The Reluctant Goddess (The Montgomery Chronicles Book 2) (24 page)

Super Dick’s jeans were too snug, his cowboy shirt pulled tight at the snaps. He even wore boots, the kind with the pointed toes and elevated heels. I wondered if he was wearing lifts, too.
 

Charlie seemed interested in his approach, but he wasn't wriggling with excitement or joy. He looked at Super Dick and then at me.
 

When Super Dick was a few feet away, Charlie’s response still hadn’t changed. He didn't whine or bark. Instead, he moved closer to me, backing up his butt until it was on my foot.
 

This wasn't good.

"Hello," I said, stretching out my hand.
 

He ignored it.
 

“Are you sure you wouldn’t let me buy him from you?”
 

You don’t want a dog. You’re going to leave here without the dog. You don’t even want to be here.
 

“No,” Super Dick said. “He’ll be a good guard dog. He needs to toughen up a little, but I'll get him trained in time."

Charlie looked at me, his big brown eyes filled with more emotion than I wanted to acknowledge right now. Bursting into tears wouldn’t be helpful at this moment.
 

I named a higher amount.
 

"He's a purebred retriever,” Super Dick said. “I could get that much every time I put him out to stud."

"Name your price.”
 

I was prepared to go as high as he wanted. I didn't have a good feeling about Charlie's reaction to him.
 

The man reached for the handle to the tailgate and Charlie pulled back his lip, exposing his teeth and gums. He hadn't started growling, but his silent reaction was even more disturbing.

Super Dick opened the tailgate.

“Come on, Stupid,” he said, glaring at the dog.
 

He took a few steps toward Charlie who looked at me for a long moment before jumping up into the bed of the truck. I hated seeing dogs unrestrained in a pickup. If the truck stopped suddenly, the dog went flying.

Super Dick didn’t look like he cared. Nor had he even greeted Charlie. He hadn’t petted him or thanked me or done anything but be a Super Dick.
 

I stood there and watched the truck pull out of the parking lot, Charlie staring back at me the whole time. I felt the bond between my heart and my borrowed dog stretch until the truck was out of sight.
 

I made it back to the car before I started to cry.

Dan and Mike were smart enough not to say anything to me on the way back to the castle. In the mood I was in, I might have accidentally nuked them. Maybe I should have done that to Super Dick.
 

The problem was that I was a law abiding person. I didn’t cross against the light. I didn’t slide through a yellow. I didn’t cheat on my taxes, although the new punishing tax rate for vampires made that sound like something to consider.
 

You would think IRS would give us a lower rate, since we lived for a very long time and they would get their money every year. Nope, that’s not how it worked. We got a higher rate than the rest of the populace, the reasoning being that most vampires were wealthy. I wouldn’t call myself wealthy. I wasn’t remotely in Dan’s ballpark, for example, but it was true I had more money than when I was working.

I wondered how much they would tax me if they knew I was a goddess?
 

I wanted to get to my room, lock the door, and go to sleep for a few days. Right now that wasn’t looking like such a bad option.
 

The bells, whistles, and buttons of Arthur’s Folly were no longer a mystery to me. I didn’t have to wait until Dan led me through the corridors. I reached my room quickly, shut the door, and threw myself on the chaise.
 

About a half hour later, I heard a knock. I knew who it was and had even anticipated Dan’s arrival. He was one of those last word kind of guys. I knew he didn’t like the way I’d just marched off, so he was here to clear the air.
 

I really didn’t want to talk to him, but I opened the door anyway.
 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how much you liked Charlie.”
 

I nodded again, practicing the inscrutable look.
 

My mother was a fugitive from the law, and even if I was feeling warm and fuzzy about her, she’d tried to kill me. My grandmother wasn’t going to embrace me with open arms, not with her sisters of the faith muttering dire imprecations and casting spells about me. Any friends I had, mostly from work, had melted away at sunrise like a sleepy vampire. The vampires I knew either hated me or betrayed me.
 

The closest I had to a friend was my dog and I’d been forced to surrender him.
 

I wasn’t feeling like being charming at the moment.
 

Dan reached for a tray he’d put on the table by the door.
 

“I have white chocolate cheesecake."

I could be had, but I wasn't that much of a slut for cheesecake.

“Or I can have the kitchen make anything you want."

I already knew that.
 

“Thank you,” I said, taking the tray from him.
 

Okay, maybe I was a slut for cheesecake.
 

“Did you ever get a chance to read what Madame X gave you?”
 

I nodded.
 

“Are you going to tell me?”
 

“No.”
 

He raised one eyebrow.
 

How weird was I? I could share my body with this man, but not my mind or ideas about my future. The reason were complex. I was feeling too much for Dan and it was making me vulnerable. Plus, I was beginning to understand that I needed to trust myself and my instincts.
 

I didn’t have anyone else.
 

“Okay,” he said. “Talk to you later.”

He studied me for another moment.
 

I pasted some kind of smile on my face and kicked the door shut with my foot.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
OUR

Dropping like flies

I felt the witches the moment I closed the door.
 

The vibrations hit me between my shoulder blades, traveled through my back to spear my heart. I turned, each slow movement an orchestra of muscle, blood, and bone.
 

At least I made it to the table beside the chaise and saved the cheesecake.
 

The air shimmered like heat off a desert road as I felt their power pushing. My chest shuddered as if a giant fist were pounding against me.
 

Well, hell, if this was going to be a fight, I was going to give as good as I got.
 

"Show yourself," I said, pushing the words past suddenly numb lips. "If you're brave enough to attack me, then be brave enough to show who you are."

There was more than one witch. Or if I was wrong and there was only one, she had more power than I’d ever encountered before.
 

I wasn't wrong, there were three, each of them appearing in the same gauze-like manner. What the hell? I was seeing a hologram of witches.

Where was their cauldron?

One of them had piercings, an eyebrow ring, a nose ring, and a little gold bauble on her cheek. I couldn’t see any tattoos, but I bet she had a few. One was as old as my mother, with brown hair framing a plump face. She had a pursed mouth that was no doubt more often arranged in a smile and sausage like fingers that probably doled out chocolate chip cookies like they were kisses. The third was tall and angular, like a Sycamore, her long twig-like fingers pointing in my direction. Her face was narrow, her bony nose flared in dislike and her thin lips curved downward.
 

Not exactly the Witch Welcome Wagon.
 

I knew they weren’t really there. I could see the chaise through them and the curtains open to the night.

"What do you want?" I asked. "Why are you here? For that matter, who are you?"

"We have come to warn you, Marcie Montgomery. Leave this place.”
 

Oh, great, now I had three witches gunning for me.
 

I took a step toward the intercom, feeling as if I were walking in cold molasses. They evidently didn’t want me to move.
 

Tough luck.
 

"Yeah, well, you gotta do better than that," I said. "What do you want? Why are you here? Yada yada yada."

"You are an aberration of nature,” said the one who looked like a tree.
 

"Like I haven't heard that before. If that's what you came to say, good. You said it, now you can leave."

I walked straight through the hologram, saw it waiver around me, expecting to feel like the witches had injured my soul. I didn't feel a thing.

I sat on the chaise, folded my arms and glared as the hologram reformed itself. I really wanted to mourn for a few hours while eating my cheesecake. The witches were screwing up my plans for the evening.
 

“Leave this place,” they all said in unison.
 

I was getting a little tired of being threatened.
 

"What day is it?” I glanced at the clock. “What time is it?"

They disappeared. One second they were there, the next they were gone.

I’d been right in thinking the witches a hologram. It was evidently not interactive.
 

Had my grandmother sent them?
 

When I called, she didn’t answer, but I wasn’t surprised. I had a feeling Nonnie knew when I was calling and it had nothing to do with Caller ID.
 

I stared where they’d been for almost ten minutes, but they didn’t come back. Finally, I sat on the chaise and ate my cheesecake while watching TV, wishing there was something on that would occupy me enough to take my mind off Charlie and my situation.
 

Nothing did.
 

I took a long hot bath, grateful the hologram didn’t magically appear in the bathroom. I don’t have exhibitionist tendencies. By the time I got out of the bathtub, I was waterlogged. I dried myself off and put on my bunny pajamas. They were blue with white and beige bunnies scampering all over them. I’d bought them at a low point in my life and wore them when I was feeling blue.
 

Tonight definitely qualified for bunny pajamas.
 

I walked back into the bedroom and sat on the chaise, feeling more down than I had in a very long time. I was in the middle of a vortex and I didn’t know what to do or how to make the world stop spinning.
 

I hadn't closed the drapes against the night and I sat there staring at the teardrop shaped lake. The gazebo floating in the middle of it was illuminated by deck lights and connected by a path lit by solar lights to the castle.

When I left Bill, I’d wanted more excitement in my life. Maybe that's why I dated Doug, the vampire. Not only because he was handsome and smelled deliciously of cloves and chocolate, but because dating a vampire was edgy, something I’d forbidden myself to do because of my mother’s addiction.
 

Now I had just about as much excitement as I could handle.

I hadn't yet turned on the light and the open Texas sky was a sparkling canvas. Stars in the thousands – or millions – winked back at me. Were there creatures like us on other planets? Not humans, perhaps, but beings gifted with talents we’d not yet plumbed?

I reached automatically for Charlie's head, to give him a pat, to scratch behind his ears. He wasn't there. I didn't hear any soft panting or loud snoring. He wasn't there to perfume the air and make me wonder what he’d had for dinner. Nor was he sitting in front of me, growling as if to warn the world that he was my protector.

Please, let him be all right.

Would God refuse a prayer from me simply because of what I was? Surely He would care about the fate of a loyal dog?

I was so depressed I could barely keep my head up.
 

I knew that the poor man in the car accident had died because of me. Maddock, or one of his minions, had probably compelled him to drive into me. I don't care if he was eighty or eighteen; he’d died before his time was naturally finished. I felt not only grief but a fair measure of guilt over Opie’s death. She’d never had a chance to try out her vampire wings, in a manner of speaking.
 

For the rest of my vampire existence, I would see people around me grow old and die or succumb to sickness, or be killed in accidents or be the prey of all the unknown Brethren out there. I would be one of the inviolate ones, the female standing as the world sighed its last gasp.
 

What a horrible future to contemplate.

If Charlie were here, I wouldn’t feel so lonely.
 

I hoped he was all right. I didn't like his owner and wished I could've done something other than what I did. Short of kidnapping the dog, I didn't know what else I could do. The man was a bully. I knew that even without proof and I don’t think bullies make good pet owners.