He’d mentioned something like this before at Gran’s house. Still, I gagged at the thought of sullying coffee that way.
“So, he takes a packet of blood from his freezer every morning. Drops it in the coffee. For all we know, that tainted packet could’ve been sitting there quite some time before he picked it up. But I don’t think so. The timing seems too perfect to be a coincidence—right when Cyrus was making his transition. They had to know each other’s habits.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he didn’t do it.”
Dave looked at me skeptically. I couldn’t blame him, after the evidence he’d laid out. However speculative it was, it did seem like he was on the right track. Except my instincts told me to look elsewhere.
“Do I really need to ask you to elaborate?”
“No,” I said, still racking my brain for what my intuition, or my witchy instincts, were trying to tell me. “I was so mad. I forgot about something Jade said to me when I was fired.”
Dave looked interested.
“She said something about blood.”
“What about blood?”
“Nothing, really. She shut down after she said it. It was almost like that possum guy in the woods. Maybe she knows something. Or she knew about the blood and told someone else.”
“Maybe.” Dave said, then he perked up. “Do you have anywhere you need to be tonight?”
“Besides bed?”
He smiled. “So, no?”
I nodded, but I didn’t know where he was going with this. “I’m going to give Jade a call and have her come in. She’ll put up a fight regardless, but we’ll get her down here tonight and have it out. I’d like you to sit in. When is the witching hour? Midnight?”
I nodded.
Dave gestured at the two-way mirror. “Maybe your magic can be of some assistance. I’d like to try and unlock her secrets. That podcast of hers has me anxious. I think you’re right—she does know something. What do you say?”
There was no way I’d say no. I was as curious as anyone to find out what Jade knew about Mr. Caulfield and blood. I only hoped I could help, either make a case against Cyrus, or against whoever the real killer was if it wasn’t him. In my mind it wasn’t.
It took Jade the better part of an hour to arrive. I sipped tea, not coffee, and sat on the other side of the glass watching her fidget uncomfortably. This was probably what it felt like before she fired me. But I was taking no pleasure from it. I felt bad for her.
“I’ve been listening to your podcast,” Dave started.
Jade brightened, then her face went white and she sunk lower into her seat.
“You didn’t listen to episode eight, did you?” she asked nervously.
On my phone, I looked up the details. Werewolves.
“I think I missed that one,” Dave replied. “Want to give me a recap?”
“No.”
“Too bad.” He smiled, probably because he had a good idea what it was about. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Isn’t that why I’m here?” she said sarcastically. “To answer your questions?”
“Fair enough.” He smiled. “I’m wondering if your show is real or faked.”
“You know it’s not real,” she lied, trying and failing to hide a smile.
“Yes, I know it’s not real,” Dave said. “But what about you—do you believe it? I’m just asking.”
Jade shrugged. “I believe there’s some truth in most stories. Fairytale or not.”
“And Summer?” Dave asked.
“She believes it.”
Dave nodded. “Are the episodes her ideas or yours? What’s your input?”
“I hardly see how this has anything to do with—”
“I’m just curious.”
“They started out with her ideas,” Jade said.
“And now?”
“Well, we’ve been getting these letters. Anonymous tips. Stories too. It’s how we knew to go the vineyard that night when, uh, that guy Cyrus played that joke on us.”
“I’m guessing you already know he’s in lockup.”
Jade nodded. “Summer told me. She has a police scanner.”
“I’m going to need to see these letters,” Dave told her. “My guess is, Mr. Tadros in there started this elaborate hoax to boost his business—and possibly to give him an alibi for the murder.”
He looked at the mirror, then at Jade. I wasn’t sure if that was my cue or not.
“Can you tell me what you know about blood?”
“What blood?”
“I know you know something about the blood.” He looked at the mirror again. It was my cue. “It’d be easier if you just told me. On the podcast, you’re the one who knew about the Bloodsucker—as you referred to Eric Caulfield.”
“I don’t know anything about blood,” Jade said. To me, she looked truthful. “It was a joke. He had pale skin, hardly slept, and never wanted to touch garlic.”
I didn’t think there was anything I could do to force Jade into telling us more than she wanted to.
She said blood when we were in her office. And at the same time, my fingers grew hot. I tried to will them to do it now.
Be magical.
“You’re sure you don’t know anything about blood?”
“I know nothing about blood,” she spat.
But that wasn’t true. I looked at my hands.
“Tell us what you know,” I said under my breath. “Crap, my fingers are starting to glow.”
It was a terrible rhyme. Not meant to be a spell.
Two things happened at once. My pants, where my fingertips were, started to smoke. And Jade’s face went slack.
She started to talk. I tried to listen, but I had to put my jeans out where they were burning.
“I was a medic in the Army.” Jade spoke in monotone. “Five years ago. Another lifetime. I told Mr. Caulfield about it.”
“Jade?” Dave snapped his fingers in front of her face. She continued her story, oblivious.
“One day he asked for my help. There’s a blood bank in his basement. I took blood from anyone strapped to the gurney down there. They were never awake. No one else was home. Mr. Caulfield used to laugh and say it was our little secret. Then he’d snap his fingers three times.”
Right at the tip of her nose, Dave snapped his fingers three times. Jade came out of her stupor, just as she must have when Mr. Caulfield was done with her. He used her.
That’s what he’d wanted her for that night—only he didn’t have enough time to put her in a trance.
“Thanks,” Dave said.
“Thanks for what?”
“For your time tonight. I’ll let you get back home.”
He ushered her out and returned a few minutes later, leaning in the doorway. I could tell his thoughts were a million miles away.
“So, Nell drops the animals off at his place. Jade takes some blood. Pretty good system.”
“Why not do it himself though? Why risk it?”
“You have instincts, right?”
“Obviously.”
“No, I mean being a witch. I’m guessing that was you who put her into that state.”
“A happy accident.” I indicated my pants. My thighs were showing though several burn holes close to the pockets.
“What I’m trying to say is if his vampire instincts were anything like mine when I’m a wolf… well, let’s just say that being cooped up in tight quarters with blood being drained—I can’t imagine it’s easy.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t picture Dave as a wolf.
“I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me tonight.” Dave showed me out.
I wasn’t in trouble with him anymore. He’d managed to weasel out of trouble with me too.
“Would you mind doing me a favor?” he asked.
“Anything,” I said without thinking.
He smiled that thick-mustached smile I’d grown accustomed to. “Well, I was going to ask you not to butt in anymore—and to get better control of your magic. Then y
ou said anything, and well, that gives me an idea.”
“Yeah?”
“You know Midsummer Festival is tomorrow night. Technically, I have to work it. But the girls really seemed to like you. Serious, they’ve talked about you. Would you mind watching them for me?”
“Like babysitting?” This was not where I’d hoped the conversation was going.
“Kind of.” He looked embarrassed. “I was thinking more like a date. Except I’ll be in my uniform, which some girls kind of like, by the way.”
“Some girls,” I said.
“I’ll have to work if the crowd gets unruly.”
“Does it ever get unruly?”
“Never in the thirty-odd years I’ve been going has it ever got unruly.”
“It sounds like a date,” I said.
And that was exactly how I planned on treating it.
28
The Midsummer Festival
Outside, the air was a touch cooler even though it was officially summer. The humidity was high. Clouds had moved in, threatening to rain out the event.
I’d never seen anything quite like the set up on Main Street. The normally deserted street was filled with people and lit with Edison style strung in crisscrossing diagonals over the street.
Tiny booths lined each sidewalk from the courthouse down to Bewitched Books and beyond. There was a different carnival game in each. In the street, bounce houses and inflatable slides were crawling with kids.
Dave bought each of his girls big strings of tickets, and we strolled down the street, the girls partaking in anything and everything.
For a while, Kacie didn’t want to come out of a bounce house. Then Elsie said she was hungry, which meant she wanted to eat candy. All three wanted popcorn. Dave bought us a funnel cake to share.
“There’s only a few nights a year this place seems like a nice place to live,” he said to me. “This is one of ’em, don’t you agree?”
“It’s nice,” I nodded. “But Gran and Trish didn’t seem to think so. I invited both of them to come out.”
“On our date?” he asked, abashed.
“On our babysitting date,” I teased him. “I thought they could use the fresh air. Especially Gran.”
“And here I was going to say especially Trish.” He laughed. “I’m glad you two are getting on so well. It’s never fun being the new person in town.”
“Oh, so you know my pain, do you?”
He didn’t seem like the type of person who ever left town. If he had, it wasn’t for long.
“I don’t.” He shook his head. “But when I was a kid, I always thought it’d be cool to be an Army brat. See the world. It feels like I’ve been stuck here my whole life.”
“If you don’t like it, why do you still live here?”
His mouth twitched at the edge of his mustache. “The same reason people everywhere stay put. It’s where I grew up. It’s where my sister lives. It’s where our parents grew up. Where I met my wife and where she grew up.”
“Right,” I said, unable to come up with anything to follow that.
I followed Dave and the girls up and down the street until their bellies were full of candy and their legs were tired and aching. Kacie asked me to pick her up. Dave carried Elsie on his shoulders.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Dave said, motioning up the street. “That pesky sister I was talking about.”
A dark-eyed brunette woman struggling to keep up with two boys gave me a look, then she gave Dave one, her eyebrows dancing suggestively.
What is it with this family and their facial expressions? I wondered.
“Is this Constance?” she asked him.
“In the flesh,” Dave said. “And Constance, this is my sister Imogene and her two boys, Batman and Superman.”
“That’s not our names, Uncle Dave.”
“Oh, sorry.” He smiled. “I meant Shaggy and Scooby.”
“Wrong again,” the other boy said.
“This is Ron and Neville,” Imogene corrected. And it wasn’t a joke.
Another Potterhead.
“Can we go home?” Allie asked her dad.
Dave checked his watch. “There’s still an hour and a half left. We didn’t pace ourselves, did we, girls?”
“I can take them,” Imogene offered. “We were just headed to the van.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all.” Imogene winked. “It’ll give you two some time alone.”
“Gross,” one of the boys—Neville, I thought—said. Imogene stepped on his toe.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Dave asked her again. “It’s not one of your nights.”
“Go,” she said. “Before I change my mind.”
Imogene took the tired Kacie from me while Dave let Elsie down from his shoulders. She was less tired now, eager to play with her two cousins.
“Imogene takes care of the girls on the nights, and the days, I’m at work. She’s a great big sister.”
“Oh,” I said, a bit surprised, “you’re the little brother?”
“Is that bad?”
“Aren’t little brothers always spoiled?” I asked him.
“Oh, I think I’d be spoiled regardless. I know I have been—spoiled in life and love. I mean just look at those girls of mine. I hit the jackpot.”
We saw them off, then strolled the midway again. Dave kept one eye out for trouble. But like he said before, there wasn’t much going on. The crowd thinned out when most of the children went home to bed.
If one eye was on the crowd, the other was free. I caught it staring down at the hand on my side. The hand I didn’t slide into my pocket—just in case.
Almost an hour passed, and we still had a big handful of tickets left.
Neither of us wanted to play in the bounce house. The thought of more food made me want to throw up. Even the smell of cotton candy was sickening.
The vintage lights flickered above our heads, and I was sure that must mean the festival was coming to a close.
“Last call,” I said.
“There’s no drinking on Main Street.” Dave said. “Why do you say last call, are your legs tired?”
“No,” I pointed, “the lights—you didn’t see them blink?”
A strange feeling pricked the hairs on my neck when I remembered what had happened before the attempted robbery at the grocery store.
“Dave,” I said, “did you ever catch that guy with the M&Ms?”
“No. I never got a good look at his face. Why, you think we should be worried about the candy here?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “No.” I shook my head. “Just a feeling.”
“What kind of feeling?”
My answer was interrupted by a scream down the street.
We both turned to see what the matter was but couldn’t get a good look. A throng of people began hurrying in our direction. Some were barely jogging, unsure what was wrong, others were full on sprinting.
Their faces worried me most. The sprinters were scared out of their minds, looking like the doomed survivors in a zombie apocalypse movie.
“What’s going on?” I tried to ask one of them.
I wanted to run with them. But Dave’s instincts drove him against the wave of people. I went after him. And finally, I caught a glimpse of what had to be the problem.
Only my mind couldn’t quite make sense of what was happening.
It was Trish. In the air about ten feet off the ground. She was on a broom—the old broom from the back of her store.
But why? Is she trying to out us to the world just like Summer wanted?
I was angry. Not only was she causing a stampede, she told me she’d never flown before. This seemed like a bad time to start.
With her hand over her brow scouring the crowd, she found me, then zoomed toward ud. This wasn’t her first time on a broom, of that I was sure. She landed like a jet on an aircraft carrier, too fast. With no arresting cable, I had to stop her with
my body. We collided and fell together to the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“I came to find you,” she said. “Don’t worry, your Gran’s okay… I think.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Something’s happening,” she said. “Something bad.”
I wanted to scream at her. But then I saw ir. The clouds parted in the sky and the moon wasn’t the moon it was supposed to be.
It was big and pale and round. Completely round.
That was all wrong. It had been a full moon last week when I’d waited for Dave’s call.
Ahead of us, he turned. The expression on his face went from concerned to shock. And his eyes were wrong, a deep yellow. Then his nose grew before our eyes.
Movies couldn’t prepare me for this. He turned into a monster. Shoulders grew and his arms swung down to the road. There was so much hair. And teeth. Lots of teeth.
I would’ve screamed if there wasn’t so much going on already.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Trish yelled. “Something’s wrong. It’s not supposed to be a full moon for weeks. We just had one.”
Dave howled, then tore away from us.
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“I think so. It’s everyone else I’m worried about.”
The chaos was spreading. Dave wasn’t the only werewolf. There were other shifters too—foxes and goats and skunks, and other I’d never seen or heard of.
Those shifters weren’t who we had to worry about. It was the people. The screaming, stampeding people.
“What should we do?” I asked Trish. “Where’s Gran?”
“Your raccoon said she and Stevie went to the graveyard to sort out the moon. He told me to find you.”
“What’s he doing?”
She shrugged. “He’s with Twinkie. They’re probably doing more than we are right now.”
“If only there was something we could do to make it all…”
“To make it all what?”
“To make it… Stop it! All of you!”
There was a womp like a shockwave through the air. The magic left my body suddenly and with force, leaving Trish and me standing in the middle of a crowd of petrified people.
“That’s one way to do it,” Trish said, astonished. We both walked around their still forms, some running, some yelling, some doing both. A group of teenagers were huddled inside one of the booths. Others had tried to climb up the remains of the courthouse.
Midlife Curses Page 17