Bump (A Witchlight Novel)

by Jaime Munn

  I waved Livia good bye and she mouthed ‘have some sex’ at me as I headed out. Frankly I was really glad we both were into coffee. If it had been lolly pops I would have been gagging.

  Cleo wasn’t at my apartment when I got back. I don’t know who was more relieved about it; Boytjie or me. I packed an overnight bag, remembering to fill it with a candy stash that would have sent anyone else into a sugar induced high. I wondered what diabetic witches did for a magical boost, or if there even were any. It was a question that might never get an answer as I could count the number of supernatural friends I had on one finger. It was depressing. How had I ended up in a place so far removed from the world I was part of? Had I deliberately distanced myself from the supernatural community dwelling on the cusp?

  I didn’t have much time to speculate on the subject. Cleo rang Boytjie to let him know that she had arrived. I went down to let her and her muscle in. There was a large white SUV parked outside the entrance to my apartment. Cleo and another werewolf, half as muscle bound as Boytjie I noted, were standing outside my door. They were both dressed in stark white outfits.

  “Good morning, Cleo,” I said and she nodded at me. “Muscle man.”

  He gave me a hard stare like he was afraid I was going to lift his shirt and try and lick his abs. He was good looking in a blonde Nordic clone kind of way. Perhaps he’d been making a living as a stripper at bachelorette parties before he’d come out as a gay werewolf and it had coloured his perspective on the fairer sex. I didn’t really care. I waved them on up the stairs to my apartment. After searching the streets for any sign of Grace St John, I closed the door and followed them. I had an itchy feeling about not having been attacked in the last 24 hours. At least not by the wicked witch of the city.

  When I caught up to Cleo, Boytjie was giving her a rundown on the situation. He was really right about not telling a good story, but he got the facts down straight. He concluded with my request to get a ride back with them.

  Cleo shrugged at the news, but I thought I detected an easing of some tension in her body, like it had been the plan all along. I wondered if it had been a case of willing or unwilling. Even a werewolf knew better than to get rough with a witch, unless she was into the whole S&M scene.

  “Sofia’s in the bedroom,” I said when the silence began to stretch a little long for my tastes. Cleo waved her muscle men in that direction.

  As soon as they were gone she turned to me and prevented me from following them.

  “You’ve got something for me haven’t you?”

  There was something desperate in her eyes; something reluctant too. Like she both needed and feared the spell I had crafted for Sofia.

  I nodded, but as my hand moved to pull it from my handbag, she caught it.

  “First you make real sure it works as advertised. Does it?”

  “I think so,” I replied. “I’ll need to be closer to Cristobella to be sure.”

  “Then you make sure,” she said.

  I thought I heard fear in her voice. It was difficult to tell with Cleo, but I could empathise. What if Bella wasn’t all that keen on her? What if Bella had nothing to communicate? What if nothing human remained in the white wolf? Did that make Cleo some kind of freak, even more so than was usually found on the edge of the two worlds? I thought that rejection would be the worst thing for Cleo. I didn’t think she wanted to face it.

  I nodded and she turned away from me like she knew I’d guessed her deep, dark secret. Her all too frail and fragile heart was not nearly as steely and hard as she projected. I wanted to shake her and tell her how silly it was to think that sentiment was weakness, but I didn’t want to get smacked down by a werewolf super model.

  As the two men carried Sofia out between them, I realised that the white clothing on the Nordic wolf made him look like a nurse.

  “Get your bags.”

  The abrupt command was directed at me and I hastily did as I was told. The apartment was empty when I came out of the bedroom but for my familiar standing at the door like he was afraid I’d forget him if he wasn’t right in front of me. I had a moment’s panic that I had been left behind, but I had something Cleo desired most of all, as much as she feared it. The white SUV would be waiting for me, although I didn’t plan on keeping it waiting long.

  I locked up the apartment hoping that it would just be the one night. That when I got back I really would be able to get in a holiday. I needed one.

  F.C. and I headed out.

  Nordic wolf was in the driver’s seat and I was surprised that Boytjie was beside him. Did that mean that Cleo wanted to keep me company on the ride to the city? Somehow I doubted we’d exchange more than two words.

  I was totally wrong. We exchanged no words precisely.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I did overhear enough of Boytjie and the driver’s conversation to learn that Nordic wolf’s name was Evan. There was something said about Boytjie’s partner that I strained to hear from the back seat. I thought I heard Evan call him Willem, but without leaning forward and sticking my head through the opening between the front seats I couldn’t make sense of the fragments of conversation I heard. I almost pushed F.C. onto Boytjie’s lap and tried to get him to lend me his ears, but he seemed rather set on being curled up on my lap. It was the first time he’d done that. I found it rather comforting to have him there.

  Sofia lay in the far back of the SUV. In any other car she would have clearly been assigned a spot in the boot. A custom fitted mattress had been set in place though and Sofia’s head rested on a pillow. It was a strain to turn my head and peer over the back seat at her, but I made regular checks in case somehow the possessing incubus spirit managed to shake the shackles of my sleep spell.

  As we approached the outskirts of the city my attention shifted from inside the vehicle to outside. The street vendors were out in full force, selling everything from cool drinks to cheap Chinese electronics. The sun was bright and hot. I was glad of the air conditioned vehicle. Buildings varied from well maintained to looking on the brink of collapse, often standing side by side in a dichotomy that seemed natural here. Road works were everywhere.

  There was a sea of movement the deeper we drove into the heart of the city, like a tide of people ebbing and flowing from the centre. Everyone had somewhere to be and they moved with a steady determination to get there.

  We didn’t quite make it to the centre, before the SUV stopped in front of the entrance of a gated and secure, underground parking. The building was massive. It reached up several stories and took up a block to itself. It wasn’t otherwise noteworthy at all, but I knew what was hidden within. It was a surprise that the secret den of the queer wolves of the city remained hidden from the world at large. To me it seemed a bull’s eye on a dart board calling attention to itself.

  Evan used a key card to open the gates and the SUV drove into a brightly lit corridor wide enough for two vehicles. There was a second security point around a bend, hidden from the outside world. Two burly men manned a solid looking vehicle barrier. One of them came over and Cleo rolled down her window. She glanced at me, shrugged.

  “Sentient green,” she said.

  I felt both intimidated and impressed by the levels of security in place. The werewolf nodded at her and gestured to his partner who opened the barrier. He did it manually. It looked like it strained his muscles to the max.

  Cleo turned to me.

  “That only works today,” she said.

  It sounded casual enough, like she wanted me to know if I went for a city walkabout I could only get back in using the password before midnight. I didn’t think it was the way she privately intended it though.

  I wondered if this was the usual security in place or if I had unwittingly involved the pack in a dangerous game between myself and Grace St John. I hoped it was par for the course, because I hated the idea of bringing danger into the lives of virtual strangers. I hated that Sofia was paying the price for one of those deadly rounds in the quiet war
between Grace and I. Although, I thought, to be fair Sofia’s little problem was because Cleo and the pack had that whole don’t leave a threat behind rule.

  The SUV didn’t drive to a parking, but stopped before an elevator. Evan and Boytjie lifted Sofia out of the vehicle, while Cleo summoned the elevator. It arrived quickly. I wondered if it was dedicated for the security detail’s use. Evan and Boytjie lay Sofia inside and then Evan headed back to the SUV while Boytjie, Cleo, F.C. and myself joined sleeping beauty.

  “Is she sleeping forever?” Boytjie asked anxiously and I shook my head.

  “I think I can solve this one with a visit to Daudie’s…” I raised a questioning eyebrow “…apartment.”

  Cleo nodded. I guessed she meant that it would be arranged. I wasn’t certain whether it meant that Daudie had lived in an apartment or a shoebox. I suddenly wondered what they’d done with his body. It was a passing thought and I wasn’t curious enough to ask. I didn’t try my witchy psychometry on dead bodies. It just wasn’t my thing. It did make me wonder if I was turning into a psychopath though. I hadn’t thought I would ever be so blasé about people not getting a proper burial, even when the people were monsters.

  Cleo pressed an unlabelled button on the elevator. The doors closed as the SUV pulled away. There was no muzak in the elevator and I found the tension unbearable. F.C. seemed unperturbed, but he stuck close to me, brushing up against my legs. The silvered surface of the elevator walls threw back distorted images of us all, but strangely F.C. looked entirely cat. I wondered if his transformation had been as successfully cast as I had first thought. Perhaps the way some people seemed to see F.C. differently was indication enough that he was made of more than a little bit of illusion.

  I wanted to ask Boytjie to describe F.C. to me, but the words wouldn’t come out with Cleo around. It took the elevator a minute to reach its destination. I assumed that we were going to the very top of the building. I wondered if we were going to meet the alpha, the ghost wolf that ruled over the queer pack of the city. Hadrian. I had heard his name. Few among the local supernatural community wouldn’t have. His pack was strong, pink and black stationary notwithstanding.

  When the elevator doors opened, it was to an apartment. There was a classical edge to the décor, like the Roman Empire had come again. It was simple, elegant, Spartan, and a little bit cold. The large windows pulled the modern world into the apartment. Cleo led us out and Boytjie lifted Sofia effortlessly into his arms. I wondered if sharing the burden with Evan earlier had been more for camaraderie than out of any real need.

  F.C. stuck close to me, but ahead like he was the advancing wave of my witchy presence. It was strange to think that a handful of days ago, F.C. had not existed at all. Cleo led us through large, carved twin doors. They were thick, heavy, and carved with fawns and nymphs, so beautifully done that I thought Erica would become ensnared by them. I would have liked to study them longer, but Cleo was briskly moving forward and Boytjie was coming up behind, so I flowed on past the doors.

  We entered a large dining room. One wall was all glass giving a sweeping view of the city. It looked less tired and worn around the edges from this high perspective. There was a table large enough to hold quite a gathering, but only one figure sat at it eating his breakfast. He was young looking. His hair was short and dark, almost black. His eyes looked brown as he glanced up at our approach, then green as he focused on me. Livia’s knees would have buckled. He was a handsome man. He wasn’t Hadrian though. He wasn’t a ghost. I could sense it. He was a werewolf.

  “Cleopatra,” he said and there was a warmth to his voice. I instantly recognised him as one of the people I’d spoken with when contacting the number Cleo had given me. The werewolf I’d wanted to meet.

  “Seb,” Cleo’s voice was filled with affection and it shifted my focus to her for a moment. She seemed almost congenial. “Sebastian, this is the witch, Ms Hayes.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Sebastian said. “I wondered when we would.” He glanced past me at Boytjie and Sofia. “Why don’t you lay Sofia down in the guest room, Boytjie.”

  “Yes, Seb,” Boytjie said with a wide smile, showing his gold wolf and white human teeth. He didn’t seem to be straining, though he’d been holding Sofia for a while now. She wasn’t exactly a lump of iron, but as it wasn’t my scale I was facing I didn’t try and fool myself into believing that she was light as a feather either. Boytjie’s muscles weren’t merely show pieces.

  I wanted to follow him when he left, but Cleo gestured me forward towards the table. Sebastian rose and pulled out two chairs for us with a tight lipped smile and not a single tooth showing. To my surprise Cleo allowed him to seat her. F.C. sat under my chair and Sebastian gave him a brief but thorough study. He didn’t say anything about my cat not being a cat, but I didn’t fool myself that he hadn’t noticed. He was merely too polite to say. Not that I associated F.C. with anything like being morbidly obese or having a huge mole on my forehead.

  Sebastian asked if we wanted to join him for breakfast, but Cleo and I both declined. I felt a little guilty when he pushed his unfinished plate to one side and offered us coffee instead. I gratefully accepted. There was a percolator on a large serving station along with several mugs, all of which were branded with a pink logo. It made the penthouse dining room feel a little more like a boardroom, albeit a very expensive looking boardroom.

  The werewolf poured our coffees and brought the mugs along with a sugar bowl, using such skill that I was certain in a past life he’d done a fair amount of waiting on tables. The sugar was sticky and brown and both Cleo and Sebastian watched as I put in several teaspoons.

  “We merit that much do we?” Sebastian asked with a trace of humour in his voice.

  I flushed. “I’m a little tapped out,” I lied to him and Cleo snorted.

  Sebastian sat down with us and took his coffee unsweetened with a generous helping of cream. Cleo I noted took hers pure and untainted by sugar or cream. I wasn’t surprised at that. I thought she looked like the kind of person who shopped in the organic section of the grocery.

  I added a little cream to my sugared coffee and took a sip. It wasn’t something off the menu from Coffee-on-Main, but it was good and the sugar was definitely adding to a comforting pool of energy. I’d have felt ready to face almost anything, if I wasn’t within the secure compounds of a werewolf commune.

  “What do we know about Sofia?” Sebastian asked, directing his question to both of us, though I felt that was simply his manners at work. Cleo answered quickly enough detailing what had been reported to her. She was thorough, but she used more flair and elegance than I’d noticed before.

  I added my explanation behind why I wanted to visit the dead incubus’ lair. How it gave me a potential edge over the entity possessing Sofia Bragga and a means to defeating it.

  “A ghost incubus?” Sebastian raised a brow when I was done. “Perhaps our resident ghost werewolf could rout it out then.”

  I nodded. It was worth a try. I glanced about, wondering if Hadrian would show.

  “He’s not really like that,” Sebastian whispered to me. “He doesn’t really appear exactly when you want him to.”

  I wondered where the ghost alpha went when he wasn’t appearing to his pack. It was more than a casual curiosity. Hadrian was a potent ghost and that wasn’t something that happened by accident. Hadrian drew his energy from somewhere and I was willing to bet that it had a fair bit to do with magic.

  Cleo laughed. “Sebbie, you sound like you had a lonely night.”

  I realised I was speaking to the alpha’s boyfriend and I wondered how that worked. Was Hadrian powerful enough to manifest physically or did he habitually possess members of his pack? I didn’t doubt that he had the strength for both.

  Sebastian gave Cleo a deadpan stare and she laughed again. It was almost a girlish giggle. We heard Boytjie before he entered the room. He stood in the doorway looking a little nervous and I wondered what had him suddenly on edge
. It didn’t seem to affect the two other werewolves in the room though and I knew that their noses were infinitely more sensitive to emotions than a witch’s pair of eyes.

  Sebastian looked to Cleo and she gave an exasperated sigh before turning to her muscle.

  “You can go.”

  Sebastian glanced at my coffee cup, which was nearly empty, and added, “Boytjie, why don’t you show Ms Hayes to guest apartment 1313.”

  I wondered if Sebastian had something more to discuss with Cleo and it wasn’t something he wanted overheard. I swallowed my last sip of coffee. Hoping it didn’t look somewhat desperate, like a witch facing her execution and powering up on one last taste of sugar to try and turn the hangman’s noose into a fragile thread of spider silk.

  Not that they hung many witches in this day and age. Death by inquisition and fire was also thankfully far behind us, though I doubted many with power had fallen for either of those tactics. Humanity hadn’t really shown a propensity for making a dent in the supernatural population. It tended to be the supernaturals who kept the supernatural population from explosive growth. Not that there was a census for werewolves, witches and other beings straddling two worlds. Although if I had to guess I would say that Hadrian’s wolves had a fair idea of the creatures going bump in the night in their city.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Boytjie didn’t use the same elevator that we had arrived in. He led F.C. and I to another at the end of a long and empty corridor that was monitored by a security camera. Boytjie had taken my overnight bag the minute I’d reached his side. I hadn’t argued. Who argues with an over muscled werewolf with golden wolf teeth among his ivories? I had the feeling that his marching orders were definitely no longer in my hands.