He stretched out an arm and she surrendered to the shelter of his embrace. Against the ravenous hunger of his mouth, she whimpered his name. By the Saints, she knew him. Nothing sounded more pure than his name falling from her exquisite lips…Balion…Balion.
His voice grew hard with anger. "I should beat ye for running away."
He regretted the words the moment they echoed throughout the cave. Never would he raise a hand to her. His heart raced and his spirit soared. Tilting her neck back, he trailed gentle kisses over her face, her eyelids, nose and cheeks. In a hot arousal of desire, he took her mouth again and exalted in the sensation of her lithe body pressed against his.
With harried steps, he carried her to the farthest wall in the cave, laid her down and built a fire. Balion lowered himself to the ground and curled into her. Her slightest movement caused him to shudder. Fire pedaled through his veins when he touched her naked flesh, her breasts and next the flat plane of her stomach. His hand slid down to the soft mound of curls between her slender, white thighs. Desperation mounted as his fingers sought her moist, hot, depths.
There the dream ended. Balion bolted upright in bed, his body drenched in sweat. So close, so close. He could almost taste her, capture her, and yet she had not come to him in a real sense.
In the morning, returning to the black solace of his mercurial visions, he gazed out the window, hoping she'd appear at the edge of the forest. Beset by a hopelessness he didn't understand, he paced his sleeping quarters. I am the Light-Prince; I lack for nothing. I have only to crook a finger and my every command is obeyed, my every wish fulfilled. I, Balion of Locke Cress order you to appear!
A quiet sigh left his lips. He staggered back to bed, his heart heavy. One thought sustained him: In due time she would come to his kingdom.
Chapter 2
Present Day
Providence, Rhode Island
In Kira Barton's opinion, whether alive or dead, cemeteries were friendless, desolate places.
Kneeling before the granite marker, her despair peaked. She dragged her fingers over Paula Decker's name. The Scarlet Angel's most recent victim would have celebrated her nineteenth birthday next week. Despite the oppressive heat, a numbing cold swept over Kira. She looked at the clouds overhead. Are they up there right now―Emma Holloway, Antoinette Bishop, Nicole Carson and Paula―their youthful hands clasped, their lips moving in silent prayer? Kira knew it wasn't likely her defunct sixth sense would kick in by virtue of the graveyard visit, but eternal optimists never lost hope.
Rhode Island's most notorious serial killer had left clues all right, a footprint beside Paula's mutilated body, size eleven, and a cigarette butt near Emma's hand. His DNA had been processed through the FBI's database, resulting in a disappointing zero match.
Kira had accepted long ago that regardless of how many times she shuddered at the crime scene videos, pored over the investigative and autopsy reports or acquiesced to another brain-picking session with the FBI, her innate gut instinct had gone on hiatus.
Until last night.
The freak in the long black robes rode the crest of her dreams again, doling out subliminal messages about the killer faster than her cataleptic brain could process them. She still wasn't certain if the clammy sweats or the triple-thudding of her heart had awakened her and prompted a phone call to her mother at three a.m.
"The Darth Vadar look-alike is back," she had said, frightened out of her wits.
"It's all right, Kira, I'm here." A pause followed in which Kira attempted to control her erratic breathing before her mother's series of questions began. "Is his nose crooked? Does his chin resemble a rocky crag? Are his eyes a fiery gold and set deep into his skull?"
Kira had answered yes to every question.
"It's him, The Story Mage," her mother had whispered.
"Not that again."
"Afraid so. You might as well tell me. What messages did he embed in your mind this time?"
Vivid imagery flashed behind Kira's eyelids in rapid succession, an entire regiment of red crosses lined up at a cemetery, a white sign with blue letters—Donate Blood Here, and the last, the façade of an abandoned warehouse in the seediest part of Providence.
"I'll scribble down some notes," she had said. "We can go over them tomorrow night at dinner."
"Are you going to be okay?"
"Yes, I needed to hear your voice, Mom."
Breaking her reverie, a cranky blue jay let out a scream from a nearby spruce. Kira scanned the cemetery and released a long sigh. "What is the damn connection between the black-robed sorcerer and the killer?" She looked at the sky and upon rising, placed her hand on Paula's headstone. "I'll find him, I promise."
* * *
Kira's parents, Arabella and Nicholas, still lived in Gran's two-hundred year old mansion along the coast in Wickford.
Grandmother Elizabeth passed before Kira entered the world and what little she knew about the flamboyant woman, her mother had told her. "I adored my eccentric, mother, despite her affinity for sorcery and witchcraft."
"Witchcraft?" Kira had asked.
Lavender eyes softened. "Your grandmother belonged to a coven. I didn't know until after she died when I returned to her house. Once I found her journals, I realized she and her friends specialized in spells."
"Spells?"
"Yes, harmless love spells. How do you think I transported your father here?"
Dismissing thoughts of wizardry and other worlds from her mind, Kira glanced at the odometer and spoke to the dashboard. "Twenty miles gone, two to go."
Welcome to Wickford appeared on a green sign to her right. Quaint and picturesque, Wickford not only provided the setting for Updike's novel Witches of Eastwick, but off the western shore of Narragansett Bay, a giant mollusk by the name of Big Q inhabited the water. The stuff of lore, the thousand-pound clam had devoured local residents at a shocking pace over the centuries—fishermen, beach-walkers, even an occasional child. Not one had lived to disseminate the gory details of their encounter with Big Q but the horrifying legends did much to boost the local tourist industry.
Kira parked the car near the twin gargoyles standing guard over her parents' estate and bounded up the cobblestone steps leading to the front door. An ancient, moldering aroma greeted her when she entered, despite her mother's efforts to camouflage it with Fresh Linen and Sea Mist candles. She found her parents sitting in front of the hearth in the great room adjacent to the kitchen.
Unfurling his tall frame, her father came to his feet and embraced her. "My darlin' lass has arrived."
Long, dark hair fell past his shoulders, framing his chiseled features and emerald eyes. Little wonder her mother lost her heart the day she found him unconscious and stretched out over a large, flat rock at low tide.
Her mother drew her into a hug. "I made your favorites, clam chowder and blueberry scones." She took their hands and led them into the kitchen. "Shall we?"
Kira reached for the carafe of coffee, filled three cups, and thanked her mother when she placed a bowl of soup in front of her.
Never one to dance around issues, it came as no surprise to Kira that her father stepped right in to the reason for her visit. "Your mother says ye were upset when ye called last night."
Kira eyed the platter of scones. "This has been the week from hell."
After settling into a chair, and in a light voice, her mother looked into her eyes. "Start from the beginning, what is going on?"
"For starters, Jason and I are finished…another woman, and I have no idea if she even likes cats."
Sympathy blossomed in her mother's violet eyes. "Oh, dear me."
"You'd think the smell of stale perfume and smeared lipstick on his boxers would have clued me in." Under her breath she whispered, "Not to mention missed dates and passable sex of late."
"You sent Kissa packing too?"
"I had no choice. Mrs. Pettigrew―"
"Your landlady?"
Kira nodded. "Snuck into my apartmen
t again, found Kissa, and left an indecorous note on the table."
Her father’s eyebrow shot up. "What did it say, lass?"
"That the tabby, however adorable, must go."
"One of these days," her mother interjected, "Elmira Pettigrew is going to spy on the wrong tenant, one who informs her it's illegal to engage in such practices."
"Mrs. Pettigrew's penchant for cat-burglary is the least of my problems right now."
Her father's features softened. "Has the business been too much for ye, lass?"
"Oh, well, other than a dozen calls a day from frantic parents requesting my services to find lost children, no."
Her mother gave a slow shake of her head. "Thank heaven for Eva."
"My sentiments too and please pass the butter." Kira paused as if collecting her thoughts. "My lucky stars were in their zenith the day that girl walked in seeking employment. Eva has the spiel down pat, 'Miss Barton is a criminal profiler, not a medium.' I would love to take every case but between the FBI and the local authorities hounding me to find The Scarlet Angel, I can't."
"The FBI again?" her father said.
"An agent by the name of Frank Kissel showed up at the office yesterday."
"Tenacious, aren't they?" her mother said between bites. "Your psychic abilities fall somewhere between blessing and curse."
"I do not have psychic powers, Mother; I have heightened intuitiveness. When it comes to this Scarlet Angel kook, my intuitiveness has gone south."
"The serial killer ye told us about months ago?"
"The same, Father. I visited the cemetery this morning, hoping my apathetic brain would engage after the recurring dream last night."
"Your mother mentioned dreams about a man in a black robe."
Kira reached for her purse near her feet and dug out the notes. Heat pedaled through her veins as the other dream surfaced. She couldn't tell her parents about the decadent warrior, the man who made her body ache in places she didn't know existed. They'd think her lacking in the morals sector despite their unconventional beliefs about time-travel, mysticism and wizardry. She couldn't begin to describe the hunger he'd awakened in her. He was a wraith after all, an apparition of her depraved dreams. As were his erotic words: Eros will make you burn with love for me. Even now, sitting next to her parents bemoaning her horrendous week, every organ in her body pulsated with the fervor of Davy Jones' forsaken heart.
A little gasp preceded her mother's words. "Kira, you went to the graves of the victims?"
"After the clues, yes." She read from the notes in her hand. "Crosses, red crosses, do they hold any particular significance?"
Heads shook in unison.
"What about a sign–Donate Blood Here?"
Again, they shook their heads and her mother frowned. "I'm worried, dear. Is this becoming personal?"
"Kissel thinks the killer is ready to strike again. As for the case becoming personal, how can it not be when four young women are dead and a sorcerer with feral eyes is attempting to lead me to the killer?"
Her mother's delicate chin came up. "The Story Mage."
Kira asked, "What does this weirdo want with me?"
"A story," her father said.
A groan came from Kira.
"It's his only goal in life, to perpetuate the endings to the stories." Her mother's eyes darkened. "He's driven to write the tales down, commit them to the annals of history for all time."
Kira snorted. "That's absurd."
Her father rubbed his chin. "Mayhap Sirene will come to ye while ye dream."
"Sirene?" Kira's head swam. "Now who might that be?"
Her mother rose, walked to the window, and turned her face toward the moon. "It began the night I returned to Gran's house at a dark time in my life. I found the book and the scrolls in the cellar." She glanced to the table. "I realized then my mother, your grandmother, practiced witchcraft."
Kira buried her face in her hands. She loved her parents but the stories about witches and wizards tested her already strained nerves. Growing up, they were the typical, suburban family—mortgage payments, leased vehicles, summer-vacations-at-the-beach. She'd suffered the usual pangs of pubescence, endured ten years of painful violin lessons and three years of braces, bolstered by the unconditional love of a doting mother and the perfect father. After her self-absorbed teen years passed, she realized her parents weren’t anything like the Smiths to the north or the Jacksons behind the alley. Piecemeal, the story of how her parents met had surfaced.
"It does little good to ignore me, Kira." From across the room, her mother clucked her cheek. "I discovered Gran was a witch."
"I heard you," Kira answered a little too curt. "It isn't hereditary, is it?"
With a finger to her lips, her mother looked skyward. "Hmm, I wonder."
When another groan left Kira's lips, her father reached across the table and took her hand. "Hear your mother out, lass. We're trying to help."
""I opened the dusty tome and directions on how to conjure a love spell appeared before my eyes." Her mother paused to gaze at her father, her lavender eyes reminding Kira of the fringed gentian along the coast. She saw the same eyes every morning when she looked in the mirror.
"The spell brought Father forth?"
"Yes," she said in a wistful tone. "With assistance from The Story Mage and Sirene."
Her father clutched the long, gold chain around his neck. "Don't forget the medallion."
With fond remembrance, Kira's gaze lingered on the precious adornment. As a child, she’d often sit in her father's lap and will the wolf to chew his way free from the tangled thicket. She had stared at the scarlet stone, believing if she looked long enough it would pulsate in perfect rhythm with her heart.
"Your father was wearing the necklace the day I found him, but The Story Mage snatched it and said the medallion held the power to return him to Locke Cress."
"Aye," he confirmed. "If I placed it around my neck again, repeated the chant, I'd return to King Roldan and my people."
Her mother glided across the room, stood behind him and draped her arms over his shoulders. "He would have returned a hero after vanquishing Umargo's army."
"Stop, please. This is so surreal." Kira drew a deep breath. "Umargo? A king named Roldan? Locke Cress?"
"You must listen, dear. The Story Mage has entered our lives again through your dreams. He hungers for a story and seeks revenge."
"Revenge against whom?" Frustration edged Kira’s words. "And why does he seek revenge?"
"Against Sirene." Her father leaned forward. "The Story Mage banished her son to the void, knowing if he separated her from the babe, grief would diminish her powers. The Mage hoped Umargo's army would win the battle against King Roldan."
"Thus Umargo would rule the kingdom," her mother interjected "And the wizard could conclude the story."
Kira gazed into her father's eyes for a moment before closing hers. The conversation read like a script from a tragic comedy, yet they had never seemed more sincere.
"Lass, I know it is hard for ye to absorb, but the man's every thought, every action, serves one purpose…to write the stories, finish the book."
Compelled by some unknown force, Kira asked, "What happened next?"
Wrapping his hands around her mother's, a smile curled her father's lips. "I found the medallion in a cave and slipped it over my head. The red stone burned bright when The Mage stepped from the shadows and begged me to recite the words to transport me home."
Her mother's eyes took on the luminescence of shiny gems. "Sirene appeared. She convinced your father the magic evolved from the sacrifice, not from the medallion or the incantation."
Gooseflesh prickled Kira arms. "Sacrifice?"
"It was no sacrifice on my part to stay. Your mother bewitched me with her violet eyes and beguiling smile, not to mention—"
"Darling, I'm sure our daughter doesn't wish to hear what else convinced you to stay."
"Okay." Kira came to her feet and addressed
her father. "About this Sirene. Give me a visual."
"Ah." Her father's eyes glistened. "The Lady of a Thousand Veils." As if recalling the moment, he paused. "Silver hair, the color of moonstones on Locke Cress, her every feature flawless, she floated into the cavern. Her long dress of green and blue billowed around her."
"Her eyes?" Kira asked.
The words came fast. "A perfect match to her hair."
Kira placed a hand to her forehead. "Why did she appear?"
"To thwart The Mage. Her powers will not be restored in full until her son returns from the dark void. But she has a trick or two up her sleeve yet."
There were a thousand reasons Kira shouldn't believe them, but she did. A pang of sympathy thrummed her heart. "Do you miss your homeland, Locke Cress?"
He dismissed her question with a wave of his hand. "My world would be empty without your mother."
In the next hour, the discussion continued. Until the mantel clock chimed nine times and reminded Kira the drive back to Providence awaited. "I better get going, big day tomorrow."
Nicholas removed the medallion and handed it to her across the table. "Don't take it off, lass, no matter what. It will protect ye from harm."
Her mother's hands rose at her side, her shoulders rising too. "You can't save the world, Kira. If your intuition kicks in, yes, tell Mr. Kissel, but let the FBI handle it."
She crossed her heart before picking up her purse. After kissing them goodbye, she headed for her car.
For twenty-two miles, she relived the conversation with her parents, her head filled with strange names–Umargo, Roldan, The Mage and Sirene. A pale moon escaped the clouds as she parked her car and found her way to the door of her apartment building.
After the long day, sleep beckoned her. Clues existed yes, but not enough to assemble the puzzle. Perhaps tonight, the wizard would return.
Or perhaps the sinful, beautiful warrior.
Chapter 3
Fitful dreams invaded Kira's sleep. A beast chased her through the forest. Onward she ran through the dense foliage, the cat's mighty paws pounding the hard earth behind her. Screaming louder than a banshee the creature leaped through the air, its warm, moist breath fanning her neck.
Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1) Page 42