by Grey, T. A.
She’d done well because of the “new age” fad that had come and gone but wasn’t really gone. Her brand and business had stuck around well enough in Fort Collins even among the local humans.
Humans knew about magic, though some still didn’t believe in it. Some even knew about demons, shapeshifters, and the vampires of the world. Most ignored it because if they didn’t then they’d have to accept something most weren’t ready to. So most humans stayed out of the paranormal business, except for the fundamentalists. Whenever they got involved, things always got bloody. A slain vampire here, a dead shapeshifter there. Abbigail knew all about it. ‘Course it went both ways when humans wind up dead, but that wasn’t the area Abbigail worked. It didn’t help that she got to see it more often than other folks.
Abbigail stepped inside her mother’s shop and stopped. She didn’t want to do this, but she needed to. Her stomach twisted with nerves, and her hands fidgeted no matter how hard she tried to still them. Even her legs felt weak like she could fall down at any moment. The music was off leaving the shop quiet except for the soft whirr of the A/C unit. The A/C was a bit of a strange thing in the North of Colorado. Usually by now, the temperature had dropped and people were preparing for the cold wet weather to come with winter. Instead they’d had a surprising amount of heat that still lingered in the air.
“Abby, is that you?” her mother called from the back of the store.
This is it. She couldn’t turn back now. All those years of never knowing who her father was, of asking her mother repeatedly for answers only to get shut down time and again, this was her chance. She’d never told her mother, but that was the reason she’d shunned her mother’s craft. It was petty, she thought, looking back on it, but no matter. That’s just how it turned out.
Her mother was a practicing grey witch which meant she could dabble in magic that could heal or hurt. Abby had the same power in her blood, but it seemed that each year that passed growing up, each new birthday she had, each holiday that came and swept away without knowledge of her father, she pushed her mother further and further away. Until now, she only saw her mother on those holidays and birthdays, and only talked to her on the phone a few days a week. Even the phone calls they shared didn’t last long—Abby made sure of that. She just couldn’t stand to be around her.
And now she knew who her father was. What she didn’t know was how to feel about it or how to feel towards her mother. Her mother’s soft footsteps came out of the office and Abby closed her eyes. Anger, she certainly felt some anger but that wasn’t the overriding emotion surprisingly. No, she wasn’t very angry with her mother.
“Abby, is everything all right?” her mother asked, her voice closer, wary.
Abby kept her eyes closed and focused on just herself and the emotions scattering and darting around inside her as if they too didn’t want to be figured out yet. As if something terrible might happen if she did figure it out—something awful maybe. Abby felt as if she was swimming through her own heavy emotions, searching to figure out which one she was feeling. Her breath caught as she found it. It wasn’t anger, surprise, or confusion she felt. It was pain. Pure and not very simple, pain.
The words came to the tip of her tongue, laden with every ounce of emotion riding her. Abby spoke before she lost them. “After all this time, I needed to know. I had to know and you couldn’t tell me. Not once. Not after all the begging and the tears and the pleading.” Her voice cracked, tears slipped out of her tightly squeezed eyes, but still she went on. “And now that he’s found me and I’ve found him, he’s dead. I know who he is and I can still never know him. And I can never talk to him, never hug him, never know him.”
Abbigail wanted to drop to her knees and curl up in her bed and let her numb body find itself again. She wouldn’t do it, and her pride wouldn’t let her. She only let one sob escape before she clamped her lips shut, slammed her eyes closed, and just rocked on her feet with arms wrapped around her waist. He’d wanted her to know about him. He hadn’t wanted her mother, which hurt on a level of its own.
“I wish he wouldn’t have even sent the stupid letter,” Abby said, slowing her rocking. Her mother was oddly quiet, all things considered. “You know, mom, it feels like there’s a knife in my heart that hadn’t been there before. It’s like I’m being taunted. ‘Oh by the way, I love you and would have loved to be in your life. Too bad I’m dead now.’ And the stuff he said about you. I don’t know if I hate him or…”
Finally her mother spoke. “Let me see the letter, honey.”
Long engrained to answer her mother’s commands, Abby pulled the letter out of her back pocket and handed it over. She kept her eyes averted unable to meet her mother’s sad eyes.
A few minutes passed while Abbigail listened to her mother’s breath catch and tears clog her throat as she tried to control it.
“I’ll tell you everything,” her mother said.
Anger started to poke its head up. Now you’ll tell me, Abbigail’s inner conscious yelled. Now, after it’s too late to do anything about it! Isn’t that fucking convenient for you, mother. But she didn’t say any of those things that she was thinking. Instead she got up, her back muscles feeling stiff like they hadn’t been used in a while and went to her mother’s office to take a seat in front of the desk. Her mother followed and sat behind her beat up wooden desk that was covered in a disarray of pamphlets advertising the store, eschewed paperwork, pens without the caps on, pencils with broken points, three cups of coffee that were probably days old, and God knows what else.
“H-how do you want me to start?”
“Just...at the beginning, mom.” Abby temples pounded against her skull. She pressed two fingers to the spot and rubbed circles as her mother began to tell her the very thing she’d been begging for her whole life. Funny, but she wasn’t relieved or excited to hear it now. Not like she’d thought she’d be.
“I met him twenty-six years ago. He was so handsome and charming. There was something old world about him, you know, as if he came from a different time. I felt something special about him and when he pursued me, I agreed. I realized he was an incubus then. I fell in love with him fast. So fast...”
Abbigail’s chest felt like it was going to explode. That meant she was part succubus? Oh my God.
“Mom,” she cut in, “can you skip to only the most needed details please?” She couldn’t handle hearing the falling-in-love story of her mother and father. Not right now anyway when everything felt so raw, and especially after hearing how her mother had just been second best.
“Oh, okay, anything you want honey.”
The knife in Abbigail’s heart twisted even deeper at her mother’s favorite endearment for her. It had to be unfair that she felt angry with her mother, right? Except for the fact that she’d asked for more than twenty years to know who he was and she never received an answer. She had to find out from a letter from a dead man.
“Well, um, I got pregnant. Pretty quickly actually, and, well, I know you know about it from the letter, but it’s still hard to say. He had three daughters already. They were all so precious to him. I mean he worshipped them. Their mother was his Protector. You know how they are, they get that one person who is sort of like a mate to them and they stay together forever. He loved her. They don’t have to love their Protector but he did—so much.”
Abbigail turned her head to stare at a green metal shelf that held cardboard boxes, stacks of printer paper, more paperwork, and a bunch of her mother’s witchcraft knickknacks. She tried to focus on the paper she saw and to read the words there, but it didn’t distract her enough. She couldn’t remove herself from this situation because she needed to hear this. She just didn’t want to, not really.
“I was afraid. I knew that I could never compete with that. He never actually said it but we spent many years together, and he never asked for us to move in. He never asked to see you. He never wanted to marry me. After his wife went missing, he never stopped looking for her. I’m sorry Ab
by, but we were always the outsiders.”
Abbigail finally turned to look at her mother. She had her head buried in two hands and her shoulders were sagging forward. She looked much older at that moment. Her mother looked at her with wet, sad eyes, and a frown.
“I was always second. I had no choice but to be that. I didn’t...I couldn’t...” she scrubbed her hands over her face and shook her head as if to get rid of a bad thought. “I’m sure I was wrong, but it’s like...he was holding back something from me so I...so I...”
Oh my god. So that was it, Abby thought. “He held back part of himself from you, so you kept me from him. Talk about petty, mom.”
Anger sliced in her mother’s eyes. “It wasn’t quite like that. He never pushed to see you at all. I’m not the only one who’s petty, or who’s made mistakes. At least I sent him pictures.”
Her mother’s words hit home just as she wanted to. She’d never become a practicing witch like her mother wanted her to. She’d never carry on her mother’s legacy, and yes she actually had a bit of one. And yes she did it just to spite her mother.
“Yeah, I guess we’re both petty, mom.”
Abby stood up, but couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes. Her mother started to say something, but the phone in Abby’s pocked buzzed.
She took it out and answered it.
“Yeah?” she said. “Got it.” She closed the phone and pocketed it. “I gotta go. A case.”
She left her mother in silence and rushed out to her car. That was good. For the best. She loved her mom no matter what and all of this would have been different if only her mom had told her who her father was. She didn’t deserve to find out in a fancy letter written by a dead man.
Warm air had gathered in the car, and it suffocated her in its heat. She started the engine then rolled down the windows to let in some cooler air. The breeze made her sigh as the tight muscles in her back relax. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep from crying.
Chapter Four
Night set by the time Abby got home from the lab. The dead shapeshifter case was going to be a hard one for detectives since they had no witnesses. Either that or anyone who witnessed the crime wasn’t coming forward. Some people get scared in situations like this and don’t want to come forward. It could be to their benefit or demise in cases where they recognized the killer. The knife used to commit the murder still hadn’t been found and until all the blood and evidence was processed, nothing could be done. It was a waiting game until they got another hit.
“What a day,” Abby said as she unlocked her front door and stepped into her house. It wasn’t really her house; just a rental but she loved it all the same. It had three bedrooms, two baths, and a single-car garage to boot. Going from college dorms to the small apartment she shared with her friend Jenna after college to this was like hitting the lottery.
Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast that morning but her body was so tired she just wanted to pass out and not wake up for a week. She couldn’t do that though, nope. She had to face her problems. She needed to contact her step-sisters.
She wondered: what would they think of her? Would they like her, accept her? She doubted it. She couldn’t say she’d be so agreeable to accept a step-sibling that she didn’t know about until now. Still, she had to try. As soon as she got some sleep she’d do some research and find some addresses. A spark of hope filled her that maybe, just maybe, they’d be wonderful. She’d only ever had her mom and no one else. She’d had friends but that wasn’t the same as family. Jenna was always there if she needed her, but they weren’t as close as they’d been while in college.
Abby set her lab bag on the kitchen table, snagged a yogurt out of the fridge and spoon from the kitchen drawer, and then headed to the bedroom. She needed to get a pet, a cat or maybe a dog. Something so the house wouldn’t feel so empty every time she got home.
She scrubbed her face and changed into her pajamas as she finished her yogurt and tossed it into the trash bin. She’d just pulled down the comforter, ready to let her exhausted bones rest, when a bang came at a door.
Not a knock, a bang.
She jumped, her heart starting a fierce pounding beat in her chest. Her hand went to her chest, and her eyes flew wide open. She checked the clock: ten o’clock. Who the hell would be banging on her door like that? That sounded like the knocking SWAT officers used before breaking down the door when they had a search warrant.
Getting control of herself, Abby opened her nightstand drawer and pulled out her gun. She had a permit for it and she knew how to shoot. The banging persisted. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! It never relented, never paused.
Abby crept down the hall on the balls of her feet as her heart thundered in time to the knocking. She kept her thumb over the safety on her gun, ready at a moment’s notice to flick it off and use it.
Just as she reached the door, the banging stopped. She froze, straining to hear something. No whisper of breath, no sound of movement; she only heard the cacophonous thud of her own heartbeat. She breathed as quietly as she could as she tried to slow her racing heart. She was glad the lights were off in the house. Maybe whoever was there would assume she wasn’t home and leave.
Then the banging came again, this time even harder. She flinched, her hand tightening around her gun warming the cool metal as the door shook in its sturdy frame. God, whoever it was must be strong. She wished like hell she had a peephole or even a window at the door but she had neither. The nearest front window only showed as much as the driveway. The front of the house blocked the doorway from view.
Only a door stood between her and the person knocking.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Finally finding her voice, she called out in a hard voice, “Who’s there?” Well, she’d tried for a stern voice but it still came out sounding scared, alert.
The knocking stopped as if it never happened. Only a resounding echo and her racing heart showed she wasn’t crazy.
She heard a muffled voice, deep, unintelligible.
“What?” she said, yelling louder through the door. She wasn’t stupid enough to open it. Hell no. Her thumb traced over the small safety lever on the gun, itching to release it.
“Abbigail Krenshaw,” the deep voice said.
Her stomach fell to her knees. Fuck, what did she do now? Somehow this man, it was definitely a masculine voice, knew her name and that scared the shit out of her. She looked around, feeling as if dozens of eyes were watching her but she didn’t find any. Only her empty dark house stared back at her. The green clock from the kitchen stove still lit the kitchen up in a dim glow and nightlights in the hallway and living room were dim but showed enough light to see that no one waited to jump her.
“What do you want?”
The voice didn’t answer. All went silent. Abbigail swept her gaze around her house again as if, at any moment, a window would burst and some crazed maniac would jump through her window ready to gut her like the victim she saw this morning.
“Open this door.” It was a command, an order.
Abbigail had no intention of answering it. Instead, she slowly raised her gun, keeping her thumb near the safety, and pointed it at the door. Quietly, she backed up towards the kitchen and to her phone.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! The knocking started again, unrelenting.
Her breath caught at the sound of cracking wood. Her eyes darted around the door trying to see a crack, but she couldn’t see any broken wood. She could have sworn she heard it crack. He knocked again, louder, the banging sound ringing in her ears amidst more splintering sounds. God, he’s breaking down the doorframe, tearing it down!
She turned and ran to the phone. She faced the door, gun ready as she dialed. Her fingers slipped in their haste, and she had to end the call and try again twice before she got the three digits dialed—911.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“A man’s trying to break into my house,” Abbigail whispered, but her voice sounde
d just as panicked as she felt. The knocking continued, never stopping. “Oh my god, do you hear that?”
“What’s your address ma’am?” Abby related it quickly. “Ma’am, get to a back room with a lock on it and lock yourself in there. Stay on the line. Patrol officers are on the way.”
Abby started towards the bedroom then stopped as she felt the cord to her phone pull taut. “I can’t take the phone with me. It’s not wireless.” God, she felt really stupid now. She thought the corded, old-fashioned phone was cute and trendy when she bought it. It was one of those vintage, dark yellow ones that hung on the wall. She liked it because it came from the fifties and had a certain flair to it.
“Then set the phone down but do not hang up if you can. Patrols will be there shortly.”
No sooner than the operator declared that the door shook violently.
“He’s kicking it,” she said, part in fear and part in disbelief.
Abby waited no longer. She turned and ran for the bedroom just as she heard the door burst open in an explosion of splintered wood. The front door bounced off the wall with a resounding crack just as she entered her bedroom, slamming the door closed and flipped the measly turn lock.
Her thumb swept the safety off her gun and she sprinted into her bathroom as another bang came at her bedroom door. No way would that weak wooded door last nearly as long as the front door.
She slammed the bathroom door shut, locked it and moved as far back as she could in the tight space by wedging herself between the toilet and shower. Shaking and scared out of her mind, she raised her gun, index finger poised over the trigger and waited.
BAM! BAM! CRACK!
The bedroom door slammed open. She heard it beat against her nightstand with another blow. She started praying for the police to come, and she didn’t want to be another body like the ones she found for a living. Her arms shook. As she looked down the peephole of the black gun, the hole wavered, wobbling around in waves that she tried to steady but couldn’t.
