Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4) (36 page)

“If I’m to be the lackey here,” I said, grinning down at the old woman, “I’ll listen to your requests and pass on to Black Briar things I feel are worthy.” I didn’t even look back at the guys. Either they agreed, or I didn’t play.

I placed the scroll in her hand, and her eyes lit up.

“Second,” I said, holding up the necklace. “This stays with me until Katie has had a chance to examine it and ask questions.” I glanced back at Jimmy then, and he was absolutely not happy. “No secrets, Jim, remember?”

He nodded stiffly. Stuart turned then, watching me for the first time. I think there was a bit of admiration in his face. That or gas. I was going for the admiration.

“And finally,” I said, holding up the dagger.

The energy signature off that dagger was scary high. It made my whole arm tingle. This was some powerful magic. I looked to Gunther who nodded, smiling.

“You can have this,” I said, sliding it into the jeans of my pocket. “When you put Olivia and Paul’s wedding rings into my hands.”

The room exploded.

“What the hell?” Jimmy shouted.

“How dare you?” Gottschalk started, then sat back as I leaned into her personal space. I was so pissed I could feel the berserker dancing in the background. It wouldn’t take much to call it forth and punch this manipulating old bitch in the face. “I know you have them. Don’t pretend.”

I stepped back. Jimmy grabbed my arm. “What are you talking about?” he asked, the anger and shock bleeding through his words. “Their wedding rings.”

“Later,” I said, pushing his hand off my arm. “Those are my conditions.”

I turned, walked down the hallway, and let myself out the door.

The house erupted into shouts, but I didn’t go back inside. I walked out and sat on the back of Jimmy’s pickup waiting for the fireworks to settle down.

After a few minutes, Stuart walked out of the house.

“Must you always kick the hornet’s nest?” he asked with a grin.

I shrugged. “I don’t like her,” I said. “And I sure as hell don’t trust her.”

He leaned against the truck next to me and crossed his arms. “Pretty sure she’s a witch,” he said. “You sure you want to piss her off?”

“Hey,” I said, poking him in the arm. “We have a better witch on our team.”

He stiffened, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Qindra really digs you,” I said, quietly. “I don’t know what you’ve said or done, but that girl is seven kinds of flummoxed over you.”

“Really?” he asked, turning to look at me.

For a moment he looked fourteen hearing about his first crush liking him back.

“Totally,” I said. “She wants you to escort her to Portland, but she’s afraid you’ll laugh at her.”

He stood up straight, his face very serious. “I would do no such thing,” he said. “She is an intriguing woman.” He looked passed me, his eyes a little unfocused. I turned to look over my shoulder making sure there was no one there and smiled. He was smitten.

“Take her to dinner,” I offered, nudging him.

He focused his eyes on me and smiled a shy little smile. “I was thinking of asking her on a real date.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Someplace fancy,” I said with a smile. “Let her dress up, pick the wine, gush all over her. She’ll melt in your arms.”

He blushed at that and looked toward the house. Gunther was striding down the path toward us.

“The scroll is the real win for her,” he said to me. “The necklace is untapped. We couldn’t make any sense of it. There doesn’t appear to be any reason this drove Jimmy’s folks to run off like they did. Just makes no sense.”

“And the dagger?”

He sighed and shrugged. “Real as real. Rasputin had it on him when he survived several assassination attempts. Theory is it kept him alive, but none of us were willing to test that magic.”

I cupped my hand over the dagger bulge in my pocket. “Maybe we don’t want her to have this.”

“It betrayed him in the end,” he said. “There are only so many times you can tempt fate. At the end he trusted this would save him and it did not.”

“Was Rasputin a dragon?” I asked. It would only make sense.

“Rumor has it,” Stuart said, causing Gunther and me to both turn to look at him. He grinned and shrugged. “Hey, I may not be in any secondary guilds or anything, but I am a member of Black Briar. I do my research.”

“My demands stand,” I said. “You want me to play along, this is my price.”

Gunther glanced at Stuart and shook his head. “Remember when she was unsure of herself?”

Stuart chuckled. “And how much she used to want to be just like us?”

“I never wanted to be you,” I said, laughing. “I just liked having you both around as mentors.”

They both got serious at that, and they each took one of my hands.

“Our little girl’s all growed up,” Stuart said with a syrupy southern drawl.

“About damned time,” Gunther said.

“How did you know about Baba Yaga?” I asked. “And the dagger? Your order knew Gottschalk would drool all over it?”

“Yes,” Gunther replied. “They’ve known about this Order of Mordred since they first came to town with the gold rush.”

“Gold rush?” I asked. “That’s a long time.”

“And Madame Gottschalk is very old,” he said. “The dagger was truly Rasputin’s. It will help Gottschalk with some political matters back home. She and her sister do not always see eye-to-eye, let’s say.”

“You’re the man in the know here,” I said, slipping my hand in my pocket to grasp the dagger. “So, we’re just gonna give her the knife?”

He nodded. “In exchange for the rings,” Gunther said, smiling. “That was quite the surprise. I’m curious how you knew about them.”

“Long story, better told out of earshot,” I said, hiking my thumb toward the house. “I need to head out of here, check on Jai Li. Can you two make sure Jimmy gets out of there alive?”

They chuckled.

“We’ve kept him out of trouble since the early days,” Stuart said. “We’ll be okay.”

I walked over to my bike, and put on my helmet. As I pulled down the street to turn around, I glanced over and saw that Gunther and Stuart had their heads together talking.

I missed them both so much. We needed to get our lives back to some level of normalcy. And in all that, nothing was mentioned about Katie.

It only took me about fifteen seconds to have the bike back down the street to where Stuart and Gunther were talking. They looked up as I stopped the bike and flipped up the face shield.

“Did she say anything about Katie?” I asked over the bike’s idle.

Stuart’s face fell, and Gunther shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” Gunther said, stepping over to grasp my shoulder. “Jimmy asked, but Gottschalk was perplexed. She doesn’t know anything.”

“Maybe she’s lying?” I doubted it, but I had to ask.

“No,” Stuart said, smiling. “She’s not lying.” He glanced at Gunther who nodded. Stuart reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small silver disk.

“If she lied, I’d know,” he said, handing the disk to me.

I examined the disk, peeling off my gloves. The second I made flesh contact to it, I got a shock that set the runes along my scalp into overdrive. Light exploded from the disk, and I closed my fist around it, damping down the white flare.

“Lie about something,” Stuart said.

I looked down at my fist and said, “I hate coffee.”

The disk throbbed, a dissonant pulse that grated my teeth, but only for a second. “I love coffee.” The disk hummed quietly, a smooth sensation.

I handed the disk back to Stuart.

“Damn,” I said, frowning. “So, back to plan B.”

Gunther looked up. “Plan B?”

“Let’s regroup tomorrow out at Jimmy’s,” I said, glancing toward the house. “I’m not comfortable sharing secrets here.”

They both nodded, and I shifted into first, swung the bike around and headed back toward Redmond.

Tomorrow I’d try something new. I just hoped that Jimmy would listen. After this little scene I’m not sure he would be too open to things.

Fifty-two

The next day, Jimmy, Gunther, and I reconvened back at Black Briar. Stuart went off to see Qindra. It was very cute to see him so crushing on her. I laid out my ideas for taking Katie over to the school, doing a bit of a séance, maybe doing some astral walking and explore the surroundings. I couldn’t tell them about the diary, however. If they knew Katie had taken it, they hadn’t mentioned it to me yet, and I did not want to go there.

I wanted to get Qindra involved, but with Stuart currently asking her out to a super spectacular dinner and the whole wooing thing, I thought it would be better if I used the resources I had. Jimmy was dead set against me taking her on some damned fool’s errand, and he was out on the deck talking with Deidre about it. Gunther and I planted ourselves in Katie’s room to wait out the storm.

I’d kidnap her if I had to. I had to try something. I was pretty sure I could talk Melanie into helping me. Mostly sure.

I took out the necklace that we were going to give to Gottschalk. Katie’s hands were crossed on her chest, so I turned them palm up and lay the necklace into them.

“Your parents had this necklace,” I said to her.

Her hands closed over the cut stones, but her eyes didn’t open

“Did she …?” Gunther began, standing up.

“No,” I said, covering her hands with mine. “She grasps things when you put them in her hands. Some instinct, I think. She’s not in there.”

“How can you be sure?” he asked, sitting back down.

I sat beside him, took out my knitting and began to work on sample piece for a new scarf I was working on. This one used a lot of beads. It was going to kill me, I’m sure.

“She’s lost somewhere,” I told him as I began the soothing dance of the needles. “I’ve seen evidence of that. I just need to find out where.”

He humphed and crossed his hands behind his head, crossed one ankle over a knee and leaned back against the wall, watching her.

“I watched her grow up,” he said, quietly. “She was hell on wheels, this one.”

I looked up. He had that faraway look of old memories.

“And when she told us about you,” he said, grinning. “Jimmy about lost it. We knew you from the Ren Faire, but you were a little rough around the edges. All anger and bravado.”

I squinted at him. “It wasn’t that long ago,” I said. “Like what, two, three years?”

“I think Katie carved it in the old barn. She was convinced you were the real deal, her one and only.” He looked up, his face suddenly sober. “Not mine to tell, though. Sorry.” He smiled at me with a very sad smile, his flowing hair and wild Viking looks suddenly sensitive and vulnerable. “She does love you, kiddo. With all her heart.”

“Ditto,” I said, looking at her with watering eyes. “God, Gunther. I can’t lose her.” My breath caught, and I thought I was going to cry for a moment. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “I have to bring her home, show her the way, put out a light, something.”

“I’ll talk to Jimmy,” he said, quietly. “He’ll see reason.”

“Yeah, right. Jimmy? He only believes things he can see on his own.”

“Brilliant idea,” he said, smacking his open hand on his thigh. “Why don’t you and Skella arrange to take him sideways. You can, can’t you?”

I thought about it. Not astrally, that took a special skill. I don’t know when I’d acquired it, but my bet was that Gram had something to do with it.

“Good idea. You wanna go?”

He laughed again and held up his hands. “Hell no. I’ll trust you. I don’t need some crazed spirit or giant spider like eating machine chasing me across Hel’s domain to trust you’re telling the truth.”

“Jimmy thinks I’m lying?”

He shook his head. “Delusional, most like. He knows you love her and would do anything for her, but look at his life, Sarah. He’s terrified he’ll lose her, so he’s keeping a tight rein on her.”

I could see his point of view. Guy was just scared for her. Maybe I’d take Jimmy and Bub with me next time. Get Skella to drop us off someplace relatively safe. If that even existed in the Sideways.

“How’s Anezka?” I asked him, changing the subject without signaling.

He turned and looked at me with a smile on his face. “She’s a little ray of sunshine,” he sniggered. “When she’s not out of her gourd with anxiety and nightmares.”

“Sorry.”

“Well … accepted. She says you’ve been stirring up the nightmares, making the dark things creep out of their hidey-holes and slip into normal people’s dreams.”

That sucked. “Skella’s grandmother said pretty much the same thing,” I said, dejected. I put the knitting down in my lap. “I guess when I go tromping through the dreamscape, I’m a little loud and annoying.”

He laughed at that, a real belly laugh. “Jesus and Mary, Beauhall. You are the epitome of understatement.”

I punched him and picked my knitting back up. Luckily I hadn’t dislodged anything. I hated casting on.

He stared at me for a while, a look of concentration on his face.

“What?” I asked after a few minutes. It was unnerving.

“Well, we’ve been talking, me and Jimmy and Stuart.”

“Yeah?”

He turned his chair slightly to better face me. “You see, we don’t think you’re one of the elder gods come back.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Especially after learning that the dragons want to keep them all killed off.”

He waved his hand at me, smiling. “And you aren’t a dragon or anything else my order can understand.” He tapped two fingers against his lips, thinking. “It’s like you’re a white blood cell. Whatever is wrong with the world, you’ve been brought in to clean things up. Preserve the ecosystem by removing things that are harming the host.”

I had to consider that for a moment. “Like magical penicillin?” I asked.

“Which makes the dragons STDs?”

We both laughed at that.

“But it’s more than dragons,” he said, tapping his hands on the seat of the chair. “The current theory is that you are an antibody that is trying to heal the one-true-being.”

“Odin?” I asked. Didn’t seem right, but what the hell did I know?

“No, not Odin. He’s just another piece of the whole. No, I think you’re a servant of the world tree.”

I looked at him, thinking that maybe Anezka’s nuttiness had infected him in some way.