The Brotherhood Read online

  More silver linings. I’d take them.

  I set down my coffee, arms crossing over my chest as the girls chattered over their own mugs, ignoring me while they filled my kitchen with happy talk and giggling. Let me guess, I sent to Mom as I grinned at them. You want me to come with you.

  I do. Mom sighed, another flash of her location an odd contrast. The quiet, dusty dimness of her office at Harvard versus the cheery, chattery brilliance of the fall day in my kitchen. Not for the first time I felt like I was living in two places at once. I realize you have a lot on your plate, sweetheart.

  I hate to leave the coven unprotected, I sent. Especially with Shenka gone.

  I know, Mom sent. As would I, in your place.

  That’s why you’ve asked the girls to take over, am I right? The four turned to look at me all at the same instant and I realized Mom had tied them into the conversation. Of course she had.

  “We might not be your official seconds,” Josie said, dark hair curling under her chin, pale skin almost glowing in the bright light of the sunbeam she sat in, “but we’re perfectly capable of putting out fires for an afternoon.”

  Tippy nodded with enthusiasm, red curls bouncing as much as her jutting breasts. I really wished she’d stop wearing such low cut tops. I was always worried she’d have a wardrobe malfunction, though the idea didn’t seem to bother her one bit. “And you’re a call away,” she said, flicking her ruby painted nails at me. “If we have an ounce of trouble, you can be here in a flash.”

  “Shenka might not get it,” Donalda said, gray eyes sparking with anger, “but we do.” Her tall, pole-thin body hunched over her coffee mug, narrow hands grasping it tightly. “You’re not an ordinary coven leader, Syd. And you never will be. We can handle it.”

  “Your mom needs you.” Nicci’s voice was soft, low. I felt her block her words from my mother. “As powerful as she is, there are times we all have to ask for help. Even you, Syd.”

  They didn’t have to convince me, not really. Though it made me a little teary they thought a tag team would be necessary. I’d begun to worry my outside activities as a maji and savior of the Universe was wearing thin my first responsibility. But, clearly, the girls didn’t see it that way. If they were fighting this hard to make me step away from the coven for a bit, I had to be doing my job right.

  Of course I’ll come, Mom, I sent, smiling at the girls.

  Thank you, sweetheart. Her love engulfed me, as familiar as the faint scent of lilacs that somehow made it over the distance and through her magic. I’ll see you in an hour?

  I let Mom go while I shook my head at the group of women sitting at the table. “You guys,” I said.

  “We didn’t mean to gang up on you.” Nicci bit her lower lip, suddenly worried.

  “Yes, we did,” Tippy snorted, saluting me with her mug.

  “Syd can take it.” Josie nudged Nicci gently.

  “Don’t be mad, Syd,” Donalda said. “We’re here for you and the coven.”

  I laughed and embraced them with my magic, the family power humming happily. “I was about to say,” I told them as they opened themselves to me, “before I was interrupted,” Tippy rolled her eyes at me, “that I think you four are awesome. Thank you for being here.” Okay, now I really was teary, damn it. “It means a lot to me, considering everything. You could have stayed in California with Tallah. The elements know she needs you.”

  Donalda shook her head, long, narrow face pinched. “Tallah doesn’t need anyone,” she said, sharp and bitter. “Not now that she has Shenka.”

  The others looked down, away. So there was a lot more going on in the Hensley coven than I knew, was there? “Anything Mom should be worried about?”

  The four exchanged glances before Tippy shrugged, cleavage deepening a moment.

  “Not sure,” she said. “I guess Miriam will find out, though, won’t she?”

  On her own. I decided then and there that was one coven visit Mom would be taking without me.

  ***

  Chapter Four

  I had one errand to run before I left with Mom, something I’d been meaning to do since last night. A quick walk down the block helped clear my head a little, the still beautiful weather of late September making Wilding Springs feel surreal. None of the leaves had turned yet on the massive maples lining the street, the soft call of songbirds mixing with the sigh of the breeze as summer clung to the town as though unwilling to let go. My sneakers skipped stray stones into the clipped grass of neighboring yards, the coven’s houses neat and tidy as usual. One great thing about living here now was the lack of worry we’d be uncovered by normals. Most of the neighborhood was now owned by the family. And while the loss of the Sidhe Gate years ago and the return of the Wild Hunt to the realm when we were forced to flee to safety might have left Wilding Springs without the influence of magic for the first time in over a century, the moment the family power settled back into my house the entire town seemed to sigh with relief. From the very rocks and grass and trees to the remaining normal residents, Wilding Springs returned to its happy, almost eerie calm and comfort after a brief stint where everything seemed dark, pale, hopeless.

  While most covens were forced to move from time to time to protect them from discovery by normals—ours had done so often when I was a child, sometimes because of me—I truly believed Wilding Springs would be my home, and that of the family, for many years to come.

  Enough power had seeped into its borders I didn’t think this place would survive normal.

  A small, white bungalow at the end of the block beckoned. I strode up the driveway to the front door, eyes flickering over the rusted, dented trailer parked on the grass past the pavement. It had a definite lean to it, well used and loved over the years. I’d been rescued in that trailer, saved from an eternity of bloodless mummification by Trill and her Nona. And though my former friend had betrayed me in the worst possible way, stealing the hand of Creator from me when she should have been on my side, I was glad Nona had stopped her wandering ways. The old human blood maji matriarch spent decades living her gypsy life, much as her people had for centuries. But with all the unrest and Trill’s turncoat activities it was safer for Nona here in Wilding Springs.

  Not to mention the fact her two beloved grandsons had taken up residence in this very house. I raised my hand to knock on the door, the glass vibrating as I did. Owen and Apollo Zornov were both sorcerers but I trusted them completely, despite their sister’s betrayal. They’d proven their loyalty many times over the years and were more than happy to help teach the coven how to use their devouring power, to pitch in as part of the family.

  The inside door swung open in answer to my knock, the glass storm door creaking as Owen pushed it toward me. I stepped around it, catching it on my hip as I let myself in past him. He’d grown a great deal since we’d first met, from a young boy with dark hair and impossibly blue eyes to a tall, lean young man with an easy grin barely hiding his constant worry for his sister. Owen hugged me when I crossed the threshold, now slighter taller than I was.

  “Hey, Syd.” He let me go, stepping back and gesturing for me to enter. “Si’s been waiting for you.” His slight, worried frown meant I was in trouble. That made me want to laugh. All the power of creation at my fingertips and I should worry about a computer hacker living in Owen’s basement.

  Then again…

  I nodded, smiling as kindly as I could. I knew how hard it was on Owen to live with Trill’s traitorous acts. The two of them had been on their own for so long before they found Apollo, before they met me even, it had to be tearing him apart she’d left him high and dry. “And you,” I said. “How are you, Owen?”

  He shrugged, looked away, hands cramming into the pockets of his jeans. The gray t-shirt he wore washed out his tanned skin, giving it a similar tone as his smile faded.

  “Hanging in there,” he said, shaking it off visibly. “The coven is making great progress.” I let him keep the subject change, partly because I really di
dn’t know how to make him feel better. Way to be a good leader and all that crap, Syd. “Your family learns fast.”

  “Good to hear it.” I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. Waking the sorcery in my coven was a brilliant stroke of genius. Maybe if I’d enacted that plan earlier the night the Brotherhood attacked might have turned out differently. Then again, I’d managed to save every single one of the coven. Who knew if that would have been true if it had come to a fight instead of flight? But at least now they would have the means to defend themselves if something happened again. “Thank you for all your help.”

  Owen bobbed a nod, grin returning, eyes haunted. “Si’s in the basement.”

  As usual. I followed the young Zornov down the center hall to the far end of the house, just past the kitchen. The boy’s grandmother, Nona, waved at me from the sofa, the TV blaring a show I vaguely recognized as a soap opera. I waved back, trotting down the stairs behind Owen to the dim darkness of the underground, feeling guilty I didn’t stop to talk to her. Especially considering the tension between us since Trill’s betrayal.

  Coward? You betcha.

  This house’s unfinished basement, empty and cool, had been transformed utterly when Simon moved in. My old friend from my high school days might have had his emotions damaged and his focus shifted when a cruel witch and a vampire clan recruited him at Harvard, but Simon hadn’t lost any of his brilliance. I’d only recently reconnected with him, another boy turned into a tall and handsome young man. At least his old animosity was gone, his memories of what really happened at the Star Club returned thanks to a recent kidnapping by the Brotherhood. He’d blamed me for years, partial memories poisoning him, turning him from his dreams of becoming a scientist into darker pursuits. Now one of the best hackers in the country, or the world if he was to be believed, BitsandBytes was again one of my closest—if most cynical—friends.

  I shook my head at the banks of computers and circled to the center of the wide open room, catching sight of Simon sitting in a swivel chair, hands flying over a keyboard while four massive monitors flashed different things at him. It would have given me a headache, started to just from the initial viewing, but he seemed to thrive on it.

  “Syd.” How he was aware of me at all during the chaotic frenzy of his focus I had no idea. “Where have you been?”

  “You have news?” I purposely ignored his irritation. No way he was getting used to me running to his beck and call. Though, I had to admit unhealthy eagerness tainted with the need to hurt Liander Belaisle in various ways pushed me closer to Simon’s sacred space. He had stopped typing, looked up at me through his black rimmed glasses, a glare holding me back. I might have been coven leader and maji, but to Simon I was just Syd.

  “I’ve found a few pockets of the Brotherhood here and there, hiding in the shadows.” He looked back to his monitors, colors and images reflecting from his lenses. “I’ve sent Apollo and Owen out a few times to investigate, but so far nothing concrete. You don’t want the small fish.”

  We’d run into the same problem we always did when tracking the Brotherhood. Belaisle seemed to have this uncanny knack of vanishing and keeping himself hidden. Sorcery, as the first magic, was impervious to all other powers, but even my own devouring energy didn’t seem able to locate him or his people. So, we’d turned to more mundane means. In the past, Belaisle had shown no compunction about using normals and their ordinary world to his advantage. He seemed to love technology and the power that gave him over those without magic, oblivious to the paranormal species around them. I’d been part of the collapse of his corporation, Coterie Industries, though he continued to operate it in small capacities as though unwilling to let it go completely.

  I now knew the reason he always seemed to be three steps ahead of me was his access to the Helios family and their Oracle power. My friend, Zoe Helios, had saved me and my coven from Belaisle by warning me just in the nick of time he was coming to attack. She had lost her ability to see the future, as had the two Fates who were the hands and voices of Creator, when the heart was stolen from under the Stronghold. Which meant Belaisle no longer had access to the future, at least as far as I knew. With the playing field leveled, I hoped we’d discover he wasn’t half as clever as I’d thought he was.

  Of course, he was now the tool of Dark Brother. Which took all of my speculation on Belaisle’s brain power and shook it until my own head ached.

  “Agreed,” I said, refusing to let my enemy’s association with Creator’s sibling in the other Universe get me down. “We need to take down Belaisle and his top lieutenants if we want to end the threat of the Brotherhood.”

  Simon spun toward me. “I’m still looking,” he said. “There’s tons of false trail, and I’ve thought I was close a few times only to realize I was being hacked.” He shook his head with a scowl, as though such a thing should be impossible. “But I’ll get him. I promise.” Simon pushed his glasses up his nose with one finger, looking more like the boy he’d been instead of the young man he was.

  “So, if you don’t have news,” I said, “why did you want to talk to me?”

  Simon jabbed a finger at his screen while Owen handed me a file. “There’s something you need to see. Your werewolf friend is making ripples in the normal world and they aren’t the kind that I’m thinking are good for business.”

  I flipped open the cover of the report and down into the face of Danilo Moreau. The wereking’s scowl was a permanent fixture these days, since the death of his queen, Yana. He blamed the vampires—Piotr Wilhelm in particular—for her loss, and since I was there when she was rescued, I agreed with him. Trouble was, Piotr and his blood clan vanished, victims of the damaged spirit magic on our plane. At least, that was my assumption. Since there was no trace of them or some other vampires I held dear to my heart, I had to believe my theory was correct.

  Seeing Danilo in Simon’s file made my blood boil. “What’s he done this time?” Danilo knew how to hold a grudge. If he couldn’t have Piotr to punish, he wanted each and every vampire dead. Femke had ordered him to stand down, but I knew the wereking better than that. The man I’d once called my friend had lost his mind over this, and though I sympathized I couldn’t help but feel like this was my fault. I should have been able to save Yana. Should have seen the warning signs when the Empress of vampires handed control of the Wilhelms over to Piotr after deposing my aunt, Sunny.

  What a mess. And, as I flipped the page to the first police report, I realized it wasn’t contained to the paranormal world any longer. My head whipped up when I finally understood what I was reading, a record from Scotland Yard. “Arrested?”

  Not Danilo himself. But the wereguard pictured I recognized as one of his elite.

  Simon nodded while I flipped through the other pages, some in Russian, Ukrainian, French. All for drug trafficking, some for human trafficking, a fact that turned my stomach. Three for assassinations. What the hell was going on?

  “I make it a point to track stuff like this,” Simon said, turning back to his keyboard. “Now I know who is who and what they are, I like to keep an eye on who’s making waves. For the most part, I might stumble on the odd witch family having to move base, blaming it on a natural disaster or something. But over the last week I’ve uncovered a lot of activity involving werewolves and the normal police.” His glasses flashed the reflection of one of his screens as he turned toward me again. “Thought you’d want to know.”

  I sure as hell did. “Thanks.” I snapped the report shut.

  “Maybe next time,” Simon said, ignoring me again, “you’ll actually come to see me when I send for you.”

  Oh, he did not.

  Apollo’s arrival saved Simon from a life as a slimy, green amphibian.

  “There was one more thing. We’re working on a plan.” I half turned as Apollo approached from around the computer rack, though he didn’t look happy about it. “But we still haven’t hammered out all the details.”

  Simon took the heavy hi
nt, which only made me nervous. “We’ll be in touch.” He spun back, waving me off, and ignored me.

  I turned to Apollo with an arched eyebrow. “Spill it.” Not that I didn’t trust the older Zornov, but he was known for his wild ideas and I wanted to be sure he wasn’t planning something I’d regret later.

  There was a time his arrogant sauciness made me grin despite the slight creep factor to his flirting. I’d liked Apollo from the moment I met him, casual boyishness barely hiding the huge heart that ruled him. But he was serious today, focused, more than I’d ever seen him. So when he shook his head, I just sighed.

  “Please,” I said, “at least tell me you’ll read me in before you run off and get yourself killed.”

  Apollo grinned at last. “Oh, Syd,” he said. “I knew you cared. Don’t worry, princess. Your knight in shining armor will make it all better.”

  I laughed out loud and punched his arm. He winced, rubbing the spot.

  “I mean it.” I jabbed a finger at Owen. “You, too. I’m counting on you to keep Mr. Mysterious here from making a mess.”

  Owen saluted. “Aye, aye, captain.”

  Boys.

  I left them to it, actually feeling a bit brighter as I started for home. Even though I really wasn’t looking forward to this little tour with Mom, the boys had at least lifted the gloom from my heart that had been plaguing me lately. And though the trip hadn’t been very fruitful information wise, it was well worth the two-block break just to get out of the house for a bit.

  Time to return to duty. I just hoped Mom didn’t expect me to wear a skirt.

  ***

  Chapter Five