American Witch

by Thea Harrison

  She stared into his glittering gaze. “Truth is, I wouldn’t be so eager to leave if I didn’t have to.”

  “And I wouldn’t be so eager to see you go,” he muttered. He grasped her by the hips and pushed her away. “That doesn’t do either of us any good. This isn’t goodbye. I need to get the rest of the relocation money to you.”

  She pulled his T-shirt back into place with hands that still shook. “What were you thinking?”

  He glanced around again, hard face wary. “Meet me in New Orleans weekend after next. We’ll transfer funds then.”

  Her stupid heart, which had been languishing in a gutter, rose up and began a Gene Kelly tap dance. “You sure you can get away?”

  That brought his attention back. There was a banked heat in his expression that made her feel weightless, not quite connected to her surroundings. In that moment, they were the only two things that existed in the world. “I can get there safely. Just be sure that you do.”

  “I’m headed out now. I have a full tank of gas, and I’m not looking back.”

  He rubbed his thumb along her lower lip. “Drive the speed limit. Your new license may have a different name, but the police have your photo. If you get in an accident or get stopped, you’ll be charged with a felony.”

  She heaved a sigh. “That’s one of the things I love about you. You’re such a bundle of sunshine and joy. You must have been a shih tzu in a former life.”

  An unwilling smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. It vanished a moment later. Pushing back the edges of his suit jacket, he rested his hands on his hips. “Remember, without serious training, your power will remain undisciplined. Don’t be surprised when it leaks out in new and unusual ways. Self-discipline and meditation will help to calm it down, but mostly you need a teacher. You need to find someone.”

  “I’m already working on it,” she said steadily.

  What flashed across his features? Jealousy? Possessiveness? Whatever it was, she was pretty sure she shouldn’t feel quite as good about it as she did.

  “You’ll never find anyone else who can teach you the things I can,” he said. His voice had deepened and grew quieter. Sexy.

  It was a good thing there wasn’t a bed nearby or she might have collapsed into it. She swallowed hard. Whispered, “You’re going to miss the shit out of me.”

  He didn’t have many tells, but he had one big one—that muscle in the hard line of his jaw when it bunched. “Text me tonight when you decide to stop,” he growled. “I want to know where you’re staying and how you’re doing.”

  She nodded. “You text me when you make it back to the office.”

  “I will.” He muttered something under his breath and swooped in for another fierce kiss. Then he bent to pick up the bag and thrust the strap into her hand. “Go, damn it.”

  Turning, she strode back to the Subaru. This time she was the one who walked away, but she still felt raw and empty, like she was leaving a vital organ behind. Setting the bag on the passenger seat, she climbed in the driver’s side and buckled her seat belt as she looked back at the path.

  He still stood there, watching. Somehow she knew he wouldn’t leave until she did. Lifting one hand, she started the car, pulled out, and drove away without a backward glance.

  This isn’t goodbye, he had muttered. Although it should be.

  The sensation of Josiah’s mouth lingered as she drove through the city streets. It only faded when she reached Interstate 20.

  She had a week and a half to get to New Orleans, which meant she had time to kill. And she had a teacher to find. Should she check the centers of the Elder Races demesnes? That would take a huge amount of driving since they were scattered all over the US.

  She ran through all seven demesnes in her mind. The seat of the Wyrkind demesne was in New York City, the Elven demesne in Charleston, and the Dark Fae’s demesne was centered in Chicago.

  There was also the Light Fae demesne in Los Angeles. Demonkind, like the Wyr and Nightkind, consisted of several different types of creatures that included goblins and Djinn. Their seat was based in Houston. The Nightkind, including Vampyres, controlled the San Francisco/Bay Area and the Pacific Northwest, while the human witches demesne was based in Louisville.

  She knew from her research that witches were considered part of the Elder Races due to their command of magical Power. Heading for that demesne would make the most sense, but the dream woman had told her to follow the signs.

  As she approached the entrance ramps, the westering sunlight hit a bank of clouds just right and illuminated a feathery line of fiery light. Well, damn if that didn’t look remarkably like an arrow. It pointed straight toward the setting sun.

  “Okay,” she murmured. “I’ll take that as my first sign. West it is.”

  Josiah texted as promised when he had returned to the office. All is well here. You?

  She sent him a smiley face.

  Don’t speed, he had said. That was harder to do than she had at first thought. She set the cruise control and let the Subaru take over, watching the mileage gauge and taking note of each milepost as it passed.

  Fifty miles away.

  Seventy-five miles away.

  A hundred.

  When she crossed into Alabama, she thought, I may not know where I’m going, but I do know one thing. I no longer live in Georgia. That thought set wings to her mood.

  Originally she had intended to drive only far enough to cross the state line, then look for a motel, but when she crossed over, she changed her mind.

  It had cost so much to get to this point, and she had worked so hard. She couldn’t quit now. She stopped only once to fill her gas tank and go through a drive-through. When she grew too tired to drive safely, well past dusk, she stopped at a motel.

  As she turned off the car, exhaustion settled in. Using one of her prepaid Visa cards and her new driver’s license, she checked in. There was only one awkward moment when she needed to sign her name and she had to check her license first. (Felicia Johnston? Really?) But the sleepy desk clerk had turned away to swipe the card, so he didn’t notice.

  Ten minutes later, she carried the bag Josiah had packed for her into a cool, dark room. After latching the security chain, she dumped the contents onto the bed. Clothes, a toiletries bag, and the manila folder with the rest of her personal documents tumbled out.

  She set the manila folder aside to explore later and looked through the clothes. Nothing was expensive, but he had a good eye and had picked things that would look nice on her.

  He had also thought of details like a small travel bottle of mouthwash, a stick of organic ChapStick, a woman’s deodorant, and a razor. Feeling warmed, she touched the short black nightgown and matching robe. They were tastefully simple with a small edge of lace around the border.

  Her phone chimed. She checked the screen.

  Josiah: Check in, damn it.

  Everything’s fine, she replied. I just checked into a motel, and I’m going through the bag.

  You must be tired. You pushed it late.

  Once I started, I couldn’t stop. She wanted to hear his voice, and her thumb hovered over the Call button.

  Before she could make up her mind, he texted, Get some rest, and check in tomorrow night.

  Of course, it was late for him as well, and he had been pulling double duty ever since she’d called after Austin’s attack. Reluctantly, she replied, Will do. Have a good night.

  You too.

  Heaviness weighed her down. She was too tired to shower or take the tags off the clothes, so she brushed her teeth and climbed into the strange bed. Despite how badly she needed to rest, she felt naked and exposed without the basement’s protection spells. It took her some time before she could fall asleep.

  The next day she left shortly after dawn and stopped only for food and fuel and to make a quick stop at a pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test kit.

  The odds were vastly against it. It was ridiculous to think she might be pregnant after missing
one pill. Worse than ridiculous to hope for it.

  But when she thought of her rage and pain when she’d considered the childless bedrooms in that big, soulless house, she knew she would welcome a pregnancy if she was gifted with one. The timing couldn’t be more horrendous. Still, she wanted it with all her heart.

  She didn’t see any cosmic signs urging her to go in another direction, so she continued to New Orleans and arrived later that morning.

  The weather had turned warmer, and there was just something about the scarred, beautiful city that spoke to her. The crooked streets of the French Quarter were steeped in a very old Power that was gracious and deadly. It whispered at the edge of her mind, You may visit, but leave me alone.

  Respectful of the warning, and more than a little freaked out, Molly did nothing to seek it out. After walking through the French Quarter, she checked into a motel.

  That evening she was happy to leave contact with Josiah to a simple text. Apparently he felt the same. After their brief exchange, she read the instructions on the pregnancy kit and realized she needed to wait a few more days before trying to take it.

  Nobody knew where she was. There was nothing she needed to do. Nowhere she needed to go. No crisis that she needed to avert. Everything caught up with her. Everything everything everything.

  She went to bed. Aside from a brief exchange of texts with Josiah and leaving her motel room when hunger drove her to find food, she slept for three days.

  On the morning of the fourth, her brain and soul rebooted. She was hungry, well rested, and her body had rid itself of the last of the residual aches from the attack.

  It had been over a week since she and Josiah had made love. Waiting ten days would have been better—or even waiting to see if she missed her period, but she couldn’t make herself wait any longer.

  She went into the motel bathroom, unboxed the pregnancy test, and reread the instructions.

  It was simple enough. She had to pee on a stick and wait for the results.

  She took care of business, sat on the floor, set an alarm on the phone, and closed her eyes.

  Concentrate on your breathing.

  Four-seven-eight. Stay calm.

  There’s less than a ten percent chance. You know you’re not pregnant. It was just the perfectly bad timing and how it all came together…

  You’re only doing the responsible thing by making sure.

  The alarm shrilled in the silent bathroom, making her pulse kick. She held up the stick.

  The sight of the + sign hit her like a roundhouse punch. As she stared at it, the world shook around her.

  After a while, she flushed the rest of her birth control pills down the toilet, showered and dressed, and headed out. Sure, the result of the test was a shock, but… she felt good about it. Really good.

  More than that, she felt eager. Every minute, every mile, every new experience took her further away from the unhappiness of her past, and she wanted all of it. She went exploring, listened to jazz music, ate seafood gumbo.

  Then she took a walking tour through the Garden District and bought new clothes that Austin and her mother would have hated and the clever, wealthy residents of their neighborhood would have labeled as regrettably flamboyant, but that she loved.

  Tie-dyed dresses, organic cottons, midriff shirts, soft things with color that breathed and flowed with her body. Previously, her chic jewelry had been worth tens of thousands of dollars. Now she bought sterling silver bangles and dangly earrings with moons and stars.

  She painted her fingernails and toenails a dark blue, wove small braids into her hair, and for the first time in her life tried eyeliner. After some practice, she managed to create wings that gave the familiar bones of her face an exotic slant.

  And when she looked in the mirror, she whispered to the miniscule fetus, “You’re beautiful.”

  The next day, she met a handsome musician who tried everything he could to get her to sleep with him. While she appreciated his enthusiasm—and let’s face it, you’ve got to love a man who’s willing to work hard for what he wants—she laughingly turned him down.

  But for the space of one evening, she danced with him and felt the heat of her healthy body moving gracefully on a sultry night. They argued about politics and religion while she watched the too-long blond hair flop on his forehead and appreciated his sinewy beauty without feeling the slightest desire to have him.

  After staying up all night and eating beignets together before saying goodbye, she took a walk to the Saint Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square and thought to herself, This is what happiness feels like.

  I’m happy.

  She’d never said those words before with such simple purity. Always before, she had felt cramped, incomplete, and anxious, like her happiness existed on the edge of a precipice and she could lose it any moment.

  Now, for the first time, she expanded. As she did, she felt her Power grow. It lay curled on itself like a dreaming beast, as if it allowed her this respite to heal and find her footing before it woke to demand the rest of her life.

  But she had to meet with Josiah first.

  What was she going to say to him? What if the test had come back with false results? Was that possible? Most pregnancy kits came with two applications, so she tested herself again. This time, as she stared at the + sign, she knew it was accurate. She could feel the knowledge rising up from her Power.

  I’m not going to tell him, she thought with complete and passionate certainty as she threw the test stick away. He didn’t ask for this either—and he certainly wouldn’t welcome the news if I shared it.

  Forty-five minutes later, she did a one-eighty with as much certainty and passion as the first decision. He deserved to know the truth whether he welcomed it or not. He had the right to know he was about to become a father again.

  Five hours later, she knew she couldn’t tell him. He lived a hard, dangerous life, and he made hard, dangerous decisions. Giving him the news could split his attention and lead him to make a fatal mistake.

  Flip: It wasn’t her place to look out for him. He wouldn’t welcome that, and she didn’t want to do it. She would tell him. She was sure she would.

  By the time Friday came and he texted her with his plans, her reawakened body remembered how much she wanted him, and her mind blew every which way like a weather vane in the middle of a hurricane.

  She had no idea what she was going to do. The only thing she knew for certain was that Josiah would be flying in to NOLA that evening.

  And over the weekend she was either going to serve him up a hefty dose of the truth or feed him a terrible lie.

  * * *

  Josiah had no fucking business flying to NOLA.

  He could overnight a cashier’s check to wherever she was staying—or several cashier’s checks, as it were, each one under ten thousand dollars to avoid triggering whatever bank she used into sending a report to the IRS.

  Worse, he had no intention of telling his coven. He and Richard butted heads too much already, and he didn’t want to deal with any of the objections he knew they would hammer him with.

  So he told them he needed to take a few days off after the drama and energy expenditure of the past few weeks. They accepted that readily enough. They could all use a weekend for some R & R.

  Then Josiah Mason booked a flight to the Bahamas for the long holiday weekend. Close to the same flight times and under another name, he booked a weekend trip to NOLA.

  As he laid his plans with damnable intention, the workweek smoldered to an end. Anson continued conducting intensive research on anyone that looked likely to be involved with their quarry. Richard joined them in Atlanta to see if he could catch anyone tailing Josiah. So far, he’d come up with nothing.

  The police discovered Rodriguez had filed Molly’s divorce before she died. After returning to Sherman & Associates with the appropriate warrant, they confiscated everything from Austin’s office.

  The Friday morning after Molly left, Frank Williams, t
he lead detective, briefed Josiah on the latest on the investigation. In the confiscated files, they found papers on how to set fires using the same techniques that had been used on Rodriguez’s house and office. Meanwhile, Molly’s face and name were in the news almost nightly, but the exposure drew no credible leads on her current whereabouts.

  “It appears more and more likely that Sullivan might have done something to his wife,” Frank told him in a face-to-face. “Unless or until we uncover any new evidence that says otherwise, the whole crime looks like a revenge killing gone wrong.”

  Josiah tapped his lower lip as he listened. Someone had gift wrapped what had happened and put a bow on it. “Papers on how to commit arson in his office? Pretty damn obvious, don’t you think?”

  “I’m just reporting on what we found. Not offering a commentary.” The detective gave him a cynical smile.

  It did not suit Josiah to have this go quietly into a cold-case file. “That theory doesn’t explain what happened to Sullivan’s BMW. Why would he sign the divorce papers only to kill Rodriguez and bomb her office later?”

  “He let his wife take him to the cleaners.” Frank shrugged. “So he might have changed his mind?”

  “You’re right, there’s motive,” Josiah murmured, watching him closely. “The settlement was for a lot of money.”

  The other man scratched his chin. “But yeah, you’ve got me on the car. We don’t have a reason for it, and according to the timeline, his car blew first. Could he really have been such a fuckup that he accidentally blew up his own car, then got himself killed later that night? I also don’t like that we haven’t found the wife, so we’ve got to keep digging.”

  “Do you see her as a suspect?”

  “At this point, there’s nothing to indicate that,” Frank said. “She might be up for torching his car—because by all accounts he was a cheating asshole—but she already had him. And she had absolutely no motive for killing her lawyer. She met her real estate agent at the house that Saturday night, and she hasn’t been seen since. She was staying at an Airbnb and she just vanished. The owner contacted us when she saw the news. Molly Sullivan’s possessions were still in the apartment—her personal papers, clothes, a laptop, and her new car was parked outside with a box full of mementos. And at the house, the trash cans had been knocked around and there was a pile of bedding left outside. When you put it together, it looks like she was taken against her will.”