Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4) Read online

  “Yeah, he works for a bunch of idiots like Jimmy here,” Katie groused.

  “Stop it,” Deidre said, putting her hand on Katie’s arm. “Not tonight. Let this go.”

  Katie whirled to face her, tears streaming down her face. “When then, huh, Dee? When do we talk about shit? When Jimmy’s had his nap?”

  “I’m your Seneschal,” Jimmy growled.

  “No,” Katie said, turning back to him. “I’m not one of your little soldiers you can boss around. I’m your sister. And this is as much my house as it is yours. Mom and dad left it to both of us. So, you can get off your damn high horse and leave me the fuck alone.”

  That was news to me. Made sense; but Jimmy didn’t like hearing it.

  She turned and stalked down the hallway. Jimmy started to go after her, but I stepped in front of him again. “Let her go,” I said. “You need to calm down and tell me how this got so far out of control.”

  Jimmy looked down at me, then turned to look at Deidre. She nodded and he stepped back, pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down.

  I took that as a good sign and did the same.

  “She’s up to something,” he said, making two fists on top of the table. “I caught her sneaking around the house a couple of times and it’s just creepy. I don’t have anything to hide from her.”

  “Beyond the ring and whatever those other two statues are in your safe deposit box, right?”

  “Don’t you start, too,” he said.

  The family was coming apart at the seams. It had only been a year since the dragons went live in our communal psyche. We’d lost a lot of good people trying to fight back the crazy shit in the world. I just never thought I’d see Jimmy coming this unglued.

  “So, what if she’s poking around?” I asked.

  “It’s the journal,” Deidre said. “Her mom’s diary, the one that almost killed Jimmy.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s missing,” Jimmy said. “When I asked her about it she got pretty ugly.”

  “It’s like she’s another person,” Deidre said.

  I looked at her, then back at Jim. Was she another person? They’ve known her a lot longer than I have, but I was around her more and in more intimate situations. I didn’t think she was a different person, like she was possessed or anything. But she was definitely changed by the events of the last year. Who wouldn’t be?

  “She’s having a hard time,” I said, confirming their fears by the look they exchanged. “The doctors still don’t know what’s causing her to be so wiped out all the time, and the nose bleeds haven’t stopped.”

  “I think it’s the diary,” Jimmy said.

  “No,” Deidre said, shaking her head. “This started before I showed her the diary.”

  Jim glanced in her direction for a second, but looked down at his hands. There was bad blood over that decision. I was not going to step into this marriage, they’d have to come to terms with that on their own.

  “It all started out at that house,” Deidre continued. “Something happened when she was out there, the time the witch got trapped out there. I noticed things were different then.”

  That far back? I considered her behavior back to last fall, just after her birthday. Things have been crazy for a year. I was having a hard time picking out any particular event that was a change.

  “You don’t see it,” Deidre said, patting me on the hand. “You’re with her every day. These changes have been more subtle, building over time. We don’t hardly see her anymore and the differences are noticeable.”

  “Like what?” I asked, suddenly very concerned.

  “She used to be so damned optimistic,” she said, smiling at Jimmy. “Both of them were.”

  Jimmy shrugged but I could tell he was calming down. There was a lot of anger boiling underneath the surface of that man. Anger made you reckless. I knew that first hand.

  “But it’s more than that,” Jimmy said, finally. His voice cracking as he spoke. “She doesn’t trust me. I can see it when she looks at me.”

  “What? No.” I looked at him, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye. “She loves you.”

  “Something’s broken,” he mumbled and pushed his chair back. Neither of us stopped him as he crossed the kitchen and went out the back door.

  “He’s right,” Deidre said. “She’s gotten pushy, demanding.”

  I thought about our lunch with Charlie Hague. “Has she tried to get you to tell her things? Like she was compelling you?”

  Deidre quirked her eyebrows up, questioningly. “No, but Jimmy said something about that, how she had brow beat him into telling her about family stuff, trying to see if he was keeping anything back.”

  I sighed. She said she’d done it a time or two before.

  “Did she have another nosebleed?”

  “Yeah, vomiting and headache,” she said. “Was a couple of weeks ago. She’d come out while you were out with Julie over in Cle Elum.”

  I remembered that day. Julie and I had driven over to visit with Frank Rodriguez. We were going to be gone late so Katie and Jai Li had stayed out at Black Briar. Katie had missed school the next day, sick.

  “But Jimmy’s losing it, too,” I said. “Is there something else going on that I’m not aware of?”

  She smiled at me. “Everything’s changing,” she said. “Gunther has moved Anezka in with him, so he doesn’t come over as often. Stuart is making himself more scarce as well. I think Jim’s just missing his friends, and he’s worried sick about Katie.”

  “And the diary?”

  She sighed. “I know Katie took it. The girl could never lie to me. She’s got a right to it, but this is just childish behavior. Jimmy’s afraid he’s going to lose her. He won’t admit it publicly, but,” she leaned in, lowering her voice, “he’s been having dreams where she’s calling for help, lost someplace we can’t find her. Night after night, he wakes up agitated. I think he was crying the other morning, but you’d never get him to admit it.” She shook her head.

  “Damn.” I sat there looking her Deidre. We both loved the remaining members of the Cornett family, and they were both pulling away from us, lost in their own worlds of pain and fear.

  “I’ll talk to her,” I said, pushing my chair back.

  Deidre waved me toward the hallway. “I expect she’s down in her old room crying her eyes out. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Seven

  I started down the hall and Deidre rolled out the back door after Jim. I checked in Katie’s old room, the one we’d just stayed in, and she wasn’t there. That was odd. I checked the bathroom, the other two guest rooms, and even poked my head into Jimmy and Deidre’s room. She wasn’t there. There wasn’t a back door, so unless she crawled out one of the windows, she’d vanished into thin air.

  The way things have been lately, that was a possibility. Hell, Skella could’ve grabbed her and taken her through a mirror, or Bub could’ve done a snatch and grab, porting her elsewhere.

  But I didn’t really think those were real possibilities. I was walking back down the hall to go outside and ask around when I noticed one of the wall panels was cocked up. I touched it and it swung open revealing a set of stairs going down.

  This was the secret(ish) bunker of the Cornett’s. I ducked and stepped into the shadows of the stairs and pulled the door closed behind me with a soft click.

  “Katie?” I called softly.

  I heard something down below. At the bend in the stairs I paused, remembering a story Katie had told me about the first time she and Jimmy had come down here. Her father and mother had gone off to help some refugees who were escaping from Canada and the dragon there. They were being chased by giants. Made my head hurt just to think of those events as someone’s history and not fiction.

  I turned and started down the remaining stairs, emerging into the bunker in all its eclectic glory. I’d been down her twice before, once with Katie, and once with Jimmy, Gunther, and Stuart. The place was a cross between
Indiana Jones’ secret lair and a rummage sale. There were artifacts stacked everywhere, overflowing book shelves and display cases, and in the center of the north wall, the huge dragon map.

  Opposite the map were two leather chair and a small table between them. Katie was curled up in one of the chairs staring at the map. I squatted down next to her and stroked her hair.

  “Hey, babe. You doing okay?”

  She didn’t answer right away, but placed her hand on mine. We sat there quietly for a few minutes. I shifted and sat down on my knees and she sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her nose must have been bleeding a little because she smeared red across the side of her face.

  “All those lights,” she said, pointing to the map. “I dream about those lights.” She turned in her seat, taking my hands in hers. “All those dragons, Sarah. How can we ever win?”

  I squeezed her hands and smiled. “We win by staying alive, by loving each other, and by staying true to who we are.”

  More tears sprang into her eyes and she took a long shuddering breath. “I think I’m lost,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I know who I am any longer.”

  I leaned forward, pulling her into me, wrapping my arms around her. “I know who you are,” I said, quietly. “You’re Kathryn Elizabeth Cornett. You are a warrior and a skald, a teacher and a lover. And above all else, in my world, you are the sun and the moon.” I paused as she squeezed me harder, like maybe she was drowning. “You’re my one true love, Katie. Forever and for true.”

  We sat there for a few more minutes, just holding one another. Eventually she pulled back far enough to kiss me once on the mouth than sat back and rubbed her face. More blood.

  I went to stand, but she held me back. “Wait,” she said, pulling a pack of tissues from her pocket and wiping her face. She wiped a bit of wetness from my cheeks that could’ve been tears, I couldn’t say for sure. Then she sat back with one hand holding a wad of tissues to her nose and the other clasping my hand to her chest.

  I watched her face as she tilted forward to prevent the blood from draining back down her throat and choking her. She had her eyes closed, and by the little lines along the sides of her eyes, I could tell she was in pain.

  Of course, by this time, my legs were starting to go numb, but I wasn’t moving, not for anything. Not until she was ready.

  First her breath started to calm and find a more soothing rhythm. Then she fluttered her eyes open, glancing first at the map, then over at me. Then she let my hand go and sat up straight.

  “I’m sorry I’m such a jerk,” she said, a wry smile playing on her lips.

  “Do we somehow have our roles reversed?” I asked her. “Isn’t it my job to apologize?”

  She laughed a little, nothing too much, but a brief moment of quiet release.

  I tried to stand then, but my legs were nothing but pins and needles. I leaned against her chair, and she stood, helping to pull me to my feet.

  “Sorry,” she said again as I waddled around in a circle, stamping my feet and gritting my teeth as the nerves starting firing all at once.

  Once I was flexible again, I put my arms around her waist and turned toward the map, pointing to the upper left of the United States, toward the only light to be snuffed out by human hands in recorded history.

  “We don’t have to beat them all,” I said. “We just have to defend ourselves against those that are monsters. I’m beginning to think that some of them may be redeemable.”

  She looked at me, quizzical and surprised. “Has Nidhogg converted you?”

  I shrugged. “They’re monsters, there’s no denying that,” I began, letting my thoughts fall into place, verbalizing something I’d been thinking a while, but never pieced together in a coherent sentence. “But I think they have the capability for compassion and that’s enough for us to try. They’re not all alike, and they definitely don’t all get along.”

  “You think?” she asked, a bit of wonder in her voice as she stared at the map. “So we can turn them against one another?”

  Interesting thought, but not what I’d been piecing together.

  “Not exactly, but what if we can get the good ones to stop treating us like prey, open their minds, let them start seeing us as thinking, caring, viable entities that deserve their respect and their protection.”

  She raised her eyebrows at that, but let me continue.

  “And not the protection in the way most of them do today, like we were cattle and they had to protect us from predators. More like partners in a peaceful and prosperous world.”

  She leaned into me, grasping my arm in her hands and putting her head against my shoulder. “I’d love to see that work,” she said. “But I just don’t know if they’re capable.”

  “I can’t speak for them,” I admitted. “But I get the strong impression that recent events are forcing Nidhogg to rethink her position. And the deal with Frederick Sawyer before Christmas—something changed there. When Justin and his blood cult snatched Mr. Philips, I think Sawyer had a real moment there where he was lost without his most able of servants.”

  “I wish I could’ve seen Nidhogg protecting him there at the end,” Katie said, her voice almost wistful. “It sounded majestic.”

  “Nidhogg was beautiful,” I agreed. “And when she stood over Sawyer’s broken body, I felt the same energy I felt from Trisha protecting Frick and Frack …” I paused, turning her back to look at me. “The same thing I feel for you and Jai Li.”

  She smiled and nodded

  “And the same thing I feel for Black Briar, for Gunther, Stuart, Deidre, and even Jimmy.”

  She pursed her lips at that and moved them to the side, thinking—her eyes narrowed like she meant to argue.

  “He loves you the best way he knows how,” I said, before she could launch a salvo.

  “He’s an ass,” she said, but there was no heat in her voice. “And I know he loves me. It’s smothering sometimes, you know?”

  I nodded, letting her continue.

  “I mean, look at all this,” she said, stepping back, keeping one hand in mine and sweeping her other arm to encompass the room. “I had to badger him into letting me come down here. He thinks I’m a child and can’t be trusted with any of this.”

  I glanced over to Jimmy and Gunther’s swords and the great axe that Stuart wielded in the battle with the giants, trolls, and ogres. The blades were dwarven made, commissioned by Jimmy for him and his two best friends, back before they really thought of the consequences of war.

  Many of the remaining objects had historical value, links to other groups, secret societies, and ancient lore, but they were scraps and cast-offs, useless in today’s world.

  “Do you think there are any true artifacts here?” I asked, stepping toward one of the glass display cases, pulling her along with me.

  We glanced down at the torques, rings, bracelets, and charms. Nothing in this case caught my attention.

  “Trinkets,” she said, sighing deeply. “Detritus of a world that vanished long ago. Maybe you’re right,” she said, glancing back at the map. “Maybe we need to stop looking to the toys of the past and start making a new future.”

  We stood there in the semi-darkened room, watching the dragon lights; some bright, some dim, but all a point of power beyond any one of us, and maybe all of us if we remained afraid and divided.

  We had to start working together. “We are stronger together than apart,” I said. “You need to stop fighting with Jimmy and start putting together an alliance for us to move forward.”

  “You’re right,” she said. She dropped my hand, ran her fingers through her hair and straightened her shirt. “I’ll go apologize to Jim and start a conversation about a partnership.”

  “Excellent,” I said, hugging her again.

  We turned to the long staircase upwards, hand in hand, moving to a new understanding of our little piece of the world.

  I didn’t have the heart to bring up the diary. One battle at a time. I just hope I didn’t live to
regret it.

  Eight

  Katie sat in her classroom well after school had ended the following Monday. Her room was covered in brightly colored pictures of elephants, unicorns, narwhals, and dinosaurs. She’d finished her planning for the week. Everything was graded and put away. She could’ve gone home an hour earlier, but she was studying her mother’s diary.

  She’d spent time after New Year’s snooping through Jimmy’s house any chance she got, looking for the book. Just recently she broken down and resorted to that song Sarah had picked up in Nidhogg’s library—the secret finder that made the singer pay a high price. For days after she’d have headaches or nosebleeds. Usually both.

  Sarah was getting antsy, sending her to see Melanie and then a couple of specialists. She thought maybe Katie had a brain tumor. Katie couldn’t tell her she was using the song to find the diary. It was private. She had found it a couple of weeks ago and kept it stashed in her car at first. Someplace Sarah wasn’t likely to go snooping around. Then she transferred it to school, hiding it in her desk. The children would never dream of opening her desk. It was safe there. Safe enough.

  She hadn’t dared open it, yet. This book had nearly killed Jimmy years earlier when he’d tried. Their mother had placed violent and dangerous spells on it to protect it. She wasn’t just keeping out childish prying. This was serious magic—deadly. Katie was bound and determined to figure it out—without Jimmy or Sarah. This was her secret.

  Things had changed inside her since drinking that mead last fall, her power grew stronger and the consequences of her magic had gotten suddenly dangerous. Then, after they’d battled the cult before Christmas, things had started getting worse. There was a darkness in her, a voice that pushed her, a voice that dared her to throw caution to the wind. Life was too capricious, too violent and short to wait on niceties.

  She’d learned that at the hands of the dragon Jean-Paul. Despite Sarah’s recent change of heart, dragons were not fluffy bunnies. They were manipulative killers, torturers, rapists. Katie knew she had to find something to even the odds. Her new found powers with music was one thing, cute and helpful, but nothing compared to Sarah’s Gram, or Qindra’s magical abilities. Maybe, just maybe, this diary would give her the power to protect those around her. Something to prove she would never be a victim again.