Belmary House Book Three (3 page)

Dexter tore down the hallway toward the inn’s front desk, praying someone would be on duty. He passed the dining room where he’d been just a short time earlier, picking out breakfast to bring up to Emma. It seemed like hours ago, not minutes. Now she was passed out, unresponsive, and he couldn’t figure out how to get help in this rural backwater town.

The front desk was unmanned, but a tall red-haired young man sat on the couch in the reception area, an unassumingly mousy girl plastered against him with a remote in her hand. They were glued to a television that hung in the corner of the room. It looked like some sort of singing competition on the screen, and Dex wanted to pick up the nearest thing within his reach and fling it at the set. Instead, he stopped dead in the entryway to the room and tried to get his breath back. Panic had made his mind go blank and the more he struggled to beg for help, the more he found he couldn’t get the words out. Every second he wasted, brought Emma closer to death.

“Are you okay?”

The girl jumped up, tall and slender like the boy she’d been entangled with a moment before. He unfolded himself from the couch as well, a look of deep concern on his boyishly handsome features.

“I don’t think he’s okay, Mel,” the boy said, stepping forward to take his arm and lead him toward the couch. “Oh, God, you didn’t see a rat, did you?”

This ridiculous question jolted Dex back to reason. “My girlfriend passed out. I need help, but can’t get a call out.”

The girl, Mel, she’d been called, was already pulling out her phone as he spoke. Relief floated over him like a gentle breeze as she punched in a number and barked orders into it. Then she pointed him in the direction of the rooms.

“Take me to her,” she demanded.

He studied her, thinking she couldn’t be much past her teens, but she spoke with confidence beyond her years.

“Mellie’s practically a nurse,” the lad explained. “She’s about to start med school, too. She even helped treat a gunshot wound once.” His pride in his girlfriend was palpable, and if Dex hadn’t been so frightened for Emma’s well-being he would have been touched by it.

“Okay,” he said, taking them toward his room.

He’d left the door slightly ajar and he burst through it, hoping to see that she’d woken up on her own, and would be nibbling at her breakfast, embarrassed for worrying him. Instead she continued to lay in the heap in which he left her, pale to the point of being tinged with blue.

“She’s not breathing,” Mel said, dropping down and immediately starting CPR.

Dex felt his body shaking all over, but he had no way to control it. It was as if he was outside of himself. The boy pulled him aside, muttering comforting words.

“She knows what she’s about,” he said. “Your girlfriend will be okay.”

“Emma,” Dex said. “Her name’s Emma.”

The boy nodded solemnly. “I’m Shane,” he said, awkwardly holding out his hand before quickly taking it back.

“Emma’s going to be fine,” Mel said between breaths, once again sounding ages older than she was. “Ah, there we go,” she said, leaning back on her heels in triumph. “We got her breathing again at least.” She turned to him with laser precision in her eyes. “What happened?”

Dex shook his head, not knowing where to start. “She’s been sick for a while. I only just found out. She’s brave like that. Stupid.”

“Sick with what?” Mel pushed the hair out of Emma’s face and pried open one of her eyes. She turned her head to the side, as if trying to see something better, and waved her hand a few inches above Emma’s chest.

Dexter didn’t know how to answer that, and kept silent. How could he say she’d been getting sicker and sicker ever since she started visiting her past self more than a year ago?

She gave Dex a sharp, accusatory stare, then looked at her watch. “Ugh, it’ll take another ten minutes at least for Jake to get here with the emergency van, and then it’s a ways to the next village. I don’t think that’s going to help her anyway, though.”

“What do you mean?” Dex asked wildly, dropping to his knees next to Emma.

Her breathing was so shallow it was as if she hardly breathed at all, and he rested his head against her chest, struggling to hear her heartbeat.

Mel looked at him suspiciously before shaking her head. “It’s nothing, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

Dexter groaned and sat up, deciding to dive in. They could cart him off to the looney bin after Emma was all right. “This woman came from the future,” he said, looking up to gauge the young woman’s reaction to that. “I’ll believe anything at this point.”

To his surprise, Mellie’s troubled brow relaxed. “Oh, thank goodness. So you know about, er, things, then?”

“I know about some things,” he said, getting agitated again at her hedging tone. Emma lay motionless and unresponsive before them, and they were sitting here floundering. “What is it you’re getting at?” he demanded.

“It’s not medical,” she repeated. “It’s magical.”

“What?” Dexter leaned forward, taking in Emma’s still form, her slow, shallow breaths.

“Are you sure?” Shane asked, looking as skeptical as he felt.

Mellie nodded vigorously. “It’s exactly the same as when Piper went down with it last year, after she and her granny fought. See the kind of malevolent aura around her?”

The lad shook his head. “No. How can you see such a thing?”

“Ever since we got back—” she dropped her voice to a whisper, —
from the past
, I’ve been able to see stuff like that. Piper says it’s probably from the traveling spell awakening some little bit of power I have in me.”

“How do we fix this?” Dexter interrupted, taking Emma’s icy hand and squeezing it.

“Well, Piper came back through sheer force of her will, I think,” Mellie said, wrinkling up her nose as she tried to remember. “I think Evie slapped her a bunch, too.” To his horror, the girl reached over and whacked Emma a good one across the cheek, wincing at the sound of the slap. “Emma, wake up,” she said loudly, right in her ear.

Her head lolled to the side, but she didn’t rouse, and Dexter grabbed Mellie’s wrist to keep her from striking a second blow.

“No more of that,” he commanded.

“Sorry,” she said, taking out her phone. “Let me call Piper and get her over here. We should probably cancel Jake, too, if that’s all right? They’ll only hook her up to an IV and run a bunch of needless tests. Piper’s your best bet for getting her back.”

“Do it.”

Shane called Jake while Mellie got up and paced nervously as she waited for her call to go through. She looked at him warily before ending the call and trying again. “I don’t know why she’s not answering. Let me call Evie instead.”

Not understanding what she prattled on about, and only caring that Emma got help as soon as possible, he squeezed her hand harder and pulled a blanket off the bed to cover her, wondering if he should risk moving her. A magical injury or illness was far beyond anything he’d ever been able to comprehend, and he felt sick with helplessness. The fact that the girl knew anything about it was both a worry and a relief. What was with this strange town his cousin had called them to?

“Evie? It’s me, Mellie. Listen, are you near Piper? Sorry, but it’s an emergency.” Mel hurried back over and knelt beside them, hurriedly putting the phone on speaker in case Dex needed to explain something.

“She’s pretty busy right now,” Evie answered. “Can I help?”

“No,” Mel said tersely. “I’m pretty sure this is more important. Please get her.”

“Uh, I’ll bet it isn’t,” Evie maddeningly replied.

Dex’s heart beat so fast he thought he might pass out and leaned against the bedframe, trying to calm his nerves. He grabbed Mel’s arm and furiously pointed to Emma. Why wasn’t the girl explaining that someone needed help, and fast?

She turned to Dex and asked, “You said she’s from the future? When did she come through? Recently? Do you know which spell it was?”

Her barrage of sudden questions caught him off guard and he had to carefully repeat them in his head. “She’s been here over a year. I don’t think it was a spell. There’s a portal or something where we work.”

Mel sighed and blurted into the phone, “Someone’s here at the inn. She’s really sick and it looks like it might be from
traveling
.” She placed an emphasis on the word and wrinkled her brow.

“Did she use the bad spell?” Evie asked, and there was a rustle of voices in the background.

“She didn’t use a spell at all. Do you know of anyone else coming through recently?”

Dex remembered that they were supposed to meet his cousin at the castle and he shoved closer to the phone.

“Is my cousin there? Matilda— Tilly Jacobs. She, er, came through the other day.”

“Dex? Is that you?” Tilly shouted. “What’s wrong? Is it Emma who’s sick?”

There was some more rustling and a low argument he couldn’t make out between the two women. A deep male voice joined the argument, disagreeing with whatever they were discussing.

“We really need Piper here,” Mel said, her fingers on Emma’s pulse. “Fast.”

There was a small silence in which Dex wanted to shout obscenities. Why was this taking so long?

“Okay, we’ll go down and see if we can get her,” Evie said, being drowned out by the man’s bellowing dissent.

“She willna do no such thing,” he told them. “And ye’re not to come here, either, ye got that, Mellie?”

“What’s going on?” Mel wailed while the sounds of a tussle took over the phone from the other end.

“She’s in a fight.” Evie came back on the line, breathlessly explaining. “Do you remember that time traveling psycho killer Solomon Wodge, who kidnapped Lizzie?”

At hearing the name, Dex froze, all the hairs on his arms rising with the fear that zipped up his spine. Solomon Wodge? Psycho killer? Kidnapped? He couldn’t speak, but recalled Emma looking apologetically at her phone before passing out. He turned around and spied it on the bed.

“Yes, of course,” Mel said, looking confused. “What do you mean, she’s in a fight? With Wodge?”

“Yes, he’s here now. Tilly’s boyfriend is the mysterious man I met in the past, can you believe it? His name is Lord Ashford. Anyway, they came through yesterday with Solomon’s father, who I guess wants to make amends. But Wodge is seriously powerful and has been wanting Lord Ashford dead for years. There’s a big showdown going on and we’re stuck in the tower waiting it out.”

Mel rubbed her eyes, and shook her head. “I don’t understand any of that. Just, what should I do about Emma here? I don’t know how much time she has left. She looks bad.”

Dex understood it all too well, but he could barely believe it. He’d never liked the weaselly Mr. Wodge who’d suddenly and miraculously saved Belmary House from demolition, but he’d never once suspected him of evildoing. But what was he doing up here in the far north of Scotland at the same time they were? It was awfully coincidental that he knew that Ashford was going to be here and that they were going to meet him.

He fumbled around for Emma’s phone in the tangle of sheets and turned it on. He got a sinking feeling as he made his way to her call log, one that was confirmed when he saw that the last several calls were to Solomon Wodge. Had she been working with him? But why? It did seem odd to him that she’d suddenly changed her tune of absolute faith in Lord Ashford to bitter disdain that he’d ever rescue her. Perhaps that had been the work of Wodge.

He wracked his brain to remember what she’d said to him before she passed out. She’d said something about someone not knowing the whole story, and he’d wondered at the time who she meant. It had to have been Wodge. Had she confided in him, or had he approached her first? If he was truly a time traveler, perhaps he knew about her predicament and had offered her help, really trying to advance his own agenda of hunting Lord Ashford.

He remembered she’d specifically said, in no uncertain terms, that she couldn’t take anymore magic. More magic, as if she’d already suffered from enough of it. If it wasn’t just visiting her old life and getting too close to her past self that made her sick, could it have been a spell?

“What’s this about Solomon Wodge?” he said abruptly, interrupting the fresh argument of whether or not Evie should go looking for Piper before the fight was over. “Is he some sort of— does he do—?” He couldn’t make the words come out.

“He’s a bad man,” Evie said, elaborating after a short pause. “He hates witches and kills anyone he thinks is even remotely related to witchcraft. His father seems to think he’s redeemable, but Lord Ashford—”

“Ashford wants him gone,” Tilly interjected. “Wodge has been trying to kill him for years.”

“I think he knows something about Emma,” Dex said. “She got sick too hard and too fast for it to be anything else.” Panic rose up to strangle him. “We need to know what he did to her. They can’t kill him.”

He looked at Mel and Shane, both of them wide-eyed with fear, all of them waiting on edge for the answer.

Tilly stared at the phone that lay in the middle of the narrow bed, already worried enough before the phone call came through. She hated that Ashford was in the same room as his lifelong nemesis, and prayed she’d get to hear him call her Matilda again, her much despised given name always sounding lovely and musical on his lips.