As the cuffs clattered harmlessly against the table, he reached for the chief, intending to loosen his collar, but suddenly he felt a hand wrap around the back of his neck, and the next thing he knew, his face was smashed hard against the table, then blackness enveloped him.
Chief Walcott stood slowly and watched the unconscious man slump to the floor. Stepping calmly over him, he pulled Deputy Carl’s weapon from its holster, checking it was loaded before he tucked it into the back of his pants. Opening the door slowly with a quiet click, he glanced out into the corridor, and once he was certain the way was clear, he slipped silently from the room.
Olivia was just drifting off when a sudden scuffling noise startled her. Sitting up abruptly, she leaned out of the car. “Hello?”
Her voice echoed in the silence. She stepped out of the car and slowly looked around the parking garage.
“Hello?” she repeated.
Unable to see or hear anything suspicious, she turned slowly back toward the car. Suddenly she felt herself being shoved forward, and unable to stop her momentum, she felt her forehead crack sharply against the edge of the open door. Everything began to spin, and she felt herself pitch forward into blackness.
“I can’t reach either of them, I don’t know why they bother having phones if they’re not going to answer them.” Erica stalked back to the car, her attention on her phone as she finished sending a text. Aware that Olivia hadn’t answered her, she looked up to see Olivia’s limp form being bundled into the back of the car. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She dropped her phone and purse and ran toward the car.
Chief Walcott turned toward her, teeth bared in an angry snarl. Grabbing her roughly, he threw her out of the way. Erica crashed into one of the pillars and fell to the ground. Pushing herself shakily to her knees, she glanced up in time to see the car peel out of the parking space with a loud squeal of tires and head straight for her. Rolling out of the way, she turned and watched as the car crashed through the barrier and disappeared.
26
Olivia opened her eyes slowly, trying to ignore the painful throbbing of her forehead where she was sure there would be an ugly welt forming. Gradually, she became aware that she was in a sitting position and unable to move her arms and legs. Looking down, she realized her ankles and wrists were bound to a wooden chair with duct tape.
“Great,” she breathed heavily. Apparently, her day could get worse, much worse.
Glancing around the room, she could see she was in a cabin. There was not much more to it than a small kitchen area furnished with a wood-burning stove, which was already alight and kicking out some heat into the small room. Tucked into the corner, she noticed a single metal bed and a scruffy cushioned chair. Even though the furniture was old and sparse, it was obviously well cared for, from the worn handmade quilt on the bed to the freshly scrubbed floor, making Olivia wonder where the hell she was.
She heard a curious tinkling sound coming from outside the window and stretched as far as she could, trying to see what was making the noise, hoping to make out her surroundings. She bounced gently, trying to scoot the chair across the wooden floor toward the window.
As she got closer, she caught a glimpse of brightly colored glass. Frowning in confusion, she painstakingly inched the chair closer. Now she could see what was making the noise, it was dozens and dozens of brightly colored glass bottles, suspended from a tree. She’d seen something similar when she’d visited New Orleans just after graduating college. Unless she was mistaken, that was a bottle tree. The bottles were used to catch evil spirits and hold them until the rising sun came up and destroyed them. But that was old world magic brought over on the slave ships from Africa, and it was very unusual to see them this far north.
Before she could contemplate it further, the door opened, and she swung her head around. Her eyes widened as Chief Walcott stepped into the room on a draft of cold air. He was carrying a small black zipped bag, and as his gaze met hers, it burned icily.
“Where are we?” Olivia asked.
For a moment, he continued to stare at her. “A cabin on the opposite side of the lake to where your house is located,” he answered finally. “No one will find you here.”
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked stiffly.
He stalked around her and placed the bag down on a small wooden table. Although she couldn’t see what he was doing, she heard him unzip the bag. Her heart kicked up a notch, knowing she was in very real danger.
He was a man running out of options. No one believed him, and he was now facing criminal charges of his own, including kidnapping, if he returned. She knew he had nothing left to lose. There was only one way out of this situation; she was going to have to risk using her magic in front of him.
Slowly and carefully, she reached inside herself for the heat, allowing the fire to flow through her veins, down her arms, to pool at her wrists. She needed to melt the duct tape, but she was going to have to do it without him noticing. The heat banded around her wrists and ankles simultaneously as she slowly began to raise the temperature of the tape. But as the faint scent of melting plastic reached her, she realized she was going to have to work faster. She increased the heat and gave an experimental tug, hoping the tape would snap, but it was still holding firm.
Suddenly she felt him grab her hair. Snapping her head sharply to the side, he plunged a needle into her neck. She gasped in pain and shock as he released her, her head falling forward.
“Oh no you don’t, Olivia,” he whispered into her ear. “Did you really think I don’t know what you are, or what you are capable of?”
“What did you do to me?” Her words came out slurred and sounded foreign to her ears.
“I just gave you a little something to help you relax.” He smiled for the first time since she’d met him, but instead of being reassuring, it was cold and malicious. “The less you are able to focus, the less likely you are to be able to use magic.”
“Magic? Are you crazy?” She looked up at him as the room swam in and out of focus. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
He stalked slowly around her chair, making focusing on him even harder. “Olivia, let’s be honest here as there are only the two of us. I knew your father for a very long time. We weren’t just best friends, we were brothers.” For a moment, she thought she heard an aching note of loss in his voice, but then it was gone. “I knew all his secrets,” he continued, still circling the chair, making her head spin. “And he knew mine.”
He stopped abruptly and stepped in closer. “Did you really think your mother and father were the only ones descended from powerful witching families?” He leaned in, his breath gusting against her ear. “Didn’t you ever stop to ask yourself how I managed to cross your protective wards to arrest you in the first place?”
Her head snapped up to meet his eyes. That thought hadn’t occurred to her. Everything had happened so fast that she hadn’t had time to process it all.
“How?” she whispered.
