kate storm 04 - witches dont back down (15 page)

"No."

We both ignored Désirée's complete disregard for the truth and my reality in it.

"I didn't think so, but it would have at least made some sense." Phil rumbled.

"Wait here." He turned around, walked over to my human office and disappeared inside. A second later, I heard the door to the alley open. There was a long pause and then the door shut again. Phil emerged to survey the reception area again and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Kate. I can't help you."

"You can't track them?" I was shocked.

"No. There's a lot of emotion in these rooms, but I didn't smell anything when I drove up or in your alley." He scowled. "Whoever did this, knew how to block their feelings when they left."

"What about their scent?" I didn't understand. There was such an overabundance of emotion in the room, how could anyone simply turn it off?

"That's the thing, Kate. There isn't a scent. Nothing I can track."

Well shit. There went my theory about a human.

I didn't care for any member of the HC who could disguise their scent. I'd met a couple of beings who were capable of doing that and neither one of them had been good.

And a being who could feel such deep distress and then turn it off like it didn't exist?

Impossible.

It all pointed to one thing.

Black magic.

It was cropping up more and more. Every time I turned around it seemed.

Which meant Morgause was getting closer all the time.

But Morgause wasn't hopeless.

Evil, determined and thorough? Yes. Absolutely.

She also wasn't one for petty gestures. If she knew where I was, she'd come after me. She wouldn't waste time trashing my business.

I knew of only one other person who was using black magic and had already been to Love Required.

"Nina Georgette."

****

"
I still don't understand why Nina would do this," Désirée Norma-Sue said again.

I righted the wing chair in my HC office. "I don't either. I certainly didn't pick up anything that would indicate she was so upset when she was here before."

I dusted off my hands and looked around. My HC office had been hit the hardest. As bad as the mess was in the reception area and my other office, it was just a prelude to the destruction Nina Georgette had wrought in my HC office. She'd even ripped open my tea bags and scattered the tea leaves over the floor.

I was upset, but not as much as I might have been. 1) I was confident it was Nina Georgette and not Morgause who had ransacked my business. I could handle Nina. I still didn't have a plan for Morgause. 2) Even though I'd left the front door open, my client files had been locked away. Nina hadn't been able to access any information there. And I was pretty sure she had been after something in those files. 3) My magic rocked. A quick spell and I'd set everything to rights. Picking up the chair had been purely optional on my part.

"Do you think she's hiding more of herself with the black magic than you first thought?" Phil asked. "I'm not doubting your skills as a witch, Kate." He hurried to assure me. "This just seems a bit excessive."

"Yes, it does." I agreed. "And yes, she is obviously hiding a lot she doesn't want us to know about. I have no idea what." I shrugged, at a complete loss.

"Maybe I should stick around for a while?" Phil looked at his watch.

I waved him off. "It's all right, Phil. I know you're meeting the guys at the realtor's office. Go ahead. I'll cast an extra protection spell. Désirée and I will be safe. Don't worry."

Phil frowned, clearly torn.

"Sugar Bear, Kate won't let anything happen to me. We'll be fine." Désirée cupped his face and kissed him. "You go on now."

I waved my wand and cast my spell.

Phil relaxed once he felt it take hold.

"All right then. But I don't want you to leave until I come back." Phil smoothed a loose black strand back into Désirée's beehive. She sighed, a soft exhalation of love. He narrowed his gaze at me. "That goes for you too, Kate. Ash and I will meet you two back here after we're done."

Ash. Damn. I bet he would consider a break in at my office one of those bad things I was supposed to mention.

"Okay." I reached into my pocket for my phone. “Ah, I need to make a quick phone call."

Phil and Désirée went out of the office, and I dialed Ash's number.

He wasn't happy. To put it mildly.

I assured him everything was fine. I wasn't hurt. Désirée wasn't hurt. I'd cleaned up the entire mess. There were no bad guys or unhinged clients waiting behind any doors. Phil had scoured the entire premises. And the outside. And I wasn't hurt.

It took several attempts before that part sunk in.

Al didn't help matters. I could hear him demanding that Ash ask if I had checked the utility closet and the bathroom. And pointing out the multitude of ways I could have been seriously injured or killed.

Ash asked–okay, he yelled loudly into the phone in a fiercely interrogative manner–several times, making certain I wasn't hurt.

It didn't bother me to repeat that I was fine over and over again until they were both reassured.

Ash loved me. He was forgiven. They both were.

I promised him I'd wait until he arrived before I locked up. I sighed, my own soft exhalation of love.

Phil left and Désirée whirled on me. "All right. Let's have it. Why aren't you more upset?"

I looked around Love Required, fully restored with a flick of my wand. My baby. My passion.

A place of love and hope and joy.

With a slight lingering taint of Nina Georgette's anguish.

"Nina isn't evil, Désirée. She's distraught about something and she thinks she can find the answer here, but she isn't evil. Not like Morgause." I waved my hand around. "If Morgause had been here, trust me, I'd be very upset."

"Okay." Désirée Norma-Sue nodded her head. "In comparison, Nina isn't really bad. She still came in and made a huge mess and you don't know why or what she is up to."

"True." I shrugged. "It's hard for me to explain it, but what I felt with my magic . . . She's desperate for something. I don't know what it is, but I understand desperate. And loss of hope. It's what I deal with every day."

Désirée's brown eyes softened. "You're a sucker, Kate." She walked over to me and put her arms around me. "Nina might be desperate, but it doesn't mean she is desperate to fall in love. There are lots of other reasons for someone to be desperate."

I knew that.

I hadn't said I liked Nina. My feelings were very divided about her. And I couldn't forget Al's crush on her. I didn't like that one bit.

Still I'd
felt
her. Or at least a part of her. A part I could relate to. A part I understood.

I couldn't dismiss it.

Or condemn her.

Désirée tightened her hold on me. "Don't forget: desperate people can be dangerous people, Kate."

19. Matchmaking.

I thought about Nina Georgette being dangerous.

I'd seen my secretary in a fight so I knew not to discount size. Or fragile appearances.

And she was using some form of black magic. Bad stuff.

Plus, she'd trashed my business.

Normal, rational individuals–whether they were human or non–did not commit acts punishable by law.

I understood all of this and yet I still couldn't wrap my head around Nina truly being dangerous.

Maybe I was too soft.

I didn't think so.

But I had felt her emotions. And while I could relate to them as a matchmaker like I told Désirée Norma-Sue, I could also relate to them as a bullied young witch. I'd understood despair and hopelessness from a very young age.

I couldn't make up my mind about Nina at all.

Friend. Foe. Dangerous or not.

I could only hope she would come back. I knew she hadn't found what she was looking for and she didn't know I was aware she was the vandal. If she came in again, I wasn't going to play the nice witch any longer. I'd confront her and get to the heart of the matter.

I decided to put Nina to the side and concentrate on other things. I still had a business to run.

I spent the next few hours going through potential matches like I planned before the break-in. I set aside three possibilities for Ant Leroy. And two for Lana Jacobs.

I liked the ones for Ant Leroy. They were all very attractive and successful. One was a former shoe model. I kid you not. I didn't know such jobs existed. She'd had to quit after an ankle injury, but she was still very much in the know when it came to shoe design. One had listed buying shoes as a hobby. I'd upgraded it to near obsession level after she wrote how much she spent each week. Four figures. I'm not making this up. She spent more than I made each month on shoes every couple of weeks.

The last potential match owned her own shoe store. I planned to mention her to Ant Leroy last. I was kind of afraid he would offer to help out in her store. He'd be happy, but he might also scare her customers away. It wouldn't do them any good to fall in love and then go broke.

I felt sorry for the two potential matches for Lana Jacobs. One was a warlock we'd gone to school with. He owned his own online costume shop. The other was a gnome. He was from one of the taller gnome families which put him just about even with Lana's shoulder. I've always found gnomes to be optimistic and kind. I hated to include him as a match, but my magic said otherwise.

I arranged for a couple of mini dates. I'm not a big fan of mini dates–the after work, one cocktail drink or the half-hour cup of coffee get-togethers can be too short. I don't typically consider them unless I have my arch nemesis from high school as my client and I want to hit her with a one, two, in-your-face, I'm-the-best-matchmaker-ever punch so I can gloat and then get rid of her as a client.

I'd pretty much given up on being the better witch when it came to Lana. I was now aiming for the smug, superior witch who took great delight in rubbing Lana's nose in my excellent skills.

I set up mini dates for Ant Leroy just in case my aunt called to prove I wasn't slighting Lana. Which I wasn't. I was just hurrying things along. Usually, I like to give love as much time as it needs, but it will happen one way or the other.

I arranged after work cocktails with Ant Leroy and the shoe model and after dinner cocktails with Ant Leroy and the shoe lover. I did the same for Lana and the warlock with the gnome slated for after-dinner cocktails.

Ant Leroy was thrilled. Lana told me she would be posting updates about the date to her Facebook page all night. If it was a bust–she actually said
when
not
if–
everybody would know about it.

I waited until I was off the phone before I used all the unprofessional, but really satisfying insults, I held in while talking to her.

I thought about promising myself I wouldn't gloat when Lana fell for one of her matches, but I couldn't think of any reason not to rub her nose in it.

Ash and Phil showed up soon afterwards.

Which was really good because I'd moved past serious gloating to renting out the two billboards outside of town to display a picture of Lana on her wedding day, overcome with joy and in tears next to a larger picture of me looking fabulous with the caption: "Brilliant matchmaker does it again!" In the billboard photos, Lana had managed to gain about fifteen pounds and I managed to lose about twenty.

I liked the idea of the billboards, but I doubted I could afford them. Even with the extra ten percent I was charging Lana.

Pity.

Ash paused for a second in my office door. Eyes narrowed, shoulders firmed, he scanned my upper half behind the desk. Then he strode forward and around my desk, gripped me by the shoulders and pulled me up. He even spun me around and checked out my backside.

He spun me back around. "Damn it, Kate."

My eyes went to his still writhing sin. "Damn it, Ash."

We stared at each other for a few more minutes, neither budging and then Ash broke. Or maybe it was me. It was hard to say. All I knew was that I was suddenly in his arms, pressed tightly to his chest, my arms wrapped around him.

Every time I touched him, I was aware of what a fine line we walked. How quickly things could change. And the possibility loomed ever near that our time together came with an expiration date unless we found a solution.

Even now I could feel his sin pulsing against the skin of my right arm.

Ash pulled back, but kept his hands on my shoulders as if he couldn't stand to physically let go of me even though he could see I was all right. "You managed to clean everything up. Phil said it was trashed when he got here."

The tattle-tale. I think I'd used the term "a few items knocked over" when I'd called Ash.

I shrugged. "I cast a spell."

I moved my hand next to his moving sin. The lines spun and twisted, but never moved more than a few inches. Like an invisible barrier had settled over it.

His sin didn't try to wrap itself around me.

I was used to it responding to me. To my touch.

I wished I could cast a spell just as easily to fix his sin.

I pulled my hand away.

"Phil said you think Nina Georgette broke in."

I nodded. My throat had tightened. It was stupid to feel so saddened by the loss of his tattoo. It was a sin, for Spirit's sake. The sin of lust. It's what would eventually take him back to Hell.

"Al's convinced it was a homeless person."

I choked.

Ash patted me on the back.

"A homeless person?" I finally managed to cough out.

"Yes." Ash nodded. "Possibly one who is severely deranged."

I glared at Ash. He started to laugh.

"This is not funny!" I poked him in the chest.

"Actually, it kind of is." Ash grabbed my hand in his.

"Nina Georgette is using black magic. She is obviously trying to use me or my business for something and she broke in and trashed my place!" I tried to move around Ash, determined to find Al and sit him down. "He can't be serious."

Ash pulled me back into him. "He is serious. He really likes her."