Chapter 23

Cora glanced up as a car approached her house, holding her breath until it passed. She’d canceled on Jameson. On training. She just couldn’t deal today. Her tenure hearing was two days off and she’d yet to decide if she was going to bring up what had happened to her. She’d already been asked if she’d ever been arrested, ever had any depression or other mental illness, and said no, because back then it was the truth. The tenured professors on the panel wouldn’t ask her again. Technically, if Cora didn’t tell them, and they hadn’t heard, she might still get tenure. But was that honest? Could she do that? She didn’t know, but every time she thought about it she felt like puking. Every minute she expected someone to call and say don’t even bother coming in.

When she made it back out to her living room, a shadow graced the damn see-through window on the front door. She had to replace that. Jameson’s large, broad form. For a moment Cora allowed herself a tiny fantasy. She would open door and he would pounce on her, apologize for rejecting her kiss the night before with one of his own. One she felt in her whole body. One that-

He peeked in at her, eyebrows raised, making her blush to her toes. Oh God.

She hurried to the door and opened it up, searching his face for any indication of how he felt. About things. Not about her, really. Bryce had been clueless when she’d grilled him, so she really was no better off than she’d been before the date.

Oh yeah, Jameson, hell of a guy, he’d said. Good guy. Carick? Seems like a good guy. Not much of a talker. More of a yeller. Vampires? Yeah, they totally exist. I saw one as a baby but I don’t remember it.

She spoke before Jameson could get a word out. “I texted Bryce and told him I couldn’t come. Didn’t he tell you?” She’d said she didn’t feel good. Was true, her stomach was heaving and knotting even as they spoke. It was all getting to her, and she couldn’t face training. Or Jameson.

Jameson stared at her, his face saying he didn’t like something about that statement. The Bryce part? That had been when his lips had tightened. He spoke. “I got the message. This is about something else, entirely.”

She waited. He seemed to be drinking her in, his eyes searching her face and… body. His nostrils flared as he inhaled through his nose.

“I do want to know,” she said, her snark-defense going up. “So if you’re waiting for me to beg you to go on, consider it done.”

His lips twitched in an almost-grin. “I might have found another of you, another switch.”

Relief flooded her. Cora hadn’t even known that was bothering her, but it was. The fact that she was the only one of these vampire warriors? She’d never killed anything, and it didn’t impress her as the kind of hobby she should race into. A year or two between murders seemed like a good pace to her, but that Carick guy looked like he wanted Cora on a steady two-a-day vampire diet, stat. Jameson wouldn’t let him get away with it, though. She loved that about him.

Cora forgot her vow to herself of the night before to never touch him first again, to not give him the opportunity to reject her, and leaned forward to place her hand on his. “Who?”

Jameson didn’t even twitch, but she could feel the wall he’d put up between them nonetheless. “I’ll take you to her, if you’re well enough.”

“I’m game.” She left him on the porch to grab what she needed and in a few minutes they were on the road, heading into town.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked after several minutes of brooding silence that made her squirm. “You and Carick building an army of vampire killers? Your own Buffy-covey?” She snickered, gratified when he did, too.

He shrugged, his eyes on the road. “The bossman doesn’t share as much as you would think.”

“Fire him, then. You should be in charge anyway.”

Jameson threw her a glance. “It’s not like that. He’s… I don’t know what he is exactly, but he’s not a sh-” He glanced at her questioningly, like he almost spilled a secret. “Sometimes I forget that you know even less than I do.”

She nodded, hard. “Yeah, time to fix that.”

He gestured at a squat, modern building as he pulled into the parking lot. “Except we’re here.”

“Raincheck,” she said, pinning him with her eyes until he agreed. “Raincheck.”

She read the sign. Five Hills Nursing Home.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she said dryly, then hopped out of the truck, her hope deflating as they neared the entrance. “Carick isn’t coming?”

Jameson shook his head. “I told him about her but he wasn’t even interested; one hundred percent focused on you. His exact words were, ‘do what you must but get that breath switch back here today’.”

Cora frowned. “Breath?”

“It’s a type of switch. Which coven you belong to.”

Details. Finally. “Coven? Like real witch shit?” She looked at her hands. If she was really a witch, wouldn’t she have done magic sometime in her life, or did that only happen if you knew what you were doing? In the books she’d read it was always the first clue.

Jameson held the door open for her. Swoon. No! No swoon! “Yeah. Magic. Coven houses. Real witch shit.”

The building was cool and quiet, the waiting area empty except for one nurse busy on a computer. Cora caught Jameson’s arm. “Breath?”

He shook his head. “Not sure. An element, he said. There’s four more, but he didn’t explain them. It’s like every piece of information he gives up takes something away from him. It’s the only way I can explain his behavior since he showed up.”

“Showed up from where?”

Jameson blew out a breath and rolled his eyes, like she wouldn’t believe him if he said. She tugged at him, leaned in and whispered, “Come on, I bought the vampires. Witches hasn’t fazed me. I’ll take it like a champ, I promise. Try me.”

He smiled at her, dropping his head until their foreheads almost touched. So sexy! And he smelled goooooood. Masculine and woodsy.

He whispered in her ear. “He’s been asleep for one hundred and sixty seven years in a cave in the forest.”

She threw her head back and laughed, before sobering. Fuck. He was telling her the truth. The unbelievable, ridiculous truth. And she’d promised to buy it. “Why a cave?” she said weakly.

“I asked him that.” Jameson nodded absently. “He said to protect the cause from the ultimate danger. And when I asked what that was, he said I was better off not knowing.”

Cora frowned. “Just him and the switches against the ultimate danger, huh?”

Jameson shook his head, his voice still soft, as he glanced at the nurse’s back. “Just him, I think.”

Cora snapped her fingers. “Carick’s not human, is he?”

Jameson shook his head, appraising her again like he had in the truck, like he wondered if she could be trusted.

“How ‘bout you? You human?” He wasn’t. What he was, she couldn’t begin to imagine, but she’d bet a million dollars he wasn’t human.

The nurse turned and addressed them. Argh! Cora had the worst luck in the world! Anytime someone finally started talking, the fucking buzzer stopped them. Maybe it was a good thing, though. Bits and pieces kept her in the slowly-boiling frog pot, where knowing everything at once might have sent her running across the country. Problem was, she still ended up dinner.

The nurse had a pretty face and jet black hair tucked under the kind of cap you never saw anymore. “I’m so sorry you had to wait,” she said, giving Jameson a second look, then a third. Cora wanted to claw her eyes out.

And then it became apparent they already knew each other! “Jameson, I tried to call you.”

Jameson moved away a bit, but Cora followed, leaning her upper body towards him, waiting for Nurse Whorepocket to notice her. She snickered to herself. What the fuck was a whorepocket? Like a hot pocket, but sleazy? Whatever, she’d thought worse.

Jameson introduced them. “Cora, this is Serena, Serena, Cora.” To Serena, he said. “Called me, why?”

“You’re Auntie’s emergency contact.”

“Me? We’re not family.”

Serena shrugged. “She’s got no one else. No family. You’re the only one who comes to see her. She said you were her contact right after you first started visiting last year.”

“The doctor won’t ever tell me about her, though.”

Serena looked down both hallways then leaned in close. “Emergency contact is not family. He doesn’t want to have to consult you for treatment plans.”

Jameson nodded. “Is she sick?” He grabbed for Cora’s hand, and only then did she realize he was holding his breath, waiting to hear that she had died. Was Auntie a blood relation? He obviously cared about her deeply.

Serena looked down the hall again, like she wasn’t supposed to be talking about it. She still hadn’t looked at Cora for more than a quick second. Cora covered Jameson’s hand with both of hers. “Auntie had an episode not long after your last visit, on the day of that blue moon. We couldn’t wake her for twenty-four hours, even with drugs and pain stimuli.”

“Pain stimuli!” Jameson startled, then his tone sharpened. “She’s old as dirt, you can’t do sternal rubs on her!”

Serena nodded. “I know. She’s ok, I swear. Doctor didn’t do it for long. We were about to transfer her out to the hospital when she woke up.”

Serena’s forehead creased. “She’s not the same, Jameson. She’s never been all there as long as I’ve worked here, but now she’s not even a little there for most of the day.”

Jameson cursed. “Can I see her?”

Serena nodded. “She’s waiting for you. She had been for over a week. Every day, she refuses activity time, which isn’t like her. Just sits in her chair, mumbles about her daddy coming home, and asking the nurses about your next visit.”

“Thanks, Serena.” Jameson pulled his hand from Cora’s grip and squeezed Serena’s shoulder. “We’re going now.” Cora forced herself to smile. Serena waved them back and headed for her computer.

Jameson rushed down the hallway and Cora ran to catch up. “Is she really your aunt?”

“No. She wandered away from the home one day, all the way into the eastern edge of the forest. We had to do a search. I found her and she latched onto me. Wouldn’t let me go for anything, even once we had her back here.” He fell silent for a moment. “She’s special. Sweet. Something about her always called to me. I’ve been visiting twice a month since then.”

Cora pulled him to a stop in the empty hallway. “And you just now figured out she’s a switch? Doesn’t the Keeper have, like, instructions or something?”

He shook his head. “It’s not like that. You… you glow, Cora, did we tell you that yet?” He made plucking gestures six inches above her shoulder and out from her ear. “The deepest forest green. And it pulses when you get upset.”

She looked down at her arms. “What, like I’m radioactive?” She turned her hands over. “I don’t see anything.”

“Maybe you can’t see your own glow.”

Of course she couldn’t. Made perfect sense. “No one’s ever said anything about a glow.”

Jameson’s face screwed up. “Not everyone can see it.”

“But you can-”

A door in the hallway opened. Buzzer time. Cora could have predicted it. A woman stood there, an old woman. Cora wouldn’t have been surprised to hear she was over one hundred. Wizened skin hung loosely on a bent frame, as if she’d lost weight. Pure white hair frizzed from the confines of her bun. Her skin was pale, wrinkled like old fruit, but still her cheeks were flush and her lips a deep red. She’d been a natural beauty, but the kind that took more than a moment to see.

She stared at Jameson and he approached her, speaking softly. “Hey, Auntie. You look beautiful.”

She didn’t speak, just patted his arm, then floated back into the room with her floral nightgown grazing the floor. Cora and Jameson followed. Auntie sank into a rocking chair by the window and held out her hand to Cora. Cora went close, studying her for a glow, but she didn’t see anything. Jameson had to be making that up, right?

Auntie touched Cora’s arm, then smiled at her sweetly, looking suddenly like a young child who’d never lost their innocence.

But still she didn’t speak.