Defender (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 11)

by Christine Pope

  “Anyway,” Jack said, “there are a lot of us, probably hundreds of thousands worldwide. And since we don’t know much about other witch clans, except the ones that directly border our own lands, we have a real problem now trying to figure out where this guy came from. He literally could be from anywhere.”

  Caitlin had said he looked Hispanic, though. Which meant he could be from Southern California…or New Mexico…Texas…or Mexico itself. Or South America, or Spain or Portugal. Who knew? But they’d have to find out, or else they would have no way of discovering what it was that had driven him on this mission of revenge against the Santiagos. Or was it revenge at all? Maybe the null had been looking for an opening for a long time, and finally struck because he deemed Beatriz Santiago weak enough. There was just so much they didn’t know.

  Jack pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex and then went easy on the speed bumps until they got to the carport closest to his building. After he turned off the ignition, he said, “Let me come around and open the door for you. Don’t get out of the car until I’m there.”

  In another world, she might have thought he was merely being chivalrous. Now she knew that he wanted to make sure he was right there in case the worst happened. But would the person who’d hexed her car really be so brazen as to attack the two of them in broad daylight in a parking lot in Scottsdale?

  Well, someone had been brazen enough to murder three people in the late morning in Pasadena, so anything was possible.

  As instructed, Kate stayed in her seat until Jack came around. After he opened the door, he extended a hand to help her out. Although she tried to stay as cool and unflustered as possible, she couldn’t quite prevent a thrill from going through her as she slid her hand into Jack’s and felt his strong fingers close around hers.

  All too soon, though, he’d let go and pressed the remote to lock the vehicle. He stood next to her for a few seconds, scanning the parking lot, but apparently he didn’t see anything suspicious, because a moment later he said, “Come on. Everything looks clear.”

  She followed him along the walkway that led to his building, and then up the stairs to his apartment. He already had his keys out, so within another minute, they were safely inside, with Jack locking the door behind them.

  Only…the apartment clearly wasn’t safe, because instead of the orderly, somewhat austere interior she’d expected to see, it appeared as if a whirlwind had hit the place. The leather furniture was slashed, the stuffing strewn everywhere. The TV looked as if someone had put a foot through it.

  “Oh, my God,” Kate said, a hand going to her mouth. A second later, a terrible thought went through her mind. Had she somehow bungled locking the front door? Was this all her fault?

  But no, she’d seen Jack unlock the door just a minute earlier. Both the deadbolt and the lower lock had been engaged. Anyway, an unlocked apartment was more an invitation to theft, not the utter destruction she saw around her.

  He stood a few paces away from her, mouth grim. Then he said, “I need to check the rest of it out. Stick close to me.” And he drew the gun from his shoulder holster, clicking off the safety as he did so.

  She nodded, mouth too dry for her to give a verbal reply. More than anything, she wished she could reach out and take his hand in hers, more for reassurance than anything else, but she didn’t want to distract him.

  They moved farther back into the apartment, encountering much the same destruction — the bookcases in the study toppled, the laptop hurled to the floor and stomped on repeatedly. In the master bedroom, the bedclothes had been torn to shreds, the lamps smashed, the mirror hanging above the dresser broken into a thousand glittering pieces.

  Seven years of bad luck, Kate thought then. But bad luck for whom? Jack, or the person who caused all this destruction?

  He peered into the bathroom and Kate followed suit. The mirror there had been broken as well, the toiletries from the medicine cabinet and the drawers strewn all over the floor.

  “Don’t think I’m getting my security deposit back,” he said with a grim chuckle.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “It’s fine. I’m just thanking God right now that you and Caitlin and Alex had decided to go out, and weren’t here when this…person…did all this.”

  He headed out of the bedroom and back toward the front of the apartment. As Kate looked on, he reached up with his free hand to trace around the lintel of the door, then shook his head.

  “They’re gone,” he told her. “I put sigils of protection all around this door, and around the windows and sliding glass door as well. But they’ve been erased.”

  “So this wasn’t an ordinary burglar.”

  “Oh, no. I have a feeling this is the handiwork of the same person who put the hex on your car.”

  “So whoever that is, they can’t be the same as the null.”

  “I doubt it, unless he also possesses the power to teleport himself hundreds of miles. I suppose there’s the remotest chance that he could have caught a flight to Phoenix immediately after he committed those murders in Pasadena, but from what Caitlin said, it sounded as if he was going to be occupied for a while.”

  Kate shuddered. Yes, the vision had ended before things could get too explicit, but she had no doubt as to what had happened next. And why hadn’t the new prima fought back? Kate knew if she’d been placed in similar horrifying circumstances, she would have clawed and kicked and done everything she could to keep herself from being taken by the monster who’d just killed her husband. But Marisol had fallen into the null’s arms as if he’d been whispering sweet nothings in her ear.

  She’d need to ask Jack about that at some point. Could witches and warlocks have more than one prominent talent? Maybe the null could also control people’s minds, the way that Matías Escobar apparently had been able to.

  Still almost expressionless, Jack turned away from the front door. “Well, whoever did this, it’s obvious we can’t stay here. Let’s check to see if any of your things were damaged.”

  Kate nodded and went back to the spare bedroom, where she’d stashed her overnight bag on the floor of the closet. She had to step around the books that had been hurled all over the floor, but when she got to the closet and opened it, her weekender bag was still sitting there, apparently untouched. It didn’t look as if the intruder had gone into the closet at all.

  “Let me see it,” Jack instructed her, and she handed the bag over to him.

  He ran his hands over its surface, then said, “It’s clean. I was worried that the intruder might have put a hex on it — sort of a witchy tracking device — but I can’t feel anything. I think it’s okay.” After making one last pass, clearly trying to reassure himself, Jack gave the bag back to her.

  “My other stuff is still in the guest bath,” she pointed out.

  “We’ll check that, too.”

  However, when she retrieved her toiletries case from underneath the sink where she’d stowed it, Jack couldn’t find anything off about that, either. This bathroom appeared completely untouched, as though the person who’d come here and wreaked all this havoc had decided the guest bath wasn’t worth their time. Maybe it didn’t have enough of Jack’s imprint on it, or something like that. Whatever the reason, Kate couldn’t help but let out a relieved breath. Yes, she had a ton more important things to worry about, but it still felt good to know that she wouldn’t have to replace all her makeup and toiletries.

  Jack headed into the destruction of his bedroom, his expression once again giving no indication of what he was thinking. With quick, efficient movements, he went to the closet and retrieved a leather overnight bag from the top shelf, then started throwing clothes into it. Kate couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t packing any “work” clothes — she saw jeans and T-shirts and a couple more casual long-sleeved shirts, but nothing like the button-down and khakis he currently had on.

  She turned away and pretended to be inspecting the damage in the bathroom as he bega
n to collect some of the underwear that had been pulled out of the dresser drawers and flung on the floor, but she hadn’t moved quite fast enough. Apparently, Jack Sandoval was a boxer-briefs kind of guy.

  At last, though, he was done, zipping up the bag and throwing it over one shoulder. “Let’s get going.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “A place where we’ll be safe.”

  While she had no reason not to trust him, she didn’t really like the idea of taking off into the blue without any idea of where she was going. “You want to be more specific?”

  “Not really. I don’t have time to inspect every square inch of this apartment, so I don’t know if the intruder left listening hexes here. Until I know it’s okay to talk openly, I’m not saying anything that might give away our destination.”

  Those words didn’t exactly reassure her. Kate glanced around the room, even though she knew that hexes could be nearly invisible. It wasn’t like she was going to see speakers suddenly sprouting from the ceiling or something.

  “They can do that?”

  “Obviously, ‘they’ can do a lot of things. So we need to be cautious. Let’s go.”

  She nodded, and followed him out of the bedroom and through the apartment. Jack didn’t even glance at the mayhem around him; clearly, he’d catalogued it, and saw no further reason to waste time on inspecting everything. However, he was careful about locking up, although she didn’t know what he was trying to protect.

  In silence, they went down the stairs and back to where he’d parked his Jeep. It wasn’t until he’d pulled away from the apartment complex that he said, “We’ll swing by your place first.”

  “Really?” she asked, somewhat startled. “Why?”

  “Well, you said you’d only packed things for two days. I was going to head over there after work to pick up some extra clothes for you, but clearly, circumstances have intervened. Anyway, this will also give us a chance to see whether your apartment has been hit as well.”

  “And if it has?” Kate was relieved that she sounded calm enough as she asked the question, but even so, her gut clenched at the thought of that same destruction being visited on her own apartment. Unlike Jack, she didn’t have the unlimited resources of a witch clan to help her replace any items that had been wrecked or broken, let alone the money to pay for all the damage to the apartment itself.

  As they drove south, back toward her complex, she found herself continually glancing into the rearview mirror, worried that one of the cars behind them might be occupied by the intruder, that he might be following them back to her apartment. Yes, she trusted Jack to protect her, but this unknown person seemed so…so…implacable. As if it didn’t matter what they did, because he would keep coming after them.

  “No one’s following us,” Jack said, and she startled.

  “What?”

  “I can see the way you keep checking the mirror. It’s okay. Whoever broke into my place, they’re not on our tail.”

  “Oh,” she responded, slumping against the seat. Was it possible to feel foolish and relieved at the same time?

  He seemed to note her discomfiture, because he glanced over and offered her a reassuring smile. “It’s all right. It’s a logical thing to be worried about. But I think we’re okay for now.”

  She hoped so. Right then, all her nerves were jangling, and she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to relax again. Everything was beginning to pile up on her — Jeff’s death, the wreck of her car, the crisis in California. And now the mayhem in Jack’s apartment. When would it all end?

  Another light, and then they turned down the side street where her complex was located, and pulled into the parking lot. This time, knowing the drill, Kate waited for Jack to come around and open the door for her before she got out. Even though he’d said no one had followed them, she couldn’t help giving a quick look around, just in case.

  But the parking lot was empty, except for a lone pickup truck moving away from them and toward the exit onto the street. The driver didn’t even glance in their direction as he passed by

  “It’s fine,” Jack said. “Let’s go.”

  “Okay.”

  She hurried down the pathway that led to her building, then went quickly up the stairs, Jack sticking behind her the whole time. When she reached the landing, she pulled her keys out of her purse and murmured a silent prayer that everything would be okay. Her world had already been thrown topsy-turvy, and the thought of facing the same destruction that she’d just seen at Jack’s apartment made her entire body tense. She told herself she could handle whatever might be waiting for her behind that door, but…could she?

  The door swung inward after she unlocked the deadbolt. For just the briefest second, Kate wanted to shut her eyes, in case her worst fears were borne out.

  But she didn’t close her eyes. She looked inside, and let out a breath.

  Everything was fine. The air inside felt stale and warm, because she’d now been gone for more than twenty-four hours, and she hadn’t left the A/C running, but the apartment itself appeared to be untouched.

  “Let me go in first,” Jack said. “Just in case.”

  Kate couldn’t really argue with that request. She nodded and stepped out of the way so he could enter the apartment. His hands were outstretched, as though he wanted to feel the currents of the air inside.

  “Seems all right,” he told her. “But stay close.”

  Like that was a problem. She planned to stick to him like glue.

  He paused right inside the door and looked up to inspect the lintel, just as he had with the doorway at his own apartment. “Nothing. That’s good.”

  “No sigils?”

  “None that I can detect. The place feels like it’s undisturbed. So let’s go and get anything else you need, and then get out of here.”

  “Got it.”

  Kate hurried back to her bedroom and dug her little rolling suitcase out from under her bed. It felt weird to have Jack follow her, then pause in the doorway while she hurriedly packed the things she thought she might need. Yes, she understood why he didn’t want to let her out of his sight, but she could have done without having him stand there and watch while she retrieved panties and bras and a couple of the long tanks she liked to sleep in. And then, following the example of what he had packed for himself, jeans and T-shirts and one or two nicer tops.

  “Should I bring a jacket? Sweater?”

  “Couldn’t hurt. The desert can get cold at night.”

  The desert. That remark in and of itself didn’t really tell her that much — after all, Phoenix was surrounded by desert. They could be going anywhere.

  She didn’t comment, though, only packed a few more items she thought would be useful, including a pair of trail shoes. Just in case. Jack didn’t really seem like the hiking type, but the shoes could come in handy if they did need to move through rough terrain.

  Her toiletries were already stowed in the Jeep, so Kate didn’t have to worry about packing any of those items. In a remarkably short time, she was done, the little suitcase completely full.

  “I’ll take that,” Jack said, and came into the room so he could lift the suitcase from the bed and take it back into the living room. “Anything else you need?”

  “Just my laptop.” It had been sitting on the dining room table this whole time, charging, and Kate unplugged the charger and took both it and the laptop and shoved them into her oversized purse. It bulged a little but fit well enough — one of the reasons why she’d gone for a model with a smaller screen. “I think that’s it, though.”

  “All right.” He paused then and looked around. Trying to make sure she hadn’t missed anything? Kate couldn’t really tell, because he still wore that inscrutable expression. “Don’t suppose you have a timer for one of these lamps.”

  “No, sorry.” Once upon a time, she had. Or rather, Jeff had bought a couple of the devices for the times they went out of town. The one time, actually. They’d taken a trip to San
Francisco about a year and a half after the wedding, mostly because Kate had just finished a grueling semester and needed to get out and away, even if only for a few days. Anyway, if the timers were still around, they’d be in with Jeff’s stuff. She experienced a sudden pang at the thought of the detritus from their marriage being packed away in storage, and how Jeff’s mother would probably have to deal with sorting through all of it.

  “Just a thought,” Jack said. He paused, and looked more closely at her. “You okay?”

  “Yes,” she replied. Was it the truth? She didn’t know for sure. The only thing she did know was that she had far more pressing things to worry about at the moment. “Let’s go.”

  13

  A quick stop to fill up the tank, and then they were headed south on I-10. Kate stirred in the passenger seat and glanced over at him. “Can you tell me now where we’re going?”

  Well, he’d made her wait long enough. There was no point in keeping it a secret any longer. “I have a place in the desert outside Tucson,” Jack said. “I bought it a few years ago as an investment property, but the tenants moved out last year, and I’ve been using it for an Airbnb rental until I decided what I wanted to do with it. Anyway, because I bought it as an investment, I set up a corporation to handle the transaction. The corporation is listed on the deed, not me, so even if the person who’s responsible for all this has done some digging into my background, they’re not going to find this property. I have an agent in Tucson who handles it for me, and I let him know to have it cleaned up and ready. He thinks it’s been rented out to a couple of tourists. No point in tipping our hand by telling him that I was actually the one who’d be staying there.”

  “That’s handy,” Kate said. Something about her posture seemed to relax slightly, and he could tell she was relieved that he’d appeared to have considered all the angles. “How far outside Tucson?”