"What?"
Nana's face darkened.
"What does she mean by that, Nana?"
"Another tale for another time. Let us worry about your future."
The goddess must have agreed with her. She stood and turned to face us. "I cannot help you any more than I already have, Sister. Just know that not all of us agreed with the decision to incarcerate your father for his supposed crimes against the natural order. He is not the only one to have loved a mortal and born or sired offspring. His only crime was his atrocious timing. I have been working long and hard to see that you would have everything you needed to set things right. You have it all right now, you just don't see it."
"What? What do I have?"
"Everything you need to free your father."
"What is it I needed?"
"A way to get to him. A map to find him. And the key to free him."
There was a brief flare of golden light and Candace, the real Candace, blinked at us confusedly. "Dot?"
"Hey, Candy."
"Did you want a coffee?" She looked around the central square.
"Yeah. I think we could all use one."
Chapter 14
"Bill didn't want to go?" Jimmy sounded disappointed. Knowing Jimmy, he probably was.
"He said we should have fun. He had an event he needed to work."
Jimmy shot me a dubious look from the driver's seat of his truck and put it in reverse. Then he did that 'put his arm across the seats so he could look out the back window while he reversed' move. I didn't know what it was about the simple act that turned me on, but it did. It seemed so manly. But when I added in the factor that he had a backup camera in the dash, it seemed kind of stupid, too.
"What event?"
"I don't know. He said something about a protest outside city hall. He wanted to be there in case things got out of hand?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"What the hell do the people of this town have to protest?"
"Beats the hell out of me. Could be witches for all I know." I laughed at my own joke, and then realized it might not have been.
Jimmy stared at me while I stared at him. "What time?"
"Eight."
"We'll grab some dinner and then check it out. We can catch the later show," he answered levelly.
"Good idea." I sighed and stared out the window, my appetite halved from the worry. "What reason would they have to stage a protest? I mean even if it was about witches, who the hell would go stand outside in the middle of winter to hold up as sign that says, 'Down with the witches.'"
"Dumb people."
"We're doomed."
Jimmy chuckled half-heartedly.
"What's for dinner?"
"Well, I was thinking pizza and beer."
"That sounds kinda fucking perfect." I grinned at him.
"Antonios?"
"Is there any other place to get pizza in this town?"
"There's the Hut."
"That's not pizza."
"True story."
He turned toward the hospital and hung a left on Elm, parking us across the street from the entrance. "I don't know why I don't order from here more. It's literally two minutes away." I sniffed the air outside the truck as I vacated the vehicle.
"This is Cedar Falls. Everything is two minutes away."
"Fair enough."
Jimmy pulled out his phone. "Dennis just got off. He's meeting us here."
"Sweet."
We walked across the street and Jimmy stepped ahead of me to pull open the brass handled wood door.
"Thank you, Sir."
"Ooh. You called me sir. I like that."
I leaned toward him and took his earlobe in between my teeth, giving it a little squeeze and a lick. "Would you like it better if I called you, Master?"
He shivered in response.
"Keep dreaming." I kissed his cheek and stepped inside.
Antonio's was more of a takeout place, but they did have a small seating area to the right of the kitchen and counter. Jimmy pointed at the tables and nodded to whom I assumed was Antonio.
"Sure thing, Jimbo."
"Jimbo?" I chuckled as he pulled out a chair and offered it to me.
"High School. Don't ask."
I giggled and had every intention of asking. "Split a pie and a pitcher?"
"Now you speaka my language." He grinned and sat.
"Pepperoni or sausage?'
"Meatza?"
"Depends on what the hell that is," I answered fearfully.
"Pepperoni, sausage, bacon, and meatball."
"Fuck yeah."
"This is why I love you. One of the three million reasons."
I just grinned.
The only waitress, a fifty something brunette who looked like she could have been Antonio's mother, took our order and brought us a pitcher of beer and three glasses.
"How'd she know?" I nodded at the glass next to Jimmy.
"Because I don't think I've ever been here without Dennis," he answered thoughtfully.
"Not even on a date?"
He chuckled and poured us each a glass. "Couldn't go on a date without my wingman."
"You have issues."
"I know." He grinned and handed me my beer.
Two guys at the table two away from ours kept looking in our direction. One was openly staring, and the other was glancing occasionally over his shoulder. Jimmy was facing me and couldn't see them. I was trying to ignore them, but they were wearing identical T-shirts with the same owl logo on the front and chest.
"What's the matter?" Jimmy asked and took a sip of his beer.
"Nothing yet. Ever see a T-shirt with an owl on it?"
"Nope. Wait. I saw a tootsie pop one once."
"Different owl," I muttered quietly, not wanting them to hear our conversation.
Jimmy, not one to beat around the bush, turned around and caught both of them staring. "We got a problem, guys?"
As if by magic, they both focused on their pizza.
Jimmy turned back around and smiled. "Problem solved."
"Real smooth." I chuckled.
"Let me know if they start staring again."
"How'd you know they were staring?"
"Only one thing in this world would bother you."
"Being the center of attention," I answered for him, with a little sigh and nodding in agreement.
He smiled in response and then waved at the door.
I almost yelped when a set of lips touched my cheek. "Sorry, Dot."
"Just startled me." He had. The guys in the OWL shirt's kind of put me on edge. I'd jumped when Dennis kissed me, even though I had known he was there. Not a good sign. I took a sip of beer and tried to relax.
"What's up?" Dennis could feel the tension in the air.
"Nothing Dot couldn't handle, handcuffed and blindfolded." Jimmy poured Dennis a glass and slid it over to him.
"So, what movie are we seeing?"
"New Star Wars."
Dennis groaned. I couldn't help myself; he was just to nerdy cute. I leaned over and kissed him.
"Well, if they would make another fucking Star Trek, we would go see that. Quit your whining, Trekkie."
"Tell you what," I said and rubbed his leg. Next week, you and I will have a Star Trek marathon. All the movies we can watch. Just you and me."
"Will you talk dirty to me in Klingon?"
"I'll have to get a dictionary, but yes."
"Deal." He grinned.
Outnumbered, the two guys with the staring problem decided it was time to leave. Thankfully. "Fucking witch," one of them mumbled as he walked past me, bumping the back of my chair with his hip.
"You're sorry," I muttered and added a gratuitous, "Asshole."
I waited for them to round on us, and when they didn't, I looked up at their retreating backs. Closer, I could make out the words under the owl motif.
"Fuck."
"What?" Jimmy asked, ready to go after them.
"I think we'l
l be seeing them tonight. Did you read their shirt?"
"No? Just saw the owl."
"OWL is an acronym. Oswego Witch Lynchers."
"Oh, this is gonna be fun," Jimmy said with an eyeroll.
"What the hell did I miss?" Dennis looked from Jimmy to me.
∞ ∞ ∞
"Maybe the Meatza wasn't such a good idea," I said and burped a cacophony of sausage, pepperoni, bacon, and meatball flavored air as I stepped down from the truck and slammed the creaking door shut.
"It's the gift that keeps on giving." Dennis grinned as he got out of the back.
"Look at the bright side. You don't live with Dennis," Jimmy said as he stepped up onto the curb by the bookstore. "Meatza farts peel paint."
"You sure you want to park all the way over here?" I nodded at the store.
"One, parking in center square sucks. Two, I don't want those assholes anywhere near my truck." He rubbed the side of his battered baby.
"Yeah. Goddess forbid, they knock some of the rust off." Dennis rolled his eyes.
"That's what is holding this magnificent work of art together."
"Come on. Let's check out the owl party so we can go enjoy the movie," I told the both of them and waved at Shea through the front window of the bookstore before leading the way to central square.
I yelped again when Shea stepped out of the shadows beside the bookstore. "I would not advise you going this way, Master," he said solemnly, with a little bow.
"If it's about the protest rally, I already know."
He lifted his head. "And you would still go there?"
"Yep. Tis better to know thyne enemy and all that. Don't worry. I won't hurt them." I leaned over and gave him a little kiss.
"That was never my concern," he said dreamily as I pulled away.
"What was? You don't think they would hurt me? You know that would never happen."
He shook his head. "No. Not that either. I'm worried about someone doing them harm and you using your magic to protect them."
"That would be a good thing, right? They'd see how awesome we are and forget about the whole little protest thingy."
"No. They would see it as you bringing their nightmares to life. They will see how powerful you are and fear us even more."
That was Shea. The wise sage. Thinking things through from twenty different directions while I had trouble picking out which underwear I wanted. Sighing, I nodded. "That may be true. But if there are people who might be injured, I cannot sit by and let it happen."
"Which is exactly why you shouldn't go down there. Call it a foreboding. Call it a premonition. Call it whatever you wish, but please. Go have some pie instead." He paused and looked over my shoulder at Jimmy and Dennis. "Or sex. You like that almost as much as pie."
I nodded. Pretty emphatically. I may have even looked over at the diner for a moment and thought about pie. Then the realization of what might, and what might not happen made up my mind. Either way, I had to know. Sighing, I put my hand on Shea's shoulder. "You know I have to go. I will do my best not to be seen, but I have to."
He sighed and bowed, moving out of my way. "I am going with you."
What the fuck is going on? Yuki was drawing on her iPad, in her bed at the house. I could feel her tension and anxiety.
Nothing.
Bullshit. She appeared at my side with a gust of wind a moment later. "Please tell me you're not about to do something abysmally stupid."
"You know I can't make that promise. Ever."
Ellis and Dar stepped out of the store. I could feel Chief standing in the square, hands on his hips as he turned toward my direction. Jason sat down at the desk in the office, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
None of them said a word, not one of them tried to stop me. They were all there for me. Except Yuki. She was a little white ball of snarling canine fury. "Gah!" She raised her hands to the sky and then slapped her thighs in frustration.
"Come on, Squishy. It'll be fun."
"I said gah, not glaaah." She made zombie motions with her hands, wiggling her forearms back and forth.
We headed for the central square.
As soon as we made it, I started laughing. The others chuckled and shifted nervously. In the park, the one that had been an open pit into the deepest reaches of Hell hardly a month before, stood about thirty people in dingy jeans and freshly printed OWL T-shirts. A few of them were toting effigies of witches in nooses, a couple of them were holding unlit tiki torches, and the rest were holding up poster boards with badly written racial slurs towards the magically gifted community. No one else was paying any attention to them. Not even Chief, who was striding purposely towards us trying to hide his smile.
"Impressive turnout." I snickered when he was close enough.
"Yeah. Don't know why you thought you needed to be here. I wouldn't even let them light the torches. Fire Marshal said it was a fire hazard."
"Well, I feel like an idiot." I was almost disappointed. I thought we were facing a major problem. In a town of a couple thousand, if thirty of those hated me, I'd call that a good day. I had more people than that in Ashville who hated me, and everybody knew about witches. I blamed my mother for that ratio, though.
"Thought you were going to a movie?"
"And miss all this excitement?" I motioned toward the crowd with my hands.
"Coffee?"
"Love some." I turned around. "Everybody get back to work. Party's over."
The tension in the group lifted. The nervous chuckles turned into full-fledged laughter of relief. Not that I could blame them. It was one thing to expect to be hated and feared, and another to realize that maybe you were imagining the whole thing. "Try and stay out of trouble, Master," Shea said with a grin and pulled Dar and Ellis into the shadows of the building entrance we were skirting.
"I'm going back to bed." Yuki humphed and disappeared with a mini tornado of leaves.
"Can we get out of the cold now?" Jimmy had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans and implored me with his eyes.
"You bet. I'm buying." It was only fair. He bought dinner.
He and Dennis started walking toward the diner, gratefully. Chief had just put his hand on the small of my back to move me along when a scream tore through the square. The crowd of thirty protesters had scattered. Where they had been standing, one of them was lying on the ground, hands clutching his throat as red stained the brown grass before him.
Another was pinned against a tree, vainly batting against the head of the vampire that held him there while he fed from the gaping wound he'd torn open. Four more were herding the scattering protestors toward the large alleyway beside city hall.
Lord Abernathy Jr. had made another move.
"Fuck," I grumbled and ignored Shea's warning. Striding toward the commotion, I yanked the broom charm from my neck and held a broom a moment later. One shake of my arm and a silent command later, I held the scythe.
The vampires were having a ball. There wasn't an iota of fear from them. But the scared shitless humans assaulted my olfactory senses and brought out the vampire in me. I snarled in rage. Then, and only then, did the vampires sense me. Slowly they turned. The one that was feeding dropped the human and sighed when he saw my approach. A moment later, Yuki was back at my side as we bore down on them.
Normally, when she moved, I couldn't follow her movements. She was that fast. Time slowed as my other senses took over illuminating the square in silver light. Each of her footfalls echoed in my ears as she broke off and headed toward the corralling vampires, breaking them up with well-placed kicks and punches. The humans didn't stop to watch the show, not that their eyes could have followed what was happening.
One moment I was launching myself at the feeder, and the next I was beside him, unsure if it was my vampiric powers that had gotten me there, or if I had simply stepped through the shadows. Either way, a moment later, his head thudded against the nearly frozen ground as he disappeared in a burst of ash.
We're ki
lling them? Yuki wasn't delighted, but she wasn't sad either.
At this point, we have to.
I felt her mental nudge of agreement. Kicks and punches turned into bone crunching, wet squelches as she used the only weapons she had to separate their heads from their bodies. Her hands.
Shea stepped out of the shadows and separated another head with his keen, wicked looking dagger. Dar and Ellis ran back into the square. Dar immediately joined the battle while Ellis, surprisingly enough, aided the wounded, and hopefully not dead, humans. His hands were aglow with purplish fire.
Some of the vampires in the local branch of the clan were formidable. Not one of the ones in the square were anywhere close to being remotely powerful. Abernathy had managed to cultivate the weakest of the bunch. But his intention had never been about winning, it had been about exposure. In that, he had succeeded.
"Fuck." I stood atop the steps of city hall and surveyed the damage. Of the vampires, there was nothing left but dust. The one human sat at the base of the tree covered in blood. Another was being held up by his brethren. The one lying on the ground didn't make it. Ellis' stare and sad shake of his head told me that much. Absolutely pissed, I banished the scythe and hung the broom charm back on the leather thong around my neck. Shoving my hands back in my pockets, I headed toward Chief to figure out if there was any way to salvage the situation.
I made it halfway toward him when one of the OWLs pulled a gun and shot me in the head.
Chapter 15
"Will you shut off whatever the fuck is beeping. My head is fucking killing me." The nurse's shoes screeched against the linoleum tiled floor. Then her voice matched the sound of her shoes still echoing in my cranium as she took off running without shutting off the goddess damned beeping machine.
Holding up my hand, I smothered it with shadows until it was muffled enough that the pain subsided, and my eye stopped twitching in time. Muffled meeps I could stand. Ear piercing beeps, not so much.
Two sets of racing footsteps returned a moment later.
Without opening my eyes, I knew it was Dr. Shapiro. I recognized his scent the moment he walked through my door. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised you're awake. Let alone alive."
"Hey, Doc."
Seventh Seal: A Reverse Harem Tale (Lovin' the Coven Book 7) Page 13
