Page 31 of Midlife Vampire Unexpected

“The harpies?” I looked at her curiously.

She nodded and waved me into action. “Remember those two kids who were killed? They were harpies, but they have a whole clan of people who live out here.”

“Harpies are dark Fae. They don’t really mesh in New Attica, but the demigods gave them a nicer home than they’d be given from the Fae of any type. They stay away from most of the rest of us and do their jobs, but they understand as the watchers they’ll be able to contact anyone necessary to protect the cemetery. I think under the circumstances we can call them. We’ve got them under control. It won’t bring too much attention to us. They’ll go and get Thrain and bring him here.

“What was the one harpy‘s name? The father of the kid?” Bianca asked.

“Toth,” I said. “I’ve got his number for when we did the inquest.”

It seemed a bit strange, but I held onto these moments when I could do my normal job. It was something I understood how to do. I could pick up a phone and call someone who had a lead. I could talk to them about the lead and I could look for the truth of a situation. I knew how to do that.

I glanced at Antonio as I walked out the door.

I didn’t know how to think about him.

I didn’t know how to think about him at all.

Chapter 21

I stood on the front porch of The Estate talking to Toth, letting him know that we’d found out who had been responsible for the death of his son and his son’s girlfriend. It was the weirdest news to deliver. I was always grateful that I could help somebody gain some closure, but in doing so, it ripped open the wound again, which in this case wasn’t very old. The kids had only been dead a short time. The parents were probably still getting used to the idea of spending the rest of their life without their children.

It must’ve been what my parents had gone through, only for them, it was my sister. My older sister, who had lived to be about ten and then had gotten ill and died. The doctors should’ve had more clarity on exactly what had killed her, but they didn’t know. My parents had grieved for years and years and then, ten years later, they had decided the solution was to have another child. That’s when I was born. Twenty years after their first joy and ten years after their greatest grief. They cherished me, but it was through no fault of their own I could tell they weren’t truly raising me; they were raising my sister again. And then after I turned ten, they didn’t quite know what to do with me. I didn’t quite fit into their idea of what their daughter was supposed to look like or be like.

I’d joined the military to get away. After four years in the army, I’d returned home and joined the police force. I was disciplined and regimented, and much different from my colleagues who flirted on the edge of the law even though they were the ones upholding it.

“We want to come in and see it,” Toth said.

“The it you’re talking about is one of the Coven members, who’s hosting the demon inside of her right now.” I said. “She’s not exactly taking visitors at the moment, but we need Thrain. If he comes, you can come with him, but we need him to take charge of the demon and get it out of her.”

The call was cut short, not by any part of my own, but by a loud shout that rang out from the back of the house.

“She’s gone!” Drake yelled.

I turned around and dashed up to the house. The red room was empty.

“Who was watching her?”

“I went into the game to tell them I couldn’t play tonight.” Drake looked beside himself with worry.

“Never mind,” I said. “She can’t have gotten far. Were any of the doors open?”

We all fanned out and began looking in all directions for her. Mae went upstairs to the bedrooms to see if she’d stayed in the house. Somehow the demon must’ve wheedled its way through the binding spell we had on it. It was possibly getting help from the other side.

“She’s not in the house,” Bianca announced as I cleared the kitchen and the library. Mae cleared upstairs and Bianca cleared the other rooms downstairs.

“She’s headed down to the cemetery,” Anita called from the backyard. We all ran out to the back terrace and looked. It was easy to see where she was. She was glowing. Not with demon fire, but with a pale turquoise light that was uniquely her own.

“What if she’s melded so far with the demon, we can’t separate them?” Bianca asked.

“We can’t think like that,” Mae said. “She’s a member of our Coven. She’s part of the Pentacle of Time and the blood bond of our ancestors. We have to get her and we have to make sure the demon gets out of her. There’s no other option. We can’t let her leave us. Without her, we are not a Coven.”

Mae’s words gave me a warm feeling in the pit of my stomach. There was something about her strength and surety. We were bonded, we were a family, we were a group of people who were meant to be together. I loved that about us. It was one of the reasons why I had always loved the military and that I had always searched for a type of brotherhood in the force. I had found it when I was first there, but as people had started getting married, my friendship groups had dwindled. Then, when I found out that my closest friends were working on the wrong side of the law, I much severed all in the Indianapolis Police Force.

“God dammit!” Antonio swore. I turned around to glimpse him shifting into a wolf. He raced behind the hind legs of Bianca, who had already shifted and was heading toward the blue glowing light moving toward the cemetery.

I knew I could move as fast, if not faster than them, but Jane seem to have powers of her own at the moment. Or the demon inside her did.

I raced through the undergrowth and the pathway leading down to the cemetery. The ground was a blur under my feet as I overtook the wolves and homed in on Jane. The pulse was coming in strong and electric, but there was something else. Jane was at the side gate when I closed in on her.

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