Chapter 45
BISHOP
Some days I missed my horse.
I wrapped my fingers around the well-loved leather steering wheel of my sleek Jaguar E-type. Liz, named for Miss Elizabeth Bennett, was a persnickety car of the utmost class. But the line of traffic into Salem proper was horrendous.
Add in the sheets of rain and it was a miserable night.
I knew better than to let my binding ritual lapse.
I usually made sure it was completed during September’s new moon because Salem was an absolute abomination in October.
But I’d been stuck in Canada far longer than anticipated.
I didn’t like to stray far from home this time of year, but it couldn’t be helped.
Now I had to do this in bleeding October.
I downshifted and wished for my stallion who’d been dead for well over three centuries. At least Lightning could leap over or around all these cars.
I sighed and craned my neck. “What the fuck is the holdup?”
Salem might be an insane cluster of pagan wannabees and lookie-loos once the calendar flipped into October, but it wasn’t usually this bad. At least not until Samhain.
I’d been driving for eleven hours and my energy reserves were already dangerously low. I’d maxed out my magic helping a child in Nova Scotia. Then the border had been so backed up I feared my ass might actually meld into my leather seat.
I stabbed the in-dash screen for the GPS app I rarely used and swore at the angry red icons blooming across the screen. The arrival time to the Hawthorne hotel was over six hours.
Six?
It should have been less than thirty minutes. Sweet hell. There was no way I could sit in traffic for that long.
I plodded along for another mile and spotted an exit. Signs for Beverly lured me off the highway. Maybe I could hit the back roads. Even in this miserable rain, Salem was like a divining rod. I could find it regardless of the marching ants line of cars I was trapped in.
My sleek sports car was like another limb at this point.
I’d had her since she rolled off the factory in 1960.
I’d driven her in snowstorms, in a barrage of lightning in the plains of Nebraska, and a haboob in Arizona.
However, the stop and go sixty miles from my destination was going to be the one to end me if I didn’t get off this road.
I zipped below an underpass and signs for a flooding detour pushed me farther away from Beverly.
A few more miles and I was hopelessly turned around into an area I didn’t recognize in the least. Every time I tried to head back into the correct direction, another detour pushed me further down the coast, away from Salem.
Salem usually pulled me closer, not pushed me away. What in the actual hell?
I knew every spare inch of the waterfront and the surrounding towns. However, the sheeting rain had me leaning forward in my seat to peer through the rapidly fogging windshield.
I tried to adjust the fans to combat the rapidly fluctuating temperatures as well as the torrential downpour.
Finally, a town limits sign came into view for Driftwood Pointe. Population four thousand and some change.
It was like being catapulted back in time. Even the sign could have come from Old Salem. The awareness zinged down my spine the minute I crossed the town line. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the sigils on the four corners of the sign.
Magic.
Old, powerful magic. I couldn’t decide if it was welcoming or if the sigils were a ward. The low hum reminded me of the fairy hills of Tara in Ireland. Sometimes it was just residual energy of old magic. But the deeper I drove into the town, the more intense the frequency.
I hadn’t felt it to this degree in any other place except Proctor’s Ledge.
Where I was eternally tied.
Where I should be tonight. Not here, in this ancient town humming with magic I’d never felt before.
The buildings crowded in, showing their age, but even in the deluge of rain I could see they were obviously well cared for.
The sidewalks were free of trash and as picturesque as any in Ireland.
Funny how that slipped into my mind. It was the only place I’d ever felt truly at peace in this long life.
I shook off the melancholy, blaming it on the approaching new moon’s fuckery. The pelting rain lessened enough for me to catch a sign for Captain’s Row.
What the devil did that mean?
I followed the winding road past a weathered post for Wren’s Creek.
The water rushed with the addition of the rain.
It actually seemed elevated already. Maybe residuals from Ruth which had hit the coast recently.
It had been a glancing blow to this part of the shore, but even a whisper of a storm could do damage. I knew that all too well.
I swore as the water seeped over the road. I backed up. There was no way that Liz could survive taking on that kind of water. A large building with front facing windows didn’t help my cause. There wasn’t a blasted light anywhere.
Where the fuck was I?
I didn’t have any choice but to turn down that road and a church rose out of the darkness. The stained glass dimly lit as if by candles. That couldn’t be right.
Who the hell still used candles these days? Maybe it was just low voltage… the words died before they could be formed in my head.
Sure enough, the flicker of something bloomed in the window and then died out.
Not a candle.
Something… other. Was it helping me out?
That was a ridiculous thought. But the light gleamed again and my instinct said to follow it.
A fire house shimmered out of the darkness.
Like the church, it was one place that never went full dark.
I turned down that road and followed my instincts.
I didn’t have much of a choice. The water was literally pushing me forward.
There wasn’t another car on the road.
It was barely half seven, but most of the shops were shuttered. And again, there was the quick dance of light.
The Tidal Inn came into view. My undercarriage scraped over the cobblestones and I winced.
“All right then. I guess this is where I’m supposed to be tonight.”
And the little light went out.
I just hoped this wasn’t a mistake.