A Witch's Fury (3 page)

Grams finally lowered her hand from her face,
regarding me with cold, slate eyes. I stared back. I was missing
something.

“What?” I asked again, leaning forward in the
uncomfortable blue chair.

Grams blew out a breath. “Nothing. Just the
devil we know is better than the devil we don’t.”

“He kept his job,” I reminded her, cracking
my neck. I muttered, “Amazingly enough,” under my breath.

Grams shrugged, meeting my gaze, “He is
powerful, Olivia. You would do well to remember that.” With that,
she turned back to her computer.

My eyes narrowed. Did Grams just threaten me?
That certainly didn’t sound like just a warning. Before I could
voice my suspicions, she threw a file at me.

“I’m aware you wanted to take a break, but I
need you on this one.” Her slate gray eyes regarded me levelly,
giving us both a graceful way out.

I snatched it from her desk before storming
out.

I’ve never been graceful.

…

I looked over the file from Grams again while
sitting in my SUV outside the manor, annoyed with myself for not
checking where I was going. The miserable state of Ohio and I do
not get along. I skimmed the pages again, looking for what type of
supernatural I was going up against, again not finding an answer.
Strange, considering that the rest of the file was robust in minute
details about the child I was to obtain, Mindy, from her abusive
and elusive stepfather.

With a groan I cranked the engine, punching
the address into my GPS. The sooner I was done the better.

…

The drive had taken me seven long hours.
Looking up at the dilapidated row of houses in front of me, I
debated calling Grams at this ungodly hour, but decided against it.
I certainly didn’t want to interrupt her time with Mercer. I’d call
tomorrow during normal business hours.

Leaning back in my seat, I tapped the
steering wheel, debating. Should I check into a hotel or sit here
and hope the offending Supernaturals showed their faces before I
needed to sleep?

Assuming I could easily identify them, I
could handle this child abuse case and get the hell out of
here.

Leaning my head back against the headrest, I
adjusted my rearview mirror so it gave me a clear view of the
house. Decision made.

…

I didn’t have to wait long. Thank all the
Gods, I lack the patience.

Two figures huddled against the fresh falling
snow, one a child, the other a larger figure who opened the
half-fence and shoved the child in. The child stumbled and fell. I
growled low in my throat, watching the adult laugh. I had been
spending too much time around the damn shifters.

I couldn't see the child's face, but I
watched her intently as the standing figure pulled back a leg,
slamming it into her frail form. It took all my limited
self-control not to tear that leg from his body right there on the
street. Not that in this neighborhood anyone would lift a finger to
help, or that such acts of extreme violence would even elicit a
response, but I refrained.

The steering wheel creaked beneath my hands
and I forced a breath out of my lungs, waiting as the lights in the
house came on and went off.

Releasing my cramped hands from the steering
wheel, I flexed the stiff digits before easing out of the SUV and
closing the door gingerly. Waiting a frosty second, I scanned the
neighborhood for any witnesses before I crunched through the
freshly fallen snow to the back of the house. Nothing stirred
inside or out as I used my lock pick set to ease the squeaky-hinged
door open, silently cursing it.

The house was a disaster: partially eaten
meals dried onto plastic plates, pizza boxes ripped open and the
contents strewn about. The kitchen sink was unusable under a mound
of filthy dishes. My nose wrinkled in disgust at the smell as I
cautiously moved over the threadbare carpet of undetermined color
and down the narrow hall.

I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t,
which was why the blow to the back of my head knocked me into
complete darkness.

…

I awoke with a throbbing at the base of my
neck as I rolled gingerly from my side to my back on the cold
concrete floor. I blinked rapidly to clear my fuzzy vision, until a
dark and damp room came into view. With considerably more effort
than it should have taken, I raised my head toward the light at the
far end of the room, noting the lack of windows. Two figures were
hunched over the contents of my SUV, along with my jacket and
shoes.

I had heard the rustling of chains, but
hadn’t realized they were secured around my limbs until I tried to
stand, finding I couldn’t.

“Dammit, I told you I should have taken a run
at her before she woke up,” one stated, sealing his death at my
hands.

“It doesn’t matter, this basement is
soundproofed, and she ain’t goin’ nowhere,” the other one reminded
him, still sorting through my belongings.

I sat up slowly, resting my arms around my
knees that were pulled against my chest, pulling my chains taut.
“Where is Mindy?” I asked.

They both turned to my question. “Who’s
asking?”

“Your personal Executioner.”

They jeered at me, stepping closer.

“I love the fighters.”

“Not me, I’ll stay with the kid.”

My hands fisted, “I’m going to enjoy this,” I
whispered. “Just. Come. Closer.” I enunciated each word with deadly
intent.

“You’ll get your turn,” the leader, who liked
a fighter, informed me. They were giving me a wide berth as they
made their way behind me into the darkness.

“Mindy!” he called out. I shifted to my
knees, tracking their progress past me. The manacles around my
limbs dug into the skin at my wrists and through the leather on my
ankles. I wanted those fuckers dead.

I could hear Mindy shifting behind me in the
darkness while I struggled to turn. I could visualize her
malnourished, beaten body, the slumped shoulders and the inability
to meet her attackers’ gaze. I was totally oblivious to the warm
blood falling from my wrists as memories of my own horrible
childhood competed for my attention.

“No,” Mindy’s voice was so soft, so plaintive
that it broke my fucking heart and renewed my struggle against the
chains.

Heat seared from the bonds restraining me yet
still I was unaware, wrapping my hand around the chains for
additional leverage.

“
Every chain has a breaking point
,”
Lord Master informed my fourteen-year-old self, the repressed
memories finally winning the fight against my reality.

“
Now, do I let the next one in to have a
crack at you? Or are you going to actually try this time?” He
paused, laughing in the pristine white room decorated with the ruby
red of my blood. “I do know you are enjoying this.”

I was going to kill him. Cold resolve pooled
into me, silencing the fear, removing my anxiety that I would die.
Until this point I had craved survival, to live, this crazy hope in
my chest telling me, screaming at me there was more than the
beatings and the rapes, but now I didn’t care. I had been pushed
too far, had seen too much, had been destroyed beyond measure.

Now, I wanted blood and I wasn’t particular
regarding to whom it belonged.

Lord Master smiled. It was not a pretty
sight as the chains binding me became airborne. I smiled back. This
I was going to enjoy.

Mindy’s screaming jerked me back to the
present and into the inferno raging around us.

“What the hell?” I muttered, casting around
into the tall flames for some understanding of what had happened. I
coughed, covering my mouth against the thick smoke building from
the fiery blaze.

Mindy screamed again and I moved, freely.
Apparently, that memory was good for something. In an attempt not
to repeat it all again, I looked for a way to Mindy.

I didn’t have many options in terms of
movement. Whatever had caused the fire had left a clear path for me
over the wall of trash, so I took it.

A perfect circle kept Mindy safe, her dark
wide eyes reflecting the fire swarming around us.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, physically
checking her arms and legs for burns.

“Who are you?” her small voice asked.

“Olivia.”

“The Executioner?”

“Only for the bad guys, sweetie. Let’s get
out of here.”

I turned, looking around, my confidence in my
ability to perform on my words flagging. Flames snapped at my legs
and singed the ends of my hair.

“Can you control it?” I asked hopefully.

“No!” Mindy screamed at me above the roaring
sea of flames.

“Shit,” I muttered, “hold on tight.” This was
a terrible plan, and I knew that going in.

Picking up Mindy, I hunched my body around
her, hoping like hell I had her vital bits covered before running
to the wooden stairs that were quickly being consumed by the greedy
inferno.

Terrible plan.

I stormed up the sagging stairs, taking three
at a time as I pushed my long legs to the brink of their ability,
not stopping when the wood proved too far gone for our weight and
plunged in splintering shards to the concrete floor below. Flames
kissed my ankle, raw flesh throbbing in unison to my accelerated
heart rate, but it couldn’t slow me down. I crashed through the
closed door, spraying us both with wooden chunks, and hurtled down
the hallway toward the putrid kitchen, not pausing at the door to
freedom. Holding Mindy tightly, I shifted my shoulder down,
demolishing the door from the frame.

With my ankle submerged in the soft snow,
dulling the painful throbbing, I finally stopped moving, a blissful
sigh escaping my lips.

Setting Mindy down, I took stock of our
situation: I didn’t have my jacket, didn’t have any shoes, no car
keys, weapons, or the carefully selected first aid kit. It was all
turning to ash in the basement.

“Fuck,” I groaned, kicking the snow.
Listening to the sirens in the distance, I winced in pain as the
skin on my ankle tightened.

“Fuck,” I repeated for good measure.

Mindy looked up at me warily. “Let’s go kid,”
I said. “You will be the first fire starter I have brought
home.”

“I didn’t start the fire,” she said, taking
my offered hand as we made our own path in the freshly fallen snow
to my car.

“You certain?”

“Yeah, pretty sure I would have used that
trick MONTHS ago.”

I didn’t have a response for that. I
unlatched the half gate for us.

Doors began opening in the neighborhood, the
streets filling with spectators as I limped to my Black
Beauty—great, now I was naming my vehicles. Thankfully we were
largely ignored. Frozen pebbles dug into the soft flesh of my
ruined feet. Finally arriving at the SUV, I leaned heavily against
the rear driver’s side door.

“Any chance you want to get under there and
find my spare key?” I gestured to the undercarriage of the SUV.

The look she leveled at me was answer
enough.

With a sigh I slid under the carriage. “I
know I hid it somewhere,” I muttered, hitting pay dirt a few
moments later as I pulled the small glorious box out from its
magnetized hiding spot on the metal frame.

Wiggling back, I hurried my movements upon
seeing the fire department truck flashing up the road and neighbors
pointing at us, waving their hands. A few had started toward us. I
groaned, tossing the plastic container to the ground and rapidly
unlocking the SUV. Mindy didn’t need encouragement to hustle into
the passenger seat, clambering up the steps. I hauled myself up
right after her, then cranked the engine and stomped the
accelerator.

I blew out a breath watching the fire
disappear from my rearview mirror, the neighbors still pointing at
us to the men in the yellow uniforms. I still wouldn’t feel
comfortable until we had more distance between us. Even if they had
my license plate, Grams could handle clean up on this disaster.

“What are you?” I asked Mindy who, not unlike
myself, had shoved the bad memories away, putting on a brave
face.

“Human.” Okay, she was coping with a huge
amount of sass.

I blinked several times, pressing my lips
into a thin line before a string of creative cursing pried them
open. It was time to call Grams. Too bad that wasn’t happening,
thanks to my lack of a phone.

…

Dusk turned into full dark and I still wasn’t
stopping. Mindy had long ago fallen into a fitful sleep, small
noises coming from her huddled frame against the door. I was still
fucking pissed. At Grams for omitting the truth, at myself for
losing EVERYTHING, and at the too-quick death of true monsters. It
just wasn’t a good day.

I wasn’t about to think on what Mindy had
said, that she was human, and the implications that would have
regarding my own magic abilities, abilities I had been doing a
great job of ignoring thus far.

I needed supplies, but supplies cost money. I
needed to call Grams. I’d prefer to show up, smelling bad and
looking worse to really drive home just how pissed I was, but Mindy
needed food and a shower.

On the outskirts of Cloverdale, Indiana I was
tired enough to pull into a well-lit parking lot of a hotel with a
gift shop.

“Stay here,” I warned Mindy when her head
instantly perked up at the lack of motion.

She apparently had listening issues, along
with sass. The sound of her door shutting stopped me mid-stride. I
stared daggers into the top of her small head, only partly visible
above the SUV. Not wasting my breath on the issue, I walked into
the small office.

An older gentleman looked up from his
newspaper, smoothing the paper with wrinkled hands, then pausing to
push his wire rim glasses back up his nose. “You are some kind of
trouble, girl.”

“I’ll assume you’re talking to her,” I
commented dryly, nodding at Mindy. “I need to borrow a phone.”