Bled & Breakfast (20 page)

“When that witch took you and I couldn’t stop her . . .” His brows drew tightly together. “I thought I’d go insane. I thought I’d lost you.”

My heart twisted into tight, painful knots. “I’m back. I’m okay. And we can still fix this.” I had to explain what I could quickly. “There’s so much I need to tell you. The witch hunter . . .” My breath cut short. “Thierry, watch out! He’s right behind you!”

The ghost in question grabbed hold of Thierry and yanked him away from me. Thierry staggered down the hall before he regained his balance.

“Stay away from him!” I yelled. “Thierry—he can devour the energy of other spirits. It makes him stronger. Be careful!”

Malik launched himself at Thierry, and they fell through the railing. When they hit the ground floor, both bodies turned into gray smoke, which swirled and then disappeared completely from view.

Rose stood by the doorway to Owen’s room, her face etched with worry. “This is bad, isn’t it?”

I shot her a look. “Well, you guys did name this place the Booberry Inn. Looks like it’s finally living up to its potential.” I searched my mind, hoping that a fantastic plan to fix everything would form effortlessly. Sadly, it didn’t. “Can
you
do anything to stop this, Rose? A spell? Anything that could help us?”

Her forehead wrinkled deeper. “No, I can’t. I’m sorry, dear. And Heather, oh my Heather . . .” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “If she has power like you say, then it’s been hidden from the world all this time.”

“So you can’t help.”

She shook her head and cast her gaze back toward Owen. “I wish I knew who could.”

“Luckily, I do,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “Who?”

“Raina Wilkins.” I turned and raced downstairs, scanning the floor for any sign of Thierry or Malik, but there was nothing.

I moved directly toward Heather, not pausing to consider how best to approach a powerful witch who tried to hide her powers. “Break the spell keeping Raina outside. I need her in here.”

She shook her head, her face going very pale. “We stole her grimoire. She hates me.”

“Do it anyway. Please.” I was certain she’d refuse to even try. That would be the last piece of proof I needed to convince me she was a deceptive, lying witch and had been all this time. But if she did help get Raina in here . . . Well, I didn’t know what that would mean. But it would be a good start.

Todd sat on the couch quietly, his hands clasped together. “Heather will help you. I know she will.”

Heather groaned. “I thought I told you to leave.”

“I’m not letting you face all of this without protection.”

She hissed out a breath. “That’s what this was to you? You were protecting me as a stupid toad? Now you want me to forgive you after you lied to me for two months?”

He got to his feet and took a step toward her while she watched him warily. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. As long as you’re okay, I’m happy. I didn’t trust Owen, Heather. I didn’t trust him from the moment you met him, and—yeah, I made a dumb choice because I was stupid and jealous and my feelings were hurt when you dumped me. But I don’t regret a single day we spent together before or after.”

She let out a harsh, annoyed cry from the back of her throat and shot him a look so withering I was certain he’d turn into a toad again. Permanently.

“She’ll help,” Todd said to me, although his gaze didn’t leave Heather. “She’ll break the spell because she knows it’s the right thing to do.”

She really shouldn’t kick Todd out. He was currently the only unwavering member of her fan club. I just hoped he wasn’t setting himself up for disappointment . . . or worse.

Finally, after another anxious moment, Heather closed the grimoire and placed it on the coffee table.

She sent an unfriendly glare in my direction. “Fine. But if that witch kills everybody, it’s
your
fault.”

I nodded. “Noted.”

Heather grabbed her grandmother’s grimoire from a side table and moved to the front door, opening it. Raina and Casey stood at the boundary of the protection ward.

“Well?” Raina said impatiently.

“Sarah wants me to let you in my house. For me to break this spell.”

“And are you going to?”

There was a pause. “I don’t know yet.”

“He’s here, Raina,” I said tensely.

The witch’s expression tightened. She knew exactly who I meant. “Let me in, Heather. I can help. I have unfinished business with that ghost.”

Heather let out a shaky breath. “Fine. This is a mess, and all of it seems to be my fault. If somebody—anybody—can help fix it, even you, then I can’t just turn my back on it.” She flipped forward through the pages. “I renew the warding every week as magic practice. This should do it.”

She spoke the words of the spell under her breath. After a moment, she grimaced when her nose started to bleed. She wiped it away as if she was used to that side effect. I looked at her with concern. Owen was absolutely right; that was not a normal reaction for an alpha witch.

Raina approached cautiously, eyeing the empty air before her as if she expected it to slap her in the face. It didn’t. I watched her tensely as she drew closer and closer, hoping I hadn’t just made a horrible mistake. I wasn’t in Vegas anymore, but every choice I made lately seemed to be yet another roll of the dice.

Finally, she stepped fully into the inn and glanced around. “How quaint.”

Casey was right behind her. I glanced down at her finger. “Nice Band-Aid.”

The blonde glared at me. “Bite me again and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

“Ooh, I’m so scared.” Why was she even here? Two witches I didn’t trust were more than enough to juggle, let alone Raina’s Mini-Me minion joining the group. I swallowed hard and looked at Raina. “Are you really going to help?”

She hesitated. “Yes. I suppose I am.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Thank you.”

“Do yourself a favor and don’t thank me until this is all over.”

“Maybe that’s a good idea.”

“Where is Thierry’s body?”

“Upstairs.”

“Bring him down here so I can do the transference spell and put your husband’s spirit back into his rightful body. Malik doesn’t get the chance to live again on my watch.”

My mouth was dry. “I hate to ask, but why are you doing this, Raina? Why are you helping us? What’s in it for you?”

Her eyes turned red, and magic crackled through the air. A sinister smile curled up the corner of her mouth. “Closure.”

T
en minutes later, we all gathered around the table where Heather had done her previous séances. There were seven of us this time: me, Owen, Raina, Heather, Todd, Casey, and Rose. It was a tight fit around the small round table.

“The vampire looks like he’s about to croak,” Todd said uneasily. “And I don’t use that word lightly.”

“I’m conscious now, you know,” Owen growled. “I can hear you.”

Todd shrugged. “Sorry, but it’s true.”

Owen hadn’t fussed at all or tried to make a break for
it when Todd and I went up to his room, unlocked his handcuffs, and helped him downstairs. He was pale, his energy low, and it worried me deeply.

“We’ll have to do a spirit summoning first,” Raina said. “We’ll need your husband’s spirit here, Sarah.”

I nodded. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Rose cast a wary glance at the rest of us, ending with Raina. “You’re not planning to double-cross us and resurrect Malik yourself, are you?”

She was giving voice to my worst fear, that I’d allowed myself to be manipulated by the alpha witch and that what she’d shown me of the past was all smoke and mirrors.

Raina’s lips thinned. “No double-crossing, but feel free to leave if you’re not comfortable with me here. Everyone who’s staying must now join hands.”

Rose stayed without further commentary. I took hold of Raina’s and Owen’s hands.

Raina cast her gaze straight forward. “I call forth the nearby spirits into the mortal world. Appear to us now and be bound to this realm until I say otherwise.”

I searched for any sign of Thierry. When a chill entered the otherwise warm room, I literally held my breath in anticipation.

But it was Lorenzo’s face that popped into view before me. “Oh, hello, everyone! I seem to be back once again!”

Raina hissed out a sigh. “Not you. Go away.”

Lorenzo disappeared with a frown.

A moment later, Thierry’s form shimmered into sight near the doorway. I almost leapt to my feet and ran toward him, but I forced myself to remain exactly where I was.

Concern twisted through me to see that he looked tense and tired. “Are you okay?”

He met my gaze. “I’ve been better.”

If he’d said he was fine I would have called him a liar. He wasn’t fine. Malik had stolen some of his energy just as Raina had warned he could. The proof was that Thierry’s ghostly form didn’t appear solid this time; it was translucent.

“Hurry,” I urged Raina, my voice shaking. “Let’s get this over with.”

She nodded, squeezing my hand. “I’ll set this right. I’ll undo the damage that’s been done and return your husband to his rightful body right now.”

From across the table, Casey rose to her feet. “Like hell you will.”

A crackle of magic filled the room, and Raina flew back from her chair and hit the wall, pinned there for a moment with sparkling bands of magical energy binding her wrists, ankles, and throat. She stared at Casey with absolute shock.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

Casey’s eyes were bloodred, and a sinister smile twisted on her face. “Do you know how sick I am of listening to you talk?”

“Why are you so powerful?”

“Been reading your grimoire lately. Found a spell to drain some of your magic.” Her smile widened. “And here we are. The apprentice becomes the master.”

“Stop this right now!”

Casey cocked her head. “No, don’t think I will. Go to sleep.”

Raina gasped, and then her head slumped forward as the bands of light disappeared and the witch slid down to the ground. She was unconscious.

The rest of us witnessed this unfold in stunned disbelief. I waited for Raina to shake it off and kick her minion’s butt for stepping out of line, but she was currently out for the count.

I glanced toward Thierry, who still stood by the door, watching all of this with a dark expression.

Raina had been our only hope to fix this.

“Now, where were we?” Casey asked, glancing at the rest of us. “Oh, yes. The spirit transference spell. Another one of Raina’s useful spells.”

“I didn’t see anything like that in her grimoire,” Heather said in not much more than a whisper. “And I didn’t see the other spell, the one to transfer magic.”

“I tore out the ones I needed.” Casey shrugged. “What can I say? I wasn’t near a photocopier.”

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded. “What do you want?”

“Just what every girl wants,” Casey replied. “True love. A happy life. Absolute power over the entire world.” The air remained charged and Casey’s hair blew back from her face. “Malik, appear to me. Let me see you.”

There was a tingling sensation, like the air before a lightning storm. Then Malik appeared next to her, his black eyes glittering.

“Well done, Casey,” he said with a smile.

“Oh, hell no,” I whispered. I thought we’d faced the worst with Miranda and her quest for eternal youth thanks to the blood of her unsuspecting vampire victims. Looked like I’d been wrong. “
You’re
the witch who’s helping him. You’re in love with a ghost?”

Casey’s red eyes snapped to mine. “What I feel for Malik can’t be described as simple love. It’s much too epic for that. He’s my soul mate. My partner in all things, forever and always. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for him.”

Malik looked smugly satisfied.

The others—Heather, Todd, Owen, and Rose—all looked on silently. Heather’s fingers dug into Owen’s hand and her grandmother’s on top of the table.

“How did you do it?” Thierry asked from the shadows, his tone holding both malice and curiosity. “How did you convince her? You’re nothing more than a ghost.”

Malik smiled. “Casey is a gifted witch who needed guidance and confidence. I gave both to her.”

Raina didn’t stir from her unconscious position on the floor six feet away.

“Did you kill me, Casey?” Owen asked, frowning. “But we didn’t even date. I hadn’t gotten around to you yet.”

“As if I would have bothered with someone meaningless like you, Owen. No, it wasn’t me. Who cares who did it? It’s done.” Casey turned those scary red eyes to me. “Now we need some vampire blood.”

“Leave Sarah out of this,” Thierry growled. “I’m warning you.”

Malik laughed. “As if you could stop anything in your current state. Why don’t you wither away now, vampire? You’re becoming an annoyance.”

It disturbed me how pale Thierry was, how drained. Worry now etched into his expression.

I had to find a way to stall them. At least until Raina woke up. Casey hadn’t killed her, although I wasn’t sure why. Maybe she wasn’t quite strong enough to do a death spell.

Which meant she hadn’t killed Owen.

“Miranda was familiar with vampire blood magic, too,” I said. “She worked the immortality spell, leaving a few dead vampires in her wake. Did you guys share trade secrets during book club? Or are you all working independently?”

Casey didn’t seem particularly shocked by the “dead vampires” comment. “Miranda’s a vain, pathetic idiot. I know about the magic she plays with and who suffered because of it. If she doesn’t stay out of my way, I’m going to kill her.”

“Too late,” I said with a shrug, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Raina beat you to it.”

Casey’s eyes widened a fraction. “Unexpected. But I don’t really care one way or the other. She was a nuisance, always thought she was better than me. Little did she know I was the one meant for greatness in our coven. Not her.”

“You’re doing all of this because you’re in love with Malik,” Heather managed, her face pale.

“He’s the most incredible man I’ve ever met in my life.” She gazed at the witch hunter’s spirit.

Meanwhile, I was attempting to have a nonverbal discussion with Thierry.

What do I do?
I tried to ask.

Run,
he seemed to be urging.

No way. I can’t leave everybody here at her mercy.

She means to bleed you, to use your blood in her magic tonight.

Yeah, got the memo. But there has to be another way.

You saw how powerful she is, how focused. Raina isn’t waking up anytime soon. Run, Sarah, while you have half a chance.

At least, this was what I assumed he was trying to tell me. And I knew him well enough to think I was pretty darn close.

But I wasn’t running. Not yet.

I sent a withering look at Malik. “How many women in town have you been having a ghostly romance with? Just Casey? Or is she just one on a longer list of potential witchy helpers?”

Malik raised an eyebrow. “Jealous, Sarah? I could have added you to my list of helpers if you’d been a little more—”

“Gullible?” I finished. “Sorry, but that’s the old me. The new me can see through a womanizing jerk from a mile away. Even the dead ones.”

“And yet here we are.” He glanced toward Thierry, who had faded even more since he’d first appeared. “And I’m the one with all the power.”

“Hold on. I don’t understand,” Owen murmured, his voice weak. “Who killed me?”

An excellent question.

“I didn’t kill him,” Casey said bluntly. “Neither did Miranda. She actually liked the idiot and refused to spill even a drop of his blood. Not Raina, either. She bled him every time they were together, then made him forget.”

“What?” Owen said, surprised. “I mean, the sex was great, but she was bleeding me, too?”

Malik’s expression darkened significantly. “You were sleeping with Raina?”

Owen frowned. “Dude, I sleep with everybody. It’s kind of my thing.”

I worked it over in my mind. “A witch killed Owen. And if it wasn’t Casey, it wasn’t Miranda, it wasn’t Raina . . .” I shot a look across the table at Heather. “It had to have been you.”

Her eyes bugged. “Me? Why would I do that? I was in love with him!”

Todd groaned. “Infatuation, not love. Trust me, there’s a difference. Love is eating cat food for two months without complaint.”

“Heather didn’t kill me!” Owen exclaimed. Then he frowned. “Or did you?”

She shook her head, her face pale. “Of course not!”

“Enough of this,” Casey snapped. She drew a dagger from underneath her jacket. Before I could do more than stand up from my chair, she was right in front of me and grabbed hold of my face to direct my gaze to hers. “I need your blood.”

“Let her go,” Thierry snarled. “Malik, tell your witch to unhand my wife or she will be joining you in death.”

Malik just coolly stared at him, unaffected by the dark threat in Thierry’s voice. “Just fade away, vampire. It’s time for you to be on your way.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Malik snorted. “I’m afraid you’re wrong. In fact, I’m surprised you’re still hanging on to this mortal coil. Let go, my friend. Find your way to the afterlife.”

Thierry’s gaze flashed. “I did not die. I will not leave, not unless I get to take you with me.”

I didn’t like ultimatums like that—not ones that put his existence at risk, even if it might be for the greater good.

Currently, however, I couldn’t look anywhere but into Casey’s red eyes as she held the dagger to my wrist.

Raina had to wake up. She was the only one I knew who could stop this before it was too late.

“Todd, Owen,” Thierry snapped. “Do something.”

“Would if I could,” Todd replied. “But I . . . um, can’t stand up. Damn witches.”

“Ditto,” Owen said tightly.

“Tell me what to do next, Malik,” Casey urged. The blade pressed to my arm, but she hadn’t cut me yet. “We need to do this right. You know the spell better than I do.”

“You’re right, I do know it.”

“How much of her blood do we need?”

“None. We have enough vampire blood already.”

The blade eased off and a frown creased Casey’s forehead. “I don’t understand.”

“I know.” A fresh smile drew the corners of Malik’s mouth upward. “You have been very accommodating, my dear. Thank you for your help. I’ve appreciated your attention to detail.”

Her face lit up. “Anything for you, Malik. Anything at all.”

“Your services, however, are no longer required.”

Bewilderment crossed her expression. “I don’t understand.”

“Even after stealing some of Raina’s magic these last few weeks, you don’t have nearly enough to complete this particular spell. But that’s all right. My true love will finish up just fine.”

I exchanged another confused glance with Thierry.

“Your
true
love?” Owen repeated. “Excuse me?”

Casey’s red eyes brightened with anger, and magic crackled in the air. “What are you talking about?”

Malik’s smile turned wistful. “She’s been with me for so much longer than you have. That kind of loyalty means everything to me.”

I sent a wary glance toward Raina on the floor, expecting her to rise to her feet and laugh maniacally about how fabulously she had us all fooled. That she and Malik were still together, and that this had all been a part of her devious plan, three hundred years in the making.

“Who is it?” Casey demanded. “Who is—?”

Her knife flew out of her hand, hovered in front of her in midair for a long, horrible second . . .

And then it plunged directly into her heart.

She gasped, her eyes widening with surprise, pain, and bitter disappointment, before she fell forward onto the table.

I literally yelped with surprise and staggered back from the dead witch.

Heather shot up from her seat as if the spell holding her there had been broken with Casey’s death, her chair skittering backward.

“It was you,” I managed. “You’re helping Malik!”

She just stared back at me, fearful and frantic. “What? What are you talking about?”

“No, Sarah. It wasn’t Heather.” Thierry wasn’t looking at me; his gaze was focused elsewhere. I followed it around the table.

Owen appeared stunned, Todd in utter shock, but then my gaze fell on Rose.

Rose was smiling.

“I’ve wanted to do that for the last ten minutes.” She shook her head. “That girl was a royal pain in the butt.”

“Grandma,” Heather said shakily. “What’s going on? What is this?”

Rose glanced at her. “A love story, darling. One for the ages.”

“You were involved with Malik,” Thierry said, his voice jarringly hollow and echoey. He’d become even more translucent than before. It hurt to see such strain on his face, as if he was fighting to stay visible. “It was you all along.”