“Well, there’s something different about talking things over when it’s not a reality,” Aric said. “I can’t let you do this. I won’t be separated from you. I can go outside of the dome with you and we’ll leave Sami inside with my parents and Paris. It will be better that way. We’re stronger together.”
We were stronger together. The thought of Sami being separated from both of us when she was terrified, though, gutted me. “She’ll be afraid, Aric. She’ll need you.”
“She’ll have my parents,” Aric said. “They’ll take care of her. I’m going to take care of you.”
He was stubborn … like a mule. Or an ass. “Aric, you have to stay here,” I pressed. “We don’t have any other options.”
“Well, I don’t happen to agree with that, but I’m not going to fight,” Aric said, pressing his lips to my forehead. “Shut up and give me five minutes to think.”
“But … .”
“Five minutes,” Aric barked. “I need to think about this and I can’t do it when you’re batting those baby blues at me and making sense. It drives me crazy.”
I couldn’t help but smile. He would do what I asked in the end because as much as he loathed the idea of being away from me, the terror associated with being separated from Sami would outweigh his misgivings.
“Okay.” I kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
“Shh.”
“I’m going to give you a really long massage tonight when this is over,” I added.
“Shh.”
“I’m looking forward to shredding people,” I said. “It’s going to get bloody before it’s all said and done.”
Aric heaved a resigned sigh. “You’ve won and you know it. Now shut up and give me five minutes of peace to spend with my wife without her incredible mouth getting in the way.”
“I really do love you, Aric.”
“I love you more,” Aric said.
“It’s not a competition.”
“Of course it’s not,” he said. “I’ve already won. Now don’t make me gag you. Sit there and be quiet for five minutes or I’m going to change my mind. I need a few minutes of just us.”
I gave him what he wanted.
I WAS RELUCTANT TO LEAVE, but it was dark. Aric needed to get inside and watch Sami, and I wanted to be outside of the dome when our ghostly neighbors decided to Scooby-Doo things and ruin my plan.
“I have to go.”
“I know.” Aric pressed a soft kiss to my mouth and hugged me as close as humanly possible. “Don’t you die on me, Zoe. I won’t survive if you do.”
“I won’t die on you,” I said. “If something happens, though, I know you’ll do right by Sami. You’re a wonderful father.”
“I hate you right now,” Aric muttered, giving me a harder kiss. “You can’t die because I’m really angry with you right now and it will make me bitter.”
“Duly noted.”
Aric finally pulled away from me and tugged me to my feet, giving in to the urge to hug me one more time before glancing toward the house and frowning at the faces staring back at us.
“Take care of all of them,” I instructed. “If Paris goes into labor … .”
“Oh, do not add to this insanity,” Aric warned. “If Paris goes into labor I’m hiding under the bed.”
“Well, that might be fun, too,” I said. “I … .” I frowned when I felt the edge of Sami’s mind brush past mine. She was close, but also far away. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Aric asked, instantly alert.
“Sami.” I pushed past him and raced to the edge of the deck, staring down for a sign of our daughter. It didn’t take long. She walked out from beneath the deck, opting for a straight line that led toward the back of the property. I couldn’t see her face, but the rigid set of her shoulders told me she was in another trance.
“Where is she going?” Aric asked, annoyed. “She can’t leave the yard. What is she thinking?”
“She’s not thinking,” I replied. “They’re controlling her again. I’m going to shove whatever spell that is up their … .” I bit my lip to silence myself.
“Oh, go ahead and say it,” Aric said. “You’re going to shove it up their vaginas. I know you were thinking it. You have such a filthy and depraved mind.”
“I’m going to set fire to it once it’s there, too,” I said, shaking my head. “They have to know this isn’t going to work. Sami can’t get out and they can’t get in.”
“Maybe they haven’t figured out the way the dome works,” Aric suggested. “Maybe they think Sami knows how to take it down.”
“Well, she doesn’t. I … .” My heart constricted when Sami lifted her hands, doing an exact impersonation of me the night before when I opened the dome to give Aric, James and me an opening to cross back into the yard. I lifted my eyes to the glittery magical bubble and gasped as it began to fade. “Crap on a freaking cracker!”
“How?” Aric was beside himself as we both moved in unison toward the stairs that led to the backyard. “She doesn’t have that kind of magic.”
“She has it,” I argued. “She just doesn’t know how to tap into it.”
“Then how did she do it now?”
“I think she had help,” I replied, scowling when we hit the grass and found the spot where Sami stood moments before empty. “They tested us last night to see what we would do. It wasn’t about hurting you. It was about getting me out and watching how I erected the dome.”
“And then they tricked Sami into doing it,” Aric said, striding toward the spot where Sami disappeared. “Well, come on! You can’t expect me to stay here now. Your plan is shot to crap.”
He was right. “I’ll put the dome back up to protect everyone left behind,” I said, my heart pounding. “I wish we had time to tell them what’s going on. They’re going to freak when they can’t find Sami and they’re locked inside.”
“We can’t do anything about that now, Zoe,” Aric said. “This is going to be a family fight – as in our three-person family. Move your ass.”
He’s so bossy sometimes.
“Now!”
Once we were on the other side I lifted my hands to re-erect the dome, my heart pinging due to the position I was leaving the remainder of our family in. Maybe it was for the better, I mused as I scrambled to keep up with Aric.
We were stronger when we were together. The good news is that meant the three of us had to be virtually unstoppable. We needed to get to Sami to make sure the odds evened out that way.
“CAN YOU smell her or do you need me to try to sense her?” I asked, gasping as I fought to keep stride with Aric and his much longer legs.
“I can smell her,” Aric said. “I’m not sure that’s even important, though. We know where she’s being led.”
“The house.”
“The house,” Aric confirmed, grabbing my hand and dragging me after him. “Walk faster, Zoe. She’s not far ahead of us.”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” I grumbled. “You forget that you have longer legs than me.”
Aric didn’t respond, instead sweeping me up into his arms so he could carry me and breaking into a run when he caught sight of the hill that led to the house.
“Oh, this is just undignified,” I complained. “I can walk.”
“It’s not so funny when the shoe is on the other foot, is it?” Aric asked, his eyes keen as he glanced around. “Zoe … .”
“I sense them,” I said. The wraiths. “Put me down.”
Aric waited until we were at the top of the hill to do just that, putting his hands on my shoulders as he covered my back and stared at the inky black floaters drifting out of the tree line. “They’re trying to cut off our path to the house.”
“Well, that’s not going to work,” I said. “I’ve had it with these jackoffs.” Instead of shredding the wraiths as I’d become accustomed to doing, I lashed out with fire, engulfing them quickly as they writhed and burned. I watched them scream for what felt like forever and then yanked bac
k the fire, leaving behind smoldering husks that could barely move but were still floating.
“Why did you do that?” Aric asked, confused as he grabbed my hand.
“Because shredding them does no good,” I replied. “They regenerate and come back. Their souls are tied to items on this plane until those items are destroyed. This way they’re maimed … and gross … and smell like that time I got drunk in high school and tried to light a cigarette on the oven and burned off my eyebrows. But they can’t regroup and come back because I didn’t destroy their bodies.”
“That is very smart, my brilliant wife,” Aric said. “How about we go and gather our smart-mouthed daughter, though? I don’t like not being able to see her.”
He wasn’t the only one. “Let’s go.”
Aric was careful as he climbed the steps, studying each angle so we didn’t accidentally fall into a trap. Finally I couldn’t take it for one second longer and shoved him over the threshold. His expression was murderous when he swiveled and I merely shrugged as I followed him inside.
“You were taking too long.”
“You suck,” Aric muttered, although he was back to looking for enemies instead of glaring at me. I was relieved to find the pentagram empty, but Sami wasn’t in the room either.
“Where is she?”
“That’s a good question,” Aric said. “The better question is why isn’t anyone coming after us? Those wraiths on the hill were meant as a distraction. They weren’t even strong enough to bloody us.”
“They weren’t meant to,” I said, striding through the house and narrowing my eyes at the back wall. “This house is meant as a distraction. They expect us to spend so much time looking in here – and we were so desperate to get here we didn’t even bother looking around outside – that they want us to overlook what they’re doing outside.”
“How do you know that?”
I could’ve lied and said my magical genius told me, but he would never believe that. “I can sense Sami’s mind. She’s on the other side of that wall,” I said, casting him a rueful look and small smile. “We need to go back outside.”
“Yes, but you pushed me inside,” Aric reminded me. “How much do you want to bet we can’t go back outside?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got fifty bucks that says they cast a spell over all the doors and windows to keep us inside and I would’ve been able to discover it if you hadn’t pushed me,” Aric snapped, throwing open the back door and groaning when he slammed into an invisible barrier. “I told you!”
He’s such a drama queen sometimes. Sami definitely gets that from him. “Chill out.”
“Chill out? Our daughter is out there with monsters!”
I gestured with my hand, waving him away from the door, and then narrowed my eyes as I focused on it. “They clearly don’t know who they’re messing with,” I muttered, unlocking the magic and sending a huge bolt of fire toward the wall. The aged wood exploded outward, chunks of charred wood and tongues of flame falling around us as I opened a new pathway out of the house. “I told you I wasn’t messing around!”
Aric’s mouth dropped open as he tentatively stretched his foot outside and tested the ground. He had no problem walking through the opening. “I take it back, Zoe. You’re just … amazing!”
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” I said. “Now, let’s find our daughter. I want to have a little talk with whoever is with her … and by talk I mean I’m going to turn her inside out and burn her alive.”
Aric could do nothing but shake his head. “I’m so turned on right now.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“W elcome to the party.”
I jerked my head to the side when I heard the voice, scowling when I recognized the face it came from. Cissy Dolloway, clad in a white dress and a dark look on her face, stood next to a withered tree in the backyard. Sami was a few feet in front of her, but still closer to me. She remained in a trance.
“I knew it,” I spat, slamming my foot into the ground and causing an echo of magic to reverberate, like a blue ripple coursing over the ragged grass. Instead of addressing Cissy I focused on Aric. “I told you! I told you it was Cissy. I could’ve gone over there days ago and choked the life out of her and we wouldn’t be dealing with this.”
Aric rolled his neck until it cracked, keeping a keen eye on Sami as he decided how to respond. “Fine. You knew it. I knew walking into that house without checking to see if there were wards up was a bad idea and you pushed me inside anyway. I think we’re even.”
“We’re nowhere close to even,” I shot back, darting a warning look in Cissy’s direction when she edged closer to Sami. “If you touch my kid I’m going to pop your head like a zit. That’s not an exaggeration.”
“She’s not kidding,” Aric said.
“Perhaps you should focus on me then,” Cissy suggested.
I held up a finger to still her. “We’re not done fighting yet,” I said before turning to Aric. “Those two things aren’t the same because I blew out the wall of that house without exerting any effort. That house couldn’t keep a homeless rat inside – and Cissy here would know – so it’s nowhere near the same as me wanting to go over to Cissy’s house and kill her days ago.”
“I don’t want to argue with you … .”
“But you will,” I muttered.
Aric ignored my tone. “You wanted to kill her for having a bad dye job and gossiping. You gossip all the time. I don’t think it was unreasonable for me to be nervous about the possibility of you losing your temper.
“Look at that house,” he continued, pointing toward the smoldering wall behind us. “You blew that up without checking to see if there was a gas line anywhere in the general vicinity. You could’ve killed everyone, because you always act first and ask questions later.”
He had a point. Dammit! “I knew there wasn’t a gas line,” I lied. “That house is too old to have a gas line.”
“It has a gas line,” Aric argued. “The gas just happens to be turned off because the house has been abandoned for years.”
“See. I knew that.”
“You didn’t know that,” Aric scoffed. “Stop making things up.”
“Stop being … you.”
“We’re not done talking about this,” Aric said, wagging a finger in my direction before turning his full attention to Cissy. “You need to give my kid back.”
Cissy was incredulous. After having to watch us fight she obviously thought we were going to play things her way. Aric wasn’t in the mood for any drawn-out shenanigans, though, and our arrival – and ease of eluding her trap – had clearly thrown her off guard. “Excuse me?”
“He said we’re sick of your crap and if you move even an inch in Sami’s direction I’m going to blow your hand off,” I threatened. “It’s going to be bloody and gross. I’ll bet it’ll be painful, too.”
“Why would you blow off her hand?” Aric asked, legitimately curious. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just blow off her head?”
“Yes, but if she’s missing a head she can’t be tortured,” I answered. “I can continue torturing her if she’s down a hand.”
“That’s a very good point,” Aric said, keeping a wary eye on Cissy as he stepped in Sami’s direction. “I’m going to get the kid … .”
“Don’t touch her,” Cissy hissed, her eyes momentarily flashing a bright shade of green. “She is ours now.”
“Oh, no,” Aric said, shaking his head. “She’s our kid. You’re not touching one hair on her head.”
“We own her mind,” Cissy argued.
Something very odd was going on here – other than the obvious, I mean. I glanced over my shoulder and saw various hints of movements. They were wraiths, but they looked different from the ones I maimed in front of the house. There was also another figure – a smaller one with human attributes – hanging back by one of the trees.
Things clicked into place, and not nearly as late in the game as they usually did for
me. And, no, that’s not saying much.
“You’re not the last Dolloway heir, are you?”
Cissy glanced at me, her face unreadable. “I have no idea what you mean.”
She was lying. My calm nature annoyed her, but she still thought she had the upper hand. That was about to change. “You’re not the last Dolloway heir,” I said. “In fact, you’re not a Dolloway. You married into the Dolloway family.”
“How do you know that?” Aric asked, confused.
“Because the other times this happened the Dolloway women married men outside of the line just to procreate,” I replied. “Cissy Dolloway is married to Dumbass Dolloway. It’s his name.”
“I think his name is Don,” Aric said dryly.
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s Dumbass,” I said. “Cissy isn’t part of the bloodline … and if Dumbass is, he’s like a long-forgotten shirttail relation. He’s not a full-blooded Dolloway.”
Cissy narrowed her eyes, practically daring me to continue. I was happy to oblige.
“Katie is over there,” I said, gesturing toward the trees. “Two of the witch wraiths are watching her. They’re different than the ones I crippled on the front lawn. They’re stronger than the ones I’ve seen in the woods.
“I’m guessing the Dolloways enslaved the men when they were done with them and used them for manual labor,” I replied. “Do you remember who was responsible for that?”
Aric nodded. “Abigail.”
I inclined my chin in Cissy’s direction. “Say hello to Abigail.”
Aric froze for a moment, the muscle in his jaw clenching, and when he finally turned back in Cissy’s direction he had a thoughtful expression on his face. “Oh.”
“That is not true,” Cissy hissed, annoyed. “I am the last Dolloway heir.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re Abigail. You sought out the last Dolloway heir to watch over her until the time was right. You knew you only had one chance at this. You needed a Dolloway heir, although I still can’t figure out why. I’m guessing it has something to do with the blood magic you cast way back in the day with the first Dolloway.”
Haunted Covenant (Dying Covenant Trilogy Book 1) Page 24
