Page 29 of Secrets and Ruin

“I can have Davor hack Fenris’s stuff,” Jacky suggested, but she didn’t sound comfortable with the idea.

Heath could smell her wariness and uncertainty. Davor was a messy situation by himself. His history with Jacky was not one of trust and fellowship as siblings. He could be cruel to her, and Heath wasn’t willing to witness that, even if it was out of pain.

And that’s only Davor before we get into how the rest of her family will react to this…

“No, let’s try not to drag your family into this,” Heath murmured.

Another couple of minutes, then there was a knock at the door. Jacky jumped out of his lap, but they were all beaten to the door by Landon.

“Is this Jacky Leon’s residence? I believe there are three werewolves that need assistance.” A woman stepped around his son, her fae nature clear with small pointed ears and unreal lavender eyes.

“Right over here,” Heath said, stepping around Jacky to gesture for them to come closer. “In the room right now are my inner circle and my fiancé, the owner of the property.” Heath pointed out everyone as he said their names.

“And these are the three sleeping beauties,” another said in a deadpan tone. He had to be the witch because the last fae was similar to the first, except his eyes were a shade of teal. The witch had a bored expression, not at all disturbed, alarmed, or anything else by what was going on.

“Yes. Teagan, Jenny, and Carlos,” Heath said, pointing to each as he said their names.

“Well, this should be quick. I’ve seen this spell before,” the last fae said, rubbing his hands together. “It’s a sleep spell we fae made, something we use in the hospital when we need patients to sleep and can’t give them human drugs. Typically, this lasts up to three days, but the sooner they’re woken, the better.”

“How harmful can it be?” Jacky asked, coming closer.

“Depending on the species, they could die, thanks to its effects, but only if left unattended for too long. Luckily, moon cursed come out of it rather quickly.” He clapped his hands together and glowing lines formed between them. Reaching out, he plucked more of those strings over Jenny’s body, making them vibrate.

Heath was fascinated, but he kept his distance. This was a type of magic he had never seen before. Those strings were hidden.

“What is that?” Jacky asked, leaning closer. Heath grabbed her shoulders, trying to keep her away. “I’ve never seen a fae do that before.”

“He’s conceptualizing spells as webs,” the witch explained, his words still falling flat, unemotional. “Fae are weird. They do weird things. All their magic works differently, depending on how they want their magic to work.”

“I’m sorry we don’t live with the sad limits of humanity,” the lavender-eyed one said, clearly teasing. “And it’s not because he wants it to do that. He’s from a line that specializes in spell weaving and unweaving. They can do complex magic like that, but it takes time. He’s going to unweave this spell.”

The teal-eyed fae undid lines of glowing magic over Jenny that we could all see, a frown growing as he played with them, clearly struggling with whatever complicated puzzle he was trying to understand.

“Oh, that’s not pleasant,” the fae finally said softly. “There’s a condition to this. It’s not just a sleep spell. It’s a curse.”

“What?” Heath stepped closer now, needing to know more. “How do we break it?”

“What makes a sleep spell into a sleep curse?” Jacky asked.

“It means something has to happen before they can wake up. Well, this one is cursed.” He pointed at Jenny. “Definitely cursed. Let me check the others.”

“That’s not completely bad,” the other fae said softly, leaning down. “Technically, we turn our sleeping spells into curses. We can’t have patients waking up while someone does a silver extraction or anything.”

“We set the conditions to end at good times, and we don’t leave them alone,” the weaving fae replied, shaking his head as he messed with the glowing lines over Teagan. “So is he….” Then he moved to Carlos, shaking his head before the event started. “Yeah, they were all hit with the same curse.”

“Can you learn the condition to break it?” Heath demanded. He would go to the ends of the Earth to make it happen, he just needed to know. Information was power, and he had too little of it.

“Yes, but I wanted to verify they were all the same,” the fae replied, finally plucking at some of the threads over Carlos, revealing them to the rest of us. “Luckily, it’s nothing worse than time. One week. We can take them back to the hospital for supervision. They’ll need to be given IVs to keep their hydration up. As of this moment, they’re in temporary comas, with some… magical side effects.”

“A week?” Heath tried his best to keep the growl from his words, stepping back to keep from scaring the healers. He snarled as he stomped away from them, needing to move, needing to create that distance.

“It can’t be a week. We need them to wake up and tell us who did this to them,” Jacky said. “You don’t understand. We have two other werewolves missing.”

“I can’t break the curse without two potential fail-safes going into effect. Either it kills them immediately, or it becomes permanent, and they die eventually. I don’t know which of those fail-safes are in this curse, but one of them will be. Why make a curse someone can break without repercussions?” The fae was shaking his head, his eyes sad as he met Jacky’s gaze.

Heath inhaled sharply, his frustration only slightly subdued by the authenticity of that look.

“Let me call our supervisor,” the witch said, stepping back as he took his phone from his coat.

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