Witchlock

by Dianna Love

  Quinn walked along the sidewalk where Marietta Street separated the CNN Center, which took up the entire block on his left, from Centennial Park on the other side of the street. He welcomed the drizzle that hid any slip in his emotions.

  He had to make good on the argument he’d just won with Tzader and stop thinking only about himself.

  As two couples passed Quinn, one of the men called over to his buddy, “Never say never, bro.” They laughed and moved on.

  Never.

  Quinn knew that word intimately. Just forming those five letters in his mind brought Kizira’s image into focus and all that he’d missed with her because she was Medb, and all he would now miss, because she was gone.

  He’d never fold her hand inside his to walk along a street. He’d never hold her in his arms again.

  And Phoedra would never see her mother again.

  He sucked in a breath, and then another.

  Where are you, Quinn? Tzader asked, his voice filtering into Quinn’s mind and snatching him from yet another drop into a bottomless chasm of self-pity.

  Clearing his thoughts to sound like the leader he was expected to be, Quinn sent back, Walking a section of downtown. I’ve assigned Beladors specific zones that overlap. Why are you still here?

  Just making sure you’re good with taking over as Maistir.

  I wouldn’t have called you if I hadn’t thought it through. You need to be with Brina and … I need this duty.

  I owe you big time, bro.

  No, you don’t, Tzader. If you do, then I owe you many times more. Let me know how it goes and you can send Lanna back if she becomes a problem.

  I’m glad Lanna is there. I think Brina will be happy to see her once I clear it with Macha. We’ll be good. Let me know if you need me to come back for Evalle.

  We won’t. Between all of us and Storm, she’ll be fine. Quinn wasn’t as certain as he tried to sound, but Tzader could do nothing beyond the combined efforts of everyone he’d just listed.

  Just promise you’ll have Sen call for me if anything goes bad in the Tribunal. I’ll drag Macha in there and damn the rules.

  I will definitely alert you if anything goes askew with the bloody Tribunal.

  Roger that. Then Tzader was gone and Quinn was now Maistir over all of the North American Beladors. The only reason Macha probably went along with it was for Brina’s sake. At least, Quinn assumed Tzader had cleared this with the goddess.

  Quinn just hoped Tzader had a chance to be with the woman he loved.

  Black clouds that had hung over the city for the last hour, spitting out a drizzle, finally dumped their load of rain.

  Quinn pulled his wool coat up around his neck and hunched his shoulders. He’d worn a cap, and now pulled the bill down to block water from his eyes. Reminded him of school in England after having grown up in Russia.

  That had been one damned cold country. He didn’t miss it.

  The one fond memory he held from the region was the two weeks he’d spent with Kizira in Chechnya. They’d hidden in a cabin with snow piled around the windows and a fire flickering.

  Moisture stung his eyes and he blinked it away.

  His heart could grieve all it wanted, but on the outside he had to pull it together.

  A Maistir could show no weakness.

  For four years, Tzader had kept his emotions hidden from all while he watched Brina slide from his grasp.

  Quinn could do no less.

  He reached the end of the block and continued his constant visual sweep of the area, but everyone was running to shelter now that lightning crackled and a major water dump was happening.

  Quinn moved down the empty sidewalk as cars splashed by. He passed a street on his left that went to an industrial area with a rail line running to it. Between the rain and dark skies, the place had a gloomy shroud, but it was empty so he walked on across the narrow intersection.

  Something pulled his attention for a second look.

  He backed up and turned to his left again.

  A woman stood a half block away in a red robe that billowed around her. No umbrella, but neither was she getting wet.

  Quinn’s instincts kicked in and put him on alert. An arched corridor between him and the woman formed an invisible shield against the rain.

  Very likely a witch and no one that Quinn recognized, which made him think Medb.

  Could this be Veronika? Almost certainly not. According to Evalle and Adrianna, she shouldn’t be anywhere near the city. That said, he had a description. If he could get a look at her face, he’d know.

  He eased forward and the alley grew darker except where light glowed around her. Yep, he was dealing with something unnatural, and powerful.

  He couldn’t ignore an unknown witch in the area when she could be Medb. The whole point of this search was to glean information about the warlock-turned-demon.

  He needed to get a look at her face, but she kept it hidden in the shadow of her robe. She had her head bent forward and her hands tucked into each bell-shaped sleeve.

  When he was twenty feet away, he stopped. That was close enough. “What business do you have in Atlanta?”

  “Quinn?” whispered and echoed around him.

  What? Pain clutched his chest at that feminine voice.

  Kizira?

  His heart screamed yes and his mind trembled at the possibility. This was ridiculous. Kizira was dead.

  He cursed himself for allowing his mind to go there with a potential threat in front of him.

  The world closed down to him and this witch.

  As she came within two steps of him, he said, “Stop there.”

  She did.

  He ordered, “Reveal yourself and explain your presence.”

  She lowered her hood with one hand and held a white sphere the size of a cantaloupe in the other. His gaze latched onto the spinning sphere. White-hot vapors smoked away from the ball and it almost looked as though a tiny figure was silhouetted inside.

  “Quinn?”

  He jerked at the sound of his name said in Kizira’s voice.

  When he stared into Kizira’s face, a fist gripped his heart. That couldn’t be.

  All the blood rushed from his head and he swayed where he stood. He whispered a desperate plea. “Kizira?”

  Please be Kizira.

  You can’t be Kizira.

  Her beautiful lips lifted in that heart-shaped smile that sent his world somersaulting out of control. She said, “I’m here. I miss you.”

  Her voice echoed around in his head. “How can you be alive?” Lie to me, but just be real.

  “Because you need me.”

  Tears burned his eyes. He shook his head, cursing himself for climbing into his grief so deeply that he believed Kizira was alive. “This isn’t real. You’re a ghost.”

  The most alive-looking one he’d ever encountered. His heart hammered in his chest.

  She extended a hand, palm down. “Touch me with one finger only.”

  Damn his soul, that’s all it took for hope to explode in his chest. He’d do anything for one more minute with Kizira. He crossed the space between them.

  His hand moved toward her smooth skin. He was breathing as hard as a racehorse at the finish line. He could do this.

  His finger trembled as he placed it upon her cool skin.

  She was real.

  He had to know what was happening. Standing this close to her and not holding her was torment. Was he losing his mind?

  “If you’re Kizira, tell me the truth. What’s going on?”

  “I am here for you, Quinn, but I can’t remain.”

  He cried out, “Don’t go. Please don’t go.”

  “I came only to help you. What do you need from me?”

  “You. I need you to be alive and in my life.” His heart wrenched in his chest, hurting more than he’d thought possible after watching her die.

  “I can’t stay, Quinn. I have to go. Open up and show me what you need.”

  Pressure
gripped his mind and tightened around his skull from all sides. He grabbed his head with one hand, too terrified to move his finger from her skin. “No, Kizira. We don’t need telepathy.”

  The pressure eased immediately.

  She sounded disappointed when she said, “The only way I can talk to you when I leave is through our minds.”

  He was dying inside all over again. Tears streamed down his face. The finger he had on her skin was shaking hard, but he couldn’t move it for fear that she’d vanish. “Don’t leave me again. I can’t live without you. I keep failing you and I have to find Phoedra.”

  Kizira’s face brightened at that. “How is Phoedra?”

  “I don’t know!” he groaned. “I haven’t found our daughter. I’m failing her too. The bracelet isn’t helping. Tell me where she is–”

  Kizira floated back, breaking the connection. “I have to leave.”

  Quinn lunged for her. “Noooo.”

  Her voice whispered all around him. “I’ll be back, but don’t tell anyone or I won’t be able to return. They’ll stop me.”

  “Who will stop you?” He fell to his knees, holding his head, but nothing would quelch the agony shredding his insides. He’d had her so close. So close and now she was gone again.

  Rain crashed down on him.

  He didn’t care. He wished he hadn’t agreed to take Tzader’s place, because now Quinn could let go and fall all the way into the chasm of insanity he’d been so close to last week while he was gone.

  He’d gone away to mourn in private and to determine if he was still mentally strong, a deep concern since he possessed mindlock ability. The monks had healed his fratured mind once before in the past.

  When he lost Kizira, he’d had doubts about his mental control, but the monks patched him up again.

  He’d walked away from everything. Losing Kizira had stripped him bare and left his mind raw. With his level of power and the gift of mindlock, he couldn’t stay when he was more of a dangerous liability than an asset.

  The monks he’d gone to earlier for rehabilitation had given him sanctuary while he mourned, but they’d warned him that while his mindlock was strong and was truly healed, now his soul had suffered great damage, and he was far from whole.

  He staggered to his feet with rain beating down on him, seeing now how arrogant he’d sounded when he told the monks, “No one wants to test me any time soon. They’ll wish they’d stepped into boiling oil instead.”

  The monks had watched him with worried eyes.

  He finally understood what they had been trying to say. His mind was as strong as ever, but his soul and heart could not withstand seeing Kizira again. Had she taken his hand and led him off a cliff just now, he’d have gone willingly.

  The monks had warned Quinn he’d be vulnerable to attack.

  He turned and trudged back to the street, putting one foot ahead of the next to finish his rounds. He had no explanation for what had just happened, but he could not allow it to happen again.

  Should he tell anyone?

  What would he say? He suffered hallucinations of Kizira? Or should he admit that he’d failed to insure she didn’t return to this world by burning and salting the body?

  I’ll be back, but don’t tell anyone or I won’t be able to return. They’ll stop me.

  Who had Kizira been talking about?

  The Medb.

  Quinn gripped his head where pain now drummed his temples with each pump of his heart. He’d give Tzader a week and hope his friend brought Brina back, because Quinn could not be Maistir if he was the weak link in the Beladors.

  With his mindlock ability and now his position as Maistir, he had control of every North American Belador warrior, who would act upon his word. He would not put them at risk. He would buck up and do the job Tzader and Evalle believed he could do.

  For now.

  Chapter 31

  Evalle rode up to Rowan’s Midtown house in a downpour, glad to be off the roads with it raining so hard, even if the bad weather did shield her from the sun.

  Of course, the rain eased off as soon as she was out of traffic.

  She parked her bike behind three cars at the curb in front of the witch’s house.

  Who else was here?

  “What your skinny ass doin’ here?”

  She swung around, hand going to her hip for her dagger … that wasn’t there.

  Rain still fell in a mild drizzle, but it had no affect on Grady, her favorite Nightstalker if he wasn’t in some kind of trouble. He had coffee brown skin, but since he was a Nightstalker, it was translucent like a weak brew. Nightstalkers were ghouls who’d died as homeless people, and who gathered gossip and intelligence which they would trade for a handshake with a powerful being, gaining them ten minutes of solid form.

  Most of them used that ten minutes to guzzle whatever they’d been addicted to when they were alive.

  Grady could be ornery as an old goat, but his whisker-riddled face and wrinkled, brown eyes warmed her heart.

  She’d missed him.

  But that didn’t explain why he was two miles from Grady Hospital, his namesake in downtown Atlanta. Until recently, she’d always found the old ghoul near the hospital she’d named him after because he wouldn’t share his true name.

  “I’m not the one who shouldn’t be here, you old coot,” she told him in good-natured ribbing.

  “I thought you’d partnered with that Injun’.”

  He did that just get to her. “That’s politically incorrect.”

  “Not when I was alive.” He grinned and lifted his hands.

  She looked around. Humans normally couldn’t see him, but witches could. Rowan had stepped out on the wide front porch wrapping a frame house that had been built in the early 1900s.

  Evalle gave a thumbs-up to let Rowan know she was fine and coming soon, then she turned back to Grady. “I have to hurry. What’s going on?”

  His eyebrows jumped. “You think I’m givin’ you intel without a handshake?”

  “I didn’t come here looking for you.”

  “Then you won’t be disappointed when I don’t tell you nothin’.” He grinned at that logic.

  She’d threaten to strangle him, but that would do no good since he was already dead, and had been dead since the 80’s. “Fine. I’ll shake, but I don’t want to hear a word about Old Forrester, Mickey-D meals or anything else. I have to get inside for a meeting.”

  “You sure are cranky these days. You got problems in your love life?”

  She was not discussing Storm with Grady. “Shake or not. Make up your mind.” She could be just as ornery.

  “Fine. You ain’t no fun today anyhow.”

  She looked around and found a place where she could step between two tall hedges so no human would see Grady take solid form.

  Once there, she pulled off her glove, eyes turned up to check the sky.

  “Don’t worry. That sun ain’t poppin’ out for a while,” Grady said.

  He was right. She held her hand out and his shimmering hand reached for hers. The minute they touched, power rolled down her arm and passed to him, fueling his corporeal form.

  Grady’s solid form filled his flannel shirt and loose trousers, looking so alive it hurt to know he could only hold that form for ten minutes. He’d been solid longer, one time when she’d broken the rules, big-time. Evalle and Grady had hidden in the church balcony, and she’d held his hand so he could watch his granddaughter get married.

  She released him and he left his arm outstretched for a moment, but didn’t berate her for only giving the minimum this time. Grady could be a roaring pain, but he’d been her friend since she came to Atlanta.

  “Okay, Grady, spill whatever you have.”

  “A new power has entered the city.”

  “That’s it? Grady, we have Medb warlocks coming and going. Queen Maeve and Cathbad can visit when they want. Plus something is killing trolls. Does it have anything to do with any of those?”

  “Ma
ybe.”

  “So what is it?”

  “I saw it being used on a Medb warlock.”

  Evalle felt her pulse pick up. Could Grady be key to finding out who had turned a Medb into a demon? “What did you see?”

  “Two warlocks wuz stalkin’ a troll, then they caught it and locked it in their van. Must have knocked it out, ‘cause nothing in that van made a sound, then the two warlocks walked off arguin’. All I heard was the big one say they had to get another troll. Little one, he ain’t happy at all but the big one threatened him.”

  “Did you get names?”

  “No. Big guy had a scar down the side of his cheek like this.” Grady drew a line from his left eyebrow straight to his jaw. “Some woman showed up and she must be one hell of a witch. She called the little one to her like a damn puppy and made him heel to the side. Then she and the big one had a talk. I tried to get close but she was puttin’ some kind of whammy majik up to prevent anything from comin’ around. She won’t talk to no Nightstalkers either.”

  A powerful witch? Veronika?

  But why would she be anywhere around the Medb before she possessed her full power, and wouldn’t Adrianna have heard something?

  Wait. Evalle considered a more realistic possibility. “Do you know what Queen Maeve looks like?”

  “Nah. Do you?”

  “No. That might have been her. The Medb are accusing me of murdering one of their people without provocation.”

  “That shows those fools don’t know you.”

  There was her Grady, always in her corner. “The problem is that I killed a demon when it dropped its glamour in Stone Mountain Park. I shoved my dagger into its head and told the dagger to stay. That body disappeared. Then Cathbad showed up at a Tribunal with a corpse and my dagger stuck in it. I was the only one who could release the dagger.”

  Grady growled and stomped around, then told her, “I’ll try to find that bunch again. Wish I’d had a way to follow their van. I’ll put word out what I’m lookin’ for among the Nightstalkers. They won’t tell me nothing, but they’ll let me know when they have somethin’ to trade with you for a handshake.”

  “Thanks. That would be a lot of help.”

  “Go on and git to your hen party.”

  She hugged him and she could tell it surprised him. He patted her on the back. “Don’t worry. I’ll find somethin’.”