Home Improvement: Undead Edition

Dora hurried to open it.

I hung back and made a grab for the hefty sledgehammer I’d seen earlier—it was big enough to do damage to a mountain troll, so hopefully it would make a dent in a lamia—but before my fingers touched it, Auntie’s scaly tail whipped out, clamped around my middle, and pinned my arms in place. Then I was suddenly lifted and plonked down on my butt about six feet back from the open front door. I struggled and kicked, but despite my efforts, I couldn’t escape my snaky straitjacket.

“Be still, girl.” Aunt Snaky squeezed me, and pain bloomed down my arms.

Worried she’d break bones, I stopped wriggling and cast a searching look around.

Dora was almost hiding behind the open front door, white-knuckled hands gripping her camera. No help there. Tavish was outside under the colonnaded porch. He was a dark shape against the deep purple haze of the early evening sky, his eyes swirling bright silver, and his dreads dripping with glittering water—no, I looked, not water, but power. And it wasn’t the sky that was hazy, but the Ward; it wasn’t the sucker one from earlier, but something much heftier. Crap, that wasn’t going to be easy to crack.

“The missing boys are in the swimming pool,” I shouted at Tavish, “and it’s got a pixie portal in it.”

“Quiet, girl.” Aunt Snaky shook me.

“Oh, and there’s three sharks,” I gasped.

“Guid to know, doll.” Tavish smiled, teeth white and sharp and equally sharklike against his green-black skin. “Tell me what you are wanting, Malia?”

“I will return this one to you,” Aunt Snaky said, “if you agree to retrieve the children for me. One of the boys is a wizard; he has taken himself and his friend out of our reach.”

So they are hiding in the pool, not trapped. Clever little wizard.

Tavish obviously thought so too, as he laughed and visibly relaxed. “Then we dinna have anything to bargain with, Malia. You are already shedding. ’Twill nae be much longer before you slip your skin, and you’ll nae manage to hold this Ward, nor the one enclosing the square, once your madness comes upon you.” He crossed his arms. “So, I’ll be waiting until then to retrieve the children.”

Sounded like a plan . . .

“Do you not worry for your sidhe?” she asked.

Tavish gave me a considering look. “She’s nae a child, and her soul is too dark to serve as your food.”

I’ve got a dark soul? Whatever happened to being a rainbow? Still, good to know Tavish wasn’t going to fall for Auntie’s ransom demands, and that I wasn’t on Auntie’s menu.

“Especially when your own blood is handy.” Tavish waved at Dora, still huddling almost behind the door.

But Dora was? Pity whispered through me. No wonder she was miserable.

Oddly Dora lifted her camera, shut her eyes, and snapped a couple of shots of Tavish. “The boys will be dead before the ritual is completed,” she said in a distant voice. “You will be too late to save them.”

“Tell me, lass,” he said softly.

The camera flashed again. “If you pass the threshold before the ritual starts, their future changes.”

“What to?”

Her eyes snapped open as she lowered the camera and said with a touch of exasperation, “I can’t see it until it changes; you know that.”

I groaned in disbelief. “Tavish, she’s lying to make you agree.”

Tavish lifted his gaze to mine, and then his eyes flickered to Auntie behind me. “Now I ken why you’re here, Malia, and why this time you risk all to take other than your own kin. Your lassie here has inherited the gift of prophecy given to you by Zeus.”

“Yes.” Auntie sounded both proud and regretful. “It is over a century since a sibyl was last born to my blood, and none before has ever had such easy use of His gift. The digital camera is a glorious invention; seeing through it is less painful than removing one’s eyes.”

“Tavish.” I struggled against Auntie’s constricting tail. “C’mon, they’re trying to scam you.”

“Nae, doll.” He shook his head. “Sibyls have to speak of that which they see, nae matter even if the speaking will lead them to harm. If the lassie says the boys will die if I dinna come in, then that is their future.” He pointed at me. “But before I do, Malia, you will let the sidhe go.”

“Theodora,” Auntie said, “do you have it?”

Dora moved to a small table and picked up a halter of golden rope, knocking off the computer game she’d shown me earlier as she did. She carefully put the game back on the table next to the glossy mag, her fingers gently lingering on her wedding picture as if she were reluctant to let it go. Then she held up the golden halter to show Tavish.

He gave a derisive snort. “I offer you my word, Malia. There is nae need to bind me to your servitude.”

“You do not think I would trust your kelpie half to be compelled by your word alone?” She sounded like he must really think her stupid. “It is too wylde and easily lost to the lure of the water.” Which was news to me. I hadn’t realized Tavish’s other shape wasn’t just him in another form, but judging by the frustration in Tavish’s eyes, she was right, and he’d been hoping she wouldn’t know.

Tension thickened the air, and I thought we’d hit some sort of supernatural Mexican standoff—

The sudden sting of fangs in my throat startled me more than any actual pain. I yelped in surprise, and stupidly thought, Damn, she’s bitten me.

“With my venom in her body, kelpie,” Aunt Snaky said, “the girl will die before dawn, even with her sidhe blood. Agree, and I will give you the antidote.”

Sick fear curdled my belly. I swallowed and pushed it away. I frowned down at Auntie’s red-and-black scaly tail wrapped around me. She had the antidote, but to get it, Tavish had to let her bind him with the golden halter. But if he was bound, then Auntie would hold all the aces, and I’d bet all of Dora’s fortune that that would end up with Tavish, me, and more horrifically, the boys dead. Because no way was Aunt Snaky going to say Thank you and wish us good health after her dinner.

“Die before dawn’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?” I tilted my head back to look up at Auntie. Her hair had dropped out, and her features appeared to have melted, leaving her head doing a good impersonation of an egg, if eggs had red-and-black scales. Very attractive. “Don’t s’pose you could be more specific about how much time I’ve got left?”

She frowned at me, then looked back at Tavish. “Do you agree, kelpie?”

In answer, Tavish screamed with rage and smacked his palms against the Ward. His magic rolled over me like the pressure wave after an explosion. My ears popped painfully, but the Ward didn’t break, just flashed the vivid crimson of an anti-crack grid and absorbed all the juice he’d thrown at it.

“Kelpie, you cannot break the Ward by force.” Aunt Snaky echoed my thoughts. “The more power you use against it, the stronger it becomes. And I would that you were at your best for the task I require of you.”

He curled his hands into frustrated fists and dropped his arms. Then he smiled. It was his kelpie smile full of Charm, a predator’s smile, but one that cajoled and tempted and beguiled. A smile that pledged to take all my sorrow, all my loss, all my hurt and leave my soul light and pure and at peace, if I would only come to him, and join with him in the depths . . . I clawed at the scaly tail that imprisoned me, fighting to go to him, to be with him—

“Theodora! Stop!”

Auntie’s shout broke the Charm-net Tavish had caught me in, and I sagged in her hold, bereft and despairing as if I’d lost something precious. The sound of sobs made me look up, and I blinked at Dora. She was on her knees at the front door, grief-stricken tears streaming down her face, and the hand with the gold halter stretched out to Tavish, frozen with her fingers only millimeters away from the Ward. Damn, he’d almost gotten her to break it. But the Ward was still there—An idea burned bright as dragon’s fire in my mind.

“You are also time wasting, kelpie,” Aunt Snaky said sharply. “Do you agree?”

“Hey, Tavish,” I called, “speaking of time wasting, I thought you said my soul looked like rainbows this morning?”

Tavish shook himself like a horse shedding water and sent me a puzzled look. “What, doll?”

Gods, give the kelpie a clue. He needed to get in, and the Ward needed to