But there was nothing here.
Just an empty house.
Still, she hesitated outside her parents’ bedroom. For a long moment, she stared at nothing, preparing her mind for the worst. Then she pushed open the door.
Late afternoon light filtered through the double windows on the right side of the room. From there, she could see the porch and the high grass of the front yard.
She felt nothing.
All the same, she edged to the left and opened the closet door. Empty. Like the room. Like the house. Like her heart.
Her adrenaline spiked as she walked to the center of the room and let her gaze take in the space. There was no evidence of the violence. The carpet and padding had been discarded, leaving only the scarred and stained wood floor.
Memories of that night floated through her mind. She had taken them out and examined them so often during the years, the pain and horror framing those moments were like flaking gilt.
Ash checked all the rooms, saving hers for last. It was stupid to walk around and remember. Her parents had loved her. And the last words they’d ever heard from her was I hate you.
Damn it! She needed to cast the spell and destroy the only reminder left of her old life. Instead, she walked through the kitchen, which no longer had its appliances. The counters were filthy. The wallpaper peeling. The linoleum floor cracked.
She entered her bedroom and paused.
It was smaller than she remembered, even without her bed and desk. Dust exploded from the brown carpet with every step she took. And there to the left of her bed, the infamous window—the one she had used to escape that awful night.
As she walked toward it, she felt the release of magic. Her hip daggers came out automatically and she spun around in a circle. Had another Convocation messenger followed her? Or did this magic-wielder have an even more sinister purpose?
“Tashie.” Heart pounding, she looked to her right and saw her mother—or rather a green-edged reproduction. She stood near the window, hands clasped in front her, her eyes focused straight ahead.
A spell. Mom knew magic? Her logical, practical, kisses-don’t-heal-boo-boos mother was a magic-wielder?
Ash looked down and saw her feet encased in a green glow. She’d stepped on the trigger. It worked the same as pushing a button on an answering machine. When you pressed it, the message appeared.
“Obviously, your father and I are dead.”
Pragmatic to the core, Mom. Ash smiled fondly and tried to pretend that she didn’t feel as if she’d taken a sword blow to the gut.
“I don’t know how much time you have, so please listen. You must go into the attic. On the far right side in the left corner is a board that doesn’t quite match the others. Pry it up and take the box. Inside are answers. Not all of them. I expect you to find the rest. Remember that your mind is your greatest weapon.
“After you get the box, you must find Sed. He will guide you the rest of the way. He’s a good man and the best warrior-mage alive. He will train you and he will show you how to use your gifts.
“We tried to give you a normal life, but we tried to protect you, too. Maybe too much. Ah, my darling, it’s too late for regrets. I love you.” Her mother looked to the right and then Ash’s father appeared. With his receding hairline and thick glasses, he looked like an absent-minded scientist—which, of course, he’d been.
He smiled and waved. “I love you, Tashie. Please know that no matter what passed between us, we loved you more than our own lives.”
He placed his arm around Mom then their images flickered and disappeared.
Ash stared at the empty space. Too late. She’d gotten their message too late. Not long after she’d killed the skinwalker, the Convocation rescued her. She awoke in their facility, disoriented and frightened.
Ash stepped back and then forward. She jumped up and down. It was no use. The magic had dissolved. Her parents were gone. She squelched the rising need to weep. No! She had shed her tears. She’d learned to control her emotions. Emotions made her weak, made her lose focus. Heart of stone, mind of steel. That had been her mantra for ten years.
Frowning, Ash examined the room. Usually such spells were cast so that only the person who was intended to hear the message could trigger it. Once delivered, the magic dissipated.
So how the hell had Margaret Lynne Huntson activated the spell?
With this thought circling, she went to the hallway and pulled on the rope that opened the hatch. The ladder unfolded from the door and she climbed into the dust-filled attic. There were no windows up here, no light. Ash whispered a glo-spell and white sparkles filtered into the small, dark space.
She hurried to the right side and to the left corner. Finding the board was easy because it had already been removed.
The box was gone.
* * * * *
When Ash zipped the Mercedes into the driveway of Rick Huntson’s house, she noticed the red smoke billowing out from the shattered front windows.
Shit.
She got out of the car and ran up the clean-swept walkway. The door had been torn off, so it was easy to get inside.
The stink of sulfur nearly knocked her on her ass. She could see through the smoke, but the dark magic was another matter. It was so thick in the house, she could almost breathe it.
“Ash the Destroyer.”
The voices came from nowhere. From everywhere. Dread filled her. Demons. They were only creatures not afraid of her because one, they had no souls to take, and two, they were immortal. Nobody could kill a demon—not even her.
Who the hell had sent demons to the Huntson house? How had they known the location of the box?
“Leave, assholes.” She sent the command booming through the house.
The evil bastards laughed.
Oh, fuck you, too! Ash closed her eyes and delved into her inner being. The souls she’d consumed over the years swirled together, long strands of color that fluttered like ribbons tossed by the wind. She chose Morrigan, who had been a white witch directly descended from a goddess.
Imbibing a soul meant taking the personality, the form, the memories, the skills, the magic, and hell, even the clothing. Her clothes became part of her as she morphed, and when she assumed a new form, she was dressed in whatever clothing the souls had died in.
The transformation took precious minutes. Soul-shifting wasn’t like putting on a costume. She had to combine herself with the other, weaving the two of them together until they were bound. That was only the first part. The second was the re-forming of her body as it morphed to match the other’s shape.
As Morrigan, she grew taller, her body more lithe, her limbs more graceful. She wore a diaphanous blue gown. Her long, black hair was braided. She was also barefoot.
Ash opened her eyes and saw the situation not only from her perspective, but from Morrigan’s.
The witch knew what to do. She raised her pale, thin arms and muttered a long incantation. Ash didn’t understand the words, but she got their meaning.
White light exploded from her palms, expelling the smoke, the dark magic, and the sulfur. The demons screeched like whipped bitches.
Their malicious presences disappeared.
“We sense a child.” Ash-Morrigan ran up the stairs. She opened the door to the left. Here was a little girl’s room—with its pink walls and stuffed animals and scattered books.
She bent low and lifted the bed skirt. Margaret lay pressed against the carpet, her eyes wide and her body trembling. She’d had a bath and was dressed in pink pajamas.
“Ash!” She scrambled out and threw herself into Ash-Morrigan’s arms.
Shocked, she tried to hold on to the wiggling mass of Margaret Lynne Huntson as she staggered to her feet. “How do you recognize us?”
“What do you mean?” Margaret’s tear-stained face lifted just long enough to study Ash-Morrigan. “You look like you.”
She didn’t have time to ponder Margaret’s amazing statement. “We must go. Where is t
he box?”
“What box?” she asked, sniffling.
“Do not lie, child. We are not pleased. We must have the box.”
“I hid it in my closet.”
Carrying the trembling little girl, Ash-Morrigan hurried to look. On the top shelf was an intricately carved black box, which she grabbed. She gave it to Margaret to hold.
“I didn’t open it.”
“Only because you didn’t know how.” Ash-Morrigan hurried down the stairs.
“Where’re my mommy and daddy?”
“We sense no others.”
“They’re in the kitchen! We can’t leave without them.”
She put Margaret down in the foyer. “Go to the car. Keep the box safe. We will find your parents.”
As soon as the little girl ran toward the Mercedes, Ash-Morrigan hurried to the kitchen. Food and broken dishes littered the floor. The smell of garlic and marinara sauce filtered through the rusty scent of blood.
Margaret’s mother was pinned to the refrigerator by the wide, sharp blade of a butcher knife. Her unseeing brown eyes accused the soul shifter of being too late.
Rick Huntson laid face-down on the floor, covered in spaghetti noodles. The red spattering his clothes was not sauce. Gently, Ash-Morrigan rolled him over.
Stab wounds covered his chest. His T-shirt was tattered and stained. He was an older version of the boy Ash had known. Still handsome with careless brown hair and slanted cheeks and that dip in his chin.
Ash-Morrigan could see the residual soul of Rick Huntson. Unlike his wife, he was still tethered to his body. She laid her hands on his chest.
“We ask the Goddess for Her blessing. Heal this warrior, this father, this husband. Give him his life so that he may serve You and others, our Holy Mother, Creator of All Life, Bringer of All Healing.”
Energy emanated from her palms, basking Rick’s body in a gold glow. His wounds sealed shut. His breath returned. The soul so close to leaving its host settled with purpose into his chest.
Rick groaned and his eyes fluttered open. “Sarah. Mag Pie.”
“Margaret is safe.”
He seemed to comprehend that his wife wasn’t. Perhaps he had been spared seeing her murdered, which meant she had seen him attacked. Her last thoughts must have been about her husband and daughter.
Rick’s eyes closed again and he slid into unconsciousness.
Ash moved away. She knelt, took a deep breath, and stripped herself free of Morrigan. Removing a soul felt like having her skin peeled from her muscles, and having her muscles torn from her bones. Souls could be coaxed into becoming one with her, but none of them liked going back into the mental limbo.
She screamed—she always screamed—as the soul ripped free of its binding and returned to its place within her psychic core.
After several moments of deep breathing, Ash climbed unsteadily to her feet. She refused to panic, but she felt a crazed sense of urgency. The demons would be back. The only question was when.
In the dining room, she took off the table cloth, uncaring about the dishes and glasses that clattered to the carpet. She returned to the kitchen, spread the cloth, and rolled Rick onto it. She tied one end around his feet then grabbed the corners of the other end and dragged him from the house. The stairs weren’t fun to navigate and the cloth snagged on the sidewalk. Once she got it to the grass, though, it was smooth sailing to her car. The driver’s side door opened and Margaret popped out, still clutching the black box.
“Daddy!”
“Open the back door,” directed Ash.
Margaret did as she asked while Ash rounded the trunk and opened the other back door. Then she crawled through, took up the table cloth and dragged Rick into the back seat.
She shut the doors. She was sweating now, from exertion and fear. “Get in the car, kiddo.”
Margaret looked at her with wide blue eyes. “Is he dead?”
“No.”
“Is Mommy?”
“Yes,” said Ash. “Get your ass in the car.”
The little girl did not burst into tears. Instead, she climbed into the driver’s side, scooted across the gear shift, and sat silently in the passenger seat.
Ash opened her jacket and withdrew a black ball, about the size of an orange, from her pocket. She re-entered the house, placed the ball in the foyer. Standing out in the yard, she put her palms out and shouted, “Eradico!”
Ash was not a sorcerer. She could do magic, but for powerful spells such as this one she needed triggers to engage her own abilities. The black ball was such a device.
The house erupted into flames. Within moments, it would be reduced to soot. No bodies would be found. The family would be assumed dead. Neighbors would call 9-1-1, but fire trucks would be too late. Since the fire was magic, it would not spread. It would do its job and disappear.
Ash returned to her old house and parked by the curb, leaving the engine running. She needed to get the hell out of the neighborhood, but damn it, she came here to do one thing and by God, she was going to do it. She removed another black ball from her jacket, lobbed it onto the front porch and screamed, “Eradico!”
Fire consumed the only true home she’d ever had. She wished she could destroy her whole past so easily.
She jumped into the Mercedes and sped away.
* * * * *
When Tashie awoke, she found herself in a room she didn’t recognize. Everything was white—the walls, the floor, the bed, the covers. Even though there were no beeping machines or IVs hooked up to her arm, she realized she must be in a hospital.
She felt sick, both hot and cold, and she shivered so hard her teeth chattered. A light blanket covered her and she simultaneously wanted to kick it off and draw it up to her chin.
A gentle hand pressed against her sweaty brow.
“M-mom?”
The woman who knelt beside the bed was not her mother. She was dressed in a white robe, like the one Gandalf wore in that Lord of the Rings movie. Around her neck was a thick gold chain. Dangling from it was a glittering symbol: Two snakes winding through a heart pierced with a sword. What was she? A nun? A nurse? A professor at Hogwart’s?
“I don’t feel good.” Tashie could barely get the words out. Her throat was so dry she felt as though she’d swallowed cotton.
“I know, Natasha. But your suffering will soon pass.”
Tashie believed the woman. Her soothing voice was filled with confidence and sympathy.
“My name is Gwendolyn.” The woman looked ageless. She wasn’t young, wasn’t old. She wore no make-up and her shiny brown hair was tucked into one long braid. Her brown eyes were filled with concern. Whoever she was, this mystery lady, she seemed truly worried about Tashie.
“Where are my mom and dad?”
“They’re dead.”
The unflinching confirmation of her worst nightmare brought all the memories flooding back. Mom and Dad sprawled in the bloodied bed. Jack’s lifeless body. The creature so intent on killing her. Only she had somehow killed him. Hot tears fell and the sorrowful cry like that of a wounded animal escaped.
“No,” she cried. It wasn’t true. She had dreamed everything, the way she was dreaming now. Wake up, Tashie. Wake up! “No.”
“Yes, Natasha. The sooner you deal with it, the sooner you can heal.” Her no-nonsense tone was not unkind.
Tashie’s mind, her body, her entire being rebelled against the idea of Mom and Dad being dead. How could she live in a world without her parents?
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
Those were the last words she had uttered to them. Oh, God.
Tashie leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited.
* * * * *
Ash woke with the certain knowledge that someone was in the room. She whipped her witch blade from under the pillow and pressed it against the throat of the man hovering above her.
“Hello,” he croaked.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Ash removed the knife and rolled across the bed. She sat u
p and glared at Rick. “You and your daughter should learn not to sneak up on people.”
“Noted.” He stared at her and she stared back.
Ash had checked them into a two-bedroom suite at the Crowne Plaza in downtown Tulsa. She didn’t have time to answer questions about the unconscious state of the man with her or about the frightened girl clinging to her leg as if she might disappear. So, she hid them. She put them on a luggage cart and created the illusion of suitcases, insisting on bringing them up herself.
“You told Maggie that Sarah was dead.”
“She asked me, I told her.”
“Yeah, well, you just don’t tell a kid that her mom’s dead.”
“I do a lot of things, Rick, but I don’t lie.” Ash got off the bed and stretched. Her pink jacket lay discarded on a nearby chair. She had already placed the black box into one of its magical pockets. The great thing about her jacket was that no one else could wear it. In fact, thanks to Bernie’s spellwork, most people were unconsciously repelled by it.
“What’s the deal with your daughter, anyway?”
His gaze flicked away, then returned. “What do you mean?”
“She can trigger spells and hold magical objects.” She paused, not wanting to ask. They’re not my problem. She sighed. God, she was such a schmuck. “How is Margaret?”
“She’s still asleep.” His gaze was hard now. “You talk about magic like it’s real.”
“It is.” She was restless. She needed to leave. Rick could keep himself and his kid safe. But not from demons. Shit, shit, shit. She really wanted to not care. “What happened when you were attacked?”
Rick shrugged. “I don’t know. We were making dinner. Maggie had just finished her bath and was picking out a storybook. I smelled this … Jesus, I don’t know … like something rotten. Something burning. Everything in the kitchen went wild. I heard maniacal laughter then the knives flew off the counter and…”
Broken Heart Tails (Broken Heart Vampires) Page 13
