Witch Hunt, A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy (The Maurin Kincaide Series)

by Rawlings, Rachel

  Oberon came back in with a turkey sandwich and a look that said, “You will eat this and not give me any shit about it.” I took the plate and sat on the couch. As soon as I took one bite, I realized how hungry I had been. I ate the first half of the sandwich in four bites. Just as I was about to devour the second half, the rest of the Council tiptoed in around the photos on the floor. I set the plate on the couch cushion next to me and waited for the fireworks to begin.

  “You’ve gotten sloppy, Mahalia. Letting the humans find your prey before you? Roul and I would not have allowed our enemies to hide from us and we certainly wouldn’t have been outwitted by a bunch of mortals,” Agrona spat out, obviously disgusted.

  “We have been working within the confines of our agreement with the mortals, Agrona, something that you seldom do,” Mahalia said. “And it was dumb luck that SPTF found the Inquisitors.”

  “None of that even matters now. There’s a new player in this sick game and we’ve got to find out who it is before Masarelli starts detaining coven members. He is becoming a liability. Before the Shift, the government agreed that the existence of the Council system should be kept secret to ease human acceptance. It would be chaos if the humans knew just how little control they actually have. Masarelli is perilously close to breaking that agreement,” Roul said.

  “I have an idea,” I said.

  They continued to argue. Everyone was talking over one another so that no one was really being heard.

  “Hey! I’ve got an idea!” I tried again.

  That didn’t stop them. They just kept right on going. Agrona was berating Mahalia for not ridding Salem of the Inquisitors herself. Oberon was about to jump in to defend Mahalia’s honor. From my previous experiences with Agrona, I’d have to say that would not be a good idea. Kedehern wanted to know who was moving in on their territory, and it sounded like Roul wanted to dig a hole for Masarelli’s grave.

  I stuck my fingers in my mouth and gave an ear- piercing whistle, perfected over many rock concerts. As I expected, the room became quiet and I had everyone’s attention.

  “I said that I have an idea. If you’re done with the juvenile bitch-fest, then I’d be happy to share it!” I scolded.

  Nobody said anything, so I took that as an invitation to proceed.

  “I need to get back into the warehouse. Masarelli’s only looking for evidence to prove the coven’s guilt. He won’t be looking for anything else. Given the time to really look around, I think I can find out who really did this,” I said.

  “What makes you so certain that you’ll be able to find something this time?” Roul asked.

  “I couldn’t get a read on anything with Masserelli breathing down my neck the whole time. I can do this, but I’m going to need a little help,” I said, turning to Agrona and Kedehern.

  “I’m listening,” the vampire queen said.

  “SPTF will be monitoring the feed from the security cameras outside the warehouse. I’m going to need some cover,” I explained.

  “We’ll send Aidan. He has cloaked others before,” she said.

  “Thanks, that was easier than I thought. There’s plenty of darkness left; the sooner he gets here, the sooner we can go,” I said.

  “Take Cash with you,” Roul suggested.

  “Come on, Roul. Not tonight. I’ve got a small window to get in, find what we need and get out,” I said.

  “This is why I am suggesting that you take a wolf with you. Cash is perfect because he was already on their scent on Winter Island. He won’t have to waste time sorting them all out,” he explained.

  It wasn’t incompetence that made me not want to bring Cash. In fact, he had proven very useful so far. He had saved my ass from a long and miserable swim on Winter Island. Truthfully, he had been downright easy to work with recently, which was a complete three-sixty from the last time that he had been in Salem. I guess that’s what bothered me. It wouldn’t last. I knew that he was trying to prove himself to Roul’s pack, but after the challenge he’d go right back to being the dick that he had been before. And when he did, I didn’t want him thinking that I owed him a favor in return for his help. Roul was right though. I’d probably need Cash at the warehouse.

  “Fine. I’m assuming that he’s already here.” I sighed.

  Mahalia and Oberon got to work translating whatever was on those old pages that I had taken pictures of. She pulled book after book off of her shelves, handing them to Oberon. The stack was up to his eyes. Quickly running out of space in the cramped study, she scooped up the papers and told Oberon to follow her to the dining room where they could spread everything out.

  I grabbed my plate and started eating the rest of my sandwich. There was nothing to do but wait for Aidan to show up. Hopefully it wouldn’t take long. I was anxious to leave.

  Cash came in and plopped down on the couch next to me. I scooted closer to the arm on my side of the couch, making room between us. I could see him staring at me from the corner of my eye. I hate it when people watch me eat. I dropped what was left of my sandwich on the plate and set it on the empty middle cushion.

  “You done with that?” Cash asked as he picked up what was left of my sandwich.

  “I am now,” I replied.

  He polished it off in one bite, licking some stray mayo off of his fingers. Even the way he ate was irritating.

  I got up, grabbed the plate off of the cushion and was about to take it into the kitchen when I bumped into a vampire.

  “Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” I said.

  “No need to apologize. Entirely my fault. I’m Aidan. Are you Maurin?” he asked, with his hand extended.

  Aidan was close to six feet tall and had an athletic build. I had no idea how old he really was, but he must have been around my age when he had been turned. He was handsome, reminded me of an actor. Jason - something. Whatever. I just hoped that he was as easy to work with as he was on the eyes.

  I took his hand, not expecting much to happen, since he was a vampire. Vampires were mostly dead, after all, and I don’t read the dead. I think that I proved that at the morgue. I’ve talked to ghosts before - well, once - and that was under rather unique circumstances. I had awakened them accidentally when I killed a Hellhound in their burial mound. Long story. Anyway, vampires are kind of a nice escape. I liked that I didn’t have to watch myself around them like I did with everyone else.

  I was shocked, literally. A pulse of magic coursed between us and I saw flashes of Aidan inside my head. He was older than I had originally thought. Ireland, during the Victorian era, if I had to guess by the clothes he wore. I tried to pull my hand away, but he tightened his grip. He seemed intrigued that I had a way to slip inside his mind. I threw walls up, reinforcing my shields and pried my hand from his grasp, breaking the connection. I had enough problems with lachadiel. I didn’t need a vampire playing around inside my head.

  “Sorry. I didn’t know that would happen. It never has with a vampire,” I said, dropping the plate as I backed away from Aidan.

  He caught it before it hit the floor and set it on an antique end table by the couch.

  “There you go - apologizing again when no harm has been done. I must admit that I am curious about your ability to form a connection with me, but I can understand why you would recoil from my mind,” Aidan said, reaching for my amulet.

  I tucked the amulet back under my shirt and put a little more distance between us. He laughed, giving me goose bumps - but in a good way. Damned vamps and their powers of persuasion.

  “It’s natural for people to recoil from the dead,” Cash interjected, bringing our attention to him.

  “I thought that I smelled a dog,” Aidan said, practically dismissing Cash entirely.

  A low growl rumbled up from Cash. Aidan didn’t rise to the bait, choosing to ignore Cash instead.

  “Not tonight, Cash,” I scolded. “We all need to work together if we expect to pull this off. I’m going to go get Oberon so that we can leave. You two play nice.”
<
br />   I left the vampire and the werewolf alone in Mahalia’s study. Hopefully everything – and everyone - was still in one piece when I came back.

  Oberon was scribbling away at the dining room table while Mahalia dictated at an auctioneer’s pace. Graive sat between him and Mahalia, scouring through old books. I cleared my throat, obviously announcing my presence as I walked into the room.

  “Aidan and Cash are here, Oberon. We’re ready to go. The sooner the better actually, since I don’t think they like each other very much,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything; he just looked at Mahalia and waited for her approval. Graive looked at me like she was willing me to burst into flames.

  “Yes, yes. Go ahead,” Mahalia said, shooing Oberon away. “Graive, you can take over for Oberon.”

  Oberon got up and walked over to me. He slipped his hand in mine and I followed him out of the dining room. I could feel Graive’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head.

  Mahalia snapped at Graive as we walked away. “Pay attention! Every word must be correct. You of all people should know this!” I stifled my laughter.

  “You’re smiling. What’s got you in such a good mood?” Oberon asked.

  “What? Am I? It must be the company,” I said, not wanting him to know that I was being a petty little bitch.

  I stuck my head in the study door. “Let’s go!” I said to Aidan and Cash.

  13

  The four of us climbed into Oberon’s truck and headed out to the warehouse. The ride was quiet and a bit awkward. There was more testosterone in the truck than a locker room at a football game and it was getting a little hard to breathe. I cracked my window to air out the cab of the truck.

  We parked a couple of blocks down and walked from there, stopping beside a warehouse next to the one we needed to break into. There was plenty of cover in between the two buildings from the patrol car that remained parked out front.

  Oberon moved forward, stepping just to the edge of the shadows. Static charged the air. My hair was sticking out in every direction, like I was touching one of Tesla’s plasma globes.

  “The alarm system is off. Cash, you want to get the door?” Oberon whispered, stepping back into the alley.

  “Are you sure? If I walk through this door and bells start ringing, I’m gone and you’re on your own explaining it to the half-dozen cops strolling around,” Cash replied.

  “It’s fried, trust me,” Oberon said.

  Cash shrugged his shoulders and moved to the side door of our warehouse. He was hardly visible crouched down behind the trashcans and fifty-five gallon drums that lined the side of the building.

  “What did you do?” I asked Oberon, while Cash worked on the lock.

  “That spell’s like a very accurate EMP. I would have preferred to cast one with a wider range, but I think that your friends from SPTF might notice if the streetlights went out,” he said.

  “Cool,” I said.

  Oberon leaned in for a quick kiss. Little static charges leapt from his lips to mine. It felt like I was kissing a battery. He smiled as I tried to rub the pins and needles sensation from my lips.

  “Let’s go,” Cash said as he crept inside the warehouse.

  I watched him move. He didn’t need a shadow. With his military training, he could avoid being seen or heard without magic. He was lethal in situations like this; they were his specialty. If the coven were going to send in “the Dogs”, like Masarelli had said, then Cash would certainly be the right wolf for the job.

  “Someone should stay by the door to keep watch,” Aidan said to Oberon.

  Oberon’s expression darkened. I tried to turn around to see what had just happened between the two of them, but Aidan was right behind me, slipping his arm around my waist.

  “Keep wrapping your arms around her like that and it’ll go from night to day in this alley,” Oberon said.

  “And risk giving us away? Besides, the contact makes it easier to shadow her,” Aidan explained.

  “Well, you’ll have to figure something else out, because I won’t be able to do anything with you glued to my hip like this. And I don’t think we should split up,” I quickly added.

  “I’m going to cloak you in shadow, not make you invisible. If someone is coming, we’ll still need time to make our escape,” Aidan clarified.

  “Go on - I’ll stay here and serve as lookout,” Oberon said, giving me that easy smile of his.

  Oberon pulled the shadows of the buildings around him, making him almost impossible to see. If a vampire were better at shadowing than that, then I felt we would be completely undetectable.

  I moved away from Aidan and went over to the door. I looked back once more to make sure that I couldn’t see Oberon under his shadows. Aidan was right behind me again, blocking my view.

  “Do you mind?” I asked him.

  “If I cannot touch you, then I will have to be close - very close,” Aidan said in his thick Irish accent, his mouth close to my ear. His breath felt like a cool breeze on my neck and instantly gave me goose bumps.

  “Knock it off, Aidan,” I said.

  He laughed, nudging me through the side door and into the warehouse, leaving Oberon alone in the alley to keep watch.

  Cash was moving silently and methodically through the warehouse. He stopped when he caught our scent and shook his head. He hadn’t found anything yet.

  I walked around, feeling as if Aidan was my shadow instead of me being cloaked by his. I moved over to the table with the computers on it.

  “You should have told the witch outside that you planned to use the computer. If I had to guess, he fried everything in here when he knocked out the alarm,” Aidan said.

  “I don’t need electricity to use the computer,” I told him.

  I moved the chair out of the way so that I could stand in front of the keyboard. I let my fingers move across the keys, searching for a pattern in keystrokes. Letters, words, and sentences formed in my mind. It was a detailed report chronicling the movements of the Inquisitors in Salem. They were creating a new manifesto; it was one that would rival the Malleus Maleficarum. There were pages and pages of notes on new and successful torture techniques. I stopped when I got to the detailed instructions on how to completely dismantle a witch’s magical ability by removing the eyes, tongue and hands. Each crime scene and each body flashed through my mind. I felt the Inquisitor author’s sense of purpose and satisfaction as he typed the directions for the others to follow. My fingers trembled with rage as they glided across the keys. I tried not to be distracted by my anger. The Inquisitors were already dead. We might not have been the ones to hand out their punishment, but at least they died the violent and horrible deaths that they deserved.

  Everything that I could see was something that we already knew. There had to be something else. I moved to another laptop a little farther down the table. This time Aidan didn’t say a word as he hovered behind me. I held my hands above the keys again and was immediately drawn to a new pattern of letters. I let the fingerprints on the keys lead me down this new path of keystrokes, hopeful that I would find something. The last person to use this computer was doing a lot of research. Was this the one that held the information that I needed?

  I followed a few references about lachadiel, but they were all dead ends. Everything I found on this laptop was common knowledge too. Damn it! Why wasn’t there anything useful in here about him? If the Inquisitors weren’t keeping any information about him and Mahalia didn’t have anything either, then what the hell was I supposed to do? It’s not like I could just stroll into the nearest bookstore to grab a latte and a book on zealot cults and their heavenly defenders.

  Aidan cleared his throat. I had forgotten that he was behind me for a second.

  “Do you believe that lachadiel has something to do with the murder of his conjurers?” he asked.

  “How did you…” I started to ask.

  “It was simple, really. I just watched your fingers move across the keys. I’ve
always been an excellent speller,” he said with a smirk.

  “Um, I don’t know. I mean, anything’s possible,” I replied, not wanting to admit my real reasons for focusing on any path that led to lachadiel.

  “Hmmm,” was all he said in response.

  I shrugged it off and went back to focusing on the keyboard. I let my fingers slide across the keys again, this time opening myself up to all patterns and letter formations. A word that I didn’t know came up over and over again. Afrit. What the hell was an Afrit and why did the Inquisitors want to know so much about it?

  “We don’t have much time, Maurin. You haven’t found anything that we can use to clear the coven. We need to move on,” Aidan prodded.

  “Give me a second. I think I’m on to something here,” I told him.

  “Cash has found something too,” he said.

  “What? I didn’t hear him say anything,” I said, still trying to find more information about the Afrit.

  “If he said it loud enough for you to hear, then the men patrolling outside would hear him as well,” Aidan replied quietly.

  He grabbed me by the waist. Before I could protest, he had his other hand clamped around my mouth. In what seemed like half a second we were across the warehouse and standing next to Cash. Aidan set me down, reminding me not to yell when he uncovered my mouth.

  “Don’t do that again!” I hissed at him.

  “I believe that it was you who said that we were on a tight schedule,” Aidan reminded me.

  “Yeah, because it would have taken so much time to walk back here,” I grumbled.

  “In my time, a gentleman escorted a lady,” Aidan replied, gesturing to me. “Besides, you would have just stayed at that computer if I hadn’t brought you back here.”

  “Grabbing someone and covering her mouth is your idea of escorting? No wonder chivalry is dead!” I snapped.