At first I thought I’d screwed up the spell. That I’d smacked myself with the rune instead of the necklace and wound up scrying for myself. There was only one way to find out.
“I need a map of DC.”
Director Abrams nodded at one of the agents holding up the wall, who hurried out of the room and returned almost immediately with a detailed map of the DC neighborhoods. I swung the crystal over the new map and got a hit almost immediately. The Echo Park neighborhood, a good thirty miles north of Langley.
Huh.
So I didn’t screw it up, and Merrick was here. In DC. But why?
I glanced at Director Abrams. His mouth tightened, but he didn’t look particularly surprised. Neither did Ryerson. Hmm.
Director Abrams stood up, and the rest of the room followed suit.
“Agent Ryerson,” he said, “take a team and whatever you need. Stop Merrick and recover that necklace.”
Ryerson nodded, but he didn’t move. His gaze found mine and held it, as if he had something to say.
“Now, Agent Ryerson,” Director Abrams snapped.
Ryerson left. The room felt empty without him. Andersen exchanged a look with Dahlia, and then cleared his throat.
“Sir, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Agent Ryerson is compromised. It turns out his soul is cursed—”
“Yes, I know all about the curse,” Abrams said curtly.
“Sir, this curse is serious. I just think—”
The director sighed and rubbed his face. “I understand your concerns. But these instructions came from the higher ups. Ryerson takes lead on this.”
“But sir—” Dahlia said.
“We’re done here.”
They nodded reluctantly and walked out.
I turned to Abrams. “What can I do?” I should probably go with Ryerson. I could feel out Merrick’s magic signature. Sense any booby-traps. Not that that had worked out too well last time, but still. Or I could help Andersen and Dahlia in the bat cave. Or—
“You can go home.”
I blinked at him. “Sir?”
“Go home, Ms. Winters. Thank you for your service. We’ll take it from here.”
“Oh.”
The director glanced at me, an eyebrow creeping toward his hairline. “I thought you’d be happier about that. Isn’t that what you wanted? To be rid of us?”
He was right. Of course I was happy to be going home. To be done with being shot at and blown up and made to jump out of six-story windows. But … who would watch Ryerson’s back now?
I pushed the thought aside. He’d get a new partner. He’d be just fine without me.
So why did I suddenly feel so empty?
At least there was one good thing to come out of this. “If you’ll just tell me what happened to Alec, I’ll be on my way.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, our agreement.”
“Ms. Winters, I told you if you did this mission, you’d find out what happened to him. You did find out. He’s still alive.”
I blinked. “But that’s not—”
“That is the deal we made. Now if you don’t mind … ” He opened the door and gestured for an agent in the pit. “Agent Richman will escort you home. Thank you for your service.”
And with that, Director Abrams walked out. I started after him, to demand that he tell me what Alec went through and how he wound up a werewolf on their most wanted list, but Agent Richman blocked my path.
So that was it. Freaking spies.
Agent Richman did indeed drive me home. As I stepped out of the car, he handed me my overnight bag and my phone. I checked my voicemail as I walked through the Chinese restaurant, waved to Mr. Cho, and climbed the back stairs to my apartment. Four voicemails. Two from my mom, one from Josh asking me to babysit on Saturday, and one from Aunt Belinda. Anticipation zipped through me. I played that one twice.
“Hello, dear. I looked through my old notes and talked to my coven about the counter-spell to a love curse. You’ll need witch hazel bark, licorice root, bladder wrack, sage leaves, valerian root, and the blood of the witch who placed the curse. I’m sorry, dear. There’s no way around that.” My heart fell. The rest of the message was about the spell itself. I forwarded the message to Andersen and made a mental note to ask her about Dahlia’s age curse. Then I dug my keys from the bottom of my bag and let myself into my apartment, lost in thought.
A feminine laugh bubbled out of the kitchen, and I froze.
I dropped my bag and reached for my magic. It came easily, curling around my hands, and I eased back out the door, fully intending to call 911 and wait for the cavalry.
Except … Jinx was in there.
Curse it.
I stepped back inside and creeped through my own living room, ready to throw whatever rune came to mind first, when Zoe stepped into the room from the kitchen, cooing to a preening Jinx cupped in her hands.
She stopped short when she saw me, and her eyes widened before her shoulders slumped with relief. “You scared me!” she scolded.
Relief flowed through me and I let my magic go. “Sorry.”
“I swung by to feed Jinx before my shift. I didn’t know you’d be home today. Why didn’t you call me?”
“Sorry. It was a long trip.”
“Well.” She passed Jinx to me. “I’m already late, but I want to hear all about your trip tonight. Molly’s?” she said, naming our usual bar. “Seven? And I’ll tell you all about my news too.”
“What news?”
Her eyes shone with excitement. “I got the job!”
“What job?”
“You know,” she prompted. “The job,” she said. “The one I can’t talk about?”
“Oh. Oh!” She had applied to the CIA. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes. Sorry. That’s amazing! Congratulations!”
She didn’t look convinced. “What’s wrong? Did something go wrong on the trip?”
I converted a laugh into a cough, and her eyes narrowed farther.
“Look, I have to go, but tonight we’re getting a drink after my shift, and you’re going to tell me all about it.”
“Sure.”
She dropped Jinx into my hands and swept by me toward the door.
“Did you get the job?” she asked at the door.
My stomach tightened. “No.”
Her face fell. “I’m sorry, sweetie. We’ll talk tonight.”
I nodded, and she left.
I lifted Jinx up to eye level, then cuddled him to my cheek and sighed. I wondered what Ryerson was doing right now. In an attempt to distract myself from thoughts of Ryerson and Alec and the fate of the world, I set Jinx on the countertop and changed out the bedding in his cage.
As a distraction, it pretty much sucked. It just gave me more time to think.
Since I couldn’t stop thinking anyway, I let my thoughts drift back to the question that had been niggling at me since we’d left North Korea.
Could the witch at the party really have been Sloane?
I’d told the CIA my suspicions during the debrief, but they didn’t seem inclined to believe me. Then again, they didn’t seem like they believed my name when I told them that either. Freaking spies.
Not that it mattered anymore. I was officially a civilian again, and whether Sloane was alive or not wasn’t my problem anymore.
Of course, if she was alive, I’d make her pay for what she did to Ryerson.
Imagining all the ways I’d make her regret cursing Ryerson turned out to be a much better distraction, and I let them fill my head as I fed Jinx and then headed to the living room to check the mail. It was weird. Now that I was thinking about her, I could almost feel her magic again.
Behind me, a floorboard near the bedroom creaked.
I froze, then whirled around, but it was too late. Something crashed into the side of my head and sent me sprawling to the ground.
With my face mushed into the
carpet and pain exploding in my head, I blinked through a cloudy haze at the willowy legs and killer heels that stepped into my vision. I followed them up to a blue dress that hugged slim curves, and then to sleek, brunette hair and a raised eyebrow. Around her neck hung a necklace dripping with rubies.
The invisibility necklace.
The one I’d scryed for just an hour ago.
I hadn’t sensed her magic until now, but I hadn’t been looking for it. But even if I hadn’t smelled her I would have known who she was.
“Sloane,” I said weakly.
“Ainsley,” she said.
Then she called her magic, and the last thing I remembered before the world went black was the smell of vanilla and sweet berries.
24
When I woke up, the blinding pain that ripped through my head told me two things: I wasn’t dead, and I almost wished I were.
I groaned and forced my eyes open, blinking against the light, and looked around.
A warehouse, filled with rows upon rows of boxes. How unoriginal.
I tried to touch my head, but my arms wouldn’t budge. I glanced down to find them, and my legs, tied to the chair I was sitting in.
Perfect. Just bloody perfect.
Panic tried to sweep through me but I shoved it aside. I needed to focus. To think. What had happened?
Sloane. Ryerson’s psycho ex had broken into my apartment. She’d knocked me out and brought me here. But where was here, exactly? And why?
I called my magic, but it didn’t answer. It wasn’t hiding, not exactly. More like I couldn’t feel it at all. And that, more than anything else so far, sent panic whipping through me.
“It’s a new spell I engineered,” called a voice from the shadows. Merrick. What was it with that man and shadows? It was no wonder he was so pale.
Then the implications of what was happening hit me.
Sloane and Merrick were working together.
I’d suspected it after I thought I felt her at the party, and it made a sick sort of sense. It explained how Sloane had escaped the café in Portugal before it exploded. Merrick had warned her. Or maybe Sloane had been the one to set the bomb.
But it didn’t explain why they’d bombed the café or why they were working together. Or even more important, why they’d kidnapped me.
Merrick stepped into the light and gestured to the floor at my feet. I looked down and sucked in a breath. A pentagram. The bloody wanker had positioned my chair in the middle of a pentagram drawn with chalk on the warehouse floor. But … there was something weird about the chalk lines. I looked closer. A thin line of liquid cut through the middle of the chalk, and … I wrinkled my nose … what was that smell? Now that I noticed it, the scent was everywhere. Thick and cloying.
Gasoline.
The chalk lines were soaked in accelerant. I sucked air through my teeth and tried to think. My wood chair would burn quickly. But the iron manacles at my wrists and ankles? Those would last. They would superheat my skin, maybe warp a little, but they’d survive.
And witches? We were very, very flammable.
Merrick moved closer, stopping just outside the chalk line. “Do you like it? I also infused the lines with a spell that suppresses your magic.” He held up a small key that must unlock the bindings at my wrists and ankles, then he tossed it across the warehouse floor, far out of reach.
“The pentagram seems a little dramatic,” I said through gritted teeth.
He nodded. “It does feel very Hollywood, doesn’t it? Alas, it’s necessary for tonight’s spell.”
Pentagrams aren’t used very often in witchcraft. When they are, it’s usually for dark magic. Blood magic.
“You’re going to sacrifice a witch to complete the spell,” I said flatly.
Me. He was going to sacrifice me. Sloane was alive, so obviously he hadn’t sacrificed her.
“The bomb at the café in Lisbon, that was a ruse to convince the CIA you’d already completed that part of the spell, right? To confuse their investigation?”
Merrick was looking at his phone. He didn’t look up as he said, “That was a bonus. I needed to get Sloane out. She said her partner was growing suspicious of her, and she wasn’t sure the love curse she’d placed on him was blinding him to what she was doing as much as she’d hoped it would.”
Rage flashed through me for all those other people who died that day.
“Why me?” There were plenty of other witches in the world. He could have kidnapped any one of them. What if I hadn’t gotten back to DC when I did? For all he knew, I was still stuck in North Korea.
Unless … unless he did know.
That thought sent my head spinning. What had Alec said? He’d warned me to be careful and not to trust the CIA. Maybe Sloane wasn’t the only mole. How else could Merrick have known when I’d be back? Maybe he’d gotten lucky, but I doubted it. Merrick didn’t seem like the type to rely on something as fickle as luck.
Merrick glanced up from his phone. “Why you?” He gestured for someone behind me to join him.
The click of heels preceded Sloane around the chalk circle. She stopped at his side, arms folded, and glared at me. Like I’d knocked her over the head and then spelled her unconscious and dragged her to an evil lair. Merrick’s gaze was steel as he said, “I was planning to grab a random witch, but you were just too good to pass up.”
“Why?”
“Because Alexander Marcusi cares for you, and he betrayed me. And because …” He glanced at Sloane, and something dark passed behind his eyes. Then he shrugged and went back to his phone. “Because I needed a witch to sacrifice and I wanted to punish Alexander. Two birds, one spell.”
“We’re really not that close,” I said. He ignored me, so I turned to Sloane. “And you. Ryerson trusted you. The US government trusted you. How could you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m more loyal to my government than you could ever dream to be.”
Um … “You’re helping to create a spell to cloak missiles from our defense systems,” I pointed out.
“I’m protecting my country,” she insisted.
I frowned. She was serious, or at least she thought she was. Which meant either she was crazy, or I was missing something. Maybe both. Still, her self-righteous glare annoyed me, so I said accusingly, “You cast a love curse on Ryerson.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure which one I was more pissed at her about: committing treason or cursing Ryerson.
Her glare wilted and regret softened her expression. “Connor is a good agent,” she said, and it took me a moment to realize that Connor must be Ryerson’s first name. It bugged the hex out of me that she knew that about him and I didn’t. “He’s observant,” she continued. “A week into our partnership, he started to grow suspicious of me. I had to do something, and I liked him too much to kill him.”
Beside her Merrick stiffened, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“So you cursed his soul.” Maybe I should stop baiting the homicidal witch, but she was pissing me off. And, if I was being honest, I really didn’t like that she used his first name. Like they had been close. Like she actually cared.
She glared at me. “Better than killing him.”
“You used him. You messed with his head. And then you let him think you were dead and that it was his fault for not saving you.”
Her whole body tensed and her eyes narrowed. “You think I wanted to do that to him? I cared about him. But I had no choice. Ryerson is as straitlaced as they come. Everything by the book. He wouldn’t have understood. He would have tried to stop me. That’s why I had to keep what I was doing a secret. The United States needs this technology, and this is the only way to get it.”
I blinked at her. “What the hex are you talking about?”
She started to pace. “Don’t you get it? The number of magical threats to the United States is growing every day, but the few people in our government who know magic exists aren’t taking those threats seriously. They’re leaving us vulnerable and unpr
otected, while enemy nations and terrorist groups and the criminal underworld seek out new magical weapons every day.”
“But the MPD was tasked with stopping Merrick from completing the spell,” I pointed out. “It’s not like they’re ignoring those threats.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “Stopping the occasional magical weapon from falling into the wrong hands isn’t enough. We need to arm ourselves, especially now that the Grimoire is out there. Since the government doesn’t want to get its hands dirty, we had no choice but to take matters into our own hands. Don’t you see? This spell will cloak our missiles from our enemies’ defense systems. We need to complete the spell for us. So that the United States has leverage against those who wish us harm.”
My head was spinning with questions. I picked two. “What grimoire? And who’s ‘we’? You and Merrick?”
Sloane smiled and curved her arm around Merrick’s waist, planting a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Yes, Merrick and me. He’s a mage with enough power to pull off the spell, and he doesn’t mind killing witches to do it.”
Surely the US government could find a witch or mage with enough power to complete the spell, which meant they’d decided not to pursue it because it required the death of a witch. The fact that the government drew the line at human sacrifice was oddly comforting.
“He also likes money,” Merrick added about himself, looking down at his phone.
Sloane rolled her eyes and stepped away from him. “He’s gouging us on his fee, but it’ll be worth it.”
“That’s enough.” Merrick glanced up from his phone, toward the open bay doors. “They’re here.”
A moment later, I heard it too. The steady rumble of car engines headed our way. A few moments later, a fleet of SUVs rolled into the warehouse. Ten of them. The people who spilled out of the vehicles fell into one of three categories: men in suits, men with guns, and a dozen women dressed casually, in jeans and a few summer dresses. The newcomers coalesced into three groups: a few men in suits surrounded by half a dozen guys with guns and a few of the women.
Since Sloane was in a talkative mood, I glanced to her for an explanation, but she looked just as surprised as me. She whirled on Merrick, anger flashing in her eyes. “Who the hell are all these people? What did you do, Merrick?”
License to Spell_An Urban Fantasy Novel Page 17