Witch Interrupted Read online

  Not precisely human error, but close enough.

  Once Katie cast true eye—or he cast it on himself for the first time in over a year—confirmation he’d reached a dual state would decide his next course of action. The first matter of business would be convincing Katie not to leave. He didn’t doubt she loved him but had no illusions about her intentions. If she thought she could protect him by leaving him and also have a shot at helping her family, she’d jump out of the car into traffic and take off.

  He loved her for that. He loved her for everything. But he didn’t want to be protected if it meant losing her. If she left, he’d follow.

  He didn’t know what he could do against Lars without the region elders as reinforcements, but he’d follow.

  Ignoring the scream of a thousand internal bruises, he lifted his arm and shaded his eyes from the sun’s glare. Katie glanced nervously into the rearview mirror.

  “Do we have a tail?” she asked. Not for the first time.

  “I don’t believe so.” They were in the thick of morning rush hour and headed through suburbs. Cars behind them hardly indicated pursuers. And Katie’s driving, he had to admit, wasn’t as unskilled in Tonya’s vehicle as it had been in the stolen truck. “How long before you anticipate having enough magic for a chi spell?”

  “I probably have enough.” Katie’s combat bonus didn’t trickle magic at a steady rate. The larger portion of the refill occurred during sleep, and she’d only napped for two hours.

  The factory didn’t have June’s wards. They’d have to work fast and then dash.

  Today everything would change, one way or another.

  Would it be for the better? When all this was over, Marcus hoped to make proper love to Katie. Their first time outside blackmail or a dark, dirty factory would be miraculous.

  He looked forward to sex without heart monitors, true eye spells, biometric measurements and his godforsaken charts.

  He looked forward to sex without arguments.

  He looked forward to sex.

  In order to have the sex, he had to convince her not to leave. But he wouldn’t lie about the probability that the region elders wouldn’t be swayed by his ill-advised solution to wolf transformation and cancer. Could he convince her Lars wouldn’t release her family unless they both offered themselves?

  Was there any way, any way at all, to outsmart the man?

  They both knew Lars, albeit from different perspectives. It was questionable whether Lars truly knew them, and he would have no way of guessing what Marcus had been testing. Yet Marcus knew a great deal about Lars’s weapons, seeing as many were based on Marcus’s research.

  Did that give them an advantage?

  Katie swerved the car from the direct route to the factory, jolting him from his thoughts. He braced himself with a hand against the door. “What are you doing?”

  “Just checking.” She peered into the rearview mirror suspiciously. The car that had been closest to them didn’t turn, nor several cars behind it. Finally, one did.

  However, it pulled into a driveway. The side street led through several neighborhoods, similarly constructed houses with minimal yard space. People walking dogs along sidewalks. Joggers with reflective shoes. For Sale signs. Katie rerouted to the main road, but her tension didn’t ease.

  He knew what she feared, and it wasn’t sex or experiments. Not anymore.

  “I’d like to discuss the fact you’re thinking about how to ditch me.”

  “I, ah…” She sighed. “I didn’t realize you could read me so easily.”

  “I know how I’d feel in your position,” he said. “If I could protect you by deserting you, would I want to do it? Yes.”

  “Isn’t it hypocritical of you to expect me to respond differently? If this is because you’re a man and I’m a woman—”

  “It’s not,” he assured her. “I want a chance to outsmart Lars. We’ve outsmarted him before. What can we accomplish together if we focus on Lars instead of my experiments?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to leave today,” he said. When she sighed again, he knew that was exactly what she’d been planning. “Lars isn’t currently torturing your family. He activated his informant network with a red alert. He invaded Millington. It’s obvious we are his focus, and he’s pulling out all the stops. Finding out Chang Cai was alive may have triggered a—a mental break.”

  “He was already fucking nuts. You’re saying he’s crazier now?”

  “Unless you believe he’s been attacking covens and packs for years and nobody suspected,” Marcus said. “Open defiance of the covenants correlates to a change in his perspective or goals. It correlates to recklessness. That’s something we can use against him. He’ll be less cautious if he thinks he can catch you.”

  “I definitely know how to be bait.”

  “That isn’t automatically our plan.” He reached across the seat and cupped her neck. Her hair tickled his hand. “But it’s worth considering. One hint of your presence, and we could lure him anywhere.”

  Dammit, they needed the cooperation of the region elders on this. Perhaps they should place the calls before Marcus finalized his tests. What if the elders possessed a failsafe for keepers gone bad?

  “Do you have your wolf senses?” she asked. “We could use your nose and eyes when we get to the factory. You know, in case the hint of me has already lured him there.”

  “Some.” Right now he couldn’t smell much beyond the yarrow in the heal-all Harry had sprayed all over his tattoos. He leaned closer to Katie and breathed deeper.

  There she was. On the edge of the yarrow, her scent. Something harsher too. “Are you carrying monkshood?”

  “For you to notice that, you must have access to your wolf. That’s good, right? You’re dual?”

  What Katie could do—it was simply part of who she was, part of her magic. He could kill as well. He would kill anyone who threatened her. He’d just use a different tool than magic. “Are they contact capsules or pods?”

  “Pods.” She decelerated at a stop sign, turned right and picked up speed on a state highway. This put the sun beside the car instead of behind it, and it no longer blinded Marcus via the mirror.

  “Good. That’s safer for you.” She’d been prudent to steal the monkshood. He never should have destroyed her original supply or criticized her for having it. For being what she was. A warrior. A fighter. A protector. “Do you have enough?”

  “Enough for what?” she asked, eyebrows arching.

  “To defend us. And, should the occasion arise, to kill Lars.” He wanted her to know he was secure about her abilities and was grateful she was convex. He loved her with complete acceptance.

  She cast him a questioning glance. “You’re comfortable with this discussion?”

  “Spare no detail. It might spark ideas.” To properly evaluate the situation, he needed to tabulate their advantages. Katie’s training and abilities would be needed. He might not believe Vernon had given up the location spell yet, but it would happen. Soon.

  So they’d prepare. Now.

  If that meant discussing the best way to ambush keepers and commit murder, they’d prepare.

  “All right.” She nodded slowly. The car cruised down the empty highway until they neared the factory. His warehouse was one of several buildings in a vacant, half-constructed industrial park, signs of a depressed local economy. His factory was the most dilapidated.

  “I can’t kill Lars with monkshood. It’ll refract and go who knows where. Keepers die, of course, in the line of duty. Not usually old age or by one another’s hands…not publicly, anyway. I’ll carry the pistol and a knife, and we should get you a gun.”

  “I’m not a great shot.” As a witch, he’d never seen much need for guns. “I could shift to wolf form and attack Lars if the occasion arises. We’d need to deplete his components or magic reserves first, else a standard wolf attack wouldn’t be that effective.”

  “I like this conversation.
It’s romantic.” Her lips quirked.

  It wasn’t. It was honest and open and realistic. He liked it as well, because of what it meant about the two of them. She was willing to plot with him instead of desert him for his own good.

  “I’ve never killed anyone,” he said. “Lars didn’t worry about the health of the wolves they captured, but I did. If we’re forced into a fight, how will killing impact me mentally?”

  “When you kill, you feel like the worst person on earth. Even when you’re doing it because you have to.”

  That was how she’d lived—how she’d been forced by the council and witch culture to live—for thirty years. She’d considered herself the worst person on earth. It was a miracle she’d healed into the woman she was today. The fascinating, beautiful, intelligent, loyal woman he loved.

  “I’ll take that into consideration. I’m not conditioned to respond with lethal force, and I don’t want my lack of training to put us in jeopardy. I don’t want to hesitate.”

  She scrunched her face as if trying to scoot her glasses up without using her hand. “I have faith you’ll do what’s needed when the time comes.”

  As a precaution, Katie traveled around the industrial park’s access road before directing the station wagon to a spot concealed by large, rusted equipment. There appeared to be no other vehicles on the premises. Marcus rolled down the window and sniffed.

  Rust, oil, dirt. Puddles dappled the muddy ground after last night’s thunderstorm. The station wagon splashed through a rut. He smelled autumn decay in the foliage, drowned earthworms and concrete.

  “Smells normal.” They retrieved their baggage. His muscles and skin complained, but the discomfort was nowhere near as intense as it had been. Perhaps the brand had toughened him—or fried his pain receptors. It was also possible his wolf was erasing some of the pain, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up.

  Though he did feel like a wolf. A wolf who’d been pummeled, but a wolf. A wolf with endless witch magic inside him, simmering like a secret.

  They conducted a perimeter sweep of the factory, which revealed nothing. Back at the entryway, the aromas of ozone and burned plastic struck the first note of discord. “Something nearby must have been struck by lightning last night.”

  If it was the transformer, he hoped the utility crews had repaired the damage. When they unlocked the factory door, the burned plastic smell increased. Marcus’s nose wrinkled. Which hurt, but so did walking.

  Katie appeared to be oblivious. She latched the door behind them. “Interior sweep. Check all the exits.”

  “Can we visit the laboratory first and check if there’s electricity?”

  She pursed her lips and didn’t meet his gaze. It wasn’t because she was being shifty—she was checking everything. Assessing their surroundings. This was Katie on alert.

  He didn’t see anything out of place, but her tension increased along with the burned plastic smell.

  “That’s a terrible odor. Can you identify the source?”

  “No.” When he was a wolf, he relied on his senses, and they were telling him nobody had been here but his group. The scorched plastic could be anything from a lightning-splattered electrical system to a chemical spill.

  It invaded his sinuses until he couldn’t rely on his nose. Murky sunlight poured in through the vented windows three stories up in the main room of the factory. The bowels of the factory grew darker and narrower as they wove through assembly areas and the huge storage tanks. Pausing, they unlocked and raised a wide lift gate before entering the first floor storage section.

  The clack-clack of the rolling gate echoed painfully in his ears. If anyone was here—and he doubted it—they’d know someone had arrived. He always left the gate down and secured, to dissuade vandals. The gate out of the way, Marcus retrieved his flashlight. He hadn’t installed electricity anywhere besides the lab since there was no need. He shone the beam ahead of them into the dark, low-ceilinged room.

  Stacked pipes rose on pallets in no particular order, creating corridors. A maze. He’d organized things to his liking when he’d bought the factory and used industrial remnants to both construct and conceal his hideaway.

  “Something’s wrong.” Katie had been holding her gun in an easy, practiced grasp. She aimed it down the last corridor between them and the laboratory’s secret door.

  He shone the flashlight ahead. It looked normal to him.

  “How can you tell?” Marcus couldn’t discern anything beyond that horrible scent. The sharp odor stabbed his sinuses, and from there stabbed his whole head.

  She glanced at him as if he was nuts. “The ward’s gone.”

  He’d installed permanent boundary markers around his lab that—when he’d been a witch—he could activate with few additional components. Like the aversion spells on Katie’s safe room, they deterred curious visitors. The ward, though they’d set it upon arriving at the factory, didn’t appear to be operational.

  Had the lightning negated his wards? Was that the smell?

  Not possible.

  Something was wrong.

  He wiped his face, rubbing his nose and cheeks where the piercing odor hurt the most. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll take a closer look at— ”

  The laboratory door opened, and Katie’s father. Zhang Li, stepped through. Behind him was Hiram Lars, holding a gun to the smaller man’s head.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Look who it is.” Lars’s gloating voice sliced through Katie’s dismay. “My old friend Chang Cai.”

  She could react many ways to the current situation, and all of them would accomplish the same thing.

  She was dead. Marcus was dead. Zhang Li was dead.

  Unless she could neutralize Lars and however many keepers he’d brought with him in the next couple of minutes. She assumed they were surrounded. The plastic scent would have been applied throughout the factory to baffle Marcus’s nose.

  Shit. She’d done that herself on missions…usually with herself, though, not chemical spills.

  Her chances of saving the day weren’t looking good.

  “Lights, please,” Lars said.

  A giant spotlight clunked on, flooding the area with enough intensity that Katie squinted. Beside her, Marcus growled. She waited to see if Lars would greet the scientist he’d once held prisoner, but Lars smiled at her, his unnaturally straight teeth gleaming. “Put the gun down or I kill your precious papa before your very eyes.”

  She knew he’d do it, so she lowered the pistol to the dirty concrete. Hands out to the side, she rose. “How are you, Ba? They treating you well?”

  “What the hell are you still doing in this country?” Zhang Li asked. “Idiot girl.”

  She didn’t see bruises on him, and he was wearing different clothes than when she’d last seen him. His hair looked washed, so he’d been allowed to bathe. Did he still have amnesia? He’d called her girl, not Katie. She wished she could hug him. “Love you too.”

  “Shove the gun toward me.” Lars tapped his gun against her father’s temple. Dad flinched.

  Katie considered whether she could miraculously kick the gun in such a way that it would discharge into Lars’s high forehead. If possible, he looked even sicker than he had last week.

  Good.

  Sick or no, his brains would look fantastic splattered all over her father and the door behind them. She suspected Dad would agree.

  If she hooked the gun just so with her toe and it flew into her hands… Would cinematic shit like that actually work?

  “Are you too ill to cast a better mask spell?” she asked Lars instead of kicking the gun. Drag it out. Find options. “Unless you enjoy looking like a withered lemon.”

  “I’ve no need of such ridiculous ploys anymore. The gun. Now.” Lars cocked his weapon, and Zhang Li closed his eyes.

  Katie kicked the pistol toward Lars.

  “That’s better,” he said. “The best anyone could expect of a depraved harlot, I suppose. Look at you. Standing ther
e like you have a right to breathe our air after committing bestiality with that…disgusting animal. I suppose you think you’re superior now that you’re a so-called alpha witch.”

  Marcus kind of laughed. What was funny about this situation?

  “I see you’re still a judgmental prick,” she said to Lars, hoping he’d ease off on Dad.

  He did, but only to gesture toward her with his gun. “Take her.”

  Shadowy figures moved into the corridor around her and Marcus. Younger, fitter keepers—zero gray hairs or wrinkles—divested her and Marcus of their possessions without touching skin. They were gloved and armed to the teeth. She recognized a few from Alabama and nobody from her time with the council.

  None of them would make eye contact with her.

  Was her reputation that extreme? Did they think she could inflict magic with her eyeballs? They hadn’t been so leery in Alabama. Lars had probably taken his frustration out on them in the past week.

  Marcus was not so silent. “Hello, Yasmine. Bill. Anthony.”

  None of the men reacted, but a female keeper with black eyes and hair glanced briefly at him. “Don’t speak to me, mongrel.”

  “Now that we have that nasty gun business out of the way,” Lars gloated, “I have some questions about how you averted the wipe twenty years ago.” Despite his physical changes, his voice bore the same patronizing, vaguely European accent, his country of origin lost in his personal history. “I’ll give you a chance to explain yourself before I kill you.”

  “You’re so gracious,” Katie said.

  “We’ve wiped keepers for centuries, but of course Chang Cai was the special one.” His mouth soured as he said the words. “The unwipeable one. We haven’t been able to replicate what you did. So tell me. Was it intentional? A defensive spell? Or was it an accident?”

  “If you release my family and Marcus, I’ll tell you.” What keepers had been sacrificed for Lars’s experiments—anyone who disagreed with him and his philosophies? That would explain why his current team was composed of young witches. Though keepers were conscripted from all over the world, gathering an entire team in twenty years was a stretch. Convex witches weren’t born every day.