The Witch's Dream - A Love Letter to Paranormal Romance (Black Swan 2) (19 page)

Deliverance laughed and ended the connection.

Kay dropped the phone as he began vibrating visibly. The rumbling they had heard earlier turned into deafening roars of rage and grief and helplessness. When Storm approached, Kay threw him aside then began dismantling furniture.

Simon called security and told them to bring tranquilizer guns on the double. By the time they arrived, Kay had torn the priceless tapestries from the walls and was ripping them to shreds. Storm was trying to get through to him, but Kay was beyond words.
Keeping her body between the berserker and the others, Elora steered everyone, including Simon and Baka, out of the room, leaving only the four members of B Team.

Two security guards burst into the room leveling tranq guns on Kay. They fired with amazing speed and precision. When Storm saw that they were shooting Kay with darts, he lunged for them screaming, "No!"

Ram tackled Storm before he could reach the guards and got him in a chokehold from behind where he could say in his teammate's ear: "They're no' hurtin' him, Stormy. They're helpin' him. Savin' him from the pain. Look at him. Look close. That's no' Kay."

Storm stopped struggling and, after a few minutes, he nodded. Ram instantly released him.

Two large orderlies rolled Kay onto a gurney, strapped him in, raised it, and wheeled away. The medical staff had been ordered by the Director to keep him lightly sedated so that he would not harm himself or others while they sorted out this muddle.

When Elora caught Ram's eye, she motioned for him to step aside with her and talk quietly out of earshot of the others. "We've got to think of a cover story for the Norns."

Ram exhaled a heavy sigh and ran his hand through his hair. His eyes were so full of sadness she could barely look at him. They worked out the details of what to do about Kay's sisters with Simon.

The Order had someone situated high enough in the Greater London Metropolitan Police Department, unofficially known as Scotland Yard, to call off the search. Ram took it on himself to call the three sisters. He told them that Kay was beside himself with worry, but that he would be able to deal with the situation better knowing that they were safe at home. Amazing even himself, Ram was able to talk the girls into flying back to Houston and said that a police escort would pick them up and see them onto the plane.

Elora watched her husband from across the room as he closed his phone. She could see that Ram felt a hundred years old. And it wasn't even time for breakfast yet. She remembered Kay once saying that, within the team, group dynamics were always in motion. When she first met the other three members of B Team, Ram had generally been thought of as an immature hothead and prankster.

Today, seven months later, he looked like the foundation that B Team was standing on. Her heart swelled with pride to have witnessed the journey of the man he'd become, but also grieved a little because, each time he shouldered a new burden of responsibility, the gregarious elfin boy she'd fallen in love with retreated a little further and she feared one day he could be lost forever. She wanted so badly to comfort him, but knew there would be no such thing as comfort for any of them so long as one of Bad Company was in crisis. One for all. All for one. It had never been said because it didn't need to be.

After Kay had been subdued and removed, the little group drifted back into the ruined room and stood silently surveying the damage. The mood couldn't have been more solemn.

Ram took charge and said to the group in general. "Why do we no' move upstairs to the War Room?" Looking at Simon he said: "Perhaps you could ask someone to bring us breakfast while we hear the tracker's thoughts on where to begin?" To Litha he said: "Is there anythin' in particular you will be needin'?"

"For now, more time with Aelsong and Heaven. I have more questions for both."

As Litha passed by Storm he reached out and grabbed her wrist. "What do you have to do with this?"

"I'll tell you what I have to do with this, Sir Storm. So far as I know, I'm the only hope your friend has for ever seeing his fiancée again." She jerked her wrist free and continued on her way once more leaving him standing there watching her go and feeling like a Grade A prick.

While they waited for some news from the tracker, Storm sought out the infirmary so that he could see for himself that his partner was in good hands. When he opened the door to Kay's hospital room, he found Elora sitting by Kay's bedside with her back to the door. She turned her head to see who was there, but didn't speak. Remembering he wasn't alone in caring for Kay took the edge off some of the pressure Storm had been applying to clenching his teeth together.

His eyes came to rest on Kay's relaxed features and substantial form covered in white starched sheets with a white cotton weave blanket on top. He looked around the room. The high ceilings made it seem expansive. That was good. He didn't want Kay in small, confined quarters. The feeling was airy and bright – the exact opposite of what was in his heart. Walls were painted pale, pale yellow and there was a nice view of treetops through a tall window with wrought iron panes. Sunlight filtered through the new spring leaves on those trees, causing light and shadows to dance on the walls and ceiling with an optimism that was welcome even if it was so out of place. He was grateful that the room wasn't gloomy.

As he stared out the window, a bird landed on a branch and fluttered his wings excitedly.

Elora had been watching him, following his gaze. She saw that his eyes had glazed over and that he was in a semi state of trance. After some time, she said, simply, "Window."

His lids flickered, awareness returned and he looked her way, their eyes meeting in acknowledgement of a poignant moment of shared personal history. Both of them were remembering that, when she was new to this world and injured beyond anyone's expectation to recover, she had asked for only one thing: a window. Storm had spent a season of his life coaxing her to rise from helpless and vulnerable lost girl to, perhaps, the most formidable creature in his world. He thought… well, it no longer mattered what he thought.

No one ever knows where their personal breaking point is until they reach it. Most are never pressed to such a limit that they find out. Storm wasn’t that lucky.

Suddenly, without warning, Storm reached his. Emotions finally overflowed and culminated in an eruption that looked and sounded a lot like a sob. It surprised him as much as it did her. In an instant, before he could suck in a breath to replace the air that had just gushed from his lungs, she was there with her arms around him.

In the past ten months Storm had been through several levels of hell and without once succumbing. No tears. No self-pity. Which also meant no blessed release.

There, at the foot of Kay's bed, with his best friend drugged into oblivion and the only woman he had ever loved trying to give him comfort, the dam finally broke open and he let go of some of that tight control; that tight control that kept muscles painfully rigid, temper on edge, laughter and joie de vive always just out of reach.

He let himself grieve for his late teammate, Lan, the brother-in-arms who had taught him how to hunt vampire and stay alive while doing it. He let himself feel the deep psychic wound of Elora's rejection. He let himself feel fear for a forcefully sedated berserker who was closer to him than any other living person besides Ram. He let himself be comforted by his fourth teammate, the first and only female knight in the history of The Order of the Black Swan; the one who had chosen somebody else.

Elora tried to stem her own tears of empathy and just be there with Storm while he rode it out. Whatever it took. For as long as it took. She might not want to marry him. She didn't love him in that way, but she
did
love him, more even than her own two brothers – if they were still alive. She loved him unconditionally and without reservation and there was nothing he could ever do that would change that. Certainly he had done this and much more for her.

She recalled an early October morning when he had stood in place with his arms around her while she clutched onto him for dear life and wept into his chest, her heart brimming with desolation. Gods. Had that really been less than a year ago?

Their roles had reversed. Life never fails to be strange.

When he finally began to quiet and pull away, he said, "You won't tell."

It was such a young, unguarded, and unexpected thing to say she almost laughed, not in ridicule, but in the hope it gave to see his human side peek out.

"It was one of my first lessons. Remember? As a matter of fact it was Kay who taught it to me. What happens with Bad Company stays with Bad Company."

He tried a little smile and it almost happened.

"How about a coffee?" she asked.

He nodded. Turning away she brushed the residue tears away from her own face and went out to get a big, black, and bold with one sugar - just the way he liked it.

When the door closed, Storm turned toward Kay feeling drained, tired, embarrassed, not necessarily better, but different somehow. A step back toward life instead of away from it. His perspective had rearranged itself in the tumbler of emotional upheaval and he thought that maybe, just maybe, there was the tiniest bit of hope that they would find their way to the other side of this.

He remembered that Ram had read fairytales to Elora when she was unconscious and that she’d heard him. So he decided to talk to Kay and tell him they were figuring this out, that they had the world's best tracker, who was also a powerful witch, and that she was working on it at that very moment.

Having said that out loud to his comatose partner, he realized for the first time that he might have a tiny grudging admiration for Litha. He even felt a small, and quite inexplicable, twinge of pride when he had said 'world's best tracker' out loud. Of course Storm wasn't naive. He knew that no power on earth could bring Kay's fiancée back from another dimension. Litha couldn't get Katrina back. No one could. She was gone. Forever. And the devil would be collecting a truckload of pain from Kay when the day came that he had to wake and confront that.

Still, even for a battle hardened, battle weary knight like Engel Storm, there was a miniscule part of inner child that protected a belief in magic. Whether he recognized it or not, whether he would admit it or not, that part of him hoped the beautiful and indomitable, green-eyed witch had a miracle in her pocket.

He told Kay to sleep and dream of honeymooning on a beach in the South Pacific with rum drinks and a bride wearing little or nothing.

When Elora returned with coffee, the two of them walked back to the War Room to join the others for the vigil.

Elora and Storm didn't need to ask if there had been any word. It was easy enough to read the faces that turned their direction when they entered. Ram walked over to Elora, put his arms around her, and then let one hand slide down to cover her stomach as if he couldn't go any longer without making a connection. In hushed tones he asked about Kay's circumstances and she assured him that it was the best situation possible.

***

CHAPTER
12

When Litha was satisfied that she had learned all she could from Aelsong, she turned to Heaven for a briefing on incubus demons; insight into their known characteristics and typical behavior.

Breakfast was a dismal event and most of the food went untouched. Litha told Kay's friends and colleagues that she would retire to her sanctuary, where she would try to track Katrina and would let them know the results, one way or the other, by mid afternoon.

Litha went to her room first where she filled a large, old fashioned, porcelain tub with hot water and sea salt. She soaked for twenty minutes, clearing her mind and her aura of emotional turbulence - her own and what she'd picked up from the others as a result of this experience. Some of it was quite resistant to expulsion. Afterward she assembled a collection of clean clothes, not worn since they'd been laundered. She pulled on black tights with no feet, a black leotard, a wrap around skirt, ballet slipper flats, and the pendant necklace she always wore.

Litha's "offices" were far from what would typically be pictured when thinking about someone's workspace. She occupied two rooms adjacent to the Ancient Books section of the library that had been designed according to her direction, specifically to her needs. The Ancient Books section was seldom accessed which made her corner of the east wing a very quiet place to work with few distractions - just the way she liked it.

The room that could be entered from the hallway looked very much like a traditional office except that all the wall space featured floor to ceiling shelves. Considering that the ceilings were twelve feet high, that was very impressive. Her shelves were filled with books and all manner of curious goods. Some belonged to The Order. Some were part of her personal collection. The only furniture in the room was a chair, a large carved chest, and a large French rococo desk, black with gilded accents, and priceless if it came up for auction at Christie's.

On entering she went straight to the pretty window seat. She pulled the cushion and decorative pillows away, then lifted the solid wood top that formed the seat and set it aside. Inside the hollow space was a heavy carved chest secured by a modern combination lock that had been warded, making it highly unlikely that anyone other than she would ever open it. The ward was designed to confuse the mind of anyone trying to focus on the numbers, because they appeared to blur, transpose, and shift.