CHAPTER TWELVE #2
“Your store is beautiful!” Ruby said, spinning around to take it all in. “I love the deep blue ceiling and all the stars. Oh, and look at that curved wooden staircase to the second floor!” She dashed off to look around.
Damien smiled fondly after his wife even as Dex came out from the back room.
Once Ruby returned, I introduced him to the Dragos family, and he smiled and shook hands with Damien.
Xander wanted down to go look at the books, and a short time later I found myself firmly steered right out of my own store and going to lunch with the Dragos family.
Obviously there had been news with the situation in the hollow, and lunch was simply a cover. Their coming to see me in person and going out under the guise of a meal was simply the safest and most secure way to pass along the information.
Kathleen cheerfully shooed me right out the door. “Go, go!” she said. “Scram.”
“I’ll be back after lunch,” I told Dex and Kathleen.
“No, you won’t,” Kathleen argued and handed me my purse. “Take the rest of the day off. Dex and I can hold down the fort.”
“Come on Lorna!” Xander demanded, tugging on my hand to get me to come along.
“Sheesh,” I said, even as Xander took my hand and walked with me outside. Nadia followed us all along inconspicuously. Status as a Supernatural bodyguard not withstanding…she’d make a hell of a spy.
For all I knew she already was working as one for her Vampire House. But Nadia’s true “job” was a mystery to be solved another day.
There was a long black car waiting for us all at the curb. I climbed inside with Xander, and he scrambled over into his car seat. Ruby and Damien glided in, then Ruby swiftly buckled her son up and soon we were pulling away from the curb.
“Would it be easier to go to my house?” I asked the couple. For the life of me I couldn’t see the Vampires strolling into a restaurant at lunch time in the touristy part of Five Points South. “We could speak privately there.”
“That would be best,” Damien said.
Ruby nodded. “I’d enjoy seeing your home.”
“Okay.” I nodded in return. “I’ll let Nadia know and shoot her a quick text. Let me give your driver my address,” I said, leaning forward to tap on the glass that separated the passenger part from the driver’s area of the limo.
Damien waved that away. “He already knows the address. I took the liberty of telling him before we arrived to your bookstore.”
“Oh.” I blinked at that.
“Damien doesn’t mean to be high handed,” Ruby began, “he just can’t seem to help himself.”
Damien took his wife’s hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “It’s simply a part of my charm.”
A short time later, I found myself seated on my own back porch, serving sweet tea to my guests while Xander ran around the garden exclaiming over every flower and dragging Nadia along to look at it all.
She was wonderful with Xander and seemed to be enjoying herself almost as much as the child was.
Damien informed me that he had known Nadia for years.
They’d first met when he worked with the Vampire Council in Chicago.
That information had me eyeballing the brunette Vampire a tad more closely.
I’d come to know her better in the past two weeks, but she’d been very tight-lipped about her past. I’d discovered that she had a passion for plants and gardening and reading.
She’d devoured the series of novels Kathleen had lent her.
I found myself liking her and considered her more of a new friend as opposed to my bodyguard.
“I didn’t know that Nadia was from Chicago,” I said to Damien.
While Xander was busy with Nadia, Damien and Ruby brought me up to speed on the latest developments in Hemlock Hollow. Including the recent demise of Sawyer Weston.
“How did he die?” I asked.
“Sawyer’s body was found in the forest, close to a Fae mound two days ago,” Ruby explained. “Not far from where Shelby Murphy died.”
“Was it the Light Fae that took him out?” I asked very quietly.
“Yes,” Damien said with a nod. “They were less than pleased when they realized they would not be getting their hands on the grimoire after all.”
I cringed a bit. Less than pleased had to be the understatement of all time. “Are the Light Fae that were trying to acquire the grimoire back in their own realm now?”
“Yes,” Damien said. “It appears that this is finally over.”
I took a sip of my tea before asking, “And Sawyer’s parents, were they ever located?”
“They were,” Ruby said. “They’re safe. Apparently, they had fled their farm after Sawyer showed up there with Shelby.
Mr. Weston did not want to take any chances after he learned what Sawyer was trying to sell to the Fae.
He knew the Fae would come to his farm, and so after he threw his son and Shelby out, Mr. Weston staged a scene to make it look as though they’d been in a physical fight with injuries; and he and his wife made themselves scarce and hid out in the woods for a while. ”
“Wow,” I said, impressed.
“Seems Mr. Weston is a survivalist,” Damien explained. “He already had a shelter built for emergencies on a remote part of his property. Sawyer never knew about it.”
“And Sawyer’s sister Sarah?”
“She’s fine and reunited with her folks at their farm,” Ruby told me.
I checked over my shoulder, ensuring that Xander was still far enough away as to not overhear. “Seth Olarescu made a comment to me, a few weeks back, about how the Fae couldn’t be allowed to run unchecked through the mortal realm, killing in their quest for old treasure.”
Ruby frowned, and Damien’s expression remained bland. Too bland.
He knew something.
“Don’t suppose that y’all know anything about a Fae quest for ‘old treasure,’ do you?” I asked them both.
“No,” Ruby responded immediately.
After a long moment, Damien shook his head. “I’m afraid that I am not at liberty to say.”
Ruby’s head swung around and she glared at Damien. “You promised me, no more secrets!”
Damien shrugged. “I promised you that I would be as forthcoming with you as I was able about the Ozark Council of Supernaturals. However, I did tell you that if any information could put you or Xander at risk, then I would not share it.”
Ruby narrowed her eyes at her husband. “We are not done talking about this, Damien.”
“Listen y’all,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, I am done. I don’t want to know anything else. I only want my city and my community to be safe.”
“Agreed,” Damien said.
My eyes went to Nadia. “I wonder how much longer she’ll be here acting as my bodyguard.”
Damien leaned back in his chair. “Until Seth Olarescu decides she is no longer required.”
“Lorna!” Xander shouted from across the yard. “Look at me!”
Shifting in my patio chair, I found Xander sitting on the grass with about a dozen flowers floating in a circle around his head.
“Wow!” I clapped for him. “Great job on the earth magick, buddy!”
“I practiced. Every day!” he called back.
“I can see that,” I said.
“He’s been working every day with elemental magick. Ever since that evening that you were with him in our gardens,” Ruby said quietly.
Xander ran over to me and the flowers stayed in place circling around his head. “I don’t hold my breath no more!”
“Congratulations!” I gave him a hug. “This calls for ice cream.”
“Hooray!” Xander jumped up and down, and the flowers dropped to the floor of the porch.
With a laugh, Damien got up and began to gather the fallen blossoms.
“I love ice cream!” Xander shouted.
“Let’s go inside and get you some.” Taking his hand, we went into the kitchen together.
“I hope it’s chocolate,” Ruby said as she followed us inside.
I turned to Ruby with a smile. “Is there any other kind?”
***
After an enjoyable few hours with the Dragos family, I found myself sitting alone on my couch.
In the center of my coffee table sat a jar filled with the flowers that had been compliments of Xander’s magick.
The little boy had been so serious arranging them for me, and those flowers stuffed haphazardly into an old canning jar meant more to me than any formal arrangement that I’d ever received.
My house was very quiet now, even with Nadia unobtrusively staying in the background, and I was feeling a tad lonely after the Dragos family had left.
Which was ridiculous. I had always enjoyed my solitude.
Yet, seeing Xander bop around my back yard—so proud of his earth magick—had me wondering what it would be like to have my home filled with a couple of baby Witches.
Sure, it would be loud, messy, and chaotic; but still, a part of me had always secretly yearned for that.
“Maybe I should go to a shelter and adopt a cat,” I muttered. “A Witch has to have a cat. It’s like standard issue. Then I would have company.”