Witch Heart

CHAPTER TWO

Claire scrambled onto the counter and unlocked the window. Her movements made oddly precise from the terror coursing through her, she pushed with all her might until the old window gave and slid upward. She pulled herself out of the opening, standing on cans to boost herself upward.

Immediately, hands clamped down on her shoulders and yanked her up like she weighed nothing. She struggled, kicking and screaming, thinking it was the other daaeman who'd come around to guard the window.

"Stay still! We're trying to help you!" demanded a gravelly voice.

Four hands pushed her down to the cold pavement. "Let me go! They're after me. Please!" she cried.

"Yeah, yeah. We know. Demons are chasing you, right?"

Strong arms yanked her to a standing position. She found herself blinking up into the faces of two tall men, one with dark skin and the other with light. They wore uniforms. She struggled for a moment, trying to place it… ah, they were policeman. Meant to protect and serve. Guardians of the peace, protectors of the innocent. She relaxed. She was safe.

"Claire, right?" asked the dark-skinned officer.

Glancing around at the dank, narrow passageway between the buildings, she nodded. Where had the Atrika gone?

"I'm Officer Adams and this is Officer Evans. We're going to take you in, get you some help." He began to draw her toward the street, but she dug her heels in. The officer stopped and turned toward her with a sigh. "We're going to make sure the demons don't get you, all right?"

His tone. She frowned. He sounded like she was his tenth crazy person that day and he was weary of all of them.

"How can you protect me from the demons when you don't believe in them?"

Officer Evans took out a pair of cuffs on a sigh. "Look, lady. We're almost off shift, you know? Why don't you let us bring you in nice and easy, without cuffs. I understand you were being chased by some man… was that your boyfriend, honey? There's another unit around front, dealing with him. You can press charges against him at the station. So, let's just go, okay?"

"I can't go to your station. If I go with you now, the demons will find me and kill me."

"That's it." He grabbed her and forced her arms behind her back. The snick of the cuffs around her wrists declared her truly in trouble. He mumbled a bunch of meaningless words at her while he secured her.

Officer Adams grabbed her by the arm and yanked her forward, toward the mouth of the narrow passageway. Claire could do nothing but follow, casting a long look over her shoulder.

No Atrika. That was something, at least.

She'd again been saved by the intervention of a human, though she had no delusions the Atrika wouldn't follow her to this station, whatever it was.

She allowed the men to lead her to their car. Lights flickered brightly on the top of it. How odd. On Eudae there was no need for such enforcers of the rules. Everyone stayed in line. If they didn't, they died. It was pretty much that simple.

They led her to sit in the back seat of the car, took off her cuffs, and gave her a blanket. A heavy grate separated her from the two officers in the front of the vehicle. She snuggled into the blanket and tried not to be alarmed at how trapped she felt. The darker-skinned officer rummaged through a bag in the front seat and pulled out a plastic baggie filled with two golden sponge cakes.

"Want these?" he asked. "They're all I got. Aren't nutritious, but you looked half-starved."

She had to stop herself from grabbing the package and swallowing it whole. "Thank you," she said, taking the food.

The policeman laughed and shook his head. "You're polite for a crazy girl."

The officers got into the front and slammed their doors closed. On the sidewalk a distance away, the dark Atrika glowered.

Claire didn't stare long, she ducked her head and concentrated on the interior of the vehicle. She'd never seen anything like it. Since daaeman had the ability to jump to different locations, they didn't need vehicles like these. The only time physical conveyances were necessary was when they needed to move things. Those vehicles were powered by magick and looked nothing like these boxes of metal.

The officer who was driving took a small black device from the dashboard, mumbled into it, and then pulled out into traffic. "What's your last name, honey?"

She pursed her lips together, unable to answer and unwilling to lie. She couldn't even begin to guess at what might be a likely last name here, though Thomas's had been Monahan.

He chuckled. "All right then, I'll let the experts sort you out."

Claire didn't really care where they were going, as long as it was away from the Atrika.

Claire ripped the plastic food package open and ate both cakes in record time. Closing her eyes, she moaned with pleasure. They were the best things she'd tasted in her entire life.

By the time they reached their destination, she was nodding off from a combination of heat and having something in her stomach. She felt like she could sleep for a week. When this was over, if it was ever over… that's exactly what she would do.

The vehicle stopped and they ushered her into a wide brick building. She still clutched the blanket tightly around her.

They guided her past a bank of desks where other officers were typing, talking, or shuffling paperwork. Finally they reached their destination, a small room with a table and a couple of chairs, and they left her there. A few minutes later a female officer entered with a cup of some delicious sugary hot drink, which Claire drank down in almost one swallow.

"What is this?" Claire asked the dark-haired woman, Officer Mallory.

Officer Mallory's face screwed into an expression of annoyed disbelief. "Hot chocolate."

"It's good."

She snorted. "What? You've never had hot chocolate before?"

Claire shook her head.

The door opened again and the man from the diner entered. He gave her a long look. "Hello Claire. I'm Dr. Hitchinson. Contrary to what you may believe, I am here to help you."

She said nothing, looking away. She didn't like this man. Through her muted water magick, she sensed he was bad.

He sat down at the table across from Officer Mallory and they proceeded to discuss her as though she didn't exist. Claire calmly sipped her hot chocolate and amused herself by thinking of all the different ways she could shock them had her magick been available to her.

Claire had been eight when her mother had died. That's when Rue had taken her as his hand maiden in order to protect her. Every day since Rue had tweaked her magick — snipping here, grafting there. He'd given her abilities far beyond the earth magick she'd been born with. She was powerful and she wanted so much to show Officer Mallory and Dr. Hitchinson just how powerful she was.

Dr. Hitchinson tented his fingers on the table in front of him. "I was exiting the Livingston Theater on Dearborn and Randolph after a show. She ran into the crowd shouting about demons chasing her. I brought her to a restaurant and called the police. In the diner she expressed her belief once again that she was running from demons and that she was newly arrived in this dimension. That's when she bolted and that man in the diner gave chase. I suspect he was her boyfriend or husband."

Blood surged through Claire's veins at the notion. "He is not my boyfriend or husband!"

Officer Mallory acknowledged her existence. "Then who is he? He managed to evade our officers, Claire. If you want to press charges against him, you'll have to give us his name."

She snapped her mouth shut, unable to explain Tevan's true identity. They already believed she was crazy, ignorant humans. If she babbled any more about demons, it would be worse for her. She crossed her arms over her chest. "I refuse to reveal his identity."

"I thought he was a demon," said Officer Mallory with disdain.

"I don't know what you're talking about. There's no such thing as demons."

Officer Mallory tipped her head to the side and frowned at her. "What is your accent, by the way? I can't place it. What's your native language?"

Claire examined her nails and tried to not to tell the truth about her accent. "I was born and raised in Holland." All the notebooks her mother had left her about life in this place were coming in handy.

Dr. Hitchinson pressed his lips together. "No matter what she says now or how rational she seems, she was not lucid then. In addition, I believe her to be in danger from that unidentified male."

"I can take care of myself."

That finally drew his attention. "Oh, really? We found you half frozen to death and ignorant of your own last name." He turned his attention back to Officer Mallory and pointed. "I want her admitted to the psych ward at Stroger for evaluation. She's a danger to herself, not to mention she's in danger from that man."

Claire's jaw locked. "There is nothing wrong with me!"

Again she was ignored by Dr. Hitchinson. "Lean on her, Officer Mallory. Find out who that man was that pushed me into the counter. I want to press charges." His eyes flicked to her, examining the bruises marking her wrists and lower arms where Tevan had gripped her. "I will if she doesn't."

"Okay," said the policewoman on a sigh. "I trust your opinion, Doc." She closed the file in front of her. "We're taking her to the hospital. They can figure out what to do with her over there."

Hospital. She frowned. A place where they treated the sick, took care of people. Well, that couldn't be too bad. Maybe she would be safe there for a while. Maybe she could get warm, get some food in her stomach.

The hospital was a nightmare.

It wasn't a place where they helped people. It was a prison — cold, white, sterile, filled with frightening angular metal implements, and screaming, moaning humans. It stank of cleaning products, but beneath that lingered the scent of fear, blood, and death.

The second they let her out onto the floor where she was to be "helped," Claire had wrinkled her nose at the smell and understood she could not remain there under any circumstances. When she'd tried to leave, they'd wrestled her into a small blindingly white room. Petite and starving, she was no match for the two hulking human male orderlies who were manhandling her.

"No! Let me go! I cannot be locked up in this place!" Claire had cornered herself, but she wasn't down for the count. She kicked and her foot connected with an orderly's male part. He oofed, backed away clutching his groin, and gave her a look to kill.

The second male moved on her with ferocity, while the slightly built blond female doctor looked on like she'd seen it all before and was supremely bored by it.

While Orderly A nursed his privates, Orderly B managed to wrestle Claire face first onto a long, hard exam table and force her arm out. Panic edged into her throat as the doctor came toward her with a wicked-looking syringe.

"No, don't do this. You do this and you leave me defenseless against them. Please!"

"Now, don't be silly, Claire. This serum is to protect you against the demons and the vampires."

Vampires? What was a vampire?

The needle bit into Claire's arm. Her eyelids instantly began to feel heavy and her knees weak. "No. This is… this is… wrong."

As her mind fumbled against the haze settling over it, she lost control and tapped her magick. The action was pure instinct, born of perfect terror, the kind not even the Atrika could incite and accentuated by the alien drugs coursing through her bloodstream. It was the one thing she'd sworn not to do until she knew more about what Rue had infused her with.

Power exploded through her, bowing her spine and cracking her head backward to make contact with the orderly's, who released her and yelped in pain. The thread she'd pulled felt violent, alien… just like this world she'd been thrust into. It burned through her, searing the seat of her magick.

During the half-second she had before the pain and drugs plunged her into unconsciousness, she reached out to any air witch she could.

Please, hear me…

She sent her plea only a moment before the thick, cloying darkness closed over her.