Chapter Thirty-Six
Another full moon and I hadn’t found the killer yet. I tried to blame it on my mother, since my life went completely sideways when she showed up, leaving me with no time to investigate. But I couldn’t really blame her. Whoever was on this murder spree was just too damn good at covering their tracks. We had plenty of suspects but no hard proof.
Still, I wouldn’t quit. We all agreed that the best way to find this person—or creature—was to catch them in the act. But without any clues about where they’d strike next, there was a lot of ground to cover.
So we split up. Because nothing bad ever happens in horror movies when everyone splits up.
Vaughn went with his pack to check out the Christmas tree farm, which was usually deserted this time of year, while Rose, Thorn, Skyler, and I headed to the Black Star Canyon trail. A trail that went through dark, creepy woods with a zillion places to hide. But with Skyler on lookout just ahead of me, and my twin half sisters on either side of me, I felt pretty confident that the four of us could handle anything that came our way. Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
I’m a badass vampire queen. I’m not afraid.
It would have been pitch black, but the light from the full moon filtering through the bare tree branches lit our way. The twins kept looking at each other, and once, I thought I caught Thorn nudging Rose like she was prompting her to say something, but neither one spilled.
We were still figuring out how to be sisters. I had a lot I wanted to say to them, too, but it never seemed like the right time. We were out here hunting down a murderer. I couldn’t just casually strike up a conversation about our dysfunctional family. We all needed to stay focused.
But after hours of searching, we still hadn’t found anything. The car was parked a few yards away. I headed straight for it but then noticed Rose and Thorn hanging back, and it sounded like they were whispering to each other.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
Neither of them answered, so I kept moving toward the car with Skyler, but my sisters stayed behind, arguing in hushed tones. Obviously about me.
“Oh,” I said when we reached the car. “I forgot Thorn has the keys.”
Skyler sighed, but with a smile. “I’ll go get them from her. You can stay here.”
“Thanks, Sky.” Her feet had to be as sore as mine, but she’d have to be dead to not have felt the tension between me and the twins tonight. She was doing what a good friend did. She was looking out for me.
I glanced over at the bench near the end of the trail. I could wait for them there. Except someone was already occupying it, and I wasn’t about to go sit next to a strange man in the dark.
As I glanced at him, though, something about his slumped-over posture didn’t seem right. I called out, “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer, and there was a trail of something dark and liquid running down his chest. I sniffed the air. Blood. Lots and lots of blood.
“Rose, Thorn, Skyler!” I shouted. “Come quick!” There was too much blood. I wasn’t sure I would be able to control myself.
There was no doubt in my mind there’d been another murder—right under our noses. And the closer I got to the man’s body, the more the awful truth looked me in the eyes.
Like the others, his heart had been ripped out of his chest.
…
I sent Vaughn a text, letting him know we found another victim, and asked him to pick me up for a little sleuthing. Enough was enough—it was time I figured out who was doing this for good.
I remembered my mother had charged a big-ticket item on the company credit card.
“We need to stop by my house,” I told him. I prayed that I hadn’t washed the jeans I’d been wearing when I discovered the expense.
“I’ll only be a minute,” I told Vaughn. I ran to my room and dug through my clothes hamper. It had been hot out, so I hadn’t worn that particular pair of jeans lately. Or done my laundry. I snatched up the sticky note and headed back to Vaughn’s car.
While he drove, I used my phone and searched the name and address and found out she’d bought something from a retired professor who specialized in rare flora and fauna. My gut told me he would be able to help us identify the mysterious plant. Maybe Vanessa had even bought the plant from him.
Vaughn and I had to drive to the back roads of Silverado Canyon to look for clues.
A sign with peeling paint indicated we were close to the address I’d found on the internet, our destination. We turned onto a narrow, paved road and at the end, found a greenhouse made of what looked like old windows. Plants had nearly taken over and pushed up and through the panes of glass in some spots. It looked abandoned, but then I noticed the tiny house next to it.
It was on wheels and adorable. It looked like someone had blown up a Christmas gingerbread house.
We sat in the car for a minute, observing the place.
“Isn’t it kind of weird we’re spying on her?” Vaughn asked.
“It feels like Vanessa is running a scam,” I admitted. “I just don’t know what her end game is.”
“She seems to like spending time with you,” Vaughn commented.
“I think that’s just a front,” I said. The thought that my mother was just using me hurt more than I let on. My voice quavered, and he grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“Her loss, Tansy,” Vaughn said.
We got out of the car, and when I slammed the door, I heard the now-familiar sound of a hellcat roar.
“Hush now, Fluffy,” a man’s voice said, and then an elderly man hurried out of the tiny house and closed the door swiftly behind him. I didn’t miss the thud as a hellcat’s body hit the door as it shut.
“Hello,” I said. “We’re here to do a follow-up about a purchase Sheridan Catering made.”
“You must be Vanessa’s children,” he said.
“I am, he’s not,” I said. “Vaughn’s my boyfriend.”
“Tansy, right? You look so much like your mother,” the older man said.
“And Vanessa is dating my dad,” Vaughn added. “It’s complicated.”
“I’m Felix,” he said. “Professor Felix.”
His hands were covered in dirt, so we didn’t bother shaking hands. Felix was human, which meant he probably didn’t know he owned a hellcat instead of a regular old tabby.
“I set aside some black lilies,” Felix said. “Black velvet lilies and a few bat orchids.”
“Could we see some roses as well?” I asked.
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “Vanessa was clear. No roses. I wouldn’t want her to take away my precious Fluffy.”
I snort-laughed at the idea of a hellcat called Fluffy.
“Big cats need love, too,” Vaughn whispered.
“That’s not a cat,” I whispered back. “That’s a hellcat.”
I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway. “Did you get Fluffy from my mother?”
He beamed. “Why, yes. Bargain, too.”
“What kind of bargain?” Vaughn asked.
The hellcat heard us talking and began to hiss and growl and throw itself against the door more determinedly.
“This way,” Felix said.
We followed him into the greenhouse. The path was slick with moss and dead leaves.
My breath caught when we stepped into the moist dark interior of the greenhouse. In one corner, where the light still reached, tiny seedings sat atop a wooden table, neatly in rows, but in other parts of the large greenhouse, some of the plants stood taller than Vaughn.
The earthy green smell mingled with the perfume of a multitude of different flowers.
“Bit of a mess right now,” Felix said. “The plants are at my lab at the university, but there’s a good sample of specialty plants in my personal collection.”
“You teach at a university?” I asked politely.
“Retired, but I keep my hand in,” he replied. “But Vanessa is so special that I wanted to provide her with flowers from my own personal collection. My favorites are just in here.”
We stepped into another room where the plants grew even more closely together.
It wasn’t just a career, it was an obsession. Flowers I’d never heard of, many of them in dark purple or black, grew in riotous chaos. I admired black star lilies, calla lilies, and tiger lilies. Queen of the Night tulips.
Then I sneezed. I couldn’t help it.
“My mother mentioned that she’d traded a cat for something special,” I said, as casually as I was able. I was lying, but he didn’t know that. I needed information.
“Your mother has also requested something from the Solanaceae family,” Felix said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
He cleared his throat. “It’s perhaps more commonly known as flowering nightshade.”
“Isn’t nightshade poisonous?” Vaughn asked.
“Some plants, yes,” Felix replied. “But potatoes and tomatoes are also in the nightshade family.”
“Of course,” I said. “Can we look at your recommendations? Obviously, not potatoes.”
“Or anything poisonous,” Vaughn added. His brows scrunched together. He was probably wondering the same thing as I was.
“She mentioned another really cool plant,” I said. “Cursing violet or something like that?”
“The plant is commonly known as the crying violet,” he corrected me.
“Can we see one?” Vaughn asked.
He tsked. “Unfortunately, the plant is virtually extinct.”
“Virtually?”
“I did have two seeds,” he said. “But they were purchased.”
“What did the buyer want to do with them?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Those seeds were so old, it would be impossible to get them to germinate.”
Impossible, unless you knew a few spells.
…
The Old Crones Book Club were all waiting for us when we got back home. Their faces were grim, and Edna was crying. Her wife Evelyn had her arms wrapped around Edna.
“Who was it?” I asked.
I hadn’t expected to know the victim, but I did. It was Ms. Ferrell’s uncle Tobias Ferrell. Edna had known Tobias for years because he’d come to her dermatology practice for excessive facial hair issues.
Granny unlocked the door, and we all went inside.
We were barely settled in the living room, though, when someone pounded on the door. “Granny Mariotti, I know you’re inside. I want to talk to you,” a woman’s voice came through loud and clear.
The voice sounded familiar somehow. I wasn’t taking any chances, though. “I’ll get it.”
I threw open the door. “How can I help you?”
“Tansy?”
“Ms. Ferrell?” I asked. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from crying.
“Is your grandmother home?” she asked.
“You might as well come inside,” I said. I had a feeling Ms. Ferrell wasn’t here to talk about my English Lit grade.
Granny and the crones were in the kitchen. She was heating up something on the stove but turned when she heard me come in.
“Ms. Ferrell, this is my grandmother,” I said.
“You’re here about Tobias,” Edna said.
“Yes,” Ms. Ferrell replied.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Edna said. “I knew him well.”
Ms. Ferrell took a long, shaky breath. “So you know?”
“That he was a werewolf?” Edna replied. “Yes.”
“Did you kill him?” Ms. Ferrell’s accusation sent the witches in the room into a stunned, angry silence. Ms. Ferrell was in dangerous territory.
“Witches, at least the kind of witches we are, do not take lives,” my grandmother said, her voice cold and absolute.
“I believe you,” Ms. Ferrell said carefully. “But I’m not certain others in the werewolf community will.”
Skyler and Connor arrived as I was walking Ms. Ferrell out. “What’s going on?” Connor asked, looking from Ms. Ferrell to me curiously.
“There’s been another murder,” I said. I was a witch. I knew paranormal creatures existed, but it wasn’t like I could tell just by looking at them that they were werewolves, at least when they were in their human form. So how did the murderer know?
He took Ms. Ferrell’s hand. “I swear to you I will find out who did this.”
I stared at him. “Why are you really here, Connor?”
He sighed. “Let’s go inside and I’ll explain.”
We went back inside and sat in the family room. It was a little crowded, so Skyler perched on Connor’s knee.
“You know there’s been a slew of werewolf killings,” he said. “We think the killer has a reason.”
“Who’s we?” I asked.
“My uncle Cormac, who I went to live with in Ireland, sent me back here to figure it out. But he heard I was attacked and he’s here.” Connor’s dad was dead, and nobody talked about how he’d died. “It’s an understatement to say he’s not happy.”
He glanced at my grandmother and the Old Crones. “This can’t leave this room. You have to swear.”
“I swear,” they all said.
“Are you sure you can trust Tansy?” Skyler asked.
I sucked in my breath. Low blow. “Get out of my house.”
“Tansy—”
“No,” I said. “I can’t believe you said that. I was there for you when Connor was off drinking whisky and flirting with Irish lassies or whatever he was doing. We put our lives in danger when you were in thrall to a vampire.”
Skyler shot me a dirty look. “Way to spill the tea,” she said.
“You didn’t tell him yet?” I asked.
“She didn’t,” Connor confirmed. He wrapped Skyler in his arms and pulled her tight against his chest. “I’m so sorry, Skyler. Sorry I wasn’t here for you.”
“So now that we know why you really came back,” I said, “why don’t you tell us what you know about the murders?”
“Some of the werewolf folks think that black magic is involved,” Ms. Ferrell said.
Granny gave her a long look. “And you thought you’d just stroll into my house and ask me about it?”
“We’re pretty sure that they’re using the werewolf hearts for a spell,” I admitted. “To turn vampires human again.” I wasn’t ready to share my suspicions that my own mother was the killer. What if I was wrong? I could tell by Connor’s face that the pack would tear the killer apart when they found them.
“How does a werewolf heart turn a vamp human?” he asked.
None of the Old Crones spoke, but I could tell by the way they were avoiding my eyes that they knew something.
“It takes dark magic,” Granny finally said, “to use a werewolf’s heart.”
“I figured,” I said dryly. “But what exactly does the spell do?”
“Some say it can reverse effects of certain transformations,” Edna said.
“Or?” I asked. Because I knew a dodge when I heard one.
“Or it can reverse the effects of vampirism,” Granny finally said.
I sucked in a breath. “Who would kill to return to human form?”
“The real question is who wouldn’t?” Evelyn said.
Granny shook her head. “That’s the thing. It doesn’t do that. Only the death of a maker can truly return a vampire to human form. But if the vampire has drained someone completely, even the death of a maker isn’t enough to cure them.”
“A werewolf heart does that?” I asked.
“The effects are only temporary, though,” she said. “And the cost is great. Most vampires don’t even know it’s a possibility.”
“And the ones who do?”
“Even those vampires hesitate,” she said.
“See?” Connor said. “This is why we wanted to talk to you.”
“To me?” Granny’s brows drew together. Her lips were in a straight line when she looked at Connor and said, “You need to leave.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Connor said.
“You didn’t think waltzing in here and accusing me of practicing the dark arts would offend me?”
Connor looked comical as my small but determined grandmother started pushing him out of the living room. He probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds.
“I don’t think you’re practicing black magic,” he said. “I thought you might know of a spell that would explain why they’re taking a werewolf’s heart?”
Granny stopped shoving him, and her face went blank. “If they are taking the werewolf’s heart, it won’t do them any good without a crying violet.”
Edna and Evelyn jumped to their feet. “It’s not possible,” Edna gasped. “That plant is lost to time.”
“Unless someone had an in with a rare flower guy…” I said, some of the pieces clicking into place in my mind. I didn’t like this at all.
I got out my phone. “I took a picture of Vanessa’s driver’s license when we went shopping.”
“She has a driver’s license?” Vaughn asked. “That’s pretty law-abiding for a vampire.” The quip made everyone chuckle, and some of the tension left the room.
“Anyway,” I said. “It turns out that the address on her license is the same place we found the hellcats. And Vanessa has access to all sorts of exotic plants.” I turned to Vaughn. “We need to go back to the hellcat house.”
Everyone agreed that Vaughn and I would go. Since we had the most experience, we would be the ones to check it out, but Skyler stubbornly insisted on going with us.
After her dig about not trusting me, I felt awkward and uncomfortable around her.
“I’m driving,” I said. Skyler got into the Deathtrap’s backseat without arguing.
The murders and the hellcats were connected somehow, but I couldn’t figure out how. They were guarding something. We needed to take another look at those plants, locked away and guarded by two of the biggest hellcats I’d ever seen.
We said our goodbyes and made a stop at Janey’s for half a dozen pies before we visited the hellcat secret lair. From what I knew, hellcats liked pie, so loading up on baked goods couldn’t hurt.
“What do you think they’re hiding in there?” I asked. “It can’t just be some random plants.”
“A conscience,” Vaughn said.
“The secret to why Tom Cruise doesn’t age,” Skyler said. She shuddered. “He looks exactly the same at seventy as he did at twenty.”
“He’s not seventy,” I said.
“So what you’re saying is that we have to break into that creepy house on a deserted canyon road,” Skyler said.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” It was a risk, but I didn’t see how I had any other choice.
The house was dark, and I didn’t see the white van anywhere, but we still moved quietly and cautiously.
The front door was unlocked this time. I paused to listen. “Do you think anyone’s here?”
Vaughn shook his head. Eager to learn my mother’s secret, I was the first one to step inside. As I moved deeper into the house, I realized that I didn’t hear the adorable mewing of the kittens. We were almost to the hallway that led to the locked door.
Something clawed at me. Pain went down my arm. One of the kittens must have been in a playful mood. But when I looked down, my arm had a deep gouge on it, and my blood was dripping onto the floor.
Two full-grown hellcats blocked the exit. The adorable kittens had been replaced by huge cats the size of tigers.
Vaughn spotted the animals the same time I did. He threw one of the pies and then yanked open a bedroom door and shoved Skyler and me inside. I slammed the door and locked it.
One of the hellcats let out a roar that shook the doorframe. Judging by the way the feline was slamming itself against the door, it wouldn’t hold the animals for long.
I had to get us out of here, but I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting animals, even if they were murderous beasts trained to kill.
I slid two more pies out, and the animals pounced on them. “I don’t think anyone’s been feeding them,” I said. What kind of dickhead abused animals?
We were down to the last two pies. I texted Connor.
A few seconds later, his text came back.
, I texted back. . While I texted with one hand, Vaughn ripped a sleeve off his hoodie and used it to bind my wound. The gouge stung, but we had bigger problems. Like getting out of here without getting eaten.
That was a definite no.
…
I knew that Connor had finally arrived when the beasts started to roar. “Here, kitty, kitty,” I heard him say.
“It’s safe to come out now,” Connor said. He’d brought Beckett and Lucas with him. “Xavier is studying,” he said. “I’m only supposed to interrupt him if someone is dying.”
“Minor injuries,” I said. “I’ll ask Granny for a poultice when I get home. Besides, we have bigger problems. We can’t leave until we find out what’s behind that locked door.”
“We don’t have much time,” Connor said. “We brought about thirty pounds of raw hamburger, but that won’t last long.”
“They like pie, too,” Skyler said.
Connor brushed a lock of her hair back and then murmured, “I was worried about you.” I looked away. I was warming up to the idea of him with my best friend, and his tender expression almost convinced me.
I cleared my throat. “Let’s go.”
We hurried to the room with the locked door. Connor stuck out his hand to turn the knob, but it occurred to me that it might be booby-trapped.
“Wait!” I shouted. Nothing had happened the last time, but I didn’t want to take the chance that someone had figured out we’d been there. We had taken Hecate, which might have clued someone in on the fact that someone had been snooping around, but it was also possible they’d thought she’d wandered off on her own.
They watched me as I closed my eyes and tried to sense if there was any magic. I didn’t detect anything but still recited a quick anti-curse spell.
“Is your mom growing weed?” Beckett asked.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s not cannabis,” I said. “It has purple flowers.”
“Then what is it?” Skyler asked.
“I’m not a botanist,” I said. “But I think it might be a crying violet.” Despite my disappointment at not finding concrete evidence about who was murdering werewolves, I took a photo with my phone anyway.
It was important enough that my mother hid it behind a locked door. I’d figured out who the murderer was, but it didn’t make me feel any better.