{chapter fifteen}
THE NEXT MORNING, I checked on Red. His bandage was supposed to come off today, though his wing wouldn’t have fully healed yet. Soon, he’d be ready to fly home.
I peeled the tape away. “There you go. No rush to get better. I hear cardinals enjoy being around people anyway.”
I sat at my kitchen table and gave Lauren a call. She picked up after the first ring, her voice easily filled with ten times more energy than I’d ever manage to muster.
“Amazing night last night,” she said. “We need to go there next year!”
Too bad the ‘there’ she was thinking of didn’t exist—not in the way she remembered. “It was okay, I guess. I’m just calling to check on you.”
“It was okay? Just okay? That had to be the best haunted house ever. Do you remember the address? We could go again next year.”
“Drats, I don’t,” I lied. “Can’t even remember the street name.”
She sighed heavily, and my heart sank. To her, this was reality. Charles’ friend, Adonis, had made sure of that. Though the Cruor’s practice of stealing memories unnerved me, what bothered me most was their ability to place thoughts into someone’s head and create memories of things that had never happened. And now I enabled their lies.
When I didn’t say more, Lauren continued. “I just thought … well, that guy who walked us back to the car. Does Charles know him?”
“I don’t think so,” I lied.
“Too bad. I wouldn’t mind him taking me out to dinner sometime.”
That’s what you think. “If I see him around, I’ll be sure to tell him. So, really, you’re okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Nothing. Look, I gotta go. Work. Catch you later?”
“You bet,” she said.
I should’ve been relieved she didn’t remember anything, but I was too busy stressing over having lied to my best friend. I tucked my phone into my pocket and headed outside to check the mail, only to find a note tacked to the oak in my front yard, the wind lifting the page’s corners. I tore the note down and read.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, Exodus 22:18.
Did Mrs. Franklin even know what half of these scriptures meant? I huffed and continued reading.
Sophia—Hear the Voice of the Lord. He is calling off your darkness. Your magic has brought forth the dead—brought forth their demon spirits. And you! You invite them to your home. You invite them to our town! The Lord casts out those demons through His good shepherds. We will be rewarded for driving out the evil—rewarded for doing God’s work—and you, Sophia, you will burn for your sins.
My heart dropped. She knew. At least she thought so, anyway. She’d seen the Cruor and discerned them for what they were—the undead. What worried me more was that she believed their existence was somehow my fault.
Now I finally had something worthy of a police report, but if I notified the cops, I’d only be drawing the wrong kind of attention to myself and this other-world I had discovered.
I grabbed the stack of yesterday’s mail from the box and headed back inside. I tossed Mrs. Franklin’s note in the tin I kept in the kitchen’s curio cabinet drawer, along with the others. The container was more than half full, yet the realization made me feel anything but optimistic.
* * *
TODAY, NONE OF THE PATRONS at the diner requested booths in a different server’s section, and several even left nice tips. Perhaps I owed thanks to the remaining traces of Cruor blood in my system: my skin was smoother, my hair shinier, my eyes brighter. Yeah, I still had the whole radio-crackle and whispering voices thing going on, but things could be worse.
After the crowd died down, I started prep work for the lunch rush, but my mind fixated on Charles. What was life like for him? He harbored secrets for fear of judgment, something that should have brought us closer to one another but instead placed a whole world between us. He trusted me with the knowledge of his dual nature, while I’d never be able to tell him of the whispering voices that occupied my mind. I simply couldn’t risk him responding the way Ivory had.
When my shift ended, I found Charles outside, sitting on the hood of my Jeep. He wore an olive-green, button-down shirt left open to a white tee. No jacket, of course. Charles never wore a jacket. Not even in sub-degree weather.
My heart sped, but I managed to keep my voice smooth. “I thought we were meeting later?”
He grinned, hopping down. “I wanted to see you in that sexy work uniform.”
I pushed his shoulder in playful response, but he didn’t budge. He chuckled, then eyed my Jeep and tapped a knuckle against the metal body. “Still driving this thing?”
“Spit it out. You think women shouldn’t drive or something?”
He laughed. “Not at all. Though you realize your car isn’t at all gas efficient, don’t you? And the emissions—”
“I’m not getting rid of my Jeep, okay?”
“Would it be so terrible to trade it in for something a little more … eco-friendly? Some of us plan on being around for a while.”
“Fantastic reminder. Thanks. In case you haven’t noticed, your Prius hasn’t been handling the snow very well. That wouldn’t happen to be the reason you left it home today, would it?”
“I like walking,” he said, an easy smile playing at his lips.
“I’ll remind you of that after our next snowstorm, when you’re asking for a ride to buy groceries.”
He stepped closer and swept a strand of hair away from my face. There was that heat again—a chemistry that spun between us and made me feel like a fly stuck in a web. A chemistry I needed to ignore.
“I have to go.” I opened the door to get in my car, but then turned around, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you came here just to give me a hard time about my Jeep.”
His jaw clenched, and his fists balled at his side. “I didn’t.”
“No?” I raised an eyebrow. “Then why?”
He closed the distance between us and placed his hands on my waist, stopping me from climbing in. Despite the early November chill, my skin suddenly warmed. “I’d like to kiss you, even if only once.”
I swallowed, and my hands trembled. I couldn’t speak. I just nodded, and his gaze dropped to my lips before he leaned in gently to close his mouth over my own. I parted my lips to welcome the kiss, and he pressed closer, his tongue exploring my mouth, the kiss singing through my veins as I tried to deny the pulsing knot forming in my stomach. The kiss, soft and gentle, ended too soon.
“I really should get going,” I whispered, though my reasons for wanting to leave had changed completely.
“Let me give you a hand.” He stepped between my legs, grabbed me by my hips, and lifted me into my seat. His arm was wrapped around the small of my back and his hips pressed against the inside of my thighs, his heat playing against my own.
Moments like these made me want to give in to my physical desires, even if I wasn’t ready to turn over my heart.
Charles turned my palm up and kissed the inside of my wrist, and my skin tingled beneath his warm, velvety lips. Then he pulled away, the tips of his fangs dipping past his upper lip. I wondered how he’d hid them before—apparently Cruor’s fangs often descended when in engaging in any carnal activity, though I’d never seen Charles this interested until recently. His fangs weren’t so scary, though, not with the knowledge they belonged to a man who would cause me no harm.
“See you tonight,” he said, taking another step back. He was scowling now, or maybe that was the only way for him to hide his fangs.
I cleared my throat. “Mmhmm. See you.”
I settled into my seat and closed the door. After I started the engine, I glanced back up, but he was already gone.
* * *
I LOVED CHARLES’ HOUSE. No daffodil oil, no silver doorknobs … yet I still felt safer there than anywhere else. When I arrived, the sky was drained and pale and the air easy to breathe and smelling like fresh snow.
The front door swung open before I even knocked, and Charles ushered me inside.
“Were you waiting by the door?” I teased as he helped me shrug off my coat.
“I heard you pull up.” He hung my coat on a peg of the hall coat rack. “Adrian will be here soon. Can I get you something to drink? I have a decent black tea blend.”
“That’d be great.”
He motioned toward a black leather sofa, complete with red silk pillows. It wasn’t the sofa I’d seen there the night before. “Please, sit down.”
Despite my thudding heart and the twisting in my stomach, I smiled uneasily and forced myself to conversation. “Don’t tell me you buy new furniture every few months. My mom does that and it drives me nuts.”
Charles laughed. “The other sofa was only temporary. Took me a while, but I finally got around to ordering something new.”
Once I seated myself, he headed for the kitchen. A young woman outside caught my attention. She was standing across the street in her nightdress, her hair dark and her gaze empty, her bare feet reddened by the snow blanketing the pavement. Her thin lips hinted at a frown, and she stared straight at me, unmoving. My heart rate picked up, and I craned my head toward the kitchen. Charles was pouring the tea.
I looked out the window again, and I startled. She stood in the middle of the road now, her gaze still cutting toward me as though she’d not moved at all. When I’d first looked, she’d been across the street, on the sidewalk. I was sure of it.
Moments later, Charles returned from the kitchen and pressed a steaming cup of tea into my hands. “What is it?” he asked, following my gaze out the window to where the young woman still stood. She turned woodenly and walked away. “We could sit on the porch, if you prefer.”
Couldn’t he see her? I opened my mouth to say something but decided I’d better figure a few things out before I said anything to anyone.
“The living room is fine,” I said.
Charles sat with me, and the teacup warmed my fingers as I sipped. “Honey?”
“Yes, Dear?”
“You’ve put honey in the tea, I mean.” I smiled, shaking my head. “Tell me you’ve been waiting all day to use that line.”
He grinned and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
The streetlights outside flickered on, reflecting off the icicles hanging from the storm gutters on the houses across the way. The street was empty, and I sighed my relief, snuggling closer to Charles and relaxing against his warm body.
He cleared his throat, setting his coffee on the small table in front of the couch. “Move in with me.”
I almost spat out my tea. At least his offer didn’t sound as painful for him to say as it had the first time. In fact, this time the offer even sounded sort of friendly. Like he wanted me to move in with him. “Excuse me?”
“I’m thinking of your situation.”
I couldn’t make heads or tails of our relationship, and he wanted me to live with him? Talk about left field. I wasn’t ready for a commitment. I would age, and he would stay the same. We had no future, not unless he rid himself of his Cruor side so that we could age together.
“We haven’t been together long,” I said, trying not to sound as uncertain as I felt.
Charles grinned. “I meant the spare room, darlin’.”
“Wow, I took that completely wrong.” How embarrassing. My cheeks heated from a blush I hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Marcus hasn’t come back. I’m okay on my own.”
Charles dipped his head, his nose grazing along my jaw. “Are you?” he asked.
His breath was hot against my neck, and a fluttering repeated in my stomach. He touched his lips to the hollow beneath my ear, then he buried his head against my shoulder. “I want to be with you. To not resist the urges you create,” he murmured against my neck. “But more than anything, I am compelled to protect you. Compelled beyond reason, perhaps, but I know I must. What happened earlier today, outside the diner….”
“I’m glad you kissed me,” I said with sudden boldness.
He sighed, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I can’t let you get hurt.”
“I’ve made it this far,” I said quietly. “Still in one piece, too.”
His jaw tensed. “That’s not the kind of hurt I mean.”
I knew that. I knew he didn’t want to hurt me physically or emotionally. And I was trying not to get attached. Really and truly.
Some things were beyond my control.
“This wouldn’t be a problem if we could age together.” I regretted the words almost as soon as I’d spoken them.
Charles scoffed. “Many would kill for immortality.”
“All I meant—”
“Would you sacrifice your way of life for me? Or do you expect only the reverse? You’re afraid to even move in.”
I didn’t want to be selfish, but, when it came to this one thing, I had to be. As much as I wanted to explore the possibilities of getting more involved with him, I refused to allow myself to commit when we had something as huge as immortality standing between us. Maybe I wasn’t capable of keeping strong against my desires, but I would fight to protect my heart.
The front door rattled as Adrian stepped inside and stomped snow from his tidy black dress shoes. “My apologies. Am I interrupting?”
I stood. “No. We were waiting for you.”
I turned back to Charles, frowning. He stood and kissed my forehead, whispering low in my ear, “We’ll figure things out. I promise,” then he walked over and clapped his hand against Adrian’s arm. “Good to see you. Come sit.”
Adrian pulled a stack of books from a navy-blue messenger bag and stretched his arm to set them on the coffee table, keeping the furthest possible distance from me. “These may help, though I must warn you, they contain some … non-traditional views. And,” he said, taking some small USB-port-type thing from his pocket, “there’s always the Internet.”
“Ha!” I said, trying to contain my laughter. “The Internet.”
“Why do you say ‘ha’?” His brow furrowed as though I’d suddenly grown a third arm. He slid the device across the coffee table toward me. “That is the D-connect.”
I examined the wireless card, studying the red encircled symbol of a snake on the side. “What is this?”
Adrian grinned. “Something we should not have in our possession. Queen Callista—and anyone else on the Council—would impose some undesirable consequences for such an offense. The alterations I’ve made should ensure that doesn’t come to pass.”
Charles cleared his throat.
“I should say, actually, Charles is the one responsible for the alterations. He placed an electronic leech on the card, thus erasing data as entered. Activity cannot be tracked.”
Charles tapped his fingers against the coffee table. “It’s not perfect.”
“How does it work?” I asked.
“As an Internet card would, though the websites are different. Here,” Adrian said, taking out a laptop and booting up. “I’ll show you. What are we searching for?”
“Anything pertaining to a relative of mine, Elizabeth Parsons, or other spirit elementals.”
“Ah,” he said. “Witches.”
He brought up an online supernatural database and left me to browse the selection, but nothing caught my eye. Charles took over, while I looked through the hard-copy books Adrian had brought.
I settled on The History of Witches and returned to my seat. A lot of work had gone into making this book: hand-sewn binding, pages creased with a polished piece of bone. Definitely one-of-a-kind.
The couch shifted as Charles settled beside me with the laptop. Adrian grabbed a book and sat in an adjacent recliner.
“The spirit elementals were chosen around the time the Salem witch trials began,” Adrian said. “In effect, they ended up being called ‘Witches’, even though only one true elemental was hanged.”
“That’s what I’m looking for.” I cracked open the book in my lap. “Informatio
n on that one witch. She’s not listed in the traditional histories, right?”
“I’m not sure. Admittedly, I’ve never had any reason to look into this.”
I skimmed the Table of Contents and flipped to the first section, marked ‘Victims’, which listed the names of all the people killed over the years for ‘witchcraft’. The list contained two sections: Humans, Witches. If the section had only listed one name, it would’ve been sickening, but the way pages spilled on, name after name, was nothing short of horrifying.
All those innocent people.
I scrolled through the list of humans first, and, nearing where my ancestor’s name might be, I held my breath. Did I want her to be human? What if she was—would it mean I’d never escape the whispering curse? Were the two things even related?
Elizabeth’s name was not on the list. I scanned a second time, and my concerns doubled. What if she wasn’t on either list?
The supernatural list was significantly shorter, the cause of death for those listed not being attributed to the trials but simply to having been killed during those times. I trailed my finger over the names. Halfway down the page, I found her: Elizabeth Parsons, 1672-1692. The only elemental hanged during the Salem witch trials. Others had died from typical deaths, such as old age, sickness, or murders unrelated to the trials.
I glanced from the page to Charles and Adrian, now buried in their own research, and decided to read a bit more before sharing what I’d found.
Nothing else caught my attention until I began reading about the Universal Necessity of Witches.
Humans had fallen to the practice of killing the elementals, believing them to be accursed, naming them as witches. The penalty of the claims resulted in the death of many innocent humans. And so, at the time of the Salem witch trials, coinciding with the dual-bred cleansing, the Universe chose the spirit elementals—witches.
Their immortality was not tied to their nature, however, as was true of other elementals. Instead, their immortality existed in their magic, carried through their bloodlines. These were the most vulnerable of the elementals, but, so long as their powers were used for good, they could perform without limits. However, should they choose a darker path, their magic would draw harm to themselves.
The Forever Girl Page 15