by D. G. Swank
“Rowan, my love,” he’d called out, his words slurred. “Come join me.”
I sat in the empty chair next to him, my heart heavy in my chest. He and Mom must have had a fight. He’d been pleading with her to use her authority to help him get a position on the Small Council, and the last I’d heard, she’d refused.
“You and I are a lot alike,” he said, finishing off his glass, then pouring another. His hand was unsteady and some of the whiskey spilled onto the porch.
I didn’t ask him how—I knew what was coming. He’d given me this speech once before when he was drunk, but I’d been twelve at the time, and I’d walked away from the conversation feeling sucker-punched.
“Do you know how we’re alike?” he prodded.
I gave him a sad smile. “You’re not weak, Dad.”
He pointed at me, his brows lifted high. “No. Rowan, my love. Neither of us are weak. We’re scrappy.”
It felt like too large a slice of reality for a Friday night, and I wanted to go inside and go to bed, but I stayed because I did feel a kinship with my father. We were always trying to find a way to be relevant in a household full of super witches. My outings with human friends helped me forget that I wasn’t enough. Alcohol was my dad’s chosen crutch, though he usually didn’t drink to excess.
“You’re a smart girl,” Dad had said. “And magic isn’t the only way to solve a problem. Just remember that.”
Now, a decade later, I stared at the flashing neon lights of the bar and whispered, “Not this time, Dad.”
Enough.
That glimmer of self-pity would have to last me.
I got out of my car and headed inside, not sure why I was there but determined to go in anyway. Maybe I wanted to feel like I had when I was in school and hanging out with my human friends—normal.
Now that we no longer had to deal with the book, maybe I could really be normal.
There was one seat open in the middle of the bar, between a couple on one side and a half-drunk Ohio bro on the other. But I didn’t want to deliberately seat myself next to the tipsy guy. If he hoped to pick someone up tonight, he’d probably take it as an invitation. I wasn’t looking for anything more than a drink, and I wanted to buy that drink myself. Given everything that had gone on, it didn’t feel right to invite someone I barely knew home with me, or to leave the house empty for the night. Nope. I’d be going home alone, and there wasn’t any point in entertaining other possibilities.
Mercifully, a couple got up and vacated the two seats at the very end of the bar. Right next to the men’s room but cloaked in shadow compared to the rest of the place. It might smell a little, but I could observe without many people noticing me. Perfect.
I wasn’t sure what to order, but the answer came to me as the bartender walked over.
“Kilbeggan. Neat.” A tribute to my father.
The middle-aged man’s heavy brow lifted. “Most people order Jameson.”
I lifted a shoulder into a lazy shrug. “Who wants to be like most people?”
But that was a lie…or maybe a partial truth. My father and I hadn’t wanted to be like most people. We’d just wanted to be like my sisters and my mother.
Special.
I settled into my seat, turning it slightly so I could watch the room. A football game was playing on one of the corner TVs, and I idly wondered if this was the year I should take some of my viewers up on their offer to join their fantasy football league. Maybe I’d even start going out more. Have a life. Take those trips I’d always dreamed about.
But what kind of life did I think I could have without my sisters? Before Celeste and the book were stolen two weeks ago, we’d rarely been apart for more than a few days.
What was I doing sitting here feeling sorry for myself when my two sisters had been forcibly taken away? But Phoebe was exactly where she wanted to be—with Brandon. And sure, he’d betrayed us in the meeting, but his intercession with Alfred and the note he’d left me, infuriating though it had been, suggested he was up to something. Truth be told, we should have sent Celeste to stay with Xenya ages ago—and would have if not for our hesitation to admit we needed help.
Some big sister I’d turned out to be.
A cheer went up from two of the small tables across the bar, and I smiled to myself as I watched the guys slapping each other’s backs and trash-talking. This is what normalcy looked like. I might as well get used to it. But while I was observing the chaos, a man quietly slid into the empty seat beside me.
It took me a second to realize he was there, and as soon as I registered his presence, I pretended to be watching the football game.
He wore dark jeans, simple leather oxfords, and a sweater over a button-up. He was almost too pulled together, like he’d walked off a photo shoot for an easy living catalog. Even his smell—antiseptic and sharp—compared to the standard Mount Vernon guy scent achieved from Old Spice soap or drugstore body spray. His warm brown hair, bordering on ginger, was perfectly parted and combed. Not a single hair was out of place.
He ordered an old-fashioned and I wrinkled my nose at the heavy fermented scent of vermouth that wafted over to me when he took a long drink. Without glancing in my direction, he said, “You live here? In town?”
“Let me stop you right there,” I said with plenty of sass. “I’m not going home with you tonight or in the future. I’m just here to have a drink, so move right along.”
He chuckled. “They grow ’em feisty here. I might have to come back when this is all done.”
“I’m not the usual citizen of Mount Vernon,” I said dryly, taking a sip of my drink. “You might be disappointed.”
“If you know the citizens that well, you might be able to help me with something else.” He glanced around the bar. “Lots of families have been here awhile. I’m doing research on some of the oldest ones. Ancestral homes, stories about family trees, all that.”
I tensed, sitting up even straighter in my seat. It struck me that he was a stranger around here, just like the mage who’d broken into our home. According to Brandon, the first mage had used a flimsy excuse for snooping around. Hello, flimsy excuse #2. We’d been naïve to assume the mage had acted alone. Or that he’d be the last of them coming for the book.
“I don’t really know,” I shrugged, trying to play it cool. “I’m not a history nerd when it comes to the town.”
“Not the town. Just a family. The Whelans. I’m looking to visit their house.”
I’d known it was coming. But it rocked me to the core to hear someone I didn’t know, and obviously couldn’t trust, ask after us by name.
“You want to visit them?” I said, hearing my own voice trail off in disbelief.
“Sounds like maybe you can help,” he said, staring directly into my eyes now, hoping to catch me in a lie or ascertain whether I was telling the truth—it was impossible to know which. He leaned in, lowering his voice. “I’ve heard some interesting things about the place. Really want to check it out. If you can point me in the right direction, I promise you I’ll make it worth your while.”
A million thoughts flew through my head. I didn’t know whether I should run, stand my ground and lie, or draw out this conversation long enough to get some relevant information on this guy.
To buy some time, I slugged back the rest of my drink, wincing slightly at the burn. I still hadn’t decided what I would say, but I turned back to the guy, who was still creepily watching me. He knew that I knew something. Maybe he even knew who I was. The realization sent a shiver down my spine. The gleam in his eyes suggested he was smarter than Lester, which meant he would know finding our farm was a matter of public record. Anyone could do it. Shoot, Lester had managed it. So that meant he was sitting here for another reason.
I shot him a glare. “Who are you?”
Slowly, never breaking eye contact with me, the man leaned in. The smile tugging on the corners of his mouth was full of malevolent promise. “It doesn’t matter who I am. It only matters who I
work for. And they are very, very interested in the Whelan house.”
“And why are you telling me this?” I asked with an active bitch face. “Do you think I give a shit who you plan on dropping in on?”
He pushed a tiny bit of magic toward me, and I could feel it crawling across my skin like a millipede.
The alcohol had fueled my anger and part of me wanted to tell him to fuck off. I suspected he knew I was a Whelan, but that didn’t mean I should flaunt it. I wasn’t under any illusion that I could hold my own in a magical fight. Sure, I could hide myself, but that wouldn’t work with him sitting right beside me. So I glamoured my magic instead, making myself appear to be completely human.
He frowned and I felt the push again—stronger this time, but I held the glamour in place. I couldn’t resist taunting him a little, so I lifted my brow as though unimpressed, which confused him even more. Anger filled his eyes and he started to grab my wrist—which was when I felt a bulky presence behind me. I jolted as a large, warm hand slid across my shoulder blades and gripped my far shoulder, but relief washed over me at the sight of the long, well-shaped, familiar fingers. A quick glance confirmed the hand belonged to Officer Logan Gillespie. He gently coaxed me to standing.
“Hey, baby,” he said, notching his chin on top of my head and pulling me into a half hug. It was the sort of gesture you’d see between a couple who had been together a long time, who slotted together effortlessly in every situation. Except I had never touched Logan Gillespie before now, let alone cuddled with him. Still, this felt normal. Welcome.
Logan turned to me and said, “Ready to go? We’d better head out if we want to catch that movie.”
The man next to me sat up straighter. “Hello, Officer.”
Logan flashed him a strained look. “I thought you were leaving town.”
“Figured I’d get a drink first. You know, boost the small-town economy,” the guy said with a smirk.
“Don’t you be driving after finishing that drink,” Logan shot at him, then tugged me away from the bar.
It took me a second to mentally catch up. “When did you get here?”
I knew he hadn’t been here when I’d walked in. Otherwise, I was certain I would have been drawn to him like a magnet.
“The bartender reported another guy was asking around about your land.” His arm squeezed tighter around me as we headed toward the exit. “That was him. I met him at the convenience store a few hours ago. He was asking about the Whelan farm there too.”
I felt the pressure of a stare and glanced up just in time to see the mage look back into his drink, pretending he hadn’t been watching us leave.
“Does he know who you are?” Logan asked.
I knew I shouldn’t drag him into this, but I found myself saying, “I don’t know. Maybe. I may have thrown him off.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“No,” I answered truthfully. “I have no idea.”
Logan kept his arm around me as we headed out the door and across the parking lot. To the outside world, we had to look like a couple, and for a few moments, I let myself believe it too.
Stupid, Rowan. You don’t get to have him.
I forced myself to take a step away, immediately feeling the loss of his warmth. “Thanks for helping me out back there.”
“Of course, but you know I’m not done, right?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You helped me out of a difficult situation, which I very much appreciate, but it’s been a long night and I’m ready to go home.”
“He’s not going to let this go. That guy’s not going to stop until he’s on your doorstep, Rowan.”
I swallowed. I suspected he was right, which meant I had to send Logan on his way. He was no match for magic. “My sisters aren’t home. So I’ll figure out somewhere else to go tonight. See? Taken care of.”
His jaw worked, and for a second, I thought he was going to suggest I stay at his place. To my surprise, I wasn’t so sure I’d say no. But instead, he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out his phone and his keys. “I want you to go inside. I’ll send my buddy Pete over to pick you up and take you to the station while I follow this guy.”
“What? Are you even on duty? You’re not wearing a uniform.”
“No, but I’m following him anyway, and you are not going home until I catch this guy doing something illegal. Which means the safest place for you is the station.”
“If you’re not on duty, then I’m going with you,” I said. I was scared to death he’d catch the mage doing something magical and get himself killed. While I had no doubt Officer Gillespie could hold his own against any human threat, he was in over his head.
“That’s not a good id—”
“There are two options here, Officer Gillespie. Either I go home to my empty house and wait around for the bad guy to show up or I go with you.”
He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Fine. My car’s this way.”
He walked to the back row and stopped next to a sleek black car, and with a click of his key fob, I heard the doors unlock. I let out a low whistle as I opened the passenger door and lowered myself onto the seat. Seconds later, he was in his seat too, and I looked at him with what had to be serious heart eyes. Not for him. For the machine.
“What is this?” I ran my hands reverently over the buttery soft leather upholstery and wiggled my butt happily when I felt the seat beneath it warming.
“Julia,” he said, a smile creeping onto his face as he started the engine.
“You named your car,” I deadpanned. I didn’t tell him that the only reason I hadn’t done the same thing for my weeks-old car was that I hadn’t settled on the perfect name yet.
“Uh, no. That’s actually the name. Giulia. It’s an Alfa Romeo.”
I let out a low whistle. “2.0 liter engine? 280 horsepower?”
He nodded with a sparkle in his eyes. “Turbocharged. With a beautiful growl.” His reverence for his car, and especially her growl, was one of the sexiest damn things I’d ever witnessed.
“I saved my bonus checks for eight years to pay for it. Been my goal since the first day on the force. It doesn’t have all the features I wanted, but there was a good deal on this one, and I thought that if I spent less on the price of the car, I’d have more left for—”
“Customization, yeah,” I said. “What do you have planned for it?”
He smiled again, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. “Speaker upgrade, and hopefully a sunroof. I was also thinking I could—” But he cut himself off. The mage who’d confronted me had just exited the bar, and we both watched as he hopped onto a motorcycle.
“Idiot,” Logan muttered, waiting until the mage had left the lot to turn on the ignition. “Didn’t even wear a helmet.”
The conversation between us faded away as Logan set to following the mage. It was a dark night and the road was good and windy, but Logan clearly had lots of experience with tailing people. He left plenty of space between the mage and Giulia.
My spirits lifted when I realized that we were headed away from the farmhouse. Maybe the mage was going back to a headquarters of some sort. Or he’d decided I was too much trouble and he’d rather leave town than bother the Whelans.
But my heart sank again when Logan pulled to a stop just outside one of the oldest cemeteries in town. The smaller ones attached to churches in and around town saw more use, but this one had the deepest roots in Mount Vernon. It was no more than a quarter of an acre in size.
“Creepy,” Logan said. “Never did feel right around this graveyard. There was a lot of vandalism here when I first started on the force. Right after your mother’s accident. Thought they might be connected in some way, but none of the connections ever panned out.”
“No,” I interrupted, not wanting to hear him talk about my mother right now, especially since I felt like I’d failed my sisters. “Only my father’s buried here anyway. Our mother’s ashes were scat
tered on the family cemetery on our land.”
Logan nodded with a grim expression on his face. “That was a strange case,” he said solemnly, watching me with something like an apology written across his features. “Your mother’s accident, I mean. I was one of the first responders. As far as I knew, we never did really figure out what happened. Just knew the chief wanted to let the case lie. What in the—”
It only lasted a few seconds, but I had a feeling it would be burned into Logan’s retinas. The mage had cast a netherworld net just fifty or sixty feet ahead of us, spreading a dome of glowing blue light out to the edges of the cemetery. Pulsating light touched down on each of the graves. The dead were connected to one another, and a netherworld net made a map of those connections for a mage to follow. This spell was especially useful to find a newly dead body likely to be buried in an unmarked location. Which meant, if this mage was looking for Lester, then he wasn’t expecting to find him alive.
But maybe it wasn’t just Lester’s body he was after, but rather where his body might be hidden. It would make sense, if he’d been the one to send Lester to retrieve the book. After all, it was the farmhouse he was asking about.
“Shit,” I muttered as the mage headed back to his bike with an unmistakable pep in his step. The guy took off with the confidence of someone who knows exactly where they’re headed.
Logan’s jaw clenched as he waited for the mage to insert some distance between us. Then, without a word, he started the chase over again.
This time, though, there was no suspense. Only dread. After all, I knew exactly where we’d end up.
It only took Logan a few minutes of driving to realize what I already knew. “Rowan,” he growled, as though he was psyching himself up for battle. “He’s going to your house.”
Chapter Seven
“Always said Pete was full of shit about your farm. Dammit. I hate being wrong.”
