Double Magick in the Falls

by April Hollingworth

  “Thank you so much,” I exclaim gratefully.

  “You’re welcome. Shouldn’t they have arrived by now?” she anxiously asks. “I mean, it’s been almost two hours since we last saw them.” Nervously she stared out the window, tension straining every muscle in her body.

  I get up and pad over to stand by her. Fishing out my phone, I check to see if I have any missed calls or messages, but no one has tried to contact me. As we stare out the window, we see a car coming up the drive. The tension leaves our bodies when we recognize Kheda’s car, which he parks beside mine.

  A further feeling of relief washes over me as I notice Victor in the passenger seat. By the time they climb out of the car, we have the front door open. The guys quickly grab their stuff from the boot, and Kheda locks it behind him. A minute later I close and lock the front door behind them. We are all safe. The house seems to let out a pent-up breath as if it had been worried about us, too, startling Victor and Kheda.

  With a smile of greeting, I inquire if they would like a drink first or to see the room they will be staying in.

  “If it’s okay with you, I would like to put my things away, then I’ll happily accept the offer of a drink.” Kheda offers me a grateful smile.

  With the decision made, I lead them upstairs to my office. As we pass the bathroom, I point it out, so Kheda will know where it is. I take them straight to my office and apologize that they have to share. I might have slept with Victor once, but I’m not jumping to any sort of conclusions. Anyway, how do you ask in front of others, do you want to sleep with me? If Victor ends up sleeping with me, the sleeping arrangements will change accordingly.

  “I’ll leave you guys to unpack. I have to go and sort out my washing.”

  I scamper downstairs, and put my washing into the dryer, and let Jasmine know the washing machine is free. Personally, I’m beginning to get hungry so I put the oven on. Turning around, I smack into Victor’s powerful chest with a little squeal of surprise.

  “Bloody hell, Victor, make some noise in future. You frightened the shit out of me!” I growl, my poor heart pounding in fright, and maybe, a bit of lust as well to be honest.

  “So you want me to sleep with Kheda?” Victor looks at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well, umm, I’m not quite sure how to answer that, to be honest,” I stammer flushing red in embarrassment.

  “You see, personally, I would prefer to be sleeping in your room, with you!” Victor smiles as he gently massages my shoulders.

  “You would? I didn’t want to presume. You still can, if you like?” I shyly answer as I reach up to pull his head down to mine. Before our lips meet, I remember I’d forgotten to pay for my lunch.

  “Oh my God, I haven’t paid for my lunch,” I blurt out in mortification. “I’m so sorry…”

  “Don’t worry about it. We all got rather distracted by a murder,” soothes Victor. “Anyway, lunch was on me, so you wouldn’t have been paying. Now, where were we before you interrupted us, hmm?” Victor gently grasps my chin to hold me still, so he can slant his mouth across mine, in a gentle but sensual kiss.

  Chapter 19

  I hear Jasmine whistling to let me know she’s coming out of the utility room, so I quickly pull away from Victor as she enters, and Kheda comes in from the hallway.

  “Would anyone like something to drink?” she asks, giving me a wink.

  “Yes, please. What do you have?” Kheda replies as he eyes Victor and me.

  Victor keeps massaging my shoulders, as if unable to lose complete contact with me, while I lean into his embrace, reveling in the feel of his touch. I know Jasmine is pleased I’m not running as fast as I can from whatever is happening between us, like I normally do.

  I finally understand I’m ready to be happy and live life instead of putting romance on hold, no matter how short, or long it will be.

  “We have whiskey, rum, cola, lager, or a mix if you want,” Jasmine answers, giving Victor and me a big grin and wink of approval.

  “I’ll have a whiskey and soda please,” Kheda replies, looks at Victor and me, gives a shrug of his powerful shoulders before looking back at Jasmine with a look of raw longing.

  I hope he will take a chance. I understand his fear of losing her to The Protectors; I know the fear well, as if it’s an old friend. But now, the fear has outstayed its welcome, and I’m taking a chance at happiness. I hope Kheda will too as Jasmine really likes him, and they would make each other happy.

  “Sometimes you have to take a chance. Fear can’t rule your life, or you’ll never be happy.” Jasmine quietly tells him, before turning her back on him to prepare his drink.

  “I’ll have the same please, if you don’t mind?” requests Victor breaking the silence.

  Disentangling myself from his wonderful ministrations, I take the pizzas and pop them into the oven. Casually, I turn to Victor. “You can put your things in my room, if you want to stay with me.” Feeling the fiery red blush burning my cheeks, I know my bold statement has been ruined. Hastily I go in search for my drink. Where did I last have it?

  I find it on the hallway table. I must have put it there when I’d locked the door. Picking it up, I take a fortifying gulp, move into the sitting room to stare out the window. Darkness has crept in at some point, I realize in surprise.

  The world seems so quiet, and yet a twisted killer is out there somewhere, searching for her next kill. With a shiver, the image of the victims in the caves flashes before my eyes.

  “They didn’t drink from her.”

  “What did you say?” Kheda asks, entering the sitting room.

  “They didn’t drink from her. Sorry, the vampires, they didn’t drink from the killer. The stake was keeping them both whole. It’s why the male vampire turned to ash when he was moved. They didn’t drink from her,” I repeat in growing excitement.

  “And this is important why?”

  “It means, they didn’t trust, or know her well,” I reply as if it was obvious. “Look, if I’m right, Mrs. Hayes the witch was an opportunity killing; maybe she was on the list. But probably more a personal list, than anything else. The werewolves and vampires I believe were targets, but they didn’t know the killer intimately. So we’re probably looking for a witch who works in a public place. Someone who comes into contact with and is able to observe all supernatural species. Sees who they’re associating with, to create her list. But it has to be someone the victims would be comfortable to go with, maybe even meet.”

  “Okay, I get where you’re coming from, but it describes a lot of people, Candi. I don’t see how it helps to be honest.”

  “Okay, how about this then. You’re looking for a female witch, about thirty years old, give or take. She’s plain to look at, but is physically fit, though she would disguise her athleticism by wearing ill-fitting clothes. She’s also used to talking to people, but will come off as non-threatening.

  “Someone who is easy to talk to and trust. But someone who is easily forgotten. Someone who could ask for help and because she is recognized for always being nice and friendly, no one would hesitate to offer their services.

  “She would drive something with a large enough boot to comfortably hold a large werewolf, maybe even two bodies as she would have to have taken the two vampires together.

  “And finally, she lives alone or at the very least, if she lives with someone, they would be a family member she controls. At home she will have her own gym, probably a treadmill, weights, and a punching bag.

  “So Kheda, does that description help?” I take a sip of my drink, still staring out the window. The silence in the room is deafening, so I turn around to look at Kheda, to see why he’s so quiet. At some point Victor and Jasmine had joined us. Jasmine gives me a thoughtful look, while Victor and Kheda just gape at me in surprise.

  “I think you’re right,” she agrees as she thinks of my description. “She would have to work either part-time in the morning, or a split-shift, to serve the college kids and the morning comm
uters. But she needs to be finished at lunch time; or she works the evenings, maybe both.”

  “Yes, she would have to work near the college campus either side of the bridge. Definitely not the witch village, except maybe the supermarket, but I doubt it,” I add excitedly.

  “She would need a convincing ruse, to be able to send one vampire away to collect something for her while keeping the other with her. No way in hell would she be able to take care of two vampires, without one escaping or attacking her in defense. Not unless she had help…” I trail off in thought.

  “How the hell did you come up with such a detailed description?” A look of wonder and bewilderment flashes across Kheda’s face as he looks at me and Jasmine.

  “When we were in the army, we were in a special assignments unit. We would profile a suspect, before going after them,” I quietly reply thinking back to those days.

  In one sense they were the happiest times of my life. I’d made wonderful friendships and developed my magical abilities in unbelievable ways.

  When I left Paradise Falls, I had no idea how powerful my magick could be, and I had no idea how freely developing my abilities and embracing them fully could enrich my life. But some terrible things happened while in the army, and before we all left, we essentially became a supernatural hit squad for the government.

  Granted they hadn’t realized what exactly we were, but they did know we could hunt down and find anyone. All we needed was a profile, or enough information to figure out a profile to hunt and track our suspect. Once we had information, there was no stopping us.

  Taking a deep breath, I look at Jasmine and ask a silent question. With a nod, she looks at Kheda and Victor and lets out a large sigh.

  “Ask them first if they agree, then summon them,” she replies.

  “Ask us what?” Kheda demands, as he looks at us in puzzlement.

  “When we were in the army, we were part of a specialized team that could hunt down anyone once we had a profile. What we’re asking is, if you would like us to summon the rest of our old team.

  “If we summon them, they will come, and we will find the witch. The thing is…well, the thing is”…Taking a deep breath, I let it out in a great rush. “The thing is, the last time we were together changed us all. Our last mission we were on was a rescue mission, and we took revenge on the captor who had kidnapped a member of our team. We haven’t seen each other since, so I’m not sure how it will go down…” I trail off.

  There was no way in hell I was saying any more. That night we’d lost so much of ourselves, in fact we had almost lost our humanity. It was why we separated afterwards. I had thought we had lost Jasmine completely after rescuing her, when she couldn’t change back.

  I still don’t know all that had happened to her, but when I remember how we found her, her poor body broken and bloody still causes a rush of red hot anger to burn and erupt inside of me. When we rescued her, she was in human form, and to help speed up her healing we encouraged her to transform, but fear kept her stuck, and we thought we had lost her.

  Slowly but surely she healed, but only since meeting Kheda. She seemed determined to regain her human form, and now I was sending us into a dangerous mission once again.

  The thing was, if we didn’t go after the witch, eventually she would come for us. I glance toward her, and when she catches my eye, I see fierce determination staring back at me.

  Clearing his throat to get our attention, Kheda finally says, “Make your calls. We need to solve this case and stop the killer.”

  “Actually, it’s not quite so simple. We don’t know where they are, so we have to summon them instead, but it can only be done on the night of the full moon. In other words, in three nights time,” I say with a shrug of apology.

  Victor is watching me with a quizzical expression. I can almost hear the gears in his brain working overtime, as he figures out what I’m not saying, what he knows already, and putting the rest of the pieces together. I wonder if the pieces are in the right order.

  ****

  We manage to rescue the pizzas just before they burn. I look at Victor and call him aside. I know he can eat food, as I’ve seen him do so earlier, but surely it’s not what he actually needs to survive. I mean, don’t vampires drink blood?

  “Victor, don’t you need blood to survive?” I ask looking him in the eye, even though I want to look anywhere else. I mean, what if all the stories are wrong and I’m making a complete fool of myself?

  “Yes, I do, but I ate earlier, and brought some plasma bags with me. I put them in the back of your fridge. I hope you don’t mind?”

  “No, of course I don’t. I just wasn’t sure if the stories were true, as you were eating earlier at the pub.”

  “We can eat food, it just doesn’t do anything for us, though the steak I had was rare, so the little bit of blood is better for me than other food. Sadly though, it’s fresh human or supernatural, not vampire blood I need to survive.”

  “So the blood in the fridge…?”

  “Won’t sustain me for long. Even though it’s human, it’s not fresh anymore, so I won’t be at my full strength in case of an emergency,” Victor adds in obvious frustration.

  I feel like laughing. Does he think I’m going to start looking at him as if he’s a monster now that I know he needs blood for subsistence? Looking at his expression, I realize he probably does.

  “In that case, take a little blood from me tonight, I will have time to recover from any blood loss, and you will be at full strength,” I quietly tell Victor so no one else can hear. Gently I kiss him, tracing the contours of his handsome face with my fingers, as if imprinting his features into my memory for good.

  The look of surprised pleasure on his face as he realizes I accept him completely makes me want to cry. His wonderfully strong arms wrap around me, pulling me flush against his powerful body. As he rests his chin on the top of my head, a hum of contentment escapes me. I feel at peace.

  “You make me feel human again,” Victor whispers before kissing me so gently, all his emotions coming to the surface, until a cough interrupts us.

  “Sorry, guys, but pizza’s getting cold,” Jasmine informs us with a big smile on her face.

  I extract myself from Victor’s embrace, take his hand, lead him into the kitchen to get some pizza, and top up my drink. I look to Victor to see if he wants food or drink and receive a smile and a shake of his head in the negative. We join the others in the sitting room to munch our food in silence. I notice Jasmine and Kheda sitting so close, you wouldn’t be able to stick a ruler between them.

  A warm glow of happiness spills out of me, as I realize they are growing closer, like Victor and I. Did we have a relationship, and if so what kind? I ponder. As if in answer Victor drapes his arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer to his side. He keeps his arm there as if it belongs. I continue munching my pizza, but lean into him in welcome acceptance.

  ****

  Once we finish eating, Kheda turns to me and asked about the photos. “Have you had time to print them yet?”

  “No, I’ve downloaded them to my computer, but I haven’t done anything else to them.”

  “Well, can you do so now, please?” Kheda demands in frustration. “We need those photos to help solve this case, so why haven’t you printed them off already?”

  “I’ll get on it right away. Look, I know we need to solve this case A.S.A.P, but let me tell you something. I didn’t want to look at those photos again today. Sometimes, you just need to have a break, so you can look with fresh eyes.” I stand and take my plate and glass, dump them in the kitchen to sort out later, then storm upstairs to sort out the blasted pictures.

  As I pass the sitting room I hear Kheda ask, “What did I say to upset her?” As if he honestly couldn’t understand why I would be upset.

  “Kheda, you’re a good detective, but at times you’re such an ass,” Victor informs him in disgust. “Candi had to take the photos. We were repulsed at what we saw, never mind h
aving to take pictures of all the different angles. Use your head, why wouldn’t she be upset?” Victor walks out of the sitting room, where he finds me halfway up the stairs, where I had paused to listen.

  Giving him a wry smile, I carry on up the stairs and into my room. I’m delighted he understands why I don’t want to do the photos tonight, but Kheda has a point. The killer isn’t going anywhere, and we need to solve this case, sooner rather than later. In other words, I had to suck it up and get on with it.

  I boot up my laptop. Once done I pull up the photos and systematically crop and fix each one to my satisfaction, before printing them.

  “What the hell is it?” Victor asks in surprise, staring at the printer on wheels, printing a photo of the back cave with the stream. “These are amazing,” he marvels, just as a stunning photo of the werewolf and the two vampires is printed.

  “You definitely have talent. I mean if you didn’t know they were dead, it is an amazing photo…”

  “Yes, but we do know, so it’s gross beyond words, and depressing as hell,” I say with a grimace of distaste, as I glance at the picture coming out of the printer in large exquisite detail.

  Eventually all the photos are printed. Victor and I collect them and bring them downstairs, where Kheda and Jasmine sit talking on the sofa. I feel strangely peeved with them. I realize it’s because I’m about to see the photos for the third time since taking them, and they’re about to see them for the first.

  Why is it okay for me to be put through this so often? With a grumble of annoyance, I give myself a mental shake. I have to get off this self-pity crap, and it’s annoying the shit out of me. After all, there was no way in hell I would let anyone else go near my equipment!

  “Okay, here are the prints.” Crouching down I lay out as many as possible. But due to their sheer size, only the entrance and witch are shown in amazing detail.