Love Is Fear (19 page)

Oooh, I just compared him to Hitler
. 
And Hitler had been the nice guy. No nookie for me tonight. 
He turned and walked away, leaving her behind. How the hell was she going to apologize to him? Flowers? Candy? A blow job?

What could she say to him? They were here trying to find the handful of Others who he hadn’t managed to slaughter. He’d done evil things—there was no erasing that. She couldn’t ignore it. And he hadn’t reformed. He hadn’t even offered to reform, and frankly, she had not asked him to. 
Because he wouldn’t?

At some point between his saving her life and giving her a capital ‘O’, she’d made the decision that 
she
 was an exception. He might kill everyone else. But not her. 
Reality meet Valerie Dearborn. 
Lucas was a monster! Wasn’t he? Could she have slept with him if she really thought he was evil? She just didn’t know.

This day couldn’t get any worse
, she thought, as she miserably trailed behind them.

Chapter 
18

They walked into the forest, through the trees, Rachel in the lead, looking for some sort of psychic clue. At least that was the impression Val gathered. No one was particularly forthcoming. She tried to calm down, feeling jittery from…everything. Her confrontation with Jack just now. Seeing him again after their disastrous trip to Hawaii. From the knowledge that she and Lucas had to have some sort of conversation about what she’d said—which may or may not be fixable by oral sex.

And finally, because Lucas and Jack were on a collision course. It was unavoidable. And the outcome was a problem. No bookie in the world would bet on Jack. The odds weren’t even a million to one. David and Goliath, the tortoise and the hare—all that was bullshit. In real life, the tortoise got turned into a hairbrush and David got squished, just likeJack would.

Could she prevent it somehow?

There would be no dissuading Jack. He had never listened to her. That wasn’t how their relationship worked. There was no equal footing between them. He had a mission and he pursued it. Yeah, every now-and-again, Val got in the way, and they had a romantic interlude, but really, Jack had his mission, and there was no wavering.

Lucas would just have to be magnanimous enough to keep Jack alive. 
So I’m gonna be on my knees forever. 
The truth was that she’d forgotten her problems for a little while. The post-orgasmic glow had made everything seem farther away. 
I’m a fucking idiot, and my life just got more complicated than ever.

Leaves crackled underfoot, and she had to step around patches of mud, all that remained from the last winter storm.

Lucas said, “When the settlers were here, they arrived in the worst drought the area had experienced in 800 years. Their food supplies were gone. They did not get along well with the natives, and no further ships came from England for three years. Famine is a terrible thing.” Val wanted to know more, but Rachel jumped in, saying to Val, “If you were up on your abilities, you’d be able to help”—slight pause—“probably.”

“
Thanks for the caveat. Really?” Val asked, allowing herself to be distracted. It’d be kind of cool to be in ‘the know. ’
For once
.

Rachel stopped in a clearing and looked around. They all fell silent while Rachel walked around the area. It was a large space, maybe a hundred yards of bare earth. Trees surrounded them on all sides, but there were no rocks or even grass in the clearing. Just dirt and mud.

“
How come 
you’re
 doing this and not Lucas?” Val asked, curious.

Rachel smiled at her. “Because I’m the witch.”

Valerie’s mouth dropped open. “You’re a witch?” 
You mean W instead of B?

Lucas raised an eyebrow and said lazily, “Why else would she be alive after the trouble she’s caused?”

Her mouth went dry. “I thought….” Val felt sick at her probable misunderstanding. “I thought it was affection. That you let her live because you liked or… maybe even cared for her,” Val said.

Lucas stared at Valerie with a blank expression, as though the words hadn’t even registered. As though love had a definition he had never been able to comprehend. She’d called him Hitler, and, at first, he’d looked a little irritated. She’d wondered if she’d hurt his feelings, but now it was clear— she hadn’t. Emotionally, there was no one home.

I better be wrong, or else I just boned a soulless monster.

Her ribcage seemed to contract, like a giant fist squeezing tight. Val hadn’t realized what a cornerstone his not killing Rachel had been. Sure, he’d said it was for leverage over Marion, but she’d thought it was something real. A sign of his humanity.

Nope. No sign
.

“
There should be trees in this clearing,” Lucas said. “There once was. And look at the pattern. The precise circle. This is not a natural formation. Nor is it recent.”

Rachel tilted her head side to side. “Yeah…there is something here. But it’s funky.”

“
Could you be more specific?” Val asked. It was getting cold. The night, her heart, everything beginning to freeze.

“
Give her a minute,” Jack snapped.

Val wanted to kill him. He did 
not
 just take Rachel’s side over hers. “Her girlfriend killed your parents! She almost killed
me
. And you’re going to defend her? Are you fucking high?” she yelled, totally at the end of her patience.

Jack stared at her, all expression wiped off his face. “She’s not the most dangerous person here. Not by a long shot.”

“
Neither are you. But that doesn’t mean you can 
trust
 her. Why the fuck do you keep going to her?”

“
And I’m supposed to trust you? This 
all
 goes back to him. And here you are…canoodling with the fucker! We were supposed to do this together.” He took a step closer to her.

“
Yeah, I think we discussed that rightbefore you called me a whore. Believe it or not, that didn’t make me want to spend more time with you.”

Lucas appeared between them, moving so fast she could feel a slight breeze as he displaced the air around them. “Say another word, and I shall take you from here myself, Jack. We can leave here and forget all about the Fey in ten minutes, depending upon what we learn.”

Jack shook his head, then turned and stalked away from them.

Rachel raised her brows and started talking to Lucas, kicking the dirt at the same time. “There was definitely a spell done here. A big one. And it was of the…more 
elemental
 variety shall we say.”

“
Fey,” Lucas said flatly. “Cerdewellyn, perhaps.”

“
Who’s he, and what does ‘elemental’ mean?” Jack asked.

“
Cerdewellyn was the King of the Fey. He should be dead. But one never knows with the Fey. And ‘elemental’ is a tactful way of saying there was sex involved in the ritual. And blood,” he said ‘blood’ tonelessly. So tonelessly, it reminded Val that he was a vampire and liked to have a splash of it on his cereal. Assuming he ate cereal.

Note to self, don’t go to breakfast with Lucas
.

“
If you think he’s dead, how could he have done it?” Val asked.

He turned and approached her, so she had to look up at him. Maybe making sure she really heard him. “I killed him. Chopped off his head and ran him through the heart with a sword. That is typically permanent for one of the Others. But he was old. Far older than I and, at one time, much more powerful. But as the centuries passed, the Fey weakened. When I slew him, I had expected it to be permanent. Only later was I told that he survived. Someone saw him.”

Her heart was pounding. He was making a point. But damned if she knew what it was. That he liked chopping off heads?

Curiosity got the best of her. “Who saw him?”

Lucas turned to look at her, not at Jack, focused only on her. “Marion.”

God damn it. How did I let myself sleep with him?

Rachel turned around and looked back at them, hands on her hips. “Marion hooked up with the Fey King? I didn’t know that. Good for her.” She sounded genuinely pleased.

“
You don’t care that your ex was with someone else?” Jack asked her, staring at Valerie. He’d ignored Marion’s name, as though it hadn’t been said. Val didn’t trust his disinterest for a moment.

Rachel gave him a huge smile and looked pointedly at Val then Lucas, “No. Do 
you
? I told you, I’m done with the mommy set. She was hard work. If she managed to get someone like him to look after her for a while, kudos to her.”

“
Marion was not with Cerdewellyn, but his queen.”

Rachel snorted. “A lesbian to the very end. Once she went ‘chick’, she never wanted—“

“
What
 have you found?” Lucas said.

Rachel cleared her throat rather theatrically. “Something went seriously wrong with the spell. There was a lot of magic here. There still is, actually. It’s dormant, though. Get the right trigger and something big will happen. It’s like we’re walking over a minefield of magic out here. I don’t know whose fault it was… but my money is on the witch.”

Lucas walked close to her, looking from Rachel to the tree line and back again. “Why?”

“
Because the magic 
feels
 Fey. The witch created the spell, like building a lock. The Fey should have had a key. But
their
 magic, the key, is here. So, it didn’t fucking fit. That’s probably why nothing is growing here. It’s like a magical Chernobyl.”

“
So, are they dead?” Jack asked blandly, like if she said yes he could leave here and go get a drink.

Rachel tsked. “Don’t know. Maybe. I could try to check.”

Lucas nodded slowly at Rachel, clearly thinking something through. “What is your guess? No matter how unlikely. We know the Fey were here. We know they did a spell, and it failed. And we know that they are now gone. What about their belongings and their dead? Would they all be at the bottom of the ocean?”

“
I suspect it would have been a spell to establish this as their new home. Open a gateway into the Fey world. But it’s not open.”

“
Then they would all be trapped?” Lucas said.

“
Do you want me to check?” Rachel asked, then continued in a sing-song voice, “It’s just a teensy drop. And I promise not to taste.” She winked at Val.

It reminded her of the night Rachel almost killed her. Val took a step back, heart pounding in sudden fear. 
I shouldn’t be playing with the big boys.

Lucas walked away, into the clearing, looking up at the trees and pivoting slowly in a circle like he was taking-in the view. “Rachel would need your blood, Valerie. Yours and hers, to do a re-creation spell. That would give her a vision of what happened.” If he were human, this would be the spot where he took a deep breath, but he wasn’t. So, this was the small break when he made like a momentary statue. “I do not want your blood spilled.”

“
I’ll do it,” Jack said.

“
Your blood would be useless. It must be from an Other. And not a vampire. As with most of these things, it takes a pair. One person to make the offering another to perform the magic.” Lucas looked at Jack superiorly, and Val knew Jack wanted to shank him.

“
How much blood are we talking about here?” Val asked unhappily. A vision of blood gushing all over the ground made her feel a little sick. She really hated the sight of blood.

Especially mine
. Plus, this was blood spilled in a really non-sexy way.

“
A few drops. That’s all,” Rachel said and began to come closer.

Jack took a step towards Val, blocking her from Rachel. “Don’t even think you’re going near her with a blade.”

Lucas was standing painfully still, watching Val from fifteen feet away. Watching how she had moved to stand behind Jack for protection when Rachel took a step towards her. Was Lucas irritated she hadn’t gone to him for protection instead?

She hadn’t done it on purpose. It was habit. Jack had always protected her. Lucas, well, he was just happy being in her pants. He’d protect her for that reason, but Jack did it because he loved her.

How many egos was she going to have to stroke on this little adventure? She moved away from all of them, walking to the edge of the clearing and hanging out under a giant tree.

Lucas looked to Rachel and said something in a foreign language. Rachel shrugged and said something equally unintelligible back. The back and forth went on for a few minutes while she and Jack watched in growing agitation.

Then they were done, and Rachel switched to English. “Right. He’s going to go wait…somewhere out of bloodshot—in case the mere scent of your blood sends him into a frenzy—“