Mojo Queen (19 page)

“So how much competition do I have?” he said as he returned his attention to my neck.

That made me laugh. “None. But don’t think that means I’m desperate or something.”

“How is it possible a woman like you doesn’t have a legion of men fighting for your affections?” His voice held a light, teasing note.

I figured he probably knew the answer. “Not too many guys are into girls who see auras and spectral entities, spend time hanging out in graveyards. I’m a freaky weirdo, Blake.”

Cupping my chin in one hand, he kissed me firmly on the mouth. “It so happens, I totally dig freaky weirdo chicks.”

I had no trouble believing that.

* * * *

I sent Blake out of the room and spent more time running internet searches and writing notes. It earned me a blinding headache and a theory that was way too crazy to be true. It was the only theory I had, though. A knock on the door made me glance at the clock. Lunchtime, no wonder I was hungry again. I closed the laptop, took my notebook with me, and opened the door.

Daniel leaned against the opposite wall. “You feel like eating something? The others are hungry.”

I nodded and stepped into the hallway. He laid his hand on my shoulder in a casual touch that I would not have thought twice about two days ago. Now it made my stomach flop and sent me skittering away from him, almost bouncing into the wall. “So what’s for lunch?” I tried to pretend nothing had happened.

He stood unnaturally still for a long moment. “Sandwiches. I got stuff to make deli sandwiches when I went for groceries last night.”

“Sounds good.” I pushed my glasses up and continued to the kitchen.

The three of us who were sandwich-eating mortals crowded around the tiny kitchen table and dined on deli ham and turkey, tortilla chips and salsa, and iced tea. The blood-sucking vampire stuck to iced tea and hovered in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. I sat with my back to Daniel but I could feel his eyes on me. I ignored the feeling, or tried to, as I worked on drawing Seth into conversation. He seemed to have improved even more, though a few times he blanked out on me. I waited, and after a few moments he picked up right where he left off, each time.

Blake paid close attention but said little. I didn’t know if he was afraid of Seth’s wrath, or his own guilt.

Either way, I needed information from Blake. I wiped my hands on a paper napkin and opened my notebook, crossing my legs and propping the notebook on my knee. “There’s some stuff I need to know about Delia.”

Seth choked on a swallow of tea.

“The more I know about her, the more likely I’ll be able to figure out a way to get rid of her.” I put a hand on top of Seth’s. “You can go watch TV if you want.”

He looked unsure and vaguely nauseas. “Would it be okay if I sat on the front porch instead?”

“Sure.” I gave his hand a squeeze and watched as he left.

Daniel took the empty chair, pulling it as far from the table as possible before sitting.

Blake said, “What else do you want to know?”

“I want to know more about the times you tried to banish her.”

He pursed his lips. “Nothing I tried worked, so why waste our time on that?”

“Humor me.”

He drank the last of his tea. Glancing at Daniel, he said, “Think you could make some more coffee?”

Daniel glared at him. “You want some, Roxie?”

“Please.” My gaze remained on Blake. With obvious reluctance, Daniel rose to make coffee. I tapped the table with my pen for Blake’s attention. “Tell me about the first time.”

Blake sighed. “It was the night after. I met her at a place we would go sometimes and I tried a ritual from an old grimoire. It didn’t work.”

“Any idea why?”

“At the time I thought it was because I was too weak from the night before. It certainly made me even weaker.”

“What did it do to her? Anything?”

He thought for a moment. “I thought it was working. I could feel her.” He paused. “You know what a volt meter is?”

I nodded.

“It’s like that. I have a very fine-tuned ability to sense magical energy, and I can tell how strong it is. Delia is very powerful. When I thought the banishing might be working, it was like when the power flashes on and off during a storm. Maintaining the focus to do the ritual drained me too much, though.”

“So you stopped?”

“Yeah.”

“And she came back online at full power?”

One side of his mouth curled up just a hint. “Yep.”

“Then what? She try to kill you?”

“Uh, no, actually. She left.”

Bingo. “She just left?”

“Yeah, which is pretty weird now that I think about it.”

“What happened the second time?”

“That’s when I tied her up. And we.” He smirked, heat in his dark-chocolate eyes.

“Yeah okay, just stick to the pertinent facts.” I didn’t like the stab of jealousy I felt and did my best to ignore it.

“I tried a different ritual, one more suited for sex magic. That’s my strength, so I thought I should take advantage of my abilities.”

“Makes for a good pickup line, at least.” Daniel sneered from the coffeepot.

“It really does, actually.” Blake stared at me. “Women like a man who isn’t afraid of his own sensuality. Who’s secure with it. Women really like a man who isn’t afraid of
her
sexuality. A man secure enough to let her revel in it.”

The temperature must have dropped suddenly, causing my nipples to harden and the skin on the back of knees to itch. An image of me lying on my stomach, Blake’s tongue on the back of my knee to scratch that itch, snapped into my mind. With great effort I pushed it away and glanced at my notebook, forcing myself to focus. “What do you think made your second attempt crash and burn?”

Blake shook his head. “I don’t know. It seemed to be working. I could feel her power waning. I started feeling sick and it just didn’t work. She ripped the handcuffs out of the bedpost and stood over me. I thought she was going to kill me this time, but she just kind of staggered away. I was on the floor half unconscious.”

Yahtzee. It was beginning to look like my theory might be right. Daniel returned to the table with two cups of coffee, setting one in front of me, keeping the other for himself.

“Where’s mine?” Blake said, incredulous.

A nasty glare was Daniel’s only answer. Blake swore and rose to make his own cup.

“I can see the wheels turning, Roxie.” Daniel tapped the side of his head. “Where you going with this?”

I glanced through my notes, trying to decide if I was ready to talk about my ideas. They might have been crazy, but the whole situation was crazy, even by my standards. Maybe talking it out would help me decide if I was right or wrong. “I’ve got a theory. I think our hellbitch is all kinds of things.”

“She told me she was a demon.” Blake returned to the table. “That her name was Delipitore.”

Jabbing the pen in the air in his direction, I said, “You also told me she lied to you about the ritual. Or at least left out the part about how she’d need to kill the five of you. What makes you think she was telling the truth about anything?”

He froze with his coffee cup in mid-air. “Okay, you have a point.”

“The first time I saw her, the way she manifested, the way she killed those first two kids, it fit with a particular creature. Something from Cherokee mythology called a raven mocker. I really thought that’s what she was.” I took a drink of coffee to steady my nerves. Or give them a goose, as it were. “Then at the hospital she was completely different.”

Daniel leaned back in his chair, a glimmer of understanding dawning on his face. “Smokeless fire and sand.”

“Uh-huh.” Blake looked confused so I gave him the Cliff Notes of my encounter with Delia.

“So what does that mean?” Blake still looked confused.

“Then she sent hellhounds after us, used some hardcore hoodoo against Daniel. That makes for another source.”

“Still not following.”

I ticked off the points with my pen and the fingers of my left hand. “Christian-based demonology. Native American mythology. Believe it or not Middle Tennessee has the largest population of Kurds outside of Kurdistan, which will bring in Islam and maybe some other stuff, too. And, of course, the African-American folk magic I was taught. She’s not a demon, Blake. I think a better word would be entity.”

Blake stood, took a few uncertain steps. One hand covered his mouth.

I continued. “I think she chose you for a reason. I think somehow she’s made up of local energy.” I shook my head, unsatisfied with how I was explaining my theory. “I think she’s been able to draw from all these disparate sources. That’s why she can do so many different things, why she’s so strong. Why she can’t be banished with a fill-in-the-blank exorcism.” My heart thudded. As I stated my theory out loud, the more I became convinced I was right, but I wasn’t finished.

“These magical waters have fed her.” Okay, that analogy may have sounded better in my notebook. “She’s connected to the source of her power. But instead of it being a belief system…”

“It’s a place,” Blake finished for me. He gripped the back of his chair, staring at me. “Places can soak up energy.”

I nodded. “It’s one way to get a haunted house.”

“Does this mean if we get him and Seth far enough away, she can’t get to them?” Daniel asked. “Is this connection strong enough to keep her physically in one area?”

“Maybe, but…” I stopped. Blake’s head was cocked to one side, as if listening, as if his internal volt meter was registering something.

The front door opened. Slow footsteps made their way to the kitchen. Seth looked stricken. Standing in the doorway, hands shoved in his pockets, rocking lightly from side to side, he kept his eyes on the floor. “I don’t want to die,” he whispered, so low I had to strain to hear him. “She said I didn’t have to die like my friends.”

“Oh, Seth.” I rose, the pounding of my heart turning into a runaway train.

More footsteps. Delia’s small hand curled around Seth’s arm. She swung around him, blond hair flashing. “Don’t be angry with the boy,” she said, her voice kind for a change. “It’s amazing what lengths people will go to just to stay alive.”

“Don’t hurt these people.” The raw fear evident in Blake shocked me as much as Delia’s sudden appearance.

“I’m not here for them, lover.” The nasty little purr in her voice made me want to hit something. “I’m here for you.”

Delia stepped in front of Seth. Her black aura erupted in flames. Seth fell to the hallway floor. Daniel jumped back, flattening himself against the fridge. I went in the opposite direction, hopping up onto the countertop. Blake stood his ground. Delia walked steadily toward him, right through the table. She wrapped her arms around Blake, engulfing him in fire. Then they were gone, quick as a snap of fingers.

There wasn’t so much as a scorch mark left behind.

I gripped the edge of the counter, unable to move.

“That was abrupt,” Daniel said.

I glared at him as I recovered and slid to the floor. Seth got to his feet and entered the kitchen. He looked terrible, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. Like he was haunted by nightmares of his dead friends and perhaps even his own role in their deaths. Because, let’s face it, it didn’t take me long to figure out who the straight-A student was in Blake the Mentoring Sorcerer’s School of the Damned. The thing is, I had officially had enough of this shit and didn’t much care how Seth felt.

I grabbed Seth by the collar and shoved him against the wall. “Where did she take him?”

Seth screamed. “I don’t know! She said she wouldn’t kill me. She promised me I’d be safe.” He hugged himself, looking everywhere but at me. “I don’t care where she took him.”

Daniel came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, trying to drag me away from the kid. I whirled around and nearly decked him, remembering at the last second hitting a vampire would be like punching marble. Instead I ducked out from under his grasp.

Putting my index finger in his face, I said, “Don’t you start.”

I turned back to Seth. “How did you contact her? Do you have some kind of psychic link or something?”

He wouldn’t answer. He stared at the floor, rubbing his arms.

“Roxie, let me help.” Daniel stepped up. I moved out of his way. His control over his vampire nature was so tenuous at the moment he didn’t even have to touch Seth this time. I could see the electricity in his eyes as he focused on Seth, working his mojo. In seconds the kid gave a sickly moan and reached into his pocket, pulling out a cellphone.

Rolling my eyes, I took it and flipped it open. “Well, lookit that. Even got her on speed dial.”

Daniel still had Seth in thrall, lips twitching over his fangs.

“Bubba.”

Daniel took a breath. “Yeah.”

“Send him to your room or the bathroom, make him stay.”

He complied. Seth shambled to the back of the cabin, zombie-like.

Daniel relaxed. “I’ll be honest with you, Roxie. I don’t hold out much hope of finding them before she kills him.”

“She’s not going to kill him. She can’t.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”

“I was about to get to that part of my theory when she so rudely interrupted. The magical energy of her spiritual birthplace or whatever the hell you want to call it isn’t the only thing she’s connected to.” I grabbed my notebook and headed for my room, Daniel following.

“What you were getting at earlier. She’s an entity of chaos. That’s the connection, it’s Blake. She picked him because she thought they were alike.”

I started a quick inventory of my messenger bag. “My big theory’s a little vague on the specifics there, but I’m pretty confident of their connection.”

“So that’s what made him weak when he tried to banish her? You think it would have killed them both?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe it weakened both of them, and yeah, if he’d been successful it might have killed him too. But I think the rituals he was using were too narrow to work. I’m gonna have to get creative here.” I needed supplies from home and my office, and I wanted to take another look at both Blake’s journals and his lab. “And I need to break the connection.”