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I felt like I'd been socked in the gut. "You leave my dad out of this!" I almost hissed, then nearly fell when a spotlight hit us, hot and heavy.
"Congratulations!" Mr. Aston slurred, and I realized everyone was staring at us, cheering. "You've won the daywalkers' best costume!"
He was talking to Trent, and the angry man caught his emotional balance with an enviable quickness, shaking the rink owner's hand with a practiced ease, smiling as he tried to realign his thoughts and figure out what was going on. I could see his fury at me simmering under his pleasant expression. The buxom-spelled beauty giggled, draping a ribbon of entry coupons around his neck, startling me and shocking Trent when she gave him a sloppy, red-lipsticked kiss on his cheek.
"What's your name, Mr. Kalamack?" Aston was saying, gesturing grandly to the watching people.
Trent leaned past Aston to me. His green eyes were almost black with anger. "Quen is asking for you."
Fear slid through me at his formal words. Oh, God. I'd heard that only once before. It had been in the nurse's office at school. I don't even remember the ride to the hospital to find my dad gasping his last.
"Let's all have a round of applause for Mr. Quen, here," Aston shouted, the speaker squealing with feedback. "Wi
The music started up, and people began moving to it, round and round in useless circles. I stared at Trent. Quen was dying?
"Sorry, miss," Aston said as he put a hand on my shoulder and sent his bourbon-scented breath over me. "You almost had him beat, but you went overboard with the hair. Rachel Morgan's hair isn't that frizzy. Have a g-good night."
The woman on his arm crooned as she led him away. The spotlight went with them, leaving only Trent and me in the small corner of the rink where the dust bu
"Quen is asking for you," he said, chilling me. "He's dying, Morgan. Because of you."
Sixteen
I loved my church, but being confined to it sucked dishwater. Up in the belfry, I shoved the last of my spell books onto the shelf with enough force to threaten to knock over the freestanding bookcase I'd found there. Adrenaline struck through me, and I reached for the nicked mahogany wood to keep it from tipping. Catching it, I exhaled, glad Ceri wasn't back from her search for spelling supplies to see my sour mood. Misplaced anger born in guilt accounted for most of it, and as I stood and tucked my complexion amulet back behind my shirt, I resolved to let it go. I wasn't going to go see Quen. It might have been a trick, it might not have. I wasn't going to risk it. It was a good decision, but I wasn't happy with it, adding credibility to my new philosophy that if I didn't like a decision, it was probably a good one.
Thunder slowly grew, rolled, and died, echoing against the surrounding hills that sheltered Cincy to fade into the soft, hissing rain. Exhaling with a deliberate slowness, I sat on the edge of the elaborately carved fainting couch to rest my chin in my cupped hands and look over the small, sparse space. My blood pressure started to drop as the sound of the rain became obvious, shushing against the shingles and dying leaves. The small, hexagon-shaped room had a feeling of open airiness and smelled like coal dust, which was odd seeing as the building had been constructed long after coal was abandoned as fuel.
I'd gotten home before sunset, and guilt had pulled me across the street to Ceri's to apologize. When Marshal and I had gotten back to my mom's, he had seemed relieved to get in his truck and drive away, pensive and deep in thought, and I vowed to back off lest I turn into a needy wa
My intent in visiting Ceri had been to apologize for losing my temper and to make sure she was okay. That, and to dig for information about Quen's condition. She was going to see him tonight but said she wanted to teach me how to make a light before she left. It was probably her way of apologizing, seeing as she couldn't say the words. I didn't care if she said them or not, knowing they would come out when the hurt I'd caused her eased enough.
I still didn't agree with what she was doing with Al, but she was trying to live her life the best way she knew. Besides, I made far worse decisions than she did with a lot less power to back them up. And I wasn't going to lose another friend because of stiff-necked pride and a lack of understanding caused by silence.
Ceri was currently looking for a ring of metal for a ley line charm she wanted to teach me, but until she returned, I had nothing to do but stare at Jenks's gargoyle, still not awake but hiding high up in the rafters and out of the rain.
I had seen the quiet, unheated space last winter while avoiding Jenks's brood—before that Ivy's owls had been up here, briefly, but I'd avoided them, and thus the belfry—but it wasn't until summer and the first rains that I found the beauty in it. Jenks had forbidden his kids from going near the gargoyle, so they wouldn't bother me. Not that it was likely they would venture out of their stump and into the rain. Poor Matalina.
Looking away from the gravel-colored, foot-high critter hunched on a support beam, I quietly moved a folding chair to look out one of the long windows. They were slatted to keep the vermin from getting in and to let the bell's music out. How the gargoyle got in was a mystery that was pissing Jenks off. Maybe he was like an octopus in that he could squeeze through anything.
Hunching to pillow my chin on my arms, which were folded on the sill, I tilted the blinds to see the shiny black night, breathing in the damp air tainted with the scent of roof shingles and wet pavement. I felt warm and secure, and I didn't know why. It was peaceful, almost like a memory was wrapping itself around me. It might have been from the gargoyle—they were said to be guardians—but I didn't think so. The feeling of peace had been there long before he showed up.
I'd moved the folding chair up here this past summer, but the shelf, the fainting couch, and the dresser had been here when I'd found it. The antique dresser had a green granite top and a beautiful, age-spotted mirror behind it. It would make a great spelling counter, easy to clean and durable. I couldn't help but wonder if the space had been used for spelling before. There were absolutely no pipes or wires above or below the high room—which was why I was using candles to light the place—but even so, I was tempted to make this more than a temporary spot to store my spelling books and stir charms when I had to stay on hallowed ground. Dragging everything down to wash it would be tedious, though.
Fortunately Ceri's spell didn't involve much in the way of paraphernalia. The ley line spell wasn't in any of my books, but Ceri said if I could start a fire with ley line magic I may be able to do this. If so, I might take the time to fix it into a one-word quick-spell. Pulling myself up from the slatted window, I wrapped my arms around myself in the damp, candlelit chill and hoped it was easy. The cool factor alone would be enough reason to fix it into my memory.
Ley line magic wasn't my forte, but the idea that I might be able to make a light whenever I wanted had a definite appeal. I'd once met someone who could use ley lines to hear people at a distance. A faint smile curled the corner of my mouth up at the memory. I'd been eighteen, and we were eavesdropping on the I.S. officers interviewing my brother, Robbie, about a missing girl. The night had been an utter disaster, but now that I thought about it, maybe this was the root of the I.S.'s dislike for me. Not only had we shown them up by finding the missing girl, but we had tagged the undead vamp who had kidnapped her, too.