I straddled a chair and then picked up my knife and fork and tucked in. The only sound that broke the silence was the clink of knives against the china.
Belle finally pushed her plate away with a contented sigh and then said, “So, we are dealing with a vampire.”
“Unfortunately, yes.” I gathered the plates and rose. “You want coffee?”
She nodded. “Do you think you could use the necklace you found at Marjorie’s to track him?”
Once I’d dumped the plates onto the bench, I grabbed a couple of mugs and made us both an espresso. “That will depend on what sort of spell he’s placed on it.”
I had received some training in spell unraveling, but—as usual—I was nowhere near as proficient as either my parents or my brother.
“Juli is a smug wanker,” Belle commented. “And you have no idea how often I’ve thanked the spirits for making me your familiar rather than his.”
Juli was the nickname she’d given my brother, Julius, when we were both still kids, and it was one that seriously pissed him off. I grinned. “Oh, I don’t know—imagine the fun you could have had making his life utter hell.”
“As delicious as that prospect might be, it fails to make me in any way nostalgic for what might have been.” She leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs. “I didn’t get the impression that what you were feeling from the locket was magic, per se. More a cold inhumanity, which in itself suggests we’re dealing with an old vampire rather than one who is freshly turned.”
I picked up the two coffees and walked back over. “Just because I couldn’t feel a spell doesn’t mean it’s not there. Especially if he’s a strong blood witch.”
She accepted her mug with a nod of thanks and took a sip. “And do you think he is?”
“I don’t know.” I sat down on the sofa and propped my feet on the chair. “Don’t suppose the spirits have said anything?”
“About vampires? No. They’re just blathering on about darkness headed this way.” She paused, her gaze narrowing briefly. “They deny blathering. They merely wish to emphasize the fact we need to be fully prepared for whatever this way comes.”
“Which is entirely unhelpful given they aren’t inclined to tell us what comes.” I drank some coffee. “I might contact Marjorie’s ex tomorrow and see if he’s willing to talk about Karen.”
“Surely the rangers would have already done that?”
“Yes, but it’s not as if they’ll tell us what he might have said.”
“It’s also possible he’s as clueless as Marjorie,” she said. “Teenagers are notoriously recalcitrant when it comes to telling parents anything about their social lives.”
“I still think I need to try, if only to cross him off the list.”
I studied the darkness beyond the windows, feeling the cold caress of the moon’s light even though I couldn’t see it. Each moon phase had different benefits when it came to using magic, but when the moon hit its peak, so too did its power. It was this power that had werewolves changing—not because they had to, but because they were more in tune to its heat and energy in wolf form. That pulse of life and strength also meant it was the perfect time to perform the more difficult spells.
“The full moon is three nights away,” I added, “so I might leave unpicking whatever spell that pendant holds until then.”
Belle nodded. “In which case, you’d better grab plenty of sleep. You know the toll that sort of magic takes on you.”
“And you,” I said. “It’s not like I do any of these things alone.”
“Ah, but that’s what we engine rooms are for.”
I smiled, even though it was true enough. The main task of any familiar might be to monitor and protect, but they were also a lifeline of strength—a last resort the witch could draw on. While it was a rare occurrence, there had been familiars so completely drained by their witch that death had claimed them. Which, in the case of spirit familiars, meant becoming a shade and never being able to either operate in—or communicate with—anyone in the spirit or the living realms again for all eternity.
“Which is not something I’ll have to face,” Belle commented, as she reached back for the remote and flicked on the TV.
“Unless, of course, you’re destined to become a spirit guide or familiar on your death,” I mused. “It’s not like history has been littered with witch-born familiars, so we could be treading new ground in more ways than one.”
“Bite your tongue, woman.” Her expression was fierce, but the amusement dancing in her silvery eyes somewhat spoiled the effect. “Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade our friendship for anything, but how likely is it that I’d be so lucky a second damn time?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “The next generation of bluebloods could almost be decent by then—”
“I think I’d cut my metaphorical wrists first.” She tossed me the remote then pushed upright. “I’m off for a shower.”
I nodded and picked up my phone to check in with Marjorie—though I avoided any mention of the vampire. After Aiden’s emphatic warning, I really had no other choice. For the next couple of hours, I did nothing more strenuous than watch mindless renovation programs. Once nine o’clock had rolled around, I handed the remote back to Belle and headed for bed.
Sleep found me quickly enough, but so too did the dreams.
At first there was little more than a mire of shadows through which shapes moved. I had no idea whether they were human or animal, and for a while the dream seemed content to let it remain that way. Eventually those insubstantial shapes gave way to a barely lit industrial space—a space that very much echoed the one in which I’d found my sister. A single dark shape moved through it, but even with the shadows all but concealing who or what it was, it seemed broken and ungainly.
As the witching hour was struck, the dream deepened, and the shadows gave way to utter darkness.
In that darkness, I heard a beat.
A heartbeat, but one that surely couldn’t support life, given the long pause between one thump and another. And yet it beat on, gaining strength if not speed.
The darkness shifted and revealed flesh. Flesh that held the blush of blue-white lifelessness. Flesh that was female, and young rather than old.
The image panned out slightly, revealing lips that were as red as blood in a face that was deathly white.
I knew that face. It belonged to Karen.
Behind her, waiting and watching, was the shadow of a man. There was no detail in his form, nothing to give me any clue as to who he might be. Nothing other than the fact he wasn’t a werewolf—not with shoulders like that.
The heartbeat became a clock, one that was counting down. Seventeen fifty-nine, seventeen fifty-eight, seventeen fifty-seven….
The darkness moved yet again. This time it showed me an old shack made of stone and roughly split trees. It looked abandoned, but the broken windows had been covered with thick black plastic and there was smoke coming from the chimney. Rather weirdly, under the protective cover of the woodbox next to the front door, sat a dapper pair of black-and-white wingtip shoes. Shoes that fancy certainly had no place in the middle of the Australian bush.
The scene faded into darkness so absolute I couldn’t see anything else. But I was moving—walking—on ground that was wet, sticky, and warm against my bare feet. The farther I walked, the stronger and deeper that flow of moisture became, until I was battling a gelatinous river that came with a very strong metallic smell.
Fear surged at that, but the dream was relentless, refusing me time to dwell on such emotions. The river continued to climb up my body and I started to lose my footing against the force of it. I was thrashing about, both in the dream and in reality, but the dream’s talons were deep within me and would not let go.
The river lifted me up and then swept me over an edge. I plunged down for what seemed like ages before finally hitting something solid. As I sprawled forward face-first, the river became a trickle and shadows began to lift t
he utter darkness again. I rolled onto my hands and knees and looked around.
All I saw was blood. Blood and bodies. Broken, mutilated bodies, for as far as the eye could see.
Horror filled me and I screamed. The dream shattered and I jerked upright in bed, the scream dying on my lips as I stared, wide-eyed, into the safe darkness of my bedroom.
For several minutes I couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink. I just sucked in air in an effort to calm my nerves and sweep away the lingering, shadowy wisps of blood and death.
That dream…. I shuddered. Thank God I’d placed spells around both Belle’s bedroom and mine—not so much to keep evil out, but to give her some mental space from the constant barrage of my thoughts. She might be my familiar, but she didn’t need to be on call twenty-four/seven. That would likely drive even the strongest person insane.
I could break through the protection spells if it was absolutely necessary, though. I wasn’t about to totally alienate myself from her help.
As my heart rate slowed to a more normal rhythm, I thrust the blankets aside and padded over to the wardrobe. I didn’t often drink, but there were definitely some times when coffee and chocolate just didn’t cut it.
This was one of those times.
I grabbed the bottle of Glenfiddich whiskey I’d tucked away when we’d bought this place months ago, and with shaky hands, poured myself a drink. I gulped it down and closed my eyes as the alcohol burned the few remaining vestiges of the dream away.
Prophetic dreams weren’t something that generally plagued me. In fact, the last time I’d had one had been when the sorcerer was stalking the blueblood witches of Canberra, and my sister subsequently had ended up as one of the dead. Hers had also been the very last life he’d taken.
That sorcerer hadn’t, to my knowledge, ever been caught.
So did the dream mean he was active again? I frowned and poured myself another shot. The initial part of the dream had certainly shown the same sort of warehouse in which he’d sacrificed all his victims, but he’d been neither ill-formed nor ungainly. He’d been a man in his prime, both physically and metaphysically.
By the same token, the figure couldn’t have been the vampire who’d attacked Karen, either. Even if he had been using a glamour to fudge what she was seeing, she would have felt the reality of his flesh if it were malformed in any way.
Did that mean the dream was trying to warn me that the vampire wasn’t all we would face in this place? Or was it simply a matter of the spirits’ dire warnings to Belle somehow finding form in my dreams?
I slid down the wall until my butt hit the carpet. If that was the intent behind the first section of the dream, then the latter was undoubtedly a warning about what would happen if the vampire wasn’t caught quickly enough. It was the bit in the middle—the bit about Karen—that I really didn’t understand. Karen was dead. I’d felt the life leave her flesh, so I had no idea what the dreams were trying to tell me. Which wasn’t really surprising as I hadn’t initially understood them the last time it had happened.
And because of that, my sister had died.
I rubbed a hand across my eyes, smearing tears that were a combination of guilt and sorrow. The sane, rational part of me knew that statement for the lie it was—knew that even if I had understood the message, Cat would still have died—but the heart and the mind weren’t always rational.
For some reason, that thought had my mind slipping to Aiden, and curiosity stirred. I downed the rest of the whiskey then reached for my laptop and booted it up. Marjorie had said that the witch ban had come into effect just over a year ago, so that at least gave me a starting point. But whatever had happened here wasn’t likely to be in the national newspapers. It wasn’t even likely to have made the regional papers—most reservations had strict guidelines as to what could and couldn’t be reported. Only something very serious—something that involved multiple deaths—would have made the newspapers. I hadn’t gotten the impression that that was what had happened here.
But if the Interspecies Investigations Team had been involved, there might be some information to be found via the freedom of information section on their website. By law, the IIT were required to place a summation of all investigations online. If Mr. Joe Public wanted a full report, then it could be requested. It was meant to reassure everyone that the IIT was above reproach in all its dealings, and while there had been some instances of corruption or favoritism, for the most part, they did a pretty good job under often difficult conditions.
Not that the werewolves of this reservation seemed to think that.
Once on the website, I did a search for any mention of the Faelan Reservation within the last year and a half. After a few seconds, three files appeared. I clicked the first one and a PDF sheet opened in a second window. It was a report on one James Barton, a baker at Argyle, whose body had been found three days after he’d been reported missing. His death had been classified as a misadventure—he’d fallen down an old mine shaft, had no phone reception, and had bled out.
I closed that one and opened the second. This one involved a murder in Maldoon, the one of five towns that defined the reservation’s borders. The perpetrator—a wolf who’d been on a three-day drinking binge—was currently serving a fifteen-year sentence for murder.
I opened the last one. This summation was brief and to the point but gave very little in the way of information. A witch had been involved in a suspected murder in Castle Rock, but had fled the area before he could be captured. The timing was right, but the file told me nothing else. It didn’t even give me names.
I swore softly and put in a request for the full file. And wondered as I did if the IIT would be obliged to notify the rangers or even the council that it had been requested. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have thought so, but the lack of names in the summary was troubling.
I checked my e-mails and then caught up on what was happening in the social media arena. When five thirty rolled around, I shut down the computer, grabbed a shower, and headed down to the kitchen to start the day’s work.
By the time Belle clattered down the stairs at seven, I not only had most of the prep work done, but also had breakfast ready and waiting.
“Whoa,” Belle said as she grabbed some cutlery for us both. “I’m gathering by the amount of food on these plates that you’ve had a rather nasty night?”
“I dreamed.”
She glanced at me quickly. “The everyday ‘I’ve got lots to worry about’ kind, or the other damn one?”
“What do you think?”
She swore. “You haven’t had a prophetic dream in more than twelve years, so why now?”
“I don’t know.” I quickly filled her in on what I’d seen and what I’d guessed it might all mean, and then added, “One thing is very clear—we need to track this vamp down, and fast.”
“And protect our butts as much as we can in the process,” she said, around a mouthful of food. “I think I saw a charm spell in one of Gran’s books designed to ward off the undead.”
Amusement touched my lips. “Seriously? There’s a charm for that?”
“Hey,” she said, waving her fork threateningly at me. “Charms have saved our butts more than once, if only because they’re such a profitable item.”
“Yes, but we’ve concentrated on the whole ‘bring good fortune or find love’ end of the spectrum, never anything stronger.” Not for the general public, anyway. I picked up some bacon and munched on it contemplatively. “Will such a charm actually work?”
“If it’s in Granny’s book, it’ll work.” She paused. “To a degree, anyway. I mean, Gran was killed by a spirit gone rogue after all, and she’d been wearing the appropriate warding charm at the time.”
“Awesome. That fills me with so much more confidence.”
She grinned. “I might also check if any of our books have anything on vampires and how they turn. The image of those red lips is snagging at my subconscious.”
“Mine too,” I sai
d, “but I felt the life leave her, so I’m really not sure what the dream is trying to imply.”
“Nothing good, I’m sure.”
That was a fact that couldn’t be disputed, given the river of blood that had almost drowned me. “I’ll contact Karen’s dad this morning. I might also head over to the tourist bureau and see if they’ve a map that shows the location of any miners camps in the area.”
“It could also be an idea to report in to our ranger—”
I snorted. Loudly. “Even if he didn’t loathe the fact I’m a witch, it’s highly unlikely he’ll take my dream seriously.”
Her sudden smile held a seriously wicked edge. “Hey, he told us off for not following procedure, so I think it’s only fair we toe the line completely, and report every little scrap of information we have to the man.”
“Because that’s not going to piss him off any further.” I mopped up the last bits of yolk, then rose and walked into the kitchen to dump the plate. “Have you arranged for Penny to cover my shifts for the rest of the week?”
Belle nodded. “She’s quite pleased with the extra work.”
“Oh, good.” I grabbed my phone from the counter where I’d left it last night and then headed upstairs to make the call to Karen’s father.
“Phillip Banks,” he said. “How may I help you?”
His voice was cool and polite, but for some odd reason, dislike stirred. “Mr. Banks, my name is Lizzie Grace, and I’m—”
“The witch who found Karen’s body,” he finished for me. “How can I help you, Ms. Grace?”
His tone remained unperturbed, even when he said his daughter’s name. While I was well aware he was on the other end of a phone and that I could be reading him totally wrong, that sense of dislike got stronger. “I was wondering if I might be able to meet with you to discuss your daughter.”
“I’ve already told the rangers all I know. I’m not sure there’s anything else I could add.”
“I’m not working with the rangers,” I said. “Marjorie hired me to try and track down Karen’s killer.”