Bedeviled Page 2

  Taking advantage of the creature’s momentary distraction, Maggie reared up and back, planted one foot in the female’s belly and kicked out, giving herself just enough room to spring up off Joe’s desk and charge. She had zero idea what she was going to do now, but she was just so darn mad, she wasn’t really thinking. Besides, her opponent was looking a little worried, which evened out the playing field a bit.

  Swinging that pendant as if she were aiming for a home run in Dodger Stadium, Maggie cracked the heavy gold-and-crystal bauble into the creature’s head again and again. Fury was riding along with terror, but clearly her rage was still in the driver’s seat. The wildest part, though, was that instead of fighting back, the creature was cowering in a corner, her tail wrapped around her body. Like she was afraid of the very necklace she’d been wearing only a minute or two ago.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? You can’t just go around eating people!” Maggie shouted. She knew she wasn’t making much sense, but then, she was willing to bet that not a lot of people would have been at their best in this situation.

  “No, stop!” The naked female raised both hands, trying to ward off the pendant, but by this time Maggie was just too pissed to care. “Don’t. You ignorant human, you’ll kill us all.”

  “Oh, please, like I’m going to believe something that wanted to eat me!”

  Still swinging that pendant, Maggie reminded herself that this thing had turned Joe into an all-you-can-eat buffet and had planned to do the same thing to her. So no guilt here. Just righteous indignation and a hell of an ache in the arm that was still swinging that heavy pendant.

  The creature was whimpering now, moaning, and Maggie’s fury was starting to fizzle out—though she kept swinging that heavy pendant—when the next weird thing happened.

  The crystal front on the pendant shattered, and a whirling tornado of golden light spilled from it. The minitwister seemed to grow and expand, almost like it was alive and breathing. There was a swishing sort of sound as what looked like spinning gold dust lifted up and down in the still air, and Maggie backed up. She looked at the broken piece of jewelry and then to the tornado that was wrapping itself around the now-screaming, naked whatever.

  “Oh, crap,” she whispered, looking around the room as if searching for help that wasn’t coming. “Out of the frying pan and straight into the bonfire.”

  That naked female curled itself up into a ball of keening wimpiness—all of her teeth-baring aggression was gone now as she tried to make herself so small that the golden tornado wouldn’t find her. Maggie knew just how she felt. She grabbed up her purse and clutched it to her like it was a shield. She should have been running—she knew that—but somehow she couldn’t make herself stop watching. Horrified, she saw the whirling gold cloud settle over what had eaten Joe and, in an instant, reduce whatever it had been to a pile of lint on the floor.

  “Ohmigod.” One word, because she was just too freaked for three. That gold whirlwind spiraled up toward the ceiling, then did a quick about-face. It was moving away from the lint pile and headed toward Maggie. “God. So I’m not going to be eaten; I’m going to be a dust bunny instead. This cannot be happening.”

  But it was. She dodged to the left and the vortex moved with her. She leaped right and the damn thing kept pace.

  Her tennis shoes slid in something slimy that she so didn’t want to identify. Heartbeat thundering hard in her chest, she bolted around the edge of the desk, headed for the door. She didn’t even come close.

  The whirlwind hit her and felt like what she imagined getting slammed into by a train might. Pain. Lots of pain. She staggered, dropped her purse and fell to all fours while the golden cloud settled down over her, sinking into her skin, sliding through her body. She felt it merging with her, traveling through her system, giving her what felt like the fever of the century. Soon, she thought wildly, she’d be lint.

  Maggie thought about her sister, her niece. She wouldn’t see them again. Wouldn’t ever find a guy incapable of boring her to death. Wouldn’t become a famous artist and live in Paris. Hell, she wouldn’t even get to see the next Harry Potter movie. Game over.

  Groaning, Maggie hung her head, stared down at the floor and realized she couldn’t see it, which was probably not a good sign. She couldn’t breathe, either. Was this what that . . . thing had felt? Gagging, coughing, eyes streaming tears, Maggie would have thought she’d been Maced, but as it turned out, this was so much worse.

  Visions spilled through her mind: Of a city she’d never seen before, filled with shining crystal buildings and floating people. Huge, ancient trees with windows cut into their trunks lined streets that shone brightly in the sunlight. Fields of flowers stretched out for miles and then blurred into a wash of vibrant color. Then those images faded and other, less pleasant pictures showed up. Creatures like the one who’d just died, and so many others that looked far scarier.

  Maggie shook her head, trying to dislodge the images; then she groaned, coughed and struggled to breathe. Slowly the visions faded until there was only one last picture rising up in her mind.

  A pair of eyes.

  Familiar. Pale green.

  Staring right through her.

  And then it was over.

  She could almost see again, and breathing was easier. She wasn’t dead, and even the nausea was fading, so Maggie gratefully sucked in air like a drowned person after CPR. She felt ragged, like she’d been beaten up by experts.

  “Crap,” she muttered to no one, since Joe was gone and the female was dust. “What the hell was that?”

  Naturally she got no answer, so she collapsed onto the floor, letting her face slap into Joe’s ugly, industrial beige carpeting that somehow smelled like sulfur. Her whole body ached like she’d been at the gym—which was why she avoided most exercise.

  But there was a strange sensation of power settling into her, which she could not explain at all. Along with the aches and pains she felt, there was a kind of strength beginning to build inside her that just made absolutely no sense. Still, what about the last fifteen minutes could she possibly explain?

  She needed to get away from here. Fast. Before anything else bizarre could happen.

  “You gotta get up, Mags,” she told herself. “Get up and get out of here.”

  Her vision was still a little wonky, but only at the edges, and who needed peripheral vision anyway? She pulled in a shaky deep breath and told herself again to get a move on. Who knew what else might show up in Joe’s little office of the damned?

  That thought was apparently enough to engage all of her engines. Reaching up, she laid one hand on the edge of Joe’s desk to pull herself to her feet. But when she yanked the heavy wood snapped in two. She sat there for a second, staring at the hunk of oak in her hand, then tossed it aside, muttered, “Termites,” and got up on her own.

  A little wobbly, but considering what she’d just been through, not too bad. “This is not happening,” she told herself, avoiding looking at Joe’s desk chair. “It’s all a weird dream brought on by too much wine and ice cream last night. That’s all it is. I’ll wake up any minute now and promise never to sin like that again. All good.”

  Joe wasn’t gone. There wasn’t a dead whatever sprinkled across the floor, and Maggie hadn’t just killed it. Things like that simply didn’t happen. Feeling better the farther into the land of Denial she went, Maggie reached down to pick up her purse and that’s when she noticed it. Her fingertips were glowing. Like the pendant had been. Her skin actually looked as if it were lit from within.

  “Vision’s still bad, that’s all.” She shoved one hand through her shoulder-length, dark auburn hair, took in a long, deep breath and tried to steady the wobble in her knees. Slinging her purse up and over her shoulder, she curled her fingers into her palms and made a break for Joe’s door.

  If this was a dream, she was perfectly safe. She never died in her own dreams, even if it looked a little iffy now and then. If this wasn’t a dream? Then she needed to
get gone before some other hungry something showed up.

  What was that thing? Some kind of mutant? An animal of some kind? But that didn’t make sense. No animal she’d ever heard of had the body of a woman and the tail of a lizard.

  “Oh, God.” That freaked-out feeling rose up inside her again, and she moved even faster, headed for the stairwell that would take her down to the street, where she’d parked her PT Cruiser.

  Her steps on the cement stairs sounded like a frantic heartbeat echoing around her as she took them two at a time. Going down stairs was always easier than up, and who had the time or patience to wait for an elevator? She couldn’t stand still now, anyway. If something hideous and ugly didn’t show up, someone else might. And how would she explain the glowing fingers, let alone what had to be her wild eyes and heavy breathing? Not to mention that if she had to tell someone she’d been in to see Joe, then she’d have to explain that nasty stain on Joe’s chair—oh, God. How could she possibly do that?

  She hit the bottom level, charged the door and stepped into sunlight. Thank God. She raced to her car and hopped inside, locking herself in. Glancing into her rearview mirror, she caught the look of shock in her own blue eyes and knew she was still feeling the effects of whatever had just happened. And something had definitely happened. She was out of breath, her fingers were still glowing and she still had the stink of sulfur up her nose.

  Scanning the area, she saw only the everyday: people scrambling for parking places, shoppers marching down the sidewalk determinedly swinging full shopping bags, bright splotches of chrysanthemums blooming in the pots attached to light posts.

  The world looked so . . . normal. It was the world she knew. The world she wanted. She wished, desperately, that she could be as ignorant of what had just happened as all of these other people were. This side street in Castle Bay, California, was crowded with too many cars and pedestrians. She couldn’t have a meltdown here. Someone would see her, and then what?

  Letting her head fall against the seat back, Maggie blew out a breath. She didn’t know what to do. Call the police was her first thought, but she pooh-poohed that one right away. What could she possibly report? Yes, Joe was dead, but there was no body. And the thing that had killed him was gone, too. Besides, did she really want to call the police and open the conversation with, Hello, I just killed a monster. Who do I talk to?

  Good for one free ticket to a luxurious stay at the nearest rubber room.

  “Go get a mocha, Maggie. Starbucks. Where we head during a rough day. Yep. Mocha. Maybe a doughnut,” she told herself firmly. “Then go home. Where nothing weird ever happens.”

  Good plan.

  She grabbed the steering wheel with her still-glowing fingers and it snapped in two. She wanted to cry. “That’s just great. Great.”

  Then, carefully holding on to what was left of her steering wheel, she fired up the engine and got the hell outta Dodge.

  Culhane entered the small, old home with a blur of movement that would have been undetected by any human. If there’d been one around. But he knew the moment he shifted that he was alone in the place.

  His long black hair fell to his shoulders, and he swung it back and out of his way as he moved silently through the house, cataloging every room in his mind.

  There was a creative spirit alive in the room where canvases leaned against an easel and droplets of paint splashed the walls. He looked through the stacked paintings, feeding his curiosity. Most of them centered on the sea or the lighthouse. Misty wisps of fog crowded around fishing boats that looked like toys dropped into a sea so big it could swallow them. There was life here. And talent in good measure. But then, he’d expected no less.

  He moved on. The next room was where she slept and dreamed. Her scent surrounded him as he noted the clothing dropped on the floors and chairs, as if she’d simply been too busy to pick them up. Sunlight filtered through the lacy curtains hanging at the windows as he left her room, her scent following him, tempting him. It seeped into his mind, his soul, and stirred something Culhane deliberately ignored.

  He walked on, opening doors, exploring rooms that were empty yet pulsed with the memories of lives lived. Now she was imprinted on this place. She lived here. The one who had been foretold. The one he’d waited centuries for. Finally, today, it had begun. He’d felt the burst of power and sensed Maggie Donovan take her first step into his world.

  He was tall, even for a Fenian, standing almost six feet, five inches. His legs were long, his arms muscular and the harsh planes of his face rarely twisted into a smile. He’d lived too long, fought too hard to find much worth smiling about.

  And now, when the time of change had finally arrived, he would be forced to deal with a human woman to accomplish his goals.

  “Human,” he muttered darkly, his gaze sweeping over the small rooms, crowded with what those of her kind no doubt believed to be necessities. Soft chairs, warm rugs, pillows on beds and in her kitchen, food enough to feed a clan of warriors.

  Culhane prowled the house again, this time looking for hints into what kind of woman Maggie Donovan had become. He would need all the information he could gather for when he faced her to tell her of her destiny.

  Maggie was supposed to be at the local hardware store, painting an idyllic holiday scene on the wide front windows. Yes, all that training and studying in art school had really paid off. Her hand-painted displays of clearance signs, going-out-of-business placards and Christmas scenes were the best in the state.

  But at the moment she simply wasn’t in the mood to deal with painting smiling snowmen, dancing elves and holiday wreaths. Besides, she thought, who knew if she could hold a damn paintbrush without it snapping into kindling in her grip?

  Her steering wheel was only a half circle now, thanks to the glow that hadn’t quite left her fingertips, so now probably wasn’t the best time to mingle with people who wouldn’t understand her sudden freakish strength any more than she did.

  Fear was a small knot of misery in the pit of her stomach. She had to figure out what was happening to her. But for now what she had to do was pick up her niece at middle school.

  A couple of years ago Maggie’s older sister, Nora, got a divorce and moved back to California with her daughter, Eileen. Now the two of them lived in the guesthouse behind Maggie’s place, and it had worked out well for everyone. At the moment Nora was in New Mexico at some drum-banging festival to get her chakras or some damn thing realigned, so Eileen was staying with Maggie.

  At twelve, the youngest Donovan was tall and thin and blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view), with the Donovan coloring: dark red hair, pale blue eyes and milky white skin. And just like her mother and aunt, if Eileen spent longer than fifteen minutes in direct sunlight, freckles dotted her skin until she looked as though she’d been sprinkled with gold paint.

  No, she’d never get a tan, but there were compensations. All those cute blondes tanning to a luscious brown would one day have skin that looked like beef jerky. True, not much compensation when you were a pale twelve-year-old, but it was at least something to look forward to.

  Maggie parked outside the school, watched the crowds of kids exploding from the old brick building and felt her tension sliding away. All it took was a few minutes here to bring her world back into its normal focus again.

  This was real life. This was so far removed from the bizarre nightmare scene in Joe’s office, it was like a ray of sunshine spearing down out of a black sky.

  Here she knew the rules: Don’t block the driveway, ignore the PTA psychos who were directing traffic and, most important, never hug Eileen in front of her friends.

  Maggie scanned the herd of hundreds of kids for Eileen’s telltale height and distinctive hair. When she spotted her, Maggie grinned and reached across the seat to carefully open the car door.

  “Hi,” Eileen said when she dropped into the passenger seat and shoved her backpack onto the floor at her feet. “You’ll never believe what happened. My best f
riend, Amber, was talking to Justin, who said Dennis told him that Grant said that he kind of liked me.” Her eyes were bright as stars. “Isn’t that cool? Amazing. Grant Carter likes me.”

  Hmm.

  Romance in the seventh grade. God. First Joe getting eaten, and now she had to worry about Eileen getting interested in boys. Nora should be here doing this.

  “Uh, how old is Grant?”

  Eileen hugged herself, then buckled her seat belt. “Oh, he’s already thirteen.”

  Safe then, Maggie told herself. Or if not safe, then not exactly an emergency. If her niece had said this amazing, wonderful, supercool Grant Carter was fifteen, then Maggie would have had to lock her in a closet.

  “Do you think Mom will let me wear makeup?”

  “As soon as you’re twenty,” Maggie assured her, and started the car engine.