Page 32 of Curses & Cold Brew
Avery cringed. “I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. She knows she can’t come back to Maple Hollow. The vampires all forbade her from returning.”
My gut clenched.
I silently prayed to Satan, Beelzebub, Mammon, and every other king of hell that it wasn’t who I thought it was. “Who?”
“Esme,” Avery answered.
At those two syllables, I wished the floor would open up and swallow me whole.
“A vampire named Esme? Real original.” Iris snorted. “I’ve never heard of a vampire by that name in Maple Hollow before.”
But I could barely hear her over my roaring pulse. I snapped my knitting needle in two, nerves mounting with each passing second. Suddenly, it all made sense. “I thought she started a new coven out west?”
“As far as we all knew, she did,” Avery replied. “But I bet all that rain in Washington gets tiring, even for the damned. You know how that goes, don’t you, demon?”
“Let me get this straight. There’s a vampire named Esme who moved to the Pacific Northwest and started a coven?” Iris cackled. “Goddess, I can’t wait to tell Jordyn about this.”
“I’m not sure why the little witch is so amused,” Margret squeaked from across the circle. “This is a serious matter, Avery, you should have told us.”
“She was always nice to me.” Avery’s resolve started to wane now that everyone was looking at her for answers. “I’ve only seen her once, and it was for less than five minutes.”
Iris’s head swiveled from one member of the group to another, her smile long gone by the time she landed on my harried expression. “Is she really that bad?”
“If ever there was a personification of an unpredictable rogue, it would be Esme,” Agnes said with a shake of her head. “She wasn’t made for discreet. She was a part of our coterie for about half a century before she became bored. Then she became a liability.” She tipped her head at me and then looked back at Iris. “The two of them used to be thick as thieves once upon a time.”
“Oh really?” Iris asked.
“It was mutual boredom, nothing more,” I corrected. “She and I had a friendly rivalry going for a few centuries. Demon versus vampire, trying to see who could lure a soul into darkness first.” I held Iris’s gaze, imploring her to hear me. “We did a lot of terrible things together. She’s incredibly dangerous.”
If I couldn’t convince myself to stay away from Iris, then perhaps I’d need to convince her to stay away from me. Things never ended well for me in friendship or romance. I needed to end whatever was going on between us before it actually began. Unfortunately, Iris didn’t seem the least bit cowed.
“You two were the talk of the town back then,” Agnes said with an approving nod. “Alas, Esme wasn’t particularly careful with her feeding habits. She didn’t care that we had a steady supply of human blood without having to cover up mysterious disappearances. We had all agreed to only take what we needed to survive, relieve the humans of those specific memories, and allow them to live another day.” Agnes shook her head. “But when the surrounding larger cities started to catch wind of more and more humans turning up dead from ‘animal attacks,’ there was hell to pay. A slayer came, and our house was raided. It was a bloodbath, and not the kind we like to indulge in.”
“When was this?” Iris’s fingers tightened on her knitting needles.
“Back in the nineties,” Agnes answered. “Some teen on aBuffykick. We lost some of our oldest vampires that day. Those of us who did survive had to act. So with the witches’ help, we banished Esme from Maple Hollow, and she moved on without a formal goodbye. Rumors and obituaries indicated a trail out toward Portland and the forests of the Pacific Northwest.”
“But you don’t know that this is necessarily her,” Avery cut in, and I scrutinized the young vampire. “How could she even do anything to you, Ramona? You’re too powerful.”
“Oh, it’s her,” I said, rising to stand. Everything was suddenly clicking into place. “My most coveted possessions start to go missing with advanced magic around the same time you claim to have seen her? I don’t believe in coincidences, especially ones so obvious.”
“Does this Esme have wavy brown hair and blue eyes?” Iris asked.
I whirled toward her. “How do you know that?”
Iris winced. “I summoned one of your missing souls last night.”
“You what?” I growled.
Her cheeks reddened. “I told you I had a lead. Maude said someone with long teeth visited her right before she died.”
“Maybe it is handy to have a witch in the knitting circle,” Agnes said with a mischievous lilt. “You sure are lucky she’s on your side, Ramona.”
“I don’t have time for this,” I snarled, stuffing my knitting project back into my bag. “I need to go find her.”
Iris leaped to her feet. “I can?—”
“You arenotcoming with me, witchling,” I seethed. “You’ve put yourself in enough danger as it is. Go warn your coven. Then go home andstay there.”
