Witch Hearts
Authors: Liz Long
Copyright © 2013 Liz Long
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this novel are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of author or publisher.
No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author or publisher.
All rights reserved.
Dedication
To my mom - for all those years of scary thrillers and crime dramas.
Maybe we cut back on the Discovery ID.
The pretty blonde girl running alone at twilight on an empty greenway story never ended well.
At least, that’s the thought that ran through her head as she jogged the path back to her car, still two miles out. She laughed at herself; she watched too many crime shows. Besides, she could handle a problem if need be.
Thanks to daylight savings time, the decline of people in the park was a natural thing. She just hadn’t expected it to be this empty. None of the usual bikers, joggers, and dog-walkers were around tonight. She glanced up at the darkening sky, knew by routine there would be a full moon tonight. Leaves scraped across pavement in a light breeze. The autumn chill raised goosebumps on her well-toned legs and she promised to wear pants on her next run.
The slight cramp in her leg made her slow to a walk. Catching her breath, she tried to loosen her left calf muscle when she heard a scuffling noise behind her. She risked a glance back and a large shadow came over her as a hulk of a man stood several feet behind her. He didn’t move to greet her. She opened her mouth to speak, but her gut screamed at her. A boulder sat heavy in her stomach; she needed to get away from him.
For a long moment, they stood at a draw, wondering who would twitch first. He broke the silence and whispered, too low for her to hear with the distance. The streetlight above him went out. Her eyes narrowed and she took a step back.
The shadow disappeared before her eyes and the streetlight came back on.
Fight or flight kicked in. She turned to run and slammed into a brick wall of muscle, a large man who grinned over her. Shadows covered him as the streetlight popped and went out over their heads. She opened her mouth to scream and he threw a powder in her face. She smelled lavender, choked on the dust in her mouth as she realized what he’d done to her.
A sleeping potion.
She tried to shout at the top of her lungs, to give him a wallop of his own medicine. Then darkness came over her and she felt herself being carried away.
For almost an hour, she knew nothing.
Then the pretty blonde girl opened her eyes, squinted into the florescent lights. Despite her exposed half-naked body, fear overruled humiliation. She felt dark magic in her, the power and evil weighing her down. She couldn’t move; he’d tied her down to whatever she now laid on. Maybe she could do a spell to free herself.
“
Goddess help me
,” she began in a whisper.
A metallic clatter near her head made her squeak in fright and a deep, raspy voice cut her off.
“You won’t be doing any magic tricks this evening.”
She thrashed her head around, tried to see where this sick bastard stood. She’d throw a flame with her eyeballs if she could, but she wasn’t that powerful. Her best friend could probably figure a way out of this; what would she do? The blankness in her brain only frightened her more. She didn’t want to die.
“You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart,” the man said. His loving tone made her cringe in fear and she struggled against the ropes on her limbs.
The girl’s shaking body and slight, panicked gasps only seemed to egg him on. He licked his lips, stepping out of the shadows.
The pretty blonde girl screamed as he pressed a scalpel to her chest.
The witch sat on a tree root and waited. She looked at the woods around her, to the sky that now shone a brilliant red with sunset. She clutched her messenger bag tighter to her body. Her contact would arrive at any moment. The thought had barely crossed her mind when a small
pop
sounded; she turned to her left to see a man, another witch, appear as if from thin air.
“Michael,” she greeted him. She kept her tone cool and flat as she stood up.
“Ruby. Thank you for coming on short notice.” The British accent made him sound extra polite even with his good manners.
He stopped a few feet away from her. With serious gray eyes, a strong jaw and wavy, dark hair, Michael Harris made quite a striking figure. Too bad he couldn’t commit to one woman, as Ruby had discovered seven months ago - not that she was counting. She wasn’t one to let a grudge go so easily, no matter how often he called urging her to forgive him and rejoin the coven.
“Not much choice, given the four emails and six text messages labeled urgent.”
“I’m sorry, but I knew you wouldn’t answer the phone if you saw my name.”
“Right on that count. You haven’t contacted me in weeks. What’s so important?”
“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. There’s been a murder.”
Ruby raised an eyebrow and waited for her ex to continue. He took a deep breath, pain clouding his eyes; it was unlike Michael to be this hesitant. Worry flooded through her.
“Ruby, the victim…it was Courtney. God, I’m so sorry.”
White noise filled Ruby's ears. That couldn’t be right. She’d had dinner with her best friend last week. They’d texted while watching their favorite TV show only two days ago.
“There must be a mistake,” she choked out. She could barely hear herself over the dull roar. There was no wind, but the leaves on the trees began to shudder. Michael shot a nervous glance upwards to the sky as though he expected lightning to strike.
“There’s no mistake. My source in the police department confirmed it,” he said.
“When did they find her? What happened?”
“Only a few hours ago, but they think she’d been taken, gone for well over twelve hours before her body was found in the river.”
“He called you because of a murder? Why wouldn’t they call me if it were Courtney? I’m her emergency contact.”
“It was an unusual crime. He had lots of questions. She…” he trailed off and looked at the ground.
“She what, Michael?”
“Her heart…oh, god, Ruby, her heart was cut out.” He met her horrified gaze, his beautiful face full of sympathy and disbelief. His arm went halfway up to her but he thought better of it and stood still.
The ground spun beneath her feet and she sank, back to the root in the earth. The tree at her back vibrated; its leaves slowly spiraled down at her feet. Tears welled in Ruby's eyes but she looked down and squeezed them shut, steeling herself. She would not let Michael see her cry. She would never let that happen again. Instead, she took a deep breath and focused on what came next. When she looked up to him, her face was dry and hard. The leaves stilled on their branches and Michael visibly relaxed.
“Has anyone called Cooper?” Courtney's older brother, whom Ruby had known for as long she’d known Courtney, had to be contacted.
Michael opened his mouth to speak but a low buzz interrupted him. She felt the vibration against her hip and rummaged through the front pocket of her bag for her phone. The caller ID read “Cooper Wilson.” She put up a finger to silence Michael and answered it.
“Cooper, I just heard…”
“We’re going to find the son of a bitch who did this and I’m going to kill him. No matter what it takes.” Cooper's voice, normally so cool and steady, sounded murderous. Ruby's stomach knotted up.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Leaving the police station, headed to Courtney's apartment.”
She restrained herself from looking at the phone in confusion. “You’re back in town?”
“Yeah, I’ll uh, explain when I see you. Meet me there?”
“I’ll leave right now.”
Ruby tapped her phone off and stood up. “I’m going to her place to meet Cooper.”
Michael shifted his weight from one foot to the other, considered his words before he spoke. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. He’s probably mad as hell. You haven’t seen him in half a year.”
“Surely you don’t think I’d let him go to Courtney's apartment all alone. That’s cruel. I’m going over there and you can go back to your guy to get more answers.”
“That’s the other part I wanted to tell you. He called me because he thinks it’s related to us.”
“What do you mean?” Ruby stuffed her phone back in her bag and took a few steps towards the parking lot that lay a few hundred feet away from the wooded hiking area.
“Sweetheart, you need to be careful.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart. Why do I need to be careful?” She pushed past him, ignoring his outstretched hand.
“The police suspect that whoever is doing this will attack again. Courtney wasn’t the first one to have her heart cut out like that. She wasn’t the first witch, either.”
Ruby stopped dead in her tracks. “You mean…”
“She was the third victim. The killer is murdering witches. We could be next.”
As Ruby drove over to Courtney’s apartment, she hardly noticed her trembling hands. She said a small prayer to the goddess, hoped she would wake up from this nightmare soon. Her best friend couldn’t have been murdered. These things didn’t happen to people she knew. When she passed the park where Courtney ran almost daily, she pulled the car over and threw up in a ditch.
After her stomach felt empty, she found a napkin to wipe her mouth. Buckling her seatbelt, she started back on the road. A memory flashed front and center.
Ruby and Courtney sat in her apartment, pajama-clad and on the couch. A half-eaten bowl of popcorn sat on the coffee table while a comedy played on the TV in the background. Ruby’s head lay on Courtney’s shoulder, where she’d cried for the last hour.
“He’s a British bastard, Rubes. You’re better off without him and you know it! Besides, weren’t you considering “the talk” or whatever?”
“Yeah, but it still hurts he was cheating on me this whole time with that - that whore.”
“Do you want me to find a spell to set his balls on fire? ‘Cause I’m so super serious when I say I’ll do it.” Courtney snatched a tissue from the box on the table and handed it to Ruby.
Ruby had snorted and sat up to wipe her face. After she mopped up the tears, she took a deep breath. “Maybe it’s for the best.”
“It totally is! Now you can come back and live with me and we’ll play with all the boys we find.” Courtney shot her wicked smile Ruby had come to love.
Ruby, however, shook her head. “I need my own place. I have that money from my mother -”
“I thought you didn’t want to touch that money.”
“I need to learn to live on my own. Figure out how to be alone for a while.”
“You’re not alone, Rubes, not ever. I get what you’re saying, but you know you’ve always got a place here. Besides, we’d have so much fun. Just imagine all the trouble we’d cause!”
Ruby snapped back to the present, wiped away a few tears that had leaked. Driving almost on autopilot, she parked in the lot, entered the building and went upstairs. Pulling a set of keys from her bag, Ruby found the one for Courtney's apartment door. As she stepped inside, she felt a wave of protective magic wash over her. She had nothing but good intentions and love for Courtney and the ward allowed her to come in without trouble. Despite Courtney's death, her magic still lingered over her things. That was unexpected but good news; it also told her that the killer hadn’t broken in and kidnapped Courtney from a safe space.