Witch Way Out (Witch Detectives #3)

“Sometimes, those closest to me have access to my thoughts. I also suspect it’s because you’re one of the few who know what I really am.” — Samantha Moon in
Vampire Dawn

WITCH WAY OUT

What do you wear for a meeting with three of the country’s more important witches? Something formal? Some kind of elegantly modern take on the traditional cowled robe? Something that wouldn’t show blood stains easily, given that their subordinates had tried to kill me on at least one occasion? Niall had been no help with that, partly because he tended to prefer it when neither of us was wearing very much, but mostly because he didn’t think that meeting them was a good idea at all.

So, I’d had to make up my own mind. In the end, I’d dressed the way I tended to dress when meeting clients, in a dark skirt and jacket combination, with a cream blouse, low heels and a tote bag in which to keep anything that might be useful. I wanted them to look at me and see me the same way I’d always been. The same deep red hair spilling down my back. The same high cheekbones and delicate features inherited from my mother, their former boss—just Annette Chambers’ little girl, Elle, who’d done so much work for them before.

“I still think that this is foolish,” Niall insisted as we walked through the front doors of Edinburgh’s City Art Centre. He looked like he always did, which was to say like something out of the director of an Edwardian drama’s dreams. He was wearing a deep gray three-piece suit today, complete with gold cufflinks, although without a tie. His golden hair fell almost to his shoulders, while his deep blue eyes looked out from features that would have had any of the artists who had produced work for the City Art Centre reaching for their sketchpads. I could picture the athletic body under those clothes only too easily. It was probably why he could get away with dressing in such an old-fashioned way. Anyone who could look at Niall and concentrate on what he was wearing was clearly not paying attention.

I put my hand on his arm. “I’ll be fine. It’s a public place.”

“
This
public place. And with the coven, I wouldn’t trust that to be enough.”

The City Art Centre. I was prepared to bet that the choice of location wasn’t accidental. This had, after all, been the place where I’d met the coven’s local representative, my former friend, Rebecca, after she’d tried to kill me a few months ago. Where I’d threatened her. Where I’d threatened to destroy the entire coven if it came after Niall or me.

I smiled at Niall. He was worth threatening the country’s most powerful witches for. “If anything goes wrong, you won’t be far away. Think of it as a chance to come in and see some of the art that you’ve so generously donated to the place.”

“That you made me donate,” Niall pointed out.

I kissed him. “Well, you were asking for it.”

Specifically, he’d pretended that one of his own paintings had been stolen so that he could get to know me in my capacity as an insurance investigator. And in every other possible capacity. He’d shown me that I was far more than the weak excuse for a witch I’d always been taught I was. He’d become my lover, my confidante and my friend. He’d saved me from the coven’s assassins, and I’d returned the favor, saving him from a mad ex who was older than Scotland. That still didn’t mean he was going to get his art back. I wanted that here, as a reminder that we didn’t keep secrets from one another. We didn’t play those kinds of games.

“Come on, Niall,” I said. “You know that it’s a small risk just having you in the building. The last thing we want is to upset them.”

“No, Elle. The last thing I want is you
hurt
. Avoiding upsetting these witches is a long way down the list.”

“You’ll be able to feel if I’m in trouble.” I shook my head. “I don’t think they’ll try anything here, anyway. There are plenty of better places they could come after me if they wanted me dead. And think of it this way. If they do kill me horribly, at least you won’t have to watch any more
Bewitched
episodes with me.”

“There is that,” Niall said with another smile. He kissed me again. I never got tired of him doing that. “Now go, before I change my mind and come with you.”

I went, leaving Niall to seek out his not-stolen-after-all Escher and the rest of the art I’d pushed him into donating after he’d tried to trick me. As I walked, heading for the gallery’s café, people turned to look at me. A few stared openly. Thankfully, that didn’t mean that I was walking into the middle of some kind of ambush. It was simply a side effect of what I was, of what Niall had
shown
me I was.

I was an enchantress, a witch whose powers focused on the manipulation of emotions. What Niall had shown me was that our kind weren’t just the weak excuses for witches that the coven had always taught me. We were so much more than that, able to use emotional energy to make us faster, stronger, longer lived. We were able to manipulate the broad oceans of feelings around us and use them to power the real magic I’d always been told I couldn’t produce. I needed to feed though, needed to take emotion from others through some breach in their defenses: a wound or a kiss or more.

The coven called us vampires. I called it simply what I was: an enchantress.

So, it wasn’t a surprise that men, and some women, turned to look at me as I made my way to the café. It seemed to happen most places these days, the looks I’d always been lucky enough to possess augmented by the indefinable attraction that seemed to pour off me like smoke. I could taste the feelings of everyone around me, from the coolly cerebral appreciation of a critic staring at the art, to the joy of a mother there with her children, to the hints of desire from some of those who looked at me. Oh, and the small hint of fear from the figure standing just outside the café doors.

Rebecca looked as coolly, even icily, professional as ever, with her pantsuit and her carefully tied-back blonde hair. She was taller than me, and good looking in a severe kind of way. She was shielding tightly, obviously trying to project a confident, controlled front, yet I could feel the fear leaking around the edges.

“Hi, Rebecca.” I had to hold back from pushing calm into her. Using my power had become a reflex for me in the last few months, but I knew she wouldn’t appreciate the effort. Instead, I had to settle for smiling and trying to look as non-threatening as possible. “How have you been?”

How had she been since I had threatened to drain her? Since Niall’s ex, Victoria, had manipulated her into putting together a hastily assembled team of witches and warlocks to try to hunt him down? Since he turned an entire crowd of tourists on them, and I pinned her in place with nothing but fear?

“Fine.” She tried to smile. She’d obviously been told to make an effort. “I’ve been fine. They’re expecting you inside.”

That was clearly all I was going to get, which was kind of a pity. For a long time, Rebecca had been the closest thing to a friend I’d had. She’d been my contact with the coven. My source for work through them. Now…well, she wasn’t actively trying to kill me anymore, but I hadn’t heard anything from her in months either. Most of the time, I didn’t care about that, but occasionally, it felt like I’d lost something.

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