I got Arawn to agree to not only knocking on the door, but also waiting for me to answer it about the same time that the sun came up. I agreed to keep the Cwn Annwfn and I consented to more training in the between as well.
I was exhausted. With Arawn gone, I could finally get some sleep. I crawled into bed and curled up with my monstrously large dog instead of my vampire.
23
I woke up with my head in a fog and the remnants of a crazy dream still bouncing around inside my skull. A cold wet nose pressed against my cheek. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and forced them open. Two red eyes peered over the edge of my bed. Okay, so it obviously wasn’t a dream. I stretched like a cat across my bed before throwing off the covers. The Cwn Annwfn waited for me at my bedside like your run of the mill dog, except that he totally wasn’t one. I shuffled out to the kitchen with my new pet at my heels and fumbled around until the coffee was finally brewing. It was going on one o’clock. If I hurried, I’d have just enough time to drive out to the hospital to see Matthison before I had to meet up with Aidan.
One shower, one change of clothes and two cups of coffee later, I was out the door and on my way to Boston in Aidan’s car. Somewhere around the halfway point to the hospital, it hit me. My heart started to race. I knew it was too early in our relationship for me to have feelings like that, but I couldn’t help it. I was in love with this classic Camaro. Traffic was light so I made it to the hospital in record time – even managing to find a parking spot in the Fruit Street garage.
I sat out in the parking garage for ten minutes trying to find the nerve to go inside. I’ve killed demons, followed them into the between and survived an attempt on my life all in the last couple of days, but I was terrified of seeing Matthison’s wife again. I could take another slap in the face. Hell, I deserved worse. It was the pain in her eyes that had me unable to open the car door. ‘Screw it!’ I thought. I deserved that and more. Matthison was lying in that hospital bed fighting for his life. The least I could do was to endure the humiliation of facing his wife again so that I could see him.
I stopped at the front desk to get a visitor’s pass. The elderly woman volunteering took my license and handed me a plastic badge. I clipped it to my coat while she informed me that Matthison had been moved to a new room. She then described the easiest route to get there. I tried not to get my hopes up over Matthison being moved. A new room didn’t necessarily mean anything. Still, he wasn’t in the ICU anymore.
I sent Aidan a text to let him know that I might not make it back in time for coffee and then turned off the cell phone that he had given me. I got off of the elevator and made my way to Matthison’s room. I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of the doctor leaving his room. She must have been a specialist or something, because most doctors don’t wear heels with their white coats. She was headed in the opposite direction at a pace that said that she had somewhere more important to be. I was going to have to find a nurse to fill me in after I sat with Matthison for a few minutes.
“Hey kid, where’ve you been?”
I was so lost in my thoughts about the doctor and finding a nurse that I hadn’t even looked at Matthison when I walked into the room.
“Holy shit!” I couldn’t articulate anything better than that.
He wasn’t just awake, he was sitting up in bed watching trash TV and looking better than I’d seen him look in years.
“You just missed the doctor. Apparently I have made a remarkable recovery,” Matthison boasted. “She’s had me on some kind of new IV treatment and it has done wonders.”
“I’d say that your recovery is remarkable. I didn’t expect you to look so good,” I confessed.
“I look a hell of a lot better than you. Now tell me how the case is going. I can’t get anyone from SPTF to tell me a damned thing. They keep telling me to focus on my health and getting back to work. So what’s happening with the investigation?” Matthison was as excited as a kid at Christmas.
“It’s just about closed, actually. We’re tying up the last loose end tonight. I’m actually meeting Masarelli and Aidan after I leave here,” I said.
“Aidan? Who’s he?” he asked.
Something clicked when he said Aidan’s name. IV treatment, remarkable recovery, the high heels…she wasn’t a doctor. Matthison was calling after me as I ran out into the hall. I looked to my right and then my left, but she was gone. No wonder Matthison looked so good. New IV treatment, my ass!
“Maurin! What the hell’s the matter with you? Get your ass back in here. Don’t make me get out of this bed!” Matthison yelled from his room.
“I’ll call the nurse if you do,” I threatened on my way back into the room.
“Go ahead. They’re sending me home tomorrow anyway,” he chuckled.
“So soon?” I asked in mock surprise.
Of course he wouldn’t need to stay longer. He’s been sucking vamp blood through a straw for the last few days. I’m surprised he’s not craving rare meat or gnawing on the nurses. I might have actually been mad that Agrona had been tube-feeding Matthison without his consent if I weren’t so relieved to see him alive and well – really well.
“What? You’d rather see me in here than at the station? That reminds me - you said that you were wrapping things up in the investigation. And who’s Aidan?” he pressed.
“Aidan’s a vampire,” I replied, hoping that he’d leave it at that.
“Why do I get the feeling that there’s more there?” He took the hint from my lack of response and moved on. “So you caught the Inquisitors?”
“Um, not really,” I stalled, trying to figure out the quickest way to explain what had happened since he’d been in the hospital.
“What the hell does that mean?” he asked.
“Well, we found them, but they were dead when we found them.” I put my hand up to hold off his interruption. “I’m getting to that. The murders stopped after they took us. Cash found us on Winter Island and got you to the hospital.” His eyebrows went up when I said who had come to our rescue. “Yeah, I know, but that’s who found us. After that, Masarelli found the Inquisitors dead in a warehouse down on the wharf and was dead set on pinning the murders on the coven.” The anger in my voice wasn’t just about Masarelli’s blundering police work – I hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to get over the coven’s betrayal and Mahalia’s plan to get rid of me.
“The coven? They definitely had motive. You can’t blame him for going after the most likely suspects, Maurin,” he said, coming to Masarelli’s defense.
“I don’t.” His eyebrows went up again, this time in challenge to my denial. “I said I don’t. Anyway, I managed to get a clear enough read in the warehouse to know that the Inquisitors had been messing with some serious magic and had managed to unleash a nasty demon in the process. They didn’t know it was a demon,” I said, before he could interrupt.
“It wasn’t like I could prove any of that to Masarelli, so he ended up arresting me for tampering with a crime scene. He got on board pretty quickly though, once the demon came after me and destroyed the jail cell.” I smirked.
He sat there slack-jawed as I went on and on about what had happened. I thought that I was going to have to hit the ‘call nurse’ button for real by the time I got to the part about Mahalia trying to banish me with the demon so that it could kill me. I thought about skipping over the Arawn part, but if he was going to have a heart attack, then he was better off doing so here than in his office. When I was done he looked as exhausted as I felt, but all in all he took it pretty well.
“I think that’s enough for one day,” I said standing up to leave.
“That was enough for a lifetime. I’m just sorry I wasn’t there to see it through,” he said with remorse.
“Apart from having to deal with Masarelli, I’m glad that you weren’t,” I told him.
“Yeah, well, you better get used to dealing with him because he’s your primary contact for awhile,” Matthison said, putting an end to the mushy
stuff before it even got started.
“I can handle him,” I said as I walked out of the room.
“That’s what worries me,” he said, laughing.
I walked out of the hospital still torn between feeling angry that Matthison had been given vamp blood without knowing it and being grateful that Agrona had given it to him. In the end, grateful won over angry. It’s like that old saying about the gift horse. I doubted that Agrona gave gifts like that very often – if ever. Matthison wasn’t questioning his recovery. As long as there weren’t any ill effects then who was I to complain?
“What is the point of me giving you a cell phone if you refuse to answer it?” Aidan asked.
I jumped at the interruption of my thoughts. “What are you doing here?”
“Making an unnecessary trip. But since you won’t take my calls, I’m left with no choice,” he replied.
“I turned it off in the hospital. How’d you get here anyway?” I asked as I fumbled through my bag for his car keys.
“I have other means of transportation,” he said, trying to sound mysterious.
“Nice try. Too bad for you I know vampires don’t fly,” I responded.
“Some of the elders can move so fast that it feels like flying,” he said dryly.
I thought about that for a second. How old did a vampire have to be to be considered an elder? Aidan was at least 150 years old. Did that qualify? Probably not. Agrona’s at least twice his age and I’ve never seen her move that fast.
“I used the Council’s car service,” Aidan confessed, putting an end to my internal debate. “Where’d you park?” He held out his hand for the keys.
With a pout on my face, I reluctantly held out the keys. "You’re pathetic, you know that?" he chuckled.
I closed my hand around the keys and hauled ass across the parking lot. Aidan was leaning against the passenger side of the car before I got within sight of it. I was totally out of breath, but he hadn't even broken a sweat.
"No fair," I panted.
"Vampire," Aidan said, pointing to himself. "I even gave you a head start."
"Yeah, because you wanted to follow me to the car," I grumbled.
"You're the one who tried to outrun a vampire," he teased.
"I kind of thought that you'd let me win,” I whined.
"What would you learn from my letting you win?" he asked.
My new pet had previously been lying down on the floor in the back and picked that moment to hurdle over the front seat and press his huge paws against the passenger side window. Aidan jumped at the unexpected sight of the ethereal beast materializing in his car. Arawn said that it was my guardian and that it wouldn’t leave my side, and so far he had been true to his word. Luckily the Cwn Annwfn could switch to its ghost-like form at will, or Animal Control would have come into the hospital looking for me.
“You didn’t have to sick your dog on me, Maurin. I was going to let you drive anyway,” Aidan said.
Maybe having a dog wasn’t going to be that bad after all, I thought.
We pulled up in front of the station with ten minutes to spare. Aidan peeled his fingers out of the dash and got out of the car.
"You may not be aware of this, but it is possible for me to die in a car crash," Aidan said, looking a little green.
"I don't think cars catch on fire or explode anywhere near as much as they show on TV," I said. "Do we have enough time to grab a coffee first?"
"Not really. I'll get you a cup inside," he said.
"You've obviously never had the coffee here," I told him.
“Your dog isn’t going to eat my car, is it?” Aidan asked, genuinely concerned for the classic car.
“I don’t think that he eats at all. He was fine at the hospital. I’m pretty sure that he’ll be fine until we get back,” I said, trying to be reassuring.
“Pretty sure?” he asked.
I just shrugged and headed inside. Masarelli was waiting for us. The door barely closed behind us as he shuffled us into the briefing room.
"I was hoping that you'd get here early. The team will be coming in a few minutes. This is going to work, right?" Masarelli asked, obviously having second thoughts.
"It definitely will," I assured him, hoping for the best. "We'll wipe their memories to the point where I came back. Then, instead of remembering me grabbing Mahalia and disappearing, they'll think that we all walked out together."
"No they won't," Aidan said coldly. Masarelli and I turned to stare at him.
"What?" I asked, totally confused.
"You two didn't work this out before you came here?" Masarelli asked in disgust.
"I didn’t think that we'd disagree on the details," I told him.
"They will have no memories of their own from the time that Mahalia started the banishing spell," Aidan explained.
"Why do you need to wipe their minds that far back? Most of them weren't even inside the warehouse then," I said.
"Are you a witch?" Aidan asked.
"No!" I answered, even though I knew that he already knew that.
"Are you a demon?" he asked.
"Through and through," I said, giving the stupid question the stupid answer that it deserved.
"Maurin," Aidan said calmly.
"No. We don't need to go back that far. It's too much of their memory to take," I said with conviction.
"We're arguing over semantics. If most of them weren't in the warehouse anyway, then there isn’t much to wipe. We're taking them back to the beginning of the banishing spell. They will only remember the demon being banished and that will be the end of it."
"What gives, Vamp? Why don't you want them to remember anything after the banishing spell started?" Masarelli asked, not even bothering to hide his suspicion.
"I suppose that you're an expert on glamouring now, human. Look, the simpler the glamour, then the easier it is for the mind to accept it. Most of your team has had training to resist being glamoured, so we can't over-complicate things," Aidan explained.
"Maybe you're not the vamp for the job then. Maybe I need someone capable of planting whatever memory I want," Masarelli challenged.
"Slow down. You don’t need access to anyone or anything that can plant whatever you want inside someone else's mind," I said.
"I am capable of that and more, Detective. I could glamour you into quitting SPTF to pursue a burning desire to work an I-95 tollbooth. I can glamour the entire station if need be, but the more complicated and unbelievable the story, then the more likely it is that the subconscious will poke holes in it," Aidan said, trying to hide his irritation. "If you want me to do this, then we go all the way back to the banishing spell."
I tossed the idea of glamouring Masarelli around in my head for a couple of seconds. I couldn't help it. It was tempting.
"It's really the best way?" I asked. Aidan simply nodded. "Okay. No more arguments from me," I said.
Aidan arched a brow. "I doubt that very much," he teased.
"Fine, fine, agreed. Let's just get it over with." Masarelli walked away to round up his team.
"Is he always like that?" Aidan asked.
"Try working with him for three years," I said.
"I've had my fill of him, figuratively speaking," he joked.
Masarelli’s team filed in and filled the seats in SPTF's briefing room, ready to hear how a non-magical person had managed to make three people disappear. I walked over to the little podium where Matthison always set his copy of a case file and waited for Aidan. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was doing his thing because every face in the crowd had gone slack. It was over almost as soon as it began. Aidan was nothing if not proficient. No wonder he was the go-to vampire for clean up and crowd control. He just wiped a roomful of SPTF's version of a SWAT team in under a minute. I was officially impressed.
Aidan released their minds and one by one they went from catatonic back to their normal selves. An uneasy anticipation took hold of the room as we all waited for something else to
happen. SPTF was waiting for us, while Masarelli and I were waiting on Aidan. He leaned in until he was close enough to whisper in my ear.
"They think that I'm here to personally thank them on behalf of the Council for their assistance. Introduce me as Council PR," he explained.
"That’s supposed to be more believable than my story?" I asked sarcastically. "When have you ever known the Council to thank anybody?"
"It's a new day. The first of many where the Council works side by side with SPTF," he said with conviction.
"Really?" I asked, shocked by this revelation.
"No, not really. Did you forget to shield or something?" he said with a sarcasm that rivaled my own. "I believe that you were the one concerned about too much mind-tampering. You might want to introduce me before the window to tie up the loose end of us being here closes and I have to start all over again."
I quickly did my bit and cleared the stage for Aidan. He delivered his little speech about working together to ensure that Salem was a city safe for Humans and Others alike with the cool confidence of the most seasoned politician. I watched Masarelli deflate like one of those unplugged lawn ornaments when it was obvious that Aidan's story had taken hold. He was quite convincing. Even the most hardened member of Masarelli’s team left the room looking inspired and determined to bring anyone who threatened our delicate cohabitation to justice.
"Thank you for coming today, Aidan. I know it meant a lot to my team to hear that the Council appreciates their hard work," Masarelli said with his hand outstretched.
Aidan took his hand in a firm grip, but with enough care not to impose his vampiric strength. "My pleasure, Detective. I am sure that we'll be working together again."
It took me a second to realize what had just happened. Aidan grabbed my arm and led me away as the surprise started to show on my face.
"Did you glamour him too?" I whispered in disbelief.
"Yes, now keep moving," Aidan said, practically dragging me to the door when I hadn’t realized that my feet had stopped moving.
Witch Hunt, A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy (The Maurin Kincaide Series) Page 24
