Hex Appeal

by Linda Wisdom

  “What do you mean you can’t sense her?” A familiar voice bounced around the rocky interior. “I thought you have always been able to keep tabs on her.”

  Jazz looked back and shot Nick an I told you so look.

  “She isn’t in her quarters.” Another familiar voice to Jazz’s ears and one she hadn’t expected to hear.

  “Did you try the vampire’s lair? She’s probably fucking him,” Angelica sneered.

  “I find nothing.”

  “You are no good to me unless you can finish the job!”

  “I’ll finish you, you fangy bitch,” Jazz growled under her breath, starting to move forward then stopped. It didn’t take a brain to know that barging into the cave wouldn’t do much other than probably end her life and those with her.

  She led the way as they crept their way along the rock walls.

  What we have ahead of us is not good. Nick’s voice echoed inside her head.

  Nothing new there, but I’m not letting either one of them win.

  Why doesn’t that surprise me? She heard his chuckle.

  I’ll do my part, but can you make sure that Krebs is safe?

  You shouldn’t have brought him.

  I needed a mortal to ground the spell and he was the closest one.

  Don’t tell him that or he’ll pout for a month.

  No kidding.

  Do you have a plan?

  Yeah, kick some vamp and wizard ass. She took a deep breath and forged ahead.

  When Jazz entered the large chamber, she found long wooden tables filled with various beakers and glass jars filled with contents she didn’t care to further investigate. A large ornate leather-bound book of spells sat open on a carved ebony bookstand. The man who resembled a living skeleton wearing a dark blue robe stood at one end of the chamber facing an image of Angelica reflected on the stone.

  The only good thing about the scene in front of her was watching an old enemy get his butt handed to him by a furious Angelica.

  “This final dream spell is important,” Angelica ranted. “You must make sure she cannot wake up from it and I want it to look as if Nikolai Gregorivich is to blame for her death. That way both of them are taken care of. Considering his feelings for her, it will be assumed he killed her in a fit of anger.”

  “What about the mortal in her house?” The wizard that Jazz knew as Dyfynnog, a powerful wizard with a sadistic streak and the owner of Fluff and Puff until Jazz appropriated the slippers from him. Since she had proof he had abused the bunny slippers in such a way the elder wizards would have gotten involved, he chose not to demand their return and Jazz promised to stay out of his territory and he out of hers. Now it appeared he’d found a way around that vow, so she was determined to put a stop to it…and him.

  Unfortunately, her temper got the better of her.

  “Because of your nasty little spells, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep for weeks!” she shouted, stepping into the chamber and throwing down a fireball that exploded near one of the tables. Luckily, the flame fizzled out as soon as it struck the floor, otherwise, the table would have gone up in flames.

  Dyfynnog spun around. “How did you get here?” he demanded, a snarl on his lips. “This realm is protected.” He raised a gnarled hand; the palm etched with arcane magickal symbols that pulsed with his anger.

  Krebs would have backed up, but Nick kept a hand against the middle of his back and pushed him forward instead, while Irma looked around in wide-eyed wonder.

  “You are so busted!” Jazz was too lost in her anger to think exactly what she was facing; as in a 2,000-year-old wizard with more power in his fingernail than she had in her entire body. But Jazz was on a roll and she knew she had right on her side.

  He pointed his finger at her, a strange reddish-orange light streaming from the tip. “You took my property!”

  She was quick enough to dodge from it, while the light shone through Irma’s body.

  “I rescued them from your abuse. While you ruined my sleep, sent me disgusting nightmares, and had me dreaming I was driving a minivan!” She continued to advance on him, but kept an eye on him to make sure he didn’t make any wrong moves. “Not to mention giving me the worst 48 hours of my life by making me mortal!”

  The wizard looked at the three behind her. “Vampire, spirit, and human. So that is how you entered the realm. But do you think they can protect you?”

  Jazz chanced a quick look at the stone wall that had harbored Angelica’s image. Naturally, she was gone. She’d probably left the moment she saw Jazz and her crew. It didn’t matter. She’d find a way to get the bloodsucking bitch too.

  “You have broken so many laws among all our communities that you deserve to be destroyed a million times over,” she declared, making sure to keep a potions-covered table between him and her.

  Dyfynnog sneered and shot a blazing blue light toward Irma. The ghost’s mouth opened in a silent scream of horror. At the same time her image wavered and appeared to melt.

  “No!” Jazz threw out her hands, instinctively sending a blast of cold power toward the light instead of Irma, deflecting the stream to one of the tables, detonating a bottle of bubbling mustard yellow liquid. The boom was loud enough to injure ears and the smell acrid enough to burn their nasal passages. Only Jazz’s quick thinking sent a protective bubble around the other three.

  “I told you, this battle is with me,” she growled, moving toward him. “Who thought this up? You or Angelica? Who found who? Something tells me Angelica, because while you have a totally insane sadistic nature, you aren’t inventive enough to think about fooling with peoples’ dreams. That sounds more like something Angelica would come up with,” she said, removing the protective bubble.

  “What did she promise you, wizard?” Nick asked. “What did she say you could have if you invaded my dreams, twisted my darkest thoughts?” His fangs dropped and his eyes turned a deadly red as he moved slowly around the other side of the room.

  “Stay with me,” Irma could be heard whispering to Krebs.

  “Oh yeah, you make a great shield,” he muttered.

  “How?” Nick roared.

  Dyfynnog looked down his nose at Nick with all the disdain a lofty wizard could impart. “You are nothing to me, vampire, but I must say your deepest fears were interesting.” His gaze turned sly.

  Nick’s face seemed to have turned to stone.

  Jazz’s gaze shifted from one to the other. She could feel the abrupt change in the cavern’s atmosphere and it wasn’t good.

  “What smells so bad in here?” Irma walked over to one of the tables. Her nose wrinkled up as something foul drifted up out of a beaker.

  “You don’t want to know.” Jazz watched the war of wills between vampire and wizard and knew if she didn’t step in quickly, the battle would intensify to something none of them would be able to control. She knew what Dyfynnog was like. She had studied his nature and habits for some time before she had crept into his castle one late night to rescue a pair of bunny slippers that had been magickally created for his own dark-natured fun and games. From the day she liberated Fluff and Puff from their torture chamber, the slippers had been loyal to her and she had vowed to keep them safe. She just knew if she lost the battle here, Dyfynnog would take back the slippers and they would suffer unimaginable trials under his machinations.

  It’s always up to the witch, she fussed and fumed.

  She had no idea what she would do. No idea what would work against someone this powerful, but that hadn’t stopped her before.

  What do you intend to do? Nick’s words inside her head were calming in their own way.

  Hell if I know. I’m flying without a broom here. She took a deep breath and just spoke from the heart.

  “Four stand together. Four stand apart. All invincible in their own way. Ye must do as I say. No appeal on your part. No vengeance.” She spoke in a voice that throbbed with a fury she knew she couldn’t unleash. “We leave ye alone. Ye leave us alone. And harm shall come
to none. But if ye enter our worlds again, ye shall suffer one-hundred-fold as ye have made others suffer.” She held up her palm, displaying a tiny flame the same color as the amethyst that winked from the broom charm that dangled from her gold ankle bracelet. The flame slowly grew in size until it spilled out over her hand. “Leave us alone! Because I say so, damn it!” She pursed her lips and blew the flame toward him. It floated in the air until it rose up and wrapped around Dyfynnog in a blanket of cold fire.

  “You can’t defeat me!” he shouted, waving his arms in a vain attempt to dispel the flames.

  “You’re finished, Dyfynnog. You’ve escaped punishment too many times. This time your crimes include mortals and spirits. Your elders won’t like that.” Jazz deliberately turned her back on him and walked toward Irma and Krebs. “Let’s go.” Nick obligingly took up the rear.

  “Your day is coming, witch!” Dyfynnog screamed after her from his prison of flames.

  She stopped to give him one look. “You know what? I’ve heard that for years now and I’m still walking around. While you…” she flung her hands outward. The legs under the tables collapsed and beakers and bottles slid onto the floor, breaking and releasing their contents, “have nothing.”

  “That flame won’t keep him prisoner forever,” Nick said as Jazz led them out of the nightmare realm.

  “No, but it will slow him down until I can report him to the wizard elders. Then they can deal with him.”

  “He tried to turn me into goo,” Irma grumbled, pausing long enough to tighten one of her curlers.

  “He’s good at that.” Jazz stopped and indicated they form a circle with hands clasped. “

  “We’re not going to go back and find ourselves in the wrong bodies, are we?” Krebs asked. “Things can happen!”

  “You’ll return to your body and with luck, you might even find yourself in your bed.” She took a deep breath. “We have seen. We have defeated. We ask the Dream Master permission to leave this realm and return to our own. And we ask that the one who has tainted his realm be punished for his misdeeds. Because I say so, damn it!”

  Jazz felt Nick’s hand tighten his grip as the same tornado seemed to lift them up and return them to her room. When she opened her eyes she found only she and Nick present.

  “I feel like Dorothy returning to Kansas! It’s good to be home!” she heard Krebs shout from the room below.

  Jazz laughed and grabbed Nick, tumbling them both backwards onto her bed.

  Fluff and Puff screeched a welcome and scampered up the bed and swooped over them. Croc and Delilah were right behind them.

  “I’d say they know what you did,” Nick said, fondling Puff’s ears. The slipper practically purred from the attention while Fluff snuggled under Jazz’s arm. The stilettos tried to find their way into his lap, but Jazz rescued him and warned them to behave themselves.

  “I think they’ve always been aware of Dyfynnog even when he was far away.” She scratched Fluff’s head between his ears. “Maybe now that link has finally been dissolved.”

  Nick rolled over onto his side, keeping Puff cradled against his chest. Both slippers now hummed from contentment. He reached over the two furry heads and two crocodile ones to cradle Jazz’s cheek in his palm.

  “He’ll do his best to discredit you,” he murmured.

  “He can try.” She knew she sounded cockier than she felt inside, but her hatred for the evil wizard was still simmering strong inside of her. “Another reason why I wanted witnesses.”

  “No supernatural court would accept the word of a mortal,” he reminded her. “Especially when the charges are against someone like Dyfynnog.”

  “He tried to dissolve a spirit and that other spell would have destroyed all three of you. I should have taken video,” she mused. “Did you see his face when I deflected that stream against Irma? I thought he’d have a stroke. Too bad he didn’t.”

  Nick shook his head. “You took a chance.”

  “And I won.”

  “No, you didn’t. You merely built a wall between you that one day he’ll scale and he’ll come after you.” He set Puff down on the black and white comforter and sat up.

  “Aren’t you staying?” Jazz felt high with success. Her blood was thrumming with excitement and she knew the perfect way to celebrate her triumph.

  “No, I need to get back.” He stood up with fluid grace. He walked around the bed to drop a kiss on her lips that started out light then deepened. When he lifted his head, she felt the heat racing through her blood.

  “Are you sure?” she asked archly.

  For a moment, a hint of regret darkened his eyes. “Yes. Be proud of yourself, Jazz. You vindicated Fluff and Puff and you stopped Dyfynnog from creating any more bad dreams.”

  “But Angelica is still at large.” She rolled over onto her back, allowing Fluff and Puff to slide over her prone body. Croc and Delilah had left the bed and tried to climb their way onto her dresser.

  Nick returned to the bed and leaned over her, a hand planted on either side of her. “Be very careful, Jazz. She’s not one to trifle with and she holds grudges for centuries.”

  She shrugged off his warning. “I don’t want to trifle with her. She might have great fashion sense, but I still want to see her as a huge pile of ash.”

  He straightened up.

  “If you don’t have anything going on tonight, wouldn’t you rather go out?” she asked, feeling the need to celebrate. “Find a fun club for some dancing.” She smiled and shimmied her shoulders as best she could what with the footwear all over her.

  “I’ll call you later.” Nick kissed her again and left the room.

  Jazz lay on the bed, knowing she wouldn’t hear Nick’s footsteps on the stairs. If she hadn’t strained her ears she wouldn’t have even heard the soft click of the front door as it opened and closed.

  “The man definitely needs some fun,” she murmured, hugging the slippers to her as she drifted off to sleep.

  Epilogue

  Jazz had barely closed her eyes only to find them popping open as she stood barefoot in her lilac robe on a cold stone floor facing a much too familiar ornate table with stern-faced witches seated across from her. The most daunting was the witch who was seated in the center.

  Oh, this is not good.

  “You take chances, young Griet of Ardglass,” Eurydice declared in a voice that echoed off the stone chamber.

  If Jazz thought Eurydice was daunting, a more irritating sight was a chair off to her left. The woman seated in it looked much too smug as she smiled at Jazz, revealing a hint of fang. Her velvet gown was blood red, low cut, and dropped to her ankles, revealing a pair of red high heels that Jazz might have coveted if she wasn’t positive they were as tainted as their owner. A blood red ruby ring sparkled on her ring finger with a matching stone embedded in a gold pendant that bisected her cleavage.

  Oh yes, this isn’t good at all.

  “Our association with the vampire community is tenuous at best, but your accusation that the director is guilty of a magickal crime goes beyond the pale,” Eurydice went on.

  “She started it,” Jazz muttered, earning a silent warning from the headmistress of the Witches’ Academy and head witch of the Witches’ Council. She knew the next time wouldn’t be a warning. Her lips would be zipped shut. Perhaps permanently if she wasn’t careful.

  “And you know if a wizard targets others you must inform the proper authorities. Not take matters into your own hands. Dyfynnog would then be reprimanded and placed on a watch list.”

  Her jaw dropped. “A reprimand? I was almost killed, as were my friends! He arranged to have Fluff and Puff accused of murder. He almost destroyed a harmless ghost who never did anything to him and all they’d do is slap him on the back of the hand?” No way she’d let Irma know she called her harmless. The spirit would find a way to whomp her for that comment. “So he had a grudge against me. Fine, keep it against me and not bring in others. He didn’t play fair.”

  “Wiza
rds never play fair.” Eurydice’s nostrils flared. “Still, your actions could have created a turmoil between the witches, wizards, and vampires. For that, you shall be punished.”

  “I am glad to see you understand what needs to be done.” Angelica spoke up, the smile on her face innocuous, but Jazz could easily smell the bullshit behind it. Jazz idly wondered what the vampire bitch would look like with a fireball on her head.

  “And it shall.” Eurydice’s smile was equally unpleasant.

  For a moment, Jazz was worried that the head witch had read her thoughts then she realized the woman was speaking to Angelica.

  The vampire settled back in her throne-like chair, waiting for the hammer to drop on Jazz’s head. Jazz hated the vampire with a fire that sent her blood boiling and the idea that the bloodsucking bitch would be present for her punishment was beyond unthinkable.

  “Thank you for coming, Angelica.”

  The vampire’s smile dimmed. “But I thought I would—” She disappeared in the wink of an eye. Her displeasure at not being there to see Jazz suffer lingered in the air like a bad smell.

  Once Angelica was banished back to her world, Jazz unfortunately opened her mouth. “Why couldn’t I sense it was her behind it all?”

  “You are still a young witchling with much to learn,” Eurydice informed her. “Especially in the area of thinking before acting.”

  “And if I’d thought too much we all would have been dead in that cavern. Even with your edict we would be banished with only the power we had at the time; mine has grown over the years! I still should have known what she was up to.”

  Eurydice looked at her as if she looked at a small child that amused her. “Reasons for everything. But you still do not have as much power as you would have had if you had not transgressed. That you risk your life for your friends is admirable, Griet. But you risked a tenuous link we have forged with the vampires and that we cannot allow. Therefore, fifty years has been added to your banishment.” She flicked her fingers at a plumed pen, which wrote across a scroll. “And I advise you to remain out of Angelica’s sight for some time.”