The man aimed his rifle at the sky and fired. The horse bucked back. Curtis wrapped his arm protectively around Maura’s waist as she steadied the startled animal. The gunman cackled again as his crunching footsteps retreated into the dark woods from where he’d appeared.
“I’m starting to suspect my uncle Raibeart spiked my drink, and this is all some kind of mind game hallucination,” Maura said. “Did ya see that man’s costume? And the body odor was unnecessarily authentic.”
“Then he would’ve had to spike both of our drinks because I see it all too,” Curtis reasoned.
“If this is some kind of elaborate prank—which I don’t think is the case because I can’t see my family going to such lengths to mess with me—we have to play it out. If this is some kind of magick spell or curse and we’re really in the past, then we still need to play the game to find a way to break it. There’s a reason we were brought here.”
Curtis placed a hand on her arm. They were astride the horse, bodies pressed close, and he still wanted to draw her closer to him. “If this is Buford playing one of his sadistic games to torture me, I’m sorry you were dragged into it. You were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“A feeling I couldn’t ignore lured me to the forest. I was where I was meant to be.” Maura put her hand over his. “I can’t explain why, but I feel like I’m supposed to be here with ya. That’s the only part of this whole night that makes sense.”
“This is one hell of a supernatural blind date—ghost armies, time travel, grand theft horse, bad jerky, and bottles of blood.” Curtis chuckled. “Call me old-fashioned, but I would have preferred cooking ya dinner and maybe a movie.”
“Sadly, this isn’t the worst date I’ve ever been on, and that’s saying a lot. It beats the time my cousin Malina convinced me to go on a double with her. She set me up with a werewolf.”
“Oh, yeah? Don’t like hairy men?”
“It was a full moon. He tried to eat me, and I had to turn him into a statue.” Maura dropped her hand from his and nudged the horse. It began to move as if it knew the way to go. She ducked under a low branch prompting him to do the same. “That would have been fine, but the statue was in the middle of the town square. The next morning tourists noticed. We were in Italy at the time. People were taking pictures. I had to stay out there all day and make sure he didn’t start to thaw in front of everyone. The next night we got him out of there. Suddenly, his picture is in the paper, and people are talking about how a beloved town sculpture was stolen. To make matters worse, Malina confessed the whole—what she deemed hilarious—story to the family. It turns out this guy is some kind of magickal heir to a werewolf fortune. My ma and his ma start making plans like we’re going to have a royal wedding.”
They leaned to the side to miss another branch.
“Obviously, it ended well, right?” He wished he could see her face while she spoke. “I mean, you’re not married, are you?”
Oh, he hoped not.
Maura gave a small laugh. “Not that I recall.”
There was a God.
The sound of the distant screams became louder, cutting off the conversational digression. They both turned in the direction of the noise as if they could somehow detect what happened through the trees.
“We should help that woman.” Maura nudged the horse so it would go faster.
Curtis felt the same, but he also needed to protect Maura. If Buford was close, they didn’t want to draw his attention. The vampire would be all too eager to have a beautiful MacGregor warlock under his control. What man wouldn’t?
“I don’t sense anyone else around us,” Maura said, more to herself. She rubbed her fingertips to bring back the glow. She snapped the wax seal on one of the letters. “Might as well take a peek. It’s not like we’re going to pony express these to Buford.”
“What does it say?” Curtis tried to lift in his seat to read over her shoulder.
Maura used her fingertips to trace across the lines. “Bill of sale.” She opened a second one. “Also a bill of sale.”
“For what?”
“People.” Maura frowned. “It’s dated June 1864.”
“That’s in the middle of the Civil War,” Curtis answered.
Maura broke open the next one. “This looks like…”
“What?”
“Some kind of prophecy. It’s recommending that he kill—” A scream pierced the night, more agonized than before. Maura jolted in her seat. The horse responded to her movement and whinnied. When she managed to calm the animal, she said, “It recommends killing the child before it’s born. Otherwise, he’ll have to wait and fight…something… the ink is a little smudged.”
“Kill a baby?” Curtis took a deep breath and his fists clenched. “I am not a murderous man, but he is one creature I wouldn’t hesitate to put down. The stories I’ve heard whispered about him, the things that he has done…”
“I wouldn’t stop ya,” Maura admitted.
Curtis released his fists and pressed the flat of his hands to his thighs. “Too bad he’s so powerful. We’d probably never get close enough to try.”
“I recognize this seal. It’s from an order of wizards who practiced dark magick. They follow the suffering of humans and would have been active in the United States during the 1800s.” Maura held the letter closer to her face. “Looks like they made this prediction at Buford’s request. Oh, no.”
“What?”
“It didn’t say to kill the child. It says to kill his child.” Maura clutched the paper in her hand. “It’s talking about your grandmother. I think I know why fate or whoever sent us here. We are meant to intercede and save her. June 1864, does that mean anything to ya?”
“I…” Curtis shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“When was your grandmother born?”
“Mawmaw never liked to talk about it. When she was little, they didn’t exactly keep birth records, but it could have been around this time.” Curtis snatched the letter from her, trying to read it in the dark. “She kept changing the date to lie about her real age. Some of it might have been vanity, but mostly it was to explain why she wasn’t aging like other people. But, yeah, she would have been born into slavery, so it’s possible.”
Lanternlight illuminated the darkness. Curtis shoved the letters into his pocket to hide them. Maura extinguished her fingers.
“Follow me.” The sound of the man’s voice was weathered by age and weariness. The lantern began to move. “We were expectin’ you earlier, but the food’s still warm if y’all are hungry.”
Maura swung down off the horse, and Curtis gratefully joined her on the ground. He stretched his legs, only now realizing how sore they were from the saddle.
“Take the horse,” the man ordered a nearby boy who instantly did as he was told.
A couple of dozen raised cabins were placed closely together in two rows to create an almost-town with one dirt road running through the middle. No one was outside beside the older adult and the kid. The unpainted wood siding had lost its fight against the sun and had started to warp. Small, covered porches were held in place with wooden beams, a few of which had broken into two and caused the adjoining roof to sag. Doors and windows were shut with bundles of weeds hanging from them like talismans. With the heat and humidity, it had to be boiling inside the homes.