Love Charms

by Multiple

  A more gentle demon – a mentally unbalanced one in other words – would have balked at dumping her in to the cold water of the pool.

  He, however, never claimed to be nice. Down she went. Crossing his arms, he waited. Up she came sputtering.

  “You rotten jerk! What did you do that for?”

  “Hey, if you’re going to sleep on the job, there will be consequences,” he admonished shaking a finger.

  Her jaw worked, however nothing but a shocked stutter came out. “You, you –”

  “Hot piece of demon ass?”

  “No.”

  “Brave soldier of Hell?”

  “No!”

  “Number one panty dropper in the Pit?”

  “Would you stop that,” she screeched. “This is not funny. You dumped me in a pool. I could have drowned.”

  “Nah, I was keeping an eye to make sure you bobbed up. I was pretty confident those big melons of yours would keep you afloat.”

  She slogged up the pool steps, glaring at him, her teeth bared in a fierce scowl. “I am going to kill you.”

  “For what? Waking you up? You know,” he eyed her up and down, noting how the fabric clung to the breasts he already knew from touch were round and perfect. “Wet is a good look for you,” he said, his deadpan expression belied by the mirth that surely shone in his eyes.

  Flipping her hair back, arching her back and placing a hand on a cocked hip, she looked utterly delicious. And up to something. “Looks good, but tastes even better,” she smirked.

  Ooh, point for the witch who made his mouth water at her naughty repartee. “Is that an invitation?”

  “You’re not my type.”

  “And what is your type? No wait. Let me guess. Hard, plastic coated and jammed full of big D batteries.”

  She scowled at him.

  Touché. He’d hit a sore spot. Pity she kept shooting him down. He knew how to make that spot feel so much better. “Here’s your ride.” Pulling her broom out from its hiding spot, he handed it to her.

  Straddling it, she barked, “What are you waiting for? Get on.”

  “No thanks. I’d rather not end up splattered on some city street. I’d say we’re done for the night, unless you need me for some nefarious fun?”

  “In your dreams, demon.”

  “Oh goody. I have a great imagination. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do to me.” He laughed when she growled. “Ooh, now that’s a sexy sound. Love it. Think of me tonight when you’re riding your plastic friend. I know I’ll be picturing you when I’m getting off.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Do you always repeat yourself? Maybe your age is catching up to you. Good thing you’ve got me helping you out or you might forget your quest. So, same time tomorrow?”

  “Same time for what?”

  “Meeting up with you, of course, to hunt some more souls. I’ll see you at your place around nine-ish.”

  “Not if I can help it,” she muttered before taking off on her broom, a trail of liquid dripping under her.

  What a woman. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d found himself so intrigued. But he wouldn’t get to enjoy the witch for long if she had her way. Remy revised his plan to find some mortal pussy before heading back to hell. For some reason, it suddenly became more important to make sure he stayed partnered with the witch.

  You are not getting rid of me that easy.

  Perhaps he’d inherited his mother’s crazy gene after all. She would be so proud.

  *

  Lucifer eyed Remy as he lounged in the chair across from his desk, appearing like the poster boy for insouciance, and yet, he could see the telltale anxiety in the way his one foot kept tapping. It only took Ysabel one day to screw with one of his finest trackers. Lucifer fought an urge to shake his head. “Let me get this straight. After pissing Ysabel off, to the point she’s going to come storming in here any minute demanding I fire you, you still want to work with her? Are you insane?”

  “I hope so,” Remy grinned.

  A smile cracked Lucifer’s face. “Congratulations. Your mother will be ecstatic. Consider it done. I like a male who doesn’t back down in the face of a shrew.”

  “Bah, she’s not a shrew. Just a little feisty. Besides, I think I might enjoy taming a cougar with claws.”

  “Taming? Ysabel?” Lucifer almost choked.

  “Hmm, maybe you’re right. Keeping her wild will be more fun. Think I can get her to redirect that energy of hers so she stalks me and shreds the clothes from me? No, wait. She’s not a shapeshifter, which means she’d need a knife. On second thought, I’ll make sure I’m naked when she does decide to come after me. It’s probably safer.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay, soldier?”

  “Never better, sir. Now if you’ll excuse me, I shall exit via the back because if I’m not mistaken, that squelching noise signals the arrival of my hot tempered witch. Remember, I was never here.”

  “Never here,” Lucifer muttered. Remy slipped out the secret entrance and Lucifer sighed. “What have I done?” With little time to ponder that question, he just had time to settle himself more comfortably in his seat before a sopping wet, and extremely pissed, Ysabel came stomping into his office.

  “I demand you fire him.”

  “What? No hello?”

  “Fuck you. You knew I was coming. I want him gone.”

  How interesting. It seemed he’d finally found someone to rile his normally collected assistant’s feathers. “No can do. You need a partner.”

  “Then find me someone else.”

  “Sorry, but he’s all I’ve got for the moment.”

  “But I hate him!” she yelled. Her outburst surprised them both, and it took a few blinks before the red in her cheeks died down. “Surely, there’s someone else? Anyone. What about that serious demon, what’s his name again, Xaphan? Couldn’t I take him instead?”

  “I’ve got plans for him.” Plans Xaphan would absolutely hate. Lucifer couldn’t wait.

  “I am so not voting for you when the contest for boss of the year comes around,” she threatened, pivoting and stomp-squishing her way back out.

  “What? And here I had a speech prepared thanking myself for my greatness and the fact I did everything on my own.”

  Ysabel flicked him a middle finger salute before she slammed his door shut.

  He smiled. Saucy witch. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was one of my own children.

  Then again, given how she drove him nuts, he was kind of glad she wasn’t. He had enough to handle with Muriel and his constantly disappearing son, Christopher. The latter he’d given up on. The former he secretly adored, especially since she’d given him a granddaughter who thought he could do no good. Which reminded him, he needed to find the pet dragon he’d bought the little tyke. It escaped its caretaker and the last thing the entire world needed was for the atomic bomb, also known as his darling granddaughter, to go off because he lost her favorite pet. Then again, the end of the world would definitely liven things up around Hell. But cut into my golf game. Fuck. He needed to find that dragon.

  Chapter Five

  Ysabel tried to prepare herself the following afternoon when the time of her death came around. She filled the tub with cold water and climbed in naked. The shocking temperature instantly had her teeth chattering. I can do this. Think of it as a hot day on the Hade’s Beach.

  It didn’t work. The flames arrived right on time, licking up her legs, her body, until they reached her head. But by then, she was already screaming, the tub full of steam. People could boast of bravery and handling pain all they wanted. No one could withstand this kind of agony, even if it petered out when its two minutes were up. She lay for a moment afterward in the tub, its water evaporated from the inferno that raged a minute before. While not a mark remained of her ordeal, her mind and body still reacted as if she suffered. The pain lingered like a bad hangover and her psyche shrieked, rejecting all attempts at calm. It sucked. And thi
s blast from my past is going to keep happening every day until I catch the other four souls. It made her want to cry, a weak indulgence she’d not allowed herself since death.

  She still remembered with disgust her first day in Hell. Weak, sobbing and afraid. Despite the contract she’d signed with Lucifer and her second chance at life, albeit in the Pit, she’d shivered, miserable and fearful. The memory of the flames mocked her every time she closed her eyes.

  Nefertiti, Lucifer’s sorceress, took one look at her and brought her home. Under her care, Ysabel learned to protect herself, her magic becoming strong enough to protect her from most of the predators in Hell. Confidence restored, she got her revenge on those who condemned her to burn, dragging five souls, the number she’d bargained for, straight to Hell, laughing as they screamed.

  The hardest of the captures though, much as it shamed her, was Francisco’s.

  She still recalled that day, all those years ago, when she rode a broom from the portal in the woods to the village she’d grown up in. The village that denounced her.

  How benign it seemed. How quaint with its thatched cottages, and dirt paths lined with gardens. But she didn’t linger, even if her fingers itched to douse it in flames. She swooped with purpose to the big house on the hill, its windows dark as its occupants slept, the hour late. Landing on the sill of the window to her ex-lover’s room, she slipped inside and padded on bare feet to the large bed, a bed they’d never trysted in. No, all she merited were grassy fields, and her straw filled pallet. Sometimes she didn’t even get such softness, as he often liked to take her braced against a tree, her skirts flipped up so he could quickly take his pleasure. And while those brief moments left her unsatisfied, she allowed them for love.

  How foolish of her to not recognize the signs of his selfishness.

  Amidst the mound of pillows and bedding, he snored softly. In repose, his features were smooth, his tousled hair dark and silky to the touch. A pang of longing struck her. Why did things have to turn out this way? What evil had she truly done other than to love this man?

  She must have made a sound, or the chill of her presence alerted him, because his eyes flicked open. For a long moment, he stared at her unblinking, then confusion set in and his brow creased.

  “Ysabel?”

  “Funny how you remember me now, yet couldn’t when you watched me burn,” she replied with a bitterness she couldn’t stem.

  “I had nothing to do with it. It was my mother.”

  The excuse angered her. “And you did nothing to stop it! How could you? I thought you loved me?”

  Shifting his body, he sat up. “Love you? A peasant with no dowry? No land or title?” A sneer tilted his features into someone ugly. Why had she not noticed the cruelty in his face before? Not recognized his lies? “Is it my fault you were stupid enough to believe I would tie myself to someone like you?”

  A part of her must have known he didn’t care, known he led her on falsely, yet to hear him so baldly state it… To have him throw her stupidity in her face. She struggled against the tears at her naivety, and let the anger at his duplicity take over. “You miserable excuse for a man. I can’t believe I ever let you touch me with those lying lips.”

  “You did. And you loved it. It’s a shame mother found out about us. While inexperienced, you were quite an eager learner. At least she saved me the trouble of ridding myself of you later.”

  Any last doubt at her choice evaporated. “Stupid, stupid man. Did your mother never teach you not to mess with a witch?”

  He dared to mock. “You’re dead. You can do nothing to me now. Go ahead. Moan to your heart’s content or shake your chains. You’re dead and buried in an unmarked grave. Although, you can find it by looking for the dead grass that I’ve killed pissing on it. Go back to Hell, evil spirit, where you belong.”

  His attempt to rile her up didn’t make her explode with anger. She went past that straight into glee. She laughed. Not a nice laugh or a hysterical one. A low chuckle, a fearless one, tinted with a touch of madness, slipped past her lips. “Oh, I’ll return to Hell, Francisco, but I’m not going alone.”

  The knife she brought, an ebony etched blade her new friend gifted her, flashed down before he could even grasp her intent. And she thrust again and again until he gurgled his last. Seeing his soul rise from his body, still wearing a look of surprise, she blew him a kiss.

  Finally losing his arrogant expression, he called her foul names and reached for her. His ghostly fingers grasped at nothing as Hell’s reaper came for him. Panicked, he tried to evade his fate. But no one escaped Death on a mission, especially not a soul as dark as Francisco’s. Oh how he screamed as he left the mortal plane.

  But even hearing his screams, sometimes even causing them, never erased the pain of his betrayal. Never restored her ability to trust. But it sure did make her smile.

  Memories of her past were interrupted as someone knocked at her repaired, and now steel reinforced, door.

  “Go away,” she muttered, lifting herself from the tub with limbs that reflected every one of her five hundred years. Funny how getting burned alive could make her feel so old.

  She grabbed a robe and wrapped it around her frame before tottering into her bedroom. The pounding came again, along with a muffled shout. She ignored it in favor of scrounging through her underwear drawer. Yanking on her black briefs and matching athletic bra, she’d just turned to her closet when the loud bang occurred. It didn’t surprise her to see Remy in her bedroom doorway a moment later.

  Sighing, she turned her back to him and kept fingering the clothes in her closet.

  “Hello, little witch.”

  “You’re early.”

  “I couldn’t wait to see you.”

  Now why did his casually tossed words have to make her heart flutter? So unfair, especially since she knew he didn’t mean them. “Just so you know, I’m sending you the bill for the repair of the door again.”

  “Yeah, I meant to ask you why you did that.”

  She flashed him an incredulous look. “Seriously? You broke it down. Twice now.”

  “I wouldn’t have to keep forcing my way in if you’d answer the damned thing.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I was occupied?”

  Sniffing the air, he grimaced. “Busy doing what? Barbecuing? Smells like charred flesh and burnt hair in here? Have you been indulging in some kind of weird witch ritual?”

  So, Lucifer hadn’t told him of her curse. Good. Flirty Remy she could handle. Joking Remy too. A Remy who felt sorry for her? That would just piss her off. More than usual, at any rate.

  “What you smell is what happens when people fuck with me.” What do you know? She managed to tell the truth, if not in the manner he expected. Lucifer was probably grinding his teeth in his office.

  “You set them on fire? I’d be willing to burn for a taste of what’s between your thighs.”

  She ground her teeth. “I hate you.”

  “Is that any way to speak to your future lover?”

  Suddenly tired of sparring, the ordeal still fresh in her mind, her shoulders slumped. As if sensing her mood, he changed the subject to something, gasp, nonsexual.

  “So my little cougar, which target are we after today?”

  That she had an answer to. “Emmanuelle. A little demon who cleans her cell told me,” after she tortured the information out of him, “she has a rather keen interest in her heirs. Especially the oldest daughters, who, over the years, inherited the bakery Emmanuelle took over after she killed her husband.” The bitch had screamed to all who would listen that it was Ysabel’s fault the bread wouldn’t rise, instead of blaming the true reason – improperly stored yeast.

  Once in Hell and planning her revenge, Ysabel also became privy to the knowledge that Francisco was fucking the baking whore on the side. She’d quite enjoyed shoving Emmanuelle into the oven and slamming the door shut when she’d gone to collect the bitch’s soul.

  “So we’re off to Spain.
Excellent. I’ve been meaning to practice my Spanish.” The leer on his lips and shine in his eyes let her know he didn’t mean the language.

  “We’re not leaving yet. It’s not quite nine p.m. over there. I figure we’ll most likely catch Emmanuelle in the morning when her heirs begin their baking day. So we’ve got about six hours to wait.”

  “I’ve got an idea to kill a few hours.”

  “I doubt what you have in mind will take more than a few minutes.”

  “Only because you excite me so much, but that wasn’t what I was suggesting. Something about the method your little friends escaped the prison is bugging me. I thought maybe you’d like to come along and help me check it out.”

  Okay, that totally surprised her. One, that he’d looked into it, and two, that he even gave a shit. It roused her suspicion. “Why do you care?”

  The grin he flashed her, pure and masculine, shot right to her sex and tickled. “I hate a mystery. Besides, if there’s a security breach, I want to know. Escaped slaves mean more work, which means less play time for me.”

  “And we can’t have that now, can we?” She pulled out a pantsuit, appropriate for investigating a prison. Well, not really, but she wasn’t about to wear something sexy for the jerk when he’d not deigned to notice she stood there in only her underwear while they spoke.

  Or did he?

  A fingertip trailed down her spine and she whirled only to see him still leaning against her doorjamb, his lips quirked in a half smile, his eyes half lidded. “Yes?”

  “Did you just touch me?”

  He spread his hands in a gesture of ‘who, me?’ “How, when I’m standing over here?”

  “I need to get dressed.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Says the man who managed to speak several coherent sentences without trying to get my panties off.”

  “Would you have taken them off if I asked?”

  “No.”

  “Then why ask when I could fantasize? The entire time we were talking, with your hot cougar body borderline naked, I was thinking of how I’d peel that prim and proper underwear from you with my teeth. If we’d have kept talking, who knows how far we would have gotten. Although, from the little bit I imagined, I have to say, you are a very, very naughty witch.” Oh now there was a masculine grin to make even her melt.