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I didn’t like it, but without involving the police, there was little else I could do. I entertained a stray thought about slamming his head against the desk, but that probably came from my irritation over how he played me. I’d have to work on better shielding before we met again.
We left the church with no incident. Or magick.
Sera remained quiet until we stepped outside, where she exhaled slowly and closed her eyes. “There’s something about him.”
“About Jareth?” Did she feel him, too? If he had tried to mentally seduce my sister as well, all the insanity in my head would feel, well, less insane.
She shook her head. “Oh, there’s something about him, too, but no, I mean that Heath guy. Does he feel off to you?”
I stopped walking. “Okay, what’s going on?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Sera, you’re being awfully... not you tonight.”
She glared at me and opened her mouth a few times, but bit back her words.
I grabbed her by the shoulders. “Normally, you’re all icky about the things I do. Tonight, forget not icky about it—you’re doing it along with me, taking it all in stride. Normally, you’re kind of a giant airhead and naïve as all get out, but tonight, you’re making threats, and rather impressive scary threats, against someone.
“Now don’t get me wrong. Jareth deserved it. You’re right, if we find out he’s lying, we will burn his world to the ground, but that’s something that would come out of my mouth, not yours. So what gives?”
She opened her mouth again and then shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Really? That’s your answer?” I crossed my arms. “You go all badass in there, but out here it’s ‘you wouldn’t understand’? Do better.”
Sera squeezed her hands into fists. “Sometimes you’re such a bitch, Zoë. My daughter is gone, and I am trying to keep my shit together. Maybe I’m tired of being everyone’s goddamn doormat. Maybe I’m acting like you, because being a cold bitch gets things done. If that means I have to get in touch with the part of me that I’ve been shoving down all my life, because I didn’t want people to talk about me the way they talk about you, then goddammit, Zoë, that’s what I’m going to do.
“Do you have a problem with that?”
She was so ready to fight, her body strained in the biggest ‘give me a reason’ show I’d ever seen from my little sister.
I raised my hands in surrender. “No, no problem. Just needed to know where your head was, because even though I could hug the stuffing out of you right now, this is going to get really ugly—my kind of ugly—and all that magick stuff will get worse before it gets better. I need you to understand that.
“If you can’t do it, I completely understand, but this is it, Sera. Right now is your only chance to walk away and let me do this without you. There’s no shame in that—none whatsoever. Not everyone can handle the places I have to go for shit like this. No one should have to. We’re going to save Esther, and we’re going to put that asshat of a husband in a hole somewhere, along with all those idiots who dared to mess with the Delante girls, but you don’t have to get any more involved than you are right now to accomplish our end game.
“So what do you say?”
The tension lingered in the flexing of her hands and the stress in her eyes, but the rest of her had relaxed during my monologue. She stepped forward, closing that space between us, and wrapped her arms around me. We stood pretty much equal height, so her head landed on my shoulder. “I love you, Zo-Zo.”
I squeezed her tight and kissed her head. “I love you too, Sera.”
“I can’t let you do this alone,” she whispered. “She’s my daughter, and not helping would drive me insane. Even if it’s just getting coffee and donuts, you have to let me do something.”
Somehow I doubted that’s all she’d be doing. “All right, let’s get in the car then. We both could use some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll get the jump on this whole mess.”
She stepped away with a tired smile. “Yeah, sleep sounds good.”
***
I sipped my tea from the comfort of the recliner as the sun rose in the window behind me. Ever the night owl, I’d kept the blackout curtains pulled tight.
Sera was still asleep in the guestroom, and the house felt peaceful. She’d crashed moments after I’d shown her to the room.
I, unfortunately, remained awake, wired even, and set about reinforcing all the wards and boundaries woven into the house. I did manage a couple hours of sleep, but my brain bounced between mourning Daniel and processing all the information we’d gathered. Frankly, I’d had enough of the mushy emotional stuff, so facts won out as I drifted off.
My missing niece and that creep-tastic church shared a connection somewhere. Not a fact, no, but Sera hadn’t been wrong about Heath. Power that strong rarely followed blind loyalty. To the contrary, it usually meant lackeys looking to move up the power structure.
Is anyone higher than Heath? Anyone between him and Jareth? Oh, Jareth.
I frowned and sat the cup on the saucer in my lap. The encounter had left me rather cranky. I loathed feeling manipulated, and Jareth had done a masterful job. I may not be the poster child for Wicca, but that man.... I growled in spite of myself. That man was using his immense powers to take advantage of his entire congregation. And he honestly believed he was doing the work of the Christian God.
I shook my head. No matter what issues I had with organized religion or faux Christians, self-proclaimed prophets of any faith pissed me off. They scared me, too. Magick only made it easier to twist people’s spiritual needs into the prophet’s vendetta.
His power was addictive. I had caught myself a half-dozen times touching the places on my hands and arms where his magick had met flesh. At first, I’d thought he’d left a spell on me, but I cleansed and swept for magickal bugs, and nothing—just his power speaking to mine. Hell, even my beast calmed and slept, not pacing through my conscious like it did during my increasing bouts of insomnia.
I didn’t like it. Not one bit. I need more men in my life, like I need a giant hole in my head.
I set the teacup and saucer on the side table and pushed the recliner back. I longed for a place no one would bother me, somewhere to sort this stuff out objectively. I rested one arm over my closed eyes and focused on letting each part of me relax, until I could see the telltale ripples in my head that formed a gateway into the dream world. I stepped through to the abyss on the other side of my consciousness.
Here, everything was malleable, a giant canvas I could fill with whatever I needed, however temporary. It had been a refuge as child, and I sought out that familiar place. A little focus and a myriad of images swirled by in fast-forward, painting the darkness beneath my feet. I connected each piece until I stood in a cemetery—the cemetery of my teen angst and naïve ponderings. I shuddered at the familiar chill, but heavy boots and a crimson wool cloak kept me warm as I started to weave through the headstones.
The soggy ground gave way here and there. I ambled over worn grave markers and forgotten tombstones, pieces of others’ lives and names I’d never learned.
Cemeteries, after all, were for the living. The dead had long departed their shells by the time we laid them in the ground. Cemeteries gave a place for the living to pour their grief and guilt onto a silent audience.
For me, this cemetery offered peace like nowhere else.
“Daddy,” I whispered, with a reverence saved only for him. The cherubic angel mounted above my father’s grave stared at me with blank eyes. Mom had picked it out without asking us, and while I hated it, I didn’t know what I would’ve chosen instead.
Sera hated it, too. It had given her nightmares for months after he’d passed.
I sat in the thick grass around the headstone and traced the engravings with a fingertip: Frank Marlin Delante - 1949-1999 - Beloved Father and Husband - We Will Miss You.
“Daddy, I hope you can hear me. I’m more than a little lost, and I don’t know what to do. I’m kind of hoping you can help me out. Um, where do I start? Your granddaughter is missing. Tomorrow I’m going to call in a few favors, do a little Scooby work, and hopefully have a solid lead before she’s gone for good.
“Uh, Daniel broke up with me, and even though I’m pretty sure you aren’t thrilled about the multiple boyfriend thing—Mom’s really not—my heart hurts now that he’s gone. I mean, I get it, I know why, but it still hurts. If things couldn’t be any more complicated....” I paused. No way was I telling him about Jareth. “Never mind. Let’s skip that part.
“Well, other more complicated things. Someone killed a baby and just tossed her body into the woods. How fucked up is that?” I paused again, as if waiting for Dad to tsk me for dropping an f-bomb, but the silence persisted. That was all right. I knew he understood me.
I talked with him for Goddess knows how long, explaining in great detail about the murder of little Claudia and what I’d seen. It felt good to let it all go. I hadn’t managed to unravel any answers, though.
I leaned forward until my forehead touched the cool marble. “I could use a sign, Daddy.”
