by Melody Raven
“Dude is scary. Especially since magic doesn’t work on him.”
“That must be really hard for you.”
Dante looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not blind. I’ve noticed what you’re capable of.”
“Pissing people off in a record low amount of time?”
“When you walk in the pod, no one even looks at you. When we let Derek back, not one person even asked about it. Now, I’ve seen the mind control stuff before. It’s always verbal commands. You don’t even need to do that, do you?”
“What can I say? I’m gifted.”
She’d expected him to deny it, but the confirmation sent a chill down her spine. Dante seemed like a nice enough guy, but she didn’t really know him. A power like that—just walk into a room and have everyone bend to your whim…. It was a wonder he was somewhere like a DMV and not living in some lavish mansion somewhere. Maybe it was a mark of good character that he wasn’t taking advantage of those abilities? Either way, there was a lot more to his story that she didn’t know. And right now she didn’t want to know.
She took out her cell phone and dialed Sam’s number, but it immediately went to voicemail. She left a quick message telling Sam to call her and hung up, feeling effectively useless.
“So why didn’t you want to talk to him?” asked Dante suddenly.
“What do you mean? I love Derek.”
“Yeah, but you ignored all his fifteen calls this morning,” he pointed out. “And I think I saw a few calls from Sam that were ignored too.”
Claire clutched her phone tighter. “I’m technically at work right now. It’s rude to take calls.”
“Please. You can start screwing clients on the front counter and I’d still make sure you have a job. You’re avoiding them.”
“I didn’t know about the loose leash before now,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Yeah but if it was important, you would’ve figured it out. What happened that has you avoiding your best friends?”
“What happened to make someone as powerful as you stuck at the DMV doing busywork for the big boys?”
Dante smiled and she had a feeling her refusal to answer made him happier than if she immediately told him everything he wanted to know. “So where are you going tonight? I’m thinking Claudia might have someone waiting at your place. I was going out with a few friends and—”
“Thanks for the offer but I think I’ve already used up your kindness for the day. I have someone who might be able to help out.”
“The orphan has a lot of friends.”
“Derek is a beast and I’m an orphan. What’s with you and nicknames?”
“Nicknames are fun. They make you feel like part of the team, don’t they?”
“Who else has nicknames then?”
“Claudia is the queen. Abigail is the ice queen. Heather is the princess. Sam is the fireball.”
“What about Jackson?”
For the first time, Dante seemed surprised by something she said. “What do you know about Jackson?”
“He’s who I’m going to call tonight. I met him a few times. He’s friends with Sam.”
“Not friends with Pierce, from what I hear.”
“Derek and him have a history.”
“That’s an understatement.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on. Does Jackson have a nickname or not?”
Dante shook his head. “Nah. Only important people get nicknames. Jackson never shows up on anyone’s radar.”
Funny. He sure as hell showed up on her radar. She found herself rubbing her hands together as though still feeling Heather’s wrists in her hands. The power as Heather screamed above her.
Jackson was the one who had carried her out. He was the one who had looked at her as though she wasn’t crazy. The one to give her the solemn, cryptic warning. You can’t tell anyone.
He had been avoiding her ever since that night, but now he couldn’t make any excuses. She was going to see him again, and he was finally going to give her some answers.
And he was going to tell her why she should hide from the only people she could trust.
Garrett opened the door for Sam before she could even get in one knock. “Sam,” he said with a quick nod. “You could’ve called first.”
“I did call.” She walked past him and into the ornate black-and-white marble entryway to her mother’s Connecticut estate. “I called dozens of times and she answered me exactly zero times.” Considering how attached her mother was to her cell phone, that silence was worrisome. “Where is she?”
Garrett’s jaw tightened and she knew he didn’t want to answer.
“Garrett?” The large guard wasn’t known for being reluctant to do anything. He was older than Sam by about thirty years, but thanks to the health regimen of the witches, he looked as though he was in his mid-thirties. When she’d been a teen, he’d looked like a fresh-faced twenty-year-old. God, she’d had such a crush on him. And a few months ago, she’d blasted him with her magic when he’d gotten in her way of talking to her mother. How times had changed. “I’m going to find out one way or another. Just spit it out.”
“She’s in bed.”
Sam narrowed her eyes. Garrett couldn’t be playing a prank on her. Not at a time like this. “No she’s not.”
“Yes, she is. In case you’re not aware, she’s been having a tough time lately.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Sam shook her head as she headed up the stairs. “Oh hell no.” She took the steps two at a time and practically ran through the halls until she reached the master wing, complete with private office, bathroom, closet room, and the ornate bedroom. Abigail Harris was buried in the pile of covers in the middle of the bed. Sam walked right past until she reached the curtains and pulled them open in a quick dramatic motion.
Abigail let out a moan and turned to protect her face from the sudden shards of light.
“Get out of bed, Mom,” said Sam in a stern voice.
“Not now, Sam,” her mother moaned.
“Yes, now. You have a daughter on a murder spree, ten more people are dead, and I have a guy telling me that Grandmother pulled some sort of spell on me. So yes, now is the best time to be out of bed and working.” Sam grabbed the corner of the main comforter and gave a quick tug, leaving only the sheets on the California king bed. It was a strange role reversal for them.
There had been so many years that Sam had rejected her magic and Abigail had begged her to get out and about. To stop hiding from her problems. Well, now Abigail needed to be the one to come out of hiding.
“Mom, I understand. The crap we’ve been through in the past week…. You’ve earned the right to take a break. But we don’t get it. Because right now, if we take a break, people die.”
“And what do you want me to do?” Abigail’s face was still pressed into her pillow, making the words muffled and hushed.
“I want you to find Heather. Use your magic, use your freakishly close connection to her. Anything at all. But you have to do something.”
“And then what? What is going to happen when she’s found?”
Sam opened her mouth but nothing came out. She knew the answer to the question, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
Abigail finally sat up. Her almost white blonde hair was frizzled around her makeup-free face, but she still managed to look regal as she met Sam’s eyes across the room. “Claudia isn’t going to let Heather off with a slap on the wrist. She’s not going to give her a harsh punishment and let us move on. If she finds Heather, she’s going to kill her. Or the darkness has made Heather strong enough that she’s going to kill Claudia. And who knows how many other people.”
“People are already dying.”
“Humans,” bit out Abigail.
Sam tried to hide the surprise at the way she said the word. As if it were an insult. “You like humans. You’ve always liked them. Respected
them.”
“I’ve never had to choose between them and my own before. If Claudia and Heather are going to kill themselves, so be it. I’ll just have to suffer the consequences. But I will not be the one to help with it and neither should you, Samantha. Wars like this don’t have any winners. Get out before you’re consumed alive.” Abigail flicked her wrist; the curtains flew shut and the comforter was back on the bed.
Sam wanted to stay and fight with her mother. To tell her they owed the world a responsibility. If their family was going to start this war, they needed to get involved.
But she couldn’t bring herself to say any of the words. How could she when a part of her deep down completely agreed with her mother? She tried to tell herself she was doing this to stop anyone else from dying, but she wasn’t blind to the consequences. Heather was a killer now. She couldn’t get a slap on the wrist and be rehabilitated. She couldn’t go to a women’s prison upstate and become a model prisoner.
There was only one way to stop someone so self-destructive and dangerous. But Abigail couldn’t take the blame for Heather’s death and Sam couldn’t either. This was Heather and the darkness. That was it.
“I need to know one more thing, Mom.” Abigail was silent so Sam just asked. “Derek Pierce. Why don’t I know who he is?” The seconds ticked by, but Sam wasn’t going to let her mother get away with not answering this. “Mom….”
“There’s nothing to say. He is a cop. He doesn’t like us. He’s dangerous.”
“But were he and I… were we together?”
“No, Sam. You don’t date. Remember how often I begged you to find someone to build your strength up with? You denied me every single time. Nothing changed.” The words dripped with bitterness.
Sam had to bite her bottom lip. She wanted to ask again. She wanted to know why she didn’t believe her mother. She wanted to know why she didn’t remember Derek at all, as a cop or boyfriend.
But Abigail wasn’t going to help. She was already lying, either by omission or outright. She’d already gotten everything she was going to get out of Abigail for the moment.
Sam backed out of the room and found Garrett waiting in the hall. “Sorry. I should’ve warned you.”
She shook her head. “There’s no way to warn about that.” As shocking as it was to see Abigail so… broken, she couldn’t fault her mother. A person could only take so much before they needed a break. And if Abigail was taking that break, it was more important than ever that she keep going. “I need to use the library for a bit.”
She didn’t ask because she was going to do it one way or another. There were a few different libraries in the house, but the one she wanted, the only one that really counted, was also on the upper level. Spell books were surprisingly hard to get. There were thousands for sale commercially, but those were all hearsay or the happy-go-lucky Wiccan texts. The spell books her family collected were much older. Ancient spells perfected over centuries by the families.
Usually the spells were kept close secrets in families, but knowledge was power and Abigail did like power. She would collect the books, offering favors in return to desperate families in need. She was a skilled defense attorney who was the daughter of the most powerful witch in the world, so Abigail had a lot to offer in terms of favors. Claudia probably was the only one in the world with a bigger collection of legit spell books.
The library was kept behind a locked door. A code was required to enter and a magical barrier only allowed people directly related to Abigail to enter. For a second, Sam wasn’t sure she’d get in. The code worked, but if Abigail had fixed a spell to account for Heather’s recent change of attitude, that would be a problem.
But Sam was able to cross the threshold with no issues. It was a good thing because now she could access the books, but it was another reminder of how off her game Abigail was. She’d have to tell Garrett to get Abigail to update a few security features of the house now that Heather had broken bad.
But for now, she started to look through the books. She didn’t really know what she was looking for. Locator spells weren’t working, which meant most magic couldn’t do a damn thing. But magic was a complex thing. Even black-and-white rules always had give to them. She didn’t have to break the rules, just bend them a little bit. So she started out with a more contemporary book from the Collins bloodline. Newer books tended to have easier-to-read writing and ingredients that were more accessible.
The library had no windows. It made it more secure and allowed for greater focus while researching. There were bookshelves around three of the walls and a simple table with one chair in the middle. Research was not a group activity. It wasn’t just about reading and logic. This was an intuitive process. The spells themselves had a magical quality. A gut instinct. A leap of faith.
Right as she opened the book, her phone buzzed. Sam took it out of her pocket and glanced at the screen. Claire was finally calling her back. As much as she wanted to talk with her friend, this was more important. “Sorry.” She turned the phone completely off. She’d call Claire later. Derek Pierce could wait.
From there, she started to turn the pages. She started with the table of contents at the beginning, but it was a handwritten book, so a table of contents wasn’t always accurate. Some spells were left out or different from how their name made them sound. So Sam turned every single page of the book and scanned over each one to see whether there was anything that could help.
And the next book. And the next book. And the book after that. It kept on for hours. She was about three-fourths of the way through the collection before she found it. “Whoa there,” she said out loud, by this point talking to herself on a regular basis. The ingredients were a little weird, but all accessible. She’d heard of spells like this. Unreliable as hell, but for the first time since she’d seen those dead bodies that morning, she felt as if there were a chance. There was something she could do.
Sam quickly put the useless books away and kept the one that had worked with her. An older book from the Benedict line. She didn’t see Garrett on the way out and didn’t go out of her way to tell him she was leaving. She was too motivated to get this done, and the only store she knew of that sold salamander brandy was going to close soon.
After a stressful drive back to the city and an awkward stop at Ever After A Blue Moon, the closest witch shop, she finally made it back to her apartment. The clerk hadn’t said a word to Sam, but the woman’s eyes had followed her every move. They knew. Everyone in the witch community knew Heather went off the rails. They knew Claudia was under attack. They knew and they were just watching to see what would happen next. Luckily, the ingredients she was getting were obscure so they shouldn’t know what Sam was planning.
As far as Sam knew, no one except for a select few knew the darkness was involved, and she wanted to keep it that way.
She had to carefully juggle everything as she made it to the elevator in her building. Neither the bags nor the priceless book she was bringing home could afford to be dropped. She had to finagle everything to get her key out, but then the door was open and she was home free. She set everything on the coffee table in the living area and let out a deep sigh. It felt as though it had been forever since she’d been home. Since she’d been confronting the crazy man in her living room.
She glanced at the door and at the same time, someone knocked on it. Sam jumped at the unexpectedness of it and just stared at the white painted wood, half thinking she imagined it.
Then the knocking started again and Sam blinked away the surprise. It had been a long day and she was jumpier than normal. She crossed to the door and looked through the peephole. It was like déjà vu as she saw Derek on the other side. Not now…. She just couldn’t do this now.
“Go away,” she called through the door.
“Have you talked to Claire?” he asked, noticeably not going away.
“I’ve been busy.”
“Sam, I…. Can I come in?”
Sam looked down at the doorkn
ob. She hadn’t had a chance to slide the chain or deadbolt like normal. It wasn’t even locked. If he wanted to, he could come right on in. But she didn’t know whether she could do that right now. “No,” she said finally.
Derek was silent and Sam couldn’t bring herself to look through the peephole at him. She shut her eyes and pressed her forehead against the cool wood. Why was this so hard? Was it because part of her knew that she and Derek really did have something real together? Or was it because she wanted it to be true? She wanted to have someone to lean on. Someone to cry on. She couldn’t shut down like Abigail or be robotic like Bastian. But she couldn’t stop. She didn’t have time for a boyfriend or whatever Derek was. She just didn’t have it in her.
“No.” The word was low and deep and firm and unexpected.
“No what?” she asked.
“No, I’m not leaving. Sam, I don’t know what’s happening but I’m involved. Whether you can remember or not, I need to be here.”
“Go be with your family.”
“And do what? Tell my dad that an unhinged witch wants him dead because she’s mad at me? If Heather shows up, she can get to him no matter what I do. I’m useless there, Sam. I’m useless without you.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure nothing happens to your family.” Even as she said the words, she knew they were useless. She could hardly even protect herself, let alone some human family she barely knew. All the more reason she didn’t have time for Derek right now.
“That’s not the only reason I need you,” he finally said, the words a mixture of defeat and resolve. “So no, I’m not leaving. You stay in there as long as you need to, but until you physically move me out of here, I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving you.”
“You’re not going to bullshit me anymore.” Claire pulled open the door to Jackson’s Bentley.
