He let out an excruciating bellow, his painful cry rattling the walls.
Olivia’s breath rushed out. Kyle had taught Allie well. Males, no matter what breed, had a vulnerable spot. Something Olivia had forgotten to consider.
Within no time she located the other two giants. They guarded the hallway, telling her that the wolf had dragged West into another room.
Focusing on the enormous duo, she took Allie’s maneuver a step further. In the blink of an eye, she fired her weapon and blasted them in the balls, grateful they weren’t the beings with the fifty-foot dicks.
The moderately endowed monsters toppled like bowling pins, roaring in agony.
And then they disappeared.
Leaving nothing but the sound of rain.
Even the bats were gone.
Allie came skidding around the corner, with Samantha on her heels.
“Now what?” her sister asked.
Olivia couldn’t help but smile. Allie had bat shit in her hair, and Samantha had chicken feathers sticking out of her mouth, but they were ready for another battle.
A second later her smile fell. “The wolf is still here.” She motioned to the trail of blood. “He took West into my room.” And from what she could see, West had struggled to get away.
“How badly is he hurt?”
“He’s in trouble. But not just from his wounds.” She could feel her lover’s pain, the ache in his chest as he tried to breathe. “The wolf is stealing his oxygen. Making him weak. He can’t fight back anymore.”
“I might be able to help,” Allie said. “The charm I made is in my room, in my jewelry box.”
“The wolf claw?”
“Yes. If we can get to West, if we can put it around his neck, it might protect him. What could be stronger against a bewitched wolf than its own medicine?”
“You’re right.” And at this point, Olivia was willing to try anything. “You get the necklace, and I’ll—”
The lights went out again.
“Damn it.” Zinna’s idea of a joke, Olivia thought. “I really hate that bitch.”
“Me, too.”
“I’ll help you get the charm.” She wasn’t about to let Allie stumble around in the dark by herself.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Together they made their way into Allie’s bedroom, where her sister bumped into the edge of the dresser, bruised her knee and cursed like a sailor.
By the time they secured the necklace, Olivia’s heart thumped frantically in her chest. West was getting weaker. She could feel him losing consciousness. “We have to hurry.”
She guided her sister across the hall, and they stood outside of Olivia’s room. Rain pounded on the roof, intensifying the atmosphere. Samantha hissed in the dark.
“What should we do?” Allie asked.
“I’m going in there,” Olivia said. “I’m going to shoot the wolf.”
“What about me?”
“You can wait until it’s over.”
“No way.” The younger woman refused to remain idle. “I’ll stay behind you. And as soon as the wolf is down, I’ll find West. I’ll put the necklace on him.”
“It’s pitch-black, Allie. How are you going to find him?”
The lights returned.
Her sister puffed out an excited breath. “That’s how.”
“Fine, but leave the wolf to me. You’re a terrible shot. You might hit West.”
“Look who’s talking. You’re the one who plugged Kyle.”
“Yeah, but I meant to do that.” She moved closer to Allie, touching her hand, needing the connection, the sibling bond. “If the lights go out again, you could get hurt.”
Allie met her gaze. “I’ll be fine. I trust you. You’ll get that beast, even if it’s dark.”
Samantha meowed, lending her support. Olivia had no idea how the cat intended to help, but she wasn’t about to discourage her. “Then let’s do this.”
Olivia opened the door a crack, and the wolf growled, sending shivers along her spine. She could see him, crouched in the corner, guarding West. The FBI agent lay on the floor, as motionless as a rag doll.
She stepped into the room, Allie creeping in behind her. Samantha ran past them, darting under the bed.
So much for the feline’s bravery.
Another step closer. Another growl.
“Shoot him,” Allie said.
“I can’t. He’s too close to West. I’m going to have to wait until he tries to attack me. Until he abandons his prey.”
The wolf remained right where he was, so Olivia kept moving, threatening him.
“When that beast charges you, I’m running toward West, okay?”
“Okay. But what if he charges you?”
Allie’s footsteps stalled behind her. “That’s not funny.”
Olivia stepped closer to the wolf. His yellow eyes followed her. She could see him preparing to strike. He bared his teeth, ready to tear her flesh.
Then the lights went out again.
Olivia fired, but the wolf sprang forward, knocking the gun out of her hand, sending the shot into the air, the bullet hitting the ceiling.
As Allie ran toward West, the wolf slammed Olivia to the ground. She wrestled with the snarling beast, asking the Creator to protect them.
All of them. Her, Allie and West.
The wolf sank his teeth into Olivia’s arm. Her nightgown tangled as she rolled, as she struggled to grab a weapon from her holster.
Any weapon.
“Are you hurt?” Allie screamed out in the dark. “What should I do? Tell me what to do!”
“Just take care of West!”
A moment of silence, then a frenzied, “The necklace broke. I tried to put it on him, but the leather snapped.”
Olivia recited a prayer in her head. Black Elk’s Earth Prayer. The words of a Lakota holy man.
Allie spoke again, her voice edged with fear. “The pieces scattered. I can’t find the claw.”
The lights came back on, but not completely. They flickered, creating eerie shadows, haunting the room.
“Oh, dear God.” Another frantic cry. “He’s not breathing!”
Olivia latched onto her knife and slit the wolf’s throat. His blood ran warm and thick, spilling all over her. When she shoved him away and stood up, her legs wobbling with the effort, tears sprang to her eyes.
Allie attempted to revive West, tilting his head back, pinching his nose, covering his mouth with hers, blowing air into his lungs.
Olivia ran to his side, falling to her knees.
His skin was blue, ghostly in the blinking light.
Allie began chest compressions, pushing, pumping, struggling to keep up. She’d never taken a CPR class.
And neither had Olivia. But she tried to save him, too. While Allie pumped, she leaned over him, breathing into his mouth the way her sister had done.
But he wasn’t responding.
Nothing happened.
Allie burst into tears.
Desperate, Olivia scrambled to find the broken charm. But as she gathered the beads, searching frantically for the claw, she knew it was too late.
Agent West was dead.
Chapter 16
The rain pounded even harder, the sound echoing in Olivia’s ears. Feeling like a zombie, she sat on the floor, stringing the beads she’d recovered. The leather strap on the necklace had broken near the knot, so it was still long enough to tie around West’s neck.
If she couldn’t protect him in life, then she hoped to protect him in death.
She glanced at Allie, who clutched her knees to her chest. Her sister had stopped crying, but the rain had become her tears.
“I still haven’t found the claw,” Olivia said. She couldn’t even sense where it was. Her psychic sight wasn’t working. But then, her ability wasn’t foolproof, especially when her emotions got in the way.
Allie’s breath hitched. “He doesn’t look peaceful. He looks cold.”
Olivia nod
ded. The lights had stopped flickering. The lamps in her room burned bright, showering West with an icy glow.
Samantha poked her head out from under the bed and hissed.
Olivia kept stringing the beads, her fingers numb, her heart empty.
“Your arm is bleeding,” Allie said suddenly.
“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” Her sister climbed to her feet. “West would want you to bandage it.” The younger woman stepped over the dead wolf, gathering medical supplies from the bathroom.
Samantha hissed again.
Allie returned with the first-aid kit. Olivia glanced at West and noticed he wasn’t bleeding. There wasn’t a wound on his body, not one scratch, yet the hallway had been marked with his blood. There were droplets by the bedroom door, too, but the trail had become smeared farther into the room, where Olivia had killed the wolf.
Confused, she reached out to touch West’s hair and noticed it was bone dry. No dampness lingered from the rain.
Samantha watched Olivia through curious eyes, then pinned her ears and growled like a wildcat.
Allie tried to shush her, but Sam extended her claws and batted West’s shoulder, attacking him as he if he were a stranger instead of the man she adored.
“Something’s wrong,” Olivia said.
“Do you think she’s angry at him for leaving her?”
“No. It’s—” Olivia paused. She didn’t know what it was. Her power still wasn’t working. “West doesn’t have any wounds. That doesn’t make sense.”
Allie bandaged Olivia’s arm, silent for a moment, contemplating her words. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. But his clothes are too tidy, too neat. He doesn’t look like he was in a struggle.”
“But we know he was.”
“Exactly.” Olivia shifted her gaze. Samantha had stopped attacking West, but she was still growling under her breath, treating him like a threat.
The cat didn’t trust him.
A stream of panic sluiced through Olivia’s veins. Was Zinna preparing West for the ghost world? Was she transforming his body? Healing his wounds? Turning him into one of her creatures? “We need to find that claw.”
They scoured the room, searching every inch of the floor, checking under furniture. Samantha started nosing about, too, sniffing at dust bunnies. Then she hissed at the mirrored closet doors.
Olivia spun around, afraid she would see Zinna in the glass. But no one was there.
The cat pawed the rail. Cautious, Olivia moved closer. The door was slightly ajar, so she inched it back.
And found the claw.
She picked it up, holding it carefully in her hand. Had Zinna tried to suck it into the mirror?
With deep, anxious breaths, Olivia finished stringing the necklace. Allie handed her the rest of the beads, making sure the pattern was correct.
When the charm was done, Olivia tied it around West’s neck. Unable to help herself, she skimmed his cheek, felt the chill of his skin.
“Oh, my God. Look!” Allie backed away from the wolf.
Only it wasn’t a wolf anymore.
It had morphed into another canine, a much smaller breed: a coyote. A trickster in Olivia and Allie’s culture.
Although the animal was still dead, it had reverted to its true form. The coyote had only been pretending to be a wolf, and the charm had exposed him.
So what had the charm done to West?
Olivia glanced at Allie, and in one simultaneous move, both women turned toward the special agent’s body.
But he was gone.
In his place was an image doll, a tiny clay figure, the wolf charm far too big for its neck.
Allie gasped.
Olivia’s knees went weak. “That wasn’t West we were trying to revive. Zinna must have replaced him with a clone right before we came into the room.”
“So where is the real West?” Allie rubbed the goose bumps on her arms. “What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. I—”
The lights went out.
“Not again,” Allie whispered.
Olivia froze. Her psychic sight had returned. She could feel the presence of another being in the room. Wary, she turned around, sensing the identity of the intruder.
The closet-door mirrors lit up, reflecting Zinna’s image.
“She took him,” Olivia said.
By now, Allie had caught sight of the lighted mirror. She, too, stared at their great-grandmother’s reflection.
Suddenly laughter echoed through the loft, as eerie as the screech of an owl.
Anger pummeled Olivia’s chest. “She wanted us to figure this out. She wanted us to know that we’d been tricked.”
“I still don’t understand where West is.”
Olivia stepped closer to the glass. Zinna didn’t move. She stood like a statue, her golden-colored eyes shining like amber jewels. “He’s in the mirror. He’s in her world somewhere.” And Olivia intended to find him, no matter what it took.
Zinna finally moved. One simple motion. One noticeable change in her expression.
The owl lady smiled, her lips tilting in a thin line.
When the lights came back on, she’d disappeared, taking the dead coyote and the image doll of Agent West with her. Even the crimson stain on Olivia’s nightgown vanished.
The only blood that remained belonged to West.
And so did the knowledge that he was trapped in another dimension, at the mercy of an ancient witch.
At daybreak the loft was filled with people. Olivia had called Muncy, Riggs, Kyle and Derek to help her and Allie with a game plan. An eclectic group, at best. But everyone was skilled in his or her own right.
Muncy and Riggs sat at the kitchen table, discussing the case. Sorting through West’s briefcase, they paged through his notes, hoping the special agent had left behind some clues. Something, anything that would prove who he believed the killer was. At this point Glenn was the primary suspect. West had claimed that the killer was close to Olivia and Allie, and Glenn fit the bill. Yet there wasn’t any evidence linking him to the murders. Or to an alliance with Zinna.
Unimpressed with the police work so far, Kyle rolled his eyes. He’d assigned himself cleanup duty, boarding up the shattered window in the living room, sweeping the broken glass, then mopping the rainwater that pooled at everyone’s feet.
Every so often, he took a moment to slant Detective Riggs an I-don’t-like-you glance. And she, in turn, checked out the renegade warrior with the same screw-you interest.
If Olivia hadn’t been steeped in her own problems, she would have found the sexual energy between them amusing.
Kyle didn’t trust officers of the law. Nor did he find white women appealing. But the lady cop had caught his eye, just as he’d caught hers.
And they were both good and pissed about it.
Derek was another enigma. At first he’d refused to come over to help Olivia. But he’d caved in soon enough. She suspected that deep down he was still swayed by good magic, by doing the right thing. Of course, given his penchant for Peeping Tom sex, he would probably never be the noblest witch on the block.
But he was all she had. Her best hope.
He occupied the war-torn sofa, with Allie sitting next to him, taking notes. Olivia sat in the rocking chair, picking his brain.
“Can you get me into the mirror?” she asked.
“Yes, but you can’t go leaping into your great-grandmother’s realm unprepared.” He shifted in his seat, blowing out a tired breath, drinking the coffee Allie had prepared. “Once you’re in the same dimension with her, she can steal your soul faster than you can blink an eye.”
“So how do I prepare to face an ancient witch? What should I do?”
“You’ll have to arm yourself with Apache medicine. Green malachite wards off evil. And just in case Zinna creates any beings for you to fight, you should attach some malachite to all of the guns you bring. It’ll make the weapons s
hoot straight.”
Olivia wasn’t about to argue that she was already a crack shot. She’d made some mistakes lately, and she wasn’t taking any chances, not with West’s rescue. “What else?”
“Eagle feathers and turquoise beads are used for protection. You can tie them onto your clothes. You’ll need cattail pollen, too. You should keep it in a buckskin bag.”
“For healing?” she asked.
“Yes. From what you said, Agent West was injured before Zinna took him. He’s probably extremely ill by now.” Derek glanced at Allie, who’d stopped taking notes to listen. “Mortals can’t survive in a witch dimension for very long, not unless they give the dead witch their soul.”
Olivia thought about her lover. How hard he worked to make the world a better place, to put violent offenders behind bars. “West wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t become one of the bad guys.”
“Then you’ll have to heal him. Make him well enough to travel, to return to this dimension.”
“Olivia isn’t a shaman,” Allie said.
“She could be,” Derek countered. “Her power is strong enough. But just the same, it won’t be easy. She needs instruction from a medicine man, someone who can train her, but there isn’t time. She’s going to have to wing this on her own.”
“Why can’t we solicit a shaman to go with her?” This came from Kyle, who leaned against his mop, his shirtsleeves rolled up, a cloth headband securing his hair. “It doesn’t make sense to send her in there alone.”
Derek made an exasperated sound. “That’s a novel idea, but if it were possible, wouldn’t I have suggested it by now? Zinna had the opportunity to kill West last night. But she took him instead.”
“So she’s using him as bait?” Kyle asked. “To lure Olivia into her realm? To try to turn her into a witch?”
“Precisely. And there’s no way she would allow Olivia to bring a shaman with her.”
Allie doodled on her notepad. “What about me? Doesn’t our great-grandmother want me to be a witch, too?”
“You?” Kyle hooted a laugh. “Remember Aunt Clara on those old reruns of Bewitched? How she was always goofing up her incantations? That’d be you, Addle-brain.”
Derek smirked. “What about that other bumbling character? Esmerelda. She botched things up, too.”
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