The Witch and the Englishman (3 page)

He laughed, or tried to. “I don’t believe in any of that stuff.”

“Yet, you called a psychic.”

“
Well, I didn’t believe in any of that, at the time.”

“
What do you believe now?”

He shrugged, looked around the living room, looked up into the dark, vaulted ceiling. As he did so, his black aura swirled and churned. “I don’t know what to believe. My daughter, as soon as we moved in here, well...she claimed to hear voices.”

“What kind of voices?”

“
Not nice voices.”

“
Evil voices?” I asked.

“
I guess you could say that. They told her to commit crimes, to hurt people, and even to hurt me.”

“
Why didn’t you move?” I asked.

“
I didn’t believe her. I thought she was just being cheeky and wanted to go back home.”

“
To England?”

He nodded. “Glastonbury.”

“Why did you move out here to Southern California?”

“
I’m a director.”

“
Movies?”

“
Yes. Short films, mostly. I was nominated for an Academy a few years ago.”

“
Congratulations,” I said, noting that my voice might have trailed off. The reason it trailed off was because I had just seen a very dark shape materialize in the hallway...and then disappear again.

Very dark, very tall, and very inhuman
. It had, I was certain, red eyes. That was all I could make out before it had disappeared again.

I did not just see that,
I thought.

“
You all right?” he asked. “Gawd, you just turned pale. I mean, all the color just drained from your face.”

I decided to be blunt. In fact, I couldn’t help but be blunt. In double fact, I wasn’t even entirely sure what I was saying next, so startled was I, and, quite frankly, terrified, by what I had just seen.

“I think your house is haunted, Billy. Very, very haunted.”

He laughed immediately, and, if you ask me, a little too sharply and quickly. “Blimey! Why would you say such a thing?”

“I saw something in your hallway.”

He laughed again...and leaned over and looked down his hallway. “I don’t see anything,” he said, then looked right at me, his face only a few feet from mine. And as he looked at me, a shadow, a very dark shadow, appeared around him. Billy’s eyes flared red. “Maybe it’s a figment of your imagination.”

Except, of course, the voice didn’t sound like Billy’s. It sounded deeper, guttural...and evil.

And then Billy blinked, looked at me awkwardly, and sat back on his side of the couch. “What were you saying?” he asked.

I was, of course, not saying anything.

Billy, I was certain, had just been possessed by the very thing I had seen in his hallway.

Sweet Jesus.

Chapter Five

I took in a lot of air, and wondered what the hell I had just stepped into.

A living nightmare,
I realized. Complete with devils and haunting and possession and murder and death.

“
You’re sure you’re all right?” he asked.

I nodded weakly. As Billy looked at me, the blackness within his aura swirled and shifted and spread over the couch like an oil spill, oozing slowly away from him, over the cushions and down through the cracks and seams. This was different than the entity I was sure had momentarily possessed him. This was his aura...revealing again that Billy didn’t have long to live.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“
Yes,” I said, averting my eyes, and taking a few deep breaths. “I’m fine, really.”

“
It’s about my daughter, isn’t it?” The fear and alarm in his voice was unmistakable. He sat forward, elbows on knees, and literally wrung his hands. As he did so, the black mass that surrounded him sat forward, too...and wove in and out of his fingers.

Sweet Jesus.

I shook my head. “No, I haven’t picked up anything yet about your daughter...I’m concerned by what I saw in your home. You haven’t seen anything strange?”

He waved off the question. “Me? No. Not really.”

“What have you seen?”

He suddenly looked highly uncomfortable. He adjusted the drape of his pants, shifted on the couch, cracked his neck. “Keep in mind, I’ve lived here for nearly two years, and haven’t seen anything.”

“Until?”

“
Until just a few days ago.”

“
You live here alone with your daughter?”

“
Now I do. I’m alone while she’s in jail.”

“
We’ll get to that,” I said. “First, tell me what you saw.”

“
I haven’t seen anything. But I heard...laughing, followed by weeping.”

“
Is that why you called me?” I asked.

He looked at me, studied me closely, and then looked away. His pale face nearly glowed in the half-light of the room. A single lamp, in the far corner, was the only source of light.

He nodded. “I guess I want to know if there is something in the house. But I think you have answered that question.”

I nodded. “Why is your daughter in jail?”

He went on, “My daughter is accused of killing a shopkeeper. A jewelry store owner, in fact.”

I nodded. I had heard about the crime, which had occurred about three weeks ago. Not far from here. I waited.

He studied me some more, then said, “My daughter—Liz—told me over and over that the voice wanted her to kill. That it loved death. It loved blood.”

“
Jesus,” I said. “And you ignored her?”

“
What would you do? What would anyone do?”

“
Have someone talk to her. Someone like me.”

“
Well, I didn’t. I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never believed in ghosts or hauntings or any of that stuff. I thought Liz was going through a phase...a phase that would go away.”

“
And now she’s accused of murder,” I said.

He buried his face in his hands and suddenly wept loudly. “Please help me,” he said, his voice barely recognizable. “I don’t know what’s happening...and I think...I think there’s a very real possibility that I might be going mad.”

Chapter Six

It was later.

I was in my Camry, parked illegally along busy Robertson Street in Beverly Hills.
Yes, the words “Camry” and “Beverly Hills” don’t generally go together, and, yeah, I’m a bit of a fish-out-of-water type.

I’m not wealthy. In fact, I worked two jobs to get by. Tomorrow morning, in fact, I would meet with a new client: a young actress who had been in the movie
Marley & Me
. I’d have to Google her later to see who, exactly, she was. Truth was, I didn’t care either way. Rich or not, she was a paying client, and that’s all that mattered. Then again, if you lived in these parts, you saw actors and actresses all the time. And TV anchormen. And reality stars. And famous artists and musicians and everyone in between. Last week, I’d watched Charlie Sheen get shit-faced at a bar near my home. And it wasn’t the first time I watched him get shit-faced, either.

Or even the second.

Oh, Charlie.

Now, as I sat in my Camry, as a seeming armada of oversized, shiny SUVs roared by, I knew I needed someone to talk to.

I checked the time on my cell. Samantha’s kids would be settled in now, perhaps watching TV or playing video games. Samantha was probably in her home office, making notes in files on her next case. Or not. Maybe she was playing video games with them. She was close to her kids, which I admired. And she seemed to only be getting closer to them every day, which was also a byproduct of her vampirism; meaning, her supernatural gifts were rubbing off on them, too. She especially influenced her daughter, who was quickly maturing into one hell of a psychic herself.

Samantha picked up on the fourth ring. “Hello, Allie.”

I said, “So, now I’m a fourth-ring friend? One more and it goes to your voicemail.”

“
That you know how many rings before the call goes to my voicemail is a little creepy.”

“
Says the vampire.”

“
Tsk, tsk,” said Samantha. “Not over the phone.”

“
Because Big Brother might be listening?”

“
Exactly.”

“
And why would they care about us, Sam?”

“
Because we’re awesome?”

“
I suppose so. I guess they could always capture you and use your blood to create a super army of the undead.”

“
Are you quite done with this topic?” asked Sam.

“
Yeah, sorry,” I said. “I’ve had a tough day.”

There was a pause and I felt Sam scanning my thoughts. Yes, she and I were connected telepathically, even over long distances. Her feeding on me had a lot to do with that. Anyway, it was sometimes easier just to have her scan my thoughts, rather than relay them verbally. Telepathic communication was, if anything, efficient.

“Ah,” said Sam when she was done. The scan only took seconds. Telepathic communication was fast, too. Everyone should try it.

“‘
Ah’ is right,” I said glumly. I had pulled over to the side of the road, not to admire the passing autocade of the world’s nicest cars, but because I was still too shaken to drive straight. And...I couldn’t think of anywhere to go. I just needed to stop and think and cry and talk.

“
You’ve had quite a day,” said Sam. Her voice was soothing and full of the kind of understanding that only two people who are deeply connected could have. After all, she had literally just relived the highlights—and lowlights—of my day.

“
Sometimes it sucks being me,” I said.

“
Join the club,” said Sam, with a small laugh. “Then again, part of what you have become is because of me, so I’m sorry for that.”

“
Nah. Don’t be sorry. I’m just having a pity party. Truth is, I wouldn’t trade what I am now for anything in the world. And you didn’t force me to hang around with you, unless you did some weird mind trick on me or something.”

“
I have a few tricks up my sleeve, but that’s not one of them. And they call it ‘compulsion’ on
The Vampire Diaries
.”

Hearing Sam make real-life comparisons to
The Vampire Diaries
was amusing and surreal all rolled into one. I said, “Well, you’ve compelled people to tell you the truth in the past.”

“
That was just a momentary, passing thing. I barely knew what I was doing.”

I said, “So, you don’t think you could compel people for longer periods of time?”

I could almost see Sam shrug on her end of the line. Correction, I
could
actually see her shrug. I had, after all, a minor visual image of her on the periphery of my thoughts. It was an almost automatic link-up to her, a link-up that just happened without my trying. Yes, she and I were deeply connected.

“
I don’t know, but I’ll look into it.”

“
It’s a good thing you’re a good you-know-what, Sam.”

“
For now,” she said, in a rare instance of negativity. I knew that Sam the vampire wasn’t entirely sure how long she could remain “good,” which, of course, was a relative term. The thing within her—a very dark entity that had gained access to this world through her—was doing its best to control her...and to possess her completely. Such dark entities were the driving force behind vampires and werewolves. Yes, werewolves. And, yes, I even knew of a werewolf. Hell, I might have even had a small crush on him, too. Except, of course, he was Samantha Moon’s ex-boyfriend. Not to mention, he still carried a torch for her.
A major torch for her.
But, dammit, he was just so...yummy.

“
Are you quite done?” she asked.

“
Er, sorry.”

“
I mean, I can literally feel you lusting after Kingsley. That’s kind of gross.”

“
Sorry. He’s just so...never mind.”

“
Yes, he is yummy,” said Samantha, reading my mind. “He’s also a playboy and a cheat.”

“
He was set up, Sam. Some would make the argument that it wasn’t even his fault.”

“
Some?” I heard the bite in her voice.

“
Not me, of course,” I said quickly. I didn’t like pissing off my friend. Not to mention, it was probably never a good idea to piss off a vampire, especially a vampire who was presently battling a deeper darkness within. A darkness that could, at any moment, take total control of her. “But let it be known that I am officially on record for having an innocent crush on Kingsley.”