Steele City Blues: The Third Book in the Hell’s Belle Series (Hell's Belle 3)

by Karen Greco

"What spell do you want to throw at her?” Casper asked, his voice animated.

  "We can set her on fire," I suggested. It was the only spell I felt fairly confident about, since I’d invested several hours worth of practice with Gramps.

  "We should probably bring her in alive," he said.

  Frankie groaned in pain. I poked my head around the tree. I could barely bring myself to look at him. The flesh was nearly dissolved from his shoulder and the spell was creeping up his neck.

  "Look at what she's doing to Frankie," I said. "And you want her alive?"

  "Nina," Casper warned.

  "Fine," I mumbled. "Let's drain her magic."

  "Drain her magic? How?"

  "Gramps explained that spell to me, the one that's in the witch blade."

  "He explained it to you?" Casper questioned.

  "Theoretically speaking, I can do it," I insisted.

  "And you don't have a knife," Casper protested. "There's no way you can do it."

  "I've got to do something," I said, desperation rising in my chest.

  "But that's dark magic!" Casper shouted.

  "This is not the time to argue about dark and light magic."

  "It's a complicated spell."

  "If you don't want to do it, get out of my body," I ordered.

  "No way, you need me to—"

  "To do what, Casper? Keep me on the magical straight and narrow? That's getting too many people killed. You want to come for the ride, fine. But we're going dark."

  I felt Casper do a slow bleed out of my body. Guess I got my answer.

  Free of the ghost and his conscience, I sprinted into the clearing. The remaining mercenaries were rounding up the frightened witches at gunpoint while Kittie continued to work her spell on Frankie.

  The moment I stepped into the ley line crossroads, energy surged through my body. My feet pressed into the ground, soaking up more power. I felt invincible, and I sent a sidekick into Kittie's stomach that sent her sailing out of the circle with a satisfying "oof," releasing Frankie from the spell. He collapsed to the ground, weakened, but his body immediately started to heal.

  I dropped into a crouch. Hands pressed against the dirt, I drew power from the earth and allowed it to fill me. The energy from the ley lines was heating up my blood, the vampire part of my body burning up from the pure magic that flowed into me. I stood, bringing the force of the lines up.

  "Nina!" Frankie yelled as mercenaries opened fire. A torrent of Holy Water-infused bullets came at me. My body jerked as the bullets slammed into flesh, but with the magic from the lines flowing through my form, I didn't feel a thing.

  "I need time to throw the spell!" I yelled at him. Goddamn, I better not screw this up. There was no time for do-overs.

  A nearly healed Frankie jumped into action and went after the guys with the guns while I prepared to hit Kittie with the spell to drain her magic. Gramps described it to me when I asked how they rigged a knife to steal a witch's essence. But my question was rhetorical, and since it was dark magic, I spent the entire time insisting that I'd never throw a spell like that rather than pay close attention. I swallowed, metaphorically eating my words while I prayed that I got the gist of the incantation right.

  Fingers twisting, the physical movement helping me focus on my intent, the spell spilled from my lips. I pulled my hands towards my chest and Kittie staggered towards me. Dammit. I had control of her body, not her magic. With a swift motion, I shoved her back as I watched her begin to mouth a spell, her tattoo rattlesnake undulating along her skin. My mind raced as I pieced together what I did wrong. Taking a breath, I tried again, readjusting my focus not on Kittie, but on the snake whose rattle was now louder than the shouts of the mercenaries that Frankie was systematically dropping.

  With the tattoo as my linchpin, the spell took root. Kittie rubbed at the fading tat, and her face went from hateful to horrified as she realized why it was disappearing from her skin. She dropped to her knees, digging nails into her flesh, as if that could keep the snake inked to her body.

  As I pulled the magic out of her, I looked around for a vessel in which to place the energy. Not spotting anything that would work in a pinch, I went numb with panic. There was no spelled knife, and the other witches were bound in iron, rendering their bodies useless to take the magic straight. I was the vessel. There was no other choice.

  I had no idea what taking straight magic would do to a body. I braced myself for the onslaught of mystical energy.

  "This is gonna hurt," I muttered to myself. I took a deep breath and then drew Kittie's magic into me. My senses went haywire. As I pulled the power in, my hands went numb, the numbness traveling up into my arms before radiating out, like hot, thick liquid flowing under skin. Every nerve ending in my body was on fire. My teeth and jaw ached, and what felt like tiny needles pricked into my conscious. I gasped in pain as my bones felt like they were splintering. A high-pitched noise filled my ears. My heart raced and my breath came out in rapid gasps, like I was in the middle of a marathon running at a sprinter's pace.

  With Frankie's attention now on me, the three remaining goons with guns charged, firing their weapons. I released a guttural scream as their bullets pierced my body, the wounds burning. Without thinking, I threw a spell, the foreign incantation spilling out of me as easy as if it were a favorite recipe. The wind picked up, slow at first, but soon hurricane gusts were pushing my attackers towards me. As they crossed into the ley line intersection, my voice carried over the whipping winds. The bullets embedded in my body shot back out. The three gunman dropped to the ground, felled by what they’d dealt out. Then I tossed Kittie's last spell at them. The bullets that hit their bodies exploded and began eating their flesh. Their screams of pain carried over the whipping winds.

  I dropped to the ground and, control shattered, my body convulsed. The men's shrieks echoed through the silent woods, ricocheting off the trees. A stink of foul meat permeated the air and their terror turned to weak gurgles as the spell worked its way further into their bodies, attacking their inner organs.

  My convulsions stopped and my body stilled as silence spread over the scene. I gasped to fill my lungs, taking in cool, clean air. My head still ached, but I was able to sit up. Frankie sat outside the ley lines, Kittie in his grip. Her face was a stark white, as if in shock. But Frankie, he looked like he'd seen the ghost of Dracula.

  "Bloody hell, Nina," he said when he found his voice. "It looked like you were being electrocuted."

  "Felt like it too," I said, letting out a shaking breath. He was still staring at me. "What is it?"

  "You still look..." He tipped his head first to the right, then to the left. "Charged."

  "That's ridiculous," I said. I reached my arm towards him to show there was nothing sparking off of me. Just as I was about to razz him, an arc of white light fired straight out of my fingers. Frankie grabbed Kittie and yanked them both down, the energy just missing the top of their heads as it shot into the distance. There was a huge crack and then we heard a tree slam to the ground.

  "Holy shit," I whispered. The mercenaries were littered around the bonfire, their bodies still. I did all this? With magic?

  "No shit, holy shit." Casper's incredulous voice echoed in my head as he slammed into my body. But his anger melted as soon as he felt the surge of my magic. "Oh man, this is..."

  "Yes, it is," I said, breathless from the power driving through me.

  "It feels wrong," he said, although his tone said otherwise.

  "But it feels good," I said, admitting what he was afraid to say.

  With the excruciating pain over, the magic that flowed through my body felt like a cross between being super high and having an orgasm. Invincibility mixed with sex. Intoxicating.

  "How long does this last, do you think?" Casper asked.

  "Don't know," I said. I flexed my fingers, enjoying the electricity arcing from them. "But a witch could get used to this."

  "Nina, yoo-hoo, over here," Frankie called out. He
was waving his hands to get my attention. "You done with the theatrics? We've got to get out of here."

  "Where'd the witches go?" I asked.

  "Scattered," Frankie said.

  "Casper, can you check on them?"

  "I'm not ready to go just yet," he said. "Damn, power is intoxicating."

  "Casper," I said, the tone in my voice a warning. Just as I was about to chide him, his spirit left my body with such force that I staggered back a few paces. "What the hell?"

  Casper inched his way back in, cautiously. One foot out the door, so to speak. "Why did you do that?"

  "I didn't do anything."

  "Well, I didn't leave."

  "I don't know what happened. I thought something..."

  "What did you think?'

  "That you needed to get the hell out of my body and find those witches, make sure they—" I didn't even finish the sentence and he catapulted out of my body again. "Damn, I can reject you at will now?" I snorted.

  "That's not funny," Casper said, popping back in again. "You know that hurts, right?"

  "Go check—" I started, but this time he leapt out of his own accord.

  "So, what do you want to do with this one?" Frankie asked. He pushed Kittie, and she stumbled forward. Frankie had bound her hands with one of the iron handcuffs, so her balance was off. Her unzipped jacket fell open, exposing her neck and the top of her chest. I squinted at her in the dark. My night vision was better than most because of my vampire genetics, but I didn't have Frankie's crack eyesight.

  "Do you notice something different about her?" I asked him.

  His eyes raked over her. "Looks like our darling Kittie to me."

  "Look again," I said.

  As I spoke, a rattlesnake rattled close to my ear and I felt a tickle start from the base of my skull, move down my neck, then stretch across my shoulder. I ripped open my jacket and stared down at my chest. A snake tattoo covered my skin, the rattle shivering along the curve of my neck.

  "Bullocks, Nina," Frankie said, running his finger along the snake winding across my clavicle. "How'd you snag her tattoo?"

  I shrugged. "No idea. The spell was to drain her magic, that's all I know."

  "You mean you stole my magic," Kittie spat. "The tattoo was what held it, you halfwit."

  "Drain, stole. The point is, I have a lot of magic running through me right now. So don't piss me off."

  "Maybe that was your problem doing magic? You didn't have a tattoo?" Frankie suggested.

  I gave him a dirty look and clapped my hands together to make sparks.

  "Right," Frankie said, shaking his head. "Let's get both of you to your grandfather. He better be able to sort this. You're a blooming Tesla coil right now."

  13

  Gramps poked at the rattlesnake tattoo, which spent the past hour wending its way around my body. Each contraction of the snake pushed more magic into me. I was practically vibrating.

  "Hot damn," Gramps said, raising his eyebrows. Every time the snake's rattle issued a warning, my fingers sparked. "Do you know what this means?"

  "That I play a mean static electric shock game?” I joked.

  "It means that you stole my magic,” Kittie snapped.

  She scowled at me from her uncomfortable position on the floor. Frankie had looped her arms around a support pole in the middle of Babe’s, hands still in the irons, even though her magic was gone. She sat on the saw-dust covered floor, straddling the beam.

  "I thought that only that witch knife stole magic," Frankie said.

  Gramps' eyes sparkled. "She did the same spell, but rather than imbuing an object with the power to take the magic, Nina simply took it straight."

  I wrapped my arms around my middle and shivered. "So what does it mean?"

  Gramps harrumphed. "It means that this is not temporary."

  That top-of-the-world feeling turned into something queasier. A quick stabbing pain shot through my temple then disappeared behind my eyes.

  "What do you mean ‘not temporary?’" Frankie voiced the question that was caught in my throat. "Kittie won't get her magic back?"

  "Her magic is now Nina's," he said. The glee in his voice was unnerving.

  I shuddered. "I don't understand," I started, forming the words with care. "How will this not revert?"

  "You do know dark magic is exactly that, right?" Kittie huffed. "What did you think would happen?"

  "You think I want your ugly-ass tattoo on my body?" I snapped, blinking through another bolt of pain. It stabbed through my head, then disappeared. "The spell was supposed to neutralize you, that’s it. Not like I wanted this to happen."

  I tamped down the feelings of guilt. Taking a witch’s magic was like removing an arm or leg, rendering them somehow less than whole. Even I understood that.

  She glared at Gramps. "Did you tell her it was temporary?"

  "Never said it wasn't," he said.

  "Did you know?" I leveled the direct question at him.

  "I wasn't sure if you had the power to do it," he said. "The ley line crossroads are powerful. I figured there was a chance."

  "So you just sent Nina out there, without any sort of warning," Frankie said. His eyes started to glow, and I heard his fangs gnash.

  Gramps clapped his hands together. "Look at her. She radiates power."

  "Radiates power my ass," I grumbled, nerves churning through my stomach. My eyes darted around the room, sweeping past the nearly bare shelves behind the bar. I focused on a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka. I took a quieting breath and felt magic whirling through me. With a subtle nod of my head, the bottle flew across the room towards Gramps. His eyes went wide before he jerked his head out of the way just in time. The bottle smashed into the wall behind him. The clear booze streaked down into a shard-filled puddle on the floor. I shut my eyes at the near-blinding pain that charged through my skull.

  "Bloody right thing no one likes Smirnoff," Frankie said with a nervous chuckle.

  "Can you take these off?" Kittie whined. "It's not like I can do anything. I'm human now."

  She formed the word "human" slowly, working it around her mouth until it came out like a curse.

  "Nah," I said. "We'll keep you shackled. Just in case."

  "What harm can she do?" Gramps asked, his left eyebrow moving up about half an inch.

  "No sympathy for the devil," I said.

  Kittie cackled. "If you think I'm the devil, you should spend more time with our mother."

  That caught my interest, and I tamped down the now blinding pain chewing at my temples.

  "Our mother?" I said, with a small snicker. "You're no more my sister—"

  "Oh we are not bound by blood," she said, rolling her eyes like a petulant teen. "But Leila made me in her image." She looked down at her bound hands and dropped her voice. "Or tried to."

  "So you were created?" I asked, my interest piqued. "How?"

  "I assume the same way you were," she snapped at me.

  I blinked at her, the pain doubling down in my head. "You do know about sex, right?"

  "You sound so sure of yourself," she said, a cold grin spreading across her face. "You were awfully quick to cast a dark spell."

  "Once," I said through gritted teeth. "And you gave me no choice."

  "Once you take a step into darkness, there's no going back. See, we're not that different after all."

  Casper slithered into me, jolting me upright. He fidgeted around in my body, which made me feel like I was on the losing end of a boxing match. I slumped in my stool, my back propped up against the hard wood of the bar. "I am not like you," I grumbled.

  "What gives, Nina?" Casper asked as he continued his futile attempt to get comfortable in my body.

  "We're built the same," Kittie continued, not paying attention to my squirming figure. "You'll see, my darling sister."

  "You don't belong here," I hissed.

  "What are you talking about?" Kittie and Casper said at the same time. Casper's question was punctuated by a colorful
word in Spanish.

  "You aren't quite right, Nina," he said. "Something feels off."

  Agitation rose in me, and a smell of ginger torched through the air. My nostrils burned.

  "What is that?" Frankie asked, his nose upturned at the smell.

  My grandfather's voice boomed through the bar. "Enough of this nonsense. We've got spells to cast."

  Spells to cast? All I wanted to do was go to sleep. My stomach churned. Was that from Casper? When was the last time I ate?

  "I think I need to do something else," I said, forming words that had no meaning together. My mind raced and Casper raced around inside me in a panic. Even though I felt myself grounded by the hard wood of the barstool under my ass, the room was spinning. The smell of ginger grew stronger, and my stomach gurgled in anger. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but instead of words, bile foamed out.

  I heard Frankie swear and the world dropped away. I felt his strong arms surround me. He pulled me off the stool and brought me down to the floor.

  "What the hell is going on?" he yelled at my grandfather. "Do something! Why don't you do something?"

  The desperation in Frankie's voice was palpable. I wanted to reach out to him, tell him that I was okay, that it was just a terrible headache. But my body refused to listen to me. Instead, it bucked and seized against the wood floor. Frankie threw himself on top of me. Only the weight of his body kept me from levitating.

  "She's burning up," he called out, his hands moving behind my sweat soaked neck. "Bloody hell, Gramps. Do something!"

  I opened my mouth to say something, but only guttural grunts found their way out. I clawed at my clothes. My body heat was oppressive. When my eyes popped open, Frankie recoiled in horror.

  "Her eyes," he whispered as he crawled off of me. What was he talking about? I wanted to ask him what happened to my eyes. But instead, a shock of pain ripped through my body. I bolted upright.

  Kittie shrieked when I turned towards her. I heard a hiss expel from my lips and my body crawled towards her of its own accord. I couldn't control myself. As my murderous rage built, more burning ginger assaulted the air, like a pumpkin pie factory was on fire and I was in the core.