The outcome would be different this time.
“No, this is my world,” he snapped, raising his fingers and glossing them over the barrier. “It’s my world and you stole it.”
“Nobody stole anything from you. You lost it.”
“Your boyfriend stole it,” Brian hissed, his voice reminding me of the snake in The Jungle Book cartoon Disney released long before I was born. “It was mine and he bullied me into selling it to him ... and for almost nothing.”
“You tried to oust me, and Chief Terry rallied the townsfolk,” I countered. “You underestimated their loyalty to me.”
“Yes, loyalty to a witch. Do you think they would’ve stood by you if they knew that little tidbit?”
I cocked my head, considering. “Yes,” I replied. “They would’ve stood by me.”
“They love you that much, do they?” He sounded furious when he tested the barrier again and singed his fingers, waving them quickly to fan the heat and then sticking them in his mouth to alleviate the pain. He was a like a small child with a too-hot slice of pizza.
“The people of Hemlock Cove made a business decision,” I said. “They did what they had to do when they turned this town into a tourist destination. They saved it. They’re well aware that they need the newspaper if they want it to keep thriving. You couldn’t give them what they needed.”
“I’m a good businessman.”
“You’re a little boy playing at chief operating officer. You don’t understand the reality of this business.”
“And you do?”
“I understand more than you think.” I angled my head to keep an eye on him. “I want to play a game with you, Brian,” I said. “Are you up for it?”
“Is this like that movie Scream? Don’t they play games in that movie? Are you going to kill me?”
“There’s a very good chance, but right this second, no. If I was going to play horror movie games with you, I would channel my inner Aunt Tillie and go Saw, not Scream. I like the quips in Scream, but the kills in Saw are more my style.”
His grimaced. “What’s the game?”
“I’m going to ask you a question. You’re going to answer it honestly. Then I’ll do the same for you.”
“Why would I play?”
“You have questions. You might know I’m a witch, but you don’t understand all of it.”
He was quiet a moment, the only sound coming from the barrier as he tested it again. “Fine.”
He agreed far too easily. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” he agreed. “You don’t think I know what you’re doing, but I do.”
“Oh?”
“You believe you’ll be able to use your phone to call your boyfriend here. That’s why you’re dragging this out. I believe he’s otherwise engaged ... what with his boss coming to town and all.”
I narrowed my eyes in the darkness. “I knew it. You’re the reason Steve is in town.”
“I might’ve placed a call.” Brian chuckled. “Does that bother you?”
“You’re messing with his livelihood.”
“He stole mine.”
“You did this to yourself. If you’d followed William’s wishes you’d still own the newspaper. Of course, you would’ve run it into the ground by now and gone bankrupt.”
“So smug,” Brian sneered, grunting when he slammed his fist into the magical barrier.
“You’re not powerful enough to take down that wall,” I told him. “You can’t get to me.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“I’ve been at this longer than you. Do you want to play the game or not?”
He hesitated and then nodded. “Sure. Let’s play.”
“When were you taken over by the shade?”
He laughed. “Of course you’d want to know about that. You’ve always been a busybody.”
“You have to follow the rules,” I insisted. “I have questions. So do you. I won’t answer yours unless you answer mine.”
“Fine.” He sounded bitter. “When I left this place, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had a clear plan before your boyfriend ripped what was mine away from me. I was aimless when I left ... and I had a persistent case of chlamydia that refused to clear up. I would get it treated, think I was fine, and then three weeks later — like clockwork — it returned.”
I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing. “That’s Aunt Tillie. If you haven’t gotten over that yet, you probably won’t. You have to learn from your mistakes to overcome the curse.”
“That mean old terror just likes torturing me. I have plans for her.”
My heart rolled. “She’s better than you. You can’t take her.”
“You’d be surprised what I’m capable of. I’m going to kill you first, so you won’t have to watch her die.”
I figured that was the ultimate goal. Hearing it out loud like that made me uncomfortable. “Go back to your story,” I prodded. “I want to hear how this happened.”
“There’s not much to tell.” Brian was blasé. “I was bitter, angry, and forced to take an office job at an insurance agency.”
“The horror,” I intoned, rolling my eyes.
“It was horrific. I was desperate to get out of there, but I had bills to pay. I had rent. So, even though I hated every horrible person in that building — I could hear them snickering behind my back about losing my grandfather’s business — I had to tough it out.”
Did he really hear people snickering behind his back, or was that the paranoia talking? “And then what happened?”
“My boss pulled me aside. He said he’d been watching me and it was obvious I was unhappy. He asked what was going on, and before I knew it I was spilling my guts to him. Instead of telling me to get over myself, which I expected, he told me to get my revenge. He even offered help.”
My shoulders jerked at the last part. “He was a shade.”
“I’ve answered your question.” His voice was cold. “It’s my turn.”
Even though I wanted to press him further, I nodded. A deal was a deal, after all. “Shoot.”
“How many people have you killed?”
That wasn’t the question I was expecting. “What?”
“You heard me. How many innocent people have you taken out of this world so you can continue to rule it?”
“That would be zero.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I haven’t killed any innocent people.”
“Is that what you do? Convince yourself that you’re on the side of good and they’re on the side of evil? It’s not murder if they’re evil, right?”
“I mind my own business until evil tries to take over.”
“Who decides who is evil?”
“I believe actions decide.”
“What if I told you that you’re the villain in my story? You’re the evil one. How do you feel about that?”
“Sorry for you.”
“Why?”
“You’re delusional. I had nothing against you until you moved on me.”
“Are you honestly saying that you liked me even though you believed I was incompetent and didn’t deserve my grandfather’s business?”
I hesitated, his words striking a chord. I shook my head. “You’re being ridiculous,” I said. “I didn’t hate you from the start. You might’ve convinced yourself of that, but it’s not true. I only wanted to do my job without you breathing down my neck.”
“And I wanted to do my job without you taking it from me. Which of us is the villain, Bay? I don’t believe it’s me. You were accused of killing someone. You were working against me from the start.”
He was stuck in a bitter spiral. There was truth in his words, but not the sort of truth that others could see. There was no convincing him that he was wrong.
“Let’s talk about the shade,” I insisted.
“We’re not done talking about you.”
“I answered your question. It’s my turn.”
“Fine.” I heard the zing of the barrier again. He continually tested it. As long as he kept trying, I didn’t have to worry about what he was doing.
“Your boss at this insurance company, he was a shade,” I pressed. “How did he sell you on this?”
“He didn’t have to sell me. As for being a shade, I don’t know what that means. I’m not an expert on your witchy ways.”
“You have a dark soul inside of you.”
“I have a lost soul inside of me. It’s a powerful ally. I give the soul a place to rest, take refuge, and recover after a hard day. In return, the soul helps me.”
“Helps you do what?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’d like to know.”
“The soul helps me better myself,” he replied. “It keeps me on task. How else do you explain me making enough money to buy the lake house in less than a year? The old Brian couldn’t do that.”
Something about the way he said it tipped me off to the truth of things. “You’re not Brian.”
“On the contrary, I am Brian Kelly.”
“You’re not the real Brian.” My mind was a minefield of possibilities. “You’re the thing that took him over.”
His bloodcurdling cackle made me glance over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t about to be attacked from behind.
“The fact that you’re just figuring that out is ... so cute,” Brian said. “He made it sound as though you’re a super witch I would have trouble taking down. You’ve been nothing but easy from the start.”
“Is Brian still in there?”
“Brian is a sleepy boy. He pokes his head out from time to time, we chat, and then he goes back to sleep. Don’t worry about him, he’s where he belongs ... and I’m where I belong.”
“How long have you been with him? Were you here in Hemlock Cove the first time?”
“I was not. The story is true. I just told it from his point of view.”
“He let you in.”
“He did. It works out better that way. If he fights the process I can never truly be in control. I had to convince him that I had his best interests at heart.”
“He’s paranoid,” I noted. “How did you convince him that you would win the battle for him?”
“It wasn’t difficult. When someone wants something so bad they’re willing to give up a part of themselves to get it, all you have to do is show them what they want and tell them how you’re going to get it for them.”
“Yes, but even if you were to somehow get the newspaper, Brian wouldn’t be the one enjoying the spoils of the victory.”
“That is very true. Deep down, he doesn’t care. He just wants you to lose.”
“What sort of shade are you?”
“I don’t believe in being pigeonholed.”
“You’re not a normal shade, but you’re constrained by the same rules.” Something occurred to me. “Paisley. You killed her and drank her blood.”
“Paisley was a victim of circumstance. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t want to kill her, but she refused to stop shadowing me ... especially when she figured out what I was. She wanted a powerful friend, too. She had a bit of revenge she wanted exact. That’s how we got hooked up in the first place.”
And that’s when the final piece slipped into place. “Paisley remembered, too.”
“Too? Who else remembers? Am I missing something?” He sounded far too intrigued for my comfort.
“That doesn’t matter. What did Paisley say to you?”
“You stripped her powers, stole what was hers. We had that in common.”
“That magic was never hers. She couldn’t wield it properly.”
“I saw that from the start. She, however, didn’t want to hear it. It was much easier to fuel her paranoid delusions and tell her what she wanted to hear than get her to see the truth.”
“You started hanging out with them from the moment you arrived.” I thought back to the night Aunt Tillie and I had glamoured ourselves to visit the party spot behind the Dragonfly and stumbled across Brian. “You were grooming them from the start.”
“An interesting choice of words – grooming.”
My stomach heaved. “You’re the person Paisley was seeing. Her friends said it was a secret, but she couldn’t stop herself from bragging. It was you.”
“And that’s why she had to go. Truly. She refused to keep her mouth shut. She prattled on and on about how she wanted to get revenge against you. I preferred when I thought I could use all four girls. In the end, only Paisley turned out to be truly helpful. Even when I snuffed out the light in her eyes and told her she would be sustaining me for weeks, she was still helpful.”
I thought I might throw up. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m a survivor.”
“Tell me about the other shades.”
“They’re not my doing. I’m here on a specific mission. I promised Brian when he surrendered his body to me. I plan to carry out that promise.” He pressed as close to the barrier as he could and leered directly at me, proving he knew where I was the entire time. “I hear witch blood is delicious.”
I debated trying to take him out now. I didn’t want to put the populace at risk if I ran away and he followed. I’d never dealt with anything like him. Rather than risk him fueling on Winchester blood, I decided to retreat and gather my witchy forces.
“I think you’ll have to go without tonight.” I stepped out into the hallway. “Your time here is done.”
“You’re not as powerful as you think.”
That made me laugh. The shade was limited. He only knew what Brian knew, and that was precious little. “You keep telling yourself that. Our next meeting will be all the sweeter because of it.” I started down the hallway. There was another door at the far end of the building and I planned to escape through it and rendezvous with Landon at the police station. After that, we would call in the reinforcements.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Brian called to my back. “We’re not done.”
“Oh, we’re done.” I didn’t bother looking over my shoulder when I reached the door. “The next time we meet, you’ll be dying. You might want to start running now.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Then you’re dumber than you look.” I pushed open the door, thinking I had a clear escape, and then my heart lodged in my throat when another face appeared directly in front of me.
“Hello, Bay.” Rosemary stepped through the opening, her eyes lit with green fire as her fingers extended. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”
Before I could respond, she jolted me with a burst of magic I recognized from when the shades attacked at the inn. I flew back, slamming into the wall, and then began to slip to the floor as my vision wobbled.
“We have some things to discuss,” she said brightly.
28
Twenty-Eight
The blow hurt, but not enough to incapacitate me. I scrambled so my back was against the wall so as not to worry about being attacked from behind, and murdered Rosemary with a death glare.
“Why am I not surprised?”
Rosemary’s lips curved into a smirk. “I don’t know, Bay. Why aren’t you surprised?”
“I’ve known you were evil since we were kids.”
Rosemary hunkered down on an even level with me. “Rosemary was never evil. She just wanted to be included in all your wacky Winchester games. Willa poisoned her mind. Are you really saying you didn’t know that?”
I was jittery as I regarded her. “You’re not Rosemary.” It was a statement, not a question. Now, looking into the depths of her glowing eyes, it was obvious Rosemary had fled. What had taken over her body was something else entirely.
“No, I’m not Rosemary.” She let out an evil laugh and then stood, her gaze going to the other end of the hallway, where Brian paced and cursed my existence. “I don’t suppose you can drop whatever that ... thing ... is, can you?”
“I don’t suppose so.” She had to be crazy if she thought I would put myself at that sort of disadvantage.
“I guess it doesn’t matter.” She dusted off her hands and shot me a pitying look. “I wanted to take you out anyway.”
I wasn’t afraid to die. Sure, it wasn’t on my list of things to do in the next fifty years, but I didn’t fear the other side. I wasn’t going to allow her to kill me without a fight. “Who are you?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.”
“I’m ... more than one thing,” she replied. “I’m beyond anything you can imagine.”
I snorted. “That sounds like something Aunt Tillie would say.”
“Yes, well, she’s an impressive specimen. Always has been. But age has worn her down. The most fearsome witch in the Midwest is now a clown who spends all her time dishing out petty revenge to people beneath her.”
“I think she likes it.”
“Which speaks to her mental state.” Rosemary scuffed her shoe against the floor and then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. She kept the balance of power here off center for decades. It’s her age that allowed for this.”
I was taken aback. “What does that mean?”
“I was here long ago but didn’t stay despite what this town has to offer. Now I’m back and the living conditions are much better.”
“Have you fought Aunt Tillie before?” The mere possibility had my mind buzzing. “Will she recognize you when she sees you?”
“I’ve never fought her. I knew better than to take her on. But like I said, she’s not what she once was.”
“You should say that to her face.”
Rosemary’s chuckle was low, drawn out, and tinged with evil. “You’re so amusing. Even now, when I’ve told you that she’s diminishing, you believe she’ll walk through the door and save you.”
I didn’t believe that. I didn’t even hope for it. I wanted Aunt Tillie to be safe. Whatever entity had taken up residence in Rosemary was dangerous. “How long have you been inside of Rosemary?”
“Long enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“What answer will make you feel better?” She cocked her head and regarded me with overt amusement. “Do you want to hear that I took her over yesterday? That she had a vulnerable moment and couldn’t hold me off? That she’s somewhere close, just beneath the surface, fighting to escape?”
Prelude to a Witch Page 26