CHAPTER TWELVE
Yeah, okay, so you saw through my big act. The truth was, I was so angry at Ben and his “you will stop investigating this because you are a girl, and I am a vamp” attitude, I ran off without asking for his help, which I had finally decided I would do, because honestly, what is the good in having a tame vampire around unless you put him to use once in a while?
So there I was, marching down the length of the Faire looking really mean and all, when inside I was wondering just how the heck I was going to tackle Absinthe without a little help from my friends (namely Ben). I was so focused on yelling at myself—and thinking of at least a dozen really cool responses to Ben’s snarky comments—that I ran right into Imogen before I saw her.
“Fran, I’m sorry; I didn’t see you.” Evidently I wasn’t the only one walking around all introspective. Imogen looked mad enough to kill, her blue eyes all sparkly with anger. She held a crumpled-up bit of paper in her hand. “Have you seen Benedikt?”
“Yeah, just a few minutes ago, over by the main tent. What’s the matter? You look really cheesed about something.”
“I am cheesed; I am so very cheesed you could call me Gouda.” She shoved the paper into my hands. “Read that. Have you ever read anything so ridiculous in your life? The nerve of him!”
I smoothed out the paper and read the short typewritten note. My beloved Imogen, it started. I glanced down to see who had signed it (Elvis), then looked up. “Um . . . do you really want me to read your love letter?”
“It’s not a love letter,” she said, grinding her teeth over the words.
Ouch. I read the letter aloud. “‘My beloved Imogen, long have I waited for you to realize that I am the one man life has fated for you, but time and time again you insist on flaunting your infidelities before me. This will end, tonight, once and for all. You will meet me at the bus stop to Kapuvár at midnight.’ The bus stop? Oh, the one down the road from here. That’s close to where I found Tesla. ‘From there we will go into town and be married at once. You are mine, Imogen, and I no longer intend to share your charms. Your devoted Elvis.’ Boy, what a maroon. What is it with these guys and their bossy ways?”
“He is insane. That is what he is, insane! I am not his, and he is not the man fated for me, and I will have Benedikt tell him so in a way that will guarantee that Elvis will not bother me again.”
I looked down at the paper in my bare hand. The letter was typewritten, so it didn’t hold as much emotion as one that was handwritten might, but even so I could feel Elvis’s determination to have Imogen. I gave it back to her. “Yeah, well, I suppose Ben could put the fear of the Goddess into Elvis.”
“It is not the Goddess that Elvis shall be fearing when Benedikt is finished with him,” Imogen said dramatically, shaking back her mane of blond hair. She looked different somehow, more intense, more . . . just more. I guess it was because I’d never truly seen her angry before that I was impressed by her fury. “I shall send him to this little rendezvous. My brother is very protective of those he loves. Elvis will soon learn just how unwise it is to cross a Moravian.”
I pursed my lips as she thanked me, and strode off down the long aisle, her hair streaming behind her, righteous indignation pouring from her in waves. I almost felt sorry for Elvis . . . almost.
“Like you have any sympathy to spare for anyone else when you’ve got the mother of all mind readers to grill?” I asked myself, then reluctantly turned toward the small kiosk where I knew Absinthe would be setting up for ticket sales.
I found her just leaving the kiosk, giving Tess, the ticket girl, some last-minute instructions. I watched her for a minute, trying to steel my nerves to touch her. I put my lace gloves on over my bare hands so she wouldn’t notice anything different about me, reminding myself that I was protected by my ward and could keep Absinthe out of my head (I hoped) if she tried to get in. I had faith in the ward—I knew Ben wouldn’t lead me astray with it—but am not too ashamed to admit that my faith in my mental No Trespassing sign was a bit shaky when it came to being physically in contact with Absinthe.
“You can do this, Fran,” I whispered to myself, moving out of the shadow so Absinthe would see me when she turned around. “It’s just one person, one last person. She can’t hurt you.”
Absinthe turned and started toward me. Inner Fran screamed and urged me to run away. Outer Fran forced a smile and tried to look like she wasn’t going to barf. “Hi, Absinthe. I have a quick question for you, if you’ve got a mo’.”
“A mo’?” She stopped, frowning as she scanned beyond me. She normally made the rounds just before the Faire opened to make sure everyone was where they were supposed to be.
“Moment.”
“Ah. Are you not assisting Imogen vith the reading of the palms? Vy is it you are not at her tent?”
“There’s still fifteen minutes.” I chewed on my lip for a second, sizing Absinthe up. Really, she was a tiny thing, tinier than Imogen, but you forgot about that because her personality was so big, if you know what I mean. Her spiky pink hair helped, too. Besides, there’s nothing like the knowledge that someone can bring you to your knees with just a flex of their psychic powers to make you respect them. I tried once more to pin down the fleeting feeling that I had seen something today that was important, something that I should have noticed, something someone said or did, but there were too many vague “somethings” to be of any help. I took a deep breath. “It’s about the safe. You said that the morning after it was stolen the door was locked? You’re sure it wasn’t propped open?”
“No, it vas closed. Vat sort of a fool are you thinking I am?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything; I just thought I’d better check.”
“You have found nothing, ja?” She tsked, and started to walk past me. “That is because it vas that Josef who is the thief. I vill find him, you vill see, and ven I do—”
Desperate to touch her before she walked off, I said loudly, “Oh, you have a big bug on you,” just as I brushed my hand across her shoulder.
She stopped and spun around, her eyes wide and almost glowing. “You.” She gasped. I snatched my hand back, mentally slamming shut the stainless-steel doors of my sealed room, just barely closing my mind to her before she got in. I could feel her nudging around the edges, pushing at the walls, trying to find a way in, but I kept the mental image of my sealed room solid, and thank the Goddess, both it and the ward worked.
She swayed for a moment as if she were suddenly weak; then her chin snapped up and she leveled a pale blue gaze at me that made me take a couple of steps back. “I am not finished with you,” she hissed, turning on her heel to stomp off.
“Holy moly,” I breathed, rubbing my arms. They were all goose bumpy, like they got around real magic, only these weren’t goose bumps of fun. They were scared-silly goose bumps.
Imogen ran past, stopped to have a word with Absinthe, then beckoned me toward her tent. I followed more slowly, trying to fit together everything I knew. Absinthe wasn’t the thief. She had more power than I had imagined, but she wasn’t a thief. She honestly thought Josef, the lead guitarist, had taken it. Which meant I had seven suspects, all of whom weren’t the thief. In other words, I was back to square one.
We were busy for the next three hours, just as I knew we would be. Last nights are always packed, since the Faire comes around only every year to year and a half. I more or less handled all the palm reading (with both sets of gloves on, in case you were wondering) while Imogen read runes. I didn’t even have time to ask Imogen whether she found Ben, and what he thought of Elvis’s letter, let alone try to figure out what I was going to do about my failed investigation.
Just before midnight it started to rain bullfrogs. And no, I’m not speaking metaphorically.
“What the . . . That’s a frog,” Imogen said as a big lumpy green-and-yellow frog jumped onto her table, blinked at her a couple of times, then jumped off.
“Not just a frog, a bullfrog,” I said, then stood up and hurried toward the front of the tent when I heard shrieking. People were yelling and holding things over their heads as they raced for cover. “Bullfrogs aren’t good. I’m going to go check on my mom. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I raced out of the tent, trying to avoid bumping into people or stepping on the frogs that were falling out of the sky. Luckily the frogs were pretty quick on their feet, because I didn’t see any of them smooshed as people ran through them. I saw a lot of them bounce when they hit the ground, though, and I have to say, they looked as surprised to see me as I was to see them.
“Mom? It’s raining bullfrogs!” I yelled as pushed past the people who were hiding under the opening of the tent. Because of the circle, the rest of the tent had been emptied of its usual table, chairs, etc. My mother and the rest of the witches had closed the circle and were all standing with their eyes closed, swaying slightly as someone chanted the invocation to the Goddess . . . standard circle stuff. I knew better than to cross into the circle (I did that once—it took three weeks before my eyebrows grew back), so I skirted around the circle until I could tug on the back of Mom’s dress.
“Bullfrogs,” I whispered. She opened one eye and let it glare at me.
“No, seriously, it’s raining bullfrogs. Outside.”
“It is a plague,” the woman standing next to her said without opening her eyes.
“It is?”
“I know about the frogs, Fran,” Mom whispered, shooting me away. “Now go on; we’re trying to focus our energy on identifying the unholy one that has brought them here.”
Wonderful. Something unholy was causing bullfrogs to rain down on the Faire. Could my life get any stranger?
A man in a blue-and-red-sequined jumpsuit with a gold lamé shoulder cape walked by, pausing to do a hip shake when he saw me.
Well, I guess that answered my question.
“Hey, there, little lady. You’re looking mighty fine to the King, yes, you are. Would you be looking for someone to dance with?”
“Um . . . no, not really. Have you . . . uh . . . noticed the frogs, Elvis?”
He looked around him. “Now that you mention it, there are an awful lot of the little buggers. Loud things, frogs. Don’t like ’em, uh-huh.”
Evidently the rain of bullfrogs was ending, because only one or two more fell. The last few on the ground hopped around with loud croaks, heading off into the darkness. I hoped they all found the stream before they got squashed by cars.
“Right. Well, if you’ll excuse me.” I started past Elvis back toward Imogen’s tent, then paused, twisting the ring Ben had given me, something making my inner Fran stand up and shout.
“Suit yourself,” Elvis said as he headed toward the main tent. I glanced at my watch. It was two minutes to midnight. How could Elvis be here if he intended to meet Imogen in two minutes at a bus stop almost a kilometer down the road? And where was Ben?
“Hey, Elvis?” I ran after him, careful not to touch him when he swung around toward me. “Are you going to watch the band?”
“Sure am, little filly. You want to dance with me after all?”
“No, I can’t; I have something to do. I just thought . . . uh . . . I thought Imogen said she was meeting you somewhere. Somewhere else.” Lame, yes, but it was the best I could do, given the circumstances.
He looked puzzled, and scratched his big, poofy black do. “Meet Imogen? Nope, don’t have any plans to go anywhere else, just the main tent. I’ll see her there. You sure you don’t wanna dance with the King?” He did a few swivel-hip moves. “I’m pretty good!”
“No, thanks, I’ve got something to do. See you.”
Other than the psychometric thing, I’ve never been psychic—not ever, nothing, nada. But all of a sudden, as Elvis walked off to the main tent, I knew that something was terribly, horribly, massively wrong. Little tiny bits of things started to come together in my brain, just like a jigsaw puzzle.
Elvis wrote that note to Imogen; I knew it. I felt it.
Elvis was obsessed with her; everyone knew that. I had felt it, too.
Elvis probably wouldn’t like a brother who had the power to make him leave Imogen alone. He might even go so far as to want to hurt that brother.
Elvis was a demonologist. Demons were bad news, impure beings, unholy. Damned. Their appearance was usually heralded by a physical manifestation, something like . . .
“Bullfrogs!” I raced back toward Imogen’s booth. She was putting everything into her bag, chatting casually with a lingering customer.
“Where’s Ben?” I yelled as soon as I got within shouting distance.
“Benedikt?” Imogen glanced toward the guy who was chatting with her. “He’s gone to take care of the little matter I mentioned earlier.”
“It’s a trap,” I yelled, and veered off to the left. “Elvis is here, but it’s raining bullfrogs.”
She frowned as I dashed by her. “Fran, what are you talking—”
“Demon!” I yelled over my shoulder, and raced around the nearest trailer to where Tesla and Bruno were hobbled. My fingers shook, slipping off the leather buckles as I tried to unhook the hobble. Tesla nosed my head as I bent over his feet. I ripped my gloves off, tearing at the leather straps until they gave way.
“Come on, old boy, we have to go warn Ben that it’s a trap.” I snapped the lead rope onto Tesla’s halter, swinging it over his neck to tie it into a kind of bridle. I led him over to a crate, lunging onto his back. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” I urged, tapping him with my heels like Soren had taught me.
Tesla trotted through the trailers, weaving through the long black shadows cast in the light of the big lamps until suddenly we were past the edge of the Faire. A long, sloping length of ground stretched toward the road. I wrapped Tesla’s mane around my hands and dug my heels in, shouting encouragement. He took off, his speed surprising me. I guess he wasn’t as old as everyone thought.
The ride to the bus stop is a bit of a nightmare in my memory—although the moon was out, there wasn’t a lot of light to see by, and cars were heading toward the Faire, not away from it, so that their headlights blinded us. I remembered that the vet said I couldn’t ride Tesla on the pavement until he had shoes, so I kept him to the soft grass shoulder. Even so, he stumbled in the dark a couple of times. I leaned low over his neck, both hands tangled in his mane as he galloped along, his breath growing louder and louder until it matched the refrain of Please be all right, please be all right that was chanting in my head. We took a couple of shortcuts through some front yards, but I don’t think we trampled too many flower beds. We raced past cars, dogs, houses, other horses . . . All of it was a blur as Tesla’s legs pounded the ground in a rhythm that was etched into my brain. Please be all right, please be all right. . . .
By the time we rounded the corner a short distance away from the stop, Tesla was sounding like a freight train, his breathing a winded roar. My hands were cramped from clinging to his lead rope and mane, my legs shaking with fear and strain as they clung to his heaving sides. Up ahead on the road, next to a big open pasture, a lone streetlamp lit a wooden sign marked with an A (for autobus).
“Ben?” I yelled, pulling back on the makeshift reins. Tesla slowed down to a painful trot, then stopped, his head hanging down. “Ben? Are you here?”
There was nothing to be seen, no Ben, no cars, no houses even. Just a lonely stretch of road with a bus stop sign. Maybe I was wrong; maybe I’d gotten everything wrong. Maybe Elvis wasn’t the one who wanted Ben dead—
Tesla gave an ugly scream, a sound I hope I never hear again, his front end rising up in the classic horse-standing-on-back-legs pose you see in statues. I yelped and grabbed his neck, wrapping my arms around it as his front legs slashed out, but I lost my grip anyway and ended up going sideways, off Tesla and onto the ground next to him.
In front of us, a black, horrible shadow gathered itself, then formed into a man. That is, it looked like a man—it had two eyes, two ears, a nose and mouth, all that stuff—but I had to blink a couple of times as I got to my feet to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. As soon as the stench hit me, I knew it for what it was.
Demon.
“Holy cow,” I breathed, then jumped to attention as the demon turned toward us. My ward suddenly glowed to life, but not gold like when I drew it; this time it was black, a heavy, ominous black that seemed to scream into the night.
The demon shrieked and jumped back as if it had been stung. Two bullfrogs fell from the sky. The demon snarled something that just felt bad, and turned its eyes to Tesla, who was snorting like mad, alternating pawing at the ground and rising up to slash the air with his front feet. The demon didn’t seem to like Tesla, either, and backed up a couple more steps.
Okay, now here’s the thing—I know nothing about demons, not one single thing. Except that they’re bad news. But here I had one standing there more or less looking me in the face, and I didn’t have the slightest clue about what to do to stop it, or how to make it tell me what it had done to Ben, or even how to destroy it. I was helpless, clueless, and for the first time in my life, I wished I had paid attention when Mom tried to teach me all of her witchy stuff.
I wanted to run screaming into the night, but Ben’s life was at stake. I had made a big deal about being able to take care of my problems, so I figured I’d better do just that. “What have you done with the Dark One?” I yelled at the demon.
It laughed at me, a nasty, hissing sort of laugh that had two more bullfrogs and a surprised-looking snake falling from the sky. “You have no power over me, mortal.”
Its voice was awful, like an amplified screech of fingernails on a blackboard. Tesla rose up again, his front hooves slashing through the air. The demon jumped backward.
When in doubt, freak ’em out. I threw my left hand into the air like Mom does when she’s calling on the spirits. “I am Francesca. I wield a far greater power than you will ever know, demon. Answer me—what have you done to the Dark One you were sent to destroy?”
It snickered again (more snakes and a couple of what I think were eels dropped onto the ground behind it), slowly walking a big circle around me and Tesla. My ward flared black again, and I turned to keep it between me and the demon. “You wield no power, mortal. I do not fear you. The one you seek is beyond your help.” It nodded its head toward the field behind me. “Go and find him if you like; my work is finished.”
While it was speaking I was aware of the two round lights from a car coming from the Faire growing brighter and brighter. The demon’s back was to the car, though, and evidently it was too busy taunting me to hear the engine until it was too late. As the headlights finally hit it, it spun around. The car didn’t even slow down; it just ran the demon over. I jumped for the pasture, yanking Tesla off the shoulder. Although I heard the car squeal to a stop, I didn’t hesitate. I ran out into the blackness of the field, guided by a horrible pain in my heart to where I knew Ben was lying dead.
I had killed him. If only I had figured out what was going on before it was too late . . . but I hadn’t, and now he was dead. Gone. I’d never see him again.
I almost stepped on him because I couldn’t see through the tears. His body was crumpled up next to a small shrub, his jacket half off, a huge, bloody, gaping hole in his chest. “Oh, Goddess, no!” I yelled, and grabbed Ben’s head, holding him with one arm as I tried to slow the bleeding in his chest. “Please, no, oh, Ben, no!”
The demon shrieked again, an angry shriek, one that promised pain and retribution and all sorts of revenge that I couldn’t even imagine. I ignored it. “Ben, please don’t die. Please. I’m so sorry for what I said. I won’t leave you; I swear it.”
A white shape blurred at the edge of my vision. I looked up, expecting to see Tesla, but it was Imogen. Tears blurred my eyes as I clutched Ben’s lifeless body. “He’s dead, Imogen. The demon killed him and it’s all my fault. I should have known it was Elvis. I should have known what was happening. He’s dead because of me.”
“He’s not dead,” Imogen said, falling to her knees beside us. “I would know if he were dead, and he’s not.” She put her hands over the huge hole in his chest, the one that blood was still sluggishly dripping out of. “You have to help him, Fran. I can’t heal him and anchor him at the same time. You have to help.”
“Help him? Help him how? I don’t know what to do about a demon—”
“Don’t worry about that; I broke its legs and pierced its heart with silver. It won’t be going very far.”
It stared at my hands, which were covered in Ben’s blood, hearing the words, but not understanding them. “How . . . how do I help Ben?”
“You’re his Beloved; you’re the only one who can reach him. Merge with him, join your mind to his, and hold on to him, bring him back to us. Don’t let him go.”
“I don’t know how to merge with him! I’ve never done anything like this! I don’t know what to do.”
“Only you can do it, Fran. Only you.” Tears streaked down her face as she closed her eyes, murmuring words over him in a language I didn’t understand, I looked down at Ben’s face, that handsome, wonderful face, and knew that if I did what Imogen wanted, it would bind me to Ben in a way that would never leave me free from him. I wouldn’t just be Fran the weirdo who could tell things by touching them; I’d be Fran the Beloved, and if I thought I’d had a hard time fitting in before, I imagined being the immortal girlfriend of a vampire would just about make blending into the crowd impossible. It was Ben or me; the decision was that simple.
I put my hands on either side of his face and mentally opened up the door to my safe room.
Ben? Are you there? It’s me, Fran. Imogen’s here, too. She’s trying to fix the hole in your chest so you won’t die. I don’t want you to die, Ben. Can you hear me?
There was silence. No sense of him filled my head. It was like he wasn’t there.
Ben?
“He’s not answering,” I said, not caring that the tears were rolling down my face, too. “He’s not there.”
“He’s there; you just have to find him,” Imogen said, lifting her head. Her eyes were filled with so much pain that it hurt to look at her. “Please, Fran. Please save my brother.”
I can’t, my inner Fran cried out. I’m just me; I can’t do any of this. I don’t have any power, not really, nothing useful. I can’t save him!
You already have, a soft voice echoed in my head.
I sobbed his name out loud. You’re not dead? Please, Ben, tell me you’re not dead.
I’m not dead, Fran. I won’t leave you, not now, not ever. We belong to each other.
I sobbed over him as his chest rose, his lungs wheezing as he dragged air into them. There you go again, getting all pushy with me. I haven’t said I want you, let alone belong to you. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve as I bent over his face. His lips twitched.
Ah, Fran, what would I do without you?
Probably date a bunch of really pretty girls with no brains who oohed and aahed over your gorgeous self and very cool motorcycle, and didn’t appreciate you at all for your ability to have a hole punched through your chest and still be able to make all sorts of he-man-type comments.
Probably. I guess it’s good I have you.
“I guess it is,” I said, and pressed a little kiss to his lips.
