The Witch's Dream - A Love Letter to Paranormal Romance (Black Swan 2) (25 page)

He carried the book to the kitchen, sat at the table, and started to read. When his stomach growled because he hadn't eaten since early that morning, he had some of the bread and fruit he'd gotten for Litha, while he continued reading. Eventually he lay down on the sofa close to the door, but didn't stop reading. On some level he felt like he was maintaining a connection, a lifeline.

Just before midnight he came to the entry she'd written the day he arrived in Edinburgh and saw it retold through her eyes.

I was walking across the mezzanine bridge when I heard someone whisper that the famous B Team of Jefferson Unit, a.k.a. Bad Company, had arrived. I looked down into the foyer and thought perhaps my heart had stopped. No matter how foolish it sounds, how foolish I feel for feeling it, I cannot help but admit that I have fallen in love with a beautiful, dark knight who never even noticed me.

This is a lesson in the pitfalls of skepticism. Cufay always said I ridicule other people's experience of the world at my own peril. I have taken pride in condemning such fanciful notions as myth or even psychosis. A very fine joke on me.

The second entry recorded the encounter in his dream.

I became aware that I was nightwalking when I found myself standing at the foot of his bed witnessing the most erotic sight any woman could ever have fantasized. He called me into his dream, but did not know how to keep me there and it ended, I believe, before he intended. That was a shame because the pleasure was exquisite, far exceeding any sexual encounter I have ever experienced in waking reality.

The third entry said:

Tonight there was an incident. I cannot commit all the details to writing partly because it was disturbing and partly because it could be dangerous to do so.

I was included in a social outing with some of his friends. The knight in question was intent upon making a point that he was neither interested nor available to me while actively pursuing the attentions of every other unattached female in the establishment. Even though I suspected he was staging a show for my benefit, it was painful to watch him touching other women. I think what I felt was an acute case of jealousy. It was awful. I should hate him for it. And I wish I did.

The fourth entry contained a reference to him.

I felt him call to me in my dream, but I refused to go. It seems I have chosen poorly indeed. I love a man who does not know his own mind. Worse, he harbors prejudice toward witches of all things and has three times demonstrated a proclivity toward meanness. A happy outcome seems unlikely.

Storm’s chest felt like it was held in a vice grip. Reading what he had meant to Litha, the good and the bad, made the vice tighten painfully. Absently he rubbed the fabric of the white nightgown between his fingers while he read as if he thought that could soothe the emotional battery he had delivered. For no good reason.

There was only one more notation after that.

I am tracking a missing person who is missing from this dimension. It feels like the most important task I have ever undertaken because my knight’s happiness is dependent on the outcome. I am in over my head and have more questions than answers, but there is no one else. I must try to find a way.

Among the many things that could be gleaned from reading Litha’s diary, it was clear she was innocent of using magicks on him or against him. Coincidences were just coincidences whether the almighty Storm believed in them or not. Feelings were simply feelings and he needed to start owning up to his instead of looking for somebody to blame. Her only crime had been picking somebody seriously fucked up to love.

The journal was still in his hand when he woke. He stopped and got breakfast on the way to his post at the wall where he would spend another day waiting for some sign of a green eyed witch who had literally slipped through his fingers. He took the journal and reread it with his back against the wall. Literally.

***

CHAPTER 14

One minute Litha was feeling Storm's body press against hers while she was preparing for a kiss that would last her a lifetime, if that’s all she ever got. The next she was in the ”no place” that separates realities, a state of being without geography, a grayness where nothing is solid, where direction isn't concrete and therefore doesn't exist. It took her mind a few seconds to adjust to the shock, but she had been trained to keep her wits about her even when circumstances defied conventional reference points.

She decided the most logical course of action would be to begin by asking for what she wanted. She took the housing off her pendulum and without removing it from her neck, said simply, "Katrina."

A whirring, rushing sensation filled her ears even though she felt no movement of air. Suddenly she landed unceremoniously on her rear end on the sand floor of a limestone room with torches on the walls and randomly placed dark puddles of some viscous substance that was on fire. Fortunately the sand had absorbed the sound of her entry. She quickly took in the scene.

Katrina sat in a cane and rope chair staring straight ahead. She was not looking worse for wear physically, but she did look scared and disoriented. And her wrists were bound. When she saw Litha, she opened her mouth to say something, but the witch put a finger to her lips and then turned to assess the figure, whom she assumed must be the incubus in question, who now had his back to her. As Aelsong had correctly related, his hair was black as night and hanging to his waist. He was shirtless, wearing loose, dark colored pants that draped his form like fine, soft suede.

Litha got to her feet as quietly as she could and had risen to her full height before the demon turned and saw her standing there. It would be a gross understatement to say that he was shocked. In nearly a thousand years no one had ever found their way into his private lair. Without entertaining whether there might be merit in asking questions first, he gathered an impressive fireball into his perfectly formed hand, drew back and launched it at the intruder.

The fireball was aimed right at Litha's torso. Out of pure reflex, she raised both hands and caught it in front of her midsection using exactly the same movements one would use to catch a basketball. For a moment she held still, staring, then, as if she knew what to do instinctively, she clapped her hands together. First the fire was extinguished then it vanished as if it had never been.

Lowering her hands to her sides, she calmly raised her eyes to the demon, and waited passively to see what he would do next. There was a part of her mind that was questioning her bravado, saying it would be more appropriate for her to be, at least, judiciously afraid. And yet she was not.

In fact it was the demon who was afraid. Just as he had released the missile, he was struck by the fact that the creature standing before him was the very image of Rosie Pottinger. He was mortified that he might have acted rashly and hurt her. Oh, how he cursed himself and wished, a millisecond too late, that he could recall the flame to his hand. But whether he deserved it or not, the gods had been merciful. He was granted a reprieve from punishment for acting without thinking. Miraculously, the fire had caused no harm. And so it happened that Deliverance found himself staring into the eyes of the witch he loved, dark green as the lava pools of Ovelgoth Alla.

"Rosie?" he whispered.

"No. My name is Litha. And you are?" she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

The demon cocked his head to the side as if he could study her better from that angle. Her manner was decidedly more assertive than Rosie's, but she spoke with Rosie's voice. Just as he was about to ask, “What are you?”, he saw that her hair was not brown like Rosie’s. It was black. Like his. Her lips were red like Rosie's. So much so that the reminder made his heart hurt to look at her, but the creature’s skin was also not so fair as Rosie’s. It was tinted with fire. Like his. He did not then suspect, but
knew
that this woman who had arrived in his lair, this woman who was not susceptible to fire, was the baby he had forgotten about once he knew that Rosie was beyond his reach. She may not have been invited to the demon’s private lair, but she was oh so welcome.

As she was being studied, Litha was likewise assessing a male who was every bit as remarkably formed as incubus demons are purported to be. When the stunning creature before her began to smile, his appeal increased exponentially and just seconds before, she would have thought that impossible. Her previous conceptions about ideals of beauty were being revised minute to minute.

"Deliverance." He gave the impression of enjoying his own name and said it with a little bow. "In these days of fashionable informality people usually call me Del, but I think you should call me..." He smiled even broader. "...Dad."

Litha didn't react to that visibly. She was calculating whether to proceed as if he was insane or allow him to make the case for his claim of paternity. She decided there was enough of a chance to allow a little exploration into the possibility.

As surprising as it might be, even to her, she took this information in stride. After all, she knew she had been fathered by someone. She also knew she had abilities that were unusual and, in light of the disturbing firestarting incident, growing more unusual lately. Truthfully, being fathered by a demon could explain a lot.

"You believe you're my father."

"No doubt," he said.

"Do you have any proof?"

"Well, first, there's the fact that you're standing here." He swiveled from the waist and gestured around him. "In my lair. How many witches do you imagine have ever managed that?"

"Three?"

He shook his gorgeous mane of hair and smiled indulgently. "That would be one."

"Okay. What else?"

"Daughter, except for the fact that you grow
my
hair and wear
my
skin, you are the image of your very comely mum." He turned away and then back again. "Whom I loved, by the way."

Litha frowned. "An incubus demon in love?"

He shrugged. "Happens."

"Not that I've heard about."

He waved his hand and the fires burned lower. "Not often, I grant you. But she was very special. Sweet, delicious Rosie." The last three words were said in a lowered voice, almost to himself. "Your family has been passing demon blood for generations. None of them had as much as you of course, but enough to make babies."

"The Pendle Hill witches."

"Indeed. You're powerful -
and
quick - for a halfwitch.”

"Please don't call me that. It sounds way too much like halfwit."

He tilted his chin up and scrutinized her until she began to feel uncomfortable. “I can see I made a mistake missing out on your childhood, but I just turned the fire down because you look a little warm."

“Well. That should make up for it.” He said nothing. “How did I get here?"

"You don't know?"

"No."

"Were you looking for me?"

"Of course not."

"Were you looking for her?" He glanced in Katrina's direction.

"Yes."

"Well, there you go. And, now that you're here. What can I do for you?"

"Let the woman go."

"What is it to you?"

"My job."

"What is it to you?" As if someone pressed replay, he asked it again in the exact same way without missing a beat. Litha didn't respond. "If you will not tell the truth, we have nothing else to discuss."

"She is someone's love."
"I'm aware. How does that involve you?"

"It's important to the one I love."

"Ah. And how badly do you want this?" She didn't answer. "You're not going to cry, are you?"
Litha was insulted. "No. I'm not going to cry. I don't cry. I stopped crying when I stopped getting skinned knees."

"Hmmm. It's just as well I missed the young times then. I don't like crying."

"What's your proposition?"
He smiled. "That's my girl. What I have in mind is a win, win. If you agree to stay with me, I will return the woman. Then I will tell you what you need to know about your demon side, about manipulating fire, about your heritage, about riding the passes."

"Riding the passes?"

"It's how you came here from the Loti Dimension." She looked puzzled so he clarified. "The dimension the Terr... humans think of as the
only
reality." He rolled his eyes as if to say, 'How stupid can they be?'

"For how long?"

"How long have humans been clueless? Since they were single cell organisms that crawled from the muck. Although that's secondhand information. I'm not
quite
that old."

"No. How. Long. Me. Stay. With. You?” She made hand signals like she was trying to communicate with someone who spoke a different language.