Bump (A Witchlight Novel)

by Jaime Munn

  I led Boytjie the long way round to my apartment, because the short way went past my store. I didn’t want to explain to Livia why I had a goon on my tail carrying Erica’s new lover. It was like my life had suddenly become a supernatural soapy. I hoped that the fans would all be rooting for me.

  I opened up the doors for Boytjie letting him carry Sofia in ahead of me. He looked around the apartment. I thought he was looking for some place to set the girl in his arms down, but after a moment I realised he was looking for F.C. I led him through to my bedroom and pulled the linen straight on the bed before having him set Sofia down. I wondered how long my spell would hold. Also whether it had taken the incubus unawares before it could jump out of Sofia’s body.

  The protection spells in the air of my apartment would prevent Boytjie from being turned into a puppet, I hoped, so just in case I told him to stay inside. I showed him around the kitchen. He was disappointed that I had no Xbox or Playstation. I left him playing something on his cell phone and nibbling at a very rare steak like it was a packet of ghost pops.

  I got back to Which Light and Livia eyed my empty hands in disgust. “What, you took half an hour and you didn’t bring me back a coffee? Please tell me you snuck off for a quickie with some hot Amazonian and all will be forgiven.”

  I laughed. It sounded like the last laugh on apocalypse day. That hopeless kind of laugh that probably isn’t going down in the annals as best last laugh ever, but does make people wonder if they should be strapping you up in a straight jacket and emptying your environment of sharp objects. Livia gave me a hard look.

  “Okay, okay, enough with the doom and gloom. I sold a few more lamps. Who knew people bought them so often or in such quantities. It definitely beats even the busiest day at Tangles, although if I was working for a commission I’d be totally bummed right now.”

  She gave me another hard look. I figured the commission doubled for coffee too.

  “I got distracted. You were right, I do need a day off,” I told her. I needed a week maybe to get out to the city, stake out Grace St John like some hardboiled PI, and take her down from wicked witch to brand new bestie. I didn’t think a shoe shopping montage would do the trick. Personally I didn’t think anything would do the trick. Anything other than six feet under. Only I wasn’t allowed to go down that road.

  I wasn’t kidding myself that it was only Asbelia holding me back from murder either. I didn’t have the stomach for it, period. I had to slug her were it hurt though because clearly she was in for some payback. I was definitely due for a good offensive.

  Livia had gone rather quiet so I quirked my brows at her.

  She sighed. “I tried to sell that ugly lamp of yours. The buyer was peachy keen, but the lamp wasn’t.”

  I went cold at the thought of Livia selling the creepy Victorian angel lamp. I turned to make sure it was still in its proper place in the window. It sat there barely looking like it had been touched, let alone moved.

  “That lamp isn’t for sale,” I told Livia.

  “I guessed as much. It’s faulty isn’t it? The customer was all rearing to buy it. She would have paid a ransom for it. It hasn’t got a price tag on it. I was feeling her out for how high I ought to go and I got a real vibe of name your price and money isn’t an object. She wanted me to pack it right up and ring up the sale, but the lamp shocked me when I touched it.” She scowled at me. “You need to put up a sign, Nilla.”

  “Who tried to buy it?” I asked, ignoring the accusation in her voice.

  “Some woman,” Livia replied vaguely. “She looked familiar. A little bit high class call girl, a little bit dominatrix in white lace gloves, a whole lot of attitude.”

  Grace St John, I thought, and gave the lamp another glance. Clearly she knew more about it than I did. I hadn’t needed any further convincing, but it was all the more reason not to let that lamp go at any price.

  “She was really pissed when I told her she’d have to come back and speak with you,” Livia added. “I don’t think she is coming back, which is good because I got a real bitchy vibe off her. Frankly I get enough uppity prostitutes for the money at Tangles.”

  “That lamp is not for sale,” I reiterated and Livia nodded.

  “Gotcha,” she said. “Now, about that coffee…”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I worried about sleeping Sofia and the muscle bound wolfman in my apartment all day. Distracting myself by playing tag with Livia and the customers didn’t keep my mind from straying in that direction, but it did help the time pass. Livia worked for coffees and lunch. I totally underpaid her. She didn’t seem to mind.

  At closing time Kevin came around and while I cashed up Livia worked on making him blush.

  “What are you crazy kids getting up to tonight?” I asked when they came up for air. Kevin made a point of looking away, pretending to study a no-frills table lamp of the cheap and very unsexy kind.

  “I was thinking of claiming that IOU a girl’s night,” Livia said.

  I tried not to freeze like some about to be road kill animal caught in a stroll across the highway. My apartment was definitely not friend friendly right now. How was that for a topsy turvy world? I didn’t think Livia would be charmed by Boytjie and his golden fangs, nor able to appreciate that Sofia was sleeping in my bed for a very good reason.

  I wondered if I could take the party elsewhere, though I didn’t think Cleo would approve of the witch who owed the pack a whole heap of favours deciding that painting the town red was more important than getting a werewolf back on her feet.

  “Right, well with that kind of enthusiasm, I’m glad I’m going to be cancelling again.” Livia folded her arms over her chest giving me a little hint of tomorrow’s Spanish Inquisition.

  “Sorry,” I sighed. “It’s one of those weird days where you keep thinking you’ve missed something really important.”

  It wasn’t an outright lie to cover my ass either. I did keep feeling that there was some obvious clue staring me right in the face. I had felt that way ever since Asbelia had arrived and faked a phantom for me. I frowned. Why had she approached everything so in directly. It seemed a whole lot of work just to get little old me shoved between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

  “Alright then,” Livia had a more-about-that-later tone in her voice.

  I winced at the thought of the lies and misdirection I’d be spinning for her tomorrow morning. Was that any better than fiddling with her mind? I tried to convince myself that white lies were way better than a little black magic, but somehow I doubted the scales were that imbalanced.

  “Kevin wants to see the stars tonight. We’re going to the observatory out in the hills. There’s some renowned astronomer from somewhere giving a talk and a peak at distant constellations.”

  I had to dive deep to find a little more energy for an upbeat response.

  “Sounds like a romantic evening.”

  “I think a blanket on the lawn, a bottle of wine, and stargazing for two would be more romantic, Nilla.” Livia poked Kevin. He turned from his study of the table lamp to rejoin the conversation. “Kevin thinks the science behind the stars makes them more alluring, not less.”

  “I hope so,” he smiled, “or Livia will never let me hear the end of it.”

  I hoped so too, but I thought Kevin had it all wrong. Livia had left far too many silences in her wake.

  I was annoyed with myself for half taking Kevin’s side and hoping that Livia wouldn’t abandon their relationship as she had so many before. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t impossible that Livia and Kevin would find a lasting happiness. It left me feeling a little like some hopeless soapy fan convinced that this time it would be different.

  Would I step in if the spark of their relationship dimmed? Had I already stepped in by making Kevin part of a fairytale, the handsome prince kissing sleeping beauty awake?

  Livia broke into my thoughts with a sigh and a good bye.

  “You’re definitely taking a day off,�
� she said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” Then she was hustling Kevin out the door and F.C. and I were left alone.

  “I didn’t like the sound of that one bit,” I told my familiar. He just stretched and yawned and gave me a half-lidded gaze; a mischievous kitty grin I thought. It wasn’t the day off that disturbed me, but the conversation that came before it. I pushed it from my mind leaving it as one of tomorrow’s problems. I had enough of those to deal with already.

  I was locking up the store when I spotted Erica from the corner of my eye. Awkward, I thought and focused on turning the key firmly in the lock, hoping she would walk right by. She didn’t. She stopped right beside me, said hello, and stooped down to give F.C. a scratch behind the ears. He pressed his furry little head into her hand like a habitual traitor.

  “Hi, Erica,” I said, hoping I sounded casual. Not like someone who’d kidnapped a possessed werewolf.

  I don’t think Erica would have noticed if I’d had guilty stamped across my forehead in bright shiny letters. She looked very distracted.

  “Have you seen Sofia Bragga today?” she asked. I wondered if my face turned the colour of a shameful scarlet letter. “I thought we’d be seeing each other at some point, but she’s not even answering her phone.”

  I felt a stab of jealousy that Erica had Sofia’s phone number while I still had to get in touch via the pack reception desk.

  “Sorry, no,” I lied. My jealousy giving me a brief sense of entitlement to obscure the truth, though seconds later I felt like a spoilt brat. “Did you have plans?”

  “Oh no,” Erica gave me a weak smile. “It was vague, but I thought we might be seeing each other today.”

  I felt a little guilty as emotions tumbled across her face before she could smooth them away with a carefully neutral mask. She looked hurt, confused, and despondent in that brief moment before she regained control. I had a sudden fleeting thought that my love life was doomed even as I told myself that nothing had changed. Sofia had chosen me, not Erica.

  We stood awkwardly looking at one another, until Erica gave F.C. one last scratch.

  “I better get home. Let Sofia know I was asking after her if you see her.”

  I nodded, wondering if I’d given her reason to believe I was likely to have such an encounter. I couldn’t tell what Erica was thinking. Her features were completely under control again. She pulled off casual grace with her usual ease. Then she was turning and walking away. She didn’t look back or she might have caught me looking really guilty.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  When F.C. and I arrived home, I thought I’d been robbed.

  There were overturned chairs and a broken lamp haphazardly scattered about the open room. I stood in the doorway with my mouth open, while F.C. curiously sniffed at the chunky remnants of the lamp and made a casual inspection of a chair cushion. He didn’t suit up into his danger cat morph, so I closed the door behind me and called out to Boytjie.

  “In the bedroom,” he called out. I hoped I wasn’t about to walk into another ugly scene. Although I was still admittedly curious about seeing him naked. F.C. took up a comfortable spot in the lounge in the one remaining upright chair, while I headed for my bedroom.

  Boytjie was sitting on a chair that had sat at the kitchen counter alongside its twin. He made the sturdy metal legs look like toothpicks under his muscled bulk. I winced at the thought of it buckling beneath him. He was fully clothed, which I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed about.

  He didn’t look my way as I came into the room. His focus was entirely and intently on my bed and on Sofia Bragga. She was wrapped up in bedding like an incompletely bandaged mummy. I saw a few of my dresses in the layers and layers of wrappings that started from her feet and went all the way up to her neck.

  “What the…?” Had Boytjie lost it, I wondered.

  “She’s only pretending,” he said. “She’s not asleep.”

  I frowned. That just wasn’t possible. Sofia Bragga had to be asleep. I reached out with my senses and found the enchantment I’d laid on her intact.

  “She almost got out the door before I caught her,” he said, which maybe explained the condition the lounge was in.

  I looked from Boytjie to the sleeping Sofia and back again. I sighed.

  “I leave you two alone for one afternoon and you wreck the place,” I said, feeling like a parent. It really wasn’t me and I didn’t like the association.

  “I’ll tidy up if you watch her,” Boytjie mumbled.

  “No, you watch her. I’ve got a lamp to mend.” I gave Sofia another glance. “And then I’ll bind her so she doesn’t get up to any sleepwalking again.”

  I bit my lower lip. The enchantment wasn’t holding the incubus under its sway and it should have.

  There was only one loop hole in the spell. That was if the incubus had fled Sofia’s body before my enchantment had wrapped them both in the deepest sleep that only witchcraft and the finest drugs known to man could achieve. Theoretically this was possible within the bounds of the spell. If the incubus had left Sofia, it would have remained at large.

  However, it should not have been able to invade Sofia’s sleeping body while she was in my apartment. The protective spells were still strong in the air and would have prevented that. The only way for the incubus to enter despite this was if it had remained within Sofia’s sleeping form when I brought them into my home. If this were the case then the enchantment should have knotted the incubus as deeply in its web as it had Sofia. I wondered if I was dealing with an incubus at all.

  Someone’s playing you, Cleo had said. I had the feeling she was right. But the incubus had mourned the loss of Daudie.

  I reviewed the brief conversation we’d had in the coffee shop as I gathered pieces of the broken lamp. I’d asked a question. The incubus had told me I was ‘fishing in the wrong direction’. I blinked at the literal interpretation of the answer. Why hadn’t it struck me earlier? If Daudie’s parents were dead and that trail was the wrong direction, then perhaps I needed to find Daudie Schalko’s child.

  My distraction proved enough to earn me a cut from a carelessly picked up shard of lamp. I cursed. Blood welled at my cut finger tip and I sucked it. Setting aside the gathered bowl of lamp shards I went looking for a bandage.

  I didn’t get further than opening the medicine cabinet in the bathroom when Boytjie called out, “Miss…Miss Witch?”

  I heard a struggle in my bedroom and figured that the incubus was making another escape attempt. I abandoned the bandages racing for the bedroom. Gathering my will and my magic as I did, I felt it spin into a ball of energy like it was yarn I’d spooled together.

  Sofia was awake, struggling to get out of bed while Boytjie held her effortlessly down. Still she flailed and writhed beneath her linen wrappings. I was more worried that she’d hurt herself than the big bad wolf holding her down.

  Binding spells weren’t my forte. I had bound very few things in my time and none of them had been living creatures, let alone human beings. It was to my mind one of those gray area spells. Not one to dabble with lightly. But it flew from me like I’d been casting it daily all my life. It set Sofia into a perfect and eerie stillness. After a heartbeat and a handful of seconds Boytjie slowly let her go and sank back into his chair, looking at her with wide eyes. I drew closer, checking that she was still breathing, putting my face close to her lips. She was; each breath gentle and relaxed.

  She was still deep asleep. Whether it was one of Daudie’s parents or one of his children possessing Sofia it still didn’t quite add up. The incubus should be powerless. I stroked aside a strand of Sofia’s hair, brushing her cheek and cursing as I left a trail of blood across it.

  “You’re hurt,” Boytjie said.

  “It’s a cut from the lamp,” I told him. “She should be fine now.” I wiped the blood from her cheek with a tissue from the box on the bedside table and headed back to the bathroom. While I was attempting to apply a bandage, Boytjie came and stood in the doorway.r />
  “Is she going to be right?”

  I frowned at him.

  “Yes,” I said though I didn’t feel very certain about it.

  He nodded. He looked like a lost boy. He stood there waiting for something. It took me a while to realise what it was. He was waiting for instructions, for orders. With his powerful body it wouldn’t have surprised me if Boytjie had been the one giving the orders, but independent spirit or no, I’d probably quickly fall into line if Cleo was the one shouting commands my way.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked, finally getting the bandage to fold correctly around my finger and watching the little padded section darken with a trickle of blood.

  “Very.”

  He grinned. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t a wolfy expression. I wondered why Boytjie didn’t emote like other wolves, but I doubted I’d have the courage to ask him. Even if it seemed like I was temporarily in charge of his marching orders.

  Boytjie moved gracefully out of my way as I headed for the kitchen. He followed me until he spotted F.C. I didn’t mind that I’d been abandoned for a cat. F.C. after all was one very funky cat. Considering Boytjie’s bulk I hunted through my cupboards and refrigerator for a meal that would prove substantial enough to feed the muscle werewolf’s power engine.

  He lucked out on more steak but I found some frozen chicken and set it on the path to a quick defrost in the microwave while I peeled and diced onions in a big pot.

  Onion induced crying was cathartic, probably because what the onions started I could run with. Fortunately I held back the sobs.

  Seriously, I don’t know how these kick ass heroines go twenty four hours straight without breaking down for a good old cry. It was where my suspended disbelief usually kicked right back in. I wasn’t sexist about it either. Action heroes weren’t excused.