by Jamie Magee
“Oh, and you’re the good guy? You gonna protect me from the big bad lawmen?”
“I’m going to protect the truth. I’m telling you if you know something, telling me would be a wise thing to do.”
Reveca’s gaze moved to the charred home, memories, good memories, assaulted her where she stood. Right then, even though she could clearly hear GranDee’s voice telling her she needed to learn to trust—Reveca couldn’t find the will to do so. “You and I may share a date of grief, but that doesn’t mean I will suddenly start trusting lawmen. You want to make me a friend, solve that murder,” Reveca said as she roared her bike to life.
Mathis stepped back, even grinned slightly as Reveca peeled away.
It was a shame, Reveca thought to herself. He was one of the good ones, and because he was, his department was going to bury him. There was no way they were going to let him charge the real murderer of this crime. They’d bury whatever evidence that pointed to Holden as deep as possible, then do just as Mathis warned; they’d do their best to pin this on Reveca or at the very least the Sons.
Chapter Three
That conversation with Mathis had set Reveca far too behind on her limited time schedule. The sun was setting before she pulled out of GranDee’s property. Even with her running near a hundred down the back highways, night had fallen by the time she reached the long road that led to the Boneyard.
She could see the convoy of bikes coming in her direction. She stopped in the middle of the road and waited for them. Long before they reached her, Talon broke away from the pack and soared to her. The others brought their bikes to an idle a few hundred feet back from Talon and Reveca.
“I’ve been calling you,” Talon said as he looked over her.
“Busy.”
“With?”
“New lawman. He was at GranDee’s.”
“Gonna be trouble?”
Reveca shook her head.
“You ready for this?”
“Yeah. I will be by the time you’re there. They fix that light pole?” Reveca asked, looking down the road. She couldn’t see the utility trucks anymore but that didn’t mean they weren’t around the next bend in the road, trying to look like they were legit fixing another pole.
“When we came back this afternoon I stopped and had a chat, asked the boss man how long he’d been on the force.” Talon chuckled. “They left an hour or so ago. Doing this tonight is our best shot. They will come up with another cover before long.” He gave her a wink then pulled away.
Reveca didn’t move forward until the other bikes had passed. Then she made her way to the Boneyard.
Even more bikes were pulling out by then, some going in the same direction, others in the opposite.
The lot was full with more bikes, more riders. The grills were going, music was playing, and the crowd was massive.
Reveca parked her bike, made her way through the crowd, giving hugs and smiles, even stopping to have a few short words with those who had been around a while. She was making sure she was seen. She even got onstage in the lounge, told everyone she had several kegs of beer she didn’t want to go to waste, asked who wanted to help her with that. Obviously she received a good response, several hollers and cheers. She nodded for the band to take over, then made her way out of the lounge and to the main house.
She raced up the stairs to the second floor and came to a sliding halt when she saw King sitting on the floor outside Gwinn’s room like a pit bull ready to defend his own.
His grim look was hard to read.
“She okay?”
King glanced up, not willing to repeat what he said earlier.
Reveca shook her head. “I’ll deal with it in just a bit.”
She speed-walked down to her room and ducked inside. She pushed the door to where it was nearly closed, then with a wave of her energy she jerked the area rug up and to the side, baring a massive pentagram painted in red on the floor.
From the bottom of her dresser drawer she pulled out candles and placed them around points and with one thought lit them all.
Right as she was about to sit in the center, Red’s voice came across her phone. “Dinner’s ready.”
Reveca cursed as she stood and made her way to one of the front rooms to look out.
Blackwater. He had pulled up just inside the lot and parked. Several of the bikers were crowded around his car, doing their part as a distraction. When one of them managed to get Blackwater to take a beer, Reveca convinced herself she had time for this spell.
When she reached her doorway King was leaning in it, staring inside with his hands shoved in his pockets like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“You want to guard that door, then guard it from the inside,” Reveca said, pushing past him.
To her surprise he did step in, did close the door behind him.
“This is supposed to feed her?” he asked when Reveca sat down in the center of the pentagram and did her best to calm herself. Knowing Blackwater was outside, that at any second their distraction could be shattered, was not helping her.
That hum wasn’t either. One thought she told herself to pull it to her, absorb it, use it like she owned it; the next reminded her that act would make her feel somewhere between guilty and weak.
“No, this is supposed to help save another witchling along with a Rouge and a few addicts…it’s supposed to ensure that the Sons kill enough sick bastards that I can pay Crass for his silence. You know, since you’re in hiding and all.”
King nearly smiled but decided not to. “You’re trying to manifest somewhere.”
“Manifest and mask, yes, and you are a distraction at this point. The Sons are surely almost there by now.”
“You think you have enough energy to do that?” King asked.
“I would have a lot more if you were not pulling raw emotion out of me,” she spat back.
“Raw ones, huh?”
“King,” Reveca said as she closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. She could feel him staring at her, every single place those eyes of his moved, and it was beyond distracting.
Right as she was going to tell him to get the hell out, she felt a surge of energy encase her. She opened her eyes slightly; he was standing just before the pentagram, staring down. The mark began to glow, shine with the energy he was somehow giving it.
Reveca’s chest started to rise and fall rapidly. He’d told her he had depleted energy, made it seem as if he was weak, so weak that whatever God that had taken him before could not find him, but what he was saying and doing wasn’t adding up. He was displaying the amount of energy Reveca had when she was well nourished, maybe more so.
Carefully he walked around the barrier. The next thing she felt was him sit down behind her, pull her between his legs.
The lights in the room extinguished, the flames on the candles stretched inches into the air dancing with the singe of power Reveca could feel popping all around her.
It had been a long time since she had felt that invincible. That wasn’t the only thing she felt—outright want was assaulting her. So much that she almost thought she had been spelled to lust again, but that thought left as soon as it came. This felt different. She was far too clear minded, had too much guilt for that want to be anything but hers.
King slid his hands carefully down her bare arms, and she felt his breath on her neck. “Manifest, my sweet.”
Right then a surge of energy encased Reveca, a surge so powerful she almost let her destination slip from her mind.
The next instant she was on the rooftop across the street from Gaither.
She couldn’t help the grin that burst from her lips. Normally she’d feel a bit wobbly after a move like that, enough so that it would take her a second to gain a clear thought then pull enough energy together to move on with her next goal.
Not this time, though. This time she felt unshakable.
In the distance she could hear the rumble of bikes. Her focus remained on the building, then all at once
she thrust a net of her energy around the building, the streets all around it, even down the path the bikes were about to take.
It was a shield. To anyone else that building would look exactly the same. They wouldn’t see or hear anything that was about to go down. In this neighborhood she doubted many would talk freely if they did see something, but she had no way of knowing if the lawmen were onto this spot, too, if they were watching it. If they were, they’d see nothing, just another boring stakeout.
Reveca prowled the rooftop. She was anxious for this to go down. Seconds later she saw her boys. They turned right into that shield she had waiting on them. Forty bikes and two vans.
Whoever was in that building wasn’t getting out without going through them.
Talon was first, Judge at his side. Judge would make the call. Once he saw all he needed in the ones they came across, Talon would lay them down, one shot between the eyes, a soul that would be gift wrapped for Crass at a later time. If Judge knew there was more inside their minds that he couldn’t reach, they’d let that one live, take him somewhere else to pull out the information.
Thrash and Thames were hip to hip right after Talon and Judge, the same game plan with them, only they would move in another direction. The others would either back them up or begin the search for the victims.
Right as Reveca heard the first shot, when she grinned with that victory, she felt a wave of energy next to her. Before she even glanced that way she rolled her eyes.
“We’re giving you your Rouge.”
Zale was now sitting on the edge of the roof, leaned back with his arms crossed like he didn’t have care in the world, as if the gunshots that were coming one after the other were nothing more than a loud radio he had to contend with.
His grey eyes moved down Reveca nice and slow. “You’ve tapped into something.”
“Not yet. They’re getting as much information as they can. I don’t have any leads on Evanthe.”
“I meant power.”
Reveca looked sharply to her side at him.
“I came here to help you, figured with the two of us we could cover the entire building, maybe the streets and alleys. Lull all the mortals so they would not sense a thing.”
“I did that without you.”
He let out a dark chuckle. “Darling, you masked and lulled the entire block. I nearly struggled to get through.”
Reveca glanced all around her noticing exactly how far her energy had reached, realizing that she had placed a dome over her, a protective one…or rather someone had.
“So powerful that she can’t even gauge it,” Zale said with purse of his lips.
“Fuck off.”
“We can. Can’t say that a woman has ever satisfied me quite the way you do…something about that resistance, how you never really give in that made it all the hotter, wetter.”
“You hear that gunshot? The man behind that gun would shred you if he heard you say that.”
“I may love my suits, and having to mend a bullet hole in one might tick me off a bit, but that is hardly a threat. Man? Ha. You pulled every dark essence you could into that mortal when you changed him. Talon has it all, every single element of the unexplainable. The fire of a Phoenix, the beast of nature, the feeder who devours the essence of life, the shifter that can not only change in an instant but carries brute strength.”
Talon did have all that in him, but he was well practiced at managing it. He didn’t like to shift, and hadn’t in centuries. The beast, he could control it. The bird, it brought him back to life, feeding on energy—they all did that.
“And yet you dare to cross him.”
“I adore Talon. Man needs a medal for putting up with you.”
“Oh, so I’m a good fuck and nothing else?”
Before Zale could answer he tensed, as if some unseen force had assaulted him.
“Yeah…” he grunted. “You’ve tapped into a power.”
“Even if I had, it’s none of your damn business.”
“You don’t want to share?”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“We don’t have to be at war, Reveca.”
“Yeah, well, until you stop making Rouges that’s where we’ll stay.”
“I only bring back those that deserve it these days, too many bad choices in the past.”
“We all have those,” Reveca said, returning her stare to the Gaither building.
The shots were slowing down, the van doors were opened. She could see Echo and Thames handing over limp bodies to other bikers who were carrying them to the vans.
“Once we find Evanthe, we should discuss our boundaries,” Zale said.
“You mean you’re surrendering. You will let me walk you quietly into the sweet surrender of death?”
“If it was so sweet neither of us would have avoided it thus far.” He tilted his head. “But I might hand deliver a few less promising Rouges over for domain over a section of your Edge.”
“Ah, so you hand me a few that have pissed you off and I give you a section of the Edge so you can bring even more back, without any effort.”
He shrugged. “If I had my own section of the Edge, then I would know if they were genuine before I brought them back. I could keep them there for a while, observe them. If it didn’t work, no harm no foul, and no mortals suffer.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind,” Reveca said right as the van doors closed, as she saw all the Sons come out and mount their bikes.
“You want your Rouge? You’re in the wrong place.”
Zale grinned then vanished.
Reveca waited for the Sons to leave the shield she had around this block and move a good mile past that point before she let the shield drop.
From then on she focused her mind on the drop point, and without any effort she found herself on the side of a dirt road, a turn off on a stretch of highway that wasn’t traveled often.
Zale didn’t appear until a few seconds later.
He laughed when he found Reveca in place. “Now you’re just showing off.”
Reveca didn’t smile, though she wanted to. Without King’s help she would have had to move herself back to her home, find her center, then concentrate and move again. Which is surely what Zale had to do.
On second thought, she was wishing she did have to make a pit stop between one place and the other. It would take the Sons a bit to get to her, which meant she was stuck alone with Zale.
“You know, that glow, this power you have. It’s downright nostalgic.”
Reveca crossed her arms and stared down the road, had all of her senses stretched out looking for her boys.
“Yes, that is the best word to describe it. It takes me back to when you were a little witchling finding her own place.” Zale chuckled. “That was one of my favorite times in existence. So much change, so much opportunity.” He stared at Reveca for a moment before he spoke again. “Those armies marching into the village had a grand effect. Made us all feel empowered, protected.” Zale started to slowly circle her. He was giving her a wide enough berth that she didn’t feel threatened, though.
“Little Reveca, nothing had a chance to die with you around.” He laughed. “You would take every flower from the banquet tables and rush them to the water banks, give them a new life—you glowed. Nature bowed to you.”
He hesitated before he went on. “One glance from that Kenson and all of that would intensify. I was sure the pair of you would have been caught long before you were. Then they murdered him, offered him up as a sacrifice to the God they feared. That sure as hell killed that light you were.”
Reveca shot a harsh look in his direction.
“Still a sore topic?” he asked with a raised brow. “As smart and as brave as that man was, I still cannot figure out why he decided to bend to your father’s will. Surely he knew by then that your daddy cared more about his omens than young hearts.
“Ah the memories…you scared everyone back then. The little witchling showing too much potential fo
r her own good, which didn’t occur until that army arrived, until Kenson arrived. It wasn’t hard for them to sort the coincidences. They were certain he was going to take over the entire coven. No one wanted a brute warrior and a child controlling their legacy.” He looked deep into Reveca’s eyes. “Surly you have questioned if that bullet was friendly fire?”
“What gunfire is ever friendly?”
Zale laughed sinfully, his way of agreeing. “Right, and then poor Reveca, the resurrector of all flowers couldn’t bring him back. No, instead she was imprisoned. What power she did have could only be used in the Edge while the living moved on, had a party if I remember correctly. I wonder sometimes late at night if they were truly celebrating a coupling or if they were just relieved that the warrior and child were no longer a threat to all that they deemed right.”
Murderous, that was the only way to explain the expression strapped across Reveca’s visage. “You have said and done a lot of things which are far beneath your birth, but accusing our coven of slaughter is by far the lowest.”
“Not accusing, just offering a different point of view. You do with it what you will.” He stepped closer to her. “I’d be careful if I were you though, Reveca.”
“You threatening me?”
“No, I’m telling you that eighteen of those that were there the day your prison was born, the day your warrior was slain, are still round and about in that coven. You still converse with them daily. Imagine the fear they would have if they noticed what I have. Do you think they would let your happiness live this time?” Zale narrowed his stare on her. “Or would they ensure you destroyed yourself once more. Rob you from the power that chose you—that thrives within you?”