Fire Raiser (19 page)

“Oh, but I’m afraid you’ve got it wrong, Mrs. Ayala.” The mild tones of Ben Poulter came from Holly’s other side. “Homosexuals don’t recruit, but vampires do.”

He smiled broadly—and if there was a Lord of the Undead, he was definitely directing the special effects, for as Ben’s teeth flashed so did a crack of lightning outside, followed by rumbling thunder and the sudden drumbeat of rain. Holly barely heard it, because for the first time in her life she saw his canine teeth: sharp, pointed, and white as ice. For just an instant she was back in her bedroom at Woodhush, cringing away from a huge looming black bat—

But then Ben was just Ben again, who’d gone to school with her parents and her aunts, who was invited to come by Woodhush when Lulah decided to slaughter a calf or a pig, who had taken her and Cam out on summer nights to stargaze.

Erika faltered a step or two back and turned white to the lips.

Ben nodded politely as she skittered away on shaky legs, then turned to Holly. “Awful woman. Gib was a nice kid, as I recall. I wonder how he ended up with her?”

“You are just
bad
, Ben Poulter,” she told him, trying not to laugh.

“In five minutes sh-she’ll be telling herself sh-she couldn’t possibly have seen what sh-she saw. It’s how we all stay safe, isn’t it? Your folk, and mine.” His shoulders hitched dismissively. “By the way, it’s just a guess, but I think sh-she thinks her eldest boy has a crush on Mr. Stirling.”

Holly felt her mouth gape unattractively open. “Troy? Really?”

“You didn’t notice him watching during the speech? Like he’d been thirsty for years and suddenly found—” He paused and smiled—not quite widely enough to display all his teeth. “Well, water, I suppose, to the rest of you.”

This time she did giggle. Ben patted her on the hand and went to join his sisters on their way out the doors.

Departures had slowed due to the rain and the chaos of parked cars. On the one hand, Holly told herself, this was a good thing—she and Cam and Evan would have an excellent excuse for lingering—but the mess outside would also delay Lulah’s arrival. She’d seen Tim and Laura leave as soon as they’d discarded their aprons, and figured they might be about halfway to Woodhush by now. Another forty-five minutes, she thought, and then they could all troop up to Cam’s room using the silly excuse Evan had dreamed up, and after that—

“Shit,” she muttered, seeing Gib making his way toward her. Why the hell didn’t he take his wife and her kid and just go home?

“Hi,” he said, not at all shy about strafing her bare legs with his gaze. “There seems to be a traffic jam out there. Let’s go onto the verandah and watch the rain.”

She asked herself Ben’s question. How
had
Gib ended up with Erika—who was close enough to be watching but not close enough to hear. When Gib’s dark eyes sought and found his wife, and a little smile twitched a corner of his mouth, Holly knew Evan had been right about the pair of them.

“I don’t think so,” she said in quiet tones.

“Holly!” His smile got wider—for his audience. “Are you still riled over what I said before? I didn’t mean anything by it. All I want—”

—is for me to make big eyes at you right under your wife’s nose so you can go home and fuck each other’s brains out because her jealousy really gets you both going?

“Don’t,” she snapped. “I don’t care what you want. Whatever game you’ve got going, I won’t be a part of it.”

“I don’t understand.” His eyes had kindled with restless anticipation, flickering from her to Erika and back again. “Oh, wait a minute—you think she—?” He gave her his most disarming smile. “Well, I admit she
is
the jealous type. But, hey, come on, Holly, how long have we known each other?”

“We knew each other for a couple of years a long, long time ago. I’m telling you again, Gib, whatever you’re playing at, leave me out of it.”

“I can’t help it that she’s like that. Besides, that’s just marriage.”

“Not
my
marriage, it isn’t.”

“Do you really think it works like that?” he asked, his smile expanding.

She wanted to slap him. She came so close to doing it that she had to turn away, almost shaking with anger and insult—and disappointment, that he had turned out to be so much less than the man she had once thought he would become.

EVAN WATCHED THE LITTLE BYPLAY with increasing interest, and no small amount of apprehension. He knew what Gib was doing. It was the kind of thing guaranteed to detonate Holly’s temper. As much as the man deserved it, Evan quite selfishly needed her calm and focused for whatever they’d have to do later, when Lulah arrived and applied her substantial experience to that magical staircase.

As he kept one eye on Holly and Gib, and the other on Erika, he thought over what the woman had said about jealousy and possession—although she hadn’t used those words. If Gib was single-minded about flying, Holly was perfectly ruthless about writing. Uncompromising, as only a committed craftsperson can be; so completely self-centered when she was working that she didn’t even realize it.

Work came first. He’d recognized that a long time ago. It never bothered him that much, because he figured she’d scrunch things around until there was room enough for him, and then the kids when and if they came. He had discovered during their first months together that when she worked, she
worked
. She ate, slept, thought, dreamed to the rhythm of her book. This happened for days on end, sometimes as long as a week; then she’d come back from wherever she’d been. But when it came time for work again, she took herself off to her interior landscapes. And at such times she became ruthless again, self-centered again, totally alive only when totally alone within herself.

To be honest, he missed that about her. She needed to find a book. He couldn’t imagine being jealous of it; he did love that she was passionate about things, because he was one of the things she was most passionate about.

And right now she was passionately pissed off at Gib Ayala. Lachlan touched Cam’s arm, nodded in the appropriate direction, and the two of them set off—not to Holly’s rescue, but Gib’s.

“—Holly, we’ve always been friends—”

“Hey, Freckles!” Cam said brightly. “How’re you doin’, Gib? You won’t remember me—Cam Griffen, Holly’s cousin. I hear you’ve been running Shenandoah Regional lately. Nice gig for a frustrated fighter pilot, right?”

He kept up the inane spill of chatter as Evan coaxed Holly a few paces away. “Do I need to challenge him to a duel?”

“No, my liege lord. My honor wasn’t impugned—no, I take it back. It
was.
He was using me to make her think—and
she
thinks that if I got the chance I’d—”

“I know,” Lachlan interrupted gently. “I was right about them, huh?”

“I owe you an apology.”

He slung an arm around her waist. “I woulda been good at a duel. Swords, pistols, a good swift kick in the balls—”

She snorted. “He could bench-press your weight without breaking a sweat.”

“He can bench-press my Glock.”

Her brows drew together in a long, slow frown. “Evan . . . he said ‘that’s just marriage.’ But it isn’t. That’s—possession. Ownership.”

“Well, I kind of hate to bring it up, but—seems to me you used to get jealous every so often.”

“Yes, I did,” she replied. “But that was before we were married.”

“You put that much trust in a license from city hall, a Handfasting, and your own blood?”

“If you’d been spelled six ways to next Imbolc, it wouldn’t have mattered, because I’m the one the spell would concentrate on and my blood doesn’t work on me. I put that much trust in
you.
Evan, we promised each other certain things. Did you mean them?”

“Yes!” he exclaimed, stung that she could even ask.

“I know. You gave me your word. There aren’t many people who understand what ‘honor’ is anymore,” she mused. “It’s more than keeping a promise. It’s that any promise you make, you never would have made it in the first place if the truth and the emotion behind it weren’t as much a part of you as your own heartbeat. Do you see what I mean? Your honor is a fundamental truth of who you are, the way you think and the way you live your life.”

He nodded, and waited, knowing she wasn’t finished.

“We belong to each other because we choose to. Neither of us bought and paid for the other. What we paid for, what we went through hell to get and hold onto, was to be together and make a life with each other.”

He smiled and hugged her closer. “And here I thought you only wanted me for the sex.” Looking over her shoulder, he added, “Nice work, Cam.”

Holly turned. “Yeah—thanks, Peaches. Have we got our story—you should pardon the expression—straight?”

“I’m being a sweet, adorable, thoughtful, generous nephew and giving Lulah my room and my spa certificates as a respite from you and your
enfants terribles.
Will she remember to bring an overnight bag?” Not waiting for an answer, he went on, “You realize that this is going to be damned tricky, right?”

“How tricky?” she asked.

“Those magic stairs are mucking about with reality on a scale most of us never dare. Dad always said that when it comes to magic and the laws of physics, the latter will get their revenge, no matter how thorough the spells or how careful you are with them.” He paused a long moment. “And it’ll take a lot of power. I’m not sure I’m up to it.”

“Between you and Lulah, we’ll do just fine,” she predicted with confidence. “She’s got the spellcraft, you’ve got strength to add to hers, and I’ll just do what I usually do—”

Lachlan tickled her ear with one finger. “Stand around looking cute with your thumb stuck in the air?”

“I may not be much by way of the family heritage, but I have relatives I can threaten—and they can transform you into any kind of toad I want.”

“Out of luck, lady love. I already figured out Cam’s real name.”

They had been speaking quietly, not in the furtive whispers that always attracted attention but not loudly enough to be heard above the music. Nobody could have overheard their conversation, unless she had deliberately approached to listen.

“Mrs. Lachlan,” said Erika Ayala. “May I have a word?”

The three of them swung around. She stood there, fragile and pretty, square-shouldered as a West Point cadet on parade. Evan glanced at Holly, then at Cam. He knew his expression must mirror theirs:
What the hell did we say?

“I have a favor to ask.” She looked briefly at the two men. “In private.”

“Holly?” Cam ventured.

“It’s all right,” Holly said, not taking her eyes from Erika’s grimly determined face. “Evan, it’s all right.”

He nodded and took Cam’s elbow in an uncompromising grip. “We’ll be around.” As they walked a few yards away, he muttered, “Please, God, don’t let her rip the woman’s throat out.”

“At least not without a drop cloth on the floor.”

HOLLY GESTURED TOWARD THE PIANO alcove with a commendably steady hand. When they were at a reasonable remove from the thinning crowd, she asked bluntly, “Favor?”

“I know what you are. My husband has hinted at it. So have some other people—they let things slip, thinking nobody will understand or believe. I’m not sure I do believe it, but the evidence does seem to add up.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know what you call it among yourselves. Conjuring, witchcraft, Satanism—casting spells or consorting with spirits, I don’t care. I don’t have any interest in you or your kind, except for one thing.”

“The favor.”

Erika was silent for a moment. Then, the words almost torn out of her: “Make my son not be a queer.”

Holly didn’t react. She couldn’t. It wasn’t physically possible to react.

“You can do some kind of spell or incantation and make Troy change. I’ve seen him looking at other boys in school, and tonight at Mr. Stirling—I tried to tell you earlier that I was worried, I was hoping I could appeal to you as a mother. But then I heard what you were saying about power, and I realized what you are—” She gulped a breath. “He’s only seventeen, he’s too young to know anything about—”

“No.” Was that her voice, so soft and quiet?

“You have to.” She stated it as simple fact. “I will
not
have my son be a queer. I just won’t allow it. But I
will
let everyone know exactly what you are.”

“No,” Holly heard herself say again.

“I’ll do it. I’ll find a way to prove it. You were so sure of yourselves, so smug—talking about such things right out in the open—how many other mistakes have you made? Someone knows. And not everyone in this county thinks you and your family are the next best thing to the Second Coming! You, especially, trying to steal my husband—” She got hold of herself. “But we’re not talking about that right now. I’ll forget about that if you do what I want.”

Holly could only shake her head.

“You
have
to,” Erika insisted. “I won’t stop until I get proof—and if you were stupid enough to talk here, tonight, what about the last twenty or thirty years?” She looked down at her tightly clasped hands for a moment, then back up into Holly’s face. “The rumors alone would—”

“What makes you think you’ll be
allowed
to spread rumors, let alone find this ‘proof’ you’re talking about?”

Erika didn’t flinch. Holly smiled thinly, awarding points for sheer stubbornness.

“If I am what you seem to think I am,” Holly went on, “then surely you have some idea what ‘my kind’ are capable of. Do you really want to risk it?”

“For my son—of course. Change him. Make him normal.”

“He
is
normal. You’re the one who’s sick. Appeal to me as a mother? You want him to be straight for your sake, not his.”

“Help my son.”

“He doesn’t need help. He doesn’t need to be fixed or healed or changed—”

“You slut,” she breathed. “I’ll ruin you. Everyone will see you for the filthy witch you are—”

“Take your best shot,” Holly invited coldly. This wasn’t the first time she’d been threatened with exposure as a Witch—but this was the first time she’d ever made threats in return, and it horrified her. She forced herself to calm down. “Erika, this isn’t necessary. You don’t have to—”