“You two didn’t seem surprised that James blamed one of us.”
She walked down the hall, leaving him to follow behind. “It’s not that I believe that to be the case, I just can’t rule it out. If it wasn’t Raoul who tried to kill me, and I’m seriously starting to doubt it was, it had to be someone who knew where I lived or had a way to discover that. They also had to know when I would be home. The only people with access to that information right now are people directly involved with the case.”
“Why are you doubting Raoul’s involvement?”
“Because he wanted something from me—something he thinks I took from him. He’s unlikely to try to kill me before he gets his hands on whatever it is.”
“So what’s the plan?” he asked as he followed her down the stairs.
“Catch the son of a bitch.” They stepped out of the house and into the sun. “Can you get me the log of everyone on scene? Get me one of everyone on scene at the alley, too. I’m going to do a perimeter check of the house. See if I can figure out how he got in. James always has this place locked down tighter than a dragon horde.”
“All right. Watch your ass. I’ll be right back.”
She paced the length of the house searching for any breach in her brother-in-law’s defenses. Every inch of the house was bathed in a sheen of vibrant crimson. At one point she reached out to touch the wards and they parted around her hand. Of course they did, they were coded for her. She sighed and fisted her hands on her waist.
“Juliana? Is that you?”
She turned to find Taft’s familiar signature standing a short distance away. “It is you. But how? I thought you were dead.”
“I get that a lot.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry about Sara. That shouldn’t have happened. Rachel, too.”
“Thank you.”
He leaned on the building next to him before she had time to warn him. The wards usually only activated at entrances but one could never be sure. Instead, she watched as the wards parted around him. Because she’d brought him to dinner. The witch in cop’s clothing. It would be easy enough for him to find out where she lived and he knew she’d gone home from the alley instead of back to the hotel. He’d been with her when she questioned Oliver and the ghoul had been nervous the entire time. Maybe because he recognized the kidnapper?
“Uh, oh. I know that look.” His signature flared and mixed with that muddy brown she’d grown to loathe, confirming her sudden suspicion that Taft was the Thief. Before she could yell for help or even draw her weapon, she found herself unable to move, unable to speak. Son of a bitch.
She shut down her gift. Taft tugged at his bottom lip as he walked toward her. Suddenly he broke into a beaming grin. “I knew you’d figure it out eventually. All you needed was a little time and the proper motivation. We’ve got a lot in common, you and I. We can see the ones who are different. Well, come along. Rachel’s waiting.
As terrified as she was, hope bloomed in her chest that she might be able to save Rachel. Taft started walking and motioned for her to follow. Her legs moved after him of their own accord. There had to be a way out of this. A way to beat him. Even as she had the thought, she followed him like an automaton. She couldn’t even look around to make eye contact with anyone.
And then she remembered she had the best line of communication there was. “
It’s Taft.
He’s the Thief.
He killed Sara and took Rachel.
” Taft opened the passenger side door of his car for her and told her to get in. Naturally, she complied.
“
Where is he?
Where are you?
”
“
In his car.
”
“
That was only one answer to two questions
, Joya
.
” His annoyance and fear traveled to her over their bond. She knew just how he felt.
Clayton and Jeremiah stood at opposite ends of the far side of the yard. Clayton pulled his phone out and put it to his ear as Taft slid behind the wheel. The Warden’s head jerked up and he scanned the area until he caught sight of them. He started moving across the yard. Jeremiah watched him with a frown, and then he answered his own phone and started to follow the same path.
“And how did they know about us, I wonder?” Taft singsonged as he put the car into gear and reversed down the street until he reached a path wide enough he could turn around.
He picked her hand up from the seat and rolled her new engagement ring between his fingers. “Hmm...I forgot about your vampire.” He tossed her hand into her lap. “That won’t do. That won’t do at all.”
“
We’re heading south.
”
“
Good girl.
I’m on my way.
I’ll find you.
”
“And that’s enough of that,” her captor said. Then she felt a pinch at her neck. Moments later her eyelids grew heavy and her head swam. She struggled to stay awake. To stay focused. She had to tell Thomas where they were going. “Go to sleep, Juliana. We’ll be home soon,” Taft said. And so she slept.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Juliana came to slowly. Her head felt fuzzy and unclear. She kept her eyes closed and her head bent forward, unwilling to let Taft know she was awake yet.
Thomas?
She reached out with her mind but there was no response. She could feel him, knew he was there, but other than a vague idea of his presence, she couldn’t get any more specific. There was no way for her to know if he was still on his way to rescue her or if he’d lost track of them.
Her hands were secured above her head and she flexed them, testing the strength of the bonds. Without looking, it felt like plastic zip ties. An attempt to move her legs revealed that they were also tied down. Shit.
“I know you’re awake,” Taft said. “You might as well open your eyes and look around.”
As much as she didn’t want to do what he told her, she wanted to see where they were being held even more. She also wanted to see if she could spot Rachel. It occurred to her that she had a choice, however, so his earlier spell must have worn off. Thank the gods for that.
She eased her eyes open, blinking in the light. It appeared they were in some kind of barn or large outbuilding. Taft sat on a long table running down the middle of the room and smiled at her. The sleeves on his dress shirt were rolled up. Hay littered the floor, but she thought she saw blood staining the ground beneath. And there against a far wall sat Rachel, knees drawn up to her chest, arms locked around her legs, hair falling around her in a curtain. Soft sobs filled the air. The pure blind panic she’d been feeling since she arrived at Sara’s house eased some at seeing her niece alive. Her goal now was to keep Rachel alive and get her back to James.
“So, are you surprised that it was me all along?”
Juliana just looked at him for a long moment without saying anything. The truth was she was disgusted and disappointed with herself for not realizing it was him from the beginning. In fact, she’d trusted his judgment. Relied on him to provide insight into the department. She was a fool. Finally, she asked the question she’d wanted an answer to from the beginning. “Why?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Why what? Why did I do it?”
She nodded.
“To save them of course.” He stood from his perch at the edge of the table and began to pace the floor. “I’ve always been able to spot them, you know. The ones like me.”
“The ones like you?”
“The ones who are mixed and impure. I’ve purified them.”
There was one problem with Taft’s theory—he was human. There was nothing mixed about him. “And what good does it do them if they’re dead?”
“So shortsighted. I didn’t expect that from you. There’s more to life than just this existence. I’m making sure they are pure when they move on.”
“And they’re impure because they’re half Altered and half human? That’s your theory?” She twisted her position as best she could, trying to get more feeling in her arms and legs.
He frowned at her. “It’s not a theory. The blending causes our impurities. The flaw must be removed.”
There were several parts of him she’d be more than happy to remove. “And who fed you that line?”
“It’s not a line. It is the truth. My mother always told me my father had tainted me, made me impure. I tried but couldn’t fix myself, so I will fix them.”
Why was it serial killers always had mommy or daddy issues? In this case, both. “I hate to tell you this, Taft, but witches are human. There’s nothing mixed about you.”
“You’re lying.” He all but spat the words.
She shook her head. “Witches are nothing but Altered wannabes. Humans with some magical talent. That’s it. Your daddy was human and so are you.”
He slapped her hard across her left cheek. Her head jerked to the side. Pain blossomed across her cheekbone and radiated up around her eye. “Liar.” This time he did spit, the spittle decorating her face with his rage. All right, pissing off the serial killer maybe wasn’t the best idea. Perhaps she should change the line of conversation.
“Okay, so the kids, you take them and bring them here? Hide them here?”
He smiled, back to his charming self. “You’re standing on them,” he said and stomped twice on the floor.
She strained but heard nothing but Rachel’s soft cries. Either the children were very quiet or he was using a dampening spell. Or he’d already killed them all. She couldn’t let herself think that way. Not if she was going to get through this.
“And what about Oliver, what happened to him?”
“He was so nervous when we questioned him. I thought he’d seen me that day with the girl and he’d recognized me. When I went back to the cemetery, though, he let me right in. He said he tried to call you, that he felt bad about lying. His cameras did cover part of the school, but he’d gotten in trouble for it before and didn’t want anyone to know. I had to kill him then, of course. But there was no point in leaving him there for anyone to find. When I made him disappear, he became a target for your suspicions instead of a witness. All it took was me calling in an anonymous sighting to keep him alive and hunting.”
He paced the floor. “Imagine my surprise to find he was telling the truth about his data being erased. There was no record of it anywhere on the hard drive. I didn’t realize my spell was quite that powerful.”
Her stomach turned at the casual way he mentioned how he’d manipulated her and twisted her to his whim. “It wasn’t. The tech guys recovered lots of data. I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually salvaged that day too. Not that it matters. Everyone knows what you are now.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if they know who I am. I can still complete what I set out to do. They won’t find us for hours yet. This property’s not in my name. By the time they get here, everyone will be purified.”
“Is that why you tried to kill me at my house? To purify me?” If she could keep him talking, she might be able to keep herself and Rachel alive until Thomas got there. At least, that was her hope. She couldn’t think about the children beneath her feet right now. That was too big of a target to focus on. Besides, she didn’t think Taft had near as long as he thought he did. There was no way Thomas was going to let hours pass before he found her. She still hoped he could find her through their bond even if she couldn’t do the same.
“It wasn’t me who attacked your house. Though, lucky for you, I’d been keeping an eye on you. Your wards really did not like that guy.”
“What guy?”
“The vampire with the melted face. The one from the fairgrounds.” He gestured with his head and she craned her neck to the side. Raoul lay hog-tied in one of the stalls, tape over his mouth and fury in his eyes. Seven years tracking him and the child killer caught the bastard before she did.
“Why is he here? Why didn’t you just kill him?” Taft eliminating Raoul would take care of at least one major problem in her life. Undoubtedly, the Fates knew that and that was the precise reason the vampire still lived.
“I wanted some answers from him first. For instance, why was he at your house? At the fairgrounds? What did he want? He’s proving remarkably uncooperative.”
“People tend to be that way when they know you’re just going to kill them after you get the information you want.”
Taft shrugged. “Who says I’m going to kill him? I don’t see how he’s a threat to me. And he’s already pure.”
She wanted to protest, but figured it would be a smarter idea to pretend she didn’t care one way or another.
“He tried to break through your wards, though I don’t understand how he thought to accomplish it with no magic. When the wards started becoming more aggressive with him, I cast a stunning spell. It worked, but my magic intertwined with yours. I’d never seen anything like it. I kept pushing just to see what happened, because I knew that eventually my power would prove stronger. It always had before. And I guess in a way it did this time, as well, but I didn’t intend to destroy your house. The magic just took on a life of its own.”
“That’s what wild magic does, Taft. You think you’re using it, but really it’s the other way around, it’s using you.”
He looked at her, confused. “Wild magic?”
“It’s magic that exists in the world around us. It’s not your own. I take it you were never trained in the craft?” She rotated her hands in the ties again, desperate to keep some feeling in them.
“Since I never met my father and my mother abhorred what I was because of him, you are correct. What does that have to do with anything?”
“If you’d been trained, you could have used your own magic. It would have been safer.” He still looked confused. He didn’t get it and probably never would because he didn’t understand the fundamentals of magic. Of how the power flowed.
“You know I left you a message in that alley. With the posters.” He paced the floor in front of her. “But then you wouldn’t use your gift and see what I’d made for you. If you had, you would have seen I’d wrote ‘you’ over ‘them.’ I will purify you. Clever, wasn’t it?”
Yes, very clever. Also psychotic, but that was an opinion she should probably keep to herself.
“I thought you’d understand what I was trying to do. You must realize what we’re meant to do,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
“We?” Where in the hell had the “we” come from?
“You can see them too, Juliana. You were meant to help me. Your gift fascinates me,
you
fascinate me.”
Fan-freaking-tastic, the murderer found her fascinating. Just what every girl wanted to hear. “So if you just want to purify the children, why take Rachel? She’s not mixed. What purpose can she possibly serve?”
“I told you at the house I was sorry about that. About her and Sara both, but you left me no choice.” He started to pace the floor again. “When I thought you were dead, I was distraught. I really was. So I went after the people closest to you.” He said it so matter-of-factly, as if he hadn’t just ripped her apart with those words. Sara was dead because of her. Rachel was here, motherless and terrified because of her. Son of a bitch.
“Well, now you’ve got me. So why don’t you let Rachel go?”
He turned around to examine Rachel as if he’d almost forgotten she existed. “You’re quite right. With you here, I no longer need her.”
A snap of his fingers and Rachel went rigid, began clawing at her throat. No, no, no. Juliana turned on her gift. A bubble of a spell surrounded Rachel’s head. This was how he suffocated the children without leaving any marks. A spell that sucked the air right out of them. Juliana had to kill him and she had to do it now. She shut down her gift so she could see her surroundings without any interference.
Loud thuds came from her left. Raoul rocked against the side of the stall. “What do you want?” Taft asked and headed in that direction. Raoul looked pointedly over their captor’s shoulder at her. Her nemesis was distracting the serial killer for her. She sat that aside to mull over later.
With Taft’s attention no longer on her, she struggled against the restraints but it was to no avail. Then she reached desperately for the small bit of magic at her disposal. She flicked her fingers and lit the hay at his feet on fire. Taft glanced over his shoulder and gave her a crooked grin before stamping out the flame. Her fire spell had never been capable of much damage. Raoul rocked again, reclaiming his attention and Taft bent forward to peel the tape from his mouth.
Juliana racked her brain. What else did she know? What else could she use? She could open locks, but since he’d used ties on her instead of handcuffs that did her no good at all. She could also do a trick with a tablecloth and dishes. Useless magic. All of it. Rachel continued to claw at her throat and gasp for breath.
Juliana stared at Taft, she had one more desperate play and she prayed to every god she could think of, whether she believed in them or not, that it would work. What was skin really but a covering? She flicked her fingers at Taft, willed the magic to do as she wished. He jerked and frowned down at his chest, rubbing a hand against it. He turned back to her, eyes wide and took a step in her direction.
Juliana shut out Rachel’s dying breaths and concentrated all her focus on the man before her. She dug deep and found every ounce of will, every speck of power. Both hands arched in his direction. “Topsy-turvy, you son of a bitch.”
Taft jerked again, took another step and exploded. His death was instantaneous. She knew this because when he died, his magic died with him. Rachel could breathe again, and the dampening spell he’d evidently cast on the property faded away. Thomas was on his way and approaching fast. She could hear noises from below the floorboards and guessed that’s where they’d find the other children.
“Rachel, baby, it’s okay. The bad man’s gone. Daddy’s on his way,” she called. Rachel stayed curled up on her side, back turned to Juliana and the carnage on the floor. Perhaps that was for the best. Her soft cries carried to Juliana, and while it broke her heart that the girl was crying, at least it meant she was alive.
“You owe me, Norris. Don’t forget that,” Raoul said. Juliana searched within herself looking for enough power to do to him what she’d done to Taft. There it was, that vein of magic she needed. But as she lifted her eyes to look at him, she found she was unable to follow through. As much as she loathed the man, he was tied up. To kill him now would make her no better than Taft.