by Hazel Hunter
“Pure English through and through,” Colin said, and she nearly shrieked.
The seat next to her had been empty. She knew it had been empty. Now Colin sat next to her as if they were both waiting for the train, his arms folded across his chest, and a look of intense interest in his face.
“Of course that was during the thirteenth century, and I think it meant more then. There was always someone declaring a crusade or marching off to attack someone else in righteous fury. Well, I don't know, there's plenty of marching these days, but I prefer to stick with matters of the Corps.”
“Where did you come from?” she asked numbly, and his grin was boyish.
“Your apartment, or don't you remember?” he said, a smile on his face.
Dammit. He was meeting her eyes without fear, and she couldn't tell if it was bravery or foolishness.
“I do remember,” Selene said sharply. “I remember you interrupted my bath like…like…”
“Like a man who needs to convince you?” he suggested, and she scowled. “Anyway, you were wondering where I was from. The answer is England. I grew up, I left on crusade, I met a woman who turned out to be a powerful witch, and the rest is, as they say, history.”
Selene blinked. “I don't think I've met a warlock as old as you,” she said surprised.
“There aren't many, though we're around. Many of us choose to retreat to study or other meditative arts. I like keeping my hand in, so to speak.”
He paused, looking her over. For a moment she had the idea that he was looking straight down into her soul. She wondered what he would find there.
“You're not going to get away from me,” he said at last. “I was given this mission, and seeing as it has scared off so many of the younger officers, it is one I have to see completed.”
“Then we have a problem,” she retorted.
He chuckled a little bit at that. “I suppose we do. However, I do hope to convince you to return. There is a world that misses you, you must understand that.”
“There is a world that wants to tie me down and bind me,” she stated flatly. “It's a world that needs me so much that the alternative is to eliminate me.”
He was still for a moment, and she could see something darken his eyes. There was something there, though she didn't know what.
“Something troubles you,” she said. “Is it possibly guilt at what you are doing?”
The grin he gave her was toothy but rueful.
“You simply do not live to be as old as I am without having some regrets,” he said. “Old memories trouble me, and they will trouble you too if you choose to live that long.”
Selene bit her lip. She wondered if she was trying to curry favor with someone who was practically holding a sword to her neck. At least currying favor would make more sense than this strange compassion that she felt for him.
“I could relieve you of some of that,” she said softly. “I could…I could take some of it away.”
He didn't recoil in fear the way that some of the witches and warlocks had. Nor did he dismiss her offering as something that only the weak-minded required. Instead, his eyes took on a faraway look before he spoke.
“When I was young, as these things are reckoned, I was chasing a witch much like you through the wilds of what is now Hungary. She was strong, but she was terrified. She commanded the winds, and she didn't know how to control them. She had already been chased from her village by an angry mob, and when I found her, she was walking the roads like a starveling cat. I tried to talk with her, but she was too afraid. She called me a devil, a tempter, and she fled from me. Every time I got close enough to speak to her, she would catch me up in what felt like a tornado, lifting me off of my feet and whirling me away. Shortly after she sent me away one last time, a village saw her work. They tortured her, and they killed her. I finally found her a day later, and it was far too late. She was dead, and she had died in pain.”
Selene covered her mouth. She had heard stories of what it was like centuries ago, when people actually knew of witches and their powers. She knew how safe the modern world had made them, and she had never known someone who had stood close to something so brutal.
“Why would you want to keep a memory like that?” she asked.
Colin turned to face her, and she could feel herself falling into his green eyes. They were honest, and if she didn't know better, she would say that there was a plea in them as well.
“Because it is mine,” he said softly. “That girl died more than five hundred years ago. She was only sixteen when they hung her body over the wall. She had freckles, a little like you, but she was a skinny little thing. I'm not sure she ever had a real meal in her life. She could have honed her powers and become one of the most powerful witches on the continent. I certainly thought she was powerful when she whirled me away. Perhaps I am over-romanticizing, and she would have found a humble but happy place with a coven.”
He sighed, and suddenly, for a moment, she could see the weight of those years on him. She could see how deaths like that of the nameless girl in Hungary had worn at his soul.
“I want to keep her because no one else will,” he said softly. “She was lost and so afraid, and hell, I could see why she wouldn't trust me. Still, that was her life, and I carry it forward as one of the darkest days of mine. I won't forget it, Selene, but I thank you for the relief you would offer me.”
“It is a gift, you know,” she said softly. “It is. They said it was a curse, the Corps officers that came after me, but no. It can be a gift.”
She was slightly startled when Colin touched her chin with his finger, tilting her face up. He was so close to her that she could smell the delicious scent of him. She could feel the heat that his body shed like water.
“Come back with me,” he said softly. “I swear that you will not regret it. Life does not have to be hunting and hiding. It does not have to be this way.”
She opened her mouth, and the fact that she didn't know if she was going to accept or not terrified her. Instead, she whispered the word ophir, and Colin looked around in confusion. His eyes slid away from her as if he were sitting alone. As he looked around in uncertainty, she picked up her bag and walked away.
Ophir was more powerful than praxis, and accordingly, she felt drained. She knew that if she looked into a mirror, she would find that her face was pale and wan, and after the night she’d had, she was ready to drop.
Her train was called, and she hesitated, glancing back at where Colin stood. He was fiddling with his smartphone, patting his pockets for his keys, and gazing around him in mild confusion and irritation. Ophir was actually a spell that created a general feeling of forgetfulness. It was not permanent, and it was in fact one of her favorite spells for that reason alone. The person affected would go about their lives, vaguely irritated and unsure what they were forgetting, and its effect would last for a good while. She knew that it had lasted for at least a day in times past, but at the very least, she could count on having a few hours to do what she needed to do.
She bit her lip, remembering her assignment for the next day. She didn't want to leave Chicago with that task undone. She could use the cash, especially if the Corps was closing in on her.
She made her decision. She glanced at Colin one last time, and disappeared into the cold winter night.
CHAPTER SIX
A LITTLE OVER an hour later, Colin finally remembered what he was trying to think of. It was Selene, and instead of being irritated, he grinned and pulled out his smartphone.
“Stephan here, and no matter what's going on out there, it better be worth remembering the time difference. It's five a.m. out here.”
“Quit crying, I've got some new intelligence.”
“Right, what's up?”
Colin smiled, and he knew his pleasure with regards to the situation was going to come out no matter what.
“We've got another power for Selene Lapointe's file. She can cloud the mind. I spent a little less than an hour
wandering around Union Station trying to remember what I forgot, and it was her. I had forgotten her.”
Stephan swore long and low.
“Look, we knew about that one, or at least we suspected. She did the same thing to First Lieutenant Franklin just last year. He said that it took him a day and a half to walk it off.”
Colin laughed, and he could practically hear Stephan's look of concern. “Don't you see?”
“Enlighten me, Colonel,” said the tech warlock cautiously.
“Either she's not hitting me with everything she has, or close proximity to me has made me at least slightly immune.”
There was a slight silence on the line as Stephan thought it over.
“That's a good guess, but it sounds like that's all it is. She still managed to hit you with a memory spell. She still got away.”
“Well, I'm heading after her again. I just wanted to give you the new intel and check in.”
“All right, duly noted, Colonel. I just wish–”
Colin hung up the phone. When he was a young boy in England, almost everyone hunted. The great lords hunted deer and boar. The peasants, like him and his family, hunted rabbit and squirrel. He knew that he might have become a little mad when there was a chase on, but a little mad seemed like just the right way to track down a woman as wild as Selene.
He pulled the amulet out of his pocket, and when it sparked bright copper—the same color as her hair—he disappeared.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE HOTEL ROOM that Selene found was luxurious beyond belief. It made her home look like a hovel, and that was saying something. She was exhausted, having used her powers to get by the front desk. Then she had swiped the key card that allowed her into the currently unused penthouse. It was pure white, and the floor to ceiling windows in the sitting room gave her a beautiful view of Chicago and the lake. Over the deeply, dark water, she could detect just the faintest scrim of blue, and she knew that dawn was coming soon.
She had let Bitsy out to explore the place, and she threw herself onto the couch. Though the enormous bed was welcoming, she knew that she couldn't fall asleep, not quite yet. Her mind was still buzzing emptily, and her body craved…
What did it crave?
Her mind supplied the answer in a muscular colonel with spring-green eyes. She forced the thought away. She knew what his mission was, and for some reason, her body hadn't gotten the memo. He should have terrified her and yet, for some reason he didn't.
Selene tried to focus on what she needed to do. Today she would deal with her job. That evening, she would be on a flight to somewhere else. She wondered if she should try her luck in France or perhaps south to Brazil. The world was full of possibilities, but she was shocked to realize that she didn't really like any of them. She had truly liked Chicago. She thought with a pang of her waitressing job, which certainly had its duller and more frustrating moments, but where she knew people, and they knew her. They were going to think she had skipped out on them, and for some reason that hurt.
She imagined trying to explain: “Sorry, I need to leave town because a man I find terribly handsome wants me to join up or die.”
She was falling asleep on the couch when she heard Bitsy's curious chitter. The little ferret was painfully protective of her mistress, and even if there was nothing she could do to really help, she was prone to puffing up, hissing and doing a frenzied aggressive dance if someone who displeased her came into the apartment. This chitter, however, was exactly how she greeted Selene when Selene returned home.
Selene looked up, and it almost wasn't a surprise to see Colin sitting on the small wing chair by the door and cautiously petting her ferret on the head with one gentle, blunt finger.
“She's quite the sweetheart,” he observed. “Does she have a name?”
“Well, it's Bitsy, but at this point, I'm thinking of changing it to Traitor. So you found me.”
“I did, and it's about time that you realized that I am going to keep finding you.”
His smile was surprisingly kind, and a part of her reached for the warmth she thought she could feel there. She pulled herself back. There was no point in curling up next to something that didn't exist. He was a Corps officer, and she knew what they did.
“Then my choices are to join or die,” she said softly.
He tilted his head. “Is that so hard? We are not monsters, no matter what you seem to think.”
She ignored his question. She was tired of running, so tired of looking over her shoulder. Maybe it was time to try something else.
Colin watched warily as she pulled herself up from the couch. She still wore her hoodie and her jeans, but she had stripped off her shoes and socks, and when she approached him across the plush white carpet, she didn't make a single sound.
“It's teleportation, right?” she asked softly. “I had some time to think about it, and it occurred to me that that was what it must be. You can just blink and take yourself straight to where I am.”
He looked at her with consideration, and she could almost see the moment when he decided to trust her. She wondered if that was his game, that he was going to keep being open with her until she gave in. Honesty could move worlds where lies couldn't, and she knew what a compelling policy it was.
“I can go almost wherever I like,” he said after a moment. “However, the only reason I can find you is because of this.”
Selene blinked at the little contraption of leather and stone he pulled from his pocket. It looked like the work of a clumsy, if enthusiastic child.
“I have no idea what that is,” she confessed.
He smiled. “From what people are calling it, it's mage tech. It's power bound into a physical form. After I met you, it allowed me to keep finding you. You're right though. My power is teleportation, and you have led me on quite a chase today.”
“I could take away your memory of meeting me. I could do it. You wouldn't know why you were in Chicago at all.”
She was too tired to be rational. She had wanted it to come out like a threat, but instead there was a soft, almost plaintive quality to it.
Colin looked like he was seriously considering her words, and then he shrugged.
“Frankly, I'm not sure you could make someone forget their phone number right now,” he pointed out.
She flinched, because he was right. First Yasmine, and the times she had used her power on Colin—it all had a cost.
“Do you want me to take you somewhere?”
She blinked at him. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I think you could use some fun. Let me show you what I can do.”
“Are you showing off?” she asked suspiciously, but his smile was disarming.
“I suppose I might be.”
Selene thought about it for a moment. She knew that she had enough power left, just barely, to blank his mind for an extended period of time. If she did that, she would disable him completely, and there would be no question regarding whether he was going to follow her or not.
She thought about it, and then deliberately, she put it out of her head. If she had been asked if she spent her life taking risks, she would have said yes. Deep down though, she knew that was a lie—and a fairly large one. Her life was safe because of her power, and all of the risks she took were carefully calculated with regard to that power. She wanted to take a real risk.
She took a step closer to Colin. “All right, Colonel, show me what you've got.”
The grin he gave her was brighter than the sunrise. With a single graceful movement, he came close to her and wrapped a strong arm around her waist. She gasped a little when he pulled her close, and now she could feel how muscular his body was. It awakened desires in her that she hadn't felt in far too long, but before she could think about that, the room around them dissolved and they were gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IF COLIN HAD been thinking about it, he would have said that something was wrong. He would have realized that he was feeling far too refres
hed and far too energetic given the magic that he had done that night. The leaps all over Chicago should have drained him, and at the very least, he should have felt a real bear of a headache coming on. Instead, he felt as fresh as if he had just woken up. Except for the tiredness that came with staying up all night, he was ready to show Selene what he had.
She felt perfect against him, her lush curves fitting the hard planes of his body neatly. When she looked up at him, he saw that her eyes were the same color as warm honey. For that single moment, she didn't look like a dangerous rogue or a lost girl. Instead she looked like a woman who wanted to melt for him, and that took his breath away.
He concentrated, thinking of a place he had been in Chicago before, and suddenly, the room changed and they were in a long room walled with glass. There were dim amber lights running along the floor, and beyond that, all else was dark.
“Where are we?” Selene asked hesitantly, and he wondered if she was regretting her decision.
He realized belatedly that his offer could have easily been a trap, a way to bring her to a group of Corps officers who would have overwhelmed her. Her trust, no matter where it came from, touched him. He held her a little tighter.
“Look,” he said simply, and he walked them over to one of the windows.
Below them, Chicago stretched like a jeweled wonderland. The cars that ran along the busy streets were undaunted by the cold, early morning, creating veins of light that threaded through the city as seen from above. Chicago's famous skyline looked small and far away, and Selene gasped with pleasure.
“Are we at the Sears Tower?” she said in awe.
“Well, it's the Willis Tower now, but yes. It's still a few hours before anyone is going to show up, and we have the place to ourselves for a bit.”
Selene paced in front of the glass with wonder, taking in the sight of one of the country's largest cities spread beneath her as if it was a gorgeous toy, just for her. There was something childish about her wonder, and with a pang, Colin wondered if she had ever been allowed to simply look and take pleasure in what she saw. The life of a rogue was often very difficult, and even one as tough as Selene needed to be constantly on the run.
