“No!” She lifted her hands, pounded on his chest. “I won’t let you hurt my baby!”
His chest constricted, but Phoenix wasn’t giving up. “Blondie, listen to me!” He purposely used his nickname for her, trying to reinforce to her that they were friends. He respected the hell out of the way she fought Eric’s brutal brainwashing to save her baby. “Your baby needs you to fight back. Don’t let Eric win. You know Joe loves you. You know it.”
“Phoenix …” Darcy laid her hand on his bunched arm. “She can’t help—”
“Let him try,” Carla broke in.
Morgan tilted her head back, staring up at him with white-ringed eyes. “I’m afraid. It feels like he’s coming back, like he’s going to cut the baby out of me and take him.” She began to shake.
He didn’t dare try to use his witch hunter ability to shift memories. She had enough brain damage from Eric. Instead, he just told her the truth. He always told the truth, and somewhere in her beleaguered brain, Morgan knew that. “He’s dead, Morgan. I saw Axel kill him. But he’s put some kind of orders or suggestions in your head, and that’s what’s doing this.”
She closed her eyes. “Oh, God. I know Joe wouldn’t help Eric. I know it, but it felt so real.”
“Look at me, Blondie. You have to fight that, and you have to listen to Carla and Darcy. They are protecting your baby with their magic.”
Opening her eyes, she said, “I’m trying.” Her eyes were dry and tortured. “I don’t want to lose my baby.” She swallowed and added in a whisper, “Or Joe.”
Joe put his arm around Morgan. “You’re not going to lose me.”
Phoenix dropped his hold on Morgan. “Blondie, go with Joe and get some rest. Those dark circles aren’t your best look.”
She reached out a hand. “Thanks, Phoenix.” Then she let Joe lead her to the bedroom.
“How’d you do that?” Darcy asked. “We’ve been using magic, but we couldn’t pull her out of the delusion.”
He shrugged, feeling uncomfortable.
Carla rose and said, “She related to you, trusted you somehow. Maybe because you’re struggling with a voice pulling you.” She gathered her long hair in her hands, twisted it up, and it somehow just stayed, bunched up on her head. Wearing jeans and a button-down shirt, she looked a bit tired. “Axel said you heard the voice again last night.”
Phoenix nodded, dropped into a chair, and gave Carla and Darcy the sanitized version of what happened. Then he dropped the bombshell. “She will die in twelve days if she doesn’t get the handfast binding off or become a demon witch.” The bird pulled and fretted in his skin, as if trying to move up and break free. His chest ached at the thought of Ailish dying. So vibrant and alive, she was strong, a fighter, but for how long? What would be her breaking point? He looked at both witches sitting on the couch to his right. “Have you gotten anything on breaking a handfast?”
Darcy shook her head. “Not yet. But Carla and I consulted the Ancestors about the soul-mirror bond and the handfast bond.”
He stretched out his legs, looking down and seeing the custom-made motorcycle boots with the pockets for his backup knives. “If we finish the soul-mirror bond, our souls become one. If she becomes a demon witch …”
Carla said gently, “Your soul goes with her. Since you’re not a witch but a hunter, you’ll go rogue.”
He noticed the scuffs and marks on his boots, much like his soul, he imagined. “I would literally be trusting Ailish, a witch handfasted to a demon, with my soul.”
“Exactly,” Darcy said.
He shoved up out of the chair and paced around the furniture, trying to sort out his feelings. “Can’t the Ancestors help her break the handfast? Don’t they want to help her?” Then he and Ailish would have time to figure this thing out, see if they wanted to bind themselves together in the soul-mirror bond.
Carla said, “They aren’t gods, they are simply old souls and can only help earth witches. Ailish chose Asmodeus when she accepted his handfast and promised her soul to a demon. And she accepted his terms, which must have been demon witch or death after eight years.” She rolled her neck in a sign of fatigue. “We have to keep searching for a solution. The Ancestors will tell us what they can. I have to believe they want her to break the handfast, but she has to make the right choices.”
His chest burned with frustration. No way would he trust Ailish with his soul when she was facing an impossible choice. “We have to find a way to break the handfast. Maybe her voice power—”
“Siren. Ailish is a siren.”
He turned, looking at Carla. “You know what it is? Her voice power?”
Carla said, “My mom made the connection. When your tattoo changed, forming into a phoenix rising from the flames, that tripped her memory. Before the curse, every hundred years a siren witch was born. At her birth, a phoenix flew overhead, and when the newborn siren witch cried with her first breath of life, the phoenix burst into flames and vanished. Until the witch called him forth with her voice, summoning her phoenix familiar to rise from the flames.”
He froze to the spot, dizzy, sweating, his heart pounding his mouth dry … in ice-cold recognition. “Jesus, Buddha, and Wing Slayer, it was real.” He went back to the chair, sat down, and leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs. The memory sharpened until he could hear the crackle of flames exploding around him, the fire eating his feathers, muscles, and very soul. The pain, the smoke, being burned to ash …
“Phoenix …” Darcy’s hands cradled his, and he felt cool waves of calming energy.
“It happened. When I was four. I thought it was a nightmare kids get, but …” He heard the door open, knew it was Axel and Key. Darcy had probably called Axel through their soul-mirror bond, and Axel got Key.
He went on, “Ailish was born, I remember her cry, the flames, and dying. Then I woke up in my bed, a kid again. Is that possible?”
Her brown eyes flickered with compassion. “I believe it is. I believe you have the essence of the phoenix in your soul.”
“That’s what died? In those flames? It had felt real.”
She nodded. “The witches all believed that since the curse destroyed the bond with their familiars, it would no longer be possible for a siren witch to exist because the power in her voice is linked to her familiar. The legend of the siren and the phoenix was pretty much forgotten. No living witch had ever experienced it. Until now, that is. Ailish has the voice of a Siren. When she was born, the bird in you must have flown over and then burst into flames.”
Carla came over and added, “The way my mom explained the legend before the curse, it only happened every hundred years. Witches waited and waited, keeping track of the time between sirens calling their familiars because their siren voice was incredibly powerful. It enhanced magic, all magic. They performed important spells during that time.”
Darcy squeezed his hands. “But once the phoenix rose and became the siren’s familiar, she got control of her voice power and enhanced only the magic she chose. So the witches had only a small window of time to use that scatter enhancement of all magic.”
Phoenix glanced up to see Axel standing behind Darcy, and Key next to him. Then he looked at his biceps where the tattoo had changed to the head, neck, and part of a wing rising from the outline of flames. “That’s what’s happening. Ailish’s voice is calling and the phoenix is rising. And I’m powerless to stop it.”
Ailish had gone for a run, come back, showered, and dressed. She was in the living room drinking her tea when the phone rang. “Hello.”
“Ailish, it’s Kyle.”
She dropped her feet from the coffee table and sat up. “Kyle, you okay?” She had found Kyle’s phone number, then, using her magic, she’d checked on him by listening in through his phone. Sort of the way a baby monitor might work. He’d evidently had to sleep with the TV on but otherwise seemed okay. She could summon enough power to check in periodically, but she couldn’t hold the magic to keep the connection ongoing.
“But what?”
His voice dropped, as though he didn’t want anyone to hear what he said. “A couple times when I woke up, I was sure I heard someone outside my condo. I yelled out, ‘I have silver.’ And they left.”
He was describing the methods of demon witches. They needed him voluntarily in order for Asmodeus to possess them. In other words, they couldn’t break into his house and drag him off. They had to seduce, trick, and drug him into compliance. “Kyle, I’ll come over, we’ll talk.” And she’d convince him to get out of town.
“Ailish, if you’re a witch, why didn’t you tell me when we were dating?”
That question caught her by surprise. “Because I didn’t want to be a witch. I just wanted to be a normal girl.” How did she explain it? She’d been so lonely and starved for affection, for the feeling of belonging. Ailish had either been treated with kid gloves or ignored in the coven. How many nights, as a very young girl, had she gone to sleep alone and scared? Her mother had coven business and had warded the house, raised hellhounds from dead animals to guard her, and told her she was safe.
But she hadn’t felt safe. She’d felt alone and terrified. The dark always scared her, but the hellhounds were the worst. It was as though they knew they were hideous, having been put together from different parts of decaying animals, so they stayed in the shadows. She hated them, and they hadn’t liked her, either. Now she knew it was because they sensed her earth witch powers. At the time, she had understood they were a part of demon magic, something she shouldn’t touch. She knew because her chakras would cringe. She’d turn on every light in the house to keep them as far away from her as she could.
The irony now was that she lived in the dark.
Kyle finally answered, “I don’t know if I really believe you. Believe any of this.”
She stood up, anxious to get moving. “You don’t have to believe. I just want to keep you safe. We’ll figure something out, okay?”
“Tell me why. Why you’re that concerned about me.”
She paused a moment, then said, “It’s a debt I owe you. I’m the reason you are in danger.” His memory was magically blocked so he wouldn’t recall her realizing he was possessed, banishing the demon, and then running away and leaving him at the mercy of the coven. But Ailish knew, she remembered, and she had to right that wrong. “Just stay in the house and don’t let anyone else in.” She hung up and called Dee.
Twenty minutes later, she was in the car with Dee, who was in a cheerful mood once again. “Where to?”
“Kyle’s house again.”
“Yeah?” Dee reversed out of the driveway, put the car in gear, and they took off. “You and Kyle have a thing?”
“No. Just helping him out. Might bring him back to my house to stay while he’s healing from the accident.” She was hoping she could get him to leave town, but her house was plan B.
“So you obviously know him.”
“We went to high school together for a while.”
“Dated?”
She reined in her annoyance. “It was a long time ago. I don’t date now. Ever.” Unless she counted Phoenix breaking and entering in the middle of the night as dating. Or counted kissing him. Twice. She still couldn’t believe she’d done that. But touching him had ripped open her old desires, her need for affection, for contact. The damn hunter had made her feel safe. She’d woken from that torturous dream with his arms around her, and it had felt right. Twice when he’d kissed her, she’d experienced real desire, the kind that builds into mind-blowing passion—not the forced lust of the handfast binding.
“You have the look of a woman thinking about a man.”
She whipped her head around, able to fix her gaze on the shadow. “Are you this nosy with all your clients?”
“You’re my only client now. I’m on call night and day with strict orders to do whatever you need and to look out for you.”
“Haley,” Ailish muttered. Haley had hired Dee and evidently given her carte blanche to be annoying.
“Yep,” she said cheerfully. “She obviously cares about you. And I’m nosy because you’re interesting. Plus, it seems like you’re capable of telling me to back off. So … who is the man on your mind?”
Ailish shook her head, amazed. “I intimidate most people into not prying.”
“Yeah, one of my qualifications? Not easily intimidated. I’m also persistent, like wondering what man brought that pretty color to your face and made your mouth go all soft.”
“What?” Horrified, she put on her match face. “I do not blush, and my lips … ewww.” She couldn’t believe this conversation. She’d rather be in the ring with a woman twice her size than in the small car with Dee. Sheesh.
“So it’s not Kyle?”
God. “No.” She snapped off the word, her voice an icicle, while her stomach grew warm. Kyle had never kissed her the way Phoenix had.
Dee turned another corner and said, “What does he look like?”
She sighed. “How would I know, I’m blind.” Too late, she realized she’d slipped up. “Damn it.”
Dee’s laughter filled the car. “You fell for it. Come on, what does he look like? Feel like, if you’d rather.”
She knew, just knew, she was blushing now, right down to her hair follicles. Hot and amused at the same time, she said, “Phoenix. He just showed up, and like you, annoys the shit out of me.” She turned to look at Dee’s outline. “He feels like a dangerous outlaw. Wears leathers, has major muscles, rides a motorcycle.”
“Mmm. Sounds like your kind of man. Hell, he’d be my kind of man, but you saw him first.” Dee chuckled and said, “Sorry, you felt him first.”
Ailish was surprised when a laugh bubbled up and came out of her mouth. Then, even more shocking, she said, “You married, Dee?”
“Divorced. We had a nice limo service going, until I found out he was screwing clients. Literally and figuratively. Sex and credit card fraud. The business is gone, we were sued up the ass, and I could use a man on a motorcycle to take me away.”
Ailish’s own problems went on the simmer burner. “Wow, Dee, I’m sorry—”
Dee cut her off. “Thanks. I’m okay, though. Surviving.” Her voice bled determination. “I’m beginning to rebuild my life, and I’m happy.” She turned into a driveway and stopped the car. “We’re here. Do you want me to go to the door with you or wait here?”
Ailish smiled at the phrasing, noting that Dee was not giving her the option of being here alone. “You’re tough, I like that. I’ll find my own way to the door,” she said, then she turned and got out of the car. She had pouches of ground silver in her pockets and boots in case any demon witches showed up. Walking up to the door, she couldn’t feel the weight of cold, oily dark magic in the air, so it was probably safe for now. She didn’t pause and take a breath but determinedly lifted her hand to knock. And that’s when she smelled copper. The scent was so disturbing and out of place, she froze as she tried to identify it.
Then Dee screamed, a pitch of shock and pain.
Ailish whipped around. That put the garage on her right, the door behind her, leaving her front and left side open. The copper was stronger, and a sense of deep menace lifted the hairs on her arms and neck. Almost as a reflex, she snapped into her staggered stance and opened her chakras to feel around her.
There was something big directly in front of her, a man. Focusing on the shadow, she could see he was as big as Phoenix, but the smell was wrong. The copper scent was rushing down her throat and causing a sting of metallic fear that sent adrenaline coursing through her. She had the sense of a snake toying with her before striking.
She felt him move and jump back, felt something just miss her arm.
Then a sharp burn slashed her thigh. The pain was sudden and hot. Shit, it was a knife cut. The blade ripped through her jeans and into her skin. She could feel the wound bleeding, but her bigger concern was that she was trapped against the door.
And what about Dee? Worry for her strengthened Ailish. She didn’t have room to do anything fancy, so she improvised with a side kick aimed high. She rammed her heel hard and felt it strike his chin and snap his head back.
He gagged and stumbled in surprise. She brought her foot down and broke into a run, desperation giving her more speed. She zoomed past him toward the car. Slapping her hand down onto the warm hood, she raced around to the driver’s side and then hit the opened door. “Dee!” Where was she? Frantic, she edged around the car door and felt something slick under her foot.
Stomach jolting, she dropped to her knees and felt Dee’s body curled into a ball. “Dee?” Brushing her hand over the woman’s face and down her neck, she hit a gusher of warm blood. “Oh God.” Her neck was cut. Flipping open chakras, she put her hand over the wound and struggled to pull up healing energy and pour it through her hand.
Dee’s heart was slowing. She was dying. “No way. You’re not dying!” She concentrated everything she had on the woman, willing her to live.
“She’s doing magic!” a man snarled.
The voice came at her from the front of the car. Before she could react, a hand grabbed her, yanking her up.
Ailish got her feet under her, grabbed the guy’s arms, and felt a second of shock. His skin was soft and smooth, like a girl’s skin, but his muscles were huge. Rogue, she thought as she attempted a knee strike to his groin.
A second man wrapped a thick arm around her chest from behind and yanked her off the ground. She tried to kick out as panic and fear for Dee blasted through her head. “Let go! Dee’s—argh.” She bit off a scream as a knife slashed her right side below her ribs. The hot pain closed off her chakras.
The rogue holding her bent his head and said, “Want more? Keep fighting.” He shoved his free hand against her wound and shuddered.
Night Magic: A Wing Slayer Novel Page 11