Love Potions (16 page)

Charlotte gave a meaningful look around. “Oh, I’m beginning to suspect they both belong to the psycho of the month club.”

“This doesn’t make sense.” Lydia closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. Why would Joe and Brad want to kidnap them? Ok, so Brad’s motivations could be guessed at. He was a pervert. She’d gotten enough flashes into his brain to know he was a little obsessed with fucking her. But Joe? She’d never gotten a sense of evil from Joe. She’d known him for years. He went to fundraisers, tutored children, invited people to church functions and brought food around to the sick and elderly. They said sociopaths were adept at blending in, but even so she couldn’t see it.

“Lydia, snap out of it,” Charlotte demanded. “I know you’re scared, but we have to focus. It doesn’t have to make sense. We’re in this situation and we need to get out of it.”

Lydia realized she wasn’t as scared as she should have been. She thought of Erik. He’d come to the house looking for her. He would know she was gone. He’d come looking.

Unless he thought she stood him up.

Ok, she was starting to worry.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come looking for you.” Lydia began systematically pushing at the bars, testing them. “I thought maybe you took a nap or had things to deal with at your apartment. I should have known something was up when you didn’t answer your phone.”

“They have to come for us sometime,” Charlotte said, as if her plan had been formed long before Lydia arrived. “When they open the door, we fight. It doesn’t matter what they say or what weapon they have. We fight.”

Lydia nodded. After everything magickal that had been going on in their lives, she wondered if she should say something to Charlotte. Seeing the woman’s scared face, she wasn’t sure that would help. Not for the first time she regretted letting the MacGregors wipe her friend’s memories of magickal events. It was quite possible their abduction had nothing to do with magick and everything to do with common sickos. Perhaps the brief visions she’d had were warnings that she’d been too stupid to pay attention to.

Lydia thought of Erik, willing him to magickally know where they were. However, simply waiting and hoping for a man to save her, even if he was a warlock, wasn’t in Lydia’s nature.

“Help,” Lydia yelled when the bars wouldn’t budge. “We’re in here. Help!”

Charlotte’s yell joined hers as they screamed in hopes that someone would hear and rescue them.

…

Brad hummed softly to himself, not hearing his wife sniveling behind him, not hearing his sons fight over the video game two rooms away. There was too much work to do. He slowly cut the image of Lydia’s head from her body and carefully glued it to the perfect figure—an image torn from the pages of a sleazy magazine. That is how he wanted her, all sprawled out and ready and exposed, tied up and gagged.

Satisfied that he’d gotten the image right, he turned to his wife tied up on the bed. She’d been pretty when he married her, but age and pregnancy had taken that from her. Still, she played his games and for that he kept her around. Brad crossed naked to the bed and tacked the image to the headboard and grabbed the lotion he’d bought from Lydia’s store.

…

Lydia gasped, nearly choking as she forced the image out of her mind. The visions had never been so vivid. She felt Charlotte’s hand resting on hers.

Yelling had done them no good. If anyone could hear them, they weren’t coming to help. The basement prison had become dark as the sun set outside. She could make out the lines of the bars, but night hid the dark corners of the room.

“Someone’s coming,” Charlotte whispered, gripping her arm. Soft light appeared as the door opened. The sound of creaking footsteps led their eyes to the wood stairs. Familiar uniform pants appeared in a stream of dim light.

“Sheriff?” Lydia asked.

Charlotte gasped. “Thank God it’s you!”

The women rushed forward to the front of the prison.

“Sheriff, be careful,” Lydia whispered. The man’s gun was holstered. “I don’t know where they went.”

“Try to stay quiet.” Hurrying down the rest of the way, Sheriff Johnson clanged a large ring of keys in search of the right one before he pushed a key into the lock. “Let’s get you out of here, ladies.”

Relief filled her. The man unlocked the door and gestured them to follow. He crept his way up the stairs, placing his hand on his gun. They came to the top of the stairs and he moved aside to let them up. She didn’t recognize the house, but the decor looked deceptively normal.

“How did you find us?” Charlotte asked. She pulled at Lydia’s arm. “How did you know which key would work in the lock? You only tried one.”

Good questions. Lydia turned to study the Sheriff. The man frowned.

“Well, I almost got you all the way outside without a fight.” Sheriff Johnson dropped his hand from his gun and stepped back. “Go ahead. Do it your way.”

Joe, Brad, and Brad’s two sons appeared holding guns. They pointed the pistols at the women.

“If you would be so kind as to join us,” Joe said.

“Move,” Brad ordered with a lecherous lick of his lips. He clearly got off on the power trip.

“Why would you…?” Lydia asked the sheriff. “None of this makes sense. I mean Brad I get, he’s a creep, but you, Sheriff?” She turned to Joe. “Why, Joe?”

Brad tried to leap forward at the insult, but Joe calmly grabbed his arm and held him back.

“I’m sorry, Lydia. I do like you, but we have our orders,” Joe answered. He smiled, as if the gesture would put her at ease. “There’s no need for this to be unpleasant.”

Charlotte gasped and Lydia turned to see a revolver to her friend’s head. The Sheriff nodded to the front door, not lowering his arm. “Enough chatter. This one can be replaced.”

Lydia got his meaning and instantly began walking. She tried to keep an eye on her friend, but Brad pushed the small of her back to make her hurry. She stumbled into the front door.

“Go,” Brad ordered. “Tim, get the door.” Brad’s oldest son opened the door. “Tom get that gun barrel aimed nice and even for the center of the chest. That’s a boy.”

The women went onto a large porch. They were in the country outside of town. She recognized the Sheriff’s home now that she saw it from the outside. The metal tin star hanging in front of the driveway was a dead giveaway.

Fire burned on the lawn, casting orange shadows. Charlotte stumbled into her back and grabbed hold of her. Lydia automatically turned to take Charlotte by the arm. She wasn’t sure if it was her trembling or Charlotte’s but they shook violently. Everyone she’d had some kind of interaction with in the last several weeks stared back at them. Flaxen ringlet girl and her mother held hands. Mrs. Callister tilted her head to the side before taking the pencil from behind her ear to write on an imaginary notepad. Chef Alana wore an apron and looked like she’d just stepped out of a kitchen. The only people missing were Jane from the nursery and the MacGregor family.

A gun barrel pushed into her back, forcing them to walk toward the light.

“Mr. Baker from the post office?” Charlotte whispered, not understanding. “Mrs. Callister? Is that our third grade teacher, Mr. Wirth? He jogs near your house every day. Lydia, what’s going on? Has our entire town gone insane?”

Flaxen ringlet girl reached to the ground and grabbed an ornate goblet. The second her fingers touched it the gathering began to chant in unison like a crowd possessed. A dark shadow whipped past Charlotte causing her to scream in fight. It circled the fire and came back for them, passing over Lydia and leaving her skin cold and numb where it touched along her arm and neck. It ruffled her hair before moving once more around the flames. Another shadow joined it, fluttering like two dark moths to the bonfire’s light.

The girl smiled at her as she stopped before them with the cup. Excited, she said, “Hi, lotion lady!”

Lydia didn’t move.

“Hi, lotion lady,” she repeated, a little darker and meaner. Her smile faltered.

“Hi,” Lydia whispered. The girl’s smile returned.

The girl held the cup up to Charlotte. Joe jolted Charlotte in the back and ordered, “Drink it.”

“No.” Charlotte refused.

Joe lifted his gun and held it to Lydia’s head. Tears escaped her, but Lydia managed, “No, don’t, Cha—”

Charlotte lifted the cup and drank. She coughed, spewing the thick red liquid over the little girl. It looked like blood. The girl screamed and ran to her mother.

Joe lifted his pistol and fired into the air. Charlotte cried out weakly. She nodded at him, crying as she took a drink and forced herself to swallow. Joe motioned for her to do it again. She did, gagging. Her body convulsed, and she dropped the goblet. Charlotte fell to the ground, shaking violently as a seizure erupted over her body. Lydia tried to go to her, but Brad and Tim grabbed her arms. She struggled as they tried to pull her around the fire. Joe appeared in front of her and punched her in the stomach to get her to settle down. Lydia doubled over in pain, and they tossed her face first toward the earth. She saw Charlotte through the edge of the flames still flailing on the ground. Tom leaned over the woman, watching.

Feet pinned her arms down and she couldn’t crawl away. Closing her eyes, she thought,
Ok, it would be really great if you could fly in on a broomstick and save us now, Erik. Omigod, please, just save us.

Chapter Fourteen

“Wow, great dress,” Iain said to Erik, eyeing Lydia from their place in the ditch alongside the gravel road. They were across from a home isolated from town by about ten miles and surrounded trees. “Your girlfriend is really hot.”

Erik smacked him across the back of his head. “Focus!”

“Sorry,” Iain mumbled, “but she is.”

Normally, Erik would be making jokes and laughing with his brother in the face of danger. Immortality had a way of lessening one’s sense of mortal fear—even if technically there were ways to kill a warlock. Like what the
lidérc
now attempted in using Erik’s
inthrall
against him. Even so, he wasn’t scared for himself. He worried about Lydia. Seeing the woman he loved being hefted upright on a pole by a bunch of psychically compromised townsfolk had a way of making Mr. Grim Reaper look all too real.

The sound of chanting filled the air, the words from some ancient Magyar dialect he couldn’t translate. Lydia kicked her feet, hanging by her arms. A thick log stuck in the ground with a metal ring along the top. Townsfolk pulled a rope through the ring, sliding Lydia up the pole. When they finally had her several feet off the ground, they stopped and tied off the rope on the metal star lawn decoration near the side of the road. Her feet must have found hold on something because she stopped kicking and stood straighter. Erik stared at her back, willing her to feel him, trying to give her comfort any way he could. Everything inside of him told him to save her, to rush in, forgetting what centuries of magick had taught him. She had to be terrified, how could she not be?

“Stop,” Iain said. “I know ya want to comfort her, but if you’re not careful with your feelings they’ll detect us.”

Erik withdrew his attempt to connect, hating that Iain was right.

“I love her?” Iain sounded surprised.

Erik blinked. Hissing, he demanded, “What?”

Lydia was his. Erik wasn’t sharing her with Iain.

“
Ya
said, ‘I love her’,” Iain corrected. “Put your magick down and try to concentrate. No need to zap me. I think your lady friend is hot. I’m not going to ask her to have my babies.”

Erik pointed a finger of warning at the man, but let the matter drop. “There, around the top of the fire. Do ya see it? A shadow.”

“The
lidérc
.” Iain nodded. “It’s here.”

Logs were carried from a stack on the side of the house to be thrown into the blazing fire, the possessed marching like ants in a circular pattern to do the task. Myth mistook the
lidérc
for humans or animals, but they were much harder to capture than that. They were incubi who possessed living things as they fed on them, making them do things like have promiscuous sex and race cars—anything that got the blood pumping with excitement and fear. When they were done, a person would be left comatose or crazy, or if they were lucky, dead. The
lidérc
were drawn to life just like they were drawn to the heat of the flames.

“We can’t wait any longer,” Erik insisted.

“Ya heard Da. We wait for them. We cannot fight the
lidérc
without the right magick. Lydia is alive. Take comfort in that.”

“What are those people looking at on the far side of the fire?” Erik didn’t like waiting. He wanted to charge in, foolish as it would be, and take Lydia off the pole.

“Ya rush in and they’ll simply start the process early,” Iain insisted. “Ya shouldn’t even be here. Your connection to Lydia is the whole reason this is happening. You’re too involved.”

Erik gave a low growl and ignored his brother’s warning. It was his life and his magick they tried to steal through Lydia and that made this his decision. Already he could feel the tickling pull of the chanting as they called him to her. Lucky for him, they didn’t seem to realize the brothers were already there. Insistent, he again asked, “What are they looking at?”

“Someone’s on the ground.” Iain narrowed his eyes and focused his vision. His pupils morphed, becoming large enough to take over his entire eye until there was no iris left. With the ability to metamorphosis into various birds of prey, his vision was superb. “Charlotte. She’s not moving.”

“Dead?” Erik stared at Lydia. She screamed as one of the shadows came near her body. Her legs kicked out as she lost her footing and she swung around by her arms. He desperately wanted to go to her, to save her and Charlotte. But his power would do him no good and that left him as helpless as a mortal man against very magickal beings.

“I can’t tell.” Iain focused harder. “I’m trying to find a pulse.”

Suddenly, Iain exhaled, holding his chest. His eyes widened and his pupils shone with an inner light as they locked into their distorted shape. The chanting became louder. The possessed stopped what they were doing and turned to where the brothers hid. Slowly they came to form a line along the far side of the road.

Iain made a weak noise, gasping for breath. Gentle streams of light began to pull from his eyes and mouth toward the fire. Erik slashed his hand through the light to break the connection but it did little good. He felt Iain’s magick move against his fingers. Erik hefted his brother up and over his shoulder only to crumble to his knees the moment he stood.

Erik’s eyes turned to Lydia. Iain’s light passed by her and moved to Charlotte on the ground. Erik coughed. His chest tightened. He felt Lydia inside him seconds before she ripped his magick from him. Automatically, he clutched his throat, trying to stop the life from draining out. Iain slumped onto the ground. The townsfolk crossed the road now that the warlocks were immobilized. Erik felt their hands but was petrified, unable to fight. Or fight them.

…

“Take his power,” flaxen ringlet girl encouraged.

“Yes, take him.” Tom came to stand beside the younger child.

Lydia tried to resist as Erik’s power entered her. She saw his magick in the light that surrounded her. She smelled him, felt him, tasted him. Never had they been so close, or so far apart. In that moment, she understood him on a deep instinctual level. He had so much power, bound himself so tight to keep it at bay. She felt the sting of years, centuries of living, the heartache of losing mortal friends until he and his family buried themselves in their clan.

Yet there was more. As one of the shadows flew next to her head in excitement, she knew what they wanted as well. They used her to take Erik’s power so that they may again take human form. They were not content to merely control humans, in fact they seemed to hate playing the puppeteers. They wanted life and had been hiding in the forest essentially sulking as they waited for it to come to them. Their eagerness shone in ringlet girl’s eyes, radiated in Tom’s heavy breathing, resonated in the chanting of the possessed townsfolk.

Lydia’s skin itched as if it might explode. She was not built to contain so much energy. Her blood became hot. Sweat dripped into her eyes.

Charlotte’s screams erupted over the distance. They didn’t bind Charlotte, not like they did Lydia, because the drink they gave her would keep her immobilized on the ground. Charlotte would take whoever’s power came near her first—a forced
inthrall
. But Lydia was different. Her connection to Erik made her special. The shadow could barely contain its impatience.

The tight ropes around her wrists kept her hands over her head as she was suspended on the thick wood pole like a beacon to lure Erik in. A peg at her feet helped to brace her weight but she had to stay balanced or risk dangling freely.

Joe and Sheriff Johnson dumped Erik at her feet. His eyes looked up at her but he didn’t move. The shadow became more frantic, trying to syphon the magick from her before the process was finished. Lydia looked from Erik to where she could just see Charlotte’s head. They’d placed Iain on the ground next to her friend. The other black shadow hovered close to them to take Iain’s power.

Lydia didn’t have living family or a lot of close friends. She had Charlotte and Erik, and these shadows were trying to kill them both. The shadow pulled from her as it forced her to take from Erik. His powers passed through her, and she cried out at the pain. Every inch of her body burned, inside and out, her nerves raw, her bones aching, her skin itching, her eyes watering. She was dying, a slow and painful end.

Eyes formed in the shadow before her, and she swore she saw the ghost of a smile. The dark mass took human shape. The impression of arms lifted toward her. The shadow’s frozen touch contrasted the heat of her skin. Lydia gasped and jerked. The shock of cold brought her back to her senses. If the thing was going to kill her, she would take it with her. Not knowing what she was doing, she willed Erik’s magick back into her body, trying to reverse the process. The shadow thrashed. It placed its hands on her shoulders and brought the single mass of what would have been feet to her stomach and pushed as if Lydia’s actions trapped it to her. Beneath her ringlet girl and Tom began screeching, an unearthly sound.

The second shadow shot up to help its friend, abandoning Charlotte. The townsfolk closest to it growled in anger and rushed the pole she was on. Hands gripped her legs, rocking the post. She felt herself taking life from the surrounding trees and plants. The more magick she took inside her the harder it became to contain until finally it burst out over the yard.

The shadow convulsed violently, the darkness lightening from within until it burst into ashes. Half of those gathered fell to the ground. The second shadow’s minions rocked her harder. She felt fingers digging into her skin as if to rip her apart. They loosened the pole knocking her head against the wood several times. She tried to pull at the last shadow creature as she had the first, but she was too weak. The shadow carried Iain’s powers, not Erik’s, and she couldn’t connect with it. Warmth trickled out of her nose and she tasted blood on her lips.

“Try not to kill the humans,” Angus ordered, his voice sounding far away. She blinked heavily trying to find him. “There! Niall, Euann, immobilize it.”

Lydia detected a tartan rushing past her before a bright strobe light flashed. She closed her eyes against the painful pulse of light. Screaming sounded from the conscious townsfolk. Lydia’s body swayed as they stopped rocking her. She fell off the peg and hung limp against the wobbling post.

Chaos erupted. She heard the slaps of flesh, the call of commands, the screeching of the shadow through his minions. When she again opened her eyes she found Niall lifted off the ground surrounded by light. Euann stood beneath him holding a small strobe pointed at the shadow. The box looked like something from a hippy’s drug den—hardly an impressive magickal tool. Yet, it seemed to be working.

Rory was on the ground next to Iain and Charlotte, shielding them with his body as the battle raged above him. Tom hit at his back. The boy was one of the last people standing. Mrs. Callister stumbled around the yard in a haphazard circle as if confused.

Unlike when Lydia killed the first shadow, the second one did not turn to ash. Instead, it began pulsing with the light. Niall remained before it in the air. His stiff body acted like some kind of blockade to keep the shadow from escaping. With a tiny burst it was over. The shadow succumbed to the light, disappearing as if it had never been. Niall dropped to his knees and didn’t move from the ground.

Suddenly, Mrs. Callister and Tom both dropped like dead weight. Tom slumped over Rory’s back. The warlock pushed him off.

“Cut her down,” Angus said. Seconds later she was falling forward, unable to catch herself. She dropped into a pair of arms. “That’s it, lass, easy now.” Angus laid her next to his son. “You’re safe. I’ll be back for ya once we clean up this mess.”

Erik didn’t move. His eyes were fixed open, staring at the pole where she’d been. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. Taking the last bit of her strength, she flopped her hand onto Erik’s chest over his heart. It beat beneath her fingers.

“We can’t do anything about the dead grass and trees so killing a few more to get the job done won’t matter. It’ll just have to be a mystery.” Angus’s voice was far away. “Boys, set up the picnic tables and put the casserole out.”

Lydia heard the rush of feet and saw flashes of light behind her closed lids. Casserole? Her throat gurgled and she passed out.