Bump (A Witchlight Novel)

by Jaime Munn

  “Where’s my cell?” she asked. “Someone will know where Cleo is, someone always does.”

  “Boytjie may have it,” I replied trying to think if we’d left it in my apartment this morning. “It could be at my place,” I admitted when I didn’t recall picking it up at all.

  “Never mind, can I use yours?”

  I nodded, finding it and handing it over to her. She took a moment to figure out the mechanics of making a call, then tapped in a number. She got an answer almost instantly and directions to Cleo’s whereabouts without playing twenty questions.

  “She’s in the lobby,” Sofia told me as she handed back my phone. “Grab the charm.”

  “Was it Cleo’s birthday or something recently?” I asked.

  “No, but it was Bella’s. At least it was the day we all decided we’d celebrate it on.”

  I wondered if it was a pack wide thing or just a small circle of friends who’d decided that. It almost made me jealous thinking that Sofia was part of a Bella/Cleo fan club. I could imagine them swooning over the latest gossip about the moon crossed lovers. I wondered if my wolf charm would make Sofia queen bee of the club. I shook my head. Ridiculous. There wouldn’t be any such kind of club. I was letting my imagination run wild. Still, I couldn’t help but thinking that it wasn’t that implausible.

  I used a tissue to pick up the charm, not wanting to disturb Bella’s thoughts or hear her begging me to cast a spell I still wasn’t certain I could successfully do. The moon curse that lay over Christobella was powerful. Not even perfect love, like in the romance novels, could overcome that curse. A wolf’s moon rarely changed, so whatever their fate once the bite had infused itself within them and the first full moon bathed them in its light, it was almost always forever. Until death parted the moon and its supernatural offspring at least, I amended, as not all wolves lived forever. In fact very few did.

  Still, even against the overwhelming power, I had thought that it might be possible to give Bella back her human form briefly and once in a blue moon. The spell would be exhausting, it would last barely hours, but if I could do it, it would mean everything to the white wolf.

  I’d sensed as much.

  I didn’t want that responsibility. I didn’t want to be the witch who tried and failed. I didn’t want to be the witch who tried and succeeded either, but deep down I knew I would try anyway. Maybe the Bella/Cleo fan club had space for one more fangirl.

  We took the closest elevator down to the lobby. I was heartened that at least Sofia wanted to use the time it took to descend to the ground floor proactively. We kissed like teenagers exploring that first blush of sexual desire. When the doors opened, however, we still had the strength of mind to pull away from each other.

  It was Murphy’s Law though that Cleo was standing in front of the elevator doors when they did and our disentanglement wasn’t half quick enough.

  She quirked a brow at us, folding her arms over her chest, but said nothing.

  Sofia pushed me forward. I sighed, feeling the melodrama building in the air. I didn’t want the fanfare, so I pulled the tissue wrapped charm from my pocket and handed it to Cleo.

  “It works,” I told her.

  Her eyes widened. Before her expression could flit through the fear of rejection, I added, “She’s asking for you.”

  The relief on Cleo’s face was probably as telling. I hoped that she wouldn’t care. She turned from us without a word and headed down a corridor.

  “She’s going into the hidden forest,” Sofia explained. “We should let her be.” I nodded.

  We let the elevator doors close on us and Sofia pressed the sixth floor. I glanced at her and she nodded.

  “My apartment,” she told me with a lewd smile. I had to agree with Livia. The honeymoon phase of a new relationship was blissful.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  I wasn’t sure when night fell. I woke and Sofia’s apartment was dark. The bubbling of the fish tank filter was the only sound. I wondered at the insulation that had gone into making the apartment building a place suitable for werewolves. Full moon madness could be contained even in the heart of the city. I slipped out of bed without waking Sofia and used the bathroom before moving to the bay window that looked down on wolf park. I recalled that Sofia had called it something else, the hidden forest. It was apt enough, but I couldn’t shake the name I’d given it myself.

  I tried to see movement down below, but despite the lamps that burned, at what I guessed was the entrance to wolf park, I could barely discern anything among the shadows.

  It was wasteful, but still I cast a spell over my eyes to give me the same edge Sofia and her kind had over the night. The shadows came alive. I spotted F.C. watching me from the blue divan that sat at the foot of Sofia’s bed. I winked at him. Then turned my gaze back to the forested wolf park below us. I searched for movement and eventually found a stray wolf. I didn’t think it was Cleo. It couldn’t be the massive wolf that Boytjie became either and I doubted it belonged to his partner. This was a lone wolf, not yet united with a mate or perhaps between partners. I knew from experience that werewolves no more mated for life than humans did. I wondered if in the beginning that had been their allure for me; that mythical bond between a pair that endured forever.

  F.C. stalked across the bed to my side and hopped onto the bay window seat beside me. He peered down at the park while I stroked behind his ears. He didn’t purr, but I felt that it was more a courtesy to the sleeping werewolf in the room, since his rumbles were fit to wake the dead, let alone creatures with more sensitive ears. I could see light spilling from other bay windows above and below, but couldn’t tell if any wolves looked down on the park like I did. Even if they saw the park every day, I doubted that they took it for granted. That forested place in the heart of their building would always pull on their inner beast’s territorial instincts.

  I checked the time and was surprised to find it was not closer to midnight. The night was barely eight o’clock. My stomach grumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t had any lunch and Sofia stirred. In the dark I could see her eyes opening and searching me out. They widened when she realised that I was looking right back at her.

  “Hungry” she asked, avoiding treading into fairytales by telling me what big eyes I had. She was the wolf in this story anyway.

  “Starving,” I told her. F.C. made a gruff voiced agreement that took us both by surprise.

  “He doesn’t mean for kitty kibble does he?” Sofia asked, getting out of bed. Her skin was milky white in the darkness. Her eyes had an inner fire, flecks of embers winking in the night. I suspected it was only my spell that gave them that smouldering appearance, or perhaps it was inspired by our mutual desire for one another.

  “No, he’s not partial to that and frankly neither am I.”

  Sofia gave me a questioning look as she pulled on her discarded shirt and panties.

  “I’ll tell you about it after dinner.”

  She nodded.

  “I have a few steaks in the fridge.”

  F.C. licked his chops. He’d made an effort to widen his jaws and make his crimson barbed teeth large and sharp. Maybe F.C. was saying he was hungry enough to eat a horse. Sofia took the hint and headed through to the kitchen without another word. I pulled on my clothes and followed her through, giving F.C. a sour look and silently telling him to stay out of the kitchen.

  Sofia had thrown a few baby potatoes into a steamer and was heating up the pan for the steaks when I joined her. The kitchen was large and modern. It looked like it came out of a television cook show. I wondered if there were any gay-for-apartment werewolves in the complex, because these places were seriously sweet.

  “What’s rent like?” I asked Sofia as I found an out of the way spot to lean up against a counter.

  “We don’t technically have rent,” Sofia said. “We pay a sort of membership tax, so it depends on what you earn.”

  I didn’t want to sound like I was prying into the pack finances, so I let the l
ine of questioning go. I wondered though if the tax was reasonable. Hadrian wasn’t a tyrant. He certainly wasn’t a slumlord, so I was betting that no one was grumbling about paying their pack master his due. I wondered if I’d sell my human soul for a spot in the building.

  There aren’t any witch werewolves, or witch vampires, or witch supernatural anythings, because nobody could win in a battle between some supernatural blessing or curse, however you looked at it, and sourcing a little magical energy for a spell. In a way werewolves were one spell witches, just like the incubus Schalko had been a one spell witch. I’d be selling my magical repertoire for a single spell. Somehow even with a swanky apartment thrown into the deal, it still sounded to me like I’d be the poorer for it. I dismissed the idea of getting Sofia to nibble me for a room at Heartwood.

  I had half a minute to ponder just what would happen to F.C. if per chance one day I was bitten by a wolf, before a telephone rang. There was wall mounted receiver in the kitchen, neatly installed beside the light switch.

  The conversation seemed very one sided, Sofia mostly listening to whomever had called. In a very American television kind of way, she didn’t say goodbye before she hung up. I wondered if that was a personal affectation or if the person on the other end had hung up first. I hoped it was the latter because the former struck me as rude.

  “The warlock is in Whisper Falls. She took an overnight bag and it looks like she’s settling in for the night,” Sofia told me.

  I felt a shiver of fear run through my body. I hoped that my friends weren’t a target for Grace tonight.

  “We’ll be making a little visit to her lair while she’s out of town so that you can,” Sofia made speech marks in the air with her fingers, “get touchy feely with her wares.”

  The caller had been Cleo, or at least one of her muscle passing along her message verbatim, I was sure of it. If it had been Cleo herself I could see her hanging up without any such fanfare as goodbye. Twice the hellos and twice the goodbyes would definitely impact my long term telephone manners, I thought.

  “How long do we have?”

  “Enough time for dinner,” Sofia replied, “but you should get ready. The shower is that way and there are extra towels in the cupboard under the bathroom sink.” She pointed west like she was a better dressed extra in a Pet Shop Boys music video. I obediently headed out, but not before giving her a kiss on the cheek and running my hands across her scantily clad behind.

  In the shower I wondered when we’d raise the subject of Erica. It didn’t make me feel really good about myself when I narrowed the problem down to Erica being Livia’s boss.

  I’d called Erica superficial, but here I was ready to brush off her pain and focus solely on how the fallout might affect my friendship with Livia. I was a horrible, horrible person, I decided. I couldn’t keep on beating myself up though, especially not when Sofia joined me in the shower.

  We ate a hurried meal. F.C. got his plate served on the kitchen floor because I felt a little embarrassed about telling Sofia that just recently he’d taken to eating at the table. My familiar must have been in a forgiving mood because he made no complaints. The steaks were very rare, but heated through and seared on the outside to a dark brown. I was accustomed to the way werewolves preferred their meat and had come to appreciate the flavours, but we gobbled it down without ceremony watching the clock. Surprisingly, F.C. took the longest to finish up his meal, like he was the one setting the table etiquette example to the philistines.

  He grumbled when I rushed him through the last of his steak and was still mumbling darkly when we headed for the elevator. Cleo wasn’t waiting for us in the lobby, but Sofia said that there would be a car out front for us. I wondered if Boytjie would be part of the muscle squad that Cleo would almost certainly be leading into the warlock’s lair.

  The streets were still busy. Less pedestrian traffic, but still plenty of vehicles with throaty voices and the occasional loud pitched hooter interjecting frustration and raw road rage. The loudest and longest hooting came from the mini bus operators, as they tried to lure in the last dredges of the working masses who were heading home. These sounded like sharp toothed salesmen drawing attention to their illicit wares.

  There was a white SUV that could have been the same vehicle that we had left Whisper Falls in parked in front of the lobby exit and a second behind it. Sofia seemed to know which vehicle was intended for us. I let her lead the way, holding F.C. tightly in my arms. He felt tense and warm and silky soft. I remembered how Cleo had described him to me and wondered what I would be feeling if I wasn’t fooled by the magic that seeped deep into the homunculus cat’s bones.

  I decided it didn’t matter what lay beneath the illusion. He looked mostly like a cat. He behaved mostly like a cat. Ergo he was a cat. Albeit a very special cat with a really mean streak in him and I was totally fine with that. If he ate an incubus or a wicked witch occasionally as part of his diet maybe I could live with that. The important thing was that maybe if he did I would get to live.

  Sofia led us to the second SUV and opened the door for me like she’d suddenly been transformed from damsel in distress to knight in shining armour. I didn’t mind the role reversal.

  Inside the vehicle I was surprised to find no sign of Cleo. I wondered if she had grown tired of my company. Boytjie, however, was in the front passenger seat and Evan was driving again. I wondered if Boytjie had a license. There was a third werewolf in the car and he looked like a wrestler. He was squeezed into the far end of the back seat like he was afraid to breathe least he squash Sofia and I inadvertently. His eyes were dark as coal and they fixed on F.C. who seemed quite unimpressed by his muscles.

  “Boytjie,” I called in greeting. “Evan.”

  “Evening, Ms Hayes,” they said in unison like school children and then Boytjie added, “This is John.” It sounded like a pseudonym and a rather plain one for the anything but ordinary werewolf in the backseat with us. “Cleo is ahead with Aziah and Reggie and Bella.”

  I raised a brow at that and glanced across at Sofia. She shrugged.

  “Bella is part of the security team, she’s not always left behind in the hidden forest.”

  I wondered if she was as uninterested as she appeared though or if she simply wasn’t sure if revealing the wolf charm was the right move without the blessing of the Alpha’s right hand wolf.

  The SUV in front pulled away and Evan followed swiftly, not giving way to traffic and eliciting an angry shout of hoots from the cars behind us. He kept close to Cleo’s vehicle. The driver ahead seemed as aware of the vehicle behind; not running through orange lights at traffic stops or pulling too far ahead of us.

  I stroked F.C. His loud purrs drew glances from the other occupants of the vehicle, but I didn’t feel self conscious enough to stop. My nerves were taunt at the thought of entering Grace St John’s home and my familiar’s soothing rumbles kept me from biting my nails or searching for an escape. I had asked to be taken into Grace’s home and I wasn’t going to let myself run away now that the queer wolves of the city were taking me there. I did wish it hadn’t been at night though.

  Grace could know that the werewolves had already broken into her home. I could well imagine her having prepared for a second visit. What if she had targeted them not because they had helped me evade the Schalko incubus, but rather because they had dared enter her home? I had seen what Grace could do with darkness. I wished that there was a little more light in the sky as we exited the heart of the city and moved deeper into a suburb that seemed to grow richer from one house to the next.

  I dreaded the moment when the lead car pulled to the curb and it came all too soon. We pulled up alongside the vehicle. I peered out at the surrounding houses. We had not parked in front of Grace’s gloomy wrought iron ringed home, but rather three houses down in front of a Tuscan style house. It made the evening seem more cloak and dagger for me. I shivered as we exited the vehicle, holding F.C. close and snuggling into his fur. He responded by purring ou
t a spell to ease my fears. At least that was how it felt to me.

  Bella was first out of the lead car, followed by Cleo. Aziah and Reggie turned out both to be women, though poles apart from each other. Cleo introduced them by their first names only. Aziah was all femme fatale with black hair, smoky dark eye,s and a curvaceous body. While fair haired Reggie was all muscles and hard looking edges. Reggie, I thought, could spar with Boytjie and make him work up a sweat.

  I found myself revising my opinion on her though as we waited for Cleo to confirm that Grace St John was still in Whisper Falls. There was a definite feminine allure to Reggie that made her as much femme fatale as the dark lady at her side.

  Cleo didn’t say much, but the werewolf on the other side must have given the all clear, because she pointed us forwards. I caught her touching at a shape under her shirt and saw her locking eyes briefly with the white wolf.

  “Pair off,” she told us.

  I realised that we would be approaching Grace’s home in smaller groups, rather than en mass.

  “I should take the lead,” I said, “there could be magical protection on the house.”

  Cleo narrowed her eyes as she studied me.

  “You’re with me,” she said. She glanced at Bella and a silent conversation seemed to pass between them in seconds. The white wolf moved to Sofia’s side.

  “Be careful,” Sofia said and I nodded.

  F.C. yawned dramatically, showing the werewolves his mouthful of crimson barb-teeth. There seemed to be more crammed into his jaw than I had seen him with before. Aziah’s eyes widened and Boytjie grinned. Reggie kept her face blank but I could tell she was unnerved by F.C. as her shoulders tightened. Sofia gave me a kiss on the cheek and I felt a flush creep up my face.

  Impatiently Cleo signaled for us to move out. Reluctant as I was to move closer to the St John house I fell into step with my werewolf minder. We moved at a quick pace as though Cleo was working against the clock. I half expected her to tell me about her experiences with the wolf charm, but she said nothing. I tried not to take it to heart. We were still within earshot of the werewolves and would be for the night.