Bump (A Witchlight Novel)

by Jaime Munn

  I counted the people in the room as I dismissed them as not Livia shaped. I stumbled across my driver as person number three, after a tiny, but voluptuous woman with wide hips and long dark hair. After an almost skeletally thin young man who looked like he ought to be wearing spectacles and brooding somewhere rather than playing puppet to an incubus. The fourth figure was an older man with chiselled features whose skin was glistening and looking flushed. Underneath him was Olivia, drawing her nails down his back. My face gave it all away. The incubus drank in every emotion like a parasite feeding on them.

  “I’ve had a wonderful time and I’m being paid for it too,” he said gloating after I turned a furious gaze on him. I wondered if six was his limit when it came to possession. From what I knew not all incubi were created equal. The same of course applied to succubi but it rarely mattered what sex they were, in the flesh. They took on the bodies of others for their pleasure and their tastes were wide ranging.

  “I hope you were paid in advance,” I told him, anger threaded through my response, “because I don’t think you’re going to be in a position to collect.”

  He looked at me a moment, trying to gauge the value of my threat. He looked a little less cocky and sure of himself. I smiled trying not to hear the ticking of the clock in my head.

  “I’ll collect,” he said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. “No one skips out on my bill.”

  I laughed and was surprised at how strong and defiant it sounded. Despite the heady rush of fear, panic, and anger in my blood.

  “I didn’t say anything about Grace St John not being good for the money.” A mantra was playing out in my head. Come on Cleo. Come on Cleo. “I said you wouldn’t be in a position to collect it.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that witch. I just have to do one more little thing before I get paid.”

  Every body in the room turned to look at me. F.C. hissed and for a second every eye turned to him then back to me.

  “You can’t hurt me without hurting these bodies,” the incubus spoke through everyone in the room. “Maybe you don’t care about most of them…but this one,” Livia rose from the satin sheets, her recent paramour thrust to the side. He looked worn and on the cusp of a heart attack. Livia looked terrible and beautiful. My heart broke at the thought of how she had been used by the incubus. How she had become collateral damage in the war between Grace and I.

  I would not let this move go unpunished I resolved. I would not let Grace St John get away with it. Livia took a step forward. I gulped. I could only keep that promise if I survived. F.C. was suddenly tangled between Livia’s legs. My heart was in my throat as I thought of his fangs and claws and the maybe-poison in them, but I caught his intent before I could shout out a word of command. Livia went down as F.C. tripped her up.

  “Clever,” the incubus spoke from Kevin’s throat. He was almost within reach of me. “But not clever enough.”

  Kevin stepped forward and slugged me with a sudden and powerful punch that caught the edge of my jaw and whipped my head around. I literally saw stars as I fell. Fortunately the dungeon was all cushions and mattresses.

  F.C. yowled. The sound filled the room like a siren; deafening and awful, reaching to the bones. It paralysed the incubus for just long enough for me to shake off the nausea and pain from the blow to my jaw. I was surprised I was still conscious. Kevin was no slouch in the strength department. I wondered how badly I would bruise.

  My familiar’s war cry died away. The incubus turned several pairs of eyes my way. “I didn’t think you’d go down easy,” he said. “Where’s the fun in easy?”

  Everyone in the room moved towards me. I threw out the only attack I was prepared to use. “Daudie Schalko, I wouldn’t take another step if I were you.”

  The incubus froze in every single one of his bodies. Praise Cleo! I felt a rush of relief knowing that the intel she’d provided had been accurate. Right now werewolves were rushing to the home of the right incubus.

  “How did you know that?” His voice caught as it came from Kevin’s throat. He was contemplating making a run for it. I didn’t want him getting away.

  “A little bird told me,” I said and was glad that Cleo wasn’t in the room to hear it. I somehow felt sure she would have been offended on a number of levels.

  Daudie cocked Kevin’s head to the side trying to read me. He wasn’t running yet because he didn’t know what he’d be running to. He didn’t know if he had any leverage by holding onto Livia, holding onto me. He didn’t really get the time to make a decision. A bell chime sounded. I’d received a message on my phone. They had cut it pretty damn close. I hoped it was the right message.

  “It’s for you,” I said coolly and took the phone from my pocket glancing down to view the message before rising unsteadily to my feet. I turned the screen to Daudie’s nearest host. Kevin’s eyes widened. I couldn’t blame him.

  Cleo had been true to her word. The photograph she’d sent me was worth a thousand deadly threats. I turned the screen back to me and gave it another look.

  “That’s something I wouldn’t try at home,” I told the incubus. My voice sounded a little shaky. I tasted blood in my mouth. Damn it. I was not a freaking action hero. It hurt. I rubbed my jaw as I studied the picture. Daudie Schalko was a very muscular man with the darkest skin I’d ever seen. He looked like he was sleeping. I wasn’t surprised that from what I could see it looked like he was sleeping naked. That seemed to be a bit of a theme.

  His dark skin made the ivory white fangs seem very white, toothpaste commercial white. One or two of them though seemed to have a golden sheen. I wondered who the wolf was at his throat. It was huge. Even I felt squeamish looking at its massive jaws so close to delicate flesh. I could only imagine how Daudie Schalko was feeling about it, seeing as the delicate flesh in question was his own.

  “You make a cute couple,” I told him turning the screen back towards Kevin and taking a step towards him. “Now if we don’t come to an arrangement, things are going to get even more intimate for you.” Reflexively Daudie brushed a hand against Kevin’s throat. I nodded. “So let’s talk about what you’re going to do next.”

  I didn’t get further, which was probably a good thing since I hadn’t thought about what the next step in the plan was. Everybody in the room collapsed like marionettes with cut strings. I had to jump forward and grab hold of Kevin or let him fall into a glass table that had been thrust against a wall. He was heavy. I managed to tip his fall in the direction of the mattresses while quite possibly dislocating a shoulder.

  My phone rang. It was Cleo.

  “Hello?”

  “Ah, you’re alive. I wasn’t quite sure if we’d beaten the odds on this one. Good.”

  It wasn’t the most reassuring call I’d had in my life, but given the circumstances it was definitely the most significant. I tried not to hold the cool tone in the werewolf’s voice against her. It was hard though. Nobody likes feeling like they don’t matter.

  “What happened?” I asked shortly, feeling a little growl in the back of my throat.

  “Daudie happened. Well actually Boytjie happened to Daudie.”

  I didn’t get it. “I don’t get it,” I said for Cleo’s benefit. Although thinking about it, Cleo had let me say it for my benefit.

  “Boytjie took a real shine to Daudie’s throat,” Cleo clarified.

  I got the picture fast and gagged.

  “That wasn’t part of the deal—”

  Cleo cut me off.

  “We don’t leave our backs exposed. It’s our way. Your conscience is clear, Ms Hayes. The people he had under his sway will be somewhat comatose for about an hour. You might want to try give them something better to wake up to than an incubus’ play pen.” She hung up on me.

  I could totally picture Cleo as an action hero and somehow that just galled me.

  I put my phone back in a pocket and surveyed the damage. Despite my concern for Livia, I first made my way across to the older man.
I did my best to gauge if he was about to or had already suffered cardiac arrest. I figured as he was still breathing evenly, if somewhat raggedly, that he was going to make it out of Daudie’s sex den alive. It was kind of a sick irony that the incubus hadn’t.

  I turned my attention to Livia and everybody else just wasn’t important anymore. She was bruised and scratched. There were bite marks all over her body. I suddenly wasn’t so upset that werewolves had ripped out the incubus’ throat. He’d gotten off lightly. I’d have trapped him in a bottle and dropped him into the deepest part of the ocean.

  I couldn’t carry Livia but I couldn’t leave her here. F.C. gave a plaintive wail. I spotted him curled up on top of Kevin looking like an ordinary calico cat again. I sensed what he was trying to tell me but I didn’t like it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  In the end I had no choice. I put strings on Kevin. F.C. helped me find his and Livia’s clothes. We got them dressed. Then Kevin lifted up Livia and carried her home for me. It took more than a single trip to right things. I got the cabbie back in his clothes and in his car, grimacing at the ticking of the meter. I couldn’t tell where the other three belonged, so I made a quick search of the house. The older man lived here with the skinny kid. There was no indication of where the voluptuous woman had come from. I did the best I could to rearrange the household. Cleaning wasn’t my thing, even doing it via a proxy. I got the last of the incubus’ toys dressed and hoped that I hadn’t switched anyone’s underwear.

  I put the woman outside, concealed by a temporary spell and hoped she’d manage to find her own way home. I couldn’t do anything about the bruises, the scratches, and the bites. I worried about sexual diseases. Wondering if I should be making some extra effort in that regard. I didn’t think putting a card with the number of a local clinic in their pockets would benefit anyone. I made a mental note to revisit them all and give them a push in the right direction.

  There was nothing I could do about the pile of mattresses, satin sheets, and kinky toys. I piled the mattresses up neatly, folded up the satin sheets, and hid the toys in Skeletor’s bedroom. I figured the young man could use a little more colour in his life. His bedroom was pretty creepy. I was tempted to come back and give him a number of mental nudges. The thought that that made me more like Grace St John and her incubus for hire was enough to curb that notion.

  I left the two men with plenty of empty booze bottles that had been mostly full when I’d raided the alcohol cabinet. I hoped that they’d think they’d had a bit of a wild night. What they’d make of their wounds was anybody’s guess.

  I went back to Livia’s and put Kevin and my best friend into bed together. It seemed the kindest way to let them wake. Then I left. I jinxed the answering machine on the way out. The LCD screen displayed several waiting messages but it was charmed to fry its circuits the moment Livia tried to play them. She’d never know I’d erased her messages. She’d never have to hear herself speaking Daudie Schalko’s words either. F.C. decided to curl up on Livia’s porch in one of the wicker chairs she kept there. I left him as a guardian of her doorway.

  I got back into the cab and waited for the incubus’ victims to wake. It didn’t take very long. I’d used up all the time playing cleaner for a dead incubus.

  The driver groaned and sat up.

  “I thought you’d died or something,” I said. He started and turned to look back at me.

  “What?” he asked, blinked then frowned and turned to glance at the meter. “I must have fallen asleep waiting for you.”

  “You’ve been sleeping like the dead.” I glanced out at where I’d placed the voluptuous lady. She was getting to her feet looking as confused as my driver did. She took a step away from the fence against which she’d been resting and winced feeling some sudden pain. Then walking tentatively she made her way back to the house I’d found her in. I wondered whose girlfriend she was.

  “Are we going back to where I picked you up?”

  I shook my head at the driver. “I think I should just wait for my friend. I dug out my purse from my bag and grudgingly paid over a week’s wages to him. Then I got out of the cab. As it drove away I watched the woman knocking on the door of the house across the street. A moment later the older man opened it looking like he’d seen a ghost or something. He seemed relieved to see the woman on his doorstep. They clung to each other like lost children. So that was how she fitted into the picture. I gave them both a mental nudge to book in for complete physicals, feeling dirty as I did. They noticed me watching them and hurried into the house, closing the door behind them. I’d have to get Skeletor later.

  I hurried up the pathway to Livia’s house and banged on the door.

  It took a while before she opened it, looking pale and frightened.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, “Livia, what happened to you?” Worst best friend ever. I was going to get severely karma’d for today I just knew it.

  “I think someone spiked our drinks last night,” she told me in a shaky voice. “We can’t remember anything after dinner at Dusk.”

  I was relieved that she wouldn’t be traumatised by memories of being possessed and wondered how long the incubus had been inside them. How long they had been his playthings in the house across the street. How early had dinner been?

  I am not an actress, but I didn’t need to fake the concern in my response. “Holy smokes, Livia! Are you okay?”

  She drew her robe tightly around her, fingers going white. “I think so. I feel awful, but at least I woke up in my own bed with Kevin.” As though on a cue, Kevin joined Livia.

  “Hey, Nilla,” he said, voice muted.

  “Kevin,” I nodded at him focusing on the fact that he was wearing clothing and had a decided lack of evil incubus in his expression. “I think you guys should go for physicals. You never know what it was that you ingested.” He and Livia nodded at me. I felt a little better at not having to mess with their minds.

  “We had a ballroom dancing lesson for the first two hours of the evening, then we went to Dusk for drinks and a meal. We only left there at close to midnight.”

  I held back the deep sigh of relief and chastised myself for thinking that being an incubus’ plaything from midnight to mid morning was any better than being an incubus’ plaything period.

  “Erica has been worried. You didn’t arrive for work this morning.”

  “Gods,” Livia scowled. “What time is it?”

  I glanced at my watch. “Almost ten.”

  Kevin slammed his palm against the door frame. Livia and I both flinched.

  “Sorry,” he apologised with a wince. “I am going to get an earful from the office. I should…” He looked conflicted. “Are you going to be alright?”

  Livia gave him a wan smile and nodded. “Go, I need to get myself together to face the music at Tangles.”

  “Nonsense,” I told them both. “You’re calling in sick and going straight to your doctors for a check up.” They looked at me and I stared them both down. “You better get to ringing your respective bosses because I’m not moving until you’ve got an appointment for those checkups.”

  They sighed like teenagers.

  From the corner of my eye I saw F.C. yawn, stretch and jump down off the wicker chair to come and wind himself between our legs.

  We all went inside. Livia and Kevin took turns making their calls while I set water on the boil for some strong cups of coffee. It didn’t take too long to make the arrangements. I left them soon after.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I felt exhausted and my jaw was aching. I wondered how badly it would bruise. It felt like I’d had a long day, but as I sat behind the counter at the store the clock was only reading quarter to eleven. I hadn’t even reached midday and already I felt like crap. F.C. was slumped on the counter against the brass plaque like it was a comfortable cushion, but then was that not the norm for a cat?

  I’d bought myself a huge Gingerbread Mocha from Coffee-on-Main on the way back from
Livia’s, but the caffeine had gone down suspiciously like decaffeinated. I felt like taking a duvet day myself, closing shop and turning in, but I only had to remind myself of the cab fare I’d paid this morning to have a good reason to want to do a roaring trade in lamps today.

  Of course the fates had something entirely different planned because it wasn’t long before I noted that someone was trying to wear my lamp table again. She was still faux ghostly, still dressed the part of a housewife, but Asbelia couldn’t fool me twice.

  “Aren’t you too old to be playing dress up?” I asked her with a hard edge to my voice. Instead of getting bent out of shape by my comment, Asbelia just smiled and gestured to the stairs leading down to the basement. The sign in the door window flipped to back in ten minutes. I heard the door lock. I took it as a sign that the woman from the veiled world wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Sighing heavily, I felt pretty certain that this was exactly how Livia and Kevin had felt when I’d bossed them around this morning. Only I’d done it with good intentions. I had no reason to believe Asbelia had fluffy good feelings for me. She’d put me in the sights of a powerful and decidedly maniacal wicked witch. Who does that to people they like?

  F.C. hadn’t moved an inch though. I gave him a curious glance as I rounded the counter. He gave me a dark slit-eyed stare. I got the feeling it was a high five and a go get her kind of look. As well as a you wouldn’t catch me down there with capital H-her in a million years sentiment, thrown at me with a wicked kitty smile.

  “Thanks,” I grunted. F.C. yawned and stretched. I guess that passed for a you’re welcome in cat language.