I thought about the way her eyes had momentarily flashed black. “How much of your power is derived from the book?”
“I don’t know. Not all of it, that’s for certain. It’s more that the book enhanced my powers.”
“When it first fell into our laps — and how is a long and convoluted story that has no bearing on what we’re dealing with today — we knew the book was ... different,” Aric explained. “From the moment she first touched it, the book reacted to Zoe. I don’t know how else to explain it.
“Basically, I left her at home with a friend that day and when I was coming back, from miles away, I could see lightning. It looked like it was hitting our house. When I got there, I found that it was hitting my wife.”
“What?” Gunner’s eyebrows flew up his forehead. “You’ve been struck by lightning?”
Zoe smirked, clearly amused at his over-the-top reaction. “Several times.”
“It’s not funny.” Aric poked her side, his lips quirking. “For some reason, when Zoe held the book, she could draw lightning ... and magic ... and it whispered to her.”
“It whispered to you?” Bonnie frowned. “I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that whispering books aren’t a good thing.”
“I didn’t have much time to think about it,” Zoe admitted. “When all of this was going down, I was worried about my parents. They’d been taken prisoner in an effort to force us to hand over the book. Since we knew that could mean bad things for a lot of people, we had to come up with a different solution.”
“And you thought absorbing the book was the best way to go?” Marissa, who still looked ridiculous with one drawn-on eyebrow, spoke for the first time. “No offense, but have you ever considered seeking professional help?”
Zoe ignored the question. “We didn’t have a lot of options. I did what I had to do. The thing is, afterwards, the book still whispered to me. Now it’s in my head, and it’s one of those things I have to keep contained. If I let the whispers take control, bad things happen.”
Aric’s hand moved to the back of her neck and he gave it a light squeeze. “Zoe is a master at controlling the book. Her powers can be supercharged if she lets that darker magic out to play, though we try to keep those instances to a minimum.”
Rooster, eyes wide, shook his head. “That’s quite the story. Why would a bunch of vampires and shifters want the book in the first place?”
“They’re not the ones who want it,” I answered. “It’s Emma. She was there tonight. She’s in charge. Honestly, I should’ve seen it coming. I didn’t, though, and that’s on me.”
Zoe shot me a sympathetic look. “It’s not on you. None of us could figure out why the vampires and shifters were working together. They’re not natural allies. Now we know. She’s organizing the remnants of the Covenant College vampires and uniting them with your local shifters.”
Gunner made a noise in his throat to draw attention. “Only some of them are members of my pack. The bulk of them are remnants of Cyrus’ pack. He came in a month ago, wanted to cause trouble, and we took him down. Most of those wolves scattered. Obviously, some stayed behind.”
Zoe’s eyes flicked to me. “That’s the pack you were telling me about?”
“Yes. Why? What do you think it means?”
“I think that this Cyrus was probably working with the vampires from the start. The odds of two different factions showing up here and accidentally colliding sounds minuscule to me. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Except Hawthorne Hollow is a magical nexus,” Bonnie offered. “Paranormal creatures are drawn here.”
“A nexus?” Aric looked intrigued. “You mentioned that before but I wasn’t paying attention. How do you know that? And how does it work?”
“It’s common knowledge,” Rooster answered. “That’s why our group has so many representatives around to handle a low-population area. The nexus draws in paranormal creatures.”
“Just like Covenant College.” Aric glanced at his wife. “It makes sense that this master vampire would pick up the remnants of the Covenant vampires. They were stragglers and he was looking for a fight. Then another pack leader shows up to cause problems and two natural enemies collided and somehow became allies.” He nodded. “I think Zoe is right. These factions were working together long before they arrived on the scene.”
“But why would they want the book?” Rooster persisted. “What do they think they can get from it?”
Zoe shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they think they can undo what happened at the college. A lot of their brethren were lost. Their power base was also destroyed. To me, it makes sense that they think the book can make things better for them.”
“I guess.” Rooster didn’t look convinced. Before he could speak again, his attention drifted to Raisin, who had wandered into the bathroom when she grew tired of the conversation. One look at the girl was enough to have him shifting gears. “Is something wrong?”
Raisin’s lower lip trembled and she’d gone unnaturally white. “I went to tell Sami that her parents were here.”
“Is she being a pain?” Aric asked. “If so, just ignore her. She has a sharp tongue. If she said something nasty, she doesn’t mean it. She lashes out because she can’t control her emotions.”
Raisin lifted her hand. There was a sheet of paper clutched in it. “She wasn’t nasty. She wasn’t even in there.”
Zoe sat up taller on her stool. “What do you mean? Where did she go?”
Rooster snagged the paper from Raisin and briefly scanned it. He looked fearful when he turned toward Zoe. “She’s gone.”
“What?” Zoe was off her stool like a shot. “Did that witch take her? How did she manage that? You guys were supposed to be watching. I thought this place was warded.” The look on her face as she read the paper turned from frightened to furious in
