I wondered where Malone was. Surely the gnome issue had been taken care of by now.
I walked down to the P.I.T. station and asked one of the officers standing outside if he knew where to find Malone. He informed me of a few calls Malone had been sent on. Malone’s humanity left him dealing with the less dangerous stuff tonight, like homicidal gnomes and trolls gone wild, and even a drunk fairy caught naked and spilling glitter all over the park. I wondered if it had been one of the girls I’d seen walking along Saginaw.
I hoped so because that would mean Malone made it out unscathed…or unmolested. Fairies could be quite…uhm…sensual. They were very similar to vampires in their quest for physical satisfaction and in the effect they had on human sexual response.
I decided to find him and make sure he was all right.
I spotted several fire trucks as I headed down Saginaw toward the park along the river. The fire crews seemed to be handling all the fires, even though most were, once again, magickal fires. Glamours. Meant to distract and keep the crews busy. I had no idea what the distraction was for. We had found Devlin and Galen and took care of the demons—yet the fires still burned. Which meant someone else had to be controlling them. But who? And why?
The entire force was on call tonight, P.I.T Crew and members of the regular FPD and FFD worked together to deal with Halloween craziness. I found a beat cop and asked if he had seen Malone recently.
He pointed toward the park. Damn, still at the park? That probably wasn’t a good thing. Freaking naked fairies. At least it wasn’t a nymph. I hoped it wasn’t. Nymphs could charm the pants off a priest.
I headed down the endless flight of stairs leading to the park hoping to save Malone from getting glittered, glamoured… or worse.
I found him on a bench in Riverview Park with sparkling pink fairy tits in his face. The winged tramp was giving him a drunken lap dance as she dripped glitter all over the place. Damn, she had to be the bustiest fairy ever. Usually the fae were small petite little things like the two females I spotted out partying. This one was small but had some big ol’ boobies, currently pressed up in Mike’s face. He seemed to be struggling to get away from the little thing. All that glitter probably had him fairy bound, which meant she could do just about anything to him and he couldn’t get away.
I was so not in the mood to watch Malone bang someone else. I had more than enough watching from the sidelines with Galen tonight. Talk about an ego squasher. Watching your man have sex with someone else was not a turn on, at least not for me. What was really terrible about it, my being helpless to stop it. Not this time. This time I could do something.
“Get the hell off him,” I yelled at the fairy.
“You want some of this witch?” she asked as she pushed her breasts together, tweaked her nipples and gyrating her hips.
“No, and he doesn’t either.” I gestured toward Mike.
“Oh, yeah, he does!” She giggled as she wiggled on top of him. “I can feel he really likes me.” She caressed the bulge in his pants and made a move to unzip him.
Oh. Hell. Fucking. No. “Hold it right there fairy bitch. Don’t touch him again.” I fished around in my pockets praying I had an anti-fairy powder or something. Shit, I used to carry fairy protection all the time. Why did I stop?
“What are you gonna do about it, witch?” she antagonized as she simulated sex moves on top of Mike.
What was I going to do about it? I had protection for myself. Mel had made a beautiful set of iron jewelry to protect me from fae power, but what about Mike? He was already fully glammed and glittered, the iron might take a while to work. Hmmm…maybe if I could slip the necklace…Wait what if I put the bracelet on the fairy? That would make her powerless and her glamours would become dormant.
So, I tried a different approach. “Hey, you think maybe we could have a threesome? I’ve always wanted to do a fairy.”
“Really?” she asked with a drunken hiccup looking very interested in my proposal. Didn’t matter two seconds ago I had been threatening to kick her ass, drunken fairies had short attention spans.
“Yeah, don’t you think it would be hot? A witch and a fairy could really rock this guy’s world. He wouldn’t know what hit him.” Mike suddenly looked very interested in what I was saying. So did the fairy.
She smiled and gestured for me to come toward her. “Yeah, come on, let’s play.” She giggled and hiccupped. “This is going to be so much fun.”
I slid the bracelet from my wrist and hid it in the palm of my hand. Thankfully it was one of those half bracelets you snap over your wrist. It would be easy to get on her. I moved like I was going to touch her breast and I smacked the bracelet onto her wrist. She howled and Mike came out of his daze.
“What the hell?” she mewled. “Why’d you do that? I thought we were going to have some fun.” Big purple tears fell from her exotic uptilted eyes as she sniffled. Her glitter stopped flowing and her wings sagged. She sat down on the ground with a hiccupy harrumph.
“What happened,” Mike asked as he brushed the glitter from his clothes and stood up. His semi-erect penis tented his pants. I tried to ignore it.
“I just rescued you from another woman who wanted to jump your bones.”
He smiled and flexed his muscles. “I told you they line up to get some of this.”
I smacked him. “Yeah, too bad they seem to think they have to glamour you to do so. We have really got to get you some protection against fairy and vampire glamour.”
He looked sheepish. “Probably a good idea.” He looked at the fairy with a naughty twinkle in his eyes. “You know I haven’t been to a strip club in years and miss pink fairy is stacked—and she can give a hell of a lap dance. Maybe I didn’t want to be interrupted. And then I think there was some talk about a fairy-witch-human threesome. I might like being the human meat in the middle of that supernatural sandwich.”
I smacked him. “All right, I can take the bracelet off her and let her finish having her way with you,” I snapped with snark as I reached for his zipper. “She did say you were hard and ready, here let’s get it out for her.” I grabbed him and he was very hard, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the fairy or from me reaching for him. He grabbed me and pulled me into his arms and kissed me roughly.
“I was just kidding. I don’t want no damn fairy, Anwyn. I want you. You know that. Don’t you?” he growled against my lips.
“Woo hoo! Get in on!” the fairy hooted. “Come on, give a girl a show.”
I looked over to see her as she wiggled her hips and shook her massive mammaries. I guess taking away her power didn’t diminish her sex drive. Not surprising.
I turned back to Malone and stroked his rock hard erection as I nibbled on his bottom lip. “Really? You sure, because she looks ready to give you the time of your life.”
“Come on, let me see what your man’s made of! Hell yeah!” she whistled and hollered. Then I heard her moan. I turned to look at her again. She had her legs spread wide and her fingers buried inside, busy pumping.
Prodded by the fairy’s hoots Mike grabbed my ass and pulled me closer, his shaft sliding along my belly as he deepened the kiss between us. Heat flowed and desperate need seared my insides.
Goddess, I was so hot I couldn’t believe it. I rubbed my body along his, not caring if the fairy was watching.
A roar filled my ears. Suddenly, I was so hot my skin burned.
An explosion rocked the night, shaking the ground and sending us flying. Before I knew what happened my body violently tumbled through the air as I frantically tried to hold onto Mike. Heat and debris flew around us, threatening to burn our flesh.
The building behind us had blown up. The force knocked us all halfway across the park. It threw the little fairy right into the Flint River. I lay on the grass shocked and unable to move as I watched the pink fairy bobble up and down in the burning debris filled water.
Mike groaned and crawled over to me. He was covered in soot and had a few bloody cuts on
his hands and face. “Are you okay, Anwyn?” he asked, his voice deep and scratchy.
I moved, testing my limbs to see if anything was broken. I ached everywhere but nothing seemed to be seriously injured. “Yeah, I think I’m fine.”
Mike slowly stood up and stretched to make sure everything was in the right place. Thankfully his beautiful penis hadn’t been harmed. I watched him tuck the flaccid shaft back into his pants. I guess almost being blown up can really kill the mood.
I lay there and watched him, too afraid to try and stand up on my own. It would be my luck something was broken, and I just didn’t know it. I looked around. Smoking and burning pieces of wood and debris were strewn haphazardly around the park and floated in the river. How we managed to make it relatively unharmed was nothing short of a miracle. The Goddess must have been watching over us tonight.
Mike helped me to my feet as Mel, Satinka, Galen and a couple Guardians, including the wolf, Troy, came running down the opposite side of the embankment. I noted Galen had put on clothes. That was a good thing. I hoped he found a shower, too, because I didn’t want to smell any lingering scent from the clearing.
“Anwyn, what the hell happened?” Mel asked as she created a magick bridge so they could cross the river. Satinka flew over the water while the rest of them used Mel’s bridge.
Galen rushed to my side not caring Mike was holding my hand. He quickly looked me over, running his hands over my arms, legs and torso assessing the damage. Mike growled and Galen snarled. I mentally told them both to shut the hell up.
“You’re really okay?” Galen asked. “I don’t feel anything broken. I heard a loud explosion and I just knew you were close to it. Thank god you’re not hurt.”
“I’m fine, just got the wind knocked out of me when the building over there decided to blow up.” I gestured to the area that had been a large building but was now mostly a smoldering pile of ashes with a few flames licking around the edges.
“Why were you guys down here?” Mel asked as she snapped photos of everything with her magickal camera.
“Drunk fairy. Oh crap the fairy! She got tossed into the river; I hope she’s not hurt. Her wing was singed and she was so drunk she couldn’t fly and her powers are blocked because I snapped an iron bracelet on her.”
Satinka quickly said, “I’ll go look for her and make sure she’s not injured, then I’ll take her home.”
“Thanks Sati.” I smiled grateful someone would check on the fairy, even if the drunken little bitch had been glamouring my man…one of my men. Wow, I sounded more like a slut every time I thought about it. Men. Plural. More than one. I really wasn’t that type of woman, yet, here I was having a sexual relationship with two men at once. Well not technically at the same time. It wasn’t like we were having threesomes. Oh hell’s bells.
“You’re welcome, Anwyn.”
My head snapped up as Satinka flew into the sky and followed the river to find the fairy. Her voice had drawn me out of my inner angst driven dialogue.
Galen startled me by wrapping his arms around me and picking me off the ground. “You could have been killed.” He mumbled into my hair. His own hair was damp, and he smelled like Galen, not like the clearing. He must have gone to VAMP to take a quick shower and grab some clothes. Thank Goddess.
“She’s tough,” Mike growled. “But she was just tossed thirty feet and landed hard. You may want to put her down in case of any internal injuries.”
Galen put me down and turned to Mike. “I checked, there are no injuries.”
“Yeah, how the hell do you know that?” Mike challenged.
“Because, I would have felt them when I ran my hands over her. The vibrations of injuries are different than those of healthy tissue. I can feel the subtle differences.” Galen smirked.
Hmm, not a common vampire power. At least not one I had ever heard of before.
“Oh,” was all Mike could say as they stood there glaring at each other.
I moved between them. “Shouldn’t we focus on the building that blew up? Like why it blew up and if there was anyone in there.”
“It’s another distraction,” one of the Guardians replied. “I can’t smell anyone or anything in there alive or once alive. Yet, this one is a real fire while many of the others are just glamours.”
Yes, obviously it was real, it just blew me and Mike across the damn park.
What the hell was going on? If the city was filled with fires both real and fake, someone was going to a lot of trouble to hide something else going on, probably to keep us clear of it and keep us in the city, which meant whatever was happening must be going on outside of town. But where?
Chapter 40
The magick fires died out and the fire department put out all the real ones, including the abandoned building that exploded and came way too close to hurting, possibly killing, Mike and I.
No other nefarious events happened—Otherworldly or human—by the time Halloween ended, just the normal human complaints of drunken activity, candy snatchers, pumpkin smashers, and other common Halloween pranks along with a few DUI’s.
The regular PD took care of all of it while we went to Mel’s office in the basement of the P.I.T. Crew’s station and tried to figure out what was going on with the magick. I could feel the pull of power, but it was coming from everywhere at once. I couldn’t trace one thread that would lead us somewhere useful.
After a few moments discussing the strangeness of the fires and the magick, Malone went upstairs; probably to change out of his soot covered fairy-dust-sprinkled clothing.
I really could use a change of clothes myself. I felt very dirty. I made a mental note to bring a change of clothes to the station to leave here for emergencies.
The rest of the crew dispersed throughout the building, many probably heading home for the night. The only ones left in Mel’s workspace were me, her, and Galen, who just kind of hung around the outskirts like a shadow.
Mel had photographed everything at the scenes, but even she couldn’t find a thread to lead us to the source of the fires and other mayhem. Although, she did manage to unravel all of the new bindings Devlin had placed on me once she got a good image of Devlin’s magickal signature, thanks to the mess at the clearing.
“I don’t feel any different. Are you sure you got all the bindings off me?” I asked Mel.
“Just the new ones. Devlin’s magick was a clear line to follow. It was the same signature for all the bindings on you and the wacky spells that hit the station. It’s off though, well not really off, just different than I expected. I thought Devlin’s magick would be tainted by Roark’s, but there’s absolutely no sign of demon magick at all. I guess the guest of honor didn’t even bother to show up.”
“Well that’s a good thing right?”
Mel shrugged. She didn’t really understand the whole thing yet, and I could see it confused the hell out of her trying to untangle the threads.
And with that tidbit of inner knowledge suddenly I knew my basic “knowing” powers were back.
I tugged at my torn and sooty shirt.
“I have some clothes if you want to change,” Mel said. She eyed my destroyed outfit. If things kept going like this I was going to need a whole new wardrobe.
“That would be great.” I took off my shirt and shrugged out of my jeans. Galen had seen me naked so I wasn’t exactly feeling shy at this point. As long as no one else walked into Mel’s room.
“Hey where did your locket come from?” Mel asked, handing me a dark blue set of sweats.
“My mother gave it to me. My father had given it to her. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yeah, it is but it’s also magickal, I can see the energy surrounding it. Is it your mom’s magick? Can I take a photo of it?”
“Yes it is my mom’s magick, she added a protection spell to it.”
“Maybe that’s what saved your ass tonight in the blast.”
“Could be,” I replied as I pulled on the warm, fuzzy, sweats.
&nb
sp; “You know I don’t have your mom’s magick signature on file. This would be a great addition to my database. Then I can figure out which of our wards and magick protections in the vault are ones your mom made. I know she had some amazingly powerful stuff. I would love to be able to unravel and then duplicate her protective shields, wards, and amulets.”
“Of course, Mel. Anything you want, why would I mind?”
As Mel photographed my locket a familiar tingle coursed through me. Finally! All of my powers were coming back. I wanted to do the Snoopy happy dance. Having my powers back meant I would know a lot of what was going on around me again. It wouldn’t be anything useful for the long haul, nothing seemed to tell me who or what was hexing Flint. At least not yet.
As I stood there in Mel’s sweat pants and my bra while she photographed the locket, Mike came back downstairs.
I felt weird standing there in my bra with Mike and Galen both in the room. So I hurried Mel along then slipped the sweatshirt over my head.
Being covered up didn’t help. At that moment, I wasn’t real thrilled about having my powers back. I knew way too much about what was going on inside Mike and Galen. Of course, they were projecting so hard I probably could have read them without my powers.
Mike seethed underneath his cop-face. I could feel waves of anger flowing from him as Galen moved in close by my side. He wanted Galen away from me. Far away from me. He very much wanted to grab Galen and stake him, or at least turn him in to the proper authorities, letting them know of the role he played in all the murders.
At least the case was closed. Devlin had officially been arrested by the P.I.T Crew then turned over to the Guardians, which had become standard practice for dealing with violent Others in Flint and surrounding areas. The Guardians were better equipped to deal with rogue supernaturals. However, I didn’t know what they were going to do to him.
Galen acted like my personal shadow. Where I moved he moved. A little annoying, especially since Mike’s eyes were on us at all times. To make matters worse, Galen was not shielding. I could feel the shame and fear flowing from him along with intense jealousy every time he eyed Mike.
Hex and the Single Witch (Vehicle City Vampires) Page 23