Arm in arm, Shaun and Sara continued down the stairs to the lobby in search of Evelyn Fairfax.
"So what's the plan when we find the merry widow?" Shaun asked. "Do we go for the 'good cop, bad cop' routine or stick to your 'ask questions, punch in the face' method?"
"Aw, you remembered; that's sweet," Sara mused. "But I think we should stick with casual questioning. As far as we know, the only people she intended to hurt were her cheating husband and his mistress. There's no indication that she planned any murders. Besides, dead guests are bad for business."
"I don't think I've ever interrogated someone before. Not in an official capacity, anyway."
"How did you do unofficially?" Sara asked, pointing him toward the front office when he started for the ballroom.
"What, you mean asking 'Ed, did you stub your joints out on the remote again?' Not bad." Shaun grinned in spite of himself; Sara felt indirectly guilty for bringing up the memory. She tugged at his arm and stopped him mid-stride.
"Shaun, I just want to stress how sorry I am for dragging you into all this. It's really unfair for me to continually put you in danger."
"Look, if you don't stop apologizing you're really going to make me angry," he replied. Bending forward, he cornered her against a tall potted plant, deepening his voice menacingly. "And you won't like me when I'm angry…"
Sara chortled. "Point taken."
He continued, "Besides, I'm here because I want to be. And frankly, if I stopped to think about the pathetic state of my life right now, I'd be curled up in a fetal position crying uncontrollably. So believe me, I'm grateful for the distraction."
"Well, then it's my pleasure," she said with a reassuring smile. "Now let's go find Evie, shall we?"
"We shall."
They finally found the innkeeper at her desk, frantically shuffling papers and cradling the phone in between her ear and shoulder, apparently trying to calm a guest's nerves. "No, no, I assure you that the police are wrapping up their investigation and will be off the premises in a matter of minutes. Dinner will go on as scheduled…No, they will not be dusting for prints while you're eating your vichyssoise…Yes, of course. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for you."
She slammed down the receiver and shot Shaun and Sara a look of frazzled frustration. "What do you want?"
"Miss Fairfax, I realize that you're busy…" Sara began.
"Busy? I've just had four guests cancel the rest of their stay and demand a refund. If news of these murders keeps spreading, I won't have any guests left to keep me busy."
"I understand your concern…"
"Concern? This inn is my life. If I lose it, I will have nothing."
Shaun stepped forward and glowered at the woman. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you started casting spells."
"Easy, bad cop," Sara muttered.
Evelyn dramatically rolled her eyes. "Not again. Look, I've been through this with your colleague, Mr. West. I'm not to blame for what's happened."
"Miss Fairfax, can we discuss this in private?"
"I have things to do."
"I understand that your livelihood is at stake, but people's lives period are on the line. Selecting the color of the tablecloth for tonight's dinner can wait."
Evelyn backed off, perhaps taken aback by Sara's stern tone, and she led the way into the kitchen and dismissed the few staffers who were beginning dinner preparations. One young girl lingered, gawking at them as if she wasn't sure what to do.
"Everyone, Jocasta!" Evelyn snapped. The girl startled, then scurried over through a set of rubber flaps in the back of the room; she emerged carrying a chain and pulling a hunched-over one-armed zombie, wearing a bib with a glistening piece of organ meat stuffed in his mouth, through the kitchen and out the delivery door. Shaun and Sara stared at the whole scene slack-jawed until Miss Fairfax spoke.
"I received twenty pounds of calf livers that were entirely unsuitable for patê, I wasn't about to waste them!" she blurted, apologetically. Then she focused on Shaun. "You're the man from Room 23, we talked this morning."
He straightened, cocking his head. "Yes."
"Mr. Riley, I am terribly sorry for your loss."
"I bet you are," Sara groaned. "You're the reason that all of this is happening."
Evelyn looked from Sara to Shaun, jumping to all sorts of adulterous conclusions. "Well, I was going to offer you one of the rooms of a departing guest, but I see that you managed to find alternative accommodations. That didn't take very long. Or perhaps the time of appropriate mourning has gotten shorter these days. What has it been—5, 6 hours since your significant other died?"
"Oy, Evie, eyes on me," Sara suggested. "We already know you brought the Velkor here through a portal, whether you want to deny it or not. And I'm perfectly happy to let you take the blame for Emma's death, unless you have other information you'd like to share."
"I told you, this isn't my fault."
"Playing around with dark magic because you were pissed off at your cheating husband. Did you really think there wouldn't be consequences?"
"I haven't done any magic!"
"So when you told Mr. West that your pal Pru gave you everything you needed to summon a vengeance demon, only it didn't quite work out like you planned…that was bullshit? Or just because the Velkor wasn't a very good employee…"
"This is ridiculous." Evelyn paced, avoiding their eyes.
"Maybe if you throw a punch, she'll start talking," Shaun suggested.
"Steady, Riley…"
Shaun pouted, slumping against the metal refrigerator door. "You're lucky my chick's here!" he snapped at Evelyn, who just wrinkled her nose quizzically.
"Miss F…Evelyn," Sara started, fists clenched to restrain herself. "What's ridiculous is that you don't see that you're being used. Now, we've got a very good reason to believe that your dear friend Pru wants to unleash hell on earth, and you just made it a whole lot easier for her. Not to mention the fact that my handler just called from her little curio stand and before he could tell me where it is, something very very bad happened…"
Sara realized that she had backed Evelyn into the chopping block in the middle of the room. "So why don't you tell us where to find her?"
The innkeeper's lip curled and she remained quietly indignant. "You know, your colleague is much better at the interrogation gig than you are."
"Well, my strengths lie in other areas. Are you right or left-handed, Miss Fairfax?"
"I don't see why that—"
"Right or left?"
"Right," she replied.
"Okay." Sara grabbed Miss Fairfax's left wrist and twisted. There was a gruesome sound of bones crunching, and Evelyn screamed in pain, reaching out for support and pulling a bowl full of discarded eggshells to the floor. Shaun winced behind them, wanting to love what just happened but fuck, it looked painful.
"There now. You can still sign your employees' paychecks, but you might have trouble playing the piano for a while," Sara taunted. "Now why don't you tell me where to find Pru?"
"I've already told your friend Julian everything I'm going to tell! If he found Pru, I hope he's polite to her. Or she might rip out his tongue."
"Y'know, Evie, you really need to have every square inch of your ass kicked," Sara declared. "But I don't have time for sport right now."
"This is a democracy, Miss Wellesley. You can't beat a confession out of me."
"I wouldn't give her any ideas," Shaun offered.
"See, here's the thing," Sara stated, kneeling beside Evelyn on the kitchen floor and intently holding her gaze. "Four people are dead, and your precious inn is the only common factor. We've been to the chapel, and all the incriminating evidence which pointed back to you has conveniently disappeared. Now Pru might have cleaned up on her own. But you might have asked her to do it, which makes you an accomplice to murder. Or a co-conspirator, at the very least. And I sincerely doubt that you'll be able to pull a Martha Stewart, waltz out of jail and take back control of this inn, because by then it will have been torn down to make room for a Starbucks."
"Pru wouldn't betray me."
"Are you sure about that?" Sara stood to stroll along the counter, admiring the knives that had been laid out. "I don't recall seeing her around when the Velkor demon was impaling everyone left, right, and center? Some friend she is."
"She…she wouldn't hurt me," Evelyn insisted, gripping her throbbing wrist. "I know she wouldn't."
"What if she's talking to the police right now? Telling them that all of this was your idea, and she just went along with it because she thought she was helping a friend." Sara casually drew the blade of a butcher knife across a sharpening block. "The fact is, Evelyn, someone's head is going to roll over this. Is it gonna' be yours or Pru's?"
"I take that back, um, Miss Fairfax…" Shaun added. "You're really unlucky my chick's here."
"Shaun…the 'C' word." Sara glared at him, shaking her head. "Once was okay, but…"
"Right! Sorry." He held his hands up in apology.
"Fine, fine! Anything to make you leave…" Evelyn hissed, struggling to her feet. "Her shop is in the Penrith high street. It's called the Spice of Life."
"Much better. And one more thing?"
"What?"
"We'll need your car."
"Absolutely not! How dare you come in here and…"
Sara casually grabbed her right arm. "Look, I don't normally do two broken wrists in one day, but if you insist…"
"No, no! Please! Just take the bloody car! It's the dark blue Jaguar in the parking lot. The keys are in my purse under the front desk."
"Let's go," Sara said, tugging on Shaun's jacket as she dashed out of the kitchen; Shaun stepped over the eggshells, metaphor not lost in the slightest, and smiled at the injured innkeeper.
"Sorry about the mess," he gruffly stated.
"Move it, Solo!" Sara barked, and Shaun beat a path to the office; they obtained Evelyn's keys, rushed out to the parking lot, hopped in and screeched out of the driveway toward the village.
"Oh, it's been so long since I've been behind the wheel," Sara sighed. "And a Jag, no less. Julian never trusts me to drive."
"I can't think why," Shaun observed, clutching the door handle as they swerved wildly around a curve.
"He says I'm reckless. Maybe he has a point. Y'know, I've gotten a speeding ticket from every country in the EU. Except Luxembourg. I really need to do something about that." She considered what they were about to do and decided maybe it was best to focus and drop the flippant tone. "I just hope we're not too late. If something's happened to Julian, I just…"
Shaun nudged a lock of hair away from her face. "You're thinking about Will."
"I know that logically I shouldn't blame myself. But I still do." She shook her head and clutched the steering wheel tighter. "I still wonder what I could have done if I'd been there…if I could have saved him. This life…it's so much more confusing without him."
"Well, maybe that's why he appeared to you. He knew you needed help, that you needed to talk to someone other than Julian."
"Julian's a good man, he is. But Will always had the answers. He was insufferably smug about it, but deservedly so. I feel like I let him down."
"No, Sara. I'm sure he's very proud of you. For carrying on with your work. He'd never blame you for his death."
"Oh, I know that. He told me that himself. But honestly, am I supposed to believe the word of a ghost? How do I even know if it was real? How do I know it wasn't some hallucination, or worse, some mirage meant to deceive or distract me?"
Shaun sat silently in the passenger seat, pondering his earlier encounter with a ghost from his own past. He battled with the idea of sharing what had happened, but stumbled to find the right words; wringing his hands, he tried to lighten the air first. "What did you mean back there when you said I bonked you?"
"Huh?"
"When I told you I talked to Yvonne, you said something something, about the demon, 'You bonked me…' And I was just, y'know…I mean, that's not what you really think happened, is it? I punched your apron, I sowed my oats…"
"Shaun…"
"Nudge nudge, wink wink…"
"Oh, for Pete's sake, you boys and your euphemisms," she groaned.
"How would you say it, then? I'm all ears…"
"Fine, how's this? You made mad, passionate love to me and moved the very foundation of my being." She didn't take her eyes off the road; Shaun would have thought she was being sarcastic except for the even, sincere tone of her voice. Well, maybe she was being a little sarcastic. It was Sara, after all.
"Really?"
"No, not really," she deadpanned. "But chin up, sunshine, practice makes perfect." She threw him a wink and a sly smile.
"Will's ghost has been a very bad influence on you," he said, shaking his head.
"Hey, hey, this is all your doing. I was perfectly happy being celibate and miserable till you came along with your Adam's apple and your forearms and your blue shirt. The fact is, the Council instructs us that anyone could be an agent of evil, sent to distract us from our duties. And as such, I'm obligated to keep a close watch on you…" She took her hand off the automatic gearshift and placed it on his knee. "And for your information?"
"Yes?"
"I didn't fake it. Not once."
Exceedingly pleased with himself, Shaun laced his fingers with hers and scratched his head. Maybe he could find the words after all…
"If I tell you something, you have to promise not to think I'm crazy."
"Sweetie, I've been having lengthy conversations with my dead mentor all weekend. I'm hardly a proper barometer for sanity."
"I think…I saw my mother."
Sara's head whipped around to look at him and the car veered slightly; she righted it and stammered. "Where? When?"
"Just before I came to your room. She was at one of the tables in the dining room. Making a cup of tea. She was there…I could see her, talk to her."
"And your mother died on Z-Day?"
"Yes."
"How did she die?"
"I killed her," he said flatly.
"Oh…oh, God" she uttered. Observing the pain in his expression, she decided not to pursue it. "Look, Shaun, it's really none of my business…"
"No, I want you to know. We were trying to get to the Winchester, and things weren't exactly going as planned. When do they ever, right? Anyway, she'd been bitten, and by the time she told me…it was too late. She'd turned, and I…I had to shoot my mum."
Sara squeezed his hand. "You know it wasn't your mother anymore."
"But when she looked at me…I saw it in her eyes, Sara, she knew me. She wasn't like the rest of them."
"Shaun, if she had turned, there was no saving her. She would have killed you and anyone else nearby. You did the right thing."
"No, I know that. I've spent a lot of sleepless nights convincing myself of that. But now Emma's gone, and we have no idea what we're up against. I just…I'm so tired of losing the people I love."
Sara slowed the Jag to a stop and parked behind Julian's car outside the Spice of Life shop. "Shaun, look at me. I'm not going anywhere. I promise." She slipped one hand behind his head and pulled him forward, kissing him softly.
"You're not?"
"Nope."
"And your big brown eyes and your gorgeous smile and your textbook arse?"
"I'm fairly sure they're not going anywhere either."
"Fan-fucking-tastic."
"Ready to save the world then?" she inquired nonchalantly.
"Absolutely," he replied, a smile spreading across his face. They both took a deep breath…then exiting the car, they hesitantly walked up the steps to the front door.