Witch Interrupted

by Wallace, Jody

  “Umm,” Tonya said salaciously. “Are you sure about this? You should consider the benefits of getting this sex thing out of your system. Marcus is ideal, and it’s obvious he has the hots for you.”

  “He kidnapped me and threatened to slit my throat.”

  “You knew he wouldn’t hurt you. You loved every minute of it.”

  Katie rubbed her forehead. “There are more important things at stake than my love life. How did you find me?”

  “Had to call a guy about a dog,” Tonya said gruffly. Her lips pinched with annoyance. “We’ll pay for it soon enough.”

  Katie would get the details of that, she was sure, but right now they had a duty. “Did you bring the poppy memory blend?”

  Her friend sighed. “You’re a wet blanket to end all wet blankets.” But she’d already agreed with the wisdom of wiping Marcus once. “Zhang Li brought it. Stubborn old man. If you insist on doing this, I suppose I have to fetch him.”

  * * *

  “Scrub your hands,” Katie barked at her father and Tonya as soon as they returned to the trailer. “Give me the poppy mix. We don’t have much time.”

  Katie heard the water in the sink gush. She dropped to her knees at Marcus’s side. His face didn’t have that peaceful, relaxed expression like when he’d been faking sleep. His floors—his whole trailer—were neat as a pin, but Marcus himself was a mess.

  She wrestled his pepper-sprayed shirt over his head and ran a wet washcloth over his face. Mixes that weren’t oil-based washed away easier. She wiped his neck and hair too, then each finger on his elegant hands, trying not to think how recently one of them had been between her legs. She traded the cloth for another and touched up his arms. The cayenne mix wouldn’t skew the wipe, but it might complicate it.

  She didn’t want to do this spell. Didn’t want to risk a life wipe with three witches. But they had to try. Marcus’s discovery of them could get them all killed. Lars would never rest until she was dead—until they were all dead.

  Marcus might have honest chi and captivating fingers, but he couldn’t control the future. The longer Katie let him coax her, the more she’d want to believe in his cause.

  She couldn’t afford causes. She had a family to protect.

  “Come on, come on.” She motioned for the other two to join her. Not even Dad argued, though he muttered under his breath about arthritis as he knelt beside the prone man. “Don’t stop me if it feels like I’m pulling out your fingernails. The power drain’s going to hurt.” It wouldn’t be easy struggling through the next couple days on empty, but they were out of options.

  Marcus hadn’t left them any—not any reasonable ones. Avoiding tomorrow’s patrol was one thing. Avoiding the keepers was another. Marcus had been deliberately vague, but how close on his muscular, well-shaped tail was their mutual enemy?

  “You make it sound lovely,” Tonya said. Neither she nor Dad hesitated to give Katie full access to their reserves. She could sense them opening up to her.

  She’d be the focal, the spell wielded by her. She’d be the one doing this to Marcus, who seemed to be a wolf who didn’t deserve it.

  He was different. She wished she could trust him. Keep him. And other things. To him, she’d said yes and would say it again given half the chance.

  No. She couldn’t think like that. Not safe, not safe at all.

  Katie unceremoniously dumped the baggie’s contents on Marcus’s bare chest. They all stuck their hands in the mixture, fingertips touching. Dad grumbled. The cayenne was a hot burn on her skin.

  “Here goes.” No time for delicacy. Katie opened up and poured all the energy inside her into Marcus.

  The considerable torrent she mustered ripped the magic out of her father and Tonya like a tornado splintering a barn. Tonya squawked. Dad cussed some more. The three of them had never joined in a spell this urgent. Katie hoped they wouldn’t pass out, but she’d need everything they possessed for a chance of making this work.

  She centered on the poppy mixture, forcing magic through the organic particles and crowbarring open Marcus’s spirit. The world blanked out, and she was inside him.

  He didn’t want her here. She knew that. But they never did.

  His sense of self and his memories leaped into being around her, an endless, many-dimensioned jigsaw of experiences and sensations, thoughts and impressions. As far as she could see, his life lay before her, hazed by a faint layer of poppy. She didn’t like going in with him asleep, but she’d have to compensate.

  Katie took threads of power and dove. She soon remembered the routine, searching out the pieces of Marcus’s life that needed to be tweaked. She couldn’t interpret them like pictures or videos. She had to sense them. Find the parts of him that were witch and erase them.

  Take his life away from him.

  There. And there. Those parts. Katie nudged him, rearranging his substance. Changing his memories to keep witches hidden. It had never before seemed so unethical. Every slice of his essence she manipulated felt like a hook in her stomach, gutting her with wrongness. Her ears rang as she drained herself too quickly.

  The skeins of power thinned…wisps in her grasp. This shouldn’t be happening so soon! She should have added more cayenne. She had to have more magic. But where?

  Could she get it from him? Desperate, she probed his essence, seeking the magic he claimed was no different than hers. The force that allowed him to change from wolf to man.

  There it was, the lattice. Instead of a soft wellspring and thousands of connections like a witch had, it was a bright heart with a single channel. As if he could only work one spell.

  Why had she never noticed this inside a wolf before?

  Because she’d never looked for a wolf’s lattice. Because she’d never cared.

  Katie wavered. Pieces of Marcus began to snap back into their original positions. She reached desperately for his power, only to be smacked viciously out of the lattice, rubber whips stinging every inch of her skin. She was buffeted to one side, then the other, losing more and more of the spell. She tried desperately to control the magic, Marcus’s memories, but she simply didn’t have enough of a foundation to do this.

  Three people and a pile of cayenne couldn’t do this.

  She delved inside herself further than she ever had before and came up short.

  Story of her life.

  Her inadequate push rebounded off him as if he were convex. It smashed into Katie…and ricocheted off her in turn.

  Harmful magic couldn’t affect a convex witch. But it had to go somewhere. It was going somewhere.

  That was Katie’s last, terrified realization before she blacked out.

  * * *

  “Wake up.” A hand patted her cheek. “Katie.”

  Pain shot from temple to temple like a shish kebab. Katie whimpered as she became conscious. She had a magic hangover the size of a tractor-trailer, and she’d rather sleep this shit off. “Owwwww.”

  “What’s wrong with the girl, Doc?” her father asked. “Is she sick?”

  “Are you okay, Ba?” The last thing she remembered was the unfinished wipe bouncing off her. “How’s Tonya?”

  “Out here,” Tonya called happily. Why couldn’t Katie open her eyes? “That’s me, right?”

  An ominous suspicion joined the skewer of pain in her head. She grasped the hand near her face and levered herself to her side, gritting her teeth. She appeared to be on a bed instead of the floor. Her body ached like elephants had used her as a trampoline. Her magical reserves were completely nonexistent. She was amazed she was conscious.

  Regretting it as soon as she did it, Katie let Dad help her sit up and opened her eyes.

  Surprise. Dad wasn’t holding her. It was Marcus, and he looked really fucking pissed.

  “She’s not dead.” Dad, at the foot of Marcus’s bed, nodded with satisfaction. “Good. What happened to you, girl? Were you in the accident?”

  “What do you mean?” Katie, who was still, thankfully, wearing her glas
ses, stared past Marcus’s grim expression to her father. “You don’t remember?”

  “Should I?” Dad asked warily.

  “You experienced a significant misfire when you attempted your ill-advised stunt,” Marcus informed her pleasantly. He’d donned a blue dress shirt at some point.

  She pressed a hand to her roiling stomach. “What happened?”

  An attractive, fortyish blond woman reentered the trailer, tying a knot in her oversized shirt. It was Tonya…minus her pants, one hundred pounds and a decade.

  “Hi there,” she said cheerfully, pausing for a big yawn. “Is this your motor home? I wanted to thank you for the use of it. I seem to have, ah, forgotten what I’m doing here.” She lifted her hands in resignation. “Your wonderful boyfriend is going to take us to the hospital as soon as we get you mobile.”

  Katie exchanged a horrified glance with Marcus. She was horrified; he was furious. It had nothing to do with Tonya’s assumption of their involvement. “What about my father? How’s he?”

  “The same,” Marcus answered in a low voice.

  “I’m not your dad, kid.” Her father’s appearance, while haggard, hadn’t changed like Tonya’s had. Obviously Katie had been right that Tonya had been masked the whole time they’d known her.

  “How much of them is missing?” she asked.

  If it took a coven to poppy someone, it took two covens to restore memories…when they could be restored. The keeper council rarely had reason to revert wipes. Since this hadn’t been intentional, were the losses temporary?

  “You took their witch. You took their lives.” Marcus’s smile wasn’t kind. “You won’t fool me again. You’re a devil, like the keepers said.”

  Katie wanted to close her eyes, roll over and pretend this was a bad dream. Wake up without the pain and nausea and relive today, minus…Marcus. She was devastated. Completely empty. She had no defenses, no offenses, no answers, no ideas, no anything. “You’d have done the same thing in my position.”

  “You’re wrong. I’ve never been foolhardy enough to try that with three practitioners and some cayenne. You brought this on yourself, Chang Cai.”

  “Thought her name was Katie,” Dad said. “Is Chang Cai her Chinese name?”

  Tonya looked at Dad. “You’re Chinese.”

  “I am not,” he argued, thumping his cane. His nature seemed intact, which wasn’t going to help anyone during this crisis.

  “You lost your memories too, Li,” Tonya said sympathetically. “Dr. Marcus says we were in some kind of accident that affected us nemo…nero…”

  “Neurologically,” Marcus offered. “That’s my professional opinion. I believe it was a gas leak. You’re in no further danger.”

  “Whatever it was, it plumb wore me out.” Whatever Marcus had told Tonya and Dad, it wasn’t freaking them out like most people would be upon being stricken with amnesia. “Anyway, Li, you might want to check the mirror.”

  Dad hobbled into the tiny bathroom and cursed. “Oh, hell. I’m old.”

  “The one thing I don’t understand is why my clothes don’t fit.” Tonya’s nature seemed intact as well as Dad’s. She eyed Marcus’s backside appreciatively as he bent over Katie. “My pants wouldn’t stay up. Chang Cai, hon, do you mind if I borrow some clothes? I don’t want to go to the hospital in nothing but this shirt.”

  “It’s Katie. And it’s not my trailer. I don’t have any clothes here.” She shut her eyes and flopped down, unwilling to face Marcus’s censure or Tonya’s and her father’s blankness.

  “I guess my shirt covers everything important. Lord, am I tired. I need coffee.”

  A hot lump blocked Katie’s throat. Marcus’s silent, condemning presence only drove it home. They were in deep shit, and it was all her fault.

  What was she going to do? She had no magic. As empty as she was, it wouldn’t be restored for days. She couldn’t call on a single coven to help with the memory loss, much less two. What witches would ever help Chang Cai, supposedly deceased former keeper and convex alpha?

  None of them.

  They’d just want her gone. Dead or otherwise out of the picture. There was a reason convex witches across the world devoted their lives to the keeper council, and it wasn’t simply that the council forced the issue.

  If the memory loss was permanent, how could she explain to Tonya and Dad what and who they were? They’d have to stopper their magic or who knew what would happen? Witches without knowledge were witches without control—not a direct equivalent to a feral shifter but hazardous nonetheless.

  Moreover, any wolf who came near the three of them without masks would peg them as shifters who hadn’t yet undergone the change. Juveniles. In theory, that’s what witches were. But born wolves never went longer than their early twenties without turning.

  Katie, barely old enough to start her second pass-through, could pass without a huge stretch, but Tonya looked forty. And Dad, well, there was no way his existence as a juvenile wolf was going unremarked.

  She only had two days of Tonya’s primed disguises in the go bag at the shop, and her stillroom was trashed. Tonya was the one who contacted Nathaniel when they needed anything, not Katie. He didn’t know about her and Dad, and loyalty was everything to the sympathizers. He’d be furious to discover Tonya had tricked him into aiding and abetting Chang Cai for twenty years. He’d cast them all to the wolves. Literally.

  How could Katie, without magic, without assistance, without anyone on her side, keep them safe?

  Safe from wolves. Safe from witches. Safe from keepers. Safe from humans. Safe from…

  Marcus.

  “What are you going to do, Marcus?” she finally asked around the lump in her throat. Luckily the nausea had subsided. Why was he still here? He could have dumped them in the park and taken off the second he’d regained consciousness.

  Revenge. It had to be revenge.

  Marcus touched her cheek, stroking it in a way that would appear loving to an observer. His eyes paled, and Katie gulped. “If you want my help to clean up this mess, you’re going to have to give me something in return, Katie. What I want is your cooperation in my research. All of my research.”

  Chapter Eight

  Katie, Chang Cai, Black Widow, whoever she was, stared at Marcus for a long moment before resignation settled across her tired features. “We can draw up a standard consulting contract.”

  “For this? No.” Marcus let himself stroke her warm cheek another few seconds, tipping her face up. Shadows of exhaustion darkened the skin beneath her eyes. The only reason he still desired her had to be her scent—luscious, leery and longing, all at the same time. “You owe me, and you need me. You’re not in a position to bargain.”

  The time for negotiation had passed. Considering her biases, blackmail seemed like his best chance of success.

  “Fine, fine. Just watch what you say.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. She probably had a monster headache. “You can’t mention certain things around…the others.”

  “I worked for your council. I know.” Newly wiped individuals had to be handled with kid gloves until their memory gaps adjusted. Katie’s backfired spell seemed to have erased all supernatural knowledge from Tonya and Zhang Li’s heads. Upsetting them with information could have unintended consequences. It would also make it harder to restrict their movements.

  He might be infuriated with them—mostly with Katie—but he wasn’t stupid. If Birmingham wolves ran across people who smelled like juvenile witches but were this old, they’d investigate. Keepers would flock to this area like migrating swallows.

  War between the packs, covens and keepers would be a negative for everyone.

  “I know I screwed up,” Katie said. “I just want to take care of our guests.” She frowned at her father, who was watching them curiously. “We had to have been asleep for a couple hours. You did something to them, didn’t you? Something I won’t be able to do until I’m strong again.”

  “Correct.” When they’d woken, he�
�d dosed a panicky Tonya and Zhang Li with a calming mix. It was the common form of another blend keepers used to force the truth out of someone when torture failed. He’d also told Tonya and Zhang Li he was a doctor, which was true—he just wasn’t a medical doctor. “I estimate I’ll need to do it again in six hours.”

  “Nobody did anything to me,” Zhang Li said. “I just can’t remember today or who you people are. And I’m tired as a sloth.”

  “I remember who I am,” Tonya said. “I’m a makeup and tattoo artist.” She peeked down her voluminous shirt. “I don’t seem to have tattoos, though.”

  “I do ink too.” Zhang Li had a Chinese dragon on his forearm that actually looked like a dragon. Presumably Katie hadn’t created it. “See here.”

  While Tonya and Zhang Li discussed tattoos and Katie watched them with a very un-Chang Cai-like expression of misery, Marcus considered their situation.

  “If you two would give us a minute?” he asked Katie’s father and Tonya. Marcus had confiscated their keys. On foot, they couldn’t wander anywhere he couldn’t find them.

  Katie glanced at Marcus fearfully when the Airstream’s door snicked shut behind them. “What do they remember?”

  “Nothing that would confuse them. They think they’re human.” He hadn’t delved into their recollections. There was too much to secure before he could worry about more of Chang Cai’s victims.

  “Do you think it’s permanent?”

  “Your intentions were permanent when you cast the spell on me. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.” Her chin trembled, and her lashes clumped as tears filled her eyes. “I’ve never heard of a witch undergoing an accidental life wipe. I guess nobody besides me has ever been dumb enough to try it with three people.”

  Who would have thought the Black Widow was a weeper? He hated the fact he wanted to comfort her. She didn’t deserve comfort. She was manipulative and dishonest. If he could read her chi, no doubt it would be as black as her heart. He touched the bay capsule in his pocket to remind himself what she was capable of.