Of Witches and Warlocks: The Demon Kiss (33 page)

“Portia, where are you?” he asked, and I felt
dizzy as his anger and hatred toward his father began to overpower
me.

“I don’t know,” I replied, trying to steel my
own body against his emotions. “We’re somewhere on the strip in a
really big penthouse.”

“Can you look out the window?” he asked
me.

“Yes.”

“I want you to go to the window and look out,
Portia. Start describing everything you can see. I’ll need some
landmarks so I can find out where you are.”

I climbed out of the shower, running
carefully this time as I dripped across the wet floor, and out to
stand at the French doors that led to the balcony, moving the
curtains back so I could look out.

“I can see a lot of the big-name hotels down
the road.”

“Which ones?”

“Um, Mandalay Bay, New York, New York, and
Excalibur; they’re on the opposite side of the street. I can see a
lot of limos pulling in at the base of this hotel also. I’m in a
white tower on the very top. There’s a large balcony off my room,
but he’s sealed the door somehow so I can’t get out onto it.”

“I’ll find it,” he said. “We’re coming in for
landing now. I’ll be over as soon as I can get there.”

“He has set this all up for your benefit,” I
reminded him as a flash of fear for him streaked through my veins.
“You’re the one he really wants. You’ll be running straight into
his trap.”

“No. I’m going to attempt a rescue
first.”

“How can you possibly do that without
alerting him to your presence?” I asked, my anxiety level reaching
an all-time high.

“Leave that to me,” he replied, his voice
thick with emotion. “If he comes to you again, try not to
antagonize him any more. I just want you to do your best to stay
locked in your room right now and wait for me to come.”

“I will,” I said, my mind racing with things
I wanted to tell him in this very moment. “Vance, he says you have
powers that you aren’t aware of. He says you can replenish yourself
and that you would never be in danger of losing all your powers. He
says he could perform a demon kiss on you repeatedly and you’d
never be human. That’s why he wants you so badly. He hasn’t ever
been able to find anyone else as powerful as you in his life. The
transfer is like a drug to him. He’s addicted to it. He wants to
change you so the two of you can rule over everyone in the world,
like some demon empire.”

“He told you all this?”

I could hear the worry laced in his voice.
“Yes. He figured out that we must be linked, but he doesn’t know I
can speak to you mentally. Otherwise, I’m sure he would’ve never
said anything.”

“Either that, or he intends to kill you no
matter what,” Vance said, and I could feel the hot surge of his
anger flash again.

“I’m more concerned about what he intends to
do to you. I love you, Vance. Please be careful!” I wished there
was something else I could do to help him.

“Portia, do whatever you need to do to get
ready to leave with me,” he ordered. “If I can get in there, we’re
going to need to leave in a hurry, so make sure you’re dressed
appropriately.”

“I will, but where will we go? He’ll hunt us
both down.” I ran into the closet to look for something to change
into, my dripping clothes leaving a trail of water on the carpet
behind me.

“I have no intention of letting him live long
enough to do that,” he replied angrily. “But you’re my first
priority; I can deal with him later. I just want to get you out of
there right now. I’ll take care of him when you’re safely deposited
back with your family.”

“Where’s the rest of the coven?” I rummaged
through the clothes in the closet looking for something suitable to
wear, finally settling on a designer track suit I found toward the
back of the rack.

“They’re in Sedona by now probably. I hopped
the first flight I could get on in Phoenix.”

“How did you know where to go?” I asked,
truly amazed that he had gotten here so quickly.

“After we searched the beach house for you
and found the note he left behind, we went to the local airport. I
found out a flight for Las Vegas had left the airport in Rocky
Point. It was the only flight that had gone out. I took a chance,
and it paid off.”

“So Damien thinks you’re just barely in
Sedona then?” I smiled. “He has no idea that you’d get here this
quickly!”

“Taxi! Taxi!” I heard him shouting and knew
he was calling for a cab outside the airport.

He must have run through the entire facility,
I realized, wondering how he had been able to get off the plane so
fast.

“Take me to the strip, please,” I heard him
tell the driver, and I assumed he must have handed the driver a
significant wad of cash when he spoke again. “All this is yours if
you can get me there with as much speed as possible.”

There was a quick pause before he spoke
again.

“I’m on my way, Portia. Are you getting ready
to leave?”

“Yes.” I went into the bathroom to comb
through my wet tangled hair and pull it back into a ponytail.

“All right, I’m going to make a stop to
purchase some rope and binoculars,” he explained. “I’m going to try
to get to the balcony off your bedroom from the roof of your hotel
after I find it, okay?”

“Please be careful.” I came back into the
bedroom and sat down to put a pair of running shoes on. “I’d
imagine he probably has people watching for you all over the
hotel.”

“I’m hoping that won’t be the case, since I’m
earlier than expected, but I’ll come in through one of the service
entrances to try and avoid detection,” he replied, trying to
reassure me.

The door to my room opened suddenly, and I
severed the mental connection with Vance just in case Damien could
see it.

It was Darcy, though, not Damien, carrying a
tray of food for lunch.

She placed it on the table without looking at
me, then turned and left the room again, this time only to step out
into the hall before returning with supplies to clean up the
bedroom and bathroom.

I thought I was going to die as she moved
about the rooms, taking her time cleaning up my messes.

She made the bed, fluffing it up all proper,
before she marched into the bathroom. She emerged a short minute
later with a glare on her face after she had discovered the flood
in there.

To her credit, she didn’t speak a word to me,
and it was all I could do to not pace the floor in agony as she
mopped at the water-sopped area. I finally made myself go sit in a
chair in front of the fireplace and click it on so I could stare
into the dancing flames as a distraction. It seemed like hours
passed before she went back out with all her cleaning gear.

“I’m okay,” I said as soon as she shut the
door behind her.

“What happened?” Vance asked, and I could
hear the nervousness along with relief in his voice.

“The maid came in. I thought Damien might be
coming into the room also. I was worried that he’d be able to see
our mental connection somehow.”

“I don’t think he can,” Vance replied.
“Otherwise, he’d have known about it that night on the beach when
he took you.”

“That’s true,” I said, remembering that awful
night, kicking myself one more time for being so careless as to
have gone to the beach by myself. “How close are you?” I felt very
impatient as I paced the floor.

“I’m riding in the taxi up and down the strip
trying to find a hotel matching your description. Portia, do you
have something that’s brightly colored you can put up to the glass
in your window? I’m going to be searching for your room with the
binoculars now.”

I looked quickly around the room before
deciding I’d have better luck in the closet.

I found a long neon green scarf folded in one
of the drawers. I yanked it out and ran back into the other room
where I hung it from the rod over the window, pushing it against
the curtain from behind so it would drape closer down the glass
pane.

“It’s a long fluorescent green neck scarf,” I
told him.

“Okay. Give me a minute,” he said, and I
heard him give some more instructions to the driver.

It turned out to be about five minutes of
pure agony on my part before he spoke up excitedly.

“I see it! It’s a green scarf hanging in the
window next to the balcony, correct?”

“Yes! That’s it!” I pushed the curtains to
the side and pressed myself to the window to look for him.

I saw a cab pull up into the parking lot far
below, and a figure I would recognize anywhere emerged from it.

“I’m here, baby! Just hang on! I’m coming!”
he mentally called out to me.

I paced the room anxiously as I waited, every
second seeming like an hour had passed as the clock ticked
away.

He wasn’t speaking to me as he traveled
through the hotel, being extra cautious to avoid any kind of
magical detection.

I was terrified for both of us.

“I’m on the roof.” he finally said in my
head. “Give me a minute to secure this rope to a good spot and then
I’ll be down to get you.”

“Okay.” I felt the breath I had been holding
release slowly, as I looked around to make sure we were still
undetected from this side of things.

Long excruciating minutes passed before I saw
the rope hit the balcony in front of the glass windowed doors. Then
he suddenly slid into my view, stepping away from the rope to move
toward me.

He took my breath away, just standing there
in front of me. Even clad in a black t-shirt and blue jeans, he was
still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I didn’t even want
to blink because I was afraid he would disappear before my very
eyes, and I didn’t think I could possibly ever love him more than I
did in this very moment.

I placed my hands up on the square glass
panes as I looked out at him.

He raised a finger to his lips, and I nodded
my head in understanding. I wouldn’t make a sound.

He grabbed the knob to the door, and I
watched as his hand turned a bright red color. The knob on my side
of the door began to glow right in front of me, and the fixture
began to melt in his grasp until it was molten liquid running down
the frame. Then he reached his hand into the latch and melted it
also.

When he was finished, I heard a little
popping sound and the door swung open easily as he pushed on it. I
rushed out to him, throwing my arms gratefully around his neck.

He grabbed me to him and kissed me with a
force I had never experienced. If the situation still hadn’t been
so desperate, I would have never let go.

“We need to leave, Portia!” he whispered as
he pulled my arms from around him. “Do you remember our lesson in
levitation?”

“Yes.” My thoughts bounced back to the night
he had taken me to the high school to show me what we could do.

“We’re going to use those powers to climb
back up the rope to the roof. You ready?”

“Yes,” I answered. He placed the scratchy
rope into my hands, and I gripped it tightly.

“You go first this time,” Vance said with
encouragement in his voice. “I’ll be right behind you.”

In essence it was as if we were rappelling up
the wall. We would bounce off with one step and take a couple up
into the air before bouncing off again, using the rope as a guide
as we ran up the exterior of the building.

We had almost cleared the wall when Damien
suddenly burst out onto the balcony, leaning back to look up at
us.

“Stop!” he yelled, and he lifted a hand
toward us to fire some sort of magical burst of power through the
air.

“Run!” Vance said, pushing me the rest of the
way over the ledge. He jumped over right behind me.

The two of us took off in a fast sprint over
the roof until we reached the edge, then levitated in a leap across
from one tower over to another, hitting the roof lightly with our
feet, until we reached the stairwell that led back down into this
building.

Vance grabbed my hand as we tore down the
stairs together. We pushed through a set of double doors and out
into a large hallway.

Two men in dark suits turned to look at us as
we entered.

“There they are!” one of them shouted,
lowering the handheld radio he had up to his ear.

Vance shot a fireball at them, not waiting to
see if he hit his mark, pulling me back through the doors we had
just run through.

We scrambled down two more flights of stairs
before we tried going through another door.

This hallway was empty, and we turned left
and raced down the carpeted path stretched before us.

Vance stopped abruptly when we passed a door
marked as the entrance to the service area. He turned quickly,
pulling me back in this direction, and we raced through it.

“Where are we going?” I gasped, my lungs
feeling like they were about to explode from our sprint.

“I’m trying to get us out of the building
right now!” he explained, sounding as out of breath as I was, as he
dragged me through a noisy laundry area filled with many
workers.

He used magic to slide full laundry carts
into the path behind us, not caring that there were confused
workers standing all over the room shouting at us as we ran through
the area.

We turned the corner, ran down another
hallway, turned once again, and found ourselves in a huge vacant
loading bay. We ran toward the open delivery door.

“Almost there!” Vance said, and I felt the
surge of hope shoot through me. We raced to the exit only to have
all hope dashed in the next second. Damien stepped around the
corner in front of us.

We slid to a halt, and Vance grabbed me up to
him as I lost my footing.

Damien slowly walked toward us, a large smile
spread over his face.

“Welcome home, son,” he said, with a nod
toward Vance. “It’s good to see my boy again.”