Chapter Five
Three weeks later
Jess stared out of the window and wished she was sat on the pebble beach. She’d wrap her arms around her bent legs as the tide lapped the shore and the sun beat down.
But it wasn’t going to happen.
The supposed amazing summer that she’d hardly seen a glimpse of had passed-by while she wasn’t looking, and now the sad, grey rain tapped against the glass and dripped down to the old wooden frame, blurring the beach outside.
Adam’s need to stay with her had ended, and he’d taken his bad mood and moved back to his own house: a house that, unlike her bungalow, had stairs leading to the first floor and down to the sea. She let a little-sister smirk cross her face; she could picture him cursing that cast, as he thumped about his house.
Resting her forehead against the cold window, she thought about the nineteen hours in airports and on planes it had taken to reach him in Greece, and a week of rowing with him that he couldn’t fly for seven days after such major surgery, before she’d even been able to attempt the nightmare that getting him home had been.
In the last couple of weeks, she’d put up with his huffing and puffing. His frustration and constant anger at being forced to take it easy, until finally she thought she’d strangle him if he didn’t give her some peace.
But now he’d gone. Thea had driven him and Murphy back to his, and she was left rattling around here.
The stillness was complete, the sea barely whispered above the rain, and autumn was handing over to winter.
Murphy’s four paws weren’t padding across her living room carpet, he wasn’t flopping down in front of the warm fire, dreaming about chasing squirrels.
It was too quiet.
As the early evening darkness crept in, the lamp behind her cast her own reflection in the glass. Her sullen face looked sulky, and she frowned at herself before turning away.
She could go out, have a drive, maybe stop somewhere. She slid her hands into her warm soft pockets and looked down. Thick pink socks and dark-green jogging pants looked back up at her. She grinned at her feet and shrugged.
“Well, I’m not getting changed again.” So she clearly wasn’t going anywhere.
She peered down the hallway as the headlights reflected through her front porch window, and a car pulled onto her drive.
Opening the front door, Jess leant against the door jamb as Thea parked the rumbling Land Rover. Despite the well-cared-for engine, the bodywork had definitely seen better days.
Jess grinned as her sister clambered out, with her long-legged Labrador pup close at her heels as they made a mad dash for the house.
Poppy skidded into the hallway, tail wagging furiously as she grinned up at Jess, her bright brown eyes full of mischief and laughter.
“Well, aren’t you happy with yourself, young lady.” Jess used both hands to smooth her silky, soft ears, rubbing her cheek against Poppy’s.
The young pup’s bubbly energy filtered through her palms. The innocent joy warmed her heart, and Jess made sure to give her a wink and a smile.
Thea shut the door on the wind and rain, and leant back against it, blowing upwards against her curly blonde bangs that hung in her eyes.
“It’s filthy out there!” With a laugh, she hugged Jess tight.
Jess took a moment to let her sister’s beautiful calmness sink into her, even if she was dripping wet.
“And what brings you out on this disgusting night?” Jess held the cuff of Thea’s enormous raincoat, pulling as Thea attempted to extract herself from its folds. Poppy pranced around their feet, thoroughly enjoying this new game.
“Marc is up to his eyes trying to get his patient files together so we can go up to York for a couple of weeks. I thought I'd give him some peace, and as you’ve been broadcasting your misery so loudly for the last couple of hours, I figured you could use some company.”
Jess rolled her eyes and headed to the kitchen, muttering under her breath, “I haven't been that bad.”
“Oh please, you’ve been sending out moany vibes all evening.”
Giving her sister an ‘oh really’ look, Jess filled the kettle and placed it on the gas, busying herself getting cups from the cupboard.
She turned to find Thea leaning against the sink, with Poppy calmly sitting at her heels.
Within days of being back in the bay, it hadn’t taken Jess long to discover that Thea was in the depths of heartbreak. She thanked the goddess daily that Adam had been incapacitated for long enough that Thea and Marc had managed to work it all out, before he could wade in like a bull in a china shop.
Now she was all loved up, and they were living in and out of each other's houses, raising the beautiful Poppy between them.
She expected engagement announcements any day now, and she couldn’t wait for a hectic, noisy wedding.
“Have I really been broadcasting that badly?” Jess let out a sigh, shaking her dark hair back from her face. “I don’t miss him or anything.” The words sounded defensive even to her, and Thea’s little chuckle didn't make her feel any better.
“Of course you don’t. That’s why you’re moping about this place in god-awful sweat pants at six o’clock in the evening.”
“I like these sweat pants.”
Jess spooned jasmine tea leaves into the pot, and breathed in the aroma as she poured boiling water over them. “It’s crazy, Thea. Come yesterday morning I was ready to kill him. And I’m not even kidding. But this place is so quiet without him and Murph.”
She stirred the pot and left it to steep before turning to face her sister. “And I like my own company, dammit.” She dropped the spoon on the side with a clatter, continuing to frown at Thea. “And don't you stand there smiling.”
Jess let Thea usher her into a chair at the kitchen table, before her sister went back to carry over the tea things.
“I’ve been smiling since the two of you came home. You know how much I love having you both here.”
Jess felt a slight lift in her dark mood, and offered Thea a self-deprecating smile. “I know—so have I. I’m being an idiot. I’ve enjoyed having Adam under my feet, even enjoyed him being a royal pain in the ass.” Leaning round Thea, she offered Poppy a smile and held out a biscuit.
With a lot more enthusiasm than manners, her tail propelled her to Jess for the treat, before thumping rhythmically against the hardwood floor as she sat. “And it’s Murphy I miss more than Adam, isn’t that right, Poppy, hmmm?”
Jess figured Poppy would agree with just about anything she said for another biscuit, and with a laugh she rubbed her yellow chin. “Good girl.”
Picking up her cup, she wrapped her hands around the warm china, glad Thea had turned up to save her from her pity-party-for-one.
“I’m totally with you. I missed Murph something awful. He was with me the whole summer; my place was so empty without him. But now look! I have this mischievous Miss to contend with.”
Poppy looked between the two of them, soaking up being the center of attention.
“How do you think Adam will manage being back at his place?”
Jess rolled her eyes. “Who knows? He’s still in the cast, he’s got stairs to cope with, and Murphy glued to his side, checking that he’s okay every minute of the day.” She air quoted the okay, and grinned a little at that thought. “But at least he only has himself to moan to.” Placing her cup down, she looked up at Thea. “Did you speak to him about Sarah?”
The energy in the warm kitchen thickened around them, and Jess knew with certainty that at the mention of her name their ancestor was making her presence known.
Thea’s brown eyes locked with Jess’s, as they both acknowledged they were no longer alone.
“I tried. I said that she’d come to me, to apologize. I was starting to explain that she had offered us the choice of being able to give our magic back. But I didn’t get that far. He cut me off, saying ‘the past is done, we can’t change it.’ Then he stomped off before I could get into his thick skull, that’s precisely what he could do, if he wanted to.”
Jess shook her head, going back to frowning—seemingly her default expression on this wet, wintery evening. “I don’t understand him. If magic makes him so angry, then he needs to talk about it. To us. Magic is a part of who we are now, and I certainly don’t want to give mine back. Doesn’t he want to know where we came from? I mean, you wouldn’t have Marc if things had been different.”
Thea set her cup down, her expression very solemn. “And I nearly didn’t. When I finally understood that my best friend and my partner were both tied to me because of Sarah’s actions I thought I’d lose them. I thought I’d have to… I don’t know… let them go or give them up or something. There’s still so much left to understand about how our two families are tied together.”
Jess stared into her cup as she sipped, still certain that Adam knew more than he was letting on.
As she got to the bottom, the shadowy leaves churned in the last few remaining sips, and as she’d always done, she passed the cup to Thea.
Wrapping both hands around the cup, Thea turned it three times, before setting it down on the table, peering inside.
It always irked Jess that she’d never been able to read the cards or the leaves, but it wasn’t her skill to master. Thea’s gift was in reading the future, and Jess’s in reading the past.
She watched as Thea formed a circle above the cup, and pooled magic in her palms; the silvery-green sparks formed around her hands and the leaves rose, flitting like birds inside the bubble she had created.
As children, their grandmother had taught them to read leaves, the old fashioned way—by tipping them into the saucer. Jess smiled as she imagined how happy Nanna would be now, to see them use the magic she’d always believed was inside them.
As Thea waited for the images to become clear, the energy around them thrummed with power, as the spirits took their place in the ether.
“The river is calling you back.” Thea’s voice became hushed as she offered what the spirits revealed. “The crown symbolizes a royal request. The balance scales sway wildly, everything is out of kilter. You must make a choice as to where your loyalties lie.”
Thea released her breath, and little taps against the window let them know the spirits had left.
Coming to her feet, Jess took a tin of mint humbugs from the cupboard, and placing six in a smooth crystal bowl, she put it on the window ledge, whispering her thanks.
“Well, clearly the leaves think you’re going on some new journey. Where are you off to?”
Sitting back down, Jess idly stroked Poppy’s soft head as she laid it in her lap offering comfort, thinking of all the leaves had revealed.
“We've got a new exhibition due to open at the Museum—that could represent the royal request. The last of the artifacts has been arriving this week, and I know Jason is eager to start getting it all sorted. He’d brought another historian on board just before I left, so at least he’s had help.”
Jess carefully cleared her mind as she talked about Seb, not wanting Thea to ask questions. It’s not like she knew the answers anyway. A few hours asleep in his arms, and she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
“I've done as much of the legwork from here as I can, and as much as I enjoy being here with you two fools, I'll have to get back before the end of the week.” She raised a brow at Thea, shrugging off the nerves at the thought of seeing Seb. “When are you off to York?”
Catching the knowing look Thea leveled at her, Jess knew that she’d only briefly been let off the hook.
“I've got two weeks off when term breaks, and I think we’re aiming to spend as much of that in York as possible. So I’ve got a couple of days to get sorted, by which time Adam’s leg should be in a lighter cast. Which means it should be okay to leave him.” Thea waited a beat before raising her brows at Jess with a grin. “Right?”
Jess laughed at how ridiculous they were being. “He's a grown man! Why are we running around after him?”
Thea pushed up from the table and put her own cup in the sink and Jess’s on the window ledge. “Beats me.” She gestured at the cup. “Don't forget to return those leaves to the Earth.”
She called Poppy to follow as she headed out of the kitchen.
Jess opened the front door and stared out at the rain, as Poppy sat down next to her while Thea wrestled with her coat.
Hugging her sister tight, Thea looked up at her. “I bet you can’t wait to get back to London. The bay is still a bit too quiet for you.”
There was no question in her words, and Jess just nodded.
As Thea and Poppy drove away, she looked up at the heavy clouds, breathing deeply. Salt tinged the air, as did the scent of the falling leaves. The street was silent, and the orange street lights glared down at the pavement.
London was never silent. Neither was Rome or Sydney, or any number of the other beautiful places she’d been lucky enough to go to.
But she’d loved the peace she’d found here in these last weeks.
Turning back into the warm, she shut the door, mentally packing her case. She was heading off to Cologne at the weekend, not London, she was booked to evaluate a religious relic next week. Why had the leaves seen the river?
Picking her phone up from the kitchen side, the incoming message buzzed in her hand.
The V&A needs you more than Cologne.
Can you be in LDN by Friday?
Skype me and I’ll explain.
Jason
That answered that question, then. The light chuckle on the air had her poking her tongue out to a last remaining spirit. “That’s a quick answer, even for you guys.” She felt the laughter surround her before hearing a final tap against the window, leaving her completely alone, and glancing at the empty crystal bowl on the window ledge, she realized she’d been fleeced of mint humbugs too.
Texting him back, she pressed ‘send’ before dropping the phone on the coffee table and turning to the fire. She placed some logs on the dwindling embers, and gave it a zap with her right hand, sending the fire snapping to life. Everything accomplished, she headed to the fridge for a glass of wine.
Her laptop was jangling madly as she headed back to the couch, wine in hand.
Flopping into the cushiony goodness, she propped her feet up on the coffee table and dragged her laptop in front of her, sipping the crisp pinot.
Jason’s darkly handsome face appeared before her on the screen.
“Calling me straight back, goodness, I’m honored. Shouldn’t you be out, romancing some young thing?”
His own glass came into view, as he toasted his wine towards her. “Cheers.”
Nodding back, she raised hers. “Slainte.”
He sipped his glass of red, giving her a croaky chuckle. “We’re going Irish today, then? That’s fitting.” His voice trailed away before he suddenly realized what she’d said. “And no, in answer to your question, there is no ‘young thing’. I’m giving them up.”
Offering him an inelegant snort, she settled in for catch-up. He’d been her boss for five years, but her best friend much longer. “Oh really. Now that sounds like there’s a story there. What’s up?”
His usual smile faded as his gaze strayed to his own fire, and as he exhaled he relaxed back into his sofa, letting his guard down. His feelings of exhaustion and worry hit her like a bitter wind, and she leant closer to the screen, almost reaching out to him.
Snapping his stark blue gaze back to her, he shook his head, wrenching his hand back through his short dark hair.
“Jase, all this over a girl. What happened?”
There was no humor in his laugh. “It’s not a girl. I wish it was—wish I’d had the time.”
She looked out of her patio doors, watching the now bitterly cold rain fall in heavy splats. Just the thought of the drenching she’d get rushing up to London at this hour had her shivering, but she steeled herself against it, pushing to her feet. “I’m on my way—”
“No! No, gods, no. I’m not helpless, Jess, just let me blather on for a bit while I drink my wine, okay?”
He too had come to his feet to stop her flying out the door, and they both slowly eased back into their chairs.
“Okay, start talking. And, Buster, if I’m still worried I’m coming back tonight.”
His pained chuckle and slight smile made her feel a little better.
He took a healthy swig of wine before taking a deep breath, like he was getting ready to run a marathon.
“Firstly, nothing is wrong with me. I’ve let someone down, and I think he might have been exposed because I didn’t read the situation right.”
“Exposed?” Jess pulled in a breath of her own. “How?”
“I sent him out on a valuation of what I’d assumed was a fake.” He went quiet, his chin falling to his chest, and Jess heard all the things he wasn’t saying.
“You mean you’d have normally sent me, just in case.” His silence was all the answer she needed, and she wondered at the sanity of feeling guilty for needing to be with her family. “What was the artifact?”
The screen tipped from Jason’s end as he jostled the laptop, trying to rub the headache from his temples. “I won’t lie, Jess. I would’ve sent you, and it would’ve been just in case. But he’s good, with a real eye, and I was so bloody certain it was a fake.”
“Jason. By the goddess, tell me what it was!” Her heart was pounding in her chest; anxiety crawled up her spine. The unusual touch of fear had her gripping the laptop.
“It was the Ardagh Chalice.”
Still leaning forward, she blinked, wondering if she’d heard him. “Ardagh?” She mentally flipped through her knowledge of European exhibitions. “It’s a chalice… It’s in Ireland, in Dublin at the National Museum. It’s…” Her voice faded away as they stared at each other. Seventy miles sat between them, but she could feel the tension pouring from him as if he were in the room. “Jason?”
“It’s not in the National Museum in Dublin—that’s what I was doing there while you were in Rome. As I understand now, it’s never been there.”
Jess sat, waiting for the missing link in this chain of events.
“I got a random email, with photos of the chalice on dated newspapers, and some video footage. Even if it wasn’t the Ardagh Chalice, the workmanship was spectacular. And it was old. Ancient. Maybe a duplicate—it’s not the first time we’ve seen that sort of thing, is it?”
Grappling with her patience, Jess gritted her teeth. It’s a good job he was in London. Raising her eyes to the ceiling she took a deep breath, keeping her silence.
“Seb has a real gift with religious relics. He knew it was real the minute he laid eyes on it, and he knew they’d bolt if he tried to arrange a collection or exchange. So he wired the money straight over and left with it. In a bloody rucksack.”
“Seb.” She whispered his name as dread dropped through her. “You sent Seb because I was here in the bay?” Her voice cracked as guilt and fear filled her.
“No! Gods, no. It was before…when you were in Rome. That’s why I sent him with you to the gala dinner. But I couldn’t bloody get hold of you to explain why, because I had to fly to Ireland to learn more about the bloody poxy chalice.”
“We were followed.” Jess stared at him. “I thought it was me—but they were following him.”
Jason went wholly still as she spoke. “When?”
“The night of the gala, we walked home through St. James’s park.” She swallowed the panic, her mind racing a mile a minute. “I know there’s all kinds of things wandering around London, but they don’t usually bother me. I just assumed something foolish had picked up my signature.”
“What happened?”
“I, uh…a mirror spell gave it a shock. But it tracked us to the hotel, where I sent it on its way. Hard.”
Releasing his held breath he rubbed his brow. “`Jesus, Jess, mirror magic! How did you keep Seb from seeing?”
She lifted her glass, taking more of a gulp than a sip. “It all just fell into place. I’d hoped I’d given it enough of a warning… Has it come back?”
Jason shrugged. “I don’t know. The chalice is locked up at the museum, but it must have a powerful pull. It’s drawing all sorts to it, so I’ve called in a favor and had the protection spell amped up.”
Dread ballooned, the sound of her shallow breaths filled her head. “What is the chalice?”
“It’s purported to have re-animative qualities. Hence the reason it isn’t in the Dublin Museum where it’s supposed to be. Filled with the right substance it can rejuvenate a husk.”
Jess stilled, hysterical laughter bubbling up within her. “A husk? You mean a dead vampire?”
All that greeted her was his silence.
Her mouth dried out as she looked at him. “I thought they’d just about died out.” Her words sounded foolish, she knew, fundamentally, that anything could survive as long as it could hide within the boundaries of humanity. All they had to do was feign civility, and mankind did that every day.
“Seb left Scotland with it, and travelled for a day and a half with the chalice on his person. Anyone with any kind of radar for power or old energy will have picked it up. And his scent with it. That’s the second time he’s had a near miss, and he has no idea what he’s done.”
Jason’s image jerked from the screen as he came to his feet, pent-up rage and fear forcing him to move. She watched as he placed the laptop on the table and began to pace. His voice coming in and out.
“I’ve found every reason possible to keep him either at the Museum or with me, but the exhibition opens Friday, and I need you here. You’ll pick up outside energy much quicker than I will. Can you find some way to cloak him—or strip him of the chalice’s imprint?”
Jess shook her head, trying to silence the roaring panic in her brain so she could think. “That kind of spell craft just isn’t in my wheelhouse, and you know that interfering with humanity always has a backlash. That’s why I didn’t cloak him before I left, it would just raise the magical stamp on him.”
She too began to pace, discarding ideas as she worked them through. “You say this is his second near miss with the esoteric world?”
She heard ice hit crystal before he came back into focus, with a large scotch in hand. “Yeah. He was in Canada a few months back, they had one hell of a snow storm and he had a run in with a loup-garou.”
“A loup-g…a werewolf. Jeez, Jase, why not just call it a werewolf?”
“Loup-garou are wild, completely wild—not like lyke. This one must’ve fed recently, as from what I can gather, all he did was give Seb a hell of a fright. He phoned me from the hospital, in Canada. He was pretty delirious, and drugged up.” Releasing a sigh he shook his head. “By the time I got to him a day later, he was his usual self, saying the cold had disoriented him.” Jason went back to sipping his scotch.
Focusing her thoughts, she tried to push her worry for Seb to the back of her mind. She’d never be able to think clearly with panic clambering to take hold. “Fate has her hand in this, Jason. Surely you can see that? You can’t swim against the tide of what is meant. Fate will find a way to get what it wants. We just need to figure out what that is. Do you think he’s being hunted?”
“I don’t know.” The urgency in his voice sent shivers skittering up her spine. “Jess, he’s my friend. I know we can’t alter fate, but we can try to sway events in our favor… So what can we do?”
She grabbed the laptop and put it up on the kitchen side. “Okay.” She took a deep breath, briefly closing her eyes to quieten her mind. “Okay.” She moved a book that she’d left out, sliding it back onto the shelf, straightening others while she was there.
As she rolled different choices around, following the actions through, trying to guesstimate possible outcomes, Jason spoke. “The chalice will only be here for another three days. By Saturday evening it will be on its way, heading somewhere safe and secure.”
Just because the chalice would no longer be their problem, didn’t mean anything for Sebastian.
“I could clear the chalice; it might stop the strength of its emanation. Which might muddy the waters.” She pursed her lips as she looked at Jason. “I could do the same for him—clear his etheric field, but goddess knows how we’d explain it. It’s not something that would work without his consent.”
She leant back against the worktop, crossing her arms. “You know as well as I do, that any kind of magical signature will mark him. And a human walking around London, with knowledge of our world—no matter how small—will make him fair game. We can’t do that to him.”
Closing the laptop she curled up on the sofa, laying her head on hands as she stared into the fire.
Jason had been her best friend since school, she always wondered if they’d recognized that there was something other about themselves. And even as a teenager, when he was growing into making his first full change, she’d never seen him this agitated.
He’d gone straight to work at the museum when she’d gone to uni, and he’d worked every hour, proving his worth. When he’d begun the prestigious role of heading up the Exhibitions Department for the Victoria and Albert Museum, he’d brought her on board.
She’d studied constantly. Trying to make sure her knowledge of the industry was solid. She’d always felt a little uncomfortable with having a gifted advantage; being able to read the relics just by touching them.
Over the last three years, their department at the Museum had become a little more select, and although they still managed exhibitions all over the world, they were handy backup for the authorities in cases of historical art theft and fraud.
She often ended up appraising bits of junk in dirty back rooms, for questionable clientele. But he didn’t have to worry about her.
Jason had made it his business to isolate the more dangerous items, seeing them out of harm’s way—out of human way. And she’d ended up as some kind of comic sidekick, crazily backing his crusade.
But things were different now. Seb was clearly important to Jason, and in the blink of an eye he’d become important to her.