Shattered (Alchemy Series Book #3) (18 page)

He stopped talking and I watched his body melt into the ground. It wasn't like watching him go into quick sand and he didn't puddle, it was like he was slowing
being poured into thirsty soil that was greedy for water.

When he was no longer visible,
I still waited another ten minutes before I began.

I was s
tanding on a golf course that would have served the elite of Vegas only a few months ago and preparing to do a chant to protect a Ground Fae. Things just kept getting weirder and weirder.

Stepping into place,
I took the knife out and ran it across my wrist. It might have been too deep but I didn't want to run out of blood halfway around the tree. I slowly chanted as I circled around, dribbling my blood. I took a final step and completed the circle and stepped back, waiting for something to happen, anything that would signal some magic had taken place.

After a few seconds, a
dull light started to glow where I had stepped and then a mist, like the kind I had used, started to seep up from the ring I had created. This was good. Then the glow started to subside and the mist evaporated. Another couple of minutes and it would probably be safe to leave.

I'd preformed my first magic.
Damn, I’d done well. Considering it was my first controlled use of magic, I was feeling pretty proud. The light continued to dull at the same rate and the mist was already gone. I'd be back at the casino in no time. It almost felt too easy.

A couple of rippers floated into the area. I wasn't surprised. They always found me if I stayed in one spot too long. They didn't scare me as much as they used to
, but I wasn't thrilled they were here either.

"Hey, don't touch tha
t!" I said when one of them ripper started looking at the still fading ring. It bowed its head and drifted off, like it understood me and I didn't even have mist seeping out of my mouth.

I kn
eeled down to look at the dull light that was getting dimmer and dimmer. As I got closer, I saw it start to surge brighter again. I wished I'd gotten better instructions. What if I'd messed it up?

I didn't know what happened next but I was thrown off my
feet and flying through the air and hitting every branch on the way until I lost consciousness.

"Wrong
? She wrong?" I awoke to a childlike voice.

I was lying on my stomach, my head bent to the right
, and I felt like I'd just survived a nuclear blast.

"
We lick?" a slightly lower voice asked.

Lick?
I raised my right eyelid, my left too swollen to open, and saw two rabbits sniffing around my head. I couldn't see who had been talking. I closed the one eye and tried to assess the damage.

I couldn't take
a deep breath, so I probably had a couple of cracked ribs. I tried to shift to my side and everything below my right thigh just flopped. Was I healing already? I didn't know. But there were two issues. If I healed wrong, I'd have a hell of a time getting back to the casino. And secondly, if magic had done this damage, would I even heal? It could be like the bullets.

"Lick?" the voice said again and I felt a wet tongue on my hand.

Opening my good eye, I saw one of the bunnies licking my hand. Then its head popped up, and that of its companion as well. They stood perfectly still for a moment before they ran. 

I heard the rustling
of someone approaching and tried to drag myself upward. Maybe I could pull myself behind a bush until I healed some more. I strained upward and barely made it an inch off the ground. Change of plans: playing dead it was.

There was the sound of someone walking
near my head before I felt the hands gently feeling me up and down.

I opened myself up to get a sense of
who or what was touching me and my eye snapped open. Maybe snapped wasn't the right term but I managed to open the good eye a slit.

Cormac was squatting down on his haunches in front of me, loo
king at my one good eye, then grimaced as he looked at the rest of me.

"That bad?" I asked.

"Bad, but you'll heal."

"How did you know I was here?"

"I told you that you couldn't leave," he joked in a soft voice. His eyes looked down toward my legs and I could see the concern. "I should probably set your leg."

"I know
."

He paused and I wondered if he paused to give me time or him.

"It's going to hurt."

"I know
," I responded, trying to lighten the subject. He seemed to have more trepidation than I did. "You know I can take it. I'm getting pretty good at this pain stuff."

"I guess that happens when you're constantly breaking stuff."

"Ha ha ha. Just do it. I'm ready."

He nodded but didn't speak. He
disappeared from my line of vision. He touched my legs and everything went black. I was glad. I didn't feel like screaming for the whole of Vegas to hear.

When I
awoke next, I was cradled in Cormac's arms, being carried down the Vegas Strip.

"
Why did he go under so early?" he asked.

"He just said he got called early. How'd you know?" I'd just done it.

"I saw the sealed ground," he explained.

"How did you find me out here? We're you following me?"

"I had things to take care of," he said.

"What stuff? Me?"

"Not everything has to do with you."

I gave up. He wasn't going to let me nail him down to an answer.

"What happened after you did it?"

"The light I think. The light
I
made. Is that normal? Did I trip some sort of magical alarm?"

"You're the maker. You can't trip it."

This was the first time we'd been together that hadn't been angry fighting or ignoring the other person. I wanted to lean my head back on his shoulder just be with him. I missed him. But he kicked me out and said we were done so instead of staying in his arms the way I wanted to, I said, "I can walk."

"Your knee was pretty bad,
" he said and kept walking, and I didn't argue.

He stopped a few blocks away and
dropped my legs to the ground. I instinctively put all my weight on the good leg.

"Can you walk?"

I tested my weight, taking a couple of steps with a slight limp. "Not perfect but I'll make it."

It was early morning hours so only the security detail was up and a couple stragglers when we walked in.

"Do you need help getting up to your room?" Cormac asked.

No, but can you come with me anyway, or better yet, take me home with you?
"I'm fine. Thanks." I limped toward the stairwell and I didn't look back.

Other than a slight stiffness from growing back new cartilage, my knee was almost perfect by the next morning as I observed the chaos on the seventh floor. I wasn't surprised that Burrom hadn't left anyone in charge. He'd think it was their problem to straighten things out after he was gone. I also remembered him talking about how people should find the natural leader among them, all others were doomed to fail anyway.

Nobody really took notice of me with all the chattering going on about where Burrom was, but I wasn't sure how long that would last. I was accepted here because of Burrom
; now that he was gone, that could change quickly. My castle unit was a bit spooky but it was starting to grow on me.

I strolled down to the room
where the Fae had a little restaurant area set up. They didn't like being forced to eat with other races and would dine here often. I poured myself a coffee from the large coffee urn on the table.

I took a sip and walked over to where the garbage was. When I'd returned last night, the full magnitude of my situation hit me. I was
living in a place filled with enemies. I couldn't rely on Cormac. Even Burrom, who I never fully trusted, was gone. I didn't have the luxury of making any more mistakes.

I reached into my back pocket and grabbed my flask and threw it in the trash.
It was time to grow up. That meant no more rash decisions and no more emotional crutches. It was one thing to have a drink but I couldn't afford to be fuzzy half the time.

I
was turning to walk out when Buzz surprised me as he stepped into the room.

"Do you
know where Cormac is?" Buzz asked in a nonchalant manner, contrasting the impression I had gotten from his rushed entrance.

It didn't make sense that he'd ask me where Cormac was. I knew he'd
heard I'd moved out, or been kicked out if you wanted to get technical.

I shrugged.
"How would I know? Maybe he's downstairs."

"Can you come with me
?"

If it was going to be about Cormac, I didn't want to talk about it. He made his choice. Last night didn't change any of that. I wanted to say no
, but Buzz looked so stressed out I didn't have the heart. I nodded, took my coffee and led him back to my room. One of the pluses of the castle room is the stone was real enough and thick enough to buffer out most noises and afforded a nice amount of privacy.

I opened the antique looking wooden door that stood out like a sore thumb in the hallway and welcomed him in
.

"Have a seat," I said and motioned to the archaic looking velvet throne chair in the corner that had shown up a day after I'd moved in.

"Your room's a little scary."

"I know
, but it grows on you," I said as I pulled out a stray feather that had already half escaped the feather mattress that was surprisingly comfortable. It made me wonder why we'd ever moved to springs. "Why are you all worked up?"

"The wolves are taking the humans
’ food rations in exchange for protection."

I leaned my forehead o
nto my palm. I'd suspected that was going on. It was hard not to hear the whispers but I was a lot happier before it had been laid at my feet.

"Protection from who
m?"
Anybody but the wolves, please.
If I opened up that can of worms, it wouldn't be simply fixing a problem. I had too many raw nerves in that area and this was supposed to be my first day without booze?

I still ha
dn't decided what to do about the situation with my mother. The wolves had killed her. I'd decided to drink that thought away for a while but if I was going to be sober now there would be no buffer left to disguise that issue. At some point, I'd have to deal with it and I wasn't ready yet.

"The wolves
."

"Does Cormac know about this?
"

"I don't think he realizes how bad it's gotten."

Or thinks that the humans should handle some of their own problems, was more like it. I wished I could turn a blind eye but there were kids probably going hungry because of this. I knew what it was like to go hungry.

I'
d decided to take my life into my own hands when I was thirteen. When you don't have a family calling the police and pressuring them to find you, it's not that hard to disappear. Laying low for a month was all it took to fall off the radar.

The idea of
kids being extorted for their food and …. I wasn't going to think about what else.

"What about Vitor?"
I asked. Vitor was my last ditch hope of staying out of this mess. Between the kids and my mother, the wolves were an emotional minefield.

"Have you seen Vitor lately?" Buzz asked.

Vitor was a walking disaster, and in a world full of people barely hanging on to their sanity, if you stood out as worse than the rest, you were a hair away from Bedlam.

I got to my feet and did a little hop, making sure my knee was in full working order first. Good as new.

"Where's Rogo?"

"
He's on fourteen, holding court like usual. But you can't piss them off."

I walked to my old ancient door and
held it open, waiting for Buzz. "You came here wanting help. I'm helping, but it's going to be done my way. Do you want me to do something or not?" I offered him a choice that didn't exist. I was going, with or without him.

"Maybe we should wait for Cormac?"

"You just said Cormac is missing. If I don't handle this now they'll think it's a free for all whenever Cormac is gone."

He started to follow me and I shut the door behind us.

"Should we get Dodd?" he asked.

"Nope," I said as we entered the busy stairwell. If magic was going to take the elevators, it should have at least added anothe
r staircase. The foot traffic could drive me back to drinking and I didn't even have my flask anymore.

"But what about the bad blood
with you and them?"