Possessed (Book One of the Hollow City Coven Series): A Witch and Warlock Romance Novel (2 page)

Gillian cocked her head at the inscription. “Of course,” she whispered, seeing it immediately.

The bind rune––where all the runes were written on top of one another in a complex symbol––would concentrate the power. Her heart raced, and her palms felt damp. The bind rune would be the key.

Marceline stepped back from the table and headed to the only armchair in the room. It had the effect of making the other inhabitants of the space feel as if they were in the presence of a queen. In all fairness, that would not have been far wrong. She put her elbows on the arm rest and steepled her fingers.

“Such a place of power,” she said, as though she were musing to herself. “The center of the Wiccan world. Once, it might have ruled everything.” She dropped her hands and gazed at Gillian. “And a place of danger. No doubt your research has shown you that.”

Gillian nodded. “It has,” she said. “But I think the risk is worth the discovery.”

Marceline’s smile turned toothy. “Go get packed. You’ve got a long way to travel.” Gillian gaped at her coven master. “I think the risk is worth discovery too.”

Gillian gathered up her documents, a huge grin already spreading over her face. She headed for the door, thinking ahead to what she’d need to take.

“Gillian,” Marceline said, as Gillian reached for the door handle. Something in the coven master’s voice stopped her and made her turn back. “Are you initiated?”

“I…I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me, Gillian. Are you initiated? Have you had unprotected sex with another Wiccan yet?”

Gillian’s cheeks flushed hot. She made herself count to five before she answered.

“That’s none of your business.”

Marceline had all but the power of life and death over her coven members, but that didn’t entitle her to the personal details of their lives.

“It’s not,” Marceline agreed easily. “However, you are going into what is a potentially deadly situation. You can’t tell me that initiation isn’t something that would make it easier.”

Marceline was, of course, right. A Wiccan’s first sexual encounter unlocked the powers that had been sleeping within them. Her own awakening had taken place when she was barely eighteen. Initiation, however, was what it would take to unlock the immortality that was the Wiccan’s birthright. Only after unprotected sex with another Wiccan, the possibility of creating sacred life, would she have the lifespan that Marceline and many other Wiccans enjoyed. She had never taken a Wiccan lover, had in fact not taken a lover at all since she had come to the Baltus Institute.

Marceline shrugged. “Get it taken care of,” she said casually. “You know that you are going to improve your odds for success if you do. You know as well as I do that you should have done it by now.”

Gillian turned on her heel, opened the door, and stalked out. Though it closed silently behind her, she suspected that Marceline was laughing at her. The heat rose in her face again. Wiccan immortality didn’t just mean she could live without aging. She would also be much harder to kill. Though it might take her years to recover from an injury, she would.

In the elevator, Gillian looked down at her gloved hands. That kind of intimacy, without her gloves, it would… She shook her head. She couldn’t. Not with someone she didn’t know, not with someone she didn’t care about.

“I’ll just have to be stronger, tougher and meaner than anything that gets in my way,” she said out loud. It was almost convincing.

SHAYNE WAS PLEASED to be in the metropolis again. When his plane landed, he took the reserved limo, but stopped it and got out, in favor of the metro. It would make him late for his meeting, but he decided at this point, he didn’t give a damn. Before he headed underground, however, he stopped to open the cage he was carrying. With a flurry of wings and an indignant shriek, Vlasti burst out of the carrier, shooting high up into the sky. She liked confinement as little as her master.

A man standing next to him stared after the bird, his mouth open in shock.

“Was that a falcon?” he asked.

Shayne shrugged, dumping the carrier in the trash before walking briskly away. He knew that his familiar would circle high above, getting a feel for the city. She would likely find him before dark.

The metro train was full of people, something he welcomed after having been in the forests of Norway for so long. The wild spaces were beautiful, but there was something he missed about being in the crush of humanity. The girl sitting not far from him caught his eye. He realized with a smirk that what he had missed was less abstract and significantly more sensual in nature. He let his gaze trail over her figure. Dressed in a simple black dress and long black jacket, she didn’t stand out until she looked up.

Her eyes were a dark gray that seemed familiar and yet exotic, and reminded him of the distant mountains. The leather portfolio that she clutched to her chest didn’t hide her figure, which was lush and rounded. She had a classical beauty to her, precisely the sort of woman he liked. He grinned when he saw her startled look. When she glared, he inclined his head to show he wasn’t a threat. Humans were, at the base of it, good at communicating without words. Though Shayne wished her signals were a little friendlier, he wasn’t worried. She was a striking woman, but there were others.

She passed him as her stop came up. His hand brushed against her glove. For just a moment, it sent an odd prickle of electricity through him, something that raised the short hairs at the back of his neck. If he were in a battle situation, he would have called it danger. If he were in bed, he would have called it passion. On a train, it was strange. His eyes followed her after the door closed. She glanced back at him, wary and unsure. Though he waved, she didn’t wave back.

The train took him to the business district of the city, where he climbed the stairs to street level. Skyscrapers blocked out the light, and he joined the tide of humanity. Shayne had been born in a time before the great cities, when even five thousand people living together was a cause for excitement and wonder. This mass of people was thrilling to him. There was no telling who was a friend or who was a foe. The people he passed might have been Wiccan like he was, or they might have been Templars, that ancient order designed to hunt Wiccans to the end of the earth. They could be anyone.

The Magus Corps were Wiccan men dedicated to the protection of witches and warlocks and to the enforcement of the code of law under which they all lived. Their bases and safe houses were scattered all over the world. Here, in downtown L.A., they were on the top floor of one of the smaller buildings.

Shayne gave his name, rank and assignment to the intercom. After a moment, the door to the stairwell unlocked so he could climb it. Elevators were death traps, and he was just as happy to use his body after the long flight and train ride. The stairwell opened into a common area where there was a towering man of apparently middle years waiting for him.

“Colonel Savatier,” the man said with a slight scowl. “You’re late.”

“You must be Commander Jefford,” Shayne said pleasantly. “And yes, I am.”

Jefford waited for an apology, and with none forthcoming, he shook his head and led Shayne to a plain office instead. When they were seated, Jefford began without preamble.

“Your mission was meant to be one of observation only,” he began. “Did you understand that, Colonel?”

Shayne shrugged.

“I understood that just fine,” he said coolly. “I saw the opportunity to do more.”

Jefford growled at him. He had been a Viking once upon a time. Some instincts died hard.

“You took risks that could have endangered the entire coven in Norway. You could have been captured.”

“I could have been. I wasn’t.”

The Magus Corps’s resources allowed him to do as he needed to do, but the paramilitary structure could become a straitjacket as much as it was a support system.

“You took actions that were rash and ill-considered. You spat in the face of the orders you were given–”

“I killed three Templar agents, and I destroyed the files they had with them. Files, I might add, that led directly to the coven in Stavanger.”

“The risks you took were unacceptable.”

“The idea of leaving Templars alive who knew the location of a Wiccan community was also unacceptable.” Shayne’s smile was tight and thin. “Are you going to drum me out of the Magus Corps? If you are, get it over with.”

Jefford paused, his face red. He knew as well as Shayne did that the Magus Corps never had enough officers. Members like Shayne, who were capable of operating alone and effectively, were assets not easily given up.

“Someday, Savatier, you will run into something that you can’t fight to a standstill, and on that day, there are many Commanders that will laugh
.”

“They’re welcome to it. Just as long as they don’t get in the way of my fight.”

Jefford’s response was to slam a keycard on the desk between them.

“Your room’s been prepared for you. You’re cooling your heels here for at least a little while, and maybe when we find another assignment for you, it will suit your particular needs
.
Get out of my sight.”

Shayne was pleased to do just that.

• • • • •

Jefford sat still for a moment, trying to calm himself. Magus Corps officers were by necessity independent and strong-minded, but Shayne Savatier was something else. Jefford was almost under control when his phone rang. He saw the name on it, and could have spit iron.

“What is it?” he snapped.

As usual, the voice on the other end had a ridiculous request, and Jefford was ready to snarl his response. Then he smiled suddenly and glanced at the closed door. Sometimes two problems were their own solutions.

TWO DAYS LATER, Gillian checked her passport for the fiftieth time. Reassured that it was still in the bag, she finally swung it over her shoulder, and locked up her room. She was dressed in a rose-colored cotton dress, long jacket, and flats. Her hair was twisted up in a sloppy bun. She looked like any other tourist on her way out of the city. But her destination was further than most. Also, unlike most tourists, she had no idea if she would be back. She had carefully stored the actual documents away in the Baltus Institute’s vault, but there were photocopies tucked into her bag’s secret pocket. She was as ready as she ever would be.

Truly?
That tiny voice in her head spoke up mockingly.
Are you truly as ready as you could be?

She had thought about it. She had been on the verge of trying to find someone to initiate her. Immortality could be an important weapon in her arsenal. It might mean the difference between success and failure. In the end though, she couldn’t do it. Immortality was an enormous prospect. She had seen that, with a few rare exceptions, most of those who were immortal were alone. She wasn’t afraid of being alone, in and of itself. But the idea of being alone for years, decades, or perhaps even centuries––that was somehow terrifying.

Well, I’ll simply have to get on without it. I’ll have to be enough on my own.

Except that she wasn’t on her own. Marceline had arranged an escort for the journey. Gillian was equal parts grateful and irritated. She would need to move fast and act decisively on this trip. But she also knew she was basically a researcher.

Nebpu sat behind his desk. She chatted with him a little as she waited for her escort to arrive. She checked the clock over and over again. He was now more than forty minutes late. Her stomach was clenched with nerves. She began to pace.

“It will be fine,” Nebpu said in his smooth and reassuring way. “Whatever you are doing, it can wait.”

She knew that he was right, but it didn’t help. She was almost ready to give up and head to the airport on her own, when the door opened.

“Good morning,” said Nebpu immediately, eyes bright. “How can I help you?”

“You can get Miss Granger’s ass out of bed, I guess,” came the drawling response.

Gillian turned towards the man with fury, but then she froze. She recognized him, and when he glanced up, his skewed blue and brown gaze was unmistakable.

“You?” she exclaimed.

He looked startled. A slight smile started to curve his mouth, but then he scowled again.

“Are you Granger?” he asked brusquely.

Stung, she drew herself up to her full height.

“I am. And you must be the escort from the Magus Corps.”

He tapped the brushed steel pentacle pinned to his black shirt collar. It was an identifier and a mark of his rank. He was dressed in an oddly old fashioned way. Though it was regulation black, as was common for the Magus Corps, nothing else looked familiar. Instead of a belt, he wore suspenders, and there was a faint gray pinstripe on his trousers. The shoes he wore were workman’s brogues.

He raised an eyebrow at her scrutiny.

“Will I serve?” he asked, a hopeful note in his voice. “If you don’t like the look of me, you can always send me back.”

“She’s going to do nothing of the sort.”

Marceline came out of the elevator, a scowl on her face. Gillian had always thought that the coven master of the Baltus Institute would be a frightening woman if she was angered. Now she could see that she was right.

“Gillian, this is Colonel Shayne Savatier. I knew that the Magus Corps wouldn’t give in to my request for an escort so easily, so I did a bit of digging. Turns out the good colonel here is riding a rough edge. Doesn’t follow orders, doesn’t have great standing, and most would be happy to see the back of him.” She rounded on Shayne. “You listen. This girl is your responsibility now, understand? If you don’t bring her back, don’t bother showing your face in the country again, because I will
end
you.”

Shayne narrowed his eyes for a split second. Gillian was suddenly certain that she was going to see a fight, but then he nodded.

“I’m everything that you said and worse, but I do take my duties seriously, Coven Master. She will be returned as safe as when she left.”

Marceline gave him a long look before nodding reluctantly. She turned to give Gillian a brief and surprising hug.