Dalton, Tymber - Brimstone Blues [Brimstone Vampires 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (28 page)

She closed her eyes and cried, slumped over the steering wheel, wondering if it would ever get better.

And then the whisper in her brain.

“Drive, Taz.”

She took a deep, hitching breath and quit trying to figure it out. When traffic cleared, she pulled out and carefully negotiated the small town’s streets, away from the highway, into the countryside. Remembering to drive on the left was a challenge, but she managed.

“Where to? Where to?”
she mentally chanted.

With a mind of their own, her hands turned the wheel, following roads that progressively worsened until she was creeping down something that looked like little more than a muddy, rutted sheep track. It ended at an old, tall iron gate protected by a heavy chain and new, shiny combination padlock.

Terrific. What the hell do I do now?

The voice told her.

She shut the car off and got out.
I’m crazy.
This won’t work.
With trembling hands she turned the combination dial and tugged.

The lock popped open.

She closed her eyes and shuddered. She had to tell Matthias about this before she went crazy. At least this whispering presence didn’t sound as much like Rafael as the other voice did.

Glad she wore sneakers, Taz gently gathered the flowers and locked the car, then looked through the gate. The property was overgrown, but a cleared path wound through the brush.

She took a deep breath and followed the trail.

* * * *

Matthias shook his head and handed Tim her note. “Well, I suppose I can take care of my errand then.”

Tim put a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe this is best. Perhaps going there would be too much for her right now. You can have some time alone. I should think you need it, put some things in their proper place. It’s time to release the past, isn’t it?”

Matthias nodded. It would be the first time he’d gone there in years. Over eight years since his last visit. It was too painful for him most of the time. Rafael always went, every year, and always made sure to take care of things for him.

“Albert, please get me a car.”

Albert nodded and called the hotel desk for the arrangements. Twenty minutes later, with sunglasses to hide his red eyes, Matthias drove north away from the city alone.

* * * *

After fifteen minutes of walking, the winding path opened into a clearing. Taz stopped, reluctant to enter. What would she find?

“Go ahead. It’s okay.”

She couldn’t feel her feet anymore. Not from the weather, because the day had warmed, but because of her emotional shock.
So this is what it feels like to lose your mind?

A soft, gentle chuckle in her mind was the only reply.

Dappled sunlight crept through the trees and scattered across the clearing. A square stone about two feet across, weathered and aged and green with lichen, lay near the center. Taz dropped to her knees in front of it, her heart racing, instinctively knowing its secret.

Sarah.

She laid one of the bouquets on it.

Ten feet away was a larger, smooth, round rock, about three feet in diameter. Taz carefully stood and drifted over to it. She started to sit and paused.

No, not there. She walked around to the other side and saw a small, natural depression in the stone and then she sat, carefully tucking the bouquet so it rested against the rock.

There. That’s right.

Then she closed her eyes and let the sudden wave of grief wash over her, as if an ancient ache even deeper than the one she felt for Rafael threatened to tear her apart. Unable to deal with the emotion, she gave herself over to it, sobbing a name into the sky and letting blessed blackness take her.

“Cassandra!”

* * * *

“What do you mean, a woman came in?”

Matthias didn’t want to remove his sunglasses. He’d cried plenty of private tears during the drive and didn’t want to share that with anyone. This was something he needed to do for himself as well as Rafe.

“Just that, Mr. Hawthorne. She nearly fainted dead away when I asked if she was ’ere for Mr. Collins’ order.”

Matthias closed his eyes and silently swore. “Auburn hair and green eyes?”

“Aye, that’s her. Poor love, she’s awful ripped up over him, isn’t she? The love of her life, she said he was. I’m so sorry about him, Mr. Hawthorne. Such a shock it must be for ye.”

Matthias would process her comments later. “Yes, it was, Mrs. Axelrod. Thank you. I didn’t realize she was coming for them. Just a miscommunication.”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Hawthorne. He was such a sweetheart.”

“Yes, he was.”

Matthias waited until exiting the shop to break into a jog back to his car.
What the fuck? How in hell would Taz know about it?

He tried to calm down.
She must have sensed it, that’s all.
She read it in his thoughts.

But why not tell him?

He started the car, now sure where he’d find her.

* * * *

Taz slowly opened her eyes. Her head rested on her arms, leaning against the rock. She sat back and wiped her face. How long had she been here? It felt like she cried a million tears from the way her nose felt stuffed up. Now she knew for sure, beyond any doubt.

This was where Rafael had buried his wife.

The stone felt cool beneath her palm, and in her mind she envisioned Rafael sitting in this exact place countless times over the centuries, the only time he allowed his tears to freely flow for Cassandra, his grief still as raw and painful as the night he took her life and released her from her pain.

“How did you know?”

She screamed and jumped, scrabbling away from the rock. In her anguish, Matthias had snuck up on her. He stood on the path where it opened into the clearing, watching her, his eyes unreadable behind his sunglasses.

She shook her head and sobbed. “I don’t know!”

In three quick strides he was at her side and dropped to his knees, gathering her to him, holding and comforting her.

“I don’t know, Matthias, I swear. I just…It was instinct. I just followed the road and thought about flowers and she had them and then the road again and the gate…” She sobbed against his shoulder as he held her.

“It’s okay,” he said, spying the flowers on Sarah’s stone. “It’s all right.”

They sat there for a half hour with Taz in his arms. When she cried herself out, she looked at the markers. “I’m losing my mind,” she whispered.

“No, my love, you’re not.”

She nodded. “I am. How else do you explain it?”

He laughed, kindly. “I’ve been thinking about this task for the past few days. I wasn’t sure how to tell you, so I didn’t say anything. Obviously you sensed my thoughts.”

She sat up and looked at him. “Really?”

He pulled out a handkerchief and gently wiped her eyes. “I’m sure of it. I thought I had concealed it from you, but obviously I hadn’t.”

He removed his sunglasses and she studied his eyes. “Matthias, I
heard
a voice. Telling me what to do, where to go. It was intelligent, it wasn’t just a memory or an overheard thought. I keep hearing a voice.”

“Your intuition again. It simply put it into a context you could understand.
Cara
, you’re not losing your mind, I promise. We discussed this. You’re simply learning how to control your powers.”

She looked at the markers again, still not convinced, but hopeful. Was that all the phantom voice was? It wasn’t a voice, it was just stray signals from others?

“Taz, why not tell me you were coming here?”

She shook her head again. “I swear, I didn’t know. That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I just felt that crawling out of my skin feeling again, like something in my brain pounding at me and it wouldn’t shut up until I did it.” She looked around. “And I ended up here.”

“How did you open the gate?”

She looked at him, her irritation taking over. “Read my fucking lips. I. Don’t. Know. I don’t know. Idon’tknow. I. Do. Not. Know! I held the lock and I just felt what the combination was, like there’s this voice in my head telling me what to do!”

“Okay, okay.” He gathered her to him again, trying to calm her. “It’s okay, Taz.”

* * * *

Taz followed Matthias back to London and they stopped for a private late lunch. He didn’t push her, sensing from her quiet desperation that she was having another setback. He couldn’t force her recovery, couldn’t tell her to simply suck it up. He had no experience dealing with someone of her strength—there had never been anyone of her strength—and prayed the events in Yellowstone and explosive revelations hadn’t done permanent damage to her psyche.

* * * *

Later, back at the hotel, she walked down the hall to her dad’s room. Tim opened the door at Taz’s soft knock and silently welcomed her in. He sat on the bed, and she curled up next to him, resting her head in his lap.

Thirty-five, and while one of the most formidable attorneys he’d ever seen, she was still very fragile ever since her true nature was disclosed.

“I’m losing my mind, Dad.”

He stroked her hair. “No, sweetheart, you aren’t. Matthias told you, it’s most likely things you picked up and didn’t realize it. You’re still adjusting.”

“This isn’t adjusting. This is losing my fucking mind.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want these freaky powers. I want a normal life, a normal marriage. I don’t want the bullshit.”

Her logical mind struggled to make sense out of something she still hadn’t emotionally dealt with.

“I have no words of wisdom for you except that you aren’t losing your mind, and Matthias loves you more than life itself. Once we get home, the two of you need to spend several days alone, maybe weeks. You need to stay at the house and let him work with you, perhaps even work with Tobias for a while, let them help you. There is so much you don’t know, possibly many things we don’t even know about your abilities. If you insist on stubbornly trying to maintain a status quo that is nonexistent, it will rip your sanity apart.”

She shuddered in his lap. She wanted to tell him about the spoon moving, then thought better of it. “I hate this.”

“I know you do, sweetheart. This is why Matthias wanted to take his time. He wanted to avoid all of this.”

“I don’t know what to think anymore. I want my life back. I want control over my life.”

He laughed. “Sweetheart, haven’t you figured that out? Control is just an illusion. Look at Matthias, all his years of plans sent straight out the window in a heartbeat over Caroline’s doing. We have no control over our lives, truly, just in how we respond to what life throws at us. We must survive, protect those we love, and hope for the best.”

She was quiet for many long minutes. “Do you have any family?”

“Other than Albert?”

She nodded.

“Our mother is still alive, although I haven’t spoken to her in a couple of years. Not the easiest woman to get along with, I’m afraid. We have a sister, but she is off somewhere in Patagonia, I believe, last I heard. My father has been dead many years, obviously.”