“There isn’t any other way. I’m sorry. I can’t let her destroy this town searching for that guide, and I refuse to let her hurt you in her hunt to find it while we continue to try to clear Danny’s name.”
“I understand that, but…”
Mason’s lips crushed against mine. They were filled with a sense of care and meaning that had been lacking in last night’s kiss. So much emotion was packed behind each brush of his lips against mine.
This was his bittersweet goodbye.
“No. Stop.” I wiggled my hands between the two of us and pushed him away. “I won’t do this. I won’t stand here and let you kiss me goodbye. Even if you won’t let me destroy the guide, there has to be another way.”
He tucked a strand of my wild hair behind my ear. “God, you’re so strong, yet so damn stubborn.”
“Give me today,” I insisted, ignoring his comment. “You have to at least give me today to find another way.”
“Only under one condition.”
“What?” I asked.
“If Aurora comes for us before you find another solution, other than getting rid of the guide, you can’t stand in my way. I will kill her the next time I have a chance. Understood?”
Mason’s eyes burned with hatred. I knew he detested Aurora, but his level of hate toward her ran deeper than I’d thought.
“Okay,” I said as I fisted the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. “If she comes for us before we find an alternate solution, I won’t stand in your way, but you have to promise me if I can find a solution, you won’t stand in my way of seeing it through either.”
“Sounds fair enough.”
I lifted up onto the tips of my toes and brushed my lips against his. I wasn’t sure what the day held for us now that Aurora was in town, but knew I wanted to spend every second I could with Mason.
His lips moved against mine in a way that had him quickly gaining control of our kiss. He turned it into something slower and gentler. Something sweet. My heart swelled with emotion because again I felt as though he was saying goodbye. I didn’t want to say goodbye to him, ever. I wanted to stay where we were, locked in one another’s arms.
“Your breakfast is getting cold,” he whispered between kisses.
“I don’t care.”
He broke our kiss and placed a few inches of space between us. “You should get something in your stomach before we attempt to take on the world today.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes and untangled myself from him.
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I should eat something because I would need to bring my A game today.
Fifteen
Mason
After breakfast, Claire made the suggestion we visit her father. I wasn’t sure what good could come from bringing her father into our mess, but she was adamant it was time he knew what was going on.
I didn’t argue.
As I climbed into the passenger seat of her car, I realized Claire was the polar opposite when it came to neatness than Danny had been. Her car was loaded with crap. If I hadn’t seen her staying at her brother’s place the last few nights, I would’ve thought she lived out of her car.
“Sorry about the mess. Shove whatever you need to out of your way,” Claire said as she cranked the engine. “I do all the time.”
“I can see that.”
“Are you saying I’m a slob?”
A grin quirked at my lips. “I’m not saying anything.”
“Right. Anyway, like I said, I think it’s a good idea to explain everything to my dad. He might know something we don’t about the guide. He might even know something about the vampire hunter who wrote it.”
“Was he close to the guy? The one who left him the collection?”
“Yeah, that’s why the guy left it to him in the first place. He wasn’t his best friend or anything, but they were close. I think I met him once or twice. He was older than my dad. Sort of like a father figure to him.”
“Then don’t you think he would’ve known a guide in the collection he’d inherited was so dangerous and rare?”
Claire glanced at me while pausing at a stop sign. “What are you trying to say? That my dad knew the book was there and purposely didn’t say anything to Danny about it?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m just trying to figure out how he didn’t know it was there to begin with.”
“Maybe it was safer not to mention at all.” Claire gassed it, sending my head jerking back against the seat. “Also, my dad hasn’t handled anything at the bookstore the last couple years. He went into retirement after Danny and I graduated high school. I left for college and all my brother wanted to do was take over the store. Dad might not have known what was in the books he inherited. Danny could have easily kept this one for himself.”
It was possible.
The road we were on turned to gravel. Tall grass surrounded us on either side with a few palm trees sprinkled here and there. A house with green siding and windows trimmed in pale yellow came into view once we reached the end. A black truck sat parked in the driveway. Her father was home.
“And, we’re here.” Claire shifted into park. She pulled in a deep breath as she cut the engine and reached for the door handle.
Her display of nerves didn’t make me feel any better, even though I knew we were both nervous for different reasons. All I could think about was how I was meeting Claire’s dad in a different form than I had before. Today, I was showing up at his house unannounced with his daughter. It was completely different from seeing him in town and saying hello with a nod. Maybe it was stupid to worry about, but I couldn’t deny that I worried he might not like seeing a vampire with his daughter. Hell, I should probably be worried about what his reaction would be to what we were here to fill him in on instead.
“Let me do the talking,” Claire insisted.
“No argument there.” I preferred she do all the talking anyway.
I slid out of the passenger seat and followed Claire up the sandy walkway that led to the front porch. My biker boots made too much noise as I climbed the wooden steps behind her.
Claire barely knocked before twisting the knob and stepping inside. Stale air hit my nose the instant the door opened. It had me second-guessing if I wanted to follow her inside. The house reeked of sorrow and loneliness.
It hit me then. Claire’s dad wasn’t going to give a damn I was here with his daughter. He probably wouldn’t notice me. He might not even notice Claire. Not at first anyway.
He was in mourning.
“Daddy? It’s me, Claire,” she called as she stepped farther inside.
I hung back. Claire must have sensed my hesitation. She glanced over her shoulder and motioned for me to come in. I did as I was told and closed the door behind me. The sadness stemming from her father saturated the air. I could almost taste it.
“Hello? Daddy?” Claire called out as we moved through the mudroom and into the living room.
Her dad was asleep on the couch. He was dressed in gray sweatpants and a dingy T-shirt. There was an open bag of chips, piles of used tissues, and an empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the coffee table in front of him. My heart ached for the man, but it also hurt for Claire. I hated she had to see her father like this.
“Dad,” Claire whispered as she crept to him. She shook his shoulder once she reached him. He stirred, but it took her a few more tries before he fully committed to waking.
“Claire? What are you doing here?” he grumbled as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.
“I wanted to check on you, but I also want to tell you something important that’s been going on.”
Claire’s father’s eyes drifted from her to me. “What’s he doing here?”
“Moral support. Another witness,” Claire said. “The list goes on.”
“Is baby daddy on that list, because I swear to God, I can’t handle anything else right now, Claire. I just can’t.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and
index finger as though the thought of adding anything else to his plate was already giving him a headache.
My eyes bugged out of my head. “No, sir. I promise that’s not the case.”
I wasn’t sure if it would ever be. I didn’t think vampires could reproduce, not the way other supernaturals and humans did.
“Then why do you need moral support or a witness for anything?” he questioned Claire.
“Because I have something to tell you about Danny, and I don’t think you’ll believe me,” Claire said as she situated herself on the couch beside her father.
I crossed the room to sit in the recliner, giving them space.
“What about Danny?”
“I know how hard this is going to be to hear, but I need you to listen to everything I have to say without interrupting. Okay?” Claire insisted.
Her dad yawned before leaning back against the couch. His eyes fixated on her, giving her his undivided attention. “I guess I can agree to that.”
“I’m just going to come out and say it,” Claire said. “Dad, I know Danny didn’t kill himself.”
At first, her dad didn’t say anything. He only stared at her. After a little while, he opened his mouth as though he was about to say something, but then closed it again before words could come out.
“I know you don’t believe me. You’ve said so before, but I have proof Danny was attacked by something. Something that has everything to do with a book.”
“Attacked?” Claire’s dad shook his head. “No. It was a gunshot wound. A self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
“Was it? Did you see the scene for yourself? Did you see where the bullet entered?” Claire asked. Her voice had risen an octave or two. I knew she was trying to debunk what her father believed, but I didn’t think she was going about it the right way.
“What a sick question to ask, Claire.” Her father shook his head. He stood and paced in front of the couch.
“I’m sorry, but Danny didn’t kill himself. I know he didn’t. It was all because of a book.”
“What book? How could a book have killed your brother? You’re not making sense.” Her father’s eyes shifted to me. They were hard, raw, and filled with emotion. “Why on earth are you encouraging this? My daughter is obviously in a mentally fragile state. I don’t like the idea of you taking advantage of that.”
“I’m not, sir. I assure you I’m not. What she’s saying is true. The death of your son does involve a book.”
Claire reached into her purse and retrieved it. She held it out to her father. “This guide. It came from your collector friend. I spotted it listed as a journal on Danny’s log. He sent me a text the night he died, saying he’d found a book that was either going to kill him or make us a shit ton of money. This is the book, and it’s because of it he’s dead. Do you recognize it?”
Claire’s dad took the book from her and opened it to scan its pages. “No, I don’t. You’re saying this was one of Jimmy’s donations to us when he passed?”
“Yeah. It was also guarded…by a hellhound,” Claire said. “That’s what attacked Danny. It wasn’t a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Danny was ripped to shreds by a hellhound, Dad. I don’t know if the police conjured up some magic to cover it up or what, but that’s what happened.”
Claire’s father’s face paled. He slumped onto the couch with the guide gripped tightly in his hands. He shook his head, but the glassy look in his eyes never vanished.
“No,” he muttered with a trembling voice. Tears built in his eyes. “I was there. I saw Danny. I found him. If a hellhound had been there, things would’ve been worse than what I saw. Danny shot himself. He placed a gun to his chin and pulled the damn trigger. I don’t know why. I don’t know how I missed the signs, but your brother was suicidal, Claire.”
Silence fell between the three of us. It was only interrupted when Claire’s dad tossed the guide on the coffee table as though he wanted nothing to do with it.
“Danny wouldn’t kill himself, Dad. You know him as well as I did. He wasn’t the suicidal type,” Claire sputtered. “Danny was happy. He loved his life.”
“Sometimes we don’t know a person as well as we thought we did. It wasn’t healthy for him to spend as much time as he did at the bookstore. Maybe he was escaping reality. I don’t know. All I know is that Danny is no longer here, and it’s not because of a damned hellhound attacking him.”
Claire’s face reddened. Things were about to get heated real quickly. I needed to think of something that would diffuse the situation and fast. These two had already been through so much, they didn’t need to hurt each other with words too.
“Would you believe us if we showed you surveillance footage from the night your son passed away? A clip that shows a hellhound entering the shop?” I asked.
Claire glanced at me. Her eyes softened as tension appeared to roll off her shoulders.
“If there was a hellhound on video, the cops would’ve mentioned something to me. I was the one who turned over the tape to them,” her father insisted.
“They wouldn’t have mentioned it if they couldn’t make sense of what they were seeing,” Claire said. “Come to the shop. Let me show you so you can see it with your own eyes. It’s the only way you’re going to believe me.”
He seemed to mull around in his head for a good reason not to come. When he smoothed his hands over his face and released a long sigh, I thought we’d won.
“Fine. I’ll come, but it doesn’t mean I believe what you’re saying. I just know you well enough to know that you won’t let this go until you show me what you want to show me.” Her dad stood and headed toward the back of the house. “Let me grab some damn socks.”
Sixteen
Claire
When we arrived at the bookstore, I could feel my dad’s desire to be anywhere besides here saturate the air. I was positive it was the first time since finding Danny he’d stepped foot inside the place. I knew a lot of emotions would surface for him, but it was important he saw the video. It was the only way he’d believe me. Seeing the guide hadn’t been enough proof. Seeing the hellhound on the video would be.
I unlocked the shop and stepped inside, holding the door open for my dad and Mason. Dad didn’t follow me inside right away. Hesitation pulsed through him. He hung in the threshold for the span of a few heartbeats before moving forward.
“It still smells like him,” he whispered.
I nodded. While there was still a chemical scent lingering in the office, Danny’s scent could still be smelled out here. It gave me a false sense of comfort. I knew he was gone, but his scent made him seem close still somehow.
I stepped to my dad and interlaced my fingers through his. Mason closed the door to the shop and locked it so we wouldn’t be disturbed. I was glad he was here.
I walked my dad toward the office. The instant we neared it, his body tensed. My heart broke for him. While I was still hurting because Danny was gone, I knew my pain wasn’t anything compared to his.
Dad had been the one to find Danny. I hadn’t.
My hand squeezed his, encouraging him to continue forward while letting him know I was here with him.
“I can’t,” he whispered. His eyes snapped shut and his grip on my hand tightened. “I can’t go in that room. It’s too soon.”
“You can because I’m here with you,” I muttered. “You can because you know I wouldn’t ask you to do this unless it was important. Daddy, please.”
My father’s eyes opened. His gaze locked with mine. The dark circles beneath his eyes became more prominent. This was taking more out of him than I thought it would. “Okay.”
Placing one foot in front of the other, my father started toward the office without uttering another word. Once we passed through the threshold, I realized the hard part was over. Now all I needed to do was have him watch the clip of the hellhound coming in. Once he saw it, I knew he’d believe me.
I released his hand and crossed over to the desk, ready to boot the computer up.
Getting the video up quickly was my top priority. Dad would need something to focus on besides the room. I was sure it would bring horrible images of finding Danny to mind. I remembered how hard it had been for me to be in here even without my dad’s horrific memories.
The computer booted up quickly, and I was able to get the video up without issue. Thank goodness.
“Mason, do you remember what the stop clock said when the hellhound came through?” I prayed he remembered because I didn’t think I was strong enough to watch the tape twice, and I knew my father wouldn’t be able to watch the entire thing.
“No, I don’t remember.”
I bit my bottom lip. Damn it. I pressed fast-forward and stared at the screen, searching for the first flicker of the hellhound entering the shop. It wasn’t long before I noticed its smoky shadow make an appearance. I stopped the video and rewound a little to when it first slipped through the glass of the front door.
“Here it is. It comes in at the bottom of the screen, right through the glass of the front door.” I stepped out of the way so my dad would have a better view of the computer screen. “Have a seat. Then hit play. You should see a smoky figure near the bottom of the screen.”
Dad situated himself in the chair, his eyes focused on the screen and nothing else. He clicked play. When the hellhound came into view, an audible gasp spurred passed his lips, and I felt a small sense of satisfaction slip through me.
He’d seen it. Now he would understand. Now he would believe me.
“Oh my God. There was a hellhound here the night Danny died.” Sadness cracked through my dad’s voice as tears trickled from his eyes. He blinked and they only fell faster.
An ache built in the back of my throat as tears of my own threatened to spill free. Now wasn’t the time to cry, though. I still needed to explain everything else happening.
Vampire’s Descent: Willow Harbor - Book Two Page 13