The Wild (Book Four The Hayle Coven Novels) Read online

Alison looked miserable. “Mom asked me if Miriam was pretty.”

  Mrs. Morgan didn’t even knock. Just swung the door wide and walked right in.

  “That’s bad?”

  Alison bit her lower lip. “Very bad. Mom was a model, remember? I’ve seen her tear other women apart for wearing nice lip gloss.”

  Right. Well, this could solve my problem. In fact, I was beginning to think maybe this was a good thing. If Mrs. Morgan insulted Mom there’s no way she’d let me go with Alison for the weekend.

  I was pretty sure Alison’s arrogant mother was about to be put firmly in her place and I wanted a front row seat for my rescue.

  I stumbled in after her, Alison holding back. There in the kitchen, looking ever inch her stunning self, stood my mother. She’d recovered completely since the night before, not a hint of the strain she’d been under marring her flawless face. Even while I compared the two women and gave my mom the win hands down, I hoped Mrs. Morgan would do the inappropriate and save me from having to abandon my family.

  “Candice Morgan.” She held out her hand to Mom, her tone bored and judging. Any second now. Fireworks. And I’d be unpacking.

  “Miriam Hayle.” Mom used her queenly nod. That was sure to set Mrs. Morgan off. I was so ready.

  And was very disappointed when nothing exploded. Both women stared at each other for a long moment as if weighing the worthiness of the other. I could feel Alison’s nails dig into my wrist and felt bad for her. Not that my friend was the type to obey the rules or anything, but if this went badly, there was a good chance Alison wouldn’t be able to come visit me anymore.

  Okay, that would suck. Still. Selfish, remember?

  “Charming,” Mrs. Morgan murmured, dropping Mom’s hand.

  “Indeed.” Mom smiled just a little. “I’m sure Sydlynn will behave herself while in your care.”

  Wait. She was warning me? Whatever.

  “I’ll take good care of her.” Mrs. Morgan touched her blonde hair, eyes narrowing a little. “What color do you use?”

  Mom didn’t twitch. “Natural.”

  The narrowing flickered wide and I finally saw a twitch of envy. Pride warred with anger. Yes, I wanted Mom to win. No, I wanted to stay home.

  “Shall we, ladies?” Mrs. Morgan swept out of the kitchen, her high heels making rapid tapping sounds as she retreated. Mom approached Alison and I. She reached out and hugged my friend, kissing her softly on the cheek. Alison was very pale.

  “Thanks for being nice to her.” She ducked her head and escaped just as the limo let out a very loud honk.

  That was my cue. Exit stage left. I hesitated, wanted to come up with something, anything to say to make Mom change her mind.

  Instead, she gave me the same hug and kiss she handed out to Alison.

  “Have a good time, honey.”

  Like that was going to happen with me worrying about the family every single minute.

  It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, harder than any evil magic I’d ever faced or bully I’d weathered, turning my back on my family and walking away.

  Mrs. Morgan was on the rear seat so I joined Alison on the one facing her. The woman made a face at my bag, but let it go.

  The limo glided away while I struggled with tears and regret and confusion. And as much as I knew in my heart Mom was right, that in my present condition I was no good to her and was better off out of the line of fire, I still felt like a coward running away.

  “Your mother is very beautiful.” Mrs. Morgan’s voice was soft, quiet. Alison’s body jerked next to me though she hid it by shifting her body position.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Lucky me.”

  She actually laughed. “Be grateful,” she said, shaking out her bleach blonde hair. “You have good genes.”

  She had no idea.

  I was ready for a fight about the whole condition I’d leveraged, but to my surprise and relief the big car turned off at the hospital. Alison’s face scrunched up and she looked out the window, refusing to meet my eyes.

  Mrs. Morgan just watched me with a flat expression. I knew she judged me from behind.

  “Alison said you wanted to visit someone first.” Her long fingernails tapped on the case of her smartphone. “Don’t be long.”

  Or what? They’d leave without me? Tempting. I glanced at Alison who refused to acknowledge what I was about to do. Fine then. She could stay.

  My little pow-wow with Pain would go much more smoothly without my best friend there anyway.

  The air outside the car was heavy, almost thick. I glanced up at the sky, but it seemed cloud free, almost over bright. Still, something about it felt as near to scary as full daylight could get, and I found myself hurrying over the short stretch of pavement and through the front doors.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as they hissed shut behind me, even the cold and stinking air of the hospital an improvement. I flinched from a spirit, a thin woman with half a face, as she whispered her confusion and reached for me.

  Damned hospitals. Gathered spirit imprints like fruit flies in a wine glass. I may have been cut off from my power, but for some reason I could still see the imprints left behind when people died. Worse than before, for some reason. Usually they were feelings, clouds of cold and despair. Now I was seeing them as clearly as if they were real. That hardly seemed fair.

  The one thing I could do without. Nice.

  I did my best to not react as I dodged the odd floating specters, remembering the last time I’d been here was for Suzanne. It seemed a lifetime ago. I forced a smile at the candy striper behind the desk.

  “I’m looking for,” my brain paused as I realized Pain would be there under her real name, “Mia. Mia Hammond.”

  She smiled at me, braces sparkling, before turning to the computer. Her face fell, smile dropping away. “She’s in a restricted unit.”

  Psych ward. Had to be. “It’s really important I talk to her.”

  The girl shrugged, then sighed and picked up the phone. “Just a second.”

  I found my right knee jiggling with impatience while the girl in the pink and white striped apron talked to someone on the other end.

  “Hi, I have a visitor for Mia Hammond. Yes, I know. Is she? Okay, I’ll let her know.” Her smile was back. “Miss Hammond can have visitors today.” The girl handed me a slip of paper with a number on it. “Down the hall, turn right, elevator to the sixth floor.”

  I shook the entire trip. Partly because I didn’t know what I was going to say to Pain, and partly because there was a sweet kid in the elevator with me who kept trying to win my attention. Only problem? He was clearly a ghost, his spectral body in bloody, oozing pieces. And while I couldn’t hear him speak, it was obvious he wanted to play catch with his detached hand.

  I practically ran into Mrs. Hammond when I dodged through the opening doors on my way out. She let out a little shriek before hugging me.

  “Sydlynn.” She released me, glanced into the elevator as the doors slid shut, her face falling. I remembered Alison’s saving grace for Suzanne’s mom and used it.

  “They don’t know if it’s okay yet,” I said. “They wanted to make sure she was up to it. I’m the test.”

  Mrs. Hammond’s smile came back, tired and strained as it was. “Please, come in.”

  She hooked her arm through mine, leading me toward a sitting area outside a bank of double doors. Big windows allowed in the maximum sunlight, dust motes sliding through the air on giant beams. Green and blue plastic upholstered chairs, looking like seventies throwbacks, were clustered around the entry. I spotted a familiar head of black hair as we approached the windows.

  Clear blue eyes lifted to mine as Mrs. Hammond let me go.

  “Honey,” she said, “look who’s here!”

  Pain lifted one hand, fingers limp, face expressionless. I sank into the seat beside her, squeezing her hand in mine.

  “Hey,” I said, my voice almost a whisper. Somehow it seemed more appropriate than Mrs. Hammond�
��s false enthusiasm.

  “Syd,” Pain whispered, gaze locked on me. “I’m so glad you came.”

  ***

  Chapter Twenty

  I felt Mrs. Hammond drift off. Just as well. She didn’t need to hear me reinforcing what she thought was her daughter’s psychosis.

  “They don’t believe me.” Pain’s face was makeup free, looking so odd and yet so familiar. I’d noticed it before, but had never been able to figure out who she reminded me of. No time for that now, either. “I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? They never believe.” She sighed so deeply she seemed to collapse in on herself, chest caving as her chin dropped.

  Clearly they had drugged her.

  “It’s okay, Pain,” I said. “I do.”

  She smiled, an innocent, lovely expression. “I know.” Trouble passed across her face like a cloud. “Can you tell them? So they will let me out?”

  Could she make me feel even worse? “I can’t,” I said. “I’m not allowed. Not yet. But soon, I promise. Honest.”

  Her head bobbed a loose nod. “I know you will.” She turned a little toward me, her hospital gown twisting around her thighs to an almost obscene height. I reached down and adjusted it for her, wondering why her mother hadn’t brought her clothes from home then figuring it wasn’t allowed. Mrs. Hammond didn’t seem like the type to deny her daughter anything.

  “Syd,” Pain said. “There’s more. About the dream.”

  I nodded. “I know. Pain, tell me what you remember.”

  Her lower lip trembled slightly, eyes drifting from me, gaping wide, mind lost. “I hate you,” she said.

  That declaration startled me. “What did you say?”

  It was only then I realized we weren’t alone. Not anymore. The brightness of the sun, the glare from the glass, disguised the spirit now floating above my friend. I looked up at her, watched as she floated, descending into Pain’s body. There was nothing I could do but watch, shake and pray as Pain convulsed gently before settling. When she looked at me again, there was a new awareness in her, a consciousness I knew.

  “Cydia.”

  “Shaylee.” The image of the spirit flickered around Pain before stilling again. “Here we are again, dear sister.”

  “Leave her alone.” I felt something inside me swell with impotent anger, smothered by the spell wrapped around my mind.

  She laughed softly, a seductive and dangerous sound. “Why should I? This is the perfect vessel for my final vengeance.”

  “For what?” Here then was the answer I needed. The reason for the dreams. “What is this about?”

  She glared at me as if unbelieving then laughed again, clearly enjoying my need and confusion. “You don’t remember yet. But you will. When the time comes and we are together, you will know. And I will destroy you once and for all.”

  So much hate. I pulled back from her, trying to escape it, feeling weak and powerless in her presence, as if the dream girl whose life I lived had leached into me. Cydia’s spirit jerked me closer again.

  “Wait for me, dear sister,” she hissed. “I’d hate to miss a moment of it.”

  “Let her go.” I shoved my transplanted fear aside, struggling to reassert my own personality. “She’s not part of this.”

  “She is blocked and open,” Cydia said, “and perfect for my purposes. I will see you soon, dear sister.”

  The spirit rose from Pain, her laughter echoing eerie as she floated into the light of the sun and vanished. I turned to my friend to see her collapsing slowly into the chair, sliding down further on the plastic. Her pale skin was covered in a sheen of sweat, bangs plastered to her forehead.

  “Syd,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

  I’m not sure what comfort I could have offered her, seeing as I had none even for myself. But a smiling nurse didn’t give me the chance to think of something.

  “Time to go.” She held out one hand. Pain automatically took it, letting the woman help her to her feet. I scowled at the petite nurse in her cheery teddy bear scrubs, knowing it wasn’t her fault but feeling so powerless it made me angry.

  I stood there in the heat and light as Pain shuffled away. As she passed through the doors and into the ward, she looked back over her shoulder at me.

  Mrs. Hammond hugged me with one arm as the heavy steel door closed on Pain.

  “She’ll be fine,” she said with fake brightness. “She always is.”

  As much as I wanted to believe her, I knew way more than she did.

  I so wished I didn’t.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty One

  Neither Alison nor Mrs. Morgan said a word about our detour after I returned. I wanted to pinch my friend for her lack of caring but knew there was more going on with her. Besides, I was still wrapped up in what I’d seen. I had to reach Mom and tell her what happened. I had to go home. But Mom already made it very clear I wasn’t to show my face until the Wild Hunt issue was settled one way or another.

  I could only hope Pain would be okay until then.

  Mrs. Morgan spent the next hour on her cell phone either talking to one annoying person after another or texting the same annoying people. How did I know they were annoying? I didn’t, not really.

  But I was annoyed. So they had to be, right?

  Alison stayed totally silent and I was wrapped up in my own crap, so it was a pretty quiet ride otherwise. That is, until Mrs. Morgan finally put her phone away.

  “You’ll adore the lake house, Sydlynn,” she said. “I had it custom designed. Maybe I could invite your mother to come visit sometime.”

  The idea that Mom and this woman could be friends or even spend more than the hot minute they had in my kitchen without tearing each other apart seemed ludicrous. So I smiled and nodded.

  “I think she’d love that,” I said. Served Mom right.

  “The view is simply to die for,” Mrs. Morgan went on. “Roger wanted to buy the small property next to the marina, but I insisted he take the five acres on the lake.” She rolled her eyes at me like I knew exactly what she meant.

  “Can’t wait.” My enthusiasm was absent.

  Her cell phone beeped. She whipped it out like a weapon and checked her screen. “Well, that’s bad news.”

  “What?” Alison and I asked together. I glanced at her and she at me and we giggled.

  It made me feel better.

  Until I heard Mrs. Morgan’s bad news.

  “Storm coming this way,” she pouted. “Stupid weather.”

  Was this woman that self-absorbed she didn’t know about the hurricane watch? Seriously? My opinion of her dropped another hundred or so points while I fished out my own cell phone and checked the radar. Not good. One minute it looked like the entire eastern coast of the continent was covered in storm front and the next it broke up. While Mrs. Morgan might not know where it was coming from or consider it more than an inconvenience—if a natural weather disaster could be called an inconvenience—I knew better.

  The struggling, appearing and disappearing storm front meant the Wild was almost awake.

  If I was going to find my demon, I was running out of time.

  The most frustrating part? I’d done nothing physically to track her down. I’d left the ground search to everyone else, treating myself as normal as they did. I’d given up and given over my power to Quaid and Mom and Sunny.

  What was I thinking? Not that I didn’t trust them. Even though I now knew why Mom held off. But what about me? Sure I didn’t have useable magic. But that didn’t mean I was useless. And despite my failure in the past to find Demitrius and his cronies online, they had to have a trail. I just wasn’t being creative enough.

  Everyone left their mark. All I needed was a sniff and I knew I’d find them.

  And her.

  I watched the sky darken outside the tinted windows and prayed for rain, feeling the first surge of real hope I’d had in a long time. A downpour like the ones that had been happening lately would give me an excuse to spend the days indo
ors. On the computer. On the Internet.

  Finding my demon.

  Having a plan made me feel a whole lot better.

  We finally turned up yet another driveway through lush trees where yet another enormous house awaited us. Mind you, this one wasn’t quite as big as the first. Not quite. Very close, but who’s keeping score?

  Mrs. Morgan, obviously. And from the way she watched me, like she expected me to freak out and tell her how amazing it was, I had the feeling she was trying to impress me.

  Me? Really? Maybe my mom had a bigger impact on her than I first thought.

  “It’s lovely,” I said. And stopped. What else was there to say besides, Holy Crap, your second house could hold the entire coven and my demon cat.

  This design was slightly more rustic, but the pillars were still there so they totally killed the country charm look Mrs. Morgan might have been going for.

  The foyer was still marble. Double staircase. Definitely a theme happening.

  “Rosetta will get you girls settled.” Mrs. Morgan was already sweeping her way grandly up the left staircase and was soon out of sight.

  Ah, Rosetta. Delightful the way she glared at me and made me feel like a leper. Her hands moved in an odd gesture it took me a moment to recognize.

  No she did not. She did. That was a warding sign against evil.

  What was this woman’s problem?

  I didn’t get a chance to stand up for myself before Alison butted in.

  “Rosetta!” She stepped between the small maid and I, face flushed with anger. “Take our bags upstairs right now.”

  The woman shot me a sullen look, but obeyed immediately.

  “Sorry,” Alison said. “She’s so weird. But she’s the first maid Mom’s been able to keep.”

  I followed Alison upstairs, wondering what it would be like to serve Mrs. Morgan for a living. And shuddered away from the very thought.

  If this was permanent, if I never retrieved my demon or my power, I had to go to college. There was no way I’d end up working for a woman like that.