Page 75 of Absolution
Before we even got to the doorbell the door opened and Seiran stepped out. He was in full Father Earth form, green hair, flowers and ivy woven around his clothes and hair, and glowing eyes that swirled with shades of the planet. It was both creepy and awe-inspiring because my mind instantly thought God with a capital G, and he sort of was one, and yet not. The earth had chosen him as her husband, and her voice. She was also a fickle thing that could take all that away in seconds.
He smiled at us. “Glad you’re here. I’m finished with the upper floors, just have to link it all to the lower floor and hopefully add a bit of your strength in to tie it all together. I’ll work on the grounds tomorrow.”
“How many acres?” I wanted to know.
“The yard or beyond the gate?” Seiran asked.
“Yard.”
“Two. Not as big as my father’s estate.”
But still huge. “You inviting your fairy friends to take care of the yard? I’m calling ‘not it’ on lawn duty.”
“Bryar is working on it. Until then my mother has a crew of gardeners on the schedule.”
“Okay, Ronnie. Tell me what you need.” I didn’t know much about spells that weren’t words of power. Seiran was power, so he didn’t use words much, though I knew he had a handful of spells he’d written. He could make other people’s spells work because he just had that much power. It was also why spells often worked when other people used them around me, since Andrew Roman had used spells that weren’t his, and Maxwell Hart stated that magic was individual.
Seiran held out a hand. “It requires you to plug in to my power and walk the floor with me.”
“You mean tune into the psychic network? Lightning-is-us? Jerk.” I said to him knowing the buzzing of his energy was going to hurt, especially since my senses were still so raw from the revenant thing.
“Bastard,” he replied in a teasing tone. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary, but the twins are upstairs.” And he had to protect his kids. He glanced at Luca and Con. “You guys both have an official invite already, but if you could wait in the entry until Sam and I are done linking the wards? Too much movement in the house makes it hard to layer them properly.” And he was trying to keep a vampire linked to him, out, and away from his family.
“Sure,” Luca agreed.
“Okay,” Con said.
“Movers will arrive a little later to get everything from the old apartment moved over. But your game console and games are here. I had Jamie grab that stuff and a bunch of you guys’ clothes. My mom will be here to oversee the movers. The windows all have that UV safe glass, but you’ll probably want to add curtains or blinds or something. Right now I’ve got a handful of sheets we can hang for a few hours of sleep. Once this ward is done.” Seiran reached out a hand for me.
I took it and felt the blast of his power, let it roll through me like a wave of fire and electricity. It didn’t hurt this time. Not really. More the sensation of having too much energy at once. It was almost the buzz of anxiety rising up from a well deep in my gut, a vibration of power. Feeding on Galloway had been similar, only I had no temptation to take from Seiran. My inner power, or whatever the fuck it was, must have realized that we could drink him down forever and never stop. Self-destruction. And we weren’t on board with that anymore.
Luca and Con rushed up the stairs and into the house. Flowers bloomed around Seiran’s feet, while cacti cropped up around mine. He looked at them thoughtfully then dragged me into the house.
It might have looked a little like the gothic monster mansion his father had designed on the outside, but the inside was very modern and clean. No tree in the foyer and instead there was a giant split staircase that curved against both walls, with a walkway in the middle beneath it that appeared to lead to the kitchen. There was also a door on each wall leading to different areas.
Seiran closed the door, then pressed his hand to it. I closed my eyes as the power rolled through us both with all the subtlety of an E5 tornado. Vaguely down the link of our bond I could feel Max who seemed to sense us and perk up, focusing in our direction. He did something, though I wasn’t sure what, and the blast of power suddenly became a gentle rain, the layers of the wards almost visible in the droplets as they fell and spread, covering the door, the windows, the walls. Max had done this before. Perhaps not set wards himself, but helped someone else direct their power.
“Wow,” Seiran whispered. The drops expanded like dough set out to rise, growing along the walls, covering the windows and linking the entire house in one finely woven thread of power. “I didn’t expect it to be that easy. Not after I just spent the last two hours warding the rest of the house.”
We both could feel down the line to Max who withdrew back to virtual non-existence, and shared a look. Could Gabe have done that if he’d been sane? What the hell was Max? Seiran frowned at something he caught in my head.
“Max knew Gabe?”
“Not Gabe,” I said. “Before they were vampires.” Vampires didn’t always take on new names. I think that was more common when so much time passed and they had to change identities to hide. Or maybe they just hated their birth names and changed it like I had.
Seiran took a deep breath and pulled the power back. Father Earth receded into the pretty Asian man with black hair and blue eyes. He let go of my hand and I had to shake mine just to get the feeling back in it. Seiran looked tired. He’d lived on a vampire schedule for a long time. Sleeping during the day and awake at night. Now he had a real job and kids. He’d have to live when the rest of the world was living, which really just translated to him not sleeping much at all.
“Are we safe now, Ronnie?” I teased.
“As safe as we can be, I suppose. Do you need a tour? Or can you guys find a space for yourselves? There are supplies in the kitchen. Food, cleaning stuff, personal products. The twins and I are in rooms over the arboretum. Kelly and Jamie are close to the pool.”
“You have an arboretum?” Con asked.
“And an indoor pool?” Luca said.
“Mom went a little overboard, eh?” I teased him.
He smiled, though it looked forced. “It will be work to make this a home. Feels like a hotel instead of a house. But the kitchen is nice and the kids will love the playset in the backyard.”