He turned his head, for some reason, to look at the storm.
And saw the warning light next to the panic button blinking.
* * * * *
As the women chanted around the pot, Marian felt the darkness enter the house and a shiver went up her spine.
She’d done what she could do, for now. It was all (or mostly, as she did have a few more tricks up her sleeve) now up to true love.
She looked into the history book, the book that told the tragic story of Beatrice and Royce Morgan.
She saw some of the words after the date change, shift then settle – just a sentence then two then a paragraph. Then it stopped.
And she stared in disbelief at what she read.
* * * * *
Esmeralda Crane, being a witch, was attuned to things other people would not sense. Now, she was attuned to time, history, shifting and reforming itself.
She was becoming confused, muddled, she saw shapes moving before her in the copse of trees but she was supposed to be doing something else at this moment, something she was not doing and this feeling made her restless, guarded.
She quickly hid herself, conjuring a glamour to make herself invisible. All the while she could see, as if it was a memory, the dead, entwined bodies of Royce and Beatrice Morgan under the trees. But they were not there. There was nothing there except the impatiently shifting forms that lay in wait for ambush.
Someone was playing with time, Esmeralda knew.
And that was a very dangerous game.
* * * * *
Colin leaped out of bed, leaned forward and grabbed Sibyl’s wrist, dragging her up behind him.
“Get dressed,” he hissed then he let her go, bent to his jeans on the floor and shoved his feet into the legs.
“Colin, what is it?”
“Dress!” he clipped and she stared at him, not liking what she saw and in less than a second, she ran to the bathroom.
He pulled his sweater over his head and pressed the panic button that would alert both the alarm company and the police.
She ran out of the bathroom still struggling into her clothes.
“Is something wrong?” she whispered, rushing toward him as she continued to dress.
“Someone’s in the house.”
Her body jerked and her eyes flew to the door.
“The kids are down there.” Her voice was rising and panicked.
“Sibyl, get into the sanctuary, lock the door and do not come out, no matter what you hear,” he ordered as she buttoned her jeans.
Mallory started barking just outside the room, his barks angry and loud with warning. Then the barking turned to fierce, consistent growls.
Sibyl was still staring at the door and started toward it.
“Sibyl!” Colin flew toward her, hooking her around the waist with his arm as she started to bolt toward the sound of her beloved dog.
Then they both froze when they heard the blood-chilling, obscene noise of a high-pitched, canine cry of agony.