Hex and the Single Witch (Vehicle City Vampires) (6 page)

“A hex?” I asked
incredulously. “With everything else going on why would someone bother to hex
the city of Flint?”

She shrugged. “I
do not know, it makes no sense unless it is all a distraction so the really big
bad has an open pathway when it gets here. That is why I am recruiting Others
to be a part of the Guardians. I have a feeling we are going to need all the
help we can get.”

“A hex on the
city and ghosts and ghouls filling up the empty houses, how are the humans not
noticing this? Wait, I know, because the ghosts and ghoulies are taking up
residence in the many areas where most of the houses are empty. Can you imagine
being a human and realizing your next door neighbor is a demon? And I thought I
had neighbors from hell. Wow, talk about ghost towns.” I let out a sardonic
laugh.

Satinka gave me
a thoughtful smile. “You are just like your dad, cracking jokes even when
things are serious.”

“Sorry, Sati.
I’m not usually a joker.” I wasn’t either, just felt like I was going to
explode from all the pent up emotion inside me combined with all the worry and
stress about my city. Laughter seemed like a good way to relieve some of the
stress.

Of course, wild
passionate sex would be even better. I shook my head. Where the hell had that
thought come from? Guess I still dealt with the effects of last night’s vision.

Shrug it off, I
told myself and continued talking to Satinka, “I hear your Guardians are giving
eviction notices to some of the unwanted tenants?”

“Yes, the unruly
ones. You can share this information with the humans, I am sure not too many of
them want to play ghost buster, ghoul chaser, or demon slayer.”

“No, I’m sure
they don’t.” I laughed imagining Malone dressed up in Ghostbuster garb but
sobered quickly as an odd sensation pricked my senses. “I still get the feeling
you’re not telling me something, perhaps about the murders. What is it, Sati?”

“Come now, you
are She Who Knows.”

“Yeah, well, my
powers of knowledge have been a bit off lately, especially where the murders
are concerned.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Her ominous tone
sent a ripple down my spine. “Really?” How the hell did she know my powers were
off? I hadn’t told anyone how hard I had to work lately to get visions, other
than the ones from the murder victims which oddly came at me all too loud and
clear.

“Darling Wynnie,
I know you overheard my conversation with Devlin. You wish to speak to me about
Galen. The murders…he did not do them, I know he did not and I want you to know
he did not kill them, but…all of the women…he had connections to them. Someone
is trying very hard to get Galen’s attention. They very much want the murders
to lead to Galen, but I do not know why. I want to make sure the police do not
find their way to Galen. If they look too hard into his past they will find
reasons to execute him.”

I shivered.
Vamps found guilty were never sentenced to prison, they could just escape.
Vampires got staked, then beheaded, then burned. Then their ashes were
separated and sent to the far corners of earth to be scattered in the wind.
Extreme? Yes, but it was amazing at how many vamps came back from the dead if
these measures weren’t taken. I couldn’t imagine this fate befalling my beautiful
Galen. Well, he wasn’t really mine; we hadn’t even had a real date yet.

Do vampires even
date?

“Wyn?” Satinka’s
voice broke through my thoughts of Galen.

“Sorry, Sati,
lost in thought.”

Her brow
wrinkled. “I know Galen is innocent, but even he has his doubts. Someone is
messing with his mind. Some have sensed the same dark magick around Galen that
has lingered at the murder scenes. I know it is not his, he does not possess
such magick but someone, something wants him out of the picture. His past leaves
him open to harassment if anyone learns of those connections. If the police
find anything on him they will not put him to trial. The unholy combination of
Galen’s sire and his past will ensure him a quick trip to the vampire execution
chamber. It is up to us to protect him. Do you understand this, Anwyn?”

“Oh course,
Sati. You know I don’t want anything bad to happen to him either, but I’m going
to have to talk to him. What’s so bad about Galen, anyway? What has he done in
the past?”

“I’m sorry,
Anwyn, it is not my place to tell you of the horrors Galen has suffered or the
experiences he was forced to be part of. All I can say is his master, his sire
was a sadistic, evil, power hungry bastard who loved torturing those weaker
than he. And he was a terribly good master at what he did.”

With that Sati
stood up and quickly left the table. She left me sitting alone, interview most
definitely over.

Chapter 6

I stood up and
turned to leave. A subtle shift in the energy of the room made me glance up to
see Galen on the stairs leading to the upper level of the club. My stomach
flip-flopped. Damn he looked so exquisitely beautiful—a strong, square,
masculine jaw; high cheekbones; long, dark, wavy hair; beautiful, big green
eyes which seemed to take in every detail; long lean muscles, and all on a body
towering above six feet. He was…sex incarnate. Masculine beauty that could make
a girl cry…or shiver with desire and anticipation. Electricity curled in the
air around us, waiting for us to touch so sparks could fly.

My reaction to
him turned me inside out, always so intense, demanding, visceral. From the
moment we met at a party sparks flew between us. Well I thought they did.
Electricity certainly poked at me. Galen on the other hand seemed to personify
stoic, unemotional vampire. Who the hell knew what went through his mind.

“What are you
doing here?” I asked him as my flip-flopping stomach turned into butterflies
delicately making my insides flutter.

“Just hanging
out. It gets lonely at my place all day so I usually hang out in the apartment
upstairs with a few other vamps. No one else is here today except Sati. And she
doesn’t hang out upstairs. If she’s not in the club, she’s hiding away in her
private chambers underground.”

“Wow, I didn’t
know the club had so many secret areas.” I suddenly had the urge to be alone
with him in a secluded area…doing secret things.

“Old buildings
like this often have much more than what meets the eye.” Galen’s green eyes
shimmered bright and his body rippled with catlike grace as he moved down the
stairs.

“I guess so. Ah,
uhh…Galen…since you’re here, I kinda need to talk to you.” I really did not
want to interrogate him. In fact, interrogating him was the last thing I wanted
to do. My licentious libido had a much better idea about what I could do with
Galen. Oh the possibilities…

“In an official
capacity?” His green eyes sparked with worry.

I sighed. “Yes
and no. It’s about the murder case but everything is off the record. I’m here
more as a friend than as a P.I.T. Crew investigator or Preternatural Liaison.”
I didn’t want to upset him.

His eyes darted
quickly around the room; he looked like he wanted to bolt.

I reached out to
calm him but thought better of touching him at this point, instead I tried to
sooth him with my words. “It’s nothing to worry about, Galen. I just need to
know a few things. Small things.”

He sighed. “Okay,
come upstairs where we can talk privately.

“Okay.” I
followed him upstairs like a lamb being led to slaughter though I hoped the
outcome for me would be much more pleasurable.

Electricity
flowed between us, a current of desire. I wanted to hop on and give into it,
yet with last night’s vision still floating around in my head, I needed to be
cautious.

Giving into the
current would be wrong. Wouldn’t it? We couldn’t do it. Could we?

Damn my brain
and my libido seriously ran in totally different directions. My attraction to
Galen overwhelmed and distracted. Yet my brain always hung in there trying to
be the voice of reason.

So confused.

And that was
before adding the rest of the world into the equation of Anwyn plus Galen
equals what exactly?

I was brought up
to believe vampires and witches just don’t mix, then there’s the whole he may
be a serial killer thing. Talk about putting a damper on the relationship. Of
course, I didn’t believe for one minute beautiful, tender Galen could be the
killer but something resonated very off about him. My instincts practically
screamed stay the hell away from him while my libido seriously drooled over him
and my brain floundered lost somewhere in between. Add up all the reasons why
Galen and I shouldn’t get involved and I got a big messy equation. On top of
all that was my family. They would surely put a damper on the relationship if
it did attempt to go somewhere…

“I’m glad the
police sent you.” Galen broke through my thoughts and offered me a seat on a
large plush sofa, the color of blood.

I sat down and
smiled, a little. “I am the official Preternatural Liaison. It’s my job.” I
sighed again; right then I wished it wasn’t my job to investigate him.

Galen sat down
next to me, careful to leave some distance between us. “I know, but there are
other members of the P.I.T. Crew. I was afraid they might send one of them,
someone not Other. You are one of us.” He almost looked a little frightened.

I wanted to
reach out and sooth his fears, to protect him from the madness.

I kept my hands
in my lap.

“I do and I
don’t understand. I know something is very off about this whole situation. The
killer is dangerous and full of major magick, old, dark, magick. Yet somehow it
all leads to you. Even though, I don’t sense any old magick coming from you.” I
tried to read him or get something from him I could use to determine one
hundred percent he wasn’t the killer, but he was blocked. Nothing swirled around
him, no dark magick. Only exquisite electricity flowed in the air between us.

“It is not me,
Anwyn. I wish I could prove it to you. You have no reason to believe me. We
barely know each other…” He paused, looking earnest and a little scared. “Let
me explain a little about me. From the beginning. As far as my kind go I am
relatively young, made into a vampire in Regency England.”

Ah, that
explains his overly polite mannerisms and formal tone. So he was barely two
hundred years old, maybe less, almost a baby in vampire terms. “Oookkaaay?”

Galen stood up
and paced around the room looking slightly fearful and very trepidatious. “I
just thought you should know. And you should know about my sire… an evil,
sadistic vampire. His father was the leader of the vampire council. Because of
this, my sire got away with murder, literally murder…constantly. Humans, vamps,
Others. Did not matter. He broke all the rules and never got punished for
anything.” He paused and turned away from me, taking in a deep breath like he was
gathering enough strength to continue.

After a moment
of silence he continued, “Before being changed, my sire…he kidnapped and killed
my entire family. First he killed my father and brother. He kept my mother and
sister alive, repeatedly raping them and drinking their blood. When finally he
tired of them, he drained the life from them. Even then the torture did not
stop…he continued to defile their dead bodies in front of me. It lasted for
days.”

I gasped; Galen
paused and looked at me. He studied me, as if gauging my reaction. Anguish on
his face was clear, horror, like something that just happened yesterday. How
awful! Should I show him sympathy or reveal the horror I felt, the horror he
must have went through witnessing so much pain?

He went on, “He
still had not turned me yet. He liked my human fear, my human reactions. I was
so weak and completely worthless against his power. He saved me for last
because he said he wanted to keep me for my beauty, an asset to him. Which, I
surely was for so long…too long. I wish he would have killed me, I wish fate
would have been much kinder than what I had to endure for the next century.”
Galen continued to pace around the room, his body rigid and tense, veins
bulging, his jaw tight.

It made him look
ferocious and frightening along with anguished and remorseful. This couldn’t be
an easy story to tell. And I had a feeling it would get worse.

“My sire made
the Marquis De Sade look like a boyscout and Jack the Ripper look like a common
criminal. He loved beautiful things—beautiful people and Others. He loved to
turn the beauty into an abomination, to ruin it. Especially vampires and weres
he could defile over and over. Our beauty would come back after we healed. At
least it did on the outside.

“On the inside,
we eventually became as ugly and twisted as him. He did unimaginable things to
us…cut off body parts that would regenerate, raped us over and over…the
pain…the horror. And he let other psychotics do these things to us, too. For
money. People…and Others would pay to combine sex and death. Many did not know
we came back to life after they left. Sated, they left us dead, thinking they
had killed.”

He stopped and
stared at me, his expression intense. I looked him straight in the eye, my
heart heavy for him. But, I wouldn’t let him see me feel sorry for him. He
already had a lifetime of pain… and after the pain, pity. I would not pity this
man...er…vampire. He was strong, a survivor. He deserved respect for making it
out alive. Well, as alive as a vampire could be.