Witch Upon a Star (A Midnight Magic Mystery) (18 page)

“You are not,
mo chuisle.
I do love and respect you,” he insisted breathlessly.

“No. You may think you do, but … you love what I do for you. How
I
make
you
feel. I’m just a possession to you. I used to think you stole me away for my sake, to save me from that cesspit, because you saw something special in me. But I could have been anyone. Any needy soul willing to feed your ego and make you believe you’re a good person. That you’re worthy of love.
You’re not,
” I hissed.

“Love,
real
love requires sacrifice on both ends. It’s a partnership. It’s give and take, and I can’t keep giving. You have taken almost everything from me, Asher, even my self-worth. Even my identity. You made me feel as if I don’t exist without you. That I’m nothing if I’m not loved by you. That is unforgivable.
Unforgivable.
And I refuse to give you that power over me anymore. I refuse. And if you love me, truly love me like you claim to, you will let me go. You will let me walk out of this
nightmare
that we have created, so I can stand on my own two feet. Have the life that, no matter how much I may want it,
you
cannot provide me. I need more than you. I love you, I probably always will, but I love me more.
Let me go.
”

Asher shook his head through my whole plea. “No.
No
.” He advanced toward me, and I did my best not to shrink away, but tension locked my whole body in place. “Look at me.
Look at me
!” He attempted to catch my eyes, but I moved my head away. “I love you. I love you with everything I have. My life, my heart, my soul are yours and yours alone. We can repair this. I shall do whatever you ask,” he said desperately, even grabbing my hands. “We will return to Holland, just the two of us. We will never leave again, if that is what you desire. I-I-we will have a child. A dozen.”

“It won’t work,” I said, voice breaking.

“It will,” he whispered, now on the verge of tears.

“It won’t!” I shouted. “A year, two, and you’ll get restless, and we’ll be right back here.”

“That will not happen. I promise,
mo chuisle
, I promise.”

“It will. You know it will,” I cried back. “I can’t do this anymore. Please,
please
let me go, Asher. Please.”

Still sobbing, I ripped my hands from his and stumbled to
ward the door. My entire body felt as if it weighed a million pounds
. I only made it three steps before he cried, “No. No.” He moved in front of me to block my slow trek. “I love you.” He grabbed my arms again, but I yanked them from his grasp. “Do you hear me? I love you.” He tried to kiss me, but I moved my lips from his. “I love you.”

“Stop it,” I whispered.

His lips pressed to mine but only succeeded for a second before I twisted away. “I love you,” he cried back. “Do not leave me. You cannot leave me. Never. I need you so much. I love you.” He clutched my wrists and pulled me against him.

I struggled, but he just gripped tighter. “Let me go,” I said forcefully. “Please.”

He forced his lips to mine again and squeezed tighter, hard enough to leave bruises. No matter where I turned my head his lips assaulted mine. I hadn’t even noticed he was backing me against the bed until my legs hit the edge. “I love you so much. Do not leave me. I am lost without you. Please.”

We collapsed onto the bed with him on top of me. Panic overwhelmed me. “Asher, get off me! Get off!” I flailed my arms, but he would not let go, pinning me to the mattress. Bile rose into my throat. “Wait! Stop! No! Please!” I choked out.

“You will not leave me. I love you so much,” he said to himself.

Any vestige of the man I loved was gone. The man I loved never
would have ignored my pleas, my sobs, my struggles against him. I thought he had taken everything from me already. How wrong I was. One violent motion ceased all my protests, and I floated out of my violated body. I left it for him to do as he pleased as his bloody tears rained down on my cheeks. I was aware of them but couldn’t feel them. Thank the universe I couldn’t feel a damn thing. I just stared into space and waited for it to be over. “I love you, my Anna. All mine.
I love you
.”

When he was spent, when he got what he wanted from my body, he gazed down at my blank expression, my own tears streaming from the corners of my eyes, and he gasped. Shock and revulsion swept over his face like a tempest. “Oh no,” he whispered. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” he said as he removed himself from me. His shaking hand covered his wide-open mouth. “What have I done? I am sorry. I am so sorry. What have I done?” Asher backed away, climbing off the bed, but his unsteady legs buckled a second later. “I am sorry. I am so sorry,” he
said through the hard, wracking sobs. “What have I done? Oh, what
have I done?”

His cries brought me crashing back to earth. He was so pathetic. So broken. He meant it. Watching his torment, I didn’t doubt his remorse. I still don’t. He would take it all back if he could, every last heinous act. And as I stared at him, curling into a ball on the floor, filled with such utter self-loathing, I knew what I had to do. I rose from the bed, rearranged my coat and slip to regain some dignity, and bent beside him. “Asher …” I whispered. Tentatively, I reached down to stroke his wild, downy hair.

His bloody eyes looked up at me, and he let out a wail I hadn’t heard since our first night in that cemetery. I put up no resistance as he collected me into his arms once again, sobbing against me. I embraced him back as tight as I could until he released me. I wiped those tears away without a hint of fear or hesitation. “I am so sorry,” he whispered. “I am so sorry, my love. I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved another living soul. Please never doubt that. Please do not leave me. I need you. I am lost without you, my Anna. Please do not send me back to hell.
Please
.”

I kissed his uncertainty away. And mine. No matter how hard I fought, no matter where I tried to run, one universal truth could never be changed. He was mine and I was his. ’Til the close of the dream.

’Til death.

_____

The song “Don’t Fear the Reaper” woke me at ten when the alarm went off. With the panels down, the bedroom was close to pitch black but even still I could make out the soft features of his handsome face at rest. It really was the face of an angel. I touched his cheek, his lips, his closed eyelids and long lashes before extracting myself from his cold arms. The valets were due at noon to collect the coffins and take us to the private plane Christine arranged. London, then we’d find a home in the countryside, just the two of us. We’d start fresh. It was all settled. I sat up in our bed, stretching like a cat, then sighing. Time to go.

My clothes, white slacks and pink cashmere sweater, were already laid out and I even put on make-up and a matching pink headband. Asher taught me to always look my best, especially when you feel your worst. I stepped out of the bathroom and surveyed the room, stopping at my slumbering Asher. He seemed so serene, so beautiful with a tendril of his auburn hair falling against his white forehead. Vampires weren’t dead during the day, more in a light coma that is filled with vivid dreams much like us humans. He must have been having a splendid one judging from the faint smile across his lips. Was it about me? About the night before? I did hope for his sake it was the best dream of his entire existence. I turned away, put on my bloodstained coat, picked up my purse and still packed suitcase, opened the bedroom door, and, before I stepped out, I pressed the button to open the shutters. As I walked out, the light of day slowly filtered into the room behind me.

His tortured, agonizing screams began as I shut the suite door.

Nothing. I felt nothing. I hadn’t felt a damned thing since he pinned me to our bed. Perhaps it was a mercy. Without the disconnect, the numbness, I probably wouldn’t have had the strength to do what needed to be done. With all emotion gone, my only course of action became crystal clear. He would never let me go.
Never
. He would scorch the earth until there was nowhere for me to go but into his arms. Him or me. For once, I made the right decision.

I engaged the fire alarm as I calmly walked down the hall. All the human companions and staff panicked around me in the stairwell
, some even sobbing in fear. No one paid me a second glance, not even on the DC streets as I trekked the seven blocks to the Sheraton. I didn’t bother to knock on the meeting room door. There was only one man, a vaguely familiar thirty-something redhead in jeans and flannel shirt inside reviewing a tackboard with maps and pictures on it. “Uh, may I help you, miss?” the man asked.

“Are you the F.R.E.A.K.S.?” I asked in a monotone.

“I’m, uh, working with them,” the man said, stepping toward me. “Are you … okay?”

“I’m here to report multiple murders. Last night my boyfriend John Asher and two other vampires, Christine Caple and Oliver Smythe, killed four people in Goodnight, Virginia. The Harmon family. And I just burnt my boyfriend alive at the Elysium Hotel. I’m here to turn myself in.”

The redhead stared at me, his long jaw falling open. “Um, let-let me just … have a seat, doll. I’ll be right back.” The man quickly walked out, leaving me alone once more. I did what the man said, I sat and stared at the crime scene photos. Normally, I’d throw up a little in my mouth at the sight of ravaged dead bodies but not then. What are pictures when you’ve actually had an innocent person’s blood on your flesh? The girl couldn’t have been more than eighteen when some bastard literally ripped out her throat. The wound on her thigh was even a little intriguing.

At least I wasn’t alone with the pictures for long. About a minute later, the red-haired man returned with an emaciated fifty-something gentleman with a full head of gray hair. “Hello, miss,” the elder said as he entered.

“That’s not a vampire bite.”

“I’m sorry?” the man asked.

I pointed to the picture. “There’s no puckering from when the fangs extracted, and the punctures are too close together. That’s not a vampire bite.”

“Um, thank you for telling us,” said the man as he approached. He slowly lowered himself into the chair beside me as if any swift movement would result in his injury. “Mr. Dahl, would you please
get our guest something to drink? A Coke from vending perhaps?”

“Yeah, sure,” said the redhead. “I’ll be right back.”

“Is Agent West here? I want to see Agent West,” I said as he departed.

“I’m afraid he’s in the field right now, but I’d like to help you, if you can.” The gentleman smiled at me. “My name is Dr. George Black of the F.R.E.A.K.S. What’s your name, dear?”

The question singed like acid, cracking my thin veneer of apathy. My mouth twitched, but I couldn’t answer. The man with the kind eyes took my hand. Another crack. “Who are you, dear?”

Kaboom
.

“I-I-I-I don’t know,” I whispered before I burst into tears. Dr. Black squeezed my other hand and let me sob. “I’m no one. He’s gone, and I killed him, and I’m no one now. What have I done? Oh … what have I done?”

_____

It was a busy day for the F.R.E.A.K.S.; even I added to the drama. They were hot on the trail of Lord Peter’s bodyguard Ivan, or Monster, as he was called around the vampire scene. Everyone knew to avoid him even without being told. Even amid vampires he was intimidating. Six-four, pale blue eyes, built like a tank and never without a scowl, even when he was leering at my breasts. It didn’t surprise me at all to hear he was a serial murderer.

The F.R.E.A.K.S. were stretched so thin, no one gave leaving a confessed murderer alone a second thought. Not that I was a flight risk. Where did I have to go? Dr. Black escorted me into a hotel room, and only came to check on me if he had more questions. About two hours of lying in a stranger’s bed with only the Harmons’ and Asher’s howls of agony to keep me company, I broke quarantine and returned to the conference room. Unfortunately, High Priestess McGregor had arrived by then. I interrupted Dr. Black comforting her, just a simple hug between colleagues, but when the witch set eyes on me, her disgust and hate radiating from her hard brown eyes, I retreated back to my isolation. I’d already caused so much pain, I couldn’t bear to cause a second more.

About seven hours after my escape, while I stared at the television watching Joan Collins battle Linda Evans on
Dynasty
, there was another knock on the door. “Annie?” Nathan asked as he stepped in with a bag of fast food. “Hey. Brought you something to eat.”

“Thank you,” I whispered as I sat up, “but I’m not hungry.”

He joined me on the edge of the bed and passed me the bag regardless. “You need to eat.” I didn’t move. “Hey, you promised me dinner. It ain’t Morton’s, but it’ll have to do.” I hadn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours, but I didn’t realize how starved I was until I saw and smelled the fries he laid out. I ate one. Two. Then I couldn’t stop. “Knew you were a woman of your word.”

“My one saving grace,” I said with my mouth full.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“The guests at the Elysium Hotel might beg to differ.” I paused. “Did the hotel burn down?” I asked with a knot in my gut.

“How’d you know that’s where I was?”

“You smell like smoke.”

He sniffed his rumpled suit jacket. “Oh. No. The fire was contained to … your suite.”

“Christine?”

“It’s a madhouse there. They’re still processing the scene.” He paused. “Your room was a mess, and vampires can burn to nothing, especially when daylight’s involved. We did find a body in a nearby room drained of blood, but there may be no connection. Just to be safe we locked the place down. No one went in or out until we did a full sweep of every room and garage. We didn’t find her.”

“So she either died or got away before lockdown. And there was no body in my room? None? So he could …”