by M. L. Briers
Three steps more and I was in my room with the door closed behind me and a sigh on my lips. The scent of chocolate wafted up at me and made my taste buds beg for more.
More – yep, I’d already licked it from my fingers.
It took about another three second of my need clawing within me to give into temptation. Whatever – I was probably already doomed.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
~
I saw Mrs. D and Mrs. P, and Dougie’s girlfriend, Angela, all standing on the corner outside the bistro, and wasn’t fast enough on my feet to turn and walk the long way around to the bank before I was spotted.
“Maggie,” Mrs. D called out in a sickly sweet tone that left a bad taste in my mouth.
Just once, I’d only joined their gossip circle once, and now I was pegged as one of them. Doomed – doomed, I say.
“Nope got it,” I said as I waved the slip in my hand and turned back toward them like I was relieved. “Thought I’d left this behind.” I lied.
“And how are Moira and Ross doing today?” Mrs. D asked, and I sighed inwardly.
How was I supposed to know that would come true when I’d lied about it only a few days earlier?
I’m a witch, not a psychic – or … no.
“As well as a couple can expect to be,” I lied again.
Moira was not talking to Ross after what she’d heard him say last night, and the man hadn’t been thinking fast enough to manage to dig himself out of that particular hole. When he had come in for his breakfast, he was sulking and pouting, by lunchtime he was grovelling, and now he was back to pouting again.
Loves young dream.
“And there she is, herself, her snootiness,” Mrs. P said with a lot of acidity in her voice, and I had a feeling I knew who that was aimed at. Sure enough, I followed the daggers in their eyes to where Helena was getting in her car.
“Saw her the day before yesterday at the old mill, looked – shifty,” Mrs. D whispered the last word, and I bit down with a chuckle. As far as I was aware the only shifter on the isle was … wait…
“Day before yesterday, you say?” I asked, and Mrs. D nodded.
“At the old mill, although what her highness was doing up there?” She shrugged and looked eagerly at the others to see if anyone had heard any gossip about it. When the others shrugged, she looked disappointed.
I wasn’t disappointed, I was damn curious though.
“I thought she was away all week?” I asked, and watched them wrack through their collective gossip-filled brains.
“Aye, she was away, but I saw her last Saturday…” Angela said.
The day after Earnest died.
“Friday,” Angela corrected herself, and my heart leaped.
Well, that was news. What that news meant was anyone’s guess, but she’d lied for a start, and she was on the island the whole week.
“Best get to the bank,” I said, all bright and breezy.
I hated to say it, but there was some use to this gossiping thing after all.
~
“Was she?” Gran asked as her hand holding the platter of chicken hesitated in mid-air, and the piece that she’d stabbed on her fork slowly slid downward as it hovered over her plate while she consulted the wall opposite her for answers.
“Aye, and then Angela said she was on the Isle on Friday,” I looked around me as the others all considered my findings. All except for Moira, who cocked one of her eyebrows at me.
“Gossiping, now?” Her tone was mildly caustic and extremely accusing.
“Not a pastime I would normally…” She grunted, and I frowned at her, “ever…” She grunted again and raised her other eyebrow, “usually…”
“Ha!” she coughed that one out, and I scowled back at her across the table.
“Partake in.” I finally got out, and she snorted. I bit down on a curse or two and scowled at her harder. “But, this is valuable intel.”
“Intel? Are you a spy now?”
“Private eye,” Eileen chuckled.
“Aren’t they called dick’s?” Moira said, so I booted her in the shin with the toe of my shoe, and she jumped in place and growled in annoyance.
“Oh, would you listen to that – Ross is wearing off on her,” I said, beaming a smile at her.
“Witch,” she bit back.
“With relish,” I grinned.
“So, Helena lied,” Duncan said.
“About what else?” Gran shot back.
“Perhaps I should pay her a visit,” he replied.
“She still has her magic, and if she’s up to no good…?” Gran left that hanging.
“She was seen at the old mill on…”
“The mill!” Gran shrieked, and I jumped in place.
“That’s not…” Duncan shook his head and pursed his lips.
“Is there a significance to the old mill?” I asked, knowing that there was by the reaction of the two of them
“It was one of the ritual places that we…” Gran waved a hand.
“Particularly good ley lines, or so I’m told,” Duncan offered, but I was more interested in Gran’s reaction. She looked sheepish and constipated, one or the other would have tweaked my suspicion, but both together – weird.
“Anywhere else?” I asked.
“Just one other place,” Gran said, and Duncan frowned. “The manor house.”
“Really?” I asked, as my brain configured what she was telling me with a map of the Isle. North, south, west. “So, there wasn’t an east?”
I watched the two of them shoot glances at each other. Ah-ha!
“Oh, I’d forgotten,” Gran lied but said no more. I coughed, and when she looked at me, I questioned her with just a look. “The … err …”
“Maybe the vampire can help you out?” I turned my gaze on him.
“The – Vampire?” He looked amused.
“He does have a name, you know,” Eileen piped up in his defense, and I snorted in amusement.
“How things change in twenty-four hours,” I grinned at her and wiggled my eyebrows suggestively. She gasped, blushed, and averted her face from everyone at the table.
“Play nice,” Duncan said. “Put the claws away.”
“That’s Moira’s department,” I offered back and got a mild zap for my trouble. “Gran?”
“The churchyard!” Gran admitted, and we all stared at her in disbelief.
“Around the back,” Duncan said.
“Holy ground – Gran?” I was shocked.
“Mother,” Dad shook his head, and she grumbled something that made the vampire smile.
“So, we have Helena visiting the site of the ritual, and lying that she was even here,” Mother said.
“That’s right!” Gran pointed her fork and the chicken that gripped to it, at my mother as she rushed to deflect our attention.
“I don’t think Helena would be running around killing people,” Dad said.
“Well, you would take her side, wouldn’t you?” Mother tossed back.
“I’m not taking sides…” he rested his arms on the table and partially turned towards my mother, who snorted at him like a truffle hunter.
“Of course Helena couldn’t possibly be…”
“Caitlin, in front of the girls?” he said, and all three us paid even more attention as we sat upright in our chairs and even leaned in a little.
“Your father had a crush on her, Mrs. Robinson.” She waved an absent hand in the air.
All three of us pulled back in distaste; there were varying degrees of sounds that applied.
“It wasn’t a crush…” he raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
“Old enough to be your mother,” she tossed back.
“She was a very good looking woman.” Dad wasn’t helping himself, and when my mother snorted again and pushed up to her feet, my father sighed. “Well, she was.” He offered emphatically.
“Dad, hole, stop digging,” Moira said, so I kicked her again as my mother took herself off
in a huff.
“But, she was,” Dad said again, and Duncan chuckled.
“You’ll never learn, son,” Gran chuckled as she fought to get that piece of chicken off the end of her fork, but it didn’t seem to want to let go. That was until Gran got a little too fierce with it, and it shot off the fork, hit the side of the plate, and rebounded right into Moira’s cleavage.
“Hey!” Moira snapped, picking the thing up with her finger and thumb and tossing it down onto gran’s plate.
“Well, I don’t want it now, you dafty,” Gran huffed, prodding it from her plate with her knife.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
~
So, there we were, the three Musketeers, Gran, Moira, and I, along with the vampire, all squished into my poor little car on the road to the old mill when I spotted Helena’s car up ahead.
“Oh, look who it isn’t,” Gran said, and I never really understood that saying, but I saw what she was pointing at.
“Don’t point,” Moira said from the backseat.
“Slow down, Maggie, you don’t want to catch up to her,” Gran chirped.
“Well, she’s going slow enough that I’d get there faster in reverse,” I bit back.
My car liked one gear, fast, anything else and it started to chug, and with the added weight from Moira’s hips…
“Follow her,” Duncan said.
“It’s a straight road with no turns. I wasn’t planning on going off-road,” I snapped back.
“You have been skirting pretty close to the edge,” Moira teased, and I shot her the evil eye in my mirror.
“What’s that sound?” Gran asked as the car started to chug.
“The car is struggling under the extra weight of Moira’s backside,” I grumbled.
“We’re headed towards the old mill,” Gran informed us what we already knew. “That devious old hag.”
“Aren’t you the same…?” Moira yelped under the sting of my Gran’s magic, and I sniggered.
“Behave,” Gran warned her.
“Just an observation,” Moira grumbled.
“Maybe we’ll catch her in the act of something nefarious,” Gran mumbled to herself.
“Maybe she’s meeting dad,” Moira sniggered.
“I can’t bleach that thought away,” I hissed, and she sniggered harder.
“She’ll turn off in a minute if is she is going to the mill,” Gran said. “Keep with her, don’t let her get away.”
“I thought I was to stay back,” I said. “But, the mill road doesn’t go anywhere but the mill, so if she turns off…”
“Just don’t lose her!” Gran exclaimed.
“I can’t blooming lose her,” I protested. “Backseat drivers!”
“I’m in the front,” Gran offered me the stink eye.
“There she goes,” Moira exclaimed, and I rolled my eyes.
“I can see that,” I shot back.
“Keep back,” Duncan warned.
“Get closer,” Gran said.
“Oh, for the love of the Goddess, will you all just shut up!” I exclaimed, feeling the sudden urge to headbutt the steering wheel. I hit the indicator, and Gran shrieked.
“Don’t indicate, she’ll see you!”
“If she can see my blooming indicator what makes you think she can’t see my bloody car?”
“Someone’s getting their lace panties in a…”
“Moira, so help me, I will dump you out of the car on your extra-wide load!”
“Concentrate on the road,” Gran berated me.
“Love too, so if you could all just f…”
“Margaret McFae!” Gran growled.
“Yes, Broom Hilder!” I shot back, and I would have laughed at my grandmother’s face if I didn’t feel like my head was going to explode.
“There’s the mill!” Moira’s excited tone rattled my eardrums.
“Well, where else would it be?” I asked, sounding exasperated.
“Less tone of voice, thank you, madam,” Gran berated me again, and finally the inside of the car was silent. I could have sighed as my ears said thank you.
“This is fun!” The vampire bit out with enough sarcasm to stomp on the last nerve of the dead – and there was a walking corpse in my car that I would love to have kicked in the groin.
“This is why we don’t do family days out,” I huffed.
“Not exactly a shopping expedition to …”
“Moira!” I growled.
“Did that remind you of your boyfriend?” Duncan teased her and got the evil eye back.
“Next stop will be to drop you off at the morgue, you should feel at home,” she bit out.
“Gran, make it stop,” I whined.
“Stop,” Gran shrieked.
“A little less shrew-like would…”
“Stop!” Gran gave me a swift punch to the thigh, and I hit the brakes.
“What the…?” I bit out.
“It’s Earnest. He’s alive!” Gran muttered.
“Oh – my…” Moira said.
~
“Didn’t you say Earnest had a twin?” I asked, after the initial shock of seeing a dead man wore off. Still, I guess I should have been used to the walking dead, considering we’d sort of adopted the vampire.
“Angus Croon,” Duncan bit out. “There’s your source of dark magic, Fiona.”
“That means the isle’s magic isn’t waking up,” Moira said. “That’ll give Eileen some relief.”
“She’s got other things to worry about,” I said, meeting Duncan’s gaze in the mirror and bringing his own words back to him.
“Right!” Gran snapped to it.
“What are you doing?” Moira said, sounding a little panicky as Gran popped the door lock off. I always wondered who she thought could run fast enough to actually open the door while driving.
“I’m going to put a stop to this,” Gran bit out.
“Maybe we should watch and…” I started, but Gran had already opened the door and was climbing out. “Or we could just go confront them. ‘Cos that’s good too.”
“Time to kick some dark Warlock backside,” Moira said, following Gran’s lead.
“Fine,” I muttered, to myself, because the vampire was already outside. “Wait for me.”
~
We weren’t even being sneaky about it. I excepted to be hunched over and hugging the tree line that ran towards the old mill, like in the movies, but Gran, with her temper on show, made a beeline right for the two of them.
They seemed a little distracted from their surrounding, and in, what looked like a heated debate, but it didn’t take long for Helena to spot us coming, and with Gran leading the charge, I’m sure Helena’s heart must have lodged in the back of her throat as she hurriedly motioned to Angus that trouble had found them.
To say that neither one looked pleased was an understatement. I’d already crafted my magic into a tightly woven ball inside the very heart of me, and I could feel that power tingling against my fingertips waiting, wanting to be released like the build-up of electricity that had nowhere to go.
I knew Helena well enough to know that the woman’s magic was no match for mine, but Angus Croon was a different kettle of fish entirely. I’d only just heard of the man’s existence, and the fact that he had both Dark and Light magic flowing through his veins made him a different entity completely.
I would have preferred it if Eileen was with us; the power of three was much more potent compared to what Moira and I could achieve alone, but we’d make do, we had no other choice.
“That’s far enough, Fiona,” Helena, with her high and mighty attitude, demanded, but Gran wasn’t stopping.
“Off the isle was you, Helena?” Gran’s voice sounded as if she had a caged beast of her own that she wanted to unleash.
“I’m not a minion to be summoned by you,” Helena offered back. “Let’s go, we don’t need to speak to them.”
“And you, Angus. Come back to stab your brother in the back again,” Gran tosse
d out the accusation, and I saw the way the man clenched up, as if he had a case of dodgy tummy, fisting his hands at his sides, and glaring at her with the fire of a thousand suns.
“I did not stab my brother in the back, now or then,” he spat out.
“Don’t say any more,” Helena hissed.
“I suppose he tossed himself off the Point,” Gran rallied, and stopped once she was no more than ten feet away from the pair of them.
“That was…” he growled the words in anger and stopped himself just in time.
“Go on, man. You did the deed, why would you be shy in claiming it?” Gran tossed back, challenging him.
“It was nae me,” he shot back, with a sideways glance at Helena.
“Ah, did the deed together, did you? Then what? You come back and claim what was his, including Helena?”
Whoa, newsflash! Helena and Earnest Croon – there’s a thought I wouldn’t be able to shake for a while.
“She’s already mine!” He couldn’t help himself, and just spat the words out.
“Enough,” Helena hissed. “You’re playing into her hands. She knows nothing…”
“Which means there’s something to know,” I tossed back.
“Why Leonna? What did she ever do to you?” Gran tossed back.
“Crazy old woman should have kept her nose out of other people’s business,” he growled.
“Earnest!” Helena hissed.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
~
“Earnest?” We all said together.
“So, that’ll be Angus we’re burying then,” Gran said.
Now nothing made sense.
“I’m leaving,” Helena announced, and Duncan moved quickly to block her route to her car.
“Why’d you kill your own kin?” Gran asked a little less forceful that time. We knew the story, and Gran might have had a soft spot for her old friend now that she knew he wasn’t his brother.
“Ah,” Earnest tossed up a hand in dismay mixed with anger. He looked furious and lost at the same time. “He came back a broken man, Fiona, and I was glad of it. All those years with the darkness inside of him, and my light magic fighting it every step of the way. He was sorry, sure he was, sorry that it had broken him.”