Here Witchy Witchy Box Set 2

by A. L. Kessler

  I didn’t look at her, but instead, I poked my chicken around. I wasn’t sure how else to explain it. “After Nick died, I lost control doing a trace spell, and since then I can conjure either red or purple circles. The red ones like the one you saw in the video, or you saw last night with Mario.”

  “You killed all those vampires, and yet your aura is still clean.” She finally went back to eating. “How?”

  “They’d lost their human minds; they were really nothing but…monsters.” I shook my head. “I’m not guiltless in it. I still have nightmares about it, and it torments me. I’ve worked since to make sure that my magic stays in complete control.”

  She nodded, but it was slow, and it didn’t seem like she believed me. “So who are you working with to control it?”

  “I can’t tell you that.” I shook my head. “Look, if it helps, I’ll make sure that I unregister from the coven and then they won’t have to worry about me. I don’t like them anyways.”

  “I’ll talk to them, and I’ll try not to give much away, but they all got the video of this and you trapping some guy in a circle, one with fire.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one that was sent to Boss Man, the man in the circle was a suspect.” I finished my chicken and leaned back. “Now that it’s with the coven I don’t know what I’m going to do about that.”

  “They aren’t thrilled because they had no idea. They wouldn’t have—“

  I snorted and cut her off. “Wouldn’t have registered me? I only found out a year and a half ago. It’s not like I knew growing up.” Because I needed something else to worry about growing up.

  “Did anyone else know it was a possibility?”

  “Levi did and so did the person I’m seeing to help. Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to s lose control suddenly and burn everything down. The coven can kiss my ass.” I chuckled. “They’ll be happy to have me out of the way, one less member to worry about.”

  She looked at me a little bit speechless. “Abigail, community—“

  “Clarissa, I love you, and you know that, but you’ve been feeding me the bullshit line about community since I was ten and you had just joined the coven. They’re only there for me when it suits their needs, except for when they removed the hex. I’ll give them that, that is the one good thing they’ve done for me.”

  Clarissa nodded slightly as if she was thinking about something. She poked a piece of chicken around and finally looked up to speak. “They won’t be able to help you if you pull out of the coven.”

  “I know that.” Part of me felt hurt that they didn’t want me around just because I was an elemental, and the other part of me didn’t care. I’d spoken the truth when I said that they weren’t that helpful. A couple times one of the coven members were wrapped up in my cases, and the priests and priestesses just never let me live it down.

  I sighed and crossed my arms. “I’m sorry if I’m getting you in trouble with them.”

  “You’re not; they’re just using me as a messenger.”

  Like they hand once before when one of the priestesses tried to bind my magic and use Clarissa against me. The memory hit me harder than I thought it would. Levi had once taught me that everyone could be used against you, and one day it will happen, it was inevitable.

  Of course, I thought he was just being paranoid, but as I grew older, and this last year or so, I was learning, he was right. There was knock at the door, and I looked at her, trying to keep any accusations out of my eyes.

  She stood. “That would be Mario.”

  I let out a groan. “Really? We can’t even have a night alone to hash things out?”

  “I think we’re done hashing things out, don’t you?” she called behind her as she walked to answer the door.

  I started to clean up the mess from dinner. Mario walked in and just stared at me. I moved back and forth paying no attention to him and his rudeness.

  He’d dressed casual tonight, which was a first. Jeans and a t-shirt for the Italian vampire. I took my time washing the few dishes and throwing away the trash. By the time I finished, both Mario and Clarissa were staring at me with their arms crossed over.

  “What?”

  “I do believe you should greet me as is appropriate for a relationship.” Mario watched me move through the kitchen.

  Clarissa nodded. “If you’re going to make this believable, Abby, you can’t avoid him.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “A hug, that’s all you get.”

  “Is that how you would great Simon?”

  The question caught me off guard. “Yes, that’s how I greet him now. I’m not one for a whole lot of public affection.”

  “As long as that’s true then a hug would work fine.” He looked at Clarissa., “Is she speaking the truth?”

  She nodded. “She is, you can’t blame her, Levi raised her. He’s not the warmest of people.”

  I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to take that. I opened my mouth to protest, but I didn’t really have the words to defend myself.

  “Then a hug will work.” He opened his arms, and a smirk crossed his face.

  I rolled my eyes and hugged him, trying not to cringe as his cold arms wrapped around me and squeezed.

  “That was pretty convincing.” Clarissa laughed. “This will be entertaining.”

  I glared at her. “This is not entertaining. I don’t want a vampire babysitting me all the time. I feel like it’s just going to draw more attention than we need it to.”

  “I think that you underestimate the danger that you’ve put yourself in,” Mario shot back. “You’ve just entered a world that you know very little about. Going in without backup is suicide.”

  I stopped myself from arguing. He was talking about being my backup in the situation, but there was one thing that he and everyone else seemed to forget about backup. I was supposed to be able to trust them. I didn’t trust Mario at all. “You’re going to have to prove yourself.”

  I turned and hugged Clarissa. “I’m going to head out for the night. Thank you for dinner. I’ll make sure to pull my registration.”

  She gave me sad eyes and squeezed me tight. “Coven or not, you know you can always come to me if you need help.”

  “I know, and we’ll keep up on our dinners. Don’t look at me like this is the last time you’ll see me because it’s not.”

  She gave me another hug, and something in me broke. I wanted to crawl up and cry as my heart started to ache. I was going to blame it on lack of sleep and a busy day. There was no reason for me to react to the situation like this.

  “I’ll see you in a few days,” I promised.

  Mario hooked his arm in mine and patted my hand. “Let’s get going. What did you have to work on tonight?”

  What did I need to do tonight? “I need to talk to Levi about a particular vampire that might be in his territory.”

  “You could ask me about it,” he offered. “Does this have to do with Keira?”

  I shook my head. “No, it has to do with a different PIB case.” I walked out of the house with him still glued to my side.

  “A different one? That means that PIB has heard about the other one?”

  I crossed my arms. “I have no way of knowing if the other case is the child vampire or not, but I was called out to a very particular scene that makes it look like it was a child vampire. So unless there are two of them out there…” I paused for a moment to give him time to answer.

  “No, not that I know of.” His voice dropped a little bit, “May God have mercy on us if there is more than one because we’ll need a miracle to deal with just the one.”

  I didn’t really like his attitude about the situation. I’m sure I had seen worse. I unlocked the car and got into the driver’s side.

  Mario got into the passenger side and sat back in the seat. “I could just take you where you want to go.”

  “Nope, I don’t like traveling that way. I prefer to have control over where I’m going.”

  He nodded.
“I’ll make a note of that.”

  Now I felt like I was being studied. “It’s just how I am. It’s nothing against vampires.”

  “I know.”

  My phone rang just as I was pulling away from Clarissa’s house. My uncle’s name flashed on the screen, and I answered it. “Fair warning, Mario is in the car with me.”

  There was no real way to be covert about it. Mario was sitting right there, and with my luck, Oliver would say something right off the bat that would get him in trouble.

  “Lovely, I see that Levi has gone against my advice once again when it comes to you.” He sounded irritated. “I promise to be on my best behavior.”

  Mario snorted. “You only behave when it suits you.”

  “I could say the same for you, Mario.”

  “Play nice, boys. What did you need, Oliver?”

  “I wanted to let you know that I was able to get a hold of Drake, and he has agreed to meet you and me tonight at midnight. I wanted to invite you up. He claims he has nothing to hide and is willing to speak to you about Lark’s death.”

  It was too good to be true and almost sounded like a trap. I glanced at Mario who nodded, and I bet he was thinking the same thing I was. “Did he give you his word that he wouldn’t harm us while he was there?”

  “He did, he also agreed to a truth spell being active while he is here. I want you to come help me set it up.”

  Interesting, if it was active for all of us, there could be some interesting information that came out. I wasn’t sure what kind of connections in the vampire world that Drake had, but I was willing to bet that he didn’t know who the king was. “Okay, I’ll be up there. Anything else I need to know?”

  “Yes, but I’ll fill you in when you get here. Don’t worry Abigail; I will make sure that neither one of us are compromised.”

  The line went dead, and I pressed my lips together.

  “What is Drake’s surname?”

  I wasn’t sure why he cared, but maybe he just wanted to be helpful. There was no emotion in his voice which made me question why he wanted to know. “Moll.”

  Mario chuckled and I glanced at him. “What is so funny?”

  “I am his maker.”

  Chapter Six

  His words made my heart skip a beat. “You made him?” That meant Mario could have all the information I needed.

  “I did, by order of the vampire who made me. We needed Drake’s particular skills, what we didn’t foresee was that his brain would warp, and he would turn into something different than he was, but, it worked to our advantage.”

  Interesting. “What set of skills did you need? Why did that lead to you changing him?”

  “People were hunting Drake, he was burnt badly and wasn’t going to live until I came alone. I turned him into a vampire because we needed him to perform some life magic for us.”

  I wanted to know who ‘us’ was, but I wasn’t going to interrupt the story to ask. I was worried he’d change his mind in telling me what was going on.

  “The problem was, when he was human he had impeccable morals. He only performed life magic on those who he deemed worthy, pure of soul and heart. But after a few years, his morals disappeared with his humanity, and he was able to help us out for what we needed, and then he just disappeared.” Mario sighed. “Those weren’t good times, Abigail.”

  Life Magic wasn’t something I thought vampires would be interested in. Of course, maybe it was like lycans, and vampires were looking for a cure, and they thought they could find the cure in life mage.

  “What was it you wanted from him?”

  He shook his head. “I’m forbidden to talk about it.” He turned to the window.

  “Who were you working with?”

  “My maker. That’s all the information I’m able to give you. It is enough to give you and your uncle a starting point. I’m sure you have plenty of information on Drake’s human life.”

  He’d been arrested a few times from the articles I had found, but if he was on a moral high ground, I was surprised that there were so many. Of course, maybe his moral high ground didn’t match up with the law and what society believed was morally right.

  I let the conversation die because I had nothing else to say. There wasn’t anything I could say. As someone who was capable of Life Magic, Drake was powerful. He could very well be a match for my uncle and me, which would be why he as so willing to be under a truth spell.

  I drove to my uncle’s house in silence. Mario offered no other information, and I wasn’t going to start asking questions. The more I thought about it, the more I debated on sending him back home. I was safe at my uncle’s house, and I wouldn’t need the extra protection.

  I opened my mouth to say something and then shook my head. I knew that as the maker, Mario could be useful, could be our advantage. Since this was probably off the PIB record, I wouldn’t even have to mention that Mario was there. Not unless I wanted to.

  If it worked to my advantage.

  I snorted at my thought. I guess I wasn’t too different from my uncle after all. I knew how to work the situation so I could get some use out of it.

  After an hour, I finally pulled up to the massive house. Mario stepped out of the car and looked up. “Big house for just one man.”

  I’d had the thought before, but what I knew was that Oliver had a daughter somewhere, I always imagined he’d bought the house in hopes that one day he’d have a family to fill it. I never asked him about it, because I knew he’d say it was unnecessary information, or he’d just lie to me. It was just his way. Anything that could give a personal look at who he was didn’t exist. It wasn’t important to him. There were very few things that I knew meant a lot to him.

  The smell of rain was a welcome change from the unusual heat we’d been having, and the storm clouds rolled in off the mountains. It was almost a perfect backdrop for the meeting tonight.

  I walked into the house and heard voices the moment the door closed behind us. They were hushed, but I could still hear them in the empty hall.

  “I’m telling you, Mr. Macintosh, it’s not possible. It has been far too long.”

  The words bounced off the walls, and I was wondering just what they were talking about.

  “Mr. Moll, I assure you that I know the risks and I’m willing to take them.” Oliver’s words dropped, and I couldn’t hear anything at all. “Ah, it seems our other guests have arrived.”

  I locked my jaw; I wanted to know who and what they were they were talking about. Mario continued forward like nothing had happened. Either he didn’t care, or he wanted just to get this done and over with. My curiosity got the best of me, I wanted to know, and it was going to drive me nuts until I found out.

  “Now remember, Mr. Moll, between you and I.”

  I walked into the room. “I thought the meeting was at midnight.”

  Oliver and Mr. Moll looked at me. Drake Moll looked like any other burn victim would have, deep rivets of scar tissue covered his face, and a section of it had melted half over one eye. I had heard rumors that when you turned into a vampire, it healed your flaws, but maybe some scars just ran too deep.

  I didn’t bat an eye at him, his skin was unusual, but I’d seen burn victims, I’d seen scars from creatures, bodies torn up, many things, and this wasn’t going to cause me to shrink back. His lips lifted up in a smile, showing pointed fangs. “You must be Agent Collins.”

  I nodded. “I am, Oliver tells me you’re willing to talk. Is your business with him concluded?” I took a step forward but paused as I felt magic buzz near my feet, reaching out just enough to send shivers through my body and giving me a warning about what might have happened if I continued forward. Pain, lots of pain.

  “I hear that you have a victim who was seeking me out. I know what that does to me, Agent, I’m not stupid.” He motioned to the couch. “Please come join us.”

  Mario finally joined us, walking in behind me. He put a wrist on my waist from behind and kissed my head. “I’m
sorry I’m late. I needed to make a phone call.”

  Drake hissed and jumped up, rushing Mario. I expected Drake to hit the barrier of the circle, but he didn’t, telling me that the circle wasn’t meant to keep him in, but to keep people out. I looked at Oliver silently demanding an explanation. The circle disappeared, and I no longer felt the magic licking at my toes.

  Oliver stepped up to my side and motioned to the vampires in the room. “Wish to explain that?”

  “Mario made him,” I said easily as Drake pinned Mario to the wall yelling at him in some language. “Care to translate?”

  Oliver nodded. “The gist of it is that Mario is a bastard and Drake wants to kill him.”

  “Ah, yes, sound just like someone cussing someone else out.” I made a fake enthused and interested noise. Mario shoved Drake off, sending the other vampire back about twenty feet.

  Mario snarled. “Control yourself, Moll.”

  A wave of power shot through the room, almost knocking me to the floor. Oliver tensed as if debating on running. I kept myself where I was, trying to identify the power. Another wave of it came, and I realized that it was Mario, trying to take down the other vampire.

  “Mr. Moll,” I raised my voice in pitch to make sure I caught their attention.

  Both vampires looked at me, and I had a moment of fear rush through me. “Okay vampires, listen up. If you two can’t get a along, Mario is going to have to wait outside.”

  “What is he even doing here?” Drake snarled. “I agreed to meet you and Oliver; I didn’t expect you to bring my maker along.”

  I prepared myself for what was going to be the hardest lie I had to tell in a long time and to a creature who could tell I was lying by any change in my heartbeat and breathing.

  Mario walked up to me and kissed my cheek again. “Isn’t it obvious, Drake? I’m simply along for a ride with my girlfriend.”

  The words sounded foreign to me, but I smiled. “There you go. Now, let’s get down to business, shall we?”

  Drake gave a questioning look to Mario but then went back to the couch and sat down. “I know what question you want answered Agent Collins, and the answer is no. I did not kill Lark.”