Magic in Her Touch

by Kate McLay

  "Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Did she think that Mina would have an issue posing as a waitress?

  Darby flipped her hair out from under the collar and ran her hands through it. "I just found out this morning. A guy named Diego is going to let us in the back and give us badges."

  Mina let it go. It sounded like Darby had everything in hand and this change in costume wouldn't complicate anything.

  After a few minutes to change, they got back in Darby's car and headed for the downtown Marriott. Darby left the car at a self-park down the street and they walked two blocks, passing an L stop on the way.

  As promised, Diego let them into the building with no fuss and handed each of them a white card with the promise that everything would check out.

  The dinner took place in the Grand Ballroom, but the attendees didn't confine themselves there. They mingled out in the reception area and in the hotel lounge.

  "No magic until we've got her," said Mina. They entered a hallway which lead from the elevators to the ballroom in one direction and to other rooms in the other. The walls were a golden brown and the pattern of the carpet was enough to make her dizzy. Mina pushed through a door marked 'Employees Only' and Darby followed.

  "Got it." Darby found a stool and sat.

  Mina consulted the event schedule that was stuck to the wall, "It says here that Lotharian is giving a speech in thirty minutes. That's our best chance to grab Chloe. But I think we need to check our exits. I know we've studied the map, but there's enough time to check our back up, and our second back up door."

  Darby agreed with her. "I'll take the second back up."

  Mina shook her head. "Together. If shit goes wrong, we can't be split up." If things were more complicated, she might agree for the need to split up. But their mission had exactly one objective, and a narrow window in which to achieve it. Splitting up could spell disaster.

  Darby stood as quickly as she sat. "Let's not waste time, then."

  The first back up exit was, simply enough, the main entrance. In an ideal situation, they planned to leave the way they came in. But both Darby and Mina understood that trouble could crop up at any moment. The front door wasn't ideal. They'd leave a trail a mile wide for Lotharian and his goons to follow, but they hoped that the other people bound to be there would prevent some violence.

  Or they would be collateral damage. It all depended on how desperately he wanted to keep Chloe.

  The second back up exit would prove difficult to use, but Darby and Mina still needed to check it out. They found a staircase with access to the basement and went down a flight of stairs. This was where the large washing machines and other odds and ends that needed to be invisible to the guests lived. There was a fire exit at the far end of the hotel, or there should be, according to the layout that they'd studied online.

  Mina lead Darby past the machines. A few of the cleaning staff were down there with them, but no one paid any attention to them. Mina had learned long ago that if you walked like you belonged, few people would question you.

  The exit was as expected. A large sign declared that if the door opened an alarm would sound. They were both careful to stand out of sight of the camera that stayed fixed on the door.

  "I guess we're good," said Darby.

  Mina heard footsteps behind them. She turned her head just in time to see the hulking guard who'd been hovering around Chloe turn down the same hallway where they now stood.

  She froze, but Darby acted quickly, putting her hand to Mina's cheek and pulling her close. She kissed Mina gently, her lips brushing lightly. Mina's hands went to Darby's hips as if pulled by a magnet. She could no more resist the force than she could cease breathing.

  In such a short time, Mina had learned the exact shape of these lips, the feel of them pressed against hers. She'd felt them soft and hard, bruising and tender. The taste of Darby was addictive, something she couldn’t live without.

  And with every swipe of Darby's lips against her own, she strengthened her resolve to not give up on what they had. No matter what.

  Mina was so wrapped up in their kiss that she almost didn't realize that the hulk was only a few feet away. She couldn't do anything to keep him away. So she kept kissing Darby, pouring her heart into it.

  Of course, the moment was ruined. It had been a stolen instant.

  The hulk tapped on her shoulder and Mina turned toward him, a scowl on her face. "What?" She snapped. Darby buried her face in Mina's shoulder, keeping herself shielded from his eyes. If he got a good look at her face, everything could be ruined.

  "You can't be here. This is a restricted area."

  Mina tried to look naively guilty, playing the part of a misbehaving employee. "Oh," she said, letting dejection seep into her words. "I'm sorry."

  She took Darby's hand and led her away, not saying another word to the guard. Darby angled her head forward, letting her long brown hair fall over her face, leaving her shrouded in shadow. It took them more than a minute to get completely out of view and safe from the guard. Mina's heart pounded, nearly ricocheting out of her chest on the edge of panic.

  But that minute passed and they made it back past the washing machines and out through the employee's only door which lead back towards the main ballroom. They were safe.

  For now.

  "So, if the hulk is down there, that means Chloe's main guard isn't watching her, right?" asked Darby. She didn't have the decency to look moved by the kiss. Once this was over, Mina would kiss her for days to make up for it.

  "It's going to be our best chance."

  Alexander Lotharian was due to speak any minute. This was their chance, the only time they knew that Chloe would be able to make her escape.

  The journey back to the ballroom was uneventful. They both walked with purpose and no one questioned them or tried to give them orders. It would be rotten luck for a manager to pull one of them aside right now and blow their cover.

  But they made it back to the ballroom and spotted Chloe's table. The guests were all milling about. Alexander would speak in five minutes, but until then, everyone was free to grab drinks and canapés from passing servers.

  Chloe sat with two large men, probably more guards. The table could seat a dozen people, though Mina doubted they were only seated with their security staff.

  She left Darby in the hall to guard their exit and approached Chloe's table.

  Chloe spotted her approach and schooled her expression into deliberate ignorance. Mina stooped next to her and payed no attention to the guards. "Ma'am," she whispered, trying her best to sound apologetic, "The event coordinator would like to have a word with you."

  One of her guards, a burly black man with close cropped black hair leaned over. "What's this about?"

  Mina looked over at him, "I'm sorry, sir. I'm not sure, I'm just supposed to bring her over. I think it has to do with Mr. Lotharian's speech."

  The man nodded, "That's fine. I'll go with you."

  Chloe held up a hand. "No, Ken, I've got this." The action surprised Mina, even more so when the man relented. Chloe stood. In her heels she was an inch or two taller than Mina, and her short black dress made her legs go on for days.

  Mina lead her out the main door to the ballroom and a little bit down the hall. Darby waited for them just inside an employee's only door. She stepped out when Mina walked by.

  "Are we good?" Darby asked.

  Mina was about to respond when Chloe interrupted. "Not quite yet," she said.

  Chloe stepped into the bathroom and Mina followed, curious. "We don't have time for a potty break," said Mina.

  Chloe smiled and pulled off her necklace. It was a long silver chain upon which hung a huge sapphire. Without a moment of hesitation she chucked it into the trash. A moment later, her matching earrings and bracelet followed. She looked down at the ring on her finger and sighed before pulling it off and throwing it away with the rest of the jewelry. "I don't want them using a charm to track me. Alex gave me all of that."


  "Good thinking," said Darby. She stood in the doorway and kept an eye out for any people following them. "But let's get going, shall we?"

  Darby was right, they needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. Darby led them with Chloe in the middle. Mina took up the rear, throwing glances back every so often to make sure they weren't being followed down the labyrinthine hallways of the hotel.

  They made it downstairs and two hallways away from their exit when trouble cropped up.

  The hulk stepped out in front of them, coming out of nowhere.

  "Chloe?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"

  "It's nothing, Ricky. Just let me go."

  Ricky. Of course this guy would have the same name as her father. Mina didn't have time to examine that in detail, but it amused her, despite the gravity of the situation.

  "Did the boss's speech end early? I thought he wanted you there." Ricky clearly wasn't the brightest guard, but that could work in their favor. If he didn't know Chloe was running, they could get away without any bloodshed.

  "Yeah, it did," Chloe improvised. She was doing so well with it that Mina didn't want to interrupt. She wasn't going to be the one to screw this up. "I'm supposed to head back home."

  Ricky nodded, but then he looked over at Darby. "Weren't you at the cafe the other day?"

  Crap.

  Before Ricky could realize that they weren't on the same side, Mina sent a blast of power at him, knocking him into the wall. She couldn't hold him in place for long, but it gave them a second.

  She turned to Darby. "Run," she said. "Get her out of here."

  Something haunted passed over Darby's eyes as she looked between Mina and Ricky. She opened her mouth, but Chloe tugged on her arm and they were both off, running for the exit and leaving Mina behind to face off with one enraged shapeshifter.

  A wolf by the looks of it.

  His mouth was already elongating, snout growing where once there had been a normal human face. His tuxedo jacket and shirt ripped, fur rippling under the white fabric. Wicked claws sprouted from his fingertips.

  He was a terrifying sight to behold, half-man, half-beast and nearing seven feet tall. Mina could never have beaten him in physical combat. But she was a witch, and physical combat was for chumps.

  As he shifted, vulnerable in these moments between his human and his beast form, Mina took advantage. She chanted out an old spell of protection. Her normal bolts of magic would not be enough to win.

  Magic was a tricky mistress. Mina could pull energy around her and manipulate it all day. There were minor feats of telekinesis and sleight of hand that took almost no power. Any witch could do them and it was what they were known for.

  But true power, the kind that could thrash an enraged werewolf, wasn't a pretty light show at the tips of her fingers. No, it was in her blood, her family's legacy. Their spells could cut an army down, each man falling to his knees, slain by an invisible foe. A coven of thirteen was more than a match for a force of three thousand. But magics like those took time that Mina didn't have.

  Raw power meant very little when combined with skill and time, but when time was of the essence, it was the difference between life and death.

  And there was no one in the Great Lakes region with more raw power and skill than Mina. Not when it came to battle.

  The language was old, and not known to human tongues. Mina could feel power swirl around her, the pure force blew her hair, circling around her as it built and built into a tornado of danger.

  Ricky threw his head back and howled. The sound echoed in the white hallway, combining with the sound of her power and loud enough to deafen.

  The werewolf slashed through the maelstrom in front of her, trying to disrupt the flow of her magic. It was a risk for both of them. The spell was unstable, and if Mina lost control, the magic would release and leave a crater where the hotel had once stood.

  Claws slashed inches from her midsection, but Mina couldn't dart back. She couldn't do anything but concentrate on the spell.

  A second swipe hit true, catching her on the side in a shallow cut.

  Mina waffled, but didn't lose control. Her training had long ago prepared her for this. Her guts could be spilling out onto the floor and she wouldn't lose control.

  With a final yell and burst of power, the spell stabilized, a torrent of blue wind in front of them. Mina pushed out with her mind and aimed for where she thought Ricky was. Her vision was bound up in her magic and she could no longer see properly. She could only sense.

  She locked onto the werewolf and unleashed her fury. It took only seconds, but once the spell was done with him, he was locked in place, as still as if he had been frozen.

  It would last for hours, giving her enough time to get away. But it would not kill him. Mina was not a murderer, and her magic gave her other options.

  Mina turned to run, to catch up with Darby and Chloe and get the hell out of this damned city.

  Alexander Lotharian blocked her path.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lotharian was an aesthetically pleasing man. He stood at just over six feet tall and gave off an aura of power without an overabundance of muscles. His blond hair was long enough to fall carelessly over his eyes, but not long enough to obscure his vision. And the bright blue of his gaze was enough to freeze a lesser person in place.

  Mina wasn't a lesser person, but he was blocking her exit and she knew she couldn't make it out through one of her backups. By now he had all of the exits covered, either by magic or by security.

  The only way out was through him.

  Lovely.

  Lotharian had two guards behind him, one was Ken, the man who'd sat by Chloe in the ballroom. The other could have been Ricky's twin if it weren't for the scar marring half of his face.

  She doubted that the guards were witches. They'd have used their magic to try and hold her in place right now if they had any. It meant that Lotharian was the greater threat at the moment.

  But he wasn't ready to fight.

  "You've taken something from me." He didn't need to level it like an accusation. He might as well have been talking about the weather.

  "Have I?" Mina asked. There was no need to play innocent, not with a werewolf frozen in time behind her.

  Lotharian's eyes narrowed. "Do I know you?"

  "We've met." It was years ago when she took Sarah away from him. At that time, the fight had been short and Lotharian hadn’t faced her. His guards had tried to do his dirty work.

  But no light of recognition sparked in his eyes. "If we've met, then you know that it is unwise to quarrel with me. Give me the girl and I'll do you no harm."

  Was this the best that he could do? Even a toddler would know that he was lying. "She's gone by now. There's no need to fight."

  Lotharian tilted his head to the side and nodded towards her, signaling his guards to attack. Her response was more instinct than thought. Mina threw up the strongest ward she could muster, enclosing herself and Lotharian in a cage of her own magic. It sealed them off completely. She could not even see his guards, though she could feel them bounce back when they tried to push through the solid wall of power.

  She hadn't planned to do it. A ward like this was a constant drain on power and a weak point for attack. If Lotharian broke it, the pain would rebound on her and leave her physically vulnerable. As it was, she'd feel every hit that the shapeshifters outside threw at her. They wouldn't hurt, but she could do without the distraction.

  On the bright side, it left her alone with Alexander Lotharian, and she was going to win this fight.

  She had no other choice.

  Lotharian surveyed the ward. He sent out a quizzical tendril of magic to test its power. He didn't try to break it, but their magic clashed where it met, and Mina almost shivered. It felt like ants crawling over her naked flesh.

  He pulled back, not bothering to test it any further. "You've poured all of your power into keeping the others out," he scoffed. "Do you think you'll be saf
e with me? Once I've dealt with you it will be simple to break this."

  Grandstanding. He needed time to summon power, just like she did. But the ward gave her an additional advantage. Rookies put all of their focus on defense. They'd drain themselves dry trying to keep one another's magic out. A powerful ward was almost always the sign of someone unprepared to fight.

  Unless you were like Mina. This was where raw power was important. The ward would be a constant draw on her power, but it was more like a small hole in a hose rather than the spout.

  Fighting a witch one on one was not the same as fighting a shapeshifter. The battle now would be as much about preventing him from using magic as it would be about setting up a spell for herself.

  Mina cast out her magical senses. Lotharian wasn't chanting, but that didn't mean that he wasn't preparing to attack. They were too close to each other to be sloppy enough to chant; their own words would give them away too quickly to be of any use.

  He hadn't started anything yet, but Mina kept her senses cast toward him. No doubt he was doing the same to her.

  So she was going to give him a show.

  She flung her power wide, sucking in as much magic from the world around her as she could take in. Magic lived in everything, and while what a witch could hold at any one time was limited, what she could draw to surround herself with was not.

  Mina called for power. Power answered in a tidal wave, pouring over her and washing through her. The excess buffeted around them and she could feel Lotharian suck it up.

  Show time.

  Lotharian broadsided her, his magic ripping into her stomach and knocking the air out of her before she realized that he was attacking. Mina turned the attack around, aiming to rebound it at his feet, tripping him up.

  He was good. She hadn't felt the swell of power other than her own.

  This time when he attacked, she met him in the middle, their magic clashing in a burst of hot air and red sparks. It almost looked like a firework going off between them, but the sparks sustained and pushed back and forth by inches in either direction as they each tried to get the better of the other.