shadows of salem 01 - shadow born

by hamilton, rebecca

  I blinked up at him, staring into leaf-green eyes that crackled with annoyance.

  “W-what are you doing here?” I sputtered.

  I should have been angrier, but that delicious heather-whiskey scent of his was sinking into me, muddling up my thoughts, and the hard, muscular body pressing me into the mattress wasn’t helping things, either.

  “I came here because I wanted to speak to ye regarding the investigation ye agreed to help me with,” Maddock growled. “But ye were screamin’ too loudly to hear me bangin’ on the door.”

  “Oh.” Heat flooded my cheeks, and it took everything I had not to look away in embarrassment. “Well, now that you’re in here, can you get off me? I’d like to be able to breathe now.”

  Something hot flickered in Maddock’s eyes, and his gaze dipped downward. “Is that why ye sleep with naught but a sheet over you?” He raised an eyebrow. “Because ye ‘need to breathe’?”

  My entire face flamed. “That’s none of your business!” I tried to shove at him with my hands, which he still held firmly in his grip. I slept in the nude because I tended to overheat easily—if it were warmer weather I would have foregone the sheet as well, which had me thanking my lucky stars for the cool autumn weather as of late.

  “Get off me before I arrest your ass for breaking and entering!”

  Maddock chuckled as he released me. “There was no breaking,” he informed me. “Teleporting into yer apartment is an easy enough matter, just as it was when ye tried to arrest me last night.”

  “Get out of my room,” I snarled, clutching the sheet to my chest as I sat up. “I’ll meet you in the living room in five minutes.”

  “If ye don’t, I’ll assume something went wrong and come back in to check on you.” He smirked and then vanished.

  Cursing, I whipped the sheet off my body, then glanced at the clock by my bedside. Six-thirty. Who the fuck came to visit anyone at six-thirty in the damn morning? The sun hadn’t even cracked the horizon, I noticed as I peered through the curtains of the window beside my bed.

  Then again, I guess it was good he came so early. I had to be at the precinct by eight-thirty, and I wasn’t going to give Captain Randall another reason to bust my ass by being late.

  I eyed the bathroom longingly, wanting a shower, but the last thing I needed was for Maddock to spirit himself back in here while I was drying off because I’d used up my allotted five minutes. So I settled for my fluffy blue bathrobe with glittering snowflakes, and the matching slippers, then tied my hair into a messy bun before heading into the living room.

  Maddock had already made himself comfortable on the couch, sipping coffee from a to-go cup and reading something on his gigantic phone screen as if he were sitting at some café instead of in a cop’s living room. His black hair was pulled back into a low tail today, and he wore a woolen coat just a few shades darker than cobalt over his business suit.

  “I see you’ve made yourself right at home,” I sneered, sitting in the recliner across from him. I wanted to sit on the couch, dammit, but I’d already decided it was best to keep as much distance between us as possible. I wasn’t the type of woman to go weak at the knees for a pretty face, but Maddock was a fae, and whatever mojo he had was messing with my ability to think clearly whenever he got too close.

  “I dinnae see why I cannae be comfortable if I have to relegate myself to sitting here in this dingy apartment of yers.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said sweetly, crossing my legs and placing my hands on my knee. “I should have rented a castle instead, so that you could feel more at home.”

  Maddock lifted a second to-go cup sitting on the coffee table and handed it to me. “Drink this. With any luck, coffee will take some of the pissiness from yer tone.”

  I eyed the cup suspiciously. “Aren’t you not supposed to accept any food or drink from the fae?”

  Maddock rolled his eyes. “That’s only if yer in Underhill, Detective. And even then, only if ye dinnae want to be trapped there.”

  “Hmph.” I took the cup from him—after all, the fae couldn’t lie, right?

  Maddock eyed me strangely as I took my first sip. “You really dinnae know anything about the supernatural world, do ye?”

  “Not nearly enough.” I scowled at him over the rim of my coffee cup; he was really spoiling my morning coffee. “And if I’m going to work with you, you’re going to need to start filling me in.”

  “Indeed.” Maddock’s eyes narrowed as he looked around the space. “There’s magical energy in here. I sensed it strongly in yer bedroom.”

  “Yeah, no shit.” I rolled my eyes. “There was a wraith here last night, remember? She tried to drown me in the bathtub?”

  “Hmm.” A thoughtful look clouded in Maddock’s gaze as he set his coffee cup back on the table. “Do you happen to have any chamomile, sage, and honey on hand?”

  “Yes.” I eyed him warily. “Why?”

  “Bring them to me, and I’ll show you.”

  I thought about refusing, but I was curious as to what he wanted with some herbs and sweetener. I had a feeling he wasn’t planning on using the stuff to flavor his coffee. So I went and fetched the items from my kitchen cupboard, then brought them to him along with a little bowl.

  “So, what now?” I asked as he mixed the ingredients together. “And don’t tell me you need candles or some shit.”

  “Dinnae be so daft. I’m not a witch, Detective.” Maddock finished mixing up his little concoction, then rose.

  Slowly, he wandered around the apartment, following some kind of strange trail that only he could see. After a few minutes, he stopped at the wall behind my dining table.

  “Here,” he murmured, dipping his hands into the honey mixture. Then he proceeded to use the mixture to draw a series of complicated symbols on the wall.

  “Hey!” I snapped, swatting at his hand. “What are you finger-painting on my walls for?”

  Ignoring me, he closed his eyes and muttered something in a strange, musical language that sent a weird hum through my body. In the next second, the symbols he’d drawn melted away, and I gasped as a black ‘O’ with three jagged, vertical slashes appeared instead.

  “What the hell is that?” I demanded, leaning in to sniff at the stripes. They were a dark, rusty red color, and I recoiled at the coppery tang that hit my nostrils. “Is that blood?”

  “Aye,” Maddock said grimly.

  “What the fuck!” Rattled, I paced the short distance between the wall and my kitchen counter. “What kind of sicko would come here and do this?” I paced back. “And whose blood is that?”

  “It belongs to whoever drew the mark,” Maddock said. “As far as what the mark is, I’ve been doing some research into that. It seems to belong to an ancient sect of witches that call themselves the Onyx Order. They lived near Salem for a long time, but vanished a good two-hundred years ago. Nobody had seen or heard from them since then, so they were thought to have been annihilated or disbanded.” He glared at the symbol. “But it would appear they are back.”

  “Hang on.” I held up a hand. “You’re saying you’ve seen this symbol before?”

  “It’s appeared in the home of every supernatural who’s gone missing,” Maddock said. “I thought it was simply a calling card they were leaving, to taunt the friends and loved ones of the victims. But since ye haven’t been taken, I’m thinking now that it’s a mark. A sort of beacon, to highlight their next target. I believe they’re coming for ye, Detective.”

  I hissed, then shoved my hands into my pockets and stopped pacing so I could glare at the offending mark. “Is there any way to scrub that thing from my walls? Get rid of this so-called beacon?”

  Maddock shrugged. “I’m sure I could figure it out, but I doubt it would stop them. For whatever reason, they’ve got ye in their sights now, and they intend to have ye.”

  I threw up my hands. “Why? Because I’m poking into Tom’s death? They don’t want me uncovering the truth, so they’re going to get rid of me i
nstead?”

  “Perhaps,” Maddock allowed. “But you’ve plenty of power in that little body of yers, and I’d wager that’s attractive to them, too.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Aside from my psychometry-like talent, which wasn’t apparent enough for him to know about, I didn’t have any power to speak of. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Maddock smirked as he wagged his finger at me. “Aye, but ye do.”

  I groaned. “Come on, Tremaine. You’ve got to tell me something about what’s going on here. Before yesterday, I didn’t even know the fae were real. My scope was limited to vampires, and now you’re telling me there’s witches, too? What else should I expect? Gnomes? Djinn?”

  “Ye met a gnome the other night, when ye were snooping around in my club,” Maddock said. He tilted his head, then added, “Billy. The little man in the back alley who unsuccessfully tried to mind-wipe you.”

  “Gee, why am I not surprised?” I thought back for a minute. “What are your mountain men? Giants?”

  “Trolls.”

  “Jesus.” I pulled my silver hair from my messy bun and reset it, more out of a need to do something—anything—other than just stand here, listening to this. “Just how many different types of supernaturals are there?”

  “Many, but dinnae concern yerself with trying to learn every single type. What’s important are the sub-species.”

  “Sub-species?” Jeez, he said that like it should mean something to me. But instead, it just made me feel more overwhelmed. “Care to elaborate?”

  Maddock made a sound in the back of his throat, then pulled out one of my dining chairs and straddled it. He looked up at me through those sinfully black lashes of his, and even though his eyes were glittering with ire, my stomach still fluttered in response. Damn him. Why did he have to be so annoyingly sexy?

  “Since it seems I have to give ye a history lesson, I may as well make myself somewhat comfortable,” he said, misinterpreting my annoyance. “My kind, the fae, were the first magical beings to exist on Earth, and all supernatural creatures are, in a way, our children…such as yerself.”

  I chose my next words carefully, speaking slowly and pausing occasionally to assess if he did, in fact, really already know about my gift. “So…” I said, “the fact that I can see things others can’t means I have fae ancestry?”

  “Ye could say that.” Maddock wrinkled his nose, as if he found the very idea distasteful. “Because fae magic is so potent, it tends to take on a mind of its own. Nymphs and dryads, for example, are creatures that sprang into being simply because the fae lived in their habitats for too long. Some of our creations occur by accident, others on purpose, but all of them are our responsibility. In particular, the Seelie Court has given me the responsibility of making sure the balance is maintained between the supernaturals living in this sector of the world. And the witches are throwing off that balance.”

  “Hmm.” I looked down at my hands. They seemed normal enough, aside from the fact that I could use them to see into the past. Was there fae blood running through these veins? “So witches are a product of the fae as well?”

  Maddock nodded, his features twisting in displeasure again. “Their ancestors were humans that learned to harness residual fae magic and use it for their own. Entirely forbidden, of course, but by the time they came into their own, there was little we could do about it, and the Seelie Court ruled that they should be recognized as a proper sub-species.” Bitterness entered his tone. “That was one of our poorer choices.”

  “Why?” I studied him curiously, wondering why he appeared to harbor such animosity toward witches. “What’s so horrible about witches versus any other supernatural?”

  “They’re conniving, manipulative, and take things that don’t belong to them.” Maddock hissed, then shoved to his feet. “Such as the fae that have been going missing recently.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that,” I muttered, eyeing him warily. He was glaring at me, as if this were somehow my fault. “But how do you know it’s the witches doing this? A symbol on a wall isn’t what I call concrete evidence.”

  Maddock crossed his arms and glared down at me, making my heart jump into my throat. “So yer defending them now? Somehow I’m not surprised.”

  His sarcastic tone was so accusatory that his behavior suddenly made sense. All the animosity, the condemning glares…

  “You think I’m a witch, don’t you?” I jabbed a finger at him. “That’s why you don’t like me, and why you always look at me like I’m a piece of shit stuck to your shoe.”

  “I dinnae know what ye are,” Maddock growled, clamping his hand around my forearm. “Aside from a heaping of trouble. But right now, I need ye, which is why I’m tolerating yer presence in this city. Now let’s get going already. I’ve something to show ye.”

  “No!” Energy sizzled in the air around us, and I tried to pull away, instinctively knowing what was coming.

  But it was too late. We were already gone.

  CHAPTER 14

  “I swear to God, if you ever do that again without warning me first, I will shoot you in the crotch.”

  Bracing myself against the yellow-papered wall of a parlor room I’d never seen before, I took in deep breaths as I fought against the desire to retch. It was a good thing I hadn’t eaten anything today, or I would have thrown up all over the thick, red rug that covered the glossy wooden floor of this fancy-looking apartment.

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Maddock said lightly. He didn’t flinch, as most men would have at my threat. In fact, something that looked suspiciously like laughter entered his eyes as his gaze roamed over me, and my cheeks flamed as I realized I was still wearing my bathrobe.

  “I fucking hate you,” I growled, tugging the bathrobe tighter around my body—the belt had loosened during our impromptu travel through time and space. I was never going to appear in front of him again without being fully dressed.

  “Dinnae worry. I’ll have ye back to yer apartment soon.” His gaze moved away from me, trailing across the room, and in the next instant, his expression hardened, green fire snapping in his eyes. “Bloody hell. This was a waste of time.”

  “Why?” I narrowed my eyes as I followed his gaze, trying to see whatever he saw. Red and gold drapes that matched the carpeting and expensive-looking art on the walls—normal enough. But the humongous couches and chairs—it would probably take me less effort to mount a horse than it would to climb into the stuffed armchair sitting by the fireplace—and the ridiculously high ceiling gave me pause.

  “What are we even doing here?” I asked. “And whose house is this?”

  “We’re in the residence of one of my staff, Garin Barclay. He’s a giant,” Maddock added in answer to my unspoken question. “He’s been missing for about a week.”

  “A giant?” I paled a little as I studied the furniture again, mentally gauging just how large their owner had to be. Maddock measured an easy six foot three, and I was willing to bet with all that muscle he’d pressed up against me earlier that he weighed at least two-twenty. And yet, two and a half of him could probably fill out that arm-chair, with room to spare. “How the hell does a guy like this walk around in public?”

  “Glamour,” Maddock answered, a bite of impatience in his voice. “Both higher and lesser fae learn the skill early on, as our true forms are often…unpalatable to the human eye.”

  I eyed Maddock warily. “Does that include you?” It would be a relief to know that underneath the sexy skin he wore, Maddock actually looked more like a troll.

  A smirk curved his lips for just a moment. “Ye wouldn’t be able to keep yer hands off me if ye saw my true form.”

  “Oh, as-if.” I pushed aside the barrage of images my mind spewed as it tried to figure out what Maddock’s true form looked like. “Let’s get back on track. Why did you say it was a waste of time to come here?”

  “Because witches have wiped the place clean.” Maddock growled, his eyes narrowing again
. “You won’t be able to use your talent to discover anything.”

  I stiffened. “What talent?”

  Maddock rolled his eyes. “Please, Detective. Dinnae be so naïve to think that ye could hide such a thing from me.”

  “Don’t give me that shit.” I propped my fists on my hips and turned to face him. “I don’t believe that you somehow dug up information like that about me. I haven’t told anybody about my talent, not even Tom. I bet you’re bluffing, and you don’t even know what it is.”

  “Ye can see into the past by touching objects,” Maddock said dryly. When I gaped at him, he added, “One of my guards reported seeing ye walking around the club and running yer hands across various surfaces. It didn’t take me long to reach that conclusion.”

  “Hmph.” I still didn’t quite believe that he’d managed to make the leap that quickly, but he was right, so what could I do? “So you’re saying that you don’t think I can find anything here because the place has been wiped clean?”

  “Aye.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I murmured, moving forward to run my fingers across a mahogany tabletop. “I stopped by the motel room where Tom was murdered and that place seemed to have been wiped clean, too. But whoever did it was sloppy, because they missed a spot, and I got a vision.”

  “Did ye?” Maddock stood a little straighter, eyeing me curiously. “What did you see?”

  I told him about the mysterious figure in the trench coat who’d set fire to the place, and he frowned.

  “And yet ye say the room was untouched by fire, and the clerk said there was no such incident?” he asked.

  “That’s right.” I skimmed my fingers over the back of one of the ginormous couches. “Hard to believe, eh?”

  “Very,” Maddock said firmly. “It would take an extraordinary level of skill to burn a motel room to ashes and then reconstruct it. It also sounds like a colossal waste of time and energy. I would have simply placed an illusion to make it appear as if the place had burned, and then once the investigation was over, simply lifted the spell so it would return to normal.”