Anathema (Causal Enchantment #1)(61)

“Nathan was mine and you murdered him!” Ursula ear–piercing shriek startled me.

A chill ran down my spine. With everything else, Sofie was capable of murder.

“He never loved you,” Sofie calmly answered, pronouncing every word with slow precision.

“Oh please, save your lies.” Ursula turned her head slightly, the only indication that she was aware of Viggo and Mortimer’s presence in the shadows. “Those two imbeciles of yours hired me to watch over you five years ago. They wanted to know what kind of magic you were playing with. Of course they didn’t know who I really was.”

Sofie gasped. “I knew it!” she screeched, her finger pointing accusingly at Viggo.

“I think you’ve divulged enough information, Ursula,” Viggo said, sidestepping to close in on her, Mortimer on the other side.

“Did Sofie tell you that the pendant is a key?” Ursula asked, avoiding Viggo’s outstretched hand.

Sofie lunged for Ursula’s neck but Mortimer intercepted, holding her back.

“What do you mean?” Viggo said, a sharp undercurrent in his calm voice.

“It’s a key. Plug it into the right lock or portal and you’ll get whatever you need with it. It’s obvious to anyone looking at it, including Sofie.”

Mortimer whirled on Sofie, hurling her back to smash through a ground–level French door with the power of his wrath. “What else have you been keeping from us?” he thundered.

Ursula’s speckled green eyes darted up to lock with mine for a split second before moving on. The others didn’t notice. “I did some digging after I met your girl at the park,” she said to the others. “It was interesting … The police report for her mother’s death was in your handwriting, Viggo. If you were going to kill her, why didn’t you just bite her?”

In one fluid motion, Viggo reached up and snapped Ursula’s neck. Her body dropped to the ground, its life extinguished, her last words ringing in my ears as I collapsed to the floor.

17. Murderer

Max limped out to rub his wet nose against my cheek. It barely registered. “Is it true, Max?” I choked out.

Silence.

“Don’t go mute now. What do you know?” Max blinked, averting guilty yellow eyes. He knows something. “That woman’s crazy, right? Viggo never would have killed my mother. There’s no way, right?” I pressed, on the verge of hysteria.

I tried to stop it, Max finally answered.

“What?”

Max closed his eyes and sighed—an odd reaction from a dog—and a peculiar thing happened. Images flashed through my mind. At first they were fuzzy and faint, but the clarity strengthened until it was like a movie trailer was playing inside my head.

It was night. Someone walked along a dimly lit sidewalk on a quiet street in drizzling rain, though the person had no umbrella, just a jacket hood. The camera angle in my head shifted to show car lights approaching. There was nothing unusual about it until the car’s engine revved. The person’s head turned, the headlights illuminating a female face. The face of my mother, as young and beautiful as I remembered her.

The driver suddenly gunned it and swerved, sending the car up onto the sidewalk. I caught the fleeting look of confusion on my mother’s face a second before the car struck her.

She didn’t have a chance.

I gasped, my hands flying to my throat. So many times I had recreated the accident in my head, but this was a thousand times worse.

And it didn’t end there. The car stopped after hitting her. The door opened and the driver stepped out. I couldn’t make out a face in the shadows but I recognized that it was a man. He took several long, casual strides over to my mother’s motionless body. When he stooped over her lifeless body to dip his fingers in her blood and the headlights shone across his face, I saw a blonde man with piercing blue eyes. And I knew who it was.

Viggo murdered my mother.

I cried out as wounds that had closed but never healed tore open as surely as if it were happening all over again. Only this time the wounds gaped wider than ever before. But why? Why would they kill my mother? What did Viggo gain?

The vision blurred, then disappeared altogether. I scrambled to my feet and swayed, barely able to stand upright, then bolted into my room, intent on escaping this prison. Instead I found myself face to face with my mother’s murderer.

“Thank goodness you’re okay. You were gone four days this time. We were beginning to worry,” Viggo said, stepping forward. I recoiled. He chuckled. “Oh, you heard that nonsense? She was a delusional witch. Pay no attention.”

“Why?” I quavered. “Why would you—” I couldn’t say the words—couldn’t get them to form in my head, let alone my mouth. “I saw!” I finally whispered. Mortimer and Sofie had stepped into the room behind him, but I kept my eyes on … the murderer.

“What do you mean, you saw?” Viggo’s eyes narrowed, their typical calm morphing into something altogether unfamiliar.

I nodded toward the giant dog, now standing at my side.

“What?” Mortimer’s whisper was harsh, and his eyes bulged. “How is that possible?” He turned to Sofie. “How is this possible? Did you do this?”

Sofie’s head fell back as she laughed hysterically. “No, but it makes me so happy!”