Sixpence & Whiskey Read online

  Those eyes soften for just a moment. “Don’t be scared, Seph. This is for your own good.”

  “Are you completely psycho, fur brain? I haven’t fucked you yet. And you think I’m gonna start under duress?”

  I’ve never actually screwed Georg. We’ve come close, sure, but…. I come close with a lot of guys. And I do mean a lot. But I decided long ago being the original prick tease is the only way to go. Meaning I never go all the way. Meaning Jack is the only one who actually went there.

  I try not to make too much of that.

  It’s just—after what happened with him—I made rules. Lots of rules.

  “You know I’ll win you over, Seph.” That growly voice is full of a casual arrogance that only pisses me off more, mostly because there’s a decent chance he’s right. Georg and I go way back—almost to the cradle. We have a history, and before this last year most of it was good history.

  Well, except a few memorable nights drenched in tequila. Ugh. Tequila. Bruins love the stuff for some damn reason, they swill it like water, but I’m not a fan. Tequila’s my alcohol kryptonite.

  Georg always convinces me to give it another go, though—mostly because he finds the consequences a lot funnier than I do. Usually, he’s a riot. Not so much right now.

  “Dream on!” I snap, wriggling in his arms, until I realize he’s laughing at me.

  “I do, Seph. A lot. And we’ll see what you have to say when we’re back at the Den and I’ve got these pretty thighs wrapped around my head. You like my mouth, Sephie, you like it a lot.” His growl in my ear makes me punch his arm.

  Georg only laughs and nibbles my neck. The shivers that usually make an appearance about now are conspicuously absent. My eyes dart back to the point where Jack vanished.

  Georg is a damn good lover, what I’ve had of him anyway. And he’s right, I really do like his mouth, but if he thinks this shotgun wedding shit is going to fly, he’s—

  “That’s my baby sister you’re molesting there, bruin.”

  3

  Thank the horned one.

  My sister’s a stone-cold bitch, but I’m freaking thrilled to see Jett right now. She’s a witch, too. All four of us are.

  Yup, Mother Goose had four daughters. I’m the youngest.

  Turns out nursery rhymes are actually spells. That pretty illustrated children’s book everyone grew up with is the world’s biggest grimoire. My mother figured out long ago that simple meter and rhyme are the best tools for shaping magic. Mom’s brilliant, but nuts, whereas Jett is brilliant and badass.

  My second oldest sister’s over a hundred years old, but named after Joan Jett. Mom got bored with the nineteenth century and skipped forward for a while around the time she got pregnant with Jett. She does that a lot, bounces back and forth in time. She’s a flibbertigibbet.

  Mom, not Jett.

  Jett has cropped black hair (dyed; she’s really a blond, like the rest of us) and looks a bit like her namesake.

  She stalks toward us, hair flying like a tattered flag behind her. I can almost hear the cavalry music in my head. Though something by Five Finger Death Punch might be more apropos.

  The gleaming hilt of a sword peeks over her shoulder as she kicks pieces of taconite out of her way. I can hear the raw bits of iron plopping into the water below one by one. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.

  “Jett, what an unexpected pleasure.” Georg’s face pales above his beard.

  I don’t blame him. My sister is scary. Plus, she hates shifters—particularly the bear variety. She’s got this rug in her room, the softest damn pelt you ever felt. Rumor has it that it’s from an ex-lover. I can’t confirm or deny, but let’s just say Jett is not someone you want to fuck with. Like ever.

  She smiles at Georg, and I swear I feel him tremble. Six feet, six inches and two hundred odd pounds of shifter about to piss himself. It’d be funny if I wasn’t in the firing zone. I take a small step sideways, easing away from his hips, but that massive arm tightens at my waist. He straightens, unmindful that my toes are now dangling half a foot above the walkway.

  “Let’s be reasonable, sisko. I do not want a family squabble, but—”

  “Reasonable, Kivistö? Reasonable isn’t kidnapping a woman who doesn’t want you, and squabble isn’t the word for what’s gonna happen if you don’t release my sister in five…”

  “Ajax, Dominic!” Georg is backing up as he calls out, coming alarmingly close to the edge of the pier.

  Jett cocks her head and winks. “Were those the two red-headed ones? Red is such a power color, and really warms a room, don’t you agree, Sephie?”

  I nod enthusiastically, because she’s kidding. I mean, I think she’s kidding. Georg isn’t in on the joke.

  He starts to sputter when she says, “Four…”

  “Stephen?” His voice has taken on a note of disbelief.

  “Black hair, kinda cute, right? The one who’s almost as big as you? Well, you know what they say, the harder they fall and all that. Three…two…”

  Her smile sweetens as she steps closer, her boot heels striking sharply against the concrete. I swear she nails metal to the soles to get that creepy sound.

  Georg shoves me at her with a curse, expecting Jett to catch me. Instead, she wrinkles her nose and steps aside, ignoring me as I fall hard, skinning my knees.

  Jett points a finger at Georg just as he tumbles backwards off the pier and into the harbor. If I remember right it’s about fifteen feet to the….

  Splash.

  Jett looks over the edge for a moment, then back at me. “Bears can swim, yeah?”

  “Do we care?” I get to my feet stiffly.

  “I thought you might.” She shakes her head and steps away from the edge. “You sure can pick them, baby sis. At least Frost had some balls.”

  Yup, my sister is definitely a bitch.

  We’re back home in a flash. Literally. ’Cause Jett can apparate, à la Harry Potter. Just disappear and reappear somewhere else at will, even with a passenger in tow. It’s kinda like sliding down that wicked-looking tunnel in Doctor Who—pretty and full of purple and green lightning. But I’ve never seen David Tennant in there.

  More’s the pity.

  We don’t really know why Jett can do it and not the rest of us. Even Mom can’t do it. But Mom can travel in time, so I guess they’re even. I stumble through the doorway behind Jett. Still reeling and cold from my encounter with Jack.

  Why his deceit shocks me, I don’t know. Like he said himself, I should’ve learned not to turn my back on that man a long damn time ago. It’s like there is some stubborn part of me that refuses to accept that he is what he is. No matter how thoroughly Jack proves otherwise.

  The words I heard earlier echo softly through my head in his rough velvet purr.

  I’m sorry, princess.

  Maybe I imagined him saying that.

  Maybe I didn’t.

  Goddamn you, Jack.

  Carly is painting in the hallway when we appear in the foyer. Her hair is up; rose-gold curls falling out of a messy bun in soft corkscrews here and there. There is a smudge of yellow paint on her nose. Carly is freaking adorable. Her paintings are less so. Not because they aren’t good. They’re hella good. Too good.

  I eye the mural she’s working on now. It stretches the length of the hallway. Bears cavort and frolic in a pastoral woodland scene. I’m not feeling particularly friendly toward bears at the moment, but these look cuddly enough at first glance. Then I notice they seem to be snapping playfully at glittering fairies. Their teeth gleam like bone. One big specimen is crunching up a struggling sprite dressed in blue with obvious relish. Okay, so maybe cuddly and pastoral aren’t really appropriate adjectives.

  The fairy’s tiny fingers extend from between those teeth like a prisoner reaching out from the bars of her cell. Her mouth is open wide in a scream that sounds tinny and unreal, ramping up the whole disturbing vibe.

  That’s Carly’s freak gift—the things she paints kind of come to life
. Kind of because it doesn’t always happen—and usually not completely—or for long. Thank the horned one, they tend to stay confined to the surface they’re painted on, but sometimes they’ve been known to get free.

  “You like it, Seph?”

  “It’s great, sissie.” I sidle down the hallway, keeping one eye on the bear whose massive head turns to track my movement. His eyes are deep and brown with gold highlights. Just like Georg’s. I watch him swallow the still screaming fairy whole, repressing a shudder. The bear seems to wink as I slink out of sight.

  Jett trails me into the dining room. “We really should put a stop to her painting in the house.”

  I roll my eyes. Like the rest of us, Jett has a soft spot for Carly a mile wide. Nobody is gonna tell her no, even if it means having the occasional nightmare wandering about. Though if that bear gets free, I may change my mind.

  Our house is in Congdon Park, an area of Duluth that used to mean old money and history. Now it mostly means genteel turn-of-the-century homes renovated into apartments for the college kids attending UMD. Ours is one of the few single family ones left. We’ve left the architecture pretty much as is, minus knocking out a few walls here and there, Carly’s ever-changing murals and the odd magical enhancement.

  The dining room is long and narrow, with soaring plaster ceilings (a bright idea in a town that has had recordable snow in every month except August), but it’s warm enough thanks to the roaring fireplace at one end.

  Flames crackle merrily, but otherwise it’s quiet. Ana is rearranging the mantelpiece when we enter, lining up her collection of carvings in a tidy row with her typical OCD analness. Her slim frame is held with ruthlessly correct posture, not the slightest give in that delicate spine.

  My eldest sister, Ana. Or Anastasia, if we’re being proper—which she always is. She’s blond like me, only her hair is even paler than mine, and she’s got actual curls instead of just waves. No pink streak, of course. She’s a major ice princess and as much of a hard-ass as Jett.

  She’s also quite the master carver, as her sculptures attest, even if her medium is rather morbid. Ana carves things out of bone. Human bone mostly, though shifters have been known to make the cut. Her carvings are tiny, but perfectly formed. The old woman in her shoe house; kids hanging out of every window, blackbirds trying to escape their pie, Jack (not my Jack) jumping over the candlestick. Like Carly’s paintings, Ana’s art has a savage edge to it. The old woman has a belt in her hand, the blackbirds have teeth and Jack’s on fire and screaming.

  We’re a happy, well-adjusted bunch, I know.

  “Any word from Mom?” I ask the question out of habit, and maybe some latent OCD of my own. I don’t expect any change in the answer. Mom’s been MIA for over three years now.

  I know she scries for Mom every day, but so far nada. Mom’s blocking her—or something is.

  Ana’s a seer, a psychic of sorts. It’s called remote viewing. With a bit of focus she can direct her energy and magic to a certain person or place and bring it into view on any reflective surface, with the ability to watch everything going on at said point as it happens.

  Like Google Earth, only in real time and with much better graphics.

  “No.” Ana turns from the mantel to give me an impatient look, examining me from head to toe, and as always, finding me wanting. I try not to care. We can’t all be the perfect sister, and god knows, I’ve never even been close. “You look a fright. Slumming again, Persephone?”

  Jett loiters around the edges of the room, indifferent as always, but willing to kick the hornet’s nest for the hell of it. “More like Kivistö again. He’s upgraded from serial stalker to kidnapper.”

  Ana’s expression goes from mildly irritated to calculating. “Why is she here then, Jett, instead of at the Den? You have a new Spidey sense I’m not aware of?” I was wondering this myself. How the hell did Jett know I was in trouble?

  Ana and I look at Jett, who folds her arms and gives us the evil eye, both of them, from under her dark fringe.

  “I got a call on my cell, telling me I might want to check out the taconite dock for a little action. I was bored so I figured, what the hell? And there was Seph, being felt up by bear boy.” Jett scowls at me as if this was a disappointment, then brightens. “Taking out his guard was fun, though.”

  I want to ask if she really hurt any of the bruins, then decide I better not. With Jett, you never know, and sometimes it’s better that way.

  “Lucky for you Jett took pity.” Ana shakes her regal head. “Why is it always you, Seph?”

  I want to argue this point, but she’s right. It is always me.

  Instead, I redirect. “Georg got Jack to zap me. Freeze my magic.” Any winter elemental can slow down witch magic, but my susceptibility to Jack means he can put mine on ice, for awhile anyway. I can feel the frozen hole where my magic is hiding, curled up and snoozing. It makes me twitchy.

  “Frost is back?” Ana raises an eyebrow as if she is nothing more than mildly curious. But her mouth tightens and a flicker of something I can’t place passes through her eyes before they go smooth and blue again. “Kivistö and he are working together?”

  “I think it was more along the lines of a one-time deal. I saw money, or something anyway, exchange hands.”

  “They’re trading you now?” Even Ana’s curls tremble indignantly. “By the horned one, you sure can pick them, Persephone.” In my present mood this pisses me off more than it should. It’s not my fault men are …men. Of course, my men do tend to be worse than your average asshole.

  “Oh, go fuck yourself, Ana. After all, no one else wants to. Might be why you don’t have trouble with men.”

  Ana goes white. I stomp out to Jett’s impressed whistle and my own pulse pounding in my ears. It was a low blow, but if anyone deserves it, it’s Ana. I may be the baby sister, but Carly gets all the love. I’m surprisingly okay with that, most of the time. Only right now I’m pissed, shaky and scared. Just once I could use a little of that love.

  Sometimes family sucks.

  4

  The first real snow does something to Duluth. I mean, other than making people drive like freaking idiots.

  It’s Minnesota, for god’s sake. It does this every year, people. But without fail, you get the geniuses who stomp on their brakes at every swirling flake. Or worse, the ones who have to prove the size of their balls by barreling along like it’s no big, until they end up in a ditch. Usually taking a few people with them.

  Other than the mad party on the roadways, the white stuff turns the town—which is damn pretty most of the year anyway—into something positively fairytale-ish. I grin. Oh, if most of its residents only knew…

  Actually, from my current point of view, on a bench in Canal Park the morning after my encounter with Jack and Georg, the city rises above the lake in sparkling tiers. Like a wedding cake decked out in silver and icicles, canted just enough to give it a certain je ne sais quoi. The idea of weddings makes me frown, so I squint my eyes deliberately. There. Now it looks like the whole ridiculous confection is going to slide sideways off the hill and down the gullet of some as-yet-unseen lake monster.

  The thought makes me giggle. There are monsters in the lake, after all. At least one. And he’s fine as hell…

  “Giving the bear the slip put you in a good mood, I see.”

  Speaking of fine men.

  “You here for round two, Jack?” I get to my feet, listening closely to the lap of the big lake behind me. If Jack uses his magic here, the lake will tell me first. Jack’s magic is pure elemental, which always disturbs the big blue. Handy warning system, if you’re not in a fucking train yard, like last night.

  His smile tries for easy, but I see the hardness around the edges. His collar is pulled up against the wind from the lake, despite the fact Jack is never going to feel that particular chill, or any other. Cold is something he wields, not something that touches him.

  The dark brown leather brushes the sexy shadow on his jaw
. I ignore the sexy, noting the tightness instead. He’s not nearly as relaxed as he’d have me believe. Fool me once. Or half a dozen times.

  You know, whatever.

  He reaches for me and for a second, I freeze. He only brushes back a bit of hair the lake wind has dancing in front of my eyes. That rebellious streak that drives Ana batshit.

  “Pink.” His lips twist as he tucks it behind my ear. “Why am I not surprised?”

  Suppressing a shiver, I back away to spread my arms and lift my hands. Murmuring under my breath, “Sing a song of sixpence…”

  His eyebrows rise. Jack’s supposedly immune to my magic—after that awful spell he laid all those years ago—but neither of us have ever tested its limits. From the look on his face, he’s not real eager to start. “Easy, princess. I’m not here looking for a fight. That thing with Georg was a one-time gig.”

  I’d already guessed that, but I ignore him, curling the rhyme around myself like a security blanket. It’s my favorite. Different rhymes work differently; the simple rising and falling cadences shaping the magic into unique patterns, but me and my sisters all have our favorites. This is mine.

  The words pull the energy into bands only I can see. Lavender and gold they encircle me in a glittering web of light. It won’t keep him from using his magic on me, but hopefully it’ll give him a nasty headache if he tries. At the very least, it makes me feel better.

  Jack’s magic and mine are not the same. Not even close. He’s an elemental, a creature born of magic, like all fairies and sprites and gnomes. Witches are a horse of a different color, along with werewolves and vampires. We merely stumbled onto magic—stole it some would say.

  Of course, I got the beggar’s portion where all that is concerned. I don’t even have any cool powers, like my sisters. No doubt that’s why Jack targeted me, the low-hanging fruit. The old pain burns in my stomach, but I shake it off, concentrating on my magic.

  Jack just smiles that tight smile, watching me cast impassively. After all, we both know it’s probably just for show.