It was just the two of them again. With Mike out of the picture, the intruder knew they wouldn't be disturbed. Without wasting a minute, the cloaked woman walked to the helpless Liz, slashing her throat in half, killing her on the spot. There had been no hesitation, no regret.
The killer let her body fall, releasing her from her telekinetic grip. Cocking her head to one side, she turned in the direction of the ailing husband. She wouldn't kill him. There wasn’t any need for it. She didn’t want to kill anyone who didn't need to die. It was only out of necessity she had set out to kill her sisters, nothing more.
Innocent humans didn’t need to suffer.
With those thoughts in mind, she walked to the living room, planning to erase all memory of that morning from the man’s mind. It was such a convenient magic to have. Liz Heinlein had two children and the last thing she wanted was to create two orphans. No. The children needed their father and she would let them have him. It was the least she could do.
QUINLAN WOODS, GHOST
OCTOBER 18TH, 2000
8:33 A.M.
Quinlan Woods lived alone. She woke up at 8:00 A.M. every morning, took a shower, got dressed, and fed the cat. From her small home office, she took her laptop computer and the charger from the desk and into her backpack. Once she made sure everything was in order, she took her keys, locked her apartment, and went down the stairs.
She didn’t need to go far. Living in San Francisco was expensive, but everything was conveniently close. The California Coven paid well, and this allowed her certain privileges. These benefits were thanks to Mayela Cooper, her Coven’s leader. Mayela liked taking care of her witches. She was mindful of their extracurricular activities and always made sure the missions they accepted were safe for everyone. She was a wonderful leader who liked to meet with the vampires themselves if she could, to make sure she understood each assignment. Quinlan didn’t know much about the other Covens, but she was happy to have landed in this one.
Quinlan had three jobs. The first one was to use her abilities as a ghost when the California Coven needed it. Being a ghost was easy. Her power of invisibility made her the perfect spy. Also, most of the time, it meant she was safe from harm. She also didn’t need to talk to many people, and that was a plus. Teleporters talked to a lot of people. Not just that, they were always exhausted - having to move people around wherever they were ordered to do so. She couldn’t see herself as a teleporter. Then, there were the deleters; those girls had it hard, too. The vampires weren’t always careful, and they gave the deleters a lot of memories to erase. Sometimes they needed to take care of big crowds, and Cristina, her best friend, had had the most horrible migraine for almost two weeks the last time the vampires messed up and she had to cover their butts.
Quinlan had never met a vampire. She'd seen them from afar, sure, but never been close enough to touch one; even less talk to one! They were scary. Sure, they looked friendly and acted like everyone else, but… they were still vampires. They sucked people’s blood and stuff. That was creepy. And weird. And scary.
Being a ghost meant she could turn invisible and, even when they could smell her blood, they still couldn’t see her, and that was enough.
Apart from the work she did for the California Coven, Quinlan was a waitress Friday and Saturday nights at a fancy Italian restaurant only three blocks away. That was her second job. It didn’t pay very much, but the hours were great and the tips were greater. She liked the other waitresses, the clientele, and the money that came when she offered good service; the regulars liked her, too; they were nice - and good tippers! The pay allowed her certain luxuries, like a day at the spa or a weekend in the mountains.
Still, her favorite job of all was writing. There was nothing like being a published author. She had signed with an agent sixteen years ago, when she was twenty-two, and had since then been a prolific writer. Her novellas hadn’t launched her to stardom, but she was okay with that. At least they were out there for the world to find, and she had enough followers to keep her going. Her novellas described her life as a ghost in detail, and she wrote at least two of them a year. Her main character was a lot like her, with enough differences to make her a great fiction heroine. Her name was Samantha Riggs. Detective Riggs, more like it. In her novellas, the detective went against all stereotypes as she solved crimes using her uncanny ability to become invisible in a world were vampires and werewolves not only existed but were registered and accepted to live in that society as any other human did.
Everything she made from her little books she saved in a special savings account she planned to use when she retired. There were many thousands of dollars there already and sometimes, before falling asleep, she would dream of all the things she would do with that money.
She didn’t plan to retire late. Oh no. It would not be a day after fifty when she would tell Mayela she needed to find a different ghost for their Coven. They would need to recruit the new ghost like they had recruited her. Quinlan would train her and then life would go on.
She couldn't wait.
It was a sunny morning in San Francisco when she went down the stairs, backpack in hand, arriving at the coffee shop that had opened under her apartment six years ago. By now, she knew all the baristas and even exchanged a few words with some of the regulars. Quinlan didn’t much enjoy talking with people, so being in the familiar coffee shop made her feel comfortable. They knew her that well they never touched the small table on the west side corner where she wrote her words for hours on her computer.
The coffee shop was almost empty when she got there as it usually was that early in the morning. Before heading to her table, she stopped to buy her daily mocha latte, which she drank in less than twenty minutes (because she hated cold coffee), she would reread the adventures of Detective Riggs’s from the day before for any edits, and then she headed to the bathroom because mocha lattes always made her use the bathroom right away.
“Can you look after my computer, Trixie?” she asked her favorite barista, a perky blond with a nose-ring
“You know it, girl,” Trixie answered with her usual reply (it was that or something in that ballpark).
“Thanks!” Quinlan would always say before heading to the restroom.
For San Francisco real estate, the coffee shop was fairly big and so were the restrooms. The women’s had two sinks and three stalls - Quinlan often wondered if the men’s restroom looked the same. The way they'd covered the walls in planks of wood made it look homey, and the smell of lavender always filled the space because of the essential oil diffuser they refilled every few hours.
A woman, who had been washing her hands, turned off the faucet, turning to reach for the paper napkins when Quinlan came in.
“Oh, hello,” she greeted her. She was having such a good day she felt like saying good morning to everyone she met.
The woman was wearing a black cape. With both hands, she reached for her hood to cover her head.
“Wait,” Quinlan frowned, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Turning to face her, the cloaked woman offered a strange smile. “Yeah, yeah… I do, you’re that witch, from, uhm-”
“Silence,” commanded the witch. Raising one hand she took Quinlan in a telekinetic grasp, choking her as her feet left the ground. Quinlan, surprised by the sudden attack, tried to become invisible, but that didn’t stop the feeling of asphyxiation that was making her dizzy.
The telekinetic hold stopped, releasing her from midair. Dropping to the ground, Quinlan gasped for air. “What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?”
Next she knew, the cloaked woman took out a very sharp knife. “I’m sorry,” the familiar witch apologized for what she was about to do, yet somehow Quinlan didn't feel any sympathy coming from her. “There's just no other way.”
Quinlan stood up and turned to run, but the same invisible force stopped her again. The stabbing began on her back. One after another, the blade’s metal punctured her organs, taking the life out of her. Quinlan someho
w managed to scream, although by the time Trixie rushed in the restroom, the murderer was out of sight and the writer was already dead.
Part Two
The Second Day: October 19th, 2000
CHAPTER TWO
Witch Hunt
October 19th, 2000
3:24 A.M.
Her new recurring dream felt just as real as the first one. Before vampire agent Rebecca Sawyer had faced werewolves for the first time, after her training as a werewolf hunter began, she used to have a recurring dream. In it, a werewolf was waiting for her in a strange, closed room. Before she met a real werewolf, Rebecca’s subconscious would rebel in her sleep making her act out her nightmare in the waking world. Even when she slept, her body attacked the invisible foe from the dream world.
It had felt very real, especially the one time she fought her real-life lover, Dylan Torrence, while thinking he was the werewolf from her nightmares. It had surprised Dylan, the most experienced werewolf hunter in the vampire agency, when his new partner had woken up in the middle of the night to start attacking him. Nothing he couldn’t handle, but enough to make him leave the bed they shared for the night.
The dreams - or, nightmares, rather - ceased after the battle of Persephone Hall, where Rebecca faced the monsters for the first time. After that, a part of was set free, her wild side released. She didn’t a problem fighting werewolves after, nor had the nightmares continued. Perhaps because the beasts had stopped to become a threat to her.
Now her subconscious was sending a different message.
Instead of a werewolf, Rebecca dreamt of a man.
Not just any man, but the man who had ended her dreams. The man responsible for ruining her career and who’d forced her to leave everything she’d worked for, sending her back home.
His name was Freddy Carlton. It had been Freddy who, while she was still young and human, had dropped her during a dance rehearsal the day after she had denied his sexual advances. Back then, Freddy had been 19 and Rebecca two years younger than he. While Rebecca was still underage, the cocky dancer had gotten her drunk at a party once. Back then, Freddy was handsome and charismatic, and he knew he was. All the girls seemed to want him. He'd been one of the few heterosexual dancers they had to choose from. On the outside, Freddy always looked uninterested in the girls, but in reality, he waited to find them alone to persuade them to go into his apartment and take them into his bed whether they wanted to or not.
Rebecca found out about this the hard way.
That night, she'd been semi-unconscious when the young dancer carried her into a cab to take her with him to his apartment. If Rebecca hadn’t sobered up enough to realize what Freddy was about to do, he would have raped her. Somehow, she'd come to her senses on time, kicked his nuts, yelled at him about how she would report him the next day, and left slamming the door behind her.
It had not gone well after that.
She attended morning classes with a pounding headache, and before she could say anything, Freddy dropped her during their pax de deux making it look like an accident.
They rushed Rebecca to the hospital where they found not only alcohol in her system, but the drugs Freddy had used still in her blood. As much as she tried to explain what had happened, the school seemed to believe Freddy’s story over hers, because while she was intoxicated and desperate, Freddy was clean and rational.
The fall fractured her knee in three parts. Not only was she been unable to walk because of the cast for weeks, but it also destroyed her chances at a dancing career. Everything she had worked so hard for came crashing down. All because of one man. One hateful, vengeful, bitter man.
Devastated, they kicked her out of the school, losing her scholarship. After a few weeks ailing in her small - and expensive - apartment in New York City, she used up her remaining funds until she couldn't afford the next week's rent. To make matters worse, her paternal grandmother passed away during that time, adding to her misfortune. She was never been fond of her grandmother because she never accepted the Chinese blood running through her veins on her mother’s side, but she'd been her grandmother, her Nana, who raised her. The German woman who ‘d never approved her son’s choice for a wife made Rebecca a very inconvenient grandchild to raise after her parents’ tragic death, but they'd survived life together, and when she passed, Rebecca truly became an orphan.
Even with her mixed feelings about her grandmother, Rebecca lost the one person she could call family. At least the bitter woman never knew she'd failed at making her dream a reality. At least she didn't have to go back home in shame because there was no one there to shame her.
With her grandmother’s death, the house she'd grown up in became hers, making it the safest place to return to after they forced her to leave New York and her dream.
Back in her small town, she would become the ballet teacher to a lot of little girls for a decade. There, she lived a substandard life, until one day a vampire by the name of Dylan Torrence found her and persuaded her to become a vampire and train to be his partner hunting werewolves. Sometimes, life was weirder than fiction.
“Bad dreams again?” Rebecca heard Dylan say before she opened her eyes. The light illuminated the room when Dylan turned on the lamp on his side of the bed. She looked at his disheveled hair and puffy brown eyes. For a fearsome werewolf hunter, Dylan looked rather adorable. Looking concerned, he tucked her once short brown hair behind her left ear - her hair now reached her shoulders because there never seemed to be time to get a haircut. “Werewolves?”
She nodded. She hated lying to him, but telling him she kept dreaming she was in New York where night after night she terrorized Freddy Carlton couldn’t begin a pleasant conversation. Besides, she still hadn’t confessed to mistreating a few humans during last summer's adventures. It was likely she would take that secret to the grave; being an immortal vampire, that could take a long time to come.
“It’ll pass,” she lied. Or would it? She could still feel Freddy’s neck on her hand as she meticulously squeezed. She could still feel the fangs beneath her lips as vividly as she could taste the sweetness of his human blood. Everything always looked and felt so real in the dream. Freddy’s apartment looked just as it once was, too, with the scent of his cologne permeating the air - now mixed with his sweet blood - and his bed with that same black duvet waiting for young girls to get inside its sheets.
“Maybe you should pay Dr. Stevens another visit,” suggested Dylan. Dr. Stevens was the human psychologist that worked at the agency. His job was to make sure the powerful immortals remained as human as possible. The director of the agency, an old vampire named Lucius, believed the more contact and connection to humanity his vampire agents had the more likely they were to do good in the world. Being human kept vampires grounded.
Rebecca had visited Dr. Stevens more times than she could count since joining the agency over a year ago. She didn’t dislike the shrink, but she’d avoid a visit if she could. She wasn’t too fond of telling a stranger her most inner thoughts - especially her newfound dark thoughts. Although, the more she frequented him, the more familiar he became; the more she trusted him.
“No, it’s ok,” she said. “It's not like I'm attacking you in the middle of the night, anymore. Besides, I promised Will I’d go with him to see Jake on Friday and I can mention it to him instead. He's a great listener, and it always helps to talk about these things with people who understand about the world of,” she signaled quotes with her fingers, “the supernatural.”
“Ah, Will, of course.”
Dylan’s tone reflected his disapproval of Will. Since there were many things Will could be disapproved of, it wasn’t hard for Rebecca to understand why Dylan felt reluctant to have anything to do with him.
To begin with his list of defects, Will was a werewolf. He was the only werewolf to ever be accepted into the vampire agency. All other werewolves were psychotic killers who the vampires hunted down and killed in gruesome ways. Not Will. Will was like no other werewolf any
vampire had ever met. Will was focused and smart and friendly. Will was funny and understanding and great. He never lost his patience. He never lost his cool. He never seemed to show any negative emotion at all.
“He’s not that bad,” Rebecca added, knowing how annoyed Dylan had to be because she had once more chosen to spend time with a werewolf instead of him. “I’ll shower as soon as I get back so you don’t have to smell the stench.”
“I smell the stench no matter what you do,” he informed her. “And what’s so great about Will, anyway? Can’t he go to the Crimson Building on his own? What? Is he afraid of lawyers, too? More than a wolf, he’s like the cowardly lion.”
Rebecca was amused at his jealousy, but tried not to smile, “Don’t be ridiculous. No one can possibly be afraid of Jake. He’s like, the friendliest vampire in the world.”
“He’s a lawyer.”
She didn’t feel like arguing anymore. Instead, she leaned over to Dylan to kiss his lips. “It’ll only be for a few hours and I’ll spend all of today doing whatever we want. It is our day off, isn't it?” She kissed him again, which seemed to calm him down a little.
“Today? What time is it?” he wondered out loud.
“It’s a few minutes past three in the morning,” Rebecca told him as she reached for her nightstand’s drawer to look at her charging phone’s clock. “I guess we could start our day.” Then, “Or we could still get a few more hours of sleep. We have nowhere special we need to be today. No plan, no missions, no werewolves. What do you say?”
“I like your plan,” Dylan agreed. Saying nothing else, he gave Rebecca his back as his head touched the pillow.
“See you in a little while,” she whispered in his ear, planting one last kiss on his cheek. “Love you.”
Dylan replied with a grunt that could have been I love you, too, but didn’t say anything. Rebecca knew him well enough to know how he felt. Besides, he was now sleeping by her side every night and she couldn’t be happier.
The Fall of Witchcraft Page 3
