I shook my head, determined to win this argument with myself, determined to find the good in Sinjin. Why, I had no idea—it was almost an automatic reaction. You saw his expression—you looked into his eyes the same as I did. Are you really trying to tell me that what you saw there wasn’t genuine and real?
It wasn’t genuine or real.
You know in your heart of hearts that he’s telling the truth. You know he cares about you and always has.
I know I’m not going to fall for it again. I’m not going to be the naive idiot I’ve always been. This time, I’m learning my lesson.
Bah! I figuratively waved the voice away and, instead, turned to thoughts of Sinjin’s exile. I just couldn’t feel good about the decision. Even though almost everyone had agreed on it—well, all the men in the room, anyway—I just couldn’t defend the decision. Especially with the Lurker threat ever growing. What did that threat mean for Sinjin? What if the Lurkers discovered him and he had no one to defend him?
Had I just sent Sinjin to his death?
Puhleeze, Jolie! Sinjin is a survivor. You heard Rand, I thought. He can take care of himself.
Yeah, but who knows what the Lurkers are capable of? Not to mention what they’re planning? Who knows what’s in store for us?
Sinjin’s punishment was voted on by your counsel, Jolie, and you can’t go back now. What he did was wrong, no matter what his motivations were. He pulled the rug out from underneath you and attempted to change the course of your life!
Hmm, that’s true.
He tried to destroy everything you knew, everything you cared about! And you’re debating whether he deserves his punishment? He nearly separated you from Rand! What the hell is wrong with you?
Thinking about Rand was ultimately what set me straight. Sinjin had nearly destroyed everything I’d worked so hard for—everything Rand had worked so hard for. Yes, what was done was done, and there was no going back.
And this time I would be firm in my convictions.
“Damn being announced! I will see her now!”
I heard Varick’s voice coming from downstairs, followed by the sound of heavy footfalls and Mercedes demanding to know what the hell was going on. I’d just started brushing my teeth, so I spat out the toothpaste, laying the toothbrush down on the counter as I cupped my other hand and washed the remainder of the paste from my mouth. My heart started pounding in my breast, echoing through my head. I took a deep breath as I tried to fathom what the hell could have upset Varick so badly. I mean, he wasn’t the type of person to get irate easily, so something huge had to have just gone down. And that thought wasn’t exactly comforting.
I started for the door to my bedroom, but once I was in the hallway, I glanced over the balcony to see Mercedes, Klaasje, and Varick arguing as Trent joined them.
“What’s all the excitement about?” Trent asked casually, as if he wanted nothing more than some good gossip.
“You cannot think to burst into the Queen’s quarters without first going through me,” Mercedes demanded, clearly more interested in propriety than whatever had brought Varick here in the first place.
“Damn your—” Varick started as Klaasje interrupted him, her hands stretched out before her, ever the peacemaker.
“Varick, what happened?” she asked, but her question fell on deaf ears. Apparently, Varick had only one goal in mind and that was to see me.
“I will see the Queen now!” he roared.
“This behavior is outrageous!” Mercedes chastised him as I took the stairs two at a time. I watched as two of my werewolf guards suddenly approached me from either side of the stairwell, obviously afraid that Varick might have lost his mind.
“I am not going to harm the Queen, you bumbling fools!” he railed, and then turned his outraged eyes on me. “You must call an assembly at once.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, remembering that I was dressed in my pink jammies with red-and-white-striped Christmas socks. I wasn’t exactly equipped to receive guests.
“What is going on,” Varick started, enunciating every word, “is that twenty vampires in your kingdom have simply … disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” I responded at the same time that Klaasje inhaled deeply and placed her hand over her heart.
“Holy shit!” Trent said, shaking his head in apparent disbelief.
“Lurkers?” Mercedes asked, her eyes narrowed on Varick as she folded her arms across her chest, still visibly disturbed by his outburst.
Varick raised a brow at her, offering her a duplicate of the frown she’d just given him. “I do not know.”
Jolie! It was Rand’s voice in my head. He must have felt my apprehension and concern through our bond. Is everything all right?
I don’t think so, I responded, shaking my head even though our conversation was a telepathic one. There are twenty vampires missing and Varick has just asked me to call an assembly.
I am leaving now, Rand’s voice was determined. I will be there momentarily. He had spent the better portion of the day at Pelham Manor.
I turned to face Mercedes. “Can you alert Odran and Mathilda?” Luckily for me, it had been decided that my panel of representatives would all live in close proximity to Kinloch Kirk for situations such as this one, where immediacy was required.
She nodded. “Of course, my Queen.”
“Then I will meet all of you in the library in thirty minutes,” I said, and turned around, starting for the stairs again. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to lead a meeting dressed in my pajamas.
“Something must be done—” Varick started, his tone urgent.
I turned around to face him. “Something will be done, Varick, just as soon as my panel is in full attendance.”
He said nothing more, so I took a deep breath and closed the door behind me as tears threatened my eyes. I leaned my back against the door, feeling my breath constricting, like a snake was eating me from the feet up.
God, please don’t let Sinjin be in trouble, I thought to myself, terrified that my darkest fears might have just become a reality. The question of whether the vampire disappearances had been orchestrated by the Lurkers was a moot one—the Lurkers were absolutely responsible, of that I was convinced. Why? Because they were our only enemies at this stage of the game. And now all I could do was hope and pray that Sinjin wasn’t one of their victims. Yes, on the face of it, it seemed I could reanimate pretty much anyone but I still didn’t like the idea of Sinjin … dead. And where my abilities were concerned, nothing really was etched in stone.
Exactly thirty minutes later I found myself sitting at the head of the conference table in my massive library, my stomach in knots. I hadn’t been able to wipe away my fears about what might have happened to Sinjin. And although I had to remind myself that the chances of him being among the twenty or so victims were slim, it did nothing to allay my concerns. I felt my toes tapping seemingly of their own accord and I tried to concentrate on my panel to take my mind away from the constant onslaught of worry.
Rand sat to my right, Mercedes to my left, Odran and Trent beside her. Varick was at the far end of the table, flanked by Klaasje on one side and Mathilda on the other.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” I started in a wavering voice as I glanced around the room. “Varick has some very upsetting news for us, and therefore I will turn the meeting over to him.”
I looked at Varick and he nodded as he cleared his throat. “It was brought to my attention at dusk that twenty of the vampires simply disappeared yesterday.”
“Crazy, huh?” Trent asked Odran, elbowing him in the side as if to say the news really was that shocking. Odran just frowned down at him.
“What does that mean?” Rand asked at the same time, leaning forward on his elbows.
Varick faced him, his lips in a straight line. “It means there is no trace of them.”
“No piles of ash, no bodies?” Rand continued, not paying any heed to Varick’s less than polite resp
onse.
Varick shook his head, one eyebrow raised. “Nothing. Only minor signs of struggle.”
“Do you know who are among the missing?” Klaasje asked with trepidation. And that was when I realized she was as worried about Sinjin as I was.
“Yes,” Varick said, and fished into his coat pocket, standing up as he produced a three-by-five index card. He strode to the head of the table and offered the card to me. I took it with a shaking hand and glanced through the list of names, feeling relief beat through me when I didn’t recognize any of them.
Sinjin wasn’t on the list. Sinjin was safe. And then something occurred to me—Sinjin was no longer a member of my kingdom, which meant his safety was of no one’s concern. So not being on this list really meant nothing. I had to swallow down another attack of dread.
“Anyone we know?” Klaasje asked, her eyes wide.
I glanced at her and shook my head, understanding her gist. “No one I am acquainted with. You might know some of them, though.” I handed her the card.
I faced Varick again. “Twenty,” I started. “Were they all in the same location when they were abducted?”
Varick glanced at me and shook his head again. “They were in four different territories.”
“Boot all happened at the same time?” Odran demanded, shaking his head as he appeared to grasp the situation.
Varick nodded. “As I understand it, yes.”
This was how it always was with Lurker attacks. Their M.O. was to attack in random one-offs, but the attacks were fully orchestrated and planned out, exemplified by the fact that they’d hit us in more than one territory at the exact same time. Which had to tell me they’d been scoping out their victims.
“We will need to re-create the scene to fully understand what happened,” Mercedes said softly, and stood up, facing Varick. “Were you able to locate anything of a personal nature from any of the victims?”
He nodded and pulled a scrap of clothing from his pocket, which was maybe a two-inch square. It was black cotton, by the looks of it. “This was from one of the households closest to us—a vampire territory in Cambridge, England.” He glanced at the cloth as he handed it to Mercedes. “I was told it is a piece of a curtain.”
She nodded and accepted it, clasping it in her hand as she turned to face me. “My Queen?”
I nodded and stood up as I realized what it was we were about to do—a re-creation spell that would reveal exactly what had gone down a few hours earlier. Mathilda took her place beside me, and together the three of us touched the fabric swatch and closed our eyes, allowing our magic to unite us as one and open the great gate to our sixth senses.
Probably due to the fact that Mercedes, Mathilda, and I together were like a magic powerhouse, the spell took shape quickly. I opened my eyes to see a white puffy cloud floating right before us, in the center of the table, maybe two feet up. Almost immediately a sound came from the cloud and it began to blink, eventually dissolving into the ether. In its place, colors began to appear out of the air, bobbing around like fireflies. The gentle glows became stronger as the colors began to meld, eventually forming an image of a house.
It was a one-story, nondescript sort of house, and judging from the extreme shadows surrounding it, I imagined it was early evening. As everyone around the table focused on the image more intently, most of us leaning in toward the spectacle, a moving van pulled into the driveway of the house. The driver killed the engine and two burly men jumped down from the passenger door. They strolled up to the front door of the home and in a split second one of them kicked it in.
I could feel the tension around the table as we watched these … Lurkers come for our own. I was sure they were in fact Lurkers. Even from watching this reflection of what had happened, I could feel their power—it caused all the hairs on my body to stand at attention. It was a foreign power, a magic dissimilar to our own.
It seemed like five minutes or so lapsed before the “movers” returned, each carrying a plain pine box—about the length and width of an adult male. I felt myself gulp as I watched them load the sleeping vampires into the rear of the moving truck. They didn’t bother closing the busted front door and instead hopped back into the front seat. The driver started the engine, and the truck disappeared down the street.
The image made the same popping sound the cloud had and erupted into nothing but thin air.
“They kidnapped them,” Klaasje said softly. “They didn’t kill them.”
“It makes no sense,” Trent added.
And that was the truth. It didn’t make any sense. In the past, the Lurkers had staged the same sort of guerrilla ambushes, but they had always finished off their victims, leaving piles of ash in their wake.
“Every vampire household should be protected by a were, witch, or fae in the daytime,” Rand announced. “Until we have a better understanding of the nature of this threat, vampires should not be left to their own defenses in the daytime.”
Varick nodded. “Agreed.”
“Why would the Lurkers be kidnapping vampires?” I asked out loud, suddenly afraid for the answer.
For the remainder of the evening, I found myself trying to understand just what the Lurker threat entailed, but it was incredibly frustrating because we still didn’t know very much about them. They were an unseen force that just picked off our kind here and there with no real uniformity to their attacks. And since their attacks were so random, it was next to impossible to prepare for any future attacks.
With no ready solution for the Lurker problem, I decided to focus my energy on the other dilemmas plaguing my kingdom. And currently the biggest plague went by the name of Bella. Something had to be done with her. Either she needed to take an oath of loyalty and become a member of my kingdom or be dealt with in a harsher way. She couldn’t remain my prisoner forever.
So with steely resignation, I marched out of my bedroom and headed for the guesthouse just behind Kinloch Kirk. I couldn’t even remember how long we’d been holding Bella there. With the whole time-travel thing, my sense of time was completely thrown off. It could be that she’d been my prisoner for days, or even months. Either way, it had been long enough. And, yes, it did occur to me that maybe I should have discussed this visit with Mercedes or Rand or my counsel of representatives, but I dismissed the thought as soon as it reared its unwanted head. As far as I was concerned, this was just between Bella and me.
When I stepped outside my back door, the cold Scottish sea air accosted me with its chill, wrapping itself around my legs as I shivered involuntarily. I folded my arms around myself as I glanced up at the moon. I hurried down the pathway leading to the guesthouse and was greeted by two werewolf guards who seemed unfazed by the frigid air. ’Course, weres naturally have body temperatures that run much hotter than humans, so they were probably as comfortable as I would have been on a warm beach in Maui.
“Hi,” I started in an unsteady voice. Then I remembered I was their Queen and should do my best to seem like one. I fluffed my proverbial feathers and stood up straight and tall. “I’m here to see Bella.”
The guard closest to me bowed and then nodded, stepping aside. He was huge—as in Odran huge, but unlike Odran, this guy wasn’t eye candy. He had a really wide face, covered with moles, and eyes that were too close together, setting off a nose too small for his moon face. But then it occurred to me that he was probably a nice guy, and I was suddenly irritated with myself for noticing his homeliness first.
“If you need us, just holler,” he said, smiling warmly.
What a jerk I was.
I took a deep breath and gave him a fake smile, hoping my demeanor was casual. Inside, though, it was another story. Why? Because Bella and I had a long and ugly history. That history was now tainted or tempered with memories from a different past, ever since Sinjin had time-traveled. I couldn’t help but wonder if Bella was aware of what had happened. Did she have layered memories like I did? Did she remember how Sinjin had mistreated her, how she instructed
me in magic lessons at his insistence? For that matter, did she remember that Sinjin and I had been a couple? I could only hope the answer was no.
I eyed the were farthest from me, another huge guy with long, dark hair and dirty fingernails. (Jeez, did I only notice the negative? Okay, he had nice broad shoulders.) He bowed in greeting and then unlocked the door. I approached it, and holding my hands against the wood, felt the energy reverberating from it. It was similar to what I’d felt when I went to see Sinjin. I closed my eyes and sent the feelers of my mind to inquire as to what kind of spell this was and how I could break it.
It turned out to be a simple charm, and it only took me three seconds to break it. I focused on the darkness of my eyelids and imagined a bright white light usurping control over the charm’s spell. As soon as it dissipated into oblivion, I had to wonder why such a weak spell had been cast to hold Bella. As that thought crossed my mind, I ran into the Barrier Ward. Now this one would be a real feat to break.
You can always tell who put a spell in place because charms have a magical fingerprint, and as soon as I encountered this one, I could feel Mercedes’ energy all over it. It was bad enough that it was an incredibly strong spell, but given the fact that Mercedes had woven it? Well, that just added to its difficulty. But I was pleased to see it in place because it pointed to Mercedes’ thoughtful preparation. The only way we had any hope of keeping Bella behind figurative bars was to employ magic stronger than her own.
I motioned for both guards to back away. “This could get ugly,” I said, and frowned, wondering just how ugly it was going to get. “Bella, if you’re on the other side,” I called through the door, “back away to the far end of the wall.”
She didn’t respond, but I hoped that she heard me and, more important, that she’d take my advice. I held my hands up to the door until they were an inch or so away and clenched my eyes shut. I imagined energy pouring out of my fingertips and into the depths of the ward, forcing the tightly wound magical threads apart. I could almost hear the gossamer strings ripping apart like Velcro, and my energy suddenly boiled up, overflowing from me as the walls of the ward crumbled and broke away, leaving nothing but the door itself.
Something Witchy This Way Comes: A Jolie Wilkins Novel Page 6