Demons & Dragons

by Gina Kincade

“Don’t let it get to you,” he chided himself. “Clothing is not important enough to risk adding more negative energy to this place.”

  It was always a challenge to keep his positive energy flowing when on Earth. At his post, negative energy could barely survive so close to the Source of all life.

  He took an extra-long stride, attempting to dislodge the bunch of material cruelly gripping his balls without looking too much the fool.

  “It is no wonder the humans can be such an unhappy lot. People may claim the Western mindset is the downfall of society, but I think it is the damn denim!”

  He followed the black asphalt driveway around to the back of her house, creeping steadily closer to the window covered with thin, lacy curtains thorough which he could observe the shadow of her form bent over her laptop. He sucked in a deep breath, and then grunted at the stuffiness of the atmosphere here, so thick with the negativity that was their concern at The River. With mankind determining how it flowed, the adverse constitution of it weighed heavy on the air. Here, the words and deeds of a few were so detrimental and antagonistic they were consuming the stream of consciousness of the rest.

  His gaze flashed up again at the menacing sky. He could see more than just a storm brewing. All around him in these houses, in such a beautiful affluent neighborhood, materialism stood its ground right beside despair, making contentment cower in fear in the dark recesses of this city of gloom. Elusive happiness sought in shady ways bred anxiety, and thus the land had become burdened by ego-centered selfishness. He reminded himself it was not so everywhere, nor was it even so in every one of these houses. Yet, in the hearts of those who had greed and fame as their only true desires, unconditional love and compassion were foreign concepts, misunderstood and purposeless.

  His lungs tightened, and the odd, light sensation in his head reminded him to mind this body's limitations. When he was brought to earth as a human, he retained his powers to manipulate the energies to help with healing, but he could also be hindered like any natural man by the need to breathe and feed. He stomped forward two steps before stopping again. He attempted another deep breath. A flush of heat trailed across his neck before consuming the rest of his body. He had been in places as marred as this one before, but never had he experienced a foreboding reluctance to move forward. With one glance back toward the shadow in the window, he took the rest of his steps swift and sure.

  Knocking on the door proved a task, given the Halloween decoration of a witch, he crashed against, covering it with his fist. Halloween soon approached. Days away. October in Salem brought so many that the sheer numbers alone, no matter what their frame of mind, would not help the energy situation they had going on here. He forced all thoughts of this from his mind, clearing it for the task at hand, bracing himself for the smooth talking he would have to do to convince this woman to let him escort her to her grandfather’s house. Most of the time, Watchers were sent in posing as one new to town in order to befriend their charge. This time, though, his summons carried an urgency to get this woman to safety, putting a crimp in the usual trust building part of the mission. Peering through a small window beside the door, he could see through the kitchen into the room she worked in. As he watched her get up slowly while still moving her hands frantically over the raised white letters of the keyboard, he reviewed what he had been told of her.

  Although she had found part of her gift on her own, she had been kept in the dark about her true heritage just as her father had insisted on his death bed. Her knowing she was a witch with the ability to harness the same energies as him would have made his job a lot easier today. To add injury to insult, Kamillia had kept her mind-reading powers a secret from the grandparents who had raised her, and everyone else in her life, thinking she would be viewed as insane. Then, to maintain her own sanity, she had used her inhuman ability to make quite a career for herself as a writer.

  Opening the door at his insistent tapping, she stood in full view, one hip pushed to the side, biting the side of her bottom lip, her eyebrows raised. He’d obviously disturbed her so that should make this all go more smoothly for him. Not.

  Her hair fell in midnight blue-black waves over her shoulders, matching the striking intensity of her emerald eyes. A flush graced her face and neck, her grimace softening despite the biting whip of the chilled wind past the door. He had not anticipated this body betraying him the way it was in reaction to her up close and in full color, forcing him to actually wonder if he knew her, if they’d met before. His heart pumped faster, reverberating in his chest, although he felt no anxiety or fear. He felt an intense physical pull, as if their bodies were already acquainted, and needed to be together again. Her smell proved comforting and arousing. The strength of their combined energies baffled him. He had been doing this job for several hundred years, and never had he experienced such an insane reaction to a charge.

  “Yes,” she said, her tone carried a sharp pitch, irritation flowing freely in waves.

  Her reaction left him frantically searching his mind for something to say. Any word would do. He would have taken any one in the dictionary at this point of panic. He'd never been one at a loss for words.

  “Do you want something? Do I know you? You look familiar, but I can’t place you.” She pulled her brows together, and cocked her head.

  That she may feel the same way as him, as if they knew each other, seemed strange, confusing him further. They were from two different eras of time, and from two different realms of the world. The possibility was simply not logical.

  “No, you don’t know me.” He felt his own brows furrow and his jaw tense as the words finally released from his brain, so he made a conscious effort to relax the muscles in his face, concentrating on being grateful the words had made a lick of sense. “This may sound odd, but I beg of you, although you do not know me, to please at least listen to what I have to say.”

  “I will. My Poppie already called to tell me you would be coming. I have been instructed to listen to you, to let you escort me to his house for my own protection. I trust him with my life, and cannot refuse the old man anything. He claims you are a dear old friend whom he would trust with his life, though oddly I have never once heard of you before. But, I wasn’t always with him growing up. Anyway, so, I guess, come on in.” She waved him in with what he perceived as a light, forced laugh.

  Only, Luca didn’t move. “Poppie?” The name sounded like it should have come from the mouth of a small child with her hair in pigtails instead of the sensuous, provocative woman standing before him. She exuded self-confidence and strength of character, displayed in the assured stance of the tight curves before him.

  “Yes, Poppie is what I have called my grandfather since I can remember, and I do not intend to change his name now for some smart-assed stranger who would dare to judge me on such a thing. My Poppie always told me never to be afraid to piss off an asshole. So, if you wish to be one, it will not change the fact that I speak as I wish.”

  Pursing his lips together to keep his jaw from dropping to the floor, he finally brushed past her. “My apologies, I had just never heard the name before. I meant nothing by my insensitive question of it.” He suffered an urge to cross his arm over his middle and bow slightly to her dominance, but luckily he remembered what century he was in and stiffened his back to an upright position, suppressing the instinctual response.

  Ahti had neglected to emphasize the true fighting spirit of the woman, as he had neglected to tell him his way in was going to be paved by her grandfather. He wondered now who the old man had said Luca was, and how Ahti could have forgotten to give him such a detail. Did something go wrong and plans had to be changed already? He turned to catch one last glimpse at the darkening sky before she closed the door. He worried his time was already more limited than he’d been told.

  “So, your name is?” she inquired.

  “Luca, your grandfather didn’t tell you my name?”

  “No, he did. I was just double-checking. Wanted to make sure yo
u were the one he spoke of before I went for my gun to get you out of my house. Guess, in retrospect, I should have done that first.” She laughed at her own twisted humor, flooring him once again by the wit and spunk of the woman. “For a man with an important message for me, you sure don’t talk much. Come, sit.”

  The feather light touch of her hand on his arm triggered an uncomfortable reaction as the ridiculous jeans he had to wear stretched over the increase of the bulge in his pants. He closed his eyes and mentally shook his head to clear it. No one silences me, especially not some fantasy writer of the twenty-first century who writes of things that are truer than she believes. And come on! What is up with this body, the sound of her voice, the smell of her hair…

  Trying to refocus, he took in his surroundings: the wealth of lit candles around the room gave a proper ambiance to an overwhelming amount of holiday decorations. From a cauldron on the floor that misted a thin smoke, to a mantle covered as if it were a shelf in a witch’s workshop with various bottles and books along with another skull with a candle in its head.

  Halloween. Once only a tradition to ward off spirit by disguise, it had now turned into a holiday fraught with decorations inside and outside a home like colored Christmas lights in purples, oranges, and greens, to front yards turned into graveyards. Entire houses were turned into nightmares in the vein of commercialism and scaring the piss out of someone. In this day and age it never ceased to amaze him what one would promote to make a buck.

  ***

  She believed the man to be made of stone the way his muscles bulked his thin t-shirt, his jeans straining over his huge thigh muscles. Poppie should have taken the time to warn her the man knocking on her door was not old at all, but rather a six-foot Adonis. If this guy was an old friend, he couldn’t have been more than a child when they’d met. Maybe he’d said he was a friend of an old friend. She couldn’t remember exactly. Besides, with the whole stranger factor she’d expected her hands to start sweating when she opened the door, but instead she found moisture forming elsewhere.

  What is up with me? It’s like I have never seen a man before! Why did I touch him? She chided herself while breathing in the musky, all male scent of him. Well, truth be told, up close and personal, she had never seen a man like him, one straight out of the pages of some body-building magazine, or maybe Playgirl.

  Her attempt at directing him to the couch had not even made him sway. Dumbstruck, she stood with her hand still curved around barely half of the man’s bicep. Smart-girls keep their distance from these good-looking, conceited bodyguard types.

  “No, I prefer to stand. Thank you. We do not have that kind of time, for formalities that is. The Mastema will be here soon. I have to get you to safety.”

  “The who? Boy, and I thought all my life I was the only one with a weird name around here.”

  “The group of men who have been accusing you of being a witch. They secretly call themselves the Mastema. It means leader of the fallen angels, the ones who tempt men to sin.”

  “You are talking about the short-sighted idiots in the neighborhood who accused me of being a witch because I am a fantasy author living in Salem? They are so imaginative, right? I like witch stuff, like to study them, and write about them. I am witch obsessed, but not yet one. So, the Mastema are those nerds in ties that suffer from delusions of grandeur?” She paused to let out the laugh that had been tickling her throat as she had spoken.

  The more she learned of these men, who thought they could rule the world because they owned small businesses of their own, the more ridiculous they seemed to be. Sure, this mentality had been passed down through the generations, but still, she didn’t see exactly what made them think they were so great. Long ago their grandfathers, or grandfather’s grandfathers, had gotten lucky, tripped into some demon playing with black magic, and as they had clouded up the energy grid here, darkened it, they believed themselves more powerful.

  “Of course they have a secret, stupid name for themselves, but I don’t think they are out to hurt me. They are merely some control freaks who mentally-abuse their wives, their employees, and everyone else they come in contact with because they do not know any other way to act. They clearly consider themselves to be gifts from the gods to humanity. I only posed a threat when I moved here because they worried I might teach their wives to be strong and think for themselves. I will not let them intimidate me. Their wives are stronger than they know, and I can’t wait for the day when those men fall on their asses because their wives pushed them down! And, although I will not have had a single thing to do with it, sadly, I am sure I will take the blame. I mean, witches get blamed for everything, right? Salem has a history, but not everyone raised here is a witch or has ties to the hunts.”

  “Enough,” he bellowed.

  She jumped at the deep, harsh tone in his voice, the barked command berating her without the need for words.

  Calm much? What’s with the rush, buddy? Or, maybe he was just tired of me rattling on like some nervous teenager in front of a rock star. You have got to get a grip, Kam! No more embarrassing yourself tonight. If you are going to be stuck with the guy for a few more hours, it would be nice if he thought you had a scruple or two in your head! And, stop staring at the way the guitar on his t-shirt ripples over his tight abs.

  Her ridiculous mental tirade went to show her just how nervous this man truly made her on all kinds of levels. Gathering her thoughts together, determined to avoid letting him know how much he unnerved her, she willed herself to come up with something sensible to say, or at least something close to sarcastic.

  “Sorry! You don’t have to get so upset about it.” Caught off guard that she had apologized instead of managing to flip off a witty come back at all, so unlike her, she waited for a smart-ass comment that never came to her mind.

  “Obviously, your grandfather...Poppie didn’t tell you enough,” he offered, the words hissing through his teeth.

  “You mean about these men? He has warned me before about becoming friends with their wives, but he has lived in this town all of his long life. He tends to make more out of things than they are. So, these men called me a few names and sent a few emails and texts to warn the people I was a dangerous witch.” She felt silly once she caught herself wiggling her fingers in the air like she was casting some spell. She abruptly lowered her hands, and the tone of her voice to continue. “All that has happened so far, is I have made a few of the teenage cashiers at the grocery store nervous or stupidly curious. I mean, who could tell these days? I really don’t mind playing the part. I have a great imagination. And, I was quite impressed they would go so far as to make a ritual circle in my back yard. Especially, since I hate to garden, it is nice to have something going on back there.”

  “There is a lot you don’t know yet. These men hate you more than you know, for more reasons than they are letting on. Their wives have no idea what they are capable of, and their coming after you has nothing to do with them, despite what the women have told you. The Mastema, the group to which they ascribe, is ancient. It has been around for years. They are a secret cult, who has remained secret over the years because they eliminate anyone who tries to expose them.”

  “Well, until you, I knew nothing about their cult. I still don’t see why I could not drive myself to Poppie’s.” She had accented her grandfather’s name just to be glib. “Guess he was afraid I would not come in a timely fashion. How do you know him, by the way? He was too frantic to really explain more than I had to let you in and to listen to all you had to say. I was to do what you asked to stay safe from some danger he didn’t explain. And, I was to be nice and obey which isn’t really my style, but for Poppie, I’m tying my best here.”

  “I can feel them getting closer; the negative vibrations have been increasing all day with their mindset and activities, so to speak. They have hired men to throw some homemade-type bomb-like things into the house. To start a fire that would hopefully take you with the house. That is who you are dealing w
ith here. That kind of men. The witch hunt was their way of taking the blame off themselves when someone got fanatical enough on their own to kill you out of fear. Only, they hired the hit man personally, paying for his silence as well. Now, you have five minutes to gather what you deem important, and then we leave the rest.”

  “Are you…?”

  “Now, please.” The last of his request had been hissed through clenched teeth. “You told your grandfather you would listen to me. I have a car parked out front waiting. We can talk more when we get there. I will explain, but right now you are in danger, and I have been instructed to save you.”

  “Old Poppie is going to have some explaining to do, setting me up to promise to be guarded by Mister Bossy here,” she mumbled as she stomped away from the man in her living room. While she couldn’t exactly believe the nonsense he spouted, her heart was now beating a hundred or so beats a minute, maybe even per second judging by the sudden ache in her chest. “Bombs? Right.”

  Poppie had to be losing it. But, if he had gone to all of this trouble to hire a bodyguard, she figured she could play along for the old man’s peace of mind. and Besides, right now she was good with getting out of the house, regardless of what was really, possibly, going down. Wouldn’t be the first time his own overactive imagination had gotten her grandfather all riled up about something that he never fully explained. She just wished he hadn’t picked a day she’d been on a roll writing to inconvenience her this way. He’d never gone to the trouble of a bodyguard before, though. She wondered if she should be concerned, or maybe look into putting the man into a nursing home. He’d been so genuinely upset when he’d called she would have agreed to anything to calm him down before he had a heart attack. He was usually a silent, gruff worrier. Something in the pit of her stomach balled and rolled.

  Fear? Lust? She tried not to think of how the Adonis turned warrior prince turned her on. He was seriously like one of the fictional alpha males she created in her novels. As she started throwing her laptop and memory sticks and stuff for her work into a case, all she could think about was living out one of her fantasies. Still, her mind kept wondering back around to considering what could be the truth behind what Luca had said about the men in town. Could they really be involved in a cult?