by E G Bateman
“No, thanks.” Jess shook her head.
“I’m good.” Edward pointed to his full cup.
She pulled a second mug from the shelf for Scott. When she held the pot close to the mug, it made a rat-tat-tat noise as they jostled together. She didn’t look up and merely drew them apart and poured.
Shit. I have the shakes. I’ve only been off the stuff for a day.
“Stanley called the pack in, so Tommy had to leave.” Edward took a gulp of his drink.
“Isn’t that Kate’s pack too?” Scott entered the room.
“Not until they marry and something’s come up about that too.” Jess looked at Edward. She hadn’t told him this yet.
Lexi made her way around the table and sat.
“Stanley insists the two of them get married, like, now.” Her eyebrows had raised.
“That’s unconventional, but as pack leader, he has the right to insist. But why?”
“I might know the answer to that.” Scott took the coffee Lexi proffered. “We know Caleb’s a sorcerer. If he has Stanley enthralled, that could extend to the whole pack. He wouldn’t need to control them individually.”
“So, once they’re married, Kate will be in the pack and Caleb only has to say, ‘Give me your land,’ and she’ll hand it over. We need to get her away from him.” Lexi was outraged.
“Her mom’s bringing her home for now, but this could cause a great deal of trouble between the packs.” Jess looked deeply concerned.
“Perhaps they should come here,” Edward suggested.
“We don’t know if they’re being followed or tracked. I don’t think you want to lead them to your friends. Let’s send them to Carl’s place.”
“That makes sense. Thanks, Jess.”
The woman gave her a curt nod, then eyed Scott suspiciously before she turned to leave.
The young man took a teardrop pendant from his pocket and held it in his hands.
“Wait, is that mine?” Lexi asked.
“You’ll get it back.” He smiled and looked pleased that she liked it so much.
When he opened his hands, the pendant had changed shape. It was no longer a teardrop but was five-sided, wide at the top and narrowed into a point at the bottom.
She studied it and tried to decide if she liked this shape more.
Edward stood, looked at his watch, and moved to the windows to pull the shades down. He left the room and returned a few minutes later, having closed the blinds throughout the ground floor of the house. The sun was low in the sky at the front of the house and the back, where they were, was in shadow. Lexi glanced at the time. It seemed a little early for a vampire to wake.
Scott dug into his pocket and retrieved a purple crystal. “Dolores loaned this to me to help with meditation.”
Fascinated, she gazed at it. “I’ve never seen a stone so dazzling.”
He held it up between finger and thumb to give her a better look. “It’s a fae amethyst.”
She had to blink to force herself to look away.
His expression focused, he dropped the stone into his left hand and swung the chain over the map with his right. It moved freely in all directions. “I don’t pick her up anywhere.”
Edward stepped back. “This side is Denver, but the other side is all of Colorado.”
They turned the map over, and Scott moved the pendant over it from north to south. “Where could she be?”
The shifter sighed. “Give me a moment.” He disappeared into his study and returned moments later with a large globe. “Would this work?”
Scott moved it in the center of the table and tried again. “Nothing.”
Lexi put her hand on his arm. “So she’s not on Earth? That doesn’t mean she’s—”
“No. I won’t accept that.” He rested the pendant on top of the globe and sat, his shoulders hunched.
She rubbed her face and her leg began to bounce again. “I can’t think straight.”
He glanced up. “Sharpen something. That usually calms you.”
“Good idea. I’ll sharpen everything I’ve got.” She slid her hand into her pocket, removed her whetstone, and was embarrassed to see the wrapping from a Hershey Kiss stuck to it. With a sigh, she was about to sweep it away when she noticed something small wriggling on it. She dropped it onto the table.
“Eww, gross.” She drew her hand back to squash the bug, but on its downward journey, it came to an abrupt halt in mid-air. She turned to Dick, who stood beside her with his hand around her wrist. “Where did you come from?”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He released her hand.
Lexi looked at the wriggling black thing in disgust. “What is it?”
The four of them leaned closer. She squinted to see more clearly.
Edward straightened a moment. “I’d say that’s a tiny, tiny woman.”
“It’s Dolores!” Scott’s voice was full of joy.
“I think you’re right.” Lexi frowned at the miniscule being. “Oh, yes. She’s wearing her black skirt suit and covering her tiny ears with her tiny hands.”
“You’re probably deafening her.” Dick’s voice had softened.
As they watched, the tiny creature leaned on the edge of the whetstone, and a miniscule spray of brown vomit issued from her onto the table.
“I’ll get that,” the vampire said and wiped the table with a kitchen towel. There was barely a visible spec on it and he threw it in the garbage.
“At least she did it when she was miniaturized,” Edward whispered.
The woman began to grow. The larger she got, the more evident it was that she was in distress. She was perspiring, and her hair had come out of its bun and stuck out wildly. The four of them stepped back but continued to stare in fascination as she continued to expand. She seemed to stop, finally, and lay groaning on the dining table.
“Has she stopped?” Edward asked.
Scott looked at him, puzzled.
The shifter shrugged. “Well, I don’t know how big she’s meant to be.”
Dolores rolled over and vomited brown liquid all over the floor.
“Jeez.” Lexi jumped out of the way.
Dick walked around it. “I got the last one.”
Edward lifted the woman and carried her into the living room, where he placed her on the couch with cushions to prop her back.
“The monsters. Have the monsters gone?” Her eyes were wild.
Dick brought her a glass of water.
She took the glass and gulped thirstily. “Did anything follow me out? How long have I been in there?”
Lexi crouched beside her. “We spoke yesterday.”
“What? It’s been a week, at least. Hiding from those…things. I thought I was going to die. I’ve survived on Hershey’s chocolate. I hate that stuff. It smells like vomit.”
“I agree.” Scott’s face appeared around the doorway. He was cleaning the floor.
Lexi took the glass into the kitchen to refill it but stopped on her way to the refrigerator when she heard a noise. She looked at the table to where the pendant vibrated on the globe over where California would be. “Oh, look. Your spell found her.”
His face appeared above the counter. “I’ve still got it.” He grinned and she smiled in response. They were relieved to have found Dolores alive.
He put the paper towels in the trash, and Edward ran a mop over the area.
They moved into the living room.
Scott placed his hand onto Dolores’s head and spoke a word.
The woman blinked and seemed to have recovered, although her pupils were huge.
Dick sat on the edge of the sofa and held Dolores’s hand. “Can you tell us what happened? How did you wind up in Lexi’s dirty magic pocket?”
Lexi rolled her eyes.
“Was that where I was? There were things in there.” She shuddered. “Do you remember when I was in my office?”
She decided not to remind her again since that had only been yesterday and merely nodded.
Dolores continued. “I had visitors. Eric, from Kindred.” She looked from Scott to Lexi.
“Eric? The Grandfather of Colorado?” Lexi’s mouth hung open.
The woman nodded. “He had two others with him. Warren and Lucy.” She looked at Scott now.
“Warren. That explains the bruises on your face. So, they were there for me. I don’t know who Lucy is, though.” His mouth set into a grim line.
“She’s your replacement—a slip of a girl with a haunted look in her eyes. I don’t think she’ll last long. They know I was involved in your escape but I don’t believe they know you’re working with me. We only spoke briefly. I realized I needed to get out of there. When he hit me, I created the illusion of a glamor breaking but I actually created the glamor. I distracted them by making a door appear at the back of the room. As soon as their attention was diverted, I shrank the files. Oh, Lexi, dear. My filing cabinet is in your pocket. Could you retrieve it, please? Be careful putting your hand in there—there’s something…”
Lexi was beginning to wonder what the hell was in there to have terrified Dolores so much. She dug tentatively in her pocket, thought about the item she sought, and pulled out the minuscule filing cabinet. Carefully, she put it on the floor and it began to grow.
“I made a fae door in the bottom of the wall and slipped the cabinet through, then shrank myself and got the hell out.”
“Couldn’t you think of somewhere nicer to go than Lexi’s nasty pocket?” Dick shuddered. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like.” He crouched and embraced Dolores as though she’d spent five years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Lexi tried to ignore it.
“The trick to traveling through a fae door is to know exactly where you want to come out. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking straight, having just had the snot knocked out of me.”
Lexi felt in her pocket again and thought monster, but nothing came out.
The woman looked at her. “I could see weapons but they were so large, I thought I might have stumbled into a giant’s closet. I couldn’t get out, so I suppose the pocket has a restriction spell on it. I thought about getting a message to you. I tried to write help on a candy wrapper. It took me hours to get the stopper out of your giant bottle of ink.
“Ink?” She drew her brows together in puzzlement.
“Yes, dear. The red ink.”
Lexi and Scott shared a look over Dolores’s head before she closed her eyes and mouthed, “Oh, shit!”
“But that was when the monsters came and I had to hide. Why do you have monsters in your dimensional pocket?”
“I don’t know but I’ll deal with that immediately,” she promised.
Dolores’s eyes grew heavy, and she slumped and drifted into sleep.
Dick turned to Lexi. “That wasn’t red ink, was it? She’s as high as a kite.”
Scott placed a throw pillow under the woman’s head and glanced at his friend. “I thought you were going to flush that stuff.”
“I haven’t had time. We’ve been busy.”
“We have to figure out what to do about Caleb and we can’t have you shaking and jittering everywhere.” Dick gestured at her.
“Hey, leave her alone. Lexi knows she has a problem and she’s trying to deal with it the best way she can. She’s the strongest person I know, and if she says she can do this the hard way, that’s what she’ll do.”
The vampire startled. “Scott, I didn’t mean to—”
“If it was me, I’d simply get rid of the problem with magic, but Lexi has integrity and stamina and–”
“Wait, what?” She stood with her mouth hanging open.
“I said you have integrity and—”
“Not that, you muppet. I can get rid of this with magic? Just like that?” She clicked her fingers.
“Yes. I offered to help.”
“I thought you were offering to drive me to meetings.” Lexi took his collar and marched him toward her room.
“You kids have fun,” Dick called after them and repeated her words to her.
She didn’t even turn as she frog-marched Scott down the hall, but her arm came up with the middle finger extended. The two men chuckled behind her.
“Laugh all you like. You two will get your brains gagged. There will be no more secrets dribbling out of your mouth, Dick,” Lexi called before she closed the door.
Chapter Ten
“Good evening, Betsy.” Caleb stepped into the mansion Betsy shared with her son.
“Why, Caleb, what a surprise. Todd’s in his study. I’ll tell him you’re here.” She closed the door behind him.
He stared at her and narrowed his eyes. “What the hell is that on your head?”
“It’s my golfing sun visor. But this isn’t my hair, it’s fake. It merely looks like it’s coming out of the hole on top.” She shook her head and the beaded blonde dreadlocks danced with the movement. “It’s fun.”
“I see.” He shook his head. “I think I can find the study myself.” He stepped past Betsy and marched down the hallway.
You should kill her, purred a voice inside his mind.
Stop that. I can brainwash her if I need to, he replied to the relentless entity.
It would be a waste of time to brainwash that crazy old bat. There’s not enough brain to wash. Azatoth laughed and the man shivered inwardly.
We’re too close to screw this up. Stop it. He paused outside Todd’s study door and patted his brow with his handkerchief. The voice was almost unending these days. He would be glad to get it out of his head. Soon, he promised himself.
“I’m making fresh lemonade, sourpuss,” Betsy called after him.
“No need.” He entered the study without knocking.
Todd was reaching for the phone when he entered. “Caleb. I’m due on a call in a few minutes. Would you like a drink while you wait? You could take it into the den.”
Caleb looked from the partly open door to the little ante-room, which Todd referred to as “the den,” to the bottle of whiskey on the side table.
Bushmills? If I’d wanted cough syrup, I’d have asked for it.
He muttered a word and the mayor’s face became slack. “How’s everything going with my construction license?”
The man leaned back, the phone forgotten. “The paperwork is ready to go but the final property is still a problem. The girl has refused to sell again, even after the attack and the robbery.”
For a brief moment, he stood with his hands on the back of the chair on the other side of the desk and stared at Todd. “It won’t be a problem for long. William’s friend has been dealt with. Did you take care of William?”
“Stanley sent some of his boys out and I contacted the man you suggested. Stanley lost two of his and your man called me earlier today, complaining that none of his boys had returned, but…I didn’t understand what he was talking about at the time.” The man spoke like he was half-asleep.
“I don’t know why William has involved himself in my business, but I need him taken care of. Don’t let me down again. You don’t want to lose your mother the same way you lost your father, do you?” Caleb’s eyes were pinpricks as he focused on him.
“Of course not. I love my mother. What happened to my father?” Todd was confused.
The sorcerer walked around the desk, stopped behind the chair, and leaned closer to his ear. “I told you, remember? I asked his heart to stop and it stopped.”
“That’s right. You told me that.” He sounded distantly sad.
“Did you find out why the girl is here?” Caleb straightened and continued his walk around the desk.
“No, but she’s not who she claims.”
“I know that. She lied to us.” He stood in front of the man again.
“That’s bad,” Todd said slowly.
“Send more men to William’s place.”
“William’s not there. They’ve been watching all day.”
His hands curled into fists before he stretched them again. “Wi
lliam’s a vampire, remember? He won’t be out in the daylight.”
“William’s a vampire?” Todd’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
The problem with making people’s minds malleable was that it also made their brains soft.
“Send them around when it gets dark.”
He should burn. He’s a loose end.
Briefly, he considered that. The demon might have a point. “Actually, no. Go yourself. When you’re sure he’s in there, burn it down. But before you leave, send the approvals for the construction work on the last property through. Then, when you burn the house, stay inside it. Sit on that garish cowhide chaise he loves so much and watch it all burn. It’ll be like watching a movie.”
Azatoth laughed again.
“A movie. Burn. Okay. What if he isn’t there?” Todd’s face looked like he had battled sleep to ask the question.
“Burn it anyway. You’ll forget our chat now.” He muttered a few words and life returned to the other man’s face.
Caleb gave Todd an open, friendly smile. “No, no. I don’t want to interrupt. I was merely passing and wondered how you were fixed for eighteen holes on the weekend.”
“I think I can schedule that in.” The mayor beamed. He looked at his clock. “Good Lord! My conference call should have started five minutes ago.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll say goodbye to Betsy before I leave.”
He found her chopping lemons in the kitchen. At the sight of him, she put the knife and the lemon down and walked around the island toward him.
“Caleb, dear. That was a short visit.” She wiped her hands on her apron.
Pick the knife up and gut her, Azatoth suggested with glee.
Caleb ignored it. “Sadly, the business doesn’t run itself.”
“I know. You should think about retiring. Don’t make the same mistake Harv made and work yourself to death.” She sighed.
“Perhaps you’re right. I think of him every day. The business has never felt the same without him. Not one day of the last five years.”
Tears came to her eyes. “That’s very touching, Caleb. There you go, making an old woman cry.”
“Never my intention, Betsy. Take care. I’ll show myself out.” He put his hand on her shoulder.