Smoke on the Water Page 20

  He cursed, then found the remote and turned on the sound.

  “I saw him kissing her.” Zoe’s lip curled. “He was always around her, touching her. Very inappropriate.”

  “Bitch,” Willow muttered.

  Sebastian had to agree.

  “Things have pretty much gone downhill since he came,” Deux added.

  The reporter turned to the camera. “According to reports, one inmate…”

  “Patient,” Sebastian corrected.

  “… Has escaped several times. A caseworker is dead and a second inmate has disappeared with Dr. Sebastian Frasier. Be on the lookout for—”

  His photo appeared between one of Willow and one of Mary. From this angle, they all appeared as desperate as he felt.

  “I need to find Mary,” he said. If he returned with the missing patients, he might keep his license. His job was already toast. Probably had been for a while now. Dr. Tronsted had been very tolerant, but her expression as she’d surveyed the fiasco from the top of the steps hadn’t been tolerant any longer.

  “About Mary—” Willow began, and licked her lips.

  Sebastian was distracted by memories of how those lips tasted. Sweet. Warm. Heaven. Hell! He yanked his gaze to her eyes, which were troubled. “What about her?”

  “She’s … uh … a little dead.”

  He thought she was kidding, except what was funny about that, then tears replaced the trouble. The two had been friends. Or as friendly as anyone got with Mary McAllister.

  “How? When? Why? Are you sure?”

  “I don’t know the how, except by Venatores Mali. Since she was alive a few days ago, the when is recently. The why—she was trying to save Becca. Am I sure?” She shrugged. “I don’t know why my sisters would lie.”

  Sebastian wasn’t certain if a dead, escaped inmate—patient, he reminded himself—was better than one who was in the wind or not. It definitely wasn’t better for Mary.

  He was such an ass, worrying about his job when the poor woman was dead. Still, he should probably take her back with him.

  “Her body?”

  The glance Willow cast his way made Sebastian feel the same way Zoe’s curled lip had. “You’ll have to ask Owen.”

  Well, that was a conversation he couldn’t wait to have. Right up there with the one he hadn’t had yet with Willow.

  “This isn’t your fault.” He indicated the tousled bed with an awkward hand wave. “I’m your psychiatrist.”

  “No,” she said. “You aren’t. And after what happened last night—” He tensed, and she cast him that disgusted glance again. “Before this—all that you saw, what I did, what they did. I don’t think I need a psychiatrist anymore. I didn’t need one in the first place.”

  “Willow, you—”

  “I’m not crazy, Doctor. I never was.”

  She got up and went into the bathroom, the long, smooth line of her bare legs giving him flashbacks. The slam of the door gave him a chest pain.

  He sat on the bed and put his head in his hands.

  *

  Why had I thought what had happened between us was real?

  I turned on the shower as hot as I could stand, tossed the T-shirt and panties on the floor and got in.

  Because I wanted it to be so badly. For me, Sebastian was familiar. I knew the scent of his skin, the feel of his hands, the taste of his mouth. When he’d touched me in the night, it had been a dream come true, literally.

  But for him that dream had turned into a nightmare even before Zoe and Deux had appeared on the TV screen. He thought of me as a patient not a woman, someone he’d taken advantage of because I was less than. How could he ever fall in love with me if he believed that? How could I ever fall in love with him?

  Problem was, I already had.

  Tears burned, not only for all I’d hoped and dreamed but for Mary. She was a casualty in a war that had started centuries ago. She’d been eager to fight. According to Becca, she’d died a hero. That didn’t make me miss her any less. Mary had been like me in ways no one else could ever be, not even my triplet sisters.

  I’d cried for my friend a little last night, but this morning I cried a lot—both for the loss of her and for the loss of a dream.

  The water had cooled as my tears petered out. I’d just grabbed a towel when someone knocked.

  “I’ve got your clothes,” Becca called, saving me the trouble, and the embarrassment, of telling Sebastian to do something anatomically impossible.

  I wrapped the towel around me and unlocked the door, cracking it a few inches to reveal my redheaded sister and an empty bedroom. She must have brought Sebastian’s clothes too and given him a chance to put them on. I wondered if he’d already run back to the facility to try and fix things.

  “We’re having a powwow at breakfast,” Becca said.

  I took my clothes, still warm from the dryer someone had put them in. In the stack was also a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, which would be less obvious than scrubs and a T-shirt that advertised the mental health facility I’d escaped from, not to mention warmer.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Be there in five.”

  I found a new toothbrush, travel toothpaste, deodorant, a small hairbrush next to the sink. Either someone had visited Walmart or had come prepared for guests. I adored that someone either way.

  My relief at the sight of Sebastian at the kitchen table with the others annoyed me. I had more important things to worry about than my pathetic, unrequited feelings for my former psychiatrist.

  He leaped up. I waited for him to say good-bye and run away. Instead he offered me his chair. I took it—and his coffee too. He got another without comment, then sat on the edge of the couch—in the room, yet apart from everyone in it.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Owen,” he said.

  “Thank you.” Owen set a box of doughnuts on the table.

  I pounced. Nothing like fried dough to soothe a broken heart.

  “I lost my mom years ago.”

  Owen and Becca joined hands. The soft smile on her face, the adoration on his made the doughnut in my mouth hard to swallow past the lump in my throat. I wanted what they had so badly I ached with it.

  “Truthfully, I never really had her in the first place,” he continued. “The craziness did.”

  “I wish I could have helped her more,” Sebastian said.

  “Me too. Peggy told us she’d made a friend.” Owen glanced at me. “I take it that was you?”

  “I got her killed.”

  “No—” Becca began.

  “She was safe in the facility. I sent her out to the places I’d envisioned, to the people I saw in them. I didn’t mean to, not at first.”

  “Then later?” Owen asked.

  I swallowed again, had equal difficulty even though the doughnut was gone, drank some coffee and sucked it up. I owed him the truth. “Later, I sent her on purpose.”

  Sebastian shifted uneasily, but he didn’t argue about my ability to transport people. How could he?

  “She convinced me that I wouldn’t have seen what I had if she wasn’t meant to stop them.”

  “She tried,” Owen said. “Her death is on the Venatores Mali, not on you.”

  He seemed to believe that. I wished that I could.

  “Making them pay, sending Roland back is all we can do.” Raye set her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “And we’ll do it.”

  “Where is Mary now?” Sebastian asked.

  “Gone.” Owen bit into a doughnut and chewed as if he were crunching nails.

  “I know she’s gone,” Sebastian said in his best Dr. Frasier voice. “But her remains?”

  “Gone,” Owen repeated.

  “Buried at sea? In the earth? Cremated?” Sebastian asked.

  “Poof?” For that I earned a scowl from Sebastian and a giggle from Becca, with a snort from Raye.

  “You’ll have to ask the FBI,” Owen said. “They took care of it.”

  “The FBI,” Sebastian repeated. “Why wo
uld they care?”

  “All these murders are connected,” Bobby said. “That’s how I got involved. I was a New Orleans homicide detective. We thought we had a serial killer.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “We had more than one. A lot more.”

  “Witches are people, too,” Raye murmured.

  Sebastian’s brow furrowed. “What does the FBI think about serial killers who are being controlled from beyond the grave?”

  “Not anymore,” Bobby said. “Roland is corporeal enough to have stabbed you.”

  “I still find it hard to believe that the FBI is on board with time travel, witchcraft, and whatever the hell else this is.”

  “The FBI, per se, probably wouldn’t be. But Nic Franklin—”

  “He called me—” Sebastian interrupted. “He was looking for Mary. Wasn’t very friendly.”

  “The FBI is funny that way,” Bobby said.

  “He’s not really FBI.” Becca got up and began to refill everyone’s coffee.

  “Yes he is.” Bobby took a doughnut, but he didn’t eat it. “He’s also a Jäger-Sucher.”

  Sebastian glanced at me, and I shrugged. “My Latin is better than my German.” My German was nonexistent.

  “Translates to hunter-searchers,” Raye explained. “They’re a monster-hunting unit that’s been around since the Second World War.”

  “Monster hunters?” Sebastian repeated. “Seriously?”

  “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of.” Raye shrugged. “Shakespeare always says it best.”

  “Anything strange that comes to the FBI gets routed to Nic,” Bobby continued. “He’s been helpful.”

  “Cassandra too.” Becca spread her hands. “Voodoo priestess.”

  “Sheesh,” Sebastian said.

  If he hadn’t put a crack in my heart, I might feel sorry for the guy.

  “We need to talk about the trap,” Bobby said. “The sooner we get ’er done, the better.”

  “What trap?” Sebastian asked.

  “You don’t need to be involved,” I said. “Run along.”

  My sisters cast me confused, concerned glances, which I ignored.

  “What trap?” Sebastian repeated.

  All eyes turned to me.

  “He shouldn’t be involved.”

  “I’m already involved.”

  “You didn’t mean to be. You don’t want to be. I understand.”

  And I did. He was attracted to me, but he didn’t love me. How could he? Why would he? To sign on with something like this required more than a few illicit kisses. It required a lifetime commitment—or at least the commitment of a life, because one or more of us might be losing ours. I didn’t want it to be him.

  “You need to go back to the facility,” I said.

  “If I go back to the facility without you and Mary, I think I’m gonna be arrested. I’ll pass.”

  “Dr. Frasier—” I began.

  “We’re way past ‘Dr. Frasier,’” he said.

  Chapter 19

  “I’m staying.” Sebastian crossed his arms over his chest.

  Willow scowled. Her sisters beamed. Their significant others had expressions somewhere in between.

  What choice did he have? The idea of leaving Willow behind when someone—a lot of someones—wanted to kill her was an idea he hated almost as much as the idea of going back to the facility. He wasn’t sure what he’d do about his job, his license, his life, but he’d worry about that once the time-traveling crazy man was gone. Wherever it was that time-traveling crazy people went. Except … was Roland really time-traveling if he’d been dead and now he wasn’t?

  Sebastian’s head hurt a little. He drank more coffee.

  “You look like you can handle yourself,” Owen said.

  “Except for the stabbing,” Bobby pointed out.

  “He was doing great until I tried to pull him out of the way,” Willow said. “He knows judo.”

  Owen considered him. “That might be useful. I doubt Roland does.”

  “If it comes down to hand-to-hand, maybe.” Bobby shrugged. “I’d rather it didn’t. You know how to shoot a gun?”

  Sebastian had never been a fan of guns. Hence the judo. He shook his head.

  “We aren’t going to need him to shoot a gun when you and I are both pretty good at it,” Owen put in. “Roland comes from a time of knives and sticks.”

  “And fire,” Becca said.

  “He brings any one of those things to a gunfight”—Owen spread his hands—“we win.”

  “How do we get him to come to the gunfight?” Sebastian asked.

  “I wish Reggie was here,” Owen muttered. “He’d voran the stuffing out of that guy.”

  “Who’s Reggie and what does voran mean?” Sebastian considered the doughnuts. All that was left were jelly filled. He took one. It was better than he thought it would be. The jelly tasted homemade.

  “Reggie was my MWD.”

  Sebastian spread his hands and managed to drop jelly on his lap. As his jeans still had bloodstains despite being washed, it didn’t matter.

  “Military working dog,” Owen translated. “If I told him to voran—or do what he’s supposed to do—to Roland, he’d bringen—in Reggie-speak, fetch him—and drag him back to me.”

  “He might leave a few holes,” Becca said.

  “That would be the best part.”

  “Where is he?” Sebastian hoped the dog was okay. Military working dogs were closer to the action than anyone.

  “I sent him back to Afghanistan.” Owen seemed bummed about it. Why wouldn’t he be?

  “Sorry,” Sebastian said.

  “Reggie lives to sniff out bombs and bringen insurgents. He’s happier there.”

  “And safer,” Becca said.

  “In Afghanistan?” Sebastian asked.

  “No magic there.”

  “And no Henry,” Raye put in.

  “What does a ghost have to do with the safety of a dog?”

  “Reggie had a serious crush on Pru. Henry wasn’t amused.”

  “Henry wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Becca protested.

  Raye’s head tilted. Her mouth twitched. “Don’t be so sure.”

  “Reggie belongs to the Marines,” Owen continued. “I didn’t have much to say about where he went. But finding Roland might take us longer than we’d like without him.”

  “We shouldn’t need to search for Roland,” Willow said. “Isn’t he searching for us?”

  “He is,” Raye agreed. “We’ll let him find us when we want him to.”

  “Hold on.” Sebastian frowned. “You plan to be bait?”

  “Got a better idea?” Raye asked.

  Pru, who’d been lying next to Becca’s chair, lifted her head and yipped.

  Becca’s gaze went to Willow. It seemed troubled. “You okay?”

  Willow wasn’t listening to them or even looking at them. She seemed transfixed by the window.

  Sebastian followed her gaze and understood why. It had rained more during the night. Droplets sparked on the glass, and from Willow’s expression—dazed, dazzled—she’d seen something within.

  “Vision.” He set his coffee on the table, then caught her as she fell out of her chair.

  The others jumped up as both he and Willow went down. The world around them shimmered, fading away as another took its place.

  “Touch her,” he managed before he was pulled along with Willow to another place, perhaps another time.

  As the others appeared—bing, bing, bing—next to him, he assumed they’d done what he said.

  *

  One minute I was listening to my sisters and the men discuss a trap for Roland, the next an innocent glance toward the sun shining through the window sent me somewhere else.

  Dark and dank, below the earth. For a minute I thought I was buried, and I struggled, tried to scream, could not. I hated when that happened.

  Then a faint light bobbed in the darkness, growing stronger, larg
er as it came closer. A hag appeared holding a torch, two others followed behind.

  “How Macbeth can you get?”

  Raye’s voice. Everyone was in the cave—which explained the damp and the dark and the creepy, closed-in feeling. I’d had company before in a vision. I’d thought because Mary was more magical than I’d known. But the magic had been mine, and as my sisters had predicted, it was growing.

  The crones came toward us, then walked through us. One of them frowned, seemed to stare right at me, but when one of the others clucked at her, she continued to the flat-topped rock. Upon it lay a book, open to a page labeled: Evocation.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “Not now,” Becca said. “Watch.”

  She was right. I wouldn’t be seeing this, they wouldn’t be—though how they were I would save for later as well—if we didn’t need to know it.

  From behind the rock, a hag drew a bowl and set it upon the altar. Another produced a double-edged knife from her voluminous, tattered clothes; the third began to chant.

  “Come to us. We summon thee, master.”

  Scottish accent. More Macbeth-ish by the instant.

  The athame wielder snapped her fingers and the other two offered their wrists. I stifled my outcry as she slashed them, then her own. The blood of all three mingled in the bowl.

  The one not chanting or slashing lowered the torch and the blood caught on fire. Could that happen? It had. When the flame died, smoke plumed upward—and within that smoke, I saw a face. That face turned toward us, saw us, and contorted into something horrible, ghoulish, and inhuman.

  I gasped, the sound cut through the cave, broke the spell, and I sat up, back in the cabin, in Sebastian’s arms, with the rest of them all around—each touching me, my sisters holding my hands. I nearly clipped Sebastian on the chin, managed, barely, to stop my upward movement before I did.

  He kissed me—on the forehead—but still … I liked it.

  “Where was that?” Bobby asked.

  “Who was that?” Owen countered.

  “Why was that?” Sebastian pulled me closer as the others moved away, taking their chairs, rubbing their eyes.

  “You were with me,” I said.

  “Have you ever done that before?” Raye asked.

  “Shared a vision?” I nodded. “With Mary.”