Sometimes the obvious is staring us in the face and we never put the pieces together for ourselves because we don’t want to.
After all, who wants to admit to an ugly truth?
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Now that I knew that I was dealing with the demonic, I had even fewer ideas where to start looking. Not all of them lived in large houses in expensive neighborhoods overlooking water. Valen Ravenswing, however, had given me a point of reference to start my search. He’d told me to keep in mind the affiliations of the previous Gate owner. Which led me back to that warehouse on Charlotte.
I pulled the car inside the fence this time, given that the gate had been cut off its hinges by the Charleston PD, and no-one had yet bothered to replace it. But I didn’t get out of the car, instead cutting the engine and looking around from the driver’s seat. I was thinking about what had happened each of the times I’d been there, and the buildings helped me walk through it. I’m a visual kind of person, unlike Xelander.
The first time, I’d been shot by - and in turn eliminated - Ravenswing’s target. The second time, I’d been present by request of Ravenswing. Third had me getting caught in my own trap and having to burn myself free… after which I had rescued Vanessa Ravenswing. My eyes strayed from the rubble of the burnt building to the wooden shack against the other building that had hidden the girl. The fourth visit had been with Xelander and had involved the Gate. Which I had not told Ravenswing about.
Oh, I could be such an idiot.
I hadn’t told Ravenswing about the Gate, and not only had he known about it, but he’d also instructed me to consider the previous owner… which I was willing to bet was the demon that I was looking for. I started the car and drove out of the lot, heading for Ravenswing’s home. The man, no, demon, had some explaining to do.
Half an hour later, I pulled up to Ravenswing’s driveway, keyed the override code into the gate box and brought the car to a stop outside of his opulent house in Goose Creek. I’d worked my way through the drive, putting things together and coming to the realization that my involvement with his daughter was less of a coincidence than I had originally thought.
After that, it took me another ten minutes to calm my agitation and get out of the car, then another five to work my way up to the front door. I’d never just gone to his residence when he was present before. His office, yes. But never his home. Demons on home territory had the decided advantage, after all.
He met me at the door, his colorless eyes glittering with his own form of amusement. “Ah, Teimhean. So glad of you to finally notice. Have you begun to put the puzzle together at last?”
“Puzzle? This was a puzzle? Your daughter’s safety is at risk; I rescue her from another demonic entity… and you call it a puzzle?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. “What part of Hell do you come from that a child can be used as a pawn, Ravenswing?”
“A very special part indeed, and one you shouldn’t wish to become too familiar with,” came his reply, and he waved me into his house as he backed away. “But as you are here, that means you are starting to ask the right questions. Just do keep your voice down; Vanessa is sleeping.” Nothing about his commentary was questioning. It was all given as a command. Mostly because he could.
I followed him into the living room and sat on the sofa, waiting for him to take a seat and explain himself. However, after several minutes of him simply looking at me, it became clear that he had no intention of telling me anything without me having to drag it out of him. “Right. Well, since you clearly have no intention of speaking first, I guess it’s up to me to ask questions. And by your earlier comment, I have to ask the right questions.”
The smirk twisted slightly and Ravenswing gave me the slightest of sardonic nods, but he still didn’t say anything in reply. I rolled my eyes at him and looked to my hands as I ticked things off my list.
“First, the Warehouse is a nexus. There’s a Gate there that you wanted, a way in and out of the city that would have been yours to control. So you sent me to find the man that owned the Gate…” My voice trailed off as my brain figured out another part of what he’d called the puzzle. And… no. There was no way… except he probably would have.
“I was ‘Plan B.’ I shouldn’t have even been involved. You sent your daughter in to take that Gate. Your child.” Incredulous comprehension made my voice rise in anger, and before I was quite aware of it, I was on my feet and stalking around the coffee table towards him. “You son of a bitch, you sent Vanessa in to take the Gate and that’s what got her held captive.”
“How very astute, Teimhean. Tell me more,” Ravenswing’s voice was mocking, but I knew I was on to something.
You still didn’t have the Gate, so you sent me in to take care of the man who had caught Vanessa, knowing I’d try to figure out every single angle of the story. Once I found her, you knew that I would find the Gate… but you weren’t expecting me to be able to claim it. And when I did, you knew that you had to up the ante. You started kidnapping women to distract me from the Gate-” I was interrupted by his fist planting itself in my jaw.
"For your information, Teimhean, I am not kidnapping those women. You forget to ask the right questions.” The last four words were punctuated by more fistblows. This was more of what I was used to out of him. What I wasn’t used to was having an audience standing on the stairs in a Disney Princess nightgown with her black hair tangled about her face.
"Father, why are you hitting my babysitter?"
I worked my jaw for a moment, healing washing through to undo the damage, and then I opened my mouth to tell Vanessa that it was a grownup fight, but I caught the look on her face as she descended the stairs and decided instead that silence was better suited. Though she was barely four feet tall and sixty pounds sopping wet, the force of her persona was of an angry teenager more my size. Amusingly, Ravenswing looked about as dumbstruck as I have ever seen him. To his credit, he recovered swiftly.
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"It is not your concern, Vanessa. Go to bed."
I didn't know an eight-year-old could stomp her foot that hard. And the peculiar shade of red her face was turning had to be due to her demonic nature... right? "It is too my concern! I like this babysitter and I don't want you to scare him off. You're not to hit him anymore!"
Something happened that was beyond my understanding, but I felt some strange force of power brush past me, and it pushed Ravenswing backwards by two steps. I hesitate to call it a shield, but that slip of a girl had done something that made Valen Ravenswing step backwards when she moved forwards.
That small hand slipped into mine, and I half-turned, looking down at brightly pale leaf-green eyes. "Vanessa... perhaps this isn't the best time-"
She cut me off. "He won't hit you again. You're mine now."
Oh. Hell. That’s what that had been.
Magic is three-quarters belief and one quarter brute force. Children have belief in spades… so they have a stronger wellspring from which to build the fantastic. Ask any child, Mage or Mundane, what a cloud up in the sky is, and I guarantee you that they’ll have an answer for you. And then you’ll see it too. Which, in some circles, is enough to make it real.
The fact that Vanessa believed that I was her babysitter was enough to break Valen Ravenswing’s hold on me for this moment. He could, and likely would, reassert control within moments, but for that fleeting instant I didn’t feel the pull of his slimy, greasy magical touch. Hers wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but it didn’t feel like the remnants of some shadowy disgusting thing that had dragged itself over me.
Her command held for all of twenty heartbeats. I know because I counted them, and then his will exerted itself stronger and she took a step backwards, her tiny hand falling free of mine. I forced myself to not react to the sensation and instead kneeled to her and offered her a smile. “Go on back to bed, Vanessa. I’ll stop by and check in on you before I leave if you’d like.”
She looked at me critically for a moment, and then with all of the solemn steadiness that an eight-year-old girl could muster, she nodded and then ascended the stairs. I watched her go with a mix of emotions, rising as she vanished into the darkness of the floor above, and only after I heard her bedroom door close did I turn back to Ravenswing. “Well, now I see a few more things. She’s powerful. More than you, perhaps given time. No wonder you wanted her to hold the Gate.”
“She has potential to be greater than many. And I expect that you will give her the Gate.”
He didn’t know. He couldn’t know, I corrected myself, and I knew I had to play along. “In time. When she’s old enough. She’s eight, Ravenswing. The stress of the Gate would rip her fragile mind apart, leaving her an empty shell in command of nothing. And if you want her for the power that is her potential, you don’t dare do anything that puts her mind at risk.”
Those colorless eyes narrowed at me and I knew that I’d found the right path. “So then… if you aren’t kidnapping these women… who is?” Another flash of insight hit me, and I my eyes widened. “Oh no. No, don’t tell me. White females, light eyes and dark hair… someone’s after Vanessa. Oh, what have you done? She’s eight, and the women being kidnapped are…” I saw Vanessa standing on the stairs in my mind. I saw the expression on her face when she’d told me that I hadn’t needed to check her sums. I remembered how she’d left me in my living room after I’d asked her how old she was.
I backed into the sofa and sat hard, staring at Valen Ravenswing. “Merciful Christ above… she’s not- what have you done to your daughter?”
“Christ has nothing to do with it. I did what I had to do to protect my child,” Ravenswing replied.
“By holding her at the age of eight? By sending her in to take a Gate and allowing her to be captured? By using her as a pawn? That’s beyond the pale, Ravenswing. Absolutely beyond. I knew you were capable of some unbelievable things, admittedly because I’ve lived through many of them, but that just absolutely… a child. Your child!” Somewhere in the back of my brain I helpfully reminded myself that I’d said that before.
He stood there in front of me, the bastard, and he smiled. My fire nature blood ran cold at the sight of his malice, and I shivered. “Is she your child, Ravenswing? Or did you capture her like you captured me, preying on her when she was weakest in her moment of need?” I kept my voice low and casual, leaning back in the sofa to look up at him with a steady gaze.
“I did not take her, Teimhean. She is, as best can be explained to your mind, my offspring. An insurance policy, if you will.” An insurance policy. My stomach roiled at the thought. “But I do not expect you to understand that. You are not of my kin or kind, and therefore the concept is alien. But make no mistake: Vanessa knows who and what she is. She knows why she is here, and what is expected of her. When the time comes, she will do what is needed of her.”
She will do what is needed of her. Why did those words fill me with such a bizarre sense of foreboding? I raked my hand through my hair, taking a long deep breath, and then exhaling in a sigh. “Fine, Ravenswing. What do you expect of me now? I’ve sworn to guard and protect Vanessa… what else is there that you could want from me?”
“Unconditional loyalty.”
“Not possible. I agreed to do your dirty work, but I never swore to be loyal. You’ve certainly not endeared me to your causes. I take care of your trash; I clean up that which you can’t be seen to do. That’s what you get from me. And I’ll take care of Vanessa, keep her safe and protected until you decide when she’s done being the cute little waif with eyes that know too much.”
“And then?” Ravenswing’s voice was almost a purr as he leaned across to whisper into my ear. “And after that, when this mockery of a life weighs too heavy on your soul and you’ve tried to kill yourself a hundred times and failed… will you then do what I want you to do, I wonder? Will you finally have the strength to break the contract? Or do you dare?”
I glared at him as he stood and looked at me with that derisive smirk of his. I had no way out of the contract save for one… and as far as I was concerned, that wasn’t going to happen. “We’ll see about that when it happens, Ravenswing. If it happens.” I rose from the sofa and darkened my glare. “Now, if you aren’t going to be forthcoming with much else, I’m going to do as I said I would and say good night to Vanessa before I leave.”
“See that you don’t wake her if she sleeps, Teimhean. I daresay she wakes worse than you.” That sardonically quirked smile returned, and he nodded his head to me as he moved away. “If she does wake… then I suggest you back up quickly.” He waved a hand, inviting me to take the stairs and check on the girl that wasn’t a child.
I ghosted up the stairs and hovered by Vanessa’s bedroom door for a moment, making eye contact with the Hellhound she’d named Abaddon. The creature had apparently been told that I was acceptable, for it didn’t even pick its head up at my presence. Those unnervingly bright eyes flickered towards the girl curled in the bed, and I took that as my authorization to slip in and pause at the foot of her bed.
There was no explanation as to why I was standing there other than that the presence of my son had left me more aware of family… or my lack thereof. I truly didn’t belong in her room, looking at her sleeping form and generally being what I considered creepy, so I turned and slipped out of the room, leaving the Hellhound to keep watch.
Ravenswing wasn’t in the living room when I came back down the stairs, and I took that to be an invitation to leave without further altercation. As it was, I had plenty to put together that evening without having to deal with Tristan or anyone else who might try to get my attentions. I still had a missing woman to find.