Part 25 (1/2)

Mackenzie handed him his s.h.i.+rt and slid past him to kneel in front of her own bag. Jackson tried to slow his breathing and focus. ”I'm already gone. If you don't hear from me in a week, talk to Alec. Tell him I owed you, big time. He'll take care of it.”

”Okay, Holt. Just be careful. You pay me too much to end up dead.”

”Will do, Dade.” He closed the phone with cold fingers and tossed it on the bed while he tugged on his jeans. ”How much of that did you catch?”

She'd already pulled on a pair of slacks and was adjusting the strap of her bra. ”All of it, I think. Can we get out of here without Alec hearing us?”

”Not likely.” He stepped closer and pulled her body to his. ”But, since we're going to steal his car, I'd better make it work.” Jackson closed his eyes and mumbled the Latin words that comprised one of the first incantations Mahalia had taught him. A wave of magic swept over them both, and he lifted his lids. ”Don't scream or slam any doors, and we'll get out.” We have to. For all their sakes.

Mackenzie rocked up on her toes and kissed him once, hard. Then she s.n.a.t.c.hed a plain black T-s.h.i.+rt and jerked it over her head. With her shoes in one hand and her duffle bag in the other, she nodded to him. ”Let's go.”

They crept down the hall, and Jackson took Alec's keys from the hall table. He handed them to Mackenzie. ”Go. I need to leave a note, at least. Tell him we're okay.”

She nodded, and he grabbed the notepad by the extension phone. It took him only seconds to scribble a few words.

Dade said Talbot was going to kill us all, so gather everyone and be on the lookout. Hopefully, we've fixed it by leaving. Sorry about the car, but this is important.

He left the note on the pad and closed the door gently.

Inside Alec's SUV, he laid his hand on the dash and repeated the charm before starting the engine. ”We can get as far away as we can in a couple of hours and do the binding spell.”

Mackenzie pulled something out of her bag. It was a small charm, one that looked like the talismans Mich.e.l.le and Mahalia had created to get by Charles's wards. ”I brought this too. I remembered how everyone kept talking about how you could track someone. This is the charm Charles made. I thought you could use it to find him.”

He tried to smile. ”Good thinking. I can use it.”

”We can do this, Jackson.” She dropped the charm into the console between them and reached out to touch his leg. ”We're going to do it.”

”Yeah.” He headed for I-10 and covered her hand with his. ”Yeah, we are.”

Chapter Twenty-Five.

Mackenzie dumped the takeout containers on their motel room's tiny, scratched table and stretched her arms over her head. ”Okay. Let's eat and you can explain to me how this works.”

Jackson double-checked his notepad and the small bags of herbs in front of him. ”Not much to explain. Like May said, it's a fairly simple spell. The tricky part is finding someone willing to go along with it.”

”Uh-huh.” Even though they'd been sitting for the last few hours, she sank into a chair and reached for the box of chicken fingers. ”So you're going to do something that sort of makes us one person. But it won't kick in until I s.h.i.+ft forms?”

”Right. When you s.h.i.+ft, the spell will take effect. You won't be able to s.h.i.+ft back until I release you.”

She nibbled distractedly on the chicken, but most of her earlier appet.i.te had fled. ”But I'll be me, right? I mean, I won't be a wild animal.”

”You'd have to stay in cougar form without s.h.i.+fting back for a long, long time before you started to lose touch with your human side like that.”

”Okay. So, you hold the spell.” She tossed the chicken finger down and said the one thing they'd been avoiding. ”And I kill him.”

”h.e.l.l, no.” Jackson leaned back in his chair. ”I do the spell and then shoot his a.s.s. Or give him a convenient heart attack, or any number of cool things I'll probably be able to do as a temporary Seer. You're my backup, sweetie, not the brute force.”

Her temper flared and she curled her fingers around the arms of her chair in an attempt to keep from tangling them in his s.h.i.+rt. ”Well that just seems downright stupid, Jackson, since I've got a lot more brute force than you do right about now.”

”You absolutely do, and we might need it. But unless we do, I want you as far away from this s.h.i.+t as possible. I don't know how practiced Talbot is with fighting as a cat. One lucky swipe at you, and he could take us both down.”

It was logical, even reasonable. But every instinct in her body protested that she needed to fight. She needed to protect Jackson, because he was hers. She closed her eyes. Her fingers hurt as she slowly uncurled them from the arms of the chair. ”Okay, I'll be backup. But you're not stas.h.i.+ng me somewhere. We're doing this together.”

When she opened her eyes he gave her a lopsided grin. ”Wouldn't do me much good not to bring my backup to the fight, darlin'.”

She didn't want to laugh, but she couldn't help it. ”Fine. You cast the spell, you shoot him, and we go home before Alec and Mahalia track us down and kill us.”

He rubbed a hand over his forehead and stared at the notebook on the table. ”At this point, I'm looking forward to the angry yelling. It'll mean we won.”

”Yeah, I'll remind you of that when Nick finds out about what we did.” Just please be alive to yell at us. She sipped her own soda. It was room temperature and flat, but it helped her suddenly dry mouth. ”We should do it. Now. So we can figure out a backup plan in case it doesn't work.”

”It'll work.” His retort seemed almost automatic. ”But we may as well do it. Once we have the spell in place, I can use that talisman to locate Talbot. Then we'll go find the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

Mackenzie closed the box of food, shoved it aside and pushed the table aside for good measure. She rose from her chair and crossed the s.p.a.ce between them in one step. ”Kiss me first.” In case something happens. ”Kiss me, Jackson. Promise me we're going to go home after this and do normal things like go on actual dates.”

Jackson pulled her onto his lap. ”Dates. Bowling and bad movies and maybe, if Nicky and Gabriel get their s.h.i.+t figured out, a couple of double-dates. I promise.” He stroked her hair back from her forehead and brushed his lips over hers. ”I promise.”

”Good.” She whispered the word against his lips, tilted her head to kiss him, long and deep and desperate. Jackson met her need with his own, twining his tongue with hers, one hand splayed across her back and the other wrapped in her hair.

Finally, he broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. ”Still want to do this?”

No. ”Yes. I trust you.”

He patted her leg. ”All right. Open the window, okay?”

Mackenzie slipped from his lap with one last kiss. The motel they'd found wasn't a high-cla.s.s establishment, had in fact been chosen based on its willingness to accept cash and no names. At some point someone had painted over the window, and she braced herself and shoved as hard as she could.

The window flew up with a dangerous rattle, and a crack webbed across the corner of the gla.s.s. ”s.h.i.+t. I keep forgetting.”

”We'll leave them some extra money when we go.” Jackson opened two of the plastic bags and shook some of the dried herbs onto a sheet of aluminum foil. It looked like something out of a Hollywood movie about drugs, especially when he pulled a lighter from his pocket and set the green mounds ablaze. ”Come here.”

The smell threatened to overwhelm her from ten feet away. She wrinkled her nose and tried to breathe through her mouth. ”Okay, that's not going to make me high, is it?”

”It's hyssop and meadowsweet,” he murmured, ”moistened with a little lavender infusion to make it smudge. You won't get high, but your eyes will burn. It can't be helped.”

She watched smoke waft from the pile of herbs on aluminum foil. ”So what do I have to do?”

”Just...concentrate on me.” He held up his hands, his palms toward her. ”Put your hands on mine and focus on me.”

In spite of her conviction and trust, her hands trembled. They looked tiny compared to Jackson's, delicate and pale and incapable of containing the kind of strength they held now. She pressed her palms to his and drew in a breath when she felt his energy tickle against her. ”I-I can feel the magic-”

”Shh.” He closed his eyes with a deep inhalation and whispered, ”Geminare.” A faint golden light flared between their palms and settled into a steady glow. Jackson looked at her. ”Breathe.”

She inhaled instinctively, and the light between them disappeared. ”Is that-”