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At the werewolf’s bite, the witch went limp as a rag doll, offering no resistance as the werewolf dragged her into the house. The other two men followed. The last one inside slammed the door.
Gideon glanced at the sky. Dawn was only minutes away. With that in mind, he summoned his power and willed himself and Kay to his lair in Arizona. He figured they would be safe there, at least for now, what with Verah being held by Victor’s family. He would have much preferred his lair in New York, but the sun was already shining there.
Moments later, Gideon sat on the sofa in the living room of his Phoenix lair with Kay still cradled in his arms. Kissing the top of her head, he whispered her name.
She didn’t stir, simply stared blankly into the distance.
“Kiya!” He shook her shoulder. “Dammit, Kiya, snap out of it!”
Still nothing.
He tried speaking to her mind, but it was closed to him.
Gideon cursed softly. The sun was rising. There was nothing he could do until nightfall.
Carrying Kay into the bedroom, he tucked her under the covers, removed his shoes, socks, pants, and shirt, and crawled into bed beside her.
His eyelids grew heavy as the sun rose over the horizon. He hated to leave her lying there, staring up at the ceiling, but there was no help for it. The darkness was wrapping him in its snare, dragging him down into oblivion.
Gideon woke with the setting of the sun. Jackknifing into a sitting position, he looked at Kay, hoping to find her sleeping peacefully. Instead, she was lying rigid beside him, still staring blankly at the ceiling. If not for the faint rise and fall of her chest and the slow, steady beat of her heart, he would have thought her dead.
Pressing a kiss to her cheek, he went into the bathroom. He took a quick shower, dressed, and left the apartment. What he needed now was a witch. Easier said than done, he mused. Where the hell was he going to find a witch? A good witch, he amended.
He mesmerized the first man he saw, borrowed the man’s cell phone, and did a quick search for practicing witches. He hadn’t actually expected to find one, but, to his surprise, he found one listed in Apache Junction, Arizona, by the name of Kusuma Ila. Of course, there was no guarantee that she was a genuine witch and not just some deluded old woman who read tea leaves. But it was the only lead he had.
After returning the man’s phone and wiping the incident from his mind, Gideon transported himself to Apache Junction.
He hadn’t been there in decades. It was an old town bordered by the Superstition Mountains on the east, the Goldfield Mountains on the north, and the town of Mesa on the right.
Even at night, the Superstition Mountains, well-known as the home of the fabled Lost Dutchman Gold Mine, were an impressive sight. Goldfield Ghost Town nestled near the western face of the mountains. On more than one occasion, Gideon had seen the ghosts of an old prospector and his mule walking through the town.
Kusuma Ila’s small, square house was located on a quiet residential street, literally the last place he would have expected to find an Apache witch. Dozens of rosebushes grew in wild profusion along a white picket fence. An ancient cottonwood tree shaded the front porch.
She answered the door before he knocked. As soon as she saw him, she made some kind of intricate sign with the fingers of her right hand, no doubt meant to ward off evil.
“Kusuma Ila?” She was a hundred if she was a day, Gideon thought, with skin as brown and wrinkled as old saddle leather. Her hair, worn in a long braid over her shoulder, was snow white; her eyes were deep-set, as black and sharp as those of a raven. She sure as hell looked like a witch.
She tilted her head to one side. “Have you come to drink my blood?”
“Do I look hungry?”
She grinned. “My blood is so old, one taste and you would spit it out.”
“Keep your blood, old woman. It’s your professional help I need.”
She studied him for several moments, then stepped back. “Come in, nightwalker.”
In spite of the old woman’s invitation, Gideon felt the threshold’s resistance as he stepped across it. It was, he thought, a sign of the witch’s power.
The handkerchief-sized living room was crowded with a curved sofa, a round coffee table, an end table with a wrought-iron lamp, and a well-used rocking chair. A crooked shelf held a turtle rattle, a length of braided rope, a turquoise rock, and what looked like the bleached skull of a cat. Every surface was piled high with old newspapers and magazines. A battered bookshelf was stuffed with paperback books, mostly mysteries. A deer head was mounted over the sofa. A pretty yellow canary occupied a white wicker cage in one corner. Two black cats were curled up beside the rocker.
The witch cleared off a section of the sofa and gestured for Gideon to sit down. When he was seated, she lowered herself into the rocking chair. “What brings you here?”
“My woman is under some sort of enchantment cast by another witch. I want to know if you can break it.”
“What kind of enchantment?”
“She doesn’t respond to anything. It’s like she’s asleep with her eyes open.”
Kusuma Ila nodded as she rocked back and forth. “It is a simple spell, easily undone.”
“That’s great. Can you come now?”
“No. You must bring her here. I did not live to be an old woman by taking foolish chances, or visiting the lairs of nightwalkers after dark.”
Gideon chuckled. “Right,” he said, liking her humor and her forthright attitude. “Is now a good time?”
She nodded. “I will be here.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Since the witch knew what he was, Gideon didn’t see any reason to hide his powers from her.
A thought took him back to his place. Kay was as he had left her.
He lifted her gently into his arms, then willed himself back to Kusuma Ila’s crowded house.
If the old woman was startled by his abrupt reappearance in her living room, it didn’t show on her weathered countenance. “Put her on the sofa.”
Gideon did as she instructed.
Rising, the witch hobbled toward the sofa. “Who did this to her?”
“A witch named Verah.”
“Ah.”
“You know her?”
Kusuma Ila nodded. “I know of her. Nothing good.”
“I can believe that,” he muttered darkly.
Kusuma Ila nodded to herself, then left the room. She returned a moment later bearing a wooden bowl, an eagle feather, a book of matches, and a small bag. She set the bowl on the coffee table, opened the bag, and poured the contents into the bowl. After striking a match, she set the bowl’s contents on fire. Blue smoke rose in the air, and with it the scents of sage and sweetgrass.
