“Maybe we should move,” she offered.
“Where?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she told me. “Away from here.”
“That won’t change anything, Felicity,” I said softly. “What you’re trying to run away from isn’t just here. It’s part of me… Part of us… This is who we are.”
“I’m not so sure I want to be us then.”
“Yes, you do.”
She didn’t reply right away. She simply remained still, curled against me, her face buried against my chest. I gently stroked her hair and listened to her breathe as I closed my eyes, trying to relax once again myself. Unfortunately, my brain would have none of it. My mind was racing, and sleep wasn’t going to come anytime soon.
“I need a drink,” Felicity finally said.
“Now?”
I felt her nod slightly. “Aye. Maybe it will help me relax.”
“Maybe so,” I agreed.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
She was already unfolding herself from the cuddle and tossing back the sheet and comforter. “A drink might help you too.”
I rolled back, pushed myself up on my elbows, and paused before answering. “Maybe just some more aspirin I think.”
“Sit with me then?” The tone in her voice was almost pleading.
I had already figured out that she was more disturbed about this than she’d ever been before, but from the sound of her words, it became apparent that it went even deeper than I had realized. The two-year hiatus had led us both into complacency, but she had obviously harbored a real hope that my connection with the dead was over. I, on the other hand, had always known it would never be done. Not until I myself joined their ranks, and then, who knew? It may not even be over then.
“Yeah,” I told her with a nod. “I’ll be in there in a minute.”
She finished wrapping herself in a thick bathrobe and headed off to the kitchen. I made my way into the bathroom and fumbled through the medicine cabinet until I found a bottle of aspirin then popped the cap and poured a couple into my hand.
I gazed down at the white tablets in my palm and even though I knew full well that they weren’t going to help, poured another pair out to join them before snapping the cap back on the bottle. I popped the pills into my mouth and then bent down over the sink to get a mouthful of water.
When I stood back upright, I felt a sharp stab behind my eyes, and a sudden rush of dizziness overcame me. I grabbed the basin and steadied myself, giving my head a shake then looking up to the mirror.
A flash of brightness filled my eyes, and as it faded I saw the afterimage of a heart-shaped outline floating in the air before me. Protruding from it was a thin dagger with a simple handle. There seemed to be something streaming outward from the apparition or perhaps even floating behind it.
I blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the image, but I only caught intermittent flashes of bright red as the outline faded quickly away.
I shook my head again, feeling the dizziness ebb and my sight return to normal. After a moment I let go of the basin then retrieved my own bathrobe from the back of the door and slipped into it.
I trudged through the dark house on automatic pilot, almost tripping over our English setter who had elected to sleep in the middle of the hallway. After skirting around him, I hooked through the living room, then the dining room, and into the illuminated kitchen.
I shaded my eyes against the brightness, waiting for them to adjust as I slid into a seat opposite my wife at the breakfast nook.
I heard the ice tinkling in her glass as she tilted it up and took a drink then brought it back down to the table. Even after resting it there, however, she never took her dainty hand from the tumbler.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Aye,” she returned simply as she picked up a bottle and refilled the glass.
My eyes were beginning to adjust, and I looked up at her sullen features. I wasn’t entirely sure that alcohol was the best thing for her, given the circumstances, especially if she had already downed one and was starting a second, but at least she wasn’t sitting here drinking alone.
“So something just happened back…” I started.
Before I could complete the sentence, however, something caught my eye. The bottle she had just set back on the table between us was of a different shape than I had expected it to be. I was used to my petite wife drowning her sorrows in Irish whisky, but that definitely wasn’t what she was drinking at the moment.
I reached out and turned the bottle to face me. Since I wasn’t wearing my glasses, I pulled it close so that I could read the label. Even though the word only had three letters, I read it twice just to make sure I had it correct and then looked up at her with a puzzled expression.
“You were saying?” Felicity urged.
I ignored her question, replying instead with “Rum?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head to indicate she didn’t understand either. “I’ve been craving it all day.”
“But you don’t even like rum.”
“I know,” she mumbled then took another drink. She looked down at the table and then back up at me with a mix of puzzlement, and even what might have been fear, in her eyes before adding, “I don’t smoke either.”
“Well yeah. You’ve never smoked,” I replied. “So what?”
She nodded. “Aye. But right now I’m dying for a cigarette.”
CHAPTER 13:
I stared back at my wife without saying a word, my brain desperately trying to process the contradictory information it has just been fed.
“I must not be awake,” I finally told her with a shake of my head. “I could have sworn you just said you were dying for a cigarette.”
“I did,” she replied with a shallow nod.
“How could you possibly… I mean… Come on…” I stuttered. “You’ve never even smoked one.”
“Well… I did once. In college. Sort of.”
“How did you ‘sort of’ smoke a cigarette?”
“I was at a party. I’d had too much to drink and, well, I just took a puff from a friend’s cigarette. Then I coughed myself silly and almost threw up.”
“One puff, and it made you sick,” I echoed. “That still makes my point. If you’ve only ever had just one puff, and that made you sick, then how could you possibly be craving one?”
She shrugged, the curious fear still in her eyes. “I don’t know. All I can say is that I’m pretty sure I want a cigarette. That’s what keeps going through my mind, anyway.”
The concern that had plagued me earlier in the day now returned full force.
Up until this morning, I’d had every indication that the sphere of protection I had placed around Felicity was doing its job, or so I thought. But now, I was starting to see some pretty hard evidence that maybe it wasn’t. She was quite obviously being affected by something preternatural; there was absolutely no denying it. I mean, first the sexual aggression, and now here she was, sitting at the kitchen table in the middle of the night swilling rum as if it were water.
Of course, I wasn’t entirely sure just how much of an issue the drinking was in and of itself. As petite as she was, she could drink virtually anyone under the table. She’d done it to both Ben and me on more than one occasion. Still, the fact that she was actually craving alcohol wasn’t good, and her choice of liquor was certainly a red flag as
