Witch Upon a Star (A Midnight Magic Mystery)

by Jennifer Harlow

  “It can be retrieved with magic. We should burn the house anyway. We do not want a repeat of Warsaw, do we?”

  Asher’s face contorted with distaste. “No, we do not.”

  “So, should I …” she nodded again.

  “I will.”

  The two vampires glanced at Oliver, who until that moment had just watched in shock as the events of the past minute unfolded. The bastard actually smirked. “Why should you two get to have all the fun?”

  “Good lad,” said Asher. “Christine, please go start the car.”

  She obeyed, not giving her victims a second glance as she left. One minute. Less. Less than one minute to snuff out the lives of an entire family. Madness. Utter madness. And just the beginning. Asher picked up my suitcase, took my hand as if we were about to stroll down the Danube, and led me down the stairs. We stopped right beside Tom’s corpse, bloodshot eyes staring up at me, pleading for salvation even in death. It’s the only time I was glad to feel nothing. “Oliver, finish here quickly, then drive Anna’s car back to Washington. We shall begin making arrangements to leave this country as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.” Oliver hurried up the stairs and down to Bethany’s room. Monster.

  Asher and I stepped over the still bleeding Mr. Harmon to reach the front door. Asher grabbed my coat from the peg and gently slipped it on me. With a tender, sad smile he buttoned it. “I am so sorry, mo chusile,” he whispered. “I did not intend for any of this to happen anymore than you did. I still love you though. I shall make this up to you, I promise.” He kissed my frozen lips, then picked me up like a bride, retrieved my suitcase too, and hustled me away from the house of horrors into the waiting car, even buckling my seatbelt. How considerate of him. “Drive.”

  “Well,” Christine said as she shifted the car into gear, “who knew the suburbs could be such fun.”

  And we monsters drove off into the darkness from whence we came.

  _____

  I often wondered if the numbness I experienced that night, that lack of a single emotion, was how vampires went through their existence. No fear, no pain, no thoughts for others. It must be. How else could they do all I witnessed? That night my forced apathy was a gift. Losing your soul, your essence, could be a blessing at times. Had I not been rendered soulless, I probably would have thrown myself from the speeding car, happy for death as my body hit the asphalt going seventy miles per hour. Or I would have lost all grip on reality as Asher and Christine made plans for our departure. The duo spoke as if I wasn’t there, which for all intents and purposes I wasn’t. For the two and a half hours it took to return to DC not a single thought crossed my mind. I stared straight ahead at the road with Asher’s arm wrapped over my shoulder. He even pulled me into my spot so I rested in the crook of his neck. I could smell the blood on him. He missed a smear near his ear when he and Christine stopped to wash up. I just stared at that spot and continued my inexistence.

  Christine dropped us off at the hotel to make arrangements for our departure, and Asher hustled us up to the suite to pack. The evidence of the previous night’s histrionics had been cleared away as if it never happened. They even replaced the coffee table and mirror behind the bar. Better to pretend it never happened that way. Asher dragged me to our bedroom and placed me on the bed like the good wind-up doll he probably always wanted me to be. “You needn’t worry, mo chuisle,” he said, moving into the bathroom for his toiletries. “After tonight, I shall never allow her near you again. Never. Once Oliver returns our quartet shall take the first plane out of this wretched country, then go our separate ways.” He came back out and stuffed his toiletry bag into the suitcase on the stand. “You were correct on all fronts, my love. She has grown far too unstable of late. Tonight proves as much. There was no need for such violence. None.” He glanced at me and frowned. I just stared at the suitcase. My lover kneeled before me, meeting my eyes with his pained ones. “You do believe me, yes? I meant no harm to those people or to you. Especially you. I swear it on our love.” He paused. “Please tell me you believe me, mo chuisle. Please.”

  With a mere thought, he opened my jail cell, and all at once every emotion banging to be let out rammed through the door. Fear, sadness, shame, horror, guilt, twelve tons of guilt coursed through my veins and my soul. Too much. Far too much. I began trembling, seething as the volcano within me, dormant yet accumulating for years, began to rumble. My jaw clenched shut, and my breath escaped in ragged spurts through my teeth. Asher knelt there, trepidation locking all the muscles in his face. When I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I slapped him hard enough to bruise us both. Twice. He took them both. “I deserved that,” he said calmly.

  The volcano erupted. “You … fucking … monster!” I shrieked. I bashed him with my fists on the face, the shoulders, I just kept pounding and shrieking and pounding even more. “I hate you! I fucking hate you, you bastard! You monster! I fucking hate you!” He let me continue my assault for five seconds before he grabbed my flailing limbs, spun me around, and held me with my arms crossed in front of me like a straightjacket. “I hate you,” I sobbed as I crumpled against him.

  He lowered us to the floor with me on his lap. “I am sorry,” he whispered between the kisses to my hair. “I am so sorry, my love. I am so sorry. Please forgive me. I shall do anything you ask. I am your willing slave. I love you. Just please forgive me. Please.”

  I knew where this was going. Part of me wanted to. My body was just conditioned to respond to his caresses, at the narcotic feel of his lips and words against my flesh. I couldn’t lose control, not then. The he’d win, and I’d be lost again. I took deep breaths to calm my sobs. “Let me go, Asher,” I warned.

  “I am so sorry, my Anna,” he whispered with another kiss, this time to my neck.

  “I said let me go!” I shouted, wriggling from his grasp. I think he was so shocked by my resistance, something that had never happened before, he released me. I sprang up and backed away, literally shivering the sickening sensation of him off my body. “You don’t get to touch me ever again,” I said through gritted teeth. “You … disgust me. I want to rip off my fucking skin to cleanse myself of you, you … devil.”

  “You do not mean that, mo chuisle,” he said, rising. “You are upset and—”

  “I’m upset? Upset? I-I-I just watched as you butchered an entire family whose only crime was being kind to me when I had no one else.”

  “I told you, it was never my intention for that to occur. Christine—”

  “Christine is a sadistic, crazy, unpredictable psychopath. None of which you were unaware of. Hell, I think you like that about her! You brought her there. You choked a sixteen-year-old boy to death and are acting as if you’d merely swatted a fly. You ordered Oliver to murder a two-year-old. You made me watch it all. You took away my free will because it didn’t suit you. At least Christine isn’t in denial about what she is, Asher.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Alain was right. He was a hundred percent spot on about you. He warned me this day was coming, and I was too blinded by love and hope and stupidity to listen. He said you were cruel and vindictive, and if I ever wised up and deigned to leave you, if I wounded your pride, you’d make me rue the day I ever set eyes on you. But I thought I was special. That my love would somehow transform you into the man I wanted you to be. A man who loved and respected me back. I was so fucking naive,” I said to myself.

  “You are not, mo chuisle. I do love and respect you,” he insisted breathlessly.

  “No. You may think you do, but … you love what I do for you. How I make you feel. I’m just a possession to you. I used to think you stole me away for my sake, to save me from that cesspit, because you saw something special in me. But I could have been anyone. Any needy soul willing to feed your ego and make you believe you’re a good person. That you’re worthy of love. You’re not,” I hissed.

  “Love, real love requires sacrifice on both ends. It’s a partnership. It’s give and take, and I can’t keep giving. You have
taken almost everything from me, Asher, even my self-worth. Even my identity. You made me feel as if I don’t exist without you. That I’m nothing if I’m not loved by you. That is unforgivable. Unforgivable. And I refuse to give you that power over me anymore. I refuse. And if you love me, truly love me like you claim to, you will let me go. You will let me walk out of this nightmare that we have created, so I can stand on my own two feet. Have the life that, no matter how much I may want it, you cannot provide me. I need more than you. I love you, I probably always will, but I love me more. Let me go.”

  Asher shook his head through my whole plea. “No. No.” He advanced toward me, and I did my best not to shrink away, but tension locked my whole body in place. “Look at me. Look at me!” He attempted to catch my eyes, but I moved my head away. “I love you. I love you with everything I have. My life, my heart, my soul are yours and yours alone. We can repair this. I shall do whatever you ask,” he said desperately, even grabbing my hands. “We will return to Holland, just the two of us. We will never leave again, if that is what you desire. I-I-we will have a child. A dozen.”

  “It won’t work,” I said, voice breaking.

  “It will,” he whispered, now on the verge of tears.

  “It won’t!” I shouted. “A year, two, and you’ll get restless, and we’ll be right back here.”

  “That will not happen. I promise, mo chuisle, I promise.”

  “It will. You know it will,” I cried back. “I can’t do this anymore. Please, please let me go, Asher. Please.”

  Still sobbing, I ripped my hands from his and stumbled toward the door. My entire body felt as if it weighed a million pounds. I only made it three steps before he cried, “No. No.” He moved in front of me to block my slow trek. “I love you.” He grabbed my arms again, but I yanked them from his grasp. “Do you hear me? I love you.” He tried to kiss me, but I moved my lips from his. “I love you.”

  “Stop it,” I whispered.

  His lips pressed to mine but only succeeded for a second before I twisted away. “I love you,” he cried back. “Do not leave me. You cannot leave me. Never. I need you so much. I love you.” He clutched my wrists and pulled me against him.

  I struggled, but he just gripped tighter. “Let me go,” I said forcefully. “Please.”

  He forced his lips to mine again and squeezed tighter, hard enough to leave bruises. No matter where I turned my head his lips assaulted mine. I hadn’t even noticed he was backing me against the bed until my legs hit the edge. “I love you so much. Do not leave me. I am lost without you. Please.”

  We collapsed onto the bed with him on top of me. Panic overwhelmed me. “Asher, get off me! Get off!” I flailed my arms, but he would not let go, pinning me to the mattress. Bile rose into my throat. “Wait! Stop! No! Please!” I choked out.

  “You will not leave me. I love you so much,” he said to himself.

  Any vestige of the man I loved was gone. The man I loved never would have ignored my pleas, my sobs, my struggles against him. I thought he had taken everything from me already. How wrong I was. One violent motion ceased all my protests, and I floated out of my violated body. I left it for him to do as he pleased as his bloody tears rained down on my cheeks. I was aware of them but couldn’t feel them. Thank the universe I couldn’t feel a damn thing. I just stared into space and waited for it to be over. “I love you, my Anna. All mine. I love you.”

  When he was spent, when he got what he wanted from my body, he gazed down at my blank expression, my own tears streaming from the corners of my eyes, and he gasped. Shock and revulsion swept over his face like a tempest. “Oh no,” he whispered. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” he said as he removed himself from me. His shaking hand covered his wide-open mouth. “What have I done? I am sorry. I am so sorry. What have I done?” Asher backed away, climbing off the bed, but his unsteady legs buckled a second later. “I am sorry. I am so sorry,” he said through the hard, wracking sobs. “What have I done? Oh, what have I done?”

  His cries brought me crashing back to earth. He was so pathetic. So broken. He meant it. Watching his torment, I didn’t doubt his remorse. I still don’t. He would take it all back if he could, every last heinous act. And as I stared at him, curling into a ball on the floor, filled with such utter self-loathing, I knew what I had to do. I rose from the bed, rearranged my coat and slip to regain some dignity, and bent beside him. “Asher …” I whispered. Tentatively, I reached down to stroke his wild, downy hair.

  His bloody eyes looked up at me, and he let out a wail I hadn’t heard since our first night in that cemetery. I put up no resistance as he collected me into his arms once again, sobbing against me. I embraced him back as tight as I could until he released me. I wiped those tears away without a hint of fear or hesitation. “I am so sorry,” he whispered. “I am so sorry, my love. I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved another living soul. Please never doubt that. Please do not leave me. I need you. I am lost without you, my Anna. Please do not send me back to hell. Please.”

  I kissed his uncertainty away. And mine. No matter how hard I fought, no matter where I tried to run, one universal truth could never be changed. He was mine and I was his. ’Til the close of the dream.

  ’Til death.

  _____

  The song “Don’t Fear the Reaper” woke me at ten when the alarm went off. With the panels down, the bedroom was close to pitch black but even still I could make out the soft features of his handsome face at rest. It really was the face of an angel. I touched his cheek, his lips, his closed eyelids and long lashes before extracting myself from his cold arms. The valets were due at noon to collect the coffins and take us to the private plane Christine arranged. London, then we’d find a home in the countryside, just the two of us. We’d start fresh. It was all settled. I sat up in our bed, stretching like a cat, then sighing. Time to go.

  My clothes, white slacks and pink cashmere sweater, were already laid out and I even put on make-up and a matching pink headband. Asher taught me to always look my best, especially when you feel your worst. I stepped out of the bathroom and surveyed the room, stopping at my slumbering Asher. He seemed so serene, so beautiful with a tendril of his auburn hair falling against his white forehead. Vampires weren’t dead during the day, more in a light coma that is filled with vivid dreams much like us humans. He must have been having a splendid one judging from the faint smile across his lips. Was it about me? About the night before? I did hope for his sake it was the best dream of his entire existence. I turned away, put on my bloodstained coat, picked up my purse and still packed suitcase, opened the bedroom door, and, before I stepped out, I pressed the button to open the shutters. As I walked out, the light of day slowly filtered into the room behind me.

  His tortured, agonizing screams began as I shut the suite door.

  Nothing. I felt nothing. I hadn’t felt a damned thing since he pinned me to our bed. Perhaps it was a mercy. Without the disconnect, the numbness, I probably wouldn’t have had the strength to do what needed to be done. With all emotion gone, my only course of action became crystal clear. He would never let me go. Never. He would scorch the earth until there was nowhere for me to go but into his arms. Him or me. For once, I made the right decision.

  I engaged the fire alarm as I calmly walked down the hall. All the human companions and staff panicked around me in the stairwell, some even sobbing in fear. No one paid me a second glance, not even on the DC streets as I trekked the seven blocks to the Sheraton. I didn’t bother to knock on the meeting room door. There was only one man, a vaguely familiar thirty-something redhead in jeans and flannel shirt inside reviewing a tackboard with maps and pictures on it. “Uh, may I help you, miss?” the man asked.

  “Are you the F.R.E.A.K.S.?” I asked in a monotone.

  “I’m, uh, working with them,” the man said, stepping toward me. “Are you … okay?”

  “I’m here to report multiple murders. Last night my boyfriend John Asher and two other vampires, Christine
Caple and Oliver Smythe, killed four people in Goodnight, Virginia. The Harmon family. And I just burnt my boyfriend alive at the Elysium Hotel. I’m here to turn myself in.”

  The redhead stared at me, his long jaw falling open. “Um, let-let me just … have a seat, doll. I’ll be right back.” The man quickly walked out, leaving me alone once more. I did what the man said, I sat and stared at the crime scene photos. Normally, I’d throw up a little in my mouth at the sight of ravaged dead bodies but not then. What are pictures when you’ve actually had an innocent person’s blood on your flesh? The girl couldn’t have been more than eighteen when some bastard literally ripped out her throat. The wound on her thigh was even a little intriguing.

  At least I wasn’t alone with the pictures for long. About a minute later, the red-haired man returned with an emaciated fifty-something gentleman with a full head of gray hair. “Hello, miss,” the elder said as he entered.

  “That’s not a vampire bite.”

  “I’m sorry?” the man asked.

  I pointed to the picture. “There’s no puckering from when the fangs extracted, and the punctures are too close together. That’s not a vampire bite.”

  “Um, thank you for telling us,” said the man as he approached. He slowly lowered himself into the chair beside me as if any swift movement would result in his injury. “Mr. Dahl, would you please get our guest something to drink? A Coke from vending perhaps?”

  “Yeah, sure,” said the redhead. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Is Agent West here? I want to see Agent West,” I said as he departed.

  “I’m afraid he’s in the field right now, but I’d like to help you, if you can.” The gentleman smiled at me. “My name is Dr. George Black of the F.R.E.A.K.S. What’s your name, dear?”

  The question singed like acid, cracking my thin veneer of apathy. My mouth twitched, but I couldn’t answer. The man with the kind eyes took my hand. Another crack. “Who are you, dear?”

  Kaboom.