If there was a reply, it was too soft to hear. But my heart was beginning to beat a whole lot faster, and trepidation crawled across my skin.
“Hello?” Marjorie said again. “If that’s you out there, James Maldoon, I’m going grab you by the ear and drag you back to your mother. Don’t think that I won’t.”
Still no reply. Marjorie muttered something I couldn’t quite catch but didn’t open the door. Instead, she walked away.
Don’t walk, run, I wanted to scream at her. Run and hide, and don’t come out until we get there.
But even as I thrust upright, there was a heavy thump followed by the sound of wood splintering. Aiden was already on the move, barking orders into his phone as he stalked toward the café’s door.
It wouldn’t save Marjorie. Nothing would. Not now.
But we had to try.
I grabbed my coat and ran after Aiden, my phone held to my ear so I could hear what was going on.
“James,” Marjorie warned, voice annoyed. “Enough, or I’ll call the police.”
Another crash at the door. This time, glass shattered. Marjorie’s footsteps stopped, and then she was running. “Elizabeth?” Her voice was high and filled with fear. “Are you still there? Someone’s trying to break into my house—”
“I know.” I slammed the café door shut and quickly locked it. Aiden was already in his truck and motioning me to hurry up. “I’m with Ranger O’Connor now. We’re coming, Marjorie. Is there a room you can lock yourself in?”
“The bathroom, but—”
“Go there now.” I jumped into the truck and held the phone to my ear with my shoulder, grabbing the seat belt as Aiden reversed out of the parking spot at speed. “Lock yourself in, and don’t come out until you hear my voice.”
“But surely—”
“Marjorie, get into the bathroom—now!”
Her footsteps told me she was finally obeying. Then a soft, almost tremulous voice said, “Mom?”
My heart skipped several beats. That voice belonged to Karen, and I very much doubted she was alone. While vampires did gain strength and speed on turning, Karen was still a newborn in vampire terms. She wouldn’t have had to time to understand the power that was hers, let alone the strength to partially shatter a wooden door.
For that same reason, she should also have been nothing short of mad right now, her mind torn apart by sensations and need.
And yet that soft, uncertain question had her sounding anything but.
“Don’t stop,” I urged Marjorie. “Just get into the bathroom and lock the door. We’re only minutes away, Marjorie.”
“But that was Karen, I’m sure of it.”
The certainty of approaching doom pounded through my veins. If she didn’t obey, if she didn’t get into the bathroom, she’d die.
And her death would be far from pleasant.
“It wasn’t Karen, Marjorie.” My voice was flat and calm, free of the fear and the tension that was pulsing through me. “You have to trust me. I don’t care what you think you heard, it was an illusion. A trick. Get into the bathroom.”
“But what if it—” She broke off, and then added, her voice broken and hushed, “It is her. I can see her.”
“It’s not Karen. It’s someone who looks like her.” Someone who was wearing her skin but whose mind was in the control of a man who wanted revenge. “Get into the bathroom, Marjorie. Don’t open the goddamn door.”
“She’s crying, Elizabeth. My baby is crying. I can’t—” The rest of her sentence ended in a sob.
I glanced at Aiden.
“We’re a minute away.” His voice was harsh. Tense.
“Go faster,” I said, even though I knew he was already redlining the engine.
On the other end of the phone, Marjorie added, “Karen? Is that really you?”
“Yes,” came the soft reply. “Please Mom, you have to open the door and let me in.”
“Marjorie, no!” I shouted. “Ignore her and just get into the fucking bathroom!”
I doubted she even heard me. Against all the odds, the daughter she’d thought she’d lost was standing outside her door, sounding sane and very lost—a little girl who just needed her mother. It was the very opposite of what I’d told her Karen was likely to be, and Marjorie had no defense against it.
But it was a lie. I knew it in my heart, felt it in every inch of my soul.
It was a lie, and that lie was about to kill.
“Marjorie,” I screamed. “Don’t!”
There was no response. Footsteps echoed as she returned to the door.
“Karen,” she breathed, her voice filled with wonder. “It is you. You’ve come back to me.”
“Yes, Mom.” Karen’s tone was still soft. “I have come back—for you.”
For a moment, there was nothing but utter silence.
Then the screaming began.
Chapter Eight
The screaming rose to a pitch and then abruptly cut off. But that didn’t mean there was silence—far from it.
And those sounds…. It sounded like a wild animal tearing at its prey. I closed my eyes and tried not to imagine what was happening, with little success. All I could see was Karen’s bloody face as she ripped and tore into her mother’s throat.
Aiden swore, threw the truck around a corner, and came to a sliding stop outside Marjorie’s place. I scrambled out the door and raced through her gate, an immobilization spell springing to my lips. They were designed for the living rather than the dead, but vampires were still flesh beings so technically, it should work. Besides, it was the best I could come up with on the fly.
Aiden overtook me and raced up the steps two at a time. I finished the spell and cast it into the house. A heartbeat later, someone screamed, the sound high-pitched and feminine. Karen. Her master had probably bolted the minute Marjorie had died. Raising Mason, and then controlling Karen so strongly that she sounded her normal self, would surely have left him running on a thin edge of strength. He wouldn’t want any sort of confrontation with me, let alone a werewolf.
Aiden slowed as he approached the front door, his gun drawn and held at the ready. He motioned me to stop, then, with a deep breath, carefully edged around the splintered doorframe and disappeared inside. There was no immediate response from Karen and tension wound through me.
Then she screamed, a sound followed by three quick gunshots.
Silence fell again. I clenched my fists and, after a moment’s hesitation, crept toward the door.
What I saw was not Karen or Aiden, but rather Marjorie. She was lying on the floor, on her back, her head surrounded by a halo of dark blood and bits of flesh, a look of horror frozen onto her face.
And her throat… dear God, her throat.
My stomach rolled. I spun around and bolted for the stairs. I’d barely reached the garden when everything I’d eaten that day came surging up my throat and I was seriously, violently ill.
“Sorry,” Aiden said softly, a few minutes later. “I should have warned you.”
I hadn’t even heard him approach. But I guess vomiting so hard it felt like your innards were trying to jump past your lips did tend to mute all other senses.
“Hardly,” I somehow managed to say. “You were too busy trying to stop Karen… did you?”
“You stopped her. I just killed her.” His voice was clipped. “Here, wash your mouth out with this.”
A glass of water appeared near my face. “Thanks.”
I rinsed my mouth out a couple of times, then drank the remainder. My stomach didn’t feel any easier, but at least my throat wasn’t as raw.
I straightened and turned around. His gaze swept me briefly, his expression hinting at concern. “Do you want me to drive you back to the café?”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “You’ve work to do here. I’ll walk back—it’s not that far.”
“Are you sure? That might not be a wise decision, given our vampire is still out there somewhere.”
“He’ll
be on the run.” There was far more certainty in my voice than I actually felt. “Even the most powerful of dark witches have their limits. I think ours might have reached his tonight.”
“Which only means we should be out there trying to find him.”
“Unless you know where that cabin I saw in my dreams is, you probably won’t,” I said. “Even then, he’ll have all sorts of concealment spells around it.”
He glanced past me as lights swept around the corner and a green-striped SUV pulled to a halt beside his. Tala, his second-in-command, climbed out and came striding towards us. She gave me a brief nod and then said, “What’s happened?”
“Karen murdered her mother. Is Ciara on her way?”
“Yes. What happened to Karen?”
“I shot her.” He glanced at me. “I figured what worked for a zombie might work for a vampire.”
Meaning the shots I’d heard had been at her head, not her heart.
“Zombie?” Tala’s gaze shot from Aiden to me and then back again. “Did I miss something?”
“Plenty.” His voice held a note of weariness, but I guessed it had been a long day for him, too. And it hadn’t ended yet. “I’ll tell you later. Right now, we have a crime scene and two bodies to deal with.”
“I’ll get the kit.”
As she returned to her car, I said, “I’ll leave you to it.”
He nodded. “Don’t forget I want to be present when you try to find either Mason or our vampire.”
“Sure.” I reached out then froze, not exactly sure what I’d intended. I made it a wave instead then spun around and walked away.
Another car pulled up as I walked out the gate, and Ciara climbed out. She grabbed her kit from the rear seat of her car then nodded my way as she headed for the house.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and kept on walking. The night was hushed and there was no trace of energy in the air. The wild magic, like the vampire, had disappeared.
I walked back to the café without incident. I hung my coat on the hooks near the door then headed for the stairs, but a whisper of wrongness pulled my gaze to the counter and made me pause. The broken watch sat on the bench, glinting softly in the café’s low lighting. I couldn’t leave it there, out in the open, emitting that sort of energy. We’d worked hard to create a happy vibe in this area, and I wasn’t about let this thing corrupt that. I walked into the kitchen to grab a pair of tongs, then picked the watch up and carried it into the reading room. Even though I held it at arm’s length, the sensations that continued to roll from it had my skin crawling.
And, rather oddly, they were getting stronger—something that shouldn’t be happening, given Mason’s strength came from our vampire, and our vampire should be well and truly hitting the wall after everything that had happened tonight.
Unless, of course, he was feeding.
Vampires might not generally seek nourishment in their own backyards, but our vampire wasn’t intending to stay here. If we didn’t find him before his revenge plans had reached full fruition, I had no doubt he’d simply slip into the night, never to be heard from again.
I thought about ringing Aiden to warn him, but in reality, there was little point. It wasn’t as if I was even sure there had been an attack—it was just a vague suspicion thanks to the emanations from the watch.
Once it was securely stored, I headed upstairs to wash the sweat and the foul feel of magic from my skin, and then wearily climbed into bed. I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
It was the awareness of being watched that woke me. But there was no rancor in that gaze, no heat or harm, and the brief flash of tension that had risen with wakefulness quickly evaporated.
I stretched the kinks out of body then opened my eyes. Belle leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, her shoes swinging lightly in one hand and her expression one of concern.
“Your thoughts are all kind of ugly,” she said. “What the hell happened last night?”
The spells I’d placed around our bedrooms were preventing her from reading those thoughts, which was why she wasn’t seeing the details. And for that, I thought grimly, she should certainly thank me.
“Plenty happened.” I threw the blankets off and climbed out of bed. “How was your date?”
“Awesome, but don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not, but you need to shower and grab some sleep, and I need to get downstairs and get the day’s prep done.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me—”
“No,” I said firmly. “It’ll take too long and your eyes are practically hanging out of their sockets. Not a great look if lover boy drops by today.”
“I can assure you with more than a little smugness that Zak will be incapable of doing very much at all today.” Amusement touched her lips and crinkled the corners of her eyes. “A werewolf’s stamina has nothing against that of a woman who hasn’t had decent sex in weeks.”
I snorted. “That doesn’t alter the fact that you need to rest—for my sake if not yours.”
“Well doesn’t that statement ease all my worries,” she said. “Just give me the bare bones.”
I hesitated then grabbed my clothes and began to dress. “Only if you promise to then drop it and get some rest.”
“Done. Give.”
Memories stirred, as did fear, but I somehow managed to shove both back into their boxes. I wasn’t ready to deal with either right now.
“Bare bones,” I said, voice tight. “Last night our vampire raised the dead, and then he sent Karen after her mother. Aiden and I didn’t get there in time and both are now dead.”
Belle’s gaze widened. “Holy fuck—”
“And,” I continued grimly, “Aiden wants me to make an attempt to find the zombie using the kid’s watch, and I’ll need you to be at full strength in case something goes wrong.”
She blinked, visibly shaken. “And to think we’d imagined Castle Rock was going to be a nice, sleepy little town in which to settle down.”
“It probably was until they ran the local witch out of town and left the wild magic to its own devices.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Meaning what?”
“Bare bones, remember?” I waved a hand toward her bedroom. “Go rest.”
“As if I can after that sort of news,” she muttered, but nevertheless pushed away from the doorframe and walked into her room.
I headed down to the kitchen and, for the next six hours, lost myself in the daily routine of running the café and looking after the customers. Belle came down just as the lunch rush hit, meaning we had little time to think, let alone talk. From my perspective, that was a very good thing.
Aiden arrived just as demand was beginning to taper off, and claimed the table in the corner of the room—the one I usually sat at. I finished serving a young couple, aware all the while that he was watching me, and then walked over.
His usually bright eyes were bloodshot and there were dark circles underneath them. “You look as if you need a nuclear-strength coffee.”
“I’m not sure even that would be strong enough.” He scrubbed a hand across his unshaven jaw then leaned back in the chair. Weariness seemed to ride every inch of his body; even his usually vibrant, if dark, aura was muted. It was almost as if he simply didn’t even have the strength to maintain his rage and grief. “It’s been a rather long night.”
“Something of an understatement, considering it’s almost two in the afternoon. Have you eaten?”
“I haven’t had the time.”
And didn’t really have it now, if his expression was anything to go by.
“Can we talk?” he added.
I nodded. “Just let me grab your drink—”
“I’d rather not talk here,” he cut in. “I don’t want to start untoward rumors.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Which is exactly what you’ll get if you and I disappear upstairs for a private chat.”
A somewhat reluctant-looking smile tugged at his
lips. “Probably, but better that than the truth.”
“At least you prefer me over a zombie,” I said. “But don’t worry, no one will overhear us here—I’ll make sure of it.”
He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything as I walked back to the kitchen. I ordered him a deluxe burger with the lot then went behind the counter to make his coffee and my tea.
“Your ranger is looking a little worse for wear,” Belle murmured, as she plated up a couple of cakes. “But it rather annoyingly makes him look even more attractive.”
That it did. “Can you join us once you finish doing that? Penny should be able to cope with the remaining customers.”
“Will do.”
I picked up Aiden’s coffee and my tea, and headed over. He accepted his mug with a nod of thanks and regarded its cartoony Christmas decorations with some amusement. “I get the feeling you’re one of those people who is heavily into Christmas.”
“I am, but you also looked as if you needed some cheering up.” I pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. The table was small enough that our knees brushed, but he didn’t pull away and neither did I. And there was something very comforting about that. “I asked Belle to join us. She needs to know what is going on.”
“Why?” His tone was rather blunt. “What is the relationship between you two? Because there are all sorts of rumors circulating—”
“We’re not lovers, if that’s what they’re saying,” I cut in with a smile. “Never have been, never will be.”
“And yet there’s definitely a relationship between you that goes beyond mere friendship,” he said. “Even blind Freddy can see that.”
I took a sip of tea and silently cast a spell to ensure the couple sitting at the nearby table would hear nothing more than incomprehensible murmurs.
“Belle’s my familiar,” I said softly. “That’s why we can share thoughts, and why we’re so close. She’s my conscience and my strength, and I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for her.”
Surprise ran across his expression before he got it under control. “I thought familiars were generally either cats or spirits?”
“They are. As far as anyone is aware, this is the first time one witch has become the familiar of another.”