Page 33 of Dragon's Golden Mate
She swallowed and sniffed. “I think you’d want me to be happy, whatever that would mean. I’m well past the age of needing anyone’s permission to be in a relationship, but I wish I had some way of knowing whether or not this is okay. Maybe then I can figureout how to handle this, how to move forward with my life.”
As she lifted the handkerchief to her face, the breeze grabbed it and sent it fluttering out of her hand. It landed in the freshly planted flowers on either side of the bench. Striking, bushy blooms of fiery red stood out against the deep purple of the surrounding foliage.
“I guess the groundskeeper has already been busy back here,” she said to Patrick as she bent to fetch her hanky.
Then she laughed as she examined the flowers more closely. “Dragon’s breath celosia.”
Her laughter turned to tears. Maeve had asked for a sign, and she’d received one that was too heavy-handed for her to miss. Whether it was from Patrick, fate, or some other spiritual guide, she was being told to leave her past where it was and head forward into the future. The brushy flowers spiked up from the ground where her late mate had been buried, burning brightly toward the sky like a dragon’s flame.
Maeve covered her face with the handkerchief. She let her tears flow, and when they felt close to stopping, she released more. She forced herself to cry until there was nothing left in her. All the pain,the worry, and the guilt drained out of her, and Maeve let it go. She’d been holding onto it for too long.
When she lifted her head and cleaned her face, she realized that the sun had sunk below the horizon and left her behind. Only a pale golden glow was left peeking around the treetops, reducing the tombstones to dark humps along the gentle hillsides. She stood and looked toward the entry gates. The groundskeeper had finished his work for the day and gone home. Maeve was all alone.
A weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and she wanted to explore how it felt. Her wolf itched inside her, reminding her that her recent shifts had been brief and tense. She needed to stretch her legs, to feel the breeze through her fur, to truly remember what it meant to be alive.
With one last glance around to ensure she was alone, Maeve pulled in a deep breath. She let it out, bringing her wolf to the surface. It burst forward easily. The lengthening of her bones and the twisting of her muscles felt like a long, much-needed stretch. This body was comfortable and free, unburdened by the difficulties of human life. The cool grass reached up between her paw pads, and the scent of all those fresh flowers flowed into her nose.
Her ears stretched up and forward to pick up the sounds of the evening, instantly picking up a mournful wail. Maeve froze, listening to it. This wasn’t just another cemetery visitor. The cry was long and high, a shriek that spoke of ages of sadness. It sent a shiver down her spine and made her stomach clench, and then it was gone. Was this the same sound that Jamie, Erin, Zoe, and Iris had heard a few days ago?
Maeve headed toward the back of the cemetery, where it stretched out toward the trees. Older graves were there, the dates on them extended further and further back in time. She left behind the modern headstones of polished granite and moved into the past. There were tall obelisks, the extensive epitaphs worn away and filled in with moss. A column of limestone bore an engraved hand with one finger pointing up toward heaven. Tiny stone lambs denoted children, some of whom didn’t even have names. Older sandstone markers had eroded down like rotten teeth, jutting from the ground at all angles. A white marble slab showed a skull flanked with wings, a leering death’s head from long ago.
None of this bothered Maeve, but the next round of the shrieking lamentation made her fur stand up on end. Hackles raised, she swiveled her ears andtried to identify it. There was no animal she could imagine that would make such a sound. It was long and drawn out, alternately lifting and falling like the notes of a wistful song. There was a power behind it, too, a message she couldn’t decode.
Maeve turned west as she reached the back of the cemetery, slipping out through a gap in the fence. She let her ears guide her, sticking to tree lines and alleyways. A cat, startled by her presence, scrambled over a wooden fence. A dull thud reached her ears now, a steady beat. It was coming from the same direction.What the hell?
She came around the edge of an old hotel to find a parking lot throbbing with people. A stage had been set up on one end, with bright lights that changed in time to the music. The music itself was a crashing thread of noise as it exploded from tall speakers, but the audience seemed to love it as they pulsed and thrashed in unison.
A low metal fence had been erected along the perimeter of the parking lot. Maeve didn’t dare move any closer, but she could just see that tickets were being sold at a gate. Vinyl banners had been hung along the fence.Revitalize Our Downtown! Fundraiser Concert Tonight!Another banner showed the sponsorof the show, with the logo for Deegan Enterprises emblazoned in bright blue.
A concert explained the rhythmic drums, but not that howling cry that she’d heard before. It all seemed to be coming from the same direction, though, and the Deegan Enterprises name on the banner made her all the more curious to find out what was going on.
It took a bit of finagling to keep herself from being seen, but Maeve worked her way through some landscaping and around a couple of buildings until she could see the backstage area of the concert. Sound cables and electrical cords snaked over the ground and onto the stage. Instrument cases were stacked nearby, as were coolers of booze. A curtain separated this area from where the band played on the stage, keeping it out of sight of the crowd.
Which meant they couldn’t see the horror that Maeve’s eyes beheld. Cassandra stood on the asphalt behind the stage. A microphone was on a stand in front of her, and the cable from it twisted in with the others. She had her arms spread wide and her fingers splayed. She pulled in a deep breath, and the exact wail that Maeve had heard in the cemetery flew from her mouth. It lifted the ends of Cassandra’s hair, spreading it out like tendrils of some undersea creature around her head.
From her vantage point, Maeve could still see some of the audience. They swayed simultaneously to the music, moving in perfect time with each other as though they didn’t hear that scream at all. Their hands waved back and forth like a field of wheat, and most of them had their eyes closed. They were completely oblivious to what was happening backstage.
But Maeve knew.
Cassandra was a banshee.
13
“Ah, there you are.”Beck stepped into the dining room and let out a low whistle as he took in the numerous papers scattered across the table’s surface. He had a can of soda in his hand, but there was no room to set it down. “I was just going to ask if you had any plans for the night, but it looks like you do.”
“Just work.” Kendrick reviewed the blueprints for the old school that the Suttons had shown him. The couple had already obtained them from the city and given him a copy, which had saved Kendrick from having to coerce any government officials to dig through files. He compared the original floor plan to the proposed one, looking for anything that might keep the Suttons from getting a permit.
“And quite a bit of it.” Beck craned his headaround to look. “This is the school. Does that mean you’re all done with the church?”
“Not even close.” Kendrick pushed a blueprint aside. He’d pulled up some plans of other old buildings that’d been converted, intending to use them for inspiration. Linda Sutton had a good eye for laying out rooms, but there were a few areas he felt could’ve been used better.
“I’m frozen,” Kendrick admitted. “I know something has to be done. I can’t get the authorities involved, because no one will believe me if I talk about gargoyles that’ve come to life and a magic portal in the basement.”
“I suppose someone will find out anyway if they tear the place down,” Beck theorized. “It could be quite the scandal. Of course, like many supernatural things we know to be true, the papers will chalk it up as a hoax.”
Kendrick nodded. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too, but there’s just no way forward.”
Beck tipped his head slightly to the side. “You’re not usually one to admit defeat.”
