Dying for You Page 14

  “Well, let’s—”

  “It’s all right, Annie,” a stranger said, materializing beside the hostess. “No need to cover for me this time. I’ll be glad to talk to these people.”

  Serena felt Burke jump, and knew why: no scent. She looked at Pete and was a little surprised. The boogeyman, the monster, the thing that haunted her dreams and stole her rest was a balding man in his early forties. Well. Who looked like he was in his early forties. What little hair he had left was going gray. His eyes were a light mud brown, and his nose was too small for his face. He was neatly dressed in a dark suit the color of his hair. He looked like a nurse shark: harmless, with teeth.

  He smiled at her. She was startled to see he knew her at once. “Sorry about your friend.”

  She tried to speak. Couldn’t. And she knew—knew—why he was smiling. He thought he was safe. His turf, his town. All these people. He thought they wouldn’t touch him. And he was old. For vampires, age meant strength. He thought if worse came to terrible, he could take them.

  “Let’s step outside,” Burke said, and seized Pete by the arm.

  “I don’t think so,” the old monster said loudly. “I’m needed here. I—hey!” They tussled for a moment, and then Burke literally started dragging him toward the rear of the restaurant. Serena could see shock warring with dignity on Pete’s face: make a fuss and get help? Or endure and get rid of them outside?

  She could see him try to set his feet, and see his amazement when Burke overpowered him again, almost effortlessly. She could also see the way Burke’s jaw was set, the throbbing pulse at his temple. It wasn’t just werewolf strength; Burke was overpowering the monster with sheer rage.

  “Killing girls,” Burke was muttering, as the armpit of Pete’s suit tore. He got a better grip. “Killing girls. Killing girls!”

  A few people stared. But this was P-town and nobody interfered. New Englanders were famous for minding their own business.

  “What the hell are you?” Pete yelled back. “You’re no vampire!”

  “I’m worse,” Burke said through gritted teeth. They were in the kitchen now, the smell of sizzling chicken wings making Serena want to gag. “I have to kill to eat.”

  Before any of the staff could react—or even notice, as hard as they were all working—Serena hurried ahead. She figured she might as well contribute to the felony kidnapping in some small way, so she held the back door open for them. Burke dragged Pete out, past the reeking garbage rollaways, past the illegally parked cars, past the boardwalk, onto the beach. Serena bent and picked up a piece of driftwood, one about a foot long and shaped, interestingly, like a spear. She could feel the splinters as she held it in her hand; it was about two inches in diameter.

  Pete swung and connected; the blow made Burke stagger but he didn’t loosen his grip. “Your pack leader didn’t authorize this,” he said. “You’ll start a war.”

  Ah, the monster knew about werewolves—that was interesting. Of course, it made sense…Pete would want to know who he was sharing the killing field with.

  “Serena’s my pack. And you’re all rogues. Don’t pretend you’re Europe. Nobody will miss you.”

  “Nobody missed you,” Pete leered at her.

  “Not then. But now, yes.” She hefted the driftwood, then hesitated, hating herself for it but unable to resist. “Why? Why me, and why Maggie?”

  “And Cathie and Jenny and Barbie and Kirsten and Connie and Carrie and Yvonne and Renee and Lynn and so many I’ve lost count. Why? Are you seriously asking me that? Why? Because that’s what we do, stupid. You’re—what? Fifty-some years old and you don’t know that?”

  “We don’t do that,” she retorted, and gave him a roundhouse smack of her own. “We don’t do that! We don’t have to! You did it because you wanted to!” Each shout was punctuated with another blow; Burke and Pete were skidding and sliding in the sand. The sea washed over their ankles. She had to scream to be heard over the surf. That was all right. She felt like screaming. She was, literally, in a killing rage. “You wanted to! She never did anything bad and you wanted to!”

  “It’s what we do,” Pete said again, black blood trickling from his mouth, his nose. “The king won’t stand for this.”

  “Who do you think sent me, bastard? He’s getting rid of every one of you tinpot tinshit dictators. He won’t stand for your shit and neither will I!”

  “Then why,” Pete said, and spat out two teeth, “why are you still talking?”

  Good question. She kicked him in the balls while she thought of an answer. She had the stake. She had the anger. She even had a henchman. So why was the monster still alive?

  “We don’t do that,” she said at last, and dropped the stake. She was condemning who knew how many more women to torture and death…Maggie was counting on her, wherever she was, and—and— “We don’t do that and I don’t do that.”

  “Ha,” Pete said, and grinned at her through broken teeth. “All the way from Minnesota. Long trip for nothing.”

  “Not nothing,” Burke said. “She came for me. She just didn’t know.” Then he broke Pete’s neck, a dry snap swallowed by the waves. Pete’s mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish in a bowl, and then—Serena couldn’t believe it—and then Burke literally ripped the monster’s head off and tossed it away like a beach ball. The sound it made was like a chicken leg being pulled from a thigh. Times a thousand.

  She spun away from their little group of evil and tried to be sick in the sand, but couldn’t vomit. The sound—and the look on Pete’s face when his neck broke—and the sound—

  Burke briskly washed his hands in the surf and knelt beside her. She leaned against him and wiped her mouth.

  “I knew you wouldn’t,” he whispered into her ear. “I told you: I’m the beast, not you.”

  “I just—couldn’t. He was smirking at me and he knew I couldn’t and he just—I just—” She closed her eyes and heard the snap of Pete’s neck breaking again. This time it didn’t make her feel sick. This time it made her…not exactly happy. More like…peaceful? “Oh, Burke. What if you hadn’t come? What if I’d never met you?”

  “But I did. And you did. And Maggie can rest. No more bad dreams.”

  “How did you know I—?”

  He kissed her on the temple. “How could I not know my own mate?”

  She clung to him, ignoring the surf wetting their legs, their knees. “Your mate? You still want to—?”

  “Since you were in the hole and told me to go away. I couldn’t leave you then. How could I leave you now? You’re for me and I’m for you.”

  “Just like that?”

  He shrugged.

  “Just like that,” she answered herself. The events of the past two days flashed across her mind: all he had done. For her. Had anyone ever…? Who else could have done so much for her, but the man she was destined to be with?

  “I’ll outlive you,” she said tearfully.

  “On the upside, I can’t knock you up.”

  “No kids,” she said, cheering up.

  He kissed her again. “No kids.”

  They rose as one and walked to the truck, not looking back when the surf covered Pete’s body—both pieces—and took it away.

  As predicted, nobody missed him, except the liquor rep, and she quickly found a new client.

  No one in the bar who saw Burke and Serena ever forgot them, and no one in the bar ever saw them again. Drifters, in and out of P-town, two of several thousand tourists who came through Cape Cod each summer. Nothing special about them.

  No, nothing at all.

  Witch

  Way

  To my husband,

  who is my opposite in every way:

  politically, religiously, economically, and neurologically.

  Do I believe in love at first sight? You bet!

  Do I believe opposites attract?

  I have two children (both look like him)

  who would testify to that fact.

  ACKNOWLEDGME
NTS

  Thanks again to Cindy Hwang at Berkley, who never clutches her head (at least in my presence) when I pitch a new idea. And thanks to the fabulous cover artists and the flap copy techs; I could never sum up a book (or four novellas) in two paragraphs, but those bums make it look easy.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Not all witches were bad. Not all witches were even witches, particularly during the madness of the Salem witch trials.

  But some were. And they got pissed. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

  She turned me into a newt! It got better.

  —MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

  My mother says I must not pass

  Too near that glass.

  She is afraid that I will see

  A little witch that looks like me.

  With a red mouth to whisper low

  The very thing I should not know.

  —SARAH MORGAN BRUAMT PIATT,

  THE WITCH IN THE GLASS

  There is no hate lost between us.

  —THE WITCH, ACT IV, SC. 3

  There is no love lost between us.

  —CERVANTES, DON QUIXOTE, BOOK IV

  Prologue

  Tucker Goodman did not take his hat off, a whipping offense if anyone else dared try it. He pointed a long, bony finger at the witch in the blocks and said, in a voice trembling with rage and age, “You are an unnatural thing, cast out by the devil to live among good people—”

  “Good people,” the witch said, craning (and failing) to look at him, “like the Swansons? You know perfectly well the last three littluns born on that farm weren’t got on the missus, but instead, the eldest daughter. Not to mention—”

  “Liar!” Farmer Swanson was on his feet, his face purpling, while Mrs. Swanson just huddled deeper into the bench and cried softy into her handkerchief. “That thing filled my girls’ heads with lies!”

  “Silence, Farmer Swanson!” Silence reigned, as the witch knew it would. There was no reasoning with a mob. Unless you were the leader of the mob.

  “I think we can all agree—”

  “That you’re a creaky old man who likes having marital congress with fifteen-year-olds to keep the evil spirits away.” The witch laughed.

  “—that since you were sent here, there has been naught but wickedness afoot.”

  “Except for all the children I cured of the waxing disease,” the witch pointed out helpfully.

  No one said anything. The witch wasn’t surprised. Say just the wrong thing at the wrong time, and things like guilt or innocence didn’t matter. Defend a witch, and you’d be burned alive, too. Just a handy scapegoat to roast and dance about. That’s all they really wanted.

  “You will die in agony, yet cleansed by fire.”

  “Terrific,” the witch muttered.

  “And in penance for your evil deeds, your children and your children’s children, down through the ages, will be persecuted and hunted until you share your powers with your greatest enemy.”

  “I see no logic in that order of things,” the witch commented. “Why not just kill me and get it over with?”

  “Because you keep coming back,” Goodman said, clearly exasperated. “My great-great-grandfather told me all about you. You bring your mischief to the town and have your fun and then are burned and show up in another town a few years later.”

  “I like to keep busy.”

  “This time, if you don’t give over your powers to your greatest enemy, you’ll be doomed to walk the earth forever, alone and persecuted.”

  “And if I do give over my powers to my greatest enemy?”

  Goodman smirked, revealing teeth blackening with age. “But you never will, unnatural thing. You don’t have a heart to share, to open. And so I curse you, as this town curses you, doomed to walk the earth forever, alone.”

  “How very Christian and forgiving of you,” the witch muttered.

  Goodman, wrapped tightly in his cloak of smug judgment, ignored the witch’s comment. Instead, he sprinkled a foul-smelling herb poultice in the witch’s hair and clothes, ignoring the sneezes, then stood back as flaming chunks of wood were tossed, arcing through the air and landing on the pile of wood the witch was standing on.

  The witch wriggled, but the town elders knew their business: The witch was trussed as firmly to the center pole as a turkey on a spit. An unpleasant comparison, given what was happening right now…

  “Well, if I do come back,” the witch shouted over the crackling flames, “you can bet I will never set foot in Massachusetts again!” Then, as his feet caught fire, Christopher de Mere muttered, “Fie on this. Fie all over this.”

  The villagers watched the man turn into a living candle, making the sign of the cross, as he hardly made a sound, except for the occasional yelp of pain or muttered taunt. And later, scraping through the ashes, they never found a single bone.

  Things were quiet.

  For a while.

  Chapter 1

  Rhea Goodman sat at the broad wooden table in her mother’s farmhouse and waited expectantly. Her parents, Flower and Power (real names: Stephanie and Bob), were looking uneasy, and Rhea felt in her bones that It Was Time.

  Time to explain why she’d been brought up a nomad, moving from commune to commune.

  Time for Flower and Power to explain why they clung to the hippie thing, even though they were in their fifties and ought to have ulcers and IBM stock.

  Time to explain her younger sister’s insistence on playing “kill the witch! kill the witch!” with the kid as the hero and her as the witch.

  Her theory? Flower and Power had robbed a bank. Or blown up a building. Because they were on the run, no question.

  Only…from whom?

  And her little sister was just weird.

  “Rhea, baby, we wanted to sit you down and have a talk.” Flower ran her long, bony fingers through her graying red hair, waist length and for once not pulled back in the perpetual braid.

  “About your future,” Power added, rubbing his bald, sunburned pate. He was about three inches shorter than her mother, who, at five-five, wasn’t exactly Giganto. She had passed both of them in height by the time she was fourteen. “And your past.”

  “Super-duper.” She folded her hands and leaned forward. “And whatever you guys did, I’m sure you had to do. So I forgive you.”

  “It wasn’t us,” Flower said, sitting down, then changing her mind and standing. Then sitting again. The sun was slanting through the western windows, making the table look like it was on fire, and for the first time in memory, Rhea saw her mother wince away from the light. “It was destiny.”

  Yeah, you were destined to rob a bank. Or free test animals. And then have kids and spend the rest of your life on the run. Homeschooling, ugh!

  “As the eldest—”

  “Yeah, where are the other ankle biters, anyway?” Rhea had four brothers and sisters: Ramen, Kane, Chrysanthemum, and Violet, aged nineteen, fifteen, twelve, and eight, respectively.

  “Away from here. This is business strictly for the eldest of the family. For centuries it has been this way.”

  Abruptly, Flower started to cry. Power got up and clumsily patted her. “We can’t tell her,” she sobbed into her work-roughened hands. “We just can’t!”

  “We must,” Power soothed.

  “Hey, whoa, it’s all right!” She held her hands up in the universal “simmer down” motion. “Whatever you did, it’s cool with me.” Good God, did they kill someone? “I’m sure we can figure something out.”

  “It’s not what we did, it’s what you’re going to do.”

  “Go back to college? Forget it. Like the man said, it’s high school with ashtrays. Get a new job? Working on it. Try to get one of my poems published? Working on that, too.”

  “No,” Flower said, lips trembling. “Nothing like that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s destiny.”

  “Yeah, great, what does that mean?”

  “You’re goi
ng to kill the greatest evil to walk the earth, and you’ll die in the process,” Power told her. “So it is, so it has been, so it shall be. Only if the hunter makes the ultimate sacrifice will the witch be vanquished.” He sounded like he was quoting from a book. Then he continued, and his voice no longer sounded like a recitation. “I’m so sorry, Rhea. I’m just so, so sorry.”

  Her mother was beyond contributing to the conversation and simply cried harder.

  Rhea felt her mouth pop open in surprise. “So, uh, you guys didn’t rob a federal bank?” Then, “Don’t tell me all those fairy stories you told me about witches and witch-hunters and demons are true. Because if they are—”

  Flower and Power nodded.

  “Jinkies,” she muttered and rested her sharp little chin on her folded hands.

  Chapter 2

  Chris Mere tried. He really did. If his family history wasn’t reason enough not to draw attention to himself, ever, the fact that he had parked in a rough neighborhood was.

  But the girl was screaming. Screaming. And as he approached, he could hear the man ripping her clothes, talking to her in a hissing whisper, could see the moonlight bounce off the blade he held at her neck.

  Chris cleared his throat. “Uh. Excuse me?”

  Victim and would-be rapist both looked at him.

  “Yeah, uh. Could you, uh, not do that?”

  “Fuck off, white bread. Me and the bitch got bidness.”

  “I guess you didn’t hear. Times have changed. No means no, and all that. And it looks to me like the lady is saying no. Emphatically. So why don’t you let her go, before I turn you into a turnip?” And what the hell rhymes with turnip, anyway?