Lucky Witches

by A. A. Albright

  ‘We have to talk,’ he said.

  I unclipped my seatbelt. ‘Oh, Jared! You have no idea how much talking I’ve already done and it’s not even nine. Just take me to work because otherwise, I might just get out and walk.’

  ‘Please.’ His ice-blue eyes looked bigger than ever. I’d never noticed the similarity between vampires and adorable kittens before, but there it was, staring me in the face. Criminy! Jared wasn’t supposed to be the adorably irresistible guy in my life. He was supposed to be the sexy charmer with a swagger. The one I avoided going out with because I knew he was a wrong 'un. But the more I grew to know him, the less I saw the Jared everyone else seemed to see. ‘This is important. I want you to know the truth. Don’t you want to know what happened between me, Dylan and Darina?’

  I drummed my fingers against my thigh, desperately willing myself to say No. But on top of the fact that I did want to hear him out, I also had the nosey journalist gene. Of course I wanted to know. I’d just hoped that when I did find out, it would be Dylan who told me. Sure, he was grumpy and irritating, but between him and Jared, I’d been so convinced he was the more straightforward. I was beginning to think I had things wrong. One minute he was blurting out that he liked me but could never be with me. The next minute he was high-tailing it off to who knew where without even saying goodbye.

  And yet here was Jared. Open as a book – or open as a book about an ancient, good-looking vampire could be, anyway.

  ‘I’ve been leaving off telling you this because I felt like it was up to Dylan,’ said Jared. ‘But seeing as he still hasn’t told you the truth, I’m going to. Because I think you deserve to know. And I need you to know what sort of a person I really am. I need you to give me another chance. There was a lot more to what happened between me and Darina Berry. Women can be players, too. And she played Dylan and me both.’

  Seeing as I’d witnessed how she bombarded Dylan’s home and office with photos of their relationship, I didn’t doubt she enjoyed playing games.

  ‘I believe you,’ I told Jared. ‘I’m just afraid that once you’ve told me you’ll expect me to agree to go out with you again. And I’m not going to. I don’t really care whether you did knowingly sleep with another man’s fiancée, Jared. I like you a lot, but not the way you seem to want me to.’

  He looked down at his hands, laughing ruefully. ‘You still think I’m only in this for the thrill of the chase, don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ I said with a shake of my head. ‘You’re not listening to me, Jared. It wouldn’t matter if I thought you were Prince Charming. I just …’

  Oh, dear goddess, was I really going to have to say this to him again? I was beginning to wonder if I was using my magic accidentally, like Brent had suggested. Maybe I really had done an inanimage something or other on the broom. And maybe I’d unknowingly performed a love spell on Jared. Because no one had ever pursued me like this. Even guys who swore they were crazy about me hadn’t done much more than buy me a bunch of limpy flowers.

  ‘Jared,’ I said softly. ‘I had such a great time with you on that one date. You’re a smart, gorgeous, charming guy. But I’m not into having relationships just for the sake of not being alone. I like being alone. If I’m going to go out with anyone, I’ve got to be crazy about them.’

  He let out another laugh. ‘Wow. I never thought I’d be the one on the receiving end of it’s not you, it’s me.’

  I groaned. ‘Yeah, it did sound a bit like that, didn’t it? Sorry.’

  He rubbed his head, not looking at me. ‘Don’t be sorry. It had to happen eventually. Even a guy as gorgeous and charming as me can’t expect to get all the women. But I do still want to tell you this. I need to get it off my chest.’

  ‘Okay.’ I spun in my seat to face him. ‘Tell me everything.’

  ‘Really?’

  I nodded. ‘Really. I wish I wasn’t, but I’m curious as anything to know what happened. And if Dylan won’t tell me …’

  He gave me a sheepish grin. ‘So I’m the next best thing to Dylan? I should probably be insulted by that. Oddly, I’m not.’ He took a deep breath, said, ‘Here goes,’ and then he began.

  ‘I hadn’t been back here for quite a few months. My business in London was really growing, and I just hadn’t had the time. I missed Pru like crazy, though, so I decided to come for an extended stay. But when I did come, Pru had just gotten this gig on a ghost ship – yeah, it’s a thing. So I thought I’d just hang around for a couple of days and come back to visit another time. Except … except then I met Darina.’

  There was a long pause, in which he stared out the windscreen and sighed a lot. I’d seen enough photos of Darina Berry to know that she could inspire extended fits of staring and sighing in just about any man.

  ‘I’d heard through Pru that she was engaged to Dylan, but when I met her in Three Witches Brew she told me they were over for good. I had no reason not to believe her. The few times I had seen her with our dashing detective they looked far from happy. So … we hooked up that night, and quite a few nights after. Honestly, I was surprised at how I was behaving, but Darina had a way of making you feel like you were the only man in the world. But it soon became clear that I wasn’t even the only man in her world. She started talking about Dylan all the time, telling me how much she missed him – not at all a mood killer.’ He clenched his teeth for a moment. I thought I even saw the point of a fang brush against his lower lip. ‘She told me … she told me that the only reason she’d broken up with Dylan was because he’d become obsessed with the idea of being a vampire.’

  I gaped at him. ‘Dylan did not want to be a vampire. I don’t believe that for a minute.’

  Jared sighed. ‘Well, I know that now. And I shouldn’t have believed it at the time. But let me finish. Darina told me that she’d always had a bad opinion of vampires, but now that she’d met me she’d changed her mind. She told me that she still cared deeply for Dylan, but that she was falling for me. She said that she wanted to give him one last gift before she could say goodbye to him for good. She wanted to give him what he really wanted. She wanted to make him a vampire.’

  I clutched my seatbelt, my knuckles growing white. ‘You turned Dylan? What did you do – sneak up behind him and drain him dry? Not even ask him if it was something he wanted? God, no wonder he hates you so much.’

  Jared finally turned to look at me. His eyes were blazing with anger, but they were also filling with tears. ‘No! For the love of Dracula, Ash, how could you even think that of me? For one thing, I had no intention of turning anyone. It’s not something I do on a regular basis. It’s been over a century since I’ve done it. There are enough vampires in the world and, honestly, the level of power my family have can sometimes feel like a curse. So I went round to the lighthouse to tell Dylan that I was sorry, but if he wanted to be a vampire he’d have to look elsewhere for a sire. But when I started to speak to him, we wound up having a much different conversation to the one I was anticipating. It turned out that Darina was still sleeping with him. They were very much a couple while she was with me, but … they probably wouldn’t have been for much longer. Dylan told me that Darina had given him an ultimatum. She told him she wanted to be his lover for as long as he’d have her, but that if he wanted the marriage to go ahead, he had to become a vampire.’

  I sat there with a hundred thoughts milling through my mind. Foremost among them was the notion that this was not an early morning story. This was the kind of story that should be told late at night, with a lot of wine to dull the sharp edges. Just listening to it was making me prickly. I’d never even met this woman, and yet I was beginning to feel more than a little bit of animosity towards her.

  ‘In witch society, the man in the marriage usually becomes a member of the woman’s coven and takes on their name,’ Jared went on. ‘But according to Darina, the Berry coven didn’t want Dylan. She said they would never accept an unempowered witch as a member, but they might be willing to consider him if he was a vampire. H
e was useless to them, otherwise. She said she’d give him a few days to think about it. But by the time he and I finally spoke, he seemed pretty firm on a decision. He told me he had no intention of playing Darina’s games any longer. He definitely did not want to be a vampire. He said he was going to finish things with her for good.’

  Well, that was the one part of the story that actually made sense. Dylan might not feel close enough to me to let me water his plants, but I felt sure I knew him. No matter how much he might have loved Darina, I couldn’t believe he would have become a vampire for her. And yet he was a vampire now. A dayturning vampire, no less.

  ‘Something else must have happened, then,’ I prompted. ‘Because he was turned. Was it by someone else?’

  Jared shut his eyes and balled his fists. ‘Darina happened. While me and Dylan were at his place talking things over, she turned up with a bottle of whiskey. She said she was there to apologise to us both for playing us off against each other, and asked if we could sit down together and have a drink. And the fools that we are, we did. We sat down with her and we had a drink, and it was the worst thing we could have done.’

  He let out a grunt of irritation. ‘She chatted, we listened, and suddenly … everything she was saying began to make perfect sense. Darina told Dylan all about the extra powers my family have, and how his life was only going to get better. She told me how good it was going to feel to turn someone again after all these years, to have that connection back in my life. Dylan decided he did want to be a vampire after all. And I promised I’d give him the most seamless turning experience ever. We all got really excited about it and, well, I went ahead and drank from him. And I drank deep. Because Ash, when I said I was going to do it properly, I meant it. And that means almost draining a person, waiting until they’re on the brink of death and then feeding them your blood.’

  ‘I know,’ I said quietly. ‘I’ve read about it. But this still isn’t making any sense. Jared, was there something other than whiskey in that whiskey?’

  He sat forward and banged his head against the steering wheel. ‘Where were you when we needed you? Me and Dylan knew what Darina was like. We should have known she was up to something when she came round with an expensive bottle like that. Yes, there was something in it. A potion called A Good Dose of Suggestion. I’d never heard of it before that night, and I hope I never come across it again. It’s similar to a hypno-potion. Makes you highly, well, suggestible.’

  He banged his head again. ‘The thing about Dylan is that he’s almost as stubborn as you. He should have been conked out and not woken up till I fed him. But he kept waking up and looking confused and angry. I was beginning to feel a bit confused myself. I guess the potion was wearing off. I was beginning to regret biting Dylan and he was really regretting it. In one of his lucid moments we had a chat and we came to the conclusion that Darina must have drugged us. But by then it was too late. I’d taken so much from him. He either had to let me fully turn him, or he was going to die.’

  ‘And where was Darina in all of this?’ I demanded. ‘Actually, never mind that. I’m more interested about where she is right now. Because I know it’s not Witchfield and, as far as I’m concerned, it should be.’

  Jared shrugged. ‘I agree with you. But Darina is a Berry. She even left the bottle behind, not caring that it would test positive for the potion. In fact, she even admitted that she’d been dosing me with it the whole time we’d been together. I should have known. I mean, I don’t do second dates. And definitely not thirds.’

  If the conversation hadn’t been so serious I might have laughed at that. ‘So what happened next? You don’t have the dayturning virus, so how come Dylan does?’

  ‘Because,’ said Jared with a sigh, ‘I didn’t give him his first feed. He got a phone call. It was one of his informants telling him something about that gang, Vlad’s Boys. Don’t ask me what because I have no idea. Some lead that he was eager to follow. I told him it was a bad idea. I didn’t even know how he was standing up, let alone considering leaving the house. Like I said – stubborn. He insisted it was important. He swore he’d be back by sunset the next day so we could finish off the process. And he left. After that … after that I don’t really know what happened. I might have drained him, but I never got to turn him, because he didn’t show up for days. When he finally came back, he was beaten up and emaciated. He was also a dayturner. Someone made him a vampire, Ash, but it wasn’t me.’

  He opened his eyes and looked at me. ‘Do you get it now? Why I was so eager to tell you? It matters to me what you think of me, but there’s more to it than that. Aisling … I’m not an idiot. I would never read your mind, but there are some things you don’t need to be a mind reader to know. I can tell you have a thing for Dylan. But trust me, even if the two of you were the most in love couple the world has ever seen, it’s never going to happen. Darina won’t let it. She will hurt you if you go after him. And she’ll get away with it, too. Because she’s a Berry.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I scoffed. ‘I heard that the Wayfarers even put the head of the Berry coven in prison.’

  Jared smiled weakly. ‘That’s very true. Not just the head, but his sister, too. But Aisling, they still managed to murder a lot of people before they got there.’ He sat up and turned the key. ‘Look, I’ve already made you late for work, so we can talk about this again later on. But for now …’ He gave me a deadly serious look. ‘Just keep what I’ve told you in mind. Dylan’s a good man – but he comes with a whole lot of baggage.’

  As he started driving again, I sat back thinking about everything I’d learned. When I’d first seen the photos of the beautiful witch in Dylan’s house, I’d convinced myself he must still be in love with her. But ever since the witch hunter forced Dylan and I to admit our true feelings, I knew he didn’t want her anymore. None of that mattered, though. Jared didn’t need to worry about warning me off Dylan. Because Dylan had been adamant that, as long as he was a dayturner, he would never be with me.

  So I wasn’t worried about what Darina might do to me. She had no need to hurt me, because Dylan would never be mine. I was far more interested in what happened after Dylan left the lighthouse on the night when Jared bit him.

  A conversation came to mind, one in which Dylan told me he had very good reasons for hating Vlad’s Boys as much as he did. He told me that if I knew the story of how he was turned, then I would understand why he despised the gang.

  But I still didn’t know the full story. What Darina did to Jared and Dylan was terrible, but something even more horrific had happened to Dylan after he left the lighthouse that night, and I was more curious than ever to know what it was.

  7. Wishes Can Come True

  As soon as I left Jared’s car, I dashed into the Daily Riddler office and went straight to my desk. I was more tired and confused than ever, after the conversations I’d had that morning. But stewing over the things I’d learned wasn’t going to make me feel any better – and it definitely wasn’t going to write my articles for me.

  I was just finished writing about Roarke’s accident at the fair when Greg arrived. He came straight to my desk, and in a breathless voice he said, ‘Come on, Ash. We’ve got a story to cover.’

  He had a packet of cheese and onion crisps on the go as he spoke, and I could already see his follow-up snack – a fruit and nut chocolate bar – sticking out of his front pocket. I glanced up the stairs. ‘Should we go up and let Grace know about it?’

  ‘She already knows. I phoned her on my way here. Come on – you’re going to love this!’

  I picked up my bag and followed him towards his van.

  ‘There’s a new popcorn machine and soda fountain in the back if you’re hungry,’ he said. ‘A chocolate fountain, too. And we can drive or fly. Your choice. But … I did get a wizard friend of mine to make this.’ He handed me a small bottle, filled with a bright green liquid. ‘Better than any travel sickness pill on the market.’

  I shrugged, tossed my head
back, and downed it in one. I don’t usually recommend untested medicine, but even if it was horrific, it still wouldn’t be as bad as my last journey in this van. ‘Come on then – let’s fly.’

  Greg grinned like the crazy wizard he was, crammed the rest of his crisps into his mouth, and started his van. While he did his thing, I strapped myself in tight, gripped the edge of my seat, and closed my eyes. Unlike during my first journey, there was only the slightest lurch in my belly.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ he said.

  I opened my eyes and peered out through the windscreen. ‘We’re in the parking lot of your apartment building, Greg. We could have driven here in five minutes.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said as he climbed out. ‘But then you wouldn’t have gotten to experience all my improvements first hand. Hey – what did you think of the show last night?’

  I followed him out and smiled. ‘It was the best thing I’ve ever seen,’ I said in all honesty. ‘Well, right up until poor Roarke was electrocuted. Is that why we’re here? Does someone in the building have information on what happened to him?’

  Greg wrinkled his nose. ‘No. Why? It was just a freak accident. The girl who was looking after the electrics spilled a can of cola on a frayed wire. Fried Roarke’s mike in the process. Could have happened to anyone.’

  I was just about to ask about the specifics when I realised we were parked next to a car I’d never seen before. It was a huge pink SUV, with golden hubcaps and diamante door handles.

  ‘What the … Greg, what is that monstrosity? It looks like it was created in a little girl’s sugar-fuelled nightmares.’

  ‘Oh yeah – I’ll tell you about that once I’ve shown you an even bigger monstrosity. In the meantime, here’s the electrician from last night.’ He pointed to a slim young woman, sitting astride a moped and making her way in behind us. ‘Hey – Amber!’ He waved to her as she pulled off her helmet and stepped off the moped.

  ‘Oh, hey Greg.’ She sighed. ‘And you’re Ash, right? I’ve just gotten back from Dublin. I’ve been up with Roarke all night.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe how clumsy I was last night. I’m never clumsy. And I’m never that stupid, either. I checked all the wiring beforehand, I know I did.’