by K. F. Breene
“This is the second time you’ve started a conversation like this.”
“Oh, right. Well…as a man, and not as a…whatever it is that annoys you about Damarion, what do you think about him?” I paused. “Is it okay to be asking you this?”
“You can ask me anything.” He was quiet for a moment, though, his pace slowing as we walked. “It would take a decent effort to subdue him, but I would. He will never tolerate us being friends, you and me. It will never sit right with him. He is loyal, though, and he’ll protect you with his life. If it can’t be me watching out for you, as much as it pains me to admit it, it’s good that it is him, regardless of my views on his training methods.”
“And it does pain you to admit it.”
“It absolutely does, yes. I hope to never think of this moment again.”
I could tell he was only half joking. We slowed even more, nearly at Edgar’s front porch, one chair overturned next to the door and another lying at the far edge on its side. I frowned at the setup.
“Do you think this is normal?” I asked, putting out my hand to stop Austin’s progress.
“Why don’t you text him to make sure he isn’t…otherwise unoccupied? Because normal and that vampire are not two words that should be said in the same sentence.”
I huffed out a laugh and patted my pockets. “Oh. I don’t have my phone.”
“You know I don’t.”
I sure did. I’d taken in his flat, muscled stomach and the happy trail leading down to its well-maintained destination before I could stop myself.
Before we finished our approach, I said, “I don’t want you to leave. That needs to be said. I will find a way to make this right, but in the meantime…” I shrugged. “Just figured you should know that.”
His gaze was heavy on my face, but something stopped me from turning and looking at him. Thankfully, there wasn’t a chance for it to get awkward. At least not between us.
The door swung open and Edgar stepped out, a red-fanged smile stretching across his face.
“Hello! You finally came to visit. And Austin Steele, too? Wow.” He rested his fingers on his chest. “This is a treat. Come in, come in!”
He stopped beside the door like he was nervous about a cat escaping. But instead of shooing an animal, he nudged a man’s leg, ending in a hiking boot, out of the way. Given its stubbornness in moving, it was thankfully still attached to the—hopefully living but definitely unconscious—source.
I hesitated. “Is it too late to turn back?”
“Yes,” Austin answered, “and unfortunately, this sort of weird isn’t something I can protect you from.”
19
“What a treat. Sorry I didn’t clean up a little more.” Edgar led the way into a cheery though incredibly cluttered living room just off the entryway, with bright yellow walls, sky-blue curtains, and large white barrels lining the walls behind the furniture. Little canisters of all kinds topped the barrels, as well as squirt bottles with the labels either peeled off or mostly disintegrated.
He waited by the door for Austin to pass, Austin’s sweats in a balled fist at his side and his body tense as he sussed the place out.
“How embarrassing. You caught me after a light meal.” Edgar lifted the owner of the leg—a youngish guy in a flannel shirt and loose jeans—and stashed him further behind the couch by the front windows. “He won’t wake up for an hour or so. We have plenty of time. Worst case, I can just bite him again, right? It takes a lot more than two bites for someone to sustain brain damage from the magical coma. He’ll be fine. He did want to come back to my place, after all. Mistake number one. Stranger danger.”
He closed the door and followed Austin, stopping at the threshold to the living room.
“I feel like we are walking a morality line right now,” I mumbled, edging toward a couch choked with doilies. They were everywhere—lining armrests, spread across cushions, stacked on the windowsills… Where Niamh’s house was over-decorated with them, Edgar’s house was drowning.
“Where did you find him?” Austin asked, stopping beside me as I looked down at the doily-covered couch cushions. They looked like haphazardly knitted spider webs, all slightly oblong, with their interior webs far from symmetrical. I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to sit on them, or carefully stack them up and shove them to the side, so I remained standing until I could get a further clue.
“Oh, he was just on the road outside of town, walking along the edge of our property. I stopped to say hello and one thing led to another. Back he came for a sandwich and to rest up before he went on his hike. I jumped him before that, of course. He looked strong and capable, I didn’t think it necessary to give him a meal to sustain him.”
“Still treading that line,” I murmured. “Thank God I didn’t get vampire magic.”
“You weren’t watching Jess train?” Austin asked, and the growl was back in his voice.
“He was there for training, but he doesn’t stay for the flying,” I said, touching Austin’s arm with the back of my hand, hoping a physical connection would keep him from losing it again. Poor Edgar wouldn’t be able to handle Austin in a temper.
“Correct, Jessie, yes. The flying scares me. I’d rather not watch. I’m always afraid she’ll fall.” Edgar nodded gravely, and because I didn’t want the conversation going any further along that track, I veered back to this issue with the hiker. Magical morality aside, it was still a weird situation.
“So…this guy you randomly picked up in the woods…” I shook my head, needing a moment to process this insanity. “He planned to go hiking…but he was out for a stroll in the cold before that?”
Edgar sank into the old-fashioned chair facing us, doilies now trapped between his butt and the seat. Cue received.
“I think that is what he said,” Edgar replied. “I wasn’t really paying attention. It’s so rare I see people so easy for the grabbing this time of year. I’ve been getting lucky lately, what with the two people trespassing through the woods the other day, and now this guy, just on the outskirts of the property. No witnesses, no fuss, and in the end, they wake up none the wiser. I always just tell them they’ve fainted.”
“Riiight.” I slowly lowered onto the mess of doilies.
Austin hesitated and held up his sweats. “These have blood on them. I’m not sure if they are still wet.”
“Oh. How silly of me. Stay right there.” Edgar pushed out of his seat and left the room, back a moment later with a new pair of sweatpants. “There you go. I’d let you sit directly on the doilies, but the yarn is a little rough and I wouldn’t want it to chafe.” He smiled and lowered back down, bending an ankle jauntily over his knee.
“Good looking out,” Austin mumbled, taking the new pair and holding them up to his body. At least two sizes too small. He struggled into them, although they squeezed his body like a sausage casing and ended well above his ankles. His look clearly blamed me for this whole situation.
I stifled a laugh.
“You collect doilies, then, or…” I motioned around the space, trying to get a look at those large barrels or even the canisters on top, both curious about what they were and wary of finding out.
“I make them.” Edgar was up again, opening a cabinet on an empty entertainment center displayed proudly against the wall. The furniture layout would have made a lot more sense if there had been a large TV in that setup. He grabbed a few doilies out of a stuffed drawer and held them out. “Would you like some? I know Mr. Tom is dead set against decorating with doilies, but Niamh has been able to sneak in a few. Since you’re now the owner of the house, you can probably decorate any way you want.”
“Oh.” I gave him what I hoped was a regretful smile. “I don’t want to go against Mr. Tom’s wishes so soon. I’ll need to work him around.”
“Austin Steele, how about you? I’d be mighty proud to have my work displayed in your home.”
“No,” Austin said.
“Ah well, maybe you’ll come around.” Ed
gar placed them gently into their drawer before sitting down.
I picked one up from the arm of the couch, studying the gaping hole on one side, the bulging yarn on the other, and the small spot that looked okay in the otherwise terribly executed design. “Wow, you make these?”
“Yes.” He held up his long fingers, sporting even longer nails, one of them tipped with blood. I could feel the grimace on my face. “My goal is to create the perfect doily. I’ve always found that a perfectly symmetrical doily is as beautiful as it is calming. I haven’t been at it for very long, but one day, I hope to enter that perfect doily into the town craft show. It will be a thing of beauty, you mark my words.”
I gingerly returned the doily to its spot, a smile wrestling with my lips when I noticed Austin’s look of pure bewilderment and confusion.
“How long have you been at it?” I asked, clasping my hands on my lap.
“About fifty years or so. It started as a hobby, but it has become one of my life’s great passions.”
“Have you ever considered, maybe, a different color besides cream?” I asked, strangely fascinated.
“Oh now, Jessie, whoa.” Edgar chuckled softly, putting up his hands and leaning back a little in his seat. “You give my prowess too much credit. Those of us in the doily biz need to walk before we can run. I need to nail the perfect doily before I can dress it up a bit, otherwise I’d just be distracting from something not quite perfect.”
I nodded dutifully, trying not to laugh.
“What’s with the…” Austin gestured at the barrels and tubs.
“Oh! That is my life’s other great passion. Well spotted.” Edgar turned, leaning heavily on his right so he could get a better view of the closest barrels. “Those are gardening elixirs. I get them from Agnes. You know, the town witch? The real one, not the Jane who looks at palms and pretends to know things. She really is terrible for the false hope she gives young lovers. Anyway, I order the elixir in moderate increments during the spring and summer, when the ingredients are at their best, and then apply it during the winter when it is nearly impossible to naturally keep flowers in bloom. It keeps us with a lovely home year-round.”
“Why don’t you keep all this in a shed?” I asked.
“What, and have Marg from 856 Maple Drive snoop around and find out my secret? Not a chance, Jessie. No, I keep them in here, nice and safe. Do you want to see all the trophies I’ve won over the years? I win the wine and garden festival every year, without fail, and Marg has been driven mad with jealousy. She’s resorted to trying to cheat, of all things.”
“But…Edgar…you cheat.”
“I do not. I just use better growth serum than she does. If Marg didn’t look down her nose at Agnes, she could use the same serum and not rely on pig or cow poop or whatever it is she uses.” His grin was sardonic as he shook his head. “She wants to grow beautifully smelling flowers…with poop. It makes no sense.”
“Is Marg magical?”
“Oh no, she’s a Jane. She doesn’t believe in magic at all. It gives me a slight edge.” He grinned at me, his stained chompers on full display.
“Right.”
“Do you want some coffee? A soda, maybe?” He placed his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned forward, as though ready to sprint to the kitchen. “I think I might have leftover meat for a sandwich, if you want that? I know how much you like Niamh’s sandwiches.”
“No, no, that’s okay. We can’t stay long.” I waved my hand as a scuffling noise caught my attention. Austin turned a little on the couch, his knee bumping mine, his focus on the body stashed behind us.
“He’s waking up,” Austin said, turning back around. “We should probably let you deal with this, Edgar.” He scooted forward, ready to leave, and then stalled at the edge of the cushion. “Wait a moment.” A groan sounded behind us, but Austin didn’t seem to notice. “You met him on the edge of the property, and you found two others in the Ivy House woods?”
“Not all today, no.” Edgar leaned back. “The other hikers were a couple of days ago. It’s a lovely area. I usually get a few people passing through for one of the local festivals.”
“Why didn’t you mention this?” Austin asked.
“Mention what?”
I heard the sound of a body sliding against the wall.
Austin stood in a graceful rush of power. “Festivals are on in the summer and fall, when the weather is nice. They don’t put on events in the winter. There aren’t a lot of tourists around at this time of year, and those who do visit typically don’t spend their time outdoors. Not Janes and Dicks, at any rate.”
I pushed forward to the edge of the couch, half turning around. Doilies fell to the floor. I remembered Edgar talking about those hikers the other day, but I hadn’t thought anything of it. Most of the time I tried to ignore any and all talk about his feeding habits. Maybe that had been a mistake.
“Oh, well, they didn’t put up any kind of fight,” Edgar said, also pushing to the edge of his seat, looking up at Austin. “Magical people would’ve known what I was right off the bat—I keep forgetting to try to hide it. They wouldn’t have offered to be a snack—they would’ve fought back. Jessie even fought back before she became the chosen.”
Austin walked around the couch and bent. When he stood, he was clutching the gently flailing man’s flannel shirt. The guy’s face came around, and I recognized him immediately. The younger guy who’d been sitting at the bar of the Italian restaurant the night of my botched date with Ron. The one with the young face and those old-soul eyes.
I opened my mouth to say as much, but his eyes snapped open and his body went taut, straightening within Austin’s hold. His hands jerked up as Austin let go, dropping him.
Too late.
A jet of magic exploded out, punching into Austin’s bare chest and flinging him back. He hit the wall, sticking into the plaster, his eyes widening before fluttering closed. He sagged, sliding bonelessly to the ground.
Terror kick-started my heart and adrenaline flooded my body. There wasn’t any blood—maybe it had just knocked him out?
Another jet of magic flew out, catching the edge of the couch and exploding the back. I dropped to the ground in a hail of doilies. The guy popped up, his eyes focused, his movements reeking of confidence and experience.
Edgar dashed forward at incredible speed, but he wasn’t fast enough. Magic slammed into him, tossing him back against one of his barrels. Canisters thumped forward and fell off, drenching him with plant juice.
An invisible weight dropped down over me, covering my body and sticking me to the ground. It shimmered within the afternoon light, hazy gray, similar to the net that had caught me—and then let me go—when I was falling, but translucent.
Clearly this guy was much better at his craft than the others had been. He’d done what they could not.
He’d trapped me.
20
A smile slowly spread across his thin lips. “This is such a backwoods town. Dormant. Anyone at all can walk in here and hang around. If you stay away from that big alpha and don’t cause any trouble, no one bothers you. You even get welcomed into homes with open arms. All you need to do is sustain a little bite and there you go, no one suspects you.” He walked around the couch, his old-soul eyes sparkling. “I didn’t even have to go find you. You came right to me. Is it my birthday?”
“I hope so. Not many people get to exit the world on the same day they came in. It’d be a real treat to make that happen for you.”
Anger raged through me, fueled by fear for my friends who’d just been taken down, and I sent a pulse through the very fiber of Ivy House, rumbling along the ground, flowing through the air, hopping from tree to tree and flower petal to flower petal. Across the expanse of garden, within the house itself, I felt my team stir. I felt them move, first to the windows and then to the stairs, running to get the gargoyles.
“Big words for such a young little thing.” He bent to me, his eyes roaming my face. “A pretty
little thing, too.”
“Young? I could be your mother.”
He laughed, delighted, and then made a motion through the air. My translucent cage lifted from the ground, and me with it. “You see? So young and inexperienced.” He continued to lean toward me, his face right in mine, his stinking breath making me cringe. “Magic can give us any kind of face we want. Young, old, male, female? We can be anything at all.”
“Except a good person. Magic can’t make you likable.”
He tsked. “Of course it can. It is human nature to crave power. The more you have, the more everyone wants to be in your company.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean you’re likable. People might tolerate a dickhead, but it doesn’t make you any less of a dickhead.”
“Well.” He straightened and lifted me a little higher. “Maybe so. Let’s hurry now, before your winged friends try to follow us.”
I laughed, closed my eyes, and reached for the power of Ivy House. “There is a reason those others tried to capture me when I wasn’t on this property.”
All her defenses were at the ready, waiting for me to call out which ones I wanted. Ready to play with him like a cat plays with a mouse. She hungered for it.
Not yet, though. He had information, and the grounds were extensive. I had time.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “Afraid of a house. The actual house, not the people in it.” He laughed and lifted his hands. “They were afraid the house would stop them, and yet here I am. I didn’t burn to ash the moment I set foot on the grounds, and I have the chosen in my possession.”
We passed Austin, who lay unmoving on the floor, and I reached out to him, my heart lodged in my throat. My hand hit somewhat pliant magical bars. The memory of falling through that spidery web flashed through my mind again. The magic felt similar—did that mean this prison was breakable too?
