Chapter 3
It was the smell of the bread baking that woke Olivia. She rolled onto her back and yawned as she stretched her arms over her head. It had taken her hours to fall asleep after that eerie feeling the night before.
She wanted to laugh it off, to toss it aside as her imagination, but she couldn’t. The fear had gripped her tightly, and hadn’t loosened its hold until the wee hours of the morning.
Olivia blew out a breath and looked to the window where the golden rays of the morning sun filtered through the blinds. The soft whirl of her ceiling fan mixed with the sounds from the kitchen, and her grandmother’s humming took her back to her childhood in an instant.
Olivia threw off the covers and rose to pad into the bathroom. She walked out fifteen minutes later showered, dressed, and ready to face the day. Whatever it might bring.
“Oh, good. You’re up,” her grandmother said as she flashed a smile before she turned to the stove and the eggs she was scrambling. “Bacon is on the table.”
Olivia grabbed a piece and took a bite. She reached for the bread knife and began to slice a loaf that was cooling. “What’s the plan for today?”
“I need to head to Grace’s. I’ve baked her some bread, and I’ll be taking some gumbo over to her as well.”
Grace had been her grandmother’s best friend since they were young girls. Ever since Grace fell and broke her hip three years earlier, her grandmother had been bringing food and doing some cleaning.
“There are some items I need from town. Want to pick them up for me?” her grandmother asked.
Olivia stilled. She knew exactly what her grandmother was doing – forcing her to face the world and the small town she wanted to hide from.
She set down the knife and turned. “Maman, I-”
“You’re a Breaux,” she interrupted and dumped the eggs into a bowl that she set on the table. She placed her hands on the back of the chair and regarded Olivia. “We’re fighters, Olivia, even when we don’t think we can.”
Those words stayed with Olivia long after breakfast was over and her grandmother had departed for her visit with Grace. Olivia left the list of groceries on the table, trying her best to ignore it as she cleaned the kitchen.
She finished drying the last of the dishes and put them away, only to turn and see that damn list. Olivia smoothed the dishtowel on the edge of the sink.
With a frustrated growl, she grabbed the list and her purse before she headed to her car.
The entire drive to the small grocer, Olivia kept praying that she could get in and out without anyone recognizing her.
It had been almost a decade since she had left.
Surely she had changed enough that people wouldn’t know her.
To prove just how awful her luck was, Olivia had no sooner walked into the store than she literally ran into Sean. “I’m so sorry,” she hurried to say.
“I’m not.” His smile was too bright, alerting her that their bumping into each other hadn’t been an accident. “How does it feel to be back home?”
Olivia licked her lips and slid past him to grab a basket and loop it over her arm. “It’s been good.”
“I’m glad you’re settling in nicely.”
She pursed her lips trying to think of a way to get him to leave. When nothing came to mind, she walked to the produce section and stood looking at the bell peppers.
“I could throw a party and invite everyone over.”
Olivia began to feel sick. No doubt Sean had been telling everyone – and he knew everyone – that she was back. So much for her hiding out and taking baby steps back into the world she had left behind.
“Sean, I think someone just hit your car,” came a deep voice behind Olivia.
She remained staring at the bell peppers. It had been the worst idea to stop here. She should have gone into Crowley. At least there she had a chance to get in and out without being stopped.
“He’s gone. You can let go of the pepper now.”
Olivia looked down at her hand to find she had picked up one of the bell peppers and squeezed it so hard her fingers had punctured the skin. Dear God, what was wrong with her?
“Thank you,” she said. She turned around and looked into bright blue eyes. There was only one family she knew to have eyes that distinct color – the Chiassons.
Excitement coursed through her as she thought it was Vincent. Even though the man had the same dark hair, and the same Chiasson good looks, he wasn’t Vincent.
Her disappointment was palpable.
He smiled softly as his gaze held hers. “Olivia, right? I’m Beau Chiasson.”
“Beau, yes,” she replied with a nod.
He glanced behind him and shifted his basket from one hand to the other. “Sean will be occupied long enough for you to get in and out. Good to see you, Olivia.”
She watched him walk away before she pulled out her list and hurried through the store grabbing the items her grandmother needed.
It was Beau’s whistling that alerted Vincent that he was up to something. After another unsuccessful night, he was in a foul mood. It didn’t help that the three deaths weighed so heavily upon him.
Vincent poured a cup of coffee and lifted the steaming liquid to his lips. He had barely taken his first sip when he saw Beau glance at him out of the corner of his eye.
Beau deftly cut the onions, bell peppers, and ham into pieces for the omelets. “You’ll never guess who I ran into this morning.”
Vincent didn’t need to guess. He knew. Olivia Breaux. The few hours of sleep he had gotten had been full of Olivia. Her black eyes, her midnight hair, her full lips.
He refused to play Beau’s game though. Without a word, he turned to the table where a map of the parish drawn by their great-great grandfather lay spread. A clear sheet lay on top of it for protection so they could mark the areas they had been without marking the map.
“Olivia Breaux,” Beau said. “Damn, Vincent, she looks hotter than ever. Didn’t you have a thing for her in school?”
Vincent picked up the black pencil and marked the areas he had searched the night before. “I’m going to head out shortly and check the southeast side of the bayou. There are some gator nests there, so the creature shouldn’t be anywhere near that, but I want to check anyway.”
“Olivia,” Beau persisted.
“That’s nice,” Vincent responded. “It’s about time she returned to her grandmother. Maria is a good woman.”
Beau grunted. “Is that really all you have to say? Isn’t it time for your weekly visit to Maria?”
Vincent straightened and faced his brother. “Do you really need to ask? Look at Christian. If you need a reminder about our lives, think back to Dad when he found Mom. That’s what our family endures. Do you want that? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“We need sons and daughters to carry on the family business.” The smile was gone as a serious note filled his voice.
Vincent knew all too well about having to carry on the family name, but he was weary of it all. “The Chiasson’s have protected this parish for over three hundred years, and in all that time we’re scorned and disparaged. Is that what you want for your children?”
“I want children. I want a wife, a family. I want more than what I have now.”
Vincent set down his coffee. “Then take it, Beau.”
“Because you won’t?”
“Because I can’t. I won’t go through what Dad did. I won’t have children and put them through what we did growing up.”
Beau cracked two eggs at once into a bowl before tossing the shells into the garbage. He grabbed two more. “Mom went out hunting with us. She knew what could happen. So did Dad. I won’t allow my wife to hunt.”
“Good luck with that,” Lincoln said as he walked into the kitchen from outside.
He went to the sink and began to wash the grease off his hands.
He dried his hands and looked from Beau to Vincent as he pulled up the sides of his long hair to secure it at the back of his head with a piece of leather. “Both generators are fixed now.”
“Good. There’s already a hurricane headed to Florida,” Vincent said, his mind still on what Beau had said.
Lincoln was glaring at him when Christian walked in, his arms loaded with weapons. “Damn. You’ve been busy.”
Vincent and Lincoln exchanged a look as Christian laid out the various weapons on the dining room table that hadn’t been used since the night their parents died.
“It’ll kill tonight,” Christian said. He lifted his favorite weapon, the crossbow, and met Vincent’s gaze. “You know it will.”
Lincoln ran a thumb over the edge of his axe and smiled as blood formed. “Not if we have any say in it.”
“We searched all of yesterday into last night, and didn’t find its lair,” Beau pointed out. “How are we to get the drop on it tonight?”
Vincent pointed to a spot on the map. “I lost the beast here. That’s where I’m going to start.”
Christian leaned over and looked at the map. “That’s the Breaux place.”
“Olivia,” Beau said.
Vincent nodded woodenly. “She was outside last night. The creature saw her. I thought it might attack, but then it just disappeared.”
“Well, hell,” Lincoln stated angrily. “How did the damn thing just disappear again?”
Christian threw a thick book down atop the table. “I think I know.”
Vincent gazed at the leather bound book that held all the creatures that the Chiasson’s had killed through the decades. It also listed how to kill certain beasts, and just what might have brought them to the parish.
“Start reading,” Beau said as he turned back to the stove.
Vincent placed his hand on the book. Atop the leather was the Chiasson family crest that dated all the way back to France where their first ancestor originated.
As children, they had pored over the entries learning all they could while their parents hunted. Once they were old enough, their father taught them how to code the beasts, and how to add pages to the books.
“I’ve been updating the book ever since...that night,” Christian said.
Vincent nodded in approval. “That’s good. It needed to be done.”
There was a hiss behind them as Beau dumped the eggs into the pan. Vincent opened the book to a random page in the middle to find a detailed drawing of a banshee.
“What did you find, runt?” Lincoln asked Christian.
“I think someone is summoning this thing.”
Vincent jerked his hand away from the book and took a step back. The last time a creature had been summoned was when his parents had been killed. It was their mother who had figured out the summoning.
That night, she had been killed. Their father had gone to confront who he thought was responsible. And within hours, both of their parents were dead.
Vincent had been the one to find their father. He had also been the one to tell his siblings. That night had left a scar inside him that still bled.
Whoever killed his parents was back to their old tricks again. This time they wouldn’t get away with it. Vincent didn’t care how long it took, but he would kill whoever it was.
That’s the only thing that would heal him. And bring closure to his parents’ deaths.
“I knew they would come back,” Lincoln said with hatred dripping from his lips. “I’ve waited years for a piece of them.”
Beau flipped the omelet over. “Stand in line, dickhead.”
Vincent lifted his gaze to Christian. “What else did you find?”
Christian’s brow furrowed. “Y’all aren’t going to like it.”
“Spit it out,” Lincoln demanded.
Christian locked gazes with Vincent. “Mom thought the person was targeting our family and friends to kill. I think it’s happening again.”