Chapter 10
“Don’t answer it,” Chantal whispers, but I get up, wiping Dorito seasoning from my chest and arms.
Another knock echoes down the hall, and I shake my head. “We are witches. We can fuck an intruder up. Come on.”
Slowly, we make our way down the hall, Chantal holding on to the back of my shirt. “It’s not an intruder I’m worried about,” she whispers. “It’s our coven.”
I look back at her, swallowing. How pathetic is that?
The group of women that are supposed to support and protect us is our biggest threat.
How did this happen? How did we get here?
The way my stomach is dropping tells me I’m scared about the same thing Chantal is.
They found out, and we are being brought to trial.
“Let’s see who it is,” I say, straightening my spine. We creep, tiptoeing until my foot almost touches the front door. And just as I lean to look through the peephole, a voice comes from the other side.
“Aster, it’s Cassius.”
Chantal and I look at each other, mouths exhaling in sweet relief.
Unlocking the door and swinging it open, I raise my eyebrows at Cassius Delacroix, in California, unannounced. He’s wearing black jeans and a T-shirt with a messenger bag hung across his chest. A more casual look for Cassius, and I wonder if he too has a California wardrobe.
“Did I scare you?” he asks.
“Hardly.” I tilt my head with a scoff.
He chuckles, swiping his hand down his chin. “Hmm, the two sets of frantic heartbeats I heard from across the house weren’t yours? You might have two intruders then. Would you like me to check?”
“Why are you here?” Chantal shouts, and I press my knuckle into her hip.
“Letting us know you were coming would have been nice,” I say, but stand back, inviting him in. “Just so we aren’t freaking out at a random knock on the door in the middle of the night.”
“Apologies,” Cassius says, resting a hand over his heart as he steps inside, his long hair pulled back at his neck, his aura thick with the scent of citrus and rosemary. “But your phone was going straight to voicemail.”
His gaze sweeps across me, my belly, the only thing he has left of Bastian. “I didn’t mean to bother you, I just…I need to speak with you.” He looks me dead in the eye, and I know what he means. Me alone.
“I’m going to bed,” Chantal announces, taking the hint and raising her arms.
“I do apologize, Chantal. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He says it in a mocking tone, and I glare at him. That won’t win any points with her, and I need her to accept Cassius.
“The fact that I’m more scared of my own coven than my enemy goes to show how much scarier witches are than vampires.”
“Oh, that’s just because—”
“Cassius,” I say, my eyes pleading with him not to get into an argument with her, and thankfully, he quiets.
“I apologize for coming unannounced, Chantal. Goodnight.”
Chantal’s eyebrow arches, but she nods, her curls bouncing as she turns down the hall. “That’s a good vampire,” she calls out before shutting the door.
Our eyes meet again, but then Cassius looks to my hair.
“Are you not showering?” he asks, plucking something from the top of my head. He produces it between us, and I recognize the chip in his finger.
“It’s a Dorito,” I say, then grab it and toss it in my mouth.
The appalled look on his face is worth a million dollars. I can’t help but laugh—laugh so hard I cross my legs so I don’t pee my pants.
Rolling his eyes at my one-woman show, he sits on the couch, unfolding himself elegantly while I feel like an uncoordinated seagull.
“Sorry,” I say. “I think I’m delirious.”
“You think?” he says with a smirk, a sliver of amusement in his eyes.
“Would you like one?” I ask, sitting next to him, rubbing through my scalp for another chip.
“Oh, you’re disgusting.” He laughs, and I smirk too. “How have you been?”
I slump on the couch next to him, looking at my huge stomach, the Dorito seasoning all over me, the dirty jammies. “Oh, I’ve been great. Just swell. Can’t you tell?”
I’ve left him speechless, so I just sigh. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
Clearing his throat, he looks from the hallway to me again, a melancholy overcoming him.
“Everything is fine. I just felt the need to get here as soon as possible. It was like something was pushing me. Telling me I had to do this. Do something I had once denied you.” His brown eyes meet mine, and I nod, waiting for him to continue.
“You asked if Bastian kept a diary. And I was honest with you. He never kept one. But I also omitted…that I did.” At that, he pulls out a small green book from his bag and holds it between his hands.
Almost instantly, Winnie pulls on the inside of my wrists from across the room, the terrible habit my grimoire has when it wants to create. But create what?
“I have kept journals off and on throughout my life. Unfortunately, I don’t have a habit of keeping a record of incredibly happy times.
No, it’s the difficult times that have always warranted record keeping” He laughs at that, as if frustrated with himself.
“After Bastian finally took to vampirism, I sat down and tried to write our story, a sort of autobiography. I never finished it. But this,” he says, placing his hand over the book.
“This is the beginning of our journey together. Now it’s difficult to remember every interaction when you’ve been alive for two hundred years, but something stirred in my memory recently.
And I think it could be helpful to you.” He proffers the book toward me, and my hand clasps it so quickly, heat courses through my fingertips at its touch.
“Cassius…” I say, needles pricking every vein in my body.
“I’ve decided I’ll tend to a few business matters in the Bay Area while I’m here. I will be around for a few days. Read it, and if you need me or have any questions…I’ll be a phone call away.”
“You think there’s something in here that can help me?” I flip through the diary, Cassius’s elegant handwriting filling the pages.
“I have an inkling, yes. And I also believe you’re up to something. Something terribly wonderful.” His eyes burn into mine, and my face flushes.
“I am…” I stammer, because Cassius knows. He knows what I’ve been planning, bringing Bastian back, he must. And he’s handing me something he thinks could help. “I don’t know if it will work,” I whisper.
“Of course.” He looks at me with sympathy in his eyes, and I can only imagine I’m a picture of a pathetic witch who’s fallen from grace.
My wrists tug and tug, pushing me to open the book once again, but I’m frozen in this moment, my curiosity begging to explode.
“I must go. Marlowe is waiting for me in the car,” he says, standing, so I try my best to get up quickly, but the ability to bend at the hips has been temporarily stolen from me. “You know, the woman you saved. And ultimately told to run for her life.” His expression doesn’t move a lick, and I nod.
“Well, she didn’t listen,” I say, my tone flying too high.
“She didn’t. Thank God.”
I look down at the leather-bound book between us, emerald green, with Cassius’s initials pressed into the middle. “You think there’s something in here I need to know?”
“I think you can read for yourself and make your own interpretation. Call me if you need me. And please take a shower. Did you get the packages I sent?”
I feel lost, like he’s speaking in fast forward and I’m processing in slow motion. “Packages?”
“Yes, I sent packages, and they say delivered. Some baby stuff Marlowe said would be helpful.”
“Oh, they’re in Bastian’s room. I haven’t been able to open anything yet.”
“Aren’t you due in a few weeks?”
“Three,” I say.
“Do you need help?”
“No, no. I just can’t make myself do it. I’m going to. I’ve been…”
“You don’t have to explain,” he says, softening at my search for an excuse. When the truth is, I can’t make myself do much right now. “This is a big change. This is not New Orleans. You’re having a child somewhere that isn’t home.”
“Yes. That’s it.” I bite my lip to keep from crying, and the incessant beat of my heart grows faster and faster with every second that passes without me reading the diary in my hands.
“We’ll be in touch,” he says.
“Cassius,” I whisper, feeling a lightning bolt strike through my core.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” And before I know it, he’s in my arms, being squeezed as tightly as I can.
His large frame remains stiff for a moment or two until it softens and he embraces me back. “Sister,” he whispers.
“Brother,” I say. Tears are who I am now. The witch that never cried nor grew things, is growing something and crying at every turn.
“Chantal!” I scream once Cassius is out the door, running the best I can down the hall. “Chantal, it’s like a diary. Cassius wrote it.”
I word vomit everything Cassius told me, show her the book, and grab her arm. “Chantal, I think there’s something vital in here. I can feel it.”
I don’t know what or how or why, but Chantal looks at me and says, “Well, what are you waiting for?” The anticipation sparks from her eyes, and I pull the book into my chest, trying to gather my breath.
“Okay,” I say, turning to go down the hall. I plug in my phone and grab a blanket, ignite a fire in the fireplace, and settle in for an all-nighter if that’s what it takes. I open the book, my fingers gripping it like it’s the last one on Earth, because for me, it feels like it is.