Witch Hunt

by Layla Nash

  All of those sounded like more restful options than more coven meetings and going back to work. If I even still had a job. I smacked my forehead and sent a text message to my boss that I’d been taken ill and was very sorry I’d missed work. Shit.

  I rolled my motorcycle out of the back garden shed and pulled on the helmet. I’d gotten it right after my mother passed away, when any risk seemed like a good one and I didn’t care how fast I went as I tried to outrun the grief. It hadn’t worked. But I still kept the bike, because some days I needed to live closer to the edge than others.

  I drove the long way to Palmer’s house, taking the turns a little too fast and a little too tight, but at least I felt awake and alive by the time I kicked down the stand in front of the cookie-cutter house in the middle-class neighborhood. The whole place felt like some kind of a movie set for some retro look at the 1950s. It made me twitch; I couldn’t even imagine living there, much less choosing to live there. What had gone through Palmer’s head when he decided to buy the house that was precisely the same, down to the same color on the shutters and the door, as four other ones on the street?

  The front door opened and Palmer appeared before I’d even made it halfway up the driveway and gotten my mask in place. His brow creased as he strode up to me, and he reached out both hands to catch mine, despite that I still held my helmet and bag. “Deirdre, thank God. Are you okay?”

  I blinked, startled back a step or two. Maybe he had been worried. “Uh, yes. I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”

  He didn’t release my wrists and instead squeezed them a bit. “I called and then drove past your house when I didn’t hear back from you. I was really starting to think something bad happened. Where were you?”

  “I got…pulled away for a bit,” I said. I gently drew away and he released my wrists. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  Palmer took a deep breath and glanced over his shoulder at the house, where my aunt was no doubt watching from the windows and bitching about how I was delaying her meeting by loitering in the driveway with him. Then Palmer tilted his head at the porch and hovered his hand near the small of my back to usher me toward a bench swing on the other side as the door. “Would you sit with me for a moment, Deirdre?”

  I didn’t want to. I couldn’t say why, but my chest tightened and an uneasy feeling bloomed from my stomach. It wasn’t at all like the irritation and fury that brewed when Evershaw tried to make me do something I didn’t want to, which was an odd thing to compare the witch to. “I’m sure Estelle wants us to begin, so maybe after we can—”

  “I mentioned I wanted to speak to you about something, and she was more than happy to start the meeting without us.” He smiled, a perfectly pleasant expression, but it left me cold.

  My excuse disappeared, so I trudged up to the swing and searched for a way to not sit next to him. But there wasn’t anywhere to go, so I set my helmet down and perched on the edge as he sat down. I sucked in a breath and braced for some other kind of accusation or demand, some other drain on my time and energy. Palmer smiled again, his blue eyes earnest in the flickering shadows of the porch light, and he took my left hand in both of his.

  “We’ve known each other for quite a while, Deirdre.”

  Oh shit. Oh shit.

  My panic must have shown, even through the icy facade, because his gaze warmed even more. “I’ve always found you enchanting, literally and figuratively. I thought having you deliver flowers to yourself was a funny way of expressing my regard for you, but I know that fell flat. But the last few days, when I couldn’t reach you, made me realize how empty my life would be if you weren’t in it.”

  A knot tied my throat up until I almost couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t about to say what I feared he’d say. He couldn’t. He wasn’t that foolish or stupid or misdirected. I’d never given him a hint I’d welcome a romantic relationship. I hardly talked to him outside of the coven meetings. He was one of the few people who’d stopped by and checked on me after Mom died, but that wasn’t really the foundation for some kind of relationship.

  When I didn’t speak, Palmer took a deep breath, gearing up for something big. “I very much want to get to know you better, and I want to make your life easier. I want you to be safe and happy. You carry so many burdens on your own, Deirdre. It’s really not fair for someone as young and talented as you are.”

  He was right about the burdens and it not being fair. My eyes prickled, because at least someone had noticed how hard it was. He’d realized the difficulty of the last year and how I’d struggled. Maybe he saw me better than the others did, even my aunt. He at least seemed to care about whether my life had ended up the way I planned at twenty-six. But still I couldn’t speak, and Palmer didn’t make me.

  He just squeezed my hand and ran his thumb along the back of my knuckles, over and over and over. “I’m not foolish enough to think you’d want to get married or even to date just yet, but I wanted to offer you something so you can get your feet under you and relax and... take a breath. Share the burden for a while.”

  Mom always said to beware of strangers bearing gifts. I took a shaky breath. What if he’d already talked to my aunt about this, and the whole coven was inside waiting to hear whether I’d accepted whatever it was Palmer planned to offer? God, that was so embarrassing, like parents peeking out at their teenager’s first date and awkward first kiss. It made me want to immediately get back on the motorcycle and get the fuck out of there.

  But Palmer still held my hand. He moved and the swing swung a bit, distracting me as I stared out at the yard and the almost-full moon. “Come and live with me for a while, Deirdre. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I’ve got more than enough room. You can bring Cricket and all of your plants; I’ll build you a greenhouse in the backyard, or you can turn one of the spare rooms into a hot house. Whatever you want. Let me take care of you, let me deal with all the cooking and cleaning and bills. You can relax and regroup, then we can maybe move into a different kind of relationship. No pressure, no obligations.”

  “That’s very…generous,” I said. Nothing else occurred to me as I looked at where he held my hand. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just think about it.” He smiled warmly. “I know you love that house but it’s so old that things will just keep going wrong and it must be expensive to heat and cool it, in addition to replacing everything that breaks.”

  The thought left me cold, but not because he was wrong—because he was right. And I couldn’t afford to fix the next thing that broke. The hot water heater was on its last legs, and so was the furnace. If one of those went... I shivered. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “That’s all I ask.” Palmer got up and helped me stand. “Let’s get inside and get you something to drink. I’ve already told Estelle that I have an early meeting downtown tomorrow morning, so I don’t think she’ll keep us here terribly long.”

  I shook my head and muttered, “Unbelievable. I tell her I’m exhausted and she demands that I show up, but you’ve got an early meeting and suddenly the coven business isn’t that important?”

  Palmer chuckled. “Between you and me, she’s prodded me to ask you out for years. So when I said I needed time to convince you, suddenly she was very much in favor of whatever it took.”

  I stopped in my tracks, grateful that the front door wasn’t open just yet. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “No,” he said. Although there was a hint of a flinch when I swore. I wondered if people who said “fuck” were allowed in that neighborhood. Palmer brushed the sandy hair out of his face as he glanced at the door, then back at me. “She’s fixated on having more witches in the city, and she sees you and me as the future of the coven.”

  “You and me?” I almost dropped my helmet. “She thinks—are you kidding?”

  And that time Palmer did wince, though he covered it with a laugh. “Careful now, or you’ll hurt my feelings.”

  “No,” I said, absently reaching to touch
his arm. “That’s not what I meant. Just…her meddling. Her unbelievable meddling. She isn’t a spider sitting on her web, pulling strings and shooing the flies around. I can’t believe— That’s it. That’s the very last straw.” I shook my head, getting angry despite my mantra, and prepared to sever my relationship with Estelle forever. She had no right to talk to Palmer about dating me and her goals for us spitting out a bunch of little witch babies, just so she could sacrifice more witches to her precious coven.

  Palmer caught my arm and pulled me up short. “Take a deep breath, Deirdre. Just ignore her. She’s a miserable woman who’s clinging to whatever semblance of control she can. Don’t let her control your reactions like this. I can tell her whatever you want about what we talked about; it might get her off your back if she thinks we’re dating, but I’ll leave that up to you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said grimly. “Let’s get this over with.”

  He was still chuckling a bit, bemused, which just set my hackles up more as he opened the door and we stepped inside to face the coven. What the hell did he find so funny? But then Palmer deflected all the questions from the nosy coven and my horrid aunt and cleared the way for me to the comfortable living room and a perfectly mixed rum and coke. The ice queen shield settled back in place and I resisted the urge to scowl. I’d find a way of demonstrating to my aunt that I didn’t appreciate anyone—not her, not Evershaw, not Smith, not anyone—making decisions about my life for me.

  Chapter 29

  Evershaw

  He didn’t sit still all afternoon, until everyone else in the pack was walking on eggshells and jumping at every noise. Evershaw found himself wandering into the guest room the witch had occupied, searching for her scent, then he would realize what he’d done and storm out again. He was angry at himself for letting the witch distract him, and angry at her for working her way under his skin and into his thoughts. He had no interest in opening himself up to a relationship with a woman who clearly meant to make her own way. She was perfectly maddening in her stubbornness.

  Todd muttered, “Hallelujah,” when Edgar Chase finally called with the address for the kid who’d tried to give the witch flowers. Because then Evershaw could launch to his feet and down to the SUVs and finally take action; he could finally do something to find the witch.

  Henry and Mercy rode in the back seat as Todd drove and Evershaw sat up front, no longer worried about poison shooting at him from the vents. He gripped the door handle until the leather tore and Todd made an annoyed sound, but no one dared say anything.

  It was late by the time they reached the ugly-ass neighborhood where the kid lived; he couldn’t quite square how a kid Palmer’s age could afford a house like that, but it wasn’t any skin off his ass. One of the search teams had circled in earlier and said they caught a hint of the witch’s scent, so Evershaw was practically jumping out of his skin to find her, to finally set eyes on her. He wanted to see the witch’s face when she saw him and realized he’d chased her down. Chances were he wouldn’t see her for long, since she’d fucking hex him as soon as she could, but it would be a great couple of seconds.

  Todd pulled up a little way down the street, since there were half a dozen cars and a motorcycle parked in front of the kid’s house, and sank lower in his seat so he’d be harder to see. “Dodge walked by and said the bike is hers.”

  “A motorcycle?” Evershaw snorted; he couldn’t picture the straitlaced, icy witch on two wheels.

  “Well, we towed her car back to the warehouse and forgot to give it back to her.” Todd shook his head, studying the house as the door opened and people began to leave. “Who do you think all these people are?”

  “Smith thought it might be her coven.”

  “I had the team run the plates through our friend at police headquarters. Nothing of note for any of them. The blue sedan belongs to her aunt, Deirdre’s only living family.”

  Evershaw ignored the slight trace of pity that surfaced, since he knew perfectly well what it was like to be completely alone in the world. He didn’t like the idea of the witch alone—driving alone, living alone... sleeping alone. He shook his head to banish that thought, too, and scowled as the door to the house shut but Deirdre hadn’t appeared.

  “Maybe she’s sleeping over,” Mercy muttered from the back seat, and Evershaw growled with fury before he could choke it back.

  The other three eyed him and he scowled more. “Not a word.”

  “You want me to go in and get her?” Henry asked dubiously. “I can break the kid’s legs while I’m in there. Maybe torch the place.”

  “Shut up,” Todd said. “Don’t give him ideas.”

  Evershaw was ready to give them both a verbal and then physical ass-kicking, except Mercy said, “Wait.”

  The door to the house opened again and the witch appeared, carrying a helmet. The man stood in the doorway and argued with her, and Evershaw rolled down his window so he could hear. The kid wanted her to stay and Deirdre was adamant about staying at her own house. He said something about her having too much to drink but she ignored him and headed for the motorcycle.

  He tensed as that Palmer kid stayed on the porch to watch her. Evershaw wanted to charge up there and kick the kid’s ass for staring at the witch with such hunger in his eyes. That guy was dangerous and it didn’t seem like Deirdre saw it. She put her helmet on and it took her three tries to start the motorcycle, which brought Palmer off the porch and into the driveway, still trying to talk reason into the witch. She ignored him, double-checked her helmet, and sped off.

  Todd gave instructions to the search teams to hang back, and instead their SUV gave chase. She drove fine at first, though she slowly lost speed and began to weave a little. At least she took side streets. Evershaw ordered the other teams to close in and keep all other traffic away from her, so there was no chance someone would hit her. Something wasn’t right. The witch wasn’t stupid enough to drive drunk, and from what the other teams said, she hadn’t been in there long enough to get even a little tipsy.

  Evershaw watched her stop at a light and shake her head, swaying a little, and he held his breath. “He put something in her drink.”

  “You think so?” Todd asked. “She doesn’t seem like the type to go riding around while buzzed. And she’s—barely staying upright.”

  “We should stop her,” Mercy said, leaning forward. “Please. Before she gets hurt.”

  Evershaw hesitated. They were close to the witch’s house, from what he’d been told, and there wasn’t anything on the streets that could hurt her. He started to give the order when Deirdre stopped, got off the motorcycle, and stood next to it, swaying slightly. Then she started walking, wheeling the bike along. He exhaled in relief. Good witch. Smart girl.

  She wheeled the motorcycle into the yard of a somewhat dilapidated mansion in a rundown neighborhood, what had once been the hoity-toity part of town back in the city’s heyday. It had fallen into disrepair, and not many people held on to their impressive Victorian houses. Deirdre, though, stashed the motorcycle in what might have once been a carriage house, then staggered around to the front. He held his breath as all the SUVs converged on her block, though his was the only one that rolled right into the drive. It was a testament to how out of it she was that she didn’t even notice the giant black SUV in her yard.

  He clenched his hands until his knuckles cracked. He was going to fucking kill that Palmer kid. Slowly. Painfully. Maybe turn him over to the young wolves to play with and take apart. Feed him to some pigs. He started growling and couldn’t seem to stop.

  Chapter 30

  Deirdre

  I realized something was wrong toward the end of the coven meeting. The room grew soft and kind of slow, and everything blurred just a touch around the edges. At some point my drink kept refilling itself even though I didn’t remember asking it to be topped up, and it might have been my imagination, but it tasted just a bit off.

  And for all her complaining, Estelle didn’t even want
me to do magic. She just sat and lectured. There were discussions about a few spells, but those were all academic and not really about the protection spells she’d claimed were so important. It all made me more irritated and kind of distracted, so I was surprised to look up and find that everyone else had gone.

  I blinked and then Palmer was there on the couch next to me. “Are you feeling all right? You look a bit flushed.”

  Something wasn’t right. My instincts started to jangle and I pushed to my feet. “I should go.”

  “Are you sure?” Palmer stood back to watch me fumble with the helmet and stumble on my way to the door. “You can sleep here, if you’d like. The guest room is ready.”

  “I’d feel better at my own house.” My voice sounded very far away. I knew I shouldn’t drive, I knew it would be dangerous, but I knew it might be more dangerous to stay. I didn’t know if it was Palmer’s fault or Estelle’s, but something definitely wasn’t right.

  He argued with me at the door, trying to convince me to stay, but I stuck to my guns. Better to take my chances on the road, slow and steady and along the least-trafficked streets, than remain trapped in a house. I’d had enough of being trapped over the previous few days and wasn’t about to walk into another prison.

  It was slow going on the way home, and I thought there might have been someone following me or shadowing me on side streets or something. I was only a few blocks from my street when I couldn’t do it anymore. I walked the motorcycle instead, exhausted and disoriented and dragging my feet for what felt like a damned marathon to get the two blocks to my house.