mission magic 01 - the incubus job (3 page)

“Tabitha,” she said. “Come out. We need to talk to you, child. You risked all our lives and nearly got yourself killed. I know you feel alone, but we are your family.”

Edna reached for a handkerchief in the pocket of her cardigan and pressed it against the corners of her eyes. I stared. I’d never seen a ghost cry. She looked at me.

“You can make her come out.” It was a statement, not a suggestion. I had a feeling she was testing me.

“I could,” I said. “But I won’t.”

“You did downstairs.” Michael appeared in the air behind Edna. He was only about twenty, and built like a football player. His brown hair was short and straight and he wore a white shirt with brown pants. I always figured him for an eighties kid. He’d never told me what happened to him.

I nodded to him. “I did.” I didn’t bother rehashing why. He’d had a front-row seat.

“Tabitha,” he said in a stern voice. “You’d better get your ass out here.”

I felt a shimmy of something like laughter from the ghost girl. I couldn’t blame her. Michael in authority mode wasn’t convincing, especially since he liked to play pranks.

More of my ghosts began to shimmer out of thin air. I’d seen them all at least once. That was my policy. If they were going to latch on to me, I wanted to meet them. It was only polite. A few of them liked to visit me a lot. Michael was one. Edna came out more rarely, though she’d taken a motherly interest in Tabitha, and that brought her out more. Sam was another regular. She was in her fifties. Her husband had burned her house down with her in it. Once she was dead, she returned the favor with him and his sleaze girlfriend. Glenda was another who came out fairly often. She’d walked in on a guy robbing her house, and he’d decided it would be fun to rape and strangle her. She’d made him pay for that later and wasn’t too shy about sharing the details. She’d been creative in her revenge.

One by one they all came out. Seventeen of them. Tabitha made eighteen, but she was still adhered around me like plastic wrap.

“We aren’t going to hurt you, Tab,” Sam said. “But we need to talk to you.”

Ah, hell. As if my life wasn’t strange enough, I was now in the middle of a ghostly intervention. I’d have really liked Tabitha to peel off so I could go have a shower. I’d been in these clothes for nearly twenty-four hours now. I needed to clean up before getting down to business. Or rather, I needed to clean up in order to get down to business. My street urchin look wasn’t going to help me catch my prey. I had a feeling if I tried to go to the bathroom without dealing with Tabitha, the crowd of ghosts would just follow. I didn’t mind them when they were invisible and I didn’t have to notice they were there, but I drew the line at having a visible audience while showering and sitting on the toilet.

“What’s it going to take, Tabitha?” I asked. “Are you going to hide forever? You know sooner or later you’re going to have to face the music.”

No sooner had I said the words than a fist thudded against the door. My heart jumped into my throat. Speaking of facing the music. Law. Had to be. I could practically feel his fury radiating through the walls. Tabitha shuddered against my skin. I closed my eyes, my stomach twisting. I was not ready for this. He pounded again. So much for LeeAnne’s discretion. Effrayant’s owner was going to get an earful from me about his housekeeper’s loose lips.

He pounded again and this time the door shook. I drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Six years later and it was still too soon.

I stood and looked at my ghosts. “Better come to me. He’s an exterminator.”

I’d barely finished uttering the last word before they all winked out of sight and layered over me like armor. I needed it. I’d always felt exposed when dealing with Law, like my skin peeled away and all my nerves were on display. I’d fallen head over heels in love the first time I laid eyes on him and I had never gotten over it. Walking away had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. I never expected to have to do it twice.

As much as I dreaded opening the door, I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d wanted to. I was like an addict needing a fix, and Law was my drug of choice.

A really pissed-off drug.

I twisted the handle and swung the door open in slow motion. He stood on the other side. I only stared, soaking in all that was him.

The first thing I noticed was that he looked older. Not a surprise. It had been six years, after all. His face was the same—all hard angles and stone. Instead of five-day-old stubble, he had a carefully trimmed beard now, and his dark hair was longer. It was messy as if he’d been scraping his fingers through it. Gone was the battered leather jacket he’d always worn, and the inevitable black T-shirt and jeans. Now a black cashmere sweater and charcoal slacks made him look harshly elegant. The one thing that hadn’t changed at all were his eyes. The green gaze felt like hammers battering at me as he examined me from head to foot and back, lingering on the scar that hooked from just below my right eye and made a slashing comma down to my jaw.

“Mary Carson, I presume?” he asked caustically.

His gravelly voice scraped my nerves as it always had, and I had to suppress a shiver. My hormones spun into overdrive and flat-out need lust through me like a tidal wave. I hadn’t slept with anyone since him. I hadn’t wanted to.

He didn’t need to know that. Just like he didn’t need to know I’d been in love with him all those years ago. Fuck. Who was I kidding? I was still in love with him.

“In the flesh,” I said, making no effort to take down my room wards so he could come in.

When I didn’t say anything more, his scowl deepened and his jaw knotted. He put his hands on either side of the doorway and leaned in. I could smell his aftershave. It made my toes curl. I drew a deep breath to savor it even as I kicked myself.

“Are we going to do this in public, then?” he asked softly, his lip curling. “Because we are going to have a conversation right now.”

I flicked a glance at the door. I could shut it. He’d have to blast down my shields—if he could.

He made a growling sound as he followed my glance. “Do you really want a war, Mallory? Because like it or not, you’re going to talk to me. I’m not letting you vanish without a word again. So why don’t you try acting like a grown-up for once?”

His comments stung, if only because they were true. I’d not behaved much better than Tabitha had downstairs. I’d owed Law better. I just hadn’t been capable of doing it without pouring my heart out all over him. I wasn’t sure I was any more capable now, but he wasn’t giving me a lot of choice.

I stepped back. “Give me a minute.”

He gave me a blistering look but didn’t say anything. I retreated into the sitting area, facing away from him. I needed a second to get control over myself. I took several deep breaths, letting them out slowly, feeling for the center of my magic. To say I was flustered was an understatement. Not the best state of mind for working magic. I snorted softly at myself. I’d been telling Tabitha to grow up and deal with things, but I wasn’t handling my issue any better.

Six years ago I’d run away because I had to get out of that life and I knew Law would try to talk me down. I couldn’t let him. Six years ago I’d killed for the last time. I knew he couldn’t understand then, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t understand now. Six years ago I’d broken our partnership and left behind the man I loved more than my own life. If I could do that then, I could do this now.

No more running. Time to face what I’d done, what I’d had to do. Watch and learn, Tabitha.

I took down my wards and heard the door thump shut. Law strode into the room behind me. The space filled with his presence. I squared my shoulders and turned to face him. I might have let him in, but we were still at war.

“Been a while, Law. You look good.”

He stopped a few feet away, giving me an incredulous stare. “That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

“What did you expect?”

He thrust his hands through his hair and swore. “God damn it, Mallory. How about an explanation? Like why you left without a word. Like why you’ve never been in touch. Like what you’re doing here and with a poltergeist.” He moved before I knew what he was going to do. Suddenly he was standing right in front of me. He reached up, lightly gripping my face, his thumb brushing over the scar. “Like what happened to you,” he said, his voice turning smoky.

His touch sent curls of flame rippling through my body. I wanted to close my eyes and lean into him. But no, that was a trap. Anything to do with him was a trap. I couldn’t go back. I might still love Law beyond reason, but he belonged to a life that needed to stay in the past.

I stepped away, pulling out of his grasp and putting distance between us. “I left because I needed to. I didn’t say anything because you would have talked me out of it. I’m here on a job. If I were responsible for the poltergeist in the lobby, I would tell you that she panicked and it won’t happen again. I got the scar on a job.”

He waited for me to say more, and when I didn’t, he shook his head, fury making the grooves around his nose and mouth deepen. “All those answers and yet not one of them tells me a damned thing. You’re going to have to do better. Start with why you left without a word.”

I caught my upper lip in my teeth then shrugged inwardly. He was going to be pissed, but he already was, and it didn’t matter anymore. It was over. All the same, when I opened my mouth to tell him, the words wouldn’t come. The truth was that day wasn’t over, not for me. It never would be. It played on constant rewind in my nightmares. You’d think the repetition would make it easier, let me get used to it. But every time was like cutting the wound open fresh.

“I—” Words stuck sideways in my throat. I shook my head. “I just had enough. I had to get out.”

Law seemed to see my struggle because he set aside his anger, his expression turning gentle. God. How the hell was I supposed to fight that?

“What happened, Mallory? You were fine when we went into the compound that day—”

“I wasn’t,” I said quickly.

He blinked at me.

“I wasn’t fine. I hadn’t been fine for a while,” I said, the words tumbling out. The dam had broken at last, and I found that I wanted him to know; I needed him to know.

“The truth was I was tired of the job, of doing shitty things for so-called good reasons. I was tired of killing things—people, demons, ghosts . . . everything. Most of all I was tired of you not being tired of it all.”

“You were . . . tired,” he repeated slowly. “So you ran out on the job, on our partnership, and on us. All because you were tired?” Acid dripped from his tongue. He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. There’s more to it. There has to be because that’s the most chicken-shit thing I’ve heard in my life, and I know you’re not a coward.”

“See what I mean? You haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about. Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.”

“Make me understand,” he said, glowering. “Try harder. You were an exterminator. That was the job.”

“I didn’t like the job. I quit. What’s so hard to understand about that?”

He grabbed my shoulders like he wanted to shake me. Instead he pushed me away and strode to the other side of the room. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“You didn’t just quit the job; you quit me. I was your partner. We were lovers. I deserved a hell of a lot more than waking up alone in that hotel room. You didn’t even leave a fucking note.”

“I know,” I said softly. “But you’d have tried to stop me, and I would have let you. If I had, I’d have slit my own throat within a week. As for a note, I didn’t know what to say. Nothing seemed enough.”

He could only stare, baffled. Emotions flickered over his expression. Finally anger and impatience won out.

“Explain,” he said. “Something else happened that day. Tell me.”

I sat down on the edge of a chair and rested my elbows on my knees. “You were there,” I said. “You know exactly what happened.”

That was the worst of it. That’s why I hadn’t told him. He seen it all and just didn’t care, but it had been the last straw for me.

He frowned. “I’ve played every damned moment of that raid over and over in my head, trying to figure out what sent you running. Everything went according to book. We took down Ritter, got his victims out, and exterminated everything else. We left the site clean. Nobody got hurt.”

“People died,” I corrected.

“All three of those women made it. We saved their lives.”

“I’m not talking about them.”

He was back to looking baffled. “There wasn’t anyone else there. Just Ritter and the three victims. He’d killed all the others. He’d been torturing and killing women for years. I’d have thought you’d be thrilled we took him down and saved three of his victims. I did think you were thrilled.”

“He had that little house where he did all his torture,” I recalled, ice tracing through my veins. I’d learned to compartmentalize the horror I felt when we did those jobs. Otherwise I could never have survived as long as I did. Ritter hadn’t been the worst killer we’d found, though he was in the top five. He was definitely the most prolific. “Right there on the little lake. The victims could look out on the prettiest view while he cut them up. No one could hear them scream.”

“That’s where we found Julia, Sharon, and Melanie Brooks. Still alive,” Law reminded me.

Sisters. Ritter had kidnapped them from a park in California and driven them back to his compound near Aspen, Colorado. He considered himself an artist, with the women being his canvas. He cut, tattooed, and branded intricate patterns into their skins, covering every square centimeter. He kept them alive with magic, taking weeks to finish each skin canvas. When he was done, the bastard drilled holes in their heads and hung them on cables, like macabre paintings. A museum dedicated to his own heinous art. He had money to burn and enough magic to keep the bodies from rotting. The oldest bodies had been there for more than twenty years.

I shuddered. We’d found three victims alive, but the dead had been legion.

“It was bad,” Law said, his voice careful, as if he didn’t want to spook me. “One of our worst.”