The Sorceress Screams (18 page)

“I’m not
temporarily avoiding the situation either.”

He dropped his
head to eye level. “What will you do if he attacks you? Can you kill him?”

“I can,” I
said, knowing full well I was dodging the question.

Desmond proved
he was a little too intuitive, a side effect of his being a Water witch. “
Will
you kill him?”

“No. I don’t
kill people.” I refuted the next inevitable argument using a bit of my own
intuition.
“Even already dead people.”

He ran a hand
over his hair. “Please,
Kora
.”

My jaw went
slack upon hearing both his use of my nickname and the pleading tone. He was
actually worried about me?

No
. He was worried his
chance at a mole would be enthralled out from under him.

“I’ll be
fine.” I softened the bitterness lacing my voice. “I’m staying inside after the
sun sets. He won’t get a chance to recognize me.”

Until Maximo calls on me as he’s warned
.

“He may not
need to.” The Water witch paused for grim effect. “He need only persuade one of
his thralls to tell him who you are.”

“I’m not
running away, Marino.”

His eyelids
slid shut as he inhaled a heavy sigh. “I’ll call you when he leaves the
coalition.” Desmond’s eyes reopened. “But I really wish you’d reconsider.”

“I’ll make it
through this just fine, Marino. You’ll have plenty of time to blackmail me into
being your mole.”

Desmond
glanced at the store and then over his shoulder toward the car. His lips
thinned. No doubt he was worried I’d been overheard. Nell’s opinion of him
definitely wouldn’t improve if she knew what he’d asked me to do.

“Call me if
you change your mind,” he said. “I can have a room booked and transportation
arranged within a half hour.”

“Thanks for
the offer, but I’m staying right here.”

I turned for
shop but paused, remembering something equally as important. I turned my head
toward him. He’d not moved from his spot.

My attention
shifted to the car. “Take care of them for me, Marino.”

“Take care of
yourself.”

That was one
thing I was good at.

****

After Desmond
left and Nell had settled into the shop downstairs, I called Dr. Yates. She
needed a warning about Nadir’s arrival. Rather like Desmond had done, I
suggested she contact
Dea
Woods about escaping
Wipuk
before dusk.

Vanessa shared
the news that the blood had remained stable. She’d already made the appointment
for
Dea
in Flagstaff. Both would head to the larger
city to our north after Vanessa completed her rounds for the day. She asked me
to pay a visit when I got off work. I despised that I had to decline. I
promised to visit
Dea
in the morning before work—when
the vampires would be dead to the world—so I could check if she had fewer of
the foreign antibodies in her blood.

I was
torn—impatient to be finished with work but worried what the night would bring.
Would Nadir learn my identity from one of his thralls? And why hadn’t Maximo
warned me of
that
? The excuse he
hadn’t known a Dark witch had been staying with me was no longer valid.

Nell offered
to get me dinner around six. I didn’t feel capable of eating. My stomach was
knotted with anxiety. I’d eat when I was safe again.

Dr. Yates
updated me on
Dea’s
progress. They’d successfully
completed her first treatment and planned another for after dinner provided she
still felt up to it. The Healer hadn’t been able to visually isolate the
antibodies in the Earth witch’s blood like I’d done for her. She wanted to meet
me in the morning with
Dea
so I could teach her how
I’d done it.

Thus far I’d
avoided admitting I was a Healer. That would change tomorrow. I had to hope
they’d keep the news quiet.

My mobile
phone rang at eight o’clock with a familiar Sedona number. “Hello?”

“
Hola
.
Rebecca.” Maximo’s resonant voice piped directly into my ear. The way he paused
before using my given name was every bit as potent from afar.

But I hadn’t given him my phone number and he’d refused to give me
his.
Apparently it took a dangerous colleague
arriving in the colony before he’d give up his digits.

“I’m sending
Javier to you.
My assistant with the dark, medium length
hair?”

I pictured the
vampire who had handled the arrangements at Maximo’s charity auction.
“The one who let me into your house?”

“Yes, that is
him. He’ll follow you to your apartment and ensure you arrive safely.”

I’d fought
Maximo on the guard point. Clearly the deal was off now that Nadir was in town.
After Desmond had pled with me to leave
Wipuk
, maybe
having a guard for a day or two wouldn’t be a bad idea. Javier’s race meant
he’d be gone before the sun rose in any case.

Still, I
infused my voice with a heavy dash of hesitance. “Okay.”

“We’ll be
making a diplomatic visit to the Centralized Coven Coalition tonight.” He
adopted a stilted tone. “I expect we’ll be busy for several hours. Tomorrow at
the latest I will call on you to visit me.”

Could Nadir be
within earshot? It was definitely possible. Vampire earshot was far greater
than a human’s.

“In the
meantime…” Maximo’s voice smoothed out into his sensual tone. “I’ve sent you a
gift for my next visit. Please accept it as a token of my affection.”

Was it my
ring?

No. He’d at
the very least expect sex before he’d decide I was “devoted to this
relationship”.

I said nothing
because I wasn’t foolish enough to accept a gift I hadn’t seen.

“I’ll see you
no later than tomorrow. Rebecca.” My given name softly spoken earned him a
shiver up my back.

I settled into
my seat behind the display case to ponder what sort of gift Maximo had sent.

****

Javier arrived
in the black Cadillac Escalade minutes after I’d gotten off the phone with
Maximo. He remained in the vehicle until nine o’clock. Nell’s heavy steps meant
an awkward moment was near.

How would I
explain Javier’s appearance? I couldn’t lie because soon enough it would be
common knowledge I was dating Maximo de Sole. But I was unwilling to get into
an argument about it just yet.

Her eyebrows
lifted the moment she spotted him. She jutted one hip out, settling her hands
across her chest. “There’s a vampire outside the door. I assume he’s safe since
you haven’t blasted him with Air?”

“He’s safe,” I
said. “Maximo sent him to make sure Nadir didn’t get me on my way home.”

Nell sent me a
pointed look. “Maximo did, did he?”

I nodded at
her sour question.

“What did
Maximo ask for in return?”

Styx
take
it
. We were going to get into the argument now anyway.

“Uh, another date.”
Or three hundred
.

“I can’t
believe you.” She stomped out of the shop.

Her car door
slammed shut seconds later. I winced even though she had every right to be
furious with me. In her mind, Maximo was an evil mastermind who sifted the
colony’s supplies through ever tightening fingers. And I couldn’t prove he
didn’t. It didn’t help that Desmond had been showing up more and more in his
quest to capture a mole. As Nell saw it, I was socializing with
Wipuk’s
worst.

I dearly
wished I could tell her this was all temporary. The reality was I no longer
knew how long it was going to take before the covens viewed me as a legitimate
member of their society rather than a fringe rogue element to be feared or
dismissed out of hand.

The vampire
stepped away from the shop door while I locked it from the outside. I faced him
once finished.

He lowered his
head in a move of respect. “I’m Javier,” he said without a trace of an accent.
“First sent me to see you safely home.”
Maximo was both
Wipuk
and
Sedona’s First … and only vampire ruler. “He regrets he can’t do it himself.”
Javier gestured that I should go to my car.

His frosty
professionalism made it easy to hurry to my Nissan’s driver’s side without
comment. I slipped
inside,
fastening the seat belt in
case Nadir decided a head-on collision would solve his sorceress problem. With
the radio turned down low, I started for home at a legal speed so the Escalade
would have no trouble keeping up. Javier managed to stay close to my bumper the
entire drive home. I supposed his rolling through two stop signs to avoid
someone cutting between helped accomplish it.

Javier
insisted I give him the keys to the apartment so he could go in first. He made
me stay just inside the front door as he checked out the place. Likewise he
told me to stay inside behind the locked door while he went to get my “gift”.

The bodyguard
role he’d adopted made me terribly uneasy. I wasn’t helpless. Maximo knew that.
He knew I had power at my fingertips. Was Nadir Khan truly so badass to merit a
guard reminding me to lock the door?

Javier
appeared with a box as large as he was. The full color photograph printed on
the outside showed a thin television. I gaped in shock, face heating from an
emotion I couldn’t name.

Maximo had
bought me a
television
! And it was a
big one from the looks of it. That was one
mondo
“gift”. I’d expected roses or a box of chocolates. I couldn’t accept a
freakin
’ television.

“Lock the door
behind me. I have another load to bring in.” Javier was gone by the time I’d
worked the word
what
to my lips.
Maximo had said gift. Not
gifts
.

I dashed to my
purse and rummaged for my phone. Searching the recent calls, I hit the one that
read
de Sole
.

“You’re home
safe?” he said rather than greet me.

“This is too
much.
A television?
It’s bigger than I am!” At least I
thought it would be when it was out of the box.

Maximo let out
a quiet, almost incredulous laugh. “It’s as much for me as it is for you.”

“I can’t accept
it.”

“Rebecca,” he
said, crooning my name. “If it helps, don’t think of it as a gift. Think of it
as holding something of mine when I’m not using it. Find a nice place to set up
the table where we can see it when I visit next. If you’re daring, put it in
the bedroom.”

My face heated
until I realized what he’d said.
“Table?”

Javier knocked
then. I tugged open the door to find him hauling another, larger box with a
photograph of a glass television stand.

“Good grief, a
table
,
too?”

Javier made
snuffling noise that reminded me I was potentially in danger. I moved out of
the way.

But not without continuing the protest.
“This isn’t a gift, de
Sole,
this is you
furnishing my apartment!”

“Max,” he said
softly.

“
Max
, I can’t accept these.”

“I insist,” he
said, voice crisp and verging on impatience.

Clearly I
couldn’t push him on this or he’d grow upset. Inhaling a weary breath, I
relented. “Okay.
For now.
But no
more ‘gifts’, Max.”

“Okay.
For now.
Was that all?”

I grumbled.
“Yes. Sorry I interrupted.”

“You are never
an interruption. Rebecca.” And just like that, he was back to sensual-vamp
mode.

“Bye.” I
disconnected before he could say anything else to lift my body’s temperature.

Javier had
popped the top off the television stand’s box. He glanced around the room,
opening his mouth as if to ask a question but closed it without speaking. A
moment later he told me to lock the door behind him again.

He returned
with a tool box, yet
another
box—this
one with the photograph of a game console on it—and a bag from a big box store
hanging from his wrist. I clenched my jaw in anger but said nothing apart from gesturing
that the glass table should go in between the windows.

Then I
retreated to the bedroom so I could pretend I hadn’t received expensive gifts
from a vampire I barely knew.

Chapter Thirteen

It was sunrise
when I called my mother for my weekly report. Javier had left in the nick of
time. He’d remained inside using the excuse of tightening up this screw or that
screw all night. Had that been Maximo’s plan, or had Javier simply decided it
on his own? Whatever the case, he was gone.