“You can’t tell anyone about this. Samson will be apprised, but he’s the only soul from the Queen’s Empire I trust on this planet,” he said, then mumbled under his breath, “May she reign forever.”
I nodded and held out my hand, retracting it at the last second.
“Does this favor require something in return?”
His face split into a mischievous grin. “Nothing can get by you, Little Red. Let’s just say you will owe me a favor of similar magnitude, a boon of sorts.” He wiggled his outstretched fingers. “And of course, this never happened. I am the Gamekeeper, you are a Player—well, almost. There are consequences for meddling in the natural order of things.”
“But, I’m not registered.”
“Exactly.”
I felt like Princess Jasmine about to take Aladdin’s hand on a magic carpet ride, except, I didn’t think the adventure sparkling in his eyes was a shining, shimmering splendor. “Do I have a choice?”
“Right now, you’re on this planet, in a Nephilim body. You always have a choice that’s the beauty of it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I PLACED MY hand in Marc’s and sank into the warmth of his powerful arms. With my free arm curled around his waist, it felt like we were about to dance. I buried my face in his chest and took a deep breath of fresh forest air. I couldn’t smell him. He felt as solid as a rock, yet my nose said he was part of the surrounding environment. I closed my eyes and held on.
Marc tensed. He stroked my hair.
“Oh, love,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head.
I stiffened slightly at his amorous behavior. “Are you sure this is going to work?” I mumbled into his chest. “I don’t want to dissolve into nothingness.”
“Focus on my energy. Let it envelope you, connect with you, and be one with you.” Marc guided me to the far side of the pit, rotating us so we had a clear view of the two bodies. “Failing that, buckle up for a jolly good ride. Just one more thing we need to do before legging it out of here.” He flicked his wrist and flames crackled, consuming the corpses. Heat wafted over our faces. “That should do it.”
With memories from the Grimoire twinkling in the darkest parts in my mind, it vaguely registered that I could make fire, too.
Marc drew me in close, tango style. “Maybe, it’s best if you keep your eyes closed for this, yeah?”
I buried my face in his chest again and squeezed my eyes shut. Think about his aura, become one with his energy. Pfft, yeah right. All I could think of was the sound and smell of burning flesh and his hand on my ass. His grip tightened, and he pressed his body to mine. In a dizzying second, his energy engulfed me, vibrating my core and rattling my teeth.
Everything went silent, like we were in a vacuum. Would there even be air? I took a tentative breath. There was. I waited for something to happen, but it didn’t. Why? I mean, entering a different dimension with a three dimensional body—I could implode or something, right? I imagined my body collapsing in on itself. Still nothing. I tapped my toes. Marc squeezed my rump, and I jumped.
“Touch my ass again and I’ll… humph. Are we there yet?” I asked, my voice muffled in his chest. It was devoid of shirt fabric and covered with satiny smooth skin. I wrenched my head back and saw a dressing table with the photo of myself, Leila and my father. Beyond that was the interior of my bedroom at the Cottage. I glanced down, I was naked, he was naked. Our hips still pressed together.
“Oops. I should’ve mentioned the occupational hazard—always wind up starkers.” He gave me a mock surprised expression and then his eyes darkened. “Since we’re here, together in nature’s finest… why don’t we pick up where those dreams left off, yeah?”
He licked a spot under my ear.
“Uh!” I punched him in stomach. “Next time it’s your balls.” As he recovered from my attack, I rushed to grab my purple bedspread and wrapped it around me. “You knew about my dream?”
“Please don’t punch my goolies,” he said in a strangled voice. “Yes, love, dreams are how I communicate to the masses. You want another one?”
The enormity of his power pushed at me. I sat on the bed. He really was a god; he could travel through time and space, communicate through dreams and make fire. No wonder people in ancient times worshiped him.
Marc stepped closer. I held up my hand.
“You have the worst possible sense of timing. What’s with that? Seriously, this better not be your idea of a favor returned,” I said, wanting to crawl under the bed. “Where are my clothes?”
He shrugged. “Inorganic matter cannot travel through the dimensions, love. And as for timing? It makes no difference to me. I can’t die and I bend it to my will.” In a sudden move, he stepped back and his hands covered his genitals. He studied me through slitted eyes. “I’d almost forgotten; you’re a Soul-Eater.”
“Roo?” Tommy’s voice thundered from somewhere in the house.
I turned toward the door. When I looked back, Marc was gone. I scrunched my bedspread tighter around me as Tommy barreled into the room.
“Christ! You’re okay.” He looked tired. His hair was a mess. The skin around one eye had yellowed and healing scrapes stretched across his mouth. But his other eye was freshly swollen as though he’d caught a recent punch to the face. How long had I been gone?
He reached me in two giant strides and immersed me in his embrace. I screwed up my nose at the ashtray smell clinging to his gray checked shirt.
He pushed me away to examine me. “I can’t believe you’re here… I thought—never mind what I thought—are you okay?”
I flattened my lips and nodded.
He took in a deep breath, and a good amount of tension left his shoulders, then he pulled me in for an embrace and dipped his head to rest on my shoulder.
“Tommy, I’m okay. Sorry about the barbecue. I wasn’t in my right mind.” I patted him awkwardly with one hand, the other clutched my blanket. His body trembled with emotion and a replay of Steve’s untimely death and my vampiric tendency flickered through my head. I stepped back. “I’m sorry, I must be a mess. I need to shower. I need to get all this off.”
Tommy’s eyes raced down my body and squeaked, “The blanket?”
“No, the blood and grime. I can’t stand it.”
“Probie, you ain’t dirty. You look as fresh as a new born baby’s butt.”
I hurried to the en-suite mirror. The person staring back at me was not the girl I’d expected. Her skin was milky white, her hair long and brown. She had my honey-colored eyes, so it was me. But the red hair and lips were gone. My fingers inspected my face, prodding and poking. It felt like me, but I looked the same as I had when I was a teenager. All traces of clothing, blood, sweat or tears had gone, my recent history wiped. I lumbered back to the bedroom in a daze.
“Did you come through the window?” Tommy asked, scratching his head, eyes stuck on my blanket. “Your hair… and, why are you dressed like that?”
“Marc found me,” I mumbled. “I thought you knew that. Didn’t Cash send him?”
Tommy’s features darkened, and he paced, moving in and out of the doorway.
“That damn pervert? He did this? Did he…” His voice trailed off, but the intention was clear from the way his eyes swiped my blanket. “If he laid a finger on you, Roo, I swear to God, I’ll break his head off, and shove it up his Pommy ass.”
He rattled off a few more obscenities and something about Cash’s frame of mind for having a friend as unstable as Marc.
“Marc didn’t kidnap me. It was Petra. Marc brought me back.”
“But she’s dead. I saw her drowned with my own eyes.”
“She’s not dead. The witch you killed was a decoy. Petra tried to kill me, but I survived.”
Tommy stumbled past me to the wardrobe, pulled out an empty suitcase and lumped it on the bed. He fidgeted with the zip, then paused without looking up. “Roo, there’s something I need to tell you. While you were gone, something happened to Miss. Kitty
.”
He continued to open the zip.
My world spun and the room suddenly felt smaller. Kitty? I thought Marc said it was just the people from town going crazy—barmy was his word.
Kitty’s a person from town.
“What happened?” I grabbed Tommy’s hand. He pulled it to his chest. The ferocity of his action startled me and I almost lost my blanket.
“Come home with me,” he said. “We could be in the air by tomorrow night. It’s all gone to shit anyway, ever since Cash showed his darn face at The Cauldron. Everything was fine and dandy before that.” His glassy eyes searched my face. “We had a good time—no witches, no goddamn perverts, no Inquisitor. Let Cash do his job. He can handle the crisis—it’s what he does. You can come home with me. You’ll be safe and I’ll be your guardian.”
My blood was ice.
“Tommy,” I said. “What happened to Kitty?”
He dropped my hand, yanked open a drawer and threw handfuls of clothes into the suitcase. “The Police are there. They’ll take care of it. They don’t need us, Roo.”
“Tommy!”
He looked up, his chin trembling. “She’s been taken hostage at The Cauldron. She and some other women. He’s fixin’ to burn the whole thing down with them in it.”
He emptied an entire drawer into the case.
Kitty. I dropped onto the edge of my bed. I couldn’t let this happen to her. Marc’s words came to mind: “Play the hand you’ve been dealt. Control your controllables, accept the rest.” I couldn’t control what had already happened, but I could stop what hadn’t. That was it then. I reached over and rifled through the suitcase for something to wear.
Tommy grabbed my hand and pulled it out. “There’s something else, Roo. Your sister is missing.”
“What?”
He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and fiddled with the flip. Why wasn’t he looking at me? And then I knew. Petra had returned for Leila’s body.
“I’m getting dressed,” I said curtly and ducked into the shelter of the walk-in robe. I slipped on a white shirt and pulled a clean pair of jeans over my hips. “Then we’re going to find Kitty and bring her home. What day is it?” I called and rummaged on the floor for a pair of shoes.
His voice floated back to me. “It’s Monday night.”
Shit. I paused, one shoe hanging mid-air. The barbecue had been on Friday—three days ago. My pulse quickened. I grabbed the second sneaker and pushed aside my suspicion. Things with Petra weren’t adding up, but I had no time to sort it out. Firstly, I had to save my friend.
When I re-entered the bedroom, Tommy was leaning against the wall, with the zipped luggage at his side and a cigarette dangling from his lips. I sat down, put my joggers on, and glanced at his sunken eyes and skinny frame. Had my disappearance affected him that much?
A shadow flickered across his face. “You’re going aren’t you?”
“You don’t have to come with me, Tommy, but yes, I’m going. I can help. I have these gifts, and they should be used for good. You should go home. Like you said, it’s much safer there.”
He waggled his cigarette at me. “I ain’t letting you out of my sight, Probie. Not again.” His jaw jutted out, and he steeled his eyes.
“If you stay, you’re going to see me do some strange things, Tommy.”
He balanced the smoke in his lips, shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
I gave him a half-hearted smile. I was prepared to do anything and everything.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE PARKING LOT of The Cauldron was full. I parked near the entrance and left my bike’s headlight on so I could survey the scene without taking off my helmet. People crowded the entrance. They shouted, screamed and argued, fists waving. Even from this distance, the charge from the collective aura electrified me, crawling over the exposed skin on my hands. I shivered and Tommy squeezed my waist.
The building wasn’t burning but there was a soft, yellow glow over the crowd near The Cauldron. Somewhere in that mob was Cash and probably Jed.
Somewhere inside was Kitty.
I hopped off the bike with my back to the crowd and tried to psyche myself up before heading in. I patted my pocket lion. He was ready, and I was ready. Then I pulled off my helmet and turned around.
When he saw me, Tommy stepped back, eyes wide. “Dang!”
“Oh,” I said, patting my hair absently. My hex must have worked. My hair would be dark and my skin, brown. “It’s all part of the plan. I’m in disguise.”
He laughed nervously and licked his lips. “Yeah, okay.”
A dark figure broke away from the mob and ran towards us. As he got closer, I recognized the familiar chocolate skin and his pointed cranium covered in short dark fuzz. My heart jumped in delight and then sank to my stomach. How had he recognized me?
“Roo!” Alvin waved at me. Gone was his chubby exterior and, in its place was a well-defined and muscular physique. His biceps burst out of his tight t-shirt and his skin looked vibrant. My eyes traveled down to his strong legs shaping his shorts into hard, slightly curved lines. It was hard to believe he’d been on his deathbed only a few days before.
“Sorry. I thought you were someone else.” He frowned and turned to Tommy. “Where’s Roo? You have her bike and…” He eyed off my yellow jacket.
“Umm.” Tommy’s eyes darted to me.
“It’s okay, Tommy. We can trust him.”
“Who are you?” Alvin frowned and folded his arms so his new biceps popped.
I tensed.
“It’s me, Roo.” There, I’d said it.
His eyes narrowed and ping-ponged between my bike, my jacket and Tommy. “Why do you look like that?”
“I kind of… changed myself. I’m still me, but in disguise to help Kitty. I have some of the same abilities as a witch.” Oh what the heck. “It was me who fixed your hex at the hospital.”
He shrugged. “I know that.”
I blinked. “How did you know?”
“I’m not stupid. I’ve seen what you do to Kitty’s hair. And after that kiss—” He rolled his brown orbs “—Whoa! Nobody in their right mind would kiss me looking and smelling the way I did. I figured it out. Besides, you gave me some sweet upgrades. Say hello to Des and Troy.” He kissed each of his biceps and grinned. “The ladies love them.”
He glared at the crowd, suddenly grave. “Kitty needs your help. I don’t care what you do, just do it. I’ll back you up, all the way. I won’t let them take you.”
“Thank you,” I said, relief a welcome lightness in my body.
“You’re going to have trouble getting closer. I’m pretty sure that’s your ex’s family at the front of the mob. They’re insane if you ask me. The mother has a little voodoo doll with red hair and she’s been lighting it on fire to rile up the crowd.”
I slipped my jacket off and hung it over the seat. “Red hair?” I fingered my new dark strands. “Well, they won’t be looking for a brown skinned girl with black hair. So, who’s inside? What happened?”
“That dirt-bag Inquisitor tried to get the neighborhood men to dob in their wives, sisters, daughters—any girl they suspected of being a witch—but no one turned up. It was almost funny until a few guys drove into the lot with a truck full of women. Kitty was one of them. I think there are six, but I could be mistaken. They took them inside so fast. He snatched them after the church service yesterday. They’ve been in there since then. I don’t know what they’re waiting for.”
“Probably me. What about the police—what are they doing?”
“Jed and Wozza are here, but no one else would come with them. Jed’s trying to manage the crowd on his own. Oh, and your mate, the hunter.” He lifted his eyebrows at me. “He’s a piece of work, that one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I just meant he’s”—Alvin made a few karate actions in the air—“you know, an ass-kicker. Take no prisoners sort of guy.”
I hoped
no one was getting hurt. The last time Cash kicked ass was when he snapped Aunt Lucy’s neck. “So, the Inquisitor’s inside?”
“Yeah,” Alvin said.
“Okay. I’m going to do something to the crowd and you might get caught up in it if you’re too close. I’d prefer it if you two stayed at a safe distance for a while.”
I steeled myself and stepped forward but was detained by Tommy’s hand on my shoulder. When I turned, his eyes glittered in the dim light. “I don’t want you to go,” he said, voice brittle and shaky.
“You don’t have a choice. Stand back until it’s safe.”
“How will we know when it’s safe?” Alvin asked.
“Oh, you’ll know.” I walked away with my head held high. My black hair lifted in the wind and floated around my head in what I imagined looked like a sinister halo. Did I have the guts to pull this off? I had to. Kitty didn’t deserve this, and neither did the other women.
The closer I went, the stronger the pressure from the collective energy. It built until my bones were fizzy napalm and I stumbled forward, cramping in tingling pain. Pleasure and pain at once. The force was aggressive. Addictive. I wouldn’t make it to the front door at this rate; the energy would make a blubbering idiot out of me.
I approached the edge of the mob and sniffed. Smoke. Kerosene. My chest constricted. Just keep moving, keep moving or die. A few men glanced at me but luckily, I wasn’t as exciting as the front commotion and they ignored me. There were a handful of regulars from the bar, but there were many faces I didn’t recognize. Had the Inquisitor hired a rent-a-crowd, or had they come from the city?
When I’d told the boys I had a plan, I’d lied.
My abilities seemed to be split into two. One half was the energy-sensing, manipulating Soul-Eater, the other was the DNA-changing witchcraft and telekinesis I’d stolen from the witch inside me.
My two options were, turn the mob into a mass orgy by fusing their auras as I had to the couple at the barbecue—or use witchcraft. The majority of the Grimoire held nasty, life-threatening options, but there was only one I was willing to try. I pushed at my temples. Energy buzzed and tingled over my skin, distracting me. My vision blurred, and darkness beckoned me. I hurtled forward, hands shooting out. My skin connected with the skin of the person in front of me with a zap, and I looked up at a middle-aged man with baggy eyes. He held my wrists to catch my fall.
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