by Shona Husk
Mallory wasn’t going to take that sword off even if she asked nicely. He’d done this before, and he’d been waiting for his second chance.
“What do you think, Mr. Bright?”
“Call me Rhys. I think it’s perfect.”
She was going to kick him in the nuts just to snap him out of his reverence. “I don’t know, it’s a little warm in here. Did you mention air conditioning?” She gave Rhys a pointed look. He was the witch; he needed to pull some magical shit, or she was going to have to go bare knuckles and she wasn’t sure that Rhys wouldn’t defend Mallory.
Rhys’s phone pinged, then pinged again. He took his adoring gaze off Mallory and focused on his phone. It was enough that Mallory’s hold was broken, but she didn’t know how long it would last.
Mallory prattled on as if knowing that this was the make or break moment.
Cosima hooked her arm through Rhys’s and steered him away, her gaze dropping to the screen of his phone before he could turn it off.
Sawyer was bound to a chair.
The screen dimmed but the image remained burned in her mind. Bright had Sawyer. Her stomach hollowed like she’d been hit.
“What the hell? Show me that again.” She reached for the phone, but he snatched it away.
“I needed insurance.”
“What have you done?” Rage bubbled through her. Where was Sawyer? Was he hurt?
“He’ll be fine as long as you play your part.”
“Is everything all right?” Mallory said as he strolled over, as though unwilling to let them get too far away.
“Fine,” Cosima snapped. She then lowered her voice. “It would help if you weren’t ready to buy the first house we look at.”
“I wasn’t.” Rhys frowned. “Was I?”
Cosima lifted her eyebrows.
“Let me tell you about the local school and shopping center.” Mallory stepped into the conversation.
Cosima punched him in the nose and followed up with an elbow to the temple. “Did you want to help, Rhys?”
Mallory stumbled clutching his face. “Help me! I’m being attacked.”
Rhys’s gaze flicked between both of them.
“He’s wearing the sword.” Did she have to do everything? This was why she hated new partners.
Mallory’s eyes widened. Rhys grabbed Mallory’s arm and then Mallory didn’t move. He was frozen.
Cosima wasn’t sure she wanted to touch him at all. “Is he dead?”
“No. But hurry up and get the sword. I can’t hold him for much longer.”
Mallory’s eyes tracked her as she moved to his side. It was a relief to step behind him. There at the top of his suit coat was a lump. She tugged the collar, revealing the hilt, then drew the blade from its sheath.
It glimmered in her hand. The power traced through her blood and for a half a second she wasn’t sure if she did have magic. What if she was a witch with latent power and she was about to die?
“If you use that on me, your boyfriend is dead,” Rhys said.
Cosima leveled her gaze at Rhys. The sword tilted is his direction. “That wasn’t me. It wants you.”
Rhys stepped back and Mallory sagged to his knees, blood dripping on the floor.
“You can’t take that. It’s mine. I need it.” Mallory reached for the sword.
Cosima stepped around him. Without the sword he was pathetic, groveling at her feet. She had the power to command him. To command Rhys, too. “You don’t need the sword, you’re damn good at selling houses. The Antique Police have been looking for this for a while. Be glad you aren’t getting charged with possessing stolen artefacts.”
Antique Police…thank you, Sawyer.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Rhys shrugged off his jacket and handed it to Cosima.
She wrapped the sword but kept her hand on the cool metal. Power thrummed through her. She could end this now. Mallory had spoken, and Rhys had obeyed. “Free Sawyer.”
“Not yet.”
“Free him!”
Rhys turned. “Not until we’ve met with my father. Thanks to you I have some leverage, because I know what the sword does while he thinks I’m ignorant.”
She stared at him her mind piecing together what he’d said. Rhys was going to betray his father. “If I don’t give him the sword, I’m dead.”
“That’s your problem.”
“One touch…”
“If I die, Sawyer dies.”
“Then we all die.” She stepped within striking distance.
“Or you both work for me. A man like him could be very useful. I’m sure if I offered him the right amount of money he could be convinced. You could convince him with your new toy. We’d make such a team.” He smiled like he had it all figured out.
She could wield the sword for the witches, and no one would stand in their way. They’d be rich and powerful. The hunger of the sword rose within her, the tip of the blade always finding Rhys. She took her hand off the metal and wrapped it better. She wouldn’t kill to feed the sword.
And she wouldn’t help Rhys.
Five years ago, Sawyer would’ve accepted the money and done the job without thinking of the consequences. But the coven had changed him, and he wouldn’t sell his soul to a budding criminal who hated his father. Sawyer never gave up without a fight. She hoped that hadn’t changed.
Chapter 12
Sawyer wriggled his wrists against the zip tie. The skin was already raw, and he’d achieved nothing. Between the cable keeping his hands safely behind his back—because his captors thought he needed his hands to do magic—and the duct tape strapping him to the office chair, he wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. Not that he’d be able to hurry with the bullet in his leg. The ache had spread, and he was still bleeding. He used his feet, wincing with every movement, to roll the chair along the floor to where the men were sitting. After taking a photo of him they’d settled in with coffees and were dicking around on their phones.
“No coffee for me?” They hadn’t even asked if he’d wanted one.
One of them glanced at him. “No.”
Chatty. “When’s Bright getting here?”
The talkative one put his phone down. He spun the chair Sawyer was sitting on and pushed him into an office. “You get to stay quiet and wait. Talk again and I’ll tape over your mouth and one nostril. Understand?”
Sawyer nodded. Bright wasn’t coming. Were they even Bright’s men?
“Shut the door and leave him there,” the other man called.
And if they left the building and never came back? Fuck. He forced his face to remain still. He’d panic when he was left behind. Or maybe if he was alone, he’d be able to work up a spell of some description. His mind was completely and utterly blank, as though he’d never created a spell in his life.
Even if he did come up with a spell, he didn’t have anything to put it in. The kinetic spell from the baseball bat was still ricocheting around him, and he needed to put that somewhere safe before it burned out.
“One more word.” The man slapped Sawyer’s cheek, and it was all he could not to bite the hand that bound him. The man walked out of the office and shut the door.
It was one of those internal offices with no natural light, but the Fluro was bright and the partially frosted glass walls and door gave in a semiprivate feel.
He missed his office at the agency.
He hoped Noah was ignoring his six-hour recommendation. What did Sawyer know? He hoped Cosima was getting the sword so this would all be over. Then he was going to tape her to a chair until she promised no more stealing. Or maybe so she didn’t leave.
She’d always been trouble, but Sawyer hadn’t realized how much he missed her until she was in his life. She was the broken streetlight that promised danger. The cut brakes leading to an accident. And the only person in his life he’d ever truly trusted.
Her betrayal had been her brother’s. All this time…
He closed his eyes and flexed his fingers, trying once aga
in to break the plastic that held him. And failed. He was a fucking witch and a thief, and he’d been trussed up by a couple of has been ex-military types who didn’t care too much what their boss was into.
He rocked forward and back but only succeeded in making his leg bleed afresh.
Fuuuuck.
He calmed his breathing.
The men were still out there, talking though he couldn’t make out their words.
He was a witch…while he couldn’t make fire or turn into hellhound, he could still make a spell. He was going to have to do something so that when whoever was in charge showed up, he wasn’t a trussed chicken ready for roasting.
Carefully he pushed the chair over the office desk drawers. He opened the bottom one with his foot, empty.
The middle one was the same.
As was the top one.
Not a pen in sight.
Maybe they’d cleaned this office just for him.
What did that leave him with?
One cable tie and a few yards of lightly used silver tape.
And the watch. He wasn’t prepared to risk using that unless he was sure he wouldn’t get hit with the recoil at the wrong time. His lips twisted into a grin. He was sure he’d been in worse situations—though he’d never been shot and he wasn’t sure how good his leg would be if he had to run.
From the other side of the door, his cell phone rang.
Glass smashed and the phone didn’t make another noise. Guess they weren’t going to let him talk to the caller and pretend everything was fine.
Sawyer was on his own. His stomach hollowed. No one knew where he was, even him. They’d put a hood over his head and hauled him to the car, driven around, and then put him in a lift. There must be so many empty office buildings in New York. And if it wasn’t Bright who was coming Sawyer didn’t know who to expect.
He stared at the ceiling. He hadn’t been on his own ever. It had been Cosima and Anthony, then the coven. He wasn’t ready for Peyton to bail him out, again. Besides this was just the excuse Peyton needed to kick him out.
Sawyer forced out a slow breath. He was going to have to get himself out of this mess. He closed his eyes and spun in a circle, hoping it would be enough that he could sink into that place in the dark where he could create a spell. He sunk deeper into himself until the darkness was something he could taste. It clogged his ears and filled his lungs.
There were no shelves of spells made of neat little symbols the way the other witches in the coven saw. He’d never been able to hold an image in his head, and certainly couldn’t make it real by will alone. But he could feel something in the darkness, a movement and a magic that wanted to be used. It slithered over his skin ready to do his bidding.
Just because he usually used pens didn’t mean that was all he could use. His apartment was filled with trinkets. But he made the spell match the object, so he had a visual clue as to what it did. This time, he didn’t have a hundred spells to choose from. He’d have two. One for the tape and one for the cable tie. All he had to do was figure out which spells would be the most use to him.
Then he remembered the chair. He had three objects. He had a whole extra spell.
He pushed the kinetic spell into the chair and immediately felt calmer without it ricocheting beneath his skin. Every time he spun in a circle; it would wind the magic up further. The only troubling thing was, whatever magic he created was attached to him. He didn’t want to be taped to a chair that thought it was a rocket.
“What do you mean Sawyer went after Cosima?” Peyton frowned. His hair was sticking up like he’d just shifted back to human.
“Exactly that.” Only three hours had passed, but neither of them was answering their phones and Noah had a really bad feeling about this. “He said she ran to protect us. That she had to finish the job.”
“And you let him leave?”
“I’m not his guard.” Noah shrugged. If Peyton didn’t act, Noah was going to make a plan and he and Oskar would execute it.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I can’t locate him.” That was the most troubling part of this.
Peyton ran his fingers through his hair. “Not good.”
“He’s not dead…we’d know. The Morrigu would let us know.” She’d probably come screeching in; she liked Sawyer. As a friend, Sawyer was solid. As a thief, he was the best. As a witch, he was patchy. But it wasn’t Noah’s place to question the Morrigu, or Mason’s decision to let Sawyer in. If there was trouble, Sawyer was always ready to jump in. “He’s in danger. We need to help him.”
Peyton nodded. “Have you tried using a bigger map? Maybe he’s not in New York.”
“I’m not a rookie. I used the globe.” By that stage, he’d been beyond worried.
“I had to ask.”
You have to do something.
“You think Bright has him?”
“I don’t know.” Noah shook his head. “I can’t find Cosima either.”
Peyton stared at his hands as though hoping an answer would appear. “He didn’t want to take this case. I made him.”
“Nah, the Morrigu made him. But instead of helping and making a plan, we sat back to see what would happen.” He should’ve helped Sawyer plan the theft and done it with him. If Mason were in charge, he wouldn’t have hesitated to break a rule or two. Peyton, though? He was untried as the head witch and his own commitment to the Morrigu had recently been tested. “We hauled your ass out of the fire. We took on the goddess Freya for you. You need to help Sawyer. If you don’t…”
Peyton looked up. “I know. But Bright isn’t a goddess. He’s human with power in this world. He has connections all over, like a spider in a web.”
“So, get a can of bug spray.”
“You don’t get it. Bright could bring us all down. We’ve all been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know how the law works and I know how it can be manipulated by those with money.”
“Oh, I get it. I nearly got life for a murder I didn’t do.” He touched his elbow that was full of metal, a reminder of when his future had been snatched away by a demon. “I know the risks we take.” When dealing with demons as regularly as he did, people died. Noah had become very good at having alibies, usually other witches. “But we can’t leave him hanging when Bright has a witch killing sword.”
He was sure Sawyer wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.
“We can’t go in blindly. Bright will be on alert.”
“Sawyer will be expecting us in three hours. I suggest you call a meeting.” Noah leaned on the desk. “You’re frozen by the responsibility, but you have to shake that off. I don’t care if you ask yourself ‘how would Mason deal with this?’ but you have to act because if Sawyer dies on your watch, you’ll have to watch your back for the rest of your life. I know you two don’t see eye to eye, but we’re brothers. Closer than brothers.”
“I don’t want him dead. But I don’t know what Mason would do. He was the coven for as long as I can remember. Me? I’ve hardly been here for the last five years. I can check the books and make sure the licenses are up to date and run the human side of the business, but the witch business?” Peyton looked up, lost. “I don’t know how to run an operation.”
Noah stepped back. The man in charge didn’t know how to lead. They were all dead.
“I know that’s not what you wanted to hear. I’ll call Mason.”
As much as Noah wanted to do that, they needed to solve this because Mason wouldn’t always be here. He wanted to retire. “So, give that job to someone who does know what they’re doing. Have a mission planner for the big jobs while you deal with the day to day stuff.”
Peyton nodded. “And if you were in charge of planning what would this mission entail?”
Noah considered Peyton for a moment. He’d already been planning, but if Peyton was willing to participate that would make things much easier. While he couldn’t find Sawyer with magic, a hellhound had a delicate nose.
“You aren’
t going to like it.”
Chapter 13
Cosima was tempted to shove the sword into Rhys to end his coup against his father, but she’d never find Sawyer if she did. So, she kept the sports bag containing the sword close to her, while Rhys sat as far away as possible not wanting to even touch the bag.
“Now what?” She’d done most of the job. All she had to do was put it in Bright hands and she could walk away. She was tempted. But she didn’t want the witches at Sawyer’s coven to die for one man’s glory.
She didn’t want to die either.
Or work for Rhys.
Maybe it was time to toss out her gloves and find something respectable to do. She’d have to get her high school diploma first. While she could read and write fine, she wasn’t smart. If she was, she wouldn’t be doing this. She’d have quit and done something with her life that didn’t involve magic or witches.
She peered out of the window as the driver took them into the business district. “Where are we going?”
“A place I know.”
“Sawyer’s there?”
“Yes.” Rhys glanced over at her. “No heroics. His situation is precarious.”
“Yeah, I got that.” She gave the bag a shake. The sword wasn’t big or heavy, but it had that tingle to it that let her know it was something special. The moment she’d picked it up, she’d gotten a buzz. Rhys had made sure that she didn’t put her skin on the blade after she’d attempted to use the magic. She should be able to; Mallory had done it with ease.
Mallory had closed on several house deals and had been climbing the ladder to success once again. Now he was nursing a broken nose and a deflated ego. At least in his hands, it would’ve only been used for personal power until it run out. Mallory didn’t understand anything about magic. A part of Cosima pitied him. He’d spent his life in his own shadow trying to chase magic instead of living.
She wasn’t much different.
“Careful with the merchandise,” Rhys snarled.
The sword was centuries old; a little shaking wouldn’t hurt it. She gave the bag a jiggle and stared at him, daring him to do something. Rhys narrowed his eyes but didn’t move to snatch the bag out of her hands. His snippy attitude was born of fear. He’d taken the sword to stop his father because he was terrified it would be turned on him. As she jiggled the bag, she slid two fingers in past the zipper and her fingertips brushed the hilt.