by Anya Breton
While they made arrangements for their car to be brought, I pulled my boots off so I could empty the water that had taken up residence inside them back into the pool. Then I raided the dead guy's pockets. He stupidly had identification on him, Clarence Hinder, Jr. of Matthew Lane in Braintree. Pity, Clarence Senior wouldn't be pleased that his son had died in an undisclosed location with no loved ones nearby. Then again, killers like him rarely had loved ones.
The Water priestess made a big show of tugging me to my feet away from where I knelt beside the killer's body. Her little drama included kissing me on the lips in front of everyone gathered in the small room.
"Priestess." Her lover's irritation had apparently won out because his tone was sharp and indignant. "She killed Escobar. How can you kiss her?"
The woman waved him off without letting go of me. "She said someone else killed him."
"And you believe her?"
In an impatient tone she replied, "She saved my life, Gerard. Yes, I believe her."
Her judgment wasn't good enough for he snapped, "How do you know she didn't pay someone to stab you just so she could conveniently save your life?"
The priestess's voice went low. "You know better than to argue with me."
His face exploded in rage that carried into his scream, "She killed Escobar!"
Apparently the guy in the crappy blue Ford had been prominent among the Water witches. Maybe he'd been able to part the waters of the Boston Harbor when he wasn't busy flooding Back Bay apartments.
"No, she did not."
The husky voice made my back go ramrod straight. My cheeks flushed guiltily before I could stop them. I instantly wondered how much Morrígan had seen. Had she seen me cradling a naked woman to my chest?
The Fire high priestess emerged from the shadow of the doorway wearing a cat suit identical to mine but in white. On her it looked positively sinful. Her dark hair was pulled high off her head in a fall of shining strands. She was every ounce the dominatrix the suit had been crafted for.
"Morrígan," the water priestess greeted sourly.
Morrígan's expression was guarded. "Talise," she said what I assumed was the Water witch's name. "I am responsible for the passing of the witch that attacked her. His strike was conducted in broad daylight in front of a very public institution. There was nothing discreet or natural about the tactics he chose to employ."
Talise's eyes narrowed at her. "Igniting a man's gas tank while he drives is discreet and natural?"
"It is more easily explained than heat-seeking water."
The Water witch sniffed indignantly. "This will brought before the Covens, Morrígan."
The Fire priestess's voice hardened along with her gaze. "I won't apologize for defending my Brand."
I didn't like the sound of that in this context, especially not considering the new mark on my neck. I liked even less the pinching at the bridge of Talise's nose upon hearing it. Her eyes shot to me then to the Fire witch and back again. I saw them flick down the leather cat suits we both wore.
"Your Brand is coming home with me," Talise sneered.
"No," Morrígan's eyes switched to mine. "She is not."
I'd been so close to getting information out of the woman. The arrival of Morrígan was going to ruin everything. And who did she think she was? I could go home with whomever I wanted.
I spoke up for myself. "See, that's where you're wrong."
Talise's lips spread into a triumphant grin.
"I didn't think you were partial to women, Talise," Morrígan commented blandly. Her brilliant blue eyes slid to the right to where the Water witch's lover stood still scowling. "In fact, I thought you were only partial to Gerard and your ridiculous public displays together."
I wasn't interested in standing around while two priestesses got into a pissing match. Morrígan knew the true reason I'd sought Talise out. I couldn't help but wonder if she was interfering because she was hiding something, something Talise knew. Maybe Talise would follow me if I left.
The Water witch wasn't all that strong which made it easy to wiggle out of her grip. I ignored the questioning lift of Morrígan's eyebrows as I squelched past her on my way to the door. They could stay there or not.
This time my trip through the club was a bit easier. Several people had seen what had transpired in the blue room and had parted for me to pass. I was glad for it because droplets shook off me with an annoying pattering noise as I took the stairs to the surface.
Nights in New England during early May weren't exactly warm. There was nothing keeping the spring breeze off my body but the drenched leather and dripping trench coat. A shiver wracked me from head to toe.
Instinct told me I wasn't alone. Someone had followed me and it wasn't the priestess. I pressed my hand under the coat to find the gun. It was wet. It might not fire. But it might be deterrent enough for some who thought it would.
In the back of my head I knew who it was. It bothered me that I did, enough that I was unwilling to abandon my gun just yet.
"You can holster it. It's only me," Aiden said from a mere three feet behind me.
The fact that it was "only" him should be reason enough not to put my piece away. But I slid it back into the leather holster anyway. "What do you want?" I asked warily without turning or slowing.
"The wallet," he said simply. He was closer now, two feet to my right.
It was a moment before I worked out that he wanted me to give him the wallet I'd found on the guy with the knife. "Why?"
"I have contacts in law enforcement. I'll find out everything I can about your would-be assassin."
"I thought you couldn't get..."
Aiden interrupted me. "He was human. He shouldn't have been here in the first place."
He was right about that. So I fished the wallet out of my pocket, turned and gave it to him. The less work I had to do, the better.
I could tell by the question in his eyes that he wanted to say something. Thankfully the priestesses' noisy exit from the club saved me from having to hear it. A silver BMW sedan pulled up in front of them. I murmured a parting word to Aiden then ran forward in my squeaky shoes. The women were still fighting when I appeared on the opposite side of the car.
"...too good. But you're not," Talise was saying in an irritated tone. "You're no greater than any of the rest of us."
Morrígan's gaze slowly switched from the Water witch to where I stood quietly waiting to be noticed. "I would prefer you not get in the car," she said calmly, I assumed, for my benefit.
It confused the Water witch until she'd glanced around and caught sight of me. "Oh! I thought the bitch had chased you off. Go ahead, get in."
I did, knowing Morrígan was going to be upset. But I needed information now that she'd killed the guy that had it. I didn't owe her anything.
Talise said something else to the Fire priestess that I couldn't hear before opening her door and ducking her head beneath the roof to join me. Her lover dropped into the passenger seat with a score of jerky movements. Before their driver had a chance to put the vehicle in drive the Water witch pulled me against her chest for another showy kiss, no doubt for Morrígan's benefit.
I was let go once we'd reached a block away. That was when I clearly stated, "Just so we're clear, the kissing was only for show."
She nodded her head of white hair. "She's right. I'm not into women. Though I might change my mind." The witch gave me a playful wink. "So you want to know about who was pulling Escobar's strings."
My relief was a little too evident on my face. I hoped she didn't get insulted by it. Maybe if I stuck to business she wouldn't have a chance. "Yes, anything you can tell me will help."
"Whoever it is has to be powerful because Escobar never would have willingly betrayed me." Her head turned away from me to hide the glittering moisture that was building in the edges of her pale eyes.
"I'm sorry for your loss," I told her truthfully. If this man had been manipulated somehow then it made his death far more upset
ting.
"Thank you. And thank you for healing me. All of me." She was crying fully now. "Can I...do you think I can have children now?"
I couldn't simply say yes because I knew how these things worked. "You'll have a far better chance. But you'll need to do it quickly and you'll need to be very, very cautious once you've conceived. Fate has a way of making things go her way even if I intervene."
I really hoped the child Talise conceived didn't turn out to be the Anti-Christ. It would be just my luck.
The priestess wiped the moisture from her eyes, weathered a few sniffles and then thankfully got down to business. "Escobar began pulling away from us a month ago. He stopped calling at court." She made mention of the "court" witches held. Like Morrígan's inner sanctum at her stronghold, every coven had their own meeting place where they gathered, as royalty would have with their subjects.
"He didn't return our phone calls," Talise continued. "We thought maybe he was having problems at home. I didn't think it was anything like this until I stopped by his place last week. He didn't answer so I checked the windows in the bedroom in case he was sleeping. The place was trashed.
"That ain't normal. Escobar is meticulously neat," she paused to tell me. I bit my tongue at the present tense she'd used. "So I called him into court. All he could say was that he was working toward a better world. And that I needed to give him space. No one tells me they need space and gets away with it," she said fiercely. "I had him tailed. He was going in and out of the Dungeon at all hours. We tried to make him tell us who he was visiting but he insisted we had the wrong person and that he hadn't actually been there at all. The only thing we got was the tail caught him going to a warehouse down off the harbor twice just before...well," her voice trailed off without finishing the statement.
"Did anyone try going into it?"
"Yes," she nodded. Her eyes were thankfully completely dry now. "They got shot at. I didn't think it was important enough to risk sending anyone else in."
I would risk it. Eager for a new lead I asked, "Can you give me the address?"
"Sure." She gestured to Gerard to do the honors.
Her lover seemed to be irritated with me but he tried to find paper and a pen anyway. I hoped he didn't try to sabotage this by giving me the wrong address.
Something Morrígan had said made me think to ask another question. "So even though you hang out at the Dungeon a bit, you don't know who owns it?"
Talise held my eyes as she replied, "The ownership is very hush hush. No one ever sees anyone but the usual grunt staff like DJ, bartenders, and security. I know there's a manager there. He's the highest-level staff I've run into. But I don't think he's responsible for Escobar. The rumor is that he just works for whoever is in charge and that it's always changing."
"Any idea why that is?"
"My guess would be that it's a sought after place," she said with a shrug. "It's really the only spot in the state that all the factions can get together without there being bloodshed. I mean, think about it, if we see a Rhino in our territory we attack first and ask questions later. Don't you?"
I didn't but it wouldn't help her story if I refuted it. "I get your point," I replied with a half smile. "Anything else you can think of that can help me?"
"Just that you need to watch that Fire witch. There's a rumor that she's into some bad, bad stuff." Talise hesitated as if she were considering whether or not to say something else. Then she came right out with it, "She might be the one you're looking for."
I allowed a nod. "At this point every single person I meet is a suspect. Even you."
Talise snorted loudly, "I would never have told a Water witch to try to drown you with a fire hydrant. That's just plain tacky."
"People do tacky, stupid things when they're desperate." I glanced out the window in an effort to figure out how far we'd gone. "So, any chance you can drop me at the T or in front of a cabbie?"
Her eyebrows lifted high on her eerily blue forehead. "You're going to ride the T in that?"
"Sure." My lips spread into a grin. "Maybe I'll get a few phone numbers."
"We'll drop you off a few blocks from the club," she offered.
"Thanks." I didn't hide my relief. "That will save me some effort."
"It's the least I can do for what you did."
I got that worried feeling in the pit of my stomach that came when I knew I shouldn't have done something. But there was nothing to be done about it now. So I nodded mutely and then impatiently waited to be let out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I didn't understand why I was doing it. But I did it anyway. It was a parallel for whatever relationship we had.
Oscar answered Morrígan's phone. He made a rapid excuse for "her holiness". It was some half garbled concoction that was halfway between "she's busy" and "she has more important things to do than speak with you". And then he promptly hung up on me without taking my message. I'd definitely pissed her off. It shouldn't bother me, but it did.
Then she called me back.
I'd been merging onto the freeway to head back to the brownstone for a change of clothing when my phone rang. The distraction of the surprisingly busy interstate had me answering without checking the read out for the caller ID.
"Hello?"
Her contralto voice was piped directly into my ear in all its irritated husky glory. "You rang."
I couldn't remember the line I'd rehearsed now that she'd fouled me up with a call back. "I was calling to tell you that I'm in the car, my car, not with the Water witch, and that I'm going home...alone."
"And you are telling me this..."
Damn. Good question, even though, as usual, Morrígan hadn't worded it like one. I replied with the truth. "I thought you'd be curious to know."
"You thought I would be curious," she echoed coolly.
I pushed a loud breath of air out of my mouth. Okay. Maybe I'd read her all wrong.
"All right. So you're not curious." My embarrassment at being so very wrong made me get snippy. "I'm sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing. You should tell Oscar not to hang up on me next time because I could have just given him the message and saved us all the fucking trouble."
She inhaled through her nose quickly enough that I heard it over the phone. "He was reacting to my mood. It is, to say the least, not good."
I didn't know what I was supposed to say to that so I opted for the easy answer: none.
"This was all you meant to tell me."
The almost hesitant way she said it made me think she was hoping I had more to add. But I didn't. What had been said was awkward enough. "Yes."
"Then perhaps you would like to know the chant Megan was speaking in the tank was a prayer for protection against water. I wish you a good evening." And then she hung up on me.
I stared at the car in front of me in confusion. What the hell? Had I been so wrong? That jealous lover act she'd been putting on wasn't real?
Oh, why did I care?
My thoughts were a tumult that made it difficult to concentrate on the road. It might have been why I hadn't noticed the black SUV with tinted windows careening toward me. I narrowly avoided a sideswipe with it by gunning the engine.
The SUV pulled in behind me only to weave around to the other side for another go at my side mirror. That wasn't a one-time drunken fluke. These people had actually tried to hit me!
I crazily signaled before shooting over into the far lane (seriously, what kind of idiot stops to signal in a high speed chase). It had been a bad move because my pursuers merely edged over to force me toward the cement wall lining the right hand side of the interstate. I let out a startled yelp as my passenger mirror was nearly nicked off by a mile marker sign.
High-speed car duels weren't my thing. I was strictly a gun and hands-on kind of gal. I had to find a way out of this.
The bastard, whoever it was, slammed into the side of my beautiful Mini Cooper. I screamed in surprised outrage, knowing my gleaming British racing green paint was de
finitely scraped. At least they'd narrowly missed my side mirror with the custom union jack cover.
The crazed driver righted themselves long enough to go around someone ahead of them. Minutes later I fought to avoid the SUV once again. I knew if I didn't come up with a way to either disable them or get myself away I'd earn more than a paint scrape. I loved my car. How dare they fuck with me? And on I-90!
A potential answer hit me. I hit the clutch, slammed the thing into sixth gear, and revved the engine, ignoring the spiking tachometer. It was enough of a boost that the SUV fell behind. They didn't have enough power to keep up with me. I was guessing there was probably more than one person in the vehicle and that they were probably far larger than I was.
I weaved in and out of traffic, hoping that I could lose my pursuer within it. It occurred to me that I should be afraid of cops perhaps more than the guys behind me. Cops could toss me in jail and there'd be nothing I could do about it. I'd worry about that later if I had to.
Too quickly the assholes in the SUV built speed until they were nearing my fender. I'd only just passed the ninety mark on my gigantic speedometer. Bravely, or stupidly, I pushed it further and pulled into the far left lane where there was a long stretch of bystander-free road for a half mile. The SUV pulled in just behind me to do a splendid job of tailing me even after I'd past one hundred miles an hour.
Sweat poured down my face as we entered the tunnel under the Prudential Center. I wasn't sure I could pull this off without killing someone, probably myself. My fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly that the muscles hurt.
At the absolute last minute I twisted the wheel and shot over into the far right lane to take exit twenty-two off the interstate. The SUV tried to get over but was stopped by the barrier of a utility van. There was much squealing of tires, horn honking and perhaps some metal on metal. I'd been too busy slamming my foot down on the brake and clutch pedals while furiously downshifting to know if they'd hit anyone.
As soon as I was able, I sped out over Huntington and took the first left I could find. If the SUV managed to get off the interstate I wanted to at the very least be out of sight. I drove down the next largest street for a mile until I found an open roadside parking space. With a quick turn of the steering wheel I coasted in and immediately turned the car off.
