Witch's Bounty (12 page)

“You bitch! Stop that immediately, or I’ll be forced to fight back.”

“You can’t talk to me like that.” Mathilde wove her fingers together; the next blast buffeted Colleen, making her stagger slightly.

“I just did.” Colleen pushed past her and trotted down the hall.

“Ha! It worked. At least you’re on your way to get rid of those demons.”

Colleen skidded to a halt and spun to face Mathilde. “No. For the record, I’m not. I’m going to get Roz, Jenna, and my changeling, and we’re leaving. I told you what would happen if you raised your magic against me. You didn’t listen. Catch the demon yourself. I’m done.”

“You can’t just leave.” Mathilde materialized by Colleen’s side, her dark eyes alight with fury.

For a moment, Colleen was confused, and then she understood the other witch must have teleported. She hadn’t known it was possible over such a short distance. “Watch me,” Colleen gritted through clenched teeth.

“I outrank you. I order you to—”

“You missed something, sweetie. I’m not part of your Coven. Rank doesn’t come into play here.” Colleen wasn’t interested in trading barbs with Mathilde. She skittered down the long, curving staircase and nearly barreled into Roz and Jenna. Bubba, in gnome form again, raced to her.

“Finally,” Roz muttered. “Come on. Let’s get going before the old bat that runs this place gets hold of us.”

“Old bat is it?” Mathilde shrieked, as she catapulted down the stairs.

“Did I say that? I have no recollection of any such thing.” Roz’s voice held persuasion.

Half a dozen witches, including a couple of men, marched out of one of the downstairs rooms, formed a circle around Mathilde and herded her, still shrieking epithets, away from them. “Sorry about that,” one of them called over a shoulder. “Just get going. For some reason, your presence riles her.”

“We’re going all right,” Colleen said. “We’re leaving.”

Roz laid a hand on Colleen’s forehead, as if testing for fever. “There’re two demons out there. Hunting them is what we do.”

“I don’t care.” Colleen hastily summoned a teleport spell. “Do you all have everything? We can sort this out back in Fairbanks.”

“What about my car?” Roz asked.

“Shit! I forgot about it. Where’s it parked?” Colleen asked.

“Around back,” Jenna answered.

“I found a couple of different back doors.” Bubba sounded proud of himself.

“Lead the way,” Colleen told him. When Jenna and Roz hung back, she grabbed each of their arms. “Come on! Mathilde attacked me. We can talk about this in the car. It’s a long drive back home. Or maybe I’ll think of a better alternative when I’m not so pissed off.”

Jenna narrowed her eyes. Roz’s eyebrows drew together, but at least the other witches took off after the changeling at a dead run. Colleen drew up the rear. Moments later, they piled into Roz’s battered Subaru Outback and headed toward Interstate 5, going north.

“She’s going to complain to Coven Central about us,” Roz predicted from the back seat, after they’d been driving for a while.

“We might get a chance to tell our part of things. Depends who’s presiding,” Jenna said. She and Bubba sat up front with Colleen, who was driving.

“Oh, for criminy sakes.” Colleen’s hands tightened on the wheel. She ferried the car across a couple of lanes, onto an off-ramp, and into a Starbuck’s parking lot. Once the car came to a stop, she lowered her forehead and rested it on her hands, folded atop the steering wheel. “None of that matters. What matters is getting back to Fairbanks and our own Coven, and the closest thing we have to a power base.”

“What exactly did Mathilde do?” Roz asked.

“Attacked me with magic because I wasn’t out hunting down Irichna fast enough to suit her.”

“Was it an actual attack?” Jenna asked.

“If I wouldn’t have warded myself, I’d probably be dead.”

Bubba threw himself into her lap and hugged her tight. Colleen stroked his head. “It’s okay. It all worked out. Something’s definitely wrong with Mathilde. I thought she was…odd while she questioned Duncan, and today pretty much capped it. I’ve met her a time or two before and she was always a crusty, old thing, but reasonable. It’s almost as if she’s possessed.”

“Mmph.” Jenna nodded. “Maybe that’s why Roz’s sense of the Irichna faded in and out before we got there.”

“It would explain a lot,” Roz murmured. “Um, are we going after coffees?”

“Yes. Anyone want a breakfast sandwich, or a sweet roll?” Colleen asked.

“How about if we all just go inside. We’re far enough from Witches’ Northwest, we could probably risk the few minutes it will take to get coffee and food.” Jenna pushed her car door open and got out.

“I’ll stay here with Bubba,” Roz said. “Get me a large black coffee and that maple scone thing they have.”

“But I want to go,” Bubba protested.

Colleen disentangled his arms from her shoulders. “I know, sweetie, but your appearance is odd enough people would remember you and we want to slip in and out unnoticed.”

“We need to practice me taking a form that looks more normal.”

“We do, but not right now. When a demon is around, you borrow from their energy to shift. So far, you and I have only managed your cat form, but we’ll work on doing better than that. I promise. Tell me what you want from inside.”

The changeling bowed his head, looking sad. “Breakfast sandwich with bacon, coffee, and two sweet rolls.”

“You got it.” Colleen set him on the passenger seat and ruffled his hair before getting out.

By the time she walked across the parking lot and into the coffee shop, Jenna was halfway through a long line. Colleen sidled up next to her. “I’ve been thinking.”

Jenna snorted. “Could be dangerous.”

“Not this time. It’s something like twenty-two hundred miles to Fairbanks. Even if we manage five hundred miles a day, it will take the better part of five days.”

“Roz isn’t going to take kindly to abandoning the car.” Jenna followed the queue as it inched forward. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Yeah, I do. We can put the car on a ferry in Bellingham, with instructions for them to park it at the ferry dock in Haines.”

Jenna’s face lit with understanding. “Which is only about six hundred fifty miles from Fairbanks.”

“Um-hum. We could drive it in a very long day, since the roads aren’t all that great. Maybe a day-and-a-half.”

They finally reached the counter, placed their orders, and had the barista put their coffees into a cardboard carrier. Colleen moved to the small counter with cream, sugar, and powdered flavorings. She doctored her coffee and Bubba’s. Jenna hovered, waiting for their food order.

Cups and bags in hand, they pushed through the swinging door and started for the car. “Won’t it take the ferry a few days to get to Haines?” Jenna asked.

“Three, if I remember right.”

“So we’d go home and just teleport back to pick up the car?”

Colleen set the coffees on the car’s hood and opened the door. “That was my plan, let’s see what Roz thinks of it.”

“Let’s see what Roz thinks of what?” the other witch demanded and held out a hand for her coffee and scone.

Colleen mapped out her plan while sipping coffee and munching on her English muffin sandwich.

Roz mopped sugary crumbs from her mouth with a paper napkin. “I like it better than driving for the next week.”

“We might actually get a few things done in Fairbanks.” Jenna tipped the last of her coffee into her mouth and gathered wrappers. “May as well ditch our trash since we’re still here. This isn’t quite all of it, but good enough.” She got out of the car and jogged to a nearby garbage can.

Once she was back inside, Colleen started the car, rolled into a gas station right next door, and filled the tank. She turned their plan around in her mind, hunting for flaws. Once they were headed north again, she said, “The only possible glitch is if the ferry doesn’t have room.”

“Or maybe finding someone to move the car from the Bellingham ferry in Ketchikan to the one that goes into Haines,” Jenna said.

“Maybe we can, um, persuade them,” Roz said. Colleen glanced in the rearview mirror; the other witch was grinning.

“If they’re full, do you expect they’ll simply offload someone else’s car into the Pacific?” Colleen asked.

“If I ask nicely, that’s exactly what they’ll do.” Roz sounded smug.

“Enough.” Jenna’s tone was sharp, but Colleen knew her well enough to understand she was worried. “Coming up with a game plan for the car was a piece of cake. What are we going to do about the Irichna? And about having alienated Mathilde?”

Bubba looked up from his breakfast. “When those other witches raced out and grabbed her, it didn’t look like they agreed with her.”

“No, it sure didn’t.” Colleen worried her lower lip between her teeth. “I was surprised she allowed them to herd her.”

“She’s very old and very powerful,” Roz said. “Strong enough to flatten that entire house and everyone in it.”

“Her witches probably know that,” Colleen murmured, “which is why they won’t even attempt to corral her with magic.”

“What will they do?” Bubba crumpled the paper that had held his sandwich and threw in on the floor.

“Pick that up and put it in the trash bag, honey,” Colleen told him.

“The other witches were giving us a chance to get out of there,” Jenna said.

“Probably so,” Colleen agreed. “Once they sensed we were gone, I’m sure they stopped humoring Mathilde and turned her loose.”

“Which means she could be waiting for us in Fairbanks,” Roz pointed out, voice sour.

Colleen hadn’t considered that, but it made sense. Mathilde had been close to apoplectic. For one witch to send killing magic after another for any infraction, let alone something as minor as not moving quite quickly enough, was unheard of. “Not much we can do about it,” she said.

“Damn straight,” Roz cut in. “I’m not going to let her, or anyone else, run me out of my home or my business.”

“Why would she know where the house is?” Bubba asked.

“Good thinking. She wouldn’t.” Colleen jumped on the changeling’s question. “She could always track us with magic, but she’s never been there.”

“We can surround the place with an invisibility spell,” Jenna mumbled, “so long as we get there first.”

“All righty.” Colleen glanced at a passing highway sign that said Bellingham was another twenty miles. “That’ll be our first order of business, once we get rid of the car. It’ll freak the neighbors out, but what the hell.”

“What the hell, indeed.” Roz chortled. “They think we’re odder than a flock of geese in the dead of winter as it is.”

“What do you mean she’s not here?” Duncan thundered. He stuffed his booted foot in the front door of the Witches’ Northwest headquarters to discourage the male witch on the other side from slamming it in his face.

“She and the other two, and their creature, left early this morning.” The witch kept his voice mild. Duncan sensed a placating spell beneath the words. “Please.” The slightly built man bent toward him, talking low. Brown hair chopped to uneven lengths fell over his hazel eyes. He looked truly young, maybe not much over eighteen.

“Please what?” Duncan matched the witch’s muted tones.

“Things are a little difficult just now. It would be best if you left before Mathilde—”

“Oh no you don’t,” a strident female voice called from somewhere upstairs. “Mistress said she was particularly interested in the Sidhe if he came back.” Footsteps sounded on the risers.

Duncan drew his boot out of the way and moved off to one side. The male witch nodded tersely and pushed the door closed. His words, “It’s not what you think,” would have been muffled by the thick, glass-fronted door, but Duncan had exceptional hearing.

“What do you mean, it’s not what I think?” the woman demanded. “I sense Sidhe magic.”

“Well, I don’t. You must be mistaken, Adrienne.”

Duncan pulled invisibility about himself and settled in to eavesdrop. Something happened here after Colleen returned around dawn. He wanted to know what it was.

The male witch went on, “It wasn’t the Sidhe. It was just the religious right hawking pamphlets. They’ve somehow decided we’re evil incarnate.” Adrienne brayed laughter.

Understanding what the young male was trying to do, Duncan intercepted bits of his spell and added to it. The youngster’s work was far from elegant, but the other witch didn’t realize she was being hornswoggled.

“How’s Mistress doing?” the male asked.

“Eh. So-so. She’s gotten over her snit from this morning, but she just doesn’t seem like herself.”

“Not to me, either.” The male witch paused a beat. “I’m pretty new here. Do you have any idea what’s wrong?”

Adrienne exhaled breathily and murmured. “Not exactly, but things began changing several months ago when she developed a fascination with the Irichna. At first, she talked about joining up with the trio from Alaska to hunt them, but that didn’t last long.”

“Curious.”

“That’s one word,” Adrienne said. “The one I’d pick, though, is disturbing. We’re all bound to obey Mathilde. I’ve known her for over twenty years, and it feels like she’s lost her mind. In my worst moments, I think she’s in league with the demons.”

“Possessed?” The male witch’s voice was a hoarse, horrified whisper.

“Possibly, but don’t breathe a word. Her magic is so strong it’s scary. If she’s not one hundred percent on top of things, she could do huge amounts of damage.”

“Maybe I’ll come up with a plausible excuse,” the male witch said a bit shakily. “Leave for a while…”

“Hmph. Not a bad idea. Perhaps I’ll join you. Mathilde has the right to kill us if we’re accused of breaking any major tenets of the covenant. That could be a problem if she starts seeing things that aren’t there. You should have heard her this morning. She actually attacked one of the Alaska witches. The one with long, reddish hair.”

Duncan stopped breathing. He balled his hands into fists. If Mathilde had harmed Colleen, he’d teleport into the building, track her down, and tear her limb from limb. Consequences be damned. He’d sort them out later.