Missing, Suspected Dead: Elisabeth Hicks, Witch Detective

by Rachel Graves

  I checked the lock on Ted’s front door, and the one on the bedroom door. He didn’t take the time to tease me about it. At best we had about two hours before the lion cub needed me. He got naked, then helped me pull the dress over my head. He laid it lovingly across the dresser, his hands gentle. I came behind him, pressing my skin against his. He was six-foot to my five-eight, but our bodies meshed together just fine, even backwards like this. I reached my arm around his front, drifting over his skin. His mind was on my body, images of me in the midst of ecstasy. My hand found his shaft, its length half-hard, and massaged it gently.

  “Careful,” he warned, half out of breath. “You don’t want to get anything on your dress.”

  I laughed, and released my grip, turning his body toward me. We stood together kissing. Our hands explored each other for a few seconds before we fell on to the bed. He cupped one breast and kissed another, his mouth open, tongue teasing my nipple. I moaned and caught his other hand, bringing it down to the center of my body. He left my chest to smile at me and all I could do was nod. I wanted the good parts, the pleasure and the passion. Slow and gentle wasn’t on my mind tonight.

  He left his hand above my skin, his fingers barely touching me. Slowly, the gentle brush of fingertips changed into the warm contact of his hand. Then he moved those fingers over my flesh, parting my skin, seeking the tender spot in the middle. When he found my clit, he stroked gently, his tongue mimicking the motion over my nipple. I called his name, pleading with him for more but tonight he made me wait. His fingers moved in circles over my flesh, as his mouth released one breast and moved to the other, then again started that same motion.

  Desperate for more, I grabbed him hard, wrapping my fingers around his staff until he groaned. His movements lost their playfulness and his hand shifted down farther. His fingertips moved to the entrance to my body. I stretched out on the bed, arching my back as the lightning quick pulses ran through me. He said I was beautiful, and my only reply was to gasp as his fingers reached inside me, curling gently, stroking a spot that made the world go away.

  His hands worked that perfect, amazing spot, as I writhed with pleasure. I stroked his shaft moving in crazy ways that had no rhythm. Then another powerful jolt of pleasure took me and I dropped him. My hands grabbed sheets, pulling them into clumps as my body tensed, every muscle taunt. Then suddenly, all at once, release, sweet and wonderful.

  I fell backward, gasping, exhausted with the effort. When I finally opened my eyes, he’d turned away, opening the bedside drawer. With a wicked smile on my face, I turned the other way, pushing my butt against his covered hardness.

  “That’s a great idea,” he whispered in my ear as he moved close behind me. We slept like this, but sleep was the farthest thing from my mind. His body slipped into the hot folds of my flesh with no resistance. After a second of awkward rhythm, we moved in synch, my body going back against his, his coming forward. The spot his fingers had stroked so boldly now felt a harder, more powerful touch, and with each thrust my excitement began to climb again.

  This time the sensation was more his than mine. The tight pressure, the need to thrust. I rode the sensation the same way I rode him, my body moving as he moved behind me. He gasped and his body stopped, stilled by the pleasure. A second later, I did the same, his release giving me my second. We laid there, our bodies still linked, our minds closer, breathing almost at the same time. Finally, he shifted away from me, laying back to catch his breath. I gave him a second, then rolled over to rest my head on his chest. His heartbeat wildly, a rapid thunder in my ear as I panted.

  “That just keeps getting better.”

  “Really? I was thinking that next time we could watch TV instead,” he teased.

  I replied by hitting him not so gently with a pillow.

  “Oww. And to think I introduced you to my father.”

  “Yeah, you did.” I pondered it for a minute, great sex, a great guy, and I got along okay with his dad. “A pretty good ending for a pretty good day.”

  “Not perfect?”

  “Mmmm.” I thought about the mixed parts of the day, trying to decide.

  “Oh sure, someone throws a lion cub in your living room and—”

  “Shit!”

  “What?”

  “I can’t go to sleep. I’ve got to get home and walk the cat.”

  “I don’t think you walk a lion,” he pointed out. I was already headed toward the closet and the spare clothes I kept there.

  “Will you take care of my dress for me?” I wanted to take it home, but I didn’t want it anywhere near the lion cub.

  “Sure.” He sat up in bed and rumpled his hair, then offered me a grin. “I’ll take it to get dry-cleaned. Let the town gossips wonder if I’m doing drag shows on the side.”

  I laughed at the idea of my dress fitting him. It would take more than a few layers of pantyhose to turn his muscled legs and lean chest into a female figure.

  “Just make sure they take care of it, okay?” I looked at the red fabric longingly.

  “You really don’t have to walk a lion.” He grabbed my wrists and tugged me toward the bed.

  I tugged back, freeing myself. “I know, but I promised I’d take care of it.” I sat on the edge of the bed, putting on jeans and wishing I’d thought to leave underwear at his place. “I’m sorry I have to go, I wanted to make sure you were okay with…things.”

  “Well, it would be nicer if you’d stay here,” he said with a sigh. “Made me breakfast…”

  “Uh-huh.” I tilted my head at him, searching his face for any traces of worry while I used my magic to read the rest of him.

  “I’m fine, really,” he laughed. “Just be careful.”

  “I don’t think the lion’s going to attack me.”

  “Probably not but people get hurt. Things happen, they die. That’s why you have to cherish and protect them.” He pulled me close, nestling his face into the curve of my neck, breathing deeply. “I love you. Be safe.”

  “I love you, too, and I am safe.” I thought about how good things were going and how bad they could have gone just a few months ago. “Why don’t you drive me home?”

  The drive from his place to my place was short, but sweet. We held hands the whole way and talked about vacation ideas. He was feeling sentimental, and I picked up on it. Most days I saw the sense of keeping our relationship private, tonight, with a ripe full moon above us, I wanted to move in with him and never leave his side. It was probably the great sex talking, or the wonderful dinner while I wore a beautiful dress. Whatever it was I shut the door to my apartment a little sad.

  The lion cub slept curled up in a neat little ball, making me feel like I picked the wrong guy to spend the night with. I grabbed a shower, got it a fresh bowl of water and went to sleep myself.

  5

  Reggie screamed. She was one, and I was six. Our bedrooms shared a wall, and she woke up all through the night, every night. That part of the dream could have been a memory, but I couldn’t find her. In real life she’d always been right there, in the room next to me. In the dream no matter where I went, she just kept screaming. I woke up groggy, the screaming barely faded from my ears. I’d taken care of my kid sister when she was a baby a few times, but now she was nineteen and I was twenty-four. Maybe seeing Ted’s baby picture brought it back, maybe it was—

  The angry wail of an ignored infant broke into my thoughts. I jumped out of bed without thinking. Crazy ideas ran through my mind, a baby left on my doorstep, a car accident outside. It was almost too dark to see so I threw on the light, wearing the sweats I’d gone to sleep in, my gun in my hands.

  I rested the gun down slowly on the kitchen counter. It wasn’t going to help. Inside the lion’s cage a naked human baby screamed merrily. A baby boy, to be exact. I grabbed a towel from the kitchen and wrapped his bottom in it, then held the poor little guy for a while, rocking him. Either I’d learned more taking care of Gina than I thought, or he was more desperate than most babies, because
in a minute, he went back to sleep.

  I grabbed the phone and dialed LaRue’s number, more than a little pissed. It didn’t take a witch to guess that the lion cub and the baby boy were one in the same. The idea that LaRue had bought a child made me want to hit him. A lot.

  “I need LaRue,” I demanded when one of them answered.

  “So what?” Samuel replied. I cursed the fate that let him pick up the phone. Douglas, I could strong arm into just about anything. Calvin was reasonable. At five a.m. with a baby-shaped crisis on my hands, I had to get the jerk.

  “So get him, now!”

  Samuel didn’t respond but I thought I heard him set the phone down. I waited a minute, the baby heavy in my arms. I wanted to put him down, but didn’t want to wake him. Another minute passed.

  “He’s busy,” Samuel said when he got back on.

  “It’s important. I don’t care what he’s doing.”

  Silence filled the other side of the phone.

  “Fine. How long will he be busy?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “How about you tell him I called and I’ll call you back, in say five minutes?”

  “You can do what you want.”

  “Great. I will.” I pressed the button to hang up with as much violence as I could muster. I kept calling until sunrise, but Samuel never gave me a different answer. Finally, just before the sun started to rise, I got desperate.

  I started with a new tactic. “I need to talk to LaRue, please.”

  “Why do you need him so bad?”

  Desperate, but not stupid enough to trust Samuel with the details, I edited the truth, “It’s about the cat he has me watching.

  “Deal with it yourself. He’s busy.” Why wasn’t I surprised Samuel said that?

  “Not that busy.”

  “He’s too busy for you.”

  I cursed in my head for a good three seconds before I could speak again. “Fine. Tell me what to feed this thing.”

  “I got no idea. Why don’t you call the breeder?”

  “Because I don’t know their name?”

  “I thought you were a detective?”

  The sneer in his voice came through the phone but I refused to rise to the bait.

  “Guess I’ll have to give you the number.”

  “That’d be great.” I took down the information. Predator Breeders Associated was located just north of Santa Clarita, by the Los Padres National Forest. I could be there in a few hours, if I didn’t hit traffic. I’d already picked the roads to take when I realized I was holding a sleeping baby. He wouldn’t enjoy making the trip and I didn’t have a safe way to take him with me. Leaving a lion cub alone made me feel a guilty, abandoning a child was absolutely out of the question. But who I could leave him with? A fresh cry from the baby made me realize there were more pressing problems.

  There is nothing more embarrassing than holding a child wrapped in a towel while shopping for diapers. When the baby is screaming loudly enough to be heard in every aisle of the convenience store it only makes things worse. The crying didn’t help me choose between four diaper options. Judging from the way my arm threatened to cramp the baby weighed more than fifteen pounds. I grabbed the bag that claimed to work for that weight, a can of formula, some baby food, and a water bottle as an afterthought. The clerk who checked me out didn’t blink.

  I diapered the kid on the roof of my car, amazed the skills I’d learned taking care of Gina still stuck with me. I stood the baby up to check my work and the diaper promptly slid down. I’d guessed wrong on the size and the shock of being stood up, naked, on the car started the baby crying again.

  For a minute I despaired but then remembered I kept the solution to all problems in my trunk. A few minutes later, the baby was wearing a diaper wrapped in duct tape and we were ready to go. I popped the top on the water bottle and handed it to him. Despite his age he took it like a champ, happily gumming the plastic spout like he was born to it. It looked a little sad to me, a baby drinking from a water bottle, but it could be worse. After all the kid has just been sold. As a pet.

  There are lots of things I can handle: jewel thieves, gang members, drug dealers, none of those are a problem. Cops, robbers, vampires, cheating husbands, and all manner of elves and fairies don’t bother me. But babies? This called for an expert. I dialed the best one I knew.

  “Mom?” I asked tentatively when she picked up. “I need you to do me a really big favor.”

  “Of course, Lizzie, what do you—”

  “And you can’t ask any questions about it.”

  “I can’t ask? Why? What’s going on? Is everything all right?”

  The baby took that moment to drop the water bottle and scream bloody murder.

  “Is that a baby? Elisabeth?” My mother’s voice went up at least two octaves.

  “Yeah, hold on Ma.” I ducked down at a stop light and returned the water bottle to the kid. “Do we have any of Gina’s old baby stuff? Maybe in the attic?”

  “We might.” Mom sounded unsure, like she didn’t want to commit to this crazy scheme.

  “Well, get it down, okay? I’ll be there soon.”

  The baby suckled quietly for the rest of the drive, his big green eyes taking in the world. I guessed that he wasn’t used to sitting in the front seat, and felt guilty about the lack of a car seat. Of course, werelions were like were-anything-else, if we had a crash he’d be fine. Even if the impact turned me to jelly and threw him through the windshield then down the street, he’d heal before the ambulance got there to declare me dead. He was an extraordinary baby that way. It made me wonder why someone had let him go. The more I looked at his tight blond curls and his chubby cheeked smile, the more I was sure he hadn’t been let go. He’d been stolen.

  “Mom?” I called out, coming into the house. The baby knew that word and giggled loudly. My mother took two steps out of the kitchen before she opened her mouth to start the questions.

  “Whose baby is this? It’s not yours? It can’t be, can it?” Complete confusion ruled her features, but at the same time she was smiling at the baby, making funny faces. Her eyes, normally the same gray-blue as mine, lit up with joy. When a fat baby fist yanked down on her dark hair, she just smiled.

  “Not mine, Ma,” I promised.

  “Well then, whose?”

  “I don’t know.” The kid looked more like LaRue than he looked like me. His blond hair was lighter than the vampire’s but with those green eyes he could have been LaRue’s son. But vampires can’t have children. More importantly, werelion was genetic, not viral, lycanthropy. This child had to have two parents who were both werelions to pull the lion cub then baby trick. Speaking of which, “He’s not mine, and he’s a werelion.”

  “A what?” my mother practically shouted, making the happy baby into a squealing infant again. She shushed him as I reassured her.

  “Werelion. Don’t worry it’s not the kind you can catch. The little guy was born this way.” I took a second to be amazed at how she could quiet the baby in an instant. “Look, I need you to watch him while I find his parents. I’ll come get him tonight but I can’t take him around with me during the day.”

  “Of course, you can’t. He needs naps and diaper changes and formula and…” her voice trailed off. When she spoke again, she sounded resolved instead of panicked. “Well, all right, I’ll watch him. But we’ll need things.”

  “Like what?” I followed her into the kitchen, where a pair of boxes labeled baby had enough dust to prove they’d come from the attic. There was a play pen and a car seat, both of which I vaguely remembered belonged to Gina. “Isn’t this enough?”

  “I hardly think a nineteen-year-old car seat is still safe to drive with Elisabeth.” She didn’t bother to disguise her disdain.

  “Okay,” I thought for a second. “When are you going out today?”

  “Well…”

  “Are you going out today?”

  “I didn’t have any plans to but I could.”

&
nbsp; “Look, I know it’s a huge favor to ask but if you could just watch him, please.”

  “All right. Now I know you said no questions but…”

  “You get three more.”

  “Is this illegal?”

  “I’m pretty sure it is but I don’t know how. When I got him, he was a lion not a baby so maybe the person who sold him didn’t know.”

  “Sold him?” My mother looked horrified at the thought.

  “Yeah LaRue—Josephine’s husband?”

  She nodded her recognition.

  “Bought him as a present for Jo, only LaRue thought he was just a lion.”

  “A lion isn’t much of a present is it?”

  “Is that a question? Because you’ve got one left.”

  “Honestly, Lizzie.” She rolled her eyes at me, looking a lot like Gina. “He’s two or three months old, he should be with his mother. His mother, the werelion, who is probably out there right now, looking for whoever took him with blood in her eyes. You’re acting far too cavalier about this.”

  “I know, Ma, I know.”

  My first stop was the coffee shop. Okay, not the most helpful stop in stolen-baby-werelion cases but hey, I needed more coffee. Marty, my usual barista, gave me an extra smile.

  “You’re late,” she said, pointing to the clock.

  “Am I?”

  “You’re usually the start of the morning rush. Today you’re the end, what gives?”

  “You’d never believe me.”

  “Lesbian biker gang?” she quipped.

  I gave her my best dark look and took my caffeinated goodness to a back table. Months ago, two of my Army buddies who just happened to be sleeping together arrived in town on motorcycles. A few kisses in public made Van Deck and Summers the talk of the town for days. It was bad enough when my own mother brought it up. Worse, my new brother-in-law believed the gossip and bought me my own motorcycle. My mind turned wistfully to the majestic machine. Riding it through the backroads was my favorite therapy. But that didn’t mean I enjoyed the gossip it started up.