Blood Trinity (Belador #1)(101)
“What?” Nicole asked.
“That’s another conversation. What’s up?”
“You’re in a lot of trouble.”
“I don’t need a witch with psychic ability to tell me that. I could have used my Magic Eight Ball.”
“You need someone to clue you in on how bad it is.” Nicole lifted her hands and murmured words, then the room fell dark as night. “Get out of that gear and start catching me up on the details while I fix our tea.”
Nicole produced several colorful twirling toys that floated across the room. Feenix took up the chase, flying after them through the eleven-hundred-square-foot apartment while Evalle gave her the rundown. Tzader and Quinn had warned Evalle about discussing Belador or VIPER business with anyone outside the tribe and agency respectively, but Nicole knew both groups existed and, at times, details that surprised Evalle.
She’d met Nicole while patrolling Avondale for Southend warlocks her first week in Atlanta. Warlocks were male witches who walked on the dark side of life, and the trio terrorizing Avondale had been especially dangerous.
When Evalle had found the three supernatural goons, she’d thought Nicole was a lone wheelchair-bound woman in danger of being hurt. But Nicole had intentionally drawn the boys into a dead-end driveway at the rear of a shopping center after midnight. She’d revealed herself as a witch, then used her rare gift to show them what their future held where they would end up enslaved to a more powerful warlock with twisted sexual cravings.
Nicole had done more in sixty seconds than anyone had accomplished with the three boys in their entire lives. She’d given them a choice of going to a halfway coven house for rehabilitation or facing worse judgment by their peers for crimes committed against humans.
They’d made the smart choice.
When Nicole realized Evalle had witnessed the exchange, she’d warded Evalle against being seen by the warlocks when they’d walked away from the alley, protecting her from any repercussion down the road in case the rehab didn’t work.
Evalle had never had a stranger act so selflessly on her behalf except for Tzader and Quinn.
Nicole was a rare witch, not because she was psychic.
Psi ability wasn’t uncommon in witches, but Nicole could speak to spirits from the future and sometimes give that future a corporeal form. That might sound like a handy ability to have, except that opening up a channel for a spirit from the future also opened a pathway for that spirit to travel to the present day. With no way of knowing if the spirit was evil or not, Nicole risked being attacked or unleashing the spirit on someone she cared about.
And when Nicole’s spirit traveled forward to search for answers, she risked being trapped in the pathway, which would leave her body an empty host.
But right now she was seated on a cozy chair in autumn colors across from where Evalle perched on a sofa. Nicole put her tea down on the glass end table at her left and clasped her hands in her lap while Evalle gave her a rundown on what had happened so far.
Nicole sighed quietly. “That explains some of my visions. You know of the ancient tribe who hunts the Ngak Stone, of the male being who is helping that tribe and about the human female whose life dangles in the midst of it all because she found the stone. But do you know why the female will not give up the stone?”
“She thinks it’s like a genie’s lamp that will grant her wishes?”
“That would have been my first guess, but when I asked the spirits for help all I got was that her world is a blur of fear.”
“Fear of what? Is someone hurting her?”
Nicole frowned with deep thought. “Not yet. I think the blurry part is important, but I don’t know what it means. Do you know anything about this woman?”
“I saw her.”
“Really? Did you talk to her?”
“No, I was too busy fighting off the guy helping the Kujoo.” Evalle rubbed her forehead, pushing back the ache from lack of sleep. “All I know is she’s clueless about all this.”
“What about the blurry part?” Nicole pressed.
Evalle ran back through last night in her mind until she hit on how the woman had been out in the dark with no flashlight and had felt with her hands at one point for her dog. But her eyes had been sharp and clear when she’d held the stone. “She might be blind.”
“Ah, I hadn’t considered that, since the woman was seeing something. It’s wrong to assume blind means no vision at all. Fear of a blurry world would make sense. You think the rock is allowing her to see?”
“Maybe.” Evalle sat up. “Do you know where she is?”
“No. Someone is blocking her face or shielding her.”
Crap. “Could be the Kujoo Vyan. I think he’s protective of her. If she is blind, she’s got to be terrified, between losing her eyesight and witnessing all that she saw in the park last night.”
“Hers was not the only fear I sensed. What is yours?”
The abrupt question caught Evalle off guard. “Nothing.”
Nicole’s pretty face stilled with disappointment at the lie.
Evalle sighed. “That’s not true, but I don’t want you searching my future.”
“If you fear something that’s coming, I can help.”
“My future has always been a crapshoot, but the dice are stacked against me right now. If you go looking into my future you could run into anything and not make it back.” Evalle considered what Nicole could do. “I need to know if I’m making the right decision on something. I have to find the Ngak Stone before another Alterant gets his hands on it.”