“So, when a witch mates a human, the human develops more chromosomal pairs until they’re at twenty-seven.”
“This is bullshit,” Alexandra muttered.
Fire crackled down Simone’s arms, bright and a deep pink, to morph into an undulating ball in her delicate hands.
“Fuck.” Alexandra’s eyes grew wide as she stared at the ball of fire. Slowly, she moved forward, her hand outstretched.
“No.” Kell yanked her back. “You’ll just burn yourself.”
Alexandra swallowed. “This is unbelievable.”
Simone sighed and snuffed out her flame.
Alexandra immediately moved toward her and grabbed her hand, twisting it back and forth, looking up her sleeve. “Crazy.”
Simone, rather gently really, removed her hand. “Don’t worry, cop. You don’t have to stay mated for eternity any longer. If you want to negate a mating, you can these days.”
“No.” Kell shook his head.
“How?” Alexandra asked, her expression still skeptical.
Simone sighed and eyed her laptop as if wanting nothing more than to stop messing with Kell’s life and get back to work, but she wasn’t fooling him. She loved interfering. “There’s a virus that can attack the mating bond. At first, it attacked mates and witches, and we thought we’d die. Long story.” She waved her hands as if waving the history away. “Short story? We can use a manufactured strain of that virus to negate the mating bond. We have it narrowed down so the immortal doesn’t lose immortality with the synthetic virus.”
Alexandra backed away, putting her butt against the counter. “I’m not immortal.”
“You will be,” Simone said.
“No. Saying I believe you, which I don’t right now, can you get rid of the immortality as well as the mating bond?” Alexandra asked.
A sharp blade pierced Kell’s gut. “No.”
“Probably,” Simone said, lifting one eyebrow. “You don’t want to be immortal?”
“Why would I?” Alexandra pushed her shoulders back, turning toward Kell. “You said you were an enforcer for the Coven, ah, something.”
Simone slowly smiled. “The Council of the Coven Nine is the ruling body for witches, and our enforcers protect us as well as rid the world of our enemies.”
“You’re on the council?” Alexandra asked.
“Of course,” Simone said softly.
Kellach sighed. “I told you the truth about my being here to take out Apollo.”
“I have work to do.” Without another word, Alexandra turned on her heel and strode toward the door. “Being immortal and all, I’m sure you can drive your bike through a rainstorm, right Kell?” She pulled open the door and stomped across the porch and into the thrashing storm.
Simone chuckled. “You know? I really am starting to like her.”
Chapter 18
Lex walked into the station, her mind buzzing, her hip aching, and her heart thumping. Way too hard. Kell had dropped her off at her apartment, saying they’d talk later. He’d seemed a little preoccupied, and the tension in his jawline had made her neck ache. She hadn’t argued, glad for the reprieve. She had to focus on anything but witches, vampires, and planekite. . . .
So she spent two hours hunched over her computer studying witches, vampires, and planekite, even digging up an old blog by a woman named Sarah Pringle about white-faced scary vampires, one of whom had killed her friend. A national search for the mysterious Sarah found that she’d been institutionalized for a while before escaping, never to be found again.
Maybe that Sarah had been crazy, although Lex’s instincts hummed anyway. What the hell was really going on? Could Kell be a real witch, and if so, what the hell? Or was this some great illusion, and if so, how and why?
She drew out a piece of paper and created two columns.
Bullshit Reality
Witches don’t exist Kellach created fire with his bare hands
Maybe she’d been drugged
Chromosomal pairs couldn’t multiply She hadn’t been drugged
She felt weird. Tingly, breathless, odd
She’d had great sex, which led to tingles
It was more than tingles
Drugs couldn’t incinerate organs Apollo definitely incinerated organs
If there were immortals, she’d know it Says who?
She didn’t like the lists. The more she tried to find the bullshit, the more reality intruded. While maybe she could come up with some sort of explanation as to how Kellach had created fire, what about Simone? There hadn’t been anything up her sleeve—literally.
Lex turned back to the computer and researched everything she could find on both planekite, phenakite, and the Dunnes. Interpol had sent over information on the family, and it was, well, boring. Basically, Interpol either didn’t know shit or wasn’t sharing.