CHAPTER THIRTEEN || BRYAN
T obias had me feeling both confused and conflicted. I was equal parts ready to kiss him and thump him over the head for being so unkind to himself. Barring either of those things, it would probably be better for both of us if I ran for the hills.
But I couldn’t do that anymore, could I?
Because I understood him so much better now. It had all clicked into place for me, all at once. Tobias was used to being the one that everyone around him depended on. He was used to being the person everyone turned to. He was used to being needed.
Now, Ethan was married and off doing his own thing. His sister was off doing her own thing, too. And maybe the coven still needed him. Maybe. But given the fact that they hadn’t called him even once that I was aware of, maybe not.
And I…
Well, I was the worst offender, wasn’t I?
I had essentially recognized the mate bond between us and then noped the hell out of there. I had left him behind. And if I pulled the plug on this, I would be saying the same thing that everyone else around him seemed to be saying: that I didn’t need him.
It would hurt him all over again.
Tobias would be hurt, because of me. The thought turned my stomach.
So, grimly ignoring the uneasy feeling it evoked, I had agreed that we should interview the victim’s wife. We should at least move in the general direction of doing what we had set out to do, even if I wasn’t entirely sure that’s what I wanted anymore. Not when we were so clearly running straight into danger.
A little over an hour later, we pulled up to a small single-story house that had been painted sage green. The trim and front door were freshly painted bright white. There was a little, well-maintained garden out front.
“We don’t have to do this,” I said. “It’s been a million years since I’ve had a halfway decent bowl of ramen. We could—”
“No,” Tobias said firmly. He flashed me a tight, determined smile. “Look, I get it. The hunters spooked you. I promise that we’ll steer clear as much as possible. But we’re at least talking to Lisa.”
“Lisa,” I repeated, casting the house a nervous glance. Now that we were here, it made her—and what she had been through—all that much more real. “Maybe we ought to find some other case.”
Tobias arched an eyebrow at that. Probably at the ‘we’ I had accidentally slipped in there. “This matters to you. Therefore, we’re doing it.”
“Not at the cost of your safety,” I told him, hating how small my voice sounded.
“I’ll be fine,” Tobias promised. “I have like ten different spells for if the hunters try to start something. We’d be okay, I promise.”
“You don’t know that. These hunters could be exactly what your vision was warning you about.”
Tobias’s expression darkened. “They won’t lay a finger on you. I swear it.”
“And while you’re busy protecting me, who’s protecting you ? They’re bad news. Really, really bad news.”
“I’ll call Ethan after we’re done here and have him check the mirror. If they’re the ones responsible for what happens to you in my vision, we’ll…” He trailed off, his expression darkening even further. “We’ll take care of it. Let me help you with this.”
I caved.
“We’ll talk to Lisa and see if she can give us a sense of what type of spirit this is, just in case. But if Ethan sees anything that suggests either of us is in any real danger from the hunters, we’ll leave them alone. We’ll—I’ll—find some other monster to hunt.”
Tobias scowled a bit at that. But after a long moment, he nodded.
With that settled, I clenched my teeth, realizing that we were definitely going to be interviewing Lisa. I suddenly realized that I really didn’t want to be doing any of this right now. Because after my conversation with my maker, this just seemed like a bad idea all the way around.
Mortal danger where I was concerned?
Fine. I deserved it if anyone did, right?
But if there was even a possibility that Tobias might be harmed in the process?
Nope. Absolutely not. No way in hell. I’d burn the world down first if that’s what it took to keep him safe.
But given the fact that he was determined to make this happen for me—even if I was suddenly having second thoughts—I was going to have to go with it. And maybe Ethan would look into his mirror and give us the all-clear.
And then what?
The longer I stayed in Tobias’s presence, the less I wanted to think about that.
We at least both looked the part this time. Tobias had cast an illusion spell on us—he called it a glamor—to make it seem like we were both dressed as FBI agents. Much more efficient than having to buy a cheap suit and lug it around everywhere. The illusion was complete with matching badges.
Tobias knocked on the door. A woman in her forties, her face pinched and worn with grief and anxiety, answered. Then she took one good look at our badges and tried to slam the door in our faces.
Tobias stopped it with his foot. “Ma’am, we just have a few questions.”
A younger woman with straight black hair stepped into the hallway behind her. “Let them in, Ash. They’re just doing their jobs.”
“You’ve already talked to the FBI!” Ash snapped, glaring at the younger woman—who had to be her sister. That made her Lisa Chamberlain, the wife of Lee Chamberlain. Ash added, “These ghouls won’t leave you alone! I won’t have them torturing my baby sister every five minutes. Not in my house.”
Tobias and I exchanged a look, and I could tell he was thinking what I was thinking: Michael and Danny had already been here. We were at least a step behind them, if not more.
“It’s a follow-up,” I said, inventing wildly. “We have more questions. The bureau, I mean. It won’t take long.”
“Why can’t you people just leave us alone?” Ash demanded. “The police already cleared Lisa as a suspect, no matter what the news says.”
“We know that, ma’am,” Tobias replied. He peered around Ashley, meeting Lisa’s gaze. “We’re only asking five minutes of your time. It might help us catch whoever did this.”
“Let them in,” Lisa repeated, sounding so worn thin that it was like she might unravel at any moment.
Ash stepped back. “Fine. I’ll go make us some tea.” She turned back to glare at Tobias and me. “You have five minutes. After that, I’ll need to ask you to leave.”
Tobias nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“It all happened so fast,” Lisa said, leading us into the dining room. She took a seat at an oval wooden table and we followed suit. “But I can promise you, you’re not going to find any suspects.”
“And why is that?” Tobias asked, pulling out a small notepad and a pen. He glanced up at her. “You sound very sure.”
Lisa hesitated. Then resolve slammed down over her expression and she met his gaze. “It was just a random crime, I think. The person broke in and then—and then I ran. I didn’t see what they looked like. I have no idea who killed my husband or why.”
Tobias and I exchanged a disbelieving glance.
I was the first to recover. “Is this what you told our… colleagues?”
Lisa nodded stiffly, avoiding our gazes. “They didn’t believe me.”
Imagine that, I thought. Even if I hadn’t already known she was lying about what she saw, I still would have known she wasn’t telling the truth. Lisa didn’t have much of a poker face at all.
Lisa went on, “They—the agents, I mean—were very cold to me. I know you guys see terrible things in your line of work, but they were just so… callous. I just lost my husband. It was like they didn’t even care.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Tobias said. “I’m familiar with the gentlemen who spoke with you. They don’t have the best people skills.” He paused. “Listen, Lisa, you really don’t remember anything else from that night? Anything at all? Any detail could help us get justice for your husband.”
Lisa swallowed hard, looking absolutely miserable. Tears began to dance in her eyes. “No. I can’t tell you anything more about what happened. I’m sorry.”
Tobias stared at her for a long moment. “Lisa, come on.”
“I think it’s time for you two to go,” Ash said, appearing in the doorway with two mugs of tea. “She’s already told you everything she knows.”
Tobias and I stood up in the same moment.
“Right. Of course,” Tobias replied, shooting a dark glance in my direction. I could tell he was frustrated but trying not to show it. “We can leave.”
“We know it wasn’t a person who did this to your husband, Lisa,” I said, catching her eye and holding it. “We know what’s inside that house. And we know what it does to people. We need your help to stop it, so that no one else ever has to experience what you’re going through right now.”
The room went absolutely silent.
Tobias shot me a warning look, his hands already coming up into what I was beginning to recognize as his default spell-casting position.
I gave him a minute shake of my head, silently imploring him to trust me.
He seemed to understand because he frowned back and lowered his hands.
Then Lisa’s face crumpled. And she burst into tears that came hot and fast, in a flood down her cheeks. “I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”
“Not another word,” Ash said, setting both cups of tea down on the table. She glared at her sister. “We have no idea who these men are, but they sure as hell aren’t the FBI.”
“You’re right,” I agreed, holding Ash’s gaze for a long moment before I turned back to Lisa. “Look, your sister is correct. We’re not the FBI. We’re the people who deal with the types of encounters that you’ve just been through. We can help. And we’re going to.”
“Is that true?” Lisa asked, glancing from me to Tobias, then back again. She looked almost puzzled. “You guys fight evil spirits?”
I shrugged. “We’re trying to. But we need your help first.”
“I’m sorry I lied,” Lisa whispered. “It’s just that the truth is so crazy. And awful.” She shuddered.
“You were protecting yourself,” Tobias said softly, coming to settle down in the chair next to Lisa. “The truth sounded too impossible—no one would have believed you. So, you lied. That’s understandable. You were probably right to, actually.” He paused, then added, “But can you be honest with us now?”
Lisa nodded, drying her cheeks with the palms of her hands. Then she glanced over at her sister. “They can stay for a few more minutes, Ash. If there’s even the smallest chance that they can get justice for Lee, I have to try to help.”
I came over to stand next to Tobias’s chair. He took Lisa’s hand in his own and met her gaze again. “Lisa,” he said gently. “We know the house is haunted. You aren’t crazy. And none of this was your fault.”
“But it was my fault,” Lisa’s face crumpled up again and one of her hands flew to her mouth. “You don’t understand… I knew what was happening. I knew that thing was going to hurt him. But instead of helping him, I—I ran.”
“If you had stayed behind, you would have been killed as well,” Tobias said, his tone soothing and kind. “You got your daughter to safety. An entity like the one that killed your husband is extraordinarily dangerous. It would have taken everyone in the house, if it could have.” He paused, letting out a small breath. “Lisa, we need to know… did you actually see the ghost?”
Lisa nodded, then grimaced. “Yes, I did. I won’t ever forget it, either. It looked like a woman. Except… not. She was way too tall—no person is that tall. And she was thin. And she was wearing rags. And her arms were so long that her hands scraped the ground. And her face…” Lisa shuddered, her hand flying to her mouth again. “It was grotesque. Distorted.”
“How so?” I asked.
Lisa gasped, screwing her eyes shut for a long moment before opening them again, like she was trying to banish the memories from her mind. “It was too long. And her mouth was too big. It stretched from ear to ear. And she kept laughing…”
This time, it was my turn to shudder. I remembered that laugh. High-pitched and so deranged that it didn’t seem like a person should be capable of making a sound like that.
“I left him with her,” Lisa’s voice broke again. “I took Annabelle and ran to the car. And when I realized Lee wasn’t with us, I didn’t go back.”
“You protected your daughter,” Tobias said softly. “You did the right thing.”
“She didn’t see anything,” Lisa’s voice rose, like she was begging us to understand. “She didn’t see what I left Lee with. She doesn’t know. Not really.”
Absolute, stunned silence followed that.
“Was that enough?” Lisa asked, finally, looking from Tobias to me, searching our faces. “Does that help you?”
Tobias exchanged a glance with me, and I nodded back at him. Based on the distorted size and shape of the spirit she’d described, we were dealing with a wraith.
“Yes,” Tobias replied, turning back to Lisa. “I think we have everything we need.”
Lisa nodded, letting out a long, agonized breath. She looked to be on the verge of another breakdown. The tears were flowing down her face freely and her jaw was clenched like she was struggling to hold in her grief.
Tobias placed a hand on her back and spoke a short incantation under his breath. The tension drained out of Lisa almost immediately. She blinked a few times, her face growing relaxed and calm.
“What are you doing?” Ash asked, rising to her feet, sounding alarmed. No one answered her. I didn’t even look up.
Instead, I was too fixated on Tobias. The gentle compassion on his face had transformed him yet again. He hated her suffering just as much as I did.
“Let go of your guilt,” Tobias said to Lisa, so softly that the only reason I caught it was because of my vampiric hearing, even though I was standing right beside him. “None of this was your fault. You saved yourself and your daughter. And you were so brave, to tell us the truth about what you experienced. I know that hurt, but you did it anyway. We’re going to make sure this doesn’t happen again, I promise. And you helped us to do that.” He gave her a small smile and then added, “You can grieve your husband as freely as you wish, but the horror of what you have seen is already fading from your mind. And the guilt is already gone from your heart.”
Lisa nodded at him, wide-eyed and calm, her lips slightly parted.
By the time Ash made it around the table, Tobias had already released Lisa from the spell. She was blinking rapidly, and the wide-open look on her face was fading. But in its wake, she was calm for the first time since we’d arrived.
Ash marched us to the front door. “If you come back, I’ll call the police. I’m serious. I don’t know who in the hell you people think you are, but if—”
“Ash, stop it,” Lisa said, her voice carrying from the dining room. “They… they were here to help. Let them leave in peace.”
She’s just protecting her sister, I reminded myself. In her shoes, I’d probably be just as bad, if not worse.
“We won’t be back,” I promised her.
Once we made it back to the car, Tobias began driving immediately. He looked tense, like he was bracing himself for a blow.
“Go on, then,” Tobias told me, after several minutes had passed and he turned onto a deserted side street. He put the car in park, then turned to face me. “Get it over with.”
“No,” I replied, already guessing what was on his mind. “I’m not angry with you, Tobias.”
“Even though I messed with her mind?” He met my gaze, suddenly defiant. “Because I know I said I wouldn’t mess with anyone’s head, especially not in front of you, but I’d do it again for her, in a heartbeat.”
“Good,” I said fiercely.
I took his hand without even meaning to. His skin was warm and firm. His scent once again intoxicated me, so potent in the enclosed space. And I didn’t stop to second-guess myself or worry about what it meant. I wanted to, so I did it.
“You took the horror of what happened to her away, so that she could heal. That’s different from what you did with the morgue attendant. You didn’t mess with Lisa in order to get what you wanted or to protect your own ass. You…” I trailed off for a moment, trying to think of an analogy. “You helped set a broken bone for her, so it could heal properly.”
Tobias glanced down at our joined hands and swallowed hard. “You’re not mad?”
I shook my head, though a lump burned in my throat. “I’m not mad at all.”
And I wasn’t. If anything, I found myself awed by what he had just done with his magic. And I also found that, strangely enough, I was completely and utterly unsurprised by it. Of course he had helped Lisa. Because she had needed it. Tobias helped people who needed it. That was just who he was.
It wasn’t lost on me that Tobias could have done that for me, too. And maybe it was hypocritical of me to think it was okay for him to do that for her and not for me, but the circumstances were very different. Lisa hadn’t hurt anyone.
Tobias clearly had it within his power to take my memories away, which would have benefited him greatly. Because without the horror of knowing what I had done, I would have jumped into a life with him so fast it wasn’t even funny. But he hadn’t because he knew I didn’t want him to. He chose my needs over his wants.
That wasn’t lost on me, either.
Tobias swallowed hard. And when I glanced over at him, I found, to my horror, that his eyes were wet. He dragged in a shaky breath that broke around something that sounded far too much like a sob. It was an awful sound.
“Tobias, what the hell?”
“I’m sorry,” he replied thickly, clearly fighting to keep his composure. “I usually just show up and put these things down. I don’t talk to the survivors. Other witches in the coven handle that stuff.” He paused for a long moment, his jaw clenched so hard that a muscle jumped in his cheek. Then he said, “This reminds me of what happened to my parents.”
Oh.
This entire time, Tobias had been the strong one for me. And now, abruptly, it was perfectly clear that he needed me to be strong for him . Not at some nebulous point in the future, but now. If you’d told me a week ago that I’d be right here, I would have said that the best thing I could do was run the other way. But now that we were actually here, I didn’t want to run. In fact, it was hardly even a choice. He needed me. And that was all I needed to know.
“You can tell me.”
“I’ve already dropped way too much of my garbage on you,” Tobias replied, shaking his head. He looked away from me and I saw that his jaw was clenched again, like he was trying not to lose it. He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll be fine in a second. Like I said, I don’t usually do this part—talking with survivors. And it just hit me harder than I thought it would.”
This was just more of him covering up the way he actually felt. And if he really needed to do that, I’d let him. But I didn’t want him to feel like he had to hide himself from me.
I gave his hand a light squeeze. “Tell me what happened. Please, trust me.”
He turned back to me and I saw that his eyes were fully wet. He shook his head and snorted. “I don’t know if it’s because it’s the mate bond, or if it’s just you. But you’re the first person in years I’ve wanted to talk about this with. And I do trust you.”
I didn’t say anything. Somehow, I knew that if I did, it would have stopped him. Instead, I waited, with his hand in mine.
“My mom was a healer. And she was one of the best the coven had seen in generations. She was constantly being called away at all hours to work on this person or that. By the time I was old enough to understand what she was doing and why it mattered, it just seemed normal.”
He paused, then shook his head, as if to clear it.
“She died when Poppy and I were twelve years old. She got called away, like any other day. And she tried to heal some kid who had gotten involved in a bad car accident. And he was hurt really badly. She overtaxed her powers. And… it killed her.” He smiled bitterly. “The boy lived, though.”
The mask he always wore slipped and I saw years of grief and pain flash across his face. “Our dad… he didn’t take it well. And then he decided to betray every single one of our coven’s teachings. He wanted to bring her back.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Oh yes.” Tobias gave a hollow-sounding laugh. “But it’s got a terrible cost. You have to trade a life for a life, for starters. And you’re messing with the deepest, most primal powers of the universe—you’re basically playing God—and if you don’t do it properly, if you get it even a little bit wrong, those powers will take you instead. And that’s what happened to him. He found some mundane criminal. He killed the man, but he didn’t do the spell right. And so it took him, too. And it probably would have destroyed anything living in the whole neighborhood—hell, the whole city—if the coven hadn’t stopped it.”
“Tobias…”
“Poppy and I went to go live with our grandparents. They didn’t talk about what happened to our parents. No one in the coven did. No one talked about what my father had done. And I thought that if I was just—I don’t know, good —then I could make up for all of it. That I could make it right, somehow. It sounds really stupid when I say it now.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid,” I told him softly.
It didn’t. It sounded like a kid who had just experienced a loss anyone—even an adult—would have struggled to understand. And he had tried to cope with that by being… well, by being perfect. By being the golden boy. The one who always supported everyone around him, no matter how badly he was hurting. The one who always came when the coven called him to fight all the things that crawled out of the dark.
Knowing that, I felt more of my defenses against him begin to crumble. I let them go. Because I knew he needed me to. The Tobias I had seen before wasn’t the full story. The Tobias beneath the mask was more emotional, more vulnerable. And I loved that side of him, too. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help the way I wanted to go back in time and stop any of that from having ever happened to him.
“Thank you,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say that would come anywhere near capturing the way I really felt. “I know that was hard for you. Thank you for trusting me.”
Tobias nodded. He gave me a sad smile.
“I got used to not talking about it, I guess. And I know it’s not the same thing as what Lisa went through, but I get what it’s like, for your whole world to be ripped apart by this stuff. Which is, I guess, another reason to do this.”
I realized that, now that we’d met Lisa, now that we’d seen what she had been through, that maybe Tobias needed this too. His reasons weren’t the same as mine, but maybe he needed to set this one thing right for her, now that he’d seen for his own eyes the pain that the wraith had caused. And my reasons weren’t really the same anymore either. I wanted to keep Tobias as far from the hunters as possible, but now I also wanted to do what I had come here to do for Tobias’s sake, every bit as much as mine.
“What are you thinking?” Tobias asked, eyeing me warily.
“I’m thinking that we know it’s a wraith now, so we need to go and kill it. Any idea where we can get some blessed iron?”
“So, we’re back on board with hunting this thing?”
“We can’t undo what happened to Lisa, but we can stop it from happening to anyone else. We can fix this one thing. Together.”
Tobias’s answering smile was slow to start but it took over his whole face. And I couldn’t help but smile back, even though my heart was hurting. And I had known that Tobias would do anything for me since pretty much the first moment we’d met. But the part that surprised me, the part that made no sense at all—except that it made every kind of sense—was that maybe I would do anything for him, too.
“You know, I do actually have a friend in the city,” he told me, after a long moment had passed. “I’ll call Ethan, just to get a sense of what to expect from the hunters. And then we’ll hit up my friend and get some supplies from her. We’ve got a wraith to banish.”