“Meeting my destiny.” She side-stepped him as he lunged for her. “We have that in common too.”
Isaac stumbled, dropping on his side, cheeks sinking in, eyes bulging from the sockets.
Red shuffled away from him. The spell was taking too much out of her even with the support of her ring and the tainted circle. Legs trembling, she dropped to her knees.
She pressed a hand against her cut up stomach. Sharp pain sliced through her chaotic emotions. The others would need to take it from here. She needed to control herself, not send all her magic into the spell from rage.
Dropping a stake, Kristoff put his arms around her and lifted her up. “Stop. You’re fading!”
“That was—” She sagged against him, unnerved by herself. “I didn’t—”
Isaac raised a shaking hand, drawing up to his knees, chanting a dark invocation.
Pale-faced and shrieking like a banshee, Delilah slapped him to the ground. “How fucking dare you do that with Quinn! I’ll kill you myself!”
“No, I need to ask him something.” Red hobbled away from Kristoff toward the blood mage, ignoring her aches and pains.
The vampiress glowered at her brother and stilled.
Red twisted the ring on her finger. She’d know vengeance tonight, but what regrets would she have tomorrow? Vic told her not to expect closure and seek out answers instead. She was a daughter, but she was still a hunter. There were too many holes in this case to close the file yet.
Isaac licked his mummified-looking lips, propping himself on the ground with an elbow. “You’ve drained me of my very essence, and now you want the truth? Greedy girl.”
“Every word you speak is a moment you’re still alive. Maybe that destiny of yours will kick in.” Her upper lip curled. “Maybe you might say something to get enough time to try again and make Daddy proud.”
Glaring at her, Isaac coughed, blood spraying onto his hand. He regally straightened himself on his knees. “Very well.”
“The rift you summoned by yourself ten years ago on Sycamore Row. Tell me, did anything come from it or pass into it?” Red had mocked Vic for suggesting that the blood mage knew what he had conjured, but what if he had? He wove a plot from the ports to the tithing to stir up the local vampires. What if he had chosen a very special place in hell to open and succeeded, only grabbing her instead of Stace?
“I fled once I knew I’d failed to open more than a crack.” He wheezed out a laugh, skin graying as it tightened over his bones. “If you’re asking if I might have pulled your mother into another realm, alive and waiting to be saved, I’m happy to disappoint you. She’s as dead as my sire. I told you we had so much in common.”
“Did you have any accomplices that night?”
“No, not then, but I will tell you every villager that joined me tonight.” His voice sounded conciliatory even as what was left of his muscles tensed to spring. He bolted up, bony joints grinding together under his pinstriped suit, stick arms reaching for her neck.
Red punched him with her ring hand, sending him back. “Don’t care. Tell me who else was there that night! What pulled me from the fire?”
Holding his skeletal face, he cursed. “What in Septima’s name are you talking about?”
A red dot appeared on Isaac’s forehead, then another laser point hit his heart. Black clad vampires with automatic weapons took aim from outside the ruin. Zach popped his head up over the wall. “What’d I miss?”
“I’m asking if Isaac knows who captured me that night ten years ago.”
“And I don’t know, you foul hag. I didn’t even know you survived!”
“Is he telling the truth?” Red demanded.
“I think he is. He’s confused, alright.” Zach furrowed his brow. “Are we taking him in—”
She interrupted to address Isaac. “You didn’t know you my mother until tonight, did you?”
“Why would I have cared, you sad idiot child?”
The apathetic disdain knocked the breath from Red. Control slipping, her mother’s ring burned her finger and emotion took the wheel. Her magic surged forward.
The vampire shuddered, falling to his knees. Vomiting a torrent of blood, he reached out for Delilah, slipping on a slick paving stone. Skin flaked off his fingers, revealing the bones.
Isaac exploded into dust.
Slumping against the sarcophagus, heartbeat deafening, Red pushed herself up. The vampire soldiers stepped back, glancing among each other. She walked on her own two feet out of the crypt.
He couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again. She told herself it was enough.
24
Birds trumpeted a new day as bright dawn beamed through the window. Red stirred against the pillow, her entire body protesting being awake.
Killing Isaac was seared into her memory, yet the rest of the night was a blur. Kristoff had found her sitting on a tombstone, but the trek across the cemetery was foggy. The gang gathered, bent but not broken, at the house, yet she was barely awake when debriefing them on Isaac’s demise. Magical jewelry or not, she had wielded powerful forces to defeat him.
She blinked the guest room at Stace’s house into focus, then rolled over and pulled the blanket over her head. The light made it impossible to return to a deep sleep. She stood to close the curtains.
Coughing, she flopped back on the bed, muscles seizing, and curled on her side. She felt like the rough end of a weeklong bender. Her golden ring rested by a laptop on the bedstand. Reaching over, she ran her thumb over it.
Isaac was dead. She’d avenged her mother. No one told her to expect more. She cried anyway.
Opening the laptop, she clicked play on a video file. She fast forwarded until she saw Brooke Peters’s face. Wrapped in a blanket like a burrito, she watched the birthday recording until sleep claimed her again.
---
Windows broken and neon sign snapped, Lili’s Diner had seen better days,
Red walked inside with Vic, wincing at the destruction. Glass littered the floor along with folksy decor and snapped pictures. She side-stepped a bulletin board. Copper wiring was ripped out around the security system pin pad, yanked in a way that had cracked the white wall. The marauding vampires had made a detour last night.
Shoulders hunched and cradling his head, Zach sat on a bent stool at the counter beside Stace. Smashed wooden chairs and a men’s room door were strewn at their feet. The name Yuki had been clawed into a fallen cushion.
Red scowled. “Tell me you guys staked that asshole.”
Stace nodded. “I wish I could do it again. Juvenile dickbag. Trashing the place like in high school.”
“Are you okay, Zach?” Red asked.
“Just fighting the insurance company. Demons are easier.” He groaned, rubbing his eyes. “Can’t do anything until a police report.” The phone rang and he answered, standing up and going to the back room. “My policy number? Give me a second.”
“What happened?” Vic asked.
Stace gritted her teeth. “The security feed just shows Yuki blurred like a wrecking ball before it cut off. Thousands in damage, made in minutes. Power is out. Kitchen is trashed too. Zach just finished paying off the renovations too. That oven alone cost…” She sighed shakily, closing her eyes as if counting herself down from a meltdown. “We’re lucky the only casualty is the diner. Wendy is home, and the town is safe. That’s the important part.”
Red hugged her, patting her back before letting her go. “That’s the Hero talking. You can be the regular person now. What can we do to help?”
“It’s okay. You should’ve slept in, you earned it after Isaac.”
“Not after I saw the note. I wouldn’t let you clean up by yourself.” She jerked her thumb at Vic. “I made him come along. He’s handier than he looks.”
“We need all the help we can get.” Stace scanned the damage, expression growing more lost. “We rescued what food we could, and Jackson is on a run to the hardware store, but I don’t even know what to do next.”
>
Red took off her jacket and set it on the counter. “I’ll grab a broom.”
“I can start hauling the wrecked furniture outside,” Vic offered. “Despite my wicked biceps, you’re stronger than me, so I might need help.”
“Thanks guys.” Stace wiped her eyes and smiled.
Red swept up behind the other two as they cleared the floor of debris. Vic found a battery-powered radio and flipped to an oldies station. After a few songs, the place was already looking better. Still a depressing wreck, but now less of a safety risk. A fresh breeze wafted through the broken windows as the sun emerged from the clouds.
Jackson’s old work truck pulled into the gravel lot, followed by a white van labeled Charm Electrical Services. Parking in front, he popped his head out of the driver’s side. “I brought some help.”
Herman clambered out of the van with a toolbox and waved. “The vampers did a number on your wiring, eh? I can sort you out.”
“Thanks, Herman, that would be great. Let me show you what’s really worrying me.” Stace walked out of the diner and kissed Jackson on the cheek. “You did good.” She turned to the possum shifter and guided him toward the side of the building.
Red took her broom outside, nudging Vic with her to where Jackson unloaded boards and supplies from his truck. “What do you need help with?”
“Patching holes in the wall for now,” the werewolf said, setting down a paint can. “We’ll board up windows later at sunset but might as well use the light now.”
“Not a handyman per se, but I’ve done that a time or two,” Vic said. “Tell me what to do and I’ll listen. For the most part.”
Jackson handed him a bucket of spackling paste. “Good enough.”
Red smiled, sweeping the sidewalk, as the two men went inside. The sun rose higher in the sky as she accumulated a tidy pile of broken glass and tossed it into the dumpster.
A police cruiser turned into the parking lot, stopping by the white van. Aisha Callaway stepped out of the vehicle, mouth falling open in shock. “Oh, wow. I’m sorry.”
“It’s awful, huh. Demons have a lot of ways to fuck with people.” Red rested the broom against a wall and sidled up to the cop, gesturing her into the diner. “Zach’s having some problems with the insurance company. Can you list the cause as something they have to pay out? He’s in the back room.”
“I’ll find out what he needs.” Callaway disappeared into the kitchen.
Red finished the sidewalk, but there were still jobs a-plenty. She tackled the pond in the men’s room, mopping water into a drain. Yuki had knocked down a toilet and cracked the sinks. She catalogued the damage in her head. If Callaway and Zach couldn’t convince the insurance company, she had funds to cover the damages. It might be awkward to bring it up, but he deserved a break. A gift—or a loan if he preferred. She didn’t care. Sheila Jones, her agent at the banking division of Smith and Reaper, might complain, but what was the point of a mysterious inheritance if she didn’t spread that cheese around?
Vic stuck his head inside the bathroom. “Lunch is here.”
Red entered the dining area, sanitizing her hands with an antibacterial wipe from the counter.
Maudette laid out takeout cartons from cardboard bags. “It’s from the guys at the Winded Whaler. They heard what happened and called me. Said that in a town like this, we all need to stick together. Wasn’t that sweet of them?”
“I’ll round up the others.” Vic said, stepping outside and hollering for them.
Cobbling together the most intact tables and chairs, they sat together—shifter and hunter, Hero and human—for a takeout feast. Red dove into a burger next to Vic. Herman explained the extent of the electrical damage to Zach.
“So, how did it all go down?” The cop asked, sitting next to Stace and Jackson. “I was on road duty all night, clearing the streets.”
“Thanks for that. I mean it,” the half-fae said. “You kept people alive, considering how wild the vamps were last night. We fought them to find Wendy at the summer camp, ready to douse Isaac in silver spray, but he wasn’t there.”
Zach picked up the story. “We had nothing at the high school. Novak bolted with Delilah to where Red and Olivia were hiding, but we were already down a witch. I helped the boys, then tracked the vamps to a crypt, but it was already handled.”
“He’s gone for good this time.” Red breathed a sigh of relief when Lashawn arrived, taking the attention off her.
Isaac wasn’t easy to think about. She had literally drained his blood, controlling the fluid with her magic, harnessing the water element. Her will had made it happen. It wasn’t something she’d read in a book. Ironic punishment for a vampire. Yet it had been a ghastly sight.
Lashawn sat beside Zach and emphatically advised, “Save all your receipts. I’ll help you deduct all of this.”
Herman leaned over. “You’re one of us, and you do taxes? Because I got problems.”
“Um.” Pushing up his glasses, Lashawn glanced nervously at his older brother.
Vic smiled. “He’s the best were-bookkeeper, you’ll ever meet. Maybe the only one.”
“Nah, there’s one in Cannon Beach, but he’s crooked.” Herman grumbled, launching into small town gossip.
Passing coleslaw and biscuits, they planned the next stage of the cleanup before breaking from lunch. The work went quicker after a hearty meal. The shell shock on Zach’s face faded as Red and Maudette helped him sort through the damaged furniture by what his uncle could fix or not. Herman disappeared to make repairs while Callaway left to finish her police report. The rest bustled around with the radio cranked up. Stace and Lashawn hauled the broken sinks out of the bathroom, Vic and Jackson continued with the walls. As the day progressed, others like Olivia and Josh stopped by with sympathies, taking a turn to pitch in. Shadows deepened in the restaurant as the sun sank over the Pacific.
Leaning against their usual booth, mercifully untouched by Yuki’s vandalism, Red had the good kind of muscle ache from an honest day’s work. Exercise had settled her energies after a long night of magic. Lili’s Diner almost looked like itself again after all the tender loving care too.
Herman was first to leave at sunset, promising to return tomorrow to finish the job, followed by Maudette. After boarding up the windows, the crew huddled outside, trying to think of their next move.
Vic pulled a six pack and lighter fluid from the Millennium Falcon. “Let’s drink and burn some shit.”
Zach deadpanned. “Get out of my head.”
Lashawn laughed. “That’s my brother.”
“I’ll find the radio,” Red said, walking toward the diner. “Can’t have a bonfire without tunes.”
Stace followed her inside, resting her elbows on the counter, shoulders slumped in an old Charm High School T-shirt.
Red gave her a quick side hug. “Lili’s is going to be okay. This town loves you guys.”
“It’s not that. I’m thinking about my aunt’s journals, we still haven’t found them.”
“We will.” She squeezed the half-fae’s hand. All of Gina McGregor’s research on Brooke was lost too. She had taken copious notes on the first few sections but the rest of the dense dossier was still a mystery. Squirreled away somewhere by Isaac, it was a last mindfuck on them all. “One problem at a time.”
“Your mom used to say that.” Stace smiled wistfully. “It’s so interesting the little things that are the same even though you don’t remember.”
She stared down at her feet. “I’m probably pretty different from how I was.”
“More relaxed, I guess. Less of a perfectionist. Vic definitely has influenced your musical tastes though.” Stace shrugged. “You’re not as different as you think. Not where it counts.”
Red smiled. “Olivia said I wasn’t a nerd anymore.”
“She’s wrong about that, judging by your Star Wars underwear on my clothesline. Thank God.”
Waving, Lashawn ambled through the door. “Jackson said something about
beer in a case?”
Stace gestured him to the kitchen. “Follow me to complete your quest.”
Red wandered back outside where the boys had assembled a smoldering pile of broken chairs. She chuckled at Vic’s glee as he poked the flames with a stick. Setting the radio down on a Prius, she turned it on. Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” wafted out of the crackling speakers. Humming the opening and bobbing her head, she stepped over to warm herself by the fire.
Jackson started humming along with her.
She started singing quietly off key.
Zach surprised her by filling in the lyrics when she faltered.
Harmonizing, Vic lifted his hands, miming playing a piano dramatically.
Stace and Lashawn emerged from the diner with drinks, looked at each other and shrugged, jumping in for the chorus.
Red grinned, shimmying to the music, memorizing the sight of her friends singing and laughing as they fudged the lyrics. Zach had promised her new memories and this was one to treasure.
As the song transitioned to a DJ, the group collected working chairs to sit and appreciate the growing bonfire. Conversation flowed as they passed the drinks around. Stace perched on Jackson’s lap, chatting between Vic and Zach. Red sighed happily, nursing her beer, content to listen to the banter.
Water bottle in hand, Lashawn seemed to be in the same mellow groove. His profile turned up to the sky, no hostility in his stare at the half-moon.
“You did it, man. I’m proud of you. Congrats.”
“Thanks.” He smiled. “I saw my brother in danger, and it finally happened. Jackson wants me to stay so he can teach me some more.”
“That’s fantastic. You’re one of the pack.” She quirked an eyebrow at his T-shirt. “Going to leave the business casual life and dress like a gym dude too?”
He snorted. “Outside manual labor, I’ll stick to my regular clothes. I’m not bro-ing out even if I wolf out.”
As the fire burned, the group moved like it was musical chairs as the conversations turned. She found herself sitting by Vic. It was finally time to ask him about Charm. Usually they saved the day and blew out of town. This was different. Sticking around didn’t sound so bad. She rubbed her sweaty palms on her knees. “So, Lashawn is staying for a while.”
Small Town Witch: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 5) Page 27