Page 7 of Alec

“This is Renard Beaumont,” Bodach said to the answering service for Riley Corp. “I’ve been waiting over an hour for Ms. Gibson, but she hasn’t shown up for our appointment. I’ll be contacting another firm to do the restoration work I need. Good day.”

One couldn’t slam down cell phones, but he hoped the abrupt end of the call would seem convincingly angry. He then blocked Riley’s number and pocketed the phone, whistling as he watched the tow truck haul off Olivia Gibson’s car. He’d arranged with the towing service’s nefarious owner to deliver the car to a local chop shop, where it would be emptied, scrubbed clean of any identifiers, and painted a different color before being driven to and resold in Mexico. As this was the second car he’d had to get rid of, it pleased him to have a more secure method of disposing of vehicles left in proximity to McKeran’s Castle.

He still had a little time before he had to go to Salinas to deal with his only remaining problem, so he decided to peek at what was happening inside the spell trap.

From the property Bodach drove to the cliffside trail that led down to the disguised sea cave he used as his lair. Smugglers had once used the spot during Prohibition to temporarily store cases of rum, whiskey and wine brought down from Canada before distributing them to bootleggers, speakeasies and private citizens wealthy enough to ignore the Volstead Act. After disposing of the smugglers and their illicit spirits, Bodach had embedded in the walls of the cave the Fae red crystal he had collected while roaming the mortal realm for centuries. Well known for draining the life of anything that came near them, the parasitic gem had always been considered too dangerous by the Fae for any use...except Bodach.

Although he’d never understood why, red crystal had become both his savior and the foundation of his power.

The discovery he’d made came about during his brief time in Elphyne. The result of a forbidden coupling between two vicious goblins, Bodach had been born with powers even his parents regarded as unnerving. Ultimately his mother had chained and left him to die in a cave filled with red crystals used for executing undesirables. Instead of ending his life, however, the feared gems had empowered him enough to break free. That brought him to the attention of the Queen of the Dark Fae Court, who had exiled him to the mortal realm for eternity.

Since that time Bodach had learned how to use the dangerous crystal to do nearly anything he desired...except find the treasure that would allow him to take his vengeance.

Thanks to the warding spell Bodach had left in place by his lair, no mortal could see the entry. As he walked through the illusion of rocks and undergrowth and into the cave, he was obliged to step over two mounds of crumbling bones. The remains of the last two young mortals he’d fed to his ever-hungry crystals; they’d been left so desiccated that in a few more days they would dissolve into powder. Now newly empowered, the encrusted walls seemed to glow with scarlet satisfaction.

“You look beautiful today, my lovelies,” Bodach crooned, and trailed his fingertips over the eight-sided ends protruding from the stone. The direct contact sent a surge of new power through his core, adding to his magic and invigorating him as nothing else could.

He went to retrieve his window scroll, an enchanted roll of Fae parchment that could look back through time to show him whatever he desired to see. He’d watched quite a lot of Olivia Gibson’s short life through it before meeting her, memories of which still made him smirk. A lesser being might have experienced some pity for her, but among the dark Fae those methods were used to ensure only the strongest survived. She’d barely done so, and for that reason he’d never expected her to fight to stay out of the portal he’d created. Still, it had given him one last chance to terrify and torment her, something he always enjoyed.

“Show me where my chilly little creation landed,” he told the scroll.

An image of a narrow window slit in one of Dun Talamh’s tower rooms appeared on the parchment. It contained crates of torchwood, the oak branches that had been whittled smooth and wrapped on one end with oiled linen. On the short, snowy sill sat a nugget of white ice shaped like a scarab beetle, which sprouted legs, turned around, and stared back at Bodach with its tiny crimson eyes.

Even inside the trap, his enchantments could always sense him, he thought, pleased.

“I don’t blame you for what happened with Olivia, my frigid little friend,” Bodach assured his creation. “Now that you’re there, however, you should get busy soon.”

The beetle dipped down as if bowing to him and withdrew its legs to mimic a piece of ice again. Bodach saw why when one of the McKeran guards came into the tower room to retrieve some torchwood. His haste made him miss the white insect on the sill, and how it had begun swelling, as if growing a large bubble of ice on its back. That bubble sprouted legs and slowly crept off the matriarch, who appeared to have grown a little larger. The lack of attention the McKeran paid their surroundings had served Bodach well, but never as much as now. In a few short days he would be able to enter the spell trap and search unhindered for the treasure he had unwittingly imprisoned along with the clan.

“When I find you, my darling,” he murmured as he left the cave, “we will have so much fun together.”

Last night when he’d gotten the call from the idiot mortal he had employed—and who had failed him—Bodach had considered discarding his latest scheme to infiltrate the spell trap. He might have done so, had Olivia Gibson not sensed what lay beneath his glamour this morning. Years of being locked away from the world had doubtless given her the ability to detect more than an ordinary mortal; she would have had to gauge the mood of that harridan who had raised her every time she had walked through the door. Bodach imagined what young Olivia would have to endure inside the spell trap, and chuckled. One tussle with the MacBren’s men would make Mae Gibson seem a saint by comparison.

“You were made to suffer, my dear,” he said, glancing back in the direction of McKeran’s Castle. “But soon you and all the others will have nothing to do but sleep for all eternity.”

An hour later Bodach parked his Mercedes a few blocks from the shabby townhouse where his prey had been trying to hide for the last week. He glanced in the rearview mirror as he altered his glamour, becoming the twin of an imperious-looking matron dressed in a set of pearls, her helmet of silver-blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight.

The door to the townhouse opened before Bodach could knock, and a bleary-eyed Charles Kingston stared out at him, his expression almost comical with utter disbelief.

“Mom, what are you doing here?” he demanded.

“All you had to do was put the beetle in Olivia’s purse. Instead, it flew back to me this morning.” As Charles blustered Bodach punched him in the face, knocking him back into the townhouse. “After all the money I paid you, you couldn’t even get that right.”

Charles scrambled backward, his eyes bulging. “How…how did you know about that, Mother?”

“You really are the stupidest mortal I’ve ever employed.” He dropped his glamour, making the mortal reel backward in horror. He wrapped his true form in his Renard Beaumont guise as he walked into the townhouse and kicked shut the door.

“I’m sorry.” Charles fell to his knees, instantly penitent. “I tried to do what you wanted, but she caught me. She thought I was stealing from her.”

“Chucky?” A large-bosomed brunette dressed in a short pink satin robe came out of a back room. “What’s going on?” She halted to take in the sight of her lover on his knees and then Bodach. “Hey, you never said you were aycee-deecee.”

Bodach considered his options. He’d come to bespell Olivia’s ex-boyfriend so that he would hang himself, but the brunette offered a more diverting alternative.

“Give me the belt to your robe, my dear,” he said as he approached her, and used a simple spell to make her acquiescent and completely infatuated with him.

“Sure.” Looking dazed now, the woman tugged off the strip of pink satin and handed it to him. Her robe parted, showing her surgically augmented breasts, shaved sex and flawless tan. “I’m Roxy. Do you like my body?”

“It is quite nice.” Bodach fondled her for a moment, and then wrinkled his nose as the scent of Charles’s sweat and semen came from her. “Do go and freshen up, my dear, and then change the bed linens if you would.”

The woman squealed with delight and hurried off. A moment later the sound of a shower running came out of the back room.

“Lovely thing. The breast implants are especially convincing.” Once she had gone he dropped the robe belt in Charles’ lap. “Is she any good?”

“She has a mouth like a sump pump,” the mortal said, his expression dreamy. “Since Olivia wouldn’t let me fuck her I’ve been using Roxy for sex. She doesn’t have any money, though. I’m going to talk her into a threesome. Buddy of mine promised me five large if I do.”

Some immortals considered Bodach reprehensible, even among the dark Fae, but often humans made him seem noble by comparison.

“You’ve always been an excellent opportunist, Chucky,” he said, patting Charles’s cheek, “but that won’t be necessary.”

“Why don’t you do her with me?” the mortal whined. “She’ll let you put it anywhere, and you've got plenty of cash. I’d give you a discount—four large.”

“I’ve wasted enough time and money on you,” he assured him, and heard the shower turn off. “Now go in that closet over there and hang yourself.”