Witch Heart

CHAPTER THREE

Adam's copper blade connected with Thomas's in the newly built sparring chamber on the Coven grounds. Sweat trickled down his bare chest, pooled in his belly button. He turned, met Thomas's blade once more. The impact reverberated up his arm and through his chest and back.

Whoosh. Clang.

It had been a year since they'd gone up against an Atrika demon who'd been trapped on Earth, away from his native Eudae. The demon had killed six witches trying to open a doorway before Thomas Monahan, head witch of the Coven, and Isabelle, sister to one of the slain, had offed him.

In the process, Isabelle and Thomas had been pulled through to Eudae. Adam had been there to see it happen, but incapable of stopping it. While Isabelle had been sent home, the demons had kept Thomas for a while. They'd cut his long hair, a source of strength for the earth witch. They'd tried to break him.

Whoosh. Clang.

The force of Thomas's hit crashed down his arm and rattled his teeth. "Fuck, Thomas!"

Yeah, they hadn't broken him.

Since that ordeal, the Coven witches had never stopped training with the copper weapons they'd used against the Atrika. The vicious demon breed were allergic to the metal, although they sometimes developed a defense against it, something that Micah, the Coven archivist and all-around geek, was trying to investigate. But for now it was the only weapon the witches knew of.

The absolute only.

All of them knew the time they'd have to fight the Atrika would come again. The only question was when. Adam hoped it wasn't in his lifetime, but he'd be ready if it was.

"Come on, Adam. Don't hold back just 'cause he's the boss," Jack called from the sidelines. "I need you to break him in for me. I'm next up, man. I'll buy you a beer if you can beat him."

It wasn't so much the beer that motivated him, though he wouldn't turn it down. It was more a desire to beat Thomas. Just because, normally, at least in swordplay, he could.

He'd even quit smoking to train. Now that was dedication. His fingers still twitched for a smoke now and again, but at least now he could run a bunch of laps and not be wheezing at the end. He'd tried to stop drinking, too, but that hadn't gone as well. Adam figured a man needed a few vices. Kept him interesting.

Adam nodded as he eyed Thomas, who adjusted his grip on the sword handle as if anticipating a renewed assault. "That's a bet, Jack."

Fire roared through his body, his magick tingling through him. Blue flame leapt from his fingers, curled around the grip, and shot up the blade. He roared and engaged.

Swoosh. Clang.

This time Adam was the one who set teeth to rattling.

"There's the Adam we know and love," called Jack.

Adam pivoted, renewing his attack. His blade connected with Thomas's and he pushed him back a few steps. Grunting, sweat streaming, he pressed harder. Adam might be gifted in swordplay, but that didn't mean Thomas was easy to beat.

Swoosh. Clang. Swoosh. Clang! Clang! Clang!

Thomas blocked and defended, but Adam had him on the run now. His muscles bunched and burned. To defeat Thomas Monahan he had to dredge up every last molecule of strength he had. His whole body flexed and sweat poured down him as he beat his opponent backward, up against the wall of the sparring chamber.

He went for the final shot, cutting upward with his blade and lightly touching Thomas in the stomach with the edge of the shiny copper weapon.

Death blow.

Panting, Thomas dropped his sword to his side in defeat.

Out of breath, Adam dropped his sword, too. "Sorry, boss." He shrugged and grinned.

Thomas regarded him through obsidian eyes and leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees. "I'm really glad you're on our side, Adam."

Jack bounced out into the middle of the sparring mat, obviously relishing being rested and refreshed while Thomas was panting and exerted. "Okay, my turn."

"I don't think so," answered Isabelle, who'd just entered the room. She came to stand near her husband and reached up to finger the short bunch of hair at his nape. "My mom is here for a visit. Thomas said he'd have lunch with us."

Catalina, Isabelle's mother, had been trying to develop a relationship with her daughter after she'd subjected Isabelle to a pretty bumpy childhood. Isabelle seemed happy to finally have a mom she could count on.

"Anyway," Isabelle continued, "Mira needs Jack to help her with Eva."

Eva was Jack and Mira's new baby, a rare and very protected little air witch. Mira was the most powerful air witch around and likely her daughter would be every bit as strong.

"That's married life for you." Adam grinned.

Mira had been involved with a real gem of an asshole during her first marriage and had vowed to never marry again. It had taken Jack a while to wash the taste of that first bad marriage from her mouth, but he'd managed to do it. He and Mira had finally tied the knot after Eva had been born.

"I love it, man," Jack answered with a grin.

Yeah, so had Adam.

"Eva's still fussy, I bet," Jack answered Isabelle. "Mira and Eva — we believe — heard something disturbing last night. It was a cry for help, but it was brief and without detail. We don't know who it was from or where she is. All we know was that it was a female air witch who sent it."

Thomas grabbed a towel and wiped his face and neck. "Mira told me about that this morning. If they hear anything else, let me know right away."

"We will."

Isabelle wrinkled her nose. "In any case, Thomas and Adam both need showers pronto."

"I guess training can wait," answered Jack, dropping his sword. "It's not like there are any Atrika loose on Earth this very second."

The Atrika were the freight train of the demon breeds, and none of the breeds were exactly fluffy bunnies.

Adam threw his sword to the mat. "Man, don't say that. Every time someone says something like that, it's proved wrong." He shook his head, remembering what they'd gone through with Erasmus Boyle. "I really don't want that proved wrong."

Jack held up a hand. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm out of here, anyway. My family is calling." He walked over to the wall to stow his weapon.

Family, The word squeezed Adam's chest every time, but he'd never let these guys know. He picked up his sword and walked over to put it away. "I'm out, too. I'll be in my room if anyone needs me."

"Got a date tonight?" called Isabelle.

Adam threw a careless glance over his shoulder. "What night don't I have a date?"

Isabelle just grinned and shook her head, leaning against Thomas and wrapping her arms around his waist, sweat and all. Now that was true love. Adam was happy that Thomas and Isabelle had found it together. Jack and Mira, too.

Adam knew his shot at it had already blown by and disappeared on super-charged roller skates. He'd just sat there and waved at its retreating ass. There, then gone. Like some kind of really bad — or tragic — practical joke.

"Womanizer." she shot at him.

"Is that supposed to be an insult?"

Isabelle grinned. "You're incorrigible."

He spread his hands and shrugged. His tendency to serial date was a familiar, playful issue between them. "I can't help it if I'm popular with the ladies."

"Uh huh. If you disappeared from the Earth tomorrow, all womankind would mourn and break out their vibrators in your memory."

He shot her a grin and a wink. "Damn straight."

Isabelle shifted and rolled her eyes. Her shirt gaped a bit, showing one of the tats that Theo had inked her with. Isabelle wasn't an earth witch, able to use tattoos to store spell energy, but she had been scarred in places by the Atrika demon they'd fought last year — Erasmus Boyle. At Isabelle's request, Theo had created a few designs around her scars to cover them, or, in Isabelle's words, celebrate them. She'd survived the ordeal by the skin of her teeth.

Adam grabbed a towel and headed up to the room he kept at the Coven.

Women did like him. They always had, even before he'd joined the Coven as primary muscle to the boss and jack-of-all-trades fire witch. His face wasn't handsome in the classical sense and he'd broken his nose twice, which made it crooked, but he was still apparently attractive enough to women. His body was fit, not because he had an ego but because he needed to be in shape for his job.

Their primary enemy, though they'd acquired another recently, were the Duskoff, a warlock cabal run by one bad dude, Stefan Faucheux.

Warlocks were witches gone bad, ones that turned their back on the Coven and betrayed the values it held dear, which meant they were powerful enough to be truly dangerous. The members of the Duskoff broke the covenant of harm thee none all the time and used their magick for their own gain, no matter who it hurt.

Normally, the Duskoff kept the Coven on its toes, but they'd gone eerily silent over the last year. Stefan Faucheux had turned up once after the Atrika incident, then disappeared. All agreed that didn't bode well. Stefan wasn't exactly the shy and retiring type.

A quiet Duskoff was a Duskoff up to no good.

So even though the last year had been calm, the Coven witches trained — fast, hard, and unrelenting. They could expect trouble to pop up anytime. If not from their new friends, the demons, then from the Duskoff.

Once inside his room, Adam found a slender redhead reclining on his couch. She was dressed in a skimpy black lace nightgown, her long curling hair cascading over the arm of the sofa.

He pulled the key out of the lock. "Whoa, Jess. I thought we weren't supposed to meet until eight."

She rolled off the couch and sauntered toward him. He and Jessica, a water witch, had been having a nice little affair for the last couple of weeks. She was just coming off a bad divorce and looking to play a little in her newfound freedom. Jess didn't view him as relationship material, just fucking material. That was fine with him. She wanted to sow some post-divorce wild oats and he was reaping the harvest.

Normally water and fire, as far as witchy relationships went, didn't work well. Water and earth had an affinity. So did fire and air, but the Coven could count all the known air witches on two hands and most of them, with exception of Jack's wife, Mira, weren't very powerful. In his and Jessica's case, since it was all about sex, it really didn't matter.

Adam loved it when it was all about sex. In fact, it was the only kind of relationship he did.

She brought her lips — ruby red, glossy — an inch from his. Her gaze flicked out the window. "It's very chilly tonight. I thought instead of going out." — her hand strayed between his thighs to cup his cock against her palm—"we could just stay in, order some food, have it delivered. We can… keep each other warm."

He put his hands on her shoulders and pressed his body against her. "Honey, I need a shower."

"Oh," she pouted. "I need your hands on me now." She caressed him and he tipped his head back on a groan. His cock was swelling under the stroke of her fingers. She bit her lower lip. "I'll wash you later and make it worth the wait."

Adam raised a brow even as he lowered his mouth to meet hers. "Okay, baby, then let's see how dirty we can get."

Using her magick, even though she'd employed just a minute amount, had made Claire ill. Or perhaps it was the drugs they'd been pumping her full of. Maybe it was both.

When she'd regained consciousness she'd wanted to die for about four hours. Luckily, most of the negative side effects had passed and she'd regained her will to live.

Claire didn't know if it was the elium in her that had made her sick or if it was the drugs. She only knew that nausea was her constant companion, along with a head-splitting migraine. Her cognitive processes were sluggish and dull.

And apparently, no air witch had heard her call.

Perhaps Rue had made an error and sent her to some alternate version of Earth, one in which no aeamon existed. But that would mean Rue had made a mistake and Rue didn't make mistakes. Surely, there had to be some witches around. After all, the daaeman had bred them themselves when they mated with humans eons ago. By now they should have comprised a large portion of the population.

Maybe, for whatever reason, they didn't. Maybe that's why they were underground, a secret. Maybe that's why none of the humans knew about them and why they thought Claire was a raving lunatic.

"Let's talk more about the demons, Claire," said a doctor in a charcoal gray suit.

Houses, she was beginning to hate all doctors.

Claire shifted in the uncomfortable chair. She'd spent most of the last couple of days drugged. This was the first time she'd felt truly lucid and the first time she'd been able to plead her case to someone in charge.

She folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him with an even stare. "I told you, Dr. Charnowski, I don't believe in demons."

Claire knew he could ferret out a lie with her body language and she was definitely lying.

He tipped his silvered head to the side. "Then why were you found screaming about them on the street? We tested you for drugs and found none, so there has to be another reason."

She nibbled the edge of her thumb. "I was… going through a bad time, Doctor." She glanced at him from under her lashes.

Claire understood she had to act like the sane person she was, a sane person who didn't believe in demons or witches. She needed to play the system if she was going to get out of this place.

The Atrika were probably outside the hospital, waiting for her. She needed to get out of here before they tried to break in and get her. Between these walls, without her magick, she was even more defenseless than she'd been on the streets.

Claire continued her lie. "My boyfriend had just tried to kill me. He was chasing me! I was confused, frightened. I guess, I guess… I thought he was a demon."

Doctor Charnowski sighed and set his tablet and pen on his desk. "I understand that sort of trauma can be disorienting, but you suffered a strong delusion if the witnesses are to be believed." He pressed his lips together. "Look, I'd like to be able to release you, Claire, but you won't give us your last name and your fingerprints turn up absolutely nothing in the database. And with this delusion you had…"

She leaned forward. "Please, Doctor, I just want to be able to get on with my life. I'm fine."

"Yes, but what life, Claire? It's like you're a ghost in the system."

Should she choose this time to tell him the truth? Well, actually, Doctor, I'm from an alternate dimension, one where daaeman rule. There I have a blossoming career as the handmaiden to the Cae. I'm an earth witch, you see, but like none you've ever seen because my magick has been twisted and subverted by my master. I'm like a human guinea pig… except I'm not human. Not completely.

Yes, that would buy her permanent residence on floor eight here at Stroger Hospital she had no doubt. These humans only believed what they could touch and see. There was no room in their minds for anything beyond the mundane.

She only stared at him stonily.

He clasped his hands together. "Look, I understand that you're afraid of your boyfriend. You have reason. We can help protect you. Just, please, help us out a little. Tell us who to contact. You must have family, friends. Someone to care for you."

She jerked her gaze away. She had no one. No one anywhere. Not on this Earth, not on Eudae. She was completely, crushingly alone. The emptiness that existed in her chest grew a little wider, a little blacken with the reminder.

After a moment, Dr. Charnowski sighed. "Fine, Claire, have it your way. A judge has issued a commitment order. You're staying here until we can determine whether or not you're a threat to yourself or others."

Later in her bed, after they'd locked the door and turned out the lights and her roommate lay moaning in the bed beside hers, Claire reached into herself one more time and parsed out a thread of the twisted, heavy magick. She could not take any of her own now without it being tangled with Rue's daaeman magick.

This time she did it deliberately. After all, the last time she'd pulled it she hadn't died, she'd just almost died. If she didn't risk it again, she'd perish here anyway.

Immediately, her gorge rose. She lurched to the side and brought up her lunch of spaghetti and Jell-o onto the polished hospital floor even as she used the magick to broadcast a thought to any air witch able to hear her. This time she'd make it more complete.

Please … I need help. My name is Claire and I'm at…