Chasing the Witch (Boston Witches) (10 page)

“I think that we should go at Sabine until she cracks, no matter what it takes to make that happen,” Nikolai said, vehemently. Katya turned to him and spoke softly in Russian; William hid a smile behind his coffee cup when he heard her words.

Finally she turned to everyone. “Please excuse him; he’s not been himself the past few days. I do agree that we need answers, but we do not have to go about it barbarically.” She turned to Jilly. “Do you think you could possibly whip up a truth serum of some sort when we get back to Boston?”

Jilly hesitated before answering. “I’m decent with potions. I’ll have to look through my grimoire and see if we have anything like that when we get home.” Katya nodded and turned back the right way in her seat.

William finally spoke up. “I do agree with Nik to an extent, but I think we should go with Kat’s plan and worry about it back in Boston. On to the next issue at hand, what are we going to do about Patrick? I cannot allow him to escape and impart his own particular brand of evil on this world.” No one spoke for a while.

Nikolai finally said what everyone was already thinking, “Will, what if we can’t do anything? What if the only solution is...”

William cut him off. “I’m not going there Nik, he’s my brother. Besides, I don’t even know if we can get close enough to do it. We need to come up with something else.” Everyone just looked at William, but no one said anything. The look on his face said it all.

Jilly broke the silence. “Okay, let’s shelve that topic for a while until we can come up with something better.” She turned to Katya. “Caroline and I have an appointment at Kleinfeld’s to look for dresses. Do you want to come with and find yours?”

Katya beamed at her. “I was hoping you’d ask me.”

Jilly smiled back. “Do you want to ride together, or meet us there?”

“I’ll have Nik drop me off on his way to get Will. What time should I be there?”

“The appointment is for 3:30, so by 3:15.” The boys were talking strategy for going back to Sabine’s place, no longer taking part in the conversation.

Katya kicked Nicolai’s foot and it jolted him to attention. “We should go, Nik, we have some errands to run before I go with Jilly and Caroline.” She waved goodbye and dragged Nikolai along with her.

Since the danger had seemingly evaporated, Jilly decided to make a day of shopping downtown before their appointment. Once the girls were dolled up, they said good-bye to William.

“Bye, love, have fun. Remember, what’s mine is yours. That goes for Caroline, too; so go nuts.” He kissed her, planted a kiss on Caroline’s cheek and sent them on their way.

“What did he mean by that?” Caroline asked when they were in the elevator.

Jilly smiled. “Well, you know how William’s pretty rich, right?”

“Yeah, so?” Caroline said.

“Well, he’s way richer than I thought. He wants to pay for the entire wedding, dresses and everything.”

Caroline got a huge smile on her face. “Oh, Jill, that’s great. You’ll get to have such an amazing wedding! That’s so exciting. But what did he mean about me?”

“He loves you like his own sister, Car. He wants to take care of you and not have you worry about money or anything at all, while you figure out what makes you happy.” Jilly stopped there, trying to gauge Caroline’s response to this news. She wasn’t sure if Caroline would be happy or offended that he would think she needed the help.

Caroline wiped away a tear from her eye. “Jill, he’s amazing. There are no other words I can use. He is probably the most loving, caring person I’ve ever met. For him to be concerned about my happiness and welfare is so sweet. He doesn’t have to do this. I have some money saved up.”

“Car, he knows that you’re independent; but he wants you to take some time and really figure out what you want in life. You can try and argue with him, but you won’t win; so you might as well enjoy it.” Jilly winked at Caroline as they hopped into a cab. She gave the driver the address and they were off. “Oh, and he said he added you to all of his accounts; so when we get back, he’s got all the cards and checkbooks and stuff like that for you.”

Caroline was taken aback by this. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously, both of us. But for starters, he gave me this.” Jilly pulled out her wallet, took out the card and handed it to Caroline.

“Wow, I’ve never actually seen one of these. That’s so cool! I can’t wait to find you a dress.”

William and Nikolai pulled up in front of Sabine’s hideout and jumped out of the car. Nikolai gave the driver instructions to pick them up in two hours. William removed the spell barring the door and they entered cautiously.

“I’ll take the upstairs, if you want to look around on this floor, and we can do the basement together,” William said as he headed to the stairs. The first room he came across looked like an office. There were piles of papers on the top of the small desk in the corner, along with a very new looking laptop sitting on the chair. He opened the laptop first and tried to see what he could get from it, but it was password protected. He set it aside for one of Nik’s people to examine. He grabbed a stack of papers and sat down on the chaise lounge that was against one of the walls. They all looked like blueprints of some sort of machine, but he could not make any sense of the drawings. Thinking Nik might do better with them, he put them with the laptop and moved on. Thirty minutes later, he had gone through the desk and all of the papers on top and had yet to find anything useful.

William moved on to the next room down the hall. It appeared to be Sabine’s bedroom. Pictures of Caroline and Katya were plastered all over the walls. Seeing them made his blood boil. How could she have gotten this close without them knowing? He tore down all the photos in a rage and threw them on the floor. In addition to the ones of Katya and Caroline, there were several of another girl William didn’t know. She looked to be about fourteen. She had long black hair and green eyes with a haunted look about them. In every photo, she looked nervous. William felt protective of her, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. Maybe it was just because Sabine wanted her for something or maybe because she looked so fragile. He wanted to find her and see if he and Jilly could help her. He grabbed one of her pictures off the wall and set it with the collection he was saving before continuing his search of the room. After an hour of searching the top floor and being no closer to an explanation, he grabbed what he had found and headed back down the stairs to find Nik.

Jilly and Caroline had just dropped off all of their shopping bags at the hotel and were now headed over to Kleinfeld’s. When the cab pulled up, Katya was waiting out front for them. She waved as they got out.

“How was your shopping?” she asked, as they walked into the store.

“It was great. I had forgotten how amazing the stores were in New York,” Jilly said.

“I’m so excited for you to try on dresses, Jill,” Caroline said as they gave their name to the receptionist.

“I know. I feel like this is all real, now. I’m actually going to get married! It just hit me this morning; I haven’t had a chance to really think about it and be excited with everything that’s happened.”

“I know. It’s been a crazy week,” Caroline replied.

Katya smiled. “I’m so pleased for you and William. It’s nice to actually see him smile and be happy. I’ve known William for a very long time and he’s been searching, always restless. Now he’s found you and he’s found a home. It does my heart good to see him finally at peace. I love him as if he was my own brother, and I love you just as much. It means a lot to me to be here with you and Caroline.” Jilly was touched and hugged Katya, tightly.

“Let’s go and find you a dress,” Katya said with a smile. The bridal consultant came out to greet them and led them back to a private room where they could discuss what Jilly wanted.

“I think I want a trumpet shape or a mermaid; but I’m open to trying on ball gowns, too. I may even want to do two gowns, one for the ceremony and one for the reception.” She turned to her sister. “What do you think?”

“I think that’s a great idea. You should do a ball gown with a long veil for the ceremony and then something sexier for the reception,” Caroline said.

“I agree, you should go for two dresses for sure. It’s not like William can’t afford it,” Katya said with a laugh.

“I know, but I don’t want to go overboard,” Jilly said hesitantly.

“Jilly, there is no such thing as overboard when it comes to your wedding. William wants you to have the wedding of your dreams; so we’re going to find two gowns that will blow his mind when he sees you in them,” Caroline said. Katya nodded her approval.

They decided to begin with the ball gowns. The consultant went out to pull some dresses and Jilly sent the girls out to wait. Her first dress was all silk taffeta, so it had a shine to it that Jilly liked. It was drop waist. She was not entirely sure it was her favorite style, but she went out to get a second opinion. Both Katya and Caroline agreed it was pretty, but not the gown for her. Five dresses later, her consultant buttoned her into a stunning ball gown with a silk taffeta top, an empire waist and a flowy tulle skirt with a cathedral length train. When Jilly saw herself in the mirror, she was stunned. When she walked out into the showroom, everything stopped. All eyes were on her as she made her way to the pedestal. The consultant brought over some heels and a cathedral length veil to complete the look. She looked at Caroline in the mirror and saw that she had tears in her eyes.

“Jill, this is the dress. You took my breath away when you walked out in it. You look amazing.”

“I agree, you look stunning. This is definitely the dress for the ceremony. William is going to flip out when he sees you in it. You look so light and ethereal, as if you’d float away if a strong breeze blew by ,” Katya said.

“I love it, too. I feel like a bride in it. I knew the second I put it on that it was the one. Now, let’s talk jewelry.” All the girls laughed and Jilly stepped down to go look at what they had to offer.

William and Nikolai sat around a table on the first floor of Sabine’s hideout, going through the photos and plans from upstairs. “What do you make of these plans, Nik? It looks like some kind of machine, but I don’t know enough about engineering.” Nikolai sat staring at one set of plans, tracing his fingers over various lines in the diagrams trying to better understand its purpose.