Moving to the fence to escape the smoke, Red looked through a square peephole cut into a board. The dark cemetery stood opposite the house. The empty field between them felt like a no man’s land even with the wildflowers. Noticing street names on the drive from her research, she calculated that they were within walking distance to Main Street too. “You guys are in the center of the action, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t want a commute,” Zach said dryly. “Plus, my Nana lives next door.”
Movement stirred on the horizon. Red squinted. Ghouls. “The colony is returning to the graveyard.”
“Stace hit them with magical buckshot. Wears her out, but it’ll be enough to make them lick their wounds. They’ll be hungry tomorrow night.”
“So, she’s half fae, you’re an empath. Are you both Heroes in the Brotherhood?” Red stepped back from the fence, fumbling with small talk. She wasn’t a fan of it as a rule, and it was more awkward now considering their possible history.
“I wasn’t chosen as a champion, only grew up next door to one.”
“Stace mentioned Aunt Gina… Do you mean Gina McGregor the Bard? I read about her.” Red felt bad when he nodded, face falling. Gina had been listed in the tiny record for Stace in Bard Net, the Brotherhood database. Active Hero files were highly redacted to protect their missions, but the late bard had been mentioned as passing recently of natural causes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“We should go inside. It’s already burning itself out.”
She tilted her head back when he turned around, repressing a sigh. Great job on the small talk. Bum him out about a treasured mentor’s death. She should have gone to finishing school instead of a magic academy. Vic hadn’t taught social graces in her internship.
Once inside, Zach led her to a room intended by the architect to be for dining. Instead, it was a war room.
Bookshelves lined the walls around the long table. Crystals and scrolls broke up the mismatched tomes of leather texts and bound computer printouts. A closed typewriter desk sat in a corner next to a drab colored weapons chest. Energetic traces lingered over a dark armoire painted with a protection sigil.
Vinyl jacket draped over her chair, Stace hunched over a spiral-bound binder at the center of a long table. She was startlingly pink in a knit minidress compared to the scholarly environment. Books piled at her elbow.
“You could always trust my Aunt Gina to be a packrat.” She twisted in her chair as they approached, lifting the binder to show a laminated incident report. “This isn’t your only time as an outlaw, gotta tell ya.”
“Not surprised.” Red leaned over the table, peering at the document before she realized her feet had moved. It looked official. She recognized the county seal from being arrested in nearby Cannon Beach last year while tracking the Bandage Man. Vic gave her a picture of them taken on that hunt for Christmas. It was so strange how close she had been to Charm without knowing. She scanned the typewritten details on a fight in the school gymnasium.
Zach huddled with them. “This brings me back. I stole that one after we staked the gym teacher.”
Stace flipped to the next page, revealing a sheet of black fingerprints. She unhinged the binder to pull it out, then repeated the motion on another set from a different incident report. “You can check them both out.”
Zach set an ink pad and scrap of paper in front of Red
Arrested enough to known how, she pressed her thumb to the pad and then made the imprint, slowly and carefully, rolling her digit to make a copy. It looked identical to the ones in the file. She gulped, legs weak, slumping into a chair.
“I knew it!” Stace pushed the paper toward Zach.
Breathing through her nose, Red had expected closure or comfort when she found out who she had been. Instead, she felt overwhelmed and lightheaded. Thoughts bouncing around like bumper cars, she clutched her chest. Vic’s voice rang in her head—don’t chicken out! “So, I’m Emma Peters. Who was she—I mean, me?”
“Our best friend.” Stace took her hand and squeezed it. “You were wonderful, brave, and kind. We missed you so much.”
Zach turned a chair around and settled next to her. “Emma—I mean—You want us to call you Red?”
She nodded, uncomfortable with the name like wearing a shirt that was too small. “Please. It’s what everyone calls me. When Vic found me, they listed me as a Jane Doe. He named me. You could almost say he raised me, considering I didn’t know anything.” She faltered, confused on the least convoluted way to explain her long strange road to Charm.
“I don’t know how to start…” Stace looked to Zach.
He tugged on his ear, face blank. “I’m an empath, not a supernatural therapist.”
“I see one of those, and I stump even her sometimes. You want to know where the hell I’ve been? Me too.” Red smiled ruefully. “I can give you the long version of what I know or the short one.”
Stace squeezed her hand again. “We got time now.”
“What I remember first is laying by a creek outside Eugene, an airplane flying overhead.” Red launched into waking up without memories but knowing the supernatural. Like the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bell Air, it was something that even amnesia couldn’t shake. “I didn’t even know I was a witch then. Hell, I thought Obama was still president like it was 2010.”
“That’s when we lost you.”
“That’s why I think you can tell me more than I can tell you. I attempted rituals to get my memory back, but all I got were dreams. Some of them were of a past life, so not exactly the most useful.” Red stopped before confessing the whole reincarnation business with Juniper St. James. That was a baggage dump for another day. She only wanted to know about her life as Emma Peters.
“But what have you been doing?”
“I’ve been hunting as Vic’s intern, drifting through small towns like this. Spent time last year in Los Angeles. I don’t know anything about Emma. Just her grave site.” She swallowed. “Maybe the birth and death certificates were lost in the old Town Hall fire, but what about the rest? None of my contacts could even find school files. I felt like I was crazy after seeing that picture on the grave and then finding nothing.”
Zach looked sheepish. “I stole the school files too, senior year after you died. I did my own digging.”
“He handed them over to Aunt Gina. All her notes on the deaths are in here too.” Stace patted the binder. “She kept them separate from her regular Bard journals.”
Ears ringing and throat tightening, Red couldn’t concentrate after the word deaths. She had been avoiding a question since she first arrived at Stace’s house—why had they taken her here and not to family? The only person they had mentioned her seeing was a waitress. She shook her head to clear the sound. “What happened to me the night that I died—I mean, disappeared?”
“It’s a lot to take in at once,” Zach said, head dipping.
“Tell me.” Chest tightening, Red couldn’t get the rest of her questions out.
“It was a house fire.” The half-fae stood. “You lived next door. I can explain, but you might want to see.”
Zach snapped, “We can do this later!”
“Em—I mean, she came here to know.”
Digging fingernails into her palms, Red met Stace in the doorway. “She’s right.”
“We were waiting for you to come back from a dress rehearsal—a Christmas Carol.” Leading the trio out of the study and through the kitchen, Stace rattled off the details like a woman afraid to get to the meat of the story. “We ran lines for you all month for that Christmas in July gimmick at the community theater. That night we were going to hang out, but you were running late. You needed time to change. We went across the street to the park because Zach stole a cigarette from his uncle. You didn’t approve. It’s why we weren’t inside when it happened.”
Voice lowered from guilt, he continued the tale as they tramped into the backyard to a spot in the fence missing two planks. “I wanted to smoke it be
fore you saw me. Never had another one.”
Red felt déjà vu crawl over her as she slipped through the fence after Stace. She stepped aside for Zach as she studied the empty lot. It looked overdue for a mow. Dandelions peeked from the grass, but someone had taken care of it through the years. Wind feathered across her brow like the cold fingers of a ghost.
“Your house was here,” Stace said, choked with tears.
Red tried to control her emotion like they taught her at the academy, breathing through her nose. The exhale came out with the urgency of a tea kettle. Like a tv dinner that needed more time in the microwave, she was hot and cold in shifting spots. “My family was inside with me when the fire started, weren’t they?”
Stace’s crumpled expression told the truth she couldn’t say.
Zach touched her arm. “I’m so sorry. Your mother was home.”
Pulse roaring in her ears, Red couldn’t process. Knees wobbling and lungs tightening, grief choked her sob. She was winded like the empath had sucker punched her in the gut.
He steadied her, palms light on her shoulders. “Brooke died that night. Your dad passed before you moved to town. She was the only family we knew of.”
Red felt the tingle of his empath magic, soothing her, easing the pain. A lucid observation bubbled up in the calm’s wake—she was surprised about her mom but not, on a subconscious level, about her father. It was like her body held an understanding that her mind couldn’t grasp. A peace came over her that she had some closure. It was an illusion. She pushed him away, rubbing her arms as she stepped away from them both. “Stop it!”
“Sorry, couldn’t help it. You’re hurting.”
These were emotions she had to face. Sorrow sucked the warmth from her bones. She hated the fat tears running down her cheeks and muffling her sniffles in her jacket cuff. Rubbing her eyes, grateful for the simple sting of her smearing mascara. It felt easier to focus on. Not like the confusing grief for someone she didn’t remember but yearned to see even one last time.
Stace covered mouth, overcome by old memories.
“The fire started in the attic, then rolled down.” Zach brought the petite woman into his arms, rubbing her back in platonic comfort. “I saw a green light in the room where your mother kept her grimoire. Told the cops. They said I was high and handcuffed me, searched my fucking bag while your house burned.”
Lightheadedness hit Red as the empty lot doubled in her vision. She grabbed onto one last thread of hope even knowing it would burn. Her power had reacted from subconscious instinct to save her before, like when it flung her away from a motorcycle accident. Why wouldn’t her mother’s? “I was told that my mom was a witch, from a line of witches. Could she have survived?”
“She didn’t make it, Red,” Zach said gently.
“I got out. My magic might have thrown me free.” Her question came out a plea. “How can you be sure that she didn’t?”
“I saw her,” Stace whispered. “I was fast enough across the street to get to your front door. I ripped it open. She was running up the stairs, maybe to go to you. I stepped inside to help then the fire must have hit a gas line in the kitchen. I was flung back, but I saw it… I saw her die. We found the bones. Later, we spread her ashes on the coast.”
The crickets sounded too loud as time seemed to slow. Red replayed the words over and over in her head. Her imagination filled in the terrible details. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs fought her as she struggled for breath. “Who did this?”
“Fire department thinks it was a gas line explosion. Nothing panned out with the supernatural.”
“You never found out why?”
“No, but let’s get you a cup of tea and talk about it.”
Zach nodded. “I have so many questions.”
Red shook her head, her feet restless. She didn’t want to be Emma. She wanted to be someone who had a family. “This is a lot. I gotta go.”
“You don’t have to. You can stay the night here,” Stace said. “We have a guest room. If this is too much, we can give you space, but the local motel is usually haunted by something.”
“I need to think. I came here to find my family, my mom.” Red hugged herself, whispering, “This changes everything.”
“I’m sorry I stopped looking,” Zach said bitterly.
“It’s not that. I don’t blame you. Thank you for telling me, caring so much even after all this time.” Voice trembling, she was headed for an epic crying jag of a meltdown. They looked at her like she was a long-lost best friend, but she hated crying in front of strangers. She wanted to leave but the question popped from her. “Did my mom like Tom Petty?
Zach nodded. “He was her favorite. Always sang him in the car.”
Red did that too. It felt more like a confirmation than her fingerprints. Considering himself an elder Millennial, Vic had once remarked that her fondness for the classic rock singer was strange for her age. Now, she knew why. She tried to yank herself together, composure slipping under her grip.
Stace offered, “stay at least until you’re calm enough to drive.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow.” Red couldn’t look at them. Her own grief was reflected on their faces. She couldn’t think while looking at them.
Stumbling over her own boots, she slipped through the break in the fence and jogged to the Millennium Falcon. She started the van, peeled out of the driveway, and raced down the quiet street. Tears and snot leaked from her face, screwed up from the ugly crying that wracked her form. Wind whipped through the broken windshield, chilling her wet cheeks, forcing her to slow down.
Stopping for a red light at an empty crossroad by the diner, she mopped herself up. Her breathing had calmed enough for her to speak. She found her phone, scrolling to Vic in her address book. It wasn’t fair. He was already dealing with so much with Lashawn. She’d avoided bogging him down with her anxieties on the drive from Nevada, but she needed someone to talk her out of driving straight out of town. His phone transferred to voice mail. She cursed, both at him and the long stop light. Going back up her contacts list, her thumb stilled at Kristoff and Lucas, side by side.
Even though he had broken up with her months ago, her first instinct was to reach out to Lucas. His handsome face and always tousled black hair flashed in her mind as she imagined what he’d say. He’d comfort her with all the sensitivity of a souled vampire, then suggest rejoining the private investigation agency where he continued Quinn’s mission. He’d help her process her grief and anger through fighting the good fight. She could put this behind her and pick up where she had left off in LA. Hurting so badly, she didn’t want this anymore. Learning more about her mother would twist the knife in her heart and amp up the curiosity about how she had died. Lucas would warn her about traipsing around Charm, seeking old skeletons and secrets.
Kristoff would offer to help her investigation.
He answered on the second ring.
“Did you know I’m currently bored in Charm?” Kristoff asked instead of saying hello. “Tell me that you’re doing something more interesting.”
A small sob scattered her fragile calm. “I’m eleven minutes away. Can I come over?”
5
Red hadn’t even been in Charm for five hours, and she was already a mess.
Wiping the smeared mascara under her eyes, she drove one-handed up the secluded driveway. The sight of the cemetery peeped between the trees. The mental ache felt physical as her lungs shuddered in her chest. Grief cut at her. She was wrung out as if she had cried her supply of tears.
For now.
The headlamps illuminated a two-story cottage so covered in vines it seemed to disappear into the forest. As a real estate mogul with investments dotting the west coast, Kristoff had more lairs than the usual vampire. His place in Charm was cozy and well appointed, but it was surprisingly unassuming for a vampire who hobnobbed with celebrities at his nightclub openings. They had sheltered here before her showdown with Trudy Fox and Frank Lopes. After a night like that,
it was a hard place to forget.
Parking in front of the garage, she unbelted herself and reached for her small hunter’s kit on the other seat. She had ripped it off, uncomfortable with it around her waist during the teary trek. Her hand hesitated. It was overkill, considering Kristoff no doubt had weapons secreted inside in case of trouble. Tossing her keys into her purse, Red hopped out of the van, locking it.
He met her at the front door before she knocked. Soft light glinted off his blond hair and he kissed her knuckles, his serious blue gaze caressing her face. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he guided her to the living room couch.
Sinking into the leather cushions, eyes squeezed shut, she leaned against his unbreathing chest. Their relationship was beyond complicated even without the Juniper St. James connection. He had claimed her, she had fought him, and then fate kept bringing them together as allies. They hadn’t even really talked about what had happened in Vegas when they kissed. He was the last one she should turn to for comfort. Right now, it didn’t matter. Bone weary, all she could do was accept the silent solace.
He stroked her hair, ignoring how her quiet tears wet his black shirt. His finger twirled a lock fallen loose from her low ponytail. Even lacking a soul, he consoled her as if he did.
“I’m too late to meet my mom,” Red whispered, burying her face in his neck, now warmed by her own skin. “Her name was Brooke.”
“I’m sorry. I remember what it was like to lose mine.”
“But I don’t. Not the way that you did. I know her name, and even that hurts so much.” Red took a shaking breath, not trusting herself to finish the thought. She didn’t know what she was missing. How hard would it be when she did? Shifting in his arms, she rested against his shoulder.
Kristoff answered her thought. “Not knowing will hurt differently.”
Small Town Witch: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 5) Page 5