Witch Hearts (19 page)

Cooper froze mid-step, jerked Ruby to a halt as they swiveled around to confront the speaker. Three men stood behind them, their hands in their pockets and hard lines around their faces.
 

“Gary.” Cooper’s flat greeting told Ruby everything she needed to know. These men were part of Cooper’s past and they were here to collect. Ruby took a look at Gary and froze - he was the same man who’d questioned Courtney about the hidden money. He’d killed Courtney.
 

The five of them stood at a draw, Cooper and Ruby looking at Gary and his men. Cooper’s arm was still around her waist, gripping her tight against him. Cooper’s cold expression came over him as he narrowed his eyes at his old pals. Ruby glared at Gary, the man she’d seen question Courtney over the missing money. He looked even more like a rodent in person.
 

“It’s been too long,” Gary said. He rocked on the balls of his feet, kept his voice almost friendly and casual.
 

“Max, Alec,” Cooper said, nodding to the two standing behind Gary. They nodded once back at him, their expressionless faces giving no indication of what mood they were in.

“You’re a hard man to find, Coop,” Gary said, still keeping his voice light. “We heard you were back in town after your sister passed. Pity what happened to her.”

Cooper’s tense muscles tightened more and Ruby nudged him with her elbow. Cooper blinked and looked down at her as though realizing he might be hurting her and he let go, both arms dropping to his sides. Ruby stuck her hands in her back pockets to seem casual, but her right hand slowly went to her bag in case she needed to be prepared.

“What would you like to discuss? You made things pretty clear the last time we spoke.”

Gary laughed, a hollow sound that was anything but amused. “Glad you got the point then, but seems you’ve forgotten. We left you alive to bring us back the money. I hope you feel like sharing some good news.”

Cooper didn’t hesitate. “I don’t have it.”

Gary spit on the pavement. “You know where it is.”

“I really don’t. Someone hid it for me and I haven’t found it yet.”

“We know you had Courtney hide it. She didn’t want to tell us where she hid the money, either. Never did answer my note. Pretty rude of her, if you ask me.” Gary chortled and Ruby wondered if she could choke him with her mind.
 

“Darren paid us a visit,” Alec said from behind Gary.
 

Cooper froze, the insinuation clear behind Alec’s taunt. Ruby’s stomach knotted up - what if they’d killed Darren, too? Their only lead in the murder case, they’d lose any chance of gaining ground if he died.
 

“You mean you found him and made him talk,” Cooper shot back.
 

“Looks like Darren had every right to be paranoid,” Ruby muttered.
 

Gary grinned at her, showing off crooked teeth in his bearded face. “He is a nervous little bugger, isn’t he? Said you’d been asking all sorts of fun questions. Told us about your cop friend, too. Marshall, is it?”

“I know you wouldn’t be stupid enough to threaten a cop.” Ruby kept her tone sharp and hoped he got the idea. “As for Darren, you mean you forced him into talking. Your confession style seems more black eyes than truth potions.”
 

He appraised her with a long look, his crocodile smile growing bigger as he assessed her worth. Uneasiness crept into her belly; they would never let them simply walk out of here. His crooked teeth gave her a flashback of Courtney’s memory and she forced herself to not claw his eyes out.
 

“So maybe we saw Darren on the sidewalk or something,” Max jumped in. He shrugged. “Look, no matter how you wanna look at it, we’re here now. We want our money and you’re gonna give it back.”

“Are you deaf? I don’t have it,” Cooper repeated.

“Neither did your sister, apparently,” Gary growled.

Cooper snarled at him, moved to attack and Ruby threw her arm out to stop him. “Cooper, no. He’s provoking you.”

“That’s right, love.” Gary nodded at her. “See, Coop, she gets it. I want you to be as pissed off as we’ve been for the last year. Years of hard work went into collecting that money. We were all going to split it; instead you left us with nothing and for what? Because you were mad about having to do bitch work? Because your poor, precious psyche couldn’t handle all that power that comes with dark magic?”

Cooper interrupted him. “You know why I did it. What you were doing was wrong, you were hurting innocent people-”

“You were fine with it until you sobered up long enough to grow a conscience!” Gary’s calm demeanor broke as he shouted at them. “You fucked it up! It was a mistake not to kill you. Since you skipped out, we’ve barely been allowed to live, much less do jobs to make up for it. And our boss, he doesn’t like it when people don’t carry out his orders.”

Gary pushed up his sleeves to show them scars from deep, angry marks that had been gouged into his arms. Ruby noticed Gary was missing a pinky finger on each hand. Max and Alec shifted their feet, their hands still in their pockets, and Ruby felt sure they bore the same scars. They’d been caged up with their employers, tortured for their mistakes, and now that Cooper was back, they’d been released to catch him and make him pay.

Cooper said nothing, only glared at the three men. Gary stared back for a minute, then shrugged as though that were that.

“You don’t want to play nice, that’s fine. I have no problem taking your body back to them. He wants results and if you’re dead, that’s a good first step. We’ll find the money another way. Maybe your pretty friend here can help us locate it.”

Gary grinned at Ruby and she glared back at him, hoped she looked even remotely threatening. Gary only guffawed. “Don’t worry, we have ways to make this work. You’ll help us one way or another.”

Cooper snapped, shoved Ruby out of the way to rush Gary and his backup. Ruby shouted at him, reached into her bag for something, anything, that would get them out of this. Gary’s men moved faster.

Max threw a potion onto the ground; the vial broke and black smoke engulfed them all. Ruby felt blind, couldn’t even see her own hands in front of her face. She coughed, choked on the smoke that went into her mouth and nose. She opened her bag again to dig through the pockets for the protection potion Michael had given her. Then as quickly as it’d taken over, the smoke cleared and Ruby’s breath caught in her throat.

Gary and Alec hovered over Cooper’s body on the ground. Ruby made to run to him, but Max had snuck up behind her. He grabbed both her arms, held her as she screamed for Cooper to wake up.

Gary drew a knife from his belt. “We’ll finish the job this time.”

He crouched down to bring the knife to Cooper’s throat and Ruby shrieked. She pushed out all her energy and the overhead lights cut off, leaving them in the dark. Street light poured into the sides of the garage, giving the area a spooky yellow glow. Gary paused, quirked his head to look at her over his shoulder.

“Is that you, doll? If you wanted to be first, all you had to do was ask.”

He stood up and walked toward her, brandished the knife like a baton in his fingers. Max’s hands gripped her arms, held her in place. Gary stood face to face with her, ran the tip of the knife almost lovingly from her jawline to collarbone. She winced when he stopped, stuck her with the sharp tip. Alec, still hovering over Cooper’s still form on the ground, watched with rapt interest.

“Don’t worry, blue eyes, I won’t kill you. We’ll probably have our way with you before taking you back to the others, just so we’re clear.” Ruby thought of the most disrespectful thing she could do and spat in his face. Taken aback, Gary wiped at his face with a growl.

“Your mistake. Maybe you need a scar to match your boyfriend.”
 

Ruby saw Cooper stir behind them. He began to shake his head, regain his senses. She stuck her chin out at Gary, thought of anything to distract him. “You can’t have my heart.”

Gary gave her a puzzled look before a grin replaced it. “I don’t want your heart. I want to hear you scream.”
 

Gary dug the knife into her skin more and she cried out in pain. Ruby saw the murderous look on Cooper’s face, the vein that throbbed in his forehead as his green eyes darkened, turned almost black.
 

Cooper flung his arm outward and Alec went flying backwards. He zoomed fifty feet in the air, landed head first on a car windshield. Glass crunched underneath him and he didn’t move. Gary turned around to look at Cooper; Max dropped Ruby in surprise and she stomped on his foot. He howled when her heel made contact and she gasped for air, tried to control the oncoming panic, as she reached for anything inside her bag. Gary whirled around to look at Cooper, began to run at him with his knife drawn. Cooper threw his own potion vial down at Gary’s feet and Ruby backed away from all of them as they watched Cooper’s magic work.
 

A purple sheen hissed upwards to the dark witch, slithered into his mouth and nose, clouded his eyes and face. He began to cough and grabbed at his throat in a panicked gesture. After a few seconds, he calmed down, sucked in air on his own and almost appeared normal.
 

He raised his knife, a smirk clear on his face. “That it? Stupid boy. You wait ’til I tell X about this. You’re both dead.”

Then his smile died as his eyes glanced over Cooper’s shoulder. Whatever caught Gary’s attention made him freeze mid-step, took his entire focus off of them and onto some mysterious invisible being. His face turned white, the absolute fear obvious in his eyes. Gary screamed, spun around and bolted, his terrified shouts echoing off the walls.

Cooper staggered to his feet. “Been a while since I used that much power. Good to know I still got it.”

Ruby gasped in relief, giving Cooper an amazed look. “What on earth did you do to him?”

“Devil’s curse,” Cooper replied with a small grin. “Sounds like dark stuff, I know, but it’s actually an old one from my dad’s book. That asshole won’t think straight for at least half an hour.”

“I didn’t know you could move things, throw people.”

“Side effect of the dark magic. Dark witches can channel their energy into telepathy if they’re pissed off enough.”

“You’re no dark witch.”

“No, but he is,” Cooper said, nodding his head at the last enemy standing.
 

Max, who’d been unable to look away at Gary’s unfortunate demise, refocused his attention, turned to glare at Ruby. He stepped towards her and she stuck her arm in her bag, her fingers closing around Michael’s vial. Without a second thought she chucked it at his feet. The bottle broke with a loud pop and red smoke burst out, clouding over him. When the dust cleared, he lay dead on the ground, blood on the corner of his mouth. Ruby and Cooper both gaped at him; protection spells didn’t kill attackers. Several seconds ticked by before Ruby realized someone would see them.
 

“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Ruby grabbed his hand and ran for her car. She didn’t bother with sympathy over the men lying here in the dark. Killer X could come take their hearts for all she cared.

They spent the next hour holed up in the apartment. Ruby sucked at the wound on her thumb where she’d pricked it to provide extra protection for the now four-and-counting spells on her door.

“Like hell they’re getting in here,” Cooper growled. He smeared his own blood on the door. Ruby winced at the mess of red on white and told herself it’d be over soon. She sighed and went to sit on the couch with Aziza.
 

Cooper put away all the materials, even locked up Ruby’s armoire for her and left the key on her nightstand. He joined her on the couch, pulled her legs over his lap and leaned in to kiss her on the temple.
 

“I don’t even want to talk about what happened,” Ruby said in a defeated tone.

“Okay,” Cooper agreed with a shrug. “I do feel compelled to ask though, where did you get a protection spell like that? You’ve never struck me as the type to make a spell to kill on contact.”
 

She shifted uncomfortably, adjusted Aziza’s position on her lap as she looked down and considered her response. She could feel Cooper’s eyes on her as he waited for an answer. She decided to tell the truth.

“The coven made it for me. I got it from Michael earlier; he called while I was at the store getting shampoo and I ran by there for only a minute. He said it was a protection spell.” She had to force her face into a blank expression, bite her tongue to keep from spilling X’s stalkerish phone call.
 

Cooper’s face blanked for a second at the mention of her interaction with Michael. Then it cleared as he gave her a concerned look. “That’s a hell of a protection spell. Looks like Rebecca is adding a little more zing to the group.”

“You think she ruined it?”

“I think she wants to ruin your life and if you used that on someone, you could be arrested for possible murder. Good luck explaining magic to a jury, but still. All she’d need to do is throw in a few herbs when Michael’s got his back turned; I doubt anyone else would realize what she did.”
 

Ruby sighed, cursed Rebecca in her head for what might be the billionth time. “I killed a guy tonight. That’s not something I ever thought I’d do.”

“Max was not a nice guy. All he cared about was money and mayhem. You saved our lives in self-defense, against dark witches no less. And once Gary stops seeing a giant devil monster, he’ll regroup and come after me again.”

“You mean after us.”

Cooper took a deep breath, avoiding her eyes as he spoke. “I was thinking we could ask Marshall to come stay with you or camp outside your place or something. I should leave, get them to chase me somewhere else.”

“What?” Ruby heard the hurt in her voice and his right shoulder twitched up in an apologetic way.
 

“You’re in plenty of danger as it is. I don’t want my past coming back to get you, too.”