“Safer for me than anyone else, right? Vampire and death broker hybrid here.”
“We don’t know anything about you being either immortal or invincible, buddy. I’m not excited about putting those two things to the test.”
“I can help Crissy. She’ll feel better having me up there, and maybe I can help keep her safe, too. I was afraid she was going to cancel on the Triple P Festival if I didn’t agree to do it.”
“But you’ll be careful, right? You’ll keep your eyes open, not eat anything? And watch out for ax-wielding crazies?”
“Of course I will. Hey, I don’t have a death wish.” He reached across the console and gripped my hand. “If nothing else, I have all those sexual fantasies to help you realize. That’s enough reason for me to live.”
“You’re too good to me.” I lifted our joined hands and kissed his knuckles.
“I’m nothing if not a giver.”
“IS IT SAFE to come in, or do I need to be blindfolded?” Lucas stood in the living room, just outside the kitchen, one hand over his eyes.
“Oh, just come in, you goof. I trust you not to blab about my entry. Especially since I just took the winning pie out of the oven.” I set down the oven mitts and leaned against the counter, crossing my arms over my chest.
Lucas wandered in, sniffing the air. “Well, it definitely smells amazing.” He spied the pie on the counter, and his eyes grew wide. “Is that . . .”
“Yep.” I nodded, bracing for his reaction.
“Wow. That’s just . . . it’s wild.” He walked around, checking it out from all sides. “It’s actually kind of amazing.”
“Thanks. Let’s hope the judges think so, too.”
“They will. I have a good feeling about this.”
“From your lips, buddy. Have you heard from Crissy at all?”
“She texted me this morning, just telling me where to meet her and what time. I told her we’d be there early anyway, so you could have the pie on site for the judging.”
“That sounds good. I can’t believe—” The doorbell rang, interrupting my next thought and setting Makani on a barking rant as he raced to the front door to protect Lucas and me from whatever doom might be waiting on the other side.
“Okay, killer, settle down. I promise to let you attack if it’s an enemy.” Lucas headed for the door and scooped up the frantic pup. “Seriously, Makani, chill. It’s just . . .” He opened the door. “Cathryn.”
My heart sank down to the bottom of my stomach. It was clear from the tone of Lucas’s voice that the visit from his sort-of boss and ex-girlfriend was unexpected, which was very unusual for Cathryn Whitmore. She was a structured woman who, to the best of my knowledge, never acted impulsively or without careful planning. She always called before she came to see Lucas, which made think this was not a casual drop-by.
“I’m sorry for not calling.” Cathryn confirmed my hunch right away. “I could say I didn’t have time, which is partly true, but the truth is that I was afraid you’d tell me not to come, and this is too important to put off.”
I rinsed off my hands and dried them on a tea towel as I walked into the living room. “Hello, Cathryn.”
Her vibrant blue eyes flickered in my direction. “Jackie. You’re doing . . . well?”
That was code for ‘better’, I knew. The last time I’d seen Cathryn, Lucas and I had been leaving Carruthers, and I was still shaky after the ritual.
I nodded. “Yes, thanks. Much better.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” She turned back to Lucas. “May I have just a few minutes of your time? I promise I won’t keep you long.”
“Sure.” He spread out his hands. “Sit down.” Taking a seat on the sofa, Lucas patted the cushion next to him and smiled at me. “Jackie?”
I joined him there, glancing at Cathryn. If she had any reaction to Lucas including me, she didn’t show it. She sank into a winged chair, her back as straight as ever as she crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap.
“I know you saw Rafe and Nell the other day, but as I understand it, there wasn’t much opportunity for discussion. Quite the eventful evening you had.”
Lucas shrugged. “We’re handling it. What’s going on, Cathryn?”
She took a deep breath. “We’ve gotten some more information from our sources about what Delia told us. Everything has so far been confirmed. We haven’t yet located the man in California, Mr. X, the leader of the commune, but we’ve found some of his associates. The few who are still alive, that is.”
“Did they tell the same story? About what supposedly happened back in 1967?”
“All but one is severely demented and unable to communicate, but that one who could speak . . . yes. He’s in a mental institute, and the doctors call him delusional, but in the context of what we learned about Mr. X, he’s perfectly rational.”
Lucas closed his eyes. “So it seems like it’s true? This all started back then?”
Cathryn’s smile was thin and humorless. “In the summer of love, yes. That’s when the plan to end the world was set in motion. The irony isn’t lost on any of us, believe me.”
“What about the girl? Have you found her yet?” I hadn’t heard Delia’s story, since I was too busy being possessed by her at the time, nor had I been in any condition to understand it when Joss had recounted the details to the rest of the team, but Lucas had told me everything that they’d learned about the plot to destroy our world. Delia hadn’t known everything, since she’d been a double agent, working for both Carruthers and the Hive at the time of her death. The leaders of the Hive hadn’t entrusted her with all of their secrets.
What we did know, though, was that everything had begun decades before, on a small commune in northern California, during the heady days of the late 1960’s. Somehow—and no one was certain about how this had happened—a group of young people on the commune had done something to open a door to another dimension. They’d been unable to finish what they’d started, but it had laid the groundwork for the Hive to take over and see it to the fateful destruction.
Delia had been hazy—or evasive—on the topic of their exact plans, but she did mention that their greatest fear was someone they called the Vessel, a young woman who possessed the ability to derail their plans. Cathryn had immediately begun investigating this Vessel, and finding her was a high priority.
Now she shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. Delia wasn’t able to give us a location or a description. We don’t know how old she is or even if she’s in this country. Our researchers are working around the clock to figure out what that term means, but so far, it’s just been dead-ends.”
Lucas tensed his jaw. “Cathryn, did you drive all the way down here to tell us all the things you haven’t figured out yet? Because it seems to me that could’ve been a telephone call.”
“Of course not.” Her voice was crisp. “I came down here for two reasons.” She paused. “The first is to secure your commitment.”
“Commitment?” He frowned. “What kind of commitment?”
“This fight is going to escalate fast, and winning it is going to take everything and everyone we have. So far, you’ve been operating as a sort of add-on agent at Carruthers. I appreciate that you came when I called a few weeks ago, and I’m confident that if I needed you on a short-term basis, you’d be there. But I need more than that. I want you to come on as a full-time agent, and I’d like you to do it as soon as possible.”
Lucas drew his eyebrows together. “This is a big decision, Cathryn. It’s not something I can jump into doing. Like you said, if you need me, all you have to do is call, and I’ll be up there. What would change if I went full-time? I’m not moving up to Carruthers. Jackie and I have a life here. Friends. She owns a restaurant. We can’t just move.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to move. Not all of our agents live in the area. Julia, for instance. Our necroloquitar lives in New Jersey, as you know. We want that commitment to Carruthers because it means something. Making th
e decision means you’ve chosen a side. It means we can count on you to work tirelessly with the rest of us to prevent the destruction of life as we know it. I know it sounds odd, but the act of making that choice has intrinsic value. It’s like the vows made by knights of old.”
“You want me to swear fealty to you, Cathryn?” His lips twitched, but I knew none of us saw any humor in this scenario.
“I want you both to commit to Carruthers.” For the first time, Cathryn looked me full in the face. “Jackie, this offer—or request, if you prefer—applies to you, too. We want you to also be an agent.”
Shock made me jerk upright in my seat. “Me? But why? I don’t have anything to offer you. I don’t have any gifts or abilities. And I think it was made clear at the ritual that I’m more of liability than anything else.”
“On the contrary.” Cathryn traced a line at the edge of her skirt’s hem, and I realized with surprise that she was nervous. I’d never seen her anything but completely self-assured. Even as I thought that, she met my gaze, and I remembered too late that her particular talent was hearing thoughts. Damn. When was I going to learn? I always ended up putting my proverbial foot in my mouth around this woman.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lucas, oblivious to the undercurrent running between his ex-girlfriend and his current love, scowled at Cathryn.
Cathryn took a deep breath. “At the ritual, we realized that Jackie seems to have a vacuum of sorts. Being possessed by a soul is not common, not at all. And despite what popular movies portray, it can’t happen to just anyone. None of the rest of us were viable options, but Delia was able to easily take over Jackie’s body. If it happened before, it can happen again. And we might need that particular ability.”
Lucas sprung to his feet. “Are you fucking kidding me, Cathryn? Did I not make it clear after that damned ritual that I didn’t want Jackie anywhere near any of this shit again? And you want us to just agree to have her around in case a wandering spirit might need to use her body to have a chat with us? Just, ‘oh, yeah, come right on in and take up residence. Sit down make yourself at home.’” He pointed at Cathryn. “Fuck, no. It’s not going to happen.”
“Would it help you win?” I spoke up, and my voice sounded eerily calm even to my own ears. “If I agree to allow this, would it help? Would it give the good guys an advantage?”
If I’d expected Cathryn to give me glowing assurances that I was needed, necessary and integral to winning the war and saving the world, I was disappointed. Cathryn Whitmore had many faults, I was sure, but exaggerating or padding the truth in order to get what she wanted was not one of them. In my experience, she was honest to a fault.
“Maybe.” She lifted both of her shoulders. “We don’t know. And would I be seeking your help if you weren’t connected to Lucas?” She smiled a little. “Probably not. What you offer Carruthers has more value in the context of your relationship with Lucas than it would otherwise. But at this point, we’re willing to do everything possible to give us an advantage.” She leveled a stare at Lucas. “We’re going to need all of it.”
He swore under his breath.
I turned to face Cathryn. “I’ll do it.”
She closed her eyes, and her lips curved up a little. “Thank you.”
Lucas glared at me. “I can’t believe you. Do you understand what you’re agreeing to do?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m agreeing to help save the world, however I can. I’m agreeing to fight on the same side as you. I love you, Lucas, and there’s no way in hell or out of it that I’d let you march into this battle on your own. So I’m going as a page, not a knight.” I reached out to take his hand. “I’m okay with that.”
He sighed, but he didn’t argue any more.
“All right, that’s one.” Cathryn was back to her brisk self. “The other reason I’m here involves Veronica.”
Lucas tensed. “What did you find out?”
Cathryn’s tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip. “All of our research had been far-flung, looking for her in the past, in reports from around the world. Checking all the typical sources and then the more unusual ones. As it turns out, I should’ve started a little closer to home.” She gave a short, breathless laugh. “And the thing is, I knew it. Deep down, part of me knew it. I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“Would you care to be a little less cryptic, Cathryn? We’re not following you.” Lucas spoke through clenched teeth.
“Of course. I’m sorry.” She faced Lucas full-on. “Veronica was—or is, I suppose—part of my family, my many-times-over great-grandmother. According to family legend, she disappeared shortly after her youngest child was born and was presumed to have been killed. She was a Carruthers.”
Surprise made me gape. “How . . .? What does that mean? ‘Presumed to have been killed?’”
Cathryn exhaled. “She was kidnapped from the family home. At the time, it was assumed that pirates were behind her vanishing, since the family was living on the coast of Spain, and piracy was rampant. But then several generations later, apparently, there were rumors that she’d been spotted. No one believed it was really her, of course, because she looked the same as when she’d disappeared, and the only people who would have truly remembered her were quite old with questionable memories and vision. But there are mentions here and there, throughout our family history, of stories that she was still alive and young. I never knew of them or of her.
“But when we were in Cape May, Lucas, that last night, I heard . . . something. At first I thought it was the ghost in the Inn, and then I realized it wasn’t. She told me . . . things, and I probed, trying to figure out who or what she was. And I got the name Veronica. I don’t think she counted on me doing that, because she was annoyed. Told me to pull it back, and then she told me—well, that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that she mentioned you, Lucas, and she told me you had a destiny.
“When you contacted me, after you’d been turned, I made the connection right away between the name on the note and the woman I’d heard. Remember, though, we’d never encountered a vampire before. We didn’t know of their existence. So I thought it was either a coincidence or that I’d made it up. Imagined it. But then my mother sent me an update of our family history for the Carruthers library, and I paged through, and there it was. There she was. All the stories. I can’t deny it.”
“God, Cathryn. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about Cape May sooner.”
“I’m sorry. That time wasn’t exactly something I like to dwell on. Forgive me.” Cathryn snapped out the words, and I felt the tension in the room rise. She and Lucas had met in the New Jersey seaside resort and had a brief, intense affair. When Cathryn had broken it off abruptly weeks later, Lucas hadn’t known why and had assumed Cathryn had simply had a change of heart. I wondered now if what Veronica had said that night that might have caused the break-up.
Lucas ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. Fine. What does this mean?”
“It means that most likely your changing wasn’t random or an accident. It means she targeted you, and we don’t know whether she did it for good or for ill. But if we could get hold of her, make contact, maybe we’d know more about how you can work with us. And what your destiny holds.”
“Fine. I’ll just call her and ask. Oh, wait, we have no idea where she is or how to make contact. Gee, thanks for all that help, Cathryn.” Lucas almost growled.
“This is a start. I have agents working on finding her, and I promise, we’ll figure it out. Now we have a reliable physical description.” She swallowed. “I truly am sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Lucas. I thought it had to be coincidence, even though everything in life has convinced me such a thing doesn’t exist.”
“Don’t keep anything like this from me again. Are we clear? Because if you do and I find out, I’m done. Done with Carruthers and done with you.”
Cathryn stood up, her face shuttering closed again. “I understand. And I’ve taken up enough of your time.” She
reached out to touch my arm, taking me by surprise yet again. She wasn’t one for casual affection. “Good luck with the pie contest today.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How did you know about that?”
She smiled a little. “Oh, I have my ways. I hear things, you know.” For a minute, I thought she might wink at me. “I’ll be in touch with both of you. Good-bye.”
“WHAT THE HELL is that supposed to be?”
I recognized Bitsy’s voice floating across the tent to me. I’d just arrived and placed my entry on the judging table. Turning, I let my smile grow wider.
“Hello, Bitsy. Happy Triple P Festival. How are you today?”
“That’s not a pecan pie.” She pointed at my pie and snarled.
“Well, yes, it is. And incidentally, it’s the winning pecan pie.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I guess we’ll see.” She wheeled around and stomped from the tent.
For a moment, I indulged in a fantasy where today, here at the Festival, it was revealed that Bitsy was the person who’d poisoned Maddy and Trina and killed Dell. In my scenario, there was some vague motive, and she was hauled off by the police just after her pie lost to mine. All the loose ends tied up in a pretty bow—no, make that a ribbon. A shiny blue ribbon.
Sadly, I was pretty sure that theory had a ton of holes. First of all, to my knowledge Bitsy had no motive at all. She probably didn’t even know Crissy. Second, poison didn’t seem like Bitsy’s style. She seemed more the type to shoot a person on Main Street in the middle of the day.
But it was a pleasant thought.
“Hey, was that the bitch?” Nichelle came into the tent, struggling to carry little Jack. “I mean—” She glanced down at her son, who was watching her with interest. “The b-i-t-c-h. She nearly ran me over on the way in here.”
“Yep, that’s Bitsy. She’s an angry woman, isn’t she?”
“Just a little. Heyyyyy, look at your pie! Oh, my God, Jackie, it’s perfect. Genius. What gave you the idea?”
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