The Witching Hour: 11 Enchanting Novels Featuring Witches, Wizards, Vampires, Shifters, Ghosts, Fae, and More!, page 99
"What was it?" Ivan asked.
"Arcane." Crwys shifted his gaze to the little head. "Care to enlighten us on that, Medbh?"
:What's to enlighten? Arcane is the magic of the Demon Worlds, as Samantha likes to call them. I, myself, am animated in this head through Arcane. My world, all the worlds except this one, exist with Arcane Magic.: She laughed. :If I were reunited with my body, you would all be personally acquainted with what Arcane Magic can do.:
I stood and moved in close. As I knelt down to stare into those dead and damaged ceramic eyes, Grey came up beside me and gave the ugly little thing a low growl. "Let's get one thing straight. I can take a hammer and pulverize you into dust any time I want. Let's see how well your great and powerful Arcane Magic can reform this little vessel after that. Or I can take you into the parking lot and drink a mint julep while I watch the sun do the dirty work. Either way, I own your bitchy ass. So another threat like that? And I will do one of the two. Got it?"
Medbh didn't answer for a few seconds, and then, :I got it. Geez…you really need to lighten up.:
"Good. So let's recap? You didn't create the Changelings murdering people these past couple of days?"
:No.:
"And you don't know if there are more?"
:No.:
"But you do agree whatever is doing this is using Faerie shenanigans."
When Medbh hesitated, we all paid attention. Grey stood up on her back legs and put her paws on the table. She opened her jaw and picked up the head in her mouth before she sat back and held it precariously over the concrete floor.
:AAEEEIIII! Get this monster away from me! Put me down!:
"Answer the question."
:Then make it a question.:
"Do you believe whatever is creating these Changelings, or controlling them, is using Faerie Magic?"
She hesitated again. :Yes.:
I glanced over at Crwys. His reddish-amber eyes were narrowed, and he gave me an almost imperceptible nod. I looked back at Medbh. "Do you believe it is a Faerie doing it?"
:No. But not because I'm psychic. We're not this stupid. Sending Changelings out like that in broad daylight is a sure attention grabber. Especially in a place as thickly populated as this. What's the payoff? Why do it? The only reason I can come up with is that someone is trying to grab attention. But I don't know if that's everyone's attention, or someone in particular.:
I straightened up. Fair enough. "All right. Time for you to go back in the box." I grabbed the peanut bag and carefully pried Medbh's head from Grey's jaws with it. I gave her a wink and a smile, and she opened her mouth with her tongue hanging out. It was good enough of a smile for me.
:Don't leave me alone.:
"You won't be alone. I'll be here." Ivan stood up from his stool. "I don't think my tagging along to Miss Vervain's is a good idea. I don't want her knowing a damn thing about me."
I didn't want her knowing either.
I shoved the now quiet Medbh back into her safe, reset the wards, and followed everyone back up the steps. We gathered in the back break room kitchen. Ivan started coffee. Kyle pulled out his phone and headed out the back dock door, presumably to call his aunt.
I followed Crwys and Levi through the shop to the front door. Levi stepped outside to light a cigarette. Crwys stopped at the door and turned to me. "You and Robin…everything's all right?"
I knitted my eyebrows together at him. "What the hell do you care? You said you didn't like him."
"But you do."
"So?"
"What you like is important to me."
"Crwys," I said as I took a step back and he took a step toward me. "This isn't going to happen."
"What? You and Robin? That's too bad."
I continued backing up until I hit a shelf of books. I stuck my finger out and stopped him from getting too close. But he was still blocking my view of everything. "Crwys. No."
"It's not over, Sam. It can't be. I don't understand why you keep pushing me away."
"The fact that I lost twelve days of my life in bed with you." I pushed him back again with another poke of my finger against his hard chest. "You're not healthy for me, Crwys. And our magic…"
"Yes."
I had to move to the side to get out of his direct line of fire. Damn. Being that close to the boy made all parts south come to attention. I held out my hands as I backed up. "I'm with Robin. Let's just work with that."
Crwys took in a deep breath and released an even longer, deeper sigh. "Okay. I did promise to give you space." As he turned to the door he said, "Levi and I are gonna head to the hospital. Need to talk to that mother before it's too late."
"Too late for what?"
His brows rose up high on his forehead as he looked back at me. "Changelings are killing machines, Sam. They don't leave prey unscathed. They excrete poison in their bite. So anyone bitten by a Changeling is going to die. That woman doesn't have long to live."
I stood in the broken shop for several minutes after he left, letting my libido come to a full stop before getting off the ride. I thought about how close Ivan and I had come to that thing breaking through those wards and thanked whatever power had stopped it from happening.
FIVE
My brain hurt and I was achy from making magic. I preferred preparation when I did things like that. Spell casting on the fly wasn't always the best way to cast. I likened it to eating healthy or eating fast food. Fast was easier, but the side effects were bad for the body.
I shuffled past the counter to the door in the center that led to the break room.
When I leased the store, I partitioned off the inside in a less than traditional design. There was less retail area than storage and rear space. I had a small kitchen installed in the break room area and recently came into the possession of a twelve-foot-long oak table King Arthur would have been proud of.
I gave everyone a place to eat their lunch, exchange their gossip, and if the weather was just too unpleasant, a place to draw down the moon. I lived in the apartment above the shop, which seemed a long-standing tradition in New Orleans. I had the choice of renting the space out, to make more money, or making it mine.
Given the hard work I put into making the store a success that at least paid for the basic necessities, I figured staying close to my investment was a better idea. Not to mention rental rates in New Orleans were ridiculously expensive, unless I found a house in Iberia. And that was just too far of a drive to work for me.
Grey stuck her nose between my legs, and I lowered my arms to give her some good, easy scratches behind her ears. "It's all right, girl. We'll figure out what's going on."
"Sam, you want some tea?" Ivan said from the stove.
It was just me and my guys again. And a very empty and wounded store. Even Medbh was quiet.
I walked further into the kitchen, suddenly thinking back to what had severed the connection between the Changeling and our wards. I replayed the event in my head, and the only conclusion I came up with was a bit on the unbelievable side. "Ivan…when the little monster was trying to get through the ward, I was being tortured."
"Yeah," he said as he glanced over at me. He poured water from the electric kettle into two mugs with tea bags. English breakfast. My favorite.
"And then it was gone. It just broke." I narrowed my eyes at him. "Did you do that?"
He stared at the cups as he pulled the tea bags up and then dunked them back in, over and over again. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"No. In fact, I think I would have been in worse shape if you hadn't. But…how did you do it? I thought your Cyber Magic didn't mesh with…well, regular magic." I hated to call my magic regular because it made his sound like it was irregular.
Truth was, we just didn't know enough about it. Learning to use it, for Ivan, was a lot like discovery through trap doors.
"It doesn't, most of the time. I mean I can't really see what it is you do. I can feel it. It raises the hairs on my arms. But where you can see parts of what I see, your magic is a complete mystery to me." He stopped dunking the tea and turned to face me. The exotic beauty of his features struck me again. His father's dark, Eurasian eyes accented by his mother's Spanish nose and jaw line were perfectly framed by that mane of thick black hair he kept cut close to his face. "When you started contorting—and you were seriously contorting, Sam—I freaked out. My magic kicked in and reached out in all directions because I was desperate to help you. And then I saw it. Ugly little red wiggling worms in rows as they wrapped around you. They were encased in what looked like blue-white tubes.
"I looked over the counter and I saw millions of those nasty red worms flying out from that Changeling, and it reminded me of communication hubs. Packets of information coming in and going out. I thought of the data stream on the web and the different colors certain communications have for me. Blue and white are always personal, like email and texting a loved one. Green is always there for financial transactions. Yellow comes in as the communication of industry. Company missives. But then there are the ones that are red or orange, and they've always shown me where the bad creators are. The hackers. The spoofers. The ones that mean harm. I interpreted all those worms as harm, and I just…" He held out his hands. "I reached out and cut the communication."
What struck me at that moment was that I understood him. I'd always seen things as colors myself, but they were the colors of Elements. Red, blue, green, and yellow. Different days always had color for me, as did numbers and emotions.
Ivan had just told me, in so many words, that he'd actually seen Arcane Magic. Even I couldn't see Arcane. I could smell it. I could sense it. But not see it.
I put a hand on his arm. "Ivan…I think you just leveled up, so to speak. You were seeing Arcane, and you actually affected it. You stopped its use."
Now his eyes matched the size of mine. "I was? I did?"
The back door opened, and Kyle came back in. He looked…abused.
"Uh oh. Witch Queen didn't play nice?" I asked, and then regretted it. Damn outside voice.
He shook his head. "It's all good. Apparently my aunt already knows about what's happened. She wants to meet with us." He looked at Ivan. "Even you."
"No." I shook my head. "I don't think Ivan should go. Remember what happened last time?"
Last time was a reference to my first meeting with Arden. Ivan had come with me to help exorcise a spectre out of a patron's basement. Ivan had tapped into the house's electrical system, making sure the spectral anomalies in the basement weren't being caused by magnetic fields. Arden burst in, having heard I was at the house of one of her Society buddies, and boasted how she was quite capable of getting rid of the problem herself.
Arden doesn't have the power to banish or exorcise anything. The only reason I could come up with for the reason she did what she did was for theatrical effect.
And boy-howdy, that's what she got. The woman blasted the house with a dose of something toxic—which I later learned was an exorcism spell she found in a book of eighteenth century poetry—and managed to fry every electrical outlet in the house.
The blowback knocked Ivan into a coma for two days.
And the patron? Haven't seen her since.
"She didn't know what she was doing. And besides, she still thinks he's just a Dianic candidate."
I spoke up, "No. She gets me and you and Grey. No Ivan. She's got to earn my trust."
Ivan nodded. "I'll stay here. Lock up."
I checked the clock. Damn. It was already after five. "Yeah, I guess we're closed anyway. What time does she want us there?"
"She's at her home in the Garden District." Kyle looked worried. "As soon as we can get there."
I wasn't in the mood to deal with Arden Vervain just yet. I needed a little bit of a pick me up. "Kyle, get home and get a shower, or go upstairs if you don't want to go home first. I'll be back in about an hour."
"Where are you going?" Ivan called out after me, and when I looked back, he had my tea in his hand.
Oops. "Heading over to Ina's. I need a little boost."
SIX
Inamorata Devonshire lived in the north end of the Garden District, not far from Kyle's apartment. I dropped him off first, since he chose to take a shower at his place, and promised I'd be back in an hour.
The afternoon moved from crisp October sunshine into a more monochromatic hue as clouds moved in. The weather report on my Jeep's radio said the chance of afternoon showers had moved from zero to forty percent. "We better hope that's for after our visit, Grey, or we're gonna have wet seats."
Grey, seated in the back with her head and shoulders between the driver's seat and the passenger's, nuzzled my right ear and made a small wuff of agreement. I had a hard top, but it was stored in the back of the shop where I usually parked the Jeep. I kept a tarp in a locker in the back just in case of sudden rain showers.
Ina's house reminded me of the sister's house in the movie Candle Magic. It had the same architecture, the same front porch, the same side porch with the arbor, and the same twisting and wide-spaced rooms inside. What it didn't have was the center tower with the lookout on top. Which was fine by me, since I was afraid of heights. The house sat back from the road, half hidden among a jungle of trees, plants, shrubs, and weeds. An iron gate circled the entire property, but that wasn't what protected the place.
No…that was something else entirely.
Like I said before, Ina was a Cleric. One of the duties that came with this position was the enormous responsibility of warding magic and magic places of business from the eyes of the Cowen, those not Gifted with the God Mother's blessing. To any passing tourist, neighbor or visiting relative, the house never registered on their radar. People passed by the wrought iron gate day and night, but no one ever noticed the grand house and its beautiful gardens as they passed.
Ina raised me after my mom was killed, but we didn't live in this house. She moved in and took care of me and my dad at our house in Picayune, Mississippi. I'd always called her Aunt Ina. It wasn't until I was eighteen that she told me she wasn't really my aunt. She and my mom had been best friends, coven-mates, but never blood sisters. That didn't matter to me. Ina was family, regardless of blood.
And she was the only other Witch I knew I could turn to. Ina had taught me all that I knew. It wasn't considered conventional teaching. It wasn't part of a coven, and it wasn't out of some pre-approved book like a lot of the Gifted were taught these days. Ina believed in what she called the Old Ways. I'd learned these ways and the new ways didn't always play well together.
I parked the Jeep outside the front gate, where there was always parking for family. Odd how tourists and others living in the neighborhood never took that particular spot. Grey jumped out as I unlocked the back trunk under the seat and pulled out the tarp. I had it tied on top within minutes. Eh…it wouldn't keep out the backsplash if the rain was hard and fast. But if it kept to a sprinkle, I could at least keep our butts dry when I picked up Kyle.
The front door opened as Grey and I walked up the stone-laid path. Grey ran on ahead and Ina knelt down to greet her. The two became fast friends the moment they met, and sometimes I was a little jealous of their closeness. Usually Grey would always come to me and rest her head in my lap on the couch. But not if Ina was around.
"Merry meet!" Ina called out from her position on the porch with Grey. "Looks like rain." She frowned and stood as she came to the edge of the porch. "Samantha Elizabeth—you didn't have to put the tarp on. Just cover it with a—"
I held up my hand to stop her scolding. "And try and explain why my Jeep isn't wet while the rest along the street are? No thanks." I came up the steps and took in the smell from the wisteria growing over the trellis. I also caught the scent of magnolia from the trees in the back.
Ina was a few inches taller than me, with snow-white hair always held back in a single silver clip. Most of her wardrobe consisted of loose fitting clothes of cotton and soft knits, layered folds, and coordinated colors. Today she wore wide black pants, a dark green wrap top covered by a soft gray cover, one of those with infinite folds in the front. Her jewelry matched with grays and silver and green, except for the silver pentagram hanging from a delicate chain at her neck. This piece of jewelry she never removed.
Grey and I preceded her in, and I felt an instant boost of confidence just from the aura of the place. Antique couches, side tables, a coat rack and large mantel fireplace greeted visitors alike, but I followed Grey further into the larger family room. Bean bag chairs, papasans and two overstuffed couches all gathered in a circle facing a large flat screen TV over a smaller fireplace. This is where Ina taught her own brand of magic with her students. The smells of something spicy filled the house, and I moved past the family room to the large, spacious kitchen.
"What smells so good?"
Grey joined me and poked her nose under my hand.
"Boiled newt and dragon's wing." Ina stepped in and removed the top from a large pot on the stove. She took a wooden spoon from a stand on the counter and started stirring.
I was used to Ina's oddly colorful jokes about what she and I were. I peered inside and sniffed again. "Stew…is it beef?"
"Yep. Jackson and Earl brought me a half cow about a month ago. So I've been trying different recipes. This has brisket in it." She grabbed a spoon, skimmed off the top, and held it out for me. "You tell me. I've burned my tongue so many times I can't taste anything anymore."
I carefully took the spoon and blew on the broth. I saw small slivers of potato and carrots floating about before I tasted the thick broth. I closed my eyes and savored the taste. I wanted to cook like Ina, but that was just not a talent I found I could master. "Mmm…damn, Ina. That is good. Who're you feeding?"
She took the spoon back and set it in the sink. "My Dianic students are coming over tonight. We'll all be doing different things for All Hallows, so we're getting together as a group tonight for a party. I was gonna start decorating…" Ina said as she tilted her head to her shoulder. "But you need to talk to me about something else. First, have you been practicing your Elemental scales?"
