man is slippery. I didn’t think we’d get him to fess up to anything, and I was right.”
“And Lilith couldn’t sense anything?” she asked.
While Rick asked the questions, Mac and Lilith had been in a nearby room, listening in through a psychic connection Rick didn’t even try to understand. But Lilith hadn’t discovered anything they could use to connect Thompson to the murder of the dealer or the impending drug shipment.
“Nothing we could use,” he admitted, gulping down his frustration.
For as long as he could remember, Rick had wanted to be a cop. He’d finished high school a year early, studied criminal justice in college and joined the Miami-Dade department before he was twenty-one. Known for his efficient, cool and reasoned thinking, he’d moved up quickly to detective. After five years of an endless battle against the influx of drugs in Miami, he’d moved to Chicago, hoping to broaden his knowledge base. Deal with crimes that weren’t always about smack, crack and pot. But now, he was back where he didn’t want to be—in the middle of yet another drug war, one that was being influenced by someone very powerful and, as of yet, very unknown.
“And what did it feel like, having Lilith use you that way?” Josie asked. “Was it cool?”
The fascination in her voice made him chuckle and forget how the whole setup had initially unnerved him. As a cop, he was used to dealing with hunches, and he’d always guessed that Lilith just had better hunches than most. In Little Havana, however, he’d met a few brujas, like his great-grandmother in Cuba, whose insight had been downright scary. A witch in Miami had predicted his father’s heart attack only days before he’d been felled by a cardiac episode that should have killed him. But because of the witch, he’d put an aspirin in his pocket—and that little pill had saved his life.
“It was freaky,” he admitted. “I could sense that she was there, listening in. At one point, she even suggested that I ask a certain question and I just—”
Rick, help us.
What the hell?
He pulled the phone away from his ear. A few people strode beside him on the sidewalk with heads down and strides swift. At the curb, a driver leaned lazily against a stretch limousine, tapping into his iPhone. Rick peered into the office building’s lobby. No sign of Mac or Lilith, even though he could have sworn he just heard her voice.
“Rick? Rick, are you there?”
Tinny and distant, Josie’s voice echoed from the phone, which he lifted back to his ear.
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I just—”
Rick, please. Hear me. He’s not a warlock. The mayor is. Thompson’s a witch. Black magic. He’ll kill us.
“Just what? Rick, what’s wrong?”
He shook his head, but the crowded feeling in his mind didn’t lessen. Lilith was invading his consciousness, but this time, she was calling for help.
He stopped walking and turned. He spied the plates on the limousine. City government issue. The mayor?
At that moment, the driver spared him a glance. Rick gave a nod, then turned and cursed. “It’s Lilith. She’s connected to me again. They’re in trouble. He’s going to kill them. He’s a witch, and he’s using black magic.”
Josie gasped. “Can you—”
“Yes,” Rick said, “I’ve got to go.”
“Be—”
He snapped the phone shut. He didn’t need Josie’s warning. For the benefit of the limo driver, he strode casually back down the sidewalk, but broke into a run and yanked out his firearm once he cleared the side of the building. If Lilith had called for help, she and Mac were in deep. Witches? Warlocks? Black magic? This was all too fucking weird, but he had to try and help. He couldn’t leave them to die.
He’d used a service door to exit the building, but it had locked automatically behind him. If he tried the front entrance and alerted security or the mayor’s driver, all hell could break loose. Demanding instant cooperation from his frazzled brain, Rick spotted a ratty cushion protruding from a nearby Dumpster. He grabbed it, placed it over the unyielding knob and fired his weapon into the lock, muffling the sound as best he could. For a split second, he considered calling for backup, but this had been an unauthorized operation from the start. Rick had helped Mac out of loyalty, out of trust. The backlash against both of them could ruin their careers forever. He’d trust Mac a little while longer. His suspension notwithstanding, Mac was a good cop. And a good friend.
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.
