by K. J. Emrick
Look who’s talking, she thought grimly. The last man to make Addie laugh had been Adam Sandler, and that was back when he used to make movies that were actually funny.
Well. If Kiera was holed up in the tower that meant she was going to have to save her questions until later. Kiera might not want to answer them, anyway, and she certainly had more serious things on her mind than her sister’s mood swings.
“Meet me downstairs in an hour, then,” she told Doyle. “I want to call the police and see if they need anything more from me.”
He twitched his whiskers. “Going to look up that police detective I heard you talking about last night at dinner?”
“Don’t be like that, Doyle. I need to find out what happened to Esmerelda Norris. I need to know if it was a one-time thing or if it was just the start of something darker.”
“Oh, well. In that case.” He sniffed and settled himself on the rug in the hall, head on his front paws. “I’d definitely wear that perfume you picked out. Dead women like Esmerelda certainly appreciate a good smelling witch. Or is it handsome men who appreciate that? I always get the two mixed up.”
She scowled at him, and slammed the door much more forcefully than she needed to.
Doyle was a cherished member of their family, and he had proven his worth on more than one occasion, but sometimes he was just such a cat.
Over on her dresser she looked through the things she had laid out for herself and yes, sure enough, there was that perfume that smelled like spices and jasmine and heat. Whatever. She could dress up if she wanted to.
It was for work. Not for Lucian.
There was still something about him, though. Something she couldn’t explain. The way he’d resisted her magic at first, and the way he’d been able to intuit small facts about the scene of the murder… maybe he was just naturally more intelligent than most guys. That would explain a lot. Like, why she’d felt his aura so strongly. Why his name had such a powerful ring to it.
Then again, there could be other reasons why he was so intriguing.
Like, he could be a buggane in disguise.
She hated herself for even thinking it, but it wouldn’t be the first magical creature that the sisters had discovered trying to pass for a Typic. It could be done, if the magic user was powerful enough. Bugganes were shapeshifters from the old world, and the sisters had been fooled by them before.
That didn’t feel right, though. Lucian had felt one-hundred-percent human to her senses. All her senses.
Ahem.
So, yeah. He was human, and there was something about him that piqued her curiosity, and for now she just couldn’t lay a finger on what that was. She still needed to find out about the murder. A quick call to the number on Lucian’s card would let her know if there was anything new in the investigation. If he agreed to see her.
She slipped out of her nightgown, and wrapped herself in a thin blue house robe to cover herself on the way from here to the bathroom, and picked up her clothes. A quick shower, and then she could start her day.
Sitting on the dresser where she’d left it last night, her cellphone began to ring.
Leaning over to check the number, she saw it was the very person she’d been thinking of. She dropped everything into a pile again and grabbed up the phone.
“Hello, Detective Knight. I was just going to call you.”
“You were?” He sounded surprised. “Here I thought I was the only early riser around these parts. It’s just after five in the morning.”
“Well, I have a café to run. We open at six-thirty during the week.”
“Perfect,” he said, as if that had been the answer he was waiting for. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Wait, what?”
“Sure. I was hoping to catch up with you again last night but every time I went to call you something came up on our end. I actually only got about three hours of sleep.”
“Oh? More news about the case?”
“A little bit, yes,” he answered guardedly. “I can tell you some of it when we see each other later. Then I can get your official statement down on paper and you’ll never have to see me again.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He was a police officer, and she couldn’t exactly open up to him about what she was. Unlike with Willow and her boytoy Gary, it would be dangerous to the coven if she were to date a police officer. Lucian was too smart to ever be kept in the dark for long.
Even knowing all that, something in her, some instinct, was pushing her to keep tabs on this man.
After all, he might be a mythical Irish shapeshifter.
Stop being ridiculous, she told herself. He’s just a cute, smart, funny guy who happens to be calling first thing in the morning...
“I’ll let you go,” Lucian was saying to Addie. “I’m sure there’s a lot to do when you own your own business.”
“My sisters and I manage to keep busy. Well. Um. I’ll see you at the café, then. How do you like your coffee?”
“With a donut,” he laughed. “You’ve got donuts, I’m assuming?”
“Yes, we do, but those are for the regular customers. Special guests get special treatment. How does a red velvet raspberry éclair sound?”
“Amazing. You serve those at your café?”
“Mmm-hmm. We have a line of signature pastries.”
“Wow. How on Earth do you find time to do that?”
“Magic,” she answered with a smile.
“Ah. That explains it. See you there.”
He hung up, and she put the phone down on the dresser again, wondering why the day seemed a little brighter knowing that Lucian would be at the café later. If she didn’t know any better she would have sworn that she was flirting with him over the phone just now. Of course, that was silly. She just wanted to know what was going on with the murder investigation. She needed to stay close to Lucian to do that.
The ‘staying close’ part made a smile appear on her face.
She grabbed her clothes up again—and the perfume bottle this time—and rushed to her bedroom door on her way to the shower. When she opened it, Doyle was sitting there.
She nearly stepped on his tail. “Hey! Old Man, are you trying to kill me?”
“Hardly. I just wanted you to know that Kiera left the tower.”
“What?” She looked automatically down to the end of the hall where the door led to the tower stairs. “When?”
“About five minutes ago. She’s in the cellar now.”
“Doyle! I don’t have time to chase her all over the house. Why didn’t you tell me she was leaving the tower?”
His tail twitched. “First, I’m not your secretary. I’m the housecat. You’re here to make my life easier, not the other way around. Secondly, you were busy in there making a date with that police detective.”
“It’s not a date!” She realized she was shouting, and reigned herself back in. She might have a few minutes to track Kiera down. Because her big sister hardly ever left the house she was sure to be in Stonecrest somewhere, but the house was massive. She could go to the cellar only to find out that Kiera was in the living room, and then go to the living room only to find out she’d gone to her room, and then up to the tower again. A locater spell just seemed like overkill. Kiera would feel the magic and get defensive about being Lojacked like a missing car. So, she was back to getting ready for work and her appointment to meet Lucian.
Doyle smiled at her as if he could read her thoughts. “It’s not a date,” she repeated to him.
“Of course not.” He sniffed, and turned his head away. “By the way. You may want to put some clothes on if you expect to go to work today. Or meet cute men.”
Addie looked down at herself. She’d forgotten she was in just her robe. Not that she didn’t have a nice body, because she did, but she definitely did not want to step outside like this!
“I’m just saying,” Doyle went on. “Us cats couldn’t care less about being naked but I know it’s a big d
eal for you humans. Ooh, maybe that will help if you meet Lucian dressed like that!”
“Shut up,” Addie said, and stuck her tongue out at him.
“See, now that’s something else cats do better.” He yawned, and curled his tongue out flat.
She was laughing as she stepped around him and headed for the second floor bathroom. “Sure, but humans have opposable thumbs. So there. Just be ready for me downstairs.”
“Maybe I’ll walk today,” he grumped. “If you’re going to be this giddy the whole way there, I’m not sure I could take it.”
“I am not giddy!”
He looked up at her, and then flicked one ear before walking down the hall in the other direction. At the switchback stairs that connected the three main floors of the house he started down. She could hear him mumbling to himself the whole way.
Well. Maybe she was a little giddy. She stuck her tongue out at him again after he was gone. Despite the fact that there was a murderer somewhere in the town of Shadow Lake, she really was in a good mood this morning. She wasn’t going to let Doyle take that away from her.
In the bathroom, Addie set her clothes on the edge of the double sink and let her robe drop to the white tiles of the floor. Naked, she spun the wheels of the faucet handles until the water was coming out hot and steamy. She pulled the lever to get the shower spray going. Ah. Perfect.
She stepped over to the corner shelves and selected a white, fluffy towel for herself.
The mirror was fogged over already. She used an edge of the towel to wipe away the condensation.
For a moment before it fogged over again, she saw her reflection in the glass.
With someone standing behind her.
Addie whipped around, gripping the edge of the sinktop behind her, bracing herself to fight or to run, whichever seemed most prudent.
There was no one there. The bathroom was empty, and she was alone.
Curse her Irish eyes.
In the humid air, a cold sweat slid over her skin. She could feel a presence. Something nearly human, but not completely so. Possibly alive. Possibly dead. She stretched her senses out and tried to find it. She waved her hand through the air and tried to touch it. There was nothing except the lingering sense of something very, very wrong.
This thing that had been in this bathroom with her… was evil.
The sink was cold against the bare curve of her backside. The hot mist from the shower was in her eyes. The sound of the water drumming against the walls of the shower was a loud hiss. Ignoring all of that Addie lifted her right hand, pinky and ring finger bent, first two fingers and her thumb spread out, her other hand making a fist between her breasts.
“What is hidden from my sight,” she intoned softly, moving her outstretched hand across the plane of reality, “now be brought into the light.”
The air in the bathroom bent and shaped itself, coalescing into a translucent form.
This was an afterimage, like a bright spot burned into the eye’s retina after staring at a lightbulb for too long. Creatures and people with magic abilities left afterimages in reality the same way. As long as you knew how to look for them.
When the spell had bound the air together until it was nearly solid, Addie could finally see the entity that had been here just moments ago. A shiver raced up her spine. What she was seeing was vaguely human, but it had arms that were too long, and its legs were twisted and corded and jointed in three places. She couldn’t see its face even after putting forth a bit more of her Essence into the spell. She thought that was odd.
Then she realized there simply was no face to see. This thing, whatever it was, had no face.
A scratching at the door made her jump.
Doyle’s muffled voice called in to her. “Are you anywhere close to done yet? Seriously, it takes me less time to bathe, and I use my tongue!”
She forced herself to relax. He was right, she needed to get moving if she was going to get to work on time. Sometimes she thought it was foolish to try to have a regular job on top of being Shadow Lake’s defender. Normal was for Typics. Her life was never going to be normal.
Not with things like this almost-human entity sneaking through her bathroom.
She sighed, and hugged her arms to herself, chilled in the warm, moist air. She looked at the temporary afterimage she’d created with her magics. Even now it was fading away.
What was this thing?
More importantly, how did it get into Stonecrest, when the house was protected against all forms of harmful magic?
Addie gasped when she realized what the answer to that question must be. Kiera had been up in the tower all morning. She must have been doing some sort of spell that called up this thing. Now it was roaming freely around the house. Whatever her older sister was going through, it had to stop.
Now she was back to her original plan. She had to find Kiera and ask her what she was being so secretive about. If there was something lurking around the house, something that Kiera had called up, she and Willow deserved to know about it.
Chapter 7
“You said we had to go,” Doyle complained.
“I know that. We do. I just want to talk to my sister for a few minutes, first.”
Addie left him at the top of the cellar steps, grumbling to himself and shifting his weight from one front paw to the other. For a cat his age he often had the impatience of a kitten. Yes, it was getting close to the time when she needed to be at the café to help Darla open the place up, but Darla had been doing this for a long time now, and she was a grown woman, and Addie was willing to bet that even on her own she could figure out how to unlock the front door and start the coffee pots.
The cellar of Stonecrest had been dug deep into the Earth, making the ceilings fifteen feet high as the space reached down deep into the ground, allowing them to root their home as close to the well of Essence below as possible. That meant a lot of stairs going down at a steep angle, and gray stone block walls, and a constant damp smell that was actually somewhat pleasant.
It also created lots of storage space. This was where the three sisters kept most of the stuff that they didn’t have room for upstairs. The Christmas decorations were down here, as well as the Samhein decorations and a box of dreamcatchers that they had all outgrown years ago. Old clothes. Gifts from covens in other areas that were either too tacky or too useless to have out on a daily basis. That sort of thing.
Really, there was no reason for Kiera to be spending this much time down here this morning, as far as Addie could see. The cellar was closer to the magical source than the rest of the house, to be certain, but that rarely mattered to any spell or incantation.
There was a rack with a selection of very nice wines over on the far side, but Addie doubted her sister was down here for those, either. Kiera wasn’t much of a drinker. She was far too straightlaced for that.
Walking among the rows of metal shelves, Addie listened carefully to everything around her. She heard the water heater ticking, and the hum of the old chest freezer. The house above them creaked as it settled its old bones more comfortably. It was quiet down here. Peaceful. As a girl, she and Willow had come down here plenty of times to play hide and seek or tag or some other child’s game. It had been their private playground.
It was around the next corner of shelves where she found Kiera, closing the flaps to a cardboard box and settling it back into place with other boxes just like it. For a moment, Addie just stood there watching, trying to read the emotions on her sister’s face, the lines of age etched so clearly under the glare of halogen light fixtures suspended from the ceiling.
“It is not polite,” Kiera said gently, “to stare at someone.”
She didn’t turn around as she said it, and Addie smiled ruefully when she remembered Kiera could sense when she was near. Willow, too. As the real head of their household—no matter what Doyle thought—Kiera had taken on that ability after their mother died.
“I didn’t mean to spy,” she apologized.
Now her sister’s eyes slid in her direction, one graying eyebrow lifted. “When someone tries to watch you without knowing, I believe that is the textbook definition of spying.”
“Look, we need to talk.” She hated to be so blunt but time was against her and Kiera was being more stubborn than usual. “I’m not sure what’s going on with you—”
“Nothing. Nothing is going on with me.”
She said it so quickly that Addie knew for certain it wasn’t the truth. “No, there’s something. Whatever it is, you have to stop it. You’ve already called up something dark and evil, and it’s wandering Stonecrest right now.”
Kiera’s hand had been lingering on the cardboard box on the shelf. Now that same hand reached over to grasp the brooch at her neck as she blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about, Sister Addie?”
“I’m trying to tell you that whatever you did up in the tower this morning called up an… I don’t know. An entity of some kind. It passed by me in the bathroom earlier. Made my skin crawl, too.”
Which may have had something to do with her being caught without her clothes on, but still.
“Something in the house? Are you sure?” Kiera reached out and took hold of Addie’s wrist, holding on tight. “Addie, nothing can get into Stonecrest. We are protected here.”
“I know, but that’s what I’m saying. I saw the afterimage of the thing and I sensed its intentions. It was a bad thing. Evil. There’s no way it got in here uninvited. The only way it could have come in was through one of us. Willow’s not here. I didn’t do it. So, again, whatever you did this morning must have called it in. Please, Kiera. You can talk to me. You can tell me what’s wrong.”
A smile came and went on Kiera’s face. “Darling Addie. My dear little sister. Always trying to be the peacemaker for the family. I promise you, there’s nothing wrong. If there is something in our house I will find it, and disinvite it. Now. You have a café to run. Go on. Don’t worry about whatever you saw. I’ll get rid of it.”
“You’re sure?” Addie asked her. “It was bad, Kiera, believe me. Really bad.”