A phone notification interrupted her thoughts.
I was excited for you and couldn’t help myself. I had a search done and found two Goldberg families in the Newark area with a late son named Russell. Should I plan for a trip back east soon? We can stay in my Manhattan apartment.
The touching message from Kristoff made her feel like a worm—especially the end. She sent a gushy thank you back, guilt churning in her stomach. Telling him about Lucas was going to be a confusing mess, even if she didn’t mention time anomalies. She’d gotten used to never seeing tomorrow.
Zach yelled from the yard, “We’re building the bonfire, Red!”
“Coming,” she said, putting away her phone and slapping on a forced smile.
Reenacting the original timeline, Antonio arrived, and they chased away the cryptozoologist, Shackleford. Red dropped the time bombshell on Zach then.
“That explains why you didn’t blink when Antonio showed up,” the empath rumpled his black hair. “Neither of you feel like you’re lying. I kinda want you to be.”
“I wish I was,” Red said. “I’ll take the van and see Kristoff about lugging that statue out of the caves and onto a boat. I’ve studied up on prison boxes so I can make one on the way to dumping it. I already have Olivia started on it.”
Vic asked, “What do we do?”
“If we can do it tonight, I’ll call you in, but try to save Antonio in the meantime. Run that cryptozoologist out of town. He’s interested in the sea caves too. Has a theory that quantum energy is attracting Sasquatches, so his idea of research is shooting one. The big guy and I were both gunned down. Shackleford is a suspect.”
Zach nodded grimly, cracking his knuckles. “I’ll find out what he knows.”
Vic drew her away from the fire and toward the van. “I don’t like being up in your relationship business—or anyone’s—but here’s some unsolicited advice: it’s not the night to be honest with your boyfriend about everything. That statue is our priority, and we need his resources. Do your feelings bit once we’re sure you won’t reset again. Save the kissing for another time too.”
Red agreed, but her anticipation only grew as she drove closer to Kristoff’s house. She told herself to play it cool when she parked. Once she stepped out of the van, her feet disobeyed her head. She sprinted to the front door. “Kristoff?”
He opened it barefoot in jeans and a black tank top. A delighted grin widened on his handsome face. Even without a soul, when he looked at her, she saw the adoration twinkling in his gaze. “You’re done early.”
Half jumping into his arms, she wrapped around him, inhaling his masculine scent. Her heart beat loud enough for the two of them. Time was speeding back up again, and she’d been waiting for a quiet night with him for ages. He couldn’t imagine how long. She nuzzled his neck, unable to speak.
Couldn’t she just stay like this?
Chuckling, Kristoff held her legs around his waist, the weight easy for a vamp. “I missed you too.”
She stroked his bicep tattoos, reassuring herself he was there. “I thought I might never see you again.”
Concerned, he led her inside and kicked the door closed behind them. “What happened?”
Red asked, sitting on the couch, “Hold me for a bit? I need a minute.”
Resting her head on his chest, she told him the story from the beginning, uncurling it like a toy slinky. Kristoff cuddled her, stroking her hair, and when she needed it, dried her tears. These were the moments where it was hard to believe there was only a demon inside him.
His arms stiffened when she mentioned the alchemists were giving Gary O’Sullivan a soul. “Have they already done this? How would they hide a newly souled Supreme?”
“I don’t think they’re going to set him back on his throne. That’s one part of the day that I haven’t gotten an update on. I assume everyone is busy. Fingers crossed, they’re doing fine. I reset in LA too…” She laid out the knockout drag-out fights with Lucas, beat by beat, to an overjoyed Kristoff. “I don’t know if it was a dig or what, but he said you’d get bored.” She snorted, then repeated her last zingers at his sire.
He caressed her cheek, the amused smile turning wistful. “I would give you forever, you know. You never need to worry about my loyalty.”
Chest tightening, she bit her lip and scooched away from him to sip some water. “That wasn’t my only reset in LA. I don’t know why, but the last time—the only time when time stayed linear—when he kissed me, I let him.” She paused, eyes darting to him.
A blank reserve snapped onto Kristoff’s features, cloaking his reaction better than an invisibility potion.
She continued, speaking faster to get the truth out. “After repeating a day, you start doing things for the hell of it. Find out the answer to those what-ifs. I expected a drive-by or something to take me out on the way out of town.” Red took his hands, his fingers as cold as the remote look in his eyes. “When I kissed Lucas back, I realized it was another loop that I was trapped in. Chaos and inevitability, comfortable because it was predictable. Our time together was up. I had to say goodbye, even when he asked me to stay with him.”
Kristoff was quiet for a moment, still and silent as only a vampire could be. “Why didn’t you stay?”
“Because I want to go forward. Not just with you, but with my life.” Red looked down at her lap, smoothing her jeans compulsively. “Maybe it wasn’t smart to lay it all out like this, but I don’t want to lie to you.”
“You think I’m mad at you?” He took her hand, rubbing his thumb in circles on her palm. “I’m not jazzed to know that my sire put the moves on you again. Disappointed but not surprised. I figured he’d try something on the first night actually.”
“I’d understand if you are a little mad at me after this story.”
He chuckled. “Did we hear the same one? You ran through every scenario of the last three days, and in each one you fought to get back here, to me. And you kicked Lucas in the balls too. That’s as good as a birthday present. I wish I had seen it.”
“Not my best moment.” Red hugged him, murmuring against his shirt. “I was worried I’d hurt you.”
“Darling, it’s sweet that you’re concerned, but I’m not a teenager angsting over a kiss. I’ve been a vampire for over a hundred years. I’d be upset if you went to an orgy and didn’t invite me.”
Giggling, she leaned back against the couch. “I’m the naïve one, counting the bases that we’ve hit. I think we’re somewhere around the short stop.”
“We’re at first in vampire terms.”
“What’s home then?”
Kristoff gave her a knowing look. He wasn’t talking about sex anymore.
“Oh.”
He arched a teasing eyebrow. “I promise that eternity is more entertaining than this time phenomenon. Now, how do we proceed to free you?”
“Time’s moving sequentially again,” Red said. “Maybe its power is waning. I’ll need to cut all ties to me. There are a couple of ways to do that with a norm—”
Arno burst into the cottage in a suit-clad blur before stopping in the middle of the living room. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone, Kristoff? I need you back home.”
He jumped up. “What’s going on?”
Arno snapped, “If you checked your phone, you’d know!”
Palms out, Kristoff used his diplomat voice, the one Red had heard so many times in LA. He sounded calm even as his worried eyes darted between her and his brother. “We have a situation here. I need to stay and triage it.”
“With her?” Arno pointed, gritted his teeth. “Again? This isn’t the time!”
She whispered to Kristoff, “It’s Donal; he’s up to something.”
Arno scowled at his brother. “Now you’re telling her our business. Unbelievable!” He stomped up to her. “Could you please put out so he can think rationally again?”
Kristoff warned in a clipped tone, “Be civil.”
Arno turned away to check
his phone. “What? I said please to your little bleeder.”
Ouch. Eyes slipping closed, Red tightened her lips, sealing the sharp remark on her tongue.
Kristoff put an arm around her and barked out, “You will respect her.”
The tension jerked up as the Novaks fought a silent battle of wills. Was it the sire-childe or the sibling bond that made it seem like they communicated with glares alone? Either way, Red hated being in the middle.
“We need to leave now,” Arno said. “You must be seen in Portland. Donal has gathered all the vassals to do fuck if I know.”
“It’s about the tithes,” Red whispered to Kristoff, trying to help. “You should go.”
Arno snapped, “This is not your conversation, and you don’t tell him what to do.”
Stung, she lifted her hands in surrender. That was her cue. She’d tolerated and been tolerated enough. “Fine. I’ll see you later.”
Kristoff followed her outside. “I apologize for my brother.”
Standing on her toes, she kissed him quickly. “It’s not your fault. Come back when you can.”
Shrugging off the awkward finish to her long-awaited reunion, she got into the van and drove out of the driveway to the cemetery road. She knew that dwelling on Arno’s antipathy would only frustrate her. It could wait for another night.
Calling Olivia quickly, she broke the news that they wouldn’t have vampire backup tonight. Her headlamps caught an auburn-furred figure hunched over a tombstone. Antonio. She stopped the engine. “Hey, Olivia, I gotta go. See you soon.”
Red got out of the van, leaving the door open and her keys in the ignition in her haste. Holding her hands out, she approached the Bigfoot.
He looked in worse shape than before. Blood gushed from a bullet wound in his beefy bicep.
“Hey, buddy, it’s a friend. Let me call the guys. We can get you to a doctor.”
Antonio reared up with a roar.
She jumped back. “Okay, we can bring the doctor here.”
Shackleford burst from the foliage on the other side of the road. He ran toward them with a machete, its edge dripping with pale goo. “Move, girl!”
Red gestured the cryptozoologist away. “No, you stay away from him. He’s done nothing!”
Charging his hunter, Antonio bellowed, long arms swinging, sharp nails ready to strike. His loping gait consumed the distance between them.
Shackleford hacked at the Sasquatch’s chest. He crowed in victory as the creature shrieked in pain.
Red aimed her snub-nosed revolver at the man to scare him. “Go!”
Antonio bolted into the cemetery at the sight of the weapon. After a few steps, he staggered against a tombstone.
Shackleford chased after him, machete raised.
“Stop it!” Red sprinted between the predator and the prey.
The metallic flash of the blade warned her, but she couldn’t move her arm fast enough.
She screamed. The small cut below her elbow burned like a bullet. She collapsed to her knees, vision blurring. It hurt. Oh God, it did. Poison shot fire in her veins. “What did you do to me?”
The man paled and backed up. “I told you to go. I told you.”
Falling on her side, Red shook on the ground, teeth rattling. Hot pus dripped down her forearm. Fever gripped her. The cut was already black from sepsis, skin peeling back from the swelling wound. “Y-you found this at a magic shop, didn’t y-you?”
Shackleford babbled, paralyzed at the sight of her. “You got in the way! It wasn’t for you! Why did you step in front of me?”
Kristoff Novak sprinted out of the cemetery to Red, crouching at her side. Concern edged his fury as he smoothed the sweaty hair off her forehead. His face blurred, voice drowned out by her racing heartbeat as she squinted at him. “What happened?”
Arno grabbed the cryptozoologist’s neck and boredly asked his brother, “Do I kill him now?”
“P-poison.” Red’s chattering teeth made it impossible to speak full sentences. She pointed at the prone furry body on a grave. “Both.”
Arno’s expression darkened, and he shook his captive. “What the hell did a Bigfoot ever do to you?”
Lightheaded, Red asked, “You like animals, Arno?”
The world twirled as she tried to sit up for a better look at him.
Kristoff carried her to the van, opening the side door and setting her inside on the floor. Pulling off his shirt, he ripped the black fabric into bandages. His anxious face faded in and out of focus. He wrapped a strip in a tourniquet above her infected cut.
She cried out at the pressure, biting her lip to hold in the next groan. Vertigo overwhelmed her as he cradled her in his lap. Darkness tinged the corners of her vision like a vignette.
He murmured gently, “You’ll be okay, darling. Everything will be fine.” His fingers trembled as he felt her forehead temperature again. He jerked his head up and yelled, “You need to drive, Arno!”
Red groped for Kristoff’s hand, seeing double. There was so much she wanted to tell him, but her thoughts lumped together like overcooked spaghetti. “I’m dying. I know what it feels like by now.”
Fear, beyond thought and reason, haunted his gaze.
“I’ll be—” Her voice petered out to a hoarse whisper as her throat tightened, choking off the next words. She needed to tell him to be brave, that she would just see him in the next loop.
“No, you’re not dying.” Kristoff bit his wrist, dripping his healing blood on her infected arm. It cooled the pulsing hot wound.
She released a grateful exhale. He would save her. His Dark Gift always had. Then a fresh wave of chills knocked her bones together.
Surprised, he cut himself again and squeezed his arm to force the healing liquid out. “Hold on, my love.”
“Where—” Arno leaned into the open driver’s side door, wiping his hands with a handkerchief. Shock stiffened his spine. He flung down his bloody silk hanky. “What are you doing, Kristoff? She’s conscious! Did you tell her this secret too? Why not just hand her a stake?”
“Shut up, Arno! Drive us to the hospital.” Kristoff grimaced, teeth grinding together. “My blood. It’s not working.”
“Keep her warm. It’s been a while since medical school, but I remember that.” Arno tossed his suit jacket to his brother and leaped into the driver’s seat. He sped out of the cemetery to the village. “That yokel has no idea what he bought. I got the name of a shopkeeper in Portland that you’ll enjoy killing.”
Red gasped for the breath to ask which magic shop. It faded on her dry tongue as she convulsed. She’d been bitten by vampires, smushed by signs, and hit by cars. Poison was officially the worst. Would she wake up in LA or Vegas? Lucidity faded from her internal dialogue.
Her mother’s face floated above her own. She reached out, arm flopping down, muscles weakening.
“Stay with me, Red! Can you still hear me?” Pleading, Kristoff wrapped her in the jacket, holding her up to his chest and feeding her from his wrist. He rubbed her throat to make her drink.
His voice sounded so far away to her foggy ears. Sweating and shaking, she was deadweight against him; she couldn’t answer the questions even as her heart broke at his expression.
Looking to his brother, he sounded lost like a child. “Why isn’t this working?”
Arno asked, “How do you feel, Red? Tell me your symptoms.”
“My head hurts, vision fuzzy,” she slurred, eyes slipping closed as she threw all her will at speaking. “My mom is taking care of me. There’s so much light around her.”
Kristoff angled her to sit up on his lap, lifting her chin. He tapped her cheek, movements quick and urgent like Morse code. “Don’t go into the light!”
Arno swore. “It’s mimicking belladonna poisoning, but the wound is festering like a snake bite. Keep treating her until we can get antivenom. This poison must have been designed to overwhelm a supernatural system on multiple fronts. Maybe even calibrated against paranormal intervention specif
ically.”
“Even against a previous protective enchantment?” Kristoff asked slowly as if dreading the answer.
“You saw what it did to the Bigfoot’s magic. She’d be dead now without you.” Arno sped through an empty intersection, the red light blazing through the windshield. “I’m sorry, Kristoff. I didn’t realize—”
“What? That she could be in immediate danger? Why the hell do you think I was trying to stay?”
Cursing in Czech, Arno slapped the steering wheel, glaring into the rear-view mirror. “As if I could know! Since you met her, you’re always darting off, leaving me to pick up the slack. Our business is tanking, and our friends are turning against us. I needed you tonight.”
“So did she.” Kristoff tightened his hold on Red. The words rumbled in his chest. He bit his wrist again, tilting her head back and rubbing her throat to make her swallow. “Darling, keep drinking. Please. Don’t leave me.”
She fought through the agony dulling her mind. “I can come back,” she rasped out, barely audible to even herself. Pain rippled down her arm, ripping away coherent thought.
“Do you mean that?” Kristoff whispered into her ear, a desperate plea in his voice. “You want forever with me?”
She fumbled, trying to touch his face, slumping against him from the effort. Her brain rang a distant alarm, but her tongue couldn’t move as she shuddered. She’d meant the time loop would bring her back.
He kissed her head, shaking almost as much as she was. “Arno, if the doctors don’t have an antidote…You will need to turn her. I can’t. There isn’t time.”
“If they use Physostigmine in conjunction with…” Arno parked in front of the hospital and twisted to look at them. “There is still hope. I don’t know if—”
“What do you need to know?” Kristoff bellowed. “I’m asking you to save her. You know more than anyone what she means to me!”
“That’s exactly it. You’ve carried this torch for how long? She is the Daisy Buchanan to your Jay Gatsby.” Arno tilted his head back as if expecting a punch. “Maybe it’s time to let Juniper go.”
“Her name is Red, and you will turn her!”
The words jolted Red from her stupor. She tried to speak, but it came out a low, pained moan.
Witch in Time: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 6) Page 14