Graveyards, Visions, and Other Things That Byte (Dowser 8.5) Read online

  “A nap at least, Rochelle. Please. For the baby.”

  Hot tears spiked at the edges of my eyes.

  Beau was instantly cradling my face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know … I know … I didn’t mean to suggest …”

  I pushed against his hands, getting close enough to brush a kiss across his lips. He closed the embrace immediately. Pulling me into his lap so I was straddling him, drawing me as close as he could while we were still wearing clothing. I opened all my senses to him, darting my tongue in his mouth, relishing in his warmth, in the taste of him, in the strength of his arms.

  Cupping my ass in one hand, he brushed his fingers up my spine, then cradled my head in his other hand.

  I pulled back from the kiss, wanting to simply look at him, caressing his beautiful face. “She looks like you,” I whispered. “But … with my … eyes. The color, anyway.”

  A bright, brilliant smile of pure happiness spread across Beau’s face, and he kissed me with quiet joy. “We’ll make it okay, Rochelle. Whatever is going to happen.”

  “We’ll try. The future is fluid, but —”

  Beau kissed me again, stopping me from completing the rest of the phrase I’d picked up from my mentor, the far seer of the guardian dragons.

  … destiny is immutable.

  “You said she’s nine in the vision, so we have time.”

  “You know that’s not how it works,” I whispered. Part of me just wanted to stay in his arms, slowly removing articles of clothing and making love as the sun rose. But another part understood that I had to start confronting what I’d seen. “Something is happening now. I think it’s tied to Jade somehow.”

  “Did you see the dowser?”

  I shook my head. Using Beau’s shoulders to help me to my feet, I turned to flip open the sketchbook on the desk to a random middle page. The revealed sketch was roughly rendered, almost frantic. I would need to go back through the book guided by my magic, refining the drawings that called for it. But, outlined in smudged charcoal, the girl, the demon, and the whip were clearly discernible.

  “Same demon?” Beau asked. His tone was low and raw.

  “Yes.”

  “Same whip?”

  “Yes.”

  “Blackwell has the whip.”

  “As far as we know.”

  Beau scrubbed his hand across his face. I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t really slept yet. “So the sorcerer is involved.”

  “I … I … don’t know. In this future?” I tapped the sketch. “Yes, obviously the whip must come to the girl somehow. But how it ties into our present? I don’t know. I have to go back through, looking for clues.”

  “Can you do that after a nap?”

  I glanced up at him, though I really couldn’t see him well in the dark. If I said no, then Beau would respect my decision. But facing whatever we were about to face at six months pregnant and on no sleep wasn’t ideal. And if my magic was giving me a reprieve, I ought to take it.

  I wordlessly held my hands out to him. He gently tugged me toward the door, then led me down the hall to our bedroom.

  I had forgotten to check the text messages from Mory. That was what I was thinking as I woke from a heavy slumber. But it was the magic causing all the hair on my arms to stand on end that had actually pulled me from my sleep.

  I sat up, gathering the sheets and duvet to my chest. Energy rolled across my skin again, but my tattoos remained inert.

  Not my magic, then. Not my oracle or my sorcerer power.

  Wakened by my movement, Beau slipped out of the bed, padding silently across the room and opening the curtains ever so slightly. A sliver of diffused starlight slashed across his face. The clouds that had covered the sky the past few days must have thinned.

  The magic rolled across my arms again. This time, with a little more edge. And I finally recognized it from the tests Scarlett Godfrey had run us through three separate times. I’d thought her caution was overkill. Because who would ever try to step on our property without our permission?

  I had obviously been wrong.

  How wrong? That remained to be seen.

  “The outer wards,” I murmured.

  Security wards, put in place by Pearl Godfrey and her daughter, Scarlett, ran the entire perimeter of the two properties Beau and I had bought almost a year and a half ago. Then the witches had added even stronger secondary wards around the main house. Both sets of wards were always in place, always active, because neither Beau or I wielded the kind of magic that could raise or maintain them.

  “Someone is trying to break through?” I asked. “To gain access to the property?”

  Someone magical, it went without saying. Because only the magically inclined triggered the protections. Tess and Gary lived on the second property, and had a constant stream of friends over for tea or dinner without a single incident.

  “Feels like it.” Beau reached for and pulled on a pair of sweatpants.

  “Why would they come here?” I whispered, already knowing that there were two possible answers to my question. Already remembering that two evenings before, Kett had coolly informed Jasmine that an oracle was more important than he or she could ever be. He was the executioner and an elder of the vampire Conclave, which sounded crazy important. And Jasmine was his child.

  “The witches’ grid,” Beau said, pulling on a T-shirt that stretched across his chest.

  That was the second possible reason — and the primary reason for the heavy magical wards encasing both the property and the house. The witches’ grid that currently spread across all Vancouver was anchored at the main house. Because of me. It was the witches’ way of tying me and my oracle power into their magical detection system.

  Beau reached for me, softly brushing my cheek with his fingers. “They won’t get through.”

  We didn’t bother articulating who ‘they’ were. We didn’t need to.

  Elves. There was no one else that it could have been. Possibly the same elves that Jade had faced off against two nights before. And with no one having heard from the dowser as far as I knew, the elves were now attempting to compromise the witches’ grid. Or worse …

  “I won’t let them take you, Rochelle.” Beau shook his head slightly, correcting himself. “You won’t let them take you.”

  “Or you,” I murmured.

  He kissed me, then stepped away, practically appearing at the door in the same motion. “I’m going to get Gary and Tess. Text Pearl, please.”

  More magic shifted. My magic. “Wait,” I breathed, reaching for Beau. “Wait.”

  He stepped back, taking both my hands, then kneeling before me formally. “What do you see, oracle?”

  I waited. We waited.

  But nothing more happened.

  My magic abated.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Whatever is coming, whatever more I’m supposed to see. It’s … not ready yet.”

  “Something we have to do first, perhaps. To trigger whatever you’re supposed to see,” Beau murmured, pressing a kiss to each of my hands. “I’ll be right back.”

  Then he was gone.

  I climbed off the bed, pulling the duvet with me as I crossed to the window. I watched as Beau slipped from the back of the house and crossed the yard toward the second property, where Gary and Tess had nearly finished building their own house. The exterior paint and landscaping had to wait for warmer weather, though.

  It had actually taken longer to find the adjoining properties in Southlands, convince the neighbors to sell, then liquidate enough of my inheritance to pay for it all than it had for Beau and me to be legally adopted by Gary and Tess. That adoption process had involved a lot less paperwork, as well. We had set the four of us up as co-owners of both properties, as a simple outward declaration of our relationship. And not even Pearl Godfrey had batted an eyelash when I’d introduced her to my new nonmagical parents. Though I suspected that the elder witch had been so eager to get her hands on the penthouse in False Creek that my m
other had left me that she’d probably have gone along with any plan that involved selling it.

  I couldn’t see my chicken coop from the bedroom window. Beau had situated it in view of my studio because I spent most of my time there. Willing myself to stay calm, I closed my eyes and imagined him in the spring, planting the apple trees he’d ordered. I imagined the chickens roaming underneath their green leaves …

  Then I got dressed.

  Because simply wishing for things never made them happen.

  Not for me, anyway.

  I picked up my phone to text Pearl, but got delayed by the series of text messages still waiting for me from Mory. And her quick, almost emotionless overview of what had transpired in the cemetery the previous night stopped me in my tracks.

  I read it again, this time putting it together with the vision that had hit me when I’d fallen asleep on the couch a few hours earlier. And the understanding of the connection between those two events made me so queasy that I was forced to hover over the toilet in the en suite, waiting until wave after wave of terror had cooled on my skin.

  Then I forced myself to read Mory’s text messages a third time.

  >I found your mom.

  >She said to tell you that she ‘sees you.’ She said you’d know what she means.

  >But she won’t be coming back. She’s moved on.

  >And she did something. Something about releasing a vision.

  > I suspect you might know about that already.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting another pulse of terror and a sudden, desperate wish that I could contact Chi Wen as easily as I could send a text message.

  But what would my all-seeing mentor tell me? That magic made everything possible. Even my dead mother’s ghost releasing a vision for me to see, to sketch, to try to thwart. He would say that I had choices. And that additional possible paths would open up as I made decisions.

  I closed the lid on the toilet. Then I texted Pearl. Whoever was overseeing the grid might have already spotted the elves’ attempt to break through our wards, so I didn’t bother being verbose.

  Elves here. We’re in the house. I’ll text if we need help.

  Then I forced myself to shove my phone in my hoodie pocket, and get the lockbox full of premade spells from the safe in our walk-in closet.

  I would tackle the full impact of Mory’s revelations after the elves had been dealt with.

  Beau had herded Tess and me into the mostly unused — and therefore, sparsely furnished — front living room. Gary had made a break for the kitchen, where I could hear him happily grumbling to himself as he tried for the umpteenth time to make sense of our coffee maker. Tess, hastily dressed in skinny-legged jeans and a bulky sweater that fell to her knees, finished fussing over wrapping a colorful knit blanket around my legs. Then she curled up on the stiff-backed couch next to me, tucking her pink-pedicured toes underneath my thigh. Beau hadn’t given her time to grab socks, and she refused to wear shoes in the house. Her curly hair — streaked with gold and silver — tumbled around her face.

  The outer wards fell.

  Energy flushed across my skin, then disappeared with an audible snap. The black butterfly tattoo on my left inner wrist stirred, confirming that something magical was now stalking across my property. I pressed my right hand over it, then raised my gaze to Beau.

  His eyes blazing the green of his shapeshifter magic, Beau turned from the window where he’d been keeping watch. His gaze fell to my hands, knowing almost as well as I did what I was trying to deny, what the black butterfly represented magically. The identification of magical things or people — or occasionally, a sense of where my magic needed to be applied or focused.

  “Stay here,” I said. “With us.” Except I knew he wouldn’t, that he couldn’t, even before the demand left my lips.

  “What’s wrong?” Tess asked, glancing back and forth between us.

  “The outer wards have fallen.” I struggled to get my legs untucked from the blanket Tess had swathed me in. “At least, I think that’s what it was.”

  “Yes.” Beau crossed out of the front room, heading back through the house.

  I grabbed the box of spells from the coffee table, following him with Tess on my heels.

  “Gary!” Tess called as we passed the entrance to the kitchen. Her gray-haired, barrel-chested husband appeared to have fallen asleep by the coffee maker — though by the aroma filling the kitchen, he’d gotten it set up and turned on before closing his eyes. “The kids are going outside!”

  Gary snapped awake.

  “Not both of us.” Beau turned back at the end of the hall, just before the open door to the mudroom that exited into the backyard. He cradled my face in his hands. “Listen to me, Rochelle.”

  “No.”

  “Stay here, guard the house. For Tess and Gary. For the baby. Nothing is going to happen.”

  “Fine. If nothing happens, I’ll stay in the house.”

  “Damn it, oracle,” Beau muttered. He pressed a not-so-gentle kiss to my lips, then released me to step into the mudroom and pull off his T-shirt.

  Tess’s hands fell on my shoulders, holding me to her. I clutched the box of spells and tried to keep my face from revealing how terrified I was.

  “Beau?” Gary asked from the hall. “No police, then?”

  Beau shook his head, offering our adoptive father a tight smile. He stripped off his jogging pants and opened the back door.

  “Text Pearl again,” he said. “Lock this door behind me.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Remember … remember …”

  “I always do.” Then Beau stepped from the house, his shifter magic rolling around him in a torrent of power.

  Gary brushed by Tess and me, closing and locking the door. I nodded my thanks, but turned and quickly crossed through the house so I could look out the front window.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out to find a message from Pearl.

  >The property wards have fallen. Stay in the house. I’ll send Scarlett.

  I texted back.

  Beau has gone out to investigate. I’ll text when we know what’s going on.

  Without waiting for a reply, which was likely just going to be more orders that neither Beau or I were going to heed, I tucked my phone in my hoodie pocket and opened the lockbox. A series of painted and carved stones, sorted by color and tucked into a foam insert, lay within its steel walls. Premade witch spells, ready to be used and triggered by anyone. They were dangerous — hence keeping them locked up tight and in the safe for good measure.

  Not thinking about what was going to happen next, I systematically began to place the spells on the windowsill before me. The future would reveal itself without my urging.

  “Rochelle?” Tess asked. “Have you … have you seen what is about to happen?”

  “Not yet.” I cleared the wedge of fear from my throat. “Now … you remember what Scarlett said about these spells?”

  “They are … live. So even Gary or I can use them.”

  “Yes. But carefully. Blue for deflection spells, say if you’re in the process of running. Yellow for invisibility spells …”

  “We can’t be moving if we want to use those … for cover.”

  “Right. And red for offensive spells.” I brushed my fingers over the four red-painted rocks in the collection. “You only throw them as a last resort. If the elves get in the house. If … if Beau and I are … down. And you’d better be running away when you do.”

  Tess curled her hand over mine. “We aren’t leaving you.”

  “I know.” I glanced over at her. “But someday, we might have to leave you.”

  She smiled, tears in her eyes. “That’s how it always is, with parents and children. But not today. Okay?” She glanced over at her husband.

  Gary stepped up behind us. He’d pulled a baseball bat out of the front closet — a bat that was for me, placed there by Beau. Another weapon that I wouldn’t accidentally hurt myself with. But a bat or
the tactical pen I carried in my satchel weren’t going to work against elves.

  Not if the reason they were here was because they’d already killed Jade.

  Fear clogged my throat again, and I struggled futilely to swallow it away. There really wasn’t any other explanation. There was no other reason or way that elves would be coming for me, unless Jade had fallen.

  I twisted my wedding ring on my finger, keeping my gaze steady out of the front window.

  Waiting. Waiting.

  Either for circumstance or for magic to tell me which way to move. Because I believed. I believed that there was a reason I saw. I couldn’t control other people’s choices, not with absolute certainty. But I believed that the vision of my child wouldn’t have come to me — especially not in the way Mory had described — unless I could thwart it.

  So I waited to see which way magic moved me.

  Two elves slowly approached the house — dragging Beau in his half-human, half-werecat form across the lawn. I couldn’t tell if he was alive from my vantage point at the front window. Harsh pain squeezed my chest, constricting my heart, and I slammed my left hand against the glass standing between me and my love, my reason for being.

  Magic crackled, running down my arm. My barbed-wire tattoo shivered as if waking. Then it bristled. My power flowed from me into the glass, then rippled out across the wards covering the house.

  This display drew the attention of both elves in the yard. They adjusted their approach, stopping about twenty-five feet from the house and dropping Beau to the ground.

  Tess moaned.

  I kept my gaze on Beau, looking for a sign. A sign of life. Or confirmation of his death.

  Though I already knew that my response was going to be the same either way.

  The elves scanned the house, most likely assessing the layers upon layers of magic that coated it. Then they settled on staring at me. Pale skinned, green eyed, and easily over six and a half feet tall, they were dressed as I’d seen them in the dance club — wearing white armor that looked like hard plastic but appeared to be somehow flexible. Their skin glowed in the filtered starlight. They were both carrying swords that appeared to have been carved out of green-tinted ice or murky glass.