Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
On Monday morning, Ronan headed out after breakfast to meet with Mason. They’d decided to take on some of the more dangerous pack requests, which I took to mean anything that involved the names of the wolves I’d given Mason.
I hoped it also included anything having to do with Dickie and Brenda Doogan. I could not stomach another trip to the poop pool.
Esperanza was meeting Dylan at the pack bar and Antonio was at preschool, which meant the house was quiet for the first time in two days.
My big plans were to hang out in the garden room lending magic to the plants, listen to music, and make charms. Perhaps I’d round out the morning with a little skinny dip into the soil, since Antonio wouldn’t be around.
A nice day.
A quiet day.
I hung up the dishtowel I’d been using to dry the breakfast dishes and peered out the kitchen window at the empty space where my friend Joon had once parked his transit van.
The Pachecos’ trailer would soon be claiming that space.
It was a nice spot, and even with her three-bedroom single-wide, she’d have enough land left for a little garden and a swing set.
Did kids still play on swing sets? I’d have to ask. Wasn’t that what good landlords did?
The conversation Ronan and I’d had in bed last night ran through my mind.
“Coven Mother Betty, Pack Alpha Betty, Travel Witch Betty, Landlady Betty,” I ticked off the names on my fingers. “Getting tired of collecting so many titles. I’d like to be regular Betty for once.”
“Each with their own set of responsibilities, too,” he said. “I don’t blame you.”
I threw myself back on the bed and pulled the covers to my chin. “And I can’t resign from a single damn one.”
“Maybe we should start calling you Madame Responsable.” He slapped a terrible French accent on the words.
“You’re so strange.” The man had a talent for making me feel light when I was being crushed by life. “Also, that would be Mademoiselle since I’m an unmarried lady.”
“Ah, but Mademoiselle Responsable doesn’t carry the same sense of foreboding as Madame Responsable.”
“Explain.
“The Madame is a formidable woman. She resides in a damp stone castle on a moor where it’s always almost winter.
Icy winds whistle through her dark rooms with enough force to rock the bubbling iron cauldron that hangs in the fireplace.
She has a murder of crows to do her bidding and armed turrets to protect herself.
There are many brooms in her closet. No one trifles with Madame Responsable. ”
I’d laughed, but it had sounded pretty good.
Not that it would matter.
Even if Coven Mother Betty, Pack Alpha Betty, Travel Witch Betty, and Landlady Betty disappeared tomorrow, regular Betty, a.k.a.
Madame Responsable, would still care about Bronwyn and Margaux, Esperanza, Antonio, Dylan, and Dr. Marrakchi, the elder beta shifters and their arthritis, my tenants, my partners, my bestie, Rory, and Ronan—even grumpy-ass Mason.
It wasn’t as if I’d stop just because my titles went away.
I’d just turned away from the window when I was bowled over by a sensation of fear so strong it stole my breath and sent me to my knees on the tile floor.
A vision flooded into my head: The garden room. A salt ring. Three women chanting…
The coven.
A feeling like a too-tight hug squeezed me right around the ribcage.
My witches need me.
The fear didn’t lessen, but it stabilized, and I was able to move again. I grabbed my stuff and stumbled out the door to the garden room to alert Cecil and Fennel.
“We need to get to La Paloma. I’m not sure where. You’ll have to trust me.”
They apparently did, goddess bless them, and five minutes later, we were reversing out of the parking lot.
My partners had settled into their seats and were peering attentively through the back windows.
I switched on KLXX, and “It Keeps You Running” by The Doobie Brothers blasted through the speakers.
If that didn’t describe how I felt right now, I didn’t know what did.
My cell phone rang the second it connected to the Mini. “The coven bonds have been disturbed. What’s happening?”
“I don’t know any more than you do, Margaux.”
“But you’re all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if I’m okay and you’re okay…” She let the words twist in the wind.
“We need to call Bronwyn.”
Margaux added Bronwyn to the call—or, rather, tried to add her.
“She’s not answering.” Panic gilded the edges of her words. Fabric rustled in the background, the sound of someone hurriedly dressing. “I’ll drive to her house. Can you go to Wicked?”
“On my way.” The fear-hug squeezed harder, the pain radiating up to my neck and down my arms. I breathed through it and got onto the highway leading out of Smokethorn. “Be careful, Margaux. Don’t take any chances. If anything looks suspicious, call me and we’ll go in together.”
“Yes, Coven Mother.” She ended the call.
“It Keeps You Running” segued into “China Grove,” and though I loved the song, the vibe was too happy for how I was feeling, so I turned off the radio. Guess even the empaths at KLXX weren’t perfect.
The drive to Wicked felt five times as long as usual. I tried to call Ronan and Mason, but both calls went to voicemail. My guess was they’d turned their phones off or were out of range. I couldn’t imagine another reason they wouldn’t answer. Didn’t want to imagine it.
Something is wrong. Very wrong.
I went back to voice-dialing Bronwyn. “You have reached Wicked after hours. Leave a message…” I texted her a voice message then voice-texted her a text message.
Nothing. I made more calls.
“Don’t leave a voicemail. I won’t respond.” Gods, Mason was such a grump.
“This is Ronan. Leave a message.”
I glanced briefly at my phone at a stoplight. My messages were unread. Bronwyn was either choosing not to pick up her cell or wasn’t able to.
Both worried me.
I parked on the street in front of Wicked and ran to the glass door through the recessed alcove leading up to it.
It was markedly cooler here, in the shade, surrounded on three sides by plate glass windows.
Through the right window, behind a display of beaded mood jewelry, I spotted a dim light.
Her work lamp, the one she kept on the counter.
Fennel sniffed at the door. He sat down, tail swishing.
“Locked?”
He nodded. “Meow?”
“Let me try calling one last time before we break and enter,” I said, as I did exactly that. “It’s ringing.”
Fennel batted at the glass with his paws. Paced two steps down and back.
I squatted down to his level and pressed my face to the glass door. A pale rectangle of light pulsed on the floor between the first and second aisles. The chest-gripping feeling climbed on top of me and knocked the breath out of my lungs.
“Open it.” I pressed my palm to my chest and panted through the pain. “I don’t know if she’s in there, but I have to check. I feel her fear like it’s flowing through my bloodstream. We have to find her.”
Fennel went to work on the door.
Crunch.
If Cecil hadn’t chittered a warning through the back passenger window of the Mini, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the sound of a footstep on the dusty cement. Might’ve thought the sound had been made by me.
I swiveled on the ball of one foot and jumped to my feet, intention mingling with my magic. Three figures dressed in plain clothing—T-shirts, shorts, running shoes—stood an arm’s length behind me. How they’d gotten so close without me noticing was a testament to how worried I was about Bronwyn.
“Where is she? What did you do with her?”
The male in the middle held up a gun. I didn’t know a tremendous amount about guns, but this one was a good deal larger than the one Esperanza had used to shoot Beeble Gumbo in the elbows and knees.
“Don’t make a scene, demon. There are humans around.”
If that was true, I sure didn’t see any. “I asked you a question, and I expect an answer. Where is she?”
“Who?”
I looked from his face to the gun. He was tall, vaguely Slavic, and bald. No tattoos, minimal muscles, long limbs. His accent was American, somewhere to the east of the Mississippi, but not Boston or New York.
“Bronwyn Jonas.”
“The traitor? How would I know?” He gestured with the gun. “Open the door and go inside.”
I glanced at the woman to my left. Her gun was pointed at Fennel behind me. Beyond those three, another Org assassin stood outside my Mini. His weapon wasn’t out, but it was implied.
My brain shuffled through spells as if they were a deck of cards. The soil I’d stashed in my pocket before leaving tonight burned a hole in it, but if I reached for it, they’d shoot me. I knew they would.
Every choice was risky. Even if I took down the two threatening Fennel and me, the third could shoot one of us, and the fourth could kill Cecil. We were magical creatures, but these weren’t stupid people. They’d have accounted for magic.
I couldn’t risk my partners.
“Let my cat and gnome leave,” I said, “and I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Not how this works, demon.” Middleman’s upper lip curled. “Your minions go, too. Your lover. Your friends. We don’t just banish you, demon. We take a flamethrower to your life, make it so you never existed.”
Ronan was powerful. The pack was strong. Beau was resourceful. Ida had Meredith and Ronan. Fennel would probably be fine. I wasn’t sure Cecil could even be cast into Hades. I was pretty sure the Fae had their own version of the otherworlds.
I, of course, would be toast. Literally.
I stared hard at Middleman. “You’re going to regret this.”
“Do you think I haven’t heard that before?” He laughed, glanced at the assassins to his left and right. “We all have. Many times.” He laughed again, a cruel, heartless sound. “And I’m still here.”
Whomp.
Splat.
Blood spattered the windows. Middleman’s face went slack.
He crumpled.
One second his legs held his weight; the next, he hit the sidewalk, sputtering and gasping for breath. The gun skittered behind him. Within seconds, the two bookending assassins lay bloodied and dismembered beside him.