Chasing Shadows(37)
Diarmid came out of the plane as we were saying goodbye to Jake. The canine shifter nodded and quickly and climbed into his car, and with a final wave he took off across the tarmac, headed for the exit.
“Mida, darling,” my father said as he walked down the few steps to the ground.
I turned reluctantly as I was about to round the end of the truck to get in on the passenger side. “Yes?”
He smiled genially. “Despite the lack of total harmony we endured on this voyage, I wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed spending this time with you. I hold to my word that I will make sure our people understand your bondmate is not to be harmed.”
“I very much appreciate that,” I replied, hoping I sounded grateful. I did feel grateful, but the man was so damn hard to trust that my gratitude was edged with wariness.
Diarmid smiled and turned to Mark, who stood by the open driver’s door. “My daughter is very important to me. See that you never incur my wrath by causing her pain. Do we understand each other, Mr. Singleton?”
“As long as you understand that the reverse is also true,” Mark replied succinctly.
My father smiled and nodded. “Well said, young man,” he said to him, then turned back to me. He kissed me on both cheeks again and then embraced me, to which I awkwardly responded by wrapping my arms around him briefly. Diarmid then stepped back, and with a nod at Lochlan, walked over and got into another waiting limousine.
We watched it drive away, and then I said to Lochlan, who had driven his own car, “You’ll see that Gail is taken care of?”
He nodded. “Aye. She’ll be well looked after by yours truly.”
“Thanks, Loch. For everything.”
My brother reached over and embraced me heartily. “You’re quite welcome,” he said, then stood back and offered Mark his hand. “Congratulations on learning you’re a little more a freak of nature than you thought you were, brother.”
Mark laughed as he shook his hand. “I’m glad for it, believe me. One less thing to have to worry about, knowing I get to stay with Saphrona forever.”
Lochlan rolled his eyes at that, but he smiled. After bidding Juliette a farewell, he turned and climbed back into the airplane to tend to Gail.
The three of us then climbed into my truck and headed home. It occurred to me that by the time we reached the farm it would be almost 12:30 in the morning, leaving a good six hours to sleep before we’d have to get up and start our regular day. Grateful that Mark had offered to drive, I leaned my head on his shoulder and drifted off even though I had slept some on the plane, but was woken a few moments later by the ringing of my cell phone. Concern flashed when I saw Harry Mitchell’s number on the caller I.D.
“Harry, what’s wrong? Is one of the animals sick?” I said without preamble, knowing there was no way he’d be calling unless he had bad news to impart.
“Oh God, Saphrona,” Harry’s weary, worried voice came over the line. My concern became full-fledged fear. “I’m sorry, honey, I’m so sorry.”
“Harry, what happened?” I asked, praying that Moe and Cissy and my farm animals were alright.
“Your… Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Somebody set your barn on fire.”
*****
“What?!” I roared, and had to stop myself from crushing the phone in my hand.
The volume of my voice awoke Juliette, who had drifted off in the back seat. She leaned forward as Mark reached for my hand.
“I heard fire trucks a little while ago, making all kinds o’ ruckus, so I went and looked out the window and I could see the flames from my place. I’m down at your place now, but they won’t let me up the road too close,” Harry told me.
I screamed again, and did not care if I shattered the windshield. Mark pulled over to the side of the road and yanked the parking break, then gathered me into his arms as tears began falling down my face.
“Harry, what about…what about the animals? What about my animals?! And my house! What about my house? Moe and Cissy are in there!”
“They told me the house hasn’t been touched, but the barn’s a goner,” my neighbor replied. “I won’t know about the barn animals until they get the fire under control. Honey, I’m so sorry.”
I could no longer speak—I could only cling to Mark and sob. I was vaguely aware of Juliette taking the cell phone out of my hand and speaking to Harry, then relaying the story to Mark as to what had happened.
After venting my pain through tears and soaking Mark’s t-shirt, the anger began to creep in. I sat up and wiped my eyes furiously, a slow burn of a different kind beginning in my chest. “Let’s go,” I said, and Mark nodded wordlessly, putting the truck back in gear and taking off down the road.
Based on where we had pulled over, it would normally have taken another forty minutes to get home. Mark virtually ignored the speed limit and we made it in twenty, turning onto our street and pulling to a stop behind a long line of police cars and fire trucks. He hadn’t yet engaged the parking brake when I opened my door and threw myself out, taking off at a run. A couple of police officers tried to stop me, but I threw them off—I had to get closer, to see.
To smell. I knew that if I could get close enough, I would know if my beloved horses and cows and pigs and chickens had perished in the blaze.
A burly fireman grabbed me as I started up my tree-lined driveway. “You can’t go up there, ma’am.”
“That’s my house—my house, damn it! My barn! I have animals in there! I have to know if they’re okay!” I hollered, shoving him off of me.
He grabbed for me again as Mark and Juliette caught up, and the former of the two relieved the fireman of the duty of restraining me. “Ma’am—”
“Saphrona!”
I turned and saw Harry Mitchell coming toward me. Mark let me go and I ran to him. “Harry, the animals—are you sure you don’t know anything about the animals?” I asked desperately.
He surprised me by nodding. “I just got a call from Tommy—he said he just found the horses over by our back pasture.”
Relief, although fleeting, crashed through me. “All four of them?” I pressed hopefully.
Harry nodded again. “I had the boys go looking in the woods, in case any of the animals might have escaped. Tommy said he and Billy only found the horses. They’re putting them in our barn for safe keeping.”
Mark had wrapped his arms around me again. “Some good news at least,” he said. “And you’re sure the house is safe?”
The other man nodded. “The fireman you were just talking to said the house is fine, though it was a good thing they got here when they did or it would have been a different story.”
“How did they know?” Juliette wondered. “If you didn’t even know until you heard the fire trucks, how did the fire department know to come out here?”
Harry shrugged. “Somebody driving by must’ve seen it and called it in,” he said.
Juliette pointed toward the house. “The house and barn are about five hundred feet into the woods, and there are so many trees here you can barely see anything from the road, especially at night. The barn would have had to already be engulfed for someone to see it from here,” she said.
Harry shrugged again and I turned away, looking back toward my home. I felt so heartsick. I was worried about the other barn animals, worried about how frightened Moe and Cissy must be. I wanted to wrap my arms around the neck of each of my horses to assure myself that they were really alive…
And I wanted to find the son of a bitch who had done this. How dare someone come out here and risk the lives of my animals, destroy my property, threaten my home and my livelihood? And for goodness’ sake, why? Why had they done this to me? Was I a specific target or just a random one? Was someone out to get me, or was the fire started by a couple of kids just out screwing around? I almost wished it was someone out to get me, because at least then I would have a focus for my anger—I couldn’t hate what I didn’t know or understand, and right now, I wanted to hate the bastard who had destroyed my life.
Of course, I really had no idea who would want to do something like this to me. I was friendly with all my neighbors, when I chanced to see them. I was friendly with the people in town when I went shopping, too. Truth was I was pretty much a loner. I kept my head down and my nose clean and I didn’t draw any attention to myself—it was a law of vampire society not to draw attention! Only in the last few days had my daily routine changed, ever since Evangeline had come to me with Diarmid’s request and Mark had come into my life.
I was struck with the sudden realization that the only explanation for this had to be related to one or both of those events. Diarmid wanting me to seek out Vivian Drake and her source of information was drawing me back into the twisted world of vampire politics, something else I had been glad to escape when I’d left. And Mark’s appearance in my life had led me to learn that some of the things I’d believed my entire life were nothing but lies. I was also likely to be drawn into the world of the shapeshifters—with my soulmate’s sister being one, there would be no escaping it.