by K. R. Willis
“Did you really think you could steal the werewolf with no consequences?” she taunted. “My mistress doesn’t take kindly to people stealing her property.”
“To be honest,” I shot back, “I hadn’t thought about it.”
She dropped her hands, as though she wanted me to let my guard down, but I saw her twitching her fingers rhythmically, prepping another spell. I pretended I didn’t notice.
“And George is not property. He’s not a dog to be used in your mistress’ twisted fighting ring.” I flung the words at her, angry she’d suggested a person, regardless of who or what they were, could belong to someone.
It had the desired effect. The witch threw her spell at me, her anger making her exaggerate her movements, giving me plenty of time to get out of the way. I’d shifted my weight in anticipation of her move, and used that to my full advantage now.
Pushing off my right foot, I slammed into her with my shoulder, knocking her to the ground. We both grunted from the impact, and my eyes watered. I tried to shove the short sword into her throat—not to kill her, to make her yield—but she flipped me over her head onto my back, and then jumped to her feet.
With the breath knocked out of me, I laid there frozen for several pain-filled seconds and watched with horror as she smiled, the ball of green light glowing eerily on her face. I tried to push myself up to get out of the way, but the stupid slick of oil she’d walked around earlier prevented me from doing so. The oil soaked through my pants as it planted me on my backside once again.
She threw the spell at me a second later.
“Keira!” Sam’s blood-covered body suddenly filled my vision as he dove between the witch and me, taking the hit for me. He collapsed to the floor in a jumbled heap, and immediately went into convulsions.
“Sam!” I scrambled onto my side away from the oil, somehow managing to push to my elbows even though they were covered with oil.
The witch smiled down at Sam as his body twitched, then looked at me and said, “This could have all been avoided if you had just given me the wolf.” She kicked Sam in the stomach with the toe of her boot. He grunted, but didn’t retaliate, his body paralyzed in agony by whatever she’d thrown at him.
Anger welled up inside me, giving me the strength to push to my feet. Oil be damned. “Hey,” I said, drawing her attention to me. “Don’t touch him again.”
She stepped over Sam, careful where she placed her heels on the concrete.
I backed up several feet. Rya, where are you?
I just killed my hellhound. Sam’s is dead, too. It’s just the witch now. How do you want to do this?
A smile spread across my face. Remember how we took Sam down this morning?
Got it, she said. A tingle of familiar magic told me she had become invisible and moved into place. The pommel of the short sword dug into my hand as I gripped it. The witch cocked her head to the side, as though she’d felt Rya’s magic, but didn’t know where it came from, then her eyes narrowed. Another ball formed in her hand.
Now!
Rya threw her body sideways and slammed her in the back of the knees, dropping her forward. The spell went wild, splattering across the concrete floor to my left, sparks popping and sizzling all around us. My turn. I lunged forward, taking her the rest of the way to the floor before she had a chance to recover, then flipped her over none too gently. My knees on her chest kept her from getting up, and the sword at her throat let her know I meant business.
I leaned on the blade, just shy of breaking skin. “What did you do to him?” I asked, nodding my head toward Sam.
“Go to hell,” she ground out.
I couldn’t lean any harder on the blade without cutting her, so instead I said, Rya, a little help please.
Rya dropped her magic and padded up next to me. Her massive cat form towered over the witch, whose eyes had gone as wide as dollar coins. Rya licked her mouth, and then bared her teeth. The consummate predator. I smiled.
“How ’bout now?” I asked the witch. She looked from me to Rya more than once, probably weighing her chances. Finally, a little intelligence kicked in.
“It was meant for you,” she said. “To debilitate you, and make it easy to take you to Mistress Izabella. It isn’t deadly,” she added as Rya leaned closer to her face and sniffed. She was doing a great job as intimidator.
“How do I reverse it?” I snapped. Rya growled beside me, punctuating my frustration.
The witch swallowed hard, making the sword bob up and down. “There’s an antidote in my satchel,” she said. “You’ll have to grab it. It’s by my leg, so I can’t reach it.” Her green eyes seemed too wide in her face, making her look like a frightened deer. Maybe she was telling the truth, maybe she wasn’t, but I had to take the risk. Sam was in pain.
“Don’t move,” I threatened. The sword slipped away from her throat as I maneuvered myself so I could reach the satchel I’d seen earlier hanging on her belt.
Rya stayed close to her, but turned her head to watch what I was doing. Big mistake. The witch took advantage and hit Rya with something that catapulted her several yards away, then she threw her hand out, aiming at my head with another debilitating spell—or, if she’d grown tired of me, worse.
From out of nowhere, Kit flew between me and the witch, taking the hit from the bluish-green colored spell she had prepared for me. He cried out in pain, sending a tremor of terror through me, then collapsed in a heap on the floor, twitching, but unconscious.
“Kit!” My body reacted before my mind even had time to process what was happening. The next thing I knew the witch’s head sat on the concrete next to her torso, eyes wide in shock and mouth open as if to scream. As soon as my brain realized what I’d done, I spun away from her and threw up everything I’d had for lunch earlier.
The sour taste of stomach acid coated my throat, and the saltiness that signaled more was coming filled my mouth as I leaned on my sword. I swallowed convulsively in an effort to make the taste go away. It didn’t really help, but nothing else came up, and the feeling slowly passed. I was so sick and tired of people forcing me to kill them in self-defense.
Finished, I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and pulled myself together. Kit and Sam both needed help, and I prayed the witch had at least been honest about the antidote being in that satchel. A thin leather cord held the soft leather pulled taut. As I opened it, I sent up a silent prayer. Inside, the only thing I found was white powder that resembled powdered sugar. I hoped like hell it was the antidote.
Now what the hell did I do with it?
With a stout jerk, careful not to lose the powder, I removed the satchel from her belt. Kit lay unconscious, but otherwise he seemed unharmed. No tremors wracked his body as they did Sam, and when I felt his pulse, it was slow but steady. I turned my attention to Sam, and shuffled over to him. He lay curled up in a fetal position, body twitching. Rya had regained herself and joined me. She peered over the edge of the satchel and took a delicate whiff.
Smells like magic, she said. I’ve heard of shamans using similar powders to heal. Perhaps this works the same way.
What should I do with it?
Most of the time, sprinkling it on them does the trick. Simple, but why not? It was a better idea than I had, which had been to feed it to him.
I turned the satchel on its side, shaking about a tablespoon into the palm of my hand. It even felt like powdered sugar. Crap, I hoped this wasn’t the witch’s idea of a sick joke. But then again, Rya said it smelled of magic. Making sure I didn’t spill any, I climbed to my feet and began sprinkling it all over Sam, beginning at his head, and ending at his booted feet. He sneezed a couple of times from the fine powder, but almost instantly, the tremors died down. The weight on my chest lessened, and I blew out a breath, relieved.
Sam looked at me, and for the first time since he’d been hit, he managed to formulate words into a question. “You okay?” he asked, the words slightly slurred, but recognizable.
“I’m fine,” I said, pa
tting him on the shoulder. “Thanks to you.” I smiled, and as the tremors left and his muscles began to relax, so did Sam.
“Damn right.”
I burst out laughing. He’d be just fine.
Kit groaned, and fabric rustled as he moved. I made my way back over to him while Sam waited for the rest of the tremors and affects from the spell to dissipate. By the time I got to him, he was sitting up and looking around.
“Hey, you okay?” I asked him. He jerked away when I tried to put a reassuring hand on his arm.
“What the hell just happened? What were those things? I’m not...” he stammered, eyes too wide. “This isn’t my gig.” His eyes had a hard time focusing as he looked around, then they fell on the headless witch and they rounded. “Holy shit!” He scrambled to his feet, away from me, then turned and bolted for the door.
“Kit! Stop!” I started after him, but Sam stopped me.
“Let him go,” he said, slowly rolling into a sitting position. “This is too much to take in. Give him some time. He can either deal with it and will be back, or he can’t, and won’t.”
“But...” The door slammed shut a second later, a note of finality ringing in my ears. Dammit. My life was so screwed up. If Kit didn’t come back, I’d not only lose a damn good auto body painter and have to find another one, but I’d also lose a friend. I blew out a frustrated breath. Why the hell did this stuff keep happening to me?
There was nothing to be done about it right now; I had too many other things to deal with. I made my way back over to Sam.
It took another ten minutes or so, but Sam finally climbed to his feet with a little help from me, all signs of the spell gone. He dusted himself off and wiped the powder off his face with a clean shop rag I handed him. With him up and around, and appearing to be okay, we both looked around at the mess that surrounded us. A dead, headless witch, two dead hellhounds, and blood everywhere. How the hell were we going to get this all cleaned up? What if it stained the concrete permanently? I couldn’t run a shop if it looked like a crime scene. They’d haul me away for sure.
Sam whistled. “What a mess,” he said, echoing my own thoughts. Without another word, he walked across the shop floor and disappeared into my office, only to reappear a few minutes later with cleaning implements in hand: contractor sized trash bags, broom, dust pan, cleaner. When he returned to my side, he handed me some gloves I hadn’t noticed, and a trash bag.
“Let’s get started,” he said. He slid his gloves on and opened the trash bag. Grabbing the witch’s head by her hair, he plopped it into the bag; the wet, squishy sound of it hitting bottom almost made me lose whatever was left of my lunch.
I turned away as the bile rose in my throat, and got to work.
It was going to be a very long night.
Chapter 17
Four hours later, Sam and I were both exhausted. We’d cleaned up all the pieces and scrubbed the blood as best we could. The shop cleaner I used on a regular basis did a good job of cleaning it up, but if anyone paid close attention, they’d still be able to tell what had been there.
I pulled my phone from my back pocket and dialed Leo’s number. At this rate, I thought, I might as well put him in on speed dial. He answered on the second ring, the sounds of the Blu Moon in the background.
“Have you called to discuss plans for our dinner date?” he asked in lieu of hello. I smiled, despite the seriousness of why I’d called.
“I do owe you dinner,” I conceded. “But unfortunately, that’s not why I called. Can you send your cleaner to my shop? We had a run in with some of Izabella’s hired help. She wanted George back, and didn’t care who got hurt to achieve that.” I trembled as the memory of her head hitting the ground played through my mind.
The sounds of the club dissipated as I assumed Leo moved into a more private area for us to talk where others couldn’t overhear. “Are you hurt?” he asked, the sound of concern plain in his voice. “Tell me what happened.”
I sat down on a rolling stool I kept in the shop, and rehashed the night’s events to Leo. It didn’t take long to catch him up to speed. Which was good, because I was tired, and just wanted to go home and sleep.
“I will call him immediately and give him your address. Just leave the bags there. He will dispose of them as well.”
“Thanks. Must be nice to have those kinds of connections.” I hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud, but it slipped out anyway.
Leo laughed mirthlessly. “When you have lived as long as I have, Keira, you learn there are all kinds of people you need to know. Especially when you are a vampire.”
His words made the hairs on my arms stand on end, and I wondered what other kinds of people he knew. Had he done things that required cleanup? I shook my head, trying to push those thoughts from my mind. This was Leo, and I refused to think of him that way.
We spoke for a few more seconds, then hung up. “Leo’s sending someone to finish cleaning up,” I told Sam. My eyes drifted to where the trash bags sat with their gory contents, and I swallowed, the taste of salt heavy in my mouth. “Let’s get out of here.” If I stayed much longer, the cleaner guy would have more nasty stuff to dispose of.
Sam didn’t argue, or even comment on the fact Leo knew someone who specialized in cleaning up this sort of thing, which spoke volumes of how tired he was. Even Rya, who hadn’t been able to assist with cleanup, had her tail hanging lower than it normally did. We closed up shop and locked the doors, all except a small door in the rear I’d told Leo I would leave unlocked for his guy. Sam hugged me, told me to call if I needed anything else, and then we climbed into our respective vehicles.
Kit crossed my mind for a moment, and a sort of melancholy took root in me. All I could do now was hope he’d come around, and return to the shop. If he couldn’t deal with what he’d seen and been through tonight, then it was better this way, because I had the feeling things wouldn’t be getting better any time soon.
As we drove out of the parking lot, I thought I saw a dark figure make his way around back toward the door I’d left unlocked, but it blended in so well with the shadows, it could have been my imagination. I stomped on the brake and looked again, but didn’t see anything. Darkness covered the sides and back of the shop like a blanket, the front the only part lit with security lights. Maybe that’s why Leo had asked me to leave a door that wasn’t easily visible unlocked.
I shook my head, wondering what Leo had sent into my shop, or how it had gotten here so quickly, and drove away.
∞∞∞
The nightmares came and went, making sleep a fleeting thing, but at least they had been relatively normal. When I woke the next morning only somewhat rested, I called Sally to see how George was doing, with the hope she would give me some good news. She said he’d regained consciousness during the night, and though still bedridden, he was on the mend. I sighed, some of the weight of the last few days finally lifting from my shoulders.
When I arrived at the shop, I kept the doors locked while I inspected everything. Leo’s cleaner had somehow managed to get every last speck of blood out of the concrete and every other surface, leaving no trace behind. No remnants of spells remained either. I didn’t know how he’d done it, but I was thankful he had. Sighing with relief, I unlocked the deadbolt, then threw up the rolled door in anticipation of my first customers. At least something had gone right.
Rya had expended a lot of energy during the fight with the witch and hellhounds, so she chose to stay my tattoo for the day. Somewhere between finishing the air conditioner on the coupe and arguing with her about how deer tasted better raw than cooked, a woman slipped into the shop and approached without me realizing. When she suddenly appeared out of nowhere only a few feet from me, I shrieked and snatched a screwdriver off the nearest flat surface, aiming it at her like it was a sword.
Me paranoid? Nah...
She held her hands up in mock surrender. “Sorry,” she said, though by the look on her face, she didn’t really mean it. The way
her lip curled made her look more amused than sorry. “I’m Vicki. I talked to you on the phone about the truck.” She wiggled her hands back and forth to show they were empty, then dropped them.
I lowered the screwdriver, a little embarrassed, but not much. I’d rather look like an idiot, than be dead. “Hi, sorry. You startled me.” After laying the screwdriver on the tool chest, I wiped my hand on my blue jeans, then held it out to Vicki. “I’m Keira Blackwater. Nice to meet you.”
She shook my hand, grip firm. “Pleasure to meet you.” Her blond hair, which had been braided down one side, brushed along her blue tank top as she glanced around the shop, then focused back on me. “So, you’re the famous Keira Blackwater.” There was something strange about the way she said it that made me just a little uncomfortable. Had she heard about who I really was, or what my blood could do? Did she know about things that had happened over the last couple weeks? Crap, if clients found all those things out, I’d lose a lot of business. Maybe even the shop.
But another part of me, the one that had been attacked more than once lately, asked Rya, Are you picking up on anything out of the ordinary?
Her tattoo shifted on my right side. She smells human, Rya said. I don’t sense anything unusual.
I relaxed, comforted by Rya’s observation.
Vicki cleared her throat. “So, I called the man whose number you gave me, and it appears he does have the truck I’m looking for.” She smiled, and it felt genuine, but she seemed a little uncertain when she said, “But I really would like to go check it out in person, not just have his say so over the phone. Would you be able to come with me? If it pans out, I’ll drop you off here with the payment we agreed on.”