Witch Interrupted (26 page)

Once inside the room, he looked between Katie and June for signs of battle. All he could tell was that somebody had overindulged in disinfectant. The spiky odor invaded his sinuses.

He sneezed. Harry laughed at his expression and tilted his head at his wife. “She cleans everything, everywhere.”

Harry’s eyes had lost the bleariness caused by the confusion spell.

“All better?” he asked the other man.

“I am. Not sure about you.” Harry invited him to sit at the small table while the women murmured near an array of herbs and simples on the bathroom countertop. “Do you need help with control issues? You transformed types don’t grow up dealing with it.”

“I don’t have control issues,” Marcus said gruffly. He caught Katie’s gaze in the mirror over the sink. “Today was a new development. One I’ve been anticipating. It may be of great service in the near future.”

The future of all witches. The thought of a protracted study wasn’t as acceptable as it once had been, though. It would never have been soon enough for Elisa, but Marcus needed results sooner rather than later.

Disabling the keepers hadn’t ceased to be about Elisa and revenge, but now it was also about helping Katie and her family.

Katie dusted something pale green off her hands. “You cast a confusion spell.”

“I did as you suggested, used the excess magic. Once it was gone, I reverted to wolf.”

“This I gotta hear.” Harry sat beside his wife, slipping an arm around her. “When June told me about witches and wolves, that’s the first thing I wanted to know. How long would I have to go without shifting before I could abracadabra?”

Marcus clasped his hands loosely between his knees. “You’ve both heard my theory that the magic witches and wolves use is the same—simply redirected.” June and Harry nodded. “Now I can prove it, and more. You can even help me. Do you happen to have any dittany?”

Katie had never enjoyed killing. Not even feral wolves trying to kill her. But if she had to endure another day of Marcus’s empirical detachment, June’s polite suspicion and Harry’s jovial balkiness, she would have to kill something.

Preferably Lars, but no one seemed interested in discussing strategies for his demise. Not only did Marcus keep them on a strict regimen of driving, sleep and experimentation that left little time for strategizing, but Katie’s companions shut her down when she proposed action. Harry and June were as content as Marcus to believe his discovery would inspire the region elders to change the way things had been for millennia.

The rescue of her family becoming a secondary concern. An afterthought.

It was almost the only thing Katie
could
think about.

She certainly wasn’t thinking about sex. Or, when she did think about it, she wasn’t getting it. Marcus had abandoned the sex trials now that he had new guinea pigs. All the four of them did was relocate to avoid being tracked through conventional means, read lattices, pass deposits of magic back and forth like hot potatoes, and try to teach Harry how to cast spells.

At least they’d been eating well. Harry and June refused to miss any meals and made Marcus eat too. Katie fed herself, though she suspected nobody would care if she didn’t.

On the fifth day after they’d begun their indirect path to Ohio, they finally reached Marcus’s abandoned factory cum safe house. Since Lars had traced Vern’s phone, they’d taken all the extra precautions Katie and Marcus could think of, but nothing they did shook her sense of foreboding after confronting Lars again or the horror of her nightmares as she imagined what he was doing to her family. Her bullet wound hadn’t left a scar, but if anything happened to her family, she’d never be whole again.

Katie kept these thoughts to herself since everyone else was engrossed in Marcus’s experiments.

The lab was the one room that didn’t seem in danger of falling down around their ears. Marcus was running a computer simulation while simultaneously readying a batch of dittany mix. It was the single component they seemed to have in unending supply. June napped on the cot with a pillow over her ears. Harry paced from one side of the large room to the other, eating a sandwich. Katie cross-referenced several topo maps of the area around the keeper stronghold, considering which approach would give her the best chance of not being immediately shot.

Again.

Though the aerial views one could obtain through the internet were helpful, she could really use the sympathizers’ information about current security at the stronghold.

She refolded the maps into perfect rectangles. “June, have we heard back from Nathaniel Oman yet?”

June, a blanket crease on her cheek, emerged from her cocoon. “Someone say my name?”

Despite remaining leery of helping Katie, June had called select people, trying to locate anyone who could tell them what was going on at the keeper stronghold. They’d learned little.

“I asked about Oman,” Katie repeated.

“No. There’s nothing. I’m troubled by the lack of gossip. Covens love to gossip.” June started to push herself into a sitting position, and Harry darted forward, solicitous, supporting her with a hand at her back. She cast him a glance Katie couldn’t interpret. “How could Vern have gone missing after a public shoot-out and nobody realize something’s afoot? When I called my friend in Birmingham, it was business as usual in pack and coven.”

“The keepers covered everything up,” Katie said. “They have experience at that.” They’d poppy the local police, the Birmingham coven and pack, and any human witnesses, without regard for covenants or people’s rights. She had had to do touch-ups on witches and humans in her time, but the only incident that had come close to the volatile nature of the shoot-out had been her final mission.

The fact Lars had been willing to battle the Birmingham patrol in the street before he’d known Chang Cai was involved frightened her. It should frighten everyone. Now that he knew she was alive, he’d stop at nothing.

The elders were fools to ignore what the keepers had become in her and Vern’s absence. Vern’s directorship had been their attempt to regulate the council, but it seemed they no longer kept tabs on the organization’s activities, if Lars was to be believed.

“I’m sure they’re very experienced at cover-ups,” June said, her lips prim.

“Witches do it to humans and wolves. The keepers do it to everyone.” Katie shrugged, aiming for nonchalance, but June’s attitude grated her nerves. Marcus had quit harping about her past after a day or two, and he had more reason to resent keepers than June did.

Of course, he also insisted everyone carry bay capsules with them at all times. She didn’t even have monkshood anymore. He’d flushed her tiny stockpile, and there were only a few vendors who dealt in spell-grade monkshood. The keepers, of course, had their own supplier.

“The keepers do more than poppy renegade wolves,” June said, as if reading the direction of Katie’s thoughts.

“Because sometimes, someone has to preserve the covenants and shifter secrecy. And it’s not like convex witches are welcome in regular covens.”

“I didn’t mean to insult you.” It was the first time June had acknowledged she might have overstepped, but it wasn’t enough. Katie knew damn well why no one would discuss helping her family beyond the results of Marcus’s experiments—they didn’t consider her needs to be of equal consequence. “It’s just disturbing to find out what’s been going on behind our backs.”

To give her hands something to do that didn’t involve fists, she restacked her maps and paperwork. Normal witches assumed they were managing everything, but there was more to keeping shifters of all stripes concealed than they could guess. “The council isn’t a recent invention. Did you never wonder what happens when a juvenile winds up convex?”

“I assumed you went independent,” June said. Harry, his arm around his wife, was watching Katie mistrustfully. The wolf could sense her irritation with June—with all of them—in a way Marcus seemed oblivious to. Engrossed in his computer, he hadn’t so much as glanced at June, Harry and Katie, though the conversation had become tense.

“I don’t like the way you’re talking to my wife,” Harry said, his tone sharp. “You keep this up, I’ll show you how much I don’t give a flying fuck how badass you think you are.”

Katie eased back in the folding chair, making no sudden moves. She’d never seen Harry’s eyes go that silver, not even when Marcus bossed him around. He loved his wife so much, he was willing to die for her.

And Katie knew, if it were Harry versus her, she’d win.

Anyone could kill. With a gun. With a knife. With poison. But she was made for killing. It wasn’t biology. It was magic. Her magic. It didn’t matter that she’d never enjoyed what she was born to do.

Katie, on the opposite side of the room from the others, remained seated. Where she belonged—separate. She kept her hands flat on the card table. “I know you three ruled out spying on the stronghold, but—”

“No,” said June and Harry at the same time.

She wasn’t an ill-mannered child, to be disciplined by her betters. Katie bristled. She had the most at stake and the most experience in combat yet the least influential vote. How was that smart?

“Standard information gathering hasn’t borne fruit. I’m considering other options instead of burying my head.” If she decided to infiltrate the stronghold, she’d be doing it alone. “I need to contact some people Tonya knew. Gaia festival organizers, herb suppliers.” She suspected most were sympathizers, though Tonya had never admitted it. “Eventually we’ll find a link to somebody who can tell us what the keepers are doing.”

Suddenly, Marcus’s gloved hand caught the back of her neck. She’d been so intent on facing down Harry and June, she hadn’t noticed him cross the concrete floor.

His touch was firm, imperious and far too pleasurable. “You’re not going anywhere.”

The other couple watched their interaction silently. Katie forced her spine to remain unbowed. As if Marcus looming over her, his hand heavy on her neck, meant nothing. Whatever connection she and Marcus had had, that flicker when they’d kissed outside the post office, was gone.

At least from his perspective. She, stupidly, suspected she was in love with him. Since she’d never felt like this before, she couldn’t be certain. It might not be love. It might be a demented combination of lust, guilt, despair and fury. She might be clinging to Marcus because she was afraid. Afraid of dying, and his plan was a safer path to rescue her family. Not even in her most wrathful daydreams did she imagine she could attack the keeper stronghold alone and do much besides get herself killed.

She was likely the most powerful convex witch on the planet. As it turned out, being the most powerful convex witch on the planet wasn’t all that useful.

But being the person Hiram Lars hated most in the world? Might be her ticket, if she could bring herself to cash it in.

“If Katie wants to track down people she thinks can help her, let her,” June said. “She’s an adult. She can take care of herself.”

“Absolutely not.” Marcus stepped around Katie, into her line of sight. It was almost as if he was putting himself between the Travises and her, but that would be irrational of him. “We stay together.”

Did he mean the two of them or the four of them? Likely the four. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Harry and June.

Harry raked a hand through his black hair, frustrated. “Staying together is getting us bupkis. We should try something different.” He echoed Katie’s sentiments, though if she’d pointed that out to him, he’d have denied it. “Are the experiments doing shit or not? Every time you load me up with magic, I feel like I’ve got the flu, not like I’m Gandalf.”

“Wolves don’t catch the flu. Or cancer.” Marcus, apparently satisfied he’d squelched anyone’s intentions of absconding, returned to his workstation. The lab was on the bottom level of the factory, accessible through a well-concealed iron door. Granted, the lab had protective wards on it, but even if it hadn’t, Katie may never have found this bolt-hole. She supposed this was why Marcus could leave the building unguarded for years and keep his hidden lab secure.

“I haven’t cast a single spell.” Harry glared at Marcus’s back. Since Marcus didn’t flinch, Katie was relatively sure Harry wasn’t exerting his alpha. “You’re wasting your time.”

“You’re not focusing hard enough.” Marcus, calm as ever, crushed herbs with a pestle. The
scritch-scritch-scritch
of porcelain against porcelain was a familiar sound. “The wolf lattice is more inflexible than I previously calculated. It requires more will than you’re exerting to change it.”

She couldn’t be sure, but as Marcus said the last sentence, he might have been gritting his teeth. Harry hadn’t been especially accommodating. Unlike the way Marcus shifted between witch state and wolf state, Harry had remained a standard wolf the entire time. That being said, Marcus had yet to combine his lattices and function as both witch and wolf. When one was ascendant, it was as if the other didn’t exist. They remained as separate as—

As Marcus and Katie.

“I need to exert more willpower as well,” Marcus said. “I plan to have Katie place me under a compulsion as part of the next experiment. It may increase my natural capacity.” There was only so much excess Harry or Marcus could contain. Past that, neither June nor Katie could force more magic into them. It wasn’t like being the focal of a group spell—or cleaning the energy out of your keeper chums—because that overflow was funneled directly out again.

“Why would I need to compel you?” she asked.

He decanted powders into a test tube. He never stopped moving, never stopped tinkering. Whoever said men couldn’t multitask had never met Marcus Delgado.

“It’s possible I’m raising an involuntary barrier when my lattice saturates. A compulsion should override that.”

They’d dumped her power into him. They’d dumped Katie’s, June’s and Harry’s power into him. They’d dumped it all at once. They’d tried layering. It bounced back, wash after wash.

“I don’t think it’s your willpower, Marcus.” If fortitude were the deciding factor, he would have achieved world domination months ago. “You don’t have the reservoir for it. June doesn’t even have the reservoir to hold that much power, and she has the largest capacity of anyone I’ve ever known.”

Katie had never met a witch who could swing more magic than June. The small blonde woman was a powerhouse. She wasn’t nuts about Katie, though.

Despite her claim she hadn’t intended any insult, June was a regular witch. She’d never understand what life had been like for someone cursed with the ability to kill and expected to use that ability so that normal witches—who wanted nothing to do with her—could stay safe.

“I refuse to accept conventional limits.” Marcus, goggles reflecting the light from the bare overhead bulb, strode to a side table and fired up a burner. After adjusting the flame, he began heating the test tube. “Muscles can be strengthened. Senses can be trained and sharpened. Reaction time can be improved. This is a biological—”

“Unless it’s magical,” Katie suggested. “When you dissect a witch, there’s no unique area in our brains that’s different from humans. Wolves too, in either form.”

“I didn’t know that.” Harry paced the perimeter of the shadowy, windowless room. “Is that true, Marcus?”

Marcus briefly regarded Katie as if she were rattling the bars of her cage and throwing poop at his sparkly glass beakers.

“Yes, it’s true.” He raised the test tube when the contents began to burble a noxious yellow, cooling it. “Nevertheless, a compulsion is our next experiment. You did say you wanted to try something new. If the compulsion works on me, June can place you under—”

Harry interrupted rudely. “Fuck that. The last time my wife put me under a compulsion, she forced me to leave her at the mercy of a fucking psycho.”

“It’s been five years, potty mouth,” June grumbled. “Let it gooooo.”

Harry regarded his exhausted wife with concern and adoration, which Katie envied. Whenever Marcus looked at her, it was like the lab rat she was.