Dark Promises(51)

The mist coiled just above her, thick and dense. Things seemed to move in the mist, and she could hear dark voices on the wind. Was Teagan up there? In that? If so, she needed rescuing, and Trixie was there to do just that. She could hear the music of the night. The wind, the trees shifting subtly, the rocks, some gently trickling down the mountainside, even the wolves, all blended together in harmony to make beautiful, breathtaking notes.

She heard music in people. Sometimes soft. Sometimes loud. Joyous. Sad. The music was always there, from the time she could remember as a young child. A part of her. As she’d gotten older she began to discern that the musical notes in people tipped her off to the type of person they were. Meeting her traveling companions at the bottom of the mountain convinced her she was in deep trouble. The notes she heard coming off them as they hiked the trail, as well as the conversations about staking people, made her physically ill.

She looked up at the fog again. Swirling into patterns. Unnatural. She didn’t know how she knew it was unnatural, because the music it made was part of the night’s song, the notes in the dense veil of gray not jangling, or jarring, but still, the swirling mass of gray vapor was definitely not normal.

Again she felt anxiety pulling at her center. Her feet wanted to follow the path right into the fog and go higher still. She hoped she was tuned to Teagan. She’d always known where her girls were because she felt their music. The path she took held faint notes that were Teagan’s but they seemed just out of reach, as if she couldn’t quite catch up with her. And what was Teagan doing running around the mountains at night in a foreign country? The moment there was trouble, she should have been on a plane back to the States. And she was in trouble all right. Huge trouble this time. That girl was going to experience a little whup-ass herself.

Trixie was in good shape. She still had her figure. She had curves and none of them were sagging. She looked fine in her really sweet ass-hugging cargo pants that shaped her booty and tucked nicely into her hiking boots. She still had the little tucked-in waist she’d been given from heaven and her hair was as full and as shiny as ever. She liked it long, with tons of braids so she could fix it in intricate do’s that made her feel like a woman, not a robot.

Secretly, she had a thing for really nice—and sexy—underwear; of course no one knew about that little vice and she wasn’t going to let her traveling companions find out her secret, either. They would if they killed her, and she had the feeling they would kill her when they caught up with her. If you weren’t with them, then you were against them. They sounded like bigots—racists—and being black, she’d had enough of that to last more than one lifetime.

She sighed. The mountain path was steep and led straight into the fog. She might be in shape, but she was no spring chicken and she’d been following those faint musical notes all night and now most of the day and she was tired. Very tired. Worse. The very worst was the fact that these men she had set out with were hunting her granddaughter and the man Teagan was with.

Trixie and her traveling companions had met up with a man in the village just below the mountain—a man by the name of Denny Jashari. He claimed that a couple—a man and a woman—had killed his son and nephews up on the mountain. Four of his nephews and his son. So five men. He described Teagan.

Teagan. Her beloved Teagan. As if Teagan could hurt a fly. Trixie had gotten the call from Teagan telling her that she’d met a man and was going to marry him. She’d also said her guide was a serial killer. And a rapist. That guide had been Armend Jashari, Denny Jashari’s son. Yep. Trixie was in trouble, but so was Teagan. She had to find her granddaughter first and fast, before the others did, and get her home where she would be safe.

“I’m too old for this crap,” Trixie muttered, and pushed off the rock. Her backpack felt like it weighed a ton and again she was tempted to throw out her vampire-hunting kit, but she might have to use it against human nut cases. Jashari had whipped the men she was with into a killing frenzy, convincing them that Teagan and her man were vampires.

She set her burning feet right back on the path and started up it toward the strange fog. The fog bank looked close, but although she had traveled an hour, it was still a good distance away. She really, really was too old for this. She should have pulled out her stake-gun thingie and just shot them all right there in the old crumbling building where they held their meeting the moment they described Teagan.

Fred Wilson had been her contact in the United States. It had been his wife, Esmeralda, who had first become friends with Trixie. Trixie shook her head. She’d been fooled by that old hag. They’d laughed together and had been snarky online—something they both enjoyed—meeting in chat rooms and becoming fast friends. She’d been such a fool.