“I don’t think they’ve taken her far,” he explains as he pulls a map partially open, then tosses it to the side and keeps digging.
“Why do you think that?” I ask, my thumb brushing over the worst of the welts on my hand. I want to itch it, but I know I would regret it.
“They think she still has it. That she has just hidden it somewhere,” he says. He opens another map, nods, and brings it to me.
“But she doesn’t?” I ask, taking the map with both hands.
“No.” Gerard shakes his head wearily. “It would be easier if we did though. These people can’t be reasoned with.”
“Is it the NWR?”
He laughs, though there is no humor to the sound. “I wish.”
“You or Maybelle are going to tell me everything after I find her,” I say before I begin. “Especially why you think I might be next.”
“If you really want to know,” Gerard agrees begrudgingly.
“I do.”
I brush past him, dump my purse on the ground, and spread the map out on his desk. It’s a map of the county. Just large enough to ensure that I’ll find her if she’s here, but small enough that there’s less chance I’ll overexert myself.
The welts on my hand are starting to show through the concealer I put on them, probably because I’ve rubbed my hands too much today. I curl my fingers under and focus on the map.
The paper is dusty as I smooth my hands over it. I shut my eyes and nudge the Finding magic. It responds almost eagerly. I breathe a sigh of relief and push harder, picturing Maybelle’s face in my mind as I search. Red lines wind down from my hands, scattering across the map like a spider web. She’s close. Still in the town, but I can’t see where yet, I can’t—
A wave of pain hits me in the gut and it feels like the welts are being burned into my skin all over again. My hands twitch on the map as I try to pull the magic back. It won’t stop.
Olivia.
I gasp and try to open my eyes, but I can’t seem to move. It feels like I’m falling.
Olivia.
I can hear her voice like she’s right behind me. The burning pain in my arms doubles and I think I might be screaming, but I can’t hear anything but my own labored breathing and the frantic beating of my heart.
My head and back hit something hard. The air rushes from my lungs. My body shakes as my muscles contract violently.
I can see my mother standing over me, but I can’t reach her.
14
My hand twitches spastically. I can see it from the corner of my eye, but I can’t make it stop. I can’t seem to move at all.
The cardigan I’m wearing is scorched and falling to pieces on my arm. The welts, now an even darker red and inflamed, show through the gaps.
Another spasm wracks my body, and I grunt in pain, but I’m able to move my fingers. I focus on that, forcing my first finger, and then my second to curl in toward my palm. One by one I coerce each muscle to move and roll onto my side.
I can’t hear anyone in the room. Gerard must have abandoned me like this. I lift my head, the room spins for a moment, the comes back into focus. He’s gone, the asshole. I guess he decided that since I failed at Finding Maybelle I wasn’t worth fooling with anymore.
I groan and push myself upright and lean back against the wall. It takes a second to catch my breath. I rip the cardigan off and touch the shoulder of the dress tentatively. It’s ruined. The welts are much worse as well. And not just that, they’ve spread.
I brush my hand from my shoulder up my neck and feel the welts stop just above my collarbone. Based on the ache in my chest and side, I think they may have extended there as well.
My phone rings. I stare at my purse and consider just letting it go to voicemail, but as it rings again I sigh and push myself onto my knees and crawl to my purse.
The caller id says it’s Lydia. I answer and put the phone to my ear.
“Hey, Lydia,” I say hoarsely. It hurts to speak.
“Olivia, you need to come to your house,” Lydia says, her voice tight.
“Why?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady despite the pain shooting through my side and the growing headache pounding in the back of my head.
“Your house was broken into,” Lydia hesitates before continuing. “Nothing was taken that we can tell, but there has been some damage.”
I want to sink into the floor and never get up. My heart twists when I think about what could have happened to Mr. Muffins if I hadn’t decided to stay with the vampires.
“How much damage?” I ask finally.
“Slurs on the door and some of the walls. Some things have been broken. Your workroom is the worst. I think the ingredients will be unusable.”
“And this was done by…” I trail off. I don’t want to say their name. His name.
“It does look like something the NWR would do, though there is no evidence Martinez is back.”
I look down at my still trembling hands, the red welts darker and inflamed. I have no choice. I can’t do this on my own.
“Maybelle has gone missing. She left a note you may want to read before we talk to the police.”
“Where are you?” Lydia demands. I can hear her heels snapping against a wood floor.
“The warehouse. Gerard’s.”
“What—“ she cuts her self off. “Stay there, I’m sending someone to get you.”
“You can’t,” I object. “Only you. No one else, not until we talk.”
“Olivia, it’s been almost five hours since you ran away from the funeral. Special Agent Hawking was already starting to get concerned something had happened to you. There will be questions.”
“I’m sure you can help me think up a good excuse.” I let my head thunk back against the wall. “I also need a change of clothes.”
One of the computer screens flares to life, almost blinding me. I squint into the sudden light and realize it’s showing Lydia opening the door.
“Olivia?” Lydia shouts from the front of the warehouse.
“In the back!” I shout back, which sends me into a coughing fit. It’s dusty in here and I desperately need some water.
She shuts the door and the computer screen goes dark once again. That explains why Gerard was never surprised to see me at least.
Lydia’s heels echo loudly as she walks to the back room. I don’t bother trying to stand. The door to Gerard’s office swings open. Lydia is wearing a low cut red dress with a ruffled skirt and glittery black heels. Her gray hair swings around her face in soft curls.
“What— were you on a date?” I ask, mouth hanging open.
“I’m old, not dead, Olivia,” she says chunking a bag of clothes at my head. I only manage to half block it, and barely keep it from dropping onto the dirty floor.
“Thanks.” I dig through the bag, relieved to see a long sleeved shirt. I’d forgotten to specify.
“What the hell happened to you? Are those burns?” Lydia says, concern tinging her voice as she comes closer, crouching down next to me.
“I think they are,” I say with a shrug. “Help me up?”
She grasps my hand and pulls me up quickly. My legs tremble, but I don’t collapse.
“Olivia,” she says, hands on hips. “What is going on?”
I turn away from her and strip my dress off. She gasps as it falls away. My back must look even worse than it feels.
“Magic is temperamental sometimes. I made a mistake the other day that I’m still paying for,” I explain as I dig the jeans out of the bag.
“What did you do?” She asks firmly.
I pull the shirt on and tug the sleeves as far down over my hands as I can. If I’m lucky, and if no one looks too carefully, I might be able to get away with it.
“Olivia, don’t ignore me,” she snaps.
I turn around, suddenly angry. Angry I have to ask for help. Angry Gerard put me in the position. Angry I’ve made so many stupid decisions in a row.
“They’ll kill me Lydia, or fi
nd a way to use me,” I snap back. “I don’t know which is worse, but I don’t want to find out.”
“You can trust me—“
“No, I can’t,” I say, curling my arms around myself. “If I told you, you would have to tell Javier. I know you can’t lie to him, and he’s your employer anyhow. The only reason you’re helping me at all is because he told you to.”
Lydia takes a deep breath and looks at me steadily. “That is true, but you are useful to Javier. He would want to protect you.”
Her honesty hurts more than it should. Useful. That’s what I’ve been reduced to. All of my struggling and pain and all the risks I have taken for Javier can be summed up in one word. I knew all of this, but I guess some childish, fanciful part of me still cared. I should know better by now than to get attached.
“If you want me to keep being useful to Javier, then forget what you saw and don’t ask me about it again.”
Lydia pinches the bridge of her nose, considering. “Javier may not take no for an answer. What you do after that will be up to you.”
I groan aloud and run my fingers through my hair. “Did you know Gerard was Maybelle’s brother?”
“What?” Lydia asks, thrown off by the abrupt subject change.
I thrust the note toward her.
“Gerard brought me this and asked for my help Finding her. He didn’t want the police involved.”
Lydia takes the note, reading it silently. She looks up finally and hands the note back to me. I can see the wheels turning in her head, she knows I shouldn’t be able to use that kind of magic. She knows I found Patrick. She probably knows about Aaron Hall lying in this very warehouse last week. I had asked Javier to clean up that mess for me after all. That was sloppy.
“As your lawyer, I have to advise you to take this to the police,” she says. “Did you Find her?”
“No, I passed out. Gerard left while I was unconscious.”
She turns and paces the small, cleared area in the middle of Gerard’s office. “The note said forty-eight hours?”
I nod and tug on the ends of my sleeves again. The material of the shirt feels like sandpaper on the welts, even though it’s fairly soft.
“Then you have to tell them,” Lydia says, coming to a stop. “We can’t risk waiting and trying to find her ourselves.”
“She didn’t want the police involved.”
“Did she tell you that, or did Gerard?” Lydia asks.
I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. “Gerard.”
“Can he be trusted? Is he even actually her brother?”
I put my head back in my hands. “I don’t know.”
I feel utterly lost. I cared about Maybelle, someone else who apparently has secrets. Gerard could be playing me somehow. I have no idea if he’s out to get Maybelle or help her. He seemed sincere and desperate when he came to get my help. Well, to force me to help him.
“Come see your house, perhaps that will help you decide,” Lydia says, hands on hips.
“Is it that bad?”
“Whatever you think, it’s probably worse.”
15
As we approach the house the first thing I can see is the fluorescent red scrawl of BLOODBAG and WHORE across the front of the house.
“I can see they wanted to keep it subtle,” I mutter. Lydia snorts and parks the car behind the police car and the unmarked black car that I recognize as Brunson’s.
“Just wait ’til you see the inside,” she says with a shake of her head.
We climb out of the car, and I take a deep breath to steady the sudden churning in my stomach. I have felt unsettled since we left the warehouse, and the feeling has only gotten worse on the way here.
Brunson meets us on the front porch.
“What happened to you?” He asks, looking me up and down, brows furrowed.
“Nothing, I just changed clothes,” I say with a tight-lipped smile.
“There’s dirt on your face,” he says pointing at my cheek. I rub at the spot he pointed at with my sleeve.
“Just let me inside, I need to see how bad the workroom is.”
He turns and pushes the door open for me. It swings unsteadily on the hinges. The doorknob is more or less dangling from the door, and the latch is completely busted off.
Inside is chaos. Every cabinet has been flung open, the contents strewn across the floor. A jar of cherries is broken in the middle of the kitchen. Sticky red syrup is splashed all over the cabinets like a murder scene. A carton of eggs is upside down in front of the refrigerator. My last bottle of whiskey is broken too. Assholes.
The table is flipped over, one chair is broken, and the other is laying on its side. The couch is ripped open and the stuffing has been shredded and scattered around the room like snow. I feel numb. It doesn’t even look like my house anymore.
I step over a dented can of green beans and walk through the kitchen and living room, absently noting they broke the television as well. The window unit is laying face down on the floor surrounded by glass. There are random holes in the walls. The edges of the carpet have been pulled up in various places.
The workroom door is shut, and I hesitate before I push it open. I should have left it closed. The chest of herbs is upended. Perfectly good ingredients are ground into the floor, wilted and smashed. Two of the cauldrons are fine, but the copper one is dented beyond repair. These were things that touched something inside of me that no person ever has. It feels like my heart is laying trampled on the floor.
Every drawer has been pulled open, but one, in particular, catches my eye. It’s empty. The crystals are gone.
I hear someone come to a stop in the hall behind me and glance back. It’s Hawking, I hadn’t even realized she was here.
“They took my crystals,” I comment.
“Crystals?”
“Yeah, stuff like azurite or citrine. Everything in that drawer,” I say, pointing it out. “Just odd since they didn’t take anything else. At least nothing that I’ve noticed so far.”
“Any idea what they were looking for so intently?” Hawking asks, crossing her arms and leaning against the door jamb.
“I really don’t.” I shake my head. “I don’t have anything worth all this. The only things of value were in here, and they didn’t even take the most expensive things.”
“What are the most expensive things?”
“Just the cauldrons, they’re solid metal,” I say waving a hand at them. “They’re not rare though. Some of the crystals were I guess, or at least hard to get.”
“And who got them for you?”
“Gerard.”
Hawking scratches a few notes down. “Got a last name?”
“Not that I know of,” I shrug. “He’s a little odd. Doesn’t like to give out personal information.”
“Alright, let me know if you see anything else missing,” Hawking says before walking back toward the living room.
I nudge a fallen vial with my foot. It’s cracked but not completely shattered, which is good considering it’s deoxygenation potion. I press the palms of my hands against my eyes as I try to process all the things I’m going to have to replace.
“You smell like fire, and old Chinese food,” Reilly says.
I jump and turn around, almost stepping on the vial when I see that he is standing right behind me now. He grabs my shoulders and steadies me. I bite down on a wince. I need to get back to the clanhouse soon. The salves I have may not be able to heal these marks, but it does keep them from hurting so much.
“You have got to stop doing that,” I say, shrugging his hands away.
“Perhaps when it stop amusing me,” he smirks. My eyes tray to his dimples and the curl of hair sticking out from behind his ear.
“Where have you been?” He asks
I jerk my eyes away from him and look around the room instead.
“At a funeral,” I step around him.
“Whoever did this were witches,” he says, looking around the room with his hands in his poc
kets, jacket pushed back. He’s wearing his usual suit, but he didn’t put on a tie today. The first couple of buttons of his shirt are undone, he looks like he dressed in a rush. “I can smell the magic.”
“Of course it smells like magic in here,” I say slowly, raising a brow. “I brew here.”
“I know what your magic smells like,” he says, stalking toward me. “It smells like copper and fire and herbs and blood.”
I take a step back, but he’s faster. He crowds me against the wall by the door, one hand on either side of my head. His eyes are so blue they almost glow up this close. My heartbeat is picking up, but I can’t claim it’s all from fear.
“These people smell strange, like dust and mildew. Their magic is colder as well.”
“Are you seriously trying to pin this on the coven?” I ask with a huff. “I know McGuinness hates me, but I don’t think he’d go to this much trouble to ruin my day.”
Reilly shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t the local coven, but it was a coven.”
“So a coven trashed my house and the NWR blew up the apothecary?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest to keep the space between us.
“Oh no,” he says, taking a step back finally. “The people that trashed your house are the same ones that planted the bomb.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. The note left after Maybelle’s disappearance definitely didn’t seem the like NWR. I’m not sure if that should reassure me or not.
“That would explain Maybelle’s disappearance and the note that was left I guess,” I say flatly.
“What note?” Brunson asks, appearing in the doorway.
I pull it out of my back pocket and hand it to him. “Where’s Agent Hawking? I only want to have to explain this once.”
I slip past Brunson and walk to the living room where I can hear Hawking and Lydia talking. He and Reilly follow close behind. I grab one of the overturned chairs and right it, then sit down heavily, my legs stretched out in front of me.
“Where did you get this?”
Price of Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Witch's Bite Series Book 2) Page 11
