The Frozen Witch Book One (18 page)

“Get out of here, kid,” Larry screamed
once more, gunning the engine.

He did not, however, get a chance to slam
his foot on the gas pedal. One of the burly men ran forward and
simply placed a hand on the top of the car. Sure, it was one of
those speedy, lightweight Porsches, but it was still a freaking
car. And yet as the man weighed his hand down onto the top, the
tires started to skid as if the handbrake were still on.

Larry began to swear wildly, tugging at the
wheel as he tried to pull the car from the man’s grip.

We were starting to draw a crowd of people
craning their heads out of their shops to stare at the ruckus.

It didn’t last. Before one of the guys could
round on me, he reached a hand into his pocket, drew out his phone,
and touched something on the screen. A flickering blue field burst
out from the phone and shot up into the sky, covering us all for a
10-meter radius.

At the same moment, an image of the two men
walking away calmly and Larry pulling out from the curb played down
the street. I’d never seen anything like it.

I had a single second to stare at it in
total shock, the blue magic of the flickering force field playing
over my wide eyes.

Then the guy snapped towards me. He reached
for my neck, pinning me against a lamp post as he swung at me with
his fist.

I didn’t have the chance to duck.

The fist connected, slamming into my nose
and cheek with such force, my head smacked into the metal lamp post
with a rattling twang.

Instantly, pain exploded up my face, sunk
hard into my jaw, and rattled through my teeth. Blood burst from my
nose, spilling down my top.

The guy swung at me again, and though all I
could see were stars exploding over my vision, I had the presence
of mind to duck at the last moment. His fist connected with the
metal lamp post, and the thing rattled.

He swore in pain, wrenching his fist back
and clutching his now bleeding knuckles.

It gave me the opportunity to drop to my
knees and lash out. It was an uncoordinated, desperate move, but I
got lucky. I got him on the side of the knee as he turned to check
on his friend.

It was just enough to unbalance him. I
finished off the rest with another kick right to the top of his
knee.

He pitched backwards. But rather than fall
in an uncoordinated mess on the pavement, he shifted to the side,
rolled, and threw himself at me like a pro wrestler.

This time I couldn’t duck. I felt two
impossibly strong arms wrap around my middle as I was tackled to
the pavement.

“Let her go, you assholes,” I heard Larry
bellow from the car.

The guy did not let me go. Instead,
pinning me to the pavement, he reached two large hands over and
wrapped them around my throat. I felt more than his strength press
against my neck – I felt a numbing, cold pulse of power.

My head started to spin; blood continued to
flow from my broken nose.

“I said let go of her,” Larry
screamed.

I heard a gunshot.

I froze, terrified.

It wasn’t Larry who was shot.

The guy with two strong hands wrapped
around my throat suddenly jolted. Blood didn’t begin to blossom
over his white shirt – instead, magical symbols did.

With wide-open, bulging eyes, he jerked his
head down and stared at his chest just as I did the same.

Perfectly circular magical bursts of light
were spreading across his torso, blue and bright green.

Suddenly
, his grip on my throat
slackened. I jerked back, shoving into him, and he fell limply to
the side, his eyes still as wide open as two open hands.

I heard the other guy scream as he locked a
hand over the car and shoved against it. The move shouldn’t have
done anything, were not this guy clearly a mountain in disguise.
The car lurched several meters to the side, spilling out into
traffic. It pushed beyond the flickering, blue, magical force field
that was keeping our fight hidden from the rest of the street.
Immediately, the flickering force field grew in response. If I had
any hope that the people beyond would see us and call for help, it
was immediately dashed.

But maybe we didn’t need it.

The car may have just lurched several meters
to the side, but Larry managed to hold onto the door as he leaned
right out of the driver’s side window. With nerves of steel and a
hand steadier than a surgeon, he aimed right at the remaining
mobster before the guy could throw himself at Larry.

Larry fired, right between the guy’s eyes.
A ball of magic spread over the man’s face, smaller circles
blossoming out down his chest and over his back. He jerked back,
momentarily rigid like a sheet of steel until he became limp and
fell to the pavement. Just before I could fear he was dead, his
lips stiffly cracked open, “You’ll pay for this. Prick, you’ll
pay.”

“Maybe,” Larry said, voice shaky but arm
still perfectly steady as he got out of the car, walked around, and
pointed the gun right at the guy’s head, “but not today.” With
that, he fired several more rounds right into the man’s
forehead.

I screamed, jolting back, scrabbling on my
hands and knees until my back slammed into the lamp post. My nose
was still bleeding, practically gushing as it covered my shirt and
jacket.

I jolted in terror as Larry fired off two
more rounds into the man who’d attacked me.

“It’s okay, kid. It’s okay.” Larry
pocketed the gun into the back of his pants, but not before giving
the rest of the street a wary look. “Get in the car, Lilly. I’ll
explain everything. Just get off this godforsaken
street.”

I could barely move. But when Larry leaned
down and locked a hand over my elbow, I jolted in fear. “No, my
friends are back in Barney’s store—”

Larry’s brow crumpled. Crumpled so hard his
beady eyes became nothing more than two little pinpricks of black
suspicion. But that suspicion softened as I took another rattling,
gurgling gasp, fighting against the blood pouring down my face.

Though it wouldn’t help, Larry reached
into his pocket, grabbed a tissue, and chucked it at me. “You look
awful. And you don’t need to worry about your friends – they aren’t
there.”

“Sorry?” I managed as he pulled me to my
feet.

“Barney sent them someplace else.
Westside, if I’m any judge. It’ll take a full half-hour to get back
here.”

“Sorry?” I stuttered. My gaze lurched down
and settled on the man who’d attacked me. The man Larry had shot
with some kind of magical gun.

Maybe he could guess what I was thinking,
because a grim smile pressed across his thin lips. “I wouldn’t have
picked you for a witch, Lilly. Then again, there was always
something different about you. You could put up with me, for one.”
He snorted as he helped me to my feet.

“Larry, what the hell is going
on?”

“You tell me? When you didn’t come back
last night and I saw you leaving with Vali,” his voice dropped down
low, real low, “I figured you’d gotten yourself into your own
trouble. But Vali contracted you, ha? Recruited you to his personal
bully force? Good for you, kid. Me? I have to make my own way. Now
get in the car. There’ll be more of those warlock pricks coming
after us.”

“Warlocks?!” No matter what I did, I
couldn’t keep my voice steady. I’d just been punched in the face,
after all.

“Some of Chaplain’s men. Trust me, it will
take way too long to explain. And we don’t have time. So get in the
car.”

“But my friends—”

“I’ve already told you, they’ll be safe on
Westside. Barney has countermeasures in place for magicians he
doesn’t like. Walk into his door unannounced and uninvited, and
you’ll find yourself walking out some other place else entirely.
Last I checked, it was the male stalls on Station Six in the
subway,” he chuckled.

“What’s going on?” I whimpered. I did not,
however, stop Barney from shoving me into his car.

As soon as he got into the driver’s side, he
screeched out from the pavement, flooring it.

The car swung out so violently, I fell
against the window.

“Buckle up, kid. This will be a long
one.”

“Where… where are we going?”

“Someplace safe.” The way he said it,
specifically the shake to his voice, told me he wasn’t
convinced.

Slowly, slowly my nerve was returning to
me. I clutched my seatbelt with both hands. “Larry, what have you
done? What’s going on? And who were those men back
there?”

“Trust me, kid, this story is way too long
and boring.” He suddenly snorted. “Okay, it’s not boring. It
involves mobsters, money, and magic. But just sit back, deal with
your nose, and for god’s sake, don’t swallow too much blood – I
really don’t want you throwing up over my leather
seats.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell Larry that
the small tissue he’d given me wouldn’t exactly be enough to stem
the flow. I was 100% certain that my nose was broken, and as I
blustered and gurgled through a breath, I winced against the pain
burning through my face. The pain, however, wasn’t enough to pull
me away from the situation. I shifted forward in my seat. “Larry,
where are we going?”

“I told you, someplace safe. Someplace
neither Chaplain nor Vali will be able to find us.” His voice
bottomed out and dipped low on the word Vali.

It brought me back to the situation,
reminded me what had just happened. “How… how do you know about
him? And how do you know I’m a witch?”

“I figured it out. You were travelling
with those two other witches, and I really doubt the two magical
locks on your wrists are just there for decoration, right? Vali
gave them to you, didn’t he?”

I didn’t answer. I just felt sick, confused,
and totally freaking conflicted. On the one hand, I wanted nothing
more than to follow Larry. Sure, I wasn’t entirely certain I could
trust the man, but he had to be better than Vali, right?

…
Right?

I still had absolutely no idea what kind of
trouble Larry was in. But I was starting to realize one thing for
sure – Vali had eyes everywhere. He was a freaking god, after
all.

He’d shown me some latitude to date, but if
I tried to hightail it out of town with Larry, where would that
leave me?

I started to feel cold. Seriously cold. As
cold as I had last night when I’d inadvertently used my power to
freeze that basement.

“Just sit back and relax, kid. I’ve got
this.”

Sit back and relax? Ha? That sounded
nice.

But I couldn’t do it.

Fighting against my anxiety, I shifted
forward once more. “Larry, you sure? You sure running is the best
thing to do?” I surprised myself as those words sprang from my
mouth.

I didn’t trust Vali. I hated him. And yet
this was still the smartest thing to do, right?

Larry waited a long time before answering
with a splutter. “Sure it is. We’ve got no other
option.”

“Larry, didn’t Vali give you an option
last night?”

I watched his shoulders jerk, shove hard
into the headrest of his seat. He glared at me through his rear
vision mirror. “So you heard that?”

I nodded, blood still trickling down my
cheek. I made no attempt whatsoever to wipe it off. “I heard
everything. And he only gave you one option: sell everything and
leave town. But it ain’t that easy, is it, Larry?” I added quietly,
gently.

“No, kid – it ain’t that easy,” he agreed
in a defeated tone. “I’ve burnt too many bridges to be able to
leave. I’ve got nowhere to go, and the kind of goons who are after
me aren’t the kind to let you sell up and leave.”

I sat there in somber, sick silence as the
situation hit me all at once.

“Larry, you have to…” I trailed
off.

I had no idea what to say next.

“Get out of here. It’s the only
way.”

“…
Then
what?”

He didn’t reply.

“Then what, Larry? Can you really hide
from Chaplain’s men for long?” The question punched out of my
throat.

I watched Larry in the rearview mirror. He
stiffened. “I’ll find a way.”

“Larry, you won’t. If he has warlocks
working for him, don’t you think he’ll be able to track you down
wherever you go? There’s only…” I trailed off sharply.

“What? Only one way? You want me to hand
myself in to Vali?” He snorted, the rattling sound echoing through
the small confines of the car.

My stomach
gave a kick. That’s not what
I’d been about to say… right?

No, it was.

Because arrogant asshole or not, somehow,
deep down, I trusted Vali.

I pressed forward as far as my seatbelt
would allow, and I reached a hand over and touched it lightly on
Larry’s shoulder. “Yeah, Larry, you should hand yourself in. Trust
me – and trust him. It’ll be infinitely better than dying at the
hands of this Chaplain and his warlocks.”

I felt Larry stiffen under my grip, and I
was sure he was about to shove me off.

He hesitated.

I was almost certain that when I’d been
given this case they hadn’t intended me to get the perp – a.k.a.
Larry – to hand himself in. But that was the only way out of this
now.

I took another settling breath. “It’ll be
okay.”

“You sure about that? You heard Vali
threaten me – if I don’t follow his orders, he’ll have me
killed.”