The Cauldron Effect, page 64
“Dewer does not deserve his mother’s love.” Colin, the pythos that had scared Alfred’s mare, slithered to the cloud’s edge. The snake man seemed oblivious to the misfortune he had caused. “She cares dearly for her son’s welfare, yet he does naught but use and abuse us, her babies.”
Resting his weary forehead against his scythe’s staff, Alfred gave his new little companion a long-suffering glance. “You know this from experience, I take it?”
“He killed me, did he not, without a second’s hesitation? Once he told my friend Samuel that Adramelech tastes like baked potatoes sprinkled with sweetened coconut. Who lies like that? Where do you suppose Samuel is now?”
“In a better place?” Alfred remembered that chubby little pythos. He checked his tablet and it flashed alarmingly, but then gave the required information. Twelve years ago, Adramelech had beheaded Samuel and a dozen of his brethren when they attempted to rescue Dewer. “Samuel is looking forward to your visit.”
“Really?” The first sign of happiness suffused Colin’s cross little human face. “What are we waiting for?”
“Four others are to join us.” Ethel had asked that Jack, a human, be delivered directly to her before Alfred ferried the others off.
A torn piece of bloody hornet flew at them and Alfred jerked aside. The appendage missed him and landed on Colin.
“Ew!” Colin shook himself and the offending orange limb slid off and through the cloud cover. “What was that?”
“My right foreleg.” A hornet twice as tall as Alfred and ten times Colin’s length, fluttered his spiritual wings as he settled to their right. Two others like him joined them, stirring a breeze.
“Heard your father abandoned you lot.” Colin’s lips twisted with contempt. “My mother would never do that.”
“Not wise to throw stones, Colin,” Alfred said in gentle reprimand. He did not care for show-offs, and pythos were as notorious for boasting, as they were for their unholy appetites.
“Our father did not wish to harm the boy.” The first giant hornet to land said, sounding offended. “That is why he left us.”
“He began this fight,” Colin said, but in a gentler tone.
“He was invited here,” the hornet corrected and then leaned closer to whisper, “by the lad’s mother.”
“To kill her son?” Alfred asked, confused. That was pretty low, even for a dark fae.
“Capture, sir, not kill. We were to keep him safe. His prison is all comfy and tidy. I swept it myself this morning. Over the years, Dewer’s mother has been ever so grateful for our father’s tutelage of the brat on matters of survival.” He consulted with the other hornets, buzzing fiercely. Then he turned back to Alfred. “The boys agree. Father is probably strategizing right this minute on how to ensure Dewer is not killed while he attempts to reach London.”
“Ah!” Alfred said. Trouble was definitely brewing in Town then, which explained why Ethel had called him in.
The cloud before them parted and a water goddess zipped through and came to a startled, misty, halt.
“Mistress Llyn?” Moisture beings always fascinated Alfred and he could not tear his gaze from this one’s curvy and drizzly form. In fact, he had been following this particular water goddess’s activities for months. His ear holes smoked at seeing her in person instead of illegally spying on her through his tablet. She was supposed to be in Bristol today.
“Death?” She sounded frazzled. “Why are you here?”
She saw him as nothing more than a basic reaper. Disappointment sank in. Then Alfred recalled he lacked a body. What a time to get caught naked! He pulled his hood up.
“Is it time for Papa to meet you?” she asked.
Britain’s Water God was not his jurisdiction so he consulted his tablet. A million dots of light spotted the surface like a raging snowstorm. His skull burned hot with shame. He frantically shook the tablet. The stone surface went fuzzy, as if a fog had moved in. His ribs rattled in panic, and he envisioned eons writing with a pencil. Llyn would never notice him then.
Please let it work, he prayed. The tablet cleared, filling with tiny ancient script. He breathed in sheer relief. “Not yet, Mistress. You had best hurry.”
“Bother!” Without a backward glance, Llyn sped off.
Alfred’s joy at coming to the upper world evaporated. All he wanted was to go home and crawl under his covers. With his rotten luck, he probably could no longer follow her adventures on his damaged tablet either.
In the next moment, Dewer, with two hellhounds at his heels, broke through the clouds and sped off in the same direction as Llyn. Alfred’s sigh was green with envy.
A discreet bell tolled, drawing his attention to his tablet. The hour glass beside Jack’s name flipped over and began counting again. “Our last guest has received a reprieve. Time to leave.”
He stood, defeat weighing him down until he was ankle-deep in a cloud. A tap of his scythe and he and his party winked out of the upper world.
The cumulus cloud rumbled, as if annoyed by all the recent intrusions. Rain fell.
“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” Grace’s mother asked, sliding down the bank. “Do not hurt them, indeed! Those hornets are dangerous, not only to us but to humans.”
As if to emphasize her mother’s exasperation, thunder rumbled and the light drizzle turned into a downpour. The blood stains on the soggy green grass became a rosy puddle.
Her mother’s rapid descent over muddy ground came to a skidding halt on the wet gully beside the roadway. Holding her skirts up, Lady Mandell kept herself from tripping, but her hems were thoroughly muddy and she was soaked through.
It dawned on Grace then that it was raining, and the water had penetrated the protective shield.
“What has happened to the barrier?” she asked, though she was more concerned her mother had left her grandmother alone with Burns. As for her patient, her work here was done. All of his wounds were mended, though it would take him days for all of his bruises and torn muscles to properly heal. A bit of rain would not harm him.
“With Adramelech gone and Dewer chasing the remaining hornets, we deemed it no longer necessary to waste of all our energy keeping it up. Burns is tending to it on her own.”
We? Our? Her mother sounded as if she trusted Burns in that role. Only this morning she had been raving that she would never countenance that dark fae becoming part of their family. “Where is Grandmamma?”
“Resting. Grace, do not distract me. Those demon hornets could have killed your precious hellhounds.” Standing arms akimbo, her mother glared. “I thought you were fond of them.”
Grace quickly checked to see if the humans had heard. Peter’s attention was on his unconscious brother, Jack. The fact her mother openly mentioned hellhounds showed how upset she must be. Then again, while assisting her, Peter had been exposed to more astonishing feats than simply talk of supernatural animals.
A twinge of regret speared Grace for upsetting her mother. She leaned back on her folded limbs and sighed.
Luckily, Grace’s work here was done. Jack was finally resting easy, all his limbs properly set, his wounds sealed and his breathing steady.
Peter, his dripping face wreathed in worry, stroked Jack’s forehead and then slipped a hand over his nose as if to verify he breathed, though Jack’s chest rising and falling steadily attested to that fact.
“He will be well enough to ride behind the carriage within a week,” Grace promised.
Peter’s earnest gaze met hers with profound gratitude. He had been as tense as she during that procedure to straighten mangled limbs and repair lungs that gurgled.
The warmth of his thankfulness worked its way into Grace’s cold stiff body.
“Time to move him into the carriage,” Grace said, rising to her feet. “Lay him on the empty seat across from Lady Westerly.”
“Yes, miss.” Peter eagerly lifted Jack in his arms.
She stepped out of his way, finally noting her state of disrepair. She was as filthy with blood stains and dirt as the groom and her patient.
She was too drained to lift a finger to fix her appearance, even if that meant presenting a dismal picture to Dewer. What was the point, after all? As her mother had rightfully intimated earlier with her scornful, “What were you thinking?”
A defeated sigh escaped her lips at her sorry state. Her pitiful plea to Dewer to not kill those hornets should have totally damned her in his eyes, as any kind of suitable mate for him. No self-respecting warlock brought up in the underworld, and tutored by Burns, would countenance a wife who was squeamish about killing.
She wanted to scream that she was not that woman. At least, she had not been, once. Yes, she healed the sick, but as a child she had never cringed from stomping on spiders that intruded into her room, swatting flies that threatened to sip her soup, or use wriggling worms as bait for trout or pilchard before gleefully handing her catch to Cook to dress for dinner.
When had she changed into a woman who healed injured fish, felt sorrow for unhappy eels and defended demon spawn?
In a flash, she remembered the moment her life had been altered.
Earlier this spring, the waters of the Laneast wishing well had splashed her. Ever since that instant, she had begun to care about all life forms to an extraordinary degree. Warmth flooded at the memory, at its implication, and its consequence. At the same moment, all of her hopes of stealing Dewer’s love away from Merryn withered.
As she was now, she would never fit into Dewer and his mother’s brutal world, where life was expendable. She faced her mother, her body shivering. Shock set in, as much from fatigue as from the cold rain and this new revelation.
“You are exhausted.” Her mother’s tone softened with compassion and she extended an elbow.
Grace accepted her offer in silence, out of words to excuse her conduct and needing her mother’s help if she hoped to make it up that wet, slippery slope to the roadway.
Once they reached the gravelly path, her mother’s gaze was drawn toward Grace’s grandmother, who was slumped on the ground. Next to the older witch, Burns’s attention remained on the shield for which she was now solely responsible.
“I have given Dewer back his hounds, Mama, so there is no more need to scold me.” Grace released her arm, giving her mother tacit permission to attend to Grace’s grandmother.
“You and I must speak of this hellhound business.”
They were beside the carriage where Lady Westerly’s avid attention was divided between Jack, whom Peter carried inside, and Grace and her mother’s presence outside the open carriage door.
Since their vehicle had stopped, not one word of protest had come from this normally talkative countess. Now Grace thought on it, neither had Peter questioned her actions to mend his brother’s broken body.
A sweep of her mother’s arm and the carriage door began to swing shut. The countess’s hand shot out and stopped that attempt to close her in, excluding her from supernatural matters. With a determined set to her lips, the lady ordered Peter to help her outside.
“Best if you stay within, Lady Westerly,” Grace’s mother said in a patient but firm tone.
“You obviously wish to speak with your daughter,” Countess Westerly said with a proud tilt of her head as she stepped down. “Just as obvious is that your brave mother needs someone to support her after her extraordinary efforts to protect us. I shall see to that.”
The countess went over to Grace’s grandmother and, with a bit of assistance from the groom, sat and draped an arm around the elderly witch.
Burns frowned at them but then returned her focus to the sky, scanning for signs that Adramelech or his hornets might be returning.
Grace’s mother steered her toward the back of the carriage and out of ear shot of those who were magically-impaired. “Remember last year when we learned humans in Callington were more attuned to fae and Wyhcan activities than any witch ever suspected?” her mother whispered. “That might be the case along this south-western stretch of England, too. Now, tell me what convinced you to release the hounds to Dewer. Just so he could deal with those overgrown hornets?”
A tired smile twisted Grace’s lip. What convinced you to finally act sensibly? That was at the crux of her mother’s question. “Not for this one mission, Mama. I have given them back to him permanently.”
Her mother’s eyes widened. “Explain.”
“They are his to command from this day forward.”
Her mother’s surprise changed to suspicion.
No wonder. Grace had staunchly refused to return the hounds to their owner, so to simply give him total control now probably seemed uncharacteristic. Especially since, after he dealt with the hornets, her gift meant he would no longer have to ingratiate himself to any of them.
“He needs those hounds more than I ever suspected, Mama. They can give him unconditional love and loyalty.”
Her mother’s frown grew more defined on her forehead. “How did you come to that conclusion? I shall set aside a hellhound’s love for anyone. Nothing Burns said this day was news. We all assumed Dewer’s childhood must have been lonely, yet you never felt this need to return his hounds.”
“I believed he led a lonely life, yes, but not a tortuous one. Not that he once possessed a tender heart. Or was being groomed to shut out all semblance of love in his life.”
As they walked, her mother’s gown shed dirt and moisture and a large parasol spread open overhead, suspended without a natural means of support, protecting them from the pattering rain. A luxury her mother could now afford to spend. “Grace, he was brought up in the underworld. What did you think his life was like among its unholy denizens?”
Grace stopped the flow of her objection to that presupposition. Must everyone who lived in the underworld be considered evil? Were not all living things the Creator’s creatures? She halted her racing thoughts. Who am I? She shook off that perplexing question and focused on Dewer. “Mama, we knew his mother was overprotective. Not that she would have treated him so foully.”
“She did what she did to safeguard him,” her mother said with a small smile that hinted at admiration for Burns caring enough to want to protect her child.
Was her mother defending Burns’s actions? Grace crossed her arms. “Irrelevant.”
“Apparently,” her mother conceded, “since her teachings have not taken root, if he is interested in you.”
“Do you think he is?” She cringed at how needy that sounded.
“Do you doubt it?” her mother asked in a scoffing tone. “Everyone saw the way he brushed your cheek.”
“Everyone?”
“Except Lady Westerly. Dewer pierced through our shield to reach you. His magic thrummed so loud I am surprised the countess, too, did not sense its presence.” Her mother drew them to a halt and studied Grace with a questioning frown. “Not that I approve of this match, Grace, but unlike my other girls, you have never doubted your appeal to men. Why do you now question it with Dewer?”
She touched her cheek, remembering his caress, and a warm glow lit in her tired heart. “This time it is different.”
“How so?”
“This time I want him to want me, Mama.”
Her mother brushed Grace’s bonnet and dirt flew off. She then lifted Grace’s gown at her shoulders and the filth and water weighing it down fell away, while a pleasant lavender fragrance rose up. “An unwise wish.”
Grace shut her eyelids before tears gave way. Her emotions were too raw and she was too weary to hold back much longer.
Her mother’s arms embraced her then and waves of strength flowed into Grace. As she had accepted her mother’s elbow to climb up the side of the road, she now leaned into her hold, reveling in the warm reviving energy her mother so generously shared. Finally, she felt stronger and more resilient.
“Getting back to the hellhounds,” her mother said, pulling away, “I remain confused. I grant that Dewer might be in need of affection, but how does returning the hellhounds help that cause? Better to give him a real puppy. Though it would not last long once he returned to his mother’s kingdom.”
Grace spilled what she had been suspecting for most of this day, since she first entered her drawing room this morning and spotted Dewer petting Farfur’s forehead. “I believe Farfur and Dewer have bonded. As master and familiar.”
“Impossible.” Her mother shook her head. “Even if Dewer knew how to bond with a familiar, which is debatable-”
“Why is that in doubt?” Grace asked.
“Because Wyhcan boys come into the ability to bond with a familiar around eight years of age. Dewer is four and twenty and to my knowledge, he has never bonded with an animal. Also, if Farfur was Dewer’s familiar, he would have never given him up, no matter how miserable he felt.”
“I did not say Farfur was always his familiar, Mama, I am saying he is now. This is a recent occurrence. While Farfur was in my custody.”
“That, too, is nonsense. Such bonds involve a melding of body, mind and spirit, and needs the assistance of an older warlock learned in the ways of forming such intricate links. Dewer has been with us for less than a day and Farfur and Bartos have been with you the whole while. Also, all of that aside, Dewer would never choose Farfur for his familiar.”
“Why not? Farfur is a perfectly wonderful hound.”
“Hellhound, Grace. Legend says Lilith, Lucifer’s consort, created such killing beasts as her companions, and they have flourished in the underworld ever since, often commandeered by demons and dark fae during forays into the upper world. Hellhounds, and all such creatures born of the dark, lack a spirit with which a warlock could link.”
“Yet, the bond has happened,” Grace said, with tight-lipped stubbornness. She was no longer certain about this witches’ theory that hellhounds lacked spirit. Grace sensed there was something more to Bartos and Farfur than flesh and bones, and if so, why not in those hornets, too?
Convincing her mother of that possibility would be difficult, so she retreated to where she had firmer footing. “I believe this bond is connected to our splashing at Laneast. The well water healed Bartos,” changed me, “and I am now certain it bonded Farfur to Dewer.”
