Hex and the Single Witch (Vehicle City Vampires) (33 page)

After a few
moments discussing the strangeness of the fires and the magick, Malone went
upstairs; probably to change out of his soot covered fairy-dust-sprinkled
clothing.

I really could
use a change of clothes myself. I felt very dirty. I made a mental note to
bring a change of clothes to the station to leave here for emergencies.

The rest of the
crew dispersed throughout the building, many probably heading home for the
night. The only ones left in Mel’s workspace were me, her, and Galen, who just
kind of hung around the outskirts like a shadow.

Mel had
photographed everything at the scenes, but even she couldn’t find a thread to
lead us to the source of the fires and other mayhem. Although, she did manage
to unravel all of the new bindings Devlin had placed on me once she got a good
image of Devlin’s magickal signature, thanks to the mess at the clearing.

“I don’t feel
any different. Are you sure you got all the bindings off me?” I asked Mel.

“Just the new
ones. Devlin’s magick was a clear line to follow. It was the same signature for
all the bindings on you and the wacky spells that hit the station. It’s off
though, well not really off, just different than I expected. I thought Devlin’s
magick would be tainted by Roark’s, but there’s absolutely no sign of demon
magick at all. I guess the guest of honor didn’t even bother to show up.”

“Well that’s a
good thing right?”

Mel shrugged.
She didn’t really understand the whole thing yet, and I could see it confused
the hell out of her trying to untangle the threads.

And with that
tidbit of inner knowledge suddenly I knew my basic “knowing” powers were back.

I tugged at my
torn and sooty shirt.

“I have some
clothes if you want to change,” Mel said. She eyed my destroyed outfit. If
things kept going like this I was going to need a whole new wardrobe.

“That would be
great.” I took off my shirt and shrugged out of my jeans. Galen had seen me
naked so I wasn’t exactly feeling shy at this point. As long as no one else
walked into Mel’s room.

“Hey where did
your locket come from?” Mel asked, handing me a dark blue set of sweats.

“My mother gave
it to me. My father had given it to her. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah, it is but
it’s also magickal, I can see the energy surrounding it. Is it your mom’s
magick? Can I take a photo of it?”

“Yes it is my
mom’s magick, she added a protection spell to it.”

“Maybe that’s
what saved your ass tonight in the blast.”

“Could be,” I
replied as I pulled on the warm, fuzzy, sweats.

“You know I
don’t have your mom’s magick signature on file. This would be a great addition
to my database. Then I can figure out which of our wards and magick protections
in the vault are ones your mom made. I know she had some amazingly powerful
stuff. I would love to be able to unravel and then duplicate her protective
shields, wards, and amulets.”

“Of course, Mel.
Anything you want, why would I mind?”

As Mel
photographed my locket a familiar tingle coursed through me. Finally! All of my
powers were coming back. I wanted to do the Snoopy happy dance. Having my
powers back meant I would know a lot of what was going on around me again. It
wouldn’t be anything useful for the long haul, nothing seemed to tell me who or
what was hexing Flint. At least not yet.

As I stood there
in Mel’s sweat pants and my bra while she photographed the locket, Mike came
back downstairs.

I felt weird
standing there in my bra with Mike and Galen both in the room. So I hurried Mel
along then slipped the sweatshirt over my head.

Being covered up
didn’t help. At that moment, I wasn’t real thrilled about having my powers
back. I knew way too much about what was going on inside Mike and Galen. Of
course, they were projecting so hard I probably could have read them without my
powers.

Mike seethed
underneath his cop-face. I could feel waves of anger flowing from him as Galen
moved in close by my side. He wanted Galen away from me. Far away from me. He
very much wanted to grab Galen and stake him, or at least turn him in to the
proper authorities, letting them know of the role he played in all the murders.

At least the
case was closed. Devlin had officially been arrested by the P.I.T Crew then
turned over to the Guardians, which had become standard practice for dealing
with violent Others in Flint and surrounding areas. The Guardians were better
equipped to deal with rogue supernaturals. However, I didn’t know what they
were going to do to him.

Galen acted like
my personal shadow. Where I moved he moved. A little annoying, especially since
Mike’s eyes were on us at all times. To make matters worse, Galen was not
shielding. I could feel the shame and fear flowing from him along with intense
jealousy every time he eyed Mike.

The two men
wanted to rip each other apart, and it was all because of me.

I made an
executive decision that was probably going to bite me in the ass later.

“Galen, let’s go
to VAMP. After this crazy night I could use a drink, and I think you need to
relax and recharge.”

“What? You
aren’t…” Mike started, his anger building, but I interrupted him.

“You aren’t
really going to try and tell me what to do, are you Mike?” I stood there hands
on my hips with the best bitch-witch expression I could muster, daring him to
challenge me.

He sputtered
with disbelief but quickly recovered and matched my bitch-witch with his
cop-face. “No, but we’ll talk later.” He then stormed away grumbling.

I knew he was
pissed beyond belief thinking I had just chosen Galen over him, but Galen had
been through a lot. I needed to talk to him, clear the air before I fell apart.

After leaving
the station, Galen and I walked silently down Saginaw Street until we reached
VAMP. The club was open and filled with people dressed in all sorts of fun
costumes, along with Goth, Steampunk, and Emo attire.

We made our way
through the smoke filled room, oblivious to the crowd. We pushed past the dance
floor overflowing with bodies and made our way to the stairs. Galen led me up
to the apartment. Thankfully, no other vampires were hanging out up there. We
had the place to ourselves.

Galen still
moved like a predator, but when he turned and looked into my eyes I could see
the haunted shadow, the darting gaze of someone who knew what it was to be the
hunted prey. It was like he expected Devlin or Roark to pop out of the walls
and grab him at any moment. I understood, hell they had been doing just that
for weeks. Taunting him, tormenting him, teleporting in and grabbing him even
when he thought he was in a safe zone. He probably no longer felt safe
anywhere.

I put my arms
around him. At first he stood there just letting me hold him like he wasn’t
sure what he should do, then he wrapped his arms around me and put everything
into it. I gave him all the comfort I could, shoving feelings of safety and
love into him to combat the fear. I knew he was safe, at least for now. Until
Roark decided to come back and play in this dimension again.

“Thank you,
Anwyn. Thank you for allowing me this time with you. I know after what you saw
tonight you should not even want to touch me. It was disgusting what I had to
do. And you had to watch…” His green eyes filled with tears as he struggled to
regain his composure.

“It was hard to
watch. It turned my stomach and made me feel ill. I won’t lie to you Galen, but
I understand you did what you had to do to get away from him, so you never have
to do it again.” I held onto his hands, even as he tried to make me let go.

“Anwyn, there
may always be a next time. I am a vampire and a demon. A demon-vampire that
loves sex and blood, bloody sex. It is what I am, how I was made. It may not
always be like what you witnessed, but I do crave blood and sex together. And I
know that is not what you really want. You do not want to be food.” His eyes
were still shadowed but the darting gaze of the prey was gone as he
strengthened his resolve and let the predator in him find its way out.

“No matter what
you think of yourself I know your heart is still pure. You may have shadows on
your soul and your past holds things you are ashamed of, but you don’t have to
be the bad guy you think yourself to be.” I kissed his knuckles as I looked
into his eyes.

He struggled to
let me go. “Do not do this now, Anwyn. I will want you and I cannot make love
to you tonight, not after what you have seen me do, not after what I have done.
I need time, Anwyn. I understand it if you go to your cop. Perhaps he is the
better man. He is the man I cannot be. The man I will never be again. I know he
will take good care of you and with him you will never become food.”

My breath caught
in my throat. I couldn’t believe Galen was brushing me off and sending me
straight to Mike. He looked like it was killing him to do so. His green eyes
were filled with tears and his face contorted as if in pain. His whole body
radiated remorse.

“Galen, you
don’t…”

“I do,” he
interrupted. His eyes searched mine as he took a ragged breath then said, “I
need time to get over the events of the past several weeks, months even. I need
to be able to trust myself, by myself, before I can trust myself with you.”

“That makes no
damn sense, Galen.” I pulled him into my arms and put my head on his chest. I
tried to convince him to change his mind; he couldn’t be saying what it sounded
like he was saying.

“It makes
perfect sense, Anwyn. You are not dense! You know what I mean.” He shook off my
embrace and turned his back to me. “Please leave, Anwyn.”

My heart hit the
floor and he stomped on it. Not really but it sure felt like.

“Fine.” I
stormed from the room refusing to let him know how much he had hurt me. I had
offered to let go of all the misery and pain, let go of the things I witnessed,
let go of the pain he had caused so I could be with him. But it wasn’t enough
for him.

Tears fell
before I was halfway down the stairs, so once again I ran out of VAMP with
tears in my eyes. This time I ran straight to the P.I.T crew’s building and
grabbed my car so I could go home. I didn’t want to deal with any more crap. I
just couldn’t take it. It would be just my luck to run into Mike and have him
reject me, too.

Wouldn’t that be
just what I deserved?

Chapter 41

I was heading
home when my cell phone started playing, “Witchy Woman.” It was Mel.

“Satinka wants
us to interrogate Devlin. They’re getting nowhere with him. He just keeps
babbling like an idiot.”

“What are we
supposed to do, interpret the babble?” I asked sarcastically.

“No Wyn, she
wants us to use our powers to see if we get any readings from him. Your vision
abilities are coming back and I have persuasion spells I can use.”

“Right, of
course.” I sniffled.

“You okay, hun?
What happened, did Galen hurt you?”

“Not physically,”
I mumbled.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well then,
we’ll talk later. Meet me at Satinka’s so we can deal with Devlin first.”

“On my way.”

“See you in a
few.”

I hung up first.
Mel understood. She always did. It was good to have a bestie who knew me so
well.

*****

The Guardian’s
prison area turned out to be an old bomb shelter behind Satinka’s mansion.
Built with no expense spared, the concrete underground structure was encased in
layers of lead, steel, and iron and decorated liberally with traces of
silver—ingrained in the concrete. Apparently, the designer wanted to make sure
nothing got into that bunker.

Lucky for us it
helped make sure nothing could get out—or use devious magick to manipulate
anyone into letting them out. Thanks to the iron, steel and silver, most fae,
were, and vampire powers would be nil.

But witches
could still do their thing.

Yay for us, I
thought sarcastically.

Devlin sat at a
table in a small room that very much looked like an interrogation room at the
precinct. His eyes were glazed as he stared blankly into space.

“We haven’t been
able to get a coherent word out of him since we brought him in. He mumbles
constantly about Roark, wanting him, needing him to come back.” Troy filled us
in while we observed Devlin through the mirror.

“He has
seriously flipped the fuck out hasn’t he?” Mel readied her camera.

“Will that work
down here with all the silver and stuff?” I asked.

She smiled a
wicked grin. “Yup, still works.” She winked at me. “The wonders of modern
technology enhanced with magick. Got to love it.”

We walked into
the interrogation room. Devlin’s eyes instantly focused on me. He didn’t seem
out of it anymore. In fact, he looked pretty in control all the sudden.
Probably not good. Had he been playing crazy possum on everyone?