Catching her hair in his fingers, he pulled gently, bending her back, so she could feel every inch of him hard against her belly.
“You’re all I think about,” she confessed. “I want you inside me all the time.” She undid his jeans and slipped her hand inside.
“I can help you with that,” he said, and kissed her again. She was stroking him, increasing the rhythm…if she didn’t slow down. He broke off the kiss. “Easy baby. No need to rush.”
Grasping the top of his jeans in her fists, she wrenched them down to his thighs. “But I want you now,” she breathed.
Lifting her long skirt, he ran his hand up the inside of her thigh. “No panties? My, my, Sara. Did you plan this?”
Grinning, she nodded. “Surprised?”
“Amazed. But I don’t have a condom. Do you—?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re mine and I want you now.”
Aware of his past liaisons, she’d made him attend a clinic for testing and always insisted on protection even though he’d come back clean. “Are you sure? What about—?”
“Stop talking.” Covering his mouth with hers, she kissed him again.
With both hands, he scooped her up. She gasped, then kissed his neck. Turning, he wedged her into the corner and began his slow thrusts, the quickening rhythm of her hips urging him on. Clinging to him with her thighs, she moaned, heedless of the creaking wood that braced her back.
“I love you more than him,” she said, through ragged breaths. “Promise me that—”
The door opened, silencing her request. On the edge of orgasm, he froze, slowed his breath and stayed still, feeling the tantric wait surge through his body.
“Oh, excuse me. I thought I heard something,” said Nigel. She buried her face in his shoulder. For her sake, he was grateful for the long coat that covered them. “So glad you could come, Sandolino.” Suave and astute, Nigel could allay the most awkward of situations.
Glancing over his shoulder, Estrada smiled. “Actually, sir,”—he took a breath— “we’ll be another minute or two.”
“Take all the time you need.”
It took no time at all. Getting caught only heightened his desire. In the final second, he cried out, “I love you, Sara.” She needed to hear it, was feeling insecure. In the midst of it, she’d said something curious. I love you more than him. Who did she fear? Michael or the killer?
Abashed in the aftermath, she clung to his arm as they entered the flat.
“Ah, The Divine Sensara,” said Michael. “I am honoured that you’ve graced my humble abode with your presence at last.”
Estrada watched as she took in the elegant silk draperies, burgundy leather couches, Michael’s collection of imported hookahs, and the Persian carpets that ran rampant throughout the flat like so many opaline serpents. Like Byron, Michael had a penchant for the exotic.
As Estrada expected, he was not in bed as he should have been, considering the extent of his injuries, but lounging on a chaise the colour of cognac. He looked alluring in black silk trousers and kimono, his honey blond hair falling freely around his face. The mark of the weapon was fading from his hollow cheek and the sling gone. When he beckoned them in with a sweep of his hand, Estrada noticed that his long fingernails were painted black and decorated in scarlet tear drops. Obviously, the prince was being well tended.
“I feel like I should kiss his ring,” said Sensara.
“He’d prefer you kiss something else,” said Estrada. She smacked him, and then clung to him as they crossed the room. He leaned down and hugged Michael, then settled in beside Sensara on a couch as soft as butter.
Nigel brought in a tea tray and set it on the table with biscuits and cheese. “Please, help yourself. I’m delighted you’re both here. I can’t wait to tell you what I’ve discovered about your wayward priest—Gabriel Grace.”
“Do tell,” said Estrada.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked Sensara, picking up a full pipe from the table beside his chair. She shook her head—another unusual response. “Right then,” said Nigel, and lit his pipe with a few puffs. Aromatic tobacco perfumed the air. “Where to begin? I suppose with his identity. The man’s real name is not Gabriel Grace…it’s Gerald Gardner.”
“No!” said Sensara. Gerald Gardner, who’d written many texts on the craft, was to many the father of Wicca.
“I thought you’d like that. His mother’s maiden name was Gardner, and as she never married, I suppose she thought it auspicious to name her child after her long-deceased mentor. She was a Gardnerian witch, you see. A high priestess no less. She must have felt some mystical connection to the man.”
Estrada felt Sensara tense against him and knew she was wondering how much Nigel knew about witchcraft and Hollystone and such things. He was a man who left nothing to chance; who believed in the old Bacon adage that knowledge is power.
“Gabriel, or rather, Gerald, is an ordained Catholic priest, raised for the most part in a strictly religious home, which is no doubt where he found his calling. As a young child, however… Well, suffice to say, his childhood was tragic.” They waited as Nigel puffed on his pipe and collected his thoughts. “Twenty odd years ago, there was a sensational case involving a coven of witches who exploited children in pornographic films.”
“Wasn’t that on the island?” asked Sensara.
“That’s correct.”
“They were arrested and convicted.”
“Yes. Gerald’s mother was the coach and director. Gerald was a child star.”
“My god,” said Sensara. “Real Wiccans would never do something like that! That goes against everything the craft stands for.” Nigel’s raised eyebrows only exacerbated things. “Well, it’s true. Wiccans do no harm, especially to children.”
“Damaged child, sexually abused by witches, grows up and takes his revenge?” said Estrada.
“It would appear so,” said Nigel. “When the Crown prosecuted, six of the children were put in foster care. Gerald, who was eight, ended up with a wealthy Catholic family in the valley. They tried their best to rehabilitate him. According to the evidence, he’d been starring in these films since he was four years old.”
“Christ,” said Estrada, feeling sudden compassion for the child who fathered the man. No wonder he was so fucked up about sex.
“The man is incredibly intelligent. He graduated with an Honours B.A. in philosophy and religion, and then was awarded a Master of Divinity. This is his second parish. The first, which was in northern Manitoba, made no complaints. On paper, Father Grace appears exemplary.”
“Well, he’s not. He nearly raped Maggie, and if he’s the man that’s been abducting these women…” He felt Sensara snuggle in closer as her voice drifted off. “How did he ever get this far?”
“Serial killers are among the most intelligent of men: charismatic, organized, masters of illusion. It’s how they avoid detection and continue to kill.”
“So I’ve been told,” quipped Michael.
It suddenly all made sense to Estrada, who’d been raised a Catholic himself. A young child, cast as a porn star, was not only tainted goods, but wounded. That made him easy prey. Desperately needing love, but not knowing how to get it, he’d become a victim of his own desire. He’d joined the priesthood to avoid sex, but still had the desire. Denied sex by his religion, he was forced to steal it; and seeing in all female witches, the mother who had abused him, he burned them with reason. He even disguised himself as Christ—the betrayed messiah—on a mission to right the injustices of the world.
Clive appeared from the kitchen and helped himself to a cup of tea. Why was he here? Was he now included in all family business? Michael was spending far too much time with him. He may not be the killer, but there was still something menacing about him.
After settling into a leather recliner and taking a sip of tea, Clive turned to Estrada. “So magician, what are your thoughts on this revelation?” The insolent bastard had nerve calling hi
m that. Worse still: how did he know? Had he been listening outside the cave that day?
“He thinks it’s positively tragic that so many innocent people have been hurt,” said Michael. “Don’t you, Es?”
“Tragic, yes” he replied, his narrowed eyes casting threats of their own.
“Do the police have any idea where Grace is now?” asked Sensara.
“As far as I know, they’ve got nothing,” said Nigel. “The man seems to have vanished.”
“But, you were the last person to see him, weren’t you, Estrada? You did tell the coppers about your little tête-à-tête in the cave?”
The sinister tone of Clive’s question raised the hackles on Estrada’s back. He’d been there, spying on him. What did he want? Blackmail? Revenge?
“Outside,” growled Estrada. “Now.”
“Hush little brother. Stop trying to steal the show.”
“What’s he talking about?” asked Sensara. “What cave?”
“My brother has some unresolved angst concerning Estrada, who had the audacity to throw him out of Crimson many miles from here and many days ago. “Drop it, Clive.”
Ready to spring, Estrada stood and gestured towards the doorway. “Let’s go. Now.”
Easing back into the leather chair like a spoiled child, Clive dipped a biscuit into his tea and slowly chewed.
“Boys,” said Nigel, in a tone of subtle warning.
Estrada walked towards the door. Not knowing exactly what Clive had witnessed, but guessing from his taunts, that it was far more than he wished revealed with Sensara in the room, he needed this to end. Now. If the kid wouldn’t leave, he would.
“Estrada, please don’t go. My brother’s just being an ass; something he does remarkably well.”
But, Estrada had already grabbed Sensara by the hand and was hauling her out the door.
“Why are you so upset?” she asked, as they descended the stairs.
“Why do you think?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. What was he talking about? Why do you hate him so much?”
He paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned to her. “You know how you get feelings about people.” She nodded. “Well, I’ve got a bad feeling about Clive. For a while, I suspected that he was the killer. He’s a creep, a stalker who arrived out of nowhere. No one knows anything about him, except—”
Slow clapping interrupted his tirade. Looking up, he saw Clive, standing on the landing, grinning down at him.
“That’s rich. You thought I was the killer. So, let me get this straight. You’ve been thinking all this time, that we had sex? That I was the best lover you ever had?”
“Shut up,” growled Estrada.
“Oh, didn’t he tell you, priestess? Your man is involved in quite the sordid liaison with this killer. They’ve done wild and wicked things. It started the night he abducted you—”
Estrada mounted the stairs two at a time. When his fist connected with the kid’s mouth, it silenced his accusations. Wrenching Clive up by the shoulders, he smashed him against the wall. Wheezing and struggling, panic flooded the kid’s face.
Nigel opened the door just as Estrada flung him to the floor and raised his foot for the first kick. “What’s going on here?” He lunged between them, leaned down, and grasped Clive’s chin. The kid swooned, spit out blood and tooth.
“Nothing,” said Estrada. “Clive just—”
The slamming of a door caught his attention and he glanced down. Sensara was gone. He bounced down the stairs and raced out into the driveway. Where was she? How could he ever explain? He didn’t even understand it himself. When he felt her behind him, he was afraid to turn and face her.
“I don’t know who you are,” she said. “Before it didn’t matter. All the women, the men—” She was crying. He could hear it in her voice. “But, he was going to burn me. Were you with him that night? Is that when you had sex? While I was in the hospital?”
“It wasn’t like that. Clive knows nothing—”
A cab appeared on the street and stopped. She walked toward it. “Don’t go, Sara. Let me explain.”
“There are some things that no explanation will ever make right.”
She closed the door of the cab. Even though he knew this moment was inevitable, he was not prepared for the feeling of loss that overwhelmed him as the cab drove away. Feeling abandoned, Estrada stood on the sidewalk, alone and forlorn.
≈
Maggie pulled out her ID to examine again. She couldn’t believe she was now Kyra Vallely. It wasn’t her power name, only a name that came to her after seeing an envelope addressed to Primrose’s roommate, Kieran. “It means black-haired,” Primrose had said. “Suits you.”
Now, as Kyra Vallely, an eighteen-year-old Irish girl, she was perched on a bar stool in a busy Galway pub, listening to traditional music and drinking pints. Mere weeks ago, she’d been writing a Macbeth essay for senior English class, and now her own life was a maze of murder and intrigue. She’d been assaulted by her priest, escaped a kidnapper, flown alone to a continent across the ocean, and was now drinking in an Irish pub with a witch who was becoming increasingly fey.
Having tried the Guinness at Tig Coili, the first pub on their crawl, and finding it a little too thick, the bartender suggested she switch to cider.
“At least it’s made from apples,” Primrose said, “and they are a magical fruit. I’m sure you’ve seen what happens when you slice an apple in half horizontally?” Maggie had not. “Why the seeds form a pentagram.”
She was now on her fifth or sixth pint. Really, she’d lost count. Primrose was back on the subject of apples and talking too quickly to comprehend. “Of course, the apple has been maligned in the anti-magic myths. It always contains poison or some such thing.” She caught Maggie fumbling around in her bag after the ID and yelled: “Put that away. They’ll be thinking you’re daft. Don’t you know better than to call attention to yourself?” This, coming from a woman whose shaved head was tattooed in Celtic symbols. “And, don’t you be getting pissed. We’re here to do business. You can’t be cracking your head open falling down the steps to the can.”
Giggling, Maggie tucked the card away in her pocket. It was the first time she’d laughed in days. As Kyra, she felt a newfound freedom, her Canadian self craved, but had never dared to seize. Tig Coili was a frequent haunt of traditional musicians and fans, and so packed by ten, they had to squeeze in at the bar to watch the players. It was marvellous. Everyone who swooped in to grab a pint had something clever to say.
“The craic’s always ninety in here,” said Primrose.
“The crack?”
“Aye. The craic. C R A I C—the flirting, the conversation, the wisecracks, the chat. It’s what we do here in Ireland. It’s what we’re famous for. You mean to say you’re Irish and you’ve never heard that.”
“No, but I like it, and I like being Irish.” The music was as intoxicating as the brew; double and triple fast melodies echoed in riveting trills that ran round and round in spirals. The secret of how the melody moved was shared only by the players, who had some ingenious tracking system known only to the initiated. To a novice, tunes were almost impossible to differentiate, but the players knew them by name, and there were hundreds, even thousands of tunes that had been handed down through centuries. One flick of an eyebrow and the whole lot of them would carry the tune off in a different direction, only to wind it back to its beginning some time later. Some tunes were thought to be gifts from the faeries…faeries that people still believed existed in their own kind of parallel world.
Most of this, she’d learned from the man sitting on the stool next to her at the bar. An aficionado, he travelled the island catching traditional music sessions. Unfortunately, he’d never heard of Padraig Vallely or Paddy Vale. Nor had the three players at Tig Coili. Only the flute player was Irish though, and he was young and fresh from Dublin. The other two were Dutchmen, a sombre fiddler who never smiled, and a talented ginger-haire
d accordion player who carried the melody with flying fingers. The bartender thought he’d heard of a fella named Vallely once upon a time who played a decent fiddle, but he hadn’t been around Galway in ages.
Having completed their business, the two women walked around the corner to Taaffe’s, where Maggie cozied up to the fire to sip another cider.
“I’m off to chat with the lads,” said Primrose. “That’s your parting glass now. Make it last.”
“Oh right. I thought you were all about freedom and suddenly you’re my mother,” replied Maggie, in a distinctly sloppy voice.
“Suit yourself, but know this. We’re heading off early tomorrow morning on a lengthy excursion and there’ll be no puking down the back of my jacket while I’m driving.”
“What? How could I—?”
Primrose turned and walked over to chat with the musicians, who’d taken a break from playing to enjoy a few pints. She had no sooner left than a scruffy man with a rather large gold earring settled into the seat beside Maggie.
“Hello gorgeous. What’s the craic?” His accent was as thick as Guinness. Unsure how to respond, she simply smiled. “What’s your name, gorgeous?”
“Kyra,” she said, with drunken pride.
“Kyra. A raven-haired beauty and all alone. More’s the pity.” He patted her leg and winked.
“I’m not alone. I’m with Primrose. We’re looking for my grandad. Do you know him?”
“I might. What’s his name then?”
“Pad-dy Vale-ale-y. Plays fiddle,” she said, tilting her head and mimicking a bow stroke with her hands.
“Lost then, is he?” As she watched, his face wavered, and slowly split in two. “You look a might peeked, gorgeous. I’ll just whisk you outside, shall I?”
“If there’s whisking to be done,” said Primrose, “I’ll be doing it.” The man vanished into the crowd. “Come along, Miss Kyra. Hang on to my arm.”
To Charm a Killer (Hollystone Mysteries Book 1) Page 20
