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“Will you be okay for a minute?” he questioned as he turned the flashlight off. His gaze lifted from his screen to me. Still trying to process what I’d seen, I dumbly nodded. Was he a witch? Except, I didn’t get the sense that he was.
His brow furrowed when he crouched in front of me. “Hey, we’re safe here for the moment. I need to make a couple of calls, but you’ll be able to see me. I’ll only be right over there.” He motioned with his head toward the front of the room near the only window in the place.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I opened my mouth to speak, but all that came out was a croak. After clearing my throat, I tried again. “Yeah, okay.”
For a few seconds, he searched my eyes, then cupped my cheek with a callused palm. “I’m gonna do my best to keep you safe, all right?”
I pressed my lips flat and opened them to speak, except I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded. Imagine my surprise when he rose to his feet, bent over, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. From the slight jolt of his body, I was pretty sure he shocked himself too.
Abruptly, he went to the window, and after a few slides of his thumb on the screen, he held the phone to his ear. He spoke, but it was so low that I couldn’t make out what he was saying. With one hand resting on his bowed head, he paced the front of the building.
While he was preoccupied, I made a small flourish with my hands, and the dust vanished from my immediate area. It gave me some small satisfaction in a world where I had lost control of my life.
As I nervously chewed on my lip, I glanced in his direction. He was still on the phone and staring out of the dirty window as he talked.
Needing something to do to occupy myself, I tested the stability of my poor overworked legs and stood. Deciding I wouldn’t fall on my face, I moved to the table next to me. Table by table, I cleared the dust but left the chairs up for the moment. When I reached the nasty bar, my nose wrinkled in distaste. Who knew when it had been cleaned last. It wasn’t just dusty; there were sticky rings of something dried on the surface, along with what looked like old, crusty food bits.
They may have taken the time to put up the chairs, but they didn’t bother cleaning anything first. It was filthy, to say the least.
A sweeping motion of my hand along the length of the bar had it cleaned. Satisfaction lifted the corners of my lips.
“What the fuck?” Phoenix exclaimed behind me, and I jumped with a squeak. Slowly, I turned to face him.
“Hey,” I nervously replied.
“How did you—?” He glanced around with his mouth flopping open and shut like a goldfish, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
“I, um, cleaned?” I offered as I wrinkled my nose and drew my shoulders up toward my ears.
“I see that,” he finally got out and shook his head as if he could reset what he was seeing. The owlish blinking told me he was having a hard time.
“So what do we do now?” I finally spit out. I didn’t have my purse, my phone. Nothing. The only thing I had were the keys that I’d grabbed before we had to haul ass. Those were more important than my purse or phone anyway.
“Voodoo is okay. Raptor helped your friend get the rubble off Voodoo’s legs. They’re keeping your friend safe. And grabbing my cut.” He said the last part in a muttered breath. “We decided they would stay away for a bit in case those nutcases who blew up the front of your store are watching them. No sense in leading them to us. The only way they can find us is if they have a tracking device on you. My brothers are trying to get in contact with someone Raptor knows around here. You have no idea how weird this trip has been,” he explained before he ran a hand roughly over his mouth and beard.
“They didn’t see who it was?” Though Niara had herself and Voodoo cloaked, maybe she recognized whoever it was.
“Just that it was a man and woman—both blond. They followed us out the back and hauled ass after us. Do you know who they are?”
“Not really. But if they are who we suspect, my mother and I believe they’re part of the black witch covens. My mother had a run-in with them shortly before she got sick. I never saw them. What I don’t understand is how they made it past my wards. It doesn’t make sense. Anyway, the black witches are extremely secretive because their beliefs are frowned upon by the general witch society. They betrayed the general assembly of witch covens years and years ago and essentially went underground.”
“Maybe they didn’t go underground. Maybe they dispersed,” he offered. Absently, he stroked his short beard. I wanted to touch it to see if it was soft or coarse.
“Doubtful. They pop up every so often, but no one knows where they live or where they meet. Trust me when I tell you the coven leaders have tried to figure it out,” I muttered.
“You think they’re after you for the scrolls?”
“Definitely.”
“How can you be sure?” he asked with a frown.
“Because they are why my mother is in the hospital.” My shoulders sagged. It was all getting to be too much.
“They hurt her?”
“Not exactly, but yes, I believe so.” When he cocked a brow, I elaborated. “We received an anonymous note at the shop that warned my mother would die if we didn’t turn over the scrolls. My mother refused. Then she said a couple came by again one morning as she was opening the shop but she brushed it off and told me not to worry about it. I knew there was more to it, but she became extremely secretive and wouldn’t tell me anything else. After that, she became ill and rapidly deteriorated. When I could no longer do anything for her, even with the help of Niara, I had to take her to the hospital.”
“Uhh, how did that go over?”
