Trees on either side of the drive loomed tall and dark. The fir and cedar had kept their needles, of course, but the interspersed maple and oak were bare-limbed, their boughs lacing like a dark tangle overhead. The drive was narrow enough that, in places, trees from one side stretched wide across, tangling with their kin on the other side.
The estate came into view. Sandy was right. The mansion stood as large and imposing as the Bewitching Bedlam. Stately, it looked like it had been built yesterday, and the walls were a soft green against the white of the snow. Not quite mint, the green was the color of pale young buds at the beginning of spring. The driveway encircled the house and I followed it, parking in back where nobody would see the car from the road. We had left tire tracks, but chances were, nobody would bother to check them out, given the drive to the house had curved through forest, but I wanted to make certain.
As I turned off the ignition a soft hush fell around us. I closed my eyes, reaching out. The steady throb of earth magic ran deep, pulsing like a heartbeat through the land, through the house, through the very air surrounding the estate. It was firm and alive, vibrant and powerful and protective.
“This land is old,” I said, feeling the need to whisper. Spirits lived in these woods and I didn’t want to waken them.
“Yes, Bedlam Island is old, but so very awake and aware.”
That much, most people sensed when they came to visit. But living on Bedlam was like living in a battery charger that was set to “High.”
The San Juan Islands had been created by the march of the glaciers as they traveled down through the northwestern states, and then again as they receded. The tectonic plates had moved and shifted, causing massive upheavals in the earth, as their quaking drove the land upward. The ice from the glaciers carved channels through the land, bringing the islands to life.
Most of the islands existed in a rain shadow of sorts, protected from the rain that the Puget Sound area usually received. But Bedlam was at the northernmost edge of the archipelago, jogging out at just the right angle so that it received the brunt of the storms. Add to that the fact that storms tended to follow magic. They were attracted by the powers of the ley lines that ran through the island, the power radiated out by the inhabitants called stormy weather to it like a lightning rod attracted lightning.
What it came down to was that Bedlam received weather anomalous to the rest of the San Juan Islands, thanks to both its positioning and the magical energy that permeated the island.
I gazed up at the darkened house. “We can’t just break in, so what do you suggest?”
“I doubt that Rachel would be hiding out inside. I think we should start with the outskirts of the house—look for anything out of the ordinary around the estate. You’ve got a really good nose for trouble, Maddy. Time to put it to use.”
Sandy was right. My inner alarms were always on hyperdrive. I might not always act on them—my bad—but they usually were spot-on. I pulled my coat tighter and wrapped a scarf around my neck to protect both my throat and ears from the chill. As I slid out of the car, the chill hit like a freight train.
“Damn, it’s cold.”
I crossed my arms, jamming my be-gloved hands under my armpits, as I scanned the area, not quite sure what I was looking for. But Sandy was right. I’d know what it was when I saw it.
She trudged through the snow around the car to stand beside me, huddling as best as she could away from the blowing snow. “I think back that way is the public ritual area.”
“There probably won’t be anything there. A vampire who wants to hide isn’t going to stick her coffin in plain sight in an area that a number of people are likely to frequent. Besides, she’s not going to be aboveground. Or at least not out in the open. She needs to hide from the sunlight—daylight—whatever.”
As I probed the ether, I became aware of whispering on the wind. It didn’t sound human, or even like the Otherkin. Instead, I heard a faint singing drift past and I closed my eyes to listen. A ballad, it sounded like, a tale of lost love and frozen hearts from a time long lost. The song was melancholy and muffling, as though it were pressing my joy deep down to a place that was difficult to find. The song was a death dirge, a maiden left to early widowhood singing on the cliffs above a thrashing sea.
“Maddy? Maddy? Are you all right?”
As Sandy’s words penetrated my brain, I realized I was crying. I dashed away the tears, which were almost frozen on my face, feeling and lost. “I think I picked up on a kelpie’s song, or a naiad’s lament. So many of the bog and water spirits have haunting voices.”
Some of them were very good at using their melancholy songs to lure humans into their traps, too. The naiads weren’t quite so dangerous, but the kelpie and will-o’-the-wisps were just two of the deadly Fae who liked to dine on a good-size morsel of flesh whenever they could. And the Fae didn’t hesitate to mesmerize witches.
“Just don’t go prancing off in search of whoever the singer is. Jenny Greenteeth eats whoever she can catch. And there are other dangerous Fae around.” Sandy frowned. “Is that all you’re picking up?”
“Let me search again. If you notice me drifting off, stop me before I do something stupid.” I closed my eyes again, trying to ignore the cold that was seeping through my coat. “I wish we were immune to cold,” I muttered.
“You and me both. But wait till we hit the hot-flash stage. We’ll dive into the snowbanks and melt them.”
I laughed, breaking out of my trance. “We have a ways to go before then. I’m just glad that vampires are sterile.”
Sandy stopped, slowly turning. “Where did you hear that?”
I frowned. “They’re dead. They don’t…surely they don’t still produce sperm?”
“I dunno. They can still eat and shit and piss, can’t they? I don’t know whether the notion that they’re sterile is an old-wives’ tale or not.” She arched an eyebrow. “Haven’t been using protection with Aegis, have you?”
I stared at her, hoping to hell she was wrong. “I think maybe I’d better find out before we… Crap. I can’t get pregnant, especially from a vampire. What the hell would happen then?”
“I have no clue. Come on, back to our quest here. We can look up the facts when we get home. Linda has to know. We can ask at the Esbat tonight.” She grinned, watching the horror spread over my face as I envisioned casually dropping that question in Circle.
Oh by the way, do you know if I can get pregnant from banging my boyfriend? He’s dead, and a vampire, but can he still become a babydaddy? Oh, hell no.
I refocused my attention on the energy surrounding Durholm Hall. As I forced myself to move beyond the ballads and laments that beckoned me into the woodland, I discovered another layer of energy. A deep, sweeping reverberation. The heartbeat of the earth. It buoyed me up, swept me in like nothing else. I understood this sound and the cadence shifted, matching my own heartbeat. The earth elementals were strong here, and they were alive and awake. But there was a blip in the pattern—something that didn’t belong there.
A disturbance in the force, Luke.
Frowning, I tried to analyze it. The energy was unnatural. It was the fly in the ointment, the even number in a field of primes. And then, I began to understand what was wrong. The rhythm was the heartbeat of life—of the living earth. The blip? It was something that should not be alive. I tried to trace it, to follow it back, but there was too much static. I lost my focus.
My eyes flying open, I whirled to face Sandy. “She’s here. Well, some vampire. I don’t know if there are more around. I was able to key in on something that’s unnaturally alive. But when I tried to trace it, everything vanished.” I looked up at the house. “So, the tunnels that are below this place?”
Sandy nodded. “It would make the most sense. The trouble is we have to find the entrance, and then make our way through the labyrinth to where she’s hiding.” She didn’t sound nearly as confident as she had before.
I g
lanced at the sky. “We don’t have that long. I sure as hell don’t want to be caught belowground with a vampire who would like to see me turned into yesterday’s news. Besides, if she’s not alone, we’ll be in deep shit. Remember, our blood is like candy to them. We don’t want to tempt fate.”
Sandy pulled out her pocket watch. Witches usually had trouble wearing watches. Our energy fields put a stop to all sorts of electronics. Though as long as we didn’t sit right next to them, we managed just fine with TVs and stereos. But watches were another matter. Sandy, however, had managed to find a pocket watch that didn’t stop around her. One of the Tinker Fae had made it for her, and had enchanted it to work even around her magical field.
“It’s already three-fifteen. We have forty-five minutes. I think you’re right, we’d better call it quits for the day. Or at least, we can hunt for an entrance but come four o’clock, we get back to the car. And if we find the entrance, we mark it so that we can come back at sunrise, after they’re asleep, and have all day to hunt around for them.”
“Good idea. Where do we start? It makes sense that there’s an entrance inside the estate, but I don’t want to get caught breaking and entering. You know that they’re going to have wards and alarms set up. Given that, there should be at least one outside entrance. Otherwise, Rachel and her cronies wouldn’t have found it.”
I cast a glance around, looking for any obvious entrances. “Maybe there’s a small Barrow around here? Wherever the Fae tend to congregate, chances are you’re going to find a Barrow.”
“Yeah, or a portal on a tree. Let’s have a look at the trees closest to the estate.” Sandy waded through the snow over to one of the large firs that shadowed the hall. As I watched her go, I realized that we were leaving tracks.
“You realize that even if it snows all night, we’re leaving breadcrumbs behind? The snow won’t fall fast enough to cover our trail.”
Sandy shrugged. “Well, we’ll just have to hope they don’t look too hard. Or don’t care. After all, we could just be visitors interested in the Arborview Society who didn’t know that Durholm Hall was closed today. Right?”
I didn’t share her optimistic outlook, but decided to play along. There wasn’t much else we could do. I followed her over to the fir and we examined the trunk of the tree. Nothing. Five trees later, I was beginning to think this was a stupid idea and that we were wasting our time.
“You know, there are hundreds of trees. By the time we examine them all, the snow will be gone and we’ll be staring summer in the face.” I wiped my forehead with one of my gloves. The exertion of tromping through the snow had worked up a sweat, and the chill from the air had turned that perspiration into a clammy, cold trickle of water that was dripping down my face.
“Then what do you suggest?” Exasperated, Sandy rested her hands on her hips. “You don’t want to break into the house, so this is the next best thing I can think of.”
I snorted. “Really? You seriously think we could waltz into that place without any repercussions?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, then blurted out, “No. I’m sorry, I’m just frightened for you. I think Rachel’s out to kill you and I want to find her first. This is bringing up flashbacks of the Burning Times. I remember when the witch hunters were chasing you. I managed to stay undercover most of the time, but I remember what it was like, wondering if they were going to trip you up and if I was going to lose my best friend. My blood-bound sister.” She lowered her voice. “Maddy, vampires scare me. I admit it. I stood by you when you ran as Mad Maudlin. I’ve tried to be supportive because Aegis seems like a pretty good guy, but vampires scare the fuck out of me.”
I waded through the snow over to her side and wrapped my arm around her waist. “Most of them scare me too. I’m being careful with Aegis, but I promise you, he’s different from the majority. But tromping around in the woods looking for a secret entrance to an underground lair, and doing it in three feet of snow? This just isn’t feasible. We have to think of a better way. Come on, let’s head back to my place and get ready for the Esbat.”
A thought struck me as we made our way back to the car. “Maybe Aegis knows about the tunnels. We can ask him.”
“You really think he’ll tell you if he thinks you’re going after Rachel?” Sandy frowned. “I think he’s scared enough of what she might do to you that he might lie. You can ask him, but I’m not betting on the truth there. However, there’s another possibility.”
As we got into the car and I started up the heater, grateful to be out of the falling snow, Sandy fastened her seat belt and then let out a long, slow breath.
“Lihi? I need you.” She grinned at me as we waited. “She’s got a wealth of knowledge and is very astute about finding out things I need to know.”
A moment later, the homunculus appeared. Lihi yawned, stretching as she fluttered up, her wings gently flapping, and then sat on the dashboard of my car.
“You rang?”
“Lihi, you see that mansion?”
Lihi nodded. “It’s rather hard to miss, considering we’re parked right in back of it.”
“It’s called Durholm Hall. Maddy and I need to know about a set of secret tunnels running beneath it. We need to know where the outside entrances are. I’d like you to check into it, but be cautious. Vampires are involved.” Sandy fumbled through her purse, then pulled out an especially beautiful Herkimer diamond about the size of my thumbnail. The double-terminated quartz crystal shimmered, prisms reflecting within it. “If you find out before the end of the week, you can have this as a bonus.”
Lihi’s eyes widened as she reached out to run one perfectly formed, tiny hand along it. “Oooo, that’s so pretty. On the job, boss!” And without another word, she disappeared.
“She does love her crystals,” Sandy said. “I’m not sure what the homunculi do with them, but they’re a prized commodity in their community.”
“Are they demons of some sort?” I wasn’t clear on what the homunculi were. “They aren’t like golems, are they?”
“No, they’re not artificially created. They bear their young live. That much I do know. But I don’t think they’re demons, either. I believe they inhabit the same realm as the djinn. Bubba might know. Or I can ask Lihi. I don’t think she’ll be offended.”
“You mean, she’s never mentioned her home before?” I found it odd, but then again a vast number of the Pretcom kept to themselves. The Otherkin were cagey, and spreading around knowledge about one’s nature led to vulnerability.
Sandy shook her head. “No, she never has. I just know that one day when I decided I needed a magical assistant and cast a Summoning spell, she was one of the ones who appeared to apply for the job. I got along with her best, so we made a pact.”
“How many did you interview?” I started the ignition and eased out of the parking lot. It was close to three-forty-five and I wanted to be long gone by the time the vampires rose. We’d be safely back in my house by sunset.
“I talked to three homunculi, one brownie, and a couple of house sprites. But Lihi and I hit it off from the beginning.” Sandy frowned. “Rachel can’t get in your house, can she?”
“I’ve never invited her in. Hell, I’ve never even met her.” But something nagged at the back of my thoughts. “Wait. Franny said she saw her in the house talking to Aegis. So yes, Rachel has been in my house. The house was standing empty so she didn’t need an invitation. And since she was there at least one time—more by the sound of it—she can still gain entrance until I officially revoke her invitation. I’ll do that first thing when we get home.”
That led to all sorts of thoughts. Had she been in my house while I’d been asleep? Had she left the rose outside on my balcony? While Aegis and I had been making love? The thought that she might have snuck around, peeking in on us like some undead voyeur squicked me out in all sorts of ways.
“I’m glad I asked.” Sandy glanced out the window. “Why do you think she approached R
alph? The Greyhoof boys aren’t the most generous of souls but they aren’t really a bad lot, either. They’ve done a lot of charity work around the island over the years, even if they did grump about it.”
I cautiously maneuvered onto the road and tried not to clench my teeth as we began the harrowing drive down the steep and winding hill. The fresh snow over black ice made for dangerous driving conditions and the thick wall of flakes coming down made it difficult to see. I turned on my brights, not wanting to blind anybody else, but it made it easier to see the road.
“I’m not sure. Maybe because they have the Heart’s Desire Inn. I suppose her choice was calculated to put them into the spotlight instead of herself. What she didn’t count on was that Ralph runs off his mouth more than an old fishwife. He’s not shy about talking to save his own skin. When I caught him in my bathroom, he was more than anxious to avoid being turned into some nasty beetle or a worm.” I snorted. “I don’t think he realizes I can’t do that, and I intend to keep that misconception alive.”
“Always leave them thinking you’re more powerful than you really are.” She searched through her purse. “Want a mint?”
“Sure.” I held out my hand, then slapped the wintergreen lozenge into my mouth, biting into the creamy explosion of sugar and mint. “You do realize that we have to press Linda on the vampire issue tonight? If the coven is in danger, then we can’t keep quiet about all that’s been happening. Linda’s going to have to talk about it.”
“Why do you think she wouldn’t talk to Delia?” Sandy popped another mint in her mouth, then closed her purse.
“I don’t know. But we have to keep this quiet from the public for now. What do you think would happen if Bedlam finds out that the vampires are looking at staging a coup on the island? I’m worried about Aegis.” Visions of dozens of wanna-be vampire slayers ran through my head.