Bane huffed his displeasure but said nothing to Lucy about overused, unwanted jokes.
Dru focused on Lucy’s icy blue eyes, finding too much pleasure in her gaze. “What have you done?”
“Me?” She unbuttoned the silk jacket she wore and removed it, revealing a sheer white blouse beneath. It was obvious she wore no bra. For a woman her age, her breasts were surprisingly pert. Then again, the devil never aged.
“You might be the ruler of the Underworld, but you suck at hiding your emotions.” Dru inhaled a deep breath.
“You truly are suffering, aren’t you?” A momentary look of concern stole over Lucy’s face, but she quickly replaced it with admonition. “Perhaps one day, you’ll learn not to mess with me.”
Her eyes turned to crystallized wrath as she encompassed the group. “Not one of you Horsemen have fulfilled your duty. You’re worthless, incapable of fulfilling your reason for existence. I should smite you all right now and eradicate your useless bodies from the face of the earth.” The anger in her voice shook the glassware on the table.
“If your poor Claire is suffering right now, that’s your fault, Dru,” she continued. “She could have had a clean, pain-free death of your choosing. But you made a different choice, and now you’ll both endure the consequences.”
Fury burned through Dru’s pain, giving him a shot of anger-infused energy. He stood abruptly, grasping Lucy’s neck and pulling her to her feet. He ignored the sharp inhalations from his fellow brothers as he pinned her to the wall. “What did you do to Claire?”
Instead of anger, excitement sparked in Lucy’s expression, her nostrils flaring. She rubbed her hand over his crotch. He released her, disgusted that he’d let her goad him into meaningless action.
She sucked in a breath and coughed. “You know how much I like rough play, Dru. If you want to come back to my room at the compound, we could spend a lovely afternoon together. I think you know the way.”
Dru didn’t check to see the reactions of his friends. They’d had no idea he’d been sneaking into the compound, scrutinizing the coven. Right now, he didn’t care. Only one thing mattered. Claire. “Tell me what you did to her. Where is she?”
Lucy massaged her throat with crimson-nailed fingertips. “I haven’t done a thing. She was safe and sound at home when I left her not long ago.”
“You bitch.”
The flare of anger in her eyes warned he’d crossed a line, but he didn’t care. She could take his soul, damn it to eternal Hell if she wanted. But first, he’d do what he could to save Claire.
“Dru.” Bane stood and put a hand on Dru’s shoulder.
Dru shrugged him off, turned and strode toward the exit.
“Where are you going?” Nick called after him.
“It won’t do you any good,” Lucy said with a laugh.
He didn’t waste time answering. Lucy could deny her involvement, but he knew. Something serious was about to go down, and he feared it wouldn’t end well for the woman he loved.
Chapter Thirteen
Claire waited for her sisters to retire to their rooms. When the house grew quiet, she slipped from her room down to the kitchen. She rushed to gather ingredients for the awakening spell from Tierra’s expansive stash, concealing them in her pockets. With stealthy steps, she hurried into her room and locked the door.
She hung a small cauldron on the hook in her fireplace and willed a fire into existence with barely a thought. Precious flames licked the kettle, caressing it with their touch. Peace settled over her, and she reassured herself this was the right thing to do.
With steady hands and an excited heart, she assembled the components on a table near the window and then pulled Grim from beneath her bed. Kai jumped on the book as though to deter her.
“No, baby. You need to stay out of the way.” She gently pushed him away.
He whined, and she paused to scratch his ears.
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” She needed this closure in her life. Needed to heal so she would be less vulnerable to people like Dru. Needed to put the past behind her, because what lay ahead would require all of her attention.
Carefully, she reviewed each required element, each hallowed word. She could not screw this up.
With a nervous fingers, she added the correct amount of ingredients with the exception of one, stirring them with a wooden spoon. When the concoction bubbled, releasing fragrant spices into the room, she began to speak.
Goddess of fire, hear my plea.
Bring back my love who is dear to me.
Long been apart, unfairly so,
Restore the love, make it glow.
By earth, air, fire and sea...
She took a deep breath and threw in the ginger. The walls began to shake, and Claire immediately cursed herself for not asking Lucinda what to expect. Kai growled and sought shelter under the bed. The idea of seeing Tommy again had been irresistible, but she hadn’t meant to bring down the whole house or notify her sisters of the process. Really, she hadn’t thought of anything beyond holding him again.
The contents of the cauldron caught fire, flames expanding until they reached outside the fireplace. The rock around the edges began to blacken, and Claire feared the fire would continue until it consumed her room. This spell was meant for outdoors.
“Hell.” She had to do something before she burned them out of house and home. She mentally protected herself against fire as she opened her bedroom window. The rush of air enhanced the fire, the flames now reaching toward the wallpaper.
She raced toward the growing disaster and gripped the cauldron’s handle just as her door burst open. Tierra stood wide-eyed in the doorway. “What in the name of the goddess are you doing?”
“Stay back,” Claire yelled. Three-foot flames roared out of the kettle as she ran for the window. As she climbed through the opening, her curtains caught fire.
“Moira! Aerin!” Tierra screamed behind her.
Claire didn’t look back as she hurried across the porch roof and chucked the cauldron, contents and all, down onto the grass. She hoped the lack of a heat source and the moisture from the ground would stop the flames.
Instead, the blaze continued, the contents now beginning to take the shape of an undulating blob.
“Shit,” Claire hissed. She turned to find her three sisters peering out the window behind her. Thankfully, her curtains no longer burned. She strode toward them, pushing through until she was back inside.
“What have you done?” Aerin asked, fear in all of their eyes.
“A spell. To bring back my first love. Lucinda recommended it.”
“You trusted that lanky bitch?” Moira asked, reproach in her gaze.
“Look on the table. She brought back the Grimoire as an offer of friendship.” Though Claire wondered now if she’d been too caught up in what Lucinda had said to pay attention to any inner warnings. “I sensed no evil about her. Why shouldn’t I trust her? Why shouldn’t we? She could be the help we need to save everyone.”
“You say this even as you try to burn down our house?” Tierra shook her head in disappointment. “Even I was smart enough to sense something was up with her.”
Claire recoiled. “You didn’t spend as much time with her as I did. She only wants to be our friend.”
“Uh-huh.” Moira lifted a doubtful brow.
“I don’t have time to argue.” She shoved past them. “My cauldron is still burning in the yard. Whatever is brewing isn’t done yet.” She raced down the stairs and outside, her sisters hot on her trail.
“Oh, shit.” Tierra said as the four of them came to halt at the edge of the lawn.
“What the fuck is that?” Aerin whispered.
The concoction had grown in size. The oily black blob continued to move and expand.
“I’d say it’s Satan’s spawn come to kick our ass.” Moira linked her arms through Claire’s and Tierra’s.
“We have to stop it.” Aerin opened the book she’d had clutched t
o her chest. “There must be a spell somewhere that can reverse it.”
“I don’t know where,” Claire said.
“Find the original spell,” Tierra suggested. “Sometimes reversals can be in small print at the bottom of the page.”
Claire took the book, frantically looking for the page with the red heart. “Here! It’s right here.” Her hands shook as she tried to read the small lettering in the dim light from the porch.
“I can’t see anything.” Tierra grabbed the book and moved closer to the light. “Yes, there’s one.” She quickly chanted the words, and the four of them turned to watch the growing mass.
Tierra’s spell failed to provide any obvious effect. “I’m not strong enough on my own.”
“We can’t join our powers, Tierra.” Aerin shook her head decisively. “You know what will happen.”
“Maybe just a couple of us can,” Moira said. “Maybe me and Tierra since this is a fire spell. Water and earth ought to put it out, right?”
The four of them looked at each other, and then Tierra and Moira joined hands without waiting for an official decision.
At the end of their incantation, the form hissed and spit, but didn’t diminish in size.
“Oh goddess. It’s growing claws,” Tierra shrieked.
“Kill it. Now.” Panic colored Moira’s voice. “Y’all have no idea what it could do by the time it’s done growing. It might eat the entire town like Godzilla or something.”
“Okay, three of us.” Fear must have engaged inside Aerin as well because she quickly joined hands with Moira and Tierra.
As they chanted the spell, the black figure Claire had conjured tripled in size. It loomed over them, taking more of a human shape, though its arms and claws continued to grow. It had also gained mobility, and now inched across the grass toward them.
Unmitigated fear raged through Claire as her three sisters repeated the spell over and over. What in the hell had she unleashed?
Whatever it was had to be stopped. There was no guarantee the four of them working a spell together would break another Seal, but they’d already done it once. However, Claire was damn sure the present danger would overtake them any second if she did nothing.
She broke Tierra’s and Moira’s clasped hands, gripping them both with her own. With as much power as she could muster, she joined in the chant with her sisters.
The creature screamed, its howl piercing the night sky.
“Again!” Aerin yelled. “I think it’s working.”
They repeated the words, the spell becoming an enchanting, powerful song with a mystical rhythm. The leaves in the trees rustled in the stiff breeze as the ground beneath them shook. Electrical currents entered her body from one sister and quickly passed to another. Their energies had combined, creating a magnetic, formidable power.
Rain poured from the sky, sizzling the burning entity. It screeched and roared, but no longer crawled toward them.
Midway through another round, a powerful wave sent Claire and her sisters tumbling apart. The figure on the grass seized, a big, black mountain of frozen fear. Then it shattered. Pieces of what appeared to be obsidian broke away, leaving a man lying on the grass.
The women scrambled to their feet. Claire held her breath as Tierra grabbed her hand once again.
“We done birthed a demon,” Moira whispered.
The young man groaned and slowly rose to his knees. He caught sight of them and halted, his expression full of confusion and distress. When his gaze landed on Claire, an elated smile erupted on his lips. “Claire.”
“Tommy?” Claire gasped as she dropped Tierra’s hand.
“Claire,” he said again. He jumped to his feet and ran toward her, throwing his arms around her, crushing her with his hug. “Where have you been? I’ve looked everywhere.”
Claire pulled back and studied his features with an unearthly hunger. He looked exactly as he had before he’d become sick— blond hair, dazzling blue eyes that adored her. “I’m sorry, Tommy.”
“I was so worried. But I’ve found you now. Thank God I’ve found you.”
Aerin cleared her throat, drawing Claire’s gaze away from her loved one’s face.
“Who the hell is this?” Aerin asked as she cocked her hip and planted her hand on it.
“This is Tommy. He was my boyfriend.”
Tommy sent her a hurtful, questioning look.
“He is my boyfriend,” Claire corrected.
“I thought he was dead,” Tierra whispered.
Moira shrugged. “Who says he isn’t still?”
****
Dru parked a block from the Victorian mansion and stealthily made his way in the dark, his heart racing like a raging winter thunderstorm. If Lucy had harmed Claire in any way, he would see that she burned in the fires of Hell for an eternity. He didn’t know how or when, but she’d pay for her crimes.
A loud, animalistic wail rang through the air as he neared, and he was forced to slow or lose his footing when the ground released a violent rumble.
Panic tightened his heart. Something in the universe had shifted, and he feared that only meant one thing.
Another Seal.
“Fuck,” he yelled into the night and sprinted forward. There was no time for covert tactics. No time to waste. He needed to be by Claire’s side now, before anything bad happened.
He had no idea what this event would bring about, but predictions decried the souls of the martyrs would to return to earth.
Lucy would be beyond pissed.
Light and voices gushed from the back of the house, drawing Dru in that direction. He skirted the edge of the protected fence, making his way between trees and bushes. When he caught the sight unfolding, he tripped on a large rock and stumbled into the fence, barely catching himself.
Claire’s joy filled the air, a bright orange hue full of wonder. She jumped into a man’s arms, and Dru could not mistake their connection. It far surpassed anything he’d built with her.
Was that why he’d lost their bond? He could sense she loved this man more than life. How could Dru ever compete?
He had no idea if Lucy had known that her ploy would open the Fifth Seal, or if she’d only meant to cause Dru excruciating pain.
But two things were extremely clear. Lucy had won this battle. And Claire had given her heart to a dead man, leaving him to deal with pain and despair that would echo through the eternities.
What the hell could he do now?
Aerin
by
Kerrigan Byrne
Chapter One
“Earth to release me from the land.
Water to guide the task at hand.
Flame to hasten my course ahead.
Air to be the path I tread.
By earth, fire, water and sky,
Goddess bless this broom to fly!”
Thwack. The broom hit the distressed wood of the kitchen floor with the loud, plastic sound of failure. Aerin de Moray gave a surreptitious glance around the empty room to make sure no one had seen her millionth unsuccessful attempt before she directed her frustration at the stubborn inanimate object. It was one of those light-as-a-feather blue and white plastic jobbers with polypropylene fibers arranged into yellow angled bristles with a matching attached dustpan that she gripped in her hand.
Waving the bladed rubber edge of the pan at the prostrate broom, she unleashed her wrath, “Listen up, motherfucker, I’m going to try this one more time, and if you don’t at least levitate for a second, I’m going to have Claire melt you into a plastic dildo and give you as a Christmas present to Hank Miller down the street, and we all know what goes on in that house.”
The broom couldn’t have been more apathetic.
Aerin kicked it where she thought the kidneys would be.
“Unless this is your fault, Grim.” She whirled on the ancient tome spread open on the table, distinctly emitting an of innocence. The de Moray Grimoire had become a part of the family now that he’d been returned by Lucy. Ae
rin and her sisters all had the tendency to anthropomorphize the family spell book, going so far as to assign him a gender and nicknaming him “Grim.” He was bound in human flesh, after all, and he was immensely helpful, even opening to the correct page upon request.
By himself.
After it stopped being spooky, it was pretty rad.
Aerin squinted down at the spell again, magically disambiguated for her. The first time she’d come across this page, it had been in some ancient form of Gaelic. She’d asked Grim to translate it for her and, at first, nothing had happened. But the next time she’d opened the book, there it was, in the Queen’s own English.
It even rhymed.
She’d followed all the rules. Got a broom. Gathered four white fluffy dandelion heads and a puff of cottonwood, to which she was allergic, apparently, and blew them all over the damned kitchen and did the hokey pokey and turned herself about saying the spell.
And… nothing.
The book specifically said the air witch had to bless the broom before it could fly. That she had to go first. “So what gives?” she demanded of Grim. “Are you fucking with me?” A grimoire with a sense of humor could be a dangerous thing.
Aerin didn’t trust ninety-nine-point-nine percent of people on a good day, and an ancient, sentient, rune-decorated, flesh book didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
“Did you just yell at the Grimoire?” Tommy queried as he sauntered down the stairs that led from the second floor to the kitchen.
“Did you just eat a raw steak?” Aerin made a sound of revulsion as Tommy rinsed a puddle of blood off the plate in his hands and put it in the dishwasher. He’d been around for two days, and they still hadn’t landed on what exactly to do with him. Claire seemed to be ecstatic that her ex-boyfriend was back, and Aerin had to give it to the guy, he may or may not be undead, but at least he was a decent houseguest.
Still, Aerin didn’t trust him, and not just because she prided herself on being a professional misanthrope. She couldn’t read him. Couldn’t feel any emotional vibrations coming from his body like she did with everyone else. Empathy was her ironic superpower, and Tommy was immune, which put him in the make-one-wrong-move-and-I’ll-put-you-back-in-the-coffin category. At least, from Aerin’s point of view.
Which Witch is Wicked? (The Witches of Port Townsend Book 2) Page 9