Chapter Seventeen
Pierre surveyed the dilapidated building from down the street.
Dogpatch was indeed a mix of industrial and residential, as Annabelle had described.
At the other end was a row of million-dollar condos with water views.
This end had yet to be gentrified. A few abandoned dock warehouses remained, surrounded by chain-link fencing with Keep Out signs at intervals, faced off with disused mooring points and wharfs jutting into the San Francisco Bay.
Except for a stray dog picking through rubbish, the place appeared deserted.
Melinda’s unease tickled his senses. They’d done an online search on the address before they’d left the penthouse, and dug into the sale records.
The building was listed as owned by a Robert King.
A man who, he’d discovered with a little digging, had died in nineteen seventy-six and whose sudden resurrection this morning didn’t come as a surprise.
According to Annabelle, Cordelia didn’t have a husband.
Lots of family, who she ruled over with ruthless authority, but no husband.
It was a running joke in the coven she’d mated with the devil himself, and her progeny were the spawn of hell.
The Robert King identity was flimsy—a rush job. He’d cracked it in minutes. By silent agreement between him, his twin and Gabe, they hadn’t told Melinda. There was a chance Cordelia would be there. A small chance, but they had nothing else to go on.
Melinda peered through the car’s windscreen. “Are we sure this is the building?”
The satellite view hadn’t come close to conveying the emptiness, the abandoned air that hung over the four warehouses in front of them. She flipped open her laptop and double checked the address. “This is it. The address she gave me.”
If she’d wanted to call a halt to this, to turn around and go back to the penthouse suite, he wouldn’t have blamed her.
Instead, she squared her shoulders and stepped out of the car.
She might be slight, and barely reach their shoulders, but their little mate had courage and determination packed into that tiny body of hers.
The crisp bay air hit him as he stepped out onto the bitumen, and Pierre opened up his senses.
No hint of a ward, but there was something else.
A slight deadening of sensation he’d come to associate with the presence of wolfsbane.
Faucherians? Maybe. But Cordelia had to know of their weaknesses, too.
Wolfsbane, the curse of their existence.
An herb with a pretty purple flower, it had a devastating impact on werewolves.
Unlike humans, they didn’t have to ingest it to feel its effects.
In small doses, it dulled their senses, neutralizing the advantage they had over humans.
In larger quantities, it took away any control they had over their form.
They would continue to shift from human to wolf and back again until they escaped the presence of the herb.
Or until their body used up all energy and they died.
The warehouse was a trap. Of course it was. They’d known it would be. The only one who thought differently was Melinda.
He uncuffed the leather band from around his wrist, flipped it over and reattached it, putting the silver wolf against his skin.
It burned, no more than one of Louis’ hot trays fresh from the oven, but a burn and a blistering of skin all the same.
It wouldn’t heal until he turned the cuff back over.
Silver, another threat to his kind. Silver restraints, though softer and weaker than steel, would bind their wolves, incapacitating them. It’d happened to Ulrik Voclain, Laurent’s ancestor. The small amount on their cuffs, however, counteracted the effects of wolfsbane.
Pierre tested his senses. He grinned. As sharp as ever.
Louis rounded the car, his cuff inverted, too. “Let’s do this.”
In a car tucked into an alleyway down the street, waited Gabe and Annabelle.
Invisible to him except for their scent were members of Annabelle’s coven, hidden around the abandoned dock.
They hadn’t told Melinda about them, and he hoped she’d have no need to ever find out they’d been there, but he was glad they were.
If they were to encounter Cordelia, if she turned up in person, they were going to need them.
Would she, though? Or had she sent the Faucherians in alone? Like she had in London.
His phone vibrated. Gabe.
Annabelle says there are no wards she can detect.
He sent a thumbs-up emoji.
Be careful in there. It’s a trap.
He snorted. Way to state the obvious, brother. He turned to Melinda. “Are you ready?”
She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans and nodded.
“Glad you hired us on as bodyguards now?” teased Louis.
Pierre punched his brother on the arm. Louis feigned an injury.
“Knock it off, tête de noeud.” Pierre scowled at his twin. “Can you not be serious for once?”
Melinda jerked her head at the warehouse. “Let’s get this over with. If my client’s in that building, I don’t want her to have to hide here for any longer than is necessary. I want to get her somewhere safe.”
The only safe place for Cordelia was six feet under.
Safe for everyone else, that was. This witch may have messed with his ancestors, but her time was fast running out.
The Langeais wolves were not tenth-century chevaliers anymore.
They’d adapted well over the centuries. One little old lady, no matter how powerful, would not prevail against them.
Melinda took a few steps toward the building.
Pierre grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the shadows. “Wait.”
The chain-link gate hung open, making a mockery of the security fence and its Keep Out signs. An open invitation.
Pierre pulled a pair of bolt cutters from the backpack slung over his shoulder and handed them to Louis. “We go in the back way. No point announcing our presence.”
Understanding flickered in her eyes. “You think this is a trap?”
His nostrils flared at her innocence. How had she survived this long with clients like Cordelia?
It made him want to scoop her up and take her far away from here.
Keep her safe, protected. But their determined little mate would never allow it.
“I think it’s wise to take precautions. Anyone could be watching us, from inside the building or out. ”
Flanking Melinda, they crossed the deserted dock two warehouses down from their target. With a snick of the bolt cutters, Louis cut a hole in the security fencing, peeled the wire back and crawled through.
“You think her husband might be tailing me to get to my client?”
Pierre helped Melinda through the hole. No. No one had followed them, of that he was sure. Their greatest danger lay inside the warehouse. “It’s always a possibility.” Pierre pulled himself through the gap in the fence. “We’ll get you to your client, Melinda. Trust us.”
Melinda surveyed their surroundings, peering into the shadows as though what hid in them might reveal itself to her.
She didn’t have their eyesight, their hearing or their sense of smell.
She couldn’t know what lay in wait inside the building.
Yet, had they not been on hand, she would have attempted this on her own.
Had they not targeted her to get to Cordelia, perhaps she wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.
Then they would not have met their mate.
“Come on. Let’s go find this client of yours. I hope she’s worth it.”
The passion of her crusade burned in her eyes. It was a shame, in this instance, it was misplaced. It was going to hurt when she discovered the truth.
With Louis leading the way and Pierre bringing up the rear, the three of them crept from building to building, the bolt cutters making quick work of the security fencing, until they came to the one they wanted.
At the door, Louis paused and held his finger to his lips.
He tested the knob, then gave a wrench, the snapping of the lock an explosion of sound in the dead air.
The scent of disused warehouse, damp, and animal feces hit him, but no humans.
Strange. Witchcraft? He sent off a quick text to Gabe, alerting him, before following Louis and Melinda into the dark and silent warehouse.
He kneeled beside Melinda, hidden behind a stack of empty steel barrels, scanning the interior.
Above them, muted light filtered through the grimy windows, revealing a large, almost empty space.
At the other end of the building, a staircase led to an office on a mezzanine level.
A rusty shutter banged in the breeze whipped up off the bay.
A bird flapped, disturbed from its roost, before settling.
Again, no sign of any humans. But they were there.
The low hum tickling his senses confirmed his suspicions.
Witchcraft. The old witch, or one of her many descendants?
Louis turned to him, a wicked grin on his face.
He pointed to a space darker than the rest of the warehouse, almost impenetrable to their enhanced vision.
Almost, but not quite. There, hidden within the swirls of inky darkness, he caught the hint of white hair.
The old witch had come. Stupid or supremely arrogant and confident in her own power.
Now honed in on her, it was hard to miss the tap of the rubber tipped cane on the cement floor and the slide of aged feet.
Hatred blazed in a pair of eyes—one blue, one green.
Cordelia had the gift of second sight. Had she foreseen this moment? Chosen Melinda because she knew it would lead them to this point? Had this trap been months in the making? With wolfsbane in play, this trap wasn’t for Melinda alone.