Vincent: Her Warlock Protector Book 5 (6 page)

IT HAD TAKEN Lionel some digging around on the county clerk’s website to put together information Hugh had given him with Galveston property records to find the coven leader. This was not part of the mission, but for himself. He would both get the information he needed for the exorcist while proving he could still function as a Templar.
 

Let the games begin.
 

The F-150 was unremarkable, one of a half-dozen trucks sitting in the parking lot outside The Tree of Knowledge. On the passenger’s floor were the shredded remains of the packaging left from Lionel’s props: a composition notebook and a pen. With props in hand, he slipped into a mixed group of men and woman chatting as they made their way into the bright little cottage.

The wait was agony, each of the forty-five minutes of the palmistry class was like a beating to be endured. The eager students filed out of the house in clumps, as chattering and oblivious as when they had arrived. Lionel lingered at the back of the room, a harmless, goofy grin painted on. An occasional shy glance at his feet, to draw Paulina to the part he played today: the student too embarrassed to speak.
 

Lingering near the door that led to her personal residence, Lionel feigned confusion. Alone in the house, Paulina came to him as he shuffled in the open doorway. He smiled. He charmed. He went through the doorway into her home as if by accident. When she stepped through with a grin to ask him to come back into the classroom, he seized her by the hair, wrenching her off her feet. She struggled on her knees, clawing at his wrist with both of her hands as Lionel drug her into the bathroom and across the tile of the walk-in shower. With a brutal shove her head crashed into the white porcelain tile at the back of the shower, a poppy's bloom of red left in the field of white at the impact site.

PAULINA USED THE wall to crawl to standing, then turned and faced Lionel, the sigil already half-formed while the words of ward poured off her tongue. But she was quickly slapped silent, her ears ringing as he threw holy water in her face.

Lionel's smile was a horror which robbed the breath from her lungs.
 

He was having fun.
 

A knife was pulled out of his pocket. A glint of light bounced off the silver blade as he flicked it open with his right hand, the left busy pulling at the neck of her dress. She started the ward again, undeterred even as she felt the frigid steel of the blade slide against her skin as he cut down the front of her dress. The soft flick of the tool's vicious point severing her bra at the breastbone. The sharp blade dug painfully into the soft fold at the base of her right breast, his right hand tight in her hair.
 

"I'm going to hold onto you just like this. How much do you think I'll take with me when the ward pulls me out of the house? A breast? A handful of hair? Maybe I'll be able to hold on tight enough to break your neck." His smile morphed into a vicious baring of teeth. "There are two things you can open your mouth for." With the hold on her hair, he forced her head down to look at his crotch. "Or you can answer my questions like a nice, little witch.”

Tears on her cheeks, Paulina lowered her hands, the ward stopped seconds from being complete.
 

"Good." The point of the knife was drawn in an agonizing circle around her exposed right breast. He stepped into the shower with her, his teeth scraping against her cheek as he spoke.
 

"Now, tell me about Amanda Kirkus."

It could have been twenty minutes or it could have been two days. Time stopped for Paulina, and ultimately she answered all of his questions.
 

"Unzip my pants,” he growled, just when she’d thought they were done.

She hesitated, ready again to fight.
 

He pressed the sharp edge of the blade against her nipple, his thumb on the opposite side like he was going to peel an apple.
 

Reaching toward his waistband she was stunned when his left fist plowed into her forehead, the back of her head colliding again with the tiles in a bright flash of pain.
 

He shoved her away as he stepped backward out of the shower.

“Like I would ever let you touch my cock." Then he knelt down in front of her, eye-to-eye with where she had slid down the wall to slump. “Don't worry. I'll be back to finish you off."

 
Paulina lay on the bloody shower floor and listened as the house door closed, followed by an engine starting. There was silence after the crunching of tires on the gravel parking lot had faded. Slowly she managed to sit up and then crawl. In the cabinet under the sink, her quaking hands managed to find gauze and tape. She bandaged herself as best she could, applying pressure to help stop the bleeding. Though it was the last thing she thought capable of, she pulled herself upright and stripped.

Ten years of blissful idle in Galveston had made her complacent, trusting, the house open to all—and fucking Vincent Harcourt had led a Templar right through her front door.
 

Though she stumbled to the bedroom, it wasn’t the bed she sought. She pulled her suitcases from the closet, some fresh clothes to wear, and dug her phone out of her purse.

LIONEL PARKED THE rented F-150 outside Blown Beauty Salon and waited for Amanda to leave. Vincent's Charger was nowhere in sight.

"Amanda is the one who usually cuts my hair,” Hugh said.

"Today it needs to be the other one. Just find a way to tell her what we talked about."

"What are you going to be doing?"

"I have somewhere I need to be."

Hugh opened the door of the truck then looked back over his shoulder at Lionel.
 

"Just for the record, I think this is a shit idea."
 

He stepped out and slammed the door hard enough to rock the truck.
 

Lionel waited until he could see Hugh sitting in the chair, under a cape, chatting away with the Asian woman. Then he drove away.

THOUGH THE DAY had taken some strange turns, Amanda found she was excited to be heading home. If Vincent could glue together even a vaguely plausible reason for his behavior, she would be helpless to take him back. She already knew it. Though it was ridiculous, she had even caught herself daydreaming about a future with him. Maybe it was having known each other as teenagers, that instant familiarity and recognition filling in the gaps. Or maybe she was just so ready for a relationship and Vincent seemed so perfect. Either way, she was happy.

When Aimee's photo popped-up on her buzzing cell phone, she turned down the song she had been singing along with and hit the switch on her Bluetooth headset.
 

"Hey! What's going on?"

"Keep in mind everything I am about to say could be total bullshit."

"Okay,” Amanda said, her mood dimming at the tone in Aimee’s voice. She turned the Mini into her driveway and parked.
 

"So, Hugh came in for his 'don't cut my hair, but cut my hair' thing and it turns out he knows Vincent and Lionel."

"Who's Lionel?"
 

Both hands were full of bags as she walked up the stairs to her front door.
 

"Pasty-faced religious weirdo from this morning.”

“Did Hugh happen to mention why the hell that guy threw a bottle of holy water on me?”

“It’s some kind of PTSD thing. He freaks out when people get too close to him.”

“Oh,” Amanda said, surprised. In fact, she felt a little bad for him.

“It’s sadsies,” Aimee said. “Anyway, Hugh was talking about how Vincent blew into town looking for you."

Amanda struggled with the lock.
 

"No,” she said. “We met…I mean we met again after–”

"No, that's what I am trying to say. It wasn't an accident. It's what this company he works for, Magus Corps or something like that. That's what they do. They go looking for people who might, you know, be into witchcraft, and insinuate themselves into their lives. Like, seriously creepy shit."

"I'm not into witchcraft,” she said, her heart beginning to race.

The basket that contained her journal and the various spells she collected over the years was sitting on the floor next to the sofa.

"I know, right? The really weird part is that they're only interested in people who are totally into the scene. Once he figures out you aren't, he's gone. Hugh was making hints that there might be things way worse than that, but he didn’t say."

"How does Hugh know any of this?”
 

“Something about how he and Lionel have been friends for years. You know how he gets sometimes, and I stopped listening, but the thing about Vincent was really bothering me. I’m sorry, but I thought you should know.”

"No, it’s…well it's not good, but I'm, well, not glad, but…thank you."
 

Amanda hung up, her nerves on edge once again. She stared at the blank phone. Hugh said one thing, Vincent said another, but he was on his way over to explain. Something didn’t feel right. Why would Hugh lie? It occurred to her that there was one person who might be able to help. She hit the quick dial button.

“Mom?”

“Amanda, I’m so glad you called.”

It was good to hear her voice. For a few minutes, Amanda just listened to it and the small talk. But eventually she had to get down to business.

“Are you still friends with Mrs. Harcourt? I ran into Vincent the other day.”

She was thirty-one years old and caught herself holding her hand over her eyes so her mother would not see her lying. Her mom, however, was thrilled at the prospect of a hometown boy. She said she’d do a little digging and call her back.

By the time Amanda had showered, slipped on the slinky black dress, and finished her make-up, her mom called.

“He’s an undercover investigator for a company called Magus Corps. And his mother would like him to call.”

Somehow the information was not has helpful as Amanda had hoped.

VINCENT STRAIGHTENED HIS tie in the mirror, smoothed the front of his shirt then stood back. There was a sheen, almost a shimmer, to the charcoal gray material of his suit. With the black eye and busted knuckles he looked like a New Jersey mobster. He was grimacing at himself when his cell phone rang.
 

"Good evening,” Louis said. “How is that whole undercover surveillance thing going?"
 

Louis's reaction to any perceived disaster was to speak fluent sarcasm.
 

"Does everyone know?"

"I had to intercept official inquiries from Galveston Police Detective Daniel Ramirez to the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, GCHQ, and freakin' Interpol. What did you do to him? He is a thorough and thoroughly pissed-off human being. GCHQ? Who even thinks to contact MI-5 over a parking lot fistfight? And those are just the official inquiries. Through his personal channels, who knows what hell he is going to be able to dig-up. You're in the shit here, Vincent.”

“That’s what you’re for.”

Louis sighed. “I realize the bulk of your day was spent creating a national security emergency, but have you put any actual effort into securing Amanda Kirkus?”

“Things are going well. Really well.”

There was a beat of silence before Louis said, “You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you? That’s not really part of the plan. Wanna tell me how you are going to fix this?”

Vincent closed his eyes, inhaled deeply through his nose, held it, then exhaled slowly through his mouth.
 

"I am going to bring in Amanda Kirkus,” he said, smoothing his tie. “Then, eventually, I’ll marry her."

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

BEING WILLING TO do what the other guy would not do, that was what was going to win this war. Lionel's mission was to recruit the exorcist. The reason the Templars continued to exist was the elimination of all witches and warlocks.

The shower beat against Lionel's back, the water scalding red streaks down his pale skin as he tried to scrub away the last few hours.
 

The Detective was right, after such a memorable introduction to the local authorities I am not going to get away with killing someone on this island without sticking my head through a noose.
 

He used a nail brush to scrub his hands for the third time as he assured himself he had done the right thing. Unless someone is bleeding on the floor, Wiccans turn to their coven leaders or Magus Corps rather than the local authorities. The nail brush was thrown to the floor of the shower in exchange for the loofa which sat on the shower ledge.
 

If this forces the coven leader to bolt, the coven will scatter.
 

Skin scraped raw, he stepped out of the shower. Make them run and they will kill themselves.
 
Looking at himself in the mirror over the sink, he stared into his own pale, icy eyes. He hardly recognized the person who stared back. Only a sick bastard enjoyed the ugliness required. He still liked to think of himself as not quite that sick a bastard.
 
Confused, yes. Temperamental, certainly. Sick? Not yet.

IT WAS LIKE being in a manual transmission car with a missing gear. At least that was how Vincent felt as he sat across the table from Amanda, a candle burning between them. She was dressed to kill, the dress clinging to her in all the right places. And yet from the moment he’d picked her up, there’d been something guarded about her, something awkward. Anger he’d expected, but not this. His attempt at conversation in the car had been equally disastrous, the apology for the punch-up falling on Amanda’s deaf ears.

There was a lobster tail and a steak on the way and more than enough stilted conversation to go around. He decided to take the headlong approach.
 

“The Magus Corps exists to protect witches,” he said.