Blood Kissed

  “Was he drunk?”

  “There was no alcohol or drugs in his system. We initially suspected he either fell asleep at the wheel or was trying to avoid something and lost control, but that was before we discovered bullet holes in his rear tires.” His gaze settled on mine. “Why?”

  I hesitated. “I was talking to Marjorie early this evening. I think I know what all this is about.”

  “And you’re intending to enlighten me, I hope.”

  “Yes, but not here.”

  He grunted and stepped past me. I grabbed his arm to stop him from getting any closer. “Wait.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the earth at the far end of the grave is stained with blood and who knows what else.” Just because I couldn’t feel any magic right now didn’t mean it wasn’t here. “At the very least, I need to cleanse the area before we go near that grave.”

  His skepticism was on full display, but all he did was motion me to proceed. I swung the backpack around and unzipped it. The precious bottles of holy water were still intact, despite the roughhousing they must have gotten. I pulled two free then handed the pack to Aiden and walked to the end of the grave. There was no sign of active magic, but the memory of it stained the earth as strongly as the blood. I uncorked one of the bottles and began the purification spell. As I spoke, I poured the water over the bloody soil, until it was completely covered. Then I uncorked the second and continued around the grave, just to ensure no taint remained. Mason would be laid to rest here again once we caught him, and the combination of holy water and the spell should ensure that he could at least rest in peace. Without these precautions, any spell remnants left in the soil might have kept at least some parts of his body awake, if not aware.

  I closed off the spell then glanced at Aiden. “It’s safe to approach now.”

  Aiden stepped up to the grave and studied it silently. “The casket looks as if it was smashed open from the inside.”

  I nodded. “Reanimated flesh is surprisingly strong.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve had experience with them before?”

  “No. It’s simply one of the things they teach us at school.”

  “Not at my school, they didn’t.” A smile flirted with his lips, but faded all too quickly. “How dangerous will Mason be? How long will the magic keep him alive?”

  “I can’t honestly answer the latter, because it usually depends on both the spell and the practitioner.” I hesitated. “But in this case, I can’t imagine he’d be active for more than a few days.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because he was raised for one simple purpose—to kill his father.”

  “Morris? Why?”

  “Let’s go back to the café and I’ll tell you.”

  “Okay.” He hesitated. “I know the Redferns quite well. Mason was their only child, and his death hit them hard. This is going to shatter them.”

  I walked around the grave and headed back to his truck. “Not as much as their decaying son smashing his way into their home and trying to kill them will.”

  He fell in step beside me. “Is there any danger of that happening tonight?”

  “As I said before, this spell should wipe our sorcerer out, but he’s also a vampire and I’ve never come across that combination before, not even in any of the reference books I’ve read.” I rubbed my arms against the chill continuing to steal across my body. “It may be that he’ll send Mason after his father as soon as possible, because while the blood magic raised him, it’s the strength and will of the practitioner that feeds him.”

  Aiden shrugged out of his jacket and offered it to me. “Here, put this on.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, unable to keep the surprise from my voice.

  “No, you’re damn well not,” he all but growled. “So take the damn jacket and stop being silly.”

  I did. And immediately felt better for it. “Thanks.”

  “I’m not always a bastard,” he said. “Despite appearances to date.”

  “So I’m learning.” And maybe, just maybe, he was beginning to look beyond his instinctive hatred of witches, and see the person rather than the power.

  He opened the truck’s door, ushered me in, then ran around to the driver side and started the engine. “What’s the best way to stop a zombie?”

  “Shoot the fuck out of them,” I said. “Head shots work best. Decapitation is another option, but that means getting a little too close to them.”

  “Not the answer I was expecting.” He smiled again. “Can we stop him from getting into the Redferns’ house? Morris doesn’t own a gun, but I doubt he’d be able to shoot his own son even if he did.”

  I hesitated. “Placing salt across all entrances is one of the few myths that holds true, but it won’t stop our vamp if he’s with Mason.”

  He turned left onto Cemetery Road then glanced at me. “So it’s not true that vampires can’t cross a threshold uninvited?”

  “It is, but he’s also a witch. He can simply raise a force to blast the salt away.”

  “Meaning I’d better go talk to Morris and Em tonight.”

  “And tell them what? Their son’s a zombie?” I studied him. “Why on earth would they even believe something like that?”

  “They won’t,” he said. “Hell, I’m not entirely sure I believe it yet, and I’ve seen the grave. But I can’t not tell them, either.”

  I guess he couldn’t, if only because the opened grave would be discovered in the morning by the cemetery staff.

  Silence fell as the streets sped past. He eventually pulled into the driveway of a small weatherboard house and then stopped. “You’d best stay here. I’ll go talk to them.”

  I nodded. He climbed out and walked up to the small porch. The light came on as he neared the front door, and a woman with brown hair and a bright smile ushered him inside.

  I locked the doors, then crossed my arms and hunkered down in the seat. In a matter of minutes, I was asleep.

  It was the sound of the truck’s engine that jerked me awake. I blinked rapidly and shoved upright, looking around for a moment before I realized we’d already left the Redferns’ house. I rubbed tired eyes and then glanced at Aiden.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Sort of.” His expression was grim. “I told them Mason’s grave had been desecrated, but not that he’d found new life as a zombie.”

  “Which leaves them unprepared if he turns up.”

  “They weren’t likely to believe that even if I had told them.” He shot me a grim glance. “Few rational people would. Zombies belong in books and movies, not real life.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t negate—”

  “What I did say,” he continued, cutting me off, “was that there’d been a number of robberies in the area, and the perpetrator’s description matched Mason’s. I asked them to call me if they saw someone who looked like him.”

  Which wouldn’t really help them, because by the time anyone got there, the damage would already be done.

  Aiden must have guessed what I was thinking, because he added, “I’ve also ordered Byron onto watch duty.”

  “He’s another ranger, I take it?”

  “Yes, and just in case our vamp does make an appearance, I’ve told him to grab a cross and sharpen some stakes.” He glanced at me again. “They do work, don’t they?”

  I smiled again. “The stakes do.” And at least a werewolf had the speed to make them a practical weapon. “The cross would need to be blessed before it is in any way effective.”

  “And another myth hits the skids.” He pulled into a parking spot outside the café. “Do you want me to come back tomorrow? You were pretty solidly asleep for a while there.”

  I hesitated, then shook my head. “You need to know what Marjorie told me so you can warn all those involved.”

  “All?”

  I climbed out of the truck and walked across to the front door. “Does the name Frieda Andersen mean anything to you?”

/>   He shook his head. “What has she got to do with it?”

  “Everything.” I ushered him inside then walked across to the coffee machine. “Drink?”

  “Strong black would be good.”

  “Instant okay? Or do you want the real stuff?”

  He smiled, and this time it reached his eyes. He really did have nice eyes when they weren’t cold and filled with hatred. “Instant is real as far as I’m concerned.”

  As I put the kettle on, he leaned on the counter, watching me for several seconds before adding, “Tell me about Frieda.”

  I did so as I made our drinks. He accepted his mug—a basic, no-nonsense white one—with a nod of thanks and then said, “Isn’t thirty years a long time to wait for revenge?”

  “For the average person, yes. But we’re not dealing with that.”

  “No, I guess not.” He drank some coffee and surprise briefly touched his expression. “Your instant is a whole lot classier than ours.”

  “That’s because we don’t buy supermarket shit. Would you like some cake?”

  He glanced at the cake fridge and said, “Are those brownies as good as they look?”

  “Better.” I grabbed a pair of tongs and got a couple out. “So you were never told about the Andersens?”

  He shook his head. “I would have been only one when it all went down, and my parents have never mentioned it.”

  Meaning he was only a year older than me. Nice. “Marjorie gave me a list of names, but she only knew the whereabouts of a couple.”

  “I gather you took notes?”

  I nodded and got my phone out. “I’ll send you the recorded file if you’ll give me your number.”

  He did so. His phone beeped as it received the file. “Thanks,” he said, after glancing at it briefly. “Did Marjorie tell you much about the Andersens?”

  “Not a whole lot, but from what she did say, I suspect they might have been a pod.” He raised an eyebrow, so I quickly explained what that was and then added, “It might be worth chasing down Frieda’s birth certificate. If our vampire is her father, that should give us his name.”

  He nodded. “There’s one thing that puzzles me in all this—if our vamp was a witch in life, why would he have even bothered to turn?”

  “Many believe that the process of turning cures the flesh of all its previous ills. Whether that’s true or not, I couldn’t say.” I shrugged. “Would there be some kind of record of the Andersens in the reservation’s archives?”

  The Faelan Reservation had, like most of them, diluted the restrictions and requirements for non-werewolves to settle within the reservation just over fifteen years ago—something Belle and I had discovered when we’d been researching the area before we’d decided to come here. But the stricter rules had certainly been in place at the time the Andersens had been here, and that meant they would have been fully vetted by the council beforehand.

  “I’m not sure how long the records are kept, but I’ll get someone to check.” He raised the half-eaten brownie. “This is extraordinary, by the way.”

  “All thanks to kitchen magic,” I said. “Which is not, in any way, connected to real magic—just in case you’re thinking I’m trying to spell you or something.”

  “I wasn’t. I’m too busy simply enjoying.”

  So was I. For the first time since I’d met him, he actually appeared relaxed in my presence. His aura still ran with grief, but the flashes of distrust and hatred had muted. They certainly weren’t gone, and would no doubt flare back to life with one wrong statement or move, but it was at least a step in the right direction.

  What that direction might be—and whether I actually wanted it—I couldn’t say. Not only was there my vow of no more entanglements to consider, there was also the fact he was still very much a stranger. He could be married with a dozen kids for all I knew.

  I finished my brownie and licked the chocolate from my fingers, well aware that he was watching me even though I wasn’t looking at him.

  “When I was talking to the Redferns,” he said, his tone slightly deeper and edged with a tension that had my pulse rate rising. “I asked if I could borrow something of his.”

  He reached into his pocket and then placed a watch on the counter between us. The face was shattered and part of the band was missing. “Would it be possible to track Mason’s current location through it?”

  “Possibly.” I reached out, but didn’t touch the watch. I didn’t need to. The waves of wrongness rolling off it were evident enough from a couple of inches away, and it made me want to knock it far away. “What reason did you give his parents for needing it?”

  “Mason’s death is still an open case because of the shot-out tires, so I simply told them we were following a new lead and that we needed the watch he’d been wearing at the time of the accident. They gave it to me without question.”

  “Do you think it’s possible our vampire killed Mason?”

  “Don’t you? Both our vampire’s note and his actions make it clear he’s intent on making his victims suffer before he kills them. It’s not much of a leap to presume he was behind Mason’s so-called accident. Especially given tonight’s events.”

  “True.”

  I studied the watch for a moment, my arms crossed on the bench and fingers clenched. I really didn’t want to touch the thing. Fear and desperation might have filled Karen’s last remaining moments on this earth, but her passing hadn’t stained the locket with evil or wrongness. The vibes coming off the watch felt like what I imagined hell would feel like, only without the heat.

  Presuming the myths of hell being hot were, in fact, true, that is. The darker spirits could probably have told us, but no witch I knew would ever risk summoning or conversing with them—especially for a question as inane as that.

  “Can you use the watch?” Aiden asked.

  My gaze rose to his. “Yes, but it won’t be pleasant. The desecration we witnessed at the gravesite vibrates through his remains and, subsequently, this watch.”

  “If you’d prefer not to touch it, then don’t. We’ll find him the old-fashioned way.”

  “The old-fashioned way might just take too much time. I’ll try tomorrow.” I stopped and then swore. “I’m such an idiot.”

  Amusement touched his lips again. “You’re many things, but I wouldn’t have said an idiot is one of them.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  His smile grew. Brownie goodness really was the way to this man’s heart—or, at least, into his good books.

  How long it would last was another matter entirely.

  “What did you remember to cause that outburst?”

  “That I can track vampire Karen the same way I tracked human Karen—via her necklace.”

  He frowned. “Didn’t you say you were going to do that tomorrow night, when the moon was full?”

  “Different necklace. That one has our vampire’s stain on it. I can’t risk using it without being in a full protection circle.”

  “Ah.” His expression suggested he really didn’t understand why, but was going along with it anyway.

  “That stain could be a spell of some kind,” I said. “Given he’s a blood witch, and much more powerful than me, I can’t risk an attempt to explore it without being fully protected.”

  “Or you might end up in another situation like last night?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not something we need.”

  “Agreed.” I glanced at the clock on the wall and saw it was nearly ten. “Do you think it’s too late to give Marjorie a call?”

  “That depends on whether or not she knows Karen has become a vampire. We’ve not mentioned it.”

  “I told her when I was talking to her earlier.” I hesitated. “She deserved to know.”

  “I agree, but the council overrode me. They didn’t want to risk untoward rumors.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You’ve got two vampires and now a zombie running around Castle Rock. That’s fact rather than a rumo
r.”

  “Yes, but the last thing we need is a population in panic. We’ve enforced a news lockdown—nothing will be reported in either the papers or on television—”

  “It doesn’t need to be. The gossip vine in this place knew all about that explosion and the fact I was caught in it within minutes.”

  “Yes, but they don’t know why it happened.” He grimaced. “We’re keeping an eye on the vine’s main players, and hosing down spot fires before they become anything stronger. As I said, we don’t need people panicking. It’ll just make the task of finding this bastard that much harder.”

  And we certainly didn’t need that. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Marjorie.

  “Banks residence,” she said. “How may I help you?”

  “Marjorie?” I held the phone away from my ear so Aiden could hear the conversation. “It’s Lizzie—”

  “Have you found Karen?” she cut in. “Is that why you’re ringing?”

  “No,” I said. “But if I can borrow that necklace again—the one you gave me when I first tracked her down—I might be able to do so.”

  “Oh.” She sounded deflated—depressed. Still hoping for a miracle despite everything I’d said to her. “But yes, of course you can borrow it, if it’ll help bring her back to me any quicker.”

  “Bring her back?” Aiden murmured. “Did you not tell her what a newly turned vampire is like?”

  I placed a hand over the phone and said, “I tried. She couldn’t see past the fact Karen was alive.”

  “Christ, what a mess.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I lifted my hand as Marjorie added, “Are you coming over tonight to get it?”

  I glanced at Aiden. “Up to you,” he murmured. “You’re the witch, not me.”

  There was no rancor in that statement for a change. “I’ll drop by in the morning to grab it, if that’s okay with you. It’s been a long day and I’m not sure—”

  “Someone’s at the door,” she cut in. “Hang on a sec.”

  There was a clunk as she put the phone down, then footsteps as she walked to the front door. A chain rattled as Marjorie said, “Who’s there?”