The Wicked and the Wondrous (7 page)

“We won’t need a flashlight, Matthew. I have a couple of glow sticks. My sister Elle makes them. They work very well in the fog.” She pulled several thin tubes from the inside pocket of her cape and handed him one. “Just shake it.”

“I forgot about little Elle and her chemistry set. She blew up more missiles on the beach than any other kid at Sea Haven. Didn’t she get a full scholarship to Columbia or MIT or some other very prestigious school? One very brave to take her on?”

Kate laughed, warmth spreading through her. “They were very brave, but fortunately they turned out a remarkable physicist able to do just about anything she wants to do. Elle is a genius and utterly fearless. She’s not afraid to crawl around in caves looking at strange rock formations, and she’s not afraid of taking apart a bomb when she’s needed. Unlike me.”

“What do you mean?” Matt tightened his fingers around hers.

“My sisters do incredible things and people expect it of us, but I wouldn’t want you to think I’m capable of climbing mountains or jumping out of planes because you’ve heard of all of their exploits.” She was feeling her way in the fog rather than following the glow stick. She lifted her face to the droplets of sea moisture, inhaling to try to catch the scent of something foul. “We have to cross the highway.”

With the fog so thick there was virtually no traffic. Matt moved with her across the coastal highway and took the shortcut that led to the center of town. She was so serious all of a sudden, so distant from him, that he was actually beginning to believe she was on the trail of something evil. He could sense the stillness in her, the gathering of energy.

The survival instincts he’d honed during his years as a Ranger kicked in. His skin prickled as he went onto alert status. Adrenaline surged, and his senses grew keener. He felt the need for complete silence and wondered if he was beginning to believe in supernatural nonsense. Matt eased the glow stick inside his jacket without activating it. The fog muffled the sound of Kate’s footsteps. He was aware of her breathing, of the eerie feel of the fog itself, of everything.

By mutual consent they were silent as they walked along the street. He became aware of a slight noise. A puffing. It was distant and hushed, barely audible in the murky blanket of mist. Matt found himself straining to listen. There was a rhythm to the sound, reminding him of a bull drawing air in and out of its lungs hard before a charge. Breathing. Someone was breathing, and the sound was moving, changing directions each time they changed directions.

Matt pressed his lips to her ear. “There’s someone in the fog with us.” He was certain someone was watching them, someone quite close.

Kate tipped her head back. “Some
thing,
not someone.”

Kate turned toward the residential area. The town looked strange shrouded in the gray-white fog. Heavily decorated for Christmas, the multicolored lights on the stores and office buildings, the houses and trees gave off the peculiar glow of a fire in the strange vapor, giving the town a disturbing infernal appearance rather than a festive one. Matt wished he had brought a weapon with him. He was a good hand-to-hand fighter because he was a big man, strong, with quick reflexes and extensive training, but he had no idea what kind of adversary they faced.

Something hit him in the back, skittered down his jeans, and fell to the street. Matt whirled around to face the enemy and found nothing but fog.

“What is it?” Kate asked. Her voice was steady, but her hand, on the small of his back, was shaking.

Matt hunkered down to look at the object at his feet. “It’s a Christmas wreath, Kate. A damned Christmas wreath.” He looked around carefully, trying to penetrate the fog and see what was moving in it. He could feel the presence now, real, not imagined. He could hear the strange, labored breathing, but he couldn’t find the source.

As he stood, a second object came hurtling out of the fog to hit him in the chest. He heard the smash of glass and knew immediately that the wreath had been decorated with glass ornaments. “Let’s get out of here, off the street at least,” he said.

Kate was stubborn, shaking her head. “No, I have to face it here.”

Matt pulled Kate to him, shielding her smaller body with his own as more wreaths came flying through the air, hurled with deadly accuracy at them from every direction. He wrapped his arms around her head, pressing her face against his chest. “It’s kids,” he muttered, brushing a kiss on top of her head to reassure her. “Always playing pranks; it’s dangerous in this fog, not to mention destructive.”

He hoped it was kids. It had to be an army of kids, tearing wreaths off the doors of the houses and throwing them at passersby as a prank. He heard no laughter, not even running footsteps. He heard nothing but the rough breathing. It seemed to come out of the fog itself. The nape of his neck prickled with unease.

“It isn’t children playing a prank, Matt.” Kate sounded close to tears. “It’s much, much worse.”

“Kate.” He stroked a caress down the back of her head. Her hair was inside the hood of the cape, but his palm lingered anyway. “It isn’t the first time a group of kids decided to play around, and it won’t be the last.”

The Christmas wreaths lay around them in a circle, some smashed or crushed and others in reasonably good shape. Kate lifted her face away from his chest and took a breath. “I can smell it, can’t you?”

Matt inhaled deeply. He recognized the foul, noxious odor of the gases in the old mill. His heart jumped. “Dammit, Kate. I’m beginning to believe you. Let’s get the hell out of here before I decide I’m crazy.”

She pulled free of his arms. “Is that what you think about me? That I’m crazy?”

“Of course not. This is all just so damned odd.”

Her sea-green eyes moved over his face, a little moody, a little fey. “Well, brace yourself, it’s going to get damned odder. Stay still.”

The fog swirled around them, their faces, their feet, and bodies, spinning webs of charcoal gray matter. As at the cliff house, Matt got the impression of bony fingers, and this time they were trying to grab at Kate. Without thinking, he caught her up and started to run, the urge strong to get her away from the long gray tentacles, but the blanket of fog was thick around them.

Kate pressed her lips to his ear. “Stop! I have to try to stop it, Matthew; it’s what I do. We can’t outrun the fog, it’s everywhere.”

“Dammit, Kate, I don’t like this.” When she didn’t respond, he reluctantly put her down and stayed very close to her, ready for action.

She turned in the direction of her home, her face serene, thoughtful, yet determined. She radiated beauty, an inner fire and strength. She whispered, a soft, melodic chant that became part of the night, of the air surrounding them. She wasn’t speaking English but a language he didn’t recognize. Her voice was soothing, tranquil, a soft invitation to a place of peace and harmony with the earth.

The fog itself breathed harder, in and out, a burst of air sounding like a predatory animal with teeth and claws. The mist seemed to vibrate with anger, roiling and spinning and growing darker. Gray fog whirled around the Christmas wreaths at Matt’s feet, spinning fast enough to lift them into the air. Bright green wreaths withered and blackened as if all the life was being sucked out of them. The objects reminded Matt of the garlands at funerals rather than the cheery decorations for a holiday, and each of them seemed to be aimed straight toward Kate.

His breath caught in his throat, and his heart pounded. Kate looked small and fragile under the onslaught of the vicious gray-black vapor. He moved, a fluid glide that took him into the path of the blackened garlands so that they smashed into his larger frame. Kate ignored the fog and the wreaths, concentrating on something inside of herself. She stared toward the house on the cliffs and abruptly lifted her arms straight up into the air. The wind rushed in from the ocean with wild force. It carried the crisp scent of the sea, the taste and feel of the waves, and a spray of salt. It also carried voices, soft and melodious and very feminine. The wind swept through the fogbank, the voices swelling in strength, Kate’s voice joining theirs until they were in perfect harmony, in total command.

The spinning Christmas wreaths dropped to the road. The fog receded, heading inland, blanketing the residential homes; but the wind was persistent, shifting directions and herding the fog back toward the ocean. Kate looked translucent, her skin pale and beaded with moisture, wisps of hair clinging to her face, but she didn’t falter. Her voice brought a sense of peace, of tranquillity, of something beautiful and satisfying. It filled Matt with longing for a home and a family of his own. It filled him with a deep sense of pride and respect for Kate Drake.

He watched the fog reluctantly retreat until it was far out over the ocean, dissipated by the force of the wind. There was a silence left behind in the vacuum of the tempest. Kate dropped her arms as if they were leaden. She staggered. He leaped forward to catch her before she collapsed, swinging her into his arms and cradling her against his chest.

“It’s growing in strength. I couldn’t have sent it away if my sisters hadn’t helped.” Kate looked up at him with frightened eyes.

Matt kissed her. It was the only thing he could think to do. She seemed weightless in his arms. He kissed her eyes and the tip of her nose and settled his mouth, feather-light over hers. “It’s all right now, Kate. Rest. You sent it away. Tell me what you need.” He could see that every drop of her strength had been used up in fighting the unseen enemy in the fog. She’d made a believer out of him. He was a man of action, having spent several years in the service training to protect his countrymen, yet there had been nothing he could do to stop the evil shadow in the mist. “What is it?”

She rubbed her face tiredly against his jacket. “I don’t know, Matthew, I honestly don’t know.”

“How did you know what to say to it? What language it would understand?”

“I didn’t know. I was using a healing chant my family has passed down from generation to generation. I was attempting to heal its spirit.”

He stared at her, trying not to look shocked. The dark shadow seemed beyond any sort of redemption to him, something dark and dangerous, looking for a chance to strike out at anything or anyone around it.

Kate looked at the wreaths strewn all over the road. “Strange that he would choose to attack us with the wreaths.”

“Strange that it could use them at all. Do you think it’s a he?”

She shrugged. “It felt male to me.”

The adrenaline was beginning to subside, but he continued to eye the cliffs warily. “I’m never going to look at fog again in the same way.”

“A wreath is a continuous circle, Matthew, and it symbolizes real love, unconditional, true affection that never ceases.” Her voice was thoughtful.

“I didn’t feel love flowing out of the fog,” he answered. He began walking back in the direction of her house, Kate in his arms.

“But he tore the Christmas wreaths off every door on the street and threw them.”

“At
us,”
he said grimly. “I’m used to looking my enemy in the eye, Katie, fighting him with weapons or my bare hands. I couldn’t exactly grab the fog and throttle it, although I wanted to.”

“Put me down, Matthew, I’m too heavy for you to carry all that way.”

“I was a Ranger for ten years, Katie, I think I can pack your weight with no problem.”

She wasn’t going to argue, she was just too drained. “Ten years. That’s right, you joined right out of college. I’ve been wandering around so much, and I knew you didn’t live here, but your family always made it seem as if you were here.”

“I spent my leave here, every chance I could. I picked up my life here again immediately after I got out of the service because the family business was waiting for me. My father and brothers kept me a part of it, even though they did all the work.”

“Why did you join the Rangers, Matthew? As soon as I heard, I researched what they were all about. It was very—” she hesitated, searching for the right word—“intense. And frightening. Why would you want to do something like that?”

“I’ve always needed to push myself to find out my limits. And I believe in my country, so it seemed a perfect fit for me. The Rangers embody everything I believe in. Move farther and faster and fight harder than any other soldier. Never surrender, never leave a fallen comrade, survive and carry out the mission under any conditions.”

Kate sighed heavily and turned her face into his shoulder, hiding her expression from him. Something about that sigh gave Matt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to ask her about it, but by the time he reached the path leading to the house, Kate was asleep.

“K
ATE.
K
ATIE.
W
AKE UP, HON.”
T
HE SOFT VOICE
beckoned Kate from layers of sleep. “You need to eat now, wake up.”

Kate opened her eyes and stretched, blinking drowsily up at her sister. “Sarah. What are you doing here?” She pushed at the heavy fall of hair tumbling around her face. She always braided her hair before she went to bed, yet it was everywhere. She turned her head and went still. Matthew Granite was sprawled in a chair beside her bed, his silver gaze trained intently on her face. Her stomach did a funny little flip.

A slow smile softened his tough features, lit his gray eyes, and stole her heart. “You’re finally awake. I was getting worried.”

“You slept in the chair?” Kate couldn’t imagine his large body finding a relaxing position in her bedroom chair.

“Well, I did want to share your bed, but I was worried about your sisters giving me the evil eye.” His smile widened into a teasing grin. “Jonas slunk out of here a couple of hours ago afraid even to drink a cup of coffee. He warned me one of you might slip an eye of newt into my coffee, so I thought it best to stay in everyone’s good graces.”

“You like coffee that much, do you? Enough to stay in our good graces?” She couldn’t stop looking at him. There was a blue-black shadow along his jaw, and his clothes were rumpled, but it didn’t make him any less attractive to her. “Just so I’m not the one slipping the eye of newt to you, why are you sleeping in my room?” She glared at Sarah rather than at Matt.

Sarah held her hands up, palm out. “We all tried to get him to leave last night, Kate, but he wouldn’t go. Granite might be his last name, but it’s also what he’s made of. No one could budge him. Jonas tried scaring him off, but that didn’t work either.”

Kate tried not to be pleased. She tried to frown at Matt, to pretend displeasure, but there was no way she could carry it off, so she gave up. He just winked at her anyway, looking sexier than ever with the dark stubble shadowing his jaw.

Sarah sat on the edge of the bed. “I hate interrupting, but you have to eat. You expended far too much energy last night. Even Joley called and was feeling drained.” She waved a hand toward the drapes, and, to Matt’s astonishment, the curtain slid open to allow the morning light to pour in. “I know you don’t feel hungry, you never do afterward, but you have to eat for all of us.”

Neither Kate nor Sarah seemed to think anything was unusual. Matt blinked several times to test his eyesight.

“How’s Hannah?” Kate sat up, thankful she was still wearing her clothes. Matt and her sisters must have removed her cape and her shoes and socks before putting her in her bed, but at least she was safely clad in her slacks and blouse. “I couldn’t believe with all of us working on her, she still had an attack. That’s the first time I can remember that our joining together failed her.”

Sarah glanced at Matt and hesitated. He raised his hands. “If you need to be alone with Kate, I’ll go on down to the kitchen and see what kind of trouble I can get into.” He stretched out his hand to Kate, resting it palm down on the bed.

“It’s just that Hannah is such a private person, Matthew.” Kate placed her hand over his. “She was embarrassed that it happened in front of you and Jonas. Especially Jonas.”

“It? You mean her asthma attack?” He turned his hand to circle hers with his fingers, knowing she was trusting him with something private. “It was an asthma attack, wasn’t it?”

“Not exactly.” Kate sighed. “I wish Jonas would let up on her a little bit.”

“She seems to be able to dish it right back to him.” Matt leaned over to brush strands of hair from her face. “I don’t quite get your relationship with Jonas, but I served with him in the Rangers. Jonas, me, and Jackson Deveau. Jonas is a good man.”

“Jackson Deveau is the deputy who scares the hell out of everyone,” Sarah informed Kate when she frowned. “You must have seen him a few times. He doesn’t ever say much, but he looks lethal. He came to Sea Haven with Jonas when he returned from the Army.”

“Jackson’s a good man too,” Matt said.

Kate hadn’t met the deputy because she hadn’t been back long, and she tended to wrap herself up in the cocoon of her own world. “I take it Jackson isn’t from here originally.”

“No, but he often came to Sea Haven on leave with us. He had no family and nowhere else to go when he left the service, so we asked him to come back with us. This town is friendly and tolerant, and Jackson needs tolerance. He’s family to us. As for Jonas, you have to understand him. I saw him go in under heavy fire to drag a wounded man out of a battle zone. He carried that man for miles on his back. And Jackson…” He broke off, shaking his head. “I know Jonas watches over you all.”

“Like a hawk,” Sarah interjected dryly.

Matt shrugged. “Maybe it’s because he really cares about all of you.”

“Don’t worry about our relationship with Jonas,” Kate said. “We all love him dearly, even when we want to conjure up a spell to turn him into a toad.”

Matt cleared his throat, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and sat back in his chair. “Can you really do that?”

Kate exchanged a mischievous grin with Sarah. “You never know about the Drake sisters. Really, Matthew, Jonas is intertwined deeply with our family. He always seems to know when something is wrong. He’s sensitive to things not seen with the human eye.”

Sarah leaned toward Matt. “You felt it last night, didn’t you, when you were in the fog with Kate, and we joined with her? You knew something was wrong.”

Matt sighed. “I don’t know what happened last night, but I sure as hell don’t want Kate facing anything like that again.” His gray eyes smoldered with something dangerous as he looked at Kate. “I didn’t like the way the fog seemed to be attacking you.”

Sarah gasped. “What do you mean attacking her?”

“Nothing came at me,” Kate denied hastily. “Really, Sarah, it was just throwing Christmas decorations around and Matthew was actually hit a few times. I was never touched.”

Sarah looked at Matt steadily. “Why did you think it was after Kate?”

“I stepped in front of her to protect her. The wreaths were thrown, but not very hard in the beginning, yet when Katie began to talk to it, whatever it is, the Christmas wreaths were thrown much more forcefully and with greater accuracy.”

“Were you hurt?” Kate looked suddenly anxious, coming up on her knees on the bed to look at him. “Libby’s the best at healing, but Sarah….”

“I’m fine,” Matt said, but wished he didn’t have to admit it. She looked incredibly beautiful leaning toward him with her hair tousled and her eyes enormous with concern for him.

“Kate—” Abbey stuck her head in the room—“Gina over at the preschool says something’s wrong, and she needs you. I could hear the children crying in the background. I told her you weren’t well, but she said it was an emergency. She said she needed your help. I’ll go if I absolutely have to go.”

Abbey was clearly apprehensive about going in Kate’s place. Matt looked at Sarah. “What does Kate have to do with the preschool?”

“Haven’t you noticed Kate has a gift for calming people with her voice? She’s able to bring peace to even the most distressed person or situation,” Sarah answered.

“Is that what your lives are like? People need you, and it doesn’t matter if you’re tired or not, you just go to them.”

“We were born with certain gifts, Matt,” Kate said. “We’ve always known we were meant to serve others. Yes, it isn’t always easy, and all of us have to have ways of protecting ourselves but when we can help, we have to go.”

“How do they know to call you?”

Sarah smiled. “You were older than us, Matthew, ahead of us in school, so you really weren’t around when our talents began to develop. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors, but you didn’t witness what we could do the way other people in town did. Jonas has always connected with us in some way, so it was easy enough for him to believe.”

“Kate?” Abbey prompted.

“I’ll go. Give me a few minutes to shower and have a cup of tea.”

Matt followed her to the bathroom door. “I don’t like this, Kate. You look fragile to me. I think Sarah’s right. You need to stay home.”

Sarah’s eyebrow shot up. “Did I say that?”

Kate rubbed a caress along Matt’s stubbly jaw right in front of her sisters, then closed the bathroom door on his startled expression. When he turned around, Sarah and Abbey were grinning at him. “She doesn’t listen, does she?” he asked.

“Not very well,” Sarah agreed. “Kate may be quiet about it, but she goes her own way and does what she thinks is right.”

“Do you have another bathroom so I can clean up really fast?”

Sarah grinned at him. “I even have an extra toothbrush. You’ve got that look in your eye when you look at her.”

He followed her down the hall. “What look?”

“You look at her like you can’t wait to kiss her,” Sarah said. “A toothbrush is definitely in order.”

“Does she have something against the Rangers?” Matt asked, remembering the small sigh from the night before. It had haunted him most of the night.

Sarah pushed open a door to a powder blue bathroom. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

“No reason. Thanks, Sarah.” Matt didn’t want to think about that strange little sigh of Kate’s. She wasn’t the type of woman to react that way unless she had a reason. He’d ask her about it later. He hurried through his shower wanting to get back to her.

Kate was still in the bathroom when he returned to her room. He rested his palm on the door, the exact level as her head. “Come out of there, Katie, you’re beautiful enough without working at it.”

From behind the door she laughed. “How do you know? You took a terrible chance staying. You could have woken up and my mask could have slipped off in the middle of the night.”

“I didn’t go to sleep. I watched over you.”

There was a small shocked silence. Kate jerked the door open and stared up at him. “You must be exhausted. Go home and go to bed.”

“I’d rather go with you.” He reached out and pulled her to him. Her body fit perfectly against his, as if made to be there.

“Matthew.” There was hesitation in Kate’s voice.

He kissed her. He didn’t want her to voice her reservations. Kissing her was a much better and far more enjoyable idea. It was magic, if there was such a thing, and he was beginning to believe there was. He meant for it to be a brief, good morning kiss, a gentle shut-up-and-just-kiss-me kiss, but she caught fire, or he did, and they both just went up in flames. He wanted more than to kiss her, he wanted to touch her, to claim her soft body, to feel her moving beneath him, her hands clinging…

“Stop!”

Matt and Kate drew apart, their hearts racing, and blinked at each other, then looked around in surprise to see Sarah, Hannah, and Abbey in the doorway glaring at them.

“Kate,” Sarah said, taking a deep breath. “You know we’re all connected in some way. You can’t be in such close proximity to us and carry on like that. We’re all in overdrive, thank you very much.”

Unrepentant, Matt grinned at them as he pulled Kate tight against him. “Sorry about that. We’re off to see some preschoolers.” Kate hid her face in his shoulder, trying not to laugh. He did the gentlemanly thing and got her out of there quickly, waving at Damon, Sarah’s fiancé, as they hurried past him.

“The man should thank us,” he whispered, and pretended to wince when Kate smacked his arm.

Kate stared out the window of the Mustang at the white-capped ocean as they drove along the highway toward the exit to the street where the preschool was located. “The fogbank is very thick out over the ocean,” she said, a note of apprehension in her voice. “See how dark it is, more gray than white, and it seems to be churning.” She turned her gaze on Matt. “I should have been more careful. Somewhere in the diaries there has to be something about this strange phenomenon.”

“What diaries? You’ve mentioned the diaries before. How can they help?”

“My family keeps a history, books handed down generation to generation. Somewhere this event had to be recorded. The problem is, all of us were supposed to learn the earlier languages used, but we gave it a half-hearted attempt. All of us know a little, but Elle really can read it. We have to decipher the books.”

Matt turned the car onto the exit. “You think this thing is coming back.”

“I know it is. Can’t you feel it on the wind?”

He could only feel how close he was to her. How just out of his reach she always seemed to be. Matt parked the car in the lot at the preschool, and they sat for a moment, absorbing the unnatural silence. There were no children playing in the small yard.

Kate squared her shoulders. “Do you want to wait out here?”

For an answer, he got out of the car and went around to open her door. He wasn’t about to miss his opportunity to see more clearly what Kate’s life was all about.

Gina Farley greeted them with obvious relief as they entered. Many of the children were sobbing and sniffling as if they’d been crying a long time. Some of the children stared silently at Kate and Matt with large, frightened eyes. Others hid their faces. In the room were several adults, many of whom Matt recognized and nodded to.