The Sorceress Screams (24 page)

“You’re trying
to kill me!” I jabbed a finger in his direction. “I’m not supposed to defend
myself?” I focused another blast of Air even as I muttered. “Why am I even
arguing with you?”

“Hold up,
lady!” The big guy hopped to his feet using far too spry a movement for someone
so beefy. My blast knocked him off them again. He was only down for a
nanosecond before he stood with his palms out in front of his body—a sign of
surrender. “I
ain’t
trying to kill you! Max sent me
to
protect
you! Calm the fuck down! I
ain’t
the bad guy!”

He looked like
a bad guy. He looked like a very, very bad guy.

“I don’t know
that,” I said.

“Jesus, I’d
have brought a notarized letter if I’d known you’d react like this.” His volume
dropped. “Try to do a favor for a guy and end up on your ass in a parking lot.”

My empathic
link confirmed his words. There was a dash of mortification and a heavy wash of
irritation in what I sensed but no rage or intent to kill.

I turned my
back on him in the sign that I trusted him not to kill me—at least until I got
the door to the shop unlocked. He remained where I’d left him, brushing the
dust off his leather sleeves.

“Do I get to
come inside?” He called out just above a conversational volume as I pushed
inside. “Or you
gonna
blow me out the door if I try?”

I shot him a
warning look. “I’ll drown you where you stand if you try anything in my shop.”

His eyebrows
lifted above his sunglasses.

I stepped into
the shop. Noon was closing in. I headed toward the stairs to unlock the Sedona
side, snapping lamps on as I moved. Nell wasn’t here yet. That was worrisome
after the recent quitting scare.

A rumbling
growl echoed down the stairwell followed by a high-pitched curse—a female’s. My
fingers fell away from the Sedona lock. Nell’s voice went harsh as I hit the
midpoint on the stairs. That wasn’t
hurt
harsh. It was
ticked
harsh.
Shamefully I slowed so I could eavesdrop.

“We have
nothing for you here,” she said. “Get
out
.”

“I’m not here
to buy anything,” Ali Mac said in what I was sure was meant to be a bored
drawl.

“Good, then
leave!” The floor creaked beneath her feet. I imagined she’d made a shooing
gesture. It would be her style.
“Now!
Go on!”

There was a
deep chuckle. “Don’t be like that, doll.”

“
Don’t
fucking call me that, shit face!”

“Shit face?”
He echoed the insult with careful pronunciation and then followed it up with
another laugh. “You have such a way with words,
Kranzy
.”

“Get out … before
I …
shave
you!”

“Want me naked
again?”

Leather
whispered over fabric, and then Nell stomped toward me. I scurried down the
remaining stairs before she could catch me listening. Her sandals smacked until
she landed on the Sedona floor with a loud thud.

Scuffing to
the door without looking at me, she smashed her palms on the handle. Nell
shoved the door shut behind her, dropped her head back on her neck, and then
screamed at the sky. Her face was set in an unattractive scrunched expression
when she whirled back around.

Wow. There was
a story here.

My continued
link with the man upstairs told me only that he was amused. I’d learn nothing
that way. I focused my attention on Nell as she gathered herself. She
gracefully opened the door, slipping inside without a word. She stood in front
of the entrance for as long as it took to draw in a long breath.

Her cool blue
eyes snapped to mine. “Why is Alasdair Macalister in your shop?”

Oh, Zeus.
That
was the guy’s name? No wonder he
went by Ali Mac.

Odd names
aside, the flush of worry rose in my face. Nell had nearly quit yesterday. Now
some guy who really pushed her buttons waited upstairs. And the reason why he
was upstairs would piss her off as much as
he
had.

I couldn’t
hide the truth. “He says Maximo sent him to protect me.”

Nell’s lips
thinned. She folded her arms in front of her chest, shooting a sharp glance up
the stairs as though she could see the guy.
“This because of
last night?”

I scanned her
face for an indication of what she meant.

Her attention
switched back to me. Quietly she said, “Mom told me what happened to
Dea
.”

Someone had
talked to the coalition already? Had it been Desmond? Or would
Dea
have applied for her old job back?

I nodded. “I
think so. I don’t know. He didn’t tell me he was sending anyone.”

At least not since last night.
If he
had, I wouldn’t have attacked the guy. And I would have argued against it. I’d
meant what I’d said to Desmond about not wanting to hide behind others. Just
because I wasn’t willing to kill anyone didn’t mean I wanted anyone else to do
it for me.

Nell slumped
back against the door. “Why did he have to send
him
?”

“Because I’m
the best,” the male called from upstairs.

His heavy
weight creaked across the floor.
Thunking
steps
sounded on the steps. Nell’s frame went rigid. She sent a panicked look toward
the windows as if she’d considered bolting into Sedona.

“I can send
him away,” I said

“No, you
can’t,” Ali Mac said from the third stair from the bottom. He clomped down the
remaining and then blocked the entrance to the employee only area with a long
arm stretched across. Now Nell’s only course of action
would
be to run into Sedona.

“That’s
right.” Nell’s voice went as sour as the twist of her lips. “He only follows
Maximo’s
orders.”

The male
crossed thick arms over his chest, aiming his reflective glasses at Nell.

She spread her
lips into a sneer. “He’s the vampire’s lap wolf.”

His mouth curled
into a similar expression. “I
ain’t
been near Max’s
lap. Yours, on the other hand,” Ali Mac drew his sunglasses down his nose,
revealing a smoldering pair of dark eyes, “that’s another story.”

Nell’s pale
cheeks went bright red. “Shut
up
,
shit face!”

I couldn’t
help but smile. Nell was definitely worked up, but it wasn’t the same betrayal
of the past few days. This was an old wound that hadn’t closed. Did she still
have feelings for the guy?

Who wouldn’t?
He was a big hunk of handsome wolf beefcake.

When he slid
the glasses off his nose, carefully closing them so he could slip them into the
inner pocket of his coat, I decided he looked like a young Judd Nelson on
steroids. He even had the same irreverent arrogance the actor had shown in the
Brat Pack movies (it was a sad fact of my life that my movie selection in the
Underworld had been confined to things filmed prior to nineteen ninety).

But I wasn’t
about to let him think he was running the show. I faced him. “I’ve seen Nell
lift overweight tourists across the floor with little effort. Between the two
of us we can
make
you leave.” I
didn’t need Nell’s help, but I wanted her to feel included in this. “So how
about you take the arrogant bad boy act down a few notches and go back
upstairs?”

“No can do,
lady.” He shook his dark hair. “I
ain’t
supposed to
let you out of my sight until Max says otherwise.”

I could point
out he’d let me out of his sight while he’d been upstairs just now and that
he’d managed to be in the parking lot before me, perhaps losing me somewhere in
between the apartment and the shop. But I didn’t. “Fine, I’ll go back upstairs
so Nell can work in peace.”

The suggestion
didn’t ease my employee’s rigid stance. I hoped sending him out of sight would
help. With an impatient wave, I sent him up the stairs in front of me.

Behind me Nell
muttered, “Lap dog.”

And ahead
came
the response.
“Spoiled brat.”

It was going
to be a long day.

****

Ali Mac
tracked Nell to her Mazda as if she were a fluffy white rabbit. I didn’t like
it, but the empathic link to him told me it wasn’t that he wanted to hurt her.
No, the slow rise of arousal the moment he’d heard her steps on the stairs
hinted otherwise.

“Okay, I can’t
hold my tongue any longer,” I said as soon as Nell’s car left the lot for
“lunch” at five. “What the hell happened between you two?”

His dark gaze
swiveled to me. “She dumped me.”

“Yeah, I
gathered you two dated at some point. So someone dumped someone. You’re not
telling me anything I couldn’t figure out on my own.”

Ali Mac
shifted against the back wall where he’d been leaned all day. His lips spread
thinner. “She dumped me when I started working for Max.
Thinks
he’s an evil mastermind who is ruining
Wipuk
.”
He rolled his eyes. “She accused me of drinking the Kool-Aid when I pointed out
he’d helped
make
Wipuk
.”

“When was
this?”

“Two years
ago.”

When Nell was eighteen
.
Ali Mac didn’t look terribly young.
I lifted an eyebrow at him. “How old were you?”

“I was
twenty-one.” He shot me a mutinous look before I could comment. “She was
legal.”

“There’s no
way you’re twenty-three.”

“
The
Were
virus has a way of aging
some people before their years,” he said with a heavy dose of bitterness
coloring his rumbling voice.

I didn’t know
enough about
Were
to know if he was right, but I’d
have put him closer to twenty-seven. He’d be miffed if I made him show me his
driver’s license. “How long were you dating?”

“Five months.”
It was a flat answer, but the spark of dismay I caught from the empathic link
implied that had been a lengthy relationship for him.

“So five
months and then she up and dumps you for getting a job? Most chicks want guys
with jobs.”

“I had a job,”
he said, clearly not understanding I was needling for the whole story without
asking for it. “I was working construction with my pack before Max made me a
better deal.”

Well, that
explained why he’d been in
Wipuk
in the first place.
But it didn’t explain everything. “Nell wasn’t miffed you were working for
Desmond Marino?”

“She was
miffed.”
Alic
Mac gave a single nod and then ran a
hand through his dark hair. “But I convinced her not to be.” He shot me a quick
grin of slightly yellowed teeth that told me all I needed to know about
how
he’d convinced her.
“Wasn’t able to do it when I switched jobs.
She gave me an
ultimatum: it was her or the job. I don’t do ultimatums.” He shrugged his
massive shoulders as if to say that was the end of it. And I supposed it was.

Now I
understood why Nell was so worked up. She’d wanted him to choose her. And she
would never forgive him for failing to do so.

On a lark I
decided to check him for the antibodies I’d found in the witches. If he were
enthralled, it would go a long way toward explaining why he’d accepted Maximo’s
deal and failed Nell. I called on Healing to create a link to him. Then I did a
quick scan of his blood.

There were
tiny black dots I hadn’t noted in the witches, but they weren’t the antibodies.
Just to be certain, I asked Healing to show me the antibodies. Nothing
happened. He
wasn’t
enthralled. He
really had voluntarily joined Maximo’s team.

“She’s not
happy I’m associating with him either,” I said.

“Associating?
Way I hear it, you’re dating the boss.”

He’d heard
that even last night? I’d been operating under the idea Ali Mac was here
because Maximo hadn’t withdrawn the favor he’d asked of him
before
the blowout at Desmond’s house.

Maybe it was
time to find out for sure. “When did he ask you to come here?”

“He woke me
at, uh…” Ali Mac lifted his gaze to the ceiling as though there would be a
clock up there to help him remember the time. “Five fifteen? Said he wanted me
to watch your place after Javier left.”

“Javier was
watching my place until sunrise?”

He nodded.
“Yeah.
Has been for days.”

“Did you
actually see Javier this morning?”

Ali Mac drew
his head back as a wrinkled expression formed on his face. “What’s the deal,
lady?”

I waved my
hands in front of me—a sign I didn’t want to talk about it.

“Yeah, I
actually saw Javier this morning,” he said with a mocking emphasis.