Chapter Twenty-Five

At half-past ten the next morning, Melodie made her way out of the labyrinthine emergency department of Amberville General Hospital. She carried a cup of ice chips, a plastic bag with three sample doses of Prednisone and a prescription for a new epinephrine rescue pen.

She felt pretty good, considering she’d probably been dead for a second or two the night before.

The rumbling in her stomach was honest-to-goodness hunger, and the sleepy feeling that made her glance longingly at the couches in the ER waiting room had to do with the fact that she’d been up all night while an endless stream of nurses and doctors had taken her blood pressure and shined bright penlights into her eyes and down her throat every few minutes.

She needed sleep. She really needed a burger, and most of all she needed Blake.

When Palmer met her in the lobby, she mustered a smile to hide her mild disappointment. He hugged her, and she had to admit, the contact felt good.

He led her to the lobby exit and opened the door, releasing her into the brilliant sunlight. “How are you?”

She blinked and shielded her teary eyes. “A lot better. At least I don’t feel like a balloon with a slow leak anymore.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you. They wouldn’t let me in the ER since I’m not family.”

“That’s okay. Everyone took good care of me.” Where’s Blake? Her mind tacked on the last question silently. If Calypso had gotten the witches to break the curse during the night, he’d be here now, wouldn’t he?

“Do you want to stop at the pharmacy before I take you home?” Palmer asked as they headed toward his Jeep. Mel eyed him. He seemed almost too cheerful. Something wasn’t right.

“Or maybe we should get you some food? What would you like? Breakfast, lunch? Both? We could stop at Brunch Palace—”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. Something’s not right. I can tell by your voice.”

He squeaked out a word or two, then cleared his throat and began again in a purposely lower pitch. “My voice is fine. I’m starving. I could go for pancakes. How about you?”

“It’s Blake, isn’t it? What happened?”

“He’s fine.”

“Fine-fine like great-fine or fine like not-dead-but-close fine?”

Palmer squinted at her. “Why would he be dead?”

She growled in exasperation and refused to hop into the passenger seat when he held the door of the Jeep open for her. “You know what I mean. There’s fine as in perfectly normal and then there’s the fine you tell people you are after you’ve just been in a three-car pileup but you don’t have any broken bones.”

He assessed her with a critical stare. “What kinds of drugs did they give you?”

“Palmer!”

He held up his hands in surrender. “All right. I guess you could call it three-car-pileup fine.”

“The Council wouldn’t break the curse?” Defeat settled in her chest, and tears threatened, but she held Palmer’s gaze.

“They can’t at the moment. Helena called me a little while ago… Calypso…disappeared with the Cabochon. She probably absorbed it. She had to have if she touched it. They don’t know where she went, but Helena has been out looking for her.”

Mel slumped. Her bones seemed rubbery, and vaguely she registered Palmer helping her slide into the bucket seat. “How could she do that to Blake? How could she do that to me?”

“I don’t know, Mel. I’m sorry.” Palmer settled into the driver’s seat and placed a hand on her knee. “Once I get you home, I’m going to look for her too. Between Helena and me, we’ll track her down.”

“I don’t want to go home. I want to see Blake. Take me to his place.”

“He didn’t want me to do that. He doesn’t want you to see him while he’s—”

“Palmer, if you don’t take me back to Blake’s house, I’ll pixie dust you until you don’t remember your own name.” She pinned him with a glare that she hoped left no room for argument. The Melodie-demon might be gone, but she could still conjure a solid death stare if she had to.

He sighed and drove her to Blake’s. When they pulled up in front of the house, she gave him a quick kiss on his bruised cheek, and he winced. “Call me if you find her,” she said as she climbed out onto the sidewalk. “Try the rail yard. That’s where I’d go if I was a demon.”

“Uh…sure. Will you be okay? I mean, things looked pretty bad last night. Are you sure you should be alone?”

She smiled and waved her baggie of drugs at him. “I’ll be fine, and I won’t be alone. I’ll be with Blake.”

Palmer muttered something before he pulled away, but Mel didn’t quite catch his comment. She waited until he turned the corner, then hurried up the stairs.

Panic seized her when she realized she didn’t have a key, but disappointment at the thought of having to leave Blake alone all day morphed into another emotion entirely when the front door swung open and Helena stepped out onto the porch.

“Melodie! I’m so glad you’re all right. I’ve never seen an allergic reaction before. I had no idea they could be so bad.”

Mel stared at the Domaré woman, rendered speechless by a tumult of thoughts she probably had no right to think. Had Palmer lied about her being out looking for Calypso? How long had she remained with Blake after the ambulance took Mel away?

“Where is he?” She tried to keep her tone neutral and failed. The question sounded like an accusation, and Helena was clearly perceptive enough to take it that way.

She glanced over her shoulder into the house. “Upstairs. In his bedroom. He’s…he transformed back to stone at sunrise.”

In his bedroom. And why would he be in his bedroom? The words never reached Mel’s lips, which compressed tight over her clenched teeth.

“Melodie, I know that look.”

“Oh?” Her brows shot up, tightening the still slightly swollen skin of her forehead. She probably looked awful with sweaty hospital-bed head, blotchy cheeks and cotton balls taped over the IV marks on the backs of her hands. Meanwhile Helena looked fresh as some exotic tropical flower, as though she’d had a satisfying night’s sleep…or something.

“You don’t have to be jealous of me.”

“Oh?”

“I never had anything real with Blake. I was just a means to an end for him. He’d traced the Cabochon to the Domaré clans, and I was assigned by my family to run some interference. Once he discovered what I was, he turned on the charm and, stupid me, I fell for it and for him. How could I not?” She gave a fluttery laugh. “Those eyes? My God. And that hint of an accent can make a woman’s clothes fall right off.”

Mel swallowed hard but said nothing. She was too busy listening to the message hidden in Helena’s words.

“He made me feel human. You know, a lot of us want that. Being a demon, or even half demon in this world isn’t easy. All the hiding, all the secrets, it gets to you after a while. I hope you can forgive Calypso for not telling you. Most people don’t believe us, and those who do…well, they usually run screaming in the other direction. Blake didn’t.”

Mel tried to muster a response, but Helena pressed on.

“He reached out to me, and we shared…our fears. He told me how lonely he was and how terrible his existence had become, and I told him how isolated I felt in a world that would never accept me for who I was. Domaré men are a bit domineering. Marriages are more like contracts, and love isn’t usually an issue. Like Calypso, I dreamed of something a little more than what my family dictated, so I began to think life with a gargoyle might be an improvement over what I had to look forward to.”

“Calypso was married. Twice. To Angelo.”

“He’s Domaré. That’s why they were divorced twice. She doesn’t really love him as much as she’s bonded to him. They fight all the time, but she can’t really break free of his hold over her. I didn’t want a life like that, so Blake seemed…perfect. When I found out all he really wanted was for me to lead him to the demon underworld so he could track down the Domaré queen, it hurt.” The odd lilt in Helena’s voice might have been to hide the depth of her emotion, or it might have been a challenge.

“Are you warning me to be careful?”

“What? No! Blake really cares about you. He was devastated last night when he thought he would lose you. He only glanced at the Cabochon while you were…dead. Besides, you were together before you absorbed it, right?”

Surely Helena knew the answer to that. Mel shook her head.

“Oh. You met after?”

“I don’t like the direction this conversation is taking.”

Helena reached out and placed a warm hand on Mel’s arm. She tried not to flinch. “I’m not in the market to get Blake back. I came here to help you because Palmer is my friend. The odds are, Blake is really serious about you regardless of the Cabochon, so you probably have nothing to worry about, but just in case his interest in you was dependent on what he thought you could do to help him…well, at least you won’t be surprised if he treats you differently now.”

Mel smiled to hide her seething. When one looked close enough, it wasn’t hard to see the demon side of Helena. “Thanks for that,” she said and turned to skip down the front steps.

“Aren’t you going inside to be with Blake when he ‘wakes up’?” Helena called as Mel’s feet hit the sidewalk.

“I’ll be back,” she said. “Don’t lock the door.”

“Where are you going?”

“To do what you should be doing. I’m going to find your cousin and get her to break the curse. Now.”

Mel didn’t listen for a response from Helena, and she didn’t care if the demon woman stayed at Blake’s place or not. She strode down the street, her anger carrying her on her quest.

 

 

Once again, by the light of the full moon, Percival stood at the foot of Margaret Thorne’s grave. This time, rather than a hand-tied noose, though, he held in his hand a single white rose.

Since he’d purchased the Thorne property from her grieving husband, no flowers had ever adorned the once-fine lady’s grave. Emmett Thorne and his three sons, in their haste to be rid of the estate and settle their mounting debts, had not requested the relocation of Margaret’s remains.

For a time, after taking up residence, Percival had ignored the tiny plot, fenced in wrought iron and set on a small hillock where Margaret, in her eternal rest, could survey the house over which she’d once presided and the back gardens that had been her joy to tend each spring.

Weeds grew thick over the grave for a time, obscuring the headstone which read simply: Beloved Mother—Devoted Wife, along with the date on which Percival had snapped her neck. His first visit here had been to gloat, to promise her tarnished soul that he would stop at nothing to rid the world of her insidious brand of evil.

Today he hovered at the gate, a cold hand curled around one of the filigreed posts, not to taunt her spirit but to offer an apology.

“I’ve tried everything, Mum.” He’d come to call her that…not to mock, but because over time he’d developed a kinship with this woman who shared his home, who slept on his land. Had he married Rebecca, he might have called her that name lovingly… He squashed that thought, having taught himself over time not to dwell on what might have been but to live only for the moment, since he never knew which might be his last.

“I’ve paid great sums for charlatans to cure me. I’ve walked such dark places, I fear even your lord and master would cringe at the things I’ve seen. I’ve begged and pleaded and threatened the lives of creatures I could never have imagined existed. And none of it has worked.” Percival shook the sturdy bars. A cold autumn wind stirred the grasses that had withered on the grave, and the scent of the rose he carried wafted from its silken petals, a cruel reminder of the world’s false beauty.

“I’ve only this left.” He opened the gate and stepped into the small space in which Margaret Thorne had dwelled for all these years. Reverently, he placed the rose upon her grave and stepped away, his back stiff, old bones creaking. “I am sorry, Mum. I should have let you live.”

Percival remained at the graveside until moonset, when the darkness grew so thick he could barely see to close the gate. Determined to continue this last, desperate bid for absolution, he trudged toward the main house with the Lord’s Prayer on his lips. This time he recited the familiar words not as a litany meant to cleanse his own soul, but as a gift to Margaret Thorne.

With this burden gone from his psyche at last, he could concentrate on his most important mission. He would find the witch who cursed him and tell her what he’d done.

 

 

Silence greeted Mel’s first tentative knock on Calypso’s door, so she graduated to pounding with her fist and yelling. “I know you’re in there, Eugenia Maria Philomena Slovetski. And if you don’t answer this door by the time I count to—”

The door flung open, and Cal reached out and dragged Mel into her dark apartment. “My real name? You had to stoop to using my real name?”

Mel put her hands on her hips. “The things we confess after ten tequila shots come back to haunt us sometimes, don’t they? And besides, you deserve it. How could you…how could you take the Cabochon and leave Blake like that?” Tears threatened Mel’s resolve. The long walk from Blake’s house had left her legs trembling and her throat tight. She probably needed a dose of the medicine they’d given her at the hospital, but it would have to wait until she’d said her piece. All the way over, she’d rehearsed what she wanted to say to Calypso when she found her, and now the eloquent words left her in favor of this pleading.

“How did you know I was here?” Cal asked, avoiding the question along with Mel’s stare.

“I saw your car around the block. I know you park it there when you don’t want the landlord to know you’re home.”

Cal sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t enough. We could have helped him, Calypso. We could have ended it.”

“No, we couldn’t.” Indigo eyes flashed, and Cal whirled away. She paced the length of the cluttered living room, hands massaging her lower back above the waistband of her tight black jeans. “Helena was right. The release of all that power would have killed us.”

“Then why not give the Cabochon to the Witches’ Council?”

“That’s exactly what we shouldn’t have done. Don’t you see, Mel? Once the gem was out of you, the urgency was over. They were trying to figure out a way to transfer the gem safely in order to save your life. Now that you’re not in danger anymore, they’re more likely to keep the gem and study it rather than destroy it. No one casts spells like that anymore. The Cabochon is a rare antiquity, and there would have been those opposed to damaging it for any reason.”

“I’m not sure I believe that.” Mel wanted to. She really did want to think that everything Calypso had done had been with Blake’s interests at heart, but she also had to keep reminding herself she was dealing with a demon.

“I don’t know how I can convince you, but the fact is, if I hadn’t absorbed the gem, someone else would have, either by accident or on purpose. Now that it’s in me, you’re safe. Palmer is safe, and—”

“Don’t say Blake is safe.” The venom in Mel’s voice surprised her. Her heart had never ached so badly as when she’d spent the day watching Blake stare out the window on the world he’d been denied access to for ten years. Not even when she’d realized her marriage to Larry was over had she felt such an acute yearning for something she couldn’t have.

“I wasn’t. I was going to say the balance of power in the demon world is safe.”

Mel turned her back on Calypso, partly to hide her growing rage. “And why is that? Because you’re the queen now? Because you’ve got all the power?”

“Yes.” Cal’s response wafted across the room.

“Well, that’s just—”

“Wait, Mel. Hear me out. Please?”

“I don’t want to hear why you can’t help Blake.”

“Then will you listen to how I can help him?” Calypso touched her shoulder, and this time Mel allowed herself to flinch away from the contact.

Guilt washed through her at the reaction, but she couldn’t bring herself to apologize. “Go ahead.”

“I probably have enough power to break the curse myself, but if I don’t, if it doesn’t work, the Cabochon will have to be transferred to another demon, preferably to Helena because she’s Domaré also.”

“Why would it need to be—oh.”

Calypso’s unspoken words sank in. She would have to risk her own life to save Blake, and if her spell failed, if she died, nothing would be able to save him.

“The Cabochon is too strong for us to break it, isn’t it?”

“Yes. The gem can’t be shattered. If it was, the release of power would be like setting off a bomb.”

“So if this doesn’t work, Blake will never get another chance in his lifetime, will he?”

“Probably not.”

Mel lowered herself to Calypso’s couch. “He told me the curse ends with him. He’s the last of his bloodline. What happens to the Cabochon when he…dies?”

Calypso shrugged. “I think it will just keep getting stronger. The power of the curse will live on beyond DeWitt.”

“Maybe that’s not a good thing.”

“It probably isn’t. If I break the curse, the power of the Cabochon will be diminished if it’s not destroyed outright.”

Mel thought of Blake. He might once have been willing to sacrifice anyone or anything to get his life back, but he wasn’t like that anymore. Regardless of what Helena believed or wanted Mel to believe about him. “He might not let you do it. He wouldn’t want you to take that kind of a chance.”

“That’s why we have to do it before sunset, so he won’t be able to stop me.”

Mel should have stopped her. She should have said no, but she couldn’t make that choice for Blake. He deserved his freedom—not at Calypso’s expense, even if she was a demon, but there was no alternative except to let him continue to live his life in darkness. She’d seen what little Cal could do for him without breaking the curse. He’d gotten to see the sunlight, but he’d been too weary to enjoy it, his form too monstrous to allow him to walk safely outside. That wasn’t a good-enough life for him. He deserved so much more. “What do you need to get started?” she asked, rising on shaky legs.

“Nothing, except some moral support. Can you round up Palmer and Helena and have them meet us at Blake’s house just before sunset?”

“Why not right now?”

Calypso gave her a sad smile. “I need to talk to Angelo first.”

Mel stiffened. Surely Angelo would stop her. “Helena told me he’s Domaré too.” She didn’t need to voice her concerns. Cal seemed to sense them.

“I won’t tell him about this. I can’t. I just want him to know a few things, just in case something goes wrong.”

“Do you love him? Really?”

“I used to think I did, but that was just the Domaré mating bond. Sometimes I can’t resist him, but it’s not really love.”

“Oh, Cal.”

Calypso patted Mel’s shoulder and guided her to the door. “I’ll be okay. I promise. Now go.”

Melodie left Calypso’s apartment, ignoring the nagging fear that on the one hand she might never see her friend again and on the other she might have just been taken for a fool.

She shook off her doubts. What choice did she have but to trust Calypso? And, if it didn’t work out, she’d find another way to break the curse. If she had to track down every witch and every demon in the world, she’d find a way to give Blake back his life.