“Perhaps a former occupant,” Morgan suggested. “A dabbler in the black arts.”
“Witches in Maine?” Dylan sounded skeptical.
Morgan shrugged. “We are not so far from Massachusetts.”
“I can ask Caleb to check with the real estate office,” Dylan said. “Though I doubt their records go back that far.”
“Paula Schutte at Island Realty,” Liz said. “She sold me the house. The previous owner was a physician at the clinic, too.”
Morgan looked at Dylan.
“Neal Emery,” he said. “Here six months. Hated the winter, took off as soon as Grace was born.”
“Not that one,” Liz said. “The doctor before him. Donna something.”
Silence thickened the air.
“Ah,” Morgan said very softly.
Dylan nodded. “That would explain it.”
Liz was tired of conversations going over her head. “Not to me.”
“Donna Tomah, the previous inhabitant of this house, was possessed by a demon,” Dylan said.
Liz swallowed. “Paula told me the owner couldn‟t come to the closing because she was in a rehabilitation facility.”
“She is. In Portland,” Dylan confirmed. He looked at Morgan. “Caleb‟s been keeping track of her since the attack last
summer.”
“Another attack?” Nerves lent an edge to Liz‟s voice.
“What is this, open season on island doctors?”
Dylan would not meet her eyes. “The demon did not leave her willingly or gently.”
Liz‟s stomach cramped. “So what happened?”
Dylan hesitated.
“When a demon will not exit its host,” Morgan explained, “the only recourse is to render its victim‟s body uninhabitable.”
“Meaning . . .”
His teeth flashed. “Regina bashed her head in with a table leg.”
Liz winced. “Oh.”
“The doctor is expected to make almost a full recovery,” Dylan said. “Eventually.”
“Am I supposed to find that reassuring?”
“Yes.” Morgan‟s eyes met hers, not promising anything, but at least he didn‟t lie, she could trust him. “Because now you
know Gau can be defeated if you have the will and the stomach. And now that I know how he gained access to your house, I
can protect you.”
“The island is warded,” Dylan said again.
“The house must be cleansed,” Morgan said. “And sealed.”
“With what?” Liz demanded. “Holy water? Garlic?”
Morgan smiled and despite the general weirdness of her life and the awfulness of the situation, she felt better. He made her
believe things could be . . . not normal, but okay.
“Nothing so exotic,” he said.
“What, then?”
He gestured toward the bucket in the sink. “What do you use to clean up?”
“Water?” she guessed.
This time his smile warmed her clear to her toes. “Precisely. We are not so different, you and I.”
17
MORGAN AND DYLAN WERE STILL OUTSIDE, PACING the yard, circling the house. Making magic, Liz thought,
suppressing a flutter of unease.
She watched them through her kitchen window. They made quite a picture, Dylan with his dark, lean elegance and
brooding black eyes, Morgan with his brutal Viking face and hair the color of sea foam, day and night, night and day, every
woman‟s fantasy brought to life.