Charmed Again (Halloween LaVeau) (13 page)

She frowned.
“No, I’m a vampire.”

“You know you need to tell me the whole truth? If I find out you’re lying or withholding important info
rmation, then I’d be forced to take some kind of legal action,” I said.

Ginny scrunched her brow. Yeah, she probably knew that I was totally making all this up as I went along. But she couldn’t prove it, so that was to my advantage.

Finally, she said, “They were witches. I heard them mention the New Orleans Coven. But that’s all I know, I promise.” She held her hand up as if under oath. “I mean, would I have called you if I didn’t want to help?”

“I’ve learned to assume nothing,” I said.

“Thank you for the information, Ginny. I appreciate it and you did the right thing.” I offered a small smile.

“You won’t tell anyone that I told you, will you?” she asked with wide eyes.

I shook my head. “I won’t say a word.”

We made our way out into the main part of the bar again. As I neared the door, a woman touched my arm, stopping me. She had the same nervous expression on her face as Ginny. The woman wore the bar’s blue logoed t-shirt and jeans.
A hint of a gold necklace peeked out from under her collar. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

“Are you the new leader?” she whispered, looking around the bar.

I looked her up and down. “Yes, I’m Hallie.”

Liam stepped between us.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but I had to tell you.” She glanced around again. “I had to tell you about the man and woman.”

I eyed her suspiciously. “The man and woman who were here talking to Nicolas Marcos?”

She twisted the end of her ponytail around her index finger. “Yes, I overheard them talking.”

“Thank you, but Ginny just told me about it.” I smiled warmly.

“Did she tell you who the woman was?” she whispered as she looked around again.

I stared at her for a moment. “No, she said she didn’t know.”

The woman nodded. “Ginny probably doesn’t remember who she is, but I take care of a lot of tables here in the bar and I remember a lot of people.”

“Wait. So you know who this woman is?” I asked, looking over my shoulder.

This woman had me paranoid now.

She leaned against the table
. “Her name is Janet Brock. She’s a witch who lives just across town. It’s an old house next to a swamp. I don’t know the address, but I could draw you a map.”

“Yes, please. That would be wonderful,” I said.

Liam grabbed my arm. “I’m not sure we should go there. We don’t know how many people are there.”

The woman waved her hand. “Oh, no. She lives there alone.”

“How do you know her?” Liam asked.

“She’s been in the bar before. It was a couple times and I waited on her both times. She was kind of talkative. Anyway, she told me that she lived alone.”

“So how do you know where she lives?” Liam pushed.

She shifted from foot to foot. “I’m not proud of this, but she told me that I
could have some of her witch’s blood. I wanted to see if it worked and she said she needed the money.”

Apparently witches’ blood gave vampires witchcraft power. Not as much as a witch possessed, but something was better than nothing.

“So you went to her house?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, but when I got there she had changed her mind, which was just as well because she made me nervous.”

“Why did she make you nervous?” Annabelle asked in a shaky voice from over my shoulder.

She shrugged.
“It was just a vibe I got. You know how sometimes people just don’t seem on the up and up?”

I nodded. I knew that feeling all too well.

“Did she speak to you when she was in here last night?” Liam asked.

“No. She acted as if she didn’t know me. That was fine with me though. You know, she’d been in here alone before. That’s why I was a little surprised to see her speaking with the man and then Nicolas,” she said.

“But she was definitely talking with Mr. Marcos and another man?” Liam asked.

She grabbed a napkin from the bar and pulled the pen from behind her ear. “I’m one hundred percent positive. I’ll draw a map for you. Sorry I can’t remember the name of the street.”

“Do you have any idea why she was talking with Nicolas?” I asked.

After drawing out a sketch, she handed me the napkin. “I heard the same thing as Ginny. Janet and the man said they wanted Nicolas and you dead.”

I looked at her. “Why are you telling me this?”

Her expression darkened.
“I thought it was the right thing to do.”

I nodded. “Well, thank you.”

“Please be careful,” she called out over my shoulder.

As we walked toward the door, Annabelle asked, “How do we know she’s not setting you up?”

“She’s right. We could be going right into their trap,” Liam said.

“Well, that’s the chance I have to take. What if she has information about Nicolas?
” I threw my hand up. “Heck, what if she has Nicolas there?”

Liam stared for a second. “All right. But I go check it out first. I’ll leave my gun with you. If anyone approaches and tries anything to harm you, you’ll have to use it.”

We made our way out of the bar and into the bright sunlight. I shielded my eyes until they had a chance to adjust.

“You still haven’t explained how vampires can go out into the sunlight,” I said as we hurried toward the car.

“We take a pill,” Liam said without glancing over at me.

“You take a pill?” I asked suspiciously.

“We don’t really have time to go into the basics. Annabelle, I can drive if you’d like,” Liam said.

“Gladly,” Annabelle said
, handing over the keys.

“The least you can do is explain to me what kind of pill. Do all vampires take it?” I asked.

“Leave it to you to be interested in how this works now,” Liam said.

I chuckled.
“Hey, I need something to keep my mind off what may happen when we get to this house.”

He paused, then nodded. “You’re right. Okay, well, vampires discovered quite some time ago that there was something in beets that allowed us to go into the sun.”

I snorted. “Beets?”

“I know it’s not glamorous, but it is what it is,” Liam said.

“So how does this translate to a pill?” I asked biting my lip to fend off a giggle.

“They made the beet
extract in pill form,” Liam responded quickly.

“Of course.” I shook my head.

“Does that explain enough?” He avoided my puzzled stare.

“Enough for now, I guess. Anyway, about Nicolas, I think it was a glamor spell that was used,” I said as we approached the car.

“That makes sense, but who is pretending to be Nicolas?” Liam asked.

“The better question is why are they using the spell to pretend to be him?” I
opened the car door.

“Oh, a glamor spell. I remember those
.” Catherin waved her hand.

She’d been
quiet since we stepped out of the bar.

I looked at her and f
rowned, as if to say,
Not now
.

Had I been crazy for bringing her along? To answer my own question: Yes, I had been completely bonkers. She kept pushing her grandmotherly charm on us.

Catherin gave a little smile, but didn’t say anything else.

“We need to go to this house right now to find out,” I said, climbing into the passenger seat.

“All of this is making me nervous,” Annabelle said from the back seat.

“Oh, don’t worry, dear. Halloween is the leader now, I’m sure s
he has everything under control,” Catherin said with a wink.

Now I felt like she was just mocking me. She wouldn’t do that though, right?

I gave Liam step-by-step directions according to the sketch the woman had drawn out on the cocktail napkin. When we reached a road with no traffic and no visible homes, I felt Annabelle’s tension from the backseat of the car. She frowned.

“We’ll be fine,” I said with a smile.

I knew I had to say that whether I believed it or not. But what was the worst that could happen? I’d already fought a demon and Jacobson. Could it get any worse? Trees lined both sides of the road. The sketch had us turning on the next right.

Up ahead I spotted a turn-
off. “That must be it,” I said, pointing straight ahead.

When we reached the turn-
off, I realized it was nothing more than a gravel drive lined with thick brush. I prayed that we didn’t run into an alligator when we got out of the car. I’d rather fight a bad witch than wrestle an alligator. I wasn’t sure that I had magic to compete with that beast.

The shade of the trees around the house made it appear almost night time. The setting was spooky and hauntingly lovely at the same time. I couldn’t deny the knot I felt in the pit of my stomach. After inching down the gravel drive, we finally came into a clearing. A small white house with a wraparound porch sat in front of us. There was no car or any signs of life. Liam pulled the car up in front of the house and cut the engine.

Liam handed me the small silver gun. “Okay, I’m going in. I’ll check it out and motion when it’s safe. Have you ever used one of these before?”

I stared down at the object, then looked up at him. “No. Why can’t I use magic if someone tries to attack me?”

He shook his head. “The gun is loaded with silver bullets.” He pointed at the gun in my hand. “Point it at your attacker and pull the trigger.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me?” I asked.

“Sorry, but there’s no time for a detailed lesson. Besides, I’m sure you won’t have to use it. Just don’t accidentally shoot yourself in the foot.” He pointed at my foot.

I quirked a brow. “Yeah, I’ll try not to do that.”

We watched in silence as Liam walked around the car and up the steps of the house. Once on the porch and in front of the door, he knocked and waited for someone to answer. After several more knocks and no one opening the door, he tried the knob. The door inched open.

Liam turned
around and looked our way. He held up his finger, indicating to give him one minute. Why was I waiting? I was supposed to be the leader now. Sure, he was assigned to be my bodyguard, but wasn’t I supposed to be tough now? A tough person wouldn’t sit in the car and wait for someone else to check things out, would they? Then I thought about Annabelle. My poor best friend that I’d dragged into this mess. I couldn’t leave her alone out there, and I certainly wouldn’t take her inside the house without knowing it was safe. Besides, if no one was home, then there was no reason for us to go inside anyway.

Just then the back
door of the car opened. I whipped around and saw Catherin climbing out of the car.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I yelled.

“What is she doing?” Annabelle asked with panic in her voice.

“I have no idea, but we have to stop her. Come on,” I said, jumping out of the car with the gun tightly clutched in my hand.

Annabelle hurried out of the back seat, although she looked like she’d rather jump behind the wheel of the car and take off. Catherin ran up the steps and through the front door of the house. We trailed her, running up the rickety front steps and across the unstable floorboards on the porch. Annabelle and I rushed through the open door into the darkened front room of the house.

Catherin stood in the middle of the room looking around. No one else was in sight. Not the owner of the house, Nicolas, or Liam. I was beginning to think that my apprehension was rising to Annabelle’s level.

Just then Liam ran down the hall toward us. “What’s going on? I thought you were staying in the car. Did something happen?”

“Catherin ran out of the car and into the house.” I pointed at Catherin. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I couldn’t leave him alone in here. He needed help and you shouldn’t have allowed him to come in here by himself.” She waved her finger in my direction.

That was it. This
woman was crazy too. I was back to finding a spell to get rid of her. As the thought of getting rid of her crossed my mind, she offered a warm smile. Her warm smile reminded me of chocolate-chip cookies straight out of the oven and giant hugs—just like Grandma. Again I was forced to consider how it would feel if I banished this sweet grandmotherly woman to the other side. I frowned at Catherin then looked at Liam.

“Did you find anything?” I asked, handing Liam the gun. I wanted to get rid of the thing before I really
did shoot myself in the foot.

Liam shrugged his shoulders.

“What does that mean?” I asked, my apprehension growing by the minute.

“Well, there’s something back here maybe you should see.” Liam motioned for me to follow him down the hallway.