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Cullen nodded. “We’ll take care of this one,” he said, pointing to the one that was closest.
SALEM
The hazy darkness from earlier was replaced by pain. Salem opened her eyes slowly, allowing them to adjust to the light. Taking stock of her surroundings, she could see she was in a plushly decorated room with circular stone walls—so, a tower of some sort. She was lying on a bed and swung her legs over the side so that she was sitting up. Tentatively she got up and walked to a narrow window that was deeply recessed into the stone. Most definitely a tower.
Peeking out, all she could see was an unmarred vista and that the window was set high above the ground. The tower seemed to be sitting on the edge of a steep drop down into a deep ravine.
“There’s no escape, witch,” said a man standing by the door, whom she tagged in her mind as ‘Frick.’
“You can try and fly away, but we made sure your broomstick wasn’t here,” said another, warming his hands by the fire. She decided to call him ‘Frack.’
Salem watched them for a moment, tilting her head from side-to-side trying to concentrate on them and bring the lines of their bodies into sharper focus.
‘No, my daughter. Do not sharpen their image but allow it to blur to see beyond the physical,’ said her ancestor. ‘Look beyond their mortality and see the auras that surround their souls.’
“You and your kind think you’re powerful because your ancestors managed to escape the purge. Had my ancestors been allowed to do their work unhindered by hysterical children and vengeful adults, we could have wiped you out,” said Frack.
“Look buddy,” said Salem, “I don’t know anything about my ancestors, other than apparently they hailed from Massachusetts.”
“You know nothing; that much is true. We are warlocks of the Northern Lights Nexus, you are nothing more than an untrained witch,” said Frick, obviously thinking she’d be impressed. She wasn’t. “And you were promised to us. We were to perform a small spell for the vampires who could not keep their word. Our brother allowed himself to be caught…”
“Would that be the asshole I managed to slash with Cullen’s razor?”
“You caused him a grievous wound, which fortunately he was able to heal enough to get you here,” said Frick. “The spell he had cast to shape-shift into a bird large enough to carry you…”
Salem managed to block out most of what he was saying other than the fact that they planned to use her for some kind of sex magic between the three of them. She would be forced to obey and serve them… blah, blah, blah, for sex and blah, blah, blah for her magic. Somebody had sold these idiots a bill of goods. None of that was happening.
‘You are a direct descendant of the one who was the first witch to become a wolf. The power of that union has been denied to those who would keep this world in the light. We have been waiting for you to find and be claimed by your wolf. You and your mate are capable of great power—both light and dark. You must balance one another. You will need to find another who can teach you. Beware of those who would seek to claim you for themselves and tear you apart from your mate.’
“Here’s the deal,” said Salem, who wanted to do nothing more than to go home. “I don’t know who you are or who you work for, and don’t much care. What I do know is that my mate is not going to be amused, nor is my pack.”
“Witches do not have packs; they have covens, you foolish girl…” said Frick.
“Girl? I got news for you, I stopped being a ‘girl’ a long, long time ago. And witches—which I may or may not be—may be prone to covens, but I promise you, I have a pack, and they will come for me.”
“They will not find you,” snarled Frack, the one by the fire.
Salem drew the shawl collar of the robe she was wearing down to reveal the pronounced scar left by Cullen’s claiming bite. Both warlocks held up their hands as if to ward off something that stood between her and them and fled her room, locking the door securely. Despite hearing the key turn in the lock, Salem quietly checked it anyway.
Leaning against the door, she heard Frick’s high-pitched whine. “She is not at all what you promised. The mark on her neck shows that she’s clearly damaged goods.”
“I have nothing to do with that. I did as agreed and provided the means to get her here?—”
Who was that? That wasn’t Frack speaking. The third person in the hall was familiar, though. She knew that voice.
She could hear Frick and Frack arguing with a third person. Perhaps instead of Frick and Frack, she should refer to them as Larry, Moe, and Curly—the Three Stooges. But the more she listened, the more she realized she knew the third voice. It was Charlie, her boss at the SPU. The warlocks were accusing him of failing to honor their agreement.
“She was promised to us,” said the one she thought of as Frack.
“She’s here,” said Charlie. “It’s not my fault one of you got hurt or she isn’t what you thought she was. I don’t know anything about this paranormal and magical shit. I just know what I was paid to do, and I did it.”
Was Charlie one of them? No, that didn’t seem to fit. She was certain he wasn’t a vampire, as she’d discovered she could sense them. That meant he had to be allied with the Shadow League.
“She isn’t entirely damaged goods,” she heard Frick say through the door. “I wouldn’t mind having her, between the three of us.”
“She cannot fulfill the prophecy,” said Frack.
“She might not fulfill the destiny we had planned for her,” said Frick, “but at least it would keep her and that mongrel she allowed between her legs from conceiving and bearing children—one of whom could defeat the darkness; if not forever, then for a very long time.”
