This Wicked Magic (21 page)

Vika stood, a clasp of silvery seathorn in hand, and smiled softly at him.

That unexpected smile warmed his heart. It had been a day since he’d seen her. It felt like forever.

“Viktorie,” he said, failing at every kind of sweet and meaningful hello he could summon. He kept the miniroses tucked behind his back. “You’re a bright flower among the rest.”

She tilted her head and crossed her arms over her chest. Not about to make this easy, despite the lingering smile. But the seathorn nettles could sting his skin with a simple brush. He imagined she could do the same if he spoke incorrectly.

“I’ve come to apologize. It was awful of me to say those things to you after you had exorcised another demon at the risk to your life. I appreciate what you did for me. I’m sorry.”

Her smile grew as she accepted the apology with a nod. “I’m sorry for being deceptive. That wasn’t me yesterday. And yet, it was.”

“You had to do it on the sly. I wouldn’t have allowed it if I had known.”

“Still, I should have discussed it with you. From now on, no more hiding truths. I promise and vow upon my grandmother’s memory.” She touched the nail at her throat.

“Me, too. Concealing truth is as bad as a lie.”

“If that is so, then what do you have behind your back?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged. “Ah, hell.” He held forth the pitiful offering. “I picked them up in the supermarket on the way here. They are weeds compared with your gorgeous garden. Just thought they’d look pretty in your hair.”

She accepted the flowers and brought them to her nose. Eyes closed and mouth slightly open, she drew in their fragrance, as artificial as it may be. Drawing her nail down the stems, she snapped off the head of one yellow rose and handed it to him.

CJ pressed the stem into the silken depths of her hair. “Another,” he said. She handed him another rose, and he placed it next to the other until all had been crowded into the tightly combed braid. He took out one and crushed it between his forefingers, then rubbed the oil behind her ear and dared to trace it between her breasts. “I anoint you Diva of the Dahlias, and Grand High Priestess of My Heart.”

“I accept your offering, dark one, and promise I will not again use deception to chase out your demons.” Then she cracked a smile and kissed him. “I missed you.”

“I thought you’d hate me.”

“I wasn’t pleased with your reaction, but I can put myself in your position and understand. But one less demon is better than not.”

“For sure. I’m not finished apologizing yet. I need to give you my truth. It can’t be right between us until I do that.”

“What truth?”

“Let’s sit.” He gestured to the bench beneath the stone grotto near a koi pond that wept thick vines frilled with gold and tangerine honeysuckle.

She joined him on the bench and slid her hand into his, which was a good sign. Their combined magics hummed through his veins as if a natural reaction. But now the tough part. The necessary evil.

“Must be dark indeed if you’re so worried about it,” she offered. “I don’t think there’s much more you can say or show me that can be worse than harboring an infestation of demons.”

Yeah? This truth was going to blow that out of the water.

CJ took Vika’s hands in his, so elegant and graceful. She could master all magics with these delicate fingers. Just as he opened his mouth, they heard a scream from inside the house.

“Libby?” Vika dashed down the garden path, her long skirts held near her thighs.

“Saved by the scream,” CJ muttered, and followed her inside.

He’d been close to confession, and now that he’d been granted reprieve, the relief felt immense. Maybe he hadn’t been so ready to reveal his selfish deed after all.

They found Libby kneeling on the gleaming black-and-white-tiled kitchen floor, bent over a sprawled man in dark clothing.

“The soul bringer?” CJ wandered around the man’s long body. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t think so,” Libby said frantically. “He suddenly appeared!”

“He’s not breathing,” Vika noted.

“He never breathes. He doesn’t need to. He’s angelic by origin. Oh, Vika, I was pouring myself a glass of orange juice, and—bam! What do you think happened?”

“Crash landing?” Vika tried. “He isn’t due to scrub me for days.”

“Shake him awake,” CJ directed.

All of a sudden, a flurry of brightness wafted up from the soul bringer’s chest. The corpse lights danced as if dandelion kites on the breeze.

“Souls,” CJ said in wonder.

“Yes.” Vika stood over the soul bringer. “I don’t know why they’re coming out of him, but I’ve got to catch them. Save them for him.”

She held out her arms and lifted her chest to receive the fluttery souls. A few wobbled toward her.

“Vika?” CJ tried. He shouldn’t, but—there were so many. And how many times would they be granted such opportunity?

“Oh, yes! Xum!” She swept her hand toward him and blasted him with air magic, catching a corpse light in the path.

The force of impact slammed CJ against the wall. He cried out as the brightness moved through him and he felt a demon exit his soul. Chaos, surely. “Another?” she said, and again sent a soul through him.

“Vika, I’m not sure,” Libby started. “Reichardt could be in pain. He won’t come to!”

Vika blasted CJ with two more souls. Protection and another demon were sucked to Daemonia. He grasped for hold against the wall but slipped down, landing on the floor, and his head wobbled forward. “No more,” he muttered. “Enough.” Heaving, he panted at the exertion the exorcism had required.

“Now, to make sure I don’t lose any of them.” Vika moved about the kitchen, pursuing the phosphorescent lights, both the ones straight from Reichardt and those she’d moved through CJ.

Libby pulled up one of Reichardt’s eyelids. “He’s in there. I don’t think he’s dead. This is so weird.”

“I think I have them all,” Vika declared.

CJ observed, because he could not move, so taxed were his muscles. Vika’s skirts swept over his boot-tips, and a trail of tiny yellow roses scattered in her wake as she went to kneel by her sister.

“Let’s get the poor guy off the floor. Carry him into the living room and lay him on the couch. CJ?”

“I’ll be right there.” He pushed to stand but fell forward onto his palms. The muscles in his arms trembled as if he’d been lifting weights for hours. Damn, that had taken a lot out of him. “Give me a minute.”

“We can do this. Libby, take his feet. I’ve got his shoulders.” Together they recited, “Atollo” for
lift,
and the prone man’s body was made lighter.

The sisters carried the soul bringer through the swinging kitchen doors, while CJ pulled himself up by the counter. A smile overtook him. He’d lost another three demons. Unfortunately, one had been Protection. Despite whatever had happened to the soul bringer, it had been remarkable timing. Still didn’t excuse him from telling Vika his secret.

“When I’m more able,” he whispered. Whew! Felt as though he’d run a marathon. Staggering through the swinging doors, he wandered into the living room, where the women had arranged the motionless soul bringer on the couch.

Libby was frantic. “Maybe he hit his head? He could be in a coma!”

“He’s not bleeding.”

“Do soul bringer’s bleed?”

They both looked to CJ, but all he could do was shrug. “I don’t know. Don’t angels have blue blood? But he’s not really angel now, he’s more...I don’t know.” He steadied himself against the wall from a wave of dizziness. “Whew! That exorcism took a lot out of me. I need to lie down. Vika, can we talk later?”

“Of course, you were going to tell me something. You feel all right?”

“Weak but elated.” He kissed her. “Thank you for having the mind to think of me just now. Three more gone.”

“Glad to do it. Yes, you go home and rest. I’m going to help Libby figure out what’s up with Reichardt. Can I come over later?”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I hope not. Get some rest, because I’ll have plans for you when I get there.”

“That’s my wicked witch.”

* * *

On the way home, CJ got a text from his brother, Thoroughly. When he arrived at home, TJ stood by his door, arms crossed and hair pulled away from his face with a leather strap that queued down his back. His twin and he were identical, though TJ was more stylish and tended toward extroversion. But adventure was all CJ’s mien.

“You don’t look so good, brother,” TJ said as they entered the loft.

“Just had a bunch of demons blasted out of me. Takes a lot out of a guy.”

“You found someone to exorcise the demons?” TJ slapped him on the back. “Good going!”

Beelining for the kitchen, CJ poured himself a glass of water from the tap and drank the whole thing before asking his brother why he was there.

“I had a visit from Ian Grim.”

CJ set the glass down hard. “Why would that bastard go to you?”

“Apparently, he doesn’t know your new address. You’ve warded the hell out of this place. A Russian spy satellite couldn’t find it.”

CJ glanced to the bone whistle lying on the counter, shielded from his brother’s eyes. Spy satellites, indeed. And thinking of Russians... He’d hated leaving Vika so quickly, and with the problem of the soul bringer, but she and her sister could manage it.

“So you decided to come over here and show Grim the way?”

“I’m not stupid,” TJ said. “I cloaked my steps. But you, brother, have some explaining to do. Seems Grim is upset over something you took from Daemonia. Something he wants.”

Pacing beneath the glitter of chandeliers, CJ winced. He hadn’t opportunity to tell Vika, so the universe was forcing it out of him now, one way or another. He splayed out his hands. “I couldn’t let Grim get it. You know we’ve been rivals for ages.”

“So this is some sort of power play? What did you take, CJ? And is it going to threaten the world as we know it?”

CJ shrugged. “A small portion of it, I’m sure. But I’d never use the thing. I wanted it out of Grim’s hands. You know.”

“To show up Grim. Hell, Certainly Amadeus Jones, you can never seem to get beyond the selfish streak forged like tarnished brass through your blood. What is it?”

With a sigh, CJ shoved his hands in his pockets and confessed, “The call to the Nacht März.”

Thoroughly’s expression dropped to a cold gape of awe, and the witch invoked a deity he did not subscribe to. “God help us.”

Chapter 17

V
ika handed Libby a cup of chamomile tea, which was steeped with fennel the way she preferred it. Her sister sipped yet held her vigil positioned on the couch arm, above Reichardt’s thick crop of midnight hair. She stroked her fingers down his cheek and over his goateed chin.

Nothing wrong with unrequited love, Vika figured. As long as Libby didn’t abandon all hope for other men. Real men whose hearts beat and were not made of glass. Men who could return her love with open arms and kisses.

She sighed, and Libby followed suit with a bigger sigh.

“He’s going to be okay,” Libby said, though her tone belied such belief. “Do we still have the compendium of the paranormal breeds?”

“Possibly. You want me to find it? Yes, I will. It’ll give you something to do while you’re sitting shiva over the guy.”

“Vika, he’s not dead, and we’re not Jewish.”

“His heart isn’t beating.”

“It’s glass. It can’t beat.”

“Uh-huh.” Vika rose and wandered into the spell room. She located the book, which was thin but folio-size so it was an awkward carry, and laid it on the coffee table for Libby. “I was going to head over to CJ’s, but if you need me here?”

“No, there’s nothing you can do. I’ve got him covered. I mean, you know.”

“I know.” She kissed her sister’s forehead. “See you later. And if he wakes, give me a call. I’d like to know how he’s feeling when he comes to, and the reason he’s here.”

* * *

Vika took the stairs in CJ’s building up. Her heart dropped when she tried the light switch and it didn’t flicker on. It was afternoon—outside the sun shone—but the stairway was shadowed with no windows or other light sources.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “He’s up in his loft. Safe under the light.”

And then she heard the wretched sobbing echoing like a death mourn from deep within a freshly dug grave. Tugging up her long skirt, she hastened up two flights of stairs, along the way avoiding the broken glass from the shattered lightbulbs. She stumbled onto CJ’s prone form. He clasped her arms and pulled her down, clinging.

Falling into his embrace, she nuzzled her head against his hair, preparing to face whatever it was within him that had control of her lover. He hadn’t lashed out at her and wasn’t growling, so this one might not be such a trial.

“You are her,” he said with a sniffle. “The one his wretched heart needs so desperately. But it is not to be. This one can never have happiness. Such mirth is only for dreamers and the bold.”

“Oh, my dark one. Who are you?” she whispered.

“Grief,” the demonic voice wailed out, burying his face against Vika’s shoulder.

How to deal with grief? On the scale of emotions, Vika could relate to many, save this one. She’d never lost anyone close, nor had she experienced true tragedy. Her grandmother’s nail hummed against her skin, reminding of her family’s grief.

Perhaps she did know it.

“He’s so dark, isn’t he?” CJ muttered. “Darkness is better. Though, nothing is better, is it? It’s all tragedy and misery. Where we belong. Not out there in the light. It’s stifling there. Too bright. We’ve lost the light. We don’t deserve it.”

Certainly’s body heaved, and he sighed a sigh for the worlds. Grieving his loss of the light, even while the demon thrived in the darkness.

“He’s pined for the closeness you hold before him as if a tease. When he returned to this realm with us, he abandoned his hermit ways and began to seek more. Something beyond his own selfish interests. Foolish witch. More will only result in sacrifice, and ultimately loss.”

She wouldn’t listen to what the demon said. It was forged from a deep emotion she couldn’t imagine affecting Certainly. Yet the mention of loss frightened her. A sense of foreboding nodded its head.