by M. L. Briers
Magic and witches; it wasn’t something he was comfortable with. Now more than ever, he’d have preferred to be on the outside looking in, and protecting the exterior from whatever might be prowling around outside – and just as a low muttered chant started to emanate from the room – he caught sight of what he thought was movement outside the hall window.
Now he really was caught between a rock and a hard place – did he stay inside and protect the witches from anything that might happen with the possessed vampire, or did he go outside and find out what possible danger might be lurking there waiting to do them harm?
Cain’s beast knew which one suited him best, but he wasn’t relying on his wolf to make this decision. It was all on him, and one wrong choice could be a big mistake.
~
The witches stood in a circle around Neal; between them was a circle of salt that had been spelled by the elders for protection against both the vampire and the ghost.
If Neal broke free while still under the control of Marsh Weathers then they would need protection from him, and if the ghost was forced out, and they couldn’t force it into the open jar that sat on the ground a few feet away from Neal, then they would need to contain it inside that inner circle for fear it could enter into one of them, or worse still, escape the house and cause untold mischief in the world outside those walls.
The flames of the candles that had been placed around the room, both symbolically and strategically, flickered and danced to the heartbeat of the witches. As the beat of their hearts became perfectly timed, so too the dance of the flames.
Marilyn tried not to stare at Neal; she didn’t want to make eye contact with the man, knowing that the person looking back at her might only have been Marsh Weathers. It was a strange feeling, and it reminded her of how he had once been a soulless beast, praying on his victims, and with no conscience for what he’d done.
That wasn’t the man she knew, and she wanted Neal back. He might have been a thorn in her side, but he was also her friend. She couldn’t write him off, and she couldn’t let his demise become permanent.
Neal had been a lot of things to her over the years, but he’d become her friend, and Marilyn was as loyal to him as she was to her family – but she was also keenly aware that if this didn’t work, then he’d become the biggest danger her family had ever faced.
Marilyn could hear the chant in her soul, felt the words as they left her lips in her heart, and the almost silent sounds of pain that were coming from Neal’s lips felt like she was going through that torture with him.
She shot a look across the circle at Lottie, and the elder could read her like a book. Lottie nodded her encouragement to keep going, and as Amber led them to the next part of the spell, each witch reached out and clasped the hand of the one beside her. The circle was bonded, the magic weaving between them until it became one entity, one pulsing being of light in the darkness of what was starting to twist and turn the vampire on the chair with every wave of the coven’s magic that hit him.
Marilyn couldn’t look away a moment longer, the muted sound of pain called to her, and she turned to see the twisted, hateful face of a man she didn’t recognise as her friend. Her heart leapt and skipped out of time with the others. It forced a momentary break in the spell, and in that instant; the chair that Neal was chained to was thrust back and crashed to the floor.
“Stop – stop – wait – it’s not working!” Marilyn cried out over the chants of the others, but she’d already broken the spell and released Neal from the pain he was going through. Now he lay quietly seething on the floor, glaring at her like he wanted nothing more than to rip her apart with his bare hands.
“Well, not now it isn’t,” Claudia replied. Her heart went out to Marilyn; she’d felt Neal’s pain too, although, she had to admit, probably not as keenly as Marilyn had.
The witches released hands, and Lottie looked to Louann. Marilyn caught the look that passed between them and rallied against it. “No!” she spat out, bringing their attention her way.
Louann answered her daughter’s dismissal of what came next. “It may be that is the only way to protect…”
“No!” Marilyn snapped and started to pace. Thinking always went better with a good pace, but Claudia knew that look as her friend wracked her mind for an answer when there didn’t appear to be one.
“Let’s all just calm down and think logically,” Claudia said. It wasn’t as if anyone was going to act in haste – she hoped, but with Louann, you could never be too careful.
“She’s not thinking with her head,” Louann said, right on time to make Marilyn round on her with a hard glare.
“You have an agenda here,” Marilyn said with a big dollop of accusation in her tone and a look that could kill. “You’ve always wanted him gone, and this would be the perfect opportunity to…”
“Relax,” Louann snapped. “Nobody is going to pull the plug on his life support just yet.” She didn’t like the accusation, even if it had been partially true – she didn’t want the vampire around, but she didn’t want him dead either, or she’d have finished him off ten years ago when she’d had the perfect opportunity.
Louann could see why her daughter felt like that. She’d never explained her thinking to her, and that was mainly because she didn’t want to run the risk that her daughter would choose Neal over her.
There was some sort of bond between them that Louann could neither figure out nor understand, and while she didn’t like it, she had respected it enough to only banish the vampire from his home, and not send him straight to hell.
Perhaps she’d been wrong all those years ago. If she’d made a different choice then, she wouldn’t have to watch Marilyn suffering now. “No good ever came of allowing a vampire into your life, and this is the proof of that,” Louann added.
“Let’s all just take a step back from this for a moment and calm down,” Claudia said, noting the way both mother and daughter had taken a corner of the ring and had come out swinging. She shot a look at Lottie, and the elder looked as if she was in pain, but Claudia knew that look – the woman was desperately trying to figure a way out of this mess.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
~
Nearly two hours had gone by in a haze of magic and desperation, Marilyn’s desperation, but she wouldn’t give up on Neal until every option was tried, tested, and had shown to fail. There wasn’t a witch in the room that wasn’t tired and just a little snarky, even Sandy had snapped at Amber, but of course, she’d immediately apologised.
Marilyn was sure that the others were close to giving up on the vampire, and she couldn’t let that happen, because he wasn’t just a vampire to her; she saw so much more to him than that.
The heavy thud of a knock on the front door was a welcome distraction for most of them, and Cain groaned when they looked at him, but he held up his hand. “I’ve got this,” he assured them.
A heartbeat later and the deep gravelly sound of two men talking reached the room. Lottie immediately perked up. “Well, aren’t you going to invite me in?” Hank demanded from his son.
“I only sent you a text so you would go and check on Scott, not to come running over here,” Cain growled. “And I can’t invite you in; it’s not my damn house.”
“Well,” Lottie announced from the hallway door as she took in the hunk on the doorstep. “It’s not my house either, but I’m inviting you in.”
“There you go, the beautiful lady has invited me in, now get your backside out of my way,” Hank demanded in a lighthearted way that made Cain grumble and step aside, and Lottie’s heart skipped a beat.
Strange, but she felt twenty years younger when Hank was around, and she liked that feeling and wanted to hang onto it as long as possible. They say age is just a number, and Lottie wholeheartedly agreed with that. Some days she was positively brimming with life and energy, and others she felt her years. The magic they had been performing might have taken a lot out of her, but Hank’s arrival had put it all back aga
in, and maybe a little more for good measure.
“We’ll not see much sense out of her for a while,” Louann said, sidling up to Claudia and nodding at the besotted elder.
“We should take a break and regroup, come at this a little fresher and clearer,” Claudia said. “I’ll make coffee and break out the whiskey; a little nip will do us all good.”
Marilyn knew they were right. She felt frazzled to her very soul. She sat at the edge of the salt circle and eyed the vampire. His eyes were closed, and he looked as if he was sleeping. He’d been in so much pain that she’d felt guilty beyond belief and as she lost herself in thought, she was jolted back to reality when his eyelids snapped open, and he stared at her. “Neal?”
“He’s in here,” Marsh said. “I can hear him screaming from the darkest depths of his mind, trying to reach out to you, trying to be heard…”
“You son of a b…” Marilyn pushed up to her knees and was about to break the circle and cross to the inside when the hand on her shoulder stopped her.
“Don’t give him what he wants,” Claudia said. “The one thing that man was good at when he was alive was making you crazy enough to want to kill him.” She paused, and a slow smile grew on her lips. “And look what happened, Marshall, someone finally did the deed.”
The sneer on the vampire’s lips and the hate in his eyes was almost too much for Marilyn to stand. She pushed up and stalked across the room to the window to stare out unseeing into the darkness.
Claudia was by her side a moment later. “That’s the ghost talking, and you can’t trust a ghost. This isn’t your fault; remember who killed the golf guy,” Claudia whispered.
“So, he got what he deserved?” Marilyn asked with an air of disbelief.
Why couldn’t anyone else see the good in Neal that she could? It drove her insane that they were blind to his good-natured side but ready to believe the worst of him.
“I’m not saying that – I say again, this is not your fault,” Claudia said, wrapping her arm around her friend and feeling Marilyn unclench a little as she leant her head on Claudia’s shoulder. “You know if Neal could speak, he’d say better him than you.”
“Wait,” Marilyn said, snapping to attention. “That’s it.”
“What’s it?” Claudia asked, confused.
The smile on Marilyn’s lips and the twinkle in her eyes told her that whatever her friend was planning, she wasn’t going to like it.
“Better me than him,” Marilyn whispered, and shot a look back over her shoulder to where the vampire was laying. “Come on,” she said, and grabbed a handful of Claudia’s dress, as she whirled on her heels and yanked Claudia with her towards the door.
“I don’t think I’m going to like this one little bit,” Claudia grumbled, and as she was dragged by Cain, she tossed a look at the shifter and found him looking right back. “Watch him, Tinkerbelle has a plan.”
“I’m not here at your beck and call,” Cain grumbled, but that look between them lingered, even if Claudia had to twist her head around to keep it going.
“Sure, you are,” she said with a wicked smile. “That’s what happens when a stray follows you home.”
Cain opened his mouth to speak, but Marilyn yanked her into the other room, and out through the backdoor. “I have a plan,” she informed her.
“Well, I didn’t think you were bringing me out here to make out in the treehouse,” Claudia said, feeling the bite of the frosty air and rubbing her naked arms to keep them warm.
“You wish,” Marilyn shot back.
Claudia shook her head. “You’re really not my type.”
“You mean six-foot-odd of furry, growly-ness with a bad boy attitude and muscles like Popeye?”
“He is one sexy hunk of moody, broodiness, but…”
“The point is, I think I might know a way to get the ghost out of Neal,” Marilyn said, cutting her off and bringing the moment back to why they were standing outside in the dark when there was a perfectly good house to stand in and talk.
Claudia shook her head. “The elders will never allow it,” she said.
Marilyn scowled. “Allow what? You haven’t even heard my plan…”
“Do the old switcheroo – get the ghost out of him and into you? Tell me if I’m getting warm.”
“Red hot,” Marilyn said and pressed her lips together. “How did you know?”
“Because I know you, and it’s what I’d do,” Claudia said. “We’re two peas in an odd-shaped pod.”
“It could work.”
“Or you could be stuck with the golf guy in your head, and he’d be in control of your magic…”
“Yes, but,” she replied, and held up her witching finger when Claudia went to interrupt her again. “It would be easier to draw him out of a witch than a vampire.”
“You don’t know that…”
“I think I do,” Marilyn said.
“Fine, I’m listening, tell me how,” Claudia said, and folded her arms.
Marilyn scowled. “You might be listening, but those folded arms tell me you aren’t going to agree with me even if I can come up with a solid platinum plan of action. Two peas in an odd-shaped pod, remember? I know what you’re thinking.”
Claudia unfolded her arms and sighed. “What if I promise to listen to your plan without pre-judging it?”
“You already have prejudged it, but I’m willing to share,” Marilyn informed her.
What choice did she have? She’d need someone on her side when she offered her plan to the elders.
“Meh.” Claudia shrugged. “One person’s pre-judgement is another person’s knowledge of the facts and how stupid they are.”
Marilyn had to pause for thought on that one, but she dismissed it anyway. “Just hear me out.”
“I’m all ears.”
“They are a little on the large side,” Marilyn said with a teasing grin, hoping to get her friend in a good mood before she laid her plan out for her. She didn’t have all the pieces in place yet, but she could fill in the gaps in her logic later.
~
“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life!” Louann exclaimed. She wasn’t having any of Marilyn’s nonsense.
“If only you’d said that to your second husband,” Lottie said, and snatched Louann’s attention from Marilyn as she turned the stink eye on her friend. Lottie raised her eyebrows and waited for the inevitable fallout from her comment.
“You agree with her reasoning?” Louann demanded, and Lottie was surprised, she’d expected to Louann to get her claws into the husband comment first.
“I didn’t say that,” Lottie said, waving an absent hand in the air. “I was just giving Marilyn a little room to breathe before you went in with a hammer and sickle and devoured her whole.”
“And why wouldn’t I? It’s the most stupid idea I’ve ever heard in my life,” Louann bit out.
Louann wasn’t about to risk her daughter’s life on the off chance that things might work out. The vampire had lived long enough already, and she’d tried to do her bit – against her better judgement – to get that ghost out of him, but if it was a tossup between the vampire and her daughter, she’d kill him herself. She turned back to Marilyn. “Have you been drinking?”
“That’s a stupid question,” Claudia muttered. Louann turned to stare at her. “Every hour after lunch is wine-o-clock,” she said in her defence and got a grunt from the elder in return.
Marilyn knew her mother was going to be the tough one to convince. Claudia hadn’t liked the idea either, but her friend would stand beside her if she was adamant that she wanted to give it a try, but her mother had never liked Neal to begin with, so why would she take the risk? “No, mother, I haven’t been drinking – but I might just start,” Marilyn replied.
“It could work,” Lottie said, mulling it over, but she wasn’t sure she liked the odds, and why would they even try it considering what they could lose in the process?
Louann didn’t hold back when she elbo
wed Lottie in the side, and the elder groaned as she bent to the left against the pain. “Are you seriously encouraging her?”
Lottie turned a glare on her friend and found that Louann was eyeing her right back. “I was weighing up the pros and cons of the plan, and not taking sides,” Lottie informed her.
“Well, tell her that, and the next time you need to weigh the pros and cons do it quietly,” Louann berated her. Then she pointed to Marilyn and nudged Lottie again, only a little gentler that time. “Tell her.”
Marilyn had been patiently waiting for the storm to blow over before she continued making her pitch. She knew her mother would initially blow up, but she hoped that she’d settle down to a strong sulk sooner rather than later. “I have ears, mother…”
“She also doesn’t need telling, she’s a grownup,” Lottie replied.
“Nice to see someone thinks so,” Marilyn muttered, but she made sure it was loud enough for her mother to hear.
Sandy raised her hand to chest height and looked a little sheepish. “I have a question.”
“Oh, look, someone’s doing something productive,” Marilyn said to her mother and turned her attention to Sandy. “Yes?”
“How sure are you that you could get the ghost out of you and into the holding jar?” Sandy asked.
Marilyn shifted on her feet, uncomfortable at the question. “Like you want the actual odds?” she asked, trying to buy herself some time to think of an answer that might satisfy her mother, or at least keep her quiet.
Sandy looked a little more uncomfortable. “Do you know the odds?”
“Nobody does,” Claudia said, jumping in to save Marilyn, who was obviously drowning in a small puddle of luck right now.
“But they aren’t at all bad,” Marilyn said, honing in on Claudia’s help and trying to lead her down the path of saving her backside.