Read Carol Shenold - Tali Cates 02 - Bloody Murder Online
Authors: Carol Shenold
Tags: #Mystery: Paranormal - Ghost - Texas
Carol Shenold - Tali Cates 02 - Bloody Murder (24 page)
I blinked my eyes. “You’re crazy! You’re talking about the deaths of two human beings—one who didn’t have the chance to grow up—and kidnapping. All this over a contest?”
Lyn made a gesture in the air and I flew across the room to slam into the wall. Air rushed out of my lungs. One of my shoes flew into the air. Sound receded; instead of voices, I heard a great roaring, as if a freight train approached. My vision blurred. I lay still, gasping to pull air into my lungs. I was afraid to try to move. The train I’d heard must have run over me. Shit, I was a dead woman if she came after me. Why was I still alive?
As if in answer to my own question, the silver on my necklace grew warm next to my skin. When I’d pictured my own death, it was a little more dignified than lying on the floor, gasping like a fish out of water. I would not die this way and definitely not at the hand of Lyn Peacock. I stood up, piece by piece.
Lyn’s expression grew arrogant. “Humans. Who cares if a couple more humans die? There are billions of you and few of us. The life force of a human keeps me young, doesn’t do much for them when I pull it out though. If I have to kill a couple of humans for my kid to get what she wants—even if it’s only a paste crown—so be it.”
I smelled an acrid scent, maybe from the candle in the middle of the circle, maybe from the magic Lyn had just done. I blew the scent out, making a face.
Lyn laughed. At least, I thought that’s what the sound was. It sounded more like a growl. Her smile failed to reach her eyes. “That’s power you smell, Tali Cates. My power. This is why you can’t treat me like some little lapdog that does your dirty work.”
I searched for Aiden. He’d worked his way around to her left side. She had turned completely toward me as if she’d forgotten him.
“You stay right where you are, Tali. Don’t bother looking around for an escape, there is none. Stand still while I work or I’ll hit you so hard you won’t get up again.”
I believed her.
Lyn began to chant again, her head thrown back, hair swirling around her head. A terrible light pounded upward out of the circle. Her voice rang out with harsh, double sounds that shouldn’t come out of a throat. Dark coils of energy, power, flowed up from the middle of the circle through her, out the amulet she held in her hand. It flew into an opening in the back wall and straight toward the girls waiting in the wings.
“Oh, no you don’t. You leave those girls alone.” I leapt sideways to throw myself between the dark and the kids backstage.
Screaming, Lyn resumed her chanting.
Aiden flew, shoving me out of the way as the dark grazed me, sapping all ability to move, and I hit the deck, again. He blocked the dark, which hit the ruby ring on his hand, turning it back on the witch.
As the dark hit Lyn, she glimmered, sparkled, then went up in flames. Aiden scuffed at the circle and broke it. The candle flickered out as the symbols faded away.
My vision returned slowly, the room fading in and out, Aiden fading in and out, his arms keeping me safe.
“What kind of human are you that the demon energy didn’t kill you?” Aiden murmured in my ear.
“A human who feels as if all the demons in hell just trampled her. Did I really see all that?”
His eyes grew darker. “Depends. Do you want to have seen all that?”
“I did see all that. I may never forget or feel safe again.”
He held me tighter. “I can help you with that, help you forget.”
“What, like the thing in
Men in Black
that erases your memory? I don’t think so. Are you some kind of spy, secret service vampire?”
“Something like that.”
“Lord Almighty.”
“No, he’s not involved this time.”
I stared at him.
His lips brushed my neck, sending energy down every nerve pathway in my body, making my knees go weak again. I surrendered to the feeling until Aiden jumped, yelped, and dropped me.
“Ouch. Why’d you do that?” He shook his hand as if he’d been burned and helped me up. “What is that around your neck? It has power. That must be why you’re still alive.”
I clutched the silver around my neck but didn’t say anything. I heard the announcer begin the Court introductions. “Help me find my shoes. I have to get out there.” I straightened my dress and hunted for my missing shoe. Aiden slipped it onto my foot like I was Cinderella.
* * * *
The introductions went off without a hitch. Laurel was able to have her moment in the sun with the girls. She was lovely in a red fringed twenties dress that twinkled at the slightest move. The girls held their heads high, crowns and smiles in place.
Music began again, muted and slowed. A waltz flowed across the floor, as did Aiden and I. Nothing like a near-death experience to bring a couple closer. I could get used to this. He spun me in time to the music and it felt as if we floated above the floor. Maybe we did but I didn’t care. I resigned myself to being in his arms, and more, for a long time. I sighed, contented in spite of the chaos surrounding us.
Aiden stopped when I sighed. “Let’s go outside for a minute, get some air.”
I stood still but didn’t make a move toward the door. “Wait. I was enjoying the dancing. Do I have to get some air?”
“Just for a minute.” He led me out. “I promise we’ll dance more later.”
We walked out. The deserted parking lot sat quiet, waiting for the crowd to flood out, looking for their cars.
I’d managed to retrieve my shawl from Mumsie and wrapped it tighter. Cool air flowed around us, spoiled my relaxed mood. “Okay. Why are we out here?”
Aiden turned me around to look at him. “Tali. We need to talk.”
Okay. Those are never the words you want to hear from the man you just decided had the potential to become important in your life. “Why? Talk is overrated, you know.” I reached up to kiss him, willing him to return the kiss, the feelings, desire.
He kissed me back, until my weak knees caused him to take hold of me and hold me to him. My breath came in gasps as I came up for air.
“We have to talk about my leaving.”
Any light that had been in the evening left with those words. “Leaving. I just got used to you being here. Why would you leave? I don’t get it.”
“Because I have a job, hard to believe, and my job here is done.”
“Lyn was your job?”
“Among other things.”
“What other things?”
“Can’t share. But I want you to know I’ll be back. I don’t know when, but I will come back.”
I pulled back, disengaging myself from his comforting arms. “Don’t bother. I just began to really care, and now you’re going to leave. Why did you go to all the trouble of making me love you, trust you, if you knew you were going?”
My voice sounded dead to my own ears, flat and dull. I folded my arms, gripping myself so hard that my fingernails dug into my arms. It was the single way I knew to hold myself together long enough to get away. I turned and walked away, like I had with all the men in my life. It was my turn to leave… again.
* * * *
By the next morning, the house next door was cold and empty as if no one had ever lived there. I could never explain to anyone where Aiden had gone, but most people forgot he’d ever been there at all.
I told Mumsie about what had happened in the back room at the dance but it wasn’t anything I could share with anyone else, not even JT. Both Lyn’s girls also disappeared, so maybe when she sparked and disappeared, Lyn had simply appeared somewhere else. A frightening thought, one that gave me nightmares if I thought about it much, as did werewolves.
Vampires I refused to think about.
JT never accepted the fact that Lyn disappeared into thin air and sent out every inquiry he could. He also tried to find Chase and his friends, which shouldn’t have been difficult in a town as small as Shamrock. However, they were never able to find a trace of them. Shamrock protected its own. I failed to find comfort in the idea they might still be running the wilds around here.
We did find out Lyn had a reputation for eccentricity in her hometown in Oklahoma. In fact, on her Facebook site, she had bragged she could kill someone without touching them. Her site hadn’t been updated for a month now. An evil witch on MySpace, the modern equivalent of the gingerbread house.
With the upcoming holidays, I had more event bookings than I could possibly need to keep us all busy. Sean and Rusty had what they called the most boring Halloween ever, since nothing happened and they’d ended the night at my house watching old horror movies, the corny black-and-white ones.
I would survive. I found myself attached to Love, Texas, in spite of the appearance of things that exist in bad movies and television. I’d managed to start my own business, support the kids, and find more to do than I could keep up with. What else could I ask for? Except maybe the one man who made me feel as if I were flying when he touched me.
But I’d get over it or he’d come back.
Poor Sean and Rusty never found out that vampires, witches, and werewolves were indeed alive and well in Love County, Texas.
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