Mist, Murder & Magic Page 8

  ‘The hell you will,’ Piper said.

  Hella ignored her. She looked at Net. ‘Can you do something for me?’

  ‘Of course. What do you need, Hella?’ Net said.

  ‘You’re pretty well-read for an ex-angel, aren’t you? You knew about the necromancy spell I did, and about witch’s magic.’

  Nerretti nodded. ‘I’m older than I look. Between training and—’ He paused. ‘Hunting… demons, angels had quite a lot of down time. Others spent it fighting among themselves, or betting on fights, collecting auras. I was always reading.’

  Hella nodded. ‘Good. I need you to dig up some information on souls. Lost souls. Spells that have taken souls. I need you to find out how to get Harrow’s back.’

  Net looked thoughtful. ‘I’d be happy to, Hella. But that might take some time. What do we do about Harrow until then?’

  Lola’s usually calm demeanour shifted slightly, as if she were uncomfortable.

  ‘What is it?’ Hella asked her.

  Lola’s sandy-blonde hair had been tied up in a quick braid during their conversation. It made her look more like her normal self. Graceful. Elegant. ‘I don’t think you’ll like this, Hella. But, if he has no soul, he’s clearly dangerous. Perhaps’—she looked at the others, hoping for support—‘I mean, what if we just keep him locked up until we can help him?’

  ‘I’m good with that,’ Hunter said.

  ‘I’m not,’ Hella snapped. ‘We can’t lock him up. This isn’t his fault. It’s mine.’

  Piper sat next to her. ‘No matter the fault, Harrow isn’t thinking clearly. He has no moral compass. Perhaps it would be safer for him to be out of harm’s way.’

  Hella shot to her feet. ‘You just stabbed a guy outside because he slapped me, but you watched them taser Harrow. He’s not out of harm’s way, he’s in it!’ There was something about the way she yelled, protective, that almost surprised her. The thought of Harrow’s hand around her throat made her swallow, hard. It’s not his fault. She needed them all to understand. She felt the ice he had put in her veins. It’s my fault.

  Piper considered. ‘You know, I might know of a way to help the Nympha, before this one can try to get his soul back.’ She waved at Net. ‘I have access to plenty of magic. I think I can get my hands on something that will make the warlock less’—she tilted her head—‘dangerous.’

  ‘What kind access?’ Hella asked.

  Piper smiled. ‘I have a shop. Not unlike this one.’

  ‘What do you sell?’ There was a hardness in Hunter’s voice: suspicion.

  ‘I sell things,’ Piper said in the vaguest way possible, to Hella’s annoyance. It was coming to be one of her less desirable traits. ‘And, I know people,’ Piper added. Like that cleared anything up.

  ‘Fine. Get me something that will help Harrow,’ Hella said. It couldn’t hurt, at least.

  ‘Does this mean you trust me?’ Piper asked. It didn’t seem like her to fish that way, Hella thought.

  For some reason, Hella looked to Net for reassurance. She didn’t know what to say, and he must have read her expression, because he said, ‘I think we can come back to that. Trust is a difficult thing these days. We would appreciate your help, in any case.’ He looked back at Hella, a question in his eyes. Was that helpful? He seemed to ask. Hella smiled and nodded sightly. Yes, thank you.

  Piper took her leave, but not before looking Hella over carefully. She glanced at Net, then walked by the witches and out the door. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Hunter and Lola departed too, back to Faerie House. Hunter was eager to get to Tessa.

  ‘Give Tessa a hug for me, would you?’ Hella asked. Hunter nodded, a little stiffly. The girls left, joining hands as they walked out the broken-in door. On the outside, they both clicked their fingers and, with a shower of sparks, the door was fixed. Hunter and Lola dropped identical winks at Hella as they left, cuddling as they walked.

  Hella was grateful that the girls’ spell had also taken away the bloody mess of what used to be Dimitri. She would have to ask them to teach her that one. Not that she hoped to have to use it again, but you never knew in this store. The silver stars that indicated a Cambion-friendly place shone in the high window above the door, a nearby streetlamp setting the stars and the Latin words aglow. Though the words were meant for those with demon or angel blood, Hella had begun to feel some comfort in them too. The stars incline us, they do not bind us. It was a nice statement, and though—since there were angels—Hella thought there must be some sort of God or higher power, they didn’t seem to care too much about what happened down here on earth, so Hella had come to place her faith in the stars as the Cambions did. Not, she supposed, that that ever did them much good.

  Hella wondered if she was too tired to be conjuring dinner for the three of them when someone knocked on the store’s door. The sign was flipped to Closed, so Hella frowned. Nerretti got up quickly. Had The Force returned? No, she thought. They would not knock. She stepped forward and opened the door to find two young people standing on the threshold, looking up at the shining stars. They both looked human for a moment, but when they saw Hella’s athame on her belt, they shimmered.

  One was a warlock, a Mettalum, if Hella guessed correctly, about eight years old. The other was a faerie with pink wings and porcelain-white skin, about the same age. ‘Is this—’ The warlock boy faltered. ‘The Den is gone, but we saw them.’ They both glanced up at the silver stars, hope in their eyes.

  Hella bent down to them. ‘You need some help?’ She reached out to them to wave them in, and they both scrambled inside. The boy squeezed Hella’s hand quickly in thanks.

  The faerie girl blinked up at her shyly with a smile. ‘Is it okay? The Den…’

  Again, Hella looked at Net. This time because it seemed that he was in charge of the store now. Nerretti smiled warmly. ‘You’re welcome here, children.’ To Hella, he said, ‘Perhaps you could conjure them some beds and some food?’

  Hella nodded, and went off to do just that, but there was another knock on the door. The warlock boy’s head perked up. ‘That might be our friends. We’ve all been looking for another place to go, since the Den. This is the only place in town with the stars.’ He looked down, apologetic.

  Nerretti opened the door, and in spilled half a dozen more kids. Hella’s eyes grew wide. It was suddenly very crowded in here. She remembered the angels blowing up the Cambion Den nearby. She had tried to stop them, but failed. They had killed everyone inside, including someone that Harrow had known, someone called Lisa. There was no Cambion Den now, Hella realised. If she could not help Harrow yet, she would damn well help these kids.

  Chapter Twenty

  Hella

  Hella had left the Witches’ Wares store after setting up the bunkbeds for the little Cambions and conjuring meals for everyone. Nerretti had looked at her the whole time with a small smile on his face. ‘Where are you going?’ he had asked when she’d made to leave. ‘You’re not going after Harrow, are you?’

  Hella had shaken her head. ‘No, Net. I’m tired. Since last I went home, I’ve fought a battle, nearly been murdered, been almost abducted—again—by The Force, and found out I have a new parent. I need to go home. I have to talk to my mother and my brother. And I could really use some sleep.’

  Net’s eyes had widened as she spoke and he began to nod. ‘Of course. But, we have to find a better place for these small Cambions. They’re okay here for now, but they can’t live in a store.’

  ‘There might be something I can do about that, or, my mum can,’ Hella said slowly.

  ‘Which mother are we talking about?’ Net inquired.

  ‘My mother, Grace. Not Piper. I don’t even know if she’s telling the truth. Grace raised me. Anyway, there’s a basement at my place. Plenty of room. I’ll talk to her,’ Hella said. Exhaustion pulled at her.

  Net nodded. He looked Hella up and down, and she thought she must look terribly tired and ragged. It�
��s how she felt. Over the bubbly chatter of the Cambion children, Net leaned in. ‘I’m sorry, Hella.’

  She blinked at him. ‘For what?’

  Net frowned. There was something about him that was always so genuine that he now looked truly miserable. ‘For all the sorrows that you bear upon your young shoulders. For everything that has happened to you without your will or control. Now that we’ve survived the battle, perhaps we can start to heal from our losses.’ A shadow passed over his face then, and Hella thought he was thinking of Malachai—an all-out bad guy, to be sure, but perhaps Net still had fond memories.

  Whatever misery weighed inside her tripled, and Hella felt she might cry. Not wanting to shed her tears in front of Net or the kids, she simply put her hand on his and nodded, then strode out the door into the cool night air.

  Summer was turning, and Australia only had two consistent temperatures: boiling bush-fire hot, and randomly cool weather. Then it rained whenever it felt like it. Now, Hella was glad she had worn a jacket—she had left it at the store and traded it for Amara’s coat, relishing the feel of something familiar. Wanting to hide from the world for a little while, she pulled her hood up. She wondered if her mother had been worried about her these past two days. She had known about the battle going down, but Hella hadn’t contacted her since. There had been no time. At nearly seventeen years old, Hella couldn’t believe she might be adopted. It just didn’t feel real.

  Shielded against the faint chilling breeze, Hella walked through Mill Valley Park. A violent chill broke down her spine that had nothing do with the sporadic weather, and she burst into tears. She stopped walking. Here, the angel Malachai had descended from the sky—the first time she had ever seen an angel—and landed before her, to threaten her with a wickedly sharp feather-blade. Those burning, contemptuous eyes still haunted her. The angel had slashed a shallow but terrifying cut across her throat, then plunged the feather deep into her leg, sharp as any blade. Hella wandered over to the park’s playground, to where it had happened near the swings. It felt like it happened years ago, and just earlier today.

  She bent down, crouching to the ground, and picked up a handful of tanbark, letting it fall between her fingers. Hella sat down and repeated the motion, once, twice, again and again. She imagined she would still find her blood soaked through the damp tanbark, but it was gone, washed away by rain, or forever buried under a fresh load of tanbark, she would never know. She picked up a single chip of it and thumbed it, smoothing the harsh edges. She could have died that day, when Malachai attacked her.

  But she didn’t. What had he said to her? That her ‘aura was bright’? Hella frowned. Remy, her old ‘guardian’ had never mentioned her aura, nor had anyone else. Her fears gripped her, dragging her down. She had survived an angel attack, and so much more. Whether or not it was because of the prophecy, she did not know, but it seemed like dumb luck to her. She looked up, then, and found a familiar park bench and went to sit on it.

  ‘If things were simpler, Harrow, you would just be a cute boy, and we could be dating,’ she said to the empty park bench, where she had first met him. ‘I wouldn’t have freaked out, thinking you were a demon, and stabbed you. You wouldn’t have died for me, fighting evil, and I wouldn’t have brought you back without your soul. You wouldn’t have tried to kill me.’ She had closed her hand around the sharp chip of tanbark. ‘You would still be here, Harrow, and maybe you’d be walking me home, and we would stop here, and you would kiss me.’

  Red blood dripped from her clenched fist around the edges of the tanbark. It trickled onto the empty bench. Hella was shaking. ‘And I wouldn’t be alone,’ she said, releasing the bloody chip onto the ground. A part of her wanted it to stay there forever, marked with her blood. She didn’t want it to be buried, or washed away. Hella thought of Harrow’s powers, the swirling pools of water he could create. He had told her once that they were each other’s opposite. The ice to your fire, he’d said, smiling down at her.

  Tears spilled down her cheek. She felt her heart throbbing in her throat, choking her more painfully than Harrow’s hands wrapped around her. No one had told her that it would be like this after they battled the angels. That was supposed to be it, done and over, everything back to… whatever ‘normal’ might be. But she had never imagined her life would continue to spiral out of control. Hella took out her athame, looking at it closely for the first time, needing something comforting in her hands. As she held it, the blood from her wound smeared across the metal. Like Henry’s crystal-encrusted cane-sword, Hella’s athame was ringed with small amethysts, purple and shining, like her colour. Like the amulet around her neck.

  It didn’t work. The blade was not comforting. Nothing was.

  She sighed heavily, sheathing the blade back to her belt. She wiped her hand on the hem of her jacket and continued her journey back to her house. She couldn’t think of it as ‘home’ anymore, not really. It didn’t feel right. Hella walked to the Corvime house, and then wondered. If Corvime isn’t my real name, do I belong here?

  Hella didn’t know if she should knock on the door. She dried her tears and kept wiping her bleeding hand on the edge of her jacket so that it would not be seen. After a tense thirty seconds of hovering uncertainly on the threshold, she finally raised her hand to knock, but someone with a spill of long red hair opened the door and smiled at her.

  ‘Oh, honey. There you are.’ Hella was wrapped up in a hug. ‘I was so worried about you. Come in.’

  The hallway was warmer than outside, and Hella was led into the lounge room. She sat down robotically, unsure of what to do or say. Her mum sat next to her, scanning her—adoptive?—daughter up and down. ‘Are you okay, Hella?’

  Her mouth felt glued shut. She didn’t know how to answer. Physically, yes. Everything else? That was a hard no. She looked up at her mother—the only one she had ever known—and noticed something for the first time. Her mouth unglued itself. ‘You have freckles,’ she said lamely.

  Her mother smiled uncertainly. ‘I do.’ She laughed. ‘Why are you—?’

  ‘I don’t have freckles. They taught us that in eighth grade, in science. It’s genetic.’ The words came tumbling out of her, unbidden. ‘They taught us that certain characteristics are genetic, like hair colour and skin colour, but also freckles. James joked that I must be adopted.’ The memory came flooding back, a tsunami ready to break every memory she had into a thousand pieces of lies.

  Her mother opened her mouth, then closed it again. ‘Hella, what are you asking me?’ Her voice was steady, unsurprised.

  ‘I met my mother,’ Hella said. ‘A woman named Piper, who claims to be my birth mother. She doesn’t have freckles.’

  Grace started shaking her head, tears in her off-green eyes. The wrong green, Hella thought. ‘Oh, Hella.’ As if her throat had closed up, she put a hand on her chest, unable to speak.

  ‘You have lied to me about everything, my entire life.’ Hella’s voice cracked like a whip. ‘I’m not even yours, am I?’

  As if struck, Grace shook her head slightly. ‘No,’ she breathed. ‘But I love you. You’re my chil—’

  Hella’s hands were balls of red flame, uncontrolled, pure emotion spilled from her. She shook her head violently, then wondered if the scarlet flames danced through her hair too. ‘You lied.’

  Despite the flames, Grace reached out to her daughter. ‘I did. But, Hella, you’re my daughter. I taught you how to walk, and talk, and read. I raised you. I fed you and clothed you, and I love you.’ Grace touched Hella’s arm, and the flames sputtered out. ‘I was asked to take care of you, by Meele. Your birth mother, Hella—it was told that you would grow up dark if you had your powers too young—we couldn’t let that happen. You were safer here.’

  Hella slumped back, exhausted. ‘You took me away from her.’

  Tears spilled down Grace’s cheeks. ‘I felt horrible about that, Hella, but it was for the best. You have to believe me. We would never have done it otherwise.’<
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  We, Hella thought, the memory of her father—Finn—came back, unwelcome. Hella doused her flames. She couldn’t look at her mother then. Her gaze drifted around the house she had grown up in, just a street away from her now-missing friend, James, who had spent a lot of time here, chasing her as a child, giggling, sleeping over and building sheet-forts in this lounge room, watching movies together, and playing hide-and-seek with Elliot.

  ‘Who’s my real father?’ Hella asked. ‘Because it wasn’t Finn. He tried to kill me, but he wasn’t my real father, was he?’

  Grace shook her head. ‘No. He wasn’t. I don’t know who your father is, Hella. You would have to ask your m—Piper.’ She almost choked on the other woman’s name. ‘She’s your mother.’

  ‘Did they pick you because they thought I would look like you?’ Hella said.

  Grace laughed hollowly. ‘It was a factor, yes. They found me through some witch-friends I had when I was younger. I had just married your fath—Finn—and they told me I would be saving your life, and the rest of the world.’

  ‘The world?’ Hella repeated incredulously. That seemed overdramatic.

  ‘If you went dark, the world would suffer immeasurably. Not only would you never have saved the Cambions by stopping the angels, you would have made those angels look like adorable kittens by comparison. It wouldn’t have been your fault—and you’re not meant to be dark, Hella. But your power is so strong. The promised witch.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Oh, you’ve such a grand fate for someone so young.’

  ‘Nerretti kind of said the same thing. Just as I left to come here. He said he was sorry. He felt sorry for me. For all that’s happened.’

  ‘For an ex-angel, I think he’s a good man,’ Grace said. Hella’s eyebrows rose when she saw Grace smile. ‘And I am too. You never asked for any of this. It’s not fair, but it’s you.’