Revenge of the Witch

by J. M. Davies

  “Jake, I haven’t got all fucking day. I need to check on Steel and interview the professor. What’s taking so long?”

  Jake broke away from the men who surrounded him as others worked at their stations. One team was watching a live feed of the Padre in New York City at some swanky charity gala in the Natural History Museum. Another team was observing the rescue and extraction of a wealthy client’s daughter, who had been abducted while on holiday in Paris. A terrorist cell had attempted to extract blood money with threats of beheading their victim. He sent a new squad with several ex-SEALs alongside a shifter known only as Lion. The man was huge and fierce like his name suggested.

  “Sorry, boss. Team two is extracting the package as we speak, sir. I was discussing their possible route home, which became hot as they were surrounded on all sides by multiple hostiles.”

  “Shit—what happened?”

  “I don’t know, sir. We lost contact two seconds ago with Hollywood. I’m still trying to regain communication. All I know is the team of six, including the package, is on the move but silent.”

  “Right—well, keep me informed. Henry, you’re with me. I need you in the interrogation room to interview the professor. He can provide valuable intel concerning the Padre, and apparently the man wants to talk. Are you ready?”

  At the dinner party, the young man’s admission of Krav Maga training surprised him. Before this pup went on assignment, he would need to train hard twenty-four seven with the team. He needed to bulk up. He was a skinny kid in glasses, about as unsuspecting as one could imagine a field operative to be, but for his own safety, he needed to be prepared. It would be a high-risk mission.

  “As ready as I can be, sir.”

  Marcus eyed the fresh-faced youth. After the disastrous dinner party two days ago, he didn’t know how Henry would react to him. As far as Jake was concerned, he knew the man had his back. As for Henry, the kid didn’t say much. Ella had every right to be pissed. Even though she didn’t realize he hadn’t performed the entire ritual to gain her control. He gave up the next morning, because Ella didn’t mention her brother or the need to leave. Asking her to forget about her brother appeared to be enough. He never wanted a woman who would pander to his every need or be a slave at his beck and call.

  Marcus loved Ella for her strength and admired her resilience. Of course, he also loved how at ease she was about her gorgeous body, and her sexual appetite matched the intensity and need of his. He thanked his lucky stars every day to be with a woman such as Ella. She was his soul-mate, even if right now she didn’t want him around. But they were different sides of the same coin. Only…he had been scared.

  Jeez. He rubbed his stiff neck. Inside, his gut burned—maybe he had an ulcer, but he suspected it was the loss of his mate. He needed to regain some clarity and focus. Being distracted about Ella like a lovesick kid wouldn’t help anyone. He would make it up to her, and accept whatever she threw at him—for now. He would pay whatever price she asked of him because there was no tomorrow without her.

  “Right, Kid, come on. Let’s go and talk to this bastard, and see what he has to say.”

  “Yes, sir, but I’m not a kid, sir.”

  Marcus examined the young man and cracked his back. Today would be a long day and at this rate, he would need an infusion of caffeine to get through it.

  “Look, Kid, each member of my team gets a nickname. Some acquired them because well, it’s fucking obvious. Hollywood, for instance. No matter what situation he’s in, always looks like a movie star. There’s Bullet, because the man is as fast as a…get it?”

  “Right, sir—but Kid? I’m twenty-six.” Henry pushed his glasses back up his slim nose, looking too wet behind his ears for his own good.

  Did this meek kid realize what he faced?

  “I don’t care how old you fucking are. You’re new to this team and you have zero experience here. You’re Kid in this squad. Get used to it. Any problem with that?” he barked, needing him to understand right now how this chain of command worked. This wasn’t a game. It was life and death. Giving team members nicknames brought the team closer. Made them bond like brothers. Even though they were no longer in the SEALs, he ran the teams—as did Steel—as if they still were. These men would die for one another.

  “No, sir.” Henry stood back and looked over at the men who stopped what they were doing to watch the scene.

  Marcus placed his mug on the table and folded his arms. “Take a good look at each and every man. Get to know their nicknames. Over the coming weeks, you will train with them, eat with them, and they will interrogate you about your undercover role until you know it inside out. Out in the field, they are your technical support on the ground. We will have eyes on you twenty-four seven. We are family, and together we will do all we can to ensure you don’t end up dead, Kid. Do you hear me?”

  Henry whipped his head back around at the last few sentences and nodded.

  “You are not going into this mission Kamikaze style. I want you back in one piece. Let’s go.”

  Marcus picked up his mug and headed for the Keurig, filling it to the brim. After, he collected the thick manila file on his desk and headed out the door with Henry on his tail. Outside the ops room, he marched down the empty hallway and took a sharp left, nodding at a tall man with a buzz cut dressed in military-style black top and pants with a gun holstered at his waist.

  “Any problems with our guest?” Marcus asked.

  “He says he’s hungry and wants some breakfast, sir.”

  “Okay—well, go to the kitchen and get Milly to whip up the works, as well as coffee. Being hungry will only make him resentful. We want to butter him up and get him to talk. Thanks, Butcher.”

  “Right on it, sir.”

  Marcus glanced over at Henry, who stared at the tall muscular man before facing him and he swallowed. When Butcher moved off, Kid stepped closer.

  “Butcher—because he hacked his enemies in the field with a knife?”

  Marcus folded his arms and forced himself not to smirk. “Nope. Before he joined the SEALs, he worked as a butcher.”

  The younger man huffed and smiled. Marcus keyed in the security code, walked into the stark ten-by-ten room, and sat across from a gaunt bespectacled man dressed in dark pants and a gray sweater. Marcus stretched his hands out, palm flat on the white rectangular table that separated them, with the man’s file in front of him. The professor had been in their custody since their safe retrieval of Nate from Black Hawk three months ago. Assessing the man with his wavy dirty-blond hair, pointed chin, and sharp blue eyes did nothing to him. The man hadn’t shaved and his beard was a shade darker than his hair, with flecks of gray littered on his chin and moustache. Marcus tapped his fingers on the file, drawing the man’s focus.

  The professor narrowed his gaze. “Did the guard tell you I haven’t eaten? I was dragged here before sunrise, which must be hours ago?”

  Still Marcus remained quiet. The need to reach forward and squeeze this man’s throat tittered on the horizon. Breathe—just breathe. The scrawny man wouldn’t stand a chance if he reached over and snapped his neck. His useless existence would be over. Marcus lifted his mug and sipped, swallowing down the rich coffee.

  “Are you here to simply stare at me or is there a reason I am here?” The professor switched his gaze between the two men and zeroed in on Marcus, leaning forward and bringing them closer. A wide grimace filled his face. “Ah, I recognize you. You’re Drayton. Ella’s mate.”

  Don’t respond. He wants to rile you.

  “How is the beautiful Ella? I thought she would have come to visit me. To check to see her handiwork. Or at the very least, to find out about her brother?” The cocky man tilted his head to the side and folded his arms.

  Marcus glanced away. His hatred for the man burned a hole in his gut. Facing him and not reacting on instinct was harder than he imagined. For the first six weeks at the mansion, the professor had been recovering and because Ella didn’t remember that conversa
tion with the man, she showed no interest in the professor’s progress. Things were different now, but he didn’t want Ella jumping into the fray. He would have to discuss the professor with her and hash out a resolution.

  “My wife is not part of the conversation, now or ever. You’re here because you said you wanted to talk about the Padre. I’m glad you are willing to share your knowledge of the man with us, and in return you get to live and be free.”

  A loud, sardonic laugh came from the professor, who lifted his leg onto the table and pulled the material of his pants up. There, secured around his ankle, lay a titanium collar sealed with magic.

  “Freedom—I cannot leave the shed you have me holed up in, or I get burned and shocked. Do you call that freedom?”

  Marcus deadpanned the man and leaned forward, crossing his hands to form a steeple. “Okay, you get to live, which in my book is a fucking waste of oxygen. I don’t care what intel you have on the Padre. Don’t mistake me when I say I want you dead, but my boss believes you are worth something to us alive. That is a fine line you’re treading. Give me a reason to end your sorry ass excuse of an existence, and I will not hesitate. Are we fucking clear?”

  Marcus shouted his last sentence, not out of anger, but because he wanted to test this spineless jerk who flinched at his words. In the quiet, when their enemy lay defeated, and this pathetic excuse for a human being thought the worst was over, he would end his life. He stared at the beady little man and his heart beat evenly as he smiled the first real smile in the last forty-eight hours. He tapped his fingers softly on the table, waiting.

  “The Padre knows everything. Don’t assume that he isn’t fully aware of where I am right now, because he has spies in every corner and alleyway. He tried to kill me once, and he won’t stop. I will answer your questions on one condition. You kill him first. I want the Padre dead.”

  Marcus rubbed his fingers over his chin in thought. He hadn’t expected that, but if the professor wanted their enemy and his former boss dead, there must be a good reason. “Go on.”

  “I did what I was instructed to do. I did my job.”

  Marcus doubted it was as simple as that for this spineless man. He remembered Ella explaining how this man used to fight with her, and before they even developed an intimate relationship, this piece of shit turned his stomach. In his line of work, he encountered many sadists and staring him right in the face was one of them.

  “Okay, so you only did your job. Let’s start there. What is your job description, Professor? Don’t leave anything out.”

  A knock at the door announced the arrival of breakfast for the prisoner. Marcus stood and Henry followed suit.

  “Eat your food and we will be back.”

  Stepping out of the room, Marcus glanced over at Kid. “What do you make of the professor?”

  The young man inhaled and looked back at the closed door. “Unhinged, anxious, too willing to work with us. Which means he’s disloyal, and not to be trusted.”

  Marcus nodded and tapped the shoulder of the younger man. “Good. This man doesn’t give a shit about anyone other than himself. He’s a narcissist. He’s never been married. His mother gave birth to him in her forties. A single parent who died in a freak fire when he was seven. He flitted from one children’s home to another, but wasn’t adopted. One report from St. Mary’s, a children’s home, reports him as being a strangely quiet boy with unusual tendencies. He liked to catch mice in the cellar and remove their fur to experiment on them. There’s more. A neighbor’s dog was mutilated and he was the main suspect. Push all that aside, the man excelled in school and graduated with honors from Harvard. But we need to get to the root of the professor and find out what makes him tick, how he ended up where he is right now. And get him to deliver the Padre to us.”

  Kid shifted on his feet and tucked his hands inside his pockets. “It seems like he wants to cooperate. Getting him to tell us what he knows about the Padre shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  Marcus narrowed his gaze as he stroked his beard and dipped his head. “This time we record every goddamn thing he says. After, we examine everything. I don’t trust one piece of shit that comes out of his mouth. The task is to confirm what’s the truth and what’s a lie.”

  Done waiting, Marcus turned on his heel and opened the door. The professor sat there, wiping his mouth with a white napkin, his plate empty. Marcus sat down and pressed his hands on the table.

  “Okay, tell us from the beginning, Mr. Simon Cohen, what your position with the Padre entails. You see, Professor, when investigating Aidan O’Connor, there are certain traits that didn’t quite match. Your DNA, for example, or your fingerprints. Anyway, to cut to the chase, we know you are Simon Cohen. We know you’re a Canadian citizen. We know you were a promising genetics professor who claimed to be on the brink of making a significant discovery, but when your test subjects were revealed to the general public, you were disbarred from the medical board, publicly humiliated, and charges were pressed. But you conveniently disappeared.”

  The professor smiled and slanted his head. “Of course, I see, how stupid of me. I should have realized beyond that alpha male shit lay a brain. I guess you have my complete pathetic family history, along with all my accolades and awards in that dossier you keep tapping on. Does it list the wealthy who invested in my hypothesis that we can successfully create a perfect human being by manipulating and modifying genes? It’s not so horrific when you have a child whose liver is failing, now is it? But creating a perfect race and separating the rest—well, everyone throws their hands up in panic. Even when we live in a world that is grossly overpopulated. The elderly are a burden on a health care system that is failing and cannot cope. I was simply doing my part in cutting costs.”

  Marcus stared at the man, unable to respond at first to his blatant disregard for human life.

  “What you did is murder. Your test subjects weren’t all elderly, Professor. You chose the most vulnerable. Those who were insane or addicted to drugs. Children pulled off the streets. You turned them into animals. Your experiments were barbaric, and performed on individuals who needed help. Anyway, I’m not here to debate your sins. Somehow you survived, slipped into the United States, and acquired a new identity. Where is Aidan O’Connor, by the way?”

  The professor crossed his legs and folded his arms, refusing to answer the question. Marcus suspected the man in question rested in the earth somewhere. It was neither here nor there right now, just one more nail in this bastard’s coffin.

  “The Padre recruited me. He made me a proposition I couldn’t refuse.”

  “I bet he fucking did. Before we dissect what you did for the Padre, I have a question that is bugging me. Why did you tell Ella she had a brother?”

  The professor’s mouth spread wide, into one of his slimy grins. “I thought we weren’t allowed to discuss the beautiful Ella.”

  Marcus didn’t respond outwardly. He loathed this man to the point that hearing his wife’s name roll off this sick bastard’s tongue made him want to finish him there and then. The thought of what he put Ella and Nate through switched on the kill button inside him, which he found hard to resist. But he thought of her smile and soft touch, which calmed him.

  “Just answer the question.”

  “The Padre sent me a blood sample and asked me to analyze the contents. Along with the sample came a picture that made me blink. The startling resemblance to Ella made me check their DNA to see if there was a match. But if you know anything about DNA and siblings, it’s not easy to establish. Results vary as they both share half their DNA, which means they may have matches in certain markers or none at all.”

  The professor positively gleamed with delight at his revelation, but Marcus flinched. Could this mean Ella did have a brother out there?

  “And…”

  The man shifted in his seat and sipped on his coffee slowly before glancing from one man to the other. “Well, like I said, the results didn’t prove anything conclusive, so I went a
step further and managed to obtain DNA from Ella’s parents.”

  Hearing his answer, Marcus tightened his hand into a round fist and longed to slam it in the man’s stinking face. Ella’s parents were dead. There was only one way he could possibly do that. It meant excavating their remains, and obtaining samples of their bones. Marcus gritted his teeth, but he swallowed his discomfort because there were still a few questions he needed to ask.

  “I presume the results identified this man as her brother? Where is he now?” He closed off his emotions, keeping his face fixed on the professor to gain the answers he wanted.

  “Yes—Issac Blackshaw is her brother, without a doubt. Once the Padre knew this information, he became fixated on them. Her brother is five years older than she is, and he possesses certain talents that have proved useful to the Padre. Not only can he detect non-humans, which is why he is the numero uno hunter, but his touch inflicts pain. Issac is involved in the killing spree. His hands are tainted with their blood. This man is as cold as they come. I’m not sure he has feelings, having seen the iceberg in action. He’s like the evil brother.”

  The professor slanted his head and stopped speaking, as if waiting to see what effect his words held.

  “Where is this Issac Blackshaw now?” Marcus asked calmly.

  “I don’t know. When I met him, he was in New York, close to the Padre. Wherever that man goes, Issac is there. What I do know is he hailed from Wales, of all places. That is where the Padre found him when he attended the NATO meeting. Larry Stein was an honorable guest and part of the president’s team.”

  Marcus stared at the man. He didn’t know whether the intel he gave was utter bullshit. But if it was the truth, it confirmed their suspicions that the Padre’s influence ran balls-deep in the government. “Shit.”