Chapter 211: So Much To Answer For
What a summer.
Mom spent the next two weeks going from house to house, connecting and reconnecting with every single member of our coven. Including, it turned out, those who were willing to betray her. Imagine. I would have kicked their sorry asses out and let them join the Dumonts, but Mom had a longer fuse than I did and, clearly, some other agenda I didn't know about.
Turned out I was right about Celeste being a Purity member. James too. They and a handful of others were the only ones who survived the battle, adopted into the Hayle family when the Dumonts refused to take them in.
When Naudia committed herself, losing her family magic to Gram, it didn't just drive my grandmother crazy. It killed most of her followers. A massacre of the woman's own making. I couldn't imagine committing that much power to hate, enough to destroy those who looked to me for leadership.
No wonder Gram went crazy. All those people's dying energy? I'd have gone around the bend and never come back.
Guess her Enforcer training was good for a lot of things.
I was still in awe of her, though every time she caught me staring she'd either make a funny face or stick out her tongue. Which naturally made me giggle.
She was my Gram. No matter what.
Mom's decision to let Celeste and company remain in our family didn't sit well with me. Or many others in the coven. When I confronted her on it, she just told me she knew what she was doing.
Okay then. Although after I had a few days to think about it, I was pretty sure I understood. At least this way she could keep an eye on them. And, through them, the Dumonts.
Because you just know Celeste hadn't given up on seeing Mom deposed.
Or dead.
Alison was getting better. She didn't seem as frail, anyway, and was out of the hospital. Angela had as yet to revert to her old habits too, so I had hopes for them both.
Uncle Frank didn't come around much, even now that Mom convinced the coven the real threat wasn't the vampires in the family. The few times I'd seen him he acted angry and obsessed. I could hardly blame him for that.
I still worried.
I got my first email from Blood out of the blue, which actually made me smile. He and his family were settled nicely in Prague. He even sent goofy pictures of himself doing the tacky tourist thing.
At least one of us was safe.
Simon seemed to be distancing himself. I wasn't sure if it was because he was prepping for leaving us behind or what, but he stopped answering my emails and refused to talk on the phone. After his mom politely asked me to stop calling, I did.
Sucked.
Beth was so busy with her new boyfriend and her job, happier now that the crisis was over, she barely had time to chat, even when I stopped in with Alison for ice cream. At least she seemed happy.
Galleytrot told me, when I thought to ask, that the now free werewolves disappeared shortly after I left to go to the hotel. He'd tried to contact them, and I did too, but wherever Charlotte was hiding with her pack mates, she didn't want me to find her.
Whatever. I had my own worries.
Mom and Dad seemed to be fighting a lot. From a couple who never fought, it was shocking. And awful. So I tended to avoid them. Easier since Dad continued to spend his time in the basement.
I comforted myself every single day and night with the feeling of Quaid. I'd have these panic moments, like mini anxiety attacks, only to calm the moment I felt him there inside me, his power connected to mine.
I worried constantly and found it very hard to sleep.
But the hardest part of that summer was hearing Dorothy Hammond was found floating in the local lake, at least a week dead. While the authorities called it a suicide and Jerry Hammond mourned his wife's loss along with the disappearance of his only daughter, I seethed inside.
Suicide. Yeah right.
I knew better.
One more thing Odette Dumont had to answer for.
End of Book Five
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Dedication
To my life long friend, Valerie Bellamy, for her
unwavering friendship and for following
her own passions-I'm so proud of you!
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