Chapter Fourteen

“The town is a Hollow.”

Kenzie waited, impatiently. But my throat had closed up, almost like the NDA I’d signed years ago was an actual block that could stop my words.

She rolled her eyes hard enough that it looked like she should have strained something. “You say that like it’s supposed to mean something to me.”

The air was thick with moisture, plastering the fine hairs at my temples to my skin. It felt surreal, standing here, suspended over giant vats of water that reflected the dim light back in rippling waves.

“Hollows are places where the natural and the supernatural co-exist.”

Kenzie shifted back, her lips pressing into a thin line. “You’re trying to tell me that the supernatural is real,” she asked me, in a tone so flat it sounded almost robotic.

That caught me as funny, like a burr in my brain. I shook my head and stared at her. “You… you literally have a show about hunting down the paranormal… and you don’t believe it actually exists?”

It was hard to pace on a walkway less than six feet wide, but Kenzie gave it a good shot. The heels of her boots rattled against the metal, sending vibrations shivering through my feet and up my legs.

“Paranormal crap gets views. Views mean that I get money, sponsors, and I get to travel all over to see places, buildings, that most people never get to go inside. But anytime I go to a ‘for sure real haunting’, it turns out to be nothing more than stories and gossip.”

I’d never seen anyone use sarcastic air quotes in real life before. I didn’t know that was a thing people actually did.

“So, you aren’t a believer, then?” I asked, just to be sure.

“No, I’m not,” she answered, looking at me like I was the stupid one. “Demonic influence in a house is just racoons in the walls. Creaking doors is just old and warped hardwood floors or old hinges. Cold spots are idiots putting furniture over air registers.” Kenzie spun on her heel, taking three fast strides back the way she came. “It’s all garbage. I’ve never found one thing that wasn’t easily explained by someone who knows where to look or what to look for.”

Her laugh was short and sharp. Almost mean.

“Well, that’s your opinion, and you’re free to have one.”

She scoffed at me. “So, you’re really trying to tell me it’s actually real?”

I nodded, wishing I knew what to do with my hands, other than worry my fingers at the sleeves of my cardigan. “I am.”

She laughed this time. “Ghosts are real?”

“You just missed a bunch of them drag racing outside a hotel that Death set up on the edge of town.”

Kenzie’s eyebrows lifted, and a smirk played on her lips. “Okay, that’s weird, but whatever. What about witches—are you going to tell me they’re real, too?”

The utterly inappropriate urge to laugh welled up again, and I fought hard to keep it out of my voice. “Yep. My best friend is one.”

“And what about Bigfoot? I guess he’s also real?” Kenzie sneered.

“No, that one’s made up,” I answered, almost smiling when I thought of what Roy’s reaction might be to that doozy.

Kenzie’s brows pinched down over the bridge of her nose. “Wait, really?”

“No, not really. The guy who tends the bar at the Half-Moon is a Sasquatch—he just doesn’t like being called ‘Bigfoot’ because he thinks his feet, big though they are, are in perfect proportion to the rest of his body—which, by the way, is over seven-feet-tall.”

“And he’s a bartender?”

I nodded. “He’s also the owner of the place and he makes a mean cosmopolitan.”

That might have been a stretch, but I’d only recently gotten into cosmopolitans, so, as far as I was concerned, Roy’s were the best.

For a young, generally pretty blond girl, Kenzie was kind of ugly when she scowled.

“Do you think this is a joke? Do you think I’m playing some game here?” She slipped a purple potion vial out of her pocket and took two fast strides to the edge of the walkway as my heart about dropped to my feet. The bottle caught the overhead lights where she dangled it over the edge, barely gripping it with two fingers.

I made a strangled sound of protest, lunging forward with my arms outstretched like I was diving to catch a baseball, but Kenzie made a little warning tut in the back of her throat and I froze. It was impossible for me to hide my fear, so I didn’t bother. Seeing it seemed to satisfy her, at least, because she bobbled the potion, and I thought my heart was going to pound its way out of my chest.

“What’s inside this thing, anyway?”

My mouth was dust dry. I had to swallow twice to work up enough moisture that my tongue didn’t stick to my teeth. “It’s a potion.”

“I got that much.”

“It’s a potion to help people with memory problems.”

“I knew that too. What’s it called?”

So, I told her and I told her how I came to have it and that I was a gypsy who brewed potions by trade.

“Wow. Well, I guess I can respect your commitment to this whole ‘paranormal’ thing,” Kenzie said, shaking her head. “But you’re just making me angry, now.” Then she stretched the bottle out further over the edge. I fought the urge to lunge after it. “But see, here’s the thing. There’s no such thing as potions, or magic. Whatever is in this bottle, it just interferes with whatever chemicals you’ve been pumping into people that makes them forget their hallucinations. And if you remember, the deal was that you’d tell me the truth, or I dump this vial into the water.” She was quiet as she glared at me. “So, enough of this horse shit. I want the real truth—the government-covering-stuff-up truth.” So, she didn’t believe in ghosts, but she believed in aliens? Her smile was a barring of teeth that would have made Lorcan proud. “Last chance.”

My pulse was thundering in my veins, and my heart slammed against the inside of my ribs like a rabbit trying to kick its way out of a trap. What was I going to do? Why did everyone agree I was the best person for this job again? Okay, I wasn’t scary, sure—I could accept that, but that just meant Kenzie didn’t respect me. Why hadn’t they sent someone better at scheming, or at charming people and getting them to do what they wanted? I didn’t have super speed, or strength, or demon pheromones, or hex bolts. I made potions, and frankly, that was what had gotten us into this mess in the first place.

That one little thread of thought snaked through my head, and the panic swirling in my chest slowed, and then went still. It was like I could finally take a deep breath again. Because, no, I didn’t have witch magic. I couldn’t turn people into amphibians, and I couldn’t raise the dead. I wouldn’t want to, either—I mean, that sounded like a lot of pressure. But I did make potions.

The oils, the flower petals, the waxes, they were just carriers for what I did. My magic was what made the potions work. Without me, they were just little bottles of pleasant smelling liquid that you could find at Bed, Bath, and Bodyworks. I was the ingredient that made them special.

Beneath the metal walkway, huge vats of water swirled lazily, propelled by paddles, light rippling across the surface as I looked down at it.

“The truth, Potion Lady,” Kenzie reminded me.

I didn’t have my supplies. I didn’t have anything to make a particular potion. But that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, because the magic was in me, and I could feel it boiling up inside my chest. Not a wild surge like the mess in the graveyard, but like a kettle on the stove. Warmth and possibility swirled up from my belly, twined around my lungs, and coiled down my arms.

I held my hands out to the sides, palms parallel to the ground far below.

“Magic is real,” I said in a voice just barely loud enough to be heard over the hum of machinery. “And I’ll prove it to you.”

It wasn’t anything special. But to someone who’d never seen anything more than an awkward shadow in the wrong place, or rats fighting instead of a ghost howling in torment, it was probably pretty impressive.

As soon as I spoke, the water beneath our feet flared bright, like it had been lit from within. Dazzling sparks rose from the surface, like motes of sunlight, rising up and off the water to drift lazily in the air. They swirled around us while the water glowed and shimmered.

Kenzie was frozen, eyes as wide as dinner plates as she stared down at the largest potion I’d ever tried to make.

Sweat beaded on my forehead, and the loss of so much magic all leaving me in a single rush left me feeling scraped out and a little hollow. I had to grab the railing beside me for a second, because my knees had gone watery, and I was worried they weren’t going to support me. It wouldn’t have really sold the act if I’d collapsed on the ground immediately after.

Slowly, Kenzie turned her head my way.

I tried to look like I was wise and mystical and knew what I was doing. Definitely not a tired mom who was already up past the time I would have gone to bed.

“It’s real,” she said, so quietly I had to read her lips to know what she’d said.

“It’s real, Kenzie. It’s all real.”

The machines kept humming, the pipes chugging away. Slowly, the light dimmed as the magic settled into the vat beneath us. Kenzie turned and watched until the last sparkle fizzled out. In spite of everything, part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance to reach her. To make an ally instead of an enemy. The wide-eyed look of delight maybe reminded me a little bit too much of Finn, back when he was younger when he used to watch me brew potions with an intense joy.

“Magic is real. Magical beings are real. They’re out there, just trying to live their lives. That’s why the Hollows are so important—they keep supernaturals safe, but they also keep humans safe.”

I took a deep breath to try and calm myself. My voice had gotten trembly at the end, and I knew I needed to rein myself in. The whole ‘I know what I’m doing’ illusion wouldn’t last long if I just burst into tears and I was feeling so overcome with exhaustion and worry, the tears weren’t that far.

“Most supernatural people just want to exist, to live their lives,” I continued. “Hollows allow them to do that. Here, we can live with humans who don’t know what we are, and we can all be safe, away from any fighting or old grudges between bloodlines. But people still get scared, or freaked out by the unexpected and unknown. Sometimes they react really, really badly to the things they see and that puts us in a lot of danger.”

“So?” she asked me.

“So, the memory charms are a way to ensure that we can live together and be safe,” I told her, my voice very close to pleading. “All that means is that a human just forgets it if they see something they shouldn’t have, and everyone has a place to live, a home and a community. We’re not trying to hurt anyone, but we also don’t want to be hurt. That’s why we keep our existence a secret. That’s why we have to stay hidden.”

I didn’t think Kenzie was hearing me at all. She was grinning to herself, staring down at the tank below us, even though the magic had already faded, leaving the cavernous room in a dim twilight. Her hands were wrapped around the railing, fingers moving in a restless pattern.

“Kenzie?” I asked, wary. “You understand what I’m saying, right?”

Her head came up, and she let out a little breathless laugh. “Do you understand how many views this is going to get? I’m going to go viral! Everyone with an internet connection is going to want to hear about this.”

“Views? What are you talking about?” I asked, shaking my head.

She took a step back from the edge, and both her hands came up to grip her hair. The nearly manic grin never faded. “Oh my God, I’m going to be the one who reveals that magic is real . Can you even imagine the sponsors? The money I’m going to make? I’m going to have producers begging me to air my show.”

Yeah, that was what I’d worried about. Kenzie didn’t care at all about the people she was putting at risk. Money and fame were the only things she’d ever really chased, and she’d just been handed a clear shot at both. She wasn’t going to let a little thing like horrible danger and a possible war between the magical and the mundane worlds slow her down.

I had to try, though. One last time.

“Kenzie,” I sighed, feeling as old and tired as she’d accused me of being. “No one is going to believe you.”

Her laughter bounced off the walls, echoing back in a chorus of mockery. She spun on her heel to face me, putting on an exaggerated pout. Then she tossed her hair back, raking her fingers through the blonde waves. “Okay, look. You’ve been straight with me, so I have a little bit of a confession to make. You remember how I said I’d put my phone away? Well.” She grinned, a shark’s grin all full of teeth. “It’s been recording this whole time from my pocket. I arranged for it to livestream on my channel while we talked.” She held her hands up, palms towards the ceiling. “Oops.”

Yeah, I’d figured she’d try to do just that or something like it. A headache bloomed in my temples, and I only just resisted the urge to massage them. Instead, I met Kenzie’s mocking gaze, feeling nothing but tired.

“Well, while we’re at it, I have something of a confession myself.” I pulled in a slow breath of damp air, tasting concrete on the back of my tongue. “That thing I tossed to you earlier?”

“What about it?”

“Well, it wasn’t a charm. Our guy in the chair called it something between an ‘EMP’ I think and a magical computer virus.”

“What does that mean,” she started, looking more and more concerned with each passing second.

“It means that right about now, it will have corrupted your phone, blanked your data, crept into anything you’ve linked it to, and deleted anything incriminating. What you have in your pocket that you thought was recording us is now nothing more than a very expensive paperweight.”

The look of absolute horror that contorted her face might have been funny to someone, but it just made me sad. I hated that things had gone this way. Part of me had really hoped she’d see reason, that maybe she could have been let in on the secret. Maybe even helped Henner in keeping us safe and covering our digital tracks. But if she just wanted to win, not caring about all the people she might hurt in the process? Well, then I couldn’t regret what I’d just done.

Kenzie fumbled her phone back out of her pocket. The EMP Henner had made for me fell to the walkway, just a thin piece of plastic with its nail polish runes. I made a mental note to grab it before I left. Even a bad security guard might find it out of place and wonder what it was doing here.

“No. No, no, no.” Kenzie frantically tapped on the dark screen of her phone. She pressed the buttons, tried to reboot it. But it stayed dark. The technology had become nothing more than a lump of metal, plastic and wires. The horror morphed into fury, an ugly flush creeping up her neck and into her face. Kenzie clutched her phone so tightly, that the plastic case creaked under the grip of her fingers. For a second, I thought she was going to throw it at me.

“You think you’re so smart?” she spat. “Well, too bad you forgot about this.”

Between one second and the next, there was a purple glass bottle in her free hand. Kenzie whirled towards the railing and wrenched her arm back, preparing to throw it. My pulse hammered in my veins, and my fingers and toes felt numb. My anxiety was so high that I could taste bitter copper at the back of my tongue. But somehow, I managed to squeak out two words.

“Purple rain.”

Before Kenzie’s arm could arc forward again, there was a rush of displaced air, and Lorcan had her wrist in his hand.

Kenzie shrieked, but Lorcan ignored her, instead focusing on plucking the potion bottle out of her hand and holding it up to his eye so he could peer through the colored glass.

“Awful lot of trouble for something so small.”

My laugh was more of a shaky exhale of the breath I’d been holding. The relief was almost as nerve wracking as the fear had been. “Usually, it’s the small things that cause the most trouble.”

“True that.” Lorcan slipped the bottle into the pocket of his coat. His accent was a little thicker than usual, the R turning into a low purr. “I know better than most. I married Wanda, after all.”

It was an absolute relief to hear the snarky, “I heard that,” from the walkway behind me.

“Who the hell are you?” Kenzie took a step back from Lorcan, the hand not clutching her phone clenching into a fist. “And how did you do that?”

Lorcan was usually a pretty easy-going guy, especially for a vampire. He and Roy would snipe at each other, sure, and he was really good in a fight when he decided to get involved. But other than Wanda, the most passionate I’d ever seen him had been when he was telling me about the merits of fluoride, and which ones did the least damage to teeth.

I’d never seen him angry before. And, boy, was it a sight to see. The shine in those green eyes, the tight line of his jaw, even the way he turned his head towards Kenzie without turning the rest of his body to face her, told me that he wasn’t just mad.

He was furious.

Instead of a verbal answer, Lorcan smiled at Kenzie, bright and wide. The dim industrial safety lights glinted off his fangs and cast long shadows over his face. Kenzie’s eyes bulged wide, and she took a startled step back. Her foot clanged awkwardly with the movement. Her gaze darted between Lorcan and me. I could almost see it in the way her face went through a revolving series of expressions. The startlement, the calculation, then the slowly dawning awareness that we were in a dark warehouse, with no security guard, and she’d just lost her only two pieces of leverage.

And while forty-seven-year-old me, in my jeans, mom sneakers, and pink cardigan, were about as far from intimidating as a bowl of warm soup, Lorcan was an entirely different story. He was tall, and broad shouldered, and his body cut through the shadows like a knife. He was also so very fast, and quiet on his feet, that we hadn’t even heard the sound of his approach, or felt the vibrations of his steps. Lorcan, with his full, cupid’s bow lips and predator’s teeth—yes, he was definitely another story.

A little twist of sympathy curled through me when I caught sight of the sweat gleaming on Kenzie’s forehead. She took another step back, then another. When she passed under a light, I could see the thump of her pulse in her neck. She might have been a serious pain in the butt, but I didn’t want to scare her too badly. That was just cruel.

“We’re not going to hurt you, Kenzie,” I said.

“And what a shame that is,” Wanda added.

“But we can’t keep having you dig into our lives,” I continued. “You’re making things too dangerous for us.”

“Oh, screw this.” Kenzie whipped around and bolted down the walkway, heading for one of the room’s exits. Every pounding footstep sent a wave of vibrations up my leg and into my knee. Part of me wondered if this was what a spider felt like, sitting in her web. How every bit of movement was so distinct, until she could have found her prey with her eyes closed.

Kenzie bolted in a straight line down the main pathway, heading for the edge of the wall, where she could find a door out. At least she was heading that way, until Roy stepped out of the shadows and blocked the way. Kenzie skidded, changing directions so quickly that she tripped and had to catch herself on the railing. She turned down one of the aisles leading off the main pathway, running full tilt. And then Wanda was there in a swirl of shadows and killer boots. Scarlet energy coiled around her arms, a hex or a blood bolt just waiting to be cast. Somehow, her smile was more predatory than Lorcan’s had been.

Sweating and panting openly, Kenzie reversed and pounded in the other direction. Her choice of meeting places was biting her in the rear. Sure, the weird grid of hanging pathways over the plant’s water tanks meant it was easy to see people approaching. But it also meant you were really limited in the ways you could flee. And visibility didn’t help much when the people you were waiting for could move faster than a car over short distances.

“Lorcan,” I scolded quietly. “Just catch her. She could get hurt!”

It wouldn’t have even been any effort for him. He was choosing to let her run, narrowing down the options. It felt a little too much like a cat playing with a mouse in my eyes. The vampire shrugged, completely unrepentant. His hands were in his coat pockets as he lounged back against the barrier.

“I’m afraid I’m under orders, Poppy.”

I tugged at the sleeves of my sweater, pulling them down over my hands while I nibbled at my lower lip. “If Wanda–”

“—not Wanda, actually,” he interrupted with an incline of his head.

“Then who?”

“Henner,” Lorcan answered. “He’s been absolutely frazzled for the past few days, working almost around the clock to try and keep this one from posting incriminating things online. He mentioned something about putting a genie back in a bottle that I didn’t fully understand.” Lorcan brushed an invisible speck of lint off his sleeve. “Anyway, before we left him, he told me, and this is a direct quote by the way, to ‘scare the heck out of that brat’. Considering what he’s been through, I’m inclined to indulge him.”

I winced. Henner wasn’t wrong exactly, but… actually, screw it. Kenzie had caused us and me, particularly, the worst of all headaches. She did deserve whatever she had coming to her. I turned to watch her race down the walkway, heading for the door that would take her back into the maze of hallways. Then, Fifi stepped up to block her way, her makeup and her carefully arranged silver curls immaculate.

Now, while Fifi was a very intimidating person in a social context, on account of her being curvy, gorgeous, and the physical manifestation of sex itself, as an individual, she was only slightly scarier than I was. And considering that I’d met chihuahuas scarier than I was, that wasn’t saying much.

I supposed that, with Roy, Lorcan, and Wanda already blocking her other escape options, Kenzie just didn’t see Fifi as a threat. Or just thought the curvy blonde would be easy to overpower. Fifi still hadn’t changed out of her office clothes, and to be fair, the dark pencil skirt didn’t exactly scream danger.

Or maybe Kenzie just panicked. She saw all her other escape routes being cut off, and she decided to just take a chance and go for the lesser evil. Whatever the reasoning behind it, Kenzie didn’t stop or try to change direction. Instead, she put on a burst of speed, and charged directly at Fifi.

Lorcan cursed softly under his breath. Beside me, I could feel him coiling, ready to throw himself forward and make sure Kenzie didn’t make it out of the building.

Fifi wasn’t very tall. Next to Roy, she looked like a slip of a woman. But she was a demon, after all, and an extremely well fed one at that. Once Kenzie drew closer, Fifi stepped just a hair to the side, almost like she was flinching out of the way and trying to avoid getting plowed over. Kenzie gave a little shout, like she could see her escape clearly. The sound was exultant, eager.

At the last second, Fifi’s arm came up like an iron bar. Kenzie ran into it full force, and it was like watching someone run face first into a brick wall. Fifi’s arm hit her in the chest, and there was an explosive exhale where all the wind was knocked out of Kenzie. Her legs came up and out from underneath her, her upper body snapped backwards, and before I could even blink, Kenzie was flat on her back on the raised walkway, blinking up at the ceiling while she tried to get her breath back.

Everything was quiet for a second. And then I heard the distinct sound of Wanda absolutely guffawing . Lorcan snorted, but tried to rein in his own laughter when I gave him a disapproving look. Kenzie was irritating, and she’d scared the heck out of me with what she was threatening to do, but she was still only in her twenties, and I didn’t like seeing her hurt, even if she’d left us with no other options. Other than having the breath knocked right out of her, and being a little stunned by the impact, she seemed okay.

The rest of us hurried over to where Fifi was now standing guard over Kenzie, who seemed to have given up on anything that didn’t involve lying there and blinking up at the ceiling. Fifi looked somewhere between proud of herself and mortified. It didn’t help matters when a grinning Roy came up to plant a noisy kiss on the top of her head. Luckily for her, Fifi even blushed prettily.

Kenzie let out a little wheeze as I crouched down beside her. Behind me, Wanda was whispering to herself, vermillion light twining around her hands as she prepared the familiar sigils of the memory charm.

“I did tell you that we were a community,” I told Kenzie softly. There was a bright spark of defiance in those eyes, even if she didn’t have the breath to say anything in turn.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

And I was. I was sorry for all of it, but this was the only way to protect Haven Hollow, to protect our home, our town, and the people who lived here.

Kenzie bared her teeth and tried to croak something out of her raspy throat.

But then Wanda brushed her power across Kenzie’s forehead, the memory charm soaking in through her skin like ruby dust, and whatever she’d been trying to say was swept away.