Chapter 15 Veronica
VERONICA
“Here we go,” I said, putting my arm under his uninjured shoulder. “Big step.”
He groaned. “I’m not a toddler, you know.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, pushing the door open of the safe house.
“Check the street,” Declan said, gritting his teeth. “Make sure no one followed us.”
Sighing, I glanced up and down the road. “I’ve been checking since we left the strip mall, like you told me. We’re good. No one followed us.”
Once we were inside, I helped him to a seat near his plant, which we’d stuck in a corner near the living room window. Declan let out a sigh of relief, holding his burned arm away from him, so it didn’t touch anything.
“Do you know if you have baking soda here?” I asked.
“You gonna bake cookies or something?”
“No.” It took everything in me not to roll my eyes. “I need it for a poultice for your arm and shoulder.”
“Oh. I think there’s a box in the fridge. Hope you don’t need it fresh.”
“All good.”
I got the half-empty box and a bowl, then set everything down on the coffee table.
“I saw some dandelions, purslane, and stinging nettle out in that little thing you call a yard. I need to go grab some. Is that okay?” I said.
“Thanks for pointing out my poor landscaping skills.” He grimaced as he pulled his pistol from his holster. “Take this in case.”
I took the weapon, though I prayed I wouldn’t need to use it. I’d only be outside a minute or so. I glanced at the dark road. Spotting nothing suspicious, I yanked the medicinal weeds out of the earth, then hurried back inside, making sure to lock the door behind me.
I mixed everything together in the bowl, using a spoon to crush it into a dryish paste.
“I need an offering before I recite the spell,” I explained, and gave Declan an awkward shrug. “It needs to come from you. Since you’re the one being healed.”
“What do you need?”
I swallowed, recalling the process from one of the books we’d studied at school. This was awkward as hell.
“Uh, it needs to be a fluid of life. So, uh, I need either your blood or…uh…your semen. Either one works fine,” I added quickly, feeling the heat rush across my chest.
His eyes snapped open and locked on mine. “As flattering as that is, I think we’ll go with blood. At the moment, I don’t think I’m in the mood to whip out my friend downstairs.”
“I figured,” I said, blushing furiously.
Should have just said blood. Why did I even mention the other fluid? What an idiot.
I pricked his finger with the knife, letting the blood drip into the bowl. Closing my eyes, I held my hand over the bowl and recited the ancient Celtic words, praying that it would work. One of the few areas of magic I excelled in was healing.
The paste started boiling, as though it was being heated from below. The lumps melted away, leaving a thick, cream-colored mixture. I laughed to myself and clapped my hands.
“I did it. Let’s get this on you,” I said, spooning it up.
“I’m not eating that shit, right?” Declan said, eyeing the mixture warily.
“It goes on you, not in you.”
Declan didn’t flinch as I applied the potion to his shoulder. The mixture seeped into his wound and vanished almost instantly.
“God, that feels good,” he moaned, and a smile erupted on his face. “Do my arm. That hurts the most. Please.”
Pleased with myself, I slathered the rest of the mixture over his arm. He made a choked sound of relief and happiness as it melted into his skin.
It would take a couple hours, but it did take away the pain and numb the skin to make it much easier to deal with as the rest of the magic did its work.
Now that he wasn’t in agony, I peered into his face.
“Why are you looking at me like that,” he said, some of his gruff tone returning.
“You lost it back there.” I thought about how he’d beaten the man, nearly killing him to get information. “It seems like you’re usually a little more measured. Calmer, you might say. Why did you freak out like that?”
Declan cleared his throat and sat up in his chair. “They tried to kill you. Me too. Anyone would get mad.”
I snorted a humorless laugh. “In the days we’ve been together, I’ve almost lost count of how many times someone’s tried to kill or capture me.
” I lowered my voice. “I could see it in your eyes, Declan. You were on the verge of murdering that guy. You were full of rage. I feel like there’s something more going on.
Is…” I hesitated. My gut told me to push on with my theory, but I was afraid of pushing too far.
In the end, I chose to try and find out the truth.
“Does it have something to do with why you retired?”
His eyes snapped to mine. “What?”
“You heard me. You’re good at what you do. Something bad had to have happened to get you to give this all up. Did you hurt someone by accident? Was there some sort of—”
“It was three years ago,” Declan said. I’d never heard him sound so hollow, so broken.
“What was three years ago?” I whispered.
“The…the day my life went to shit.” He cleared his throat and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring down at the floor.
“A bear shifter, pack alpha, hired me. He was from up north in Detroit, but he’d heard I was the best there was at finding people.
Turns out there was a serial killer at work up there.
Someone targeting shifter kids. By the time he hired me, ten had been killed. ”
“Ten?” I put my hand to my mouth. “Oh my god.”
He nodded and licked his lips, looking off into space.
“All of them were taken and killed before they’d had their first shift, so each and every one was under the age of twelve.
The oldest was one of his own pack, a cub of eleven.
The youngest was a panther shifter baby.
Eighteen months old, stolen out of their crib in the middle of the night. ”
It was like I’d been kicked in the chest. A baby. Children? What kind of person did that to innocent kids?
“I traveled up there and went right to work. Told the guy I’d do it all for free.” When he glanced at me, he had a hard gleam in his eye. “You don’t fuck with kids. Not on my watch. I didn’t want money. I wanted the fucker to pay.
“Anyway, I do some research, hit the streets, ask around. Get a very vague description, and use that to find my way to a small coven of witches. Gave them the description I had and asked if they knew anyone who looked like that. They, of course, said no. My gift clued me in that they were lying. I”—he clenched his fist—“persuaded them that it would be better if they worked with me rather than against me.
I had a few anti-magic talismans with me, thankfully, and what little they tried backfired.
They got freaked out, and their leader told me all I needed to know.
A member of their coven was fairly low on the totem pole when it came to power and ability.” He gave me an apologetic smile. “Kinda like you, you know?”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t hurt by that. I knew I had a long way to go to get better.
Most of my shortcomings came from accessing my magical power so late, and having less practice than those who’d become witches earlier or studied harder to become sorcerers.
I still held out hope I could master everything in the coming years.
As long as I was still alive, that was.
“This guy thought he could improve his lot in life by taking a god as a patron and turning himself into a warlock. The problem was the god he chose. Ever heard of Lamashtu?”
“Yes,” I said, recalling Professor Coolidge’s deity class. “A Mesopotamian deity?”
“A cunt is what she is,” Declan growled. “A piece of shit who rose to power thousands of years ago with child sacrifices. This fucking witch was going around kidnapping and killing kids to try and curry favor and make a pact with Lamashtu.”
Dread filled me.
Declan shook his head and sat back in his chair.
“He’d been spotted near a shifter school, but the place had good security, plus all the kids who’d been taken had been kidnapped at night.
I assumed they were all safe, and that he was just scoping for a new victim.
I…fuck,” he hissed, slamming his fist onto his thigh with enough force that I flinched.
“I thought the best thing to do was to stake out his place. I figured out where he lived, and I assumed that would be the best way to catch him. I watched his place for three days, and when he didn’t show, I decided to get a little more aggressive.
I broke into his place. There was an altar to Lamashtu, with a photo of the school next to a calendar.
A date was circled in red. It was that exact fucking day.
When I saw it was eleven in the morning, right in the middle of the school day, I freaked out.
“I sprinted to my car and slammed the gas, trying to get to the school. On the way, I called the alpha and told him what was happening. He said he’d call some of his pack on the police force and tell them to get their asses there.”
Declan’s eyes brimmed with tears. The muscles in his jaw rippled as he clenched his teeth.
“I was first on the scene. I didn’t even bother putting my car into park.
I skidded to a stop and jumped out, let the damned thing roll,” he said, his voice tight and thick.
“First thing I saw was the principal. The guy was right inside the front door, his throat slit. Blood everywhere. I yanked my gun out and barreled inside. Found two security guys dead in the hall. They’d been blasted with a spell.
That’s…that’s when I heard the screams.”
I put a hand on his thigh and squeezed gently. “Declan, you don’t need to keep going. You can stop.”
“I need to say it. I haven’t told this story out loud before. I need to get it out.”
Nodding, I kept my hand on him. “Okay.”