An American Witch in Paris

by Michele Hauf

  * * *

  Watching Ethan organize the players in this demon-hunting mission was like watching a commander order his troops. He exuded a control and knowledge that impressed Tuesday. And everyone knew exactly what their roles were.

  Far from washed up. But that he’d told her as much meant he trusted her with such knowledge. And that was something she’d treasure. His confidence.

  The familiar was already on the other side of the steel door in the clean room, inside the cage with his partner, having sex. Thomas had said he’d need half an hour to accomplish the task of getting sated, then the witch could go in and invoke the spell to capture Gazariel. And Cinder, the tech guy, would then take down the building wards to facilitate it all.

  Certainly Jones, the witch who would perform the invoking, paced the hallway outside the main room, head down and arms crossed over his chest. Long dark hair spilled forward and covered half his face. A particularly bold tattoo right over his carotid clued Tuesday it was a ward against vampire bites. Smart witch.

  Unless of course, the witch enjoyed a bite now and then.

  She should have had Ethan bite her before they’d set out for this adventure. Might have come in handy to reinforce their blood bond. As it was, she decided it was a temporary thing that only lasted about twenty-four hours. It was fun while it had lasted.

  The dark witch’s pacing moved him past her.

  “You don’t think you should be in there so you know when the time is right?” Tuesday asked him.

  He tapped his ear, and she noticed an earbud. “I’ve got audio. And trust me, that’s as close as I need to be right now. That is one noisy woman the familiar brought along with him.”

  “Well, if you need any help?”

  “You stay back and keep the wards on you. If we need your assistance, we’ll ask.”

  She nodded and strolled back to the steel door to lean against it. Certainly had warded her to the nines against angels, demons, light magic and dark, as well. She felt as if a suit of armor sat on her shoulders. And it was only slim protection against Gazariel’s influence should he breech the cage wards.

  She’d felt those wards. They were strong. They should subdue the demon. With hope.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she eyed Ethan. He was speaking to the reckoner, Savin Thorne, who had just arrived. The big man wore a bowler hat over his messy hair. A loose-fitting coat that looked cobbled from different fabrics, something a gypsy might wear, barely hung to his hips. And as he nodded and gestured with his hands while talking to Ethan, she noted the sigils, or possibly wards, drawn on the back of each of his hands. They hadn’t been there when she’d met him yesterday. She hoped he wouldn’t have to resort to actually sending the demon to Daemonia. Because without the curse lifted from her, that meant she would have to tag along.

  No witch could survive in Daemonia for long. It would be a fate worse than any torture a vindictive witch hunter could mete out. She should have made it clear to Ethan that she was out if it came to that. But not like she could protest now. Such refusal would shut down the whole demon-summoning operation. Her presence was needed and it was not. Be here to sync all the magic and connect with the demon, yet don’t get so close that she scared off the demon, or got sucked into his vortex of wicked magic.

  This unexpected trip to Paris had become quite the adventure. Kidnapping aside, she was glad to be here. It gave her purpose. And often, when living for so long, there were days she wondered what good she was doing the world. And since her magic was dark, it was rare she felt she did serve the world goodness.

  Once, she’d been a healer and had educated women. Why had she ever stopped? Oh, right. Lack of love did tend to change a person as the years grew long.

  It had never mattered to her before, but lately she wanted to do good. To change. To rise up from the darkness she had caressed and made her own over the centuries and become someone worthy of giving and receiving goodness.

  And love.

  The thought startled her so much that she didn’t hear Ethan call her name. Only when he gripped her wrist and bent to meet her eyes did she slip back into the present moment.

  “You okay?” His gray irises were clear and focused. He may have felt washed up, but he was far from that. “I called your name twice and you’re standing right here.”

  “Sorry. My mind was wandering. Yeah, I’m good.” Or at least, she was trying to be. “What if the demon won’t tell us where he put the book? Do we have a plan for bringing in the vampiress?”

  “I have a containment crew on call to bring her in, but we’re having a time locating her address in the database. I have hope, though.”

  “I hope your hope is effective. Because I thought you were using the reckoner as a threat.”

  “CJ has some magical thumbscrews to twist if Gazariel doesn’t want to give us the information. We’ve done this before.”

  “The Beautiful One is not going to give up anything without a sacrifice from me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yeah, I kind of do. He’s an asshole.”

  “A Richard?”

  “The number-one Richard of all Richards. He’ll ask for my heart in exchange for the book, I know it.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense. If he takes your heart, it’ll return the curse to him.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he can simply tug out my heart and crush it and the curse along with it. But better he suffers and I die, than I live and he suffers.”

  “Let’s not think like that. I’m going to protect you, Tuesday.”

  “I can take care of myself. I’ve some powerful magic. Probably more effective against the blood demon than your dark witch pacing over there like he’s headed to his own funeral.”

  “The man has a wife and children. I’m asking a lot from him.”

  Yes, she recalled the feeling of overwhelming and true love she had gotten from CJ when she’d done a soul gaze on him. She wanted that kind of love. She really did.

  “I still can’t allow you to work the summons,” Ethan said. “Gazariel will use your magic against us all.”

  “Not if the wards on the cage hold up. Let me go at him first. Break him down.”

  Ethan shook his head. “We’re doing this my way. And besides, what if he’s already given the book to Anyx? We’re going to need him intact. And no magic you can throw at him will ever convince him to talk. You know that.”

  Tuesday nodded reluctantly. He was right.

  “I expect to have a location on Anyx soon,” he said. “I’ve got everything under control. This is what I do, Tuesday. Trust me.”

  “I do trust you. Completely.”

  “Thank you. Now, you stay back and out of the way. You’ve got all the wards on?”

  “I’m loaded with them. You wouldn’t be able to bite me if you wanted to.”

  “I can feel that repulsion. Which is why I haven’t kissed you.”

  “And here I thought you were against PDAs.”

  “You can actually think that after our tryst in the alleyway? Or almost getting caught by Cinder in my office? What about in the restaurant?”

  “I stand corrected. I see you’re warded as well. The reckoner do that?” She tapped his throat.

  “Yes.” He stroked the lines drawn on his throat with a black felt-tip marker. She interpreted them as protective and closing, perhaps to keep him from speaking things the demon might try to trick out of him. “He suggested some additional protections to the ones I already have.”

  “Tell me one thing about the vampire chick you said you loved? The one who died by biting the witch.”

  “Huh?” Ethan glanced around to see if the other men were listening. They were not. “I don’t understand.”

  “Did you promise to protect her always?”

  “I, uh... Tuesday, you think I�
�m going to let you down?”

  “No. I want to know if you let her down.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  “It might be but... I need your truth, Ethan.”

  Ethan glanced to the men lingering in the hallway. None met his gaze. He lowered his voice and spoke near her ear. “I feel as though I let her down. But no, she chose that witch on the fly. I’m not sure I would have known he was a witch before she bit him, either. But I would have given my life to change it. To have been the one who took the bite and not her.”

  “You loved her that much?” Tuesday slid her hand along Ethan’s cheek. Her heartbeats thudded. “More than your wife of sixty years? What about the chick who died from the blood transfusion?”

  “Tuesday.” He shook his head. “As I’ve told you, I’ve loved many.”

  Yes, and he’d loved a woman so much he would have died for her. And after knowing her but six months. Tuesday imagined such deep and abiding love happened only once in a man’s life. Or a woman’s. Yet he’d gone on to love others. And to experience heartbreak. And through it all, he survived. Perhaps Ethan’s heart was capable of giving love to yet another?

  She daren’t dream. He would only be hurt if he fell in love with her. And he had been hurt by love more than enough times.

  “You’re a good man, Ethan.” She kissed him quickly, then they turned as CJ spoke.

  “The familiar is on target,” the dark witch said. “Sated and open to bridge the demon. Ethan, notify Cinder to let down the wards. I’m going in. Everyone else follow, but stay back.”

  As Ethan called Cinder, they entered the clean room. The cage bars did not glow and the door was wide open. A naked woman gathered her clothing while a very naked Thomas lay sprawled on the center of the cage floor.

  CJ approached the cage door. Standing aside to let the woman flee, he then gripped a bar in each hand and began to chant.

  Tuesday helped the woman pull on her dress over her head. She nodded a quiet thanks, then looked to Ethan.

  “You remember the way out?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Thomas will be out shortly. Stand outside the door and wait for him. Thank you.”

  He held the door open and closed it behind her. Stepping up to stand beside the reckoner, Ethan crossed his arms and observed. Tuesday, back to the wall, kept a keen eye on the familiar in the cage, but also listened carefully to the Latin incantation CJ spoke. It was a standard demon-summoning spell with an adjustment to focus the reach within this realm. He battened it with protective sigils he drew in the air using a crystal wand. A white light trail followed in the wake of his movements. He traced a few of the spell tattoos on his left hand and then thrust his palm downward, facing it toward the familiar.

  Thomas’s body jerked and convulsed. Naked and sweating, he was open to allow a demon entity to inhabit his body only briefly before it apported into corporeal form. A spume of red smoke spiraled up from the familiar’s pores, forming a tornado above him. The familiar opened his eyes, saw the red cloud and scrambled toward the cage door. As he fled, his body shifted, contorting and growing fur. A calico cat meowed and slipped out just as the cloud began to take human form.

  Ethan rushed over and slammed the cage door shut, slipping a heavy bolt through a lock and activating the electronic security system with a few taps on the digital keyboard. The cage bars briefly glowed green then blinked out.

  And within the cage formed the demon Gazariel, The Beautiful One. Long black hair spilled down his shoulders and to his elbows. Bare feet were marked with faint blue sigils. On his open palms glowed more blue markings.

  He lifted his head, his red eyes glowing as he took in the cage and those standing around watching. On his cheek, Tuesday saw three long scratch marks. They bled black.

  And when Gazariel’s gaze met Tuesday’s, he said, “You will suffer for this, my witch.”

  Chapter 20

  The demon inside the cage stood tall, fists out at his sides. He wore black leather pants and no shirt. His abdomen was carved as if from stone and his muscles were many, forming him lean and imposing. Long streams of wavy coal hair hung over his broad shoulders and his red eyes glinted like rubies.

  Slowly, the scratches on his cheek closed up, leaving but a spill of black blood trickling down his jaw.

  With a hiss he released his wings, which spread to the cage bars without touching them. Black feathered wings that flashed like mirrors with each movement and seemed made of silk and sewn with silver threads. They were iridescent with all colors, much as a raven’s wings.

  Tuesday knew that angels rarely wore feathered wings, but demons often did. Had this angel’s wings taken on a different form when he had fallen to Beneath and become demon? No matter. They were beautiful. He was beautiful.

  And her sigil burned as if pleading with her to rush forth and touch those wings. To make contact with something that could both harm her and equally embrace her. The invitation felt so real.

  She squeezed her hands, fingernails digging in to her palms to stop the urge.

  The demon let out a guttural yell, retracting his wings when they touched the electrified bars. He swung about, his wings sending a rush of icy wind across the observers, lifting their hair and stirring up a bone-deep shiver that made Tuesday gasp.

  Stomping a foot, Gazariel tested the steel cage floor. Thrusting out his hands, he sent demonic magic hurtling toward them, only to have it deflected by the wards. He took the brunt of that repulsed magic with a stagger backward and a screaming trill of swear words. He ended his tirade with a flip of his middle finger toward Tuesday, and a simple “Bitch.”

  Tuesday met CJ’s eyes. The dark witch who had summoned the demon stepped back to stand beside her. “We’ll leave him to the boss,” he said quietly. “But stand on guard.”

  Always. Holding the alicorn in one hand and her athame in the other, she was prepared to fling some wicked magic toward the demon. Tuesday watched as Ethan questioned the captive.

  “You’ll get nothing from me that you could not get before,” Gazariel announced. “How dare you steal me away from my very life?”

  Tuesday had felt much the same upon waking inside this cage. But she would not sympathize with the demon. And yet, the compulsion to step forward and embrace him only grew stronger. This time a snap of the rubber band around her wrist was necessary.

  The cat meowed and slunk toward the door. Tuesday leaned over to open it and the feline scrambled out.

  “If you would have given me what I wanted during our first encounter I wouldn’t have had to resort to such tactics.” Ethan stood stoic before the cage, shoulders back and head lifted. A commander protecting his troops and interrogating the enemy. He wore wards drawn on the backs of his hands, beneath his chin and down his throat. But his true strength came from within; his courage and integrity. “You need only hand over the book, written by the muse Cassandra Stephens, which contains the code for the Final Days and I will release you. Simple as that.”

  Gazariel swiped a hand over his cheek, studied the black blood on his fingers, then gestured dismissively. “I don’t have it.”

  “You are lying.”

  “I had it,” the demon said with a sly red glance to Tuesday. “But now I do not.”

  “Then where is it?”

  “In a safe place.”

  “Tell me where it is, and once I’ve retrieved it, you are free to go,” Ethan stated. “Did you give it to Anyx?”

  That caught the demon’s attention. He gripped the cage bars, but released them as quickly with a hiss and a string of vile oaths that never would have been allowed Above. “I knew someone was watching us! Did you follow me, vampire? Why didn’t you take me in hand that day when we were dining?”

  “Did you give it to the vampiress?” Ethan repeated.

  “Maybe.” The demon rubbed
his cheek again.

  “You two had a lover’s spat,” Tuesday said, realizing now where the claw marks had come from. “Did she take the book from you and run?”

  Gazariel flipped her off again. “Not worth my breath to converse with you lot of miscreants. I need something in exchange.”

  “How about your life?” Ethan offered. “You do know that if the Final Days is activated we will all die?”

  Gazariel shrugged. “Assuming you remain in this realm. I, on the other hand, have made preparations to be located elsewhere.”

  “He doesn’t have leave of this realm!” Tuesday blurted out. “He’s as much a captive of the mortal realm as we all are.”

  Ethan cast her a castigating glare, which she took with a huff. She did not need a reprimand for providing him the facts.

  “You know nothing about me, my witch,” Gazariel growled through a tight jaw. He curled his wings forward, tucking them until the points crossed before his feet.

  “I know everything about you, as you know everything about me,” she said, and once again got the look from Ethan. She was supposed to stand back and keep quiet? She could not. Thrusting out an arm, she pointed the alicorn at the demon. “You are a vain and insignificant reject from Above, and then you were also rejected in Beneath and cast out to live in this realm. You, who couldn’t bear to carry the curse of a loveless life so you put it on a helpless, dying woman. Some demon you are!”

  Gazariel gripped the cage bars, and the action transferred mighty amounts of voltage through his system. He managed to hold on for much longer than Tuesday imagined any normal creature could, and as he did so, his eyes flashed brilliant crimson. Was he feeding off the electricity?

  Ethan kicked a control button at the base of the cage, and the demon was propelled backward to collide with the bars at the back of the cage. Those bars hissed with smoke and sent the demon stumbling forward, so he almost landed on his knees, but he caught himself. Bent over, huffing, his wings slowly curled about him, enclosing him in a cocoon.

  “Is she right?” Ethan asked. “Are you but a feeble reject from both Above and Beneath? Is it that your lover took off with the book, leaving you a simpering reject in her wake?”