Enigma (17 page)

He was resting, and that helped her stay outwardly calm as she shot out of the car and banged on the front door of the house.

It seemed like an eternity before Luciano pulled it open, his chest bare and his hair mussed. He blinked at her, bleary-eyed. “Can I help you?”

A chill shivered up her neck. Back in New York, they’d played in the same regular poker game—every other Friday night for two years. No way he didn’t remember her. “Luciano, it’s me. Anna.”

“Anna,” he repeated, but no hint of recollection lit his eyes.

The shiver intensified. “Anna
Lenoir
. I called yesterday. Michelle is—Shit, we don’t have time for this.” She turned back toward the car. She’d drag Patrick into the house by herself if she had to.

“Wait,” Luciano called after her. “It’s the middle of the night. You can’t just—”

“Watch me.”

He caught up to her by the passenger door, one hand on her arm. She was about to deck him when his brow furrowed again. “Hold on—what are you doing here?”

The shiver progressed to a full-on shudder, and she dragged open the car door. “Get him inside. I’ll handle the fetish.”

More people had spilled onto the front porch. Michelle, wrapped in a silk dressing gown, looking confused, and Kat, whose baffled lack of recognition was even more terrifying since they’d been standing next to each other in bridesmaids’ dresses only days ago.

Then Andrew appeared. He edged her aside and pulled Patrick from the car, hauling him up over one shoulder. “They don’t know you. What the hell’s going on?”

Maybe Patrick’s gallows humor was rubbing off on her. “Nobody knows me. I’m an enigma, after all.”

He just snorted. “Magic?”

“Always.” She didn’t give a damn anymore if she wasn’t supposed to touch the fetish. Its damage had been done, so she snatched it up with her bare hands.

On the porch, Michelle sucked in a breath. In a heartbeat, she was down the steps, her voluminous gown flowing out behind her as she raced across the rough gravel drive. “Bring him to my workroom,” she ordered. “Don’t let anyone else touch him, Andrew. Luciano, get Kat back inside.”

Anna gripped the fetish so hard the wood cracked and sent a bolt of pain spiking through her. “We need to destroy this.”

“I know.” Michelle’s voice shifted to a low, soothing tone, in spite of her pale face and disheveled appearance. “Loosen your fingers, Anna, and take a deep breath. Panic will rile your power and feed the fetish, make it stronger. We’ll take care of it, and take care of—” the hesitation was brief but telling, “—Patrick too. But I need you to help me.”

She could do this. She had to. Anna nodded and inhaled slowly.

“That’s good. Now follow me.” Michelle gathered her nightdress in her hands as she climbed the porch steps. “Whatever you do, don’t touch anyone else until we’ve destroyed it.”

She hurried back inside, leading Anna through a twisting maze of hallways and corridors too quickly to pause and catch her breath. The door at the end of the final hall already stood open.

Magic hummed inside the room. It looked like someone’s neatly organized cellar, with jars and boxes on solid shelves lining the walls. A heavy wooden table stood in the center of the room, its corners rounded off with delicate scrollwork.

Andrew looked bewildered, as if he’d forgotten why he’d come into the workroom—and why he was carrying an unconscious man. He laid him out on the floor, and Anna dropped the fetish on the table.

The damn thing skittered and shook, then began to slide toward the edge of the table in Patrick’s direction. Anna drew her knife from her boot and stabbed it through one twisted piece of cloth, pinning the fetish in place. “How do we kill it?”

“Carefully. Andrew?” Michelle caught his attention and gestured toward the door. “Please go outside, close the door, and make sure no one comes past you.”

Michelle discarded her robe as he obeyed, leaving her looking fragile and delicate in her lacy white nightgown. But there was nothing delicate about her expression as she tied up her hair. “Andrew has natural defenses and knows you better than most, so it makes sense that he hasn’t forgotten you yet. But if Patrick’s already slipping from his mind…” She shook her head. “What happened since you called?”

“Nothing. We just
drove
.” Anna tried to describe Patrick’s growing unease. She’d chalked up the harsh, grating buzz of magic to nervousness, and perhaps his trepidation over encountering another Seer. And then, when he’d started to succumb—

It had happened so fast.

“Your ward probably saved his life,” Michelle told her as she rose from examining him. “It created a buffer of power for the fetish to feed from. Now we need to isolate the fetish so you can destroy it.”

“Me?” Anna knew jack about magic. She knew violence. “No, that’s why we brought it to you. I was going to burn the damn thing.”

“And you will—
after
we set up a proper containment field.” Michelle lifted a knife and offered the hilt to Anna. “Carve a circle around it.”

The table’s height made it awkward to scratch out a rough furrow around the fetish. More than once, Anna’s hands slipped on the hilt, which seemed to jump in her grasp. It caught her finger, slicing deep, and she gritted her teeth through the fleeting pain.

But the fetish seemed to stretch and bow toward her hand, like a fucking dog sniffing out a treat, and Anna jerked away. “It wants my blood.” Dumbfounded, she finished the lopsided carving with her other hand. “Michelle, what the fuck
is
this thing?”

“I’m not entirely sure. But it doesn’t matter.” As soon as Anna closed the circle, Michelle brushed her finger over its edge. It began to light up, a luminescent glow that spread slowly around the perimeter.

On the floor, Patrick groaned and stirred, and Anna’s heart shot into her throat. “You up, McNamara? Lazy ass.” But he only muttered something unintelligible and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

“Have you got a lighter?” At Anna’s nod, Michelle retrieved a small glass bottle from one of the shelves. “Oil infused with white sandalwood. It will serve as an accelerant as well as a purifying agent. I’ll hold the containment circle to keep it from draining Patrick. You need to burn it.”

Anna uncorked the bottle with her thumb and began to trickle the oil over the fetish. It creaked, rattled and flipped over, but the invisible barrier formed by the glowing circle held strong.

Again and again, the fetish tried to escape as Anna soaked it with oil. She lit her lighter and considered touching it to the oily mess, but finally tossed the struck lighter on top of it. It caught fire with a snap that tightened her chest and made her stomach clench.

Because it didn’t go easy. Besides the whip of magic through the room, the thing began to writhe and twist like a wounded animal. Anna forced herself to stay put, to watch it burn even as an unearthly shriek began to build, reverberating off the walls and echoing in her ears.

Michelle clenched her jaw, and the containment circle brightened, flaring as high as the flames. The remaining bits of the fetish exploded with a final grating screech, the shredded pieces slamming against the translucent barrier and rebounding with no respect for gravity.

With a gasp, Patrick bolted upright, his eyes wide and confused, his hands already going for a weapon.

Dizzy with relief, Anna dropped beside him. “It’s okay. We’re at the ranch.”

“Did you—?” His gaze caught on the swirling debris within the column of light, and his face paled as he jerked his attention back to Anna with a crooked smile. “Stupid question. Of course you got it done.”

“Michelle knew what to do.”

“Barely.” Michelle was frowning at the table, her expression so irritated she looked intimidating, even in vintage silk. “I should have considered it when you called, but I discounted the possibility of the two of you being swept into it, and that put you both in danger. I’m truly sorry.”

Nothing about the case had been straightforward or simple. At every turn, something new popped up to bite them in the ass. “It’s not just you,” Anna muttered. “We’ll have to start thinking complicated.”

Michelle sighed, and the circle of light snuffed out abruptly, leaving ashes to flutter harmlessly to the table. Patrick gripped Anna’s hand, the only sign of his tension in the face of such casual magic.

Before he could speak, Michelle pivoted and retrieved her robe. “I’m sure we’ll all think better after some sleep. Anna, the guest house should be in reasonable order, even if we forgot you were coming.”

“We’ll manage.” She looped Patrick’s arm around her neck and helped him to his feet. Morning would be soon enough for questions and explanations. Soon enough to start making calls, putting out feelers, doing the next round of research to track down another useful lead.

For the moment, she focused on putting one foot in front of the other, on the solid weight of Patrick’s body against hers as they made their way outside into the chilly night. By the time she stopped by the car to grab their bags, he was stronger, only relying on her to steady him.

Inside the guest house, he leaned against the door and caught her by the shoulders, dragging her to his body and burying his face in her hair. He held on like he couldn’t let go, like her touch was the only thing to ground him.

She slipped her arms around his waist. “It’s okay. You’re all right.”

“I’m not,” he whispered rawly. “That thing latched on to me, the same way Oscar did. If I were
whole
, I wouldn’t have put you in danger.”

“Stop it.” She tilted her face up to his. “It would have taken Michelle too. It was just eating all the magic it could sense.”

His eyes were haunted and so, so tired. “Do you know that?”

“Yes.” From the way it had behaved in the workroom, like it had come alive in the presence of Michelle’s magic. “You’re stronger than you know, Patrick. You held out for a long time.”

He framed her face in shaky hands, his thumbs smoothing back and forth across her cheeks. “And you saved my life. Again.”

He was feeling weak. Her first instinct was to retreat, to give him space to lick his wounds. But he wasn’t a wolf, and he wouldn’t snap if she accidentally backed him into a corner.

“Come on.” Anna tugged his hands from her face and pulled him toward the short hallway. There were only two doors, one to the bathroom and one to the bedroom. She led him through the door on the left and urged him to sit on the edge of the bed.

She just watched him at first, willing the shadows of pain darkening his face to ease. But maybe only her voice could do that, so she started to speak. “The spell was pulling at us both.” Truth, because it was all she knew how to give him, even if it hurt. “They’d started to forget us by the time we got here.”

“Jesus Christ, Anna.” He scrubbed his hand over his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“Shh.” She made him look at her with a light touch on his chin, because she had to see his eyes, and she’d never get the words out if she didn’t do it now. “It was crazy. Crazier because if you hadn’t been in danger, I don’t know if I would have cared if the world forgot me. So long as you remembered.”

His hands landed on her hips, jerking her forward to straddle his legs. And then he was kissing her, clumsy with exhaustion and rough with desperation. His teeth sank into her lip, and he gripped her hard enough to leave bruises behind. But that was okay, because she couldn’t keep from pulling his hair and scratching her nails over the warm skin beneath his collar, just to reassure herself that he was
here
, alive. That he was going to be fine.

He tilted back on the bed and took her with him, but the frantic edge of his touches eased once he rolled her beneath him. His lips lingered at the corner of her mouth, drifted to her jaw and traced up to her ear. “Nothing could make me forget you.”

“I know.” He’d gone heavy above her, exhaustion already claiming him. She eased him over to his side and curled up against his chest. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

His arm tightened around her until he seemed satisfied that her words were the truth, but it had to be more instinct than conscious thought. His breathing began to slow, and he whispered sleepily against her hair, “You better not, Anna.”

Her name on his lips, whispered in a quiet moment of intimacy, unmarred by frustration or pain. She could get used to hearing it.

Patrick was used to sleeping lightly in strange places and assessing his surroundings before he opened his eyes, a fact that made swimming out of a dead sleep in an unfamiliar bed twice as disorienting.

But not as disorienting as Anna’s stiff, unmoving presence next to him. “Anna?”

“It’s early,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

Memories of the previous night provided plenty of excuses for the tension in her body, but Patrick didn’t think he’d have slept so soundly with Anna on high alert next to him. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” She hesitated. “I don’t know.”

He shifted onto his side and winced as the muscles in his back protested. Anna was staring at the ceiling, looking as uneasy as he felt. “Tell me.”

For a long time, she kept staring, but finally, she rolled to face him. “Dreams. All night long, whenever I drifted off, I dreamed that Oscar Ochoa was standing over me, screaming.”