Bump (A Witchlight Novel)

by Jaime Munn

  “That bad huh,” Livia said scooting me over so that she could claim her chair behind the counter. She set a takeaway cup on the counter in front of me. “I knew it would be a seesaw day. Erica’s in a freaking musical this morning and you’re in The Mayor of Casterbridge.”

  “The what of who now?” I responded quickly enough but my heart skipped a beat at the thought of what would make Erica Hanley break into song. I hoped that my face didn’t betray my anxious curiosity.

  “It’s a tragic tale of woe and misfortune, which I don’t recommend you to read unless you’ve got oodles of time for a long novel in which very little happens,” Livia replied. Then leaned over to me and whispered, “I enjoyed it nonetheless, but I won’t admit that to another soul.”

  “It sounds terribly dull.”

  “Oh it was,” Livia said, “I almost couldn’t bring myself to read every single page.”

  I licked my lips and tried to sound casual as I asked, “And Erica’s musical?”

  “It’s not quite the hills are alive,” Livia mused, thoughtfully considering how best to describe it. She took a sip of her coffee mulling it over. I resisted the impulse to grab her and shake the information from her. “It’s more the peaks and valleys if you know what I mean.” She winked at me. “I definitely think Erica got laid last night. It must have been that artist you were both drooling over.”

  I sank into my seat and took a long pull from the coffee. It probably would have tasted like sunshine on any other given day, but this morning it pooled in my mouth like bitter oil. I couldn’t tell the subtle flavours for all the coffee in Brazil.

  “Buck up,” Livia said. “It isn’t the end of the world even if Erica’s having more luck dating than you are.” She studied me from the corner of her eye as she sipped more of her coffee. “You’re regretting not letting me set you up with Erica now aren’t you?”

  She totally didn’t get it, I thought. I kept my lips sealed, except for more of the coffee. I could feel the effects of the sugar content zipping through my system. Laying like a coiled serpent ready to strike magic at the wave of a fingertip, but I couldn’t taste a drop of sweetness. I wondered if this was what trauma victims went through.

  Livia sighed. “She still won’t let me work. Can you believe it? Besotted like a virgin and still thinking straight enough to force more sick leave on me. I think she’s an alien.”

  I forced a subject change before I burst into tears. I didn’t even know that Sofia was the one in Erica’s bed last night, though the knot in my stomach said otherwise.

  “What about Kevin and you, last night?”

  “Nilla, you little minx. These vicarious relationships are not good for you, you know.” She grinned at me and I tried to smile back.

  It felt stiff and awkward on my lips. Fortunately Livia was oblivious to it, her eyes glazing over a little as she sank into memory.

  “It was glorious. I thought we were waning, but I don’t know what it was about last night. It was like the stars were aligned or something.” She laughed. “Well, there was definitely an alignment going on, I can tell you that.” And she did in intimate detail.

  Kevin came out of it glowing. I felt positively smug about casting him as Prince Charming and engineering the kiss with a subtle spell. I wondered if I’d over juiced the spell though given the amount of kissing that went on after. They were very creative kisses though and Livia clearly hadn’t minded one bit.

  It helped me put aside the idea that Sofia had slept with Erica, but it didn’t last nearly as long as Livia had intimated reading The Mayor of Casterbridge would. I half wished it had. Livia finished her coffee, eyes half closed in bliss. I had to help out a customer who came in looking for a night light and I wondered if Daudie’s parents had bought their little boy a lamp to keep the dark at bay. Pity they couldn’t have installed one inside his soul.

  I made the sale with Livia peering over my shoulder as I rang it up on the cash register.

  “You know, Erica says I am not to return to work for the rest of the week, period. Her exact words. You know that means she’s a little tipsy from the recent sex and all, what with her going without for too long.”

  It was unclear to me exactly how long Livia thought too long was, but I expected it was narrowed down to weeks, if not days, rather than months or years. I tried very hard to focus on this curious puzzle rather than the subject of whom Erica had been sexing with.

  “So that means I’m sitting around twiddling my thumbs for the next few days. All I want to do is keep myself busy,” Livia turned to face me looking a little fragile again. “You know? It’s getting there but I still get these creepy thoughts in my mind about the blackout…” She trailed off. Shook her head as I reached out to enclose her hand gently in my own and give it a little comfort squeeze. “Anyway, I think you could use a break. This light selling thing doesn’t look that hard…I could help out here for a few days,” she finished with a wide smile.

  “Gee thanks,” I said meaning it every single which way.

  “No problem,” Livia replied, deliberately ignoring the negative connotations with a slight twist of her lips. “By the way,” she asked, brows quirking, “what’s this about you singing lullabies? Kevin seems to think you’ve got this superpower you haven’t told anybody about.”

  I swallowed a laugh.

  “Shhh,” I pressed a finger to my lips, “I’ve got to keep my superpower secret. The walls have ears.”

  Livia rolled her eyes.

  “I can read you like a book, Nilla Hayes. You’ve got no chance of keeping secrets from me.”

  It sobered me up. It wasn’t just supernatural girlfriends that I craved. I wondered what Livia would say if I told her I was a witch. She’d take it in her stride of course, like I had when she’d tried to convince me that she was a little bit psychic, but what would happen when she really found out?

  Reading my expression and jumping to an altogether different conclusion, Livia reassured me on completely the wrong count.

  “Hey now, no need to worry, my lips are sealed.”

  The door chime rang as a customer walked through; saved by the bell.

  “Dibs on this one,” Livia said with a smile. I waved her on in agreement. She didn’t do half a bad job of it either.

  While she rang up the sale I felt a little twinge of green eyed envy. I wondered if selling lamps like they were artwork was the new black. I finished my bitter coffee feeling all kinds of insecure; professionally, socially, romantically. I swear I saw F.C. roll his eyes at me.

  While Livia went about acquainting herself with the stock, which turned out to be staring at them like they were zen gardens and occasionally turning them over in her hands, I hopped online and researched cat breeding. It turned out male calico cats were super rare. I double checked what attributes led to a calico classification and F.C. had them all. The black, here and there fading towards grey; the white, predominant and macho masculine I thought; and the ginger, mostly in that tuft between and above the eyes that looked suspiciously like a crown. He was all calico.

  The vast majority of calico males, all the articles said, were sterile. Somehow I doubted F.C. slotted neatly into the norm. He might look all cat, but he definitely wasn’t. There may not be any eye of newt, nor any wing of bat in him—although I couldn’t tell for certain—but there was enough variety in the spice of his makeup to throw any geneticist merrily down the mutant cat from outer space route. At least, I was certain that would be my technical opinion if I’d had any genetic qualifications.

  I gave up on the research in disgust. F.C. was a chimera in feline clothing. It was a little pointless trying to understand his potential sex life from a collection of online articles. I was fairly certain that the spell that had transformed F.C. into his cat-like form and demeanour would make him exclusively attracted to felines. I really hoped that was the case. I didn’t fancy meeting any exotic pets when my familiar started going on dates. The quick and simple fix, pun unintended, was
neutering. But neutering F.C. was simply out of the question, mostly because the idea of sharing that experience with him was way out of my comfort zone. I wondered though if I could hit him with an impotence whammy without it coming back to haunt me.

  Livia stole the next customer as I sat speculating on the sex life of my cat. I looked up to find her charming an older man into heading straight for my most expensive lighting range. I suddenly wondered what I’d do if the next person to visit the store was a client and I had to take them down to the basement for the witchy side of things. Awkward didn’t begin to cover the situation. I hoped I wouldn’t have to try out any of the scenarios that vaguely formed in my mind as plans A to E. Mostly because they all sucked.

  I was staring out at the pedestrians passing the store by when I noticed one peering through the window at me. It was Sofia. She looked positively miserable. If it had been raining and she’d been soaked through, she couldn’t have looked more defeated. She glanced at Livia and then back at me in a silent message that I thought broke down to we don’t want any witnesses. I nodded and called out to Livia. “I need more coffee. Back in a few.”

  I didn’t give her time to question me. Though, to be fair, Livia seemed more intent on the sale than on anything I had to say. I slipped out the door and found Sofia already ahead of me, walking in the direction of Coffee-on-Main. Werewolf hearing was definitely a super power, much more so than any imagined lullaby singing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Sofia walked briskly. I only managed to catch up to her when we were a block away from Which Light and closing on our local coffee shop.

  “Are we trying to lose a tail, because I think all I’ve lost is my breath,” I complained to Sofia when I finally caught up.

  She flinched as though I’d threatened to flail her alive.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she began instinctively, then sighed, “Everything.”

  My heart sank. I didn’t know what to say to that. We walked on in silence till we reached our destination. The place was almost empty and I got us two black cherry mochas while Sofia claimed a table in the far corner of the store.

  Neither of us wanted to open the conversation when I sat down. I broke several sachets of sugar into my mocha while Sofia toyed with the foamy topping, sinking her strings of black cherry syrup into the dark depths of her drink.

  I took a few sips of what should have tasted like a sweet bomb but didn’t, before I gathered the strength to prompt Sofia into talking.

  “What happened, Sofia?”

  She looked up at me and away. In that moment I knew that my fears had not just been jealous thoughts in the darkest part of my soul.

  “Just tell me,” I said hearing the hurt already in the cracking of my voice.

  “It’s not like that,” Sofia leaned forward, her intense eyes locked on mine. “But it is pretty fucked up.” She fell backwards against the chair. “I don’t know how to say it.” She shook her head. She licked her lips. “Incubus.”

  “Daudie Schalko,” I said.

  Sofia frowned at me. “He’s dead.”

  “Exactly,” I told her.

  I pulled the note from where I’d stashed it in my pocket. Then waited for her to read it, already quite certain about what she had to tell me. I didn’t see it being any easier on us knowing that her body had been taken for a joy ride.

  “I woke up in Erica’s bed this morning. She’d obviously had a really good time,” Sofia told me as she slowly pushed the note back across the table to me. She withdrew another note from her pocket. It looked like it came from the same notepad as mine. It wasn’t distinctive or patterned, so it might have just been generic, but I had no doubt that the penmanship on Sofia’s note would perfectly match my own.

  I took it from her and read the single line written down on it.

  Not a one night stand.

  I looked up at her. “We need to keep the incubus out,” I told her, rising from my chair.

  Sofia didn’t move. I turned hesitantly towards her. Her features were twisted in sadness. For a moment her face looked wrinkled and old with the expression. Her eyes were pools of reflected pain. They didn’t look like the eyes I’d first glimpsed at Dusk. It wasn’t Sofia anymore.

  “Not so quick,” the incubus said. “I haven’t finished yet.”

  I slumped back down into the chair.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I want Daudie back,” the incubus said and sighed. “I lost him a long time ago you know, but I still think about what I could have done differently.”

  “You’re his mother…his father?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the incubus said. “You’re fishing in the wrong direction.” She took a sip of Sofia’s coffee. “That’s good,” she gave me a soft smile that didn’t quite twist the lips in the same way that Sofia did.

  I wondered how Erica could think it was the same woman.

  “I should have a few more of those while I hang out in this body.”

  Exorcism is a tricky thing. There are ways of evicting things from people’s bodies, but most of those things are better to lure out. I couldn’t simply spell the incubus out of Sofia because there was no way to do so without spelling Sofia out too.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “I don’t blame and I do blame you for my Daudie’s death. I blame myself, I blame the wolves, I blame the witches. I blame Daudie.” She sobbed, then it shifted to a broken and unhappy laugh. “It’s silly isn’t it? Still, I won’t stop until you feel the loss, the pain of having him torn away like that.”

  “You can’t,” I told her.

  “I will,” she said. “You watch me. I will.”

  She rose and I held out a hand and gently grabbed hold of her wrist.

  “You can’t,” I told her sadly and cast the only spell I could.

  I’d already cast it once before. This time it flowed easily and certainly from me as I wrapped the werewolf and her stowaway spirit into a deep and binding sleep. I wasn’t about to let another incubus mess around with the people I cared about.

  It had touched a fury deep inside of me although I couldn’t direct that rage directly at the sad creature that was possessing Sofia Bragga.

  Once the incubus had began down this road it would never stop. How much suffering was enough suffering? It would punish Sofia and I until the very last breath.

  I was surprised at how certain I was. At how I knew through and through that it was how I would have done it. A long burning revenge that would feed itself. Sofia would never be free so long as the incubus had breath to possess her.

  I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and phoned the wolf pack. It didn’t take me long to connect with Cleo. She swore as I described what had happened in an even tone. It surprised me that I didn’t burst into violent sobs.

  “Daudie Schalko’s parents are dead. I doubled checked. I triple checked. Dead. Very dead. Violently dead. I don’t think Daudie was entirely innocent either.” Cleo’s voice was hard. “Boytjie is close by. He’ll help you with Sofy. Can she stay at your place?”

  “Yes,” I said glancing out the window of the store to see if I could spot the muscle bound werewolf.

  “Good. You’re putting Boytjie up as well. He eats a lot and he really likes your cat.”

  Cleo hung up before I could respond. I wondered if the last sentence was a threat.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  It didn’t take Boytjie long to stride into the store, grinning at me in a way that werewolves never did. Grinning in an all too human way. Which I supposed was good because unlike other werewolves, Boytjie’s toothy smile meant he was happy to see me.

  Still I had been conditioned to see a flash of werewolf pearly whites in a different way and it unsettled me. It didn’t help knowing that those same teeth had ripped out Daudie Schalko’s throat and probably many others before him. I tried telling myself that the world was definitely a better place for
the incubus no longer being in it, but convincing yourself of something is never as simple as pop culture would have you believe. Or maybe I just didn’t have the knack.

  It couldn’t help that my blooming relationship had gone south because of Daudie’s death. That right now I was going to have to figure out a way to get my would be girlfriend carried out of a coffee shop without making it look too much like I was some local madam taking up human trafficking. It just didn’t add up to a better world post the monstrous incubus from my point of view. Logically sure, Daudie was dead, but personally speaking, not so much. I supposed this was what they called collateral damage in the movies.

  Boytjie didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who over thought things. He didn’t wait for me to formulate a plan, he just picked Sofia up and cradling her in his arms waited for me to lead him out. I sighed, shaking my head and giving in. I didn’t think explaining this one would be as easy as the first sleeping beauty I’d spelled. That would teach me to recycle a spell and use it twice within a couple of days.

  I took my coffee with me and headed out, avoiding eye contact with the staff behind the counter as well as the small queue of customers. I hoped no one recognised me, but in a small town like Whisper Falls I had no luck in kidding myself that I’d be incognito.

  No wonder werewolves generally flocked to the cities. It certainly beat being easily fingered as the last person to visit grandma’s house before she and her nubile granddaughter in the flashy red hood disappeared. Although personally I always figured little red had run off with her werewolf lover because of his big everything and grandma had fled Hicksville for shame.

  I kind of thought that Boytjie fit the description in the fairytale; there was certainly a lot of big when it came to the werewolf. He wasn’t classically handsome. Those sharpened gold teeth weren’t exactly in keeping with your run of the mill mouth bling, but I didn’t doubt that his muscles pulled as much action as he could bench press. Maybe more. Fine, I’ll admit it. I was jealous.