Clyde came over to assist us. “Another relative, Ms. Vaughn?” he asked, offering Mab his arm.
“No,” said Mab, all dignity. “We met yesterday. I’m Vicky’s aunt, Mab.”
Poor Clyde nearly choked on his mortification. “I . . .” He coughed, swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it, then coughed again. “I do apologize.”
Mab harrumphed and accepted his proffered arm.
“She’s had a rough night,” I said. “She’ll be better tomorrow.” I sent up a silent prayer to whatever gods might be listening that it would be so.
Mab harrumphed again. She shuffled across the lobby, leaning her whole weight on Clyde and me.
“Would you like me to accompany you upstairs?” he asked, pressing the elevator button.
“No, thank you, Clyde. We’ll be fine,” I said.
“Very good.” When the elevator door opened, he helped Mab inside, then stepped back out into the lobby. The doors closed on his puzzled face.
“Almost home.” I patted Mab’s arm, hoping the gesture gave more assurance than I felt.
Mab sighed. The sound seemed to hold all the weariness of the ages. “This place, child, is very, very far from home.”
IN MY APARTMENT, KANE CIRCLED MAB, SNIFFING, GIVING me inquiring looks. I told him I had to get Mab to bed, and he backed off as I helped her into my bedroom. Once she was settled under the covers, Kane came in and sat on his haunches, staring at my aunt. She lay back with her eyes closed. There’s little time, she’d said. Right now, she looked like someone with no more than a few grains of sand left in her hourglass. Kane lifted his muzzle. His nostrils flared, as though he were trying to catch the scent of what had happened.
Two people I cared about, both so drastically altered. Tears pressed at my eyes, and I pinched myself to make them stop. I couldn’t afford to cry. I had to figure out what to do.
“Myrddin stole Mab’s bloodstone,” I told Kane. He cocked his head, asking what exactly that meant. I wanted to know more, myself, but now wasn’t the time to exhaust Mab further.
I laid a gentle hand on my aunt’s arm. “Mab?” Her eyes fluttered open. They were cloudy with cataracts. “What can I do to help you? Are there herbs I can get? Roxana—the witch—should I bring her back?”
“No, child. None of that would help.”
“Can you shift? Would that bring back your strength?” But even as I asked, I knew that the feeble old woman lying in my bed could never summon the energy for a shift. Mab merely shook her head.
“Well, maybe you’ll feel better after you get some rest.” It was the lamest thing I’d ever said in my entire life, but I couldn’t admit there was nothing we could do.
“I taught you better than that, child,” Mab’s thin voice admonished. “Wishful thinking means nothing. Unless you can retrieve the bloodstone, I’m finished. I will continue to age until my body gives out.”
“I’ll get it back.” But how? I didn’t know where Myrddin’s safe house was, and I didn’t know if I could face Myrddin—and his army of Old Ones, vampires, and human servants—alone. Saying I’d get the bloodstone back felt like more wishful thinking. But I needed to try to comfort Mab. “I won’t let Myrddin . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Won’t let him what, child? Kill me? If only that were all he had in mind.” Her rheumy eyes closed, and her voice, barely audible, trembled with weariness. “Myrddin won’t kill me. He’ll bring me to the very end of life, to the point where death is the only thing still desired. And then he’ll use the bloodstone to imprison me, as I did to him fifteen hundred years ago.”
MY HEAD SPUN WITH QUESTIONS, BUT I COULDN’T TROUBLE Mab with them now. She was sleeping; a quiet snoring buzzed from my bedroom. Sitting on the living-room sofa, I listened, cherishing those snores. Each one meant another breath.
I checked the splint I’d put on my wrist. My kind heals quickly—the pain had already diminished—but it takes time for bones to knit back together. Keeping the wrist immobile would make sure they healed properly. Right now, though, I had more to worry about than a broken wrist.
Mab said she’d imprisoned Myrddin fifteen centuries ago. Was she telling me she was—or had been—Nimuë? According to legend, Nimuë had seduced Merlin and imprisoned him in a hawthorn tree. No, a yew tree, Mab had corrected. I guess she’d know. She also said she’d had many lifetimes. That was how she knew so much about Myrddin—she’d battled him before and won. No wonder Myrddin was obsessed with revenge.
He wouldn’t succeed. I’d promised my aunt I’d get the bloodstone back. And I would, somehow.
In forty-eight hours, the Reaper would claim another victim. The final point of the eihwaz rune was on the edge of Boston Common, near the Boylston Street T station. Myrddin would be there with his lidded jar. I couldn’t be sure he’d have the bloodstone with him—but I could be damn sure he’d expect me. He wanted my life force for Pryce.
It would be better if I could ambush him where he wasn’t expecting me: at the safe house. Myrddin must be there now, waiting until he could complete his ritual. It was probably where the Old Ones had taken Juliet, as well. But I didn’t have the slightest idea where the safe house might be. All Juliet could tell us was that it was in the basement of a brick town house—and Boston was full of those.
Kane settled on the cushion beside me, resting his head on my thigh. Gray eyes, a man’s eyes, regarded me from his wolf’s face. “How can we find the safe house, Kane?”
His head lifted, ears alert, and he jumped from the sofa and ran to the front door. He turned and looked back at me expectantly. When I didn’t move, he let out a frustrated yip.
“I can’t take you with me.” Even with Roxana’s charm to disguise him, it felt too risky to have Kane running around Boston in his wolf form. “I need you to stay with Mab.”
Kane barked again, more aggressively this time.
“Stop it. We promised Clyde that no one would know you’re here.” Besides, I wasn’t going to argue with a wolf.
Kane came back over, caught my sleeve in his teeth, and pulled. When I shook him off, he nipped my skin.
“Ow!” I rubbed the spot. No broken skin, but it stung. I glared at him.
Seeing he had my attention, he put his nose to the floor and ran around in circles, sniffing exaggeratedly. Okay, so in wolf form he was an expert tracker. But Myrddin had left the scene through the demon plane, and Kane couldn’t track his scent there. I told him so, and he yipped again.
He had a point. The Old Ones who’d grabbed Juliet were vampires, not demons. They couldn’t travel through the demon plane. And they had a very distinctive scent. Kane could track them, find out where they went. Even better, I could let him get Juliet’s scent from an item of her clothing and he could track her specifically.
“But what about Mab?” I didn’t think Myrddin would try to attack her here. He didn’t need to when he had the bloodstone. But I couldn’t leave her on her own, weak and ill as she was.
The phone rang, interrupting my thoughts. I snatched it up before the noise could wake Mab.
“Hello?”
It was Clyde. “Tina would like to pay you a visit?” There was a reason he phrased the statement as a question. Tina never, ever paused to let Clyde call upstairs. She always breezed past his desk, assuming (a) he’d know where she was going and (b) I’d be delighted to see her. Clyde must be questioning why she’d stopped to let him call up.
Tina’s voice sounded in the background. “That’s not how I said to say it. Give me that.”
There was a squeak—from Clyde, I assumed—and then Tina came on the line. “What he was supposed to say was ‘Tina requests your royal permission to come upstairs and return your stupid book.’ I wrote it down and everything. Since, you know, you made it clear that you don’t want to see me and all. I’m only doing it because I told your aunt I would.”