by Raquel Lyon
Her face creased as if she was figuring out whether I was being serious or not. I guessed she’d decided I wasn’t when she said, “No need to be flippant.”
“You started it,” I said. “Ready?”
She checked her weapon belt and nodded. “Yup. Let’s go get this bitch.”
“You read my mind.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected to find when I got upstairs, but I saw nothing unusual as we made our way from the cellar through the maze of underground rooms and up the stone steps to the kitchen.
At the top, the smell of a recently cooked meal reminded my stomach that it hadn’t been fed in a very long time, but I ignored the bile churning inside it. I didn’t even grab a handful of cashew nuts from the bowl on the central island as I passed by, though I was sorely tempted.
The house was quiet. Eerily quiet. Half of me hoped it would stay that way and that I would have time to draw breath after a manic couple of days; the other half of me hoped the silence didn’t mean I was too late.
I was about to enter the hallway when a low rumble of voices stopped me in my tracks. I pushed Charlotte behind me as three figures came into view, and we hid behind the kitchen doorway. It couldn’t be.
“What is it?” Charlotte whispered. “Is she here?”
“Oh, she’s here all right,” I said from the corner of my mouth.
Charlotte pulled her knife.
“Put that away. It’s not who you think.” I bent my neck around the doorway to check my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. “I don’t fucking believe it.”
“Believe what?” Charlotte’s breath whispered through the tendrils of my hair as she craned her neck over my shoulder to see what had held my attention.
It was the last sight I’d expected to see upon my return, and I squinted at the figures climbing the stairs, still unable to comprehend what was clearly true. Two of them, I recognised. The third was a total stranger.
“Who’s that?” Charlotte asked.
“My wife,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You’re married! I thought you said you had a girl.”
“I do. I have both.”
“Both?” She chuckled softly. “That’s as twisted as the thought of you being the ball-and-chain type.”
“Wasn’t my choice. It was an arranged marriage.”
“Really? I’ve always wondered whether those things worked. How’s it going?”
“It isn’t. I was dead before the ink had chance to dry.”
“You died on your wedding day? That sucks.”
“Lucky escape, if you ask me. Or it was… until now.”
“Which one is she, the elegant lady up front?”
“No. The frumpy one trailing behind. The pretty woman is Marissa, my stepmother.”
“Oh.” Charlotte suppressed another laugh. “Why are you hiding from your wife?”
“Because I don’t have the time or inclination for a shit storm. Follow me.”
Pressing my back to the wall, I inched along it to keep out of sight of the ascending group. There was only one reason for Verma to be here, and although she might not have been the woman I’d expected to see, her presence was just as unwelcome. Having one woman in my life was complicated enough, but in the space of two days, the number had grown to four of them ready to bite at my heels for one reason or another. Seb had a lot to answer for.
Charlotte’s mouth gaped as she followed close behind me, staring up at the wolf depicted in the stained-glass window on the first floor landing. “Wow! This place is like a palace. You really live here?”
“This isn’t a sightseeing tour. In here.”
I turned the handle to the living room door cautiously and peeked through the gap before flinging it open. The only anomaly present was the stranger sitting opposite my cousin in front of a flickering fire. Their relaxed demeanour as they each cradled a snifter of brandy hinted that their evening had not yet been disturbed by a demonic invasion. Maybe I was wrong about the whole thing—I could just imagine Charlotte’s angry I-told-you-so speech if I was—but if I wasn’t, there was still time.
“Con! You’re home,” Sebastian said, noticing my presence and beckoning me over with far too much excitement. “Come. Sit.”
My feet remained firmly in place as my gaze wandered to the dark-suited stranger, wary of the way his eyes assessed me and trying to sense any evil in them. I wondered if he could be one of the woman’s lapdogs, sent ahead to lure the household into a false sense of security before the rest of them struck, and then dismissed the thought. Just like that ancient-looking light box in the safe house, the Towers’ magical barrier would have warned Seb of anyone trying to enter the perimeter with malicious intent.
“What’s going on, Seb?” I asked curtly. “Why is Verma here? And who’s this?”
Sebastian’s face hardened at my refusal to comply with his order. “I could ask the same,” he said, his focus diverting to Charlotte at my side.
“You first.”
The stranger coughed as he placed his glass on the coffee table. “Allow me to introduce myself.” He rose and tugged at the hem of his jacket before taking a step forward and offering his hand. “My name is Fraser Northrop. I’m your wife’s father-in-law.”
I narrowed my eyes in puzzlement before taking his hand. “Come again?”
“My son, Tristan, works at the same law firm as Verma. They dated for a couple of years and married six months ago. They returned from their extended honeymoon only yesterday to find your cousin’s message that you were no longer dead.”
“That guy I just saw climbing the stairs is your son?”
“Yes. After hearing the news, we were forced to plan an immediate visit to see if it was true. It seemed so incredulous that you could be alive after all this time, but then you weren’t here when we arrived, and the poor things were so tired after more travelling, they decided to retire early. Your stepmother is showing them to their room.”
I looked down to Sebastian, seeming perfectly relaxed and enjoying my discomfort far more than any loyal cousin should. “How did you explain my resurrection?” I asked him.
“Don’t worry,” Fraser said before Seb could answer. “I know what you are and what Verma is. She was very forthcoming with the details of the whole messy business.”
“Really?” I said, cocking a brow.
“Yes. Please, sit down. I’m sure you’ll agree we need to discuss how to rectify this unforeseen complication.”
“No. You need to leave.”
His eyebrows shot up, and his jaw dropped as he let out a small huff. “Verma did say you were rough around the edges.”
“Oh, she did, did she?”
“Yes. Although she failed to mention the rudeness.”
“I’m not meaning to be rude. I’m trying to save your life. You have to leave. All of you. Now!”
“Connor!” Sebastian scolded. “Mr Northrop is our guest, and as such you will treat him with respect. Explain yourself.”
I drew a long breath through my nose. There wasn’t time for me to fully recount the details of my experiences since leaving the previous morning, but I paced the floor, alternating my gaze between the two men as I gave them the bullet-pointed version.
As I went through it, it shocked me to think of how much had happened in less than forty-eight hours, and that in a whole lot less, my entire life could be history. Visions of hellfire swirling around in the Scourge Pit flashed before my eyes as I spoke, reminding me of my fate should that happen and fuelling my determination to see that it didn’t.
I concluded my story with the conviction that I expected the enemy to burst through the door at any second.
Fraser’s knuckles gripped the chair’s arms and turned white. Sebastian, on the other hand, appeared more curious than alarmed.
“Do you have any notion as to why this woman would want to hurt you in such a way?” he asked.
“Nope. None.”
“Is she someone you crossed paths with during your
time away?”
“Highly unlikely.”
“A demon you failed to catch, for instance?”
“Definitely not.”
“Are you certain?”
“Don’t you think I’ve already gone through all the possibilities? I’d love to know who she is and what she hopes to gain from all this, but I don’t. I haven’t the first clue. And if I’d failed to catch a demon, I wouldn’t be standing here now, would I? One failure would have seen me back in Hell. But I didn’t fail. I beat the Devil.”
And the son-of-a-bitch had clearly hated that fact and left me on this plain devoid of any memories of who I was as a punishment for it—at least until Sebastian had insisted a trip to the Thirteenth was in order, and Sophie had somehow managed to retrieve them. I’ve often wondered how, but it’s a subject she refuses to discuss.
And then a thought struck me. What if the Devil had polluted the memories put back into my head? What if he’d been messing around in there, tormenting me with the unwanted dreams? What if he were the stronger force driving this woman now, making certain that we all paid for my freedom in the worst possible way?
“We’ve wasted far too much time already,” I said, turning from Sebastian to face Fraser again. “I’m sorry, but you have to get out of here before you’re dragged into this, too.”
He looked back to Sebastian with questioning eyes. “You believe all this?”
“As outlandish as my cousin’s claims appear to be,” Sebastian said, “he wouldn’t lie to me, and I trust his judgement.”
“I would have thought that a place as grand as this could afford some kind of magical protection,” Fraser said.
“You are quite correct. It does, but it is the kind that requires annual renewal, and sadly, it is due next week. The timing is regrettable, but I cannot guarantee that our defences will remain strong enough to withstand an orchestrated attack.”
“Hmm. In that case, I agree,” Fraser said. “The children must not be put in danger. We will leave immediately and return at a more opportune time.” He gave me a disgruntled glance as he skirted my side, and then exited the room.
Sebastian was already pulling out his phone. “If you’re right about this, Con, we’re going to need more men to protect the family.”
Speaking of family. “Where’s Sophie?”
“She mentioned going to check on a painting.”
I nodded in the direction of Charlotte, whose head had been lying on the sofa’s arm in slumber since the middle of my speech. “Can you watch her?”
Sebastian nodded as I heard a faint ‘Yo’ sound from his handset. “Arta, yeah. It’s me. Can you get your ass over here pronto?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Throughout the time I’d been speaking to Seb, my head had repeatedly tried to convince me that if he was safe, Sophie would be, too, but my heart needed the reassurance of seeing her for itself. So, I left Seb to his conversation and tripped to the corridor immediately outside her studio. It wasn’t as if she was unused to me popping up beside her without warning, but there had been a couple of ruined-masterpiece incidents when her paintbrush had shot across the canvas on the occasions that I had, and tonight was not the night for dealing with her anger if that happened again.
A clamour of footsteps and voices increased in volume as I reached for the handle. I paused and twisted to see our impromptu visitors descend from the guest floor above.
Verma stopped dead and stared in my direction for a second as we locked eyes.
“So, it is true,” she said.
My gaze flicked to the studio door, and then back to the woman clutching an overnight bag in hands linked in front of her woollen skirt. In the dim light of the corridor, her face was practically the same colour as the pale high-necked blouse showing between the skew-whiff lapels of her clearly hastily put on raincoat.
One woman at a time.
I paced leisurely towards her. “Nice to see you too, Verma.”
“I didn’t want to believe it,” she said, her stare piercing through the lenses of her glasses. “You were pronounced dead.”
“And yet, here I am. Sorry to disappoint.”
She drew a slow, angry breath through her nose. “You’ve turned me into a criminal, Connor. Do you understand what that will do to my professional reputation?”
“I think you should be more worried about your life, right now, than your reputation.”
“I always knew you’d be trouble. Why couldn’t you just stay dead?”
“Can’t keep a good man down, I guess.”
“I should have stood up to my father and refused to marry you.”
“Yeah, like that would have worked.” Her father and Seb’s father had decided the family bloodlines should be joined whether we’d liked it or not. It was politics, pure and simple. “Neither of us had a choice in the matter, remember?”
“All too clearly. But it’s different now.”
Yes, it was. With both patriarchs gone, Verma’s life and mine had skewed off in different directions, and even though her father had been the one to orchestrate the event that had ended my life, I couldn’t hate him for it. Knowing the alternative would have been playing the dutiful husband to the woman standing before me made me almost feel like thanking the man.
“Now I have a real husband,” Verma said. “Naturally, you will agree to an annulment?”
“Naturally.”
“Good. I’ll have the papers drawn up in the morning.”
“Presuming you make it to the morning.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Like…” My gaze wandered over her shoulder towards the two men waiting patiently behind her. “Aren’t you supposed to be leaving?”
“Don’t worry; we’re going. I never wanted to come here in the first place.”
She held my gaze a second longer, as though waiting for a reaction, but the only one she received was my hands rising and a dismissive flick of my fingers. “Off you pop, then.”
She huffed and spun on her heel before mumbling the word “Trouble”.
I couldn’t care less what she thought of me. To be honest, I was good with never seeing her again. She was welcome to her new life, and the sooner she got out of mine, the better off we’d both be.
Forgetting her immediately, my mind returned to a more agreeable meeting. I walked back to the studio door and opened it quietly to avoid any unwanted accidents.
There she was—the one woman I always craved the sight of—oil rag in hand, gently dabbing at a canvas propped on her easel. Relief at her safety seeped through me as I paused in the doorway, unnoticed, to watch her a while longer.
I should have been readying to tell her to get as far away from here as possible, such as go to her friend Beth’s house. Beth was a witch with a certain amount of skills which might help to protect Sophie if the worst came to the worst, but Beth could easily have been another name on the woman’s hit list and might already be dead. Besides, the Towers was as safe a place as any, and I selfishly wanted to keep Sophie by my side.
Under the stark strip lighting of the modern interior, Sophie’s silk-covered hips shimmied seductively with each pat of the cloth in her hands, inviting me to press myself against them. I desperately wanted to comply with their request. It had been far too long since I’d held them between my palms as they’d rocked against me, and I was beginning to forget what they felt like. My mind was already undressing them and imagining how they would placate the pressure building in my jeans as Sophie froze, and then turned to face me.
“Con?”
“Hello, Soph,” I said, closing the distance between us.
“I’m so glad you’re back. Have you done what you needed to do?”
“Not quite.”
“Oh.” Her face fell, and then almost as an afterthought, she asked, “Did you know we have visitors?”
The dark purple of her dress matched the shadows under her eyes sporting a look that pressed on my heart. I’d sp
ent so much time trying to avoid contact with her that I’d been blind as to how much my absences had been affecting her.
“Already had the pleasure.”
“And?”
I allowed a small smile to tug at my lips. Sophie smelled of oil paint and white spirit—an aroma I’d come to love.
“It’s sorted. Verma will be out of our lives soon. Don’t worry about her.”
“I’m not. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“I know,” I said, wondering how the hell I was going to start the conversation I’d been putting off. “It’s time for that talk.”
“What, now? It’s getting late, Con, and I’m tired.”
“I thought you wanted answers.”
“I do,” she said, placing the cloth on a nearby workbench, then picking up a brush, “but this painting’s been annoying me all day. I just can’t get it right.” She dotted a splodge of blue onto a patch that was already blue, and then stepped back and angled her head to study the addition. “And then I had to break off from it to make dinner and play hostess to unexpected guests. I haven’t the energy left for a long conversation. Can we have it in the morning, please?”
“There might not be a morning.”
“Are you saying you’ll change your mind if we wait?”
“No, I’m saying there might not be a morning… for any of us.”
She dropped the brush into a pot of liquid and turned to face me. “I have a feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to say.”
“So do I.”
My smile flickered nervously as I reached to tuck a strand of paint-tipped hair behind her ear, and then trace her jawline. I was certain my heart wasn’t supposed to be beating this fast, but I could feel it hammering inside my ribcage like someone was punching me from the inside out. I tilted her chin upwards to search her eyes. Beyond the hurt, the apprehension, and the confusion, I found what I was looking for. However badly I’d treated her, the love was still there, waiting patiently for me to sort out my shit and return it. And I did, tenfold. She deserved to know that before what I was about to say changed everything.
Fuck it.
I hadn’t planned to do it, but I couldn’t resist. I lowered my lips to hers, and before I knew what was happening, I’d taken her into my arms and swung her onto the workbench. Paintbrushes scattered and jam jars spilled colourful liquid over the surface as Sophie’s back connected with it. I hadn’t paused to think what her reaction might be, so I was pumped when she came alive and returned my fervent need to reclaim our connection.
