by M. L. Briers
“I didn’t know I needed to win brownie points,” Duncan shrugged.
“Well, now you do,” I informed him, sounding all lofty and superior. I was the live one and not the walking corpse.
“Noted,” he tossed back, but I didn’t think for one moment that he was going to pay a blind bit of notice at what I’d said.
“And actioned?” I pressed him.
“Noted,” he repeated with a smile that said it would be a cold day in hell when he listened to me.
“Gran,” I turned my attention back towards her, snapping at the vampire wasn’t going to get me anywhere, but maybe I could get through to the woman.
“I won’t hurt him.” Gran waved her hand in the air as if she dismissed my very real concerns.
“Much,” Duncan chuckled.
“Don’t you have your grave to visit while you’re here?” I snapped out. “Why are you here?”
“Let’s just say that…”
“I asked him to come,” Gran chirped in, like that should have been the end of the matter and no more said about it.
“But he doesn’t have magic, so what use is he?”
“Ouch, I have my pride, and there’s so much more to me than just…”
“An insatiable need to suck the lifeblood from your innocent victims…” Eileen said from what she considered her safe place at the doorway.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
~
“Define innocent,” Duncan said, and I watched Eileen’s frown turn into a scowl. “And I’m not a character in a book; don’t try to define me when you don’t know anything about me.”
He scolded her good and proper, and she flinched and took on a somewhat red hue of guilt. I could see it on her cheeks and in her aura.
“Nice hair, by the way,” Duncan tossed out with a teasing grin, and I got the feeling that he did it to ease the sting of the scolding he’d just delivered to her.
Eileen’s mouth opened, and her hand shot to the multicolored bird’s nest on her head that she’d glamoured over with her magic. I had to wonder how he was able to see it when the rest of the world didn’t.
Maybe vampires could see through the veil of magic, if that were true, what other magic didn’t affect them?
Eileen shot me a questioning look, and all I could do was shrug back. I knew what she was thinking the moment that it registered in her mind, the same thing I had just wondered, and she promptly turned on her heels and rushed away. No doubt she had another question to find answers to in her books.
“Blood,” Gran said, and I could have groaned.
“Mine, not yours – hopefully,” Duncan added with glee as I shot a look over at him.
“We might need it for a spell,” Gran added.
“Couldn’t he just send it via one of those overnight delivery services?” I bit out in his direction.
“And then you would have missed out on the pleasure of getting to know me,” he grinned again, and that imaginary wrecking ball took him off the stool with a vengeance.
“I can live with that.”
“Be nice,” he said, lifting his hand and tapping his temple to tell me that he knew what I was thinking, so I thought about that wrecking ball again, and he chuckled.
“You needed to meet anyway,” Gran said. “If something were to happen to me, you needed to be able to trust that Duncan was there if you needed him.”
“I don’t think we’ll need him,” I said, and Gran hushed me.
“You hope you don’t have a need for him,” Gran said, and a smirk evolved on his face that I would have liked to wipe off.
I knew that kind of smirk, Ross used it all the time when he was teasing Moira, and I wasn’t stupid enough to miss the not-so-subtle conations behind it.
“I’m not a needy person,” I muttered.
“Yes, you do appear a little … uptight,” he offered with glee after thinking it through. The cheek of the man. “Perhaps Jack could help you with that.”
I gave him a look that should have left him with zero doubt that I found him repulsive.
“Leave the detective out of this.”
“Well, maybe Fiona would like me to solve that problem for her.”
“I hadn’t thought of…”
“Gran!” I shrieked.
Was she finally staring insanity in the face? Feeding an innocent to the family pet was not happening on my watch.
“She’s right, having the man disappear like that would just bring more trouble and the police crawling over the island looking for his body…” Gran said, and my jaw dropped.
“Body!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My Gran, conspiring to murder someone, and with a vampire.
“There wouldn’t be a body…” Duncan offered back.
“That’s … interesting,” Gran said, taking a moment to give it some thought.
“Oh – my…”
“If you say, God, I’m banishing you from my table,” Gran warned me.
“Are the two of you – no!” I held up my hands. “Rephrasing that – the two of you are certifiable.”
That was when I couldn’t quite believe my eyes, Gran’s face was a picture of youth, as her eyes sparkled with mischief, and she pressed her lips together as if she was fit to burst, and it wasn’t the toilet that she needed.
Then the two of them started to chuckle, and chuckling led to laughter, and a moment later they were practically in hysterics. Chuckle buddies of the worst kind.
“You should see your face,” Duncan chuckled.
I wasn’t sure what my face was doing, but I didn’t know whether to go nuclear with the zapping or collapse into a heap on the floor, as my mind spun and my body felt as if I was standing in the epicenter of an earthquake. Seriously?
“Some people need to be kept on a leash,” I grumbled, not seeing the funny side of things.
“Oh, she can give it, but she can’t take it,” Duncan chuckled, coming down from his natural high.
I’d give him a high, a swift kick from the top of Mount Vesuvius.
“I think it’s more to do with her feelings for Jack,” Gran said, wiping away actual tears with the backs of her hands.
“I don’t have feelings for…” I started to protest.
“Jack!” Gran practically deafened me, and the vampire didn’t look too happy either. Good.
I turned towards the doorway to find him standing there. He looked a little out of place, like he wasn’t sure if he should actually be in my house or not. That was a different look from the last time that he’d been here.
Jack eyed Duncan like something about the man registered a warning to his mind. Gran saw it as well.
“This is Duncan; he’s one of Eileen’s friends,” she lied, and she did it well.
As we’d found out lately, she did have a lot of experience in that department.
Eileen had been walking by the other door to the kitchen at the time and almost choked on her own tongue. I think Jack might have picked up on that. It was like his policeman radar was never turned off.
“She’s mad at me at the moment,” Duncan said, and Jack acknowledged that explanation with a rise of his eyebrows. “Women.”
“Aye,” Jack said, and I scoffed at the man.
“Sexist pig,” I muttered, heading towards the door that Jack wasn’t blocking with that big, broad frame of his, and coming to the conclusion that all men, aside from my father, weren’t worth the effort we afford them.
“That’s…” Jack started, and he even lifted his hand as if to capture my attention, oh, he had it alright. I shot him a death glare as I kept going.
“She’s mad at the world,” Duncan said, and I imagined that wrecking ball again, and him being flung right off the island by it.
“Why don’t you…” I tossed back over my shoulder, but Gran, the spoilsport, didn’t let me finish.
“You boys go in the dining room; dinner’s near to done. Sit, anywhere.” She ushered them out behind me, and I walked clean through the di
ning room and into the hallway, where I promptly turned my heels to the wall and collapsed against it while trying not to mutter curses.
“What’s got you all fangs and claws?” Moira asked, and I groaned inwardly.
“Let’s sit, boy girl, boy girl,” Duncan said with relish, and I screwed up my face and let the curses come as they may.
“Wow,” Moira chuckled. “Let it all out, girl. It doesn’t help being so uptight, you know?”
“I’m not bloody uptight…” I hissed.
“Maybe you need to get…”
“Do not finish that or so help me; I will cause you so much pain your next generation will feel it.”
Moira and I glared at each other. I could practically see the cogs turning in her mind. They were rusty, but slowly working.
“Meh.” She finally backed away.
“Those pups of yours.” I couldn’t help myself. Maybe I should have tried, but between Gran, the vampire, and Jack – I was having a bad day and who better to take it out on than a sibling?
I watched as my sister ground to a halt like she’d run into a magical, invisible wall that we’d splattered Eileen against once. Her whole body tensed like someone had zapped her with a cattle prod, and she slowly turned a glare back over her shoulder at me.
Bring it on, sister.
I saw the twitch at the corners of her lips and my heart raced as my mind tried to figure out what her next move was.
“Jack,” she called out, and I gasped in disbelief. She could nae be so cold, so callous, such a witch… “Maggie needs you.”
I snapped open my mouth and was about to zap her when the big man himself strolled out of the dining room, and I snapped my jaws closed. She was going down in a fiery blaze – the very next time that I saw Ross Mac-Dribbles, I would have my vengeance.
~
If I thought our normal family dinners were bad, well, they were nothing compared to the uncomfortable truth of having to sit down to one with a vampire and a policeman. Talk about guarded, we were, and not to mention the number of double meanings that had been tossed around from pillar to post.
All I can say is; that if Jack didn’t think us strange before then I’m sure he thought he was in the Twilight Zone by the time the men retired for a good Scotch and us little women were left with the cleaning up to do.
Equality my backside.
Not that I wanted to be in that room with Jack, oh no, it was nice to be able to take a full breath without thinking that the sky was going to fall in at any moment. I wasn’t entirely sure who it was I thought might slip up and what they’d say, or whether the vampire would just offer Jack a fangy smile out of spite, but, there it was. My new existence – walking on eggshells, while balancing my sanity in one hand and my lost dignity in the other.
Jack, of course, had made a point of reminding my Gran that he wanted a word with her about what she’d stumbled across at Leonna’s house, and the way that he’d phrased it settled my nerves a little more. At least she wasn’t a suspect in his mind in the same way that had been the talk around the island over the last day.
Either that or the man was a lying, two-faced, back-stabbing, numpty that I’d gladly feed to the vampire should he accuse Gran of anything.
“I came to ask if I should be talking to that man or…” Duncan said from the doorway of the kitchen and held up his hands like claws as he grinned in my direction when I grumbled a few curse words his way.
“I’ll take the rubbish out to the bin,” Eileen said, snatching up the sack and rushing toward the back door to escape the vampire, who had been sitting to her right at the dinner table all evening.
“Hop in the sack, Mac-Vampy,” Moira said with a gleeful grin and got an elbow in the ribs from Gran for her troubles.
I for one welcomed Moira’s jab at him, and Gran’s elbow.
“We need Scotch. I offered to come and spend time with the…”
The sound of a piercing scream went up from outside. It was unmistakeably Eileen; I’d heard that bloodcurdling screech before when she’d stumbled across a spider.
But by the time it took for any one of us present to get our brains to kick our backsides into gear and start for the door, Duncan was already outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
~
“I’ve got you,” Duncan said, over and over as he held Eileen in the relative safety of his arms. She didn’t seem to notice the fact that it was the vampire holding her, or maybe she did, and whatever had made her scream was just far scarier.
Moira and I were the first outside, and somehow Jack came after us. I guess he might have lifted or steamrollered my mother and gran out of the way, but by the time that we were all outside, scouring the darkness of the night, there didn’t appear to be anything to be seen.
“I felt it touch me,” Eileen mumbled, and I felt a cold shiver run through me.
If she’d felt what I had at the Point, then it was little wonder that she was happy to be in Declan’s arms. I might just have hugged Ross’ werewolf up on that cliff top – probably not.
“What?” Jack asked, and I grimaced at the fact that I’d invited him here.
I couldn’t exactly get my grove on and illuminate the area with my magic, now could I? That was taking things a little too far and expecting Jack not to have a fit of the vapors.
“Take her inside,” Duncan said, passing my sister onto my mother. “I’m going to have a look around.”
“Be careful,” I warned him, and for a moment his eyebrows pinched together.
“She cares,” he chuckled.
“I don’t want a mess to clear up tomorrow,” I lied.
I did care, sort of. Vampire or not, the man had no magic.
“I’ll come with you,” Jack said, sounding all big and macho like.
I opened my mouth to say it was a horrible idea when Moira screeched, and everyone but me turned to look. I’d heard Moira scream like I’d heard Eileen scream, and trust me; the girl had lungs when she wanted them. Nope, she was just covering for Duncan’s escape, and with a grin, the vampire was gone.
“What?” Jack demanded as he started towards Moira.
“Squelchy,” she said, lifting her foot and wiggling it.
I tried not to laugh at the look on Jack’s face, but when he turned to find Duncan gone, he bit down on a curse and started after him. My heart leaped as I lost sight of Jack in the darkness.
I lifted my hands and clicked my fingers, forcing my magic out and turning on every light inside the house, so it looked like fairyland. We were no longer in darkness, but those lights didn’t reach nearly far enough.
“Take Eileen inside,” I nodded to Moira, and she turned, and half dragged our younger sibling with her.
“You’re not going out there,” my father said, knowing me well enough to know that I was itching to do something.
“They’re practically family,” I reasoned.
“A vampire and an outlander?” he whispered back.
“But still…”
“You’re needed here,” he said, and I chewed my inner cheek.
Only when I heard the sound of a car coming up our road did I finally feel as if I wasn’t a jumping bean held down with glue anymore.
“I go run them off,” I said, and before I got another lecture, I was heading on fast feet toward the front of our house.
~
Helena McCrae stepped away from her car and started towards me. I knew her as one of Gran’s acquaintances, but I wouldn’t call her a friend of my grandmother’s, at least they never appeared to be on best terms when they did meet.
She was a witch from another clan, and when I say witch, she could be a real peach. She eyed me like a rattlesnake about to launch an attack all the way up the drive, but I didn’t flinch. I had the power of three, and while she might have been an elder, she was no match for my magic.
In truth, I kind of hoped the woman tripped on a squishy patch and face planted a pothole filled with water, but I wasn’t
going to wish for it.
“Margaret.” Her chilly tones told me she hadn’t had a personality transplant while she’d been off the Isle on her little jaunt.
“Mrs. M” I replied with, what I hoped were the same qualities in my voice.
“Fiona left me some rather confused messages, but the one that caught my attention was when she warned me not to come back home,” she looked as if she was sucking a plum and a lemon at the same time.
“For your own good, no doubt…”
“Not a decree then,” she raised an eyebrow at me.
“Hardly…”
“Hard to tell. I had to wonder if age had gotten to her mind.”
Cheeky … witch. My gran could run rings around this old hag, and better her with magic any day of the week.
“Same age, aren’t you?”
“I still have my marbles…” she snapped off the last word when I lifted my hand and pointed my index finger. She eyed me with suspicion and flinched when I brought it up in front of her face.
Then I inspected my nails, and she seemed to relax slightly. She was lucky I didn’t bounce her bonny, bony backside down the drive.
“Gran too, in fact, she’s sharpened her skills lately,” I said, pretending not to pay the woman any mind, even though I was watching her like a hawk.
“Is she here?” Helena eyed our house; all lit up like we were expecting a plane to land in the croft out back.
“She is,” I said, and nodded towards the front door. That was when Gran appeared as if by magic, and Helena swallowed her tongue.
“Fiona, I got your messages and came as soon as I got back,” she said, and her tone was much improved, and just a little sweeter for my gran.
“I told you not to come back, Helena, why do you never listen?” Gran berated her and I had to smile. It sounded as if she was telling off a child.
I’ll bet that went down a treat with Mrs. M.
“What’s going on?” she asked as she started towards Gran, and mindful that Jack was around the area somewhere my Gran waited until Helena was right up close and personal before she started explaining in whispered tones.
