Free Something Wicked by Evelyn Vaughn Page B

circle.”

    What? I stopped, confused…and realized that I was standing in the middle of a circle that had been drawn into the snow, just before my front steps.

    That, and the voice hadn’t been in my head.

    I looked up—and took a step back, out of the snow circle.

    My first, crazy thought was, the Goddess!

    But of course the woman who separated herself from the shadows of my brick stoop was human. She wore a deep blue cape with an attached hood that half hid her face, and she held a thick cane. When the wind caught a flurry of snow onto my stoop, her cape flew out like wings. Her hood blew back, releasing a halo of medium-length brown hair and revealing a solemn face far younger than the cane had me expecting.

    She couldn’t be much older than Diana was.

    Than Diana had been.

    “Hello, Kate Trillo,” said the mystery woman.

    “Go away.” I sounded childish, I knew, but hello —I needed to call the darkest powers I could command down on Victor Fisher while my fury was fresh. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

    I liked saying that. I almost wanted to say it again. Instead, I mounted the stairs and started to shoulder right past her on the stoop. But…

    She turned sideways as I passed her. Somehow I ended up farther from the door instead of closer. What the hell?

    “I think I do,” she answered evenly. “Your name is Kate Trillo. Your sister was a priestess of Hekate. And her grail was stolen by the man who murdered her. Is that about right?”

    I stared.

    The stranger took a deep breath, her blue eyes somehow both sympathetic and respectful. “I am so very sorry for your loss. I wouldn’t have intruded if the need weren’t great.” She reached out, as if to put her hand on my shoulder—and the rage in me broke. I slapped her hand away, then shoved her backward, as hard as I could with one hand, toward the steps—

    Or that had been the plan. When I shoved outward, it’s like suddenly she wasn’t as close as I thought she was. I was the one who ended up stumbling, with nothing to brace against. How had she done that?

    However it was, it pissed me off. I bodychecked her—

    Or that was the idea. Again, with a simple turn, she stopped being immediately in front of me. I hit the cold brick pillar and spun. I glimpsed that another strange woman had gotten out of a car across the street and was approaching the house. Backup. They were ganging up on me. All my damned helplessness—on the witness stand, against Victor, against death itself—screamed out of me.

    “What the hell do you want from me?”

    The first woman shook her head toward her backup and put her hand on my shoulder—not to push me, or direct me, just to touch me—and something happened. Magic. I felt stronger. I felt less alone. I even felt the tiniest hint of something that, before I’d turned to the dark side, I might have called hope. Like maybe everything wasn’t lost yet, after all.

    I didn’t like that feeling. It was a lie. But instead of pushing the crazy lady off the stoop—or trying to—I caught back a sob.

    Before I knew it, she’d dropped her cane and had a grip on my other shoulder. “Kate? Kate, I’m so sorry for your loss….”

    I know this sounds crazy. It was crazy. But it felt as if my sister held me, and I missed her so badly, and I felt so guilty that her killer was now free….

    The next thing I knew, I was in this stranger’s arms and I was crying. The whole story spilled out—the murder, the hearing, Prescott’s attacks, Victor’s freedom. She held me, and made the right sounds of horror or outrage at all the right times, and somehow the weight on my shoulders eased a little.

    I wasn’t just crying. I was being comforted—and healed. By a complete stranger.

    “Shhh,” she soothed, petting my hair, rubbing my back. Her tummy pressed roundly against mine—was she pregnant? “Shhh. You aren’t alone, Kate. You don’t have to do all of this alone….”

    I finally