Hex Appeal

by Linda Wisdom

  The man easily stood six-foot-seven and was pure muscle. The fact that he had been a vampire for almost 1000 years meant power rolled off him like a living thing. Jazz heard he had been a solider in the principality of Galicia where he died in battle and awoke as a vampire. His bald head, mashed-in nose, heavily scarred bull-terrier features, and dogged personality made him the perfect enforcer for the Protectorate.

  Jazz hadn’t seen the big bad, not to mention highly insane, vampire in about 140 years and as far as she was concerned she didn’t care to see him for another 140.

  “The bitch witch.” His growl would have sent the most ferocious Were running. “I should have known you would have something to do with this mess. Wasn’t it enough you caused Clive Reeves’ mansion to implode and end up in the fires of Hades? Did you have to make sure an entire family was destroyed? Amazing that no matter where you go you end up in a bloody mess. Literally.”

  “Ah, ah, ah…no names.” She wagged her forefinger at him. “Didnt your mother teach you any manners where a lady is concerned?”

  “I don’t see a lady here and I ate my mother’s bones for breakfast.”

  Nick walked past and grabbed Jazz’s errant finger that had begun to glow a dark red. He lowered the digit before something happened. “The bodies are in the drawing room,” he said tersely, cocking his thumb over his shoulder. “I checked the rest of the house and there’s no one else here.”

  Reinhold nodded and jerked his head. Four men, also dressed in black leather dusters over black leather skintight pants and leather shirts, walked past him.

  “Clean-up crew?” Jazz asked.

  “She does not belong here,” Reinhold told Nick with a curl of a thick upper lip. His matte black eyes shifted in her direction.

  “Trust me, I fit in these surroundings a lot better than you do.” She tried for the same curled lip but couldn’t get the right effect. “And I’m not dressed as if I was ready to do some B&E in the local neighborhood like some vampires I could mention.”

  “Will you be quiet for just one damned minute?” Nick murmured in her ear before turning to the enforcer who looked as if he wanted nothing more than to tear Jazz into tiny pieces. “They are the last of their lineage, so no one will be looking for them.”

  Reinhold nodded. It was clear he didn’t like Nick any more than he liked Jazz, but at least he was moderately civil to the vampire.

  “The director will want a report from you by next evening,” he said.

  Nick nodded. He turned away when his name was called and he returned to the drawing room.

  Reinhold’s smile when he stared at Jazz wasn’t the least bit pleasant. “You stink of magick,” he growled.

  “Gee, and here I thought my new perfume had one thinking more of spring rain,” Jazz drawled. Her smile remained fixed but her moss-green eyes betrayed a cold hard steel that echoed the large vampire’s gaze. “But better to stink of magick than of death.”

  He leaned in until they were nose to nose. “You’ve always been a pain in the ass, witch. Too bad no one thought to drown you at birth.”

  Jazz almost reeled from the fetid stench of his breath, but she refused to show any weakness. “Do us all a favor and greet the dawn.”

  Reinhold took another step further into her personal space. “I could tear out your throat before you could scream.”

  “And be dead a second later from my blood,” she reminded him, wanting to think he wasn’t serious with his threat but pretty positive he was.

  “Nothing more than an old wives’ tale.” His eyes glowed a dark red as he moved another step forward, his fangs dropping.

  A blur flew between them and Reinhold found himself tossed across the entryway. His body slammed against the wall, leaving a deep crater in the wallpaper. The air rumbled as if an earthquake was looming.

  “You will never threaten her again,” Nick stated in a low deadly voice. “The next time you do you will not live to see the following moonrise.”

  Reinhold jumped to his feet. “I never knew a witch could lead you around by the balls, Gregorivich.” He used Nick’s original surname. “Maybe it’s better you’re no longer an enforcer, after all.” With a last killing look at Jazz he walked into the drawing room.

  “Well, thank you…whoa!” Jazz yelped as her arm was almost yanked out of its socket as she was dragged outside so fast she couldn’t come up with enough breath to utter a spell to keep her dry. She winced against the rain coming down in an icy sheet, soaking her in seconds.

  “You just can’t let it go, can you?”

  “He started it,” she muttered, cringing at the sound of tired resignation in his voice. She didn’t mind if Nick was mad at her, but she didn’t want him disappointed.

  “And you’re not five years old,” he reminded her, not slowing his pace even as her heels literally slid across the wet slick surface. “Reinhold would have torn out your throat without a second thought.”

  “And died from ingesting my blood. Too bad we can’t have his death without mine.” Shut up, Jazz. You’re making matters worse. But, as usual, she was ignoring the good gargoyle in her brain—the one that tried to keep her on the right track even when she tended to veer off.

  Nick stopped so quickly Jazz slammed into him. “Fates preserve me,” he muttered. He rounded on her, his forefinger pointed at her like a teacher reprimanding an errant student. “Let’s review Vampires 101. We don’t need our fangs to tear out our victims’ throats.” By now, his fury turned his eyes a glowing red.

  Jazz tried to step back, but the fingers bracketing her wrist wouldn’t allow her any room to escape.

  “Got it. It’s just that he’s so nasty and what happened in there was so…” she realized she couldn’t come up with a good enough description without comparing it to all the major slasher movies thrown together in one gory bloody mess. She turned green and pressed her hand against her stomach. “I don’t feel so good.”

  Nick swiftly pushed her toward the Jeep and sat her down, gently pushing her head down to her knees.

  “Better I throw up here than inside where Herr Reinhold can see me,” she muttered, pulling in deep breaths. She waved a hand around. “Okay, better now.” She slowly lifted her head.

  “You didn’t blink an eye at the carnage at Clive Reeves’ mansion, yet you’re ready to drop from seeing six bodies.” Nick kept his hand resting against the back of her neck.

  “Yeah, well, there was a lot more blood in there and since I was pretty much the cause for what happened at the mansion I couldn’t go all girly there.” She suddenly moaned. “How can you handle it? All the blood, I mean? Why didn’t you go all fangy?”

  “I fed before I left.”

  She straightened up more, his hand falling away. “You knew we’d find them all dead, didn’t you?”

  He looked at the house, his gaze distant in thought. “I had a gut feeling we’d find something bad.”

  “Bad? Bad is my hairdresser giving me bangs. Bad are Fluff and Puff finding my wand and waving up unimaginable spells. What we found in there was horrific. Was so ghastly that…” she shook her head. “I think I just experienced my nightmare for tonight and I didn’t have to go to sleep to have it. I’m not sure if that’s good or not.”

  Nick looked up and noticed Reinhold standing in the doorway. The vampire’s dark expression wasn’t much different than before.

  “I’ll be right back.” He headed back to the house.

  Jazz watched the two vampires. While it was tempting to use some magick to eavesdrop on their conversation, she didn’t want to do it only to discover they were discussing the number of body parts found. Nick’s expression had darkened and his features looked as if they had been carved from stone. He appeared to snap something to Reinhold then walked away, his body straight and tall. Reinhold watched him leave, a definite sneer on his face.

  “Whatever it is I didn’t do it,” Jazz said as Nick moved closer. She yelped as he picked her up and tossed her fully into the p
assenger seat.

  Without saying a word he started up the engine and navigated his way around two large black SUVs parked in a wide V.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “Nothing you need be concerned about,” Nick said, tight-lipped.

  Jazz sighed. She glanced over her shoulder and watched Reinhold still standing in the doorway. She might not know what the two vampires had said to each other, but she did know she liked the chief enforcer even less than she had before, and she’d hated him before.

  “What are they going to do in there?” She figured Nick would answer that question.

  “You don’t want to know,” he said tersely. “But they’ll basically make it all go away. By the time the clean-up team finishes their part of the job no one in the neighborhood will ever know any murders occurred in there. The house and grounds will be put up for sale and life in the neighborhood will go on as before.”

  “The Protectorate will make sure no one finds out a vampire killed a wizard and his family,” she murmured.

  “And the enforcers will hunt down Esme.”

  “And destroy her.”

  “And the child.”

  “That is so not fair,” she argued. “She’s only a little girl.”

  “It is fair, Jazz. Otherwise, she will be six years old forever. As she grows in power she won’t be able to handle the restrictions of her looks versus her age. I’ve seen it happen before and each time the young vampire grew insane because there was no way for the creature to deal with what went on. It’s absolute cruelty to allow a vampire to exist in such a fashion.”

  She nodded. “Like Kirsten Dunst’s character in Interview with a Vampire.”

  “It’s the way of our world, Jazz. Just as there are things in your part of the world I don’t agree with.”

  “I haven’t eaten a child in centuries. My oven is for Toll House cookies only.” Jazz picked up her Starbucks and wrinkled her nose at the cold taste but knew the caffeine would help. “Maybe Esme can elude them.”

  Nick cocked an eyebrow. “I was an enforcer for over eight hundred years, Jazz. There isn’t any way she can elude our kind for too long. We’re trained to track without stopping.” He made his way to the freeway.

  Jazz thought of the stack of classic horror and sci-fi movies waiting for her at home. After the last couple of hours they didn’t sound as appealing as they had before.

  “You know, sometimes it would be nice to have a nice normal life,” she murmured. Since she was looking straight ahead, she didn’t see the brief look of pain cross Nick’s features.

  Chapter 8

  Jazz found herself in a world fashioned of shades of gray ranging from pale ash to a deep charcoal. She turned in a tight circle, but could find no point of reference or any landmark to give her any idea where she was. For all she knew it could be the middle of the day or middle of the night. She had no idea why everything seemed not only dark but also unclear as if she was viewing her surroundings through clouded eyes.

  The faint outline of wraith-like figures moved around her, looking as if they floated through the thick ash-colored air. The silence unnerved her the most.

  “Hello?” She reached out to touch one of them, and then looked down to see that her arm was the same non-color as the beings that glided around her. Her hand was partially covered by a dark sleeve of what appeared to be some kind of robe made of a coarse fabric that chafed her skin. It was nothing like her favorite plush robe that she liked to curl up in on cold winter nights.

  “Where am I? What’s going on? What are you? What am I?” she called out, but received no answer.

  Frustrated by the silence from the others, she moved forward and discovered she seemed to be floating off the ground as they were. “Whoa, what in Fates is going on here?” She turned and found a familiar figure hovering nearby. “Nick!”

  She flinched when the man, wearing a matching robe, turned toward her. It was Nick, yet not him. His skin was the same ashy gray as the other individuals around her. But what well and truly frightened her were his eyes. His beautiful eyes—the ones she likened to the color of the Irish Sea—were dead.

  “Where are we? What is this place?” She started to touch his arm then drew back. She hated herself for her reaction, but this…creature in front of her was Nick.

  His smile was sad and that alarmed her as much as his reply. “We’re shades, Jazz. We lost the battle against Clive Reeves and now we are doomed to spend eternity with the others.” He gestured with outstretched arms to include the shadowy figures that drifted aimlessly around them. No one looked at them. It was as if they didn’t exist to the shades either.

  That was when she noticed the rank odor that lingered in the thick air. It seemed like something tangible that she could taste as well as see and smell. She knew immediately what it was. A miasma of death surrounded them tainting the world she once saw in brilliant colors of the rainbow. Now that universe was nothing more than tints of gray and a dirty hue of white.

  She turned her head, seeing a three-story building that stood a short distance away. The gothic architecture was all too familiar and through the fog were tiny dots of red along the base of the building. What chilled her blood, if that were possible, was the hazy outline of a man standing before an upstairs window.

  “No.” The word was a brief exhalation of air. “No.” This time the word came out stronger. “He can’t be alive. We killed him. He was draining your blood and I screamed for justice for all the victims. That’s when Irma showed up and…” She paused to take a breath then realized she didn’t need to because she wasn’t breathing. But it was the look of sorrow on Nick’s face that caused her the most pain.

  “I’m sorry, Jazz, but that wasn’t what happened. He succeeded. You fought him so hard, but he fought back harder. You made him so angry he killed you then he drained all of my blood. He mixed our two bloods together, and with it he became stronger than ever. Now he can never be destroyed.” His sad words bounced around inside her brain. “The hardest thing I ever had to do was to lie there and watch you die and not be able to save you.”

  She shook her head, denying what she heard. She refused to believe what she saw around her. “No. This isn’t real. It’s just another nightmare.” She stepped back from his outstretched hand. She was positive that if he touched her she wouldn’t be able to continue to deny his words and they would take on a horrifying truth. “This is wrong.” As she turned away she looked at the mansion again and viewed the monster she was positive she saw die now looking down at her. And smiling. “You bastard!” She started running toward the house even if it felt as if she was slogging through a thick goo. When her feet touched the patio she suddenly bounced off something and fell back onto her ass. Caught up in her fury, she tried again only to slam against the invisible shield that refused to allow her to get any closer. She looked up and saw Clive Reeves sneering at her—as if he felt all the fury and frustration in her body. He held up a crystal goblet filled with a ruby colored liquid and silently toasted her before lifting the glass to his lips.

  “You will never win! Never!” She screamed so hard and long her voice soon gave out. “Never!”

  “Jazz.”

  “Never!” She lashed out with her fists, connecting with solid flesh. A muffled oomph! reached her ears. Images of the man who caused her death continued to haunt her and she fought even harder.

  “Jazz! Jazz!” Her hands were held in a vise-like grip that almost crushed her bones. “Wake up! You’re having a nightmare. Come on, sweetie, wake up.”

  Her eyes popped open to find Krebs seated on the side of the bed, still holding on to her hands. A faint bruise was already coloring his cheekbone. She could see the slippers huddled in a corner of their magickal cage watching her with fear darkening their eyes. Even Krebs appeared uneasy as swirls of fear magick colored the air.

  She pushed her damp hair away from her face, feeling the slickness of sweat coating her skin and the smell of horror on her. When
Krebs was confident she was fully awake, he released her hands. She held them in front of her, relieved to see them a healthy pink color but trembling violently as if her nightmare still affected the nerves.

  “I…” She struggled to find the right words to explain the terror that still bounced around inside her head. She pressed her fingers against her temples as if the pressure could drive the memories out.

  “You were screaming the house down. I was afraid of what I’d find when I got up here.” He rubbed her back and shoulders lightly. “That must have been some nightmare to spook you like that.”

  She thought of the colorless world her nightmare showed her. And the idea that Clive Reeves still lived while she and Nick…She swallowed the sob that threatened to travel up her throat.

  “What happened, Jazz?” Krebs asked gently, folding his arms around her.

  She shook her head then rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I’ll never eat nachos before bed again,” she muttered, wishing she could come up with a better lie. She was reluctant to tell him about her nightmare for fear it would return.

  “Yeah, try again. I’ve seen the junk you eat before bed and nothing before has caused you to wake up screaming much less look like death warmed over.” He paused. “Could your nightmare have anything to do with what you and Nick did last night?”

  She grimaced at the memory of what she’d seen in the house. A memory she didn’t care to have again, nor would she make Krebs suffer by sharing it with him. “I’m sorry I woke you up.” She looked at the windows across the room. The open blinds afforded her a perfect view of the boardwalk in the distance where old-fashioned streetlamps dotted the walkway.

  Nick.

  Jazz had an intense desire to know that he was all right. That he wasn’t the thing she saw in her nightmare.

  She pushed herself off the bed and ran to the bathroom.

  “What are you doing?” Krebs asked.

  “I need to see Nick.” She ran cold water over her wrists and splashed it on her face. She ran her fingers through her tangled curls and grimaced when it didn’t make it look any better. “I have to know he’s all right.”