The Complete Spellbinder Bay Cozy Mystery Boxset

by Sam Short

  “Until Millie,” repeated George. “So imagine my surprise when not long after I’d developed a relationship with her, another woman came into my life. Somebody very important. Somebody I hadn’t seen for seventy years. Somebody I created. Somebody who has my blood running in her veins.”

  “Emily is your daughter?” asked Sergeant Spencer.

  “Not quite,” answered George. “But in the vampire world, she’s just as precious. Emily’s mine, Sergeant. She was twenty-five when I delivered the bite to her throat which saved her life and transformed her into a vampire, and now that she’s turned up in Spellbinder Bay, she’s my responsibility. I take that responsibility very seriously. Very seriously indeed.”

  “I understand that,” said Sergeant Spencer. “I know how much vampires care for their creations. I know how much Fredrick cares for you, George.”

  “He does,” said George. “And as well as saving my life on that battlefield, he’s been a wonderful mentor to me ever since. I hope I can provide Emily with the same guidance that Fredrick provided me with.”

  “You said you hadn’t seen her for seventy years, George,” observed Sergeant Spencer. “How did that happen? Why haven’t you seen her in all that time?”

  Millie heard George take a long breath before he spoke. “When Fredrick saved me from death, I was grateful,” he said. “But I was ready to die. I was used to seeing death all around me every single day of my miserable existence during that war. It was awful. Watching friends dying daily and hearing the screams of men around the clock. It was almost a relief when that German bayonet disembowelled me. I realised I was going to escape the horror of war.”

  “I can’t imagine how terrible that must have been for you,” said Sergeant Spencer.

  “It wasn’t pleasant,” said George. “But luckily for me, Fredrick was there. He was a medic for the German army. He should have been my enemy, but as I lay dying in no man’s land, he found me and saw something in me. I reminded him of his son, he told me, so he chose to bite and save me. He turned me into who I am today, and I’ve been grateful to him ever since.”

  “I can imagine how grateful you feel,” said Sergeant Spencer. “And I imagine Emily feels the same gratitude towards you?”

  “It’s complicated,” said George. “She wasn’t as grateful to me for saving her as I was to Fredrick when he saved my life. And because of that, she’s been hiding away for the last seven decades. She became what we in the vampire world refer to as a shadow dweller. She’s spent the best part of seventy years hiding away from humans and vampires. She’s existed rather than lived. Until now.”

  “Why?” asked Sergeant Spencer.

  George sighed. “Because I saved her life after she’d tried to take it,” he said. “Fredrick and I lived together in America at the time. In New York. It was late at night on July the twentieth nineteen forty-eight, when it happened. I’d been enjoying a night-time motorcycle ride to New Jersey, and I had to cross the George Washington Bridge to get home. That’s when I saw Emily. On the other side of the railings, staring down at the river.”

  “About to jump,” said Sergeant Spencer.

  “Yes,” said George. “It was obvious, so I stopped my bike and approached her. She told me to stay back, and I realised from her accent that she was an English girl. That was good — we had something in common, so she opened up to me. She told me that she’d met and fallen in love with an American soldier stationed in Britain during the war. Unfortunately, he was injured during the D-day landings in nineteen forty-four and was evacuated to Britain. He’d lost a leg, suffered an awful head injury, and lost the sight in one eye, but within six months he was well enough to travel home to New York. Emily went with him, and they married.”

  “But things didn’t go to plan?” asked Sergeant Spencer.

  “No. Emily told me everything was going well,” said George. “Her husband had been getting better and better, and after four years of recovery, was using a false leg and had become accustomed to having only one eye. They planned to have children, and then one night, her husband died in his sleep. Just like that — as a consequence of the head injury he’d received. A blood clot, Emily told me. The day I found her on the bridge was the day of her husband’s funeral, and I knew from the tone in her voice and the look in her eye that she was going to jump. Nothing I could have said would have prevented it, so I approached her slowly. Even in my vampire form, I couldn’t have reached her in time. All she had to do was take one step into the dark, and she would be lost. And that’s what she did. She thanked me for listening to her story, gave me a final smile and stepped into the night without making a sound.”

  “How sad,” said Sergeant Spencer. “The poor girl.”

  “It was sad,” said George. “So that’s why I did what I did. Saving a person’s life is a very special thing for a vampire. It’s not something we take lightly, and many vampires never do it. It’s in our nature not to save lives, as there are just too many people to save. It would be impossible, and it would become a burden. Sometimes, though, the right opportunity presents itself. I was Fredrick’s opportunity, and Emily was mine. Something happened inside me, something forced me to act, and before I knew what I was doing, I was in vampire form, and I’d leapt over the side of the bridge. The water was cold and the night was dark, but such things don’t hinder a vampire. I dived beneath the surface and found her quickly. Bones were broken, and her lungs were full of water, but there was a weak pulse — all that is required for a vampire’s bite to work.”

  “You saved her,” said Sergeant Spencer.

  “Yes,” said George. “I dragged her to the surface and bit her immediately. She was reborn as a vampire right there, in the cold waters of the Hudson River. As soon as she opened her eyes, she knew what I’d done to her. I should have let her die. That’s what she wanted. She stared at me with such hatred as we were taken downstream by the river. She screamed at me, already aware of what she was, and aware that she was immortal. Then she stopped screaming and asked me one single question.”

  “What was it?” said Sergeant Spencer.

  “She asked me my name, and when I told her, she turned her back on me and swam to shore. I left her alone but searched for her the next day, and the next, and the next. I searched for her for a month, but she had taken to the shadows. I never saw her again, until a few months ago when she arrived in Spellbinder Bay looking for me. She turned up on my doorstep, her hair how it had been in the forties, and her clothes very old-fashioned. It was like looking at her on the day she’d jumped from the bridge.”

  “That must have been a shock,” said Sergeant Spencer, his voice betraying signs of pain again.

  Resisting the urge to burst into the room to see if her father was okay, Millie continued listening.

  “It was,” said George. “She’d used my name to find me, and when she arrived, she was scared. She’d been in the shadows for so long. Society had changed since she’d gone into hiding, and she didn’t know how to cope with it. She needed help to fit in, and she made me promise not to tell anybody who she was. She was ashamed of what had happened to her. Of what she was. She insisted on pretending she was human, and she wanted to fit into society as a human and not a vampire — so I found her a job as a nursing assistant at the nursing home. She fitted in, and soon she was dressing like the rest of the young women who worked there.”

  “And began taking motorbike rides with you,” said Sergeant Spencer.

  George laughed. “Yes,” he said. “She found it amusing that I was riding a motorbike on the day I found her on the bridge, and here I am, seventy years later, still riding a motorbike.”

  “And would she mind you telling me about her, George?” asked Sergeant Spencer. “Even though I’m going to forget all about it quite soon.”

  “No,” said George. “She won’t mind. She’s permitted me to tell people who she is. Since she arrived, she’s been watching how the paranormal people in Spellbinder Bay conduct themselves. She
’s no longer ashamed of being a vampire. She’s accepted who she is and she’s ready to fit in. In fact, I was talking to Millie about her before we heard that you were in danger of being ripped apart by werewolves.”

  “I’m thankful that you and Millie came for us,” said Sergeant Spencer. “My life as I know it may be coming to an end, but not Judith’s. You and Millie saved her life. You’re a good man, George, and Emily is lucky to have you as her mentor.”

  “I’ll do the best I can for her, but It was quite a shock,” said George. “When she turned up on my doorstep. Imagine having it happen to you.”

  “I don’t think that there’s any chance of a vampire turning up on my doorstep and telling me that I created them,” said Sergeant Spencer. “But I can imagine somebody turning up and telling me I was their father. I’m not sure what I’d do. I think the shock might kill me. One daughter is enough, thank you very much.”

  Millie slumped against the wall, Sergeant Spencer’s words ringing in her ears, and stabbing at her heart. Blood rushed to her head, and she steadied herself as dizziness threatened to take her again. Hearing a chair scraping on the floor, and the soft squeak of George’s leather jacket, Millie moved slowly away from the door.

  “You’re leaving are you, George?” asked Sergeant Spencer.

  “Yes,” came George’s reply. “I’ll find Edna and get her to come and see you. Your face is showing signs of pain. I think you might need another of her painkilling spells.”

  “Check on Judith for me as well, would you, George?” asked Sergeant Spencer. “I don’t care what happens to me, but I have to know Judith is alright. She’s all I have. She’s all I need. She’s my life.”

  Chapter 32

  By the time George left the room and entered the corridor, Millie had retreated far enough so that when she turned around and began walking towards Sergeant Spencer’s room, George would have no idea that she’d been standing outside the room and eavesdropping.

  The vampire gave Millie a smile of concern as he approached her and glanced back over his shoulder before speaking in a lowered voice. “He’s doing alright,” he said. “Edna cast a spell over him which helps with the pain. It also reduces his anxiety about the situation he’s in, but Edna didn’t tell him that. If he seems a little unconcerned about what’s happening to him, it’s just the spell doing its job.”

  “I understand,” said Millie.

  “Is Judith awake yet?” asked George. “He’s asking about her.”

  “She’s still asleep,” replied Millie. “Edna will wake her up soon.”

  “What about you?” said George, his brow furrowed. “Do you feel better? Edna said you had a funny turn.”

  “That makes me sound like I’m sixty years older than I actually am,” said Millie. “I didn’t have a funny turn. I fainted, due to stress, and probably not having eaten enough over the last twenty-four hours.”

  Looking as if he wanted to reach out and touch her, George nodded. “You should look after yourself,” he said.

  “I know,” said Millie, finding herself gazing into George’s eyes. As deep and mysterious as ever, they stared back at her with compassion, her image reflected at her in hazel.

  Biting her lip, she stopped herself from saying what she wanted to say. She wanted to tell him that she’d heard everything he’d told Sergeant Spencer about Emily. She wanted to tell him how sad Emily’s story was, and how she thought George had done the right thing by rescuing her from death. She wanted to tell him that he’d acted in Emily’s best interests when she showed up in Spellbinder Bay after seventy years of life in the shadows, and she wanted to tell him that he was a kind man.

  She wanted to tell him all of those things, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want George to know that she’d been skulking in the corridor, listening to a private conversation, but mostly, and with a sinking feeling of regret, she realised that she didn’t want to have that conversation with him at all.

  It was a conversation that would lead to him expecting her understanding, and maybe forgiveness. It was also a conversation which George would consider a route back to a romantic relationship with her. It was with a sickening realisation that Millie understood that a romantic relationship wasn’t what she wanted anymore. Her life only had room for growing one relationship with a man, and the man she wanted to cultivate a relationship with was not George, it was her father. She smiled at him. “I’d better check on Sergeant Spencer,” she said.

  George stepped aside. “Of course,” he said. He reached out and took Millie’s hand, holding it gently. “I know how much he means to you, and I know it doesn’t seem as if much is being done to help him, but believe me, some of the best brains in Spellbinder Bay are working on a way to halt his deterioration, and to get a message to Henry Pinkerton. There’s still hope for him, Millie.”

  “I know,” said Millie, walking away, George’s fingers trailing across her palm as her hand slipped from his. “But I hope somebody finds an answer soon.”

  Not looking back, she hurried to the room Sergeant Spencer was in and gave a polite knock before peering through the doorway. The room felt warm and was well equipped with medical equipment, both conventional and magical. In one corner, alongside the window, stood a machine designed to monitor a patient’s heartbeat, while magic potions stood in neat lines behind the glass front of a cabinet placed alongside a bookcase brimming with spell books.

  His condition being purely magical in nature, Sergeant Spencer was not surrounded by beeping machines or fitted with a cannula through which medicine could be administered. Free of such medical equipment, the policeman lay on a large bed with plump pillows to support his head and a colourful patchwork quilt beneath him. With his eyes closed and his chest rising and falling regularly, he looked peaceful as he rested, and Millie kept sound to a minimum as she settled into the seat meant for visitors.

  Watching him as he rested, Millie suddenly felt as if she were trespassing, as if she were violating his privacy. She expelled such thoughts, sure that Sergeant Spencer would prefer to have company than be alone as he lay in a hospital bed.

  Watching him as he blew out regular slow breaths, Millie smiled as she recognised parts of her own face in his. She lifted a hand to her chin and ran a finger across the shallow cleft, her eyes tracing the same shape on her father’s chin.

  Suddenly, and without warning, a sob burst from her mouth, and her eyes spilt tears. Her vision misty, she watched the man in the bed. His memories were being taken from him even as he slept, and Millie could hardly bear the fact that none of those memories involved a father and daughter relationship between the two of them. The irony came to her uninvited, yet accurate — while she had only recently discovered that Sergeant Spencer was her father, and had been planning for the day she could begin making memories with him, his memories were being stolen from him, and with them, his whole identity.

  As Millie wiped tears from her face with the back of her hand, something soft brushed her cheek causing her to lash out instinctively. Her hand made contact with something light but solid, and she winced as a high pitched squawk rattled her eardrum. “Ow!” screeched Reuben. “It’s me! I landed on you! Don’t hit me! Birds have very fragile bones! One swipe of that meaty arm of yours could mean curtains for me!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Millie. “You could have warned me that you were here instead of just landing on my shoulder. This place is full of ghosts, and you know how I feel about ghosts. They make me nervous.”

  “I would have announced my arrival,” said Reuben, “but I had something in my beak which prevented me from speaking. It’s on the floor, now. Those chunky sausage fingers of yours saw to that. You could have maimed me, you know.”

  “I said I was sorry,” said Millie.

  “Never mind about me,” replied Reuben. “How is the sergeant? Timothy has filled me in on everything that’s happened. It’s him you can thank for the fact that I’m not administering a stern dressing down to you. You missed twelv
e of my feeding times, Millie. I’ve been quite distressed, but thanks to Timothy calming me down, you’re off the hook. You know, Timothy really is a nice chap. I wish you could see past his macho exterior and into his squidgy insides. You and he would make a fine couple.”

  Ignoring half of Reuben’s speech, Millie frowned. “Twelve feeding times? It’s not even been a day since I last fed you, and I always leave emergency seeds in your bowl.”

  “Yes, twelve,” confirmed Reuben. “You might not recognise them as valid, but I certainly do, and as for emergency seeds — it would have to be an emergency stemming from a cataclysmic event of the sort the world has not yet witnessed, before I dined on seeds.” He shook out his feathers, his wingtip brushing Millie’s face. “Anyway, Victoria fed me. She made me a cheese and pickle sandwich. I told her that you wouldn’t mind her rummaging through the kitchen.”

  “Victoria?” said Millie. “Beth’s mother? What was she doing at the cottage?”

  “I don’t know who she is,” said Reuben. “And I stopped caring when she agreed to put cheese between bread slices for me. She told me you’d spoken with her earlier today. She had a message for you, but when I told her you weren’t home, she wrote it down. She insisted on using one of your envelopes, too. I have a feeling she didn’t want me to read it. I told her that anything she wanted to say to you, she could tell me, but she disagreed.

  “Anyway, I used that special link we share as a witch and familiar to find you. I hope you’re appreciative of my efforts. I had a belly full of cheese and a good film to watch, but I chose instead to become your personal mailman. You’ll find your mail on the floor, where it landed when you smashed it from my beak.” He fluttered the short distance to the bed and landed gently next to Sergeant Spencer. “Poor fellow,” he said, quietly. “Is there nothing anybody can do to help him?”

  “People are working hard to come up with a way to help him,” said Millie, reaching for the small white envelope next to her foot. “I have faith in them.”