This Wicked Magic (32 page)

Squeezing a pillow on her lap, she realized in her apprehension she’d torn the seam to expose the stuffing.

A glance to Libby found her sister riveted to the center of the circle, along with the vampire, who held a palm over his wounded chest.

TJ turned, twisting at the waist, and tugged at CJ’s hand, as if pulling on a tug-of-war rope. “He’s struggling,” he said to Vika.

“What can I do?”

The witch shook his head, dismissing her to focus his concentration on the task. He resumed chanting, deeply, rhythmically.

Standing, Vika spread out her fingers, but she had no magic to hand for she had no idea what her lover needed. She felt out of control, helpless. Her lover’s body was beginning to arch backward, his head tilted over his shoulders and his chest lifted. He stood on his tiptoes, an impossible feat. Yet he remained in that position, despite his brother struggling to maintain hold on his hand.

“Please let the war demon stand good on the bargain,” she whispered, and closed her eyes, whispering the same thing over and over as she began to mark out each bead on the strand of jade. Repetitive chanting would enforce the energies required to bolster the spell. The beads would keep her focused.

“He’s pulling me in,” TJ gasped. “I’m not sure I can hold him.”

“Let me help!” Lucian shouted.

TJ shook his head negatively. Any interference now from a nonwitch would deplete the spell’s strength.

She could see TJ’s body sliding toward the salt line. The moment his boot cut through the line, the consequences could prove disastrous. He had to remain outside the circle to keep hold of the spell.

Clasping the nail necklace, Vika winced. Just as the brothers’ hands separated, she leaped toward the circle, straddling it with one foot. Dropping the beads, she slid her hand into CJ’s and at the same time gripped TJ’s hand. “I can be an extension.”

“Yes, good.” TJ’s grip was sure in her hand. “So powerful,” he noted with a look of surprise. And then he switched to business mode. “Hold him, Vika. Don’t let him go!”

“Never.”

But her lover’s hand was hard and cold as ice, and it felt as if she’d laid her bare flesh against a frozen steel pole. The chill of Daemonia trickled through her veins, and she gasped in the incensed and blood-tainted air. She could feel his heartbeat, her lover’s galloping rhythm of life, and she would not give it up.

Tugged abruptly, her other foot lost hold and she lifted it as it entered the circle. CJ grasped her across the back. Face-to-face, they held one another, while TJ maintained his grip on her hand. She wasn’t sure if CJ was aware, conscious of what he was doing on this side of the connection, but she held his gaze in an attempt to keep him here. His clutch on her was strong, crushing out her breath.

“Libby, help!” she cried.

Libby dashed to her side yet remained outside the circle.

“Let her take CJ’s hand,” Vika called to his brother. “Our magic combined can hold him here.”

With a nod, TJ grabbed Libby’s hand and made the switch. Her sister grabbed CJ’s other hand, then took hold of TJ’s hand as he anchored himself, one leg bent and leaning forward to hold Libby to the safe side of the circle.

“Damn, your sister’s powers are strong,” TJ hissed. He tucked his head and focused.

Grandmother St. Charles’s power focused between the two of them. Normally it took three from the family—Vika, Libby and their sister, Eternitie—to invoke such power, but combined with TJ’s magic, it seemed to be doing the trick.

Vika felt the chill of Daemonia trickle through her veins, as if sluicing out to drip from her fingertips. The air grew humid, brewing up the cinnamon and frankincense. Blood cloyed at the back of her throat.

CJ’s body went lax, falling out of her and Libby’s grasps, and he collapsed on the floor, sprawled across the salt circle.

Vika teetered but did not fall, and she managed to stumble outside the circle. TJ caught Libby before she crashed in a sprawl on the floor.

Vika looked to TJ, who pointed to his brother’s hand, the one lying out of the circle.

In it glowed a bright blue halo.

Chapter 29

“Y
ou did it!” Vika straddled CJ’s inert body and bracketed his face. He didn’t smile up at her or even move. “CJ?”

“What is it?” TJ asked from over her shoulder.

She pressed her fingers to his neck, over the vein. “No.” Crawling down, she put her ear to his chest. His heart didn’t beat.

“He’s not breathing,” TJ noted, and shoved her roughly aside. “He needs CPR!”

As TJ lifted his fisted hands above his brother’s chest, Vika’s world wavered to a blurry muddle of confusion. He couldn’t be dead. He...loved her. She loved him. They were going to be together if she ever got her soul back. They’d share magic and make love every day. He couldn’t be...

The thud of TJ attempting to revive CJ brought Vika back to the moment. And she remembered.

“No!” She shoved TJ away and grabbed CJ’s hand from the floor, the one that didn’t hold the halo. “Command central.”

“What?” Lucian asked, as he’d joined them now.

“He needs a kick-start!”

“Yes,” Lucian muttered, and he slapped TJ across the back. “You know about that?”

“He told me, but I’m not—”

“It’s this hand.” Vika dragged her lover’s hand up to his chest. He was covered in the vampire’s blood, and it was difficult to find the tiny battery tattoo. She wiped away the blood as best she could, then pulled up his little finger and placed it over the battery.

CJ’s chest pulsed upward, his body flopping lifelessly.

“Do it again,” TJ coached. “Hold it there.”

She pressed his finger over the battery, having no idea how the ink magic worked but having faith it would. Again, his body pulsed upward, and again, he remained lifeless.

“No, this has to work,” she cried, and spat frantically onto his chest to smear away more of the blood. “I need to clean the area. Hurry!”

A bottle of whiskey was slapped into her hand. Vika poured the alcohol over CJ’s chest, and then she rubbed the small tattoo dry with the hem of her sleeve. With a glance to Libby, who held vigil with hands clasped to her mouth, Vika nodded once, then again placed the man’s finger to the tattoo on his chest.

This time when his chest rose, he cried out and kicked the air, tumbling Vika from his chest.

* * *

As CJ lay prone, Vika straddled him and pushed the hair from his face to kiss him. Her mouth was warm against his, giving so much. She kissed his eyelids and smoothed her lips along his cheek. Nothing felt more welcomed, so warm. He had landed home.

Though his body had remained within the circle, he’d experienced it all. The trip to Daemonia had taken a week, surely, though he’d known before going it would register only a short time in this realm. The landscape had been vicious. Razor winds, agonizing heat, combined with brutal cold and rivers of blood and souls. It was the closest he ever wanted to get to Beneath.

Surprisingly, War had stood good on his word. But the moment the demon had granted CJ the soul bringer’s halo, the entirety of Daemonia had lifted their heads and sniffed out the intruder. He’d battled against claws, talons, fangs and bladed wings. Blood had run from his doppelgänger, and bones had cracked. He’d felt every break, every slashed muscle, every bite to tender flesh, and all the anger and relentless hatred that brewed the place of all demons to the nightmare it was.

And the whole time? He’d felt Vika’s hand in his. Along with TJ’s hand—and then suddenly Libby’s hand. CJ had felt a connection to the people who meant the most to him. So he’d fought and withstood the masses of demons determined to claim a strip of his flesh as prize.

And he’d survived to return. Without any passengers. He felt nothing had hitched a ride in his soul. He hoped that was so.

Setting aside the horror of the past week—or more likely, minutes—CJ fell into the warm, lush strength of Viktorie St. Charles’s kiss. He wrapped his arms about her sleek body and pulled her onto his, connecting at hips, stomach, chest and mouth, reassuring she was real and he was alive and back. In her arms.

Never again would he lose days in the archives because it was important to fill his cranium with as much spellcraft as he could possibly fit in there. There were better things in life, such as smiling at a beautiful woman, gazing into her green eyes, kissing her soft mouth and holding her perfect body against his.

He would never let her go. And while his skin burned from the touch of the nail at his throat, he thanked her grandmother for the power that enabled Vika to love him.

Perhaps it had been the kick-start as well that made his flesh feel as though he’d been jolted with a few hundred thousand volts. Good girl that she’d remembered about the spell.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” she whispered and kissed his cheek. “I thought I’d lost you.”

He kissed her back. “Never. You’d come after me though, right? Catch my corpse light and keep me?”

“Don’t say that. I want you whole and in my arms, dark one.”

A man cleared his throat, and CJ remembered it had also been his brother’s presence that had been with him for the entire journey through Daemonia.

Vika sat up beside him, and he missed her warmth
like that.
He pushed up, and before he could pull her back to him, he noticed for the first time he held a halo in one hand. He turned it before him, and he and Vika looked it over. It was a thin piece of dull metal, looking beaten down by the elements over the years. It appeared easily bendable, but when he gave the thin circlet a try, he found it adamant.

“Doesn’t look like much,” she said. “That’s the soul bringer’s halo? His soul is contained within?”

“I guess so.” He rapped it on the hardwood floor, producing a dull, most unangelic
clunk.
“Thanks, TJ. We did it.”

“Yes, but if it hadn’t been for Vika, we may have lost you forever.” His brother offered his hand and CJ stood, bringing Vika up with him. “How long were you there?”

“Seemed like a week,” CJ said, clutching Vika tightly against his side.

“More like fifteen minutes,” TJ said. “You are never going back to that place if I have to lash you to a stone at the top of Everest to keep you away.”

“Sounds extreme. I’ll be a good boy and promise to stay in this realm from now on.”

“I heard that,” Lucian said.

“You have four witnesses to that statement,” TJ said. “How are you, old man?” he said to the vampire, who approached and gave CJ’s shoulder a slap.

“Fine. But don’t they give out pins after you’ve donated a gallon of blood? I want my pin.”

“Thanks, man.” CJ pulled Lucian into a man hug and the two clapped hands against one another’s back. “You’re always there when I need you.”

“Someone’s got to be a guinea pig for your magic, Brother.”

Libby joined the group, sheepishly taking her sister’s hand and observing the reunion.

“You’d better get some rest, Certainly,” TJ said.

“Can’t. I have to summon the soul bringer.”

CJ took a step, but Vika caught him as his body wobbled. Maybe he was weak. Last time he’d returned from Daemonia, he’d slept for two weeks straight, rising only to eat and use the bathroom.

“I’ll take care of him,” Vika said to TJ. “He’s not going anywhere until after I’ve gotten him in bed.”

TJ and CJ shared a grin that said more than either were willing to detail.

“Yes, I mean that exactly,” Vika said, figuring out their man code. “Libby, are you cool to go home alone?”

“Of course. Lucian, can I offer you a ride? And TJ? The hearse fits three.”

“Hearse?” Lucian’s brow tilted into a sexy chevron. “This I’ve got to see.”

* * *

Vika wandered about CJ’s loft, while over in bed, he slept. He actually snored, which she marked as a good thing, since it had to take a lot out of a person to journey to the place of all demons. He deserved the sleep. She’d do a little cleaning.

She used a broom to sweep up the salt circle, not wanting to wake her sleeping hero with the vacuum. And after every last salt grain had been swept into a box for reuse, she then cleansed the area with a spell and wormwood smudge, using supplies from his work shelf.

Some reorganizing in the fridge, tossing out old vegetables and expired peanut butter, and some straightening in the cupboards, and she felt satisfied that she’d cleaned without intruding on the not-too-chaotic disorder CJ was accustomed to.

She would leave his spell area alone, because that would infringe on his personal things, but she couldn’t resist snooping through the grimoires and his book of shadows. He was a powerful witch, and his power had been returned upon the exorcism of the final demons.

She couldn’t wait to see Certainly Jones at his finest. It was what had initially attracted her to him. Yet she’d already seen into his heart, a fine and wondrous place. In turn, he respected her magic and allowed it to be what it should be. Not once had he asked her to remove the nail about her neck to make it easier to touch her, as other of her lovers had in the past. He respected her power.

Never had a man been so generously accepting. His was a true and impeccable heart she was glad to have touched.

And oh, his touch. Sitting on the high stool before his workshop bench, she imagined him kissing her and her growing languid and melty in his embrace. Never had she a lover who could do that to her, make her grow warm thinking about their connection.

And what of his magic fingers? That was something new and worthy of much practice. Mastery may never be achieved, but he could try all he liked, although only on her. She intended to keep him all for herself.

So she’d fallen for a bad boy. She understood their appeal now. Not really bad, but the outer appearance, and CJ’s alliance with dark magic, defined him as mysterious and dangerous.

She knew otherwise; he was good.

“So good,” she whispered, and smiled as she caught her chin in hand and twirled her hair about a finger. “I love my dark one.”

With a yawn, she got up and wandered over to the bed. He lay on his side, his face concealed by a swath of hematite hair. His bare chest rose and fell rhythmically. She wanted to touch him, to be near him, so she carefully slid onto the bed, put an arm over his hip and snuggled into a peaceful slumber.