Heir to the Coven

by Melissa Leister

  I could see how the plan would have worked. Kain knew his trail was getting hot so he could have arranged to have Fitch report the transfer and left the receipt in the hall hoping someone would find it. He would have assumed that I would either believe him and let it drop if I heard about it or saw the receipt since we were friends, or decided if he landed on trial the receipt could exonerate him because surely a some decent person living in the house would speak up about seeing it when it was mysteriously missing from his jacket. Big flaw if that was the plan, I had kept quiet about it so no one but me could use it to corroborate his story. Even Rainor didn’t know about it, he went along with me based on the spoon code just like Kain had. Well if Kain was innocent I hoped he remembered the code and had a guess what I was up to with locking him up. But if he were guilty, the receipt had done its job since it did make me more inclined to believe his story, especially after Fitch reported a transfer to Megan’s bank account. Kain couldn’t have done it because he was in chains. More proof he did not do it or part of his partner’s scheme to get him freed? Dawn or Fitch could have made that deposit to take suspicion off of Kain.

  It was time for my third trip to the suburbs this month. On your fourth visit I heard you got a minivan.

  *****

  Since this visit was in broad daylight, I made a show of pretending to knock before I forced the lock and let myself into Megan’s house. If I had to abduct her I didn’t want the neighbors catching wise and reporting me to the police, cops were nuisances when it came to this sort of thing. Her car wasn’t in the drive and the house was dark. Considering our conversation last night, and her recent wealth, there was a good chance she left town. I gave myself a self-guided tour of her house and found several suitcases by the staircase all ready to be loaded into a car for a quick get-a-way and her bedroom closet empty.

  Out of curiosity I went into the baby’s room. I shouldn’t have, it was sad. The walls were plain white and bare of any decoration. There should have been a goofy clown mobile or a rabbit mural or whatever the current baby trend was. Even though my childhood room had been decorated inappropriately mature with gold sconces, silk curtains, Rembrandts on the walls and a dressing table I was years away from needing it had at least shown some effort. Someone had tried to make it look pretty for me. This kid’s room had all the charm of a prison cell. There wasn’t even a stuffed animal sitting on the dresser. I don’t know why I hoped to find a toy in the crib, but I did. Instead I found the crib’s bedding was gone. A deep sniff of the air picked up no trace of any sort of baby residue in the room as if it had been scrubbed clean to remove any reminders that a child had slept here. Megan’s room had not been cleaned to this degree and her sheets had still been on the bed. Looked like she gave the baby away to someone, but had she given it to an agency and cleaned to ease her guilt or to the vampires who cleaned to destroy evidence?

  I heard the garage door opening and went downstairs to wait for Megan. I hoped she was in a chatty mood because if I had to pull teeth to get an answer I was going to pull teeth. Keys rattled as they were inserted into the lock and the door swung open. When the lights flipped on I said, “Hello Ms. McCoy. Looks like you’re taking a trip with all those suitcases by your stairs. Good thing I caught you before you left town you would have missed your last chance to tell me the truth before I made you scream it for me.”

  “How-how can you be here during the day? The sun is supposed to kill you.”

  “I never said I was a vampire. You see I’m the type of monster that can find you anytime, anywhere and even the bright light of day can’t keep you safe from me.” I let my eyes glow at her menacingly.

  She spun on her heel to bolt, but I inserted myself in her path. She blinked in surprise and tried to dart around me. It didn’t work.

  “Please don’t try to run; as you can see you won’t get far and it won’t improve my mood. I came to ask you some more questions.”

  The woman was shaking. She should be scared. She had lied to me and quite possibly tarnished the name of one of my closest friends. “What do you want?”

  “Well I want the truth. You told me a very tall man, a giant I believe you said, held you prisoner during your pregnancy. I have to give you credit for being a good liar; it would have worked if I were human and couldn’t hear your heart beat speed up every time you lied. So I played along to make you think your ruse worked, but you made a big mistake depositing all that money into your bank account. Tell me about that windfall of money you recently came into.”

  Megan McCoy put her bags down and clasped her trembling hands behind her back. “That was a settlement for an accident I had a couple years ago.”

  “Hmmm. Did I not just tell you I can hear when your lying heart speeds up? Let’s try again. You have a lot of money in your bank account and we both know it didn’t come from an insurance company. And remember I don’t have much patience and you don’t have very long to live if you lie to me again.” I dragged my nails down the glass pane next to her door and left five cuts in the glass.

  Megan began to talk. A lot. I knew about every speeding ticket she had gotten since she was sixteen, the time she shoplifted a bracelet, how she lost her virginity in a closet and that she had given her baby to a childless cousin who had been trying to adopt for enough years the “freak” factor didn’t matter and then returned home to try to erase all clues the baby had ever been born. I did ask if that meant she had taken all the baby decorations down and got a blank look. I should have known better than to ask. I also knew in under ten minutes that she had no idea what vampire had supplied the blood used to caste her baby, but she did know who had paid her to let her baby be caste, say she had been abducted and implicate Kain who Megan said she had never seen before in her life. Her heart rate stayed nice and steady during her story. The truth at last.

  It was Dawn.

  Reckless, guy crazy, stupid, soon to be dead Dawn.

  Having vomited up every deep dark secret she had, Megan sank down to the floor and stared off into space blankly. Elvis had left the building. I grabbed my cell phone and called the house. I had hoped Fitch would answer, but Mercy picked up. I told her the truth, that I had had my suspicions about Megan’s story but had gone along with it to try to smoke out the real traitor. I explained how I had thrown out the receipt Kain mentioned and it was his bringing it up that tipped me off that he was telling the truth or possibly acting with an accomplice. Then I told her about the spoon code that had had Kain, Rainor and I in on a plan to make everyone think I was certain Kain was to blame.

  After she got done shouting at me, I said, “I know this is a lot to take in Mercy, but I need you to do something for me.”

  “Why should I? You ripped my heart out letting me think he was to blame.”

  “Because I could have killed him the instant I suspected he might be the one behind all this and I didn’t. I played this so he had a chance to survive and he will.”

  Mercy was quiet for a time and then she asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  “I need you to put Harris on the phone so I can tell him it’s ok to release Kain and then I need you to incapacitate Dawn.”

  “Fine.”

  Harris got on the line. “What’s up Tash?”

  “Kain is innocent. It was all a ruse to get the real traitor to slip up and show their hand. Mission accomplished. Now I need you to let him out and let me talk to him. I would have had Mercy do it, but no one would believe her story that I ordered it and I wanted to let her get a little revenge.”

  No answer.

  “Harris?”

  “Um, yeah?”

  “What’s wrong? You stopped talking. You never stop talking. Don’t tell me you were stunned speechless by my revelation, I’ll lose all respect for you if that’s the case. What was that noise? I heard a thud. And now a crash. Harris, what in the hell is going on?”

  “Dawn set Kain up didn’t she?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because Merc
y dropped kicked her down the stairs, through the living room to the kitchen door which she kicked Dawn through to the dining room, where I assume Dawn landed on the dishes being laid out for lunch after that crash or else she put her through a window. Damn! That was hot. Why didn’t you tell me so I could record it to watch for my viewing pleasure later? You are so inconsiderate Tash. I think I need a cold shower.”

  “You know cold showers only make it worse?”

  “That was the point.”

  “Ew! Too much information Harris.”

  “Don’t play miss-ish with me Natasha. I know what you used to do when you were ‘patrolling’ the city and the wood that went plunging into flesh then was the figurative kind not the stake kind.”

  “Hey!”

  “Hey yourself. Let she who is without kink cast the first stone.”

  I sighed. There really were no secrets in that house. “Just put Kain on the phone.”

  “Aye, aye Captain.”

  The phone landed on a hard surface with an ear-splitting clunk. I could hear people commenting on the ass kicking Mercy had just delivered. I should have worried about possible accomplices being tipped off, but if anyone tried to bolt Mercy would take care of them given her current mood, to say nothing of Kain once he was free. Since it would be an admission of guilt they could be killed on sight without a trial.

  Kain’s voice came through the phone. “Thanks a bunch Little One. Mercy slapped me upside the head with a chair after they took off my shackles. That’s fun as foreplay, but I’ve been informed that’s not an option for at least a month and I didn’t even get a conjugal visit.”

  “We have bigger issues than you following my cryptically given orders and it costing you sex. I need you to bring Dawn to me. You know where.”

  Kain was silent for a moment. “What a stupid bitch she is.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “One more thing. Don’t tell Rainor; he was feeling better when he had a glimmer of hope that you being set up absolved this household of the crime and knowing it really was one of us will do more harm than good.”

  Kain began to say, “Not a problem, Harris told me he-”, but I snapped my phone shut as Megan who had walked away not that long ago regained her former stupidity and came at me with a kitchen knife. I really should have tied her up; this was so annoying. It took me two seconds to take the knife from her and to snap her arm. “Megan, I am really not in the mood to deal with you right now.”

  I knocked her out and locked her in a closet.

  Chapter 23

  I did not immediately go to take care of Dawn after I left Megan McCoy’s house. Unsure of whom I could really trust in my coven right now, I went to various humans who worked for us and intimidated them into rather quickly investigating all the accounts and business transactions of the coven. I needed to know if anyone else was giving or receiving payoffs. Not even Dawn’s account showed anything abnormal, which meant she was not the one who paid off Megan unless she had left a million dollars lying around the house or buried in the backyard. Which meant there was still an unknown entity in all of this. I suspected that entity was going to have fangs.

  There was a certain warehouse where certain activities were carried out after dark. It allowed us to question people without fear of them escaping and wrecking havoc inside the coven house. And it very often allowed us to make people disappear without anyone being the wiser. In this particular case, it was going to keep Dawn from having any potential allies come to her aid because until this was all said and done, everyone was a suspect. I arrived at the warehouse shortly after dark feeling like my brain was going to leak out of my ears after pouring over all that paperwork with the lawyers and accountants, and after trying to piece this all together.

  Kain met me out front. “What made you think I would remember that spoon comment?”

  “Lucky guess and you were the one who kept putting spoons under my pillow every night for a month after it happened.” I smiled at him. “Is Mercy going to forgive me any time soon?”

  “She understands and letting her kick Dawn around for awhile helped a lot. According to Harris I missed quite the show. Couldn’t you have told her to take care of Dawn after you had them unlock me?”

  “That’s what you’re upset with me about? I made you miss a girl fight?”

  Kain shrugged. “I’m a guy, what can I say?”

  I shook my head. “Moving on then. Is she all ready to go?”

  “Yep. She’s playing opossum too. Mercy gave her a good crack in the head, but she was awake and crying at the guys that I set her up and you fell for it while I was chaining her up. In the car ride over she got quiet and has been pretending to be unconscious since I brought her here.”

  “Then I’ll have to wake her up.”

  We went inside the warehouse. Dawn was the first thing I saw. As a good enforcer should, Kain had chained her hands together and hung her from a hook in the ceiling. Her sleeping beauty routine was in full force as she sagged with her eyes closed, but her breathing was too fast for her to be out cold. There were bruises from the ass kicking Mercy had given her on her face, arms and what I could see of her legs. Kain started to take off his jacket, but I stopped him. “I’ll do it.”

  “Tash?”

  “She’s mine, Kain.”

  “This is what I do.”

  “I know. I used to be you, remember? But I am exercising my rank to have the pleasure of making this traitorous bitch scream. You can wait outside.”

  “But she set me up!”

  “That’s why you can’t be part of it. This needs to be handled by someone with a clear head so we can get the information we need and you want revenge. You’ll wind up killing her before we get enough out of her.”

  “Now I’m unprofessional?”

  “Aren’t you throwing a tantrum right now? Go outside. I’ll call for you if I need you.”

  “Natasha-”

  “Outside.”

  Kain bowed. “As the lady wishes.”

  I waited for him to shut the door before I approached Dawn. Trailing my nails across her cheek, I said, “I made you a promise at that human club when you challenged me Dawn. Do you remember? I told you if you did not yield I would mark your face forever. That’s a promise I’m about to keep.” I dug my claws into the flesh over her cheekbone and yanked down in a swift motion, leaving five trails of blood. Snarling I said, “Open your eyes you faking coward!”

  Dawn’s eyes popped open along with her mouth. She shrieked in pain and reflexively tried to bring her hand to her face to staunch the blood, but she was chained too tightly and she was not strong enough to break free even with all that adrenaline rushing through her system.

  “SHUT UP!” I yelled. “I did not give you permission to make a sound.”

  The screaming did not stop. This is what gags were invented for, but since the point of all this was to get information out of her, a gag would be counter productive. “Dawn, you have one second to stop making that noise or I will do the same thing to your other cheek.”

  She shut up. Fast learner.

  “Now, I am going to ask you questions my little idiot and if I don’t like what you have to say or if you lie to me, you will suffer a consequence. You know I can tell if you are lying. Do you understand?” I was circling her so she could not see what I might be about to do behind her. She was trying to crane her neck to keep me in sight, but it was impossible.

  “Yes.”

  “Very good. You set up Kain very cleverly to take the fall for what you did. Why him?”

  “Because before you came back he was the only thing in my way. I was setting him up to knock him down from the start. Then he made it easy with all his vanishing acts to investigate. Once he started sniffing around I had more incentive to get him out of the way. Actually, even before Kain started sniffing around he kept taking off to look at rings for that cow-eyed moron. I know because he asked my opinion on what sort of a ring to buy
her. No one ever asks me about the coven, but why not go to air headed Dawn to ask about a sparkly stone. Well this air head fooled you all,” Dawn said with a sneer. “All I had to do was make sure people noticed when he went missing and plant doubt in your mind with that story about him running around with a red-haired waitress at the appropriate time.”

  “Why did you do this? Because you felt ignored? Did Rainor ignore your daddy issues so you acted out?” My voice was dripping with sarcasm.

  No answer. This actually made my roiling blood very happy. I gave her a slap across the face hard enough it would have broken a human’s jaw. As it was, it made her spit out blood and a couple teeth. “I will ask you once more. Why did you betray us?”

  Dawn laughed as best she could around the missing teeth I had just given her. “Revenge. The two of you took everything.”

  “This is about my taking over the coven with Kain as my second? You really are a moron. Assuming you did get rid of Kain, there was no way you ever could have taken me on. If you had pulled all this off before I came back, the Order could have come and killed everyone here and there wouldn’t have been a coven left for you to try to rule. Even if they didn’t, you don’t have the strength to lead. The others would have risen up against you with your first shrill order.”

  “He would have helped me with everything!”

  “Who?” My mind immediately went to Anton, after all he had betrayed Vincent to gain the power our alliance offered, it would track that he would play Dawn into thinking he would help her rule and once Kain was out of the way thanks to the set up, then he would kill her and take over everything while the coven was still reeling from it all. Of course he’d have to get through me, but maybe he hadn’t thought I would return or thought I wouldn’t kill him and he’d take me out. No, said my blood, he would not do this to you. “Tell me who!”