by P. R. Frost
Half stretching, half falling, I found the comb and stuffed it back into my hair. The world brightened. No trace of a lurking Windago. Using a ragged stump as a prop, I dragged myself to my feet and limped over to where Donovan knelt at WindScribe’s side. I’d lost a shoe at some point. I was so tired I didn’t care.
Scrap faded and lost substance. He needed to eat and sleep as much as I did.
Without a word, Donovan lifted WindScribe into his arms and carried her. I grabbed the replica blade and followed, wincing with every step at the disrespect to a fine weapon by using it as a cane.
The two hundred yards to the house seemed three miles or more. We took it slow and cautious. I kept a wary eye out for returning Windago.
King Scazzy awaited me. He perched on the slanted cellar doors. “Congratulations. You took the Windago out in pairs, including the one you know as Lilia David and the partner of the one Donovan killed earlier. The survivors will not seek revenge.” He bowed graciously.
“Well, bully for me.” I was so tired I didn’t care about anything but a hot shower and bed. Not necessarily in that order.
“I will take my charge now,” King Scazzy said imperiously.
“Back off, twerp. She’s mine. I won her fair and square.” I jabbed at him with the tines of the imp wood blade. Donovan had proved it to be nearly as lethal as the real one.
Scazzy hopped higher on the cellar doors, closer to the house’s foundations. “This is not over, Tess Noncoiré. ” He popped out of view. “We will meet again,” he warned from across the ether. His disembodied voice raised the hairs on the back of my neck and sent shudders through my exhausted body and spirit.
Chapter 40
Gollum appeared out of nowhere. “You take care of that one. I’ll deal with Tess.” He scooped me up into his arms and carried me through the back door into the apartment.
Donovan, still carrying WindScribe, proceeded to his car. I heard them drive off and thought nothing more of them.
I let Gollum cradle me, gaining tiny morsels of warmth wherever my body came in contact with his. It felt so very good and comforting to rest my head on his shoulder, to give him control.
Safe. He made me feel safe.
His big hands made gentle work of cleaning my wounds. He whistled through his teeth at the blood still oozing from the long gash on my arm.
“The frostbite will heal clean. But this . . .” He shook his head. “This is going to scar.”
“One more to add to the collection.” I just shrugged and let him soothe my hurts with a foul-smelling ointment and bandages.
“You should have some antibiotics. I’ll take you to the emergency room.”
“Scrap will take care of it when he recovers.”
“You sure?” He looked almost scared.
I nodded, eyes closed. Too heavy to keep them open.
Another long moment of silence while I dredged up enough energy to ask the next question.
“The coven?”
"MoonFeather called in some favors and found places for them to go for the night. With other Wiccans I gathered. They seemed obligated to offer hospitality, and intellectually interested in their travels to and from Faery. They will do their best to keep their presence discreet. Allie thinks the FBI will arrive in the morning with tons of questions. We’ll reassess the situation in the morning. MoonFeather is quite something. I’d like to spend more time picking her brain.”
The rest of his statement drifted through the cobwebs in my mind. I’m not sure how much I heard and how much I dreamed.
I slept the sleep of the just. Or the dead. Ensconced in Gollum’s sofa with him watching over me from the armchair.
I awoke alone. Monday morning. Gollum was probably at the college.
Scrap got me up at some ungodly hour with his demands for more beer and orange juice. I joined him in his favorite restorative. Not bad.
From the dirty glasses in the sink, I gathered that Gollum had given him the first dose last night.
The sun poked her bleary head above the horizon. Life was looking better. I peeked beneath Gollum’s expert bandage on my arm. A long black scab marked the gash. No trace of red infection. The cooling ointment now smelled of mint and didn’t burn the wound at all.
We survived your first battle against Midori, Scrap said quietly around a mouthful of beer. How do you feel?
“You should know. You’ve always said we are linked closer than spouses. I get drunk, you get drunk. I’m happy, you’re happy. So how do we feel? I’m too numb to figure it out.”
Exhausted. Brittle. Fragile.
“Yeah, that about covers it.”
Also a bit exhilarated.
“Yeah. That, too.”
He flashed his pointy teeth at me and wiggled his fat bottom so that his barbed tail coiled and circled his glass. I got a couple of new warts. He showed me the hideous bumps on his elbows.
“Very pretty,” I admired his new beauty marks. “Mostly, I’m hungry. How about a high-fat, high-carb breakfast at the diner on the interstate?” I asked him as he slurped the last dregs of his juice through a straw.
The imp had an orange tinge beneath the gray. He’d revive soon.
Not dressed like that, dahling. Scrap surveyed my crumpled jeans and baggy sweatshirt with disdain.
I smelled of sweat and fear gone rancid.
I’d fallen asleep in my clothes again. On Gollum’s sofa. Again.
This was becoming a habit I needed to break.
But did I truly want to?
“Okay, I’ll shower while you pick out something for me to wear.”
I was halfway up the stairs when someone knocked imperiously on the kitchen door. At the same moment, the phone rang shrilly.
“Will someone get the door?” I yelled at the top of my lungs as I grabbed the phone in my office.
No one stirred, so I carried the handset to the kitchen door.
“Hello,” I responded to both parties at the same time.
“Tess,” Donovan sighed over the phone.
“Tess,” Dad demanded at the door.
I motioned Dad and Bill into the kitchen while I turned my attention to Donovan.
“I have to go to Florida. Today,” he said without preamble.
“So?”
“I’ve been on the phone all night to various relatives. There’s a power struggle looming within the ranks of Damiri. D’s death left a terrible vacuum.”
“So go. If the police will let you.” I tried to pretend his absence didn’t leave an aching void in my gut.
What was it with this guy? Why couldn’t I cast him off and forget that he was the world’s sexiest man and most incredible lover?
Not bad in a fight either. Twice now, he’d done more than his fair share of subduing a demon horde.
He was also a demon—or a demon sympathizer. Not a safe or comfortable man to love.
That thought stopped me cold. I wasn’t in love with Donovan. I couldn’t be. I wasn’t that self-destructive.
Was I?
“I can’t leave WindScribe in the motel alone. I’ve given her some money to buy clothes and shoes. But she’s so scattered and emotionally strung out I’m uncomfortable leaving her totally alone. Can you take her back, just for a few days?”
No, I wanted to scream. The gash on my arm throbbed in mute reminder of what lengths I had gone to in order to rescue her. “If I have to. She’s going to have to grow up and take responsibility for herself sooner or later, though.”
“Agreed. Just not today. Fetch her please, Tess. For me. For us.”
“There is no us.”
“They’re calling my flight. I have to go. Just go get her. Or send someone to do it. Allie or Gollum. Someone. ”
He rang off before I could tell him to do something anatomically impossible.
“Your mother is on her knees in the Lady Chapel at St. Mary’s with her rosary,” Dad blurted out.
“And that affects me how?” All I wanted was food. Lots an
d lots of food, but people kept dumping other problems on me.
Welcome to the world of the Warrior, Scrap chided. He blew a smoke ring at me from his high corner perch above the refrigerator. Pour me some more OJ and beer, and you eat some crackers. We’ll call it good until we can split this place, he added in his gangster accent.
“She’s been there all night. Father Sheridan is very worried. You didn’t answer your phone earlier, so he called me. She won’t talk to anyone, wouldn’t even acknowledge I was there.” I’d never seen Dad look so sad and . . . inadequate.
“And all I wanted was a week in Mexico soaking up some sun and drinking piña coladas before I start my next book.”
“You’ve got to go get her, Tess. She’s so vulnerable right now. You’re the only one she’ll listen to.”
“What makes you think she’ll listen to me? As usual, this whole debacle will become my fault in her mind.”
“Just go to the church and talk to her. Please.”
“Tess,” MoonFeather said quietly as she clumped into the kitchen. “You may need an exorcist for your mother. She needs a lot of healing, from within as well as from without.”
Bye, babe, Scrap squeaked. He popped out in a puff of black cherry cheroot.
I grabbed a granola bar, thought twice, and threw two more into my purse. Barely enough to sustain life, but they should get me through another hour or so until I could find the time for real food.
My tires only skidded twice on leftover ice during the half-mile drive to St. Mary’s. If Father Sheridan wanted one of his parishioners to leave their prayers on a weekday, then something terrible was eating away at Mom.
I found her in the third pew from the front, on her knees. She rapidly ran the beads of her rosary through anxious fingers, hardly having time to say one prayer before beginning the next.
Old habits die hard, or maybe I did still have some respect for the sanctity of this old church. I genuflected toward the altar and then knelt beside my mother, bowing my head.
“Can you ever forgive me, Tess?” She kept her eyes on the rosary—blue milk glass beads worn smooth on some of the facets with a Madonna Medal anchoring the prayer chain. She’d used the same one for as long as I could remember.
“He used you, Mom. He manipulated you to gain his own selfish ends. He did the same thing to Donovan and . . .” Did I dare mention Mike Gionelli? Not yet. That connection wasn’t necessary at the moment.
“He only married me to get your house.”
“My house?”
“There’s something special about it. That’s why you attract so many ghosts. He never said what. Just that he needed your house.”
There was more. I could tell in the way she paused between sentences, as if having to think how not to say something.
“What made him think marrying you would gain him the house, Mom?”
A long pause. Then she finally looked up at the crucifix above the altar. (I tried to avoid looking at the gruesome agony of the man hanging there.)
“I . . . I let him believe that the house was mine. Mine and yours.”
“Why?”
“Trying to impress him. He was so handsome, so sophisticated, and so rich! I could hardly believe he was interested in me at first. I have so little. You are my greatest treasure and one success in life, Tess. But I wanted him to want me. Just me. Not the mother of a famous writer. Just me.”
A bunch of things clicked into place. Something special about the house. Joint ownership of the house between mother and daughter. Marry the mother, kill the daughter. Then kill the mother, too, and inherit sole ownership of the house.
I had to keep her focused, help her heal. Then I’d worry about the house and demons and ghosts and such.
“You are an attractive woman, Mom. Any beauty I have I inherited from you. There is no reason a normal man wouldn’t be interested in you.”
“But I don’t attract normal men. First your father and his . . . well, you know your father. Then Darren. No one else has even looked at me twice.”
“Um, Mom, you’re half blind when it comes to men. You don’t see them when they are flirting. Chief Halohan had the hots for you when his wife left him.” Remember I said something about his son being a bully? Well, his mother gave up trying to reform him and convincing his dad that there was a problem. “You pushed him aside so often he gave up.” Probably a good thing.
“Then there was George LaBlanc, the first owner of the antique shop. I think he sold out and moved to Maine because you broke his heart.”
“Really?” A spark of interest in her eyes. Then it winked out just as rapidly. “I didn’t see it. I’m blind to good men. What’s wrong with me, Tess?”
“I don’t know how to answer that, Mom. But you need to come home now. There’s leftover chicken soup. You have a bowl of that and some bread, then take a nap. You haven’t slept much since ... since it happened.”
“If I sleep, I’ll dream of D. Every time I close my eyes I see the horrible wounds, his blood. So much blood. I can’t ever go back to the cottage.”
“Then don’t. Sleep in the room next to mine. You know I’ll keep you safe.”
“You can’t protect me from my nightmares.”
“I can keep those nightmares from becoming real.” I hoped.
“I . . . I just want everything the way it was. Before I went to Florida.”
“We can’t go back, Mom. We can only move forward.” The meaning of my words slammed into my chest like a shock wave. I had to move forward, too. I had to put Dill and his death behind me once and for all.
I had to know who killed him and if I truly could have saved him. I had to know who killed Darren. I had to know what was so special about my house. Until then, I was wandering in circles and not moving forward.
With my arm around Mom’s waist, and her weary head on my shoulder, we made our slow way back down the aisle. At the door to the narthex, she turned and made a deep reverence to the altar. I did, too. We needed all the help we could get. I’d take the Divine kind as well as my own powers with the Celestial Blade.
Old habits die hard.
Chapter 41
As the sun sets, the moon rises, and the little people play on every moonbeam, sprinkling their sparkling moon dust down onto humankind.
"TAKE ME TO BREAKFAST, Tess. I haven’t been out of the house in days. I need to breathe different air,” MoonFeather commanded, the moment I got Mom settled in bed with a bowl of soup. Dad sat beside her, worry clouding his eyes.
“Mom . . .”
“Needs to talk to your father and then be alone with her thoughts for a while.”
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Gollum said. “You and your aunt need to talk in private.”
