by Norah Wilson
“Bryce shot a caster,” Maryanne said, but her defense came out shaky. “He didn’t know it was me. That it was us.” She was blinking rapidly, fighting back those tears.
Alex cast Brooke a stern look. Now was not the time to argue.
“Okay, okay,” Brooke said. “Let’s see how bad you’re hurt.” She started on the top buttons of Maryanne’s pajama top, and the normally modest-as-a-nun Maryanne didn’t object. Two buttons undone and Alex could see why. Her body had to be ravaged by pain.
From the top of her shoulder, down her collarbone, and over her right breast, her skin was one big mass of black-purple bruises. In places, it looked almost moist, glistening, as if it was seeping blood. Alex didn’t want to touch it to be sure, but when she looked at the pale blue flannel of the pajama top, she didn’t have to. The top was speckled in places with Maryanne’s blood. Not massive amounts. Nothing that would leave a scar, or need more than a gauze pad over night. But it was something that scared the living bejesus out of them all.
When someone wielded the iron against them, the pain was sharper, the results longer-lasting, than when they encountered it on their own. And the originals suffered as well as the casts. Alex turned the facecloth over so that the cooler side would be against Maryanne’s forehead. She looked up and smiled her thanks weakly.
“What’s this?” Brooke asked. With careful fingers, she picked up the stone that lay just below the hollow in her neck.
Maryanne looked at what Brooke was holding. “A necklace. Bryce gave it to me.”
Alex hadn’t even noticed it. She’d been too intent on that bruising. Plus it really didn’t stand out in the darkened attic.
“Bryce said it was a stone for strength. One of his grandmother’s old crystals; she had a ton of them, I understand, from all over the world.”
Even though she had to be feeling like shit, Alex could see Maryanne brightening as she talked about the stones. The gift. Or maybe just trying to brighten up for their benefit.
“He gave it to me yesterday. It’s called—”
“Hematite,” Alex cut in. From her friend Anika’s obsession with crystals, Alex knew a thing or two about them herself. And she knew about hematite. Yes, a good stone for self-esteem. Surviving, especially for women, Anika had said. But there was more to it, and Bryce’s motive for giving this dark, almost metallic-looking crystal to Maryanne was suspect. “Maryanne, hematite has a strong iron component.”
“Iron?” The word seemed to daze her. “He…he said it was to help me.”
“Holy crap, are you freakin’ kidding me!” Brooke looked straight at Alex. “An iron component? That…prick!”
Of all the stones Bryce could have given Maryanne—of the many with a ‘helping’ aspect—he’d chosen to give Maryanne a huge hematite. A stone containing iron, the substance more dangerous than any other for a Heller.
A Walker would know that.
“But how…” Maryanne shook her head. “I was wearing it when I cast out! Nothing went wrong. The glass didn’t break. It didn’t weaken me!”
Alex felt just sick for her. “What we have on us when we cast doesn’t matter, remember? You don’t wear much jewelry, Maryanne, so you probably never thought about it. I cast out all the time with my lip rings and studs. They were on the very first time I cast, and I never thought much about it after that. It’s as if they’re part of me. So when you cast out with the hematite, it’s…just part of you.”
“But Bryce wouldn’t know that,” Brooke added.
“No,” Alex agreed, realizing the implication, “he wouldn’t.”
Maryanne’s eyes welled with tears. All their eyes were still caster-wide and the shine of her tears on the huge black pupils almost mirrored the glossy hematite itself. “Bryce…he looked at me really hard when he gave me the necklace.” Her voice quavered. “Oh no…he even asked if it ‘bothered’ me. Do you think he was…setting me up?”
Alex let out a breath, and she asked what she hated to ask, knowing full well the answer could break Maryanne’s heart. “Did he tell you he wasn’t going to the hockey tournament tonight with the rest of his team?”
Maryanne answered wordlessly with the tears that streamed down her cheeks.
Alex looked to the window. Through the clear section below the stained glass, she could see lights across the river. Three vehicles passed on the road on the other side of the water. It was just around three o’clock in the morning. Literally everything in this small town was closed. Her jaw tightened as she realized the reason for the sudden surge of traffic.
Already, word of what had happened at the Walker place was starting to spread. Sirens had sounded. Calls were being made. People were out looking for the Mansbridge Hellers.
Chapter 27
Heller Fever
Brooke
Brooke kept her pace to a crawl with difficulty. Her nerves were jumping in a way that would have benefited from a hard, brisk walk, but with Maryanne’s injuries, a leisurely pace was all the other girl could manage.
Brooke had driven them downtown, and now they were making their way on foot to the town square, Alex on one side of Maryanne and Brooke on the other. It had been Alex’s idea. The day was mild and the sun’s warmth had started to melt the snow, which meant there’d be a lot of people out and about this Sunday morning. Alex had hit on the idea of planting themselves in the middle of the activity to see what gossip they might hear.
“There,” Alex said, pointing to an empty bench on the cobbled street. “Let’s park our butts there and see what we hear.”
Maryanne groaned, stopping in her tracks.
Brooke turned to her. “Dammit! I knew this was too much. Let me go back and get the car.”
“No, it’s not that,” Maryanne said. “I’m fine. Well, not fine, but not worse.”
“Then what was that about?”
She nodded her head in the direction of the church up ahead. “Check out the sign.”
Alex swore under her breath.
The sign said, God protect us from the Hellers and below that, Special prayer service tonight.
Brooke laughed.
“It’s not funny, Brooke,” Alex said.
“I don’t know. It kinda is. You know, demonizing something they know absolutely nothing about.”
“Umm, if you think that’s demonizing, check out the message over there.”
They all swiveled to follow Maryanne’s pointing finger to a church on the other side of the street.
Satan’s spawn is among us! Make yourselves ready, it read.
“Make yourselves ready?” Brooke snorted. “What are they doing, hearing confessions or passing out the iron crucifixes?”
They made their way to the bench in sober silence. Alex helped Maryanne lower herself, then sat on one side of her. Brooke took up position on the other side. “Damn, that’s cold on the butt,” Brooke said as she settled.
Maryanne rolled her eyes. “Yeah, if you’re wearing a bomber jacket in winter. My butt’s just fine.”
“Well, your butt does have a little more insulation than mine…”
Brooke was rewarded by a choking laugh from Maryanne, followed by a groan. She pressed a hand to her chest. “I told you, Saunders. Stop trying to make me laugh. It hurts.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, I can see how sorry you are,” Maryanne said, but her eyes were on the family approaching on the snow packed sidewalk, just as Brooke’s and Alex’s were.
Two parents and two children, both pre-schoolers. Brooke noticed that each parent kept a tight grip on a child. The kids were clearly unhappy, and Brooke had the distinct impression they weren’t used to being kept on such a short leash. Were the parents worried about slippery sidewalks, or Hellers?
That question was answered when they were still a good thirty feet away. The eldest child—a girl—tried to tug her hand from her mother’s grasp.
“I wanna run ahead!” she whined. “There’s no cars in the square!”
&nbs
p; “Not this time, sweetie.”
“But I wanna!” The kid tried to sink to the sidewalk to break her mother’s hold, but the mother just lifted her to her feet again and pulled her along. “Hellers don’t come out in the daytime!” the girl protested. “Even Noah knows that, and he’s just three!”
“Kaley, listen to your mother!”
At her father’s reprimand, the kid stopped fighting, but fell into a sulk.
The grim-faced parents nodded as they passed and the girls nodded back.
“Unbelievable.” Alex shook her head. “People actually think their kids are in danger from Hellers in broad daylight?”
“Yeah, that’s getting a little extreme,” Brooke agreed. “I guess we can assume word’s gotten out about Friday night.”
“We don’t have to assume anything,” Alex said. “Here comes Dani Mann.”
Brooke turned to follow Alex’s gaze. Sure enough, Dani was coming along the sidewalk from the south, led by a little white fur ball. A Maltese by the look of it. Dani waved at them in greeting when she spotted them, and Alex beckoned her over with a wave of her hand. But as Dani drew closer, her dog started to growl and bristle.
“Missy, stop that!” Dani said, but the little dog continued to bark and growl, lunging at the end of its leash as they drew closer. “Come on, Missy, stop that!”
“Wow, that’s one fierce fluff ball,” Brooke drawled. “The postman must be terrified.”
“She never does this. I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She usually likes meeting people. Well, for as long as we’ve had her. She belonged to my grandmother, Rosemarie.” Dani scooped the dog up when it wouldn’t quit choking itself trying to lunge at them. Even clamped under her arm, it was still growling at the back of its throat. “Missy!” she scolded.
“She’s probably just picking up on everybody’s vibes,” Alex said. “I mean, doesn’t it seem that everyone is a little uptight?”
Dani brightened. “Yes, that’s got to be it! She’s very sensitive.”
“So what’s the deal?” Brooke asked. “Why is everyone so bent out of shape?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Dani looked thrilled to find a fresh audience.
“Heard what?” Maryanne obliged.
“About what happened out at the Walker place Friday night. A bunch of Hellers attacked Bryce, right in his own house!”
“In his house?” Maryanne said. “But—”
Brooke jumped in and drowned Maryanne out. “Yeah, he couldn’t have been in his house, could he? I mean, wasn’t his team travelling on Friday night? You know, for the big tournament this weekend?”
Dani was still as she thought, then she frowned. “Yeah, that’s right. Wonder why he didn’t go with them?”
Maryanne, who’d caught up with the program, lifted her eyebrows in a pretty good expression of surprise. “You mean he stayed back? He missed the tournament? He’s practically their MVP!”
“I know! Weird, huh? But no, he didn’t go. Even Huxley didn’t know why. All we know is that Bryce stayed home and the Hellers came and attacked him. He had to get medical attention, I heard. Concussion, I think.”
Well, that part was entirely plausible. Brooke had clocked him pretty good with that sculpture. But concussion or not, it hadn’t stopped him from storming after them.
Dani prodded, “I’m kind of surprised he didn’t say anything to you, Maryanne. Didn’t he call you? I thought you guys were pretty serious?”
It was Alex who dug her out of that one. She turned to Maryanne. “Geez, of all the weekends for your cell to be dead!”
“Yeah,” Brooke picked up. “You know Harvell House. God, you’d think a bunch of high school girls could at least take a message now and then!”
Seemingly satisfied, Dani went on, “Everyone is just sick about it. Sick.” Her dog barked and she scolded it again. “I mean, if that could happen to a big guy like Bryce, what about the rest of us? No one is safe!”
“Come on,” Brooke chided. “You don’t really believe all that Heller stuff, do you?”
“I wasn’t sure before, but yeah, I think I do. After what happened with Seth and Melissa Kosnick that time, and then Seth winds up dead? And now Bryce getting attacked…” Dani hugged her dog closer. “Yeah, I think I believe it now. It wouldn’t hurt for you guys to think about the possibility. You know, better safe than sorry.”
The little dog started going ape-shit again. Dani grimaced. “Sorry to cut it short, but I think I’d better take Missy home. Get her out of these bad vibes.”
When she was out of earshot, Alex said, “What the hell was up with that dog? Do you think it recognizes us as…you know…casters? I mean, not enough to be terrified or anything, but enough to be freaked out?”
“How could it?” Brooke asked. “We’re not in cast form. We’re just like everyone else.”
“Unless we’re not.” Maryanne said, her voice strangely flat.
Both Alex and Brooke swung to look at her.
“What if casting is changing us?” she said.
They sat there in silence until Alex suggested they’d learned everything they needed to know and maybe it was time to go back to Harvell House.
* * *
Hours later, Brooke’s cast shot out the stained glass window and into the night. Behind her, she felt her body slide to the floor, but it was a soft landing. She’d cushioned the floor with two extra pillows, seeing as she was casting alone tonight.
It hadn’t been too hard to give the girls the slip. After tagging along with them all day, she’d announced that she was about ready to burst out of her own skin if she didn’t get some exercise. She was going for a brisk walk. Maryanne had understood—hanging out with her all day had meant moving at the speed of a lethargic turtle—and Alex had empathized. She’d left them preparing to watch Hot Tub Time Machine on Maryanne’s computer. She’d thumped down the stairs, gone out and started her car, and exited the small parking lot. She’d driven out to the highway truck stop, had two coffees, and flirted outrageously with a cute trucker to kill some time. It was fully dark out, but there were still too many people moving around for it to be safe.
Having learned from her last experience, she then drove straight to the bar and made a call home, the loud dance music pulsing in the background. Shouting to make herself heard, she told Maryanne that she’d run into some girls and had decided to go to the bar instead to work off her excess energy. Bases covered, she’d driven back to Harvell, left the car a block away and crept back into the house, up the stairs, and right on up to the attic.
Now she was finally out, and it felt glorious, a total relief. Sort of like dropping a hundred-pound weight she hadn’t even known she was carrying. She didn’t pause to savor it, though. She had a mission. Snagging her copper bracelet from the tree branch, she headed straight for the Walker Farm. It wasn’t as late as she’d have liked it to be, and she did have to dodge more traffic that normal as she made her way to the Walker place, but she was determined to do this. And she had to do it alone.
At the Walkers’, she found Bryce’s shed was dark, while the barn was well-lit. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. The lights had been blazing in the barn at night since they’d ‘borrowed’ those two horses and ridden them.
The house was in darkness except for a light in the kitchen. Brooke glided carefully to the house, then sank down to ground level for a cautious look through the window only to find there was no one in the room. She went next to the garage and discovered Bryce’s parents’ car was gone. The big Ford F250 was there in the driveway, though, which indicated Bryce was likely home. It was always possible he’d gone with his parents, but she didn’t think so. From what she’d seen, any togetherness this family used to enjoy was gone.
The shed was next. It was in total darkness, but Brooke knew damned well that didn’t mean anything. Bryce could be crouched behind the door again, or standing in a dark corner, just waiting for the three casters to come back. Or one of them alone. God
, she hoped not. She’d come to spy on him. To see him, to read his body language, watch what he did. Dammit, she needed to get a bead on the guy, figure out what made him tick. It would be pretty hard to spy on a guy if he sat silently in the dar—
The sound of something crashing made her whirl in mid-air to look toward the barn. Back in the attic, her heart thundered while her cast shot upward to the relative safety of the darker sky. Had Bryce seen her peering into the shed? Was he blundering around, looking for his shotgun? The minutes ticked by and Bryce didn’t come storming out of the barn. She could hear the horses, though, starting to neigh and snort. They’d sensed her.
Then came another crash and Bryce’s voice. “How did I miss so badly? Why’d I miss so badly? Point-blank, and I couldn’t make a kill shot. How the hell did I miss?”
Brooke zoomed closer. There he was! Bryce stood in front of the desk in the office area of the barn, his chest heaving with emotion. Before him lay a bunch of shotgun shells. She looked closer and realized they were empty. But not for long. There was a scale there, and clamped to the desk’s edge was what had to be a shotgun shell reloading press. Shit! He’d been making his own shells, loading them with iron pellets rather than lead. Or maybe just preparing to do it.
He swayed on his feet. She looked closer to see that he clutched a half empty bottle of vodka in his hand, courtesy, no doubt, of his father’s supply in the den.
“Dammit, Seth. Why’d I try to stop you? I shoulda let you hunt them down. No, I shoulda helped you hunt them down, just like Grampy would have wanted! But when you said you knew where to find them and grabbed the shotgun… Fuck! I should have grabbed a gun too, instead of trying to stop you.”
Knew where to find them? Shit! Seth must have figured it out! Her stupid big mouth at the mall that day. She’d been so pissed to see him with Melissa, she’d just had to prod them about the Heller encounter, revealing details she shouldn’t have known…
Brooke was startled back to the present when Bryce sent something else flying. A paperweight, she guessed, from the solid thud it made when it hit the wall, and also from the papers showering to the floor. The horses grew more restless, stamping and snorting and shrilling, but Bryce seemed oblivious.