Chapter 8 #2
Rotting wood creaked and groaned beneath their weight as they passed once-beautiful, water-damaged tapestries and wall hangings. Thanks to a recent rainstorm, several of them dripped water and stank of mildew.
It was enough to spill tears down her cheeks. At first, she was angry at herself for even losing to her emotions in front of Adrian. Then she decided she didn’t care. She had a right to cry. Rosenhaven had been home to her for sixty years.
Adrian’s hand touched her shoulder. “Em—”
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t buy it. They reached the ground level before he took her in his arms and crushed her against his chest. Craving it, she leaned into him and tucked her face against the warm hollow of his throat where his powerful blood pulsed in a soothing tempo.
He didn’t rush her, and for that alone she could have kissed him. Instead, Adrian smoothed his hand down her hair in slow, repetitive strokes while she surrendered to the sweet catharsis of her tears.
“I’m all right now,” Emma said, losing track of the time while he held her. She pulled away first, and a hasty swipe against her cheeks wiped the last of her tears away. “Um, Lamashtu’s mausoleum is this way.”
Emma unlocked the heavy security door with the keys Heloise had given to her. Even though their ancestor had been murdered and her remains removed, the space was still sacrosanct.
“So, this is what’s left of Lamashtu’s resting place,” Adrian muttered as he studied the open tomb.
Since the stone hadn’t burned, most of the room was untouched, smelling of smoke and wilderness, but still structurally sound.
He shoved the heavy lid with his hands and moved it to the side.
As expected, little more than scattered specks of dust remained, most of her ashes gathered for the ceremonial urn now resting in the Manhattan Council home.
Margot had to be stopped, and even though she’d been tasked with another mission, Emma wished she could do anything to help.
For all the times in her life when she’d had some strange insight or sense of déjà vu telling her to run, why couldn’t something come to her now? Mysterious coordinates. An insane desire to go on a cruise to Hawaii. Something indicating Margot’s location.
When nothing came to her related to the former coven mistress, she slumped her shoulders and turned to Adrian. He observed her with his solemn gray eyes.
“Keep willing it to happen, lass, and eventually it will.”
Yeah. If hopes were all it took to make things happen, she’d will him to come out of his clothing.
Rolling her eyes, she turned away and ran her fingers over the cool stone.
Rough and gritty beneath her fingers, it imparted no wisdom and told her nothing, only a fleeting sense of triumph resonated within the unyielding surface with uncertain, nebulous silhouettes flashing in the dark behind her eyelids.
“I can’t… I can’t see anything in the past this time.
Maybe it’s been too long since it happened, but I can feel it.
I can sense Felicity’s outrage. She couldn’t believe what they had planned.
They… they fought. Here. Margot and our master of combat.
They did it. She died here and Margot claimed it was an accident to the rest of the coven. ”
Adrian shifted, pebbles crunching beneath his boots. “Can you use this to find Margot now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried.” She’d never tried much of it, however, and since she’d already improved her ability in great leaps and bounds, it wouldn’t hurt to try again.
After placing both hands flat on the sarcophagus, she closed her eyes and concentrated again. Gripping the impression was like holding a fish in the water. It wiggled away from her each time she focused, until finally she found it.
Margot’s victory. She focused on that and grasped at the powerful emotion left behind, an imprint of the treacherous bitch’s awful misdeed.
The memory began anew. Fresh. Three elder vampires entering.
Indecision. Felicity’s refusal echoed through the air.
For the first time in weeks, Emma missed her old mistress of liaisons all the more fiercely.
She had been a wonderful, amazing woman, a mother to them all whenever she took a new neophyte under her wings, and for her to be murdered for refusing to take part in their diabolic scheme incensed Emma.
As the vampire who sponsored Emma’s admittance into Rosenhaven over six decades ago, Felicity had been the surrogate mother she’d needed after having to abandon her human family.
Emma had never seen her older brother or mother again after awakening with a fire in her throat and an unquenchable thirst no amount of water could alleviate.
“For a long time, I told myself I was okay after Felicity’s death. We were only friends, after all, and so distantly separated by station we could hardly call each other that.”
“And now?” Adrian asked.
“Now that I feel her here, I know that was wrong. Felicity was… the closest thing I had to a mother after becoming a vampire. No. She was my mother.” And when Emma found Margot, she was going to rip the bitch’s traitorous heart out with her bare hands. If the Overseers didn’t find her first.
Taking hold of that anger, Emma clung tenaciously to the threads of Margot’s success and found a fleeting glimpse. The soft lap of water, the gentle sway of the waves. A boat.
“She’s on the water somewhere.”
“Anything more specific?”
“No. I don’t get a tropical feel or anything like that. But I hear gulls. It feels… it feels cool, but that could be anywhere.”
Adrian pressed his lips together and his brow furrowed. “Well, it’s something at least. I’ll let Heloise know. If anything else—”
“I know. If I get impressions of anything, I’ll let you know right away. Promise.”
He nodded and offered her an arm, striking her as more gentlemanly than usual. “That’s the most we can ask for.”
Emma stepped up alongside him. No amount of effort suppressed the queasiness twisting through her gut each time she glanced at Lamashtu’s empty tomb. She had deserved better.
“I’m done here, Adrian. There’s nothing left for me to say goodbye to.”
Atropos had changed little over the years. A couple storefronts on the main street displayed new signs—a second-hand consignment shop occupied a lot where a pawn shop had been—but mostly the town remained untouched.
The same bulb flickered in and out on the sign in front of Mabel’s Diner, and the same group of teens wandered the streets in hoodies long after the appropriate hour to be outside. Rural communities never changed.
As the navigator, Emma directed Adrian through the sleepy town to the residential areas.
“The house on the left down at the end of the cul-de-sac,” Emma directed.
“You know which house?”
“We all knew where to find the biggest witches in the area. Self-preservation and all that, since, if you screwed with one of their loved ones, it broke the truce and they were allowed to incinerate you. This one, River, wasn’t in charge when I left, but seems like things have changed.”
“Ah.” Adrian nodded. “That much I know. She’s supposedly a goddess or demigoddess. The council hasn’t been able to confirm a lot of details about her identity and what she can do.”
“Demigoddess or not, she lives with a shifter,” she warned. “A panther, of all things.”
“The wolves allowed a cat into their territory?”
“Would you tell a demigoddess to put out her pet? Or, er, boyfriend?”
“Point made.”
Emma slipped from the car after he parked on the road and went up to the porch empty-handed.
She passed a sleek, black Jaguar in the drive, parked beside a smaller four-door sedan.
The pair lived in a handsome duplex with a lively garden overflowing with an abundance of colorful pansies, herbs, and winter flora suitable to the Texas climate.
The door opened before she even had the chance to knock, framing a woman of average height and generous curves. Dark hair fell around her shoulders in an untamed mane of loose coils and buoyant spirals, framing a heart-shaped face with pale brown eyes.
“May I help you?” the woman asked.
Emma drew in a deep, calming breath through her nose and gave a respectful bow of her head. Witches made her uneasy, they always had, but she understood the necessity of working with them from time to time.
“River Jackson?”
“I am, and you are?”
“My name is Emmaleigh Whittaker. The brooding guy behind me is Master Adrian Kennedy of the Belleridge Coven.”
River eyed them both with wary caution, but there was something more. Emma caught the spark of recognition in the witch’s eyes.
“What may I do for you?” River asked.
Emma put on a cordial smile. “May we come inside?”
“You know the answer to that.”
Adrian chuckled.
“Fair enough,” Emma replied. “I came to ask a sort of favor, if you’ll allow me.”
River’s brows rose in tandem, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “That really depends.”
“I used to live here, years ago, before Rosenhaven went corrupt and was eradicated. During that time, I had a… friend. I’m just trying to check up on him is all, make sure he’s okay since we parted ways in a less-than-ideal manner.”
“You’re talking about Joe Wiggins.”
Emma startled back. Her eyes widened, and she looked from River to Adrian then back again. “How did you—”
“Know?” River finished for her. “Because two years ago, I tried tracking you down in a murder investigation.”
Murder? As dread blossomed in her chest, sending cold tendrils of terror into her belly, she quickly shook her head in denial. “No one told me anything. Was it Joe? Is he all right?”
“Rosenhaven wasn’t very cooperative.”
“Is Joe all right?” Worried, she stepped forward, only to encounter the formidable barrier of an established threshold.
It threw her back against Adrian, and she struck his chest with a solid thump as power zipped along her skin and steam rose from the singed hairs on her arms. River hadn’t even moved a finger, but her threshold had burned.