Witch Heart

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The beautiful wood and glass of the front door shattered. All three of them dodged to avoid chunks of dangerous flying debris.

The close proximity to the Atrika made the balled-up, concentrated elium suddenly sing to life like a tuning fork inside her chest. The jarring sensation drove her to her knees.

Scenting blood in the water, Tevan's blue gaze latched onto her and his eyes narrowed. He spoke in Aemni. "Kai, I'll take care of our own. You take the aeamon males."

"Agreed, Tevan."

Tevan took a step toward her and a wall of white-hot fire sprang up between her and the advancing daaeman. Adam. Tevan's roar of outrage could be heard even over the snap and pop of the spreading blaze.

Claire fought to drag herself to her feet, summoning her own magick around and past the demanding, grasping elium as she went.

Adam grabbed her arm and hauled her out of Tevan's reach as both daaeman simply stepped through the wall of fire to come after her.

The air filled with the heavy press of daaeman magick, turning it acrid. Both Tevan and Kai were raising it. It combined with the cloying choke of smoke to suffocate her. A bomb waiting to explode.

Theo pulled power to counter and the addition of wet earth filled her nostrils. As Theo let loose, Adam pulled her down to the floor, covering her with his body.

Dark tang. Hot rush. White, painful blast of air.

Daaeman magick and Theo's earth magick collided in midair. The entire house shook. Bits of the ceiling rained down on Claire's head.

Adam and Claire scrambled to their feet and all three of them retreated backward toward the kitchen. She knew that Adam and Theo could throw as much fire and earth at them as they wanted, but she was the only one with the ability and knowledge to slow them down.

Once they cleared the kitchen doorway, she pushed away from Adam and turned toward them. "Dars vo. Valdencti ami sae" she told the daaeman. Take me. Leave my friends alone.

Tevan stopped short, his handsome face twisting with amusement. He answered in Aemni. "Are you asking us for mercy for them?" He gave a short, brutal laugh. "They offend by merely drawing breath, little witch. The only mercy they'll get is a swift death." He took a step forward, his voice lowering to a gravelly, silken murmur. "But you we will treat well."

"Until you get the elium."

He stopped again. "You are not one of them, vae Claire." Her eyebrows rose at the use of a formal daaeman title for females. "You lived nearly your whole life on Eudae. Aeamon or not, we will treat you with respect."

But for an Atrika, that still meant death. A respectful killing, but death all the same.

That was not agreeable to her.

Her magick came in a flash, exploding from her chest and her fingers. She couldn't do it any other way; they would feel her raise it and counter it.

The kitchen blasted into chaos. The chairs and table flew at the Atrika. The appliances shook free of their mooring and rocketed toward them. Air magick picked up everything it could and turned it into a maelstrom, all targeted at the Atrika. The floor beneath their feet shook, making them lose their balance. Super-heated water erupted from the pipes and sprayed them. The fire that Adam had started, she fed, sending it in a racing arc toward them.

She couldn't draw all four elements at once, but she could pull a thread of each one by one to create absolute destruction.

"Go!" she screamed at Adam and Theo. "I'll hold them off."

"I'm not leaving you, Claire," yelled Adam over the screaming of her magick and the bellowing Atrika.

"I'm the only one who can keep them busy. Go!"

"And when you get tired, what then?" He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her backward.

Theo threw the kitchen door open and they made a flat-out run to the Charger. The daaeman wouldn't take long to shake off the assault. Claire hoped they wouldn't follow up with daaeman magick. Not here in the middle of this idyllic neighborhood in broad daylight.

Theo slid behind the wheel and Claire climbed in the front while Adam melted the tires of the sleek gray sedan on the street, presumably what the Atrika had used for transport if they hadn't jumped here.

Once Adam had lunged into the back seat, Theo slammed on the gas and the car took off, tires squealing on the pavement. Claire held on as the car shot down the street and took a corner too fast. Behind them, the pretty Victorian in the lovely non-magickal neighborhood burned.

Claire tried to catch her breath and keep her heart from beating faster than the car was traveling. She closed her eyes and assured herself that the Atrika couldn't jump into the vehicle with them. As long as they were moving, the daaeman couldn't get a fix on them. To jump they needed an exact location.

A fire truck passed them going the opposite direction. The fire hadn't been too out of control when they'd left. They should be able to take it in hand before it threatened any other properties. As they'd left, she'd felt Theo moor the land around the house, to help keep the fire from spreading.

Adam slammed his fist into the driver's seat in front of him and swore. "That was Ingrid's car out front."

Ah, the gray sedan.

Theo's hands tightened on the wheel. "I know." His voice was low, grim, and resigned.

"How the fuck did they find the Coven witches? Thomas told me they all left the property separately and at different times. They did that in case they were being watched. So what the f—"

Claire turned and speared Adam with her gaze. "You're dealing with the hunter incarnate, Adam. You can take all the precautions in the world, but they'll still find you if they want to badly enough."

"They got our location out of Ingrid or one of the other Coven witches."

She stared at him for a moment, trying to repress the lump of emotion that had sprung into her throat. She felt responsible for this. "Yes." She swallowed hard. "You should prepare for the worst."

"I know." Adam shifted his gaze past her, to the road.

Theo pulled his cell and punched in a number, waited, then snapped it closed. "Ingrid's cell. It was worth a try." His voice was tight with a trace of emotion.

She leaned back against the seat, tears blurring her vision.

"We're heading south, into Iowa," Theo said after several long moments of just the sound of the road under the Challenger's tires. "We're going to keep moving this time. From place to place, until Micah gets something on how to remove the elium. So settle back. We have a long drive."

That night they stopped at a motel that sat on the edge of a corn field. The stalks were demolished and dry, harvested long ago for their corn and then ravaged by deer and other animals.

Adam got out of the car, the gentle rustling of the remaining stalks sounding around them in the cool night air, and glanced at the back seat. He'd thought Claire had been sleeping, but she raised her face and her eyes were wide open. She was pale and her expression a little shell-shocked.

He frowned. "Are you okay?" Pause. "Yeah, that was a dumb question." He opened the back door and helped her out. Her hand in his, only that touch alone, sent a tremor through him.

She shivered a little and he fought the urge to draw her close to him. "I won't be okay until this is over."

"Ditto. Come on, we both need food and a good night's rest. Tomorrow we can go shopping again. Maybe this time we'll get to keep everything we buy."

As they made their way through the parking lot and into the lobby behind Theo, Adam noticed uneasily that the lot was full. When they reached the counter, his fear was confirmed.

"We can do two rooms, not three," said the man behind the counter. "All the hotels are booked up for miles around. There's a big game at the university this weekend."

Theo turned to look at them. Dark circles marked the skin under his eyes and he looked haggard. "Claire shouldn't stay by herself anyway."

Claire stiffened. "I'm more powerful than either of you. Both of you put together!" She glanced at the hotel employee and drew a breath. "I don't need your protection. I need your guidance, but if I must stay with one of you, I prefer Adam." She paused and looked apologetic. "No offense meant, Theo."

Theo blinked. "None taken. I'd rather have a room to myself anyway." He turned back to the man behind the counter.

Adam had been looking forward to the possibility of a night on his own, too, if only to keep his hands off Claire. He didn't know how much longer he was going to be able to do that. Especially not with the vivid dreams that had been plaguing him.

Once he and Claire made it to their room — it wasn't like they had a lot of luggage — Adam pulled the phone book out of the desk drawer and called the first pizza place with delivery he found. After he was done, he put the phone back into the cradle and started to make himself comfortable.

Claire was sitting on the bed, shirt cuffs pulled down over her hands and staring at the faded green carpet at her feet as though it held all the mysteries of the universe.

"You hungry?" he asked, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it over the back of a chair.

"Famished."

"Ever had pizza?"

She looked up at him. "Pizza? No, but my mother told me it's delicious."

"It is. I guarantee you'll like it."

She returned to staring at the carpet. "I don't deserve pizza. It's my fault those witches were put in danger. If they die—"

He walked to her and put his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at something other than the floor. "Stop it, Claire. You heard what Theo said about keeping the elium out of the hands of the Atrika. That's for the good of everyone. The Coven witches signed on for this gig. They knew the risks, just like Theo and I do. Anyway, we don't know what happened to them yet. Maybe they got away."

"Maybe. Adam, I got the feeling Theo knows Ingrid personally."

Adam dropped his hands from her shoulders and rubbed his chin. "Yeah, they're sleeping together. I don't know much more than that, though. Don't know if their relationship is about more than just the sex or not. Theo isn't the sharing type."

She swallowed hard. "Do you know any of the missing Coven witches personally?"

"They're all friends, yes. I know them all."

Claire turned her face up to his. "Tell me about them. I want to know these people whose lives I've affected."

Adam sat down beside her and told her everything she wanted to know. He told her about Ingrid and how she had a brutal temper, but a very good heart. How she'd slept with lots of the witches at the Coven, even Jack McAllister for a while, before he'd met his wife and the mother of his child, Mira. He told her about James and how he loved to snowboard and ski. And about Tom and his nasty habit of drinking milk straight from the carton in the Coven's kitchen.

He talked until the pizza came and then while they ate. Claire devoured her share, washing it down with Coke. She'd developed a taste for junk food pretty quickly.

"How about you?" he asked as they polished off the remains. "You have any friends on Eudae?"

She thought for a moment. "Their culture isn't like here. It's not so informal or friendly. There were some that I spent time with, weaving magick or performing certain tasks, but you don't joke around there. You don't order pizza and sit around talking until early in the morning."

"You were really lonely, weren't you?"

She nibbled a crust a bit, then threw it onto the box. "Yes. I didn't realize it then because living there was all I knew. Now I understand how lonely I was."

Adam took a chance and brought up the subject that had been on his mind from the beginning. "Jack McAllister, he's a fire witch back at the Coven, says he knew you when you were little."

She stiffened. "What?"

"His father, William Crane, was the head of the Duskoff. Crane was the mastermind behind opening the doorway and casting the demon circle that pulled Erasmus Boyle through all those years ago. Jack was just a kid back then, but his shit of a father demanded he be present for all gatherings of the Duskoff. Jack says he remembers a little girl named Claire running around his father's mansion during those meetings. You must have been about six, he told me — curly dark hair and blue eyes."

The blood drained from Claire's face. "This man is William Crane's son?"

"Yes. Estranged son, anyway. The day they cast the circle that brought Erasmus Boyle through from Eudae was the last day Jack called William Crane his father. Crane adopted a little boy later on, a fire witch named Stefan. But biologically, yes, Crane was Jack's father."

"Was? Crane is dead?"

Adam nodded. "Mira, Jack's girlfriend, got to know her air magick really well one day and pushed him through a forty-story window. Why all the interest in William Crane?"

Claire had regained the color in her face thanks to the conversation and the pizza, but now it was gone again. "My mother used to talk a lot about him. She was a member of the Duskoff and was personal friends with William Crane. My mother was a warlock."

"I figured as much."

"We spent a lot of time at William Crane's mansion. I remember a little of the house, but I was very young. Mostly I remember the gardens. Sweet-smelling flowers everywhere, tall trees, green grass. My strongest memories of Earth are from right before we walked through the doorway, so that garden has always shaped my vision of this world." She paused, shaking her head. "I do have vague memories of a little boy with large eyes. That's probably Jack." She shook her head, remembering. "He never smiled."

"He says you did. He says you ran around the house, charming everyone, smiling all the time, and getting into everything." He drew a breath, plunged ahead. "You don't smile all the time anymore, though. Is that because your mom took you away the day they cast that demon circle?"

Her jaw locked and she glanced down at the demolished pizza. "Yes. After the circle was cast and the daaeman had come through, my mother summoned me from where I played in the garden. While the warlocks dealt with the enraged Atrika, she took advantage of their distraction and walked us through the doorway. That's how we got to Eudae."

"Jesus, Claire. That's practically suicide. Why did she do it?" Rage made fire spark in his palms. He closed his hands to hide it from her. How could a mother pick up her young daughter and just walk straight into hell?

Claire looked down at the blanket and picked at a stray thread. "My mother was impetuous, sometimes more like a child than an adult. I suspect mental illness, but I was so young when she died. I'm just not sure. She told me she'd fought with Crane earlier in the day about how to handle the daaeman they would bring through. My mother had—" She swallowed hard. "She had—"

"Hey, look, Claire. It's okay if you don't want to tell me all this."

She shook her head and raised her gaze to meet his. "Just know two things before I say this. Know that I loved my mother more than anyone in either of these worlds. Also know that I am nothing, I mean, nothing, like her."

Adam nodded. "Okay." He knew that already.

She lowered her head again. "She had aspirations of allying with the Atrika and bringing them back here. She wanted to take over with their help." Claire looked up him, her pretty eyes wide and shining with tears and shame. "Adam, my mother wanted chaos and bloodshed so she could have power and prestige."

Adam didn't even blink. "Claire, your mother was Duskoff. She was a warlock. It's what they all want. That's why they break the rede."

She went back to studying the crust-strewn pizza box. "Anyway, she'd fought with Crane. He'd disagreed with her about how best to employ the daaeman they'd pulled through. My mother was angry, so she walked into the portal, thinking she'd find the Atrika on the other side and do it her way."

Adam couldn't reply.

He got up, paced across the room and back before he could speak. "So she just gathered her six-year-old daughter from the garden where she'd been playing and walked through an alien doorway not knowing what would happen on the other side?"

Anger simmered under the surface of his skin. A thousand licks of flame. Protectiveness of Claire, even twenty-five years after the fact, swelled.

While he'd been having the training wheels taken off his bike and having birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese, Claire's mother had been busy taking her away from everyone and everything that was familiar to her. Not to mention knowingly putting her daughter into harm's way — directly into the arms of demons.

Claire raised her head, protective anger to match his crossing over her pretty features. She opened her mouth to retort and he held up a hand. "Okay, I'm sorry. I know. You loved your mother."

"I did."

Of course she had. Her mother had been the only human being—aeamon—in Claire's entire existence.

He pushed a hand through his hair and desperately fought to get a handle on his emotions. Adam had no idea why Claire made him lose his grasp on them so often. "What happened once you got over? Did she ever find the Atrika?"

"No, thank the Houses. Rue found us first. He was set on killing us because he understood that my mother had come to try and make an alliance with the Atrika. Instead, because we were females, he took pity on us."

"But he never sent you back."

She shook her head. "No. He didn't trust my mother not to make trouble with the warlocks. I thought he might send me back after my mother died, but I'd become too valuable to him by then."

"Gods, Claire."

She shrugged. "You asked."

"Do you know who your father is? Do you have any family at all that you know of here?"

She went very still. "I have long suspected my father to be William Crane."

Again, Adam was speechless.

"I don't know for certain. My mother died when I was eight. It was sudden. An illness took her in the space of a week. I suspect Crane because of how often she talked of him." She licked her lips and her voice grew quieter. "And the way she talked about him."

"If that was true, Jack would be your half brother." Maybe there was some kind of DNA test they could do when all this was over… if all this ever was over.

She looked up at him. "Yes, wouldn't that be crazy?"

Adam was sure Jack would think so.