Cursed To Death

“To attack Sylphs,” another said and then clarified when Sasha frowned. “Air elementals, milady-we must be strong. Air elementals work in the etheric realms. When we attempt to remove the sigils from the etheric body doubles or the property they’ve been attached to, they will fight with all their might.”

“Our job is to first break the spell on the fortress, and then all Seelie Fae will be whole and can in turn help us,” Shogun said, glancing around. “That we can do-but what is witchwood… or rowan?”

“Our Wood Sprites can show you in the morning. But they ca

“How long do we have?” Hunter said, leaning forward on the table on his elbows.

“You have already lost three moons. You only have one more. Then the final moon in the sigils is the night of the Midsummer Night’s Ball… The stroke of midnight is also when the magick becomes strongest and next to impossible to break.” The lead advisor looked around and his gaze settled on Sasha. “You have a question. It is in your eyes.”

“Yeah…” she said, losing patience. “Let me get this straight. We hit the streets tomorrow, try to keep this on the down low from human authorities that will be crawling all over these joints that we have to go back into without the aid of shadow-jumping stealth… and we have to do this by tomorrow before sunset so the Seelie can come out and ransack wherever to find our sigils-the thing that’s making us weak and vulnerable. Did I get that right?”

Five small heads nodded in unison.

“Okay,” Sasha said, ruffling her hair up off her neck in frustration. “But all the while, we’re getting crazier and crazier-and now we’re finally thinking this is magick that could possibly only be delivered by the Unseelie.”

No one said a word. It was suddenly so quiet in the large meeting room that Sasha stood to keep from screaming.

“And these sigils of ours could be anywhere in the world,” she said flatly.

Again five heads nodded in unison.

“And we’re pretty sure that Vampires are involved, like we just found out tonight that the Buchanans were lying in wait for us, so these sigils could be on any of the abovementioned estates-which are heavily fortified.” Sasha walked around the perimeter of the table slowly as though hunting something in the center of it. “There has to be another way to break the Unseelie spell against specific individuals. I get it that you can unbind a group that was bound as a group more simply… but someone went after us on a very personal level.”

“They did, indeed, lassie,” the lead advisor said quietly. “There is a way… but…”

“Why us?” Sasha looked around the room. “If it’s the Unseelie, why us-the Wolf Federations? We’re not involved!”

“I’m afraid you are,” the lead advisor said calmly. “If you are our strongest allies, the ones who united our fractured Parliaments, then, sadly…”

“The friend of my enemy is my enemy,” Shogun said flatly.

“Yes,” Advisor Garth said with a weary sigh.

“That is some Vampire bullshit, if ever I’ve heard it,” Sasha said.

“With a weakened Louisiana Werewolf clan seeking vengeance and willing to aid in the confrontation,” Hunter said, closing his eyes and massaging his temples. “How do we fix this, reverse the dark spell?”

“We haven’t gone into direct conflict with Queen Blatand of Hecate since the Penicuik Wars that split apart the Midlothian Council,” the second advisor said in a distraught murmur.

“If her attack came from the core of her power base, then we would have to capture and behead her top advisors to still this Unseelie magick, and even if we knew they were guilty as sin-it’s much easier to locate the actual sigils and undo the black spell than to capture and un-glamour members of that powerful group to behead them. By rights, there should be a trial… and evidence presented, she will argue… and then if they are found guilty, the treason charge could be levied and their magick bled away from them. But that is their game. There isn’t time for a trial.”

“And it sounds like there also isn’t time for us to find the locations of all these sigils that are tainting our etheric selves,” Hunter said in a low, growling tone.

“Under the circumstances,” Shogun said, rubbing the nape of his neck, “it seems a lot easier to go to war than to try to find a needle in a haystack.”

Sir Rodney stretched tension out of his back as he walked around the room. “What did the property investigation show? Who might have been angry that their inheritance went to McGregor?”

“A name came up from our property search as you requested… Kiagehul would have stood to gain much, milord,” the senior advisor said quietly.

“Kiagehul? Cousin of Enoksen and Elder Futhark?” Sir Rodney stopped pacing, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “Enoksen and Elder Futhark are her top advisors… Even if we go after his magick by just finding that little weasel, it will incline her to war once she listens to them.”

“Has anyone seen this man-do we know how to spot him?”

“No, milord,” the eldest advisor said. “His identity is shrouded… but we have our investigators working on this as we speak.”

“Then war it is,” Sasha said. “We ca

Sir Rodney just stared at Sasha for a moment.

“The queen doesn’t get over anything, milady,” the lead advisor warned.

“How well do you know the queen and her capabilities?” Hunter asked, turning his attention to Sir Rodney.

“Do you know this enemy well?” Shogun asked, growing impatient. “We could capture this Kiagehul and interrogate him in a way that would make him understand the need to cooperate.”

“A manhunt could take who knows how long… Plus he could be holed up in Vampire turf or in hiding. If Unseelie magick is behind all this, we send a message to the queen to tell her to call her man back. If she isn’t an accomplice to it, and doesn’t want to start a war, she will. If she’s too arrogant or is somehow involved, then we do this thing.” Sasha walked back and forth, feeling trapped. “But Sir Rodney is right, guys. We have to lift the spell off the Seelie Fae and this fortress so we have a strong offensive, plus a solid fallback position. We’ve gotta get the rest of our team behind these walls tomorrow.”

“Then let’s get back to the question that Shogun and I asked, because it is important to know the enemy before deploying a tactic that could backfire.” Hunter leaned on the table, looking across it at Sir Rodney. “Do you know this queen well enough to negotiate with her?”

Everyone that had been seated around the table was now on their feet.

“Yes, I know her bleedin’ well enough-and am all too familiar with the full extent of her wrath, which is how I wound up in the Americas and not in the Bo