Holly stood in front of the fireplace, warming the backs of her legs as she listened to the two vampires discuss what’d happened with Greyson in the diggings.
Hannah’s cottage had become a community centre of sorts for the supernatural community of Dunloe. There were only four of them, but it’d become the meeting place to discuss all their anomaly supervising duties.
Fiona’s eyes narrowed as she took in the part where the shadow creature had enveloped Greyson. She knew what it meant, just as Holly knew.
“I gave the mayor the money,” she told Fiona. “I called him this morning and settled it. It was going ahead, anyway. I saw the trucks towing in the carousel, but I can’t let the council go into debt over a street fair.” Despite everything that’d happened, Dunloe had become her home. She couldn’t let it turn into a literal ghost town…not after everything they’d done to save it.
“Good,” the witch replied. “It’s not the best time, but there never seems to be a right time for anything around here at the moment.”
“If anything, it’ll distract the townspeople while we work on other stuff.” She nodded at the vampires. “The most pressing matter being Greyson Musgrave.”
“From what I can gather, the encounter with the shadow seemed to activate something in him,” Patrick was saying. “A latent ability he didn’t know he had.”
“Yeah, but what?” Holly asked. “We’ve already ruled out that he isn’t a witch. I did the test and I felt nothing. He has no Legacy.”
“Over the years, I’d heard a rumour about a different kind of supernatural,” the vampire told them, “but I’ve never really put much thought into it. I’d only ever heard the stories in this country, but I had never seen any evidence.”
“What kind of supernatural?” Fiona asked.
“People who were half-human, half-something else, who could manipulate the elements.”
“Sounds like a witch to me,” Jin said.
“I don’t think so,” Patrick went on. “Witches are one hundred percent human, but with magical genetics.”
“Genetics?” Holly straightened up. “Like Legacy is formed out of DNA?”
“He’s right,” Fiona said. “Apparently, there are studies that’ve been done in Ireland. Legacy is an inherited trait, like eye colour or genetic defects. Still don’t know where it originated, though.”
“But what about this alleged creature?” Jin prodded.
“The rumour went that these people are hybrids with a completely new species.” Patrick shrugged. “But it’s just a story. I’ve met no one like that, not in the two hundred and sixty years I’ve been alive.”
“There’s Greyson’s aliens,” Fiona stated. “Funny if he turned out to be the thing he’s been searching for his entire life.”
Holly shook her head. The world just kept getting stranger and stranger. Now a whole new magical species lived amongst humanity? Considering vampires were made from a magic that originated from an entirely different reality, maybe it wasn’t such a stretch.
“What did these rumours call these…hybrids?” she asked.
“Elementals,” Patrick replied.
“Because they can manipulate the elements…”
Remembering how the rain suspended around Greyson, Holly felt a pang of something in her chest. Was it pity, concern, or the excitement of discovering more magic in the world? Honestly, she didn’t know what to make of it.
“What does it mean? Did the anomaly unconsciously draw him here?” Fiona wondered.
“I don’t think it matters what it means,” Holly said. “He doesn’t know what he truly is. That much is clear. If he activates his ‘elemental’ magic again, and God forbid, in a public place, he’s going to freak out.”
“And expose us all.” Jin grimaced. “Too bad we can’t compel him.”
“Jin, stop it,” Holly said, scowling. “You’re assuming he’s out for our blood and nothing else. So, he’s got a podcast. Does anyone outside of the people who believe take that stuff seriously? If they did, we’d all be locked in some militarised scientific facility being studied.”
“No one takes it seriously until that guy stands on a stage and shows his superpowers to the entire world,” Patrick said. “I wish it was as simple as letting it go, but we can’t. Not with the way things are deteriorating.”
Deteriorating. Holly froze as the word left the vampire’s mouth. She hadn’t seen it that way. Things were getting worse, and they still didn’t have any answers.
“The shadow seems to be confining itself to the diggings for now,” Patrick went on. “And we’re still waiting for the autopsy on the cattle.”
“The blight too,” Fiona added. “Though these things take weeks.”
“That just leaves Greyson as the number one threat,” Jin stated.
“What are you going to do to him?” Holly demanded.
“Watch him…for now.” He held out his hand towards her. “Do you really think I’d turn to violence as a first response?”
She frowned, conscious of Patrick and Fiona’s presence. “Sometimes I don’t know what you’d do.”
Jin lowered his hand. “I’ll do what I have to do to keep you and this town safe. No more, no less.”
Her expression melted, and she took his hand in hers. “I’m sorry, I’m just…tired.”
“Aren’t we all,” Fiona declared.
Holly lowered her gaze, her thoughts circling in her head like a category five hurricane. All the strange things happening around town had to be linked—it was too coincidental. The blight, the cows, the shadow creature, the orbs, and now Greyson’s power activating.
Only one thing could explain it all, and she didn’t like where it was going. Beware the ruin beneath…
“Hazel warned us,” she blurted, dread weighing heavily on her heart. “She told us bad things would happen if we banished her. What if she was the only one stopping all of this from happening? She tapped into something she didn’t understand. It corrupted her, and she was forced to pay the price in death. She was a slave to the magic that corrupted her.”
“What do you mean?” Patrick asked, glancing at Fiona.
“What if…” She took a deep breath, because what she was about to say sounded crazier than one of Greyson’s UFO hypotheses. “What if the anomaly isn’t just a pocket of magic? What if it’s alive?”
Fiona sat up, her eyes widening. “Maybe you’re right. Why would the shadow try to take our magic if it could just syphon the anomaly?”
“We also thought it was just the flow of magic that corrupted Hazel,” Patrick mused.
“It was trying to break free,” Jin murmured, his expression troubled. “I thought she was trying to free herself from the vortex so she could resurrect…”
Holly’s breath caught. “But the removal of the vortex freed the anomaly.”
It made sense. All the pieces fit perfectly, even though they didn’t understand how they worked yet.
“Well, shit,” Fiona declared. “We’ve got ourselves an ancient entity looking to poison Dunloe, and a literal alien who can manipulate water and who almost got eaten by a shadow.”
One part of Holly wanted to scream, the other just wanted to fall into a heap and ugly cry. Unfortunately, neither of those things were going to help.
They needed to find a way to contain the anomaly, or at least send it to sleep, so it didn’t cause any more trouble. And they had to help Greyson. In her heart, she knew they could reach him. Maybe on some level, he’d always known he was different, and he just didn’t have anyone to guide him. Both his parents were gone, and they’d taken any answers to his true abilities along with them.
“I want to continue looking into the blight,” Fiona said. “I want to check to see if it’s spreading to neighbouring properties. Knowing how far this thing goes, and how fast it’s spreading, could be a real help. I have a theory, but I’ll have to go back out there and look.”
“And I want to go see Greyson,” Holly said. “He’s connected to this somehow; I just don’t know how…”
Jin tensed. “Holly—”
“Greyson isn’t a bad guy,” she interrupted. “He’s just searching for answers like the rest of us.”
“It’s a good idea,” Patrick said, earning himself a sharp glare from Jin. “But it would be best to be cautious. If he hasn’t realised his powers have activated yet, he could be unpredictable. He’s already accused you of murdering everyone in town.”
“And has a platform to expose us all,” Jin reminded her.
“Which he could do without us, anyway,” she argued. She looked at Fiona, who’d been way too silent on the Greyson matter.
“It’s the witches way to maintain the balance of nature,” she said. “If you feel honour-bound to help Greyson, then you should.”
“So, for now, we stay the course,” Patrick said, trying to mediate before Jin could argue again. “Fiona, if you’re going back out to the farm, then I’ll come with you.”
“I’ll keep an eye on Greyson,” Jin agreed, and Holly squeezed his hand. “I won’t engage…unless provoked.”
“And I’ll try to reach him,” Holly added. “While keeping one eye on the diggings.”
Fiona chuckled and fist-pumped the air, though the gesture was a little lacklustre. “Avengers…assemble.”
* * *
Thin ribbons of orange and pink shimmered through the streaky cloud cover as twilight broke across the fields outside of Dunloe.
Patrick pressed his boot on the bottom half of the barbed wire fence and held the other half up as Fiona ducked through into what was left of Ed Holland’s devastated potato crop.
Her shovel caught on the fence, and she tugged it through, wondering how deep she’d need to dig to prove a theory she’d been pondering.
“He really turned over the earth, didn’t he?” the vampire mused as he joined her on the other side.
She nodded, noticing that the canola in the next field hadn’t been planted, either. “The whole thing had to be destroyed and burned.”
“So, what was that thing with you and Holly before?”
Fiona’s expression fell. “What thing?”
“When she told you about the money for the mayor’s winter carnival, you tensed. Quite visibly, I might add.”
“She didn’t notice, did she?” she murmured, embarrassed that he’d seen her jealousy.
“No.”
She grimaced and set off across the muddy field.
Patrick was beside her in a flash. “You haven’t spoken to her yet, have you?”
“It’s not the right time.” Her boot stuck in the churned-up earth and she almost stumbled.
“So, when is?”
“Have you seen what’s going on out there?” Unsticking herself, she surveyed the field, looking for a place to dig. “She said Greyson almost got eaten by that shadow monster, and that almost happened to us! My stupid money troubles pale in comparison.”
“You’ve gotta eat, too,” the vampire stated. “You can’t live on magic alone.”
Fiona scowled. “Patrick.”
“You don’t have to be at the point of living in your Jeep before you ask your friends for help,” he went on. “I spoke to your real estate agent.”
She whirled around, her embarrassment flaring. “You what?”
“I know you didn’t ask, and I’m probably going to get what’s coming to me, but I took care of your rent.” He held up his hands before she could give him a piece of her mind. “Just for the moment, okay? Until we work this thing out with the anomaly, we need all hands-on deck. It makes finding a job, let alone going to one, rather difficult.”
“Patrick, I didn’t ask for your money.”
“I know.”
“There’s a boundary. A line between what’s appropriate and what’s not…and you crossed way over it.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you can pay me back later.”
“I should hit you over the head with this shovel,” she said, tightening her grip on the handle.
“Sorry, not sorry.” He smirked. “And you’re welcome.”
Fiona narrowed her eyes. Though her pride was hurting big time, she was grateful for his help. She just wished she didn’t need it in the first place.
“Do you want me to dig for you?” the vampire asked, holding out his hand.
She gave him the shovel. “I knew I brought you along for something.”
He chuckled and speared the shovel into the earth. As the soil turned over, her Legacy simmered. Something was here, but what and how much was still unknown.
“There,” Patrick said. “One metre. What are you looking for, exactly?”
Fiona peered into the hole but didn’t see any change in the soil. “If I’m right, then you’ll know when you see it. Let’s go another metre.”
The vampire began digging again. They checked after another meter with the same results. She had him keep digging until the composition of the ground changed. At eleven metres, the rich, dark, farmland soil changed into the hard rust-coloured clay that dominated the goldfields region. At fifteen metres, the shovel began hitting rock and quartz.
Then, as Patrick broke into the hard layer—his vampire strength almost breaking the shovel—thick, black liquid oozed from the stone.
As the goop began to fill the bottom of the hole, a pungent stench of rotting flesh wafted into the air, making them both recoil.
Patrick leapt out of the hole and screwed up his nose. “At times like these, I really dislike having enhanced senses.” Nodding to the bottom, he added, “Is that what you were looking for?”
“Unfortunately.” Fiona shivered, her Legacy bristling at the uncovered corruption.
As she stood there, watching the blackish slime seep into the hole, she realised that’s exactly what it was. Hazel’s spirit was twisted by the anomaly, and without all those souls to feed from, it’d spread to the next best thing—the Earth itself.
Patrick held up the shovel, bringing some of the vile goop back up with it. “What do you think it is?”
Fiona peered at the substance in the fading light, her eyes narrowing. As she reached out with her Legacy, a small shape fell from the sky and landed with a thud beside the pit. Her hand flew to her mouth when she saw the body of an iridescent green, blue, and red rainbow lorikeet laying on the churned earth.
“Bloody hell,” Patrick cursed. “Is that a bird?”
Fiona knelt beside the colourful parrot, her breath catching as she saw the state of the creature.
It was hollow.
“Patrick…” she said. “The parrot…”
The vampire knelt beside her, his expression troubled. “It’s exactly like those cows.” He looked up at the sky. “I don’t understand. It just fell out of the sky…”
“Because it wasn’t the shadow,” she murmured. “It was the anomaly.”
Another parrot landed with a thud, and Fiona let out a startled yelp. Then another dropped, and another.
“Cover the hole,” she cried as another bird fell with a sickening thud.
Patrick scrambled, shovelling dirt back into the pit so fast, his body blurred.
By the time the corruption was covered, no less than ten rainbow lorikeets lay dead, their little bodies sucked dry. No more fell, but it didn’t settle Fiona’s racing heart.
Her eyes filled with tears as the gravity of the situation hit home. “We’re in so much trouble.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Patrick told her.
“Will we?” She shook her head. “I know you understand what this means. It’s not just us in the firing line this time. If we screw this up…”
“It won’t come to that.”
Fiona sighed, the feeling of being utterly powerless washing over her in a sickening wave. How could they fight the anomaly’s corruption when their magic couldn’t even touch it?
Channelling it again was out of the question, unless they wanted to end up slaves to the thing like Hazel had. It was awful to say, but if she hadn’t been murdered all that time ago, then there wouldn’t have been a Dunloe past the 1850s. In their blind greed, the Trine had actually done them a favour.
Fiona looked up at Patrick, but his expression told her that the irony wasn’t lost on him, either.
“There has to be an answer for all of this,” he murmured. “Maybe Holly will have more luck with Greyson. Maybe it’s alien magic we need.”
“Then we better equip our tinfoil hats.”