Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) (43 page)

AJ Myers lives in her own little world—but according to the IRS, she actually resides in Arkansas—with her husband, who she loves more than life, her four amazing kids, and a crazy cast of family and friends who keep things interesting.

AJ can be found on the web:
www.ajmyersnovel.com
 

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Or contacted by email:
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Enjoy this sneak peek of the next book in AJ Myers' Mystics & Mayhem series:

Something Wicked

Coming December 15, 2012!

Something Wicked

Chapter One:

Secrets and Serial Killers

“Three murders in three weeks!” 

I looked up from my Trig book just in time to see the newspaper that my best friend, Kim, had been reading fly across the table between us in the Oakhurst Academy library.  I caught it just in time to keep it from smacking me in the face.  Rolling my eyes, I settled back in my chair and started scanning the story on the front page. 

“What the hell is the Donut
doing
?” I muttered as I read the short article next to the picture of yet another teenage girl who’d been found mutilated and murdered.  “Seriously, Sheriff Martin needs to start looking into other career options.  There’s no
way
he’s getting re-elected after this.  Three murders and still no
suspects
?”

Sheriff Martin—better known as Deputy Donut to the youth of Moonlight, Missouri—had never been my favorite person, but I had at least thought he was semi-competent.  After reading about the deaths of three girls my age, I was starting to lose that faith.  How could there be no suspects when the guy kept dumping the girls in the same place?  Hell, even
I
could see a pattern there!

I finally let my eyes drift over to the picture of the latest victim of Moonlight’s very own serial killer and felt a chill slip down my spine as I pictured the girls who had died before her.  The three girls looked so much alike they could have been triplets.  They had the same long curly hair, the same delicate bone structure, even the same sweet, innocent smile.  And they were all dead, their lives cut short before they even really got the chance to live them.

“They’re calling him
Blood Red
?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from that young face that would never get any older. 

“Yeah, because of the hair.” 

I looked up just to in time to see Kim’s perfect face go completely pale. 

“What about the hair?” I demanded.  “Do they know who this guy
is
?”

“They’re not calling him that because of
his
hair,” she mumbled, dropping her eyes.  “They’re calling him that because of what he does to his
victims’
hair.”

Frowning, I scanned the story in front of me again.  And then again.  There was nothing there that would give me the first clue what she was talking about.  Actually, the article didn’t really tell me anything, except that another girl had been found behind the ruins of the creepy old church at the edge of town.  Despite the fact that patrols had been set up to watch the crumbling relic, the killer had managed to dump yet another body there. 

Nothing about the girl’s hair was even
hinted
at.

“Let me guess,” I said finally, tossing the paper back across the table between us.  “Adam?”

I knew the second she started fidgeting that I was right and just shook my head at her.  Blake’s brother, Adam, had recently graduated from the police academy and had taken a job with the local Sheriff’s department.  Given the fact that he had never been able to keep his mouth shut about
anything
, I didn’t see him making it a month before they fired him.

“He only told me, and only because he’s worried,” she whispered hurriedly, leaning across the table so we wouldn’t be overheard by Mrs.  Fletcher, the Oakhurst librarian, who was shelving books nearby—and shooting us vicious looks for trying to hold a conversation within the sacred confines of her precious library.  “He’s worried about
you,
Em.”

“Me?” I repeated, frowning.  “Why on earth would he be worried about
me
?”

Her eyes darted around, taking in all the people around us.  The library wasn’t really crowded, but there were enough people studying at the tables nearby to make her nervous—and, of course, dear Mrs.  Fletcher had yet to move from her perch on the ladder behind us even though there didn’t seem to be any more books in her arms to be shelved.  Nosy old bird. 

Deciding it was too risky to talk out loud, Kim pulled her phone out of her bag and her fingers started flying over the screen.  A second later, my phone vibrated.  I pulled up the message—and then just sat there staring at it, goosebumps rippling up my arms.

He’s dyeing their hair red, Em.  Like yours. 

Okay, because
that
wasn’t creepy or anything, right?  My eyes drifted from my phone to the picture of the girl still smiling at us from the paper on the table between us, trying to picture what she would look like with red hair.  Unfortunately, it was just a little too easy to imagine her looking just like yours truly. 
Disturbingly
easy, in fact.

“He’s sending a message, Em,” Kim whispered.   She looked as tense and nervous as I suddenly felt.

“How do they get that?” I asked, frowning at her.  “I mean, did Adam say anything else?”

“About the killer?  No,” Kim said, rubbing her forehead like she was getting a headache.  “But he did say they’re looking for Jack again.  It’s kind of suspicious, ya know?  He comes up missing, and all these girls start showing up dead?  Given how weird he was acting before he disappeared, I can’t really blame them for thinking it might be him.”

I kept my eyes trained on the paper, so she wouldn’t see the flash of sadness and guilt in my eyes at the mention of Jack.  They could look for my old friend all they wanted, but they wouldn’t find him.  There were only four people on the planet who knew what had happened to Jack, and none of them would ever tell.

Including me.

“It’s not Jack,” I told her in a whisper, damning the tears in my eyes.  I couldn’t say Jack’s name without remembering the way I’d last seen him.  Being sucked into a portal to spend the rest of his miserable existence on the Lost Plane.  A portal
I
had created.  And every single time, it broke my heart.

But
that
wasn’t Jack,
I told myself for the millionth time. 
Jack was dead long before you sent that demon into the void.  You know that, Em, so stop beating yourself up!

I might have been able to make myself believe that if it hadn’t been for the dreams.  They had started exactly one week after I’d sent the demon to the void.  The only problem was, they didn’t seem like dreams.  They seemed too vivid, too real.  And in every single one of them, Jack was begging me to help him.  Not the demonic version, but the real Jack.  My friend, the guy who had annoyed me and made me laugh and drove me crazy. 

But I couldn’t help him.  Nobody could.

 “How do you
know
it’s not Jack, Em?” Kim asked, studying me through narrowed eyes.  “I mean, you seem pretty sure.  What?  Is he still sending you Candygrams or something?”

“No, I just know it’s not him,” I mumbled, going back to my Trig homework.  Even when I sensed she was still staring at me, I didn’t lift my eyes from the hieroglyphic-like equation before me.

“Like you just
knew
where my grandmother’s cameo was in the fourth grade?” she asked quietly. 

“Yeah, something like that,” I said on a sigh, pretending a fascination with my homework I was never actually going to experience. 

She was quiet for so long that I thought she was going to let it go.  So when her hand slammed down on the table between us, I was nearly startled out of my chair.  I looked up to find her glaring at me, her dark eyes full of tears and hurt. 

“That’s it,” she hissed between her teeth, completely ignoring the way everyone had turned to stare at us—and the irritated shushing noises Mrs.  Fletcher was making behind us.  “I want to know
who
the hell you are, and what you’ve done with my best friend!”

“Kim—” I began, but she cut me off.

“Don’t, Ember!” she snapped as a tear rolled down her cheek.  “I don’t want to hear any more lies.  And that’s all you’ve done since you mysteriously disappeared last month!  One lie after another after another!  And do you know how I know you’re lying to me, Em?  Because you
suck
at it!  And do you know how I know
that
?  Because I know
you
better than anyone on this planet, that’s how!”

“I explained about that, Kim,” I said, sighing again as I prepared myself to lie some more—and feeling like shit because I had to.  “I went to Washington because Grams needed me.  I didn’t have time to call you, and I didn’t realize I didn’t have my phone until I was already on the plane.”

“And yet, you had time to pick up your new boyfriend on the way,” Kim sneered, her expression hard as stone.  “What?  Was he on sale in the airport gift shop?”

“Wait!” I said, returning her glare.  “Wasn’t it you and Blake who left me on the side of the road with a perfect stranger?”

“Well, I never thought you’d
move in
with him!” she practically snarled. 

“That didn’t happen until I got back,” I defended myself, glad that I could at least tell her one thing that was true.  “I told you, Mom and I had a fight because I went to Washington without telling her.  It got ugly, and I moved out.  I ran into Nathan again at that nasty-ass coffee shop on Oak.  We got to talking, and he offered to rent me a room.”

“Uh-huh.  His?” Kim asked with a bitter laugh.  “And before you lie to me again, don’t.  I’ve seen the two of you together.  I
know
that relationship is not platonic, Ember.”

She had me there, and I knew it.  There wasn’t anything platonic about my relationship with my vampire kidnapper.  Passionate might have been a good descriptor.  Maddening would have worked, too, seeing as Nathan exemplified the three P’s—Possessive, Protective, and Paranoid.  It had taken an all-out fight to get him to let me go back to school after what had happened with Jack. 

Mostly, though, I would have just gone with ‘complicated’ as the word to best describe our relationship.  Yeah, complicated was a
very
good description.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to give Nathan my heart.  Given that he looked like a Greek god or something, with his dark hair, mesmerizing hazel eyes, and tall muscular body, he was really hard to resist.  And there had been
so
many times in the last month when I was close to giving him what he wanted and completing the soul mate bond Demon Jack had interrupted.  But in the end, it came down to trust.  And there was part of me that just couldn’t take that leap and trust him. 

And all because of his mark. 

Though he swore he never would, he could control me through the pearlescent trinity and heart shaped knot on my neck, the mark he had given me the night he bit me.  If he wanted me to do something, I would do it.  If he wanted me to see or hear or think whatever he wanted, I would.  And if he wanted me to love him, I wouldn’t have a choice.  Knowing he had that power over me, that potential to take away my free will, kept me from being able to truly give him the two things he claimed to want most. 

My trust…and my heart.

“Kim, me and Nathan…we’re—”

“Complicated.  Yeah, you’ve said that,” Kim said angrily, getting up and starting to cram her things back into her backpack.  “You know what, Em?  I’m done.  When you’re ready to tell me the truth, you know where to find me.”

“Kim!”

“No, Ember,” she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and tossing her hair long dark hair back before leveling a cold look right at me.  “I don’t want to hear it.  When the Ember I know and love comes back, tell her to give me a call. 
That
Ember didn’t lie to me every time she opened her mouth.”

With that, she turned on her heel and stomped out of the library, the sound of the last bell of the day serenading her departure.  I sat there, watching her go, knowing there wasn’t anything I could do to make things better.  Even after the last of my fellow seniors had followed her out, I continued to sit there, wondering how my life had gotten so crazy.  It was the thought of Nathan waiting in the parking lot—and the thought of Kim getting to him before I did—that finally pushed me into movement.  Gathering up my own crap, I headed for my locker.

I stopped halfway down the hall and stared at Jack’s locker for a long minute, Kim’s words echoing in my head.  There were cards and pictures taped all over the front of it, a tribute to the football star and friend we had all lost.  Since Jack had disappeared without a trace, taking nothing with him, it was widely believed he was dead. 

Only, I knew it was true.  If I had any doubts about that, the memory of his screams as I shoved him into the void was all the proof I needed.  There was also the fact that he hadn’t been seen or heard from since.  His parents were offering a
huge
reward for any information, but no one had come to collect.  There had been no activity on his credit cards, and his cell phone hadn’t been used since the day before I banished him—a fact we had learned from the local PD thanks to Nathan’s vampy compulsion skills. 

Besides, Grams had been doing daily demon searches and hadn’t come up with anything.  Mrs. Amelia had been casting daily wards over Moonlight too, promising me that if anything even remotely demonic entered the city limits, she would know.  It was like he had dropped off the face of the planet.  Which I guess, in a way, he had.