Casting Shadows (The Ash Grove Chronicles) Read online

  He winced. “There’s an image every father wants in his head.”

  “We just want to be with each other. I was so scared I’d lose him, Dad, and it would mean so much just to know that if I woke up in the night he’d be there to hold me and talk to me. He feels the same way. He has nightmares, you know. He dreams about that night when he almost died. He doesn’t want to say anything to you about it because he wants you to like him, so he’s trying not to make waves.” She braked at a stop sign. “And yeah,” honesty compelled her to add, “we do want to be able to have some together time without having to sneak around like a couple of—”

  “Teenagers?” he said dryly.

  “Um. Yeah.”

  He let her drive in silence for a time. At last he said, “I know it’s hard for you both, but I’m not going to change my mind. However,” and he put a hand up to halt the protest that rose to her lips, “I might see my way to staying on campus one night a week in one of the dorm guest rooms so that you two can have a date night. I think that’s pretty generous.”

  Not as generous as she had hoped for, but it was better than nothing. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, and when she had pulled up in front of the academic building she leaned over to give him a hug. “That would be really nice.”

  “Just do me a favor,” he said plaintively. “Tell me that you spent the time watching a movie or playing World of Warcraft or something.”

  She laughed. “It’s a deal.”

  When she pulled into the driveway at home, she was taken aback to find unfamiliar cars parked there. A handful of women were gathered on the front porch, trying to peer past the window blinds. Some carried cameras. Startled, she put on the parking brake without turning off the motor, and hefted herself out of the driver’s seat. Getting in and out of things was something she was still getting used to with her newly big belly.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “We came to see Tristan,” explained a twentyish blonde who Joy recognized as a cashier at the local Ingles grocery store. “You’re his fiancée, aren’t you? Is he home? No one’s answering the door.”

  Oh lord. How long would it be before the fans and reporters left them in peace? She didn’t blame Tan for not answering the door.

  “If he’s out, we can wait,” said another woman, a permed brunette who must have been twice Tan’s age at least. “I’m just dying to meet him in person,” she confided.

  “My fiancé is still getting his strength back,” said Joy firmly. “Just because he’s been released from the hospital doesn’t mean he’s well enough yet to be signing autographs and posing for photos. I’m sure you don’t want to set back his recovery.”

  There were a few disappointed sighs and halfhearted protests, but to Joy’s relief they cleared out without much dallying. Once they had driven off, she parked the car properly and let herself into the house.

  Inside, she was surprised to see no sign of Tanner. His cereal bowl was in the sink, but all was still. “Tan?” she called, and when there was no answer, she descended to the basement.

  He had gone back to bed. She stood for a moment just watching him. He was only half covered by the comforter, and the sun coming through the basement windows gilded his bare chest and muscular arms: Apollo descended to a middle-class basement. What his fans would give to see him like this, she thought. Sometimes she still couldn’t quite believe this amazing guy was with her.

  She sat on the edge of the futon and reached out to touch his arm. “Tan,” she said softly. “Are you awake?”

  His eyes opened, and when he saw her he smiled and reached out to draw her down beside him. He was warm from sleep. “We have the house to ourselves,” she told him. “No interruptions.”

  “Good.” He pulled her close for a long, lazy kiss, and when they parted at last he placed a hand on her belly and moved it over her roundness. “Does it hurt?” he asked. “The baby?”

  “Not really. It’s kind of a weird pressure sometimes, when she braces herself against me. It’s like she’s trying to make more room.” She took his hand and guided it. “That’s her foot pushing against me,” she said. “Can you feel it?”

  The wonder in his eyes made him look very young, and she remembered that he wasn’t a sophisticated celebrity anymore but an eighteen-year-old about to be a father for the first time. “That’s unbelievable,” he whispered.

  She nestled closer to him for another kiss, and then another. If only it could always be like this: no distractions, no worries about jobs or money or sleeping arrangements—just the two of them, together.

  But not for long. Suddenly they heard the front door open and footsteps enter the house. They drew apart and looked at each other in startled confusion.

  “Your dad?”

  “No, it can’t be.”

  “Wasn’t the door locked?”

  “There’s never been a need.”

  Had some of Tanner’s fans come back and invited themselves in? A little frightened now, she almost jumped when a man’s voice rang out. “Anyone home?” it called. “It’s Santa Claus.”

  Their eyes met in shock.

  “It’s not…”

  “It is.” His jaw set, and he sat up, reached for his jeans, and started to pull them on. “I don’t know what he’s doing here, but it can’t be anything good. Stay here.”

  She had no intention of staying behind, but she took a minute first to fetch her father’s baseball bat, and it took time to haul herself up the basement stairs. She could hear their voices—one tense, the other relaxed—as she reached the upper floor and entered the living room.

  Their visitor was dark-haired, around thirty, with small silver hoop earrings like a pirate’s and a beard sculpted into a thin line along his jaw. He was dressed with the kind of artless simplicity that cost a lot of money to achieve, and he flashed Joy a dazzling white smile as she entered.

  “What a charming surprise. Tristan didn’t tell me you were here.” His eyes moved over her unhurriedly, and she knew he was registering her tousled hair, her face rosy from contact with Tan’s stubble. His grin widened, and she felt herself starting to blush. “He said this was a bad time, but he didn’t tell me I was interrupting a honeymoon rehearsal. My abject apologies.” He reached for her hand to kiss, but she was prepared for this and stepped aside, closer to Tanner. She placed the bat behind her on the sideboard, well within reach.

  “Normally people knock,” she said. “And wait to be asked in.”

  Tanner was more blunt. “What are you doing here, Raven?”

  He gave them a reproachful look. “Must I have a reason to call on friends?”

  “We’re not friends,” said Tanner, tightly. He put an arm around Joy’s waist, whether to reassure her or to take courage from her she didn’t know. “As far as I’m concerned, you were one of my jailors.”

  Joy had no reason to trust Raven either. “You were totally nasty to me last summer when I wanted to see Tan,” she said. “You did everything but threaten my life.”

  He offered her a conciliatory smile. “Following orders, I’m afraid. You saw how closely we were being watched.”

  “Hmm.” He had a point. The worst that she knew of him for certain was that he had been an important part of Melisande’s entourage—and the same could be said, in a sense, for Tanner.

  “You weren’t at the ritual where Melisande tried to kill Tanner,” she said. “Why not?”

  “Yes, and where have you been the last few days?” Tanner put in.

  “Such a lot of questions,” said Raven, and seated himself unbidden in one of the overstuffed armchairs. He cast an appraising look around, and Joy suddenly became aware of how her home must look to him, with its comfortable but well-worn furniture, its untidy stacks of books everywhere, and her mother’s baby grand piano looking as out of place as an orchid among kudzu. “It may surprise you to know,” said Raven, crossing one elegant leg over the other, and adjusting the crease in his pant leg, “that I was on my way to Hartsfiel
d-Atlanta airport to catch the first plane that would get me out of Melisande’s reach.”

  Joy could see her own doubt reflected in Tan’s face. “Why would you do that?” he asked, his skepticism obvious. “You were her man Friday, her chief suckup.”

  “Come now, that’s hardly flattering.” Raven gestured to them. “Please, sit. You’re making your guest feel awkward, and that’s not the Southern hospitality I’ve come to expect.”

  Reluctantly, they sat on the sofa opposite. Tanner still kept one arm tight around Joy’s waist, and his other hand gripped hers. She knew that he drew strength from her presence and felt a flash of thankfulness that Raven had chosen a time to visit when she was home. On his own, she wasn’t sure how Tanner would have coped.

  “You were running out on Melisande?” she prompted.

  “Yes, I was.” His dark eyes grew sober. “I don’t expect either of you to believe me, but my position with her for all these years wasn’t that different from Trist—Tanner’s. She had me by the dangly bits, if you’ll pardon the expression, and it was the first real opportunity I’d had to escape.”

  Beside her, Tanner was rigid with disbelief. “You never acted like you were with her against your will. You seemed to be enjoying yourself.”

  Raven shrugged elegantly, his shoulders not even disarranging the lines of his shirt.

  “I was making the best of a bad situation,” he said. “And life with Melisande did have its pleasant side. You of all people should know how intoxicating she could be when she wanted something—or someone.”

  Tanner dropped his eyes, and Raven gave a nod as if he had received the answer he expected.

  “You do remember. So you can’t be surprised to learn that it was only over the last few years that my tenure with her began to feel like imprisonment. But you also know that she had eyes and ears everywhere; it had been impossible to find a way out. Until she began preparations for the night that she would finish you off.” He shuddered, and Joy couldn’t decide if she thought the action was genuine or not. So much of what he did and said seemed theatrical. That didn’t mean it wasn’t truly felt, but it made him harder to read. “I admit I was amazed to find out that you’d survived. To have gone up against a succubus and defeated her—it’s remarkable. Although it looks as though she managed to get a blow or two in.” He nodded toward the bandage that covered the stitches on Tanner’s chest. “I’m amazed the damage was no worse. How did you do it?”

  “It was Joy,” said Tanner shortly. He was grudging Raven every word. “She saved me and defeated Melisande.”

  “Indeed!” He cocked an eyebrow at her admiringly. “Miss Sumner, you are a remarkable young woman. I am delighted to think that we’ll be serving on the council together.”

  “We what?”

  “Oh yes, hasn’t Eleanor—Dr. Aysgarth, I should say—been in touch with you yet?” At her expression, he clicked his tongue. “Clearly I’m premature. But I’m going to be meeting with the Ash Grove guardians to help them rebuild their security measures and enforce some stricter safeguards. Melisande shouldn’t have been able to breach them, and knowing her as long as I have, I can offer some insight into the ways of demons that should prove to be of use.”

  She stared at him, her mouth open in astonishment until she remembered to hitch up her jaw. Dr. Eleanor Aysgarth, the principal of Ash Grove High, was the head of a group of teachers, faculty, and outside advisors that included Joy’s father and, most recently, Joy herself. They monitored the supernatural activity to which the school was prone and worked to keep the population safe. Joy had first learned of the council’s existence last summer, when Gail had brought her in to tell the council of some strange slips forward in time that Joy had experienced. If the council was placing its trust in Raven, that was persuasive evidence that he was trustworthy despite his association with Melisande.

  In part because—and she brightened as she thought of it—Ash Grove’s campus was bordered on all sides with a barrier against evil forces: on one side was the river, and on the other three were a combination of safeguards, including mountain ash and holly trees. The barrier wasn’t foolproof—Melisande, with the help of a council member she had enslaved to her will, had broken through it—but if Raven was able to cross it, that spoke well for him being just what he claimed to be.

  “So what are you doing here?” she asked. “Why didn’t you keep running?”

  “I heard that she had suffered a setback—had nearly been killed, in fact. I admit I was curious. And I thought I could help both you and myself.”

  “Help us? Why?” Tanner’s face was still dark, his brows drawn together.

  “And how?” added Joy.

  Their self-appointed guest rose. “I think that can wait until the council meeting. It’s tomorrow at four, in case you hadn’t heard. In the conference room in the academic building; you know it? Ah, excellent. You’re both expected.”

  “Both of us?”

  “Most particularly, Eleanor said. In the meantime, I had hoped that I might be able to do you a truly good turn and bring you the banking information to access all your earnings that Melisande had been holding for you until you came of age.”

  “What’s stopping you?” Joy asked, and her bluntness brought a smile from him, albeit a rueful one.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t have clearance to access that account. For now I’m afraid it’s in deadlock, at least until I can find a lawyer clever enough to come up with a work-around.”

  Joy hadn’t thought about Tanner having money still—she had assumed that he had spent it as it came in. For a second her heart had lifted at the thought of what a difference that money could make as they started their family; but then she was brought back to earth in the same breath.

  Raven continued, “All I’ve been able to have brought today, and it’s a sad sort of peace offering, is some of the things you left behind, Tanner.”

  “What things?”

  “Well, your wallet and ID, for a start.” For the first time Joy noticed a leather suitcase against the wall by the front door. “Also your phone, toiletries—if you’re like me, you’re devastated without your particular brand of shaving gel.” His eyes dwelled approvingly on Tanner’s dark chin. “Although I have to admit that the natural look suits you. Let’s see, what else… jewelry, of course. There were a few books. The truck should be arriving momentarily with your clothes and the bigger items, like your bike.”

  “My bike?” Tanner’s eyes lit up. “Seriously?”

  Tanner’s Kawasaki Ninja had been almost his only means of escaping from Melisande’s watchful eye. She permitted him his occasional unsupervised ride, and he had taken advantage of that last spring after he met Joy and began to seek her out. The bike was a symbol to him of all that Melisande hadn’t given him—freedom, independence, autonomy. That it was a gorgeous and powerful piece of machinery in its own right only increased Tanner’s love for it. No matter what Raven’s agenda might be, Joy was grateful to him for restoring it to Tanner.

  Already he was at the door, flinging it open to scan the driveway, and Joy and Raven joined him on the porch as a small moving truck pulled in. Stocky men immediately jumped out and began unloading boxes and garment bags—and, sure enough, Tan’s motorcycle, which they wheeled down a ramp and propped on its stand next to the front steps. Glossy black and dangerously powerful, it looked out of place next to the flower beds.

  “Well… thank you,” said Tanner, the words forcing themselves out of him. Reluctantly, he held out a hand for Raven to shake. “I appreciate it,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it. I only wish I could do more. Rest assured that I will keep looking for ways to restore your money to you.” Releasing Tanner’s hand, he reached for Joy’s, but again she was too quick and eluded him. He gave her a smile that was much too intimate, and then he was out the door, making his unhurried way to a gleaming Jaguar that awaited him in the driveway. Joy and Tanner watched from the porch as Raven got inside and drove away,
the car so nearly silent that it wasn’t surprising he’d been able to sneak up on them. The truck, emptied of its contents, soon followed. Then Tan ran down the steps and to his bike so that he could check it over minutely.

  “I’d forgotten how flirtatious Raven can be,” said Joy, leaning on the porch railing to watch him. “But I can’t tell which of us he’s trying to charm more—or why.”

  “That’s just how he is,” said Tan, smoothing his hands along the paint to check for scrapes. “He’ll put the moves on anything with a pulse. I wonder what his game is. Letting me know he can’t get me my money, but then bringing me all my stuff? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “If he’s on the level, it could be good to have him on our side,” she mused. “And at least you’ll have something to wear now.” Tanner had been making do with Jim Brody’s castoffs, and they weren’t the best fit.

  The luggage yielded a wide variety of clothes from Tanner’s days of wealth, celebrity, and trophyhood. Custom-made jeans and cashmere sweaters, shirts of silk and linen, quietly elegant suits, louder club wear. “Oh great,” said Tanner glumly, “he remembered my man-whore pants,” and he lifted a pair of black leather pants from one suitcase.

  Joy couldn’t suppress a snort of laughter. “Your what?”

  “That’s how I always thought of them.” Then he brightened. “But I don’t ever have to wear them again. You, my friends, are going to the dump.”

  “Oh, let’s not be too hasty. A guy never knows when he may need some man-whore pants. Now, this is nice.” One of the garment bags had yielded his tuxedo. “I’m glad he brought this. You can wear it in the wedding.”

  “Some of these other things will definitely be going to the thrift shop, though. Or hey, we could sell them on eBay, make a few bucks.”

  “You don’t want to keep them?” She had been looking forward to seeing him wear some of the outfits they had unpacked, but she hadn’t thought about what associations they might have. “Did she pick them out?”