Page 15 of Gray Dawn
The barb struck Dad with the force of a blow, and he turned his cheek as if Proctor had slapped him.
The thing about the Maudit Grimoire was I thought it was theProctorGrimoire for a while. Until I learned of its many authors, including Dad. The section Proctor wrote was the first thing it showed me. That was how I came across his name. But it hadn’t occurred to me, except in an abstract way, that he had written the portions onloinnir. How to make them, and how to consume them.
With that in mind, his desperation to reclaim that knowledge made far more sense. It also convinced me that Proctor had truly loved Edward since he had been willing to bow to his wishes at such personal cost.
The grimoire could remind him how he madeloinnir, and how to grow his power by consuming them. Without Edward’s gentling influence, Proctor could spiral if he was allowed to recover that knowledge.
Maybe that was what he wanted so badly. Not power, exactly, butexponentialpower.
As tempting as it was to ask him questions, this person who had once been an expert, it was foolish. The odds of him knowing how to keep aloinniralive and happy, even back when the information was fresh in his head, were nil. I would have to go on as I had been, learning from trial and error.
“Blay kill rock man?” He popped his knuckles. “Blay not mind.”
“There’s no need.” I gave him one last pet. “We’re leaving.”
After hearing my decision, Dad whipped his head toward me, a pucker between his brows.
“Are you sure?” His expression didn’t change. “He’s of no use to you?”
“He wants the artifact, and I can’t trust him not to kill me to get to it.”
“I regret wasting your time in bringing you here.” He dipped his chin. “And I apologize for this.”
Before I grasped his intentions, he drew his athame and stabbed Proctor in the heart, twisting the blade as the other witch hit his knees then toppled sideways.
The sudden violence shouldn’t have shocked me, but I swallowed a gasp at the unexpected brutality.
“He never would have stopped hunting you,” Dad said softly, bending to incinerate the body.
“Yeah.” I smoothed out the bumps in my voice. “I was starting to see that.”
“He wrote the chapters onloinnir,” he confessed. “That was the secondary reason I agreed to see him.”
Much like me with Colby in those early days, Dad was frantic to learn all he could about caring for Mom, but I was beginning to suspect there was another layer to our purpose in coming. That Dad had intended to evaluate the threat Proctor posed and eliminate him if necessary. Whether or not he helped me.
“The book showed me.” I smacked my nape to kill a mosquito. “That’s how it got to me.”
“How it got to you?” He angled his head, studying me. “At Father’s cabin?”
The time for half-truths was quickly coming to an end, but I held out for a while longer.
“It shows you what you want more than anything,” I hedged, “at the exact time you need it most.”
It counted on desperation shoving you across moral lines you wouldn’t have crossed without the nudge.
“That’s the nature of black magic,” he said after a moment where I was sure he would press harder.
“You can’t lure people to the dark side without cookies.”
If Clay had been here, he would have gotten the joke, but he wasn’t, and Dad didn’t grasp pop culture.
A warm breath exhaled into my palm as Marita bumped her head under my hand.
She must have sensed, or scented, my twinge of sadness.
When I left the Bureau to protect Colby, I had phantom limb syndrome for years from losing Clay. To get him back? To finally see a way into a future where we could always be together? Truly friends forever? It gutted me to watch all he had worked for begin to crumble. And if he harmed Colby under compulsion? If he became another White Stag nightmare that haunted her? He would never forgive himself.
Derry padded up to my other side and leaned against me, offering his support while Dad watched with a softness in his expression that told me he was thinking of Mom, of how alike we were in some ways. For some reason, it didn’t rankle anymore. That he loved her so much.