at all! Haven’t we had enough upheaval in the last few days? Enough turmoil? A Pythia untethered in time—unheard of! A battle with a god in transition—something that threatened the timeline in unfathomable ways, not to mention nearly killing all of us! Some kind of nonsense in the middle of the night that Iris won’t stop prattling about—”

“That wasn’t my fault,” I pointed out, only to have Agnes’ ire turned on me.

“—and now,” she said furiously. “The very next day, the very next morning, what do we find? Both of you gone—no word to anyone, no idea of when you’ll be back or if you will, no idea if you’re even alive or dead—”

“I was going to bring us back just after we left,” Gertie said defensively. “You need never have known—”

“I needed to know!” Agnes’ face flushed. “And you didn’t come back for over an hour—”

“We ran into a spot of trouble—”

“Of course, you did!” It was practically a scream. “With the two of you off alone, I’m surprised to find the world still turning!”

I didn’t say anything. It was kind of hard to argue that the last few days hadn’t been a slow rolling disaster. But Gertie was made of stronger stuff, and she wasn’t taking that.

But she didn’t get a chance to utter so much as a word before Agnes grabbed the arrow and shook it under her nose. “Do you want to tell me how you obtained this?”

Gertie’s mouth, which had been open in preparation for what looked like a scathing retort, shut with a pop. She glanced at me, and her eyes were a little wide, probably because what we’d done wasn’t exactly textbook. Agnes turned back to me, and I attempted to look innocent.

Judging from her expression, I failed.

“We will bring in a professional,” she said grimly. “And you will stay here—both of you—until she arrives!”

She turned around and stalked out, her lace skirts swinging.

The door slammed behind her, and I relaxed slightly, before realizing that I had to go to the bathroom.

“Can I get up now?” I asked Rhea.

“No.”

 

~~~

 

 

The professional looked it, I had to admit. She was dark-skinned, too, although hers was more ebony than olive, and as prim and proper as a nanny, with her hair as tightly confined as Rhea’s and no makeup on her pretty face. But she didn’t dress like a servant. Her gray and purple houndstooth cloak, which would have done Sherlock Holmes proud, had a matching dress underneath, clasped at the neck with an intaglio amethyst set in gold and as big as my thumb.

It looked like the touch telepath business paid better than I’d thought.

She had gloves on, pretty purple leather things with bows on the backs, but I noticed when she took them off that they were subtlety padded. Looked like she was the real deal, then. I did not envy her the trip she was about to take.

“You’ve been informed that you will be mind wiped afterward?” Gertie asked.

“Yes. It has been factored into my fee.”

She settled gracefully onto the settee across from the wingback. Her hands were long and slender, with perfectly tended nails. I had a sudden flash to the giant’s hands, which had been crisscrossed with scars even at such a young age, with nails bitten down to the quick. The scent of blood and honey filled my nose, and I tried not to retch.

“Wait,” I said, as Agnes attempted to hand over the arrow.

Everyone paused to look at me.

“It’s . . . it’s bad,” I told the telepath.

She gave me a small smile. “In my profession, one learns to deal with—”

“No.” I cut her off rudely; I didn’t care. I looked at Gertie. “Whatever her fee is, triple it.”

I could see the telepath raise an eyebrow in my peripheral vision, but obviously, she didn’t object. She probably thought I was a silly, squeamish woman who had been sheltered her entire life and had gotten a flash of the real world and freaked out. She also looked like she expected Gertie to demur.

“Done,” Gertie said, not even asking how much the fee was.

Guessed I must have looked worse than I realized on that hillside, I thought grimly.

Gertie’s reaction seemed to have made more of an impression on the telepath, because there was a slight hesitation before she reached for the arrow again.

“We don’t need details on everything,” I said, pausing her hand once more. “There’s . . . there’s a lot of death. You can ignore most of it. What we need is the reason behind it. What’s the point of it all; you understand?”

Her eyes were a little wider now, and her cheeks a little paler. But she nodded. And, very carefully, she took the arrow out of Agnes’s open palm.

And screamed.

It made me jump, because it was immediate, it was loud, and it was prolonged. Agnes tried to grab the arrow back, but the telepath had already collapsed onto the floor with it under her body. Her legs were shaking as if she was having a fit, and her head was whipping back and forth. But her hand was tucked underneath her, and she was wedged in between the settee and the coffee table.

“Help me move her,” I told Rhea, getting up.

“No!” Agnes yelled. “Don’t let them touch! If she has the gift, the visions may transfer over. I’ll do it.”

Rhea moved in front of me, her hands out at her sides, as if she was my guard in a game of basketball. Like I was dumb enough to try it anyway, after that warning! All she managed to do was to block my view, but while I was wrestling her out of the way, I heard the telepath’s voice.

“No. No, I . . . am in control. I am in control.”

The last phrase was said almost viciously, I thought to Agnes, as if maybe she was still tugging on her. But when Rhea finally moved out of the way, I saw Agnes standing over by Gertie, looking a little spooked. The telepath was sitting on the floor, the arrow held in a white knuckled grip in front of her, and a strand of her formerly perfectly coifed hair in her face.

“I am fine; I can control this. I am in control.”

That looked debatable to me, not that she appeared to be talking to us. I wasn’t exactly sure who she was talking to, but there seemed to be a difference of opinion. There also seemed to be a literal struggle going on, as the arrow moved and twisted in her fist, as if possessed.

I’d have dropped the damned thing like a hot potato, but the telepath held on. She snarled, her previously serene expression changing into something almost feral, and her eyes, formerly dark and lovely, suddenly glowing gold. They weren’t as bright as a vampire’s, and there was no tell-tale tingle up my spine such as a vamp would have caused. But there was something in there that wasn’t entirely human.

And it was pissed.

“I am in control!” she screamed, as the arrow suddenly sprang into the air, dragging her halfway to her feet.

A cluster of small heads peered in the doorway, accompanied by a worried looking acolyte. “Take them outside,” Gertie said, hurrying forward and blocking the view with her body. “No class today. But I believe cook has prepared seed cake.”

The little initiates were easily bribed, and the door was shut again after them and locked this time. But it wasn’t going so well in here. The telepath’s hair had come down from its nice chignon, her lip was dripping blood from where she’d bitten it, and her eyes were wild.

But she was a bad ass bitch, and she wasn’t losing to this thing.

Quadruple her fee, I thought, as she dug in her heels, as she forced the arrow to the floor, as she got a knee on it and then slammed her hand down on top of it. “I am in control!”

And, suddenly, she was.

The change was immediate and obvious. Her eyes didn’t to return to their previous brown, but instead of slitted and furious, they were suddenly round and shocked. And darting everywhere, trying to follow whatever she was seeing.

I felt a little dizzy, and realized that I’d forgotten to breathe for a minute. I sucked in some air, took yet another cup of tea that Rhea was trying to press on me, and drank it down. It seemed to help, although I still felt guilty, like I’d passed my problem on to someone else.

But there was no question that the telepath was better at this than I was—by a lot. I couldn’t see what she currently was looking at, of course, but I could tell what she was doing. Although it seemed bizarre.

Most imprints were a one trick pony. You’d get a flash of something, often a few seconds’ worth only, like a psychic scream. It was usually the point at which someone’s mind became overwhelmed: when they saw their lover coming at them with a knife; when they found their friend’s body dangling from a noose; when a door opened to reveal a policeman with news they didn’t want to hear.

Once in a while, there might be a couple of imprints on an item, and even more rarely, three or four. But those were usually very old, family heirloom type of things, which might have been handed down for generations. A locket, for example, that had been worn by many women, or a jewel.

In fact, one of the reasons why many famous jewels gave people the creeps or got a reputation for being cursed was because they bore imprints, the kind that were strong enough, in some cases, to drive a sensitive person mad.

But this didn’t look like a couple, or even three or four. It looked like she was having to sort through dozens, maybe hundreds of different scenes, which fit with my own experience. I didn’t know how many had been battering me there at the end, but it was a lot.

Especially for one freaking arrow!

I drank tea while we waited, even though it was going to make me have to take another bathroom break. I wanted breakfast, but it seemed rude to ask. The telepath was working her ass off; the least we could do was to wait patiently.

And we did, for what felt like forever. I had started to drift off, the comfy old chair cradling me, the fire warming me, the rain outside shush, shush, shushing me off to sleep . . .

When I felt a touch on my hand.

And when I looked up . . .

I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.