Sterling’s knees cracked as she rose. “Slow down. Please. What do you mean Valeria took Mom? How does one move a catatonic patient?”
“When ‘one’ is a Priestess of the Goddess, Sterling, anything is possible. You know that.”
Sterling crossed herself. “Come, away from prying eyes and listening ears.” Sterling led Denny back to her tiny cell and closed the door. “Keep your voice down and tell me what has happened.”
So Denny did. She started at the beginning, at the park, and ended with Rush and the two mystery trunks. “I don’t want to alarm Pure or Quick, so I think it best if we don’t tell them.”
“Agreed.” Sterling removed her habit and shook out her hair. It was the first time Denny had noticed a few strands of gray running through it.
“I just didn’t want you to freak out. She’s safe. Valeria would never let anything happen to her.”
“Then why not just tell you where she took her? Why would she feel the need to keep that information from you?”
“She knows I would go there, and that’s the exact wrong thing to do.”
“So Valeria, Mom’s...witch friend...absconded with her to keep her safe. My word, Golden, the worlds we live in couldn’t be further apart.”
“I disagree. I live in a world of magic. You live in the world of miracles and yet, those two things are more like lemons and limes instead of apples and oranges.”
“We shall have to agree to disagree on that count. Now, what, if anything, can I do to help?”
Though they were six years apart in age, Sterling Silver and Denny had always been light years apart in life. Sterling had always been the good girl, the rule follower, the one for whom good grades came easily; Denny had always been one to question the rules before breaking them.
Denny had lost a little respect for her sister when she learned Sterling sought the church as a means of escaping the Legacy. Sterling had erroneously thought the demon would choose her, so she’d become a nun to prevent that.
But in this moment, Denny’s faith in her sister rose dramatically. “I’ll let you know, sis. Like I said, Mom is in good hands, but I do know Valeria left me some sort of clue about a map, and once I have it, I’ve got to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“Hell if I know. The first thing I have to do is find the map, and then I need to know what these witchers are after.”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“Not necessarily. Iris isn’t the only seventh of a seventh alive, so it begs the question why her and why now? What’s happened to make them come out of the shadows?”
“Perhaps it has to do with what transpired in New Orleans.”
“I thought about that, but somehow I think this is deeper. Like someone has to pay the piper.”
Sterling sat at the small, dilapidated table set in the tiny, dorm-like apartment and folded her hands on the table. “You’re certain Mom’s safe?”
“No. I’m certain Valeria wouldn’t allow anything or anyone to harm her. Whatever map Valeria wrote of is the key to unlocking this damned thing. I just need to find it.”
Reaching across the table, Sterling laid her hand on top of Denny’s. “I pray every day, sometimes several times a day, that your life will one day calm down and you will find the same kind of peace I find with the Lord.”
Denny barely smiled. “Peace? Sterling, I am possessed by a demon. An old demon. An old demon who pissed off a lot of people in his day. Save your prayers for someone else because peace and I will never be in the same room together.”
Sterling’s eyes filled with tears and she looked away.
“Oh, Sterl, don’t be sad. It’s not as bad as it seems. Really. My life may seem to be perpetually in danger, but it’s the only life I have and I’m trying to make the best of it.”
“How is your...love life?”
Denny laughed out loud. “Non-existent? I don’t know how Mom raised four kids and kept her husband fed while being a hunter when it’s all I can do to remember to eat.”
“You do look a little thin.”
“Thanks.” Denny rose and hugged Sterling. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“You do that.”
“And do me a favor. Stay in the convent. I mean it. Don’t even volunteer to go to the corner market. These ass—uh, these hunters… will use anyone they can to get to me.”
“To what end? You’re not a witch. Why would they even be remotely interested in you?”
“Because my witch threatens the order of things, and I think they fear what my Hanta Raya and she could do if we put our evil minds to it.”
“I don’t ever want to hear you call yourself evil again. You’re not. You fight evil. You make the world safer. You step up and do those acts Mom and Valeria once did.”
Denny turned to leave, then stopped. “What did you just say?”
“Mom and Valeria once did the job you and your...witch are doing now, correct?”
Denny quickly hugged her sister, then pulled away. “I knew coming here was the right thing to do. Thank you!”
“Where are you going? What did I say?”
“I love you, Sterl. Don’t ever forget that.”
With those final words to her sister, Denny placed one phone call before racing back to her lair,
When she arrived, Lauren was already waiting for her on the stairs out front.
“That was fast,” Denny said.
Lauren was white, her eyes saucers. “You called. I came. It’s kinda how we work. My research uncovered a few things you need to hear. I’ve been waiting on confirmation from a renowned historian and genealogist before I had this talk with you, but in light of the call you just made, I figured I’d better give you what I have.”
Denny felt her heartbeat quicken. “Come on inside.” Looking over her shoulder, Denny opened the front door and ushered Lauren into the dining room.
“Hi, Lauren.”
Lauren jumped when she heard Rush’s voice.
“Hey Rush. Sorry. I’m not sure I’m ever going to get used to that.”
“No worries. Not everyone is comfy talking to a ghost. I’ll let you two do your thing. I am just finishing up one of my favorite shows.”
“Don’t ask,” Denny cautioned Lauren.
Placing her bulging backpack on the table, Lauren began pulling out files and folders. “Okay, I need you to really focus in, Den, because you are not going to believe what I found out.”
Denny stared at the table while Lauren spread out the maps, files, printouts, an iPad, and Sharpies in assorted colors.
“There were three hundred witch trials in England alone but, oddly enough, Scotland tried nearly three thousand with an execution rate of sixty-seven percent.”
Denny shuddered.
“I won’t go into the grotesque and unfair nature of those trials. It’s not really relevant to our findings.”
“Good.”
“As you know, the Malleus Maleficarum—Latin for the Hammer of Witches—is a famous treatise about how to torture witches, how to conduct investigations, and generally how to go about gathering evidence against those accused of witchcraft.”
Denny looked up at the stairs to the lair. “You showed me the original copy I have in the lair. Should I go get it?”
“No need.” Lauren pushed a piece of paper over to Denny. “These two men, Jacob Sprenger and Henrich Kramer, wrote it in the fifteenth century. They were members of the Dominican Order and Inquisitors for the Catholic Church.”
Denny nodded. “Asshats.”
Lauren opened another folder. “Call them what you will, but they had the backing of the Church for their little primer. Kramer was the main writer. His family hailed from Germany...from the same region as—”
“My Hanta.”
Lauren nodded. “Bingo. But that’s not the piece that’s going to be hard to swallow.” She handed Denny a single slip of paper. “I ran this through multiple sources just to make sure my trail hadn’t gone astray.”
Den
ny took the paper and saw it was a family tree. She focused her attention near the bottom of the tree on a familiar name: Robert Kramer.
Her father.
Several seconds ticked by before it registered.
“What the fuck is this?”
“There’s no easy way to say this, Denny, but your father is a direct descendant of one of the most famous witch hunters in Europe.”
“A...are you sure about this?” The words swam before her now.
“Cross-referenced it, double and triple-checked it, and sent the data to my best source. Your dad’s family have always been witchers. Always.”
Denny stared at the name, her stomach tightening at the thought. “You’re telling me my dad was a witcher and my mom never knew? I’ve read all of her journals, Lauren, and not once did she ever suggest my dad was one of those Kramers.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Den, but your grandfather was imprisoned for the death of a young girl who had, on numerous occasions, been accused of witchcraft.”
“My...grandfather?”
She nodded. “Not the one you knew. The one you didn’t. The list goes on. So I did more digging into the infamous Kramer family.” She pushed over to Denny the thickest file. “They were very busy, those Kramers. Very busy, indeed.”
Denny leafed through the papers. “Shit, Lauren, this family killed—”
“Thousands.”
“But that…that doesn’t make any sense. Why would my dad marry someone he had to have known was a Legacy hunter? Why would his family even allow it?”
Lauren blew out a breath that almost sounded like she was in pain. “My guys charted your dad’s movements once he went into college. Don’t you find it interesting that he could have taught college anywhere in the country, yet he chose the most haunted city in the country? The worst place for your mother, a Legacy demon hunter? Why would he have done that? Why on earth would he have chosen a place that would have been so much work, and so dangerous, for your mother?”
Denny sighed. “I’ve always wondered about that. It never really made sense that he chose Savannah, then became angry that she had to work so much.”
“He probably didn’t care one way or the other. It is entirely possible your father had orders from the higher-ups. His name virtually disappeared from the family. I think your dad tossed in the towel and paid the price.”
“What do you mean, tossed in the towel?”
“Honestly? My guess is he fell in love with her. Unexpected, unplanned, Robert fell for his mark.”
Denny sat up. “Mark? You think my dad intentionally hooked up with my mom?”
“His family are witch hunters, Den. Who knows? Maybe they are even behind this.”
Denny shook her head. “They were in love. I mean…I thought they were.”
Suddenly, Rush reappeared. “They were. You can hide a lot of things from a lot of people, but you can’t hide the truth from a ghost. Your parents were very much in love, baby. On that score, you have to believe me. I…well…I saw things children never would see.”
Lauren nodded and continued. “Then the accident happened.” She flipped over a page. “And this is where it gets weird. You were just a teenager. Sterling was busy trying to raise three kids, and Quick was…well…being Quick, so it makes sense none of you ever followed up on the report of the accident.”
Denny leaned in now. “Of course not. Why would we? They were killed in a car accident.”
Lauren slowly shook her head. “Your parents weren’t run off the road, Den. According to this report, your father was driving at excessive speeds...like he was being chased by someone.”
“The cops said he’d been speeding. So what?”
Lauren shook her head again. “I was there with you the day they came to the house. We were fifteen. The cops told us he was speeding. Speeding?” She pushed a copy of the police report to Denny. “Eighty in a forty isn’t speeding, Den. It’s escape.”
Denny stared at the police report for a long time before whispering, “Or murder-suicide.”
Lauren looked away. “You could draw that conclusion, but you know your dad would never have left you all parentless. Ever. He loved your mother very much. He loved you all as well. ”
“On that score, we can all agree,” Rush interjected.
Denny perused the police report, her eyes finally stopping at a single line.
Two sets of skid marks indicate car behind barely missed contact.
“Have you ever read this?” Lauren asked.
Denny shook her head. Her Hanta stirred.
“The cops assumed whatever car rounded the corner your dad didn’t navigate could have come five seconds or five minutes later. There was no reason to believe that car had anything to do with the crash.”
“Then why should we make that assumption?”
Lauren jutted her chin out. “Keep reading.”
Denny did. And that’s when she saw what Lauren had been all flushed about.
Driver found dead on impact. Passenger managed to crawl out from under wreckage and was found leaning against a large boulder.
Denny looked up, her face a mask of confusion.
“Keep reading.”
Swallowing back her fear and sadness, Denny forced herself to ingest the truth. Blood was found on pavement, road, boulder, and passenger’s hands, probably from her attempt to free herself of the wreckage.
Denny frowned, her mind whirling.
Lauren waited.
Looking up, Denny said quietly, “Mom had no cuts or recent scars on her hands when they admitted her. She wasn’t bleeding anywhere.”
Lauren nodded. “I know.”
Denny ran her hand through her hair and read the report again. “Could it have been my dad’s blood?”
Lauren tapped a photo of the wreckage. “Den, your dad T-boned an oak tree. Look at that photo. He was a sardine in that car. Crushed between the wheel and the seat. Embedded as it were. She couldn’t have reached him if she’d wanted.”
Denny studied the photo, feelings from that horrific day flooding back. “Blood on the street, blood on the boulder and skid marks...” Denny closed her eyes. “Of course.”
“Of course what?”
Denny looked up at her, and the feeling washing over her from her Hanta told her she was correct. “The Hanta saved Mom. It got her out of the car.”
Lauren’s eyebrows raised. “You’ve told me the power you gain from it is tenfold your own, so that is entirely possible.”
“I am certain that’s what happened, and we never gave it a second thought because we didn’t know anything about the Legacy. So if he got her out of the wreckage, then what?”
Lauren laid her hand on Denny’s wrist. “Den, I think there’s one question you’ve never asked the entire time you’ve been a hunter.”
Denny waited, her eyebrows creasing into a frown.
“Why didn’t your mom have her weapons on her?”
The grandfather clock ticked loudly.
Tick…tock…tick…tock…
“I know why.”
They both turned toward Rush. She was wearing an outfit Denny had seen before but couldn’t really place. “They’d had another argument, as was the case those days near the end. He wanted her to give up the hunt. He wanted a normal life. Your father had grown tired of it all, so he asked Gwen if, for just one night, she would leave her weapons home and be a regular wife.”
Denny closed her eyes and felt sick to her stomach.
A tear ran down Rush’s face. “So she did. She didn’t want to, but she loved your father very much. I think a part of her wished she could have just been that normal wife he wanted, so she left them where she always did whenever he wanted to be with his ‘wife’ and not the hunter.”
Lauren leaned back. “Without her weapons, she was defenseless, right?”
“Right.” Denny opened her eyes. “What else haven’t you told me about that night, Rush?”
“Oh, honey, I’m not
keeping any big secrets from you anymore...well...not unless I’ve been asked to. Gwen used to always ask me about her clothing choices. Does this shirt go with these pants…that sort of thing. That night, your parents were going out together.”
“On a date?”
Rush shook her head, her eyes suddenly sad. “I wish I could lie and say yes, but that’s not why. They left the house in order to…to discuss divorce.”
Denny looked over at Lauren, who shrugged. “Divorce? Who wanted the divorce? Dad?”
Rush shook her head. “I’m so sorry, baby, but this was never my story to tell. Your mom had hidden enough of the fights and arguments with him that she was weary of it all. It got harder and harder for her to ignore that what he wanted and what she wanted were two different things. She loved your dad with all her heart, I think, but he kept pressuring her to leave the hunt. She and Valeria had...grown closer and she was now your mom’s confidante. Your father resented Valeria. It was almost as if he was jealous of her because she could share with Gwen so much of what he could not.”
“So she left her weapons,” Lauren said softly. “As a sign of love and respect for him. That’s understandable.”
Denny rested her head in her arms for a long time before uttering, “He set her up.” Denny felt a cold chill sweep across her. “That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? My dad knew something bad was going to happen so he made sure Mom couldn’t defend herself.”
Lauren rubbed Denny’s back. “We don’t know that yet, Den. No jumping to conclusions. We can only go on facts, and the facts are a bit jumbled right now.”
Rush nodded and sat down next to Denny. “The marriage had been troubled for quite some time. One of the reasons you seldom heard them argue was because Sister Goody Two-Shoes would take you kids to the park. As annoying as I found Sterling, she protected you three as much as she could from those arguments. She always has.”
“I have journal after journal of her hunting experiences and how she felt about things. I just can’t believe she never wrote about it.”
“Your mother is an amazing person, baby. She would never have wanted you to think ill of your dad. Ever. I think she started feeling bad about the direction their lives were taking. He was really enjoying teaching and she was…well…she was enjoying the hunt.”
Coven Betrayed (The Silver Legacy Book 4) Page 5
