Jedrek kneels, reaching out to her to hold her while she wails a sound close to that of a banshee. He whispers something into her ear and slowly Miranda fades into slumber. Carefully placing her head on the cement below her, he almost glares over to where Chad is standing, so lost in his own grief he has nothing to offer his wife.
“Moments like this make me wonder why Eve picked Adam,” he says with remorse and coloring of curiosity.
“What?” I ask, confused and exhausted.
His mask of mischief is replaced, winking at me, mirth dances with history behind those blue eyes of his.
“Let’s get you home,” he tells me, kneeling to scoop up the discarded trinket which caused all of this. “Winnik knows what to do.”
“Deon?” I ask them, watching the she-wolf glare at us.
“Like I said,” he repeats, “Winnik knows what to do.”
“I sure do,” she tells us before pushing the heel of her shoe through the neck of Deon.
It’s a slow kill. Inch by inch she pushes her foot down, enjoying the sounds of Deon choking on her own blood. With the thick grass still holding her down, all Deon can do is convulse, spewing the blood over her face with each gagging cough. When she stills, the night stills with her, like a final exhale from the universe, and just as with the others, the grasses pull her dead body down into the earth.
The grounds are green. Flowers are revived, blooming again in their neglected vases. Not a single grave is disturbed. If I wasn’t here for it, and if the murder behind me wasn’t still fresh in the air, I would never believe what took place. As many sirens head our way, Jedrek and GiGi both rush to grab me.
“That’s our que,” GiGi tells me, pushing Jedrek’s hands from my arm.
He doesn’t argue with her. Not many do when her face is set to stone and her eyes hinting a dare if one would.
I follow GiGi to our parked cars, numb and almost in shock.
“How do we just walk away from this?” I ask her.
“One foot in front of the other,” she tells me, rubbing my chilled arm. “There’s nothing more we can do here. The coven has been cleaning up our little fights since the beginning of time. Cass will tell the police something tragic has happened to explain Ben, and the witches will cast their spells to play their little mind games. Even Miranda and Chad will never really remember everything which took place. The hospital will blame it on shock, and no one will question it.”
I stare at her in disbelief. Leaning on my car, I can’t help but ask, “Has it always been this way?”
“Goodness, no!” GiGi laughs. “Normally there are more bodies to bury. Like he said, darling girl, welcome to the shit show. I tried so hard to keep you from all of this, Harper.”
“I just want to go home,” I tell her, defeated and lost in a current of questions I don’t want answers to.
“I wish you could, but you have a basement of dead dogs to deal with.”
“When did they turn back to wolves?” I ask, refusing to use her term.
GiGi sighs, feeling the weight of the day as much as I am. “Right before the phone rang. It’s why I grabbed the gun.”
“But why?”
“The gun or the change?” GiGi asks, starting the engine of her car over my question.
“Both.”
“The gun because you’re stupid to only trust magic to save your ass and the change because I’m willing to bet their Alphas had a little family feud and called in their bonds for backup.”
“So, it’s not over?”
“So, it’s not over,” GiGi agrees, shutting her car door and backing her car out of the gravel side lot.
The part of me covered in frustration wants to scream into the night. The part of me covered in exhaustion wants to sit here in my parked car and cry while the ghost judges me from the back seat. But the part of me which makes me Harper Buckland takes a deep breath, puts the car into reverse, and heads to Great Hexpectations to whatever is waiting for me there.
I can do nothing for the Tortes. I can do nothing for Ben and Becky. Maybe, just maybe, there is something left I can do for Roman and his family waiting to be put to rest. I’m lying to myself. I know this, but isn’t that what we have all been doing for days now?
GiGi, with her idea of forty-five really meaning eighty on our town streets, has beaten me to the shop. There are only a few lights on, casting an almost empty feeling to the building. I don’t have to be a witch to know something is wrong. My magic doesn’t need to whisper to me what my body already knows – GiGi wasn’t the first to arrive.
“Any advice?” I ask my ghostly partner.
Myrtle purses her lips, staring into the shop as I am. “Wouldn’t,” she says before fading to wherever she randomly goes.
“Thanks,” I mutter to the empty back seat.
I’m not as worried about GiGi as I was the Tortes. The old woman has more tricks than treats and should someone bring the fight to the shop, her home-base filled with more charms than have names, it’s them I worry about. Not just physically, but mentally, as well.
My body screams with each step I climb to the shop’s little porch. I’m covered in dirt and things I don’t want to think about. My patience is as thin as my mood and my tolerance for the wolf’s family battles is nonexistent.
I had left the cemetery amid the abundant red lights with hopes to still being able to salvage some part of today. With the chime of the bell above my head signaling another round ahead, I will be satisfied just to live to see it end. Let someone else be the hero. I’ve failed enough at it for one day.
Roman stands with his back to me when the comforting scents of the sage candles and the familiar shop smells wrap their arms around me. He’s pretending to read the many titles of books stacked deep on the wooden case painted black, like all the wooden accents of the shop. From his posture, and years of working retail, I know he’s just trying to find something to do until he’s ready to talk. If there was a pop-up porn in there hidden among the many titles, he still wouldn’t see it because he’s not seeing any of them. He only sees his problems and I have a feeling I’m about to hear about all of them, if I want to or not.
“Hello, Roman,” I call out with false surprise. “How shocking to see you here uninvited. Twice.”
GiGi keeps her face neutral behind the counter. She’s flipping the pages of the black ledger she uses to keep the sums and totals of the day’s sales as if it’s just another closing. Minus the blood dried to my clothes, the dead werewolves below us, and, oh yes, the dead Alpha I helped kill added to today’s list of accomplishments, I suppose it is just another day, indeed.
“I’ve come to collect what’s mine now that we both know Deon is handled.”
Roman is only slightly rude with his hidden accusation. I lift one eyebrow before pulling my hair into a mess of a ponytail with the ever-abundant ties I keep hostage. Not sure if I’m preparing for another fight or just tired of its weight, but either way it seems like a good idea while I say nothing to confirm or deny his claim.
“Don’t play coy, Harper,” he insists with a little less hostility. “If you’re here, she isn’t. There was no other option for her. She left the mansion either already dead or already the victor.”
“What did she want the magic for?” I ask, letting my choice of tense confirm what he’s already said.
“Mortella, the vampire queen, is pushing against our territory. Deon was convinced the magic could be used to keep her and her clan away. If they thought we had the power to control the dead, they may not rise against us.”
“There’s a vampire queen named Mortella? A little cliché.” I scoff, suppressing the many other comments spinning around in my mind.
“It’s the name she took.” Roman shrugs, either too polite to join in my mockery or too scared to be caught in the mockery. “Vampires have strange customs.”
“The magic doesn’t control the dead, though,” I explain, wondering why I am
even bothering. “It reanimates the husks, getting all cozy in something left to rot to manipulate the living into doing very bad things. Vampires are already, basically in some way I don’t even want to debate tonight, alive. There is nothing the magic can do to them.”
Roman softly laughs. “I never said she was the smartest of the family. She was convinced and I knew I couldn’t stop her.”
“She killed the little boy,” GiGi throws into the conversation as if it’s just an offhanded trivia fact. “You could have stopped that.”
Roman closes his eyes, lowering his head with the news. “I heard. A few of them made it back to the mansion. I also heard what happened to those who didn’t.”
Our posture must have changed from false relaxed to alert. Roman lifts his hands, signaling for a miscommunication or surrender. Maybe both.
“They were given the chance to stay or go. They knew the risks. We voted no harm would come to either party for revenge or punishment,” he tells us, easing down the tension in the room. “It’s still never easy to lose family.”
“You should put that on a card. I’m sure the Tortes would love to read about the vote and the acceptance of the deaths tonight,” Jedrek says from the dark shadows from the back of the shop.
I watch as he pulls away from them, as if they were a part of him, forming his body in the space he now stands. He’s fully healed and the trickster I met in the bar with his bright blue eyes and dark hair gleaming under the low lights. Dressed in the same dark shades as the shadows he stepped from, he flops down in the chair he’s called his own a few times now with a taunting smile and wink when I feel my own lips smirking in greeting.
“You don’t belong here, demon,” Roman says, not even turning to acknowledge the new person in the room.
“Why do so many use that term like I should be insulted? I don’t greet you with terms like fleabag, stray puppy, or inbred pedigree.” Jedrek shrugs with false confusion, emoting more than necessary to achieve his goal of button pushing.
“Spare me the testosterone,” GiGi bemoans. “Tell us what they want and let’s just settle this.”
“What who wants?” I ask blindly, leaping right back into a fire which was always smoldering right under my feet, waiting to fully be brought to life.
Jedrek sighs, a genuine sigh, before skipping my question to answer GiGi’s. “What they all want – her.”
The silence in the room is heavy with each of us swimming in our own murky pond of thoughts. Naturally, it’s me who speaks first, ruining the understood, yet fragile, peace of the room.
“What the fuck does that mean?” I bluntly ask, no sugar coating or sprinkles.
“It means, my littlest witch,” Jedrek begins with a face etched in mirth over my outburst, “you are going to have to make a choice.”
“And I have a feeling I’m not going to like any of your choices.” Crossing my arms, I wait with unease to hear how this little side trip will go.
Roman clears his throat, announcing his entrance into the verbal foray. “They aren’t his choices. They are yours and yours alone.”
“Oh good, so everyone knows about these choices, but me. Again.” I turn to GiGi who has enough sense to look away, suddenly finding something under the glass display case remarkably interesting. “What are these super fun choices?” I ask whoever is brave enough to answer.
Jedrek takes the bait, which doesn’t shock me.
“You have to pick a house to align with or you declare yourself your own house and deal with all that,” he says with a matter-of-fact tone. “You’re a potentially walking time bomb of power, untrained power and, might I add, mood swings.”
“If you aligned with a house, you’d have that house’s protection,” Roman offers softly.
“And that house’s enslavement. You would look cute in a dog collar. Rhinestones and black leather, maybe?” Jedrek asks from where he is still lounging in his large chair.
It takes a great deal for Roman to swallow down the comment lodged in his throat, but he says nothing, not letting Jedrek provoke him.
“Every house will come with rules,” GiGi offers, still staring at some unseen thing. “Just depends on what you can live with.”
“Or we make our own?” I ask her, watching her slowly look in my direction. “He said one option is to declare my own. If I have the power to control the demons, angels, and the vampires, why should I align with them? The wolves we have beaten twice. The coven seems happy to just be background players. They just want to be left alone. How many other houses can there be?”
GiGi scoffs, half laughing and half choking. “A few more, but mostly low key.”
Jedrek is watching our debate with a frozen smile. I’ve come to learn it’s his nervous look. He becomes still, unmoving and waiting. It would be almost unnerving if I hadn’t already seen his many other sides.
Roman stands unmoved by my facts or uncaring. I have a feeling, he too, just wants to live in peace. It was his sister who constantly found reasons to anger too many. With her, and those who thought like her, gone, I don’t predict a lot of trouble from his pack in the future.
“Most won’t accept your choice. They will come after you,” Jedrek warns.
“Because if they beat me, they own me?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Pretty much,” he agrees.
“Good thing I have you and Roman then.” I smile, watching the two men for the first time glance towards the other. “I’ll just have to let the two of you council me and my little mood swings while the coven trains me.” I shrug playing up the false pout and very helpless female.
“You’re not aligning, but you’re declaring?” Jedrek laughs, putting together the plot and all its holes. “You won’t concede, you little minx, but you’ll listen, giving them what they think they want but really giving them the middle finger. How incredibly feisty.”
“Seems like a reasonable truce,” Roman says with a smile. “And it strengthens our territory from the other houses.”
I don’t mean for my face to dismiss Roman’s offer for a truce. It just does. I blame it on the lack of caffeine and the many hours already spent dealing with his little family.
“How do we declare for our own?” I ask GiGi, the only one here I completely trust.
“Tell them all to fuck off,” GiGi answers with her normal flare. “But he’s right. There will be push back and I’m not positive you will be able to trust everyone to back you when that arrives.”
I’m sure GiGi also didn’t mean for her face to dismiss Roman from the line of support. I blame it on her Italian and the lack of care to coddle people.
I open the basement door with my will, letting it swing wide and open for Roman. It’s a neat trick, simple as it is to perform. Sometimes, the simplest trick has the most profound effect.
“Hey guys,” I say, “how about you all fuck off?”
Pulling a phone from his back pocket, Roman calls in the muscle he kept waiting in the unmarked box trucks nearby to help retrieve their family members’ bodies. I knew they were there, as I’m sure GiGi did too since the revolver with its silver bullets sits hidden under the edge of the black notebook.
Jedrek stands with a stretch, playing off his dismissal as something of his own idea. “I’ll be seeing you, littlest witch,” he tells me with a soft smile. “If you need to burn off any rage again…” he lets the taunt hang in the air, ducking the book I throw at him with a laugh.
A part of me feels sad as the same shadows he appeared from take him from view. It’s a new feeling to me. Something I don’t really like or want to dwell on what it could mean. Turning to GiGi, and seeing the glint in her eyes, I know she missed nothing. She pushes me playfully with a smile that annoys me.
“Demon and a witch? Not the most original storyline, but there’s worse out there, I’m sure,” she tells me with a jest.
I roll my eyes, knowing until I make another epic blundering, this moment
will be the running joke of all of our future conversations. Fortunately, epic blunders are my thing.
The men are loading the tall, metal shelving units with shrouded bodies of their family. As they zip the last covering around the racks, hiding what’s inside, each nod in my direction before lifting the whole thing in pairs to be brought out the front doors. A sound of appreciation for their brute strength, and their cleverness, escapes from my mouth. Sadly, it just shows the many times such a thing has happened for them to be so prepared.
“Can’t have the whole town gossiping, now can we?” Roman asks, watching the last of the units being carried away. He knows fully well the town already does and the Ripples have used that to their advantage, keeping their real secrets hidden away.
‘Look,” he tries again with his lack luster of a joke falling flatly around him, “I would really like to have you over sometime. No pretense or threats. Just you and me, talking, figuring things out.”
“Things?” I ask before GiGi can.
“Our future,” he shrugs, finally looking less collected than he has ever before, stumbling verbally before me. “Well not ‘ours’ but, well…” he stops, giving up on any attempts to save himself.
“Our future for the truce,” I add, throwing him a life vest, and here I thought I didn’t have any hero left in me.
“Yeah,” he agrees pointing towards the open door where his family is waiting. “Guess I’ll head out and let you two ladies call it a night.”
“Good night,” we both call after him, one with snark and one with relief.
“Can we go home?” I ask, leaning my head on GiGi’s shoulder. “I’m really over peopling today.”
“You don’t want to disinfect the basement first?” she asks, and I can’t tell if she’s teasing or serious.
Sighing, I risk it. “Isn’t there a spell or charm or something for that?”
“Yeah, and a mouse with a blue wizard’s hat.”
“A girl could hope.”
“No. A girl can grab a mop.”
We spent hours down there, her and I, cleaning and laughing, completely forgetting everything which transpired in the hours before. It was our little world again, small and tight with just our horrible jokes and secrets being shared between the two of us. As it was and as it may never be again. She had tried so hard to keep this pace, this small-town life, of just us two oddballs and our little shop, of failed blind dates and guilt trips for grandkids. She had tried so hard with little lies here and there spread thin, and sometimes thick, to keep my curiosity at bay.
The Little Lies (The Great Hexpectations Series Book 1) Page 23