by Jenna Ryan
The music was a raspy fiddle-hornpipe combo, the air a sticky, gray miasma, and unless she’d gone color-blind, the beer she’d just glimpsed had been green. Lovely.
Unconcerned, Aidan went with a mug of tap ale. Raven regarded a passing pitcher and opted for club soda. When a puffy-faced male server appeared to take their order, he stared so long and hard she brushed her cheek.
“Am I smudged or something?”
“Or something,” Aidan agreed. But it was an absent reply. His eyes hadn’t stopped moving since they’d entered.
She tracked them now to the bar. “Are we meeting someone?”
“No, just looking. I haven’t been out much lately.”
Resignation slipped in. “And here we go. Straight to the crux of a conversation I never in my wildest dreams expected to have. Except—oh, no, wait—I haven’t actually had what you’d call dreams since Gaitor told me you’d been blown into a million unidentifiable—should have clued in right there—pieces. My life became a full-scale nightmare at that point, and the scary thing is, it doesn’t feel done. In fact, I feel like I’m about to jump from a nightmare straight into a night terror.”
He waited until the server deposited their drinks before turning his dark gaze on her. “How long are you planning to stay pissed at me?”
A glimmer of unlikely amusement blossomed into a laugh. “Well, duh.” Propping her elbows, she moved a finger between them. “Two years’ worth of mourning wasted, pal. And I’ll tell you something you probably don’t know. Every six months your grandmother calls me up and tells me I have to come to New York for an anniversary wake. I go, we cry, she makes sure I’m not seeing anyone, then she drags me to Mass and gets a priest to bless me just in case the evil Blume thing has any merit. Afterward, she makes me promise to phone her every Sunday at 9:00 p.m. sharp so she’ll know I’m all right.”
“Hey, you marry into an Irish family, you’re in it for life.”
“I thought that very thing when we said ‘I do.’ In for life, for better or worse, till death—as in the real deal—do us part.”
“Us do part,” he corrected, and caused her temper to spike.
“You had no right to do what you did to me, Aidan. I knew before I married you that nothing about being a cop’s wife would be easy. I also knew before you decided to pull a Houdini that Johnny Demars was vindictive as hell.”
“Not vindictive, Raven, vicious. There’s a difference.”
“You wind up dead either way.”
“Except in the second scenario, you beg for it. And begging is merely a prelude to his idea of fun and games.”
She spotted a dusty, red-eyed raven tangled in the old fishing net that hung on the wall beside him. “I can’t believe you faked your own death, put me and your family through hell and spent two years—with the prospect of countless more—living like a phantom in Raven’s Cove, all because you were too afraid of what Johnny Demars might do to you to face it like the cop I know you are.”
“The cop you thought I was. Same verb, different tense. Some people can and often do disappoint their loved ones. I can’t change what I did any more than George can take back the call we both know he made. We make our choices and whatever the fallout might be, that’s what we’re left to face. Forced to face, in my case and in yours.”
The faintest trace of Irish left over from his early childhood slipped through as he leaned in on his forearms to make his point. He wanted her to believe him, desperately wanted it. But she couldn’t.
Bubbles rose and burst in her cloudy glass. Watching them, she said, “The guy who served us just now has a goiter. It’s making his neck swell. His voice could be hoarse from all the smoke in here, but I doubt it. His face is puffy, and his skin looks dry. I saw him for less than thirty seconds, Aidan, and I’d stake my medical reputation on the fact that he’s hypothyroid.”
Aidan’s dark brows came together. “That’s not fatal, is it?”
“Only if there’s a tumor involved, which in most cases, there isn’t. Point is, the server needs medical treatment, and you need a big reality check if you think I’m going to believe, even for a minute, that you’re afraid of Johnny Demars.”
Sitting back, he took a drink of the greenish beer. “I’d be a fool if I wasn’t.”
“You’d be a fool to underestimate him, but you’ve never been afraid of risking your life.”
“If you believe that, maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.” He cast her a sideways look. “You want to make me into a superhero, and that’s not what I am. I’m sorry if that disappoints you, but it’s the truth. Johnny Demars scares the hell out of me. There’s no walking away from a man like that. Screw with him, whether intentionally or not, and you’re going to die. At some point, and in whatever manner he dictates—usually long and painful—you will die.”
“But you’ll go after him now,” Raven countered. “Take out his hit man and set your sights on him now.” The crowd noise swelled a little as the dim lights of the waterfront bar flickered. “What you’re saying isn’t you, Aidan. What I said before, that’s you.”
He rolled the unappealing contents of his mug. “I have no choice now. Two years ago, I did. Simple as that.”
Nothing about him had ever been simple, she reflected. As for her feelings? Someday, someone might invent a word to describe them. Or him.
Long and lean, a little haunted, a lot more haunting, Aidan possessed a rather frightening ability to captivate. One look at his face and she’d tumbled—over the edge and straight down the slippery slope into love. Even after he’d “died,” she hadn’t climbed out.
Sighing, she tucked a leg underneath her on the bench. “Gaitor said you were the best he’d ever worked with.”
“You haven’t met his former partners.”
She studied his unrevealing features before asking softly, “Why are you doing this? Trying so hard to downplay your abilities and disillusion me?”
“I’m not,” he began, then raised his eyes as the lights winked off and on.
Unsure, Raven copied the move. “What? Electrical storms cause power flutters everywhere.”
“Still a positive thinker, huh?”
Another double zap, and the crowd murmurs grew. Ignoring the shiver that chased itself over her skin, Raven glanced at the dusty bird next to her head. “They probably think Hezekiah’s parasitic evil spirit is behind this.”
Aidan smiled. “That’s what they’d like to think, but Steven figures most of them are actually quite well educated.”
“Mmm. Like people who hunt for vampires in graveyards.”
“You’re never going to buy in, are you?”
“To the man-transforms-into-bird thing, not all the way in, no. To the suggestion that you’re a coward, not at all.”
“Raven, being stubborn about this won’t change—”
A sizzling snap cut him off and sent a collective gasp through the suddenly pitch-black room.
“Hang on to your feathers,” the owner called out. “We’ve got a generator...three, two, one, there she goes.”
Less than a quarter of the lights sputtered back on. Grotesque shadows fell in all directions. Raven suspected it was a quiet order from the bartender that made the fiddle player pick up his bow and slide into a mournful East Coast lament.
“Old Joe knows how to create an atmosphere, I’ll give him that.” Twitching off a secondary shiver, Raven eased closer to Aidan. “Maybe we should leave.”
A woman screamed. First one, then another, and another. Within seconds, a loud clatter of feet erupted, tables and chairs scraped across the floor, and people began to shout.
Raven’s first instinct was to pinpoint the source of the commotion, but Aidan’s hand on her neck prevented her from standing.
“I just want to see...” She swallowed the rest of that thought when two large, black shadows swooped down from the rafters.
The commotion swiftly bumped up to a full-scale panic.
“Under th
e table.” Aidan took her there with him. “Do not leave this spot,” he told her, and was gone before she could respond.
More fascinated than frightened, Raven watched several winged shadows move across the ceiling. “What is with the birds in this town?” she demanded of no one. “And that’s not a raven, it’s a crow.”
A man running past tripped and sprawled on the bench she’d just vacated. A moment later, someone shoved a woman in leather sandals to the floor.
The fallen man scrambled to his feet and bolted. Raven crawled out from under the table to help the dazed woman. Blood oozed from a cut on her forehead, and she seemed disoriented.
Pressing a napkin to the wound, Raven asked, “How did this happen?”
In response, two pairs of stubby fingernails began to swipe the air between them. “He said they were possessed, and he was right.”
“Who...? Ouch!” A heavy body slammed into Raven’s shoulder. She heard flapping and saw a net fly into the air. There was a loud caw, and finally, the inevitable gunshot.
“We’re damned.” The woman, a shorn platinum-blonde, hiccuped. “Reverend Alley says we’re going to burn in hell for our curiosity.”
Of course there’d be a zealot in the mix. Keeping the woman low, Raven examined her forehead. “Cut’s not deep.” She caught the swiping hand before it scratched her face. “I promise, the birds won’t hurt you if you stay right here.”
“The evil needs a new host.” Seriously drunk, the woman tipped sideways. “They never mentioned that in the brochure.”
“Evil can be a bastard,” Raven agreed. “Just stay here, okay, and that new host won’t be you.”
As another bullet discharged, she stood and attempted to locate Aidan and Rooney. A bullet could strike a human as easily as a bird. Aidan hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he’d head straight for whoever had. And while Rooney wouldn’t charge in, he’d be riveted enough by the spectacle not to leave.
Determined to get her great grandfather out, she started for the dartboard. And rammed straight into a man wearing a muscle shirt, biker gloves and a wicked leer.
“My, my, my,” he drawled. “Ain’t you just about the prettiest thing I’ve seen since that prison door swung open last month. What do you think, blondie? Is your friend here pretty enough to eat or what?”
The woman under the table launched into a sloppy hymn.
Firming his grip on Raven’s wrists, the man let his leer widen. “I love these freako events. There’s always some sugar begging to be sampled.” He yanked her closer. “What say you and me step outside where we can be private with no birds to disturb us?”
His hold on her was painful and he smelled strongly of sweat and whiskey. At six-two, two hundred pounds, he wasn’t as large as Fergus Smith, but right then, he seemed a great deal more menacing.
While she struggled, one of the ravens dived. The man ignored it and cinched her wrists tighter. Then he swore and swung her around beside him, into a one-armed throat lock that had her seeing spots.
“Take your holy book and beat it, preacher.”
When her head cleared, Raven saw a second man standing placidly in front of them. A little bent and a lot scruffy, he sported a chest-length beard, thick glasses and a hat pulled low over his forehead.
“You leave her alone.” The threat was clear even if his reedy voice barely carried over the confusion.
“Don’t see a weapon anywhere.” The arm around her throat flexed, making it impossible for her to swallow. “You gonna hit me with your book if I don’t obey?”
“It’s an option,” a smoother voice inserted from behind. “But I like my way better.”
Aidan...
The man beside her made a sudden strangled sound. The bearded reverend melted quietly into the shadows.
“Let her go,” Aidan advised her captor. “You’ve got two seconds before I drop you and let a bunch of panicking people use you as a floor mat.”
“Bas—” The man choked, flexed his arm briefly, then released her with a shove.
Still behind him, Aidan tightened his sleeper hold on the biker. “You’ve got a lot of mean in you, pal.” Dark eyes glinting, he snugged his forearm until the man’s head lolled.
Raven massaged her abused windpipe. “Aidan.”
“Bullies piss me off,” he said, but shoved his prisoner into the wall and let go.
The man dropped to the floor.
“Are you hurt?” Aidan asked.
“No...bird,” she cautioned, and dipped to avoid it.
Taking her hand, he drew her toward an as yet undiscovered side door. Raven grabbed the blonde under the table.
“It’s a sign,” the woman warbled. “The evil infected two people in the past, and it’s ready to pestitilate...pestilent...Reverend Alley says it’s gonna get someone again.”
“Reverend Alley?” Aidan kept them moving.
“Fanatic,” Raven told him. “Gotta be here for Ravenspell. He tried to help me.”
“And there they are.” Pausing, Aidan indicated three young men who were helping themselves to the money in the bar owner’s cash drawer. “The instigators of tonight’s bird drama.”
Raven peered at the trio. “They look kind of...tough.”
“They look it,” he agreed. “Let’s see if they act it.”
“Interesting answer, Lieutenant.”
Her speculative tone elicited a faint smile. “Three punks don’t equal Johnny Demars.” Aidan kicked the stuck exit door. “Get to the Jeep, and lock yourselves in. There’s a robbery I need to screw up before we leave.”
Raven tugged her hand free. “I’m not going anywhere without Rooney.”
“Your hypothyroid server ushered him out first thing. Under protest, but he’s long gone.”
“Why do I feel like a less-than-great-granddaughter? Go,” she told him, then pushed the blonde ahead of her. “I know where we parked.”
“This way, ladies, if you please.”
The bearded reverend startled her with his unexpected appearance. While Aidan went one-on-three with the thieves behind the bar, Raven found herself being propelled into a back lane where the shadows hung thick and unwelcoming.
Reverend Alley aimed a finger at Raven. “Take care, distant daughter of Hezekiah Blume. The evil that comes will surely seek you out. You and the man you love. You must be strong, have faith and, above all, be clever. Fail in any one of these areas, and you will die. Both of you will die. And mark me, this time the dying will be entirely real.”
The woman sagged against Raven’s arm as the reverend backed slowly away.
“Wait a minute,” she said. Then lightning flashed and she caught a glimpse of his eyes.
His black, red-rimmed eyes.
* * *
NOT GOOD, RAVEN THOUGHT. Not necessarily real, but not something she’d needed to see after everything that had happened that night.
Red-rimmed eyes were her ancestor’s affectation. Real or fake, they had no place in her life. On the other hand, this was Raven’s Cove, where weird was more or less a synonym for normal.
After delivering the blonde to one of her camping companions, Raven went in search of her great-grandfather. Rooney was perched on the rear fender of the Jeep with a cane propped between his legs and several people milling around him.
“Doctor’s here,” he informed the gathering. He pointed from her to the people. “Patients are waiting.”
“What? No, Grandpa, I can’t...”
“Old Joe’s bringing bandages and warm water. We already got your medical bag out of the backseat.”
Raven noted an assortment of cuts and scrapes, saw more blood than she cared to and, relenting, knelt to check her equipment. “I don’t suppose you found George in the backseat, as well.”
Rooney made a rude sound. “Your so-called friend’s gone. Took my Dodge pickup. Didn’t ask, just took. But as long as he’s hightailing it back where he belongs, I say good riddance and keep the truck. He’s not your type, young Raven, no
t by a long shot.”
“George isn’t important, Grandpa. What matters is...”
“That our Aidan’s alive?” The old man chortled. “Hell, I saw that with my own eyes inside.”
She stared at him as Joe piled clean cloths and bandages in her arms. “You saw him, and it didn’t strike you as odd?”
“Doesn’t matter how it struck me, does it? What is, is. And right now, what is, is that these people need tending to. Nothing major, but if you want to set up shop in Raven’s Cove, tonight’s as good a time as any to dip your toe.”
Absurd laughter tickled her throat. Could it get more unreal than this?
Aidan, a “dead” man, was inside a waterfront bar doing battle with a trio of thieves. A red-eyed reverend had just issued her a freakish warning. She had no idea where Steven or Fergus Smith had gone, although she imagined Steven might be watching the big man. George, whom she’d trusted for years, had stolen a truck and very likely chatted with the infamous Johnny Demars. And now here she stood, in a shadow-filled parking lot, with residual thunder still rumbling overhead, a strange kind of silvery fog rolling off the ocean, and a dozen wounded people in need of minor medical attention.
“Welcome to the Cove,” she muttered, and finished rummaging through her bag.
She felt Aidan’s presence behind her a second before he said, “Is this what you call locking yourself in the Jeep?”
Raven cast him a dry look. “Talk to Rooney.” Then she looked again in disbelief.
His T-shirt was torn in three places. His hair had fallen over his forehead and into his eyes. He had a bruise on his cheekbone, a split lower lip, and the knuckles of his right hand were raw and bloody.
It amazed her that she could summon a casual “No cavalry, huh? Just you and the three toughies.”
He shook out his sore fingers. “The police chief left office in July and hasn’t been replaced yet. I’m told the deputy is indisposed and likely to remain so for several weeks.”
She noticed that his eyes circled the parking lot before returning to hers. Standing, she brushed the hair from his face. Couldn’t help it. “You think Demars has someone here already, don’t you?”
