Page 43 of Wicked Warlock
“Now, Charmer, take me to your house. I’m in need of an army.”
I nodded, wanting only to please him. “Right this way.”
Chapter 20
Professor Ridge
Hide. I have to hide.
Nervous sweat gathered all over my body, making my suit feel like a scuba suit suctioned to my body. My shirt was slick, like I’d jumped in a pool, and I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. I ripped at the top button of my shirt. Still wasn’t enough—there was no air in this room. I ripped the other button open. My suit coat had long since been discarded on the floor of this hotel room. I paced back and forth at the foot of the bed of the penthouse suite. Everything was white in this room—white walls, white bedding, white furniture. It was ghastly in the worst sort of way. But New York City was the perfect place to disappear. Cash in hand, I took this room with a fake I.D. and prayed it would be my salvation. I’d even used what few forces were left of the warlocks who served the council as guards.
I wanted to believe I was safe, but I couldn’t. Not here. Not ever. He would be coming. I knew that now. There was no stopping it. Fear pumped through my veins, yet I couldn’t slow down the pounding in my chest or how ragged my breaths came. I pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of my pants and swiped it over my face, mopping up the sweat trickling down. Three pieces of paper sat in front of me all saying the same thing, “Beckett is here,” and then nothing more after that. I took those papers and crumpled them together, holding them between my hands and curling them to my chest.
Move, have to move. Get out of here. Hide. There was a knock on the door, and I startled, diving behind a set of chairs that sat just inside the room and blocking the balcony doors. I pulled a chair in front of me just as the hotel room door cracked open. A warlock—I forget his name—glided into the room. He was big with a balding head and aging face. His face fell into a scowl, and I popped to my feet and shoved the chair away. “Any word?”
He didn’t answer me.
I surged forward, getting right in his face and towering over him. “Any. Word?”
“Nothing. It’s like they disappeared off the face of the earth.” He glanced toward the balcony then back to me. “We will find them.”
No, they won’t. In my gut I knew they were dead and that disgusting child did it. I always knew he’d wrong his own people. Even at a young age, he was a menace that I didn’t want but was lumbered with.
“Dismissed.” I waved him away. He stood there staring at me with a mixture of pity and disdain on his face. “I said dismissed.”
He rolled his eyes and turned for the door, groaning while he walked away. I wasn’t being outrageous; this was rational, completely rational. Beckett Dustwick had flipped his lid and I would be next. I was sure of it. How would it happen? Knife to the throat? To the gut? Poison? Beheading? A thousand images raced through my mind when I finally locked onto one that had been a reoccurring nightmare I could not shake. I was in a long, dark hallway with only flashing red lights. Beckett, with a serrated blade, grabbed me in the darkness and drove the blade into my mouth, through my neck and down to my spine. I see this vision when I close my eyes. It relentlessly haunts my dreams and my waking hours, driving me to the point of madness.
I found myself back in the corner, sliding down the wall, and pulled the chair in front of me. Insolent boy. I hated him from the moment we met, and now I hated him for… being a traitor to his kind.
A bright blue light flashed from just outside the door, and I curled myself into a tight ball… He was here.
I could see the light through the cracks in the door, and I knew this was it. Raised voices filled the hallway. An explosion sounded, then a loud crashing. Dust shoved through the cracks in the door with more shouting. My body quaked from head to toe, and I couldn’t stop it. Get a hold of yourself.
The door exploded inward and the guard that I’d just spoken to soared through the air and landed flat on his back. His head slammed into the floor, and he lay there limp and lifeless with his cloak pooling all around him. A bigger guy I didn’t know stepped through. He was dark and filled up the doorway. Strands of inky hair fell over his face into his crystal green eyes. Crimson magic flared as he bent over and plucked the doorknob from the wreckage and wrapped his hand around it. It elongated into a sharp golden serrated knife.
Beckett stepped in behind him, and the bigger guy tossed the knife to him. Beckett caught it easily and held it like the killer he was.
I pointed toward the expert way he held the knife. “I taught you that, you know.”
Beckett didn’t say anything, just stood there with those glowing blue eyes.
“I taught you everything you know.” I pressed myself into the wall and slid up to my feet.
Black dots swarmed my vision and I shook my head, forcing them away. My chest tightened and I could barely breathe. “You’re stronger because of me. I saved you. Every… every beating made you stronger. Look at you… You’re a warrior. I did that. I made you.”
He made a deep sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “Run.”
“Wha—”
“Run,” he hissed, and I stumbled forward. The big one was to my right and Beckett was to my left. The corner caged me. I had no place to go but forward. He took a half step toward me. “Hide.”
The words he uttered were words I’d heard myself speak to him a thousand times before. Now they held a promise of death and suffering. I wanted my legs to move, to force them forward, but I was frozen in place. Warmth spread across my pants and down my legs, soaking into my shoes.
The bigger guy took a small step back. “Did you just… did you just piss yourself?”
I glanced down at the dark stain across my gray pants. I pissed myself.
“Beating on orphaned children? No problem. Facing one of them, and he pisses himself.” He looked to Beckett. “Want me to kill him for you?”
