Witch Interrupted (12 page)

She drew back and looked at him. “You’re not funny.”

“You’re kidding, right? I got off some great one-liners yesterday when I was trying to impress the pretty tattooist.”

“You were flirting with me before you knew I was a witch?” Was he flirting now? He didn’t have to. This was a blackmail slash business relationship, and he’d garnered her cooperation by other means.

“You’re clever, you’re attractive, and you smell really, really good.” She didn’t think he realized his eyes had flashed blue. “Of course I was flirting.”

“Marcus,” she said, licking her lips, “I want to get through today alive. If I know your plan, I can help with Ba and Tonya. I can help if anything goes wrong. I would do anything to save them the way they saved me twenty years ago. I would never put them at risk.”

“Until yesterday.”

“You and I both sucked yesterday. And now we can’t be egoists fighting over who’s giving orders and who’s tricking whom.”

He rested his cheek against her hair. “You’re right.”

“What is going to happen until my magic comes back? Tell me your strategy to keep us hidden. I don’t give two shits about your research right now. The one thing you can definitely trust about me is that I don’t want Lars to find out we’re alive. That includes you.”

“I don’t need magic to take care of you and your family. I have a route planned that avoids the patrol. My Airstream is warded, and there’s another location we’ll go after that. I can’t let you relay the address to anyone, but I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Katie tried not to let the panic overwhelm her at the not knowing, at the helplessness. Marcus’s arms around her comforted, as did the fact he was willing to hold her, but he was one man. Too much was at stake. “If the keepers find us together, they’ll kill us.”

“The benefits of our partnership outweigh the risks.” One of his hands settled at the small of her back, while the other curved around her neck, steady and powerful. Her awareness of his body heightened. “Aren’t you curious, Katie?”

“About what?”

His gaze lowered to her mouth. “So many years tracking witches seduced to the other side. Did you wonder how they could be so foolish?”

“No.” She already knew why. Temptation in the form of a large, masculine hand was spreading across her back until his fingertips brushed the top of her ass. If she’d been sent against Marcus twenty years ago, would she have been able to resist him?

She sure as hell couldn’t now.

“Did you wonder what it was like?”

“No.”

He lowered his head. “Are you wondering right now?”

“No.”

His lips grazed her brow and her cheekbone, lingering. “Are you going to fight me?”

“No. I mean yes. What?”

Teeth nipped her jaw. Breath feathered across her lips. Katie closed her eyes and willed him to stop. And to keep going. She couldn’t even answer herself properly. He licked the corner of her mouth, and her fingertips dug into his chest.

“I haven’t been with a woman since a week after I transformed.” He drew his cheek across hers, his face smooth-shaven, his lips hot. “I’m extremely curious. I can already sense differences.”

She found herself rising on tiptoes to get closer to him, bending her neck to allow him better access. Her hands slipped up, past his shoulder, to caress his nape.

Was it the first time she’d touched him without it being a ploy? His hair curled around her fingers. His scent, a heady mix of her sheets and his skin, enveloped her. His hand dropped several inches until he blatantly cupped her ass.

Katie exhaled as his cock stiffened against her. He nuzzled her, nipped her, everything but kissed her. Need rose in her precipitously.

“I smell your desire and lose focus. I can’t say I’m fond of my reaction, yet I keep seeking it out. I’ve had more erections in the past twenty-four hours than—”

The television crackled into loud static.

Marcus tensed, growing as still as a brick wall. “Someone’s here.”

“Not again.”

Beneath them, a gun fired. Tonya screamed.

Marcus burst into the tattoo parlor to find a middle-aged Caucasian man he didn’t recognize confronting Tonya and Zhang Li. Both men were scowling.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” The unknown man gestured at the bullet hole in the shop window. “Why did you shoot at me?”

“My goodness, Li.” Tonya hastened to the newcomer’s side and held out her arms as if protecting him from assault. “I know he ran in here like his tail was on fire, but is that any reason to gun him down?”

Zhang Li studied the pistol in his hand as though he’d never seen it before. Dammit, how had the old weasel found it? Marcus had shut it in his briefcase. Zhang Li set the gun on the counter. “Hell if I know. Been jumpy lately. Too much caffeine.”

“You could have killed me.” The newcomer swung a backpack off his shoulder, dangling it by his side.

More complications. Would anyone nearby report gunfire to the police? How was Marcus going to keep this stranger quiet? Not with a hug, that was for sure.

“I wouldn’t, and I didn’t,” Zhang Li snapped. “So quit your bitching.”

Tonya shook her head. “You can’t go around assaulting our customers. I’m so sorry, sir. What can we do to make it up to you?”

Marcus sniffed. Over the scent of gunfire, he realized it wasn’t a customer.

It was Vernon Harrower.

Vernon appeared to be as confused as Tonya and Zhang Li. “I’m not a damn customer. I’m…” His bright blue gaze fell on Marcus. “Rodríguez? I can’t believe you’re not dead.”

Katie’s footsteps pounded up behind Marcus, but he barred the doorway so she couldn’t enter the front room. She must have called the bastard—and told him she was going to kill Marcus.

His stomach pitted. His disappointment was naive. He’d known what kind of person she was from the beginning. A keeper. He had to quit trying to convince himself she wasn’t like the other keepers simply because he was too fastidious to lust after a killer.

“What do you want, Vernon?” Had he not found all Katie’s monkshood? She hadn’t had as much as he’d expected to find. He shoved a hand in his pocket to tap the bay capsule. Still there.

“Vernon, is it? And you know Dr. Marcus?” Tonya batted her eyelashes at the stunned region elder. Marcus sniffed, but couldn’t tell if the weathered, handsome face Vernon wore was a disguise. Considering he looked like he could be on television, Marcus was betting on disguise. “The doctor is our hero.”

“Hero?” Vernon gaped at Tonya. “What is going on?”

Tonya tossed her curly blond hair over her shoulder and smiled. “We’re a little tense after the accident. Don’t worry about it, honey. My hands are steady as rocks. Are you sure you’re not a customer?”

Marcus blocked Katie, who was trying to wriggle under his arm.

“Marcus, let me go,” she hissed. “I have to explain.”

Surely she’d explained everything to Vernon when she’d slipped in that phone call. He’d told her it wasn’t safe to contact the elder, and she’d done it anyway.

She didn’t trust anything he said any more than he ought to trust her. But if she hadn’t spelled him or killed him when she could have…

“Vern, it’s a code six,” Katie yelled over Marcus’s shoulder.

Code six was shorthand for recently wiped individuals in delicate condition. The keepers must not have changed their system since Katie had been Chang Cai.

Vernon frowned. “How could you have a six when the wolf knows who I am?”

“Who’s a wolf?” Zhang Li asked. “Is that a gang sign? Better not come around my shop flashing colors. I’ll shoot you.”

Vernon ran a hand over his dark blond hair, streaked a distinguished gray at the temples. “Hell, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got keepers on my ass. We need to split.”

Katie cursed, but Marcus could tell she was more frightened than angry. He strode to the window to inspect the street, and she trotted after him.

“You led them here?” he said to Vernon. “Way to go.”

“I had no clue Hiram could tap my fricking phone. The moron was still checking into Foursquare to announce he was the mayor of McDonald’s this time last year.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention.” The keepers weren’t cutting edge technologically, but they weren’t bumbling fools.

“It’s not like I got myself into this fix on purpose, Rodríguez. You can’t exactly get high and mighty on me, considering the condition you’re in.”

“His name is Dr. Marcus Delgado,” Tonya corrected. “Not Rodríguez. And there’s nothing wrong with his condition.”

“When did Katie call you?” Marcus snapped at Vernon. “Why do you think I should be dead?”

“She didn’t call me. Applebaum did. And I figured you were dead because nobody could find you for a year.”

Marcus turned to Katie, who was watching him anxiously instead of the street. “You didn’t contact him?”

“You thought I…” She huffed. “No, I did not. You convinced me it was a bad idea.”

“Huh.” He kept it to one sound so his relief wouldn’t be obvious. Marcus was hardly a teenager, but this speeding from one emotion to another was going to break him out in acne if he wasn’t careful. Nevertheless, the consequences of anyone calling Vernon were the same.

The keepers could be here any minute. If they kept arguing, his cushion for the pack patrol would disappear as well.

“Applebaum said she needed a special way to find something that had been stolen. Apparently, since Katie’s here, it worked?”

“It was functional.” That explained how Tonya and Zhang Li had stumbled across his Airstream. They’d conned some kind of location spell out of Vernon, though Marcus had never heard of such magic working over a distance.

Or cutting through protective wards.

Damn, Vernon was talented.

Was he so talented Katie would prefer to entrust her safety to Vernon instead of Marcus?

“Poor Vernon. Have you got amnesia too? I didn’t call you about stolen goods,” Tonya said. “I’ve never met you before today. Unless I forgot, I suppose.”

“Somehow I don’t think I’m getting paid what you owe me,” he grumbled to her. Vernon wasn’t an elder and the former director of the keepers because he was slow on the uptake. He speared Marcus and Katie with an evil glare. “I see what’s going on here, and I have an idea why. You shouldn’t have done it, Katie. You should have cut and run.”

Katie’s lips tightened. “I know.”

Marcus felt a distinct urge to defend her, even though Vernon was right. He stared out the window instead.

Nobody suspicious on the street, no vehicles except for a tiny Smart car, his truck, Zhang Li’s sedan and a hatchback missing a tire, which had been here last night. Nobody darted through the early morning shadows. Nobody crept through the empty lots and buildings. But with Vernon’s announcement, he could feel the keeper’s presence like a looming thunderhead.

Tension rising, he addressed Vernon. “How close are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“Any signs of the scheduled patrol?”

“Don’t know that either. Let’s make tracks. Sorry, Dr. Delgado, no room for you in the car I borrowed. Count yourself lucky I’m letting you go free.”

Katie and Marcus locked gazes for a moment. Vernon’s arrival, his power and preparedness, changed the scoreboard. Marcus had dosed himself with his preventative medley as usual, excluding the mask, but he couldn’t prevent Vernon from wresting Katie, Tonya and Zhang Li from him.

Katie would know this. And realize she no longer needed him.

Unacceptable. She wasn’t leaving him until he chose to release her. She was…his.

In a soft voice, she said, “Vern, take Tonya and Zhang Li. Help them. I’m with Marcus. He and I have an agreement.”

Stunned, Marcus wasn’t sure how to react to that or to the fact he felt as possessive of her as a toddler with a new toy. He blinked twice.

“Don’t be stupid.” Vernon, bristling with annoyance, pinched herbs out of a side pocket of the backpack. “Since Katie doesn’t look hurt, I’ll give you once chance to get lost. You’d best take it.”

It was one thing to deal with three witches who had no power or didn’t remember they were witches. It was another to deal with a live, loaded Vernon Harrower. Marcus sniffed, trying to determine what spell Vernon was considering. Could he counteract it?

Tonya stuck her hands on her hips. “Don’t be nasty to the doctor. He helped us after a gas leak affected our memories.”

“Bet he did.” Vernon crushed the herbs on his palm, creating a dust. He’d have to get close to smear it on Marcus, so all Marcus had to do was avoid him. “Everyone but Delgado, get your things. Let’s go.”

“I don’t think I want to go anywhere with you,” Tonya said.

“I’m damn sure I don’t,” Zhang Li added. “You look like a shithead.”

“Look, this isn’t a request. I’m the ranking… Oh, hell.” Several blue-silver minivans with dark-tinted windows approached from the east. Vernon smacked the herbs off his palm and gestured at everyone to duck. “Get down.”

While the keepers hadn’t favored minivans when Marcus had been there, he and Katie responded instantly to the warning, dropping below the level of the shop window.

“Upstairs, through the kitchen,” she murmured. “Exit behind the china cabinet.” Witches always had a secret door or two. “You get Tonya, I’ll get Ba. He’ll trust me whether he realizes why or not.”

Tonya regarded a crouching Vernon with skepticism. “I don’t know who you think you are, Mr. Hot Britches, but I don’t get on my knees because some guy told me to.”

“Tonya, hide,” Katie urged. Marcus hadn’t heard anyone behind the shop, which didn’t mean no one was there. Who was driving the minivans?

Vernon cursed at the standing woman. “Idiot woman, they will shoot you. They have better aim than Zhang Li.”

“Who is they?” Tonya gestured toward the street. “The soccer moms?”

“Whoever they are, I’ll shoot ’em back.” Zhang Li picked up the gun. “I hate soccer moms.”

“You hate everybody,” Vernon snapped. “Get your wrinkled ass behind the counter.”

Outraged, Zhang Li disappeared. Marcus risked a glance above the sill. The minivans slowed near their parking lot. A window rolled down. A rifle barrel poked out.

“God, I hate being awesome.” Vernon sprang off the floor and tackled Tonya right before buckshot sprayed the window.

Zhang Li released a warbling war cry and began shooting back. Glass flew everywhere. Marcus dragged Katie half beneath him, safeguarding her from the worst cuts. He’d mend in an hour; she’d need heal-all. He could hear Vernon and Tonya bickering on the other side of the door but stayed alert for footsteps outside, out back, any signs that the keepers were charging into the building.

Had to be them. The border patrol drove trucks and didn’t shoot first.

Instead he heard the roar of diesel engines and the screech of tires. The gunfire ceased. Zhang Li cursed about not having a spare clip. Marcus then heard him dial the cordless phone.

“Don’t call the cops,” Vernon shouted. “That’s all we need. Ouch, woman, that’s my family jewels.”

“Your family’s not very rich, then,” Tonya retorted. “Of course he needs to call the police. Soccer moms can’t go around shooting up tattoo parlors.”

“Hello, 9-1-1?” Zhang Li said. “We’re under attack. No, I don’t know where I am. A tattoo store. On some crappy road full of potholes. Can’t you trace the damn call? I’m an American citizen…I think. No, this isn’t a prank. Get me some help. A SWAT team. I’m out of bullets.”

“Stay down,” Marcus told Katie. Since Zhang Li was out of ammunition and the keepers weren’t shooting, he risked another glance outside.

Several pickup trucks skidded to a halt near the minivans, blocking the street in either direction. Masculine voices, loud and aggravated, cut through the arguing and shushing inside the tattoo parlor. Burly armed men began pouring out of the minivans and pickup trucks.

Well, shit. The Birmingham patrol, ahead of schedule. And the keepers. Were the region elders next?

A fat, smoking bundle lobbed through the shattered window and bounced on the glass-covered floor.

“Gaia bless it,” Vernon complained. “I thought we could get out faster than this.”

Marcus had too. His ears popped. Magic. He shook himself as heaviness descended. His herbal cocktail buoyed him above the creeping exhaustion.

No so for the others. Beneath him, Katie sighed. Her dark brown eyes, lids drooping, stared into his. She touched his cheek, her hand sprinkled by droplets of blood. “I’m too drained to resist. Goddess, I’m out of practice.”

“Fight it.” Marcus breathed deeply, oxygenating himself. Escaping the spell’s radius wouldn’t help because it had already been cast. The keepers used industrial strength sleep magic, thyme along with some combination of hops, lavender or valerian, and the massive size of the herbal bomb meant physical proximity wasn’t required.

“They won’t move in immediately. They’re used to wolves. If you wake up first,” she said, her voice fading, “please save my father.”

Marcus’s ears, however, popped a second time, from a closer source. Vernon released Tonya, who had the sense to stay down. He slithered nimbly through the glass to the smoking bundle and sprinkled herbs all over it.

Katie’s eyes sprang open, and she blew out a breath. “That’s a relief. Guess I’ll save Ba myself.”

“I can’t do that many times,” Vernon said. “The spearmint crop got leaf blight this year, and the good stuff is scarce.”

Marcus met the other man’s gaze, recognized in him the determination to save everyone here—even if he didn’t particularly like them—and nodded.

“They’re distracted. Everyone upstairs. Stay low.”

Vernon scowled when Tonya, Katie and Zhang Li did as Marcus requested. Once they passed through the beaded curtain between the front and back rooms, they rose from their crouches and ran.

Katie, stumbling up the stairs in front of Marcus, wiped her wounded arm on her shirt. His nose told him the cuts weren’t deep. “My blood was on the floor,” she warned him and Vernon, “and the pack patrol probably knows someone interesting was in here.”

Vern followed them into the apartment. “We need to increase the distance until they lose track of you.”

Marcus’s scent would draw the pack wolves like rain on a hot summer day, but they weren’t the main threat anymore. The keepers were. On the bright side, the keepers would likely subdue the patrol and wouldn’t be able to track their group as easily as wolves. Marcus could never have dodged the packers from this close.