Anya Bast: Witch Heart

Claire's intuition niggled. This was not a good thing.

That had not been a good glance.

A clinical psychologist? Her mind sorted through the notebooks filled with English lessons and vocabulary her mother had left her. A psychologist was a physician of the mind. Why had he mentioned that to the waitress? Did he think Claire was crazy?

She sucked in a breath. Her alarm factor ratcheted upward. She had to get out of here. What had seemed like a safe refuge a moment ago didn't seem so anymore. Houses, she had no idea who to trust in this world, which meant she could trust no one.

She lifted her gaze to the window and saw the darker skinned Atrika staring in at her. His eyes were shadowed and full of menace. He parted his lips and flashed fang at her — a silent promise.

The bell on the door behind her jingled and she turned to see the other Atrika, masking as human, enter the diner. This one was lighter than the other — tall, blond, broad-shouldered. Ripped with muscle, this one could break her bones with a twist of his wrist. This was the one she thought was called Tevan. If it was Tevan, he was one of the leaders of the Atrika uprising. A commander.

Oddly, he looked like Rue. It made her throat close with longing for home — safe, warm home. She had mixed feelings about the Ytrayi, but right now the thought of them was a familiar comfort in a world of threat.

Hundreds of years ago, the Ytrayi —leading two of the other daaeman breeds — had tried to exterminate all Atrika from the face of Eudae. They'd missed pockets of them and those survivors had gone underground, vowing to take Eudae for themselves one day. The attempted genocide had fueled an already growing war between the breeds.

The one she thought was Tevan caught her gaze for one long moment and she couldn't look away. Violent promise shimmered deep in his dark blue eyes. He ducked into a booth and pretended to read the plastic menu. He still wore his fighting leathers from head to toe and drew many curious glances.

All of the daaeman breeds, there were four of them, could mask their appearance through magick. An Atrika could appear to be Ytrayi or Syari or Mandari, for example. They only showed their true faces when angered or on a hunt. At the moment Tevan was indistinguishable from any other male in the restaurant, but for his powerful build.

Claire turned back around, her heart thumping. She pasted a purposefully bland look on her face. It would not help to allow the Atrika to know how badly they frightened her. They loved it when their prey was afraid. It made the hunt that much more fulfilling to them, made them want to be more savage once they caught their prey.

Claire took a second glance around her surroundings, noting the entrance to the kitchen and a small hallway leading to two doors nearby. There was probably a back exit, but she couldn't go that way. The second Atrika was undoubtedly on the other side of it by now; he'd disappeared from the sidewalk in front. She needed a window or something that let her out on the side of the building.

The clinical psychologist turned back to her, a tight little smile on his face. "Please, let's sit down. I ordered a nice orange juice for you."

Claire didn't know what this nice orange juice was, but she wanted no part of it. "I need to, uhm…"

He took her by the upper arm and led her to a booth. "Just sit with me a little. I want to talk to you about the… demons."

Yes, now she heard the disbelief in his voice when he said the word demon, heard the hesitation. Perhaps the witches here were underground. Maybe the humans knew nothing of them or daaeman, nothing of their intersection with the people of Eudae in their ancient past.

How could they be so ignorant?

Claire slid uneasily into the booth, feeling the slick plastic beneath the fabric of her dress. At least it was warm in here. A moment later the waitress set a tall glass of bright liquid in front of her.

The man leaned forward, making the plastic beneath him creak. "Claire, do you know what year it is?"

She didn't. Claire stared hard at the tabletop.

"Claire? Do you know what country you're in?"

That one she knew. She looked up. "The United States."

The man smiled. "Very good. Yes, you're here in Chicago, among friends. Do you know who the president of the United States is?"

She could take it no longer. "Of course I don't! I've been trapped in a demon dimension for twenty-five years, since I was six years old! I only just came back a day ago, after being forced to ingest a ball of magick I shouldn't be carrying and then pushed through an interdimensional doorway. I am being chased by two of the most aggressive of the four demon breeds for that magick. They'll kill me to get it." She pursed her lips together and stared at his dropped jaw and wide eyes. "So, you see, sir, I do not want to sit here and answer meaningless questions about who your president is."

Outside a high-pitched whine grew louder. She frowned, glancing out the window. Something approached. What was that horrid sound?

"I've called some people to come and help you, Claire."

Another laugh burbled from her depths. "Help me? No one can help me now. Most especially not you." She slid from the booth and bolted for the kitchen. Behind her, she heard the Atrika rise and follow her, his footsteps heavy on the shiny floor.

The man also followed her, yelling at her to stop. She glanced back, seeing Tevan shove him to the side. The human male went sprawling against the counter and careened to the floor while the diner's patrons gasped.

She plunged through the doorway and into the kitchen, immediately becoming engulfed in strange greasy odors. Claire skidded to a stop in front of a cook who stood slack-jawed, loosely holding some sort of food preparation implement.

Claire ran down the stairs near the man, the only exit available to her. Hearing heavy tread behind her, she raced to the only sate place she could see — a doorway leading into some sort of storage room — and slammed the door closed behind her.

She pulled a shelf filled with cans and food sacks over in front of the door just as the Atrika hit it on the other side with teeth-rattling strength. Tevan bellowed in outrage even as she wedged the shelving into a space that would prevent him from pushing the door open.

She had one advantage. The daaeman wouldn't be able to jump — teletransport themselves — for a couple of days. They needed to find true equilibrium with the vibrational frequency of this dimension before they could do that. The molecules of this place moved slower than those of Eudae, and to bend space to jump before they found a balance might kill them.

She should be so lucky.

Claire whirled, eyes wide and breathing hard. Her magick pulsed within her chest, tingled through her arms and legs, begging for release, but it was in there, mixed with the other, strange daaeman magick. She had to deny it.

Copper? Was there any copper here? All the daaeman breeds were allergic to it. It was banned on Eudae, even dug up and disposed of in toxic waste areas, but here on Earth it wouldn't be. She saw none in her vicinity that she could identify. Too bad, since likely Tevan and his friend hadn't yet been able to develop any partial protection against the metal.

Tevan pushed and yelled on the opposite side of the doorway. It was only a question of time before he found a way through magickally.

Time to leave. Frantically, she searched for a way out.

There! A small window close to the ceiling, above a low counter strewn with cans of vegetables. Apparently, this room was mostly underground.