Trial by Fire (Covencraft Book 1)

by Margarita Gakis

  “I thought as much,” he said quietly.

  “I’ll see if I can do a little research as well. One of the more reclusive covens is angling to have their voice heard on the Council and they’ve a number of grimoires I’ve wanted to get a peek at. Perhaps I can bargain some kind of trade. You never know what may be hidden in those spell-books.”

  “Thank you, Hannah.” Even though she hadn’t been able to assuage his fears, he felt better for speaking with her.

  “Of course the best option is simply to convince her to stay. As I said before, you can be quite charming when you try.”

  Paris held back a laugh. “It sounds a little disreputable when you say it like that.”

  “I’m not telling you to have sex with her, just be friendly,” she admonished.

  “Jesus, Hannah!” Paris choked, feeling a blush heat his face. He’d rather have dental work than have this conversation with her.

  “I can hear you having an aneurysm from here.”

  “It’s quite late, I should go.”

  Again she snorted. “Charming though you can be, you’re a terrible liar. I won’t hold you hostage on the phone and make you talk about unspeakable things.”

  “Thank you,” he breathed with relief.

  “I’ll let you know if I find anything. Just… Don’t borrow trouble thinking about what might happen. All it does it put a bug in the ear of the fates.”

  “All right, Hannah. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Paris hung up the phone and had a bit of a chuckle as he stared down at it. Only Hannah could make him blush like a schoolboy. He shook his head.

  She was right. He was borrowing trouble where none existed, but he couldn’t curb his apprehension. The entire situation was strange and bizarre. They could find no other references to a witch being born outside a coven. Yes, witches lived outside of covens, or left their covens, or lost their magic. But no one had heard of one being born outside of a coven.

  The suspicious side of him wondered what else was lurking out there that they’d never heard of either.

  Chapter 7

  She had to stop eating out.

  Jade was sprawled on the couch with her laptop, where she’d been since Paris dropped her off. She looked down at her stomach and came to the realization: she really had to stop eating out. As much as she loved fast food, that had been her fifth meal out in two days. Not good.

  Tomorrow! Tomorrow she would make her own food, pack a lunch.

  When she realized what she’d just promised herself, she made a face. I hate packing lunches.

  After kicking off her shoes, not caring that they went akimbo in the hallway, she made her way to the kitchen to check on the state of lunch-able groceries.

  Her neck tingled slightly and she looked around at the remains of her earlier spell-casting. She cleaned up the confetti, the rocks, put the coffee cup in the dishwasher and emptied the pots of water.

  Yes, she still felt magic in the air – like an overdose of cologne or perfume after their wearer had left the room.

  She thought, perhaps, cleaning the mess would help disperse the after-scent, but apparently not. Jade studied her counter with a frown and then closed her eyes for a moment, trying to pinpoint where the energy originated from.

  Oh, right. The pantry.

  Now that she looked over at it, acknowledged it, she could easily sense it as the center of the magic she felt. Jade stepped closer and found she got a sharper, stronger feeling off the pantry the closer she got.

  It felt heavy, dense. Thick. Like deep, dark molasses coming from the fridge. Sludgy. It feels stronger than it did earlier, she thought. Before it had been a little lighter, more airy. She had gone over all the spells she’d cast with Paris over dinner and he didn’t have a clue how she’d managed to create… Whatever it was in her pantry. Paris had warned her sternly about performing magic on her own, a couple ‘don’t you dare’s’ and one ‘I mean it, Jade’ before stating that he would contact their Council witch, Hannah to see if she could sort it out.

  Despite that, Jade found herself pulling the pantry door open and staring in. It still looked normal and innocuous enough, but the thick sensation intensified. Became unpleasant. She no longer had the urge to be curious and toss things in like she had before. Instead Jade found herself shutting the door firmly. She eyed one of the nearby chairs, thinking about putting it in front, jamming it up underneath the doorknob.

  But that would be silly, wouldn’t it?

  She gave her shoulders a little shimmy. She was probably just unused to all the hoodoo. It was probably something she said or did, some slight variation in order or pronunciation. Paris would get a hold of that Hannah person and she would have some easy solution and Jade would feel foolish and probably have to endure another scolding - but that would be that.

  Stupid pantry.

  Jade forced herself to turn her back on her problem and check the contents of her fridge. She wasn’t sure if she was pleased or disappointed to find she had the fixings for lunch.

  Definitely no eating out tomorrow.

  She headed upstairs and settled down with her computer to catch up on her blog reading, gossip sites and stream a couple of short sitcoms before settling in to sleep.

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep. Probably not long. Jade was a light sleeper, generally waking up to turn over. As she flipped and settled down again she felt it. A sense of wrongness. Of otherness.

  She wasn’t alone in her room.

  Jade forced her body to relax, ears straining to hear a sound, any sound. She could hear the sudden pounding of her heart in her ears, hear her quiet breathing - a little faster than usual. She could hear the faint ‘tick-tick-tick’ from the antique clock on the dresser.

  Nothing else.

  But the air… It was almost as though the air were thicker, harder to breathe. Denser. Cloying. Tension started curling into a tight ball in her stomach.

  “Don’t play possum. I can tell you’re awake.”

  The voice came from beside her, right beside her - deep, thick and wrong. Without thinking she swung out with her open palm, hoping to clap it, him, it on the ear.

  Her wrist was caught painfully, the bones squeezed so tight she felt them grind. She kicked her legs out, trying to writhe away and make contact at the same time. An arm went down across her throat like a stone wall - hard and painful and she made a strangled choking sound. She kicked, she clawed with her other hand, she bucked her hips up but in seconds she was flat on her back with it on top of her.

  Correction - definitely a him.

  From the ambient light in the room she could decipher black eyes, dark hair, smooth skin and prominent features. The first word that leaped into her head was a breathless ‘beautiful’ and she felt frozen.

  “Hello, possum.”

  His voice was impossibly stunning too, syrupy and deep and she had to force herself to look away from his face. She reached out with her free hand and managed to grab her alarm clock and with a mighty swing, she cracked it against his head.

  It smashed, breaking into pieces and he barely flinched. The shock of it reverberated up her arm, making her joints ache.

  “Tsk tsk, possum. I’m here to help you.”

  She immediately thought of her magic, pushing all her panic into calling up fire, like she’d done in her apartment, at her medical exam and just the day prior in her kitchen. A huge flaming sphere spat itself into existence in front of her face and she sent it screaming towards her attacker.

  He flinched this time, but only for a moment before seeming to inhale the fire, taking a deep breath in and sucking it down.

  “Very nice,” he said. “But not enough control.” He shook his head like he was disappointed. “You’ve definitely got the power, but not quite the focus yet.”

  Vibrating with fear, she conjured another fireball but it wasn’t as big as the last one. She couldn’t think clearly enough to make it as lethal. He jerked his h
ead a little and the flames zipped off to the side before she could even try to burn him. He laughed at her and she let out a cry of distress, anger and just fear.

  “You must have better than that,” he said as though he were amused. “I had such high hopes for you.” He leaned over her, putting his lips and nose in the column of her neck and he inhaled deeply, almost a sigh. “You smell wonderfully of power.”

  Jade turned her head, got his ear in her mouth and bit down as hard as she could, feeling the flesh split under the power of her jaw. Her mouth flooded with blood - salty, hot and awful with the faint taste of something else, something cloyingly sweet and thick mixed in.

  He laughed, tearing himself away from her teeth and she gagged as she spat out part of his lobe. “You are fun,” he said, his teeth long, sharp and inhuman, flashing in the half-light. “Unfortunately I’m not here for fun.”

  He circled her neck with one of his giant hands, cutting off most of her air, and she reactively clutched at his grip, trying to loosen it, to break free. She bucked her hips up and he tightened his fingers and dug his sharp, pointed nails into her flesh.

  “I said I’m here to help you, stupid witch.”

  He was pressing her down and she panicked; all she could feel was fear - cold, prickly fear flooding her veins, making her shake, forcing her to struggle. She was trying to pay attention, trying to wait for a moment when she could… Do something. Try a spell, punch him in the throat, something, anything, instead of lying there paralyzed with fright.

  “You’re very powerful and I think you could be quite useful to me in the future. And you’re not a screamer. Not that I don’t love a good scream, but when you’re trying to do business, screaming tends to hamper things a little. But, here’s the thing,” he leaned in a little closer and dropped his voice slightly. His lips were disgustingly close to hers, so close that she didn’t really have anywhere else to look. But she couldn’t look at his eyes - they made her stomach roll, made bile rise up in her throat. What the fuck was going on? She forced her eyes sideways, staring at the lamp on the nightstand with its strange pattern of vines and leaves, twisting and turning up the base, a glass lampshade with a leaf pattern on top. She’d thought it was so pretty when she first saw it. She stared at the glass, trying to find the pattern in the graceful twists and turns. “I’m not the only one that noticed how powerful you are. And more unfortunately, I wasn’t even the first.”

  He was still pressing hard on her neck and Jesus she needed some more oxygen. She was seeing black creep along the edges of her vision, inky and more than a little tempting.

  “I can’t have you passing out so I’m going to let up a bit. Be a good little possum.”

  He eased back, his hand releasing some of the awful pressure on her neck and she took in a few hitching breaths. Her eyes flickered over at him a few times, but she resolutely forced herself to not look any higher than his nose after a quick glance at his irises left her with vertigo. He had one knee on either side of her hips and she tried to press her body backward, deeper into the mattress to minimize their contact. She felt slightly oily wherever he was touching her, even through the blankets and his clothes.

  “The thing is, possum, I understand you’re quite new to the Coven and you probably haven’t had any lessons on demons yet so I’ll cut you some slack and give you a few quick tips. You know, no one likes a cliché, but there are clichés for a reason and demons, myself included, do tend to be the bad boys of the supernatural world. Is it fair? Hey, no one likes labels. We are what we are.” He shrugged, his shoulders and bones seemingly rolling over one another in a physics and nature-defying move. “And we’ll do pretty much anything for the right price. Right, wrong. It’s all pretty flexible.”

  He stared hard at her and she didn’t know what he was looking for but he ended up easing back a little more, almost sitting down on her knees. With him off her chest, her hands drifted up, over herself, like an ineffectual shield. He eyed her again and then slithered down her legs and she scrambled to push herself up, away from him, pressed up against the headboard.

  “See? It’s not so bad. Now we can chat. Like friends. I’ll dial it back some so you can actually look at me.” He smiled and this time when she glanced up at his eyes, she didn’t feel like she was falling from an impossible height.

  “You’ve been noticed.”

  “By demons?” she finally managed to speak, her voice coming out low and raw, throat sore.

  “By a lot of things. Everyone loves power. Although, right now, your biggest problem is another witch in your coven.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “I know, it’s always the ones you least expect,” he said, his voice sympathetic and melodic. “But there you have it. Someone wants your power. Someone is jealous.”

  “What?” she breathed again, confused.

  He held up a hand. “I’ve given you an awful lot for free just now. Quick primer on demons,” he said, one finger pointing up. “I didn’t draw blood. Okay, not much.” He amended as his second finger came up to be counted. She reached a hand up to touch the side of her neck and she felt a small, warm-sticky trail. “And I’ve hinted at someone, another witch, in your coven no less, being a little too interested in you. So before we go all the way, I’m going to need something from you.”

  She felt her stomach sink, a heavy stone in her body. “Like what?”

  He doodled absent shapes on her duvet with his fingertip. “Like a deal.”

  Jade knew jack shit about demons and only the very basics of witchcraft but she knew without a doubt that a deal was a horrible thing. It was like her body immediately reacted to the wrongness of the idea - she went cold all over and felt her heart stammer a few beats.

  “For what?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

  “I could be persuaded to tell you a few more details about what I know and you…” he trailed off, still dragging his fingertips over the light cotton.

  “I what?”

  “You would owe me.”

  There was no way in hell she was that stupid. She may have just learned she was a witch and had maybe only five minutes of training but that had to be the dumbest thing she’d ever heard of. It was all she needed to kickstart her brain.

  “No.”

  “No?” he said, and for the first time she saw an honest reaction. He looked stunned.

  “I don’t know fuck all about demon deals but that sounds like just about the worst thing I could do - get into an open-ended, non-specific deal with some creature I just met and know nothing about.”

  His eyes shifted from the playful look they’d had a moment ago to something cold and dark. She got the sense of vertigo again but she forced herself to look him in the eye.

  “I don’t think you understand the situation you’re in, possum.”

  She jutted her chin up, defiant. “Probably not. But I know that you want my power bad enough to show up here and start telling me things, things that maybe aren’t even true-”

  “Oh they’re true all right.” he ground out.

  “So you say,” she replied back, her voice wavering slightly. “But I’d be stupid to believe you without proof.” Her words tumbled out of her mouth so quickly she was almost stuttering over them.

  He tapped a finger against his knee. “Proof is a… Tricky thing. There’s a law among demons. I can’t tell you the details of any deals I know of, other than my own.”

  “Convenient.” Jesus, she was in so much trouble here. She knew she was smart but she didn't know where the line was that would cross her over into insanity. He could smell the fear on her, so she couldn’t pretend to be unafraid.

  But just because she was scared didn’t mean she was helpless.

  “So you’re turning me down,” he said, giving her a look of incredulity.

  “Looks like,” she hitched in a breath.

  “What’s to stop me from killing you right now?”

  Her mind raced. She almost got the feeling
he was testing her. Playing with her. “If you wanted me dead, you would have already done it. But you want my power. You said so yourself. You think I’ll be useful to you in the future.” Her words were still coming out rapid fire, even as she quoted back his own words to him.

  He looked… Proud? “Very nice.” He inhaled strongly, pausing to consider the air. “I can still smell fear on you, but it’s not the cold, naked terror that I’m accustomed to.” He paused again sniffing. “But it’s there, bubbling just under the surface. And yet, there you are, using your noodle.” He tapped the side of his own head with his finger.

  When she didn’t say anything, he leaned in fast and close, his nose millimeters from her. He trapped her against the headboard with a hand on either side of her face. Her heart leapt hard and painfully against her sternum. She couldn’t stop herself from gasping out loud. The curtains hanging from the window erupted in flames and her eyes darted to them quickly and then back to the demon.

  “But there it is,” he murmured as he closed his eyes slightly and inhaled again. “That sharp spike of adrenaline. Of fear.” He hummed. “And power too.” Her head was pressed hard against the frame of her bed. She tried to turn away from his face.

  “Don’t be shy,” he breathed in her ear, a slithering whisper against her skin.

  As the warm air from his voice whispered across her ear, she panicked. Her hands came up to push him away, he grabbed her wrists tightly, catching her flailing arms without trouble. She struggled for a moment until he tightened his fingers around her wrist and she felt the impending break of bone. The curtains crackled and sparked, flames licking up the side of the wall. He was going to break her wrist and she was setting the place on fire. She needed to get control of herself, of the situation. She forced herself to ignore the pressure he was putting her wrist, ignore the snap of the fire. She worked on pulling the fear back inside, making herself go perfectly still. Lifeless. She imagined she could see the fear in her body, like a slick, icy-blue oil, and she envisioned pulling the fine blue strands in from her extremities and coiling it into a small tight ball in the center of her chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flames die down. They flickered and dimmed, responding to her will. She pulled her feelings tighter and imagined squishing them, deep into the center of herself. She focused on the imagery, something she hadn’t done since she was a child.