“If I were looking to be caught,” Sydney said. “Which I’m not.”
What a pompous jackass. As if…
“Are you sure you wouldn’t want to show me your private collection, Sydney? I’m looking for something specific, and all roads lead to Blansett. I tracked an anonymous auction purchase, and apparently it’s been in this town for almost three decades.” He laughed, but the sound scattered over her skin like glass shards biting into her flesh. “Imagine, it’s right in your own backyard.”
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“Alexander Albertinus’ Malleus Daemonum.”
She knew the book. She had it on a shelf in her collection room. Her father had purchased it years ago and given it to her on her twenty-first birthday.
“The Hammer of Demons? You have a client who needs to perform a demon exorcism?”
He waved a hand. “I have no idea what he plans to do. That would really not be my concern.”
“There are quite a few reprints of that book. You could probably even find one on Amazon or eBay.”
“Amazon, eBay? How pedestrian coming from someone with your background, Sydney.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I didn’t think I’d have to explain that I need a first edition, an original.” He leaned closer, so close she could smell his breath, not entirely unpleasant, but definitely potent, as though he’d recently chewed on some sort of herb. “The original has a certain… cachet attached to it.”
“Don’t you mean magic?”
“Yes, that as well. This particular volume, though, has a rather nostalgic history for my client.”
He took a step toward her. The air between them pulsed with a heavy rhythm, drumming like strong fingers against her arms and face. Icy tendrils skated across her skin, and her breath seemed to freeze in her lungs. The very air seemed heavy, as though each molecule had been weighted.
Sydney jerked back. “I’m afraid I can’t help you. Even if I did have it, I wouldn’t sell it. The original edition is extremely rare, very valuable, and quite dangerous in the wrong hands. If the spells were reversed, we could be looking at a catastrophe of epic proportions.”
“You’re being a bit melodramatic, aren’t you?”
When Smythe-Warren stepped into her shadow, both Glimmer and Scamp gave small growls and squirmed uncomfortably in their doggie bed. He was definitely too close for comfort, but when he lifted his hand to skim it down her bare arm, Sydney retreated behind the counter. Even that didn’t feel far or safe enough. Generally he was annoying and a necessary evil for certain acquisitions, but for some reason, this man was giving her a real case of the willies tonight.
She thought back to the conversation she’d had with her dad. Safety first.
She signaled to the dogs, and they jumped from their bed to run to her. They took refuge in the employees-only area behind the counter, and Sydney lowered the wooden arm. The barrier tacitly prohibited access to the small checkout desk. Not only was it symbolic of privacy, but that piece of wood had also been imbued with powerful wards, enough to keep just about anything out of her space. She took a spot on her stool. She pressed on her knee, trying to hide her anxiety when her foot began to swing.
Smythe-Warren came to a crashing halt, as though he’d slammed into a solid wall. He stared at her for a long moment, and then he blinked and gave her a goofy smile.
The cold that had enveloped her and the weight that had been pressing down on her evaporated, and she drew in a long breath, shaking off the effects of whatever had happened. She had no explanation for it.
“I have something to show you,” he said. “I think you’ll like it.”
He laid his briefcase on the counter. The clasp opened with a quiet click, and he gave her another smile, one that a magician gives to his audience right before he pulls a dead rabbit out of his hat. Sydney did a mental eye roll.
“I acquired this last weekend at an auction in New York.”
He slowly removed something from the interior and set it gently in front of her. His fingertips lingered for just a moment on the worn leather binding of the small volume before he pushed it closer to her and then raised his hands in a gesture of voilà!
“A book of shadows,” Smythe-Warren said triumphantly.
Sydney’s brow crinkled. “A book of shadows? Why would I want another witch’s book of shadows?”
“It’s not just any book of shadows,” he said mysteriously.
“Even so,” Sydney said, “I write my own spells. Using another witch’s spells can result in nothing but trouble, and the last thing I need is trouble.”
“Not even if that witch is Kael Merrie?”
Sydney’s pulse skyrocketed. “From the Roermond witch trials?”
His dark eyes glittered. “The very same.”
Sydney clasped her hands and stared at the book. She wanted very much to open it, to see what might be inside, but she didn’t want to seem too eager, and she certainly had reservations, no matter what Smythe-Warren might say.
“But Kael was a simple peasant, and in 1581, a woman of her means probably couldn’t even write her own name, let alone create a book of shadows.”
“Well, Sydney,” he said, his voice lowering, “she was a witch after all.”
Sydney scoffed. “She might have done some simple magics, but she wasn’t a witch. She was a woman accused of being a witch. A few issues with pigs, bad milk, a sick kid… She was released after questioning.”
“And killed on her way out of town,” Smythe-Warren reminded her.
“Which means absolutely nothing. Those men were butchers, and they didn’t like women having the upper hand. They hadn’t begun their exhaustive torture regime in Kael’s day, but that didn’t stop them from exacting what they considered fair justice.”
“Well, if you don’t want it…” Smythe-Warren palmed the small volume and slid it toward his briefcase.
Sydney slapped her hand over the book. “I didn’t say that.”
She didn’t believe for one moment this was an authentic book of shadows, and certainly not one written by an ignorant Dutch peasant woman. But…
“How much?”
He tapped on the book, once, twice, three times. “Thirty-five hundred.”
Did each tap just jack the price $1000? Nick would be able to tell her if Smythe-Warren had imbued this volume with magic.
“Hmm… I’m a bit strapped for cash right now. School teacher you know.” She lifted a shoulder in a shrug.
A dark spark glittered in his eyes. “You’re quite selfless, aren’t you, Sydney?” His tone didn’t quite match his generous words. “Perhaps Bryan would…”
He left that thought lingering in the air like a baited hook.
“Daddy does like to spoil me,” she said lightly. “Can you leave this with me until tomorrow? I can give Daddy a call, but he’ll want to inspect it, just to be sure. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course I understand, and I’m happy to leave it with you. I’ll await your call.”
He snapped his briefcase closed and swung it off the counter. He’d taken several steps toward the door before he paused and turned back toward her. His gaze skimmed over her figure, stopping on her cleavage. The grin he gave her was almost scary. Sydney felt an overwhelming need to take a scalding shower, and body stiff, she gritted her teeth as she waited for what she knew was coming.
“Sydney, we have a nice working relationship, but would you be interested in having dinner with me some evening?”
His gaze didn’t lift to her face until she’d tugged her blouse up. “I’m sorry, Randall. I-I’m seeing someone.” At least I will be on Saturday.
“I thought…” His brow rose, and his smile melted away, replaced with something that seemed to reflect another Randall Smythe-Warren entirely. A hard look settled on his face, and his words came out clipped, sounding like an accusation. He would have made a good inquisitor back in the day. “I thought you said you w
eren’t looking to be caught.”
“Because I already am caught,” she said sweetly.
“Lucky man.” He practically spat the words and then spun on his heel and strode to the door, vanishing before Sydney could even respond.
Sydney picked up her phone and dialed Nick.
* * * *
He stood on the porch of Mystic Tides, dark eyes staring out over the crashing waves beyond the boardwalk. His blond hair ruffled in the balmy, salt-scented breeze coming in with the tide. The hair tickled the skin of his forehead and the sides of his face, and he found it incredibly annoying. Sea life and beachfronts had never agreed with him. He preferred wide-open spaces and dry, secret places. He would rather be anywhere but this place.
Randall Smythe-Warren might have appreciated the colorful wash of the sunset that painted the sky in streaks of lavender and gold. He might have returned the banal smiles of those passers-by strolling this disgustingly charming boulevard in Blansett. Those oblivious non-magical beings thought the city both bewitching and safe. Ha! If they only knew how he skulked around the peers and prowled through the streets, searching, always searching for anyone to serve his purposes. They wouldn’t be smiling then. He could guarantee that.
Randall Smythe-Warren might even have enjoyed the warmth of the last rays of the day’s sun that touched the skin like a gentle caress, a soothing balm that these mortals seemed to need as much as air. But poor Randall Smythe-Warren could appreciate nothing, return no hearty well-mets, and certainly could not feel the touch of the sun. He was crushed down securely inside, pushed deep into the dark, tight confines of his own psyche. He had no control, no willpower, and certainly nothing to be happy about. His enjoyment was temporarily on hold, as was his life, at least most of it.
Oh, he allowed Randall out when necessary, but right now, he had a goal, and so far, he had been thwarted at every turn. He had every intention of finding and procuring that book because, with it, those witches could ruin all his plans, could bind him to the earth or air or fire or sea—please, to all the lords of chaos, not the sea. They might even be able to banish him forever, though that wasn’t likely. He was strong. He had proven that decades before. The first coven had been powerful, but not powerful enough to destroy him. These witches, these girls, though, had even more energy, more solidarity. The close union these four women had was dynamic, vital, and they found purpose and strength in one another. He hated to admit it, but they were rather scary little witchy women.
He would get that book even if he had to sacrifice the lame excuse for a warlock inhabiting this carcass to do that. He hated every moment he spent in this shell. The man needed some meat on his bones and a far better stylist—and his cologne stunk, rivaling the stench of hell—but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he needed someone with both Randall’s skill and his knowledge. Damned if he knew how to use a freaking computer or how to scour dusty archives and records looking for exactly what he wanted.
Alexander Albertinus’ Malleus Daemonum.
He knew it was in this town somewhere, and he knew the most likely person to have it was Sydney Janzen, just as it had most likely been purchased by her father, Bryan, almost twenty-five years ago.
For one purpose, and one purpose only. To catch him, to bind him, to imprison him.
They’d used it once to condemn him. He’d spent decades bound to the air, far, far up into the atmosphere where he’d been sent by Bryan Janzen and his merry band of magical thugs, parents to these very same witches—bitches—who thwarted him now.
The first coven was mostly gone now. All but the man who’d found the weapon to bring him down.
He wouldn’t allow them to use it again.
* * * *
Sydney pushed open the door to You Dream It, We Build It. The reception area was roomy and homey, holding two solid wood desks, a sofa and comfy looking chair, and several small tables. One of the desks, its surface littered with papers, pens, notebooks, and flash drives, held a massive computer monitor, and the other held nothing but a sketchbook and a holder filled with colored pencils. She wouldn’t need more than one guess to determine which desk was Nick’s. Though a lamp shown on one of the tables, the rest of the room was bathed in shadows except for a sliver of light shining beneath one of the doors on the far wall.
“Nick?”
“Back here!” His voice came from beyond the door with the beacon of light.
She pushed open the door to find herself in another world. The huge room burst with radiant light, though, in the daytime, the sun would stream through the floor-to-ceiling windows that covered three walls. High shelves covered the fourth wall, filled with paints and stains of all colors, and another desk, this one battered and covered with sketches and diagrams and architect tubes, had been tucked in a corner as an afterthought. Six worktables held woodworking equipment of all sizes and shapes. Sydney didn’t know the names of any of them, but she had obviously just entered Nick’s world.
The scents of hardwood and stain lingered in the air, and a faint mist of sawdust drifted down around Nick’s head as he stood at one of his machines. He tossed his hair back from his face as he glanced up and gave her a beautiful smile.
“Hey, Ms. Janzen. How was school today?”
“Quite uneventful,” Sydney said, “just the way I like it.”
Nick ran his hand over the board lying on the worktable in front of him. “Smooth as a baby’s butt. Wanna feel?” He winked at her. When she hesitated, he said, “Come on. I know you want to.” He leaned down to eye the length of the board, still running his hands over it as though caressing a woman’s skin.
Heat crawled up her face. She wanted to feel something all right, but she wasn’t sure it was a piece of wood. At least not that type of wood.
He peeked at her through the fall of his hair. Sawdust twinkled in the blond strands, and when he straightened, he shook his head like a wet dog and laughed. “Sydney Janzen, what’s going through that mind of yours? Are we on the same wavelength here?”
She shook her head, and her hair skimmed across the warm skin of her bare arm. “Not remotely.”
“Good.” He wiggled his brows at her. “I’m glad to hear that, and I’m quite happy moving to whatever wavelength you’re on.”
“And I might let you,” she murmured.
She placed her hand on the newly sanded board, letting her fingers glide over the smooth surface. “It feels wonderful. What color?”
“I’m going to cut that up and stain it with a few of my favorites. You can choose after that.”
She leaned down and let her eye focus on the board the way she’d seen him do. Of course she had no idea what she was doing, but when she felt his gaze on her butt, none of that really mattered. No man could resist a woman who bent over, no matter what the purpose.
“It’s beautiful, Nick.”
“You’re beautiful.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, his eyes were locked on the back of her skirt. “You’re just saying that because I caught you looking at my ass.”
“Hmm, seems to me I said it before you caught me looking at your ass.”
Sydney stood and leaned back against the worktable. “Speaking of caught, I’m afraid I gave you a promotion tonight. I hope you don’t mind.”
His brow rose. “Do I get a raise too?”
“No raise, but if anyone asks, you’re my new boyfriend.” She held up her hand. “Not my friends, just strangers.”
“Just strangers… that’s a step in some direction at least. Always willing to help a damsel in—” He snapped his mouth closed at the look she shot his way. “A friend in need?”
Sydney nodded. “Much better. Now this friend in need has a real request.” She pulled her messenger bag off her shoulder and pulled out the small volume wrapped in a red scarf. “I did a cleansing spell on the scarf because I didn’t want any other contaminants on the book itself.” She laid the package down on the workbench. “What can you tell me about this?�
�
Nick slowly unwrapped the scarf until the volume lay exposed. “I can feel the magic without even touching it. It’s not a permanent spell, at least not yet. It’s popping over the leather like tiny firecrackers. If it were real, it would lay more like a sheet of shale, tough but also breakable with a spell performed by the right person.”
He placed his hand over the book. “Three small spells, each one adding a bit of magic in layers.” He lifted it up and studied it, carefully turning several of the pages. “It’s definitely old, probably sixteenth century, and it’s a spell book, written in Dutch.” He glanced at her. “But I’m sure you figured that part out.”
She nodded.
“It’s worth something of course, just based on the age and content. I’m not sure what price he quoted, but I’d divide it by at least four.”
“Why four?”
“Three taps added to the original value plus his commission.”
“He quoted $3500.”
“So…” His gaze lifted to the ceiling, and he tapped his index finger against his lip. “We’re left with around $875. That’s probably a pretty accurate resale price after his initial investment.”
“That dirty, lying cheat…” Sydney scooped up the book and wrapped the red cloth around it. “How much money has he stolen from me over the years, from my father?”
Nick folded his arms over his chest. “Why do I feel some revenge coming on?”
Sydney scrubbed her hands over her face. “Revenge sounds tempting. I wish I had Christoffel’s morals. I’d leave that man penniless, and I’d run him out of this town with nothing but his freaking broomstick. But nooo, we’re all goody-goodies now. Thanks a lot, Pieter.” She stomped her foot. “Damn it!”
Something had been off about Smythe-Warren lately, and now she knew. It didn’t quite explain the uncomfortable feeling she’d gotten around him, but maybe she was finally seeing his true colors. He wasn’t an aristocratic buffoon. He was a cagey con artist of the highest caliber.
She paced around the worktable, thinking of ways she could get even with him. She wondered if he screwed over all his clients or whether the Janzens were just his personal chumps. Finally an answer popped into her mind. She snapped her fingers and whirled around to find Nick watching her with amusement.
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