Storm Road (Old School Book 3) Read online

  “I think the charm injured it.” Her teeth chattered. “It’ll retreat to its base, the cemetery. I don’t think it’ll hunt for fun, tonight. Children will be safe.”

  They’ll have to be, he thought grimly. Beulah couldn’t handle anything more and, in truth, something like a backlash from the charm or the ghoul had stolen his strength, too. “Into the pickup.” He bundled her into its cabin and dropped the old bible onto her lap. The single candle flame still burned. He almost fell over as he bent to extinguish it. Heedless of the melted wax, he threw it into the canvas knapsack and collected the two cameras. Perhaps they’d have recorded something useful. More importantly, he didn’t intend to leave them for anyone else to find.

  The short walk back to the pickup sent aching exhaustion through him. He staggered and caught himself against the door. “If the ghoul feels like us, it’ll be hunkered down recovering.”

  “Hope so,” she mumbled.

  He switched on the engine and drove home—back to the cabin—with fierce concentration, aware that extreme tiredness made for bad judgement and accidents.

  “Thank God,” Beulah sighed as they drove through the ward and safely onto her land.

  He parked by the side porch rather than inside the garage. Neither of them needed even a few extra steps. Although he felt a bit better now that they were safe.

  Beulah was a stubborn woman. She was out of the pickup before he could get around to help her.

  But glimpsing the stricken expression on her face, he rethought her motives. She wasn’t simply pushing to get home. Like a wounded animal she was retreating to her den to hide.

  He didn’t even consider letting her have the privacy she craved. He’d experienced her memories. Yes, they were a chaotic kaleidoscope that didn’t tell a coherent story, but they were jagged and vivid with betrayal, guilt and grief. He’d learned enough that he couldn’t let her go, not like this, not knowing the fierceness of her emotions.

  It worried him that she might have had the same experience of his memories.

  In fact, that idea froze him on the bottom porch step. Was she scared of him? His memories—his grief and regret—were of war and death. “Beulah?”

  “Come in.”

  Beulah recognized the lifeless tone of her voice as she invited Dean into the cabin. Where else would he go this time of night? She’d been like this ten years ago. A decade ago. The pain was still raw. She’d have to defeat it all over again. Contain it. She would be damned if she let the acid of her hatred wash over and corrode her life.

  Except this time, someone had seen through her every defense and knew the secrets she hid. Maybe he wouldn’t work out the details straight away. The memories of war and killing that had poured from Dean’s mind to hers were a confused jumble that obviously meant something to him, but for her, lacked a narrative. It had to be the same in reverse. Memories were as uniquely disorganized as dreams. They were ordered—or disordered—by emotion. But at some point, even hampered by his lack of knowledge of magic, Dean would work out what her memories hid.

  Why couldn’t they stay buried?

  “I hate the ghoul,” she said passionately. The words broke through her odd state and her shivers ceased. Shock, she diagnosed silently. Entering the cabin she crossed directly to the kitchen cupboard that served as her liquor cabinet. A third of a bottle of bourbon stood next to ordinary water glasses. She wasn’t much of a drinker.

  She poured two glasses, one significantly fuller than the other, and carried them to where Dean watched the flames crawl and crackle over the log he’d just added to the fire they’d left banked in the living room fireplace.

  “Thanks.” Their fingers touched as he accepted the larger glass. He swallowed half in one go.

  She sipped hers, sinking into her recliner.

  When he sat on the sofa, they stared at each other. His eyes looked haunted. He also looked…no, ashamed wasn’t the right word. But he had a wary set to his shoulders, as if waiting for her to kick him out.

  She recalled how he’d hesitated on the porch steps till she’d invited him in. As much as her own misery clung and pulled at her, she forced herself to look past it to the memories that had streamed from him to her. She saw dust and blood, felt tiredness, fear, and anger. Resolution.

  The bourbon in her glass glinted creek-water brown as it tipped and leveled, steadying as she set the glass down on the coffee table. Then she reached forward and clasped his hand. “You were a soldier. A marine,” she corrected herself. “Your memories, what you’ve done…I’m not scared of you.”

  “I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done.” He swallowed the last of his bourbon and put the glass down without looking. “I still wouldn’t want anyone, especially a woman, to have to share the memories.”

  “You saw mine.” She looked away from his intense expression, and so missed any hint of his next action.

  He pulled her up from her chair, turned her, and dropped her onto his lap.

  She landed with an inelegant “huff” of expelled air, thigh and hip bones not aligning. It was awkward, impossible, and then, he shifted and cuddled her and her protest died unspoken.

  “I don’t understand what I saw in your memories,” he said. “But I felt how badly you were hurt.”

  He cuddled her.

  She hadn’t been cuddled in years. She’d been hugged. One lecherous fellow scientist had tried to grope her. She’d even tried to unfreeze her own heart with kisses. But this, a simple cuddle, she hadn’t experienced in forever. Something in her cracked, even if she tried to deny it.

  His big hand moved up and down her spine, rubbing as a man would comfort a child.

  “Sharing memories doesn’t make us friends,” she muttered.

  “Doesn’t make us enemies, either.” He continued rubbing her back, soothing her.

  The log in the fireplace popped, sending sparks flying up the chimney.

  She stared into the flames. Her own pain was too raw for her to examine, but Dean’s memories drifted across her mental vision, superimposing themselves over the fire. She saw a warzone: ruined buildings, skinny civilians, children who stared blankly in fear. She saw blood and heard the thunder of gunfire. She felt the adrenaline that had pounded through Dean’s veins.

  The man who cuddled her had killed. He had knelt beside a dying friend, helpless. He had fought and raged and survived. But there’d been no place in that world for the tenderness he showed her now.

  He was a protector, both violent and gentle, as needed. But the world had only asked for fierceness from him. That was a violation of his spirit. His courage wasn’t just physical. He had more to give than relentless assault.

  Deeper, older memories pushed through his memories of war and courtroom conflict. These weren’t so easy to catch, and Beulah closed her eyes, frowning. There it was, a wisp of loneliness, great grief and a whimpering acceptance of rejection.

  His mother had left him. He’d been a child. She saw his dad. A marine sergeant, Dean had said, and in his memory the man was ten feet tall and stricken, crouching down to Dean. “We’ll be okay, son. You and me.”

  “Your mother left you.”

  His hand froze against her back. “You saw that in my memories?”

  “I just saw it. They’re re-running in my mind.” She didn’t want to ask, but not knowing would be worse. “Are you seeing mine?”

  “I don’t understand them.”

  She listened hard, but his statement held no hint of question or demand. He had her memories of grief, but he would respect her privacy. Would it be easier or worse to leave him with the scraps?

  “Mom left when I was nine.” He resumed rubbing her back. “She said she couldn’t handle being a military wife. We were always moving or Dad would be deployed. When Mom left, Dad accepted a desk job. Mom was furious. She’d wanted him to stay Stateside and he wouldn’t, then he did it for me.”

  “Your mom…didn’t she…why didn’t she take you with her? Did you refuse to go?”
<
br />   He pressed his face briefly against her hair. “She didn’t ask. She was leaving Dad and me behind. She remarried, had two daughters. We’re not close.”

  Beulah clasped his free hand, bringing it against her. “Their loss. You’d be a fabulous big brother.”

  He shifted slightly, as if uncomfortable, but his fingers closed around hers. “I thought you’d see the war, not other things.”

  “I saw the war, and you in the court room a couple of different times. And that was it.” She leaned heavily against him, her muscles relaxing. “I don’t know whether it was the protection charm or the ghoul that triggered the stream of memories. At a guess, I’d say the ghoul drew our bad memories up to the surface, then when you shared the protection charm with me, it overloaded. It was created to protect one person. As it broke, we caught the torrent of each other’s memories.”

  “The ghoul really focused on you,” he said. “It wasn’t so intense, yesterday. You seemed trapped. It spread around and engulfed you, and you didn’t move.”

  “It brought up my worst memories, ones that…” She shook her head, scrambling away from him. “I hate analyzing myself.”

  He let her go.

  She didn’t like that either. She’d felt safe cuddled on his lap. Her recliner was cold in comparison. She drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. “The ghoul used my memories and emotions to lock me in place. I felt I deserved whatever happened to me.” The confession took everything she had.

  The ordinary sounds of the cabin filled the silence: the crackle of the fire; the wind in the woods around the house; the distant sounds of frogs and crickets, of summer nights.

  “During my first encounter with the ghoul, it didn’t reach for my memories,” Dean said. “Even the second time, when we were together, I felt terror, but not personal grief or self-loathing. Is this a new tactic from the ghoul or a natural result of it growing stronger?” He paused. “The protection charm is broken. I think I can withstand the memories the ghoul draws up from my soul. But you…”

  “It broke me,” Beulah agreed harshly.

  “I was going to say that your grief is worse than mine. I don’t understand the images I saw…” He stopped. “I won’t leave you here alone, but I think we need to send a message out with someone else to pass on to your friends. We need help.”

  “They’ll be sending it.” She was shivering, again.

  He leaned forward to pick up her glass of bourbon. When she didn’t take it from him, he got up, dropped to a knee beside her chair, and curled her fingers around the glass.

  “It’s not alcohol that I need.”

  “You’re in shock.”

  “I—” She couldn’t argue when he was right. “Would you hold me again?”

  “Oh, honey.” He pulled her up, into his arms, and they stood there for a long minute. “You’re exhausted. You need sleep.”

  “No! I’ll have nightmares. Please, just hold me.”

  He sat back down on the sofa, arranging them both comfortably.

  She cuddled into him, waiting for her shivering to stop as she absorbed his warmth and the slow, comforting caress along her spine. “The man you saw die in my memories was my husband.”

  She couldn’t look at Dean. “I married when I was eighteen. Straight out of school, a whirlwind romance, to a man I would have done anything for. I did everything for. I wanted everything he was offering.”

  Memories of Samuel spilled through her mind. He’d been everything she wasn’t: controlled to her wildness; older; employed; certain of his ambitions. Ten years her senior. Her parents had hated the age gap, but she’d been eighteen and about to start college in New York. She’d insisted on her adult status and ignored everyone’s concerns. She’d eloped with Samuel to Las Vegas and gotten married.

  “I loved Minervalle School. I took for granted all the protections they included in their teaching. When we finished our final exams, we went for a daytrip to Brighton. It’s a seaside resort in England. Going there was a corny, retro idea, and fun—until the waterspout. We were giggling, having fun. We were so ridiculously young.” She said “young” like an insult.

  “We all do stupid stuff when we’re young.”

  “I called a waterspout. No, I created it. A water tornado. I was so thrilled at the drama. You wouldn’t believe how reckless I used to be.” She hit her knee with her fist. He caught her hand and cradled it. She pushed harder into him, seeking comfort or maybe believing he’d reject her. As she’d rejected herself. “Weather isn’t localized. It’s a global system. Creating that waterspout rippled on instantly, stirring up the water. I didn’t know that there was a small yacht out there. I didn’t even think there might be. It capsized. We heard the news as people started talking about it. Two, three, five people—we didn’t know how many had been onboard. In the end, they were all saved, but I changed. I finally realized how scary my magic is.”

  “Can be,” he said quietly.

  She barely heard the correction. “I had to control it. Not just as Minervalle School taught me, by making it part of me. I had to discipline it. That’s what attracted me to Samuel. He was so controlled.”

  “Samuel was your husband?” Dean asked. And at her nod. “Never ‘Sam’?”

  “Never.” Her smile was wry and sad. “Samuel Tennant. I even changed my surname to his when we married. I wanted to escape who I was. I envied him his confidence in his magic and how he used it. He was a wizard.” She hesitated, but it was part of the story, part of why she’d reacted as she had to the news of how Millie’s farmhouse had burned. “Samuel worked as a Stag mercenary.”

  “Like the ones who burned down Aunt Millie’s house?” Dean picked up the point immediately.

  “Yes. When magic escapes a magic user’s control, the energy can release as fire. I suspect that the two Stag mercenaries who were after Millie’s amulet found traces of its presence in the dirt beneath the barn. They’re ruthless enough to set fire to a barn to reveal whatever they’ve been contracted to recover. But burning the house…that sounds as if the fire escaped them. Samuel wouldn’t have gotten excited at his own power and lost control. The wizards involved will have been punished. Stag has a reputation for professionalism—ruthless and potentially criminal, but professional—and losing control like that damages their reputation. Also, Sadie’s boyfriend is even scarier and more powerful than a Stag mercenary. Currently, they’re all about propitiating him.”

  Talking about the situation with Millie was easier than her own tale. But now that she’d started its telling, she wanted Dean to know all of it. “I worked at controlling my impulses and my magic. Samuel was often away for work. We lived in New York. I went to college, studied and trained. I lost contact with friends and family. Samuel saw to that.” Bitterness coated her tongue, a physical sensation that mirrored her emotions.

  “He was abusive?” Dean probed cautiously for clarification.

  “He was the poster boy for it, but I didn’t recognize the signs because he didn’t physically hit me. I was isolated, full of self-hate, aware that he was better than me in every way.” At Dean’s grunt of disagreement, she patted his chest. “That was how I felt then. I went from reckless, over-confident schoolgirl, to a married woman desperate to train her power—my magic—away to nothing. It was a violent pendulum shift. I think I’m steady now in the middle.”

  “You’re too controlled,” he said.

  She wriggled around to stare at him. “Too controlled?”

  “When the ghoul attacked you, you froze. You didn’t lash out on instinct—”

  “We had a plan.”

  “And you stuck to it. Which is good. Unless our plan was wrong.” He grimaced. “But then, we needed to learn about the ghoul.”

  She frowned. “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m not sure.” He eased her back against him. “Go on with your story.”

  “I don’t know that I want to.”

  He stayed silent, not pushing her, but not
changing the subject and letting her off the hook.

  She had to make this decision.

  Against the wall to the mudroom stood the boxes of books they’d brought down from the roof space. “Samuel collected books that he hoped would give him more power. I thought he was this amazing wizard, but actually, he was barely average with regard to power. He compensated by training and ruthlessness. I just didn’t understand how ruthless he was.”

  She flexed her left hand and traced the base of her ring finger with a fingertip. “I wore his ring. I never had an engagement ring. My wedding ring was a gold band that I never took off, not once, not till he died.”

  The protection charm lay abandoned on the kitchen table, its silver tarnished, the disc cracked through. It was broken. The other way to break an enchanted object was to kill the person it was keyed to.

  “Most wizards can’t cast an enchantment spell. Samuel managed it. I guess he didn’t want to trust an enchanter with the job. I suspect it took him months to master the spell, so he must have been working on his plan before he ever met me. I was simply the first fool strong enough to power his ambitions, but weak enough to believe in him.” She inhaled against the weight pressing on her chest, the grief and rage that she’d ever fallen for Samuel’s lies.

  “He enchanted my wedding ring. It was surreal. When he put the ring on my finger I loved him so much. I truly did. But he…he obviously didn’t trust my love. He enchanted the ring with a love troth that tied me to him. While I wore the ring, I would love him. He would be my first concern.” She hated recalling how her life had revolved around Samuel. No matter how distant or angry he’d acted, she hadn’t fought for her self-respect or for his respect. “It wasn’t just the ring, though. It was everything he did. Everything I allowed. I let him make me less.”

  She stared into the fire. “I didn’t tell him about Minervalle School and the Old School network. It’s the one thing I’m proud of when I look back. Samuel did damage, but I kept him away from the Old School and its members’ power. If he’d known of them…but then, maybe if he’d confronted them, they’d have taken him down earlier. I closed out my friends to keep him from learning of the Old School, and he shut out everyone else. I only met his parents at his funeral. His mom was as cold as him.