by E. M. Moore
“I came to check on you.”
“Why? What happened?” Liam searched his body for the snake and relaxed even further until he found it wrapped around his bicep.
“Nothing, really,” I said. “I just need to talk to you. You’re pulling away from me and I don’t like it.”
This got his attention. He sat back on the bed, crossing his legs in front of him. Taking that as an invitation to do the same, I perched myself on the edge, keeping one eye on the serpent familiar who was back to not moving. Asleep, maybe? Or just pretending? Who knew that he could slither over Liam’s body like that whenever he wanted?
“I’m okay, Norah.”
“You’re lying,” I said. I didn’t want to hear any of his excuses. I wanted to hear the truth now. “You haven’t been yourself, Liam. I know it’s the familiar, but what exactly is it about it? Are you just preoccupied with finding out how to get rid of it?”
I could’ve sworn I saw the snake tremble, and Liam hardened, his hands turning into fists on the bed.
I’d once thought that was it, that Liam just wanted to figure out how to get the thing off him, but what if it was something else? What if this thing was affecting him somehow? “Liam, talk to me.”
He gave a quick shake of his head. I crawled toward him on the bed, dipping my voice low until it was just barely a whisper. My lips brushed against his ear as I talked. “What is it? You can tell me?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even move. His shoulders just barely raised an inch with his breaths.
I tried again. “Is it the familiar? Does it hurt you?”
Liam turned his face. “You shouldn’t be here right now. It’s not safe.”
We were face to face. Close enough to kiss, yet he felt so far away. We could’ve been on different planets. “You are one of my safe spaces, Liam.”
“Not anymore,” he said, his head already shaking. “I can’t be. Not right now.” His whole body started to tremble. “Can you please leave?”
“Liam?” I said, my voice breaking.
“It’s not you,” he said. “It’s not even me.”
I believed that. For once, he’d said something that made sense.
“Please,” he begged.
Before slinking away, I pulled him close, my lips finding his. I kissed him, urging his lips open and when he relented, I dipped my tongue into his mouth, trying to tell him with everything in me that I was going to fight for him. That he was worth it to me. He wasn’t going to be alone in all this because he had me, Randy, and the rest of the guys. We’d all figure this out. He didn’t need to carry this burden on his own. That’s why we were a coven. We helped one another.
Liam’s hand came up to rest on my neck. I relaxed, moving into the kiss more. He wanted it. I deepened it, pushing against him with my body.
His grip tightened, his fingers pressing into my skin harder and harder. Something in the air switched.
I hissed, and Liam’s grip immediately relaxed. “Please,” he begged again, looking me right in the eye, his eyes a mixture of pain and promise.
I scrambled off the bed. His eyes were the same dark shade of brown they’d always been, but within their depths, there was a yellow hue that wasn’t there before. It scared the shit out of me. I backed out of the room. “You’re not alone. I’m right here, Liam.”
“Please,” he said again, his voice desperate.
I backed up over the threshold and the door slammed in my face with no one touching it.
I stood there, blinking, just staring at the door. He’d used his magic to slam that door right in my face. My breath caught.
“Whoa,” a voice said from behind me. “You okay?”
I looked up to find Travis standing at the top of the stairs with his hair already perfectly styled and his clothes for the day on and looking sharp. A shiver rocked my body, and I took two steps back until I hit the opposite end of the hall.
“Norah?” Travis came closer, standing right in front of me. “Did you and Liam get into a fight or something?”
A fight? I wished it was just a fight. I looked up at Travis’s emerald eyes. My voice still came out in a whisper as if I was afraid to acknowledge what I saw, but really, I didn’t want that thing knowing how much it affected me. “I saw the familiar move over Liam. He was sleeping, and the thing moved on him, Travis.”
Travis’s eyes narrowed. “Just now?”
I nodded. “Then I woke him up, and he’s just not himself. He told me to get away from him and that he couldn’t keep me safe right now.”
With all the conflicting things running through my head, Travis just watched as I had my mini breakdown. “He has been acting off.”
Off? I wanted to laugh, but that just seemed too cruel. “I think it’s more than just that.”
A thud sounded from Liam’s room. Travis peeked behind him and then pulled on my hand. We walked down the stairs together and into the kitchen where Travis busied himself with the toaster and the stove. “I don’t know what to think,” Travis said. “We haven’t come across anything like this before. I didn’t know it was even possible for someone like us to even get something like that. I’ve heard about it with bad witches. Familiars on bad witches is a no-brainer, but we’re inherently good. That’s why we’re the Enforcers. That’s why we get the pull.”
“So, what does that say to you?”
“It says to me that either that familiar was spawned from a super powerful demon, or…” He trailed off, his shoulders sagging as he flipped a few eggs in a frying pan. “Or,” he started again. “It says to me that our magic is still haywire. Liam can’t find a trace of anything about a demonic familiar attaching itself to anything that wasn’t bad. Maybe that’s why he’s so paranoid and doesn’t want you around him anymore.”
“But he’s not bad,” I said, trying not to come apart. “If anything, he’s the best one out of all of us.”
“Yeah,” Travis muttered. “Poor choice for the familiar because if he thinks he’s going to be getting Liam to do anything terrible, he can think again. He’ll resist him. He’s as pure as they come.”
Travis turned around with the eggs and grabbed a plate. He slid two off the pan onto one plate and another two onto the other. He then nudged the first plate toward me. “Thank you.” I sat there and ate my eggs at the same time mulling things over in my head. “Maybe that’s why he’s been acting so strange lately. He could be having an internal battle with himself all the time and we don’t even know about it.”
“Anything is a possibility at this point,” Travis said. He raised his eyebrows after shoving a forkful of egg into his mouth. “I’d love to hear what you and Randy were doing last night.”
I stilled, a cold wash of reality sweeping over me. “Last night?”
Travis nodded. “I hear you went for a ride, yet when you came home, Randy ran up to the room without saying anything to anyone. I’ve known him long enough to know that was odd behavior for him. Did you guys get in a fight?”
“No,” I shrugged, my face heating. Why did it have to be Travis giving me the third degree? If it was Gabe, I could just distract him.
“Didn’t think so considering the sounds that were coming from your room last night.”
I was not going to apologize for that. That was too much fun. “I think we need to soundproof things in here.”
“It certainly might make it easier for the rest of us who want to get some sleep.”
“I’m not that loud.”
“It wasn’t you last night,” Travis said. “It was Randy.”
A smirk tweaked my lips and Travis turned away. He’d had a huge orgasm last night, that was for sure. “It would be worse if we were all still in the apartment,” I mentioned, not bothering to hide how much last night had pleased me.
“Ha. Yes, it would. I guess that’s one thing to be thankful for. We definitely have a lot more room here than we ever did at that place.”
Travis placed two pieces of bread in the t
oaster and pushed the lever down. “That’s your toast.” He walked around the counter and stopped just on the other side of the bar. “I just hope you and Randy know what you’re doing. Be careful.”
I reared back in surprise. “You’re not mad?” He’d surmised we were doing something behind his back and he…didn’t care?
“I know Randy is just doing whatever he can think of to keep everyone safe. Hopefully your presence will ground him since he tends to go off the deep end when left to his own devices.”
I nodded, and eventually Travis turned away and headed back up the steps. I called out after him. “You didn’t fall and hit your head this morning, did you?”
He chuckled. “No, I think I fell and hit my head about a month ago though. I haven’t been right since.”
I bit down on my lip, knowing full well what he was getting at. I’d come to them about a month ago, and no, nothing had been right since. Well, except for the five of us. That would never be wrong. It was just the world that was going to shit around us. We could deal with that though. We were witches after all. As Granny would say, “All you need is a little magic and determination, and you, too, can get the grease off these frying pans.”
If that wasn’t a euphemism for life’s shit, I didn’t know what was.
6
Travis and I waited in the Jeep for Liam and Gabe. Liam had been MIA after my encounter with him, so I wasn’t even positive he’d be going to school. Eventually, though, both came out the front door and Travis and I both sighed in relief. Liam got in the front with Travis as Gabe slid in beside me in the back. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me a kiss on the cheek before turning toward the front. “So, here’s something.” He dribbled his fingers along the seat back. “I’ve been watching the apartment. I’ve got a tracker on the place just to see if Dupre or Jay or anyone else magical went there once we left it.”
Travis rolled his hand over to get Gabe to hurry up with the rest of his story.
Gabe grinned. “It’s not Dupre or Jay, but someone’s been poking around there all morning. Someone witchy.”
“Someone witchy?” I asked, trying not to smile.
“Yeah, a normal person wouldn’t even blip on my radar. I don’t care about seeing the mailman, you know what I mean? I have it set up to alert me if anyone with magical powers goes there.”
Made perfect sense. “So, we should probably go check it out, right? Do people usually come see you if they notice something’s up or…?”
Liam turned toward the car door and propped his elbow up on the armrest. He stared out the window as we talked. Travis looked from him, then back to me. “They have in the past. Rare, though. If something is up, we usually know about it before anyone else.”
I sucked in a breath. Oh shit. What if Ren was poking around the apartment looking for Randy and me? What if he’d found the book? I hadn’t even thought of that happening. “Maybe I should call Randy.”
Gabe put his hand on the phone when I took it out of my pocket. “He’s at the gym. He won’t want to be bothered. Trust me.”
He would about this. But was I supposed to say? Randy and I were actually waiting on information from a semi-bad witch and he wouldn’t mind this interruption?
Travis raised his eyebrows at me and I shrugged, pretending like I didn’t care. It wasn’t as if I was positive it was Ren, anyway.
“Let’s just take a drive by there on the way to drop Norah off. It might be nothing,” Gabe said.
Everyone agreed, even a half-hearted one from Liam, so Travis drove the Jeep outside the gate and took the highway to Salem. Part of me hoped it was Ren waiting there with the book, and part of me hoped it wasn’t. If it was, I’d have a hell of a lot of explaining to do about how we visited a questionable witch regarding Liam’s familiar. Travis seemed cool with it earlier, but that’s because he didn’t actually know what we’d done. He might change his mind when he found out.
“So,” Travis started, catching mine and Gabe’s stares in the rearview mirror. “Walter sent me a text yesterday. He asked if we’d gotten a tug lately. I think he’s checking up on us to make sure our magic is working.”
“I haven’t felt a thing recently,” I said. “Not since that night with Dupre and the…” I peeked at Liam and trailed off. Leaning forward, I touched Liam’s shoulder. His head whipped around, and he stared at my fingertips on his collarbone. “How about you?” I asked, trying not to be deterred by his reaction. “Felt anything recently?” I knew we were all trying not to talk about the familiar, but maybe that was making it worse. Maybe Liam felt as if it was something he had to hide in shame. I mean, we all knew he’d acquired it, so why not talk about it? “Just curious as to how the familiar is affecting you.” I echoed the same sentiment from earlier. Maybe if the others were around, he’d open up.
Liam’s gaze narrowed in on my hands until I removed them from him, the tips buzzing. Yikes. Sorry?
“I haven’t felt that much different,” Liam said, his voice casual, unperturbed.
Liar. A blind person could tell his whole attitude had shifted.
I looked at Gabe and he only shrugged. “I haven’t felt anything either. We felt it a lot that last time, but that was because what was going down was the big time. If we don’t feel anything right now, hopefully that means everything is okay for the time being. I don’t think we’re missing out on anything if that’s what Walter’s getting at.”
“That’s pretty much what I told him,” Travis said, his lips pulling down. He’d been the only one not to feel the pull as much as the rest of us had. “I just hope they stay where they are for right now.”
We all hoped for the same thing. With me here, and Liam in possession of a familiar, I couldn’t imagine what their reaction would be.
Travis took us down the familiar streets and we passed the small hotel I’d stayed in when I’d first come to Salem. I smiled at it, remembering how I’d showed up with such a pissed off attitude as if it was the guys’ fault that I was getting cramps all the time. So much had happened since then. Most for the best, but some could be better.
Travis parked the Jeep down the road a little way, so we could get a view of the apartment without showing ourselves first. Liam sat forward in the front seat, peering through the front windshield. It was evident someone was there. There was an unassuming sedan parked out front with what looked like a person in it, just staring at the house. I looked inside myself to test the magic waters, so to speak. I didn’t see anything bad or negative going around, but there was a clash up against another witch that wasn’t one of my guys, or anyone else I’d ever met.
Gabe opened the back door. “Let’s go see what this person wants.”
“Agreed,” Travis said. “Norah, you and Liam stay in the car. Gabe and I will go see what they want.”
I glared at the back of his head as he got out of the Jeep without bothering to look around to see how I’d taken his “order”. I knew why he’d done it. Liam was a loose cannon right now, and if someone else were to see the familiar on him, things might get misconstrued. As for me, no one but them knew about me, so I shouldn’t go rushing forward when we weren’t sure what kind of situation we were putting ourselves into. That didn’t mean I cared for his instructions. Asshat.
Gabe and Travis approached the little gold car, and the guy inside immediately stepped out. His face was drawn, and he gave both Gabe and Travis a handshake as I watched. I looked at Liam. “Do you recognize him?”
“Yes. He’s a local witch. He and his girlfriend, also a witch, live out toward Boston way. His name’s Murphy, and he has a girlfriend named Anna.”
“I wonder what they want. He seems to have been waiting for you guys to show up.” I inched forward, practically hanging over the front seat trying to get a better read on the guy but was coming up empty.
“Looks it,” Liam said. Though he carried on a conversation with me, his voice was a monotone, as if his heart wasn’t in anything he said.
When
I peeked back out the windshield, Travis and Gabe were on their way back to us. Travis got in the car first as Gabe ran around the other side to scoot in beside me. Liam and I looked at them, waiting for them to explain.
“That was Murph—”
“Murphy,” I finished for Travis. “And he has a girlfriend named Anna and they live out toward Boston. What’s going on?”
“Anna’s pretty sick,” Gabe said, filling us in.
That would be the reason for Murphy’s pallor, but not for anything else. “Okay…”
Travis gripped the steering wheel. In front of us, the little sedan’s tail lights flicked on as he moved the car from Park to Drive. Travis did the same and pulled out behind him. “He thinks it has something to do with bad magic.”
“We told him we didn’t get the pull,” Gabe supplied, shrugging. “We didn’t tell him our magic has been off. Anyway, he’s still pretty insistent that Anna somehow is the victim of some bad shit.”
“So, what are we doing now?”
“We’re on our way out there,” Travis answered, following Murphy’s car as he took the next right up ahead. “Someone text Randy what we’re up to. He won’t be able to come, but he’ll want to know what’s going on.”
I looked at Liam, but he made no move for his phone whatsoever. Pulling my own out, I sent him a quick text about what we were facing today, and then told him I would text back when I knew more.
The drive didn’t take as long as I thought it would. I was too busy thinking things through in my own head. Liam had a familiar. Randy and I had contacted some questionable witches yesterday, and now we’d found out that a witch they knew might be sick due to some negative magic.
We pulled down a suburban street and sensing that we were close, Travis caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “You can come in with us, but we’ll just introduce you as a witch friend. I think it’s still best we don’t say anything about you being the fifth.”
I agreed completely. The less everyone else knew, the better.