“Yes, I just made it. My sister—I didn’t even tell you her name, did I? It’s Tally. Tally’s in surgery. She should be out of the operating room in about half an hour. I’m waiting with my mother. My father had to go home to get my younger brother situated.”
“I didn’t even ask about your family before this. I had no clue they lived up here,” I said, feeling remiss.
“We haven’t had much of a chance to discuss things like that. I have a little brother named Darryn, who’s…well…he’s the equivalent of being in his early twenties. And Tally would clock in around thirty-five, if she were human.” He paused, then added, “I miss you. I hate that I had to run off like that.”
“I miss you too,” I said, realizing that I did. “But Killian, I understand. She’s your sister and she’s in trouble.” Hesitant to ask, I finally decided to just come out with it. “How bad off is she?”
“Pretty rough. She’s…between serious and critical condition. I’ll probably stay here for a few days until we know what’s the verdict is. My mother’s a wreck and my father’s not far off from it. Tally almost died when she was a baby, so they’ve already almost lost her once. And she was on her way over to their house—she doesn’t live far and decided a run in the snow would be fun. So they’re blaming themselves even though it’s not their fault.”
“That’s hard,” I said. “Guilt has a way of settling in where it doesn’t belong. Keep me informed. Oh, is there anything at your house that you need me to take care of? I could…oh, I don’t have a key,” I added. “I can pick up your mail, though.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. I’ll call you after she’s out of surgery to give you an update.” He made kissing noises and then signed off.
I stared at my phone, then stretched and looked around. The house felt very quiet all of a sudden, but then Xi came streaking through the living room, followed by Klaus, and I broke out laughing as the feeling of sudden isolation vanished. Now, my house really felt like a home. Whistling, I headed in the kitchen to make myself some dinner, and then I planned to curl up with a holiday movie, with two kittens to keep me company.
Chapter Twenty
Killian ended up spending the weekend with his folks. His sister made it through surgery, but she was still in serious condition and it wasn’t until Sunday night that she started to come around. The cats and I got used to each other and while Xi didn’t speak directly to me again, I could feel her awareness growing. I, on the other hand, ended up being run ragged. I had forgotten how much work kittens were, but I was enjoying almost every minute of it, even when Klaus climbed the living room drapes and got himself stuck, mewing at the top of his lungs.
Neither one seemed interested in the tree. It dawned on me that, since it was an artificial tree and had no real scent, maybe they thought it was just furniture.
Still worried about leaving them alone while I was at work, I fixed up the guest bedroom so it would be kitten-safe and tucked them, their litter box, and food and water in there and shut the door. I turned on a radio for them—classical music—and headed off for work.
As I hustled into the Conjure Ink office on Monday morning, it felt like I had always worked here, like I had never left Moonshadow Bay.
“Hey,” I said, hanging my coat on the coat rack. “It’s snowing up a storm out there. And I have two kittens!”
Tad snorted. He and Hank both looked back to full health, though I had the feeling neither would forget their experience anytime soon. But even with the snort, they all gathered around so I could show them the multitudes of pictures I had taken on my phone.
“Good for you,” Caitlin said. “They’re lovely and I’d like to come see them soon, if you don’t mind.”
“Maybe we can all have dinner at my place Thursday evening? You’re all invited.” It was the first time I had felt comfortable inviting coworkers home. At the magazine, most of the employees we hired were just as snobbish as Ellison, and while I had hosted an infinite number of cultured affairs, none of them had been memorable or even comfortable.
My phone rang. I stared at the caller ID. Val Slater. During the day? Really?
“Hello?” I answered, expecting to hear his buttery-smooth voice.
Instead, a woman was on the other end. “Am I speaking to January Jaxson?”
“You are. Who am I speaking to?”
“My name is Linda Carson. I’m Mr. Slater’s secretary. He asked me to inform you that demolition is set for ten a.m. tomorrow, and you and the staff of Conjure Ink are cordially invited to witness the process. Mr. Slater would very much like it if you were there, Ms. Jaxson. He specifically asked me to convey the request. Unfortunately, he won’t be able to make it, given it’s daylight.”
Her tone told me it wasn’t a request, but a command.
“May I call you back in a few moments?”
“Of course. You can reach me at this return number.” She hung up.
I stared at my phone. “Guys, we need to… Oh, I didn’t tell you.”
“Didn’t tell us what?” Tad asked.
I inhaled a sharp breath, then let it out slowly. “Rowan found someone to buy the land. She called in a major favor. Her…friend…bought the land over the weekend for all cash, and tomorrow morning he’s taking down the old asylum. He wants us to attend. Then he’ll have the entire lot fenced with chain link. That’s the best we can muster, but it will work.”
“Who on earth did she find to agree to that? How can he afford it?” Tad asked, staring at me.
I steeled myself. “His name is Val Slater. Ring any bells?”
Tad’s incredulous look slid away and he stiffened. “Are you talking about the vampire?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I am. He bought the land this weekend.”
Hank blinked. “Are you talking about the Val Slater? The owner of the Mayhem? The biggest underground nightclub in Bellingham? The Val Slater who also happens to be the leader of the Northwest Vampire Collective?”
Apparently, I’d been hiding under a rock. “I’ve never heard of either one of those.”
“The Northwest Vampire Collective is an organization that, on the surface, is working toward promoting vampire rights in society. And they are making some inroads. Behind the scenes, it’s a tightly run political association. I happen to know that they’ve got Lynda Keiser—Bellingham’s mayor—in their pocket. They’re not above raising hell when they don’t get their way. A few murders and disappearances have been linked to them, though there hasn’t been any actual proof.” Tad shook his head. “Getting mixed up with Val Slater is a bad idea. I don’t know what Rowan was thinking.”
“Well, we can’t back out now. The deal went through, and he’s tearing down the asylum tomorrow. I wondered if he might have an ulterior motive, but you did say for me to do what I thought best, and since Rowan was so gung-ho about it…” I had the sudden feeling that maybe I had really fucked up. Had I let Rowan talk me into something that I was going to regret?
“No, you’re right,” Tad said. “You haven’t lived in Moonshadow Bay for years. You don’t know about a lot of the politics that are in play now. This is my fault.”
“She said something else,” I said. “Rowan mentioned that she’s part of a secret coven that protects the town.”
“The Crystal Cauldron,” Hank said. “It’s not so secret.”
“Right, that’s it. Anyway, she said that the Covenant of Chaos—the organization that founded Stellarview—is on the rise again, and that they’re looking to stir up trouble. Is that something we should be worried about?”
Caitlin pursed her lips. “I wondered how many of those magicians were still around.”
“How much should I trust Rowan?” I asked.
“I think Rowan really does care about the town,” Tad said, mulling over my question. “And she is part of the Crystal Cauldron. But I question whether she threw you under the bus with Val just to avoid having to dig deep and do real work to neutralize the land elemental. Did you promise h
im anything?
“No, but she told me he’s fascinated with me now.”
“That’s not good,” Tad said.
I sighed, leaning back in my chair. “Now that Val owns the land, there’s nothing we can do. I’ll go watch the demolition tomorrow. I feel like at least one of us should be there, if only to observe what effect it has on the energy of the land.”
“We’ll all go,” Tad said. “I’m not letting you out there alone. Not this time.”
After I called Val’s secretary back, we went back to talking about my cats.
That night, I arrived home five minutes before Killian called me. He’d been in touch every day, and I was surprised how much we had to talk about. He was opening up, telling me more about his life in California, and about his family. As for me, I found him easy to talk to.
I put the phone on speaker while I began to make a roux for the alfredo sauce. Ari was coming to dinner and I had decided to make fettuccini alfredo. I whisked the butter as it melted, then sprinkled in flour and whisked again. “So how is Tally doing?”
“She’s out of danger now, and if all goes well, she’ll be moved out of intensive care into a private room tomorrow. I’ll be home tomorrow evening. I just wanted to make sure my folks were handling this okay. But I have to get back to setting up my business, now that she’s out of danger.” He paused, then said, “My mother says hello. She wants to meet you sometime soon.”
Startled, I pulled the pan off the burner, grateful we weren’t video-chatting. I didn’t want him to see the terror that washed over my face. I had already endured a horrible set of in-laws. The idea of meeting my boyfriend’s parents before we had even slept together scared the fuck out of me.
“Okay. Tell her hi for me.” My heart was racing. I hadn’t even expected him to tell them about me at this point. I slowly replaced the pan on the burner and began to add the cream, whisking briskly. Then I sprinkled in the grated parmesan, added some cracked black pepper, a little dill, and pink Himalayan salt. I wasn’t fond of garlic in white sauce, so left it out and instead, added a little crumbled feta.
As I drained the fettuccine, Killian said good-bye. Five minutes later, as I was stirring the pasta into the sauce, I heard the front door open.
“Hey, are you home?” Ari called from the living room.
“In the kitchen!”
She popped in. “Yum, that smells good,” she said, eyeing the cream sauce. “I’m starved. I brought wine.” She held up a bottle of merlot.
I dished up the pasta and added a cucumber tomato salad to the table, then settled into my chair. “It’s been a day,” I said.
“You can say that again,” Ari said, looking morose.
“What’s wrong?” I handed her the salad.
“I fucked up. I really screwed up. Do you remember Muffy Flannigan?”
I nodded. Muffy had been a popular name among the yuppie set at one time. While the name was out of fashion, the attitude wasn’t. Muffy Flannigan was at the top of the social pecking order in Moonshadow Bay. “Yeah, why?”
“Because…I did her hair today. She told me her regular hair dresser was out of town and she’s got some big event, so she came to me. And it did not go well.” Ari shook her head, staring at her plate.
“How so? You’re brilliant at what you do.” I frowned, adding some more salt to my pasta.
“She wanted to go blond. She had dyed black hair that was already damaged. I warned her that’s not recommended and going for it could fuck up her hair, but she insisted. I should have just refused to do it, but she was making a scene and threatening to ruin my reputation if I refused to help her, and finally, I just did it to shut her up.”
I could see the road this was taking, and the street sign read Disaster. “Okay…what happened?”
“I’m not sure what she did to it before, but we had to do two rounds of bleach, and on the second round, some of her hair fell out. It just melted right off, leaving a big bald patch. That was when she told me she had it permed a month ago and didn’t like it, so she used a hair straightener at home. Her hair was so fragile, the bleach melted it.” She groaned, twirling pasta around her fork.
“Uh oh. I dread the answer, but what did she do?”
“She freaked out and didn’t even let me rinse it out of her hair before storming off. She threatened to ruin my reputation. I decided to see if her regular stylist—I know who it is—was around and sure enough, he’s not on vacation. I told him what happened. Apparently she asked him to do the bleach job, but he refused because he knew how fragile her hair was. He’s the one who did the perm. He told me that he realized she had tried to straighten it. He promised to tell people it wasn’t my fault, but that doesn’t negate the fact that she now has it in for me.”
Muffy Flannigan could do a lot of damage with that nasty mouth of hers. “Can you put a binding spell on her?”
“I thought about it, but I’m too upset.”
I licked a spot of sauce off the corner of my lip. “Do it. You need to.”
Binding spells were preventative spellwork. They prevented people who were out to harm you—in one way or another—from doing so. It didn’t negate the need for mundane action, but it was a powerful amplifier.
“I guess there’s no choice. But what will I do if Muffy finds out?”
“If Muffy finds out, she can take a flying leap. She’s already threatened your livelihood, blaming her own mistake on you. You might as well do what you can to keep the rumors from spreading.”
“I guess you’re right,” Ari said, wiping her mouth. “The pasta’s good. So what are you up to?”
I told her about Val Slater and the asylum, filling her in on everything that had happened over the past day or so.
“Vampires… I knew they were here in Moonshadow Bay.” Ari shook her head. “Be careful, please. They’re so unpredictable.”
“Trust me, I know that,” I said.
We finished up the evening by sitting in the dark with just the tree lights turned on, watching an old movie, and savoring a glass out of my father’s best port—it was fifty years old and thick as honey.
After Ari went home, I was about to go to bed when something drew me into the library. It wasn’t just an office. The library was where my mother had performed a number of her spells.
I knelt by the chest she had kept most of her ritual gear in.
Hand carved of cedar, the chest was old and smelled like incense. It was the size of a coffee table—about four feet long and three feet high, and it must have weighed a hundred pounds, given the dense wood. It had first belonged to my grandmother, who had given it to my mother.
My grandparents on my mother’s side had moved back to Ireland years ago, when I was a little girl, and I had seen them twice since then. My grandfather had passed, but Granny was still alive and kicking. It occurred to me that I hadn’t heard from her since I talked to her shortly after the funeral and I needed to call her.
I stared into the trunk at the tools. They had been exquisitely crafted for my mother.
I slowly lifted out her athame—the ritual dagger she used to cast circles and in certain spells. It had a grip carved from holly wood, and the blade was long and curved, with a silver pommel and cross guard. It felt heavy in my hand, like it belonged to me. I brushed my fingers over the flat of the blade. My mother had kept it well polished, and it was sharp.
Setting the blade to the side, I lifted out her crystal ball. She had a number of crystals scattered around the house, but this was her private one—the one she used to scry and divine with. It must have weighed fifteen pounds and was about eight inches in diameter. The quartz was filled with fractures, and rainbows sparkled through it. There were other things in her chest, too, but I finally found what I was looking for—a small wooden jewelry box that contained her ritual jewelry. There, on a velvet pad, was a black opal ring and a matching necklace. I slid the necklace over my head and slipped the ring on.
Finally, Esmara whispered. We�
�ve been waiting for you to do this.
“I needed time to process being home. Doing this…claiming my mother’s ritual tools…makes the fact that she’s dead very real,” I said. “I’m taking her place and it feels very odd and…almost disrespectful.”
You’re not taking her place. She’s here with us, watching over you, but until both of you are more settled into your new lives, it’s best she doesn’t speak to you. Think of it as a training program for both of you. Now, take these things and create an altar.
I frowned, looking around. This seemed the logical place to put together an altar. Besides the built-in bookshelves and desks for both my father and mother, there was a loveseat in the library, and behind that loveseat, a console table that was the perfect size for an altar.
I cleared it off and moved it to the center of the room.
My mother’s trunk also held a black altar cloth, decorated with silver stars, a Waterford goblet, and several decks of tarot cards. There were other things in the chest, but they weren’t meant for display. I found her sage spray—my mother had been allergic to smoke, so she cleansed with charmed water instead. I sprayed around the table, then misted myself. The magical water immediately calmed me down.
Spreading the altar cloth on the table, I then positioned the dagger and the crystal ball on it, and stood back. It looked right, but I needed candles, and there were other tools I felt should go there.
“I suppose I’ll figure that out in time,” I said, waiting for Esmara to say something. But she kept quiet, and so I repacked everything else in the trunk and, carrying the cleanse-spray, headed into the kitchen to turn on the dishwasher. Tired and feeling a little at loose ends, I collected the kittens from the powder room, then headed upstairs. Xi and Klaus immediately claimed the bed as theirs. As they curled up by my feet, I drifted into a vaguely troubled sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Next morning I once again locked the kittens in the spare bedroom and headed off for work. Demolition on the asylum was set for ten a.m., so I fortified myself with a sausage cheese muffin and a quad mocha on the way to the office. When I arrived, Hank was poring over something on one of the monitors.
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