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“Come on, man,” Wilder said.
“No, you can be her lapdog all you want, but I’m sick of having her crook her finger and expecting me to do whatever she asks.”
That last bit rankled me enough I remembered I was able to speak up for myself. “Hey. The stable called, they want their high horse back.”
Everyone fell silent.
Behold the power of my terrible comebacks.
I plowed ahead before anyone could comment, because I could tell Santiago was just itching to say something. “Need I remind you that you called me. I was busy. I had a police investigation to deal with, a pack to run, I had a life that had nothing to do with you anymore. But you called me. And I came, because I wanted to help you. And when it turned out helping you meant helping your new girlfriend, did I say no? No. I fucking helped. So before you start crawling up my ass about how selfish I am, maybe remember I have better fucking things to do than to drive out here and save your idiot girlfriend’s life. Because guess what? This is all. Her. Fault.”
The silence drew out, extending beyond the point of a lull to something genuinely uncomfortable. I wasn’t going to speak first, though. I’d said my peace, and I felt totally justified in every single word.
Cash’s rage didn’t seem to dissipate at all. “How dare you blame her?”
Santiago was the one who spoke this time, saying matter-of-factly, “She’s here, isn’t she? Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
Cash wanted to refuse. I could see the willful obstinance in his expression. He’d say no just so he could keep one foot on the high ground rather than yield a single inch that might prove us right. Tansy, however, had been listening to the whole argument, and she came out of hiding so she was standing a few feet behind Cash, distancing herself from the rest of us. She wore a light blue sweater and jeans—not at all the same ensemble Gamigan-Tansy had been wearing earlier—but she still looked cold. She’d wrapped her arms around herself, and all the color had drained from her face.
“They’re right.” Her voice was so quiet I thought I might be imagining that she’d spoken. When Cash gave her a Come again? look, she said it louder. “They’re right. This is my fault.”
“Hey now. I know you feel responsible for those girls, but you can’t be the one to protect them all. This isn’t on you.”
She let him get through the whole sentence but was shaking her head the entire time. “No, Cash. This is my fault. Not in a roundabout way, not in a symbolic way. The demon in that room is there because of me.”
“What you mean?”
Santiago snorted. “Grow a brain, pal. It means she summoned a demon.”
Cash kept his attention on Tansy, but there was no way he hadn’t heard what Santiago said. Tansy did nothing to deny it, either. She continued to shift nervously, rubbing her arms, and then she burst into tears.
“I d-didn’t mean to.”
Oh God, was she seriously going to play this up like an accident? I had a lot of patience, but for her to claim this was one big whoops-a-daisy wasn’t going to fly.
“Tansy, what are they talking about?” Cash closed the gap between them, her crying obviously causing him distress. “Baby, talk to me.” He tried to put his arms around her, but she wrenched herself free, sobbing so loud it echoed off the stone walls.
“You have to believe me.” She only had eyes for me with this statement, pleading openly for me to say I bought into what she was selling. The trouble was, I didn’t.
“I’m sorry, Tansy, but no one calls up a demon by accident. That’s not how it works. There are people who train for decades just to be able to do it intentionally. I was raised by one of the most powerful witches in North America, and demon magic is so dark even she won’t touch it. So, no, I didn’t mean to doesn’t cut it.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Listen, we’re going to help you regardless of how it happened. But enough crap. Tell us what happened so we can help.”
This time she looked at Cash, and I knew she was debating how much the truth was going to make him hate her. She had summoned a demon and been responsible for at least two deaths, but she was still worried about what her boyfriend thought of her.
What a world.
She turned and withdrew into the empty fortress, and we hesitated before following her. I felt pretty confident this was the real Tansy, but I also didn’t trust her. She had called up Gamigan, after all, so it was hard to say what hidden power she might have. I wasn’t about to let my guard down for a second.
I led the way into the building, but Wilder—still in bodyguard mode—was right at my heels, with Cash and Santiago bringing up the rear. A few benches had been installed inside the building for tourists, and she took a seat on one of the stone slabs, burying her face in her hands. Her shoulders trembled for a few moments, and I was about to interrupt her sobfest when she sat upright, wiping tears from her round cheeks with the back of her hand.
It was hard not to feel some sympathy for her. She just looked so damned pitiful.
I had no intention of offering her comfort though, no matter what my humanitarian urges were.
Santiago didn’t care about her story. He was pacing around the interior of the fort, checking the distance between the walls, and then settling on a spot he liked, he pulled a huge bag of salt from his tote and started measuring out a large circle. Wilder, watching him work, stepped out of the way before he was in the middle of the ceremony space. Cash, too, was watching the witch work, but in spite of the confusion in his expression he didn’t ask any questions.
