Defender (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 11)

by Christine Pope

  “Well, me, isn’t it?” Kate asked, then flushed a little as everyone turned their attention to her. “I mean, he tried once, but who’s to say he won’t try again?”

  “Because I won’t let it happen,” Jack said.

  While those words sounded brave, and she was glad to hear them, Kate didn’t know if she could put all her faith in them, and that uncertainty sent a chill through her. Not because she believed Jack wouldn’t fight for her, but because this warlock clearly had no scruples, nothing he thought was below him. If he needed her dead, then he would keep on trying.

  “And I’m not completely sure about that,” Luz told her. “He might have decided that going after you was too much of a risk. I do not know much about the sort of blood rituals used in your estranged husband’s murder, but one would think that a civilian’s death would not impart as much power as that of a witch or warlock. Wasn’t that the main reason Matías Escobar and his followers kidnapped Roslyn and Danica, tried to kidnap Caitlin?”

  No one spoke for a moment. Luz did have a point; based on what Kate had heard about those terrible crimes, the rogue warlocks had specifically wanted witch blood to fuel their spells. Yes, the current theory seemed to be that the warlock who’d committed the most recent murders had killed Jeff to send a message, rather than because his blood held any particular innate power, but wouldn’t it make more sense for him to now go after de la Paz witches or warlocks, rather than a civilian who’d already foiled one of his murder attempts?

  To be honest, all of this was starting to make Kate’s head spin. Up was down and down was up. The only thing she thought she could be certain of was the man who sat a foot away from her, his dark eyes watching her intently, as though he guessed at the turmoil within her.

  “Yes, that much was pretty clear,” Angela said in response to Luz’s question. “And that’s why we all have to be on guard. Right now, though, I think our best hope is for Caitlin to have another vision, one that can provide some more information. Has she said anything to you?”

  “No,” Luz replied. “That is, I spoke with her late this morning, just to be sure she didn’t have any new information for me. But her visions do not come on command, as we all know, and she had nothing else to give me. If she had, she would have called right away. She’s very conscientious.”

  The approval in Luz’s voice was clear. Kate couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have a mother-in-law who actually liked and appreciated you, instead of nitpicking every last thing. Then she pushed the uncharitable thought away. Nancy might have been an utter pain in the ass most of the time, but that didn’t mean she deserved to lose her only child.

  “And I’ve talked to Marie, the Wilcox seer,” Connor said. “She’s not getting anything, either.”

  Well, great. Kate understood that witches and warlocks were just people, human beings who might be in possession of some very special gifts but who certainly weren’t all-powerful, or infallible. Still, she really wished their second sight could be a little more help in this particular instance.

  “Then I think we must leave things here for now,” Luz said. “We can only do what we can.”

  “As little as that might be,” Angela remarked. She let go of Connor’s hand and stood, and he rose from his seat on the couch a second or two later.

  Luz offered her a tired smile. “We will get through this, even if things don’t look very hopeful right now.”

  “I know, but….” A lift of her shoulders, and Angela turned toward Kate. “It was good to see you, Kate. I’ll let Jenny know you’re doing well.” Accompanying this last comment was the barest flicker of her eyes in Jack’s direction. “But I suppose you’ll be up in a few weeks, when the baby comes.”

  “That was the plan,” Kate responded, although she felt a frisson of unease, as though she wasn’t sure she’d actually be there to greet her new niece or nephew. That was just being morbid, though. As Luz had just said, they’d get through this…somehow.

  Angela and Connor made their goodbyes, and Luz saw them to the door. When she came back, she looked even more tired, although she summoned a smile and said, “Why don’t you stay for dinner? I know David would like the chance to talk.”

  “Thanks, Luz,” Jack replied. “But I think it’s better if we get back before nightfall. Just in case.”

  She nodded and didn’t bother to argue. Obviously, she hadn’t expected Jack to take her up on the offer. “That might be a good idea. Then take care…and be careful.”

  “We will.”

  Luz gave Kate a smile. “You’re in the best hands in the world. Everything will be fine.”

  As she closed the front door behind them, Kate and Jack headed into the courtyard, then out through the gate. It was only after he’d started up the Jeep and began to pull away from the curb that she let out a chuckle.

  “What’s so funny?” he inquired. It was clear he didn’t find anything particularly amusing about the situation.

  “Well,” Kate replied. “Luz just said I was in the best hands in the world. And I have to agree with her.” She let her gaze slide over to where he had his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel. “But I’d kind of like you to show me again. Just to prove she was right.”

  The tight set of his mouth relaxed, and he actually smiled. “Well, Kate, I’ll have to make sure I do just that thing.”

  18

  Jack drove too fast on the way back to Tubac, but he didn’t bother to moderate his speed. If they got pulled over, his Scottsdale P.D. identification would get him off the hook. Anyway, it wasn’t as if he’d floored it or anything. Eighty-five was a perfectly reasonable rate of speed when the limit was seventy-five.

  A quick glance over at Kate told him she probably wasn’t paying much attention to how fast they were going. She had one hand curled around the seatbelt as she stared out the window, although the abstracted look in her eyes seemed to indicate that she wasn’t paying much attention to the landscape passing by.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  She didn’t precisely startle, but from the way she appeared to somehow snap back into herself, he could tell she must have been very far away. “I think so. That is….” A lift of her shoulders, and she knotted her hands in her lap. Even from where Jack sat, he could see the way her fingers were shaking, and her voice sounded small as she went on, “I mean, I don’t have much choice but to be all right. Flipping out isn’t going to help the situation any.”

  “No, probably not,” he said, but he kept his tone gentle. Anyway, he could understand her feeling overloaded. He was close to that himself, although he had more experience dealing with abrupt ups and downs, just because of his work. Also, his mind kept replaying that scene in Consuelo’s house. Whatever had attacked her hadn’t given a damn that she was an elderly woman. She looked as if she’d gone a few rounds in an MMA tournament.

  “And your cousin….” Kate began. She turned toward him, eyes wide and worried. No, not worried. Downright scared. “Who would do that to a defenseless old woman?”

  “A monster who didn’t give a shit that she was old, or a woman. She had something the warlock wanted, and she was in the way. I’m glad that at least she hung on until we got there, though. That way, she wasn’t alone when she passed.”

  From the way Kate appeared to relax slightly at those words, it appeared that he’d come up with exactly the right thing to say. “I hadn’t thought about it that way. I — well, I don’t know if it makes me feel any better, but you’re right. I just wish we’d gotten there early enough to prevent what happened to her.”

  He’d been thinking the same thing, although he honestly didn’t know if they could have done that much good. Were his defensive spells really strong enough to fend off that kind of an attack? He’d never had much need to use them, and they’d certainly never been put to that sort of test. The last thing he would have wanted was for Kate to be placed in any kind of jeopardy. If he’d confronted the warlock and failed, then she would
have been left alone with no defenses at all against someone who’d already tried once to have her killed.

  “Maybe,” he said. “It would have been dangerous, though. Anyway, we can’t go back and change the past.”

  “I thought you witches and warlocks could. At least, Jenny mentioned something about one of the Wilcox witches being able to do that sort of thing.”

  “Danica Wilcox did,” Jack said. “Under very special circumstances, and in a feat of time travel she hasn’t been able to repeat since. No, I’m afraid the one thing we can’t do is change what’s already happened. All we can do is try to make sure the future isn’t in jeopardy.”

  His reply didn’t seem to sit very well; her wide mouth, usually so warm and amiable, tightened as she pressed her lips together. For a long moment, she didn’t say anything at all, only redirected her attention to the highway in front of them. “How dangerous?” she asked finally. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she continued, “How dangerous is it going to be to go up against this person? I’m getting mixed signals from you.”

  “Maybe that’s because I don’t know for sure,” he said calmly. “I can only make educated guesses. When Luz said that our family hadn’t been involved in any real conflict with other witch clans for generations, she was only telling the truth. I practice my defensive spells because that’s my talent, but it’s one that would have been of more use hundreds of years ago. Until now, anyway.”

  Kate’s expression softened slightly. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that. I suppose it is hard to know for sure when you haven’t had any real opportunity to prove yourself.”

  “Right. And also, I don’t know if the warlock was alone when he attacked Consuelo, or whether he summoned a few demon buddies to come and help him out. That makes a huge difference, too. The wards I have set up might repel them. Might. The rules work differently for beings like that. It’s not like dealing with just another witch or warlock.”

  “Oh.” She went silent again, expression shuttered. What she was thinking, Jack had no idea, but he had a feeling she was probably trying to decide whether or not going back to Tubac really was that great of a plan. Maybe she was starting to think that a nice anonymous hotel room in Phoenix or Scottsdale might have served them better.

  “If we’re not safe in Tubac,” he told her, “it means we’re not safe anywhere. Or at least, unless you include staying somewhere with a bunch of other witches and warlocks surrounding you to help out with defense.” Jack paused, frowning as he wondered whether it would have been smarter for them to pack up and head north with Connor and Angela. In Jerome, there would have been a lot more magical backup to draw on. The de la Paz clan was bigger, but spread out all over the greater Phoenix area and down into Tucson. They mingled with the population, didn’t try to keep themselves separate, which meant they wouldn’t be as useful when push came to shove.

  Well, it couldn’t be helped now. He’d walk the property when they got back to Tubac, check the wards. Feel the wind. If he thought anything seemed even slightly off, then they’d pack up their things and get back on the road, and head up to Jerome as fast as they could.

  “It’s all right,” Kate said after a lengthy pause. “I trust you.”

  What could he say to that? About all he could do was hope that her trust wasn’t entirely misplaced.

  As they came down to the dirt lane to the house, Kate was relieved to see that everything looked exactly as they’d left it. What she’d expected to find, she really didn’t know, but it still felt good to catch that first glimpse of the place, surrounded by its mesquite trees and flowering cactus. And after they pulled into the garage, again she was glad to sense absolutely nothing as she got out of the car. Okay, she wasn’t a psychic or a witch, but in general her intuition was pretty good. She’d had a bad feeling the second she exited the Jeep back at Consuelo’s house. She definitely didn’t get that feeling here.

  Whether or not Jack felt it, Kate couldn’t be sure, but he did seem somewhat more relaxed as he led her up to the main level of the house, then paused in the hallway to look around. “I think it’s okay,” he said.

  “Me, too,” she replied.

  “How about a drink?”

  That sounded like an awesome idea. All right, by that point it was nearly four in the afternoon, and she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, but she wasn’t hungry. Or rather, somewhere on an intellectual level she realized she should probably eat something, but the thought wasn’t at all appealing. “Yes, definitely,” she said.

  “And some of the cheese and crackers we got at TJ’s,” he added. She must have looked dubious, because Jack went on, “I know it feels strange to be thinking about eating in the midst of all this, but we can’t go completely without. You’ll feel better. Trust me.”

  Kate couldn’t argue with that. Having a nibble of cheese and a few crackers wasn’t the same thing as trying to force a steak or a burger down her throat. “Okay.”

  They went into the kitchen and got everything together, then took it out to the patio. The air was warm, almost hot. It felt good, and there was something about the scent of dry grass drifting on the breeze that made Kate relax slightly. This was a good place. How could anything bad happen here?

  Jack poured white wine for the two of them and handed a glass to Kate. She took it gratefully, then sipped it at. Tart and cold, and just what the doctor ordered.

  “Better?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Much better.”

  For a few minutes, they sat in companionable silence, drinking their wine, helping themselves to some of the tapas-style cheese. Something tight and scared and anxious deep within her began to relax, to quietly unknot itself. Across the table, Jack sent her a slightly questioning glance, and she nodded.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I think it’s going to be okay.”

  “It will,” he agreed. “Sometimes when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t see beyond the darkness into the light. But it’s always out there. It doesn’t forget you, even if you might lose sight of it.”

  “‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,’” Kate quoted.

  Jack gave an approving nod. “I like that.”

  “I can’t take credit,” she told him. “It’s something Martin Luther King once said.”

  “It doesn’t matter who said it when it’s true.”

  “I suppose so. But I think that’s what we have to cling to — that no matter what’s going on around us, no matter how awful things might seem — in the end the universe does tend to right those wrongs, even if it doesn’t follow the timeline we might want.”

  For a minute, Jack was silent. Then he said, “I want to make love to you again, Kate.”

  A shiver went through her. Was she ready for that, after everything that had happened today? Despite what she had just said about feeling better, could she open herself to him like that?

  Of course she could. What was more, she knew she should. She couldn’t shut him out. She needed to reaffirm the attraction that had drawn them together. More than attraction. Love. Desire. Everything she hadn’t been expecting, but which the universe had sent to her at exactly the wrong time. Or maybe the right time. Was there a wrong time to fall in love, as long as that love didn’t hurt anyone else?

  She extended a hand to him, and he took it, then pulled her to him so he could kiss her, over and over, his lips strong and demanding. He needed this, she could tell, maybe even more than she did.

  Jack led her to the sliding glass door and pushed it aside. A blast of cool air touched her face, almost shocking after the warmth of the breezes that flowed across the patio. But then she wasn’t thinking of much of anything, because he scooped her up in his arms and carried her down the hall to the bedroom, where he grasped her shirt and pulled it over her head, then reached back to undo the clasp of her bra. His hands closed on her breasts, caressing, and he bent and took a nipple into his mouth, suckling on her, even as he fumbled wi
th the button of her jeans.

  Oh, yes, this was what she needed, his strong fingers stroking her, awakening little ripples of pleasure from deep within. They fell onto the bed, and she reached for his belt buckle and undid it, then pulled down his jeans and underwear. Wrapped her hand around him as they kissed, bodies pressed tightly against one another, all need, all want, searching for a few moments of blissful oblivion. And then he was sliding into her as she gasped and wrapped her legs around him, driving him deep, their bodies rocking together, finding their rhythm, those ripples of pleasure turning into a flood as he filled her, the world disappearing. Or rather, the world became him and no one else, just Jack, his dark eyes so deep she thought she would drown in them, that she could drown herself in him, lose herself forever. But that was all right, because he would always find her.

  They came together, crying out in the same timeless moment where she became him and he became her. It had never been like this with anyone else, because Jack was the match to her soul. She clung to him, shuddering, and then…slipped away into the quiet of sleep, sheltered within his arms, safe.

  Forever.

  Somewhere, a phone was ringing. Jack cracked an eyelid, saw that the room had grown dusky and dim. A quick glance at the clock on the bedside table told him it was seven fifty-two. He and Kate had both collapsed after that bout of frenzied lovemaking, both of them clearly needing the release of sleep after the day’s events.

  He realized the phone wasn’t his, had to be Kate’s, since it had that annoying Apple-standard ringtone going. Where was it? Off in the house somewhere; he vaguely recalled that she’d dropped her purse on the kitchen counter as they came inside.

  “What?” she mumbled, and turned over in bed next to him.