Telling him about Jenna’s mother was going to be difficult, Aegis had taken a liking to the girl and always asked how she was doing. But telling him about the vampire kill was going to be even harder. Aegis prided himself on his restraint and his ethics. Vampires who went around ripping people’s throats out pissed him off to no end. Not only that, but when he found out I needed to visit Essie, he wasn’t going to be happy.
Aegis wasn’t comfortable with my association with the vampire queen. And quite honestly, I didn’t enjoy hanging out with her, especially since she had kidnapped me and used me to cover her tracks. Granted, she had good reasons for what she had done, but I still didn’t like finding myself a pawn in a game of vampire politics.
“You look worried,” he said. “Did I do something wrong? Other than almost get both of us killed?”
“Oh, don’t go all Angel on me.” I still rewatched episodes of Buffy. “I can’t handle an emo-vampire boyfriend. Just…it happened, it was a freak accident, it’s over.”
He shook his head and, for the first time since he had woken up, smiled. “All right. I won’t play the angsty boy toy.”
“You’re not my boy toy. You’re my lover. Okay, well, this afternoon, Sandy received a call from her lawyer when she was driving me home. Derry did what Derry always does and broke the rules. Only this time, it was a fatal mistake. She rambled off on her own after the guide told her not to, and she got herself killed by a coastal taipan snake. The woman always did have numbnuts for brains. I hate to say that. She and Sandy were good friends. But truthfully? I think Jenna is better off with Sandy.”
Aegis stared at me. “Jenna’s mother died from snakebite?” He paused, thinking. “Does that mean her father’s going to come take over?”
“Nobody knows who he is. Derry never told anybody who Jenna’s father was. I think she did it to protect both herself and Jenna from him. She hung out with some scary-ass dudes. Anyway, she stipulated in her will that Sandy’s to become Jenna’s legal guardian.”
“This is going to change Sandy’s life. I mean, it’s one thing to be somebody’s temporary guardian, but this basically means that Sandy is Jenna’s mother now. How do you think she’s going to react?” Sometimes, Aegis could ask incredibly astute questions.
“You want my honest opinion?”
He nodded.
“I think Sandy has come to love that little girl a whole lot more than she would admit. I never pegged her as the nurturing type, but sometimes people can surprise you.” I shivered. The Bewitching Bedlam had been fully insulated when we renovated it, but still, it was a big old house and big old houses had drafts. I shrugged into a sweater that was hanging over the back of my chair.
“What about you? Your mother asked me when she was here, what about children? I mean, it’s obvious that you and I can’t have any. Do you want to be a mother?”
I could see the fear in Aegis’s eyes, and I could hear the hesitation in his voice. He was afraid that I would leave him someday, in favor of someone who could give me children. I thought carefully how to answer his question, because I wasn’t sure myself.
“I’m not sure whether I ever want children. I’m not particularly geared toward being anybody’s mother. I love being an auntie—although granted, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to become one of the Aunties. But if you’re asking if I’m going to leave you because you can’t get me pregnant, then stop worrying. There are so many other ways of becoming a parent. There’s adoption, and fostering, and even surrogacy if it came down to it. When we were in the water and I thought I was going to drown, the only thing I could think of was how much I would miss you. I love you, Aegis. I hope you realize just how much you hold my heart in your hands.” I held up the necklace that he had given me the night before. “I may have the key to your heart, but you have my heart in your hands. Now, carry me into the parlor and let’s light a fire in the fireplace.”
He did, setting me on the sofa before he lit the kindling that was arranged in the fireplace. One of Kelson’s duties was to make sure the fireplaces were laid and ready to light.
I pulled a fleece throw over me as we watched the fire crackle. Bubba came bouncing through the room, chased by Luna. They tussled, rolling over into a wrestling match, before Luna sat on top of Bubba and began to groom his face. I laughed, relieved to find something that didn’t leave me with an “oh-shit” feeling.
Aegis relaxed. He sat on the end of the sofa and pulled my feet onto his lap, rubbing them gently. I leaned my head back, enjoying the massage, desperately wanting to watch some sort of mindless sitcom or cartoon, but I still had the other piece of news to tell him, and I decided to do so before we relaxed any further.
“There’s one other piece of bad news.”
Aegis paused, his knuckle pressing into a knot on the midpoint of my arch. “Oh?”
“Yeah. This one’s a doozy. Delia dropped by today, and she had some news. There’s been a vampire kill on the island. She wants me to talk to Essie tonight, to see if she knows anything. Apparently it was brutal, Aegis. Brutal and vicious. Whoever attacked the woman completely drained her.”
Aegis slowly let go of my feet, his shoulders stiffening. “And she’s absolutely sure it’s a vampire? I’m not questioning her skill, but she needs to be very, very sure of this.”
I let out my breath, huddling under the fleece throw a little bit more. The wind was whipping outside, scraping the roof. It sounded like animals skittering across the shingles. The storm had started again—or maybe it was a new one—and out the parlor window, rain pounded down so hard that it looked like snow.
“Delia knows a vampire kill when she sees it. I’m not sure what’s going on, but we can’t let it continue.”
“No, of course not. Have there been any other attacks?”
“Not that she knows of, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any not come to light yet. Aegis, Essie keeps rigid control over the vampires who live in her nest. She wouldn’t let this happen on her watch. I don’t trust her, and I doubt I ever will, but she needs to know about this too, because she’s going to want to know if any rogue vamps are in the area. I need you to take me over to talk to her, since I’m not supposed to drive and I don’t want her coming here.”
He nodded. “Right. I don’t like the idea, but I suppose this can’t be helped. When do you want to go? Surely, you need to rest tonight?”
“I need to call her. Meanwhile, please run out and buy me a new phone. I can activate it online and back it up from the cloud. Once I have it, I’ll give her a call.”
“I’ll be back in an hour. Meanwhile, I’m telling Kelson to lock up. Don’t let anybody in unless you know who they are.” And with that, Aegis grabbed his leather jacket and headed out the door.
WHILE AEGIS WAS gone, I decided to tackle a task I had been putting off for several weeks. I had made a promise to my mother, and now it was time to fulfill it. I called for Kelson and asked her to bring me my office chair, which was on wheels. Using that, I was able to roll myself into my office. I sat down at the computer and pulled up my email. There, in an email I hadn’t opened yet, was the name and contact information for my half-brother—Gregory Oakstone.
Zara had made me promise to contact him when she died. I had tried to encourage her to reach out before then, to give him a chance to know who she was. But she refused to believe that he would forgive her for giving him up.
I clicked on the email. My mother’s solicitors had done their work. Gregory Oakstone was alive and well, and living in London. They even had his email address for me. I tried to decide whether the shock would be less via email or through a phone call. I finally decided an email would give him more time to process the information. I opened a new message and typed in his email address, and then sat staring at the screen, trying to figure out exactly what to say.
Dear Gregory: You don’t know me, but we have something in common. My mother’s solicitors indicate that you know you a
re adopted. What you probably don’t know is who your birth mother was, or that you have a half-sister. I never knew you existed until a couple months ago, and my mother made me promise not to contact you until after her death. My name is Maudlin Gallowglass. I want to tell you the story of our mother, and why she was forced to give you up when you were a baby.
The hardest part of the letter over, I leaned back and stared at the words. Then, with a sigh, I went into explaining my mother’s story. Finally, half an hour later, I took a deep breath and hit send. Now, all I could do was wait.
BY THE TIME Aegis returned, I had managed to roll myself to the bathroom, and then back into the kitchen where I was sitting in my makeshift wheelchair, eating cookies. I had managed to eat a dozen of them, and was contemplating another handful. I considered my restraint a triumph, given the emotions raging within me. At least sending Gregory the email had taken my mind off of Fata Morgana.
Aegis glanced at the tray and a smile crinkled the edges of his lips. “I suppose I’d better make some more cookies while I’m at it. Let me help you to the computer so you can activate your new phone. I got you the latest model, and they said as long as your information is on the cloud, you can do everything over the phone and online.”
I grabbed another handful of cookies before he rolled me back to the office. I told him that I had emailed my brother.
“Clever idea with your office chair.”
“It’s amazing what you can think of when you have to.”
I glanced at my email. No answer yet. Not that I had expected one this soon, but I was knew that I’d be checking my email several times a day until I heard back from him.
Suddenly, a thought hit me. What if he didn’t write back? What if he didn’t want to talk to me? There wouldn’t be much I could do about it, but the thought of never hearing back from him made my stomach clench. I didn’t even know him and yet, I knew that I wanted some form of contact, especially now that Zara was dead and I knew her full story.
Trying to push the thought from my mind, I opened the box and pulled out the sleek new phone. There was something about gadgets that I loved, and technology never ceased to amaze me. I had seen the days when the newest gadget had been the latest torture device to use against witches. That kind of advancement I could do without.
As I immersed myself in playing with my new phone, Aegis went back in the kitchen to make cookies. He left me a loud bell to ring if I needed him. I logged into my account at the phone company’s website, and as I began to download the information I needed, Franny appeared.
“You really got yourself in a tangle last night, didn’t you? I’m so glad that you didn’t drown. Do you know I’ve never been in the water? My mother didn’t believe in girls learning how to swim.” She settled into a chair nearby and remarkably, didn’t sink halfway through it, but looked like she was actually sitting on it.
Grateful to see her, I leaned back and turned around. “What did your mother believe in girls doing? It seems like she kept you from a whole lot of things.”
“My mother believed that women were decorative until they got married, at which point their job was to direct servants, spend money, and generally make everybody miserable. I swear to you, she lived for making other people jump.”
“Why do you think that was?”
Franny mused. “I think she was unhappy. I’ve been thinking about what we found out about my aunt and my father, and I think that Mother somehow knew about the affair, even though she never said a word.” She paused for a moment, then said, “I wonder where she and my father went after they died. Same with my aunt. I have no clue where any of my family went after death. I never thought about it before, but now it seems so strange. None of them came back to see me, and yet it seems that at least my aunt and my father knew that I was around here.”
That did seem strange, now that she mentioned it. “Would you want to see them? Do you feel like you’re a different person than you were in life? Do you think they would be different?”
Franny shrugged. “I suppose I’m different, yes. I know more, and if I could just be free of this curse there would be so much to explore. You know, I’ve never met another ghost, actually. Except for the ones in the online support group I found a few weeks back. That seems strange to me, doesn’t it to you?”
I nodded. It did. “Tell me more about this group. What’s the name of it?”
“STOE—short for ‘Spirits Trapped on Earth.’ It’s a group for spirits who are trapped in this plane in one way or another, and who’ve managed to find a connection in cyberspace. We all know we’re dead, so that lets out the ones who are trapped and don’t know what’s going on. And we keep out the hostiles. The ones who hate the living.”
“What do you talk about?”
“Oh, esoteric things, I suppose. All of us lived in different times and have managed to keep up with the world. A few of the others actually seem to exist inside cyberspace—it’s as though they became part of the computer.” A pensive look crossed her face. “For some reason, that also seems dangerous to me.”
I managed to hook up my phone to my computer and began downloading information from the cloud. As I thought about what Franny had said, it occurred to me how incredibly multifaceted the world was. There were so many things in it that we didn’t understand, even those of us who had been around for several hundred years.
“I suppose it could be, if they could get hold of information that is private. Or if they could somehow affect information in cyberspace. After all, if you had the right equipment and the right contacts, you could probably set off a world war.”
Franny’s hand fluttered to her mouth. “Oh my, I hadn’t even thought about that possibility.”
As I finished the last cookie, Franny went on to lighter subjects. She told me all about the book she was reading, and then segued into her latest Netflix addiction. She had discovered the world of Friends, and was binge watching it.
“I’m in season three,” she said. “Do you think Ross and Rachel will ever get married?”
I forced myself not to smile. “I am not giving you spoilers. You’ll just have to watch and see for yourself.”
The doorbell rang. Before I thought about it, I started to stand but I had made it two steps before Aegis went racing by in a flash. I fell back into my chair.
“You sit your pretty ass down,” he called out.
Shaking my head, I obeyed. A few minutes later, he peeked around the door.
“It’s Ralph. Do you want to see him? He’s in the living room and I don’t really feel comfortable bringing him in the office.” Aegis was extremely protective of me around Ralph. The satyr had seemingly reformed, but ever since he showed up in my bathroom while I was in the shower, Aegis had given him the side-eye. He didn’t trust Ralph and I had the feeling he never would. Come to think of it, I didn’t trust Ralph. Even though I accepted his apologies for the mess as he had made in my life, I had the feeling that one good round of partying would set him off again.
“Yeah, help me into the living room. Might as well make my day even more miserable.”
Aegis slipped into the office and before I could say a word, he swept me up in his arms.
“I said help me into the living room, not carry me.” But I took the opportunity to give him a quick kiss.
“Oh, hush. Let me carry you around, considering I’m the one who almost drowned you. I don’t care it was an accident, I don’t care that you keep saying no blame. I do blame myself. I put you in danger in a way that I never want to happen again.” And with that he carried me into the living room and gently deposited me on the sofa. Ralph was sitting in one of the wing chairs, staring at us as we entered the room.
“I heard you almost bit the big one last night,” he said.
“You heard right. Aegis and I had an accident out on the water when the storm came up. It was a rough night. What can I do for you?”
Ralph hemmed and hawed, cros
sing and then uncrossing his hooves. “I know I have no right, and this is probably not the best time, but I have a favor to ask.”
I grabbed Aegis’s wrist as he tensed. “And what might that be?”
Ralph blushed. “I feel like a fool asking you, Maddy. But Ivy’s birthday is coming up, and I want to buy her something nice, but I don’t know what to get her. Can you help me figure out a present for her? I was going to get her a negligee from Frederick’s of Hollywood, but then I stopped and asked myself, would that be something Maddy would buy? And somehow I didn’t think so.”
Oh my gods, I thought. Ralph is playing WWMD, now?
I blinked. “Why would you ask yourself if I would buy a negligee from Frederick’s of Hollywood?” That seemed a little intimate to me.
“I mean, I thought about whether you would buy something like that for Aegis. Somehow, I just can’t see it.”
I was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Beside me, Aegis let out a snort.
“I hope she wouldn’t buy me something like that. I don’t look good in marabou.”
Ralph grew even more flustered. “I didn’t mean that you would wear a negligee. I mean she wouldn’t buy you a cock ring or something like that, would she?” The moment the words came out of his mouth he gasped. “I mean, she might, but for your birthday?”
I was tempted to let him run on for a while and stuff both of his feet into his mouth, but finally I took pity.
“Stop, Ralph. Just stop. I get what you mean. How long have you been dating her, and are you even sleeping with her? Or is that a stupid question?”
Ralph shrugged, looking about as miserable as I had ever seen him look.
“Actually, yes, we are sleeping together. But it was her decision. We’ve been dating for a few months. Remember, I told you a couple months ago I had met her at a solstice party? And we’re exclusive, believe it or not. But this is her birthday, it’s not an anniversary or anything. And I want something nice for her.”
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