Ryder on the Storm (2 page)

Dan and Shane were still arguing as she pulled away. She decided to curse them if they didn’t make it to the manor by dark. That seemed fair. Thankfully she packed her toiletries and other necessities in the Beetle. A cold shower sounded perfect. Bangs stuck to her forehead, tank top clinging to her back and wait, she could actually smell herself.
Wonderful, surely Dan and Shane will find this attractive. Maybe it is best they take a little longer. I will never hear the end of it if they smell me like this.

The ride to Willow Wood had not changed in the ten years since she last walked out the white-washed front door. Of course it passed to her as the last surviving Sullivan. It still didn’t seem real, still didn’t make sense. She’d gotten a strange letter from her aunt, wouldn’t have recognized it as Aunt Trin’s if not for the handwriting. Storm had turned it over in her hands, the plain notecard with gilded edging. It triggered a vision of the murder. When Dan and Shane knocked on her door, Storm sat waiting in the kitchen with a pot of coffee on. She didn’t cry.

At least she wasn’t considered a suspect. Apparently the crime scene seemed too gruesome for a woman and they labeled it a gang-related attack, some sort of initiation. She didn’t bother to argue. It didn’t matter who did it. It didn’t change the end result.

At some point a social worker showed up at her door, some sort of grief counselor dressed in shabby clothes, her plain face obscured by large framed glasses. The social worker handed her a card for a crisis line and offered to listen if Storm wanted to talk.

She never called the crisis line either. Sullivan women were prepared for the loss of their own, it came with the territory. They had been dwindling for generations, a powerful line of mystics nearly eradicated by generations of mysterious deaths. Storm knew the stories well. Aunt Trin had been overly cautious with their security and not just the technological kind. Her aunt’s murder had been unlike the others though, far more brutal, no mystery to the humans. Storm knew better, she saw knives in the dark and strange runes marking the walls of the vast room. Aunt Trin should have known better than to put herself in such a situation, there had to be more to it.

Pulling into the drive she sighed heavily. Pac Man snorted in the passenger seat. “I know buddy, I know. You will like it here though, lots of room to run.” Storm left the car idling while she opened the gate. The wrought iron bars were sealed with thick rusted chains and a large padlock. She fished the key out of her pocket. It felt heavy in her hand. The key had been delivered by the attorney with all of the paperwork including a small, handwritten note on a piece of parchment – Accept your destiny, you offer hope to many.

She would never accept it. Storm Sullivan may be returning home to Willow Wood but she had no intentions of going down that path – ever. She’d formulated a two part plan, solve the murder and sell the place. With money like that Storm could travel for the rest of her life, never having to stop long enough to risk exposure, and hopefully avoid the Sullivan fate.

Ryder

Ryder Cohen stood over the fresh grave, stargazer lilies in hand. No headstone had been laid yet. He wondered what the inscription would read. Would they use her full name? She hated that name. Ryder laid the lilies on the fresh soil and bowed his head.

“It is done then?” The voice came from behind him. Lucian must have materialized.

“Why can’t you master the modern ways of transport? Humans are around, you could be seen.” Ryder shook his head and stood to face the new arrival. “Yes, it is done.”

“I understand you must be disappointed. She meant something to you?” Lucian’s steel eyes studied his every movement. His face seemed gaunt; the flannel shirt and jeans hung on his form. His dark brown hair looked oily and unkempt even longer than he usually wore it. Ryder noticed dried blood crusted on a gash over his left eye but did not mention it.

“She did, for a time. It could never be under our laws. Immortals and Seers have never mixed.” Ryder shrugged and deflected, “You do not look well Lucian, do you intend to stay for a while? I have plenty of room as you well know.”

Ryder felt Lucian prodding his mind and quickly blocked his thoughts. “Kindly remove yourself from my head, I have done nothing wrong. The Hunters are tracking my last loose end and I have a watcher on the girl. I am holding up my end of the bargain, Lucian.”

“I merely hoped to understand why you are here. I mean no offense, brother. I am truly your friend.” Ryder felt a thick hand on his shoulder, “You must learn to relax, man, you are always so tense.” The more characteristic, swashbuckler’s grin spread across his companion’s face.

“You know I do not like anybody probing my mind. But if we are trading troubles, why are you so thin? What have you been into?” Ryder gestured to the slash across Lucian’s bicep and blood soaking through his right pant leg near the knee.

“There was a rogue coven causing some trouble just outside London. I intervened, it got ugly, and they had a goblin. I found the scuffle exhilarating. Sadly, I need time to heal and the others will have dissolved the coven by now so I will have to wait for the next supernatural uprising.” Lucian smiled mischievously reminding Ryder of their past adventures as enforcers.

“A goblin? It has been a while since one of those surfaced. I am glad you had a good spar. I am heading home now if you would care to join me you are most welcome.” Ryder led his friend to the black Benz he’d “borrowed” for the drive over. It would not do to have any of his vehicles at the cemetery. Lucian raised an eyebrow but slid into the passenger seat.

“It has been a while, Ry. What have you been up to?”

Ryder glanced at Lucian out of the corner of his eye as he slid the car into drive. “This issue has been time consuming, far more complicated than I imagined, Lucian. Trin Sullivan was different than the others, far more powerful. I am relieved it is over. It is time for a new mission; I am weary of this one.”

Lucian scowled, “Enough of this serious talk. I did not come to discuss work. It has been decades, what are you up to other than Seer-slaying? Have you met anyone? Any women in this lifetime?”

“No. I may take it solo for a while longer. Jasmine was hard on me.” Ryder blinked out her face, the smell of her hair, the feel of her skin; he could not go there now.

“Jasmine was special, brother. Women like her are hard to come by in this modern world, pure in soul and wild in bed.” Lucian wagged his eyebrows, “I am flying solo as well. Of course, that does not stop me from enjoying women as I see fit.”

“Lucian, you give us all a bad name.” He chuckled silently as he navigated the route back to the manor, “How long are you in town?”

“That remains to be seen, friend.”

“Stay as long as you will. We can catch up and I would like to bend your ear on something I am working on.”

Lucian settled into the seat, “Well then, start talking. I love a good research project.”

“You said no more serious talk. Tell me about the goblin, how did you take him out?”

Storm

Storm pushed open the white-washed doors in the most dramatic fashion she could muster; something she’d always wanted to do and finally could. Aunt Trin had left the doors unlocked and the foyer looked exactly as it always had, other than the wilted bouquet of lilies upon the round, marble-topped, catch-all table. Trin’s keys were laid out in small porcelain dishes around the vase; dead petals littered half of them. Storm ran her fingers over the nearest dish, a Lamborghini symbol on the keychain. She smiled. Her favorite car from the lot, the one she parked her Beetle next to in the massive attached garage. She’d always shared her aunt’s love of cars, especially fast ones.

Pac Man snorted and sneezed. He lumbered over, plopped on her foot and rolled to his back exposing his pink underbelly. Some faint scars littered his left side, a reminder of the abuse he’d sustained as a pup.

“You are such a big baby. I am not rubbing your belly now. Let’s go up to my room so I can shower before the guys get here.” Storm looked up the massive double staircase, modeled after the one used in Gone with the Wind. Cherry wood railings usually wound with seasonal lights were now bare, odd in and of itself; Aunt Trin had always liked the twinkling lights year round. The carpet that ran the middle of the stairs seemed worn, threadbare in a few places where they had been tread one too many times. She would need to replace the lot of it.

Twenty steps to the landing and she found herself gazing out into the back yard, the orchard where she hid as a child, the storage shed where she received her first kiss, the white washed cottage where Aunt Trin kept an herb garden for potions. All looked a bit worse for the wear but essentially unchanged. Storm relished the picturesque quality of the blooming trees; she’d painted the orchard several dozen times and actually won an award for a photography study of the trees. It seemed like an eternity ago. She found herself wondering about the harvest this year. Storm wondered who had handled it last season. Perhaps there were receipts in the study, though she doubted Trin kept much by way of books. Dammit. Stop procrastinating.

Storm’s large boho purse weighed on her shoulder and the duffel bag straps dug into her palm as she climbed the next twenty steps. The room at the top of the stairs had belonged to her mother. Through the open door Storm could tell that Trin had not touched anything since Sophie’s passing. The four poster bed still covered by an heirloom quilt and pictures of Storm on the bedside table, all antique pieces of course, exactly as they had been ten years ago. She forced her feet forward remembering the need for a shower when the stench of sweat and body odor overwhelmed her reverie.

The next two doors opened into guest suites with private baths where Dan and Shane would most likely pass the night. Storm had the room at the end of the hall, opposite her old studio. Storm sighed and pushed open the door to her past. It did not escape her notice that it was the only closed door she’d come across.

Her bedroom looked exactly as she’d left it. The heavy violet velvet curtains were parted and hung over wrought iron tie backs. Sheers of various shades of purple still draped the matching wrought iron bed, the lilac satin bedspread half turned down to reveal silky silver sheets. Yes, she had been in a romantic Goth phase before she’d left. The walls were still plastered with her favorite posters, a shirtless Jim Morrison, Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, several John Hughes movie posters, and a tour poster for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Her bookshelf still overflowed with Stephen King, Jane Austen, and Tolkien. A well-worn copy of Catcher in the Rye lay half open on her nightstand.

Everything came back in a rush, the reason she fled. Seventeen years old, two weeks after her high school graduation, and a vision that rocked Storm to her core. She slipped out in the middle of the night and never looked back. Storm had not told a soul about the vision. She simply threw some clothes in a knapsack, grabbed her purse and hopped on her Vespa. The crisp autumn air had done little to numb the shock of seeing her own death.

Aunt Trin had tried her cell phone for weeks after she ran away. Storm ignored the calls and eventually chucked the phone altogether. At some point she’d mailed a postcard letting Aunt Trin know she was alive but that was all. Storm swore she would find a way to prevent the vision from occurring and hopefully find a way to end the visions altogether. If Aunt Trin knew she’d have stopped Storm and that would have made her an accomplice, would have made her life forfeit as well. Storm could not risk that.

Eight years Storm traveled the world, hopping cruise ships where she worked as a waitress and moonlighted as a cartoon artist doing those silly caricatures. Europe, Asia, Australia, each destination meant new resources, new witches and warlocks, other Seers and mystics, even a smattering of other supernaturals who might hold the key. Every lead came up empty. The visions continued and she logged them all. One of the boxes on the moving truck held more than 50 journals detailing the visions she’d had since leaving Willow Wood. Nobody knew about them and nobody would. It would never be safe for her. As long as she never acted on her visions, Storm could pretend and blend in with everyone else. The Immortals would never learn she could foresee her own death, never learn how deep her Sight could go. The thought of being their toy, their instrument, chilled her to the bone.

For a few years she felt guilty, hurts she could have prevented but didn’t. Some as simple as a theft or broken bone, others more devastating. Of course, if she saw something deadly an anonymous tip mysteriously made it to the authorities, but always from an untraceable cell or payphone and then she would move on. Storm learned how to balance things; she had to in order to survive.

One horrifying vision, one moment, changed everything about her, made her hate herself in ways that did not make sense, made her miss her mother and most of all, made her want to apologize to Sophie for the tears she’d wept at that first vision. Storm understood everything after her death vision, understood even among Seers she would be an anomaly, hunted by her kind and coveted by the Immortals as a weapon. The Seer’s Circle would imprison her or kill her to prevent the Immortals from collecting her. The Immortals would track her and imprison her to be their fortune teller. Either way, she would not be allowed to remain free. No matter how strong her family’s influence. So, Storm ran. To save herself and her family she left. In the end, it merely delayed the inevitable.