Of Witches and Warlocks: The Demon Kiss (3 page)

I couldn’t stop looking at his smiling face
in those pictures. I found my favorite one of him and stared
intently at it, lightly running my finger over it, tracing the
lines of his face. He had been propped up on his elbow looking at
me intently, the love shining in his eyes. I sighed as I wished for
those happier times … the days before everything had turned
completely berserk.

“Are you doing okay, Portia?” Shelly asked,
looking in her rearview mirror at me. “You seem really down this
morning.”

“I actually feel quite a bit better, thank
you,” I replied, looking up at her. “I’m just feeling frustrated
today. Sorry. I don’t mean to be a drag.”

“You aren’t a drag,” she replied with a soft
smile and a compassionate look into the mirror. “I know things have
been hard on you. I just wish there was something I could do to
help you feel better.”

“You’re already doing it,” I said. “Taking me
to find Vance is exactly what I need.”

“So where are we going when we get to
Albuquerque?” Brad asked, changing the subject a bit.

“I have some addresses my dad collected when
he was trying to keep track of Vance’s father and his coven. Damien
and his group are long gone from there, but I figured Vance would
try to track them the same way.”

“So where do we start looking?” Brad turned
to glance at me over his shoulder.

“Well, I thought Vance might have started
with the closest address and worked his way outward. I plan on
working our way from the farthest addresses back in, on the off
chance he might be around still, and we might meet up with him.
It’s a long shot, though, since he has a full day head start on
us.”

“What are we going to do when we show up and
he doesn’t want us there?” Shelly asked. “I’m afraid he’ll be angry
when he finds out we brought you here. The whole reason he left was
to protect you from being exposed to this, after all,” she added,
concerned clouding her features.

“He will just have to deal with it!” I
snapped back at her, my anger at him flashing to the surface once
more.

“Sorry,” Shelly said, sending me an
apologetic glance in the mirror. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No. I’m sorry,” I replied back to her and
ran a frustrated hand through my hair. “I love him so much, but
right now I’m just furious with that addled brain of his. He’s
driving me crazy!”

“He loves you, too,” Brad interjected,
sticking up for Vance. “I can’t imagine he wouldn’t be happy to see
you again. He has to be feeling about the same way you are right
now.”

I didn’t answer, and the conversation drifted
off.

We listened to lots of music as we covered
the miles. I took the opportunity to nap and let my body regenerate
itself some more. A couple of hours later we were in
Albuquerque.

We checked into a nicer hotel this time and
actually unpacked our things, since we planned on being here for a
couple of days at least.

Physically, I was having a very confident
feeling. I was definitely closer to Vance. He was either here or
had been here not too long ago, as the ache in my body had lessened
considerably. I had tried reaching out to him with my mind again,
but the connection was still firmly severed in my head, proving
that if he was indeed here, he was locked down tighter than a
drum.

When we were done unpacking, we decided to
head right out to check on one of the addresses from my dad as I
was feeling very antsy and agitated, wanting to get on with
things.

The three of us were walking out to the car
in the parking lot, when suddenly a little boy, about the age of
three, darted out of the lobby doors and straight into the path of
an oncoming vehicle.

Instinctively, I reacted.

I tossed my hand out toward the car just as
Brad twisted his ring and thrust his hand toward the child
also.

My magic threw the vehicle slightly off
course, and the child fell backward in the direction Brad had
motioned with his hand. The car screeched to a halt a few feet past
the boy, and the driver jumped out, just as the youngster’s parents
broke through the door at a run.

“Tyler!” the woman shouted and rushed over to
her son.

“Is he all right?” the young man from the car
asked.

“He fell. The car didn’t hit him,” I said as
we hurried over to the frantic group.

“What have I told you about running away from
us like that?” Tyler’s dad chastened him. “You could have been
killed!”

The little boy wrapped his arms around his
mother’s neck and cried into her shoulder.

We stood there for several moments, until the
parents assured us that everything was all right, before we went
over and got into the Mustang.

“That was AWESOME!” Brad said, a giant grin
spreading across his face, as soon as we were behind closed
doors.

“Great reflexes, Brad,” I said,
congratulating him. “It was like you were a natural at the whole
magic thing.”

Shelly frowned at this comment.

“Yeah, and I sat there like a dumb idiot
without a clue,” she said.

I laughed then.

“Don’t feel bad. You reacted the way you
normally would have, with shock and horror. Brad has always had
fast reflexes, as he has proven many times in sports. The magic is
enhancing his natural ability to react quickly to things. Grandma
said that could happen.”

“So what are my natural abilities?” Shelly
asked sarcastically. “Will I be able to match an outfit together in
the dark with my eyes closed?”

I was still laughing, and it felt good. I
hadn’t done it in a while. “You’ll do fine. Just do what feels
natural to you, and let the magic work through it,” I said, trying
to cheer her up.

She didn’t look too pleased as she glanced at
me in the rearview mirror, while starting the car.

We drove across town to look for the first
address I wanted to check out today. It was in the warehouse
district, and we exited the freeway at the appropriate spot.

The neighborhood became more and more shabby
the closer we got to our destination. Graffiti, trash, and general
abandonment were obviously commonplace around here.

“This place gives me the creeps. It just
looks like something underhanded would be going on,” Shelly
commented.

“Dad said he followed several interactions
between these buildings which I have addresses for. They were
shipping something in long crates,” I explained as we rounded a
corner.

“This is it,” I added, pointing to the large
building that was located on our right.

Shelly parked the car next to the structure,
and the three of us climbed out and shut the doors.

Immediately, the car’s alarm activated.

“What?” Shelly said as Brad and I gave her a
quizzical look. “Just because we don’t see anyone around here
doesn’t mean someone isn’t lurking, waiting for the chance to
pounce. Besides, I love my car.”

We made our way around the building, looking
for an entrance which didn’t include one of the large bay doors,
hoping to be a little more discreet. We finally found a small side
door that was locked.

“Open it,” I said to Shelly, nodding with my
head toward the knob, figuring I could give her the opportunity to
try out her magic.

She stepped forward hesitantly, placing her
hand over the stone hanging at her chest, and reached out to twist
the doorknob. The door swung open easily.

She grinned at me.

“Let me go in first,” I said and stepped past
her, wanting to make sure for myself that there was nothing here
which would harm either of them.

I walked into the entryway and stopped to
look around. We were standing in a long narrow hallway that
appeared to lead out into a larger holding area.

The two of them followed after me, looking in
a couple of offices that led off the hallway. In one of them, I
rifled through a stack of abandoned papers on a desk.

“What are we looking for?” Shelly asked in a
whisper.

“Anything. Everything,” I replied, examining
a shipping invoice that had been left behind. “Something that would
show what Vance’s dad has been up to or where he might have gone
from here.”

We dug through stacks of papers left behind
in filing cabinets, finding only shipping receipts from all over
the world. I read through several of them.

“I have no idea what he was receiving,” I
said, “but there sure is a lot of it and from all over, too.”

“Maybe he deals in antiquities or something,”
Shelly offered. Brad gave her a questionable look, followed by a
small snort. “What?” she asked looking annoyed at him.

“I was just wondering why a demon warlock
would feel the need to deal in antiques, that’s all,” he said with
a shrug.

“It could happen,” Shelly said defending
herself with a little sniff and turning away from him. “Just
because someone is a demon warlock doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to
lose his taste for the finer things of life.”

I smiled at the remark and continued digging
through the drawer. Shelly was piece of work, but I loved the way
she honestly spoke her mind, never caring what anyone around her
thought about it.

After we were done with the offices, we made
our way out into the bay area. There were some long, empty wooden
crates that were piled around on the top of each other which we
took a moment to check out, but other than that, we didn’t find
anything helpful.

“I think this place is a bust,” Brad said,
sliding his hands into his pockets.

I agreed with him.

“I don’t think Vance has been here either,” I
replied, a disappointed feeling washing over me.

“How do you know?” Shelly asked me.

“I don’t,” I answered, “not for sure anyway,
but everything that was left behind here was still pretty neat and
organized. Look at the mess we’ve made going through all of it. I
don’t think if Vance had been here, he would have put it all back
in nice and proper order.”

“That makes sense,” Shelly said, and we
headed back out to the car.

“So where do we go next?” Brad asked.

“The next address is about ten miles from
here,” I replied, giving Shelly the coordinates.

We wove our way through the city traffic, me
watching every single vehicle that passed by us, looking down every
alley I could, hoping I would be lucky enough to spy Vance out
there somewhere. He never appeared.

When we finally reached our next destination,
we all crawled out of the car, Shelly locking it behind us once
again.

I didn’t have to prompt Shelly to open the
door for us this time; she was excited to do it.

Once we were inside, we spent the next hour
doing more of the same that we had done at the last place, finding
all this searching was indeed growing very old, very fast.

“Receipts, receipts, receipts. That’s all I’m
finding,” Shelly said in exasperation, tossing another handful of
invoices onto the ever-growing pile.

We soon called this place finished, too,
after failing to uncover anything of significance, and headed to a
nearby drive-through to grab some lunch and take a much needed
break from shoveling though dusty papers.

“I just thought of something interesting,” I
said, while we waited for our order.

“What’s that?” Brad asked, staring out at the
busy street next to us.

“All those receipts and shipping orders. They
were all for orders received. There was nothing for an outgoing
shipment,” I explained.

“Now that I think about it, you’re right,”
Brad agreed, nodding his head thoughtfully.

“And all those crates were just left there,
too,” Shelly added. “Whatever was shipped in them was taken, but
the crates were left behind.”

The restaurant server opened the window just
then to hand us our food. Shelly paid and pulled to the side of the
parking lot so she could hand us our items out of the bag.

“Where to now, Captain?” she asked with a
small smile and a wink, right before she took a big bite of her
hamburger.

“Hang a right and drive straight for about
five miles,” I replied and took a sip of my soda.

We drove the few miles before turning into
another warehouse district that was even worse than the other two
had been.

Damien must have really been slumming it
here, I thought. We pulled up to a very large, old building. We
quickly finished up the last couple bites of our food and climbed
out of the car once again.

Brad stepped forward to open the door to this
building, however, stating it was “his turn” now. Following our
previously established ritual, I stepped ahead of them and entered
the building first.

The emotions hit me all at once, and suddenly
everything was spinning out of control. I took off running down a
narrow hallway and into a large shipping area, looking frantically
around the enormous room the second I entered it.

There he was, standing across the huge space
in front of me, rifling through an old filing cabinet. His back was
to me, but I knew his leather and jean clad physique anywhere.

My breath caught, and I could feel my pulse
racing in my neck at my reaction to seeing him.

He straightened suddenly, stopping what he
was doing. Slowly, he turned to face me with a puzzled look on his
face.

Our eyes connected instantly across the
room.

“Portia?” he breathed out softly, looking at
me in confusion, as if he couldn’t believe what his eyes were
showing him.

“Hello, Vance,” I replied, trying to sound
calm and collected, but I couldn’t keep the tiny tremor out that
crept into my voice.

I couldn’t judge his reaction to tell whether
or not he was happy to see me standing there in front of him.

He hesitated for a moment, before he started
moving toward me, quickly then, and my heart began pounding hard in
my chest.