Page 5 of Fated Protector

I place the ornate key into the crack, feeling just as awkward as I did with the strange knob on the front door. Once again, the cement and stone begin to mold around the key.

“What the hell,” I whisper as the brick liquifies and covers the key like a wave of molten lava.

Jack’s grip on my shoulders tightens, but his touch isn’t painful, merely comforting. “Go on, turn it.”

With a flick of my wrist, I turn the key. The fireplace emits a mechanical groan, and the entire unit swings open toward me. Jack tugs me out of the way as a new room is revealed behind the hearth.

“That can’t be real,” I say, staring into the open space. “That can’t be real.”

“It’s real, darlin’,” he says. “I promise you that.”

“This is the back wall. There’s nothing behind it but the garden.”

“Is that right?” he says with a Cheshire Cat grin, explaining absolutely nothing. “Go on inside.”

Inside is a mirror room of the bookstore, at least architecturally. But instead of children’s novels and how-to books, the shelves are filled with old tomes, glass bottles with sparkling liquids inside, and miscellaneous objects that have no rhyme or reason for being there. I pick up a feathered triangular thing between my fingertips and grimace.

“What is this?” I say, flipping it in my hand.

“Looks like an owl wing,” Jack says, tracing the edge. I yelp and drop it, letting it fall to the floor.

“They’re good for revenge spells,” he grins. “Pluck a feather from the wing and throw it into a potion, and your enemies won’t sleep for days. Pretty hard to be an enemy when you can barely stay awake.”

I blink at him. “You’re…ridiculous.”

“Am I?” Again with the Cheshire Cat grin and non-answers. I open my mouth to retort but stop when a small, pale shape catches my eye from behind the sales counter.

“Jack?” I say on an exhale, and he instantly tenses. “What is that?” It isn’t moving, but it feels wrong, so wrong.

“Annabelle,” he warns, and there is something sharp and dangerous about his tone. “Stay here.” He moves toward it, but I duck ahead of him, sliding into a kneel on the floor.

It’s not an object. It’s a hand, one wearing a cheap cubic zirconia ring that I had bought in fifth grade with my allowance. A ring that I had given to Sasha for Christmas.

“Oh, God.” I follow the pale hand up to a lifeless arm, and then to a lifeless body, and then… blood.

So much blood.

There’s a whining noise in the air, like a siren, and it takes me a moment before I realize the sound is me. I scramble back from Sasha’s body, keening to myself. I crash into something warm and solid, and arms come around me.

“Don’t look,cher,” Jack pleads into my ear. “Don’t look. Please.” With his wide palm, he tilts my head away from the carnage, his thumb catching the first of many tears.

“It’s not her,” I murmur over short, sharp breaths. “It’s not her; it’s not her.”

Jack doesn’t bother to correct me. We both already know the truth.

CHAPTER4

JACK

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” drones the old minister over the plain coffin of Miss Sasha Boudreaux. I clutch the antique rosary in my pocket and hold back a laugh. How fitting that Sasha, who turned so many vampires to ash in her life, has now become ash herself. I’m sure if she were here, she’d look at me with those playful brown eyes and say something like, “Jack, baby, you know how it is. Circle of life and all that.”

Circle of life, indeed. Apparently, if you kill rogue vampires all your life, when it’s time for you to go, a rogue vampire’s gonna kill you right back.

At least they didn’t change Sasha. It was hard enough seeing that pretty niece of hers find her aunt’s body in such a gruesome way. It would have been much worse if I’d also had to stake her through the chest.

The pretty niece in question sniffles from her chair in front of the coffin, her eyes blank. Next to her is the spitting image of Sasha, at least if Sasha were a workaholic with no creativity. Her twin sister Sarah almost looks like a parody of the vibrant bookseller, which isn’t nice to think about a grieving woman. But when you’ve adored one twin your whole adult life and then she’s gone, anyone wearing her face will have to take our sadness and frustration.

Speaking of the pretty niece, eyes burning with relentless tears, she raises her head and looks around at the attendees. Her eyes widen in surprise as our gazes meet. Apparently, she hadn't realized I was there. Funny, because I'd been aware of her from the minute I'd walked into the church.

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