There was a man on top of her; his hands were warm and soft and his body lay heavy upon hers, his hands on her chest, and she was naked underneath him; she struggled against his weight but there was nothing she could do, she was immobile and helpless and then he began to push himself into her, and now he was inside and moving so slowly and she wanted to scream but she could not, because he was kissing her so sweetly and her body was responding to his touch and she could not stop herself. She was wet and he was hard and it felt good. It felt so good to be underneath a man, to be taken and loved, although this was not love.
Suddenly, her eyes flew open and she could see him.
The beautiful, elfin face, coal-black hair and blue-green eyes. And he was stronger now. . . . His hands were around her throat, and he was choking her, digging deep into her neck, causing her to gasp as he pushed relentlessly to a climax. . . . This was really happening. . . . Killian was trying to kill her. . . . She could feel her spirit begin to waver and flicker in the glom. . . . She would die—no!—she would not . . . she would not let this happen. . . . With all of her strength Ingrid folded her knee and pushed it against his chest; it was enough to unbalance her intruder, and he released his hold on her neck.
Ingrid opened her mouth to scream . . .
And woke up.
This time she was truly awake.
It was just a dream, after all. Ingrid sat up in her bed, gasping and shaking; she was fully clothed and alone, but the back of her shirt was covered in sweat. Still, it was only a dream. A nightmare. She had dreamed that Killian Gardiner had raped her and tried to kill her, and it had felt so real, she felt sick—aroused and confused and violated at the same time. She had thought she was going to die.
What just happened?
A vision? A sending?
Then she understood.
It all made sense now. Freya’s strange, jittery anxiety at her engagement party, the burned flowers, the tousled hair, her long silences and absences with no explanation, her red cheeks and flushed countenance. She thought of the way her sister had acted the entire summer—daydreaming, distracted, confused, and then snappy and curt. That was not like Freya. Something had happened, more specifically someone had happened to her. Just like before. Of course, it all made sense now.
Ingrid got out of bed and put on her robe. She looked at the clock. It was only half past midnight. Freya was still out for the evening, but Ingrid thought she knew just where to find her. The sisters had seen each other briefly when Freya had returned from the hospital. Ingrid was worried about the boy, too, and hoped his flu would not get any worse. She could not imagine otherwise. Even though Freya was not allowed to work at the North Inn anymore, she could not keep away and was now one of their best customers. Ingrid was not a regular patron of the North Inn, but she had nothing against bars and understood the pleasures they provided: convivial company, the comfort of a well-made drink, and the aural excitement of a good jukebox. Once in a while she and the library crew headed there on Friday nights, but since Tabitha had gotten pregnant and Hudson was trying the latest detox diet, they hadn’t visited the watering hole in a while. She walked into the crowded hall and nodded to a few familiar faces.
“Can I get you anything, love?” Kristy asked. The gangly bartender threw a rag over her shoulder and waited for Ingrid to order.
“Nothing tonight, thanks. I was just looking for my—”
There was a huge whoop from the other end of the counter and Kristy shrugged. “She’s in fine form tonight. I told her if she didn’t settle down I was going to cut her off in a bit,” she said, making a slashing motion in front of her throat. “She won’t tell me what’s wrong but she’s been hitting the tequila pretty hard.”
Ingrid nodded. Tequila was Freya’s answer to any emotional upheaval. She looked to where the commotion was and found her sister downing shots and calling out the answers to trivia questions in between sucking lime halves.
“Freya!”
“Inge! What are you doing here?” Freya asked, looking surprised but happy to see her. She grabbed Ingrid in a bear hug, and Ingrid smelled the alcohol on her breath.
Ingrid wasted no time. She leaned close to her sister’s ear and whispered angrily, “Are you having an affair with Killian Gardiner?”
Freya sobered up quickly after that.
“Don’t deny it,” Ingrid warned, as she drove her sister home. Freya had pleaded to be able to finish her drinks but Ingrid was not having it. Now the sisters were sitting in the car, Freya staring pensively out the window, while Ingrid fumed at the steering wheel.
“I’m not,” Freya said a tad petulantly. Of course Ingrid was bound to find out about her and Killian. She had been waiting for this to happen; the only surprising thing about this development was how long it took for Ingrid to come to this conclusion. Her sister usually knew all her secrets even before she knew them herself.
Ingrid looked at her sideways. “I felt it.”
“Ew! Don’t tell me how! You had one of your creepy dreams?”
“Creepy doesn’t cut it.” Ingrid shuddered, remembering the cold hands around her neck and the way his body had felt on hers. She shook her head. “What are you doing? I thought you were in love with Bran, that you thought he was ‘the one.’ ”
“I know. I told Killian things were over between us this afternoon. I ended it.” Freya sighed.
“Good.” Ingrid looked at her sister from the corner of her eye, so she could still keep an eye out for oncoming traffic. “It’s for the best, Freya. Remember what happened last time you got married.”
Freya did not answer and they drove in silence for a while, along the dark and deserted highway. “I’m scared,” Ingrid said finally. “I had a horrible day. Someone called me a witch this afternoon, in front of everyone at work.”
Freya flinched. “Yikes.”
“Corky Hutchinson. I knew I shouldn’t have given her that stupid knot. She wasn’t going to keep him home. Damnit!” Ingrid never cursed but she was unnerved and upset. “Pardon.”
“It’s not your fault,” Freya soothed. “We all know your magic doesn’t work that way. Your knot didn’t kill Todd. He killed himself, Ingrid. Who knows why.”
“I don’t know . . .” Ingrid chewed her bottom lip. “I want to think that I couldn’t have done anything, but I was so upset. He’s going to tear down the library. . . . What if I didn’t mean to do it but it still happened? It’s been so long since I’ve practiced magic, I might be rusty. I could have inadvertently twisted it the wrong way.” Ingrid felt a cold dread sinking in her stomach. What if, even if she had not meant to practice black magic, she had done so anyway? There weren’t any rules when it came to this sort of thing. Anything could happen. She could have killed Todd. Maybe she did.
“You’re being paranoid,” Freya soothed. “You can’t even hex a fly. There’s no way you are to blame for what happened to him.”
“But I was so angry . . . and Corky, she screamed it, in front of everyone. She called me a witch! Almost everyone in town has been to see me, Freya. They believe I practice magic. They’ve seen it work for them.”
“So?” Freya shrugged.
“So? Don’t you remember what happened last time we practiced magic openly?”
Freya began to doodle on the condensation on the window from the air-conditioning. “Seriously? That’s what you’re worried about? This is North Hampton! And last I checked, the calendar said we were in the twenty-first century. They might think that you’ve cured their aches and pains and made some difficult problems go away, but deep down? Do you think they really believe in magic? No freaking way. No one believes in us anymore. We’re safe,” Freya stressed. “Look around, this is a world of science and technology, of computers and gadgetry. They have iPads and GPS and microwaves. They don’t even worry about death, because according to them, you can beat cancer by just eating tofu! This isn’t like before.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Freya rolled down
her window to feel the ocean breeze. “I’m sure I am.”
Ingrid stopped the car with a screech and Freya’s head bumped the dashboard. “Oops, sorry about that,” Ingrid said. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to tell you. You know that guy Mom saved from death? Lionel Horning?”
“Yeah? What about him?”
“Well, he’s missing,” Ingrid said. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten to mention it until now, but she had been so rattled by Corky Hutchinson’s actions that afternoon and that terrible dream she had that evening that it had completely slipped her mind.
“What do you mean he’s missing?”
“Emily came by, said he’s been acting weird, talking about a path in the mountains and how he didn’t belong around here, and how he was taking a few people with him.”
“What?”
“I know. It sounds like he might be going zombie.” Ingrid sighed. Like Freya, she knew that when a human soul had spent a considerable amount of time in the glom, there was the risk that the physical body would not accept its resurrection if the soul and the body had grown too detached from the other. It rarely happened, Joanna was too good at her job, but it wasn’t unheard of for the dead to come back to life only to succumb to a bad case of zombititis.
Freya gasped. “You don’t think he had anything to do with Molly . . . ?” she said.
“I don’t know—I mean, Lionel isn’t violent. I mean, unless Helda put more of herself in him before Mom got him out of Deadville.”
“Since when has he been missing?”
“Since the Fourth of July weekend.” The same night Molly Lancaster had disappeared.
“Oh, good lord!”
“There’s another thing,” Ingrid said, twiddling her thumbs. She pushed up her glasses on her nose. In her haste to find her sister, she had forgotten to put in her contacts. Her black-rimmed spectacles made her look older than she was; Ingrid hated wearing them, as she looked too much like the classic small-town librarian already.
Freya turned to her sister. “There’s something else other than a possible zombie on the loose in North Hampton?”
Ingrid tried not to look too sheepish. “Right after the holiday weekend . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Someone came to visit me. One of the Fallen.”
Freya glared at her. “A vampire came to visit you and you didn’t tell me? Why not?”
“I didn’t think it was important.” Ingrid sighed. “I don’t know. I was embarrassed. I couldn’t make her go away so I helped her. I know the rules, we’re not supposed to have anything to do with them. But she asked for help and I gave it.”
“When was this?”
“I told you, right after the Fourth. She said she’d been in town all weekend, mentioned seeing you at the North Inn that Friday night.”
Freya tried to remember. Wouldn’t she have noticed a vampire at her bar? The last time she had come in contact with the Fallen was through the boy she had cured in New York last fall, right before she moved back to North Hampton, and with a start she realized she might have caught a glimpse of him somewhere lately—was it at the North Inn? What was his name again—Oliver? And wasn’t he with some icy blonde? Was that his new vampire? It was all so hazy. But then, that was the evening when things began to happen with Killian. No wonder she hadn’t paid attention. “Who was she? The blonde?” she asked.
“Azrael.”
“Interesting. So, the freaking Angel of Death blows into town just as a girl goes missing and our mayor turns up dead!”
“By why would she care about them?” Ingrid argued. “You know the Fallen are bound to that Code of theirs. They’re not supposed to bring harm to humans, and there hasn’t been a human death attributed to them in centuries. It just doesn’t make sense . . .” Then her face went pale. “Wait a minute . . . I told her about the Orpheus Amendment . . . that she would need a soul to sacrifice to Helda for the one she wants returned, and she said she already knew about that part, that she was prepared for it.” Ingrid looked horrified. “You don’t think Azrael could have taken Molly, do you? Or Todd?”
“Anything could happen,” Freya said. “Especially with zombies and vampires around. Next thing you’ll tell me Dad’s back.”
“Actually . . .” Ingrid bit her lip. “Never mind.” Freya didn’t seem to catch it so Ingrid soldiered on. “Anyway, what do you think we should do?” In times like these, she looked to her younger sister for action and leadership. At heart, Ingrid was a seer, someone who studied and analyzed situations; she liked to lay the facts on the table and let someone else make the hard decisions.
“First we’ll pay Azrael a visit,” Freya said. “Then we look for Lionel.”
chapter thirty-three
Safe House
I thought Mom had all the tunnels destroyed,” Ingrid said. They were standing in front of the door to Freya’s closet. They had driven back home instead of driving to the city, at Freya’s behest. “There’s really one still here?”
Freya put her hands on her hips and smirked. “She kept the wands, Ingrid. Don’t you think she might have kept a few other things?” She threw open the doors, tapped her wand, and a light emanated from the end, guiding the way. “Anyway, it’s so ridiculous. Why would I have to live in some dingy walk-up in New York when we had this all along?”
Every witch abode automatically sprouted magical pathways, which the witches could use to travel long distances that would otherwise be tiresome by broom. But when the house in North Hampton was built, the Council had ordered them destroyed as part of the restriction. Freya always suspected that Joanna had kept one as a safety precaution and, a few decades ago, discovered she had been correct in her assumption. She led the way inside, past the racks of coats and furs and the sign she’d made that read, “Looking for Narnia? You’re in the wrong universe,” until they found themselves in Freya’s old apartment in the city.
Since it was connected to North Hampton, like the town it existed just slightly outside of time; so that while in the physical world it was only several hundred square feet, it was also a huge mansion with a fireplace, a beautiful kitchen, and plush English country furniture. “Nice, right?” Freya smiled. “You can’t get this on the market these days for what I paid.”
“So while we were living in drudgery and couldn’t even use magic to clean the dishes, you were living here all these years? No wonder you never came home.”
“Hey, I found the tunnel that led to this safe house. Mother must have kept it around in case we ever needed to get out of North Hampton. Useful, right?” Freya smiled. “God, I’ve missed this place. I used one of her old spells to redecorate. I figured the restriction only applied to new magic.”
“All right, then. How do we go about finding a vampire in this city?” Ingrid asked, nodding approvingly at the plush surroundings. “It’s not like they’re listed in the phone book.”
“Actually, they are,” Freya said, firing up her computer and taking a seat at her desk. “The Fallen kind of run New York. Let’s see what we can find.” She typed Mimi’s name into a search engine.
Since Mimi Force was the beautiful and fashionable daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the city, if not the world, there were many entries concerning her frenetic social life, including numerous mentions in the tabloids and gossip columns. There were articles documenting her beauty routine, her eating habits, what nightclubs she currently frequented. However, the Internet did not reveal any private details. Like many of the rich and famous who lived within a cocoon of privacy rare to ordinary folk, the Force holdings and estates were mostly hidden through a network of trusts and attorneys.
“If you want to know what she wore last week to some party, I can tell you, but I don’t think we’ll find an address,” Freya said, tapping the keyboard in frustration.
Ingrid perched on the armrest of Freya’s chair and peered at the screen. “Well, then, if we’re not going to find her that way, then the best bet is to try an
d ambush her at one of these parties.”
“You’re a genius; I know that’s why we’re related.” Freya smiled, pulling up a site that listed the social events scheduled for that week. “Here we go. The Blood Bank Committee has some kind of party tomorrow night, which is technically tonight since it’s already tomorrow. All the Blue Bloods are sure to be there, Mimi included. It’s their little pet charity to keep the blood supply clean.” She yawned. Ingrid had fetched her at the bar around midnight and it was already the wee hours of the morning. “Let’s get some sleep so we’ll be ready for the ambush. If Azrael did take Molly, she’s not going to give her up easily.”
Freya slept fitfully, tossing and turning in her bed. She could hear Ingrid snoring from the guest room, but it wasn’t the reason for her insomnia. She couldn’t stop thinking about Ingrid’s strange dream about Killian—her sister would not divulge any more details, but she got the gist of it, and it bothered her. Why would Ingrid dream that Killian wanted to kill her? Killian liked Ingrid, as far as Freya could tell; she couldn’t see how he could wish her harm . . . except . . . but that had happened so long ago now, he couldn’t possibly still hold it against her?
When she wasn’t worrying about that she could not stop agonizing about the way she had ended it with him earlier. Was it really over between them? She could not imagine never seeing him again, even if it was probably for the best. Bran would be home soon; he promised that after his big summer project was wrapped up he would leave the traveling part of his work to others. She could not keep up the façade and the lying anymore. Being in love with two men at the same time was not what she had signed up for when she had launched this affair. She had to stop acting and start thinking; for too long she just rushed into things without worrying about the consequences. Like agreeing to marry Bran after only a month, or having sex with his brother after meeting him for the first time at a party. She had to get her life in order and commit to the direction she had chosen, which meant marrying Bran in September. Things were great until she met Killian. She was happy, she was in love, and then he came into the picture. But she had allowed him in, she reminded herself.