I clenched my teeth and fought not to react.
“You hear me?”
I nodded. Just barely.
“Don’t try none of that witch bullshit. There are three cops sitting at that table, and if they get the slightest wind something doesn’t seem right, your friend is counting worms.” He leaned closer. “Told you I tried to do this the easy way.”
“Well, I’ve never been easy. What do you want?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what he wanted. Not because of him, but because of Minerva.
Her desire gave me access to everything. Everything he’d done. Everything she’d been through. Everything Annette had suffered since he’d grabbed her outside of the donut shop a few hours ago.
Minerva had been there. She’d tried to warn Nette, but he was keeping too close an eye on her. He forced her to text me instead of doing it himself, which was why the texts didn’t sound like they’d come from a middle-aged male. Unfortunately, she hadn’t seen where he’d put Annette—only that he’d said they’d never find her, and she’d be dead by ten that morning.
What time was it now? Minerva’s fear fed my own, and I fought to stay focused.
“Need your help with a little problem is all. Nothing to get huffy about.” He glanced around. “Now, you’re gonna put money down for the food you ordered, and then we’re gonna get up and walk out of here. You understand?”
I nodded and reached for my purse.
“Slowly,” he whispered through his teeth when I lifted my purse onto the table. “And hand me that phone of yours while you’re at it. Wouldn’t want that pretty boy showing up to our party uninvited.”
No. We wouldn’t want that.
After we left the restaurant, Vogel shoved me into his car and put a bag over my head that smelled like onions. We drove a little while, then he yanked me out, ripped off the bag—thank God, because I was beginning to think I’d never be able to look another onion ring in the eye—and pushed me into his garage.
When he closed it, the door scraped loudly against the rails. Because I didn’t know the city well yet, I had no clue where we were. All I did know was that ten kept flashing in my mind. I had until ten a.m. to find Nette. I racked my brain. Why ten? What happened at ten? It was just a number, and not a particularly scary one.
I blinked the room into focus.
Boxes stacked floor-to-ceiling filled the area with a small corner cleared out. It contained shelves and a deep freeze. Minerva stood in that corner watching us.
Vogel opened the lid to the deep freeze, grabbed my hair, and jerked me closer. Nothing good ever lived in a deep freeze. And I wasn’t wrong.
His wife lay inside, her body frozen, her eyes open and unseeing. Frost crystals had formed on her lashes, around her blue mouth, and over the huge gash in her temple.
“Bring her back,” he demanded, like all I had to do was stand over her and say the word.
Even Gandalf couldn’t bring back this kind of dead. “Mr. Vogel, I can’t just—”
“Uh-uh-uh.” He waved the gun at me. “I already know you’ve done it at least once. Minerva here might not be the brightest, but she’s seen her. That grandmother of yours. Alive and kicking, like they hadn’t just shoveled six feet of dirt on top of her.”
I drew in a deep breath, trying not to throw up. “There are certain things I need.”
“No, ma’am. Not you.” He pointed at me. “You’re different. When my niece couldn’t bring my wife back, she told me all about you, missy.” He hauled Minerva to his side, her face soiled with tears and dirt. “I didn’t believe her at first. Thought she really was simple.” He made the crazy sign at his ear with the barrel of the gun. “Funny thing is, she’s more scared of you than she is of me. But since you seem to care so much about other people . . .” He pointed the gun at Minerva’s head. “Even the stupid ones.”
The sad part was that Minerva really was scared to death of me. I couldn’t see why, exactly. On the other hand, she believed I could save us. Truth was, no one was making it out of this alive, including Annette, if I couldn’t use my powers. I couldn’t read minds, per se, but I could always read people’s intentions. And James Vogel’s were evil. “Where’s Annette?”
“Safe, but not for long. You’ll never find her in time.”
In time. How much time? How close was it to ten? “I can’t do this with the irons on.”
Minerva’s eyes held a hint of encouragement. She really didn’t think the irons would work. Neither did I, but what did I know? I was stalling, trying to come up with a plan.
When he reached over to take them off, I looked at his watch. It read 9:57. Panic closed my throat. What happened at ten?
“And before you even think about trying anything”—he waved the gun at me—“your friend won’t survive the next ten minutes unless I want her to.”
That was a lie. She barely had three.
He stood back and waited, but I didn’t have time to do the same. I said a prayer to whoever would listen, looked at the once vibrant woman in the freezer, and touched her face with my fingertips, asking for her help, for her forgiveness, because I was about to steal whatever energy she had left.
“What’s she doing?” he asked Minerva.
She winced at the bark in his tone. “I don’t know. Her magics are different from mine.”
He looked between his late wife and me. “Why isn’t anything happening?”
“Because she’s frozen,” I lied. “It’ll take time.”
He grabbed my throat, his fingers digging into my jaw, and yanked me closer, until we stood nose-to-nose. “You lie to me, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
“I’m well aware of that, Mr. Vogel,” I ground out. “I just needed you to touch me.”
“What?” He squeezed harder.
My jaw popped, and pain shot through from the roots of my teeth to the tips of my fingers. I worried he was going to break it, but I’d needed him to touch me. I’d needed my skin to come into contact with his for the magic to seep out of me and into him.
His eyes rounded when he felt the magics begin to consume him, and his mouth slowly opened in disbelief. He pulled back, his fingers twisted and frozen in place. They turned a grayish blue as he looked on. He grabbed his wrist and watched in horror as crystals formed on his fingertips and spread through his hand and forearm. “What’s . . . happening?”
“I thought it only appropriate you freeze to death, Mr. Vogel, since your wife was still alive when you put her in here.”
“You . . . you bitch.”
“She sends her regards.”
As ice crystals slowly spread through his body, freezing him from the inside out, I drew the reveal spell on the air. I felt her instantly. Annette. But the terror coursing through her veins fought against the magics. Created a barrier. Made it difficult to pinpoint her location.
Minerva stumbled back as her uncle stiffened before her eyes, crystals sliding up his neck and over his jaw. His gaze darted around wildly, like a cornered animal looking for an escape.
“Minerva.” My own fear made me lose concentration over and over. I squeezed my eyes shut and searched. “Do you have any idea where she would be?”
I heard her whisper, “I’m sorry.”
But I saw something then. Annette buried under uniformly laid boards.
She’d managed to get her blindfold off as she struggled against the nylon ropes tying her hands behind her back, screaming through the gag, her throat raw. She wrestled the rope until her wrists bled.
But this was more than just being bound and gagged. Sheer hysteria had consumed her. Once again, something to do with ten o’clock.
I pulled back on the visual, widening the frame.
She could see through the slats in the floor. A single board missing on her right and a small opening overhead allowed a line of sunlight to cut across her face.
I pulled back even farther and scanned the building for a location, an address to give the chief. And then I saw
it. Exactly where she was.
Vogel had put her in a crawlspace of the old printing factory. A factory set to be demolished at ten a.m. And her time had just run out.
An explosion thundered around her. And then another. And another. A daisy chain of perfectly timed devices designed to go off in a precise sequence to control the fall of the building.
Birds flew out broken windows overheard as the building began to crumble. Smoke and dust billowed out of them. The birds were swallowed by it but they burst out of the ash and scattered before the windows, too, fell to Earth. And, in that instant, Annette stopped.
She stopped struggling.
She stopped screaming.
She stopped crying.
A calmness washed over her, and she let her lids drift shut, knowing she was going to die.
Every cell in my body flooded with adrenaline. The magics surged through me so sharp and so fast, I didn’t have time to think. I drew the first spell that came to mind, thrust it out to her, and held my breath as thousands upon thousands of pounds of rubble began falling around her.
Then I waited. And prayed.
Fifteen
May the bridges I burn light the way.
-Proverb
“I don’t mean to sound like an ingrate, daffodil,” the chief said to me as he examined the frozen corpse laying in James Vogel’s freezer. “But maybe you should stay home for a few days.” He looked at Vogel’s wife and shook his head.
I concurred. “I’m inclined to agree with you.”
“How’re we gonna explain this one, Chief?” the coroner asked. She’d clearly had the day off and used it to rack up some time at the spa. Telltale signs of a mud mask still framed her gorgeous dark face.
“That’s a canister of liquid nitrogen, isn’t it?”
The woman looked at a container of oxygen Vogel kept next to his MIG welder and nodded. “I do believe it is.”
“Freak accident, I’d say.” He turned to me and then glanced at Minerva.
Still huddling in the corner, she’d covered her face with her hands, looking almost as pitiful as her abused fingertips.
“It’s a miracle you girls weren’t caught in the blast when it exploded.”
“It is.” Minerva dropped her hands to her side, her face wary. She probably wasn’t sure what to think of the chief’s willingness to help us.
“Care to explain this?” he asked her.
Her gaze drifted to her aunt, and she hugged herself. “He killed her a couple of weeks ago and had planned on reporting her missing after he went through her papers. She’d inherited some money—a lot of money—but it was being held at a high-security bank vault in Boston. He knew it would take years to get the courts to declare her dead. For him to get access to the box. So, he needed Defiance to bring her back to life so she could get the money out.”
“And then what?” the chief asked. “He was going to kill her again?”
A shiver ran through her. “I don’t know.”
He took off his police issue visor cap and scratched his head. “When did you find all this out?”
“About a week ago. He knew I did magic. At first, he wanted me to figure out how to get to the money. But I have no idea how to do that kind of magic. If it even exists.” She looked at me pleadingly. “I’m so sorry. I knew once he figured out I couldn’t get to the money, he’d kill me. I knew too much. So, I told him . . . I told him what you did for Ruthie and . . .” Her voice cracked,
“Minerva, it’s okay.”
“I wanted to warn you,” she said. “He took my phone and was watching every move I made. I had to pretend to be on his side. I was trying to tell you at the café, but he got suspicious.” She buried her face in her arm, crying into her jacket.
I walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Minerva, who can I call? You need to be with someone.”
She sniffed and shook her head. “No, I’m okay.
“Are your parents in Salem?”
“No, we don’t . . . they don’t talk to me. They think I’ve been possessed by Satan.”
“I beg your pardon.” And then it hit me. “Because you practice witchcraft.” And they obviously practiced witch discrimination.
She nodded as a sob shook her shoulders. “My aunt was the only one who was nice to me. She took me in when my parents kicked me out. I kept telling her it was time I get my own place, but she didn’t want me to move out. I think”—she gazed up at me—“I think she really loved me.”
I pulled her into my arms. “I’m sure she did.” Over her shoulder, I spotted my ride across the street from all the flashing lights—a little flashy himself, leaning all GQ like against his pickup—and had a sudden urge to leave. “Chief, can we go?”
“Sure. I’ll stop by later for an official statement, but this looks pretty cut and dried. Witnesses saw him take you from the café. They alerted my officers there, but you were already gone.”
I led Minera away, but the chief stopped me. “Hey, where’s that fruitcake friend of yours? Your dads said she was missing?”
I smiled. “I’ll tell you when you come by later.”
Minerva saw where we were headed. Or, more to the point, who we were headed toward. “Yeah, I don’t want to be a bother. I’m sure you two need alone time. Can you guys drop me off at a hotel?” She turned to me. “A really cheap one?”
“We can actually. It’s called Ruthie Goode’s Broom and Boarding House.”
Ruthie was going to kill me for bringing home so many strays. First Samuel. Now Minerva. Next the entire population of the Franklin Park Zoo.
“Are you sure?” she asked, hesitant.
There was no way I was about to leave her alone. She was heartbroken and traumatized. Odds were, someone in Vogel’s family—maybe even Minerva’s jackhole parents—would get his house. I’d have to make sure to take her back so she could grab her things before the vultures descended, but for now, she needed rest. And maybe a manicure. “I’m positive. We’ll get you sorted, love. I just want you safe for now, okay?”
“Thank you.”
“Ms. Dayne,” Roane said when we got to his truck, looking exceptionally tasty in his hoodie.
“Mr. Wildes.”
He eyed me with a combination of lust and wicked intent. “Do you just start shit wherever you go?”
“’Parently.”
Back at the house, I smelled food the minute we walked inside. Before I got to any of the said food, however, Percy blocked my path. I grinned and waited as a vine covered in little black rosebuds slid around my wrist. I hugged it to me. “Thank you, Percy. This is Minerva.”
She watched him, mesmerized as he shrank back and let us through.
I kissed my dads—who wanted the whole story right now, missy, asking what the hell happened and why didn’t I call, then told me I was grounded forever and a day.
I told them that was a very long time. But that was fine, as long as I got to serve my punishment in bed with Roane.
After promising a show-and-tell of everything that had gone down, I took Minerva upstairs, grabbed some clothes for her, and showed her to a bedroom. “You’ll have to share a bathroom with my dads when they’re here, but they have amazing taste. You’ll love their shampoo.”
She laughed softly and promised to be down for something to eat after a shower.
I went back to my room. The suitcase I’d started to pack earlier still lay open on my bed. It’d been a while since I slept on that bed, what with the kitchen floor being so available and nearby. I was just starting to put my clothes away when a wolf knocked on my open door.
He stood at the threshold, arms crossed over the magnificent expanse of his chest. “I hope you were planning on saying goodbye this time.”
“What?” I couldn’t think while his biceps drew my attention away from the fact that I needed to breathe.
“If you’ve made up your mind to leave”—he stalked toward me, each step full of purpose, his powerful stare raking over every
inch of me—“I’m going to fight tooth and nail to change it.”
He didn’t stop until he had me in his arms. He bent his head and kissed me but didn’t close his eyes. He kept them locked on mine, his olive-green irises like cut glass. He was so perfect. A perfect fit. A perfect face. A perfect body. If he weren’t mentally unstable, he’d be 100 percent. But how else could one explain his attraction to me? The man clearly needed to be medicated.
I pulled back when he pulled back. “That was fighting dirty.”
“We wolves do that.” His smirk cut straight to my nethers and rested there awhile. “We like to get dirty.” He ran a large hand over my ass and pulled me against his erection as his other hand sought out one of the girls. Brushing a thumb over my nipple, he deepened the kiss, exploring my mouth with his tongue.
Sadly, after a moment, he stopped. “Is it working?”
At that point, everything was definitely working, and I was certain he could give me an orgasm just by talking to me, his voice smooth and rich and succulent like nectar And he smoldered. For the first time in my life, I had a man who actually smoldered. All those romance novels made so much more sense now.
He slid a hand around to the front of my jeans, but I stopped him. “No way. My turn.”
I ran my hand over the front of his kilt. The kilt. The glorious kilt. And the glorious what was underneath the kilt. The thin leather allowed my hand to mold to his erection. And mold it did.
He sucked in a soft breath and backed me against the bed.
Just as I was really getting into it—nope, that was a lie, I was already soooo very into it—a screech came from out in the hall.
What in the seventh level of hell?
A massive black bird flew into the room. It dive-bombed me three times. And if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was trying to peck my eyes out.
Shouting, I swatted at it. “Friends don’t peck friends’ eyes out. It’s a cardinal rule. As old as time itself.” Even if it was a crow and not a cardinal.
I swatted again when it had another go, ripping a few strands of my hair out.
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