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Bridget arrived at the house less than an hour after Serenity placed the call. When the gate buzzer signaled her arrival, Elizabeth was at the kitchen counter, eating the pancakes Serenity had finally got around to making. Too hungry to wait, she had already gobbled the banana.
Serenity pushed the button to allow Bridget to drive her Prius into the driveway and then went to the front door. Elizabeth scrambled down from her seat, her breakfast forgotten in her excitement to see her old nanny again. Whatever Serenity and Sebastian might think of Bridget, Elizabeth didn’t hold a grudge.
Bridget pulled the car to a halt and climbed out. Her long white hair was braided down her back and she wore a long, brightly-colored dress of some kind of chiffon fabric. Strands of jade and silver beads hung around her neck and wrists, and, as she climbed from the vehicle, Serenity spotted another silver chain looped around her ankle.
Elizabeth pushed past her mother and ran at Bridget. The little girl collided with the older woman.
“Ooph!” Bridget exclaimed. “Is that an elephant trying to knock me over?”
Elizabeth giggled in delight. “No silly! It’s me!”
“Oh, my gosh.” The older woman smiled fondly down at the girl. “Haven’t you got big? I could have sworn that was an elephant running at me.”
Elizabeth laughed again and Serenity couldn’t help but smile. However she felt about Bridget—and she wasn’t even sure herself—she was pleased to see her daughter look so happy.
Bridget looked up and offered Serenity a smile. “So, what’s all this about?”
Serenity had been deliberately vague on the phone, saying only that she needed to talk and needed to do so in person.
“I assume Sebastian won’t be around,” she said, casting her eyes to the bright sunlight behind her.
“Well, you never know,” Serenity muttered and Bridget shot her a look. “Come in and sit down,” she continued. “We need your help on something. At least, I hope you can help. If not, I really don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Bridget’s face dropped. “Why, what’s going on?”
Serenity led them all into the kitchen, Elizabeth hanging close to Bridget’s skirts. They all took a seat at the breakfast bar.
“Can I get you coffee?” Serenity asked, remembering her manners.
Bridget shook her head. “Just tell me what’s going on. You’re starting to scare me.”
That Bridget still had enough attachment to her family to warrant her being frightened on their behalf warmed Serenity to her.
“We’ve got a problem with Sebastian.” She took a deep breath and pushed her hair away from her face. “How can I explain? He’s able to move in the daytime, but has no memory of doing so. He’s been doing other strange things around the house, moving things and leaving water running.” She hesitated, not wanting to tell Bridget about him killing a man and not remembering, wanting to protect Elizabeth from that piece of horrific information at least. “Other things ...” She jerked her head toward Elizabeth, hoping Bridget would understand her body language. “More serious things have been happening as well. The only thing I can think of is that some kind of witchcraft is at play and I wondered if you might be able to help.”
Bridget’s serious expression didn’t waver and she leaned across the breakfast bar, moving in closer to Serenity. “Where is he now?”
“Upstairs. Sleeping, I hope.”
“Take me to him.”
Serenity nodded and Elizabeth hopped down from her stool.
“You need to stay here, honey,” said Serenity.
“Aww, Mom! I should be there too. I dreamed something was wrong, remember. I might be able to help.”
Serenity hesitated once again and said, “Okay, fine. But if I tell you to leave the room, you go, okay? No arguments.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom.”
Together, they traipsed up the stairs, Elizabeth leading the way.
Sebastian lay on the bed, motionless, his eyes closed. He wore his suit pants and a shirt. His jacket was slung over a chair, his shoes by the base of the bed. His dark lashes appeared even longer and thicker against his pale cheeks. His lips were slightly parted in his un-dead sleep. A shadow caused by the light thrown from the open door made his cheek bones and jaw appeared even more chiseled.
Even in sleep, he was beautiful and Serenity’s heart contracted, snatching her breath. She couldn’t stand the thought of something bad happening to him.
Bridget frowned and crossed the room to stand beside the bed. Serenity held Elizabeth’s hand, keeping the little girl by her side. Moving slowly, Bridget walked around the perimeter of the bed, never taking her eyes off Sebastian’s inert face.
She closed her eyes and held her hands over the top of his body. She muttered a few words, in what Serenity could only assume was Latin, and her hands began to tremble. Her frown deepened and she snatched her hands away, her eyes flying open.
Serenity’s hold on Elizabeth’s hand tightened, worry spiking through her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
The older woman gave her head a slight shake, her long braid swinging. “I ... I’m not sure. I got a sense of something else ...”
Serenity’s voice came out too high-pitched. “What do you mean?”
“When vampires sleep, they don’t give off any sense of energy. There’s just ... nothing.”
Serenity flinched at the words, not liking the idea that when she slept, curled up beside him, he wasn’t alive beside her.
Bridget continued. “But right now, I can sense something else. Something dark.”
“Like what?”
“There’s a dark energy inside him. Something that doesn’t belong here.”
Serenity’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, God.”
“The other presence is hiding from me, as though it doesn’t want me to know it’s here.”
“It?”
She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head again. “It’s not human—it’s never been human.”
“What is it then?” Serenity asked, starting to feel desperate.
“I’m not sure. I need to get it to show itself to me to try to understand what we’re dealing with.”
“Okay. What can I do to help?”
“Just keep quiet and let me concentrate.”
Serenity shut her mouth and pulled Elizabeth closer.
“Mommy?” Elizabeth whispered, her dark eyes wide as she stared up at her mother.
Serenity placed a finger against her own lips. “Shhh.”
They turned their attention back to Sebastian and Bridget. Bridget took up her stance, holding her hands above the vampire’s body. She began to mutter again, low words Serenity struggled to make out.
“Ostende Te!” Bridget abruptly demanded, her voice raised. “Reveal yourself!”
A darkness flooded across Sebastian’s pale face, rising to the surface like the shadow of a shark in deep water. Serenity gasped. She’d seen the same darkness before—a couple of days before at the restaurant.
“Daddy!” Elizabeth screamed and stumbled back.
“Get her out of here,” snapped Bridget, her face white with the strain of trying to control whatever hid inside Sebastian. Her hands and arms trembled with the effort, but the darkness melted away again, leaving Sebastian’s face as perfect as normal.
With a pounding heart and her whole body wound into a tight ball of tension, Serenity ushered Elizabeth out into the hallway. “Just wait outside the door, honey. We won’t be long.”
“What was that?” she cried. “What’s wrong with Daddy?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. That’s what Bridget is going to find out, so be a good girl and let her do what she needs to, okay?”
“But I don’t want to be out here on my own.”
“We’re right on the other side of the door. Please be good for me, just for a few minutes.”
“Serenity?” Bridget’s voice came from behind, stern and commanding.
“Wait here. I won’t be long, I promise.”
“Okay, Mommy.” Her tear-streaked face broke Serenity’s heart.
Reluctant to leave her daughter, but knowing they needed to figure out what was going on with Sebastian for all their safety, Serenity went back into the room and gently closed the door behind her.
“I’m sorry,” Bridget said, “but whatever this thing is, I only managed to get a quick glimpse. I don’t want Elizabeth in here, just in case. I need to try to bring it to the surface again and I’m going to need you to hold him down.”
“Hold down Sebastian? I’ll never be able to do that. He’s far too strong. And anyway, it’s the middle of the day. He’s asleep!”
“It won’t be Sebastian you’ll be holding down, it’ll be the thing inside him.”
Serenity didn’t know if she wanted to throw up, run away or burst into tears. But she did as Bridget instructed and stood beside Sebastian, pressing her palms down on his solid shoulders.
Bridget shook her head. “Not like that. You need to get on top of him. Use your whole body weight.”
“Damn it,” she muttered, but climbed up on the bed. She slid one leg over Sebastian’s waist and then used her knees to pin down his thighs. She leaned over his torso and placed her hands on his shoulders. Her hair hung to one side, brushing his chest.
Bridget placed her hands a few inches above Sebastian’s face again, as though she were doing Reiki or some other form of healing—perhaps that was exactly what she was doing. She started to mutter words again, her eyes closed to concentrate.
Serenity felt Sebastian’s muscles tense beneath her in short, sharp twitches, as though he were having a bad dream. She’d never known him to move in his sleep before. Normally, he appeared as though death had stolen over him.
Her natural instinct was to pull away from him, to get the hell away from whatever was inside the man she loved, but she forced herself to hold on. For Sebastian’s sake.
The darkness completely took over his face and something beneath his skin rippled. A cheekbone swelled out, one side of his nose bulging, black and swollen, like he’d contracted some horrific growth or birth defect.
“Oh, God!” Serenity cried. But she still held him down, despite every part of her wanting to flee.
Bridget’s mutterings grew louder, the words blending together, and Serenity still couldn’t understand a word.
Sebastian’s eyes shot open. Pure black painted his eyeballs—no white peeping through the coating.
Serenity gasped in shock and suppressed a scream.
His mouth stretched wide and a deep guttural roar peeled from his lips. He bolted upright, flinging her from the bed. She flew through the air and landed heavily, her shoulder smacking hard against the dresser. A bolt of bright white pain burst through her arm and collarbone. Tears blurred in her eyes.
When she’d blinked them away and looked back at Sebastian, he was lying back on the bed, his arms folded across his chest, as still as ever.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded.
Bridget was standing away from the bed, close to the covered window, her eyes wide, her face pale. “It’s too strong for me. We need to find help.”
“What is it!?”
“A demon. Someone has placed a demon inside him.”
“He’s possessed?” she said, aghast. To think they’d only made love a matter of hours ago. Had that been Sebastian she’d made love to or had some ... demon ... been taking part in the act as well? She fell back against the wall, her hand against her mouth. “Oh, God. What are we going to do?”
Bridget crossed the room toward her and put out a hand to help her to her feet. “Are you okay?”
Serenity nodded. She took the other woman’s hand and allowed herself to be helped up, wincing slightly as fresh pain jarred through her shoulder. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”
Her thoughts turned to Elizabeth, still waiting outside of the door. But she couldn’t bring her daughter into this conversation, not yet anyway. She wanted to protect her from as much as she could, even if Elizabeth would probably argue that she knew these things long before her mother found out about them.
Bridget glanced over her shoulder to look at Sebastian. “He’s not possessed in the way the movies might have you believe. Yes, the demon can take hold of his body and make him do what it wants, but the main reason a demon inhabits a body is to take souls.”
Her heart lifted briefly—Sebastian had a soul—something he’d often denied.
“Where does this demon want to take him? Hell?” Serenity had debated much of her life about the existence of heaven and hell. Now proof of the reality of such a place seemed to be right before her eyes.
If hell existed, so did heaven.
But Bridget shook her head and all her hopes vanished in a puff. “Not hell, but another place. The world has many different layers—like an onion. We can only see the top layer, so most people don’t even question the possibility of more. But, just because we can’t see the other layers doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They look like our world, but all the things that aren’t allowed to exist here are in control down there. The opportunity doesn’t present itself often, but if they get a chance to take someone from our world down into theirs, they will take it.”
“Why?”
“The creatures living on the other levels are jealous of our world. They can’t inhabit this level independently, but they can pull beings down to join them. To eventually turn them into one of them.”
Serenity’s stomach dropped out of itself, leaving a hole she thought she might tumble into and never climb out of.
“What can you do to help him?” Her words came out tight and strangled, spoken past a painful knot at the back of her throat.
Bridget shook her head, her eyes downcast. A fresh bubble of worry seemed to swell inside Serenity’s chest, ready to burst and swallow her. She didn’t think she was going to like what Bridget had to say.
“I don’t have the strength to deal with this,” the older woman continued. “This is dark magic, something I have no experience with.”
“Do you know anyone who does?”
“I do, but ...” She paused.
“But what?”
“Sebastian is a vampire, Serenity. Witches aren’t exactly known for their propensity toward helping vampires.”
“You were willing to help a vampire.”
“I’m different. My son is a vampire.”
“But we have to try!” She couldn’t hide the panic building in her voice.
Bridget reached out and took hold of Serenity’s hand again. Her skin felt soft, dry and warm. Serenity was grateful for the contact. “Yes, and we will, I promise. First of all, we need to figure out who would want to do this to Sebastian. Unless he has been creating enemies over the past year, I can think of only one person.”
“Natasha,” Serenity whispered.
The vampire had been Demitri’s child. After Serenity had killed Demitri, Sebastian had allowed Natasha to run, a mistake it seemed he would pay for.
Bridget nodded. “My guess is she was pretty upset with you for killing her maker. This is her way of getting back at you.”
“No. She’s hurting Sebastian, not me. He was the one who let her go.”
“She’s probably using Sebastian as a way of hurting all of you. The more he loses control, the more likely he’ll cause you both harm.”
“He’d never hurt us.”
“Perhaps he wouldn’t, but the thing inside him might.”
Serenity remembered what she’d glimpsed in Sebastian’s face and shuddered. Pure malice, hatred, fury. Those were the emotions she’d sensed from the creature when it had opened Sebastian’s mouth and roared.
Not a creature, she reminded herself. A demon.
“So, assuming Natasha is responsible, how do we go about finding her?” Serenity asked, wanting to get hold of something tangible, something practical they could do to help him.
“There is a sorceress who may be able to help. She’s a traveler, so I’ll need to try to locate her. She could be anywhere in the country. Even if I find her, I’ll still need to persuade her to meet with you. I won’t say anything about Sebastian being a vampire, not yet. I’ll tell her the father of your child has had a demon placed inside him and that we believe a vampire to be responsible. She might help us then.”
“She’ll know what Sebastian is as soon as she sets eyes on him.”
“Hopefully, by then, she’ll already have taken some steps to help us locate Natasha and find out what she’s up to. I suspect Natasha has employed the help of witches of her own; I don’t think she’d be able to do this without some help from dark wiccans.”
“But you said witches wouldn’t help a vampire!”
“Good witches wouldn’t, but plenty of bad ones are out there.”
“What do I do about Sebastian in the meantime?”
“That’s up to you, Serenity. Do you still trust that he wouldn’t hurt you—hurt Elizabeth—despite what you’ve seen?”
Her heart twisted in pain. Sebastian hurting Elizabeth. The possibility of such a thing happening tore her in two.
How could she restrain Sebastian, even if she wanted to? Drape him in silver chains? Surround him in garlic? Hell, she’d never seen him show any repulsion toward garlic, though she knew silver would work. But what her decision came down to was how much she trusted Sebastian to be stronger than the thing inside him and not hurt them.
Sebastian was strong, physically and mentally. He would fight this thing. He would never let anything hurt them. Besides, even if she did own such a thing as yards of silver chains—which she didn’t—would she be able to bring herself to drape them over his body? Would she be able to watch them burn his beautiful skin, stand by while he writhed in pain, trapped on the bed?
If anything, taking such extreme measures might only anger the demon inside him. It might make him more dangerous than if they just left well enough alone.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I trust him. We’ll be safe until you get back. How long will you be,” she added, nervously.
“I’ll try to be back before dark.”
She nodded, but said, “I’m not even sure that will make a difference.”