by Melody Raven
“You should stay. Things are just starting to heat up.” She winked at Derek, which made him a whole other level of uncomfortable. She took another step toward them and Derek backed up until his back pushed against Sam’s front. Except he should’ve known that Sam wasn’t the type to hide behind him; she stepped out to his side while Abigail considered them.
“Mom, we’re not here to party. We’re here because we’re worried about you and wanted to make sure you’re doing okay.”
For a second, Abigail was unnaturally still and Derek started to wonder whether his mind was playing tricks on him. She then let out a deep sigh and set a hand on her hip. “I’m still getting the hang of this. What gave me away?” She pointed to her hair. “Is it the color? Damn it, I knew I went too platinum.”
Derek’s hand rested on the butt of his gun. “I think it’s time for us to go.”
“You,” Abigail pointed at him, “can do whatever you want. I need a moment alone with her.”
“Not gonna happen.” Sam’s shoulder pressed against his arm as she leaned in closer. At least she had some instincts for self-preservation. But if Abigail made a move at them, would Sam be able to help him fight? This was her mother, after all, and Sam had already lost a family member to this craziness. If it came to fighting her mother, he might not be able to rely on magic.
“I’m not like Claudia.” The name dripped with disdain as it came from Abigail’s mouth. “I’m not here to give you the illusion of choice. I’m here now and things are going to be different. No more hiding. No more sneaking. Things are going to change around here and they’re going to change right now.”
Before he could even start to unravel that, he heard Sam gasp. He twisted around to see Garrett, the big blond head of security who he’d always liked well enough, grab onto Sam’s biceps and pull her back. Sam immediately threw her head back, soundly connecting with his chin, and started to kick at him, but the giant didn’t budge. Judging from the blank look in his eyes, this wasn’t the Garrett he’d met before.
He started to pull out his sidearm, but an invisible wall of energy slammed into him and sent him flying across the hall and into the wall, knocking the portrait next to him down as he fell.
But he couldn’t nurse his wounds, because he heard Sam struggling as Garrett held her in place and Abigail approached slowly. So slowly. It was as though she had no concerns in the world. As if she wasn’t afraid of them at all.
Derek couldn’t let himself be intimidated or scared. He needed to act fast before his entire world disintegrated in front of his face. He pulled out his gun and took the shot as soon as he had it. This time there was no Claudia controlling his trigger finger. He’d aimed right for the back of Abigail’s head, making sure the angle was high enough that any exit trajectory would avoid Sam or the ballroom.
The bullet hit its mark and Abigail came to an abrupt stop. But she didn’t fall. Instead, she pivoted on her heel and looked him right in the eye as the large exit wound at the top right side of her head started to close in on itself.
“Detective Pierce,” she said softly. “The rules have changed. This is my game now.”
Sam stared at her mother in abject horror. It didn’t take long for Abigail to lose interest in him and turn back to her daughter. As she turned, she seemed to transform, but this time the symptoms were recognizable. Her hair turned to an inky black and her nails got longer, dripping the oozing black substance. And when she brought those dripping black nails to Sam, Derek let out a deep, guttural scream as he ran for the group. He didn’t aim for Abigail or Garrett. He took them all down in one fierce tackle. Better than any tackle he’d ever done in his high school football career.
He might not be able to shoot Abigail, but he could distract her, damn it. The four of them fell to the ground in a giant heap. Derek didn’t give Garrett a moment to recover from the shock. He rammed his fist into the man’s face. The blow was hard enough to send vibrations of pain rocketing up his arm, and it did seem to daze Garrett, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.
Not helping matters was Abigail’s bark of laughter from behind him. “You stupid, stupid man. Let it go. You’re not going to be able to win this.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his last resort. “Strategic retreat then.” He aimed the little canister at Abigail and sprayed it at her face.
Her casual laughter quickly deteriorated as she started to scream in pain. He didn’t let go of the little button as the spray kept going. He wanted her to hurt. He wanted her to stay the hell away from Sam. Wanted her to pay….
The crashing behind him finally had him snap out of it. He turned to see Garrett falling to the ground and Sam pulling at his arm, urging him to run.
He pushed up and they ran into the ballroom as Abigail still squealed in pain.
Sam tugged on his jacket as they fell into the ballroom, the music and the heat warring with the adrenaline that pumped through him. She pointed to the door closest to the entryway and they ran for it, pushing past the tipsy and out-of-it witches on the dance floor. No one seemed to notice they were running for their lives. No one seemed to care about anything outside of themselves.
They were just a few feet from the exit when the door slammed shut in front of them. They were running so fast, the momentum carried them right into the solid wood. He and Sam both tried the handle, but it wouldn’t move.
“Magic,” said Sam over the loud music as they turned around to look for Abigail or Garrett. But there was no one behind them. They weren’t being chased. They were trapped, though, which meant something was going to happen.
“We need to get out of here now.” He didn’t know what Abigail had planned, but considering her newfound confidence and apparent immunity to bullets, he wasn’t looking forward to finding out.
Sam’s eyes bounced around the room; a second later, he could practically see the light bulb go off. “We need to go up.” She ran to the closest corner. She pointed to a table and they each started to slide it to the wall. Sam immediately climbed on top and stood in front of the air vent.
“You’re kidding,” he said under his breath as she held a hand over the grate until the screws came undone. Her magic seemed under control. He had a feeling he should be happy about that, but it was just one more thing leading to his unease.
As soon as the grate was off, she stepped aside and pointed to the vent that barely looked big enough for her, let alone him. “Go on,” she said.
“You first.” He could already tell she was about to give him pushback, so he stepped in close and bent in until their foreheads almost touched. “You first or I don’t go at all,” he warned, not willing to waste time arguing about this.
She must’ve believed him because she started to climb up. He went to give her a boost up, but she was able to get enough leverage between her foot on the wall and the grip on the vent that she made it inside in no time.
As soon as she was in, he started up. She was stopped a few feet inside the vent and looked behind at him. It was a tight fit, but he did in fact make it through. His holster caught on the metal side of the vent, so he took the gun out, and after taking out the clip so he didn’t accidentally shoot Sam or himself, he started to follow her. The vent was dirty and damn near suffocating, but he’d rather be here than dealing with Abigail right now. Luckily, they only crawled for about twenty feet before Sam used her magic to slam at another vent, giving them an escape.
Considering they were going out head first, he didn’t see exactly how Sam managed to get out without falling on her head, but she was there and standing when it was his turn. He had a feeling that if she weren’t there, he would’ve ended up with a concussion. The room they were in was a bedroom, but it didn’t look used. Probably one of the many spares in the compound.
“Who the hell has vents like that?” He took in a deep breath of non-dust-filled air.
“It’s an oxygen suppression system.” Sam brushed the dust off herself. “Comes in handy when fir
es are a possibility.”
Oh yeah. Considering Sam had burnt down the last family home, that probably would be useful.
“Why wasn’t she coming after us?” Sam moved to the window to look out at the front yard, probably checking to see whether the coast was clear.
Derek balled his hands into fists and blinked a few times. The pepper spray was still burning, but he tried to push it to the back of his mind. No time to rinse out his eyes right now.
He didn’t tell her what he was thinking about that room being a trap. They’d originally come here to stop the partygoers from being in danger, but right now…. He didn’t think there was anything they could do. They’d barely made it out of there alive, and not one person seemed to notice their quick exit. He hated to admit it, but they might need Claudia to get this taken care of.
“We need to go,” he said without telling Sam his fears. He went to the window and started to open it when the screams started. He froze. Everything in him wanted to go help, but a part of him, a deep part he so rarely let surface, held him back.
It wasn’t him logically going through the possibilities and deciding that he couldn’t make it in time or call up the manpower to deal with Abigail.
It was fear. The dark fear faced when he was a rookie cop. The fear whenever he would check the mail after his brother went missing in action. The fear he felt when he’d brought an unconscious Sam to her grandmother and begged for help.
“Let’s go.” He got the window open. But when he turned to Sam, she was already slipping out the door.
He cursed under his breath as he followed her, but she hadn’t gone far. She leaned against one of the closed doors that led to the ballroom, looking through the crack where the screams were coming from.
He came up behind her and she crouched lower so he could take the space higher up on the door to look into the ballroom. The music had stopped and the screams died down to a few shudders.
And to add to the strangeness of it all, the sprinklers were on in the ballroom. He supposed that if there was an oxygen suppression system to stop fires, it made sense there would be sprinklers as well. Some of the people on the ground had their arms over their head as though shielding themselves from the water, but he couldn’t see any obvious burns or anything coming from the water. So what were they shielding themselves from?
The door in the back opened and Abigail and Garrett walked into the room, neither seeming concerned as they were drenched in the downpour. Then, one by one, the guests started to stand. They didn’t seem scared or confused. They stood and went utterly still, looking straight ahead with blank expressions. Expressions just like Garrett’s.
Derek reached down to Sam’s shoulder and gave her a little squeeze. There was nothing more for them to see here.
She gave some resistance, but he was able to pull her away from the door as they ran for the main exit. There wasn’t a single person between them and the Crown Vic. Derek tossed Sam the keys and let her take the wheel. For one, she knew the area better than him. Secondly, his eyes were still burning.
He knew that what happened had been confusing for him. But this was personal for Sam. Her mother wasn’t her mother. Her friends were all possessed by something that was supposed to be dead and gone.
And as of right now, they were on their own. So until they got back to his place, he needed her mind in as safe a place as possible.
She was one of the strongest people he’d ever met, but there was only so much a person could take before they cracked.
Angela Parker pushed her door shut and fell against the cool metal as she gasped for breath. She’d always been a fan of running, but ever since her injury, her daily jogs had taken on another meaning.
Being shot changed a person. It put you on a different level. It made you a survivor. It made you stronger. And it also made you weak.
So every time she completed the three-mile loop around her neighborhood, she was reminded that she was still a strong, capable officer no matter what pieces of metal had ripped through her thigh.
But she was learning that things that made her feel strong a few weeks ago just didn’t get the job done anymore. Every time she thought about what she’d learned in the past few days, her mind would spin and she’d have to find something to remind her that even though it felt as though the world was coming apart at the seams, she still stood on the solid ground.
Magic. The word had been so abstract before. Even rather pleasant as she thought about the shows she’d watched growing up. Hell, she’d begged her parents for a black cat for years after becoming addicted to Sabrina the Teenage Witch. But it was almost impossible to reconcile the happy-go-lucky TV show with the man she’d shot.
Jackson. And the bullets hadn’t been enough to stop him, either. According to Pierce, he’d been trying to raise some dark force that could destroy the world or something. She was a narcotics officer. She was used to fighting addictions and users and abusers. Dark forces that could destroy the world wasn’t what she signed up for.
And it would take a hell of a lot more than a three-mile jog to make her feel as though she were capable of handling this.
She went to the kitchen sink and filled a glass with water, which she downed in a few deep gulps before she refilled it and headed for the bathroom. She set the glass on the bathroom sink as she pulled off her sweaty clothes and threw them on the ground before she turned on the shower.
As soon as her sweatpants were off her thighs, she looked at the scar left from the bullet. She didn’t like to think that she was obsessive, but every time she got dressed or undressed, she looked at that scar. It never changed. It wasn’t all that ugly. For the most part, the pain was gone. But she had to constantly check it.
She was sure the psychiatrist would have something to say about that, but as soon as she was done with the three required sessions, she’d stopped going. Because if she wanted to be mentally stable, she would’ve picked a line of work that didn’t involve getting shot. She kept the water cool as she stepped under it, but as she came down from the run, she turned the temperature higher and higher until it almost felt like a massage against her back.
She let her eyes drift shut and was just about to lose herself under the spray when she heard the sound. She whipped the shower curtain back and looked out at the bathroom. The harsh fluorescent lights illuminated every corner of the room. Had the sound come from outside? No. It had been so clear….
But there was obviously nothing different about the room. She must’ve imagined it. Letting out a deep sigh, she let the shower curtain fall back into place and quickly finished her shower, rinsing out the conditioner from her hair and running the soap over the essential areas.
Considering there were no more suspicious noises, she was feeling more confident that her nerves were getting the best of her. She stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel off the rack to run over her hair and dab at the droplets of water. Once she wasn’t as drippy, she reached for her glass of water, but there was nothing there. She frowned at the empty countertop and saw the glass was at the very end of the counter. It hadn’t been there when she looked out of the shower curtain. She was sure of it. She looked around the bathroom and then yanked the door open to peek outside down the apartment hallway.
Nothing. She went back to the bathroom and the damn glass was right where it was supposed to be. Angela rubbed at her eyes and looked again. This had to be her mind playing tricks on her. Would this be magic? She tried to think about everything Derek had told her about magic. Nothing about inanimate objects moving randomly. Instead of doing her usual moisturizing routine or even brushing her teeth, she just flipped the light switch off and left the bathroom. She’d get a new glass of water.
She pulled on a tank top and her pajama shorts, leaving the towel around her shoulders to keep the damp hair off her shoulders. She always needed time to wind down after a run, so it would be at least an hour before she tried to get some sleep. Instead, she went for the corner of her
living room where her desk was set up with a dock for her laptop. She couldn’t afford much on her salary, so she didn’t have an extra room for an office. She had a bedroom, bathroom, and one common area that included the kitchen, living room, foyer, and office. So basically standard New York living.
She went to the news sites to keep up on current events when the flat-screen television on the wall flipped on.
Angela jumped up and twisted around to look at it. Okay, this wasn’t her imagination. She looked around, hoping she’d see the remote nearby and realize she’d accidentally leaned on it or something, but it was all the way across the room on the end table next to the recliner.
Her mind immediately scrolled through all the possible explanations. Could someone have gotten into the Wi-Fi and turned on the TV? She did have Netflix set up, though she was pretty sure that had nothing to do with the turn on and off capabilities.
She crossed the room and hit the power button, turning off the TV. If it was just that, it would be one thing, but the thought of that glass moving on its own was still in her mind. She was a cop. She didn’t have the luxury of believing in coincidence.
After doing a quick circle to make sure nothing else strange was going on, she walked to her desk and pulled out her personal handgun. She’d rather be alive and paranoid than dead and reasonable.
She sat back at the computer, gun resting to the right of the laptop.
A few minutes later, she was almost able to forget about what happened when the TV flipped on again. She bit out a curse and, picking up the gun in her right hand, went back to the remote and flipped the TV off. Then she stood there for a minute, not moving and waiting to see whether it flipped on again.
The apartment was filled with a loud whirring sound and she jumped—grateful her finger wasn’t on the trigger—and ran to the kitchen to turn off the blender, which had started up on its own. She’d just pulled the plug out of the wall when the damn TV came on again.
