by Denise Agnew
Then it struck her and she stopped. Erin almost bumped into her.
“What is it?” Erin asked as she stripped off her coat.
“Why does it have to be Ronan? Why would Ronan in particular be the one who would receive the power to destroy the ancient one?” Clarissa asked.
Lachlan looked around, then kept his voice low. “He didn’t tell you that either, I can see.”
Frustration made Clarissa’s voice go tight. “There’s more?”
Erin hesitated, and for a moment Clarissa thought she might not answer. Then she sighed and opened up. “Ronan is a vampire, Clarissa. He doesn’t just have a few extraordinary vampire abilities like Lachlan, Jared and Micky. He’s a full-fledged, seven hundred year-old vampire.”
As Clarissa’s mouth dropped open she thought the world would open up and swallow her. She didn’t care if she sounded like a Mynah bird repeating her own phrases. “I’m going to kill him. I’m just going to kill him.”
“We need to get this resolved between you,” Lachlan said, his expression stern. “There’s no time to lose.”
New anger made Clarissa bristle. “Oh, I see how it is. It’s perfectly all right for a vampire to use me as a means to the end. We just need to get it one and everything will be all right with the world?”
Erin scowled at Lachlan. “That was insensitive, Lachlan.”
“And it doesn’t explain why Ronan has to be the one,” Clarissa said.
Exasperation touched his expression, and as he spoke his accent became more pronounced. “For God’s sake, we haven’t got that much time to quibble. Ronan is the one because he’s the only vampire right now other than Sorley who is hunting the ancient one. The others are either too afraid of the ancient one, know they aren’t capable of fighting him, or are evil themselves. Ronan has been hunting this bastard since the beginning. He knows more about him than anyone other than the seer and Yusuf. Think about that when yer both bein’ indignant.” He held up one finger when Erin looked like she might object, then he stared at Clarissa. “It’s up to you now, Clarissa. Think about what you’re goin’ to do and how that decision will affect Pine Forest and everyone in it.”
Clarissa glared at him then stalked toward the bathroom, her thoughts awhirl and her heart aching. When she slipped into the room she found a small lounge area with a chair and plunked down. Her breathing felt choppy, so she inhaled deeply and tried to relax. She must wrap her mind around everything she’d learned this morning.
Okay, she could handle this. Ronan Kieran was a vampire like the creature that wished to kill, maim, and destroy everyone in Pine Forest. Yet Lachlan and Erin, Jared and Micky seemed to have a high opinion of the Irishman. Ronan’s dedication to removing the ancient one from the earth remained strong. He’d probably do anything to destroy the old vampire.
Even if it meant sleeping with a mortal woman for the greater good.
She hated it.
Sure, in a twisted way she liked that he’d chosen her, but at the same time, it sucked. No pun intended. It hurt her pride to discover the sexual interest he’d displayed had as much to do with necessity as it did lust or…
No, she refused to go there. She’d known Ronan for such a short time the feelings she experienced for him couldn’t be more than sexual attraction.
So what should she do? Have sex with him to save Pine Forest as Lachlan had implied moments ago?
Everything inside Clarissa rebelled now she understood Ronan’s real reason for wanting her. Hurt mixed with genuine desire to strip a piece of hide off the vampire when she next saw him.
Vampire.
That explained a hell of a lot of other things about the man, too. Abilities like appearing and disappearing and his knack for moving at the speed of light. Curiosity made her wonder what else he could do. Her face heated. Had he used some weird sort of mind manipulation to make her feel sexual interest in him? A gamut of emotions ran over her as she processed the information. She’d been kissed, caressed and almost screwed by a vampire, for heaven’s sake. Now if that wasn’t a shocker she didn’t know what was. Granted, he was one of the good guys, but that didn’t negate the shiver running up and down her spine or the doubts about her sanity. Despite her brushes with the supernatural when she’d lived here as a child, she’d never imagined she’d discover vampires stalked the earth or that she would kiss one. She remembered Jim Leggett and her one other lover and then added Ronan to the list. Romantic failures, each one.
But no man had ever made her feel the way Ronan did.
“Hell and back,” she said to the empty room. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Allowing herself a few moments of self-pity, she speculated if the humiliation would go away, or would she be reminded every time she saw him? In any case, the next time he got within screaming distance she would give the big, handsome, infuriating vampire a big piece of her mind.
Tears stung her eyes and she fought them back. She possessed a bigger problem than hurt feelings. What if this Yusuf and the seer and everyone else turned out to be right about Ronan’s need to mate with a mortal woman? Her imagination kicked in and she thought about Ronan making love to any other woman to get the strength required to kick ancient vampire ass.
No, she didn’t like that one bit.
She put her head in her hands and allowed tears to trickle down her face. What could she do? She wouldn’t become emotionally attached to a creature that sucked human blood. Another quiver ran over her skin and despite all her efforts, more tears escaped as her heart ached with desolation.
* * * * *
Clarissa wandered the enormous stacks in the library, determined to find two books she’d read as a child. Until she’d stepped into the library she’d forgotten about the books. Excitement pushed her to find the volumes fast. At the same time she noticed the strange vibrations in the library. The place echoed with the stain of bad events, of the past and things that might yet happen. Stony quiet didn’t help things; few people visited the library these days. She shrugged and tried to ignore the atmosphere. What else could she expect in Pine Forest?
Eventually she located the books on local legend and took them to a workstation in a secluded area. She went through the first volume, a brown leather-bound work. Old and yellowing, the book had a million fascinating stories in it that she’d forgotten.
Skimming a first chapter for information, she came across an entry that made her pause. It reminded her of what Sorley and Ronan had said about the town in Morocco being plagued by a similar evil. This entry proved what she suspected.
Pine Forest, according to old-timers who’d related the story, had seen a mini apocalypse not too long after its founding. The town had suffered the appearance of ghosts and goblins right from the beginning of its founding. So often people believed hauntings transpired in old buildings. Not necessarily. Perhaps the elementals lingering in the tunnels under the Gunn Inn and the crypt were the same thing as the shadow people who plagued Micky. From what she’d learned the other night, the shadow people assisting Micky were good, unlike the ones in the tunnels.
One story in the volume mentioned a disturbance at a home on the outskirts of town where a young woman complained of being visited by an incubus night after night. The young woman turned up dead two days later outside the house that would in due course become the Gunn Inn many years afterwards. The woman had been drained of blood. A few days after that the same thing had happened to an older woman who was found drained of blood in her home one evening.
Two more murders of a similar nature happened. Ridiculous fights broke out among long-time friends and accusations ran rampant. Arrests took place and people threatened with lynching before the mayor put a stop to the madness. Now history threatened to repeat itself with maybe worse results.
In a weird, twisted way, what happened to Pine Forest in the past resembled an abridged version of the Salem Witch Trials. Could the same hysteria envelope the town again?
Could her dreams about the end of Pine Fores
t on Halloween night have anything to do with reading this as a child? Had she internalized all this and her mind played tricks on her all her life? How could she have forgotten so many things about Pine Forest?
“No,” she said.
Bad things occurred in Pine Forest now that mirrored the events of over one hundred years ago. Facts were facts. As she read it all started to come back to her that she had read it before…had known the information previously. Perhaps her mind protected her by keeping some of the more horrific information locked away.
Did that mean the ancient one had visited this town one hundred years ago? If so, what had kept him from destroying the town at that time? She glanced at her watch and saw that time frittered away while she researched the town she thought she’d known well. She closed the book and put her head on her folded arms. Closing her eyes, she thought about how the information could work to their advantage. Her tired mind slipped into a dream world.
She stood over Ronan as he lay on the floor of the cold tunnel, his face paler then the last time she saw him in the dream. Her fingers trembled as she leaned down and touched his wide chest. She recognized the long leather jacket, sweater and jeans as what he’d worn when he left her last night. She searched his chest and found no breathing, no sign of life. Though he might be immortal he didn’t possess a single sign of animation. Panic rose in her throat as she tried to cry out, to see if anyone could help her. He looked so cold.
“No,” she said in her dream. “Oh, no.”
Tears threatened again. She’d give anything, anything at all for this not to be true. Ronan couldn’t be lifeless. Not a powerful vampire with charm, wit and a brooding sensuality that made her feel things she never believed she’d ever feel.
Someone touched her shoulder and she vaulted out of the dream with a startled cry.
“Clarissa?” Erin stood by the cubicle workstation, her hand on Clarissa’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
A fine trembling ran through Clarissa’s body and she rubbed her arms. “I was dreaming.” Raised voices came from the far side of the room, and Clarissa glanced that way. “What’s going on?”
Erin shook her head. “One of the patrons flipped out on us thirty minutes ago upstairs in the children’s section. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the commotion. Lachlan had to restrain him until the police could get here. They’re taking him out now.”
For a moment Clarissa felt shell-shocked. She stared at Erin in dawning comprehension and her heart felt like it might stop.
“Don’t you see…it’s the beginning of the fighting? People are starting to turn on each other.” Clarissa stood and grabbed her books. “And Ronan’s in trouble. We’ve got to help him.”
Erin trotted to keep up with Clarissa’s longer stride. “What? How do you know Ronan’s in trouble?”
“I had the dream again but this time it was different. Ronan was cold, pale. Lifeless.”
“Well, he is a vampire. The undead.”
“But he’s not normally cold. No, he’s very, very warm. I noticed whenever he touched me that the outside weather doesn’t seem to affect him and his skin is always toasty.” Her voice trembled. “What if he’s been lying in that tunnel under the crypt since last night after he left me? Has anyone heard from him?”
Erin shook her head. “Sorley just popped in a moment ago and he’s talking with Lachlan now about where Ronan could be.” Her gaze turned troubled. “Let’s get our coats and let Lachlan know about your dream.”
They met up with Lachlan and Sorley a few moments later at the front desk. She left the books on the counter.
One librarian stood nearby and continued talking to the police in a worried tone.
Erin nodded toward the librarian. “That’s Fred Tyne, the head librarian. He’s been acting unusually hard-nosed lately, but then I noticed the last few days several people have been on edge. I chalked it all up to nerves over these killings, but after you talked with us last night about the dreams and how people begin to act strangely, I realized it’s started already.”
Lachlan slipped on his coat as they moved away from the front counter. “Great. Just what we need.”
“What was the altercation upstairs about?” Sorley asked.
Lachlan’s expression went semi-amused. “One man was accusing another of having an affair with his wife. They were doing all this in the kid’s section of the library.”
Within moments they piled into the car again, this time with Sorley next to Clarissa in the backseat.
She glanced at him and he smiled. “Don’t worry. Ronan is the toughest vampire I know.” His face paled, if that was possible for a vampire. “Um…I…I hope he told you—”
“We told her,” Lachlan said as he started the car. “She knows you’re both vampires and she knows what the seer and Yusuf said must happen between her and Ronan to defeat the ancient one.”
Sorley’s eyebrows went up. “Good. I didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag.”
Ire still simmered in Clarissa’s blood. “Lucky you.”
The skinny vampire smiled again. “I take it Ronan’s in mighty big trouble when you meet up with him again?”
The truth hit her square in the stomach. “No, not anymore. I just want to find him alive.”
Sorley looked anxious for the first time, his elfish expression pinched. “And in the dream he looked dead?”
“Yes.”
“He can’t really die,” Erin said.
Two parts relief ran through Clarissa, and two parts concern. Apprehension managed to cancel out the respite. “If vampires can’t die, how do we expect to stop the ancient one?”
Sorley shook his head. “Vampires can’t die unless they are shot in the heart with a silver bullet or stabbed with a silver stake and most of the time even that doesn’t work well. The ancient one is so old and powerful all it does is slow him down but it won’t kill him.”
Exasperated, Clarissa asked, “So this whole sex thing cures the ancient one plague, eh? It sounds too pat. Too easy. There has to be more to it.”
“There is,” Sorley said. “We just don’t know what it is.”
“We have to stop by the house first,” Lachlan said. “We need the first aid kit, rope to climb down into the crypt, and weapons with silver bullets.”
“What about Micky and Jared?” Erin asked. “We could always use Jared’s extra power to help find Ronan.”
Lachlan agreed and Erin pulled out her cell phone to call their friends. When she finished the conversation she said, “They’ll meet us at the house.”
They proceeded to Erin’s home and rushed in to pick up the provisions. Less then twenty minutes later Micky and Jared drove up to the Victorian house and parked at the curb. When they came in the house they seemed worried.
Micky hugged Clarissa. “The dream sounds awful. I don’t blame you for being concerned about Ronan. But we’ll help you find him.”
Before long they’d taken off again, this time in two cars. Clarissa pondered the unreality of the whole situation. She sat there silent and grim, watching the pine trees rush by as Lachlan drove them to the cemetery and the crypt.
She glanced at the cloak Sorley wore.
“What is that cloak all about?” Clarissa asked. “It looks old-fashioned.”
“You’ve seen Ronan wearing one, right?” Sorley asked.
She nodded.
“It’s to protect us when the sun is up.”
She smiled. “I should have guessed. When I first saw Ronan that night in the cemetery he wore one then. He had the hood up and when the sun went down completely he took off the cloak.” A horrifying thought came to mind. “Wait a minute. Does the sun kill vampires?”
Sorley chuckled softly. “A lot of people wish that was true. It can kill us, but only after our force has been drained by repeated exposure. It isn’t like the movies where we burn up before your eyes.” He rolled his eyes and held his hands up. In a falsetto voice he said, “I’m meltin’. I’m meltin’!”
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Clarissa chuckled. “Wizard of Oz, eh?”
“That was water, Sorley,” Erin said. “And it was the Wicked Witch who was melted by water, not a vampire.”
“Picky, picky,” Sorley said.
Everyone in the car tittered with restrained laughter, as if they couldn’t resist Sorley’s sick sense of humor. As they subsided into quiet, concern inundated Clarissa again. She wished she’d ignored her dreams and skipped coming to Pine Forest. If she had maybe Ronan would be safe right now.
“I’ll never forgive myself if Ronan’s been hurt because I asked him to get my stupid camera,” she said.
Erin turned to look at her, eyes filled with understanding and sympathy. “I’m sure he’s all right. Like we said, Ronan isn’t afraid of anything. Let’s just hope your dream was born out of fear and not truth.”
Clarissa’s voice wobbled. “That sounds like something he would say.”
The remainder of the trip passed in silence. When they reached the gates of the cemetery, Jared and Micky pulled up beside them. They all piled out of their cars, Lachlan took the gun with the silver bullets, then handed another lethal-looking gun to Sorley.
Sorley hoisted his weapon. “We picked up another one of these this week just for safety.”
“Sorry we don’t have one of these for you,” Lachlan said to Jared.
Jared unzipped his big coat and pulled his service revolver out of his shoulder holster. “This should even the odds a little.”
Lachlan put the circle of rope over his shoulder, and Erin took the small first aid kit.
Sorley gestured at the gates. “I could scout the area quickly for Ronan.”
Lachlan shook his head. “No. We’ll stay together. Besides, if anything happens to me, I’ll need you to help me protect the women.”
“Please don’t say that,” Erin said as she placed her hand on his shoulder. “You’re scaring me.”
Lachlan kissed her gently on the lips. “I’m sorry. If I could have left you at the house and you’d be safe, I would.”
Clarissa thought about protesting Lachlan’s statement; she didn’t want to think her, Erin, or Micky were vulnerable. “Why isn’t she safe at home?”
