Possessing the Witch

Deme nodded. “About that time she passed out. She’s been unconscious since. The police chief has a copy of this and will be circulating it to the press.”

That dark spirit flitted through Selene’s thoughts again and she winced, pressing her fingers to her temples.

“Are you okay?” Deme leaned forward and grabbed Selene’s wrist. “What the hell?” She stared down at where her fingers touched Selene’s skin. “Where did you get these bruises?”

Selene pulled her hand free. “Must have hit my arm against my stair rail.”

“Like hell you did.” Deme reached out and pulled her close to study the marks. “He did it, didn’t he?”

“He who?” Brigid closed the gap between them and took Selene’s hand from Deme. “Who did this?”

“No one.” Selene glared at Deme, wishing she’d shut up and left Brigid out of it.

“Selene and I found a man down by the river and took him to her apartment,” Deme announced. “Against my better judgment.”

“He was injured.” Selene tried to pull her hand free form Brigid’s grip. “I only wanted to help.”

“And a hospital wasn’t good enough for him?” Brigid snorted and let Selene have her hand back. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest. “What am I missing here?”

“Yeah. What are we missing?” Gina, followed by Aurai, stepped into the cafeteria. Now all of her sisters were here. “The nurses’ station said we could find you here.”

Selene stared across at Deme. “You called everyone?”

“I got the feeling this was something that could potentially involve all of us.”

“It doesn’t. It only involves me.” She spun around and paced away from her sisters, turned and marched back. “I only needed assistance getting him into my apartment, or I wouldn’t have asked for your help.”

“Thanks.” Deme’s lips twisted. “I thought we were sisters. Aren’t you the one always preaching that we shouldn’t keep secrets from each other?” she demanded. “What is it about this man that has you ready to lie by omission to your family?”

With her four sisters staring at her accusingly, Selene had no other choice but to tell the truth. “He’s different.”

Brigid shook the paper with the sketch at Selene. “Just how different?”

“He...” She shook her head, the dark, painful consciousness stabbed through her mind, closer this time. Selene gasped, clutched her head in her hands and doubled over.

“Selene?” Deme grabbed her arms and helped her straighten. “What’s wrong?”

“Something dark...” She pressed fingers to her temple to stop the pain. “Evil.”

“Where? At your apartment?”

“No.” She looked up, her gaze turning toward the hallway outside the cafeteria. “Here.”

“Here? Something evil in the hospital?”

Selene staggered toward the door. “Amanda...must get to her.” Without waiting for an answer, she ran to the elevator, stabbed at the button and then waited, her hands twisting together as the elevator made its slow descent to the cafeteria, every second stretching excruciatingly. When the doors finally opened, Selene fell in and jabbed the button for the floor where the ICU was located. Cal jumped in with Deme, Brigid, Aurai and Gina close behind before the doors closed.

“Hurry,” Selene whispered as the elevator whisked upward.

“What is it? What do you sense?” Deme asked.

“Amanda’s in trouble.” The elevator door opened and Selene darted out.

“Selene!” Cal called out. “Wait. Let me go first. It might be dangerous.”

Selene couldn’t hear him for the roaring in her ears, the pounding of her heart nearly beat out of her chest. The pain throbbed with so much intensity that her breathing grew shallow and she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. She dropped to her knees, clutching at her throat.

“Selene.” Cal reached her first.

She pushed him away, pointing to a hallway, unable to push any air past her vocal cords because she couldn’t get air into her lungs. When he wouldn’t go, she pushed him again.

Brigid squatted in front of her. “What is it, Selene?”

She pushed her away, too, her vision dimming, her head getting light. “Amanda—”

Brigid’s eyes widened and she sprang to her feet. “Something’s happening to Amanda.”

“I’ll stay with Selene, you guys go!” Aurai dropped to the tiled floor with Selene and slipped an arm around her sister. “Breathe, Selene. You can do it. Please. Pull yourself out of Amanda and come back to me.” Aurai turned Selene’s face to her. “Look at me.”

Selene stared into her sister’s pale blue eyes. The overhead lights glowed off her bright gold hair, almost blinding her with the intensity. A light, a bright light to follow, to drift toward.

“Selene!” Aurai shook her head. “Snap out of it.” She raised her hand and slapped Selene across the face.

The contact brought Selene back from the light, back to the cool hard tiles of the hospital floor. She stared into her sister’s eyes, seeing her for the first time, kneeling on the ground beside her.

Selene gasped in a huge breath and let it out, her breathing returning to normal, her vision clearing. Then the malevolent presence wavered in her mind, making her jaw tighten and her temple ache. “He’s getting away.” She lurched to her feet, holding on to Aurai.

“Who’s getting away?”

“The one who attacked Amanda.” Selene stumbled down a hallway toward a stairwell.

“You can’t go after him, Selene.” Aurai grabbed her arm and held her back.

Cal ran out of an ICU room shouting, “Get a crash cart in here!” Gina, Deme and Brigid joined him.

Critical-care nurses raced for the woman’s room and for the equipment necessary to save her life.

Selene and Aurai ran to join the others in the hallway, staying well out of the way. “What happened?”

Deme shook her head. “Someone smothered Amanda.”

Selene pointed to the stairwell. “He went down the stairwell.”

Cal ran for the stairwell and shouted over his shoulder, “Deme, call Security, get them to block the exits.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“I’ll make that call.” Aurai ran for the nurses’ station.

“I’ll take the elevator down.” Brigid ran in the opposite direction.

Selene started to follow Cal and Deme, but Aurai yelled at her. “No, Selene. Go with Brigid. You’re not strong enough yet.” She pointed toward the elevator where Brigid waited. The bell rang, announcing the car’s arrival, and Brigid stepped in.

Selene dove for the elevator, catching it as the doors closed.

When she turned, she saw Aurai talking on the telephone, a frown denting her smooth young forehead.

The sense of evil was fading, the tightness easing in Selene’s head. “He’s getting away.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Brigid said through clenched teeth.

Thankfully, the elevator went all the way down without stopping on even one floor. Whether it was because Selene was willing away anyone who dared to touch the buttons or just luck, she didn’t know or care. The main thing was to get to ground level before the killer.

The bell rang, the door opened and Brigid leaped out. Selene followed more slowly. She closed her eyes and felt for the presence. Her senses only picked up on the worry and sadness surrounding the hospital. The evil had gone away...vanished.

“Brigid!” Selene called out as her sister hit the exit door.

Brigid came to a sudden halt and looked back over her shoulder.

Selene shook her head. “He’s gone.”

Deme and Cal emerged from the stairwell, breathing hard. They stopped in the emergency room lobby, staring across at Selene.

She shook her head. “We’re too late.”

Brigid cursed. “Well, I’m going out to look anyway.”

“I don’t even feel him anywhere close. It’s as though he dropped off the face of the earth, his presence disappeared so quickly.”

Aurai emerged from the bank of elevators and ran across the lobby to join her sisters. “We missed him?”

Deme nodded.

“Damn.” Brigid punched a fist into her palm. Then she turned toward Selene, her eyes blazing. “The man you took to your apartment, did you lead him here?”

Selene shook her head, her stomach knotting. “He didn’t do this.”

“Are you sure?” Brigid crossed to stand in front of Selene, anger flowing from every pore of her body, her very presence heating the air around them all.

The anger surrounded Selene, filling her senses. She staggered backward. “I’m sure. He didn’t do this.”

“What about the picture? The one Amanda had drawn before she was murdered.” Brigid’s lip curled up in a snarl. “Was your guy the one in the picture?”

Selene stared out at the faces of her sisters, all waiting for her answer, all wearing accusing expressions. She couldn’t lie to them, but if she answered, she’d damn the man in her apartment. She inhaled and let the breath out before she said, “Yes.”

“What do you want to bet when we get back to your apartment, your guest is gone?” Brigid punched out of the hospital, running toward her Harley.

Selene had to sprint to catch up to Brigid or be left behind. She prayed the man was still lying in her bed. Then at least it would prove he wasn’t the man who’d attacked Amanda Grant and returned to finish the job.

* * *

Gryph’s eyes fluttered open. It took him a few moments to comprehend that the puffs of clouds and blue skies were nothing more than a mural painted on the ceiling of the room he found himself in. Stars were tacked amongst the clouds in an odd day-night combination. The soft bed and sweet-scented air contrasted sharply to the musty dampness of the underground he’d grown up in. He sat up, wincing at the soreness in his shoulder.

He must have dozed off or passed out after Selene left. Over an hour had passed, his shoulder already felt better, and his vision had cleared. One of the benefits of being a shifter was that once the injuries had been addressed his body regenerated quickly. He rose, wrapping one of the sheets around his middle, and paced the interior of the tiny two-room apartment, his strength returning with every step, even as the walls closed in around him.

Light, colorful fabrics draped the windows. The furniture, a scattered array of mix-and-match items, most likely found at yard sales, appeared lovingly restored with new fabric and accessorized with bright throw pillows and blankets. Every color in the rainbow was represented, none appearing out of place, as if they all worked to get along in the close confines of the interior.

In the living area, a rich red overstuffed sofa took up most of the space. On a coffee table in front of the sofa stood a candleholder in the shape of a pentagram, each point holding a small tea candle whose wicks had been burned at some point in time. Facing the sofa was an old-fashioned gas fireplace set against one wall and surrounded by a bright mosaic of tiles, adding even more color to the room. Over the fireplace hung a large filigreed pentagram, encased in a circle. Fine images inscribed in the design of each point of the pentagram represented spirit, air, fire, earth and water.

On the wooden mantel stood a photograph of five women, one of whom was Selene with her rich brown hair. Another was the red-haired woman he vaguely remembered, who’d helped get him into the basement apartment. The women held hands as they faced the camera and smiled. Clearly they cared about each other. Sisters, if not biologically, then by their strong connection to each other.

Despite being at the bottom of the stairs and in the basement of an older building with only a couple of windows filtering sunlight into the room, the space breathed of warmth and comfort—what Gryph had always thought a home should be. The atmosphere filled Gryph with a sense of longing he hadn’t experienced since he’d been a small child, and was led to the surface at nightfall to experience a sunset so grand and beautiful he’d cried.

Gryph shook off the feeling of home and spied a small television settled on a corner of the breakfast bar between the kitchen and the living area. He switched it to the local news station and rolled his sore shoulder, gritting his teeth at the pain.

A newswoman stood in front of the Chicago trauma-and-critical-care hospital, the wind whipping her hair into her face as she gave her late-breaking report of an attack on the streets of Chicago.

“A young woman was brought to the hospital late last night after being brutally attacked and left to die when leaving the theater in downtown Chicago. Admitted to the trauma center, she only had minutes to speak to the police before she was taken into surgery. A forensic artist was able to compile a rough sketch of her attacker before the surgeon arrived. Just to let you know, the woman made it through surgery and is now in recovery, expected to live. Whether she’ll walk again remains in question.

“Folks, as crazy as it appears, were posting the image of her attacker. The police department isn’t quite sure what to make of it, and neither am I, but if you see anything like it, call 911 and report the location and time of the sighting. If such an animal is loose in the city, the sooner we capture or kill it, the safer we all will be.”

A drawing replaced the images of the reporter and the hospital.

Gryph’s heart thudded against his ribs as he stared at a crude drawing of a lion’s head with a man’s face. It was him.

Chapter 5

Gryph continued to watch the television newscast. The sketched image of him was replaced by the reporter. “This just in—the victim was in ICU after surgery when she was attacked again and smothered to death before anyone could get to her.” Police units, lights flashing, rolled in beside the newswoman. Officers leaped out of their squad cars and raced into the building.

His blood freezing in his veins, Gryph realized what saving the woman had cost him and the rest of the outcasts who lived their lives beneath the city streets. With an animal like him identified as the beast who’d ravaged a woman on the streets, every police officer would be searching all the nooks and crannies in the city. If they dug too deeply, they would locate the Lair.

He’d put them all at risk of discovery. And whomever had attacked the woman outside the theater in the first place was still running free and had gone back to finish the job.

He had to get out of Selene’s apartment. She’d seen him in his half-changed form. She’d know the drawing was of him, and she might return with the police to haul him in for murder. Or if she didn’t turn him in, and the police found him there, he’d bring her down with him. The evidence was stacked against him by an eyewitness, who was dead. If Selene chose not to hand him over to the authorities, she could be arrested for aiding and abetting a suspected murderer.

With purposeful strides, he entered the kitchen and pulled open the compact clothes dryer, removing his cloak and the tattered remains of his trousers. He stepped into the ripped pants. The shirt was beyond repair. Rather than leave it there as evidence against Selene, he shoved it into a pocket, slung his cape over his shoulder and hurried toward the door.

Gryph paused by the small window beside the door, pushed aside the frothy mauve curtain and lifted the edge of the blinds to peer out at street level. It wouldn’t be long before people ventured out onto the early morning city streets. The sidewalks would fill with workers headed to their jobs.

He unlocked the door and eased it open. The sun had yet to top the horizon and spill over the crowns of the skyscrapers. For the moment, nothing stirred, nothing moved in front of Selene’s apartment. Lights remained off in the buildings surrounding the little dress shop and its basement apartment. One by one the streetlights blinked off.

Still weak, but getting stronger, Gryph slipped out the door, up the stairs and eased into the gloom. Years of blending into obscurity had refined his skills at disappearing.

Rounding the corner of the building, he paused and listened. The rumble of an engine grew louder until a dark motorcycle turned onto the street and slowed in front of the dress shop. Two people got off.

He risked being seen or caught, but he had to know if the rider or the passenger was Selene.

Both riders pulled off their helmets. The driver’s long, inky-black hair slipped free and fell to her shoulders, the streetlight shining down on it, giving it a blue glow. The second rider struggled with the strap beneath her chin.

Gryph held his breath as she finally loosened the strap and lifted the helmet up and over her head. Long, chocolate-brown hair slipped free and fell in a dark cloud, tumbling down her back. Selene, with her brown hair and deep, brown-black eyes, stood beside the motorcycle.

The driver pulled a gun from a holster beneath her black leather jacket, released the clip, checked her ammunition and then slammed it back into the handle.

Selene laid a hand on the woman’s arm. “Brigid, that’s not necessary.”

“I’d ball up some fire, but I don’t want to burn your place down.”

“He wasn’t the killer. Whoever it was had an enmity, an evil about him that was palpable. I never sensed that with Gryph.”

“So his name is Gryph, is it?” The woman with the coal-black hair and ice-blue eyes held out her hand, palm up. “Give me the keys.”

Selene dug in her pocket and handed over the keys. “He’s not a monster.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“He’s different,” Selene insisted.

“I’d say. How many people do you know who look like him? He’s a freak and he killed a woman tonight.”

Gryph ground his back teeth. I didn’t kill anyone, he wanted to shout aloud, but he held his tongue.

As the black-haired woman descended the stairs to the basement apartment, Selene turned in his direction. She stared straight at him, as if she could see into the shadows.

His eyesight, keen in the dark, both from experience at moving in the blackness of the underworld and from the inner lion’s nocturnal nature, could see the worry lines etched into her brow. He inched backward, ready to run.

A soft sensation brushed across his senses as if someone reassured him that it was okay. At the same time it gave him a gentle mental push, urging him to leave.

Headlights filled the street as an SUV turned the corner and came to a stop behind the motorcycle.

The redhead who’d helped Selene get him down the stairs climbed out of the driver’s seat and a man unfolded from the passenger side. A blonde and a brunette emerged from the back doors.

“Is he still here?” the redhead called out.

“About to find out,” said the black-haired woman with the key in her hand.

“I tell you, he wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Selene insisted.

“You saw what he did to that girl in the hospital. We all saw the bruises on your arms. He’s dangerous.”

“He didn’t kill her and he didn’t mean to hurt me.”

Guilt squeezed Gryph’s chest so hard he couldn’t breathe. He’d hurt her when all she’d tried to do was help him. Balthazar had been right all those years. The only place for him was below the surface. Up until the past five years, he’d lived his life in the underworld, where the misfits and freaks existed judgment-free, and where he wouldn’t be unleashed to hurt innocents. Amassing a fortune and building a business didn’t make him any more human.

“You say he didn’t hurt her, but the victim had the forensic artist draw a picture of her attacker, which happened to match your guest from what you say.” The redhead nodded to the woman at the bottom of the steps. “Sounds pretty damning to me. Let’s check out your monster.”

The woman at Selene’s door unlocked it and pushed it open, her gun held in front of her. A light went on inside the apartment. She disappeared inside. A few moments later, she called out, “He’s gone.”

It was time to go. Gryph turned to leave. His night vision temporarily compromised by the headlights, he didn’t see the soda can until he nudged it with his bare foot. The can skittered across concrete, making a metallic grating sound that echoed against the buildings in the alley.

“What was that?” the man who’d arrived in the SUV said from the top of the stairs.

“Probably the wind,” Selene said.

Gryph stood poised to run, out of sight of the group standing near Selene’s apartment.

“I’ll check it out,” the man said.

Gryph took off, aiming for the corner of the building at the end of the alley. If he could get there before the man rounded the side of Selene’s building, he could lose him in the maze of downtown structures.

Channeling his inner beast to give him speed and strength, he ran, reaching the corner as a shout rang out.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!”

He didn’t slow, didn’t stop, just ran as fast as his feet could carry him. At the end of another building, he flew around the corner, crossed the street and ducked around another structure.

Before long, he was several blocks away, the sound of pursuit long disappeared.

Careful to ensure he wasn’t being followed, he entered a back alley, swung wide around a large trash bin and a stack of decaying pallets, and stopped in front of a solid steel door. He dug his fingers into a chink in one of the bricks beside it and unearthed a key that fit the door.

With practiced efficiency, he twisted the key in the lock. The door opened inward, revealing stairs that led into a basement. Replacing the key in the chinked-out space, he entered, closing the door behind him. On quiet feet, he moved through the darkness, descending to the basement floor.

One of the oldest buildings in downtown Chicago, it had access to the tunnel system beneath the city. Built in the early nineteen hundreds, city planners had hoped the tunnels, with their narrow-gauge rail cars, would allow quick and efficient transportation of cargo to and from the buildings downtown, freeing some of the congestion of the streets above. The plan failed, but the tunnels remained, for the most part. Some had collapsed, others had been filled in when skyscrapers had been built on top of them. The labyrinth provided a warm, safe haven from weather and prying eyes to the inhabitants who called it home.

Having been abandoned as a small baby, unable to fend for himself, Gryph had known no other domicile. If not for the benevolence of Balthazar, he’d have perished in the harsh Chicago streets, unwanted, unloved and unprotected. When he’d discovered a good living in day trading five years ago, he’d accumulated enough wealth to own his own building downtown and he dared to move closer to the light.

Like many who had been forgotten, shunned or thrown away, like himself, he’d lived his life in the shadows of the city, rarely venturing out. Even in his own building, he rarely stepped outside, preferring to limit contact with humans to avoid any mishaps or triggering his inner beast to appear.

Balthazar warned him about the surface dwellers and their lack of compassion or understanding of anything strange or unusual. His adoptive father taught him to sense the rise of his inner beast and control the urge to morph into his animal form. As a child, spikes in emotion had thrown him into animal form.

At those times, for his own protection and the protection of the others in his care, Balthazar had confined Gryph to a cage, letting him out when he’d returned to human form. Those times had marked him deeply. He’d hated the cage and everything it stood for and vowed never to be caged again.

Kindhearted yet firm, Balthazar had taken him into the Lair, brought him up as his own son. The older man collected strays like him, bringing them into the fold, helping them to assimilate into a life in the shadows, finding useful work for them, from running street cleaners to servicing office buildings at night when everyone else slept.

Balthazar raised Gryph and another lost boy who’d been the child of a crack addict with no other family to call her own or to claim the child. Broke, homeless and strung out, his mother had holed up in the basement of a building. When the maintenance super had discovered her temporary lodgings, she’d tied her baby to her back and hidden beneath a trap door, clinging to a ladder to avoid being evicted. She’d descended the metal ladder until her feet touched the bottom of the well.