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Beatriceflowedso she was chest-to-chest with him. “Do not think for a moment that I want her to die. I thought she’d have enough sense to learn more before drawing his attention, but there are contingency plans. Always. I will not let him destroy my legacy.”
Eli turned away from her, saying only, “One hour. Then I go after my wife, and damn the consequences.”
22
ALLIE
Allie wasn’t ready to deal with that sidewinder of a man, but she disconnected the call and sighed. “Got to go, Aunt Glory. Geneviève needs me.”
“You just got here! You tell that boss of yours that you’ll be there five minutes before the pope starts wearing frilly knickers.” Glory finished her sentence with a slap on the kitchen table.
Luckily the coffee was down to the dregs, so nothing spilled.
“She’s been taken hostage,” Allie clarified.
“Well, that’s different.” Glory pushed back from the table with a screech of chair in the visible grooves from prior outrages. She was an expert in temper, drama, and ass whuppings. “You need to get anything from the closet?”
Glory Nichols was somewhere between forty and sixty-five. No one really knew, but the woman had smoked so many packs of menthol cigarettes that she had that vaguely mummified look going on. The smokes and the tanning salon made her expressions always seem over-exaggerated, as if she needed to verbalize what her muscles no longer revealed.
“Grab your purse, girlie.” Glory marched out to the Closet of Surprises, which—though the name remained—had grown and evolved into an entire spare room these days. Glory claimed that it was “on account of these neck biters,” but the truth was that Glory had always had an experimental streak in her. It’s why no one thought it was particularly odd when her second husband had walked into the grocery, started shoving packages of discount burgers into his trousers, and waited until someone called the sheriff. He’d had to stop and restart his theft a few times before he was finally arrested. Jail was better than facing his wife when she was in a vengeful spirit.
“What about a varmint trap?” Glory pointed at what looked like a bear trap with an external battery wired onto it. “Stopped more than a few of those biters with that one.”
“New invention?” Allie studied it, not touching the contraption.
“Last year.” Glory held up what looked like bear spray containers. “This one is a holy water base with a salt and cayenne juice.”
“Holy water doesn’t work ondraugr,” Allie pointed out.
“Sotheysaid, but they don’t always tell the truth, do they?” Glory snorted. “Raised you better than this, girlie. Can’t trust the government.”
Allie nodded.
“I have a fae one I was working on, too. Not perfect, but it’s a salt and iron one. Miss Billie? You remember her? She has that little herbal store, selling tinctures and tonics, though if you ask me they’re mostly moonshine with some things floating in it, but she gets around those liquor laws by adding herbs, so who am I to argue? Anyhow, she had this iron supplement one, and so I bought it up and dehydrated it to lower the liquid, you know?” Glory paused, obviously waiting for a response.
“Clever,” Allie dutifully supplied.
“Isn’t it? So I evaporated a bunch of the ‘shine. Now it’s more iron but in a purse size.” Glory held it out to Allie. “Go on. Take it. You can be my field tester.”
Allie took it, a few tiny smoke bombs, a stick or three of dynamite, and she dropped them into her purse.
Glory must’ve seen something on Allie’s face, though, because she paused and patted Allie’s cheek. Then she said, “You need me to call up some of your cousins? Nothing they got over there will stop the boys from coming back home if they go with you for back-up.”
Allie felt like the weight of a mountain slid off her shoulders. “Would they mind?”
“Not if I tell them not to,” Glory announced with the surety of a woman who never saw a river too deep, a rock too heavy, or a person too stubborn. Glory did what she wanted, and damn the fool who tried to stop her.
“You know you’re my idol,” Allie called after her.
Her aunt’s laughter was a thing of joy. This, of course, was the part that most folks didn’t understand about Alice Chaddock. She was a Nichols’ girl first. She was a backwoods, mountain bred, sass slinging, country music singing, take no guff kind of woman. She’d figured out poise and polish—layered it on like the foundations and powders, designer labels and expensive jewelry—but under it all, her roots were fed on a rather liberal understanding of the law.
Not an hour later, Allie and five of her cousins stood in the yard outside Glory’s house.
Not thirty minutes later, they were at a doorway, a place where Allie herself could open a passage toElphame.She knew it was because of the bracelet that Marcus had given her—which she clutched in her hand now—but she also understood that it was because he was trying to trick her. Woo her. Court her. And do it without admitting that he wasn’treallyher friend.
She slid open the passageway, motioned her cousins in, and then she stepped inside.
Guards, of course, greeted her. They had orders not to harm her, and she was hoping that was enough to keep her family safe, too, but then again, the dirty snake had tried to ruin the boss’ marriage—and agreed to let Geneviève get murdered.
