Unbroken Vows

by Christine Pope

  Expression now concerned, he moved closer. “It’s really too cold to be up here without a jacket.”

  “I’m fine,” Rosemary told him, even as she had to inwardly admit that he was right. Maybe someone who was used to Indiana temperatures wouldn’t have a problem with this particular night breeze, but it felt positively arctic to someone from Southern California. “I’ll go back inside in a minute.”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  For a moment, they were both silent, watching the cars move on the street below. A faint sound of music from the party drifted upward, and Rosemary wondered if someone had opened a window. Maybe some of the dancers had gotten overheated from their exertions.

  “I saw you talking to Becca,” Caleb ventured next, and she nodded.

  “She seems nice.”

  “I suppose so.” A pause. “She doesn’t compare to you, though.”

  Great. She definitely didn’t want the conversation to move anywhere near that direction. “I don’t believe in comparing people.”

  “You wouldn’t.” He shifted so he faced her directly, dark eyes fixed on her face. “But it would be nice if you’d give me a chance.”

  Rosemary crossed her arms, hoping that might help to dispel some of the chill that was beginning to seep through her body. Or maybe the shiver that had just passed through her had absolutely nothing to do with the actual temperature outside. “Caleb, I already told you that I’m in love with Will. Leave it alone, okay?”

  Obviously, leaving it alone was not something Caleb was particularly good at, because he only replied, “But why are you in love with him? What the hell do you two even have in common?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Why?” he demanded. “Because the blood of demons flows through my veins, and that means I’m incapable of experiencing any good or pure emotions? I think you’re forgetting that the same blood flows through your own veins.”

  “Allegedly,” Rosemary said, wishing her voice didn’t sound so shaky. “Anyway, Will and me…it just works for us. I can’t tell you why. Chemistry, I guess.”

  “You think you’ll have that same chemistry when he finds out you’re not the little half-angel he thinks you are?”

  An edge had entered Caleb’s voice, one Rosemary really didn’t like. She didn’t know for sure whether he actually harbored what he thought were true feelings for her, or whether he just hated the thought of a man ten years older than he — and an Episcopalian priest, to boot — coming out the victor in this particular romantic contest.

  Not that it was a contest at all. Even if she wasn’t with Will…even if he told her he wanted nothing more to do with her once he discovered her connection to the Greencastle demons…she knew she could never be with Caleb Lockwood.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But that’s for Will and me to find out.”

  Caleb stepped closer to her, and she did her best not to flinch. “You liked being with me once.”

  “‘Once,’” she repeated. “Not now.”

  One hand reached toward her. “I think I could change your mind.”

  Don’t move, she told herself. Face him down. Don’t let him know you’re afraid.

  “Would you really want me that way?” Rosemary asked quietly. “You keep trying to make me think you’re a decent person, Caleb. If that’s the truth, do you really want to force things between us?”

  For a long moment, he didn’t speak, only stared down at her. Once again, she thought she could see a tiny flicker of red flame in his dark eyes before it disappeared. Slowly, his hand dropped.

  “You’ll change your mind,” he said briefly, then turned and stalked away from her, back to the steps so he could return to the balcony outside his loft.

  Rosemary stayed where she was, the night air chill against her face. Then, very slowly, she let out the breath she’d been holding.

  That had been too close.

  Chapter 10

  After passing what could only charitably be referred to as a very restless night, Will woke up to a text from Michael.

  Fred did some hacking and found out that Rosemary is staying at the DePauw Inn. We don’t know what that means, exactly, but at the very least, it seems to indicate she has some autonomy. Come over to the house when you can & we’ll discuss further.

  The message was time-stamped 7:12 a.m., only about ten minutes earlier. Will scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his face and then responded, I can be over around 8. See you then.

  He set down the phone and poured himself a glass of water, deciding against coffee even though he knew he needed it. Anyway, if Michael wanted him over that early, then there would probably be coffee on tap at his house.

  A fast shower and a change into some jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, since the day outside was gray and gloomy once again. No rain, as far as he could tell, but the skies looked like they wanted to open up if given the chance.

  Will was out the door a little before eight and arrived at Michael’s house almost exactly on the hour. Audrey opened the door after he rang the bell and smiled out at him. She looked far more rested than he knew he did, although she was dressed almost as casually, except in a sweater rather than a T-shirt.

  “We’re having a council of war in the dining room,” she said as she stepped aside to let him in. “Coffee and bagels are on tap.”

  “Good,” Will replied, managing to smile despite his continued worry for Rosemary. “I was worried it might be doughnuts. Too much sugar for me.”

  “Michael’s not big on sugar, either,” Audrey told him. “But you probably already knew that.”

  Actually, he didn’t. Although he’d known Michael for several years, it wasn’t as though they’d really ever hung out socially. Michael called Will when he needed his friend’s spiritual assistance, but they’d never eaten together or gone to a baseball game or whatever it was that men did when they needed to bond. He’d always thought of Michael as a friend, but he knew they weren’t exactly friends in the usual sense.

  Once this was all over — and once Audrey had gotten her Ph.D. and the couple had returned to California — it was nice to think of a time when the four of them maybe could go out together as couples, to dinner and the movies or whatever else sounded like fun. Of course, that particular scenario imagined a future where Rosemary was safely back from Indiana with no harm done, and at the moment, Will couldn’t be entirely sanguine about such a prospect.

  He followed Audrey into the dining room, where Michael and Fred Peñasco were seated at the long table, each of them with their laptop in front of them and a mug of coffee nearby. A plate piled high with bagels sat in the middle of the table, with a smaller plate with cream cheese and butter placed next to it, although it didn’t look as though anyone had started eating yet.

  “Coffee?” Audrey asked.

  “Yes, thanks,” Will replied.

  Michael glanced up from his laptop’s screen and rubbed at his eyes. He didn’t look quite as rested as Audrey, and Will wondered how much sleep his friend had actually gotten.

  “So, you’ve located Rosemary?” he asked.

  “We think so,” Michael said, while Fred kept typing away at something, although, since Will couldn’t see the screen, he had no idea what the other man might have been working on. “At least, her name is on the list of current guests at the DePauw Inn, although she didn’t check in with a credit card.”

  “Who paid for the room?”

  “Not sure,” Fred put in. “It just says ‘on account.’ I assume that means someone has a standing account with the place, but there isn’t that much detail as to whom. It might be the sort of thing they keep off the books, so to speak.”

  Will thought he had a pretty good idea as to who might be in a position to keep an account active at the local hotel for any visitors he might need to show some hospitality. “Daniel Lockwood?”

  “Probably,” Michael said as he reached for his mug of coffee and took a swallow. “I assume it’s goo
d news that Rosemary is staying at a hotel and not, say, at his actual house, but we haven’t found much more than that.”

  “She definitely hasn’t been using her debit card,” Fred added. “No records at all. So, wherever she was having lunch in that vision Isabel had, she wasn’t picking up the tab.”

  No, that duty would have fallen to Caleb Lockwood. Will found his mouth twisting, but was distracted by Audrey coming over to him with a mug of coffee. He thanked her and took a sip. Good and strong, and just what he needed. That one swallow was enough to make him feel much more awake.

  “Has Isabel seen anything else?”

  “Not that we’re aware of,” Michael said. “Of course, it’s a little early to be calling her this morning, but I assume that if she or Glynis had seen anything, they would have reached out, no matter what the time.”

  “Are there any other annotations on Rosemary’s account at the hotel?” Will asked. “Anything to indicate when she’s going to be checking out?”

  “Nothing like that,” Fred responded. “That field has been left blank, which makes me think the Lockwoods must want her stay to be open-ended.”

  Of course, they did. Will felt the frown return to his brow, heavy, telling him that none of this news was particularly comforting. All right, he supposed it was marginally reassuring to know that at least Rosemary had her own hotel room and wasn’t being held captive in the Lockwood mansion, but still, he didn’t much like the idea of her inexplicable visit in Greencastle being one of indefinite duration. They needed to get her out of there.

  “So, we don’t have much more to go on than we did before,” he said, not bothering to keep the worry out of his voice.

  “We have a better idea of where she is,” Michael told him. “And we know that the Lockwoods extended her enough consideration to get her a hotel room. That’s something.”

  “It’s not much.”

  Audrey came over and sat down opposite her husband, then reached for a bagel and started to carefully cut it in half. As she began to spread cream cheese over one side, she said, “And we have Isabel’s visions to tell us she’s safe. If anything bad had happened, you know either Glynis or one of Rosemary’s sisters would have felt it.”

  Will wanted to believe that. But, even though he wasn’t psychic himself, he knew enough to understand that these women’s talents — amazing as they might be — certainly weren’t infallible. It could very well be wishful thinking to blindly accept that they would instantly be able to sense whether something had gone wrong with a fellow family member.

  But he could tell from Audrey’s expression that she needed to believe such a thing, and so he didn’t offer any protests, only said, “Most likely. But how long are we going to just sit this out? Don’t you think at some point we’re going to need to go there and help her?”

  “I’ve taken that possibility into account,” Michael said calmly. “In fact, I’ve been checking on whether it would be viable to get a private plane to take us there if necessary. There’s a general aviation airport three miles outside town, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to get someone to take us from Brackett Field in La Verne to Putnam Airport outside Greencastle.”

  “El Monte would be closer,” Fred commented, not looking up from his laptop.

  “Yes, but I know someone with a plane at Brackett,” Michael replied.

  “You do?” Audrey said in some surprise. “Who?”

  Michael shrugged. “A friend. Max Fraser — I met him at one of my seminars years ago. Anyway, he’s got a Gulfstream III. It’s big enough to accommodate all of us, including Glynis and Isabel.”

  “Must be nice,” Audrey said with a grin.

  “Actually, in some ways, it’s nicer to have a friend with a jet than to own one yourself and be worried about all the upkeep,” Michael replied.

  That comment made Fred lift an eyebrow, although he continued to tap away at his keyboard without looking up. He remarked, “I’m pretty sure if you can afford to buy a Gulfstream III, upkeep really isn’t an issue.”

  “Point taken. But anyway, if necessary, I can reach out to Max and have us in the air pretty quickly without hassling with commercial flights. I already confirmed that he was in town right now, and available in case of an emergency.”

  It was good to have friends in high places, apparently. Will supposed he had to be content with Michael’s solution; short of blinking from one place to the next like Rosemary could do, a private jet was definitely the quickest and easiest way to get from here to there.

  If it came to that.

  “Well, if we’re going to end up staging a commando raid on the Greencastle demons, we’d better know what we’re up against,” Audrey said. She set down the half bagel she’d been holding and gazed up at Will, who still hadn’t taken a seat. “You’ve been there. What can you tell us?”

  “It’s a small town, probably around ten thousand people,” he said. “As far as I can tell, absolutely no one knows anything about Daniel Lockwood’s true identity, or the identities of the other part-demons who live there. If we try anything too overt, I’m sure we’ll have the local police on us in a heartbeat for going after such upstanding citizens.

  “Then we’ll be covert,” Michael put in with a grin. “Lockwood’s house?”

  “It’s basically a mansion,” Will told him. “I’m not very good at estimating this sort of thing, but I’m sure it’s probably at least five thousand square feet. In a nice neighborhood to the southwest of the downtown area, on a big lot where the driveway access is actually off the street to the back, since there’s nothing behind it.”

  “Nice and private,” Michael observed.

  “Exactly. But Lockwood’s is the only house I know about in any detail. Rosemary and I drove around and sort of scoped out where all the other demons’ homes were located, thanks to the information Fred provided” — Will paused to nod in Fred’s direction, and the other man gave a shrug, a just doing my job kind of gesture — “but I can’t tell you much about them.”

  Michael didn’t look too concerned by this apparent lack of information. “I don’t think they’re important. It seems pretty obvious that Daniel Lockwood is the ringleader of the group, and so any activity is probably going to be centered at his house. Since you’ve already been inside, we have an advantage.”

  “Not much of one,” Will said. “Considering we’re outnumbered two to one.”

  “True, but they won’t see us coming.”

  “You hope,” Fred said darkly. “I know I’m coming late to all this, but from what you’ve told me about your dealings with these part-demons, they have abilities no human can hope to match.”

  No one said anything for a moment, probably because they’d all inwardly acknowledged that Fred was right, even if they didn’t want to admit to such a disadvantage out loud. Even in terms of sheer numbers, the Greencastle demons definitely had the advantage, and when you figured in all their assorted powers, well, it didn’t take much effort to realize it would be an extremely lopsided fight.

  After an uncomfortable pause, Michael said, “True, but they’re not invincible. We need to keep that in mind, or we’ll be dooming ourselves to defeat before we even get started. But for now, I think the best thing to do is just sit tight and see what happens. I know it’s hard,” he went on, before Will could begin to protest, “but I think it’s the best thing to do. If Rosemary suddenly disappears from the hotel’s records, or if any of the McGuires get a twinge, then of course, we’ll act. All right?”

  Will gave a reluctant nod. While he would have preferred to do something…anything…he understood that sometimes discretion was required in these situations. So far, nothing seemed to indicate Rosemary was in any real trouble.

  Which created its own set of concerns. Because if the demons didn’t intend to hurt her, why had they taken her at all?

  Rosemary sat on the couch in the Lockwood mansion’s living room, doing her best to ignore the knot of tension in her gut and failing mise
rably. Caleb had called her only twenty minutes before, telling her that the courier was on the last leg of his journey from Chicago, where the lab’s headquarters were located, and should be in Greencastle within the half hour. She’d agreed to have him pick her up and take her to his father’s house, although she was still annoyed at him for the way he’d acted the night before. In fact, after their confrontation on the roof of his building, she’d walked back to the hotel rather than stay at the party another minute. Luckily, her destination had been only a few blocks away, and Greencastle was clearly a very safe place, but still, she’d been irritated for being put in that position at all. He’d been all smiles this morning, acting as though nothing of importance had occurred, which only made her that much angrier.

  However, she’d done her best to push aside her annoyance, since she didn’t want him to see how he’d gotten under her skin. Also, she figured she needed to act cool and composed around Daniel Lockwood, no matter what happened. Something about him felt like nails on a chalkboard to her, although she couldn’t say exactly why.

  Well, except for the minor detail of him being the half-demon ringleader of a bunch of demon-kind who clearly didn’t care about anyone’s interests but their own.

  A cup of tea sat on the coffee table in front of her, and she bent forward so she could lift it to her lips and take a sip. Caleb was drinking coffee, while Daniel didn’t seem interested in any refreshments. And Gerald also had tea, but he mostly ignored the cup he held, his gaze continually moving toward the window as if he didn’t want to take the slightest chance of any of them missing the courier’s arrival.

  “He’s here,” Gerald said suddenly, the words preceding the ringing of the doorbell by just the barest second.

  Rosemary had startled when he spoke and just barely avoided spilling tea on the priceless antique carpet under her feet. Trying to compose herself, she set the tea back down, although she could feel the way her heart had started to pound, heavy and hard against the hollowness of her ribcage.

  “I’ll get it,” Caleb said, and left the room to answer the door. A moment later, he came back into the living room, a bewildered-looking blond man in his early twenties at his side. “I told him he needed to hand the letter to you directly,” he said, looking over at Rosemary. “Don’t want you to think there were any shenanigans.”