Rachel laughed, handing the glass back to Loti.
“So you knew that?” Loti said.
“He’s been a vampire for a very long time.” Rachel’s eyes twinkled as she went back to working her zinfandel.
“How long?” Loti sipped, her ears turning a pretty shade of pink.
“Mmmm, about 400 years, maybe more.” She rolled her eyes to the sky. “He was good friends with my great-great-great something grandfather,” she waved a hand around, “during the Revolutionary war. However many ‘greats’ that is.”
Rachel blew out a breath and chugged her wine, eyes darting around the alley. “I haven’t seen him in ten years, and when he left, I was upset. My folks said we needed to take a break.” She gave the empty glass a dazed look. “Because of me.” When she looked back up at Loti, her eyes were thick with tears. Loti touched Rachel’s arm in sympathy.
“It was the first few weeks of college and I was not paying attention to my classes. I was much more interested in working on a project with Wolf.” She frowned, dabbing her eyes with the cocktail napkin. “He had a theory that he could amplify a witch’s powers—don’t ask me how. We experimented.” Rachel tugged at the ends of her sleeves until the cuffs covered her hands.
She was one of the best witches Loti knew, with strong energy and incredibly good instincts, so it was no wonder her “uncle” wanted to work with her. Loti had seen her perform magic many times and was always impressed with her abilities. The most impressive time had been when she, her grandmother, Katie, and their coven mate and old friend, Patrick, scryed for any sign of magic in David’s cancer. They swept the house for black magic and found nothing, except the angry energy of the cancer, which Loti had been living with since the day he fell off the ladder. Shaking herself back to the present, she realized Rachel was struggling to say the next thing. She leaned closer.
“Whatever it is, it’s okay. It’s me.” She put the wine glass down as Rachel looked sideways at her.
“My parents weren’t just worried about my grades.” She lowered her eyes to her empty wine glass. “They were worried about what was going on between Wolf and me.”
“Were you two—”
“No.” Rachel glanced up, wrinkling her nose. “Of course not. Geesh. He’s my—well, uncle. But we, uh, did exchange blood.”
Loti’s mouth fell open, but she closed it at Rachel’s anguished eyes. As far as she knew, blood exchange was a fairly intimate act with a vampire. Allowing a vampire to feed on you was, well, orgasmic. Loti knew the clinical aspects of blood exchange from a course she’d taken in college, but she’d never donated herself. God, no. A suspicion bloomed, but she gathered her thoughts and looked for the tactful approach.
“So, there were unintended consequences to this experiment?” she asked, proud of herself for not blurting something that would embarrass them both.
Rachel nodded too quickly, twirling her wine glass in both hands. “And it did work, to some extent. But Wolf never saw the results he was looking for. And when my parents realized what we’d done, they asked Wolf to leave me alone for a while.”
Rachel stared into her glass, turning it in uneasy circles. “Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought through what the blood exchange might do to me.” She looked up and cringed. “I was eighteen at the time, and I never thought he would disappear from my life.”
“Well he should’ve known better—he’s the 400-year-old vampire for god’s sake. Vampires.” Loti rolled her eyes. “They’re so self-centered.”
“Hey.” Rachel sat up straighter, a little of her feistiness returning. “It wasn’t like that. He explained it all to me, but I was too damned infatuated with him and the whole idea that we could be partners in some great magical experiment that I wasn’t listening.” Rachel leaned back in her seat, narrowing her eyes at Loti.
“And he should’ve realized—” Loti started, trying to pick careful words.
“Let me finish, please.” Rachel held a don’t-go-there palm up.
Loti sat back in her seat with a huff and grabbed her glass, splashing wine on the table and her white yoga pants.
“Damn it.”
She’d been doing so well at this tact thing David had often begged her to practice. The waiter appeared with dinner, and after the plates and bowls were settled and their drinks replenished, Loti dabbed at the red stain with a wet napkin. She dipped it into a glass of ice water, then dabbed again, refusing to look at Rachel.
“Oh, Loti, here.” Rachel sighed, touching the wine stain with her fingertips. The wine extricated itself from the fabric’s weave, curling into tiny tendrils that flowed with Rachel’s slender fingers as she lifted her hand. Casually, she guided the red swirls, smirking as the wine fall back into Loti’s wine glass.
“Neat trick.” Loti chuckled.
“No trick. Just magic.” She tossed her hair in an arrogant flip and devolved into a good-humored laugh. Loti managed a half-smile at her friend’s antics. The tension eased, and they ate in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, with just the sound of the other diner’s murmuring conversations, the muted scrape of chairs, and the hum of the patio heaters.
“Rachel! Loti. What a pleasant surprise.” They looked up at the white-haired gentleman smiling warmly at them.
“Patrick! Good to see you.” Rachel stood to hug her surrogate grandfather. She patted his tweed-covered back, letting her hands slide to the leather elbow-patches. Dropping her salad fork, Loti stood waiting her turn.
“Loti, my heavens, it’s been a while.” Patrick Lynch crumpled her in a bear hug, the smell of pipe tobacco and licorice lingering on his breath.
“Have you been doing your exercises?” She admonished him with a doting smile as she drew her head back. Her arms rested on top of his in the familiar manner of long and well-loved friends. His eyes crinkled as he gazed down at her with an affectionate grin. She moved to sit, and was it her imagination or did he hold onto her a second longer than necessary?
“Every day.” He winked, releasing his grip as if he was disinclined to do so. His hair went from gray to white over the years Loti had known him. Years ago, he stepped in to help when Katie Brown found herself a widow with three small boys to raise.
“Is Nanny here?” Rachel peered around him.
“No, dear. She’s grading papers in her office at the university.” They taught metaphysics together at Clarke University in Lewiston, over an hour away.
“What are you doing up this way?” Rachel sat back down.
“Meeting a friend for a late dinner.” Patrick searched the alley over the heads of the other diners. “He’s not here.” He glanced at his wrist watch and smiled back down at the girls. “I saw you and wanted to say I loved the pictures you sent the foundation from the Christmas party fundraiser. We’ll use them on the website.”
“It was my pleasure, Patrick. I wish I could do more,” Rachel said.
He nodded, rubbing his rheumy eyes. “I know, sweetie.” Patting her shoulder, he cleared his throat and coughed a bit like smokers do. “I’m flying out tomorrow.”
“That’s right,” Rachel exclaimed. “You’re going to be in Ireland for a month, aren’t you? Who’d you get to cover your classes? Not Holden McGee, I hope.” Rachel wrinkled her nose.
“Holden is a fine young man, if a bit . . . pedantic.” He waggled his eyebrows at Rachel. She laughed, clapping her hands together as she leaned her head back.
“A bit. Ha!” She let out a long, amused sigh.
He leaned on the back of Loti’s chair, his hands gripping the rail behind her shoulders. “Do you think you might be able to work the Easter fundraiser with Rachel this year?”
Loti blushed. She’d promised to help out with Patrick’s Children’s Cancer Research Foundation for the last two years, but. . . “I’ll be at the ashram. I’m not sure if I can get away,” she hedged.
Patrick tapped his forehead with an age-spotted hand; his face screwed up in consternation. “Oh, that’s right, sweetie. I forgot for a minute.”
He wiped at his eyes, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “You take good care of yourself, sweetheart. I know it’s been tough.” He kissed her on the cheek, patting her shoulder some more, and glanced around, again.
“Well, I’ll let you two finish your meal.” He straightened, fingering a button on his tweed jacket, staring off into space. Then, remembering they were there, he looked back and smiled wide. “Good to see you girls.” And he trotted off to find his dinner companion.
“Bye, Patrick,” Rachel gave a little wave as he turned away.
“Bye.” Loti twisted to the back of her chair, hands on the rail, watching him walk away. “He’s so sweet.”
“I wish he and Nan would get married already,” Rachel muttered.
Loti turned back to Rachel, tilting her head. “Maybe they don’t see the point. I mean, they’re in their seventies.”
“Or maybe they both feel guilty.” Rachel raised her eyebrows as she poked her fork at her potatoes.
“You mean about your grandfather?” Loti asked.
Rachel nodded, staring after Patrick with a frown.
Loti glanced back, but Patrick was gone. “After all these years? Joe passed away before you were born.”
Rachel sighed, giving up on the potatoes. She speared a piece of broccoli rabe, chewed it in deep thought. Loti spooned a bit of chicken and cilantro into her mouth, not tasting it.
“Yeah. I know.” Rachel took another bite, her focus on her food.
Loti ate her soup like she was on autopilot, letting the silence stretch out between them. When the bowl was empty, she set it aside and pursed her lips.
“So, what were you saying about Wolf before Patrick came over?”
Rachel blinked. “Oh. Right.” She wiped her mouth with the cloth napkin, draped it over her lap, and sat back. She inhaled through her nose, then said, “It wasn’t what you might think. Wolf, yes, can be myopic about things, but he was trying to figure something out, not taking advantage of me. He had some experience with amplifying magic before, and when he realized how strong my magic was, he wanted to explore the possibilities. I’m sorry we never made it work. Maybe we would have, eventually, but—” she turned her palms up and out, curling her lips under as she pressed them together. “We knew we couldn’t go any further without crossing boundaries. That’s when Nanny Brown found out what we’d been up to.”
Loti tried to listen, to keep her mind empty, but it only made the thoughts more persistent. Her guess was Rachel and Wolf’s blood exchange complicated their familial relationship and created a bond between them. The unintended consequences would have been obvious to a keen observer like Rachel’s grandmother. Katie Brown paid attention to everything, especially to her granddaughter. “So Nan figured out what was going on and told your folks?” Loti concluded.
Rachel nodded. “To some extent, yes. She confronted me first, and we both went to Mom. Who, of course, jumped to the wrong conclusion, but we explained it. My mom was so much more understanding than my dad.” Rachel shuddered.
“I bet he was livid,” Loti whispered, her eyes widening at the mental image of Rachel’s father, the epitome of a Southern gentleman, losing his shit.
“To say the least. But in the end, he sort of forgave us. I agreed it would be best if Wolf left for a while.” She got a faraway look in her eye. “It took more than a year with a healer to get over it.” Rachel picked up her wine glass and settled back in her chair, resting one arm over her stomach.
She dipped the glass at Loti. “If you ever have to decide to feed a vamp, make sure you know what in the hell you’re getting yourself into.” She drained the glass and slapped it down.
“So, why is he back?” Loti leaned her elbows on the table, holding her face in her hands.
“I’m not sure. He said was it was time, and—” Rachel hesitated.
“And?”
“And he needed to talk to me about something.”
Loti raised an eyebrow, but Rachel wasn’t looking at her anymore. She was digging in her purse for her wallet.
“Do you still need a ride home?” The tone of her voice said the subject was closed.
Loti debated whether to ask Rachel about the strange sensations and whether Wolf could have been doing something, but it seemed silly now. He didn’t know she was there, and it could have been her sixth sense’s way of telling her what he was.
They were both silent on the car ride home; Rachel focused on the dark, country road, and Loti fiddled with the heater vents. The radio was tuned to 80’s on 8 and Huey Lewis crooned “Heart and Soul”. Loti’s mind wandered from her last minute to-do list to the vampire again. Had he known she was there? And if so, why on earth would he have hypnotized her, or whatever vampires did? But they had to look in your eyes to do that, didn’t they?
“Have you wrapped up everything at work?” Rachel broke through her reverie.
“Yeah, finally. What a process.” She folded her arms over her stomach.
Searching for new therapists for her clients had taken months, but she couldn’t plop her case load in just anyone’s lap. Each person was unique, and she had to consider their personality, current state of mind, and physical health, as well as their spiritual bent. It was complicated. Finding a new yoga instructor had been easy in comparison. Untangling herself from her life in Jefferson was a slow, tedious chore, but it needed to be done if she had any hope of moving on.
Drowning herself in her yoga therapy clients and classes didn’t help her get a handle on her life after David’s death. And there were the bizarre ailments that sprung up: asthma and something akin to anxiety attacks. She lost weight—although that wasn’t a mystery because food didn’t taste good anymore. It had no taste. Her healer had the audacity to tell her she needed to grieve.
“I am grieving,” she snapped at him.
“No, you’re not,” he said like the father she’d lost.
The gravel crunched under the tires as Rachel turned into Loti’s driveway, the noise snapping her back to the present. As the car maneuvered down the winding road, Loti sank a little deeper into her seat watching the white Christmas lights come into view. David had hung them on the gable over the front door for their last Christmas together, six months before his death. It seemed so silly at the time because no one could see their house from the road.
“Who cares? We can see them, and I like Christmas lights.” He waved a dismissive hand from his perch on the top step of his dad’s wooden ladder—the one with DO NOT STAND HERE in capital red letters. It swayed slightly and Loti rushed to grab it.
“Good grief, David. Are you trying to kill yourself?” she yelled.
“Hey, this was my dad’s. It’s gotta be the best. It’ll hold.”
“It’s probably thirty years old.” Her lips pressed into a pale slash as her eyes flared.
David laughed, putting the final touches on the string of lights. He popped the two ends together and bent down, his foot pawing the air for the first wrung. There was a loud snap as the ladder broke, collapsing under him. Loti couldn’t hold it together and David crashed down, knocking the wind out of her in the process. They were sprawled across the slate walkway. Frightened she couldn’t catch her breath, she flailed at David, who sat up and gathered her into his arms.
“Relax, darlin’,” he whispered, then kissed her.
She struggled for a second before dissolving into his arms. He explored her yielding lips, and she responded in kind. He kissed the corners of her mouth then her top lip and the bottom. He placed a kiss on her chin and a line of kisses along her jaw to her ear where he found the soft spot just behind her jaw bone, and she gasped. Air rushed back into her lungs, and she sputtered into a coughing fit. He nipped the spot, grinning as she took another deep breath and let it out.
“All better?” he mumbled.
“Mmmm hmmmm.”
“Earth to Loti.” Rachel snapped her fingers in Loti’s face.
“Huh?” Bewildered, she looked around at the glowing, blue
dashboard as the car idled in her driveway. She glanced up at the string of lights. He’d gone to see his healer, who was known as Model-T, when his elbow and foot didn’t get better right away. Most families had a healer who they went to on a regular basis. Healers used a wide variety of traditional methods to create balance and promote health—herbs, essential oils, energetic practices. The healer expressed concern about the lack of healing and referred him to a technical doctor for tests. Technical doctors were a relatively new phenomenon who relied on technological advances rather than traditional metaphysics.
“I’ll pick you up Saturday afternoon around 2:00 p.m.? Is that too early? Check-in’s at 4:00 pm., so that should give us plenty of time,” Rachel said.
Loti extricated herself from the pickup. “Sounds good. I’ll be pretty busy during the day, but maybe we can get together tomorrow night and go over some things?”
“I’ll call or text you.” Rachel smiled. “And hey—”
Loti paused, the door half-way closed.
“Thanks for not judging me.”
Loti shrugged. “That’s what friends do—or don’t do. And who am I to judge? I’ve got my own ghosts.” She tossed her blue satchel over her shoulder, and Rachel waved as Loti slammed the truck door. The leaves weren’t on the trees yet, so the bare trunks played peek-a-boo with the red taillights as the F150 pulled down the winding driveway. She glanced up at the horizon where an arching sliver of light peeked over the ridge line. It was larger than life already—it would be a full moon.
~~~~~~~~~~~
As the moon rose over the trees, Rachel wondered how far away Wolf was. She sat on the porch swing her father helped her install last summer, her apprehension growing. So much water under the bridge, she mused. Although the effects of the blood bond had gone away, she never stopped caring about her uncle or worrying about him for that matter. It was an hour before Wolf’s Fat Boy thundered through the tranquil night. She smirked; what a drama-king. He could run, or fly, faster than that stupid bike. Still not wearing a helmet, he parked by her blue truck. She steeled herself, ready to confront him. But as he turned toward her, his eyes glowing with the moonlight, her breath caught at just how beautiful he was. Reaching around to his back, he slid the hairband off and shook his jet black hair loose from the braid.
Enlightened (Love and Light Series) Page 3