Chapter 17
AFTER THAT, THE fight was as good as over. Rachel’s goons tried to vanish into the trees but Essie waved her hand and her men were on them without another word. I said nothing, watching as the vampires staked their own with all too much glee. They returned to her side, eyes sparkling with the hunt.
Essie turned to us. “Thank you. My reign is secure for the moment.”
I tried to think of what to say, given Essie was most likely the one responsible for Rose’s death. A death that had been targeted at me. Our eyes met and her lips tipped in a faint smile.
“Détente?” She held out her hand.
I stared at it, but was smart enough not to make a show. As I took her fingers—cold to the bone—I inclined my head.
“You do realize that I’m now the head of the Moonrise Coven. We will have to meet and discuss new terms. Things are going to change around Bedlam now that I’m in power. I’m not Linda, and I don’t have a daughter.” I spoke softly, so that only Essie could hear me, but my words were firm. “However, there’s room on Bedlam for everyone, if we all cooperate. And if nobody develops any delusions of grandeur.” I figured she might as well know that I understood what she had been up to.
Essie held my fingers in hers, tightening her grip. Then, slowly, she relinquished them. “The future’s always a wildcard, Maudlin. That’s one thing you can count on. Nothing is ever set in stone.” Then, with a throaty laugh, she added, “I think we could be friends of a sort. You and I are much alike, even though you don’t know it yet. So, Mad Maudlin has come to rule Bedlam. I suppose it’s only fitting.” She pointed to my broken wrist. “You’d best go have that set, and have the rest of your bruises and bumps tended to. You can’t put off the pain forever, you know. Sometimes, it hits when you least expect it. Both pains from the present and from long, long past.”
I started to say something but she turned away, motioning to her men. Before I could say another word, they vanished into a blur, back toward Delia’s car, where they climbed in. Looking terrified, Delia edged out of the parking lot. As they vanished from sight, my stomach knotted. We hadn’t seen the last of Essie. In fact, I had the feeling that our power struggle had only just begun.
AEGIS CARRIED OUT another bowl of potato chips. We were rocking the Winter Solstice, celebrating that the longest night was about to begin. In the cold frozen north, the Holly King and the Oak King were gearing up for their biennial battle. Over on the mainland, Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa were being celebrated. And here, we were lighting every candle in the Bewitching Bedlam. The band members and their families were chowing down on a spread that had filled every tabletop around. Tonight their music was all for us.
“So, tell me again why didn’t you call me when you were in trouble?” Sandy looped her arm through mine, taking care to avoid my splint. My wrist was broken in two places, but they were clean breaks and I would be fully up and running in a few weeks.
“Because I had thought…hoped…that chapter of our lives was done and over.” I motioned for her to follow me up the stairs into one of the back rooms. “I have something to show you.”
As we climbed the steps, Sandy said, “Oh, by the way, I gave Lihi the Herkimer, even though we didn’t need her to find the tunnels.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Eh, it’s the holidays.” But she smiled as she said it. “What are you going to do about your mother’s visit?”
I groaned. “I’m not even thinking about it till after the holidays are over. Then, I guess I’ll either capitulate or write and tell her that I don’t want her here. I haven’t decided which yet. Here we are.”
There were several small storage rooms on the top floor that were no bigger than large walk-in closets. And in one of them, I had hidden a trunk. I knelt beside it and opened the lid. Inside was a silver dagger sitting on top of a silver stake. I stared at them, then slowly lifted the dagger and held it up.
“I haven’t seen those since in a long, long time.” Sandy drifted off, her eyes widening. “I thought you swore never to touch them again.”
I swallowed. Hard. “Essie isn’t going to make it easy on me. And you’d better watch your back too. She knows who I am, so she’s going to figure out that you were Cassandra.”
“Yeah, it’s not that big of a leap from Sandy to Cassandra, I guess.”
“No, and I don’t trust her. I don’t trust her. She’s going to keep working to take control of this island and everybody in it. I know it. And more than that—Sandy, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. So far, the vamps have been living in a truce with humans, but I think…” I fell silent. I didn’t want to say what I was thinking. But the look in Essie’s eyes when she had spoken about the future being a wildcard had chilled me.
“You think that there’s going to be an uprising among the vampires,” Franny said, popping in beside us. “You think they’ll start a mass attack on people?”
I grimaced. “Franny, you have to keep quiet about this. We can’t have it getting out.”
Closing my eyes, I remembered that last day, standing atop the hill in Romania as we watched a village burn to the ground. Fata Morgana and Cassandra and I had tracked them down. After my fires destroyed them, we walked away, becoming the party girls of the century. I had tucked away the blade and stake that had tasted so much blood, swearing never again to use them.
Flesh to fire, fire to flesh. Time to weave the silver mesh.
Time to hunt the bloody fiends, time to stake and burn amends.
“Do you think we’ll have to do it again? The world is so different now.” Sandy bit her lip.
“The world is vastly different, which means there are so many more people to hunt. So many more ways to vie for control. Aegis will fight with us.” I paused. “You know, when sailors committed mutiny, they were left on an island with a gun with one bullet in it. I have the feeling that’s what Aegis’s ring is. Apollo’s gift to him. A way out.”
Aegis and I still hadn’t talked about his ring. Every time I started to ask about it, he changed the subject. Some things were better left until it was the right time.
Standing, I slid the dagger into a sheath, and the stake into a matching one. Slipping both into my bag of magical tools, I closed the lid and turned to Sandy.
“Do you really want to do this?” she asked.
I stared at the trunk. “No. Not really. I didn’t think I’d have to ever revisit this path. But I guess we don’t always get what we want, do we?”
“No, Mick, we don’t.” Sandy gave me a quick hug. “But I’ll be there. Cassandra and Mad Maudlin back in action.” She paused for a moment. “Do you think we could find her?”
A shiver raced down my spine. “The question is, do we want to?”
“I miss her, even though…” Sandy shook her head. “I can’t help but wonder where she is. We’d know if she was dead.”
“Yeah, I know. She was the crazy one, you know. Not me. I ran wild. She was wildness incarnate.”
Sandy gave me an uneasy glance. “Yeah.” Then, sucking in a deep breath, she said, “Let’s get back to the party. You have B&B guests coming tomorrow and you’ll want to be ready to open.”
And tomorrow, any vampire that wants can walk into this house without asking. But I left my thoughts unsaid, and instead just nodded, pasting a smile on my face. My Prosperity spell had worked. In the past week we had booked every room for the rest of the year and into January.
“Come on, let’s go drink and dance the night away.”
THE BAND WAS taking a break from their set. I walked out to the back patio, freezing in the dark of the night, but unwilling to go find my coat. As I stared up at the stars cluttering the sky, Aegis joined me. He wrapped an arm around me and kissed the top of my head.
“Where did you and Sandy go?”
“Up to the attic. Well, one of the storage closets.” I inhaled the sharp tang of snow and cold and wood smoke.
“You’re wearing your weapons again, aren’t you, Mad Maudlin?”
His voice was so soft I almost missed what he said, but then it seeped through and I slowly turned to face him.
“The blade and the stake, aren’t they? Rumors say they’re sterling silver, with a core of adamant.”
Barely able to breathe, I forced out my words. “You know about them?”
“Of course I know. Don’t forget, I’m far older than you and have walked the back paths of the world for centuries beyond centuries. I told you, I knew who you were the day after you bought this house. I did my homework. Before you told me about it, I knew you were Mad Maudlin, vampire hunter. One of the most successful in history.”
“What else do you know?”
He laughed. “I know that you hunted down Dracula, that you traced his family and destroyed most of them. I know about the fires that haunt your dreams, and why you don’t like to talk about the past. I know that it was Dracula who turned the love of your life.” Aegis’s eyes flared, crimson for a moment, then back to their sparkling depths.
I leaned against him. “You know all of my secrets. But I didn’t tell you one. Essie knows who I am.”
He tilted his head to the side for a moment, staring at me, his expression unreadable. After a moment he held out his hands. “And that’s why you must wear your weapons, my love. Maddy, you and I bridge the gap. The bridge between the living and the dead can be a narrow one, but we manage it. I trust you.”
I reached out, the fingers of my left hand wrapping around his. And in the core of my heart, I could feel the stirrings of doubt, but they fell silent as his lips neared mine. “I trust you, too, Aegis. And yes, we will manage this bridge.”
And right then, in that moment, he leaned down and kissed me, and I left behind the guilt over loving him. As he wrapped his arms around me, the stars sparkled like diamonds and everything felt clean and new. And at that moment, Mad Maudlin returned and I welcomed her into my heart.
~End~
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