Tethered 02 - Conjure (4 page)

My eyes zeroed in on the tear in my scenery, the wrinkle in the landscape of my view. It grew closer until it reached my Jeep. There it paused and I watched, mystified, while the green paint of my Jeep turned into a moving liquid as the thing continued to ripple and wave like flowing water before my eyes. Without warning, Theo appeared out of thin air. I jumped backward, startled by his magick trick.

“What the hell was that?” I muttered, holding my hand up to my heart. “What are you doing?”

A wicked smile twisted Theo’s full lips. “A glamour, and I was waiting until I could get you alone,” he said in that seductively smooth voice of his, and for the first time, I noticed a slight bit of Southern accent held within it.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Well, we’re alone now. What do you want?”

“Can we talk about it inside?” he asked as he sauntered up my front steps and headed past me inside the house.

My eyebrows rose to meet my hairline and I pursed my lips together. “Sure. Come on in.”

Theo stopped in the foyer and glanced around as though he were taking in every inch of his surroundings. “Have you told anyone?”

“Told anyone what?” I asked as I closed the front door.

“About the tether.”

“I don’t even know what it is, let alone how to explain it,” I scoffed.

This little sense of truth made me feel better about my decision to not tell Kace anything about it. I didn’t want to seem crazier than I already had while I’d been seeing that red creature and he hadn’t. It was funny how, in the beginning, I’d thought he was the crazy one and now, here I was paranoid he thought the same about me.

Theo’s caramel-colored eyes shifted to meet mine. “Good, don’t.”

A warmth that now pulsated through me from Theo’s closeness did not go unnoticed by me, and I wondered if he felt it too. Were we drawn together the same way Kace and I were? His Air to my Fire?

“I had to tell them some stuff though. Kace was waiting for me when I got home last night,” I admitted. The glare that entered Theo’s eyes made me feel as though I’d done something wrong by doing so.

“What did you say to him? Did you mention how the Boo Hag burned?” A muscle in his jaw twitched as his stare became more intense.

Boo Hag?
The creature had a name. “What the hell is a Boo Hag? And yes, I did.”

Theo’s eyes swirled with darkness. He licked his lips as his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. “You shouldn’t have done that. Now they’ll go digging to try and figure out how it happened. We’re going to have to come up with an answer that will satisfy their questions.”

“Okay, but you didn’t answer my question. What the hell is a Boo Hag? Also, why did your Hoodoo family send it after me?” I asked in a sterner voice than I ever imagined myself using with him. My pulse jump-started again in my chest because of it.

Theo was not the type you got rude with. There was an aura of danger that lurked around him, letting you know upon just looking at him that he was not someone to mess with.

He crossed his sculpted arms over his chest and glowered at me. “We’re called Conjurers actually, not Hoodoo people, Hoodooers, or Hoodoo family. Hoodoo is a group of magickal practices, not our title. And second, to answer your question, a Boo Hag is a creature we conjure to do one of two things for us. One, to scare someone into leaving an area. It’s more severe than a Hotfoot spell for instance, more drastic. Or two, to actually harm someone we need gone.” His eyes glimmered as he paused, letting his words sink in. “As for the type that came after you…it was only intended to get you to leave, not harm you.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? That
thing
sat on my chest and started sucking the life right out of me!” I shouted, flailing my hands around wildly to better get my point across.

“Precisely what it was supposed to do.” His lips curved into the hint of a smile. It disappeared before he opened his mouth to speak again. “Now you need to figure out a way to mention offhandedly in the next conversation you have with the others that you think the Boo Hag may have had a time limit of some sort on it.”

“A time limit, is that true? Is that why it burned?” I wondered out loud.

“Was there a time limit on that particular Boo Hag? Yes. Is that how this one burned? No. I already told you—no root magick against one another.”

“Right, and that’s how you do magick then, by using roots?”

Theo’s eyes hardened and I got the impression that from my tone he thought I was making fun of him, which was not the case.

“That’s right,” he said simply.

An image of the dark roots he’d held in his hands last night flashed through my mind, mixing with other images I’d gathered over the years regarding Hoodoo/Voodoo stuff. How did they make magick with those dirty, oddly shaped sticks from the ground?

“Can you break the tether with your root magick? Do you even know what a tether is?” I shifted on my feet and glanced away, wanting to look anywhere besides where I was…under Theo’s penetrating gaze.

“I’ve heard of a tether before, yes. Can I break it?” He paused and gripped the edge of the banister with his left hand. “I’m not sure.”

My stomach dropped to my toes. That was not the answer I’d been expecting.

“Okay, so enlighten me. Tell me what you already know at least,” I insisted. The need to know something, anything, regarding the tether burned a hole in my stomach.

Theo released his death grip on the banister and moved to sit at the bottom of the steps. He rested his elbows against his knees and glared at me with his haunting eyes and devious smile, a smile that seemed oddly out of place on his face and for this moment. “A tether is something used to tie two people together. Sometimes one can be used to amplify powers or someone’s magick, whether for personal gain or protection.” His large hands came together in front of his face, his fingertips pressed to his lips as though he were lost in thought.

I waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, I finally spoke. “And? That can’t be all you know about them.”

He stiffened at my words. “I need to know more about why your mother created the spell in order to understand how to break it.”

His words came out in a near snarl, as though he didn’t enjoy having to admit, in a roundabout way, that he didn’t know the answer to something. I felt my lips twist into a tiny, amused smile at this thought, not the situation.

“Well, your guess is as good as mine,” I said, trying desperately to hide my smirk from his view.

This wasn’t funny. I should find no humor in this situation at all, but for some reason I did. Maybe I’d finally hit my snapping point.

I could feel Theo’s eyes when they locked on me and my smirk. They were warm and left a trail along the skin of my left cheek.

“Of course,” he said smugly.

I shifted my gaze to him, meeting his stare. Theo was good-looking in a way that most women would find completely consuming. He was tall, dark, and completely ripped with incredible eyes. There was this intense mysterious air that surrounded him, infused with a sense of danger. It was intriguing even to me, but there was something about the way he spoke to me, almost as though I were beneath him somehow, that set me off.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.

His hands fell from his face to dangle in the air as his elbows shifted back to rest against his knees. “I understand why you don’t know much about the spell… You virtually know nothing about your biological family, your heritage.”

I wanted to come back with something witty, to say something that would be considered a jab at him, because that’s what I felt like his words had been…a jab at my being adopted. But I didn’t, because my being adopted was now public knowledge here, and there was no point in rehashing the hows or the whys. That and I damn sure didn’t want his sympathy, should I say something that would gain it.

His statement had been bold, but I was learning quickly that was just Theo.

“Right.” I nodded, ignoring everything in me that wanted to snippily respond back. “So, how do we find out more information about that?”

“We conjure up the past…”

My knees suddenly grew weak. “You’re talking about using Hoodoo, right?”

He nodded.

“Me and you? Together?” I asked, still needing more clarification.

“That would be correct,” he said smoothly.

How was this my life right now? How had I gone from spending the summer in a gorgeous beach house—trying to escape a bad break-up while I figured out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life—to this world that involved magick and Hoodoo? It was all too much.

“Can’t I just leave? Won’t that break it?” I asked. My fears and worries lulled the words from my mouth.

I was drowning more and more with every breath of this poisoned-by-magick air that I breathed in Soul Harbor.

Theo shook his head. “It’s not that simple. You won’t be able to leave now. As long as I’m here…so are you.”

“Oh.” My voice sounded small and strangled. Tethered, right, more like trapped. “So, when do we do this?”

“I’ll have to do some research and gather the right ingredients we’ll need, so give me some time.” He stood, ready to leave. “I’ll be back when I have something for us to use. Until then, keep the tether to yourself. If we can break it before anyone finds out about it, then it’s better for both of us.”

A shiver crept along my spine at his words. “Why?”

He flashed me a lingering, smoldering look that singed through me entirely. “Because my family wants you gone before your little group is initiated. If they find out we’re tethered…who knows what they might do to you. There’s only one sure way I know for a tether to be broken, and I’m positive you don’t want that.”

He didn’t have to say what he was referring to; I knew exactly what he meant—death.

“Why did you save me and why are you helping me now?” I asked without even realizing the pathetic-sounding words were going to spew from my lips.

A sudden need to understand him and his motives for doing what he’d done shredded my mind. It seemed like if he’d have let me fall, then his family’s problems would have been solved. I wouldn’t be here to initiate the group, and his family would still have everyone under their belt, so to speak.

Theo paused at my front door. He fished something out of his front pocket, but I couldn’t see what. “Because you remind me of someone.”

Without giving me a moment to respond, Theo disappeared, returning to the rippled, wavelike form he’d first approached me in. Then, my front door opened, but never closed, and I knew that he was gone.