Knight of Wands (Knights of the Tarot Book 1)

by Mason, Nina

  By the time the taxi pulled up in front of the house, his shirt was stuck to his back under his jacket. He paid the driver, hefted his bag over his shoulder, and climbed out into the feverish night. He walked partway up the driveway, regarding the cars parked thereon with suspicion. There were two. A dark blue Swedish station wagon and a pale gold American sedan.

  Was one of them Armstrong’s? Jealousy laced with anger lanced his heart. What the hell was that shithead doing here at this hour? It was well past midnight. He listened for sounds from inside the house. If there were any, he couldn’t hear them over the cacophony of insects.

  Something didn’t feel right, but he couldn’t point to anything specific. The house was dark and quiet, so, why did his gut pulse with unease? He strode to the front porch, senses alert, and climbed the steps. His footfalls sounded hallow on the wide white boards. He knocked on the door, stepped back, and waited. Nothing happened. He knocked again. Still nothing.

  Maybe she wasn’t home. There were two white wooden rocking chairs on the porch. Should he have a seat and wait? Maybe, but not until he was certain she wasn’t there. He turned back to the door and depressed the buzzer for longer than he would have under normal circumstances. When he released it, he pressed his ear against the door. Hearing muffled sounds, he strained to make out what they might be.

  Alarm pealed through his system when he identified groaning. A different kind of fear tightened his chest. He pounded on the door with his fist.

  “Vanessa! Let me in.”

  No answer.

  He tried the knob and, finding it unlocked, threw open the door. The smell of blood shot out, striking his nose like a fist. His gums began to hum with interest. A sobering blend of lust and dread pulsed through his veins.

  “Vanessa?”

  Still no response, dammit.

  He shut the door, leaving his suitcase outside. When he heard the groan again, all the blood in his body turned cold. It was a moan of pleasure, not pain.

  While the house was dark, he could make out shapes. A sofa, an easy chair, drapes over a sliding glass door. He followed the sounds to the sofa as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light. He could make out the curve of her hip and her dark hair cascading down her back. She was astride someone. He could guess who. For a long moment, he stood there watching, too hurt to take action.

  Recovering his wits, he bellowed her name.

  Her head popped up and snapped around, lips drawn back in a snarl. Her eyes were slits, her hair a wild nest, and her mouth and chin dripped with blood. He took a step toward her, but stopped when she hissed, a warning to keep his distance. Clearly, she was out of her senses, but he couldn’t just stand by and let her kill someone.

  Even someone he’d love to strangle with his own two hands.

  “Vanessa, it’s me. Callum. Let him go, darling.”

  “Help me.”

  Armstrong’s feeble plea gave Callum both pain and relief. The prick was still alive, but for how much longer? Assuming a defensive crouch, he slunk toward the sofa. He planned to grab her and pull her off while her fangs were disengaged. Being bigger and stronger, he could overpower her, but, if he chose the wrong moment, he could do serious damage to her and her prey.

  She was still dressed, thank the stars. In the little black dress she’d worn to dinner her first night at Barrogill. Drawing nearer, he reached for her. She flailed at him with her fists, landing painful blows on his arms, chest, and face. His arms shot around her and hoisted her into the air. She fought like a demon, swinging, kicking, and gnashing. He tackled her, pinning her under him. When she began to calm down, he turned his attention to her victim, who was flat on his back on the sofa with his fly undone. His erection still glistened with Vanessa’s juices. The sight of it shook Callum to the core. Images flashed of banging Miss Hornsby up against the bathroom door. When guilt squeezed his gut, he ignored it. Surely this incident evened the score. Though, being a woman, she probably wouldn’t see it that way.

  “Are you all right?” His voice conveyed concern even as his heart burned with hatred.

  “I’ve been better.”

  “Don’t worry,” he told Armstrong, struggling to speak while restraining the she-devil. “I’m not going to let you die—much as I’d like to. But I am going to let you suffer until I get the whole bloody story of what happened here tonight.”

  At that, he lifted his weight off Vanessa and flipped her onto her back. Moving swiftly, he clamped his hands over her wrists and pinned her arms to the floor. The crazed look in her eyes told him she was still in the throes of bloodlust madness. Thus, there was no point in trying to reason with her. He wasn’t inclined to believe anything Armstrong might have to say, so he’d wait until she regained her senses to extract the truth.

  “Get off me.” She thrashed under him like a crocodile.

  He sat down hard on her pelvis and tightened his grip on her arms. “Come back to me, lass.”

  Snarling, she bared her fangs and tried to buck him off. He battled the urge to slap her, both to shock her out of her frenzy and because she’d hurt him. To do so, however, he’d have to free one of her arms. That could prove disastrous. In her present state, she was like a wild animal he’d interrupted in the middle of feeding. Given the chance, she’d fight him to the death for her prey.

  “Vanessa, please. Calm down. It’s Callum. I’ve come to help. But I need you to snap out of it.”

  Her response was to hiss and try to bite his arm. Surging with a mixture of angst and adrenaline, he picked up one of her arms, turned her on her side and clasped both wrists in one hand. Then, he did slap her. While not as hard as he might have, still hard enough. She laid there for a moment, unmoving, her hair strewn across her face in tangled wisps. Then, with the speed of a striking snake, she sank her fangs into his wrist.

  “You wee bitch!” Pain shot up his arm, but he didn’t let go. “I’m trying to help you.”

  She withdrew her teeth and looked at him. The hatred in her eyes lodged in his heart like a bullet. He nevertheless held her gaze. Little by little, her body relaxed beneath his. A few moments later, the woman he knew returned to her eyes.

  “Callum?” She squinted at him as if she’d only just seen him. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to sort out.”

  She gaped at him, blinking. “You cut your hair.”

  “I had to. For the campaign.”

  She made a face. “You’ve decided to run?”

  “Aye.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  He squinted at her in confusion. “What do you mean you don’t like it? It was your bloody idea.”

  “I meant your haircut. I liked it better long.”

  Anger sizzled in his stomach. “Oh, aye? Well, so did I. But I think we’ve got more important matters to deal with right now than the length of my hair. When I came in, you were feeding on your employer. And I think I’ve a right to know what the devil’s been going on.”

  Getting off her, he climbed to his feet and helped her to hers. He threw another toxic glance at Armstrong, still on his back on the couch. As a flash of what he’d seen flayed him from chest to groin, he turned his rage on Beau.

  “You’re a right bastard, do you know that? Preying on lasses the way you do. If it were up to me, I’d drain you myself and throw your carcass to the crocodiles.” He slipped his arm around Vanessa, pulled her against his side, and kissed her wild hair. “Where’s your bedroom, mo dearbadan-de? We can talk about this in there.” Turning back to Armstrong, he added, “Don’t go anywhere, scumbag. I’m not finished with you by a long stretch.”

  Down the hall in her bedroom, Callum let her go, sat on the edge of the bed, and buried his face in his hands. Cool air blasted out of a box in the window. He hadn’t realized how hot the front of the house had been until that moment.

  She sat beside him. “He knows what we are.”

  “Aye, well. I should think so, given what I’ve just witnessed.”


  “No. I mean before. He knew about you from some conference…and figured out I was like you when the rougarou didn’t kill me. And because of the gris-gris.”

  He lifted his head and scowled at her in confusion. “Rougarou? Gris-gris? Maybe you’d better back up a wee bit.”

  She took a breath and started to explain. “A rougarou is a swamp creature, part werewolf, part vampire. I was attacked by one the first night I was here, after I went hunting in the bayou. And a gris-gris is a voodoo talisman. He wears one to protect him from paranormal powers, and claims that’s why you couldn’t wipe his memory. When he tried to give me one, it burned my fingers, confirming his suspicions that you’d made me like you.”

  Callum, reeling from all she’d told him, clenched his jaw and shook his head. She’d been attacked by a swamp creature and didn’t tell him? His attempt to wipe Beau’s memory hadn’t worked because of some talisman he wore? If he still wore the unholy thing, its protective powers must be limited. How else had she managed to attack him?

  “What happened tonight?”

  “We went to dinner and I lost control.”

  Jealousy stabbed like a hot knife. Had she already found a new flower? Remembering her distress signal, he evicted the green monster from his head.

  “What did he do to you?”

  “He tried to blackmail me. He said if I didn’t turn him, he’d tell the media what you were, ruining your life and political career.”

  “And you agreed to this?” He got the picture and was so destroyed, he’d had to strain to get the words out.

  She set a hand on his shoulder. “Are you angry?”

  “Och, aye. I’m furious, but not with you. I should have warned you about that snake.” He shook his head. “But I was afraid you’d think I was trying to stop you from going.”

  “You were right,” she said, sounding contrite.

  Enough talk. The time had come to take action. He stood and started toward the door, but stopped when she called after him.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Clean his clock.”

  His heart throbbed with a dull ache as his eyes roamed over her. She looked wild, but also lovely. “And, lass? While I’m sorting him out, have yourself a wash, eh? Because when I’m done with him, I’m going to see to you. And I’ll not be settling for any man’s sloppy seconds, especially a predatory scumbag like Beau Armstrong.”

  Reentering the living room, he found Armstrong sitting up with a throw across his lap. His complexion was deathly pale and the wound on his neck was angry and oozing. She’d taken, but not given. He’d stopped her in time, thank the heavens. He drew up a chair and, for the longest time, glowered at the bastard with hatred in his heart.

  “What are you g-going to do to me?” Armstrong looked nervous, frightened even.

  “A couple of things, I’m thinking.” Callum fought the cruel grin twitching on his mouth. “I’m going to wipe your memory of me and Vanessa, and, while I’m in there, I thought I’d do a wee bit of rewiring to make you a better human being.”

  Armstrong had the audacity to look displeased. “And I have no choice in this?”

  Clenching inside, Callum glowered at him. “Of course you do. You can choose what I’ve proposed, or I can haul your sorry carcass out to the swamp and feed you to the rougarou. Assuming the crocodiles don’t make a meal of you first.”

  Armstrong’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Without a word, Callum rose from the chair, drew back his fist, and slammed it into the ungrateful prick’s nose. A howl of pain accompanied the cracking of cartilage.

  As blood gushed from Armstrong’s nostrils, Callum lowered his gaze, fighting the urge to feed. Seeing the pouch around the prick’s neck, he tore it free and flung it across the room. It burned his fingers, but only fleetingly. Fixing Armstrong with a hateful gaze, he clenched his teeth and ground out, “It’s been a long day and I’m knackered, so what will it be? Death or decency? The choice is yours.”

  Chapter 18

  In the end, Armstrong chose decency, though with more foot-dragging than Callum could believe. He drove him home in the Volvo, left him in the driveway, and hoofed it back to Vanessa’s house, thinking as he walked about the best way to go forward. Now that she had no job, he could see no reason for her not to come back to Scotland with him. Being a bloody-minded Aquarian, however, she might well have different ideas.

  Upon reaching her house, he walked up the drive to the porch. As he mounted the steps, ready to put his cards on the table, the overwhelming aroma of blood—dead human blood—hit his nose. Pulse quickening, he raced toward the house and burst through the front door.

  The scene that greeted him looked like a Manson Family massacre. There was blood everywhere. The walls, floors, ceiling, and furniture were streaked, spattered, and smeared with it. In the middle of the mess a body lay sprawled in a crimson pool. A reedy middle-aged woman, clothes shredded, legs spread, throat torn open.

  “What in the name of—?”

  The question caught in his throat as his mind transported him back to Flodden Field. He shook his head forcefully to dispel the image as he cast around the crime scene for the culprit. He found Vanessa by the back sliding-glass door, every inch of her stained red.

  Callum opened his mouth to say something but, before he could get the words out, Vanessa ran to him, threw her arms around his neck, and began to sob into his shirt.

  “What the devil happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, sniffing. “It came on me like a fit.”

  “Who is she?” Callum demanded.

  “One of my neighbors. She came by the first day I moved in with some brownies to welcome me.”

  “How did she get in?”

  “Well…she rang the doorbell,” she began, drawing back to look at him. “I opened the door and there she was, smiling at me like we were best friends. Before I could think what to say, she asked me if I knew Jehovah and shoved a copy of The Watchtower into my hand.”

  Callum, blood boiling, said through clenched teeth, “Why in the name of God did you answer the door?”

  “To see who it was.”

  Callum rolled his eyes. “Why did you invite her in?”

  “Can we please talk about this in the kitchen?” Vanessa said, sobbing into his shirt. “The smell in here is making me sick…and I could really use a drink.”

  Callum ushered her through the swinging door, slid into the built-in banquette, and watched her pull down a bottle of Jack Daniels and two glasses. She set the glasses on the table and filled them to the brim before sliding in beside him.

  After a couple of swigs, she said, “I swear to you on everything I hold dear that I didn’t mean to hurt her when I invited her in. I was just trying to be neighborly. I thought we could enjoy a nice glass of sweet tea together and talk, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.” She heaved a sigh and threw back another slug of Jack. “Anyway, about ten minutes into her monologue, I started getting impatient. Then, I got annoyed. And finally, I got downright pissed off. She had a voice like nails on a blackboard…but she smelled so good I started salivating. At some point, I lost control of my senses and…well, you can probably guess the rest.”

  Callum took a slug of bourbon, still unsure what to do or say. “I still don’t understand how blood got all over the room.”

  “A combination of factors, really,” she returned with a sigh. “I had trouble finding the vein at first…and then she put up one helluva fight. For such a skinny thing, she was surprisingly strong.”

  Callum scrubbed a hand down his face. He had enough trouble pressing down on him without being an accessory after the fact to murder. At the same time, he felt partly responsible for what happened. Like a daft prick, he had left her unsupervised.

  “Aye, well. We’d best clean up this mess and come up with a way to get rid of the body.”

  “We could dump her in the swamp,” Vanessa suggested, eyes suddenly as c
razed as a pair of joke-shop glasses. “That way, even if somebody found her before the crocodiles finished her off, they’d just assume the rougarou did her in.”

  Callum raked his fingers through his hair as he considered her suggestion. Finding no flaw in the plan, he said, “The swamp does seem like our best solution, but first we’d better clean up this mess before someone comes looking for her.”

  The two of them spent what was left of the afternoon cleaning up and, just after nightfall, they climbed into the Taurus with a high-beam flashlight and the remains of the victim in a hefty bag.

  When they reached Bayou Manac, Callum carried the body over his shoulder while Vanessa led the way with the light. As they made their way through the silver-bearded branches of the ghostly trees, the muck grabbed at his shoes and the noxious smell of stagnant water, decaying vegetation, and swamp gas tormented his nostrils.

  When he spied a ball of misty blue light in the distance, he stopped short. Similar creatures—faery tricksters who roved the forests of the Highlands, leading travelers astray.

  “Look there,” he said, pointing. “I’ll be damned if it isn’t a Will o’ the Wisp.”

  Vanessa stopped and looked toward the light. “That’s not a Will o’ the Wisp, it’s a fifolet.”

  Fifolet, he knew, meant “false fire” in French.

  “Och, nay. That’s a Will o’ the Wisp. I’d stake my life on it.”

  “You’re wrong,” she insisted. “It’s a fifolet, which will lead us to buried treasure.”

  “Oh, aye?” Callum cast about the moss-draped black trees with a scowl. “And are there many treasures buried hereabouts?”

  She turned, meeting his gaze. “You’d be surprised how many pirates hid their booty in these swamps back in the day. Maybe we should follow it and see where it leads us.”

  “Not to be a killjoy,” Callum said, trying to be the voice of reason, “but if that thing turns out to be what I think it is, following it into a swamp in the dark of night is the last thing we want to do. Between quicksand, alligators, and rougarous, I’d say we’ve got enough to watch out for without getting ourselves lost on some wild goose chase.”