American Witch

by Thea Harrison

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Josiah said. “When I heard there’ve been two fires in one night, I thought I’d drive over and take a look.”

  “You don’t know? There’s three now.” The chief was a fit man in his fifties with short gray hair, sharp eyes, and a hangdog expression. “You must have been on your way here. I got word less than ten minutes ago that a law office in a strip mall was firebombed.”

  Josiah held himself still. “Where?”

  “Over in Piedmont Heights. Still no word on if there are any casualties, but it’s three fucking thirty on a Sunday morning, so we can hope not.” The chief gave him a sympathetic look. “You’ve only been at your new job for a few months, and the city’s going up in flames tonight.”

  “Yeah, it’s going to be a busy week.” His phone buzzed again. Pulling it out, he glanced at several texts from Anson and took in the phrase: Office of Nina Rodriguez Atty at Law has been firebombed.

  Gently he tucked the phone back in his pocket. “Do we know what caused this fire?”

  The chief shook his head. “We won’t get a good look inside until everything has had a chance to cool down.”

  “Give me your best guess.”

  “Unofficially?” The other man snorted. “Your ordinary, garden-variety house fire doesn’t burn in such a thorough, even pattern as this one has. When we got here, it was engulfed from end to end. I’d say somebody really wanted this house destroyed.”

  “That would be my take too, but I wanted to get your thoughts. How soon can we get an arson investigator in there?”

  “Tomorrow’s Monday. The house should be cool enough to get someone in first thing.”

  He handed the chief one of his cards. “Keep me updated.”

  “You bet.” The chief pocketed his card. “And congrats on winning the election.”

  “Thanks.”

  He spent ten more minutes at the scene, introducing himself to the other responders on site and taking a quick look at the victim in the body bag awaiting transport in the medical examiner’s van. The woman was burned badly, but her features were still recognizable. Tightening his jaw at the scent, he snapped a few photos, then exited to inhale a deep lungful of the fresh air outside.

  His phone buzzed again.

  Anson: Responders just pulled a body out of the law office. An unidentified male, Caucasian, tall, dark hair, midthirties to fifty. I’m at the scene now.

  Reeaally. He asked, Any magic involved?

  I don’t think so, but I can’t get close enough to tell for sure. If you’re at the house, you’re less than ten minutes away. Anson sent him the address.

  Josiah replied, On my way.

  The sky had started to lighten with predawn when he arrived at the strip mall. This time there were far fewer gawkers, just a few cars pulled to the opposite side of the road. He caught a glimpse of Anson’s rugged profile in one of the cars, but he didn’t greet him or acknowledge his presence.

  There was no sign of magic here either, and the fire had been smaller. It was already out but still smoldering. He went through the same round of introductions as he had at the previous scene, spending a few minutes talking with each professional before handing over his card.

  This scene didn’t have an ME van, so he climbed into the ambulance to get a look at the unidentified male. He uncovered the head and gazed down at Austin Sullivan’s handsome, still features.

  By that point he wasn’t surprised, but for the benefit of the EMT and a uniformed policeman looking on, he said, “Well, damn. I know this man.”

  “You do?” The uniform pulled out a notepad. “Who is it?”

  “Another lawyer. Austin Sullivan. He was a partner at Sherman & Associates. I went to a dinner party at his house last month.” He let the sheet fall back over Sullivan’s lifeless face and asked the EMT, “Any idea about the cause of death?”

  “You need an autopsy to be sure, but the back of his mouth looks reddened like he might have suffered some airway burns,” the EMT told him. “He’s pretty banged up, but they found him under some rubble in a collapsed doorway, so that might explain it. It’s possible he got knocked out and smoke inhalation killed him, but what he was doing in there in the middle of a Saturday night is anybody’s guess.”

  Josiah thought he had a pretty good idea what had happened to Sullivan, but he kept to his role. “What a mess. I’ll be reading the reports on this personally.”

  With that, he took his leave. The space where Anson had been parked was empty, so he texted the other man the news, then added, I think we’ve learned everything we can for the night. Looks like we’re going to have a long week. You should get some rest.

  You too, if you can.

  But Josiah had no intention of resting. Instead, he stopped at a twenty-four-hour grocery store to pick up various items—ready-made deli sandwiches, fruit, cheese, milk, peanut butter, bread, more coffee. A quart of milk. He was in and out in twenty minutes.

  Still, it was well past dawn by the time he finally started back to the safe house.

  With a little luck, the rest of Molly’s night had been much more uneventful than his had been, and hopefully she would continue to sleep for several more hours. Her body needed to rest in order to recover, and he was feeling the effects of a tense, sleepless night.

  And in any case, he wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news to her that she was now a widow.

  * * *

  Formless black.

  Then the woman with the dark, powerful eyes stood in front of her, one eyebrow raised. “Taking your own sweet time, I see.”

  “I’ve had a lot to do,” Molly told her. “It’s complicated.”

  The woman snorted. “It’s always complicated. Well, I’m too busy to look for you. Either you’ll show up or you won’t. But you should know time is running out.”

  Why was time running out? She wanted to ask, but the formless black swept her away again until Austin’s familiar shoes and long, lean, jeans-clad legs came into view.

  And she moved as fast as she could, but she wasn’t fast enough. Something hard came down on her head…

  Surging awake to total blackness, she jerked to a sitting position. Bruises and contusions screamed in reaction, and a sharp headache spiked behind one eye. Disoriented and panicked, she flung out a hand to grab something to anchor herself. The back of her hand knocked into a cool, hard surface, and a heavy object crashed to the floor.

  The air was cold and strange. Memory surged in. She was in the basement of a safe house. At least that was where Josiah had said she was. And she had just knocked the bedside lamp to the floor.

  After the first gigantic throb of protest, her body settled into playing a symphony of pain. Maybe enough time had passed that she could take more pain medication. She slid out of bed and grunted at the effort of bending over to grope for the lamp. Her fingers collided with the round, broad base. Picking up the lamp, she felt her way to the switch.

  Light blazed, causing more stabbing pain behind her eye. Her body shrieked that it needed to be horizontal again, but she forced herself to move. Screw it, she thought. I’m taking more ibuprofen whether it’s time or not.

  After dragging on the sweatpants and thick athletic socks, she limped to the bathroom, shook out more pills, and swallowed them down. Then she drank three more glasses of water until her nagging thirst had eased. Only then did she push her way out of the bathroom to take stock.

  Gray light filtered down the basement stairs. Dawn must not be that far away. Like the T-shirt, the sweatpants and socks were too large. She hiked the pants up at the waist and took care not to stumble in the socks.

  It was creepy as hell that he’d stuck her in a basement in the middle of the country. Drawing in slow, deep breaths, she counted until the racing panic eased enough for her to think.

  The raw, empty place deep at her core was gone, and what had returned… Well, it wasn’t the golden well of Power from before, but it wasn’t nothing either. More than that, her sense
s had cleared, and she felt surrounded by a steady glow of magic.

  It was everywhere. At her feet, overhead, on all sides. Josiah had said the basement had protection spells. Why the basement? Why not upstairs too?

  The furnace kicked on, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Coughing out an unamused laugh, she searched for more light switches until she stood in the middle of the unfinished section that blazed with illumination. There was the open door leading to the bedroom, the bathroom, the microwave sitting on an old cabinet, a minifridge, a washer and dryer, a furnace, water heater—and a closed door with a high-end electronic lock.

  She frowned at the locked door. Then, leaning heavily on the railing, she climbed the stairs to a narrow landing and looked out the window at the back door. A large, unkempt lawn led to a tangle of trees. Three more stairs took her to a large kitchen that was badly in need of being updated.

  She stared around. It was a really empty kitchen. There was no stove, fridge, or microwave. She opened a couple of cupboards at random. They were all bare.

  Moving her stiff, protesting body as fast as she could, she inspected the upstairs. Aside from two chairs and a television on a simple stand in the living room, along with a few lamps on timers, the rest of the large house was as empty as the kitchen. The television wasn’t even plugged in.

  When she had finished, she sat thoughtfully in one of the armchairs and looked out the large picture window. This was the only house, and it sat at the end of a country lane. It would be easy to defend. Easy to isolate. Nobody would hear screams coming from this place. The thought made her shudder.

  Still, she wasn’t barred from leaving. She could put on her shoes and walk down that country lane if she wanted. While it had been terrifying to watch Josiah pocket her phone, he hadn’t tried to imprison her in any way.

  She tapped a thumbnail against her teeth. In fact, there were only two things he had barred her from doing. She couldn’t make any phone calls, and there were any number of reasons he might have wanted to keep her from calling out. Some were more sinister than others.

  And she couldn’t open that locked basement door.

  Or could she?

  Pushing out of the chair, she went back into the basement, and the warm, steady glow of spells surrounded her again. Okay, she was still rattled, but she had to admit the magic felt good.

  A deep shakiness had set in, and the hollow ache in her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since early Saturday. Impatiently, she attended to her body’s needs and nuked water in the microwave to make a mug of double-strength instant coffee while she ate soup straight from the can.

  The cold soup felt slimy in her mouth, but it stopped her stomach from complaining. She glowered at the locked door as she drank the coffee. The medication had done its job, and her pain had eased to a bearable ache. While she didn’t exactly get a burst of energy from the caffeine, at least she no longer felt like she was going to fall over.

  Most importantly, she could feel a small trickle of returning Power. Would it be enough?

  Setting aside the half-empty mug of coffee, she went to the door to lay a hand on the electronic lock. Even if she had enough juice, should she do this?

  Whether or not she was successful, this was going to make Josiah angry. And while he had manipulated and offended her, he had also helped her tremendously. She thought back to Monday’s kiss and discovered the memory had changed.

  This time she remembered how he had held very still as she had gently, tentatively moved her lips under his, and then he had shifted to deepen the kiss. She had been the one to push him away.

  He had tightened his arms, not to overpower her but in protest before he let her go. And of all the ways he could have chosen to get her riled…

  Her mouth widened in a wry smile. As tactless and manipulative as it had been, he had meant that kiss.

  But he had still taken her phone, and whether it made him angry or not, she wanted it back. And she wasn’t going to break through that door easily. Digging deep, she wrenched out as much Power as she could and used it to blast the door open.

  Chapter Ten

  That had been imprudent.

  Ripping out the small trickle of returning Power hurt. Inside, the raw darkness had returned, and she felt shaky again. Gasping, she leaned against the doorframe until the black spots dancing in front of her eyes disappeared.

  She couldn’t afford to do that again until she healed properly. For one thing, she might pass out, and for another, she might do permanent damage to an ability she was quickly coming to treasure.

  But the door had creaked open. When she inspected it, she discovered she hadn’t dented the electronic lock. The doorframe, where the bolt inserted, was what had splintered.

  After registering that in a quick glance, the interior of the room caught her attention.

  She had expected it to be dark. Instead, it was lit by several security monitors hanging on the wall over an L-shaped computer desk. Staring, she felt along the wall by the door until her fingers encountered a switch. She flipped it, and bright, overhead light flooded the room.

  A large floor safe sat in a corner opposite the desk. The desktop held a coffee mug and a scattering of papers and files, and a computer was hooked up to two more monitors. Absently, she retrieved her coffee and took a sip of the dark, bitter brew as she approached the desk.

  Her phone! Snatching at it, she tried to power it up, but it was dead. Upon closer inspection, she discovered the phone card was missing. Frustration gnawed, and she tossed it back on the desk. Then her name leaped out from the papers and files.

  Slowly, she sank into the desk chair, set her mug down, picked up the manila file that bore her name, and began to flip through it. Childhood background. The name of her high school and a list of her friends. Information on her parents. Her father’s date of death. Their address. Molly’s college transcripts. The address of her house. The list of places where she had either volunteered or worked.

  The file slipped out of her fingers, and she scrambled to look at the other papers and files. There was a file on Austin and another one on Sherman & Associates. And another file that looked like a list of employee records for the district attorney’s office. Another one on local judges. That one had a sticky note on it that said GO DEEPER?

  There were other files, but the information they contained had no meaning to her, nor any overall pattern that she could understand. Finally she sat back and drank the rest of her coffee while she stared at the images on the security monitors. After a moment she recognized the scenes as the property surrounding the house.

  She was still sitting there when a dark Audi appeared. It jumped off one monitor and onto another as it swung around to the back of the house. When it stopped, Josiah’s long, powerful body unfolded from the driver’s seat. He carried several grocery bags to the back door.

  She listened to the sound of the door opening and closing, then footsteps on the stairs. They paused, then continued more slowly.

  The fiery, dark essence of his presence filled the doorway at her back.

  “I see you’ve been busy,” he said expressionlessly. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I wanted my phone back. Not that it did me any good.” She swung the chair around to confront him. “Why did you destroy the phone card?”

  Exhaustion and anger stamped his hard features. His gaze was sharp like knives carved from amber. “Even if you have your GPS turned off, the location of your phone can still be traced.”

  She took in a quick breath. Of all the crazy thoughts that had raced through her mind, the danger of being traced by her phone’s GPS had never occurred to her. Then she snapped her attention back to what really mattered. “This is no normal safe house. In fact, this is far, far from normal. Who are you? What are you really doing?”

  He shot her a furious, filthy look and walked away.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” She launched out of the chair as fast as she could, which admittedly
wasn’t very fast. When she reached the doorway, he was crouching in front of the minifridge, shoving food from the grocery bags into the fridge. “You have a file on me. On my parents. You have a list of my high school friends. Why?”

  “You know why.” He glared at her again. “You became unusual.”

  “You had no right to dig into my past like that!” she snapped.

  He snatched up a wrapped sandwich and stalked into the bedroom.

  “Quit walking away from me!” Following him, she found that he had sat at one end of the bed.

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees while he tore the wrapper open. With his gaze fixed on the food in his hands, he said between his teeth, “You’re rattled and spoiling for a fight. I get that. But I’ve been up all night casting spells, I didn’t have supper, and I’m going to eat a fucking sandwich. So get out of my face for a few fucking minutes.”

  Gah! She wanted to strangle him. Her hands closed into fists, but after a moment she asked, more or less calmly, “Did you bring one for me?”

  “What do you think?” He snapped off one end of his sandwich with strong, white teeth.

  She thought maybe she needed a few fucking minutes too. Striding over to the fridge, she yanked open the door to stare at the food he had brought. There were three more wrapped sandwiches, two turkey and cheese, one beef and tomato. She snatched at one.

  The only two places to sit in the basement were the bed or the desk chair. She wasn’t about to join him, and she didn’t feel like walking into Creepy Monitor Room again, so she ate her sandwich mechanically while standing in front of the microwave, forcing each mouthful down her throat. It tasted like sawdust and she could only manage to eat half, so she rewrapped the rest and put it into the fridge. Then she went back into the bedroom.

  He had finished his sandwich and had lain back on the bed, one tanned forearm draped over his eyes. She took in details she had been too preoccupied to notice before. He wore a pair of faded jeans and well-used athletic shoes, and a gray T-shirt stretched tight over his wide chest and muscled arms.