Inquisitor (Witch & Wolf Book 1) (44 page)

They were, like gods and vampires, best left in tales and scary movies. Earth had enough frightening things without needing to borrow trouble. I trembled, panting from the silver burning me.

Amelia turned to me, hands outstretched. “I’m a witch,” she said in the tone of someone who believed her words explained everything. I flinched. “Let me get these off—”

“Touch her and I’ll fill you with so many rounds they’ll be scraping you off the concrete with a squeegee,” Mark said, his voice devoid of all emotion. I snapped my head in his direction, yipping at the agony the movement caused. Emerging from beneath the cargo plane, Mark carried enough munitions to take out a small army. He wore more guns than clothes, but his state of undress didn’t seem to bother him. An equally nude and well-armed James stepped out of the shadows.

“Don’t move,” James ordered, his eyes and his assault rifle focused on Amelia. “How can one woman manage to get into so much bloody trouble?” Clucking his tongue, the Brit gestured with the tip of his gun. “Out of the cage, witch, and no touching the lady on your way out.”

Amelia shrieked, pointing at James, “You’re supposed to be in jail!”

“Don’t underestimate the Inquisition,” James replied with a smirk. “Most find it a lethal mistake. I would’ve filled you with iron and silver already if it weren’t for the fact the lady likes you.” With a practiced gesture, James fingered the safety of his weapon to off. “So, what’ll it be? Cooperate, or find out how resistant to gunfire you are?”

“You’ll hit her,” Amelia warned.

“Don’t underestimate my aim or my willingness to take that risk,” the Brit replied in so serious a tone I flinched.

I wanted to put my tail between my legs and hide, but the silver held me in place, my breath emerging as pained whines.

Mark cleared his throat. “He’ll do it, too. James is one scary son of a bitch.”

Amelia growled her frustration. “Clever wolves. Very well. You win this round.” There was a faint pop and all of the chains binding the woman vanished as though they’d never been there at all. With lithe grace defying her age, she wiggled out of the cage. “How’d you figure it out?”

I stared at the two men and at Amelia in confusion.

“You can thank the shaman for that one. You’re good, really good, I’ll give you that. Be a good witch and drop the illusions.”

With a theatrical sigh, Amelia waved her hand. All of the bodies littering the floor vanished, save for Ajahine’s. The scent of blood faded, allowing the sharper, equally metallic aroma of rage to filter into my nose. “What did I get wrong, Inquisitors?”

“You used me to get Victoria,” Anderson’s clear voice rang out in the cavernous hangar. He stepped out from behind the wheels of the plane.

“What are you doing here?” Amelia retreated, making a warding gesture against evil with one hand.

Anderson flicked his finger at the trigger guard of his rifle. “I thought it was curious there were two of me at the same place at the same time. Devonshire’s a better actor than you thought, I’m afraid. He didn’t like doing it, of course, but I gave him a choice: Do it or die. Isn’t it ironic that you would be undone by speaking the truth? I am the Shadow Pope, and I am rather difficult to kill despite being just a regular human. You didn’t think I would be here. Unfortunately for you, it wasn’t me you shot. It was all an illusion to lure Victoria from the safety of the Inquisition’s walls. You disguised yourself as me and shot Vicky, and for that you’ll pay, witch.” Unlike Mark and James, Anderson was fully clothed. There was no sign of the bullet wound in his shoulder. He wore the same rumpled casual clothes from our aborted hiking trip instead of the suit he’d worn in the Inquisition hospital.

“How disappointing. Very well. How did you discover my plans?” Anger flashed in Amelia’s eyes.

“You made a single mistake,” Mark said, the assault rifle still pointed at the old witch. “You assumed your lies would overcome our feelings for Allison—Victoria, that is. You assumed we’d leave her without coming back.” There was nothing friendly about his smile. “Well, witch, you were wrong. It’d take a lot more than a little snowstorm to stop me from coming back for her.”

Amelia’s mouth opened, but the woman made no sound.

“You thought we’d just let you get away with your games,” James added, his smile smug.

“You made me believe Allison was dead.” Mark tightened his grip on the gun, his finger resting against the trigger.

“I didn’t kill Allison Ferdinan,” Amelia said, lifting her chin and narrowing her eyes.

“No, you wanted to, though. That’s why you, disguised as Anderson, kept hiring me and others to kill rogue werewolves. You wanted to frame her for murder. And you went where you knew we’d hunt our bounties, and you used your powers as a witch to make everyone believe Allison had done it. You used my Ma, tricking her to join your cause. You didn’t want a paranormal in Smith & Sons.”

Anderson brought his rifle up, adjusting his grip on the weapon. “You made the mistake of targeting Marrodin. You thought you could use the truth as a weapon. You
thought
you were lying when you weren’t. You had it right, Amelia. I
am
the Inquisition. I’ll say it again: I am the Shadow Pope. And you forgot the most important rule of the Inquisition.”

Amelia’s fear smothered all other scents. “What rule?”

“An Inquisitor only kills the guilty. You murdered innocents. You used
my
Inquisitors to kill innocents. Using your powers, you targeted an innocent. Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but you targeted Allison Ferdinan because you suspected she was a werewolf.” Anderson shook his head, making a disgusted sound in his throat. “When Ms. Ferdinan disappeared, that was when you noticed there was something unusual about the founder of Marrodin.”

Silence fell over the hangar. The Shadow Pope kept his rifle pointed at Amelia, and I wondered if he was calculating how best to shoot the woman.

“Using my name and face, you tricked James into believing that Victoria was responsible for the new werewolves and assassinations. You tried to use Devonshire, but while he’s crazed, he’s not stupid. You might be a shadow witch and an illusionist of master caliber, but you aren’t me. It took him a little bit, but he figured it out and told me. That was when you were undone. Once I came here, it took a few hours talking with Devonshire, Mark, and James to sort out what you had done in my name. You enlisted Mrs. Livingston, feeding her greed to keep her cooperating. Through her, you assigned Mark hits, killing Marrodin werewolves. You tricked James into believing the orders to attack the funeral were from me when they weren’t. Unfortunately for you, he refused to kill two innocent werewolf pups. Because of that, he couldn’t ensure Victoria’s death. She lived. That was when I decided I had to intervene and protect her myself. That led me to here, and to you.”

The witch shook, but I couldn’t tell if it was due to anger or fear.

“I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t had a reason to come to Marrodin to learn more about Allison’s death,” Mark said, his expression sour. “Not that Allison was actually dead. But it all fell apart when I noticed Samantha. Allison is good at hiding her nature, but I could sense the witch-wolf bond through her witch. That’s when I started figuring things out. I didn’t know for certain until we all ended up here, though.” With the nervous tension of someone on the brink of action, Mark flicked the safety on and off, the click more ominous than the thundering storm outside. “You’re fortunate Allison didn’t die, witch. If she had, your death would be remembered for a thousand years.”

“Don’t try to curse her,” James warned. “You’re not a werewolf, shaman. It probably wouldn’t even work anyway.”

Mark snorted. “She’s not worth it.”

“No, she’s not,” Anderson agreed. “Cover me, you two. If that woman so much as twitches. . .”

“As I said, I’ll fill her with so much iron it’ll take a squeegee to get her scraped off the concrete,” Mark promised.

Swinging his rifle over his shoulder, Anderson joined me in the cage. I flinched as he reached for me.

“You’re lucky she didn’t use old enough silver, Vicky,” Anderson muttered as he grabbed the chains binding me. Making thoughtful noises, he worked on untangling the silver, pulling loops over my ears. I whined as the metal tugged at my fur and burned my flesh.

“Those chains are over a hundred years old,” Amelia protested. To my amusement, the woman stood so still I couldn’t see her breathe.

“As I said, you didn’t use old enough silver. Now shut your mouth or have it shut for you.”

The witch’s mouth dropped open. With a visible swallow, she clacked her teeth together in her haste to obey the Shadow Pope.

It was Mark who snorted his disgust. “You went through all of that trouble to learn her name, where to find her, and how to catch her, and you didn’t bother finding out her age? Amateur.”

“Enough,” Anderson snapped. It took the young CEO of Marrodin several minutes to free me of all of the chains and untangle the wolfbane from my fur. “Can you get up?”

I struggled to rise. My body throbbed from the silver’s influence. I shuddered, taking hesitant steps towards freedom. Anderson moved with me, one hand pressed to my shoulder. When I staggered, his fingers dug into my scruff and held me upright with surprising strength. “Easy.”

After I managed to get free of the cage and far enough away from the silver, Anderson stepped between me and the witch. “I’ve only one question left for you, witch. Why did you order Samantha’s death?”

Amelia trembled. “I swore I’d destroy her.” Tears glistened in the old woman’s eyes as she glared at me. “She… that
thing
corrupted my coven sister!”

Anderson shook his head. “Samantha wouldn’t have called a vile thing like you a coven sister. Well, Victoria? There is the truth. There is the woman who murdered your witch, your Samantha. What do you want us to do with her?”

~*~

Realization sank in, and the impact of it left me breathless. I don
’t know how long I stared at Amelia, my mind blank, mouth hanging open as shock fixed me in place.
Amelia
had been the one to order Samantha’s death? I tried to make sense of it all.

Why would Amelia, sweet, caring
Amelia
want anyone killed?

A nasty part of me understood: Who better to pull off such a murder than someone with so much knowledge of the law? Who else than someone hellbent on seeing justice served?

Who else than the one person I never thought would have been capable of murder?

Throwing back my head, I howled. If wolves could cry, I suspected I’d drown myself in my tears.

But wolves couldn’t cry, so I poured all of my anger, my grief, and my confusion into my howling.

Samantha was gone, and Amelia had been the one who had taken her from me. The knife of betrayal twisted in my gut. I could feel the stares of the humans boring into me.

When I fell silent, most of the gazes shifted away, except for Mark’s. Our eyes met, and a grief almost equal to my own shone in his eyes.

When Mark turned away, he faced Amelia, his expression hardening. “You planned it all out, didn’t you? You knew it wouldn’t take much to goad Allison into killing my Ma if you played your cards right. That’s why you forged the adoption approval for the two kids. You knew Allison would find their pack. You knew she would kill to protect those pups. All you had to do was find out when she would make her move, which wasn’t hard once you found out where she had disappeared to.”

I stayed quiet, taking a deep breath. Rage gave the air the metallic bite of fresh blood. The scent was mine, and it was Mark’s. It belonged to Anderson and James as well, though to lesser degrees. From Amelia, I sensed nothing.

Amelia smiled. “So I did. It almost worked, too. If you hadn’t interfered, I would have claimed the largest bounty in the past ten years in my hands right now. What are you going to do now, Mr. Dupree? Mr. Anderson? Kill me? Imagine the stir that’ll cause. You’ll destroy everything that bitch built.”

“That’s fine,” Anderson replied, his expression a neutral mask, though his anger glinted in his eyes.

To my surprise, Amelia flinched as though she’d been slapped. “What?”

“It’d be worth it to see you pay for your crimes, witch.”

“No court would ever convict me.” Amelia crowed her laughter.

Ducking my head low, I kept my gaze focused on the old woman. She should have known better. She should have remembered the truth about the Inquisition.

They functioned outside of the law. Both James and Mark fidgeted, staring at Anderson. My arch-nemesis, the Shadow Pope of the Inquisition, the mastermind and ultimate guardian of all mundane humans, smiled.

The gentle expression chilled me with terror.

“It seems in your old age that you have forgotten something very important, Amelia.” Anderson’s smile widened, exposing his teeth in the same way a snarling wolf would warn an interloper. “I am the court. I am the judge. I am the jury. I am your prosecutor.” The Shadow Pope’s eyes fell on me. “Unfortunately for you, I doubt your defense lawyer will be at all interested in defending your case.”

Amelia’s eyes widened, her gaze flicking to me. An angry flush washed over the old woman’s cheeks. “I will not be defended by some unnatural dog!”