by Rain Trueax
“You kill a lot of men?”
“Some.”
“You kill the women here?”
“No… and you didn’t either, did you?” He recognized an innocence, a naivety in Boone that made Nick see it as unlikely. He might kill someone he saw guilty of wrong but not a woman, not as they’d been killed.
“No, but I kill you.”
Something in the cadence of the man’s voice told Nick that he was mentally challenged in some way. “Man has a right to know the reason. That’s fair, don’t you think?”
The big man took a moment to reason through that. “I suppose.”
“Then you should tell me your brother’s name.”
“Richard.”
“That’s not a lot to go by.” Nick sat on one of his chairs. “Unless you are in a hurry for this, we can talk, can’t we?”
Again, he saw the struggle to work out whether that was fair. The word fair had power with Boone. Nick decided to make the most of it. “It’s only fair to talk a bit before you kill me. I’d like to know why.”
“He said you did it.”
“He being Jason Braddock.” He remembered a Boone Crockett worked for Braddock.
The big man showed no surprise that he knew Braddock’s name. He nodded. “He said you are evil and need to die for what you did to my brother.”
“He knew your brother?”
“He talks to him.”
“But he’s dead.”
“Mr. Braddock has magic.”
“Or he tells you he does. So did Mr. Braddock tell you not to talk to me?”
“No.”
“Then it’d be okay, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“Sit over there.” He hoped the chair would not collapse under what he imagined had to be three hundred or more pounds.
“Only for a minute.”
“Fine.” Boone sat, and the chair held.
Nick debated how he needed to proceed. Boone had the mind of a child, but the body of a powerful man. Killing him would be wrong. So would letting him kill him. He could kill him with the Ruger, now within easy reach. He didn’t want to do that. He also didn’t want to be beaten into a bloody pulp and killed himself.
“Tell me about your brother.”
“He was a SEAL.” His voice held a note of pride.
“You said I killed him, but if he was a SEAL, so was I.”
“It was your fault.”
“And Mr. Braddock told you that.”
“He has been helping me.”
“Has he? Or has he used you?”
Boone nearly surged out of his chair but then subsided back. “He’s a good man.”
“Good men don’t murder people. Did you help him put the bodies in the position they were left?” The big man looked confused again. “Boone, do you know Ornis?”
“God?”
“He might tell you he’s God, but he’s not. He’s bad.”
“That’s not true.”
“Ornis helped Braddock with the bodies, didn’t he?”
“He helps Mr. Braddock.”
Feeling a cold chill down his back, Nick realized a spirit had entered the room. The most likely one was the demon. He had no idea how to fight a demon. Before he could decide how to deal with this, John had come into the patio. “Saw you had company,” he said with a smile.
“You see the other one?” Nick asked.
Boone looked from Nick to John. Nick wondered if he saw what he could only sense.
“I do. Do you?”
“No,” Nick said, “but I feel him.”
“Well, he’s sitting on the wall. Your cat sees him too.” Nick looked and saw Harvey had the hairs up on his back and his tail bristled and pointing skyward.
Nick looked toward the wall and where John had indicated the demon sat. “Ornis, you’re not welcome here,” Nick said. “This is my home. Boone here and I are having a little talk. We don’t want you interfering. Do you get it?”
Boone took that moment to surge out of his chair straight for Nick, his hands ready to go around Nick’s neck and strangle him. Nick dodged aside, slashed down with the side of his hand, causing the big man to stumble. Boone turned again and lashed out a fist that again Nick ducked. The next blow caught him alongside his head, but he used a kung-fu move with his leg, sending Boone to the ground. He couldn’t worry what the demon might do, but so far this seemed a normal fight between two men. No supernatural aids.
Breathing heavily, Nick let Boone continue to try to hit or grapple with him, but while the man was big, he didn’t have Nick’s training. When he had him gasping for breath, he put an end to it with a blow that would have him out long enough to tie his hands behind his back. Before he could head to the kitchen for cord, John handed it to him.
With Boone restrained and beginning to come around, Nick turned back to where the spirit was supposed to be. Surprisingly, now he saw him. He felt angered the being’s face had twice entered his creative work. “As for you, get out of here and don’t come back,” he said. “There is nothing here for you.”
Ornis chuckled. “You sure?” he asked now floating to a new position. “Maybe I am the reason you paint as well as you do. Your creative life will be gone without me.”
“Liar,” Nick said. “You came in dreams, but you have been nothing but bad for me.”
“You need me.”
“I never invited you in. I know now I have seen you in dreams, not knowing who you were, but now I know. There’s no room for you in them or my life.”
The demon changed form into a cougar. “I might go for a bit, but the big one is mine.”
“He’s a child. He couldn’t invite you in. Be gone.”
Ornis sneered. “You are not a child. You are mine.”
Nick laughed. “Past tense you were on the edge of my life, but no longer. Be gone.”
“He told you to be gone,” John said, adding some words in a language Nick didn’t recognize. John stretched out his arms in a thrusting motion.
“I’ll be around,” Ornis said but left as quickly as he’d come.
“Thank you,” Nick said taking John’s hand and shaking it.
“You had it and him. Your little witch must be teaching you.”
“Not magic, but she has me opening my eyes.” He looked down at Boone who was looking perplexed but not badly injured by their altercation. He didn’t have the glazed look Pete had had. He had not been possessed.
“You are warrior,” Boone said, as John and Nick lifted him to a chair but didn’t free his wrists.
“Tell me your brother’s name and yours before you were renamed by Braddock,” Nick said sitting again across from him. John was leaning against the wall with his ankles crossed.
“Richard James. He was a good brother. You killed him.”
“I did not. I tried to save him.” Nick told him how his brother had been lost and how they found him. “I felt bad I failed him. I still don’t know why he left the unit.”
Boone shook his head, tears running down his cheeks. “Richard had woman there.”
“A Philippine woman?”
“He loved her.”
“And left us to go to her?”
“Maybe.” Boone again looked confused.
“Where is your home, Boone?” John asked.
“Once it was Montana. Now got no home. No family except Mr. Braddock.”
“He’s no friend to you, Boone. He’s bad. He didn’t talk to your brother. Your brother never lied to you did he?”
“No.”
“Braddock used you. You need to stay away from him.”.
“Then I got nobody.”
“If you promise not to hurt anybody,” John said. “You can stay with me for a while.”
“Don’t want to hurt nobody.” He hung his head.
Nick took the chance he meant it and told him to stand while he untied his wrists. “Is your real first name Boone.”
“Daniel was my name. My brother called me
Daniel Boone. Then later it was just Boone.” The big man smiled with pride. “Mr. Braddock said Crockett suited me better than James.”
“He said a lot that was wrong. Boone James sounds fine to me.”
When John took Boone over to his home, Nick went into the bathroom to tend to the scrapes and cuts he’d gotten from Boone’s fists. Nothing required more than a dab of antiseptic cream.
Opening a beer, he went back into the patio to reassure Harvey and assess if the fight had hurt any of his plants. He tried not to think about Denali. Did the fact Ornis had shown up here mean they had succeeded or failed? Before he could think up a new dire result that might’ve happened, she appeared before him, in an instant, fully transformed.
“You do that well,” he said.
“Something happened here.” He could see her searching the place for its memories. She looked back at him. “Boone came?”
“And Ornis. I realized he’s been back there for a long time in my life.” He wondered if even in the Philippines. Is that when he’d first had the demon in his dreams, not knowing he was there, possibly allowed in by the guilt he felt over James’s death.
“Damn,” she swore a few words he’d never heard from her. “We should have destroyed him, not let him leave.”
“And Braddock?”
“He’s still alive if you can call what he’s been left with, life. He won’t trouble anybody again.”
She went into the kitchen and came back with a beer. “Where is Boone now?” she asked sitting across from him.
“He’ll stay with John. As best I can tell, he had nothing to do with the murders. He’s like a six-year old for mental capacity, too easily led. I don’t know what the end will be for a man as powerful as he and yet...”
“It was good of John to take him for a while to sort it out.” She told him then what they had done to Braddock.
“That can be done?”
“It’s a desperate last resort. He had a choice. The truth was he could not be changed or healed from the evil that was in him. He believed his magic was stronger than it was. In the end, good does win.” She smiled. “It sometimes takes a while.”
“Seriously, that metal can kill a demon. What did you say it was?”
“Platinum osmridium alloy, which has to be forged by a wizard. Apparently, I didn’t know as much about my father as I thought.” She smiled.
“And now?” he asked.
“For me and you?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you want?”
“I have had a hard time getting my head around being with a woman stronger than I am.”
She smiled and lifted her eyebrows. “Am I?”
“I have thought so.”
“What if we each have our strengths in different areas, and we grow stronger together than either of us were before.”
He smiled and crooked his finger for her to come to him. She settled onto his lap. “There is a condition,” he said.
“Let me hear it.”
“I want you to be my wife.”
Her smile softened. “Was that a proposal?”
“Want me down on one knee?”
“That won’t be necessary. Just one question. Are you sure?”
“I am. I could have asked you the first day we met and been sure then too.”
“That wasn’t long ago. We don’t know each other that well.”
“Don’t we?” He had never thought much about the theory of reincarnation, but something told him he’d been with this woman time and again. And this time, they would be putting together everything they’d learned into a remarkable life. “I do need an answer,” he said as he put his finger under her chin and lifted until her gaze met his.
“Yes. The answer is yes.” She claimed his lips with a kiss so hot that he felt himself hardening.
“No big fancy wedding either. It should be as soon as we can arrange it.”
“I think my mother and grandmothers are already plotting it out. At Mom’s house. Would that be all right?”
He nodded. “I know I am not only marrying into a family of very strong women but also of witches. You know what-- the whole package is not only all right, but perfect.” His kiss sealed the deal.
The End…………….for now
If you enjoyed this book, please consider going to Amazon and leaving a review. They mean so much to authors—Amazon.com
The Hemstreet Witch Series
Book 1 Enchantress’ Secret
Book 2 To Speak of things Unseen
Book 3 A Price to be Paid
Books 4 and 5 , late 2017 / early 2018—some vague time based on ’when it happens’.
For a list of all Rain Trueax books, go to http:raintrueax.blogspot.com where you can also sign up to be notified of new releases.
