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

by Rawlings, Rachel

  Suddenly, every nerve ending in my body felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t move my arms and legs yet, but I was aware of everything that was happening to me. The weight that was pushing me down through the mattress was lachadiel. He was here in the cell with me; he was on top of me. He was draining my energy and, through me, Oberon’s as well. That’s why the connection was so weak. Oberon had nothing left to give.

  The fire inside my body increased until it finally erupted. It felt as if all of my blood vessels had exploded. A scream broke free as my vocal chords found their purpose again. I reached for Oberon, but this time I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t feel him. The connection was gone. He was gone.

  A new kind of pain, one I wasn’t familiar with, racked my body. My chest hurt - and not from the weight of lachadiel. My heart felt as if it would shatter into a million pieces. Something inside me died too. The part that was good, that laughed and loved, was gone. I was learning how to let someone love me with Oberon and lachadiel had taken that away from me.

  I screamed again, but this time not from physical pain. I had given fury a voice. I tried to buck lachadiel off of me. The more I fought, the more he pressed his weight onto me. My skin was hypersensitive, as if he could peel the flesh from my bones as he tightened his grip on my arms. I could move my arms and legs now, but I still didn’t have the strength to get him off of me. How long had he been draining me? Long enough for me to drain Oberon, killing him through our connection.

  All I could do was scream; no real words would come out. There were other voices now; there were people running and shouting. Masarelli and someone else – was it Aidan?

  “I will finish this. I will regain my full form and have my revenge on those that enslaved me. And it is your energy that will give me the power to do it. I tried with the witches, but it wasn’t enough. You, on the other hand, hold more energy than the three of them together. Like the blood flowing through your veins, your energy is constantly cycling through your body. It seems to be an endless supply,” lacahdiel said.

  His voice was deeper and richer than the last time he had spoken to me. He was filling out before me, his eyes were becoming less hollow, and his skin was slightly less transparent. He was getting stronger.

  Aidan and Masarelli were at the cell door and it sounded as if Masarelli had called in the cavalry. I could hear the officers running down the hallway, their boots pounding the cement floor.

  lachadiel leaned in close to my ear, whispering, “Your friends can’t guard you all of the time.”

  He laughed. Some of his weight lifted when he moved and I was able to free one arm. Without all of lacahdiel’s weight on my chest, I was finally able to take a deep breath. Air filled my lungs. The air I breathed was like wind blowing into an empty cave. I felt hollow inside. But somewhere deep down in the pit that my insides had become, something was stirring. I let the rage and anger fill the void that Oberon had left behind.

  I grabbed lachadiel’s left arm, trying to pry it from my right when an image of his true form flashed in my mind. Afrit. He was what the Inquisitors had been looking for? What the hell had they unleashed?

  “I’m going to kill you,” I told him calmly. And I meant it. I wouldn’t stop until he was dead.

  The cell door was ripped from its hinges. Aidan rushed in through a cloud of dust and pieces of cinder block. He grabbed the Afrit, pulling him off me. I tumbled to the floor.

  The Afrit struck back at Aidan, throwing him into the wall. Bits of mortar and concrete went flying from the impact. Hopefully it wasn’t a weight-bearing wall. I pushed myself up and jumped on the Afrit’s back. I dug my heels in its ribs, locked my hands under its chin and leaned back with all my weight. My arm disagreed with this plan, the bones hadn’t fully mended yet, but I ignored the pain arcing through my arm and leaned back some more. I was going to rip the beast’s head clean off of its neck.

  The Afrit reached behind him, grabbing a hold of the top of my head and grasped a fistful of hair. He slung me over his shoulder and through what was left of the cell door. I flew out across the hall and into the metal bars of another cell. I hit the floor with an audible thud. I tried to push myself up, but fell back down, winded.

  Masarelli slithered like a snake on his belly over to me. He had managed to stay out of the way so far.

  “Who the hell is that?” he had to scream over the sounds of Aidan and the Afrit fighting.

  The officers took up position in front of the cell and there was an explosion of gunfire. Aidan was still in there and I wasn’t sure if they knew that he wasn’t a bad guy. I started to crawl across the hallway so I could see inside the cell.

  Masarelli grabbed my ankle. “What are you doing? Don’t go back in there!” he said.

  “Get off of me,” I warned him.

  “What the hell is going on? What is that?” he asked. I could hear the fear in his voice.

  “Well, look who’s suddenly interested in the truth. That is what killed the witches. That is what killed the Inquisitors. That is what killed…” I stopped, unable to say his name out loud.

  It would have been a lie anyway. I was the one who had killed Oberon. I couldn’t keep the Afrit out. I couldn’t stop pulling energy through the link that we shared. Graive had been right about me.

  “I can’t let you go back in there,” Masarelli said.

  “Last warning - get off me!” I commanded him.

  He wouldn’t let go of my ankle. I shook him off and he grabbed for me again. I kicked with my other foot and heard the distinct crunch of his nose breaking. He let go of my ankle that time, grunting as he covered his face.

  “You broke my nose! You fucking bitch! You broke my nose!” he said, blood spraying off of his lips as he spoke.

  “I told you to let go,” I replied.

  Bullets were still flying as I crawled closer to my cell. Aidan had moved to the side, pressing himself against the wall. The Afrit’s body jumped and jerked as each bullet hit him. His body was riddled with holes, but there was no blood.

  The bullets slowed as the officers stopped, one by one, to reload their guns. The Afrit roared, throwing his arms out at his sides. Aidan charged, trying to take out the Afrit before it took out the officers. He managed to grab a hold of its shirt, yanking it back and off of its feet, but before he could take the Afrit down it disappeared. It happened so fast that the officers didn’t see it. With their guns reloaded, they started firing into the cell again.

  “Stop!” I screamed. “Masarelli! Tell them to stop shooting!”

  He was useless, lying there holding his face as if that would somehow fix his nose. I scrambled to my feet, still yelling for them to stop. I rushed over, knocking two officers out of the way to get into the cell. One of them was yelling, ‘cease fire, cease fire!’ as I ran in and he finally realized that Aidan was the only one left in the cell. The bullets might have stopped, but they hadn’t lowered their guns yet. They just stood there, guns aimed at the cell, in case the Afrit reappeared.

  I knelt beside Aidan. He was in bad shape. His shirt was soaked. The black fabric hid the color of it, but I knew that the shirt was saturated in blood. Bullet holes covered his body.

  “Aidan? Aidan! Look at me!” I shouted.

  I knew that he wouldn’t die no matter how many times they shot him, not with regular bullets anyway. He needed to replace the blood he had lost, but he was too weak to hunt right now.

  I had lost so much energy already; was it safe to let him feed from me? I looked around. There was no one else here who would help him. He would heal his wounds and regain enough strength to hunt eventually, but it would be a long and painful process. I had already lost Oberon. I couldn’t sit by and watch him suffer. Not when there was still blood in my veins that I could give him.

  I lifted his head, got my legs underneath him and cradled his upper body in my lap. I pressed my right wrist against his lips.

  I could hear the others talking. Some were asking what I was doing. One of them sai
d that I was crazy for letting him drink from me.

  “Are you going to do it? I don’t see anyone volunteering!” I screamed at them. My voice was hoarse, my throat tight from holding back tears.

  “Aidan, you need to feed,” I said in a near whisper.

  He opened his beautiful hazel eyes and looked up at me. “I came to rescue you, but now you are the one rescuing me.”

  I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. I hadn’t been able to save Oberon. Aidan cupped my cheek, brushing some of the tears away with his thumb.

  “Shhh. Let me take away some of the pain, Maurin. If only for a little while,” he said.

  He stopped caressing my cheek and took my wrist, pressing it closer to his mouth. He sank his razor sharp fangs into my wrist. My heart raced with anticipation. I gasped as they pierced the thin skin, expecting it to hurt. I braced for the pain, but it never came. My heart slowed to a regular beat as a cool tranquility washed over me.

  Aidan’s power felt like a deep pool of water and I was swimming in it. A memory of Oberon holding me flashed in my head. I could feel the agony trying to work its way back inside my mind. A part of me didn’t want to let go of the hurt or him, even for a few minutes. Aidan’s power came over me again like waves lapping on the shore and this time I let it pull me down into the cool dark water that was Aidan. He took the pain away with each pull on my wrist. I could feel it leave me like sand under my feet as the tide went out.

  I was so lost in Aidan that I didn’t even realize he had switched positions until he was done. My head was in his lap and he cradling me with all the tenderness you would a child. He gently licked the holes he had made to stop the bleeding. He kissed my wrist and then laid my arm across my chest.

  “You don’t have to stop. You can take more if you need it,” I whispered.

  I didn’t want it to be over. I didn’t want to face the reality of losing Oberon. I wanted to stay wrapped up in the serenity he had created.

  “If I take any more, I could kill you. You weren’t exactly in an ideal state for donating,” he said.

  I tried to sit up and my head spun a little. I eased back down, letting Aidan hold me a little longer.

  “Easy, go slow. I’m sorry, Maurin, you trusted me enough to let me feed and I took too much,” Aidan said.

  “Don’t apologize, I’d do it again. Does it always feel like that?” I asked.

  “You don’t mean that I was your first? I’m honored!” He laughed.

  I gave him an elbow to the ribs.

  “Sorry,” he said, still chuckling.

  “I thought that it would hurt,” I admitted. “But it didn’t.”

  “No, it doesn’t always feel like this. I can make it feel, make you feel, however I want. It can be excruciating if I want it to be. Or it can be ecstasy,” he said, his Irish accent heavy, his finger trailing up and down my arm.

  “How long will it last?” I asked, willing him to tell me forever, that he really did drink away the pain and emptiness.

  “Not long enough, I’m afraid,” he said solemnly.

  I could feel the tears trying to well up in my eyes when he gave the answer that I had feared he would. I took a deep breath to keep them from falling. The void Aidan had filled inside me was already half empty.

  “It will stop hurting, Maurin. You will fill the emptiness with your own power, not someone else’s,” he said.

  I wiped at my eyes. I could feel people staring at me. I looked over at Masarelli still slumped on the floor, then at the officers leaning against the wall.

  “Enjoy the show?” I asked, angrily. It would be all too easy for me to plug the hole that I felt inside with anger.

  “Forget about them. Who gave you the tranquilizer?” Aidan asked.

  “How did you know that they gave me something?” I asked in surprise.

  “I could taste it,” he said with a shrug.

  “They sent a doctor down here to check me out. She said it was acetaminophen, so I took it,” I told him.

  “Why would you need pain medicine? The hit you took on the head wasn’t that bad,” he said.

  “You were still there - I knew I saw you. Oh, and I did take a bean bag propelled from what might as well be a grenade launcher to the temple, just so we’re clear, but the meds weren’t for my head. They were for my arm,” I explained.

  “What happened to your arm? And where is your amulet?” he asked, his fingers brushing my collarbone.

  I looked across the hall to Masarelli. Aidan looked at my arm; the bruising was fading away, but his temper was just getting fired up.

  Aidan slid me off of his lap so that he could stand up. He held out a hand and hoisted me up off the floor.

  “You did this to her? You injured her arm; you took her amulet, leaving her vulnerable to lachadiel? And as if that wasn’t enough, you had her drugged too?” he growled at Masarelli.

  “Don’t look at me. I didn’t send anyone. I may have accidentally slammed the cell door shut on her arm, but I didn’t order the tranquilizer. I didn’t know that she needed the necklace,” Masarelli said. He took his hands away from his face long enough to raise them up in mock surrender.

  Aidan wasn’t buying it. He was looming in front of Masarelli before he had finished lying about what happened to my arm. Aidan grabbed the front of Masarelli’s shirt and hoisted him up into the air, slamming him into the wall.

  “Where is the amulet?” Aidan said, his fangs showing.

  Masarelli reached into his shirt pocket with a shaky hand. He pulled out the amulet and held it up. It slid off the broken chain. Aidan dropped Masarelli on his ass and caught the stone before it hit the floor.

  “You’re the only person I know who can get into this much trouble in jail,” Aidan said, handing me the amulet and silver chain.

  “What, you mean this wasn’t part of your plan?” I asked sarcastically, slipping the amulet in my front jeans pocket.

  Aidan took my hand and led me out of the cell, past Masarelli and the other officers who were still hanging around watching us with curiosity. We walked down the hall toward the stairs. He opened the door to the stairwell and we practically fell over a few more guys from the SPTF team. They were bent over a body. One was checking her pulse, while another called for an ambulance and the forensics team. From the way that the officer knelt next to the shriveled corpse was shaking his head, I could tell that the ambulance was a waste of time.

  “Was this the woman who came to see you?” Aidan asked.

  I looked at the corpse. “Maybe a dead ninety-year-old version of her. What happened to her?” I asked him.

  “If I had to guess, then I’d say that this is what happens when lachadiel drains a human. They don’t have magic of any kind. The only thing they have is the force that keeps humans alive,” he said.

  “You mean it literally sucked the life out of her?” I asked.

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I mean,” Aidan said

  “After she gave me the pills, she came up here and I heard her talking to someone. She said that they wouldn’t have any trouble from me for a few hours. I never heard the rest of the conversation, though,” I confessed.

  “I think it’s safe to say that she was talking to lachadiel,” Aidan said.

  “She was working for that thing?” Masarelli asked.

  He had exchanged holding his bloody nose for rubbing his ass. I hoped that he had broken his tailbone when Aidan dropped him.

  “It would seem so,” Aidan replied.

  “No way! She was part of the department. She wouldn’t help that monster,” Masarelli said.

  “I doubt that she had much of a choice,” I told him.

  “What do you mean?” Masarelli asked.

  “He managed to convince the Inquisitors that he was helping them. I’m sure that he lied to her too,” I said.

  “You said that he killed the witches and the Inquisitors. Why?” Masarelli asked.

  “He killed the witches to drain their magic; he needs it
to gain his full power,” I explained.

  “You’re not a witch; you don’t have magic. So what does he gain from you?” he asked, trying to catch up.

  “No, I’m not a witch but I am - I mean, I was…” I trailed off.

  Masarelli was waiting for me to finish, but the rest, the part where I told him that I was metaphysically bound to a witch until I let him get killed, wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

  “Maurin has her own kind of magic and, for whatever reason, he has taken a liking to it,” Aidan answered for me.

  “But why kill the Inquisitors? It doesn’t make sense,” Masarelli said.

  “He said that he wanted revenge on the ones that enslaved him. The Inquisitors summoned him,” I told him.

  “Well, I’d say he certainly achieved that back in the warehouse. He didn’t leave anyone alive. What more does he want?” Masarelli asked.

  “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” I said.

  “You’re damn right we are!” Masarelli said.

  “Um, when I said we, I didn’t mean you,” I told him.

  “You and the lawyer here aren’t cutting me and my men out of this now. He killed a woman in our station,” he reminded me.

  “So you’re my lawyer now? That was your master plan?” I said to Aidan.

  He just shrugged. “I was a lawyer before I became this. I was quite good. It seemed like it would be easy enough to bail you out.”

  “Nothing is ever that easy,” I said.

  “I’m beginning to see that - at least where you are concerned,” Aidan replied.

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do. This is my case!” Masarelli said.

  “Do you want your men to end up like this?” Aidan asked Masarelli, pointing to the shriveled up woman on the floor.

  “No way, forget it! We’re working with you on this!” Masarelli was yelling now.

  “Your men must have emptied thirty clips into him and he just brushed it off. You can’t defend yourselves against him and we can’t fight him if we’re busy saving your hides the whole time!” I snapped.