My grip on the bag tightened. Dali had done this on purpose—the busybody. Al lives in a painted wagon in the woods?
Al’s goat-slitted eyes narrowed, his confused anger shifting to a frightening fury. “How did you find me?” he said from atop the stairs, the hem of his robe shaking, making the bells on his sash ring. “Did Dali tell you?” he snarled. “Get out of my house.”
“I’m not in your house,” I said, not sure why he was mad. I was the one dealing with everything. Why does Al live in a wagon? Maybe it’s because he doesn’t feel welcome anywhere. “I’m in your yard, delivering your takeout. You want it?” I added, flushing as the wind picked up, clouds boiling out from nowhere. My feet were wet, my fingers were blue, and now I was warm in embarrassment.
“Huh,” Pike mocked as he looked up at the clouds forming overhead. “Worldly cosmic powers, living in a trailer in the woods. Who would have guessed?”
Al clenched his hands. I could hear his knuckles crack from twenty feet away.
“Did I not say to keep your mouth shut?” I muttered, then smiled weakly at Al. “Ah, I didn’t know it was you,” I said, glad that I hadn’t crossed the toadstool ring. “I’m working off my dinner. Should I just leave it? I’ll leave it.”
There was a roll of thunder. Al stared at me from the van’s door, his lip curling in disgust. “I heard what you did,” he said, and I strengthened my hold on the ley line. He was pissed. Because I talked to Hodin.
“Dali told me!” he shouted, and I took a step back. “You stink of Hodin. Lie, Rachel. Lie and tell me you’ve not aligned yourself with him. A suckling nothing of a traitorous elven whore.”
Dali, you son of a bastard, I thought. That was why we had gotten our dinner so cheap. Dali had sent me to Al knowing he’d have to do something about me talking to Hodin if I showed up on his doorstep. As my teacher, it was Al’s place, and only his place, to mete out punishment.
“I’m not working with Hodin!” I exclaimed, my toes edging the toadstool ring, then added, “Okay, he helped me bury Nash. But he offered. I didn’t ask. And it was easier than digging a hole. Jeez, Al. Give me a break! I’ve decided to bring Constance to heel, but I don’t need his help.” No, I needed Al’s.
But Al only grimaced at the threatening skies as a soft patter of light rain began. On the roof, the gargoyle sighed and hid under her wings. “You and Hodin summoned the Goddess’s mystics to ascend an elf!” he shouted over the distance, and then, softer, far more threatening: “Get. Out.”
Pike reached for the bag, probably to help himself to Al’s dinner. “Yeah?” I said as I pulled it away, frowning at the annoyed vampire. “Maybe you should have shown up instead of him.”
Al moved. The wood ladder creaked under his feet, and I backpedaled three steps before I could stop myself. Pike’s expression emptied and he retreated, slipping deeper into the woods until he was a shadow beside a tree, eyes black and shining.
“You admit that you took instruction from him!” Al shouted as he strode forward.
I forced myself to stand firm, scared as I was. “No! We buried Nash,” I gushed. “Al, I’m sorry about that ultimatum,” I babbled. Stay out of this, Pike. Stay where you are. “I shouldn’t have told you both to get along or stay out of my life. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
“Get out!” he bellowed, and my shoulders came up to my ears as I felt him tap the same line my thoughts were in. “He’s dangerous, and manipulating, and you are not listening to me!”
“But he’s not that bad!” I coaxed, pulse fast as the distance between us narrowed to ten feet, five. “He wouldn’t even do the charm to bury Nash. I had to do it.”
“He is using you!” he shouted, his black slippers edging the toadstool ring. “Twisting you to him with little gifts and small favors,” he added, voice breaking. “And you will die like all the rest who followed him. He will betray you, Rachel. That’s what he does. He’s the Goddess’s bastard. Her toy. Her sword we die on. Elven magic does not make us stronger. It makes us vulnerable. Celfnnah . . .”
I watched, horrified, as he choked in grief, his face drawn and his breath ragged. Celfnnah? I wondered. Had his wife followed Hodin and died? Or maybe the Goddess killed her. Or the elves?
My pulse quickened. I wasn’t Celfnnah. I had no hatred for the elves or their magic. Hodin wasn’t using me. He was trying to bring us together. I was trying to bring us together.
“Al,” I whispered, my own heartache growing. Whatever had happened, he couldn’t forgive. He could not let go.
“I will not do this again,” Al said, voice empty. “I am done. Get out.”
“Al. Please. Just talk to me.” I reached for him, more than that toadstool ring between us. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Celfnnah. But things have changed—”
“Get out!” he demanded again, pulling on a line to vanish in a haze that exploded into a tall, glowing, burning form. Golden streamers flowed like hair from a willowy-thin, wasp-waisted figure towering over me. A haze of energy circled his head like a halo. “Get out!” he demanded, his voice now feminine and echoing with thunder.
It was Newt’s voice, and I lurched backward, tripping and falling. He’d turned himself into an image of the Goddess, my greatest fear, to scare me away. It was working. My pulse hammered. It didn’t matter that I knew it was Al; I was scared spitless. She had nearly killed me. Several times. Newt had become her to save me.
“Get out, or I will kill you where you stand!” he said, a hand rising to the black and boiling skies as if to draw down hell itself.
Lightning flashed, and as my heartache swam up, it began to rain in cold, heavy drops.
I got up. My eyes teared. I told myself it was from his glare, too bright to look at. I lifted my chin, my grip on the line strengthening. “No, you won’t,” I said, then pulled a wind-whipped strand of hair from my mouth. “You need me, Al. No one else trusts you. Except perhaps Ray and Lucy, and don’t you dare ruin that so you can wallow in your pity party alone. We know you’re a good person. Please. Let me stay. Let me try to find a way—”
“Arraggge!” the figure howled, stretching to the sky.
My expression emptied. “Pike! Get down!” I shouted in real fear as the energy built. Turning, I lunged, knocking him down. We hit the earth and I looked up as Al threw a tantrum, streamers of Newt-inspired energy flowing from him to strike the trees and crawl along the bottom of the clouds.
“Leave me!” he shouted, his voice an eerie blend of Newt’s insanity and his steadfast roar.
“I will not!” I shouted back, and then yelped as I felt myself shoved into a ley line.