Trees on either side of the drive loomed tall and dark. The fir and cedar had kept their needles, of course, but the interspersed maple and oak were bare-limbed, their boughs lacing like a dark tangle overhead. The drive was narrow enough that, in places, trees from one side stretched wide across, tangling with their kin on the other side.
The estate came into view. Sandy was right. The mansion stood as large and imposing as the Bewitching Bedlam. Stately, it looked like it had been built yesterday, and the walls were a soft green against the white of the snow. Not quite mint, the green was the color of pale young buds at the beginning of spring. The driveway encircled the house and I followed it, parking in back where nobody would see the car from the road. We had left tire tracks, but chances were, nobody would bother to check them out, given the drive to the house had curved through forest, but I wanted to make certain.
As I turned off the ignition a soft hush fell around us. I closed my eyes, reaching out. The steady throb of earth magic ran deep, pulsing like a heartbeat through the land, through the house, through the very air surrounding the estate. It was firm and alive, vibrant and powerful and protective.
“This land is old,” I said, feeling the need to whisper. Spirits lived in these woods and I didn’t want to waken them.
“Yes, Bedlam Island is old, but so very awake and aware.”
That much, most people sensed when they came to visit. But living on Bedlam was like living in a battery charger that was set to “High.”
The San Juan Islands had been created by the march of the glaciers as they traveled down through the northwestern states, and then again as they receded. The tectonic plates had moved and shifted, causing massive upheavals in the earth, as their quaking drove the land upward. The ice from the glaciers carved channels through the land, bringing the islands to life.
Most of the islands existed in a rain shadow of sorts, protected from the rain that the Puget Sound area usually received. But Bedlam was at the northernmost edge of the archipelago, jogging out at just the right angle so that it received the brunt of the storms. Add to that the fact that storms tended to follow magic. They were attracted by the powers of the ley lines that ran through the island, the power radiated out by the inhabitants called stormy weather to it like a lightning rod attracted lightning.
What it came down to was that Bedlam received weather anomalous to the rest of the San Juan Islands, thanks to both its positioning and the magical energy that permeated the island.
I gazed up at the darkened house. “We can’t just break in, so what do you suggest?”
“I doubt that Rachel would be hiding out inside. I think we should start with the outskirts of the house—look for anything out of the ordinary around the estate. You’ve got a really good nose for trouble, Maddy. Time to put it to use.”
Sandy was right. My inner alarms were always on hyperdrive. I might not always act on them—my bad—but they usually were spot-on. I pulled my coat tighter and wrapped a scarf around my neck to protect both my throat and ears from the chill. As I slid out of the car, the chill hit like a freight train.
“Damn, it’s cold.”
I crossed my arms, jamming my be-gloved hands under my armpits, as I scanned the area, not quite sure what I was looking for. But Sandy was right. I’d know what it was when I saw it.
She trudged through the snow around the car to stand beside me, huddling as best as she could away from the blowing snow. “I think back that way is the public ritual area.”
“There probably won’t be anything there. A vampire who wants to hide isn’t going to stick her coffin in plain sight in an area that a number of people are likely to frequent. Besides, she’s not going to be aboveground. Or at least not out in the open. She needs to hide from the sunlight—daylight—whatever.”
As I probed the ether, I became aware of whispering on the wind. It didn’t sound human, or even like the Otherkin. Instead, I heard a faint singing drift past and I closed my eyes to listen. A ballad, it sounded like, a tale of lost love and frozen hearts from a time long lost. The song was melancholy and muffling, as though it were pressing my joy deep down to a place that was difficult to find. The song was a death dirge, a maiden left to early widowhood singing on the cliffs above a thrashing sea.
“Maddy? Maddy? Are you all right?”
As Sandy’s words penetrated my brain, I realized I was crying. I dashed away the tears, which were almost frozen on my face, feeling and lost. “I think I picked up on a kelpie’s song, or a naiad’s lament. So many of the bog and water spirits have haunting voices.”
Some of them were very good at using their melancholy songs to lure humans into their traps, too. The naiads weren’t quite so dangerous, but the kelpie and will-o’-the-wisps were just two of the deadly Fae who liked to dine on a good-size morsel of flesh whenever they could. And the Fae didn’t hesitate to mesmerize witches.
“Just don’t go prancing off in search of whoever the singer is. Jenny Greenteeth eats whoever she can catch. And there are other dangerous Fae around.” Sandy frowned. “Is that all you’re picking up?”
“Let me search again. If you notice me drifting off, stop me before I do something stupid.” I closed my eyes again, trying to ignore the cold that was seeping through my coat. “I wish we were immune to cold,” I muttered.
“You and me both. But wait till we hit the hot-flash stage. We’ll dive into the snowbanks and melt them.”
I laughed, breaking out of my trance. “We have a ways to go before then. I’m just glad that vampires are sterile.”
Sandy stopped, slowly turning. “Where did you hear that?”
I frowned. “They’re dead. They don’t…surely they don’t still produce sperm?”
“I dunno. They can still eat and shit and piss, can’t they? I don’t know whether the notion that they’re sterile is an old-wives’ tale or not.” She arched an eyebrow. “Haven’t been using protection with Aegis, have you?”
I stared at her, hoping to hell she was wrong. “I think maybe I’d better find out before we… Crap. I can’t get pregnant, especially from a vampire. What the hell would happen then?”
“I have no clue. Come on, back to our quest here. We can look up the facts when we get home. Linda has to know. We can ask at the Esbat tonight.” She grinned, watching the horror spread over my face as I envisioned casually dropping that question in Circle.
Oh by the way, do you know if I can get pregnant from banging my boyfriend? He’s dead, and a vampire, but can he still become a babydaddy? Oh, hell no.
I refocused my attention on the energy surrounding Durholm Hall. As I forced myself to move beyond the ballads and laments that beckoned me into the woodland, I discovered another layer of energy. A deep, sweeping reverberation. The heartbeat of the earth. It buoyed me up, swept me in like nothing else. I understood this sound and the cadence shifted, matching my own heartbeat. The earth elementals were strong here, and they were alive and awake. But there was a blip in the pattern—something that didn’t belong there.
A disturbance in the force, Luke.
Frowning, I tried to analyze it. The energy was unnatural. It was the fly in the ointment, the even number in a field of primes. And then, I began to understand what was wrong. The rhythm was the heartbeat of life—of the living earth. The blip? It was something that should not be alive. I tried to trace it, to follow it back, but there was too much static. I lost my focus.
My eyes flying open, I whirled to face Sandy. “She’s here. Well, some vampire. I don’t know if there are more around. I was able to key in on something that’s unnaturally alive. But when I tried to trace it, everything vanished.” I looked up at the house. “So, the tunnels that are below this place?”