The last thing King City needed was another preternatural running around, shedding powerful magic everywhere they went. Marcel might be powerful, but if he continued to leak power then it would only be a matter of time before some bigger and badder nasty found him, and if that happened, his fate would be sealed. It wasn't just my power that posed a risk in the wrong hands; his would cause just as much devastation and I couldn't allow that to happen.
Stepping out into the afternoon sun, I closed my eyes and allowed my own power to seek out Marcel's. The second it found it, I latched on, allowing the threads of my blue magic to wrap around his. This would lead me directly to him. The moment I had it secured, I opened my eyes once more, a small smile playing around my lips.
I could feel him at the end of the cord, dangling there like an oversized, magical fish. It would be a game of cat and mouse, but which one of us was the cat, well, I couldn’t be certain.
Tightening the bond with him, part of me felt him smile in response, as though he'd been waiting for me to come and find him.
The line between us jerked suddenly. The stale smell of beer, cigarettes, and sweat invaded my mind, and I stumbled backwards against Victoria.
"What happened?" She asked, peering down at me, the changeling within her peeking out just beneath the surface of her eyes.
"He knows we're coming," I said, flexing my fists in an attempt to fight off the anger.
He had planned all of this. The realisation of the extent of his manipulation hit me hard enough to bring heat flooding into my cheeks. Marcel had performed his version of walking the scene, whatever that was, and then he’d left—but not before cleansing the place, making it impossible for me to read anything.
He had known what we were planning on doing—hell, there was a huge chance he knew what I was.
There was no doubt in my mind that he knew the consequences of his actions, that what he had done would affect the case. It would affect our ability to track down the son of a bitch who had done this to Tess Greenville.
Whether we liked it or not, we were tied to Marcel, because he was the one with all the cards and he would play them close to his chest. Well, he could try anyway.
"He didn't get very far," I said to Victoria before starting off down the path.
I ducked beneath the crime scene tape without a backward glance. I didn't need to look behind me to know she was following me. I could feel her presence, and I knew that whatever was coming, she would have my back no matter what.
Striding down the sidewalk, I left the street where Tess Greenville's house stood. I paused only when Victoria called to me.
"We could take the car," she said, but I shook my head. Marcel wasn't far. I could feel him waiting for us; in fact, I could have put a bet on it that he was within a hundred feet of where we were standing.
"Nope, we don't need to. It's really close and when I get my hands on him, I'm going to...."
Something shifted at the end of the magical cord, causing me to turn away from Victoria. I spotted Marcel standing outside a rundown dive bar just a few metres from where we were.
He cracked a match and lifted it to the cigarette that hung from the side of his mouth, his eyes dancing with delight. He could feel my anger and I could feel his almost childish glee. He continued to watch us, grinning at me like the Cheshire cat.
"You know you tampered with evidence, right?" I said, moving toward him, balling my hands into fists at my side in an attempt to keep my anger and my magic under control. The link I had created between us shifted again and I felt him push back against me with his own power, probing against my shields in an attempt to slip past them, to find out what I truly was.
Pausing, I cocked my head to the side and studied him carefully. Handsome, arrogant, and extremely powerful. A dangerous mix. The worst part about it was that he knew what he was. Clearly, that was where the arrogance came in.
"I didn't tamper with the evidence," he said, flicking the match onto the street, his gaze studying it as the flame died.
"Then what the hell do you call that back there?" Victoria asked, striding forward. Her hand whipped out lightning fast and she closed it around his throat, ramming him back into the rough stonework of the wall behind him.
"Victoria, stop," I said, but it was already too late. I felt more than saw Marcel move. His eyes flashed with an emotion I couldn't read and his hand bridged the gap between them, his fingers sliding around the back of Victoria's neck and up into her hair. She tried to jerk back from his touch but he mumbled something beneath his breath, something I couldn't quite catch, and Victoria dropped to her knees in front of him.
I could feel her anger radiating from her in waves and I stared at the two of them in shock. I'd never seen anyone best Victoria. Well, not unless you counted Jason, and even then, she hadn't been fighting back.
This time, however, I could see the strain on Victoria's arms as she fought to overpower whatever it was that Marcel was doing to her.
"Marcel, if you want to work with us, then let her go," I said, carefully watching him as I inched forward.
He turned his face to mine. The grin that played around his lips left my blood cold in my veins. There was no question he was a Bokor, and the power I'd felt leaking from him all over the city had been a deliberate thing to draw me out. To draw me to him. Marcel Deco knew exactly what he was doing. The control he had over his magic was more than surprising; it was downright impressive, and under normal circumstances, I might have told him so. But not with the scenario before me—Victoria was on her knees before him, every muscle in her body quivering with the desire to rip his throat out. Still, he was holding her off without even breaking a sweat.
"I didn't tamper with the evidence," he repeated, his dark eyes watching me carefully as though searching for any sign that I doubted him.
I didn't doubt him; he honestly believed everything he was saying.
"Yes, you did. We couldn't do our job because of what you did to the scene," I said.
"You come here and accuse me of this. I saved you from what was in that house. You're just a witch, and your little fairy friend here … do you really think you could have handled what was going on, what is waiting for you?"
Something flashed across Marcel's face—another emotion I couldn't read. I'd always prided myself on my ability to understand people, and yet, despite him standing in front of me, I couldn't read any of his emotions except the ones he wanted to show me. For all intents and purposes, Marcel Deco was a closed book.
"What do you mean ‘saved us’?" I deliberately left out the part where he’d called me a witch. If he didn't know I was a shadow sorceress—or maybe he did know and simply didn't care—I wasn't going to correct him on it.
Victoria, on the other hand, didn't take too kindly to be called a “fairy friend”. I watched the muscles in her arm strain as she pushed back against the power Marcel was using to bind her, her eyes darkening as her hair grew longer and shimmered in the afternoon sunlight.
"Victoria," I warned, my tone fear filled.
If she changed here and now, if she revealed what she truly was, we were in big trouble. The Elite was supposed to be a task force made up of humans; Victoria was anything but human.
She jerked her head to the side and stared at me with her changing eyes, the black of her pupils completely swallowing everything else, and I could see the darkness inside her swelling, threatening to spill over. It was only a matter of seconds before she changed completely.
"What have we here?" Marcel said, staring down at her with surprise. "Here was I, thinking you were just a simple fairy.” Suddenly, his magic filled the air.
Victoria threw her head back, a silent scream ripping from her lips. He was trying to force the change on her, trying to bring forth what she truly was, what her true form was. It was a violation, pure and simple, and I wasn't going to stand idly by and let him do it to her.
Despite feeling as though I had been dumped in a vat of boiling water, I
closed the gap between myself and Marcel. Slamming my open hand directly against Marcel's chest, I shouted at him, "Stop." Power flared inside me, spiralling through every vein in my body, reaching out until it slammed into him.
His eyes went wide before rolling back in his head, and Marcel's body slumped toward the ground as though every string holding him upright had suddenly been cut.
Victoria rolled away from him, panting hard, her head bowed as she struggled to get a grip on the change and halt it in its tracks.
Pain rippled against the hand I'd used to strike Marcel, and I stared down at the blisters that were beginning to form across the skin. It seemed whatever I had done to Marcel had had consequences for me, too. "Great, just what I need," I muttered beneath my breath.
"What are you?" Marcel asked, his voice cracking out from between his lips.
I glared down into his inquisitive gaze. "I'm the witch that's going to kick your arse if you don't start cooperating with me. And the next time you do that to Victoria, I'll be sure to rip your insides out through your nose."
Anger bubbled in my veins, making the blistering on my hand worse. I tried to close my fist and winced. Whatever he had done to me, it hurt like a son of a bitch, but if he had done it then he could fix it.
"Now, you're going to get up from the ground and we're going to go into that bar there, the one you just came out of. You'll get some ice for my hand and you're going to tell me everything you know about the murder of Tess Greenville."
Marcel opened his mouth as though he was about to protest.
"I can make you," I said, quietly, the menace in my voice unmistakable.
"Fine, but I do this and you will tell me what you are, especially if you want me to make that hand of yours useable again," he said, gesturing to my hand that I was cradling against my chest.
I nodded. What did I have to lose? He already knew I was a witch, and that would be enough to get me strung up by the Elite, but I also knew his secret, and I was pretty certain he wouldn't want anyone getting wind of it.
Victoria drew herself up to her full height and did her best to hide the slight tremor in her hands. I'd never seen her so shaken up before, and knowing it had happened at the hands of Marcel didn't make me like him any more.
"You all right?" I asked, giving her a pointed look.
"I'm fine," she said, her tone harsh as she gave me a look that said leave me the hell alone.
Marcel eyed her appreciatively. "I've never met a real changeling before, but I see now why you were so sought after..." he said. What he was saying didn't make any sense to me. I'd never heard of changelings being sought after before, but I knew without having to ask that whatever he had alluded to made Victoria extremely unhappy.
She paused and stared down at him, her eyes doing the soulless thing that I'd only ever seen happen once before, right before she’d killed Zeck.
"You bested me this time, little man, but mark my words, you will not do it again. The next time, it will be you on your knees, and I have never been known for my mercy," she said, quietly, before stalking past him into the bar.
Marcel grinned up at me. "Is she always this friendly?"
"Only when dealing with assholes," I said, smiling sweetly.
Marcel's grin faded, his expression growing cold. "You're too quick to judgement. It's probably one of the reasons your mother is dead," he said, his words chilling me to the bone. He didn't know me, had only just met me, so how the hell did he know about my mother?
Marcel climbed to his feet and stalked past me into the dive bar. He had a heck of a lot of explaining to do and I was in no mood for any more bullshit. Whether he liked it or not, Marcel Deco would tell me everything I wanted to know.
4
The dive bar was exactly as I had imagined it would be. The worn, black leather seats covered in the kinds of sticky stains that I didn't want to hazard a guess at. The cracked mahogany bar ran along the back wall, and behind it, mirrored wall lined with dusty liquor bottles that had once been clean but was now so splintered and stained you could barely tell it apart from the dingy black-painted walls. The clientele was another matter altogether; they all had the look of people who had seen better days, but they paid us no attention, so I returned the favour.
Staring down at the bucket of ice in front of me, I didn't waste any time jamming my hand down into it. The cold chilled me to the bone but it was bliss in comparison to the fire my blistered hand seemed to be suffering from.
"How do you know about my mother?" I asked, sucking in a deep breath as one of the ice cubes scraped against a particularly tender blister.
"I guessed," Marcel said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest.
The perfect outline of my handprint was burnt into his shirt, and beneath the fabric, I could see where his skin had been singed from the effect of my magic. I would have preferred to have been singed myself rather than suffer through whatever in the hell was wrong with my hand.
Did he have some kind of magical protection? Was he booby-trapped? It sounded ridiculous, and yet staring across at the man that sat opposite me, I couldn't help but think perhaps I was right. Marcel Deco was a dangerous man—there was no question about that. I'd known he was dangerous from the first moment I’d tasted his magic at Tess Greenville's home. But what he had done to Victoria had certainly sealed the deal for me. And it wasn't something I could forgive.
I was pretty sure it was something she wouldn't forgive, either. I glanced over at Victoria, her tall, lithe form curled in on itself as though she were struggling to put the pieces back together. I'd never seen her act like this; I'd never seen her so subdued, and that made me uneasy.
Victoria was changeling and as such was incredibly powerful. To see her quite literally brought to her knees by someone like Marcel just didn't sit right. The fae were more powerful than the humans—the only way we could best them was through the use of cold iron. And yet, Marcel had managed it, and he had made it look easy.
None of it made any sense. How had he managed to get his hands on so much power?
"What do you mean you guessed?" I asked. It was a pretty accurate guess if that were true, but there was clearly more going on than met the eye, and I was damn well going to get to the bottom of it.
Marcel grinned at me and his expression made my skin crawl, a complete juxtaposition for how handsome he was. I could see the other women in the bar eyeing him hungrily, and when they caught my gaze, the looks of hostility I received from them made me smile. As far as I was concerned, if they wanted him then they were certainly welcome to him, but not before I got my answers.
"I see you've got some admirers," I said, changing tactic. If he wasn't going to tell me how he’d guessed about my mother's death then I would just have to be patient and wait him out.
Marcel's shoulders dropped and a momentary flash of surprise crossed his face. Bingo! It was the first expression he'd shared with me that I'd been able to read. At least if I could get a baseline on him, then I stood a chance of reading his other, more guarded emotions.
"Does it bother you?" He asked suddenly, leaning across the table toward me, his dark eyes gazing into mine.
I felt a smirk slide across my face and I slowly wriggled my fingers beneath the ice. At least one thing was going right and the fiery agony that had been my hand was slowly dissipating.
"Honestly, I couldn't care less. You're welcome to your admirers, but I can see now that you're a particularly vain man," I said, searching his face for the reaction. But nothing came and I was left disappointed once more.
Marcel dropped back into his seat and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "What can I say? I'm irresistible to women," he said, glancing in Victoria's direction. "Well, usually anyway. And I'm especially irresistible to the dead ones...."
Victoria raised her face just long enough to shoot him a dirty look, and her lip curled in disgust. Whatever he had done, whatever she had felt, it had obviously been a violation,
and that wasn't something I would abide by. His comment about “the dead ones” seemed odd, but not entirely out of place. In a way, it made sense; he was a Bokor. He would be irresistible to the dead ones.
"You do know she's probably planning on ripping you limb from limb, right?" I asked, lifting my hand from the icy water and wrapping it in the towel next to the bucket. The bones in my hand ached as though it had been more than just my skin that had been burned by touching my magic to Marcel's.
Marcel shrugged again and returned his gaze to mine. "She can try, but she will not succeed. I'm stronger than that. And anyway, are we not here to discuss the little matter of the crime scene?"
His sudden switch from idle chitchat to business talk caught me off guard. I'd expected to be the one to change the direction of the conversation, and now that he had, it had me a little off balance. I curled my good hand, balling it into a fist beneath the table as I fought to control my anger.
What was it about this man? Every interaction I had with him ended in me feeling as though I was nothing but a ball of rage. Perhaps it had something to do with his magic. I had read that some forms of Voodoo could have that kind of effect on the shadow sorcerers, but it was nothing but conjecture and I wasn't enjoying being the guinea pig.
"Yeah, we are. What did you learn?" I asked, deciding to be as direct as he was.
"If you need to ask me then perhaps you shouldn't be working for the Elite," he said, the smug smile back on his face once more.
I sighed. He was playing games with me and it made my blood boil. Closing my eyes momentarily, I imagined tearing his head from his body with my bare hands and I waited for the obligatory demon mark response. Images like that were usually accompanied by the tell-tale tingle or even burning from my demon mark, but this time, there was nothing.
Touch of Shadow (The Shadow Sorceress Book 5) Page 3