Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
Milton, Massachusetts, Present Day.
It had been four weeks since Cally last walked up the path to her dad’s house, which was ironic. Hadn’t she promised herself she’d visit every month?
And here she was, but not because she’d intended to be.
Autumn leaves lay scattered in reds and browns across the grass, and the air was cool and crisp.
Two carved pumpkins rested on his porch, ready for the sticky children who’d visit tonight.
A skeleton slouched in a deck chair, lonely on the lawn, a glass with a cocktail umbrella gripped in one bony hand.
She barely spared it a look; it was the same one he’d used for the last twenty years.
She pulled back the screen door and took a breath before she knocked.
Her dad opened the door almost immediately. Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, he stepped out with a questioning expression, and gave her a perfunctory hug.
“What’s going on?” he murmured in her ear.
Darian stood behind him, nonchalantly leaning against the wall, wearing jeans, a bomber jacket, and an easy smile.
“What do you mean?” she replied, trying for lightness, her voice too tight to carry it off.
Her dad leaned away, gave her a look to say he didn’t buy it, then stepped back, giving her access to the house. And Darian.
“Hello,” she said. “How unexpected to see you here.”
“Is it?” Darian replied, pushing himself off the wall. “I thought you agreed to help me.”
“Of course,” she said, conscious of her dad listening to their stilted conversation. “But let’s go for a walk. I’m sure my dad doesn’t want to be bothered with work.”
“Darian is a colleague?” her father asked, disbelief in his tone.
“That’s right,” Darian said as he walked past. “Nice to meet you, David. Thanks for the coffee.”
“Sure,” her dad said coolly. He looked at Cally. “See you soon?”
Come and explain, in other words. “Of course, Dad.”
She turned and walked down the path, Darian following, and passed the Zipcar she’d parked on the curb, dwarfed by his black Chevy Suburban.
Last time she’d stopped in Milton, it had been a Lamborghini, and that hadn’t ended well.
As Darian stepped up alongside her, she wondered if this visit would end any better.
“Nice to see you again,” he said as they strolled along. The street was quiet; no one else out on a Saturday morning save for a dog walker or two, none close.
“Don’t go near my dad again. Ever. If you do, it’ll be the last time the Order sees me.”
“Answer your phone, then I won’t need to.”
“It broke.”
“Of course it did. The number of your new one?”
She clenched her jaw, then rattled it off.
Darian didn’t reach for his own phone to enter it, just walked on with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Mr. Alexander’s growing impatient. I have to give weekly reports, you know.”
“At least I’ve saved you some paperwork.”
“There is that.” He smiled. “How’s Eve?”
She fought to keep facing forward and not look at him in alarm. “Fine, thanks.”
“Oh, good. I did worry, when she didn’t turn up to work. For two weeks.”
“She’s been on vacation.”
“Of course she has,” he replied, perfectly accepting. “And you? How’s your vacation been?”
“Lovely.”
Darian paused on the sidewalk, forcing her to turn and stop. “You promised to help us, Cally.”
“I’m not sure I did.”
He inclined his head as though she’d scored a point, then deliberately looked back at her dad’s house. “I assume you will though, right?”
Cally swallowed. “Right,” she agreed, her mouth dry.
“Great! Mr. Alexander will be so pleased.” He gave her a smile, easy and genuine and surprisingly charismatic. Why did all the bastards have to be good-looking? He nodded to her dad’s house again. “This is where you grew up, isn’t it?”
“You already know that.”
“Yes, we do. We also know this is where your mom died.”
She tensed.
“Vampires are territorial.” Darian cocked an eyebrow at her. “Were you aware?”
Yes. “No.”
“He’s here, in Milton. Nico Aldobrandini. Would you like to know where he lives?”
She said nothing, conscious of her pulse racing, and struggled to keep her calm.
Darian didn’t seem to mind her silence. “Eve has the book still?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “There’s a spell in there that will immobilize a vampire once he’s asleep, Miss Davis. By Friday morning, I expect you to be able to cast it.”
“A week to learn a spell?” She made no attempt to keep the incredulity from her tone. She couldn’t even do magic.
“You’d have had three if you hadn’t decided to leave me at the airport.”
So he was punishing her.
“We thought you were right behind us.”
His gaze hardened. “Don’t mistake me, Cally.
My job is to protect you as the valuable asset you are.
And to ensure your cooperation.” He drew a slow breath.
“I would’ve preferred we worked together, got to know each other, but you made your feelings clear.
For the record, mine haven’t changed. I find myself drawn to you more every time we meet.
” He paused deliberately. “But I will still do what I have to do. The Order’s purpose is too important to let feelings intrude.
Give me the runaround again, and it won’t be a pleasant phone call from your dad that brings you back to me. ”
“And they say romance is dead.”
He stilled, his stare almost as intense as Antoine’s. “Maybe I deserved that,” he said at last. “Fine. Strictly professional. I’ll see you here Friday, 10 a.m. I’ll be here either way, and if you’re not…” He trailed off with a pointed look back at her dad’s house.
“I’m getting tired of the way you Order types threaten with every other sentence.”
“And we’re getting tired of your games, Miss Davis. We’re not fucking around. Help us, and you can have what you want—wealth, prestige, power. If you don’t, we’ll force you.”
Cally raised her chin. “Fine, I’ll help you.” It wasn’t like she had a choice, and she wanted that vamp dead anyway. “But I do it on my terms. No stalking. No roses. No threats to those I love. You think you can control me, but I have teeth too.” And I know someone with bigger ones.
His lips quirked with a hint of mockery. “We fight vampires, so forgive me if I don’t find you scary.”
It was tempting to show him, to see what her newfound strength could do. But that would only give him more information, and she wasn’t prepared to kill him. Yet. Especially not on a quiet suburban street in Milton, right outside her dad’s house.
Instead, she walked past him, heading for her car.
“See you Friday,” he called to her back. “I’ll text you my number.”
*
Boston, Massachusetts, Present Day
“This is the one he means,” Eve said, tapping the page of the tome. “It’s a holding spell.”
They were in Cally’s bedroom, flopped side by side on the bed with the book open before them. It was the only place they could be sure of some privacy. Antoine was across the hallway, asleep for a few more hours. Still, they kept their voices down.
Cally squinted at the spidery text, brown with age. “It’s handwritten.”
“The whole book is handwritten. My guess is it was manually translated from the Latin. The s is in the old long form—looks almost like an f. That went out of fashion in the 1700s. I googled it.”
“So it’s older than Antoine. That’s confidence-building.” Cally read slowly, decoding the introduction. “Damn, it says we need a coven.”
“We have one.”
“No we don’t.” Cally blew out a breath. “None of you are real witches—no offense—and can you really see us dragging Zara, Lily, and Priya out to Milton on Friday morning?”
“I suppose not,” Eve conceded, “but you’re so much stronger now. The way you lit up that crystal in the Order’s study, it was like a little nova. Maybe you don’t need a coven.”
“It doesn’t mean anything, Eve!” Cally said in exasperation. “So what if we have the spell? It’s like having the instructions to a Lego kit, without the Lego.”
“Maybe,” Eve said thoughtfully, “or maybe not. You have the power, I have the spell. We try without the coven, and if we can’t get it… well, we’ll have to try again with them.”
“Darian said Friday. If we turn up and it doesn’t work, I don’t think he’ll look kindly on us delaying until the coven is on board—assuming they ever will be.” She shook her head. “This is madness. How will we know if this damn spell even does anything, without a vampire to try it on?”
Eve lifted her eyebrows pointedly toward the door—and Antoine’s room.
“No,” Cally said firmly. “Absolutely not.”
“Then we can but try. We have a few days. At the very least, we have to practice your Gaeilge pronunciation.”
“My what? Gwael-guh?”
“Irish Gaelic. It’s one of the oldest written languages in the world.”
Cally pressed her lips together, then nodded reluctantly. “I hate that there’s no choice, but I can’t deny taking out Nico Aldobrandini would be satisfying. Even if he hadn’t killed my mother, if he’s anything like Minh, he deserves to die.”
“What if he’s like Antoine?”
“No other vamp is like Antoine.”
“Okay. What if he’s like Gabe?”
Cally didn’t hesitate. “He killed my mom.”
Eve nodded. “You’re right. Sorry.”
Cally rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “The thing is, I kind of agree with the Order. Their purpose anyway, if not their blackmailing. Though I understand that, too.” She sighed heavily. “Maybe I’d do the same if I were them.”
Eve propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at her. “Vampires have to be stopped, huh?”
“Is there any doubt?”
“I suppose not. Until they check enough names off their list to land on Gabe or Antoine.”
“Well that’s just it, isn’t it? They will be on the list. Hell, it wasn’t difficult to find Antoine. For all their ‘stay in the shadows’, they’re too arrogant to really care.”
“So if we help them, it’s only a matter of time until the target falls on someone we know.”
“Exactly.”
“And if we don’t, then other vampires run free, killing indiscriminately, while they squeeze you tighter and tighter.”
“And you too,” Cally added, looking up at her friend. “Darian’s been sniffing around your workplace.”
Eve was quiet for a long moment. “I suppose I could quit. It’s just a job. I’ve about run out of leave anyway—and excuses.”
“I’ve screwed your life up, haven’t I?”
“Yeah.” Eve looked uncharacteristically despondent. “Though it wasn’t you, was it? It was vampires. And the Order.”
“I’m really sorry, Eve.”
Her friend grimaced. “It’s just a job, isn’t it? This kinda puts everything in perspective. How could I turn up on Monday morning and concentrate in meetings, knowing vampires are out there, and I could put a stop to them?”
“You know, you’re right. I could get you on the Order payroll. All it would take is—”
“No,” Eve said quietly. “I won’t sell my soul to them. Even if I agreed with their methods—which I don’t—how could I work for an organization that would threaten the person I love most in the world?”
Cally blinked. “They threatened Henry Cavill?”
“All right, second most.”
Cally grinned, then turned serious. “Antoine will employ you. You can be my witch advisor. Probably get a pay rise, and better healthcare.”
“Yeah,” Eve murmured. “Well, we’ll get to that. I suppose I’ll hand in my notice on Monday. I won’t be going back, anyway.”
“I’m really sorry, babe.”
Eve took a breath and gave herself a little shake. “Okay. Let’s get back to more important things. We have some Gaeilge to learn, and we still have to pick out a dress for you to wear tonight. Do you know where he’s taking you?”