“Very late in the morning,” he whispered, and he held her even tighter.
Epilogue
Alexandre held his wife close to his side as they stood outside the door of her office in Newark. She’d told him her wedding gift to him was waiting here, though to his way of thinking, she’d already given him the gift of a lifetime just by agreeing to be his.
He was slowly getting used to this modern world. Everything moved quickly, too quickly at times, but with Mary Catherine at his side, he could adapt to anything.
He loved her. Adored her, and knew he would never regret his decision to remain at her side. He’d searched for a woman like her all his life. One who would love him for the man he was, rather than the colors he wore or the sword he carried. He’d had to travel through time to find her, but find her he had. And he would never, never let her go.
She squeezed his waist and smiled up at him. “Here it is,” she said, and there was laughter in her voice.
“Where?” Alexandre asked her, looking up and down the hallway in which they stood. He saw nothing but the office door.
“There,” she said, pointing.
He looked to where she pointed, seeing only a strip of white across the glass panel of the door.
“Go on, peel it away.”
Frowning, Al leaned forward, got hold of one edge of the sticky white paper—“tape”; he vowed to remember all these new words—and peeled it slowly away.
Underneath the stuff, he read the words newly painted upon the glass, and smiled, his heart filling until he thought it would burst.
TWO MUSKETEERS INVESTIGATIONS ONE FOR ALL, AND ALL FOR ONE!
The End
Witch Moon
Chapter One
Mirabella lifted her head, blinked her sleepy eyes, and found herself standing upright, bound to the pole at her back. She couldn't move. It was only as she tried that she realized her body was entwined by rough, fraying rope that twisted around and around her from her ankles to her shoulders. When she pulled against it, it seemed to grow even tighter, cutting more deeply into her flesh, until her legs and arms tingled. She went still and waited for the pain to subside, the blood to flow into her limbs once more. A chill wind whipped her hair and drew goose bumps to her flesh.
The sky was a series of brushstrokes in varying shades of grim. Black as coal up high, then a stripe of wet slate, and a slash of bruise purple. Lower still, the horizon lightened to a pearly gray haze. No stars. No moon. Somewhere beyond the horizon, the sun struggled to rise while the darkness conspired to keep it down. But the light won out, as it always does.
Bit by bit, the area around her became visible. Though the entire place was shrouded in creeping, silver mists, she managed to strain enough to see. Herself first. Her body. With her head cocked downward at a sharp angle she saw that the garment she wore beneath the serpentine rope, was ragged. Barely more than a burlap sack with holes torn for her head and arms to poke through.
Sackcloth...?
Her legs and feet were bare. She stood on an upturned wooden crate, and below it, around it, were mounds of brush, limbs, twigs, branches. Something was smudged over the skin of her legs and arms. Soot or ashes or....
Sackcloth and ashes....
Something acrid hung in the air. A familiar scent she ought to know.
Gasoline?
She sucked in a breath, and it seemed the wind died all at once. Her hair fell down to shield her eyes, raven strands, uncombed and wild. Then slowly, she lifted her head upright again, squinting to see what was going on around her.
People. A crowd of them stood elbow to elbow, staring at her. Somber, oddly quiet, their faces grim. She blinked and realized she was in the park in the center of town. She made out familiar landmarks. The Ezra Town Hall was just beyond the crowd to her right, its white paint chipping, hand-tooled sign swinging when the breeze picked up again. The road lay behind her. She heard a car going past but couldn't see it. To her left, the river tumbled by, oblivious to her plight She could hear it tripping over stones and laughing at its own clumsiness. And in between, people. So many people.
Their stares were cold, she thought as her gaze skimmed them all. Then all at once, her attention was caught, riveted like a fly on flypaper, to one man. He looked more hostile than any of the others. His dark eyes stared right back at her, piercing her soul with their anger and condemnation. He stood directly in front of her, and he held her eyes with his. His jaw was clenched and hard. His hostility reached her in waves so potent she felt them like physical blows.
I'd kill you myself if I could!
She felt the words in her mind, very clearly, though he hadn't opened his mouth to speak them. God, what had she done to so infuriate that man?
She wanted to cry out but couldn't. She tried, but no sound emerged. As if fear had frozen her very breath, robbed her of her voice. She wanted to move, but the ropes held on too tightly for that. She could only move her head, and she did, swinging it from side to side, seeking help in that crowd of onlookers. But no one there would help her. And her desperate gaze returned again and again to that angry man in the front. Everyone else faded to background colors. He alone remained clear, vivid. His emotions. His hatred. As clear to her as her own name.
"Mirabella St. Angeline," came a disembodied voice. "You have been found guilty by a duly appointed court of the crime of teaching Witchcraft to a minor and contributing to her mental illness and subsequent suicide. For these crimes, you have been sentenced to death by fire to be carried out this day at dawn. Do you have any last words?"
She searched the air for the source of that voice, but found no speaker. She tried to say something in her own defense, tried to shout her denial, tried to plead, to beg for her life. Her mouth moved, but no sound emerged. And the man in the front took a step closer, his fists clenched, tears standing unshed in his eyes, and he said, "Burn in hell, Witch. Burn in hell for what you did to my daughter!"
"May God have mercy on your soul," the other voice intoned.
She heard the flames even before she saw them. The snapping jaws and smacking lips of hungry fire catching sight of its next meal. Panic gripped her in hands of ice when she saw the people in the crowd, bearing torches now. Where they got them, she didn't know. They'd had none a moment ago. But now they had come to life, those somber, silent onlookers. Shouting, swearing, cursing her, they surged forward, hurling their torches and their hatred at her.
The flames spread, licking up the gasoline and following it around her in a perfect circle. And then they leapt higher, so high they blotted out everything else, a towering monster that gobbled its way closer. Merciless heat seared her face. And yet, cruelly, almost teasingly, the curtain of fire parted and closed again and again, giving her glimpses of the man. His eyes were still affixed to hers. She felt her skin roasting, blistering and peeling. Her blood boiled and hissed as it bubbled from her pores. Her flesh melted and fell away from her bones. Pain: she didn't feel it, she became it. The embodiment of burning, screaming torment. She wished for death. But death did not come.
The ropes that held her burned through, and she stumbled from the crate, a human torch, twisting and writhing through the pyre, kicking aside piles of burning brush, until she came to the area beyond it. And still she staggered forward, until she slammed bodily into the solid chest of the hateful man. Her hands twisted into the fabric of his shirt as she pled in silence for his help. For his mercy. And then his shirt caught fire as well. She could still see his face, his hard, cold eyes staring into hers through a fiery veil. Then the fabric tore, and she fell to the ground, and he fell with her. She was tangled in him, in his burning arms and legs, and the dancing flames. His mouth found hers, and he kissed her as they burned.
Gasping, her mouth wide with anguish and silent screams, Mirabella opened her eyes. She was not on fire. She was on her bedroom floor, the curtains from her window twisted around her body, the rod bent almost in half and lying across her legs. She closed one hand in her o
wn hair, as she panted for breath, whispering "Oh, God, oh, God," over and over again. Her heart was pounding so hard it thrummed in her ears. She was burning up with an inexplicable fever and damp with sweat.
She tried to stand, shaking so hard she fell to her knees again, then managed to get up and stay there on the second try. She got untangled from the curtains, dropping the rod, dragging herself to her bathroom, and stepping into the shower even as she cranked on the knobs. She didn't even undress first. Just stepped into the too cold water and let it sooth the imaginary burns she could still feel. Cool the fever that had no physical cause.
The water soaked her, soaked her nightgown, chilled her skin. She braced her arms against the wall to hold herself up and turned her face into the flow. And finally, when she felt as if she was breathing again and those phantom flames had been extinguished, she turned the water off.
She had never even tugged the shower curtain closed, she thought vaguely, lifting her head. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror on the other side of the small bathroom. Hair tangled and dripping, face flushed and wet. She turned to face the mirror fully...
...and went utterly still. A woman stood behind her in the mirror. A woman with auburn hair and deep blue eyes.
Mirabella spun around, her heart in her throat. But no one was there.
Heart racing, she kept looking from the mirror, to the shower stall again and again, as she clambered out, grappled for a towel. She was shaking all over. "What the hell was that? What the hell...?"
Fighting to catch her breath, calm her heart, she knew only two things, and she knew them with vivid clarity.
Whatever had just happened to her had not been a mere dream.
And she was fully awake now.
# # #
"Just what do you think you're doing. Rowan?"
Jonathon Hawthorne stood in the open doorway of his daughter’s bedroom, his breath knocked out of him by what he saw. She sat in the middle of her floor, surrounded by a ring of candles, which were the only light in the room. Her legs were crossed, eyes closed. Some tribal drumbeat pattered from her stereo system. She didn't open her eyes or react to his presence in any way, beyond the slight stiffening of her limbs.
"Damn it. Rowan, what have I told you about this garbage?" He strode into the room, hit the light switch first, the power button on the stereo second.
When he looked at her again, her eyes were open and furious.
For just a second he could have sworn he was looking at her mother. She used to get that same infuriated, offended, and slightly arrogant expression when he dismissed her farfetched beliefs as nonsense.
Unfortunately, he'd been right. Otherwise, Ashley would still be alive. And he was damned if he would stand by and watch Rowan start down the same delusional path her mother had traveled
"Since when do you just walk into my room?" Rowan asked without getting up.
"Since I don't want my house to go up in flames. Put the damn candles out. Rowan."
"You're supposed to knock!"
"I did knock. You apparently thought it was part of the infernal pounding on that CD you had playing."
"That was ritual drumming by a group of Native Holy Men. Not infernal pounding."
He pushed a hand through his hair. Rowan was everything to him. A mirror image of her mother, who had been everything to him, too. He just looked at her for a moment. At her deep burnished hair, endlessly long and perfectly straight; at her smooth, ivory skin; at her thick, dark lashes that didn't need the enhancement of mascara in the least. Fourteen. Five-three. A perfect size two with a burgeoning figure he pretended not to notice. Not a little girl any more. A young woman. And he felt sorry for the men she would encounter in a few more years. She'd put them all on their knees without even trying.
Lately, Rowan had been pulling away from him. And he hated it, but didn't have a clue how to fix things. Damn Ashley for leaving him to raise their daughter alone. She would know what to do with a daughter who suddenly changed from a smiling dimpled little girl into a brooding, incommunicative young woman who dressed mostly in black and rarely spoke more than a sentence at a time to her parent.
She sat now, glowering as she used a gold plated snuffer to extinguish her candles one by one, not even looking at him. "So what's the big emergency, Dad?" she asked when she'd snuffed the last one.
"I...nothing. I just wondered if you wanted a ride to school."
She stared at him lips thinning.
"Do you?"
"No. Anything else?"
He sighed. "Rowan, what were you doing in here, just now? With the candles and the drumming and-"
For the first lime, a hint of a smile tugged at her lips. "I was talking to Mom. Or trying to, at least."
It brought him up short. Like a punch in the gut, it drove the breath out of him, and it took him a minute to get it back. He closed his eyes, shook his head slowly, and when he could get words out again, he said, "Honey, your mother is dead. You can't talk to her, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a con-artist and a liar."
Her huge, expressive eyes grew angry again. "Just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean it doesn't exist!"
He opened his mouth to shout back at her but closed it again. "Okay. I don't want to fight with you about this. Breakfast is on the table. Come downstairs and eat before you leave for school. All right?"
She pursed her lips. "Yeah. Whatever."
"Ten minutes."
He left her, closing the door behind him, then pausing in the hall to ask himself if he was doing anything right in any way, shape or form, where she was concerned. He'd read all the books out there for single dads raising daughters on their own. God knew there were enough of them. He'd listened to all the experts, and he was still lost as to how to deal with the sudden, drastic changes in his daughter.
Downstairs in the sunny, mostly glass breakfast nook, he picked up the newspaper, sampled his oatmeal and waited for Rowan to show up, determined to have a non-confrontational conversation with her for once.
But the story that caught his attention did nothing to help along those lines. Another crime with "occult" stamped all over it had taken place overnight. Someone had butchered a house cat in the local cemetery and painted odd symbols on a headstone in its blood. It was the fifth pet to have been killed in an apparent ritual sacrifice this month. One of the kids being questioned, the story said, had been seen running from the cemetery when police arrived. No doubt, the full details would be waiting on his desk when he arrived at work. Poor goddamned cat, he thought.
And he was supposed to allow his daughter to start poking around in this kind of bullshit? Incense and candles and spells and charms? No way. Not in this lifetime.
Rowan came into the breakfast nook. She wore a heavy chain around her neck and a choker made of leather. Burgundy lipstick, purple eyeliner, black tank top, and jeans.
Sighing, he laid the paper down. "Honey, what's wrong?"
She looked at him as if startled, her eyes the biggest, bluest eyes in the universe. She had unusually large pupils. It was common, he'd heard, in fair skinned, blue-eyed girls. But he didn't think anything about her was common.
"What makes you think somewthing's wrong?" she asked.
"I don't know. You just seem to be going through some changes lately, and...well, it concerns me."
"It's called growing up, Dad." She put her attention back on her oatmeal.
"Is there anything you want to talk to me about? Anything going on at school or-?"
She met his eyes, her own looking impatient now. "I'm not taking drugs or having sex if that's what you're asking."
He felt his jaw drop. "No. That's not what I was asking," he stammered. "You're way too young for me to be worrying about those kinds of things."
She rolled her eyes. "Right."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, Dad. I gotta go. Tell the people on your happy little planet I sa
id bye, will you?" She softened the words with a teasing wink.
"Very funny."
Rowan got to her feel and slung her backpack over her shoulder. She started to go, then sighed and turned back. "Actually, there is something I want to talk about," she said.
He almost grinned. She wanted to talk to him! Finally! He smothered the urge to smile ear to ear, put on a serious face, and said. "What is it?"
She drew a deep breath, as if for courage. "Mom. I want to know everything about her."
"But honey. I've always talked to you about your mom. I think I've probably told you just about everything I know."
"No, you haven't," she said.
He held her gaze for only a moment. And then he had to look away. Shit. How much did she know?
When he looked at her again, her eyes were closed. "I see her in my dreams, you know. Especially lately. She was so beautiful...way more than she is in any of her pictures. I don't remember her being that beautiful."
"You were only four, honey. Don't feel bad for not remembering. And if you wonder how beautiful your mom was, all you have to do is look in a mirror."
She opened her eyes. They were damp. "Really? You think I look like her?"
"More every day." He was getting a little tight in the throat himself.
Rowan licked her lips. "Dad, it's like she's trying to tell me something, but I just can't get what. That's why I've been trying to talk to her, when I'm awake, you know, but...well, so far, I don't think it's working."
He swallowed the dryness in his throat. "That's because it's not possible. I'm sorry, hon, but it's just not."
"I don't believe that. And I don't think Mom did, either."
She leaned down, and kissed his cheek. "But I'm going to be late if I don't get going. Sometime, though, Dad, you have to tell me about Mom. The stuff you haven't told me before. Okay?"
"Yeah. Sure." He said it softly, distracted, shaken. His daughter managed a smile, but he thought he saw doubt in her eyes. "I promise," he added.
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