* * *
A few hours later, as I prepared to get some sleep, I took a call from Scott Mettle, vocalist and co-founding member of the popular hometown hard rock band, Scrap Mettle. His band had two platinum records, and they had just reunited after having broken up years earlier. The band had sold out the Vic Theater for their scheduled performance in a couple days, and Scott had called because, since we couldn’t afford a manager or agent, he had gotten my number from a mutual friend who played in another local band.
Scott had seen our performance on YouTube and asked whether we’d consider opening up for them. That type of good fortune didn’t come along often, and I hoped my voice didn’t quiver too much as I accepted the offer without reservation. After chatting for a few more minutes with Scott about the “planned” stage show we’d put on and skirting details of how we pulled it off, I hung up. Although I worried that the audience might boo us because we couldn’t line up a handful of vampires willing to end their lives on stage, I had so much nervous energy that I spent the next hour separately updating Kendall, Brandon, and Nolan by phone. They were just as pumped as I was, and it took me a couple hours to fall asleep.
Some time later, it felt like the temperature had fallen below freezing in a matter of seconds. But that was unlikely during late spring, especially when I’d left the window open a smidge. I opened my eyes and, as they adjusted to the darkness, I caught sight of the Shih-Tzu/Brussels Griffon puppy named Lulu that I’d adopted from the local shelter this morning. All twenty inches of her stood at the foot of my bed, staring up at the ceiling, surprisingly tame considering that she was ordinarily a bundle of energy that had a difficult time following my commands…unless it served her own interests.
Without Grams in my life, I couldn’t bear to live in the house she left to me upon her death. Too many good memories of our past would have left me in a deep depression. Besides, I’d taken pride in caring for her, and I needed some company and someone to care for. When I saw Lulu, specifically those big brown eyes full of excitement and mischief, I knew she belonged in my life.
Although barely fifteen pounds, Lulu barked at dogs eight times her size with the vehemence of an alley brawler. She had a somewhat annoying high-pitched bark, but she was incredibly intelligent; I’d already taught her how to do a high-five! Since I needed to be on guard at all times, now that I had no idea who might try to invade my home, I was okay with having a dog issue a squealing bark to alert me to supernatural creatures, because even the best alarm system didn’t have the well-honed instincts of my Little Lunatic, one of many nicknames I’d already assigned her. It was a very rock ’n’ roll name, and it fit her perfectly, since she had no problem scuttling around the house barking at the faintest sound, daring anyone to cross her path, lest that entity feel her wrath. I’d even visited the local pet store and bought a tag to place on her collar with the words “Lunatic Lulu” sketched in the iron.
“What do you see, Little Lu?” I asked, getting up, and petting her back and curling my palm around her tail that was alert and raised high. “What’s going on? Is someone here?”
She barked and wagged her tail with vehemence.
“Good girl! Where is he?” I followed her gaze. “On the ceiling?”
Lulu barked and lifted her nose. She barked again, louder this time. A low rumble started at the back of her throat.
“Hey, Little Lu,” I said, trying to get her attention. “Who’s here?”
The grumble in her throat grew louder.
Goosebumps appeared on my arms. How could my Little Lu look and sound so confident? I wished I had her backbone!
That’s when Lulu dropped her gaze at eye level. She backed up, moving toward me. She barked and snarled then barked again.
Footsteps pattered across the carpet.
No one else had the key to my home. I looked left. No sound. Looked right. No movement anywhere. “Who’s here, Lulu?”
A breath hissed at the edge of my bed.
As Lulu started barking, I shut my eyes. I’d always been a light sleeper. I woke up at least seven or eight times each night, which made it difficult to get a good night of sleep. Needless to say, the littlest disturbance woke me up. If someone had entered the premises, I’d have heard the doorknob open at the other end of the hall. But not a sound sifted through the air. I disregarded the absurd notion that someone stood at the foot of my bed, watching over me as I slept. I closed my eyes and tried to relax.
“Seeeereeeena.”
“Lulu?” I said, my voice barely audible. She responded by turning around, ducking under the covers, and lying down flat on the bed. So much for a guard dog! I couldn’t blame her. I would have sought safety too if I were her.
Unable to ignore that sinister voice, I switched on the lamp on the nightstand to my left. I pushed up against the headboard and scanned the room, looking for…what? “Who’s there?” I asked, hating that my tone came out in a squeal. I felt Lulu quivering against my thigh. Instinctively, I placed a hand on her back, trying to comfort her. “It’s okay, Lu. Someone’s playing a mean trick on us.” Saying those words only made her shiver with more ferocity.
Not a sound clicked nearby. Nor did anything pass across my field of vision.
My imagination had obviously tricked me into believing someone had entered my room. I’d just slain a crew of vampires and, even though vamps couldn’t enter my home without my permission, no one could blame me for my apprehension. After midnight. In an empty house. Obviously, Lulu didn’t count, since she’d sought safety under the blankets.
I released a heavy sigh and shook off the eerie sensation that someone had infiltrated my home.
“Serena.”
Upon hearing my name clearly, I shot up in bed, once more glancing in every direction, eager to meet whoever decided to torment me. Lulu trembled under my palm with even greater urgency. But as the seconds ticked by, I didn’t see or hear anyone. So I closed my eyes and pretended to drift back asleep, hoping it relaxed my puppy. After a few moments, the tremors rippling across her skin settled down. I let out a slow sigh, glad that she no longer felt afraid.
Serena!
“Grams?” I asked, hoping my grandmother’s spirit had appeared to see me as she’d done in the past. I snapped open my eyes and threw off my covers, but I didn’t see her anywhere. “Who’s here?” Gasping, I watched puffs of white air leave my mouth. That locked my muscles in place, making it difficult to move.
My heartbeat thundered in my chest. My mouth went dry. And I waited for…what? I couldn’t hide under the covers like Lulu forever, so I swallowed and said, “Whoever’s there, I have a baseball bat.” Speaking broke my paralysis. Actually, the bat was under the bed, so I swung to the other side of the bed, dropped a hand below, grasped the bat, and brought it back up, clutching it tight. The few times I had approached Lulu a little too quickly, she cowered in submission: her previous owner had obviously abused her. For that reason, I felt an overpowering desire to protect her. No matter what came at me, I wouldn’t let anyone hurt my Little Lu.
With no response forthcoming, I peeled back the blanket, making sure Lulu was still covered, and looked at the edge of my bed.
No one stood there.
That didn’t lessen the pressure on my lungs. I glanced to my right.
The space was vacant.
Only one other direction remained. With a growing sense of dread clamping down on me, I craned my neck to the left. I turned back to the other side of the bed.
A hooded figure in a black cloak crouched over the bed with only a few feet separating us. A white, bony finger shifted beneath the heavy cuff link and pointed at me. “Don’t trust…yourself!”
I stared wide-eyed at the formless creature. The scent of decay reached my nose. The room seemed to constrict, sapping the oxygen from the area around me.
Zephora must have manifested this presence by astral projecting. The hooded figure pulled both hands from its cloak and grabbed its hood, prepared to pull it bac
k. Then it stopped and knelt closer.
Instinctively, I recoiled, determined to put as much distance between us as possible. But in reality, I only managed to move a few inches.
The figure removed part of its hood, and it looked like jagged currents of electricity danced in twin orbs in what were probably its eyes.
A shrill ringing to my left made me blink: my cell phone on my nightstand.
I blinked and discovered that the figure crouching toward me had vanished. Where had it gone? More importantly, why had it appeared in my home?
The phone rang again, and Lulu quivered under the covers,
I put a hand on Lulu and petted her, trying to comfort her. The brisk temperature had somehow collapsed on itself, defying physics and allowing more temperate climes to take its place. I blinked once more at the space the figure had inhabited only moments ago. At first, I thought Grams had visited. But a second later, it seemed that a darker spirit had pushed her aside and taken her place, even if she hadn’t been able to maintain her form. So who had it been? Grams? Or some other, more sinister, spirit?
Once more, the phone rang.
The piercing clatter in an otherwise silent room jolted me out of my reverie. I snatched my phone. “Hello?”
“Well, hello dear!” Zephora said.
A streak of fear crawled across my skin. Zephora could only astral project while asleep, and since she had called only a couple seconds after the mirage had disappeared, it was unlikely she had visited me only moments ago. But if she hadn’t sent the hooded figure, who had?
CHAPTER THREE
“What do you want?” I asked in a steely voice. Lulu barked at my distant tone, but I shushed her into silence. I presumed she was too frightened to mutter another sound.
“I want the same as you,” Zephora said, “a full and happy life.”
“But you already had that. Three hundred years ago.”
“You consider burning at the stake at thirty years of age…a full and happy life?”
She had me there. “What do you want?”
“To stay in contact with you, of course.”
“What makes you think I want to see or hear from you? We’ve spoken more than enough lately as it is.”
“We last conversed a couple days ago, my dear. Nowadays, that stretch of time is an eternity, is it not?”
That all but confirmed my assumption that Zephora hadn’t visited me moments before calling me. I didn’t know how to follow up her remark, so I remained silent.
“Has someone appeared to you…in my image?”
“Not exactly.” I balled my fists, wishing I had thought twice before speaking.
“Intriguing,” Zephora said. “And what appeared to you?”
“We have nothing to talk about,” I said, anger igniting inside me. I pulled the phone from my ear, ready to disconnect the call. I had only stayed on the line as long as I had to determine whether Zephora had just visited me. Since she hadn’t…
“What if I told you that I know who, or just as correctly, what appeared to you?”
My finger lingered the button to hang up, but as I weighed the pros and cons of continuing to talk to a murderer, curiosity got the best of me. I stayed quiet a little longer so as not to appear desperate for information. “I’m listening.”
“Are you, Serena? You’re quite impulsive. Quite rash.”
“I tend to be when a bunch of vampires try to kill me in a public place.”
“Yes, I heard they visited you earlier this evening.”
“Visited?” I asked, astounded by the way she downplayed the attack.
“Yes. I am quite appalled by your incessant need for public adulation. You really should work through your self-esteem issues.”
I ignored her condescension. “So you sent them to kill me?”
She chuckled. “Well, it is not quite so simple.”
“Either you did or you didn’t. There’s no middle ground.”
“Then I did not. I merely tasked Darius with informing the vampires he recently turned about your existence. They made an attempt on your life of their own accord. But I can hardly blame them. It is an instinctual desire to be free.”
“But killing me won’t free them from the curse.”
“Yes, but you have considerable influence over Celestina. Removing you from the equation will make it that much easier to manipulate your niece. You understand.”
“No,” I growled into the phone, unable to contain the anger that burned inside me. What kind of lunatic discussed killing another person as calmly as placing an order at a fast food restaurant? “I don’t understand. You said you didn’t want to hurt her.”
“Yes, she is much more valuable alive than dead.”
That should have settled my nerves, but it meant that Zephora planned to manipulate Celestina. But how would my niece fit into her plans? “Why did you call me?”
“It is only good manners to inquire about the health of family members.”
“But you tried to kill me!”
“You are a poor listener, my dear. I did not make an attempt on your life. The vampires did. Who am I to tamper with their free will?”
I tightened my grip around the phone, wanting to whip it against the wall. But if I gave in to that impulse, Zephora would no doubt reveal a condescending smirk. Not that I could see it, of course, since we spoke on the phone. Just the image of that creepy grin of hers made me shiver.
“Well,” Zephora said, “I should be going. I have plenty of work ahead of me, as you can imagine. Please accept my congratulations on surviving the vampire attack.”
“Wait,” I said, gripping the phone tightly, upset with myself for sounding frantic about ending the call without finding out about the figure that visited my room. “You seem to know who visited me a few moments ago.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Who is it?”
“He has many names. And many faces.”
“Mephisto!” I said, almost panting at the recollection of the man who visited me a couple days ago, hoping to regain the Soul Sword. He had the ability to shape-shift as well as appear and disappear at will. He’d first appeared as an overweight geeky fan boy with a penchant for Mickey Mouse and binge watching television shows. He next confronted me in the strip club that Alexis worked at. That time, a three-piece suit covered a muscular frame, and he looked like a professional with little time for petty matters. Two distinguishing factors allowed me to recognize him the second time: his same cold and distant smile and the scar on his face.
“Mephisto,” Zephora said as though savoring the way it sounded on her tongue. “I suppose that name is as good as any.”
“What do you know of him?”
Zephora took in slow deep breath. “You will not find a more deranged individual anywhere in existence. Nor will you find one who wields such power.” She paused. “Good day, Serena.” Then she hung up.
I put the phone down and considered everything Zephora mentioned. She considered Mephisto as both a person and a creature. What did that mean? She’d also used the word ‘existence’ with regard to Mephisto. Did Zephora mean that he had existed for eons? Or did she mean that I’d never find a more powerful person on the planet? Was he a sorcerer? Was that how he’d been able to appear in spirit form?
Then again, Grams told me that the women in our line had never given birth to a son, which sounded preposterous. But I believed her, since she had no reason to lie. I assumed someone or something had cursed the women in our line to produce only females, and because Alexis, Celestina, and I were the last remaining witches in the country, that meant Mephisto had to be something else.
For Zephora to speak so cryptically about Mephisto, she had either worked alongside him, battled him at some point in the past, or avoided him at all costs. It all added up to one thing: Zephora feared him. And when the most powerful witch in our line’s history displayed misgiving, I found it best to heed her words the next time Mephisto visited. Which could be ten minutes
from now…or ten days from now, based on his unpredictability.
I had no illusions he wouldn’t return. If he wanted the Soul Sword, a weapon Grams had handed down to me before passing, he would no doubt continue trying to regain control of it. Since he hadn’t fought me to obtain it, he had seemed to imply he wouldn’t use physical force to do so. So what prevented him from stealing it? Or knocking me unconscious and taking it from me? For whatever reason, it was obvious he couldn’t use whatever powers he had amassed to take back his sword. Since Grams told me that the sword could kill any paranormal entity by piercing their heart, I wondered if Mephisto fit in that category as well. It could explain why he wanted it.
On second thought, if he desperately wanted it, he would have done everything possible to recover it as quickly as possible. But he obviously wasn’t in a hurry to reclaim it. Otherwise, he would have been visited at regular intervals until he got what he wanted. This latest visitation confirmed that suspicion. If it were imperative to reacquire the Soul Sword, he would have actually appeared, not shown up in spectral form. That left me to think that he wouldn’t drop by anytime soon. I suspected that he appeared moments ago to keep me off balance by worrying when he might next drop in. He no doubt planned to wear me down by occasionally appearing when I least expected it. It was a low-effort, high-return concept...if I fell into his trap. But since he hadn’t threatened me, and because I got the impression that he wouldn’t visit me anytime soon, I put him out of my mind.
The doorbell rang.
* * *
Unsure who would visit me at 2:00 AM, I rushed down the hall, concerned one of my friends had run into trouble of the vampire-centric-kind. Lulu raced ahead of me, skidded to the stop at the door, and turned back to me while gasping for breath with a smile on her face. Like so many dogs, she probably suspected the visitors had come by to pet her. But logic told me that visitors who dropped by in the middle of the night were not harbingers of good fortune and solely interested in scratching Lulu’s ears.
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