by Tasha Black
Erik hopped up too. He was pretty sure LeeAnn didn’t have anything to holler at him about, but he didn’t want to take any chances. And besides, he was excited about her new-found energy.
When he reached the foot of the stairs, he saw Mary lolling in the kitchen doorway, Zeke peering around her. The twins, Ruth and Rachel, worked to untie the bright orange belts from around their white karate uniforms. Erik heard the banging and smashing of utensils and pans.
“This town has got to get back to business as usual,” LeeAnn was saying. “Just because something bad happened doesn’t mean we can sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. Mary! Get me the beans!”
Mary scrambled into the kitchen and opened a cupboard.
“Here, Mom,” she said, handing over the can.
“Well, open it! You know what to do,” LeeAnn said. “I’m making cowboy dinner, Zeke, how’s that?”
The boy smiled guardedly, but didn’t move out of the doorway. Erik figured he didn’t know what to make of his mom’s newfound energy.
“So the talk with Patty went well?” Erik ventured.
“Oh, yeah. I am so glad you suggested it! We’ve got a plan and I’m putting it in motion tonight. We’re going to organize the Copper Creek Halloween Parade - life goes on.”
“Yes!” Zeke yelled.
“Girls,” LeeAnn hollered, “Don’t you get those uniforms dirty. Put them back in the bag on the dining room table where they belong, then go get dressed for supper.”
Ruth and Rachel answered with a stampede of miniature footsteps and tiny giggles.
“What a great idea,” Erik said. “The parade, I mean.”
“Ezekiel, honey, you can help with that. We’re gonna decorate the house tonight to get everyone into the spirit of it. Everyone’s looking to us. If our family can celebrate, others will do the same. Can you and Dr. Jensen get the decorations out of the attic?”
“Yup,” Zeke said.
“Ezekiel Miller.”
“I meant yes, Ma’am,” he returned.
“That’s better,” LeeAnn said. “Oh, and kids, what costumes do you want? Patty and I are going shopping tomorrow to get supplies and fabric if we need it.”
“A ninja,” Zeke said enthusiastically.
“You were a ninja last year,” Mary said.
“But this year, I’m gonna be a ZOMBIE ninja! Get lots of fake blood, Mom. Like, lots.”
“I wanna be Batman,” came a high-pitched voice from the dining room. Erik thought it was Ruth, but he wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
“Bat-girl!” the other, even higher voice corrected.
“No! BatMAN I said. Batgirl is stupid.”
“Batgirl,” came the sing-song reply. “Batgirl, batgirl, batgiiiiiiiiirl.”
“Mom!” The tiny footsteps thundered up the stairs without waiting for an answer.
“What about you, Mary?” LeeAnn asked, nonplussed.
“Oh, I can’t decide!” Mary began excitedly. She looked around the room, her lips pursed in concentration. Until she noticed Erik. The excitement on her face disappeared like a door had closed.
“Actually,” she said in a serious tone. “I think I’m getting kinda old for this stuff. I’m not going to dress up this year.”
Erik hoped she wasn’t trying to impress him. But he had just talked with her about her new, grown-up responsibilities. He’d have to find a way to let her know it was okay to dress up.
While he was thinking, Zeke grabbed his arm and began pulling him toward the stairs.
“Come on, doc, let’s get the decorations! The spider goes on my door this year! Well, your door, I guess.”
Erik climbed up the pull-down steps and ventured all the way into the attic.
“Did you find ‘em?” Zeke asked eagerly.
“Oh, sure. Here, can you carry these?” Erik asked, handing the boy a clear plastic bin labeled GRAVESTONES AND BONES.
“Yup!” Zeke grabbed it and clambered back down the ladder.
Erik looked back for the next box. Behind the space he’d just cleared, something caught his eye. A chest. Definitely an antique. Wood with sulfur inlays. And not coated with a layer of dust like everything else in the attic seemed to be.
Which meant it was used often.
He’d seen this type of chest before. Erik searched his memory and was hit with an unexpected pang of sadness. It looked an awful lot like the one at Ainsley’s house.
He tried to open it but it was locked.
Shoot.
Erik froze and tried to get into Jake’s mind. I hide a chest and I lock it. I have a small house and two curious kids. Where do I put the key?
He looked around for an answer.
The edge of something peeked over the side of the massive rafter above his head. Not daring to believe that luck might be with him, he held his breath and reached up.
Snap!
“Ouch!”
Oh, sweet god, that hurt!
“You okay up there?” he heard LeeAnn holler.
“I’m fine,” he yelled back through clenched teeth. “Found your mouse trap!”
He shook his hand, then pulled himself up to check for more traps.
Next to the spent mouse trap sat an old, brass key.
Smart, Jake, smart.
“Hey, doc, I’m ready for the next one!” Zeke piped up from the second floor landing.
“Okay,” Erik said, absentmindedly scanning the attic for another Halloween box. A small box labeled SPIDER RINGS caught his eye and he handed it down the ladder to where Zeke was waiting.
“Sweet!” Zeke chortled as he headed down.
A moment later, Erik heard a small crash and Zeke’s cry of despair.
“Well, pick them all up!” LeeAnn said.
Maybe the spilled plastic spider rings would buy him enough time to check out the chest. He slid the key into the lock and it opened easily.
Books filled the inside. Mostly romance novels, like Mary had told him were up here. But the two books on top stood out from the rest. He grabbed them both for a closer look.
Native American Symbols and Meanings and Encyclopedia of Myth, Legend and Folklore.
He opened Native American Symbols and Meanings and began to skim it. Hastily scrawled notes filled the margins. They were numbers, not words. Some had symbols too. One showed two arrows pointing at each other. Another looked like a mask with two antennae on top and fuzzy antlers on the side. Erik had never seen anything like it. He turned the book sideways and it looked a little like pac-man with feet.
Erik closed the book and picked up the Encyclopedia of Myth, Legend and Folklore. A piece of folded notebook paper acted as a bookmark near the middle of the volume. He opened to the saved page.
Eastern European Myths. The entry was titled Moroi.
Moroi: From the Romanian word ‘mort’ meaning ‘dead’ or the Slavic word meaning ‘nightmare’
Why would Jake be interested in that?
He’d have to study them more later. Maybe Bonnie at the library could help him shed some light on it.
He was about to return the folded paper that had been holding the spot when he noticed it had writing on it. A drawing of some kind.
He opened the paper and his heart turned to ice. The notepaper held a sketch of a complicated, interwoven symbol.
The symbol on the trap that took his wolf.
Erik’s eyes got lost in the patterns on the paper. The runes writhed and twisted into the shape of the snake. Ainsley screamed his name as the dripping, silver fangs sunk into his back.
Erik.
“Erik?”
A hand touched his back in the exact spot where he still carried the scar. Erik jumped slightly.
“Dr. Jensen, is everything okay?”
Mary.
He hadn’t even noticed her come up. Stupid human hearing.
“I’m fine, Mary, just lost in my own head for a minute,” he tried to smile casually and worried that he probably looked like a serial killer.
“These?” he asked, tucking the paper back inside. “They’re just some overdue library books. I’ll run them back in the morning.”
He handed her a cardboard box with the word PUNKINS written on it in sharpie, then grabbed a bin of orange lights for himself.
As Mary headed down before him, he opened the book and stole one last glance at the notebook paper.
What the hell was going on in Copper Creek?
CHAPTER 23
C harley Coslaw sat on the wooden bench in the middle of Triangle Park, Garrett Sanderson storming and pacing around him.
Charley found if he concentrated he could tune the other man out enough to enjoy the view of the sky, bordered by the brilliant yellow of the trees that formed a perimeter around the park.
Too soon, Garrett’s tone took a sharper pitch and Charley had to tune back in.
“--so why the hell did you hesitate?” Garrett was asking, “We could have finished them off!”
Charley took a deep breath.
“Garrett, you’re too impulsive.” He spoke in calm, measured tones. “Our Order has waited hundreds of years for this. Your temper is not going to ruin it now. You already screwed up with the old woman”
“She is of no consequence,” Garrett said, flicking his hand like he was shooing away a pesky fly.
It made Charley mad. He knew she was one of the pack, but there was no need to treat Sadie Epstein-Walker like she wasn’t worth anything. Charley had learned long ago that everything held value to someone.
“Plus, you told me the cop wasn’t a threat.” Charley said. “If I’d known she had that much power, I wouldn’t have given her the chance to act. What was it you called her? A ‘two-bit palm reader?’”
“I’ll deal with her,” Garrett shot back. “We need to concentrate on the alpha bitch. Once she’s out of the way, we’ll have access to search for the key at our leisure”
“Did it ever occur to you that it’s not that simple?” Charley asked. “There is no way her friends and her pack are going to just let us get away with that. We’d have to kill half the town to do it your way.”
“Once the Elder is released, the town is doomed anyway,” Sanderson said lightly.
“Not if we don’t find the key first,” Charley reminded him, “He will emerge too weak, even after the sacrifice we provided. We need the key, so we can release him on our terms, without interference from the pack. We need to find it, fast.”
“I was sure Sadie gave the key to the Connor girl,” Garrett mused. “That was a mistake. She obviously doesn’t have it, but she and her friends will be looking for it, now. We need to make sure we get to it first.”
“So what else could Sadie have done with it?” Charley asked.
“You’ve known her a good deal longer than I have,” Garrett replied.
Charley thought about it. He remembered Sadie from when he was a boy and she was just Mrs. Epstein, the beautiful older woman who paid him to shovel her walk and do chores so she could focus on traveling to wonderful places and tending to her beautiful garden.
“There’s not a lot of mystery. All she does nowadays is fiddle with her plants,” he said.
“I’ve searched the property thoroughly,” Sanderson replied.
“And traipse around town with that little dog,” Charley added.
“Which you lost,” Sanderson said accusingly.
“I had my hands full,” Charley said, struggling to keep his anger in check. “In case you didn’t notice when you were pulling your vanishing act. Plus, I scanned the mutt when I had it. Nothing.”
“So it’s got to be behind some serious protection if we can find it with divination. Where?” Garrett asked.
“The Connor house is pretty much a black hole. I thought the protections would fail once I had the parents taken care of, but I haven’t been able to get a read from there,” Charley admitted.
“And you’re sure it’s not the warlock?” Garrett asked.
“Yes,” Charley said. “It’s not his specialty. He’s a formidable opponent in battle, but he’s not skilled enough to weave a protective cloak that tight. I saw the wards he put on the doors.”
“It’s too bad your sheriff friend is no longer around,” Garrett frowned. “It sounds like we would have more luck if we sent him to sniff it out.”
The pieces clicked together for Charley.
“The dog,” he said simply.
“You already said you checked the dog.”
“The dog,” Charley breathed. “When it jumped out of the car, it made a beeline right for Ainsley’s front garden. It always pulled in that direction when I walked it past the Connor house.”
“And Sadie would’ve known it would be beyond our power to magically locate it on Ainsley’s property,” Sanderson said, his nostrils flaring.
“I just bought a new, non-magical shovel from the hardware store,” Charley said, a grin spreading across his face.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 24
The silent car ride to the hospital had been tense enough. But by the time she and Julian were in the hospital’s glass elevator, Grace could feel the electricity between them escalate further.
She tried to distract herself by looking out over the Springton Falls. The oaks that stretched over the water were a brilliant red.
“Grace,” Julian said simply.
She squared her shoulders and gazed out over the woods.
“I know I wasn’t honest with you in the beginning, but if you really think about it, can you blame me?” he asked.
She couldn’t. Not really. She hadn’t been honest with Landon when they were getting to know each other. But she hadn’t felt this way about Landon, she hadn’t felt this trust, this...love. And that made her mad.
“You insinuated yourself into Tarker’s Hollow business. Ainsley and I have let you in on every secret. You know every weakness, every quirk. And all along you’ve been hiding everything from us,” she said, without turning from the window.
“Knowing what I know wouldn’t have helped Ainsley. It would have intimidated her even more, and you know it,” he said quietly. “Now that she is more comfortable with her magic, she’s ready to know more. I care about you Grace, please don’t shut me out.”
“You have no idea what Ainsley can handle. You’ve known her less than two months. And you’ve done a great job showing exactly how you feel about me and the rest of the town,” she said.
He didn’t reply. Grace couldn’t resist sneaking a look at him.
He was running a hand through his golden hair. His blue eyes were tortured.
Her whole body responded in a wave of love.
Hating herself, she was throwing caution to the wind to launch herself into his arms, when the elevator dinged.
They had reached the 10th floor.
Julian gestured for her to exit first.
Grace caught her breath, and walked past him as calmly as she could. Thank goodness for that elevator. She had almost thrown away her self-respect.
She avoided looking at him on their long walk down the hallway to Sadie’s room. The setting of their incredible adventure now seemed like a plain old hospital hallway again.
Owen was there waiting outside Sadie’s door for them.
“Grace, what’s going on? You sounded so excited on the phone!” he looked confused.
Grace figured she probably looked angry rather than excited now. “I need to see Sadie right away!” she said.
“Okay, but there’s been no change in her condition,” Owen said, stepping out of the doorway to let her in.
Grace strode over to Sadie. She took a deep breath and began to unwind the bandage from around Sadie’s head.
Owen was on her in two long strides. “What are you doing?” he asked, grabbing her wrist.
“What the hell are you doing?” Julian echoed.
“The same
thing I did for Javier!” Grace hissed, wrenching her arm away from Owen. “If you are really protecting this patient’s best interests you won’t interfere again!”
“What are you talking about?” Julian asked.
“Who is Javier?” Owen asked. By his tone, Grace could tell he had given up hope of getting an answer.
“Sadie was attacked by the same person,” Grace said. The bandage was nearly off now. She worked delicately around Sadie’s scalp.
“Attacked? I thought she fell down the stairs!” Owen said.
“Long story,” Grace said, concentrating on the bandage.
“So you think there is still a trace of silver in her?” Julian breathed.
“Let’s hope so,” Grace said, as the last strip of cloth peeled off the angry wound. “Otherwise we’re pinning our hopes on the idea that she somehow cut open her beloved dog to hide a key inside it.”
“Wait, what?” Owen asked. “What the hell is going on here?”
Grace waved her hand over the wound. “I feel something,” she said. “Just like with Javier.”
“Look, we’ve done plenty of scans,” Owen said, “The doctors would have noticed something in there that doesn’t belong.”
“It’s not ordinary silver,” Julian said, “And it doesn’t want to be found.”
“I think I can get it,” Grace said, “but it looks like it might have gone to her brain.”
“If it is something in her bloodstream, it won’t be able to cross the blood-brain barrier,” Owen said.
Grace and Julian exchanged a look.
“Unless this is some kind of ‘magical’ silver,” Owen continued playfully.
Grace gave Julian an inquiring look.
“I don’t really know,” Julian shrugged.
“I wasn’t serious,” Owen said.
“I’ll have to risk it,” Grace replied to Julian. “If it’s progressing, then she won’t have a chance if I don’t.”
“Do it,” Julian said.
“DO WHAT?!” Owen cried.
“Look, just try to keep anyone from coming in, okay?” Julian told him.
Grace had already begun to summon the silver. She could feel it now. Sadie’s own energy was calm, but something in her was buzzing and sizzling away.
