“So long as she behaves, she’ll forget it’s there.” He coiled the chains around his arm then stood. “These sigils are like boomerangs. Whatever she tosses out, physically or magically speaking, comes back at her. She can’t hurt you or anyone else without feeling that pain tenfold.”
Beneath my hand, Boaz’s fingers twitched in the promise of a tight fist. I worked out the worst of the tension with my thumbs, silently urging him to let this be over and done, to let us all go home. He must have received the message. His palm relaxed, and he brought my hand to his lips for a long minute.
Amelie was a statue rooted to the marble. Boaz released me then crossed to his sister and slung his arm around her shoulders. He guided her out of the Lyceum while Linus and I kept a respectful distance. They rode the elevator up together, and I waited until Linus and I stood in the booth before asking the next hard question.
“What happens to Ambrose?” I wrapped my arms around myself. “He’s still in there, right?”
“He is.” His smile was sad, like he’d hoped I might somehow forget that part. “You can’t separate the two without performing an exorcism. Ambrose is too fat on his kills to go willingly. It would kill her prying him out right now.”
“He won’t stop killing.” He couldn’t if he wanted to live. “How do we control him?”
“I’m going to tattoo a containment ward on Amelie. It won’t last forever, but it should subdue Ambrose for a few months. It will buy us time for him to weaken before we take the next steps.”
“What is it?” I shivered under his regard. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Lots of things, I imagine.” He lightened the comment with a smile that didn’t sit right on his mouth. “What happened on the Cora Ann wasn’t what the ward you copied was designed to do. It should have contained Ambrose, and it did, but it also ripped Amelie out of him. He never would have relinquished his hold on her, not when he was strong enough to fight.”
In the silence that followed, I got the feeling he was waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard him ask.
“You want me to…what?” I rubbed my arms. “I can’t tattoo her. I don’t know how.”
“All you have to do is draw what I show you,” he promised. “I’ll copy your design onto transfer paper, apply it, and tattoo her using a special ink blend that helps with suppression.”
I nodded reluctant agreement then followed Linus out of the elevator and into the night. I smelled pizza before I spotted our ride. Boaz was eyeing the driver with suspicion, so I went to smooth things over with him. I made it halfway before noticing Linus hadn’t followed. “You’re not coming?”
“Not this time.” He flicked a glance at Boaz. “Here. Take this for the ride home.”
“Put it on my tab.” I grudgingly accepted the fifty he passed me. “How are you getting home?”
The red Continental glided into sight as he scanned the curb. “I made other arrangements.”
On some unspoken signal, Cletus made his presence known, swaying between Linus and me, and I snapped my fingers. “It was you.”
Linus raised an eyebrow and waited to hear my latest accusation. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Those nights when Cletus lingered at the Cora Ann. It was because you were onboard, hunting.”
“Yes.” That was all he said, no specifics, and I itched to press him for details. “We’ll continue this later.”
Later wasn’t never, so I was satisfied as he headed for his ride, and me for mine.
After dusting fries off the seat beside Pizza Dude, I sat and passed him his tip. Boaz and Amelie settled on the bench together in the back, her curled against his side, silent tears streaking her cheeks. Only in the aftermath of my whirlwind decisions did I start wondering if I’d made a huge mistake in binding her to me.
Boaz was the type of man who would use a rusty saw to hack off his own foot before wearing a cuff that controlled him. That was what made him a bad bet romantically. He might accept a collar for a little while, but eventually he would gnaw through any leash.
Amelie had already shown me her teeth, and now I had backed her into a corner then clamped on a choke chain.
May the goddess be merciful.
Eighteen
Juicing up the wards and expanding Woolly’s consciousness had seemed like a stellar idea at the time, but I was starting to regret my urgency in forcing those repairs. Woolly, who had been told a sanitized version of the events aboard the Cora Ann, had touched my mind during my earlier pit stop home and read Amelie’s guilt for my injuries.
Amelie was officially persona non grata as far as the old house was concerned.
While I paced the foyer, attempting to convince my house to grant Amelie sanctuary, Linus prepared his workstation in the carriage house. Woolly loved Amelie, but Amelie didn’t taste much like Amelie to Woolly’s new wards, and she had hurt me.
That was Woolly’s line in the sand. Amelie had hurt me. Therefore, Amelie was bad.
The majority of her overprotectiveness sprung from guilt. Some of it over Maud. Most of it over Volkov.
I was so very tired of being the weak link.
Amelie was not alone in her ostracism. Woolly had nothing to say to Boaz, either. She allowed him to enter the house, she permitted him to plead his sister’s case, but she remained unmoved by his argument. Even Keet turned away when Boaz offered to scratch his earholes.
Too bad Odette had slipped away while we were gone. She might have helped me convince Woolly, assuming they had made their peace. Without her calming influence, that left the two of us standing in the living room without many options.
“There are two bedrooms in the carriage house,” I said at last. “Amelie could room with Linus.”
“Hunger for power got her into this mess,” Boaz countered. “If aversion therapy was going to work, it would have by now. She’s been your friend for years.” He cut me a look. “Amelie won’t have much of a reputation after this, but I don’t want how she lived with Linus while working off her debt to be one of the things she’s remembered for.”
The blood rushed from my cheeks, and I nodded. “I don’t want that for her, either.”
The Society thrived on inventing foibles to tarnish the reputations of its members. Forcing Amelie to live with Linus would give them meat enough to feast on for years. She would never escape the shadow that cast over her viability as a potential match, not that she would have many options outside of human partners thanks to her disownment.
“Woolly, you have to work with me here.” I tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling. “We have to keep them both. We don’t have a choice.”
The old house faked a case of selective hearing while dimming the lights in a muted but firm no.
I reached up to worry the button on my necklace when it hit me I had a bargaining chip. “Boaz, can you wait outside a minute?”
“Sure.” His fingers trailed down my arm before he joined his sister on the front porch swing.
“I forgot to mention I made a new friend.” I rubbed the button like it was a lamp and Oscar a genie. Thanks to my connection with Woolly, a perception sigil wasn’t necessary to see when the boy popped into existence, rubbing his fists in his eyes and yawning. “Oscar, meet Woolly. Woolly, meet Oscar.” I removed the necklace and placed it on the mantle beside Maud’s remains. “Oscar wants to live with us, at least for a little while. What do you say to that?”
The house reached out its magic to taste him, and Oscar burst into a fit of giggles.
“It tickles.” His feet left the floor as laughter buoyed him. “Is she a ghost too?”
“Something like that.” It was close enough to pass for the truth. “Well, Woolly?”
The floorboards groaned, indecisive, but her lights kept brightening the higher he flew.
That, more than anything, told me she was sold on the idea. She loved kids. She couldn’t help herself. That’s why she and I had bonded so deeply. In her own way, she had helped raise me. And Oscar was the same age as I was when Maud took me in. Nostalgia would do a lot of the heavy lifting for me with her.
“I’m glad you’ve welcomed one of our guests.” Time to beat the dead horse. “But you still have to pick one of the other two to live with us.”