Witchlock

by Dianna Love

  “You may call me Veronika.” For now, she amended silently.

  “Great.” He rubbed his hands together, excited. “I like working on a first name basis. I was laughing because I already have what you need.”

  Was it possible? “What do you know of them?”

  “Adrianna works with VIPER as a contractor.”

  So that is what she’d been doing since abandoning her coven. Veronika said, “Go on.”

  “The gryphon sounds like Evalle Kincaid, who I wouldn’t have called a buddy of Adrianna’s at one time, but those two have been seen together on occasion.”

  “What else can you tell me about this Evalle?”

  “She isn’t supposed to shift in this world. She’s a gryphon, because she was born with Belador and Medb blood, which marked her as an Alterant. She’s got wicked kinetics and communicates telepathically with other Beladors.”

  Evalle immediately moved up Veronika’s list of powerful beings she needed in her stable of minions.

  Donndubhán might not have been exaggerating when he claimed to be valuable. She told him, “Take Imar and bring me those two women.”

  “They won’t come willingly.”

  “Do not kill them and leave no trail that leads back to me. If you require assistance, you will contact me, but tell no one I am in the city.”

  “Understood. I can handle this. Where do you want them delivered?”

  She did like the confidence in his voice and told him where she’d meet him on the top of another roof. The open vantage point allowed her the best chance for escape if by some chance he betrayed her.

  He would make that mistake only one time. She didn’t need Witchlock to literally turn him inside out while still alive.

  He nodded. “I know that building. It’s in a good central place to watch over the city. Evalle only travels around at night. With daylight close, my best bet at catching her is this evening.”

  Wasn’t he just a fount of information? “Does she function at night by choice?”

  “No. She’s has a deadly reaction to the sun.”

  Good information. “Find both and bring them tonight.”

  “Consider it done. Just to show you that I am holding nothing back on our arrangement, I’ll tell you that Queen Maeve is very interested in another Belador known as Vladimir Quinn.”

  She thought on that. “I have heard this name. What is so special about him?”

  “I don’t know why Queen Maeve wants him, but she has one of her top people tracking him. Quinn has the ability to mindlock. He can take control of a mind and he can destroy one with his kinetics.”

  Mindlock. Energy rushed through her at considering the possibilities of controlling that power.

  “What else do you know of him?”

  “I saw him at Oakland Cemetery and I believe he’s hiding someone in a tomb there.”

  Yes, Donndubhán was turning into quite the information source.

  Chapter 28

  Evalle gripped Storm’s arms as they teleported from the Tribunal back to Atlanta. Just touching him gave her comfort, even though Storm was a churning mass of anger and frustration.

  Storm couldn’t blame Tzader. She wouldn’t.

  Tzader had been as blindsided as she’d been when Cathbad produced a warlock corpse with her dagger stuck in its head.

  How had her dagger ended up there?

  The only logical answer was that the dead warlock had to have been the demon she killed, but turning a Medb warlock into a demon would have required a lot of power. Why turn a warlock when changing something else that had less power would be simpler?

  So who had changed a Medb warlock?

  And for what reason?

  The Tribunal would point at the Beladors for that and accuse them of some nefarious scheme to make it look as if Medb had created demons. But the Medb had created the earlier ones.

  If the Medb weren’t behind this demon creation, then who could be? And what would be the purpose of taking that kind of risk and facing getting caught by VIPER, the Beladors or the Medb?

  The swirling colors in her peripheral vision cleared and she was standing on the top level of a parking deck near Woodruff Park.

  Wrapped in Storm’s arms was the only way to teleport.

  A swift wind ahead of bad weather whipped hairs around her face. She stepped back and wiped the strands from her eyes.

  Storm said, “Evidently dropping us on street level would have been too much of a strain on the prick.”

  “Wouldn’t want to inconvenience the princess,” Evalle quipped.

  That was enough to finally tug a smile from his lips.

  Tzader materialized as Evalle turned to stand next to Storm, who draped an arm around her shoulder.

  Tzader didn’t waste any time. “I have no idea how we’re going to find out how they framed you, Evalle, but I’ll put everyone I have available on this.”

  “I want my dagger, Z.” She nodded at where he’d hooked the weapon on his belt.

  Looking apologetic, Tzader said, “I told them I’d hold it as evidence. I figured that was the only chance of you getting it back later.”

  “Damn.” She stopped staring at the dagger with longing. “I appreciate you taking it though. I’ve just missed it.”

  Storm broke in. “We can’t depend on the truth being revealed if the Medb are actively working to hide it, which you know they will be. Hell, I was with Evalle when she healed, but if a Tribunal wouldn’t accept her statement of killing a demon as truth when she didn’t glow red, I knew it would only agitate them for me to start defending her.” He turned to her. “You aren’t safe here.”

  Tzader said, “If you try to take Evalle somewhere to hide her, you’ll hurt her without intending to. I promise you Sen can find her anywhere or I’d ship her off to Treoir right now. If he gets that kind of shot at her, none of us will be able to stop him and right about now Sen is close to begging for that chance.”

  Evalle asked Storm, “Were you thinking of trying that?”

  Storm didn’t even try to defend his position. He simply stated, “No one is taking you from me.”

  And she felt the same about being ripped away from him, but she would not stand by and give Sen reason to harm Storm or Tzader. In fact, Tzader looked worse every day and didn’t need this crap. She asked Storm, “Let’s not go up against Sen, please?”

  Storm’s determination showed no sign of changing, but he finally said, “I want to go back to the mountain and retrace everywhere Evalle went.”

  She had no intention of being left out of this. “I’ll go with you.”

  Storm said, “No.”

  Tzader said, “I agree.”

  “What? You want to just lock me away? I’m no more interested in being stuck in my room underground than being imprisoned beneath VIPER headquarters.”

  Tzader frowned and Storm had the decency to look put in his place.

  Storm wiped a hand over his face and let it fall to his side. “What do you want to do?”

  “Find whoever is framing me.”

  Tzader asked, “We need to be asking why they’re doing this if the Medb want gryphons.”

  With her guard dogs calming down, Evalle gave up her anger and scratched her head. “I don’t know. It’s not like the guy I tracked from Memorial Hall in Stone Mountain was trying to gain my attention. He seemed to be avoiding me. I went after him.”

  Storm quirked an eyebrow at that, but didn’t comment on her running toward danger alone. He said, “The Medb have some plan in play and I’m betting it has to do with taking Evalle to TÅμr Medb.”

  Tzader grunted his agreement.

  Evalle pointed out, “Why prove me a warlock killer when that would very likely end with Macha or the Tribunal vaporizing me?”

  Storm snapped his fingers. “Cathbad wouldn’t risk that, but that bastard would offer to take you as restitution for their loss.”

  “Crap.”

  “Storm’s right,” Tzader said, noddin
g. “We have to be smart about how we play this and hope that our people pick up intel or that Storm lucks into something.”

  “We have more than luck in our favor,” Storm clarified. “I picked up a something besides just your energetic residue. I picked up a trace of majik.”

  Evalle and Tzader said, “You did?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t admit it because I wasn’t specifically instructed to share that information.”

  Evalle laughed. Take that, Loki.

  Storm added, “I can’t tell what it is yet, because it’s almost as if the majik was sanitized and that’s what stood out about it.”

  This felt more like a team. Evalle smiled up at Storm and he curved his hand on her shoulder, pulling her a smidgeon closer.

  Then he explained further, “The damage to the warlock’s face was not consistent either. I think that clearly points to having changed shape, which is more than dropping a glamour. I’m going on the idea of what you and Evalle alluded to in the meeting, that the corpse was originally a warlock who was changed into a demon, then given a glamour.”

  She leaned into him, happy he agreed with her reasoning.

  “Damn,” Tzader said, scratching his chin. “That would actually explain how Evalle’s dagger turned up in a warlock corpse. Now, we just have to deliver proof of someone changing that warlock.”

  “Another thing I didn’t mention,” Storm added. “That warlock barely had a scent of Medb. I doubt anyone standing back smelled it.”

  “I didn’t,” Evalle admitted.

  “Me either,” Tzader added.

  “I think that adds to our theory,” Storm continued. “While I was gone tracking the troll killer, I talked to Lucien, who said that last week when we had the first influx of demons along with the Medb, he got close enough to a Medb killing a demon that he should have been able to identify a scent, but there was none then either.”

  “Not even for the Medb?” Tzader asked. “I had reports that the warlocks doing the demon killing were part of the Medb’s elite Scáth Force. They should have reeked of that lime scent.”

  “One would think,” Evalle said.

  Tzader’s brown eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t I hear about this, Storm?”

  “I asked Lucien what happened when he reported that to VIPER and he said Sen dismissed it without a second thought because it was when all of you Beladors were having so many problems with your power while Brina was missing. Sen said he didn’t care what the Medb smelled like as long as they kept killing demons.”

  “No one told me,” Tzader snapped.

  “Lucien was told not to repeat it, which makes me wonder if Sen had a hand in any of this.”

  That floored Tzader based on the surprise in his face. “If that was ever proven, the Tribunal would take Sen apart one piece at a time for all this trouble they’re going through.”

  “He tried to kill Storm once,” Evalle interjected.

  “There’s no proof besides your word,” Storm reminded her. “Sen would come up with some kind of defense to get around it, claiming that even if you believe that’s what you saw you were too distraught to know what really happened. Or some shit like that.”

  “You’ve got a point, but I’d like to see Sen hung with abetting the person behind all this.” Evalle looked over at Storm. “Lucien was told to say nothing, but he told you?”

  “Lucien is a loner and he doesn’t like Sen any more than I do. We talked. That’s all.”

  “We need to get busy,” Evalle said, ready to get out of there and do something while she still had a few hours of darkness left.

  Tzader told Storm, “Sorry I had to put you on the spot in the Tribunal meeting, but I’m glad you were there.”

  Storm waved it off. “I’ll go anywhere she goes.”

  But would he ever be able to stay with her anywhere she lived? He’d said he was glad about living with her, but she still had her doubts, and she needed to share those doubts with him, as Nicole had suggested. She stifled a sigh. That conversation would have to wait a little longer now.

  Nodding at Storm, Tzader said, “I’ll pull as many Beladors as we need off of any duty, other than guarding Brina, to help. You’re about to see the full force of the Beladors when it’s comes to protecting one of their own.”

  Tendrils of warmth swarmed through Evalle at Tzader’s declaration of support from the entire tribe. She’d spent years trying to prove she belonged to the Belador tribe. She’d been called a Belador from the day a druid brought her into the fold, but saving Treoir from the Medb and bringing Storm to use his majik to return Brina to the castle had gone a long way to securing her position in the minds and hearts of some warriors who’d still been wary of her.

  “Evalle?”

  She looked up at Tzader calling to her and found both men staring at her. “What?”

  Storm almost smiled, but he managed to tuck it away and maintain a serious face in front of Tzader, who was scowling. “I asked if you could talk to Quinn.”

  “I told you I would.”

  “I need you to do it soon. I took Lanna to Treoir–”

  “Good idea. Lanna may be able to help.”

  “We’ll see, but I want to hand over the Maistir responsibilities for a few months once this is settled, and he’s the only one I would put in my place. Maybe longer than a few months if it works out.”

  “You’d step down?”

  Tzader and Quinn had been her rocks since the first time they’d met. They’d been captured in a Medb trap and all three had almost died. Tzader had always been the one in charge, because he was a leader of warriors.

  But right now indecision warred with duty in his gaze and Evalle had never seen him so torn.

  He said, “Brina isn’t making progress. Macha said she believes Brina is losing more memories. I would never turn my back on the Beladors when they need me, but right now Brina needs me more.”

  He was breaking her heart. Evalle said, “Oh, Z. What do you need me to do?”

  “Just help get Quinn’s head in the right place so that if I have to ask him to take over for me, he can.”

  “How is his present state of mind?”

  “I wanted him to tell you, but when Kizira was dying she told him they had a child, born of when they met thirteen years ago.”

  Evalle felt that punch to her stomach and she wasn’t even Quinn. “He’s going to want to find her.”

  “He’s already started trying and I think he believed that Lanna was his best way to find Phoedra.”

  Finally, a bright spot in all this. “Lanna says she can find anyone by touching something that belongs to them.”

  “Right. Quinn has a narrow braid the size of a bracelet that Kizira made from his hair. She wove in strands of Phoedra’s hair later. When Quinn handed the bracelet to Lanna it burned her hands severely.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “I took her to Garwyli and left her there until I can go back and smooth the way with Macha to allow Lanna to stay with Brina. I think that will help her since Lanna was with Brina during the time she was gone and her memories corrupted.”

  All that sparked a thought. Evalle considered everything and decided maybe it was time she took care of her two best friends. “You bring up a good point about Quinn. I think he needs something to keep him from withdrawing and pulling inside himself. Hunting his daughter will do that if he doesn’t lose hope.”

  Tzader’s eyebrows drew tight in thought. “You’re right. I hadn’t wanted to bother him, but giving him more to do and keeping him close by so we can help him find Phoedra might be good for him.”

  “Right,” Evalle agreed as if this was Tzader’s idea. “Handing him some of your duties would be a good start, plus he’d have constant access to resources for hunting his daughter. Why don’t you give him a push of motivation by telling him you need this time with Brina, which is the truth?”

  Storm watched her with an assessing look. What was going on in his mind?

  Evalle had never
been much for touching, not even with Tzader and Quinn, but since Storm had changed all that, now she could offer her friend more than just words. She walked over and hugged Tzader, who put his arms around her, holding her close like the brother she never had. When she stepped back, she got a glimpse of the haunted soul Tzader kept stowed away from others.

  She asked, “If I talk Quinn into taking over now, will you go to Treoir instead of waiting on the outcome of my trial?”

  “No. Don’t even start that.”

  “Then I won’t help Quinn.” She crossed her arms, letting her defiance fly in his face.

  Storm looked at her as if she’d turned into a frog. “Why?”

  She explained, “If Tzader thinks Quinn is capable of being Maistir, then he should trust him now. All of you are so damned determined to protect me. Let’s give Quinn that job, too, if you think he needs something to do.”

  Tzader opened his mouth to argue and stopped.

  “Right,” Evalle said, pleased with herself. For once, she was giving directions. “You don’t have an argument, Z. If you really believe Quinn can be the Maistir then give him all your trust.

  Grumbling and pacing for a moment, Tzader said, “I don’t like this.”

  “Welcome to my world.” She smiled to soften her chiding. “You tell Quinn you’re going to Treoir and you need him to take your place as Maistir. In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve asked nothing of me and I’ll bet you’ve rarely asked anything of Quinn. It’s your turn to let us do our part as friends. I have no problem trusting Quinn to stand by me with the Tribunal. If he calls to ask my opinion, I’ll tell him that we need him now. And we do. This is me helping you on my terms the way you help me on yours. Get used to it.”

  Tzader gave her a sharp look but softened with amusement. “You do realize I’m still Maistir?”

  “Yes and you’re also one of my best friends. Do this for Quinn and Brina. Do something for yourself for once. Storm has the best chance of delivering the evidence we need. Let Quinn be a hero and help Storm.”

  “Damn,” he said in a rush of exhale. “If Quinn’s okay with it, then I’ll go to Brina.”

  Evalle would make sure of it, because Quinn needed his friends now, too.