Julie Leto - Something Wicked

As Rick dashed into the elevator, he closed his eyes and thought hard, trying to communicate to Lilith that he was on his way. He felt her screaming just before the elevator reached the floor he somehow knew she was on. As the doors slid open, he saw her standing across from the recently elected mayor of Chicago, whose hands sparked with electricity that swirled before his eyes and formed into a stunning lethal ball.

Rick couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. No one had noticed the elevator, but when the doors started to close, he instinctively stepped out and stood, motionless, unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing. The defense attorney, Boothe Thompson lay motionless and empty-eyed at the mayor’s feet. When Mac drew his gun, the mayor shifted and waved his sparking hand. The gun flew across the hallway. Mac dove to retrieve the weapon and before Rick could act, Lilith plunged forward, the glint of her knife flashing only a split second before it disappeared inside the mayor’s chest.

Then, they both crumpled to the ground. The mayor, dead, and Lilith…? Rick shouted at Mac, who turned and saw Lilith on the floor. He screamed her name and flew to her side.

Rick stepped forward, but was stopped by a dark shadow that poured out of the mayor’s eye sockets and mouth, then surrounded Rick like a wool blanket in July. Itchy. Hot. Smothering.

Take me in, human.

The voice pounded hard against Rick’s skull, as if demanding entrance. The excruciating pain stole Rick’s eyesight and squeezed his trachea shut. The chain he wore around his neck tightened and the crucifix at the end burned. He dropped to his knees. His gun thumped to the ground beside him.

I am not through with this world, the voice continued, cutting into Rick’s ears, stabbing at his brain. So young. So powerful, it expressed lustily. Your rewards will be endless.

A million jumbled thoughts exploded in Rick’s mind. images of decadence, luxury, power and limitless freedom splayed before him, a grand temptation to someone who had not been forewarned.

But Rick had heard his great-grandmother, even if her prophecy when he was six had gifted him with a lifetime of nightmares.

You will fight a great evil who will offer you everything you’ve ever wanted, she’d said in Spanish. But only you can resist him, niño. Only you can destroy him.

Rick concentrated on the memory, holding on to it like a lifeline, fixing the image of his bisabuela’s rheumy blue eyes, kind toothless grin and the saint’s medal she’d clutched in her hand as she spoke. Fire exploded in his chest and a scream of anguish unlike any he’d ever heard burst through his eardrums. The pounding in his head intensified, nearly knocking him unconscious as the shadow tightened around him then, in a flash, dispersed. Behind him, the dark entity slid into the cracks of the elevator door and disappeared.

Rick gulped in the cool air as his eyes adjusted, allowing light to penetrate where moments before, there had been only darkness. As he struggled, he had the irresistible urge to throw himself into the nearest steaming hot shower to wash away the filth that seemed crusted, invisible, to his skin.

Grabbing blindly, he found his firearm and attempted to stand. He lifted his weapon, but just as Mac’s had, the gun shot out of his grip, landing in the hands of a regal, dark-haired woman dressed entirely in purple. She had materialized directly in his path.

“I mean you no harm,” she said calmly.

Rick threw himself back against the elevator doors. “What just happened to me? Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Regina St. Lyon, Lilith’s sister and Guardian of Witches. Josie called me. I’m here to help.”

She spun away from Rick and immediately slid to the floor beside Lilith and Mac.

“What’s wrong with her?” Mac asked.

Regina passed her hand over Lilith’s face. “She’s unconscious. I believe she overloaded psychically when she touched the warlock. Take her out of here, Mac. Get her someplace safe.”

“But what about—” said Rick.

Regina stood. “I’ll take care of this situation, Detective, but the evil vibrations still linger here. She needs a healing place. Please.”

Mac scooped Lilith into his arms and dashed toward the elevator. Rick pushed the button. The doors swung immediately open.

“Help her,” Mac said, nodding his head toward Regina. “She’ll need you to fix this.”

The doors closed and Rick turned to see Regina surveying the two dead bodies, shattered glass and scorch marks in the hallway with all the calculated coolness of a well-trained crime-scene analyst. He gasped, suddenly realizing he hadn’t taken in enough oxygen. Stars shot through his vision, and he had to grasp the wall to keep from stumbling.

When he righted himself, he caught Regina staring at him with eyes the color of purple gemstones.

“Tell me what happened here,” she demanded.

Her superior tone snapped him out of his fugue, but he had no doubt that she was one of them. Not human. Not normal. “Two people died,” he answered curtly.

She arched a careless brow. “I observed as much. But I need you to point to the evidence that proves how they died.”

Clearly, she had no idea that he’d been attacked seconds before her arrival by a shadow that had emerged from the dead mayor’s body. And he wasn’t about to tell her. Had he imagined the whole episode? Had the connection with Lilith cost him his sanity? He’d have suspected Regina, too, was a figment of his imagination if Mac hadn’t just spoken with her seconds before.

“Why?” he asked, anticipating an answer he didn’t want to hear.

“Do you really need for me to tell you?”

He was a cop. He had to think like a cop. Assess the crime scene. Catalogue the evidence. Formulate a working theory that could be backed up by proof.

Her gaze flicked toward the elevator doors, where Mac and Lilith had just escaped. Mac and Lilith, who would, from the evidence he observed and what he’d seen with his own eyes, be charged if not convicted of a double murder.

Unless he told Regina what she needed to know.

Unless he ignored what had just happened and denied the moral path he’d followed since birth.

Something unexplainable had occurred here. Something evil. Something wicked. But mostly, something unjust. He couldn’t allow Mac and Lilith to pay the price. He did as she asked and told her all that he had seen and heard. Then, once she was satisfied that she understood the full breadth of the situation, Regina asked Rick one last question.

“So how do we ensure that neither my sister nor Mac is charged with murder?”

Rick eyed her with a loathing he had not felt in years. She was asking him to help her cover up a crime. It went against everything he’d ever believed in, even before he joined the police force. Justice wasn’t supposed to work this way. Was it?

“First,” he answered, his chest cracking open with each syllable he uttered, “we get rid of their fingerprints.”

Six months later…

THERE WAS A TIME when sneaking off to a hotel room with Rick Fernandez had been Josie’s ultimate fantasy. She’d spent hours in bed at night, mulling over every detail, imagining every moment. She’d fill the luxury suite of a hotel overlooking Lake Michigan with candles of her own design—candles that would enhance their senses. The strawberries and chocolate she’d order from room service would burst with sweet silkiness in their mouths, a prelude to the sugared flavor of slow, intense kisses. The music she’d tune on the suite’s high-definition stereo would block out any sounds of the city below. She had even gone to Victoria’s Secret at Water Tower Place and imagined exactly which silk panty or satin bra would drive Rick utterly mad with desire.