Emma and I exchanged a fast look. I had zero intention of letting Beth go in there alone, and wished they hadn’t gone in without me before, too. Hurrying forward, I tried to go in after her, but the bouncer stepped in the way.
Emma sighed beside me. “Let us in.”
The vampire chuckled. “You don’t have the power your friend does.”
“No,” Emma said in an even tone. “I have my own.” She narrowed her eyes as I watched in amazement.
The vampire may as well have turned to stone for all the emotion he showed as he said, “You're not allowed back in. Antonal's orders. And old ass men aren't allowed in either.”
“Old?” For some reason, I loved the outrage in her face as she glanced from the bouncer to me. It was like in her eyes I was some kind of young stud.
I turned and looked at some of the twenty-something-year-olds in line, trying to hide the blush that was no doubt staining my cheeks. “It’s okay--”
“It’s not okay! What in the world is with all these people using the word old like it’s an insult?” She looked from me to the bouncer. “Age isn’t something to be ashamed of! And I’ll tell you, I’d rather have a nice-looking man with a face like his then some young guy who doesn’t even know how to drive a car properly.”
Drive a car? Was she talking about…? I felt my cheeks get even hotter.
“And another thing: I think you'll find that I am allowed into the club, as is my friend,” Emma said, her voice rising. She narrowed her eyes as I watched in amazement. “Your job brings a bit too much power,” she said as she tossed her hair. “I think you’re getting a little big for your britches.”
The vampire furrowed his brows. “Okay?” But then he blinked. A second later he looked down at himself, his fingers trying to grab on to his belt as what had started out as regular jeans turned into skinny jeans, at least in terms of their size. Suddenly it was very obvious that the bouncer had been skipping leg day, and the jeans tightened even more until I had to avert my eyes. The last thing I wanted to see was the outline of this guy's junk, and that's where it was heading.
“Go,” he shouted. “I’m sorry! Make it stop!”
Emma cocked her head. “Stop acting so cocky and your pants will loosen. When you’re not too big for them.”
He nodded vigorously and tried to unbutton his jeans as we walked past.
Beth stood inside the door and turned to us. “I told you, you can't be with me. I need to do this alone. Dance floor,” she yelled. “It’s the only way this works!” She pushed at Emma’s shoulders so she’d follow me out onto the dance floor. “Go!”
I shrugged and held out my hand. Emma gave me a small smile and the next thing I knew, we were slow dancing to a very fast song. I wished I could say that I was more aware of our surroundings, but in that moment, with Emma looking up at me as we swayed back and forth, I wasn't. Hell, I wasn't even aware of the other sweaty bodies gyrating on the dance floor even though I'd seen them only a moment ago.
“So, what happened with the vampires?” I asked. I had to pull her close and bend forward with my ear to her lips to listen. It broke the moment though, which was what I needed. I couldn't afford to be so distracted.
“Long story short, I used my unique abilities to convince the owner of this place to give us some info, which was that Henry pissed off the sirens. That was all he knew.”
“Well, it gets us started, anyway.” As we swung on the dance floor, I kept my eyes open for Beth, and off of Emma. Beth floated around the room, apparently looking for her target.
All the bodies that I had been oblivious to before were now all too present. Everywhere I looked, the place was filled with college aged kids that were theoretically doing something akin to dancing. The way some of the women were shaking their behinds and grinding them into their dance partner's crotch was enough to make me feel ancient. When had dancing become little more than sex with clothes on? The bouncer was right, I was an old ass man.
I pulled my thoughts back to the situation at hand. “I won’t stop looking for your brother,” I said. “We have a good lead, but that won’t stop me following up on others.”
Her dark brows drew together, twin arches over those deep brown eyes of hers. For a second, I couldn’t look away. There were so many songs about blue-eyed girls, but tonight was the first time I wished I could sing, just so I could talk about her eyes.
Man, this woman had done a number on me. She was turning me into some cheesy idiot.
“Why are you helping me?” Emma finally asked. There was a mix of surprise and relief in her eyes. Had she really thought that I'd hear that sirens were involved and run off? When the surprise wore off, I could also see a healthy dose of skepticism in there as well.
“I understand loss.” I watched the idiot kids dancing and probably taking ridiculous amounts of drugs around me and sighed. I hated telling this story. I pushed the emotions down so I could relay what happened without getting overwhelmed. “My wife and best friend were on their way to Shawsville to pick up a birthday present for me when they were in a freak accident. A fuel truck crashed into them and exploded.“ I chucked humorlessly. “Those things are really hard to blow up, though you wouldn’t think so. But it did, killing them both. It also started a fire. It was a dry and windy summer, so it turned into a wildfire. The worst one our region has ever seen, as a matter of fact.”
I wanted to say more. I wanted to pull that moment together with this moment when she was scared for her brother, but I couldn’t seem to form the words. Because everyone knew that Emma had lost so much over the years already. It seemed like the right thing to tell her I understood, but the wrong thing to compare any of our losses as if they were the same. Loss was always different. That was something I’d learned in my professional life and my personal life.
Emma’s gaze was filled with so much empathy that I wished I could curl around her. Instead, I continued holding her gently, diving into those eyes of hers. At last, her sweet voice came. “I’m so sorry. That had to have been awful." We both fell quiet for a moment before she spoke again. "I, uh. I’m going through a messy divorce. I've tried to keep it from Travis, my son, but he's picking up on more of it than I would like. Smart ass kid.” She rolled her eyes and fixed her stare on me. “Rick, my husband, cheated. Bad. It was awful, left me pretty much a total wreck. It may or may not have had something to do with me coming back to Mystic Hollow.”
My blood boiled. How dare this Rick guy treat her like that? Emma was sweet, kind, and joyful, and for someone to stomp all over that made me want to show them exactly what my bear thought of the situation. My bear paced within me, eager to be released so he could wreak some havoc. I could hardly suppress the growl that wanted to vibrate out of me as it was. “I’m sorry he did that to you. If you’d like, I can kill him and make it look like a bear attack,” I offered.
She burst out laughing. I spun her and lowered her into a dip. As she arched her back and let herself relax, I heard a ripping sound. Emma gasped and her eyes widened. “Oh, no,” she whispered, one hand suddenly clutching her stomach.
“What was that?” I pulled her close again, gently taking her hand that had been resting on her stomach and putting it around my waist as we began to sway again.
Her cheeks reddened. I could tell even in the low light, which meant they were probably actually flaming red in the right lighting. “My girdle.”
It took all I had not to burst out laughing. She would probably think I was laughing at her though, which I wasn't, just the situation. “Emma, you don’t need that. There’s nothing wrong with curves.” Hell, I’d thought she looked a little stiff. “Relax. Really, I—”
“Sir?” A voice behind me cut me off suddenly. Emma jerked away and looked at the guy behind me with wide eyes.
Turning slowly, I faced one of the vampires I knew guarded the door to the VIP section downstairs. “Yes?”
“The boss would like a word,” he said.
After nodding at the s
tooge, I gave Emma a small bow. “Next time,” I said, then followed the crony toward the downstairs door.
Time to do my job.
17
Emma
“This has been the longest three days of my life,” I said with a long moan as I pushed the book away. We’d been researching nonstop, but there was not much info to be found about sirens. All we knew for sure was what Beth had gotten from her contact. They came inland to the beach to do their ceremony every full moon near the waterfall. The internet said the sirens lived in massive mansions on tiny unplottable islands off the mainland. They also had a flotilla of sorts, but that was spoken about even less in the books.
“So, we’re going to do this,” I muttered. “We are.” I took another bite of the brownie Deva brought for courage. The rich, chocolaty square practically melted on my tongue. It was so gooey and delicious. “Why can’t we see their tiny islands?” I asked.
“Because their magic prevents it.” Beth took another brownie, too. "It's like impenetrable fog."
“This is our only chance.” Deva set out a plate of cookies now that the brownies were demolished, the scent of the warm chocolate chips and macadamia nuts making my stomach growl quietly even though it was full of brownie and should be satisfied with that. “But they are mean, Emma. This could go very wrong. They might even kill Henry as soon as they see us. They're unpredictable at best and their moods seem to shift as quickly as waves coming in to the shore from what I've heard.”
“But you’re sure Henry should be safe until then?” I asked, my pulse picking up.
“Yes. They need a living sacrifice for this to work,” Beth said, and there was only a small note in her voice that reminded me I’d asked the question a thousand times already.
“And we still don’t have any idea why they grabbed Henry out of everyone and if this had anything to do with his gambling?”
Deva sighed. “We’ve all been following up with every contact we have, and no one has a clue.”
Still. I swore with their phones always going off, I constantly felt a strange kind of hope that one of their texts or calls would be with valuable information to make any of this make sense. Unfortunately, so far it’d been a bunch of supernaturals who didn’t have a clue about Henry’s disappearance.
I grabbed a cookie, deciding it was better to focus on the food than my waning hope. Was I comfort eating? Maybe. Not that my friends were judging. “Why are you doing this to me? Sweets are my weakness.”
Murmurs of agreement came from the other women around mouthfuls of cookies. We were all at our wits end when it came to research and, personally, I was getting impatient for the full moon, when this weird ceremony was supposed to take place. I just wanted Henry back safe and sound.
A man walked by the storefront and dropped his gum wrapper right on the sidewalk in front of us. He couldn't see us because of the tint on her glass, but we could see him fine. He hadn't accidentally dropped it either. It wasn't like it fell out of his pocket as he was trying to tuck it away. No. He barely even crumpled it up before he dropped it.
“Asshole,” Buster said with a growl and a flick of his tail.
I’d been practicing my magic every moment we weren’t researching. This wasn't the first moment I'd encountered like this, but it still gave me a thrill to intentionally use my magic. I waved my hand and the man stopped and bent over, coughing hard. A few seconds later, he coughed up a gum wrapper. He turned back in our direction to stare down at the wrapper he’d thrown on the ground.
Looking around in panic, he rushed forward and picked up his discarded wrapper and stuffed both in his pocket. He practically ran away after that. I vaguely remembered hearing about weird stuff happening when I lived here as a kid, but I'd always chalked it up to adults being paranoid or not smart enough to realize what was actually going on. I was such a brat. All the arrogance and invincibility of a typical teenager.
“Hmph.” I nodded. Served him right.
“Nice,” Buster said, then stretched in his patch of warm sunshine. The sun highlighted that he wasn't just a black cat but a tabby cat. The warm light made the dark brown stripes stand out against the rest of his black fur.
Everyone laughed at the horrified expression on the guy’s face before we all turned back to our respective books and kept reading. The books my girls had produced were more than just a little old; they were ancient, and as such, were treated with care, so when I dropped cookie crumbs on the page I hurriedly swiped them off, hoping they didn't leave any chocolate or residue behind. The last thing I wanted was to piss off any of the witches that had loaned us the books. My girls had scoured their homes and the home libraries of all their witchy friends, hoping we’d find something more helpful in these books. I knew a little chocolate smudge wouldn't piss off my friends, but the others? I had no idea about them.
“Oh, no.” Deva slapped her hand on the table, her voice a groan, like she'd just remembered a dentist appointment or something.
I looked up to see her staring out the windows with her eyes wide before narrowing into a furrowed glare. Then the front doorbell jingled.
We all swung our gazes around to see Deva’s ex walk in the door with his arms full of African violets. There must have been over a hundred of the tiny purple flowers. “He keeps doing this,” she whispered. “These are my favorite. Seems like ever since we broke up, he's suddenly remembering my preferences. He didn't give a crap when we were together though.”
The women and animals stared coldly at Jason as he set the violets on the table and backed away, making tiny bows and with his eyes glued to Deva. “I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I won’t stop trying. I love you, Deva. Name the price and I'll pay it.”
He briefly scanned his eyes over everyone else, saluting the rest of us before he backed out the door.
“That boy didn’t know what he had until it was gone,” Carol tutted as she shook her head sadly and grabbed another cookie. “Those are pretty, though.”
“They’re toxic to animals,” Buster murmured from the floor. “Burn them.”
“How about you just don’t eat them,” Beth countered. “Problem solved.”
“Human,” Buster muttered, then huffed and rolled around in his sunbeam until he was the shape of a kidney bean with all four paws in the air. I'd seen cats in that position before and it was always a trap. They put their fluffy bellies on display, making you want to pet them, but then as soon as you did the paws and claws and teeth captured your hand. I wasn't sure if he was like every other cat I knew, but I wasn't about to test that theory and fall for the trap. “I think I’ll poop in your shoe later," he purred with satisfaction.
I was surprised it wasn't Marble, the tortoiseshell cat, that was giving Beth a hard time, but she was off sleeping in the corner. Buster and Beth had an odd love-hate relationship, as I imagined many owners did with their cats.
“Hey,” I interrupted their argument. We’d been hanging out at Beth’s office for three days and all they’d done is go back and forth. It was their dynamic. And it was getting old. “Can we focus?”
“Right,” Carol said before turning to look at Deva. “You’re going to fall back into old patterns if you get back with him.”
“He’s trying really hard, but I don’t think I could ever love him again.” Deva delicately stroked one of the flower’s petals before dropping to the fuzzy leaf that lay underneath. “But I’m going to enjoy these flowers, though. They are my favorite, after all.” Her tone made me wonder if she would actually hold out against Jason's attempts at romancing his way back into her heart. When she arched an eyebrow and stared off into space, a memory probably replaying itself in her mind, I saw the resolve settle on her like a cloak. “I will not, however, make another damn sandwich for any man!”
“Yeah!” I yelled. “Except, you know. At your restaurant.”
“Or if it’s your turn to cook. Cause that’s fair,” Carol said with a shrug.
“But we get the sentiment
and totally agree!” Beth chimed in with her fist in the air. “Girl power!”
“So, how about a different guy? You might want to make the right guy a sandwich, or maybe he'll want to make all the sandwiches. You'll be showered in sandwiches and love,” I said, my mind wandering off to what I was starting to think the rest of my life might be like without Rick hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles, although that implied I had power over the situation, which hadn't been true, at least not until recently. It was more like he was the axe the executioner was getting ready to swing. I was just waiting for the blow to land. Sure, the initial blow had been finding out about the cheating, but until the divorce was settled and I knew where I stood, it felt like there was the possibility of another blow that could be even worse than the first just around the corner.
Buster lifted his head blinking his jade green eyes slowly. “You can make me a sandwich. Tuna, hold the mayo.”
“Shut up!” We all yelled in unison. He sniffed and rolled over, giving us his back.
Deva blushed. “I can’t even consider a different guy, or any guy really, until I’ve healed myself.”
Daniel’s face flashed through my mind, followed quickly by Rick’s. Ugh. “I need the same thing. Time. The heart will heal, though. At least that's what I keep telling myself.”
Everyone nodded, but I couldn’t help but hope that Daniel would still be single once I was ready. I also hoped that the sirens would be reasonable, that we wouldn't have to fight them for Henry, and that I'd get him back unharmed, or at the very least alive.
That was a whole lot of hope floating around.
18
Emma
Sighing, I let my head fall back against the headrest. Beth and I were waiting for Deva and Carol to come out of Carol’s house. Deva had some stuff she’d baked that she hoped would help us on our mission. I was agitated though, antsy to get to the place the sirens were going to be arriving for their ceremony and get Henry out of trouble. A good chunk of me wanted to yell at them to hurry up, but that was just me being impatient, so I took another breath and slowly released it.
Karma's Spell (Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow Book 1) Page 12