That Old Witch Magic (Wicked in Moonhaven~A Paranormal Cozy Book 2)

by J. D. Winters

  “Haley, it’s me,” Alessandro said, his voice quick, urgent, but not excited. I rolled away from him, then came up to my full height, blinking at him in the dark.

  “You have some kind of training, don’t you?” he said, rubbing the arm I’d grabbed. “You surprise me.”

  “I need more than training to throw a slab of concrete like you seem to be,” I said, my voice coming out harsh. I was mad I’d been sneaked up on, mad that Alessandro had found me… and a small part of me, a part that belonged to a past I did not remember had had her professional pride wounded. I was good at these martial arts, but I might as well have been a gnat trying to knock down an elephant against him.

  He smiled, and I could see his teeth in the moon’s tepid gleam.

  “Are we going to waste time asking about how I knew how to be here, and all of that, or can we get right to finding the vampire?” he said. He rubbed his hand through his thick hair, and gave me a disarming smile. A reflection off the shining metal of that watch that had foiled me caught my eye in the moonlight as he made the confident gesture.

  He was too at ease for this tense situation, I thought. Too ready to do whatever it was he was here to do. He hadn’t even bothered to bring along that phony posse Tommy had said he was gathering. He was here alone. I didn’t like that. What did it mean?

  “I have no idea if Bentley is here,” I said.

  “Of course not. But we can investigate together. Nobody wants anything bad to happen. Don’t you agree?”

  Maybe he was sincere, but I didn’t want to buy it. I’d come here to find Bentley and I’d come alone. So had he. I knew my reasons were benign. I didn’t trust his.

  Then I remembered what Shane had said. I had a cell phone with me, but I couldn’t see how I could call Shane right in front of the man. That would have to wait.

  I stared at him. My eyes had adjusted to the dark and I could see him pretty clearly now. There was something about him that was reminding me of something else. What was it? I couldn’t quite get the complete picture.

  “Wait here,” he said. “Let me check something.”

  I nodded, but my nerves were quivering a bit. There was something wrong here. I could just feel it. Still, I wasn’t going to tramp off into the night. I had things to do here, so I waited.

  I shifted my weight and felt something in my front pocket. Reaching in I pulled out the note Shane had dropped back at Bentley’s house. I looked at the name scrawled there again and read it out loud. “Von Dorn” it said. Where had I seen that before? I put the paper away, trying to remember.

  “Do you have a fix on Bentley’s whereabouts?” I asked him, my voice only shaking a little bit.

  “Yes,” he said. “I think I do.”

  I stared at him. “What are you going to do to him, if he’s in there?” I said.

  “Talk to him, if he’ll talk. One way or another, I’m bringing him back.”

  “Just so he can be executed in his cell?” I said, bitterly.

  Alessandro stared back at me and shrugged. “Innocent people don’t run away. And to be honest, this was bound to happen. One less Vampire Marquess in the world. It will go on turning.”

  My blood ran cold at the words… that is, until my brain caught up with them. Then I started to feel something worse than cold, something sickening like a cord running through my belly.

  “What do you mean, Marquess?” I said.

  Alessandro looked at me, his expression dark and cloudy in the night. He just shook his head and walked toward the cave entrance. I didn’t follow.

  “Wait,” I called after him. “You’ve seen the genealogy, haven’t you? You know about… but that was all secret. Bentley wouldn’t even tell me.”

  Maybe this was more of those Hunter mind tricks I’d been worried about. Maybe Alessandro and Shane could read minds, see what their enemies were thinking… but then they would have already known whether Bentley was guilty. They would have known he would escape. And then they let him….could it be to have an excuse to do him in?

  No, that wasn’t right. Whatever I thought of Shane right at that moment (and that was a matter way too complicated to get into now) he wouldn’t be pulling tricks like that.

  This was all Alessandro.

  “Who are you?” I said, horrified by what I was thinking. “You’re not a hunter.”

  Alessandro stopped, turned and looked at me with a smile. A big smile, though one far from human.

  A vision flashed in my mind. A holograph, something dangerous and ugly. That x’ed out name on Bentley’s genealogy chart. Hadn’t it been Otto Von Dorn? Yes!

  I glanced at Alessandro’s hand. There was the ring with VD carved into the gold. And looking at the man, now I was sure of it. This was the same creature as the holograph of the scary Von Dorn person..er, vampire.

  How could that be? Shane had said he was a hunter and Shane should know his hunters. But no. The truth was growing in me. He was a vampire. No doubt about it.

  “Hunters are such naïve beings,” he said. “And for a witch, you’re pretty innocent yourself. Wise up, sweetheart. Things are going to be changing in this town. You’ll have to make a decision. Change with them, or get kicked to the curb. Your choice.”

  I was trying not to lose my nerve. I glanced back toward the river. “They’ll be coming soon,” I said, praying that it was true. “They came before. They know this is where Bentley was hiding.”

  He laughed softly, as though he enjoyed seeing me squirm. “Let them come. I’ve used a cloaking spell. It’ll look like nothing but a barren cave when they get here.”

  A cloud passed over the moon for an instant, clouding everything, then it was gone and he was inches from me, his face near mine, breathing on me.

  His breath was cold. And his teeth were very, very long.

  “I thought you would have noticed the watch first,” he said, grinning. I glanced at it, then I realized what he was saying. The shiny, enormous thing that glinted on his wrist was a Rolex. A gold Rolex. The Inspector’s missing watch. And I hadn’t even realized that. I should have known immediately.

  I barely had time to gasp before his hands were around my throat. First there was the pain, and then the world went dark. And all I could hear in those last seconds was his huge, booming laugh.

  Chapter 13

  I woke up aching, in pain, my face damp, something slimy on my cheek, something cold, pressed hard against a stone surface. Something was crawling around my feet, and I could feel it touching me, going away, then touching again, like it was tasting me. It was bad, wherever I was…

  But I hadn’t expected to wake up at all, so I wasn’t out of the game yet. I tried to get up, but nothing seemed to work right. I shifted my weight to roll over, but my legs moved when I tried to move my shoulders. My knees were a solid lump. I was tied up somehow, face down on a cold floor, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  I was afraid to even open my eyes. I didn’t know what the damp thing was against my face, and I didn’t want to expose an open eyeball to it. So I waited for what might have been a minute or two and felt like three eternities. Waited, listened, and hoped I could figure something out. Anything.

  At the same time, I was thinking some things through. Alessandro was really a vampire, wasn’t he? Somehow he’d tricked Shane and the others into thinking he was really the hunter from Washington State. But he wasn’t. He was a vampire with power over Bentley, power so overwhelming, my poor friend could do nothing much against him. If he and I were going to survive this ordeal, it was going to be up to me to figure out how.

  After endless eternities of waiting, I heard footsteps sound toward me. Maybe two pair of feet, one set confidently striding, the other scuffling, irregular. Like someone being shoved, or dragged.

  Then a door creaked open, and the sound of a brief struggle. A grunt, and a heavy body slammed down right near me. The confident steps came closer, a hand touched my own, then gripped both my hands.

  The stren
gth of that grip, the uncaring harshness with how it yanked at me and pulled me off the ground, it was terrible. I can only compare it to the feeling of having your hand slammed in a car door, and then the car taking off at speed.

  Ow, ow, ow!

  Finally, pain won over pride and I sputtered out my “ows.” I was shoved back onto the ground, this time with my butt downward, my face up. I was dripping something from my hair, but my face was no longer pressed hard against the floor, so I opened my eyes.

  It wasn’t any better, seeing where I was. It was a dark, dank room. It looked a little like a dungeon from a cheap old period movie. Enormous stone blocks made up the grounds and wall. There was a single wooden door, banded with metal, and with a barred viewport on the top. Completely medieval.

  Fittingly, the only light was a flickering torch, held in the hand of my prison guard. Alessandro, or whoever he really was, stood behind the light, his face mostly hidden in shadow. That stolen Rolex glowed in the dancing light, but other than that he might have just been a floating hand, holding the torch aloft.

  “Wake up, Bentley,” he said.

  Bentley jumped up from the ground, like he’d been yanked by an enormous rope, barely able to find his feet. He had been what Alessandro threw to the ground next to me. His face was puffy, and he looked like he’d taken a beating very recently. Two black eyes were getting ready to form. Beneath the growing bruises, he looked out with a glassy, empty stare. My heart ached for him.

  “So, Miss Greco, I want to play a little game,” Alessandro said. His voice was very different than it had been before. Higher pitched, less suave, less British, with a mocking, schoolyard bully tone to it. “It’s called 20… um no, 20 will take too long. Five questions. You get to go first, and ask me whatever you want. If I think it’s interesting, and it lets me gloat, I’ll answer the question. If not, I order Bentley to bite your throat out. Ready?” he said, chuckling with a nasty, murderous glee.

  “Go to hell,” I said.

  “That is not a question. Bentley…” He started to gesture toward him.

  “He’ll never attack me!” I shouted, my own voice sounding harsh and desperate in my ears.

  The monster chuckled again.

  “Bentley, pick her up.”

  He didn’t hesitate. And he didn’t look at me as he grabbed me off the ground, lifting me easily with one hand.

  But Alessandro snarled, because Bentley, looking smashed to pieces, his eyes empty, his expression slack, did not grab the knotted rope that Alessandro had expertly tied, so that when it was pulled it forced all my limbs into cramping, excruciating pain. He slipped his arm around me, and lifted me as gently as a father would his baby girl, with equal ease and care.

  “Not like that, you fool. All this pointless defiance,” Alessandro cried in anger, then he waved his hand. “Drop her.”

  Bentley shifted his grip on me, brought me swiftly but carefully to the ground, only letting go slightly before I was settled gently on the earth. I wanted to give Alessandro a big ol’ grin, but I didn’t think that would go well for Bentley.

  Even without my provocation, the older vampire whipped out a hand, and slapped Bentley right in the face. He staggered back with a groan.

  “Why are you doing this?” I cried out, anger and terror making my voice harsh.

  “Question one. Why am I doing this?” he said, his voice infinitely, irritatingly calm, but his face wolfish, with an evil grin growing across it. “Because I can. Because I choose to. Because the lion does not lie down with the lamb.” He flashed his jagged, pointed teeth in an ugly laugh. “Not without the older lions making fun of him and kicking his prig domesticated ass.”

  His ugly laughter filled the space around us.

  Bentley took a step further into the room, and sat down on a metal cot behind me. He seemed to shake, like he was straining hard against a restraint which would not yield.

  “What have you done to him?” I said, near tears, near hysteria, near hopelessness.

  “I have exerted my rights as a progenitor.”

  I could hardly breathe. “Then you’re a vampire,” I said. “I already figured that out for myself.”

  His eyebrows rose with imperial arrogance. “I’m not his sire, of course. No, the boring old Duke has been dead a long, long time.” He threw his head back proudly and spoke with a slow, deliberate pace, as though imparting very important information. “I am higher up on the line, you know. I am older than most of the governments in Europe.”

  He paused as though I should bow down to him or something, then frowned and went on when I didn’t seem to cooperate fully.

  “You see, I am so disappointed to see all this potential wasted. We vampires have a hierarchy for a reason, to make sure nonsense like Bentley’s been pulling does not happen. That was your second question, on point. But be more creative with the next one, I’m getting bored.”

  I stared, trying to take in just what he was saying. Old vampires in the same line could tell the younger ones what to do. Compel them, through some magic means. Which meant that if I was getting out of this, hoping Bentley would suddenly spring to the rescue was playing the longest of long odds. Sure, I could hope he could break through the programming and yell “No!” and throw evil Alessandro out into the river but I could not count on it, not one bit.

  So that meant, as per too damn usual, I had only myself to depend on.

  “I’m going to count to one, and if you don’t have a question for me I’ll start breaking things.” His eyes seemed to glow like coals. “Bones, for instance. One—”

  “Why Moonhaven?” I screeched, trying to jerk myself away from him. All I managed to do was knock myself onto my side, somehow getting my hands trapped underneath me. Things were starting to go numb.

  He laughed, his huge voice booming out again. I shivered, knowing I had to find a way to escape, or distract him, or something. But what?

  When he was done laughing at me, he moved closer and answered the question, his eerie, awful, cold breath touching my cheek. It felt like spider’s legs. Ick.

  “All kinds of reasons. Convenience, with a public vampire already ensconced. Not to mention a hunter on the Sheriff’s department, and a mayor and his fat wife with all their stupid ideas. You all don’t know what a laughing stock this place is amongst those who live by night. A disaster ready-made to happen. You probably think that the Havens were started as safe places for fuzzy, cuddly misunderstood beasties and goblins and witches to save themselves from persecution. Wrong. They are prisons. Traps. Roach motels created so that the powers that be have an easy target, should one be needed.”

  His mouth was near my ear. He didn’t make sounds like a normal human. His tongue, moving while he spoke, sounded like it was dry. His mouth creaked when it moved. It was like having a dried out corpse talk to you. The sounds were grosser, more horrifying than the breath, the closeness, the words.

  “They are places for frightened sheep to huddle and pretend they are free. But you’re not free. This is a holding pen for the slaughterhouse. But with the proper pressure brought to bear, the right covert leadership, one of these Havens could be turned into something of a powerhouse. A dark army of the night.”

  “Oh, that sounds so cheesy,” I said, pretending I wasn’t scared. I think the chattering of my teeth and the quake in my voice didn’t help sell that pose. “And what, you’re going to be the general of the army?”

  “One of them, yes. I’m not the only forward thinking monster out there. For that’s what we are, Haley Greco. Not misunderstood. Not darkly beautiful. Not souls looking for enlightenment. I and your precious Bentley are monsters. Eaters of the innocent. Blood drinkers, murderers. Monsters.”

  He stood up, and away from me, taking a step back. I couldn’t see much anymore, with my face practically back in the same uncomfortable position I’d started in. I could hear Bentley being dragged back up to his feet, then Alessandro whispering at him. Bentley made sounds, murmurs, growls, but they seeme
d… they seemed to be getting more feeble. Weaker. He might be breaking.

  And that meant bad things for everybody, and especially, at the moment, me.

  “I had high hopes for this one,” he said, tapping Bentley with his foot. “I thought enough of a push, he could see what he really was. You know, I kill the Inspector, everyone turns on the local vampire, he realizes his relative position and how he could have so much more if he wasn’t so damned weak. But no.”

  He slapped Bentley, lightly, on the face. Not to hurt him. Just a casual humiliation.

  “That was your fourth question. One more.” His tone was flat.

  “What? I didn’t—” I grunted in frustration, and then pain. This was bad. This was scary. I was biding for time I didn’t have. I was lost in a situation like nothing I’d ever faced, tied up in a human knot, stuck who knows where, facing off against some nightmare…

  “Two more questions. Just two more, then…” I trailed off.

  “One, and if I like it, you can scream something out when Bentley finally gives in, and sinks his teeth into you.”

  I shuddered, and the movement made the aching sensations move all up and down my body. I almost welcomed the idea I might be dead - waking up tomorrow, if I did, I was going to be in serious ache time. And I still didn’t have a plan, but the threads of something were coming together in my mind. It was like my subconscious had solved the problem, gotten everything all lined up, and it was just waiting for the slow part of my brain to catch up.

  “What happened to the real Alessandro?” I asked.

  The fake one scoffed. “Boring. Should have figured that out for yourself.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Okay. If you need to be spoon fed, I can do that. I drained his blood and burned his body. But I memorized his face first, and his voice, so that I could use him one more time.” He grinned. “Hey, maybe I’ll use you next. Wouldn’t Shane be surprised to find out who was really kissing him?”