CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I waited for three days and no one came.
That night, my world fell apart again and I spent it sitting at the top of the staircase, my knees huddled to my chest with one of Evan’s sweaters wrapped around me. It was the only place I could perch to watch the supernatural clean-up crew as they put the house to rights without getting in their way.
Four of them stayed, each in navy jackets and caps so dark they were almost black, speaking quietly to each other while they worked. Though they didn’t use any magic, there was something “other-worldly” about them and I knew they weren’t the type of workmen you would find in a regular phonebook. I didn’t know how to call them, or how Steven was tipped off to our plight, but I felt glad someone had sent them to clean up the mess that had been left behind. I was sure they would send a full report back to the council and it wouldn’t be pretty.
They took Eleanor and Robert’s bodies first, zipping their corpses in body bags and moving them to a waiting van. I heard what I thought was the foreman, who doubled as supernatural SWAT leader, and another workmen discussing the “accident” they would stage to cover up the deaths so no questions would arise from the regular authorities. Apparently, they would “die” in a fireball of a car accident on their way home to the city from a short distance away. Their brand new Mercedes would be driven down from their apartment to complete the picture. It was plausible and a good way to ensure their estate wouldn’t be wrapped up in probate for years on account of their disappearance or any autopsy investigating why Eleanor’s heart was missing with no visible wound. Marc would be able to grieve publicly. No one would know Eleanor was a murdering maniac. No one would ask questions. People would eventually move on.
They took Jared next. As I looked at his frozen face before they zipped him up, I thought it was such a waste that he had been killed for nothing. I wondered if he had family and who would mourn him. I hoped someone would. I didn’t see them take Christy and Clara and I felt grateful I didn’t have to see their once vibrant bodies now lifeless. I’d never thought of them separately – they were always Christy and Clara, never one or the other – and it reassured me a little to think they were eternally together now.
The bodies gone, the remainder of the team started the cleaning process and I was surprised that they had regular cleaning chemicals among their kit. I don’t know what I expected them to use. The living room and hallway had taken the worst of the violence. The team soaked the blood from the floor and removed rugs, stacking debris in the hallway. Curtains were pulled down and the sofas were “ummed” and “ahhed” over before being finally removed. They were totalled.
I watched from the stairs as they swept up Meg’s ashes. I could hardly believe that she had lived for decades only to be murdered in her own house. I wondered if she was relieved her long life was, at last, over. I hoped she was at peace. I also hoped to hell she was the only vampire I’d ever meet because I was sure she wasn’t indicative of her kind.
David sat with me for a while but we didn’t speak. Having him next to me, however, was a small comfort and stopped me having a melt-down.
When the workmen came to the area where Evan’s wound still stained the floor, the wood inexplicably started to bubble. At first, I thought magic had charred it.
“Fucking daemons,” one of the men spat in a cockney accent, his face filled with disgust as he poured solution from a jar he’d uncapped. I wondered how he came to be so far from London but I’d never ask. “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t clean up after ‘em.” The wooden floor began to fizz against the chemicals and the smell coiled towards me. I couldn’t watch anymore. My stomach heaved and I made it to the bathroom with only seconds to spare before I hurled into the bowl.
I stayed away from the cleaning crew after that. I didn’t want to think about what they meant by daemon. I didn’t get the impression the cockney man felt it was some kind of racial slur, but rather a statement of fact and that worried me. I knew Evan was something else but I assumed it was something more akin to me. I had no frame of reference for daemons.
“They’re like us, but not like us,” David told me. I sat on my bed with my head bent over my knees to stop the dizziness from making me pass out. My cranium was throbbing again; the pain that began during the fight had edged up to my temples. “Daemons are magic, like us, but it’s a different kind of magic. Our magic can be divided into two; witchcraft and pure magic. They’re just pure magic.” He made them sound like a cereal choice.
“Demons are evil,” I said, my voice squeaking through my arms.
“Daemons,” David emphasised. I felt the bed indent as he sat down next to me. “They look like us, some of them, and gradually, you’ll be able to tell them apart from humans, witches and well ... everything else.” I didn’t even want to think about what he meant by that as he continued. “They share magic with us but they are faster and stronger, among other assets, and they can shift between planes. Just because Evan is a daemon doesn’t mean you have to think any differently of him.”
“Why didn’t he say anything?” I was pitifully aware my voice had become a thin whine.
“I guess because so many witches hate his kind. It’s kind of a mutual thing.”
“You all don’t hate him,” I protested.
David shook his head. “No, but we’re not all entirely comfortable with him either.”
“How can you say that?” I raised my head to glare at him. “You lived under the same roof as he. He took a blast for me!” I didn’t bother to add that we still didn’t even know if he had lived through it.
“If you ever have the misfortune to meet other daemons, the kind you don’t want to meet, you’ll see.” David gulped as if he had unpleasant memories to swallow. “Evan is very, very powerful and we’re lucky he’s not against us, but other daemons are. Plus, he’s my friend and he might freak me out at times, but I can deal with that.” Fatigued, I collapsed and let David wrap his arms around me as I cried on his shoulder.
Still, no one came for me.
On the third day, I woke alone in the house. I couldn’t find David, though his car hadn’t moved. I had no way to contact Étoile or Seren. They promised to come back for me once Evan was safe. The clean-up crew had finally gone and the house was looking perfect again even though the living room was missing its array of comfortable furniture. My head still hurt and the panic was rising in me as I gasped for breath.
With a knot in my chest, the ragged sobs ripped from me as soon as I went back to my room after searching through the house. I hunched forward on my bed, my balled fists pressed against my streaming eyes. When the tears finally subsided, I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands and dried them on the blanket. Only one thought echoed through me. Since they hadn’t come back, Evan’s injuries must have been more severe than we thought.
He might even be dead.
Perhaps they didn’t want to come back for me.
The unpalatable thoughts swirled in my head and I cried again for my lot before I managed to stagger off to my bed. I fell asleep in my clothes and felt musty and unkempt. On auto-pilot, I brushed my teeth and hair, splashed water on my tear-streaked face and pulled on fresh jeans and a button-down shirt. After a moment, I shucked them again, showered quickly and pulled my clothes back on when I was properly clean.
From the bathroom doorway, I looked around my room. I loved it here, I realised with a pang of sadness that cut deep into me. I felt safe, mostly, and amongst friends. For a while, I felt that a future with Evan might be on the cards.
I couldn’t help remembering the last time I’d packed so fast. My grimy hovel in London was a distant memory and I’d acquired so much more since then. Not material things but friendship, someone I loved and who, I thought, might have loved me. It hurt to acknowledge that I had lost my new life even faster than my old one.
Evan might die – might have died – because he tried to protect me with the speed and strength David said daemons possessed, against
a malevolent, vengeful witch at the top of her game. The anxiety gripped me like a fracture spreading through my being and I clutched my head. Kitty had been tortured because of me. I attacked Astra, the sister Étoile and Seren had tried to find and save. Even Meg’s unnaturally long life had come to a swift end. Not to mention extracting Eleanor’s heart from her body while her son watched. I was probably quite unlikely to win Friend of the Year.
It was the oldest story in the book, of course. Unrequited love devastated not just one family’s lives, not just robbed me of a mother and father but also of the love they would have given me. They would have been my guides through this strange life but they lost me, and I them, in the minutes it took to snatch their lives from them. I could only fleetingly be glad that my father had made the snap decision, in his terror, to hide me before returning to my mother’s side and dying. I had no doubt Eleanor would have snuffed me too, even though I was just a child.
Eleanor was mad. I could never be sure if it was due to the grief of not being loved back, the grief of having to remain with a husband she considered her inferior, or a son she didn’t care for, or because she was already on the precipice of insanity.
She spent years subverting herself in her misery, pretending to be the perfect wife; and then I stumbled into her home, on the run from witch hunters. Yet, she couldn’t even let me go then. It was all too clear. She had glimpsed me in the house that night almost two decades ago and never lost her fear that I would remember she killed my parents. She thought I would avenge their deaths and tried to kill me first. By that point, she didn’t care who she took down with her.
The sad thing was that I didn’t remember ever seeing her. If Eleanor had left me alone, I might never have known the reason for my parents’ death or her role in it. I would have stayed entirely oblivious. There was some sort of cruel irony in that.
It didn’t take me long to pack again. I tucked my blue box of keepsakes and papers in the top of my bag and zipped it shut, rearranging the contents so the one thing I would need first was right at the top. As I took one last look around the room in the house of happiness and heartbreak, at the pretty yellow walls and the window that offered me a last glimpse of the waves breaking against the beach if I craned my head just far enough, I felt a great upsurge of sadness wash over me again.
I breathed in the house for the last time, then closed my eyes, picturing the place I wanted to be and with all the strength that I had left in me, ported myself out of there.
When I opened my eyes again, I was facing the bridge as I intended. I hoisted my bag up on my shoulder and curled the strap of it around my hand. I turned towards the town. Though I was too far to see the house, I didn’t dare look back in case I broke down. Everyone was now safe, and whatever help that had been offered had come and gone. They didn’t need me now. I caused them so much anguish and they all defended me until they couldn’t. The threat was gone and I hoped one day they would forgive me too.
It took me twenty minutes of walking to locate the car rental building that I glimpsed once before, on the day I drove past with Kitty. It was a small building, quite uninspiring but serviceable with a big placard on the front proclaiming “Jackson’s Nationwide Car Rental”. Inside, a pasty-faced clerk sat behind a desk that spanned the length of the office. He was chewing gum, his hair tipping forward over his forehead and brushing his collar at the back as he pored over a car magazine. He’d slung on a tie but the knot was too tight so the tails trailed limply on the desk.
I showed him my new license and asked for a small car, whatever he had. He tapped on his computer keyboard and told me there was a Toyota available, just filled up, quite new, but unremarkable and available all week I was to drop it off at any of their partner agencies. I agreed and as he went to the little room behind the desk to get me the keys, I muttered a little spell. As soon as I left, the computer would “lose” the information entered by the young clerk and when anyone thought to inquire, it would seem like a computer malfunction.
No one would be blamed. I paid for the car in cash for the whole week, even if I wasn’t sure I’d need it that long, and the car would be dropped off in exactly the same condition it was when I hired it. The spells I wove would ensure the clerk couldn’t quite give a description other than I was a “nice local gal”. If I was going to make a clean break of things, I had to start right now on my way out of town.
The clerk showed me out around the side of the building where the car was waiting in a small parking lot. He unlocked it for me and showed me the button to press on the keypad. I thanked him and threw my bag on the passenger side. He watched me with mild amusement as I assessed the automatic gears and worked out if my feet were hitting the right pedals before I fired up the engine and cautiously drove off the forecourt. Turning south, towards the highway that would take me out of town, I saw him give a half hearted wave from my rear view mirror. He would forget my face within minutes.
After a few miles, it occurred to me that I should have probably bought a map and some food while I was still in town so I pulled off at the next exit and found a gas station within a few blocks. I pulled into a parking bay, out of the way of the pumps, and locked the car. I bought a map, a big one covering the country and a smaller, local one for the state, along with a six pack of soft drinks, a chicken sandwich and some snacks to keep me going. Again, I paid cash, and again, the cashier would not recognise me if anyone happened to inquire about an English girl passing through.
I ate the tasteless sandwich in the car, with the engine off, and spread the map out across the wheel, marking off my route by pen. I wished I had thought to hire a navigation system that would just tell me where to aim the car. It probably would have signalled motels too, but hasty exits don’t always come with the best laid plans I reminded myself. I folded the map on the seat next to me on top of the blue box, which I patted absently with one hand, like it was a pet. After I ate my sandwich, I got out of the car to toss the wrapper in the trash can. Minutes later, I started up the engine and turned back onto the road, putting my pedal to the metal, as they say.
I knew where I was headed and felt glad that I had, at last, a home to go to. One that was truly my own and where I would, I hoped, be safe. It wasn’t the home I once dreamt about, where Evan and I would be cuddled on a porch together. Hell, I didn’t even know if it had four walls and roof but I did know that it had some significance to my parents once and there had been a lot of love between them, love that kept them together even in their last moments of life.
If anything was a recipe for starting over, that was it. It would, of course, be an absolute bonus if the house I was driving towards had walls and a roof because I wasn’t planning on adding “builder” to the list of things I could do. I also doubted my magic had any power when it came to a hammer and nails.
The thought of Evan set the waterworks going again and this time, barely forty miles out of town. I had to pull over to let the gasping, wracking sobs heave from me as I gripped the steering wheel like it was a life belt. I snivelled into my sleeves and wiped my eyes with the backs of my wrists as I wondered where the hell Étoile and Seren had taken him and whether he was still alive. I wondered if the pain in my body would ever lessen and since the pain was the last connection I’d had to him, would I even want it to? I forced my tears back down. If I let the great chasm of grief inside me – all that desperation and sadness and that awful aching need to have Evan with me – open up now, I would surely fall apart.
“Pull yourself together,” I sniffed, trying to make my voice stern and pep talk myself into business. “Put on the radio. Get back on the road.”
I twizzled the dial until I found a radio station that was playing something upbeat and fired the engine back up. I turned on my indicator, edging back onto what I still considered the wrong side of the road. I didn’t think I had any tears left in me which was just as well because with the mileage I was going to put in over the next few days, I wanted to be wide awake and a
lert.
I drove all day until I was tired enough to pull into a motel and sleep for a few hours. After a vending machine breakfast the next morning, I was back on the road and drove for several hours until I spotted the next large town. I circled until I could find another of the chain rental places. This one was next to a car dealership. I didn’t stop, but noted the location and drove on a little further.
My next objective was a bank. I withdrew a chunk of the cash in my account. It was no small sum and the teller was awkward about giving it to me, but she did so nevertheless and I stuffed it into my bag. I would work out what to do with it later, but right now all I could remember was Étoile’s warning that it was possible to track people electronically. I couldn’t afford to leave a trail for myself by using my bank cards.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be found. I wanted a life. And until then I would be paying for everything by cash.
I drove back to the rental chain building, parked and took my bags out, one now loaded with cash. I went inside to return the keys and was quick to place my hand on the computer when the clerk wasn’t looking. He was surprised when the machine seemed to combust, little sparks exiting the monitor. I heard the computer fizzle angrily under the desk.
“Good job you paid already,” he said, giving the monitor a pointless slap, perplexed at the computer’s sudden demise.
“Absolutely,” I agreed, forcing a perky smile onto my face as I watched a news item run across the screen. “Three women have been found burned in New England towns with sinister messages left at the scenes” said the recap rolling across the screen. I felt my breath catch as a shiver spread through me and my smile faded. The Brotherhood had made it to America, and the prognosis was surely not good. Aware that the clerk was watching me, I thanked him for his time and hurried out.
I took a Greyhound bus for the next few hundred miles, partly doubling back on myself to confuse any potential followers, my bags safely stowed next to me in the seat. I slipped off at a large town and took a cab from the bus station to the nearest reputable car dealership, according to the cabbie.
I took an hour to circle the cars, asking a few questions from an eager middle-aged salesman and eventually bought a small car with some of the cash. It wasn’t new but it had low mileage and a good service history. I took the keys and paid them extra to fill the tank.
I drove for the rest of that day, the cash tucked away in my bag. By the evening, I was familiar with the new car, had tuned the radio, and adjusted the seat until it felt comfortable to me. It had a CD player and I reminded myself to get some CDs to stash in the glove box. It was the first time I’d ever owned a car and it seemed exciting that I could just point and go as I desired. Even driving on “the wrong side” was starting to feel natural with practice.
It took me a day longer than I estimated to get to my destination. That was partly my fault for missing a couple of exit signs and driving further than I had to only to double back. I slept in little motels in towns that were only names on a map. They were comfortable, unremarkable but safe and I could shower and rest. I ate from service stations and fast food places. By the third day, my body started to hate junk. I craved fruit and had to circle around to find a market to buy a bag of apples. I stopped off to eat one in the pretty town square with an immaculate lawn and flower beds, flanked by shops painted every shade of pastel. There was a gazebo in the middle and they seemed to be holding some sort of fete. It was pretty and genteel and I hoped the residents were happy there before I slid back into the driver’s seat and left as quickly as I had arrived. As per usual, no one remembered me as soon as I was gone and that was how I wanted it to be.
I knew I hit the small town of Wilding before I had consulted the map or spotted a sign. There was something about the town that enveloped me the instant I drove into the town limits.
I had to pull over a couple of times and try and guess where I was and eventually, with the lack of landmarks, I just gave up and drove into town. I parked outside a diner on what seemed to be the main street of the attractive town. It had an old world feel to it with its hand-painted shop signs and storefronts. It was past the lunch hour inside and the waitress was hovering by the counter, chewing on a pencil, while she watched the last of the straggling diners. She took one look at me and the address I had scrawled on a piece of notepaper and pursed her lips in thought for a moment before writing down some directions on a napkin.
“Not many people head out that way, honey,” she drawled, tucking a piece of bleached blonde hair behind her ear. Her embroidered name plate read “Darla.” “It’s not a big residential area.”
“But this house is there?” I replied, checking the address again and Darla’s directions.
“Well sure it is, honey, or I couldn’t have told you where it was, and real pretty it is too. And there’s another one right across the street, but that’s all.” Darla flicked a finger at my notepaper. “What you doing, going out there?”
“I might be living there.”
“There’s a lot more nicer places in town, you know. With bars and shops and stuff a pretty girl like you needs. You bought that place? You could probably get a good price for it. I hear it comes with some land.”
I smiled at her. “I best check it out first.”
“Sure, honey, you do that. You come on back soon and tell me how you like it.”
I nodded and stuffed a couple of small bills in the tips jar Darla had sitting on the counter, seeing as I hadn’t ordered anything and she hadn’t insisted on forcing a menu on me. When I got back to the car I almost regretted not taking a seat at the counter and getting something to eat, but I was hungrier to see the house. I drove away from the route I’d taken in and followed Darla’s directions back out of town.
Being on the smaller side of towns, it wasn’t complicated to follow her directions and I was on the right road in minutes. I passed through town and followed the tree-lined street past the occasional house and a building that I guessed was a bar with several cars parked outside. The boarding spread across the building read “Loup Garou”. I would have to look that up, I thought, storing the unfamiliar words away in my mind as I turned my eyes back to the road.
My parents’ house was exactly where Darla said it would be and was, as she said, real pretty too. With no cars in the vicinity, I didn’t bother with the turn signal, but drove off the tarmac onto the dirt drive that curved towards the house.
The house was set at a right angle to the road with a carport off to one side but I parked right in front. It was a ranch house with white clapboard, just one storey high and a wide porch with spindle rails and four steps leading up to it. The front door and windows either side looked out over a large, neatly kept lawn and the porch seemed to have been swept recently. The only tyre prints on the drive came from my own newly purchased car. I wondered what it would be like to marry, or raise a family there, and the pain cut through me like a knife as I shoved the memories of Evan firmly into a corner of my mind. If he lived, I would find him one day. I clung to the idea like a security blanket.
I unclipped my seatbelt and rummaged in the blue box for the small envelope that held the key, then, leaving everything else inside, I stepped out to look around.
The afternoon sun was high in the sky and I held a hand like a visor over my face. I breathed in the fresh air, which carried with it the scent of grass and pine. Something in the atmosphere tugged at my psyche.
About a hundred yards away, and across the road, stood another house. It was similar to this but with a second storey and situated so as to face the road. There were a couple of chairs parked on the porch, one rocking slightly in the breeze and some tubs of greenery. A wind chime hung from the porch rafters that tinkled in the gentle breeze and the sound made me smile. Parked furthest from the house was a truck, a small blue car next to it and then, a little way back, the shiniest motorcycle I had ever seen. That house was clearly occupied and I wondered if it had been they who swept this porch and
kept the lawn tidy. As I watched, a man sat up in one of the chairs. He looked at me for a long moment before raising a hand. I waved back.
I turned from the neighbouring house, walked around the car and skipped up the steps and paused. I could feel the magic. I could sense it more decisively here, but just as I began to wonder about it, I felt the magic flitter around, recognise me then recede and fade until it had gone. Instinctively, I understood.
David mentioned such a thing in a lesson once. Wards had been spun about this place, wards that would ensure it would be left alone until such a time that it was reclaimed by someone it recognised. I wondered if it had been my parents doing and if they knew they would never return. I was glad that they had the foresight to protect their house but maybe it was something they always did. I didn’t have the good fortune of growing up with my people, my birthright, so I could hardly distinguish between fortuitous planning and everyday business.
I crossed the porch to look in the windows. The curtains were open and I could see that the place was clean and free from the cobwebs and rodents, which I might have expected after enduring more than twenty years unoccupied. I wondered if this was thanks to the wards, but maybe it was courtesy of whoever had kept the lawn trimmed. I would have to find out about that.
Slipping the key into the lock, I expected it to be stiff after years of disuse, but it sprang open as if it had been newly oiled. I breathed a sigh of relief, the weight of my new life slipping casually about my shoulders like a favourite shawl.
There were groceries to buy, of course, utilities to connect, if necessary. A new town to explore. Regular, mundane things to bring me into my new life, the life I might have had if my path hadn’t been maliciously diverted. But I could lay my parents to rest now and I knew when I found Evan, I would find my peace. I touched my fingers to my temples; my headache was finally gone.
I smiled, stepped over the threshold and shut the door on my past.
Continue the Stella Mayweather series with...
Unruly Magic
A witch on the run.
A quiet little town where everything is far from normal.
A fractured witch council threatening to tear the supernatural world apart.
Life hasn't been easy for novice witch Stella but small town life seems to be agreeing with her. When a seemingly innocent girl begs for her protection, Stella is pulled into a dangerous game of unruly magic.
With bewitching friends and two super-sexy and mysterious men by her side, Stella is plunged into a mystery where she must uncover dangerous secrets before she ends up paying the ultimate price.
Out now in ebook and paperback!
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UNRULY MAGIC
Illicit Magic (Book 1, Stella Mayweather Series) Page 16