“Ow. Stop. That hurt,” I said in a flat, bored voice.
“Mind your manners,” said Damian, “or I’ll rip out your tongue.”
I glanced up at him, and I could see he meant it. Gross. I was angry with Margaret, but that didn’t mean I wanted to harm her. Well, not much. Certainly not in a way that would leave her tongue-less. Though the idea she would never be able to talk again held merit.
“Wow,” said Jess. “Nice house. So this is what you get when you trade in on the pain and suffering of loved ones.” She rounded the couch, her gaze assessing Margaret as though she were a particularly nasty roach. “And yet we could buy this piece of crap … hmm.” She glanced at her husband. “What do you think? Six times over?”
“More like twenty,” he said. “Probably more.”
Jessica grinned. “Sweet. We’re way richer than I thought.” She put out her hands and twin beams of light flared. When they dissipated, two gold half swords with bejeweled handles appeared in her fists. She swung them in a small, tight arc, Zena-style.
“What is the meaning of this?” asked Margaret. Her composure was flaking away, but she had too much iron control to completely freak.
“We’re serial killers,” answered Jess cheerfully. “We had a meeting and decided our new victims would be mean, old bitties with shriveled-up hearts. Guess what? You were at the top of the list.”
I snorted back a laugh. Jess glanced at me and winked.
“We could make her disappear,” said Drake. He studied Margaret as if trying to determine the size of her coffin. “Ruadan? When’s the last time you visited the Adriatic Sea?”
“’ Bout six hundred years ago,” he said. “I could do for another visit.”
I thought Margaret might faint. She sorta listed to the side for a few seconds before she managed to catch herself. She inhaled and then exhaled slowly. She gripped the edge of her robe and stared at us defiantly.
Everyone ignored her.
Jessica seemed to be having a great time practicing sword moves, though after she nearly gouged Patrick’s rib cage, she moved to the left side of the marble hearth, where there was more room. She made sure she stayed within sight of Margaret, who, despite her take-no-prisoners stance, was starting to look a little green.
Patrick moved to study the paintings on the far side of the room, and Ruadan was busy touching all the knickknacks—which were plentiful thanks to Margaret’s need to show off what money could buy.
Crash!
We all looked at Ruadan and then at the pile of blue glass. He shrugged. “Sorry there, love. Clumsy fingers, you know.”
Margaret flinched.
“Eva,” said Drake. “Three guards tied up in back. They need new memories.”
The dark-haired woman nodded and said, “No problem.” She waved at me, smiling widely, and then she and Lorcan left, presumably to go do something vampirerific to the guards.
Margaret was sullen. She had no idea that she was dealing with paranormal beings who could outrun her, outthink her, and outmaneuver her.
And they were on
my
side. That’s the part that flipped me out the most. They didn’t even know me all that well, but they had come to help me. I was Damian’s, and therefore I belonged to them, too. It was a heady feeling. I couldn’t remember a time that I’d had this level of acceptance and support.
“What do you want from me?” asked Margaret icily. “No, wait. Let me guess. You want me to tell my publisher to stop selling the book, which won’t matter because it’s already sold a million copies. And if you think I will publicly admit that anything I’ve written is not true, I won’t do it. Go on and kill me, Kelsey. Then the world will know you really are a monster.”
“You think that will make you a martyr?” I asked. “You really do have a bloated opinion of yourself. You know what I want,
Margaret
? I want my father’s papers, journals, photos, everything.”
“No,” she bit out.
I had expected her response. After all, she’d been saying it to me my whole life. “You wouldn’t even let me have a memory of my father. And you couldn’t keep from tainting my mother’s name, either, could you?”
Margaret stared at me, unable to keep the hatred from her gaze. I didn’t dare open my shields to that blistering antipathy.
“What a bitter, bitter soul you are,” I said, and for the first time, a new emotion cut through my anger. Pity. Margaret had helped thousands of people through their tragedies, their problems, their failures, but she’d been unable to deal with her own. How could she spout all that rhetoric to those who were genuinely suffering without giving away the emptiness of her own heart? She was so pathetic. And with that thought, the rest of my anger dissipated. She deserved my rancor, but it would make no difference. Being pissed off at Margaret Morningstone would do nothing except poison me—filling me up with acrimony until I couldn’t breathe. If she cared about me at all, she would’ve been sorry, just a little about what she did. Obviously, she’d been prepared for me to seek her out—that’s why she had guards outside her place. Maybe she hoped to capture me. Wouldn’t that have been a feather in her cap?
But she hadn’t expected that I would have backup.
And she had no idea how dangerous my new friends were.
It made a girl perk right up.
“All you want are your father’s things,
Schätzchen
?” asked Damian. I recognized the question that echoed within the one he’d spoken.
Do you want payback, too?
“I don’t want to be angry anymore. And I don’t want revenge,” I clarified. “It’s time to let this all go.”
“I don’t need your forgiveness,” sneered Margaret.
“Give it rest, Ego-zilla,” I said. “You’ve lost your whipping girl. I don’t need to forgive you. Not even a little. I don’t care anymore. Not about you and not about your book.” I leaned down and got nose to nose with her. “And you know what? You’ll miss me when I’m gone.”
“Who thinks too much of herself now?” she said quietly. If she was trying for dignity, she was failing. Her tone was too hostile. “I won’t give you anything.”
“No kidding. Why start now?” I looked at Damian. “She’ll never tell us where she keeps his stuff. She wouldn’t even let me peek at old photos or read anything he’d written while I was growing up.”
“Oh, she’ll tell you,” said Eva. She and Lorcan had returned from outside. “I gave the guards instructions to reawaken in an hour.”
“Plenty of time for us to finish up,” said Drake.
Crash!
We all turned to look at Ruadan, who stood next a shelf filled with items Margaret had purchased on her travels. He looked down the ceramic shards that had once been a very expensive vase from India. “Oops.”
“Stop destroying my treasures!” demanded Margaret.
Ruadan laughed. “Me? You’re the one who spent nearly thirty years trying to destroy the treasure standin’ before you. You know nothing about gaugin’ worth.” He punctuated the statement by knocking off another trinket. I think it was the gold-etched dish she’d brought back from one of her trips to Russia. It shattered instantly, and turned into a pile of shiny nothing.
Damian guided me away from the couch, and Eva took our place. She sat carefully on the edge of the coffee table. “Look at me, Margaret,” she said in soft, lyrical voice.
I could tell my mother didn’t want to look at Eva, but she couldn’t resist the command woven into the woman’s musical voice.
As soon as she met the vampire’s gaze, Margaret’s eyes glazed over and she started breathing deeply.
“Where are your husband’s things?”
“In his study.”
Eva glanced at me, and I shook my head. “He doesn’t have a study.”
“She can’t lie to me,” said Eva.
“Eva’s Family power is glamour,” Damian whispered to me. “She’s very good at it.”
“Family power?” I asked.
“Remember when I explained about the eight Families? Each has their own special talent.”
“Oh. Right.” We’d talked about the vampires and other paranormal beings, at least those who occupied Broken Heart, during Werewolf 101. That had been a postcoital conversation, as I recall. Then again, most of them were. Heh.
Eva had turned back to Margaret. “Where is his study?”
“Across the foyer.”
“That’s a wall,” pointed out Jessica. She raised an eyebrow. “I think Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over there has already left on the train to Nutsville.”
“Push the panel with the cardinal,” directed Margaret. “Bert did so love bird-watching. Cardinals were his favorite.”
“That’s nice,” said Eva soothingly. “And everything’s in there?”
“Everything,” she confirmed. “It’s mine.
He
was
mine
.”
Damian took my hand and led me across the wide foyer to the wall. It was a pale blue and featured a white chair rail. A variety of birds had been hand-painted above the white trim. There was only one cardinal. I put my palm on it and pressed.
It was like being in a spy movie and discovering the secret entrance to the villain’s lair. The panel pushed in about an inch, there was a click, then
whoosh
… the wall slid open.
“Why do I feel like the Green Hornet?” asked Jess as she peered into the dark space.
“Kato was the ass kicker,” said Patrick, joining his wife. “He never gets the proper credit.” He made an “after you” gesture to Damian and me.
Damian gripped my hand tightly as we stepped into the office. He found the switch, and when the lights flickered on, we all let out a collective gasp.
“Creepy,” said Jess.
Creepy was right, though it wasn’t the look of the place, but the feeling of it. Like we’d found the sacrificial chamber of an ancient cult. It seemed as though my father had just stepped out for a moment. Everything was shiny and clean, the hearth filled with cedar logs, and Christmas decorations layered the mantel. It was a typical enough study—with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, an oversized antique desk with a leather wingback, Persian rugs accenting a dark wood floor, a sitting area near the fireplace, and a fake window.
Jess studied this feature. “Soooo … she walled over the real window, and then added a fake window with a picture of a thunderstorm.”
“She said it was raining the day he collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital, but he died on the way there. Heart attack.”
“Way to commemorate it.” She shuddered and turned away. Her gaze fell on the desk. “Dude. I bet it looked that exact way when he died.”
It was a mess, but it looked carefully constructed. My mother, that is Margaret, had kept everything clean to the point of mania, but had apparently returned items and papers to their exact spots.
“All right,” said Jess, rubbing her hands. “What do you want to take?”
I looked around. “If I disrupt her fantasy, it might send her into a nervous breakdown.”
Everyone was quiet, their gazes on me. I felt the whisper of guilt. Did I really want to send Margaret into a mental tailspin?
“Hoo-kay. I’m waiting for the bad part,” said Jess.
I huffed out a laugh. “All the papers. Journals. Photographs. Anything that looks important. I’ll look through the books, too.”
“I have boxes,” said Ruadan, joining us. He tossed down several flattened cartons. “Seems she was packin’ up your stepfather’s things.”
“Probably so she could burn them in a nice neat boxy pyre,” I said.
“Your da will get his things, darlin’. Eva’s plantin’ new memories, too, and puttin’ that blight of humanity into a deep sleep.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thanks to all of you.” I felt a lump in my throat as I offered my gratitude to these people, these paranormals, who showed me more respect and acceptance than anyone ever had.
It was crazy. Crazy and perfect.
“Let’s get to work,” said Damian. He leaned down and a brushed a kiss across my lips. “You okay?”
“I will be,” I said. I cupped his face. “And we’re okay. Totally, completely okay.”
He smiled.
“Holy shit,” said Jess, grabbing her chest as though having a heart attack. “I can’t get used to him turning his frowns upside down.”
I chuckled, and Damian smiled wider. Jess made gagging sounds until her husband swept her into his arms and shut her up with a kiss.
Then everyone grabbed boxes and started filling them up.
Drake was the first to leave—on the motorcycle he’d driven when he’d followed me to Oklahoma City. The boxes filled the trunk and part of the backseat of Damian’s BMW. To my surprise, Lorcan slid behind the wheel. Eva gave me a quick hug, and took the front passenger seat.
“I knew I shoulda yelled shotgun,” muttered Jess. She punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Good luck. After everything’s all official, we’ll have a party. You ever have a chocolatini?”
I shook my head.
“You poor thing,” she said, clucking. “I’ll remedy that travesty.”
Patrick walked around the car and tucked her into the backseat.
“If they’re taking the car, then how are we getting back?” I asked Damian.
“We’re not going to Broken Heart,” he said. “Patrick and Ruadan are taking us to Germany. More specifically, to my family’s castle.”
“Oh.”
Ruadan’s back was to us as he studied the row of thornbushes on the right side of the porch. He squatted down and poked his head close to the underside.
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“Sometimes it’s better not to know,” said Patrick as he joined us.
Lorcan gave a quick honk, everyone in the car waved, and then they took off, leaving the three of us alone on the snow-crusted driveway.
“Da,” called Patrick, “it’s time to go.”
“Don’t go gettin’ your knickers in a twist,” muttered Ruadan. He shoved an arm into the brambles, and when he pulled it out, he held a small, squirming gray creature. He carried it to us. “Poor thing. Must’ve been stuck in there for a while. He’s a mess.”