That Old Black Magic

by Michelle Rowen

  “Bertha.”

  He snorted. “You’re lying.”

  “You’re smart.”

  “I already told you my name. Ben Hanson.”

  “Yeah, golden-boy.”

  “What?”

  She swept her gaze over him. They were behind a corner and could hear the busy downtown traffic close by. “That was Darrak’s nickname for you. He thought you were a real threat to his and Eden’s happily never after.”

  So funny he forgot to laugh. “Yeah, some threat.”

  She studied him for a long, heavy moment. “The name’s Kathleen Harris. But people I like call me Leena.”

  “Leena.”

  “I said people I like call me that.” Her amber eyes slid down the front of him again. “The jury’s still out on you.”

  He didn’t have time for witty repartee. “We need to get away from here. It won’t be long before they figure out what I did and this”—he brushed his fingers over the brand on his arm, currently covered by the sleeve of his leather jacket—“is going to lead them right to me. By then I need to make sure you’re safe. So are you coming with me or not?”

  She stood with her hands on her hips, still studying him as if he was a curious creature she’d found at a museum. “Why did you rescue me? Why would you put yourself at risk like that unless this is some sort of stupid trick?”

  He didn’t have time for this. “You don’t trust easily, do you?”

  “As little as I can, actually.”

  “I rescued you because . . .” His jaw clenched. “Because I’m not that person, the one they think I am. I have no interest in forcibly extracting information from women and I don’t particularly care what that information is or who wants it. And if that’s what they want me for then they can look elsewhere.”

  Leena frowned at him. “You’re right about one thing.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You did put a nice target on your back, Ken doll.”

  He sighed. “Thought I asked you to stop calling me that?”

  “Why? You’re gorgeous, blond, and way too perfect to be anything but plastic underneath it all.”

  He almost laughed at that. “Yeah, so perfect. I’m about as far from that as you can get.”

  Leena stopped arguing and followed him to the van that he’d parked two blocks away. He’d known from the moment he arrived what he was going to do and what it would mean.

  “So you don’t want to be the Malleus’s pet anymore even though you went through the ritual and got the brand,” she said. “Not the smartest move, but pretty damn brave to defy a direct order like that.”

  He glanced at her as he shifted the van into drive. “You sound like you know the ropes.”

  “I’ve been around a few dangerous men in my life. Some of them were mixed up with Malleus business. They always got me in deep trouble. You, I’m thinking, aren’t much different, even if you’re all knight in shining armor right now. I just want to know what changed. It couldn’t have just been me that prompted this crazy decision. You don’t even know me.”

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he pulled onto the road. “You want to know what changed?”

  “Yeah. Lay it on me.”

  “Darrak’s gone and it’s my fault. But only now I realize it was the wrong thing to do.”

  Leena gasped out loud. “He’s gone?”

  “One-way nosedive into the Void.” Ben never in a million years would have guessed he’d feel guilty about that, but he did.

  “Holy shit.” Leena pressed back in her seat and raised a hand to her mouth. “How’s Eden taking it?”

  “Badly.” He blinked hard. “I was stupid to come between them, but I honestly had no idea how much she loved him. It was a mistake. I see that now, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I can just fix other things that need fixing.”

  She went quiet for a moment before nodding firmly. “Fine. So now what’s the plan?”

  “The plan is to get you to a motel as soon as possible.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That sounds interesting.”

  That she was able to make him blush surprised even him. “So you’ll be safe.”

  “That’s usually the reason dangerous men want to take me to motels.”

  A nervous laugh threatened to burst free from his throat. “Trust me, I’m not some romantic hero who’s planning on ravishing you.”

  “Mm-hmm. Okay.”

  He tried to focus on the road. “The last thing I need in my life right now is a shapeshifter. This supernatural crap is all new to me, and I’m not liking it a bit. If I survive this I want to get my life back to normal as much as I can. Get it?”

  “Got it.”

  He amused her, she wasn’t exactly hiding this fact. “Once I know you’re safe I have to come back and take care of some other business.”

  This shifted her expression from amusement to concern. “Are you stupid or something? They’ll kill you!”

  “There’s an angel in a cell near yours. I need to rescue him, too.”

  Her eyes widened. “An angel? How do you know that?”

  Ben came to a stop at a light and eyed their surroundings cautiously. “He had wings. They were plucked daily. Didn’t you notice anything?”

  “No, I . . . I mean I heard them talking to another prisoner near me. I think the guy’s name was Daniel, but I didn’t hear anything else that might help.”

  Daniel. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on why.

  “Why would they want his feathers?” he mused.

  Leena casually propped her left leg up on the dashboard. “An angel’s feathers aren’t really feathers. That’s just what they look like in the human world. They’re more like, uh, celestial Wheaties, if you get my meaning. An angel gets his power from his wings.”

  Ben frowned. “How do you know that?”

  “I’m a veritable encyclopedia of supernatural facts, handsome. Can’t help it. I retain everything I’ve ever seen or heard.” She tapped her temple. “Werepanthers are known to have photogenic memories.”

  Werepanther. Terrific.

  He rubbed a hand over his forehead. His head had started to throb. “Why would they pluck his feathers?”

  “It would keep an angel weak and unable to fight back, which might be why they’ve succeeded in locking him up. Also, if their feathers are ingested by a mortal, it gives them a whole lot of power.”

  Ben was silent for a moment. “They eat the feathers?”

  “So the rumor goes.”

  “It’s happened before?”

  She nodded. “Legend has it that Hitler had an angel trapped so he could grind the wings up into his breakfast every day. Thought it would make him invincible.”

  That was a disturbing image. “Didn’t work though, did it?”

  “No, but I’m thinking he didn’t have enough time to make it work. Anyone so determined to trap an angel and suck up some of that celestial energy is up to something big. Something epic. The only question is who and what?”

  Ben thought he knew who, although he wasn’t sure what Oliver Gale could possibly want that would require a huge influx of celestial energy.

  Hitler wanted to rule the world.

  So what exactly was the leader of the Malleus after?

  EIGHTEEN

  The moment Eden slid the bracelet over her wrist, the floor dropped out beneath her feet. Alternating darkness and light flooded her vision, and she clung to Andy’s furry neck as they fell.

  A few moments later, they hit the ground, hard enough to knock the breath out of her. Sprawled on her back, she looked up at a dark, starless sky.

  Noise assaulted her ears. Traffic, shouting, the bustle of a crowd.

  “Eden, watch out!” Andy called.

  She rolled out of the way just in time to avoid a cart with large wheels that would have gone right through the middle of her forehead. She scooted to the side of the road and realized she was in the middle of a
mass of people—or, rather, not people. Some of these creatures were in human form, but others were in . . . other forms. Tall or short, big or small, horned, unhorned. All sorts of colors and shapes. It was like something out of Sesame Street if the children’s show had been set in the middle of Hell itself and the Muppets had sharp teeth and scales, or slimy skin and octopus-like appendages.

  “What is this?” she whispered.

  “Some sort of a market.”

  A demon market in the Netherworld. And she’d forgotten her camera.

  “We need to find Darrak,” she said.

  A demon walked past, pushing a smaller cart full of some kind of product. It seemed to be a cross between a lemon and a multicolored sea anemone, its tentacles waving in the air. Other demons approached and sifted through the lemon things, shoving them into bags while the lemons made high-pitched squealing noises.

  “You’re not moving.”

  “I’m currently frozen with fear.”

  “Some scary black witch you are. You don’t want these things sniffing around you. Call me crazy, but I’m thinking humans—or mostly humans—aren’t too common around here.”

  Eden got to her feet and moved behind a tall stack of boxes to escape the searching gaze of the eight-foot-tall puce-colored vendor.

  She turned to look into Andy’s glowing red eyes. “Why do you sound so calm, anyway? You do realize where we are, right?”

  His forehead wrinkled. “Don’t know. I just am. It’s eerie, really.”

  “This isn’t a dream.”

  “When that guy from before—”

  “Lucifer.”

  “Thanks for the reminder. Anyway, when he changed me, it gave me some sort of serenity that just kicked in down here. I guess that’s why I get to be your guide. I’m sure I’m going to have a complete meltdown when this is all over. I mean, I was still getting used to the werewolf thing. This—well, this is in a whole different ballpark.”

  He was right about that.

  Funny, this place reminded her ever so slightly of the Kensington Market in downtown Toronto. Food and crowds and entertainment, an energetic mix of pedestrians and vendors.

  Only . . . not.

  There were hundreds of demons here, but the storefronts weren’t emblazoned with colorful signs for local businesses. They were blank. And it was night—she glanced up again. Not a star in that sky. Or a moon. Just blank, black velvet. The only light came from streetlamps that only served to cast a spooky glow over the street.

  But this wasn’t the same sky she was accustomed to looking at. Funny, she hadn’t even expected the Netherworld to have a sky.

  Was this where Darrak spent time before he was cursed? Had he ever attended this market before?

  And what exactly were those lemon things for?

  A large burst of fire erupted from one of the carts down the street, followed by a scream of pain and a rousing cheer of appreciation.

  “What the hell was that?” she managed.

  “Looks like a pet dragon,” Andy said. “It’s for sale. Interested?”

  “I’ll pass, thanks.” She scanned the crowd one more time. “What direction do we need to go in to get to the Void? Do you know?”

  “I’m supposed to know?”

  “You’re the guide, remember?” Her stomach sank. “How can we even go to the Void? It’s a place of nothing, according to Darrak. How do we travel to nothing?”

  “Maybe you’re being too literal. We’ll ask for directions.”

  “Damn it,” she mumbled. “Lucas didn’t make this even slightly easy for us, did he?”

  “Why do you keep calling him Lucas?”

  Good question. Denial was powerful, but not all that practical. “Because it helps me to pretend that he isn’t really the Prince of Hell.”

  Saying his title out loud earned her a few gasps, and a couple cleared throats, and any demon within hearing distance moved away from her.

  Well, at least now she knew what to say to get some privacy.

  “Let’s go,” she said firmly and started walking away from the crowd. If there was a Void around here it wouldn’t be close to a busy street market like this. Both she and Andy owned a private investigation company. If they couldn’t figure out where they were going they weren’t worth that much.

  “Are you and Darrak still connected somehow?” Andy asked. “That would be helpful.”

  She exhaled shakily. “I can’t feel anything. For a month he’s been such a huge part of my life, but . . . I—I can’t believe this has happened. All I wanted in the beginning was to get rid of him, to have my freedom again, and now . . . Andy, we have to find him.”

  He looked up at her with concern and his pointed ears folded back flat against his head. “What if we’re too late?”

  She couldn’t even think about that. Not now. “We have to hurry.”

  Eden picked up her pace as she weaved her way out of the thick crowd. She would find him. She had to. There was no other way this could turn out.

  Her mother used to call her a “stubborn little thing” when she’d been growing up. Caroline had been exaggerating then, feeling that any kind of disagreement constituted stubbornness. She’d been wrong then.

  But she’d be right now.

  “I’ll find you, Darrak,” she whispered. “No matter what.”

  NINETEEN

  There was no redhead. No matter how far Darrak went down the seemingly endless street, no redhead magically appeared.

  Which was fine. He’d never really had a thing for redheads before. Especially not enough to follow one of them into dark, uncharted territory. So why was he doing just that?

  No damn idea.

  He stopped walking and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

  “Okay, enough,” he said out loud. “Talk to me. What do you want from me?”

  Some entity was using Theo’s appearance to get close to him, but why? He refused to think about the fact that his friend was really gone. It made something in his chest ache. It was a pain that was spreading outward the longer he walked down this street, and it wasn’t just from some strange sense of grief. It felt very wrong.

  All of this felt very wrong.

  Somebody was messing with him. It had to be Lucifer.

  Yes, of course it was Lucifer. He could change his appearance at will. Lucifer had the power to play with Darrak’s mind, make him forget or make him remember things that had never happened. It was like Darrak was a lump of play dough and Lucifer was the enthusiastic child smashing the colors together and making a complete mess.

  “Okay.” Darrak turned in a circle, ignoring the pain now swirling in his gut. “You had your fun, Lucifer. What do you want from me today? What game are you playing?”

  Lucifer didn’t appear. What did appear, however, were the dark forms of the wraiths, moving toward him swiftly and smoothly, as if their long black cloaks glided just an inch above the ground.

  “Ladies,” he said, forcing himself to hold his ground and not turn tail and run in the opposite direction. They had to already be full from the substantial fairy meal they’d just consumed. “Maybe you can help me.”

  “Demon,” one hissed in a cold feminine voice.

  “Angel,” the other snarled.

  “Huh?” Darrak replied. “I think you’re a little off there, sweetheart.”

  “Demon-angel,” they said in unison, moving around him like piranha circling nervous prey. “So unusual. How does it exist? How does it walk with such contrary forces at work within it?”

  “Are you referring to me as an ‘it’?” Darrak asked. “Because that’s kind of rude, if you ask me.”

  “It has the sweetest smell,” one said.

  “Thanks. That’s not a cologne, FYI, that’s all me.” His words were flippant, but he felt anything but.

  “No wonder it couldn’t maintain its life force anywhere else. No wonder it was sent here. It is not meant to exist.”

  “We must taste it. Such a waste to simply l
et it continue on to its fate.”

  Those pale fingers reached for him, but just before the wraith touched his throat, he turned and started walking, not looking back, not saying anything else to provoke their interest.

  He wasn’t scared, he was mad. Mad that Lucifer would put him somewhere like this, allow these common wraiths to think they could attempt a taste test of his archdemon energy.

  One of the wraiths darted in front of him and peeled back her hood.

  “Try to look away, demon-angel,” she whispered. Her voice had grown more sultry, more sirenlike. Her hair was long and blonde and silky and flowed as if moved by a nonexistent wind. Her face was a supermodel’s. One of those Victoria’s Secret babes.

  For some reason, a blonde supermodel didn’t do it for him today, not even for a moment.

  “No thanks,” he said. “No offense, but I don’t think you’re my type. You haven’t seen a redhead wandering around here, have you?”

  She hissed, which ruined the shiny look when it revealed her sharp teeth.

  Wraiths. No better than the Netherworld’s answer to vampires, really.

  “Go play with your girlfriend,” Darrak suggested. “I’m not interested in a make-out session with either of you. Sorry to disappoint.”

  Both of them flew at him then, and he tried with all his strength to throw them off. He’d been fooling himself to think that he had a chance here. They were petite, but they were supernaturally strong once they attached themselves, like humanoid leeches. It was impossible to shake them off.

  An image of long, beautiful auburn hair flashed across his vision as they kissed him, one on his mouth, one on his throat and he felt the edge of those sharp teeth.

  A word flitted through his mind—a garden of paradise, somewhere warm and safe and beautiful where he wanted to live forever.

  Eden.

  Great. One mention of angels and he was getting all Adam and Eve.

  Although, still, for last thoughts there could be worse ones, he supposed.

  The wraiths suddenly detached themselves and recoiled from him. It wasn’t something he’d expected. He’d figured that was it, he was a goner. They both had their hoods pushed back from their lovely but sour faces.