Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Nobody listens. Nobody ever listens. It doesn’t matter if I file with the Conservation Office. It doesn’t matter if I file with the Fish and Wildlife Office. Nobody cares. Well, now they’re going to care,” the man seethed, a gun in each hand as he paced.
It was the dreadlocked environmentalist that I had seen that night outside Lucky’s, handing off fliers about saving the turtles to patrons as they waited in line. I’d thought he was a little overzealous at the time, but I’d missed the fact that he was a complete lunatic.
Maybe it was time for me to start paying a little more attention to others.
“What are you going on about?” Miss Elva demanded, surprising the man into stopping his rant as he sized her up.
“The turtles,” he said slowly, keeping his eyes trained on her.
“And what do the turtles have to do with killing honest people and shooting at us?” Miss Elva demanded.
“The turtles lay their eggs on this beach. If the condo development gets built here, there will be no place for them to go,” the man said.
“Who are you?” I cut in.
“Darius Masterson. I’m a biologist,” Darius explained, the guns still trained on us.
“Darius, don’t you think there might be a better way to accomplish all this?” I asked gently.
“I tried. I really tried. For a year now. Nobody cares. They take my fliers and throw them away. Nobody listens,” Darius said, his dreadlocks sticking out like crazy and bouncing around his head while he shouted.
“Why did you want us to come here tonight?”
“I only wanted the voodoo priestess. Not the psychic. She can’t do anything,” Darius scoffed. I felt offended.
“Excuse me? I can do plenty of things,” I said, hand on hip.
Miss Elva cast me a look and I shut up. I wondered if Cash was on the boat watching all this, and if they were planning to take a shot at Darius.
Considering the possibility, I slowly began to move closer to Miss Elva, positioning ourselves so that we weren’t blocking the sightline from the water.
“I want you to put a curse on this beach,” Darius demanded of Miss Elva, and she nodded slowly, listening to him.
“What did you do to Luna?” I asked, my eyes on my best friend on the ground. She was laid out with her back to us, but I could see her arm move a little, so I knew she was still breathing.
“I just knocked her out, she’s fine,” Darius said, dismissing her.
“How come you took Luna?” Miss Elva demanded.
“I heard she was a witch. But she told me she doesn’t do curses and that I had to get Miss Elva.”
Luna was smart, that’s for sure.
“What was with the whole drilling the saplings in that guy’s head, then?” I said, keeping him talking and trying desperately not to glance towards the water to see if the boat was near. At least they would be able to see clearly, thanks to Miss Elva’s charm.
“Wasn’t that great? I knew the Pagan festival was in town; then when I saw you guys doing your ritual on the beach, I figured it would be a perfect spot to lay the body out. It looked really cool, if I do say so myself,” Darius puffed out his chest a bit, seeming very proud of himself.
“Yeah, super cool. So you watched our whole ritual?” I wondered if he knew about Rafe, who was currently flitting around Miss Elva’s head. I tried not to get grossed out thinking about Darius creeping around in the bushes while we were skyclad on the beach.
“Nah, I just caught the end. It was pretty cool. That’s why I wanted to take Luna. She clearly knew what she was doing. You on the other hand…well, you need some work.”
Don’t get offended, don’t get offended. I was tempted to toss some power at this dude to see what he would do, but with one gun trained on Luna’s inert body and the other on us, I felt like my hands were tied.
“Sure, I’ll put a curse on the beach for you. I just need to get my stuff out of my bag,” Miss Elva said, holding her hands up and explaining what she was going to do.
“Any weird moves and I’ll shoot this one,” Darius said, gesturing with a gun at Luna. I shivered.
“This is the police! Put your hands in the air!”
I was so shocked by the voice that thundered over the megaphone that I dropped my mental shield.
Which proved to be a critical mistake when Darius grabbed me and dragged me in front of his body, pulling me further out onto the beach so I blocked him entirely from the boat that rocked gently in the water in front of us. Darius hadn’t seen them yet.
I closed my eyes as cool steel brushed my forehead.
This wasn’t exactly how I had planned for things to go tonight. In fact, I was supposed to be curled up on my couch with Cash and Hank right at this very moment. I gulped as I felt tears slip into my eyes.
The cold steel of the gun slipped past my face and fell to the ground. It was all I could do not to jerk forward and try to pick it up.
“What’s happening?” Darius screeched into my ear, and I winced at the sound.
He began to keen and wail into my ear, rendering me all but deaf.
I gasped as his arm tightened for a moment around my throat, cutting off my supply of air.
The wails increased in fervency, until his arms loosened around me and I gasped as, suddenly, I was free.
Without thinking, I ran to where Luna lay huddled on the ground, praying I wasn’t about to take a bullet in the back.
Risking a glance, I looked back.
Darius danced around the beach, still holding one gun in a hand, both hands to his head while he screamed. I cast a glance at Miss Elva to see her holding the doll in one hand.
Having learned from my previous mistakes, I kept my mouth shut, huddling over Luna as I ripped through the duct tape that was wrapped around her arms and legs.
Miss Elva twisted the doll’s neck and Darius doubled over, coughing and choking, scrambling at his throat with his hands, his nails leaving red marks as he tore at his skin.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chief Thomas hop from the boat and race across the beach, tackling Darius easily and pressing his face into the sand.
In moments, Darius was cuffed and I stared in awe as Miss Elva slipped the little doll back into her satchel.
“Miss Elva, that was something…” I trailed off. I didn’t really even have the words for witnessing something like that. I get a little speechless when I’m in the presence of major power.
Luna moaned softly and I turned back to her as people jumped from the boat and flooded the beach.
“Luna,” I gasped, wincing at the duct tape that covered her mouth, knowing I would hurt her if I ripped it from her delicate skin.
Her eyelashes fluttered against her smooth skin, before opening to look at me.
Confusion crossed her features for a moment before she focused on my face and understood I was here to help her.
“Luna, I have to pull this duct tape off. It’s going to hurt like a bitch. I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching out to touch the corner of the tape on her face. Luna nodded, understanding what needed to be done.
“Here, child, let me handle this,” Miss Elva said, maneuvering me aside and dipping into what I was now forever going to refer to as her magickal satchel.
She pulled out a tube of some kind of ointment and ran it across the edges of the tape, taking care not to get any in Luna’s nostrils.
Once she was done, she capped the bottle, laid her hand over the duct tape, and pulled gently.
The tape came off easily in one piece. There wasn’t even a mark on Luna’s face.
“Damn, yo. You should sell that,” I said to Miss Elva before leaning over to hug Luna.
“I was so scared,” I whispered into her hair, holding her tightly.
Luna was more than just a best friend, she was like a sister to me.
Imagining my life without her –well, I just couldn’t go there right now.
Luna’s body began to shake in the aftermath and I ran my hands down her arms, sending a little soothing energy into her. She smiled her thanks at me.
“I was scared too. I honestly never would have thought the killer was the hippie environmentalist dude,” Luna said, casting a look over at the beach.
“You’re telling me.”
We all watched as Chief Thomas read Darius his rights. Beau and Cash turned away once they saw that everything was kosher with Chief Thomas, and raced across the sand to us.
“Luna!” Beau said, dropping to his knees in the sand and hugging her.
“Sure, don’t mind me, I’m fine too,” I grumbled at Beau, then gasped as I was scooped off the ground and pressed to Cash’s muscular chest.
Can we pause to appreciate the strength of a man who can lift a grown woman from the ground?
His lips found mine, and everything just fell away for a while. I sighed into his mouth, snuggling into his warmth and solidness, wanting to stay there just a moment longer.
A throat cleared behind us and Cash broke his kiss, though he didn’t turn.
“Please don’t do that to me again. I don’t know if my heart can take it,” Cash said seriously, his grey eyes clouded with concern.
“Yes, I’d ideally not want to go through something like that again,” I agreed, before Cash let my feet down and I slid down his body.
His muscular hard body.
Shaking my head to focus, I peeked around Cash’s arm to see Dylan standing there.
“Sorry, Dylan. I know this wasn’t what you were expecting to do today,” I said.
“No problem, just glad to see everyone is okay,” Dylan said, coming to stand by Beau and lending a hand to pull Luna to a standing position.
“We’ve got to go back on the boat to get to our car.
Are you guys okay to leave from here?” Cash asked.
I turned to look out at where Trace idled the boat in front of the beach.
I could just barely make him out in the glow from Miss Elva’s charm, and I waved to him, wanting to thank him for his help.
When I saw his hand shoot up in response, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I just don’t understand,” I heard Dylan saying as he walked around, trying to figure out the source of the light. Beau clapped him on the shoulder and shook his head.
“Best not to ask too many questions. You’ll learn that pretty quickly if you come down here more often.”
And wasn’t that just the truth of it?