“Tell me more about coming from London to New York for an anniversary party. What made you travel all this way.” I stopped walking and examined his face as he answered.
Drew gave a casual chuckle. “Would you believe I’ve always loved New York in the spring?”
I shook my head, folding my arms. “Try again.”
Drew took a deep breath. “The truth is, Disha, Viraj told me a lot about you, and, well… I just wanted to meet you.”
His eyes were pools of liquid chocolate as he said the last words, all sweetness and sincerity. He pinched his lips together and dipped his head, shy and waiting to see how his honest words would go over. His puppy dog look could have melted the polar ice caps it was so hot.
It was my turn to suck in a breath and steady myself.
“Viraj tends to exaggerate,” is all I came up with as a response. Had he shown this guy my picture? I wondered which one.
Drew shook his head a little, his locks tossing about. “Maybe. But his version of things seems pretty accurate from where I’m standing.”
He appraised me, his eyes lingering on my face as if I were a work of art. I hadn’t even freshened up from the flight and was sure my hair was flat as hell, but Drew didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t mind my sass or the questions I’d thrown at him which he dodged like he was Neo on The Matrix.
It was hard not to like this man. I was doing my best and failing miserably.
I toyed with a piece of my hair. “Do you maybe want to come inside and watch a movie?” I asked.
A smile stretched across his face. “I’d like nothing more.”
We walked together in silence back up the garden path toward the party. I wondered briefly where Viraj had scampered off to, but he was probably back at the party or already upstairs on his computer. Judging from the thumping music, the party was in full swing. I would have to get Drew past my parents and into the house, otherwise, Mama would make some huge deal about us coming in together and pepper him with a million questions, something I desperately wanted to avoid right now. I wanted to keep Mama away from this as long as possible just in case it turned out to be nothing, which was the most likely scenario.
As we made it to the orchard, the music from the party ceased. I paused mid-step, listening. It was far too early for the celebration to be over. The DJ must have paused the song or maybe they’d tripped the circuit breaker like they had a few years ago when they’d strung far too many lights together for their winter wonderland celebration.
Magic could only fix so much. Sometimes you needed an electrician.
Drew stopped beside me, his head up as he listened, too. His features clouded as if something was wrong.
“It’s probably just the pow—”
My ability to form words died as my jaw locked up. Along with my mouth, my whole body seemed immobile. I tried to twitch my arms or move my legs to run, but everything was frozen. It reminded me far too much of the time Sebastian Mink froze Charlie and me in Turkey.
Two figures stepped out of the shadows. Terror burst forth inside of me, coating my veins in icy panic.
I waited for Drew to shout, run, or cast a spell, but nothing happened. Though I couldn’t see him, he seemed frozen beside me, trapped as the pair of villainous creatures made their way toward us.
The first was an oily, middle-aged warlock, but the second really garnered my attention. At first, it appeared as if a scarecrow had been given life, had uprooted itself, and were stalking in our direction, its ratty overcoat billowing in the wind. As it got closer, its red beady eyes, skeletal features, and extremely long boney limbs sucked my air away. Beneath the old sun hat, its face could only be described as nightmarish. And when it saw my terror, long white teeth appeared as a sinister smile spread across its horrific face.
I wanted to scream, to run, to drum up magic so good it would knock that scarecrow’s skull clean off its spine, but there was nothing I could do as they advanced on us.
Shivers ran over my skin as they stalked closer. Their smell wafted my way, something foul and dead, like old leaves turned over after a long winter. The oily warlock stopped in front of Drew while the scarecrow lurked in front of me, grinning like a demented skull.
I shrunk inward, terror freezing anything that was left thawed, as it stuck out a curved, boney finger and stroked my cheek.
I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it.
“It has taken us a very long time to catch up with you, Mr. Mishra. You are very tricky.” the warlock said in slightly accented English. There was a hint of Eastern European characteristics in the way he pronounced his words and a certain slowness in his speech that made me think he was speaking deliberately.
These men were here for Drew, that was clear. What wasn’t clear was why and what they would do with me. And where was Viraj? I prayed silently, hoping he was safe in his room.
Drew didn’t answer the man, or likely couldn’t. He hadn’t moved a muscle, frozen just as I was. But, when the oily warlock put a hand on Drew’s shoulder, he stumbled forward.
The warlock grabbed him, waves of magic wrapping around Drew’s arm and shoulder to keep him pinned while allowing him to talk.
“Please,” Drew said, “Let the girl go. I’ll take you to him. She has nothing to do with this.”
The warlock flashed me a look and then stared back at Drew. “You will take us to him. But in the meantime, we’ll bring the girl as insurance that you behave yourself.”
Drew sounded panicked as he answered. “Look. She means nothing to me, okay? Let her go. This is her property. Her parents are over that hedge. She will be missed.”
The oily warlock glanced to his scarecrow partner. “We’ll make sure she isn’t missed.”
Both of them smiled.
What did that mean? If they hurt my family…. I felt like screaming. Something raw and wounded stuck in my throat, leaving me to gag on indignation, shame, and fear.
The scarecrow put his twelve-inch bone fingers on my shoulders and pushed sluggish black magic into my body. It felt like sludge infecting my veins. My vision went dark.
In an instant, I was no more.
Chapter Three
I awoke in darkness.
Lurching up, I touched something hard beside me and something prickly beneath me. My fingers traveled over a rocky, flat surface that had to be a concrete wall. Beneath me was a bed of what seemed to be bristly straw.
The space smelled of mildew and had very little light, but soon, my eyes adjusted and started to perceive more of my surroundings. An L-shaped sliver of golden light that had to indicate a door made me stand and rush toward it.
My hands fumbled for a latch, and, once located, attempted to open it. Of course, it was locked. I spread my hands over the door’s surface, looking for the hinges and working up unlocking spells in my brain.
But, when I went to draw magic, there was none to be found.
“Disha,” a groggy male voice called from the back of the room.
I spun, my back to the door as my heart pounded. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Drew,” he said, sounding disoriented and slow. “Are you okay?”
For the first time, I scanned my body and found it was uninjured. “Yes. You?”
Drew groaned a bit. “Yes. Fine.”
He did not sound at all fine, but I let it go. “Where are we and who were those people?”
“I don’t know where we are, but those people were criminals. They’re after my father.”
His father, the head of all magic, had to be a huge target for crime syndicates all over the world, but didn’t he have good security? And wouldn’t his son have magical protection, too? People like Bridget’s parents made their living protecting both magical and non-magical celebrities and leaders.
I hadn’t seen any bodyguards at my parents’ party, though. Would Drew be stupid enough to attend unprotected?
“How do we get out of here?” I asked, wrapping my arms around my
self. It was bone cold in the cell, but also, I felt like I might be going into shock. I moved my hands vigorously, willing the panic away. I could do this. I’d survived worse. Or, at least, I told myself that I had.
Drew took a while to answer my question. “The bastards will ask my father for ransom. Something exorbitant and way out of his reach. Hopefully, he’ll negotiate them down to something more reasonable. If they’re willing to bargain, then we get out of here.”
“And if not?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” Drew didn’t sound too convinced his father would be able to free us. “Hey, I’m sorry you got caught up in this. Maybe they’ll be able to negotiate something with your parents and get you out of here.”
“Like ransom?” Would my parents be getting a call like in the movies? They’d be told I’d been taken and not to contact the authorities. To put a million dollars in cash in unmarked bills in a suitcase and await further instructions. Mama would be a total wreck, and Baba would want to burn down half of New York if it meant getting to me.
I hated that I could be a source of panic and despair for them, but I knew they’d do anything they could to get me out. Drew didn’t seem to feel the same about his father, or at least that was what I was gathering.
“Has this happened before?” I asked him.
“Unfortunately, yes.” He sighed.
“And what did your dad do last time?”
Drew made a frustrated noise. “He let me sit in a cell similar to this one for about three months until he could negotiate a deal that wouldn’t tarnish his reputation or compromise his position as head of the council.”
“God,” I said. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah,” he replied in defeat.
“So, we wait?” I asked.
The caged-animal feeling began to creep over me. Not only did my mind begin to conjure up images, but the walls seemed to close in. No matter what Drew said, there was no way I was just sitting here waiting for those criminals to come back to torture us, or whatever their plan was.
As my brain rifled through different escape scenarios, I began to run my hands over the walls. Starting with the door, my fingers explored every crack and crevice the room had to offer. The small sliver of light around the door gave me hope, but the door itself was very well made and securely fastened. My fingers could slide between the door and the floor, but couldn’t do more than wiggle a bit. The rest of the room was nothing but cement floors and walls with two straw pallets for beds and an awful-smelling bucket that made me gag. No way in hell I was using that thing for a toilet even if I weren’t stuck in the room with Drew. I just had to get out of here first.
Drew got up and helped me. I could see his shape in the blackness, but more often than not we functioned by sound. I could hear him moving in the room, smell his cologne among the awful scents that clogged the air. Once, we bumped into each other, his hand brushing mine.
“Sorry,” he said on impulse, but then he added. “Truly. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you’re stuck in here with me. I wish there was something I could do.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” I said while standing on the straw bale and reaching as far up the wall as I could. “Just help me keep looking for ways out of here.”
He obliged, but I could tell he thought it was hopeless. If he’d spent three months in the last room, he’d probably tried all these things before. That thought made my hope deflate like a party balloon. Was there really no way out?
Panic resurging, I ran to the door and beat my fists on it. “Let us out, you assholes! Let us out or my Baba’s going to string your guts from the rafters like streamers!”
I banged and banged, but nothing happened. Distraught, I finally fell, exhausted, onto the straw bale, tears streaming down my face.
Drew’s form settled beside me. He didn’t touch me, but his presence was comforting.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” he said quietly.
Slowly, I leaned my head over until it was resting on his strong shoulder.
Just as slowly, he put a protective arm around me and let me cry.
More than anything, I wanted my Mom. I wanted Charlie. She would know what to do to kick these raggedy bastards’ asses.
I wanted the hell out, damn it!
“Maybe it’ll help to talk,” Drew said. “Would you like to or should I?”
“You go,” I said, still sniffling. My mascara must’ve looked horrendous.
Still holding me, his soothing voice filled the room. “One time when I was a kid, my dad got me a puppy. It was the only thing I’d wanted in the whole world. He traveled a lot and my mom had been gone for a few years by that point. Anyway, I wanted a Newfoundland, one of those giant black-and-brown dogs that I’d seen on a TV show. I’d told my dad this one hundred times, but he was always so busy. Well, my birthday came around and beside the regular-sized presents was a box with holes punched in it and a small whine echoing from inside.”
“Ah,” I said, picturing Drew, small and excited, approaching the shivering box with more joy in his little chest than most adults could ever remember having.
“I could barely lift the lid off the box I was so excited, but somehow I managed. And inside…”
“Your Newfoundland puppy?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Not even close. It was a tiny Pomeranian.”
“Oh no,” I said.
“Before you cry for me, know this. That little dog was my best friend for fifteen years. Maisey. Her name was Maisey.”
“Maisey,” I repeated. “But she’s gone?”
“She’s gone,” he said with a sigh. “I travel too much now for a dog, but someday…”
I sat in the dark thinking of Maisey and Little Drew, feeling Big Drew’s closeness, the solidity of his frame next to mine. If this had been a first date, under the stars or in a wonderful restaurant, it would’ve been perfect. As it was, his story was comforting. My heartbeat slowed and my mind seemed to clear.
Clear enough to puzzle out something that had been bugging me since we did the search of the room earlier.
“Do you think the block on magic extends past this room?” I asked, getting up and approaching the door.
Not waiting for him to answer, I squatted down again. My Chanel pants would be ruined, but whatever.
Carefully, I slid my hand under the door as far as it would go. Then I closed my eyes and felt for the magic.
And, by God, it was there.
It just so happens that I had researched magic blocking spells after we’d escaped Ze German on Hilton Head Island. The tomb Charlie and Rowan had been locked in sported a spell just like this one and it had only extended to the four walls of her cell. Often, the spell was cast inside each room, leaving the areas outside unblocked.
My fingers, reaching just outside the door, were past the blocking spell.
I drew thin strands of energy into my body, storing it up until I had enough to cast an unlocking spell at the closed door.
The sound of scraping metal clinked quietly and the creak of hinges followed. The light from the open door flooded in, temporarily blinding us.
Drew blinked at his freedom, his face flooding with awe as he glanced from me to the open door. “You really are a badass witch.”
I smiled, waggling my eyebrows. “Stick with me and we’ll get out of here yet.”
Chapter Four
Standing at the open door, I readied my defensive magic, soaking it in like a sponge. Drew stood behind me, casting his eyes around the hallway.
The area in front of us resembled an action movie dungeon involving foreign criminals and ransom kidnappings. The walls were dank and dirty. Torches hung on the walls, casting flickering shadows down the hall. Water dripped from the ceiling in little rivulets and puddled between peaks and valleys in the stone floor.
There was no sign of the oily warlock or the skeletal creature that had captured us, but I couldn’
t take chances. I whirled my hands around, casting a cloaking bubble around us. Any advanced magician would be able to use a detection spell, but at least it could buy us time.
“Which way?” I asked Drew glancing at either side of the long, dark hallway.
Drew’s head swiveled back and forth. “I get the sense that this is all an illusion, so there’s no way to know which leads out. We’ll just have to take a chance and try to get lucky.” His handsome face was smudged and his clothes torn. There was a cut on his brow that made me wonder if they’d roughed him up just for fun. These were not compassionate people we were talking about. I needed to remember that and be careful.
But I could do this. I’d killed that werewolf. I’d battled the lich. No goddamned scarecrow or Steven Seagal look-a-like would get the best of me.
“Right, then,” I said to Drew. He nodded and together we tiptoed down the hallway.
As we walked, the flickering torches gave us patches of light and shadow. I always felt good when we stepped into a warm puddle of light, but that feeling was fleeting once we were forced to travel back into the dark. Literally, anything could await us in the shadows.
After we’d passed by seven or eight torches, I glanced back. The hallway hadn’t changed one bit. It appeared to be one very long straight passageway with no end in sight.
When we made it to the next pool of light, I noticed an open door, but when I peered in, a similar cell to the one we’d left a few moments earlier stared back at me. Or was it the same cell?
“It’s a circle,” Drew said, confirming my suspicions. “Damn it.”
I glanced back and forth. This illusion was more complicated than I’d possibly imagined.
“We need a revealing spell,” I said, searching my memory banks.
Drew nodded, watching me. I kept waiting for him to produce one, him being the older, more advanced warlock, but he attempted no spells. Was he letting me take the reins, knowing I was a modern witch? Or was he not skilled in magical arts and he didn’t want me to know? Well, shit. This was hardly the time for ego.
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