Page 25 of Wind with a Chance of Wolfsbane

“My informant says that he heard Helen took off with scrolls, books, and artifacts from the family vaults,” said Leo. “He didn’t have all the details, but it sounds like she took anything of value and got the hell out of Dodge.”

“Shit,” said Reggie. “The curator wouldn’t have let that happen willingly. Dowethink he’s dead?”

The curators did as their name suggested. They collected and oversaw important items that involved supernaturals. Each line of slayers had curators who worked with them and for them, but ultimately, they answered to an overseeing body of curators that were separate from the slayer lines. The Van Helsing line had the most curators assigned to it because it was the largest. The Murrays had a number of them as well, but Jonathan wasn’t entirely sure how many had been assigned to Helen’s splintered group.

There had been a time he’d been more up on the happenings of the Murray line but all that changed when Alvin Murray, the former head of the line, died. The mantle passed to his younger sister, Helen. In Jonathan’s opinion, that was the beginning of the end for the Murrays. Within a few short years of the man’s passing, Alvin’s younger brothers had cut ties with Helen, and she had gone off the rails.

“I’ll reach out to Simon and Ash Murray,” said Jonathan, knowing he’d be opening a can of worms. “They may be willing to share something about their sister with me that they wouldn’t with others.”

“How well do you know them?” asked Reggie.

“Well enough,” replied Jonathan.

Leo watched him closely. “You know, I never really thought about it before, but did you know your name is the same exact name as a character from Stoker’s novelDracula?”

“Hey, that book has a Murray in it too,” said Reggie, sounding proud of himself for knowing something. “Forget her first name, though.”

“Wilhelmina,” said Jonathan, emotions lodging in his throat.

Jonathan grunted as he thought about the novel that he and Wilhelmina had become legendary for. Of course, everyone reading Bram Stoker’s book assumed they were reading pure fiction. There was a grain of truth in everything, and Stoker had done a good job of masking the truth with smart misdirects. Well, most of them had been good. The one he’d decided on for Jonathan and Wilhelmina had a little something left to be desired. Namely, they’d never been engaged, nor had they married.

He and Wilhelmina had been close since they’d been young, so much so that many thought they’d marry. While there had been a brief romance between them, it had never blossomed into something real. Something more.

Once, when Wilhelmina had still been alive and had been in her later years, the two had sat down together, each with a copy of Stoker’s novel. They’d written their thoughts on sections of it, basically annotating their copies. It had been a way for them to log their truths of it all and set the record straight.

It had been at the suggestion of Dr. John Seward, who had been part of the group of people who had faced off against Dracula and then Dragos. Seward had come to know Wilhelmina during the major event in their past and had remained friends with her too, until her dying day.

Even Dracula himself had come on the day they laid Wilhelmina’s body to rest. He’d not shown himself, but every man present had felt him there, in the area, watching from afar. No one had sought him out, deciding instead to permit the Prince of Darkness to process things in his own manner.

Annotating the novel helped Jonathan work through some of his anger at the situation and the misrepresentations of his life the novel put forth for all to read, but more than that, it helped him understand that the past couldn’t be changed and that no one version of it was better than another.

It simply was what it was.

Many, many years later, when Hollywood came along and decided to add yet another layer of romance to Stoker’s tale, Jonathan had given up attempting to speak his truth. Let them think he and Wilhelmina had been in love. It didn’t matter.

Truth was, he did love her—as one of his dearest friends. And she had been instrumental in helping with the events in Romania over a hundred years ago.

Unfortunately, Jonathan had lost his annotated copy of Stoker’s novel decades ago and had once asked Simon and Ash if they’d happened to see it in any of the Murray family’s vaults. Neither had any idea what Jonathan was referring to.

Jonathan would have asked Helen before the meltdown, but she’d had a chip on her shoulder when it came to him from day one. He wasn’t sure why she hated him as much as she did. His interactions with her prior to Alvin’s passing had been limited. It was as if she had something to prove to the world, though Jonathan wasn’t sure what that something was.

“Boss, you went quiet,” said Leo. “Nothing else to add to the fact you share a name with a character from that novel and that in the novel, your namesake is married to a Murray?”

“I have a lot to say on it,” said Jonathan. “But all you need to know is—it’s fiction.”

ChapterEight

Willa

“You’re not going backto bed.” Mina rolled her eyes flippantly. “Helen is on the hunt for something big and bad here. We should be out there helping. Supernaturals are all soul-sucking monsters who need to be stopped.”

“Now you soundjustlike Helen,” I fired back, knowing it was a hit below the belt. I was tired and cranky.

“Is that so bad?” she asked.

“Dad would have said yes,” I returned.

“I don’t remember him enough to know,” she said, sadness touching her voice.

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