Spellbound Desire

by Angelia Sparrow

  I listened to the lady swear just a little longer and then went street-side. Hotter’n Hades, this town was, and the air so thick I could chew it instead of trying to breathe it. A whiff of decay came at me from the west and I knew that was zombies. Must be loading docks and industrial areas that direction. Zombie labor in hot climates was just disgusting, what with ‘em rotting out, but it had never caught on up north.

  I sent out my senses over the whole neighborhood. Miss Admire, still drinking in her office, still swearing, but with one hand down those ancient jeans. Pixies, three of ‘em, giggling and hovering just outside her window and three dozen more a couple blocks away. I hated pixies. They made my senses feel all clogged in candy floss.

  Wild forest hit my senses as the trolley clanged by, and passed with that vehicle. I caught a glimpse of longish brown hair on the driver. A ‘thrope. She’d said there were lycanthropes in town. How did ordinary humans not know about the Nightside? They were fewkin’ surrounded.

  A vampire lair a few blocks away held about four, sleeping, and gave off an imprint of old blood. There was all the usual shite of any city. I’d land on my feet soon enough, but it needed to be sooner. I only had a night until the seminar. Usually took about a week after the original summoning for Oeilett to get enough power to be material.

  There was time. Might even be time to get a taste of the lady detective. She smelled lickable.

  I shook my head. Horny was distracted and distracted was dead. I touched my cheek, the long, deep scar running from ear to mouth. I couldn’t afford distractions with Oeilett coming.

  I caught the trolley, one with a human driver, and headed east to my next errand. It was only polite for a blow-in to let the establishment know they were arrived.

  The garage looked like any other motorcycle repair shop. Half a dozen men in black leather vests hung around, working on bikes or just sitting in the shade with fizzy drinks.

  Their vests would be plain black leather to normal eyes, but I could see the patches. “Delta Bluesmen” read the top rocker and a stylized saxophone player below it, with their cities on the bottom rocker. Memphis, mostly, a few from Tunica and Jackson. A square held the letters CM, combat mage, instead of an MC for motorcycle club.

  A man whose aura was nearly as powerful as my own came out to greet me. I shook his long brown hand. He looked maybe thirty. Time getting short for this mage, I thought.

  “Demarco Jackson, president of the Delta Bluesmen. The Witan told us you were coming.” His voice was deep and rich, with a soft accent on it. He nodded to a shorter man with dreadlocks. “My vice president, Antoine Thomas.”

  “Bran McKay, Ladies from Hell, member-at-large. Only polite to stop in and give greeting.” I shook hands all around.

  “Going to be in town long, Brother McKay? They said they was sending you, but they didn’t say why.” Thomas didn’t like my being here. I could feel that coming off him in the same waves as the heat came off the pavement. Young men never do like it when their territory’s invaded.

  “About a week. Got a last job to do.”

  They both smiled at that, seeing I wasn’t to be a permanent fixture. “Ah, that last big ‘maybe we can skip paying this guy his well-earned pension’ job?” Jackson asked.

  “Aye, that’s the one. Oeilett is coming.” At his blank look, I went on, “Prince of hell, in charge of vow-breaking. Likes to make people rich, and entice them into breaking everything they hold dear to get richer.”

  Jackson nodded. “You’ve tangled before then?”

  I just pointed to my face. “Chernobyl. 1986.” We’d covered up my failure with the tale of a nuclear-power-plant accident, but people had still died. That was on me, all the deaths, and the magic, not the radiation, had rendered the place unlivable. “And a dozen other times. He’s not gotten a foothold yet.”

  He nodded. “I’ll start calling. How bad?”

  “Tunguska bad. Rome bad. This bastard gets a purchase on our plane, and the world will burn.” He stared into my eyes and I could feel him rummaging in my mind. I let him have all the memories of Oeilett. His face went ashy gray.

  He beckoned two men in and said, “Activate the emergency phone tree. Call the ‘Shiners, the Belles and the Dark Queens first. Tell them to call in everyone they know. We need everyone we can get.” He gestured for Thomas to go. “Call the rest of the Bluesmen in. And call your sister at the station.” He turned back to me, color starting to come into his face again. His voice was less shaky now and he was starting to get angry instead of scared. That would be useful. “I can have two thousand combat mages here inside of a week. That’s most of them east of the Mississippi, and a bunch of the river rats too. This shit don’t go down in my town. Not while Demarco is in charge of the Blues, uh-uh.”

  I smiled at the names. “Got some girls then too?” There weren’t as many ladies called to the vocation. Female combat mages tended to be about twice as deadly as us men, mostly from sheer competitiveness. Power levels seldom made a difference and a few of the ladies on our side could usually turn a fight.

  He nodded. “Plenty. Around here, most mana comes down from Mama. So the girls get called to the fighting almost as often as we do.” He swallowed hard. “I’ll call in the Rebs.” I looked blank and he added, “Mama Lilith’s Rebel Daughters. You got some of those over in the land of manskirts and whisky?”

  I’d heard my sister Lispeth talk about them, mostly admiringly. Never met one. “Not enough.”

  “They ride with your ladies or alone? Around here, it’s alone. They’re fucking anarchists. They just yank the mana from the ground and clobber their opponents with it until somebody dies. No fancy spells or finesse. Crazy bitches.”

  I dug out my card. “They ride with the Latter-Day Boadiceas, my sister’s old unit, back home. Call me when you need more intel. I’m going to the raising seminar tomorrow, at the Pyramid. Oeilett will be showing at the third seminar, if he holds to form.”

  Jackson took the card and offered me one of his. “A’ight. You call if you need anything, Brother McKay. Good to have you here for this.” We shook again and he went back indoors. I didn’t blame him, the sun was like to roasting me.

  My next trip was downtown. Any itinerant combat mage is required to check in with the cops when he hits a new town. All police departments know about the Nightside, they just ignore it as much as they can, shoving it off on one squad that gets a lot of guff from the others.

  I inquired at the front desk of the main police station for the Magic Department or Squadron or whatever they had. The eager young rookie asked me to write it down. Something about my accent.

  “It’s really a nice one,” she said with a placating smile, “but I want to make sure I get this right.” I didn’t tell her I was having trouble with hers too.

  I found myself relieved of my knives and headed upstairs in a few minutes, then standing outside the Preternatural and Magical Squadron’s ready room. I knocked, knowing someone would be on the desk, even if all the officers were out.

  “Come in,” a voice called.

  “Lower the wards, please, sister,” I said. The place had three different alarm wards that I could see without even looking hard. I was betting there were more.

  “Open the door first.”

  Smart lass, although I was unlikely to be a vampire at this hour and the moon was just past the full. I opened the door and held up both hands.

  “Bran McKay, combat mage out of Glasgow, sent by the Witan,” I said, carefully not stepping into the room where a pretty lady with very short dreadlocks held a service revolver on me with both brown hands. Her nametag read “Thomas”, same as on the VP of the Bluesmen. I expected this was the sister at the station.

  Officer Thomas lowered the gun and dropped the wards. “We’ve been expecting you, McKay.” She didn’t look happy about it. “I’ll inform my superior you’ve arrived, but, Scotty, let me warn you, the Bitch Patrol does not take magical bullshit from you or any other CM in this town
. Are we clear?”

  Charming lady. I glanced at the wall of photos and noticed it was all women. The Bitch Patrol indeed. I wondered how many male officers were mages in their own right, and not on the squad. Preternatural and Magical Squadron and some wag had abbreviated it PMS for them on the bulletin board. I was willing to bet the whole bunch wore their attitudes like armor.

  “I’m only here to be dealin’ with Oeilett, Officer. I have no plans to make trouble in your fine town.”

  “That’s what all of you CMs say, but when the rubber meets the road, trouble is exactly what draws you here. And we have to clean up your messes.”

  I looked her over with the Sight. She was a precognitive, a seer like my little brother Jamie. “Sister,” I said softly, “you know what’s coming, don’t you? You’re having bad dreams, aye? Seeing bad stuff when you close your eyes?”

  She nodded and clenched her eyes shut, her face puckering up like she’d bit a lemon. Her voice lost the hard edge and sounded almost as scared as Jackson’s had. “Yes. It’s going to be awful if he gets out. People will take everything they want without asking or paying. I see fire and death and a great bony monster laughing, growing more and more powerful as more people take and take.”

  “That’s Oeilett, lass. And I’m going to kill him, destroy him so he can’t go back to his hell-plane and plot domination or ever manifest here again.”

  She opened her eyes and startled at the sight of my face. It does do that. Then she calmed herself, a professional cop again. “He did that to your face, didn’t he?”

  “Aye, at Chernobyl. I owe the beastie and I’ll make him pay.”

  She took out a notebook and scribbled everything I’d told her. “Thank you for checking in.” The hard-eyed cop was back. “But know this, McKay, if you or the Bluesmen or any other CM steps out of line, you’re getting the salted iron cell. Get rid of this thing and do it neatly.”

  “Aye. Thankee for the time.” I stood up and didn’t offer to shake hands.

  Her eyes went soft as she looked up. “Good luck. Kill this son of a bitch.”

  I nodded and headed back downstairs to get my knives.

  I caught the bus back to a cheap motel. Lamplighter Motor Inn they called it, and much too grand a name it was. All the money and power in the world the Witan had, and had sent a fair chunk along with me, and they couldn’t even get me a decent room with room service, just a place with moldy sheets and cack all over the bathroom. Right now, it just meant I’d be left alone. And alone was just what I needed.

  I shed the vest and bandoliers and then sat on the bed to get out of the boots. Time to deal with the distraction.

  I lay back on the lumpy, cheap bed and flipped my kilt up. There he stood, all awake and ready after the run-in with the lady detective. Even the sharp-tongued seer cop couldn’t intimidate him. She just reminded him even more of Admire. Our lady wanted us and I was pleased to see him paying tribute to her.

  She weren’t a beauty, just plain looking. Plain was all right and she was plain as bread, the good solid kind my Ma made from oatmeal with ale-barm for leavening, the kind where a slice, toasted with a bit of jam, was just the thing on a cold day when the wind howled down from the hills and over the loch. Admire wanted me and that was plenty. I closed my eyes and thought about her.

  I visualized her. The brown hair, caught into a short indifferent ponytail, the ragged cut as shaggy as an ungroomed Shetland, came easy. Her forehead, with its perpetual scowl line above her straight eyebrows, followed, and then her eyes, brown as that ale-barm with oddly long lashes that made them look softer than they were. Her frowning mouth, and all I wanted to do was kiss it until it smiled for me and quit snarling. That stubborn chin and straight pale neck. She saw as little sun as I did. I wondered how she would take having it kissed, or nibbled in that sweet spot just under the ear that makes some women squeal and yelp with delight.

  Visualizing worked, almost too easily. There she was, plain as day, naked on that rumpled bed, sweating a little in the heat of her second-floor office.

  Her eyes flew open and she stopped touching those pretty breasts of hers. Aye, they were perfect and I couldn’t wait to see them in person. Not huge and full, but a nice handful with deep-coral tips that were probably pink when she wasn’t playing with herself. “What the hell are you doing in my head, asshole?” she demanded.

  “Thought we might cure some distraction together, lovely. You know how the magic works when it gets going between two of our sort.”

  She scowled. “I’m not a mage.”

  “No, but you’re close enough. You’ve got mana in you. You know things, you see bad coming. And you draw the uncanny to you. ‘Swhy you’re good enough the Witan sent me to you.”

  “I am not having distance sex with you. I hardly know you.” She sat up and started pulling on her shirt, but somehow her hands went right back to her breasts and one started down between her legs while she tried to get dressed. “I don’t have sex with anyone.”

  “And a sorry shame that is,” I told her, holding my cock and looking over her as she kept stopping in her dressing to touch herself, a stroke of her arms here, a pinch of her nipples there. I wanted her, not because she was some perfect dolly, but for her very realness, the light fuzz of hair on her legs and the glazed look in her brown eyes as she gave up on the shirt and started looking for her knickers.

  “All right,” she sighed and lay down. “I know what happens when the mana decides I need to do something right now. I’m not going to get anything accomplished until I take care of this.” She shut her eyes and I knew she could see me. I spread out and let her get a good gander at my battered old body, with all the parts still in fine working order. “Not bad, skirt-boy.”

  I just grinned. “‘Twould only be a skirt if I wore anything under it.” I pulled my cock a little, ready now. She wasn’t giving me the soft side of her tongue no matter how intimate we were. She was perfect. “And there’s nothin’ worn under my kilt. Everything’s in perfect condition.”

  She smiled for me then, one corner of her mouth going right up. I sent her my arousal, amazed at how easily she was receiving and sending to me. I’d done mind-to-mind since I was a bairn, first to me Ma and then to the magic teachers and combat unit leaders. But never had I enjoyed it so or had such clear images and sensations. I had a brief bit of a shudder from that, suspecting where the magic planned to take us, but not wanting to think about it yet.

  She didn’t like the arousal so much and opened her eyes. I wondered for a moment if it was my scars she didn’t want to be looking at. I rubbed my cock nice and slow, circling my thumb around the head. I felt her hands go back between her legs.

  She didn’t touch herself like she did this often, more like she was spanking her cunny for being bad enough to want me. For an instant, I wondered if she’d had a man before me. Ridiculous, of course she had. But maybe, just maybe, seeing her rough touches and general ham-handedness with her body, I could hope. I sent a little more of how much I wanted her, imagined kissing her.

  She’d be soft in the mouth, that acid tongue would quit flaying me and lick mine like she wanted it. I let the thought go as her imagined teeth closed on my tongue. Minx bit me across the miles.

  She smirked. “Look, I may have to get off with you so we can quit being all distracted, but nothing says I have to like it or kiss you. Keep your mouth to yourself and your mind on your dick.” Aye, she was still pissed right off.

  “Yes, miss,” I said. I’d have her kisses, I decided then. I wanted her to kiss me and like it. I wanted to make love to her. I shielded those thoughts away and focused on my cock.

  Constriction on my throat told me that I was getting ready. The tattoo looked like a rosary, but I was no Catholic. The two strands of beads came together in a knot-work triskelion and went down to a three-armed spiral instead of a crucifix. I swore softly at myself for being a perv when I was younger. I’d had control of the tat once. Now, anytime my arousal levels reached
a certain point, it constricted on its own.

  She caught the sensation. “What the hell is that?”

  “My collar,” I managed. I swallowed against it, fighting for air. My cock got even harder with the old familiar tightness.

  “Don’t lie, you sheep fucker. Your vest didn’t fasten around your neck.” She gasped as she came off from her spanking fingers.

  That little jolt made the tat tighten more and I jacked quick, not wanting to black out before I came. Some days it was a race. But today I needed to win it and come while I was conscious.

  “Again, lass, again,” I begged, practically wringing my cock. I was close, so close, and felt my balls come in tight to my body.

  She sighed and pinched her nipples for me, and then I felt her go back to rubbing her clit like she was scrubbing a countertop. Whatever it was, she did it right because we both came off, her with a very rude word and me with a soft gasp as the tat cut off all my air for a few seconds.

  “Thankee, lass. Now we can concentrate.”

  “Fuck you. Let’s not do it again any time soon.”

  “Aye, it might go that far,” I said, breathing deeply, enjoying the thick Memphis air after not having it. My ears rang a bit and my head pounded. I’d won the race today.

  She rolled her eyes and started getting dressed as the need and our connection faded. I lay on the motel bed, breathing thick air and feeling my spooge dry to sticky splashes on my thighs. Once my head stopped pounding, I thought hard.

  Oeilett, here of all places. It would track that. Poor people, and lots of them, all gunning for something better, hunting for any bit of jack they could get. It would be fertile feeding grounds, and the demon could get a good foothold.

  I imagined the million and a half people of the city, all of them chanting and meditating, giving their energy to Oeilett. All of them coveting the wealth he could give them. He’d be manifesting in a week, and no error.

  I hadn’t lied to Admire about Chernobyl. I’d failed then. There had been other failures, but none so fearsome as that. The beast could not get material form. If he did, I would have to fight him one on one, and combat mage or no, both of us would be going out to the hell-planes, in the best-case outcome.