Detective Witch (Devil's Witch Book 2)

Soon, the coven members around us begin gossiping.

Will initiated the gloomy talk of the vamps on the police force. I try to convince them they are only doing their best to protect the community, but everyone laughs, except Will. At any other table, I’m sure none of the coven members would even acknowledge my presence. I know it’s because Will is next to me that they do and that the witches and warlocks at our table are closest to Will.

Eventually, the conversation changes to other things. Like their progress on finding the necromancer, which is pretty bleak. The mayor has long since finished his announcements and our plates are empty, dessert was strawberry shortcake and Will had to finish the rest of mine I was so stuffed from eating.

After a while, we get up with the other couples and dance a little bit. I really enjoy myself, dancing with Will. It was pleasant to get carried away in the up-beat jazz music and sweep my worries under the rug. That is until someone next to us drops their champagne glass and having the worst of luck, Will steps right on it. I can see the pain in his facial reaction and he lets out a sharp hiss.

“Hold on!” I tell him in panic, looking around for help.

In a rush, two coven members come over and escort him out of the crowd of dancing people so he can sit down and use his magic to heal himself.

I need to make sure he’s okay. So I follow the direction they went.

I’m not really sure which way to go now though, the crowd is too big and everyone is so close together. The music coming from the speakers overhead of us, high up on the ceiling, transitions from jazz to classical. A timeless tune fills the air as the lights of the ballroom go dim. Making the atmosphere not only more elegant but intimate. We are going to miss the slow dance.

“Ms. Parway, I wasn’t expecting to find you alone in here. Where is Will?” Nick asks me.

He looks kind of out of place in here, probably lost his way in the mass of people like me.

“Stepped on glass, I have to find him,” I breathe out quickly, scanning the crowd for him.

“That is unfortunate. I’m sure Mr. McCaster can handle the petty injury on his own,” he says smoothly, as if not having said anything demeaning towards my boyfriend. Strangely, he seems even more on guard now than in the hallway. “But, I will help you find him. This way,” he adds in afterthought looking serious as usual.

Meanwhile, I can’t stop my gaze from roaming over him. He looks so nice in his tuxedo, especially in this lighting...

And he also happens to be your boss, who is at least a few years older than William! He could be as old as your great-grandpa for all you know! In case you happened to forget, you’re already dating Will! my mind scolds me. I silently agree, disturbed by the strange direction my thoughts went into.

Suddenly, Nick’s eyes narrow and he turns sharply on heels, telling me to get back.

I guess I don’t move fast enough so he decides to guide me carefully behind him with one arm while using the other to catch the hand of a witch who tried to swipe at me with a pocket knife. With inhuman speed, Nick gets the rusty looking switchblade out of the scrawny witch’s grip and whips his glock twenty-two out of his waistband.

He shoots her right in the heart and since he shot her standing so close to her, blood spews everywhere and all over his expensive suit and my own dress too. With a startled gasp, I stumble backward from the two of them.

The dead witch falls to the ground.

“Stupid witch,” Nick whispers lightly as if commenting about an actual animal-not a person.

Two vampires arrive around him at the ready, standing at both of his sides. They’re fully geared out in their police uniforms. They must transported right from work. Heinrich stands to his right, but the other officer I don’t know the name of. He’s shorter and thinner than the both of them, with buzzed cut hair just like Heinrich.

The room around us is dead quiet now, everyone too shocked to speak or make a sound. I’m sure they all heard the gunshot if they didn’t see the actual witch get shot. Nick looks around at all of them, his eyes fixed with suspicion and warning.

“Everyone, please be advised. We know when you are planning to strike against us, we can sense it faster than your little weak hearts can beat. So I warn you, do not get too comfortable. We know who you are!” Nick announces to the crowd and even I flinch at his last statement.

Suddenly, several uniformed officers come into the room like toy soldiers and the crowd around us erupts into chaos as several coven members are handcuffed and the dead witch by Nick’s feet is hauled off onto a stretcher.

“People! People! Settle down, the police have this under control!” the mayor yells through his microphone, but his voice gets drowned out.

With a trembling hand, I wipe away the witch’s blood that got on my face and gulp seeing a large amount of blood on the ground where she died. The vampires don’t dive for the blood like everyone is expecting them to. Sadly, that’s the main reason why everyone around me is so afraid.

They don’t even care that a witch, one of their own, just died because she tried to attack me!

I’ve never seen Nick act so swiftly. It seemed he was ready to kill the witch without a second thought. I guess he was in the right because our lives were on the line, but it just seemed a little...brutal to watch. The witch probably thought attacking me in a human manner would help avoid drawing attention to herself because other witches would have sensed her magic’s dangerous intent towards me if she used her craft.

Did he really need to kill the witch so quick like that though? He actually might have broken a law without giving her a trial first, even if her act against me was so vicious. Nick was strong enough to overpower her, he could have arrested her instead. I’m sure some coven members will be angry.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, guess I ended up ruining tonight’s fun after all,” I hear Nick mutter dryly.

I look up from the large pool of blood. He’s rubbed off most of the blood from his face. His hair, however, is still covered in it. As well as his entire suit. Several cops rush around us, picking up the witch’s weapon of choice and marking off the scene with police tape. Flashes of light flicker across the ballroom as some of the officers take pictures of the crime scene.

Looking uptight, Nick takes out his clean handkerchief from his jacket pocket with a stiff jerk of his hand and offers it to me.

“Thanks,” I mumble, mainly worried about cleaning the blood from my brooch.

Stained in champagne and now, stained in the blood of a witch. Yuck! Nick watches me furiously clean my family’s heirloom off, he steps closer and his head looms over mine a bit too close for comfort.

“What’s that?” Nick asks in a low voice.

“My family’s brooch,” I whisper, hearing the sadness in my own voice.

I’m never going to be able to get the stain off. Giving up, I hand him the fancy cloth material back and he puts it in his pant pocket.

“Bring it with you to work tomorrow along with your clothes. Don’t clean them. Everything stained by that witch’s blood is evidence we’ll need to bring in to close this case with the humans and the coven,” Nick tells me.

I nod in agreement, looking around for Will.

Nick turns away from me then, as if to help the other officers, but there’s something I’ve been worrying about.

“Nick? Is everything okay between you and Will? You looked upset earlier. I just thought Will would have told me if something was wrong between the coven and the police station. Well, you know what I mean,” I say to him.

Nick’s back straightens and he turns around to face me again. “William forgets my job is to protect everyone and that extra requests for protection will always come at a price money cannot account for,” he answers vaguely.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I dare to ask, but his face remains impassive.

Heinrich elbows him in the ribs with a small smile.

“He want goddess blessing, but coven have it. Goddess belong to him, to us. Goddess not ready, so he wait,” Heinrich chuckles quietly in broken english, but when he finishes he looks at me with mockery.

Not towards the sky or ceiling. Where the coven believes the goddess really is. I’ve never heard Heinrich say so many words, neither did I know he believed in the goddess. Even if the goddess were real, which she isn’t, she wouldn’t waste her time in Alabama or here on Earth.

Nick’s face turns a shade of red I’ve never seen before. He inclines his head forward slightly, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head slowly as if in disbelief. It’s true vampires can read minds, but only the minds of their own kind.

So I have to wonder if Heinrich is really telling the truth. Which I’m pretty sure he isn’t. As far as I know, Nick doesn’t like witchcraft or the coven. So I don’t know why he would believe in the goddess. Unless it’s another goddess I’ve never heard of which is unlikely.

When the chief looks back up, his movements are jerky and forceful as he stows his gun back in its holster. Rigidly, he asks Heinrich and the shorter cop at his side to go help the other police officers escort the witnesses out of the building. The big vampire actually cowers away from Nick as if he said something else too, but obeys and stalks off with the shorter vamp cop.

“I will get Will, he won’t be able to find you in this mess now,” Nick tells me.

He disappears out of my sight, moving too fast for my eyes to follow as he transports away to find Will.