Bump (A Witchlight Novel)

by Jaime Munn

  I took a moment to still my emotions and the panic boiling up through me. I needed calm to focus. I needed icy calm because if I did find Livia I was almost certainly going to be walking into a trap. I sank back against the wall and let the lace curtain fall back over the window. Shit. As though my best friend were whispering in my ear, I found myself face to face with a big red poster on the wall opposite. It said Keep Calm and Drink Coffee. I sighed. These damn posters were cropping up everywhere.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  As it turned out, I followed Livia’s advice. I set the kettle to boiling while I raided her room for a personal item. I filled a cup with several desert spoons of sugar and put a teaspoon of coffee into a simple coffee plunger press that I wasn’t sure Livia used much anymore. The coffee I brewed made an attempt to put some bitter in my beverage but failed miserably. It was the worst cup I’d ever had in Livia’s house. I swore to never tell her about it. A small part of my mind added, if I ever saw her alive again.

  The minutes ticked by like hours. I felt like I should be running around, but I forcefully equated that sentiment with a headless chicken until it went away. I swallowed down the sugary dregs of my drink and turned to the hairbrush I’d selected from Livia’s boudoir. That’s not a lavish exaggeration by the way. If ever you saw Livia’s bedroom you’d know that the only possible word in the dictionary that fit was boudoir and you’d never call it a bedroom again. I won’t spoil the awe and wonder and surprise for you by detailing it all now.

  I spent a good five minutes working on setting up the right mindset for the spell I was about to perform. Trying to fake the kind of distance I had when it came to working up a little magic for a client, but that was impossible. This was Livia and her life hung literally in the balance. I gave up on perfect calm. What did a poster know about calm anyway?

  I gathered what energy I needed, feeling almost drunk on the sugary boost I’d given myself, and spun it together into a spell. As I picked up Livia’s brush, I caught a flicker of her like a soft patina of raindrops across a window pane. I had touched and been touched by Livia so often that reading her was like a snapshot of a recent moment in time. She and Kevin looked like they were having a good time, if one read the expressions on their faces and didn’t know them at all. Fortunately it wasn’t a more intimate dip into the moment because I was sure I’d be freaking out if it had been. As it was it broke my concentration for a brief moment and cost me a trickle of energy that dispersed into an amber serpent of light. It slivered through the air and turned the sun breaking through the kitchen windows into an older radiance.

  It wouldn’t stick. I hadn’t drawn Livia’s home closer to the veiled world, but the thought of bringing my friend to the attention of more powerful beings than that which I already had, turned my skin cold and sent icy shock through me. I reigned in my emotions, contained the rest of the waiting reservoir of magic summoned up for my spell, and carefully threaded it through my fingers to knot around Livia’s hairbrush as I reached out to find her.

  I liked to think that I was somewhat of an expert when it came to location spells. What do most people come to a witch wanting them to do? Sure there are those looking to smite their enemies with a curse or two, but I didn’t do a trade in curses. I doubted that even Grace St John was taking on those jobs. The backlash when a curse gets turned back is practically impossible to shield against. It’s like trying to protect yourself from your own mind when your magic gets thrown back at you. That’s why a curse is a rare thing in the real world. The witch who casts one might as well be slicing open their wrists. That doesn’t mean there aren’t those who try them anyway. It’s a risk, but if you say curse a mother while she gives birth to your niece and there’s no one around who can sense what you’ve done, you’re pretty much home free. That thought alone made me wonder if I needed to revise my perspective on curses.

  I pushed it out of my mind and focused on the trail of psychic breadcrumbs to Livia, glad that it wasn’t a trail of body parts. There was a yet at the end of that metaphor that I forced myself to ignore too.

  It took a while to narrow down Livia’s location, probably because she was currently possessed by something that had shifted her aura and pushed her own consciousness aside. I hoped that whatever had possessed her wasn’t the kind that extracted the sentience of the host and kept it somewhere in a jar. It wasn’t always a jar, but the principle was the same. If I merely located Livia’s soul, trapped like a genie in a lamp, then that presented another problem that I doubted I could overcome before playtime got a little too rough.

  When the location spell pinged through me like a metal detector announcing the presence of something buried in the sand I breathed a small sigh of relief. As far as I could tell the location was three houses down across the street. I wondered briefly about what might have happened to the owners of the place. I set the brush down on the counter and washed my coffee mug out as I tried to formulate a plan of action. Part of me wanted to rush right in, but that wouldn’t do Livia or myself one lick of good. I still had no idea what I was up against. Throwing power at Livia wasn’t likely to harm the entity within her but sure to damage its host.

  I couldn’t think of a way to narrow down what I was facing. That was as good as a death sentence for both Livia and I. F.C. jumped up onto the counter when I kept washing and rewashing the mug, my fingers turning to red prunes beneath the flow of water from the tap. He nudged himself against me, gentle at first but then more forceful and insistent. I set the mug to one side, turned off the tap, then wrapped my still wet hands around my familiar. He didn’t like that one bit. I could tell, but he didn’t make any effort to disentangle himself from my grasp. He rumbled a soothing lullaby that vibrated through his body and the steady rhythm of it seemed to clarify my thoughts. The emotional veil that had clouded my thinking seemed to lift or at least to part, shoved aside by the rumbling gestalt energy of my familiar. I wondered if it was a kind of spell that F.C. cast over me, but it was irrelevant for now. I focused instead on the difficulties of determining what possessed Livia and Kevin.

  I recalled the image I’d had of them via Livia’s hairbrush. It suddenly came to me. I was dealing with an incubus. Despite the common nomenclature it didn’t conjure up a demon for me. There were creatures living on the cusp that went by names that were old and names that were new. Creatures that had born a thousand different names through the ages, because the names seemed most appropriate for the creature and for the era. There were many shades of incubi, but only one that possessed its victims. It didn’t make my problem any easier to solve. It was worse knowing what I faced but the clarity that F.C. induced made me realise that I might be able to resolve this one with a little help from someone I hoped would be more than a friend.

  Sofia hadn’t given me her number but Cleo had been kind enough to provide me with a means to contact the pack. I let go of F.C. and the clarity of mind fell like a house of cards in a puff of wind. It took a great deal of effort not to be swept away in the storm of emotions, not to collapse onto the floor and sob myself into a coma. I forced myself to think of the consequences to Livia and to Kevin if I let myself become overwhelmed. It wasn’t easy fighting with your primal self; that deep down emotional you is a savage and powerful beast. Somehow I managed to find Cleo’s card and my cell phone in my handbag, then punched in the numbers. I had to do it twice before the numbers on the card matched those on the cell’s screen.

  The ring seemed to go on forever before a gruff male voice that sounded like it belonged in the body of an incredible hulk answered. Despite the raw power of his voice I couldn’t fault his telephone etiquette.

  “Is it possible to speak with Sofia Bragga?” I asked.

  “And your name?” the powerful voice asked.

  “This is Nilla Hayes from Whisper Falls.”

  “One moment please.” There were background voices before the call was muted and I was back to fighting my emotions with no distractions. I wished that the werewolve
s had invested in a little muzak for call holding. Like most people I hated it with a passion but at least it would have distracted me. I doubted my reverence for it would last beyond this moment though.

  The line unmuted suddenly. Then a familiar voice said in the background, but loud enough for me to hear, “Leave.” It was a ringing voice of command. It belonged to the feisty woman who had brought me a white fur lock of her lover’s hair. I swallowed hoping that I wasn’t going to have to persuade Cleo that now wasn’t the time to talk about the little spell I’d promised Sofia I’d work for her.

  “Hello, witch,” Cleo’s voice purred suddenly down the line. “So Sofy hasn’t given you her number yet, what a tease.” She laughed. It was tight and controlled. I wondered if there was any genuine emotion behind it until I thought of how hard the woman worked to project a steely exterior to the world. Maybe this was her idea of a heartfelt jolly Santa belly laugh. I kind of doubted it. “She’s not in the den at the moment.”

  Cleo didn’t say that she wouldn’t give me Sofia’s cell number, but I still wasn’t left with any doubt that this was her policy.

  “I’m dealing with an incubus,” I said and heard a tremor in my voice that I could imagine would make Cleo stiffen to attention and focus very closely on my words. I wondered if that intensity made her wolf pack wary around her. “I’m pretty sure that it was contracted via a Grace St John from the city.”

  “Daudie,” Cleo said shortly and abruptly.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “An incubus who might have taken on such a contract, Daudie Schalko.”

  I wondered if it was a case of might or if it was more certain than that. For my sake, for Livia’s sake, and for Kevin’s I wanted it to be more than might.

  “What do we get out of it, Ms Hayes?” Cleo asked skipping the small talk and going for the jugular. I didn’t know whether she’d gotten a hit off her premonitory advantage or if she’d simply logically followed the conversation to a conclusion. It didn’t matter.

  “I’ll owe you.” It wasn’t much from my perspective. I was prepared to double the reward with something more tangible, but on the other end of the line Cleo was quick to respond.

  “We accept,” she said coolly. “Just so we’re clear, this IOU is above and beyond the little deal between you and Sofy for the wolfy charm.”

  Wolfy charm. It was surprisingly apt. I wondered just how much Cleo knew about witches. Part of me wondered if that knowledge had come from dating witches and I felt a small flush of desire shiver through me.

  “Agreed,” I replied, but sensing that wouldn’t be sufficient for Cleo added, “I will owe the pack. The wolfy charm is a separate deal between myself and Sofia Bragga.”

  “Excellent.” Cleo purred like she’d suddenly turned a little feline to express her deep satisfaction with the arrangement.

  I wondered, too late, if owing favours to members of the supernatural community was such a clever idea.

  “Can you find Daudie?”

  The incubus had a physical body somewhere That was the only weakness that I knew of. Finding it was my only advantage as I couldn’t harm the incubus directly without causing harm to Livia and Kevin. If I’d had the time I could probably have come up with something more direct, but time was something the incubus had made certain I didn’t have. No one tangled with a witch at her leisure. That was plain crazy even for an incubus.

  “We make it a point of keeping tabs on the supernatural element in our city, Ms Hayes. We’ll have him in our paws within fifteen minutes, in our jaws if you’d prefer.” She sounded deadly serious on the latter.

  My ethics wouldn’t allow me to condone or even tacitly condone murder despite the fact that every fibre of my being screamed that Daudie Schalko deserved it.

  “No bloodletting required yet, but I could use a picture of a wolf at his throat to this phone if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “My pleasure,” Cleo said. There was a real delight to the words and I shivered. Werewolves are sometimes very creepy too.

  We ended the call. I stared at F.C. wondering whether I could distract Daudie long enough to get the message from Cleo. Or whether to wait until I had it in hand first before entering the incubus’ lair. I couldn’t bear the thought of Livia being used like a living doll for Daudie’s entertainment another minute more.

  F.C. didn’t approve. I could tell from the wave of emotion that rolled off of him and the glittering depths of his black eyed gaze. He didn’t move to stop me as I headed for the front door. As my familiar he couldn’t stop me. I heard him drop lightly to the kitchen floor and in a moment he was a flash of calico racing for the door ahead of me. If he couldn’t stop me, he’d damn well keep ahead of me. I could almost hear him muttering words to that effect in his deep voice.

  “My little knight in furry armour,” I told him. His response was to blow me a silent raspberry. That’s the way I interpreted it anyway. Maybe F.C. was a little more vulgar than that, after all his heritage was a pinch of sewer rat and other sordid things because that’s what little homunculi are made of.

  I opened the front door and saw my cab still sitting there. The driver was notably absent and a dark foreboding came over me. I didn’t see him in the street as I exited Livia’s yard and crossed the quiet street heading directly for the house that my spell had pinpointed earlier.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I didn’t have to knock on the door because it opened for me as I approached it. F.C. was at my side. He literally doubled in size seconds before the door began to swing open. It was Kevin’s body, but the expression on his face was nothing like the man I’d met at Dusk. It made Kevin’s handsome features less appealing. I could see what Livia had meant about Kevin’s abs though and got an eyeful of more than I wanted to. He was completely naked.

  “I think I can see why you can’t have a normal date,” I said to the incubus in greeting. “You’ve got absolutely the worst bedroom eyes.”

  I was tempted to add in the name that Cleo had provided me with, but part of me worried that it wasn’t Daudie possessing my friend and her new paramour. Part of me wanted the trap to spring so that the bastard could feel the teeth at his throat.

  The incubus’ expression didn’t change; he ran a tongue over his lips. Kevin’s tongue and Kevin’s lips.

  “No date would ever do what we’re getting up to,” he replied. Kevin’s voice sounded dirty and cheap. “Heck, I wouldn’t get up to what we’re getting up to if I wasn’t wearing a few disposable bodies.” He grinned.

  I ran my eyes over Kevin’s body steeling myself for a seedy comment. The comment never came, but the incubus stepped into the light to give me a better view of Kevin’s body. There were some raw burns, probably from a rope of some kind, in places. His chest and shoulders were covered in deep scratches, one of which still ran with a slow trickle of blood.

  “I’ve kept off from the really rough stuff because we’ve been expecting another body to join,” he said with a wide grin.

  “Tough,” I told him, my anger suddenly overwhelming my fear. “I’m not here to play with you.”

  F.C. gave a nasty yowl that sent shivers up my spine. The incubus blinked, taking a step back as he warily studied my cat. F.C. wasn’t looking particularly kitty like at the moment. He was like a small panther at my side in mottled fur, sporting fangs that were way too big for his jaws but somehow fitting together like puzzle pieces. His jaw opened unnaturally wide to show the incubus how big his bite would be.

  The intimidation only worked for a moment before the incubus realised whose body he was in. I saw him straightening and a lazy smile crossing Kevin’s lips.

  “I’ve never been eaten before,” he mused. It made me sick to think about what kind of monster I was dealing with. I regretted not having the stomach for murder.

  “Where’s Livia?” I asked. I was conflicted over seeing my friend. I doubted the incubus would have been as gentle on her. He was malice and cruelty . Grace had no doubt told him which tar
gets would hit me hardest. I felt sick when the smile on Kevin’s face widened.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he said.

  He turned his back on me without a care in the world. I tried to gather my strength for what I would see inside the house. It was futile. Nothing would prepare me. Knowing it would scar me for life, I entered the house with F.C. at my side. Despite his new size he managed to take up the smallest space in the narrow corridor that led us into gloom.

  The incubus had kept the house shrouded in darkness. Every curtain was closed, but candles burned everywhere and cast an eerie glow over everything. I mentally calculated the passing of minutes, but true to the nature of time, it ran slowly when every fibre of my being was focused on it. I hoped that Cleo had meant a literal fifteen minutes.

  We exited the corridor into a large room that had probably been a lounge before the incubus had turned it into a sex dungeon. It was actually quite impressive. I wondered how long he’d had to prep the place before taking Livia and Kevin for his pleasure. I doubted that anything had gone onto his credit cards. There were whips and chains and pillows and mattresses and black silky sheets thrown about.

  There were more bodies than I’d expected. At first I focused on the décor in an attempt to stave off the true horror of the setting, but eventually I had to start looking for Livia and before me the incubus watched me with hungry eyes waiting for the moment when I found her.

  It was a little like trying to spot a hidden object in the candlelight. The incubus hadn’t made it easy for me. I had expected a tableau drawing my eyes directly to the prize, but surprisingly Grace St John’s thug for hire was more subtle than that. Meeting me at the door in Kevin’s naked body hadn’t exactly prepared me for subtle. I tried not to race to the finish line, aware of the clock ticking for myself and for Cleo and her pack, but it was difficult not to leap from one discovered body to the next. They were all moving. Writhing as the erotic novels would describe it.