Desire the Night(52)

Gideon stared at her, his hands clenching when he noticed the glazed look in her eyes. Damn the witch! She had put Kay under some kind of spell.

Muttering, “You can’t have her,” Gideon flew across the yard.

The black cat hissed.

Verah raised her wand and screeched an incantation, but by the time the words had passed her lips, Gideon had wrapped Kay in his arms and vanished from sight.

Verah stood momentarily frozen, like a deer caught in the lights of an oncoming truck. While she was trying to decide what to do next, the porch light came on.

Verah scooped Rama into her arms, intent on hastening away, when she suddenly found herself surrounded by three men with glowing yellow eyes.

Before she could invoke her invisibility spell again, one of the men snatched the wand from her hand, another grabbed Rama by the scruff of the neck, careful to hold the snarling cat at arm’s length. The third man sank his teeth into Verah’s neck.

Standing in the shadows a safe distance from the house, with Kay cradled tightly against his chest, Gideon watched it all happen.

At the werewolf’s bite, the witch went limp as a rag doll, offering no resistance as the werewolf dragged her into the house. The other two men followed. The last one inside slammed the door.

Gideon glanced at the sky. Dawn was only minutes away. With that in mind, he summoned his power and willed himself and Kay to his lair in Arizona. He figured they would be safe there, at least for now, what with Verah being held by Victor’s family. He would have much preferred his lair in New York, but the sun was already shining there.

Moments later, Gideon sat on the sofa in the living room of his Phoenix lair with Kay still cradled in his arms. Kissing the top of her head, he whispered her name.

She didn’t stir, simply stared blankly into the distance.

“Kiya!” He shook her shoulder. “Dammit, Kiya, snap out of it!”

Still nothing.

He tried speaking to her mind, but it was closed to him.

Gideon cursed softly. The sun was rising. There was nothing he could do until nightfall.

Carrying Kay into the bedroom, he tucked her under the covers, removed his shoes, socks, pants, and shirt, and crawled into bed beside her.

His eyelids grew heavy as the sun rose over the horizon. He hated to leave her lying there, staring up at the ceiling, but there was no help for it. The darkness was wrapping him in its snare, dragging him down into oblivion.





Gideon woke with the setting of the sun. Jackknifing into a sitting position, he looked at Kay, hoping to find her sleeping peacefully. Instead, she was lying rigid beside him, still staring blankly at the ceiling. If not for the faint rise and fall of her chest and the slow, steady beat of her heart, he would have thought her dead.

Pressing a kiss to her cheek, he went into the bathroom. He took a quick shower, dressed, and left the apartment. What he needed now was a witch. Easier said than done, he mused. Where the hell was he going to find a witch? A good witch, he amended.

He mesmerized the first man he saw, borrowed the man’s cell phone, and did a quick search for practicing witches. He hadn’t actually expected to find one, but, to his surprise, he found one listed in Apache Junction, Arizona, by the name of Kusuma Ila. Of course, there was no guarantee that she was a genuine witch and not just some deluded old woman who read tea leaves. But it was the only lead he had.

After returning the man’s phone and wiping the incident from his mind, Gideon transported himself to Apache Junction.

He hadn’t been there in decades. It was an old town bordered by the Superstition Mountains on the east, the Goldfield Mountains on the north, and the town of Mesa on the right.

Even at night, the Superstition Mountains, well-known as the home of the fabled Lost Dutchman Gold Mine, were an impressive sight. Goldfield Ghost Town nestled near the western face of the mountains. On more than one occasion, Gideon had seen the ghosts of an old prospector and his mule walking through the town.

Kusuma Ila’s small, square house was located on a quiet residential street, literally the last place he would have expected to find an Apache witch. Dozens of rosebushes grew in wild profusion along a white picket fence. An ancient cottonwood tree shaded the front porch.

She answered the door before he knocked. As soon as she saw him, she made some kind of intricate sign with the fingers of her right hand, no doubt meant to ward off evil.

“Kusuma Ila?” She was a hundred if she was a day, Gideon thought, with skin as brown and wrinkled as old saddle leather. Her hair, worn in a long braid over her shoulder, was snow white; her eyes were deep-set, as black and sharp as those of a raven. She sure as hell looked like a witch.

She tilted her head to one side. “Have you come to drink my blood?”