by Gem Sivad
“Then why would Shep need her help after you un-hex him?”
“I’m a healer, a hedge witch some call me. I can pull poison from a man’s body and truth from his brain. But I can’t catch a spirit and reconnect broken threads back to the physical world. Rhee can, she’s a weaver. Shep’s been attacked by twisted magic. I might be able to reverse the spell. But I can’t repair any damage already done to his spirit.”
“So where does someone learn to use twisted magic?” It had begun to sound as though there were witches lurking behind every tree.
Miz rolled her eyes and sighed. “Every bozo who can read can cast a spell these days. All you have to do is run an internet search and you’ll find a witch more than glad to sell a charm or two.”
“And are you telling me that witches sell death spells?” Frustrated, his jaguar growled. “How in hell do we track down the witch then?”
“It doesn’t mean you’ve got a witch to contend with, Sunny. The witch doesn’t have to know the sender’s intent any more than a gun merchant is responsible for how a gun is used after it’s sold.”
“So you’re saying if the sender buys a charm and kills with it, oh well?” He listened in amazement as Miz educated him on her take on the ethics of magic.
“It’s not oh well if a charm buyer kills someone using magic. But it’s pretty unusual since most folks don’t believe in curses and spells.” She interrupted her instruction with a caution.
“Sure as I’m sitting here, Shep’s been hexed and I guess it’s up to me to break the spell. But I’m betting the sender is someone we both know. And it’s not a witch. Guess we’ll see.”
“If you can’t repair his spirit, why did you tell your cousin you don’t need her?” Thomas felt like a dumbass as he talked about woo-woo shit he tried to avoid.
“Because,” she answered grimly, “there’s no better way to get Rhee to West Virginia than to tell her to stay out.”
“You doing the spell thing before we take him home or can we wait?”
“I can’t work where you stashed him in that underground bunker you call a med lab. I need the boost of magic I’ll get from the old mountains we’re from. Besides, I suspect the closer we are to the source of the charm, the harder the whammy will be when we return it to the sender.”
“What makes you think the hex sender is from West Virginia?”
Miz handed the assassin’s picture of her to Thomas. “Hank Wyatt took that picture the day Jenny and I opened our shop.”
Chapter Seven
Not for the first time, Thomas wanted to kill Wyatt. Sunny planned to do it. “Any idea why he’d go after Shep?”
Miz shrugged. “Shep sent you into Hank’s territory. Hank doesn’t get mad. He gets even. Folks in the holler know two things. Nothing happens that Hank doesn’t know about. And God help anyone who complains about how he handles Bitter Creek business.”
The werewolf alpha was a sneaky bastard who’d used Miz for years. It didn’t make Thomas like him any better knowing that he’d been Miz’s first lover. He’d had a chance once to snap Wyatt’s spine. But in deference to Miz, Thomas had walked away. It wouldn’t happen again.
“Why not try to kill me?” He wished the sonofabitch had tried.
“Hank’s territorial. If I’m dead and Shep’s gone, you’ve got no reason to come back to West Virginia. You don’t matter to him at all. Hank wouldn’t risk getting his belly sliced open when he can achieve a better outcome with Shep and me both dead.”
“What’s that?”
“He wants the house and Hess land—which he knows he’ll never get unless we default on our responsibility.” She grimaced and frowned. Before Thomas could ask her to explain, she continued.
“The Hess women pass magic from one generation to the next, have for a hundred-plus years and the house goes with it. The house is alive—sort of. And it’s particular. A Hess has to live in it.”
“Or?” Thomas frowned trying to understand what she was saying.
“We forfeit our magic and the house is closed to us.”
“So if you never leave the house for more than forty-eight hours, how do you know all this is so?” It sounded like a load of bullshit to Thomas.
“It’s a family secret. If I tell you, I might have to kill you.” Miz leered at him with a menacing look that melted into a sly grin.
“Lay it on me. I think I can take you in a fight.” Thomas smiled, remembering a certain wrestling match he and Miz had engaged in. “Wear your new boots and nothing else when we spar next time. If you kill me, I’ll die a happy man.”
She wrinkled her nose at him and continued her story.
“Our place abuts Shep’s. And our magic spills over, permeating that piece of ground that stretches almost to the top of the ridge.”
Thomas had noticed when he was jumping through the trees that the woods in that area were especially dark and deep. It bothered him the way the trunks spiraled and split, twisting into weird shapes. His cat liked it though. Go figure. While he pondered that, Miz continued her story.
“When I was a kid, we didn’t have much in the way of fancy food. Granny filled the table at night with small game she shot with a rifle. The summer I was ten, she left me in the house and went hunting. It was about noon. She didn’t come back that night, nor the next day. When it was getting toward noon on the third day, I was scared. She’d told me to stay put, but I went looking for her.”
Thomas nodded. Of course, it was what he would have done. His head was still bobbing in agreement when she added another part.
“And the house followed.”
“The house moved?”
“On legs, right behind me every foot of the way. We found Granny in a bear trap. Kind of like that one I pried you out of last summer. I got her out and crawled into the house with her where I healed her.”
Thomas was pretty damn sure she was telling one of her crazy West Virginia tall tales. He played along. “So why isn’t the house located at the foot of the ridge now?”
“I don’t know.” Miz shrugged. “When I finished healing my grandma, she was weak and I was sick. We both fell asleep. The next morning, we were back home. Guess the house likes our side of the holler better than Shep’s.”
He snorted. He’d fallen for it. He waited for her to laugh and wink. She didn’t.
“The house cut quite a swath following me. It spilled magic along the corridor it made in the woods. The rest is history. I guess Hank wants the house and the power that goes with it. Right now, the best way to get it is to catch me away from home, keep me from fixing Shep, and take ownership before another Hess moves in.”
“Why didn’t Wyatt just shoot you and steal the house’s magic years ago?”
She shrugged. “There was no need. I was valuable to him. He used me as his human lie detector and healer whenever he wanted.” Miz stared at the ground morosely. “And don’t forget Jenny. He had her reporting every move I made outside the holler.”
Thomas knew damn well what Miz said was impossible. Walking houses didn’t exist except in folktales. Uneasily he remembered that neither did shifters or witches. He didn’t have a coherent response to the story so he returned to the immediate problem—Shep.
“We’ll transport Shep home by helicopter. Can you work a spell at his place or do you need to be at yours?”
“His place,” Miz said, not elaborating.
Thomas called the hangar and ordered the ’copter. It took three hours for them to find all the ingredients—lemon, sage, St. John’s wort, calamus. The last one was a bitch. Who knew there were so many wiccan shops in DC?
He tried to stay respectful. After all, he expected her to accept his cat. He needed to support her in her craft. But damn, dragon’s blood powder?
Thomas approved of the double-edged knife she bought. She called it an athame. She insisted on paying for it. Said it had to belong to her and her alone. Okay.
And then they stalled. She’d never flown on so much as an air
plane. He wanted her to ride in a helicopter. She wouldn’t budge until he agreed to transport her bike too.
“I’m not leaving my Harley behind in DC. It goes where I go.”
She was loyal. She didn’t cast off old goods. Thomas reminded himself of that as he changed his transport request to a bigger carrier.
“I still think we should drive,” she said, her jaw taking on a militant slant.
“Tough,” Thomas told her. “We need to get there fast. I heard your cousin’s warning same as you.” He held her gaze and she gave in.
Well, all righty. She’d always wanted to be a world traveler and with Rhee on the way, things seemed promising. Miz didn’t want to get back to West Virginia too soon. She’d factored in a seven-hour road trip but now the helicopter took that down to…
“How long will it take to fly him home?”
“Seventy-five minutes tops. Probably more like sixty-five minutes to the spot where I’ll set down on Shep’s helio-pad in Point Harmony.”
Well, okay. She had her kit with her. They’d picked up the ingredients for her spell and she had them ready. If they went to Shep’s Point Harmony house, they’d be far enough away from Hess land to withstand the pull of magic.
It was a bold move. She felt as though she was planning an escape from Alcatraz. She’d lived in Bitter Creek Holler all of her life. Most of it hadn’t been fun. Her mind was made up. The Hess place had to have a living vessel residing there. But it sure as hell didn’t have to be Miz any longer. She had two cousins and she’d decided it was Rhee’s turn. She had a plan.
* * * * *
Her plan went all to hell when the trip commenced. First off, Shep wasn’t doing so well when they returned to the med lab to get him. He’d begun to pace back and forth, which was a good sign, kind of. But he was also grunting and making animal noises, which was bad. Miz hadn’t pinpointed the species but she had a feeling she was going to find out real soon.
The second bump in their road back to West Virginia was Thomas’ band of merry men, or beasts or whatever they were. They’d pretty much surveyed their numbers and the consensus was that Shep had to go. He knew too much even if he didn’t remember any of it. He was a walking encyclopedia of their lives and he had to die.
Miz suspected there’d been a policy change in their absence. When she and Thomas arrived to escort Shep home, they had to subdue the guards outside his door. It didn’t take long. She caught one of them by surprise. Guess he didn’t expect a human woman to be able to kick so hard. She got him to his knees and then zapped him to sleep. Thomas wasn’t so gentle, but his guard went to sleep too.
They didn’t waste time once they were inside. Shep’s beast—whatever it was, and Thomas wasn’t saying—snorted and his eyes changed to beady and feral. He definitely made her nervous.
“Wild boar?” she asked Thomas.
“Worse,” he assured her. “Ready?”
She dosed Shep with a blast of tranquility strong enough to keep most men docile until next Sunday. He sighed, relaxed, and Miz tightened her grip on his arm. “Let’s roll.”
Thomas drove them to the secured hangar, loaded Shep and to Miz’s surprise, slid into the pilot’s seat.
“You’re a pilot?” Was there anything this gorgeous hunk couldn’t do?
No, I’m damned near perfect. Thomas grinned and showed her his stuff. She watched from the cargo area as he handled the ’copter controls adeptly and had them airborne in moments.
Shep’s shot of serenity was fast wearing off. Keeping him still soon claimed all of Miz’s attention. Thomas had already explained that a helicopter wasn’t a plane. Her Harley took up one side. She and Shep were on the other side acting as ballast, keeping the weight equalized. Which was fine, except her patient didn’t agree.
They were in Virginia airspace, thirty minutes from DC and thirty-five from home when Shep resumed pacing. Only a helicopter isn’t a treadmill and Shep was a big man. His movements threw off the balance and Thomas yelled at her to keep him still. Yeah right.
Half an hour before, she’d thought they’d had plenty of time. Now she doubted that she’d get him home before the hex destroyed him. He was in definite distress. She had to try.
Miz set the ceramic plate next to the lemon, lit the incense and then the two candles, one white, one black. She’d tried to work quickly. She thought she could see muscles or something rippling under Shep’s skin.
Shit, she’d forgotten the water. She had the salt. She had bottled water in her knapsack. She lunged for it and the helicopter tilted sideways. Thomas yelled and Shep snarled.
Breathe in, breathe out, be calm. She uncapped the bottle and set it next to the salt bowl.
She peered down at Rhee’s directions.
You will need a glass or ceramic plate to set the lemon on when you are done. Yes, yes, she had that part.
Light the candles and the incense.” Check.
Hold the lemon in both hands and visualize it drawing the negative spell away from you as if the fruit’s a magnet. Well, the spell wasn’t on her. It was on Shep. She hadn’t thought that through.
Okay. Miz pricked both her finger and Shep’s with the athame and then mixed the drops of blood and smeared them on the lemon.
Hold the lemon in both hands.
All righty then. Miz gripped Shep’s hand, shoved the lemon into it, smacked his other hand on top of it and curled her palms around the back of his.
“Visualize a magnet drawing away the bad shit,” Miz ordered Shep.
Heat pulsing from her hands, she pushed at the bad aura surrounding him. He grunted, squeezed the lemon, and juice squirted everywhere. Well, fuck.
Dip your athame in the water, then slice the lemon into three pieces.
The fruit was pulpy all right. She released her grip on Shep’s hands and tried not to freak. As she extracted the remains of the lemon from his nails they turned into long curved claws.
The helicopter dropped, wobbling unsteadily, and the air in the cargo section shimmered.
“Thomas, where are we?”
“Almost home, baby. We’re in West Virginia airspace now.”
Miz picked up the knife, poured water over it and sliced the messy lemon into three pieces. She set aside the knife and took each lemon slice, dipping it into the salt and coating it. When each slice was back on the plate, she concentrated, seeing the lemon draw the sickness from Shep’s aura while she repeated the words she’d devised.
With lemon cuts that number three
Coated with salt and water and blood of Shep and me
Uncross! I say, Shep’s curse be broke.
Release him now, I will him free.
For a moment she thought she’d set him on fire. Murky-looking haze seeped from him, turned to purple then changed to nothing more than a silver shine of mist hanging in the air. Then he shuddered, shook his head and his eyes unglazed.
“Miz?” He was fuddled but Shep.
She’d done it. She could see the difference in him already.
“Hold that thought,” she told him.
While she’d been congratulating herself, she’d almost forgotten the last part. But she didn’t. Because she was awesome.
“Okay, here you go, Hank. Right back at ya,” she muttered.
And with this spell, I claim reverse.
Let all the ill and pain from curse
Return tenfold to do its worst
On sender he—so mote it be!
Okay, it was a little lame. But hey, she’d never written a curse before. She thought it needed to rhyme but wasn’t sure she’d gotten it just right. It would have to do.
“Where are we now?”
“We just flew over a funny-shaped red building next to the interstate and in the middle of nowhere,” Thomas told her.
“Tamarack.” She recognized his description of the arts and crafts shop the state had built to showcase West Virginia talent. Even a thousand feet up, it was impossible to miss the distinctive shape.
“We did it,” she chortled. Too soon.
Shep was a six-foot-six hunk of Viking genetic code one moment. The next, his eyes changed from cobalt blue to lumps of coal black, his facial bones rearranged themselves, fur sprouted and his claws were back.
“Thomas, we’ve got trouble,” Miz shouted.
He glanced back and did a double take.
“Open the side door,” he yelled.
She wasn’t about to argue. During their conversation, Shep disappeared and in his place stood his beast. Miz edged away from the nine-foot, thousand-pound, golden-furred grizzly and opened the side door, not sure if she was supposed to jump.
Shep, or rather Mr. Bear, dropped to all fours, his head swinging back and forth and his beady eyes staring at her as if she were food and he was hungry. The top of the trees looked safer. Maybe she wouldn’t break all her bones in the fall.
“Come up here, Miz,” Thomas shouted at her. “Shep, leave her alone. She’s mine.”
Good luck reasoning with that animal. Miz backed toward Thomas and away from the open door. She could feel the ’copter’s descent. She looked at the bear. The bear looked at her. He grunted, swiped his paw across his face, snarled and charged.
“Hold on to the side,” Thomas ordered. She grabbed her Harley and prayed the metal strut where it was tied was secure. Thomas tilted the helicopter, distracting the bear from her. The grizzly lost its footing and slid, the long talon-like nails ripping holes in the flooring but unable to get purchase. Thomas laid the chopper almost on its side, spilling Shep out the door and into the trees below.
Thank God she’d strapped the Harley tight. She clung to it while Thomas leveled the helicopter and hovered above the trees. She peered out in time to see Shep, or what was once Shep, hit the top limbs, bounce in the branches and hang on for a moment before scrambling lower.
Well, all righty then. One grizzly bear saved. One man…?
It was a little overwhelming. She sat on the floor next to her Harley and closed her eyes. It wasn’t but ten minutes until Thomas yelled back. “We’re at Shep’s Point Harmony place. We’re almost home.”