Catch Me When I Fall (27 page)

Nodding, I held up two fingers to my team. Samantha and Lucca sprinted across the yard. We paused to make sure the coast was clear, then I opened the window a little further to make sure we could all fit. After helping Samantha through the window, Lucca pulled himself up, and I followed.

The four of us stood, invisible, in the dark bedroom that smelled like it hadn’t been used, or cleaned, in years. I scrunched my nose at the stench and followed Lian into the hall. Straight ahead past two other doors, two witches sat in a living room, whispering.

We stepped back into the shadows in case anyone’s nerves forced them to accidentally go corporeal. Our visible state was natural. Staying invisible took effort. In the middle of the night when your charge is sleeping, no big deal if you went corporeal for a minute or two. But when trying to take down a coven of witches—different story.

“What do we do?” Lucca asked, his dark hair falling into his face.

“We’ll have to sneak up on them,” I replied. “Luckily, they can’t see us, so only go corporeal when you’re close enough to take them down. And remember, one of them needs to get back to Giovanni. Are we ready?”

They nodded, and we snuck back down the hall. But when we got close to the living room, both witches were gone.
Great
.

“Cover me,” I mouthed to Lian and crept around the corner—and into the line of sight of one of the four. “Shit,” I said as the witch threw a bag of powder on me. My skin burned, and I groaned. The sack must’ve been infused with magic.

“We can feel you, dumbass,” the witch said and slammed me into the wall before I had a chance to react. I looked at my arms when I fell to the ground. My skin glowed.

Lian turned the corner, going corporeal, and shot the witch between the eyes. I swore when the loud
boom
from the gun shook the room.
So much for being stealthy.
From the kitchen came the other three Magus
—
the young witch I had seen in the window, and two others, a warlock and another witch.

Lian tried to shoot them, but the warlock flung her into the wall opposite me before she had the chance to squeeze the trigger. Her head hit the wall, and she fell to the floor, unconscious. I jumped up to fight, but he was too strong. His hand pointed in my direction, and white-hot pain covered me from head to toe, like I’d stepped into a furnace. I fell to my knees.

Before I had the chance to warn him not to, Lucca threw a blade, revealing his location. The older witch stopped the knife in midair, and with a twist of her hand, the dagger spun around and landed in Lucca’s stomach.

“No!” Samantha screamed, her resolve to stay invisible breaking. The older witch blasted her with a burst of air. Samantha flew down the hall until I could no longer see her.

“You people just don’t know when to quit,” the warlock said. “Here we were, enjoying a nice summer night, when five of you stained our floors with magic blood. I thought I made it very clear when I let those Protectors return that our fight was not with your kind. And yet, a few hours later, four more show up. Do you have any idea how insulting that is?”

“You made it your fight when you used Nightmares to attack humans,” I replied. The pain in my body intensified. I bent forward and gasped. With every ounce of energy I could muster, I placed my finger on my gun’s trigger as he spoke and tipped the gun upward.

“So, that’s what this is about?” he teased. “You think we’re the ones running the show?” He laughed. “You fools. You have no idea how deep the pool of shit is you’ve stepped into. Not just Nightmares are on his side. And as soon as he gets his hands on the three Magus you’re harboring, you’re going to wish you’d followed him when you had the chance.”

“We’ll see about that.” I pressed my gun’s trigger. The bullet went straight through the warlock’s head.

The older witch screamed and held her hands out to attack, but from behind me, another shot rang out and a bullet hole smoked between the witch’s eyes. I snapped my head around. Samantha stared straight ahead, her eyes hard.

Alone now, the young witch I’d seen in the window ran.

I nodded Samantha my thanks and pointed at Lian. “Get her and Lucca back to Rome. I’m going after the girl.”

I jumped up from the floor, the pain in my body gone with the death of the warlock, and sprinted through the house. The front door swung open as I rounded the corner from the kitchen into the front room. The girl ran across the porch and down the steps. She stopped when my team stepped out of the cornfield, corporeal, guns pointed at her head.

“Please, don’t hurt me!” she screamed when I barreled out the front door. She sobbed. “They kidnapped me and brought me here. I swear I’m not one of them.”

I crossed the front yard to where she stood, but when I got closer, I stopped cold. Finally, I recognized her face. Adelynn Rudolf, the witch who had been taken from her bed in Seattle.

Dropping my gun, I walked toward her slowly. “Adelynn, yeah? I saw your picture on the news. I’m a friend. I won’t hurt you. But, I need you to come with me. We have someone who can help you.”

She nodded and walked toward me, her gloved hands outstretched like she wanted a hug. Then, I remembered what Bartholomew said about her abilities—her touch killed her boyfriend.

Standing perfectly still, I watched her every movement. If I grabbed her clothes instead of her skin, I could get us both back to Rome. But if I slipped and touched her skin, I was going to die.

When Adelynn closed in on me, her eyes squinted. “You really should’ve let me go.” She leapt on me, knocking me to the ground. I flipped her over, careful to avoid skin-to-skin contact. With a leg on each side of her and my hands pinned to her upper arms, I evaporated to Rome.

We landed on the floor in the room designated as her holding cell where Trishna waited.

“
Manus in manu tua alligo
!” Trishna yelled. And just in time. Adelynn kneed me between the legs. My arms weakened beneath me, and I sucked in air, the throbbing pain radiating from my groin to my stomach. Adelynn grabbed my face and smashed her lips against mine.

But nothing happened.

Adelynn jostled me off her with a scream. I squeezed my eyes closed and winced. Any further movement, I would vomit on the floor.

“No! You should be dead!” Adelynn turned around to Trishna. “What did you do to me?” She ran at her, poised to attack, but Trishna held up her hands, freezing Adelynn.

“Sit.” She moved a hand to her left, forcing Adelynn into a chair. “Daniel, can you move? I have to put a gate over the doorway, and you need to be on the other side.”

Nodding, I turned onto my stomach and pushed myself up with a grunt. I bent over, nauseous, and then walked out the door.

y the time I reached the grand foyer, the pain in my stomach and groin had mostly subsided, but the shock hit me at how easily Adelynn could’ve taken my life. I should’ve known better than to leave myself open to attack like that. If Trishna had waited one more second to perform her spell, I’d be floating in eternal blackness. Never another thought, another smell, another sound—never another anything.

Kayla’s voice was the first thing I heard when I stepped into the foyer, and I turned to her just in time to catch her in my arms as she flung herself at me. I held her tight, burying my face in her hair, taking in the strawberry smell of her shampoo and the feel of her body in my arms. After a minute, I pulled away and lifted her face, staring into her beautiful, hazel eyes. The bottoms of them were filled with tears. I kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips. The others were watching, but I didn’t care.

“When Sam came back with Lian and Lucca, I was worried. But then when Seth appeared and told us Adelynn attacked you, I thought that meant she touched you, that you were dead. Daniel, I don’t know what I would do—” Her words turned into cries, and she gripped the back of my shirt.

It wasn’t surprising that Kayla knew what Adelynn was capable of. I squeezed her tight and kissed the top of her head. “I’m all right. There was a moment where I thought I was in trouble, but Trishna saved my life.”

Kayla nodded and looked up at me. “Seems she’s good at that.”

I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. Behind her, a body was covered with a blanket, and Samantha stood with a hand over her mouth. Lian sat on the ground next to the body, her hand on his chest. Her eyes were red, and her black hair fell in wisps around her round face. Lucca had been her understudy, her partner.

After kissing Kayla’s forehead, I stepped away. “Give me a second.”

Kayla nodded and squeezed my hand before I walked over to Samantha and Lian. “You both all right?” I asked.

Lian nodded but didn’t look at me. Samantha shook her head.

I glanced down at the body of my comrade who had come so far—from an Italian farm boy to one of the Protectors’ best Catchers. Going up against witches was nothing like fighting Nightmares, and we’d been unprepared. Before we even went in the house, I should’ve warned him not to throw his dagger. I’d seen Alex in Bartholomew’s office, and I knew what they were capable of. Yet, I’d neglected it. I was his leader, and I failed him. My fists clenched.

“Where’s Giovanni?” I asked.

“He and the others went to search the house. He asked me to send you as soon as you had handled Adelynn,” Samantha replied.

I nodded. “Thank you both for your hard work today. Tell the others tomorrow’s practice is not mandatory.”

Leaving the two of them, my chest aching, I returned to Kayla. “I’m sorry. I have to go back to clean up our mess. I’ll come find you as soon as I get home, okay?”

She nodded. “Be careful.”

I touched her cheek then evaporated to the house.

My team wandered through the rooms, collecting everything they felt could be evidence in finding this warlock. Tonight had been our first real breakthrough. We weren’t leaving anything behind.

In what appeared to be a study, I sat at their computer. The screen was black, like it hadn’t been used in hours. Yet, when I moved the mouse, the monitor sprung to life. I nearly laughed when I saw it wasn’t password protected. With as many people as there were in the house, I understood. But still…
idiots
.

Their home screen was as normal as any other—icons for their web browser, one of those role-playing games, and other things like that. But in their Documents, I noticed something weird. There were no folders. I adjusted the settings until all the hidden folders were forced to show. My pulse raced.

There was security footage, visitor logs, background checks and more. I tried opening a file and, when it turned out to be encrypted, searched frantically through the desk for some way to save all of this information without pulling out the hard drive. Eventually, I had to resort to returning to my room in Rome to grab my own USB drive.

When I returned to the coven’s house, Giovanni sat at the desk.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He jumped out of the chair and spun around to look at me. “Oh, I was just looking to see what was on here.”

“The files are encrypted.”

Giovanni’s eyes stayed locked with mine. “
Sì
, I figured that out right before you walked in. So, get what you can, and let me know what you find.” He ran from the room without another word.