by R. J. Blain
“Ribs?” Bedelia asked, her mouth salivating. Whatever she had meant to say disappeared at the scent of heaven.
“And a whole chicken. Tater tots. Mac and cheese with bacon from your recipe. It’s still the bestselling side in the place. B’s-Mac. People order it by the quart to take home.”
Bedelia chuckled softly and stepped aside, accepting the bag and saying, “Mama’s asleep. Whatever you got to say, we’ll have to keep it quiet.”
“You eat. I’ll talk.”
Talk. Oh yes. Trouble and danger somewhere. Trouble followed the old vampire like bees after honey. Bedelia got out a plate, knife, and fork then poured herself some tea sweetened with stevia. Mama’s brush with diabetes had made her change some habits. She arranged two ribs and a chicken drumstick, both coated with Linc’s special rub, on a plate with three tater tots and a tiny helping of mac and cheese.
“I remember you being a bigger eater than that, Bee.”
“It’s late. I don’t want to be up with heartburn. And the nice thing about your cooking is that it reheats for leftovers.” She lifted a rib in the fingers of both hands and lipped the meat off. It was so tender, she didn’t even have to use her teeth. She closed her eyes at the flavors assaulting her. Heaven in a BBQ rub. She finished the ribs, ate a drumstick, and tasted the tater tots and a single bite of the mac. It was just like she made, every ingredient unchanged for decades. Full, she wrapped the food, put it in the fridge, and washed her hands. Sat and sipped her tea. He sat across from her at the kitchen table, silent, watching. She put down her cup and studied him back.
Linc was wearing facial hair again, the same look he’d cultivated in the seventies—the nineteen seventies. Even back then, she’d teased him about the jaw whiskers. The look was popular again and Linc was… Linc looked good. Damn it. “Out with it,” she said.
Linc smiled that smile, the one that used to melt her heart. He held her gaze, and everything he was and everything he felt poured into his eyes. “I miss you. I miss you every dawn when I go to bed. I miss you every night when I wake. I miss you when the moon is full and lights the land with a silver glow. I miss watching you dance under the moon, naked as a jaybird, my blood on your lips, your blood on mine. My life is empty and without meaning without you. I love you now and always.”
Bedelia looked down at her hands as he spoke, sadness twining through her heart like barbed wire. She didn’t speak. Couldn’t. She swallowed down her pain and blinked away her tears. Because, good God in heaven, it had been too long. She took a breath that shuddered through her chest, and she knew he could smell her sorrow and her love. “I love you too, Linc. But you didn’t come here to try and pick up where we left off. We both know that old and worn out love isn’t always the answer. Especially after Evangelina—”
“Your daughter did not seduce me,” he interrupted. “She tried. She managed to control me to a point, but she failed at that ultimate revenge and betrayal of you. Old hatred, old love, jealousy, and demon taint will do that to a human, witch or no.”
A sense of relief sailed through her. Bedelia’s eldest daughter, by one of the two human men in her past, had always wanted Lincoln. Had always been jealous of Bedelia, of her own mother’s power, of her happiness. “I sense…” Bedelia stopped and chuckled softly. “I sense a disturbance in the force.”
“That was the most amazing movie,” he agreed. “And yes. Evangelina did great harm, but not to my love and devotion to you.”
Bedelia intertwined her fingers together, waiting. For a vampire, especially the newly named Master of the City of Asheville, love and devotion meant very different things from what they meant to a woman like her.
Linc said, “One of the girls is in danger. Liz is camping with Eli, on a job to track down a missing dog. The dog was a ruse perpetrated by Romona Mayhew’s widower and two females.”
Bedelia frowned. “I remember the Mayhew name from somewhere.”
“Some time ago, Liz and Cia were hired to find a kidnapped human woman. The wife of one of my people, Romona Mayhew, who was one of the long-chained Mithrans who didn’t come out of the devoveo and also a witch, had broken free of her bonds and taken the human female. I didn’t know that Romona hadn’t been given the mercy strike of true-death, and her husband didn’t come to me to rectify the situation because he was still unable to release her. Romona used the lifeforce of the dead to do blood-curse magic. Your girls took on the blood-curse getting their client’s mother free.”
Bedelia breathed in with shock, putting it all together.
The devoveo was the ten years of madness that resulted from being turned into a vampire. It was one reason she had never agreed to be turned by Linc. Loss of personal freedom was also the reason she had never agreed to become Linc’s blood-servant. There were lots of reasons she had ended the relationship. She shook her head, pushing away the memories and the regrets. “I remember that story.” Taking on the blood-curse had been a less-than-brilliant move on her daughters’ part, but to this day, they felt that saving a human had been worth it. “Go on.”
“The rest is complicated and still comin’ clear. A woman named Shania Mayhew was an unaligned witch who was groomed by Romona’s husband to believe an evil had been perpetrated by Liz and Cia. Mayhew and she married, an alliance I did not approve. Working together, they discovered a human woman with a perceived grudge against Liz. Her name is Connie Carroll. Together, the three of them conceived a plan to enact vengeance on the twins.”
“I remember the Carroll incident. There was an accident involving alcohol and Connie’s daughter. She blamed Liz. What did this group do?”
“Shania glamoured herself or Connie to look like Golda Ainsworth Holcomb, of the Ainsworth witch clan, and met Liz in the local hospital.”
“Golda died a few days ago. I got the notice this morning.”
His face softened with humor. “Your girls are young yet. They don’t look at the obits like us old folk.”
Bedelia felt a dimple form and then fall away.
“That glamoured female sent Liz on a search for a dog, one supposedly lost after a car accident, off the mountains from Morton’s Tunnel and Morton’s lookout, in the gorge.”
“Dangerous country.”
“Yes. Liz and Eli took the job together. They have a witch fob that’s supposed to be trackin’ the lost dog. Pardon me, Bee.” He took a call from Alex Younger, a young man aligned with the Dark Queen, Jane Yellowrock. Linc said, “I understand. Thank you,” and ended the call. He continued his story to her. “Instead of a lost dog, they found a demon bound into a leyline and it got free. Eli called for backup and extrication via helicopter, but the terrain’s rugged and right now there’s no moon to facilitate finding a safe landing site, and no moon up yet means Cia can’t assist fighting the demon. Liz and Eli are currently safe beneath a hedge of thorns, but they can’t last the night and Liz can’t fight the demon alone.”
As Linc detailed the problem, Bedelia’s heart flew from concerned to panic. She put a hand to her chest and gripped the labradorite focal stone. The amulet warmed, reacting to her fear. She took a calming breath. Another. But she reached out through the focal to her daughters. Yes. Liz is in danger. Linc glanced at her, his eyes intense and kind. “What else?” she asked when she was calm. Because with vampires and witches working together there was always more.
“Brute, the white werewolf aligned with Jane Yellowrock, indicated there’s a rabid werewolf pack in the vicinity. Alex Younger has discovered that Connie Carroll was bitten by a werewolf in the last attacks. She was in custody during her first full moon and didn’t go furry, but he thinks she’s furry now.”
Bedelia tightened her grip on her focal. The werewolf taint would destroy the mind of any bitten female. She shoved away all the things that needed to be said about Evangelina and about the two of them and their past. Saving Liz was the only thing that mattered right now. “Delayed transformation?”
“Or bitten again. Perhaps on purpose. There ar
e such people.”
“What are the plans?”
“Eli Younger put a wifi in a tree. We have their GPS. Half an hour before the moon begins to rise, the helo will take off, carrying Cia, Jane, the white werewolf, and me if we have completed our part, or two of my best Mithran warriors if we’re still engaged, to a landing zone yet to be discovered. The twins, working together, can deal with the demon. Jane, Brute, Eli, and the Mithrans can take out the werewolves, including Connie Carroll. You and I, if you chose to accept this mission…” his smile grew at the allusion to an old TV show, “will track down the witch, Shania Mayhew, and take her into custody.” Linc watched her carefully. “And then turn her over to the witch council for null room sentencing.”
Bedelia frowned at him. “I don’t need the help of the witch council to protect my family.”
“No. You’re a warrior. And I adore you.”
Bedelia’s eyes flew to his. She opened her mouth say the things that were cracking open in her heart. Instead, she said, “Do we know where this Shania Mayhew is staying?”
“Yes. She rented a house above the French Broad River, just beyond Paint Rock. It rises above the river by a hundred feet or so, right where the river curves—”
“Green shutters? Freshly painted? Across from a small horse pasture?”
Linc looked surprised for a moment. “Yes. How did you—”
Interrupting him again, Bedelia shoved back from the table. “That’s the old gathering place of the Coraville coven back in the eighteen seventies. There’s a stone circle buried below the ground. It’s aligned with the cardinal points, with the motion of the French Broad River, and with a small leyline deep beneath the river. I helped to seal the circle when the Coraville witches died out.” And left behind them a prophecy that promised the circle would be sought by evildoers and had to be sealed. But Lincoln Shaddock did not need to know that at all. No non-witch needed to know that. “I’ll need a moment.” Bedelia walked away with purpose, moving down the hallway to her room, cell at her ear, calling for her human daughters to come sit with their grandmother.
When the family calls were in place, Bedelia opened her closet and stepped inside. She wrapped her hand around a prybar on the top shelf, shoved clothing aside, and bent in half. She raised the prybar overhead and slammed it against a cross-support in the corner. Again. Again. Over and over. It took too long, but the supplies she needed were things she wasn’t supposed to have, things she had hidden in the false wall of her closet.
As she worked, she considered the reinforcement witch power she would need to help. Two were old friends she kept up with on Facebook and Twitter. They knew the circle Linc had described because they’d been part of the larger group of witches who had closed and sealed the underground Coraville circle long ago. Moonrise would be perfect for Mable. Clara Anne had buried some stones at north. Bedelia had buried things there too: three focals tied to the circle and to a marble outcropping below the earth not too far away. If she was lucky, the rosemary plant she’d gifted to the previous owners two decades ago would still be growing there. Assuming they hadn’t killed it, she would have all her best elements on hand.
The prybar broke through the drywall, exposing the space between her closet and the bedroom on the other side. “Yessss,” she hissed. She grabbed up all the magical amulets. Moving fast, she bagged the stuff she’d hidden, pulled leggings on under her housedress, added wool socks, hiking boots, and layered on two shirts. She stuffed the bagged items from the back of her closet into a small shoulder bag and snatched a bulky old-lady sweater off a hanger. The sweater belonged to her mother. Linc would hate it. Good.
Quickly she set up a conference call between Mable and Clara Ann to explain the problem. Both witches agreed to meet at the buried Coraville circle. They would help to call the enemy witch. Good friends. They always had each other’s backs.
She grabbed up her keys and strode back through the kitchen. She stopped when she saw Linc still sitting at the table. “What,” she demanded, wondering why he was still here.
“Bedelia, my darlin’. You left before I could complete my commentary. Shania Mayhew has likely made a pact with the rogue werewolf pack. There may be more of them waiting for you at the rental house, knowing you would track Shania down. Werewolves, Bee.”
She stopped short. “Well, that’s a twice-damned situation,” she said.
He smiled slightly. “I have three of my best Mithran fighters in an SUV on the road down from your property and another watching the house Shania rented. They’re weaponed up with silver-shot. Vampires don’t go furry. You and your witches will, however, if they get to you. We’ll follow you to the house Shania rented and keep watch while you call and fight the witch. We’ll kill any wolves that attack.”
Bedelia tried to think a way through this. When she was younger there were no were-creatures in the area. She had never been forced to think in terms of battling them. She didn’t want to accept Linc’s help. But. Werewolves… and demons and—
She shook her head violently. “I accept.” Formally, she said the words that would bind her to him. “I accept this help offered to the Everhart Clan witches by the Master of the City of Asheville. What boon will I owe you?”
A slow smile pulled across Linc’s face. That smile. If the devil had a smile it was that one. “Dinner with me,” he said. “At a time and place of my choosing.”
“No blood sharing.”
“One sip each,” he bargained.
“Wrists. Not throats.”
“Done.” He turned and left her kitchen. Cursing under her breath, Bedelia placed three small wood discs on the table, discs that could be used to reactive the wards. Her human daughters would be here soon. They could drop the wards and get inside fine because their blood was attuned to the wards. But they would need to start the wards up again. She looked around at the kitchen and checked in again on mama. All was well with her, at least. She had slept through the hammering.
Bedelia stopped at the hallway closet door, turned to the side, and prayed. It was a prayer of desperation and fear; tears pricked her eyes. When she was done, she pulled open the hallway closet door, picked up a second bag of tricks, and walked into the night to meet Lincoln Shaddock. Linc, who was the ‘father of the body’ of most of her daughters. The father of Liz and Cia. He had a right to be there to save them. God help her.
“We’ll take my car,” Linc said when she was ready.
Linc
Linc didn’t take her hand as he led her to his vehicle. Those days were long gone and all his fault. He’d been a vampire predator first and a lover second. And to use Bedelia’s mother’s words, a “thrice-damned fool.”
He opened the door to the car, and she slid in. She smelled of chamomile and his barbeque and that faint aroma of roses in her blood. No other woman in his entire long life had smelled so sweet.
He shut the door and went around to the driver’s side, waving away the driver. “Contact Alex Younger. Keep track of what we know about the scene with Elizabeth and Eli. Update me regularly.” If anyone could keep his daughter safe it was the former Ranger. But he was only human. The last communication he’d heard was that they were safe for now under a hedge of thorns, the demon was free, and the werewolves were most probably on the way to the campsite. It was a trap, and part of that trap was the result of his error for allowing Mayhew to live after his wife died. When the vampire got away during a breach of his clan home, Linc had known it would come back to haunt him, but it hadn’t occurred to him that it would result in danger to his daughter.
Alex Younger had found the Mayhew witch at the home she’d rented and had been tracking her activities via credit card use over the last week. It was not a fast job, even using the programs he’d created to access security cameras, bank records, and the GPS of her vehicle. Mayhew had met several times in restaurants with men who, three months ago had quit their jobs and changed their lifestyles radically. Alex said their appearances in public matched when t
he moon was not full, and when full, they disappeared. There was no proof that they were a small rogue werewolf pack, but he assumed so since Brute indicated a rogue rabid pack was in the vicinity.
Law Enforcement and all the necessary wildlife and park rangers had been notified, but there was no way any human agency could provide support in the dark in that terrain against a demon and a rogue pack. Worse, they could be infected. His people couldn’t. Jane Yellowrock, the Dark Queen of the Mithrans, had a call into the necessary elected officials, informing them that her people were handling it. But he and Jane both knew it was his job and his failure that led to this. He would owe her a great deal when this was over, and Lincoln hated owing anyone anything.
Linc got in and started the vehicle. Silent, they pulled out of the drive and headed toward Hot Springs, Painted Rock, and the enemy of his beloved. If Bedelia had any trouble dealing with the Mayhew witch, he would draw on the energies of his people, walk into the witch’s home, and rip off her head. No one hurt his family.
Bedelia
She had no idea what to say or how to say it. Not to Linc. But she could plan for the working. She hadn’t trapped a misbehaving witch in years. It would be a challenge; just thinking about it made her pulse rate rise and her breathing deepen.
Linc
He watched as she redialed Mable and listened in unabashedly. “Hey, Mabs. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes. You and Clara Anne stop at the bottom of the hill and call. If everything’s okay, you can come on up. I’ll have vampires at the perimeter to fight off the werewolves.”
“Ohhh. vampires? The pretty one?” Mabel asked.
Bee glanced at him from the corner of her eye and grinned. It was just a little wicked and his heart actually beat once. “Oh yeah. The cutie-pie Master of the City, as you called him once.”
“Is he still single?”