Watch of the Wicked (Devil's Witch Book 3)

“I don’t remember there being so many flat screens in here!” I say loudly over the music.

Tom digs into his mash potatoes while I discretely cut up my rare steak in tiny bits and pieces for the Jax and Willow. Stella was right about the meat. It’s pretty raw with blood still dripping from it.

“That’s cause it’s been a decade since you stepped foot in here,” Colin laughs heartily through a mouthful of corn. “I think they made great renovations. We ought to come here another time Stella. I want to ride the mechanical bull!”

“While drunk? You’ll be lucky if you can crawl up on it.” Stella snorts.

Colin takes another swig of his beer. “Did any of y’all catch on to what the desserts were for tonight?

“No,” Stella and I say at the same time.

Tom hands Colin the small drink menu next to him. “It’s on the back,” he says.

“Sweet, thanks.”

Colin bursts out laughing and nearly spills his drink. “Turtle cake? Been a while since I ate cooked turtle. My granny used to make some soup out of that stuff.”

Tom reaches across the table and playfully slaps Colin’s shoulder, “That sounds exquisite!”

“Hey, this shirt is worth more than your salary. Don’t need your ketchup hands on it.”

“Really? It looks someone threw up on it. I’d say you got it from a consignment store because there is no way I bought that for you.”

Colin makes a face at Stella. “You always complain about my style.”

“I do not! I just find it fun to call you out on such a ridiculous claim.”

“Well, you’re right. I bought it for three dollars.”

He bites his tongue while sticking his hand down his shirt as if searching for something. He plucks a greasy, or sweaty, green circular sticker out with a three marked in pen on it.

He holds it out in front of Stella and she swats his hand away, “Ew! You were just keeping that in your shirt all day? Why?”

“I didn’t mean to, but I felt something scratching my bellybutton.”

“Dude, you need help! You’re so weird.” Tom laughs along with Colin.

It’s so crowded in here tonight that their laughter doesn’t draw any attention. I start to get a headache though from the drunk table behind us screaming at the game on one of the TVs. The bar in the middle of the restaurant is completely packed and they have a band playing tonight too.

“I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back, can you keep an eye on them?” I ask Stella.

She nods her head watching the vamp babies. Colin and Tom had gotten up to go talk to someone from work over by the bar.

I make my way through the loud tables and eventually end up in the back. I walk around a wall where the food runners are running back and forth from the kitchen and into the restaurant. The bathroom door is closed and when I knock on it I find it occupied.

“Sorry!” I apologize while stepping back and waiting for my turn.

I look around aimlessly while waiting for the bathroom to free up. At one of the tables nearby there’s a few policemen. I raise my eyebrows in surprise seeing the governor of Alabama sitting around them at the head of the table and his dark beady eyes are right on me.

My heart pounds heavily, but our eye contact doesn’t last long because a waiter steps out in front of me cutting off my view of their table. What’s the governor doing down here still? I look a the bathroom hoping whoever’s inside will hurry up. When I look back at the table the governor’s seat is vacant.

His hunched over form rounds the far side of the wall dividing me from the rest of the tables at the restaurant. An inquisitive expression grows on his face as he nears me. Despite his hunch, he’s still a tall and lanky guy. He wears an outdated brown suit carrying a white envelope in his hands.

“Young lady, I know ya gone through some hard times,” he says with sympathy. A few cops lurk behind him. “Ya know the chief had my support, but it was a terrible thing he done did. Ain’t it? I can’t believe he gone an’ stir so much troubles for y’all.”

“Y-yeah,” I whisper watching the policemen walk the rest of the way over to us.

The governor puts his hands in his pocket while drawing in a breath. He looks over the rest of the people eating in the restaurant as if searching for someone.

“That cowboy over there ya date ’night?” he asks.

I lean my head to the side to see around the wall where he’s looking. Sure enough, he’s pointing right at Tom. Tom isn’t a cowboy, but he does work on the farm. He’s wearing a black cowboy hat, but it’s not really for show. He told me he normally wears it when working to keep the sun out of his eyes on his farm. He only works Fridays and weekends.

His family owns a dairy farm so that’s where he is the rest of the week.

“Yes, he is,” I answer slowly.

“Ya was close with the police chief wasn’t ya?”

“I knew him. Our town is still healing. You wouldn’t happen to know if the high council really did make all the vampires leave by force, would you? I just couldn’t believe it when they mandated an evacuation that all vampires would truly leave.”

“Oh heavens, no. They just gone an’ spooked most back into hidin’. That’s just a rumor.”

“Rumor?”

“Yes. Ya is goin’ to the funeral, ‘morrow? I’ll pay ya an’ that cowboy five grand if he go with ya an’ fix the fence ‘round the cemetery. The mayor asked me for funds, but I’ll save myself a little trouble an’ hire him to do it for less. ’Sides, that mayor of yours don’t sit well with me. Coven folk...” the mayor grumbles while pressing the envelope into my hand.

He turns, the policemen following silently behind him.

“I can’t accept this!” I whisper frantically while staring at the floor still in disbelief.

Five thousand dollars to fix a fence?

***

Tom pulls the car out onto the road. It’s a beat-up old blue Ford Mustang. Stella and Colin migrated to the bar. I didn’t want to stay that long because the kids were getting antsy.

Jax and Willow are strapped into their babyseats in the back.

“How do you know the governor again?” Tommy asks me.

“I don’t. I had to go through a few trials when I worked at the police department. He was there attending.”

“Trials? Oh yeah, them vamps. I remember you telling me about that.”

“Yeah and I’m not sure how I feel about his offer. It’s cash too. Why does he care about our cemetery? Will told me a while ago-”

“Will?”

“Yeah, William McCaster. We were dating at the time, but the kids aren’t his.”

“Gotcha, but dang. Ain’t he the mayor? I remember you telling me he was headmaster of your, uh, coven.”

“Yep.”

“Cool.”

I smile a little. “I’m not into that life anymore.”

“O-kay. Righty, then. I mean, I didn’t think you were. You don’t look like a witch.”

“I guess I’m missing the hat. You know Stella’s one and...Colin’s a vampire too.”

“Huh, learn something new every day, but I already knew he was a bloodsucker.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we went to this weird get together at his church. They tried to convert me, but I got a bit of cold feet. I high-tailed it out. There was some real messed up horse shit being spread.”

“Why’d you go?”

“Dunno, I just wanted to see what all the hype was. Obviously, I avoided the whole scheme. Who knows what would have happened to me if I wound up in the cult like he did.”

“Yeah.”

Tom glances at the envelope between us. We come to a red light and he picks it up thumbing through the bills with a low whistle.

“I’m gonna build him the best fence there is. I’ll have to get a few contractors, but it’ll be done by the end of this month.”

“I thought you said were going to build it yourself?”

“Nah, I don’t have the time. I have a few buddies that do though.”

“We’re going to still split it fifty-fifty, right?”

“Uh, no. It’s going to cost at least three thousand for labor hours. Then there’s transportation-”

“The governor wanted you to build it.”

“I am, I’m the one taking care of the project. You’ll get fifteen hundred, I’ll make sure of it.”

“Tom, I don’t care about the money. I really don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t want it to get between us.”

“I need the money, Val. So do you. The babies will too. When are you going to open up to me about them?”

“I’m not ready.”

“Alright, just let me know then when you are. It’s hard to check in when you’re so closed up.”

I can’t really find an excuse to argue with him. I know I’m not telling him everything, but it’s for his own protection. We’ve been stopped in front of the house for a while. I unbuckle, using the lull in our conversation as my leave. Once I get out, I go in the back and start putting the kids back in their stroller.

Tom doesn’t bother getting out. “The funeral’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“Want me to come along?”

“I’d...rather not. I don’t think a lot of people will be attending, but I think this is something I need to do by myself.”

Tom steps out of the car then and goes to pick Jax out of his car seat. He carries him over to me and sets him in the stroller behind Willow. I’m surprised he didn’t get bit, but the babies did sleep most of the ride here. They’re probably too tired to try being cranky.

“Look, Colin’s shared some stuff with me about what happened. I’m worried about you,” he says. Tom looks uneasily at the stroller while I pass by him heading up the sidewalk. “And the...them.”

“We’re fine, really,” I say with assurance.

Tommy takes off his hat and flips it over while we walk over to the townhouse together. I stop the stroller in front of the porch. Then we take the vamp babies out of the stroller and he lifts the stroller up to the house with his free hand. I assumed I could just use magic and have the stroller carry itself and the vamp babies onto the porch. I’m glad he’s here because it’s dawning on me that if he wasn’t I’d have a very fun time getting the kids in the house without dropping one of them.

Even though I’m just holding Willow now, I’m still struggling to find the house key with my free arm while rifling through my tote. When I manage to fish it out, I unlock the door. Tom shuts the door behind and follows me upstairs. After we put the babies in the crib, we head back downstairs.

He hovers by the front door handing me the envelope.

“Tom, just take it. I’m not the one building the fence.”

He sets it down on the table by the door with his jaw set. “No, the governor gave it to you.”

“Okay, but I may just mail the money back.”

Tom looks skyward. His face lightens though when he looks back down at me like he’s about to share some good news.

“My parents have been dead for a while, but they wanted me to try to keep the farm. The strangest thing happened yesterday. It could go for foreclosure like I told you, but some big-shot rancher called me up. He said he’d wanted to use our acreage for grazing his cattle. He was gonna pay me a lot too, but I can’t pay the bank this month. So I turned him down on the offer.”

“Tom I don’t know if-”

“Just here me out,” he says all relaxed while glancing at the envelope. “If we use the mayor’s money for the mortgage payment, we could move into the house together. Cattle ranching is big business around here right now. Everyone wants farm-grazed beef and this guy told me I’d get a twenty percent stake in my land plus his if I partnered with him.”

We’ve barely even dated for three weeks. I can’t move in with him so soon on a whim like this. It doesn’t feel right. I think he is a really nice man though. I know he acts like the vampire babies are no big deal, but I know that can’t be entirely true. He’s been really positive about it all and about life in general too.

I feel like I really do need him in my life, but then when I think about things, in the long run, it’s hard for me to see him being happy. He may be happy now, but he won’t be when he knows how many people have died because of me. I don’t even think I’ll ever be able to tell him about the devil.

“Does he have other cattle ranching friends too? I didn’t know farmers made circles like this with one another...it doesn’t sound legal.”

Tom puts his hat back on and rubs his chin. “Well, when the government is paying us dirt for our products I don’t know if I’d call that legal either. It’s a union, but for ranchers and other farmers.” He pulls out his phone and moves next to me so I can see while he starts typing on it with a deep look of concentration.

“What’s the name of it?” I ask curiously.

He cocks his head from side to side in a silly manner while waiting for the website to come up. “Here it is, Alabama State Meat and Poultry Farmers Union. Look, it’s got a fancy seal and everything. It even has the ‘.gov’ at the end! It’s legit. Look here, we can see the founders.”

He scrolls through the page of names. Next to each founder’s name and position is their profile picture too.

“Let’s see here, we got Mr. and Mrs. Schulz the treasurers, Mr. Lange the secretary, vice president Mr. Mayer, committee chair Mr. Schmitt blah-blah-blah. A bunch of funders, but who cares. Oh, looks like they are getting a new president though. That profiles blank, but everyone else seems legitimate.”

I nod in agreement, but I don’t know how he thinks investing the governor’s money in his cattle ranch is going to fly. He won’t have any money to make the fence right away once he uses it to pay off the mortgage. It will be a while until he gets paid and things start coming together. I’ve seen his parents’ farm. It’s rundown and to build their own fence back up would cost a fortune.

Why can’t he just make the fence for the cemetery and let the bank take the property? That’s what we first discussed when I told him about the money. Then on our drive halfway here he changed his mind. Now he’s talking about doing a risky investment with money that really isn’t even ours to begin with.

I don’t like the idea of being “sneaky” with the mayor’s money. I don’t want to cross him or risk him finding out about Tom’s use of it if the cattle farm falls through.

“What was the rancher’s name that called you?”

“Eh, I didn’t quite catch that actually. They had a really heavy accent.”

“Was it german?” I ask in a hollow voice.

“No, why?” he laughs. “It was southern. Thicker than my own pa’s too.”

Because some of those founders had german last names, my paranoid mind goes on.

However, Heinrich is dead and so was everyone else responsible for giving our town a scare. A lot of vampires have been killed recently, but even more coven members and humans too. Besides, all those founders were really, really old. None of them have any idea about what’s going on in our little town. They probably wouldn’t care anyway since they’re rich.

I don’t know why anyone in their union would be making cold calls though. Tom’s farm isn’t famous or well-known. It’s pretty small in comparison to the ranch the “Silvets” as Will would call them had. They were the only other ranchers I knew of in our town.

Maybe this was meant to be though. It does sound like a great opportunity for Thomas to keep his family’s property and potentially make a good fortune off of it. It would beat minimum wage at Wally’s, that’s for sure. His parents do own a nice farm. It could be kind of dreamy.

It’ll be good if he can keep the house, but it doesn’t mean I’ll be ready to move in with him by then.

“Why don’t you call the governor and talk to him about it?”

“You’re such an angel and so right,” he says while tapping my nose playfully. “I’ll do it right now! He’s real conservative I bet. He won’t ruin the dreams of a poor farmer,” he finishes gleefully with a wink.