Especially when the breeder is as tiresome as this human is.
“We missed you at dinner, you know,” the wife says, ignoring my question about Sage. Her stiff lips pucker like she’s taking a selfie. “Are you hungry? I could find you something to nibble on.” Her fingers slide suggestively along her clavicle, like she thinks I’m a shade and she’s offering herself up for a taste. I notice several shiny dotted scars on her neck. She tilts her hips and steps toward me. “Whatever you want, I’m happy to help.”
I tell myself she’s Marius’s wife and I should be polite. I should not back away in disgust. “No. No, thank you.” I’m not thankful. I feel a little ill. “I need to speak with the demi, with Sage.”
“The girls went out somewhere,” she says absently. “But I’m here.” She makes that weird pinched-lip face again.
“Wait, what do you mean? Where did they go?” She can’t be serious. Wasn’t Marius just with them before he spoke to me?
“Who knows,” she says with a sigh. “Aelia is exhausting. I can’t keep track of that girl.” She frowns a little. “You’re not feeding off her, are you? That’s against the rules, isn’t it? I’m human, so it’s fine.”
Danu save me. “When did they leave? Did the driver take them?” They couldn’t be too far ahead of me. I was only in the rose garden for a minute or two after Marius left.
“How am I supposed to know?”
I turn and head into the kitchen, making a mental list of items I’ll need for the location spell. Salt, ash, rose oil, and crushed cloves—no, not cloves, it’s cinnamon for a fire-based Otherborn. Cloves are for finding an earth-based Other. I start opening cupboards, looking for salt. I can get rose oil from crushing some of the buds outside in a little olive oil. And cinnamon must be around here somewhere . . .
The wife comes up behind me, peering over my shoulder as I pull a bowl from a shelf. “What in heaven are you doing?”
“Do you know where the cinnamon is?” I ask. It’ll mimic the scent of Sage’s energy.
The woman laughs. “Of course not. This is a kitchen.” She says it like I didn’t know.
I find the spice rack in one of the cupboards and collect what I need. I grab the virgin olive oil beside it, then I go to the sink and run a little water into my bowl before tucking everything under my arm and heading for the back doors.
Unfortunately, the wife follows me. I walk through the yard, along the winding stone pathway, back to the rose garden, where I nestle the bowl in the moss. I set the rest of the ingredients next to it. I rip two handfuls of petals off a bush and place them into the bowl. Once I drizzle olive oil over them, I grab a rock and crush the concoction into the water, and the scent of roses spills out around me.
“What are you doing?” the wife asks, sounding fascinated. I wonder if I should be hiding the spellwork from her. Marius never warned me to be cautious with her, but I should probably be doing this in private. Bloody hell. Too late now.
“I’m cooking,” I say, picking up the salt and pouring it into my palm before sprinkling it over the rose petals. I follow with the cinnamon as I whisper a few words to begin the spell, but they’re in Gaelic so she won’t understand them. “Earth forgets, water’s breath,” I begin, still crushing the roses—my representation of the earth element—into the water. Then I reach down to my boot and pull out my small dagger, prick my finger, and let the blood drip three times into the bowl, continuing, “Blood in part, as tongues of fire, lead me to your beating heart.”
On the last word, the smell of charred air flicks to life in my nostrils and a spark births over the bowl, a flame licking at the air as the contents are quickly consumed. I watch and wait for the embers to fade a little, smoke rising, and then I lean over and inhale deeply, closing my eyes, focusing every molecule I can on Sage.
Instantly I smell alcohol. I taste the tang of underlings in the air, and a distant beat vibrates in my head. Music.
I wait, worrying that the visual won’t filter through as clearly as the other senses. But then I see: she’s walking up a metal staircase. Ahead, there’s a small loft, curtained with sheer silver fabric. Aelia is in front of her, high heels clicking on the steps.
They’re obviously at a club or a bar of some kind. I need to see more, to look around, but that’s not how the spell works. I get clues and sort of see/feel/smell through the torque necklace Sage is wearing. There’s a woman emerging from the gauzy curtain, a pixie with pale pink hair. She scans Sage and my nerves spark with realization. People will feel who and what she is.
Feckin’ shite, Aelia, what the bloody hell are you on?
I keep my eyes closed and ask Marius’s wife, “Where does Aelia usually hang out?” I hope this human is nosy enough about her daughter’s life to know the answer. “Like clubs, with dancing, a place to meet friends?”
“Why?” she asks.
I feel her kneel beside me. She better not touch me or I’ll lose the connection. I struggle to hold the spell tight around me. “I need to be sure Aelia’s safe. She might be in danger.” Mostly because of the demi she’s with.
“My Aelia is in danger?” Her worry blossoms in the space between us. “I don’t know . . . maybe she’d go the Oyster Club? She likes it there—or the Baja Lounge? Oh my, I’m not sure . . .”
The girls are inside a small room now, more figures are in the background, someone else in the room is a witch, maybe two or three—I can sense their energy slinking over Sage’s skin. Then I realize that this is Aelia’s coven. Why is she bringing Sage to them? They have very little power, and no say among the older druids. Is she really so petty that she thinks the new demi will help her gain standing in the druid ranks?
The music comes through a little clearer. I ask the human, “Is there a club with a big band theme, maybe?”
“Oh, that’s The Fitzgerald.”
I open my eyes and stand, leaving the spell bowl in the moss, and head for the cottage to grab a few things. Sharp things.
“Where are you going?” the wife calls after me.
Gods, her memory must’ve been screwed with too. Nice, Marius.
“I thought we were going to hang out,” she whines. “Don’t go.”
“I’m getting your daughter. You’ll thank me later.” And I slip into my cottage to find my daggers.
SIXTEEN
SAGE
There’s a line for the bathroom, even though the crowds are still thin. It’s early, and the nightlife in LA doesn’t usually get pulsing seriously until after eleven. I settle into formation behind a girl who’s sucking on a blue lollipop. Her lips and tongue are stained purple. The white-blond ponytails on either side of her head flick at the air when she bobs to the music. She glances at me and gives me a quick grin, then goes back to her lollipop.