04 Shadow Blood - Witch Fairy (20 page)

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

He sets his cup down and leans forward with his arms resting on the counter.  “I understand that you do not know much about me, which is my fault,” he hurries to say before I interrupt him.  “But, I truly do want to come to know you better.  That being so, I was worried about you when Isla shared the news with me this morning at the palace.”

Ah, she must be at work.  I was wondering why I hadn’t seen her yet.  I don’t know if he’s telling me the truth or not, but I guess I’ll take his words at face value.  If he turns out to be the murdering psychopath I originally thought him to be, I guess I’ll have to deal with that later.  “Thanks,” I say.  That sounded more sarcastic than sincere.  Maybe a smile will help me seem more like I mean it.  Unfortunately, my mouth doesn’t want to cooperate.  I’m pretty sure I look like a monkey trying to suck up to his trainer for bananas.

Dagda laughs.  “I see this is going to take some time, but I am willing to put the time in.”

I think a different conversational direction is called for.  “Did she tell you about my aunt?”

His face becomes more serious.  “Yes, she did.”

“Any ideas?” I ask.

He looks a little surprised that I asked him that.  He runs a hand through his hair in the same way that Kallen does and blows his breath out.  “I have my aides poring over ancient texts, trying to come up with something.”

Okay, I’m a little impressed.  He really is trying to help.  “Thanks, I appreciate that.”  I actually sound like I mean it this time, which makes him smile.  He tries to hide it by taking another sip of his coffee.

“Good thing I have done my own research,” Tabitha says pointedly as she sits down next to me.

Dagda raises his brow.  “You have discovered the answer?”

Now, she looks a little less sure of herself.  “Possibly.”

Uh oh.  I’m probably going to have to do some weird magic that hasn’t been done in eons, so nobody remembers the repercussions of it.  “What does that mean?”

She gives me a sidelong look and then sighs.  “The spell I found will kill the extra bits of soul, but may take some of yours and your aunt’s as well.”

“What?”  She can’t be serious.  There’s no way I’m going to agree to that.  I’m pretty fond of my soul exactly how it is – intact.  Not to mention the murder part of the equation.  I get up from my stool and back away from the table.  “I don’t think I want to do that.”

Tabitha sighs.  “I thought you may have some qualms about this.”

“Qualms?  You’re talking about taking a chunk of my soul, I have more than qualms.”

Her lips press into a straight line.  “I have not been able to discover any other way.”

Dagda looks from me to Tabitha.  “I have to say that I agree with Xandra.  That is a risk she should not take.”

“There has to be another way.”  Right?

Chapter 23

A loud rapping at the outside kitchen door startles me.  Isla’s house is so isolated; I can almost forget there are other Fairies around.  Tabitha rises from her stool to see who it is.

I about die when I see that it’s Maurelle, the Fairy assassin sent to kill me, who walks in.  Obviously, she wasn’t a very good assassin.  Regardless, she shouldn’t be here.  I turn to Dagda with a stony face.  “Why is she here?”

Dagda looks almost as surprised as I am.  Now, the surprise is gone and he looks angry.  “That is an excellent question.  You are supposed to be working in the archive room of the palace, not wandering about.  Explain yourself, Maurelle.”

She’s trying to keep her face blank, but she knows she’s in trouble.  And the tightness around her eyes and mouth tell me that she’s not any happier to see me than I am to see her.  Good.  “I was asked by your assistant to bring you this.”  She hands him a rolled parchment.

Dagda’s brows almost touch his hairline.  “My assistant asked you to deliver this, knowing full well that it would upset my daughter?  That seems like an odd thing to do if he wants to continue to be my assistant.”

Maurelle’s caught in her lie.  She bows her head and says, “I heard the head historian talking about this.  I offered to deliver it.  I had no idea that your daughter was in residence here.”

Dagda is about to say something, but Kegan and Kallen choose now to come into the kitchen, laughing about something.  Kallen’s face sobers quickly when he sees Maurelle.  His face is as stony as I bet mine was when I first saw her.  “You are not welcome in this house.”

Her eyes narrow in his direction.  “I brought the king a message.”  Her expression softens when her eyes fall on Kegan.

I get it now.  I can’t help a small chuckle.  “You didn’t know Kallen was here, either, did you?” I’m guessing everyone believes that we’ve already returned to my realm.  I’m also guessing that since she couldn’t have Kallen, Maurelle decided Kegan was a good substitute.  Too bad he’s already crazy about Alita.

She glowers at me.  “No, I did not.”  Dagda is suddenly quiet.  I think he’s enjoying the back and forth.

“And you offered to bring it because you were hoping to see Kegan?”  I turn to him.  “I didn’t know you had a fan club.”  I can still see Maurelle out of the corner of my eye, and she’s beet red.

Kegan laughs nervously.  I don’t think he’s quite sure of what’s going on.  “This is the first I have heard of it myself.”

Alita, who walked into the kitchen behind the guys, doesn’t look thrilled about Maurelle being here, either.  She proves that to be so when she spins on her heel and walks right back out the door.  Kegan hesitates for about a second and a half before he goes after her.

Turning my attention back to Maurelle, I ask, “Is there anywhere that you’re welcome, or do you make people dislike you wherever you go?”

I’ve definitely gotten under her skin.  Putting her hand in the pocket of the itsy bitsy sarong she has on (at least she’s wearing clothes; she often didn’t the last time we met), she starts to pull something out. 

I’m about to stop her when Dagda says, “Maurelle, if you are about to perpetrate violence against my daughter, you will be tried for treason as per the edict I issued.”

“I would never,” Maurelle lies.

“That is not the first lie you have spoken since arriving unwelcome in this house.  I will be discussing this with you later, and you will not find the discussion enjoyable.  Leave.”  There’s a whole lot of threat oozing out of those words.  I’m pretty sure she understands that he’s serious.  It’s her turn to spin on her heels without another word and leave, slamming the door behind her.

“Well, that was a bright spot on an already glorious day,” Tabitha says, getting up and stirring her soup again.  She was unusually quiet during the whole uncomfortable scene.  “Close friend of yours, I take it?” she says to me.

I snort.  “Yeah, about as close as you can get with the person sent to kill you.”

“Hmm, in a perfect world, it would have been the person who sent her after you who journeyed to hell.  It is a shame it is not a perfect world.”

I can tell Dagda’s getting angry with her, but what can he say about it?  “Perhaps the Fairy who raised me is to blame.”  Well, I didn’t expect him to say that. 

Tabitha twirls around, apparently forgetting that she’s still holding the spoon she was stirring the cat medicine with.  A spray of the stinky stuff manages to reach us all.  Gross.

“I will not take responsibility for the choices you made because your pride overcame your common sense and decency.  I did not raise you to be that way.”

I think my jaw just unhinged and fell to the floor. And all my teeth fell out.  Did she say what I thought she said?  “You raised him?”

Dagda has a somewhat smug look on his face now, as he says, “After my mother died, Tabitha came to live with us at the palace.  She made me into the Fairy I am today.”

Um, I’m pretty sure she’s about to throttle him.  Not that he wouldn’t deserve it, but I’m getting really curious about the scroll Maurelle brought.  Kallen has moved from my side, ready to step in if necessary, but I need to stop this before it escalates anymore.  It’s purely out of self-interest on my part, not concern for my biological father.

“Tabitha, no one believes that, and I know he’s being a pain, but could you kill him later?  I’m hoping that scroll has something written on it that will help.”

Seeming to remember that she’s better than this, she walks back to the stove.  In an instant, the splattered soupy stuff disappears from our clothes and hair.  Thank goodness, it was nasty smelling up close.  Dagda looks like he’s going to laugh, but he’s smart enough to keep it on the inside.  I’m guessing he gets a kick out of riling her up.  Some twisted form of love or something?

Unrolling the scroll, he scans its text.  “This might work,” he says, looking up at me.

I’m going to take his word for it, since he’s almost as knowledgeable about these things as Isla and Tabitha. I know why now.  He had Tabitha as his teacher.  I’m going to be asking her more about that later, including why no one told me earlier.  “What do we have to do?”

“Kallen, will you please contact Isla. She will want to be here.”  Kallen nods in response.

Patience, not a virtue of mine.  “Okay, now please tell me what it says.”

Dagda looks up at me and smiles.  “Oh, how alike we are.”

I roll my eyes.  “Stop saying that.”

He chuckles, but he answers my question.  “It says there is a way to send these soul fragments back to hell.”

I frown.  It can’t be that easy.  “What’s the catch?”

He looks at me in confusion.  “Catch?”

“Yeah, what horrible thing do I have to do to work this magic?  There’s always a catch.  Especially if it’s magic that hasn’t been used in a long time – like the kind that’s written on scrolls instead of paper.”

“Have you always been this cynical?” Dagda asks, feigning concern.

I shrug.  “No, it pretty much started on my seventeenth birthday.”  Kallen covers his mouth as he coughs to cover his snicker.  Tabitha laughs out loud.

Dagda just ignores my comment.  “The ‘catch,’ as you say, is that blood is required from the same type of beings that the soul is from.”

“And we’re supposed to waltz up to Aunt Barb and demand that she tell us where the soul barnacles she’s carrying are from?  I’m sure they’ll let her spout the list right off.”

“You’re always this cranky, aren’t you?”

“I’m not cranky,”
I snap to the voice.

“Of course not.”

“If you can’t be helpful, will you please be quiet?”

“If I’m helpful, will you let me stay?”

I’m saved from having to answer the voice by Dagda saying, “There are ways to extract information from someone.”

I narrow my eyes in his direction.  “I’m not going to torture my aunt.”

“I do not believe he meant torture,” Tabitha says, surprisingly coming to his defense.  “Did you?”  The tone of her voice makes it clear he had better say no.

Dagda inclines his head in her direction.  “You are correct; I was not speaking of torture.”  To me, he says, “There are potions that can be used to draw information from an unwilling source.”

My brow wrinkles.  “Like truth serum?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, that’ll be okay then.”

Dagda smiles.  “Then all we need to do is convince the best potion maker in this realm to whip us up a batch.”  Obviously, he means Tabitha.

She’s not going to let him get back into her good graces with compliments.  “I will make it for Xandra, not you.”  She rises from the counter and begins opening cupboards and pulling stuff out.

“Can I see the scroll?” I ask.

“Certainly.”  Dagda turns it so that I can read it.  It looks long, and complicated, and is written in a language I don’t know.  I scowl at him.

Kallen leans over my shoulder so he can get a better look.  “It is written in Latin.”  He scans the page and then looks to Dagda.  “You believe this can be modified to be as specific as it needs to be?”

Dagda nods.  “If we change this part,” he points to a spot on the scroll.  “And here, it should work.”

“Are either of you planning to tell me what is says anytime soon?”

Kallen looks at me a bit sheepishly.  “Sorry, I forgot you don’t know Latin.”

“I’ll put it on my to do list,” I say.  “But, in the meantime, will you please tell me what it says?”

“This is ancient magic, from some of the earliest known records.  It seems that it was once used to banish one’s enemies by forcing their soul from their body.  Once banished, it could never be brought back.”

“Because it goes to the Shadow realm?” 

“That is unclear,” Dagda says.

“So, they could just hang around and be ghosts or something?” 

Kallen shrugs.  “It does not say.”

Great, I could be letting pieces of evil souls free to wreak havoc on innocent people.  “This sounds awfully risky.  Are you sure you want to take the chance of letting evil loose in your realm?” I ask them both.