An hour into my search, my doorbell rang. Being in the zone, I keyed into my wards to verify a magical presence, not in the mood to open the door for anyone selling religion or even Girl Scouts selling cookies. Yep, I was that in the zone. But it was a goblin, so I felt obligated to answer it. Surprise, surprise, it was Deval, and he’d come bearing gifts. I took the thirty-ounce iced coffee concoction without a word and turned to head back to my workspace, leaving the door open for him to follow.
I heard the door close and footsteps behind me, so he must have gotten my silent invitation. I lifted the mug and empty coffee pot I’d set on my kitchen table on the counter, since they had a replacement, and returned to my seat. Deval took the chair across from me on the small, round four-top table. Cheddar sat in front of Deval and started his motor when Deval began to scratch behind his ears.
“Thank you for the caffeine.”
He eyed the empty pot that I’d place on the counter. “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. You’ll crash if you keep this up.”
I shook my head. “Nope, I’ve reached the point of no return. I must crawl into the crevasse, as there’s no hope in turning back.”
He completely missed the sitcom reference or chose to ignore it. “Have you heard from Lola?”
“Not a peep. I went to her house yesterday, and two pieces of her luggage set are missing, so I don’t think that she left under duress, but this family lulls their victims into a false sense of security, so that can mean absolutely nothing. I’ve got Bruce sitting on her house now.”
“I spoke with her parents this morning. They’ve been difficult to track down.”
I’d considered reaching out to Lola’s adoptive family but remembered that Lola had mentioned a long winter vacation in Europe, which was why she’d planned on Christmasing with my family in Tucson. We weren’t religious per se, but we liked feasts, presents, and over-the-top decorations as much as the next guy. “I’m glad that you did. I should have, but it’s been a whirlwind, and I don’t know them well. I’m not even sure if I have their numbers.”
“They were distraught at this news. Her mother particularly. The deaths of Lola’s biological parents never felt quite right to her, which may be why she didn’t spend too much time integrating Lola with other witch families. I hadn’t realized that you’re her only close witch friend.”
I shrugged. “One good friend is better than a dozen acquaintances.”
“Agreed, needless to say, they were concerned about this family, particularly when I mentioned the childhood connection. They’ve requested that we find her and force her away from these people, even if it’s against her will.”
“Already the game plan, Buck-O, but we’ve got to find her first. I found a lead when I went to talk to our cousin yesterday.”
“Buck-O?”
“I said I had a lead, and you focus on a nickname?”
“It was just odd; continue about your lead.”
“Gregar was pretty adamant that he didn’t associate with witches for the most part, but when I got him riled up, he did say that he wouldn’t associate with trailer trash. You remember that I told you that Millicent had first run into the witches when living in a mobile home park?”
“Yes.”
“The way we figure it, they’ve gone back to their roots. I think it could be either RV or manufactured home, but really with a family that has to move often, I’d say that a large RV would make more sense. Disconnect a few lines, and you are ready to move your house.”
Lost in thought, he’d stopped petting Cheddar for a moment. The orange tabby batted at his hand to remind him to keep petting. Deval absentmindedly started scratching him again. “Yes, that would make sense. When are you going to begin this search? I’d like to accompany you.”
I handed him the printouts I’d made so far. “I’m just finishing up my list. It’s good that you came to volunteer. I was going to ask Bruce, but I’d rather that he stayed at Lola’s, and Pammy and I have decided that it’s not safe to go alone. She’ll be taking Dorothy.”
“That suits our purposes. When do we leave?”
“I need a few more minutes to make sure that I haven’t missed any place and then divide up the list and email Pammy her half. Also, just as a check in, I’m not ignoring the job with your mother. If we find the McAllisters, we can get a verification of who paid to set the scrying spell in your house, then Blam-O, thief caught.”
“You’re using a lot of nonsensical words that end in O today.”
“Like I said, Deval, I need to crawl into the crevasse. We’re so close but we need to get every detail right.”
He nodded and stood, which got a growl instead of a bat this time. Deval ignored Cheddar. “I’m going to call my mother and Griselda, give them updates about where you are in the investigation.”
“Much appreciated.” I waved him away and finished my search.
We were on park number twenty of thirty. We’d started out the search hopeful, and somewhere deep inside me, there was still a whisper of it. I knew that results didn’t usually happen on the first try, and that Murphy’s Law would indicate that we wouldn’t find our prey until the very last location, but I’d ordered the spots on our list based on the ones I thought had the most potential for hiding an evil coven of RVers.
Pulling into a run-down mobile home park at the very edge of East Mesa, I’d been surprised to find a large number of shiny new RVs present along with older sagging manufactured homes. I’d thought that this location didn’t have RV hookups for rent, but the sign out front advertised otherwise. The Internet had failed me in this instance.
“Do you see that?” I pointed the sign out to Deval. It appeared that we both got quiet when things felt dire, so the trip so far had been rather quiet.
“I do.” He looked over at me and smiled.
His smiles were rare, and it made me want to jump on him, but instead I held myself in check, unbuckled my seatbelt, and got out of his SUV that we’d driven on this excursion. I’d thought about arguing that he always got to drive but changed my mind and decided to not offer to pay for gas instead.
The dirt parking lot had a small trailer toward the park labeled “Office.” We’d popped into the office at the first few locations but found the property managers relatively unhelpful. We’d either had to pretend to be looking for a home or a parking space, which then entailed getting stuck on a tour that we didn’t want to take, or worse, we indicated that we were looking for someone, which had clammed the office managers up. The one and only location I’d made that mistake at ended with Deval having to park on the opposite side of the site and boost me over the cement wall that surrounded it. I’d gotten really good at being boosted over walls in recent days and practically flew over. We were both grateful that I hadn’t broken my neck.
This time around, as we had done with the past dozen, we’d simply pulled in and walked out like we were visiting someone. The name of this park was Desert Heat Mobile Home Park. The name was fitting because there were no trees planted to provide shade in the blistering summer months. We started down the first of the dirt-paved roads. Deval was on high alert, and I pushed my magic out a little. I didn’t want to announce our arrival if we found the family, but I needed to get a read on anything magical that we came across.
We’d walked down two of the streets of the park, and despair was again beating out hope when I felt the tickle of magic. I held my hand out, hitting Deval in the chest to stop him, and reached out a little further with my senses before picking up where it came from. I pointed to the side-by-side doublewides down the road a bit.
“Do you feel them?” He asked.
“I feel magic, but I can’t be sure it’s them, plus we’d guessed at RV. The only way these could be taken out is if they hired a semi. They didn’t strike me as the types to have time to put that much effort into their movement.”
Deval looked over at me. “Perhaps they own a semi?”
I thought about it for a moment. “If t
hey’ve been alive as long as I suspect, I have no doubt that they have the money to own a fleet of semis. It just seems impractical for their lifestyle. They’d want a faster get up and go. I’m sure they’ve run into the cavalry before, their changing lineup attests to that, so they’d want to be able to get gone in ten minutes.”
He nodded. “But you sense witches?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s talk to them. They may know something.”
“Of course.” I headed up to the first trailer and climbed the rickety steps leading to the front door. I wasn’t against a manufactured home for an affordable domicile, but this one was in bad shape. The siding was peeling, and it somehow sagged in the middle. I wasn’t even sure if the stairs leading up to it could hold me and Deval at the same time, so I motioned for him to stay on the ground for a few.
I knocked directly on the front door because the screened door had been slit down the front. I heard hushed chattering inside that reminded me of squirrels arguing over a peanut. After a few moments the chattering stopped, and the door was opened just a crack. Through it I saw a witch. Her skin was pale and slack on her face, her eyes sunken, sporting dark circles, and what little I could see of her hair in the shadows of the home was stringy and greasy.
I’d seen this before, and seeing it now hit too close to home. This was what my aunt had looked like when we’d finally managed to pull her out of the Arizona vampire nest. I knew they kept their blood donors in different locations, but I didn’t think they’d keep them in total squalor. Guess I’d been wrong to expect any sort of decency from them.
“Hi, my name is Peg. I’m a fortune, and I just wanted to check up on your group here. See if there’s anything you needed assistance with.” It wasn’t the reason that I’d knocked on the door, so that part was a lie, but I would help them if I could and given the state of the woman at the door and the earlier indecipherable chatter, I’d do better with this approach than outright interrogation. I must have said the right words because the door flew open.
“Who’s that guy? He’s not a fortune.”
“He’s not even a witch.” Another head popped up from behind the first.
“That is Deval. He’s a goblin,” I said the latter in more hushed voices, not wanting my voice to carry through the tightly packed homes.
Behind the women, we heard the muttering start again. “A prince, a prince! He will find her. He won’t be mad at us when he comes back if we find her. The prince will help. The fortune will help.”
I had meant it when I said that I would help them if I could, but I’d been hoping they would ask for money or a ride to the store. It sounded like we’d just found another kettle of fish, but I put a smile on my face, a woman of my word.
“May we come in?” I asked.
The woman who opened the door stepped back, to let us in. Deval waited until I stepped into the trailer with spongy floors before he alighted the steps. There was no foyer in the home, and I walked straight into a dim living room, the only light escaping from behind a single window’s threadbare curtain and the a lamp in the corner that had a bulb that couldn’t be more than twenty watts. I considered asking them to find another light source but then remembered my aunt when she’d first come home.
Vampires couldn’t be turned like was believed in popular fiction. They were born, but like how vampires could temporarily steal witch magic, albeit in its weakest form, when they got a witch hooked on their blood, they also gave witches some side effects such as their dislike of light. Again they were perfectly capable of going out in the sunlight, another falsehood, but they were nocturnal by nature and like the parasites they were, they only seemed to pass on the worst of their nature. I stepped into the living room and went to an older sofa. I couldn’t tell in the light, but I thought it was a plaid fabric.
“Mind if I sit?”
“Sit, sit,” three of them said at once.
So I sat on a corner spot. Deval came and chose to stand next to me.
“Ladies.” I spotted lone male witch standing in the corner. “And gentleman. You said there was a witch missing?”
“Yvette!”
“Yvette! They took her. Pretended to be our friends.”
“But they took her!”
Everyone chimed in, making it difficult to understand what had happened to Yvette.
“We will help, but we need to understand exactly what is happening. Who leads you here? Have one person speak.” Deval’s voice boomed through the room.
“I will speak.” The woman who answered the door stepped forward. Despite her haggard appearance, she was still the least skeletal of the bunch. Her eyes a little less sunken, her hair not as thin as the other donors in the room.
“What’s your name?” Deval asked to the woman.
“Nora.” She shuffled closer and sat in a wooden chair in front of the couch.
“Did a vampire take Yvette?” I asked
Cries of “No,” sounded from the peanut gallery, but Deval held his hand up and looked at Nora.
“No, if our vampire was here, he’d never let them take Yvette, but he is gone and won’t answer when we call.”
I had a bad feeling. “Who exactly is your vampire?”
“Fane.” The others sighed in contentment at his name.
“Great, so if another vampire didn’t take Yvette, do you know who did?” I prodded.
“Witches!” Nora cried, “They were worn like us. We thought they were like us, but we don’t take other witches. They pretended to be our friends.”
Deval gave me a weird look. “It’s really odd how every fucked up aspect of your life seems to be converging on itself to wrap itself into a tidy bow.”
I gave him an incredulous look. “Not my fault.”
He sighed. “I know that it’s just odd.”
We turned back to Nora, who had wrapped her arms around herself and began rocking back and forth. Crap, I didn’t need her to go into a catatonic trance right now. I snapped my fingers. “Nora!”
Her head snapped up, and she stopped rocking. “You said drainers. Drainers are bad. Fane will be so upset that we let them get to her.”
“Whereas I appreciate your concern for your future relationship with your dealer, I’m a little more worried about Yvette.”
Nora flinched despite her dazed look, and my face heated with shame. These people were in the throes of addiction and some diseases were harder to fight than others.
“I’m sorry, Nora, I didn’t mean that as harshly as it sounded.”
“S’okay,” she mumbled, her head down. I heard the tears in her voice.
“I really am sorry, Nora. My family has its own history with Fane. I know it’s very hard to think of other things when you’ve been bitten on a regular basis, and that it’s even harder to leave, but you’re a witch, and as a fortune, I will do what I can to help you. How long has Yvette been gone?”
Her chin trembled, but she gave a weak shake of her head, reaching her hand up to wipe away her tears and looked at us. “She’s been gone twelve hours.”
“Is that unusual?” Deval asked.
“Yes, we are to stay in the house unless we need food. Right now, we have permission to leave the house to buy food or necessities like toilet paper, but we must go straight to the store and come straight home in case Fane returns.”
“Are you not always allowed to do these things?” Deval asked when he caught the “right now” part of the sentence.
She shook her head, wringing her hands. “No, if he is home, his people will bring our things, but before when he went away, we were forgotten. This time he did not forget, but he will be home soon, so we must hurry back.”
I didn’t think she meant soon as in hours because I knew Alice was still leading him on a wild goose chase, so I didn’t worry about her words.
“Can you tell us about the witches you thought were your friends?”
“Yes, they came in last week.”
“Are any of them still
here? I noticed a magical signature on the trailer next door.”
“That’s ours too. They had an RV, a real nice one. I thought they were like us.”
“What do you mean like you?”
“They were really thin and looked like maybe they also belonged to a vampire. When we asked, they said they did and that they traveled around with him. I thought that was odd because we never saw another vampire, but Fane always says that vampire business is not our business, so we didn’t meddle, but they were really nice.”
“Did you ever go over to their place?”
“Yes, they cooked and made extra for us a few nights. They were really nice, especially to Yvette.”
“Is Yvette younger?”
“Yeah, she’s the newest. She’s Fane’s favorite. The newest is always the favorite because they aren’t so worn out.”
That was an interesting self-observation from a woman that didn’t seem completely there.
“Why do you think they took her?”
“She went to the store with one of the guys from the family. We heard some noises and looked out the window. They were all packed up and pulled away. Yvette never came back.”
“Are you sure Yvette just didn’t go home. You can break the addiction. My aunt did.”
Nora’s face shot up to me my eyes. I saw mixture of disbelief and fear. “No, no, the master says we are his now and forever. Yvette knew this.”
I let it go. “Why didn’t you call Pammy when you couldn’t get a hold of your master?”
She looked genuinely surprised at the question. “We are his now. The witches wouldn’t help us.”
“Then why am I here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Honestly we were looking for the witches that took your friend, but I’m a fortune, and I know Pammy really well. No matter what your master says, you are witches, and Pammy will help you. If you want to leave, Pammy can help you. She will help you.”
There were some mutterings behind her both angry and hopeful.
“No, I must stay, but you can find Yvette, and it will be better then.”
Cursed Lines (A Peg Darrow Novel Book 2) Page 15
