The Witch of Stonecliff

by Dawn Brown

  Warlow’s eyes narrowed. “What can you be thinking, Eleri? You must realize he’s using you for his own ends.”

  “He’s still writing for that magazine, then?” Eleri asked.

  He stepped toward her. “Whether he is or isn’t, doesn’t matter. He could be here writing a book—a book about you.”

  “Anything’s possible, but he’s signed the lease—”

  “Under false pretenses.”

  She shrugged. “If he fought us on it, we’d simply draw more unwanted attention. I’d look like I was trying to hide something. Let him stay.”

  “Have you forgotten the wild tales he printed about you?”

  “Book or no book, it won’t matter. By the time it comes out, it’ll have no bearing on the investigation going on now. Besides, if I wind up in prison, I’ll have more to worry about than a bloody book.”

  * * *

  Eleri jerked awake, a vague sense of unease gripping her. She blinked in the darkness while her muddled mind tried to process what had woken her, what felt off.

  Her gaze swept the pitch black room and her insides froze.

  Why was her room dark? She couldn’t even see the outline of the furniture. Cool sweat slicked her skin. She never went to bed without leaving a light on. Shadows haunted the darkness, and she did everything she could to keep them at bay.

  She sat up and reached for the lamp in one fluid motion, but instead of her nightstand her hand brushed rough flannel over solid flesh. Someone was next to her bed.

  A scream tore from her lips and she tried to roll away. Strong hands gripped her shoulders, shoving her back against the mattress, and one huge hand slapped her hard across the mouth. Her lips ground against her teeth. The metallic flavor of her own blood filled her mouth.

  White panic exploded inside her. She clawed at the hand over her mouth, twisted to roll away. Thick legs straddled her, pinning her arms to her sides, and a heavy weight dropped onto her chest. The air thrust from her lungs in a fast whoosh.

  Between the hand over her mouth and the mass crushing her chest, she couldn’t breathe. She sank her teeth into the calloused palm by instinct more than conscious decision.

  A whispered, “Bloody bitch,” filled her ears. The hand lifted and she tried to drag in a breath, but rough fingers grasped her throat and squeezed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Exquisite pain gripped Eleri’s throat, cutting off her breath. Her eyes burned, head swam, vision grew fuzzy. She tried to lift her arms from her sides, but the thick legs pinning them squeezed tighter, crushing them to her ribs until her sides ached.

  “Eleri?” Hugh’s muffled voice mingled with a furious banging on her bedroom door.

  The hands at her neck released. The weight on her chest vanished. Gasping, she scrambled off the bed and raced for the door, using Warlow’s voice to guide her.

  Wet heat stung her eyes. Snuffling sobs shook her frame. She had to get out, get away. Before he grabbed her again.

  She dragged her hand over the smooth wood until her fingers brushed the knob, then yanked the door open and stumbled into the butler. Warlow’s hands shot out and gripped her shoulders, stopping her from pitching forward.

  “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “Someone…in my room,” she panted.

  She tried to turn back to her room, but Hugh’s grip on her shoulders tightened, forcing her to face him. “You’re not making sense.”

  “I am. You’re not listening.” Frustration built inside her. Speaking scraped her throat like steel wool. “There’s someone in my room. He tried to kill me.”

  Hugh studied her for a long moment, deep frown lines scoring her forehead. Did he think she was lying? Surely, he could see the marks on her. Besides her neck, her chest and ribs ached from the man straddling her, and her mouth throbbed.

  “Let me look.” Hugh gently shifted Eleri behind him.

  “We should call the police.”

  “We will.”

  He pressed the switch for the chandelier and dull light spilled over the empty room. Eleri tensed, but nothing moved or appeared out of place except her tangled bedding draped over the side of the mattress and pooled on the floor.

  Her pulse fluttered. “He’s here.”

  She hurried to the bathroom, pushed open the door and flipped on the light. Empty. Impossible.

  “Perhaps you had a vivid nightmare,” Warlow suggested, gently.

  “Bloody vivid, indeed.” Her body ached as though she’d gone ten rounds in a boxing ring. “Someone tried to kill me.”

  Hugh’s gaze swept over her. “Where did he go, then? How could he have left your room without being seen? There’s no other way in or out except through this door.”

  He was right, of course. Even if her attacker attempted to escape through the window, he would be splattered across the garden.

  Unless he was not a man at all. A shiver raced through her. Could she have been attacked by the shadow man? Unlikely. He’d cursed when she bit him. She’d clawed at living calloused skin.

  So what did that leave? A flesh and blood man who could walk through walls or turn himself invisible?

  “Maybe he slipped past while we were in the hall,” she suggested, softly. “My back was to the door, your attention on me.”

  Hugh looked sceptical, but shrugged. “I suppose we’ll call the police, then.”

  * * *

  Kyle stood at the window, watching the sky above the trees turn from black to deep blue. He sipped from the coffee mug cupped in his hand. It would be light soon, and he still hadn’t decided on his next step.

  Bloody dreams had made for a restless sleep—the result of his visit to The Devil’s Eye, no doubt. Sometime around four, after waking for the third time drenched in sweat, racing pulse thick in his throat, he’d given up on sleep. He’d come downstairs, made coffee and tried to decide what to do next. That had been two hours ago.

  Mel Barber was his best bet. The man knew more than he was saying, but could Kyle convince him to talk—especially with Eleri in tow? Barber might suspect more than one person was involved in what was happening at The Devil’s Eye, but he believed Eleri was one of them.

  Though, worrying about Eleri being with him might be a moot point. She could very well not show after he’d kissed her yesterday. With everything Kyle had said and done to her, no doubt Eleri would have rather kissed an electrical outlet than him.

  A hard knock banged on the front door. Kyle jumped. Lukewarm coffee sloshed from his mug and dribbled down the back of his hand.

  Who in the hell would be knocking at his door now? It wasn’t even quite 6 a.m.

  And hand pounded at the door, louder and more persistent.

  “Shit,” Kyle whispered, wiping his hand on his jeans. His fingers drifted over the outline of the blade tucked in his back pocket. He never went anywhere without it, even slept with it under his pillow.

  Heart slamming against his chest, he walked down the hall to the front door. Through the window, a man dressed in a suit stood beside a uniformed policeman.

  “What fresh hell?” he muttered, turning the bolt and opening the door.

  “Mr. Peirs?” the man in the suit asked.

  Kyle nodded. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “I’m DI Miller, this is Constable Carter. May we come in?”

  “Is there a problem?” Kyle stepped back, allowing both men to enter. Had something happened to his family? His stomach squeezed.

  “Sorry if we woke you, Mr. Peirs. But I’m afraid we have some questions. Is there somewhere we can sit?”

  Kyle led the two policemen into the lounge. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture, just a worn Victorian settee and two mismatched chairs. Kyle sat in one and Miller the other. Constable Carter hovered near the door as if to block any attempt at escape.

  Kyle’s pulse quickened. “Is something wrong?”

  Instead of answering, Miller opened his notepad and asked, “Could you tell me where yo
u were between two and three o’clock this morning?”

  “In bed, asleep.”

  Miller nodded and made a note. “Did you hear anything strange or out of the ordinary tonight?”

  Kyle shook his head. “No, but as I said, I was asleep.”

  “What time did you go to bed?”

  “About eleven, I suppose? What’s this about?” Surely, if there was something wrong with his family, the detective would have said so by now. Still, anxiety churned his insides. If not his family, then what or who?

  Miller shot him a friendly grin. “I understand you’re new to the area. What brings you to our little village?”

  “Inexpensive rent and house near the seaside.”

  Miller made another note in his pad. “But you’ve been here before, of course, two years ago? Isn’t that right?”

  The question didn’t faze him. Eleri had rang him last night and warned him that Warlow had pieced together who he was. “I was here for a short time writing a series of articles.”

  “About The Witch of Stonecliff?”

  Kyle forced his features to remain stoic. “I was following up on reports of a man who’d disappeared.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “The story played itself out,” he lied, and nearly smacked himself upside the head the minute the words left his mouth. Stupid to lie to police when it would take little effort on their part to come up with the real reason he’d left Cragera Bay.

  As if reading his mind, Miller leaned forward, a conspiratorial grin pulling at his mouth. “Are you sure it had nothing to do with you winding up in a hospital with your throat cut?”

  Kyle tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. “That might have played a part in my decision.”

  Miller smirked and made another note. “What happened to you?”

  “The attack?”

  Miller nodded.

  “I don’t remember, really. I was drugged and unconscious for most of it. You’ve accessed my records, obviously. You probably have more insight than I do.”

  “Seems strange.” Miller looked up from his notepad and pinned Kyle with a hard stare, “You coming back here after everything that’s happened, especially now.”

  Kyle forced a smirk of his own and leaned back in the chair. “Not really. With those bodies found, an arrest imminent, there could be an important story here. Hell, maybe even a book.”

  If Miller insisted on searching the house and saw the room he was using as an office, his research would make perfect sense.

  “So you haven’t come back for revenge?”

  “Revenge against whom? I don’t remember the attack, let alone who committed it.”

  Miller tapped the tip of his pen on the pad. “That’s not what you initially told the investigators.”

  “I was confused, likely a result of the drugs. All the evidence proved the attack happened far from Cragera Bay. Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here so early in the morning asking me about this?”

  “There’s been an incident at Stonecliff.”

  Cold swept through Kyle like an arctic wind. “Who?”

  “Eleri James.” Miller closed his notebook, slid it and his pen into his shirt pocket. “She claims someone attacked her in her room.”

  * * *

  When Kyle parked in front of Stonecliff, the house was lit up like a city skyline. Yellow light blazed from every window.

  He got out of the car, and half-jogged to the front step. He should never have involved Eleri in his crackpot scheme. He might as well have painted a target on her himself, but it hadn’t occurred to him that Eleri could be in danger as well.

  Under the awning, he banged on the door and waited, shifting from one foot to the other like a toddler in need of the toilet. He lifted his fist to knock again, but the door swung inward and Detective Harding stood in the opening. Wrinkled, smelling of day old cigarettes, steel gray hair in messy spikes, he looked exactly as he had when he’d visited Kyle in the hospital two years ago.

  “Mr. Peirs, lovely of you to pop round.” Kyle ignored him, his gaze locking on Eleri seated on the bottom step of the staircase. Wearing men’s striped pyjamas, her shoulders hunched and arms wrapped around her middle, she looked small and alone.

  Her eyes met his and widened as he shoved past the cop and started toward her.

  “What…what are you doing here?” Her voice rasped and she winced.

  Dull fury pulled tight inside him as two thoughts ran simultaneously through his brain. What in the hell had happened to her? And when he found the fucker who put his hands on her, he’d kill him. “I wanted to see you were all right. What happened?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but her gaze darted to the man behind him before dropping to the floor. “I’m fine.”

  The hell she was. He was close enough now to see the brownish bruises on either side of her mouth, the necklace of ugly purple and blue circling her throat. His gut churned. “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Her skin was deathly pale, her eyes big and glassy. He wanted to insist she see a doctor, drag her to the hospital himself if he had to, but he feared if he pushed, what shred of self-control holding her together would snap and she’d shatter right in front of him.

  He squatted in front of her and plucked her shirt collar for a better look at the damage, but she flinched and shifted back.

  He let his hand drop down to his side. “Who did this to you?”

  “That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it Eleri?” the cop said. “Whoever it was either grew wings or disappeared. Teleportation, maybe?”

  Kyle stiffened, but didn’t turn. “Eleri?”

  “I must admit, Mr. Peirs,” Harding said, “I’m surprised to see you here, so filled with concern in the wee hours of the morning given your history, and hers.”

  He drew a deep steadying breath and struggled to rein in the fury pounding behind his eyes. “And I’m surprised to find you standing here badgering a woman who’s been assaulted rather than finding the person responsible.”

  Harding let out a derisive snort. “I suspect I already have.”

  Did he mean him?

  Eleri cleared her throat and drew a deep breath. “He doesn’t believe me.” Her voice was low and nearly as raspy as his own. Speaking had to hurt. He was tempted to tell her to stop, but he needed answers.

  “Doesn’t believe what?”

  “That there was a man in my room. That he tried to choke me.” A shudder gripped her and she hunched forward, wrapping her arms around her middle.

  “She’s right.” Dark mirth dripping from Harding’s every word. “I don’t believe a blasted thing she says.”

  Kyle shot the man a hard glare over his shoulder. Harding’s smile stretched wider, lifting his grisly jowls.

  Kyle turned his attention back to Eleri. “Who was in your room?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It was too dark. He was big, that’s all I can tell you.”

  “And can apparently turn himself invisible at will,” Harding cut in. “How else can she explain how this mystery man left her room without being seen?”

  “Did these just appear from nowhere, then?” Kyle snapped, pointing to the bruises.

  “Probably did it to herself.”

  “She strangled herself, did she?” Kyle snatched up her hand—it was small and delicate and ice cold in his grip—and held it out to the detective. “Did you happen to notice the size of the bruises compared to her fingers? They’re about three times bigger.”

  “I’m fine, Kyle,” she whispered without looking at him, pulling her fingers from his grasp.

  “What are you getting out of this, Peirs?” the detective asked, all traces of humor gone. “Do you think playing the white knight will get you your story, your book? You’re a fool. You’ll wind up dead like the others, mark my words.”

  She shuddered, but didn’t look up.

  “You!” A deep voice, heavy with accusati
on dragged his gaze from Eleri. Warlow glared down from the stairs’ landing. “You’ve a bloody nerve coming here. You might have lied your way into the lodge, but I’ll not have you in this house.”

  “I’m here to see that Eleri’s alright, and given what I’m hearing, she’s far from it.”

  “Like hell.” The butler stormed down the rest of the stairs, nearly stepping on Eleri in the process. Only a quick jerk to the side saved her from being trod on. “I’ll not have you here to fill your paper with lies about this family.”

  The man closed the distance between them in three short strides, his face mere inches from Kyle’s. Kyle held his ground. He was as tall as Warlow, but the butler’s frame was wider, trim and hard despite his age. Still, if the man put his hand on him, Kyle would lay him out without a second thought.

  “I want you out.” Warlow turned to Harding. “He’s not welcome here. He’s trespassing. Take him in if he won’t go.”

  Kyle looked at Eleri, small and bruised and utterly alone with these two shitheads. He couldn’t leave her here. They didn’t believe her, so how in the hell would they keep her safe from the mess he’d created.

  “Come back to the lodge with me.”

  Eleri met his gaze and blinked. “What?”

  “Come with me. I don’t want you left alone here.”

  “She’s not alone,” Warlow growled.

  “She might as well be.”

  “Get. Out!”

  “You heard the man.” Harding’s brows knit together as if some part of the scenario perplexed him.

  Damn it. Kyle took a step back toward the door, but held her gaze. “Eleri?”

  “All right.” Her soft words boomed in the quiet hall. “I’ll go with you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Eleri woke slowly, stretched. A sense of warmth and well-being wrapped around her as snug as the blankets she slept in. She teetered on the edge of waking and sleeping for a moment with enough self-awareness that she could either open her eyes and wake or keep them closed and drift back into oblivion.

  She swallowed and her throat ached. Dark memories tumbled through her head and all that warmth and well-being vanished. Tight knots tangled her insides. Her eyes popped open, and she propped up on her elbows.