Keep Me Close

by Elizabeth Cole

  She relaxed against Dom, telling him she was done for real. He pulled out, and did whatever he did with the condom. She was not paying attention at all. Seconds later he was on his back with her in his arms, half slung across him.

  He said something, and it took her a second to realize it was also Latin, and he wasn’t speaking to her. She didn’t know whether the spell did anything, but she had no complaints. She was gloriously warm, and delightfully tired, and pretty pleased with the world in general and Dom in particular.

  Vin kissed him softly. “If that’s magic, I like it.”

  “It’s one kind of magic,” he said. “Thanks for letting me multitask there.”

  “So does the mystical protection kick right in? Or is there a delay?”

  “I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve ever done it.”

  “Oh?” she asked archly.

  “I mean that particular actual spell, I mean, like, for real, in um, the field, as they say.” He sounded so flustered that Vinny couldn’t stop from laughing out loud. Flustered Dom was adorable.

  “The other part I have done a few times before,” he added.

  She didn’t need to be told that. He definitely knew how to show a girl a good time.

  “Did you like the non-magic part?” she asked shyly. “The ordinary sex part?”

  “You have a weird definition of ordinary,” he said.

  “And you don’t want this to be the only time.”

  He turned his head away. “I don’t mean to rope you into anything.”

  “Rope me?”

  “Figuratively speaking,” he said hastily. “I’m actually not that kinky. Sorry.”

  “I’m not sorry.”

  “I just meant I know you weren’t planning on me. Or this.”

  “Dom. I wouldn’t have asked for this if I hadn’t already…um. God, this is embarrassing.”

  “What is?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “I really like you. And I don’t just like a guy. Certainly not after a few days. But you’re different, and oh, God, I like you, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  He held her close. “Vin, you don’t have to have all the answers. We’ll work it out.”

  “We will?”

  “Yes. We.”

  Vin drew her hand across his chest. Saying she liked him out loud took more guts than asking him for sex. What the hell was up with that? But she was glad she said it, and she trusted him when he said they’d work it out.

  Silver and water and love.

  Vinny blinked, wondering why those words came into her head. Silver and water and love. The phrase warmed her, though she didn’t know why.

  He tilted his head up, examining her neck. The skin felt raw where the necklace had cut into her.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked, worried. “Honestly, that mark might not fade.” He kissed the spot as if that might help heal it. It felt good, whether it healed her or not.

  “It’s fine,” said Vinny. “I’d rather deal with the scar than whatever the hell was after me.”

  Dom shifted, pushing off his post-sex lethargy. “Tell me what happened. Was it like before? And I mean details. What you saw, what you felt. Everything.”

  She recounted the ordeal, from the first flickers of darkness to the mood swings she felt, to the sudden paralysis and the nightmarish monster she saw when she was lost in unconsciousness.

  “I don’t know if I’m describing it right,” she said nervously. Just thinking about the thing’s eyes and mouth made her start shaking again.

  Dom held her close until she stopped shivering. Vinny’s mind was still reeling, feeling both the remembered fear and the lingering warmth of the sex and possibly the spell.

  After a moment, Dom moved again, fishing the gold necklace out of his discarded shirt. “I had to cut this off you in the river. Which brings up the next question. How long have you had that necklace? I never noticed it before. It only started acting up after you got into the house, right?”

  “Um,” she said. “I just got the necklace from Jonas. The night we got here.”

  Dom went still. “He gave it to you.”

  “Yes. As a birthday present. I didn’t know…”

  “Of course you didn’t know it was cursed, Vin. It’s not your fault.” He was very alert now, and angry. “He gave it to you for a reason. And not a nice one. I have to find out what it means.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Vinny took a breath. “It has to be a mistake. He wouldn’t have tried to hurt me.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes. You don’t know him. I do. Listen, we go back years and years. Jonas is not perfect—he’s not anywhere close. He’s done some fucked up shit with the cameras, and I’m going to do something about that. Trust me. But there’s no way he’d knowingly pass out cursed jewelry.”

  He took a breath. “Maybe.”

  “Definitely,” she said, hoping she sounded convincing. “He cares about me, Dom. Maybe in a messed up way, but he likes me, right? You said yourself he was all salty to you when you met. That was because, whatever else he’s into, he doesn’t want me to get hurt.”

  “If that’s true, we still need to know how he got the necklace. Where it came from, how long he’s had it, if there was a reason he gave it to you in particular.”

  “No problem. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Don’t be alone with him when you chat.”

  “You’re paranoid. He’s not after me.”

  He put both hands on her head, making her look at him. “Vin, you nearly died. I almost didn’t get that thing off you in time. There’s no paranoia at work here. That was real.”

  “But so was your spell, yeah? I’m safe.”

  He shook his head, and let her go. “You’re safer than you were. But I don’t know how nasty this could get. You need to be careful, Vin. Please.”

  His concern was so raw that she knew he was being honest. “I’ll be careful. But we’re not interrogating Jonas. I’ll talk to him, one on one.”

  “I want to be close by.”

  “You will be. I’ll put you on white knight alert.”

  “Count on it.” He kissed her, his mouth hot on hers. “Now, as much as I want to get you a thousand miles away from here, we need to go back. There are way too many questions, and I am being paid to find the answers.”

  They got dressed and walked to the car in the now violet twilight of the ravine. She slapped a mosquito away just before she opened the car door. “Some protection spell,” she told him. “I almost got my blood sucked just now.”

  “The spell repels evil,” he said with a grin. “You want to repel insects, buy some bug spray.”

  “Smart ass,” she muttered.

  As she got in the passenger seat, she realized something. Dom and she had just had some mind-blowing, magical sex, and here she was joking with him like they were pals for years. She could practically feel the thread between them, the invisible bond that was going to hurt hard when it was inevitably broken.

  Chapter 23

  Before Dom started the car, he remembered something and pulled out his phone. “Just a sec. I need to get a hold of someone.”

  He called Lily, then waited for her to answer. While doing that he stared at the thin red wound on Vinny’s neck where the necklace chain had tightened so much it cut her flesh. Dom was going to make someone pay for that.

  “Hi!” Lily’s voice chirped.

  “Lily! Hey, I need—”

  “You’ve reached my voicemail because I’m doing something more important. Leave a message and I might call you back.”

  He grimaced, waiting for the beep. Then he said, “It’s Dom. Please pick up. Pick up no matter what. I need a lookup and I need it fast. Anyway, call me.”

  “Who’s Lily?” Vinny asked curiously.

  “She’s a witch. And a friend. She lived close by us growing up, and her family has a link to…”

  “Magic. You can say it.”

  “Basically, yes
. Lily studied magic and the supernatural and all the occult stuff alongside us. She’s like our little sister. She’s almost Lex’s age. Lex is my youngest brother,” he added. He was rambling a bit, mostly out of nervous energy. The full realization of everything that happened was hitting him, finally. Including the realization that he’d been subconsciously denying the web of connections around the house and the job and him and Vinny. “Lily will help. She’s crazy smart and is great at research.”

  “Is she great at returning phone calls?”

  Just then, his phone buzzed. Lily. “Hey, you busy? I need a thing.”

  “Hello to you too.” Lily’s voice crackled a bit.

  “Sorry,” said Dom. “I’m in the middle of something. I’ll be polite when it’s done.”

  Her tone turned professional. “What’s up?”

  “I need a lookup on a symbol.”

  “What is it? Wait, back up. Is it on something?”

  “It’s the pendant of a necklace. Looks old.”

  “Material?”

  “Gold. Both the pendant and the chain.”

  “How’d you find it?”

  He glanced at Vinny. “Had to cut if off the person wearing it. It was killing her.”

  “I was going to ask about the vibe next,” Lily said. “But now I’m just going to guess evil.”

  “Very evil. Feels like ice. Hasn’t warmed up and I’ve been holding it for a bit.”

  “Well, stop holding it,” Lily snapped. “Get it into a binding pouch pronto.” Lily was several years younger than Dom, but that never stopped the witch from giving orders.

  “Don’t worry, I got one with my gear.”

  “Ok. Describe the symbol.”

  Dom tilted the pendent in his palm. “A circle, intersected down the middle by an upside down isosceles triangle. Narrow, like an arrow point. And there’s a line overlaying the triangle’s top side. The length of the line just extends past the circle’s width. There are jagged edges at each end of the line. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so,” Lily said. “I’m drawing it out in parts.”

  “I could send a picture.”

  “No! We don’t know what effect ascribing the symbol to any medium could have. Digital counts!”

  “Got it. Can you look it up?” he asked.

  “How fast do you need it?”

  Dom needed it now. He said, “Sooner is better than later.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” she promised. “Give me a few hours, and I should have a little information for you.”

  “You’re the best, Lily.”

  “I try.” She ended the call.

  Vinny looked at him with interest. “You said research. Do you have a Hogwarts sort of place? Or a secret government agency? You can tell me.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that organized. There are other folks who fight evil, and hunt demons. The world’s a big place. But it’s not a global conspiracy. I mean, maybe somewhere, some secret society has an underground compound or a mansion where they do secret anti-demon stuff, but if they do, they’ve never invited a Salem to join. My family just kind of has always done this. So what we know, we know because it’s been passed down over time.”

  “Too bad. A secret underground compound sounds cool.”

  “Sounds expensive,” he said.

  “You do worry about money, don’t you?”

  “Somebody has to,” Dom said. “I’m the oldest, so it’s my responsibility. I’ve always handled the finances, even before I was legal age—our grandparents were great, but not great with money. And it’s sort of hard to hold down a nine-to-five job when demons are involved.”

  “I bet they like midnight,” Vinny said.

  “They do.”

  She absently brushed at the reddened skin of her neck, and Dom pulled her hand away. “Don’t. We should get that cleaned and disinfected. Spells are one thing, but Neosporin has its place.”

  She smiled, squeezing his hand. “Then we should get back.”

  Dom looked over at her. “Your birthday is tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Dates like that tend to be significant. And Jonas was pretty insistent about the end of the week being the deadline. And that’s where we are now.”

  She frowned. “But I didn’t summon a demon, so why would it care about my birthday? Can’t it just be a coincidence?”

  No. On some level, Dom knew this was coming. He’d ignored the signs, largely because acknowledging them meant admitting that Vin was at the center of them, and he didn’t want Vin at the center of anything dangerous. But all he said was, “When the occult is involved, coincidence usually isn’t.”

  Vinny looked thoughtful, staring out at the intensely green landscape surrounding them.

  Dom started the car and drove back to the house, obeying the speed limit this time.

  The Porsche Dom stole had a button to open the security gate at the house. He stopped at the gate and was about to push the button when Vinny, who’d been silent the whole way back, said, “Wait.”

  “What is it?”

  “I just remembered something.” She looked over at him, her eyes big and troubled. “When Jonas gave me the necklace, he said Emma was the one who found it.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even think about it at the time, but that’s maybe important.”

  “Yes.” It meant that either Jonas lied about it, or Emma was much more involved in this situation than she seemed, or worse, that both of them were in it together. Dom wished he knew their personalities better. He didn’t think Vinny could see things clearly where her friends were concerned. It was natural for her to think the best of her friends, despite evidence of their worst impulses. “I think we both need to be careful about mentioning anything related to the necklace or the demon you saw.”

  “Okay.” Vinny’s tone was meek, like a little girl’s. Dom could guess why—it sucked to think someone you trusted was actually not on your side. He remembered exactly how he felt when Rachel revealed her true nature, and he’d had practically his whole family to back him up in the aftermath. Vinny had almost no one. Except him.

  It was nighttime when they pulled up to the garage. The house had lights on, but they were all automated, so it didn’t mean anyone was awake or around.

  Just as he got out of the car, Dom saw the familiar shape of Piewicket approaching.

  “Pie,” he said. “Come here.”

  The cat slinked over, curious.

  Dom dangled the necklace in front of her, the pendant tumbling down the chain.

  Piewicket hissed and leapt backward, her tail puffing out.

  “That’s exactly what I thought,” Dom said, tucking the necklace back in its pouch. “What happened while we were gone?”

  The humans here did nothing. They slept off their respective ailments, though the evil in this place is getting stronger by the hour.

  “Did you see anything?”

  The cat flexed her claws in and out. Not seen. But smelled, yes. Sensed, yes. Something is pushing into this place from the otherworlds, and it will break through soon.

  “Tomorrow,” Dom said, in a tone low enough that Vinny couldn’t hear.

  Very likely. The cat looked at him. You should rest. If it is tomorrow, you need to be ready for it.

  “What’s going on?” Vinny asked.

  “You’re heading up to your room,” he told her. “Pie will go with you.”

  “Because I need a bodyguard?”

  “Because Pie likes you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I want to renew the wards I cast, just in case. I’ll check in before I go to bed.”

  Vin nodded, relief on her face.

  Dom left her to go up to the attic where he first cast the circle of protection. The physical markings looked undisturbed. He lit the candles and quickly went through the spell to strengthen the ward he put up before.

  This time, though, he
knew what he was dealing with, so he added a few lines to his recitation, ones specific to demons. Then he recited the names of everyone in the house, including himself this time. Pie was always telling him he forgot that part when he cast protection spells.

  After he was done, he extinguished the candles and returned to the second floor.

  He knocked on the door of Vinny’s room. “Hey. Can I come in?”

  “Yup,” she called. “But you’ll have to get past Pie to get to me.”

  Dom came in, noticed Piewicket in a corner, and then saw Vin had been busy. She’d dragged the dresser over to the corner of the room where the camera was embedded high up on the wall. The spot where the camera used to be was now a largish hole in the drywall. Shards of either plastic or glass were scattered on the carpet.

  He sized up the height of the hole. “Do you have a crowbar around that I didn’t notice?”

  Her lips curved into a smile. “Hey, you got skills. I got skills. The point is that I solved a problem.” Vin’s smile faded then. “A problem that never should have existed in the first place. I’m sorry I got angry at you when it should have been Jonas’s ass I kicked.”

  “You can do that tomorrow,” he said.

  “Unless a demon comes to kick his ass first. You really think he…how do you put it…consorted with the powers of darkness?”

  Dom nodded. “Someone consorted with something dark. You did say that it might have been Emma who was the source of the necklace.”

  “But it was Jonas who…” She glared at the shattered camera.

  “The two things don’t have to go together,” Dom said cautiously. “Jonas is guilty of creepy ass voyeurism, but it could be Emma who made a deal with a demon.”

  “Emma is my friend,” Vin said, her arms tight around her body, as if she was warding off cold.

  “I’ve seen friends and families sell each other out,” said Dom. “Jonas has a thing for you…obviously. What if Emma wanted to remove competition?”