Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “If you can help, I might consider helping Sebastian. You can tell him you convinced me, and he might be easier on you.”

  “No, I mean… I’ll t-try, but I don’t know if I’ll be able. I d-don’t know if he’ll let me.”

  “Nothing difficult. I want you to talk to someone. My filius. He’s skittish, but-”

  “Your what?”

  “My son, the man I changed. You use a different word?”

  “I like yours better. Why can’t you t-talk to him?”

  “He ran from me a long time ago. He may have had reason, then; I wasn’t exactly stable. But now he runs whenever he senses me nearing, long before I can get close enough to tell him I only want to talk. I’ve written, but he never answers, usually only runs again when he knows I have his address. I want him back with me. I miss him terribly. I honestly don’t know why he runs, and I don’t want him to fear me. Do you believe me?”

  Lenny considered. His brain felt as though it were mired in mud. He was not a mind reader. He could not reach inside Rhona and know if she was sincere. He could feel that she was a killer and assumed that, like other vampires, she was trustworthy only as long as keeping faith was useful to her. But Kate had been the same once, he reminded himself. She had been like all the others, but she had found something she wanted and had kept him safe until she remembered how to love. It was hardly the same situation, of course, but close enough to compare. Rhona would do anything it took to get what she wanted, but if this man was what she wanted, he would be safe.

  “I believe you.”

  She let out a soft breath. “And if you tell him you believe me, will he believe you?”

  Lenny shrugged. “Won’t know until I t-try.”

  “You will try, then?”

  “I’ll try to try. I g-guess. But you t-tell Sebastian about it. I don’t know whether I c-can t-talk to him. How do I find your… your filius?”

  “His name is Daniel. I can give you his address. Perhaps I should tell you he is also my brother.”

  “You changed your b-brother?”

  “Yes. Is that a problem for you?”

  “No, I understand. You d-didn’t want to lose him. If I can t-talk to him, c-could you do something for me?”

  “Possibly.”

  “There’s a woman called Kimberly Reed. She lives in Austin. She’s a wizard. C-could you call her and t-tell her I was here? And d-don’t let Sebastian know.”

  “I will.” She held out a hand to shake on it.

  * * *

  SEBASTIAN WAS FRIGHTENINGLY enthusiastic about the idea. He counted it as a victory, and he said as much. Rhona nodded, but Lenny knew it was a calculated retreat. He prayed Sebastian did not find out, for everyone’s sake.

  “Let’s go,” Sebastian commanded as soon as he had heard the plan. Lenny hauled himself to his feet. “The sooner we get this done, the better. I want to get underground.”

  Suddenly, Rhona was between them and the door, her hands on her hips. “Not even,” she snapped. “First, we lay down some ground rules. I don’t want you” – she thrust her finger into Sebastian’s chest – “making things worse. You’re to leave this to Leonard. And you’re to let him rest. If there’s something he needs to do, I want him able to do it. You’re not to go anywhere near, and you’re to stay out of Daniel’s head. I don’t want him thinking I asked you to hurt him. Understood?”

  Sebastian bared his teeth in a hideous grin. “Fine,” he conceded. “Your brother, your rules. We’ll bring him back.”

  Rhona pursed her lips, eyebrows drawing together. “I hope so.”

  Lenny thought he heard a misunderstanding in that exchange and was about to ask, but Sebastian grabbed him by the arm and turned the question into a gasp. He clenched his jaw and leaned away, and the fingers dug in tighter, and he stopped moving.

  Rhona frowned in deep disgust. “I’m leaving Houston,” she told them as she scribbled an address and phone number on the back of a receipt. “I can’t wait around here. Someone will find the bodies, and I’m not interested in having to run from human police. I’ll be at this address in Cleveland. Give Daniel the phone number. He might be willing to call me, even if he won’t come. If you show up at my door, I might let you in.”

  She paused then tilted her head pointedly in Lenny’s direction. “I’ll be more likely if he’s still in one piece. I like him a lot better than I like you. Crazy bastard.”

  Sebastian guffawed, snatched the receipt out of her hand, and steered Lenny out to the car. The mid-afternoon sun was painful after the foil-guarded gloom inside. “She’s pretty hot,” he confided when the doors were shut and they were halfway down the block. “She likes playing like she hates me. Been doing that for years. I’ll break her someday, though. Every time I look at her, I can tell she wants me to. I figure maybe dragging her brother back would give me an edge, yeah? You’re useful. I like that.”

  Lenny dug his knuckles into his eyes. “She said you’re not supposed to g-g-get near him. He’s skittish. You’d scare him off.”

  “She said you’re supposed to get some rest. Go to sleep.”

  Lenny woke up just before they passed the San Antonio city limits sign. The ebb of an adrenaline rush was quivering in his stomach, but he could not remember the dreams that had caused it. For that he was grateful. And, as much as it horrified him to know he could be knocked out with only a word, he did feel better than he had.

  Sebastian drove toward the city skyline, humming under his breath. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of old aviators, and he drummed out a rhythm on the steering wheel. He turned his head fractionally to smile at Lenny.

  “I think maybe you were right,” he said, picking up exactly where he had left off. “I’ll let you off, say, a half mile out. He may have an established territory. You go talk to him. I’ll be watching.”

  Lenny frowned. “You’ll be… You’ll b-be watching?”

  “Mm. Through you.”

  “Oh.” He shuddered and sat in silence, suddenly very conscious of his sense of sight, until the Mazda rolled to a stop in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

  The houses were the low, square bungalows of the nineteen-sixties, widely spaced between twisted live oaks. The afternoon sun shone through the branches and dappled the dry lawns. The houses were well-kept, but the street was cracked and the cars were old. Respectable, but not wealthy.

  “Straight ahead, third left, fourth right, next right.” Sebastian handed Lenny the directions Rhona had written. “If you need backup…”

  “Wh-what if he’s not there?”

  “Then come on back and we’ll wait.” He smiled. “Try to hurry.”

  Lenny slid out of the car and shuffled down the street, fighting his poor balance. The thought of running crossed his mind. He ignored it; walking was hard enough. The shadows grew deeper as he made his way further into the neighborhood and the oaks became taller and darker. Left, right, right. He checked the address he had been given. The house in front of him did not stand out from any of the others. Square construction, gray brick, perfectly trimmed hedge close up against the walls. Sticky letters on the side of the mailbox said “LELAND.” A cat shot out of the foliage and streaked across several neighboring lawns, fleeing Lenny’s approach.

  He reached out to ring the doorbell, but stopped. There was nothing inside he could hear – nothing alive – and nothing that touched his ghost sense. No one home. But Sebastian would be watching, and Lenny had no idea how many senses “watching” entailed, so he rang the bell anyway and waited on the step long enough to be certain. No one answered.

  He turned around to walk back, but as he did, an enormous boat of a car pulled into the driveway, and the driver climbed out. The man straightened, and just seemed to keep rising until he was taller even than Sebastian. He was unmistakably Rhona’s brother. Lenny could see the resemblance in the straight lines and sharp angles, hollow cheeks, slash of a mouth, slender frame. His dark hair, winged with gray, was slicked back beneath
a battered panama hat. One spidery hand rose to knuckle his spectacles higher on the bridge of his aquiline nose. He was older than Rhona by several decades, or at least appeared to be, though Lenny knew that appearances could deceive. Deep lines creased the man’s forehead and bracketed his mouth. Gray eyes regarded Lenny coldly.

  “Can I help you?”

  He had the same accent as Rhona, something nonspecific but vaguely British.

  Lenny fidgeted. “Are… Are you, um, D-daniel?”

  The man stood still and silent, his expression chilly.

  “I’m Lenny.” He tried a smile and received no response, so instead he held out the scrap of paper he carried. “Rhona asked me to give you this. Her… her phone number is on there. I d-don’t think you can reach her there yet. Maybe. But she wants to t-talk to you.”

  Daniel Leland recoiled, glaring at the object as though it were something noxious scraped from the bottom of a shoe. He transferred the same look to Lenny.

  “No.”

  And he brushed past, flipping through his ring of keys.

  “Wait. P-please just listen. She wants you b-back.”

  “I am aware of that.” His voice was hard, irritated that the conversation was not over.

  “No, I mean she misses you.”

  The jingle of the keys fell still for a moment. Daniel Leland stopped.

  Lenny let out a breath and ploughed onward. “She d-didn’t tell me what happened, but whatever she did, she said she… she wasn’t right, then. She doesn’t want to hurt you, just talk. I think she’s sorry.”

  Daniel Leland turned and took the scrap of paper between two fingertips. He scrutinized it long and hard. His glasses reflected the afternoon light and made his eyes unreadable, but his mouth relaxed for an instant, and something like uncertainty creased his forehead.

  It was not a feeling Lenny understood. He had never been afraid to go to someone he loved. He had never feared his family.

  But then the bit of paper fluttered to the ground. “Sorry,” Leland hissed. “For what, exactly? Killing me? Damning me? Or uprooting me again, perhaps? You’re trespassing. Get off my property.”

  “You d-don’t have to run. She’s known where you live for years. She’s not c-coming for you. At least c-call her.” Lenny paused. Something else had hit him, a sense that Leland’s resentment stemmed from more than just personal injury. He felt out further.

  “Leave.”

  Lenny’s eyes widened. “You’re B-broken.”

  Leland turned with teeth bared in a grimace. “I don’t need her to fix me.”

  “No, that’s not what-”

  “Go away.”

  “What would it c-cost you to talk to her? Just a couple minutes on the phone. She’s your sister.”

  Leland seemed to flicker, moving faster than Lenny could follow. A tiny pistol appeared in his hand, and an instant later, its muzzle was pressed against Lenny’s temple.

  “My sister died. I will not be made to speak to the thing that stole her face, nor to its lackeys. You continue to trespass. Violence seems to be all you devils understand, so if you don’t leave now, I will be more than happy to remove you from my property and let the coroner sort you out.”

  Lenny stumbled back. He had tried. He had tried, and that was all Rhona had asked. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Sorry. ‘M g-going. ‘M sorry.”

  But when he turned to flee, something was in his way, big and solid. Sebastian. He found himself grabbed and jostled, and suddenly Sebastian – Sebastian – was standing between him and the threat. Lenny touched his sleeve where he knew, underneath, there would be fingerprints purpling on his arm.

  “Put it down,” Sebastian purred.

  Lenny, attuned as he was, could feel the current of power humming through his brain, even though it was not directed at him.

  Leland’s stance relaxed by a hair. The muzzle of the gun wavered. He was fighting, but he was losing.

  “Don’t,” Lenny whispered. “She said not to. She specifically said not to. I asked, that’s all she wanted. We should g-go.”

  Sebastian turned, a frown tugging at his mouth.

  Three shots split the air. The reports reverberated strangely through the trees.

  Lenny cowered. Sebastian whirled, fangs bared.

  Leland twitched the gun’s sights from the grass and trained them between Sebastian’s eyes. He tilted his head as though listening. “You’ll want to be gone before the police arrive.”

  Sebastian shifted his weight. Leland’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Can you get to me faster than I can squeeze?”

  Sebastian smiled, spreading his hands in a placating gesture. He opened his mouth, and Leland snarled.

  “Speak again, and I shoot.”

  Sebastian’s smile morphed into a grimace. Then he vanished, and Lenny found himself once more looking down the barrel of Leland’s gun. He was not the sort to be able to disappear, and if he tried, he would hurt himself, so he backed away slowly instead, and broke into an unsteady run when he had reached the street. He did not look back.

  He fell twice, scraping the heels of his hands and tearing the knee of his pants, and he nearly fell again when Sebastian grabbed him from behind and dragged him the rest of the way to the car. It was still running. He was shoved roughly into the passenger seat and recoiled, automatically shielding his face. He had failed, failed so badly Sebastian had felt the need to step in. He had contradicted him, broken his concentration, and nearly gotten both of them shot as a result. There would be punishment for that. His wrists were grabbed and pulled away from his face, and though he bucked and writhed and cried, he could not break free.

  “Are you okay?”

  The question did not register until he felt himself shaken, and a seductive flood of calm washed over him.

  “Are you okay? He didn’t hit you, did he?”

  Lenny struggled for control of his breath and finally settled for shaking his head. The calm solidified somewhere beneath his lungs, heavy as lead. He was so tired.

  “You’re shaking. Bastard, threatening you… Just who the hell does he think he is?” Sebastian slammed the door and moved around the car to climb into the driver’s seat. “It’s no wonder Rhona doesn’t come get him herself.”

  Lenny sank down into the seat. The terror was gone – vanished – and though it bothered him, knowing that he couldn’t trust his own feelings, he couldn’t make himself miss being afraid. “Now what?”

  “You talked to him, like she asked. Didn’t work. I think I might take a stab at it, now.”

  “She d-d-didn’t want you t-to.”

  White-hot lightning shot up Lenny’s spine, and he whimpered.

  Sebastian bared his teeth and threw the car into gear. “What would you know? You don’t know Rhona, you don’t know what she wants. Hell, she doesn’t know what she wants half the time. It’ll just take a little persuasion, and he’ll go running back to her. Everyone’s happy. You’ll see.”

  “Wh-what are you going to d-do?”

  “Persuade him.”

  * * *

  KIM WAS FREE to leave the room they had put her in, but she preferred to stay. It was childish, she knew, but it was also better than wandering the halls aimlessly, wallowing in her own inability to do anything useful. And if she left the room, she would be followed closely by a family member, one with her best interests at heart, who would not let her leave the compound. She was not allowed near a phone, or near water or glass or anything that could be used for scrying. She was watched while she drank and was accompanied to the toilet and shower. Her door was watched, but as long as she was inside, there was no one watching her directly, so she stayed inside.

  She had been given a CD player and a stack of CDs, a few books, some yarn and knitting needles, and an inconspicuous bronze anklet that kept her magic locked tightly inside her. She ignored all of it and lay flat on the bed to think.

  She was alone. No one knew where she was, though Zeb and Coyote would certainly have st
arted looking when she failed to check in from Abilene. They might abandon Tony and Edith, or possibly try to enlist their help. The vampires were not the good guys, but they did seem to like her well enough, perhaps well enough to come looking for her. Even if they found her, though, they would not dare try to break her out, not from the Reed family’s fortress, and Kim was honestly not sure she wanted them to. The people holding her were her family, after all, and though she was deeply furious with all of them, she was not willing to risk breaking ties. They thought she was in danger. They thought she was being controlled by something that could hurt her. They thought they were doing right, and Kim – grudgingly – loved them for that.

  She closed her eyes and felt out for Lenny. He was still there, somewhere. She could have pointed straight at him, but she could not tell what kind of shape he was in. She mouthed a prayer to Saint Anthony.

  Heaven, though, she was very much aware, helped those who helped themselves. Saint Anthony might be listening, might very well be praying on her behalf, but no miracles were going to drop out of the sky. Modern miracles were subtle, slightly improbable, what people called serendipity or good luck, and moping was not going to get her one.

  May as well get to what she was good at.

  She poked her head out into the hall. An older woman had taken the place of the teenager who had been there earlier.

  “Hey, Aunt Bea,” she greeted the woman.

  “Kimmy.” Bea’s smile was sad. “Did you need something?”

  “Hey. I don’t really feel like reading fiction, so I was wondering if you’d pop down to the archives with me.”

  “You’re not plotting something, are you? I know that look.”

  Kim grinned and slid out into the hall. “Of course I am. Just not making a run for it, so don’t worry about that. But see, I made a friend, and I promised I’d keep him safe, and you guys are turning me into a liar. You understand I have to do something.”

  “You think reading is going to change your mother’s mind?”

  “Reading is what I do best. And who knows? I might find something useful. At the very least, you know I won’t be making a break for it if we’re underground.”