“Not from nowhere,” Will said, and she lifted an eyebrow. “It came from within you, because you were under duress and some part of you knew you had the means to protect me, to protect yourself. Sort of the psychic equivalent of a mother suddenly having the strength to lift a car off her young child.”
Rosemary hadn’t really thought of the strange manifestation in those terms, but she could see what he was saying. And in a way, she found herself comforted by the comparison. It was nothing freakish, only her innate abilities analyzing the situation and coming up with a way to make sure both she and Will survived Caleb’s attack.
“Well, it definitely surprised Caleb,” she said, keeping her tone deliberately light. “I’m sure he thought I was defenseless.”
“His own fault for underestimating you,” Will remarked, and a little flush of happiness went through her. Yes, he was lying there looking far too pale, and with shadows under his remarkable eyes that she didn’t like at all, but she saw a warmth in his expression that was impossible to ignore. “I’m sure you gave him a nasty shock.”
“I hope so.” She reached over and took Will’s hand, was glad to have him gently squeeze her fingers. It felt so good to have even this small bit of contact; it reassured her that he really was okay and that she hadn’t lost him. “Serves him right for being such a jackass. But even though I surprised him, he still came out ahead in that encounter, since he has the hard drive and we don’t.”
A small breath escaped Will’s lips. “I know. But losing one battle isn’t the same thing as losing the war.”
Her fingers tightened on his. Part of her didn’t want to ask the question, but the words escaped her lips anyway. “Are you saying this is a war?”
Another breath, and his black lashes swept down against his cheeks as he shut his eyes. “Yes, Rosemary. The same war we’ve been fighting for millennia.”
And since she honestly didn’t know how to respond to that statement, she only clung to his hand and sat there in silence, wondering what in the world they were going to do now that the footage was in the hands of the demons.
They needed to save it…but she had absolutely no idea how.
Chapter 3
Soon afterward, Rosemary told Will he needed to rest. His comment about being at war had disturbed her more than she wanted to admit, although she knew he’d only been trying to be truthful, had wanted to make sure she knew what they were up against. Which she supposed was the right thing to do, except that she had so little experience with this sort of thing. Michael and Will had been fighting the forces of darkness for years; she was late to the game and finding she didn’t like it very much.
Once Will was asleep — she knew he slept because the rhythm of his breathing changed, and something very close to a snore escaped his nose — Rosemary got her purse, which she’d slung over the back of the chair where she’d been sitting, and retrieved her phone. By that time, it was past ten o’clock, both in California and Arizona, since the time zones wouldn’t be out of sync until California went back on standard time in a few more weeks, and she knew Michael and Audrey had to be worried. Yes, she’d texted Michael to let him know she’d reached All Saints safely, but it had been crazy ever since then, and she hadn’t had a chance to reach out and tell him what had happened.
A few more swallows of coffee to give her some much-needed energy, and then she composed an extremely long, detailed text message — so long, it got broken up into three separate texts as she wrote — explaining to Michael what had occurred earlier that evening, that Will was all right but Caleb had gotten away with the hard drive. She also let Michael know that she’d had to talk to the police but had managed to avoid giving away any information that might connect Caleb to Will’s assault.
That project took around fifteen minutes, and the few swallows of coffee left in her mug were cold by the time she was done. She took a long look at Will, reassured herself that he was sleeping peacefully and should be okay for a few minutes, and then got up from her chair and headed into the kitchen to pour herself some more of that witch’s brew. As she was taking another sip, her phone binged.
We’re glad you’re all right, Michael texted back. Try to keep the police out of it as much as possible. If they start poking around, this could get a lot more complicated than it already is.
Which was pretty much what Rosemary had already guessed, although she was glad that she and Michael were on the same page where the authorities were concerned. I will, she wrote. I have to meet the detective tomorrow, and I know he’s going to want to talk to Will, but by then we’ll have had a chance to get our stories straight. It’ll be fine.
Good. I assume Caleb didn’t leave much evidence behind.
As she recalled that horrible scene in the hallway of Colin Turner’s Glendale house, Rosemary realized that the demonic flames Caleb had summoned only seemed to affect living tissue — they hadn’t left any scorch marks behind on either the walls or the floor. That was a relief, because she knew otherwise she probably would have had a difficult time explaining to Detective Phillips how the walls in that particular section of the house looked as though someone had been shooting off a flamethrower in there.
I don’t think so, she replied. Maybe he left some fingerprints on the crawlspace access panel, but I don’t see why they’d be checking up there.
Did you leave it open?
She shut her eyes, envisioning the scene, and remembered that the rectangle of sheetrock had still been propped up against the wall when she’d called for an ambulance. Even if she’d been thinking clearly and had realized that the section of sheetrock needed to be replaced before someone noticed, there wasn’t anything she could have done about it at the time, since she was far too short to reach the ceiling without a ladder.
Yes, I think it’s still open, she texted Michael.
You need to make sure it’s back in place before the police come by to look at the interior of the house, because they’ll be sure to check the crawlspace panel for fingerprints or other physical evidence if they see that it’s been tampered with. Do you know when they’re planning to inspect the place?
Sometime tomorrow, she responded. Detective Phillips said he’d be in contact, but he didn’t give me a specific time.
That gives you some flexibility. Take care of it before you contact him.
How nice of Michael to be giving orders from five hundred miles away. Rosemary scowled at her phone’s screen in irritation, although she knew he was only trying to make sure the police wouldn’t be able to find any trace of Caleb Lockwood in that house.
All right, she texted back. I’ll take care of it. No worries.
Okay, Michael replied. I’m worried enough for the both of us. Let me know how it goes tomorrow.
I will.
That seemed to be that. Rosemary returned her phone to her purse and sent an anxious glance in Will’s direction, but he seemed to have slept through her convo with Michael. Good. She’d need to wake him up at some point, but he’d only been asleep for about twenty minutes, so he had some ways to go.
In the meantime, she needed to figure out how in the world she could get herself over to the Glendale house so she could take care of that damn crawlspace. If Will had been in any better shape, she would have woken him up and brought him along with her, even if all he did was wait in the car while she worked. However, she knew he shouldn’t be moved — he needed to rest and give his body time to heal from the trauma it had suffered.
She didn’t dare leave him alone, however. Maybe there was someone at his church who would have come to his house to keep watch over him, no questions asked, but she knew absolutely nothing about his social circle there, whether he was particularly close with the staff at All Saints or possibly with certain members of his congregation.
No, she realized there was really only one person she could trust to come and look after Will during the hour or so she would be gone, someone who was utterly reliable and wouldn’t ask too many awkward
questions…she hoped.
In a situation like this, a girl needed to call her mother.
Will opened his eyes, thinking that he’d heard muffled female voices from somewhere within the shadowy depths of sleep. No dreams had haunted him, which was probably a good thing; he doubted he would be dreaming of anything good after the evening he’d had.
Then again, there had been that kiss with Rosemary…and the gentle kisses she’d given him right before he fell asleep.
In the next moment, though, he found himself blinking, because that was definitely not Rosemary sitting in the chair by his bedside. Oh, she looked a great deal like her, had the same curly chestnut hair and blue eyes, but the woman keeping watch over him now was definitely older, probably in her late fifties or early sixties, although the soft light from the lamp on the dresser across the room smoothed away some of the lines in her face.
“Good,” the woman said. “I was just about to wake you, since it’s been an hour.”
“Who’re you?” Will asked, although he thought he could already guess at the answer. However, the “who” in this equation didn’t bother him as much as the “why.”
“I’m Glynis McGuire, Rosemary’s mother,” the woman replied. “Rosemary had to run out for a bit and didn’t want to leave you alone, so I said I’d come over and keep watch while she was gone. I live over in Sierra Madre,” she added, as if she felt she needed to reassure him that it hadn’t been any trouble for her to pop over to Pasadena and babysit a complete stranger.
He pushed himself upright and noticed that his head didn’t hurt as much during that small exertion as he’d feared it would. Maybe he was bouncing back from the injury more quickly than he’d hoped. After reaching over for his now-cold peppermint tea and taking a sip, he said, “Where did Rosemary go?”
“To the house in Glendale,” Glynis responded.
Worry stabbed through him, and he had to quell the impulse to push himself out of bed and chase after her. Even as the thought went through his head, he knew he was in no shape to go running off to Glendale — and besides, she’d probably taken his car, since her own little Fiat was presumably still parked in the structure near All Saints where she’d left it earlier that evening. “Why would she do that? It’s not safe.”
Glynis shook her head. If she was worried for her daughter, she didn’t show any sign of it. However, her next words belied her calm appearance, because she said, “I tried to tell her that as well — at least, that’s what I said after she explained to me what was going on, what had happened earlier tonight. But she said both she and Michael Covenant agreed that Caleb had already taken the thing he needed from the house, so there was no reason for him to be anywhere near the place.”
“She talked to Michael?” Now Will’s head felt as if it had begun to swim, although he guessed that was probably more because he had a sense of missing out on a great deal while he was asleep, despite being out of it for less than an hour.
“She texted him,” Glynis said. “And they were both worried that the police might find some sign of your encounter with Caleb, so she went back to clean up the evidence.”
“And you’re all right with that?”
A rueful little smile tugged at Glynis’s lips, still full and pretty, just like her daughter’s. “Rosemary is an adult, Will. I can’t exactly command her to stop doing something just because I don’t approve of it. Besides, this is an extraordinary case. If Caleb is really who…what…Rosemary says he is, then I have to agree that it’s probably a good idea to make sure the authorities don’t get involved. At least, not any more than they already are.”
“Oh, he’s definitely what she says he is,” Will said grimly. “I saw him use his powers. No human being could have done what he did back at that house.”
“So, we’re agreed.”
He wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but he had to admit Rosemary had done the right thing by reaching out to her mother. She would keep this secret, and any others as necessary, because she didn’t want her daughter to get in trouble.
“You seem very calm about all this,” he remarked, and Glynis gave an eloquent lift of her shoulders.
“Well, I’m psychic, just like my daughters, so I’ve seen more than my share of odd things. When dealing with the supernatural, it’s often best to confront things squarely rather than try to run away from them, just because the more you try to avoid something, the more it makes sure to hunt you down and force you to acknowledge it.”
Her voice and expression were still serene, and Will wondered what it was in her life that had brought her to this quiet acceptance of strange forces at work in the world. While he wanted to ask, he knew doing so wouldn’t be appropriate. They were strangers to one another, almost as much as he was with Rosemary. Oh, they’d revealed a little of themselves, but there was still so much he didn’t know about her…almost everything, if he wanted to admit it to himself. He knew she had two sisters and co-owned a bookstore with them, and that she had a house of her own in Glendora, one she’d happily moved out of on a temporary basis while the home next to hers was being renovated. But while he could guess that her parents were divorced — he didn’t see a ring on Glynis’s left hand, although he knew not all women wore wedding rings — the rest of her life before their orbits had intersected might as well be a complete blank.
Something he’d have to rectify in the very near future…if he was given the chance.
“Let me get you some more tea,” Glynis said, now sounding much brisker. She got up from the chair and reached for the mug at his bedside. “Would you like anything else? Are you hungry?”
Maybe he should have been, since it had been hours and hours since the sandwich he’d hastily eaten before the Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting he’d hosted at All Saints earlier that evening, but his stomach turned over at the thought of putting anything solid in it. He shook his head. “No, thank you. Tea is fine.”
She smiled at him and left the room, while he looked down at himself and reflected it was a good thing that he still wore his untucked shirt and trousers, rather than his usual bedtime attire of underwear and nothing else. Rosemary hadn’t asked him if he wanted to change into something more comfortable, probably because she would have been embarrassed to help him out of his clothes at this early stage in their relationship.
Doing such a thing would have been just a little mortifying for him, too. He kept in shape, had a weight set in the spare bedroom and tried to run a few miles most mornings, but still, there was generally a point where he was comfortable getting undressed in front of a woman, and he knew he definitely wasn’t there with Rosemary yet.
For a minute, Will lay in bed and did his best to gauge whether or not he was ready to get up and scrounge a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants from the dresser. It wasn’t that far, only a few steps, but…probably better to stay where he was. Since his shirt wasn’t tucked in and his belt still resided in the little bag of personal belongings the hospital had sent home with him, he was comfortable enough for now. Besides, he had much more to be worried about than what he was wearing. He couldn’t prevent his mind from dwelling on the image of Rosemary in Colin’s former home, all by herself in a dark and empty house. True, the power was still on and the neighbors were close enough if anything went wrong, but really, what could neighbors do if Caleb Lockwood decided to swing back around and take another look at the place just to make sure there wasn’t something he might have missed?
The mere thought of such a prospect made cold fear inch its way down Will’s spine.
“It’s fine,” Glynis McGuire said, startling him as she reentered the room. She set a mug of fresh tea down on the nightstand and then resumed her seat in the chair at his bedside. “Rosemary just texted me to say she was at the house and everything is quiet over there. She’ll be done soon enough and on her way back here.”
“That’s good news,” Will replied, although he couldn’t quite prevent himself from wondering exactly how long things w
ould remain quiet over in Glendale. If it had even been Rosemary who’d sent the text in the first place. What if Caleb was there, had overpowered her and then taken her phone to send a reassuring text that all was well?
He must have been telegraphing his thoughts — or maybe she simply found his face easy to read — because Glynis leaned over and patted him on the arm. The gesture reminded him so much of something his own mother might have done in a similar situation, he couldn’t quite prevent himself from giving her a rueful grin.
“Sorry,” he said. “I should probably stop conjuring worst-case scenarios.”
“I think that’s understandable, given the situation,” she said, blue eyes kind but troubled. “Have some tea, and then see if you can sleep again for a bit. If you’re asleep, the time will go faster.”
And he wouldn’t be torturing himself with everything that might go wrong, although he supposed those fears might insinuate themselves into his dreams. Still, he thought Glynis had a point. He drank some tea — it was warm but not piping hot, leading him to believe she’d hadn’t bothered to reheat the water in the kettle, had only poured out what was left over from when Rosemary had boiled it an hour or so earlier — and then made himself settle against the pillows and close his eyes. Maybe it was a little awkward to have Glynis there watching him, but she was a mother three times over; no doubt, she’d spent plenty of nights at bedsides before, watching over a sick child. He wasn’t her son, of course, and yet he could tell she cared that he’d been injured and wanted to make sure he healed as quickly as possible.
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