Sekhet

  “I did not!” Mosely roared, just as his lawyer grabbed the photo.

  “My witness says otherwise,” Victor replied smugly.

  “What witness is this, detective?” the lawyer said. “You know better. Unless you can produce this witness in court, all of this is nothing but hearsay.”

  “It is a pity it took you twice to get the effect you thought necessary. Let us not forget Emily Watson was a mere ninety pounds. Hardly cause for extremeness. There is just one thing I don’t understand,” continued Victor. “Why bother when she was already dead?”

  “No, she wasn’t, she …” Mosely started, but as his voice left his lips, he knew he had just screwed up.

  “She what?”

  All the color had drained from Mosely’s face.

  “This interview is over.” The lawyer closed his tablet with a slap.

  “Maybe you two should talk.” Standing, Victor disappeared from the room, leaving the two guards who had been flanking both sides of the table to lead Mosely back to his cell, where he could hope for the possibility of something other than the death penalty.

  ***

  Pausing outside the door of his apartment that evening, fiddling with his keys as he thought of Olivia, Victor couldn’t help but feel even worse about how they had left things. Over the last two years, it would seem they had spent more time arguing than being that happy-go-lucky couple they had started out as. He could turn a blind eye and play the victim to those closest to him – that she was the one in the wrong – but the truth was she wasn’t.

  There had been a time he had given her a choice, a ‘friend’ she had met in the gym one Saturday morning, who seemed to have a great ability to be the one whose shoulder she cried on, or him. She had chosen him. Only now, Olivia was the one stuck in a relationship where the friend still came first with Victor, and she knew it. A double standard that he was more than happy to continue.

  The problem was, Molly was part of his world and not the human world Olivia believed was all that existed. The supernatural world was not somewhere Olivia belonged, yet he refused to let her go.

  The familiar sound of heels came clicking down the hard wooden floor of the hallway where strange, exotic canvas paintings lined the walls. The smell of her perfume brought him back to reality with a snap, causing him to have that familiar feeling he got deep in his gut when she was near.

  Victor didn’t want to look at her for fear of what he would see. He chose not to, and placing his key into the keyhole, he turned and listened to the click as the door opened. Pushing it open, he motioned for her to enter, without a word in her direction.

  “This won’t take long,” Olivia said as she walked into the apartment, making her way toward the bedroom.

  “There’s no rush.”

  Victor went to the fridge, with hopes of something to fill the empty pit he called a stomach.

  The smell of last night’s Chinese takeaway hung in the air with its alluring aroma of sweet and sour chicken. Glancing at the boxes on the table, Victor was tempted to devour what was left. Not looking at anything in particular, he pulled on the off-white, heavy-duty refrigerator handle as if that was going to make food magically appear.

  “Someday, you will discover grocery stores are your friend.” Her voice was natural, holding no contempt. Victor knew he needed to speak with her. Turning to face her with a small smile lining his lips, he was left watching her back as she walked to the bedroom for the second time since arriving, to gather the remainder of her belongings. The saying, “I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave” from the John Travolta movie Face/Off, came to mind as the sway of her hips drew his full attention.

  Clearing his throat, Victor left the strange sanctuary of the kitchen, remembering to throw his keys on the table, where he could find them in the morning.

  “Olivia, we need to talk,” he said, entering the bedroom.

  “About what?”

  And there it was, the response that left him knowing that even one word out of place in his next sentence would leave him open to attack, like an unfortunate gazelle stalked by the lioness hiding in the shadows.

  “This morning.”

  “Oh, you mean when I was trying to… and you jumped out of bed to answer your phone? Is that what we are discussing?”

  “Please don’t do this, Olivia,” Victor countered, sitting down tiredly on his side of the bed.

  “Do what?”

  As Victor watched her stomp about the room, repeating what he said, just in case she had misheard the first time, he couldn’t not want to grab her, kiss her hard enough for her anger to disappear, take her to his bed and forget all about the day he’d had. He had never told her that he loved her, never uttered those three words that would be the undoing of him. Those three fateful words that for all eternity have been the ruination of mankind.

  Not realizing Olivia had stopped screaming in his direction and was standing, eyes glazed over, straining against the bitter, salt-laced tears fighting to flow freely, not caring that she had meant to show her strength, not her weakness, Victor had no idea how long she had been standing there.

  “You haven’t heard a damn thing I’ve said, have you?” Olivia’s voice broke just enough for him to jump up and grab her. Placing both hands on the sides of her face, he leaned his forehead against hers, kissing the tip of her nose.

  “Please don’t go,” he whispered, “I’m sorry you feel I don’t care.” He could feel the tension drain out of her shoulders as her hands came up to cover his. “We cannot keep doing this, Olivia.” Moving back just enough to look into her eyes, he continued, knowing he had to confront the issue – it was now or never. “There never has been anything, nor will there be, between Molly and me. I want you in my life, but I need her in it too.”

  “Do you love her, Victor?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “She’s like a sister to me. I do not know my life without her in it. Why can’t you accept that?”

  “I know,” Olivia murmured as her tears finally won the battle. “I have to accept that. But do you love me?”

  Nodding, Victor kissed her tears as they fell, hating himself for being the one responsible for her anguish. Victor kissed her gently at first, savoring the fact she hadn’t pushed him away, knowing all it would take to end this invisible rivalry she was convinced existed was hearing him say the words every woman wanted to hear.

  His declaration of love would be shared tonight, and as her arms went around his neck, Victor like the gentleman that he suddenly wanted to be, picked her up, carried her to their bed and reminded her in his own way how he felt.

  CHAPTER 8

  Secrecy

  With Victor and Olivia “working it out” – he had missed the Mongolian Grill dinner date with Molly on Thursday, and it had been days since they had even spoken.

  Molly, sitting alone on a rainy Sunday morning in one of her favorite coffee shops, was unjustly mad at Victor. She desperately wanted to tell him about her grandmother’s urgent message to come home, to ask him what he thought it meant. There was nobody else she could talk to about it. Her grandmother’s second message had said, “No hurry, just come when you can. There is no rush.” She figured it was something to do with her mother, that Lucy was in some kind of trouble. She would have to drive out to Twisp by herself in the morning. She wished Victor could be going with her.

  The biggest problem Molly had, besides the trouble that she was afraid was brewing in Twisp – and she dreaded it was Sekhet – was the amount of coffee she just couldn’t do without. She had five favorite coffee shops throughout the city, including the one she was sitting in right now. It wasn’t the Silver Café. This was more of a tea shop, but the coffee bar was excellent.

  Wondering over Victor’s whereabouts of late, Molly knew that he had obviously figured things out with Olivia. It wasn’t that she hated the woman (well just a little) but she despised the way Olivia always tried to sabotage her friendship with Victor.

  Relat
ionships were so much trouble. Molly was glad she was single, with the intention of remaining that way. Anyway, it was all she knew. Molly had been born into a single-parent life, and as many times as her mother vomited out a love story romance featuring a father, her grandmother had told her the truth, as ugly as it was.

  He had been a car salesman in Seattle, and while it pained Grandmother Dot to say he had just been looking for a good time in a bar in Twisp, Molly had come to terms with it many years ago, whether her mother had or not. He was named Julio Papua, so she had been told. An illegal immigrant from Peru, working to support his family, his other family. Great work ethic, her grandmother had said of the man she said she had only met a handful of times.

  He wouldn’t stay; he knew it, her mother knew it, and Molly’s grandmother expected it. Julio Papua had never returned to Twisp. It seemed a mother’s wrath toward a twenty-five-year-old man who impregnated her not-so-innocent seventeen-year-old daughter was enough for him to hustle off with the hope that his transgressions wouldn’t come back to bite him on the butt. It was a great story, and over the years, Molly noticed it changed as Dot told and retold it. Lucy had nothing to say about an elusive Peruvian.

  Enough of memories. The Walgreens’ sign across from the coffee shop where Molly was sitting flashed, displaying numerous advertisements. It endeavored to persuade people to try paperless coupons, to buy a gallon of milk for $2.99, and displayed the time and temperature. It seemed like the final day of summer. The only thing wrong with that analogy was that, besides a few scattered sunny days since the end of May, to date, the teasing prospect of even a day of sunshine, let alone a high of eighty, seemed too much to ask.

  “Another rainy Sunday afternoon.” Molly cursed when the sign paraded the temperature. “Sixty-four degrees, how wonderful.” Growing exceedingly tired of the Seattle weather, Molly yearned for hot sands and cool margaritas under palm trees far away, while she fluttered her eyelashes at a tanned local with six-pack abs and the whitest teeth. Admit it, Molly, you’re lonely.

  Forget Victor. If she needed help in Twisp, Molly knew Daniel would jump to the occasion, but she could never shake the feeling that he helped her simply because he felt sorry for her lack of a father as a child. He was the one who had turned up at her school’s daughter-father days, and parent-teacher meetings when her mother was working at the saloon and her grandmother was out of town. There had been a time when Molly had tried to convince herself that Daniel was her real father. And that would make Victor her brother. Which would be all okay with her.

  Shaking her head, Molly forced herself to concentrate on her grandmother’s words as she mentally prepared for the four-hour drive to Twisp in the morning – alone: “There is no rush,” Dot had said. What had happened in the space of an evening for Grandma Dot to change her mind so drastically? The first message had been, “Get here now,” and now it was “There is no rush.” So it couldn’t be Sekhet.

  The one thing Molly had learned as a child was that no matter how much her grandmother loved and adored her, she was to be obeyed. A woman who pulled no punches, Dot Patterson was not someone to be ignored, only right now, Molly was almost ready to take what came, just to find out what the hell was going on.

  Molly knew she was more like her grandmother than like her feather-brained mother, who, to Molly’s utmost irritation, held on to a Peter Pan complex. Still sixteen at heart, Lucy had failed to notice her body had a different opinion. However handsome Lucy remained, with great teeth, and not a single gray hair, and a contagious smile that had gotten her into trouble on more than one occasion, Lucy Patterson was someone who spent her days working in a local tavern, and working the bar scene at night, ignoring her powers.

  Slight rays of sunshine had begun to battle through the throng of dark clouds overhead. It would rain tonight. Anyway, that’s what the TV weather forecast lady had said. Grabbing what was left of her coffee, Molly went to her car, a ten-year-old Subaru hatchback. A gift from her grandmother; it had been hers first. In all its years, it had never let Dot down. As Victor so nicely put it, it was the most popular make of car for the tree-hugging community in Washington State.

  Sometimes Molly had imagined that not only Victor but Joe thought her gay, and that was okay. Of course, they had witnessed her date numerous men, but none ever got very far. Molly had discovered, whether they were fancy dinners or a movie and popcorn, she always pretty much lost interest by the third date, something that made her fear a resemblance to Lucy.

  The white picket fence, the house in the suburbs with the two children and a golden Lab called Spot or Sally, or whatever people named dogs these days, none of this had any appeal, nor did she even have the urge to pretend it did. Despite her grandmother’s hopes that one of these men would make an impression on her, keep her grounded, they had been nothing but dead ends. The one thing she did not want to be was like her mother.

  Out of nowhere, she felt a sudden pang of sheer panic grip her chest – what age would she be when her biological clock began to tick that little bit louder? That movie she had seen lately. The Vow. That left her craving to stop random guys so she could ask him why all men were not as eager to love as Channing Tatum. Molly wanted a man who would love her, not just bed her.

  “Do I even want a baby?” Molly thought out loud, as her hands had begun to sweat. In all reality, it was not only the fear of passing family secrets on to a child, who by accident stumbled upon spell-casting glossaries, but also the very thought of bringing a child into such a messed-up world. Not to mention a family tree that would consist of a great-grandmother who not only was the head of the Witches’ Council – The Sisterhood’ in the Pacific Northwest – but who had also begun teaching Molly to cast spells at the age of four. Not that she was complaining, but how would she feel if she witnessed this happening with a child she herself brought into the world? And what if she had a boy? A sorcerer. The very thought made her skin prickle with a chill.

  Then there was her own mother, who refused to use her powers for anything other than herself. And Molly had connections of sorts with Hell Demons. Yes, there were countless justifications for not bringing another Patterson into the world. History repeating itself held no place in her life. Molly was not her mother.

  Molly spent another sleepless night in Seattle – too many cups of coffee – and headed for Twisp early Monday morning, madder than ever at Victor for not being with her.

  The four-hour drive was lonely, but a beautiful kind of lonely, where you have time to sort things out. Entering Twisp always gave her a strange feeling. She had been fortunate to have a somewhat pleasant childhood here, thanks to her grandmother. But this place was also the cause for so many of her nightmares, thanks to her mother.

  Growing up in a small town, knowing her neighbors – the mailman, the grocer, the saloon keeper, who, to her amusement, had chased her mother for years, with no luck. Well, she hoped he had had no luck. Old Man Carter, on the corner, anyone could see that he needed to be in assisted living. He still sat in the same spot, smiling at everyone who passed by. It made her want to get out of her car, walk to him, and hug him tightly just so he would know he was still alive inside, even though his mind had escaped him long ago.

  Walking single-mindedly toward the green door with the golden lion’s face for a knocker, Molly couldn’t help but bite her bottom lip to hide her displeasure. The lion’s head had been an ongoing joke, during a Christmas surrounded by strange and eccentric presents.

  This had been hers to her mother, and had been purchased with the hopes Lucy would detest it. It had not been a good year, and this was going to be the final low blow. A plan that, to Molly’s dismay, had gone utterly wrong. Her mother had loved it, and within minutes had gathered a hammer, screwdriver, nails, and screws together and had begun the process of putting not only four holes in the once-immaculate door, but scraped the paint so badly that a new paint job had been obtained by her grandmother the very next day.

  That had been ten years
ago, and the blasted thing still shone like the day she had bought it. Understanding the hardships and bitterness between them, her daughter and her granddaughter, Dot was always yearning for a reconciliation.

  The garden was overgrown. Last year’s stalks were sticking up, brown and broken, among the flowers. By the looks of the bug zapper, not only had the garden been ignored, but so had everything in it. Molly couldn’t pretend she wasn’t worried. Dot had always taken pride in her picturesque, out-of-a-magazine garden. Right now, if not for that god-awful lion’s head, she would have believed all had gone to hell.

  Molly didn't have a key anymore. Knocking using the lion’s mouth, she waited for the familiar sound of flip-flops dragging along the wooden floor of the hallway. It drove her crazy that the woman didn’t lift her feet as she walked, but it was something that was definitely not worth the argument that would come with saying anything about it, so, like everything else to do with Lucy, Molly ignored it as much as humanly possible.

  A few minutes later, after giving up on an answer at the door, Molly made her way around to the back of the house, where she found not only her grandmother and her mother, but the entire Council. Everyone was standing under the huge fern tree, mumbling in whispered, heated conversation. Almost everyone was there, but Molly could see in a glance that her two friends on the Council, Natasha and Veronica, were missing.

  “What is going on?” Molly asked, wide-eyed, as her grandmother rushed to her and hugged her.

  The women were moving apart, staring at Molly.

  “Molly,” Dot said loudly, too cheerily, turning her head slightly. “Look at you, you’ve lost weight. You’ve got to come home, so we can fatten you up.”

  What on earth was going on? Molly knew better than to ask again.

  “Welcome home,” said Lucy, moving closer.

  “Lucy,” Molly replied, nodding in her direction.

  Acknowledging her was a necessity, if only to not be rude when company was present. Lucy had her blond hair uncovered, allowing it to shimmer in the morning sunlight, revealing roots that anyone could see needed fixing