Chapter 81
An Ancient Law
BJ walked in around mid-afternoon, holding a large glass jar full of green colored cream. It looked like mouldy mowed grass.
“Sorry it took so long, we had to go to Two Peaks to get some—” He caught sight of me and his mouth cranked open. “Oh, Amy, who did this?” He rushed forward.
“Hang on, my—” I never got to finish the sentence, he threw his arms around me, squeezing my bruised chest. I sucked in a breath through my teeth.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be if you lighten up on the squeeze, BJ,” I breathed.
He released me and stepped back. “Sorry.” He peered into my face like he was a doctor searching for splinters. “Did Matt find them?”
I averted my eyes. “They’ve been dealt with.”
He made a clicking sound in his throat. “I don’t suppose I want to know how?”
“No,” I agreed, “you don’t.”
He shifted his gaze between Ethan and Karson. Shock swept across his face like a white fog. “The car accident . . .” he said in a hoarse voice. “All of those car accidents. Jesus. What’s wrong with you?”
We all looked at him for a moment, wordless.
Ethan cleared his throat. “Not all, BJ, far fewer than you think. The roads are treacherous and human driving skills are appalling.” He moved over to the side cabinet, turned his back and poured three whiskeys.
BJ glowered at his back. “What about the missing hikers? I suppose their walking skills were appalling too.”
I felt my insides grow cold. I shivered and rubbed my arms.
“I believe you came here for a reason, BJ,” Karson stated. Conversation dismissed.
BJ made a disgusted sound through his nose. “How many of them did you murder? All those missing faces in the diner. Lucy, the journalist, the girl you had a drink with who disappeared. Did you kill her?”
That at least, he could safely deny. He wouldn’t need to kill her, if she’d known something she shouldn’t, he could mind control her to forget. I waited for the denial.
Ethan stilled.
Karson shifted his gaze to me and in it was filled with both annoyance and—oh, God—guilt.
Shock stole my breath. I felt a cold sweat break out on the nape of my neck. He killed her. It was written all over his face.
I closed my eyes, willing it not to be trued. Her image flashed in my mind, she was so young, so vibrant, so dead. The ground seemed to sway under my feet.
“My hand was forced, I had no choice.” Karson’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet.
I dragged my eyes open. “No choice?” My voice shook, “you had a choice. You could have mind-controlled her.”
He held up his palm, silencing me. “I could not.” He dropped his hand back down.
“There are some humans whose minds can’t be altered, either they’re too strong, or they carry witch blood somewhere in their genetics.
It makes them immune to persuasion or unpredictable at best. She knew too much.
She threatened to tell the world about our kind, about the witches and about the waters.
I had no choice.” He tried to keep his tone casual but couldn’t entirely disguise the defensiveness in his voice.
“Jesus,” BJ whispered.
I plonked to the couch, staring at the wood grains in the floor, running it through my head.
He’d killed her because he had to, not because he wanted to.
I’d never outright asked him if he did it.
No wonder he steered me in another direction when I’d talked about looking into her disappearance.
He could have lied about it, but he didn’t.
The notion was more consoling than perhaps it should have been.
“At the time I had no idea she was having an affair with Jefferson, had I known I might have been able to shut things down sooner.”
I lifted my head. “Do you think Mike knows about what she discovered?”
Karson shook his head. “I destroyed all the evidence, he found something with my name on it and the hikers, but it’s hardly concrete proof.”
Ethan stepped forward. “I doubt he’d bother looking into it further now that Cole’s paying generously to run stories that suit his narrative.”
“People are either puppets on a string or they’re dead,” BJ muttered. He might have been talking about Cole, but he wasn’t. He sat down heavily beside me.
Karson drew in a deep breath, I could see him struggling to remain calm.
“I do not go around controlling people for the sake of it, Benjamin. I do it when it’s necessary.
Tell me, if people were to find out about the powers your mother truly has and the government were to come for her, would you not do whatever was needed to keep her safe, your family safe, others like Amelia safe? ”
Witch and vampire surveyed each other. Our skills may be different, the history terrible, but we shared a commonality in needing to keep each other’s existence a secret and, just as importantly, the waters.
BJ swallowed loudly, he dropped his eyes to the ground, finally he nodded slowly. “So, we can assume Lucy found out about everything from Jefferson,” BJ mused, looking back up, seeming to come to some degree of acceptance. “How did Jefferson find out?”
“We still don’t know,” Ethan replied.
We all looked up as Monique swooped in front of BJ. “And who’s this gorgeous thing?”
BJ’s eyes widened, he stood up and stared at her face like she was a rare, exquisite treasure. Mostly, because she was. He flushed, and gave a lop-sided grin.
“Did you find out anything?” Karson drawled.
“No,” Michael responded. Monique was too busy staring at BJ. “We searched everywhere in Church Heights we could think of. Whoever they were are long gone.”
“You negated to tell me you had such handsome friends, Amy.” Monique’s voice was all sugar and silk.
BJ smiled, shuffled on his feet and bowed his head.
I jumped to my feet. “Is that the cream, BJ?” I tugged his arm, yanking him away from Monique. “Let’s go to my bedroom.”
“You want to do it in there?” he asked, then blurted out, “I mean, not do it—obviously,” he laughed nervously.
A soft red glow blanched his skin. “Put the cream on . . . your injury, because your face is all bruised and swollen,” he babbled.
Monique barely restrained laughter. I heard him groan softly in his throat.
I tugged harder on his arm and pulled him up the stairs.
“Karson, before you tear the throat out of that one, do let me sink my teeth in first, won’t you,” Monique crooned. Somehow, she even managed to make the sound of the threat alluring.
I whipped my head back. “You touch him, Monique,” I hissed, “and you will be needing more than a dentist.”
Monique laughed, a pretty, enchanting sound. BJ pivoted his head back to look at her, his mouth still agape, doe eyed. I jerked his arm and marched him up the stairs, shutting the bedroom door behind us.
Having applied the cream to my swollen face I sat on the end of the bed. It burned, stunk and itched uncomfortably, but BJ had assured me that meant it was working.
“Do you know why the men came after you? Was it random or were you targeted for a reason? BJ asked. He sat beside me.
“Targeted,” I replied, “there was an email from Cole telling them to take me to the outskirts of town, unharmed.”
“Cole?” His eyebrows shot up, he glanced at me with concern. “Does he know what you are?”
“We don’t even know if it was Cole, not for certain.
It was from his server, so it looks like it was him.
But he can’t know what I am. I don’t go anywhere without my ring, and if he did, he’d have known not to send humans.
” The itch was infuriating, I fought the urge to rub the cream off my face. “What purpose would I serve Cole?”
BJ shuffled back and rested his head on the wall, looking up at the ceiling for a long moment, considering it all.
Then realization dropped over his face. “What if the plan wasn’t to hurt you, but to get you away from Karson and Ethan?
But, who else would know what they are apart from .
. .” he paused and sat bolt upright. “Caron?”
I stared at him, confused. Caron’s words bounded back in my head. I’d forgotten about them, until now.
“Why? She knows Karson and I are no longer together, and she knows I’m still training to fight for them.” I frowned. “But she did mention something strange the other day. She said witches playing with vampires is treason and that she could only protect me so much.”
“Treason?” BJ sat back. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Who knows.”
A thunderous roar came from downstairs. I jerked my head to the door as it burst open. Karson stood breathing fire into the room.
BJ jerked back until his head met the wall.
“Why didn’t you tell us? When did she say that?” He strode into the room.
I got up and placed myself between BJ and Karson.
“The day at the café when I met Georgie and Sarah. When was I supposed to have told you, Karson? Before we argued about—” I stopped, realizing the story of Chris’s broken arm was not something BJ should hear. “I didn’t think anything of it.”
Karson glared at me like he might want to wring my neck. He blew out a heavy breath and vanished. A moment later I heard his car take off.
Ethan stepped in. He’s eyes were fierce and concerned.
“What did Caron mean?” I asked.
He strode across the room and looked out the window, like he was searching for threats. “It’s an ancient law, I wouldn’t think they’d enforce it today.”
“What’s an ancient law?” I asked, almost reluctant to hear the answer.
He twisted back and looked grim. “A witch who cavorts with a vampire can be trialed and executed.”
“What!” BJ and I said in unison. It was worse than I’d imagined. I felt my heart rate climb. I groaned and stepped back.
“You’re a warrior, Amy, they need you. There is no way they’d take you out.
Witches and vampires have dated, and it has not been enforced for more than a hundred years.
It wouldn’t be anything to do with that, no way,” he tried to reassure me.
“Karson will have a chat with Caron, if anything is going on, she’ll know. ”
“I wouldn’t want to be Caron,” BJ said, folding his arms. “Will he kill her?”
“No,” Ethan answered, “as much as he might like to, we have rules in place. Although, if he finds out she had anything to do with it, then I wouldn’t want to be her either.”
* * *
The next hour went past like the one before, slowly.
BJ went home and I showered. There wasn’t enough perfume in the bottle to disguise the smell that lingered in the pores of my skin.
It was no longer terrible, but it wasn’t exactly nice.
The swelling had gone though, and the bruising had almost disappeared, only long sallow yellow marks remained, which could be covered by makeup.
Ethan was seated in the armchair, reading.
I sat on the couch and stared at the flames, watching them dance over the firewood like skilled ballerinas.
Snapping and cracking their ankles as the twirled.
Thinking about Karson, about what might have happened.
Did they fight? Was he hurt? A knot pressed against the inside of my stomach.
I checked my phone for the fifth, or tenth time. I stood up, ready to insist we go and check, when I heard Karson’s car pull up. Ethan sat his book down on the side table. When Karson entered it was Ethan who spoke.
“What did you find out?”
He ran a hand through his hair, wiping off a few loose drops of rain. “She denies having any involvement. She said there’s no way they’d hurt Amelia. Her coven is the only one who knows of her existence. They found out who the witches were last night, and she was just about to come and see us.”
Ethan said dryly, “Convenient.”
“Who were they?” I asked.
“She said kids with no skills of any benefit, they were scared and ran off.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t at least call the police,” he answered, moving over to the other armchair, sitting down. “Suffice to say we will be doing our own inquiries.”
“Inquiries, or interrogations?”
“Whatever needs to be done.”
His cold words send a shiver down my spine.