##
“The sun’s going down, we still don’t know where Melinda is and we are no closer to finding this alpha,” said Michael in frustration as they stood in the kitchen and hour later.
William glanced at Charlie. He was sitting at the kitchen counter, staring out of the window watching what little sun remained near the base of the trees.
The Mack phone line rang loudly.
“Hey, Mack,” said Michael into the receiver.
“We got a problem,” she told him. “Get down to the morgue. Bring Charlie. We found another body.”
Michael just sighed, shaking his head. “Okay, Mack. We’ll be right down. Hey… any Melinda sightings?”
“You still haven’t found her?” Mack asked concerned.
“No. Emily searched through town but no one’s seen her.”
“She’s gonna have to be on her own for now, Michael. I hate to say it, but we got bigger problems.”
“See you in a minute,” Michael said, disconnecting.
“What happened?” asked Charlie.
William answered. “No sign of Melinda and they found another body.”
Charlie sat with his elbows on the counter, resting his forehead on his hands.
“Just this morning, everything was going so well,” he mumbled. “Melinda was in the best mood I’ve ever seen her in. You and Emily were walking around so happy it was making everyone else around you giddy and I…” he didn’t finish the sentence. He stood up and faced Michael and William. “How is it, that in less than a day everything can just go so wrong? It’s like everything is just falling to pieces again. We haven’t even had time to sit down and make a plan of action as to how we’re going to track Dad!”
“I don’t know, Charlie. I don’t know,” said Michael. “Let’s just focus on one thing at a time, okay? Mack needs our help. There’s still time before you need to lock yourself up. C’mon.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Michael. Let’s go.”
“Coming William?” Michael asked as they headed for the door.
“I’ll leave this one to you. There’s something I want to check into.”
They left him to do his research and walked down the cobblestone street heading to the morgue.
It was a tense walk, with no words passing between the brothers.
##
Melinda and Riley pulled up in front of the bookstore. The sun was already on its way down and she hoped that even though it was her day off, Emily would be inside.
She hopped off the bike and handed Riley the helmet, turning to walk into the store. She had spent the very long ride back into town hoping that everything this woman named Nina had told her was true, and that she could save Charlie. Of course its true … she chided herself. Look at the source!
She stopped and spun back around.
“Oh, um… sorry, brain elsewhere.” She stepped back over to Riley, still sitting on his bike. He slipped off his helmet.
“I can see that,” he said, his eyes dancing in amusement.
“Look, I really have to hurry, but, um,” she bit her lip.
Riley got off his bike and took off his helmet, hanging it on the bike. “I’ll still be around later.”
A look of relief spread across Melinda’s face.
“You were afraid today might have been a one time thing, weren’t you?” he teased.
“The things you said,” she began. “I loved every single word, but I thought maybe you were just saying them to...” she paused, hoping she wasn’t offending him. “I mean, it’s like you said every single thing I wanted to hear. It was too perfect.”
“I meant every word, Melinda. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more honest about anything in my life.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You make me say things I’ve never said to anyone, ever.”
How could she have gotten so lucky? Was it possible he was this perfect? Would he still be this perfect after finding out she was a witch? She decided to save that problem for another day.
“So, you do want to see me again, right?” he asked sheepishly.
She answered by kissing him. He obliged, kissing her back, each touch of his lips meant to be a message that he couldn’t wait to see her again and didn’t want her to go.
Melinda should have stopped him.
There was a serious job she needed to do. A brother that needed saving.
Instead, she grabbed the back of his head and urged him not to stop.
Tourists walking by shot them dirty looks.
They pulled apart, uncaring about outsider’s reactions.
“Just imagine what they would’ve said if they’d seen us a few hours ago,” he whispered. He grinned and strode back to his motorcycle.
“So, I guess I’ll see you later,” she said. “Well, I can’t tonight though, way too much to do tonight,” she explained, feeling disappointed she’d have to wait to see him again.
Riley glanced up at the sunset, now turning the sky deep reds and yellows.
“Tonight’s a bad night for me too. How about tomorrow? Say a late morning coffee at that café across the street? The Wicked Muddy. And maybe after, I’ll take you for another ride... on the bike,” he winked.
Melinda’s heart couldn’t help but skip a beat at the thought of seeing Riley again.
“I’ll take your speechlessness as a yes,” he said, adding, “God I love your smile.” He shook his head. “There I go again. Just can’t keep my inner voice quiet today.”
Melinda leaned in and kissed him one more time.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered, pulling back.
“Tomorrow,” he agreed.
She watched him speed away, wishing she could have just gone with him.
“Ugh! Get it together!” she chastised herself. “Brother to save!” Melinda shook herself into reality and scurried into the bookstore. “Emily!” she shouted too loudly.
Emily, upon hearing Melinda, popped out from behind a bookshelf.
Wonderful, loveable, predictable Emily…
“You’re okay,” she said, rushing to hug Melinda.
“Um, yeah. I’m fine, great actually. Why?”
“Your brothers have been worried sick!” Emily explained. “Me too for that matter.”
“Oh. Well. I did leave in a bit of a huff this morning. I was mad a Charlie but I’m over it now. They could’ve called me on my cell,” Melinda argued.
“Which you dropped in the kitchen,” Emily informed her.
“Oh, dang. Sorry,” she squeaked.
“Well, at least you’re okay,” said Emily.
“Yeah, I am more than okay. But I’ll explain about that later. Charlie on the other hand, is not okay,” Melinda said, dragging Emily into a small office, shutting the door behind them. “But he will be if this plan goes right. Which it will.”
“What’s going on?” asked Emily, dazed by Melinda’s energetic attitude.
Melinda gulped hard, clasping her hands together, smiling forcefully. All her teeth were showing and her shoulders lifted in a you’re not gonna like what I have say, manner.
“Melinda... what’s going on?” she asked again.
“Emily, my dearest Emily... how do you feel about being captured by a werewolf?”
##
Mack met the brothers at the door and motioned for them to come in. Her new deputy threw them an odd look, but said nothing. Mack took them into a temporary holding cell.
“Exam room’s already full,” she explained, turning to Charlie. “I need to know if you can I.D. this body. This woman was a tourist. But I think you might have known her.”
“What do you mean?” asked Charlie, confused. “I don’t really know any tourists.”
Mack sucked in a breath and upon exhaling said, “This woman was still alive when she was found. Her throat was cut, but she mumbled out two names before she died. Charlie. Howard.”
Charlie backed up, aghast. Speechless.
He gazed down at the body. A small sliver of skin was expos
ed.
“No,” he breathed out heavily.
He rushed forward, tearing the sheet off the table, exposing the bloodied body. His nostrils flared and his breath came out in raspy torrents. He grasped the table to keep from falling.
“Charlie,” Michael called out, realizing instantly that bringing him had been a mistake.
Charlie didn’t respond. He just stared at the lifeless body on the table.
Michael held the sheriff back, nodding to wait.
“Her name,” Charlie spoke with great effort, “is Nina.”
“Does she have a last name?” Mack asked kindly. “I need to notify next of kin.”
“She doesn’t have a last name, and her kin will already know…” He gently touched Nina’s arm, stroking it fondly. “I’m so sorry,” he said, looking into her eyes. He picked up her lifeless hand, shakily caressing her fingers.
“What do you mean, Charlie?” asked Michael, growing more confused. “Who is she?”
Charlie could not answer. The look on his face turned from sadness to fury. He grabbed Nina’s other hand. She wasn’t wearing her ring, the ring that should have protected her from such an injury.
Charlie heard a voice echo in his head. He backed away from the table, putting a hand up to his head, as if it hurt.
“Come and find me,” a malevolent voice spoke steadily. “I killed her, Charlie, as I will kill everything you love, until you bow down to me.”
Charlie responded by pounding his fists into the brick walls of the cell, shouting violently as he did. The wall shattered upon impact, sending brick and stone flying across the room.
“Get out!” Charlie spat out. “Get out and lock the door!”
Michael grabbed the sheriff and bounded outside of the cell, locking it.
“Just give in,” the alpha’s voice lamented in Charlie’s mind. “Give in and no one else will get hurt.”
The sheriff ordered everyone out of the building.
Charlie fell to the floor, doubling over as the desire to let out the wolf sent him into a rage. He shouted horrifically, begging his body not to give in.
The alpha echoed in his head, again.
“Just give in, this one time,” its voice enticed. “You won’t ever have to fight it again.”
Charlie did his best to ignore the voice, focusing on calming himself. He could feel the moon’s pull almost tearing the wolf out of his unwilling skin.
“I can still reach the body,” he heard Michael telling the sheriff. “Maybe it will tell us who we’re looking for.” Michael reached through the bars.
“No!” Charlie warned in a pained voice. “You can’t read her, Michael.”
Charlie’s face was red, blood vessels protruding from his skin.
“Who the hell is she, Charlie?”
“A Guardian, Michael. Nina is a Guardian.”
Michael pulled back his hand, in stunned awe.
Charlie tried to stand. It took everything he had to do it. He held onto the bars and tried to explain. He struggled to find the right words, and when he spoke, it came out labored.
“Nina is the woman I’ve been seeing.”
Only Michael realized what he was talking about, and it made sense, at least from what Michael knew about Guardians. They wore a ring, which protected them from normal dangers. It also enhanced their strength and made their bodies impenetrable. Without the ring though …
Michael sighed as it all fell into place.
Charlie would have been able to be himself, completely, with a Guardian, unlike a human woman. He also realized why he had never gone into any real detail, as the world of the Guardians was quite secretive. They rarely showed themselves to humans at all, and few outside the supernatural world even knew of their existence.
“A little confused here,” Mack chimed in.
“To be honest, Mack, I don’t think this woman had anything to do with the whole werewolf thing. Just wrong place wrong time. I’ll explain later.”
“What are we going to do about Charlie?” she asked.
Charlie had slid down to the floor and was panting, heavily.
“Do whatever you have to,” Charlie spoke hoarsely. “I’m not going to make it.”
The wolf was winning.
Out of nowhere, William materialized into the room, coming to an abrupt stop.
“Actually,” he announced emphatically, “we have to let Charlie out.”
##
Melinda stood in front of the house in which the Guardian named Nina had been staying. She felt weird stepping into a house she had never been in before.
“You did, sort of, technically meet her,” she muttered, slipping inside the house. She huffed out a burst of air. “Look at this place! How the hell am I going to find a ring in all this?”
She started tossing around blankets, pillows, and strewn about couch cushions, kicked an empty bottle of tequila out her way, and tried not to cut herself on a broken vase, while scouring the floor for Nina’s ring.
“What the heck was she doing in here, anyway? I know this isn’t where she died.”
Melinda stood up and closed her eyes, as the realization hit her.
“Nina was Charlie’s summer fling… eww… not a visualization I need right now.”
She ran into the kitchen and washed her hands.
“C’mon,” she scolded herself. “It’s here somewhere.”
She opened every drawer and cupboard, looking for the black ring that Nina had told her she would need to save Charlie. After not finding it in the kitchen, she moved on to the bathroom and then the closets. “One room left,” she said, putting her hand on the doorknob to the bedroom. Melinda gasped after opening the door.
The black ring lay in the middle of the bed, on a sheet of perfect white.
All Nina had told Melinda was that she had taken off the ring before she died, as it needed to be given to Charlie. He needed to put it on his finger, and Nina had explained that Melinda would arrive at the exact moment Charlie needed the ring.
Something bothered Melinda about the placement of the ring.
“It’s like she was planning on dying…” an eerie sadness crept into her gut.
Melinda did not pretend to understand. She reached down, scooping up the ring into the palm of her hand and raced out of the house to find the sun had set and the moon was rising.
She gulped, hard.
“Nina said I would get there at the exact right moment.”
Could a Guardian be wrong?
Melinda took off running.
She knew exactly where she needed to go.
##
“What do you mean, let him out?” asked Michael.
“My thoughts exactly,” agreed the sheriff.
“I have it on very good authority that we need to let him out,” William spoke decisively.
“You can’t,” Charlie pleaded. “I’ll hurt someone.”
“Actually, Charlie, you’re going to lead us to the alpha.”
“How?” asked Charlie.
“By tuning into his thoughts, you can track him. Once you lead us there, we kill him.”
“Do you think we can?” Michael asked, feeling a glimmer of hope.
“Yes,” Mack said, pulling three silver bullets out of her pocket. “Just get me a clear shot, and the alpha’s done for.” She looked nervously toward Charlie.
“Just promise me, sheriff, that you won’t be afraid to use those on me if something goes wrong.”
“You know I don’t want to, but you know I will.”
“I don’t know about this,” Michael said doubtfully. “What do you mean, good authority, William?”
“Melinda,” he answered.
“You saw her?” Charlie asked.
“Did she have a dream?” Michael questioned.
“She’s fine. No time for details,” William said, heading toward Charlie’s cell. “But I trust this plan, with complete certainty,” he said, looking Charlie in the eye.
Something Cha
rlie heard in William’s definitive tone and determined face calmed him. Made him feel as though he could trust whatever plan was in motion.
“What do I need to do?” Charlie asked.
“Let the alpha into your mind.”
Charlie nodded apprehensively. He dragged himself back up, leaning his head onto the bars, opening his mind to the alpha’s thoughts.
William motioned for Michael and Mack to back away.
“What’s going on William?” Michael asked impatiently, seeing that he clearly knew more than he was telling them.
“This is Charlie’s final test,” William told them, which clarified nothing.
Michael just stood looking dumbfounded, waiting for William to explain. He did not, instead giving Michael a warning. “You must prepare yourself. What you’re about to hear will be infuriating, but you must believe me when I promise that everything will be okay.”
Michael looked nearly as angry as Charlie did. It was unlike William to be so cryptic.
Charlie gripped the bars of his cell, as if they were the only thing keeping him in one piece. The alpha’s voice rang through his thoughts.
“I will make you transform,” he heard the alpha sneer.
“No, you won’t,” Charlie panted. “But I am coming to kill you,” he warned defiantly.
“To revenge your Guardian,” the alpha taunted. “She didn’t even fight when I gutted her throat.”
“I won’t let you hurt anyone else,” Charlie yelled out. “I won’t allow you to control me.”
The night sky brightened outside the window in Charlie’s cell. The moon was full and rising fast. He clutched his chest and cried out in anguish. “I will not turn!”
“I thought it might come to this,” the alpha told Charlie, sounding bored. “So I found myself a little insurance.”
Charlie heard another voice, through the alpha’s mind.
“If you refuse me, she dies,” the alpha snarled.
Charlie started to shake uncontrollably, his arms and legs thickened, tearing through his clothes. He let out a sound that was a mix of howling, growling and roaring, at the same time, grabbing the bars of the cell and pulling on them. The iron broke in his hands like twigs.
Witches of The Demon Isle Box Set, Volumes 1, 2 & 3 Page 16
