The Witch Thief (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Lori Devoti

  “If there was, I didn’t see him.” She looked up, put concern into her eyes. “Why do you ask? And where have you been? Your note… It was vague. I was worried.”

  He thrust his fingers through his hair. “I was tricked. Someone left a note at the front desk—again claiming to have the chalice.”

  Her fingers in her pocket touching the vial, Amma froze.

  “But I waited for hours and no one approached me—at least not about the chalice.”

  “Oh.” She rounded her lips to blow out a breath, but stopped herself. She pulled her lips into her mouth instead. “At least you weren’t attacked again. Were you?” Her thumb, which had been circling the metal lid of the vial, paused.

  Joarr shook his head. “And you weren’t, either.”

  Amma couldn’t tell for sure whether it was a question or a statement. Joarr was watching her now, analyzing her reaction.

  She laughed. “No, nothing more exciting than a car chase and a few explosions here.” She waved her hand toward the TV. She had flipped the device on a few minutes earlier.

  She turned her back on the TV and walked to a tray she’d ordered from room service hours earlier. “Are you hungry? I ordered this then realized I wasn’t.”

  Joarr glanced at the tray, but shook his head. “No.”

  “A drink maybe?” She held up a highball glass and a bottle of whiskey. “I’ll join you.”

  He moved closer. “How could I resist?” He reached for her, but she pushed him away.

  If she acted angry, got angry, it would be easier to carry out her plan. “We should talk. I thought we were working together. Then you disappear. And I had no idea where.”

  She filled two glasses with whiskey. Then carried them to where the ice bucket sat on the other side of the TV. With her back to Joarr, she plunked ice into hers and emptied the vial into his.

  When she turned back, he was stretched out on the bed, a frown on his face. “If the note wasn’t a trap—for either of us—and wasn’t a real offer to deal, why was it left?”

  She sat beside him and slipped the drink into his hand.

  “Maybe something went wrong. Maybe whoever left the note meant to meet you and couldn’t. Maybe they’ll contact you again. Who knows, this time tomorrow this could all be over.”

  He held the glass to his lips and stared at her over the rim of his glass. “Yes, over. The chalice back with the dragons, me back with the dragons and you… Where will you be, Amma?”

  She forced herself to smile. “With the treasure you’ve promised me, of course. Where else?”

  “Ah, yes, the treasure,” he said and took a sip. “I’d forgotten.”

  Amma watched as the liquid moved from the glass past his lips, as his throat moved and finally as he pulled the glass away from his mouth.

  “What are you going to choose, Amma? Have you decided? Was there something you had in mind?”

  She pretended to take a drink from her glass, held it up a second longer than normal. When she lowered it, she held his gaze. “Nothing you will miss, nothing you even know you have.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve told you. I know every bit of my treasure, no matter its human worth. Why can’t you believe that?” He ran his fingers up the back of her neck and into her hair. “I value everything, and no matter what you choose, I will miss it desperately.” Then he kissed her.

  She could taste the whiskey she had only pretended to drink on his lips—could taste the liquid she’d poured into his glass, too. Or perhaps that was just in her mind, her guilt sullying the smoky flavor of the whiskey. Just like what she’d done sullied any relationship she and the dragon might have had.

  * * *

  Amma stirred her putrid pink drink, being careful not to spill any onto her skin or clothing. She had left Joarr at the hotel, passed out. He’d been breathing and his color had been good. There had been no signs that the liquid Fafnir had given her had done him any harm.

  He had looked one-hundred-percent healthy, except for the tiny gash she’d made in his arm.

  She closed her eyes and jabbed at an ice cube. It shot out of her glass and skittered across the floor. The bartender glanced in her direction, but quickly turned away.

  She was sitting on the couch behind one of the back bars—where Fafnir had taken the human couple a few nights before. When she’d arrived at the door tonight, a dwarf she’d never met had been working. He’d immediately shut everything down and escorted her here—gone, she assumed, to get Fafnir.

  She hadn’t seen the blood-drinking dwarf yet, and she was getting impatient. She wanted to get the chalice, take it back to Joarr and get away. She reached for the flask, which hung from a ribbon around her neck. It was warm against her skin. She had hung it there immediately after filling it.

  It caused a lump in her blouse, but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t risk placing it anywhere else. When Joarr woke up, he would know she had tricked him. Her only hope was to be there with the chalice. If she had that, it wouldn’t matter how she had got it, the dragon would have to honor his deal.

  She laid her hand on her stomach. Everything now depended on Fafnir accepting her trade.

  * * *

  Joarr rolled over onto his stomach; his arm reached out for Amma as he did and hit cold, empty sheets. He blinked, his mind slowly waking, and he groped around again. Still nothing. He was alone in the bed.

  He rolled onto his back and moved to sit up. Halfway, on his elbow, he stopped and grabbed his head. A pain throbbed inside his skull, like an army of dwarves had taken up their axes and were mining for minerals there. He groaned and glanced to the side.

  His empty whiskey glass sat on the bedside table. He squinted at it, trying to remember. How many had he drunk? Only one that he remembered. Amma had brought it to him, been sitting beside him sipping from her own glass… He glanced around again, saw a second glass still completely full sitting on the dresser.

  He cursed and immediately regretted it—the outburst sent the dwarves and their axes back into play.

  He threw his arm over his face, blocking all light, and tried to concentrate. Amma had been here. They’d had a drink—he all of his, she apparently only a sip. He’d kissed her and she’d pulled away, urged him to drink more.

  Which now of course told him what had happened—what he didn’t want to believe had happened.

  He forced himself to sit up. He was still fully clothed. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand. He staggered a bit before grabbing hold of a chair and willing the world to stop twirling. His pants were wrinkled, as was his shirt. He paused, his gaze locking on a dot of dark red on the inside sleeve. He unbuttoned his cuff and shoved the sleeve up over his elbow. A wound, almost healed, but not quite, leaped out at him.

  Blood. The witch had stolen his blood.

  Chapter 21

  Fafnir walked toward Amma, glancing back over his shoulder as he did. When he reached her, he ducked behind a stalagmite—out of sight, she noted, from anyone in the main bar.

  There was a furrow between his brows and his hands opened and closed. “I told you to call me,” he said.

  She swirled her straw in her glass and, adding a bit of a break to her voice, replied, “I lost your card. So, I thought I’d come here. Was that wrong?” Actually, she had wanted to meet the dwarf on her own terms—not his.

  He muttered something under his breath. “It’s fine.”

  “So, the Collector, is he still willing to make the trade?”

  At the Collector’s name, Fafnir darted a glance over his shoulder. Looking back at Amma, he said, “The Collector…yes, yes, he’s still willing to make the trade, but not here. We need to go to my office.” He pointed at the boards that swung overhead.

  Not the boards again. But she nodded. “Of course.”

  “Good. You wait here. I have to take care of something.” He scurried away, leaving Amma alone again with her pink drink. She had ordered it more as a prop than to quench her thirst, but l
ooking at it reminded her of Joarr passed out on the bed at the hotel. She walked over to a fountain, designed to look like water dripping from a stalactite into a crevice worn into a receiving rock, and dumped her drink inside. Foam bubbled up and onto the floor.

  When she turned around she caught sight of Fafnir across the room talking to another dwarf—this one dressed in a red frock coat and a tricorn hat. The Collector. He was here. Her heart raced.

  So, Fafnir hadn’t been lying, at least not completely. If the Collector was here, the chalice very likely was, too.

  Fafnir, his back to her, seemed to be directing the Collector down the stairs toward the entrance of the club. As the older dwarf disappeared from sight, Fafnir trotted back to her side.

  His breath coming in a huff, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward a board. She locked her knees and twisted, freeing her arm. “Wasn’t that the Collector?”

  “Who? That? The dwarf? No, just a…friend of my brother’s.” Fafnir grimaced. “He’s taken to dressing like my father. I’m afraid he has ulterior motives. I asked him to leave.”

  He waved down a board.

  Amma didn’t buy his story for a second. “So, is the Collector up there?” She glanced up, tamping down the surge of anxiety as she stared at the vast open space again.

  Fafnir shook his head. “No, the Collector refuses to do business here, but since you did come and you do have…” He leaned close and whispered, “The blood.” He raised a brow, asking for confirmation.

  She inclined her head in agreement.

  He smiled. “I’m going to make an exception and step in for him. Don’t worry, you’ll get what you came for.”

  “The chalice?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right—a cup.” He gestured for her to step onto the board.

  She twisted her lips and looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Last time, your brother pulled a sword on me.” She looked purposely at the ax slipped through his belt.

  He held out his hands. “I’m not my brother.”

  “True.” She kept her gaze steady.

  With a mumbled curse, he jerked the ax from his belt and waved over a waitress to take it.

  As the woman walked away, the ax lying in the center of a tray filled with shot glasses, Fafnir motioned to the board again.

  This time Amma stepped on.

  This trip was less eventful. In the beginning, Amma stayed tense, but as the board climbed, she relaxed more and more. Her body seemed to move with the board now rather than stiffen with each sway. And she was able to look down, actually study those below without fear clawing at her.

  She spotted Regin ordering waitresses around. And just as their board came even with the top bit of jutted-out floor, the Collector walked up the stairs and back into the main club.

  Fafnir seemed to have spotted him, too. He shoved Amma in the side, onto a landing. Then immediately began scurrying toward a closed door. “In here.”

  The door was constructed of one solid piece of thick wood. It was curved at the top, like something out of a fairy tale, and bands of metal formed a Z on its front. It looked ancient and heavy, but opened with just a slight push of the dwarf’s hand.

  Inside the office was dark. Fafnir slammed the door shut behind them before reaching for a light. There was the snap of stone against steel, then a lamp flickered to life. While Fafnir fidgeted with the wick, Amma glanced around. The room was still dark, completely so outside the three-foot diameter of the lantern’s glow.

  She looked up. There was an electric, or what appeared to be an electric, fixture set in the ceiling. She pointed at it. He glanced at it as if surprised to see it there. “Burned out. I prefer fire, anyway—don’t you?”

  For some reason, Amma felt as if the question was a trap, although she guessed it was more likely her conscience nipping at her again. Still, she didn’t answer his question. Instead she replied, “I prefer to see what I am trading for.”

  “Not a problem, as long as you will do the same.” He looked up at her expectantly.

  She glanced around the room again. She had no sense that she had walked into a trap, but still, it paid to be cautious. Satisfied no one else was hiding in the room and that there was no weapon within the dwarf’s easy reach, she pulled the flask up and out of her shirt by the ribbon she’d attached to its lid.

  The dwarf’s eyes glimmered. His tongue darted out of his mouth to moisten his lips, and in that tiny span of time, Amma would have sworn she saw a flicker of fire deep in his throat.

  She wrapped her hands around the flask. Insane. She was going insane—seeing dragon fire everywhere.

  He made a give-me motion with his hands.

  She pulled the ribbon over her head, but kept hold of the flask. “Where is the chalice?”

  He was leaning forward, reaching for the flask. She let magic flow down her arm, into her hand, spread her fingers and held them up in front of him. “You hadn’t asked what I am, dwarf—an oversight you might regret, especially if you plan to cheat me.”

  He pulled back, his eyes narrowing until they were nothing but dark slits. His hand dropped to his belt.

  She smiled. “Where is the chalice?”

  He growled. “A witch. If I’d known…”

  “What, you have issues with witches?” Suddenly she was enjoying herself. She thought of what she’d seen the dwarf do, knew lording her knowledge over him would threaten him more. “I know what it’s for, by the way.” She held the flask by its neck and shook it in front of his face, her free hand still held out, still sparking with power. “And I’m guessing your father, the Collector, has no idea what his son is doing. What would he do if he found out?”

  Even in the yellowish glow of the lantern, she could see Fafnir pale. He dropped his hands to his sides and gritted his teeth. His hands were shaking; his entire body was shaking. He stared at an oversize mirror that hung a few feet away, in the shadows. He seemed to calm. Sucking a breath in through his teeth, he turned back.

  “All that matters to you, witch, is that I have the chalice, and I do. Do you still want it or not?” He motioned toward the door as if she could leave, but Amma saw the shake of his fingers, knew if she moved toward the door he would attack. She didn’t want that, didn’t want to push him that far; she simply wanted him to know she wasn’t a pushover.

  She curled her fingers in toward her palm, forming a claw before they closed into a fist, extinguishing the magic. “Show me the chalice.”

  “The blood first.” His eyes gleamed.

  She tapped the flask against her chest. “A sniff.”

  He curled his lip, but nodded.

  She unscrewed the lid and held out the flask.

  His eyes half-closed, Fafnir inhaled loudly.

  Amma tensed. How much could the dwarf tell from a sniff? She kept her gaze on the dwarf, stopped herself from glancing at the bandage hidden under her blouse.

  His eyes narrowed for a second and his teeth dug into his lower lip. “Different.”

  Amma readied her magic—let it pulse to life inside her.

  “But—” he licked his lips “—I’ll get the chalice.” He trotted toward the mirror. After glancing at her reflection in the massive piece of glass, he ran his fingers along the frame. The mirror moved, popped open, revealing a room hidden behind it. He disappeared inside, reappearing with a canvas bag.