Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel (15 page)

“Won’t know until we go look for her.” I stared down at the disk, praying that my creativity had actually worked. Every second we wasted in my kitchen was one more second that Malachi had alone with Joey.

“Do you have anything, you know,” Ronnie gestured vaguely, “that’ll work against a Were?”

“Besides this?” I asked, snapping my fingers to make a spark of angry magic flash.

“Yeah, besides that.”

“I have some silver knives,” I said with a shrug.

“Okay, grab them, and get your knockout powder,” Ronnie said as she dashed to the front door. “I’ll be right back!” she called out over her shoulder as the door slammed shut behind her.

I ran into my bedroom and grabbed my black leather boots, struggling into them, forcing the cuffs of my jeans in the shafts. I tugged on my belt with the biggest buckle, thinking I could use it as a weapon if I had to, and then pulled open the drawer in my nightstand. I dug in the back until I found the soft leather pouch.

Unfurling it on my bed, the silver knives glinted in the light. They had been a gift from Owen one Solstice. He’d always worried about the kind of work I did and the fact that I didn’t have any proper weapons against creatures that had a sensitivity to silver, like Weres. They were razor sharp and wicked. He’d had two wrist sheaths fashioned for them so that I could carry them concealed under long sleeves so long as they didn’t smell the metal on me. I touched the cool silver handle of one of the daggers, snatching my hand away when I heard Ronnie burst back through the door.

I grabbed the sheaths and started strapping them on. They weren’t any more awkward than putting on a watch one handed so I managed to get them on by myself. I was just slipping the second blade into the sheath when Ronnie came in to find me.

“Whoa,” she blinked, catching sight of the wrist sheath and dagger before I tugged my sleeve down to hide it.

“They’re kind of intense, right?” I shook my head.

“Not as intense as this,” Ronnie said, holding up a small, pearl-handled gun.

“Ronnie,” I said, my eyes going round, “a gun?”

“With silver bullets,” she said, pulling on the slide, racking a bullet in the chamber before she tucked the gun into the back of her pants.

“I didn’t know you had one of those,” I said as she led the way out of the room.

“Mom insisted I get it after the apothecary down the street was robbed,” Ronnie explained. She swung her jacket on after handing me mine.

“So that’s always in the store?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Eh, why?” Ronnie asked. “I don’t really like having it, so I don’t want to talk about it. But I tell you what, I’ve had some Weres come in the store since I got it, and they can smell the silver, you know? And sometimes I’ll see them catch the smell and suddenly they decide they don’t want to buy anything after all.”

“Oh frogs, right, hold on.” I ran back into my room and grabbed a bottle of perfume off my vanity. After spraying a liberal amount on myself, I attacked Ronnie, dousing her in the stuff.

“What are you doing, Mattie?” Ronnie demanded between coughs. “For the love of toads, did you spray enough?”

“Have to cover the smell of the silver,” I said, setting the bottle on the counter. I poured some dry cat food and cream in Artemis’s bowls, gave him a scratch, and snatched up the seeking charm. I went into the living room and found my messenger bag on the couch. Digging inside of it, I found the canister of knockout powder. Unscrewing the cap carefully, I peered inside. It was more than half full, which seemed like a lot, but much like trolls, Weres often had a natural defense against a lot of spells and potions. I wasn’t sure this much would be enough, but I also didn’t have time to mix anymore. I shook my head, screwed the cap back on, and shoved it, with the disk, back into my bag, closing the flap and slinging it over my shoulder.

“Ready?” Ronnie asked.

“As ready as I’m gonna be.”

***

The seeking charm led us deep into an industrial area of Venice Boulevard. Definitely not the side of town Ronnie or I ever found ourselves. There were warehouses on every corner and storage companies. On one block, there was a rundown bowling alley with liquor stores on either side of it. Across the street, a sad, dilapidated motel sat, squatting like a toad. The neon sign flickered and buzzed, the M nearly invisible as the bulbs burned out while we sat and watched, parked in the bowling alley parking lot, facing the motel.

“This is where she is?” Ronnie asked, keeping her voice low as if someone passing by could hear us inside the car.

“That’s what the charm said.” I glanced at the disk hanging from a lanyard on my rearview mirror. It was spinning furiously, reaching toward the windshield, the motel a magnetic pull on it.

“So what are we doing?” Ronnie asked, her knee bouncing furiously.

“Watching,” I said. I had no intentions of just running into the motel, guns blazing, against a spell-crazed werewolf.

“For what?”

“Just watch,” I said, not taking my eyes off of the darkened motel in front of us. It was really quite depressing. It was a small, two-story building. The balcony that ran around the second floor as a walkway looked like it was sagging in the middle, just waiting for the next storm to blow it completely off of the building. Even the railings looked like they were rusting away in some places.

It was one of those places that advertised hourly, daily, and weekly rates. It was the hourly rates that gave me the creeps. I didn’t like to think of Joey, with her bright lavender eyes and bubblegum pink hair, in a place like this.

“Door,” Ronnie said, nodding toward the very last room on the second floor. The door opened just wide enough for the man exiting to slip through. He wasn’t very tall, but his shoulders were incredibly broad for his size and his waist nipped in, giving him that perfect swimmer’s V shape. He swung his head around, scanning the parking lot, his eyes glinted yellow in the moonlight, and even at this distance we could see it. A light breeze blew his shoulder-length hair back, away from his square face.

“Were,” Ronnie whispered.

“Malachi,” I replied.

Malachi stood at the railing for a moment, pulling something out of his pocket. We watched as he tapped out a cigarette from a pack. The flame of his lighter was an explosion of light, making it more obvious there were no working lights on the balcony – which might work in our favor. He tucked the pack of cigarettes and lighter into his back pocket. After taking a long drag, making the cherry of the cigarette flare red, he placed a hand on the railing and vaulted over. He soared to the ground, landing in a silent crouch, rose to his full height, and casually walked away.

Ronnie and I watched him until he got into a dark pickup truck and pulled out of the parking lot. Once his taillights disappeared around a corner we started to move. I poured some of the knockout powder into my jacket pocket, holding my breath as the white cloud dispersed. Ronnie pulled her gun and held it at her side, by her thigh. I threw my bag into the backseat, shoved the car keys into my jeans pocket, and snatched the disk off of the mirror before I slammed the door shut.

We ran across the street and through the motel parking lot. We went a little slower on the stairs, not wanting to pound up them like a herd of elephants and alert all of the people in the rooms that the cavalry had arrived. Creeping along the balcony, Ronnie walked behind me, constantly checking behind us with the gun held close to her chest. It would’ve been hilarious if a girl’s life wasn’t at stake.

When we were finally in front of the door Malachi had come through, I held up the disk, watching it spin in the air. It swung for a moment before it shot straight out, pulling at the lanyard, trying to hurl itself at the door.

Ronnie and I shared a look. I pressed my ear to the wood of the door, the curling paint on the wood poked me in the cheek. I couldn’t hear anything inside. I touched the doorknob, turning it as quietly as possible until I felt the resistance of the lock. I shrugged at Ronnie’s questioning look. It was worth a shot. I couldn’t feel any magic emanating from the door, so at least we didn’t have any spells we needed to break.

I placed my finger to the keyhole in the doorknob (no fancy electronic locks in this classy place), and released a bolt of power, hearing the mechanism inside snap. We waited a moment to see if the sound roused anyone inside. When no one came charging out at us, I turned the knob. It gave easily under my touch this time. I threw the door open, and Ronnie and I flung ourselves to either side of the doorframe, trying to shield ourselves. All we heard were muffled cries.

I rushed inside and saw Joey bound to a chair, half naked and gagged with duct tape. Her right eye was a puffy mess of bruised flesh, swollen so much that you almost couldn’t see the color of her eye. Her left cheek was split, the cut already starting to scab over. Her face was wet with tears and she was sniffling, in desperate need of a tissue. Even her usually bright, spikey hair was flattened to her head, making her look even younger than she usually did. My heart pounded in my chest as I ran to her while Ronnie shut the door, putting a double freezing spell on it to make up for the broken lock. I just hoped it was strong enough to withstand a Were in case Malachi got back faster than we anticipated.

“Joey, I am so sorry,” I said, shaking my head, gently pulling the tape off of her face. Her bottom lip was split and the tape pulled the clot away with it, opening the wound again. I hissed an apology before moving to her wrists. She was trembling with cold; Malachi had taken all of her clothes except for her bra and underwear.

“Mattie,” Joey sobbed, “thank you, thank you.” I shook my head at her, gritting my teeth. I didn’t deserve her thanks. I was trying to peel away the duct tape from her wrists. After a few failed attempts, I pulled out my keys and started to saw at the tape until it finally gave and moved to the next. I would have used my knives, but I was afraid of cutting her with them.

“Are you okay?” Ronnie asked as she came up beside us, pulling her jacket off and draping it over Joey’s knees like a blanket.

“I should have listened to you,” Joey said, her voice breaking. “You were right; the potion did something to him.”

“No,” I said, cutting through the tape on her other wrist. Ronnie grabbed the jacket and helped Joey shrug into it. “It was mixing it with the whiskey; you can’t add another liquid ingredient to a potion like that. It changes the molecular composition.”

“Oh,” Joey whimpered, closing her eyes and dropping her head to cry. Ronnie placed a comforting hand on her shoulder while I hacked away at the restraints around her ankles, trying to free her from the chair.

“Why did he do this?” Ronnie asked. “You wanted the potion because you were in love with him and afraid to lose him, right? Why does he have you tied up?”

“I don’t know,” Joey wailed. I flinched, glancing over my shoulder, expecting the door to come flying off the hinges at any moment.

“Joey,” I said, getting her first ankle free with one more hard yank of my key against the tape. “What happened?”

“Okay, so, I poured the potion into the flask, right?” Joey said, sniffling between words. “We were at this bonfire (sniff) for the pack. (sniff) There were like hundreds of people there. (sniff).” She swallowed and I moved to her other ankle. “And people were dancing and stuff, (sniff) and I was with Malachi the whole time, but then he drank the potion (sniff). And we were just standing there, watching people dance, and I smiled (sniff). I wasn’t even smiling at anyone, I just smiled, and he freaked out!”

“Shhhh!” Ronnie said since Joey’s voice had risen so much she was practically yelling at the end. Ronnie went into the bathroom, grabbed a roll of toilet paper, and handed it to Joey so she could blow her nose.

“Go on,” I said, sawing at the tape.

“So he freaks out and asks me who I’m smiling at and I tell him no one.” Joey wiped at her face, but more tears streamed down. “And he just got crazier from there. We left and went to his apartment. He was all sweet and sugar when we were alone, but if we went out, or if I used my phone, he thought it was another guy every time.”

Ronnie was shaking her head, her brows drawn together to form a deep wrinkle in her forehead.

“I didn’t know putting it in his whiskey would do this,” Joey said, hiccupping into her tissues.

“Why didn’t you use your pixie dust on him?” Ronnie asked after Joey blew her nose again.

“I tried,” she said. “But Weres…”

“They’re kinda like trolls,” I said, my eyes still on the fraying tape in my hands. “Sometimes their skin is too thick for magical elements to get through.”

“Yeah,” Joey whispered.

“Aren’t pixies fast though?” Ronnie pressed. “Why didn’t you just run away?”

“We’re fast, but so are Weres,” Joey said. “Besides, he did this while I was asleep, took me by surprise, you know?”

“What do you mean?” Ronnie asked.

“My cousin Charlie texted me, and Malachi saw it. He thought Charlie was a guy.” Ronnie and I nodded in understanding.

“I should’ve warned you,” I said, finally freeing her ankle. “I was just so tried and stressed out when you came to see me. I am so sorry, Joey.”

“No,” Joey said, pushing to her feet, “Malachi wanted to break up. I should have just let him. This is what I get for being selfish.” Ronnie and I blinked at her, surprised by this total change in attitude. I guess a black eye would do that to you.

“Live and learn,” Ronnie said, her hand on Joey’s shoulder again. I thanked the gods she was being so nice about it. She could’ve gloated about being right, but that just wasn’t in her nature, not when we were staring at this bruised and beaten little pixie girl.

“There’s plenty of time for that later,” I said, climbing to my feet. “Once we’re back at my apartment. Get your things and let’s get out of here.”

“Right,” Ronnie said. She ran to the window by the door and pulled the curtain back just enough to peer out into the parking lot. “I don’t see his truck anywhere. If we hurry, we can get to the car before he gets back.”