“My money!” Mrs. Timmons grabbed the money, pulled it from her cleavage, and threw it on the floor and stamped out the little flames that licked at the edges.
“That’s not the only thing that’s going to catch on fire if you don’t start talking.” Anastasia’s eyes were even darker.
Pixie held up her hand warningly. “Anastasia. I got this,” she said.
Dominick stared at Anastasia. He and Pixie exchanged worried glances.
“I don’t like her,” Mrs. Timmons whimpered, sinking back onto the couch. “Make her go away.”
“We’ll all go away, as soon as you answer my question.”
“I’ll know if you’re lying,” Anastasia added.
Mrs. Timmons flicked her a sullen glance, then muttered “Your mother…one day, her and me were out looking to find some tricks. We were standing on a corner over on 37th, and some lady parked her car, ran down the alley, put you in a doorway, then ran back out and jumped in a car and drove off. Then a minute later, another car came screeching down the street, like they were chasing the lady who’d left you in the alley. Rosie picked you up and brought you home. We argued about who was going to keep you, but Rosie won out. She had to promise me half of anything she got for you, though.”
Pixie gasped. She felt as if she’d been struck a physical blow. Dominick reached out and squeezed her hand, as she swayed where she stood.
Questions flooded her mind. What had happened to her real mother? Her real mother must be dead, or she’d have come back for her. Who was her father? Who was her mother running from? Somehow, she had a feeling that the Rilkes were involved. Maybe she’d been running from them.
“Why did she bring me home?”
“All kindsa reasons. She took you to the welfare office, said you were hers, started getting welfare checks for you. And she told a few different guys they were the dad, and threatened to tell their wives, so they were sending some money for you every month, for years. I got half, for keeping my mouth shut.” She looked proud of herself as she said that.
“What else?” Anastasia snapped. She was breathing hard, through her nostrils. “What was Pixie wearing when you found her? Was there anything with her?”
Mrs. Timmons looked down at the floor, sullen. “She was wrapped in some fancy white blanket. There was a note in the blanket.”
“What did the note say?” Pixie demanded.
Mrs. Timmons folded her arms across her huge, sagging chest and shot Pixie a sullen, angry look. “Look at you, with your fancy friends. You made it big, didn’t you? That information is worth ten thousand dollars, and I won’t tell you for one penny less. And if your witchy friend doesn’t get out of here, I’ll call the police, that’s what I’ll do.”
She grabbed a cell phone from the scarred coffee table in front of her.
Suddenly the cell phone flared up, flames shooting out. It turned into a black lump of melted plastic, and Mrs. Timmons dropped it, screaming and shaking her hand.
Dominick glanced at the door uneasily, but Pixie could have told him that nobody was going to come to Mrs. Timmons aid.
“Anastasia. Stop,” Pixie said.
“Talk!” Anastasia screamed at Mrs. Timmons.
“The note said ‘My baby girl, know that I’ll always love you’, but it wasn’t even signed! What difference does it make!” Mrs. Timmons wailed, cringing away from her.
“What difference does it make? Pixie had a mother who loved her, a mother who wasn’t a drunk whore, and she never knew it, and you want to know what difference it makes?” Anastasia was stalking towards Mrs. Timmons, her eyes glowing black and her voice grown deep and terrible. “It makes all the difference in the world! I’d have killed to have a mother who loved me! You want to know the first time I used my magic? How I found out I was magic? I was ten! When my mother stopped selling me to her johns, and tried to sell my little brother instead, I choked my mother and the john to death – like this!”
She held out her hand, and bunched it into a fist. Mrs. Timmons clutched at her throat, and her face turned bright red. She made horrible gasping, wheezing sounds.
“Stop it!” Pixie screamed, launching herself at Anastasia and knocking her back several feet.
Anastasia waved her arm and made a hand gesture, and Pixie flew backwards, crashing into the wall.
Dominick let out a roar, and lunged at Anastasia, knocking her to the ground.
“Don’t kill her!” Pixie yelled. “It’s not her fault.”
Mrs. Timmons fell back on the sofa, clutching at her throat and wheezing. She burst into loud, noisy sobs.
“Don’t let her hurt me!” she whimpered. “I didn’t do nothing! It’s not my fault! It was Jennifer’s idea to take you!”
Anastasia lay on the floor, gasping. Dominick shifted back, and Pixie ran over and pulled her up off the floor.
The three of them left the apartment quickly, heading down to Dominick’s car.
“That’s it,” Pixie said to Anastasia. “You will get professional help.”
Anastasia’s breath came out in deep heaves, and she clutched the armrest, leaning back with her eyes shut.
They drove in silence back to the warehouse. Anastasia climbed out, and stumbled back to her car.
Pixie felt ill, and dizzy, and very angry.
What had happened to her real mother?
Dominick turned to Anastasia. “You’re going to stay the hell away from Pixie from now on,” he growled. “Leave. Get away from us. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“Wait!” Pixie called, as Anastasia flung herself into her car. “Anastasia, don’t leave! I can find you help! We can fix this!” Anastasia took off in a screech of tires, without looking back.
She turned back to Dominick. “She’s sick, Dominick. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“She nearly killed you, Pixie. You’re my fated mate. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“Excuse me, I’m your what?”
“You are. You have to be. The way I feel about you…”
“No, I’m not, Dominick.” Pixie’s heart thudded painfully in her chest. “I’m a messed up pickpocket who was raised in the slums by a prostitute. You’re shifter royalty from a family of millionaires. How could someone like me be your fated mate? You’re just reacting to the effects of taking that talisman off. A few days, a few weeks, and you’ll realize your mistake.”
Dominick grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. His blue eyes were so earnest, so beautiful. “It’s not a mistake, and I’m not going to get another talisman. You are my fated mate, and I will wait for as long as it takes for you to realize that.”
Pixie wanted it to be true so badly it hurt, but she knew it couldn’t be. Things like that just ddn’t happen to people like her. Shouldn’t fated mates be some kind of match? “It’s not possible! You’re letting your hormones do your thinking. I’m not going to trap you like this, Dominick.” Pixie pushed past him and rushed into the warehouse.
Chapter Thirteen
“Psst. Pixie. I need to talk to you.” There was a light rapping on the door. Hillary was calling out to her.
Pixie sat bolt upright. She’d refused to speak to Dominick the night before, and had locked herself in another room of the warehouse and fallen asleep on the couch. A little while later, she’d heard his car pull away. She’d fallen asleep curled up in a ball on the couch, her head resting on the crook of her arm.
Blearily, she pulled out her cell phone to check the time. Six a.m. This afternoon, the Rilke brothers would most likely meet up. If Tyler couldn’t uncover their meeting place, her friends would die.
She got up and unlocked the door, swinging it open. Hillary glanced around nervously.
“Pixie, come outside with me. I need to talk to you.”
“Is there any news? Anybody find Stefan or Tomas yet? How are our friends doing at the hospital?”
“No news. Everyone is still alive, but weakening,” Hillary said. “Seriously, come with me
.”
Pixie’s heart sank. She swallowed hard. It’s not over till it’s over, she reminded herself. But…it felt as if it were over.
“Is Dominick back yet?” Pixie asked. She should go talk to him. She’d over-reacted the night before. She’d been upset and angry over the news of her mother, and she’d probably been taking it out on the wrong person. She couldn’t think about romance or a future until her friends were safe, but she should at least apologize to Dominick.
Hillary nodded impatiently, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She was dressed as primly as ever, her hair in a chignon, wearing a pale blue linen pantsuit and low heeled pumps.
“Yes, he just went home and got some clothes and then came back. He’s asleep. Tyler’s asleep too, he was up all night. Listen, keep your voice down and come with me, I mean it. I overheard something last night…we can’t trust anybody. I need to talk to you.”
“What do you mean?” Pixie rubbed her face with her hands. “Have Stefan and Tomas been found yet? What did you overhear? It’s too early. I need coffee.”
“No news yet. I can’t tell you in here. Shifters, Inc. is compromised.”
That woke Pixie up. “Compromised?”
“How do you think that Tomas Rilke knew you were going to the charity ball?” Hillary said in a low voice. “We have a mole. Come on.”
Pixie followed Hillary down the hallway. Who could Hillary mean? Certainly not Dominick. Tyler? That was very, very hard for Pixie to believe.
Could he be a mole? Had he been distracting them all along, keeping them busy and pretending to try to find the Rilkes?
“I need to talk to Dominick first,” she called out, but kept Hillary walking. Pixie followed her outside, out the back door, cursing under her breath. She really needed some coffee.
Hillary kept walking, towards her car. “Get in,” she said to Pixie when they reached the passenger side of the door.
Pixie glanced at the gangbanger who stood outside the door of the warehouse, keeping watch. She felt a prickle of alarm rippling the hairs on the back of her neck. She had a bad feeling.
“I need to show you something,” Hillary said, fishing in her purse, and pulled out a pen.
“No, you need to talk. Who do you suspect of being a mole?”
“Me.”
Pixie felt a jab in her arm. The pen had been a disguised hypodermic needle.
“I’m the mole,” Hillary said, as the world started to fade. Pixie heard a shout, and then a gunshot, which was probably Hillary killing the lookout. Then everything went blank.
* * *
“I have no right to ask you this, after the way that I talked to you,” Dominick said. “But we’re desperate.”
Dominick felt sick and furious.
Pixie was gone. He should have been there to protect her, should have slept outside her door. How could someone have stolen her away like that, without him even noticing? The fear and anger raging inside him threatened to consume him. He struggled to stay human. He had to keep a clear head if they had any hope of finding her.
Anastasia looked even more pale and haggard than she had the night before. She wore a rumpled black dress, she hadn’t bothered to brush her hair, and the circles under her eyes were so dark they looked like bruises.
“Don’t waste my time with apologies, you woke me up at the crack of freaking dawn and I haven’t had my coffee yet,” she said, her voice raspy. “What’s going on?”
Fraser’s men had gone to fetch her, at Dominick’s suggestion.
Tyler had also called the police, and he was working the phone, in the process of contacting all the news stations, so they could post pictures of Hillary and Pixie, but Dominick doubted that would help.
Fraser stood there, bristling with rage. Having one of his men killed made him look weak. He didn’t like looking weak.
“Hillary and Pixie are missing, and somebody shot one of Fraser’s men. They were kidnapped, probably half an hour ago,” Dominick said.
Anastasia didn’t look as surprised as she should have.
“I knew Hillary was going dark,” Anastasia muttered. She fished around in her pocketbook and pulled out a hairbrush.
“What is that? And what do you mean, Hillary’s going dark?”
“Dark. She’s turning evil. It takes one to know one. Okay, I’m going to give you a list of ingredients, and you’re going to get them for me. This is Hillary’s hairbrush, I stole it from her purse because I knew she was up to something. With this hairbrush and the ingredients you bring me, I can create a tracking spell and we can find her, and hopefully, Pixie will be with her. And somebody bring me some coffee, or seriously, I will kill something.”
“Why didn’t you tell me your suspicions?” Dominick demanded.
Anastasia laughed bitterly. “Would you have believed me? Me, over little miss goody two shoes?”
“No, probably not,” he admitted. “I never trusted you.”
“Smart lion,” she said. “You shouldn’t. But when it comes to Pixie, if anyone tries to hurt her, I’ll make them burn.”
* **
Pixie woke up with her heart pounding and her head spinning. She lay perfectly still for a minute until her head cleared and she could see straight.
The room was dark and her upper arm hurt where she’d been jabbed with the needle. She could see cracks of light streaming through shuttered windows, and outside she heard the caw of birds.
“Ah, the sleeping beauty awakes.” It was Ion’s voice, no, Stefan. Stefan Rilke.
Pixie looked around her, scrubbing at her face with her hands. She was on a couch in what looked like some kind of log cabin. There were animal head trophies on the wall. A hunting lodge.
The room was huge, at least a thousand square feet, with a flagstone fireplace and rough-hewn furniture, and bear skin rugs on the wood flooring. Scattered throughout the room were several dozen of Stefan’s men, and Hillary sat at a wooden table, chatting with one of them.
“What am I doing here?” Pixie demanded.
Stefan laughed, and walked over to a bar in the corner and poured himself a drink. He didn’t bother to answer her.
Pixie looked at Hillary. “You were working with Stefan all along?” she said, dazed.
“No, I was working for his brother. Keeping an eye on you. But recently Stefan made me a better offer.”
“Your mother will be so disappointed,” Pixie said sarcastically.
Hillary laughed. “That bitch was always disappointed in me. Now she’s dead. Stefan killed her for me. That was part of his offer. Why do you think he gave me the antidote back at headquarters? So I could keep an eye on you.”
Pixie was dumbfounded. This was nerdy, helpless, weak little Hillary talking.
“But you still call your mother all day long,” Pixie protested.
“You all think you’re so much smarter than me. I called Stefan all day long, and pretended that I was speaking to my mother, but I was reporting on you.”
Pixie pressed her lips together and turned away, not bothering to answer. She was seething with fury. She was completely outnumbered, she was sitting ten feet away from Stefan and she desperately needed his blood to save her friends but she had no way to get to it, and she couldn’t think how she was going to get out of this situation alive.
As she sat there scanning the room and trying to figure out what her options were, and concluding that she was pretty much screwed, she heard the crackling of static.
One of the men pulled out a walkie talkie and keyed it on. “He’s coming, but he’s got that lion shifter and some woman with him,” a voice said.
Stefan snorted in contempt. “He’ll need more backup than that.”
As all the men in the room drew their guns, Stefan walked over to Pixie, pulled her off the couch, and circled his arm around her neck. He pressed a gun to her temple.
Tomas Rilke, Dominick, and Anastasia walked through the door of the cabin.
Chapter Fourteen
&n
bsp; “How did you get here?” Pixie asked, astonished.
“Tracking spell,” Anastasia said.
“But…you’re with him…” Pixie looked at Tomas.
“No,” Dominick said. “We saw him driving on the road towards the hunting lodge, by himself. We pulled him over and told him that we were coming to the cabin with him, no matter what the consequences.”
Tomas flashed that cold smile of his. “We actually want the same thing. We’ve come for Pixie.”
“No, you came for money, which you’re not going to get,” Stefan sneered. “Don’t try to pretend that you’re getting sentimental in your old age.”
Then he turned to Anastasia. “Hello, dark witch. I recognize the power in you. I can pay you more money than anything he’s offering you.”
“This one’s a freebie,” Anastasia said. “I came to get my friend. Give it up, Stefan. It’s over. You want to know what fuels my magic? Rage. I’ve got plenty of it right now – enough to blast you through the back of this building. We’ve notified the police, by the way. They’ll be here in a few minutes. If you just let Pixie go and give me a vial of your blood, we’ll give you a head start. If you don’t, I’ll burn you from the inside.”
Stefan laughed again. “I’m six hundred years old, you fool. You know how it works. The older the magician, the stronger their magic. Die with your friends, then, it will be a pure pleasure to watch. And the police won’t be able to touch me. I always have escape routes planned.”
Before he could say anything else, Tomas suddenly whipped out a pistol from his pocket in a blur of motion and shot Hillary, who grasped at her chest, staring down at the bloody hole that had opened there. With a horrified gurgle, she slumped off her chair and fell to the ground.
Stefan didn’t even flinch.
Pixie stifled an urge to vomit. Yes, Hillary had sold out Pixie and everyone else at Shifters, Inc., but watching her cold-blooded murder was horrifying.
“I don’t like people who double cross me,” Tomas said. “And if you want to negotiate with me, Stefan, you’ll have to let go of my daughter.”
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