"Life-changing moments are sneaky little bastards. Often we don't
even know that nothing will be the same until long after, only in
hindsight can we look and say 'There! That was it! That changed
everything.'
At least we could, if we're alive to do it."
Gamer and sorceress Jade Crow's psychotic ex-boyfriend, Samir, shows up for a final showdown, and nothing in Wylde will ever be the same.
Heartache is the fifth book in The Twenty-Sided Sorceress series.
Chapter 1The weather people had been forecasting a blizzard, but the sky was a smoky grey and the town utterly peaceful. Peace might have been nice if I didn't feel like the freaking sword of Damocles was playing hide and seek over my head. Alek was scarily full of a desire to keep me in his sights, which didn't help my anxiety levels one bit. I think he would have handcuffed himself to my side if I'd let him. My heart was forecasting doom.
Doom hadn't come. Nothing and nobody had come. Nearly a month had gone by since Samir's last missive to me. The dead apprentice of his, Tess, in my head was so damned sure he was coming for me, and yet…
Nobody came. The most eventful thing to happen was Brie's bakery being shut down for health code violations. As the building owner, I'd spent all Friday on the phone begging for a re-inspection and silently plotting revenge on the witches. Alek had cautioned that I should be sure they were responsible first. Voice of reason and all. It seemed likely someone had reported the magical cockroach invasion. The roaches were gone. Getting a re-inspection was a pain in the ass though. Neither Brie nor I could even remember the first one. The county bureaucrat might well have been a ninja.
I almost wished for ninjas. It would have given me something to fight against. Instead I spent four hours on hold and then got told to call back on Monday. Awesomesauce.
I wiped a dust cloth over a shelf that didn't have a speck of dust on it and wondered where Alek was today. He'd stuck next to me for weeks, hardly leaving my side, and then gone away an hour ago after getting a text message. When I'd asked him where the fire was, he had said only that he'd tell me later.
My door chimed and I turned toward the front of the shop, pulling on magic, almost hoping it was Alek so I could play the annoyed girlfriend. Him leaving like that, given everything going on, it made me even more nervous. I knew the chain around his neck was empty, though he tucked it beneath his shirt, but he'd only shaken his head and told me it was complicated when I asked. We'd come a long way down Trust Lane, but not all the way to Unconditional Trust-ville, I guess.
It wasn't Alek, but Brie who came through my door. Or, really, the triple goddesses who masqueraded as a single woman named Brie. She was tall and stacked, with bright red curls always braided up or piled on her head. Today her hair was neatly pinned back, her cheeks rosy from the chill air. She looked around my game store, peering into the corners, then, satisfied it was empty but for me, she gave me a half-wave and slumped into a chair.
"We're leaving," she said. "We've got to go, tonight. I was hoping you'd keep an eye on the building."
"What?" I pushed my hair out of my face as my guts twisted like rope inside me. "Leaving? For how long? You and Ciaran?"
"We've been called to Ireland," Brie said. Her eyes narrowed and she looked into a middle distance, staring toward the new release rack, but seeing something outside my understanding. She lapsed into Irish. "The fey are gathering. Ciaran must attend, and where he goes, so go I."
"What about Iollan?" I asked, thinking of the big druid. He and Ezee had seemed to reach a new level in their relationship. Like, having a relationship where they actually mentioned each other to their friends and family.
"Not he," Brie said, her eyes snapping to me as she shook off whatever thoughts had darkened her mood. "The druid cannot return to the Isle. But we must."
"So… you'll be back when?"
"I wish I could say."
The door chimed again and Ciaran entered in a sweep of crisp, icy air. The leprechaun wore his usual red coat and had a green army bag, like you'd see in old war movies, slung over one stout shoulder. His red and silver hair was tousled and damp, as though he'd showered and hadn't bothered to comb it.
"Brie tell you?" he said, also in Irish.
"She did, though I'm a little confused. Why now? Are you in trouble?" Trouble I could fireball, perhaps ? I wanted to add, but made my will save. Or my Wisdom check? Either way.
Ciaran and Brie exchanged a look that didn't help my nerves at all. Then he shrugged one shoulder, the other probably weighted down too much by the rucksack to lift.
"We shall see," he said, lips pressing together at the end. "It has been five hundred years since the last gathering."
"Oh, well, maybe they miss your faces." I tried to smile. "Can I help? Are you magicking yourselves there or something?"
"We have a flight leaving from Seattle tonight. Max is driving us. He'll be walking in here through your back door in a moment." Brie rose, straightening her coat.
Max walked in through the back, setting my wards back there buzzing for a second.
Harper's brother grinned at me. "You really going to leave that door unlocked? Is that safe?"
"Anyone coming to kill me won't care about a ten dollar lock on a door made of cardboard," I pointed out. "How's it feel to have your license, birthday boy?"
Max had turned sixteen the week before and the first thing he did was go get his license. Levi had gifted the kid a car that was ugly as sin and looked pieced together by a bad game of Katamari in a junkyard, but it ran despite being held together with bubblegum and love.
"Car's open if you want to put your stuff in," Max said as Brie and Ciaran both moved toward the back door. "I think they are in a hurry," he added to me as they disappeared down the back hall past the game room.
"Do I get to see the picture?" I resisted the urge to fluff Max's brown hair.
"Oh God, Harper told you?"
"Dude, really? Of course she told me."
"The camera went weird, I swear. I look like a cross-eyed chipmunk."
"Okay, it can't be that bad."
He shook his head and dragged his wallet out of his down jacket pocket.
It wasn't that bad. It was worse. I'm a terrible person, but I totally laughed. There was no way not to laugh. I'm only human. Sort of.
Max yanked his license back and crammed it into his wallet muttering a bunch of words his mother would have washed his mouth out with soap for if she'd heard him.
"Hey, I'm sorry," I said, trying to stifle the giggles. "It's not so bad."
"Harper said the same thing. Then you know what she said?" Max's lips started to twitch and he was having trouble maintaining the surly teen boy act.
"What?"
"It's just, there's something about your eyes," he said in a high, squeaky voice that was supposed to be an imitation of his older sister. "Something… shifty." He switched back to his normal voice. "Seriously. Then she laughed so hard mom had to tell her to go outside."
"Did you tell her there is a special hell for people who make bad puns?"
Max rolled his eyes, then looked around us at the empty store. "Where is she, anyway?"
"Up at the college, in one of the library silent study rooms. She's got MGL qualifiers to practice for and she says the net up there is better than here. Whole section of this block has turned into an annoying net deadzone. We drop offline all the time." I shrugged. The net was another annoyance, plus I missed Harper being here, cursing a blue storm. I felt weirdly lonely here in my store, just sitting around dusting things that were already clean and sorting cards already sorted.
Like someone rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
"Be careful on your drive," I said. I had enough intelligence to know not to question Max's car's ability to even make it to Seattle. His feelings were hurt enough for one day. "The roads and all. You going on to the beach early then?"
"Yeah, the guys got the house a couple days sooner than we thought." He and some friends had gotten a great deal on a beach house in Washington, it being winter and all. His sixteenth birthday was going a hell of a lot better than mine had.
I was glad he'd be away from Wylde for the week. If shit went down soon, one more person I cared about not in the crosshairs was good. Max had already gotten hurt because of me. I wished I could send them all away. But my friends had made their choice.
I could only hope it was the right one.
I made Ciaran and Brie promise to email me with updates, gave Max a quick hug, and stood in the freezing air to wave them away as Max's patchwork car bumped out of the parking lot and out onto the main road. I watched them disappear down the road and shivered from more than the winter chill. With that damned other shoe waiting to drop, every goodbye right now felt weirdly final.
My shop was so quiet and still when I returned that I almost missed Alek standing like a giant Viking shadow by the center support post. His white-blond hair was messy, the way it looked when he'd been running his hands through it, something he only did when upset or angry. His normally pale blue eyes looked colder than the sky and his mouth was pressed into a tight line.
"What's wrong?" I asked, feeling the metaphorical sword shoe thing lowering over my head.
"Carlos," he said.
"It's Sunday," I said, half to myself. The last few weeks Carlos, Alek's friend and former mentor among the Justices, had been out of touch.
"He wants to meet. Wants me to meet someone."
"Where? When? Who?" I asked. I pressed my hands against his sides, wanting his heat, wanting to push back the tension and darkness lurking in his face and body.
"New Orleans. As soon as possible. I have no idea," he said. Then he shook his head. "No, I have an idea. I do not like it."
"Does he know about…" I looked at the chain disappearing under his collar.
"If I am to meet who I think, yes. He knows I am not a Justice anymore."
Alek's words hung between us, almost tangible, like fog in the air. So. There it was. Finally said.
"What happened, Alek?" I whispered. I had an idea. This, like so much else, was probably my fault. I tried to tell myself that was ego talking, but one couldn't deny the timing or the mounds of circumstantial evidence piling up around us.
"The world changes," he said. His eyes shifted down to my face and he bent, kissing me softly on the forehead. "This is not your fault."
He took a deep breath, his chest swelling big enough that his coat brushed my cheek. I wanted to lay my head against him and tell him everything would work out, but we were beyond lying to each other like that. I hoped.
"Anyway," he said after he let out the breath. "I am not going."
"What? Is this important? Will they try to hurt you?" I added the "try" because there was no way anybody was going to hurt him. Not on my watch.
"It is and no, I do not think they will. Carlos used our safe code. I do not think he would betray me, not like this. But it doesn't matter. I am not leaving you."
"So I'll come with you."
"You cannot travel where I would go."
"They have some kind of magical barrier around New Orleans now that keeps out sorceresses?" I tried to smile as I said it, ignoring the painful beating of my heart.
"It is Justice business. I am not sure even I can do what I must, but…" He sighed again. "I am not going."
Because of me. The tension in his body wasn't just over worry about the situation. He wanted to go. Something had happened to him. One day he woke up and wasn't the same. The changes were tiny, things only I had noticed, I thought. The necklace being hidden. His over-attentiveness that went beyond worry about Samir. Every time he held me, he had a grip that made me feel like this would be the last time. He was here, almost stifling me, but somehow Alek seemed already gone.
If going, if sorting out this Justice business, would give a piece of him back, I couldn't let him stay. I wanted my Alek back, the man who was always sure of things, who saw the shadows in life and faced them down. Not this Alek who clung to me like the world was ending and I just couldn't see the explosion yet.
"You are going," I said.
"Jade," he started, but I shook my head.
"No. I'm serious. You haven't been you. I don't know what happened, because your stubborn ass won't tell me. But if going to see Carlos and whoever this other mysterious whatever is helps you come to terms with whatever the hell happened? I'm for it."
"I don't know how long I'll be gone," he said, shaking his head slowly, his hair brushing against his cheeks and his expression torn between worry and desire. "What if Samir comes?"
"I've been asking myself that question for twenty-six years," I said as I forced my mouth to form a smile. It kind of hurt, but he needed me to be confident. "He hasn't shown up yet. We're about to get a pile of snow dumped on us. If you are going to leave, you should go. Take care of whatever you need to take care of. Then come home to me."
"I will always come home to you," he said and I swear to the Universe his eyes looked like he might cry.
The fuck was going on? I shivered again, despite the warm shop, despite his warm arms wrapping around me and pulling me close. Swords. Deck chairs. We were totally screwed—I just didn't know exactly how yet.
"Go," I said to him after he had kissed me hard enough that I wanted him to stay.
Alek pressed his cheek to mine and nodded slowly. When he left, I didn't say goodbye. I refused to, because this felt like goodbye enough.
All I knew was that if the Council of Nine did anything to my lover, I was going to have to go make a whole new cadre of enemies. And if Alek didn't return to me soon, Carlos would be first on my damned list.
Sleeping alone that night, I dreamed of fire and ice. Snow and ash drifting down around me, burning my skin where it touched. Just after five in the morning, I gave on sleep and started a new play-through of Skyrim . The mindless task of leveling skills and crafting a few thousand iron daggers helped distract me, but I was still a bit of a zombie by the time I opened the shop.
"Jade?" Harper said. "Are you listening to me?"
I realized I'd been staring at the monitor not actually clicking the order button. A glance at the tiny clock in the bottom corner of the screen said it was noon. I wondered how long I'd been standing here, staring. My stomach clenched with hunger but my mouth tasted fuzzy and sour.
"Yeah?" I said, turning to her.
"You okay?" She peered at me with suspicious green eyes, looking very inquisitive in a fox-like way that made me smile.
"Sure," I lied. "Just thinking about if I should order more custom minis. The last batch was pretty popular."
"Uh huh." Harper gave me a look that told me exactly what she was willing to pay for the bullshit I was trying to sell her. "I said the snow is starting to fall. I'm going to head up to the college to practice some seriously bad manner builds. If you don't need me," she added, worry creasing her forehead.
Fucking babysitters. I shook my head. "Nah, I'm good. What if it snows as hard as they say though?"
"Maybe I'll just hook up with a hot student and sleep over." She grinned.
I couldn't remember Harper ever dating anyone in the last five years, not anybody she'd introduced any of us to. I rolled my eyes at her. "Knock yourself out. But really?"
"Ezee gave me a key to his office. I can crash in the lounge on that floor. It's cool. They have popcorn and everything. Any other questions, mom?"
"Drive safe," I said, making a shooing motion.
She slung her bag over her shoulder but stopped short. "Are you sure you are okay here alone? I can't believe Alek left like that."
"Stop." I folded my arms across my chest. "First him, now you. Just quit, damnit. Nothing has happened in weeks. I almost wish it fucking would so we could stop walking around on eggshells waiting for sword shoes to fall on us. But Samir hasn't come at us directly, not once. I highly doubt he's going to start. Whatever happens, we'll have stupid amounts of warning. He's all about building terror and shit."
A funny warning bell went off in my head and a thought danced through my mind, as elusive as the snow starting to swirl in glittering flakes outside the store windows. I tried to grasp at it, but it melted away as Harper responded.
"Sword shoe?" Her brown eyebrows rose comically.
"Like waiting for the other shoe to drop. But also like the sword of Damocles, hanging by a freaking thread over me."
"You're weird," she said.
"Thanks, Captain Obvious. Now go, before it gets too snowy. I'll be fine."
"But what if Samir does show up?" she said, half turning toward the door.
"I'll challenge him to a wizard's duel. We'll play magical Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock."
"Like, super weird." Harper grinned. "But what if he sends another assassin?"
"I've taken on every bloody one he's sent. We're all here, they ain't. I think I can handle it. I mean, I've been training my ass off. Seriously, it's so flat I look Caucasian."
"Hey, I resemble that remark. Okay, fine. Just try not to have too much murderous fun without calling me first, deal?" Harper gave me a quick, tight hug, and finally left.
I smiled after her but felt the grin melt from my face as the shop grew silent again. I kind of didn't want to be alone, but everyone was gone. Levi at his shop, probably putting on his fiftieth set of snow tires and chains in the last week on some guy's car. Junebug and Rose at the Henhouse. Alek in NOLA. Ezee and Harper up at the college. Max on the coast. Brie and Ciaran on their way to Ireland.
Yep. Not creepy at all sitting in my shop alone waiting for sword shoes. Nope.
I texted Steve. Steve had Mondays off. I needed something to distract me and there was a new expansion of Carcassonne to test out. Steve had no idea about any of the weird shit. He wouldn't look at me sideways or be always looking over his shoulder, waiting for the next assassin or whatever Samir had planned now.
I called the county clerk again, trying to get another inspection. If I was going to be here alone, waiting for a random customer or for Steve to show, I figured I could make myself useful. Noon was lunch, apparently, and I got voice mail. I wanted to be able to tell Brie her bakery was open again by the time she returned. This whole mess was stupidly frustrating, and then for them to be called away in the middle? Super lame.
That formerly errant thought, which had been like snowflake and smoke before, crystallized.
Brie's shop shut down. Ciaran recalled to Ireland. Alek sent to New Orleans. The internet in town being spotty, forcing Harper away from the store more.
All these things leaving me here. Alone.
Another deep shiver went through me as I clutched at my twenty-sided die talisman. Mind-Tess woke up, whispering a warning as Wolf, my spirit guardian, materialized, facing the door, growling.
I knew before I felt the wards hum. Before the door opened, bringing with it cold air, swirling snow, and the one man I had hoped never to see again.