Motor City Witch (12 page)

***

They stopped on the far side of the bridge while Wallis and Desmond worked together to cast an illusion of darkness and silence over the vehicles. While they wouldn’t truly be invisible, they’d be hard to notice if no one was looking. Hopefully the goblins wouldn’t be watching for trouble and any guards in the buildings still occupied nearby wouldn’t notice them either.

Once the spell was cast, they inched across the bridge and circled the steel mill, so the cars were all pointed back toward the city before their force—nearly two dozen in all, werewolf, human and sidhe of several persuasions—climbed out and gathered up their weapons, everything from axes to assault rifles, with more than a few enchanted swords between them. Aidan conjured his own bronze sword in its belt sheath, but led the way to the edge of the building holding nothing more than three pieces of paper. After checking the hole into his cell and seeing no activity, he climbed in and blinked one of the notes into the next chamber, on the side opposite from Colin’s, then estimated the distances to the other two occupied cells and ’ported those letters as well. Just in case the prisoners were sleeping, he added a flash and pop spell, to go off when the paper hit the floor. He put a pencil with each note and told the prisoners to place the paper back on the floor where it had fallen, as he wasn’t sure which of them, if any, had any magic.

A few moments later, he had his responses, though it took him two tries to get the third one from the right spot in the furthest. All three prisoners were alive. Aidan instructed each of them to move as far as possible from the wall and to cover their faces before he climbed back out through the wall and told Wallis where to set the explosives.

Five long, nerve-wracking minutes later, Desmond’s magic muffled the sound of three small explosions. Each had breached enough of a hole that the men on the outside were able to use tools to enlarge them for the prisoners to crawl out. Ric blinked in shoes and coats for each of the rescued prisoners and the two men and one woman were hustled to one of the SUVs and plied with water and food.

None of them knew any more than Colin had about the guards or their plans, but after a few moments’ rest, each demanded a weapon and to be allowed to help clean out the building. Even Kayla, who proved to be fully elven and the niece of a council member,
’ported in an enchanted bow and a quiver of arrows along with a leather jerkin and jeans to replace her skimpy purple dress. Michael Northwoods accepted an assault rifle and bullet-proof vest, while Lachlan of the Isles ’ported in a gleaming bronze claymore and a set of chainmail.

The werewolves had scouted the outside of the factory and determined there were only two entrances still functional. A third, the old loading dock door, had long since rusted shut. Aidan and Desmond each took half of their group to one of the doorways.

Aidan pressed the small chunk of plastic explosive on the door handle and stepped back, drawing his cutlass and blinking on his supple leather cuirass. It didn’t look like it would stop a bullet, but the enchantments on it were ancient and powerful. He waited for Desmond’s command over their headsets before he pressed the remote for the detonator.

There was a flash and a whoosh, and the door, now hanging awkwardly on its hinges, swung open. With Greg on his heels and another ten men close behind them, Aidan stepped into the abandoned steel mill.

The entryway was empty. Shattered chunks of wood and plaster separated the small vacant foyer from the main floor of the old building. Aidan stepped through into the cavernous chamber. While most of the industrial contents had been stripped, there were still a few chunks and scraps of rusting machinery here and there. A newer, cinderblock wall had been erected sectioning off maybe a third of the space, creating the cell corridor.

A burst of automatic weapon fire greeted them from behind a pile of busted wooden shipping crates. Aidan and his allies fanned out against the wall, returning fire. Aidan had no compunction about shooting back. These thugs had planned to kill innocent children and mortal law couldn’t touch them. Meanwhile, Desmond’s team had entered from the far end of the mill and was engaging another group, tucked behind some old assembly-line equipment.

When Desmond yelled, “Now,” everyone on Aidan’s team knew to shut their eyes. Their goblin enemies didn’t. Through slitted eyelids, Aidan saw the brilliant burst of white light that filled the factory and heard a dozen or so high-pitched screams. One small humanoid with greenish skin, pointed teeth and even bigger pointy ears than an elf dashed out from behind one of the crates and started spraying wildly with a submachine gun before he was cut down by bullets from Desmond’s side of the room. Goblins typically dwelt underground, or at least deep in the forests of Faerie. Their eyes were burnt by bright light. Right now they should all be blinded.

A pair of snarling shapes leapt out of a doorway on the side of the building where the cells had been. The two pale silver werewolves were met in the middle of the floor by the Novak brothers and a tangle of snarling fur and fangs ensued, while the humans and Fae rounded up the blinded goblins and clasped them in iron chains Wallis had picked up from the Queen’s guard. To Aidan’s surprise, there were two larger goblinlike creatures as well, with heavy brow ridges and bluish skin rather than green. Orcs. Thankfully, they were even more light-sensitive than goblins, so they’d probably been knocked out by Desmond’s flash spell. Well, wasn’t that an interesting addition to this mess? Orcs and elves were natural enemies in Faerie. What the hell had convinced them to work together?

When one pair of wolves split apart, Desmond cast a spell. Suddenly the paler wolf found itself enmeshed in a glittering net. Greg scrambled up onto a crate and leapt onto the entangled wolf, pinning it in place while Desmond used a crowbar to knock it unconscious. Once the wolf lay still, Desmond slapped a set of silver-plated shackles onto it, which Aidan knew would lock it in wolf form and prevent the regenerative healing it would get from
shifting. Meanwhile, Greg went to help his brother. The two soon had the second wolf pinned, with Greg lying across its body and George holding its throat in his powerful jaws until Desmond could get another set of shackles on that one as well.

***

Despite Aidan’s instructions for all of them to stay gathered in his den, Elise insisted on taking Dina upstairs for a bath and to sleep in a real bed. The room Aidan had assigned her shared a bath with the room on the other side, but Colin desperately needed a shower, so Elise took it on herself to send him into the guest suite while she took Dina into Aidan’s plush bathroom. Once both kids were clean, they could sack out in the adjoining rooms, while the adults gathered in Aidan’s sitting area across the hall, or even right out in the hallway, on guard. Mind you, Elise figured she’d be sitting up beside Dina all night and she suspected Morwynna would sneak into Colin’s room as soon as the boy was asleep. Even if he thought he was grown, Elise knew that his mother still considered him her baby. She’d only been a mom for four years, but she knew that sense of protectiveness never quite went away. She could see it even in the way Belinda worried over Clive, who was over a hundred years old.

In fact, as they all trooped up the stairs like a herd of sheep, she could see deep, caring concern in the aura of every single person in their strange little group. Even Colin wanted to be back on Zug Island to make sure his father and grandfather were safe. Lana wanted to back up her cousins and Meagan, of course, was worried sick about Ric. Mairead fretted over Toby and probably Aidan too, as she’d taken on the role of mother to him years ago. The housekeeper and the butler were almost a couple. Even Fianna showed the strain, though Elise had no idea who she was so concerned about. Maybe her fear was for herself, about what would happen to her depending on the outcome, but something in her eyes said otherwise. Had she fallen for Aidan? Elise didn’t like that idea one bit. Wallis, maybe? A more acceptable option. Elise reaffirmed her intention to spend some time talking to the former Fae.

“Here are some more feminine toiletries.” Bronwyn, the housekeeper, blinked in a basket of tiny pink bottles outside Aidan’s door. “I don’t think the master’s scent would suit the little lass. There’s a nightgown in there too, that should fit well enough. I try to keep a few in all sorts of sizes for guests who lose their luggage.”

“Thank you.” Elise gave her a grateful smile. She tried to juggle Dina in her arms, but Meagan reached out and took the basket instead.

“I’ve got my own, thanks.” Colin blinked in a bottle of a popular teen bodywash and shampoo, along with a pair of black sweats and a T-shirt featuring a death-metal band. “Mom, trust me—I can shower all on my own.”

All the women laughed and let the poor boy make his own way into the bathroom.

“We’ll be in the kitchen if you need us,” Mairead said as she and Bronwyn turned back toward the stairs. “Just push zero on the bedside phone and it will ring in there.”

***

“I’ll take the hall.” Lana leaned against a wall beside Aidan’s bedroom door and crossed her arms over her chest. “Fee can stay out here with me. The rest of you can hang out in the bedrooms—maybe get some sleep.”

Meagan followed Elise into Aidan’s room, giving a soft whistle as they passed through toward the bathroom. Subtle touches marked it as the master suite—including a framed picture of Emery of Rose—Meagan’s birth father. There was also an exquisitely detailed wooden model of a sloop called the
Faerie Queene
. Elise wondered if Meagan knew about that part of Aidan’s past. Might be fun to be there when she heard about it.

Meagan hummed as she looked around. “Nice. Hadn’t seen this room before. Makes me wonder when you did.”

Elise felt her skin heat. She was nowhere near ready to talk about her tangled-up relationship—or non-relationship—with Aidan, especially to his cousin, even though Meagan had been her friend before the cousin thing had been discovered.

“Okay, okay, I’m backing off.” With a wry chuckle Meagan set the basket down beside the tub and dropped into a wicker chair in another corner. “But you know I’m going to find out sooner or later.”

Elise shook her head at the comment and at the opulence around her—even though she’d used this bathroom this morning. Or was it yesterday? Her family wasn’t exactly poor—the
Wyndewin
League had paid well for many generations—but she’d never had a bathroom big enough to boast its own seating area.

“Hand me the kiddo while you get the water ready.” Meagan seemed willing to allow the subject to change.

“Thanks.” Elise reluctantly set her daughter down into Meagan’s lap, and tried not to be hurt when Dina didn’t complain, just snuggled into Meagan’s arms. Meanwhile, Elise adjusted the taps and poured in a generous dollop of strawberry-scented bubble bath.

Once the tub was nearly full, Meagan used her powers to ’port off Aidan’s grungy fisherman’s sweater and Dina’s tattered pajamas so Elise could help Dina into the tub.

“God, this magic stuff is still so cool. I don’t know how you all manage to keep it a secret. It’s so tempting to use it all the time.” Meagan spoke softly as Elise began to gently wash Dina’s tender skin, healing small bruises and scrapes as she went. “So why didn’t I ever know you were a witch?”

Elise shook her head. “After Dina was born, I didn’t want anything to do with it any more.” She glanced down at the top of her daughter’s head. “I can’t go into it now. But I basically turned my back on magic altogether, except for protection and a tiny bit of emergency healing. Oh—and suppressing Dina’s powers in public. That, my friend, is a trick you’re going to need within the year, if you plan to spend any time this side of the portal. Little ones don’t know enough not to show their magic in front of strangers. It takes a fair bit of the parents’ power to keep them under control without suffocating their abilities.” Though there were times she had been tempted to tamp down Dina’s altogether.

“Belinda warned me about that too.” Meagan made a face. “And Sinead. She—umm—works for me, I guess, though she likes to pretend she’s the boss. You didn’t meet her Underhill and consider yourself lucky. Give her a habit and she’d be scarier than any of the nuns at St. Francis High School.”

“She isn’t one of the elves who doesn’t like humans, is she? Or halflings?” It was so easy to forget that Meagan was really half Fae, after being raised with her powers completely blocked until a few months ago.

“No, she doesn’t approve of anybody.” Meagan grinned. “When it came down to it, though, she put herself between me and the bad guys. She’s loyal as all hell to my family, just your classic grumpy schoolmarm with pointy ears.”

“Okay, I believe you.”

Dina yawned and blinked as Elise gently rinsed her skin. She even obediently dipped her head into the water to wet her hair, something she normally didn’t like. “Is Daddy home?”

“Dina, honey, you’ve got to quit calling him that,” Elise said. “I’ve told you before…”

Dina shook her head, sending shampoo suds flying. “It’s okay, Mommy. He doesn’t mind.”

“No, but…” Elise looked over her shoulder and saw Meagan watching with a frankly curious tilt of her coppery head. “Never mind. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

***

The dead goblins had vanished—so had one orc. One of the most powerful spells ever cast by a joint team of various races was that dead sidhe immediately disappeared from this realm and reappeared in the morgue—or some kind of equivalent—of their respective race. The advent of modern forensics meant that non-humans couldn’t risk their DNA being documented by a human medical examiner. Even their spilled blood disappeared. Unfortunately, it only worked for the dead ones, not the injured. Desmond and Cynric Willow now moved quietly around the factory, removing all traces of the battle, while Wallis and Toby supervised the loading of goblin, orc and lupine prisoners into the van.

Aidan and the other former captives moved over to investigate the prison area. The cell block would hold any answers they were likely to find—along with Aidan’s wallet and all the other possessions his captors had stolen from the prisoners.