Oh no.
Paulina led her to one of the tables and sat opposite her, a leather courier bag at her feet. There was no incense, no tea, none of the things Amanda had come to associate with Paulina since she had started taking classes at The Tree of Knowledge over a year ago. Clearly though, she was leaving.
“How long will you be gone?” Amanda asked.
Paulina looked momentarily startled before settling back into her calm, dreamy persona.
“I don’t know, but I don’t believe I will be coming back to Galveston anytime soon. The others have already left town. A few of the uncommitted are weighing their options, but most will probably be gone by the end of the week. That leaves you.”
Who were the others?
“What about me?” Amanda managed to ask.
“There is so much I need to explain.”
Amanda sat rapt as Paulina rapid fired information at her. It was a bare bones dropping of facts which left Amanda’s mouth hanging open. Her understanding of the world shifted under the weight of Paulina’s words. How Knights Templar, Magus Corps officers, and covens were not only real, but the life she had lived before was forever changed.
“I feel like it’s my fault,” Paulina said. “If I hadn’t pushed you to sign up for the Wiccan classes, they may never have found you. But now you’re known.”
“Are you saying…?” Amanda trailed off. Her head whipped to the left, her gaze unfocused. When she looked back at Paulina, her voice was quiet. “Vincent’s job, what he is paid to do? Is it to kill me before Lionel or some other Templar does? To protect a coven that no longer exists?” Confusion and fear were winding themselves into anger. “Kill me because I haven’t decided if I want to join a club I didn’t even know I was invited to?”
“Yes,” Paulina said simply. Amanda blinked at her. “But something has changed.” Beads of sweat appeared along her hairline and upper lip as the color drained away from her slack face. She swallowed hard. “I can’t—I won’t—tell you how I know, but please believe me when I say Lionel does not want to kill you. There is something bigger going on between him and Vincent. We’re just pieces to be moved out of the way. Do you have a grimoire?”
For a second Amanda almost defaulted to the lie she told every day.
“It’s a basket full of mess, but yeah, I have one.”
“Digitize it. Make yourself mobile. Then run.”
“I’m not running anywhere,” Amanda declared. “I am going to get my Daddy’s gun and the next time Lionel sets foot on the salon’s parking lot, he’s going to get blown out of his socks. This is Texas. I don’t have to put up with this shit.” Amanda stood up. “Running is your choice, but that,” words failed her for a moment, “dumbass is not bringing melodrama to my front door.”
“Could you sit down again for a moment? There’s more I need to tell you.”
Amanda could not see what more there was to say, but sat down anyway.
“Seven or eight months ago, Vincent was assigned a case in St. Louis. There are a lot of rumors about what happened, but what I know is this: an extremely powerful witch named Sarah Kennedy disappeared after having a bit of a breakdown. Vincent was sent to deal with it. Lionel was there. Vincnet was hurt, but, he’s immortal, so…”
Amanda scowled at her.
“Bullshit. Sorry, Paulina, I really like you, but that’s just bullshit. I went to High School with Vincent. He’s far from immortal. I don’t care who he diddled or in what city. It didn’t suddenly make him immortal. Immoral, maybe, but not immortal.”
“The Sacred Union heals us and is our link to immortality.”
“I know we discussed the sacred union in classes, but immortality is through bearing children, not because you personally cannot be killed.”
“For normals, that is absolutely true. But for those of us born Wiccan, immortality is quite real.”
“If you could just see how Vincent looks right now–”
“Oh, we can be hurt.” Paulina’s breathing became rapid, fresh beads of sweat popped up along her brow to run down her neck from under her hair. “Were not vampires. Neither Templar nor Wiccan sacrifices their humanity for immortality. We can be hurt so badly.” And with that she stood.
Amanda jumped to her feet, the change in Paulina’s demeanor more alarming than what she had said. Paulina wrapped Amanda in an awkward, sideways hug, then turned on her heel and broke for the door. Caught off guard, Amanda was slow to react
“Paulina?”
Paulina flew to her car. A screech of tires against the concrete of the drive, and she was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
BACK IN THE Mini, Amanda turned off her cell phone and drove. Not her normal breakneck tear through town, but a slow meander of back streets to the ferry port, through Port Bolivar, then back again. She made her way down the seawall, past her little rental house, where Vincent’s Charger sat in the drive, across the San Luis Bridge to Lake Jackson.
In Lake Jackson, she sat in a bookstore coffee shop, an un-drunk cup of cold coffee at her elbow, while she stared at the color saturated photographs which filled the glossy home décor magazines she had pulled from the stands. When the coffee shop closed, she drove across town to a twenty-four hour diner where she sat at the grimy counter and picked at food she did not want. It was while she sat soaking in the hot, greasy air of the tiny restaurant that she pulled her notebook and pen out of her bag, and got to work. She’d written for hours, until at last the sun was on the rise. Wearily, she got back in the Mini and drove from Lake Jackson back to Galveston. At San Luis Pass she turned her cell phone back on. There were texts and messages from Vincent which she ignored. She called Aimee instead.
“Can you take my customers for the day?”
“Oh my, God, not cool. I think I can handle it, but where are you?”
Amanda could hear the driers in the background.
“Having a breakdown. I spent the night in Lake Jackson and overslept.”
“This has something to do with Vincent, doesn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“He’s called, looking for you.”
“What did you tell him?”
Amanda slowed to a stop behind commuters lined up on the San Luis Pass Bridge to pay the toll to get back onto Galveston Island.
“What do you want me to tell him?”
Amanda thought about it as she passed her two dollar toll through the window to the bridge operator.
“Nothing.”
“10-4.”
It had taken most of the night to come to a decision, carefully listing and deliberating each piece of information in her notebook, regardless of how ridiculous she felt some of these “facts” to be. She divided her notepaper into columns, writing down everything she could remember of her conversation with Paulina, then added Aimee’s second-hand information from Hugh, and her own recollection of her few moments with Lionel. In the second column she put every word she could remember Vincent saying and each hint he might have given. With her head clear, and all of the salient points written out in her own flowing script, she knew the answer was not on a piece of paper covered in indigo ink.
After all, while the nuns might not have been the most fun group of people to go to school with, not one of them had ever been sent to kill her, even if she skipped out on a few services.
She pulled into her empty drive. It only took five minutes to exchange her miniskirt, blouse and boots for the jeans, a sweater and Chucks, brush her teeth and put her Daddy's gun in her bag.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
"HOW DID YOU know where to find me?"
Lionel opened the front door of his loft in his bare feet, his arms crossed against his shirtless chest.
"It's a small town and I'm a hairdresser."
Amanda stood framed in the doorway, as the morning light filtered through the dusty hallway windows to give her auburn blonde hair a halo glow. Her messenger bag dangled across her slim shoulders, the strap crushed between her bre
asts.
"Whatever Vincent is, you're the opposite?"
Even with dark circles under her eyes and her hair in a wadded bunch, Lionel could appreciate what Vincent saw in her.
"Yes."
"Then I choose you."
Though Lionel’s eyebrows shot up, he grinned from ear-to-ear. He stepped back and pulled the front door open wide.
“Won't you come in?"
“Are you going to throw holy water on me?"
He held up both of his hands. “I’m unarmed.”
Pushed against the wall with the door between them, he bit a hole through his tongue to keep from screaming as she brushed past. He shuddered, thrilled at the unexpected opportunity. He let the steel door slam shut and followed her into his loft.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THIS IS BULLSHIT.
It's one thing for Amanda to be angry at him, but she could at least return a phone call. The Charger’s engine pinged as Vincent sat in the empty parking lot of The Tree of Knowledge. He tried to piece together what had happened. Yesterday things were good, better than good, they were fantastic. When Amanda called him from the salon it was all systems go. Ten hours later, nothing from Amanda and a blockade of angry silence from Aimee.
A few normals arrived and pushed their way through the front gate. The first woman to reach the porch tried the door, then knocked. Then she pounded on it with the flat of her hand until one of the other ladies took her arm. They milled like lost cattle around the steps leading up to the house until twenty past, when en masse, they decamped to their vehicles and departed for parts unknown.
From the Charger, Vincent could see the ordinary white garden gate no longer highlighted by the electric blue glow of the ward. Paulina might not be opening the door for students, but if she was in there, she sure as hell was going to open the door for him.
Vincent knew the moment he stepped onto the porch the place had been cleansed and abandoned. With his back to the street, he used a simple spell to pop the lock open, the door swinging open without a touch. He pulled his gun from his holster before he took the first step into the house. It was empty. Vincent re-holstered the gun. Paulina’s clothes, jewelry, and books were all gone. He found a small wall safe, the right size to hide a grimoire, standing open in the spare bedroom. There was no car in the garage and the cell phone number listed on the website was disconnected. Paulina had bolted.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“SO WHERE IS she?”
Dalya the sheep was not in the mood to reveal any secrets, pinning Vincent with a beady eyed stare. She bleated out her say on the matter, turned and trotted up the ramp to hide in her hut.
“Not very helpful,” Vincent said to the retreating sheep.
At the top of the stairs, Vincent opened the door. Nothing. He stepped inside. The house was exactly as he had left it yesterday morning, right down to the note he had taped to the bathroom sink before leaving. She had not come home last night.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
Back in the Charger, he made yet another phone call to Aimee. This time, she answered.
“Look, I don’t know what you did, but she isn’t coming in today, so you can just stop calling.”
“Aimee, if–”
“Don’t call here again, asshole.”
The one possibility left was the last one he wanted to consider. He pointed the Charger east on the seawall, back toward the business district, dialing the first number he should have called.
“I need to know where Lionel is and where he might go to ground. Time to earn your keep.”
"Narrow the field of possibilities,” Louis said crisply. “How big a radius am I looking at?"
Vincent chose not to consider it had been more than twelve hours since anyone had actually seen Amanda.
“Here in town.”
“Give me ten,” Louis said and hung up.
By the time Louis called back, Vincent was in the business district, his progress slowed by the usual daytime traffic.
"There is an apartment in his name, as well as two possibles on the island, twelve if we expand into Clear Lake, two hundred seventy-six if we are looking at greater Houston."
"Jesus. Just the island."
"Choice A is St. Barbara the Divine, a small Catholic chapel. One priest, a Father Faigley who has been there for 32 years, doesn’t give regular services."
Vincent quelled his impatience as he listened to Louis type.
"Choice B is St. Walpurgis Universal Contemplative Center. Large congregation which includes some Wiccans, headed by a Hugh Murphy, denomination listed as 'indeterminate' meaning they make it up as they go. I’ll send you the addresses for the both along with his residence. Any interest in telling me what’s going on?"
“No.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
"HUMOR ME,” LIONEL said, as Amanda watched him take a seat.
He sat back in the beaten brown leather of the club chair, sighing as his slim form settled into the cushion. His light gray suit matched the gray dress shirt perfectly.
“I don't join a coven,” Amanda said, “Vincent will kill me. I do join a coven, your job is to kill me. I have no known talent outside a salon. I would be giving up nothing and getting my life back to normal."
After the stilted conversation in Lionel’s front door, Amanda spent a long, slow ten minutes sitting on Lionel’s couch while he got dressed. No photographs, no dust, no pets, no nothing. He either did not live here or was even more of a minimalist than she was.
"That was blunt. How does Vincent Harcourt fit into all this?"
"Does it matter?”
Her shoulders were so tense, they ached.
Lionel’s right eyebrow crept up his forehead.
“He doesn't matter,” Amanda forced herself to say.
"I have a contact on the island who we will need to see who expedites situations like this. There are requirements to meet and a contract to sign,” Lionel said with a smile.
"What kind of requirements?"
"Simply report on the activities of any Wiccans you encounter. Never practice Wicca again, in any form."
"Aromatherapy?"
"That's fine, as long as it does not cross the line into spell casting. Just to be safe, you might want to wait a few years before diving back into those waters. Of course, you’re required to attend a weekly service and burn your grimoire or any spells you have laying around. Let me guess, you don’t have any. No one ever has any, so my contact and I will accompany you home to verify all your acquired documentation has been destroyed.”
There was a cat who ate the canary satisfaction to Lionel that rankled Amanda.
"They didn't talk to me when I was supposed to be one of them,” Amanda said, “so I don't think any Wiccans are going to suddenly invite me to lunch."
"It's part of the contract."
Amanda stopped herself from rolling her eyes.
"What contract? We've talked. We will roast marshmallows over the grimoire I don’t have. What more is there?"
Lionel's sudden grin was barbarous.
"A blood oath for your soul." He smirked at her raised eyebrows. "Before you freak out, it's a special pen. We gave up using blood decades ago. It's not all take. There is money, privilege, benefits to being one of us. Should something go wrong…”
"What more could go wrong?"
He leaned forward, elbows on knees.
"If Vincent or another Corps officer enters your life again, we can," a nasty glint came to his eyes, "remove the problem."
"What if I don't want the problem removed?"
Lionel's head cocked dog-like to the right.
"Would you rather be killed?"
"Good point." She sighed. What had she expected? "Lead the way."
The inhaled gasp as she brushed past him to enter the loft, the careful way he kept a piece of furniture between them, his hesitation when it came time to climb into the elevator with her—she couldn’t make sense of it. She studied his shoes,
the way he stood, searching for the thread of continuity which would tell her what he was about.
She was frustrated by her own body language when Vincent’s name was mentioned. Love was all well and good, but what was the point if you weren't around to enjoy it? Join a coven and live a life of love and adventure with Vincent until a Templar killed one or both of them, or the safety of the church and what she knew? She had liked her life before this week just fine, and she could learn to like it again. There wasn’t really a choice.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
VINCENT BRIBED HIS way into the parking garage under Lionel’s building, where he found Lionel's stomped on Porsche parked next to Amanda’s red Mini. With the Charger in park, Vincent booted open the door, kicked the front bumper of the Porsche until the airbag fired, got back into the Charger and parked in Guest Parking.
A few minutes with the building’s concierge was all it took to learn Amanda had arrived by herself early that morning. When she and Lionel left together, not only were there no signs of duress, but Lionel looked like he’d just won a million dollars. They’d left in Lionel’s F-150 less than twenty minutes ago.
The concierge had no idea where they were headed.
Vincent sat in the Charger, hands in a white-knuckle grip around the steering wheel to ground himself as he gasped for breath. A Wiccan who renounced had to be removed, a danger to them all. The Templars would never suffer a witch to live, unless that witch lived to serve them. If it were anyone other than Amanda, he would call Louis and turn the case over for the clean-up crew to come and sweep the problem away. But Amanda…
The engine roared when he slammed the car into drive and stomped on the gas. Wherever she had gone, regardless of why, he would find her and bring her home. He would protect her.
Vincent: Her Warlock Protector Book 5 Page 6