Consideration for Scoundrels

TWENTY-FOUR

"What is it?"

"The grounds are warded."

"Uh yeah, aren't they always warded?"

"These aren't mine." Evy crouched down in the driveway, as if she could see the phantom border ringing the estate. "This has to be Selena's work." The wards were similar enough to her own that Evy could only draw that singular conclusion. She'd been the one to teach both of her children the work after all, drawing from her decades of research and experience.

She rose and looked towards the house, nearly swallowed whole by the gloom.

Why would Selena feel then need to set a secondary set of wards around the house for bad weather?

"I wouldn't call Lena the paranoid type." Rick commented. "Something obviously has her spooked."

"Only one way to know for certain." Evy began the walk up the drive.

"Are you sure?" But Celeste could tell from the look on Selena's face that she was deathly certain.

Selena grabbed the sword and clutched it tightly between both hands.

"I'm sure. Something definitely crossed over the barrier." She paused. "Could have been wildlife, I don't know what exactly crossed only that something did."

"Not the best alarm system 'ye have there love."

"Shut up Celestine."

"Can it get into the house?"

"Can what get into the house exactly?"

Her mother stood in the doorway, her dark eyes narrowed beneath the flicker of the gaslights. "What, is going on here?"

"Mum!" Selena, despite the implications of her mother's appearance, the danger she unknowingly had stumbled into, could have wept with a childish sense of relief. "What are you...I mean, I thought you and dad were going to be in Greece all month?"

"That had been the plan." Evy stepped inside the library, her anger palpable. Her eyes looked to the weapon still clasped in her daughters hands. Before she could say more, Rick came barreling around the corner.

"Lena!" Her father appeared in the doorway, out of breath. "Oh thank god." He crushed her in to a tight embrace, nearly impaling himself on the end of the sword. Selena could hear her father's heart hammering behind his ribs as she let the weapon slip through her fingers. "What the Hell is going on?" Rick asked. "Why aren't you in school?"

"I swear, I can explain everything..."

"You have thirty seconds." Evy told her.

Selena took a breath; "I found a tomb, I opened a tomb, accidentally unleashed an ancient fiend that'll destroy the city if we don't stop it, maybe the world, I don't know how ambitious we're talking."

Evy stared a moment; "You still have fifteen seconds."

Selena nodded towards Celeste.

"This is Celestine. She can talk to ghosts. Celestine, Mum. Mum, Celestine."

"Hello." Celeste said weakly, praying that if she pressed hard enough against the nearest wall she's fall through it.

Her mother's gaze flicked sharply to the stranger standing in her daughters shadow. "Pleasure. Selena, come here."

Selena left her fathers embrace collapsed in to her mothers arms.

The fear and then the anger withered, and relief flooded Evy's veins as she pulled her daughter close. "You had us worried sick Ya'amar. And your brother." She sighed, just relieved that the mystery of exactly where her daughter was had been resolved. "If you ever do something like this again, I'll kill you myself."