“That’s bullshit,” I growled at him.

  He chuckled without mirth. “Your kind are so unpredictable when blooded. This is for the best.”

  “Tell Rupert he can take his threats and shove them up his wrinkly arsehole,” Lorcan roared. “Wanda doesn’t want to be one of us, and I will never force her!”

  “Ah, so gallant, ain’t you?” Joseph asked with another acid laugh. “If I recall right, you didn’t want to be turned neither an’ look how well you turned out.”

  What happened next was almost too quick to track. One moment Lorcan was standing in front of me, bristling with barely contained fury, and the next he was an arm’s length away from Joseph. His fist was a pale blur, but I heard the snap when it collided with Joseph’s nose. Blood fountained out, a lurid, scarlet flash in the street light before it splattered onto the pavement.

  Joseph took the blow with stoicism, grunting once before he drove a shoulder into Lorcan’s gut, staggering him. Lorcan was momentarily swallowed by the darkness, and there was a squeal of protesting metal as Lorcan impacted the frame of his Escalade at speed. He swore loudly, and I suspected he was more concerned with the state of the car than his own spine.

  Joseph rounded on me next, and stalked forward, eyes glinting and teeth bared. He was maybe six feet away. Four. Two. I wasn’t sure what he was after, but there was cold fury in his eyes. Was he planning on turning me himself?

  I threw up a hand, fingers crooked in my preferred beckoning motion, and I pulled down the power of the moon from up above. The energy flickered to life in the center of my palm, a scarlet tongue of flame no bigger than a marble. It was the smallest blood bolt I’d produced yet, but I prayed it would be enough. I didn’t have time to feed more into it because Joseph was nearly on me. I flicked the bolt at him and he only had a moment to register the sphere flying at his face before it struck him right between the eyes.

  Hives erupted all over him, the angry red bumps flowing outward from their point of origin like a pot boiling over. They peppered his heavy brow ridge, spilled down over his eyes, and dripped down his cheeks, spreading until his face resembled a red, lumpy potato. He let out a muffled scream, stumbling to a halt a foot away from me, gripping his face in equally lumpy hands. The bolt’s effects hadn’t stopped at his ugly mug, apparently.

  I sprinted away from him as fast as my trembling legs would carry me, pumps hitting the pavement in sharp, staccato slaps. His eyes may have been swollen shut, but he could still locate me by sound and scent. If he caught me, Goddess knew what he’d do to me. I stumbled a few feet from the Escalade, losing my footing as the world swayed.

  A pair of strong arms shot out to catch me. Lorcan drew me into his chest, pressed his face into my hair and whispered, “I’ve got you, sweetling. Get into the car.”

  I placed my hands firmly on the dented car frame as Lorcan opened the door and gripping me by the waist, lifted me as he pushed me into the interior and then further pushed me into the passenger seat. Then he slid in beside me and slamming the door shut, fired up the engine. He shoved the car into reverse, narrowly missing Joseph as he wheeled around and gunned the engine.

  We peeled out of the parking lot, Joseph’s furious howls still echoing into the night.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The silence in the car was so frosty, my breath should have plumed in front of my face. I’d barely said a word to Lorcan as we left Riverport, and only gave him short yes and no answers when he asked if I still wanted to go to the duplex, to which I answered ‘yes’.

  After what I’d just learned, I was furious. Lorcan had deliberately omitted the vampire threat from me, and as far as I was concerned, it was a lie of omission. All this time, I’d had no idea the head of his vampire clan had ordered my turning. And that realization angered me like all the fires of hell.

  Thankfully, the appallingly helpful gypsy had called to report the return and capture of Hellcat. How she’d managed to capture the little cretin I didn’t know and frankly, didn’t care at the moment. I had more pressing concerns to think about.

  When we arrived at the duplex, I informed Lorcan to stay put. He had the good sense not to argue with me.

  As I walked up the stairs and unlocked the front door, which was overcome with the mold spores, I could feel the energy of my own magic bustling around me. This infestation was my doing and the mold buzzed like it was welcoming me back, welcoming me home. All the fuzzy fingers turned in my direction and that staticky humming returned.

  When I walked into the house, bubbles began to foam from the mold. And that was when the faces started to take shape within them. The hollows of eye sockets darkened and mouths opened into dark circles.

  I closed my eyes and held my hands out in front of me, focusing my magic and trying to calm the frantic beating of my heart. Even though the mold was caused by my own death magic, that didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid of it. Or myself.

  “I need to understand what happened to Waylan Rutledge,” I called out, keeping my eyes shut tight and my hands splayed before me. “I need you to tell me who killed him.”

  The sound of the haunted voices echoed throughout the room, sounding like wails and moans lost on the wind. I clenched my eyes further shut and imagined my magic calling to the ethers, asking for answers.

  “Murder,” the voices called in unison.

  “Yes,” I encouraged them, feeling hope beginning to stir inside me. “Murder by whose hand?”

  “Hidden, buried!”

  “Yes, yes! We found the body! It was hidden and buried! But now I need to know who did it! Who killed Waylan Rutledge?”

  “Murder!” the voices called out again.

  I forced my eyes shut even tighter as pressure began to build behind them. Then I breathed in as deeply as I could, frustration and anger already churning inside my stomach. “Tell me!”

  “Bitter… bitter,” the voices continued.

  Bitter? I shook my head. “No, I need a name!”

  “Bitter murder. Bitter burial.”

  “Give me a name!”

  “Delilah’s Bane!” the voices responded, puzzling me for a moment. Delilah’s Bane was the name of a potion and one that was meant to guard the home from negative energy. It was one of the more common potions one could come across and I was more than sure Poppy kept it stocked at her shop.

  “Okay, that’s good,” I called out, figuring I would go to Poppy with questions later. But, for now, I still needed a name. “I need to know who killed Waylan Rutledge!”

  “Bitter, bitter, bitter!”

  It was maybe another few seconds of me demanding a name and the voices giving me nothing other than repeating the word ‘bitter’ over and over again. I opened my eyes and felt like kicking something, I was so frustrated.

  ***

  Lorcan and I continued to drive in silence. We were now traveling on the winding path to Poppy’s house and Lorcan’s headlights cut a swath through the darkness, illuminating white flashes of aspen tree trunks. We turned onto the long drive that led up to the house and Lorcan turned to face me.

  “Sweetling...” he began, reaching to touch my forearm.

  “Don’t call me that and don’t touch me!” I snapped, jerking away from him.

  Lorcan flinched and returned his hand to the wheel. We slowed to a crawl as we reached the edge of the drive. He had to carefully weave around a mountain bike that was flopped on the edge of the gravel.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  “No!” I insisted as I turned to face him and my anger fanned across my face, feeling like a sunburn. “I want to know why you didn’t tell me the truth.”

  “Because I wanted to protect you and I didn’t want you to worry.” He paused. “I thought I could make Rupert see logic. I thought I could make him understand the situation. He sounded as if he was going to relent.”

  “Well, apparently he’s not going to relent!” I shook my head as the panic started all over again. “One month, Lorcan? That’s… it’s nowhere near enough time!”

  “I know.”

  “What if Joseph had waltzed into my store, rather than confronting us both at the restaurant? Do you think I could have warded him off? I’m pretty sure Officer Morgan would have found me dead behind the register, hours after the fact.”

  “Rupert doesn’t want you dead. He wants you to become one of us.”

  “Well, then he could have turned me himself!”

  Lorcan shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. Because it was me who first turned you into what you are now, I’m the one who has to complete the job.”

  “And if Joseph turned me instead? What would happen then?”

  “You would lose your mind and turn into a ravening beast. Because it’s my blood that runs in your veins, I am the only one who can complete the change.”

  “This… this is terrible,” I whispered. “One month…”

  Lorcan blanched, losing what little color he had. “I had no idea it would go this far. Rupert is usually a reasonable man, and it’s against our laws to interfere with the heirs of another vampire, unless said vampire has been proven an unfit sire.”

  “An unfit sire?”

  He nodded. “I suppose that will be their excuse. That I’m risking your physical and mental well-being by leaving you in this state. And that I’m risking my own.”

  The SUV lurched to a stop as Lorcan put it into park. I unbuckled the safety belt and reached for the door handle, muttering to myself. “Perfect. Just perfect. This is exactly what I needed. More complications.”

  I slid out of the seat, opening and then slamming the door behind me before Lorcan could mutter another insincere apology. It didn’t matter how much he groveled; he wasn’t getting a pass for this. I could have died. Could have become one of them and it was all his fault. Regardless of how I felt about my condition, how much it scared me, I wasn’t going to allow some bloodsucker to drag me into the dark, bloody morass of vampire life. Killing me was one thing, turning me another.

  I took the creaking steps leading to Poppy’s front door two at a time and burst through the door as though I owned the place. Really, she should have known better and locked her door. What was she thinking?

  The door banged into the wall opposite, startling the pair of female shapes seated on the main staircase. Both their heads whipped up, matching looks of glee on their faces, and by the time they spotted me, it was too late to backpedal and sneak in the back entrance.

  Libby sprang to her feet first, flinging her arms wide. “You’re back! Oh, I was just worried sick!”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. It was probably churlish to point out that she had a fit of the vapors any time I drove into town to get groceries. Admittedly, the quality of food in my house had improved since Libby had started ‘living’ with me, but I’d happily sacrifice the gourmet meals to put her back in the ground where she belonged.

  Darla stood and sidled up to Libby so they were standing side by side, blocking my path to the kitchen. From my vantage point in the entryway, I could see that Poppy had managed to trap Hellcat under a plastic laundry basket in the kitchen, and Finn was doing his part by sitting on it, a Nintendo Switch in his hands. I could already hear the stream of obscenities flowing from my obnoxious familiar, and imagined Finn would have a colorful new vocabulary before the night was through. Poppy kept hissing admonishments, which only seemed to spur the cat on.

  “Yeah, we was worried sick, dollface,” Darla said, shaking her head.

  “Oh my, I was so frightened for you!” Libby continued as she worried her dress between her hands.

  “Could you two move, please, so I can wring Hellcat’s scrawny, little neck!” I said as I faced both of them with a frown. I heard Lorcan walk in behind me but didn’t pay him any mind.

  Darla and Libby exchanged a glance and, almost as though they’d rehearsed the move, swung aside like a pair of automatic doors. I walked past both crimes against nature and made a beeline for the kitchen, where my familiar continued to cuss a blue streak, despite the gypsy’s continued protestations.

  Hellcat darted his paw in and out of the plastic slats in the basket, trying in vain to reach Finn’s ankle. It was an exercise in futility. Even if he could somehow reach the preteen, there was no way his claws were going to slash all the way through the thick denim jeans and woolen socks. Any time Hellcat got close, Finn would just shift his leg out of reach with a sigh and then return to the game he was playing. It seemed like they’d been at this for a while.

  “If you hurt my son, I’ll stuff you into a couch!” Poppy yelled at him.

  “It’s okay, Mom, he can’t get me,” Finn said.

  “This treatment is barbaric!” Hellcat wailed. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yeah, you’re a super annoying and rude cat,” Finn answered.

  “You, human, will suffer for your…”

  “Oh, enough!” I interrupted him as I trudged into the kitchen and glaring at him, threw my hands on my hips.

  Hellcat hissed and howled between cursing jags, tail flicking in agitation. A few stray sparks leapt from the ends of his whiskers as he picked up the ambient magic in the air. If I’d been present, I’d have advised capturing him in a different room. The kitchen was Poppy’s brewing space, and magic saturated the floor, the furniture, the walls. She was impressive for a purely human sorceress, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that Hellcat could pick up a few motes of power and channel them.

  When we locked eyes, his frantic attempts to wound the child and the loud mewling tirade ceased for just a moment. Then his eyes narrowed and he threw himself bodily at the plastic wall of his prison with enough force to shift Finn a few inches to the left.

  “You!” he hissed. “You wretched, ill-tempered, vile virago! This is entirely your doing! Woe to your mother! She ought to have tossed you to the wolves, or smothered you in your swaddling clothes before allowing a disgraceful little whelp like you to live under her roof!”

  I leaned my hip against the door, unimpressed. I’d been expecting worse. He’d rattled off almost the same speech when I’d gotten an off-brand cat food after the store had run out of Fancy Feast.

  “Is that all you have for me, Hellcat? That wasn’t particularly creative.”

  Hellcat’s tail blurred into furious motion, and he pressed his sleek, dark face against the plastic bars so I could get the full effect of the malice glittering in his eyes.

  “You try being creative when you’ve been stuffed into a cat carrier for the better part of a day and fed dry food! Worse, I have been trapped under the gypsy spawn’s malodorous backside for the better part of an hour!”

  “Malodorous?” Finn repeated, casting a questioning look at his mother.

  “Stinky,” she supplied.

  “Oh yeah, because he smells like roses after what he crawled through to get out of the house,” Finn muttered under his breath. He looked down at Hellcat below him. “You deserve to be yeeted from here to the backyard.”

  I wasn’t sure what ‘yeeted’ meant but wasn’t curious enough to find out.

  “It is none of your concern, you ill-bred little urchin!”

  Finn shook his head. “Mom, can we never ever get a cat?”

  Poppy laughed at that and just nodded.

  “What a little jerk,” Finn said, before returning his attention to the game in his hand. In seconds he was absorbed in the wholesale slaughter of digitized zombies.

  I hunkered down so I was eye-level with the snarling cat. “I’m only going to have this conversation with you once.”

  “Conversation?” the cat repeated.

  “I’m here to negotiate with you in order to keep Darla’s existence and the mold incident hush-hush. This will be a one-time deal, so if you don’t cooperate, my offer is off the table forever. With that said, what do you want?”

  “A better master,” he spat.

  I rolled one shoulder. “I’d love another familiar, but here we are. Try again, Hellcat, and try for something possible this time.”

  Hellcat’s tail had taken on a slower pace, even as he continued to glare at me. He was quiet for several minutes, and the metronomic ticking of the clock crept in to fill the taut silence. He brushed his furry side against the plastic slats, pacing slowly around his prison. He finally came to a stop, and what came out of his mouth took me completely off guard.

  “I want a bachelor pad.”

  I blinked. “You want... what?”

  “You are one hundred and forty, Wandellmellia, not four hundred. You heard me.”

  I had, but that didn’t mean I understood. “Why the spell do you want... a bachelor pad?”

  He gave me a rather droll stare. “Why do you think? I’ve been tied to you for most of your life, watched your frivolous little exploits, and put up with your incompetence. I want time away from you, you tiresome toad. I’m sick of my cat bed in the corner. Quite like Virginia Woolf, I want a room of my own, preferably far away from you and your grating voice!”

  Wasn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? I continued to blink at him for several seconds, but when the request finally registered, I almost smiled. I’d been expecting something ludicrous like a demand to move to Tacoma. Yet, that wasn’t what he’d asked for at all. And finding a space for Hellcat to lounge far, far away from me sounded like a reward.

  “The duplex has a tool shed on the edge of the property. If I renovate it, would that do?” I asked.

  He thought about it for another minute, dragging out the suspense. Little jerk. Finally he licked the back of his paws, his version of a dismissive shrug.

  “I suppose if the shed is renovated to my specifications, it would be agreeable.”

  I’d take it. “Swear it on Mother’s name,” I said. It was the only way I could be sure he wouldn’t double-cross me. My traitorous little familiar didn’t hold much sacred, but he’d never dishonor Mother by breaking a vow made on her name.

  Hellcat gnashed his teeth. “I swear on Celestine Depraysie’s name that if you build me a bachelor’s pad and do not taint it with your noxious presence, I shall... withhold the information regarding you bringing the ghost back to life, as well as the mold.”