by Lexi Ostrow
The earth continued to tilt and whirl, but his body ran out of continents after a few minutes. Doing his best to lift his head, he spotted Deidre four houses down on her knees.
“Deidre,” He tried to force back a gag as flavors rushed back down his throat. Walk, damn it.
One foot in front of the other, Jonathon made his way down the steps. Little by little, the turbulence in his gut stopped until the street stopping flipping upside.
“Deidre,” Jonathon gently rested his hand on her back.
Her soft sobs tore through him like a knife. Deidre had been through so much in her life, she didn’t need this, too.
She didn’t make a move to turn around, so he did the only thing he could do. Jonathon squatted beside her in the street and watched over her, making sure nothing disturbed her moment of calm. It didn’t last more than a moment, either.
“What happened?” Deidre rose, causing his hand to slide off her back. “I am not one to get sick.” She spat on the ground.
Jonathon saw the pile where she’d been sitting. “Son of a bitch.” Clenching his hands into fists, he stood, too. “I’m going to walk back toward the house. Don’t follow me.”
One. Two. Three. Jonathon counted the steps, waiting for the expected. Sixteen. A wave of nausea rolled over him like a tidal wave damn near dropping him to his knees.
Jonathon swallowed back whatever the hell might come next and jogged back to Deidre, taking in a deep breath when the need to get sick vanished. “We’re spelled together, damn it.”
“How is that possible? You can’t hex people together.”
Jonathon’s head dropped back as he rubbed his neck. “You can. It’s not a common hex, but you sure can.” He noticed the street sign a few houses away. Mid City. Near her fucking house most likely.
“So, what you’re saying is we’re about to unleash a hurricane to destroy the city … maybe a few cities … and we can’t even get some privacy?”
Jonathon couldn’t help but notice the way her voice remained calm. Most women would shit a brick at the revelation. “Look, let’s just go back inside that house. I think I saw a landline in the kitchen. We’ll call this in and get the ball rolling.”
“And Remy?” Now a sliver of anger rolled off the words.
“I will personally go after him as soon as we report the bigger threat.”
“Protocol.” Her eyes shined with fire.
“Logic. Remy is a dirty rotten rat for what he did to you, but if all he’s guilty of is kidnapping and we’re looking at another attempt at mass murder, Mister Masked needs to come first.”
Without a word, Deidre walked past him, her shoulders sagging in plausible defeat.
“Dee,” Jonathon jogged up beside her, not because he worried about getting sick, but because he could feel the pain radiating off of her. “Dee, are you okay?”
She whirled, witch’s fire dancing along her hands in tiny green balls. “I’ve been assaulted. Kidnapped. Hexed. Would you be okay?”
“I’ve been through it with you.”
“And are you okay?” Fire danced in her eyes.
Jonathon could lie to her. “I’m angry but fine.”
“Of course, you are.” Deidre threw up her hands and continued stalking toward the house.
“What does that mean?”
“Sort of the same thing it meant when you implied I was the safe one.” She jerked the door open and didn’t bother to hold it for him as she stepped inside and continued her rant. “You’re a great guy, Jonathon, but you’re dead inside. Cold as ice.”
He let the door slam behind him. “What gives you that idea?” If she meant to get a rise of him, she wouldn’t. Jonathon lived his life behind a wall because work came first and this was still work.
“Do you hear yourself? Even right this minute? Not an ounce of anything in your tone, and you aren’t so much as narrowing those beautiful golden eyes at me.”
“Displaying my emotion for others to see doesn’t help me get my job done.”
“Right, Lita mentioned more than once you’re an honorable guy who lives for this.”
The urge to lash out verbally annoyed Jonathon. He wasn’t an irrational person. He kept his emotions locked up tight until he was able to cool down helped him to his job. Losing his head helped no one. She’s getting under your skin because you’re furious and not exploding is making it present this way.
Closing his eyes, Jonathon let a white light bloom in his chest and flow through him. The calming energy followed, as it always did. Only when he didn’t want to snap at her, did he open his eyes.
“Let me call this in. We can argue about personality flaws later.” Jaw clenched, he turned right into the galley kitchen and spotted the white corded phone. He dialed Sam’s office line and hoped the man picked up.
He didn’t.
Of course, you don’t know anyone else’s direct line. Sighing, Jonathon dialed nine-one-one.
“Nine-one-one, please state your emergency.”
“This is officer Two-nine-nine. I’ve been abducted with a witch. We’re safe now, but we need backup to two-thirty-one Dublin Street.”
“Yes, officer, right away.”
“I’m not done. The person who took us hexed us. The city is in danger. The weregator alpha, Remy DuChard needs to be brought in.”
The woman who answered didn’t say another word.
“Hello?”
A shrill scream pierced his ear, and Jonathon pulled the phone away from his ear. Deidre tilted her head quizzically and left her spot along the wall to walk closer.
“Who is this?” A man’s deep baritone barked through the phone.
“Officer two-nine-nine. What happened to the woman?”
“She dropped dead.”
His heart slammed into his chest. “I need you to report everything. I’ve been abducted with a witch. We’re safe now, but we need backup to two-thirty-one Dublin Street. The person who took us hexed us. The city is in danger. The weregator alpha Remy DuChard needs to be brought in.”
Instead of silence, Jonathon’s demand was met with a strange choking sound.
“Glen!” Someone screamed on the other end of the line.
Chaos erupted, and the phone slipped through his fingers. “Oh, my god.” Jonathan uttered.
His eyes unfocused as he stared at Deidre. She seemed to move as her form grew and shrank thanks to his revelation.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re silenced.” Jonathon couldn’t focus. The hex shouldn’t be possible. One couldn’t manipulate a handful of hexes together into a single hex. “Unless multiple casters created it. Fuck!” A chill raced over him. “He mentioned djinn blood, right?”
She nodded. “What is going on?” No fear. Just annoyance.
“We can’t speak about the hex.”
“How can you tell?”
“The first woman I spoke to had a heart attack. The man who took the phone likely assuming I was sending magic through it choked, and people screamed. Fuck, Deidre.” Jonathon let his body slip down to the floor, his head cracking against the cabinet as he leaned back.
“We can send a text.”
“You want someone’s death on your hands, too?”
Guilt speared through his heart, stabbing him over and over as the smallest of tears began to form in his eyes. “I just murdered two people.” Jonathon squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of a calming light, but he couldn’t. His breathing hitched, and suddenly he couldn’t tell up from down.
“Iremía,” Deidre whispered at his side.
The pain of the deaths stopped, vanished, and was whisked away by her calming command.
“Thank you,” Jonathon swallowed, still terrified over what he’d done but able to push past it. “We can’t report this, Dee. Maybe any of it.”
“We’re hexed, trapped, and unable to get any help.” For the first time, panic slipped into her voice, and Jonathon didn’t blame her one bit.
The day went
from shitty to craptastic every time they took a damn breath.
“What do we do?” Her eyes knit together as the situation took hold.
“We go back to my place. I’ve got an extra bedroom, and it doesn’t feel right simply inviting myself to yours. We will figure this out. As much as I want to destroy Remy with my bare hands, I’ve been up too many hours. If I don’t get some sleep, I’m going to be useless.”
“We can’t tell anyone.” She repeated her earlier realization.
“No. Which means we need to rest and then go hunt down the bastard ourselves to get as much information as possible.”
“So clever.”
He stood up and glanced back at her. “Hmm?”
“That part of the hex. It doesn’t hurt us, just everyone around us if we attempt to get help.”
“Dee, don’t think about it. Let me call Sam’s cell and just get him to pick us up. We can tell him we were following a lead on another case and forgot a second transport potion.”
Deidre rubbed her hands over her arms. “I don’t know how Ivy and Lita put up with these situations.”
Jonathon walked to her and didn’t hesitate to tug her against him. Setting his chin against her head, he looked at the boring blank wall over on the small pony wall. “The same way you will. With a cop by your side.”
Eight
“What are you going to do about the witch?” Galena took a bite out of the apple.
“What about the witch?”
“The one who identified you before you grabbed her because you just had to have a conversation with her.”
Remy’s blood ran cold. Out of everything he’d done, he’d slipped up on one small detail. One callous mistake and whether they’re able to speak about the problem or not, the witch and warlock would be at his door sooner rather than later.
“Well? It’s been almost two hours. You can’t think they aren’t coming for you … for us.” Yellow eyes flashed with annoyance as she tossed the apple over the railing and into the bayou.
“Why are you just now bringing this up?” Remy hissed, terror seeping through every inch of his body.
“I wanted my apple. Plus, they can’t kidnap every gator. There’s plenty of time to shift and get away. I just figured you might have forgotten since the plan wasn’t to talk to her.”
Remy’s fingers bit into the wooden arms of the Adirondack chair. He loved his sister, but Remy didn’t find this amusing.
“Go door to door. Alert any who live in the bayou that they are to shift if they can and head north to our safe house. Those who can’t shift will take the road.”
“And what will you do?”
“I’m going to call Appalate.”
“Calling in that favor finally?”
He nodded, already rising to grab his phone from inside. “The djinn won’t turn me down. Not after I saved his daughter from the jaws of a wild gator.”
Galena said nothing, merely closed her eyes. His sister was older and could shift at will. It went unspoken she would lead those who could shift. Convinced she could handle herself, he went inside.
“Phone. Phone.” He chanted as if the damn thing could answer him. His eyes scanned over the relatively clean living room – the only place he’d been in since getting back. “Coffee table.” Moving too quickly, Remy clipped his knee into his couch and snarled. “No time. Call.”
Snatching the phone, he scrolled through the contacts to the djinn’s entry. This was the same man who sold him blood for the hex, but Remy knew the caster was at his beck and call.
Eighteen months ago, the djinn and his family were in the swamp, where they did not belong, and his daughter slipped in. A nearby alligator was either starving or startled. Either way, it grabbed her leg and tugged her under.
While Remy didn’t save people often, he had a soft spot for children. The full moon hung low, still rising, but it was enough that he’d commanded his shift. Slamming into the other creature disrupted its barrel roll of death, but Remy had been forced to snap his jaws shut around the smaller predator and kill it before it released the little girl.
The damage was severe, but her parents saved her. Luckily, wish magic healed all those who still breathed. If they’d been closer and not off cooking their catch, they’d have been able to stop the attack instantly.
Appalate never stayed in touch, but he promised Remy a favor, no questions asked, when Remy walked up dripping and naked carrying their dying daughter.
“So now we repay the favor.” Remy jammed his finger against the phone’s screen and palmed the keys in his pocket.
“Hello?”
“Appalate, dear friend, this is Remy.” He tugged the door shut and moved toward his Jeep without locking it. No one locked their doors in a bayou, the scary things couldn’t use doorknobs.
“Remy,” A pause. “It is nice to hear from you … so soon again.”
“Yes, you see, it’s time I called in that favor.”
Silence on the other end.
“Appalate?”
“I’m here. I’m just worrying what this favor might be that it’s taken you this long to call it in.”
Remy snorted as he fired up the beat-up Jeep and headed off.
“I just need you to remove someone’s memory of me. Potentially two someone’s memories.”
“Bad breakup?” The djinn’s tone turned playful.
“Something like that. It’s got to be done quickly.”
“You know how djinn magic works. Say the words, and it can’t get any quicker.”
Swerving to avoid a fallen log, Remy blew out a breath. “I wish that Deidre Adams and Jonathon Trevors forget they’ve ever met me.” Had he not been driving, Remy might have closed his eyes – like blowing out birthday candles and making a wish.
“It’s done.”
“You’re certain?”
“You are not asking me that.” Appalate may as well have snarled.
“My apologies. Thank you.”
“We’re even then.”
“That we are. I hope the family is doing well.”
“Doing just fine, thanks to you.”
Remy ended the call without another word and dropped the phone into the passenger seat. His people trusted him, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d get them all locked up.
Deidre’s head spun the same way it did when she’d moved too far from Jonathon, but they were both damn near touching. Yes, he was an attractive man, but there was no way in hell she would suddenly grow butterflies in his presence.
Being in his home was unsettling. It mirrored a model home for buyers to look at right down to the way she could see the bedspread folded back with a magazine and remote resting on top in the other room. She didn’t want to be anywhere right now except home, under the covers, brainstorming how she could break a hex without knowing who cast it.
Despite a common misconception, not all hexes could even be broken. Most could be removed by the caster. Some resulted in death – like the one the Council banned all witches and warlocks from using. If merely speaking of the hex killed the person she talked to, Deidre couldn’t shake the feeling that the hex was deadly to her and Jonathon as well.
Find the person who grabbed you. Start there, and the rest will come together. A mask is only an effective hiding method if you can’t sniff out who else is involved.
“Are we going to go after him now?”
They’d gone back to Jonathon’s, terrified of bumping into anyone they might speak to. Deidre didn’t like death regardless of who died. The idea of being a killer nearly made her vomit.
“Go after who?”
She paused. “The person who kidnapped me in the cemetery.” Why do you remember that, but not who?
“You didn’t see them. That’s what you said earlier.”
Deidre glanced around the room. Nothing changed in the last five minutes. The condo’s living room remained impeccably clean. The white couch cover didn’t have as much as a wrinkle on it. The carpet had frea
king vacuum marks still in it, and the television remote sat on three neatly stacked magazines. She’d known Johnathon was detail-orientated and impeccable with his work habits, she just hadn’t expected his place to feel so cold. So unlived in.
So why does it feel like something is different?
“Deidre?” Jonathon leaned toward her, concern blazing in the depths of his dark brown stare. “Are you okay?”
“I just,” she sighed. “I swore at one point I knew who grabbed me in the cemetery.”
His hand landed softly on her shoulder. Jonathon’s expressed remained riddled with concern as he spoke. “Trauma is hard. The simple fact that you didn’t fall apart speaks to your strength. Don’t beat yourself up over this.”
“Even if it would help us stop the hex?”
He nodded solemnly. “Even if.” Jonathon glanced away for a moment, seeming to look out the dining room window in the next room. “We’ve been here almost an hour, and you haven’t commented on how barren my apartment is.”
“Clean. I think it’s clean.”
They’d avoided small talk, and yet, now he suddenly wanted to bond as if they hadn’t gone out drinking multiple times in the past without him so much as acknowledging she was alive.
Jonathon smirked. “Unlived in. Without emotion. Without connection.”
Deidre said nothing, though each thought had indeed filtered through her mind when they’d come inside. Jonathon was the furthest thing from an open book, yet the sparseness in his home surprised her.
“Do you want to ask me why?”
Cocking her head to the side, Deidre tried to understand where the young warlock was taking them in this conversation. “I think you want me to, so, fine. Why does your house look like a professional interior designer came through, and you haven’t spent more than thirty-seconds here since?”
Snorting, Jonathon leaned back against the sofa. “I told Sam last year it was because I like using my magic. I like things clean and orderly. But it’s also because before Victor Vexx, I didn’t plan on staying in New Orleans. The city wasn’t home.”