Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) (3 page)

Nathaniel shifted behind him and Cole cut off, struggling not to scowl. He could anticipate the man’s expression. He didn’t even need to turn around.

Her brow furrowing, Lily’s gaze twitched toward the wizard and then away. Slowly, she began spinning the leaf again.

Safe, he finished silently. Not anymore.

A headache flared briefly at the base of his skull. He glanced up in time to see a wizard run his hand down the doorframe of the mobile home.

By his side, Lily made a small noise. “You don’t think they’re going to make us use those things again, do you?” she whispered, her gaze on the door and her hand frozen on the leaf.

He didn’t answer, watching the doorway. Across the yard, Ashe crouched to help Katherine hoist a woman to her feet. Together, the two of them walked the wounded woman to the steps, where a man hurriedly took the woman’s weight from them and then headed through the door.

The pair vanished. Slowly, Cole exhaled.

“Cole?”

“No,” he said without looking at her. “I…”

He trailed off as the wizard atop the steps ran his hand over the doorframe again and then glanced back at Ashe a second time, saying something Cole couldn’t hear. The girl nodded and then motioned to the people gathering behind her. A half dozen more wizards hurried through the door and disappeared.

“I don’t think so,” he finished.

Lily nodded, her expression still troubled. Ignoring Nathaniel, she scooted closer to Cole and wrapped her arm around his own. Gently, she lay her head against him. In her fingers, the leaf began to spin slowly again.

Cole swallowed. They wouldn’t send him through one, anyway. He couldn’t say anything about what they might try to do with her.

Because portals killed his kind. Or, at least, they had until Ashe hauled him through one with the aid of a fiery staff that’d since disintegrated into dust. So if the wizards wanted to leave using those, it meant he wasn’t coming along.

And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

Guilt rose at the thought, though it was tangled up with a bunch of other junk he couldn’t sort out. He didn’t want to abandon Lily, especially now, here, in the midst of a group of wizards who were probably as safe as rabid dogs. Ashe could be okay, but before today, every other wizard he’d seen made backstabbing Hollywood housewives look saintly by comparison.

And when it came to Ashe…

He shook his head, everything descending into insensibility again. There’d been this shell-shocked girl who, barely half a year before, he’d tried to save from a bunch of wizards hell-bent on killing her. And then there was this girl who, barely half an hour before, had decimated a bunch of wizards like they were nothing, in a display that rivaled the Fourth of July.

And he couldn’t see a trace of the former in the latter, or figure out how the hell she’d so dramatically changed.

Admittedly, what she did at the factory saved his life. Probably the lives of everyone here. But it also left God knew how many other wizards lying dead in her wake. And those wizards worked for his dad. His dad who Cole’d thought had been dead for eight years, and who had just brutally taken out over a dozen wizards of his own.

Cole closed his eyes. His head hurt, and it had nothing to do with the portals opening and closing in the mobile home’s doorway. The people who worked for his dad had murdered Lily’s entire family, Ashe aside. For that matter, according to the Taliesin wizards, Victor Jamison had spent the better part of the past eight years killing a whole lot of people, including Lily’s grandparents, Cole’s wizard caretakers, and pretty much anyone else who’d gotten in the way of whatever it was he wanted.

And Cole’s mom.

He let out a breath, fighting to remain calm as he drove the thought back into the category of absolute bullshit he refused to believe. The rest of the confusion filling his head might be up for debate but, whatever the Taliesin said, nothing could’ve made his father hurt Clara. Nothing.

Behind him, Nathaniel shifted again, and the pair of boys creeping along the length of the garage toward Lily paled and backpedaled swiftly.

Cole watched them retreat, his expression darkening.

He’d go, but he couldn’t leave Lily. He’d stay, but then he wouldn’t ever know what really happened with his dad.

So for novelty’s sake, he’d just go insane.

Scowling and unable to hide the expression, he looked away as the kids disappeared behind the garage. There had to be an answer to all this. Something he wasn’t seeing. Something that could explain who the hell was actually the bad guy in this situation.

Something.

The sound of the garage door opening pulled him from his thoughts. With a shuddering succession of clunks, the chains winched the door up, revealing a dusty brown van with cobwebs on its wheels. The muffler growled as the vehicle crept forward, and when Elias brought the van to a stop and shoved open the door, the hinges creaked loud enough to make Lily flinch.

“Ready?” the man called.

His wife nodded and then returned to directing the wizards who remained to carry the lame and wounded toward the portal. Shutting the door behind him, Elias headed over to help.

Cole glanced to Ashe, but the girl wasn’t paying attention to the wounded anymore. Tracking her gaze, he spotted a tall wizard leaning on the side of the mobile home. As Elias strode away from the van, the man shrugged off the wall and began walking toward Lily. Immediately, Ashe descended the stairs to intercept him, while beside the little girl, Nathaniel turned, blocking the other man’s path.

“Stay behind me,” Cole murmured, rising to his feet and drawing Lily with him. Dropping the leaf, she obeyed.

“Cornelius,” Ashe called, jogging briefly to catch up to the man as he neared the little girl.

The wizard looked over at her. Cole glanced between them cautiously, fairly certain he could cut the tension there with a knife.

“You should go with Katherine,” Ashe said.

“I am coming with you.”

There wasn’t a request in the tone, and at the words, Nathaniel made a soft growl of disapproval.

Cornelius’ gaze slid over, pinning the man with a look that spoke volumes, despite being utterly impassive.

“Hey, Cornelius,” Elias called as he walked up, seemingly oblivious to the tension. “They’re ready to go.”

“I will be traveling with her highness.”

“Just decided that on your own, have you?” Elias chuckled.

Cornelius regarded him coldly. Elias met his gaze with a look whose edge probably could have cut steel, for all its apparent calm.

“I am coming with you,” Cornelius repeated, turning back to Ashe as if the other man didn’t exist.

The girl glanced between them. “Cornelius,” she said again, her quiet tone uncomfortable.

She fell silent at the look in the wizard’s eyes, and for the life of him, Cole couldn’t read it. But after a heartbeat, Ashe dropped her gaze away.

“Alright,” she agreed.

Elias glanced to her in alarm, but Ashe didn’t take her eyes from the grass. For a moment, the man seemed to heavily consider arguing, but he wrestled the impulse back. Looking to his wife, he jerked his chin toward the doorway.

Katherine’s eyebrow twitched up, but after a heartbeat, she nodded. Turning swiftly, she disappeared through the portal.

The magic faded, taking Cole’s headache with it.

“Let’s go then,” Elias said, the humor gone from his tone.

“Where?” Ashe asked, still looking discomfited.

“South.”

The brief glance he gave Cornelius made it clear he wasn’t about to say more.

Seeming distracted, Ashe ignored them. “Where’d you find the staff?”

Cole froze, the question taking him by surprise for all that he’d known she’d ask eventually. Faltering, he fought to keep his gaze from darting to the other wizards.

“Uh…” he started inanely.

Internally, he cursed as she waited. He could tell her the truth. After all, she was probably trustworthy. But the others…

And the fact it was his father they were fighting…

And all the other potential weapons the Carnegeans might own…

Not to mention the fact wizards were bastards as a rule…

“Homeless guy out west.”

Lily looked up at him. Silently, he begged her not to say a word.

“He had this collection of junk,” he continued, making up the story as he went. “At least, we thought it was. But he seemed okay, and he let us stay with him for a while at this, um, abandoned gas station he lived in. And one day, Lily picked up the staff and…”

Cole shrugged, and then faltered again when he saw the questions rising in the others’ eyes. “But yeah,” he pressed on. “It was great. Until these Taliesin showed up. I think maybe they were looking for us. But they killed him. Burned the station to the ground. We barely got away.”

“What was the man’s name?” Cornelius asked, his tone unreadable.

Cole paused, wracking his brain. “Old Bill,” he said and then winced internally. The name sounded like a character from a cheap western. “But that’s just what he said to call him. I don’t know if it was anywhere close to the truth.”

Silence followed his words, and he wouldn’t have dared put odds to whether they believed him. Elias and Nathaniel merely glanced to one another while Cornelius kept studying him with a lack of expression that made him feel like a dissected bug. For her part, Ashe just glanced to Lily, and a hint of doubt crept onto her face when the girl wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Heart rate spiking, Cole shrugged. “What?” he challenged quickly. “You think Lily and I are lying?”

Arching an eyebrow in a display of affront he knew was theatrical, he tried not to feel a touch of victory when Ashe blinked in surprise.

“Of course not,” she said. The words were too quick, but with an efficiency he was coming to associate with wizards in general, she instantly buried any trace of discomfort and just glanced to Elias. “So,” she continued, dropping the topic entirely. “South then.”

Cole drew a careful breath, trying to bring his pulse back to normal. At Ashe’s words, Elias nodded and then raised an eyebrow at Cornelius, clearly waiting for the wizard to precede him. Smoothly, Cornelius started toward the vehicle, giving no sign he’d noticed the man’s glare.

Elias shook his head and followed.

Nathaniel looked back, his gaze fastening on Cole. “This way.”

Tightening his grip on Lily, Cole trailed the wizard toward the van. Nathaniel tugged the rusting side door back and turned, waiting for Ashe. A few steps away, she hesitated, her eyes flicking over the length of the dusty vehicle and then back to the door. She drew a steadying breath, suppressing whatever emotion had threatened to emerge onto her face, and swiftly pulled herself into the van, leaving Nathaniel to follow.

Cole’s brow drew down, wondering if she was expecting the thing to explode.

Pushing Lily ahead, he let her precede him inside. Bracing herself on the door, the little girl climbed up to the middle seat and then paused, realizing there wasn’t enough room for the three of them on the bench. Worriedly, she glanced to Cole and then to the seat behind her.

He didn’t move, suddenly struck by the overwhelming compulsion to just turn and run for the city, wizards be damned. Because staying here was stupid. Mind-numbingly stupid. Lily was fine. Ashe was her sister, for pity’s sake. Regardless, the girl would protect her. Hell, she’d probably incinerate anyone who threatened to give the child so much as a cold.

And thus there was no point in the whole damn world for him to take off with a bunch of wizards when, after eight years, his dad was only a few miles away.

In the rear of the van, Nathaniel looked over, saying nothing.

Cole met the man’s gaze, fury rising. Ashe wasn’t the problem; those other three wizards with itchy magical trigger fingers were. Trying to leave would only provoke questions, the kind whose answers wouldn’t go well. After all, even if Ashe was some kind of royalty to them, they obviously only listened to her so far. Which meant the minute they learned about his dad, they’d probably kill him. Apologize later. If at all. The big guy had made that abundantly clear with every glance, and the news about Cole’s father would only serve to shorten the man’s obviously already microscopic fuse.

He was still trapped. Four different groups of wizards from two different sides, and he was still trapped.

“Cole?” Lily called.

Swearing to himself vehemently, Cole gripped the door of the van and climbed inside.

The van rattled in the darkness, and its broken muffler provided accompaniment in the form of a dull roar. Bits of foam rained past tears in the ceiling with every pothole, while beneath the threadbare fabric of the seats, ancient springs complained over being put into service again.

For the hundredth time in the past few hours, Ashe glanced to Lily. Looking terribly small with her thin legs dangling over the seat’s edge, the girl sat at the far end of the bench, her attention locked on her interlaced fingers atop her dirt-smudged jeans. Worry drifted across her face in time with thoughts passing through her head and, as though feeling the pressure of Ashe’s attention, she tucked her chin deeper into her chest as if trying to hide.

Brow drawing down, Ashe let her gaze slide back to Cole, but the young man gave no sign of noticing her glance. Lily’s worries had something to do with the staff, of that much she was fairly sure. The little girl had retreated into herself ever since the mention of the artifact, though that could have just been natural. Bringing up the place they’d been staying must have been hard, especially since God knew what the girl might have seen when the Taliesin came, which went a long way toward justifying why Lily was so shut down.

Of course, it didn’t address the other possible reason. The one she’d really rather avoid.

Cole had been defensive about what he said, but maybe that was just his personality. She couldn’t really know, seeing as how they were a few steps shy of total strangers anyway. But the alternative was that he’d been lying, which opened a whole other host of issues. His lies meant Lily’d lied too, if only by her silence, and that’s where things became truly upsetting.