CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Erin yawned and went on her toes to reach the cereal on the top shelf.
“Which one of you tall bitches keeps putting the best cereal on the top shelf?” she demanded.
“If it’s not easy to get, we won’t eat it,” one of her actor sister-Crows informed her.
“Deal with your eating disorder on your own time.” Erin released her wings and let them carry her up until she could reach the cereal. She grabbed a box, pulled in her wings, and landed on her feet.
That’s when Jace ran into the middle of the kitchen and screamed, “I figured it out!”
When the Crows just stared at her, she asked, “Aren’t you excited?”
Erin yawned. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh. Right!” Then she laughed.
“I warned you guys,” Annalisa suddenly announced. “Having a normal sexual relationship with someone was going to push her over the edge.”
“No, no,” Jace argued. “That’s been great. He loves me.”
“Did he say that?” Erin asked, worried for her extremely naïve friend.
“He said I drive him crazy.”
“Well,” Erin said after a brief pause, “for Vikings . . .”
“That is ‘I love you,’ ” the Crows said in unison.
“If you haven’t gone over the proverbial edge,” Annalisa asked between sips of her morning coffee, “then why are you talking to us? You hate talking to people.”
Jace’s grin was so wide you’d have thought she’d discovered a sustainable energy source that would make everyone happy and end oil wars.
“I think I know how to send Gullveig out of this plane of existence.”
“How?”
“The spell I used to bullshit the Carrion?” Erin nodded since it had just happened a few hours ago. “It’s a spell I found in one of those old books the Protectors took from the Russians. In the same book, there were two spells that I think will work. The first will allow us to force Gullveig into a contained space surrounded by a protective circle that Gullveig will not be able to get out of. That circle is literally called the God Keeper.”
“The second spell?”
“That one will send her out of this world and trap her in another.”
“Basically what Odin and the others did to her originally.”
“Exactly. Once she’s there, we’ll have a little time to find a way to destroy her, so when she comes back—because we all know she’ll come back—we’ll be ready.”
“Sounds great.”
“Just one problem.”
“Of course there is. So what’s the problem?”
“It’s gonna cost us some favors.”
“So? We’ll call in some favors.”
“Not from any of us,” Jace admitted. “Believe it or not, I think only Betty can get us this level of favor in the shortest amount of time.”
“Betty—who’s still in a coma? That Betty?”
“We’ve tried everything,” Alessandra reminded her. “We can’t wake her up.”
Jace cringed a little. “I think I know who has enough power to do that.”
Erin remembered not being able to speak for a good five minutes. Like someone was pinching her voice box. It was a feeling she had not enjoyed.
“I’m already unhappy,” Erin complained.
Jace winced in sympathy. “Yeah . . . kinda knew you would be.”
Jace watched her grandmother push her way into the Bird House.
Chloe went to greet the elderly woman. “Hello, Mrs. . . . uh . . . what should I call you?”
Nëna looked Chloe over, didn’t seem to like what she saw, and turned to Jace. “Where is she?”
Jace didn’t bother chastising her grandmother. It was ineffective. So she simply led her up the stairs to Betty’s room.
Nëna walked to the bed, carefully placing down her tote bag with “I heart quilting” silk-screened on it before putting her hand on Betty’s forehead, as if taking her temperature. She closed her eyes and Jace knew her grandmother was exploring, searching for wherever Betty might be.
After about five minutes, Nëna opened her eyes and reached into her tote. The top of the bag held material one might use for a quilt, but she dug under the fabric squares until she found an old wooden box.
Placing the box on the bed, she carefully unlatched the metal lock and lifted the top.
She removed a bottle of oil and opened it. The oil was rose-scented. Rather pleasant.
Nëna anointed Betty’s forehead, nose, and chin with the oil and put the stopper back in and returned it to the box. She closed the box, relocked it, and put the box back in the tote, covering it with her quilting material.
She then leaned in and whispered into Betty’s ear, chanting something very ancient and powerful.
When Nëna was done, she leaned back and waited.
Betty’s eyes snapped open and Jace grinned.
But Betty didn’t move. She didn’t blink. She just stared at the ceiling. She was still lost.
If Jace’s grandmother couldn’t wake her, then no one—
“What would you say to wake her up?” Nëna asked the group of Crows hanging outside the room. “Something that would catch her attention.”
“Good attention or bad attention?” Jace asked.
“Bad is always better in these cases.”
“Oh, I can do that.” Yardley slipped into the room, placing her hands on Nëna’s shoulders to ease her away.
Nëna’s hands went up and her entire body tensed. Jace realized she’d often looked like that when she’d been innocently touched.
“God, I’m just like her,” Jace muttered.
Yardley leaned over Betty, gently pushed her hair off her face, and softly smiled. Then she yelled, “Brianna stole your client list! And your Bentley limo!”
Betty’s eyes suddenly moved and her hands were around Yardley’s throat. She was also already in the middle of screaming, “Bitchhhhhhhhhh!”
As the other Crows dove on the bed to get Betty to release Yardley before she killed her, Nëna picked up her tote and walked out of the room. Jace followed.
“Aren’t you going to let me thank you?” she asked her grandmother.
“Why?”
“If you didn’t want to help me, why did you?”
Nëna faced her. “You called. I helped. We’re family.”
“Even now?” Jace asked her. “After I took an oath to a god?”
“It was stupid. You have the mind to be like me. That’s what I was grooming you for. But you chose. You can never choose. None of them. I told you that.”
“I couldn’t let him get away with what he’d done to me.”
Nëna wagged a finger at her. “Always with the rage, little inat. Just like your father. Now you’re trapped with these”—her lip curled—“people.”
“I love these people, Nëna.”
“They’re not family. Not your family.”
“They are now. They’re my family. I love every one of them. Just as much as I love you.”
“They’re not blood.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Jace shrugged. “They’d all die for me. And I would for them.”
“You would, wouldn’t you? Stupid girl.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Good! There is nothing left to say.”
Assuming her grandmother would leave, Jace was shocked when Nëna slapped her hand against Jace’s jaw, squeezing a bit.
“Owwwww!Stophittingme, old woman!”
Nëna removed her hand, but where her fingers had touched Jace’s skin, she could feel . . . power.
“What did you do to me?” Jace covered the throbbing spot with her hand.
“Do not forget where you come from, ridiculous child! Do not forget who you are. And never forget that you’re mine. My blood. Never forget. I have not forgotten. And protecting you is my only goal. Even when you are so damn stupid!”
Then spinning on her tiny, bright-white Keds, Nëna stormed out.