Witch Hunt, A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy (The Maurin Kincaide Series) (30 page)

“Need I remind you that this was your idea?
And I wouldn’t be so sure about Matthison if I were you.” He didn’t elaborate.

“You don’t expect me to b
elieve that. Matthison...no way. He wouldn't."

Aidan's mouth was on mine, ending my protests.
His hands traced the outline of my body. My hands slid across his chiseled chest and grazed his neck before finally cupping his face. I wrapped a leg around his. His hand slid up and down my thigh. I pushed gently on his face to break our mouths apart. Aidan busied himself with my neck as I caught my breath. He grabbed my legs and slid me up the door. I wrapped myself around him, preparing to be carried to my bedroom. I dropped my head on his shoulder.

“What is it? What's wrong?” he asked breathlessly.

I raised my head to remind him of what was waiting in my room, but Arawn was already in the hallway. I couldn't help it - I jumped and screeched, “Holy shit!”

Aidan put me down and spun around, shielding me with his body.
I could feel the tension leave him when he saw who it was. I stepped around to Aidan's side. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and I slid one around his waist.

“I forgot about him,” Aidan muttered.

“Do you intend to keep me waiting all night, Daughter? I come bearing gifts and this is how you receive me? I was left waiting in your room, rather than being introduced to your friend,” Arawn said with mock hurt in his voice.

“Masarelli isn't my friend.
And I was doing you a favor by not introducing you,” I told him.

“If you say so,” he said.

“You said that you brought me a gift?” I asked nervously.

He whistled and the Cwn Annwfn padded out of my room, stopping beside him.
The two of them filled the little hallway.

“If you insist on continuing this ch
arade of a mortal existence, then I must insist that you keep one of my pets with you,” Arawn said.

“What? I can’t keep him!
I can barely take care of myself, never mind an enormous ethereal dog. What am I supposed to do with him?” I asked.

“He will live here with you and you will take him with you when the Council sends you on quests. He is your guardian,” he said in a fatherly voice.

“Yeah, because bringing a dog the size of a Shetland pony along everywhere I go is so practical. Maybe now would be a good time to set some boundaries,” I suggested.

“I'll give you two a minute,” Aidan said on his way to my bedroom.

I stopped him. I had a feeling that this was going to take a while. The moment was lost anyway. “Maybe we should just call it a night.”

“Really?” Aidan asked with disappoin
tment in his eyes.

“It's already late and I need to take care of this,” I told him.

“Are you sure? I mean, are you sure that you're going to be okay?” Aidan asked, trying to find another reason to stay.

“The Cwn Annwfn is more than capable of keeping her safe, vampire,” Arawn said.

I took Aidan by the hand and walked him to the door. “I'm a big girl. I'll be fine.” I got up on tiptoes to give him a kiss good night.

“Call me later,” he said before kissing me back.

“I still don’t have my cell phone,” I said before he shut the door.

I heard him sigh from the hallway, b
efore handing me his through the partially closed door. I knew that he wasn’t happy with how the night was ending for us. I wasn’t thrilled about it either, but I couldn't put this conversation off any longer.

Arawn had made himself comfortable on my couch, even managing to look powerful and confident despite my worn out furniture. I took a deep breath, pulled my shoulders back and made my way over to the armchair.
I didn’t want to sit next to Arawn for this conversation.

“What is so important that you needed a private audience with me, daughter?” Arawn asked sounding mildly irritated.

“I just think that we need to set some ground rules. You know, like not showing up in my bedroom unannounced,” I said cautiously.

“I am Lord Arawn.
I will not be bound by rules. And I do not need permission to speak with my own daughter!” he bellowed.

“Well could you at least use the door?” I shouted, throwing my hands up.

“I have already conceded to letting you remain here. What more do you want from me?” he shouted back.

The negotiations were not going accor
ding to plan. The Cwn Annwfn howled at our raised voices. I needed to get him to see things my way. I ignored the desire to yell about how he wasn’t
letting
me do anything and moved over to the couch to sit beside him. You can attract more flies with honey than vinegar, after all.

Unless you’re Arawn, that is.
It didn’t matter how sweet I was, I couldn’t get him to see things my way. We argued over the semantics of our father/daughter relationship for the rest of the night.

Aidan must have called a dozen times in the midst of our heated discussion.
I made the mistake of sending the first four to voicemail. As I should have expected, the remaining eight or so calls came in rapid succession. I finally answered and explained that I was still talking to Arawn. We made plans to meet for coffee around five and then head over to the police station.

I got Arawn to agree to not only knoc
king on the door, but also waiting for me to answer it about the same time that the sun came up. I agreed to keep the Cwn Annwfn and I consented to more training in the between as well.

I was exhausted.
With Arawn gone, I could finally get some sleep. I crawled into bed and curled up with my monstrously large dog instead of my vampire.

23

I woke up with my head in a fog and the remnants of a crazy dream still bouncing around inside my skull. A cold wet nose pressed against my cheek. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and forced them open. Two red eyes peered over the edge of my bed. Okay, so it obviously wasn’t a dream. I stretched like a cat across my bed before throwing off the covers. The Cwn Annwfn waited for me at my bedside like your run of the mill dog, except that he totally wasn’t one. I shuffled out to the kitchen with my new pet at my heels and fumbled around until the coffee was finally brewing. It was going on one o’clock. If I hurried, I’d have just enough time to drive out to the hospital to see Matthison before I had to meet up with Aidan.

One shower, one change of clothes and two cups of coffee later, I was out the door and on my way to Boston in Aidan’s car.
Somewhere around the halfway point to the hospital, it hit me. My heart started to race. I knew it was too early in our relationship for me to have feelings like that, but I couldn’t help it. I was in love with this classic Camaro. Traffic was light so I made it to the hospital in record time – even managing to find a parking spot in the Fruit Street garage.

I sat out in the parking garage for ten minutes trying to find the nerve to go inside.
I’ve killed demons, followed them into the between and survived an attempt on my life all in the last couple of days, but I was terrified of seeing Matthison’s wife again. I could take another slap in the face. Hell, I deserved worse. It was the pain in her eyes that had me unable to open the car door. ‘Screw it!’ I thought. I deserved that and more. Matthison was lying in that hospital bed fighting for his life. The least I could do was to endure the humiliation of facing his wife again so that I could see him.

I stopped at the front desk to get a visitor’s pass.
The elderly woman volunteering took my license and handed me a plastic badge. I clipped it to my coat while she informed me that Matthison had been moved to a new room. She then described the easiest route to get there. I tried not to get my hopes up over Matthison being moved. A new room didn’t necessarily mean anything. Still, he wasn’t in the ICU anymore.

I sent Aidan a text to let him know that I might not make it back in time for coffee and then turned off the cell phone that he had given me. I got off of the elevator and made my way to Matthison’s room. I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of the doctor leaving his room. She must have been a specialist or something, because most doctors don’t wear heels with their white coats. She was headed in the opposite direction at a pace that said that she had somewhere more important to be. I was going to have to find a nurse to fill me in after I sat with Matthison for a few minutes.

“Hey kid, where’ve you been?”

I was so lost in my thoughts about the doctor and finding a nurse that I hadn’t even looked at Matthison when I walked into the room.

“Holy shit!”
I couldn’t articulate anything better than that.

He wasn’t just awake, he was sitting up in bed watching trash TV and looking better than I’d seen him look in years.

“You just missed the doctor. Apparently I have made a remarkable recovery,” Matthison boasted. “She’s had me on some kind of new IV treatment and it has done wonders.”

“I’d say that your recovery is remark
able. I didn’t expect you to look so good,” I confessed.

“I look a hell of a lot better than you.
Now tell me how the case is going. I can’t get anyone from SPTF to tell me a damned thing. They keep telling me to focus on my health and getting back to work. So what’s happening with the investigation?” Matthison was as excited as a kid at Christmas.

“It’s just about closed, actually.
We’re tying up the last loose end tonight. I’m actually meeting Masarelli and Aidan after I leave here,” I said.

“Aidan?
Who’s he?” he asked.

Something clicked when he said Aidan’s name.
IV treatment, remarkable recovery, the high heels…she wasn’t a doctor. Matthison was calling after me as I ran out into the hall. I looked to my right and then my left, but she was gone. No wonder Matthison looked so good. New IV treatment, my ass!

“Maurin!
What the hell’s the matter with you? Get your ass back in here. Don’t make me get out of this bed!” Matthison yelled from his room.

“I’ll call the nurse if you do,” I threatened on my way back into the room.

“Go ahead. They’re sending me home tomorrow anyway,” he chuckled.

“So soon?” I asked in mock surprise.

Of course he wouldn’t need to stay longer. He’s been sucking vamp blood through a straw for the last few days. I’m surprised he’s not craving rare meat or gnawing on the nurses. I might have actually been mad that Agrona had been tube-feeding Matthison without his consent if I weren’t so relieved to see him alive and well – really well.

“What?
You’d rather see me in here than at the station? That reminds me - you said that you were wrapping things up in the investigation. And who’s Aidan?” he pressed.

“Aidan’s a vampire,” I replied, hoping that he’d leave it at that.

“Why do I get the feeling that there’s more there?” He took the hint from my lack of response and moved on. “So you caught the Inquisitors?”

“Um, not really,” I stalled, trying to figure out the quickest way to explain what had happened since he’d been in the hosp
ital.

“What the hell does that mean?” he asked.

“Well, we found them, but they were dead when we found them.” I put my hand up to hold off his interruption. “I’m getting to that. The murders stopped after they took us. Cash found us on Winter Island and got you to the hospital.” His eyebrows went up when I said who had come to our rescue. “Yeah, I know, but that’s who found us. After that, Masarelli found the Inquisitors dead in a warehouse down on the wharf and was dead set on pinning the murders on the coven.” The anger in my voice wasn’t just about Masarelli’s blundering police work – I hadn’t exactly had a lot of time to get over the coven’s betrayal and Mahalia’s plan to get rid of me.

“The coven?
They definitely had motive. You can’t blame him for going after the most likely suspects, Maurin,” he said, coming to Masarelli’s defense.

“I don’t.”
His eyebrows went up again, this time in challenge to my denial. “I said I don’t. Anyway, I managed to get a clear enough read in the warehouse to know that the Inquisitors had been messing with some serious magic and had managed to unleash a nasty demon in the process. They didn’t know it was a demon,” I said, before he could interrupt.

“It wasn’t like I could prove any of that to Masarelli, so he ended up arresting me for tampering with a crime scene.
He got on board pretty quickly though, once the demon came after me and destroyed the jail cell.” I smirked.

He sat there slack-jawed as I went on and on about what had happened.
I thought that I was going to have to hit the ‘call nurse’ button for real by the time I got to the part about Mahalia trying to banish me with the demon so that it could kill me. I thought about skipping over the Arawn part, but if he was going to have a heart attack, then he was better off doing so here than in his office. When I was done he looked as exhausted as I felt, but all in all he took it pretty well.