Midnight Lover. Rosemary Laurey

experience. They tended to hang together for support.

      Supper over, Toby left the tray in the kitchen and turned to rejoin Piet on the terrace when his mobile rang.

      “Toby? I’m sorry to bother you. It’s Adela.” Piet’s ex-wife and Elizabeth’s stepmother. “I’m having a bit of trouble.”

      Indeed. She was house swapping with another witch somewhere near Dark Falls, on the Umpaqua River. She had helped out with Piet, that Toby granted, but he preserved intact his instinctive unease about witches. Elizabeth had proved her honor and her loyalty to the coven; Adela was another matter entirely. “What can I do for you, Adela?”

      “Things here are a bit awkward…. I need to get away for a few days until everything calms down.” She sounded scared, definitely out of character for a mortal who’d faced down Vlad Tepes.

      “What happened?”

      Her hesitation no doubt underscored her reluctance to ask help from a vampire. “It’s the people here,” she replied at last. “Gertrude did mention difficulty, but honestly, I’ve never in my life encountered anything on this scale. First it was flower pots smashed and a rosebush hacked down. Then it was nasty notes on the front door blaming me for dead farm animals. As if I’d go around ripping the throats out of sheep and cows. Ridiculous!” Yes, but frightening too—at least to a lone female mortal in an unfamiliar place. “This was supposed to be a quiet summer and it’s turning out vile. I could take the mutterings, the nasty notes and the crossing fingers behind my back, but this afternoon…” Her voice tightened in terror. This was not the woman he knew.

      “What happened, Adela?”

      “I know I’m probably overreacting, but this morning I found all four tires slashed. I’ve called both service stations in the place and none have replacements. That alone wouldn’t have bothered me so much—hell, it’s a small town and I doubt they get much call for Italian import tires—but this afternoon I found a note under a rock on the back step: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Quite honestly, Toby, I’m scared.”

      He didn’t blame her. She had to be at her wits’ end to apply to a vampire for succor. “The night nurse is due in half an hour or so. I’ll come over as soon as she arrives. You can stay here.” He just hoped it wouldn’t be for long. But a witch hunt in this day and age? Ridiculous!

      The minute Laura Fox arrived, Toby was out the door and heading his red Mercedes toward Dark Falls.

      Chapter 2

      It was heavy dusk by the time Toby reached the outskirts of the small town. Quiet and peaceful, a knot of tourists sitting out on the front porch of the Kountry Kitchen, the town looked like something out of a tourist brochure, until he drove through the town and saw Adela’s vandalized car parked beside the little house. She hadn’t told the half of it: The slashed tires were just the beginning. The windshield had been smashed and some noxious substance poured all over the bonnet. Someone wanted Adela grounded.

      As he parked and walked over to inspect the damage, Toby glimpsed a shadow at the window and a flicker of a curtain. He didn’t blame her being cautious. Down at the end of a dirt road, a good hundred meters or more from the nearest neighbor, she should have been safe and unbothered. Instead…

      “Toby?” She called from the half-open door. “Thank the goddess!”

      At the panic in her voice, he crossed the front lawn in seconds and was inside the house, pulling the door closed behind him. “I’m here and you’re going to be gone in a jiffy.” The change in her was shocking. Gone was the confident, almost defiant woman he’d met a month or so earlier.

      She backed away from him and slumped down on a chair. “I feel foolish calling you like an idiot, but afterward, I was so glad I did. This last thing freaked me out.”

      “The car being vandalized? I saw what they’d done. Tires was just the beginning.”

      She shook her head. “No, worse than that. I almost upchucked when I saw it on the back porch.” She looked pale enough to do just that, right here and now.

      “What the hell happened, Adela?” Witch she might be, but she was a terrified woman and needed help.

      She shook her head. “Just fifteen minutes ago. I went out to fill up the bird feeders before I left and…” She swallowed, and a shudder shook her shoulders. “It was horrible, and heck, they think I’m doing that sort of thing!”

      “Doing what, Adela?”

      She got herself together with effort. “I can’t bear to look at it again. I should have dragged it away and at least buried it but…” She stood up. “Look, I need a cup of tea. Mind waiting while I get one? Then we’ll go.”

      Why not? “Go ahead. I’ll have a look at what bothered you so.” Might give him a clue to the perpetrators. Harassing a defenseless woman—perhaps not totally defenseless, but she was alone—was unacceptable in his book. “Out the back, you said?”

      She nodded. “On the path below the back porch steps, look…” She met his eyes. “It’s nasty, but I suppose blood doesn’t bother you quite as much as it does me.”

      Not usually, but this did. The bloody, mangled remains of a large dog lay on the cracked concrete. It had been dead when dumped. There had been no bleeding, at least not here, but…Toby crouched down to look closer. It had been a shaggy, long-limbed sheep dog sort of cross. The throat being ripped out must have killed it. He guessed the leg had been torn off afterward, and at some point, something had ripped open the animal’s gut and now flies buzzed over the spilled entrails.

      No wonder it turned Adela’s stomach. He tamped down the anger at the unknown person who’d dumped this here. And who—or rather what—in the name of Abel had so mangled the creature’s carcass?

      He noticed the stench right away. Not the sick, sweet smell of a freshly killed corpse, but the rank, foul stench of…He had no idea, but it was a definite clue to something. From the corner of his eye he noticed the note tucked under a rock. The message was clear and to the point. “First it kills my hens, then my dog. You called this creature up, witch. You have it coming. We’ve all had enough.” Underneath was the aforementioned Bible verse.

      The devil wasn’t the only one who could quote scripture for his own purposes. Leaving the dog on the path—he’d bury it later—Toby went back into the house, note in hand. Adela looked up from opening a tin of tea bags. “You saw it?”

      He nodded. “And I found this.” He handed her the note.

      She glanced at it and shook her head. “They blame me for it coming. Hell, I didn’t bring it. I’ve never even seen it.”

      “Seen what?” Shock made mortals more obtuse than usual.

      She snapped the lid back on the tin and dropped a tea bag into a mug before looking straight at him. “You believe mythical creatures can be real?”

      “Since I’m one of those mythical creatures, yes.”

      She let out a dry chuckle. “Should have anticipated that, shouldn’t I?” She shook her head, moved the mug to the side of the stove and pulled out a bentwood chair. “Have a seat. This will take a minute and might just test your ability to suspend disbelief.”

      That he doubted. He might be young by vampire standards, but he could give her a century and a good bit more. He took the chair. “Go on.”

      “Have you ever heard of a chupacabra?”

      So far she was winning. He shook his head. “What is it?”

      She got up as the kettle boiled, and filled the mug. “What I believed to be a mythical creature or the product of a deranged imagination but”—she sat back down, clasping the mug in both hands—“it’s a vicious creature. I’ve done a fair bit of research since the trouble first started. Seems they come from Central America and Mexico. One was supposedly