A shard of pain, cold and empty, stabbed my heart. So. He and Maya were a thing. Or is it magic?
I clenched my fists. But I wanted it to be magic. I wanted an explanation I could fight, and that was why I couldn’t trust this one.
And if I got caught here, I'd look like a total stalker. I dropped and knelt beside a rosebush, my heartbeat speeding with panic. The denuded bush provided zero cover in November, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
The door closed.
I waited a minute, then ran to the street, my muscles only relaxing when my boots touched sidewalk.
Skidding on snow and ice, I hurried down the steep road.
The reality of seeing Brayden and Maya together… I shook my head, sick and dizzy.
But why had he been moving so strangely, as if he was drunk or sleepwalking?
Terry was right. Something was wrong with him. Really wrong. And I wasn't being a desperate stalker or pathetic ex-girlfriend who couldn't let go. Terry had seen the truth. And I might be hurting (okay, I was definitely hurting), but I wasn’t blind. Brayden liked a beer, sure. But I'd never seen him stumbling drunk.
Karin has.
I gave an impatient huff, breathing out a puff of mist. Unconsciously, I edged toward the inside of the sidewalk, closer to the houses. The light streaming from their windows were the street’s only illumination.
I lengthened my strides. Karin had seen Brayden drunk, once, after Alicia had died, and I'd been accused of her murder. But that had been an extreme circumstance. He'd just become a widower in the worst possible way.
I passed an unlit house. Darkness swallowed me, and I hurried forward.
Behind me, something growled.
Hair prickled on my scalp. Slowly, I turned, and froze, unable to move, to scream.
A hairless… thing stood hunched before me. The creature’s arms hung low and ape-like from its broad shoulders, and ended in long, claw-like hands. It was the size of a large man, but there the resemblance to man or beast stopped.
It had no head.
A hysterical laugh bubbled from my chest and caught in my throat. I blinked. It had to have a head. It had growled. The street was dark. I just wasn't seeing things right. The thoughts raced through my head, near instantaneous.
A red gash opened in the center of the thing's chest. A mouth. Long teeth. Two bright spots glinted above its mouth – eyes. They protruded wetly, black and bottomless.
I screamed.
A porch light flashed on in the house beside me.
The creature turned and bounded into a yard. Two strips in its back throbbed like gills.
Doors bammed open. Men raced outside, some carrying rifles. Soon I was surrounded by a small crowd.
“What was it?”
“What did you see?”
“Are you hurt?”
“Just a bear,” I said shakily. “I think I scared it off.”
“Where did it go?” a young trucker, Thomas, asked.
I shook my head. “I didn't see.” I couldn't send them after it, whatever the hell it was.
I looked up the street and clutched my arms to my chest.
No one emerged from Maya's unpainted Victorian.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dazed, I curled on Lenore's soft, ivory sofa and pulled a throw pillow to my chest.
In the wingchair opposite, Karin typed frantically on her computer tablet. Her gray knit scarf slipped from one shoulder of her denim blouse. “I can’t believe you went on your own. Headless fairy… Is this what you saw tonight?” She handed me the tablet, and I shuddered at the pencil drawing.
I nodded and looked away. The drawing couldn’t capture the full awfulness of the thing. Those eyes… “That's it,” I whispered.
“It's called an anthrophage,” Karin said, adjusting the scarf. “It’s a sort of cannibal because it eats humans.”
“It wasn't human.” My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat. “So, it can't be a cannibal.”
“But it is sort of humanoid,” she said. “Anyway, centuries ago, that's how people defined it. Today, it's considered a type of fairy,” she finished, then frowned. “Though they're more associated with Greek myth than Celtic.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, exasperated.
“It's only that our other fairy encounters have had more of a Celtic overtone. I thought it was because Doyle was founded by an Irish miner.”
Lenore drifted into the living room. She sat in the window seat, her ivory silk broom skirt fanning atop the seat’s carpet. Above her, the blue, witch ball glinted, turning slowly. “That may be true,” Lenore said, “but many peoples have lived in the Sierras. The animal spirits I encounter on my shamanic journeys seem to relate more to the legends of the indigenous peoples.”
“So, what's the connection between this thing and Doyle?” Karin asked. “Because there has to be some connection.”
“Cannibalism,” I said, struggling to remember. “Someone was talking about that last week, but…” I snapped my fingers. “A tourist in Ground. He was talking about the Donner Party. You know, the pioneers who got trapped in the Sierras during a bad snowfall and had to resort to cannibalism to survive?”
Lenore arched a blond brow. “Who was this guy?”
“Just a tourist. It was only a coincidence.”
Karin smiled crookedly. “There's nothing “only” about coincidences. But the Donner Party incident happened near Donner Lake. That’s got to be at least a hundred miles away.”
“We’re in the same mountain range,” Lenore said. “As the crow flies, it's not that far.”
“Okay,” Karin braced her head on her fist. She wore gray fingerless gloves with a badger on the back of each hand, and I knew she’d knitted them herself. I suspected there was magical protection in the knit. “We’re near-ish to the site of a horrible, cannibalistic incident. Is that enough to attract something like that?”
Lenore nodded. “Maybe. There's a theory that nature spirits or whatever you want to call them are affected by incidents that occur in their locality. That awful happenings may bend the nature spirits to evil or even create negative entities.”
“How?” Karin asked.
Lenore shrugged. “We are magnets in an iron globe,” she quoted, “we have keys to all doors…The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings, of tension waiting to be struck. That's Emerson.” She frowned. “I can't remember from which of his essays, though.”
“That’s clear as mud,” Karin groused and smoothed the thighs of her white jeans.
“It means,” Lenore said, “we affect the world in all sorts of ways, ways we can’t even imagine.”
“So,” I said, “this thing could have been a good or neutral nature spirit, and the Donner Party incident changed it into an anthrophage?”
Lenore nodded.
“But the Donner party incident occurred in the eighteen hundreds,” Karin said. “Why is it here now? Are you suggesting these murders have created a new anthrophage? Or that they're attracting an existing creature from the Donner area?”
Lenore shifted, her skirt rustling. “Does it matter?”
“It does,” she said hotly, “because what you're suggesting is that this creature hasn't come from Fairy at all.”
“It has to be connected to the fairy door somehow,” I said. “Think about it. Monsters don't appear at every crime scene in the Sierras to eat the evidence. This is happening in Doyle.”
“Then what are we saying?” Karin leaned forward and propped her elbows on her knees. “Did the monster come through Doyle, because Doyle is where the door is, and there was a murder that attracted the beast? Or is Doyle somehow magically… charged by the open door to attract these things from elsewhere?”
“How does your magic work when you’re in Angels Camp?” I asked abruptly.
“My magic?” She sat back in the wingchair, and her chin dipped. “Well, it's fine
. I mean…” Karin trailed off. “I don’t use it as much at home,” she admitted. “It’s caused so many problems. And with Emmie…”
She wasn’t using magic? Irrational anger heated my midsection. She was magic! We all were. “Karin—”
She shook her head. “But we've left the Sierras before and haven’t noticed any difference.”
“Only for short periods,” I said, “except for when we were away in college. And we were still baby witches then, figuring things out. None of us were very good at magic in college.”
Karin’s forehead creased. “You two seemed pretty good to me,” she muttered.
“What are you getting at, Jayce?” Lenore leaned forward on the window seat.
“I don’t know.” I lifted my hands helplessly, let them fall. “Just… trying to figure things out.”
“I didn't really come into my own until I returned to Doyle,” Lenore said. “I assumed it was because Aunt Ellen was here, teaching us.”
“I don’t see what our magic has to do with this… anthrophage,” Karin said. “We didn’t bring it here.”
Lenore and I glanced at each other.
“What?” Karin asked. “What?”
“Well,” Lenore said, “you did summon a vampire last year.”
Karin jolted forward in her wingchair. “I did not! It was a thought form, not a summoning.”
Potato, potahto. “It ate a cat,” I said.
Crimson flushed Karin’s cheeks. “We do not know what happened to Sir Francis.”
Lenore sighed. “The point—”
“The point is that I was thinking,” Karin said, “obsessing over my fictional vampire. That’s how I accidentally created it. I didn’t even know these anthro-things existed until five minutes ago!”
I carefully did not look at Lenore. Karin’s magic had always been unstable. And powerful. Who knows what repercussions her trip to Fairy might have had?
Karin’s nostrils flared. “Whether the anthrophage came through the door or was attracted to Doyle because Doyle is just… more magical, doesn't get us closer to figuring out how to get rid of it.” She shifted in her chair to look at me. “What spell did you use to drive it off tonight?”
I plucked at a loose thread on the sofa. My face heated. “Uh… I screamed.”
“You screamed a spell?” Karin asked.
“No. It was only a scream.” I folded my arms. “Like, aaaaaah…” I trailed off.
Karin rolled her eyes.
“Hey,” I said, “you see how well you do when you run into a monster with its head in its chest. That's just not normal.”
“And it just ran away?” Lenore asked, skeptical.
Abashed, I lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Not exactly. Then a bunch of lights in the nearby houses came on, and then it ran away.”
“So, we were right,” Lenore murmured. “It's a scavenger, not a predator.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I wouldn't want to take the chance of being alone with it again.”
“Well, no,” Lenore said. “Even scavengers will attack prey that looks weak.”
“Thanks!” I said.
“You know what I mean,” she said apologetically.
“There's something else.” I grabbed my discarded down vest off the arm of the couch and pulled the amethyst shards from its pocket. “When I was tracking the anthrophage with my pendulum, this happened.”
Lenore peered at the broken stone. “The anthrophage didn't do that.”
“It felt like there was another energy at work, like it was fighting my spell. I think the crystal couldn't take the two of us pushing it in opposite directions, magically, I mean.” Had the anthrophage caused the break or someone else? Or had I imagined the whole thing? Uncertain, I stared past Lenore’s shoulder at the black windows. My sister’s slender form wavered in the glass.
“Another energy? You mean, another person’s?” Lenore's pale brows rose.
“What if the killer’s been using the anthrophage?” Karin said slowly. “We know Alex, Candace, and David were shot, and the anthrophage came afterward to, um, wreck the crime scene.”
“You mean eat them,” I said.
“Maybe the anthrophage is here to destroy the evidence?” she continued.
“If that's the case,” I said, “the killer isn’t doing a very good job. The police figured out pretty quickly the real cause of death.”
“Besides,” Lenore said, “that would imply the killer is a magic user, a witch like us.”
I thought of Wharton and his crows, and a chill rippled my flesh.
“One who could interfere with Jayce’s spell,” Karin said. “It’s not such a crazy idea.”
“Or,” Lenore said, “there is no other witch involved, and the anthrophage is attracted to the blood and violence. It could be a scavenger that has nothing to do with the killer.”
I lifted my brows. “Then who interfered with my spell? And this isn’t the first time our magic has been messed with. Remember, Karin, when the trail just seemed to disappear?”
“That was… strange,” Karin said. “I'd thought whatever we were tracking had slipped through a doorway to Fairy, and that was why we'd lost the trail. But… This is getting too complicated. Whatever brought that thing to Doyle, we need to get rid of it before someone else gets hurt. We need to do more research. We don't know that the anthrophage doesn't have the powers to block your spell.”
“No, I guess not.” I glanced again toward the window, a black mirror against the night. The anthrophage had looked at me like a wild animal considering its prey. There hadn't been much intelligence in its gaze – only hunger.
“What do we know about the murders?” Karin asked. “Anything new?”
Lenore shook her head, her blond hair rippling over the shoulders of her bone-colored sweater.
“I wish we knew what was in those letters,” I said. “Candace said she didn’t read them, but I’m not sure I believed her. Maybe she was killed because she knew what was going on?”
A branch scraped against the window, and I glanced in that direction.
“It would make sense,” Lenore said, “that Alex's wife would have inside information.”
“Who benefits?” Karin asked.
“Normally, I'd say the spouse,” I said, “but Candace is dead too. They don't have any kids. I don't know who their money goes to. And David… I don't think he left anything for his sister, Angela, to inherit.”
“Any other conflicts?” Karin asked.
“Angela's neighbor told me she fought with her brother a lot, but… He's a Returned.” I winced at my thoughtlessness. Did Karin think of herself as a Returned? We’d never really spoken of it, and inside, I writhed with shame. I should have listened to her sooner.
We fell silent.
Karin opened her mouth to speak, and looked away, saying nothing.
But the other Returned were more complicated than Karin. Most of their relatives had thought them dead. And when they'd come back, some hadn't aged at all. Joy at the reunions had been mixed with confusion, then suspicion.
We’d gotten Karin back in a short week. But I hadn’t been very supportive afterward. I hadn’t believed her story.
I gripped the throw pillow to my chest. “And then there's Brayden. Terry came to see me. She said he's not acting like himself. And when I saw him at Maya's tonight, he was staggering like a drunk.”
My sisters glanced at each other, their expressions pitying.
“This isn't about getting him back,” I said hotly. Okay, it was, sort of. But something was wrong with Brayden.
“He does tend to turn to alcohol when things go wrong,” Karin said in a soft voice.
My hands curled. “Only that one time! And who can blame him for not being at his personal best after his wife was murdered?”
“If he's behaving oddly,” Lenore said, “you're not suggesting it's connected to the murders? Does Brayden h
ave a connection to the victims?”
“Of course not!” I didn’t meet their eyes. Did Brayden have some connection? He knew everyone in Doyle, and Alex and Candace had been closer in age to him than to me. They could have gone to school together for all I knew. And Brayden had wrestled in high school.
“Oh, no.” I leapt from the couch and snatched the computer tablet from Karin's hands.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“High school wrestling.” The local paper dutifully followed all the local teams. Since we didn't have a nearby college, that meant high school athletes. I searched for Brayden Duarte Wrestling in the paper's archive section.
A photo popped onto the screen – the wrestling team in shorts and tanks and protective hats with chin straps. Nausea twisted my throat. Alex Mansfield, David Senator, Wharton Van Goethe, Eclectus Hood… And Brayden Duarte.
“What is it?” Karin asked, rising.
“They were on the same team,” I whispered. “All of them. With Brayden.” Why hadn't he said anything to me? He’d never even mentioned wrestling.
“It might not mean anything,” Lenore said. “It's a small town. Everyone's connected to everyone if you look hard enough.”
“Maybe…” Karin tapped her thumb on her bottom lip. “Maybe the deaths of people Brayden knew are bringing back memories of Alicia's death. Maybe that’s why he’s behaving so oddly. Especially with Terry here, he must be dealing with a lot of tough emotions.”
“Brayden's not like that.” I pursed my lips. “He's strong.”
“But he's not really one for expressing his emotions, is he?” Karin persisted.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, frustrated.
Karin raked a hand through her auburn hair. “It just seems that people who have difficulty expressing themselves are more likely to implode when things get bad.”
“He's not imploding!”
“You said he was drunk,” Karin said.
“I said he looked drunk.”
My sisters shared another look.
I knew what they were thinking. Maybe Brayden wasn't imploding just because of bad memories. What if he was closer to the murders than he wanted to admit? It would explain why he'd pushed me away, I thought bitterly. He'd do that to protect me, the same way he'd kept his distance after his wife had died.
Witch Page 16
