Witch Hunt, A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy (The Maurin Kincaide Series) (19 page)

“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.

I turned to Aidan and said, “Lead the way, Counselor.”
Aidan and I left Masarelli to clean up the mess that the Afrit had made.

15

“Maurin, get in the car,” Aidan said.

He opened the door of his sixty-nine
Camaro SS and leaned against the side, waiting for me to get in. It was a classic - black with white racing stripes - and any other day I’d be begging him to let me drive it, but right now I couldn’t even bring myself to get inside. I stood there frozen on the sidewalk. My feet felt as if they were cemented in place.

“You’re going to have to face the coven sooner or later.
Sooner, in fact, because later is not a luxury afforded to people like us,” Aidan said.

I could feel him moving toward me, it felt as if the air was displaced as he came closer.
He stood in front of me, but I looked right past him. I stared over his shoulder at nothing until he grabbed my face with both hands and forced me to look at him.

“This is not your fault.
No one blames you for what happened,” he said.

“You don’t know that,” I told him, jer
king free of him only because he let me. He was a vampire; I’d never be as strong as he was.

“If they want someone to blame, they can blame me.
I’m the reason that you were here in the first place - remember? I was only worried about us getting out of the warehouse; I didn’t think about what would happen if they took your amulet,” he said.

“You’re not the one who-” I started to say, before Aidan cut me off.

“Neither are you. It was the Afrit, and we’re not going to be able to stop it from killing again standing here and arguing, so get in the car,” Aidan pleaded.

I let out a heavy sigh and got in.
Aidan shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side. “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails came on when he started the car. I turned it up and then turned to face the window. I didn’t feel like talking and something told me that Aidan did. I didn’t want to hear about things that made sense or have someone try to talk some sense into me. He reached to turn off the radio.

“Don’t,” I said.

“At least let me put something else on,” he said.

“No, I want to listen to it,” I told him.

I understood why he wanted to change the music. Nine Inch Nails wasn’t the most upbeat choice, but right now I wanted to listen to someone who seemed to understand how I felt.

No genre of music would make me feel any better right now anyway.
Aidan put the car in gear and didn’t say another word.

When
we pulled up in front of Mahalia’s house, I couldn’t help wondering why the trip was always shorter when you didn’t want to go somewhere, as if the dread of your looming destination actually sped up time. Aidan got out and had my door open before I even had my seatbelt off. He held out his hand and I took it, but he still had to pull me out of the car. My left foot got hung up on the floor mat and I stumbled into him. He gently brushed my hair out of my face and took me by the shoulders. My heart raced at his touch. He leaned in and I was suddenly nervous, my palms sweaty from the anticipation of what I thought was about to happen.

“You can do this,” he said.

“I know I can. I just don’t want to,” I responded, relieved and disappointed that he had misread my feelings.

As we headed up the little walkway lea
ding to the front door, I couldn’t stop thinking about my attraction to Aidan. What the hell was wrong with me? I was here to face the coven. I was here to try to explain my role in Oberon’s death and ask their forgiveness; not get weak- kneed with a hot vampire outside their door. I had been instantly drawn to Oberon, but I had been attracted to Aidan when I first saw him, too. But that’s only natural, right? He’s gorgeous. Then again, what I felt for Oberon was nothing like what I was feeling for Aidan. There was no magical connection pulling me to him. Not like there had been when I first saw Oberon. Maybe it was some lingering effect from letting Aidan drink from me. Maybe it was just plain old physical attraction. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to act on it.

I had been so focused on the feelings that were starting to stir for Aidan, that I hadn’t been paying attention to anything else.
I stopped staring at my feet and looked up. I was hallucinating. That was the only explanation.

“I think I’m losing my mind,” I said to Aidan.

“Not unless we’re having the same delusion,” he replied.

Oberon was standing in front of the door.
My heart was pounding so hard that I thought it would burst through my chest. I was having a hard time catching my breath. There were so many emotions swirling around inside my head: I felt nausea, joy and relief, but mostly guilt for what I had been thinking about Aidan.

I didn’t run to him, I just stood there.
He didn’t look hurt; in fact, he looked perfect. He paused halfway, but kept walking when I made no move to meet him.

“Maurin,” Oberon said.

Hearing him say my name set me in motion. I walked away from Aidan and closed the last few steps between us.

“I thought that you were dead,” I said, my voice hoarse and my throat tight.

His face crumpled at my words. “Maurin, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…when I broke the connection, I thought that you’d know.”

I couldn’t process what he had said.
He reached for me, but I was already in motion. I landed a right-handed hook to his jaw, knocking him on his ass.

“I thought that you were dead, you son of a bitch!”
I screamed at him, with tears streaming down my face.

He didn’t say anything.
He just sat there staring up at me in disbelief, which only pissed me off more. Aidan got me in a bear hug from behind. He held me up in the air with my feet swinging wildly, trying to make a connection with Oberon. I wanted him to hurt as much as I had.

Lights flicked on in the house and pe
ople started coming outside to see what was going on. Amalie was standing on the stone slab in front of the door. Graive stepped out from behind her.

It was close to four in the morning, but none of us cared about waking the neig
hbors. She started walking over to Oberon.

“You damn near killed him!
That wasn’t enough for you?” Graive yelled at me.

“That’s it!
I’ve had enough of her shit! Put me down Aidan!” I said.

“As much as I’d like to see you have a go at the necro, I’m not going to let go of you until you calm down,” Aidan said.

“I am calm. I’m the epitome of calm! I shouted.

Aidan laughed.
“Yes, I can see that.”

“Let her go, Aidan.”
Oberon said as he got back on his feet.

“If I let you go, do you promise not to hit anyone else?” Aidan teased.

“Don’t ask her to make a promise that she can’t keep. She’s out of control,” Graive said.

“How about I come over there and break that promise on your face?
No one’s talking to you, so shut up!” I yelled.

“See what I mean?
She almost got Oberon killed, who’s going to be next?” Graive asked.

“You - if you don’t shut your mouth,” I retorted.

“I seriously doubt that,” she said.

“Graive,” Oberon warned.

She took a couple of steps forward, muttering something that I couldn’t understand. The ground hummed as she moved toward us and the air smelled like damp moss.

“I’d think twice before you finish that spell, Necromancer, or Maurin will be the last of your worries,” Aidan said.

Graive stopped when she realized what Aidan meant. She was about to break Mahalia’s agreement with the vampires. She looked devastated when Oberon didn’t come to her defense like he had against Matthison. She wouldn’t find any allies in the crowd that had gathered outside either. No one wanted to go up against Agrona. Graive stormed into the house.

Aidan put me down, but didn’t walk away.
He stood at my back like a bodyguard. Now that the excitement was winding down, most of the onlookers had gone back inside. Cash and Amalie were the only two left.

“I’ve got it from here, Aidan.
I just want to talk to her,” Oberon said.

Aidan looked at me, but didn’t move.

“I promise not to hit him again,” I sighed.

Aidan gave me a mischievous smile that said that he didn’t quite believe me.
He went and sat on the steps with Cash and Amalie, which only gave us the illusion of privacy. They’d still be able to hear everything we said.

“I’m sorry, Maurin.
I thought that you would be able to feel my magic when I broke the connection,” Oberon tried to explain.

“What was I supposed to think?
I could feel you one minute; it became weak like you were slipping away, and then the next minute there was nothing. You were gone. The connection was gone,” I said.

“I told you before not to worry - that I could handle myself.
Remember?” he said.

“Yes, but I thought that you meant phy
sically, like when I almost slit your throat - by accident,” I clarified for the audience on the front step.

I could hear Aidan and Cash chuckle.

“But it’s not like I was replaying every conversation we ever had in my head while I was drugged and an
Afrit was sucking the life out of me,” I told him.

“A what?
Who drugged you?” he asked.

“If you were at the police station, then you would already know that.
You knew that I was in trouble, so where were you?” I asked, getting angry all over again.

If the roles were reversed - if it were me feeling everything that he was going through - I would have been at that police station no matter how badly injured I was.
I would have been tearing walls down to find him. Sadly, I realized that was a big difference between Oberon and me.

“You weren’t the only one getting the life sucked out of you,” Oberon said defe
nsively.

“You look fine to me,” I said accusin
gly.

“It took almost everything that I had to break the connection with you, Maurin.
I wasn’t exactly at peak performance after that,” he responded.

“What, no magic elixir to get you back on your feet?”
I asked.

“Why do you do that?
Why do you always mask your true feelings with anger?” Oberon asked.

“I’m not masking anything, you self-serving ass!
I am angry. I am royally pissed off. So don’t try to change the subject. This isn’t about me. I thought the link between us was supposed to be permanent?” I asked.

“Now she’s asking the right questions,” Cash mumbled.

I shot him a look that would pierce armor. He raised his hands into the air and then pretended to lock his lips.

“It was.
I mean, that’s what we thought. And there was never any reason to test that theory before,” Oberon said.

“Never a reason?
How about any one of the million times I was freaking out about the connection or about us? How about when I started questioning whether or not what I was feeling was real or even my own? None of those seemed like a good time to you? No, I guess not. You were too busy cramming all this shit down my throat,” I said bitterly.